Oh, I think it's a big Okay.

All right.

Good evening, everyone.

If you can take your seats, we're going to get it started.

Thank you for joining our regular city council meeting of June eighth, twenty twenty six.

We hold meetings in a hybrid format with both in-person and virtual participation available.

Given the number of time sensitive matters before us this evening.

Speaker cards are located at the back table in the council chambers and must be turned in to the city clerk here at the Dais.

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

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

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

And with that, we'll now turn it over to our city clerk to call the roll.

Thank you.

Good evening, everyone.

Councilmember Chu is absent this evening.

Councilmember G.

Present.

Councilmember Howard.

Here.

Councilmember Padilla.

Present.

Councilmember Sturkin.

Here.

Vice Mayor Aiken.

Here.

Mayor Martinez Saballos.

Thank you.

Thank you, everyone.

And we'll move to the Pledge of Allegiance.

Vice Mayor, could you do the honors?

Please join me in saluting our flag.

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

And to the Republic for which it stands.

Under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you, Vice Mayor.

And item four on the agenda does not apply for this evening.

It's only a procedural item.

So we'll move on to our next item.

We have no presentations or acknowledgments this evening.

So we'll keep moving to item six, which is our public comment section of the agenda.

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

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

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

And if speakers do not, they'll be warned.

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you, Mayor.

At this time we have three speakers, potentially four.

Oh, another item.

Okay.

Three speakers for public comment.

Um, I'll give one last call to the audience or our folks on Zoom to be recognized for public comment.

Once we begin public comment as the mayor stated, we will close the list of speakers.

So I'll give you a few more seconds for any more public comment on general comment this evening.

Okay, we will begin.

Closing the speakers list, and we'll start with Tony Gappestone.

I'm wearing a shirt that says stories save lives.

Cause I really believe when we tell a powerful and brave story or see ourselves in film and TV or have someone lean over and talk about the pain that they've endured and survived.

We can save a life, literally.

Hi, I'm Tony Gap of Stone.

I'm the founder and executive director of Bravemaker.

We're a film festival here in Redwood City that happens in July.

This is our eighth year.

And I want to tell you this year we're opening up on July 8th with Kevin Hines, who is a survivor of a suicide attempt off the Golden Gate Bridge.

He tried to take his own life in 2000 when he was 19 years old and survived with a broken back.

He immediately regretted it when he jumped off.

A sea lion pushed him to the top, and he was rescued.

And since 2000, he's been making movies and telling his story all around the world.

And he'll be here in Redwood City on July 8th at the Chan Zuckerberg community space.

I want to invite you to come to this film festival because I really believe the 107 films that we have are so life-changing.

They talk about affordable uh housing, they talk about gender equality, LGBT rights, they talk about racial justice, and I'm so passionate about filmmaking, especially here in the city because I'm a 30-year resident, and I believe the arts make us better.

So thank you to everybody who's been a part of our film festival for the past eight years.

The Redwood City Cultural Commission, Arts Commission just gave us a grant this week.

But we're down four grantors from the past.

So we're down 20,000 dollars from the past uh years we've had, and your support and ticket sales help us to be great.

So thank you so much.

You're all invited.

Thank you, Tony.

We'll now move to our Zoom speakers.

We'll start with Kelly Boyett, who will be followed by Tony Godluski.

And you may unmute yourself and begin your comments.

Hi, uh my name.

Hi, my name is Kelly.

I'll be commenting on item uh agenda item 11A about the tobacco ordinance.

Sorry sorry, Kelly.

I don't mean to interrupt you, but we are only taking comments for item six at this time.

Uh when you can raise your hand again for item 11a.

Gotcha.

Okay, I'm sorry about that.

Sorry about that, thank you.

Okay, looks like the other raised hand went down.

So it looks like that concludes public comment, Mayor.

Thank you, City Clerk.

Thank you, everybody, for making public comment on consent.

Uh excuse me, on all of our items this evening.

We'll move to consents.

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

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

Councilmember Pidio.

Mayor, I'll be recusing myself from item seven D.

Um.

My house was uh on the street where report repairs for the replacement program was made, and so I won't be participating.

Thank you.

Great, thank you, Councilmember.

That's item 7D as in David.

And are there any other items on consent?

Not seeing any.

So we will take a motion on item 7D first.

Sir Mo.

Vice Mayor.

Motion to approve item 7D.

Second.

Thank you.

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

Could we get an electronic vote, please?

The motion passes with five votes.

Councilmember Chu is absent, and Councilmember Padilla is recused.

Great.

Thank you.

I'd like to make a motion to approve consent.

Without this item we just voted on 70.

Great second.

Motion from Council Member Gia, second from Councilmember Howard.

Could we get electronic vote, please?

The motion passes with six votes.

Councilmember Chu is absent.

Thank you, everyone.

With that, we'll move right into staff reports, and we'll go into our first item 8A.

Spanish interpretation is being provided for this item.

And I'd like to turn it over to our interpreter for instructions on how to participate in the meeting in Spanish.

Thank you so much.

With that, I'll turn it over to our city clerk, Jessica Castro, our housing leadership manager Olin Lancaster, and our city consultant Jason Moody with EPS to give the presentation.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor.

My name is Jessica Castro.

I'm the city clerk.

And I will be kicking off the presentation.

It will be structured in three parts this evening.

Next slide.

I'll begin with an overview of the initiative petition and election process, including a recap of events that led to tonight's recommended actions.

Next, our housing leadership manager Lynn Lancaster will then give an overview of the proposed ordinance submitted by the proponents.

And finally, Jason Moody with EPS, the city's consultant, will present a comprehensive analysis of potential impacts referred to as the 9212 report.

So before you are the three questions that will be asked for the council to keep in mind, we will be pausing at every section of the presentation for questions.

On this slide is sort of the overview of the timeline of the process.

On October 29th, 2025, the City Clerk's office received a notice of intent to circulate an initiative petition and a proposed ordinance, which we'll refer to tonight as the measure from three Redwood City residents known as the proponents.

Following receipt of these documents and in accordance with the California elections code, the city attorney prepared a ballot title and summary.

With this ballot title and summary, the proponents prepared a petition to circulate for signatures among Redwood City voters.

On April 22nd of this year, the proponents submitted their petition, and the city clerk's office conducted a prima fascia or an on its face review and determined that the raw count of signatures presented met the minimum number of petition signatures required to accept the petition for filing.

Following acceptance, the city clerk's office transferred the petition to the San Mateo County Elections Office to conduct signature verification of each signature.

On May 13th, I was notified by the elections office that of the 6,045 signatures reviewed, the petition received 4,751 valid signatures achieving the minimum number of required signatures to qualify the proposed measures per elections code section 9210 subdivision A.

As a result, I have certified the sufficiency of the petition.

Tonight the City Council will be asked to accept the certification and receive the 9212 report, and the city council must act on one of the following options.

So the recommendation this evening, because the 9212 report will be presented this evening, the elections code requires that the city council take one of two possible actions.

At this meeting, the city council must determine whether to number one, adopt the proposed ordinance without alteration within 10 days, or number two, call for an election to place the proposal on the ballot for voter consideration at the November 3rd, 2026 election.

Should the city council choose to call an election, staff repair prepared a resolution, which is attachment E to the council agenda packet allowing such action to occur tonight.

And before we move to the questions for this section, I want to call out a revision that was made to attachment E, which is the resolution calling the election on November 3rd, 2026 for this initiative measure, specifically a change to the ballot question, which is detailed on this slide.

Copies of the updated resolution were provided to each council member in the agenda packet for public viewing in the back of the chamber and posted online.

The revised ballot question reads Shall the measure that caps annual rent increases for units built before February 1st, 1995 to 60% of the increase in the consumer price index with maximum increase of 5%.

And for rental units, regardless of when built, increases requirements for just cause evictions, requires relocation payments of at least 12,000 for no fault evictions, provides additional tenant protections, and creates a new city administered renters' rights protection program funded through annual landlord assessments be adopted.

And with that, I'll take any questions on the election or the initiative petition process that the council may have.

Thank you, City Clerk Colleagues.

Any clarifying questions on the elections process?

How we got here?

Okay.

Great.

We'll keep them.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And with that, I'll turn it over to Housing Leadership Manager, Alyn Lancaster.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, and City Council members.

I'm a Lynn Lancaster, Housing Leadership Manager.

As our city clerk noted, I'll be providing an overview of the proposed ordinance.

And Jason Moody with economic planning systems or EPS will be giving the presentation on the 9212 report.

I also want to note that we are joined this evening by Lolita Fernandez, Deputy City Attorney, Karen Tiedeman, outside legal counsel, and Victor Gaitan, Housing Management Analyst, to also help answer any questions.

Before going into the proposed ordinance, I do want to provide some state context.

There is the Costa Hawkins Rental Housing Act, which impacts how local cities can implement implement rent control.

The Costa Hawkins Act went into effect in 1995 and places limits on local rent stabilization ordinances by exempting single family homes, condominiums, and any new construction built after February 1st of 1995 from local rent control requirements.

Costa Hawkins also requires vacancy decontrol, which means that landlords must be allowed to reset rental rates for their units at the start of a new tenancy.

And so now I'll go over the uh, there we go.

Sorry about that.

The key elements of the proposed ordinance.

It includes a rent stabilization requirement where annual rent increases would be limited to 60% of the percent change in the consumer price index or CPI with a maximum of 5%.

This requirement also includes an initial rollback of rents to October 29th of 2025, and landlords would be not would not be allowed to bank or roll over rent increases from year to year.

Landlords can also not charge tenants for utilities in addition to rent unless the utility is separately or individually metered.

Landlords are also not allowed to use a ratio utility system, commonly referred to as rubs, to divide utility costs among tenants.

Landlords may file a fair rate a fair return petition for higher rent increases.

The proposed ordinance also includes just cause for eviction protections.

These include expanded protections compared to the state tenant protection act, also referred to as TPA, or the city's tenant protection ordinance, referred to as TPO.

And it includes additional protections for students, educators, elderly, disabled, or terminally ill tenants.

These just cause eviction protections would go into effect immediately as opposed to the state TPA or city TPO, where protections go into effect after one year of tenancy.

Similar to the city TPO, the proposed ordinance includes right to return requirements, but these requirements are expanded to cover all no fault just cause termination reasons, which include owner move-in, substantial renovation, demolition, and withdrawal from the rental market.

Generally, the right to return has to be offered at the same rent and lease terms, and the right to return never expires.

Additionally, the ordinance requires that landlords pay relocation assistance for all no-fault uh just cause terminations, and this is uh four months of fair market rent or twelve thousand dollars.

And fair market rents, which we'll often refer to as FMR, are annually published rents by the U.S.

Department of Housing and Urban Development.

For elderly tenants, disabled or terminally ill tenants, they would receive an additional $6,000.

And these rates are adjusted annually by the change in CPI.

For any construction, landlords are required to provide a tenant safety plan, and this must be approved by the city.

There's also requirements for optional short-term relocation assistance for construction less than 30 days.

If the landlord is providing the short-term relocation assistance, the tenant would still need to continue paying rent.

It also provides for anti-harassment protections, and calls for the establishment of a rent stabilization and tenant protection program that the city would administer that includes a rent registry where a city would track rent increases, changes to tenancy, termination notices, fees, as well as buyout agreements.

The city would also be responsible for processing petitions and appeals related to rent increases or decreases, as noted, approving tenant safety plans and any appeals regarding relocation assistance eligibility.

The city would also contract with a third party to provide free legal counsel for low income tenants, and this would need to be a fee-funded system, and costs and those fees would be paid by the landlord and costs could not be covered by the general fund.

And so I'm gonna go over now the kind of applicability of the proposed ordinance.

So there are two tiers of applicability, which we refer to.

The first is fully covered, so this covers units that are subject to all requirements of the proposed ordinance, including the rent stabilization requirements.

Fully covered units include multifamily properties built prior to February 1st of 1995.

This is inclusive of deed restricted affordable units and ADUs also built prior to that February 1st, 1995 date, and fully covered units does include mobile homes.

Partially covered units are units that are not subject to the rent stabilization requirements but are still subject to all the other requirements of the proposed ordinance.

This includes single-family homes and housing built after 1995, also inclusive of deed restricted affordable units built after 1995.

So this chart that's quite large on here is a comparison of the key elements of the proposed ordinance compared to the city's tenant protection ordinance as well as state law.

As noted on the previous slide, the proposed ordinance has broader applicability compared to state law or the city's TPO.

As for example, the state law and the city TPO generally exempt single family homes, condos, deed restricted affordable housing, and ADUs.

While state law includes rent stabilization, the proposed ordinance would place stricter limits on the amount that rents can be increased annually.

State law has a range of five to ten percent, and the maximum of the proposed ordinance is five percent.

Like state law and the city's TPO, the proposed ordinance includes just cause for eviction protections for protections would apply immediately.

State law and the city TPO do require a 12-month waiting period.

However, the city's TPO does include minimum lease term requirements where landlords must offer a one-year lease.

The proposed ordinance includes expanded right to return requirements by requiring, and I will review this more in depth on the next slides.

It also includes expanded relocation assistance requirements, and again, I'll go over that in more detail in the next slides.

Lastly, while state law includes anti-harassment protections, the proposed ordinance specifically outlines the anti-harassment protections that would protect all tenants.

Okay.

So going over in more depth the right to return requirements.

The proposed ordinance requires landlords to offer a right to return for all no fault just causes, and as I've noted before, this right to return does not expire.

For owner move-ins, a landlord cannot evict for an owner move in if the tenant is elderly or disabled and has lived in the unit for at least three years, or if the tenant is certified as terminally ill.

A landlord can also not evict during the school year if the tenant has children or educators in the household.

For substantial renovation, as noted earlier, a tenant safety plan would be required, and there are optional short-term relocation assistance requirements if that renovation takes less than 30 days.

Similar to owner movements, there are limitations again on evicting during the school year.

For demolition, the rent control provisions of this ordinance would apply to the newly constructed rental units if they are constructed on the same property within five years.

There are also extended noticing timelines ranging from 120 days to one year for elderly or disabled tenants.

And with withdrawal with withdrawal of the from the rental market, there are the same expanded noticing requirements as demolition.

And landlords can be held liable for punitive damages if the unit is returned to the rental market within certain time frames.

All right, so this table, because there are quite a few scenarios, outlines kind of all of the right to return scenarios and compares the proposed ordinance to the city's tenant protection ordinance.

For owner move in, both ordinances require that the owner move in within 90 days and maintain the property as their primary residence for a set period of time.

If the owner fails to reoccupy the unit following these requirements, they have to offer the tenant the right to return of the same rent and lease terms.

And I'll note that this requirement is also consistent with state law.

If the owner moves in and follows all of the occupancy timely requirements, then the city's ordinance does not require the right to return if eventually the owner returns the unit back to the rental market.

However, the proposed ordinance does require right to return and at the same rent and lease terms.

For substantial renovation, both ordinances require a right to return, whether the remodel was completed or not.

For uncompleted remodels or renovations, the right to return requirements are the same for both the city's ordinance, the proposed ordinance and state law.

If the remodel is completed, the Sydney's ordinance requires same rent with allowable increases allowed or allowable increases by state law and also provides a fair rate of return appeals process.

The proposed ordinance just requires the same rent and lease terms.

If it's not completed, the right to return requirements again are the same for both ordinances as well as state law.

However, completed demolitions, the city's TPO does not require a right to return, whereas the ordinance again does require that at the same rent and lease terms.

Lastly, the proposed ordinance requires right to return for withdrawal from the city, whereas the city's ordinance does not.

For both the city's ordinance and the proposed ordinance.

Under the proposed ordinance, all tenants would receive four months of FMR or 12,000, whichever is greater.

And as you can see here in the blue table, these are the current FMR rates.

For elderly, disabled, or terminally ill tenants, they would receive an additional 6,000.

Under the city's ordinance, all tenants would receive one month of their current rent.

Tenants that qualify as low income would receive three months of FMR rent.

And tenants that are special circumstances, which means they are low income and also have a household member who's elderly, a child, disabled, or if the tenant has lived there for at least five years, wouldn't receive four months of FMR rent.

And so just to give a little bit of background on what a 9212 report is, it's a comprehensive analysis prepared by a jurisdiction or consultant in response to a voter initiative.

The report is named after section 9212 of the California Elections Code and is intended to provide decision makers and the public with an understanding of the initiative's potential impacts.

And the listed on the screen are the elements that are evaluated in a 9212 report.

We have contracted with uh EPS to prepare this report, and I'm going to have Jason give an overview of the report.

And just to clarify, we were intending to answer questions about the proposed ordinance and the report after that.

Okay.

Thank you.

My name is Jason Moody.

I'm a managing principal at Economic and Planning Systems.

We're a real estate economics firm located in Oakland.

We've been around for about 42 years.

I've been with the firm for about over 30 years.

So doing this for a while.

As was mentioned, we were commissioned to do a uh 92 12 report, which is pretty broad latitude in terms of what you can cover, but we focus on the economic and fiscal implications of this proposed ordinance or measure as we're calling it in the city in Redwood City.

So our scope and our methodology.

First, we um we took a good look at the law itself and how it compares with existing state law and local policies.

This is important because we're really trying to evaluate the impact of this measure, and the impact is really dependent upon the change from existing baseline conditions.

So we didn't we're not looking at the impact of all tenant protection because there's already some tenant protection.

Um so we're just looking at the net increase in tenant protection and those factors as well as the rent control measures.

The other area that we looked at is we looked at previous studies on rent control and other jurisdictions, primarily in California, but there's been a lot of studies on rent control and less studies on tenant protection, but mostly on rent control.

So we took a look at those studies to see what they found.

The third element of our scope was to to apply these two things to the existing uh cities' housing stock and demographic situations to see it can see how that how these the laws like to apply locally.

Um and then another big part of our task was to um estimate the implementation and administration costs of this proposed measure, which would fall primarily on the city.

And finally, we looked at the fact that this measure does uh require that there would be um fees on rental units, and we um we estimated uh what those fees might be, although if this measure is um actually approved, those fees would have to be recalculated based on actual study.

So we just provided an estimate of those fees.

So next I'm gonna go quickly over the key findings and then go into detail um on some of these elements.

So if the measure is approved, um we found that you know existing tenants uh will likely benefit from both lower rent growth and from stronger protection against evictions above and beyond what they currently have.

Um, in in the city, uh uh about 48% of the of the housing stock is rental.

So that the tenant protection elements would apply to all the rental stock.

About 19% would be subject to the rent control provisions given the number of units in the city that are uh constructed um before 1995.

Um the impacts on new housing investment and new housing development are complicated, but will be limited by uh the application of Costa Hawkins because Costa Hawkins um does uh protect any unit that is exempt from rent control any unit that was built after 1995.

So they wouldn't be subject to the rent control provisions, but they would be subject to the other uh provisions of the law.

Um so um its impact on new construction will be will be mixed, but um clearly um some of the the landlords and owners will will be subject to all tenant protection requirements.

Um and some of them may be concerned about um the fact that investing in their property or making a property available for rent would this law would bring restrictions and restrictions, and so they may uh think twice about doing that.

Uh new development probably less affected because new development is exempt from the rent control component, but they would be again subject to the other elements.

Um the uh the other element is that the is that there is a possibility that Costa Hawkins is amended in the future.

So there may be some investors who would be concerned about that outcome and they may be again hesitant to invest in a city that if that happened, their their units would be subject to rent control.

So new development could in an indirect way be affected from that perspective.

The program administration costs are substantial.

It's hard to read this.

Which was a way we can enlarge it.

But $4 to $10 million in costs, which would would be uh would can't come from the general fund, had to come from another source.

Most likely that would come from fees that are charged to rental units.

Um and we made a preliminary estimate of what those fees would be, and those fees, which we'll see later, are much higher than the fees that are actually uh specified in the ordinance.

So most likely this city would need to increase those fees, which would impose those fees on all units.

The final uh element of this is uh the impact on affordable housing, which we found to be uh kind of unique because affordable housing developers can't raise their rent to the market when a tenant decides to leave, unlike market rate.

So they can't really catch up on rent and recover their costs.

So they have they fate they will face some challenges with regard to not only the fees themselves that they have to pay, but also uh with regard to uh paying for their their maintenance costs, which clearly maintenance costs go up with inflation, and this measure limits their increase in rent to 60 percent of inflation.

So technically rents in real terms will be declining, but their obligations will not be won't be declining.

So that that will prevent uh pressure on affordable housing because they're not exempt.

Okay, so this this slide just kind of gives you an indication of how this proposed rent cap uh would apply versus state law.

So again, it's it's five percent uh it's the the uh the state law is five percent of the CPI plus uh plus the C change in CPI.

So technically the state if your uh state law allows you to re uh increase rent up to 10 percent, but 5 percent plus inflation essentially.

The proposed ordinance says you can only increase rent as 60 percent of the change in CPI, so up to 5 percent.

So that's a pretty big difference.

This illustrates that an example of a of a particular unit that was renting for 2,050 in year one under the proposed ordinance uh after five years of occupancy, the the per month rent would be $937 less per month than the situation in which that uh a property owner wasn't wasn't um controlled by this measure and increased the rent max at the maximum level level every year.

So that's kind of an extreme case, but it shows you the potential magnitude of the difference in rent that could occur over a five-year period with this measure versus the existing state state law.

Um a number of uh cities are do have similar um ordinances this as this one, roughly 30 plus California cities have some form of rent control.

Um that accounting for about 22 percent of the state's uh population, so about 20 percent 22 percent of the state's population has some rent control.

However, this rent control, these these existing rent control ordinances throughout the state vary significantly.

Um most of them are uh based on CPI, but the proposed ordinance at 60 percent CPI is on the more strict uh end of the spectrum.

The average, as you can see, there is and I can't see it, but I think it says 79%.

I haven't committed these all these numbers to memory, so uh my apologies.

Um the others um are not based on CPI at all.

They're based on a maximum level, which is about five percent.

So this one is on the on the more uh strict side of the equation.

There's only one that we were able to identify that's stricter at uh 50 percent.

So um this is a is it's it's certainly more strict than uh than what you see elsewhere in the state, the cities that have this.

Um just quickly focus on renter uh demographics in Redwood City, which we think is important.

I really should have brought my computer because I have a hard time seeing these.

Oh, thank you.

This is so much better.

I'm gonna look at this one.

Okay, in Redwood City, um about uh um the uh Redwood City already faces a fair amount of rent burden among its renters.

Um about 46% of the renter households are what they call rent burden.

That means you have 30 percent or more of your income is spent on rent.

Um but red but in in uh in in that compares if you compare it to say California or or San Mateo County in general, a little bit uh a little bit higher than San Mateo, but a little bit lower than California in general.

Um so but rents in Redwood City have been declining in the last say five or six years.

Um that shows you that you know, while rents are high in in in Redwood City, they have been declining in real terms in the last five years.

Um prior studies uh actually a study that was done between 2016 and 20 and 2021, uh found that about 25 percent of Redwood City's residents were displaced during that period.

So it has again renter pressure in in Red City is real.

Um a quick overview of the housing stock, and this is going to repeat some of this stuff in the key finding in Redwood City.

