Present Councilmember Sturkin.

Here.

Vice Mayor Aiken.

Here, Mayor Martinez Sabayas.

Thank you.

Thank you, and I'll turn things over to Councilmember Padilla for the pledge.

Please join me for the Pledge of Allegiance.

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

Thank you, Councilmember Padilla.

And since all Councilmembers are participating in person, we will skip item four and move into item five.

A time to uh recognize the importance of equitable access to local parks, recreation, trails, open space, and equitable access to local parks, excuse me, uh facilities for the positive development of our communities.

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

Whereas parks and recreation promote physical, emotional and mental well mental health and wellness through organized and self-directed fitness play and activity.

And whereas parks and recreation support the economic vitality of communities by partnering with local businesses and nonprofits and offering events for residents' engagement, and whereas parks and recreation support human development and endless learning opportunities that foster social, intellectual, physical, and emotional growth in people of all ages and abilities.

Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, Council members, city staff, and uh Rose City um citizens.

Uh it's a great honor to be up here and speaking on behalf of Bill Wooten.

Uh he was a recreation manager for the city for many years.

He recently passed away, and I'd like to say a few words on his behalf.

Um for those of you that don't know me.

My name is Eric Newby.

Uh, I am a recreation manager for the Parks Recreation and Community Services Department.

Um, I started my career here in Redwood City part-time in 1986.

Um I'm extremely honored to talk on Bill's behalf, um, who was my mentor during my uh first stint here.

Um I met him, he was Bill was the softball guru.

Everybody knew Bill in town.

Everybody who was a Road City local knew him for playing in his leagues or participating in his tournaments or the fun run.

Bill's name was synonymous with fun.

Um I met him in 1987 as a part-time employee.

I would work summer camps and then work some of his random tournaments and the fun run.

And I would take kids to the pool, and I would see Bill um kind of having meetings with his lifeguards, and he was delivering powerful messages in a way that made me want to jump off the diving board and save that drowning bee because he just was that guy.

He could deliver a message and make you want to run through walls.

Um I uh started him full time in 96, and although I didn't work for Bill directly, I worked with him.

Um I played in all the softball leagues.

I knew players, I knew things, and we threw information with each other every day.

And he gave me this mentorship that was valuable experience.

He was kind, he was positive.

Um, he was a real quiet guy, but he he he said hello to everybody, gardeners included.

Um he welcomed me into the sports world and gave me experience that was first hand knowledge that it was like I was learning from the best.

His mentor was Red Morton.

And when you got Red Morton and then Bill Wooten, and you're right there in the spot.

It was invaluable experience that I will never forget.

Um Bill started kind of on his way to retirement, and I was moving up, and so he just kind of worked the system um and made our leagues even better better.

Uh Bill's accomplishments within the city over his 27-year career.

He turned uh softball program with that had 30 teams to over a hundred.

Um he ran uh women's and men's and co-ed leagues, many that I played in.

Uh Councilmember Howard, I know that you had played in leagues many times before as well.

I remember that so well.

Um he ran two swimming pools, and when he died, someone put on a Facebook of all these messages were I work for the pools over the summer and I did this and I did this, and it was just fitting of the tribute uh tribute to the man that he was.

Um he worked with field scheduling, he ran a little league tournament every year, and he made partnership in high schools back in the time where they didn't have that possible.

So park and rec were using um Sequoia facilities.

His uh accomplishments within the ASA, which was the amateur softball association, now is USA softball.

Um he he was the regional director um regional commissioner from 1972 to 1999.

Um that was his position that Red Morton had held prior.

So Bill followed in his steps.

He organized leagues and tournaments.

Um he was in a in a div in a time where softball was just booming between the 70s, 80s, and 90s.

It just kept growing, growing and growing.

Um he he expanded softball um through NorCal and through state.

He helped softball glow um grow within the United States.

Uh he was a major supplier, or major supporter and the JO commissioner, which is a junior fast pitch with girls softball.

Um he was a member of the USA Softball Hall of Fame, and he was um he helped with the senior softball program that's currently played on Tuesdays and Thursdays at Red Morton, and he helped with the PSOA Umpires Association.

So there are very few people that come into your life that changed the course of your life forever.

And Bill was one of those person, one of those people for me.

Um he built my career, my confidence, and opportunities that I will credit him my entire lifetime for.

May we honor his memory by living with the same kindness, integrity, and generosity that he showed every day.

Um Bill is survived by his wife Tanya.

He has a daughter, Karen, and two sons, Michael and Brian, who when Bill died, Brian called me at work, um, and we spoke for in length.

And he also has four grandkids and five grand great-grandkids.

Thank you very much for the opportunity to share Mr.

Wooten with you today.

Thank you.

Thank you, Eric.

And Eric, before you take a seat, we do have a proclamation that we hope you can also share with Bill with Bill's family, and thank you for helping us honor him today.

Appreciate it.

Council if we could take a photo come down to the else.

Thank you, everyone.

Now we'll move to item 5B.

Our final recognition item this evening is to announce that this evening's meeting will be adjourned in memory of Vice Mayor Aiken's father, James David, or Dave Aiken, a beloved San Mateo County educator whose lasting contributions to the Kemon to the county and community touched the lives of countless students, families, and colleagues.

I'd like to share a few words about Dave Aiken's life.

James David Aiken, a longtime San Mateo educator, died Wednesday, May 21st, surrounded by family.

He was 98.

Dave Aiken, as he was known to friends, family, and colleagues, was one of the founding faculty of Kenyatta College in 1968.

Over 25 years, he taught French, Spanish, and English.

Prior to Kenyatta, Dave taught at Hillsdale and Aragon high schools.

He was born and raised in Albany, Oregon.

After graduating from high school in 1945, Dave served in the U.S.

Army and occupied Japan.

The son of a newspaper editor, Dave was drawn to the study of language.

After military service under the GI Bill, he studied at Saborn at the Saborn in Paris, becoming fluent in French and steeped in the country's history and culture, a passion he would share with his students, family, and friends for the remainder of his life.

Dave went on to earn a Master of Arts degree in French literature from the University of Oregon.

While there, he met Birta Briggs, Kelgard.

They married in 1952 and moved to San Mateo in 1955.

In the mid-1960s, Dave was granted a sabbatical.

He and Bricks took their three daughters on a year-long camping trip through Europe in a VW Westphalia.

During this trip, the family also stayed for five months along the French Riviera, where while Dave studied at the University of Aix-Marse.

In the early 1970s, Dave served as a director of the American Institute for Foreign Studies, or AIFS, at the University of Grenoble in the French Alps.

In addition, he directed an AIFS summer program at the University of Salamanca, Spain, accompanied by Bricks and their daughters.

Dave retired in 1993, and Bricks died in 1994.

He continued language instruction, tutoring foreign tech workers in English.

In 1998, Dave married Ruth Sinton.

He was fond of noting that when he married Ruth, he went from three grandchildren to 23.

The two traveled extensively in Europe, notably France and Spain.

Apart from travel, Dave's passions included golf, cooking, gardening, Italian opera, and discussing the finer points of grammar and usage.

Throughout his teaching career and in retirement, Dave remained a staunch advocate for the teaching profession, public education, and expanded educational opportunities.

For a time, he held a leadership position in a National Teachers Union.

