All right.

Good evening, everybody.

Thank you for joining our regular city council meeting of October twenty-seventh, twenty twenty-five.

It is past six o'clock, so we're gonna go ahead and get started.

We're holding meetings in a hybrid format with both in-person and virtual participation available.

The city welcomes public comment on topics within the city's subject matter jurisdiction, and members of the public may provide comments as follows.

Excuse me, speaker cards are located at the back table in the council chambers and must be turned in to the city clerk at the dais.

Please be sure to indicate the agenda 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 the screen when the time for public comment begins.

If there's a high volume of public comment this evening, we may decrease the time allotted for each comment or limit the total time for each public comment.

In the event that this occurs, please feel free to send your full comments to the City Council at Council at Rewood City.org.

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

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

Councilmember G.

Present.

Councilmember Howard.

Here, Councilmember Padilla.

Here.

With that, we'll now go on to the pledge of allegiance.

Councilmember G.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

You would rise and join me in saluting the flag of our country.

We will 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 a meeting remotely and have not already provided a remote location listed on the agenda.

This item does not pertain to public comments from the public, and we have no council members exercising this tonight.

So we will move on to our next item.

We'll now convene to our closed session regarding public employee appointment as identified on the agenda.

Before we convene closed session, I'd like to ask the city clerk if there are any public comments on the closed session item.

We'll now adjourn to closed session, which should take us hopefully less than an hour.

But following the conclusion of closed session, the council will return to the dais and reconvene open session.

We appreciate patience.

Thanks, everybody.

We're going to be a couple of people.

Okay.

Okay.

Good evening, everybody.

We're going to go ahead and get started.

Thank you so much for your patience while we reconvene from close session.

We're we're going to begin our meeting tonight with item six, which is our presentations and acknowledgments, beginning with six A, a proclamation recognizing domestic violence awareness month.

This is our proclamation for October 2025, declaring October as Domestic Violence Awareness Month, a national observance dedicated to raising awareness and educating the public about domestic violence.

And we brought an incredible organization to highlight Cora, which is the only and probably the only service DV services provider here in San Mateo County, serving people in their most critical moments of need.

And leading with programs like the Domestic Violence Emergency Response Team or Divert, your truly leading the way for the county to help transform lives.

And so this month, there are various efforts to support survivors on our victims and advocate for an end to abuse.

And I'll read a few whereas from the proclamation, whereas more than one in three women, one in four men, and one in two transgender individuals experience some form of physical or sexual violence and or stalking by their intimate partner in their lifetime.

On behalf of the City Council, I'd like to extend appreciation to CORA for their important work, supporting victims of domestic abuse, and invite CEO Karen Ferguson to the podium to accept the proclamation and share a few words.

Welcome, Karen.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, City Council members, and thank you to all who are here today.

Um we really appreciate this proclamation.

And I have to tell you first of all that as of this week, by actually end of tomorrow, every single jurisdiction within San Mateo County will have done a proclamation.

And that is, I I think it's historic.

I'm not sure that we've ever been able to accomplish that before.

And so I really thank you because it's so important to call out and make sure that we really are bringing to light that domestic violence is happening because this is the statistics that you shared means that just as we're sitting here in this group, there are those of us who have been impacted by domestic violence, whether we are survivors ourselves or whether we have friends, family members, neighbors who have been going through this as well in terms of their lives.

And so bringing this forward into the light is a way for a proclamation like this to say if you have perpetrated, then we are going to hold you accountable.

And if you are a person who has endured this, then we see you and you are not alone.

So we deeply appreciate the moment.

Um Cora, as you said, is the single provider of comprehensive free and confidential services, mental health services, legal services.

We have an emergency shelter, we have a hotline.

I'm gonna say it out loud just in case there are people that might need it.

Three uh 800, 300, 1080.

Um, and um uh so those services are available for anyone in need, and again, free and confidential.

We also are really making sure that we are out within the community.

So we now have a coastside clinic, we have an East Palo Alto Clinic, we have um a small presence in San Bruno.

We're hoping to get more of a presence up in North County.

We've been here uh in the North Fair Oaks community, uh the medical health center, and we're hoping to be in the community center really soon.

Um, and I do want to call out that Redwood City has been an incredible partner.

Uh Chief Val is a part of our board, and so she brings the her expertise, but also that view from Redwood City to the board of Cora, as well as Chris Stirkin on your city council, has been an advisory guide to our board and to the agency.

So we deeply appreciate the partnership with Redwood City, and we deeply appreciate this proclamation.

Thank you very much.

Thank you for your remarks, Karen.

We've got a proclamation for you, and we'd love to take a photo while you're here.

Thank you.

There's a thank you again, Karen and the Cora team for all that you do in our community.

We will now move on to item six B, which is a presentation by the Port of Redwood City.

We'd like to welcome Port Commissioner Stan Mountain, Vice Chair Nancy Radcliffe, and Port Director Christine Zortman to the podium.

Thank you all for being here.

Great.

Well, the slides come up.

There we go.

Okay, good evening, Mayor Martinez Sabios and City Council members.

I am Stan Moppen, Chairman of the Port, the Board of Port Commissioners for fiscal year 2025.

Here with me tonight is Commissioner Gasparini and Port Executive Director Christine Zortman.

Next slide.

As you know, the Board of Port Commissioners is appointed by the City Council to oversee and guide the port and its operations pursuant to Section 47G of the City Charter.

The current board, as shown on the slide, reflects deep business and financial experience and have a wide variety of public service experience serving the broader Redwood City community.

I'm honored to have served with my fellow board members as a port commissioner since 2022.

Next slide.

The port is aligned with several of the city's strategic planning guiding principles.

I'd like to emphasize that most of our work as a board involves our fiduciary management of the port's infrastructure and financial assets.

We run the port as a profitable business, being very entrepreneurial in our oversight.

The port's finances are also managed in compliance with our obligations pursuant to public trust doctrine, which mandates the port to prioritize its maritime commerce above all other uses, as well as utilizing monies derived from maritime commerce for reinvestment back into port assets and infrastructure, solely benefiting maritime commerce.

Next slide.

Three port values drive our operations and vision into the future, including maritime trade, serving Silicon Valley, and waterfront recreation.

Based upon these values, the port focuses our efforts in many areas, including capital investment, stewardship, transparency, community benefit, and of course our ongoing collaboration with the city.

I will speak to these in the next few slides.

In January 2020, the board approved the 2020 strategic vision for the port, which emphasizes growth and opportunities in each of these core values over the next 20 years.

The port is also part of BCDC Seaport Plan, which focuses upon commerce priorities regionally with all the other Bay Area ports establishing port priority uses.

Next slide.

The port diligently strives to partner and collaborate with the city in a variety of ways.

First and foremost, unlike other ports in the U.S., the Port of Redwood City supports the city's general fund through the annual subvention payment.

Over the past few years, the approximate subvention payment has been over half a million dollars per year.

Additionally, we have a strong relationship with many city departments, including IT, Public Works, Parks Recreation and Community Service, and our fire and police departments.

The port historically partners with these various departments in training exercises, contract for services, and community events for waterfront activation in our recreational area.

Lastly, the partnership between the Port, the City, and SF Bay Ferry, formerly known as WEDA, has advanced the long-overdue future public ferry terminal at the port.

We are pleased to have accomplished several milestones in the past years, allowing us to launch the CEQA and environmental review in conjunction with concept design and engineering, which is in partnership with the city and WEDA.

We anticipate the ferry draft EIR will be available for public comment in the second quarter of calendar year 2026.

And we're very excited about that.

Next slide.

The port has a history of stewardship in various areas, including environmental and sustainability, fiduciary, and transparency.

The port enrolled in the largest international voluntary environmental program called Green Marine.

We join other large and small ports and maritime industries in the effort to improve our carbon footprint in areas of air quality, water quality, energy consumption, and other sustainable efforts.

Our future ferry will provide a viable and more sustainable mode of transportation via the water, thereby reducing freeway congestion, improving air quality, and reducing wear and tear on our roadway systems.

Our cost recovery policy allows us to reduce our operational overhead, thereby providing a mechanism for the port to recover costs in staff time and resources for ongoing operations and projects.

The port is also committed to supporting our local nonprofits through an annual call for sponsorship and funding evaluation process.

At the Port of Redwood City, we are proud to sponsor the reuse of dredge materials for resiliency efforts addressing sea level rise for our regional Bay Wide communities, creating and enhancing intertidal habitat with living shoreline protection while providing greenhouse gas reduction and facilitating carbon carbon sequestration.

Next slide, please.

Ports have high value infrastructure that ensures safe, effective, and efficient supply chain and goods movement.

As previously mentioned, maritime commerce is a priority use for both the State Lands Commission pursuant to the public trust doctrine as well as BCDC Seaport Plan.

The port's primary revenue generator is our maritime trade and our maritime tenants operations.

This revenue provides the port the capital to reinvest into the port's infrastructure, benefiting the region and the community.

We are a non-federal sponsor with the U.S.

Army Corps of Engineers for dredging our federal cargo channel.

It's important for the public to know that although we receive funding from the Army Corps through congressional budget appropriations, the money does not come from tax dollars.

It comes from the Harbor Maintenance and Trust Fund, which is solely funded by assessments to shippers.

As previously indicated, beneficial reuse of dredged materials has also been a focus from the state, and we have supported the California State Coastal Conservancy's efforts towards that endeavor.

The port's high value infrastructure, unfortunately, does not maintain itself, so the port is always involved in some type of repair, maintenance or improvements to our infrastructure.

The port is actively uh is also actively pursuing a new domestic Jones Act Trade and Commerce Service with the intention to create a new marine highway for the Bay region.

While this project is in its early stages, it does have support from GOBiz, the Governor's Office of Business and Economic Development.

And we look forward to announcing this more formally in the near future.

Lastly, as the front door to the bay and sea level rise, the port is advancing a living shoreline pilot project, which will allow for the creation of intertidal habitat versus hardening of our shoreline.

Based upon the future success of this project, it will allow the board to set policy decisions for nature-based solutions of our shoreline in areas that can accommodate it.

Next slide, please.

While the port continues to weather impacts to cargo tonnage shortfalls due to market conditions, tariff implications, and the construction sector, the port is proud to provide new activation efforts along our waterfront for the community.

We continue to find new ways to activate the recreational waterfront, including free concerts on the weekends, the new lighted drone shows to kick off the summer, redevelopment opportunities, new outdoor gathering and picnic amenities, and continuing our public art along the waterfront.

Lastly, we are thrilled to announce that in honor of and celebration of the nation's 250th birthday in 2026, the port has already secured a barge and fireworks company to host the annual 4th of July celebration in grand style.

We truly hope to make this spectacular and historic event for our region in collaboration with various city departments.

Next slide, please.

As you can see, the port has been very busy during the past year and has big plans for the upcoming year.

I'd like to recognize Port staff for their ongoing hard work and diligence in managing the port during challenging times.

It is our people that make us successful and provide the community a wonderful place to recreate, but also a valuable economic engine for the region.

Thank you for this opportunity to share the port's annual report for fiscal year 2025, and I'll be happy to take any questions that you may have.

Thank you, Chair Malpin, for the great presentation.

Colleagues.

Does anyone have any questions?

We'll start off with Councilmember Howard.

Well, hello, Stan.

No, that was a great presentation.

Thank you very much.

And you have uh so much to be all of you to be very proud of.

Uh it's quite an impressive list of accomplishments.

Um, I'd like to just say how much I truly enjoy the free Saturday concert series and of course the Port Fest and the other activities that you all strongly support.

And I can see, I hope that it continues because we want more people to know about this jewel down in the water that uh many people don't know we have.

And so I'm really glad that you're doing that more.

Uh, the presence you have, it'll bring more people down as you do these kinds of activities.

And fireworks for the Fourth of July 2026.

Thank you.

Yeah, we we got on that early, so we knew that would be a challenge.

So I wanted to say um, okay.

Um also the future ferry service.

The Bay Area Plan 2050 plus going to be under discussion within I think it's next week and and in the months following.

And it's gone back and forth for ferry service, and it's really an attentive position.

I always wonder if I turn my back if it disappears.

Right.

So I would like to uh hope that all of us can work together, get those letters like we did before.

Uh if we have to attend, we attend, but speak up because we don't want the MTC, Metropolitan Transportation Commission, to think we've gone away.

I want them to seriously remember we're here, we're not going away.

We've waited a long time for ferry service in Redwood City, and we need to honor Pedro Gonzalez, who he and I worked together many many years ago, but he was from the city of South San Francisco.

He was instrumental in getting ferry service for South San Francisco, and he just passed away.

So I know he's watching over us and telling us do not give up.

Yes, thank you.

Yeah, and we've had a good relationship with MTC on this project through the 2050 plus plan.

So we're hoping that that that continues to go forward with what we're doing.

So I also wanted to ask about um FEMA.

You you were chosen as a staging area in catastrophic events.

I'm hoping that still is stable that we will be that that's something that's not in jeopardy because I know a lot's going on at the federal level right now, and FEMA's name has come up.

So could you just let us know what the may I ask this question?

Yeah, what the situation is with the FEMA.

Yeah, currently for us there's no change in the status.

We've been notified of no change in the status.

And for the for those that that I'm sure all the council members know, but for the public real fast, it was in 2017 when we received the designation uh from FEMA based on 21 million dollars worth of infrastructure work that the port did prior to that.

And it um it we again we have no we have no reason to believe that that'll change at this time.

We've been given no indications, but being able to have that federal staging area in Redwood City is critical to this the community, the region, and the South Bay area in it in a disaster.

You know, the supplies will be here and the resources will be here and then distributed out.

Yeah, and with the airport nearby, I mean there's so many reasons why you were chosen.

I'm glad to see that it doesn't seem to be in jeopardy.

Yes, yeah, yeah we have exactly no indication that that there's any change to that.

Thank you.

And lastly, I believe I've um heard discussions around uh the part possible partnering and collaboration with the port on the installation of a fire training facility.

And I know it's been discussed, and I just want to say I know at this time our fire department has to go to another jurisdiction to get training, and that leaves the city having to hire coverage while they are being trained in another jurisdiction, and it becomes really expensive and difficult.

I'm just hoping that those talks will continue because I think it could be a wonderful collaboration.

I enjoy working with the port and the commissioners and the staff are wonderful, so I hope that the talks will continue on that.

Thank you.

Of course, my former life I was engaged in those discussions from the other side, so yes, I fully understand them, and and we will definitely be doing that.

Thank you.

Yeah, thank you, Councilmember.

Councilmember Padilla.

Thank you for that report.

Um, I will say I I love the port.

I will admit that's where I learned how to sail.

And more than that, that's where I developed grit.

I mean, it took me several times to rescue my Clorox bottles that were over my boat.

But I so I do and my family goes there on Saturdays.

We like to get the calamari, my daughter has the mango ice cream.

It's amazing.

The Marine Science Institute, and I I just want to say how impressed I am.

The more I learn about the living shoreline and all the exciting work that's going into that and how it's gonna just how forward-thinking you all are, and I really appreciate all the efforts that are going on there.

Thank you.

Okay, thank you very much.

Councilmember G.

Uh Chair Moppin and and Commissioners and Christine, thank you very much for all the hard work of the port.

I just want to piggyback on a question that Councilmember Howard made about the FEMA designation.

I think that's great, but we are living in kind of unusual times.

And I would just ask that you know the commissioners and our your executive direct keep our city manager and our mayor and vice mayor informed as executive orders may change what we thought we had many years ago to what we have in 2025 or 2026.

And so having that continued dialogue and awareness of whatever may come our way, is gonna be very, very important.

So that that communication channel just keep that open.

So thank you.

Absolutely.

Yeah, and we've we've been working to bridge that even more so than so.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember.

Any other comments?

Thank you, Councilmember Sergeant.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh, thank you, Chair Moffin, so much for your presentation.

Uh Director Zortman for your service and um other commissioners in the audience, Gasperini and um, I miss anyone anyway.

I think that's it.

How can I um I just want to echo my colleagues' uh uh comments, you know.

I'm so proud of the work y'all do over there.

I went on the port tour last week and was just I was impressed, so impressed by the sheer volume of product that y'all move through that port, um, and the number of trips you took off the roads in Riverwood City.

Um, and uh again, just echoing my colleagues, you know, just want to make sure that in this day and age that you know, as a staging uh center, um, that the port continues to be used for the right reasons.

Um and then also I want to echo Councilmember Howard's uh kind of considerations or or encouragement uh to continue working with us on the fire training facility, especially if we have some future firefighters in the audience, you know, who might want to train.

Sure.

So thank you uh again for your for continuing the conversation.

Um yeah, thank you.

Thank you, thank you, Councilmember Vice Mayor.

Thank you.

I won't repeat what my colleagues have said.

I wholeheartedly agree with all of the praise, and um, I um I did want to just I have I did want to ask just quickly um the new cargo opportunities.

Is that the Jones the Domestic Jones Act partnership that you're not publicly announcing, or is it something else on page three of your report?

There was something about a new cargo opportunities, and um I don't want to steal your thunder, but I was just curious what that might be.

Well, I'm gonna turn to the executive director if we're ready, what we can.

Sure, we'd like to announce.

So we're still in the early stages, but one of the things that we continue to look at is reducing truck trips off the roads, and so we are actually looking at creating a new marine highway for cargo that would be trucked into the port, and then it would be barged to other areas within the bay.

Um, not only is that creating a new marine highway, but is also domestic Jones Act cargo, which is critical for um United States and a lot of um job job training opportunities.

Other than that, we're a little bit early for any kind of formal announcement, but it is something that we haven't had here at the port before, so we're really excited to bring it forward.

Well, that just sounds fantastic.

I'm so keep keep at it.

That's wonderful.

Um, and then I just wanted to also uh mirror what some of my colleagues have said is that we're really excited about the possibility of partnering on a fire training facility on on some of that property that y'all have out there.

Okay, yeah.

Great, thank you.

Thank you, Vice Mayor, Councilmember Chu.

Um, thank you so much for a terrific presentation, and um I I echo my colleagues' comments, particularly around the ferry and the fire training facility.

It would be nice to keep our fire fighters uh local.

And you know, I was just thinking, you know, ports have historically been engines of prosperity and and um you know transportation hubs.

And so I'm just really excited to see our port sort of really reclaiming that I mean well you you are an engine of prosperity.

There's an incredible amount of commerce that comes through there but really excited about the transportation hub aspect of of the port uh in the coming years.

And you know I don't I don't think you know now is the time but I think one thing I really am curious about want to better understand and have in an iterative fashion is understanding how the three priorities of the port recreation investment in Silicon Valley and I think with third commerce I I didn't write down the third fast enough but um how they interdigitate and you know where there may be conflicts I'm just really interested in learning how you sort of approach all of that in the future.

So thank you for my uh for a terrific presentation and excited to see all this move forward.

Great thank you.

Thank you council member not seeing any other comments chair malpin.

The whole team thank you for being here thank you for the great presentation I um I'm thinking of you all coming today I was thinking about all of the the memories I've made this year at the port and they all have to do with the great events or recreation programs that you all are doing and bringing out to the port.

I had a great time at the 4th of July happy to hear there will be fireworks this year but I enjoyed the drone show.

I also had a chance to go on one of the boat tours where MSI, the Marine Science Institute was getting the show off what they caught right out in the the harbor there.

But I've also had a chance to um you know take advantage of the ferry pilot program which you know I'm very grateful for uh councilmember howard's continued advocacy on it is incredible to see that dream turn into a reality to go down I it was a five minute drive to the port and um I enjoyed the entire trip all the way um to the Giants game which even better would love to see that happen more in the next year.

But you know aside from that you know we'll add to a couple of the comments my colleagues have said grateful for your continued partnership with the fire department and our police service um would love to see that continue to grow and if there's a a way to cut costs and build a training zone somewhere um along the port that would be incredible and would go a long way for the fire department.

I did have one quick question and it was around workforce development I'm when we met uh a few months ago we spoke about it but I was curious you know how that's progressing if you've made any inrows with the community college or with job train but I was just curious.

Yeah I'll let the Director Zortman comment on that also.

So actually I have a meeting coming up in the near future with the County Board of Education to talk a little bit more about that.

But one of the things that we're very involved with is regionally there is a coalition of industry um maritime industry experts who are doing job training over in the East Bay and so we've been involved in that because as they continue to create the wheel we want to learn from it and bring it back over to the peninsula side so that we can hopefully be able to assist a lot of our community members who aren't going to be going to college with avenues that they can pursue to get into the maritime sector so we we are very wholeheartedly trying to bring something bring that forward at our port with a lot of our tenants and continue to do that.

That is really exciting to hear and um yeah just very happy to to hear that there'll be more opportunities for locals to be able to join that great department and contribute to all the great work that you're doing.