Um forty-eight percent of the units are renter occupied, so 52 percent aren't rent rent or occupied, they're owner-occupied.

Uh overall, about 19 percent of the units um would be uh subject to the rent control ordinances, the uh measures this the 60 percent of CPI uh component.

Um, however, all units, all rental units would be subject to the just cause eviction, right of return, and the other provisions that are included in the ordinance.

Um how quick summary of how this law is this measure is uh is likely to affect uh housing supply and investment.

Um so again, the key finding, the original key finding.

I'm sorry, I'm not thank you for that.

Hopefully.

And I'm gonna go up one more because we saw this slide, and this is the slide we're on now.

Um so how does this law affect um housing supply and investment impacts?

We talked about how it obviously supports renters in the city.

Um and there is concern that it may also affect uh new development uh for uh uh development as well as investment in existing property.

Again, the Costa Hawkins uh currency limits the impact on new development because uh new development can continue to uh to increase rent based on state law.

So they won't be subject to this.

Anything built after 1995 can be that.

But there is as I mentioned before, there has been attempts to repeal uh Costahawkins over the years.

I think three um three um attempts through some 2018.

So again, if you were investor in in the city, you would be thinking in the background, I'm about ready to invest money, and if Costa Hawkins is repealed, I will not be able to recover my investment on rent.

Um uh so in that case, uh I do believe that it was most likely that you would have an incentive, you might have a disincentive to invest as well as a conversion from rental units out of rental into um uh uh into ownership, so people would no longer want to rent their properties.

But that's again dependent on a variety of factors and would also depend on whether a Costa Hawkins is ever amended or changed.

Uh in terms of investment in older properties that were built 19 prior to 1995, um, there it this again a very complex issue, but uh um it could potentially affect uh the incentive for uh for owners to invest in their property because they would have maybe a difficult time recovering their rent in the form of increased recovering their investment in the form of increased rent, because by definition you can't raise your rent.

They now they may be allowed to petition for a rent increase through a through a process that has not been fully uh clarified in the ordinance, but the ordinance does suggest that you can file a petition to increase your rent to recover your investment, increase your rent to cover your investment.

Um but those two things together uh could potentially affect uh the decision of property owners or operators to uh invest in in property built prior to 1995 because of their concern of recouping their investment.

Okay.

Next slide.

Okay.

Um the preliminary estimate of program costs to the city.

So in order to do this, first of all, it was established that the city does not have an excess capacity to at this time, existing capacity to administer a program of this scale with existing staff.

So they would they would most likely have to hire staff and uh uh office space and equipment, et cetera.

So there would be a cost there.

Um and the costs are likely to include registry, petitions, hearings, counseling, outreach, legal support, enforcement, a whole range of things would be required.

So we in order to estimate this, we we interviewed and did an analysis of probably about uh 10 to 12 cities that have rent control ordinances, and we figured out what their costs were on a per unit per rental unit basis in order to estimate kind of apply that kind of per rental basis to to Redwood City.

And so we uh we established a minimum average and maximum uh cost, which includes uh the staff costs as well as other costs and office space and whatnot.

I would note that this one-time cost of uh, sorry, an annual cost of between four million up to ten million dollars a year, doesn't include the startup costs of the program, which would be around 30 to 700, 300 to 700,000.

So that is our preliminary estimate.

Um, and this in order to recover these costs, the city would most likely do both.

Okay, now there we go.

Uh, would most likely uh charge a fee on rental units to recover those costs.

So we made a calculation of what that estimated fee would be, and we found that to be in the range of five hundred and forty-five uh dollars uh per unit per year to uh to a lower of a 300.

Actually, this is a tiered fee system.

So units that are not covered by rent control would be less at 338, and the ones that are would be higher at 445.

So that's a quick estimate of the essential fee burden that would be on a per unit basis.

Again, those would these numbers would need to be recalculated if the ordinance is the measure is approved uh to actually have a more official um nexus analysis of those relationships.

Finally, I want to talk a little bit about the unique challenges facing uh affordable housing um in this with this ordinance because affordable housing again is not um exempted from the rent control provisions of this ordinance.

Um we estimate there's about 625 uh affordable housing units in the city that would be subject to the rent control provisions of this ordinance.

Again, all affordable housing units will be subject to the tenant protection provisions, but only 625 would be affected by the uh and this does present some complexity and challenges for affordable housing developers because they operate on very low margins.

Many of these older properties have deferred maintenance.

They depend very much on rental income to maintain and to operate their buildings, but they would not be able to keep up with cost with their costs, not just the management cost, but insurance, utilities, a whole host of deferred maintenance issues, a whole host of things which do increase at the rate of inflation, but their rents would not be increasing at the rate of inflation.

And in addition to that, they would be charged a fee to support the implementation of the program.

So their costs would go up just from that fee alone, and then they would also have additional costs that they would not be able to recoup.

So uh there is some uh some challenges that are existing affordable indeed restricted affordable housing uh operators would face if the ordinance or the measure was approved.

Um I think I'm gonna end it there.

There's a lot of information there, and we have a lot of back pocket slides that we can refer to during the QA section section, but I just I think for now um we're gonna leave it up open for questions.

I'll just wrap up um with one slide before uh going over the recommendations and the questions.

Um with regards to you know if the measure is approved, uh, what that implementation would look like.

Uh so if the city council adopted uh the ordinance without alteration, you know, this would go into effect within 30 days after the second reading, like our standard ordinance process.

Um if it is placed on the ballot and approved by the voters, it would go into effect 10 days after the vote is declared by the city council.

Um, either way, these are um accelerated uh effective dates.

And so initial implementation and administrative tasks would really fall on existing city staff.

Um this would require a deprioritization of other work, and we would make our best efforts to implement this uh to the minimum level needed of enforcement as prescribed in the ordinance.

Um, but we anticipate, as noted, that at a minimum this would require seven new staff, as well as likely reclassifying existing staff to take on these additional responsibilities and ensure adequate capacity to manage both this new program as well as all of our other housing programs.

Um full implementation would not be possible until these new staff positions are created and filled.

Again, based on our experience with implementation of the city's tenant protection ordinance.

We estimate um kind of the initial implementation taking four to six months.

This would include establishing base rent, initial outreach and education to tenants and landlords, setting the fee rate that's prescribed in the ordinance and mechanisms to collect that fee, setting up an interim database and process to collect notices until we can actually put forth a more comprehensive rental registry software.

We would have to put together rules and regulations as well as hire third-party consultants to provide the free legal services for low-income tenants as well as um setting up hearing officers.

Uh full implementation and scaling would likely take up to one year or more.

Um the big elements of this again are the hiring and creating of positions.

We think this could take up to from seven to nine months.

Uh we would need to find new office space, and if there's any related tenant improvement work, we don't have sufficient facilities, existing city facilities to accommodate that level of staffing.

We would do as Jason mentioned, you know, a more in-depth fee study and establish a fee along with probably more proactive enforcement of that fee.

Uh we would procure and implement a rent registry software as well as managing that database over time, um, proactively enforcing any requirements and again continued outreach and education.

Uh and so before uh on the slide again are the recommendations before city council, um, which is to by motion accept the certification of the signature verifications, and then elect to take one of the two options, which is again is adopt uh within 10 days without alteration or adopt a resolution calling for the election uh for this to be placed before the voters.

And with that, I do want to invite our uh city manager, I think uh Patrick Heisinger to just share a final few remarks before we go into questions and public comment.

Great.

Thank you, Lynn.

Uh Patrick Hazinger, City Manager.

I just want to add one piece of information regarding the the 9212 report as well.

Um under the statute, the 9212 report really is a report for the decision makers for the city council.

Um I directed staff to pursue the 9212 report because we had a really short timeline.

Um so we did, and we made our timelines.

Really appreciate staff's work and our consultants' um work.

That does not mean that more questions could be asked tonight and information be sought tonight that we could also bring back to the city council.

I'd also like to acknowledge that we've received several letters with really good poignant questions that we just didn't have time to research.

And so, as part of the process tonight, there might be questions that we might recommend.

Say we'd like to come back with with some uh more detail on those.

So the 9212 report is your report, uh, council, and so please ask any and all questions and and we'll do our best to try to answer those questions in a in a tight turnaround.

Thank you.

Great Patrick.

Thank you, Alyn.

Mr.

Moody, thank you so much for all the work to get us to this point, and so that we could have a 9212 to discuss with that colleagues.

If anyone has any questions, we can relay some of those now.

If not, we can move into public comment.

Okay, city clerk.

Let's move into public comment.

Thank you, Mayor.

So at this point, we have 29 speaker cards.

And if we have any folks on Zoom who would like to speak on this item, please raise your hand at this time.

And again, we close the speaker's list once we begin public comment.

So I'll give it a few more moments.

If there's any last speaker cards out there in the audience that need to be turned in, please bring them forward now.

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

Okay, with that, I will close the speaker's list.

Totaling 31 speakers on this item, Mayor.

Uh how would you like to allocate the public comment time?

Let's decrease the speaking time for each comment and see how productive that lets us get into the conversation.

Decrease to one minute per comment.

Right for individual comment.

Okay.

So as the mayor said, each of you will have one minute to provide public comment.

We'll run the timer that will begin as soon as you begin speaking.

I'll call speakers two at a time.

Um I also understand that we might have some folks giving public comment in Spanish this evening.

And as the mayor mentioned earlier, we have Spanish interpretation available for this item.

I do ask if you're giving comments in Spanish to please speak slowly to give the opportunity to the interpreter to interpret the comments, and you will only be timed for your comments, not for the interpretation, the English interpretation.

Okay.

Let's get started.

We'll call John Mendez to the podium, who will be followed by Amy Mendez.

Welcome.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak.

Uh one minute's not much time, so I'll jump right to the point.

Uh, the reality is that the covered properties are owned by mom and pop landlords, operating under very thin margins and struggling under the weight of inflation, uh, driving up interest rates, insurance, repairs, costs, utilities, etc.

And that doesn't even get into the increasing burdens of taxes.

I urge the council to do two things.

One, do not adopt this ordinance tonight and refer it to the ballot so that voters can have a fair opportunity to vote on it.

Second, go back to EPS and require that they expand the report to cover the numerous other provisions in the ordinance that directly impact operation of the subject properties.

Council should then inform the citizenry to reject the ill-advised ordinance.

Uh, just like Half Moon Bayes recently had to do.

The uh 9212 report is extremely narrow in scope.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Amy Mendez, who will be followed by Jeffrey Shabowski.

Hello, good evening.

Uh, I just want to say that all of us I think here agree that with the goals of promoting neighborhood stability, healthy housing, and affordability for renters, but this ordinance will not achieve those goals.

The devils in the details, and the unintended consequences will include a shrinking of the housing stock that you're hoping to protect, an increase in costs for the city, landlords, and tenants, and a degradation of the quality of the housing and the character of the community.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Jeffrey Shabowski, who will be followed by Denise.

Thank you, City Leaders, for allowing me to speak.

Um, on the 92-192 1 2 report, um, two of the the objectives were to cover existing state laws and policies.

And in particular, previous studies on impact of similar tenant protection ordinances.

And I would have liked to hear about that.

Every city that really attempted to do this has failed.

They either adopted the ordinance and then it's been rejected, Concord being the most recent half Boom Bay, where they had to uh stop it because there's no more housing stock.

Also, Salinas, San Pablo.

Oh, too quick.

Um, so I would like to move to uh not adopt this ordinance.

Uh, you're gonna need four to ten million dollars to uh from the landlords.

We don't have that kind of money, you're gonna end up with a slum.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Denise, who will be followed by Lupe Ariola.

Okay.

So I brought one of my clients here tonight.

She's a 95-year-old landlord, and she has worked on hard on her properties for over 50 years.

And she said tonight to me, what about us?

So, what about the voice of the landlords?

She has rented out places helping the Hispanic community with low rents, a three-bedroom, one bath for 2,400, a one-bedroom house for $800.

And if you're asking the landlord to pay relocation and the amount of 12,000 plus another 6,000 for four months, that's 18,000.

And you're basically uh, you know, you're in the red because her $800 unit that's only $3,200 rent for for four months, or the other unit, you know, is about $10,000.

And you're asking her to pay out $18,000, you know, for these rents that are below market.

So, what about us?

What about the landlords who are helping the community?

Nobody's hearing us.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Lupe Ariola, who will be followed by Eduardo Torres.

Hello, good afternoon, good evening, um, council members.

Uh, my name is Lupe Arreola.

I'm the executive director for Tenants Together.

We're a statewide tenant rights organization.

And the reason I'm here is because I have been all around California and hearing the same thing from tenants everywhere.

We are paying too much for our housing.

We cannot sustain.

This is unsustainable for us.

Our wages have not gone up.

Commisery to have the rents have been rising.

This is unsustainable, it's unhealthy, and it actually creates crowded, unhealthy conditions.

It causes people to have to commute hours to go to work.

We these are drastic times that require drastic action.

And by drastic action, it means keeping rent stable and affordable to people long term, right?

It should not be a drastic action, but it's one that is needed right now.

So we urge you to um accept this proposal to approve this proposition, save the taxpayers the money of an election, and please approve this tonight.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Eduardo Torres, who will be followed by Emily Morris.

Good evening, Council.

My name is Eduardo Torres.

I'm also from Tenants Together.

I'm the Northern California Regional Coordinator.

Actually drove out here tonight from Pittsburgh, which is in Contra Casa County, just to speak tonight to support the tenants.

It's such an important issue that's happening across the state as our executive director just mentioned.

Um I just also want to point out that the cities out there have conquered and ANIAC in recent years took the initiative to adopt a rent stabilization ordinance.

And so I know that the city of uh Redwood City has tried to do that in the past, and so this you have a perfect opportunity to adopt the ordinance tonight.

And so I'm really encouraging the city council to listen to your constituents to the folks who are not only gonna get chance to possibly vote for this in November, but also vote for future city council members who don't support this, right?

So it's really important to listen to the constituents to the voters to democracy because we know we're living in a time where democracy is being demolished every single day.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Emily.

Before we go on to the next, I just want to a friendly reminder to everybody that for us to be able to get through the meeting.

Um there is no cheering, no applause.

Please keep that to yourself.

You're more than welcome to do jazz hands, something non-verbal, but uh just so that we aren't interrupting our next speaker.

If we could contain that, that'd be great.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor.

Emily Morris, welcome.

And Martha Beatley will be next.

Thank you.

I'm a volunteer with Faith in Action Bay Area, and I'm among the many many volunteers who collected signatures from the community to qualify rent control for the ballot.

I went all over the city and knocked on doors.

People I talked to, both homeowners and renters were clamoring to sign.

So many people I spoke to told me about how the cost of rent was out of control.

We collected well over the required number of signatures to qualify for the ballot, and we know why.

The cost of rent is way, way too high.

Wages are not keeping up.

People are working two to three jobs to pay the rent.

Families are leaving.

I love Redwood City for so many reasons, among them the vibrancy and diversity of the city.

Rent control and tenant protections will help keep families together in Redwood City so it can continue to be the diverse, welcoming place that we love.

The solution is needed now, and we can't afford to delay.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Martha Beatley, who will be followed by Clara Jekyll.

Good evening.

Thank you.

I support rent control the rent control initiative because our neighbors need help to stay in our community, and our neighborhoods benefit from the stability of long-term residency.

I want kids to grow up in a home where they know their neighbors and where they have deep relationships with their school classmates.

Rising rents cause families to feel economic stress, to look for less expensive housing farther away, and to double up in cramped living spaces.

None of this is healthy for families.

Rent control will give all of us in Redwood City the chance to share our city with a variety of residents, mechanics, nurses, teachers, firefighters, and others who want to thrive in the Bay Area, but whose salaries do not keep up with the high cost of living here.

When we say climate best for government test, I hope that we mean economic climate and housing climate and a welcoming climate, not just the temperature on the thermometer.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Clara Jekyll, who will be followed by Al Heli Kang.

Thank you.

My name is Clara Jekyll.

I've been a renter in Redwood City for 10 years.

Everyone deserves a safe and dignified place to live.

And the fair and affordable housing ordinance is a measure that stems out of years of Redwood City residents' experiences.

It directly responds to the issues my neighbors and tenants across the city are facing unsustainably high rents, harassment, and unsafe living conditions.

These problems have led to families either being displaced out of the city altogether or forced into extreme measures, like working two or three jobs to attempt to keep up with rent increases.

The protections in this ordinance will help families stay in their homes, keep our neighborhoods and schools more stable, protect seniors and disabled people and low incomes, and allow essential workers to live where they work.

It strikes a good balance for landlords to ensure a fair return on their investment and will reduce tenant turnover.

This measure can be a real cornerstone for the diverse and thriving city we all want.

I urge you to implement tonight, otherwise, under your ministerial duty placed on the ballot for November, I'm really excited about the chance for us to do something really good for our city.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Al Heli Kang, who will be followed by Andrea Gill.

I'm a community advocate and a youth development practitioner at Youth Leadership Institute.

Our youth leaders have spent three years learning about how they can make change in their community, and when it came to an issue they cared about, it was housing affordability and more specifically rent control.

We are here in solidarity with Faith in Action and in support of rent control.

Our youth leaders and their families have gone too long without common sense protections.

We urge you to adopt what the community members have before.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Andrea Gill, who will be followed by Elizabeth Prado.

Good evening, Mayor Martinez and City Council.

My name is Andrea Gill, and I'm here today with Faith in Action Bay Area and Youth Leadership Institute.

I have the honor to work alongside youth leaders here in Redwood City.

Over the past years, when asking them what issues or challenges do you face in your community?

It's always been housing.

It's always about them envisioning can I even stay in a city that I grew up in.

And that is why we also parted with Faith in Action, because in those places they felt heard and seen of the words they couldn't say out loud.

And we said many have shared fears of being this place, and many find it hard to envision long-term housing because of the cost of living.

We heard today that 46% are rent burden.

I asked y'all, listen to the folks in the room and the signatures that were gathered of why we should pass tenant protection and rent control measures.

Families more now than ever need stronger protection to live a dignified life.

Thank you for listening to us tonight.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Elizabeth Prado, who will be followed by Teresa Veruman.

Hi, my name is Elizabeth, and I am speaking in support of strong rent control measures.

Sorry, many renters are working overtime, taking extra shifts and sometimes working two or three jobs just to keep a roof over their heads.

Instead of being present with their families, they're forced to spend more time working.

Speaking for the next generation, I'm concerned about what this means for us.

Many of us might be might be unable to live in this city where we grew up.

A city cannot be successful if the people who work here, study here, and hope to build their futures here, can't afford it.

Rent control is not just about housing costs, it's about community protecting families and ensuring that Redwood City remains a place where working future generations have a chance to live and succeed.

I urge the council to implement rent control that provides stability and protection for renters.

Speaking for many youth, as a teenager myself, I shouldn't have to be here worried about whether my parents have enough for next month.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Teresa Beruman, who will be followed by Heun Mee Kim.

Yes, good evening, Council members.

My name is Teresa Berumen, and I lived in Redwood City for over 50 years.

And I'm a leader with faith in action.

I urge you to pass this tenant protection and rent control measure today, to protect families, seniors, and working residents from displacement.

I have watched family members and long-time neighborhood forced to leave the city because they could no longer afford the rising rents, including my elderly parents, which they had to move away because of the they couldn't afford it here anymore.

When seniors are pushed out, they lose vital support networks and their health and dignity suffer.

When workers and family members are forced to move further away, our local businesses and schools lose customers and students.

Commutes get longer and community life weekends.

This is not just for policy issues.

Protecting tenants prevent unfair and excessive rent increases.

Please vote now.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Hyun Mi Kim, who will be followed by Taylor Brady.

Good evening.

My name is Hyunmi Kim.

I am a senior housing rights attorney at community legal services in Palo Alto, also known as CLASPA.

Claspa, along with the legal aid society of San Mateo County, represent almost all unrepresented vulnerable low-income tenants from every corner of San Mateo County who face losing their homes at the County of San Mateo's eviction court, also known as on law for detainer proceedings every Tuesday.

We also regularly receive calls from the tenants in Redwood City asking legal advice or representation after having received on law for eviction and rent increased notices.

I personally represented this represented several tenants from Redwood City, including a case involving a landlord who filed a mail-less own law for detainer suit based on illegal rent increase notice.

In that case, I was able to successfully dismiss the suit.

Every week, I directly witness how local-based tenants' protection ordinances, for example, such as East Palo Alto Renter Stabilization and Just Cause Eviction.

The Mountain View's Community Stabilization Fair House.

Greatly benefit the uh tenant.

So I really urge the City Council to adopt this uh ordinance and protect the tenants.

Thank you.

Okay, that's your minute.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Taylor Brady, who will be followed by Nicholas Kennan.

Good evening, City Council.

My name is Taylor Brady, and I've been a resident of Redwood City for six years.

As a public employee myself in Mountain View, I appreciate the stress of your job.

So thank you for listening to us tonight.

Rent control is an absolutely vital piece of the slate of policies that are needed to provide affordable housing consistency and dignity for the people of this community.

There's a great asymmetry between the information available to renters and that available to landlords who are able to use algorithmic pricing and cartel-like behavior to exploit tenants.

The people who make up our community and enliven it need safe and dignified housing.

I hope that you show the courage to pass this measure rather than demurring this evening.

I understand it's a politically safe option, but there has been a great and resounding call from the people of this community to provide safe housing.

So yes, thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Nicholas Kennan, who will be followed by Soviet Sofia Gonzalez Rodriguez.

My name is Nick Kennan, District 6 resident.

I'm here to speak in favor of the rent control ordinance.

When I think about housing solutions and what we have to do, I picture this long timeline.

One end is the building of housing, which we are all deeply engaged in, trying to flood the system with housing to meet everyone's needs.

But this is not a quick endeavor when it takes years to get housing built.

So we move to the other end of the timeline with rent control, which we can implement more quickly.

We need to bring people along when the overarching vision is supplying housing for all and the time that will take.

People will need that immediate relief in the meantime to prevent displacement.

And there are political upsides to consider with rent control and increased tenant protections.

Redwood City residents will feel secure, not left behind, and more willing to allow change with respect to housing development.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Next speaker is Sofia Gonzalez Rodriguez, who will be followed by Amanda Chang.

Good evening.

My name is Sofia Gonzalez.

I work at El Concilio of San Mateo County, a local nonprofit organization that has been providing direct services to the Redwood City community from our office down on Middlefield for over 45 years.

Every day we see firsthand how the near 50% rent burden statistic plays out in our clients.

A city rent control ordinance is a necessary and urgent step to address the needs of our community.

This reality is why we see our clients entering cramped living conditions, living as many as eight to ten people in a two-bedroom apartment, or moving out east as their rents increase.

I myself live in Berkeley in a rent control unit.

I ask the city council to stand with the tenants and implement the ordinance tonight.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Amanda Chang, who will be followed by Salvadora Herrera.

Good evening, City Council.

My name is Amanda Chang, and I'm here as a staff member of Urban Habitat.

We released a report on the impact of tenant protections in Redwood City back in April.

I encourage you to read this.

Among some of our findings in this report, we found that the average rent in Redwood City has income families are paying more than half their income on housing, up just from 47% from 2010 to 20 years ago.

