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Thank you.

Thank you.

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Thank you.

Good evening, everybody.

Thank you for joining our regular City Council meeting of December 8th, 2025.

Tonight's a very special evening as we congratulate our city manager, Melissa Stevenson-Diaz,

on her retirement at the end of the year.

And if you're here to share any remarks about Melissa,

public comment will be taken under her recognition item, which is 5A.

Thank you to all of those who have joined us today at the welcome reception and here at tonight's meeting.

It's very nice to see so many familiar faces at City Hall.

and we are holding tonight's meeting in a hybrid meeting format with both in-person and virtual

participation. The city welcomes public comments on topics within the city's subject matter

jurisdiction and members of the public may provide comments as follows. In-person speakers will be

called first. Speaker cards are located at the back table in council chambers and must be turned

in to the city clerk here at the dais. Please be sure to indicate the agenda item number which

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. And if there is a high volume of public

comment this evening, we may decrease the total time allotted for each comment or limit the total

time for public comment. In the event this occurs, please feel free to send your full comments to the

City Council at council at

redwoodcity.org. Written

comments are not read aloud, but will be

made part of the final meeting record.

And I'll now turn it over to our City Clerk

to call the roll. Good evening.

Let's start with Council Member

Chu. Here. Council Member

Gee. Present. Council Member Howard.

Here. Council Member Padilla.

Here. Council Member

Sturkin. Here. Vice Mayor Aiken.

Here. Mayor Martinez-Caballos.

Here. Thank you. Thank you

everybody. We'll now move on to

the Pledge of Allegiance. Council Member

Sturken, could you lead us? Please

join me for the Pledge of Allegiance.

I pledge allegiance to the

flag of the United States

of America and to the republic

for which it stands,

one nation, under God,

indivisible, with liberty and

justice for all.

Thank you,

Council Member. We'll now

move on to item number four, which is a procedural item for the purpose of identifying and confirming

any council members who wish to participate in the meeting remotely and have not already

provided a remote location listed on the agenda.

Seeing that we're all here in person, we'll move on to item number five.

Starting with our recognition item, which is a little bittersweet tonight, recognizing

our city manager Melissa Stevenson-Diaz

on her upcoming retirement

and celebrating her amazing leadership

in Redwood City

and throughout 34 years

in public service.

And we have a full house tonight

and most of you are

here to share your remarks about Melissa

and following

the presentation of her

proclamation, we'll take comments from the

public followed by council member remarks

and finally we'll let

Melissa have the last word.

Before we begin that, I do want to quickly just read some of the whereases in tonight's proclamation.

Whereas Melissa Stevenson-Diaz has served as city manager for the city of Redwood City for over a decade since October 2015,

and whereas after 34 years of extraordinary, meaningful work in public service,

Melissa Stevenson-Diaz is retiring from her career in local government.

And during her time in Redwood City, Melissa faced extraordinary challenges with exceptional optimism, professionalism, and grace, including the COVID-19 pandemic, during which she provided strong, steady leadership, protected staff positions, and reimagined the delivery of city services amid constant change.

And whereas Melissa Stevenson-Diaz was a leader in San Mateo County in promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion, hiring the city's first equity and inclusion officer in 2021, establishing new and meaningful relationships with Native communities, and coordinating the first and annual pride celebration in Redwood City.

And whereas under Melissa's leadership, the City of Redwood City received the Award for the Advancement of Diverse Communities in February 2022, issued by the League of California Cities Managers Department.

The statewide award recognizes personal leadership in promoting diversity within the workplace, community, and city management profession.

And whereas Melissa's active leadership and mentorship in public sector talent development reflect her deep passion for fostering emerging leaders, resulting in the promotion and appointment of numerous city managers in San Mateo County and beyond.

Some of them are here in the room tonight with us.

Whereas Melissa Stevenson-Diaz is held in high esteem by both former and current colleagues

for her exceptional competence and skill, coupled with her genuine warmth and support

for others, qualities that together exemplify the hallmark of an exceptional city manager.

And whereas Melissa Stevenson-Diaz has consistently embodied the city's core values fostering

an environment in which city staff are empowered to meaningfully shape the city's continued

development. And whereas after 10 years of distinguished service to the city of Redwood

City and 34 years of exemplary public retirement, and while her presence will be greatly missed,

the city will continue to benefit from the lasting impact of her steadfast commitment

to the betterment of Redwood City. Therefore, be it resolved that I, Elmer Martinez-Aballos,

Mayor of Redwood City, on behalf of the City Council and the community of Redwood City,

hereby congratulate and extend our heartfelt thanks and appreciation to Melissa Stevenson-Diaz

for her excellence and leadership as city manager, her extraordinary public service,

and her deep, genuine commitment to improving the quality of life for all members of our community.

We wish her all the best as she begins this next chapter.

And since I did a lot of talking, we want to give you all a break.

We have a photo montage that staff has prepared.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

guitar solo

guitar solo

Thank you.

for preparing that great montage.

And we'll now take comments from folks in the room

and people who've joined us online,

and I'll turn it over to our city clerk to help facilitate.

Thank you, Mayor.

We do have a few speaker cards,

and if you haven't signed up to speak,

and if you would like to,

please check in with us here at the dais.

We'll call you up to the podium two at a time.

We ask that you keep your comments to two minutes,

and we will start with Priscilla

on behalf of Congressman Mullen.

And following Priscilla will be Supervisor Lisa Gaucher.

Okay.

Good evening.

Melissa, on behalf of Congressman Kevin Mullen,

I wanted to wish you congratulations on your retirement.

You have dedicated so much of your career to the community of Redwood City,

which is better off because of your service,

Your steadfast leadership in Redwood City has been an example of what public service means.

Again, on behalf of Congressman Kevin Mullen, thank you for your service in Redwood City,

and congratulations on this very well-deserved retirement and future endeavors.

Thank you.

Good evening.

I'm here to present a resolution.

My name is Supervisor Lisa Gaucher.

It is a true honor to stand here today and recognize Melissa Stevens-Diaz as she retires from her role as city manager in Redwood City.

Melissa has dedicated 34 years to local government service in the Bay Area, with the last 10 years leading Redwood City as its city manager.

During her tenure, she guided Redwood City with integrity, vision, and compassion, ensuring that Redwood City not only grew, but thrived.

Under her leadership, Redwood City strengthened its financial foundation, advanced major capital projects, fostered a culture of inclusion and continuous improvement, and led by example.

She has been a true partner to the county, a steady hand through challenges, and a bold voice for innovation,

always keeping the needs of residents at the heart of her decisions.

Melissa's work has touched every corner of the community, from infrastructure improvements that will serve generations to come,

to initiatives that made Redwood City a more welcome and equitable place for all.

Her legacy is not only in the projects completed, but in the trust and collaboration she built among staff, council, and residents.

As she steps into retirement, we celebrate not just her professional accomplishments, but the grace, dedication, and humanity she brought to public service.

Melissa, you have left Redwood City stronger, more resilient, and more connected than ever before.

On behalf of the community and District 4 of San Mateo County, I thank you for your decade of leadership and for your lifetime of service to the Bay Area.

I want to wish you joy and rest and fulfillment in the next chapter.

You have more than earned it.

Thank you again for your leadership, your grace, and your compassion.

And where should I leave the, leave it here?

Okay.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, Supervisor Gaucher.

We'll now have Joan Dentler on behalf of Senator Josh Becker,

who will be followed by Shelley Mazur and Ian Bain,

former Vice Mayor and former Mayor.

Thank you, Jessica. Good evening.

I'm here on behalf of State Senator Josh Becker,

and I'm also here on behalf of Assembly Members Mark Berman and Diane Papin,

who couldn't be here this evening,

but they wanted to make sure that they were represented

to give their fond thanks and great gratitude to you, Melissa,

for all of your service to our Senate district and our Assembly districts.

Your work has not gone unnoticed in the state of California,

and I can say as a staff member who has represented Redwood City for several years,

we represent in our Senate district over 30 cities.

So we do work with quite a few city managers, town managers, as you can imagine.

And I can say that there are very few who have been as responsive, as professional, as accessible as you have been.

So you have made the state's job of working with the city of Redwood City on its housing initiatives,

its homeless initiatives, its infrastructure initiatives, cultural and artistic initiatives.

And it's been a true pleasure working with you as a staff member.

and also the Senator truly appreciates all of the work that you've done here in this wonderful city.

So on behalf of the California State Legislature, I would like to present you with this resolution.

I will not read the entire resolution, but I will just read a highlight at the bottom.

Whereas the contributions that Melissa Stevenson-Diaz has made to the people of Redwood City

has been invaluable, and she has made a lasting and positive impact impression on those with whom

she has been associated. Now, therefore, be it resolved by Senator Josh Becker and Assembly

Members Mark Berman and Diane Pappin that Melissa Stevenson-Diaz be commended for her long and

distinguished record of professional service and for her outstanding civic leadership and extended

sincere best wishes for a rewarding and gratifying retirement and signed by all three legislators.

Congratulations.

Thank you, Joan. I welcome former Vice Mayor Shelley Mazur, former Mayor Ian Bain to the podium,

and if there's anyone on Zoom who would like to give remarks, feel free to raise your hand at this time.

Thank you.

Well, good evening.

Oh, it is still on.

I think that I couldn't miss this night myself,

and I think, Ian, you probably feel the same.

Melissa and I started together in 2015.

I met her the month before I was elected to city council,

and I am forever grateful to you, Melissa,

for helping me be a better council member

and a better person throughout my service on council.

we had

I don't even know how to describe all the stuff

we had a lot of things that we worked on together

and I know Diane and Jeff you remember a lot

of the work that we all did together

but I couldn't be prouder of the work we did

of the way that we were able to work with you

and among the council members

the way that we were able to work with the community

and your guidance in really reaching out

engaging people, hearing what they needed,

and then making the right decision for Redwood City.

You said when you texted me that you were retiring.

We also had some fun, which we did.

And you could see that in the videos,

the pictures that were shown of Melissa.

Not only did she lead with grace and strength and calmness,

but she also knew how to have a good time.

and I appreciated all those things about you.

So I wanted to say thank you from the bottom of my heart

and I am so excited for you to have some rest

and some more fun in your life.

I'll just add, it's good to be here in person

to be able to celebrate you.

When Shelly and I both stepped off the council,

it was virtual because it was during COVID.

So I just wanted to say, good job.

This is Melissa's first job as city manager.

And I had a few people in the lobby saying to me, oh, good hire.

And I said, it was a group decision.

I know that at least a couple of our colleagues were part of that decision as well.

And I think we made the right decision.

A lot of people have talked about your accomplishments.

What I just would like to say is I think that some of the qualities that made you an effective city manager

were, first of all,

you treated all council members equally

and with respect.

You made sure that we all had the same level

of information to work off of.

And you also made some really good hiring decisions.

And so those are some things

that stood out to me.

I just wanted to wish you the best

on the next chapter here.

Thank you, Melissa.

Thank you.

I now like to call up former assistant city manager

Alex Kojikian, current city manager of the city of San Mateo. Welcome, Alex. Good to see you.

Good evening, Council. I'm Veronica and Melissa. You know, it's to really think about the chapter

of, you know, I spent seven of my ten years, seven of Melissa's ten years here with the city

by her side, serving as first a deputy city manager

and then as her assistant city manager.

And many accomplishments,

whether it be really looking at tackling the affordable housing crisis,

really working on the homelessness crisis here,

also putting the city on strong financial footing.

You know, she did an incredible job navigating all this.

But really, I want to really touch upon just her as a leader

and as a mentor.

Just from my point of view, working under Melissa,

I wouldn't be where I'm at today,

being able to serve the wonderful city of San Mateo

if it wasn't for Melissa.

And what she allowed is she empowered her staff

to do great work, to really engage with the community,

work on really solid solutions overall

for the betterment of this community.

And through all of that, you can see that

She's done a great job of just really putting forward city managers in a couple cities,

like Mountain View in San Mateo, and now here in Redwood City with Patrick.

That's a testament to her legacy of being able to be a strong leader and a mentor to her staff team.

I also have to say that, in addition to that, she's just a great role model.

This is my first time doing public comment, by the way, in my life.

I'm usually on the other side here.

but just a role model. I have three little girls, 11, 9, and 5, and so they constantly ask me when

we go out about our day, you know, looking at different positions, dad, you know, are there any

women in this role, women city managers, and, you know, she's been a role model for my girls.

Just a statistics and statistic for 2025, 24% of city managers in California are women,

And so Melissa has led by example, and she's been a great example for my girls to see what true leadership is and the opportunities that open up for my little girls.

So thank you.

Congratulations on your retirement.

Wishing you all the best.

Thank you, Alex.

That was it for our speaker card.

So if anyone else would like to come and speak, please come up to the podium.

Introduce yourself.

Michelle, welcome.

And again, if you've joined us on Zoom and would like to speak, please raise your hand.

I'm Michelle Littlefield, former city planner for Redwood City.

I didn't know I was going to get emotional.

So I didn't report directly to Melissa.

There were actually a few layers between myself at the time and her office.

but I always admired her.

And I think one big takeaway

is that

she just inspired so many people

and I don't think you realize

how many people you've inspired,

not just the people who report directly to you.

She was the one who ultimately

authorized the creation of my position back then

as the data and analytics program leader here.

And that set my career off in a different direction.

And I owe a lot of it to Melissa

because she saw the potential for what data can do.

And just as a person, she just gave that as an opportunity.

So when I left here, I went on to lead San Francisco.

their data team and then led as the chief data officer

for the city and county of San Francisco.

And now I run my own data company

because of all of the investment that you've done

and just inspiring so many people.

So I just want to thank you.

I wanted to echo Ian,

and I recognize so many people here,

but I just wanted to echo what he said.

Well, thank you, Crystal.

That really great hires,

I mean, I look at Alex and Kimbra.

You have planted the seed, and I think that's the biggest thing,

is when you plant the seed, people can really take off

and, like, really just build on what their strengths are,

and that's really what Melissa has done,

not just for the people who report to her,

but, like, she has created a true legacy.

So thank you, Melissa and Veronica.

I have so much to say.

You're not retiring yet, so I'm going to wait for you.

Thank you, Melissa.

for everything. I appreciate all of your service to Redwood City.

My professional life grew here.

So thank you.

Good evening, Council members. Mike Collagee, County Executive.