And then the the last thing I had was just a comment and um you know, it's just about alignment.

I'm very grateful that you all are a FEMA landing side, staging side, right?

And we're just, you know I I know you all are thinking about this, but um would advise caution and um if there are any things, you know, that are are timely or changing really quickly as things do these days.

Um, just letting us all know and letting us know how we can support you all too.

But very grateful for this hard work and the great presentation.

So thank you.

Great, thank you very much.

Thank you all for being here again.

And not seeing any of the comments.

Great.

Thank you.

Appreciate it.

Hello.

We will move on to our next presentation by the Redwood City Improvement Association.

And we have executive director Amy Buckmaster here with us.

Hello.

Welcome.

Good evening.

I actually am bringing my partner in crime, my dear colleague, Felicia Vasquez.

Come with me.

She's side by side.

Felicia is also good evening, uh, Mayor.

Uh Martinez Salvados and Vice Mayor Kaya Aiken and members of the council.

My name is Amy Buckmaster, and I do have the privilege.

I am the CEO of Chamber San Mateo County, and I'm here with my colleague Felicia Basquez, who is our director of administration.

And the Chamber of San Mateo County has been running, we're under contract, and we've been running the Redwood City Improvement Association since its inception, and it is a wonderful honor for us.

Um we we love this.

And we're gonna go over our 2024 annual report with you all.

And I want to thank the mayor and vice mayor for coming to our annual meeting back in September.

That was wonderful having you there.

And I wanna thank uh council member Sterkin, who is always at our board meetings.

Who is bless his heart, he's always on our Zoom because he you, as we all know, council members, this is not your full-time job.

This is a volunteer job.

So he zooms in and has always attended our board meeting.

So we're gonna start with our annual report, and I'm gonna grab the clicker real quick and we're gonna go through this.

And I promise I will not be long-winded.

So we'll keep going.

Okay.

Here we go.

So back whoop, it was going fast.

So we started the Redwood City Improvement Association started in uh September of 2014, and we are a nonprofit, 501c3.

Um, it's a community benefit district, it's all volunteer board of directors, and it's made up of property owners, uh business professionals, and residents um from the Redwood City community.

The board is responsible for making decisions in the areas of public safety, beautification, and in the areas of oh, excuse me, my new glasses.

I apologize.

Economic development, maintenance, and promotion um that are the most beneficial to the community and its residents, and while maintaining the culture and personality of the downtown district.

So here is our board of directors.

Like I said, our fiscal year ends um in November uh 30.

So this is actually our fiscal year starts.

So this is our previous board.

We're actually wrapping up our our uh fiscal year coming at the end of November.

Um so this is our Gloria Ortega.

You'll see some of our property owners, um, and when we see some of the people in the crowd, Patrick Heinzinger is representative on our board of directors.

He is our represents the city of Redwood City.

Adam Ely is an under property owner, he is a representative of the county of San Mateo, they are in the bid, Angela Rezab.

So this is our board, Nancy Radcliffe is a community at large member.

Um so uh as you can see, it's Chris Beth, uh former parks and rec was on our board for a long time.

I was actually on the steering committee or the original um RCA steering committee.

So we have our executive committee, we have our district identity committee, uh, we have our Sobo committee, and we have our parking committee.

Okay, and this is the district map.

It is zone one and two, it's made up of 22 parcels.

Our smallest parcel pays an annual of 17 dollars, and the largest is 53,000.

I'm going fast, too fast.

Here's our assessments.

It's 90, it's act it's 933,000.

Uh thank you to Amanda Anthony, uh, your wonderful economic development director.

She actually found us a little bit more, so we ended up with 940,000 in our fiscal.

So sometimes that can happen.

It's when you get assessed and you find um when a property is sell sold and it comes in.

So Amanda's very good at finding the money.

So here is their budget.

As you can see, it's broken down into the largest bucket of the budget is sidewalk operations, as you can tell.

It's 54%, it's about 500 over 500,000.

And that really goes to over 300, a little over 300,000 is for street maintenance, beautiful, JA maintenance.

You'll see that's power washing, that is uh leaf blowers putting up the banners.

It's it's quite a large bucket in that.

And here are some of our highlights, the art kiosk.

We just renewed again.

Um that is one of our largest driving um uh social media and also bringing people into downtown.

We get a ton of media um pickups for the art kiosk installation, and what I love is we use a lot of local uh a lot of local artists come in who are in the kiosk, and it really brings in we get enormous amount of thank you notes from um from the community um and all over thanking us for these this this beautiful installation, and then we have our community events, and we have the the sounds at Redwood City, the pianos um that are out.

They're gonna be we'll be launching the one at the county um government center.

That'll be our second piano that's gonna be in November.

We have our, I think you're see our planner boxes all over.

We just recently um purchased uh that was actually great idea, uh, Councilmember Sturkin.

So we have our identity on our stickers on the um they just got repainted and they're on the planner boxes throughout downtown.

We own we purchased about 13 total now.

And um Wegman's our local Wegmans in Redwood City, they uh we purchased the flowers from them, and JA maintenance does the maintaining of those.

Um, and we have our whole different placemaking um spots.

You might just see recently on the corner of Winslow and uh Winslow and Broadway.

We partnered with Balsam Hill for design, and it's a beautiful fall arch that um is for placemaking, and you can come in and we have hay barrels in there, and it lights up at night, and we'll be switching out um in the holidays, and so we'll be bringing in some holiday decorations for that, and that's a pilot program, so we'll probably be doing a few more throughout downtown.

So that's been getting a lot of traction.

And then we have our really we just hired uh in our social media, we hired a bunch of influencers, and they've been really that's been running high in our social media.

So you'll see that we have our Bollard project that just completed.

We also uh worked on our capital campaign with the city of Redwood City, and we uh allocated 75,000 this fiscal year and another 75,000 for the Broadway pedestrian 2,000 Broadway Pedestrian.

These are our banners that you'll see.

We just purchased new banners, and when I come back for our annual report, um you probably saw the girls on the bikes, uh swing into spring, some of those banners.

Um here's more of our social media holiday decorations.

We have our carolers coming in.

Um our city partnerships.

We could not do it without our city partnerships.

I want to give a big shout out to Amanda Anthony, our wonderful economic development manager.

Lucas is sitting over there, many calls with Lucas when we talk about lights and all those good things.

Oh, the wonderful things about lights.

Uh, we have our wonderful police chief over there.

One of our new projects that we just did, um, that we our board approved at September, is we're gonna we just purchased out of our capital improvement project, um, is we will be purchasing um one of the drone um docking stations, um, hopefully to be used in downtown because safety is one of our big issues, um, it's part of our core for the Rewood City Improvement Association.

So we're excited to partner with the Rabbit City PD on that and more social media.

And as again, I think you can see we get a lot of play on dining.

Redwood City is well known for its restaurants.

We get a lot of requests.

Um, you'll see a lot of articles highlighted in our restaurants.

The San Francisco Peninsula did a huge uh update on their um annual report and two of the areas that people come to is San Mateo and Redwood City, and especially Redwood City for the restaurants, and they drive they come in from Sacramento area, and you know, so Redwood City is very well known for its restaurants, and that's one of the things that's driving people into downtown Redwood City.

So that was really um, and you can see it gets picked up by the media quite a bit.

And there's some more highlights, which you all have this in front of you.

Um, and we have trash cans.

It's this is a sexy part of RCIA.

We purchase extra trash cans throughout downtown.

We purchase more.

How many Felicia?

How many more?

Three more sets.

Three more sets, and we maintain those.

So um you'll see them some right in front of um City Hall, and JNA maintenance is the one who picks those up and maintains those.

Those are not um maintained by the city.

And we have dog bags, all that good stuff.

And so this is who we are.

I'm happy to take any questions.

Felicia and I are here, and thank you all for being a part of this.

This would not happen without Redwood City approving the community benefit district back in 2014.

So thank you.

Thank you, Amy and Felicia and the whole team.

I know this is one report, but it's not capturing everything that you all do to keep the downtown spotless and welcoming for everybody.

So thank you.

I'll now turn it over to my colleagues who's got questions or comments.

Councilmember G, thank you.

Thank you, Mayor.

Amy and Felicia, thank you.

Congratulations.

It's hard to believe.

2014 and 10 years.

I mean, it's 2025, but the end of the report's 10 years, so congratulations.

Crazy.

Um, for those of us that were here, it was a big deal to do this.

Um, it wasn't easy, it was a big lift to get the improvement district established and to have the property owners within that district say yes.

And here we are, 10 years later.

So, congratulations to the entire team, to the property owners, to everyone downtown for making Redwood City a great place to come visit, stay, eat, have a good time, and so it's it just it's just hard for me to imagine.

It's been 10 years.

It's uh and it is neat to see because one of the things that if you for new members of the council and the community, when we when we went through this process, you know, the city of Redwood City and the County of San Mateo, they are the two largest property owners um in the CBI in the community district and they abstained because they didn't want it to be a weighted vote.

Um, and so really we had to get 75%.

So the property owners went and got that 75%, and it so it really made it a very transparent and um process, and it they really invested in their community, and it's been great, and it's what's for me been so fulfilling because we've been all a part of it, is to see when we did this at the time we just didn't have the residents downtown.

We we envisioned the residents coming, but now we have the residents downtown.

And you know, I look at Councilman Turkey, he's a resident of downtown, you know.

So it's you start to see that, and that's really exciting that it's been 10 years and we're we we've got the bodies downtown, they're living downtown, so they're eating, living and working.

Thank you, Councilmember.

We'll go to Councilmember Chu online.

There you go.

So thank you for a terrific presentation.

Um, you know, our downtown is just a jewel, it's one of the most beautiful, interesting, vibrant downtowns on the peninsula, and your team is a huge part of why that is.

Um, and it's really interesting, you know, it's hard to get approval for these kinds of pilots that are just a really big change, but you know, like your your work or you know, the um family friendly or child safe Broadway, however you want to put it, the area that's open only to people.

Um, businesses really see the difference, and then they really support it, and other businesses who don't have that really want that for themselves.

Um, so you know, just incredible work.

Um, I would love to see your um scope expand along with the greater downtown precise plan, um, you know, and even try to replicate what you've done in other districts.

You know, I imagine little nodes uh there are little miniature districts throughout the city that I think would hugely benefit from the kinds of things you've done.

That doesn't mean you have to do it necessarily, but um I view your work as incredibly impactful and would love to see it expand and replicate um throughout our city in areas that would really benefit from it.

Thank you for a terrific presentation.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Chu.

We'll go to Councilmember Howard next.

Thank you.

I'd like to echo what uh council member Chu said.

Uh you're so wildly successful, it's it's amazing.

I love it.

I love the partnership.

I mean, during COVID, we partnered on almost everything, trying to get through a real difficult time, and I'm so glad we continue the relationships that we have.

I'm very curious about the elves on the shelves.

And it since we're coming up to the holidays, uh it sounds like you have a plan to get people into shops.

So could you elaborate?

Yes, um, I can elaborate a little on that.

Um so um Pine Cone and Peppermint um do plan on visiting Redwood City again.

Um, and so um our uh they will you will find them in shops downtown um as sort of a scavenger hunt kind of thing.

Um this will be the second year that they visited Redwood City, um, and so we've received word that they will be back um come the end of November.

Um and so um it's it's really a social media-driven um format that we're doing the scavenger hunt.

Um, so uh look for them on um at visit RWC for where Pine Cone and Peppermint will be.

But yes, they will be visiting downtown, and not just businesses, I should say, because there's a lot that goes on downtown that um you know will encourage um walkability uh to find them.

Are you able to get some of this information about your different events on our council calendar or on the citywide calendar so that people I always direct people to our website in hopes they can get all the information they need.

So are you utilizing that?

Absolutely.

Yes.

That's great news.

That's great news, and thank you.

You do you also sponsor the Zope family?

Not the whole thing, but you also are in partnership and in highlighting the Zope Italian family circus, is that right?

We yes, we do provide um some PR for them.

Um we're not a sponsor um of Zobe, just to um clear that, but but yes, we um we do a media pitch um with our PR team, and they send that out there um social media highlights.

Uh so we do um highlight Zope a couple times each year.

Yes, so what we do is we don't do um like a sponsorship dollars, but what we offer, and it really has been very helpful, is we offer all of uh strategies is the PR firm that we have under contract for roads and improvement, and so they do a ton of PR pitches and will get the media for all the downtown events in Redwood City, and so they've gotten quite a good pitch.

So the Deos Don de Muertos, they just done the Brufest.

So we have a track of all that.

So care ON just goes out, and so a lot of it is related.

Any of the events downtown will be um it's not RCI related, but it's downtown event related, and then they'll get that drive, and it's great traction, and so um, and they pitch those all the time.

So we can send you that actually.

We give it to our board, um, their PR reports, and we'd be happy to send that to you.

And we would welcome you all coming to our board meetings.

We love when we have visitors, so we would love to have you there.

It was great having you guys there.

Thank you.

And I was going to say the circus will be arriving is it soon.

It's coming.

I saw the parking lots closed off.

They'll be up in no time.

I think their first show is Saturday.

Oh, please go.

It's wonderful.

It's the whole month of November, and they have multiple shows.

It's very inexpensive.

Uh, I just can't speak highly enough of that.

That's been a tradition too.

Yeah, it's it's great.

Well, great report, keep up the great work.

Appreciate it.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember.

Councilmember Surkin.

Amy, Felicia, thank you both so much for everything you do for Redwood City and just for taking the leap to found this CBID with us in the in the first place, right?

And as to to uh Councilmember G's point, you know, other cities are have taken notice and are trying to replicate the success that we've had here in Vermont City.

So we're very much we're a trendsetter, and um, so thank you first and foremost.

Um I'm really looking forward to the new piano in November County Center.

We'll look for that.

Um, but also thank you just for the investment in the arts and the Bollard's pedestrian mall, um, in those kid-friendly streets that um Councilmember Chu mentioned.

Looking forward to expanding those maybe.

Um, and I think my favorite installation so far was the the light-up hearts in Courthouse Square that were like um it if we go to the social media slide, I think there's a small little thumbnail photo of it.

Um sorry.

Let's see back one more.

Sorry about that.

Oh, that's okay.

Well, maybe it was the one before that, but yeah, I saw it somewhere.

Anyway, you remember the one I'm talking about, right?

We love art, so more to come.

We would like to light everything up.

Yeah, absolutely.

I think I remember seeing um uh the mayor and his partner on the the big uh electronics signboard um celebrating anyway for Valentine's Day.

So I might do that with my boyfriend this year.

We'll see.

Um, so looking forward to it.

We really want more activation spaces.

That's really the whole idea is bringing the community together and drawing more from outside.

So placemaking is it's where it's at.

Absolutely.

And finally, I just want to echo your um uh invitation to the rest of the council to attend one of the upcoming meetings.

I can't always be there, so it'd be nice for someone to be there at all times.

Um, but they're a great, always good fun.

There's always lots of laughter as well.

A lot of laughter.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Sturgeon.

You remember reminded me of uh a very welcomed and uh happy Valentine's Day surprise.

So thank you for that.

Um other questions?

Councilmember Padilla.

I just wanted to thank you both.

Um I just the attention to detail, it matters and it's noticed and it's appreciated.

I think just something as simple as beautiful flowers, it makes people respect the area they're in, and it's just um it's powerful sometimes.

And and the fact that you're using wagons, our local, I love it.

Supporting our local businesses, and I just wanted to share with everyone that I was so fortunate after I was leaving Bao.

I saw someone's child have their first steps in our pedestrian mall area, and it was just it was so special to see this mom let go of her daughter's hand, and she just she just was going, and I knew that she was safe there.

And it it's just um since we've made that space, it's just it's filled with laughter and joy and small children, and it's just I it's nice to hear people say, Oh, you know, we're called we're from San Carlos, but we want to you know spend our evening Friday night in Redwood City.

So um, I just thank you for all the little details that are so impactful.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Padilla.

We'll go to Councilmember Chu and then Vice Mayor Aiken.

Uh not to pile on, but um, I just wanted to echo a similar story.

Um, you know, I was walking on Broadway coming uh north.

Um so the the part of Broadway just north of Maine, it has very wide sidewalks, very narrow streets, and traffic doesn't go very fast, but people walk were walking uh two parents were walking with their little toddler, and as soon as they got on Broadway, they let go of her hand and she tottered off and um they relaxed.

I could just see them relax, and they they had no fear, they had no concern.

Their little one could run around.

And one of the great joys of that block is just all the little kids running around, uh, and that families can linger and enjoy a meal, and those family-friendly streets are incredibly, and I don't even call them family safe streets, are incredibly good for business.

Um, I did talk to the businesses on Maine and ask them, you know, what do you think of what happened on Broadway?

They want that magic for themselves too because they see how popular that makes the street, so um, it's just incredible work, and and I think it doesn't just have an impact on you know um revenue, has an impact on safety and just sort of the the ability of our our residents to to relax and enjoy their their night.

And it's good you brought that up because we have our board members here, Patrick and um Amanda and Derek.

You sat in on some of our meetings.

Um, and the you know, we are talking about uh we've almost finished our fiscal year for this past year, and Chris, you've been uh story.

Sorry, you've been on our meetings.

That is one of our goals.

You know, that just it's not just 2000.

We want to activate um other streets um with that placemaking and and continue the activation, um, because that's really what you know the community wants, and and we can see it, and that's what the businesses want, and people want that that feel.

Um, and it is the little touches that what bring commute sense of community together, so that that is all what we've been planning for this year.

So more to come.

Thank you, Councilmember Jew.

Thank you, Amy.

Good advice mayor.

Well, I'll just echo everything all my colleagues have said.

And I'll keep it quick too, but thank you both.

Um, you know, it was really incredible being able to go to that meeting um in September.

I we've worked together with you know concerns that come up from community members and things like that, but getting to see the business owners, right?

Folks who are running their livelihood, right?

Um, come together and take action, not just complain about something they want to see fixed, but talk about hey, who knows ex person, how do we get a hold of public works, all the things that came out of that conversation.

It was just incredible to see.

Um, you know, I'll add to what my colleagues said, too.

It's not grateful for you all donating um to help make that drone station possible, but the work that you do goes beyond just safety, it's about placemaking right with the arc or with the Valentine's activation downtown.

Um, but it's you know, just incredible to see, you know, our community.

It's you're helping our community be a community downtown, and it's not just brick and motor, it's all the other things, the pianos, the trash cans, right?

The signage, it's it's incredible work.

And um, I'll wrap up my my thoughts with you all hear me say this all the time as we look at the um the districts uh you know getting renewed.

I would love to see it expand with the greater downtown plan.

We have um, you know, IQ HQ, the development comes to mind, and that's pulling downtown into district four and um and creating a whole new neighborhood, right?

And um it just I wish we can copy and paste you to the different sort of commercial centers that we have around town, like council member Chu mentioned because um it's incredible just to see the impact happen so quickly.

But um yeah, if there's any help you all need, you know where to find seven volunteers for when we have to renew this.

We'll come knock in.

And and I do believe you have changed your charter back when we created the the community benefit districts, so that it you are.

If I'm Vron, I would look to Veronica, but I believe you are eligible to create districts within different areas of the city, but that would be that was part of when we created the community benefit district.

It was changed in the charter.

I have to pull out my paperwork, but very interesting.

I'm I'm showing my age now.

No, that is thank you.

That's food for thought.

Yeah, it's somewhere in my paperwork.

Absolutely.

All right, Amy Felicia, thank you both.

Um, the whole team, please thank them for on our behalf.

Um, thank you for the great presentation.

We'll move on now to item 6D, which is our final presentation item for this evening.

We'll receive a presentation from Sam Trans on the Grand Boulevard Initiative and Major Corridors Manager Cassie Halls will give the presentation.

Yes.

Good evening.

My name is Malad Orang.

I'm Principal Transportation Planner from um Rebo City Engineering Department.

Tonight we are going to have a presentation from SAMTrans and Sambatoa County Transportation Authority, Sam Trans Cassie Hall's major corridors planning manager and from Transportation Authority, Jessica Manzi, Director of Project Delivery.

We are going to they're going to do a presentation on something we call it Grand Boulevard Initiative or GBI.

It was an initiative years ago, probably 10-15 years ago, there was a pause, and it really started about a year ago, with Sam Trans to coordinate on a joint project along El Camino Real and help cities to deliver more safety projects on El Camino Real.

Now I hand it over to Cassie.

Thank you so much, Malaha.

Yeah, so my name is Cassie Halls.

I'm the manager of major corridors at SAMTrans.

Thank you so much for having us tonight.