And approximately 40,000 people could have increased housing stability through just cause and anti-harassment protections, which is about half the city.

This includes nearly 5,000 children under the age of 18 and over 6,000 seniors.

And approximately 22,000 people in Redwood City, a quarter of the population could be protected by rent stabilization.

You can vote to approve this measure now or wait for November for the ballot for the people to pass it.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Salvadora Herrera, who will be followed by Michael Pierce.

Thank you.

And now we'll hear the in English interpretation of the comments.

And also a lot of elderly people that they do not have a place to stay.

They don't have a place because honestly, for them it's very difficult to pay a rent for two thousand dollars.

And we want for them a good place for all of those families, for all those single moms that have like three, four four kids, and just it's just them working.

So I think it's fair for you guys to help us for this ordinance to pass for you guys to be with us because there's a lot of need.

There's a lot of families that are doing bad.

Healthy families are sleeping in those places because they don't have where to sleep.

They don't have a good place.

So this is why we are here, all of this city that we're here, and we are all united.

Thank you.

Thank you very much for that.

And we'll move on to our next speaker, Michael Pierce, who will be followed by Connor O'Brien.

I'm Michael Pierce, Chair of the Board of the St.

Francis Center on nonprofit in Redwood City.

We operate 267 units of low-income housing in San Mateo County, 90 of which are in the city of Redwood City.

I'm gravely concerned about the impact this will have on nonprofits like us and others because of the impact.

If we lose our property tax abatements, it grossly affects our ability to continue to operate low-income housing, and that risk is very great under this proposed ordinance.

Thank you.

Good evening.

My name is Connor O'Brien, who will be followed by Mayor Silicon Valley DSA and have been as a volunteer signature gathering for this initiative.

Have been hearing from residents here about the urgency of adopting it.

I'm also a resident and renter in Mountain View, where this year we'll be celebrating the 10th anniversary of winning our own renter protections and rent control.

And so I wanted to speak to the benefits that we've seen from that in terms of residents gaining stability, gaining some peace of mind that unexpected rent increases or unjust evictions won't displace them from their neighborhood.

One testament to that is that four years into our adoption of rent control in 2020, voters had the opportunity to weaken the measure and overwhelmingly chose to maintain it by a margin of a 70% majority.

So I think that looking to that experience, you have the opportunity now to allow renters to benefit immediately from the same protections that have been such a benefit to the tenants in our city.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Mayor Slike, who will be followed by Vasily Morrison.

Hello.

Mark Slakey for the record.

But Mark Slaiky, I'm a lifelong resident here in the uh peninsula, renter here in Redwood City, uh member of Peninsula DSA and a local leader for this campaign as well.

Um from my point of view, this is the bare minimum we can do for renters at this point.

We are well behind an insane affordability crisis.

We talk a lot about who can afford what.

I'll give you some simple numbers.

I work at the cafe across the street at the yard.

I've had the pleasure of serving some people in this chamber, many of my community members.

We make $19 an hour.

That is minimum wage.

If you have a studio apartment like mine, which is the cheapest one in Redwood City, you're paying 1929 for rent.

That means that almost 90% of your income is going to rent.

It's unreal.

We cannot afford to not pass something like this.

Beyond that, last I checked, it's citizens who have voted you in, not investors, not the investments that could be affected, not affordable housing providers, even.

I love what they do.

However, it's 48% of the population will be affected immediately by this rather than the other thousands more.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mark.

Sorry about that.

Next speaker is Vasily Morrison, who will be followed by Paul Bocanegra.

Hi, I'm Vasilee Morrison.

I'm a member of Silicon Valley DSA.

I have members of my community and family that have been personally been affected by rent evictions and had to have families who have not been able to afford housing.

They've had to stay in my house, my family's house.

I am up front.

I am fortunate enough to be stable to have my family own a house.

Now hundreds of hundreds of thousands of people of this community are do not have that afford that affordability that many landlords here do, which have who have more than one housing, aren't able to rent said housing out to other people.

It is the thousands of working workers in this community who provide the teachers who provide the construction labor, who could provide the value that the thousands that the landlords here may benefit from with their land raises in rents.

This rent control measure would provide those laborers with the ability to stay in this community and not have to worry about their rents increasing and have to worry about getting a second or third job just to stay in their house.

Thank you guys.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Paul Bocanegra, who will be followed by David Gonzalez.

Good evening, uh Mayor Saballos, Council members.

Uh my name is Paul Bocanegra.

I am executive director of Unlocked Futures.

I am also a homeowner and a landlord.

Uh we need to pass rent control.

Uh, as executive director of Unlocked Futures, I work with system impacted youth.

Many of these youth do not know if they're going to be living in the same location that they did uh when they return home.

Uh many of these youth are also uh willing to work at 1415 just to be able to assist their parents uh to pay rent so they have extra money for food and clothing.

This is a problem.

Uh, we have thousands of voters who have already signed on to this, and I believe that we should adopt this tonight uh and be leaders in rent control uh rather than continue to trail uh in the Bay Area.

Thank you so much.

You have good night.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is David Gonzalez, who will be followed by Roe V Antonio.

Good evening.

Good evening, city representatives.

My name is David Gonzalez, and I moved here in 2022 to the beautiful Redwood Shores.

And every year I experienced a rental increase of 10% until I could no longer afford to stay.

Each time I would see the vacant neighboring units on their online website being priced hundreds of dollars below what they were asking me to renew with.

So I know for a fact that this was not due to increase in costs.

City representatives, I implore you to pass this ordinance now and protect your constituents from algorithmic pricing and uh and uh greed and supply and demand.

I promise you we won't forget this.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Rovi Antonio, who will be followed by Fernando Pena.

Good evening, Mayor and City Council Roe V Antonio with the California Apartment Association, a nonprofit trade association representing rental property owners in Redwood City.

Tonight we are asking you to slow this process down.

This is not a city sponsored measure.

You did not write this.

Staff did not write this.

Unless you were in the room when these 46 pages were drafted, you cannot know tonight whether the city has fully understood every consequence.

In fact, tonight is the first time that this has been presented to the city council to have a public discussion.

The 1912 report is useful but incomplete.

The rules include relocation payments, owner move and restrictions, and renovation restrictions.

Due diligence require more than a partial report.

Before taking final ballot action, you need to study the full fiscal housing and economic picture.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Fernando Pena, who will be followed by Stephen Howard.

Good evening, Mayor and Council members.

My name is Fernando Pena here on behalf of the San Mateo County Association of Realtors.

The proposal caps rent increases at just 60% of CPI, ignoring the reality that insurance, maintenance, utilities, property taxes, labor, and regulatory costs continue to rise far faster than that formula allows.

It also calls for increased taxpayer expense and imposes significant new regulations beyond rent control that could affect a broader range of housing in Redwood City.

While Section 9212 analyzes the rent control provisions, it does not fully evaluate the economic impacts of these additional regulations.

Thank you.

Next speaker is Stephen Howard, who will be followed by Nancy Moya.

Good evening, Council.

This ordinance will have significant unintended consequences, too numerous to mention in one minute.

The organizers have very good intentions but are naive about basic economics and the laws of supply and demand.

Rents are what they are, due to supply and demand.

In order to increase if we want to decrease the rents, we need to increase the supply.

So you want to do as much as you can to encourage developers to come into your community, not discourage them.

If you have less development, you will have less supply, and therefore you will have increased prices of rents.

Exactly the opposite of what the organizers had intended.

We need to look no further than the price of eggs and the price of gasoline as far as what happens when supply is reduced.

California is already the most tenant-friendly state in the country, and there are plenty of protections in place.

I would urge you not to support uh this measure and let it go to the ballot and hopefully to educate the public of the damage that will do, including the people who have put this forward.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Nancy Moya, and I can give you a handheld microphone as well.

Nosotros vivimos in un departamento that cuesta 3,500 dollars.

Thank you.

And now for English interpretation.

Good evening, my name is Nancy Moya, and I'm here representing my daughter.

We are here because we live in an apartment that the rent is three thousand dollars and it's a share unit.

Two but two um two rooms, one bathroom in the second floor without a patio nor a balcony.

So my husband works uh twelve hours a day, six days a week, to just to cover basics for us.

So I cannot work because my daughter needs supervis uh supervision 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

So we are here because we are concerned, we are very concerned that we don't have enough to have a savings account for emergency.

So for whatever comes up, and we need to we need uh we need affordable housing for people with disabilities.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

And that concludes our in-person speakers.

We'll move now to our two speakers on Zoom.

We'll start with Becca Keeler, and following Becca will be May Lamb.

And Becca, you may unmute yourself and begin your comments, and the timer will begin when you start speaking.

Thank you.

My name's Rebecca Keeler, and uh I've grew up here in the peninsula.

I've been a homeowner here in Redwood City for the last 20 years.

Um I also serve uh in our community working with underserved youth and working with unlocked futures.

Um, and I'm in solidarity with faith in action.

I want to tell you that I have seen so many of the families I work with be displaced.

I have seen so many of the children be upended from their schools and and their places of living, and I've seen them with multiple families in the same home.

This is not something that can continue.

One way or the other, we have to find a solution to this.

I ask you please to pay serious attention to this uh tenant rent control, and please take action on it immediately.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is May Lam.

Hello.

Hi there, we can hear you.

Oh, hi.

Um, so uh thank you for this time um to speak.

Um so I just wanted to say, you know, please do not adopt the current proposed measure.

Uh let me echo what other small business owners have pointed out.

Um, this is a very restrictive initiative.

As it would greatly hurt small mom and pop landlords.

The burden on small businesses will be unsustainable.

This is not the solution.

We do need better um help for our tenants, but this is not it.

You certainly will reduce the amount of affordable housing available in the city.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you very much.

And that concludes public comment, Mayor.

Back to you.

Thank you, City Clerk.

And again, thank you to everybody who made public comment this evening, shared your time with us, whether you're in person or joining us online, and we'll bring it back to the dais for council discussion.

Who has any questions they'd like to start us off with?

Council Member Sturter.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh, firstly, thank you to everyone who spoke this evening.

I really do appreciate uh your input and I also saw a lot of the emails come through as well.

So thank you to those folks folks who uh wrote in.

Initial question I have with regards to the fee is what flexibility is there if any to reduce the fee for affordable housing providers, nonprofit affordable housing providers.

I'm actually gonna ask our city attorney to answer that question.

Thank you.

Thank you, Miss Lancaster, and thank you council member for the question.

So this ordinance is um if adopted by the council or uh sent to the voters and adopted by the voters is an an ordinance adopted by initiative petition and the city council is limited in its ability to change substantively the ordinance so what we need to do is we need to look at the ordinance itself to determine what flexibility the city has.

If you go um to section 14 if you go to section 42 point 14 D identifies how the rental housing fee may be adopted and it makes very clear that the city council shall finance the reasonable and necessary expenses of the program by charging landlords an annual rental housing fee that the council shall ensure that the rental housing fee is set at a level sufficient to fund the duties and responsibilities under the program and then it says that the program and staff to enforce this chapter shall be funded only by the rental housing fee and not from the city's general fund.

So understanding those limitations is critical in understanding what we can do if the ordinance is adopted the city will need to conduct a fee analysis in order to determine what the ultimate rental housing fee will be for those landlords and whether the city could exempt waive reduce fees for affordable units will depend on this fee analysis and the ordinances limitations as we will need to ensure that any exemption reduction waiver would not disproportionately impact other landlords.

Thank you very much that's very helpful thank you since the mayor is um momentarily gone do any of my other colleagues have additional questions clarifications or if they want to start with comments Councilmember G, please.

Thank you.

Excuse me thank you vice mayor and um thank you everyone that emailed came here and offered comments online I want to preface my inquiries first by saying this is the first time or or when the packet was posted on Thursday is the first time council got all or at least a lot of information about the proposed initiative.

Up until then we haven't seen this is the first time so we've had only since Thursday afternoon I think when this was posted into tonight to kind of absorb the details the emails the letters and the substance of the proposed ordinance so we have had not a lot of time to dive into it.

So I want to thank everyone for um helping us try to understand both sides all sides of the issues but I have a lot of questions given the short amount of time uh we've had to to really dive into this um so I'm not gonna try to guess who's gonna answer the questions that I have but I suspect it's gonna include staff, our state attorney, or city manager, and our consultant um so the presentation and sort of help answer this, but I want to make sure I understood the 40 something pages of the proposed ordinance and all the other associated documents that we even were getting this afternoon, which is kind of hard to absorb if we got it at two o'clock in our meetings at six, and I think most of us still have a regular job to take care of.

So my first question is to our staff does council have all the information, or are there any missing documents that we don't have?

Because that's what my questions are going to be based on what we have.

If so, if there's something that we don't have, my apologies ahead of time.

I'm I'm not aware of any missing documents.

Thank you.

So I'm just gonna start to dive in, and I my apologies to my colleagues here.

I've got a whole long list of questions.

You can feel free, Mayor, to cut me off any time you want.

It appears, and I think you had this in the slide between yourself, Alyn, and Jason, that if passed, while the rent control portion may not apply to a lot of pre or post 1995 properties, the TPO as proposed does apply to more properties than the city's ordinance, including ADUs, single family homes, uh mobile homes, and non-owner occupied single family homes.

Am I reading that correctly?

Can you rephrase the question?

Are you referring to the city's tenant protection ordinance or the proposed ordinance would apply the tenant protections to these other properties I just listed?

Yes, like it the sorry, I'm getting confused, but TPO in our city ordinance there.

Yes, so this is the slide.

Um so fully covered, and this is just related to the proposed ordinance.

Correct.

Means rent stabilization plus all of the other requirements.

So that's inclusive of just cause, relocation, right to return.

Partially covered under the proposed ordinance means those rental units are only subject to the just cause provisions, the right to return provisions, the relocation provisions, um, ex all the other ones besides rent stabilization.

All the other ones other than the rent stabilization.

So I did read that fairly correctly.

Yes.

So then now I'm gonna pivot into the EPS report.

So between you and Jason, maybe you can tag team things here.

Alin just mentioned a whole bunch of stuff.

And I couldn't find in your report, Jason, about the effect or impact of those operating costs on property owners.

I mean, there's a lot of regulations there.

Um that Elyn just mentioned.

Was there a clear assessment about the cumulative impact on operating costs for property owners?

Some of those are very difficult to quantify, and our analysis that was done primarily on secondary research and available data.

And so estimating the cost of some of the um other than what's in the clearly in the ordinance, like how much you have to pay for uh a relocation, we did not do a detailed estimate of how much some of the other tenant protection components would affect a landlord.

That's that was not we did not have the schedule and scope and resources to do that during the analysis, so we didn't detail do that detail analysis of those items.

Would it be safe to assume that there are going to be financial impacts to property owners beyond the rent stabilization component?

There will be uh financial impacts for sure.

But they were not quantified in the yeah, estimating those is would require more analysis than we were able to do during the first round of this analysis.

And and you can say it wasn't in my scope of work, that's fine.

I mean, I know this was done in a very short amount of time on a very limited fee basis.

So that's that's okay to say that.

Two and a half months we did this, and so it was there were, you know, that would require a fair to do that analysis, require interviewing property owners doing a lot of case studies of examples of where this is.

It's doable.

It's it's doable, yes.

Okay, but was it in your scope?

It was not in our similarly, and this is consistent with the way I look at even our impact fees on developments.

I have been a strong advocate for assessing the cumulative impact of policy ordinance fees, assessments, and utility costs on businesses.

I wasn't able to see the cumulative impact, you know, of all these other things on the property owners.

Was there?

Did I miss it or was it out of scope and not able to do in the compressed amount of time?

When you say cumulative impact, do you mean other policies that are existing?

Policies that the council adopts, increased utility costs, um, business license tax increases, the cumulative impact of all the things we do here at the Dais on businesses.

Was there an assessment on the cumulative impact on property owners if this were to move forward by either council or the voters?

Our analysis focused on the incremental impacts of this particular ordinance, not on the cumulative.

So the answer is uh no, we did not look at the cumulative impacts.

We tried to focus on the incremental.

Is it possible to do that given more time and more fee?

I'm gonna say tentatively yes, depending on the scope and the time frame.

I know we have an election in November, so.

Beyond that, I'm not asking about, you know, is it doable?

It is doable, yes.

We'd have to define the scope, but yes.

And at Ken, at this day, we have approved a series of utility cost increases, sewer, solid waste, water, but by the way I read the ordinance proposed, those are not able to be passed on to the tenants unless they're separately metered.

Am I reading that correctly?

That is correct.

So again, I go back to when you look at the operating impact on property owners, the cumulative impact, and the utility cost increases, there's got to be a financial impact on the property owner, at least administration, that I couldn't find the analysis in the report because it probably was out of scope or you didn't have enough time.

Am I reading that correctly?

Uh yes, we did not do analysis of the cumulative impact from all those other regulations that you mentioned or policies.

Okay.

And Jason, your your presentation, you started to kind of um convey the potential impact of this ordinance on our nonprofit affordable housing providers.

Um I didn't see anything about Section 8 vouchers.

I didn't see, I think you had a slide about the growing gap over five years.

I think you said $937.

Rents would be falling behind at least capital replacement.

I think that was your slide number three.

What happens with that continued falling behind?

What kind what does that do to the property condition?

Yes.

Are you talking about the market rate or the or both or or deed restrictive affordable?

Um it was your slide three.

Oh.

Yes.

This one, yeah.

This was referring to uh all units, not just affordable.

What happens with the continuing falling behind?

Pretend it's 10 years or 15 years that continue to falling behind.

What's the impact on the property?

And this this would apply for units built prior to 1995.

So, yes, that this would it would make it difficult in some cases for um for the property owner um operator to cover those increased costs uh without a doubt, until uh the unit is vacated, in which time the property owner can then go back to the market rate, kind of do it.

If you're a market rate unit, you can you can charge the rent that the market will bear once the existing tenant leaves.

If you are an affordable housing operator, you don't have the liberty to rate charge market rate.

You have to go with the uh uh area mean median income restrictions of the affordable unit.

Well, we did hear from at least one notprofit provider, uh the St.

Francis Center about falling behind and the impact potentially on.

Was that kind of analysis covered in the report?

I think it was hinted at, but I didn't I didn't see depth in the report.

The that particular analysis is going to be unique to every single property, right?

So it's a general, it's generally true that if you are not able to raise your rents with the market, you are likely to continue to fall behind.

The way in which it will impact the financials of any given property may differ depending upon their own operating budget, to what degree they have deferred maintenance issues, what their existing rents are, the turnover, there's many factors that would be variables that would go into the calculation for an individual property owner, but I think it's fair to say that in general you would fall behind and you would not be able to keep up with your operating expenses over a longer period of time, particularly if you do not have tenant turnover.

So I guess keeping up is a formula of tenant turnover.

If I heard you the converse of what you just said, the only way to keep up is tenant turnover, which doesn't, isn't the intent of this initiative, it's to provide housing stability, not tenant turnover.

Is that I am just trying to make sure I using Jeff's language, I understand what's in the initiative and the analysis.

Also, the administration fee, I believe cannot be passed on to the tenant.

Is that correct?

That is correct.

So in your analysis, the 12084 is substantially less than what it would cost to actually, and even at the higher number cannot be passed on to the tenants, it's got to be absorbed by the property owner and its administrative burden or whatever you want to call it.

And again, going back to my earlier question, that cumulative impact is gotta have an impact somewhere, whether it's $500 per unit per year or a thousand dollars per unit per year, there's got to be an impact somewhere.

And it wasn't, it was just lightly touched on, I guess, about the cumulative impact.

There is one, but it wasn't too deep.

Well, the cumulative impact is essentially the fee times the number of units you have.

So every project has a different number of units.

So the cumulative impact would be the number of units you have times the fee.

We haven't finalized what the fee would be.

If this is approved, there would be a study doing that.

And so every property owner would say, well, if I have a hundred units and it's $500 a unit, you know, the math is $50,000 in that case.

So it's gonna be there's gonna be impact, but it'll vary for each particular unit.

But based on your previous report on TPO here, I mean, can properties owners absorb that kind of fee burden on an annual basis?

Um, it will be more difficult for affordable housing uh owners to do so because they can't pass it on on rent even when the unit is vacated.

For post-1995 units, they may be able to pass those costs on.

And they can't do it directly, but because that would be legal, but they can they can do it once you know, once the lease that they have with the current tenant expires, they said, Well, now you have a new lease, and here's our new rent.

That adds a dimension of complexity to their operating performer, though, doesn't it?

And um on the pre-1995 affordable housing, would that constitute a force majeure that the funders could argue that they're out of compliance with their pro forma?

Because competing for low interest housing tax credits is a competitive basis.

It's based on areas of economic desire and need, it's based on a rental performa, is based on a lot of different things to be competitive and to be awarded those tax credits and other funding grants.

So if we change the community changes or the council changes the rules, would that put some of the projects potentially in jeopardy because the funding requirements and the performance were changed.

Can you be exactly?

I can't speak definitively, but you know, we would need to evaluate our own affordability restrictions on those properties along with their funders.

Um I can't speak to what those fund, you know, what actions those funders would take, but um there are potential there could be potential conflicts between uh what is in the proposed ordinance and what's in existing affordability covenants.

Thanks, Elena for stepping into that.

But then who has responsibility and liability for that conflict?

And it's okay to say I don't know right now.

It's a really good question.

Uh you know, I I think, yeah.

I that's okay to say I don't know.

I mean, this is a very short time frame.

That again, we just got this stuff.

I just looked got the packet Thursday and spent my weekend reading, and I had all these questions that you know, and there we got letters that asked some pretty significant questions too.

That it's okay to say I don't know, and we need more time or whatever, but this is kind of important stuff because this is a big, I think this is a big issue for the community, as the community said has told us, it's a big issue.

Thank you, Councilmember J.

And and you're right.

I I don't have an answer.

Um it's something that we would likely need to look into.

It might be that we won't have an answer, right?

Um, it will be dependent on what each of the funders' requirements are.

Um, I we do have Ms.

Tietenman on, and I know she does quite a bit with housing, and so I do want to provide an opportunity if she knows how this tends to work from other agencies' experiences before we let you know that we don't we don't have an answer for you.

Hi, good evening, Karen Tiedeman with Goldbar and Littman.

Um, I think the issue that affordable housing developers are gonna have is um essentially what Jason said, eventually this is gonna impact their operating income because they're very limited and they can't raise rents when uh units turn over the way that non-regulated landlords uh can do.

So I my guess is that there are going to potentially be um requests for additional subsidy for operating expenses long term, but you you know once again it depends on each project and property and their operating expenses and the multiple sources of funding that they currently are accessing.

Thank you.

Is it safe to say then that there's potential unintended consequences of this proposed ordinance or initiative?

Or the potential for unintended consequences?

Yes, I mean I think that the impact on affordable housing is something that um will have to be looked at if this were adopted in the long term.

Not a lot of rent control jurisdictions cover affordable housing, housing that's restricted and how it can raise its rent.

So that is that unique to this initiative here in front of us.

Um I don't want to say definitively that is unique, not typical.

Rent control jurisdictions cover some subsets of affordable housing.

Um this one doesn't have any exemptions for any type of affordable housing unless it's owned by a governmental unit.

That's the only exemption.

