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Thank you.

We will be called first.

Speaker cards are located at the back table in the council chambers

and must be turned into the city clerk here at the dais.

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

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

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

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

or limit the total time for 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 are made part of the final meeting record.

And one quick announcement that our item tonight, 9A, on tonight's agenda regarding a micromobility ordinance will be continued to a future meeting.

We will still take public comment on the item.

However, the Council will not be taking action this evening.

And with that, I will now turn it over to the city clerk to call the roll.

Good evening.

Council Member Chu.

Here.

Council Member Gee.

Present.

Council Member Howard.

Present.

Council Member Padilla.

Here.

Council Member Sterkin.

Here.

Vice Mayor Aiken.

Present.

Mayor Martinez-Aballos.

Here.

Thank you.

Thank you, everyone.

With that, we'll move on to the Pledge of Allegiance.

Council Member Chu, could you lead us in the pledge?

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Chu.

with that we'll move on to item 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 this item does not pertain to public comment

from the public and seeing that no council members are exercising this we will move on to item five

which is our closed session item.

We will now convene to closed session

regarding labor negotiations

as identified on tonight's agenda.

Before we convene the closed session,

I'd like to ask the city clerk

if there are any public comments

on the closed session items.

Thank you, Mayor.

We don't have any speaker cards

on the closed session item,

so I'll give one last call

to the attendees on Zoom.

If you'd like to raise your hand and speak,

please do so now.

Seeing none, Mayor.

I'll turn it back to you.

All right.

Thank you.

We'll now adjourn to closed session, which is expected to take less than an hour.

Following the conclusion of closed session, the Council will return to the dais to reconvene

open session.

Also, item 9A, as a reminder on tonight's agenda, regarding the micromobility ordinance

is being continued to a future meeting.

If you've joined us to provide a public comment on this topic, you'll be afforded an opportunity

in the future to comment when that item is scheduled in the future.

So with that, we'll go to closed session.

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Thank you all for your patience.

The City Council has concluded closed session, and there is no reportable action.

We will now reconvene open session.

And we do not have any presentations or acknowledgments scheduled for this evening, so I'll move on to Item 7.

Turning now to the public comment section of the agenda, we'll now 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 will now turn it over to the city clerk to facilitate public comment.

Thank you, Mayor. At this time, we have one comment card.

And again, if you've joined us on Zoom, please raise your hand.

And if there's any other folks in the audience who want to give public comment in person, please turn in a speaker card at this time.

Okay. We'll call up our one speaker, Diana Reddy. Welcome, Diana.

Good evening.

Thank you, Mayor Martinez-Caballos, Vice Mayor Aiken, and City Council members for giving me this opportunity to speak.

I'm so sorry I was not able to attend the Celebrate Melissa event earlier this month, and I'm grateful that I have this opportunity to thank her for her service in Redwood City.

The vast majority of residents in Redwood City have no idea what it meant for her to be our city manager, especially during some of the most difficult and most challenging periods of our history.

During the pandemic, she met with her leadership team to reimagine our departments.

Many staff were reassigned to serve the community in very different ways as required during that period,

a process that saved staff from being laid off.

I particularly appreciated Melissa for her skill in supporting me while protecting her staff from some of my more creative ideas.

thank you Melissa

Redwood City is in your debt

and oh she's going to cry

and I wish you well

as you start the beginning

of this new episode in your life

applause

applause

applause

applause

Thank you, Diana.

We'll turn now to our Zoom speakers.

We have one person online, Rona Gundrum.

And Rona, when you're ready, you can unmute yourself and give your comments.

Thank you.

Good evening, all.

I'm on the Transportation Advisory Committee, but speaking as a resident.

My comment this evening is directed to Melissa.

Melissa, I regret not speaking following the reception on the 8th.

I hadn't prepared anything and didn't want to speak off the cuff,

which right now you're probably thinking, when has that ever stopped you?

Over the past five years, I've attended almost every council meeting, either in person or virtually.

I was always in awe of how versed you are on facts and details of the countless items that came before council.

Your hard work, dedication, meeting every challenge with calm and grace demonstrated the fact and community sentiments matter and spoke to how deeply you cared about the city.

After one of those meetings, I thought to myself, we are so lucky to have Melissa.

And days later, you announced your retirement.

So to council, staff and the community, I'm sorry, I jinxed it.

In the interest of time, I'll just echo the sentiments of the 8th by all the others and by Diana Reddy this evening.

And so you know, your influence was not only on staff and council, but also on community advocates such as myself, as you modeled active listening, thoughtful and respectful reflection, and reminded all of us in the community to be kind to each other.

Thank you for often taking the time from your very busy schedule to meet or speak with me

and for your kind words. They mean a lot. I'm sorry we didn't get to go for that Waymo ride

before you retired. Perhaps when you're back this way, we will. So speaking for myself and those in

the community who don't know how lucky we were, thank you. I wish you luck, joy, and safe travels

in the next chapter.

Thank you, Rona.

And that concludes public comment, Mayor.

Thank you.

Great.

Thank you to Vice Mayor Reddy,

Commissioner Gundrum for the great public comments.

This evening we'll now move on to item 8,

which is our consent calendar.

Items on the consent calendar are routine in nature

and are approved by one motion.

Are there any items on consent

from which council members are recused?

Not seeing any. Are there any items from the consent calendar that council members would like to pull for discussion?

Council Member Chiu.

I would like to pull 8D from consent.

Perfect. That was item 8D, as in dog.

Were there any other items that council would like to pull for discussion?

Not seeing any.

can I get a motion on the consent calendar

Mayor I'm sorry I just want to make sure

that council member

Chu meant

8D which is the

memorandum of understanding with

county of San Mateo for the bay road

complete streets project

or was it 8F

award contract to Kimley Horn to complete

the outreach and design phase for bay road

complete streets rehabilitation project

a thousand apologies 8F

great

So is there a motion to move the consent calendar with the exception of item 8F?

So moved.

Is there a second?

Second.

Great.

And could we get a roll call vote, please?

We'll start with Council Member Chu.

Yes.

Council Member Gee.

Yes.

Council Member Howard.

Yes.

Council Member Padilla.

Yes.

Council Member Sturkin.

Yes.

Vice Mayor Aiken. Yes. Mayor Martinez-Aballos. Yes. Thank you. The motion passes unanimously.

Great. Thank you, everyone. We'll go back to Council Member Chu for Item 8F.

So first I wanted to express, so basically this is a contract for outreach and design for a bicycle lane on Bay Road in District 3 between 5th and 15th.

I'll have to fight if I get any of that wrong, please correct me.

I just want to take this opportunity, first of all, to emphasize how important this project is.

There are many children, both in District 3 in my neighborhood and many children in North Fair Oaks that have to cross Bay, which is a fast, busy street in order to go to school.

Many of the individuals in my district use bicycles and micro mobility as their primary mode of transportation.

and so I want to emphasize my gratitude and support of the project.

However, there are some concerns I had around this.

One is in looking at the hourly rates for the consultants,

some of them seemed extraordinarily high,

especially relative to what in-house expertise would cost.

And while I understand that sometimes it doesn't make sense

to build certain kinds of expertise in-house,

if it is our intention to have a connected, protected bike network,

it might be much more economical to bring these sorts of projects in-house.

The second was trying to understand, is the high amount for outreach,

or is there a requirement for a large amount of outreach?

I know that sometimes if things go through Caltrans, they have sort of a minimum amount.

Is there any sort of provisions about minimums of outreach?

the outreach

so this is a contract

we developed with

County of San Mateo

and that was

their input

so they wanted to do lots of outreach

so that is why

I believe

we doubled up on the hours of outreach

for this project

and the reason is

there is a possibility

that we do lane reconfiguration means it may impact on street parking.

So we want to make sure that we do enough outreach to businesses.

County does have a different process for removal of parking.

I believe they need their board of supervisors approval.

So they just want to make sure that we account for those hours that are required.

And I can answer your first question.

So the project is not just bike lane.

The project is complete street improvements.

It requires a repaving.

It requires upgrading the ADA curb ramps.

So it's a civil engineering project.

It requires lots of hours of engineering work,

surveying on each corner.

so that is why the scope is really large.

So it's not just adding a bike lane.

We're actually surveying and designing to redo the whole street

and do the repavement over whatever improvement we make.

Great. Thank you. That's very helpful.

And then finally, so I live right near this proposed project,

And 5th and Bay is challenging to cross on foot.

I've had multiple close calls with fast-moving left turners, personally,

and it's just not as pleasant to try to navigate that particular intersection.

Whereas 2nd and Bay is a really easy cross.

You know, there's a four-way stop. It's very pleasant.

And then going from Bay to Broadway, 2nd is a much calmer, more comfortable route for people outside of cars.

And then on the south end of the project, there's a pedestrian crosswalk at 17th, whereas 15th is a complex intersection.

There's a curve. Cars move really fast.

And so it's extremely challenging to cross at 15th on foot or outside of a car.

And so if there's any possible way to extend this project, just a couple more blocks on either end,

I think it would hugely improve the connectivity and the utility of, you know, it's like a

perfect, beautiful, gorgeous bridge that stops a little short of the end of the river.

And getting it from 2nd to 17th, I think, would hugely improve the utility and the connectivity

of the project.

Yes, that is possible.

Well, we haven't done any project-specific outreach, so when we do outreach, that's a possibility that we extend the limits.

Yeah, and I've looked, and I think Redwood City actually owns the property, you know, the pinch points of second,

and I think Redwood City owns the property on either side of those two points.

Okay.

Just FYI.

Thank you.

I could be wrong.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Chu.

Is there a motion?

Council Member Serkin?

Oh, thank you, Mayor.

Just to piggyback on Council Member Chu's question here,

maybe on page 13 of the agreement,

under Task 2.1, Data Collection Field Visit,

there is the option for new data to be collected if needed,

and maybe that could be accommodated.

Maybe the additional blocks could be accommodated under that task.

Putting it out there.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Serkin.

Thank you, everybody. Is there a motion?

Council Member Chu. I move to approve item 8F.

Thank you. Is there a second? Second.

That was a motion from Council Member Chu on item 8F

and a second from Council Member Gee. Could we get a roll call vote, please?

Let's start with Council Member Gee. Yes. Council Member Howard.

Yes. Council Member Padilla.

Yes. Council Member Stricken. Yes. Council Member Chu. Yes. Vice Mayor Aiken. Yes. Mayor Martinez-Caballos. Yes. Motion passes unanimously.

Great. Thank you, everyone. We'll now move on to Item 9, which is our public hearings. As we stated earlier, Item 9A is being continued to a future evening.

will still take public comment on this topic,

but please be advised that the council will not be taking action this evening.

