Council Chambers and must be turned in to the city clerk here at the Dais.

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

Attendees who have joined us by Zoom will be called to speak after the in-person comments have been given.

Detailed instructions for public comment will be provided on screen when the time for public comment begins.

If there is 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 this occurs, please feel free to send your full comments to the city council at Council at Redwood City.org.

Written comments are not read aloud but will be made part of the final meeting record.

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

Good evening.

We'll start with Councilmember Chu.

Here.

Councilmember G will be joining us shortly.

Councilmember Howard here.

Councilmember Padilla is absent this evening.

Councilmember Sturkin.

Here.

Vice Mayor Aiken.

Here, Mayor Martina Saballos.

Here.

Thank you.

Thank you, City Clerk, and we will move on to Pledge of Allegiance.

Vice Mayor, could you do the honors?

Please join me in saluting our flag.

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

And then to the recovery for which it says one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice well.

Thank you, Vice Mayor.

We'll move on to item four.

Item four is a procedural item for the purpose of identifying and confirming any council members who wish to participate in the meeting remotely and have not already provided a remote location listed on the agenda.

This item does not pertain to public comment from the public.

And seeing that we do not have any council members exercising this, we'll move on to item number five.

And item number five is the beginning of our presentations and acknowledgments for the night.

It is a call for local civic action to stop instances of hate and implicit bias that are a dangerous threat to the safety and the civility of our neighborhoods, towns and cities.

And I'll read a few whereas of the proclamation.

Whereas the City of Redwood City stands strongly in support of inclusivity for our diverse community, honoring and protecting every individual, regardless of race, creed, color, gender, religion, ethnicity, nationality, orientation, or identity.

And whereas education, compassion, and cooperation are key to unlocking understanding and embracing differences between people.

And whereas the City of Redwood City and numerous community partners hold events and activities focused on equity and inclusion throughout the year and during United Against Hate Week will provide special events such as strike a pose, an introduction to Vogue and the ballroom scene, a community conversation on respective dialogue, an open mic alongside Kenyatta College, a United Against Hate Unity Walk, Kick It With the Cops, and Harvesting Dreams, just to name a few events.

Now, therefore, be it resolved that I, Elmer Martina Saballos, Mayor of Redwood City, on behalf of the City Council and residents of Redwood City, do hereby proclaim October 19th through 25th, 2025 as United Against Hate Week and encourage the entire community to stand together in solidarity for a more cohesive and inclusive Redwood City.

And now I'd like to welcome uh my dear friend Mercedes Martin and members of the Promotores team from Redwood City together to accept the proclamation and give a few remarks before we take a photo.

Thank you for being here.

Thank you.

My name is Mercedes Martin.

I'm the public relations intern and welcoming Redwood City Portfolio Lead this year for Redwood City Together.

And me and one of our youth promoters are here to accept the proclamation on Redwood City Together's behalf.

I'll have one of our youth promotores, Giovanni, say a few words.

Hello, my name is Giovanni.

I'm a youth promoter for Redwood City Together.

United Against State Week is important to me because in a time where I believe that, like right now, unity and respect are the most important, and taking time to like acknowledge that is really important.

Thank you both and thank you for the team for being here.

If we can grab a quick photo, we have a proclamation for you all.

Thank you again for being here.

Thanks, everybody.

We'll now go on to our second proclamation for the evening, recognizing fire prevention week, which is October 5th through October 11th, 2025.

This week provides an important opportunity for residents of Redwood City to learn about fire safety, practice safe charging and disposal habits, and work together to make sure that our community is safer from preventable fires.

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

Whereas Fire Prevention Week has been observed annually since 1922 during the week of October 9th in commemoration of the Great Chicago Fire of 1871.

And whereas the National Fire Protection Association or NFPA and the City of Redwood City are dedicated to reducing the risk of home fires and protecting lives and property of all residents through fire safety education and prevention efforts.

And whereas the 2025 Fire Prevention Week theme, Charge into Fire Safety, Lithium Ion Batteries in your home, highlights the importance of understanding and practicing fire safe behaviors when using and charging lithium ion battery-powered devices, which have become a part of daily life.

Now, therefore, be it resolved that I, Elma Martina Saballos, Mayor of Redwood City, on behalf of the City Council and the people of Redwood City to hereby proclaim October 5th through 11th, 2025 as fire prevention week in the city of Redwood City.

And I call upon all residents, schools, businesses, and community organizations to observe this week with appropriate programs, activities, and outreach to raise awareness about fire prevention and safety practices, especially in the use of lithium ion batteries.

And now I'd like to welcome Redwood City Fire Marshal Janice Chung to the podium to accept the proclamation and give some remarks.

Welcome.

Thank you and good evening, Mayor Martinez Sabayos, Vice Mayor Aiken, and members of the council for recognizing Fire Prevention Week.

I'm Janice Chung, Fire Marshal for Redwood City, joined today by Fire Chief Barack Carter and Deputy Chief Greg DeCunya.

This proclamation honors the work our department does year-round and highlights our city's ongoing commitment to fire safety, not just for one week, but for throughout the entire year.

This is our second year partnering with the library for Fire Prevention Week, where my team does story time with kids, and you can see some of the photos up on the presentation slides.

It's a collaboration that's been a real success, and seeing the turnout and enthusiasm from families, we hope to make this a lasting tradition here in Repwood City.

Our engine and truck crews are also continuing their time-honored tradition of conducting school visits.

This year's national theme, charging into fire safety, focuses on lithium ion battery fires.

It's one of the fastest growing and most dangerous fire threats that we face today.

These batteries power nearly everything we use, from scooters and e-bikes to cell phones, laptops, and power tools.

But when they fail, they can enter what's called thermal runway that burns hotter, producing toxic gases, becoming extremely difficult to extinguish, and often reigniting long after the flames are out.

These incidents remind us how quickly technology can outpace safety and codes, and how vital it is that we keep learning, adapting, and teaching.

Our goal this week and every week is simple, to help our community charge safely, live safely, and prevent tragedy before it starts.

Thank you again for helping us to share this message and for supporting our mission to protect every home in Redwood City.

Thank you, Fire Marshal, for that great work.

It's amazing to see those photos of you really instilling fire safety instincts right in our next generation.

But if you can come on up, we'll take a photo of council.

Thank you.

The others to Mr.

Carter and Doctor.

And we have Chief Carter and anyone else from the team.

Please join us up front.

Thank you.

Great, thank you everyone.

Before we move on to tonight's business, I'll also like to share that today, October 13th, is Indigenous People's Day.

And the City of Redwood City annually recognizes Indigenous People's Day to honor the history and the culture of the indigenous American people.

Redwood City sits on the unceded ancestral homeland of the Alonee peoples who are descendants of the many village sites throughout the Bay Area.

And we remain committed to uplifting the voices of Indigenous residents here in Redwood City and to create a place of inclusion for all.

And we encourage you to also recognize Indigenous People's Day in support of our Indigenous neighbors and residents and to learn about the local cultures that called Redwood City home before there was a Redwood City.

So thank you all.

And now we'll move on to item six, turning now to the public comment section of the agenda.

We will now take public comment on the consent calendar, matters of council interest, as well as items that are not on tonight's agenda.

We welcome speakers providing public comment, but please be advised that this is a limited public forum.

As such, speakers must address matters within the subject matter jurisdiction of the city.

If speakers do not, they'll be warned.

And if they continue to disregard city rules, their opportunity to speak will be limited.

If you're attending in person, please feel free to uh fill out a speaker card and submit it to the city clerk here at the Dais.

And if you're attending virtually, please feel free to raise your hand on Zoom at this time or press star nine if you've joined by phone.

Once we've gathered all the speaker cards and raised hands and have begun public comment, no additional speakers will be allowed to queue up to speak.

And I'll now turn it over to our city clerk to help facilitate public comment.

Thank you, Mayor.

At this time we have three in-person speakers.

And for folks on Zoom, if you'd like to speak on this item, please go ahead and raise your hand.

I'll do a last call to the audience before we call our in-person speakers.

Okay.

So we'll call Scott Mitchell first to the podium, followed by Jonas McLaren.

You'll have two minutes to speak.

The timer will begin when you start speaking.

There's a series of lights at the top of the podium.

The yellow blinking light is your 30-second warning, and the red light with the beat means your time is up.

Welcome.

I promise not to speak more than two minutes.

First of all, I'm the past owner of the Striped Pig, a restaurant in Redwood City that closed several years ago.

And I would like to thank all the staff at Redwood City that really helped us get through opening the restaurant, continuing to have the restaurant open.

Unfortunately, our landlord doubled our rent, and just before COVID, we had to get rid of it.

But Redwood City was very, very graceful in opening this restaurant.

Thank you very much.

Also, I'd like to thank the fire department since they're here.

My 87-year-old mother-in-law fell uh in our kitchen several years ago.

We immediately called uh the fire department, they came, and the paramedics recommended that my mother-in-law lay on the floor while they were trans at the beginning of transporting it to Stanford, and she went through a procedure which uh removed the clot from her lungs and flew back to Atlanta three days later.

So thank you for the fire department for great, great work.

My third comment is regarding the increase in water uh fees.

I know this is a bit premature, but uh I have three comments.

Number one, if any of you are aware of the increase in the standard water rate in the last two years, you should look into it.

It's my calculation that the water rate increase has been 40% over the last two years, which is 20% a year.

Secondly, I would like to know.

I understand that the tier system now is being gotten rid of, which I'm very happy about, and I'm not quite interested.

I don't quite understand the standard rate increase, but hopefully uh you can take this into consideration when you're voting on this proposal.

And then finally, is I live in uh a 1900 square foot house in Redwood City along with an eleven hundred square foot guest house where my son lives, and I would like to have someone get back to me to determine how my water rate charge was determined.

Um, and lastly, I just got my true up bill from PG<unk>E for solar electric, and our true up for one year was eighty dollars.

So I encourage the building department and the planning department to sustain this program if there is one for solar panels.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, sir.

By the way, I'm a retired architect, and so that last comment is sends true to home.

Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr.

Mitchell.

Our next speaker is Jonas McLaren.

Jonas will be followed by the Sequoia High School Dream Club.

Welcome, Jonas.

Um hi.

My name is Janice McLaren, and I'm a senior at Design Tech High School.

First, I'd like to say this is my first time to a city council meeting.

Um, like ever.

So I'm very curious to learn about what the experience is like.

So yeah.

Um I'd like to address uh something to um personally to the mayor about the this.

Um how will the changes to the Redwood City affordable housing ordinance helper community?

Also, do you expect these changes to have any negative impacts in our community?

Okay, Jonas, since this is actually agendized on the item, um, we'll ask for you to come back later to give your public comments on our uh our tenants item for tonight.

Okay, thank you.

Jonas, sorry, mayor, may I ask if you've had comments on item 7D tonight?

It's what your pub your card says.

So did you have another comment to make aside from the housing ordinance?

Or was it just on that topic?

It was just on the topic.

Okay, thank you.

Oh so just to clarify that's on the consent item.

That's the second reading for the incentive program.

Oh, so it is appropriate.

That's correct, but but maybe just um as this is your first meeting, just to let you know that um council members don't respond individually to public comment.

Um, so often if there's there's comment, they'll consider that in their discussion about an agenda item.

The items on consent though are typically taken for a vote all at once without discussion.

And I'm I'm sorry, Jonas, to interrupt you.

I thought you were here for the later item, but if you'd like to finish your public comment, you're more than welcome to now.

This was the right time for you to make comments, so just want to offer that to you.

Oh, great.

Then we'll uh we'll move on to the next comment.

Thank you.

Our next speakers are from the Sequoia High School Dream Club.

Welcome.

Good evening.

My name is Esther Rivera.

I'm a junior at Sequoia High School, and I'm the vice president of the Sequoia High School Dream Club, a club at Sequoia that advocates for immigrant rights.

Good I mean, my name is Diana.

I'm a senior at Sequoia High School, and I'm the co-president of the Dream Club.

Good evening.

My name is Ashley, and I'm a senior and I'm part of the leadership board of the Dream Club.

Hi, I'm Sid Lali, and I'm a member of the leadership board in Sequoia's Dream Club.

On behalf of Dream Club, we would like to thank you all for your support throughout the years.

We would like to thank you for not only attending the dinners, but also for actively advocating for the immigrant community.

Now our hard times for immigrant community, and I invite you all to also learn hear us about how our comments about our dinner.

We would like to formally invite Mayor Martinez Ayos and all members of the City Council to the 2025 Dreamers Dinner.

We understand you have a demanded schedule and a lot of respondents I believe is to attend to.

However, if you are able to join us, we will deeply appreciate your presence.

Thank you so much for your time and your consideration.

Thank you all.

Thank you so much.

That includes that concludes our in-person speakers.

I'll do one last call to the attendees on Zoom for any public comment on Zoom tonight.

And seeing none, I'll turn it back to you, Mayor.

Great, thank you.

With that's appreciate everyone who made public comment again.

We will now move on to see item seven, excuse me, which is our consent calendar.

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

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

Not seeing any.

Are there any items on consent calendar which council members would like to pull for discussion?

Mayor, if I might, I'd like to pull 7A.

Okay.

That's item 7A.

Are there any other items from Council Member Surtain?

Thank you, Mayor.

I just would like to um ask staff to respond to a public comment for 7D.

That's all.

Okay.

Perfect.

That was items 7A and 7D.

Is there a motion to approve all items on consent calendar except for the recused or I'm sorry, they pulled items 7A and 7D.

So moved.

Okay, that was a motion from Councilmember Howard.

Is there a second?

Second.

Perfect.

And second from Council Member Chu.

Could we please get a roll call vote?

Certainly.

We'll start with Councilmember Chu.

Yes.

Councilmember G.

Yes.

Councilmember Howard.

Yes.

Council Member Sturkin.

Yes.

Vice Mayor Aiken.

Yes.

Mayor Martina Saballos.

Yes.

Motion passes with six votes, with Councilmember Padilla absent.

Great.

Thank you.

We'll move to Councilmember Howard for item 7A.

Taken.

Taken.

Vice Mayor Aiken.

Yes, no, no worries.

Thank you so much, Mayor.

Very, very briefly.

We have a packed uh agenda tonight, and I don't want to belabor the point, but I did want to ask staff.

This has to do with unincorporated San Mateo County, the Emerald Hills area, which is a spectacularly beautiful region of the influence of perhaps Woodside, perhaps Redwood City, perhaps San Carlos.

It's this old bucolic neighborhood in the hills.

Even though it's in the jurisdiction of San Mateo County.

And I I just wanted to maybe understand a little bit of are we getting our money back?

Number one.

And number two, um, well, is there any consideration of making Emerald Hills part of Redwood City?

If not, just a little bit about that.

Good evening.

Patrick Eisinger, assistant city manager.

We are trying to elevate Tanisha Warner on Zoom to address the question.

Okay.

Good evening.

Apologies for that.

Um, let me figure out my camera.

Oh, there I am.

Good evening, uh, Vice Mayor Aiken.

Thanks for the question on the water main replacement item in Emerald Hills.

So Emerald Hills is part of unincorporated San Mateo County, but our water service does extend to that area.

And so, as part of the user rates that all the residents pay on their utility bills, those residents and remote hills along with the rest of the residents who are served by Redwood City, pay into the cost to improve and maintain the infrastructure.

And you know, these pipes are really spread out.

The it's it's difficult terrain, it's rocky, the the lots, some of them are much larger than other parts of Redwood City.

Um, does this cause extra expense?

And if so, is it reflected in what those people pay um for their water pipe maintenance?

Those non-Redwood City residents pay for their water pipe maintenance.

Yeah, so when we do work in the hills, it does require a lot more effort on the part of the contractor, traffic control, ensuring that our trenches are stabilized and making sure that the workers are safe.

The cost of construction is higher than it would be in a flatter portion of the area of the city.

Um unfortunately, the cost increase is not reflected in the rates that the users pay while the users pay a similar flat rate.

Do we know?

I mean, I guess historically, I don't want to belabor the point.

I know we have a very packed agenda tonight, but do we know?

I guess it's historically that Emerald Hills was a separate town, and then the developers went bankrupt in the early 1900s, and so it just became part of unincorporated San Mateo County.

But do we know why?

Do we know why the residents of Emerald Hills don't want to become part of Redwood City, or maybe they want to become part of Woodside?

Um, do we know anything about that?

If we are, you know, carrying the load for the cost of their um pipe maintenance.

Um great question.

I would defer to either our city manager or city attorney.

And I'll just say in the 10 years that I've been here that hasn't come up uh in terms of any kind of resident interest to incorporate and become incorporated.

I just would suggest that perhaps um this is a question we can explore, um, more in the utilities um subcommittee.

Um, because I think sometimes those residents they want the benefit of allegiance with Woodside for some things, and then unincorporated San Mateo County for, so they don't have to pay as much in taxes, and then they want the benefit of Redwood City in other ways.

So I'm just open to exploring that a little bit.

Uh with that, I'm I'm ready to vote on the on the item.

Thank you, Vice Mayor.

And I think I saw Councilmember Chu's hand go up, just double checking if you had a question.

Okay.

Thank you.

Mayor, I'd like to make motion to approve item 7A, please.

Perfect.

That's a motion from Councilmember G.

Is there a second?

Second.

And a second from Council Member Howard.

Could we please get a roll call vote?

Councilmember G.

Yes.

Councilmember Howard.

Yes.

Councilmember Sturkin.

Yes.

Councilmember Chu.

Yes.

Vice Mayor Aiken.

Yes.

Mayor Martina Saballos.

Yes.

Motion passes with six votes.

Councilmember Padilla is absent.

Thank you, everyone.

With that, we'll go to Councilmember Sturkin for item 70.

Thank you, Mayor.

Just would like to ask staff to follow up with Mr.

McLaren.

I think it was when you get the chance, please.

Thank you.

And either offline or otherwise.

I think we're just now, I just checked in.

And thank you for coming tonight asking the question.

The the intent behind the program is to try to incentivize projects to move forward that have been stalled in this current climate.

The city council planning commission and several entities have approved projects that have been stalled.

And so on September 8th, there's a lengthy discussion at the city council talking about the benefits of trying to move some of these projects forward.

So our hope is that it'll stimulate more development, get more housing units, of which about a thousand could be potentially affordable housing units.

So really the intent behind it is try to get more units built and uh achieve our housing goals.

Thank you.

Thank you, Patrick.

With that's there any other comments or questions on this item?

Not seeing any.

Councilmember Howard.

Motion to move item 7D.

And is there a second?

Second.

Thank you.

That was a motion from Councilmember Howard, a second from Vice Mayor Aiken.

Could we get a roll call vote, please?

We'll start with Councilmember Howard.

Yes.

Council Member Sturkin.

What's that mean?

Sorry.

Yes.

Thank you.

Councilmember Chu.

Yes.

Councilmember G.

Yes.

Vice Mayor Aiken.

Yes.

Mayor Martinez Uayos.

Yes.

Motion passes with six votes.

Councilmember Padilla is absent.

Okay.

Thank you, everybody.

We'll now move on to item eight.

Excuse me, boards, commissions, and committees work plans, beginning with 8A, our library board work plan for fiscal years 25 to 26 and 26 to 27.

We'll now hear from the library board on their fiscal work plan.

Each of these cities boards, commissions, and committees present their work plans to the city council generally every two years.

And we'll be hearing from more BCCs throughout the fall.

Library Board staff liaison and director Derek Wolfgram is here to introduce the item and chair Jesse Davy Kessler and Vice Chair Lindsay Verma will give the presentation.

Thank you.

Good evening.

Thank you, Mayor Martinez Sabayos.

Good evening to Vice Mayor and members of the council.

I'm always delighted to have this opportunity for our library board to share the great work that they've been doing and that they plan to do in the couple years ahead.

I do want to just acknowledge that of the two years of the two-year work plan that they're reporting out on.

About two-thirds of that time, I was in the Parks Recreation and Community Services Department.

So I just want to acknowledge Sarah LaTora for the great work she did as the staff liaison with the library board during that time and beginning the process of the development of the new work plan for fiscal years 25-26 and 26-27.

With that, I don't really have anything else to say.

I will uh turn it over to our board chair, uh Jesse Davy Kessler and our board vice chair, Lindsay Verma, who will make the presentation this evening.

Or you can make the staff to it.

So it goes down, can you join us?

I think it's a lot of great.

Thank you, Derek, for introducing us, and thank you to the council for having us here.

Um, as Derek said, my name is Jesse Davy Kessler.

I'm the chair of the library board, and I'm here with our Vice Chair Lindsay Verma to present the library board's work plan for 2025 through 2027.

And uh tonight, Lindsay and I are representing.

Uh, slide please.

Thank you.

Our representing um the entire board.

Um, and uh the board includes includes Michelle Ocampo, who is our current secretary, and also members Amy Swanson and Callory, Laura Covington, and Reem Al-Humadi.

And the mission of the board, as you can see here, is to passionately support the purpose of the Redwood City Public Library as an inclusive literacy hub for the community through advocacy collaboration and strategic direction.

The board's duties are to ensure that literacy remains a core value in a long-term guiding principle to approve and review the library's strategic plan, to act as a community liaison and library advocate, to seek collaborative opportunities to create partnerships, raise funds and recruit volunteers, to enthusiastically represent the library, and to review and comment on the library director's proposed budget.

And the work of the library board serves both the library itself and then also the broader Redwood City community.

Um the library board's accomplishments from the last two years include advocating advocating for beneficial library legislation and funding.

So for instance, as individuals, we signed petitions organized by the American Library Association to protect library funding nationwide.

We also made calls to state representatives to protect library funding.