So I'm gonna spend you know less than 10 minutes giving a short introduction and also open it up for discussion for you all because we are about to release a planning study and interested just to get all of your input and also answer any general questions that you have.

And okay, so I'll be providing an overview of the Grand Boulevard Initiative, which is a multi-agency partnership between SAMTrans, SMCTA, CCAG, Caltrans, and MTC, to implement transportation improvements on El Camino Real.

And so this is a planning study that we are releasing called the GBI Action Plan that we're planning to publish this winter.

And I'll be going over that as well.

Next slide.

Okay.

So GBI is a partnership, as I mentioned, between SAMTrans as well as all of the 14 jurisdictions of El Camino on El Camino Real and San Mateo County.

And what we're trying to do is we're trying to deliver transportation improvements to El Camino that are badly needed and long overdue.

So we're we believe it's important to have a multi-agency, multi-jurisdictional partnership in order to make this happen because El Camino is so vast, there are so many challenges, and we're covering so much ground.

So SAMTrans is working with these partners to lead workshops for about a year now that is culminating to this action plan to build momentum around transforming these transportation improvements on El Camino.

And what we're doing is we're working to advance a unified vision focused on mobility and safety on this critical north-south corridor that serves as both the main street for many local communities, including Redwood City, as well as an important regional connector.

Next slide.

So I mentioned the five agency partners that are involved.

But it's important to note that, you know, why are we partnering together on this effort?

We know that there are a lot of cooks in the kitchen on El Camino.

It's often confusing for local jurisdictions to navigate all of the agencies that are involved.

And so we're working to align all of our planning and funding on the corridor and to speak with one voice and ensure that we are able to advance improvements and fund those improvements quicker.

Next slide.

Cities as well as SAMTrans, Caltrans, CCAG, and the TA are involved in various transportation studies on El Camino.

So it's an exciting time for El Camino and all the plans that are underway.

And what we're doing with our Grand Boulevard Initiative Action Plan is this is serving as a blueprint for all of the work, all the individual studies that are developing design alternatives will be advanced through a coordinated Caltrans project development process that SAMTrans and the TA are sponsoring.

So what we're trying to do is we're trying to make it easier for individual jurisdictions to make improvements on El Camino.

Given that it's a state route, it's often very challenging to make improvements.

There are multiple years involved, you know, millions of dollars in planning studies, engineering work.

And so what we bring to the table is we're doing one Caltrans process for the whole corridor and all 15 jurisdictions that are involved, which will hopefully save cities a lot of time and money by creating a better, you know, economy of scale.

So just wanted to point out what's in the red box.

So there are two different efforts, local plans underway that are affecting Redwood City.

So there is a new plan called the El Camino Real, the Central Camino Real Multimodal Plan, which we'll be bringing to council the beginning of next year.

But this is a joint study with San Mateo, Belmont, San Carlos, and then a portion of Redwood City from Finger Avenue, which is right on the border of San Carlos, all the way to Brewster.

So this segment is left out of the existing projects that are currently underway in Redwood City.

So there is a Caltrans project currently that goes from Brewster to Selby Avenue in or Selby Lane in Atherton.

But this is this is helping address that northern segment.

And it is a very, you know, high high collision area, so it's important that we address it.

Next slide.

Okay, one more slide.

Next slide.

Yeah.

Okay.

Sorry, go back one.

Okay, so the GBI Action Plan is it will serve the purpose of being a feasibility study for Caltrans, so it's a requirement that we have, but we also see it as an opportunity to refine our design concepts prior to starting this coordinated Caltrans process, and also set like a corridor wide vision for what we want to happen on the corridor.

And the bedrock of all of this work together has been the last year and a half of the task force and working group, which what GBI is made up of, which includes all of our city partners as well as advocates, business groups, and those public agencies that I mentioned.

So by bringing everyone to the table, really able to get diverse perspectives and make sure that what we are advancing is aligned with all the local visions that are underway.

Next slide.

So this is just an example of some of the work that we've done.

So this is our corridor wide vision that we've developed collaboratively.

And so we see an El Camino Real that is safe and vibrant where people of all ages and abilities can travel comfortably.

So it seems like a you know low bar, but El Camino is currently super unsafe, you know, very dangerous.

So this is a where we want to, this is our North Star where we want to go.

Next slide.

Okay, so I'm gonna talk a little bit about the problem statements and goals within our action plan, and we'll be asking input on these specifically.

So pay attention.

So we have a couple problem statements.

Um what we continuously have heard from cities and from the public is that safety is the top issue on El Camino.

Um, and especially when you consider that El Camino is one of the it's the most dangerous corridor in the Bay Area.

Um, this really brings safety up to the top.

So we hear that we we've looked at the data, we've also heard from all the cities and advocate groups that El Camino Real is very unsafe.

It has unusually high rate of fatal and serious injury crashes for particularly for people walking and biking.

Um, and so our approach to this is to adopt a safety first mindset to eliminate fatal and serious injury crashes.

We also hear that El Camino Real's highway-like design discourages walking, biking, and transit use.

Um, so we want to transform El Camino Real into a complete street that works for all users.

And then lastly, we hear that it's very challenging to actually make improvements on El Camino due to all the cost and time limitations that I mentioned given that it's a state route.

So we are leading a new framework for change for aligning vision, process, and funding.

Next slide.

Um so this is a menu of options that we are presenting to all the cities that will be included in the action plan.

This is not necessarily happening in each city, but these are just the types of improvements that we're considering along the corridor, and GBI is not prescribing what cities should do.

We're actually creating a corridor wide vision based on all the feedback that we've heard, and we are helping advance all the local visions that have been developed.

You know, we can talk through some of the Redwood City ones, but um the the local plans that have been developed for Redwood City are going to be advanced through this process.

So some of the examples of the streetscape changes that we're considering along the, you know, the whole corridor are traffic calming, medians, lighting, things like wider sidewalks, separated bikeways, bus lanes, improving our existing transit signal priority, and also making access improvements.

Next slide.

So I just want to take a moment to mention some of the existing plans that we are building on in Redwood City.

Happy to answer questions on that today, but also we will be coming back to you all with our draft alternatives for that project that we were working on closely with the city here.

And then it's also worth mentioning the Caltrans shop bike safety project from Selby Lane to Brewster.

So this is about to advance to PA and ED, and we're also coordinating with them.

PAED is just a fancy way of saying the design phase.

Next slide.

Okay.

So I'm gonna speak to this slide briefly, and then I'm also gonna invite my colleague Jess from the TA to come up and talk about this a little bit more.

But this is just a high level overview of where we're at and what the next um six to 10 years is going to look like.

Um so we're on the far left right now, the blue boxes.

So we are about to pass or about to adopt the GBI action plan in our SAM Trans board and the SMCTA board, and then we'll be moving into this sponsored coordinated project initiation document that Sam Trans and the TA are leading.

Um and then we'll go into the design and construction phases.

This is gonna take a long time.

Um it's you know, gonna take six to ten years, it's gonna cost um, you know, 750 million dollars, so it's gonna be a big effort.

Um, but that's one of the benefits of having all these um agency partners at the tables.

We're able to tap into funding sources that individual cities cannot, and we're also able to bring the expertise and the dollars that we have.

Um, so with that, I'll pass it to Jessica Manzi.

Thanks, Cassie.

Good evening.

So nice to see you all again.

What a treat.

Um, as Cassie mentioned, Jessica Manzie with the San Mateo County Transportation Authority.

Um, you've already had quite a bit of meetings tonight, and you have a lot more to go, so I'll keep this quick.

And really, I'm just here to support the Grand Boulevard Initiative and the work that Sam Trans is doing, as well as all the cities along the corridor who are interested in increasing safety on El Camino and making it a better place to be.

So we see the number of 750 million dollars.

That's a really big number.

Uh, to put that in context, the 101 express lanes that we finished a couple years ago were 550 million dollars, so this is another 200 million dollars on top of that.

Um, but by uh including our involvement, what we're hoping to do is, you know, with the sales tax revenues that we generate to be able to cover hopefully at least half of the cost of these improvements, and then work strategically with all of the communities along the corridor to come up with the best approach to getting additional grant funding from other sources, whether they be uh regional, state, or in a few years, maybe some more federal money might become available too.

Um but we look forward to um working with you and supporting SAM Trans and Caltrans and implementing these improvements.

Great, you can go to the next slide.

Okay, so this is just an opportunity to have a discussion with you all.

I just put a couple prompts up there, but happy to answer general questions as well.

Um, just interested to hear uh what goals you have for the corridor, how we can best work together to advance this GBI vision, and then if you're supportive of the GBI process as we've described it.

And we've listed all the goals that I mentioned previously in case you want to reference back to it on this slide.

Thank you so much.

Cassie, thank you for the great presentation.

Malahab, thank you for getting us started.

And Jessica, it's great to see you back in uh council chambers.

Um colleagues who would like to get us started.

Sorry, Vice Mary.

Jessica, it's so nice to see you.

We miss you.

We um we hope you miss us.

So I'll be very brief.

So with the vision, I just want to say I used to go to the Grand Boulevard initiative meetings a long time ago.

And my under here's my vision, and it was my understanding of the vision at the time, it was kind of like these grand boulevards, you know, maybe like well, I don't really care for the Champs Elysee in Paris, but you know, some of these cobblestoned wide streets with beautiful buildings built in the 1800s on either side, where uh you know, in Europe they have squares um, you know, in the center of town, well like Redwood City does with Courthouse Square, but um in Europe uh because the the um built environment was was largely already built before cars were invented, um, they had grand boulevards pre-cars, and so my vision and my understanding of Grand Boulevard Initiative was let's make this very walkable, let's make this very family, let's make this uh, you know, where if we go back to horses and buggies that they I mean not that we're going to, but just that it's for everybody, not just cars and buses, and that it be beautiful.

I I know you're not speaking to the architecture of the buildings, but my understanding of the Grand Boulevard would was that was the vision too, that we were turning the page on 1950, when it was just in fact they used to design there's a type of sign called googie signs, and they're there's signs that were designed to be on the side of the road to be designed for one thing and one thing only, and that is to be seen through the windshield of a car, and that's how into cars we were in the 1950s through the rest of the century.

But we're already 20 years into a new century, and so my vision, just to give you my vision, is that um not to the exaggerate the point, but to make a point.

Let's just forget about cars, and let's think about buses and trams and um and all the other modes of transportation and beautiful buildings, and um uh let's see, hold on, I'm done.

But just a quick question.

When I drive into Santa Clara, and I know we're not talking about this here, we're talking about you laid that out beautifully, and thank you for that.

But when I drive in Santa Clara County on El Camino going south toward Redwood City, um, there are um restrictions on both sides.

I'm not I don't have your guys' terminology, but there's like restrictions between the sidewalk, then there's like a gutter, and before there's a car lane, there's buffered things so that a car, and at night they're lit up so that a car knows, oh, this isn't my lane.

You know, and does this uh does any of this planning um plan for those temporary bollards to be up?

That's a great question.

Um, do you want to answer?

So for the portion between Selby and Brewster, which is the Cal Trans shop project, yes, between what and what?

Selby Lane and Brewster, that's that's one of the alternatives they're looking at.

Um so um to remove parking and adding the we call it cycle track.

Um what do you call it?

Cycle track, okay.

Um but the portion between Brewster and San Carlos, which San Trans is leading the planning.

We're still working on three different alternatives.

So each one alternative is actually removing parking and adding cycle track, yes.

Well, I think if the priority is, thank you, thank you very much, Malahat.

I think if the priority is safety, um, that those kind of bollards that light up at night so cars know to stay in the right place.

Um that's a that's a good idea, and then just one other clarifying question.

Sales tax riven, is that measure K?

Is that measure A?

Measure A and W.

Measure A.

Thank you.

I asked my TA.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Thank you for getting us started, Vice Mayor.

We'll go to Councilmember Padilla.

Thank you.

Thank you for your presentation.

Actually, it's fitting to go after um Councilman Rican.

Because I actually have some questions.

And as we are thinking about how, you know, I appreciate the history on viewing things through the windshield and I also want to make sure we're not forgetting one major stakeholder who's essential to our community, which is the some of the businesses that are on these corridors.

Um, and I can't help but thinking, I don't I think we can achieve something where we have safety, but we don't kill our businesses with.

I think we've had a gentleman in here from Togo's who said he's taken a drastic hit.

You know, there are certain businesses that are just designed for quick parking.

You know, the people go and get ice cream, they're not staying there for a long time or a sandwich, but I have heard from several of our businesses on Woodside Road in Al Camino that people are hurting whether it's not clear communication when roads are shut down and work is being done, or that they don't have let's be thoughtful about how people take in their deliveries, um, how that affects neighbor the residential neighbors next to these corridors.

I just want to make sure that we are be inclusive of our entire community community and thinking of our businesses as well.

Thank you.

We'll go to Councilmember Councilmember Chu online.

Great.

Um so thank you for a terrific uh presentation.

Uh it is good to hear that the this initiative has been re-energized and is coming back before us.

Um, and you know, when I think about my goals for the corridor, it would be safety, beauty, and I would also say carrying capacity, in addition to being the leading cause of child and young adult traumatic injury and death, leading cause of pollution, leading cause of microplastics, sort of all of these things.

Um automobiles are not an efficient way to move people at scale.

They are uh much less efficient than walking, biking, uh, and transit, and typically other modes are between five and twenty-five times more efficient uh with respect to being able to carry more people uh in the same amount of space.

And so I think by making these kinds of transport uh transportation changes, not only we have a beautiful and safe and quiet street, um, you know, that's just more pleasant to be on, but because uh other modes can carry more people, over time businesses will see increased uh, you know, sort of put literally foot traffic.

Um if you think about Broadway, you know, when it was opened for family, you know, made family friendly, made family safe, um, over time there was sort of a real spike in the amount of business that that uh particular uh spot got.

Um the second about uh process, I think it's really important that we do data-driven um processes that prioritize safety.

And and I especially appreciated, for example, your picture of the bike lane quite uh often, people on foot and people on bicycles are directly put directly at odds or competing for space uh with the storage of vehicles, and so you know, where we can store vehicles and ways that protect people.

Uh, I think that's a terrific use of space.

Um, but that you know, sort of people are not competing with cars for for safety.

Um, I think the other thing, um, just that, you know, I I'm old enough to have been a kid in the 70s, and we used to have smoking sections where literally our family would be having dinner and the table in the non-smoking section and like the table next to us, uh, or you know, a couple tables down would be smoking.

And um, you know, I feel like that's kind of where a lot of bike lane design is now, um, that even though there is a strip of paint uh without that protection, um, it just doesn't feel comfortable for especially people who have children or or more risk averse.

Um, and so I think when when deciding what kinds of designs are available, uh really having empiric evidence on what is the safest designs that are available and and really emphasizing uh safety over um kind of anything else.

Um and then uh finally, you know, um the comment on the process.

Um get given uh I feel a deep sense of urgency about this.

Um, you know, uh as you know, uh El Camino has a high uh collision rate.

Um and I would really like to see this move forward quickly.

Um, you know, Caltrans has considerable resources, and uh if there's any mechanisms by which to prioritize these kinds of changes over perhaps other things, um I would I would really like to see us move forward really quickly, um, even if that means things like quick builds, you know.

So if we know you know what will help people feel comfortable and safe, and that we're able to do that quickly uh on kind of a temporary basis.

I would love to sort of pilot some of the ideas that you're looking at uh in this plan uh rather than waiting the six to ten years uh until we can get a you know three-quarter of a million dollar or three-quarter of a billion dollar grant.

Um, so I would I would like to see this move forward as quickly as possible in and not letting perfect and complete be the enemy of near-term um immediate improvements in our in our neighborhood, but overall absolutely love the vision, completely supportive of it.

Um I just want to see it happen as quickly as possible.

That's all.

Thank you, Councilmember True.

Go to Councilmember Sirkin X.

Thank you all so much for all the hard work on this.

Looking forward to the final product and implementing it.

Um to your question about goals.

Definitely um uh appreciate the bus stop enhancement uh because we heard from our uh senior affairs commission's transportation survey that uh bus stops and and cover bus stops at that with benches is a priority.

Um and I know you're already working on that, and I have identified you know stops that need that infrastructure and are working on it.

So thank you.

And then appreciate your addressing that northern segment that was left out uh between Finger and Brewster, especially following that fatal crash a couple years ago at Finger Avenue.

Um, and then again to the goals.

I mean, we have an ambitious goal ourselves, right?

Of achieving vision zero by 2030, and we're not any closer to that goal than we were in 2020.

In fact, we lost or had up to 25 people severely injured just last year.

So that's a huge priority for me and for the district and for the city.

Um, and if it could always be as as much as possible protected bike lanes, like they're protected uh at the as part of the Elco Yards project where there's an actual physical barrier uh that stops a car from entering the bike lane, like an actual curb if possible.

And um, echo council member Panilla's uh comment about parking.

You know, we did see with uh the toco slash um Baskin Robins uh business uh El Camino Maple uh Rajesh came in several times to express his dismay about losing parking and losing business as a result in part as a result of the parking loss.

And so if there's ways that we can partner with businesses, um, like property owners who have the parking where where those spots can be shifted.

Um we can have those conversations in advance, that would be ideal and happy to volunteer myself to help out with that.

So but overall, thank you so much.

I'm so excited for this implementation of this plan.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember.

We'll go to Councilmember Howard.

Well, thank you.

I like to piggyback on what was said.

Um I I appreciate what we're trying to accomplish, and yes, safety has to be a major concern.

So I I'd like to know what is your outreach effort look like because this gentleman came to us thinking we had done this, which we had, but he never felt like he was ever approached or talked to.

And we have a number of businesses along El Camino, and I just have to believe that maybe in the whole tool kit that you have, there are ways to work with people who own businesses to help them identify parking for their customers who, like many of them just fast, go in and go out.

So could you address that for me?

I do have a concern about that.

That's a great question.

And as a part of the central El Camino multimodal plan, which I mentioned that includes that portion, northern portion of Redwood City, as well as the three other jurisdictions, we're about to enter our second phase of engagement.

So we did some engagement at the beginning to ask people about their needs for the corridor, kind of just meet them where they're at, and um, don't just come with like you know proposed solutions, come with just a general you know, listening ear.

Um so we did engagement um in all of the four cities tied to that effort, and it looked like you know, a variety of different things based on you know where who we're trying to reach and what type of um you know information we're trying to get.

So we did a lot of pop-ups.

We also did um listening sessions with with particular um interest groups like people with disabilities, seniors, um transit riders, you know, active multimodal users, people who maybe drive on the corridor as well.

Um, and as a part of phase two, um, working with uh I don't know if Malahat wants to speak to this, but we're working to develop some business specific surveys and to to actually go uh door to door for all the businesses while we're making those decisions about which of the three alternatives we want advanced.

So that will happen over the next um six months.

Can I ask you, you you said you're going to them with alternatives, but they may say to you, I wasn't able to even comment while you were putting these alternatives together, and that may be a problem because people with when it's your business that's being impacted, you almost want to be on the beginning of the planning side.

Yes.

No, so one thing to think about is that there's a lot of options, like if you we don't necessarily need to, you know, do plan A, like we can modify it, we can turn existing parking into short-term parking, we can add a loading zone around the corner.

There's a lot of flexibility in the designs that we do create.

So I think by um doing frequent outreach, you know, doing it as a part of this plan that we're doing in January, February, we'll do a first touch, but we'll definitely be going back to those businesses.

If you do need some assistance, a number of us wouldn't mind going with you because when we did the minimum wage, uh, we we were promoting raising the minimum wage.

We went to all the businesses that our list showed and and and it really was helpful.

People felt heard, and it didn't have to be a council member necessarily, it was someone who is involved in this planning, letting you know we're gonna listen to you.

We want to hear this, because that's the way you get by, and as you know.

Uh I did want to ask you, since Caltran, of course, is so heavily involved, um, are you working with the city on the intersections that we're working on to make it student safety and pedestrian crossing much easier along El Camino?

Uh the signalization on El Camino Real, and I'm particularly thinking of James and Jefferson.

There are ideas that I don't I'm not an engineer, I can only tell you that I travel these all the time, and we all see there's such a backup, and there's also a real lack of knowledge about pedestrians having the right of way in a crosswalk, as our fire uh police department handed out.

How many citations for people who just someone's in a crosswalk and they either go in front of them or behind them and scare the daylights out of people?

So is there that coordination of effort that maybe if a turning lane makes it safer?

So cars can't go until the pedestrians across and then they have a turning lane or the other way around.

Could we look at those kinds of possibilities as safety features for the pedestrians?

I'll let Malahad answer that those particular intersections, but generally, as a you know, for the regional effort, we are working very closely with Caltrans.

And it's great because we're having unfortunately the Caltrans representative couldn't come tonight.