Dave Aiken is survived by his wife, Ruth Sinton, brother Wallace Eakin of Hood River, Oregon, three daughters, Erica Eakin Johnston of San Rafael, Elena Eakin Callahan of Los Angeles, Kaya Eakin of Redwood City, three grandchildren, three great grandchildren, six stepchildren and their families, and admiring nieces, nephews, relatives, and friends.

He is was preceded in death by his first wife, Bricks Eakin, sister Patricia Eakin, and brother Stuart Eakin.

The celebration of Dave's life will be held on August 22nd, Saturday.

For more information, contact Don Johnston at Don Period B, period Johnston at gmail.com.

Finally, to honor his legacy, we'd like to share a brief excerpt from a 2008 interview that reflects reflects Dave's wisdom, his dedication, and his enduring impact on public education.

What do you remember that stands out in those those early years at Kenyatta?

With Goss as president.

The word that I would settle on would be optimism.

There was a very optimistic and uh positive attitude at the college then.

Everybody felt that it was really going to be a big success.

And everybody was excited about being involved in a success like that at an educational institution.

That's a feeling I had felt at every school that I had gone to, every new school.

There was always that feeling that it was really going to be a good place to be.

And that's the way it was at Kenyatta.

Very much so.

Vice Mayor, I'll turn it to you.

Thank you, Mayor.

I just want to add that as an original faculty member of three Samateo schools, Hillsdale High School, Aragon High School, and Kenyatta College, my dad helped shape and set a high standard for education for the county.

Over his 42-year teaching career, he taught some 4,000 students, likely influencing some of their life choices.

My two sisters and I definitely have very big shoes to fill.

Thank you, Vice Mayor.

And Kenyatta College is an incredible place, and I am one of those many students who have benefited from that incredible community institution.

And your father was a cherished member of this community whose devotion to education and service left a mark on generations of students, colleagues, and families.

And this council is with you and your families.

And I know he's left a mark on this community, and we're with you.

Thank you, Vice Mayor.

Thank you, everyone.

And with that, we will move to our next agenda item, item number six, our public comments.

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

We welcome speakers providing public comment, but please be advised.

This is a limited public forum, and as such, speakers must address matters within the subject matter jurisdiction of the city.

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

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

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

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

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

And I will now turn it over to our city clerk to facilitate public comment.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, at this time we have 13 speaker cards, and we have about 11 folks on Zoom.

I'll do a last call to anyone in the chamber with us tonight or anyone on Zoom, go ahead and raise your hand.

As the mayor mentioned, once we start public comment, we won't be accepting any more speakers.

Okay, we'll begin with our in-person speakers, and we have a total of 24 comments on this item this evening, Mayor.

Proceed with two minutes, is okay.

Okay.

Thank you.

So we will begin with our in-person speakers, beginning with Stephen Goodale, who will be followed by Dave Sapper.

That's two minutes.

Great.

Okay.

Uh good evening, Council members.

I'm a Redwood Shores neighbors, neighbor, and I'm asking you and everyone in this room and online to look hard at the Redwood Life project before it moves forward.

At five million square feet, this would be the largest development in Redwood City's history.

Five times what the Westport plan permits and bigger than two Oracle campuses.

But it isn't going downtown, it's going next to our homes, our marshlands, and the bay trail on a single access road already jammed at the 101 Marine Parkway Junction.

That traffic is a massive concern.

Parking would jump 61% to nearly 6,000 cars.

And the other approved projects near Shell and Marine Park, I'm sorry, add the other approved projects near Shell and Marine Parkway, and you're funneling up to 10,000 more vehicles onto one road.

When an ambulance or fire truck can't get through, that's a safety concern for every for every family out there.

And the Redwood Life Plan means 25 years of construction, eight phases, over 10,000 piles driven, more than 36,000 dump truck trips.

We would live inside of a construction site for a full generation.

We're not saying no to development.

We've held extensive outreach across Redwood Shores.

Now, the most popular option in our community is no project at all.

But the alternative I'm bringing tonight is a second community vetted option, published in detail at Redwood Shores Coalition.org.

It caps the project to two million square feet, holds parking at today's levels, restricts constriction to five years, protects the wetlands, and drops the fake benefits that like levy and dump cleanup that are already required by law.

More than 700 neighbors have signed our petition.

You can find it by searching Stop the Risky Mega Biolabs on Change.org.

Please direct staff to evaluate our livable plan in the EIR.

Our neighborhood is asking you to get this right.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Dave Sapper, who will be followed by Kathy Baird.

I'm sorry, I got off track because I'm still trying to deal with Dave.

He can live into 98 years old.

How about that?

And not just length of life, but the richness of it.

So quite a tribute.

There you go.

Okay.

I'm a resident of the shores.

I'm here to comment on the Redwood life development plans and the related Levy project.

It's important that each party is independently represented for project decisions involving a lot of complex technical work.

Less than reassuring, our city council, uh our city council rep for the shores has conflicts of interest with deep business relationships with the developer involved, Longfellow.

Our city mayor is featured by San Mateo's Chamber of Commerce, which has already provided endorsement and letters of support for Longfellow's version of Redwood life.

And so I'm still looking for who is independently representing the shores.

Are there consultants on which the city and the council are depending on?

How independent are they?

How much is the council depending on Longfellow for safety and viability assessments?

And why was the environmental impact report delayed?

And who is influencing its final version?

From what we've seen at all, we've all seen at the national level.

Any situation that is rife with conflicts of interest never turns out well for the taxpayer, and in this case for the people in the shores.

A concerning example, Longfellow, likely balking at the cost, has been pushing back hard against a horizontal levy design with regard to the levy project, claiming this toxic dump is too fragile to handle that construction.

While at the same time, Longfellow reassures that it's perfectly safe to replace Redwood Life's current structures with over five times more commercial floor space over the next 25 years, a whole generation of heavy commercial construction.

How's that smell to you?

All this while the council is trying to remove the Westport plan, which was put in place to mitigate dump damage well before Longfellow bought it, and to replace it with upscale zoning to make this giant development legal.

Like I alluded to earlier, conflicts of interest and profits rarely mix well beyond the profiteering by a few, and too often can result in avoidable predictable tragedy.

For everyone hearing this, review the data yourselves at Redwood Shores Coalition.org that's been curated, so you can do your own research and then consider signing the petition there.

Don't let one percent or profit destroy the shores.

Thank you.

Thank you, ma'am.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Kathy Baird, who will be followed by Will Aursler.

Hi, my name is Kathy Baird, and I spend a significant amount of time in Redwood City.

I volunteer, go to medical appointments, shop, eat, swim, use the libraries, and pass through to other destinations.

I'm asking Redwood City to end its contract with Flock.

The city should also pause the RFP process until there are meaningful opportunities for community input about the use of automated license plate readers.

What I am most concerned about is data sharing.

Regardless of policy, cities have less control over their own data than they think if they share data with entities outside their own employees.

Other jurisdictions have been documented to share with bad actors like ICE or to search the data for personal use.

And Flock itself is deceptive about its role in data sharing.

That's why I'm asking Redwood City to end its ALPR contract with Flock and to pause the RFP process until the community can provide meaningful input.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Will Arsler, who will be followed by Toby Levitt.

Good evening, City Council.

My name is Will Osler.

I serve on the Menlo Park Housing Commission, but tonight I'm speaking as a private citizen of a neighboring city.

You can't get a breath of fresh air in or out of that place without us knowing.