In the last two years, we facilitated communication with other boards, commissions, and councils, and also with other library support groups, and these groups include Friends of the Library, the Redwood City Library Foundation.

We also launched the Library Board Book PIC program in which board members create monthly book recommendation lists that are posted on the library's website, and we supported community events through promotion volunteering and participation.

And Lindsay is going to speak a bit more about the events that we supported.

So here are just a few of the community events that we've supported.

The Lost Childhood's Art Exhibit, Canine Companion Storytime, the Library Foundation Pub Crawl, and we've tabled at several events.

As for the Lost Childhoods Art Exhibit, that was the largest collection of art and video portraits about youth experiences in foster care, and it was displayed at the downtown library in April and May of 2025.

Board member Michelle Ocambo attended the opening exhibit, and she asked me to share her thoughts on this exhibit.

She said that the Lost Childhood's Art Exhibit opening was the most meaningful event I attended at the library this year.

The subject matter, the art, and the speakers were remarkably moving.

I really appreciated the partnership the library was able to lend to the participating organizations of Foster Youth Museum and Casa of San Mateo County to bring such an impactful evening together.

I attended Canine Companion Storytime during Disability Pride Month, and I really enjoy when Canine Companions come to the library during Disability Pride Month.

It's great to see the kids and the adults' excitement over dogs being in the library and watch them learn about what service dogs are trained to do.

It's a tangible and age appropriate way for children to learn about disability, and one way that people with disabilities maintain their independence.

The next event I want to highlight is the Library Foundation PubCrawl.

The PubCrawl, which is in celebration of Banned Books Week, is a huge support for the library thanks to the Library Foundation.

Last year's PubCrawl raised over $42,000 for the library and saw 470 attendees.

Library board members volunteer at the event, helping the foundation to highlight banned books at stops along the pub crawl.

And we also table with library staff at events put together by others.

Board member Ann Callery has tabled at several events and had the following to say.

I love participating with library staff at events.

It's fun to introduce community members to everything that the library has to offer.

And it's a great opportunity to talk with library users and hear their feedback.

These events are always such rewarding experiences.

And we've served a lot of people in the community.

And these are some of the statistics that I'd like to share.

We've had well over 800,000 visitors, and we have almost 70,000 library cardholders.

Our over 4,000 programs are well attended.

We've had over 100,000 program attendees, and over 700 volunteers dedicated more than 20,000 hours to the library.

Thanks to the library's good work, here's what our community had to say about the value of the library.

It was difficult to choose just a few quotes, but people say that the staff are amazing.

They look forward to coming to the programs and even come back to our library programs after moving to other communities.

But I particularly like to see that the library gives people a sense of belonging in our community.

To make sure that the library's goals and work represents all community members, in 2025, the library conducted a number of community conversations called RCPL CARES.

This included bilingual community conversations with youth, seniors, and unhoused individuals, and we also had listening sessions for people with disabilities, caretakers, LGBTQ folks, and the general public.

The board supported the planning of these conversations and participate, participated individually in some.

The results of these conversations were used to craft the library's service priorities, which include belonging, growth, and wellness.

So the library board is going to have the click.

It's right here.

The library board is using these service priorities to shape our own board-specific work plan for the next two years.

And we're crafting our work plan around four main mission goals.

First, supporting library initiatives.

Second, fostering community connections.

Third, promoting library services to the public.

And fourth, advocating for library legislation and funding.

And we understand that you have our complete work plan.

So I'll just go over a few highlights right now.

To support library initiatives, we'll continue to encourage and support library staff in the implementation of the library service priorities.

We'll continue to provide library board bookpick recommendations.

And we plan to add physical signs in the main library about our recommendations to our existing online presence.

We'll make recommendations as necessary regarding accessibility to library services for marginalized groups.

And we'll perform volunteer work to support library initiatives, both on an ongoing basis and a one-off basis.

To foster community connections, we will continue to gather feedback about library services from the community and share that feedback with the library.

And we'll also continue to lay with other BCCs, which have a pulse on community needs in order to help the library understand which needs it can be serving and supporting.

And we'll stay in conversation with other library support groups, Prince of the Library, Redwood City Library Foundation.

And this helps us learn about their programs so that we can share that information with the public.

And it also helps us support their fundraising efforts.

To promote library services to the public, we will continue to share about library programs with our private and professional networks.

We'll attend community events on behalf of the library, and in particular over the next two years, following Anne's lead, we want to focus on joining library outreach tables at events like the Farmers Market and Music in the Park.

And in our encounters with the community, we'll educate people about how to support the library both financially and through volunteer work.

And last, in order to advocate for library legislation and funding, we aim to undertake both boardwide efforts and individual efforts.

And this might look like calls, petitions, letters, public speaking opportunities.

And to learn about these advocacy opportunities, we're joining state and national advocacy groups like the California Library Association and United for Libraries.

And this will help us see how advocates in other jurisdictions are organizing to support their libraries.

And last, we'll continue to support education around challenges to intellectual freedom.

And if you have any questions, we invite them at this point.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, Chair Jesse, Vice Chair Lindsay for the great work.

There's so much here to be proud of, but it must feel incredible to hear from families who have moved away who continue to come back because of the great programs that you all help support.

Before we go to the full council for questions, we'll open up public comment.

Thank you, Mayor.

I don't have any speaker cards.

So last call to the audience or to our attendees on Zoom who would like to speak on the library board work plan this evening.

Seeing none, I'll turn it back to you, Mayor.

Great, we'll bring it back to the council.

Who would like to get us started with any questions or comments?

Service, Councilmember Howard.

Okay, first of all, thank you very much for being here this evening.

I'd like to thank Derek Wolfgram who stepped in uh and helped us with Park and REC while we were recruiting for a new department head for that department.

But I also like to thank Sarah Latura because I know she really uh stepped up and put on different hats so that she could assist with that transition.

And I saw that everyone was quite pleased with how you all worked so well together.

So I did want to have a I do have a question for you.

You talked about um could should you bring back the fourth thing that of course, is this the right slide?

Yeah, my question is how often does legislation come up regarding the library?

Is that something that comes up frequently enough that you do need to keep your eye on it?

Um, Mr.

Thank you for the question.

I'm happy to uh address that.

Uh the biggest the biggest thing uh that we deal with is at the statewide level, various funding programs for libraries have been reduced or eliminated over the years, and so there are often efforts after the um governor's January budget is released to do some advocacy with our local elected officials to help emphasize the impacts that a few million dollars of state funding really have on the people who live in California, and so funding is the biggest one, but there are periodically things related to issues like intellectual freedom and the freedom to read.

Um there are issues that are in the legislature regarding um patron privacy at libraries, confidentiality.

Sometimes there are um programs that are well intentioned but um may not work out well in the field, kind of unfunded mandates uh for um schools and libraries cooperating on library cards without a real understanding of how library and school district um bureaucracies work.

So it's it's not, I mean, I think that the recent crises have been more at the federal level than they have been at the state level, but we do have particular state funding issues that are um still remaining to be resolved, and we're hoping to see some progress this fiscal year.

Thank you.

Keep us up to date on that because I know funding is on everybody's minds these days.

Um I did want to say uh the pub crawl, you had over 600 participants.

That's quite significant growth in one year from 450 to 600, and everyone I talked to had a wonderful time.

So thank you all for helping that put that together.

Thank you.

There was there was something else I was gonna say about the funding advocacy, but it just slipped out of my mind again.

Maybe it'll come back to me.

Um yeah, thank you for that.

The the foundation did a terrific job with the pub crawl.

Um, and as was indicated in the presentation, our library board uh assisted in that.

And uh it's really fun to see 600 plus people out on the town on a Wednesday night in Redwood City uh learning about banned books.

Yes, um, I was going to say my Mike, one question, but you may have answered it.

How does you have three different groups?

You've got Friends of the Library, Friends of Literacy, as well as the Library Board, uh the foundation.

So how does it all work?

Uh, is there a lead?

Is there someone who kind of directs the others on which way you're going?

How does that relationship?

What is that relationship look like?

Uh thank you.

Uh, to answer the question I was going to answer a moment ago, um, one of the things with this um legislation is we want to make sure that we remain aligned with the city council.

So there are a couple um additional items that are uh being proposed for inclusion in the legislative platform uh this year that pertain to libraries that haven't been in there before.

Um so that's something that the um the board is always attentive to uh making sure that if they are if they're speaking as a board, they're only speaking on items that are in the city council's approved uh legislative priorities.

Uh so I just wanted to mention that.

Um now I've now I've lost the question you just asked.

Oh, about the the different groups.

Um we have uh over the time I've been here, I think three times we've convened summits of the leadership from all of the groups.

The library board has often helped with the facilitation of that.

Um, the way it works is each of the different library support groups tends to have kind of its own line of business and its own volunteer groups and its own methods of fundraising.

The library foundation tends to pursue individual donors and grant programs and corporate donors, where the friends of the library raise most of their money by the book sale that happens in the library uh lobby, although they do have a membership uh program as well, um, and then the Friends of Literacy are really geared towards supporting those activities of project reads so there's actually um there's there's kind of a Venn diagram that comes together at the at the library itself and what the library service priorities are, and all of the groups are really aligned through the library with um supporting those things, and we just really try to make sure the library board takes a key role in um serving as a liaison, and we have you know folks from the different groups attend each other's meetings and just make sure that there's a lot of communication about what everybody's up to so that uh all can be supportive.

That's wonderful.

Thank you very much, and thank you to the board members for being here this evening.

Thank you, Councilmember Howard, who'd like to go next.

I've got a councilmember G.

Derek, Sarah, um, Chair Chesse, Vice Chair Lindsay, and the entire board.

Just want to say thank you, and to the library foundation and everyone else.

The presentation tonight exemplifies the not just the value of the library.

I mean, I've been around where the old days you walk around the library, shh, don't say anything.

Libraries today are more than that.

They're a lot more than that.

They're community centers, it's where our communities and our neighborhoods come together, and the richness of the programming that's being offered, um, just amplifies the value of these community centers that we have throughout the center or the city, excuse me.

That's really what they are.

They are community hubs.

It's not a library.

I mean, it's an antiquated name to call them a library.

Yes, they have books, but the richness, the maker center, I mean, everything is just so much more, and they're so valuable.

And this is where our families come together to enjoy our neighborhoods and our city.

So I just want to say thank you and keep up the good work.

And I know there's always constant threats, whether it's money, legislation at the state or federal level.

We that's our role to help with that.

But thank you for being vigilant and thank you for celebrating our families and our children.

Appreciate it.

Maybe Councilmember G will go to Councilmember Chiu online.

Um, so you know, as always, thank you for a terrific presentation.

I wanted to echo a lot of the things that Councilmember G said.

I really have noticed or thought about libraries a lot more over the past five years, especially you know, during the pandemic, and as families uh had very intense needs that they had never had before in our community, and you know, as I've gotten to meet and get to know the library leadership and staff, I think one thing that I've just been so impressed by is how thoughtful and innovative and um caring uh every member of the library staff is and as council member G pointed out, it's not just books anymore.

Um, I went to the art exhibit, it was amazing.

Um, and you guys are always thinking about what does our community need?

What could we do to support families?

How can we make things better?

Uh for the families and the residents of Redwood City.

I so appreciate your work.

Um, we're very yeah, I'm very supportive of it.

Um, you know, everybody's a fan of the library uh and and really appreciate uh the presentation.

It would be very supportive of, you know, supporting you in going after funding uh legislation that prioritizes libraries uh because they are a community hub.

So thank you for your work and your presentation.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember.

Go to Councilmember Sergeant.

Thank you, Mayor.

And thank you, Derek.

Thank you to the library board as well uh for all your hard work.

I really appreciate um how y'all have stepped up to do or involved yourselves in doing advocacy, specifically signing the letters and joining those um associations and and helping with the fundraisers like the PubCrawl.

Um I'm a very big fan of like a working board, so I appreciate that very much.

And also to uh Councilmember G's point, I appreciate how y'all uh hold space for the community um in our community hub, like he said in more ways than one.

You know, one way I can think of is how um for the past several years you know we've hosted uh you know transgender day of remembrance T-DOR at River City Downtown Library, and um in one of the sessions at Cal Cities, we'll talk about later, um, on how to uplift the transgender community at this time.

That was one of the first recommendations for cities, which is simply to offer your spaces for community to gather safely.

So I really appreciate that.

And I also wanted to mention uh how I appreciate you hosting workshops in partnership with like Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition and Community.org so people can learn how to get around town safely too, you know, to and from the library, right?

So that's fantastic.

And um, only question I really had was, or maybe two questions I had were with regards to meeting at um having your meetings at each branch, you know, on a rotational basis.

Is that something you've already been doing?

Is are we in implementation mode, or I saw in the work plan it's also you know, Rowdy 4?

Yeah, no, that's that is something that is a carryover from past work plans.

It's been for several years to try to make sure that you know we keep uh keep up with the pulse of uh the neighborhoods and give uh local residents in each uh the places where we have a library the opportunity to show up and make public comment.

We don't get a huge number of people who do that, but we uh we keep making the opportunity available.

Thank you.

I really do appreciate you rotating.

Um that's uh something we do as common practice with uh the LGBTQIP bus commission.

I'm on with County San Mateo.

So um and then the other question I had was with regards to legislative platforms.

So it sounds like y'all are already kind of tracking legislation, um, but I'm not sure if you've had the opportunity to or if staff have been able to elevate any particular bills or or you know um topics for consideration for incorporation into the legislative platform.

Yeah, so we um I said most of the things are funding related, and the legislative platform has had a you know a positive statement about legislation that advances library funding for quite some time.

Um, as I said, we're uh working with uh Jennifer Yamaguma as I know that you're doing some work on preparing the legislative platform for next year.

We've uh proposed a couple additions related to um, I said particularly intellectual freedom, and then another item related to the uh pricing for uh ebooks.

There's a whole national discussion about what libraries pay for ebooks versus what consumers pay for ebooks and trying to find some uh fairness in the way that publishers uh charge for those products.

So that's another item that uh we're um proposing for inclusion in this year's platform.

That is great to hear.

Thank you so much, Derek, and thank you for your advocacy to the board.

Um, and if anything else comes up, I think we're uh, you know, closing council comments on the legislative platform this Wednesday.

So feel free to reach out to any of us.

Uh I would say.

Um, and yeah, that's all my comments and questions, but great work.

Thank you so much for your service.

Thank you, Councilmember Sirkin.

We'll go to the vice mayor.

Derek and your team.

I I won't repeat what my colleagues have so eloquently said, uh, other than just to pile on praise.

I love the library.

Your staff is incomparably wonderful.

Um, and I'll leave it at that.

I want to focus um on the so you have this library board, and then you have the library foundation that was started by Georgie LaBourge, I don't know, maybe 20 years ago, and its mission basically is to raise money to help the library but it's a separate entity it's it's a 501c3 it has its own board and then you have Project Reed which was started by Jane Widman um of Canyada College um maybe 30 years ago something like that and it's separate it's a 501c3 and and so and then a fourth one is a a bookstore in the lobby of the main library is that right correct and that's a fourth 501c3 with its own board its own volunteers its own mission yep and that one actually started in the late 70s on the heels of Prop 13 that's when the friends of the library first incorporated here.

Oh wow okay so it's it's four nonprofits with a separate boards separate executive directors but all the same mission of having to do with books and literacy and uh well but I don't want to oversimplify they're they're all separate but the point that I'm getting at is that um with writing grants and with fundraising um sometimes it's good to look bigger so if you're small um it's sometimes strategically smart to partner with other small organizations and then you share the money you you write the grant all together and you all help write the grant or what have you and then you share in the spoils and you maybe have more success than if you were just this tiny little one.

And so having four nonprofits with their own boards and their own is it a little bit like herding cats is it um because they each have their own personalities their own or tell me a little bit more about that.

Yeah um I mentioned over the last few years we've had a few uh what we've called our library support group summits where we've brought all of the groups together and there there have been very uh kind of open discussions about would it make sense to merge these groups together is the fact that they are all separate 501c3s inefficient um or lacking in um kind of the economy of scale that a bigger organization can do.

So far those conversations have resulted that you know because everybody does kind of have defined lanes that they work in that the groups are more comfortable um maintaining their their separate status although we do try to um as I said keep keep coordinated and keep communication going they do of all of those groups the Redwood City Library Foundation um is actually the only one that has a paid part-time executive director the other 501c3s are a hundred percent volunteer um so there may not be uh you know it may not be optimal efficiency for um kind of the nature of there being multiple meetings and multiple groups um but they're not spending they're not spending money on duplicative staff the library foundation is the only one with that paid position and it th yes and project read the the staff is actually are actually Redwood City employees or employees of the library is that right correct there is a a Redwood City Friends of literacy that is the 501c3 fundraising arm for Project Reed uh but all of the actual Project Reed staff are city employees and the fundraising arm does that fundraising arm coordinate with the library staff in terms of deciding what grants to go after and and that kind of thing.

Absolutely.

Well, I won't get too much into the weeds it if the saying is if it ain't fix if it ain't broke, don't fix it and um I just can't thank you enough.

It's it's like a magic place, and and just keep going.

Thank you.

Thank you, Vice Mayor.

Any other comments, questions from council?

Seeing any, I'll add my thanks.

Derek, Sarah, Chair Jesse, Vice Chair Lindsay, thank you for all the incredible work that you all do.

Um my colleagues have said it, the library is a safety net for so many of our community members.

And I've thanks to Derek, I've had a chance to go to some of the RCPL listens with our unhoused residents, and it's incredible to see you all just continuing to fine-tune what resources our community needs and look for ways where you can improve.

And also it's it's incredible just to see how the libraries have become cultural centers, too, right?

Where people can learn about backgrounds different than theirs and also celebrate the people in our communities.

So thank you for this incredible work.

It's it's really great to see.

Thank you.

And with that, we will now take a motion to approve the staff recommendation.

So moved.

I'll second.

And a second from Council Member Sturkin.

Could we get a roll call vote, please?

We'll start with Council Member Sturkin.

Yes.

Council Member Chu.

Yes.

Councilmember G.

Yes.

Councilmember Howard.

Yes.

Vice Mayor Aiken.

Yes.

Mayor Martina Sabayos.

Yes.

Motion passes with six votes.

Councilmember Padilla is absent.

Wonderful.

Thank you, everyone.

We will now move on to item 8B, our senior affairs commission staff liaison and community services recreation manager, Bruce Utect is going to help introduce the item tonight.

And Chair Jacqueline Hartman will give the presentation.

Welcome both.

Good evening, everybody.

I will be assisting with the presentation too.

I'm going to do the first portion of it, and then I'll turn it over to Chair Hartman.

Are you ready?

Almost.

Okay.

Good evening.

Uh Mayor Martinez Sabayos and Vice Mayor Aiken and the City Council.

My name is Bruce Shutek.

I am the community services manager at the Veterans Memorial Senior Center for the Red City Parks and Recreation Community Services Department.

I'm honored to serve as the staff liaison to this wonderful commission that we have here tonight.

I do want to recognize only one here tonight, uh Mike Lynch.

So thanks, Mike, for being here.

Um I also want to thank uh Derek Wolfgram.

He was the um acting director for the last year and a half, and um we also have our new director, Kierra Warner.

I didn't tell her I was gonna introduce her.

Um you could see um we have Chair Jacqueline Hartman who's here, um Vice Chair Alyssa too.

Uh introduce Mike, uh Commissioner Bill New, uh Commissioner Alfredo Choro.

Um we are short two commissioners, so we're hoping to get them on soon.

Next slide.

Um first off, does the city council have any questions regarding the proposed senior affairs commission work plan for fiscal years 20 or 2025 through 2026 and 2026 to 27?

Um and does the city council support priorities including the fiscal years 2025, 26 and 26-27 to the senior affairs commission work plan.

Okay.

Um so the purpose of the senior affairs commission, this is to uh recommend to the city council, the city manager, the established programs, stimulating and encouraging the development and maintenance of senior programs and services in the city, and to review periodically such programs as are so established.

Also to review and make recommendations to the city council, the city manager regarding the funding of the senior programs and services that operate within the city for the benefit of the city uh city's senior population, and thirdly, to serve as a conduit between the council, other boards and commissions, and the city senior population.

Councilmember G told us many years ago that the senior affairs commission is the eyes and the ears for the city council to for our senior population.

So we've we've stuck with that for well, good 10 years now.

So next slide.

With the mission statement, I'm not gonna read it for you, but right in the middle.

If you look, there's the word resources.

We added that in there just because there's a lot more resources that we found that seniors are needing.

So I didn't know if we were supposed to ask permission for that.

So if need be I can take it out, but it's uh the commission felt that it was important to add that into our mission statement.

And then, of course, somebody said, Well, why don't we do a new mission statement?

Um, but that was after we had already chosen the uh objects for our work plan, so um maybe we'll throw that in as well.

So next slide, please.

Um so for our previous work plan, um, our highlights and accomplishments.

Um, we we have always worked with uh for seniors for the housing and the unhoused, um, and that's to increase communication to seniors about housing services in Redwood City.

If you remember many years ago, 2011, the Senior Affairs Commission came out with our senior homelessness little resource flyer that we created.

Um, we sunsetted that about three years ago, and now we've come um and we've created and distributed our new senior support list.

Um I don't know if the we have a latest copy.

The copy that you have is a draft, but um, since I turned that in, it's already been updated a couple different times.

The commission's promised that would they would update it every every six months.

So I didn't know if it was appropriate to pass out one to each one of you right now.

If not, we'll have them available for you.

Um, with this, this was made for seniors in mind, so all the services are local here in Redwood City.

Um, they go from transportation to housing, um, food services.