And with that, we will now open the public hearing,

and I'll turn it over to the city clerk to facilitate public comment.

Thank you, Mayor.

We do have two speaker cards at this time,

so anyone else wanting to give public comment on this item,

please turn in your speaker cards now.

If you've also joined us online, now would be the time to raise your hand.

We'll start with our in-person speakers.

Chris Gelrich, who will be followed by Rebecca Ratcliffe.

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

Thank you.

Thank you for being here to listen to me.

Two minutes is a short time.

I read through the proposed ordinance

and sent an email to all of you with detailed instructions,

so I'm just going to highlight an outline of my thoughts on this matter.

I understand that people are concerned about safety.

We all are, especially with our children, and we know our kids do stupid things.

I was a little concerned when I read this about a list of things that kids aren't allowed to do,

and I can tell you mine will come up with a dozen more,

and you can never list all of the dumb things

that they shouldn't do.

And I would like to consider this,

I would like us to have an approach

where we think about this as public safety.

You have to act safely.

Our police officers know when you're acting safely.

They know how to deal with it.

And so some of the items that are actually listed there

I think are unnecessary.

and another thing that I would like to highlight here

when I have your attention

is that Redwood City is working very hard

to make it more bicycle friendly

but there are places

I can't get to Kaiser on my bike safely.

Sometimes I have to go on the sidewalk.

I know no police officer is going to pull me over

and fine me $50 for that

but we should reconsider the wording

according to the email that I had sent you

and perhaps modify it in some ways as makes sense.

I think my time is up

and I don't want to waste everybody's time

and respect the fact that you listen to me.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Rebecca Ratcliffe.

Good evening, Mayor and City Council members.

I have emailed all of you about this and I'm grateful that I can also speak to you in person tonight.

We're lucky.

E-bikes have caused cycling to skyrocket around here, particularly among teens and young adults.

the rate of cycling is almost back to where it was when I was their age.

I was at Woodside High recently,

and I saw the number of bike racks has increased about tenfold.

It's pretty incredible, and they're fully used.

I have advocated literally for decades to get kids out of cars

and getting to school under their own power,

so I'm very excited to see this improvement,

and I encourage you to support this activity.

Recently, walking became excruciating for me,

but fortunately I was still able to bike.

I have ridden all over Redwood City, the shores, and nearby cities.

Our biking infrastructure remains spotty and in places neglected.

Bike lanes often blocked by city construction and delivery vehicles

that are parked for hours.

On major streets, my only way home, the speed limit is too high for me, even with an electric bike.

And blockages, poor road conditions, and frightening drivers drive me up onto the sidewalk.

Bike racks are often few and far between.

Downtown, they're often already full.

There's still more we need to do to encourage people to bike.

So please, rather than legislating specific details not to do, things that may change, please focus on the behaviors we need to keep people safe, educating teens and their parents, controlling speeds, and avoiding actions that endanger the teens themselves and the people around them.

I would like to support such education in the future.

Thank you.

Thank you, Rebecca.

Okay. Turning now to our Zoom attendees. Taylor, you may begin speaking when you unmute yourself.

Hello, is this working?

Yes, it is.

Great. Hi, my name is Taylor Pope. I also have sent an email with thoughts at more length, but I'm grateful for the chance to speak briefly in person.

I would just like to say I appreciate the attempts to update the code and remove vestigial references to licensing via the fire department and things such as that.

But I think some of the intended clarifications go too far into over restrictions.

I think some of that might even be unintentional through poorly worded phrasing, such as one example that parking bikes and other e-mobility, including low speed vehicles, is, according to the proposed statute, required to take place only in racks, which, as Rebecca mentioned, are not sufficient even for the normal bikes at their current levels of prevalence.

I also would like to touch base briefly on the pedestrian-only spaces

whose definition is being greatly expanded in this updated language

I would very much like to see explicit exceptions for that called out

for low-speed operation of these mobility devices

it does explicitly call out ADA assistive devices

but many people find it easier to operate at a responsible, safe pedestrian speed

than to dismount and move an often cumbersome mobility device.

And especially in areas where there is not a safe alternative,

it would be great to have that explicitly protected

instead of just assuming that police would not overzealously enforce responsible behavior.

Thank you.

thank you taylor and that concludes public comment mayor

great thank you everybody who made the time to join us tonight either in person or virtually

we'll now close the public hearing and continue this item to a future meeting

so thank you again everyone with that we will now move on to item 10 which is the beginning of our

staff reports beginning with item 10a finance director beth goldberg will give us the staff

presentation good evening everyone uh i am beth goldberg the finance director and i'm pleased

to be with you virtually this evening um tonight's uh presentation is um about improving compliance

with the city's transient occupancy tax, also known as the TOT.

If you can move to the next slide, please.

So as I mentioned, we are looking to improve compliance with our transient occupancy tax.

This tax is governed by Redwood City Municipal Code, Chapter 32,

And the specific section we're looking to amend is Article 4, Section 32.87, records to be kept for a period of three years.

And the request is to add language to give the city's tax administrator or the finance director, in this case, the authority to issue administrative subpoenas to compel compliance with the transient occupancy tax.

This is a similar provision to what we have with our utility user tax and our communication user tax.

Aside from granting the administrative subpoena authority, we are not proposing any changes to the existing tax structure.

And this is the first reading of this item.

We anticipate coming back for the second reading and council approval on January 12,

2026.

If we can go to the next slide, please.

As I'm going through the slides tonight, we have two questions for council to consider.

The first is, is council supportive of the proposed efforts to improve compliance with

the transient occupancy tax?

And the second question is, does council wish to make any changes to the proposed amendment?

Next slide, please.

So I want to give you a little bit of background on the transient occupancy tax.

But before I do that, I just want to provide a little bit of context.

The finance department has spent the last year looking at compliance rates for our various taxes and has been working to improve those compliance rates.

Over the course of our review of the transient occupancy tax, we did identify with the help of the city attorney's office that there is a gap in our current enforcement provisions that would be very helpful if we had in terms of compelling compliance.

So in terms of the transit occupancy tax itself, the current tax rate is 12 percent, and this is on the rent by guests of rooms in hotels and motels.

The city collects about five million dollars annually in the general fund from this tax and represents about 2.4 percent of general fund revenues.

The city has a contract with HDL who conducts periodic audits to ensure compliance with our tax.

And while compliance is generally good, there is room for improvement, which is why we are coming to you this evening with these recommended changes.

Next slide, please.

So the strategy we are recommending for improving compliance would be to grant administrative subpoena authority to the tax administrator, the finance director.

And this authority would allow the tax administrator to seek court action to compel compliance and enforce penalties.

And as I mentioned at the outset, we have similar provisions in our utility user tax provisions as well as our communications user tax provisions.

If the council approves these recommended changes, we do anticipate increasing revenues to the general fund by improving compliance.

And also an added benefit is that we can ensure that there is fairness in the application of our transient occupancy tax across all of the hotels and motels operating in Redwood City.

Those that are complying, I'm sure would very much appreciate those who are not to be held accountable and to also be required to pay monies owed to the city for this tax.

Next slide, please.

So, as I mentioned at the outset, this is the first reading.

We are anticipating a second reading on January 12, 2026.

If the council approves these changes on January 12 or at such time that these are approved, the administrative subpoena provisions would go into effect 30 days later.

And once the provisions take effect, the city can begin issuing the administrative subpoenas to hotel and motel operators who fail to comply with our audits.

Next slide, please.

So, in closing, I want to remind you of the questions that I laid out at the beginning of this presentation.

The first of which is whether Council is supportive of the proposed efforts to improve compliance with our transient occupancy tax, and does the Council wish to make any changes to the proposed amendment?

and that amendment language is in your packet.

And if it would be helpful, we can also pull it up on the screen.

And in terms of staff recommendations,

we are hoping to get direction from the City Council this evening

about any changes that the City Council would like incorporated

into the proposed amendment.

And then we will return with those changes after the new year at our first council meeting on January 12th.

And with that, that concludes my presentation.

And I'm willing to answer any questions that the council may have.

Thank you for the great presentation.

before we bring it back to the days here

we'll now take public comment on this item

and I'll turn it over to our city clerk

to help facilitate

thank you mayor at this time we don't have any speaker cards

on this item so last call to the audience

or folks online

for public comment

seeing none I'll turn it back to you mayor

great

thank you city clerk

who would like to get us started

with any questions or comments

I just want to thank you, Beth.

I think this is...

Yes, I fully support people

complying with this and anything we can

do to help support you in that effort

to get the TOT I think is wonderful.

So thank you so much for your efforts.

Thank you,

Council Member. Council Member Sturkin.

Thank you, Mayor. I agree

with that as well. I will say

my question is, did we...

Have we done any kind of info sessions

or had any conversations with

hotel operators in the city just to bring them along and let them know that we're not out to get

them or anything, that they're not, you know, there's no bad actors that we know of, or that

we're not seeing anyone out. Just, again, oh, Beth, sorry, there you are. Yeah, we have not done

any particular outreach aside from the periodic audits that HDL performs on our behalf. The last

audit was completed in the summer of 2024. And so as part of those audits, there is outreach

asking hotel operators to provide copies of their records

that would substantiate or confirm what they have paid or not paid.

So that happens periodically.

Thank you.

I think in addition to that, it might go a long way,

like we did with the business license tax,

keeping in mind that we're not making any changes to the TOT at this time.

to just have a info session about this proposed ordinance

before it comes back to council in January,

if time allows and staff capacity does as well.

Thank you.

Thank you, council member.

And we'll go online to council member Howard.

Thank you, mayor.

Can you hear me okay?

Yes, you sound great.

Thank you.

Beth, I really appreciate the report.

It seems like you have discovered a pattern of delinquent payments, and my guess is probably over a long period of time.

I am so glad that you have decided to break the pattern and have something, a tool in your toolbox to ensure that we do get the monies to our coffers that we should be getting.

and also I really like the fact that you're not trying to do anything different

than the utility user tax or the communication users tax.

They'll be in compliance and they'll all be doing the same work.

They're aligned.

So I really appreciate that.

I just look forward to see maybe within six months to a year

that if you can come back and show us that it really has paid off

and that it's brought more money into the general fund.

So thank you very much for discovering this and following through on it.

I appreciate it.

Thank you, Council Member Howard.

Bring it back to Council Member G.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you for the report.

Could you, just two points.

I can't remember, so I need your help.

When we talk about the TOT, I'm trying to remember, does it also apply to short-term rentals?

I believe it does.

It does.