He's been coming to all of the council meetings, but he got sick.

Um but we've been working very closely with them throughout the process, and we've involved them from the beginning.

And so we're hoping that we get better outcomes because we've been so collaborative with them.

Next slide.

Um yes, we do include um changes to traffic operation at the intersection in the project.

Specifically, James El Camino is a city project.

We did receive one point one million from TA for construction.

We did submit encroachment permit to Caltrans already, and it's going for construction in the next few months.

So that's a single intersectional city project that we are doing the construction in 2026.

Yeah.

That's wonderful to hear.

And I I wanted to say, I I long time ago I served on the Grand Boulevard initiative, and I'm happy to say that it didn't go away that it's back.

But uh I I know you have a lot of work ahead of you, and I would agree if there are things we can do quickly.

Uh that would be wonderful because waiting 10 years, I hate to think of how much we could have prevented if we if we find easier areas to do and we can do a quick pop-up as a pilot project, that would be wonderful.

So thank you so much for coming.

I appreciate your answering my questions.

Thank you.

And I can just make a quick mention about the quick build that also um councilmember Shu mentioned, and I think one other um council member mentioned as well.

Um so we're identifying this long-term vision for Al Camino, but as a part of the effort, we're also able to identify what are the low-hanging fruit items that can be moved forward.

Um, you know, one of the great things about producing this action plan is we've done a ton of data analysis on the corridor.

We've created, you know, a lot of um kind of templates for cities to apply for grants.

Um I know Redwood City frequently applies for grants and is very successful, but for some of the other cities along the corridor that maybe are under resourced, the idea is that they can go and say we know these are the priority locations, we know we have all the data, and let's apply for a grant to do a spot improvement.

Um we're also working very closely with Caltrans on all of their repaving projects to make sure that we're integrating these parts of these improvements.

We can't do all of them, but some of the spot improvements as a part of those repaving projects.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Councilmember Howard.

We'll go to Council Member Chu online.

Uh I wanted to add those support for Councilmember Howard's uh comments.

Um I thought all of those were terrific ideas.

Um I do wonder if you know, in sort of uh reassuring the businesses and and sort of helping customers get to these businesses as transit capacity grows and things like that, um, if we could really uh encourage AVs.

I mean, um I know there are parts of St.

Francisco where fully half of the traffic is AVs, people ride in them, they're very popular.

Uh you know, Waymo is now in Redwood City, and it does seem like uh, you know, one I I think parking is going to become much less necessary uh within the next 20 years, but we can accelerate that the pace at which it becomes unnecessary by really leaning into AV technology and encouraging the the use of that technology.

Um and so you know, if if that would be helpful in sort of alleviating some of those parking concerns of businesses, we can also explore that as a strategy.

Thank you, Councilmember.

We'll go to Councilmember G.

Thank you, Mayor.

I'll be brief.

Cassie, thank you for the update.

Um I guess this is coming to Sam Trans.

I haven't seen it yet.

So next move.

But a couple things really quick.

I would echo the comments a couple of colleagues have made about making sure the businesses are engaged.

And it is very unfortunate if they come here and say, How come you did this to us?

And and the engagement in the next phase is probably already too late.

Um they should have been engaged as early stakeholders, um, because they would like to have been part of the alternative development rather than here's your choices.

And so I would really encourage business outreach similar to what reimagined did with community businesses.

And that you can't just focus on the El Camino corridor only.

You have to also look at the city's master plans.

So for example, San Carlos in the Central San Mattel County plan, they shifted their parking when they closed Laurel.

So now their only parking is either the neighborhoods on the west side or El Camino Real on one side.

And so if we were to remove parking on that one side of El Camino, it's gonna really impact those businesses.

And so we need to be much more comprehensive than just the corridor.

The other piece I just would uh is probably more salient is that in your slide you talked about a cohesive vision between the cities.

That's a big lift.

You know, it's taken decades to develop a cohesive vision for great separations for cow train.

And we already know that one city south of us doesn't even want sidewalks and bike lanes because they want to maintain that rural feeling.

And so I would focus more on trying to get the 14 or 15 cities to develop a cohesive vision so that when you hit a city limit, it doesn't change.

And that that's the biggest lift when you get 14 or 15 different councils with 14 or 15 different city managers and constituent beliefs.

Having that unified vision makes everything else easy.

But if you don't have that unified vision between those cities, it's gonna be chaos when you hit city limits because it's gonna just shift on you.

You'll have a cycle track here, you're gonna have you know delineators here.

I mean, it's just gonna be a mess, and you won't have that grand boulevard.

So I would encourage the team to focus on getting those cities to develop a cohesive vision.

I think what we've done here in Redwood Cities has we have a vision, how we implement it has been very piecemeal because of the way funding is available, and Jessica started and Malhat you and inherited it.

We do have an El Camino website, and so Malha, I would ask you to just share with everybody where to find the 20 projects on El Camino Real in Redwood City and their status, because they are part of a grand vision, but because we have Elco Yards here, we have uh Quick Build here, it just takes time to come together.

But we do have a website that highlights all the projects on El Camino Real.

So Malhap, when you wrap up, I just want you to remind everybody where to find that on our city website.

So thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember.

Not seeing any other hands go up.

So Cassie, I'll add my thanks for the great presentation to quickly answer the questions.

You know, I think I'm in alignment with lots of the comments I've heard today from my colleagues about you know El Camino becoming a corridor of safety, right?

For all modes of transportation.

Um, somebody who grew up here, I there are definitely parts of El Camino I knew were okay to cross other parts.

I thought, you know, I can keep walking a couple blocks, right?

Um, so I would just want to make sure that we're using an equity lens to make sure that we're connecting our neighborhoods, we're not accidentally making people go, you know, that much further to safely cross Woodside Road and all those considerations.

Um I'll add a plus one to Councilmember G's point around everyone's gonna have their own flavor of what El Camino would be.

Um it'd be great to see a cohesive vision, right?

Um, the vice mayor mentions you know the the grand boulevards of you know Europe that uh I think would be incredible to embody here, right?

I want El Camino to become something innovative and something that other parts of this country get to look at and say we should recreate that.

And um, you know, there's Middlefield Road here in Redwood City where we made such slight changes to um the cycle track being on the sidewalk and uh just small changes that I mean have transformed that neighborhood, and I think make it feel more welcoming to walk down or bike down.

And um, and I feel like I've seen more foot traffic because of that project.

So I would love to see El Camino become that next example that other people point to.

Um, and you know, in Redwood City, we we just had our Vision Zero planning session a few weeks ago, and you know, this is this is incredibly important that we make a difference and we add safety improvements as quickly as we can because we know folks are coming in harm's way, and um, you know, uh, glad to hear about the the James project on El Camino.

I was a Sequoia alum, so I frequented that side of town a lot.

Um, and just want to make sure that we're we're thinking about um all pockets of El Camino rights, and uh thinking about where cities are gonna see growth, right?

We have just expanded.

I brought this up earlier, our IQ HQ development, which is you know, bringing lots of activity to part of El Camino that was commercial and kind of sleepy, right?

But will now have lots of through traffic, so um, just something to think about.

But appreciate this great presentation, Cassie.

Thank you.

Thank you, and thank you to my colleagues for the great comments.

With that, nothing else.

We will move on to our next item.

Thank you again, Cassie, Jessica Malahaj for the great presentation tonight.

We'll now move on to item seven.

We are now turning to the public comment section of the agenda, where we'll now take comments on the consent calendar, matters of council interest, as well as items that are not listed on tonight's agenda.

We welcome speakers to provide public comment, but please be advised.

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

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

If you're attending virtually, please feel free to raise your hand on Zoom at this time, or press star nine if you have 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 will now turn it over to our city clerk to facilitate public comment.

Thank you, Mayor.

At this time we don't have any in-person speaker cards, so I'll give one last call to the audience for anyone wanting to give public comment on item seven this evening before we move on to our Zoom folks.

Seeing none, we'll now turn to Zoom.

We have two speakers on Zoom.

We'll start with Tony Gappestone, who will be followed by Alexi Robb.

And the timer will begin when you start speaking.

So Tony Gatherstone here from Bravemaker.

I wanted to just pop in and say thank you on behalf of Bravemaker and our film festival.

We're wrapping up all the details from July's event, and I thank you all for coming and attending.

Mayor, thank you for giving Marley Matlin that honor of being a Redwood City um honoree.

That was really cool for you to pop in and just wanted to say as we go into our eighth year as we come to the end of this fiscal year, Bravemaker is one of Redwood City's film arts nonprofit, and we are looking for ways to continue to be here for next year for the eighth annual film fest.

I love Redwood City, and I just want to say thank you for all the work you're doing.

I've just been listening for the past half hour of all the things you you care about for the city and that I benefit from and so many other people do too.

And this film festival is really a Redwood City darling because I love this city so much.

I want to keep bringing brave stories that impact our community.

They get people talking about justice, diversity, and inclusion.

So remember us as the end of the year comes.

If you have any heart to see us continue, please volunteer with us.

Uh please donate.

Gravemaker.com is our website.

There are so many opportunities.

We have monthly events, our annual film festival.

We're really creating a space of belonging for all people, caring about life's most meaningful subjects and topics.

So thank you all for being a part of this city that I love so much.

And I hope you will be a part of Ravemaker and see us continue so that Redwood City can continue to be the arts destination that it desires to be.

Thanks for listening.

Thank you, Tony.

We'll move on to our next speaker, Alexi Rob.

Welcome.

Hello.

I hope you can hear me.

And my thing is not as exciting.

My name is Alexander.

I'm a student from uh a high school on Redwood Shores, and I'm this is for a project.

And I'd like to ask about uh last month's vote on September 8th to suspend the green infrastructure development standards for commercial remodels.

And this comes in two parts.

I'd like to clarify whether commercial remodels might also include mixed use or multifamily developments.

Since renters and low-income communities are often the most affected by flooding, how will the city make sure that short-term economic relief for commercial owners and developers doesn't come at the expense of long-term environmental equity or public safety?

Thank you.

Thank you.

And that concludes public comment mayor.

Thank you.

And Alexi, thank you for the comment.

We can't directly reply to your response, but we'll make sure to get in touch with you and get some information over to you.

Great.

And did we have any in-person speakers?

None this evening, Mayor.

That concludes public comment.

Great.

Thank you.

We will now move on to item eight, which is our consent calendar.

Our consent calendar is routine in nature and items are approved in one motion.

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

Not hearing any.

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

Not seeing any.

Is there a motion?

Councilmember Howard.

Thank you, Mayor.

I move that we uh accept the consent calendar.

Second.

Great.

That was a motion from Councilmember Howard, a second from Councilmember G.

Could we please get a roll call vote?

Councilmember Chu.

Yes.

Councilmember G.

Yes.

Councilmember Howard.

Yes.

Councilmember Padilla.

Yes.

Councilmember Sturkin.

Yes.

Vice Mayor Aiken.

Yes.

Mayor Martina Sabayos.

Yes.

Motion passes unanimously.

Thank you, everyone.

And luckily, I do not need to read the consent calendar.

It'll save us 20 minutes.

Um we will now move on to public hearings, beginning with item 9A, informational public meeting for a proposed 100% affordable housing development at 705 Veterans Boulevard.

We'll now hear this informational item.

It's um we'll begin with a staff presentation from senior planner William Chu, followed by a presentation from the project applicant Eden Housing.

Thank you, Mayor Martinez Aballos.

Good evening to the city council.

My name is William Chu, Senior Planner with the Community Development Division, and I'll be uh giving the staff presentation on this project and the required public information meeting tonight.

Uh the agenda for tonight and the staff's presentation.

Uh we'll start with some background and discuss some of the state laws that pertain to this project and why we're holding this meeting tonight.

Uh then I'll describe what the proposed project is at this stage, and then we'll discuss some next steps and a project timeline.

Okay.

So the city recently received a notice of intent or NOI from Eden Housing Eden Housing, which is the applicant uh for this project.

And this NOI signaled their intent to utilize a state streamlined ministerial approval process for a project at 705 Veterans Boulevard here in Redwood City.

Uh this uh state law is known as uh SB 35.

And uh to be eligible in Redwood City and to use SB 35 for streamlining, the applicant would have to provide, or the project would have to provide at least 50% of the units to lower income affordability levels.

And the intent of SB 35 is to speed up the process, because it would be uh approved at a ministerial level by the city's zoning administrator if it meets the city's kind of objective development standards.

Uh SB 35 also requires that the applicant and the project agree to pay a prevailing wage, and there's a list of eligibility criteria for the site that would make the project eligible as well, or the site eligible.

There was an amendment to SB 35 that went into effect on January 2024.

This is called SB 423, and that is a requirement that before submitting for that SB 35 application.

There would be a public information meeting with the city council within 45 days of submitting their notice of intent.

If the site is located in what's called a low or moderate resource area defined by the California Tax Credit Allocation Committee.

Okay, one more slide on slate law.

Eden has also submitted a SB 330 pre-application, and that is another state streamlining process.

This one is for housing projects, but it provides some procedural protections.

The idea with this is that it prevents cities from imposing new or additional requirements or new or additional fees after they've submitted their SB 330 pre-application.

So on this slide, you'll see a little bit of a summary of where we are, where we are now.

Eden has submitted their notice of intent.

They've submitted a pre-preliminary application, and as part of their notice of intent, there's a public meeting tonight.

And then there's also a tribal notification process that the city would initiate and inviting uh tribes to consult on this project if they choose to.

And then once they umce Eden submits a full application, city staff would review that project against objective development standards, and objective development standards are typically numerical or uh quantitative.

These are things like setbacks, maximum building height, private open space requirements, things like that.

So talk about the proposed project right now.

Uh the project's site is located at 705 Veterans Boulevard.

Um, it's about 23,000 square feet.

It is located in the mixed-use corridor Veterans Boulevard zoning district.

The current site is developed with a single story commercial property.

Uh what the applicant is proposing is a five-story, 100% affordable uh 76 unit project intended to serve residents that are age 55 years and older.

Uh, there would be a mix of studio and one-bedrooms and one two-bedroom.

Anticipated affordability levels are 10 uh streamly low income units, uh, 25 very low income units and 40 low-income units.

And there would be some amenities as well, including some private open space, uh technology center, and other things that I think Eden will highlight.

And the site itself is within a half mile of the city's Caltrain station, so no parking is required.

However, they're currently providing um 38 spaces.

Okay.

Uh the project itself would also qualify for a state density bonus.

75 of the 76 units are affordable, and the density bonus allows increases to residential density above uh local requirements.

Um the mixed-use corridor zoning district is uh residential density uh maximum is 80 dwelling units per acre, which translates to about 42 units on this site.

Um they are requesting 34 uh density bonus units.

And then in addition to the density bonus, uh affordable housing projects can also uh be eligible for incentives, concessions, or waivers.

This would allow a project to modify certain development standards uh that would may be needed to build the project that's proposed or anything that would may physically preclude the construction of the project at the density proposed.

The project is in its kind of preliminary stages, but the preliminary application indicates that they would potentially seek concessions or waivers related to setbacks and private open space and pervious surface.

But the city will review the full list once they submit the full application.

Okay.

And finally to conclude, so we'll have this.

We have the informational meeting tonight.

The applicant will review the um comments, acknowledge any feedback received.

Uh the city will also complete the tribal consultation process.

And then on this slide, you'll kind of see an overall timeline.

The applicant has to submit a full application within 180 days of this pre-application.

And then once they submit, the city has 30 days to review the application for completeness.

If it's complete, then the city would have additional 60 days to make sure the project uh meets all of our objective standards.

And then if it does, the project would be reviewed and processed ministerially.

Uh that that concludes that's presentation.

Happy to answer any clarifying questions from the council right now.

Thank you, William.

Excuse me.

Thank you, William, for the great presentation.

Colleagues, any clarifying questions?

Seeing any.

Council.

Excuse me, I was trying to swallow on meant.

So, William, that last project decision bar.

What's the date?

A lot of that depends on when the application would come in.

So it depends on when the applicant submits their full application.

But I think from that time, there's a window of about 90 days from the application submitted date.

So maybe as the applicant comes up and makes their presentation, she can share what the intention is.

And then we, you know, I'm assuming it's gonna be in 2026 that that project decision will happen.

Is that a safe bet?

Uh I would wager that I think that would probably be the safe bet, yeah.

Yeah.

So we can have the applicant answer that question when she comes up and makes her presentation.

Thank you.

Not seeing any other questions.

I'll now like to welcome the project applicant Eden Housing to give a presentation.

And just as a heads up, you'll have about 10 minutes for your presentation today.

Got it.

Hi, good evening, um, Mayor and City Council.

My name is Dixie Bows.

I'm the director of real estate development for Eden Housing.

Uh, and it is a pleasure to be in front of you again to present uh an affordable housing community concept that we have right now.

So the project location is at 705 Veterans Boulevard, and we presume uh and propose it to be senior housing.

Um I'm gonna mess this completely up.

So I'll take up most of my 10 minutes on the yeah, okay.

Next slide, please.

Thank you.

Thank you, thank you.

Old school here.

Uh Eaton Housing is a 57-year-old company, nonprofit uh affordable housing developer, owner, management company, and resource uh resident resource provider uh based in Hayward, California.

We have more than uh 165 communities that we have built uh throughout California, serving more than 20,000 residents.

Uh and um it's just great to be able to do this work in this city uh that supports uh both inclusion, inclusion of um our lower income neighbors as well as sustainable walkability and um projects that uh meet um a lot of the goals and priorities of the city.

Next slide, please.

Our architect partners um for this project is um BAR uh architects and interiors and and they have extensive experience also uh in Redwood City, as well as doing other projects uh with Eden Housing.

And we chose them for their approach to much streamlined process, but as well as livability, which is super important to us, as well as connectability to the great resources that are within a five-minute bike ride or 10 minute walk, but to the heart of downtown Redwood City.

Next slide, please.

So right now what we have, and this is very, very preliminary, is 70 76 total new homes, 75 of which would be restricted for seniors, 55 and better, with 35 studios, 41 bedrooms, and the one bedroom, two bed one two bedroom managers unit for on-site manager.

And our main focus here is really on sustainability and on-site amenities without replicating what is in the immediate neighborhood because the immediate neighborhood is already rich with amenities.

So one of the things that drew us to this property was the proximity to outdoor activities that the city promotes and provides, as well as dining options, strolling options, interaction options, but also the close proximity to the Caltrain station, which then allows our residents not to isolate but to really go forth and prosper out into the community at large, making it even easier for a car-free pedestrian-rich experience.

Next slide, please.

So what you have in front of you is we'll admit not attractive, but what I we'd like you to pay attention to mostly is the form and function of the building.

But to also have this quiet kind of respite exterior area, which is this small little kind of courtyard that you'll see at the roof line.

Parking is above grade, the entry to the parking garage along Brewster, keeping the Veterans Boulevard very walkable, very uncluttered, if you will, with stop and go.

And so trying to really have that focal point of bringing residents and visitors in off of a major thoroughfare.

Next slide, please.

So one of one of the things that we always like to do is highlight how our project concept aligns with the housing element and the priorities that is a priority of the community.

And so obviously creating affordable housing is a huge priority of this community, and this will provide those levels of affordability which will help meet RENA goals.

It's also one of your priorities to provide housing solutions and options for older older adults, and also to encourage age restricted developments that are really, really close to city centers services, transit uh in an urban infill environment, as well as creating green spaces to the heart of sustainable site planning.

Next slide, please.

So I I don't want to go over the site plan again unless um and go into um other other discussions that you may have already given.

But this is um one of the challenges of the site is ensuring that uh we are out of floodplain zones.

So the site plan actually only provides for parking and back of the house, um back-of-the-house uh mechanical spaces, uh, car parking and bicycle parking uh in the first level.

Uh and that first level is built um above um the floodplain zone.

So it's a little bit of an interesting topographic uh solution that we'll have, and have to work through some uh interesting challenges with grade changes.

Next slide, please.

The heart of the community is really on the second level.

Uh this is where it starts.

It does certainly the second level isn't the only level in which we create life, but the second level is really the heart where you see um the yellow boxes are the residential units and the purple is the what we call the common areas uh within the conditioned building, if you will.

So uh items such as um, you know, a gathering space or a technology center.

We don't call them community rooms anymore because what we do is if someone needs a laptop or an iPad, we just check those out and and have connectivity all throughout.

Um but we mostly see some people still working from home and having those types of work, work away from your home into uh someplace other than your walls uh opportunities here, and then expanding out into this kind of open feel, indoor outdoor space uh that then transitions into a full outdoor space.

So um on the second level courtyard.

Next slide, please.

Uh again, these are just the um renderings that you've already seen in terms of the height.