Um, there's just a whole bunch.

I'll let you look at it, I won't go over all of them.

Um the commission made sure to call each phone number to make sure that they were active and we continue to do that.

Um, and it does have a QR code on it.

There's a website for it.

Uh, we encourage our commissioners to take them everywhere they go.

They are at all the libraries, uh, Red Morton or uh the community building, the senior center, uh Redwood Shores, and at Fair Oaks, and we do have them in Spanish.

I brought um a copy if anybody wanted to see the Spanish one.

We are updating, like I said, it is brand new, fresh off the press, except for the Spanish one should be done at the end of this week.

Uh, we're finding that when we translate it into Spanish, there's more words in the Spanish language, so we're kind of running out of room on it.

Um, we did also add, um, I'm not trying to take your thunder when we get there, but uh we did also add um immigration services and legal services to it this year.

A year ago, we didn't know that that would be an issue, so I'll let uh Commissioner Hartman talk about that.

Um the second that we did was this was the long-awaited transportation survey.

Um this started actually with the commission way back in 2018.

Um there was some family issues with those commissioners, so they didn't get it done, and then we had the pandemic, so then it got delayed, and then we did another one and didn't like the results, so we actually did another one.

This one was looking back on it, it was 28 questions and it was very long.

But we did get a total of 494.

Some of them were done online, um, some of them were done in hand.

But the the best part about this is it did get the seniors or uh the commissioners out into the community.

Uh, they went over to Fair Oaks, we brought some goodies with us.

We ended up getting 30, I think it was 30 34 of the uh Fair Oaks community seniors over there.

The commissioners were sat and we did it.

We went to um Casa Day Redwood and we spent a day over there, and uh Commissioner Newell actually did bring them to the new Arroyo Green.

Um, I do have um the report that I'd given to you, it was 28 pages.

I condense it down to nine.

And I'd if you'd like, I can read you just some of the key findings that we came with that.

We do we did find out that 49% of the seniors now use the internet for information, which is a big jump from the last time.

However, 44% still get their information from family and friends, and 31% still receive it through word of mouth.

So we're we're not there yet.

We've expanded our um with the results for this.

We've found out that we need to expand still the way that we communicate to the seniors, and that is still they want to come in and they want to talk to us and they want to be there and they want to hear things from us.

So we have created two new programs, and um I'll let Commissioner Hartman explain about those.

Um we did meet with um working with the um details and the results from this.

We found out that it was probably too long of a um of a uh a survey for that, so that isn't there.

Uh we did get comments about bus uh bus routes information and timetables being at the bus stops.

Uh they would like shade and cover over the bus stops.

Um the benches, they would like some of those in bus stops.

Um it was interesting the bus stop accessibility and the amount of people that kind of don't use the bus because of those three things that I just mentioned.

Um with these findings, we would urge the city council to discuss how they can encourage greater accessibility for seniors in the entire community to use public transportation, and implementing these changes will make our transit system even more user-friendly for everybody.

So we encourage you.

If if you have any questions, if you want to go through it or meet with me personally, I'd be glad to go over the information on that with you.

Um we did find the um our seniors said that the one thing that they have trouble getting to is now that most of one of the major pharmacies in our town and on the peninsula and in the nation has closed, and that came out of the transportation survey of all things, saying we don't have a way to get our prescriptions anymore, excuse me.

So uh we'll be working on a program uh where the seniors can come in and we can invite local vendors and we can maybe train them how to um get their prescriptions mailed to them.

Um one of the interesting things was that as part of the uh transportation resources, um, we added 10 onto the uh uh transportation survey.

We said, do you know about these 10 uh sam trans ready wheels, just 10 different services for the seniors to use, and we put that as a tear off for them to use, and the majority of them took it.

So we included that into our uh senior resource list, those the ones that that were there.

Um the last one is with our equity and communication for all ages.

Um there's intergenerational programs, there's multi-generate, it's whatever you want to call it.

Um we did again host uh afternoon sessions with our youth advisory board.

There's the teen advisory board, the youth advisory board is six, seventh, and eighth graders.

They came out different different amounts.

One day was two, the other one was about six, and they showed the seniors how to on their cell phones put emergency alert emergency um uh the they've changed it again, but where you find out if it's going to be an evacuation due to a wildfire or that type of information.

There was the one day where um there was a presidential alert, and so everybody's phone was beeping, and they wanted to know how to do that, so the kids will actually sit down with them and go over and teach them how to do information on their cell phones.

Um, something else that came out before um the the transportation survey, and this was we discussed it the last time that we came and did our um the our work plan was uh the seniors were afraid to go down and get their driver's license at the DMV.

And so we found out that there was a program through the DMV where they can have like a mentor or a proxy at the senior center.

So we got volunteers and staff, um, they could go to the senior center and learn they could renew their driver license at the senior center so we ended up having a hundred it was about 104 seniors who came through and got their driver's license at the senior center then the DMV changed the uh they changed the law so now it's we don't have to do that program anymore so that was very comforting program for a lot of the seniors and lastly um we had an emergency prep forum uh a year ago last summer and we partnered with the state of California called listos uh they had a grant program where they came out and talked to the seniors we had a total of I believe it was 12 different um agencies from San Mateo County including fire department Red City police department CHP they all came out and talked to the seniors and we did a bingo resource game and had a whole bunch of prizes if they got their bingos information right um so that's those are the uh information that we have just finished uh this past year and so we're tying that all together into what we're gonna do for the next program so I'm gonna have uh Chair Hartman share that with you.

Good evening Mayor Martinez Ceballos and Vice Mayor Aiken and City Council members.

Thank you so much for letting us present our work plan priorities and to get your feedback and approval on our work plan moving forward.

The first thing we we decided is we we had a uh four four hour extended meeting to sort of brainstorm what the commission should be doing moving forward what what we've done what we've achieved how we can build on it but also how we can address current concerns that are happening and um we have a very spicy commission which is really exciting because we represent the people from their late 50s 60s 70s and 80s and so you know that's like different decades with a lot of different needs and um perspectives so I feel very fortunate to chair such a very vibrant commission and um yeah I really am looking forward to us recruiting to more commissioners so that we can continue that vital work as the needs increase for this um population because we're growing in Redwood City this population is growing we are so excited as everyone I'm sure is about the new community hub that we'll be opening the next year in 2026 the new senior center and the address for that is 1333.

So we decided from our four-hour extended meeting that we had so many um sort of varying concerns needs ways approaches to maybe bring people together to address these needs that what we needed was a structure so that we needed a structure that wasn't just like long term planning but we needed a place where people would come regularly and have interaction with commissioner members who couldn't who couldn't or didn't want to come to a commission meeting so we decided that we would create um topics based on current interests that we could address so every month and that we'd like to make this a club to make it fun so that people will come to things that they aren't really top of their mind they'll just always come to that meeting because what happens is the meeting happens and they're like oh I would have loved to have come to that but they don't schedule that into their into their life so if we can create something that has both an element of fun and addressing current concerns that they just like put it on the calendar then like every month they're gonna come to the Club 1333.

So we're talking about how to have an element of like maybe we're having some like different tea tasting or a little element of like fun social to go along with it so that it's not just completely serious topics because sometimes people at that stage of life are like wow I don't want to deal with everything heavy all the time we need to balance that.

So um that's what we're working on.

So we started to pilot some topics to see and we see that people either like a lot of people come or no one comes so far with our topics.

We've done like hip housing, we've done the villages.

Um, so we're working at next month though and working on scams, and like that's a huge topic.

Like there's a lot around scams that are happening.

We're all dealing with scams, and it's not just the simple ones that we've known about.

They're getting more and more sophisticated.

You know, sometimes you'll call a number and it'll click, and then you've called the right number, but they have intercepted it now, and then it's so easy to get fooled.

It's just it's difficult for all of us.

So how do we stay on top of that?

And who do we need to come talk to us to keep us on top of that?

Because as a senior population, we're even more um vulnerable.

Um then it's come up to our attention that there might be, you know, changes are happening pretty quickly.

Um, so maybe Medicare is having someone come out and say, what changes are happening in Medicare?

Do we need to be concerned?

Is there anything we need to do or as things change?

So as the complexity and the speed has increased, we found that what we needed most was structure to be able to address people in non-panicked way, both things that are urgent but also important and how to get them to come on a regular basis.

So Club 1333 happens once a month.

Right now, we are our current time is like a 10 a.m.

on like on a Tuesday, but again, we might need to change it to like 10 30 so that everyone will come to that and then stay for lunch.

So we're really um working it to try and make it a thing.

So we're really excited to start it, even as we're in our current building, and then to have it even expand to the next.

Um the other structure that we've sort of decided we wanted to create was a current concerns conference that required a longer longer than an hour, that we needed like maybe like three or four hours, and that we would commit to doing this at least once a year, maybe biannually, um, on topics that would include like panel and discussion, and they might be intergenerational, um, because that's uh obviously something that we're all hearing a lot about in the news that different generations are having very different perspectives on what's happening, and there's a lot of lack of communication and understanding with like youth thinking that some of the older generations are maybe dismissive or um not understanding and they just have a different perspective and that we want to make sure that youth and seniors and all of us everyone in the middle that there's just like communication and regular flow.

So we're really looking forward to having this other structure of a current concerns conference that we can have these longer sessions to deal with issues.

Some of the issues um that have come up so far that we'd like to address in these, um, in addition to scams and now the Medicare changes, um, loneliness has come up.

And again, not just loneliness, it's um anxiety now we're finding.

So maybe it'll be loneliest anxiety, and how do we deal with that in a way that we can get people to show up and then actually get something tangible?

Um we've also found that people want it's not just there's a whole thing like getting people there, having an experience that's meaningful, and then even having maybe some like printed materials then to take home.

One of the things that we found with emergency prepared um preparedness conference that we did, the most exciting thing was the calendar that had like reminders and you could put the list of all the current numbers on there.

So we're looking to make this um really accessible to where the 60-year-olds are and the seven-year-olds are and the eighty years old, not just one segment of um our senior population.

Um another one that's come up is long-term health planning.

So these are one of the things like don't want to think about sometimes until there's like maybe a health crisis.

So, how can we help um some there's a lot that goes into that health planning?

Like, where will I live?

And do I have my health directive?

And uh, will the people actually who I put on my health directive honor my wishes?

And um, so there's just a lot involved in that.

So that was one area that we're like to um address that the commission has identified.

Um another area, um, let's say what else do we have?

Complexity hip housing, um, things when agencies change, like age up.

Yep, go ahead.

I I'm so sorry to interrupt.

Um, uh I I apologize.

The council has a number of very long items tonight, and I I think there's a couple more slides.

So I was wondering if if we might be able to shorten it just a little bit from here.

Absolutely.

Thank you for your understanding.

Thank you.

All right.

There's a picture of the building that's coming.

And I guess next slide.

Is that did we go over?

Did I go over the actually?

Do you need to go back to the other two items?

I could I can do them to do them real quick.

No, I can do them real quick.

Do you want to go back to age friendly city?

Do you want to go back a slide?

Yeah, great.

Mm-hmm.

Um so going down.

So we're also going to be addressing, you know, the housing as well as transportation.

And in transportation, when we have that new building, we might do things like everyone ride the bus together, maybe from the library downtown to the new building, from Fair Oaks, over to the new building and some other things along with um Red Bridge Our.

So we're planning on incorporating all of that into our new structures of Club 1333 and current concerns conference.

And the last item of intergenerational, we've already um started to have an event.

There was just an intergenerational dance, and we're looking at doing many more intergenerational things in addition to the youth coming out and working on digital literacy, et cetera.

Um we've have the age-friendly city, and if the if that is going to go through again, it will need to be renewed next year.

So we'll be working on that along with um transition to the new building.

It's not in the commission has identified that um groups don't just go look, now you're in the new building, that there's actually like what do you need in the new building?

How can we make this easier?

That there is some communication that's gonna need to happen there and some structure there too.

So that's another area.

All right, next slide, please.

Next slide.

Good.

We would like um the senior affairs commission to um approve or ask questions about our fiscal year 2025 to 26 and 2026 to 2027 work plan.

Next slide.

Is the questions, right?

So does the city council have any questions regarding the proposed work plan for the fiscal years 2025, 2026, 2026, 2027?

And does the city council support the priorities included in the fiscal year 2025 to 2026, 2026, 2027?

SAC work plan.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chair Hartman.

Thank you, Bruce, for the great presentation.

Before we bring it back to the council, we'll go to public comments and city clerk.

No speaker cards at this time.

Last call to the audience or our attendees on Zoom who wish to speak on the senior affairs commission work plan this evening.

Going once, going twice.

I'm seeing none mayor.

I'll turn it back to you.

Okay, we'll bring it back to the council.

Who would like to get us started with any comments or questions?

Perfect council member Jean.

Uh Bruce and Chair, thank you very much and the entire senior affairs commission for all the hard work and Bridge.

Thank you for remembering what I said 10 years ago.

So I appreciate it.

It's a long time.

Two quick suggestions.

One is noticing that there are two vacancies, and on our city clerk and her team does a great job of recruitment and outreach, but I think if we all do outreach together, we can get more people interested in serving.

And so I would just ask that the commission also do its own outreach.

And I'm sure Club 1333 might help that as everyone comes together, but it's not just the councils, not just our city clerks, it's all of us trying to make sure we get people to serve on our boards and commissions.

The second thing is I was trying to reconcile the different viewpoints on the transportation survey, and I couldn't connect the dots.

I didn't know about it.

I don't know about ready wheels.

I mean we want more frequent service, but I want my own car.

Uh what I would recommend is that they partner with the transportation advisory commission, um, get Sam trans to come out.

I mean, we have a bus stop improvement program that's been approved to do many of the things that you've talked about.

It's not funded yet, but SB 63 contains $15 million a year return to source over 14 years.

That's 700 million dollars.

That's coming back to San Mateo County.

If it's signed by the governor and the voters say yes, that could go a long ways to put bus shelters, real time information, all that fun stuff.

So I know the um ready wheels staff would be happy to come and do an information session at Club 1333.

And just continue to push it out there because San Mateo County was a leader in paratransit and ready wheels one year after the district was formed they championed paratransit and red wheel service one of the first in the nation and so having that legacy and that history and bringing that to the senior community here in Redwood City would be very very important to help get the word out you can't write it if you don't know about it.

So hopefully we can get everyone more educated having a place where everyone can come like Club 1333 will be a big help and filling those two vacancies will be a bigger help.

So thank you thank you for all the hard work.

Thank you councilmember who would like to go next councilmember Howard I'll keep it brief brilliant report very the work you're doing is fabulous and I know you're excited about moving into the new building as we all are so we'll have big party when that happens and I do hope you're able to because of the work plan it's so ambitious I do hope that we you know try to get some people to apply for the senior affairs commission because you do need that people spread the world the work out among seven rather than just five and this I love the senior support list.

I love it love it love it and I hope that maybe you could give I could take it or just I'd like a pack of these over by the farmers market anywhere else that you could hand these things out I know the library's over there and maybe you could also put it right there they have a stand this is very very helpful and useful information and I'd love to have a real copy of it because I could use it.

Thank you.

Thank you and always feel free to tell us more locations where you would like to have them and we will get them there.

Thank you.

Thank you councilmember and we'll go to Councilmember Chuck.

So first of all thank you for a terrific presentation and just all the work you've done um you know it's so important that Redwood City is is a great place to to age in place and um I was you know as as you were sharing a lot of these things I was struck by how similar the needs of our elderly population and our youth and teenagers are in many respects the need for community the need for safe inexpensive third places the need for transportation the need for safety like these are really similar needs.

And so you know as as you go along insofar as you're able to coordinate or work with um kind of our youth advisory board I would be really interested in seeing where there's synergies and where you know those two groups can work together and and sort of what prompted that thought um beyond the the you know the presence of a senior center is I always have to bring it back to this if you look at injuries and fatalities from car crashes um it's actually a J-shaped curve and or a U shaped curve.

And so as we age um you know the rate of fatality and serious injury crashes starts to tick up again to the point where near the ends of life they're almost as high as they are when we're teenagers and so providing safe alternatives to driving is a core public health issue for both our young and our elderly population that that this is incredibly important.

And so you know I just wanted to echo councilmember G's point you know I was just quickly looking it up there's a a great little bus that goes right to the senior center.

It's an 11 minute bus ride.

Sam trans has really great resources really great deals on passes and I'd love to see uh you work with Sam Trans to sort of um help our seniors get comfortable with the bus and better understand sort of what the the uh limiting factors are um so but uh terrific presentation.

Um and uh nothing to add to that.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council member chu.

Who would like to go next?

I'm very good.

Uh thank you.

Um I uh love it, love it, enjoy visiting your meetings up and Club 1333.

Doesn't that sound great?

I'm very excited about that.

I'm gonna um echo something my colleagues have said and and be very direct.

I I myself I'm not necessarily interested in helping seniors renew their license if they're not able to go down to the DMV.

I'm it really resonates with me what council member Chu said of a U curve.

And you know, I love cotton candy, but I know I shouldn't be eating it if I, you know, de don't eat dinner first.

And I've never met a senior yet, be it grandparents, parents, aunts, uncles, um, friends of same that have said, I'm so excited that I'm gonna give up my driver's license.

I boy, you know, I I'm so proud that I'm not gonna renew my driver's license.

I've never met one senior who said that.

But is that the right thing?

It makes them feel good, but is that what we as policy makers should be, should we be aiding and abetting that feeling?

Maybe not.

With the statistics that Councilmember Chu has mentioned, and also with given what Councilmember G has said about our first in the nation, um SAM trans and ready wheels opportunities, maybe those resources need to be redirected.

Um anyway, just so excited.

Uh love you guys and um can't wait for your next report.

Thank you.

Thank you, Vice Mayor.

We'll go to Councilmember Sturd.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, thank you so much, uh Chair, for your service and your hard work.

I don't like to be doing um, especially like the TikToks, but we um yeah, and then also uh appreciate that 1333 and that's something done events and then on the LPS County is hosting kind of uh community events, um, I love the commission outside of commission meetings.

But um we appreciate the promotion of uh transit as an alternative to driving, uh, including the midpoint shuttle I saw in there from community.org, which I'm on the board of, so appreciate that.

Um the Marguerite Shuttle run by Stanford, y'all probably already got them on the radar, fantastic.

Um in terms of you know reflecting on how the library board has done, you know, advocacy and whatnot, would like to encourage you all to do that too if you aren't already.

And one great avenue for that, if you haven't heard of it, is the age forward coalition.

Okay, great, Bruce, you heard of it.

I used to be uh hip housing's rep on that, so they do some good measure K advocacy work and other things.

Um one suggestion if you haven't already for a place to distribute the flyers is uh uh Casa Seutical.

Um and then you probably heard about Supervisor Canaba hosting the loneliness hike last week.

Yeah, okay, great.

And um, yeah, you're just doing so much work.

So much good work.

So thank you very much.

And um Bruce, I've sent you like three emails by this point with uh different introductions and links and so thank you, thank you.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, Councilmember Sirkin.

Would anyone else like to go saying any?

I will add my thanks, Chair Hartman, Bruce.

Thank you so much for the great presentation.

You know, I just say there's so much great work being done by the commission.

Um hopefully we're able to find two more for you all to, you know, mobilize and make a part of the team and get them going out in the community.

Um, you know, I I really wanted to thank you all for updating the resource pamphlet, you know, making those timely changes around immigration resources, but also the changes to Medicare is gonna be really important.

Um, and something else, you know, the housing resources is incredibly important to have.

You know, I know that our aging population is also the biggest um contributor to our homelessness population in San Mateo County, right?

And in Raywood City, and um at the same time, I've also seen rates that, you know, we have um vacancy in homes, right?

In single family homes where folks have become empty nesters and have places to utilize.

So, you know, working with hip housing is going to be incredible.

Make sure we open up those bed spaces to people out in the community who might need that.

You know, I know you mentioned the clip 1333, which is amazing and sounds like a great way to bring people together.

Also, the the current concerns conferences.

When you all are able to schedule those next meetings, please let us all know.

I know either whether we can attend or at least shout out from the mountaintops.

We want to help promote those as best we can.

Um, and then lastly, you know, I know you mentioned emergency alerts.

Is that SMC alerts that you're helping register people to?

Yeah, that's what we did.

Yeah, okay, awesome.

And um, you know, something that's I was kind of curious about with um with those alerts as you connect people.

If folks have different levels of ability, are you helping direct them to accommodations for to still receive that information?

What does that look like?

Yeah, we we did in our emergency thing, and then the staff is so amazing.

You know, they come in any time someone comes in.

There's staff that helps them personally, if not directing them to a volunteer to get resources where the PGE will call you and where different resources happen when we have big emergencies like power outages have become a big thing now that we're all on cell towers and things like that.

If someone checking on, also checking on elders and neighbors and neighborhood associations.

I mean, there's just like so many things that they're doing over there that we're always like back and forth.

Are you doing this?

Yes, are you doing that?

And we have have a hip housing come out and talk to us, and we will have them come out regularly to continue, like you were saying, these empty places where there's vacancies, but we have people in need.

So thank you.

That's amazing to hear Chair Hartman.

And then the very last thing, really excited to hear that you all are doing work around the scams, right?

I know people want to prey on our seniors.

Um, and we've seen a lot of that recently as AI gets better.

Um, just wanted to throw in my idea um for financial scams.

I know the cred local credit unions will offer, you know, typically free trainings around that and what you can look out for and the trends that they're tracking.

So maybe that's a resource that you all can can tap into.

But that's great.

Yeah, we don't have that on our list, so thanks.

We do have uh Redwood City Police coming out for our November um Club 1333.