Sorry.

No, I think my recollection it does, so I just need confirmation.

It does, but there are different enforcement mechanisms for the short-term rentals, but we do have a transient occupancy tax on the short-term rentals.

So thank you for confirming that. Would this administrative subpoena provision apply to short-term rentals if you needed to?

um i am gonna phone a friend about this um because the short-term rentals are administered

um by uh the community development department um and they're doing their own enforcement as

opposed to this one which is managed by finance and our contract with hdl so i'm gonna see if

veronica could maybe weigh in um more specifically with an answer on that

thank you beth um so transit orient tech transit oh my god transient that's why thank you t.o.t

applies to short-term rentals in the same way that applies to hoteliers so um so all of these

provisions would be applicable and and it is something that we're looking at um for you know

kind of how to more uniformly enforce in redwood city uh you know no matter what type of uh unit

is creating the need for a tot collection um so beth and bronca thank you for that clarification

i i guess what then i would look to is this is a step one but if we have two different

departments enforcing

the ordinance should give

either print to one or

give it to

the authority not only to the

city's tax administrator

quote aka finance director but

the two different department

heads that are enforcing

but I'll look at this as a step

one and maybe

you can kind of look at it for

whatever's next

I think that's definitely something we can do

and maybe even kind of

give an update at the next at the second reading if it moves to that point.

Thank you.

And then that leads to the second point.

I think council member Howard alluded to it.

I didn't see Beth in the staff report a report.

I don't know if that comes with the budget or the effectiveness of this and

how many times you've had to use it and the results.

So is there,

what would be a reasonable timeline to see how well this has worked?

12 months from council approval or,

do it at every, at the budget or what would make sense?

Yeah. And if I could maybe before answering that question,

go back to your previous question. And this is,

that is a topic in terms of community developments enforcement.

That is a discussion that we have been having on a preliminary basis between

between community development and finance, and it's a discussion that we're continuing.

So we can definitely report back on that over time.

With regards to the effectiveness, we are waiting to begin the next audit until these provisions are in place

and intend as part of that audit, if there are operators that are refusing to comply,

we do intend to quickly exercise this subpoena authority to compel that compliance.

In terms of the timeline, it could, you know, hopefully simply issuing the subpoena compels that compliance, but it could involve the court.

So it's hard to say how long that would take to play out, but we can certainly give periodic updates, whether that be with the budget or, you know, in a quarterly financial report.

Very good. So what I would just ask is this is going to come back to council.

I believe for a second reading that there's some sort of reporting mechanism built into this so that council knows how many subpoenas you may have issued and maybe the results of those subpoenas.

Just so that there's there's awareness and there's transparency for everybody.

OK, will do. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you, council members.

G and we'll go to council member Chu next.

So thank you for bringing this up and you know,

just a clarifying question first. So say, you know,

we have a number of short-term rentals. If there was a subpoena,

I'm assuming that would primarily go after say Airbnb or whatever

mechanism they were using to do those short-term rentals.

This wouldn't be a lot of legal actions against, you know,

individual Redwood city residents or just so I'm understanding the

mechanism a little bit better.

Can I phone a friend with Veronica?

Again, since finance hasn't been directly involved in the enforcement of this on the

short-term rentals, I'm not as familiar with how that would work.

Thank you, Beth.

So, yes, what I would say is that typically this section has applied to hotels, and TOT is generated by hotel stays.

We also have TOT for short-term rentals, and the enforcement for short-term rentals is what I would say a work in progress,

including regulations have been quickly changing on short-term rentals and enforcement of short-term rentals.

In fact, there was legislation that was just adopted recently that we now need to understand how our ordinance needs to change, if at all, or whether we can just utilize the new legislation without having to change our ordinance.

So really good question, but right now I would say TOT for short-term rentals is definitely in flux

and is something that we can look at providing an update for the city council once we have a better understanding of that.

Terrific. Thank you.

So, you know, overall I'm very supportive of this.

Obviously I want us to be able to collect necessary funds from hotels.

And just I would really appreciate when we hear this again,

hearing a little more clarification around the mechanisms and pathway of short-term rental

enforcement. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member. We'll go to Vice Mayor.

Yes, thank you so much, Beth. Excellent work. And I just, you know, these short-term rentals,

I guess I just want to emphasize this idea that we want to be fair, and it's not fair when the hotels that do pay their fair share and do contribute to the tax then are competing with hotels or short-term do-it-yourself kind of rentally kind of people that aren't paying their fair share.

so I think it's

I recall

I don't know I want to say maybe five or six years

ago that

Redwood City

was still trying to figure out

how to deal with this new

product of people

renting out their houses

and their apartments for two nights a week

and this kind of

revolution that was happening

and it was taking business away from

our hotels and

if they're still taking away business

business from hotels, which they are, and they're not paying the tax that they owe,

I think it's a high priority for us to have a level playing field, particularly when we have

two international events coming to our area in the next year or year and a half,

that we do collect the tax

and that everyone, all of the tourism folks

that have hotels are competing honestly

and one isn't paying a tax

and the other one not paying the tax.

So thank you.

It sounds like you're on that road

and that's fantastic.

Thank you, Vice Mayor.

Any other comments?

not seeing any. I will

Councilman Serkin

I'll go to you. Sorry I just want to make sure I

appreciated you Ms. Culper

for your work on this. I

am really glad to see us achieving

consistency across the different types of

taxes we implement

and I also want to just plus one

Councilmember G's suggestion

on reporting. Thank you.

Great. Thank you Councilmember.

I will add my thanks again, Beth, for the great presentation, all the great work on this.

Like my colleagues, I also think that our hotels and operators need to be paying the TOT that all of our operators are expected to, right?

So I think this is going to be a really important step.

You know, I know we have a couple of weeks until this comes back to Council, to Council Member Sturgeon's point.

I think an outreach to the short-term providers,

but also to our hotels that some changes are coming,

and we might have some state laws that we're looking at would be helpful.

And, you know, to Council Member Gee's point around a reporting mechanism,

I think that'll be important to track,

especially like the Vice Mayor mentioned with the Super Bowl, the World Cup.

There are going to be lots of folks who are going to want to be on the peninsula,

and this is going to be an important way to track to see how compliance is working out

and exactly what economic impact we're seeing here in Redwood City.

So with that, I will entertain a motion.

I have to make a motion.

Perfect.

And is there a second?

Second.

Mayor, if I could just interject briefly.

So in terms of the staff recommendation,

what's published in the agenda is to waive the first reading and introduce an ordinance amending Redwood City Municipal Code Chapter 32, Article 4, Section 32.87 of the Redwood City Municipal Code to address issuance of administrative subpoenas for uniform transient occupancy tax.

Often that's on the screen, but it's not at the moment.

So just to be clear for the public, that's what the recommended action is.

Thank you.

Great.

Thank you so much.

and with that we will take a roll call vote the motion was from council member sterkin a second

from council member chu and we will do a roll call vote thank you we'll start with council member

howard yes council member padilla yes council member sterkin yes council member chu

yes council member g yes vice mayor aiken yes mayor martinez ceballos yes motion passes unanimously

Great. Thank you, everybody, and thank you again to staff for the great presentation.

We will now move on to Item 10B, which is a City Council appointment to the San Mateo County Mosquito and Vector Control District Board of Trustees.

Our City Clerk, Jessica Castro, will give a brief overview of the item and then facilitate public comment.

Thank you, Mayor.

So the San Mateo County Mosquito and Vector Control District protects the health and comfort of San Mateo County's residents through integrated pest management.

The district's board of trustees consists of 21 members, one from each city or town, and one member elected to represent the county at large.

The current term for Redwood City's trustee will expire on December 31st, 2025, and the City Council must make an appointment to ensure that Redwood City continues to have representation on the board.

To encourage broad community engagement, the City Clerk's Office advertised the vacancy through the City's e-news online newsletter, the website, and through the City's social media outlets.

At the close of the application period, we received two letters of interest, one from Dr. Timothy Peary, who has served on the City's Senior Affairs Commission, as well as from incumbent Catherine Lyon, who has served on the Board of Trustees since 2014.

The process for tonight's appointment will happen in two parts.

First, we'll take a roll call vote to make the appointment.

then we'll ask the council to make a motion to appoint that representative to either a two or

four-year term i want to note that dr peary has expressed interest in a two-year term

and cat lion had expressed interest in a four-year term however the city council ultimately has

discretion over the term length unless the council has any questions on the process or any questions

I am happy to take public comment and move forward with the appointment.

Any questions?

I am not seeing any. Let's take public comment.

I don't have any comment cards.

I don't see any public comment online.

I will give one more second for folks to raise their hand if they wish to give public comment.

I will move forward with the appointments.

I'll move forward with the appointments.

So no fancy tally sheets this evening.

When I call your name, you'll state one name,

either Dr. Timothy Peary or Catherine Lyon.

We'll start with Council Member Chu.

Catherine Lyon.

Council Member Gee.

Catherine Lyon.

Council Member Howard.

Catherine Lyon.

Council Member Patia.

Catherine Lyon.

Council Member Sterkin.

Catherine Lyon.

Vice Mayor Aiken

Catherine Lyon

Mayor Martinez Ceballos

Catherine Lyon

Thank you. And by unanimous vote

of the council, Catherine Lyon

has been reappointed to the

San Mateo County Mosquito and Vector

Control District. And so

now that we've appointed a member

the council would now

make a motion to appoint Catherine

to either a two-year or a four-year

term. And again, she had expressed

interest in a four-year term.

Council Member G.

Absent any other council comments, and I'm happy to wait,

but I'd like to make the motion to appoint Cat Lyon to a four-year term

on the San Mateo County Mosquito Vector Control District Board of Trustees.

I'll second that motion.

Great.

And not seeing any other comments or questions,

let's get a roll call vote, please.

Thank you.

We'll start with Council Member Padilla.

Yes.

Council Member Sturkin.

Yes.

Council Member Chu.

Yes.

Council Member Gee.

Yes.

Council Member Howard.

Yes.

Vice Mayor Aiken.

Yes.

Mayor Martinez-Caballos.

Yes.

The motion passes unanimously, and we have appointed Catherine Lyon to the San Mateo County Mosquito and Vector Control District for a four-year term.

Thank you so much.

Great.

really quickly before we move on to the next item

just want to thank Dr. Puri for

his interest and

Ms. Lyon for her continued service

on the Mosquito and Vector

Control Board. We really appreciate it

and with that we will now

move on to item

looks like this is item 10C

Human

Resources Director Michelle Katsuyoshi

will help give us a presentation

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right.

Looks like everyone is back.