This kind of dials in again as to the veterans boulevard uh facade and how we want to bring a respite sitting area, if you will, uh at that top level.

Um one of the cool things that we were able to do is uh not only provide just a small area outdoor area uh for residents, but also the managers unit is also at this level and providing a small private uh space, which is something that we haven't done yet.

Uh, but we've heard from our employees of our company that that's something they also want to do.

So we pay attention to not only what residents give us feedback to, but our employees as well.

Um next slide, please.

And then the thoughtful back of the house entry that I described earlier with all of the traffic and all of the trash um pickup and and all of the boring stuff, if you will, coming in off of Brewster instead of Veterans Boulevard.

Uh next slide, please.

Thank you.

I'll take um any comments you might have, but I also do want to make a comment on uh tribal consultation.

We welcome a very robust uh and authentic tribal consultation process.

So thank you for that opportunity for us to give that back to our tribes.

Dixie, thank you for being here and for the great presentation.

Believe we have to open the public hearing and allow for public comments, and we'll be back to you with questions very shortly.

Thank you, Mayor.

At this time we don't have any speaker cards for in-person folks.

No raised hands on Zoom.

So I'll give it, huh?

We got one raised hand.

I'll do a last call.

Okay, we have one speaker on Zoom.

That will be Anthony V.

Welcome, Anthony.

The timer will begin when you start speaking.

Hey, good evening, Mayor and Council.

My name's Anthony Mistuso, and I'm a business agent for Local 16 Heaton Frost and Slater's as well as a delegate to the San Mateo County Building and Construction Trades Council.

And uh I just have a couple of questions for the uh for the applicant.

Um, I do know that uh as was mentioned, this project does require prevailing wage um to to be satisfied.

They know that trades are very good at providing uh making sure that the compliance is followed uh as we are the prevailing wage.

Um, it's also a great opportunity for us to put a lot of um local local uh local citizens to work uh and and get opportunities for new apprentices to enter the trades with projects like this.

Um I I do have one question for the applicant, and that's just to find out if this is going to be a modular build or if this is actually gonna be built uh from the ground up.

So um, but we look forward to having a conversation uh with Eden and discussing perhaps doing a PLA on this, but even not even an all union agreement would be great.

Uh to ensure that we can put local workers uh on this job.

That's all I got.

Thank you.

Thank you, Anthony.

And that concludes public comment mayor.

Thank you, City Clerk.

With that, we'll now close the public hearing and open the floor for council questions and discussions.

Who would like to get us started?

Councilmember Howard.

Thank you.

Um Dixie, may I call you Dixie?

Please.

I love the name.

Thank you so much.

Yeah, Dixie's great.

Um, would you like to answer the questions of the speaker we just heard from?

Oh, it will not be a modular built project, it will be uh what we call stick built.

Could you that means uh all construction on site?

Got it.

Okay, thank you.

I appreciate it.

Um I have a couple of questions.

Uh first, is this your first, would this be your first project for Redwood City?

I don't remember seeing your name.

I know that you have projects uh nearby in other cities, but is this your the would this be your first for us?

Um this is the second time I've been in front of you.

I we also have a project that was approved at 847 Woodside uh Road as well.

So uh that project is still on our boards as well.

So first project uh that we would uh complete and build.

I don't know, I think it's gonna be a race.

A race to the finish, okay.

That's right.

That's right, Woodside Road.

There, they you that's exactly right.

I just couldn't remember.

I know we heard a presentation about that.

Okay, good.

Um second, uh, what is a residential resource center?

A residential resource center is really kind of a place where uh our residents can come in and come and ask for really any any additional assistance they might need.

And and we staff that with a full-time resident service coordinator.

So for instance, someone might have uh a question of maybe they maybe they're not getting uh any SNAP benefits.

How do I sign up for that?

Or hey, I might need some help with um at home um at home uh physical care.

And so it really is our opportunity to link our residents to the resources that are already in the community.

And then also what we do is we bring other programs that are uh requested from our residents into so some of our um a lot of our senior community members ask uh for help uh in uh learning technology, as you just helped me with.

Um that is a big request.

And so we have some awesome residents who attend some of the local universities that come in and actually help teach, you know, those of us at the 55 and better range uh how to do modern things and and so it's really really cool uh for our past residents to give back to our current residents and and uh locally as well.

So those are the kinds of things that we that we hang out and do at the resident resource center.

We might we might actually play games, but we strictly prohibit uh bingo.

Well, they can go right down the street.

Exactly.

Um will there be a shuttle available to transport those who may or may not be able to make a 10 minute walk downtown?

No, we will not provide a shuttle that typically is not part of what Eden provides.

It may be, however, part of what our one of our service provider partners may provide.

So we have partnerships with PACE uh and other senior uh provider services uh that make this stop at our community.

So we'll make sure that we link in for external uh services, external transportation options that are already in the community.

Thank you.

And then why five stories?

Just curious.

It's really expensive when you go to six.

Oh, okay.

In terms of height.

We really wanted to be cognizant of.

We could have gone bigger.

We could have gone a lot denser here, but we really wanted to be cognizant of at least providing some level of parking on site, which is always dictated by what building you can build, but also really truly keeping in mind the height limitations and trying to adhere as much as possible to already the some the objective guidelines of design uh within the corridor.

So uh it cost is definitely a consideration.

Thank you.

That was helpful.

And I love the term back of back of back of house design.

Back of house stuff.

Yeah.

And now architects and engineers might have another word for that, but I I am not neither, and so I call it back of house stuff.

Well, we actually had an architectural review committee years and years ago, and one of the members strongly believed in you never turn your back, all four sides have to look like the front door.

He just he never approved things unless it had attractiveness on all sides, because you never know where people are walking, looking, and it sounds similar what you're offering, and I commend you for that because I've seen too many buildings where okay, it's great here, and and then the back is a flat wall, very unattractive, and people see it.

So thank you for doing that.

I know it becomes more expensive to do it, but it's probably worth it.

You'll become a destination.

I hope so.

Party on the roof.

There we go.

Okay.

And then I have um, nope, I think that's oh, there was one long wall, or maybe there's more, a real long strip of wall of the wall that looked pretty bare.

I I just did uh let's let you know that the um on Bradford Street, we have senior housing.

There's a lovely mural on the long wall, and it's absolutely fabulous.

And we do have a program in Redwood City, so there may be some opportunity to get some funding for something like that.

We will love and welcome that.

I think we have murals on every single one of our projects now in some form or fashion, and it's really cool because we get local artists uh who are already in the community uh to to come and do the work for us.

That's great.

Thank you, Dixie.

You're quite welcome, thank you.

Thank you both.

We'll go to Council Member Chu online.

Thank you so much.

Uh just for presenting a terrific project.

Um, had a number of um questions.

I actually was also curious about the modular versus stick build, but um really looking forward to seeing uh this, you know, presented to the city.

Um just a few thoughts.

Um is that um, you know, I primarily walk bike and take transit for transportation, and often people on foot prefer uh quieter, slower streets, and so if it's possible to put a pedestrian exit on the Brewster site, I imagine a number of residents would would also really like that quieter um street as an option, especially if they're headed, you know, downtown or something like that.

Uh although I do realize middle field is a is a much more direct route.

Um the the second is um just a comment about the the skin.

You know, you showed us kind of the innards and well, not the innards, but like it doesn't have its skin yet, as you said.

And I was noticing in San Francisco, you know, sort of the most iconic, beautiful buildings.

If you look at the side, they're just a square box with a fancy front slapped on the front, and it works.

People love it.

You know, that's true of Copenhagen, it's true of Amsterdam, it's true of St.

Francisco.

Like that was their way to make a plane box look amazing.

And so, you know, I think there's probably a lot of um inexpensive ways to just put a put a skin on that and make it look great.

Uh I really appreciate appreciated council member Howard's idea of a mural.

If there are long uh blank walls.

Just a comment on the parking.

I do appreciate that you are offering less parking and really trying to help uh elderly residents walk uh bike if they're able or take transit.

Um just to request if if you can to unbundle and price the parking that helps uh people who don't use cars to not have to pay for that expensive land and I end up keep for some for something they're just uh aren't using.

Um and then the the final sort of comment I had um, and again, you know, it's not a requirement by any means, but disabled adults, you know.

And does it adults with physical and cognitive uh disabilities have needs that are very similar to seniors?

And so if there would be a pathway by which disabled disabled adults could also uh live in this housing, I think that that would meet kind of a desperate need.

Um just just a thought around that.

Um other than that, uh just uh terrific project, and um looking forward to to seeing it.

Thank you for your comments.

Thank you, Councilmember.

We'll bring it back to the days.

Councilmember Video.

I'll go.

Um, thank you for your excellent presentation.

I really appreciate just because I've known people who are property managers, and I think a really good property manager can really make a break attendance experience.

So I love that you're open to that feedback and making sure you can retain quality property managers on site.

So I love that you're listening to the different needs and spaces they have, because those are people who are on call pretty much all the time.

So I really appreciate how meaningful that is.

Um, and if we're throwing out ideas with murals are fantastic, but I'm also thinking it's also living walls.

If you can incorporate plants on in your in your design, it's great for the environment and also beautiful.

So just throwing out there as well.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you for your comments.

Thank you, Councilman Padio.

We'll go to Council Murgie next.

Thank you.

Dixie, thanks for coming back again.

Um if you might take a moment.

What's your aspiration for keys in the door?

You know, what what kind of timeline are you looking at, or what's Eden thinking about?

We would gladly accept a 20 million dollar check from Redwood City and get going right away.

Um, but knowing that's probably not possible.

Um the really it probably will take about a year, a year and a year and three months to get through entitlement.

Uh maybe a little longer, depending upon how tribal consultation goes.

Um so that process is is pretty standard.

Then we'll start uh the funding application stage.

Um there's no secret here that uh affordable housing uh is very expensive, and I could see um that the cost of these units will be upwards around about 800,000 a door.

So we generally can raise uh tax credits that will cover 40 percent of that.

Um another uh 20% is generally raised from uh mortgage, which is comes from the payment of rents from the residents uh with the seniors, it's much lower than what we would get on a large family.

Uh that would leave us um 20, let's see, 460 whipping out my toes, uh 40% of the stack, if you will, to uh go and raise with um uh resources from the county, which has been um a solid um uh opportunity for us over the years with our other San Mateo County projects uh as well as regional funds, Home Depot is always been uh there for us.

We um will probably um absolutely have um some veterans uh with us here, so that uh brings us an opportunity.

So by the time we're done baking cookies and selling that, I could see probably another year and a half going through that in construction of this type with a podium, will probably take about 20 months.

So if I'm keeping track with um my fuzzy math, that's probably best case scenario five years after uh entitlements are done.

Um this pretty on track with what Eden's pace has been with other developments.

We seem to um be at the right place at the right time with the funding uh application rounds.

We're very nimble uh when it comes to uh putting in those applications and staying on top of funding applications and stuff.

So I I do have my eyes already open uh to a couple of funding opportunities that are out there right now, but I'm probably a little preliminary in the process to pretend like we have a planned project right now, but it won't stop me from trying.

No, I I know the challenges, so you know, my quick math was 29, maybe early 30, so I'm not too far off because of the competition for the funding and tax credits, and we wind up just seeing costs go up over five years, construction costs.

We do, we do.

I mean, there's there's some you know good news coming out of um out of DC with the with the four percent program that's been extremely helpful.

The good thing too, I wanted to mention one of the things that we can always count on is we can always count on uh the state of the opportunity maps to not be stagnant.

Uh those those little things change every year.

So while we might be in a low resource area today as we stand here, uh I have seen uh low resource go to high resource in two cycles, so uh that that is something that I'll be keeping an eye on as well.

Very good.

No, it's a great project.

You know, the this is the senior community here in our county is the largest growing demographic, so you know, I'm eligible to buy one in now, but I have to wait five years before they open the doors.

But one of the interesting things though, and Jeff Schwaber community development directors here, we would never have thought of housing on Veterans Boulevard 20 years ago.

And here we have your application at 705 veterans.

We have an application at 590 veterans already approved, I think.

We have a gatekeeper project at 1205 veterans.

So maybe mayor and vice mayor, we might get an update next year about how veterans is changing.

You know, the hotels under construction right now.

I mean, this is a changing boulevard, Veterans Boulevard, and maybe it'd be good to update everyone on how that transformation is going and what that Veterans Boulevard might look like 10 years from now with all the housing on it, just like El Community Real is changing with housing on it.

So um, I think that'd be interesting to see what's coming.

So, thank you.

Thank you.

Thanks for letting me show off all my math.

Thank you, Councilmember.

Go to council member circum.

Okay, thank you, Mayor.

Um firstly, thank you, and thank you for answering the question about modular versus roundup construction.

Um, and I'm glad you mentioned that the opportunity maps might change because that was an initial concern of mine.

I was about to ask you about uh about the you know, any of you had any concerns about qualifying for the tax credits because you know you get less points if it's in a lower resource area.

So fingers crossed that that changes.

Um again, thank you for speaking to that.

Um I also wanted to follow up on the labor part.

I hearing that it's $800,000 a door, I I know that union labor can drive up those costs further.

Um, but I I do want to say while I do appreciate uh prevailing wage applying since it's an affordable you know development.

Um I do strongly encourage you to consider using union labor uh from start to finish, you know, not just um the main contractor or but also the subcontractors understanding that while it may add additional cost if the units are well made and the folks who are building the units are well paid, it's it's worth it and it's a win-win-win for everyone.

Um just want to mention that again.

It's up to you.

And just to respond to a couple of colleagues' thoughts, I I normally would be really supportive of unbundling and pricing parking, but just knowing that a low-income tenant already has a challenge affording to live in the area, you know, and on paying for for fees like parking plus utilities on top of rent can make it very challenging to live here.

So I just ask you to keep that in mind, and depending on what you decide with the parking, um, understanding the benefits, you know, and costs to it.

And um to the art piece, I I really appreciate my colleagues bringing that up.

One thing I heard from one of our arts commissioners is that they really do want to be engaged at the beginning, uh, especially if there's kind of art installations that are built-in features of the project, like uh somebody mentioned the uh uh Royal Green, right?

Yeah, like that the tile wall at the entryway.

I'm not sure if that was an art piece, but you know that that's a built-in kind of artistic feature that could be designed and installed by an artist in the community during construction versus like after the fact.

Although that mural that you mentioned, Councilman Howard is absolutely beautiful on a royal green, the the cactus mural.

Um so that's a different story now.

It's definitely amazing.

So appreciate your engagement with arts community at the beginning, um, if possible.

And I uh appreciate your openness and willingness to meeting with um indigenous communities as well as part of the city's city-led process, uh doing tribal consultation.

Um, and while we can't require that you meet with the Romato Shalone, I believe we could make at least an introduction if you are open to that.

Again, it's up to you, in addition to the Moekma, who I believe we are required to consult with.

So just putting that out there that there's multiple tribes to consider.

Um, but finally, I just want to uh appreciate the I think you you had a picture here in your presentation of um level five option B where you include the little kind of uh open space that a common area at the corner on the fifth floor, as well as a private open space for the manager's unit.

I was like, wow, that's cool.

So um definitely appreciate uh that version.

Um, but of course, you know, any version, any housing at this point, please.

Um, to you know, Councilmember G's point, uh, anything that can be done to expedite the process.

Uh so uh yeah, I know I threw a lot at you there, but if you had any responses, please feel free.

We'd love to hear any thoughts.

I do.

Do I jump in on responses now?

I've been keeping track of them.

Just to kind of go at the top.

Thank you.

Yes, we'll engage our artist at the very beginning, uh, because we do incorporate it into the fabric of the building in so many different ways, and not just murals, but really, you know, with uh with uh all kinds of stuff, including uh how we um decorate our entry is very is very thoughtful as well.

Um I want to go back to one of the comments that's uh that one of the council members made on um having some units for our IDD community.

That is absolutely something we embrace.

We have strong deep relationships with the IDD community and several of the organizations that provide services directly to our community members.

So, yes, we're looking forward to those opportunities as well.

We do know that there is a need for older adults uh still living with some uh with with um with needs uh and that will also drive how we design the entire project.

It isn't just gonna be one unit design for one person, it's actually every home is designed with all of this in the back of the mind, so that those of us who uh may move stages uh can still stay in our homes.

Um parking unbundled uh one of the big things that I know we we aren't gonna be able to do, and that is unbundle the parking, and that is if you we cannot charge for parking if we are using that square footage to build and use tax credits, we would have to exclude um that entire floor, uh which is the most expensive floor in the building uh from tax credit basis.

So uh that that um is is typically not what we do.

Um, market rate developers uh do that uh to drive revenue, but we can't uh charge for parking in affordable housing when we are using tax credits to build that square footage.

Um, I think I think that was it, but you got you guys can remind me if I've forgotten something else too.

Thank you, Tracy, for those responses.

We'll go to the vice mayor.

Thank you, Dixie.

I'll I'll try to be really brief.

So I I think I mainly have comments and then just one question.

So I'd like to thank you for breaking down you are good at math, in my opinion, the 20% mortgage, 40% tax credit, and 40% other.

That's helpful.

So thank you for explaining that.

And um, I like that you're local.

I really, really like that, and I'm excited to partner with you.

Welcome.

And um, I just you know, I want to I want to challenge conventional wisdom.

Um, and I'm gonna use your words.

I think you said, did I write it down?

You said the skin, you said the skin um isn't pretty.

I think maybe you said something like that.

And so I just want to challenge conventional wisdom because some sometimes in life one person does it one way, and so then everyone just assumes you always forevermore have to do it that way.

And a lot of affordable housing looks exactly the same.

So I I am totally willing to be wrong, but uh to piggyback on um I think what uh council member Chu said about in the olden days, there'd be a really pretty puss facade that you could see from the street, even the wild wild west.

And sometimes they'd make the facade taller than the actual building was just to make it look pretty and fancy.

So I'm really interested in the idea.

Um the building that I'm referencing that I would love it if you toured with your colleagues and your company, is the building on the corner of Marshall Street and Middlefield, and it's Kitty Corner from the San Mateo County History Museum, which is the building with the giant dome that looks like a courthouse, but it's a history museum.

Anyway, Kitty Corner is a is a building called.

Well, we colloquially call it the Dostart Building because the developer was Dost was Steve Dostart.

Um, but we it's it's beautiful, it's got um it's got frescoes.

I mean, I don't know, maybe frescoes are super expensive, but maybe they're not.

And it looks like carved stone from Florence, and it has themes of Redwood City's history all up the columns.

Maybe columns are expensive, but maybe they aren't.

And and um, so I would just love it if you looked at that building and maybe you look at it and say, Well, if you know, yeah, if we owned the world, we could afford to build something like that, or maybe you say, hmm, we could do that.

I don't know, I I'm just one person, um and then I'm I think I'm done.

Let me just look.

Um on the parking on the 44 parking spaces.

I know 10 of them will have electric charger.

Um, and I would just love it if you could explore partnerships with Peninsula Clean Energy, which is our um San Mateo County's green energy um joint power authority, and um they do amazing things, um, and so I'd I I would encourage you along with your partners to um see if you maybe you couldn't get all 44 of those parking spaces to have electric charger facilities for free.

I mean, you could always ask.

Um I think I'm done.

Um, hold on.

Oh.

I'm done.

Thank you so much.

Okay.

I just wanted to make one and one uh comment on the skin of the building.

What I meant by the skin is kind of plain right now is we really haven't done any work on what the finish articulation is going to be.

And so, form and function means we wanted to show you the massing where the openings would be, but not but still leave it open for a little bit of community engagement work, exactly how you mentioned.

Go take a look at this building, go take a look at this building, go take a look at this building, so that we can come up with uh a solution for um for design that really exceeds our expectations.

We accidentally won an international award and three national awards for our building at um Azare in San Jose called Solera Apartments.

It's absolutely a beautiful, beautiful building, and we did not set out uh to win the award, but uh this bar architects is in the same class as the architectural firm who did that building.

So I think that we're we are definitely gonna bring you something that will exceed the expectation of uh my massing uh show that my architect was like, please don't show it, please don't show it.

And I'm like, I got to, man, I gotta show something.

Thank you, Vice Mayor, thank you, Dixie.

Any other comments, questions?

Not seeing any.

I will add my my thanks for the great presentation.

I also wish it could, you know, be something that could open its doors quicker than five years.

I I know how challenging that is.

Um, you know, I my think about my my grandma who lived at Castle the Redwood, which is just on the street on Veterans, and it's probably the only senior building on that road.

Um so it's really amazing to see um some new inventory, new spaces come up for the community.

Um, you know, I was curious.

Uh I know you mentioned um all of the the great resources that would be in the building.