Nothing gets in or out of the town without us knowing.

That's how a Colorado police officer described their ALPR surveillance system to an innocent woman he was accusing of a crime falsely last year.

I shop at your stores, I eat at your restaurants, I visit friends and seek medical care in Redwood City.

It would be very nice to be able to get a breath of fresh air here without being surveilled.

I'm asking for two things tonight.

First, notify Flock that you will not be automatically renewing your contract as soon as possible.

And second, on the ongoing PRD process.

Please agendize future items to allow for public input on the PRD's requirements and responses.

Ultimately, I hope you will reconsider this invasive and dangerous approach to policing altogether.

The past three years have exposed a slew of deeply dystopian abuses of ALPR systems.

Police have justified nationwide searches for women who with queries like had an abortion search for female.

We've seen dozens of policies involved stocking cases.

We've seen innocent drivers forced out of their cars at gunpoint when automated misidentifications trigger false police alerts, including a case right next door in Atherton.

This is exactly where municipalities like Mountain View, San Jose, Santa Cruz, and Los Angeles are reversing cores on ALPRs.

For Redwood City system specifically, state law and common decency dictate that your data should not be shared with out-of-state or federal agencies and not used for immigration enforcement.

Public records show that uh Redwood City data was searched on behalf of federal agencies, including ICE hundreds of times a month.

Um thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Toby Levitt, who will be followed by Emily.

Good evening.

My name's Toby Lavitt, and um I'm the executive director of the San Francisco Shakespeare Festival.

So on a much lighter note, um, I'm here to invite you to the show and celebrate Parks Make Life Better Month.

Uh Free Shakespeare in the Park begins performances in Red Morton Park in just a few weeks.

We will perform at 6 p.m.

on Saturdays and Sundays from August 15th through August 30th.

The play is Anthony and Cleopatra by William Shakespeare.

This is a tragic love story of history's ultimate power couple.

Their love change challenges loyalty, tests ambition, and reshapes the course of history.

We look forward to offering our audiences a compelling exploration of power sacrifice and the enduring tension between the heart and the state.

By the end of the tragedy, geopolitics has so upset Anthony and Cleopatra that each is pledging to slay themselves over the presumed loss of the other.

Think grown up Romeo and Juliet, but in Rome and Egypt rather than Verona.

This wouldn't be possible without your leadership.

I would like to offer my sincere thanks to this council for your support and advocacy.

I would also like to thank the Parks and Recreation and Community Services Department from the Gardeners to the Department Director.

They're a terrific team, and my terrific team could not do without them.

You can help by spreading the word.

There's a downloadable flyer on our website, sffshakes.org, and an event you can share on Facebook and Eventbrite.

Thank you so much.

I look forward to seeing you in the park.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Emily.

And next will be Diane Savage.

Hello.

Bringing it back to a darker note, sorry.

I work in Redwood City every day, Monday through Friday, and I pass by multiple flock cameras on my way to work.

I'm very concerned by a lot of the new recent developments on the security of Flock and ALPRs in general.

I would like to request that Redwood City not auto-renew at the end of August and then also give the public more time to and pause the PRD for new ALPR contracts.

Let me just give a few examples.

He was able to very quickly hack into live streams of playgrounds, different public spaces, and view data that should only be accessed by law enforcement on his home computer.

They've also been untruthful in terms of what kind of data they're collecting.

These are supposed to be license plate readers, but the scope of what they're surveilling very quickly expands month to month.

They do now track people, and although Redwood City's Flock Transparency page says that the system does not collect data on people and pedestrians, there were recent searches showing uh searches under the people class asking for things like men, man walking in a red shirt.

Um eight of these searches were issued by Redwood City officers.

So I think we need to step back and take more time to look at what we've agreed to and what um contracts we want to sign in the future.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker, Diane Savage, who will be followed by Clara Jekyll.

Hi, um, I'm co-chair of the immigrant rights action team of Indivisible Mid Peninsula, which includes Redwood City within its service area.

I live in San Carlos, but as you know, the lines are there are no lines that divide these two cities, and I spend a lot of my time also in Redwood City.

Um behalf of our members of the action team and the communities that we serve, I am urging the Redwood City Council to end its current contract for ALPRs with Flock Safety.

It's my understanding that you have the option to terminate the contract if you serve a legal notice by August 21st, and I think it has to be delivered on the 22nd, that's my recollection.

Um, if you do not do that, it will automatically renew for another two years.

So it's an important date to be mindful of.

Uh, this evening.

ALI ALPRs have become one of the most pervasive surveillance tools used by federal agencies to surveil and ultimately detain the most vulnerable members of our communities.

Mass surveillance does not keep our public safe.

It endangers all of the residents of our communities.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Clara Jekyll, who will be followed by Bill Newell.

Thank you.

Um I'll start with a disclaimer that I am a member of the Redwood City Police Advisory Committee, but tonight I'm speaking as an individual resident and not representing the committee.

When the city's current contract with FLOC was approved, it was with assurances that state law and local policy would protect our data from misuse.

But in the last few years, our experiences as well as those of cities around the Bay Area have shown that those requirements are not enough to protect us from unauthorized access.

There have been vendor configuration errors, access approvals without robust review, and data sent to pooled systems where access is beyond local control.

All of that has meant that this very sensitive data has been repeatedly viewed by people who have not authorized to have that access.

What I've been hearing in general conversations as well as in the public comments at the May PAC meeting is that licensed plate readers are making Redwood City residents and other community members feel unsafe.

There's a particularly acute concern about federal agencies using license plate reader data in violation of California law to go after our immigrant community members.

So with the current flock contract about to end in September, it will be really important to get broad community input on what additional protections are needed to address residents' concerns.

Unfortunately, the schedule for the active request for proposals does not leave much time for this with bids due on August 7th and the winning bid to be notified by August 10th.

I would request that the city pause the current request for proposals process to allow time to hear and include the community feedback.

We also need to make sure that the flock contract is an authoring you in the meantime.

This is an important issue that's already the subject of deep public concern.

It's worth taking a pause to hear from the community, get a deeper understanding and get it right.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Bill Newell, who will be followed by Amber Garza Washburn.

Um good evening, Council.

Um Bill Newell, 1117 Faye Street.

35 uh year um homeowner in Redwood City.

Um I'm a member of the ACLU voting member local uh Northern California chapter.

Um our Redwood City leaders work very hard uh every day to keep our loved ones safe, but despite best efforts, federal agencies are still using automated license plate readers to track our movements, terrify neighbors, and make us all feel less safe.

To protect Redwood City community members, the city council should end this contract with FLOC.

The city should also pause the RFP process to get broader community input about the ALPR program and the strong guard reels necessary to decrease chances of abuse.

Chief Bell uh herself has acknowledged real concerns about the Flock contract.

Um, and she asked the police advisory committee for feedback about the ALPR program.

Overwhelmingly, that committee of citizen advisors to Redwood City asked for broader community input on the ALPR program before moving forward.

Many suggested the city should explore guardrails to decrease abuse, and most express heavy skepticism about the need for ALPRs at all.

But before seeking broader community input about the ALPR program of safety guardrails, the city has simply issued a request for proposals for ALPRs.

Um ALP are data from San Francisco, Atherton, and Mountain View has hacked, has been hacked, misused in the data was illegally shared, and federal agencies have been known to violently attack community members.