So that is a little more restrictive than anyone I can think of at this moment.

Thank you for that.

And Mayor, I have a whole bunch more questions, but I want to check in with my colleagues.

I don't want to monopolize the time.

May I continue?

Please continue.

Okay, thank you, Mayor.

You know, we heard from a speaker tonight where, you know, we we have had a long-standing community benefits program, um, and that has filled the pipeline of affordable housing, and this has been a council strategic priority, particularly at the lower income and ELI, extremely low-income levels.

One of the properties is part of the community benefits was to purchase an exempt rental property and donate it to a nonprofit, and it was deed restricted.

Under this proposed ordinance initiative, is that a viable option anymore, given the dynamics you've just shared about not being able to keep up, falling behind, not be able to capitalize, things like that.

And it's okay, you say I don't know, it's not in scope, but it requires further analysis.

It's okay.

I can't speak to all the viability, but I think for future projects, if there is a per, you know, if there this is approved and there is a fee, that will have to get factored into project performance, which in turn would likely show that projects need additional public subsidy, whether that's from the city or other other funding agencies.

Yeah, so it would it would factor in, but they would be able to factor that in, I think, before making any viability.

So maybe not remove it as a viable option, but make it a little harder because of the financial performance.

I'm gonna pivot to TEFRA.

I mean, we've had as a council been brought items for TEFRA financing on affordable housing, not only on new construction, but also on major repairs like the Woodside Fire and this taxes on financing mechanism.

Would this proposed initiative affect TEFRA or TEFRA consideration of financing projects in Redwood City?

I will say we have not researched that question, so I don't I don't have an answer for you for that.

Because if I recall correctly, one of the properties on Woodside Road, the major, I think it was Hallmark House, got TEFRA funding to rehabilitate and renovate and bring that building up to code and return it to affordable housing.

This is not only new construction.

That was a pre-1995 building, and would that count as pre-1995 in its renovated state or post-1995?

That is a good question.

I don't know if any of our legal counsel knows how Costa Hawkins is based on when you got a certificate of occupancy.

So I don't know if the new certificate of occupancy post-renovation completion, if that would be considered the first, or if the original certificate of occupancy.

So in your example, yes, the units would be covered if they were occupied residential units before 95.

Which they were in the case of the Hallmark House, as well as the other unit across the street that burned down or was severely damaged by fire.

So in both cases, they would be covered as pre-1995.

Karen, thank you.

Jason, I'm trying to reconcile a couple things here with the initiative saying no city funds are to be used.

But in the report, it says their startup fees.

Um there's an administration rate of 120 dollars or 84 two tiers.

I think your report says substantially below the level needed to cover the estimated midpoint program cost, and it further goes that the city would likely further incur additional administrative expenses not captured in this analysis, including staff recruitment, onboarding, and long-term obligations such as pension liabilities.

So, how do I reconcile no city funds with what you found in the report, as well as the additional cost for office space and all the other things?

I how do I say no city fees or no city general funds, but yet these expenses and real costs aren't included and captured?

Um the ordinance does say the city may front fees.

Um, and so and I might look to our finance director to explain how this works, but my understanding is, you know, we would be able to essentially loan the program money from a different fund that would eventually need to be repaid back through like an interfund transfer, and I'm not probably explaining this quite accurately, but there is a mechanism where we can front fees up front to implement the program, and then they would need to be, I believe, repaid by the fees.

That is a very good question.

So in trying to digest the terms of this, there's a question of the startup fees and whether the startup fees could be fronted by the city and whether that would need to be paid back or not.

The language is a little bit unclear, but whether it would need to be paid back or not, the the challenge is that we the ordinance contemplates not using the general fund, but we can't use our other funds either, because our other funds are restricted.

So if we are in a situation where the fees aren't enough to cover the program costs, either from a startup perspective or on an ongoing basis, we would be in a little bit of a pickle, if you will, um of how of how you would fund that because the one source that has the flexibility to do that, and I'm not saying we have the financial flexibility, but the the legal the uh fungibility to do that is the general fund, um, but yet we're not allowed to use the general fund, so it becomes a little bit of a a chicken and egg thing, and so that's that's something that um we would have to we would have to grapple with, and you know, do you scale the program back or not?

And you know, a lot of this starts to happen in real time.

So it it does potentially present an administrative and financial challenge.

That you know, that Beth, thank you for answering that, because I couldn't reconcile no general funds, but not all costs are included, you know, and and we've worked really hard, not just this council but prior councils to manage our unfunded pension liabilities, and that's not even included in this analysis or in the fee.

Is that did I read that correctly?

Um I can't speak to that personally based on my review, but um it would certainly be something we would want to consider, yes.

I mean, I think the EPS report says it explicitly that it does not include potential long-term pension liabilities.

Am I did I read that correctly, Jason?

Yeah, that's correct.

We would we did a very quick um calculation of the potential cost, and to the extent that the wardens is approved or the measure is approved, there would need to be a more detailed analysis to get a fully loaded cost um and not a midpoint but an actual estimate.

I mean, we I know tonight's budget night, I mean, to just maybe what if is really hard when we get to the budget conversation next and the agenda, we see declining revenues and long-term deficits pending any proactive action by this council.

And so that's why I'm just struggling and reconciling that and to say there's no claim on general fund, yet long-term pension liabilities aren't there, it's not fully loaded.

And the another big question is if there's any litigation on this, who pays for the litigation?

Is it the proponents?

The city would pay for it.

And where's the city money from that?

It will be from the general fund.

So is it inaccurate to say there's no general fund commitment?

I think um this ordinance really presents a math problem for the city in uh that we cannot use, we cannot use general fund for the enforcement um of the program or of the regulation of the program.

But we also, if this were to be adopted and the ordinance were to be challenged, the city would need to defend that.

And of course, we wouldn't have any fees yet that we have collected.

So it will have to be the city's general fund that will pay for the defense of this.

And so I really do believe that the general fund is going to fund all of the startup costs and any litigation that may ensue until fees start getting collected.

Thank you, Veronica.

That kind of segues into a follow-up question to Councilmember Sterkin's question earlier.

This is a this is potentially a voter approved ordinance.

And I've heard stories that the proponents of this ordinance may be negotiating a proposed implementation plan to either reduce or exempt affordable housing providers from some of the requirements of the ordinance.

Can that happen and can or can staff change it or can council change it?

Because this potentially is going to be approved by the voters.

And even if the council were to decide to adopt this ordinance in lieu of sending it to uh the electors or to the voters, we would still be under the same limitations on uh the fact that the city council cannot amend this ordinance without sending it back to the voters.

Uh so it doesn't matter whether it's adopted by the council or it's sent to the voters.

And I I understand that maybe there's been statements made, but based on this language's limitations, we really do need to ensure that should there be any waivers or reductions in fees by the affordable house for the affordable housing units, the city cannot backfill with general fund money.

So we need to find a way to we would need to find a way, and we're really limited based on what the ordinance says.

So I don't see how that can be done, but like I mentioned uh to Mr.

Stirk and to Councilmember Stirkin, uh it's something that we would assess uh along when we do the fee analysis.

I just have a question about that question.

Uh we cannot change this ordinance in any way.

Is that correct?

The the 4,000 people that signed the petition signed the specific ordinance, you know.

So we can't just will and nilly choose what we decide to keep or they can't willy-nilly decide to change it in any way, correct?

That is correct.

It the the ordinance is either the way it is right now, forever, and becomes law or it doesn't, but we can't pick and choose.

Is that right?

That is correct.

The ordinance gets adopted as is and remains unless and until it is amended by the voters again.

Okay, so uh Mr.

G, I maybe I didn't understand the question.

You were saying there's some rumor that there that affordable housing people are gonna be exempted, but but I'm hearing from the city attorney that's impossible.

So that doesn't mean that they're not trying.

I'm just trying to understand the boundaries of what is going on.

I mean, we were given, you know, an implementation plan, and I've been hearing stories that the proponents and the affordable housing or the proponents are trying to negotiate exemptions or reduce fees for affordable housing providers that are not allowed in the initiative before council.

And so that's the part I'm trying to we can't change it.

Any changes to the initiative require voter approval.

You can't do it in the back room, you can't do it in the implementation plan.

If we wanted to exempt affordable nonprofit affordable housing providers, it would have to go back before the voters.

We can't do that, staff can't do it, and the proponents can't do it, as you indicated.

It's it's what's in front of us.

We can't change it.

Did I say that fairly correctly?

That is correct.

There are places where, and this ordinance is an example of it too.

There are places where the ordinance doesn't speak to something, and so uh the city could fill in where there's um, you know, where something is not covered, but we definitely anything we do in an implementation or in the program would need to be consistent with the ordinance and its limitations, and again, it's or the ordinance's limitation provides that this program will be funded only by the rental housing fee and not general fund.

So you can hear thank you for that.

I want to follow up one more thing that you shared is that when we talk about differential fees, I mean to me this is sort of like our utility fees, and I believe the voters passed the state law that certain users are not allowed to subsidize other users.

So are we walking into that state law also?

That you know, a two-unit provider can't be subsidized by eight unit provider, and there are fees.

That's um that's exactly what the fee analysis would need to determine for us and why I said that we can't definitively answer this, but any study we do on determining what the fee is will need to ensure that we don't disproportionately um impact one type of uh housing provider as a result.

Great, thank you.

And then as we heard and receive, we got a lot of questions from different organizations.

Are we able to answer those questions tonight?

HLC Housing Leadership Council, Sam CETA, the Chamber, California Department Association, Sam Carr.

There's a whole bunch of questions.

Do we have answers for all those questions tonight?

No.

Uh, we're not able to answer those tonight.

In depth.

I think we've answered a couple of them.

I answered a couple.

Yeah, but but not you know, we get into HUD vouchers and how those would be, which is a vital resource for funding new affordable housing.

So no, I think those would be in my opening remarks.

I talked about a potential information coming back.

We'd like to delve into that.

We've been focused on just trying to get agendized similar to what you had said.

Not excuses, but some of those questions are really nuanced in the weeds on how a profoma would work in an operating budget that deserve to be answered.

Well, and the HUD vouchers, Section 8.

I mean, we don't we don't control those, the requirements, those are mandated from Yon High, and we can't change those requirements.

Correct.

To keep in mind any any development that has HUD vouchers already has a previously recorded restriction, and I and I don't know how that would how that would play, you know, restriction that obligates certain repayment obligations and whatnot.

That gets into some of the questions you talked about earlier on how an underwriter could could underwrite a deal like that.

I'm not sure there's uh somebody in DC that says oh we're fine, you know, with this because keep in mind any local payment that doesn't go to the project goes away from current debt service.

Thank you, thank you, Patrick.

And then Alyn, there's one additional question that you talked about on slide your slide 17 about implementation.

And you talked about if this were to be approved by council or the voters, I think you use the term deprioritized deprioritize other city initiatives.

And that most likely couldn't be implemented within 10 days after approval.

So there's two things there.

One is what do we have to not do if this were to be approved?

And two, are there any penalties if we don't implement fully the ordinance as written within the 10 days?

I will say we've not done a deep dive into this, but I think anything that is not mandated for like the housing division at the state or federal level, we would basically need to drop to start working on this.

I imagine staff from other departments, such as city attorney's office, revenue services would also need to deprioritize work to get the proposed fees in place, and do anything like that.

In terms of what are the consequences if we don't have a fully implemented ordinance within 10 days, I don't know if I have a great answer to that.

And I don't know if any of our attorney staff have any answers, but that would be incredibly difficult to do to have something full fully up and running in 10 days.

If I may add, uh, really a huge burden would be on human resources.

You know, we don't have any of these job classifications.

We'd have to start from scratch, we would have to, you know, rent controls are completely different.

You can't just say analyst, it's a completely different um skill sets.

Keep in mind every single job description must come before the the city council, you know, per the per the charter.

Um so as a Lynn mentioned, it wouldn't just be the housing department.

That housing division, we can shift those responsibilities.

I do think it would be a big initial burden on human resources, who's currently actively recruiting for you know, police and fire for and all other positions, but we have never started that work, so we'd have to embark on that process.

I see that really as the longest, you know, really lead up.

And then recruiting positions, and there's not a lot of folks out there with said experience.

So um, so I think it would really be the human resources, you know, component of it, and then you know, legal any aspects on that.

Patrick, thank you.

So, Jason, is that considered the HR recruitment job descriptions coming to council for approval part of the startup costs?

Or is that in addition to the SARP costs that you identified in your report?

That would probably be in addition to the startup costs that we included in our report.

Thank you.

I do have some comments, but I'll reserve my comments till later.

But I thank Mayor, you and my colleagues for the indulge me in these questions.

These are important questions, I think that were, you know, in four days of trying to figure this out, trying to figure it out still.

And so thank you, colleagues, for the time and mayor, thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember G for the questions.

And we'll open it up to my colleagues again who would like to go next.

Councilmember Howard.

Thank you.

Um, I'd like to thank uh first of all, I want to thank the community here.

I really appreciate you showing up and speaking up.

Uh this is such an important topic, and we have many different opinions in the room, but I want to thank you all for having the courage to speak up and let us know how you feel.

Uh as councilmember G said, we did not have a great deal of time to analyze this, and there are so many questions.

Just the housing leadership council sent us a list of questions just today, and I can't answer one of them to be honest with you, and I'm sure most of us can't because we haven't had a chance to do that analysis.

So uh, but I did want to ask uh I think Councilmember G has asked very uh thorough, he's had a very thorough questioning and questions I hadn't thought about.

So I can't think of an additional question.

But what I did want to know is uh I believe in the report we received from Faith in Action, it did have forms suggested.

If you wanted to um give someone a waiver or an exemption, a nonprofit, for instance.

There were a number of forms there they were suggesting that we could utilize if in fact this passed and a nonprofit was impacted.

But what I'm hearing is is that may not be legally possible.

Now I I think that's important to know because if Faith in Action believes it is possible, I think we need to find out if it's not possible that needs to be told to the public that if this passes, that means nonprofits, and we have many of them in our community are doing an admirable job supplying affordable housing and have plans to do much more.

Uh, they need to know and have some certainty on where they stand.

So would I ask you, the city attorney would I ask you that question?

Are those forms meaningful?

Are they legal?

So I understand I think you're talking about the packet that faith in action might have given staff uh a few weeks ago.

Is that is that accurate, Elaine?

Yes.

Okay.

Yes.

And um so I can't definitively answer that.

Um I I understand that that those forms were provided to the city to city staff a bit ago.

And if the city's fee analysis were to conclude that the waiver or exemption of some of these um fees for affordable housing units would not disproportionately impact the other providers, then maybe we could uh the we're we have to we have to rely on a conclusion like that, and I can't give you that conclusion without the analysis because typically you you've heard us say, oh well, if you want to provide some type of subsidy, you'll use your general fund.

And so then we wouldn't, I could tell you there are ways that you could do it here.

We'd have to do this analysis in order to determine whether this can be done without impacting negatively the other landlords and without utilizing the city's general fund.

So it really does depend on what that analysis shows.

I would find it so hard to believe that it wouldn't impact.

Well, but I I don't have the information to prove that, but I would find it real difficult to believe that it's not.

That is my concern, but I just can't definitively tell you that exactly.

Exactly.

And uh I also have a concern that uh, I mean, we are talking budget tonight.

Our general fund is not an unlimited pot of money, and it has been earmarked, every cent of it has been earmarked for something, and we're still facing a looming deficit.

So uh I have great concerns about how we're going to do this.

So I think these questions are excellent questions because you don't want to go in blindly uh as we go forward.

But thank you.

I appreciate everybody's good intentions in trying to answer these questions.

Thank you, Councilmember Colleagues, any other questions?

We do have a lot more meeting to get through, so if anyone feels brave, it'd be appreciated.

We're just doing questions or comments.

We can do questions and then comments later.

Oh, okay.

All right, I do have a question.

Let me just sorry, my notes are a little bit scrambled here.

Um I had a question just um Alyn, how many I uh uh when I was reading this, how many opportunities for appeals in hearings are there for for landlords and tenants in this, and who absorbs those costs?

So processing any petitions or appeals would be uh administered by the city, and so those costs as we've been discussing would be paid through the fees imposed on landlords.

Um I believe I have.

Uh we so tenants, yes, tenant safety plans.

So uh we are required to approve those, and then if there's an appeal of that, we would process petitions for either rent increases or decreases.

We would process appeals for any relocation assistance eligibility requirements.

I think I think those are the three um petitions.

Maybe three buckets for pills, and then is there a limit to how many times one can appeal?

I didn't see that in the proposal.

Is there like can it can a landlord or a tenant you know run out of appeals how can you exhaust them or can I keep challenging it how does that process look I believe for in rent increases you could petition annually to increase the rent above what the ordinance prescribes in terms of is there an appeal after an appeal after an appeal um I would need to double check that um but I think there is an end date typically as it's described there is a a hearing officer component and so I do believe that hearing officers um decision would be final but I know everyone's double checking this okay I I would be if I it would be interesting to know just with cost I know that all of those um have a number assigned to them so if you guys could get back that would be information I would like to have things that's it for now.

Thank you council member we'll go to Councilmember Sterken.

Thank you mayor just a quick follow-up on that uh on page I think 39 of the proposed ordinance so um who appoints the hearing examiner and how does it compare to the examiner if you will for the TPO that we already adopted.

So this hearing examiner I think this is one of those uh where the ordinance is silent we can develop our own rules and regulations um the city would need to go through a pro uh you know it requests for qualifications or request for proposals from potential hearing examiners and they would be selected while we do have under contract a hearing officer right now they're under contract specifically for implementing our tenant protection ordinance um so we would still need to go through some kind of procurement process to find hearing officers specifically to implement this but hearing that we have that kind of flexibility because the ordinance is somewhat silent I think you said on the specifics of the hearing examiner who they are who hires I mean they're you know so we can ensure that that person is you know is unbiased objective um can be a objective third party and kind of leviate maybe any concerns there might be um on the part of any landlord or tenant uh about the conclusion of their hearing right that's correct that's usually that's what we ask of a hearing examiner or a hearing officer um and I'm still trying to answer uh councilmember Badia's question um because there are three opportunities for challenging um a decision and uh there is as uh councilmember Sturkin referred to section 39 for uh the petitions um there's an opportunity for the hearing examiner to look at the record make a determination and even and that decision can be appealed and it's the city council that is the final appeal body at least in that case there's even more so then there's the yes there's another then it comes to speak.

Then I think the next um would probably be legal challenge if they weren't satisfied with the council with the council determination but at least in that instance and I haven't been able to come through that I know there's a couple of other options I don't know if um deputy city attorney Lolita Fernandez has an answer.

You are correct about that the page 42 has the appeal section in there that applies to all hearing procedures for hearings and appeals altogether so it it would go to the city council for appeal and if there are no appeals then that the urine examiners examiner's decision would be final and then there's a judicial review if they're not if they're agreed by the action.

Just a pull checking council member.

That's great.

Vice Mayor.

I want to thank everyone that came out today, both people that live in Redwood City and people that live adjacent to Redwood City and people that live far away from Redwood City across the bay and so forth.

Thank you all for coming.

And I also want to thank my colleagues for asking such probing questions and and for this conversation.

So City Attorney, I've I've already asked this, but let me just ask it again.

4,000 Redwood City residents said they wanted this initiative put on the ballot.

Can we decide tonight based on all these concerns that have been expressed and all this uncertainty?

Do we have the option to say to vote no, we won't put it on the ballot?

So under the elections code, the city council is required to consider the petition at the next regular meeting after the petition has been certified as sufficient.

The petition has now been certified as sufficient, and so that's why it's here before the city council.

Typically, you have three options at this uh council meeting.

Uh one is to adopt the ordinance without any changes.

A second is to call an election and submit this initiative measure to the voters, and then a third um is to order a 9212 report is what we call it, which is a report that uh that uh Miss Lancaster had um you know kind of laid out what those elements were and that staff has already provided preliminarily to the council.

Um so those are those are you typically the only three actions that can be taken for a counsel.

If you find the 9212 report that the count that the staff has brought forward, then you're left with a determination.

Do you adopt the ordinance outright?

And you heard some public commenters asking that the council do that, or submit the measure to the voters.

So that's what's before you tonight.

And thank you so much.

And and one of the reasons that I ask that is as the mayor referenced, we we have a full um agenda tonight.

Uh we have four other pressing matters.

And so I think we've identified a lot of ambiguities and a lot of questions that are unanswered or um, but it it kind of doesn't matter.

I mean, we either we either put it on the ballot for November, we either vote to put it on the ballot for November, or we vote to adopt it tonight.

Those are our two options.

Is that correct?

And the third one is to order that the uh 9212 report, which we did, and that's what we've been discussing for the last two hours is the 90 the 9212 report, which is the rules and regulations that would implement the ordinance.

Then so then the 9212 report is an analysis that um provides information on the impacts of the ordinance.

So that's that's what the 9212 report um is.

It's not the rules and regulations.

Um it really is information uh to help both the city council and members of the public understand what the impacts of this proposed ordinance is, and thank you to staff for putting that up.

Well, thank you, and and I'm I'm very concerned.

Um, the thing I appreciate all the questions, and I'll hand it over to the mayor to decide what to do next.

But I think the thing that um bothers me the most is that what I heard the attorney say that we would be forced to legally defend an ordinance that we did not craft and that we don't fully understand, and we would have to do it with general fund dollars, and that's concerning to me in this economy, um, with the uncertainties, um but um the devil is in the details as they say, but this is for the voters to decide.

This is not for us to decide.

Um this I guess I'll leave it there and and throw it to you, Mayor.

Thank you, Vice Mayor.

A quick clarifying question on what the the vice mayor just mentioned.

If we requested a supplemental 9212, are we then making that ultimate decision whether to adopt the ordinance outright or put it on the ballot at that meeting, or is that happening still tonight?

I think um the city council can proceed one of two ways.

If right now, if the city council is interested in obtaining additional information, um, and feels comfortable, also making the decision whether to adopt the ordinance or place the item on the ballot, um, then the council can move forward with both tonight.

The city council, if it doesn't feel comfortable acting until it's received the additional information that's being that would be requested, then we would need to make sure that we meet the elections code requirements and bring the supplemental report that meets the city council's interests and you know direction within 30 days in order for it to act, because the council must act.

So those are I think the options on the table.

If the city council feels like the report in its current state is deficient and they need additional information to act, then that's the option you have at the as the second option.

Okay.

Thank you, Veronica.

Thank you, city attorney.

I appreciate that.

Um, you know, I'll jump into my comments.

I think thank you to my colleagues for the great questions.

Um they're really helpful.

Thank you to everyone who made public comments.

I think when you have the community engaged in the process like this, it just it makes the end result better, and it has us thinking about things that we didn't even consider.

So I appreciate the level of engagement we've seen.

Um we had housing night a few weeks ago where we were celebrating our TPO, which is one of the stronger tenant protections on the peninsula, right?

And that's been years of work.

And um, I know that's not perfect, right?

But it was it was so labor-intensive, and um, and I've also heard it from the community, and I've seen the community out and collecting these signatures, and I know that's um you know they've they've done the work, and that has been um deemed by our county elections officer, and so many of my colleagues haven't touched on this, the the really sort of funny position that the city is in where we are working in such fast timelines to digest the 9212 to look at the ordinance, look at the proposal, and um we are also in a an awkward position because we don't have the ability to pick and choose and adopt certain parts of the policy that we like, right?