Would there be any food on site, like a cafeteria or something small?

No, we don't do that in independent senior.

Uh that kind of walks a little gray line as to dependent, which uh which you would have to be licensed.

So we do bring in um outside uh food resources uh that that donate and uh and pass along um extra food that we get from our food partners in the community to help our residents who might be um food challenge.

Okay, that's great to hear.

Um, you know, I remember that um she'd stay there for a very long time.

But um, you know, one of the the things that she and her friends would do would be to walk to grocery outlets, and um, you know, as she got older, that just started to happen fewer and fewer.

Um, she had fewer opportunities to do that.

But um just want to add my support.

I think a couple of council members mentioned if there are our shuttles or bus passes or something like that that could be offered to residents.

Love the idea of more art murals for the building.

I know this isn't the finished project, but um, you know, would love to see you know art that connects to either the our city or specifically because it's on veterans and we're getting closer to the port and all of the history of of um of that side of town, it'd be interesting to draw some inspiration from that.

And then um, you know, agreed.

I know, and I mentioned it's expensive and it's hard to build these, but any opportunities for union labor or um to be able to um reach out to you know the building trades to find out what opportunities to work together, that'd be incredible.

Um and then I'll just leave it with um, you know, I I think this space is really interesting.

I know it's not traditionally been where we've housed people, but it's it's evolving.

And you know, we have our sites for um where sports basement is that end of town.

That's that's gonna change.

We're already adding to the housing.

Um, you know, just we're creating again a new community here, a new neighborhood.

And so I think this is gonna blend really nicely.

It'll give folks uh a quiet place to go walk.

You know, they'll be able to go to the bay trail from this housing site.

So um, just really excited.

This is lots of great opportunity will come from this, so thank you.

Oh, thank you.

Not seeing anybody else, so because this is a just one more tiny little thing.

I forgot to yes, I will take uh any invitation um and connection to tribes.

Please, thank you.

And not seeing anything else from my colleagues.

Um, thank you all for the discussion, Dixie, for the great presentation.

Um, as this is an informational item for the public and for city council feedback only, no action will be taken on this item tonight.

So please stay tuned.

Um, we'll now go on to item 10, which is our staff reports.

We have none scheduled for this evening, which takes us to item 11.

Our study sessions will be beginning with a study session on master planning for stormwater infrastructure.

Study sessions are opportunities to hear community and individual council member feedback.

No formal action will be taken this evening.

And engineering and transportation director Tanisha Werner will introduce the item, and senior civil engineer Paige Saber will give the presentation.

Okay, thank you so much.

Good evening, mayor, city council, staff, and members of the community.

My name is Tanisha Werner.

I'm the Engineering and Transportation Director, and today it's my privilege to give you the introduction to our stormwater master planning process.

This is many, many years in the making and one step and many more steps to come.

Uh, tonight I'll be joined by staff from our engineering and transportation department, and then we also have staff from our public works department because stormwater management spans both departments.

Next slide, please.

For tonight's presentation, we'll be going over our stormwater system overview, and that includes our collection and conveyance system.

I'll be talking about our many regional partners that we collaborate with, and then giving some brief acknowledgments to the many staff who are working on our stormwater system.

We have a great list of current projects to really show you what we're doing with our current project with our current system, and then why do we even create a roadmap and why are we doing master planning?

That's the big topic of the hour, and we'll be diving into that.

Some lessons learned from our road mapping experience, and then what those next steps really look like with our master planning and what funding opportunities could potentially look like.

And of course, staff is more than happy to answer questions.

So, as you're listening to tonight's presentation, there's just a couple of guiding questions that we'd like you to keep in mind.

Does the city council have questions about the city's stormwater system, including our current and planned projects?

Does the city council have questions about challenges to our city stormwater system?

Does the city council have questions about the funding for our stormwater system?

And does the city council have any questions regarding how the stormwater roadmap will be helping the city to prioritize stormwater capital projects?

And if there's anything else that the council would like us to consider as we are developing our stormwater master plan, we are very happy to hear that feedback.

Next slide.

So Redwood City's stormwater system consists of approximately 123 miles of pipe, and our pipe ranges in diameter from really small ones at two inches all the way up to 78 inches.

So someone could literally walk inside one of those 78-inch diameter pipes.

123 miles is about the distance from here to Fresno, so you can imagine it's quite an extensive network.

When we're looking at our channels that also contribute to the system, we have approximately 6.7 miles of concrete line channels.

We have nearly three miles of cover channel and 5.6 miles of natural channel.

When we look in addition to what we have in Redwood Shores area, we have in addition, no, nearly 10 miles of levee that's protecting our property assets, and 21 pump stations.

Next slide, please.

When we're looking at the stormwater infrastructure, there are so many different components that go into it.

Green infrastructure is a huge component, and that includes our network of natural and engineered systems that help us to capture, treat, and infiltrate rainwater or stormwater.

And we do this through a variety of different types of things, such as green roofs, bioswells, permeable pavements.

And when we're looking at what the city has done to date with all of our new development, we're looking at over a hundred different green infrastructure devices that have been installed, which is quite incredible.

Our stormwater network is many decades in the making.

And in order for us to maintain it so that it continues to serve the city, we have many, many more decades that we are trying to preserve for our residents.

Next slide, please.

We have many regional partners that we work collaboratively with.

Our shoreline is connected with East Palo Alto, Menlo Park, Belmont, San Carlos portions of San Mateo County, and we have a really great regional partner in one shoreline that helps us manage our adaptive shoreline.

We also have partners with CAG and the Silicon Valley Clean Water.

Our partnerships aren't complete without looking internally, and we can go to the next slide.

We have a number of folks in our engineering and transportation team that work directly on stormwater long-term planning, design, and overseeing construction improvements.

We have Paige Saber, who's our senior civil engineer, and she heads our stormwater division and engineering, and we also have a lot of support from different engineers.

Just to highlight two others, Teresa Abadien and Alex Chan also help out with stormwater management.

If we go to the next slide, you can see that we have many folks in our public work services department, which is led by Terrence, and we couldn't do what we do with looking at the long-term planning without our friends over in public works helping out with the maintenance side.

And with that, I'm going to pass the presentation over to Paige, and she will talk about our current projects.

Thank you, Tanisha, and thank you, Council members.

I'm really excited to speak to you tonight about the work my team does and excited to hear your questions.

Next slide, please.

So this is a list of our current projects.

As you can see, the lion's share of them are in the planning and design phase, which was actually a perfect opportunity to do a stormwater roadmap because these projects are so early on.

It helped us make sure that we're prioritizing the right types of projects and moving forward in the way that's most effective to improve stormwater in the city.

So I'll touch on a few in the planning and design phase, but if in the question phase, if you have questions on some of the other ones, I'm happy to talk about those.

So Redwood Shore Sea Level Rise Protection Project kicked off this year.

Our consultant is underway on that one, and you'll be seeing a council connection shortly that we are commencing the public outreach phase for that, which is really exciting.

We really look forward to getting the community's input on that one.

So that project is to reaccredit the levies that protect Redwood Shores and also design them to meet projected sea level rise projections.

And the Redwood Creek, the next project I'll touch on, Redwood Creek watershed and wetland capacity.

It's a mouthful.

I call it the Redwood Creek Project.

That project is going to assess the entirety of Redwood Creek and help the city identify one project that will most likely a detention project that will most improve flooding from Redwood Creek.

So I know there were quite a few questions about a detention project, and so great timing because that project will be, we'll be bringing that consultant contract to council on November 24th.

And then we have quite a few projects that are kind of creek or channel repairs, some structural assessment, lagoon dredging out in Redwood Shores, price pump station, and then the Red Morton Stormwater Capture Project.

That project is both serving as a detention project and a water quality improvement project.

In the shovel ready category, we have Bradford Pump Station, and then under construction is a public work services project and PDS permit compliance program, which is a fancy term for installing trash capture devices to meet our MRP trash reduction requirements.

Next slide, please.

So digging into the roadmap itself, why did we create this roadmap?

As you all, I'm sure are aware, in the last few years, we experienced some pretty severe storms, particularly the ones over the wet season of 2022 to 2023 that highlighted both deficiencies in our system and the need for our system to plan for climate change and be resilient and adapt to that.

Another great reason is we'll touch on this in a bit, but stormwater master planning process is a bit more expensive.

So this was a great effective use of available funds to get a good sense check of how our system is working right now and is there anything that we can do in the short term and before the master planning kicks off, and then as we kick off the master planning, you know, what should we prioritize and what should we make sure we're paying attention to.

It helped us identify our current challenges and successes, which is really great.

It again gave us a good sense check of how our priorities are should maybe should shift or if they're doing well.

And this is really the first step in us becoming shifting from being a reactive stormwater program to a proactive stormwater program.

So it it for the city to be able to instead of just responding to events that happen with the storm system, really look at it holistically and make a good long-term plan for it in a way to both improve the challenges we're experiencing and plan for the challenges we are going to be experiencing in the future.

Thank you.

Next slide.

So then a few more reasons of why we created the roadmap a little more specific to Redwood City.

The last master plan that we did was in 1986, which is almost 40 years ago.

I wanted to look up something that happened in 1986 to give everyone context, and top gun was released, so the first top gun.

So our master plan is about as old as Tom Cruise's career, just to give you a little bit of context.

That master plan was also for all utilities within the city, so not just stormwater.

So it didn't have a ton of detailed stormwater info.

So if we embark on this, it would really be our first time holistically evaluating our stormwater system as a city since it was constructed.

Also, one thing to highlight is there is currently resident dissatisfaction with storm drainage.

In the most recent Polco survey, we only had 41% satisfaction, and comparing that to the 63% nationwide satisfaction.

So we have below average satisfaction with our system, and residents did express strong desire for stormwater projects.

They rated them pretty much on par with with sidewalk and street improvement projects.

So there's interest there from the residents, and they're not happy with you know what they're seeing in our storm drainage system.

And then lastly, specific to Redwood City, flood risks are increasing, and we're particularly vulnerable to them due to our shoreline, due to rising sea level rise, groundwater emergence.

So it's really important for us as a city to take a look at our system and have a good understanding of what we need to do to make us more resilient for the future.

A couple interesting photos on this slide.

One is just a king tide event on Maple Street.

You'll see that parking lot's little flooded.

And then the other is a photo from near Stanford, New Year's Eve 2022 flooding.

So just showing, you know, how much we're really experiencing these strong storm events.

Next slide.

So what lessons did we learn going through the stormwater roadmap process?

The first was that we have really great geographic information system, GIS data, and that's awesome because that's going to be a piece of the stormwater master plan, having that data as kind of a first step to be able to assess all of our assets.

So that was check that box, excited to know about that.

Kind of on the flip side, our conditions assessment data is lacking.

So that basically means for all the assets we have in our stormwater system that Tanisha mentioned, we don't have a lot of good data on what condition they're in and how well they're conveying flow.

So that data is really critical for us to identify a suite of capital improvement projects for stormwater because it helps us know which assets are failing and which ones are failing the most and which ones need to be improved, both to meet current conditions and projected future conditions.

The roadmap also identified our current challenges, and those got split into kind of four categories.

Condition, so you know what shape is that asset in conveyance, how well does it convey flow, and how well will it be able to convey flow in the future, and then climate resiliency.

So, how well is this asset going to perform?

So, for example, the levies right now are not designed for the projected sea level rise and will need to be.

And the last is stormwater quality.

So a lot of that is the regulatory requirements for stormwater quality are changing.

They're constantly increasing, and I'm sure as Terrence's team experiences a lot, you know, just getting very difficult to meet.

And so being able to make sure that our projects and our assets are reaching those regulations and planning for what they're going to become in the future.

Um, and then the last is that it identified critical upgrades that we needed.

And the really great thing about that one that I felt like was a success is it actually aligned very well with the projects we're currently prioritizing.

So uh reaccrediting the levy system.

So I'm just gonna make sure I'm touching on all of them.

Um, making the critical upgrades to pump stations and their associated pipe networks, um, looking for trash capture and water quality compliance projects, and then looking at the Redwood Creek channel integrity.

So our current suite of projects that I touched on at the beginning really align well with what they had identified in the roadmap is critical.

So that was a validating experience and happy to know that you know we're headed in the right direction with those projects we're currently working on.

Um, and then the last lesson learned is really that the next step for us is a stormwater master plan.

Um, with that next slide.

We'll dive into the stormwater master planning.

So, as I mentioned, it's a really holistic approach.

They'll look at our entire uh system and they'll assess the capacity, the condition, conveyance.

Um, they'll also look at all of our operations and maintenance practices, and they'll help us identify through a suite of projects and help us also prioritize those projects in order of you know what will be the most helpful.

Um, it also helps you understand, you know, there are some projects that you get such a greater return on on your investment for what you're doing there.

So it helps in saying which is the best one to start with, um, which are the best ones to, you know, move down the line.

So it really helps staff to kind of look at all the different projects that are important and assess, you know, in what order we should go in for those.

Um next slide, please.

Um, so currently, stormwater is funded through three different sources.

Um, the first is the capital outlay fund 357, the second is competitive federal, state, and regional grants, and the last is um this is mostly for public work services ongoing maintenance funding.

Um so the photos on this slide are showing a partial wall collapse that happened at 1891 Palm.

So when we find out about these projects, um if we aren't able to secure grant funding in a timely manner, sometimes projects like this need to be addressed sooner, then we need to put in funding requests either through a mid-year adjustment or in the annual budget cycle, and that comes from capital outlay fund, which is how this project was funded.

Um, and then when we are able to secure federal, state and regional grants, for example, the Redwood Shore Sea Level Rise Protection Project and the Redwood Creek project are both uh federally funded by FEMA, then we're able to use that as in that, and usually in addition to some funding from the capital outlay fund to run those projects.

Next slide, please.

So kind of going back to the master plan, this is a very itemized breakout of kind of all the line items that would go into master planning, and it helps you see kind of how much each component of it costs.

And at the bottom, our consultant kind of gave us a comparison of if we wanted to piecemeal these costs, this is how much you know each one would be.

And then if we do them all together, there is, you know, some economies of scale there of doing it all together and getting that data.

So it could be up to $500,000 savings doing it together.

It's both our consultant and staff's recommendation to do this as one comprehensive plan.

There's a lot of additional uh costs that go into piecemealing it, like having to issue multiple RFPs, taking multiple contracts to council for award.

Um, in addition to if you complete some of the work and then years pass before you move on to the next steps, that data is now a little bit outdated, maybe new information's passed in the meantime.

Um, so doing it kind of all together comprehensive holistically is our recommendation and is typical for master planning process.

Next slide.

So once a master plan is close to completed, the next step, we'll have this great suite of projects to do.

The next step is how are we going to pay for it?

So we the we are roadmap identified a few different funding instruments that are listed up here.

There's pros and cons to each one.

Sometimes some are more have a lower approval threshold, so they're a bit easier to have voters approve.

That's the method that the City of San Mateo went for.

Some of them make it easier to actually carry out the projects.

So we would evaluate all these.

A big thing we'd compare them with is what our suite of projects are and which instrument might work better with that, and then also doing some polling with the city and understanding what's the most likely thing to pass because the ultimate goal here is to develop a funding mechanism for this program.

So again, this is a lot further down the line, and staff would uh meet with the finance and audit subcommittee when we're going through the process of evaluating these, but again, this is a couple years out at least.

Next slide.

So just talking next steps.

We are currently on task one, so that's funding the stormwater master plan.

Um we're currently evaluating ways to fund that master plan so that 1.1 to 2.1 million dollar plan.

Um and we will come back to council either for direction or approval for how we want our recommending to proceed.

Umce we have that funding in place, we'll issue an RFP and bring a consultant on board.

Um, and then we'd move on to task two, completing the master plan.

That's an estimated 18 to 24 month duration.

Um, and then while completing the master plan, tasks three and four kind of run in parallel, a little bit staggered.

So one of them is determining our funding strategy, and that touches back to those those funding instruments, um, and then also determining our suite of stormwater projects that we want to move forward with.

And then once all of that's in place, the easy part uh executing all the projects, task five.

Um I'm completely joking, but uh designing and constructing those projects.

Um next slide.

And so that concludes uh my presentation, and just a reminder um no action needed tonight.

Just want to update you on our system and get your feedback and questions.

Great.

Thank you, Paige.

And thank you, Tanisha, for the great presentation today.

We'll bring this back to council.

Um, actually, sorry, we have to facilitate public comment first.

Um I will now pass it over to our city clerk for any public comment.

Thank you, Mayor.

At this time, we don't have any public comment cards or any folks on Zoom who have raised their hands.

So I'll give a few more seconds for folks to sign up for public comment.

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

I will bring it back to excuse me.

I will bring it back to the day.

Who would like to get us started?

Vice Mayor, and then we'll go to Councilmember Pader.

Thank you, Mayor.

I am and thank you so much, Paige and Tanisha and everyone.

Thank you for such a wonderful staff report and a wonderful 44-page additional report.

And uh just all your wonderful work.

I want to um I want to take us back, frame a little further back, and I just want to put a frame that of the 50 50 odd counties in the state of California, Samateo County is the most vulnerable to sea level rise, and Redwood City arguably has between 10 miles and 20 miles of Bay Coast, and so arguably is the most affected by sea level rise in the county.

And most of Redwood's so all of San Mateo County has foothills, and then the foothills kind of get flat, and then there's the bay.

And so water comes from the sky, and then it falls onto the mountains, and then it goes down into the bay.

And Redwood City is a lot of it is um at zero, like right at sea level.

A lot of it is between five and twenty foot, twenty-five and ten feet above sea level, and Redwood City is pretty flat, but then a butting against Redwood City is unincorporated San Mateo County, which is hilly, and then you've got Woodside Pertola Valley.

So when we're talking about funding, I really want us to take the frame.

Um that's in this flat area, mostly flat area, but we're taking on water.

I mean, millions of pounds of water from Woodside and Pertola Valley and unincorporated San Mateo County.

And I think any kind of funding solution has to involve those participants, because recent studies are starting to show that these new weather events that we've never seen before, but we're starting to see now regularly cause flooding upstream, cause flooding in weird random areas that never used to flood.

And so it's gonna happen in Woodside, it's gonna happen in Portola Valley, and it's gonna happen more in unincorporated San Mateo County.

And those um places, in some respects, um don't have the care and attention that Redwood City has had for the last hundred years, because we're the biggest city in the South Bay, and uh we have resources.

It sounds counterintuitive, but we have resources that Woodside and Pertola Valley don't have, and with unincorporated San Mateo County, a lot of it is people that for all intents and purposes do live in Woodside and Pertola Valley.

They go to Woodside Schools, they go to Patola Valley schools, but at the end of the day, they don't pay taxes in Woodside or Pertola Valley because they're unincorporated San Mateo County, and um, so they're kind of under resourced too because the county doesn't necessarily focus on them.

They're rural, they're just kind of out in the middle of the hinterlands, and no one notices them.

But I think we have to cast a bigger view when we look at how we're gonna fund, and then um I would also just a question how are we partnering page with one shoreline?

Because they're tasked with stormwater management for all of San Mateo County.

So when we when we're talking about funding, how does our how is our part I know you look go ahead and answer?

Sure, and thank you for the feedback on the multi-jurisdictional um financing.

I think that'd be a great thing to evaluate in the master planning process as we look at the different funding instruments and funding options.

Because, like you're saying, if if you know other jurisdictions are utilizers of our system, um, it would make sense to evaluate if they could be a part of the funding strategy there.

Um to speak to your one shoreline question um is on behalf of engineering and transportation.

Um, we're currently partnering with them on the Redwood Shore Sea Level Rise Protection Project.

So they're a member of our technical advisory committee and our project management team, so they attend the meetings we have with those two agencies uh with those two groups and provide helpful feedback.

Um they they have put me in touch with some great folks at different agencies like SF Estuary Institute, so they're a great resource on that project and a helpful advisor.

Um they also are helping us with Cordilleras Creek and evaluating doing a watershed management plan there, which would be cooperative with City of San Carlos and County of San Mateo.

Um I know I don't know if you want to hear more from PWS of how they partner with them specifically related to RSAP.

Yeah, Terrence, you're welcome to.

Thank you, Paige.

Um, Terrence George, Director of Public Service's department.

So uh one shoreline primary duty is for the uh sea level rise protection is a primary duty, and the secondary duty is a stormwater uh management.

So generally we work with uh one shoreline for the uh regional program like you know, the uh water board requirement, uh regional shoreline adaptation plans that we need to have so that we are partner with the all the member agency uh from the East Palo Auto to Forza City, all the agency would work together with one shoreline.

For the member agency.

But the issue the Vice Mayor talking about is how do we gonna be manage the stormwater that coming down from the hill to our land and how do we gonna be partner with that would be uh bigger for Chufry.