I just wanted to also share my congratulations

and admiration for Melissa. I've been in this county

doing public service for a very long time,

and I've come across many, many city managers.

I've got to tell you,

Melissa is one of the very best I have ever seen.

She possesses all the qualities that you would look for

in a city manager.

She's compassionate.

She's a visionary.

Where most people see obstacles,

she sees opportunities.

She always sees the glass half full.

And she looks for the win-win,

which is truly amazing.

She's got a great sense of humor.

I don't think that many people realize

She's got a great sense of humor and everything she does is with a smile on her face.

And you get to see her at work here.

We got to see her in the city county managers group where she was truly a leader.

The partnership that she has shown us throughout the years at the county in regard to COVID,

one of the most difficult situations we could ever imagine, was amazing.

What she's done on the homeless issue and the affordable housing issue in this county has been transformational.

Melissa, you have been an incredible, incredible partner to the county.

I want to thank you for everything you've done.

If you do fail retirement, and I hope you don't, there will always be an opportunity for you in the county.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Good evening, Councilor.

I'm going to keep this real short because I think a lot of accolades and everything

that's been praised upon Melissa is there.

I just want to kind of from a...

Oh, by the way, I'm Afshan Skoui.

I'm city manager with City of Belmont.

I'm also first time being on this side of the dais.

But that said, I think Melissa kind of has shown great leadership and mentorship for the city managers.

At the sister city, we interact with Redwood City quite a bit.

And I always appreciated the insight and the work that we kind of put together in a way of solving regional problems that touches both our cities.

But Melissa, kind of to the point that's been made, also has been a leader in public service and mentoring of the next generation.

Nothing has been kind of more clear to all of us

when she was the chair of the city-county managers

on how inclusive she was,

but also a lot of the time that she puts toward

developing the next generation of leaders coming up.

I think for the last 10-plus years,

we've been involved with the NextGen group

and with the Santa Clara and San Mateo County leadership

in developing the next layer of leaders here.

And again, kind of attest to her desire

to make people successful and step up to the next level.

And that doesn't go without a lot of planning,

a lot of time investment by leaders that are sitting in the seat

encouraging people to step up and step into the next position.

So I just want to congratulate you on your retirement.

I know that bug is going to only last so long.

I'm sure we're going to see you around one way or the other.

Congratulations.

Would anyone else like to come and speak this evening, either in person or online?

Go in once, go in twice.

I'll hand it back to you, Mayor.

Thank you.

Thank you, everybody, for being here, for providing public comments.

Again, I think just I won't name everybody who's here, but it is just such a testament

to the relationships that Melissa has built

and the impact that you've had in our community.

So as I bring it back to the dais,

I'll look to my council colleagues

who would like to get us started.

I think I saw the light on before that.

Council Member Howard?

Would you like to...

Council Member?

No, I was just turning it off.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you, Mayor.

Melissa, being a good city manager is a delicate dance.

On the one hand, you're overseeing and managing hundreds of employees.

On the other hand, you're trying to placate seven people with varying ideas of how the city should be run.

Melissa needed to know which ideas are feasible and when to nicely push back on ideas that are

not practical nor economically feasible. It's like trying to steer a large ship with seven people

giving you different directions. You're smiling, you know. Melissa certainly earned her stripes

during COVID. She kept our city afloat and no employee lost their job. During our time with

Redwood City, we have always had a balanced budget. She has always been available to the council,

to our staff, and to the public. She certainly has been the best dressed city manager we have ever

had. Sorry, Ed.

I would say hers will be big shoes to fill, but I don't think

Patrick wears heels. Over the years,

we have become good friends, and I am going to

miss my friend. God bless you as you move forward on your

next adventure, my friend.

Thank you, Council Member Howard.

Anyone?

Perfect.

Council Member G.

It's hard to believe, Melissa, 10 years.

As Mayor Baines said, it was a team effort back in 2015.

And it was a long effort because I think the interviews were in June

and you joined us in October.

And I remember we gave you, I think it was interviews,

and then we had to come back and we gave you a problem.

You had to share with the council how you were going to solve it.

It was going to be, I think it was something about how you were going to engage with staff,

learn staff, and help them.

And I think that's one of the strongest attributes you bring to your role as city manager.

Not only, I think going back, I tried to count in my head over 10 years,

six mayors, five different councils, different formulations, all the different bosses that

you had.

But when I step back and look at how many Redwood City expats there are in the Bay Area

that have learned from your leadership, Alex, Kimbra, public works directors, city engineers,

we'll leave the city attorneys out for when it's your turn, Veronica.

But that is one of your greatest strengths, is mentoring new leaders to lead other communities.

And you're to be commended for that.

Because they will live on and create community in other places.

I did make a mistake, though.

I didn't cut the right deal.

You're supposed to stay here until we broke ground on 101.84.

We're still a few years away from that, but you'll come back.

We'll get you a shovel for you to come back.

I think saying thank you is an understatement, but thank you for all that you've done.

Then to Fred, thank you, because I think the first time I met you was at an airport in Guangzhou.

We had just visited Zhuhai, a sister city visit, the National Air Show.

I think John Siebert was the mayor.

And you had just retired from the city of Fremont.

and you were trucking around the world,

and it just so happened

that you were both connecting through the Guangzhou Airport.

And I think that's the first time I met you

where you guys were able to travel together.

And with your retirement,

now you can travel together wherever you want

without waiting for a sister city.

So thank you.

Thanks, Dad, for sharing Melissa with us for so many years.

congratulations on everything that you've done come back and visit there'll be more things going

on in redwood city that come back and check it out and enjoy it not wearing the city manager hat

so best wishes on your next chapter melissa thank you very much

thank you council member we'll go to vice mayor aiken next thank you i'm not going to look at

you, Melissa. Melissa, many here tonight have captured your essence, and I will not repeat

what they've said other than to echo their praise. You epitomize grace under pressure.

You are always calm, cool, and collected. I have learned so much from you. Since you are a history

buff and a history major from Mills College, I'm going to address your history here in Redwood

City. As the county seat, the city faced turbulent times. There were squabbles over land entitlements

and legal definitions of land and water. The political climate was fraught because of party

struggles, polarization, and radical government swings outside the city limits. On top of that,

there was a pandemic. The city's port was also roiled by external forces. On the bright side,

the city was filled with innovative businesses who, despite the turbulence,

maintained extensive international contacts, which benefited the region. The city council

supported public art displays, including murals. Melissa, this is a bit about your time managing

Redwood City, but it also describes a European city-state during the Middle Ages. In 1338,

the City Council of Siena commissioned artist Lorenzetti to create three frescoes in City Hall

depicting the allegory of good and bad government. It was designed to recommend

council members how much was at stake when they made their decisions. Today it is considered a

masterpiece. All the challenges I just described were also faced by Siena's government during the

Middle Ages. It would be more than 500 years before Italy would become a unified country in 1861.

Throughout history, art has been a powerful motivation for good. Opera, then a popular new

art form, helped unify Italy. Melissa, because of your vision, you helped Redwood City expand its

public art program. During your 10 years within Redwood City's walls, you epitomized the art of

good government and taught us all how to strive to be our best. Since you and Fred love to travel,

I hope that you will plan to visit Siena and view these famous good government frescoes

on your own. And since Siena is the capital of a renowned Italian wine region,

I have given you both a nice bottle of Chianti for you to enjoy as you plan your next trip.

Thank you, Vice Mayor.

We'll go to Council Member Chu.

So that one's a hard one to follow.

I didn't bring slides.

But no, Melissa, first of all, thank you so much for your many years of public service.

But especially, we're so fortunate to have kind of this 10 years with you.

And a lot of people have spoken to Melissa's outstanding character.

her calmness and kindness, especially under pressure. Like that's when a person's character

is really revealed when things are hard and you've just exemplified grace under pressure.

Melissa also really cares about people. You know, I think, you know, if somebody's very disciplined

and excellent and calm, it's hard to, sometimes hard to see how much they care. And in decisions

she made, when you really press on them, so often behind it was a deep concern and care for people.

And, you know, with all of Melissa's accomplishments, and there are many, the most extraordinary is the

way you have trained leaders that are now leading other cities. And there's a, this is a paraphrase,

like the best way to disseminate an idea is to wrap it up in a human being. And that is the

hardest thing to do is to train someone else in in something that's hard and yet melissa has has

you know mentored three city managers uh in the last 10 years that is an extraordinary accomplishment

we're so lucky to have had you and so grateful for your years of service and and you know just

me personally i felt like you've really helped me through my first year of being a council member

and I really appreciate it.

Thank you, Council Member.

Council Member Padilla.

Melissa, like Isabella,

I think it's maybe been just a year

since we've been sworn in,

so it's been quite a whirlwind.

And I think what I really appreciate,

I go back, I think about Alex coming

to make public comment,

and I think about the little girls,

and I think about how I had the privilege

of bringing my daughter's Girl Scout troop in.

And the comments that they made to me after were, wow, was that on TV?

And that was so cool that there were so many women up there.

And I think that it is so important, not only for our young girls,

but for all of our children to see that women are capable

and they should be at all of the tables.

And I want you to know that that affects everyone around you

and it's meaningful to get to open doors and have the access for the future.

Something else I really appreciate about Melissa is that she's always willing to discuss something,

whether it's online or offline, and I feel like we can have meaningful conversations,

and she challenges me, and I feel at times I hope she feels that I have been able to challenge her thoughts on things as well.

And I like people like that.

I think that we should all be open to growth.

And I really appreciate our weekly calls because I feel like sometimes I don't even know where to start.

I have a million things I want to say to her, and I often can speak very quickly.

So I want to tell you that I really appreciate you taking the time to not just be available but to listen deeply.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member.

Councilmember Sturken. Thank you, Mayor.

Melissa,

thank you so much for your years of service to Redwood City.

Although I haven't had the privilege of working with you as long as some of my

colleagues on the dais and in the audience,

we've accomplished a lot in three years.

And I've learned a lot from you.

And I also want to mention that 10 years is rare.

And I've heard that, and I want to name that.

Thank you for choosing Redwood City, for choosing to stay at Redwood City.

And we may think that we chose you to be our city manager, but you actually chose us.

And the fact that you have continued to choose us year after year after year really speaks volumes about who you are as a person and how much you care about this community and our staff.

So thank you.

And as many of my colleagues have mentioned, thank you for creating such a robust leadership pipeline in many of the folks in the audience and in the room.

And in terms of what we accomplished, even when there have been times that we didn't agree, I always appreciate that maybe where we didn't agree on how to get there,

we always agreed on what we wanted to accomplish,

those shared goals at the end of the tunnel.

And where there have been challenges with council dynamics,

you've always handled them with grace and with compassion and respect

and have set such a high standard for what good relationships,

working relationships should look like.

and one just quick story something that came to mind today about our time together is I remember

one Sunday morning when there was an accident at the corner from my home in Centennial next to

Mezzas Park and I immediately sent you a picture because it was one accident too many and thankfully

nobody got hurt, but I was like, please let me know what I can do anything. And days later,

it seemed to appear the cross traffic does not stop signs. And so I just appreciate how

you are able to hold intention and in balance the big picture of what a city is supposed to do

and everything that goes into it

while also paying such close attention to the details

and making sure that people's lives are protected.

So I just want to thank you so much for your service

and I hope you enjoy your retirement.

You have well earned it

and hope to see you out there in the community.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member.

oh gosh melissa i um don't know where to start i thank you it's the appropriate place to start

thank you for these past 10 years for 34 years to this entire region um

i have talking points i can't even read them i you know just want to start with saying thank you

so many of our colleagues, staff, and the people here who have joined to provide public comment

have just said it better than I ever will. Your impact to this community, the way that you have,

you've exemplified that public service is so much more than just a job, and you exemplify

your style and your heart for this work every day. And this past year, getting to work so much

closer with you, I get to see it's not an act. It's not a cover that you put on. It's who you are,

and it is consistent. And it just is awe-inspiring to me. I mentioned it to you a handful of times,

but I'm just, you're a role model, not for your staff, but for so many of us up here at the dais, too.

We get to learn from you.

We get to see you in action.

And we have tough conversations with each other, with our boards, with partners.

And when you're in the mix, it's incredible to see you hold space for everyone's feelings and where they are

because we have such rich opinions and diverse opinions.

but also you're able to weave through and bring us all together and give us a set of options.

And so I thank you for that because your decision-making has absolutely changed the way that I look at problems,

the way that I want you are just spitting image of what I hope I can be with more time and with more training.

but it is um it's not enough um the work that you've done is going to last for generations

and the people that you've impacted right city managers aren't the mayor aren't council members

a lot of your work is hidden behind the scenes and so there are so many more people than those

who've gathered here today who have been impacted by your work and who will continue to benefit from

all of your service for years to come.

And I can't say it better than that.

So, Melissa, I appreciate your leadership,

your approach to every day of this work.

And I know that this next chapter

will be challenging in its own ways,

but will be exciting and filled with love and joy

and hopefully many more adventures.

So I hope that this next chapter with Fred,

with your family, with your dad,

is a long and happy one.

I hope you all make the most of your newfound time together.

And please know that I'm sure you'll be hearing from us.

It won't be long before we start to give you a call again,

but I also know it's in your heart, it's your spirit,

it's who you are.

You always want to be the problem solver,

the person who's working so closely with teams.

And so I just thank you for keeping that approach here

in Revit City for the last 10 years.

Thank you, Melissa.

And before we give you the last word,

and I just think it would be appropriate

to present all the gifts,

maybe take a quick photo

while everyone's makeup is still looking great,

and then we'll send it over to Melissa for the last word.

Thank you.

Thanks, colleagues.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, everybody.

We'll hand things over to the woman of the hour.

I think it's been a long hour,

so I've got to try not to prolong it much longer.

But I just have to say how much I appreciate

all of the warm comments and warm wishes

and everyone who is here tonight.

Sometimes people comment and appreciate

that I have a poker face at city council meetings.

They don't necessarily know what I'm thinking.

This is not one of those nights.

And I have to tell you, my heart is really overflowing.

And I am really grateful, Jessica,

for restocking the box of Kleenex

because I might be needing it yet.

I also really want to thank Deanna and the whole team

that put together that wonderful reception.

Thank you for that.

It was amazing.

I am really just so thankful for my time in Redwood City

and the opportunity to serve as city manager here.