Mountain View, Los Altos Hills, Santa Clara County, and Santa Cruz wisely all canceled their flock contracts.

Redwood City can take action to protect all of us, and I mean all of us by ending its flock contract and pausing the RFP process until community can give meaningful input.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Amber Garza Washburn, who will be followed by Liban Sheik.

Thank you.

Good evening, Council members and members of the public.

My name is Amber Garza Washburn.

I've been a resident of Redwood City for five and a half years now, and I'm an attorney with a background in civil rights, state and uh federal law enforcement, and antitrust.

Um I first moved to Redwood City, I thought that I would be surrounded by a sea of tech bros, and I'm very delighted to say that that is not the case.

This is my very first time speaking at a city council meeting, and I felt compelled to come because I am very against the use of ALPRs in our community.

Um I asked the council and the city to decline to renew the flock contract and to pause the RFP.

There's no downside to delaying these decisions.

Uh, on the other hand, members of the public and residents will feel betrayed if the council rushes forward.

We are scared and angry.

There's a narrative being pushed that our opposition is the result of social media frenzy and hysteria, and I get that.

But as a former prosecutor, I'm very careful not to spread misinformation, and I check my sources.

There is too much evidence that to deny that uh there are serious issues with ALPRs and Flock.

At the last meeting, the public uh advisory committee expressed a desire for more information.

Chief Daniel Turrian went so far as to ask Chief Bell to first evaluate whether ALPRs are even needed.

And he said that in his four-year tenure on the PAC, this was the most public engagement that he had seen.

The city council can't fix the world's problems, but you can act here and you can make a difference.

Please pause the RFP and cancel the renewal renewal with Flock.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Leiban Sheik, who will be followed by Emily Morris.

Good evening, Council.

My name is Lee Ban.

I'm a former resident of Redwood City who still visits nearly every week to shop and dine with friends and family.

I want to join the other commenters and urge the city council to end their contract with FLOC.

The city should also pause the RFP process to seek broader community input about the ALPRA program and the strong guardrails necessary to decrease the chances of abuse.

Seeker police are arresting and jailing people who publicly speak up against their tactics.

Flock is profiting off of our private data.

Flock hammerers cost the city about a quarter million dollars over three years.

But local communities can stop participating in this high-tech data heist, which often harms the individuals who most need privacy.

It is crucial that Redwood City and its Alper contract now, without room for renewal, and that city leaders reject any ALPR vendor that can't guarantee strict data protections.

You have the power to protect the city, our privacy, and our immigrant neighbors.

Please end the contract with Flock, an essential first step to remove a weapon from the federal agents and their lawless actions.

And please pause the ALPRA contract process to allow the community to give input into the ALPRA program and the protections we need to keep our community safe.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Emily Morris, who will be followed by Isaac Achler.

Thank you.

I'm here today as a concerned community member to echo others in urging the city council to end Redwood City's contract with FLOC and pars the pause the RFP process for automate automatic license plate readers.

Many of us have been sold the lie that we have to give up some of our privacy in the name of safety.

But the choice between privacy and safety is a false choice.

The reality is that automatic license plate readers both compromise our privacy and make us all less safe.

Our federal government is building a terrifying mass surveillance apparatus, and many cities have found to their surprise that Flock data has been used to run searches for federal agencies.

These systems have been used to surveil protesters and even people seeking abortions.

The even greater potential for this data to be misused and abused is very real.

City after city across the country have regretted their decision to adopt FLOC contracts and have canceled those contracts.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Isaac.

My name is Isaac Achler.

I stood here about nine years ago after Redwood roller rink was closed.

I used to use it about 20 to 30 years when it was open for 60 years before.

And uh I asked the city at the time that it was closed.

What the city thinks to replace it to give the community rollerblading.

So I was there at the site.

The site is closed, of course.

There is no nothing left there, but there are plenty of office buildings around it and empty.

And the place itself is empty.

What the city plans to replace and give the community, there were many, many children who enjoyed so much rollerblading, and it was amazing.

And I don't see up to now any replacement.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Robert Stafford.

Good evening, Mr.

Mayor, members of the council, staff, and community.

When you look at Redwood City from above, what you see is a really a magical bookend of environmental stewardship.

The Green Hills, Lenny Roberts did so much to protect what we look when we see West.

When we go to the shore, the citizens for the committee, really for the preservation of all things that were right.

None of them were anti-development, but they were acknowledging that environmental issues belong in a pro forma.

Redwood City's got a long history of really community interest in doing a lot of things right.

In the last decade, I think City Manager Diaz did a great job.

And I think that expansion of view of what is community mean has been enhanced with at large elections.

It's difficult to know how to represent people when you don't physically meet them where they're at.

There's no question that Mount Carmel, the West Side, Redwood Shores will always be well represented.

But at-large elections are worth litigating for.

The civil rights movement of the 60s offers a good example.

Rights accrued are lost.

At large elections allow people that typically don't get involved, that don't have a voice, to have a voice.

Most recently, we can see this evidenced by the inclusion of Woodside Road into the larger plan.

Community interests revolve around meeting people where they're at.

At large elections enhance that.

And I urge you to push back on the state's concerns with the that legislation.

Lastly, just personally, we've been here for 170 years.

And this area has always been welcoming.

But it wasn't welcoming if you were a person of color.

At large elections ensure that everyone has a voice.

And it's an opportunity for you guys to address it.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

We'll now turn to our speakers on Zoom.

Uh soon as you begin speaking, the timer will begin.

And you may unmute yourself as we call your name.

Our first speaker is Liz Van Zyle, who will be followed by Sarah Matlin.

Hi, public council, good evening, um, police department representatives and decision makers involved in the RFP process for an ALPR vendor.

Thank you for your time.

I'm coming to you as a community member who visits the Insight Meditation Center here in Redwood City.

This moment in the US history requires us to be rigorous and honest about the certain risks and dubious benefits that proposed contract will expose our city to.

Why not hold a dedicated citizens' assembly or assign a task force to collect more thorough input from the community for this RFP conversation?

Allowing only three days tells me that at best we or you grossly underestimate the risk of the surveillance.

At worst, you are knowingly allowing a private company to collect and sell the patterns of our private movements while making us pay for these continued violations.

The data they collect from us will not be used to train AI models without our consent or awareness, with no option to limit, opt out, modify, or contest it.

This is not fear-mongering or illogical to predict these serious threats.

It's very clear that we live in a reality where tech companies like Axon and Flock can influence our government under the guise of making us safer.

And then thank you for your comments.

Our next speaker is Maximina M, who will be followed by Sarah Matlin.

Hello, my name is Maximina, and I'm a lifelong resident of San Carlos and neighbor of Redwood City.

I've been going to movies, dining and visiting friends in Redwood City as long as I can remember.

But today I feel it's important.

I join the others who have spoken this evening and reiterate the need for this council to end the city's contract with Flock.

The mass adoption of Flock surveillance technology all around the country in recent years has been very worrying and frankly scary to witness.

For a privileged person like me, these cameras are a creepy and gross invasion of my privacy.

But for our immigrant neighbors under the second Trump term, it's much worse than that.

You know, whether they be undocumented or not, the expansive and evil actions conducted by ICE over the last two years present a life-threatening situation devoid of any due process.

There have already been several examples all around the country of ICE seeking the data collected by Flock's cameras for use in immigration enforcement.

We cannot continue to give federal agencies more tools to harass, imprison, and deport our neighbors.