I just confirmed that this morning.

Um and um you're all invited to the one on October 12th, which is a debt to PE.

If you sign up, you get a free t-shirt.

Yeah, sorry, sorry, yeah.

Um, so the 1333, that's the address for the new senior center.

Just in case you didn't know that, just pass that on.

So thank you.

Great.

Thank you both.

And if there's nothing else from my colleagues, I'll entertain a motion.

So move.

Oh, second.

That was a motion from Council Member Chu, a second from Council Member Sturkin.

Can we get a roll call vote, please?

We'll start with Council Member Chu.

Yes.

Councilmember G.

Yes.

Councilmember Howard.

Yes.

Council Member Sturkin.

Yes.

Vice Mayor Aiken.

Yes.

Mayor Martinez Samayos.

Yes.

The motion passes with six votes.

Councilmember Petia is absent.

Great.

Thank you again, Chair.

Thank you, Bruce.

We'll now move on to item nine, which is our public hearings beginning with 9A.

Our first public hearing item is to introduce an ordinance adopting tenant protections.

We're offering Spanish interpretation on this item, and I'll ask our interpreter to briefly give instructions on how to hear the meeting in Spanish, both in Zoom and on uh excuse me, both in person and on Zoom, as well as how to provide comments this evening.

But what we can say and the CD won't transmit.

So, is the parte la Romeo por Zoom?

Thank you.

Thank you, Gonzalo.

Now we'll move on to the presentations.

Assistant City Manager Patrick Heisinger will introduce the item and housing leadership manager, Alin Lancaster and housing management analysts will give us the presentation.

City consultants, Jason and Mikaiva from EPS are also available for any questions, as well as Carol Kahn from Project Sentinel.

Thank you, Mayor.

Good evening, Patrick Eisenhower, Assistant City Manager, as the mayor noted, several folks will be assisting us tonight.

I'll introduce again Elain Lancaster, our housing leadership manager, and Victor Guidan, our housing analysts with the city manager's office.

We'll be doing a line share of the presentation.

The flow for the presentation is listed here.

I'll highlight a couple of items for the council.

There will be questions on the next slide for the council to consider.

We'll provide a lot of context of how we got here.

Um I will start the presentation off by providing an overview of really what we're trying to accomplish tonight.

It's a very lot of uh detail in the staff report, 15 page report, numerous attachments.

I'm gonna try to summarize uh, you know, the intention of tonight before Elain gets really into the weeds of things, and then we'll get into the more substantive discussion and our recommendations, and then we'll turn it over to the council for deliberation.

Uh so really quick, just a couple questions for the council to keep in mind before we move forward is question number one does the city council have any questions regarding the proposed Senate protection ordinance, two, does the city council have any questions regarding the right uh to return provision or provisions?

Uh three, does the city council have questions regarding the outreach conducted?

And four, does the city council have any questions regarding the financial analysis that was conducted?

And like I said in my opening statements before I turn it over to Elain, I just really want to frame what we're attempting to accomplish uh tonight.

As the council is aware, as noted in the staff report, um, two key policies were approved back in 2018.

That's the minimum lease terms policy, and then the relocation policy from from the city.

Since that time, the state has adopted many, many tenant protection policy, other housing policies.

Um, and really what we're trying to do tonight by calling it the the ordinance is really putting a package of pre-approved policies that were already approved to fall in line and be consistent with state uh overarching policies and having a substantive discussion about the the right to return policy.

So if you think about it, there's been a lot of policy work that's already been approved for lack of a better term, in separate areas of the code, and the intent is really to consolidate everything into one area, get it nice and pretty, taking into account, making it consistent with the state code, and then have a real substantive conversation around um around the right of return.

So, I got some comments to say about the staff report again, very nuanced.

So, anyway, I just wanted to frame that a little bit before turning over to Elaine.

She will now walk through the details and the specifics of the history when things were approved and why they're in separate parts of the code and then the state stuff and all that.

And so with that, we think that'll help.

So with that, I will turn it over to Elaine.

Thank you.

Sorry.

Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, City Council members, Alyn Lancaster, Housing Leadership Manager.

Um, and we are uh joined on Zoom, as mentioned already, Carol Kahn with Project Sentinels here, as well as Jeff Schwab from our community development department.

Um, and then just want to acknowledge um Lolita Fernandez, our deputy city attorney is here in person, um, as well as Jason Moody and Kavia Uh Trappati, and I apologize if I mispronounced that.

Um, for EPS are also here in person.

Um, next slide.

So as Patrick mentioned, you know, we've had a relocation assistance ordinance and minimum lease terms ordinance um in place since 2018, and our relocation assistance ordinance requires that landlords uh who are evicting tenants for certain no-fault terminations provide um three months of fair market rent for um tenants that qualify as low income and four months of fair market rent or FMR for special circumstances households.

And we'll get into what uh special circumstances means, but um as the city you know adopted these ordinances and was starting to implement them, the tenant state tenant protection act, which we'll refer to as state TPA throughout this report, went into effect in January of 2020.

And this requires a landlord to have a just cause reason for terminating a tenancy.

It limits rent increases to 5% plus the consumer price index or CPI or a max of 10%, whichever is lower, and requires landlords to provide tenants who are displaced due to no fault terminations with relocation assistance equal to one month's rent.

When this went into effect in 2020, it preempted the city's relocation assistance ordinance.

And so we've been unable to enforce that this entire time.

Right around that same time in the beginning of 2020, the city received a partnership for the Bay's future challenge grant.

And this allowed the city to embark on and it developed the anti-displacement strategy.

And this will be called ADS throughout the presentation.

So I do apologize, there's quite a few acronyms tonight.

The development of the ADS included comprehensive outreach and engagement process that spanned over two years and involved several feasibility studies and community surveys and was adopted by the city council in June of 2022.

The ADS is consists of kind of three policy areas that you see here on the screen protection, preservation, and mobile home preservation.

The focus of tonight is really on the protection policy, but we are happy to answer questions about the preservation work and mobile homework at the end of the presentation.

Within the present protection policy goal, there were kind of three main recommendations that came out of the ADS, and that was to amend the existing minimum lease terms and relocation assistance ordinances, to add just cause eviction protections, and to explore adding a right to return policy to these to the tenant protection amendments.

The right to return idea came up towards the end of our work in developing the ADS, and this idea was not really fully researched or vetted, and so it wasn't included as a decision was never made about it in the actual ADS when it was approved.

Instead, the city council had directed staff to conduct additional research and community outreach on right to return.

As you can see here on the slide, since the ADS was adopted in 2022, there have been numerous community engagement efforts, research, and check-ins with the city council, and there's a much more detailed summary of all of that work in the staff report.

But in 2024, all of our tenant protection work was paused for almost an entire year, because there was a pending citizen-sponsored rent control ballot initiative.

We returned to the city council in January of 2025 once that rent control ballot initiative process had concluded.

And at that time, the city council had directed staff to conduct focus groups that specifically evaluated the right to return after a substantial remodel and to draft a comprehensive tenant protection ordinance incorporating all of the prior policy recommendations that were in the ADS, including a right to return recommendation based on staff and the focus group input.

So in July, we uh city staff along with members of our housing and human concerns committees tenant protections ad hoc, invited representatives from Faith in Action, Legal Aid Society of San Mateo County, Community Legal Services in East Palo Alto, commonly referred to as CLESPA, the California Apartment Association and the San Mateo County Association of Realtors to participate in focus groups.

All of these groups agreed to meet with us, but I will note that members of Faith in Action did decline the invitation to participate.

And so, as Patrick kind of already mentioned, but we're gonna re reiterate again here tonight, is that the tenant protection ordinance that is before you tonight is really combining and replacing the existing relocation and minimum lease terms with the goal of really consolidating and streamlining everything into one place and making sure that our ordinance is consistent with state law.

And then on these next couple slides, I'm gonna go through what the specific amendments were that were approved in the anti-displacement strategy, and note how the comprehensive tenant protection ordinance addresses those.

And so you'll see here there's another acronym TPO.

We're gonna try our best to say state TPA to refer to state law and city TPO to refer to our local ordinance, but I know it's a little confusing.

So I apologize for that.

So in the ADS, the first recommendation was to adopt a just cause eviction policy consistent with state TPA.

And so, what we've added now is at fault and no fault just cause reasons for terminating a tenancy and outline protections for tenants that under the no fault just cause reasons.

Examples of what's considered an at fault just cause is non-payment of rent or breaches of breaching the lease terms.

And examples of no fault just clause include a landlord moving back into a rental unit, substantial remodel or demolition of a unit.

As you can see here, this is a new policy that will be consistent with state TPA, but this does allow the city to have an enforceable relocation assistance requirement once again.

The second recommendation in the ADS was to keep the relocation assistant payments at three to four months of fair market rent, also known as FMR, and FMRs are rents that are published annually by the federal government, and these represent kind of the 40th percentile of median rent for San Mateo County.

Although this was previously concluded in our prior ordinance, as I've mentioned, eligible tenants have not been able to receive these increased relocation benefits while the city's ordinance has been unenforceable.

So over the last five years, tenants have only been able to qualify for the one month of rent under the state TPA.

The third amendment outlined in the EDS was to retain the income eligibility requirements to receive relocation assistance.

So as you kind of see on this table under the state TPA, all tenants, regardless of their household income, are entitled to relocation assistance equal to one month of their current rent.

And then under the city's TPO, tenants who qualify as low income would receive three months of FMR rent, and those who are considered low income and special circumstance would receive four months of FMR rent.

Again, tenants who don't qualify as low income or special circumstance would still get one month of current rent.

And we are, as outlined in the ordinance, there will be administrative regulations that will go into more detail about the eligibility process and how tenants can try and seek for the additional relocation benefits.

So under the original ordinance, it applied to properties with five or more units.

And so, with this change, it would now apply to us generally properties with two or more units, and this is in alignment with state TPA.

There are a few exceptions here, and as you can see on the slide, I'm not gonna go into all of them, but generally speaking, it would now apply to properties with two or more units.

The next recommendation from the ADS was to streamline relocation assistance noticing and payment processes.

Under the original ordinance, it was a very complicated process involving phase payments through an escrow account and several types of notices.

And so with the streamlined process, landlords will be required to provide tenants with a direct payment of one month of relocation assistance, and this is again in compliance with state TPA.

And landlords do have to provide this within 15 days of giving a notice of termination.

Uh tenants could then apply to the city to determine if they are qual if they qualify as low income or special circumstance.

And tenants have 15 days to apply from receiving their notice, and then we the city has committed to a very quick review of 10 days.

If it's determined that the tenant is deemed eligible, the landlord will have to pay the uh three or four months FMR directly to the tenant, minus the one month that they have already paid.

And this would be due at um at or prior to the tenant moving out of the unit.

So number six from the ADS was to reduce the minimum lease term requirements by only requiring landlords to offer 12-month leases for the initial period.

So when this the minimum lease terms ordinance was first adopted, it required landlords to offer tenants a 12-month lease at initial leaseup and at each annual renewal or at each lease renewal, I should say.

Under state TPA, tenants that have lived in their unit for more than one year are eligible for just cause, relocation assistance, and rent increased protections.

And so requiring a landlord to offer a 12-month lease.

Uh, an initial leaseup is still a critical tool to kind of bridge that gap until they get those additional benefits.

Um, then requiring landlords to continue offering one-year leases is really unnecessary and creates um again unnecessary burden to landlords.

And for number seven, uh, similar to the relocation assistance ordinance, um, we would be expanding uh unit eligibility to two plus uh units, and this is again consistent with state law.

And there's just the same exact uh exceptions listed here on the screen as well.

Um, lastly, we've added um the recommendation was to revise the minimum lease term notification requirements to include more information about rights and responsibilities and clearly outline the process if a tenant rejects the 12-month lease offer, and so um that has been included into the proposed ordinance.

And so I'm gonna turn it over to Victor Gaetan to go through the uh right to return policy considerations.

Next one.

Good evening, Mayor Visner members of the council.

Take it all on for the next couple slides.

As previously noted, the idea of establishing a right to return policy was raised during a later phase of the ADUS development process.

A right to return policy would require that in cases where a tenancy is terminated or where a tenancy is terminated due to a landlord undertaking a substantial remodel, landlords would have to offer tenants the first rate to return to the unit after the substantial remodel was completed.

The city proposes to use the substantial remodel definition used in the tenant protection act of 2019, which is the state TPA.

That definition defines a substantial remodel as the replacement or substantial modification of any structural electrical plumbing or mechanical system that requires permit from a governmental agency or the abatement of hazardous materials, including lead-based paint mold or asbestos in accordance with applicable federal, state, or local laws.

It also requires that the work cannot be reasonably accomplished in a safe manner with the tenant remaining in the unit, and which would require the tenant to vacate the unit for at least 30 days.

Cosmetic improvements alone, including painting decorating and minor repairs or other work that can be performed safely without displacing the tenant do not qualify as a substantial remodel.

There are several policy considerations to balance when evaluating whether to adopt a right to return policy, and over the next few slides, I'll be reviewing the considerations listed on the screen.

Consideration number one is legal feasibility and the city's capacity to enforce.

We explored several options for setting the rental rate when the unit is offered back to the tenant.

This included an option that would require landlords to offer the rental unit back at the rent prior to the substantial remodel, plus any increases allowed by the state TPA, had the tenant continuously occupied the unit, which was referred to as the TPA increase option.

Although each option came with different challenges related to the city's ability to enforce them, ultimately the TPA increase option was determined to be the simplest and most straightforward to implement as it aligns with state law and provide landlords with a reasonable rent increase.

Consideration number two looked at the available data to assist in determining how frequently these substantial remodel cases might occur.

Staff reviewed multifamily building permit data from 2014 to 2024.

And I'll quickly note that in the staff report, you'll you might have noticed, we initially only looked at data from the last five years.

After the staff report was published, we expanded that inquiry to the last 10 years.

So staff looked at permits that could potentially meet the substantial remodel definition, specifically permits with job valuations of $5,000 or more, thinking that those permits might be more likely to be substantial, and permits that took 30 days or more in between issuance and finalization.

In reviewing this data, staff found that there were 287 building permits meeting these criteria over a 10-year period.

Of those, roughly half likely did not require the displacement of tenants as the work was minor, such as repairing and replacing air conditioned units, water heaters, electrical panels, or involved exterior repairs only.

Roughly another half of permits involved more substantial repairs to bathrooms and kitchens, or were for flood or fire damage.

These may have required displacement, however, building permits do not collect sufficient information to definitively ascertain whether a job required the unit to be vacant for at least 30 consecutive days.

And since we looked at the five versus 10 years, the percentages between the permits that likely did not require displacement and those that were more substantial and were roughly were roughly the same between the initial five-year data that was included in the staff report and the more expensive tenure data.

So it was about 50-50 in both the five-year and tenure data.

Throughout the tenure data, there were only three permits that we noticed that were displacement was highly likely or was known to have occurred.

One was for the demolition, entire demolition of a unit, one was for uh Hallmark House at 531 Woodside Road, which burned in a six-alarm fire in 2013.

And one was for the full renovation of 36 units at Redwood Oak Apartments.

And I'll note that both Hallmark House and Roadwood Oaks were or are 100% deedestricted affordable housing, and so they would not have been covered, have been covered under the city's uh TPO anyway.

And there's one more actually that wasn't captured in the permit data, but there was another fire in um in 2013 at Terrace apartments that also resulted in displacement of a significant number of tenants.

Consideration number three was avoiding investment disincentives for owners.

The city contracted with economic and planning systems, so known as EPS, to prepare a financial analysis of the proposed right to return policy that would require landlords to reoff a rental unit to a tenant at the same rent that was in effect at the time the tenancy was terminated, plus any increases that would have been allowed under state TPA, and how that would impact the landlord's return on investment for undertaking substantial remodel.

The key findings from the report show that this proposed policy does not appear to be a financial disincentive to landlords seeking to reinvest in their properties, and that typical remodel projects remain financially viable and provide a fair return on investment, especially when combined with tax advantages and other financial benefits that were not modeled in the analysis.

The report does note that there may be some outlier properties for which rents are well below median but have unusually high rehab needs, such as older or historic buildings, in which the TPA allowable rent increase that's proposed may not be sufficient to recoup investment.

For those outlier cases, the report recommended a capital improvement petition or appeals process to handle these rare situations.

And as mentioned, EPS staff are here tonight and available to answer any questions related to the financial analysis.

Consideration number four was comparative practice.

We looked at what other local jurisdictions have as their tenant protection policies.

And while several local jurisdictions do include the right to return in their tenant protection policies, the majority of these jurisdictions also have rent control or stabilization ordinances along with associated policies and mechanisms for enforcement.

In staff's research, we only found that Emoryville and Union City locally don't have rent control, but to include the right to return in their policies.

And Emoryville requires the right to return at the same rental rate and the same lease terms.

And Union City's policy does not get into the specifics of the rental rate or lease terms, they just require that the unit must be offered back to the tenant.

Consideration number five was feedback from focus groups.

Following up on direction from the city council in January 2025, staff and the housing and human concerns tenant protection ad hoc subcommittee held focus groups with key stakeholders in July of 2025 as Lynn mentioned.

And that was to help further refine the right-return policy.

In these focus groups, opinions were split on the rental rate options with tenant legal representatives supporting the TPA increase option and landlord and realtor representative supporting an option where the landlord sets the increase, or conversely, an option where the right to return is not included as part of the tenant protection ordinance amendments.

Both focus groups agree that the new lease terms option made the most sense or was necessary.

And for the noticing options, legal aid representatives supported a 60-day minimum timeline for tenants to reoccupy the unit after notifying the landlord of their intent to return, and landlord and realtor representatives supported the shortest possible timelines for all noticing options.

And lastly, I'll note that both focus groups recommended that tenants should have to demonstrate some sort of commitment to returning to the unit, such as signing a lease or paying a deposit, and this has been incorporated into the proposed ordinance.

And lastly, consideration number six was the housing and human concerns committee or HHCC recommendation.

On August 26, 2025, the tenant protections ad hoc subcommittee presented their right to return recommendations to the full HHCC and the HHCC recommended to the city that the city council adopt a right to return policy with the elements listed on the screen.

The HHCC also recommended an overall timeline of 60 days for the tenant to accept the offer and move back into the unit.

And should the city council decide to proceed with a right to return with no restriction on the rental rate, the HHCC would recommend to not include any right to return provision in the city TPO.

It was the HHCC's view that establishing a right to return policy without establishing a cap on rents would not mitigate the displacement that the right to return policy seeks to address, and instead would create a potentially unnecessary administrative burden for landlord and staff.

Based on the information outlined in the right to return considerations and the recommendations from the HHCC, staff recommends that the city council approve the inclusion of a right to return policy in the city TPO that includes the following.

When a substantial remodel of a rental unit is completed, a landlord will be required to offer the tenant the first right to return to the rental unit with the following provisions.

One, the offer must be at the rental rate that was in effect when the tenancy was terminated, plus any increases allowed by the CTPA had the tenant continuously occupied the rental unit.

Two, the offer must include a lease that contains the same terms as the lease that was in effect at the time the tenancy was terminated, except for any changes to terms required by federal, state, or local law.

Under notices, the landlord must notify the tenants within 10 calendar days of the unit being ready for reoccupancy.

Tenants must notify landlords of their intent to return within 30 calendar days, and at that point they would be required to sign a lease and or pay a security deposit to demonstrate their intent to return to the unit.

And tenants must then reoccupy the unit within 30 calendar days of notifying landlords.

Staff has also included a process for a landlord to submit an appeal to the city in cases where the landlord believes that the city's policy would not allow them to recover a fair rate to return on their investment.

This appeals process will be further outlined in administrative guidelines that will be developed.

And then this is the implementation plan we're proposing.

Typically, a second reading and adoption of an ordinance occurs at the next regularly scheduled city council meeting.

And once adopted, an ordinance would go into effect within 30 days.

So in this case, if this ordinance uh was adopted by the city council, it would likely go into effect sometime in uh late November.

But to provide sufficient time for robust noticing outreach and education on the city TPO.

Staff recommends a delayed implementation date of January 1st, 2026.

Staff has also reviewed the existing EDS budget and determined that there are existing sufficient funds to cover the cost of implementation.

And to better understand the ongoing operational needs of implementing the city TPO.

Staff along with assistance of uncalled relocation consultants as needed will initially manage the relocation assistance process in-house.

After the first year, staff will evaluate the process and determine if city TPO enforcement should continue to be carried out by city staff, a third party, by relocation consultant, or a combination of city staff and consultants.

If approved, staff would also issue a request for proposals for a software solution to help manage and track relocation assistance requests and other noticing requirements of the city TPO.

And now I will hand it back to Olin Lancaster to close out the presentation.

Thank you, Victor, and I'm gonna try my best not to cough into the microphone.

So bear with me here.

So there's the first thing I want to make note of is that we there's a mistake in the staff report attachments, and the Lord the ordinances got mislabeled or misinverted.

So what is in your staff report packet noted as attachment A, does not include any right to return policies, and the ordinance labeled attachment B does include the right to return policy.

And so just want to make that really clear.

Introduce an ordinance repealing chapter 42 relocation assistance and chapter 42A minimum lease terms of the Redwood City Code and replacing with chapter two chapter 42 tenant protection ordinance of the release city code, and this does include a right to return policy or it making sure that it's attachment B.

With that said, we uh want to just highlight there are alternatives the city council can consider.

Um, the first being uh waiving the first reading and introducing the tenant protection ordinance that does not include a right to return policy, and this is attachment A.

Um, you can also advise uh direct staff to return with a revised tenant protection ordinance that includes other modifications separate from the right to return, or other changes to right to return.