I appreciate this really kind of as a capstone on top of a career

where I really enjoyed work in my first cities,

in Morgan Hill and in Fremont and in Mountain View.

When I look back, I know that I have been really extraordinarily lucky.

I have been able to serve and to learn and to grow in all of those communities,

supported by mentors and coworkers and colleagues

and the city council and the people who came before you.

And that work has been so rewarding

just because it really aligns so much

with the values that I learned growing up.

I chose local government as a career

really inspired by my parents.

My dad, Ralph Stevenson, sparked intellectual curiosity

and instilled the value of excellence.

And my mother Barbara taught me how to look for the best in others always.

Both of my parents really lived lives of service to others.

They offered their talents generously, and they raised me in a faith community that affirmed

the inherent worth and dignity of all people.

All people, without exception.

I'm really glad that my dad can be here tonight, as he was when I was sworn in in 2015.

Local government exists to provide services, but how those services are provided really can vary widely.

And Redwood City is special, not just because we're the oldest city on the peninsula, but because of our how.

First, you know that Redwood City has a long tradition of rich community engagement.

We strive to hear from people of all walks of life about the decisions that will impact them.

This is not fast or easy, but it's really at the heart of what it means to be a democracy and to be in local government.

Second, Redwood City is all about collaboration and partnership.

We work closely with so many community organizations, with the amazing Redwood City Together Collaborative,

with other public agencies, and our business community,

trying to provide the best possible services in the most cost-effective manner to our community.

And finally, Redwood City is unique in its commitment to civil and strategic governance.

The city council and all who came before you have really been models of the best in elected leadership.

You do bring wide-ranging ideas and perspectives, but you're able to make decisions and to then move on.

You have ensured that we respond as staff to emerging issues, but have stayed focused on a long-term vision and strategic plan.

We have an outstanding executive team, and we are able to attract and retain competent and creative professionals because of the tone that you set.

It's because of how you treat each other and you treat staff.

you encourage us to innovate to seek excellence and to assess whether we are truly serving

everyone in our community because of your leadership over the last several years

redwood city has been able to become a national leader for the ways that we evaluate and consider

equity in our services and our policies i wish that all of these things that make redwood city

special especially your practices of civility of strategic governance and concern the government

meets the needs of everyone i wish that were the norm everywhere but we know it is not

so while i want to thank you for the recognition of my work tonight please know that how you govern

as a city council and how our city organization works together has been so deeply rewarding to me

I know that Redwood City's future is bright and Redwood City will continue to be a leader because of how we work together here.

And I hope you know that I will be cheering you on in the days and months ahead.

And there are many ground breakings I would like to be invited to.

I am really grateful for this new chapter for me and for my family.

As much as I have loved being city manager, I love them more.

and I particularly want to thank my husband Fred my number one champion for so many years

having served as city manager himself in three communities I only made it in one he completely

understands the rigors of this role he has been a great sounding board and has helped me consider

different perspectives but most importantly he has reminded me that there is more to life than work

and I'm excited for more adventures in our life ahead.

You still have important work to do this evening, Council,

and so I'm just going to close myself by saying thank you.

I thank you for your trust, for your care for me

and for our staff and for our community,

and most of all, thank you for modeling the best

in public service yourselves.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you again, everybody.

Thank you, Melissa, for all your service.

Hard to believe we still have business items to do after all the celebrating.

But we will move on to item six, which is our public comment section of the agenda.

And we'll take public comment on the consent calendar, matters of council interest,

as well as items that are not listed on tonight's agenda.

We welcome speakers providing 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, feel free to raise your hand on Zoom at this time or press star 9 if you've joined by phone.

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

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

Thank you, Mayor.

We do have one speaker card on general public comment at this time.

As the mayor said, once we begin public comment, we will be closing the speakers list.

So if you've joined us on Zoom, go ahead and raise your hand.

We'll start off with Aaron Coleman, who's joined us in person.

You'll have two minutes to speak.

The timer will begin when you start speaking.

There's a series of lights on the podium.

The orange blinking light is the 30-second warning,

and the red light with the beep means your time has concluded.

Welcome.

Thank you.

I appreciate your time, City Council.

And, Melissa, what a beautiful night this was.

I'm glad I came.

So I just wanted to mention that I still have the issue of my floating home

remaining at Docktown Marina.

it's been positioned over the launch ramp

and it sinks about every three days

the city has a permanent pump

mounted on my docks that they come out and pump

it out in the middle of the night

they keep sinking it and refloating it

I don't know how to resolve this matter

I still live in the homeless shelter

my son lives in his car

in the parking lot

next to the old marina

we haven't had any closure, no one's reached out to us

we can't get anything resolved

I've had to do it with Sergeant Kang

many times and he

will not help at all resolve this.

All of our belongings are still on board,

the floating home, everything we own.

The city wanted me to sign a five-page release of liability

just to get my daughter's ashes off the floating home

that passed away.

This paper is insane, saying that I have no rights.

I can never sue the city or any of its employees

or government officials or anything.

I mean, it's really involved.

I think the only thing that's helped

is that I put everything on YouTube.

I do a one-shot take.

nothing's edited my sergeant King video where he wanted me to sign this paper

has 10,000 views I've gotten 49,000 views so far off my channel so I just

need some direction what I can do to get my floating home back in my towboat we

had 65 days of wind and I could not tow it out during the timeframe with the

Coast Guard's approval I know it's not on the agenda tonight but if maybe the

city attorney could reach out to me or something I appreciate your time thank

you. Thank you, Mr. Coleman. I'll turn it back to you, Mayor. We have no raised hands

on Zoom. Thank you. Thank you. And City Attorney, would you mind reaching out? Thank you. We'll

make sure to connect. Thank you. Thank you. Great. And with that, we will move on to item

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

motion. Are there any items on

consent from which council members are recused?

Not seeing any. Are there any items

on consent that council members

would like to pull for discussion?

Not seeing any. Okay. Is there a motion?

Move to approve consent, please.

Is there a second?

Second.

Great. Thank you. That was a motion from Council Member G

and a second from Council

Woman Howard. Could we please get a

electronic vote, please?

motion passes unanimously thank you thank you

thank you everybody we'll now go on to item eight which is our boards commissions and committee work

plans we'll now hear a presentation from two of our city committees each of the city's boards

commissions and committees will present their work plans to the city council generally every

two years, and we'll be hearing from more BCCs early next year. We'll first hear from the

Transportation Advisory Committee, and Principal Planner Malahat Orang will introduce the item,

and Transportation Advisory Committee Chair Shannon Chee and Member Rona Gundrum will give

the presentation. Thank you all for being here. Thank you. Good evening, everybody. My name is

I'm Principal Transportation Planner with Rebu City Engineering.

I'm the Staff Liaison for Transportation Advisory Committee or TAC.

And here tonight we are here to present the proposed work plan for TAC for fiscal years

2025-2026 and 2026-2027.

Next slide please.

We do have five new members in TAC as of July,

so in the past few months, we work with our new TAC members

to first educate them on what TAC does,

and then develop this proposed work plan.

Tonight I'm here with two of our wonderful TAC members

to do the presentation for you.

I'm just going to give you some introduction.

Our current TAC members that I would like to acknowledge

helped us develop this work plan are Shannon Chee,

Michael Aguilar, Robin Betts, David Fribush,

Ron Agandrum, Nicole Noga, and Brian Schmidt.

Next slide, please.

Our Transportation Advisory Committee

was developed based on a mission statement

to increase safe, attractive, comfortable,

and independent access and travel

for the Reboot City community utilizing

complete streets principles and practices.

Our work plan has been always developed

based on this mission statement,

and when we developed our work plan,

we also looked at the City Council's priorities and goals.

Next slide, please.

When we developed the proposed work plan,

we looked at the most recent

City Council's strategic priorities,

which for 25-26, they are housing, transportation,

children and youth, and equity.

For transportation, the City Council's strategic priorities

and goals are to implement the adopted Vision Zero Action

Plans' recommended strategies to eliminate fatalities

and severe injuries from traffic collisions,

and that's what we call it Vision Zero.

to create and implement programs, policies,

and infrastructure to support zero emission trips,

and to ensure robustity is considered

in all regional transportation initiatives.

So when we worked with our TAC members

to develop our proposed work plan,

we did develop it based on these goals and priorities,

as you can see in the handouts.

In the past two years, our TAC members helped the staff,

helped me, on several policy updates

and many projects, design projects that we did.

An example of two larger scale policy updates

they helped the staff to work on.

One of them is the bicycle parking design guideline,

which was the first for the city,

and it is one of the first probably in the Bay Area

and in the state.

TAG members helped us to develop the design guideline

and you just approved it in consent and in agenda

as part of our engineering standards.

And the other policy that TAG members help us staff

to develop was working on chapter eight

of our municipal code, which was named Bicycle,

and revising and start drafting and revising the code.

It's going to be a major code update

that we are going to bring to City Council

on December 22nd, related to bicycles and scooters,

and in general, micro-mobility.

It will be under public here.

Next slide, please.

At the staff level, we usually take our project design,

multiple times to TAG for their input.

It's usually our design consultants or staff,

we do the presentation, we revise the design

based on their feedback.

Example of projects TAG members reviewed in the past year

is El Camino Real Southbound Bike Land project

that we are working on.

It is currently submitted to CalTrans for encroachment permit.

We did take it to TAG multiple times

and received very great input from TAG members

and did revise the design based on their input.

Another example of projects is the Jefferson Avenue

Traffic Safety Improvement Project,

which is one of our larger capital improvement projects.

It is in planning and design phase,

and we took it to TAG multiple times,

and we're taking it to TAG again tomorrow night.

TAG has been supportive of staff and grant applications

that we submit to different granters.

They did provide support letters

for many grant applications that we submit.

Example of the recent ones are Vero Bike Boulevard,

James El Camino intersection improvement project,

Bay Road Completed Street project,

Seaport Pass, which were all successfully awarded.

Next slide, please.

For TAC work plan, equity has been a major factor.

Our TAC members represent youth,

they represent commuters, school parents, seniors.

So they have a very good understanding

of mobility needs in the community.

So in your handout you see the proposed TAC work plan

based on different goals we picked for TAC

and all of them are based, are developed based on

equity for Revo City community.

Now I hand it over to Shannon Chee, our tag chair,

to present the goals and projects.

Thank you.

Thanks, Malahat.

Hi, everyone.

Rona and I will kind of highlight some of the activities

that we're hoping to accomplish in this next two years

through the work plan.

So this slide is familiar to all.

It was in our last work plan.

And as of the summer, we have five new committee members,

so everyone's very excited to start working on this work plan.

Next slide, please.

So the work plan highlights some of the focus areas

that the committee is planning to achieve these next two years.

Our goals are around these six areas,

and I will highlight a few of these.

Next slide, please.

So, as Malahat already mentioned, one of the key objectives of TAC is to support the SAF and then ultimately the Council and the City through providing feedback on Vision Zero projects.

The city has many of these projects and that are under design or planning and TAC input is considered during these phases.

One example we wanted to highlight is the Jefferson Traffic Safety Project design that has come to TAC a few times and again tomorrow night.

and that will come to City Council in January for review.

Next slide, please.

We're excited to undertake two projects

around updating city codes or guidelines.

The first one here is we are planning

to update the codes around parking.

The city received a new grant through MTC

to update parking requirements

around transit-oriented areas around downtown

and TAC will be part of reviewing and providing feedback and hoping to help draft this new ordinance.

This code update is important.

It's required by regional agencies for future traffic funding opportunities.

Next slide, please.

The second one is a guideline that we're excited to be working on for these next two years.

This is around traffic, the city's current policy and guidelines for residential traffic calming.

We have, there's existing policy that is over 10 years old,

and we are, and staff is interested to update it to better support the current community needs.

And so that is another project we're working on.

I'm going to hand it over to fellow committee member Rona.

Thank you, Shannon.

As the city is working with regional agencies such as Samtrans and Caltrans on some of the high-profile regional projects like the El Camino Real safety improvements,

TAC members will help staff with business and community outreach in the next few months.

TAC members will provide feedback on outreach strategies at our March 2026 TAC meeting and then help with the outreach.

Next slide, please.

So the committee is requesting tonight that Council approve the fiscal year 2025-26 and

2026-27 Transportation Advisory Committee Work Plan.

Does Council have any questions?

Thank you, Commissioner Gundrum, Chair Chee, and Malahad for the great presentation.

We'll first do public comment, and then we'll bring it back to the dais for any Councilmember questions.

Thank you, Mayor.

I don't have any speaker cards at this time, so last call to the audience for any public comment on Item 8A,

the Transportation Advisory Committee's work plan.

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

Thank you.

We'll bring it back to the council.

Who would like to get our discussion started today?

Council Member Howard.

Sure.

First of all, I'd like to thank you very much for the work that you all are doing.

I have a question.

The last time you presented, we were saying that we were concerned that you may not have enough meetings for the multitude of projects that you are working on.

Has that been resolved?

We do create special meetings in between if needed, yes.

But we still meet quarterly.

I'm sorry, the what?

We still meet quarterly, but if there is a need to work on a specific project, we add one special meeting.

Well, it seems like you have a very robust committee now.

I'm so pleased that you have been able to have new members join.

there's just so much to do in Redwood City.

So I really appreciate your service on this committee.

I'm happy to hear about the coming back to us December 22nd, is it,

regarding e-bikes and scooters and recommendations based on aligning with state and regional guidelines?

Yes.

No regional guideline.

A big part of it is based on the new changes to the state vehicle code,

and a part of it is additional city codes related to,

especially e-bike and scooters and all the rules and regulations related to that.

Yes.

Can you tell me, I'm really pleased because it's so needed,

And I think nobody really, I'm not aware of any other city, even the county, who is tackling this at this time.

I could be wrong.

But I've often been told that if we start, maybe others will follow.

So I'm hoping that will happen.

How do you hope to get to the community, to get their input?

Because this is going to take education.

It's one thing to have an ordinance and different codes.

but if people aren't aware of it, it's going to be a real challenge.

So have you talked about that?

We did some outreach.

We do have a CFRA to school task force that I've been talking to the task force about this topic.

It covers new rules and regulations about age limit.

So definitely after we do the adoption,

I do reach out to especially high school district.

I did have some talking and coordination

with the local bicycle group.