It's it's all or nothing.

Um so I think just with the level of questions we've heard today, I before we initiate the process, I would want another 9212 report 30 days.

I know isn't a lot of time, but I think the answers we would get in that time period would be really valuable, not just to the people who worked on this proposal, but for the voters who are gonna make the ultimate decision on this.

I think they deserve the most information that we can before it's out of our hands.

Um I'll open it up to my colleagues if anyone feels differently, but to the vice mayor's point, that's where I'm thinking we should go next.

Councilmember Sirkin.

Thank you, Mayor.

I really appreciate that uh proposal.

I just have one question.

If I remember correctly, our agendas are packed through the fall, right?

So, where are we gonna fit it?

Is the is the question.

Um, that's just something I'm cognizant of.

We already punted, um, you know, consideration of affordable housing on our library parking lot to the fall.

Um, so and that's just the one concern that I have.

Thank you, Councilmember.

I'll just quickly say that I would work absolutely with our staff to find a day where that could work or make another accommodation, which I know we've done with the public hearing we had last week, right?

Or a couple of weeks, but it just flies by.

Um, so I'll say that you know, I think we can figure something out, but any other vice mayor, sorry about that.

No, don't apologize.

I just have a question for staff.

Do uh assuming that we did request a supplemental uh 92 12 report to address some of the questions, uh or all of the questions or as many questions as that were raised tonight.

I guess my question is do you have clarity on what those questions are, or are you sort of feeling like our questions are nebulous, or that you're not really quite sure what the supplemental 9012 9212 would address and worried that then it's it in an addition would be inadequate, or are we asking unanswerable questions that you think in a a supplemental 90 92 12 wouldn't be able to address either?

Um I appreciate my question.

No, I appreciate the question, Vice Mayor, because I was gonna turn my light on as soon as you all uh go.

Um heard a lot of really good feedback tonight, uh took took lots of notes, but I would like clear direction, and I definitely got a lot of you know feedback from Councilmember G because but here's the thing.

If if we're gonna do this, you know, and again, we only have a couple weeks, so it's not like I just want to make sure everybody feels you know heard.

So I do think that we should take a little bit of time to scope it right now on what exactly the council has heard.

Now I do have a lot of notes on the I think look at the cumulative impacts is very important.

Looking a lot on the affordable housing question.

I think many of the letters that we got from uh plenty of the stakeholders, probably 75% of where we could be.

I do think we'll probably come back with some questions.

We probably will not be able to answer, or we're not uncomfortable.

Or sorry, we feel a little uncomfortable, maybe guessing on how it would work in implementation.

Um, but I do think it would be great to just kind of maybe for a few minutes, you know, make sure my list is good and then go from there and just to make sure that we don't come back and say nope, we we missed the mark.

Exactly, because to Mr.

Sturkin's point, we we have other business.

Uh and um so I I don't want the tail wagging that I myself don't want the tail wagging the dog.

We have no discretion, it has to go on the ballot or just be implemented without citywide vote.

So, um, I think it I mean, to the extent I guess from my perspective, to the extent that a supplemental 9212 further educate the voters that would be looking at this in November, um, then it's a good perhaps a good use of staff time and energy.

Um I guess I'll leave it there.

Thank you, Vice Mayor.

I'll go to Councilmember Fadio.

I just want to thank everyone for attending.

Um I really appreciate the report.

I I love things like this, and I wish we had them for everything.

I I know that they um are costly and they take time, but they're very important.

And I hear everyone talking, and I think to myself, I I was looking at page 45, I guess, of 151, and it says the program shall publicize this chapter so that all residents of Redwood City will have the opportunity to become informed about their legal rights and duties under this chapter.

The program shall, and it talks about presenting them for sure.

So the thing that stays with me when I'm here is I want everyone to be informed.

I don't ever want to feel, I know I never want to feel like I'm not given all the information, and I also don't want to interpret information for the voters.

That's not something I feel comfortable with.

Um we've been presented with statistics.

It's true.

Our community is a mix of renters and homeowners.

And I think it is important that we have all the information to see how our entire community is affected.

Um I read some of the reports, and it it did, I did find it disheartening that I don't want us to demonize some of our mom and pop.

You know, just because a person may be listed under an LLC, that doesn't mean that they're a faceless corporation.

Um some people have found ways to protect themselves.

So I just want us to think that not these aren't all giant corporations, these are also our family members, our friends.

We've had people speak about the communities within communities.

So I just want, I think we've mentioned unintended consequences.

Are we going to hurt the community members who have been supporting some of the marginalized members in our community?

So I just want us to always think, and I would really appreciate additional information because I think it also we have to think.

I saw that it was like not seven to nineteen potentially employees, and with the four million to ten million dollars, that was not even including collection or enforcement.

So these are very conservative numbers, and many questions have been asked, and so many of the answers are we just don't know.

We don't know.

And to the vice mayor's point, we didn't create this, and we are just now getting all this this information and the details of of years and rights of first rights of refusal that are never ending, and I just want to make sure we know the financial implications, how lasting they are.

So I would really welcome additional information in the report because at the end of the day, I think we all should be informed.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Vice Mayor.

I'm sorry, I have another fundamental question that it's sort of a follow-up to what Mr.

G said.

What is it about the ADUs?

Um, so these are um buildings on residences' property.

How does this apply?

And if you can just do ADU owners also have to pay this $500 fee or $300 fee.

Um yes, ADUs, depending on when they're constructed, would be either fully covered if they are pre-1995 or partially covered, and um and if they're being rented.

Now, if the unit's not being rented, then there is no fee, but um the expectation would be that they would pay a fee for those units if they're rented.

Thank you, Vice Mayor Councilman.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you, colleagues.

Again, thank you, everybody, um, for sharing your thoughts and being here.

This will most likely wind up before the voters for consideration, but um Patrick, I'm happy to give you all the questions that you didn't have to write down.

I'm having to share with you and staff all the questions I wrote.

But I would be very interested in a supplemental 9212 that really addressed three buckets of issues at the broadest level.

The the the three buckets I think would be the cumulative impact on property owners, given the the breadth of not only the rent stabilization, but the tenant protection parts of this as well as the administrative burden.

You know, the the twelve thousand dollars, the you know, four months of rent or the greater number of twelve thousand.

I mean, this is gonna have an impact as we heard from one of the speakers.

Some of these family-owned property owners aren't cash-rich, and so I would want to see in an analysis to the extent possible of the cumulative impact on property owners of the proposed initiative.

The second thing is I want to see what the impact is on our nonprofit how affordable housing providers, that's a big deal.

I mean, we have sent the message out there.

Come to Redwood City through community benefits, create your housing here, low-income, extremely low income.

And if this is going to dissuade potential affordable housing development, we need to provide that transparency to the public.

I mean, we can't change it, but as Councilmember Padilla said, we owe the public transparency.

And probably the most important part, at least for council, is reconciliation of what the general fund impact of this initiative is.

I know I'm tired of saying this, but because of other work I'm doing, we are working under a compressed timeline.

Um I would be in favor of continuing this item to a date certain for a supplemental 9212 that addresses those three buckets within the time and constraints that we have within the election code to be to be brought back to council at date certain to be established by the mayor, vice mayor and staff.

Because I think that transparency to the public is critical when this goes out.

Because once this is on the ballot, we can't take any action here at council.

We can as individual council members, but once it's out there, we cannot do electioneering from the dais, good or bad.

So this is our opportunity to generate information that I think the all of us only got four days ago, and to be able to see what those impacts are to property owners, to our nonprofit affordable housing developers, and the impact to our budget.

Because I am not, and I said this before, willing to sign a blank check on our general fund.

That would be irresponsible as a council member and elected official for anybody I sit on.

I cannot give a blank check on our general fund.

So Patrick, hopefully that's enough clarity.

And to our city attorney, did I say anything wrong there?

Is that doable if the council would entertain a motion?

I think that would be clear if the council was interested in making that a motion.

As far as doable, you did add to the extent possible.

And so I do appreciate that because there is some of that that may not be feasible.

I understand completely.

I mean, on the financial efficiency committee, SB63 local investment.

Talk about compressed time frame, you know, six weeks.

That's not a lot of time.

And so there are going to be answers we can't answer within 30 days.

I get that, but I think the buckets of comments, my questioning, the letters from HLC, Sam CETA, all the other can be fairly fit into those three buckets.

I will second that motion, and I'd like to say I appreciate that you're trying, really, uh, because the more information we can get is the more we can share with the public, and we'll all be enlightened.

So thank you.

Appreciate it.

I guess I will say I just made a motion since it was second.

Thank you, Councilmember Howard.

Sure sounded like it.

Thank you both.

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

Not seeing anyone else's lights up.

I'm sorry to interrupt, please.

I just want to make sure.

Do we also need a motion to certify their certification?

I don't know if that procedurally needs to happen first.

Yes, please.

If we could get, I mean, I don't know if Councilmember G with Councilmember Howard's acceptance can uh amend his motion to do both a and what he said where he asked to continue this item to a date certain to be determined by the mayor and vice mayor within the elections code provisions to provide a set to receive a supplemental report with those three buckets.

I'm happy to list them out if you would like to provide information regarding the commutative impacts, including rent control, tenant protections, as well as burdens on the landlords of all of the uh regulations that are with the city, impacts on the nonprofit affordable housing partners, and um uh reconciling the general fund impacts to the extent possible.

Um, thank you for clarifying my motion.

Yes, I also yes, perfect.

Great, friendly amendment accepted by motion maker and the second.

Just question clarification.

Are you adding that we're certifying this then too?

Is that accepted?

I'm sorry.

Um, I just referred to section A of the recommendation that's right before you by motion.

You're accepting certification of signature verification.

Would you like me to read?

I think you've got it.

Thank you.

Great, and I think we're ready for a vote.

So, city clerk, could we get an electronic vote, please?

One more vote, please.

Thank you.

The motion passes with six votes.

Councilmember Chu is absent.

Thank you, City Clerk.

Thank you, colleagues, and thank you to the members of the public for joining us today.

We'll continue this conversation very soon and move on to item 9A, our public hearing items for the evening.

We have our human resources director, Michelle Katsuyoshi, who will give a presentation.

Good evening, Mayor Martinez Sabayos, Vice Mayor Aiken, Council members, members of the community, Michelle Katsuyoshi, Human Resources Director.

Also here with me today is Vanessa Lopez, Human Resources Manager.

Listed here is the presentation overview for tonight's report.

Listed on this slide is the question for the city council to consider, and we will return to this slide at the end of the report.

This is staff's recommendation for consideration to receive the informational report on City of Redwood City Employment Vacancies and employee recruitment and retention efforts, on September 22nd, 2024, the governor signed AB 2561, which imposed new obligations on public agencies related to tracking and presenting information on job vacancies.

The legislature declared there is a statewide interest in ensuring that public agency operations are appropriately staffed.

High vacancy rates can lead to heavier workloads, turnout, increased turnover, and negative impacts to service delivery.

Effective January 1st, 2025, government code requires public agencies to present information on their vacancies and recruitment and retention efforts at a public hearing before the city council at least once per fiscal year and prior to the adoption of the final budget.

The item tonight meets this requirement.

Key provisions of AB 2561.

There are three basic requirements that need to be presented annually to track and present information on job vacancies, to present information on recruitment and retention efforts, and identify any policies, procedures, and recruitment activities that may hinder or present obstacles in hiring.

There are other obligations and reporting requirements that apply if the vacancy rate in a single bargaining group exceeds 20%.

It is not a requirement this year as no single bargaining unit has a vacancy rate of 20% or higher.

Listed here are the vacancy rates by employee group.

For fiscal year 25 26, there are a total of 621.68 budgeted full-time equivalent positions, FTEs.

As of March 17th, 2026, there are 57 vacancies which correlate to a 9.2% vacancy rate.

Redwood City is not alone.

We've surveyed 11 agencies of our labor comparator market, and we are at the bottom three vacancy rate at the 9.2.

Recent successes, our human resources team in collaboration with hiring managers.

We completed 98 requirements, or I'm sorry, recruitments in 2025.

We've also added capacity to our human resources team to add a uh additional recruiter to assist with our recruitment efforts.

And we also have a variety of recruitment and retention incentives that are in place for eligible teammates, and that includes education incentive pay and tuition reimbursement, and these benefit supports continuous learning and development.

We also have a police lateral recruitment incentive, trying to attract current police officers to join our agency.

And if a current police officer recruits a lateral candidate and is successful, that individual receives a $500 recruitment incentive.

We also have a vacation benefit accrual for any lateral police officer.

Typically, if somebody were to leave an agency and join another, they may lose their vacation andor SIC balance, and so an incentive to attract officers to our agency, we will front load them a vacation balance to use.

Areas of improvement, we are in the process of issuing a request for proposal for a cloud-based software program to help our human resources team streamline recruitment processes as well as to better track vacancy data.

We are also working with labor groups to establish hiring eligible list protocols, and what that means right now is if a department has a vacancy, they are typically referred the top three names of a candidate hiring list, and that really limits flexibility for strong candidates who may not score in the top three, and so we are working with labor groups to look at ways to be more flexible and possibly have a hiring rule of the list where if you successfully competed in a recruitment and your name has been placed on an eligibility list, you may be eligible for a position even if you didn't score in the top three.

Another area of improvement is a time to establish a new classification.

A classification is just a fancy word of uh job position, and so when the city is interested in creating a new position, it requires us to write a job description, determine where the salary range would lie, work with the labor groups to identify appropriate bargaining group unit designation, and a lot of this work takes time, so we are working with hiring departments to streamline the process to create uh new job descriptions.

Here again is the slide for the recommendation to receive the informational report on City of Redwood City Employment Vacancies, employee recruitment and retention efforts pursuant to government code.

Listed here is the um question for council and happy to answer any questions.

Thank you.

Michelle, thank you for the great presentation and colleagues.

Any questions for staff?

Councilmember Howard.

Well, it's not a question.

I just wanted to commend Michelle you and your HR staff for this proactive program that you've put into place as far as recruiting and retaining who we currently have.

When we have vacancies in our city, our service suffers.

And we want to provide great quality service for the people in our community.

And that you've kept it under 20% of vacancy rate.

I know that's an improvement from what we've seen in the past.

So I do want to thank you because this has shown a real benefit.

I'm glad we get to see it once a year, to see that we are making improvements, although we'd like to see better.

It's a problem every city has, but I am glad you're making such a dent.

Really appreciate it.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember.

Any other comments?

Councilmember Sirkin.

Similarly, I just applaud you for your recruitment and retention efforts.

It's in critical to uh city services, and just thank you.

Thank you.

Yes, was the number 98 for 2025?

Super impressive.

I just for everyone.

I mean, onboarding employees, that's a really big amount.

That's a huge number.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Not seeing any other lights on.

Michelle, I'll add my thanks.

Um, it's I know there are lots of new labor laws coming from Sacramento that we're we're staying on top of, so appreciate you maneuvering through that.

But um, I think I saw it in the budget that was it an 80% satisfaction rate from our employees.

It's I might I saw a lot of numbers, but I'm pretty sure it was 80 percent in terms of how happy our employees are, right?

Which is uh a testament to the culture that's being grown here, but also it's just a part of the work now.

People don't stay around for 40 years, right?

You don't have too many examples like Miss Meeks.

Um, yeah, so that's why this work is so important.

Um, so I appreciate that.

And not seeing any of my other colleagues' lights on, I'll um I will move the recommendation.

Actually, mayor, I'm so sorry.

Excuse me, I'm moving way too fast.

Let's open public hearing.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I actually don't have any speaker cards, but wanted to give the opportunity to anyone in the audience or anyone on Zoom to comment on this item tonight.

Go in once, go in twice, seeing none, Mayor.

Please move forward.

Thank you.

Now I'll make the motion for staff's recommendation.

Councilmember Howard.

I'll second the motion.

Thank you.

Could we get an electronic vote, please?

Thank you.

The motion passes with six votes.

Councilmember Chu is absent.

Thank you.

Thank you again, Michelle.

And with that, we will move to our staff reports beginning with 10 A.

Our fiscal year 26 to 27 recommended budget, and our city manager Patrick Heisinger will give an overview, and the finance director, Beth Goldberg, will lead the presentation.

Great.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um good evening, everybody.

Patrick Eisinger City Manager.

Um I'm pleased to produce or I should say introduce the my first budget as your city manager.

Um before doing so, I did want to express a lot of gratitude to our entire staff.

So all the staff that are here, please, you know, raise your hand and really appreciate called a little more enthusiasm than that.

You know, but um uh I really appreciate it.

I mean, uh for folks know, literally every member of every department's involved to some extent into the budget process, and so um I really really appreciate that.

And and Beth and Molly here as well from finance.

Thank you for corralling us uh all to get together.

It truly does take a village.

And I also want to thank the council.

You know, a lot of this work starts at the mid-year, then the off-site and the CIP.

You know, I'm still in all your thunder bets, some of your slides, but it really is a comprehensive approach that we embark on.

And you know, I take feedback from you, you take feedback from me, and we and we you know come together in this big huge uh document.

Um the document you have before you, it's a balanced budget.

But but make no mistake, there there are asks about using one-time reserves, and that makes me nervous.

Um, the reason why I say it makes me nervous is um it's something that I will not recommend doing a second year.

You know, we really I've seen other cities that get comfortable continuing to dip into reserves and whatnot.

Um, this next year, as we've talked about at the mid year and as we talked about other time, is really a year for planning and to really figure out how can we increase revenues, but also keep our costs in check, you know.

So in this presentation, you'll see some doom and gloom, you'll see some real exciting stuff, but you'll also see a lot of reality checks and um, you know, and uh look forward to the discussion as a reminder.

Um, this would come back on uh June 22nd for final approval.

So we look forward to the feedback tonight.

And with that, I will turn it over to uh Beth Goldberg.

Thank you.

Thank you, City Manager.

Uh greetings, Mayor, Vice Mayor, and Council members.

Um happy budget night.

Um as uh the city manager pointed out, we are on our budget journey, and we are on the penultimate stop on our budget journey, uh, where we are going to present the recommended budget to the city council tonight, and then we'll be back in two weeks for the budget public hearing and for final adoption.

And as you're listening to the presentation tonight, um would would like you to think um about a couple of questions.

Uh, do you have uh feedback for us on uh the tenure forecast and the financial trends, as well as uh city department operations as proposed in the recommended budget, and the feedback we hear from you tonight we will incorporate and uh get ready to come back in two weeks.

Okay, so from a presentation overview, um, first I'm gonna uh provide an overview of the budget economic outlook tenure forecast, and then we'll hand it back over to City Manager Heisinger to talk about advancing city council priorities and community priorities, and then we'll have time uh for questions and answers, and then at the end, we will be asking the council to pass a resolution to set uh June 22nd as uh the public hearing.

Okay, so overview of uh the 2627 operating budget.

Um the budget uh totals more than 410 million across uh the funds displayed on this chart.

Um, in addition, uh we and we'll talk about this more later, um, have another uh $36 million allocated for our uh capital investments.

Um as is the case typically, we will spend most of our time talking about um the general fund, the mother fund.

Um so um we'll go into that in more details.

Um, but before I do that, I want to um uh quote our our fearless leader uh city manager Patrick Heisinger.

Um he um included in uh the budget transmittal letter um uh uh a statement um echoing his comments earlier today about um you know times are changing fiscally um and we're at a bit of a crossroads and this does require increased fiscal discipline, prioritization, and long-term planning, and um that this is this is a different situation than what the city has seen uh previously, and I'll go into some of that um as we go through the 10-year forecast portion uh okay.

So um what has changed this year?

Why is this year different than than past years?

Um first of all, what is unique about this year is we actually are seeing a slight uh contraction in revenues, not you know, huge on a on it on a dollar basis, but we know we're in inflationary times and costs are increasing, and um the fact that that revenues are are tempered is is a changing dynamic.

Um another thing that has changed, and this is where the city manager was speaking to use of one-time funds, um, for a variety of reasons.

We don't have the one-time fund balances um unassigned fund balances that we've had in the past.

And uh this is stemming from the deliberate drawdown of one-time balances in the 25-26 budget to meet some longstanding needs.

So for this year's budget, we are recommending that we uh draw down the remaining fund balance to help balance the budget, and I'll talk about that in a moment, but that does start to really limit our flexibility moving forward.

I do want to note, however, that our 15% uh council established general fund reserve emergency reserve is fully funded at about 31 million dollars.

So we've got we've got that as a cushion.

So uh what's contributing to this weaker revenue outlook?

There's a there's a myriad of issues going on here.

Um the first of which is something that the council is keenly aware of, um, and that is the state um appears unless something has changed in the last couple of days to not be providing us uh our vehicle license fee backfill monies that are owed to us that are obligated to us, and that is uh creating uh $5.3 million loss of revenues that we cannot count on for the 26-27 budget.

Um in addition, we're seeing um sales tax declining since its peak in 2022-2023.

I'll talk about that more in a in a few minutes.

Um business license tax measure BB was approved by our voters um last November, implemented, or maybe it was anyway, it was implemented this budget with um uh 50 percent or a 50 percent uh rate change happening in 25-26 and the the remaining increase happening in 26-27.

Um this was a new tax, and um it's it's it's difficult because of the way we were taxing before and the information that we had to really get a precise forecast.

So we are seeing this perform slightly below forecast, um, but um we're also we've also this year stepped up our efforts through um one of our consultants, HDL, to step up the administration of this tax and um follow up with taxpayers to ensure payment.

So um you may recall earlier this year um coming to you with concerns that this was really falling short.

Um HDL's efforts um since they expanded their role in October has really um yielded results and doing some analysis of our latest uh results.

Um I would suggest that about a million dollars additional was brought has been brought in by HDL than what we would have had had they not had this expanded role.

Um, and of that million dollars that includes um about 377,000 from prior year delinquent payments, so really kind of helping us get caught up with those taxpayers that hadn't been paying.

Um council is very familiar with loss of certain grant revenues, particularly at the federal level, that is having impacts on general fund revenues.

Um we in our work on ensuring uh best practices, financial management best practices, we've determined that some long-standing general revenues should actually be allocated to other funds, so that that represents a reduction to the general fund.

And then looking ahead, um we have seen some recent uh commercial property sales that um uh have sold sold um at uh lower valuation, and so that may temper our property tax revenues in in the future, and so that's gonna be something we're gonna have to watch.

Um property tax has been um a bright spot for us over these years.

So next I want to just expand a little bit on the VLF backfill.

And as the council's aware, this has been a fairly volatile revenue source.

But we have always the state has always provided what they have owed us until uh last year, fiscal year 24-25, we were owed about $5.3 million, and we're only awarded about two-thirds of that.

So we're shorted 1.8 million.

This year, the state budget includes no money for us.

Again, we were owed another $5.3 million.

And that appears as of now to not be materializing.

So that that creates that's that creates a significant financial hit for our general fund.

So this chart, what you'll see here is that sales tax has been down every year since fiscal year 2223 and is expected to drop a little bit further in 26-27.

This is down about 8.6% from 2223.