Um, and then of course you can direct staff to not proceed with the tenant protection ordinance.

Um, and again, here is the um questions that we had for city council, and we're happy to take questions now, or after public comment, and after public comment too.

Thank you.

Thank you, Lynn, Victor, and Patrick for the great presentation.

Uh, we'll take it to public comment before bringing it back to council.

Thank you.

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

I'll give folks a chance to queue up on Zoom, and we'll begin with our in-person speakers, starting with Katie Getz, who will be followed by David Carducci.

You'll have two minutes to speak, and the timer will begin when you start speaking.

Good evening, mayor, vice mayor, and members of the city council.

My name is Katie Getz, and I want to acknowledge that I serve as chair of the Housing and Human Concerns Committee, but I am not here representing that body.

I am here as as myself tonight.

I don't know, a couple of councils ago in the group in 2018 who did the work to bring about the relocation assistance.

It's been hard over these last years to know that we had this opportunity to protect tenants and help compensate them that then got overridden by state law.

And so I look forward to seeing that return tonight such that we can help those who are facing displacement find new housing and be financially secure.

I also come tonight to speak in favor of the right to return after renovation.

A few years ago, I was working closely with Faith in Action, which is the group that brought this idea to folks' attention because people were having lived experiences of losing their housing, whether um, I know legally eviction has a very specific term, but regardless as to why you are losing your housing, it feels like an eviction.

And so if the goal of the anti-displacement strategy is to not displace people and to help keep people housed, then allowing people, members of our community, children, seniors, parents, um, community workers to return to their housing to not be permanently displaced from Redwood City is an important piece of the work that we do together.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is David Carducci, who will be followed by Kate Heister.

Good evening, members of the city council and staff and all.

We see about 900 housing cases each year throughout the county.

So we're very familiar with the rental housing market and displacement of tenants throughout this county, including Redwood City.

Our mission is to prevent homelessness, and we do that by keeping people in their affordable homes.

Evictions are going up in 2019.

There's about 1,120 uh residential evictions.

Uh this year we're on pace for about 1,810 residential evictions.

That's an increase of over 60% of residential evictions over that period of time.

Uh the rents are still too high for many of our uh residents here, especially low and moderate income uh families.

Um, in this difficult environment for residents and for tenants, uh, we support Redwood City taking this action of passing this uh tenant protection ordinance.

Minimum lease terms are very helpful for the tenants stabilizing their first year of their tenancy.

Uh the relocation assistance for vulnerable uh people can help people transition to a new home and avoid homelessness.

Um, and I also want to address uh one point here is uh while non-payment is the majority of evictions that we see in this county.

Um we're seeing an increase in evictions based on what I call phantom substantial remodels or phantom owner move-ins.

That's where a landlord wants to increase the rent, but they uh more than the tenant Protection act allows.

Um, but they can't get a tenant out just for that reason.

So they give a false notice saying they're gonna substantially remodel when they really don't intend to, or they're gonna have an uh family member move in when they really don't.

Um, these tenant protection ordinances help us uh fight those phantom notices and keep people in their homes when they have the legal right to be there.

Appreciate your support.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Kate Heaster, who will be followed by Diana Reddy.

Good evening, council members.

Thank you for your time.

My name is Kate Heaster.

I've served on the HHCC for eight and a half years, and for five of those years, I have served as the chair of the tenant protections ad hoc.

As a reminder, this ordinance, including minimum lease terms, relocation assistance, just cause, and right to return have been recommended unanimously by the full HHCC and by staff.

These decisions were not arrived at hastily, and they reflect numerous community meetings, focus groups, research, and discussions.

Remember, I said five years.

Our ad hoc is considered many alternatives and perspectives, and we believe this full set of protections are both necessary to reduce displacement and fair to both property owners and tenants.

Our colleagues on the HHCC and the city agree.

I expect, or at least I hope, that the right to return will be the most contentious aspect of this ordinance.

I don't know that council will recall all of the testimony that has been given repeatedly at this dais since 2020 from families who have been evicted through no fault of their own to be cleared out of their long-term homes for substantial renovation to see fairly short work done, and then those same units rented at double the price.

I know this loophole in state law is not being is being exploited in our city, not only from those testimonials, but because I watch it happen across the street from my own home.

Council might ask why those affected families are not here to speak to them.

For many is because they had to leave Redwood City.

For others, this extremely long timeline has undermined their trust in the city's desire to address this loophole.

I respectfully ask that you trust the long, thoughtful, hard, did I mention long, work that staff and HHCC members have put into this ordinance and vote vote to pass the ordinance including the right to return.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Diana Reddy, who will be followed by Roby Lynn Antonio.

Good evening, mayor, vice mayor, and council.

I was pleased to learn when I visited last month that council continues to value the need for including units for extremely low-income households in development plans.

Those of us who have been advocating for low-income households and the unsheltered understand that ensuring the addition of ELI units is a valuable tool for bringing the unsheltered into permanent housing.

Perhaps the most important tool is ensuring that those families do not lose their homes in the first place.

Thank you, Housing and Human Concerns members and staff for the hard work and resources you commit to that most important tool.

Council and staff, council will be considering an ordinance to enable landlords to remodel their units.

And I urge that the right to return is included.

Understandably, landlords want to just return for their investment.

Tenants want to be able to return to their homes.

And adding a piece that enables landlords to petition for an increase for a just reimbursement for expenses that includes a rent increase that tenants can actually afford.

This can be done, and we can do it, and we must do it.

Preventing displacement is more critical now than it ever has been.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Rovy Lynn Antonio.

Good evening, Mayor and City Council.

Rovi Lynn Antonio with a California Apartment Association representing rental property owners and operators in the city.

My comments tonight are focused on the right to return proposal.

The occurrence of housing providers terminating tenancies to do substantial renovation is rare.

That's because doing so legally is a high threshold to meet.

One, these renovations cannot be cosmetics.

They need to be electrical, mechanical, structural.

It takes at least 30 days to complete and cannot be completed safely with the renters inside the building.

Also, it's rare in Redwood City because it may be cost prohibitive to do a substantial renovation because in this city, doing so is up to four times than other cities in the county.

This combined relocation payment with a proposal of right to return with the price fixing mechanism.

Housing providers get a double penalty scenario, where in the front end they're spending thousands of dollars before the rehab even begins to pay the relocation penalty, and then on the back end, the right to return kicks in where their income is um capped.

This is not economically um feasible and it's also unfair on the renovations.

Housing providers do this because of other reasons.

One um to comply with a retrofit requirement that is um due to code compliance, two, to extend the length the length in the life of a building when it's nearing its age life.

And three, sometimes it's done so because it's dictated by the renters and their demands.

For example, before COVID, a young couple could, you know, are okay with a one-bedroom or a studio.

Post-COVID, that same couple is now looking for a two-bedroom or a larger unit because they want part of it to be um to be used as an office because of remote, um, remote working working from home.

This is just an example of how renters' demands can dictate how housing looks like in the city, and housing providers are working hard to meet those demands.

Can I finish?

Sure.

The message is if you pass a law, please do not create a stagnated market because that affects desirability and marketability marketability of your housing units.

And if you're doing that, then you're also affecting property values, which affects the city because that is a source of revenue for you.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

That concludes our in-person speakers.

We'll move now to our Zoom attendees.

We do have three speakers on Zoom.

Starting, okay.

We have four speakers on Zoom, and the last speaker will be Keith Ogden.

Our first speaker is Clara Jekyll, who will be followed by Fernando Pena.

Thank you.

My name is Clara Jekyll, and I'm a renter in Redwood City.

I've worked in the city for 28 years, and I've lived here for the last 10.

Everyone deserves a safe, dignified, and stable home.

Excuse me.

And for that reason, I strongly support right to return policies among other protections for tenants.

I urge you to implement the right to return policy recommended by the Housing and Human Concerns Committee.

Housing is not a commodity that can be traded around like any other.

We're talking about people's homes.

The place where we go to be safe and secure.

Being forced to move is a huge upheaval that suddenly places heavy logistical and financial burdens on your family, interrupts children's schooling, and breaks social ties with your neighborhood.

I was forced to leave the place that had been my home last year due to an owner move-in.

And getting the news that I had to leave was a shock that rattled everything in my life, both practically and emotionally.

We should have strong guardrails to stop that from happening to Redwood City residents as much as possible.

It's important to note that the State Tenant Protection Act and this proposed tenant protection ordinance still do have several gaps in coverage and enforcement and do not offer full protection against all the causes of displacement that Redwood City renters have documented.

Still including the right to return in this ordinance would be a step forward, and I support that.

Redwood City should be a place where people can put down roots in our neighborhoods and our community and not be forced out just because we have lived in our home long enough that it becomes due for upkeep, or because a landlord decides that they want to grab a higher profit.

We've already lost too many of our neighbors in the last several years.

It's high time to put these protections in place.

So please implement the right to return policy.

Thank you.

Thank you, Clara.

Our next speaker is Fernando Pena, who will be followed by Nicole Noga.

Fernando, you may unmute yourself and begin your comments.

Good evening, Mayor Martinez Ceballos and Council Members.

My name is Fernanda Pena.

Calling in on behalf of the San Mateo County Association of Realtors.

Our members, including homeowners and small mom and pop housing providers, are opposed to adding the right to return to the ordinance.

Redwood City has led San Mateo County cities in addressing affordable housing and supply.

Adding right to return contradicts this.

This provision creates a disincentive for property owners and developers to invest in rental housing.

Places increase financial burdens to housing providers on top of relocation assistance and minimizes the tenant protections already found in Assembly Bill 1482 and Senate Bill 567.

The data presented here this evening in the financial analysis does not justify adding to the program and would only lead to administrative and legal complexities and taxpayer expense.

I am respectfully asking the council to vote no on adding the right to return.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Nicole Noga, who will be followed by Keith Ogden.

Hello, City Council.

My name is Nicole Noga, and I'd like to disclose that I'm a member of the Transportation Advisory Committee, but I'm speaking on my own behalf this evening.

Thank you, Council staff and community partners for all of your continued work on the topic of housing in Redwood City.

I'm particularly appreciative of these proposed measures tonight because my partner and I would have benefited benefited from them had they been enforceable last year when we were displaced from our home of over a decade due to a substantial remodel eviction.

We thankfully were able to find a new apartment in Redwood City, but our downstairs neighbor, a nurse, ended up having to move out of the area.

The additional protections provided by these proposed measures, particularly the rights return, would have kept her and her vital skills in the city.

I do absolutely support these measures, particularly the right to return, but I have two questions for council and staff and the partners.

One, I'm curious if I'm understanding correctly that the relocation assistance would be based off of the fair market value calculation rather than actual rents being paid.

If so, just curious what the rationale for that is.

And two, I heard earlier that staff mentioned that the permitting data doesn't show whether or not the work would require that the tenant be displaced for at least 30 days.

I'm curious if it would be possible to add that to the permitting application process for better data going forward and also to provide better documentation for the tenants to prevent those phantom substantial remodels that a couple of speakers have mentioned before.

You need to pull a permit to do something like upgrade an old school fuse box to a breaker box.

And I know personally that that kind of work can be completed in a small apartment in as little as a day.

But having pulled that permit, you can uh a shady landlord can present that documentation along with a substantial remodel eviction notice.

And unless the tenant knows better, that can seem like sufficient and legal uh rationale to get folks out of the apartment.

Overall, though, I strongly support these measures, particularly the uh right to return.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Keith Ogden.

Good evening, Council, and thank you, staff, for all your work on this.

My name is Keith Ogden.

I'm a managing attorney on the housing rights team at community legal services in East Palo Alto.

Our mission is to prevent displacement and maintain safe and healthy uh housing for low income tenants.

We deeply appreciate Redwood City's sustained efforts and dedication to protect tenants over many years in the sustained process.

Um I came on tonight to uh give our support for the city's package of tenant protections to align with state law and to build on Redwood City's past tenant protection work.

And I just have a brief comment related to the proposed substantial remodel policy.

Uh, as we've heard, this proposed uh policy intends to prevent displacement.

It would give tenants and significantly lower income tenants the ability to return to their housing.

Subject to rent increases allowed under state law in a challenging high price rental market.

This is a definitely a meaningful protection against displacement for tenants.

Um so again, thank you for your efforts and uh for the opportunity to speak tonight.

Thank you.

Thank you, and that concludes public comment mayor.

Thank you, City Clerk, and thank you to everybody who made public comment in person on Zoom or ahead of tonight's meeting.

It is always greatly appreciated by this council.

I will now bring it back to our dais um for any colleagues who would like to start with any questions or comments.

And we'll start with the vice mayor.

Well, I would just um ask staff that uh the uh Nicole Noga had two questions.

Um the basis for the relocation amount and something about permitting.

If if you could address those.

Yeah, I'm happy to do that.

So um FMR fair market rent is an annual amount that's published by the federal government, and so it um it's a standardized amount because recognizing that if it was based on the current tenants' rent, some tenants might be paying, you know, really below market rent, and so the benefits they would get would be lower, whereas some tenants may be paying really high rent, and so um you know if it was three to four months of their current rent, they would get a significant benefit.

And so this the fair market rent is a way to kind of equalize that, um, based on a known published uh data point.

Um, and it also gives some you know certainty to landlords to know if they are going to go through um with a no fall termination what those relocation payments would be.

Oh, yes, um, and so we are we have been having discussions with our um community development and building staff about what things can be added to our permit tracking software um should the ordinance be adopted to um better track the data um but also making sure you know landlords are are educated and we can add different flags to that data, and so we are having active conversations with building about that.

Thank you very much.

Well, and if I could just quickly follow up on that, what would a fair market rent look like federally compared to here in the Bay Area?

So they're published based on county, so we would look specifically at what's published for San Mateo County.

So uh to give you an idea, the current fair market rents for a one bedroom are two thousand nine hundred and seventy-seven.

Uh for a two-bedroom, it's three thousand six oh four, and for uh three-bedroom, it's four thousand six oh four.

Oh, yeah, it doesn't sound too far off.

Um thank you for the clarification, Vice Mayor.

Anything else?

Not question-wise at this time.

Great, thank you, Vice Mayor.

Any other questions?

I see Councilmember Chu has her hand raised.

So thank you for the uh presentation.

I had several clarifying questions.

Um, one is um before the meeting.

Uh I had asked if there were any white papers or journal articles that showed sort of the results of these sorts of policies, and you know, and there wasn't at that time, and so um the consultants had reached the conclusion that this had no impact or it would not disincentivize major renovations, and so I I wondered if they could clarify what the basis of that conclusion was.

I'm happy to invite uh Jason up to speak to that from EPF.

Sure.

Um, thank you.

Uh the primary reason we did a financial model that modeled the impact of uh an investment of certain levels and compared that with the return they would get through the ability to raise the rent consistent with the TPA, and we found that the the we modeled it at the medium rent in the city, and we found that you would you would have to uh incur a cost of about over 175,000 per unit in order for you not to be able to recoup your return.

That amount was significantly higher than the the even the highest uh um permit value that we saw.

So it it per square foot basis.

So, I'm so sorry you froze.

Can you can you say that last little bit again?

Sorry.

So the the amount that um you could justify an investment based on the ability to raise rent at five percent per uh per year, yeah, was higher than the highest building permit value we were able to find over a five year period that we looked at so it was much higher than the median and higher than the highest to also point out that being able to raise the rent five percent real terms per year is significantly higher than market rate rents have increased in in the city over the same similar period so really the market rate rent is a bigger cap on the ability of a landlord to invest in their property than a right of return ordinance because you can still raise the rent uh when the tenant comes back at five percent a year which is much higher than what the market has actually realized in terms of real increases in rent so essentially you would be behind you would be way ahead of the market if you were just within the five percent or up to 10% nominal terms uh per year raising rent so there could potentially be outliers no doubt there would be and I think that the ordinance has provisions to address the outliers but for the most part when you're looking at the median rent and the the typical uh remodel costs that a landlord has incurred in in um in rhythm city you're you're well within the norm.

Great and then how many years did you you know so like for example we have solar panels and when we try to calculate the ROI on that depending on how long of a time frame you give yourself you get different results how many years uh did you expect 10 years 10 years okay 10 years so within 10 years you expect the landlord to recoup their investment.

Correct okay thank you um so that was the first question um and then just some clarifying questions so uh I and again um you showed the slide where these the right to return and the state policies apply to two units uh so duplexes so basically anything above a single family home um is do I understand that correctly like and and I just need to make sure I really understand sort of the differences between the state law and this and this policy.

So is I just want to confirm that this is the correct right the state so the state renter protections now apply to duplexes on a basically everything but single family homes.

And um so our right to return would also apply to duplexes on a correct okay great um and then um are there any exceptions for circumstances outside of a landlord's control so and the reason I asked this is because of the three examples given where there had been a event that precipitated major renovations you knew for a fact resulted in displacement two of them were like major fires and so I can imagine if a landlord's building burns that's an economic shock that they did not plan for and then if so help me understand is there any sort of exception for circumstances outside of a landlord's control like fire flood earthquake things like that excuse me um there is a not for that type of thing um I will note depending on the severity of the damage you know if the units have to be demolished um there are other state requirements around um how that is handled okay great and then um I just want to make sure I understand so the current the proposed policy is if a landlord does major renovations they would need to um pay the tenant three months rent to move out is that correct do I correctly understand that?

If the tenant qualifies as low income.

Right.

Okay.

Great.

Um, and has there been any data collected on whether or not the differentiation by income has the unintended consequence of discouraging.

So and the reason I ask this is a lot of times, you know, you want to get the sweet spot where you don't over-regulate a thing, and sometimes regulations have the opposite of the intended effect.

So is there any evidence uh that basically landlords are less are more or less likely to rent to low-income tenants after such ordinances have been passed.

Do we have evidence from other cities?

Um I'm not aware of any evidence of that.

Um I will know in during the 80th development, it was a discussion about whether those income eligibility requirements should just go away and all tenants could get uh three to four months FMR.

Um, but I you know there were concerns about you know, no, and not every tenant needs maybe that level assistance um when they've been displaced, um, and making sure that you know the assistance provided is targeted to the people who are most likely to need it.

Um, but there was a big policy discussion about whether just to get rid of that and make it simpler and everyone gets the same amount.

Um, under the state requirements, everyone would get one month current rent.

Okay, thank you.

Um and that's the rent they're paying, not the median rent.

Correct.

Great, okay.

And then again, sorry, just want to make sure I really understand.

Say I have a below market rate unit, I'm paying 1,500 a month, and I have to move out for major renovations.

Would I get three times the rent I'm paying, or three times the Bay Area or the median county rent of 2,009?

If you're a low-income tenant, you would get the three times the FMR rent.

So the the 2,900 I had quoted earlier.

Okay, thank you very much.

Thank you, Councilmember Chu.

We'll bring it back to the days.

Who would like to go next?

Councilmember Chi.

Alan, Patrick, the entire team, thank you.

Um it's been a long journey, and our housing stock didn't get any younger during that journey either.

So it's just getting older, and for those that didn't take care of it, it just got more expensive to remodel and and take care of.

I want to go back to I think some of my earlier comments at the last meeting is I wanted to make sure that particularly with the right to return, that all stakeholders were involved.

I wanted to see a pro forma.

I wanted seeing the people that don't come to council meetings or HHCC meetings that make decisions, um, somehow we get their input.

And those are the people that loan money for the renovations.

And based on the staff report, I don't think anybody that funds renovations, not does it, but funds it were involved.

Am I correct?

Um we didn't formally invite any kind of lenders or or lending institutions to participate in the focus groups.

Um I do know uh when we commissioned the report with EPS, they have done some analysis into this area, and so I don't know if Jason wants to speak to any of that.

Because they're the ones that sit in the corporate office looking at proformas and make decisions.

Please, Jason.

Just want to clarify.

So we did do a financial analysis from the perspective of a uh investor.

Uh and when investor goes to a lender, they need to show their financial analysis to the lender.

So we try to replicate this as best as possible the hypothetical situation.

We did also talk to developers who do renovation, and they just describe they fund it.

Technically, they are funding it.

They're borrowing it, but they're funding it.

Uh they have to pay that back.

And so we did talk to those who would be borrowing the money and be on the hook for paying that money back at the which would be secured against the property.

So it's a pretty big investment, so they got to get it right.

So we did talk to them about the requirements of an investment of this type and what type of documentation would be needed to justify that type of investment, and we made sure that our financial modeling uh was as close to the norm as would be expected in those circumstances.

It was that attached to your report, the pro forma?

I didn't see it, I just saw the eight pages.

Uh we did not attach it, but we can provide it to you if you would let me be interested.

That'd be important.

I don't know the why there wasn't.

Is there a reason why it wasn't?

Well, there's a very technical lot of data and and uh detailed Excel tables, which correct at the time we weren't sure if there would be a lot of interest in, but we have that available and we could make it readily available to you.

Very good.

So I'm not sure who's going to answer this question.

I appreciate the the review on the permit data one of the challenges I'm trying to connect is between the numbers the financial numbers and scope of work.

So what's the intersection?

Perhaps you could elaborate on that question so we can I'll I'll pick the EPS number I'll use the median remodel cost per square foot of $19 per square foot.

What is the scope of work renovation tied to that $19.

It's like we can we can maybe we can come back to that question.

We do have you know again a lot of Excel tables that looked at all of these.

So if I go $19 time an 800 square foot apartment I come up with a renovation cost of $15,200 per unit.

That's in your it's in your report $19 per square foot median renovation cost.

I'm trying to understand what I can do for $15,200 in renovation per unit.

So we were looking we were looking at permit data at EPS from basically 2019 to 2024 and we took all the all the permit costs per unit.