We do have monthly check-ins,

so they're doing their own outreach

through the local Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition.

But that was the level.

After we do the adoption, we definitely need to do some outreach

through especially high school district.

Yes.

I was going to ask you, we have a meeting coming up, 2 plus 2 plus 2,

which is our meeting with the schools,

and it's coming up next Monday, I believe.

And I'm hoping either if you could come

or a representative could come with a summary of what this is.

It doesn't have to be you personally,

but if we have the information in front of us

about what we're tackling on December 22nd and ask for their help.

Because I think getting this information into the schools is going to be crucial.

Because many of the young people who are riding these bikes are in the schools.

And they're not always riding safely.

And we want to be sure no one gets hurt.

So maybe we could ask for their help at that meeting.

Yes, I'm looking at Veronica if I can share the document

before a city council approval with anyone,

but we definitely can put together some bullet points

so inform them that this is coming up next week.

Yes, definitely.

It's not finalized, but just informing them this is coming

and we sure could use their help.

Sure.

Thank you very much to the committee.

Appreciate your work.

Thank you, Council Member.

Go to Council Member Sturken next.

thank you mayor thank you malahad thank you so much to the chair and the vice chair for your

service i'm really impressed by this work plan it's quite robust and there's so much good stuff

in here and i'm really especially excited about your attention to vision zero and to modernizing

our traffic calming program so thank you in advance for your hard work um and with the

micromobility I know you did mention Malahat you have spearheaded outreach

efforts already so if you haven't already connected with you know with

PAL Center, Live in Peace, community.org just ensuring that we are also reaching

out to the organizations that are part of the bike life movement so that we

don't update our city code and regulations and end up having unintended consequences of criminalizing

youth. So thank you in advance for your outreach efforts and for your consideration of reaching out

to those organizations. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member. We'll go over to Council Member

Padua. Thank you for your presentation. I believe you mentioned that there's a TAC meeting tomorrow.

So for the audience online and in person, could you share with us when and where TAC meets and if the Jefferson project will be discussed?

Thank you.

Yes.

Tomorrow night it's here at City Hall.

It starts at 6.

It is in Room 1A.

And unfortunately, it's the last item in the agenda.

We have a very long agenda.

But 6 o'clock at City Hall, Room 1A.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member.

We'll go to Council Member Chu.

So I wanted to thank all of you for all your hard work.

It does look like a very thoughtful, thorough plan for the coming round.

I wanted to echo several of Council Member Sturkin's comments.

I am really grateful that the first item is Vision Zero.

that's such an important thing for particularly children and youth and as we think about

modernizing our e-bike code really being sure you know to council member sterkin's point that

we differentiate verse what what's assist versus a de facto motorcycle etc there are probably there

i know there are frameworks and cut points and i'm sure you're more familiar with them than i am but

just making sure that we we work with the bike life groups to make sure that we don't criminalize

that activity as you're modernizing the parking code just you know something to put a bug in your

ear I know that there's the daylighting law I forget the name I forget the SB whatever but

that new daylighting law. And there's some discussion around whether sort of hardening

the daylighting improves safety. Sometimes what happens is if visibility is particularly good,

people take corners faster and the benefit is lost if that's the case. So just if possible,

looking at potentially hardening corners in addition to daylighting them. And

I know that you're also

modernizing or you're also updating

the parking code for downtown

so

just emphasizing I'm really

excited to see kind of what

you come up with

so I'll leave it there

and

great work plan

Thank you Council Member Chu we'll go to the Vice Mayor

Thank you

I just would like to say I just really enjoyed reading your work plan.

I think it was a six, anyway, your work plan, four pages or five.

I was so impressed, and I really want to compliment you on that.

I really liked your mission statement.

I read it a couple times.

I think we're in good hands.

The other thing that I really liked, I was, you know, I didn't know this,

and I don't know if the public knows this,

But I was interested to read in your work plan that your outreach that you work when a new development is just really at an idea phase and ideas are just kind of not in concrete yet, that you're involved and that you do outreach so that you make sure that transportation and parking is thought of early on and then consistently throughout the project.

I had not known that, and I'm very pleased to learn that that's the case.

So please keep up all the amazing work.

You've got five new people, but sometimes they have a lot of new energy.

I know some that I'm looking at do.

So I just have one question, and it's kind of technical.

so um but but i was really again i was so impressed with all the outreach and all of the

collaboration just and then one of your work plan things said ad hoc committees on outreach and that

confused me like you do so much outreach anyway why would you need a temporary committee to do

what you're already already always doing what i couldn't figure out how that would happen so

Sometimes if we have a very larger scale project, we use some of our TAC members to help us

with door-to-door outreach and Council Member Stark and maybe you remember you did door-to-door

outreach for our great separation project.

So that's, it is good when, so for one thing we had in mind when we added that to our work

plan was all the upcoming planning and construction works that are coming to El Camino Real.

And because there are lots of businesses, even though our city council adopted El Camino

Real corridor plan in 2017, and that plan talks about removing parking and adding bike

lane, but after a few years, the business owners may forgot there might be new tenants

on those businesses.

So we really like to do a refreshed outreach

to all the businesses on El Camino Real.

Our goal is to do door-to-door outreach.

And other than city staff,

we rely on a few tech members

to help us with the door-to-door outreach.

So the idea around ad hoc is that it's just temporary

and it's concentrated and it'll end.

Yes, yeah.

versus other projects are kind of like you're always doing outreach type thing.

Yes, correct.

Well, keep up the great work, and I guess we'll see you again on the 22nd.

So, yes.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Vice Mayor.

Go to Council Member Chee next.

Thank you, Mayor Malhot, Commission Chair Chee, and Member Gundrum,

and all the members, thank you.

I mean, this is a very robust work plan.

if you just look at what we're doing in Redwood City

there's a lot going on

but that wasn't good enough for you

you added on top of all that the regional efforts that are going on

and next year is going to be another robust year

of regional efforts whether it be

the quarter wide Caltrain grade crossing strategy

the efforts on SB 63

to get that on the ballot for voters to consider in November

the stuff that CK is doing

and their TA

that is just even bigger

and so when you tackled what was going on

in Redwood City my hats off

to you for even adding on top of that

paying attention and

staying engaged on what's going on on regional level

because what happens at the regional level

does affect what happens in Redwood City

and at the end of the day

it's also about money and where it comes

from and how it can help us and so

hats off to all of you

It's great that you have a full committee now that you can share the wealth of work

because there will be a lot ahead for the next two years.

So thank you very much for all the efforts and thank you in advance for all the commitment

because there's a lot of work ahead of us.

Thank you, Council.

I'll add my thanks, Commissioners.

Malahad, thank you so much for this great presentation and the great work plan.

You know, I will also say that I was very impressed going through the staff report.

I think reading how you all brought your priorities into alignment with the council discussion we had was very helpful with Vision Zero being at the forefront of that.

I recently had a great discussion with our teen advisory board, the TAB at Red Morton.

and quite a few of those students don't live around Jefferson Avenue,

but will take it.

And they mentioned, you know, it's been,

some of them had heard about, you know,

the outreach efforts and the project itself, but, you know, some hadn't.

So thinking that might be another great group to just reach out to

and get some more input from a whole, you know,

a whole selection of schools, not just the immediate school district here.

But, you know, aside from that, wanted to also thank you for thinking regionally.

I think when people think of Redwood City, they will often think of Sequoia Station and see us as a regional hub.

So making sure that we're not losing track or any momentum with the few federal dollars we might see or state dollars to help fund these projects, I think is really critical.

and then the last thing I'll say is just

you know with I love the idea of these

ad hoc groups doing the you know really concentrated

outreach I would you know happy to offer my

services if I can help out I know there are quite a few businesses on

El Camino where you know their

uses just vary so much there are lots of Spanish speaking businesses there

too. However I can

be helpful, I would love to know.

Aside from that,

I'll make sure to shout out from the mountaintops

about our TAC meeting tomorrow.

Hopefully, you'll see a boost

in

people attending

and sharing their inputs.

Thank you again for this great work.

Thank you.

Great. Any

final thoughts or questions?

Thank you, Mayor.

I just wanted to mention, since you mentioned the

youth being open to taking Jefferson.

I also want to make sure we're fully engaging

with residents who live on Jefferson,

and not only Jefferson, but the side streets,

because once parking is gone,

it's going to affect not just people who live on Jefferson,

but people on those narrower side streets.

So I just want to make sure we're engaging everyone,

because I've been getting calls about prior

the Jefferson implementation in Farm Hill,

And I would just want to make sure that everyone knows the situation, is able to contribute, and make sure that letters go out to residents and more than door knocking.

I just want to make sure the outreach is robust for neighbors.

Thank you.

For Jefferson or any other traffic calming, the corridor level we do, we send all the communication are with people who live on the corridor and one block at two sides of the corridor.

So for Jefferson, for example, any communication mailed to, I think, 2,600 addresses a few times.

Yeah, we'll make sure.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mahalohat.

Thank you, colleagues.

Is there a motion?

Council Member Chu.

I move to approve the fiscal year 2025, 2026, and 2026-2027 Transportation Advisory Committee work plan.

Second.

Great. That was a motion from Council Member Chu, a second from Council Member Howard.

Could we get an electronic vote, please?

The motion passes unanimously.

Great. Thank you again, everybody.

Thank you.

All right. And with that, we will now move to Item 8B.

So up next is our Historic Resources Advisory Committee, which will include an update from staff on the Mills Act contract.

We have Senior Planner Ryan Kuching, who will start us off with a staff presentation,

which will be followed by a presentation from Chair Ron Goldman and Vice Chair Glenn Babbitt on the Historic Resources Advisory Committee work plan.

Thank you all.

Yes, good evening Mayor Savalos and Council Members.

My name is Ryan Kutchenig, Senior Planner with the Planning Division.

So this evening I will be providing an update on the Mills Act Contract Program in Redwood

City and also presenting the HRAC Advisory Committee Work Plan with assistance from the

Chair and Vice Chair.

Tonight you will also be considering four Mills Act contracts, but that's in another item.

So I just wanted to give you a preview of that.

So we'll go ahead and go to the next slide.

So a couple questions before you this evening.

Does the City Council have feedback on the Mills Act contract program?

And does the City Council have feedback on the HRAC work plan?

And here's a little agenda of the first part of the presentation.

First, I'll be giving you a Mills Act overview, have the contract approval process, discuss existing Mills Act contracts, the annual and five-year review of established contracts, as well as some next steps and some feedback we've received from the HRAC and Planning Commission committees.

All right, so first, what is a Mills Act contract?

The Mills Act contract is an economic incentive program in California for the restoration and preservation of qualified historic buildings by private property owners.

This was a state law that was enacted in 1972, which grants participating local governments the authority to enter into contracts with owners of qualified historic properties

who actively participate in the rehabilitation, restoration, and preservation and maintenance of their historic properties.

Since the costs of doing so can be prohibitive,

property tax relief can partially offset these costs.

And this program was adopted in Redwood City in 1990.

It renews automatically every year after the initial 10-year period

unless the property owner or city opts out of the contract

or opts to end the contract.

It does transfer upon sale and recorded against the property.

so for the just some tax share information for you i've provided the savings of mils act

properties in ruby city is roughly 613 000 the city's share of lost property tax revenue is

approximately 123 000 and this results of ruby city total property tax revenue is around 83

million or 50 15 percent of the total revenue and the school's district share of lost revenue

is estimated around $313,000.

So the contract includes a 10-year schedule of improvements

and maintenance projects for the property.

Some common items that are often listed in these plans include

landscaping, window door replacements, roof repair, paint work.

It can have a number of items.

In some cases, they might be related to how the property is historic

and restore a specific historic feature.

and other times it could be just overall maintenance of the property

that need to be maintained over the period of the contract.

It does include the Redwood City's minimum maintenance standards for historic properties

as well as the Secretary of Interior's standards of rehabilitation.

You can look at those in more detail on each of the contracts later this evening,

but those are the items that are listed.

I will note that prior to 2012, many of these contracts didn't include a year-by-year schedule of improvements,

but rather gave approximate timeframes, and were not specific to when improvements have occurred.

But since then, the agreements have become more specific.

And in fact, in general, we've targeted some of the major improvements early on in the contract in more recent years.

And so here's a little bit of a timeline of the approval process.

So first, an evaluation is performed by a qualified licensed historian to determine whether it is a historic resource, if it's not already.

And then second, if it is determined to be historic, an application is then brought to the planning division, and we have a deadline of July 1st every year.

And that gives enough time to be reviewed by the necessary bodies in the council.

and essentially that usually happens in November, December to become active in January.

It's reviewed by the HRAC in late fall planning commission in that, I'm sorry, late summer and fall in that time frame.

So recommendations are forwarded to the council who has the final authority to designate a property as historic

and to approve the Mills Act contract.

And so far since 1990, we've had 38 of these contracts granted.

There was one contract that was discontinued, so there are 37 active at this present time.

And as I mentioned, four more will be considered later this evening.

But on average, we have about one to two per year, if you kind of average the 38 over the 35 years that we've had since the program began.

And so here's a map of the Mills Act properties.

As you can see, there is a bit of a concentration of where they are within the city.

mostly in Edgewood, Centennial, and Stanbaugh-Heller neighborhoods and some downtown.

And that most of these properties are single-family, but a couple are commercial,

and there are a few multifamily residential.

And to provide a more detailed breakdown, we have about 28 single-family,

seven that are multifamily, two commercial, and one being the Fox Theater.

and then just have some photos of some of the designated properties to um it'll kind of show

you what we're looking at some of these historic um or give you a visual of the historic properties

i will note as part of the contracts each november we send out annual self-reporting forms so we're

in the midst of one right now but to give you some data of the recent whether one that occurred in

2024, and they are required to be provided back to us in January.

We did receive about an 80% response rate, sometimes after numerous requests for this

information, but that resulted in about seven contracts reports that we did not receive,

but we are hoping to get more information this year in this year's reporting period.

and then some additional properties as well as the annual reporting we have a five-year

inspection process and we we did conduct inspections of all the properties this past year

it was completed in july and we can confirm that exterior improvements and maintenance

of the properties of in each of the contracted properties did occur and the compliance was also

verified through review of the reporting forms as well as building permits history

And just some additional observations I've listed here.

Each of the evaluated properties appeared to have complied.