We will hand things off to Michelle.

Welcome.

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

and members of the community.

Michelle Katsuyoshi, Human Resources Director.

The item before you tonight is the Summary of Compensation in Terms of Employment for

the Executive Management Employee Group.

Listed here is the recommendation to adopt a resolution amending the City's Classification

and Salary and Wage Plan to update salary ranges for the Executive Management and Appointed

Classifications consistent with prior City Council action and amending the Summary of

compensation in terms of employment for the Executive Management Employee Group to clarify

relocation assistance benefits and amend holiday benefits effective December 22, 2025.

Listed here is the presentation overview.

And here are the questions for the City Council.

First question, does the Council have any questions regarding the relocation assistance

benefit?

Second question, do you have any questions regarding the banked holiday hours benefit?

As a background, we periodically bring the summary of compensation in terms of employment

for the executive group to your attention.

This summary of benefits establishes benefits and compensation for our at-will executive

level employees.

These positions include our department directors, our assistant department directors, our division

managers as well as our police captains.

The proposed changes to the summary that we're bringing forward tonight incorporate two prior

actions.

In November, we asked for salary updates, and in May of 2025, we created the new classification

of a crisis response clinician.

And also, these changes reflect previously approved salaries that are required by CalPERS

to provide in our full salary schedule, so we're bringing forward an updated salary schedule.

The proposed changes tonight are to clarify a relocation assistance benefit that was previously

approved in November of 2024.

And this benefit is offered to new hires in the classifications of assistant city managers,

police and fire chiefs, as well as our department directors.

And also the proposed changes include the ability to bank hours when a city executive

teammate is required to work on a holiday.

As I mentioned, the relocation assistance benefit was previously approved in 2024 and

it was approved for an amount up to $10,000 to help attract candidates in key leadership

positions.

The recommended edits that we have for you today

is to change the approval to the city manager

and or their designee.

Currently the approval is the human resources director.

Another recommended edit is to change the distance

requirement of a new hire who relocates

from more than 100 miles away.

We are recommending the change to relocating

from a minimum of 50 miles away.

Also, we are recommending the edit

that the new residents can either be

a new permanent residence or a secondary residence

within 50 miles of the city.

We also want to clarify that eligible relocation expenses

can include moving expenses as well as

a first month rent or mortgage.

Historically, some classifications

in the executive management summary of benefits

have been able to bank holidays on a recognized holiday.

And so that means that if somebody worked

a recognized city holiday,

those banked hours could be used as leave at a future date.

Some employees in other bargaining groups already have a similar benefit where they may either receive a pay in lieu of a holiday or may receive pay when working on a holiday.

What we are recommending tonight is that if an employee in the executive management group is required to work on a holiday,

such as a city emergency, operations emergency, or a city-sponsored event,

that they could bank those hours and use them at a later date.

In a non-emergency or city-sponsored event, we ask that the executive member must seek pre-approval prior to working on a city-approved holiday.

With the exception of the positions of city manager, city attorney, assistant city manager, police and fire chiefs would not require pre-approval to work on a city-recognized holiday.

day. We are also recommending that these benefit, I'm sorry, these banked holiday hours

must be used by the end of the calendar year and that they would not be carried over to

a following calendar year and that a maximum of two banked holidays, which would equal

16 hours, could be cashed out if not used by the end of the year.

I've listed the two questions that we have for

Council. That concludes my

presentation. I'm happy to answer any

questions.

Thank you so much, Michelle, for the great presentation.

Before we bring it back to

the Council, we will open it up to

public comments and pass things

over to the City Clerk.

Thank you, Mayor. No speaker

cards on this item, so one last

call to our

folks online or in person.

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

Thank you.

Great.

Thank you, City Clerk.

Who would like to get us started on item 10C?

Any comments or questions?

I have some thoughts.

Thank you, Mayor.

In general, and maybe this isn't the correct forum,

but it is the holiday season,

and my philosophy in general is I like to support local.

I like to shop local and I like to hire local.

So when possible, I do want us to always look for the tremendous talent that we have in our community.

So I just want that to be out there, that we're always thinking of supporting our local community.

So that's my thought on that.

I'm not saying that they're not exceptional people that we would have to recruit.

But at times I wish if there's not a policy we have formally, I would love to entertain at some point some sort of focus on supporting local hiring.

That's all I have for right now.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilman Padilla.

Who would like to go next?

Councilman Sturkin.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you so much, Director.

So one question I have, and apologies if this is a stupid question.

So if an employee is compelled to work a holiday, they still get holiday pay, right?

If they actually work on the holiday, yes, it is a paid holiday.

We have 13 recognized holidays.

Thank you.

I guess my comment then is...

It could be perceived as double dipping to get that holiday banked to be used later.

However, I do support the staff recommendation because if you're required to, per an emergency,

to come in and work that holiday when you were planning on spending with your family or otherwise,

I appreciate the opportunity for employees, executive management to bank that and then use that holiday later.

Because, you know, our employees deserve their holidays.

So especially in the case that these positions are often very much 24-7, you're on call 24-7, essentially.

So I support it just with that kind of caveat in mind.

But yes, thank you very much.

Thank you, Council Member.

Go to Vice Mayor.

I just wanted to clarify.

I think this applies to exempt employees' manager level, so hourly pay is not.

Am I correct about that?

Maybe just to add on, so these are not employees who receive a holiday in lieu pay.

They're not routinely planning to work on holidays.

Having a holiday is a benefit.

And so the typical expectation is like upcoming Christmas that these employees will not be working.

So the intention here, though, is to acknowledge that if there is a requirement for them to work on a day when they would otherwise not be working,

because they have a holiday benefit,

then there would be an eligibility to bank that time.

So just to clarify, I think it's a little confusing

between different bargaining groups.

Thank you for that clarification.

Any other comments, questions?

Not seeing any.

I will add my thanks, Michelle, for the great presentation.

you know I think these are really important changes the relocation assistance benefit

it is not a secret that the bay area of the peninsula San Mateo county is an incredibly

expensive place to live and housing costs are driving that so I hope that this is going to be

a recruitment tool but I would also love for us to study whether this could be a retention tool

and something that we can use to motivate staff that we currently have

that are making that long commute and give them a chance to invest

and have a home here a little closer to their place of work.

So a different topic, but something that I think would be,

along with prioritizing local hires,

I think that would be something that would be really interesting to see.

But aside from that, I think the banking,

the holiday hours benefit would be very helpful.

It is a rainy day, the start of a rainy season,

and I'm thinking of our public works staff

who may end up getting called to assist during the holidays.

So I'm thinking about those folks,

and this would be absolutely something that's going to be helpful

for them to be able to just recharge their batteries

at a point where it's convenient

and where we don't have a pipe burst into the street.

So with that, I'll entertain a motion.

Council Member Ochoa.

I would like to move to adopt a resolution amending the city's classification and wage plan to update salary ranges for executive management and appointed classifications consistent with prior city council actions and amending summary of compensation in terms of employment for the executive management employee group to clarify relocation assistant benefits.

and amend holiday benefits effected December 22nd, 2025.

I'll second that.

Thank you.

That was a motion from Council Member Chu,

a second from Council Member Howard.

And before we do roll call votes,

we'll go to Council Member Sturgeon.

Sorry, I should have made this comment before the motion,

but I just want to echo my support for my colleagues

just said earlier about prioritizing local hire

whenever possible,

as well as evaluating this relocation

policy

as a retention tool.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member

Sturkin. With that, let's get a roll call vote,

please. We'll start with

Council Member Sturkin. Yes.

Council Member Chu.

Yes. Council Member Gee.

Yes. Council Member Howard.

Yes. Council Member Padilla.

Yes.

Vice Mayor Aiken.

Yes. Mayor Martinez-Caballos.

Yes.

The motion passes unanimously.

Great. Thank you. Thank you again, Michelle.

Thank you.

And we will now move on to item 10D, which is the adoption of an economic mobility action plan.

Assistant City Manager Michelle Poche Flaherty will give us the presentation.

Thank you, Mayor Martinez-Ceballos.

Tonight I'll be presenting staff's proposal for the adoption of Redwood City's first economic mobility action plan.

We'll begin with a brief discussion about the concept of economic mobility and describe the research and engagement that's informed this plan.

And then I'll review the elements of the proposed economic mobility action plan before asking City Council to consider adopting the plan as proposed.

AND ON THE NEXT SLIDE ARE SOME QUESTIONS THAT COUNCIL MIGHT WANT TO KEEP IN MIND AS YOU CONSIDER THIS ITEM TONIGHT.

SO I'D LIKE TO START BY DEFINING ECONOMIC MOBILITY AND WHY WE BELIEVE IT'S IMPORTANT TO REDWOOD CITY.

ON THE NEXT SLIDE YOU'LL SEE THAT ECONOMIC MOBILITY IS THE ABILITY, IT'S DEFINED AS THE ABILITY OF A PERSON OR A FAMILY TO IMPROVE THEIR ECONOMIC CIRCUMSTANCES

over a period of time. So we might think of this on a spectrum from the ability to meet one's basic needs to experiencing stable employment and the ability to cover expenses to having the ability to save for one's own and one's family's future.

so why should redwood city have an economic mobility action plan on the next slide i'd like

to get into that a little bit and talk about how economic mobility is particularly important topic

for addressing redwood city's vision to be a community where people of all backgrounds and

income levels thrive. And it's a key concept in the city's general plan. The general plan frames

the purpose of its economic development element, not only in terms of business success, but also

in terms of worker and resident opportunity. Furthermore, the general plan frames North

Fair Oaks as part of the Redwood City sphere of influence. And this has shaped staff thinking

about where to draw the boundaries of the Redwood City community for purposes of the economic

mobility action plan. So with those first two bullets from this slide in mind, in 2024,

City Council approved an economic development work plan that directed staff to create an

economic mobility action plan. In addition, our city has heard from local employers facing

challenges in finding and retaining the skilled workers they need. In countywide and local

community engagement data, residents are requesting action on cost of living and affordability

challenges. Getting more residents into quality jobs helps limit displacement, connecting

this topic to one of the most pressing issues in our community, housing. Finally, when we

look at local data, we can see we're not yet embodying the city's vision. Not everyone

is thriving here just yet.

And I will talk about that some more

over the next couple of slides.

So local research has identified

the threshold of affordability for households

of different sizes and configurations in San Mateo County.

And we found that a single individual

needs about $76,000 to afford to live here,

while a family of four with two young children

would require $164,000 annually.

Further analysis shows that most households

aren't meeting that threshold.

The lower colored lines on this slide

show the poverty threshold,

and the upper colored lines

show the income a household would need

to afford the cost of living in our county.