So to that end, I am pleading with you all to end the city's contract with FLOC and to pause the ongoing RSP process, seeking a contract with any such ALPR vendor.

It's imperative that there is time for the community to give input and express their concerns on this issue.

And I hope in the future the city will listen, realize the harm this technology enables, and take appropriate action.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Sarah Matlin, who will be followed by Rochelle McLaughlin.

Good evening.

My name is Sarah Matlin, and I've lived in Redwood City since 2013.

You work day and night working to keep our community safe.

But regardless, federal federal agents are using locally funded surveillance cameras to track our movements, kidnap our neighbors, and make us all less safe.

Federal agents are heavily using these surveillance cameras to find and attain the most vulnerable members of our community.

City Council should end flux surveillance contract to protect our city.

And the city should also pause the RFP process to get broader community input about the surveillance program and gather best practices about effective guardrails to decrease the chances of abuse.

You've all heard about how Chief Bell asked the PAC to about the surveillance program, and all the PAC members said they wanted broader community input about surveillance cameras in the city before moving forward.

Some asked the city to explore guardrails to decrease the chances of abuse.

Many said they weren't sure surveillance cameras were even necessary.

Some of us want to see how our surveillance cam uh cameras in the city are being used.

So a neighbor requested copies of our city surveillance search logs, and a volunteer's been reviewing the mountains of data.

From what we can tell, the city surveillance system was searched for federal agencies 1,256 times in just 11 months.

That's an average of 114 times per month.

That includes at least 21 searches on behalf of DHS agencies like Dyson Border Patrol and that implements police department elcoholm is being sued by California for illegally sharing surveillance data with immigration on purpose.

They searched our surveillance system last year.

And the Costa Mesa Cop, who was suspended for stalking, he searched our city surveillance at least uh 17 times.

As a city council, you have the regulatory procurement and legislative powers to step up and protect our community.

Please pause the RFP process to give the community meaningful opportunities to offer their feedback again about ALPRs.

And meanwhile, don't auto-renew the contract with Flock.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next comment is from Rochelle McLaughlin, who will be followed by Rocky Mandiam.

Good evening, Council members.

My name is Rochelle McLaughlin.

And I uh was born in Redwood City.

I uh my kids go to school in Redwood City.

I went to school in Redwood City, shop in Redwood City, um, seek medical care in Redwood City and enjoy lots of entertainment in Redwood City.

Um Redwood City leaders work every day to keep our loved ones safe.

But despite your best efforts, federal agencies are still using local automated license plate readers to track our movements, terrify our neighbors, and make us all less safe.

To protect Redwood City community members, the city council should end their contract with FLOC, and the city should also pause the RFE, the RFP process to seek broader community input about ALPR programs and the strong uh guardrails necessary to decrease the chances of abuse.

Um, Chief Bell acknowledged real concerns about the Flock ALPR contract, and the city may decide to end it.

In May, she asked the police advisory committee for feedback about the ALPR program.

Overwhelmingly, committee members asked for broader community input on the ALPR program before moving forward.

And many suggest that the city should explore guardrails to decrease abuse.

And most expressed heavy skepticism about the need for ALPRs at all.

Uh, but before seeking broader community input about ALPR program for safety or guardrails, the city simply issued a request for proposals for ALPRs.

Um, so we want Redwood City to end its ALPR contract in September of 2026 and to refuse to find another vendor.

In 2023, the Redwood City Police Department bought 25 automated ALPRs from Flock, um, as another um community member mentioned for about 250,000 dollars.

And uh technically the thank you so much for having me.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Rocky Mandiam, who will be followed by Jay Leefer.

Hi, I'm Rocky, speaking to my city council and neighbors about the proposed fair and affordable housing ordinance measure on this November's ballot.

Rocky, I'm sorry to interrupt you.

That item is actually item 9B this evening.

So you're welcome to raise your hand at that time to speak on that item.

Oh, I'm sorry.

Okay.

No worries.

Thank you very much.

Our next speaker then is Jay Laefer, who will be followed by Kimberly Wu.

Good evening.

Um, thank you to the mayor, to the city council, to the staff for this opportunity to speak to you.

My name is Jay Lafer.

I have lived in this Bay Area for 28 years in San Mateo County for 18 of those years, and here in Redwood City for the past 13.

I love living here and have great respect for Redwood City's leaders and the community as a whole.

I'm speaking tonight on the ALPR issue.

I want the same two things everybody else has asked for.

A pause on the RFP process and to intervene and not automatically renew the uh block ALPR contract.

But I also want to say a few things, which is that when Redwood City authorized its ALPR system, city leaders may not have known how much the data that these things collect put our community members at risk.

But local governments are uncovering more and more aid data abuse every day, and particularly by immigration agencies that are recklessly blowing through our constitutional due process protections.

At this point, nobody can say, not us, not your count, not the council, that we didn't know that these are making us less safe.

We know that now.

But you're not defenseless, we're not defenseless.

You can take action to protect us by canceling the flock contract.

And as a reminder, when you get that contract canceled, you're not guaranteed that flock will take down the cameras themselves.

In Wisconsin, a mayor had to go out himself and put bags over them because the Flock Company was just perfectly happy just letting the cameras continue.

Even though there was no contract because the data was that valuable to them.

So I want to make sure that not only do we get rid of these things, but that we get rid of them and we make them unavailable to Flock once they are in fact out of the contract.

Thank you very much for your time.

Thank you.

Excuse me.

Thank you.

Our next comment is from Kimberly Wu, who will be followed by Alison Davis.

Hello, I'm Kimberly Wu, and I'm from Services Immigrant Rights and Education Network, otherwise known as Siren.

We serve our immigrant and refugee communities around the Bay Area, including in Redwood City.

We strongly urge you to cancel your Flock contract, pause the RFP process to seek broader community input, and implement strong guardrails to mitigate the chances of abuse, such as requiring a valid judicial warrant for all data searches.

Mass government surveillance is not public safety, especially when AOPRs like Flock have weaponized our personal data against every driver on our roads without a warrant.

AOPRs like Flock cause a loophole and California sanctuary laws and increase increase anxiety, leaving our homes out of fear of being tracked.

Thank you to the former speaker, Sarah Matlin for bringing in the stats, and I'm here for a bit more.

For example, Redwood City shares with Atherton, Athleton's Flock data have been accessed hundreds of times by external agencies on behalf of federal agencies known as side door searches.

In fact, in February 2025, the Bakerwoods Food Police Department search Athertons and 758 other law enforcement agencies flock AOPR systems 18 times the reason of quote HSI, known as Homeland Security, which is a division of ICE.

Thus, our Redwood City data is exposed to Atherton, who can then share our data in a side door manner.

Additionally, these cams capture may way more than license plates.

Flock's patents can extend to identify people based on height and weight, race, gender, clothing, and animals.

In fact, our neighbor's PRA requests show that Redwood City AOPRs have been used to track people on the street using the words, and I quote, man walking with a red shirt.

This city's money should be spent on proven community solutions that truly make us safe and reduce crime, such as public education, health care, affordable housing, immigrant legal representation.

We encourage you to follow the brave leadership of your local cities like Mountain View and San Cleo County and protect our Redwood City community members by canceling Flock and pausing the RFP process.

Thank you.

Thank you, Kimberly.

Our next speaker is Alison Davis, who will be followed by Gabriela Valencia.