However, in some cases, a follow-up is warranted in a few cases regarding the upkeep of landscaping and paint conditions.

But it was apparent that all the major exterior improvements have been completed based on these inspections.

But in no cases did we find that code enforcement action was necessary in any of the times where we thought landscaping or paint conditions could be improved in a few of those cases.

And so some feedback that we received from an earlier study session with our HRAC and Planning Commission, and this occurred earlier this year,

it was important to increase awareness of the program,

especially in the underrepresented areas.

As I pointed out, many of them are concentrated in only a few neighborhoods.

But to also continue front-loading major improvements through the 10-year plans.

So this is something we've done in more recent years,

but it's something that renewed focus for us to do.

And then not just major improvements,

but just upgrades to key design features that make it historic.

Also, consideration or incorporation of potential fines for noncompliance while acknowledging the need to not turn people off of the program.

Lastly, there was also a request to have another joint study session when the Historic Preservation Ordinance is being studied in the coming year.

Since there isn't a lot of detail in our ordinance of the program, we're hoping to incorporate many of the contract stipulations in our ordinance for further.

And I'll talk a little bit more about that actually in the next slide.

So as I mentioned, we do want to incorporate the Mills Act program in the ordinance and really need to formalize a review process for new applications, specify some minimum standards for components of a 10-year improvement plan, potentially look at what should be included on a year-by-year basis.

Also establish a regular schedule of annual reporting of these contracts and five-year inspections.

And to consider a formal revocation process for noncompliance upon those enforcement efforts.

So those are some of the next steps that kind of came out of our previous discussions with the other bodies.

We do have some information that we've been that have provided on our website, which I listed there as well about the program.

Excuse me.

So right now, I'll go ahead and turn it over to our chair for the work plan discussion, but I'll be available for questions after their presentation as well.

Okay, thank you.

My name is John Goldman.

I'm the current chair of the HREC Historic Resources Advisory Committee.

I've been with the committee since 2018.

Um, forward.

Okay, so since a lot of people aren't familiar with our little committee, I'll just read

the mission statement.

The HREC's mission is to equitably safeguard the city's past and heritage by protecting

and identifying resources, representing special elements of its history, and to encourage,

educate, and advocate for historic preservation.

So my vice chair, take over.

Good evening, all.

My name's Glenn Babbitt.

I am the vice chair.

And I have used this before.

It's been a while.

I'll do it.

Thank you.

I'm technically challenged, I'm afraid.

we do have some required functions which we i don't believe have changed significantly in many

years so rather than just read them to you if you have questions as they come up we can address them

then i would say though that we do take our committee title very seriously we are an advisory

committee we provide advice to the planning commission because i don't think we can expect

them to know the Secretary of the Interior Standards for what should happen to an older

building. The age is easy enough to determine, but the actions we can advise about a bit.

We are also an advisory committee for the people who come to us with projects. These projects

often represent dreams about their home. They're probably their largest investment,

their property. And for many of the people that we see, it's their first time in this room.

It's their first time speaking to people at the DS. It's big stakes for them. And

we are often their first point of contact with, this is how the city feels about your dreams.

and we take that very seriously.

We hear them out and we often advise them about the,

for example, the maintenance schedule.

You might want to do it this way

or I didn't understand what you meant by that.

I often go to the planning commission meetings

where their next step in this process is

and it's very gratifying to me to see improvements

in their presentations and in their confidence

that their dreams will be handled well by the city.

That's very important to me,

and it was very difficult to get as a bullet point.

So, our next steps.

Thank you.

Glenn is a great committee member

and very knowledgeable and enthusiastic.

So our goals and projects,

we had a very good session with the Planning Commission

to talk about updates to the Historic Preservation Ordinance,

which in particular we thought that it should have a rolling

qualification timeline where properties need to be considered.

Right now it's 1940 or earlier, so we thought it may,

we'd leave it to the city council, but we thought maybe 50 years or older,

all properties should undergo historic process.

Other goal research and highlight Redwood city history,

not previously well documented or studied,

increase awareness of the Mills Act program.

So we definitely think that's probably our most proud and amazing thing is to

get people into the Mills Act program and properly it's a contract that basically says this house is

going to be here in 10 years so we've encouraged people to do seismic work to do studies about

all sorts of things one of the things that we brought up about equitably safeguarding

our heritage is that the Mills Act program to get your building into that is probably four to five

thousand dollars of city fees we were hoping maybe to come up with some pre-check system where

someone could maybe pay a couple hundred dollars and get a you know a maybe or a no way so that

they don't go spend five thousand dollars for for nothing and some of the people probably couldn't

afford it but they could borrow the money or something if they knew that they were going to

have significant tax savings so another goal education and outreach for historic preservation

especially focusing on youth groups and local schools.

That sort of came up again.

We did participate in that in the past.

We haven't really had the infrastructure,

but we're going to be talking about it this year.

There was previously a tour for 7th graders,

which by coincidence when I first got on the committee,

my daughter was in 7th grade, so that went really well.

And then historic landmark designation plaques.

That's been something that we haven't been doing at all.

And we do have potentially donors who could provide the money.

but we've just sort of been stuck,

not sure of the process or procedure with the city.

I think that's really it.

Since there was so much to talk about for the Mills Act,

our presentation was fairly short.

So basically, yeah, we're here to hear your feedback.

We serve at your convenience,

and we're here to do what the city council needs.

So we're here to hear comments on the Mills Act and the work plan.

Great, Mr. Chair.

Vice Chair Babbitt, thank you for the presentation.

Before we bring it back to the dais, we'll get some public comments.

If the city clerk could assist.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor.

We don't have any in-person speakers.

Last call to the audience for folks wanting to give public comment on this item.

Seeing none, we'll turn to our Zoom speakers.

We do have two raised hands.

We'll call on Frank Elliott first, followed by Andrew Ryan.

Frank, you can go ahead and unmute yourself.

Welcome.

Thank you for the opportunity to comment.

I'm assuming you can hear me.

I want to raise the financial concern that I believe remains underreported in the analysis

of these Mills Act contracts.

This applies to both this agenda item and the next.

Now, the presenter did mention the full amount of the subsidy in the $700,000, $700,000 range, but I don't see that detail in the report.

And I think it should be in the reports, and I think that information should be readily available to the public.

And I think we also should have details at the property level, because that's actually where we can see the true cost and the true benefit.

For example, one Edgewood home under the Mills Act is valued at roughly $7 million and now receives a $40,000 per year property tax reduction.

That will be about $400,000 over 10 years.

Now, the city doesn't bear the full cost of that, but still, the owner is getting a tremendous windfall.

I took a look at that property on Zillow, and frankly, there's nothing particularly notable or historical about that property.

It's a one-story ranch home, and it's been fully renovated in the inside.

Here's my key point.

The amount of subsidy is almost impossible to quickly understand, because it varies dramatically

depending on whether a home is currently protected under Proposition 13, whether it was recently

purchased at a much higher market value, or whether the ownership changes in the future.

Without that context, neither the public nor the council can accurately see the true cost

of these decisions. Some subsidies may be justified, but perhaps not all of them. At minimum,

the council should require a property-by-property financial report before renewing or automatic

renewing or adding more contracts. I urge you to demand this kind of reporting before you act

on any additional mills contracts. Thank you for your time.

Thank you, Frank. Our next speaker is Andrew Ryan.

Hello.

My name is Andrew Ryan.

I'm a homeowner in San Mateo, and for the last few months,

I've been researching the Mills Act in San Mateo

and subsequently in Redwood City.

I've read all these contracts cover to cover,

and what I've found will disturb you.

My research shows not only that the Mills Act contracts

cost the city approximately $753,000 in lost property tax revenue

because of the astounding $62.7 million in assessed value that it takes away.

But it is, as Ryan indicated, even higher.

I believe $150,000 directly in the Redwood City budget

and $375,000 that we're taking from Redwood City schools.

This money is going directly from school kids to wealthy property owners.

And in many cases, what my research has shown is that these improvements

that they're supposedly using the money for are either completely invalid,

like dryer lint clean-out or cleaning, checking and replacing smoke detectors.

These are actual items from work contracts.

And these homeowners are just collecting the money year after year for doing nothing.

A better way to preserve history and equity while being fiscally responsible

would be to give targeted grants to property owners

for specific historic rehabilitation projects.

Cities already run these types of programs for things like replacing energy-efficient appliances.

Grants would help ensure that the city is getting exactly what it wants and homeowners can be held accountable while still getting money to preserve their homes.

Alternatively, does Redwood City really need to pay wealthy property owners to maintain their homes at all, especially given the other fiscal priorities in the city?

Regardless, the Mills Act is a highly flawed way to do this.

it's inequitable takes money from children it's fraudulent and it doesn't do much to preserve

history please vote no tonight on any new mills act contracts thank you very much for your time

thank you andrew and that concludes public comment

thank you city clerk we'll bring it back to the dais here who has questions for

staff or the HRAC?

Commissioner, I mean, Council Member

Chu, please. I had a clarifying

question. What percent of

Mills Act's contracts,

so there's sort of two pathways. Either you

buy a home that's already been designated historic

and then you apply for the Mills Act

versus you buy a home and then

you apply to get it made historic

as part of the application

for the Mills Act. Can you give me a sense

of the 38, how many were

already designated historic versus became historic as part of the the Mills Act

application I don't specifically have that data but I would say a majority of

the Mills Act contracts that come through are coupled with that landmark

designation request okay the the ones later this evening three out of the four

are you probably noticed that but if a majority have now in the past when the

program was adopted it might have been a bit different but usually that's the

THE CASE.

THANK YOU.

SORRY, THAT WAS 80%?

NO, NO, THERE'S NO PERCENTAGE.

I JUST SAY A MAJORITY WOULD BE COUPLED WITH THAT LANDMARK

DESIGNATION.

I DON'T HAVE A PERCENTAGE AVAILABLE.

SO LIKE I SAID, TODAY WE HAD A SITUATION WHEN THERE'S THREE

OUT OF FOUR THAT ARE REQUESTING A DESIGNATION.

Great. Thank you, Council Member. We'll go to the Vice Mayor next.

Just a quick question. So some of these

grandiose, beautiful, historic buildings, say, for example,

the courthouse, the center of our town with its

beautiful dome, 1910, it's not Mills Act

because it's owned by the county and run by a non-profit.

Is that correct?

yes I believe that's correct

we don't

it does not have a Mills Act

and same with the Redwood City Women's Club

since it's a non-profit

even though it's 1910 and historic

and serves the public

it doesn't have a Mills Act

is that right?

that's correct

thank you Vice Mayor

who would like to go next?

Councilmember Sturgeon. Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you both, Chair Goldman and Vice Chair Babbitt.

I can't say your last name.

Thank you all for your hard work. I'm very supportive of your work plan.

I appreciate the

steps you are taking to update the Historic Resources Ordinance

and I am supportive of figuring out the next step as far as the plaques go.

We did discuss plaques briefly in the Equity and Social Justice Subcommittee,

the council, a few weeks ago,

specifically in the context of highlighting Indigenous communities' history

as opportunities appear through development projects and whatnot.

So looking forward to maybe collaborating on those as well.

And then just transitioning to some kind of questions and feedback on the Mills Act specifically.

So thank you for, could you please return to the slide with the total revenue that is, or savings I suppose, to property owners participating in the Mills Act please.

It's a different presentation.

There we go.

Thank you.

Great.

It was really helpful to see in context how the slice of the pie that the lost property tax revenue makes up out of our total revenue.

In that case, seeing the 0.5%, it does seem pretty nominal, I suppose.

but I also want to appreciate that

we are not the only ones who benefit from that property tax revenue

it's the school district as well and so it was helpful to see the

share of lost revenue by the school district

and

sorry I have a lot to say

I'm going to come back to that part.

But I guess what wasn't here is,

is it the case that

that of the median

tax savings for properties receiving

a reduction to the Mills Act program,

that in excluding the Fox Theater,

that the median is 9,858

and the highest reduction is 44,600.

I believe, Mr. Schwab,

you may have provided those numbers to me earlier.

That's correct.

Okay, so just to repeat that for everyone's clarity.

So the median Mills Act tax savings for properties receiving a reduction, excluding the Fox, is $9,852, with the highest at $44,600 and the lowest at $340.

So there's quite a range there, and understandably so.

So with that data and information in mind, I do have some comments.

And I want to just echo my support for some of the recommendations that the HVAC has already made, including evaluating the seeking to establish less costly screening process to reduce the initial investment of a historic resources evaluation.

of one's home in order to increase the wider application pool.

So I really appreciate that.

Appreciate your being cognizant of the application fees cost.

And I think it was mentioned that it could be upwards of $4,000 to $500.

That varies home by home, of course, or property by property, rather, I imagine.

That's what the city offers in terms of a third party consultant review.

So it's about $5,000 currently.

So as we mentioned, there's the idea of looking at a pre-screening process as an opportunity.

Thank you.

I very much appreciate that because that $4,000 to $5,000 is very cost prohibitive for many low-income property owners

and maybe residents who are house rich with cash poor.

Right. And I hope that as part of that review, you also reconsider the application fee of $790.

That also seems a little high just in comparison to other programs I'm familiar with from the city.

And then just in general,

I saw in the staff report

that there was

there's no minimum standards

for the Mills Act program

and I can cite

which

maybe somebody can help me here

but there's no

and that

is a concern on page

three of the staff report

it says that there are currently no minimum standards for the improvements that are required

as part of the Mills Act contract. So that needs to change. And just like other programs that we

have at the city where we are giving out precious resources and there is such a high bar that people

need to meet in order to receive, to qualify for those resources, whether it be rebates,

your income, whatever it is, we need to have consistency across programs where we are subsidizing property owners or providing rebates.

Just to be consistent.

and

understanding that

a majority of the Mills Act contracts

are for single family homes in parts of River City

that tend to be more affluent like Edgewood Park.

I do, I am concerned about, you know, who is benefiting from this program, and I appreciate the HVAC's efforts to cast a wider pool, as I mentioned.

But with that in mind, and with the lost revenue in mind, understanding that, according to the staff report, and Ryan, please correct me if I mischaracterize this.

So after, I think you mentioned, after the initial 10-year contract has expired, it automatically renews year after year unless the property owner or the city elect to cancel the contract, right?

That is correct.