And a variety of factors are in play here.

Sorry about a quick question.

Beth, could you go back to that slide?

I can.

Thank you.

But you the trend is moving up 27, 28, 29, 20, 29.

Can you explain your hopeful?

I can see this.

You're hopeful, you're projecting something.

So can you share?

Yeah.

So the first two years, 2020, well, 26, 27, 27, 28, and 28, 29 are based on HDL's forecasts.

Um when they when they provide us our quarterly sales tax reports, they look out two years into the future.

So we were using those forecasts then.

And then beyond that, 29 through 30, and then beyond that, we use uh, you know, a standard like 3% inflation rate.

So this does project that that there is going to be a recovery, but we also know that we live in really weird times, and you know, who knows what the next shoe could be to drop.

Um so we just have to watch this this really really closely.

Thank you.

Appreciate it.

Okay, this is kind of the whiny slide.

Um, where um that we I've entitled it can't can't win for losing.

So we um we made, you know, the council the council um you know made uh made a a significant move a couple years ago in putting measure BB on on the ballot and the voters of Redwood City approved it, and this was supposed to be kind of our pathway to Nirvana or whatever, budget bliss, whatever you want to call it, um, but you know, simultaneously, you know, the world is striking out against us, and um the VLF backfill is is a loss, and then we're seeing weakness in sales tax, and cumulatively those hits from sales tax and VLF backfill essentially are negating the increases we we were expecting from uh the BLT changes.

So we're kind of a little bit of right back where we started from, which is not great, but it helps explain this kind of um this stasis that we're we're finding ourselves in.

Um okay, so now this is uh so we went from the complaining slide to now we're gonna go to the gloom and doom slide.

Um, so um this is uh uh a visual of our 10-year forecast, and um what you'll see on this chart is our actual results from 2223 and 2324, and what you'll see there is that we ended those years with um with a surplus um better than we anticipated.

Um, and then what you're seeing in uh 2425, 2526, and 2627 is that we're actually projecting, thank you for making that bigger.

Um what we're seeing is is that we're projecting um we're projecting shortfalls that we would be using what remains of the unassigned fund balance to help balance the budget for these years.

And that gets us through partway through 2627, but there's still a bit of a gap.

And to close that remaining gap, um what you're seeing that blue represents in there is use of uh a partial use of our section 115 trust that the council proactively set aside starting in 2017 to meet future pension costs.

So we are as part of this budget recommending that we draw that fund down by about four million dollars to help balance the budget.

Um there's still a healthy balance in the Section 115 trust, about 36 million dollars.

Um, and we are not recommending at this point continuing to use that for the reasons that City Manager Heisinger outlined in his his opening comments is you know, once it's gone, it's gone.

So we need to be judicious about how we use that.

So the the remaining, and this is where the gloom and doom comes in.

The remaining um years on this chart shown in red are the projected deficits.

So our work, you know, once we get this budget adopted is to start figuring out how are we through a combination of of revenues, um potentially budget reductions, strategic use of reserves.

How do we start closing those gaps?

And if we start closing those gaps on an ongoing basis, it helps the subsequent years.

So it's the one-time measures that that would start to kick the can.

So this is this is the work that is ahead of us is to turn those red bars into above the line.

Okay, and then this is the last gloom and doom slide before um I hand it over for the happy news from our city manager.

Um, and um as you are all aware, economic uncertainty is seems to be the new normal.

Um it's the new reality of of the century we find ourselves in, and um not to bring everyone down, but um have listed a couple of the variables that that we're watching closely um on this slide.

Um and some of these um are potentially game changers.

So for example, um the state of California is considering um changes to the pension program that would, if enacted, would lead to significantly more costs to us.

So if those come to play, that would make those red bars on the previous slide worse and and really be a game changer for us.

Um of these are more external factors, such as you know, tech sector layoffs, it's affecting the local economy, but not as much of a direct hit, certainly what's going on in the Middle East is something to watch with oil prices.

But the things like the pension, the pension changes, rent control, as we talked about previously, really could we could start seeing some immediate impacts on on our budget that that would further exacerbate um things.

And so with that, I'm enough bad news.

I'm gonna turn it over for a little bit of good news.

Great.

Thank you, Beth.

So before you, I just have a a couple slides.

Uh, I totally I know everybody read every page of the 600 you know page document before you.

Um, but there'll probably be some departments I don't hit on.

I I do just want to let folks know that every single department is pushing forward some really interesting um, you know, you know, whether it's policies, programs, things that the community is really excited about.

Um, for the purposes of my slides, I really just kind of want to hit a couple high-level things.

Um really bread and butter, you know, back to basics as much as possible.

And I feel like we've been like that for for a couple of years, but a lot of this came from listening to residents and you know, every single email that comes in and really trying to, you know, figure out okay, what can we do to help?

And so you'll see there'll be some elements around quality of life, um, definitely public safety, um, infrastructure.

I think folks are probably tired of hearing about infrastructure with me uh from me, I should say.

I know my staff is very tired hearing about modernization, so we'll talk a little bit about that.

And then we'll talk about some of the key policies that are already on our work plan and then some other ones that we're proposing.

Um, and then we'll talk about you know, uh new regulations moving forward.

Next slide, please.

Um, so looking at quality of life, you'll see an item um being proposed that we refer to as the neighborhood response team.

Um one thing that we've that we've noticed is we get a lot of inquiries around uh, you know, illegal dumping, it might be you know, some parking issues, it might be remnants of encampments.

And every time we deploy staff from there, whether it's public works or PD, we have to pull them off of other jobs that they're working on.

Um, and so what we're what we're recommending this neighborhood response team would be a team of three to four individuals that would report directly to to deputy, sorry, to assistant city manager Derek Wolfgram that would be out in the field and be able to be deployed immediately to to address you know a mattress that's on the side of the street or a cart that was that was left, so it doesn't have to be there for a couple days.

Um I know folks are saying, wait a minute, our budget's tight.

You know, what do you recommend?

Not recommending uh full you know, full-time equivalents here, you know, trying to look at a way to kind of use some contract staff for it.

Also want to see if there's a way to connect my Redwood City to this team, my Redwood City, the app where folks can do it, it can just be picked up without having to call.

I almost said TK, but I met Adrian.

Uh but you know, the director of of public works and hey, can you get to this?

Because when we do that, we do pull them off of you know a sewer improvement or or whatnot.

So I can answer more questions about that.

Um, you'll definitely see um some language around the pedestrian mall and beautification, um, and then other things around quality of life, um improving the restrooms of the downtown library, and then lots of um traffic calming and other traffic related um, I would say infrastructure projects.

Next slide, please.

Um with regard to public safety and operational readiness, um there are two uh previously frozen police officer positions that I am recommending that we put back into the budget.

Um for those who may recall, there was a side letter with the the POA in the past about those positions where we, you know, got them to agree to for us uh to uh hire CSA officers.

And so, and so you know, this year I do think we could phase it in mid-year and and absorb those costs.

Um with the fire department, they have uh, you know, training and other professional development in their budget.

Um we added a nice GOAT in there for uh Councilmember Padilla, who you know, I know likes the goats on the fire mitigation.

Um we're not saying goats, but there's other fire mitigation, but we thought a goat would be cute to kind of lighten the mood here in the in the light in the late evening.

And then another big one is cybersecurity.

So you'll see in the budget, we are looking, and last year the council, you know, um authorized other investments in cybersecurity, and we're very grateful.

But we are you know seeing that as another huge need as well.

Next slide, please.

Um with regards to infrastructure, I won't go over the the specific projects.

We did this at the the CIP and it's in the packet.

Um, but it'll be Beth, right, 40 40.1 million total in capital improvements.

Yeah, something happened to this slide.

Oh, um, but yes, 40.5 billion.

40.5 million.

So plenty of plenty of worthwhile projects.

You know, I'll just I'll just um, you know, name a few.

We have the Redwood Shores levy, continue to plan on that with the Stormwater Master Plan, the Recycled Water Master Plan.

Then we have several other actually real capital, you know, projects moving forward as well.

Next slide, please.

All right, now getting into modernization and service delivery.

The one thing I just wanted to highlight is every time we talk about modernization, everybody always thinks about technology, technology, and that's that's true.

I mean, you'll see some key elements here, and you actually heard our HR director talking about a technology that they're looking to get as well to help help with recruitment.

Um, but sometimes modernizing is is removing some regulations or doing away with pathways we used to do things to try to try to streamline.

So some of the some of the work you see here is really technology focused, but in the in the packet, we have a whole attachment in there of what all what departments are looking at.

Um as the fiscal year starts, we will have um several items that will be coming to council in July, especially around the the zoning code that we're we're hoping will be of uh excitement to the council and try to make things a little bit easier on the permitting side um so folks can you know re redo their roof and and other things around there.

So um, but one of the the key things I do want to talk about because it really affects everybody in the organization is the ERP system.

We are committed to the fall to releasing the RFP to start, you know, reevaluating our options on on the ERP, and um we have a whole team together now and and really making some some strides there.

Uh next slide, please.

So, as far as some existing really large, you know, policy work we're already working on.

This is just to frame our current uh workload is um, and this might be some of the stuff that Councilmember Sterkman was kind of referring to.

Is in the next couple months there's some meaty topics, you know, coming to council.

So the mobile vending ordinance, um, that says SR79, that's that should be SB79, apologies.

Um, historic preservation, the Mills Act work.

Um, we have the recycled water master plan coming forward, objective design standards.

I know that sounds like an innocuous thing, but I think everybody's gonna have a lot of input.

Um, and that I know Jeff's ready to offload that.

I think he's been working on for about two and a half years.

Um, and some really big study sessions that I think we've been waiting for on parking, uh, the GDAP, um, and then the children and youth initiatives.

Um, then as you all know, we're always tracking large development projects.

So I listed a few there, but there's there's far more.

So already a pretty full plate of I would say policy work that the staff's working on.

Next slide, please.

But within your budget, um, you know, we do have other work that we are proposing.

We do feel like we can, you know, fit into the work plan.

A lot of this came from the off site that we that we had with the council on that Saturday in February.

Um so you may recall that the council gave me the nod to explore project labor agreements.

Um I know our economic development manager, I mean Anthony's really excited about the five-year economic vitality strategy.

You know, as we talk about our financial picture, you know, I know a lot of times folks think about you know, maybe taxes or cutting or whatnot.

Our economic development ability here in Redwood City is probably our biggest driver that we can do.

So really investing the time and money into that project is gonna be essential to to how we continue to, you know, attract you know, businesses here as well as as uh great residents.

Investigate new revenue options.

Um, you'll see uh in the staff report that um we added language in there about looking for a you know investigating a fire recovery fee, or if our fire department goes out and there's a fee.

Can can we bill insurance companies?

Not individuals, but insurance companies.

A lot of other cities are are starting to do it, but most of our calls are EMS related, and we're trying to see can we recapture some of that?

We'd like to study that.

Um also looking at the new um things around adding fees around the YouTube TVs as opposed to the cable.

You know, that Beth, I don't know if you want to explain a little bit more about that.

That there's an opportunity there as well, correct?

Uh yes.

So there um was a case recently out of Santa Barbara where they were testing their communications user tax about um applying that tax to streaming services.

Um there have been some favorable court rulings um that have allowed them to that to proceed with that tax.

So we're gonna be doing some work to see um if uh we believe our current language allows for that, and we'll be exploring whether that's something that um we can start doing here.

Um obviously, you know, we we will be coming back to the council with more information about that, and that could be a really important source because that goes in with the UUT, just supporting our capital program.

Thank you.

Sorry to put you on the spot, Beth.

Uh, and there's and as wrapping up here, a lot um we have uh put money in the budget around the comprehensive facility infrastructure uh planning, um a lot of zoning code amendment work I had mentioned really around customer service and trying to lower costs for those that are utilizing our our services and those will be coming forward as early as uh July already hit on uh ERP and then the final thing is is really intergovernmental relations.

There's a lot going on right now with the county with with Caltrain with Silicon Valley Clean Water with the port.

And I listed a bunch of cities that that we partner with on all the stormwater work, whether it's San Carlos, Menlo Park and Belmont.

Um, and we do this work, but really being intentional and really trying to make strides in some of these areas as they're trying to accomplish their goals.

We want to make sure we have a seat at the table.

Um so there's a lot of time.

Just trying to show on the on the list of work that that takes time and resources, and many of you are also involved in those on the various boards and whatnot, so we appreciate your your commitments uh as well.

Next slide, please.

Um and the final thing is is just a slide around, um, and I am the worst.

I know my staff is looking at me probably right now saying, did Patrick really put this slide together?

Um but as we as we think about regulation, as we think about the tough financial position that that we're in, is I'm gonna try to exercise discipline and restraint from um, you know, I read a lot and I read oh, cities doing this, and that's great, chasing down that next next policy.

So what I would say in a very respectful way is this this next year, maybe two, is if we could really not refrain, but just have a little bit of measured approach as it comes to new policy and regulation that could affect whether or not a business relocates here or whether or not somebody decides to repaint their house or re or do a new roof, you know, is really think about, you know.

Sometimes we'll see that a city did a really cool new policy, and you don't think about the unintended cost of said policy.

And so just trying to have a little restraint.

Again, I know my staff is is probably laughing at me because I I'm always trying to say, yeah, we can absolutely take that on.

Um, but I'm just asking as we weather this storm.

I think we could we could show leadership to the community about not you know chasing down just like every regulation that's out there, keep us focused.

And you guys always do a pretty good job on that.

Uh next slide, please.

Um, so with that, I will turn it over to Beth just to wrap it up.

But thank you.

Okay, thank you.

So um a reminder for the council, um, is your um contemplating what we've presented to you.

Uh we're looking for feedback on the tenure forecast and financial trends and um city department operations um and and budget recommendations that are included in the recommended budget, and we have uh uh a crowd of of city staff here who um I also want to um echo my thanks to for partnering with with the finance department as we built this budget, who are here um to answer any questions that uh you might have and then um just previewing um previewing what we'll be asking after the questions is oops, is okay.

We've got dual things going on here.

Um, is um after providing the feedback, we'll be asking the council to adopt a resolution setting June 22nd as the date for uh the public hearing um and uh adoption of the budget.

So with that, open it up to all of you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Beth.

Thank you, Patrick and the whole team for getting us to this point.

I know it's a lot of work, and um, we will open the public hearing, so I'll turn things over to our city clerk.

Thank you, Mayor.

We don't have any speaker cards at this time.

Looks like we might have one.

And if you're on Zoom, please raise your hand for public comment on this item.

Thank you.

You can stay close, Michael, because you'll be called up.

All right, we'll close the speaker's list.

No comments on Zoom, but we will call up Michael Rusa Cruz.

Welcome.

No, okay.

Hello, uh, is Michael Arusa.

Um just wanted to um note a couple of things in the budget.

Um, really excited to see um zoning um streamlining and objective design standards um on the 2627 um policy.

I did want to tie some of those back to the budget since I know that there's a deficit, a pressure deficit.

Um, and I do want to note because of Prop 13, there is an inability to assess properties or increase property taxes on properties more than two percent every year.

Um, but that does reassess every time a property changes hand or there's sufficient redevelopment.

So I think it is important to stress that a lot of the work that will make it easier to um build missing middle housing or um develop on certain plots of lands throughout the city um can measurably improve the city's financial situation by allowing for reassessments of the property taxes on those lots, um, which could go a long way towards helping with the long-term financial situation.

So I know I'm the housing guy, I always tie back to housing.

Um, but um I think especially with zoning zoning reform and streamlining in the 26-27 um budget, just wanted to stress that that could be very important for revenue.

Thank you.

Thank you.

That concludes public comment mayor.

Thank you to our public commenter and bring it back to the dais for any council questions or comments.

Does anyone want to get us started?

Okay, sure.

Councilmember Sirkin, thank you.

Um waste any time here.

So uh thank you.

Thank you to all the staff who prepared this.

Um fantastic job.

I wanted to highlight some things I liked.

If I could find my notes, um just adding the admin clerk number three um to save costs associated with uh with um consultants.

I really appreciated you adding a project coordinator, number one on page 224.

It's kind of all over the place here, sorry.

Um, and I really appreciate the investment in youth and teens on uh the youth and teens division on page 309.

Uh so there's just a couple quick highlights I have there.

And then I wanted to delve into um some of the other hiring recommendations.

Um very much appreciated all.

But I want to start with um a data point that I saw on page 326 first and foremost.

Um, and so yeah, colleagues, page 326.

If you want to follow along, um the number of contacts with individuals who are experiencing a mental health crisis who were referred to a mental health facility for evaluation was over 300.

That's a lot.

Um when I read that, I thought to myself, wow, that's like about almost one a day.

And um, you know, we have one crisis response clinician in the city, Dr.

Baker, who's fabulous.

Um, but she doesn't work 365 days a year, and we don't want her to work 365 days a year, right?

Um so I thought to myself, you know, what can we do to address that?

Uh you know, we know from the community dashboard um that follows Dr.

Baker's uh you know responses to calls for service that there's really uh a great need, right?

Um, especially during the week, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays.

Um, but it doesn't tell us what those calls for service look like.

What calls um could have required a clinician to respond um outside uh Dr.

Baker's availability, which is only nine to five Monday through Friday, I believe, generally speaking.

So that's something I'm kind of interested in going forward, kind of getting that type of data on how we can determine whether and when an additional clinician is needed.

Because you know, based on the limited data I have here in the community dashboard, and then also in the budget, it seems like we're not quite meeting that need.

Um with a with a um licensed clinician.

It's great to know that our um officers are 90 something percent of them have conduct have um have completed uh mental health crisis response training.

But that's not it's not their primary job, right?

Um we've heard time and time again in our community uh community survey uh from public comment, me personally at the doors when you know meeting voters, that our neighbors want uh our officers to enforce our laws, specifically our traffic laws.

You know, a lot of you know, we know that the top three reasons why we have traffic related incidents in the city is running red lights, DUIs, and uh speeding.

And so we need our officers doing that proactive enforcement uh to ultimately you know bring down those number of accidents in the city and save people's lives ultimately.

So um when I saw that we are recommending you know adding unfreezing rather to um police officer positions, I understand because of the burden on our officers, the overtime that is you know costing taxpayers money as well.

Um but with that said, it seems like a little bit of a mismatch, and maybe we need another clinician to help uh take some of those mental health crisis response calls so that our officers are freed up to respond to what uh residents are asking for and clamoring for, which is traffic related uh incidents and proactive enforcement, among many other things, right?

So that's just um you know a piece of kind of feedback I wanted to provide.

Um, yeah, I'm open to alternatives, um, such as maybe unfreezing one position and then hiring another um Dr.

Baker, or maybe at the mid-year budget hearing, uh mid-year budget check-in, if you will, reevaluating um what funds are available, if any, to hire another clinician at that time, and instead.

Um, but I just wanted to kind of proctor that uh question to my colleagues.

You know, what what is the best way to meet the need of uh mental health crisis response in in Redwood City?

Thank you.

Thank you, council member.

Any colleagues have any immediate reactions to that?

Council Rapidio.

Um, thank you.

Uh I was looking at the number of staff with crisis intervention and training, and I see that our numbers are pretty high with the sworn personnel, but it looks like as of now, 80% of our dispatch personnel are have the have that training.

So I think it at least at a minimum, I think it would be great if we could have a focus on getting dispatch dispatch personnel, the crisis training because they're the ones who are first receiving that call.

That all the information that they obtain is so valuable for whoever they're you know bringing next on the scene.

Um I want I would like I would like to have two police officers and another mental health clinician.

I think um I think we need enforcement.

I hear that I see the way we do it.

I see kids dodging cars, and I know how much our residents appreciate that, but I do also think that we do have this need.

But then I might want to ask the city manager how does this play in with, I know we have a coordinated effort with other another agency that's potentially working with some of this of our unhoused population.

Can you speak to how that how that partnership works with this?

Yeah, it's it's a great question.

I haven't seen Chief's Chief Bell where she at.

Well, one I I want to real really quick, I'll I'll address uh council member.

I had the exact same thought when I saw the data.

I was like, wow, this is really impressive.

And we're beyond the pilot stage now, right?

We've been doing this.

So I think your instincts are dead on on utilizing data to make informed um decisions.

I'd love to hear Chief Bell kind of speak to it on because she and I had a really brief conversation on what potential expansion could look like.

Um but council member to your question as we start working and we firm up our agreements with life moves and other folks out in the field.

We will have to ask ourselves how do these and how do these folks work together?

Um right now they do work really, really well together on our homeless response side of things, but there's more to it than just the homeless, you know, side.

So I think it's a good point.

Something that I'll work closely with Derek Wolfgram, Mars is the city manager to make sure that we get aligned on that.

Um, but no, I appreciate that.

And Chief Bell, if you want to talk about the clinician aspect of things, that'd be great.

Thank you.

Hello, everyone, Christina Bell, Chief of Police.

So I believe the question is the can we add to the question, or do we need more?

Is that all right?

So we are still kind of in the early stages of having Patricia part of our staff full time, and so we've grown a lot in her ability to the different types of responses.

Whereas before she was limited in scope because of the contract.

So as we get to look at the data more and understanding where the need is, and when Patricia comes on scene, that doesn't automatically alleviate the officers that are on scene with her.

So it it wouldn't, if we had another clinician, it wouldn't free up more officers to do other things.

Um sometimes her response doesn't necessitate us, but that is a very much a case-by-case basis for future expansion.

You know, there has been like very low-level talks about partnering with a county potentially to have another, but again, like very very minimal um for the future, but something to look forward to.

Thank you, Chief.

Councilmember any other questions?

Oh, no, that was a lot of okay.

Great colleagues.

Who would like to go next?

Councilmember G.

Thank you, Mayor.

Patrick, Matt, the entire team, thank you.

This is not a budget that is just put it on the Excel spreadsheet, typed up, and here it is.

Um it's a lot of hard work.

And I I think it would be safe to say this is a constrained budget, Beth.

I mean, we don't have enough money, so we had to figure out how to fit the services within the money we have.

So thank you for that.

A couple questions to dive into before I share my what I'd like to see coming back on the 22nd.

Is you know, I think you alluded to this, Beth, but this will be the third budget, and I'll look at another one on Thursday.

It happens to be that time of year, where sales tax projections are all over the place.

Caltrain is up 1.8%, Sam Trans is at zero.

Um a director from Palo Alpha says they're looking at two percent up, and here we're looking at we're haven't hit the bottom yet.

And so, and we all hire the same consultants.

So maybe you can offer a comment on that.

Uh, yeah, it it really depends on what each jurisdiction's sales tax base is based on.

Um, and we are heavily reliant on sales tax from auto sales because of our our auto dealerships, and that has been a drag on our our sales tax performance.

Um interestingly, um, luxury cars performance um has been has been holding up, but it's um us mere mortals that are buying cars where um there's there's their softening in in that market.

So that's that's the biggest driver.

Um I did um I am monitoring closely our sales tax results and comparing that with what HDL is is projecting, and for 2526, um my projections based on what's what's coming in.

This is data through March.

Um I'm within 200,000 of what their projection is, they're projecting that will bring in um 34, no, sorry, um, yeah, 34 million, um, 34.