Good evening.

My name is Alison Davis, and I've been a resident and homeowner in Redwood City for 19 years.

I urge you to cancel the Flock contract and pause the RFP process.

I had the opportunity to meet with Chief Dale in April, and I was very impressed with her, and I trust her integrity.

However, in the current environment, we've all witnessed the federal government violating laws, policies, and norms.

We cannot take the risk that this data will be misused by the federal government.

I do understand the benefits to law enforcement, but it's just too dangerous for the residents of Redwood City.

And you, as our city council, have the responsibility to protect us.

Please err on the side of safety for the residents of Redwood City.

Thank you for your service and for considering my opinion.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Gabriela Valencia, who will be followed by Tim Mackenzie.

Good evening, uh Council members.

My name is Gabriela.

I have lived in unincorporated Redwood City in North Fair Oaks for 30 years.

Although I cannot vote in Redwood City elections, the decisions you make have a direct impact on my life and on the lives of many North Fair Oaks residents.

North Fair Oaks residents are part of this community.

We shop in Redwood City.

We work here, our children attend school here, and we travel through the city every day.

Many of my neighbors are immigrants from Mexico and other Latin American countries.

Given the current political climate, many families are living with fear and uncertainty.

It is difficult not to worry about the surveillance technology could be used for purposes beyond those originally intended.

I understand that public safety is important.

We all want safe neighborhoods, but public safety also depends on trust.

When community members fear that their movements could be tracked or that personal information could be misused.

Many no longer feel they can fully trust the institutions that are meant to protect them.

The community that serves an opportunity to provide meaningful input and to discuss the strong safeguards that would be needed to protect everyone's privacy and civil rights before moving forward.

Thank you for your for your time and for your consideration.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Tim McKenzie.

Hi, my name is Tim McKenzie.

I'm with the Silicon Valley Democratic Socialists of America, and I am here to urge you to as soon as possible cancel the auto renewal for the Flock contract and allow the contract to expire, pause the RFP process, as so many speakers before me have.

Everyone who has come up to speak today is for public safety.

Flock and every other ALPR vendor is for profit.

They will say anything to sell fear to convince the city to spend an inordinate amount of money so they can get the only thing that will actually justify their valuation.

Our data.

Even with the best safeguards in place with regular auditing, automated license plate readers are not safe.

It has been the long-standing since the Biden era policy of the Department of Homeland Security that any searches by ICE in ALPRs will not show up in audit logs, except for logs only available to ICE.

In other words, it is impossible for us to know if federal immigration agents are searching our data.

Never mind all of the examples people already shared about people people who have been given legitimate access searching for ice.

The only way to support public safety is by investing in human needs like stable affordable housing, health care, things like that.

Mass surveillance is not public safety.

And I I echo everyone who spoke before me asking you to cancel the flock contract and not seek any other ALPR vendors moving forward.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And that was our last speaker.

If you raised your hand after we began public comment, uh we welcome your comments in writing to the city council at Council at Redwood City.org.

And that concludes public comment mayor.

Thank you, City Clerk, and thank you to the members of public who have joined us in person or online to provide public comments on all of the topics we've heard tonight.

It's very appreciated to have members of the public just be here in City Hall.

So thank you.

Um with that, we will move to the consent calendar.

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

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

Councilmember G.

Mayor, thank you.

I will be recusing from item number seven B as and Bob.

I live next or adjacent to the landscape maintenance district that is on the agenda.

Okay, that's Councilmember G recusing from 7B as in Bob.

Is there a motion for all other items?

So moved, excluding item 7B.

Thank you, Councilmember Howard.

Second.

Thank you.

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

Could we get a an electronic vote, please?

It's looking like a roll for a roll call vote, Mayor.

Sorry about the case.

Thank you.

Okay, we're back online.

Electronic vote.

Sorry about that.

Thanks.

The motion passes unanimously.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And I will move the item 7B.

Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you.

And could we get a vote on item 7B as in Bob?

We'll take a roll call vote on that one.

Mayor, sorry about that.

We'll start with Councilmember Chu.

Yes.

Councilmember Howard.

Yes.

Councilmember Petia.

Yes.

Councilmember Sturkin.

Yes.

Vice Mayor Aiken.

Yes.

Mayor Martinez Sabayos.

Yes.

Motion passes with six votes.

Councilmember G is recused.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, everybody.

We'll move to the public hearing section of the meeting, beginning with 8A, which is the substitution of the affordable housing sites and affordable housing project at 847 Woodside for a affordable housing site and project at 705 Veterans Boulevard.

And we do have some recusals, so before we start the presentations, I'll turn things over to the Vice Mayor.

Uh yes, I would um I am recused because I my residence is within a range of the um project in question, so I will not be uh participating in this discussion.

Thank you, Vice Mayor and Councilmember G.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

I will be recusing myself from this item also.

I'm on the board of Casa Cicil Catarau, which is currently a tenant in the 1900 1900 Broadway property.

Thank you.

Great.

Thank you, Councilmember.

And we'll let you both leave the days.

All right.

And we welcome community development director, Jeff Schwab and Engineering Transportation Director, Tanisha Warner, who will be giving us a presentation on the item.

Good evening, Mayor Martinez Sabias, members of the council.

As you noted, uh Tanisha Warner, our engineering and transportation director will be my co-presenter tonight and talking about the street uh segment vacation, Spring Street.

Additionally, we have William Chew are from our planning division and Sandra Council on Zoom from Housing Office if there are more specific questions.

Next slide.

Brief overview of the agenda tonight.

Um I will provide a little background on the 1900 Broadway Gatekeeper project, then we'll move to the uh site substitution request uh where 705 Veterans is proposed to replace 847 Woodside.

Uh then we'll talk or Tanisha will talk about the Spring Street um area uh vacation, and then we'll conclude with the staff recommendation.

Next slide.

As you uh hear the presentation tonight, uh let us know if you have any clarifying questions with regard to the site substitution request, the substitute site itself, and or the general vacation.

Next slide.

In October of uh 2024, the council approved a number of entitlements for the 1900 Broadway Gatekeeper project.

Uh the project consists of a seven-story approximately 256,000 square foot uh mixed-use commercial office building.

Um it also included a development agreement uh that included provisions that the applicant would apply to vacate the Spring Street segment to facilitate the land assembly for the development of the project.

Uh the proposed vacation would terminate uh the public's right-of-way over the Spring Street segment, including the Marshall Walnut uh remnant park parklet parcel.

In addition, the applicant would purchase the Spring Street segment from the city through a purchase and sale agreement for about 10.75 million.

As part of the general vacation process, the City Council did uh initiate the vacation proceedings on June 22nd of this year.

Also in October of 24, the council approved entitlements for the 847 Woodside project uh that included um the project approvals for uh the architectural permit, a map, subdivision map, an affordable housing plan, an affordable housing partner, and an affordable housing land donation agreement for a 71 unit housing development and with one manager's unit, that's the A47 Woodside Project.

The development agreement and the affordable housing land donation agreement memorialize the applicant's um commitment to uh donate the land uh to meet their affordable housing obligation for the 1900 Broadway project.

Next slide.

The development agreement does allow the 1900 Broadway project to request the site substitution uh for an affordable site, uh another affordable site.

Uh the site substitution requires a public hearing at the council.

That's why we're here tonight.

Uh the substitution criteria were established in the development agreement, and I'll cover those a little in the next slide.