So we do require annual reporting of any maintenance that they may be doing on the property,

but there isn't a requirement to come back to the city with another tenure plan

or list improvements currently in the program right now.

So there isn't that requirement.

It's just automatic renews.

And that was something that's in the state law that the city adopted.

Great.

Thank you.

and we are not requiring in the following years that it automatically renews i know i need to wrap

up and that any additional historical preservation measures be taken

that's correct that's correct so in effect those property owners whose

Mills Act contracts renew each year are continuing to receive a tax break without being required to

make any additional historic resources preservation measures? They aren't required to

detail that program. They are still held to the interior standards and the city's historic

ordinance. So they are required to maintain their property. They're just not required to

identify new improvements to their home.

So it is a maintenance situation beyond the 10 years.

That's basically where those contracts are.

Thank you.

But what it sounds like is that once the 10-year initial contract has completed

and the identified historical resource preservation measures have been completed as part of that contract,

there's no need for the contract to continue automatically.

And so I would like for the HRAC to consider going forward that rather than it renewing automatically,

that

after 10 years, the property owner

could request to extend their contract one additional year

by coming before council with the plan

for what additional historic preservation measures

they would like to take.

That can definitely be considered as part of the ordinance

where we're going to be implementing some of the standards.

So I think that would be one thing we would explore as a possibility.

to implement.

Thank you.

And I'll leave it there.

And one aspect of that suggestion

might be that state law does place some restrictions

on what our program can look like,

and we may find that that's a structure

that we might just be stuck with.

But we'll find out.

I just want to add,

we take it seriously to be the stewards

of the program for the city,

so we kind of sometimes joke with the applicants

when they come in. They say, we can give you a tax break, but it's your job to convince us that

this house is still going to be here in 10 years. And that's mentioned in Ryan's report about

front-loading major improvements. In the past, we did have site visits pre-pandemic,

and we would discover things like cracks in a masonry wall. And we'd say, we're not,

and we didn't know if we were overstepping our bounds, but we sort of didn't care.

We just said, we saw a lot of cracks in your masonry. We're not comfortable giving you this

report unless you agree to get a structural engineer to come out in year one.

So to the extent that we can meet some of these goals, all this about after 10 years,

that's sort of outside of our area.

And also even some of the tax savings numbers are a little bit of a surprise to me.

I don't know about to you, but we're more in the preservation business than the tax

business.

You know, we definitely, we've had talks sometimes in our committee about treating everyone the

same.

so whether someone is less wealthy or very wealthy,

we don't feel like we should discriminate.

But again, if there's a policy-making level decision

that you can make, that's fine with us.

We act on your behalf.

So I just wanted to comment on that.

Thank you.

I very much appreciate your due diligence

working with the property owners

and your attitude towards equity.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, everybody.

We'll go to the vice mayor next.

Thank you, Mr. Sturkin, and very well expressed in analysis, which I really appreciate.

And I'll save my comments for a minute, but I just wanted to address one of the things that you said.

I think you said something like there are no standards or there's no minimum.

Let's see, that there are no minimum standards.

I think that that could have, there are many standards in historic preservation,

and I don't want to go down a rabbit hole of the Secretary of Interior Standards,

which were developed back east and then the adoption in the 70s in California.

I'd just like to correct the record that the Secretary of Interior Standards, there are eight of them.

They are important criteria, and I trust implicitly that the HRAC does a very thorough analysis.

of this aspect of historic preservation.

So there are minimum standards.

That's a red herring.

But really glad that you're analyzing this so carefully, and everyone is.

Thank you, Vice Mayor.

We'll go to Council Member Chu next.

Okay.

Sorry, I had one more question, and then I'll make comments.

Of the denominator of applications, what's the fail rate?

At the point someone's paid for the consultant, how many fail?

I don't know.

Maybe fail is not great.

It doesn't happen too often because if it doesn't meet,

if the evaluation says it's not historic, they don't submit typically.

The HRC will not see that.

They can choose to submit anyway,

but we would recommend that they reconsider

because we have had requests for evaluation,

and the valuation turns out this does not meet the four standards for designating,

and then they essentially will go away and we won't hear from them.

So there's not a very high fail rate.

It's just that they no longer go forward.

Okay.

And the four standards are built before 1940?

No.

In terms of meeting, being established as a landmark designation,

it was one of the slides earlier.

they're part of the

or maybe it's in my next presentation.

It's essentially

what's the next one?

Is it? Okay.

Okay.

It's going to be my next presentation on the contracts.

But essentially they have to meet

the four standards that's in our

Historic Preservation Ordinance.

So

they have to be an older property of course.

That goes without saying

at least pre-1940s.

but they still have to meet the criteria that's outlined in our ordinance.

Okay.

Sorry.

So I'll make my comments now.

So I have been ambivalent about the Mills Act for a long time,

and the reason I've been ambivalent about it is for many of the reasons

that public commenters have raised.

And so I was looking at a heat map once of Mills Act in a city in the Bay Area,

and it was, you know, it was half pink, I swear.

And, you know, there's been sort of stories

of things like in San Francisco,

designating parking lots as historic,

things like this.

And the reason I've never, you know,

even on the planning commission raised it

is because I felt like our historic resources committee

was very disciplined and thoughtful

about which properties, you know,

there were, you know, you always had a good reason.

But I think a really important thing

is to be able to change my mind in response to new information.

And so I think up until this point,

my understanding has been, you know,

that there weren't really very many trade-offs.

And I think in light of new information,

I think differently about that now.

The trade-offs are more significant than I thought they were.

And one interesting point is that

a large fraction of the properties applying for the Mills Act

receive the historic designation as part of that process.

And at least in science,

there's something called stating your hypothesis a priori,

meaning that you have to say what you think,

you know, what you're testing.

You can't go looking for an answer that you want.

And in the same way, it's interesting, you know,

we already have a list of properties in Redwood City

that are designated historic.

I would be really interested in seeing more of those properties

that a priori we've determined,

this is an important historic resource, potentially, you know, be able to be eligible for this program.

Sorry, I'm not being very disciplined in how I present this.

And the reason this came up is because the most historic house in my district, or not district, in my neighborhood,

there are many very historic houses in Stambaugh-Heller, but the most historic house in my neighborhood came up for sale.

and I remember wishing I could buy it

because I love the Courthouse Square

and the Fox Theater so much

and I remember thinking, you know,

this house should be a true public good.

If I could buy it, I would want it to be

like a little community center

and a museum and a library,

you know, offices for non-profits

and my thinking, if we're giving public tax breaks

that it should be a public good.

Like I, in my mind, have a very high bar for that.

So this house, I believe, is already designated historic,

like it would be a natural candidate for this program.

My concern is if it became a candidate for this program,

a very wealthy homeowner would get a very large tax break,

and that would incentivize keeping it in private hands

for a much longer period of time.

And so I do have some misgivings about sort of offering very large tax breaks, essentially, for neighborhoods that are well able to pay for these kinds of improvements themselves.

I think the other thing is because getting this designation is often part of the process.

You know, if you buy a $7 million house, they were planning on paying those taxes.

Like they didn't know they were going to get a historic designation.

And so I would like us to have much more stringent requirements for getting that historic designation, even considering a priori lists.

These are the historic homes in Redwood City.

If you happen to buy one of those homes, great, you're a shoe in.

Otherwise, it's really hard to get.

The second thing I'd love to see is much tighter, you know, the work plan.

and we call it a statement of work in my line of work,

that that's for a discrete period of time, 10 years.

It ends after that 10 years.

It should not be a tax break in perpetuity.

And I know this because we remodeled our house

when we bought it.

We had to swap out knob and tube tire wiring

and we redid the kitchen,

what as one does when you buy an 80-year-old house.

We had huge costs the first three years.

And then I don't need a tax break from the city

to clean my own grout.

You know, it's pretty stable after that.

So I'd like to see us terminate these at 10 years.

And if there's another major reno and it's needed,

then we can rethink it.

But each renewal is a fresh thing.

Let's see what else.

I'd also love if we could to means test it.

if a lower income person is in a pre-designated historic home,

that's the kind of situation where I think a tax break is really well warranted,

particularly if it's a more recent purchase.

Let's see, what else?

I think that's it.

So just the only changes I request, higher bar, end after 10 years, really rigorous work plans that expect a lot.

And I think that's it.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, Council Member.

Vice Mayor.

I will make my comments now and thank my colleagues.

I just want to emphasize that, you know, since 1990, 38 Mills Acts, it's less than, or it's about a tenth of a percent of the total property tax that we get.

So a tenth of 1%, or we're not talking about a lot of money.

So when you're weighing, you know, okay, so a $7 million house, that sounds sparkly.

But when you're weighing a tenth of 1% of all our property tax, okay, you know, maybe it's better to have that tenth of 1%.

but what are you getting on the other side?

You know, you're getting the yard

with two of our oldest houses

on Main Street at the railroad tracks.

Two of the oldest houses in all of San Mateo County.

One of the things that's interesting,

because I read this,

I read its application for national listing.

One of the things that's interesting about that art gallery

is that there's actually spaces between the wood

because when it was built by lumberjacks back in the 1850s,

they were just that poor, you know,

that they couldn't even afford to like have a wall

that didn't have holes in it.

And that's our heritage.

And then the fancier house, the blue one,

something that's significant about it is its porch.

It was like 20 years older.

And so people actually had enough time to sit on a porch.

And that was like an architectural thing.

I mean, I guess I'll just say, too, you know, like you look at the Fitzpatrick building.

You look at the Alhambra building.

These are all in our Main Street Historic District.

our downtown has seen a lot of development in a lot in the last um 20 years 15 years a lot of

height a lot of development of height and there's been pushback from the public um that there it's

too much development it's too high but one thing that has mitigated that pushback is it's still

redwood city we still see redwood city why because of the courthouse because of the fitzpatrick

building, because of the Ambra, because of the yard. This is art and culture, and it's costing us

one-tenth of one percent of the sales tax revenue that we get. In terms of more carefully,

to be honest with my colleagues, I was on the HRAC and worked on Mills Act. I didn't know,

I thought they were just 10 years. I didn't know they went on more than 10 years. And so I'm

certainly open to studying that 10-year juncture. I'm open to that. But I guess just generally,

and I'll just add, which I learned from Mr. Schwab today,

there are three historically significant eras in Redwood City's history.

There's the 1800s, the Wild Wild West, the Gold Rush.

That's one historic era.

Any resources that we have that date back to that time

are potentially designatable and historic and culturally significant.

Then there's the era before 1940,

and then there's the era, which is historically significant,

which is like the post-World War II boom,

which was like an event in history.

So these aren't just random.

We are part of a bigger history that is well beyond our walls.

I'll just finish up.

I like the work plan.

I really appreciate the work that you all are doing.

And our ordinance, I think, has not been revamped since 1980.

So I congratulate you on recognizing the need to do that,

and I congratulate your courage on being willing to take that on.

And I just don't want the Mills Act tale to wag the bigger dog of what we're doing right now,

which is we're really approving a two-year work plan that includes revamping an ordinance

and includes a lot of really good things that I read in the report.

So I plan to support the work plan, and I'll leave it there.

Thank you, Vice Mayor.

Go to Council Member Padilla.

I have a question.

I personally don't like any lengthy contracts in general.

I think 10 years is a long contract for anything.

So I was wondering, and through the city attorney, maybe this is more appropriate, is it possible to have a clause where either party, the city, or the applicant could withdraw after a year?

Or could you speak to how there could be less of a 10-year term?

Thank you.

so as your chair and vice chair alluded

the state law

while it doesn't obligate a city

to have a Mills Act program

it only you know it authorizes it

if a city elects

to have a Mills Act program

the state law is pretty prescriptive

about what the program

should include including

the term and it provides

that the minimum term

of a Mills Act contract must be

10 years

and it provides that on each anniversary date

that the initial term is extended by one additional year

until a notice of non-renewal is submitted

either by the city or by the property owners.

So that is the system that the city would be working with.

you know as the I don't remember I think it was the vice chair alluded you know that's definitely

something that they can study as to how can we work within the statutory structure and get a

firmer term and so happy to work with the with the HRAC in trying to come up with that I do believe

other cities have done it we can definitely explore I believe they issue the notice of

non-renewal immediately it's a firm 10 year and then they allow for properties to submit after

the 10 year you know expiration for an additional 10 year term if they have new programs new

improvements that need to be done but again that's something that can be studied along with the

ordinance revamp and i'm happy to work with them on that the agreements just as the statutory

structure allows, do allow for withdrawals.

And so there is that opportunity as well.

It doesn't allow the city to withdraw unless

the property owners are noncompliant. And so we definitely can terminate

something for breach and there's a process for that in a public hearing.

But we can definitely look into your question as well. Council Member.

Thank you.

thank you council member padilla we'll go to council member g thank you mr mayor

chair and vice chair thank you very much ryan thanks for the briefing on the mills act

just just from context and i think our city attorney started this how many cities have

adopted mills acts do we have an idea of just in general is it half of them all of them some of them

I don't have that number.

It's definitely not every city in the county.

I know some cities do not issue them regularly, but I don't have that number.

It's something we would be studying.

It would be good as the HREC takes a look just to fill that context.

And, you know, we've all lamented.

I'm sorry, go ahead.

We have an update.

We were able to find out that there's 90 programs in the state.

Okay, that's great.

And one of the challenges, and we've lamented that here at Council,

is that when Sacramento passes legislation, it's kind of one size fits all.

Do those 90 cities, do you know, have the same Mills Act requirements

or have they been tweaked by individual cities?

I think there are different variations as long as they follow state laws,

but they're probably, I can't speak to them because I haven't done that recently.

But I think then that, again, that's...

I can add just a little more context if you want.

I've done a tiny bit of research on it.

They have, some of them have examples of maximum property amounts that they'll allow.

So, for example, single-family homes.

Some cities say no more than $3 million or commercial properties over X amount.

So there are sort of several different things, but that's just one example of something that we've seen.

Thank you for doing the homework before coming to council.

So I think some of those best practices or different practices should be part of the work plan.

and seeing what might work here, given the council comments.

And Ryan, in that slide about the dollars,

it probably would be important for HRAC's work plan

to disaggregate that number rather than a total,

this amount for single-family homes,

this amount for multifamily, this amount for commercial,

because something like the Fox Theater

may kind of be a big part of that number.