Uh 4 million, and I'm at I'm sorry.

There's too many sixes in force.

Let me start over again.

They're projecting 34.6 million um based on data through March and our our trajectory of the last months of the fiscal year last year.

Um I've got us at 36.6 million.

So the sales tax, our sales tax is performing pretty closely in alignment with their current year forecast.

Obviously, um next year remains remains to be seen, but right now we're trending pretty close.

Well, very good, and that just reminded me of a request I made last year.

Um, and maybe it's part of why we need to consider in the ERP system, is to have more regular updates on where we are from a revenue standpoint.

I mean, my other boards, we see it monthly.

Yeah, and I'm not asking for monthly yet, but at least quarterly to see where we're headed rather than every June.

Oh, by the way, we came up short 10 million dollars.

At that point, it's too late.

But if we can be more proactive about looking at whatever the right cadence is, monthly or quarterly, I think that would be very helpful for the council and the public.

Yes, and um, I do have a quarterly report ready to go that um we can distribute to everyone, but um we can we could provide this you know monthly.

I'm looking at it monthly, so um look to um to the city manager, other places I've worked, it's something that's we've we've provided.

So it is something, it's a manual process, but we've finance has got it down to uh a pretty good cadence where um by the 15th, middle of each month um like June 15th, we'll have data for April, um, and and we can get on that pretty quickly.

I'll I'll kind of look to my colleagues about what cadence they want, but if I'll look to the city manager to lead that, but I think more than once a year is important, and no less than quarterly.

And if the council would like it monthly, and you're able to do that, I think that'd be great.

Okay, thank you.

Um to your transmit a letter to city manager.

I mean, you know, and we're we're seeing the business license tax kind of do what it we thought it might do, but not everything we thought it might do.

And so my question consistent with my previous comments earlier this evening is to what extent do our policies here and a cumulative standpoint make Redwood City less attractive for employers.

And I think we need to take a very hard look at that.

Employers these days have choices.

You know, there's a plenty of empty buildings in San Carlos or competing against Mountain View.

Um when the business license tax was put on the ballot.

There's a large tech company that was ready to sign a lease and they said no thanks.

Uh we've seen at least Amanda share with us six or seven potential employers pass on Redwood City.

So I think we need to take a very, very hard look at what policies cumulatively council has put in place that make us less attractive, less competitive, and really begin to decide is that where we want to be.

Um I mean, we love the community benefits that commercial developers have brought to Redwood City, but if they're struggling to fill those buildings, and you know, that has an impact on our our fiscal health.

Up to office buildings don't help us.

And so to your slide number, whatever it was, city manager about looking at policies that we've put in place, we need to be very disciplined and very thoughtful and look at the strong, look at the long-term impacts of that.

Um that make us pass.

Councilmember Sturkin, I appreciate your comment, but I'm gonna go in a different direction in the sense that I did not see reserves in both the capital CIP or in the budget.

Beth, you put that slide with all those bubbles on it about the unknowns.

You know, and I know some of my colleagues here might say we weren't elected to save money.

But when we know that there's potential liabilities on the city, we need to strategically plan for that and not dip into that 15% from my standpoint.

We know, for example, um, that there is the likelihood of a litigation or claim, or at least financial stress on the veteran senior center.

We know that you know what we heard earlier, there may be a potential impact on an initiative before the voters.

We know AB 1383.

I would say has a likelihood of being adopted, which changes the pension liabilities for public safety, which was gonna have a ripple effect to other labor groups.

We know that 10184 has financial stress on it.

And to not plan for that, from my standpoint, speaking as one council member is irresponsible, because we don't have any other fund source to go and fund these things and others that I haven't mentioned.

And we need to have some sort of reserve or set aside for the likelihood, and some of these are beyond likelihood, they're very real of that happening.

We do not have a litigation reserve.

There's no line item in the budget for litigation, it just comes out of the general fund.

And and we need to, from my standpoint, plan for these likelihoods and things that are actually on our aren't on our table, like this issue with the senior center.

That is not pretend.

That is very real, and that is not gonna go zero is not gonna be the right answer on that.

There'll be legal fees and there'll be some sort of mediated or court resolution, but it's not gonna be zero.

So we should plan for that.

My last request for coming back on the 22nd is there's great detail in the department by department budgets.

Um every department, thank you all for doing that.

But I couldn't reconcile that against the details.

So for example, and then the I think the problem or the challenge is when there's initiatives with multiple fund sources, so like the tenant protection ordinance says it's only 24,000 on the on the spreadsheet.

But when you dive into the department budget, it's a lot more than that.

So what I'd like to see is uh a schedule that shows the total expand for that initiative on a spreadsheet, and I think every council member and every previous council says the budget reflects the council priorities.

On that spreadsheet that ties, I'd like to see it top to bottom, those initiatives, whether it's zero to 10 million or whatever, to reinforce that we are spending consistent with the council priorities because right now not everything ties to that detailed spreadsheet, and so when you look at some of the initiatives like the homeless or TPO and things like that, the number on the detailed spreadsheet compared to the department spreadsheet, they're not the same number.

And I think the issue is the multiples of fund source.

Um, so I'd like to see that number tie back, and then I like to see top to bottom from a numerical standpoint to reinforce that we are spending on the initiatives consistent with the priorities of the council.

So with that, um, I think hopefully that's helpful.

Hopefully that made sense first, Beth.

Was I hopefully clear?

We'll put our heads together.

Okay, I mean, I can I think Patrick understands what I'm looking for, and I talked to him about it, but I was just trying to connect the dots, and they weren't connecting Apple for Apple.

So, thank you, Mayor.

Thank you, Councilmember G.

And we'll go to Councilmember Circuit.

Apologies, just two quick responses to what Councilmember G was sharing that.

So I think as part of that spreadsheet, I think you put it.

One thing that we didn't talk about earlier or is that that petition would replace the current TPO, right?

It replaces a number of tenant protections that we have already enacted.

So there's a I'm not gonna say it's a net savings because it's not, but there is a um an a net uh difference there.

So that's something that should be factored into that spreadsheet.

Um cost savings.

Anyway, um, and then the biggest thing I forgot to mention with regards to the two unfrozen um police officer positions is that on page 329 or so it states that the cost is $350,000.

That's only for six months.

So the true cost per year is $700,000 for those two officers.

And I thought to myself, with an anticipated um deficit of $22 million starting next fiscal year, it's really hard to justify adding new staff when we may have to cut them in the future.

So that's just um one of the other reasons I brought that up.

Um concern over adding new staff who are very expensive.

Uh when there are alternatives that are available.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember.

Councilmember G.

Councilmember, I just thank you.

I just want to be very clear.

I'm not the reserve is for the future unknowns that we don't know.

And so the spreadsheet, you know, for example, like I said, TPO tenant protection orders, and the detailed operating fund, it says it's only 24,000.

We know it's not, but because in the department detail, it's a lot more because of multiple fund sources.

That number needs to tie to that spreadsheet and then be sorted by whatever so we can see that the investment aligns with council priorities.

The reserve I'm talking about is to deal with the net difference if that initiative passes, because we don't know what it's gonna be.

Um, we don't know how much of it is going to replace our current ordinances, what the increased cost is, but that's why we need to plan for some sort of reserve.

Since we heard clearly earlier this evening, the city is probably gonna have to front that startup of some magnitude and wind down what we have too.

I mean, you can't just turn the switch overnight and say here's what we have and here's what's different.

So that's what the reserve is for.

Because we know there's a gonna be, we know there's gonna be a cost.

We just don't know how much and what the net number is gonna be.

So that's that's why I argue there needs to be a reserve because we know if it does pass, there's gonna be something.

We know there's a claim on the senior center.

We know AB 1383 is likely to pass.

We know it's likely we're not gonna get VLF.

So knowing those things, we should plan for them financially.

Thank you both.

Councilmember Padilla.

I would like to say, I would like to focus on something that I think is important, and it's go it's only gonna become increasingly more important, and it's something we've talked about a lot, and it's our PCI index.

Um I think I saw in the budget that we've allocated five million dollars to it annually, but everything that I read said it the the road, the quality of our pavement.

Um I know uh Ms.

Warner has educated us a lot on it.

Um but with everything we're talking about, and with Beth's, I know that you use green to make it a little happier, but you know, inflation, tariffs, uh straight, you know, oil gas, all of these prices, our road work is only gonna become increasingly more expensive, those costs, and it is needed.

And when what we talk about when uh council member G talks about, you know, welcoming new developers or companies, or even quite frankly, people who want residents who want to move into our neighborhood.

Um the quality of a city's roads, it's an indicator of a lot.

I think um it speaks volumes without having to say it.

You know, that feeling you have when you're driving somewhere and the road is smooth, it it sends a message, and I think that it is an investment worth worth making.

So I I actually think that we should be finding the money to put in.

I think they should have asked for closer.

Because if what we're doing now, we're not ever gonna catch up.

Look at us.

We were at 70.

The last time she talked to us, we were at 69.

Now we're dropping back to 68.

If we kick this can, it's only gonna get more expensive, and the road work is only gonna get more needed and more complex.

So I actually would like to see more money in the budget allocated to fixing our roads.

So I wanted to put that out there for discussion because I believe it was said that we needed to have seven million a year to actually have a better quality of roads.

So I'd like to put that out there to the group.

Thank you, Councilmember Padilla.

We'll go to Vice Mayor Aiken.

Well, I'm just gonna on the road thing.

We we allocated more two two million dollars of our surplus last year to the roads, and we I believe we hired a consultant with that money who prioritized, uh, who did a whole new assessment of the roads and priority areas, and that's kind of work that's ongoing.

So my feeling about that is let's let's let that play out.

Let's get we're gonna get reported back on that, and again, because of all the unknowns, I feel like we're working on that right now from the two million the extra two million that we allocated last year.

And um, that's all I appreciate that.

I was one who was asking for that extra two million, and I do appreciate the gentleman he gave us a nice talk about the different slurries, but my point was we're just constantly playing catch up.

So even then we're just gonna go farther and farther, and it's gonna be more costly.

So I just want us to think the we're we're gonna need our roads, we're going to use them.

I'm just if we kick this can, it's it's a very expensive can.

That's it.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember.

And I'll just make a quick comment that absolutely, and that's why we have, I mean, so many capital needs, right?

And the budget went into detail about just the revenue sources that we used to be able to fund all of our needs, like street services, right, is just not meeting the cut anymore.

So um just want to appreciate that that comment and also the work that staff is doing to start that conversation and get a sense of what that total sum is gonna be.

Um, just wanted to add that comment, but colleagues, any other councilmember Howard.

Well, uh, I really appreciate all the comments and the and from all my colleagues, but I want I also want to thank our staff for the budget that you have presented to us because I I feel so totally informed.

I'm not happy with some of the unexpected outcomes and things that are very disappointing, like BLF.

But being transparent and letting us know, letting the public know this is where we're at, will make us a better city because we'll pull together and we'll try try to solve these problems.

I do believe we're gonna have to exercise a great deal of discipline these next several years.

There's just no doubt about it.

As much as I want to have many things done, our needs exceed the amount of money that we have, and that's just being totally realistic and honest.

And I think the public needs to know that.

Uh if they haven't already seen that, but uh I did want to ask if we could ask Amanda, because I I have concerns we've spent so much money on our downtown, spent so much money on beautifying our city and making an attractive destination.

I do have concerns that businesses are not locating here, especially larger ones.

And I was wondering if she could give us a report on that.

Uh, not necessarily tonight because we have a lot more business to take care of, but I really would like to know uh what could we be doing better?

What can we be doing differently?

Are there needs we're not meeting that these companies decide not to come here?

I think we're a very desirable place for a company.

I mean, we have attorneys moving from certain cities because the the vibrancy here is what is bringing them.

So I think it's important that we understand what's the disconnect here, because maybe we can resolve that and that might help.

Because certainly we need more companies locating here to help pay the bills.

So I think if Amanda could do that for us and maybe with her, uh Patrick, come up with, well, it seems like maybe we didn't streamline this enough or this what didn't meet their needs.

Maybe we figure out, well, maybe we need to look at it more closely and and meet their needs.

So that would be something I'd really like to see.

I don't want to stop lobbying Sacramento for the vehicle license fees.

I think if we do that, that would be a major mistake on our part.

If we stop going, they'll think we don't care anymore, and they'll just write us off.

So I I think it's important that either by email, by phone call, contact your legislators in Sacramento.

I'm asking everyone in Redwood City.

San Mateo County is one of three, three counties in the state of California that has been chosen not to get vehicle license feeds based based on an outdated formula.

And so that's truly upsetting to me because last year they said they were going to fix the formula and solve the problem, and they pushed it off.

So if you don't become the thorn in their side, we're gonna be treated like they can do without five and a half million dollars.

Well, we can't.

So if anyone here in the audience has an interest in contacting your legislators, they're easy enough to get those numbers.

Write an email, write a letter, make a phone call.

Because we can't back down.

We have to keep talking.

The county is being very aggressive, and we're working with the county.

So I strongly advise you.

These are monies that are owed to our city that are owed to our county, and they're depriving us of that money, and that's wrong.

So uh we're asking for your help on that.

But other than that, I think the staff has done a marvelous job of really highlighting what we need to do, that we do need to be disciplined.

You're putting emphasis on the right areas, in my opinion, and I think we just have to be careful that we don't jump into new projects or a lot of new things when we really haven't cleaned up what we already have.

So that's where I'd like to focus.

Uh, one thing I would say is modernizing our service delivery.

I'm very excited about.

So thank you, Patrick, for not losing that vision that you've presented to us when you interviewed with us.

Really appreciate that.

But other than that, I just think the staff's been a wonderful job and appreciate their honesty in coming to us with the real facts so that we can make good solid decisions.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Howard.

We'll go to the vice mayor.

So uh first of all, it's fun to see so many of the staff here tonight.

Thank you for staying up with us.

Um, and you know, our uh this budget or last year's budget won an award.

I wrote it down somewhere.

The distinguished budget presentation award by the government finance officers association.

And uh it's it's no coincidence.

Um you guys are just amazing pros, and I'm so glad you're here with us tonight.

Uh on both my colleagues, so uh I don't like to, you know, when it's sparse like this budget, where we're really tightening the belts.

I don't like to second, I personally don't like to second guess um staff's uh choices.

We do policy, they do implementation.

Um I do love the clinician.

I'm I'm thrilled and I'm thrilled that she's on staff instead of a consultant, and thank you um uh councilmember Sturkin for asking about it, and thank you for your answer, K-Bell, that you're still assessing it and and uh improving it and and that's good.

Um I'm fine with hiring the new police officers.

We do need more traffic safety, we do need all of that.

Um, so I just this one I'm just gonna go through.

Well, actually, let me do my question, though, to Beth.

Um, so is it is it accurate, Beth, that um Stanford is our fourth largest employer and is exempt from paying the business license business license tax.

Is that accurate?

Yes, that's accurate.

Okay, thank you.

So um now with the ground uh greater downtown area plan.

So, Amanda, I just think it's amazing that the engagement exceeds what we thought the engagement was gonna be.

So people is that maybe you're not the one who knows that.

I read it on page 96 of the budget.

Oh, that's you, Jeff.

So is that because people are just so excited and they want to be involved, or I mean that's just awesome.

Please tell me more.

Jeff Wab, community development director.

Yes, I think in part it's the excitement about the possibilities of what the future holds, and in part I do think it was staffs reaching out in multiple formats to the community, going out door to door, going in various meetings, having the speakers come speak about uh some of the topics.

I think it was a combination of things.

Well, I mean, it's the best kind of building of your built environment is what the community, you know, getting community feedback.

We're the ones who live here, we're the ones who use everything, and so I'm just so thrilled that we're not facing apathy, and it it's kudos to our community and to our staff.

So, thank you.

Keep up the good work.

Um, this one floored me.

Is open space?

That fascinated me.

Um I can't remember the page, but um, and Patrick, you're gonna get me a map of all that open space.

Um, and then this one is kind of fun.

255 days a year are sunny in Redwood City, uh, according to page 49 of our award-winning budget report.

Um I tell I've been telling my neighbors that since I read it.

Um the police statistics, K-Bell, uh, what is it, human-to-human crime is down 17 percent.

What's that statistic?

I took a picture of it.

So it's the crimes against persons is down from 2024 to 2025.

Yeah.

And it's down 17 percent.

Yes.

And um I asked you about this in writing.

Um, and it's just you said the reason it's hard to know, but it's a combination of factors.

Is that accurate?

Yes.

And crime in all three categories is down year over year from 24 to 25.

Yes.

And the the greatest is human to human or whatever you call that.

Crimes against persons.

Crimes against persons.

So I want to thank you and all your staff, and it's important because as people may know, sixty-five percent of our general fund budget is police and fire.

Um, it's it's the bulk of our taxpayer money.

And so we thank I thank you for um really producing some good results and in improving public safety, and um thank you.

And then can you just you you wrote about this, but if you could just talk a little bit about the success that the community service officer at the high schools, yeah, or school liaison officer?

Your school liaison officer.

Yes, can you talk a little bit about that?

Yes, so since um Officer Aaron Sussman has been on campus at Sequoia about October, he's built really done a lot of work building relationships with the youth and meeting them where they're at and building such a relationship to where they have been comfortable to report crimes or things that may happen in the future to the officer and as opposed to letting them happen and someone getting hurt.

So just our mere presence on campus has really helped develop that trust with our youth.

And then there was something in your written answer about like that kids understand he's not enforcing school rules, like he's not gonna send them to the principal because they didn't do their homework kind of thing.

Could you talk a little bit about that?

Yes.

So he is not responsible for anything school related as it pertains to their school work or any discipline that the school would handle.

And the school would call us in if they requested us, but or if there was an officer or a safety issue at the school, or even a possibility of a crime, then we would be involved, but it's completely separate.

Okay, so so thank you.

That's helpful, thank you.

Thank you for all you do.

Um I was surprised to learn on page 67 that our transit center, and Mr.

G, you I'm sure you already know this, but I was surprised that our transit center um is the largest in the county other than Daly City.

And I'm sort of surprised that it's I um I'm sort of surprised that that um we're bigger than Millbrae with BART.

Um so I think that's a huge selling point for us to bring those big employers, um, because we're such a transit hub.

Um almost done.

I'm excited about uh Mr.

Um Baraka, I'm really excited about the training facility, the fire training facility.

Would you would you care to give us an update on how um that long-awaited fire training facility that we've been waiting for?

If you if you wanted to say a few words about that.

Yeah, good evening.

Uh thank you, Barack A Carter Fire Chief.

Um, so this is actually a great opportunity to highlight some of the areas where we're currently doing our training, right?

So um with absence of having a dedicated training facility, which would be the staple, a staple uh uh facility for for the community and the and fire department.

Um we're currently doing our training like at the three-story parking garage right across from the fire station, uh, which impacts you know the community impacts uh uh traffic.

And then we're also um we'll utilize the open park a lot behind the sports basement and Kohl's, which you know has its challenges as well because you know the time that we're actually doing our training, you know, delivery trucks, we're having really helping to coordinate with the uh the local businesses to ensure we're not impacting them and residents.

Um so we're really we're really hopeful that we're able to identify and and move this project forward.

Um it is in a long time making, and it will be a dedicated, and we're the it will be a dedicated uh training facility for our staff, which really emphasizes our ability to be more resilient with um responses, tactics, our ability to ensure that we have a safe community, and then it'll also be an environment where with our youth, our cadet programs, they'll have a dedicated training facility as well to enhance those skill sets to hopefully get them into the fire service as well.

Thank you so much.

And and I I know I speak for myself and probably all my colleagues that we will uh will help you in any way we can in making sure you get that fire training facility as soon as possible.

Appreciate the support, um, the sales tax, Beth, um I I guess and Jeff, you don't need to get up there, but um, or maybe neither of you do, but just I would really love with our greater downtown area plan, and I know part of it is just magic, like you you you can't just wave a wand, but but this really speaks to the need of more retail downtown.

And I don't know, it's we've needed it for a long time, and we've tried all sorts of things over the years, but um maybe this greater downtown area plan, um, maybe there's some exciting way to reignite retail downtown.

I I go to some other towns nearby, and they'll have like unique shops, maybe not chain stores, or I I'm not a retail expert, but um Amanda, if you have any thoughts or if there's any way we can turbo charge our budget to.

Oh, did you want to say anything, Amanda?

Please.

I don't know.

Do you want me to speak to us?

Yes, please.

Because if you know, sales tax.

If we had some really exciting retail stores that could help our sales tax.

Amanda Anthony, economic development manager.

Um a lot of our sales tax comes from uh our auto dealers, as Beth mentioned.

Um a great deal of it comes from our discount retailers like uh Costco and Target.

Um and then we have a lot from appliance stores.

So uh the small retailers that I think that you dream of are not huge sales tax producers, like in the aggregate, I think that they could be.

Um the other thing that's really been hitting us is um Amazon, but not in the way that you think.

Um part of it is how the state allocates um Amazon revenues.

So although we have quite a few uh, I'm sure a ton of people here who order on Amazon.

Um has changed in the last five years and has impacted our our sales tax revenues is that the state allocates the pool, and so most Amazon sales go to the pool, and it's allocated by what your percentage of sales tax is.

So, like if you're already doing better in sales tax, then you get more sales tax from the pool.

And so that's great, but also kind of uh you know self-fulfilling.

But Brisbane opened two Amazon fulfillment centers in the last year, and what it means is that all of those Amazon um sales are allocated now to Brisbane, and they're 4,000 people instead of the pool, and maybe our 82,000 people.

So that's been a really big hit that we kind of don't have a control over.

Um, I think one of the things that we uh would like to do is continue to figure out how to make retail work.

Um but we do get quite a bit from restaurants from auto dealers from appliance stores and our discount retailers.

Well, thank you.

That's that's really informative.

Um very supportive of the NRT, do feel that people are frustrated with the illegal dumping, um carts, uh, you know, um grocery carts, just willy-nilly all over the place.

I hear a lot about it in my district, and and um I'm really hopeful that we can activate that.

So thank you for thinking of it.

And as I put in my uh email, I I'm excited about opportunities to partner with the county who I'll I'll just say when I did the math, we would need to spend our 200 million dollar general fund every year for 25 years to make up what the county spends in its general fund in one year.

So some of these, you know, we have the county courthouse, we have we're the county seat, we have the county jails, and I'm looking for opportunities for that, you know, some of our issues are health issues, and we don't have a health department, but the county does.

And so I I really feel that um they have tools that we don't have.

They have money that we don't have, and um I'm looking in the next 12 months and and beyond that we we show the county how much we're helping them and how much if they gave us money, they would be better off, and and that it would be a more fair thing, and the NRT is an example of it because some of it is mental health issues that people steal grocery carts and dump stuff.

And I just see some opportunities there.

I think I'm done.

Let me just um I I guess I'll just say one final comment, and that is your the budget was award-winning, and it was amazing, particularly the Redwood City history page was outstanding.

I was chagrined, a little bit disappointed that our veterans center was not had a two or three cursory sentences without an amazing picture.

So I hope next year that we tout our amazing veteran center a little bit more.

I'll leave it there.

Thank you, Vice Mayor.

Any council circuit, we'll go to you.