So 13% of households are living in poverty,

and a further 44% are living out of poverty but still can't afford the local cost of living.

In other words, some county residents are struggling to meet basic needs

and many more are struggling to regularly cover expenses.

Now looking specifically at Redwood City, this dashboard compares Redwood City outcomes

against cities across the country in areas like economic factors, health outcomes, and physical

environment. In this display of the social and economic factors, Redwood City's data is the

yellow bar, and the black arrow shows the average from cities across the country. In most areas,

Redwood City has a green check above the yellow bar, and this indicates that our city's outcomes

are better than in other places.

For instance, Redwood City does better than other cities

in terms of the percentage of children in poverty,

third-grade reading scores, racial and ethnic diversity,

and even rent burden.

However, Redwood City does worse than other cities

in foretelling areas.

Chronic absenteeism from school,

high school completion rates,

income inequality,

and neighborhood racial or ethnic segregation.

These last two statistics in particular,

income inequality and neighborhood segregation,

let us know not all Redwood City residents

are having the same experiences.

A deeper dive into data separated out by demographics

confirms that some groups of residents are doing very well,

while others are not yet fully thriving in our community.

So we ask ourselves, what might we do about this

in terms of local action.

And I want to start by recognizing

the considerable accomplishments of the staff

who worked to build this plan to address these issues.

Our former Equity and Inclusion Officer, Brianna Evans,

partnered with our Economic Development Manager,

Amanda Anthony, to become experts in this topic

of economic mobility and what it means for our community.

The National League of Cities has identified

economic mobility at the forefront of priorities for local governments. In 2023, Redwood City was

one of just eight cities in the nation to join the league's inaugural cohort on this topic and

receive a grant for advancing economic mobility. In addition, the International City-County

Managers Association, or ICMA, has also formed a program in partnership with the Gates Foundation

for local government leadership for economic mobility and opportunity.

And in 2024, Redwood City was one of 12 cities selected for this national program

to support the implementation of economic mobility strategies.

As a result of city staff's participation in these two national programs,

we gained access to the best practices in the field of economic mobility,

along with funding to support this work.

Our staff have been featured as session presenters at national conferences hosted by each of these prestigious organizations, and Redwood City has established itself as a leader in economic mobility work.

Now, we began this presentation with this definition of economic mobility, but on the

next slide, what I'd like to do is explore this a little bit deeper, because while that

definition tells us what economic mobility looks like, this slide shows us the Urban

Institute's upward mobility framework, which tells us how we might get there.

I want to acknowledge immediately that this diagram is impossible to read on the screen,

but there is a legible copy of it in the staff report.

And for anyone online, you can find this same image on the Urban Institute website

or at redwoodcity.org slash economic mobility.

So without trying to read this text, please allow me to briefly describe what this graphic represents.

This upward mobility framework recognizes that income alone does not drive upward mobility.

Upward mobility requires economic success and dignity and belonging and power and autonomy.

This is the three-part definition of upward mobility that's shown at the top in the Blue Mountains.

To make dignity, autonomy, and economic success a reality for all,

The framework suggests positive outcomes are required in five pillar areas.

In the green pillar, we have rewarding work.

The pink pillar is high-quality education.

In blue, we have opportunity-rich and inclusive neighborhoods.

The orange pillar is healthy environment and access to good health care.

And the yellow pillar is responsive and just governance.

For each pillar, the framework provides several predictors or indicators

that are comparable across counties and cities with over 75,000 residents in the United States.

And this is the tiny writing at the bottom.

Now, I won't cite every predictor right now, but examples include jobs paying living wages

as an indicator of rewarding work, housing stability as an indicator of opportunity-rich

and inclusive neighborhoods, and safety from crime as an indicator of responsive and just governance.

This framework has served as a foundation for economic mobility work in Redwood City and San Mateo County, as well as many other communities in the nation.

San Mateo County is using the same upward mobility framework to drive the work of the Shared Prosperity Coordinating Council,

which is a group of nonprofit, government, and business leaders working together for economic mobility.

The Coordinating Council has done deep research on the local picture of economic opportunity and has developed a county-wide action plan.

Both Redwood City Manager Melissa Stevenson-Diaz and former Equity and Inclusion Officer Brianna Evans participated on the council and helped shape the council's efforts to set universal prosperity goals for the county.

Those goals are that all individuals and families have reliable income that covers their expenses and supports well-being.

Everyone feels respect, dignity, and well-being.

And all residents have the voice and agency to influence the policies and actions that affect their lives.

We find it's useful to align our city economic mobility work with that of the county and our other community partners.

In addition to the city staff's research into and collaboration on developing best practices,

Redwood City conducted considerable community engagement to inform this plan.

So let me turn now to our community engagement efforts.

Starting in 2023, community partners were interviewed as part of the Economic Mobility Landscape Analysis.

and in 2024, the city worked through the Community Collaborative for Children's Success

to conduct a survey that included questions about economic mobility and job access.

Over the past year, with the help of Redwood City Together,

a series of focus groups were held to gain additional input.

The landscape analysis engaged more than 40 external partners

as well as every operational city department in one-on-one interviews

about how community services relate to economic mobility.

The survey gathered information from 150 youth and 442 caregivers

with 269 responses in Spanish

and approximately 60 youth and adults participated in focus groups

in English and Spanish during this time.

All this research was used to help prioritize focus areas

in the Redwood City's proposed Economic Mobility Action Plan.

Staff presented a draft of the proposed action plan

to the City Council's Equity and Social Justice Subcommittee

on June 27th of this year.

Since that time, the city has sought additional feedback

from each of the organizations listed on this slide

with a presentation on the proposed plan.

Each group affirmed the plan as proposed

meets meaningful community needs.

So now I'd like to walk through the plan elements itself that we've proposed for adoption tonight.

The economic mobility plan has five key elements.

Community outcomes are the changes we aim to create in the community in the long term.

And community indicators are midterm population level metrics that indicate whether we're moving toward the desired outcomes.

City strategies are the short-term actions the Redwood City government will take to affect the indicators,

and each strategy has a success metric to show how much the strategy has been done

or how well it has worked during the life of the strategy.

Finally, the aligned actions highlight the work of others, such as partners who are likely to affect the outcomes.

This support provides clarity about the ecosystem of work driving change in this complex area.

The proposed plan identifies three community outcomes to describe how we expect things to be better for community members in the long run as a result of our economic mobility work.

The three proposed outcomes are households experiencing less stress about money, residents using available employment and basic needs resources, and community members feeling the power to shape their own future.

For each community outcome, we've proposed several community indicators to measure progress in the community.

All indicators in the proposed plan are regularly collected by other agencies,

meaning that Redwood City will not begin any new data collection to measure the plan's success.

For example, looking at just the first grouping on this slide,

to track reduction in household stress about energy,

the proposed indicators are self-reported stress,

which is surveyed through the San Mateo County Health Quality of Life Survey,

renters spending 30% or more of income on housing

which is tracked through the American Community Survey

and the third bullet in that first grouping

residents who've considered relocating due to cost of living

another data point surveyed through the county health quality of life survey

for each community outcome in the plan

we've identified three city strategies for actions

city staff will take in the next two to three years.

These strategies outline the city's

specific action commitments.

So to help reduce financial stress,

Redwood City would commit to expanding access

to financial literacy programs,

pursue new employment programs,

and increase affordable housing units

in alignment with the city's housing element.

To increase access to existing resources,

Redwood City would improve communication about the city's minimum wage ordinance,

support communication on available job opportunities,

and seek funding for a screening tool to better meet community service needs.

And to support local power building,

Redwood City would continue connecting small business owners with specialized support,

expand opportunities for civic leadership development,

and align city onboard practices with youth-friendly approaches.

Each city strategy in the plan has associated city success metrics proposed to track city

progress. A few examples of success metrics are highlighted on this slide and all of the

proposed success metrics are identified in the staff report and laid out in the plan document

itself which was included as attachment A to the staff report.

Finally, the plan recognizes that Redwood City's work

is only one source of influence on economic mobility.

The staff report and the plan document

some additional examples of aligned actions

that others are taking in the community.

We expect these partners to have a significant role

supporting the community outcomes

we'll be tracking as part of the plan,

and so the plan acknowledges that from the outset.

In summary, this plan is the culmination of several years of work by city staff who've been recognized as leaders in their field and through deep collaboration and alignment with our community partners.

There are three main reasons why we have created the Economic Mobility Action Plan we propose to you tonight.

First, the plan defines local success.

By setting population-level outcomes over 7 to 10 years,

the plan focuses on creating change community members can actually feel.

Second, the plan identifies specific strategies for change.

It supports accountability by clarifying what the city will do to advance economic mobility

and provides a structure for updating strategies every two to three years

in alignment with the long-term outcomes.

Finally, the plan supports active partnership

to achieve ambitious goals.

The plan has been developed with input

from a large number of local organizations

in addition to community data.

Staff are proposing goals aligned with partner work

and creating opportunities to leverage partnership

with nonprofits, businesses, foundations,

and other government agencies.

If the City Council adopts the proposed

Economic Mobility Action Plan,

then the next steps will be for City staff

to implement the city strategies outlined in the staff report.

We anticipate developing an online dashboard

or annual report to monitor and communicate

about the metrics and actions we've identified in the plan.

Thank you for your consideration of this plan.

With that, staff recommends Council adopt

the 2026 Economic Mobility Action Plan as proposed.

Michelle, thank you so much for the wonderful presentation.

Before we begin council discussion, we will take public comments, and I'll turn it over to the city clerk.

Thank you, Mayor.

No public comment at this time.

Last call to anyone online or anyone in the room who would like to give comments on this.

No public comment, Mayor.

Thank you.

Okay.

Thank you.

We will bring it back to the dais, who has questions or comments for staff.

Council member Chu, I'll start with you. Thanks.

So thank you for a terrific presentation. The headline of my comments is, this is awesome.

This is something, you know, the staff should be so proud of. And, you know, I think a lot of,

how do I say it? It's one thing to talk about really caring about equity, really caring about

everybody in the community. It's another thing to take concrete action to constantly try to

improve people's lives. And I really appreciate all the work that's gone into this. And, you know,

it's funny, I remember, it was probably 15 years ago, seeing Raj Chetty talk about the impacts of

place on longevity, on family formation, on, you know, educational attainment, things like that.

and I really came to understand like enabling people to stay in high opportunity areas is one

of the most powerful public health interventions that we have just enabling people to stay

particularly for kids the outcomes of their lives are statistically likely to be much much better

so I just really love this just a few comments and you know I don't even know what to do about

this, but I was thinking about the income inequality. Overall, majoring income inequality

is a bad thing. However, I'd like, you know, and I'm not even sure analytically how to handle this.