That included things of the mechanical nature there would be things like um kitchen and bathroom remodels window remodels insulation um and that did make up the bulk of the permit data that was pulled in Redwood City over the last five years um like Alan and a lot of rest of the staff have mentioned there were a couple outliers where maybe a building burned down and that would lead to much higher costs that would be captured in the 999th percentile and we saw that going up to 121 thousand per unit um so but a lot of the renovations that have been done in Redwood City haven't been of that nature.

Okay.

And I'll I'll just add a lot of the data it is a little more narrative so there's not like a simple way to just filter and sort you kind of have to uh dig through what was the type of work so you know I don't we don't have the clearest answer is like that's always a bathroom remodel but that's kind of the general well and that's the part I'm struggling with I mean here we have we I think we heard the HHCC work plan at the last meeting and one of the wishes on it was a soft story ordinance.

So I'm trying to figure out how do you renovate right to return you know as a certified assessment you know professional who can do red green and yellow tag buildings after a major earthquake I know what soft storage means because I've trained other professionals to do that.

So once you start to do seismic upgrades or soft stories you trigger code compliance ADA all that stuff I'm struggling with the connection with the EPS report and scope of work and the numbers they cited the $19 per square foot renovations with the 2024 number not the average and so I'm just trying to understand how those two go tie together because for a soft story upgrade 2024 $19 per square foot resulting in $15,200 per unit I can't do a soft story upgrade at $15,200 hard cost and then I throw 25% soft cost on top I can't I can't connect the dots and stuff that's what I'm struggling with.

On the permit data, I don't know what else to say, but I would ask, I would point out that the number of the return that you would be able to justify was about five or ten times higher than that.

So if you look at the the information that we provided, uh two scenarios between a hundred and eighty and two hundred and twenty dollars a square foot.

So that's the number you should be looking at.

The number of 23 dollars a square foot is what the permit data shows.

Our analysis said that you could justify between 180 and 220 a square foot.

So that's the number that would you would be up to justifying based on the median rent.

That the the 23 is just there for illustrative purposes.

It's based on the permit data from the city.

It's not something we came up with as an average project, it's just your permit data.

So it's not really what our analysis is based on as much as the 180 to 220 a square foot.

So I'm getting still checking.

Yeah, so when you're actually contemplating your investment, you're gonna be looking at the capacity.

How much can you afford to invest and still get a return on your investment?

So you would be looking at the 180 to 220 as some a target.

If you were above that, you probably would be it would be cost prohibitive.

You wouldn't be able to get a return.

If you were below that, you would have a financial incentive because you'd be able to raise the rent.

Yeah, and again, I'm that's where I'm still struggling between seismic fire and life safety.

Uh, we just adopted new building codes that say buildings need to be electric ready, um, PGE betterment projects to get the upgrades or whatever.

You know, I had champion 10 years ago, and maybe some of you remember fire safety first, to fire sprinkler buildings after the two fires on Woodside, and that got stalled and eventually abandoned because of the number of code issues, as well as off-site improvement issues.

So, how does that all tie together?

And that's the part I'm just trying to figure out because as a practitioner, the numbers don't make sense to me in terms of cost per unit per renovation and those major upgrades, and then the intersection between tax credits and 179D and cash flow, that doesn't connect because tax credits and 179D are achieved two years after completion, if not three, depending on of if you're allowed to enter the program and who got the tax credits, because it's what first come, first serve.

It's not up to the owner.

The general contractor can claim them, the architect, the engineer of record can claim 179D tax credits.

It is not only the owner or the developer who can claim the 179D, but in exchange, they still have to pay the bill first before they get those tax credits.

So there's a cash flow issue.

And you're welcome to tell me I'm wrong about that because I deal with 179D every year.

So I'm just trying to understand how this gets all tied together.

Can I help somebody help me?

Our analysis did not include or evaluate the tax advantages of an investment.

So if you invest uh, you know, $100,000 in your unit, the value of a unit presumably would go up significantly.

You would also be able to um claim a tax credit on the interest that you pay on that on that borrowing and the funds you borrow, you'd also be able to depreciate your investment over time.

We did not account for those tax benefits in the analysis, it was straight up cash on cash evaluation, and we discounted future earnings over 10 years, not two years.

So it was a 10-year time frame cash flow.

And were the relocation assistance included in your analysis?

Definitely they were very good.

Because I did not include in my analysis depreciation or debt service or any tax credits, and so I'm still trying to get the map to work in my spreadsheet.

And I'm dealing with the eight-page report, not having the pro forma of the waterfall made it very difficult to do analysis.

No, I get the need to get people back to their home.

However, to write to return at the same rent, regardless at 5%.

Disconnected from the scope of work of substantial renovation is an issue for me because there's no definition.

I mean, there is, but there isn't an exact scope of work.

And again, I'd love to do, and I think we need to look at a soft story seismic upgrade, but a right to return at the same rent plus five percent and 10%.

The math doesn't work for me.

It just doesn't, because then it triggers other things that we have to do code upgrades, fire and life safety, ADA on the larger units, you know, hazardous material.

I mean, someone's got to show me how the math works before I can support a right to return.

And the documents that were given tonight to review doesn't make sense.

I just can't, you know, as an architect as a construction manager, as someone who advises owners and developers about renovations.

It doesn't.

I can't connect the dots at the very least right now with the documents that were given tonight.

We'll go with Vice Pair Akin and then Councilmember Struth.

Staff thank you very much.

His his work as an architect and with construction and his points about uh Excel spreadsheets are well taken.

I'd like to, instead of being in the data, I'd I'd like to take a I'd like to look at a different frame.

You have uh basically here in San Mateo County in Redwood City, you have um suburbs created by the greatest generation starting in 1946, and so some fewer and fewer every day, but some of these greatest generation folks still are building owners and um duplex owners and landlords.

Um then you have the baby boom, which is the biggest uh subset of um the most populous subset generation in world history.

And so say you're a baby boomer, from the time you're eight uh uh I mean, let's just say you're 25 years old and it's 1967, and I know pe I know I'm a local yokel, so I know a lot of people for whom this is the case.

You're 25 years old, it's 1967, you buy one investment house when you're graduating from UC Berkeley, then you get a job in tech, or whatever that was in those days, and by the time you know, 40 years later, you own hundreds and hundreds of rental units.

You cannot um you do 1031 exchanges, so you don't ever have to pay the taxes, which is one of the ways that you build wealth, and you're just a very, very wealthy person.

I know a lot of these baby boomers in San Mateo County, they don't begrudge, um, they don't uh I know one who was in favor of Mountain View's rent control, which went into effect uh before the statewide rent control.

Um, I so and and let me say something else.

So these greatest generation people and these um baby boom people, um, they faced so now they're beginning to I don't know how else to say it, to die.

And so then their heirs are five, 10, 15 people, and so that building has to be sold, um, so that each of the heirs can uh reap the value, and so um and it doesn't get sold before then because of proposition 13, which again is one of the reasons that we have such a horrendous housing shortage, and so i i I mean, I know uh these people do.

Here's another point that I want to make is that um I do believe that um maybe we're not hearing complaints about people who are displaced as much as is really happening because these folks are missing middle people.

So like the nurse that was referenced that just moved to LA, she can work anywhere, her skills are in demand.

She didn't complain to anybody.

We just lost a nurse because of this displacement.

So I just I don't think that charge of $10,000, $15,000, $17,000, $20,000, $8,000 that a landlord would have to pay to a qualified low-income person to ease their burden of having to move.

And another point that I want to make that happens with the greatest generation and the baby boomers.

There was such a rush of wealth from say like 1946 to 1978 when proposition 13 came in.

Let's remember the reason that proposition 13 was born was that property values were going up so fast so fast from 1946 to 1978 that people couldn't afford to pay their property taxes and they were being forced to sell their houses.

Now there should have been a legislative fix.

There shouldn't have been Proposition 13, but that's another story.

But my point is there was unbelievable wealth that was created in California in San Mateo County.

And because of that wealth, there are a lot of what's called naturally occurring um affordable housing units.

That's these greatest generation folks and these baby boomers who who knows why, but they haven't raised the rent since 1982 or from since 1996 or since 1987.

Why?

Because they don't need the money, they already have so much money in their bank account.

And I'm not saying this is everybody, but you cannot deny the unbelievable accrual of wealth in real estate in San Mateo County from 1946 to today.

And and you can't deny that there is a huge housing shortage and an affordable housing shortage and a shortage of housing at every level, you just can't you have to be an ostrich and put your head in the sand if you think that.

So if you're the only so if you're a landlord that every year raises your rent, either the 5% permissible or the the amount that inflation lets you raise it, what the market will bear, you don't have this problem because uh you don't mind if your tenant returns because your tenant is already paying what the market will bear because every year, incrementally, you have been raising your rent over the years, and if you talk to some of these landlords, they'll say, I don't understand why some people aren't raising the rent.

Um, so I just um I don't think the right of return is burdensome.

Um I'm I'm her hearing lobbyists, the California Apartment Association and the real estate San Mateo County Real Estate Association.

I'm not hearing actual apartment owners saying we'll go broke if we have to um uh in addition to paying for a needed renovation, also have to pay a few months rent to low-income families.

I didn't receive one uh landlord saying that uh in any emails, and and none came here today, and that makes sense to me because there's a lot of wealth.

I'll stop for the moment.

Thank you, Vice Mayor.

We'll go to council member Sturgen.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you, all the staff uh for your presentation hard work.

I just have a couple quick questions about uh assumptions.

So we're assuming that this ordinance will apply to it was on um page seven, I believe, of the staff report.

Uh 18% of all housing units, uh, assuming there is a substantial remodel, of course.

I just want to clarify that the 18% is an increase in the number of units that would now be covered under the city's ordinance.

So yes, we had estimated um around 1,600 housing units uh would now be added under that.

Thank you.

So we don't actually know how many landlords would be tasked with the substantial cost of a remodel that Councilmember G is referred to.

It's it's dependent upon the landlord and their decision, personal decision.

That's correct.

Um I do want to clarify just one thing is you know, recognizing that there may be outlier situations, um, there is also a fair rate of return appeals process that is in the ordinance.

So in those situations where a landlord finds that you know the rents are significantly below market and the remodel costs are significantly high, they can appeal to the city for a higher rent increase.

Thank you.

Um but of course the other piece that councilmember G mentioned was the we just passed or we just updated our building code.

So I was trying to open that up and review that one more time.

Um yeah, there's a lot.

But there's the the there is a seismic um upgrade section, very short, of course.

Um, but I know we don't currently have a seismic upgrade program at other cities do like Berkeley, right?

And I know it was contemplated as part of our wish list uh for the HHAC, but if and when we consider some type of seismic retrofit program where we require landlords to make upgrades to soft story buildings, is is there some kind of exemption or or assistance program or or otherwise that we could develop to help it make a pencil essentially?

Um, um, I know Jeff, I think it's Schwab is on the call, but I'll just say, you know, we work really closely with community development, and so if there was a policy similar to that kind of being contemplated, we would definitely be working hand in hand to make sure, you know, do we need to make modifications to our ordinance to make sure there aren't any unintended consequences?

Um so we would definitely have have those conversations with them.

Thank you.

And then I just want to make sure I'm understanding correctly.

So, is the third assumption that this substantial remodel would solely be funded from the rental income allowed?

Under the right of return, as is currently proposed, the current rent plus what is allowed under CPA?

Yes, that is the assumption is that it though that rent increase, as Jason mentioned, could support um a remodel cost up to 180 and I believe 220 dollars a square foot.

Um anything uh beyond that, uh, you know, it would not be um uh excuse me it it would it end up costing the landlord money, it would not be a sound investment, and so in that situation, you know, a landlord could file an appeal uh for a higher rate increase.

Thank you.

But what that doesn't factor in is a given landlord who has, you know, money set aside for reasonable upgrades to their property, right?

Like that's how my father runs his rental, like he has money set aside to make upgrades when the unit is vacant as needed.

That is a luxury for many, especially folks on fixed incomes, but I just want to make sure that we have all the assumptions very clear because I'm hearing councilmember G.

I recognize that it in some cases would be very quite challenging.

Um, but it's not applying to everyone, it's only applying in the circumstance that there's a low-income tenant who is whose lease is being terminated, and the relocation assistance trigger is um is triggered.

So Councilmember G, am I am I missing anything?

Am I missing any assumptions here?

I want to make sure I'm understanding what you're mentioning clearly.

Um my only issue again is what's that scope of work?

Great, it's a bathroom renovation, the kitchen renovation, but what about everything else on their major upgrade?

I mean, it's great that your father has a capital reserve for that.

Not everybody has that, but once we start going into structural, going to asbestos and lead, we're gonna see some some unusual data on the next subject coming up and talk about copper lines and solder on our water lines.

You talk about being the unit being electric ready under the new building code.

I'm not sure any landlord of a 30 or 40-year-old building has a caliper reserve to be electric ready and to deal with the PGE potential betterment upgrade to get that higher amp line and panel board to the property line or at least the conduit.

So again, my big struggle is how do you connect the numbers other than the capacity to do 180,000 dollars and per unit and the scope of work?

There's no definition.

I mean, other than once you cross that line, it's not feasible.

And you know, maybe that 180 gets discounted by a property owner's capital reserve, but how many property owners have a capital reserve that goes beyond a cap kitchen or a water heater or a heat pump unit, things like that.

We're making a ton of assumptions about, you know, stereotyping all property in our that they have a capital reserve or don't, and that's what we're walking ourselves into with where we're walking into this consideration.

Everybody's wealthy, everyone's got, you know, whatever.

We're making some significant assumptions.

But my biggest struggle is how do you connect the capacity that the consultant said with the scope of work that a 40, 50, 60 year old structure may need with new building codes and potentially upgraded codes coming up, whether it'd be electric cow green, structural, whatever it may be.

Thank you.

Of course, I want to just clarify that the assumption of having a capital reserve was not factored into this calculation.

I just brought that in, but um to your point.

Gosh, I just lost it.

Okay.

Oh, yes.

Um, so well, then what is what are your thoughts on the petition that Alyn mentioned?

Is that a sufficient remedy?

I mean, do D need more information on that?

I mean, well, my there's other questions I had like who do you petition to who decides what's fair market?

Who have the qualifications of the I don't know, arbitrator or whoever it is, you know, uh that wasn't addressed in I or or maybe I missed it in the 80-90 pages.

But who do you appeal to?

Is it our city attorney?

Is it Helen?

Is it Patrick or the qualifications of that person?

What's fair market defined as?

Do we have a fair market return on investment?

You know, I I missed that in the report.

So um that level of detail wasn't excuse me, not in the report.

The the ordinance proposed does give the city the authority to develop administrative regulations, and so that level of detail would be in the regulations um that would uh, you know, if if if approved, would be made available um, you know, on or before the effective date.

Um it does have the city manager or their designee as the final decision maker.

Um what we have seen in other cities is they do hire either hearing officers or other third party, you know, experts in analyzing this, um, and that is something that we would also look to as well.

Oh, and thank you.

Would that administrative procedure document coming for council, or is that just gonna be administer ministerially taken forward?

I believe it is just approved at the staff level, but I I want to double check that.

Um that is correct.

The way it's proposed right now in the ordinance, it would be administrative, um, and the city manager would have the authority to adopt it, but if the council would wish to see that, um it is something that can come to the council.

Thank you for indulging me, Mayor.

Um, so Councilmember G, would that be an amendment you would be amenable to?

I mean, do we want to leave it in staff's hands?

Do we want to bring it back to council that that piece anyway?

I think that is an appropriate amendment if I were to support attachment A.

Did I get that one right?

That's the that's the one with the A does not include right to return and B does.

Yes, I'm sorry.

Yes.

So yes.

Um I'll I'll just note though the administrative regulations are for the entire um ordinance, not just this appeals process.

But then what but it's not in the report tonight.

Correct.

So if I were to support it, that would be a required amendment, but I'm still not for I still am struggling with the connection between the numbers that the consultant presented in scope of work and code changes and all that upgrades.

I mean, I just don't get it.

Thank you.

We'll go to Vice Mayor Aiken and then Councilmember Chu.

I'm not gonna speak a lot.

I'm just gonna say at this point, and I might change my mind, but at this point, I'm really um, uh, I believe it was the the chair of the HHCC who a couple times said, did I mention time?

Did I mention a period of time?

Did I mention and uh, you know, we're talking about 2018 when when the vast majority of these um proposals were put into place and then unable to be implemented post-January 1st of 2020 because of a in uh concurrence of unfortunate events.

So I at this time kind of feel like we should just go with A or B and not bring it back to council.

But I'm uh I'll stop talking.

Your vice mayor will go to Councilmember True next.

Um so thank you for all the incredible hard work you've done on this.

Um, I I have some concerns.

So I live in an R2 district, um, and I live in a district where there's a lot of naturally affordable housing that is year uh nearing the end of its useful life.

And so I remember when I was knocking on doors and talking to people, one of the things that really was top of mind, well, two things.

Number one, um, how do we incentivize the owners of these buildings to renovate, upgrade, and renew and add to this housing stock.

Um, and in general, if you want to incentivize something, you don't add cost to it.

Um, so you you make it easier to do, you make it faster, you make it cheaper.

Um, and and I am concerned that adding these regulations over and above what the state is is adding, um, will disincentive you know, relative to the neutral, which is to adopt state law, would disincentivize desperately needed res renovations.

Like it in my view, many of the buildings in my district must be renovated.

Like this is becoming a health and safety issue.

Um, the other kind of concern I have is as applying these print uh these policies to duplexes, but not single-family homes.

Um, you know, duplexes look and are often the same size as single family homes, they're effectively the same thing.

I live in an R2 district, and so what we have in my district is lots and lots of people who are in truth, you know, to to council member Aikens' point are house rich.

They are cash poor.

Uh and they're, you know, to her point, also the types of people that haven't raised the rent in years.

And so say you're renting to, and they're also much more likely, you know, people in my district are much more likely to be renting to lower income tenants and having not raised the rent.

And so say you have a a duplex, there's water damage, you need to redo the bathroom.

That's, you know, $20,000.

It would take you tw you know, and say you're renting the little unit for $1,500, it would take you 20 years to recoup that, um, if you were only allowed to raise the rent a little bit, um, the the five percent.

Um, if you're if you're low income again, which many of the residents of my district are, the most likely outcome is you just won't do that renovation.

Um I also, you know, in my view, if something applies to duplexes, it should apply to single family homes.

There's no reason to exempt single family homes which are not substantively different in size, value, et cetera, from from duplexes.

And so I think kind of a would we apply this to single family homes?

If the answer to that is no, then we probably shouldn't apply it to duplexes.

Um let's see.

Um I I don't think I have seen so the thing I always worry about again when you increase costs, when you increase uh regulation, when you make something harder to do, I always worry about unintended consequences and you see this again and again and again.

Even policies that I really really liked and was super excited about.

Um, once you look at the data, you're like, eh, it it did not produce what we were hoping.

And so one of the things I had asked for was strong evidence that it would not have these unintended consequences.

Has this been implemented elsewhere, you know, over time, what did you see?

And I I didn't see that evidence that that it's not gonna discourage renting to lower income individuals, that it's not gonna penalize people who have not raised the rent in 10 years, that it's not gonna discourage uh renovations, and and i think I would need to be really reassured that that those aren't you know that there's strong evidence that those things are not gonna happen.

Um I would also, again, if we're gonna apply something to duplexes, I think that we should be consistent and apply it to all homes um in the the city i i don't quite understand the rationale for applying something to duplex when it's not applied to a single family home um so i'll leave my comments there unless unless there is a rationale for applying to duplexes but not single family homes I'll I'll just add this was a a decision made at the state level I don't know if uh I don't have the history of that rationale um right but I'll know if the duplex if one of the units is owner occupied then it is also exempt.

Okay to know but you know if we're doing over and above what the state does I think a good sort of benchmark is is this a good policy is it a policy we think should apply everywhere to everyone if if we wouldn't apply it to single family homes I think we should really think about whether or not we should apply it to duplexes.

Thank you Councilmember Chu we'll go to Vice Mayor Iken next I'll just be super quick I just wanted to address my um colleague um council member Chu I know she said um no that there wasn't enough data but I didn't even print out everything that was available uh because it the staff report was I think 14 pages or 15 pages but there were a whole bunch of hyperlinks within the staff report I didn't print all of the documents but this about an inch I think there's plenty of data and and then I just would say respectfully too I I'm reluctant to get two into the weeds we have an HHCC committee that studied this for two years and their recommendation was unanimous six to nothing I'm satisfied with the outreach that was done um the outreach was to samcar was to CAA there was dialogue there is continuing dialogue there um I hesitate to superimpose my really nitpicking on the data for committees that have looked at it for years and I kind of want to look higher at just the policy not it's easy to pick off you know oh did we do this did we dot this T we cross this I or that you know what I mean and um just look at the policy are we pro-renter you make some good points council member Chu about doctrine of unintended consequences and does the data and you Mr.

G as well amazing points I I can't refute or counter but you know in baseball the tie goes to the runner and we have a unanimous recommendation I'll I'll leave it at that.

Thank you vice mayor I saw council member Chu's hand go up.

I mean you you make excellent points and and to you know as you always point out I am profoundly pro renter I've rented you know until my mid-40s um I I get it I I had been displaced multiple times um it's just that there's a consistent pattern of these sorts of policies having the opposite of the pro renter intended effect and often the renters who are hurt most are the most are the renters that they're intended to help and so I think just I want reassurance that that's not gonna happen um I'll I'll just leave it there.

Thank you, Councilmember Chu.