Two quick responses for this session.

So I I support the idea of like allocating two million more dollars to our pavement program to get us up to 70, but I'm just like asking myself, where do we pull it from?

Because we have to make a trade-off.

And I don't know what the answer to that question is, but if we can figure that out today or in June 22nd or somewhere in between, I'm open to that.

Um, so I just wanted to express my support and openness to that.

I just don't have the answer to the question.

Um and finally, um, on the topic of being cognizant of unintended consequences of policies or or taxes or what have you.

Now they may affect our desirability uh to attract new business.

Um I think aside from that, it's also our job to be ambassadors to the business community, right?

And like I go to RCIA, the Redwood City Improvement Association meetings on a monthly basis, and it'd be nice to see some my colleagues there as well.

I know we all can't make it, but um, you know, kind of showing up to these spaces, um, the chamber hosts uh, you know, that RCIA has and developing those relationships.

That's something I learned from Councilmember G very early on, that we have to um build those relationships with the business community to um attract them to Rabbit City.

So putting it out there.

Thank you.

All right, not seeing any other lights on.

I guess it's my turn.

Staff, again, thank you for all the work.

I I know there are so many more names than what are included in the first couple of pages of the budget of people who played some role in developing this.

So to everyone who's listed and everyone who's uh tuned in or have helped, um, thank you.

And I start with my talking points first.

I just I feel like this budget really speaks to all of the unknowns that we've been dealing with over the course of the year.

Um, the things that we're tracking to see what the outcome is, right?

Like our funding streams at the state and federal levels, VLF, right?

Councilmember Howard and I went up to Sacramento to let them know what we thought of that change, um, pension laws at the state level, the the ordinance we heard earlier tonight.

Um, and then there are things that we aren't even on our radar yet that we haven't planned for.

Um so it's not an easy thing to do, but I think this budget really speaks to speaks to our staff trying to answer those questions the best that they can.

So thank you.

Um and I think there are a lot of strengths that were included in this budget that were highlighted.

Um, our restaurants, our our hotels, the the discount retailers, our car dealerships had a little bit less than projected, but still a very strong year.

Um, our economy there are highlights and parts of our economy that are doing well, and I don't want that to be um lost in 451 pages of our budget.

Um there are really interesting ideas.

Um, the neighborhood response team, I think, rises to the top.

That is definitely the concerns that are always gonna rise to the top of the inbox for people who are worried about illegal dumping or are noticing shopping carts in their community, right, abandoned.

And uh, you know, I think being able to change the way that people see government, our government in action, I think just builds confidence, and I could see this being something that will generate more costs because people will want to see a neighborhood response team, right?

Or we're gonna start seeing that many more complaints coming in because people will expect that we're gonna be on top of it that much more.

So really excited to see how that rolls out.

I mentioned, you know, to Councilmember Padilla's um point around the pavement quality, our work around capital needs is really important, right?

Um, from everything from street pavement to replacing buildings.

Um, and I'm really proud that you know we are going to be having a conversation around PLAs as to how we build and who is constructing these projects.

So I'm excited for that work to continue.

The economic vitality plan, right, that Amanda and her team are gonna be working on, that is really exciting.

Um, I've heard it at the Dais before that so many of us um wanna nurture our our local businesses and also we need to be self-resilient.

So the more that we can nurture who we have here and attract more businesses to Redwood City, um, it's only gonna make us stronger.

So the the last thing that I just wanted to mention on the strengths here is gonna use uh a line from our city manager modernizing our city operations, including not just the ERP, which is so important for our staff, right?

Internally every day, but cybersecurity is something that so many local jurisdictions are playing catch-up on.

So to make investments now before we need to react to something is is really important.

So thank you for including that staff.

Um, and with all that said, lots to love, but also I felt like there were still some things that were missing.

My colleagues mentioned a few things.

Um, wanted to throw my support behind, you know, quarterly updates on city revenues.

I think, especially if we're coming up with an economic plan, it makes sense for us to start familiarizing ourselves with what the picture is on the ground.

Um, I think we had a conversation maybe last year, the year before, around reserve funds.

I think it's time for us to talk about that so that we can be ready for the things that aren't even on our radar.

Um, and then the last couple of ideas are just it feels like these are responding to the level of homelessness that we're still seeing in our city and the work that our staff are doing to address that for our residents.

Um I really liked the idea of a new clinician for our police department.

I think we're already heading in that direction with community service officers who are taking on more work that has traditionally taken up police time.

Um, so I think building that into our work plan makes a lot of sense, and um, and there is a different purpose than the outreach workers that we've hired, right?

I think the outreach workers are really trying to just build trust, build a relationship.

Whereas, you know, our clinicians um I'm thinking of Patricia is de-escalating those situations where I think an outreach worker typically just wouldn't engage out of their own safety, right?

So I see the value in the clinicians, and I also am cognizant that our our labor groups are expecting some extra support and some backup there.

So, um, I don't want to lose the conversation piece around our clinicians and um and would like to see our staff sort of explore what that pathway to hiring a new clinician in the next budget cycle would look like.

Um, Chief Bell, you mentioned that there are some questions you are still developing what um you know our our current clinicians' role is, and I'm curious to see what questions we can help answer, and you know what policy questions the council can weigh in on.

Um, but I I think there's a lot of value in hiring another clinician, and in the same way I feel like I've heard from our city staff, our first responders that's uh who are addressing you know issues around homelessness every day, um, talk about the housing pipeline being backed up, that we have the beautiful navigation center on the other side of 101, and not enough people are moving out for us to be able to start transitioning people into the spaces that we have at the NAF Center.

Um, and last year we had talked about how this council unanimously wanted to explore Prop One as a potential uh funding source for this kind of housing, and I think again baking this into the work plan so that we can be ready so that if a grant became available, we're not being reactive, but we already have an idea of where we want to place the housing, where it makes sense, and this won't happen overnight, and it's gonna need intergovernmental support.

So I think having that conversation now, building it in as a policy discussion so that we're prepared when the when the opportunity arises, we're ready to go into it 50-50 with the county and hopefully tap into um some of the the revenues that the county has because this is social safety network, so um I I think all of those circulate around just homelessness and how we best support our unhoused neighbors, and um I know that won't happen this year.

So, how do we just start those conversations?

How do we start answering questions for ourselves so that we can start taking advantage if let's say we see VLF money, right?

Um that would be amazing, or another bucket of funds that a grant that we've secured.

Um, so I know it's late.

Um, I'd be open to just hearing some of my council colleagues' reactions to that about baking this into the work plan for the next budget year, but um, I'll leave it there.

I think this has been a lot of work to answer a lot of the unknowns that the city's facing.

So um I appreciate that work from staff, but we'll open it up to my colleagues if anybody has any any reactions to that.

Councilmember Sirkin.

Yes.

Uh, I want to bake that into the work plan.

Uh referring to prop one you you mentioned, yes.

Okay.

I know we already have a couple little properties kind of in the pipeline of the county.

Okay, but continuing to just explicitly uh place that in the work plan would be really helpful in advancing our sharing priorities and goals as a city.

And I also want to throw my support behind uh the quarterly reporting on sales tax driven.

Thank you for reminding me about that.

Thank you, Councilmember Sherkin.

Councilmember Howard.

Yes.

Uh I I'm certainly in favor of looking into that, but I'd like to um let our city manager and our police chief determine when and how it's implemented.

I I don't want to um push something if it's not ready because it sounds like Chief Bell has some more research to do and a number of other things.

So I'm gonna keep putting your capable hands that you've heard the desire, the need is certainly out there.

So I I think it's something good to plan for when it when it comes.

That's something you can bring back to us.

And was there something else?

I'm sorry.

What you said I agreed with.

Let's be shovel ready to work with the county.

I'd like to do that very much.

And uh maybe we can do some projects together in the future.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Howard.

Colleagues, anybody else?

I would just like to throw out that I just I was thinking about something that Vice Mayor um mentioned about how we do.

We hold we we are the we are the county seat, we have the navigation centers, we have the jails.

So I I would like to just put it out there that I think we are a fantastic neighbor, and I would welcome the county working with us in any way they can.

I think you did mention, Vice Mayor, that they have a much larger budget than we do.

Um, and I would I I don't know, I would think that wasn't the clinician originally funded by the county.

Did someone correct me if I'm wrong?

Was that originally funded?

As a pilot, okay.

Well, I do think there is a connection there.

Um, I don't know if we can always distinguish between a Redwood City resident or a county resident, but I I do think there's an opportunity for the county to help.

Definitely.

Thank you, Councilmember Padilla.

Any other thoughts?

Okay, council uh council staff, Patrick.

Is that uh enough feedback for you all?

Yeah, that was great.

And and you know, what we'll do from here the 22nd is fine-tune and we'll definitely see the clinician put in.

It might be on the work plan with some recommended uh approaches, you know.

Um, but there's a myriad of other items on here.

I took feverish notes and I saw some of my staff take notes.

Not everybody appreciate that.

But anyway, we'll we'll put our comprehensive package together on the 22nd, but I really appreciate it.

Thank you.

Great.

Patrick, just to make sure we're not also losing the um the actual housing, the permanent supportive piece to that, right?

Sorry, say that again.

The permanent supportive housing just exploring bad idea.

Correct, make sure that thank you.

Obviously, there's already full support.

We'll come back with recommended recommended approaches on how it would lay out with the funding strategy on our housing fund.

So cool.

Thank you.

Awesome.

Thank you, City Manager.

Mayor Howard.

I'd like to make a motion that we adopt the resolution setting June 22nd, 2026 is the date for the public hearing and adoption of our fiscal year budget.

Okay, is there a second?

Second.

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

Could we get a electronic vote, please?

Motion passes with six votes.

Councilmember Chu is absent.

Thank you.

Thank you again, colleagues, for doing the homework and a great discussion tonight.

We'll move on to item 11, which is our public hearings uh on the smoking regulations related to tobacco retail permits.

And our economic development manager Amanda Anthony will give a presentation.

And I'll now oh, excuse me, and I'll now pass things over to Amanda.

Thank you so much.

Amanda Anthony, economic development manager.

We have a short presentation just going over some of the pieces from last time.

Um Crystal, next slide.

No problem.

Uh, gonna give you just a brief recap of the April 27th presentation.

Uh reminder, the staff recommendation, the action taken, and then tonight's recommendation.

Um May 11th, um, on April 27th, City Council received information regarding the tobacco retailer regulation in Redwood City, including the city's ordinance, the county's ordinance, and potential approaches.

Can you go to the next slide?

Uh just a reminder that uh what one of the things we talked about on April 27th is how state laws uh have uh evolved to ban flavored tobacco in most forms.

Uh this was done as part of a ballot measure in November of 2022.

Uh there's also been a lot of evolution in local law.

Redwood City adopted an uh an ordinance banning uh flavored tobacco in all cases except for uh three businesses who are offering um on-site adoption.

It was any business that had their permit at that time.

Uh we also um in San Mateo County and Rubwood City also ban e-cigarettes and vapes.

Uh the effect of these bans has been um positive.

Uh I don't know if you guys remember the slide, but lots of down direction arrows uh on youth access and use.

Um not only youth access and use, uh we are also seeing decreases in adult access uh and in adult use as well.

And so these are really positive outcomes.

Um in 2023, uh San Mateo County adopted uh updated its law to add restrictions on locations, discounts, and types of products sold.

Uh, the impact of that is that they also started enforcing for uh any city that adopted their ordinance by reference or verbatim.

So these are the the background we talked about a lot of these things at length.

Um, and I'm happy to go through any um answer any questions if you've got some.

Um next slide, please.

So on April 27th, we recommended that uh the city council adopt the uh county's ordinance for regulating uh the tobacco retailers.

Uh and these are the reasons why.

Um the county would manage all the administration at no cost to the city's general fund.

The retailers would pay significantly less for their permits.

Uh the county would be able to implement effectively immediately after the ordinance effective date.

So if it were adopted tonight, uh they would be able to start enforcing um, you know, as of July 7th.

Um the county would be managing enforcement in all cases where retailers are unpermitted or selling um illegal products, and the county permits uh hookah lounges to continue to offer non-tobacco hookah to keep operating, but they would uh not be able to sell tobacco-based hookah anymore.

So those are the re reasons.

On April 27th, we read the first we waived the first reading and introduced the ordinance, and city council voted to approve that staff recommendation five to two.

And we also set the hearing date.

So today is the public hearing.

Uh we are required to do a public hearing because we are adopting this, or we are recommending that this be adopted uh by reference, and in order to adopt a um ordinance by reference, you have to have a public hearing on the second date.

So that is what is before you tonight.

Um, and we can move to the next slide.

The recommended action is to waive the second reading and adopt an ordinance amending Redwood City Municipal Code uh to repeal what is currently there.

Uh adopt by reference the county ordinance and then amend uh some definitions.

Thank you.

Thank you, Amanda.

Appreciate the great presentation.

And with that, we will now open the public hearing and I'll pass things over to our city clerk to help facilitate public comment.

Thank you, Mayor.

I do have 11 speaker cards at the moment, and I've got a few hands on Zoom.

So last call for any remaining public comment on this item tonight.

I'll let the Zoom folks queue up.

We've got a few more coming in.

Okay, so we have a total of 18 speakers.

We've got 11 in person and seven on Zoom.

How would you like to proceed with the public comment, Mayor?

Two minutes, one minute.

We had 11 speakers.

We have a total of 18 actually.

18.

Yeah.

Let's go with one minute again.

Okay.

So everyone will be allotted one minute.

The timer will begin when you start speaking.

We will call the in-person speakers first, beginning with David Kasouf, who will be followed by Neil Lundy, and then we'll move to our Zoom folks.

Thank you.

Good evening, Mayor and Council members.

My name is David Kasouf, and I'm the owner of the sandwich spot.

For more than 15 years, I have employed local residents, paid taxes, invested in our community, and build a business that serves Redwood City.

I'm here tonight because of the issue is not just about the hookah, it's about jobs, small businesses, and the families who depends on them.

I respectfully ask you to consider the real war consequences of eliminating the grandfather exception that existing businesses such as the Sandwich Pasha and Rock and Raph replied relied on four years.

Many of our customers come for hookah, but they also buy food, drinks, and support our business throughout the evening.

If that reason for visiting is removed, customer customer traffic will decline, sales will decrease, employee hours will be cut, and job will be lost.

Thank you.

I wish you gave us two minutes like many others.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Neil Lundy, who will be followed by Ayub Gochi.

Good evening, Mayor, members of the council.

My name is Neil, I'm a local business owner.

The retail enforcement you're adopting is overdue.

Protecting our young people with you on that, I'm definitely agree with concerns most about the message that a business can follow our city's own law to the letter and still have the ground pulled out from under it.

When businesses face more regulations, reduced operating flexibility and uncertainty about their future.

Customers spend less, businesses invest less, and sales tax revenue suffers.

If the city continues adding restrictions on long-standing businesses, investors will turn away.

Don't think these three businesses are fully considered when this was drafted.

Even California's statewide flavored tobacco ban exempts on-site Shisha at 21 and over venues.

We're not asking the council to invent anything, we're asking them to stay aligned with the state law.

That's it.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Ayub Gokshi Goksi, who will be followed by Jameson Fong.

My name is Ayup.

I am Pasha Owner.

I would like to speak about our investment that business.

Um over the years we have invested significant amount of money into our business, our facilities, equipment, outdoor space permits, furniture, and improvements, all with understanding that could continue operating under grandfather expection.

This investment was not made overnight.

It was made over many years based on the cities.

Provast decision and the acceptation that existing business would be allowed to continue operating responsibility.

Many people don't realize that hookah sports much more than just hookah sales.

It's bring customers who also purchase food, drinks, and other services.

Many businesses depend on that customer traffic to survive.

Employees depend on those jobs.

Thank you.

Next speaker is Jameson Fong, who will be followed by Ali Ahmad.

Good evening, uh Vice Mayor, Mayor, Council members.

My name is Jameson Fong, and I represent the owners of Pasha Mediterranean, the Sandwich Wat and Rock and Rap.

I think it's very clear, and I don't want this to be missed that the restaurant members are all in favor of protecting the youth and supporting as much regulation as that is necessary.

I think the issue was misframed as it was an either-or situation.

That the situation was we must and can go with just the county ordinance or self-regulate the same way that Burlingame has done and foster city has done.

I think it's very, very poignant that today was the budget, and you're talking about looking at losing significant revenue from three standing businesses that have been here for over a decade.

So I think there is still an opportunity to instead of going with the county's way, self-regulate, continue to use your own uh your own resources.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next speaker is Ali Ahmad, who will be followed by Gabrielle M.

Hi, good evening, everybody.

My name is Alia, owner of Rock and Raps.

I've been here like 13, 14.

It's uh when I came here it was very slow business in Ridwood City, downtown empty.

We we how how we're gonna make it busy.

We open uh the restaurant, the hookah spot and and invite people to come to the city.

It became a culture.

So a lot of people to get together nighttime, daytime with this hookah and drinking tea, come to downtown Ridwood City, and we invest a lot of money in our businesses in just the bucket, cost me always gonna cost me over a hundred thousand dollars.

Because I was dependent in the in that I keep the hook in my business, all of us, three of us, the who uh the rock and raps, bash, and sales spot, we be a lot of taxes for Riddwood City.

I mean, we we want to keep it the way it is.

Please, if you don't mind and keep the city alive.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next speaker is Gabriel Mihajlovich, who will be followed by Omar Salem.

Good evening.

My name is Gabriel Mahailovich, and I am here to speak against this motion.

Redwood City is a community that supports the American values of business entrepreneurship, culture, and celebrating diversity.

Our community leads the peninsula in highlighting multiple cultures through channels such as restaurants, festivals, and other community gatherings.

The establishments listed are prime examples of honoring the roughly 20,000 plus Arab Americans living in San Mateo County and Northern Santa Clara.

Year after year, the establishments have followed and supported American federal regulations, respectfully monitoring the sale of any tobacco products to adults ages 21 and over, and they stand with the community on supporting minors not participating.

If any of you were to go to these establishments, you would see a line of people from our local community and neighboring communities supporting our businesses.

It's their home away from home.

And though many of you may not understand the cultural practices, I know that Redwood City supports that diversity.

And I pray that you guys stand with this community and understanding their culture and their diversity.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Omar Salem, who will be followed by Jeffrey Vasalo.

Respectful mayor and council members.

I want to start with this.

In April's hearing, many people spoke, but none was truly heard.

Today I want to speak to you differently.

Not as policymakers, not as politicians, but as leaders.

One that targets the actual program.

Do the work, differentiate between irresponsible, unregulated smoke shops and regulated 21 plus establishments.

Not because it's easy, we know it's not, but because it's right, because leadership is measured by whether you stood up when it matters.

Years from now, people will not remember how efficiently this move through committee.

But they will remember whether you listened, they will remember whether you stood up for inclusivity, and they will remember whether you had the courage to say we're not just gonna follow, we're gonna lead.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is.

Uh mayor, I'd like to make a motion to extend the meeting to 11:30.

Thank you.

Is there a second?

Second.

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

Could we get a vote, please?

Thank you.

Hello, my name is Jeffrey Pasolo.

Sorry, one second.

Sorry, we're taking a quick vote.

And we'll give you your full time.

Motion passes with six votes.

Councilmember Chi was absent.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Over to you.

My name is Jeffrey Vasalo, and I noticed a few speakers ago you're looking for ways to investigate ways to add revenue to the county.

In the meantime, you're taking away hundreds of jobs of people of Redwood City that have families.

And these establishments entertain thousands of people a week and bring in millions of dollars of business a year.

So it it kind of contradicts what you guys are trying to do here, close businesses down and increase revenues.

So I've noticed recently in the 45 years in this county, we've taken away entertainment.

We've taken away the Redwood City drive-ins, the go-karts, the miniature golf.

What's next?

We take away the parks.

So I'm just saying to help your city by leaving these establishments going and have these employees keep their jobs and more entertainment in Redwood City, not less.

Thank you.

Mayor, Council members, thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight.

My name's Trisha Barr, and I'm a mom of three kids and the chair of the San Mateo County Tobacco Education Coalition.

I'm asking you tonight to please adopt the county's tobacco retailer ordinance.

This past weekend, I visited two local retailers.

Uh, one downtown, I'd asked for tobacco flavored tobacco product, which is illegal to sell here in Redwood City and in the state.

The clerk pulled hidden flavored product from behind the counter and sold it to me.

At the a vape shop on El Camino, there were walls of flavored vapes and other illegal flavored tobacco openly on display, which they also sold to me.

So that tells me this is not an exception.

This tends to be the norm.

So right now, we you know, last time we heard about the hundred dollar fine that is really not taken seriously by retailers, it's just sort of a cost of doing business.

You have the opportunity today to close that to strengthen the existing ordinance with some teeth and I'm happy to pass this around.

I have receipts in here.

Thank you.

Next speaker is Astrid Riber, who will be followed by David Riber.

Good evening.

Um, my name is Sid Reber, and I'm a proud Redwood City resident and parent.

I raised my three children here who all attended Redwood City schools.

I'm here to ask for your vote in support of adopting the county's tobacco retailer permit ordinance.

I worried for years when my children were teenagers about how easily they and their friends could so easily access vaping and tobacco products.

So I completely understand what parents in this situation today are going through.

I want our local businesses to thrive, and I believe they can continue to do so while adhering to the guidelines that help ensure the health and safety of our children.

The adoption of the ordinance will also help with the resources needed for regulation and enforcement in order to protect our youth, since this would be handled by San Mateo County staff versus our already spread thin city resources.

Although parents and schools can educate students and support prevention efforts, education alone is not enough if there's no consistent enforcement in the community.

Until Redwood City adopts a stronger ordinance, there's very little the city can actually enforce, as heard by Ms.

Barr.

Our students deserve to grow up happy and healthy in a community that takes our safety seriously.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is David Reber.

I live in Redwood City for 25 years now and raised three children in the public schools right here.

This is about the health of our community of our children and our adults.

Tobacco use is starting to increase again in our schools.

Redwood City is currently by far the city with easiest access to vaping and tobacco products.

If nothing is done, tobacco use will continue to go up in our city.

We do not want to be an island of tobacco and vaping consumption in the Bay Area.

Some vaping products are equivalent to 18 packs of cigarettes, others are equivalent to 30 packs of cigarettes.

Things change 60 years ago, cars didn't have seatbelts a hundred years ago, there were no semaphores of street corners.

Maybe not everyone agreed to those changes at first, but they were implemented for the benefit of the community to save lives.

Please adopt the county's ordinance.

Let's catch up to the rest of the county and the rest of the state.

Thank you.

Thank you.

That concludes our in-person speakers.

But mayor, I just wanted to apologize because for public hearings, we can have up to an hour of public comment.

And I had asked for your feedback on public comment timing because it was the late hour.

But I wanted to say that maybe we can offer the opportunity for the in-person speakers to speak for an additional minute before we move on to our Zoom speakers, if you're okay with that.

And again, I apologize for the confusion.

Or your city clerk.

I think that makes a lot of sense to offer that up.

Okay, thank you.

So if you have given public comment in person this evening, and if you would like to speak for one additional minute, feel free to approach the podium at this time.

David Kasuf, welcome.