I'm just using that for an example.

so that you can't just take 38 properties and divide by the number

and say everybody's paying the same because that's not the case

according to the answer that the community development director gave to the vice mayor.

I'm generally supportive of the Mills Act, but I think it's time to take a look at it.

I mean, there's some of the best practices that you've alluded to

that some cities have adopted.

I'd like to see consideration for some minimum standards

beyond the Secretary of Interior guidelines

that are applicable to Redwood City.

I'm not too crazy about a five-year and a 10-year inspection.

I think maybe something like three, six, and nine

over a 10-year contract is important

so that the property owner in year nine knows

you've got one year left to go do everything you didn't do

for the nine years, and you've got one year to do it,

or something like that.

you know you've got to work within the context of the state law i get it but

if you're only inspecting twice over a 10-year period that's probably

from my perspective not enough even if you're getting self-reporting

and then i'm would be supportive of some consideration that after year 10

it's not an automatic renewal i'm not a fan of every year you got to come back but some

work plan with a renewal.

So it doesn't just roll over,

but there's got to be a statement of work

that goes with that renewal

or the option to renew

or whatever the right word is

according to state law.

So that there is a substantive statement of work

that goes along with the ongoing tax credit.

It's important, as the Vice Mayor shared,

that our historic buildings

continue to be preserved and maintained.

In our city manager's comments earlier this year,

we are the oldest city.

There's a lot of history here.

We want to be selective and targeted

in what we preserve

and help property owners maintain.

And I use that word specifically

because we talked about single-family homeowners,

multifamily, and commercial.

They're not all the same.

And so that's why I said property owners

to help them maintain and preserve their property.

And for those that want to aggregate them and call them the same,

you're probably wrong because we've got some commercial properties

that the vice mayor alluded to that probably comprise a big chunk of that number.

And that needs to be yanked out so that we're not stereotyping property owners.

Whether it be one or three or whatever they need,

it's just helpful to disaggregate those categories.

But in general, I think, you know, there's room for improvement.

The Mills Act has served the city well over time,

but 1990 was a few years ago,

and it's probably good to update it, take a look at it,

and see what we can do to make it better.

But thank you for all the hard work.

Appreciate it.

Thank you, Council Member Chee.

We'll go to Council Member Howard.

Thank you.

Thank you for the report,

and thank you for all the work that you're doing,

and this has really stirred a lot of discussion, hasn't it?

I'd like to say that I am supportive of the Mills Act.

I am. I've always been.

I think it enables us to preserve the character and the story of Redwood City.

In years down the road, I don't want people not knowing the story and how we evolved.

Just reading some of the information you shared with us about several of the properties,

that many of the people were from San Francisco.

They wanted to transition to Redwood City.

They didn't think there was going to be a housing boom in Redwood City.

And that's why they built bigger properties and bigger homes and so forth.

And then as the housing boom occurred,

then the properties became smaller and more affordable and so forth.

But that just fascinated me

because there's always a reason why things happen.

And I like to know those reasons.

And so I am all in favor of preserving the character of our community.

We are the oldest community in San Mateo County.

And I think it's vital that we save the story of Redwood City for our children and our grandchildren.

So that being said, I wouldn't mind taking a fresh look at requirements because you're going to do that.

That was advised in your joint study session, I believe.

And so I'm glad you'll be doing that.

I have to say I'm really in favor of full cost recovery at the counter when someone comes in for a permit.

I just don't believe they are going to get a benefit if it's approved.

And we have to cover our costs for doing business.

We're in, at this day and age, we can't afford to be subsidizing many things.

We have to really be realistic.

full cost recovery is what I'd be supportive of. Someone wants this, they

know they're going to have a benefit for 10 years or more, they can pay the full

cost of the staff time needed to do the job of getting this going forward. So I

feel strongly about that. We just can't be subsidizing on everything. Certain

things, yes. This one I feel we should cover the cost. I also think that more

More frequent, I like what Council Member G said about more frequent inspections only

because you want to be sure they are actually doing the due diligence that they promised

to do.

It also gives you an opportunity to get to know the people better and at the end of the

ten years you may say, wow, this has been going so well, this will be an easy one to

move forward or they haven't been cooperative and we're not going to do that.

So I think it doesn't hurt.

Also, I wanted to ask you, you received a letter, we all did, from Ken Rolandelli.

I think he sent you a letter back in August, was it?

Yes, August 11th for your meeting of the 14th.

And then he re-sent it again.

Yeah, I think it's today he sent it.

And he asks an interesting question.

He wants to know, I know in your review, in your work plan, it said,

review landmark designated requests.

but yet he's questioning

are you really doing that

because there is an inventory

of landmark properties

that really haven't had a plaque

or any kind of designation

so not to put you

on the spot but

I mean Mr. Rolindelli

was a member of your committee for over 40 years

he was the chair for 30 years

what a mind this man

has and a memory which is incredible

so could you just

address that for me

I'd really appreciate it.

No, I think we are definitely interested in recognizing properties that have already been designated.

I think part of what Ken was referring to was a policy or an idea of seeking out new properties

that have never been discovered or designated.

So the only reason we sort of shied away from that in our work plan

is because in my seven and a half, eight years on the committee, we've never done that.

And there's no process, procedure, consultant, or way.

I don't know if we're supposed to drive around and look for stuff.

I mean, most of it's been reviewed, particularly in the downtown area,

and with a more robust ordinance.

Because right now, if you have a spectacular historic home from 1941,

it would not require review.

So, I mean, we think the ordinance is inadequate,

and we really don't have the capabilities to go troll around to look for homes.

So we thought, let's have a better ordinance that's more rigid in terms of who's included,

and then also focus on our incentives.

And I also believe in full cost recovery.

I was talking maybe, I don't know if you were reacting to what I said,

but I was talking about perhaps only for low income or under a certain value

where they could have a consultation that would be reimbursed,

but maybe it's only a few hundred dollars,

because you could go through the $5,000 process and get rejected,

and maybe you borrowed that money.

but if you had even a $500 process where they say, you know,

you have no chance of getting approved, just forget it.

Or, you know, it looks good, we can't tell you for sure because it costs $5,000 to be sure,

but if I had to guess, in my professional opinion, you're going to get it.

So, yeah, the other comment that's come up a bunch is whether we approve everything.

I mean, by the time it gets to us, it's already been vetted and double, triple reviewed by professionals.

So each report, I guess you guys may have seen some of the reports,

they're pretty big.

They're like 100 pages.

They have photos.

They have precedents for building permit history.

So by the time it gets to us,

we don't want to think we're a rubber stamp,

but, you know, I mean, all the work's been done.

Like I said, to the extent it's permissible under California law

to make the standards more strict,

of course we're in favor of that.

You know, that's like my joke that I tell the owners,

like, prove to me it's going to be here in 10 years

or I'm not giving you the tax break.

So, you know, I think we're all on the same page.

Yeah, we just have, I mean, again,

with the ordinance update and some better Mills Act standards,

then we're going to accomplish our goals.

I think we all have the same goals here.

Did you?

I thought you.

A point that you made earlier, so it's a bit of a change of subject,

but you were talking about the importance of this work

in telling the stories here.

There is more to this, of course, than just the structures.

We talked about structures mainly tonight because of the Mills Act,

but there's a trend in, I was going to say our field,

I guess I'll go with that, called historic context studies,

which don't rely on the structures to tell the story.

It's more a process of gathering the oral histories,

bringing the community together to tell the stories the way they want them told.

And in effect, by the end of this process, and it can be a couple of years,

the community has told their story.

And I think there are parts of town

that that's going to be really critical.

Woodside Plaza has a story to tell,

but we're not going to find majestic structures there.

We're just not.

We've got to go at Woodside Plaza in a different way,

and I think we can still get those stories

even without the structures.

Thank you.

It just gets more interesting as we go.

Thank you very much. I think you've answered my question, and you're going to have a very busy year.

Thank you, Council Member.

Not seeing any other comments. I'll add my thanks.

Chair Goldman, Vice Chair Babbit, Ryan, thank you for the great presentation.

I have to agree it's been a while since 1990, so good to take another look at this and freshen things up.

I agree. I don't think we need to get rid of the Mills Act, but just improve on what's already

there. In my neighborhood, I lived in Stamball, Heller, and we had quite a few historic homes

in the neighborhood. We have the Redwood City History Walk that comes into our neighborhood

from the downtown, and it's an incredible asset to have. On the other side of El Camino,

we've got the Union Cemetery, which is a little different, but again, our history is being

preserved and I think that's incredible. I do think with the gray wave that we're going to be

seeing, you know, somebody made the point about wanting to see the buildings here after 10 years.

You know, I think taking a closer look at, you know, applicants who may be house rich but cash

poor, right, who might have the spirit and want to preserve their home because of what the Mills

Act stands for, you know, they shouldn't be limited by their own wealth. So, you know, I'm all for the

full cost recovery where we know folks can afford it. But if we have these one-offs in Stambal-Heller

in our downtown in the Centennial neighborhoods where these folks may just not have big enough

pockets to do it themselves, that could be an important way to preserve that piece of history

rather than having a, you know, corporate landlord company buy the property

and, you know, it's zoned for commercial use and they start coming up with ideas, right?

So, you know, would also agree with, you know, wanting to make sure that

when we reach that 10-year mark, we're coming up with a different strategy,

a different work plan.

You know, I don't want to create more work for our staff, bless you, who do this.

this great review, but also having a year review every year after you hit that 10-year mark is

going to be time-consuming. So, you know, I would want us to, you know, require that new work plan

for renewal. Maybe it's a two-year renewal and it builds from there or a cadence that matches with

other sort of standing homes that we have, but also a new cadence around the check-ins. I

I appreciated the idea of a 369 check-in rotation.

I thought that made sense.

And I know a majority of these are private residential properties, right?

But for those that are commercial, maybe creating incentives so that, you know,

maybe not all of them will be zoned for public uses, but those that are,

maybe that's a way that we can ensure we're connecting the right folks to that property

and we get to maintain that history.

So, again, really appreciate all this great work that you are doing,

and can't wait to see more plaques around town

and to see the fruit of this labor.

So thank you.

And Council Member Sirkin, we'll go back to you.

Thank you.

I just want to summarize some things I heard.

So it sounds like there's support by you, the mayor,

Council Member Howard, as well as Council Member G and I

for inspections at the three, six, and nine-year marks.

and then also

heard support

Council Member 2 also from myself

and

let's see

for

kind of ending the

contract after 10 years

but then I also heard interest

Council Member G, Mayor

and

and I

about requiring a new work

plan after 10 years so also very supportive

that I want to throw my support behind that too so in case anyone is trying to count up how many

council members are interested in these just wanted to share that and summarize it and also

just this last thing you mentioned that Ribbon City Elementary School District is community funded

and that $300,000 they could really use especially since they're considering a

parcel tax.

So

I just wanted to note that for the record.

Thank you.

Thank you,

Council Member. Any other

thoughts?

Okay. Great.

Is there a motion?

I'd like to make the

motion to, I guess,

approve the Historic

Resources Advisory Committee work plan

for FY26 and 27

and that the chair, vice chair, staff, and others have heard the comments from council

to incorporate it into the work plan as they look at the Mills Act.

Thank you. Is there a second?

Second.

Great. That was a motion from Council Member Gia, a second from Council Member Howard.

Could we get an electronic vote, please?

Motion passes unanimously.

Great. Thank you again, Chair, Vice Chair. Ryan, appreciate the presentation. Now let's look at some homes.

Our first public hearing tonight is to consider designating four properties as historic landmarks in Redwood City.

We'll first hear a presentation from staff, and each applicant will have the opportunity to provide comments.

And I'll hand things back over to Ryan for the staff presentation.

Yes, good evening again, Mayor and Council Members.

Ryan Kutchenig, Senior Planner.

I'm presenting on behalf of four project planners

that worked on these individual applications.

They're also joined online

and they can assist with questions as needed.

But for tonight, we're going to look at four contract requests,

which is actually the most we've had in one year,

or at least tied for the most.

In 2007, we also had four contracts.

These properties are at 731 Edgewood,

839 Blandford Boulevard,

1018-1020 Main Street

and 979 Arlington

Road.

And some questions

sorry, yes some questions

listed for you

on the screen.

Should the following properties be designated

historic

landmarks, 731 Edgewood,

839 Blanford and

979 Arlington Road

and does the city accept

10-year improvement plans for each of these properties?

And does the city agree to enter an MLS Act contract

with each owner and property?

So there's four before you,

but one of them is already designated historic,

and that's at 1018 and 1020 main.

So I realize that we discussed much of this

in the last presentation,

so I'm not going to discuss it further,

but we can go back to this slide as needed.

to talk about some of the tax implications.

So here we have a map of the four properties.

It's kind of a zoomed-in portion of the city.

As you can see, they're located mostly in the Edgewood Park neighborhood,

also one located downtown, kind of on the edge of Stambaugh-Heller.

As I mentioned, the contracts follow a three-step process.

Oops, too fast.

That includes the public hearing and recommendation by the Planning Commission, which occurred for these properties in September and October.

Recommendation by HRAC, I'm sorry.

And also a recommendation from the Planning Commission that was made in October and November.

And tonight we're here for the City Council to review and take final action.

So the first property, 731 Edgewood Road, is in the Edgewood Park neighborhood.

It's built in 1936.

It's an example of Monterey revival architectural style.

It includes the request for historic designation and Mills Act contract.

Excuse me.

The historic evaluation identified a few key design features.

I'll just mention a few of the many that are listed in the report.

A symmetrical design of the facade, a side gabled roof,

the clapboard siding within the second story and a door that opens onto the second story balcony.

There are a number of other ones, as I mentioned, that you can look at in the specific report.

And next property, 839 Blanford Boulevard.

This is also in the Edgewood Park neighborhood.

It was built in 1939.

It's an example of colonial revival ranch architectural style.

And it also involves both the designation and Mills Act contract request.

It was actually built in 1939 as part of a demonstration home for the Golden Gate International Exposition.

And some defining features include broadly horizontal emphasis, a U-shaped footprint following the curved street frontage,

also wooden box Oriel windows that flank the rear porch, and perforated brick windows near the entrance.

The third property here listed is the 1018, includes 1018 Main.

It is located downtown.

It was built in 1857.

It's one of the oldest, if not the oldest, property or structure built in the city.

It was designated a national landmark in 2015.