We'll go to Councilmember Howard next.

Thank you.

This has been quite the robust conversation I can say um I did want to uh Councilmember Chu, I really appreciate your comments um and your thoughts on this.

I was going to say uh that's why I was really pleased in the report it shows that the housing and human concerns anti-displacement strategy work plan includes exactly what you're talking about the naturally affordable housing in our older districts um the buildings many of them in need of if not complete renovation certainly a substantial renovation and I am so pleased to see that they are going to be working with HART the regional trust fund and other groups so that we can find this natural but naturally affordable housing and cut a deal with the owner of the property that will work for this for the owner as as well as the tenants I see this as a very um I'm just very excited about the program and I sure hope that we can uh make use of it in the very near future I think we've already purchased one building and I think we're even looking at others but you can't do just one tool you need many tools and so I'm I'm pleased about the housing preservation fund pleased about working with heart and maybe that can help in some of these problems where you feel it may become a burden to the landlord so he therefore does not or she does not go ahead and fix a property they'd be inclined to want to fix that property if they were offered the kind of deal that's going on right now that um that Hart is proposing.

So I hope that helps a little bit but I also understand I mean I know we're being asked to change the ordinance repealing chapter 42 and 42a and adopt the tenant protection ordinance but we were also asked to look at the retire right to return policy and I I hope I understood this correctly that the right to return policy will have an appeal process for the tenants and the landlords it's not just one or the other there's an appeal process if the tenant excuse me if the landlord is not happy with what's going forward or the payments that will be required there would be an appeal process and my understanding is we haven't really chosen who that person or uh the group is going to be and I thought Project Sentinel I'm glad they're here tonight they may be the right agency for us to invest in to work with us to to address the unintended consequence to address appeals and be fair and reasonable.

So I wanted to ask the city manager or should I speak with Project Sentinel that I was kind of hoping it would be something where you had an agency such as Project Central because we're not really equipped staff wise to do some of the work that's going to be coming this way and I want to ask what you thought of that.

So so I actually don't have thoughts on that um kind of at this point I'm and I'm not sure how far the staff have gone in in thinking further about the qualifications other than what Elin spoke to in terms of seeing what other agencies had done and the possibility of of having you know an outside hearing officer with some expertise in this matter so I don't know if there's anything further you'd like to elaborate on Elena and what you've seen elsewhere.

And maybe before Alyn um elaborates on that I do want to make sure we're clear about what the ordinance provides and who has the appeal rights.

For the right to return the landlord is the one that has an opportunity to appeal if the circumstances of their substantial remodel and their rental situation make it so that they can't get a fair rate of return.

And so that's just the landlord that would be participating for that appeal.

There is, you know, there's uh Alin had talked about when somebody is um given notice that there will be a substantial remodel and um and they believe they are they are low income or and I'm forgetting what the other circumstances the special special circumstances or um have special circumstances they apply for the city uh relocation assistance, the higher relocation assistance, and have an appeal right if you know the decision if they disagree with the decision.

So there are definitely um there's a lot involved in this ordinance and in all of these protections that is going to be I mean an administrative burden on the housing division, and so they will have to look into this and they'll they'll they'll take that year to do this assessment to understand kind of where things are the appeal for the fair rate of return is definitely something that we know we will be using a third party to do.

Um it is very technical.

Uh those the guidelines or or what we build out is going to have to be very specific and legal.

So uh that that will definitely be kind of the next step if we do the right to return, um, if the council decides to move that way.

Thank you.

I appreciate that.

Did you want to add anything, Elen?

I would just add typically, you know, we would go through a request for proposals process, and so you know, if this is something if this is adopted and project sentinels interested, that you know, they could apply uh submit a proposal um to be a hearing officer or to help manage the appeals process.

It sounds like there's a lot more to work out with all this, but um, I I really appreciate the work the housing and human concerns committee has done.

Uh they sent, I'm sure it's more than two years because I remember speaking to Margaret Becker, who was then on housing human concerns about this very same thing, and I think that more was more like four years ago, but it's certainly been on your plate for a long long time.

And so I would like to to give this a try, recognizing that there's an appeal process, which I feel the landlord should be entitled to if there's something um, as we said, with substantial remodel if there's something to protest.

Uh I'm in favor of that.

I'm I'm just looking to be fair and reasonable and and try to work with both sides and bring them together.

I I haven't heard people who have come before us, they either say do it or don't do it.

There's nobody who's really proposing something in the middle, like the housing and human concerns committee is doing, and I sure would like to give it a try, but recognize we need to check in for the unintended consequence that may or may not show up so that we're ready for that.

But I I'm ready to move on to support this for tonight.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember.

We'll go to the vice mayor and then councilman Richard.

I'm also ready to support this the right of return.

Thank you, Vice Mayor.

We'll go to Councilmember Church now.

Um I I worry that the large payout, um, the the three months market rent will create a disincentive, especially for the duplex owners.

You know, if you add 30% to the cost of remodeling a kitchen or remodeling a bathroom, most people will just elect not to do it.

Um would there be openness to aligning the payment with state law so that it's one month um so that those remodels are feasible and they pencil.

Because I, you know, again, in in my district, a lot of this housing desperately needs to be updated, um, just for health and safety reasons.

Does staff have a response to council member Chu?

I just want to clarify your comment that you would recommend only changing the relocation payment to one month for substantial remodels, but for all other types of no fault terminations, you would maintain at the three to four months.

I I think my I think my instinct is to align.

So the state is very active in this space and and it's a fast-moving target.

Um I'd like to align with state law as much as possible.

I just think that's more parsimonious, it's easier to administer, it's clearer, and allows us to keep up with a moving target.

Um I worry that you know a ten thousand dollar payment to a fifteen thousand dollar payment over and above a remodel on somebody who owns basically one yeah, a duplex is gonna deter remodels.

Um so I'll just note a couple things there.

Uh I think if you were to change relocation payments to just one month across the board, um, then the only thing different about our ordinance and the state is the minimum lease terms at that point.

Um a couple things to highlight is, and it was in the staff report, is that we get grant funding from the Metropolitan Transportation Commission or MTC.

Um they do have new policy coming out that in order to get funding, cities have to have so many um housing policies adopted, um, and they have to meet the the criteria established by MTC.

And so um our relocation assistance ordinance since it would go above and beyond state law would get us to qualify for one of those policies.

So not doing that, we would have to look at other types of policies if we want to continue qualifying for MTC funding.

Um, I'll also note that um, you know, this is an L uh a program in our housing element that we would be making modifications to our relocation assistance and minimum lease terms, and so um I think we would have to explain to state HCD why that program has changed, um, and I know they are paying close attention to this program.

Right, thanks.

Thank you, Councilmember Vice Mayor.

Any other thoughts?

Go to Councilmember Stern.

Thank you.

I I guess I just want to highlight that you know we are currently out of compliance with state law, right, Alyn?

And so, not out of compliance, but our what I mean is We're preempted by our our relocation ordinance is preempted and unenforceable.

So we have to we do need to revise the tenant protection ordinance tonight.

Um Councilmember Chu, I understand your concern about landlords in your district not affording or foregoing uh renovations, upgrades, especially for the concerns of over health and safety of the uh units for your neighbors.

But I do fall back on the vision that you know council member G, Councilmember Howard, and the previous councils enacted to prevent displacement, and that is what this ordinance will do.

So, but I would like to hear what the mayor is thinking before um making a decision.

Well, vice mayor, really quickly.

I just wanted a clarification.

Because there are two things.

I don't I don't want the right of return tail to wag the all the other things in the ordinance dog.

So just so we're clear, you know, one ordinance still has a lot of anti-displacement strategies that MTC wants to see, and the other ordinance has those also with the right of return in addition.

Are we all clear on that?

No worse.

Great.

I'll add my um my thoughts.

I Alyn, thank you, Victor, Patrick, for the great presentation and and all of the great attachments and the hyperlinks, it was a wealth of information to um to read this weekend.

I know that we don't have data around our displacement, right?

That that's something that we're looking towards, um, other ways of finding how many building permits have been issued, right?

How many evictions have happened in the last year?

Um, and that is that's difficult to have these kind of conversations without that side of the story, right?

Um, I did want to just mention as a refresher what rents are, right?

Our studios in the Bay Area are averaging around 2,400, more than 2400 for a unit.

A one bedroom, one bath is 2800, more than 2800, and the average rent being paid in the Bay Area right now is $3200, which is outpacing other major cities like Austin, like Washington, DC, like Boston, where it's almost a thousand, two thousand dollars cheaper than here.

Um, and all that results in our San Mateo County residents spending 46% of their income on housing costs, which is uh according to the most recent census, and I'm sure that number continues to rise as we see rents do.

Um, so that is the problem that other councils have been working to solve.

We're building on their work, right?

The relocation assistance program, um, the TPO has been in the works for such a long time.

And thank you to our HHCC members for for that labor of love.

Um, you know, I think it is it was unfortunate timing that you know the state's uh TPA came into effect and preempted what work the city had done locally.

Um happy to see that move forward tonight and make sure that the relocation assistance programs are are enforced like they were meant to be.

Um and I think there is there's a lot to like around the right to return policy.

Um I know that the HHCC met with different parties, not just tenants, but also the landlords and their representatives too, and you could see that in the policy where it's building in timelines that are easy to implement, right, along 1482 when it comes to the 60-day timeline and notification process.

Um I really appreciated that there was a commitment from the tenant that was needed before this process started, whether that's paying a deposit or signing their lease as agreed upon.

Um, but also the the other things that our council colleagues have mentioned tonight around the the permit process, the appeal process.

I really this was buried in there, but the alternative mitigation policy, which would allow landlords to who have an extra unit be able to just offer that up to the tenants to say, hey, instead of me paying you three or four months' rent, why don't you move into the empty unit that um is similar enough, right?

So um I think that I appreciated that.

I hear the the concern around not having the the full figures around you know, case studies, what the specific um costs of earthquake improvements would be, or electrical versus you know, structural, and I know that could vary a lot.

Um there has been a lot of work that's gone into this, and I don't want to delay this.

You know, I think there are ways that we've built in where our housing providers, our landlords are able to raise this to whether it's the city manager or their designee, whoever staff decides to choose from here, but um I think there is a lot of good work here for us to continue forward and for staff to come back to us in a year and to tell us, you know, not make this a pilot program, but to say where have we seen the data work, where have we seen the policy make a difference, and and if we're seeing too many people, too many housing providers, landlords go through the the permit process, then maybe that's something we reconsider right and adjust and tweak there.

But um I also liked the idea of Project Sentinel being that agency, right?

A really a neutral party and agency that's working with tenants and landlords to tell them about their rights, tell them about new processes, changes to the state law.

Um I think an agency like that would be really helpful in this moment so that everybody knows what the new framework is, but um that is what I'm thinking.

So with that's you know, happy to look to my colleagues.

Um I see Council Member Chu has her hand raised.

Can I offer a friendly amendment that as you suggested, um, in that we follow, you know, if you judging by the comments tonight, it's in the event that the um right to return policy as written now is passed.

Can we follow this and look at the results like the changes in you know, major renovations, the changes and upgrades and improvements to properties independent of other programs.

I mean, we have to control for all that.

We can't just look at the raw numbers, and that if it's having unintended consequences that we would adjust it in a year or two.

Is there a way to add an amendment to sort of look look at what the results are?

I would accept that friendly amendments, um, but city attorney, is there any legal issues from that?

No, that's definitely something that the council can direct.

Um I think it's more of a question for the manager's office.

Um, but uh that that is not a problem legally.

Okay.

Just wanted to see if the the housing staff would like to comment on that.

I think the the only challenge I see with that, and um is kind of that last part of your your comment, council member, which is controlling for all other factors, and that seems to me uh uh a challenge just when it comes to um economic questions around housing.

So um, with that, maybe the housing staff have a uh more nuanced thought than I do.

Yeah, Patrick Eisinger's assistant city manager.

I have a couple of thoughts.

I'll try to get back to to the city manager's question.

This has been a very good conversation.

Um I don't want us to overpromise something.

What I mean by that is with with regard to the right of return, and um Councilmember G started and everybody hit on some real good points.

I truly feel now after listening to everything, the guideline component is gonna be a lot more complicated than we had thought.

And and so when I what I'm getting at is is we wanna be realistic about the timing of the guidelines for the right of return.

I think the other guideline work and all that.

I just I want to proffer that to the council as you're thinking about what I mean by that, and I have insight on what what's slated on the next agendas coming forward, to put policy around what happens if there's soft story, what happens if there's a lot?

I think that's gonna be a lot more.

I think that's great stuff to analyze.

And I just want to make sure that everybody so I'm not I'm not sure if something would get bifurcated or the timing on the right of return policy would be a little bit lagging, just want to be really upfront that after hearing all the input, I do think it's gonna be a lot more.

Not saying we can't accomplish it.

I just know we're with the the meetings that we have coming, it's gonna be tough to find time to go through some of those conversations with, you know, because you know, sure, uh uh a landlord could appeal, but are we saying we're gonna allow them to get every dollar back?

Is there a threshold that's gonna take some time to go through?

I think, you know, that's just my instinct.

So, and then and looping back to to Melissa's question.

I think if we're gonna take time, then we could also think about what would a uh a one or two-year check in like what do we want to have a meeting of the minds on?

What are we gonna track, to be honest with you, to make sure that we don't as staff go down a path that um doesn't, you know, doesn't uh parallel with what the council's expectations are.

So I think again, trying to loop back to City Manager's question from Councilmember Chu is like I think we would like some time to think a little bit about that as like what would it look like to report back on this.

We have some work to do with community development with building, we want to make sure we have the infrastructure in place to make sure that we don't just say, yeah, we can totally do that, because it will take some work and some investment to do that.

So thank you.

Thank you, Patrick.

Vice Mayor.

I just um I appreciate the me personally, I appreciate the friendly amendment.

But I again I just sort of feel like of course, any ordinance that we pass, we can tweak the ordinance later.

Of course, we can always we're always open to hearing what's going on, but I think tonight we just need action on either ordinance A or ordinance B.

And w we've been on the sidelines waiting for too long.

Thank you, Vice Mayor.

Councilmember Sturkin.

Thank you.

Um I I'm open to either.

Um I I do think it is good practice to have a yearly check-in, and we have requested that of staff with a variety of ordinances that we have discussed over the past couple years.

Um and leaving it to staff to share metrics with us.

Um but ultimately I I am very supportive of this ordinance because it's keys people from losing their homes while also enabling property owners to maintain and upgrade their properties, as well as help folks transition to new homes.

Should they not be able to or choose not to return to their unit, and it preserves extremely low income units in the city, which is a priority of this council, and ultimately I just want to make sure that my neighbors that your neighbors council member two can stay in the city?

Uh so I think this is again part of the original vision of prior council and and it's time to implement it.

Thank you.

Thank you everybody for the great discussion.

Is there a motion?

I move to um approve the ordinance that includes the right of first return.

And is there a second?

I'll second.

That was a motion from Vice Mayor Aiken, a second from Councilmember Sturkin.

Could we get a roll call vote, please?

We'll start with council member G.

No.

Councilmember Howard.

Yes.

Councilmember Sturkin.

Yes.

Councilmember Chu.

No.

Vice Mayor Aiken.

Yes.

Mayor Martinez Sabayos.

Yes.

The motion passes with four votes.

Council members G and Chu opposed, and Councilmember Padilla absent.

Thank you.

Thank you again, Lynn and the team for the great presentation and all the great responses to the council's questions tonight.

Thank you to our consultants as well.

And uh Ms.

Kahn from Project Central who joined us.

Thank you again, everybody.

We will now move on to item 9B, which is our public hearing to review and receive comments on the Redwood City Water Utility Division 2025 Public Health Goal Report.

We have public works superintendent Justin Chappell, who will give us the presentation.

Welcome, Justin.

All right.

Thank you, Mayor Sabias.

Uh so good evening, council members, uh, mayor, vice mayor.

So as you said, my name is Justin Chapel.

I'm with the public works department.

I am the superintendent of the water division.

So tonight I will be uh discussing the uh water systems public health goal report.

Um, so start with that.

So the outline uh will tonight we'll start with some background about where our water comes from and the water uh quality in our drinking water, then we'll review the public health goal report before reviewing the staff recommendations in the public hearing.

So some questions that we have for the council to consider this evening include: does the Cel City Council have questions about the intent of the public health goal report?

Does the city council have questions on the city's efforts to reduce exposure from lead and drinking water?

And does the city council have feedback on the city's efforts to inform the community about drinking water quality?

So going into the background, I'd like to briefly talk about where we get our water and how water quality is managed.

So to start, Redwood City purchased all of its drinking water from the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, and about 85% of that comes from the Hechechi Reservoir, and the other 15% comes from local Bay Area Reservoirs in Alameda and San Mateo counties.

Now the first component contributing to the high quality of drinking water that we receive from the San Francisco Regional Water System and primarily from Hedgehead is due to nature.

So this is because the watershed at Hechechi is mostly granite, and that results in cleaner runoff entering Hechechi.

Also recreational activities are prohibited in the Hechechi reservoir itself.

So there's no swimming, no you know boats or anything like that, and that also uh helps keep harmful contaminants out of the water.

Additionally, SFPUC conducts watershed sanitary surveys annually at Hatch Hechi and every five years at every other reservoir in the system that they manage.

That's because of these reasons, uh and with minimal treatment from the head from Hechechi because it meets uh federal drinking water standards without the needing uh need to be filtered.

So those reasons why the water quality just coming from Hechechi naturally is much better than uh many other uh sources that you might find in other water systems.

So, but before the water does come to Redwood City, it is treated by San Francisco, and that includes chlorination, ultraviolet disinfection, pH adjustment for corrosion control, fluoridation for dental health, and finally chloramination, which maintains a disinfectant residual in the water and helps reduce things called disinfection byproducts, which are known to be harmful to us.

So, and then one last thing is the water from local reservoirs is filtered, unlike what we get from HECHECHI.

So the SFPC also conducts tens of thousands of water tests annually, and that's in the reservoir along the pipeline before it comes to Redwood City, and then during the treatment processes they have the different treatment plants.

The Redwood City also collects uh samples after the water enters our distribution system, and that's on a weekly, monthly, and quarterly schedules, and in compliance with federal and state drinking water standards.

So all the samples we collect uh from the water system are tested for different contaminants that could be in the drinking water, and the results from these water samples are uh that are collected by Redwood City and by the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission are published in an annual water quality report uh for all of our customers to view.

Uh so this contains all results for all regulated contaminants, and the most recent report is from 2024, and it uh you can also view all reports going back to 2005 on our website.

So the water quality report lists both legal limits uh for drinking water quality, the public health goal limits, and the results for each of the contaminants that are uh detected.

Uh so now I'd like to get into the difference of of why we're really here tonight, which is talking about the public health goal report.

And as I just mentioned, the legal limits and public uh, well, the legal limits and public health goals uh are not always the same.

Uh so let me kind of define each of those.

So, first off, legal limits are set either by the United States Environmental Protection Agency as part of the Safe Drinking Water Act, or by the California State Water Resources Control Board Division of Drinking Water.

So, if legal limits are exceeded, treatment must be provided to reduce the contaminant below the legal limit.

And on the other hand, public health goals are set by the California Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment.

So that's quite a mouthful, but we uh we shorten it to OEHA.

Um, so and then public health goals are not enforceable or required to be treated in drinking water.

However, the division of drinking water at the state water board does use uh the public health goals when setting legal limits and attempts to set the legal limit less than or as close as possible to the public health goal.

So, as required by federal uh the federal lead and copper rule, uh, Redwood City conducts sampling every two years at customer taps.

And the last sampling was done in 2024, where we collected samples from 30 homes in Redwood City, and of those 30 homes, 13 had lead detected above the above the public health goal.

Now, when testing for lead, the samples are collected in order to detect the highest possible concentrations of lead, and this is done by first uh targeting high-risk homes that are more likely to have lead-based solder and copper plumbing, and secondly, by grabbing the samples after the water has been sitting in the pipes for more than six hours.

And this is because lead typically enters drinking water through leaching from household plumbing fixtures.

The legal limit for lead is actually called an action level, and it's exceeded when 10% of all the samples are above 15 parts per billion.

The public health goal for lead is actually 0.2 parts per billion.

So the results uh that we had from the lead uh tap sampling in 2024 all were below the uh action level, and the average of that was about one parts per billion.

Now, additionally, uh for everyone who participated in the program that had a detection over the public health goal, we did notify them that what uh of the result and what they could do to reduce their risk to lead.

So this map shows the locations where lead exceeded the public health goal, and the uh the more red you see in the in the the map shows where there is more uh lead detected.

Uh so this map shows uh where um the use of lead solder uh was where lead solder was used um prior to it being prohibited for use in the uh California in 1986.

So um so really it's just the concentration of where we're most likely going to see lead from plumbing fixtures and uh customers' homes.

So to meet the legal limit, the EPA recognizes corrosion control as the best available technology to reduce drinking uh lead and drinking water, and the SFPUC has implemented this technology by adjusting the pH of the water during treatment to make it less corrosive.

Redwood City routinely monitors the pH to ensure there's effective corrosion control in our distribution system.

The city has also compiled an inventory of water service lines to inspect for lead and determine the material for both the city portion of the service line, which is a portion before the city from the water main to the water meter, and from the customer owned portion line, which is from the water meter to the building.

So you know we uh haven't fully completed this the inventory of all service lines, but we're nearly complete.

So out of the 24,500 service lines we have, uh we have still about 150 that we have to determine the material on the customer side portion of the service line.

So customers can also reduce their risk from lead and drinking water by using only cold water for cooking and drinking, and this is because lead is more likely to leak leach from plumbing fixtures in hot water.