In some cases, it can be a good thing. And what I mean by that is that there are

cities in this area that don't have extreme income inequality because anyone poor has been forced

out. You know, if you're not rich, you can't even stay there. And so as we think about measuring any

income inequality in our city, I'd like, you know, to control for that in the models somehow.

You know, I don't have any other opinion about that, but like not to penalize ourselves for

enabling people with lower incomes to stay in the city. It's a good thing that people can stay

and are not forced out.

Let's see here.

I really appreciate the approach a lot.

In thinking about how to measure success,

one thing, if it's possible, I would love to do

is look at demographic trends.

And I think a really major indicator of success

is if young people, renters, and lower-income people

are able to stay in our city.

If they're able to hold on, remain here,

I think that's a major indication of success.

Overall, I love the proposed work and the plan is proposed.

The thing I'm really most interested and curious about is how do we measure success in these cases?

But that's a lengthy conversation.

So thank you for the terrific work, and I will be supporting this.

Thank you, Council Member Chu, for getting this started.

Who would like to go next?

Council Member Sturkin.

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you so much, Assistant City Manager. I want to firstly just echo my support for the plan. Also, the document itself is just really easy to follow, like easily shareable, and I appreciate that being developed, even though it wasn't required.

And so anyway, thank you.

I remember hearing during ESJ,

a Queen Social Justice Committee from Brianna

when she was with us that with regards

to the youth-friendly hiring guide,

businesses reacted by saying,

or one business maybe in particular,

that they wanted the city to do it first.

And so I really appreciate how this plan

is setting an example for the community,

for the business community to follow.

And so thank you.

And then a question I have is with regards to the community indicator

that is the Aruba City, North Florida Oaks residents

experience less stress about money.

And do you recall what feedback the Housing Human Concerns

committee may have had about this particular indicator and the metrics associated with it?

I don't have a deeply detailed report out on that. The larger takeaway I got was from

all of those conversations, they were broadly affirming of the plan as currently proposed.

That's great to hear. Thank you.

Just to echo Council Member Chu's comments about kind of evaluating whether renters are able to stay in Redwood City.

I saw that in the community indicator that is the Redwood City North Fair Oaks residents experience less stress about money.

it does include a data source for who has considered relocating due to the cost of living.

So, however, that Seminole County, what's it called?

I wrote it down.

Thank you, thank you.

Yes, the health quality of life survey data is currently aggregated.

But in the footnote in the staff report for the Equity and Social Justice Committee meeting back on June 27th,

it does say that it could be disaggregated even by zip code.

So if that's still possible, I would love to see us disaggregate that data

just so we can really dive deep into exactly who in Redwood City has considered

or where in Rebitt City people have considered relocating so that we can kind of address or

answer that question that Council Member Chu posed and that I also posed. And then I guess my other

ask and I had made this ask during the Equity and Social Justice Committee six months ago was about

adding a metric or output under that community indicator at Rebitt City North Foro residents

experience less rents about money.

And that metric or output being the number of evictions,

and maybe more specifically the number of no-fault evictions,

I think would be most appropriate.

And there was a question of where that data would come from,

and we've heard, especially during our council discussion,

public comment during the tenant protection ordinance item

from community legal services in East Palo Alto, for example,

that they have tracked the number of evictions in the county more broadly,

and that in 2019 it was 1,120, and then this year it was 1,810.

And so they saw, maybe I missed the number in there,

but they saw a 60% increase in evictions.

And so, you know, with that data in mind,

And I would imagine we could get disaggregated data for

Rabbit City specifically in North River Oaks from CLESPA.

But I would like to see us consider including that output or metric,

which is the number of no fault evictions using data from CLESPA or

some other reputable community civil organization that tracks that.

Since we don't have that information in house.

So that is my suggestion.

But otherwise, this is a very comprehensive plan

and a great example for the community

and looking forward to us working towards these metrics and outcomes.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Strichen.

Council Member Gee.

Thank you, Mayor.

Michelle, thank you and everybody who worked on this.

It was very clear in your presentation.

There's a lot of commitment, passion, research, and engagement,

and it shows in the report that it is a pretty good model.

Let me just say this.

I'm going to ask some questions and make some comments,

but I think this is a good starting point, but it can't be the ending point.

I mean, there's a lot of work, and the city can't go alone.

I mean, there's a role that the city plays,

but when we talk about education outcomes, we are not the school board.

And then looking ahead a little bit to the council committee reports,

even one of our education partners didn't even show up for the meeting.

And that's really hard to effectuate outcomes when our education partners

didn't even show up for maybe a twice a year, three times a year meeting.

That's just problematic.

and so I guess my emphasis is that while the city can lead the city cannot do it alone by

ourselves and I want to make that clear because whether it be health care education some of those

other outcomes that are going to be benchmarked we need our part community partners to do their

part too so some of my clarifying questions one of them I asked earlier today was what kind of

city resources are we putting into this economic mobility plan whether it be staff whether it be

money you know to achieve this plan thank you for the question we do not have a budget for the

implementation of this plan specifically we do not have a person assigned to work on the plan

or a half a person assigned to work on the plan the bulk of the city work that is described in

the plan is work that the city would be doing in the course of its regular work.

The plan calls for us to use an equity lens and an economic mobility lens in doing that

work.

So how we do the work, where we focus the work, things like that, what we try to get

out of our engagement in the community, how do we leverage things we're already doing

So if we are making social media posts anyway from our communications team, can we also use those to share information about some of the work that the community partners are doing to help amplify the availability of services to underserved members of the community, for example?

I think in the course of regular work is an answer, but I think there should be a way

where we can aggregate whatever community development is doing, whatever our equity

officer is doing, whatever staff is doing.

So maybe it's 1 16th here, 1 8th here, and that all adds up to being resource contributions

and forming the community and doing outreach.

So I just somehow there's got to be a way to

Count that and look at what our contribution is as a partner and

Achieving community outcomes. I don't know how to do it

But you know time cards for me it'd be easy just put down on your time card what he did

And then you aggregate that over. I mean, that's what we do. I mean, it's called direct charge, but I

Don't know if there's an easier way for city staff to do that across the spectrum

The other part, and I think everybody is going to go through some form of financial stress,

how dynamic is our plan to external influences and factors?

I'm not trying to be too political here, but there are real economic issues that have happened to communities across the country,

including Redwood City, whether it be increased cost of goods through tariffs,

the imminent disappearance of health care subsidies,

and the increase in what that's going to cost,

the abandonment of student loan forgiveness.

All these things are going to contribute to increasing financial stress

for members of our community.

We have a two- or three-year plan.

So how dynamic is our plan to address some of these external influences, well beyond the city's control and maybe even the state's control?

Yes, the plan really starts from a place of measuring what's happening in the community, not as a result of what the city does, but rather what is happening in the community in terms of economic mobility.

So we start by understanding that.

And so when the environment changes because of these external factors like the examples you've cited,

we would expect to see some indication of impact in those community indicators that we're tracking.

The intention is for that information to inform our resetting of our strategies to then respond to what's happening in the community.

so that we're not continuing to provide the same services in the same ways based on old data or inaccurate data.

So we would be monitoring the indicators in the community in order for us to fine-tune what our priorities are

and what our commitments are every two to three years,

which is considered short-term and quick response

in the context of sort of a 10-year effort

to try to change the nature of what's happening in the community.

I appreciate that.

I just want to be careful that we don't send a message

that whatever happens at the federal level or the state level,

the city is going to backfill.

We don't have the resources to do that.

And so while we can recognize what the indicators say and we can fine-tune our strategy, we don't have the capacity to backfill what the state or the federal government stops doing.

No, that is correct.

And, in fact, the bulk of what we'll be measuring in this is not work that is happening by city staff.

It is work that is being conducted by those who have the primary role in social services.

It's county government programs and nonprofit partner programs and things like that.

So we're monitoring what kinds of programs are the philanthropic community supporting in Redwood City and North Fair Oaks.

and how are those perhaps helping move the needle on the kinds of issues we're monitoring.

So we're tracking, we're monitoring, we're finding ways to amplify the work that our community partners are doing,

but most of this is not being driven by municipal government because it is not in,

most of those social service functions are not in the core suite of what municipal government is responsible for.

I appreciate that, Michelle.

I'm kind of old school and I appreciate the different levels of government and what they can do.

And I believe very strongly that the county is responsible for safety net services.

And likewise, we don't, as a city, have the financial capacity to backfill safety net services that the county is not able to do because of their financial situation.

So I think reinforcing the different levels of services and the different roles that we all play is going to be very important when these indicators suggest there's even more stress out there, which I anticipate will happen probably in the next six months as changes happen that I've alluded to.

So thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Gee.

Who would like to go next?

Vice Mayor Akin, thank you.

Okay.

Well, Michelle, my goodness, thank you for pinch hitting.

You know, Mr. Sturkin and Ms. Padilla and I serve on the Equity and Social Justice Committee,

chaired by Mr. Sturkin, and Brianna was amazing.

And when she brought this to us in June, I'm kind of a newbie to the committee,

but I just learned so much.

And here you are, pinch hitting for her.

She's a loss.

And before I drill down a little bit,

are we replacing her in her function?

Is that a plan?

Yes, we currently have the position advertised.

It just went out on the internet Friday.

so we are currently inviting applicants for our new equity and inclusion officer that's wonderful

to hear thank you well um i just have a um so it was a fantastic report and i i drilled down a

little bit and sent you some questions that you answered and so i know the answers um but i i want

to amplify it a little bit for the benefit of the community because it's extraordinary

what you all have done. And so I just want to drill down a little bit. So

could you give some examples in the report you referred to earn to learn opportunities

outside of the trade.

So unions always are training

prospective union folks,

but it's darn hard outside of the union paradigm

for kids and youth and families

to earn to learn.

In other words, to get paid

while they're being taught a valuable skill.

and this economic mobility program envisions very concrete ways that folks can do this.

Could you expand a little?

Yes.

We want to support the development of that in our community

and, again, while the city is not the provider of these services,

we want to lift up those who are doing this kind of good work.

There are some examples.

Kenyatta College is currently pursuing two such opportunities.

One is in digital marketing, and one is in augmented reality.

So there are pre-apprenticeship classes you have to take,

but then you work and finish classes through the first two years of the apprenticeship.

So we're very excited to see Kenyatta working toward that.