Um May of this year, the applicant did formally make the request.

And let's see, next slide.

And so this is the new substitute site that's being proposed, a five-story 76 unit building.

75 of those units are affordable, plus one managers unit.

There's about 6,850 square feet of private open space.

There's amenities for outdoor recreation as well as community and fitness rooms.

Uh the building is about 68 feet tall.

There are approximately 36 spaces on site, however, none are technically required because this is within a half mile of the Caltrain station.

Uh the project includes a mixture of mostly studios and one bedroom units with one two-bedroom manager unit.

The affordability levels are 12 extremely low-income units, 23 very low-income units, and 40 low-income units.

Next slide.

And now the site substitution criteria that was in the development agreement.

And I'll just run through these really quickly.

Do the costs of acquisition, site clearance, and the change in the tax credit priority for that location, which makes financing of the affordable housing more difficult.

Criteria B meets all of the land donation requirements, with the exception the site must be vacant, undeveloped property.

However, the council, as I mentioned, has the discretion to accept the property with the existing improvements so long as the donor takes all the necessary steps to avoid residents of the existing avoid impacts to the residents of the existing residential structures, of which there are none.

Criteria C the site valuation is approximately half a million more than the prior site, so it meets that criteria.

Criteria D, the project provides 75 affordable units, which meets and exceeds the affordability levels of the previously approved project at 847 Woodside by providing four more extremely low-income units and the same number of very low and low-income units.

And criteria E, the site substitution's affordable housing plan was found in compliance with the requirements of the affordable housing ordinance.

Criteria F.

The project was ministerially approved by the zoning administrator on July 22nd of 26th.

So that meets that criteria.

And the final criteria is that this will not be detrimental to the public's health, safety, and general welfare because it provides for the creation of affordable housing on a site that allows mixed use, including residential, and it is surrounded by compatible uses, including multifamily housing, and it is located near a high quality transit stop, which will facilitate the use and provides parking even though none is required.

Next slide.

And this just shows the breakdown of the affordability levels, comparing with our affordable housing ordinance, the 847 project, and the proposed substitution with 705.

And with that, I'm going to turn it over to Tina Shorner, Engineering and Transportation Director to give you an overview of the vacation area and process.

Good evening, Council.

I'm Tanisha Werner, Director of Engineering and Transportation, and I'm happy to give you an overview of the street vacation process and then to talk about it in the context of 1900 Broadway.

So a street vacation is a legal process where the city is able to identify an area of public right-of-way that it no longer needs for public use, or there's a different use that's identified as a better use of the space.

The city vacates that property or basically abandons that public use of the property and allows that portion to be absorbed by the adjacent development.

When we're looking at this specific case for 1900 Broadway, the applicant has been requesting the street vacation in order to finalize their land assembly, which is needed for them to pencil out their project.

The street vacation includes a portion of Spring Street from Main Street to Walnut, and it also includes a triangular portion adjacent to Marshall and Walnuts.

And we call that a parklet area.

And the transportation impacts that are associated with closing the segment were previously evaluated in 2010 and later again in 2023.

The study has concluded that removing the street segment would restore the intended street grid and it would improve both vehicular circulation and pedestrian connectivity in the area.

The California Streets and Highway Code, Section 8300 authorizes the city council to vacate public rights away.

If the council approves the vacation, the city will then relinquish its interest in the portion of Spring Street and the adjacent city-owned parklet, and that would follow a public hearing process.

As part of the overall land assembly, the applicant would purchase the vacated portion of Spring Street from the city, and it has a total of 21,104 square feet.

The property has been identified as exempt surplus property, and it is able to be sold at the appraised fair market value.

And that value is $10,750.

And this is further outlined in the purchase agreements.

So this is consistent with the development agreement.

And if the city chooses to complete the vacation, um, then we would start the street vacation process.

And I will pass it back to Jeff.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chanatha.

Excuse me.

Um I just want to sorry, thank you, Mayor.

I just want for clarification.

Could you give us the price tag of the Spring Street again?

10.75 million.

Thank you.

Yeah.

I like that one better.

Thank you.

All right.

So in conclusion, um after you hear uh from the applicant, we'll hold a public hearing.

You'll hold the public hearing.

Uh and then our recommendation is that you adopt a resolution approving the site substitution 705 Veterans Boulevard as the affordable housing site with the designated with a designated affordable housing and a designated affordable housing project in the 1900 project Broadway Development Agreement.

It's a mouthful.

Um, and approving the amended and restated affordable housing plan.

And then lastly, you adopt a resolution conditionally vacating the Spring Street segment, consisting of portion of Spring Street and the remnant city parklet located at Marshall and Walnut Streets, and approving the purchase and sale agreement between the city and um between the city Ridwood City and the 1900 Broadway developer for the purchase of the Spring Street segment.

Thank you.

And then we'll go but the council questions will reappear, but you'll have a public hearing.

Thanks.

All right.

Thank you for the presentation, and we'll open up the public hearing.

Thank you, Mayor.

We have two comment cards at this time, so I'll do one last call to the audience or our folks on Zoom to be recognized for public comment.

And again, once we begin calling speakers on the list, we will close the speakers' list for this item.

Okay, we have a total of three speakers.

We'll start with Katrina Smith, who will be followed by Bart Pantoja.

Katrina.

Not with us.

We'll go on to Bart Pantoha.

Welcome.

Well, thank you.

But I guess not.

Uh evening council, staff, fellow late-nighters.

Uh I'm here speaking on behalf of the 13,000 men and women of the Union Construction Trade in San Mateo County.

And on behalf of those, and on behalf of those who are unrepresented, who may be the unrepresented workforce that could be hired to build this project.

I want to affirm the use of the SB 423 uh legislation on the substituted project.

Senate Bill 423, sorry, Senate Bill 420.

I drank way too much coffee today.

Take a breath here.

I think I have plenty of time.

Um Bill 423 introduces significant labor requirements for residential housing projects that exceed 50 units.

These requirements are apprenticeship participation, health care contributions, and compliance and reporting.

Regards to the apprenticeship participation.

Contractors must either participate in state approved apprenticeship programs or request the dispatch of apprentices from uh dispatch of apprentices maintaining specific journey person to apprentice ratios regarding the health care.

Employers are required to make health care expenditures for all construction craft employees.

Uh union or not.

Compliance and reporting.

Developers must submit monthly reports to local agency verifying compliance, and all contractors are required to submit certified payroll to labor commission.

The Building Trades Council looks forward to meeting with the developer to assist in implementing these standards to ensure all projects remain fully compliant.

So I'll be talking to the printer presenters later.

Happy to give my information.

Thank you for the time.

Thank you very much.

We'll turn now to our Zoom speakers.

Mike Hurd, please go ahead and unmute yourself and begin your comments.

Thank you for the opportunity to comment.

The uh we're gonna lose a lot of uh quite a number of heritage trees that are on the parklet.

And it's uh a very good place for large dogs uh to uh exercise, and we simply don't have a good substitute for that.

If um if you keep it as is, or if you provide some some alternative, and with 10.75 million dollars coming in, I would think you should be able to do that.

Uh that would be um a uh very much appreciated uh addition to this as uh not necessarily condition on the developer, but a condition on the council's approval.

I think that is pretty much all that I need to say.

Thank you very much for your uh the opportunity to speak.

Thank you, Mike.