Customers can also let the cold water run for a few seconds prior to using it to flush water that has been sitting in the pipes and fixtures for a while.

Also, old brass plumbing fixtures can pose a higher risk from lead, and replacing these fixtures could reduce that lead exposure.

And in 2010, California passed a no lead law that requires all plumbing fixtures to be lead-free.

So if your pictures were installed after 2010.

There's no need to replace it.

And for more information, Public Works has prepared an FAQ on lead that is available on our website.

Um there's also more information available on the EPA's website uh at the links below shown on this slide.

So with that, um concludes the presentation, and uh we're ready to receive and acknowledge comments from the public and uh then we request to refer any comments on the uh to the public works department.

Great.

Thank you, Justin, for the wonderful presentation.

We'll first open the public hearing for public comment and then bring it back.

Thank you, City Clerk.

Thank you, Mayor.

I don't have any speaker cards at this time.

So last call that I to the audience or to folks on Zoom for public comment on this item tonight.

Seeing none, Mayor, I'll turn it back to you.

With that, we'll close the public hearing and I'll invite my council colleagues to share their thoughts or any questions.

Councilmember G.

Thank you, Mayor.

Justin, thanks for the update.

If I understand correctly, you have to do we have to do this report every two years.

Every three years, yes.

Every three years.

It'd be nice to know the longitudinal um studies, the results going backwards every three years.

Because the graph you showed shows I think an increase in at least those 10 samples.

And so number one, going backwards to see if there was zero, then two, then you know what the trend line is, and then based on that, can you extrapolate going forward at when I think it's the AL actionable lever level might be achieved?

I mean is that data can you know from a metallurgist or from whoever can do that extrapolation going forward?

Um, so I can speak anecdotally to it just based on my own observations.

I think in general we have seen a decrease every time we do the lead uh tap sampling, fewer uh detections in uh you know on a longer trend, and overall the the amount detected is generally lower.

Now there are some uh times when it goes up, you know, you know, from one three-year cycle to the next, but we do have all those reports and we can provide them um if needed so uh to show the actual trend.

I I think um, you know, it la you go looking forward that we will actually see at some point where we're much closer to that public health goal level, but it's really a matter of individuals replacing their uh plumbing fixtures or the uh the copper plumbing in their homes.

So yeah, let's so let me just aggregate that then.

It'd be great to see the trend line going back to if it's every three years, this is what 2024, so it would be 21 and 18 and 15 and and from a hechey SF, you know, it's probably going down.

But then I look at the heat maps, which are the responsibility of the homeowners, and that was where the sampling was.

You've got the other end going up the other side based on the action or inaction of that property owner.

Is that correct?

That's right, yes.

And so, what do we have?

I mean, this heat map says there's some homes that is going up, and so we do we what's the limit of our obligation to tell the homeowner it's going up.

That's a good question.

I think this public hearing is a good opportunity to uh you know uh raise awareness about the potentials of uh lead and drinking water.

Um, you know, the annual water quality report also has a lot of text on it, so I think it's through those sorts of efforts where we can raise awareness.

Again, text heavy doesn't always work versus a graphic, and so that's why I'm interested in the extrapolation going forward for these concentrations that they're increasing.

I mean, they're not gonna decrease without an action by the property owner, is that a good way of saying that?

Um they'll have to replace something, piping or plumbing fixtures or something.

Yeah.

So I guess are you you're kind of looking at this and seeing how the the increasing to the right?

Yes, the 20 samples from 18 to 30.

They're not gonna go down unless there's some intentional action by the property owner.

R uh right.

So I guess one thing about this, um, if I'm understanding correctly, is it's we're just displaying the data from the lowest to the highest.

Yeah, okay.

Correct.

But yeah, you're right.

The the the these will not go down uh unless uh property owners replace their fixtures.

And that's my point is how do we mean do we tell a homeowner anything?

Do we tell homeowners in these darker red areas that you know beyond you gotta do something or you should do something?

Well, we do tell the homeowners who participate in the tap sampling that they were you know detect you know, we detected the lead levels, you know, above the public health goal, and here's ways to uh reduce your risk.

But you know, to your point, yeah, we we haven't given the same information to general neighborhoods, like in this heat map where maybe people should be made more aware.

And just one thing to note about this is this is just based off of when homes were originally constructed.

We have we don't really know, and I wasn't able to pull if they've replaced their plumbing or not, right?

So but the the heat maps are indicative of the sampling.

So those samples 18 18 to 30, they're not gonna be they're not gonna stay the same unless there's some intentional action by the proper owner.

So the question is what do we do?

How do we tell neighborhoods or homeowners increase their awareness that they need to do something?

And so um it's not gonna be answered tonight, but that's something to think about.

How do we and what's our role as a city to let these neighborhoods know there's you should be thinking about doing something and investing in your property?

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember.

Go to Vice Mary.

Uh Justin, thank you.

Excellent report.

Just uh you already said it, but it um the hour is late.

So I um you said something about dates when regulations disallowed lead.

Could you go over that again with all the dates of when lead pipes were perfectly okay, then when they weren't by state law or federal law or just that you already said if you could just say it again?

Sure, yeah.

A few things.

So in I think it was nineteen eighty-six when the state outlawed lead-based solder for copper plumbing.

So that's at the certain point when we wouldn't have lodder that has a potential for lead in it.

Um anything constructed after that date.

Now it wasn't until 2010 when the state outlawed lead in brass fixtures, so like your sink um sort of thing.

Um the faucets.

So that's the other date when um, you know, you would see a potential another reduction if you know fixtures are replaced after 2010.

And then the another another thing with the inventory that we do, uh maybe maybe I didn't say it clearly.

I'm trying to remember what I said it's late.

But um, so we haven't found any lead lot plumbing or service lines in our inventory, and I don't expect to find any.

So with the the 150 or so that we have left.

And you're you're talking about city pipes, is that correct?

Um, actually with the service line inventory, it includes the city portion of the line uh from the water main to the meter and the customer portion of the line from the water meter to the building.

So we're we're checking the customer side up to their house, but not inside the house.

Okay, and and so that's the homes that you check every three years.

You don't check every single home every three years or so yeah, there's two different things.

So the the tap sampling where we actually collect water samples, that that's only certain homes every three years, but the inventory to check for lead plumbing material, that that's for every single service line, but it's only once.

Well, that's that's great news.

So um city pipes good and even going into houses.

Would would um then it sounds like to me uh folks whose homes were constructed before 1986, um, might want to take a look at these heat maps.

Is that kind of what I'm hearing?

That's correct.

Yeah.

And so if someone knows that they have copper plumbing and they it was built before 1986, and those pipes are prior to 1986, it'd probably be a good idea to look at it.

Thank you.

Thank you, Vice Mayor.

We'll go to Councilmember Howard next.

Thank you.

So is there a way?

I mean, it sounds like awareness would be a good thing, and that we should think of how we could do it.

I know you have the um the water program where you ask people to do posters and take on themes, and I'm wondering if maybe you couldn't do a theme around that.

Uh not that everyone's gonna be able to replace, but everyone who participates may be a lot more educated, and I love the ideas which I remember hearing them years ago about running the water and making sure it's clear before you drink it.

Use cold water, not hot water and things like that.

I bet most people don't even know those simple things.

And so maybe it's a real opportunity uh for the public works department to bring awareness to this situation.

Also wanted to know do we provide um rebates for uh like water purifiers or um I have a canister in my sink and you turn it on purify gives you purified water for a certain number of gallons.

Do we I think we offer rebates for those, don't we?

Um for that sort of uh device, no, not for filters, it's usually for something that would end up saving water for like um so we don't have any rebates for something that would clean the water without replacing the whole system in their house.

That's that's true, but you know, there are it's some filters uh can actually remove lead from the water too, so that is another option for the public to consider.

Again, an opportunity to educate.

I think we really should be doing some education on this because it's too important.

Thanks.

Thank you, Councilmember Howard.

We'll go to Councilmember Cheek next.

Um, thank you so much for this report.

It's really interesting, actually.

I so just going back to the maps, the heat map of where there was likely lead exposure and then the heat map of where you actually found it was surprising to me because uh it is it does not follow the the pattern that those kinds of maps typically follow.

Um and so I wondered if you had any insight as to why so some of the neighborhoods that are older, lower income, uh don't don't have lead.

Uh and why why the neighborhoods I would expect not to have lead it's just the opposite of the expected pattern, and I'm happy that some of the older neighborhoods.

Yeah, this this one here, the probability doesn't match the the findings, and I can you help me understand was there like a lead mitigation program in district three and downtown, like kind of what what would explain that finding?

It's just really interesting to me.

Yeah, you know, I would say there is a small correlation, but certainly not in your district where you're observing the the probability, um, but it's I guess you could say the uh the data in this map is not a hundred percent known.

We don't know for a fact that the plumbing materials used in district three was copper, which might be a reason why.

The other thing is the we have a list of um properties that we can ask uh to actually test during the customer tap sampling, and that's approved by the the EPA back in when the lead and copper rule came out in the mid-90s, and then also by the state water board.

So I'd have to double check, but it's possible we might not have any homes in that location.

So I think it would be really great and important to sample any, you know, where you have you know the denominator of potential uh houses with copper pipes that may have lead or solder um to make sure that we're sampling from all the neighborhoods where that exposure may be taking place.

Um it it's just very surprising not to see in district three.

Um that that's remarkable.

I mean, it's great if if that's the case, but if the reason we don't see it is because they're not sampling um that that would be good to know.

Thank you.

But terrific report and uh i i share the the view that we should probably find a way to communicate this information to people so that people have the opportunity to uh rectify it if they can council member we'll go to council member circuit next thank you mayor thank you so much um i agree with uh councilmember g's request to have a see a trend line um with the every three year data kind of all in one place so we can see you know what we likely know is that we're getting worse right um but have that historic perspective um and then also agree with council member two's uh request to sample in all neighborhoods where lead um may occur um because this is a problem regardless of where in the city it occurs right um it's not healthy uh and on the topic of the last question you know uh awareness and education only goes so far and I feel like we got into this discussion at our last meeting you know council member two you had mentioned um actually the the boil water uh warning is so similar very topical tonight um but you know my landlord's not gonna tell me that I have copper pipes I mean that's just not on his to-do list.

So I'd like to know I think tenants would like to know whomever is the resident like you know you get a magazine in the mail it says you know so and so Chris Stirken or current resident right so whomever's the resident right um would be the best person to notify um and then also to Councilmember Howard's uh you know question is our is our utility assistance program you know could improvements you know whether be uh water filtration um uh insert or replacing pipes could that be eligible uh for an eligible um use obviously we don't have a lot of money in that program um but uh that's a question I have well I think uh you make a good point yeah the the funds that we have available in the utility rate assistance program it are somewhat limited I think if we're starting to replace uh fixtures or plumbing systems we might run out fairly quickly um you know but you know if that's something council would want us to look into we could potentially look into it thank you I'd be supportive of that um and uh this question's more of a joke but would uh replacing all those pipes qualify as a substantial remodel okay um that's that's rhetorical uh okay so that those were my questions um I actually the last question I apologize so California OEHA had at least on uh staff the staff report page five uh lowered the threshold from two parts per billion to 0.2 parts per billion and so uh for what is I guess as they named this safe lead in in drinking water um due to you know studies and health risk so I guess that informs my question about outreach is on that chart if you could bring up the chart um you know with the the samples I guess thank you very much so here we got um a lot of most of the samples above the point two uh but um between the point two and the two uh so and then of course a few above the two so are we are we prioritizing in our outreach households that are above the the two uh parts per billion or you you know what I mean?

Like should there be tiers of outreach, prioritization of outreach uh for those who are most at risk in the above two category than the folks who are in the between the point two to two.

Um, we didn't do anything differently if you know, because uh every single one of those samples where it was detected as above the public health goal, but all also below the action level.

Um, so and then of course, you know, one through seventeen was zero.

So that there's no lead detected in most of the the samples that were collected.

So, but yeah, we didn't do any diff anything differently, so because if it's above the public health goal, you know, a small amount versus a larger amount, you know, that over time period of time it might be more hazardous to individual if they're not taking those other precautions that I mentioned.

Um but we did inform them, you know, what they can do to reduce their exposure.

Thank you.

I would just suggest that yeah, as we do that outreach uh and as we consider maybe assistance of some kind that we maybe prioritize the folks who are already above that two parts grouping threshold, um, and then and so on.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Surgen.

Not seeing anybody else, I'll add my thanks.

Um Justin appreciate the great presentation uh plus one to many of my colleagues' concerns around just notification and how we educate people about what resources are out there.

And um this didn't occur to me until looking at um these maps again, but I was curious.

You know, I know District 4, we we have um lots of historical homes with the Stamball Heller neighborhood and lots of those buildings have been there and people are buying them because they're historic, right?

And they love the the look, the feel.

How are we notifying those folks who probably are gonna be in the higher priority area for improvements?

So the the notifications we do provide uh we have in the past is the annual water quality report.

Um so that goes out every year.

It it's a it's a postcard that we send out to all of our customers, and it's not just those who get a water bill.

We send it to every single dwelling unit in the city, so it goes to apartments and not just you know whoever's paying the water bill.

And we we don't send it to the mailing address, we send it to the service address.

So that's potentially one way we can get the the message out to individuals.

Um beyond that, we do have our a website which has a lot of information about water quality on it.

Um, and those are the the the primary ways that we get the uh information out about the drinking water quality.

Okay, great.

Thank you, Justin.

And um, before I go to my next um topic, I was curious.

Is that postcard in other languages or is that just in English when that gets sent out?

It it is primarily just in English.

It has um one line in Spanish and I think another line in Chinese starting last year.

Uh, to give information how they can contact public works to get it translated for them.

Okay.

Great.

That's amazing to hear.

Um, aside from that, I know there's for historic homes, and I'm forgetting the name of the state program that allows folks to the Mills Act.

If we have properties applicants for the Mills Act, I feel like that'd be another great place to just start to say, hey, this is absolutely something you might want to look into.

Um, aside from that, I wanted to just add my support for um, you know, Council Member Surgen's idea about using some of the utility assistance fees for for improvements.

It might not be able to replace a water main, but it could help with the Britta um supplemental pieces that go on a somebody's um somebody's sink, right?

So I'm sure that would go a lot further than replacing pipes underground, but um just an idea that I had.

Appreciate this, Justin.

Um with that, I will entertain a motion from my colleagues.

Oh, just information.

There we go.

Even easier.

Thanks, Justin.

Appreciate it.

With that, we will now move on to uh our staff reports, which we have none of tonight, and that'll take us to 11, which is matters of council interest, beginning with 11A.

Uh city council member report of attending attended conferences.

Um I just wanted to report back that last week.

Many colleagues in myself uh attended the League of California City's annual conference and expo in Long Beach.

And Councilmembers G, who attended at his own expense, Council members Padilla and Stirkin, Feisfair, Aiken, and I had the opportunity to hear presentations on key topics for local leaders and connect with our fellow California city officials from around the state, which is always a really um informative opportunity.

Most importantly, you know, there was a or actually the General Assembly and Resolutions process didn't take place this year because nothing was submitted.

But thank you, Councilmember Sturkin, for serving as our voting delegate this year.

This was a great opportunity to just really hear on a wide range of topics, and I'll invite my colleagues who attended to share a few thoughts or any takeaways they had.

We'll go with the vice mayor.

I'm still trying to process, so I I want to thank the city for for hosting me.

I learned so much, and uh I'm still processing, I'm still not even sure what I learned.

I'm still processing it all.

It was just like an avalanche of knowledge.

Um so I'll just do give us a quick snap snapshot that I I learned from a futurist.

So, first of all, I didn't even know there was such a thing as a futurist.

Um, but I learned from a futurist that technological change is happening, but not as fast as we think it is.

It's happening half as fast as we think it is.

So I'm still thinking about that.

And um uh the profession of futurist is uh just like a profession of like physicist or economist.

I didn't know that, but it's a thing.

Um and then just finally I heard how Seal Beach is dealing with their downtown parking headaches, and I learned um about homeless remedies from a city called Redlands.

Thank you, Vice Mayor and we'll find that futurist and buy some lotto tickets real soon.

Would anyone else like to report on?

Councilmember G.

Thank you, Mayor.

I did attend also.

I sat in on a couple of the same sessions that the Vice Mayor sat in about effective parking management, Seal Beach and Dixon Resources.

Um University of Redlands, everybody knows where Redlands is.

You just head out toward uh Palm Springs and you run into Redlands right there about collaboration on homelessness.

Uh also sat in on a session by Moreno Valley on development agreements, and we probably should be able to give a presentation since we've been doing it twice as long as Moval, as they I think their Mo Val.org for Moreno Valley, that they need to change to Mo Val.gov, like the rest of us.

And then at a couple of the general sessions, the closing session, the keynote speaker was Aaron Brockovich, and then I said on the Thursday um general session where Nir Basham, the founder and CEO of the Creative Mindset was the keynote speaker.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you, Councilmember.

Anyone else?

Councilmember Howard.

Thank you.

I was not able to go to the conference, but I had the honor of going to the community leadership academy, the first class, and there were over 40 people there, and I am so enthused.

I'm telling you that there was a lot of excitement in the room.

People want to be there, they're excited to see what they will learn about our city and how we how we put things together and how we operate.

So I hope all of you will have the opportunity to attend at least one of those uh meetings just to learn more about uh people's questions and what brought them to participate.

It was really a good time.

Thanks so much for the city staff for setting it all up.

Thank you, Councilmember Howard.

Councilmember Sirkin.

Thank you, Mayor.

I um just want to express my thanks to the city for enabling me to participate in Cal Cities, which I would not have been able to financially afford to do so otherwise.

Um, but I really did learn a lot.

Um I was going through my notes here.

Um, one thing that I found interesting in the same session, Councilmember G went to about Redlands um housing model was they hosted a landlord fair uh to connect um folks who were eligible for Rapper B housing, uh unhouse folks um with a landlord who'd already agreed to accept uh funds from the city.

Um so that was a very innovative uh concept, I think we could uh learn from.

And um then the child care uh session I went to, had a fantastic panel with that on the campus from San Jose, um, the mayor of West Hollywood, um, among others, and you know, it just helps kind of uh further my education um and learning about how you know TK transitional kindergarten may not be available um you know when when you need it.

And and so that's where our um at-home day care providers come into play, and I know we've done a lot at work as the city to help facilitate connections with the community, um, and we we definitely can keep doing that.

Um also went to a small cell wireless uh session last mayor as well and and councilmember but the uh that was a very interesting education.

Um, so yeah, it was a great networking opportunity.

Learned a lot and looking forward to implementing uh what I've learned here in the city.

Thank you, Councilmember.

And with that, we will move on to 11B, City Council Committee reports, and Councilmember Howard has a report out for us.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh, the two by two by two committee comprised of school board members and superintendents from the Redwood City School District and Sequoia Union High School District, as well as myself, Mayor Martinez Sabayos and City Manager Melissa Stevenson Diaz met on Tuesday, September 30th.

Both districts shared budget challenges in light of declining enrollment and the loss of one-time funding related to the COVID pandemic.

The Redwood City School District is conducting community engagement ahead of reductions expected to be announced next spring.

The district is also considering a revenue measure to help fund operations.

The Redwood City School District has begun their search for a new superintendent as John Baker will be retiring in June 2026.

Sequoia Union High School District representatives expressed appreciation for the new police substation at Sequoia Station and believe that increased police presence has improved traffic safety on James.

We shared updates on the Hoover Park project, which went out to bid in September.

We also noted that police officer Aaron Sussman has been selected the school liaison officer and will begin in mid-October.

High school representatives expressed appreciation for this partnership.

Following up on the City Council's September 29th study session on Vision Zero, district representatives said driver's education was no longer a required part of the curriculum.

They said they have seen limited interest by students in learning to drive as costs have risen and alternatives like Uber and Lyft emerged.

We also discussed use of school buses.

District representatives said that state funding for busing students had ended many years ago, replaced by block grants to schools.

Districts provide buses for special education students, some feeder districts, and field trips.

They are not aware of any statewide advocacy for schools to resume busing.

The Redwood City School District provides SAM trans passes for students and parents who need to attend further away schools.

Thank you, Councilmember Howard.

And we'll move on to 11 C City Manager Oral update.

Thank you.

Just in light of the hour, I'll just highlight one thing, which is that every two years we ask residents for their input on city services, and that's happening now.

So we encourage people to go to our city website and it's uh under the news, and they can provide feedback to us.

That's very useful as we come to you later with budget proposals in the year and help us assess how we're doing it, providing services for the community.

Thank you.

Thank you, Suda Manager.

With that, we'll go on to item 12 closed session.

We'll now convene closed session regarding real property negotiations, anticipating litigation and existing litigation as identified on the agenda tonight.

Before we convene the closed session, I'd like to ask the city clerk if we received any public comment.

No comments on the closed session item mayor.

Okay.

With that, we'll now adjourn to closed session in the event that the closed session results and reportable action.

We'll be returning to the days to report out.

If there's no reportable action, the meeting will be adjourned immediately following closed session...

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Perfect.

Hello, everyone.

We are back from closed session.

It is a little later than we started, but I'll pass it over to our city attorney to report out.

So tonight in closed session, the city council, by a vote of six-zero, voted to approve a written settlement with Mr.

Joe Etchema to resolve litigation and claims alleged against the city in litigation.

Mr.

Echema has agreed to the settlement prior to the closed session.

Therefore, upon the city council's vote approving the settlement, the city has taken final reportable action.

Principal terms of the settlement agreement are as follows.