Um, work on many many years for um Bever and Canal.

Is it like a full member agency?

Uh I think we took about 20 years to get a one project done.

So the problem is that most of the people are not seeing the effect of the uh stormwater and the flood impact.

So is it kind of some sort of uh political engagement?

So I like to do electing my engagement.

Probably more meaningful than then uh uh using the one show line as a like a primary source to manage it because it is very challenging when it's come to uh participation because of the you know, everyone talks about dollars and cents and everyone will see that you know they're gonna hit their pocketbooks and they peck away most of the time.

Thank you.

And um I'm gonna add that one shoreline is working on being a one-stop shop for all information having to do with storm water and sea level rise, and it already is, but it's it's going to become even more so um as this becomes more um important to people.

Um thank you.

Um well, while you're up there, Terrence, I want to um I want to just mention on that 44-page report.

Where is it here?

You know, one thing that I think we have to avoid is well, of course we have to do quick fixes.

We have to do quick fixes constantly.

And that's why we have 100 employees in the Department of Public Works, which is the third largest department in our city.

But looking at appendix B, I see that pumps and appendix B has a table of like what are the most expensive fixes and what are the cheapest fixes.

And the cheapest fix Barnon of all is a pump.

And so I'm just want to suggest that we're beyond pumps now.

I mean, they were great, they were good, because they were cheap, and before sea level rise, that's all you needed, more or less, levees and pumps.

That was it.

More, I mean, I'm exaggerating, but now we really have to look upstream.

Um, because um, and that's more expensive.

But if we just rely on pumps and levees, we're kicking down the can down the road, and we're not um we're not addressing what is a 21st century problem that we can't ignore.

And um, so I I want to also getting back to those hillsides.

Um, I just want to throw out there that there's some really cheap fixes.

We we shouldn't just think that pumps are the cheapest thing.

Like a really cheap fix is-I mean, it sounds dumb, but is to take trees that have already like up on skyline, um up in the the foothills, take um trees that have just they've already fallen down and they're um and just move them into a stream, um, and put put leaves there and stuff.

You build kind of like a partial dam that's natural, and it's it does it does it dam up the river?

No.

Does it stop the water from flowing?

No.

But when you have an storm, it slows down the water.

So the water takes more time to get into downtown Redwood City.

That doesn't sound expensive to me.

Of course, you have to have the the permission of Peninsula Open Space Trust, Peninsula, um, you know, peninsula parks, Samateo County Parks, unincorporated San Mateo County, private property owners.

Maybe that's expensive, but actually, like throwing roots and trees into a river isn't expensive.

What I'm trying to suggest is that we need a different mindset where it isn't just Redwood City.

And it's important that we do it because we're the we're the um, you know, we're the biggest city in South County.

And so we really we really have to get those smaller rural parts of the county that the water comes down to us to partner with us.

So I'll um thank you, Terrence.

Um the next thing I wanted to go to was slide five.

Um so this waterway, there's the one that says Emerald Lake Dam.

See that waterway, and then there's another one to the right that isn't that big a deal, but then there's another one to the right of that.

What is the name of that one?

Because that looks like a really big river.

It looks as, or what is the name of that one?

It's the one to the left of Redwood Creek.

Do we know what that is?

I believe that's a tributary of it, but I'd have to double check to confirm.

Oh, it's a tributary of Red Road Creek?

But it but it's not undergrounded or in a cement tunnel.

I meant to add our consultant, Shaffin Wheeler is online.

So I think uh if Deanne or Sophia want to respond to that one.

So off the top, well, so thank you for having us uh again shop with shop and wheeler.

Uh off the top of my head, I do not know, I believe it's a named tributary, but uh Sophia's with me and she may know.

I think I also think it's a tributary, but um as you can see by the different um by the legend, it's partially covered, partially concrete lined, and partially um natural.

So, um it's it's all it's all three.

Okay, thank you.

That's really helpful.

I appreciate that.

And um I want to look at uh this Emerald Lake Dam, because it's privately owned, and um it's at risk of failing, not high risk, um, low risk, but if it does fail, it would create um death and destruction.

So like low risk of failure, huge damage if it does.

And I would suggest, I mean, you look at Emerald Lake Dam and you see that it's all the water goes into all of our 123 miles of pipe that we have to maintain day in and day out.

And uh I I just think that in and I guess that before 2010, and Terrence, maybe you can speak to this, we tried to get a joint power authority with the private property owner and unincorporated Samateo County, and because everyone realizes this, you know, this is earthquake country, and uh, so everyone realizes this is a problem.

Let's not kick it down the road.

What what happened with that joint power authority back in the day, if you know?

I don't I don't recall exactly what had happened to it, but um the many agency woke in on that um the uh security of the uh Emerald Lake Dam for quite some time.

Um, last thing we I know about that is that that is a standard operation uh procedure for the dams, they reported to the uh uh regional water board, so that uh so whenever the emergency happened that it's a protocol that in place um the uh public uh the you know safety agencies such as fires and police or maybe first responder to uh addressing issue and then but followed by the public walks.

So I would just suggest looking that nationwide um people feel 43 63% satisfied with storm management, and in Redwood City, it's 43%.

Um and probably for Sam Mateo County, I don't know.

But I I really feel that um we need to look regionally because it's not fair that Redwood City ra residents are dissatisfied because a huge part of the problem is coming from the hills above us.

It's not our fault that we're in the low-lying area, um, and we just happen to be smart enough and old enough to have a really good public works department that spends millions of taxpayer, Redwood City taxpayer dollars year in and year out to fix problems that are primarily caused upstream of us.

And there are a lot of deep pockets up there, Peninsula Open Space Trust, um Peninsula Park.

I'm not thinking of what it's called, Peninsula Regional Open State Space District.

What these are two very well-funded agencies, um, and and they're all about ecology, they're all about nature, they're all about the mountains and preserving, and and they need to clean up their house, which means provide uh resources to Redwood City for the problems that they're causing.

And um, so I just I just think there could be some regional cooperation and uh let's see.

I I may I'll I'll stop for now.

I I may have more questions.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, Vice Mayor.

We'll go to Councilmember Padilla and then Councilmember Church.

Thank you.

That was a fantastic presentation, so thorough.

I really like the task sequencing, that's a great visual, and I do apologize to everyone.

I'm I'm having a terrible migraine.

So if you see me holding my hat, it's not the content of what you're sharing.

I'm just dealing with that.

I probably should have told some of the speakers earlier.

Um, I just want to say how much I appreciate your holistic approach in creating a comprehensive plan.

I think the point of the that the last one was you know almost 40 years ago, 1986.

Um I think that I think we you like you said, we're we're past kicking, we've kicked the can for a very long time, and I think I really appreciate even if things are more costly, we're making investments that we should have made a long time ago that needed to be made.

So I feel like we're really playing catch-up, and I see the true value in the comprehensive plan approach.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

I'm so sorry to hear you're having a migraine, those are no fun.

So I hope you feel better soon.

Thank you, Councilmember.

We'll go to Councilmember Chu.

Um, I wondered if you could go back to the question slide, that would be very helpful.

The last slide.

The questions for council.

That's okay.

I can I can comment uh while while we wait, but I just wanted to make sure I had everything.

Um, so the first thing I wanted to express is gratitude.

Um, first of all, for your work, um, you know, and I I know I always say this about sewage sanitation, drainage, things like that.

It's unsung, it's so important.

People only notice it when something happens, and it's it's expensive, it's hard to do well, and you guys are amazing.

And so it just really wanted to express the gratitude.

Um, my district happens to be at the bottom of the hill, and so we are very impacted by flooding uh in district three, and then when you guys work on it, we we are the immediate beneficiaries.

Um, even though these big storms have become more common and more severe in the last you know, 10 15 years, I've seen really substantial improvements.

So, you know, you guys are swimming upstream and and really making uh traction on on this the flooding in in my district.

So I just want to express gratitude.

Um I I share my colleagues' view that you know this is absolutely essential.

I'm really, really glad you're doing it.

Um, I think it's absolutely necessary to take this approach, and and I also um am supportive of council member eakin's comments about engaging um you know cities municipalities that are uphill um that have resources and and really helping them see that this is a collective problem to solve um I just had a few sort of other comments um one is um so if you look if you're in ancient cities or even old cities there's a lot of little interstitial spaces and there's uh they have permanent permeability to to people on foot that that they don't necessarily have for you know before it was horses and now it's cars um and so a really frequent experience you know and again I walk and bike for transmit a very frequent experience I have is I'll be walking by something and I'll see this like long unbroken stretch of grass or a canal and I'll pull up my phone and I'll look at it on the map and I'll just think oh my god that would be the perfect pedestrian route like it's calm it's intuitive you know water flows downhill so these routes tend to kind of flow down to downtown or down you know down to somewhere you'd want to go down to El Camino.

And it would be very inexpensive to either um you know if if you have a pipe to to put like you know what is it decomposed granite over it pedestrians aren't very heavy they don't break things like vehicles do.

And so just a thought if there's any you know and again even when I looked up the address of that of that uh canal wall that had collapsed and sure enough there's this like lovely long winding path from that house headed straight for downtown um and if it was a pedestrian route it would be a delight um you know because they're typically you know have a lot of trees and anyway um I lived next to a canal for three years in Japan and it was just beautiful um so thinking of canals and our and our water routes um not just as a way to get water from where it's coming to where it's going but also as potenti potentially a uh an amenity and uh for very little money it it doesn't cost much to put some compacted granite on something and make it a pedestrian path and if your pedestrian path is closed it's not like a road it's no big deal you just go around and go the other street so you know even if they get flooded or occasionally unavailable it's it's not a big deal.

So that was one uh let's see um the other I wanted to comment um was uh about uh street sweeping I know that it wasn't included in the in the presentation but you know the uh at least in my district because it's very impacted parking wise the street sweeper just kind of bombs down the middle of the street and the stuff gets pushed to the side of the street where it's in the drains anyway.

So one thing I would really love to work uh on is is having uh curb management so that we can get proper street sweeping so when these big storms come uh our drains are in good shape and that there's not as much stuff that kind of gets down uh you know and clogs our drains um and then finally I wanted to talk about the the leachate or the um components of stormwater runoff that you measure um uh how can I say this um there is a cons uh a solid and growing body of literature uh looking at microplastics um certain components of tire leachate cause up to 90% mortality and coho salmon or uh juvenile coho salmon um there's increasing evidence that that they're very very very bad for aquatic life and as these you know particulates flow directly into the bay um and there's aquatic life there um they're very likely to have that impact and then uh they've also been found in most human tissues including the brain and so uh we're just kind of you know science are is just sort of starting to really look at this but it's very likely that this is going to be something we're gonna have to measure uh if not in the near future in the foreseeable future and it'd be really interesting to work with something like the door school to you know if there's interest in that um looking at those lead shades and just kind of keeping an eye on those and and seeing um what their impacts on aquatic life would potentially be and then uh just just sort of keeping an eye on those um because I expect them to become very important uh in the next five to twenty years um I think that's all I had uh strong and amazing work and it's very very appreciated.

Thank you for your kind words and I will address your first and third comments and then I'll let um Terrence address the one about street sweeping.

Um so to your first comment I think that's a great um element to include when we're doing our stormwater master planning and vetting our projects um one project we're currently doing that is on the Redwood Shore sea level rise protection project.

So we're both accrediting getting the levies reaccredited by FEMA looking at projected sea level rise but we're also and this is a big part of our public outreach which we're just about to start we're getting community feedback on how do people use that area, what would they like to see in the future there?

Um are there certain elements that we could include as part of that project that would make it more accessible to certain members of the community that it currently isn't are there certain areas you know where we could extend trails.

So um happy to share that we are, you know, carrying that uh theme out on that project and we're really excited to be able to capture that community feedback and see how we could make you know that levy system not only be a function of protection for the community but a function of enjoyment recreation as it currently is and even more so.

Um so happy to report on that and definitely we'll include um that element in our analyzation in the master planning process.

Um and then to your third comment about water quality um as I touched on that's kind of one of the four elements the challenges that we're facing you know condition conveyance climate resiliency and water quality um and so again in the master planning process uh you know water quality and all the different contaminants in this area including microplastics could be something that we can evaluate um and look at are there different projects or different ways um to help improve that and if that's a focus we want to do you know looking at the different treatment methods for that.

And then I will let oh he's back I'll let Terrence speak to the street sweeping question.

Thank you, Paige uh coming back to the street sweeping option.

So um many many console before we discuss about how to make it street uh sweeping effective uh the most effective way of street sweeping is a no parking is sweeping but in order to do that that it will be costly and then the what we call it is that that's almost like a nuclear options.

The reason being is that um some of the neighborhoods are very hard to find their parking spot and they don't even have an alternative parking space to move their car to any other spots.

So the reason public is doing it right now is that we do have a lawn sign that volunteer lawn sign and notifying resident that it's sweeping tomorrow if it is you can clean up your street sidewalk the uh curve and cutter that'd be great.

If not just move your car if bars are just move your car, put it back into uh put it back onto their driveway or some other location.

So the street sweeper and cool.

Also doing the um uh wet season so public work department is sending the crew out to removing the leaves uh piling up into a strong brain as much as possible so that without uh not only the three sweeper we're sending their crew out to removing the we call it uh leave vacuum crew the truco out and then picking up the uh leave as much as possible.

So that's a current way we're doing it.

Um no parking street sweeping is will be very heavy lift for some neighborhoods.

So I really appreciate that.

I I certainly agree it would be a heavy you know for example in my neighborhood it would be a heavy lift I would also say in my neighborhood it's the only way we're gonna get the street swept because there's always a car in every spot or effectively a car in every spot.

And so um even though it is challenging I I would be interested in having a meaningful discussion of the trade-offs, just because you know, again, every time it's the street sweeper, it just kind of bombs down the middle of the street.

And I feel like, well, if the street sweeper doesn't sweep anything, is should we even have it.

I mean, I feel like if we're gonna have a street sweeper, it should sweep the street uh in a meaningful way.

And if we're not gonna have it sweep the street, then maybe uh rethink, you know, that service and and how best to accomplish the goal of of keeping the street clean and keeping the grades clear.

Thank you, Consumer 2.

One other uh initiative that we are thinking about that is uh adopt a storm drain, so that we are try to what can we various neighborhood group to making sure that any uh civic groups or the uh you know the clubs or any other group that are willing to adopt suddenly more storm drain with manually cleaning rather than mechanically cleaning, so that is the most environmentally effective and also the cost effective way to remove the debris that are going into the storm inlet.

Thank you, Councilmember Chu.

We'll bring it back to the dais.

Councilmember Padu.

I just with the storm drains.

I just want to think I my sister also lives, I think uh council member in your neighborhood, and she goes and she's picked up the board.

So I think if we can also just engage in more community outreach and let people know that these are available, where to get them, and I I love the accountability for the community.

I know that my mother has a broom and she goes out before every storm, and it does take a meeting.

I have a broom that I use to brush my sidewalk.

Um, and I love the idea of my daughter's girl scout trip.

We clean the storm drain at her school when we see the leaves.

That's just something that we're teaching people to do.

So I think whenever we can come back to our community, and whether that's you know, Redwood City brooms like that we can have for free for people to pick up and come and we brand them and we're helping.

I think that also helps us build community.

So thanks for reminding us, Terrence.

Thank you.

I love that idea.

And oh, sorry, I'll wait.

Sorry, Councilmember Chu.

We'll go to Councilmember Sirkin and then we'll go back to you online.

Thank you, Mayor, and thank you, staff, everyone.

Um, this is a very comprehensive document.

Um, I it's super helpful and insightful, and I really want to dive into funding.

Um, so just looking at uh page 25 of the document of the actual um stormwater roadmap.

I have a couple questions about the property-related fees.

Umbody wants to assess an additional fee on a property.

I'm just trying to figure out what is the most likely to pass, easiest lowest barrier funding source that we can consider.

Um, and so with the property-related fee, there's a couple types, right?

There's um there's one that is decided by the voters, two-thirds of the voters, and there's the one that's a select group of property owners, right?

So could you just expand upon like what's the scope of that?

Who are those property owners?

Thank you.

Um I will let our consultant Sarah who is on the call uh speak to that.

Good evening, thank you so much.

Um, if you were looking at the property related fee option, um the uh when you get to the approval process, there is first a noticed public hearing, um which is similar to what you might have for like your water or sewer rates, and then you have to have an election, and that election can either be by registered voters of the city, so it is your city um boundary, or it can be property owners in the city, so it would be your city property owners who would be casting ballots in that property owner election.

And you you can pick you you get to choose which one of those paths to go down in terms of that election process.

Obviously, there's different thresholds for each one.

If you're doing um the registered voter election, then you have to have two-thirds, and if you're using the property owner election, then you have to have a majority.

Thank you.

And so I think you clarified that it's all property owners in the city.

Okay.

Correct.

Versus the the CFD, the community facilities district, who could be a select number of non-contiguous um property owners, um, right.

Right.

The CFD would be a register also a registered voter vote unless you are only including properties in the CFD that are where you don't have voters essentially.

That's the only way you can utilize the CFD without a registered voter vote.

Thank you.

Do we know how many property owners we have in the city?

Does anybody have an answer to that question?

Like, I mean, is it more or less voters?

Like, I mean, it's obviously gonna be less than the number of registered voters.

Sorry, these are silly questions.

Just anyone?

Yeah, I don't know offhand.

That's something we can look into if you're interested.

Sarah, I don't know if that has come up on with other cities, if that's something you've evaluated just as a general metric.

Um, well, I mean, they're just very different groups.

I mean, it is so the number um is is maybe not the most pertinent factor, but thinking about um who those folks are, right?

Your registered voters can be folks who live in the community who don't own property.

Your property owners can include folks who live outside the community but happen to own property within the city, and they're also going to include other property types than uh residential, right?

Because your voters are your are your residents, and property owners can be owners of property that are commercial or industrial or other land uses.

So those I think are the primary considerations when you think about those two groups.

Thank you.

That's very helpful.

It's like a giant seabit in essence.

Okay, so I'll just stop there.

I imagine some of my colleagues may have some um more insight than I do on this.

Um, so I'll just pause there.

Thank you very much for entertaining my questions.

Thank you, Councilmember Sergen.

We'll go to Councilmember Jeep.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Paige, thank you for the report and Tanisha and thank the entire team, including the consultants.

Um, you know, I think Tom Cruise's career started before Top Gun, but it's been a long time since uh we've done this stormwater, and and starting with the assessment of what starting with what we have, the condition of what we have is very, very important because concrete only lasts so many years, and we've already seen the channels fail and things like that.

So knowing what we have as a starting point as a baseline and knowing what we need going forward will inform, you know, we'll will further define the roadmap going forward.

Now, water is a funny thing, it doesn't matter if it's drinking water recycled.

I mean, there's a number of different agencies involved that have to have jurisdiction.

So, I think one of the missing pieces for me in the report, is educating the property owners, especially those property owners, their natural channels.

It's not just the city's responsibility.

Um the property owners have some responsibilities too, and educating them what their responsibilities are is just as important.

Um I live out in Redwood Shores.

Many of the property owners that live next to the lagoon own property into the lagoon.

They don't realize it, but they that's their responsibility.

And so there's a lot of lessons learned that you can take from Redwood Shores and the Lagoon Bank guidelines that can be exported into Creek Bank guidelines, because the property owner's response for for lagoon bank maintenance.

We got a surprise as an HOA for repairing a rip wrap.

Almost $900,000 to repair riprap.

That's just basically rock along the lagoon bank that nobody planned for.

And that was a big surprise to the property owners and to HOA, and there's a lot of surprises out there for property owners on the lagoon.

There's a neighboring HOA that spent a million dollars just on rock.

And so learning those lessons, educating the property owner, and how we can use Lagoon Bank guidelines for Creek Creek Bank guidelines and implementing some measures so that the erosion doesn't occur, I think it's gonna be very, very important.

Well, let me go back one more.

As you do your committee impact, you know, or community engagement, there are a lot of lessons learned also from Rugwood Shores.

The levees before they were raised had asphalt on top.

And when they were raised, the asphalt was removed, but not put back.

And that was intentional because staff knew that the levies would have to continue to be raised over time and putting asphalt back and then taking it off and putting it back was a was an expensive proposition.

But when that happened, there were some residents that complained to council, why'd you take away that amenity from my backyard?

Because they've looked, some people looked at it as an extension of their backyard.

So you just have to modulate some of those lessons learned.

And you know, the retired city engineer at the time, he lived those experiences, and I even went to one of the homeowners who got in my face about why'd you do this, council, take the asphalt off and not put it back.

So there's a balance between what a community amenity is and what my amenity looks like in my backyard.