NovaWorks is the workforce investment board serving our area.

and they partner with companies and local governments and nonprofits to identify paid internship opportunities in a variety of fields,

including engineering, healthcare, data analytics, marketing.

And we have been trying to explore whether or not Redwood City might be able to partner with the Institute for Local Government to build apprenticeships in local government as well.

It is hard for us in local government because apprenticeships, unlike internships, are intended to try to pull the person into a permanent position.

And we just don't have enough vacancies to guarantee a permanent position for someone.

So it's a little bit harder to do in organizations of our size.

But we're continuing to try to talk with other thought partners to see whether or not there's a way to do that.

just extraordinary

and you know Nova Works

is federally funded

very comprehensive

long term organization

and

vital that

Redwood City staff are

working with them and getting them in on the

panels and getting them in on the visioning

I know

that they're also working out at the port

and trying to

Actually, they will give the money to someone who's doing a free apprenticeship out in the port,

and they will fund $7,500, and then they'll get a match from the employer.

But part of it is just getting folks to know that this wealth of opportunity exists.

And we are so lucky in Redwood City that we have a college in our jurisdiction.

And I'm so excited to see that we're leveraging that.

It's free.

Kids can go to Cañada for free.

And I'm thrilled that we're capitalizing on these partnerships.

Thank you.

Thank you.

can you tell me more about the reference to communication pilots just tell me a little bit

about that yes one of the things that we're trying to do in terms of what the city staff can do

without a big budget to support this is leveraging things we already do so we're trying to pilot

different ways we can improve community awareness

about the services that are already available.

So one of the things that our research found

was that folks who are in need of services

in the community don't always know

where to go to get those services,

whether or not they qualify for those services,

what kind of services are available.

And so to the extent that we can amplify

the work that the county is doing

or that nonprofit organizations in our region are providing

through our social media posts,

through the bulletin boards at city libraries

and city community centers,

anything we can do to make a concerted effort

to go the extra mile and get that word out.

And conversely, when we hear information

from the folks we're providing services to,

perhaps at the Fair Oaks Community Center,

or at one of the libraries to communicate any needs we're hearing from them back to our community partners

who are providing those services so that they can reach out to the folks who need them

and shape their services in a way that are going to meet the needs of our community members.

Thank you.

you talked a little bit about that you found with this

that sometimes these underserved folks

or these folks that really need to ratchet up the scale,

that they may have small businesses in their home

that are successful and that they're skilled at

and that they're comfortable doing in their home,

but then they don't have room to expand beyond their home

because land is so expensive, et cetera.

And you said that you're looking at expanding flex zones

into part of the greater downtown Bay Area plan

to accommodate this demographic of folks.

Can you talk a little bit about that?

Yes.

The city's currently in the process of visioning for the greater downtown plan.

And one of the things that staff are researching is whether or not that might be a place

where we might want to take a look at the city's zoning requirements

to see whether or not changes in our zoning might make it easier

for folks to be able to use industrial space for those kinds of purposes.

So, for example, if you're an entrepreneur who's starting a business of baking

or making jewelry and you're doing it out of your house

and you're ready to grow into something just a little bit bigger,

can we take a look at whether or not our zoning requirements

are inadvertently preventing that from being something you could do easily here?

And is there some way we could make that a little bit easier,

particularly in an area like downtown that's served by transit

so that people can get there more conveniently.

So we're going through the process of examining that.

We haven't made any final decisions about that yet.

We're still doing the research.

But that's an example where our staff

who have been doing the research in economic mobility

are talking with our planning staff

who are in charge of the zoning codes

to say, while you're updating zoning codes,

is this something we should be looking at?

What are the pros and cons?

Let's do our due diligence, let's do some research, and let's see whether or not this is something we would want to develop a proposal for.

Just fantastic and so interdisciplinary.

I love the barriers going down and that economic mobility is throughout all our departments because it helps everyone.

I'm almost, I could go on and on, but I won't.

I did want to talk.

I love this shared prosperity coordinating council.

Ms. Diaz, I'm so glad you were on it.

Who will replace you on it?

Thank you.

It's been a real pleasure being a part of that,

an outgrowth of some of the pandemic era work to both support

residents and businesses really then turned into this bigger vision for our

whole county and how to make sure that our entire county can really take

advantage of this amazing economic climate.

So the next person to serve in the role,

my role was to be on that council on behalf of the city managers in the

county and assistant city manager,

Rich Lee from South San Francisco has volunteered to take that up.

So he'll be the next representative and has already attended the first

meeting.

Good to know. And I love that there's an action plan and that it's a county action plan. And I love that because then they have, to Mr. G's point, you know, boots on the ground and that they have, you know, a bigger budget than we do. They have a bigger portfolio than we do.

And some of this blurs from health to jobs to zoning.

It's all over the place.

And I also would encourage staff to engage with Sobrado.

They have a large presence here with their current development across from public works.

And they're very committed to this type of work as a foundation.

It's a local family of three generations, and I would encourage, I think there can be some funding sources there.

It's a little amorphous right now, but that's really just.

And has there been any engagement with Stanford?

Is there any?

I believe Stanford's been involved with the Shared Prosperity Coordinating Council.

Is that correct, Melissa?

I'm just trying to think.

I believe that the Gardner Center for youth and their families has been a part of it

and possibly other representatives.

So that's for...

Thank you.

And to Council Member Chu's point,

I didn't know it, but she's a health expert, so she does, that if you're in an economically dynamic area, even if you can't afford to stay, if you somehow manage to stay, you will have better economic outcomes.

I'm sure that makes sense.

And I just want us to emphasize, Silicon Valley is the wealthiest region in the United States of America, by far.

And so it's a no-brainer, or if we're caring human beings, it's a no-brainer that we would invest our time and our intellect in economic mobility to help make it affordable, give people the skills for it to be affordable for them.

being that we are the wealthiest and to think somehow that we don't have the resources.

If we, as the wealthiest place in the country, don't have the resources, then who would?

So I'm telling us, let's stretch. Let's find 10 Sobratos. Let's find

Cañada College? Well, let's engage Stanford. Let's engage additional foundations. This is the

capital of venture capital, which is all about creativity and thinking out of the box and new

ideas. Why aren't we putting more into health and economic mobility for those in need?

So unbelievable work. Thank you.

Thank you, Vice Mayor. And we'll go online to Councilmember Howard.

Thank you, Mayor. I really appreciate listening to the robust conversation of my colleagues.

Really, really appreciate it.

You know, sometimes you really don't truly appreciate someone until they're gone.

And Brianna, I think, is an excellent example of that.

I always enjoyed working with her, but I had no idea that all of this was going on and all this planning ahead and that she left us a legacy that we can build on.

So I wish her luck in her next adventure, but I think she will be missed.

I wanted to thank our staff for their ambitious undertaking.

I also want to thank you for bringing on multiple partners because I really do agree with Council Member Gee.

we cannot do it alone others have said it too we cannot do this alone we can't be effective

we can't have wonderful outcomes if we try to do this alone and i think that's important in

cultivating partners it was mentioned the sobrado um on page eight of our report it mentions and i

i'd love for you to elaborate um michelle sobrado philanthropies has planned a 10-year investment

in Redwood City, North Fair Oaks, and East and Downtown San Jose to strengthen paths to economic

opportunity, increase financial security, well-being, and community cohesion through

cradle-to-career approaches. Could you elaborate on what they're planning to do? 10 years is a

wonderful commitment and a lot of money. Could you elaborate on that a bit? I wish I could.

they are still developing their strategy

and we're very excited that they're looking at Redwood City

and North Fair Oaks, our community,

as one of their priority target areas

and so we're thrilled about that.

We want to be supportive in whatever way

that they are looking at supporting the community

including which community partners they might be interested in working with.

And so we are excited and looking forward to hearing more about what they decide to do.

And that's one of the reasons why we're keeping an eye on it as we do this monitoring in this plan.

If they would accept some feedback, we might suggest that they could be very helpful for both our young people

and adults looking to be employed.

The several organizations that are doing apprenticeship programs, the one I'm most

familiar with, of course, is the union program, which I did tour.

And I was so surprised and pleasantly surprised at how many women were working in the apprenticeship

program and speaking so highly of it that they were given this opportunity.

I know participating in it could be a bit of a sacrifice and maybe Sobrato could help us with some way of helping to support people as they go through apprenticeship programs to acquire a skill that could take them and support their family for many years to come.

So maybe we could look at some of our apprenticeship programs and ask Sobrato if they might be interested in helping us get more people into these programs.

I think they're so valuable, but not everyone can afford to do that or even knows about it.

And maybe they can help us in that regard.

I think that would be a really useful thing for them to do if they accept it.

if it isn't already on their list of to-dos.

I was going to say,

it says here that we can be most effective

by using our equity lens as we do our day-to-day work.

I would agree with you.

You're not looking to take on more work for city staff.

You're asking them to be very wise

in looking at what they're currently doing

and how can we make it better.

An example of that was what the vice mayor brought up about the greater downtown area plan. We're already doing that plan. Why not look at the possibility of expanding zones to see if we can encourage light manufacturing uses and expanding job types available in Redwood City? That's just one example.

So I just think this is wonderful.

We're going to look at things differently, try to be more creative,

but we need the partners because we recognize we can't be doing this alone,

and partnerships are what will make it successful.

If there's anything else that you would recommend,

I hope you'll stay coming back to Redwood City occasionally

and let us know what more can be done or other partners that we are going to be working with.

i'd really appreciate knowing that information thank you so much

thank you council member howard we'll go to council member true

um so i just wanted to respond to some of the things my colleagues have said one is that um

for uh at least my team where i work one of the things i really emphasize is that if we're going

to have internships they have to be paid because low-income kids cannot afford to work for free

Like if they have a choice between working for money or working for free, they're not in a position to delay quite often.

Not always.

But so the importance of paid internships, even if the economic benefit long term, is excellent.

The second was a comment on the zoning modifications.

I really wanted to echo support for that.

I lived in Japan for several years, and one of the things that really was interesting is how dynamic and diverse the small businesses were.

And particularly, there were a lot of small businesses that were like three-seat restaurants, tiny little businesses.

And businesses were allowed to exist in these sort of interstitial spaces,

where here in the U.S. you'd have to have a 15-foot setback, 600 feet devoted to parking,

you know, like we stack cost upon cost upon cost where you have to be a big, deep-pocketed

business in order to meet the capital requirements to rent a space.

And so the more that we can eliminate non-productive, non-directly productive uses of requiring

directly non-productive use, I mean, if somebody wants to have a non-productive use, that's

but not requiring them. I think that'll give our micro

businesses a huge leg up so that they can take that next step.