It's an example of Greek revival architectural style.

And as I mentioned, it's just for the Mills Act contract in this case.

And 1020 Main, which is located just behind the other structure, and it was built also in the 19th century.

It was nationally registered that same year.

It's an example of Queen Anne architectural style.

This home was actually relocated from a location on Middlefield, so many of you might be aware of that.

That was done several years ago.

Okay, so 8979 Arlington, also back in the Edgewood Park neighborhood.

This was built in 1928.

It's a Spanish colonial revival style.

It's designed by a famous architect or designer in Canada.

He also built the First Baptist Church on Hudson and James, you might be familiar with.

He has many famous structures in Calgary.

Some notable features on this home are the stucco-clad wall on the left and right side, as well as the rear of the house, an asymmetrical house form, as well as the clay tile roof, which is pretty common for Spanish colonial.

And here's the slide that I was referring to in my last presentation in terms of how we designate the landmark designation.

There's four criteria that are set forth in our municipal code.

The properties must meet at least one of these four criteria.

In some cases, they meet two.

It must exemplify or reflect special elements of the city's cultural, aesthetic, or architectural history.

It is identified with persons or events significant in local, state, or national history.

It embodies distinct characteristics of a style, type, period, and method of construction,

or it is a valuable example of the use or indigenous materials or craftsmanship.

Also, it is representative of a notable work of a builder, designer, or architect.

Excuse me.

And I'm just, these are high-level elements of their 10-year plan.

The applicants are all here this evening, or at least most of them, and one of them is available online to go into a little bit more detail.

but I just wanted to note for each of the four properties,

at a high level, some of those elements of the 10-year plan.

It's important to note that really the degree

or the list of recommended improvements can vary from home to home

and what makes each of these structures or properties historic.

So many of these plans do vary quite a bit.

Some are aimed at furthering their historic integrity,

but others could be just critical improvements to the property or structure that are needed.

So I just listed at a high level each of the properties, and I'll go through them.

I'm not going to go into detail.

Like I said, the applicants are here to talk at more length of them.

Here's 839 Blanford, 1018, 1020 Main.

And these are, as I mentioned, in the report, so you can also reference that as well.

979 Arlington Road.

So all four listed here.

And then ultimately staff is requesting that city council adopt resolution of each of these properties as a historic landmark with the exception of 1018 and 1020 main and to execute a historic Mills Act contract.

And back to the questions for council.

So I've listed those as I described in the initial slides.

So that concludes staff presentation.

As I mentioned, I believe each of the applicants are here to speak a little bit more detail of their properties.

Thank you.

Thank you, Ryan.

We'll now call on the applicants for each property to give their remarks.

And we have about 10 minutes for each property.

So we will begin with 731 Edgewood.

And that's Neil Wall, who's joined us by Zoom.

Hello, good afternoon, Council.

I'm the project planner on 731 Edgewood, and I just wanted to make it where Neil is available

for questionings, but I do not believe he's doing a presentation on this property.

Okay.

Okay.

Thank you, James.

Appreciate that update.

We also have folks from 979 Arlington, Barbara and David Bartoszak.

Great.

Thank you.

If council does have any questions, we'll call you back up.

Thank you.

Well, it's been an evening.

My name is David Bartoszak, and this is my wife, Barb,

and we're the owners, better yet the stewards,

of the home 979 Arlington Road in Edgewood Park.

I want to thank the council for the opportunity to speak today,

and I also wanted to acknowledge the HRAC and the Planning Commission

for approving the property up to this point for the Mills Act,

and by extension, recognizing the cultural heritage,

the architectural history, and the civic history of these valuable homes.

I'm going to throw out some of my other notes.

I was going to give you some history of what Barb and I have done with the house

and being in the neighborhood for 28 years,

but I'm a real estate broker, although not active,

but I have a love of real estate

and I've been in property management for a long time.

I think that these homes are really valuable for us as a community,

for us to recognize our heritage,

and I think it's important that we not lose sight of them.

And one of the reasons that I was so excited about the Mills Act, which I haven't heard brought up too much,

which is the protection of these homes and the valuable nature of it.

I think you raised an interesting point when you said you don't like long-term contracts.

But what good is it if in 10 years this beautiful house that we have that has so many incredible features is bulldozed and put up by another home, which we see happening far too often in the Edgewood Park area, where people are just turning it over and putting up a home that is not really reflective of Edgewood Park or Redwood City,

which I think is probably one of the oldest suburban communities in the Bay Area.

And I think that this has been an eye-opening experience for me.

We did not enter into this for the Mills Act.

We want to do restoration to the sashes that are in the windows

that allow these super-heavy, beautiful windows to be able to open.

By a fingertip, this is the way things used to be done.

There's tile floors that are reflected in the ironwork that's in the wall out that face the road that everybody can see.

There are a lot of really unique aspects to it that I would just hate to see bulldozed and have somebody come in and put up an aluminum siding something or other,

which is, you know, I'm not, I guess I'm trying not to knock anything, but at what cost?

And so I would just like to, I love the idea.

It's been a civics lesson for me this afternoon, not one that I intended to be a part of.

But, you know, I like the idea of a fresh look.

but I also like the idea of being able to, as a community,

wrap our arms around these historical homes

and come together to make sure that we preserve them as a community

and not use certain data points that might try and skew the objective.

You know, we used to always say when we're trying to determine what the right thing is, let's look at what the intent of what that was.

So if you're going to look at it, have a fresh look, I think that's a perfectly wonderful idea.

I didn't realize some of the history of the Mills Act, but I think it should be done with what was the intent of the Mills Act.

Let's try and take some of the rhetoric of somebody cleaning out their dryer filter with Milzak money out of the discord.

But let's try and get back to having a constructive community conversation about protecting these relics that connect us to our past.

Can I say a couple more?

Of course.

Are you done?

Yes.

For now.

I just want to add how much I love Redwood City.

I walk every day, and I walk in the neighborhoods.

And yeah, we are so fortunate to live where we do.

We walked there just as a much younger couple,

wishing that someday we could buy a house.

And that happened.

We were so fortunate.

It was timing.

It was all that.

28 years ago. But when I walk the neighborhoods and I see all the different homes, and they're so

unique, and it makes me sad when I see the old homes, just like Dave said, bulldozed. And

everything that we have done, like for our house, the walls are like two feet thick.

and everything that we have,

like somebody mentioned the knob and two wiring,

everything that happens that we want to fix or repair,

it takes twice as long and it costs twice as much

because you have to be so careful

in how you approach these things.

So I just want to say as a homeowner,

I know my kids all went to public school here.

I don't want to take money away from schools.

But I also, we haven't been able to fix a lot of these,

all these things on our list that over the 10 years,

because it is expensive and our property taxes are expensive

and they need to be fixed.

And I just want to protect the house.

I don't want, somebody's going to own it after us

and we don't want it bulldozed.

it's so unique and so I

I just ask you to please

think about that and think about all

the other kids then

and people that walk the neighborhoods

and see these older homes

let's not have them go away

thank you

did you have any

questions for for us

specifically I'm we're happy

to talk for

probably longer than we should

council colleagues any questions

No, but through the mayor, would it be okay to have their lists up when they're presenting just so we can see them?

That would be helpful for me.

Thank you.

That's a great idea.

Our list was not anything like what's in our application, our list, because you just summarized it.

It was much more robust in what we were planning to do.

But I can show you that I have a copy right over there.

It's going to come up here in a second.

There it is.

Yeah.

You know, as part of the fresh...

Well, I'm sorry.

I'm going to answer a question that didn't get asked.

Any other?

But as part of the fresh look, I would love to, in fact, Glenn,

he's still here, but I invited...

Sorry, David.

Could you speak into the mic?

Oh, sure.

I invited him to come over and tour the house

and also get his perspective on,

I think I sent that email on the 14th of November

after our last visit here,

to come over and get an idea of, you know,

just in what direction we should be going in

to best preserve the house and those types of things

relative to your question about the list.

Great. Thank you, David.

Sure.

Any other questions for my colleagues?

not seeing any thank you both

for the great information

and we might have you back in a while

but I'll make sure to let you know

okay that was

979 Arlington

next up we have 839

Blanford and we should have

Hunter Volk with us

good evening everybody

Appreciate the time.

Congratulations.

Happy holidays to everybody as well.

My name is Hunter Volk.

I have the privilege of representing A39 Blanford with my wife, Holly, and my three children, Harrison, Teddy, and Millie.

This property is super special to us.

We relocated nine years ago to Redwood City from San Diego, and we rented this home from the owners that we purchased it from.

that were a lovely older couple that were in the community for probably about 30 years.

I think they owned it in 61, so a little bit longer than that.

And we became very close with them through the process of renting their home.

And when COVID hit, they relocated their daughters from Redwood City to Novato

and gave us the opportunity to purchase their home.

With that being said, the home's got a really special history, and we still have a lot of the old newspaper clippings and media that really told the story about the house.

And that was that it was the World's Fair Exposition Home for Redwood City.

and it's a really cool U-shaped house

and when it was being built,

the designer really wanted to attract people

to the California lifestyle,

the inside and outside living.

And if you come to the home

and you come to the neighborhood,

you'll realize that it is the centerpiece

of the neighborhood

with two intersecting main streets

that come into it.

But this is a home that my wife and I will raise our kids in for the next four or five decades and hopefully pass it along to them and keep the generation of the legacy alive.

With that being said, it hasn't been updated since the 1980s, 1970s.

So there's an extensive amount of work that some we've started to do and will remain to do.

there is a very exhaustive list that was presented to the planning committee

and this is a great summary.

But really taking into account that this is,

I think the main message that I wanted to give to you folks tonight

is being a relatively young community member,

new to the community,

really feeling motivated to keep the history of the property alive.

I see the folks in the neighborhood and how much it means to them.

A lot of the older neighbors that we've become very close with.

And it really is just an outstanding, special place.

And I think that that's why the previous homeowners were nice enough to sell it to us,

because they wanted to see that tradition survive.

So we have a very extensive plan over the next 10 years that's included in your handouts, I'm sure.

A lot of it was a ton of the upfront work that you guys discussed tonight on the knob and tube electricals, the HVAC systems, seismic reconditioning.

There's a ton of brick work that needs to be maintained throughout the property.

So all that goes into great detail.

I'm super grateful for Bill Castura, who did the historical evaluation.

evaluation. I mean, it's really, really been an amazing process and I, um, and it's been a ton

of fun to go through, to be honest. I mean, I think that there's a lot of us that, that really

liked and value the historical aspects of these homes. And, and I will say that, um, at least my

experience with, um, you know, with the planning committee, um, is in, in the historical committee

has been, has been really wonderful. Um, it was very intimidating a year, a half ago going into

this process and to be honest from what I could get historically with dealing with Redwood City

and going through the process it was kind of it wasn't as determined and I feel like Brian and

Connor were really really great about walking me through what that process was and it's been fun

being able to present to the council to the different committees and going through the

process and um and you know really really looking forward to like i said uh many many more decades

in redwood city maintaining this home um it means a lot to a lot of people um very very grateful that

that we've been been chosen and lucky enough to continue the tradition so um there's any questions

i would love to answer them thank you hunter for the uh the great background there um amazing just

hear your personal story included there. Any questions for my colleagues? Vice Mayor?

It's not a question, but I just, I'm thrilled that you've applied. And I did a tour. I don't

know if you were there, Diane, but your house was on tour more than nine years ago when

there was a tour of historic homes. And yes, the story about it was part of the World's

fair. And it was an example of like, hey, there's this new thing called suburbs. And you can come

from San Francisco to see what a suburban house is. And that was your house. And I did see those

newspaper clippings, some of them. And I just want to add that that idea of inside outside

was championed by a San Francisco family that then moved down to the peninsula

and started this thing called Sunset Magazine,

which revolutionized home living in the second half of the 20th century

where everyone wanted, like, your house, this idea of outdoor living.

So your house is very historic.

We're very proud it's here.

It's not a question.

Thank you.

I have a question.

I think it's appropriate because you mentioned you had children.

I just was wondering, do your children participate in our public schools

or are they in private school?

My wife is Catholic, so we go to a Catholic parishion school.

Okay, thank you.

I am a Lake Tahoe public school member myself,

so definitely realize the importance.

Great. Not seeing anything else.

Hunter, thank you for the presentation, and we might invite you back if there are any questions.

Please.

Thank you, everybody, for your time.

Amazing.

So up next, we are at 1018 to 1020 Main Street, and Mr. Steve Pierce has joined us.

Good evening, everybody.

and thank you for your time.

Yes, I'm Steve Pierce, and I am the proud owner

of 1018 and 1020 Main Street,

and I'd like to offer some of the background

about these buildings, which I think many of you

are familiar with for a variety of reasons.

And indeed, 1018, you know, I was thinking of Hunter's House,

you know, sort of a mid-century modern.

Well, it's a mid-century, only it's the other century.

It was built in 1857, and yes, for you history buffs,

that was before the Civil War.

And indeed, we think it's probably one of the oldest houses in the city, if not the

county.

It's really rare to have a single-family home in a downtown area like this.

And the reason we have it is really very much serendipity.

The Offermans purchased the house in 1889 and resided there a mere 84 years until 1973.

And if you look at the historic maps, the Sanborn maps of downtown, it was single-family homes all up and down Main Street.

And the Offermans just hung out while each of them was torn down to the right and left as the downtown turned into a commercial district.

so they

when they gave up the house

in 1973 it was to the Woodhams

which was another stroke of

sort of serendipity

in that the Woodhams were very much

preservationists

and Gladys Woodhams opened her antique shop

at 1018

and just loved everything

old and

in fact they were such strong preservationists

that they as alluded to before

saved 505 Middlefield from the wrecking ball by having it brought to the site,

and that's the blue, well, they can call it a Queen Anne.

It's really more of a Princess Anne, and that has become 1020 Main Street.

The Woodhams were the ones also who placed both the structures on the National Register.

They qualified for that.

The houses also were designated as historic in the downtown specific plan.

And when the Woodhams, after their mere 40-year tenure, decided to sell,

it was not so much a marketing process as it was sort of a matchmaking process,

as they wanted to pass the baton on to someone else.

I can't believe I'm the third owner since 1889.

But, you know, I was very, very pleased to have that opportunity.

So when I took over the house, or the houses, you know, the condition, very much original

condition, remarkable.