So you just have to modulate that.

So there's there's just a lot of lessons learned between anything that has to do with water in the city, but starting with the assessment, facility condition assessment, pumps, everything, and then going forward and having a plan not just for the next 40 years, but how to replace it too.

Because I have to replace the rook rock grip map in my HOA every 25 years, and so I have to plan for that.

So the concrete channels, we should plan for replacing them every 80 years or whatever the life cycle is, so that there's a regular rhythm to this and we can plan for it.

The last thing I would say is that as we look at revenue measures, my advocacy is we don't piecemeal anything in the city.

We don't just do a revenue measure for X and a revenue measure for Y and a revenue measure for Z, that the finance and audit committee should be looking comprehensively and downstream collectively that if there is a revenue measure needed, that it's specific and targeted, but not in 2030 we're in due X and 2032, we're gonna do Y.

I mean, the taxpayers are not gonna tolerate every two years having a revenue measure in front of them.

That we need to look at facilities, stormwater, green infrastructure, whatever we decide as a council, and do that together strategically, not just piecemeal because this is a reactive need.

So, you know, it's a big task for the Finance and Audit Committee.

It's very important because we've kicked the can down the road many times.

Now we're gonna have to pay for kicking the can down the road, but we should do it comprehensively and very strategically.

So thank you for all the hard work.

Thank you, Councilmember G.

We'll go to Councilmember Howard.

Thank you.

Um, great, great report.

Very, very interesting.

And man, I just I'm glad you're keeping track of the miles and miles of pipes and and culverts and everything.

Thank you.

I'm glad we have the tools to give you so that you can do that.

Uh I agree uh with my colleagues.

This is absolutely essential doing this strategic planning and having a master plan for stormwater infrastructure.

Um I'm on the finance and audit committee.

I'm not looking forward to trying to figure out a funding mechanism, but I hear what council member G says, it's pretty important that we do it in a comprehensive way and a very thoughtful way, because uh we don't that it impacts each and every person in our community.

One thing I worry about is I totally believe we should be collaborating with our surrounding partners, but we've tried it before, and it's really hard, and it takes years and years to get some of them to say maybe yes, and councilmember G will be able to, he he knows full well that when you have a city that just says no or I don't feel like it, the thing falls apart, and you've got to find a way not to let that happen.

So I'm wondering how do we, how can we do it?

Because we really do need to do this work.

We know we have to do it.

We also know that we're not totally responsible for the damage that's being done by the cities up ahead of us.

We know that, but if they're not going to cooperate, we need to identify the most crucial areas and make something happen.

And in the meantime, maybe we work with one shoreline and say, you have to help us put this puzzle together.

Can't do it alone.

So I I just worry I don't want us to be um depending on these partners coming forward before we can actually get started because San Carlos is one.

Um it really depends who's who's in charge.

And I know we weren't successful about 15 years ago with San Carlos.

I'd like to see that change, but do we have that many years to wait for them to say yes, or should we have two paths going on?

One where we're addressing Redwood City and talking about maybe we prioritize and say what are the worst areas, and let's come up with a mechanism for funding, and let's certainly look for grants and other things like that.

But then in the meantime, maybe on a parallel path, we're working with the different surrounding cities in one shoreline and asking one shoreline, can you put us together?

Can you put the puzzle together?

Because we're struggling to do that.

Is that a possibility?

I I don't want to be 10 years down the road saying we didn't do anything, except emergency projects that come up.

Yeah, thank you so much, Councilmember Howard.

And that is actually something we're working on.

Uh, my team is working on right now is working with one shoreline to see what it would take to do a watershed management plan for Cordilleras Creek, which San Carlos and County of San Mateo are the upstream jurisdictions for, and they've had some success with doing that in a couple other um creeks in the county.

Um, and so we're trying to use kind of their prototype that has been successful to see if that's something that we could revisit with those agencies.

And the great thing is we're doing this work kind of concurrently with the master planning.

So, you know, as that's progressing and as we're seeing, like, hey, are we making some progress?

Are we trying some new tactics?

Is one shoreline, you know, able to help us, you know, accomplish something that we unfortunately haven't been able to accomplish before.

We can kind of take that feedback in real time and incorporate it into our master plan and like you're saying, maybe look at two different plans.

You know, if we're able to get some work with Cordilleras Creek with the other agencies, great.

If not, what are some downstream projects or work or maintenance that we can do and identify that the city can take on to improve the flooding that our residents are experiencing?

So it's kind of cool we're working on all these projects in real time, and to speak to Council Member G's comment about lessons learned with Redwood Shores.

That project that's running out there is gonna, you know, I really appreciate hearing the feedback from the previous project.

Um I encourage you to fill out our survey that we've launched.

Um, love to get any any and all feedback and comments there.

Um, and uh taking that feedback and bringing that into all the projects we're doing, so kind of seeing the things that work well, didn't work well, the agencies that, you know, the best way to communicate and coordinate with those different agencies.

So we're really happy to do that, and we're really grateful for our partnership with One Shoreline because they've been an awesome asset in helping us coordinate across jurisdictions.

I agree.

And I wanted to thank you.

I I think robust outreach to our own community so they truly understand how important this is.

This is stuff that's really, really important, and we will have to pay for it.

But I saw at the farmers market this Saturday, public works at a table, and there were a lot of people who had a lot of questions, and I just thought that was marvelous.

Great idea.

I hope you'll do it.

They're not gonna be around past Thanksgiving, but maybe there are other uh public opportunities for the public works to come have their table and say, please talk to us about infrastructure.

Talk to us about stormwater.

And you had three people from Public Works there, and they were I thought they were pretty busy handing out information and trying to explain how important this is to our whole community.

That's really great to hear.

Yeah, and we're gonna be both on the Redwood Shores Project and the Redwood Creek project that we're embarking on right now, collecting public input on both of those projects and working with the community members there to see where's the most effective place, what meeting is the best one for us to join, you know, where we're gonna get the most folks feedback.

Um, and I think we'll utilize a similar public outreach kind of plan and process on the stormwater master planning efforts so that we're really getting, you know, full holistic input from the city and capturing that in there because part of it, you know, is what are the challenges people are the most bothered by?

What are the things people'd like to see?

Like council member choose awesome feedback about, you know, maybe utilizing our waterways to provide more recreational amenities.

Um, so those who are under master planning process will have a similar public outreach component, um, and very excited to get that because it's a huge piece of you know, we want to deliver projects that the community is excited about that feels like meets their needs, you know, and that we can also back with the engineering, you know, understanding of hey, these are the critical projects to deliver, and while we're delivering them, let's make sure we're adding any components that we can um to satisfy the community's needs and concerns.

Correct.

And when you go for grants, they are they're gonna look at that, they're going to say, Are you really engaging the community?

Have you done that work?

So I I I this is where I'm thinking we it would be great if we had some projects by doing what you're doing with the dual path, something that's shovel ready.

If we're fortunate enough to get money for a grant, I'd love to be able to say, yeah, we can fix this and this.

It wasn't first, but now it is.

So anyway, I it sounds like you're doing all the right things.

So thank you all very much for the report.

Thank you, Councilmember Howard.

We'll take it to the vice mayor.

I'll be really quick, and and thank you.

Um so one question, I just have a couple questions.

Could you talk about recharge zones?

What are recharge zones?

Maybe the consultant stand or Sophia.

It's the Sigma law.

Yeah, Dan, if you want to speak to this, um, this is something that again we could evaluate in a master planning process, but I'll let Dan um speak to it a bit more specifically to Redford City.

Sure.

Well, um, so we're always looking for opportunities to reduce runoff, and so uh creating recharge zones is exactly that.

Looking for ways to get water into uh the soils without uh you know creating inundation in the creek.

So uh the master plan would absolutely look at optimizing uh those type of technologies to um maximize uh infiltration where the soils work for it.

Uh, technologically, there's been a lot of advances in the last couple years in this arena, uh, a lot of uh new technologies that get water into the soil quickly and uh quicker and larger volumes during storms, right?

So uh that's something that the master plan should look at, whoever does it, and uh compare that to conventional methods, right?

Because cost is always a factor in these um these items.

So, you know what?

Real quick, I wanted to go back to an earlier comment you had about emerald lakes.

Uh, the name sounded really familiar, and then I had to remind myself that I actually did the dam inundation study for the emerald lakes back in the day.

So I will I would yes, I will get that map to you.

Thank thank you, Dan.

Yes, and I just on the on the recharge uh zones, real quickly.

Dan, that was a law passed.

Um state law passed, recognizing this science of, and um, you know, the the soil near the bay is kind of clayish, and um, versus the soil uphill, like in skyline and and in the foothills, is more just kind of like dirt that that goes through the soil, water goes through the soil more easily.

Is that generally true, Dan?

If you know, if you know?

You are correct in in certain areas, um, certain soils definitely infiltrate at a higher rate.

And one of the one of the biggest problems we're having is with these atmospheric rivers, which are producing large volumes of water, rainfall over long periods of time is at some point the soil becomes saturated.

And so, you know, soil has lots of open space, voids in them.

And that's the first thing that fills up.

So we have smaller storms, you get very little runoff.

But when we have these atmospheric rivers, uh those voids get filled up and it's still raining.

So what happens is the soil starts to act more like a paved surface, and we get a lot higher uh runoff rates.

Uh and that's one of the things for us that's very concerning.

And uh, you know, a master plan should certainly look forward to you know what what are storm storm patterns going to be in the future, and not just the now.

So, thank you, Dan.

And that just brings up another point that I wanted to make that I really think we need to look at.

I call them bathtubs, but I guess they're technically called retention ponds or retention basins.

I and I know we're doing one under Redmorton Park, and I think that's fantastic.

But I think you know, there are two golf courses, at least two in Redwood City that I know of.

There's Menlo Country Club, which I guess is technically in Woodside, but it's really Redwood City or Semateo County Unincorporated, and then the one um in Emerald Hills.

Um what's the name of that one?

Anyway, um, and so golf courses always need water, and water's expensive.

Why not say to these privately owned golf courses?

Hey, uh you can have all the free water you want, you build a retention basin under your golf course, and all that water is yours, and maybe it's a win-win.

I just think we have to start thinking outside the box.

And and and why?

Because, you know, I like history, and um, you know, a hundred and fifty years ago uh we filled in the bay a lot.

Partly it's natural silting, it would have happened anyway, but we've also done a lot of dumping, dumping garbage is what we did in the 50s 40s, 50s, 60s, well for 70 years, just dump garbage, dump old construction, dump everything in the bay.

And then we kind of realized we shouldn't do that, maybe starting in the 70s or 80s, and um, but we we can't keep um filling in the bay and building more levees in the bay and making the bay smaller.

So where else can we go?

We can go uphill and build retention basins, and the science shows us that that's the right way, and the laws, state laws in California are showing us that that's the way the recharge zone law is about five or six years old, Sigma, I think it's called, and it's recognizing this science.

So I think I made all the points and the questions.

Thank you so much.

Yeah, thank you, and thank you for your um feedback on the potential for evaluating uh detention structures a little bit upstream.

I'm so sorry.

Just one thank you.

Just Paige, one more question.

Where is that survey?

Can someone go somewhere to fill out the survey?

Yes, there's gonna be a council connection coming out really soon that will show you.

I take you both to the new website that has been launched for that project, and then it'll have a very easy link to the survey there.

Um yeah, so we're we're eager to get feedback from all residents of Redwood City, all users of that area.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, Vice Mayor.

Let's see.

Any other hands?

I'll um add my thanks again.

Um, Paige, the whole team, TK, Tanisha.

I really quickly have one just broad question.

Um, how was equity uh considered in the design of the the master plan when you all were working on this?

Um, so for the roadmap piece of it, um, stormwater is a little bit unique because any improvement we make throughout the city kind of benefits the rest of the system, um, both in the fact that it improves the flow of that system and also in an emergency situation, emergency responders are then more freed up to help the rest of the city kind of equally for the master planning process.

We will definitely be working, you know, closely with the city manager's office and their um equity officer to make sure that we're really considering all aspects of equity here.

Um I can speak to kind of the example of the Redwood Shore Sea Level Rise Protection Project, where we evaluated the community that we're serving and made sure we translated both the website and the survey into the languages spoken by the community that we're serving.

Um we're looking at who are the different users, how are the best ways we can reach them?

What are ways we can reach people who might not be able to come to a meeting, giving virtual options, giving meetings at places, locations, and times that that work for the full community.

So we'll be evaluating all aspects of that as we embark on the stormwater master planning process.

Um but again, all improvements we do to the stormwater system, advance equity in the city, just making sure that everyone is safer, making sure everyone has more access to public emergency response.

Right.

Thank you, Paige, for the great response.

Um, you know, the photos that you had shown took me back to 2022, right?

When I was just getting on the council right, and um, it was a scary night.

Very scary, but we also had um, you know, I'm thinking of the mobile home parks.

We had, you know, our equity priority neighborhoods in in my district and Kaya's district in Bella's and Chris's district, right?

Who absolutely will feel and um have felt the impacts of you know extreme weather, right?

And so I just it feels not just you know, it's not just the right thing to do in prioritizing the improvements in the equity priority neighborhoods, but it's just the most practical thing to do with water flowing to these neighborhoods or sea level rise impacting the neighborhoods from the other side, right?

So, um, just something I know that you all are thinking about, but would love for us to to focus and um and on outreach, you know.

I know with um with the mobile home parks they come to mind, right?

We need to build trust, we need to build some coalition with with them.

Um I you know, I think the in-person right outreach, as much as that's gonna be uh a commitment from the team, I think that's gonna be something that'll help break through that and um and just bring everyone to the table there.

But aside from that, I absolutely agree with my colleagues around collaborating with our neighbors, right?

Not just for implementation, but funding and design, right?

Um, the water is going to keep flowing whether we're ready or not.

And TK brought up an amazing example about you know, folks come to the table, they're excited, they're eager until they find out it's gonna cost something, right?

And they're gonna have to commit some funds.

So, you know, I I know Cordiller's Creek has been an ongoing issue, right?

Um, I wonder if we could when we start having those conversations with our neighbors start talking about the shared costs, right?

What did that, you know, um what did the lack of action cost the neighbors cost our city, right?

But start to paint the picture that you know these are costs that they might have to in the future take on themselves if we don't work together and take action.

So I just wanted to say that you know, absolutely we need to talk money sense to our neighbors to bring them into the fold, but it's gonna need it's gonna take all of us to really make a dent in this.

But um, those are my comments.

I see.

Councilmember Howard has a light on.

Mayor, I'd like to ask that we extend the meeting till 11:15.

I'll second that.

And just a reminder to my our colleagues here, we still have closed session to go into.

So thank you both.

And could we get a roll call vote, please?

Certainly.

We'll start with council member G.

Reluctantly, but yes.

Councilmember Howard.

Yes, Councilmember Padilla.

No.

Councilmember Sturkin.

Yes.

Councilmember Chu.

Yes.

Vice Mayor Aiken.

Yes.

Mayor Martinez Savaias.

Yes.

The motion passes with six votes.

Councilmember Padilla opposed.

Thank you.

Great.

Thank you, everybody.

Um, not seeing any other comments or questions.

Oh, Councilmember Sirkin.

Sorry, Mayor.

I only asked questions.

I didn't get the chance to do comments.

So just I responded to the funding question, but the last question, anything else to consider?

Many of these things have already been mentioned, but I just want to uh go on record having asked or given the comment.

Um I just I think the master plan should definitely identify and study feasibility of locations to gather stormwater at higher elevations.

He mentioned that already, and then target neighborhoods where surface streets are part of the stormwater infrastructure, like in Centennial and other neighborhoods, I think Stanville as well, because that just doesn't work anymore, right?

As we saw with the 2022 floods, and then you know we can't do green infrastructure on our own.

How do we include private property owners?

What are the incentives?

You know, I know Stanford River City has been a they've offered support.

How can we leverage those partnerships more?

Um, and it was, was it 5-1, 5-2?

There's some easy low-hanging fruit in terms of policy changes we can make that don't cost money other than staff time, of course, but the updating the finished floor elevation requirements, and then secondly, the requiring the 10-year capacity for hydraulic grade line, etc.

I'm not gonna read the whole thing right now.

Um, in terms of data gaps, um, just uh the need for a monitoring device on Cordiller's Creek.

Um, I know it's been suggested by one shoreline, and I know that we are up against barriers with who's responsible in whether it be Samada County or San Carlos and there's leverage us, you know, like make sure to use leverage our relationships we have with our colleagues and other jurisdictions to help get some of these things across the finish line.

Um, if you're coming up against roadblocks, not hearing back or encountering resistance, please do leverage us.

So that's that's all thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Sirkin.

Paige, is that enough feedback?

Love it.

Thank you guys so much.

I really appreciate it.

It's super helpful as we think about how we're executing our set of projects right now and as we think to master planning.

So really appreciate it.

And if anything comes up, you know, after this, please feel free to send it my way.

Great.

Thank you, Paige, and thank you for all the hard work.

We really appreciate it.

Thank you, guys.

All right.

Well, that was an informational item.

Uh Saudi Sasha, excuse me, and as such, we will not be taking action.

And we will move on to item 12 of matters of council interest with 12A city council member reports of conferences or meetings attended.

And we'll go with Vice Mayor Aiken.

Thank you, Mayor.

On Wednesday, October 15th, I attended the RCMP um C CAG meeting, where we discussed, among other things, San Mateo County's work to sequester carbon in soils on the farms along the coast.

This pioneering work involves not just implementation, but also study and is very promising and cutting edge.

On Thursday, October 16th, I attended the annual meeting of the Silicon Valley Community Foundation, along with Councilmember Chu.

Oh, I lost my place, uh, where we heard arousing panel discussion from participants, including former secretary of housing and urban development, Julia Castro.

And finally, earlier today, I represented Redwood City on the one shoreline board meeting, where we discussed among other things, one shoreline's receipt of a two million dollar grant for the South Bay Shoreline Resilience Plan in compliance with BCDC guidelines, and that includes Redwood City.

Thank you, Vice Mayor.

We'll move on to 12B city council committee reports, beginning with finance and audit subcommittee.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um the finance and audit subcommittee comprised of Vice Mayor Aiken, Councilmember Chu, and myself met on October 14th, 2025.

The subcommittee received information about proposed changes to the city's investment policy, which the subcommittee is required to review annually.

The changes proposed are housekeeping in nature, and the subcommittee is recommending that the city council adopt these changes when the item comes to the city council on the consent calendar in November.

The subcommittee also received a report about financial reserve policies, and the subcommittee is not planning on recommending any changes to existing reserve policy at this time.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Howard.

We'll go on to our report from governance subcommittee.

Is that me?

Yeah.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you, Mayor.

The governance subcommittee comprised of Mayor Martinez Sabayos, Councilmember G and myself met on October 20th.

Councilmember G was absent from the meeting.

The subcommittee received a state legislative update from the city's consultant, California Public Policy Group, or CPPG, on legislative state timing, updates on the city's position bills, and an overview on key legislation.

Thank you, Vice Mayor.

And we will now move on to the Climate Action Subcommittee.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

The Climate Action Subcommittee consists of myself and Council members Chu and Sturkin.

We met last Friday, October 24th and received an update from PCE Peninsula Clean Energy on the Peninsula Clean Energy's multifamily electric vehicle charging program.

There's got to be an acronym for that.

Also, an update on SB 1383, the edible food recovery program enforcement.

Secondly, the wet weather preparedness, and so there are sandbag stations at the public works yard, and three developing safe and walkable pathways.

Subcommittee received had a conversation with staff and provide their comments to the presenters.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you, Councilmember.

And I have a report out from the City Attorney Employment Agreement Ad hoc committee.

The ad hoc comprised of Vice Mayor Aiken, Councilmember Padilla, and myself met on Wednesday, October 22nd to discuss the council appointee, our city attorney compensation process and factors with the city's consultant.

We anticipate returning to the council in closed session in December to discuss contract amendments.

And we don't have a city manager oral report today, so we will now convene to our second closed session regarding existing litigation as identified on the agenda.

Before we convene closed session, I'd like to ask the city clerk if there's any public comment on tonight's closed session item.

Thank you, Mayor.

We don't have any speaker cards at this time.

I'll do one last call to the Zoom attendees for any public comment on the second closed session item this evening.

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

Okay.

Thank you, City Clerk.

We'll now adjourn to closed session as this is the last item on tonight's agenda, and there will be no reportable action.

The meeting will be adjourned immediately following the conclusion of closed session, and the council will not be returning back to the days.

With that, we thank you again for joining us tonight.

Our next city council meeting is Monday, November 10th at 6 o'clock.

I hope you all have a great week and a great Halloween ahead.

Thank you.