So I wanted to just echo huge

support for that and looking

at, you know, as a model. I'd say the Japanese model is very good,

but there are many other, you know, Europe, any number of places have sort of more

dynamic environments. So that was it.

Thanks.

Thank you, Council Member Chu.

We'll go to Council Member Padilla.

Thinking about what everyone was saying,

I would push us again.

I know it's not our sole responsibility as the city,

but I do think when you mention paid internships,

I think as a city, if there are opportunities,

maybe not for traditional apprenticeships like in the trades,

but even an internship that gave someone exposure

to a certain department or customer service skills

for a finite amount of time,

I think would have extreme value

if we had some sort of program

that didn't have to guarantee a job

but gave you good job skills.

I think it's worth looking into,

even if it's difficult.

So I hope we would still evaluate that.

And I'm actually thinking,

I heard we mentioned the John Gardner Center.

When I was at Kennedy Middle School in eighth grade,

I was the first group with the John Gardner Center.

It was called Youth Engaged in Leadership and Learning.

and we were actually paid a stipend to work.

And I just, to Council Member Chu's point,

that made such a huge difference

because what it meant was anyone in my school

could participate in it.

And that meant that we were also covering

so much more of Redwood City.

And so actually when I see this report,

it isn't new to me.

This was information that I presented in eighth grade.

These were things that maybe are more formalized and they're very pretty graphics, but these are things I think some of us have

Intrinsically known that are keys to success. It's nice to have the data

But I think these are things that we have known so I just want to echo my support for empowering our youth

I know that our parks and rec department does it all the time, but anytime we can make it more formal

we need that we need to hire them we they want jobs they want to work some of you know kids

aren't only working for pocket money or for their stuff they're helping their families they're

helping pay rent they're helping buying groceries so they are totally worthy of our investment

and i just hope that we all can step up and help thank you

thank you councilman padilla any other comments questions okay um before i jump into my comments

i'll add my support to councilman padilla's points um you know it was thanks to a paid

internship that i had the ability to find out more about what city government is really like

and that made all the difference for me so just opening that door to people i think would um

would really help and not anything substantial but the minimum wage right i think people will

choose something where they can learn and grow their skills versus um a place where they're just

going to collect that paycheck right so just wanted to add that support but um this is incredibly

exciting michelle thank you for the work um brianna if she's listening thank you so much i know this

was a huge undertaking between economic social justice or subcommittee all of the community

partners who participated in these great surveys and that was an incredibly robust page of partners

and that was amazing to see um just so many different folks and you know i think it's well

known the challenges that people in our community are facing the economic challenges here in the bay

area are monumental and i think our strength is in our ability to collaborate and to align

and to coordinate on where we want to make the difference

or how we want to make the difference

because there's not just one solution to help a family be uplifted

and to find that economic stability.

There are so many things, and I think this plan does such a great job

of covering all the things that are going to be helpful

for nurturing success and stability.

So thank you for this.

I think this plan is really our compass,

and I think the way that we should be using this is to help us prioritize what

gaps we currently have that was listed on one of the earlier slides but also

you know moving forward where we're not seeing progress right and the power of

the plan is is also getting these resources to the people who who need

them most so I think disaggregating our zip code data with demographics is

really important and also I see this being a guiding document for our two

two by two by twos right I could see this being something that our ESJ

subcommittee is using to regularly review for how we're doing and also to

escalate things for council action right I think it'd be great for this to be an

annual report that maybe we have on consent but if there are things where

where ESJ is noticing that we are falling further behind and not making good progress,

I would want that to come to the full council for a discussion.

So there is just, again, so much opportunity in this plan

and having a shared vision with our county partners

who do have the bigger bank accounts, right, to help us with.

So this is incredible work.

The one question I did come up with just seeing the presentation today

was the data point around desegregation.

And I'm curious how that's measured.

And I think it might be the American Community Survey,

but just wondering if you could share a little more about that.

I'm not sure I understand your question,

other than the data allows us to take a look at our community demographics

and where people are living.

And so what we're seeing is when we look at demographics

in relationship to some of the other data that we were talking about,

the economic mobility, we can

essentially the crosstabs on the data. So when we

cross-reference demographics with the economic mobility

factors, what we're seeing is that indeed

our

folks who have less money and who are

people of color are the ones who are

not having the greater opportunities in our community.

Those are the children who are suffering the

greatest setbacks in our schools. They're the ones who are

hitting those lower numbers that we saw

in the city survey data that I showed you

at the beginning with the red circles on the areas where we're falling behind.

When you look at who's falling behind, it's the BIPOC children,

the children who aren't white, who aren't affluent.

And so not everyone is having the same experience in our community.

And so trying to take a look at how do we target our economic mobility work

so that we're addressing it for those folks in our community,

for those children in particular.

Great. Thank you, Michelle.

that's helpful to know

how you're looking at that data point

you know I

saw in the staff report you know we're

mentioning

aside from the workforce development

support that we're offering

you know obviously the creation of

housing was mentioned here in the

report and so

thinking to

one of the comments from my

colleagues around

living in opportunity rich areas

right i'm thinking how do we how do we flesh that out a little bit more um so that there's a little

um not a little excuse me but um some intention around how do we integrate our neighborhoods right

and what are those things that are going to help make sure that you know um all neighborhoods in

redwood city are accessible to the people who live here right um and all folks are able to take

advantage of great schools or great community centers.

I think that's the end goal.

And so I know there's a lot of work that's packaged into the four-page report on this,

but just something I would want us to keep an eye on as we come back to this document in the future.

I can say that I think the connection that we're anticipating in the long term is investment in economic mobility

and support of others' work in economic mobility is, in the long run,

more likely to lead to greater integration as folks who haven't had a chance

to move into some of those neighborhoods would, as a result of economic mobility,

have those kinds of opportunities become available to them.

So that's an example of a long-term goal.

Great. Well, thank you again, Michelle, and thank you for this great work.

and it's going to be exciting to hear the next update

when you all have some great work under your belt.

So thank you.

And with that, if there are no other comments or questions

from my colleagues, we will entertain a motion.

Vice Mayor.

Motion to approve the 2026 Economic Mobility Action Plan.

Second.

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

Could we please get a roll call vote?

We'll start with Council Member Chu.

Yes.

Council Member Gee.

Yes.

Council Member Howard.

Yes.

Council Member Patia.

Yes.

Council Member Sturkin.

Yes.

Vice Mayor Aiken.

Yes.

Mayor Martinez-Aballos.

Yes.

Motion passes unanimously.

Thank you, everyone.

Thank you, staff.

With that, we will move on to item 11, matters of council interest.

Beginning with 11A, city council member report of meetings and conferences attended.

And I will pass things over to Vice Mayor Aitman.

Thank you.

Due to the relatively early hour, I didn't do matters of council interest for a while

because we've had such late night meetings.

So I appreciate your indulgence in me going back a while.

On Thursday, November 6th, I gave a speech at the Redwood City Women's Club on the history of Redwood City's Women's Club and the 19th Amendment, giving the women the right to vote.

On Saturday, November 15th, I participated on a panel for the Environmental Youth Leadership Summit at the San Mateo County Office of Education.

On November 21st, along with Council Members Sturkin and Mayor Martinez Ceballos, I attended the Making Dreams Come True dinner at Sequoia High School, supporting our immigrant youth.

On both November 20th and December 18th, I attended the San Francisco Creek Joint Power Authority board meetings, where, among other things, the SAFER Bay Area Draft EIR, which was presented, public comment on this major flood mitigation project is accepted through Friday, January 23rd, 2026.

On December 5th, I and many of my colleagues attended the San Mateo County Central Labor Council luncheon.

On December 15th, I attended the One Shoreline board meeting where we learned about a San Bruno home protection and insurability pilot project

and also received an update on the Mill Bay Burlingame Shoreline Resiliency Project.

I appreciate Redwood City paying for me to attend some of these events.

Thank you for the report, Vice Mayor.

Not seeing anything from anybody else.

I'll move on to 11B City Council Committee Reports.

And we do have a quick one from our 2x2x2 meeting with the Redwood City School District and Sequoia Union High School District.

Our committee composed of representatives from those two districts as well as myself, Councilmember Howard, City Manager Melissa Stevenson-Diaz, Assistant City Manager Patrick Heisinger, and Engineering and Transportation Director Tanisha Werner met Monday, December 15th.

We missed our friends from the Sequoia Union High School District,

but we did get a report from the Redwood City School District

who provided a budget update and discussed a potential parcel tax measure.

We also shared updates on the Jefferson Avenue project

and recent council action related to the Mills Act contracts

that we discussed a few weeks ago.

The next meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, March 10, 2026.

And I'll pass things over to our city manager for an oral update.

Thank you. So I just have to quickly say that after all the comments about internships, I really just want you to know we do have a super robust internship program.

And in part, that's due to work that Michelle Katsuyoshi and I have helped to support through a regional effort.

And we do work with public agencies in this county as well as Santa Clara County to have a really robust internship program.

And I, too, would not be here were it not for a paid internship many years ago.

three quick things. So we all know storms are coming and there is a ton of information that

the city has available on our website, redwoodcity.org backslash storms or on our YouTube

channel. I want to make sure residents know that there are sandbags available at our self-serve

station at the Public Works Corporation yard and you can take 24 bags each time if you need to.

Also, people can sign up for crucial weather alerts at smcalert.info or by texting your zip code to 888-777.

Second, and we know it's the holidays, and we want to celebrate that we have our annual family holiday light show at Red Morton Park.

And so there are two shows each night.

It's 630 and 730, except for New Year's Eve when it's 830 and 1130.

So great fun happening there.

And then last, starting not tomorrow, but on Wednesday the 24th, our administrative offices, including City Hall, will be closed over the holiday period through January 2nd.

January 2nd, we will have virtual services, but the building will still be closed.

Of course, emergency services will continue during that time.

And last, I'll just thank you for 10 wonderful years.

thank you city manager we will move on to adjournment with that i adjourn the final

meeting of 2025 thank you to all of those who have joined us and i wish everyone a very safe

and happy holiday season and a prosperous new year the next city council meeting is scheduled

for january 12th 2026 which will continue the celebration with a reception for our incoming

City Manager Patrick Heisinger.

We'll hope you'll join us then.

And finally, just on a last note

of heartfelt gratitude and congratulations

to our exceptional City Manager

Melissa Stevenson-Diaz.

This is her last meeting, her very

last meeting. We wish

you so much happiness and joy

in your well-earned retirement and

hope you'll come back very soon

for ribbon cuttings and other events.

Thank you, Melissa.

Thank you, everybody.

Thank you.