And that was our last comment on this item.

Again, if you've raised your hand and were not able to speak, we welcome your comments uh in writing at council at redwood city.org.

That concludes public comment mayor.

Thank you, City Clerk, and thank you to the members of the public for providing some comments.

And we'll bring it back to the city council for any questions for staff or any comments on the project in front of us.

And I can go ahead and get us started if oh, Councilman Surkin.

Okay.

Okay.

Please thank you.

Uh thank you to everyone who is part of this project.

I I know there's multiple partners, and I just appreciate all of you working so well together to get us to this point several years uh down the line now.

Um thank you for folks who commented both online and in person as well.

You know, we saw this um opportunity come before us back in January, I think it was.

Um, so it's it's good to it's a good refresher.

Um and I I still have some questions I think I wanted to revisit from that conversation, uh, beginning with um I think you had said I had asked if there how this would be constructed, if it would be you know modular or if it would be um you know regular construction, I believe you confirmed it would be regular from the ground up construction.

I see head nods.

Thank you.

There's a button.

Yeah.

Hi, Dixie Bows with Eden Housing.

Thank you uh so much for your question.

At this time, we believe it will be uh stick built, if you will, instead of modular, uh though we won't roll out that opportunity.

We we have not gotten into nor uh have proposed to move into construction drawing uh detail yet.

So that's still to be determined.

But right now it seems like uh the best uh for this particular location is stick built.

That's exactly what I wanted to hear.

What was best for um this particular location and what'll get you to the finish line?

Um so thank you very much.

Just knowing that modular can be more affordable in some cases, but hearing from you that this is the best way forward, I very much support that.

Thank you.

All righty.

And then in terms of the timeline, I had asked you last time.

Uh we think you concluded it was about 20 months or so of construction.

So from now from entitlement um to now to the to occupancy about five years in total.

I'm gonna put an asterisk on that because there are um there are commercial tenants uh still under their leases uh as well as the uh current owner-user of the property.

And so um those occ those uh commercial uh businesses have the opportunity if they'd like to uh terminate their leases earlier than they want, but I don't think that they'll do that um before um at the earliest of the end of 2027.

So at that point, you know, we'll spend the the rest of the year and all of 2027 raising funds.

Uh so uh if the the one remaining tenant whose lease uh goes through uh 2028 uh opts not to uh terminate their lease um then we'll wait uh until that that lease is um has run its course.

Uh we won't dislocate or force someone to move or break their lease um if they do not want to.

So barring that we'll we'll be able to work concurrently uh with the funding and the fine financing in a perfect world.

Uh at the end of the 2028 lease, we're breaking ground.

So a lot of that can happen simultaneously, just waiting for the end of the lease.

Thank you for that clarification and appreciate your sensitivity to the existing businesses.

And it sounds like my follow-up question is that it would not affect your eligibility for some of those funding sources necessarily, right?

It would be another cycle or no.

Our funding are we can start applying for funding um as soon as uh today with your approval.

And also on that topic as well, um it was cited that the tax credit eligibility, I think it was Mr.

Uh Mr.

Jeff over there, that the 847 Woodside Road project or parcel rather was does no no longer scores as highly.

It it still scores, but it's no longer in what's considered a high resource area, which would have given it a little bit of an advantage under the tiebreaker.

Uh and so both sites uh given given that there's no competitive advantage over that site.

So this site, this site uh 705 veterans for seniors and uh proximity to downtown is uh is definitely far more for uh superior of a project.

So we're very very happy with the site substitution.

That's very reassuring because uh if I remember correctly when I asked that question six months ago, there was some concerns about how the 705 uh parcel would score.

So thank you.

I'm glad to hear that.

Yeah, you're welcome.

Okay.

Um then I had asked also, sorry, I'm almost done.

Um I'd asked about uh you know use of union labor uh for this project uh six months ago as well, and I'm glad to hear um you know Bart from BTC make a public comment there citing that there is a law that seems to require use of the union labor in this project.

Yes, when we entitled this um this site we used um SB35 slash 423, which does have a requirement for uh skilled and trade labor as well as providing health care benefits uh to those uh contractors on site by way of subcontractors or uh the recs um as well as any number of other things as well as reporting uh monthly reporting.

We will absolutely comply with all of those requirements and have signed the certification.

That is part of our entitlement um package and is also part of our conditions of approval.

So thank you so much for your testimony, and uh yes, we look forward to that.

Fantastic.

That's great to hear.

Uh I know it can be more expensive, but um in the long run, we are providing good paying jobs with health care uh for residents right here in Redwood City and across the county.

So thank you for your partnership with the building trades and um those are my questions.

Thank you.

Thank you for getting a starter.

Councilmember Sterkin, and we'll go to Councilmember Howard.

Thank you.

Uh thank you for the questions, Councilmember Sterkin.

Uh I was going to ask some of those, but thank you.

Uh I really like the answers that were given by Dixie.

It's it's a pleasure to see you again.

Oh, thank you so much, Councilman.

I did want to ask you though, is this Eden Housing's first housing experience with Redwood City, or have there been others?

I had a feeling this may be the first.

This is our first of I hope a thousand more uh in the city of Redwood City.

We do have other projects in San Mateo County.

That's good to hear.

That's great.

Um I was very excited uh about the fact that it is senior housing, and you're able to offer four more very extremely low affordable units for our seniors.

And it we're asked all the time for senior living, senior housing, and I think this can be a wonderful project.

And Veterans Boulevard is turning out to be quite the community.

It is.

We have a number of housing projects along there, and like you said, the close proximity walkable to downtown is certainly a plus.

So I I'm very excited.

Woodside roads a bit more challenging, I would think.

But anyway, and I'm also glad you are providing some parking, and I know that's that's one thing I'm glad about because I know that you have staff that are going to be there and some seniors who won't want to give up their car because sometimes that's their last hold on their independence.

So I'm glad we do have some spaces for that.

Yes, thank you.

You're welcome.

And so I look forward to the groundbreaking.

I did have a question for staff, though, about the um Spring Street Dog Park.

Um I understand a lot of people do use because we have a lot of people living downtown now, and they have dogs, and there isn't a lot available, but I know we have one on Main Street.

It's not as large as I'd like it to be, and I'm not sure they do take the larger dogs.

Could you tell me about that?

Yes.

So the the Main Street Park near Elmond Beach is um was out of commission while Elco Yards was constructed, and Elco Yards actually transformed this triangular uh parklet around Spring Street as a temporary dog park while that was under construction.

Um my understanding is it does have a small dog play area closest to the building and then a larger area that's available for all dogs.

Um and uh it is now open.

And and there was an agreement that this developer also helped maintain this park until this project uh was uh brought online.

And so we're now at that point where this project is moving forward and that that facility will no longer be there.

You're saying the dog uh the dog park on Maine is going to be No, the dog park on Maine stays, it's done, it's finished, it's open.

Okay, no, I'm sorry, I misunderstood.

Yeah, the spring, the spring one, Spring Street one is got it.

Is ended.

And the maintenance is ends too with this project going forward.

Yeah, and uh it's it's not an ideal situation to be sure because of the configuration and so forth.

But I'm wondering um in our plan for downtown, you know, part two, uh could we just consider the fact that maybe we could use another dog park and maybe study that a little bit because people moving in I see a lot of dogs now downtown that I never saw before and uh unleashes, thank goodness.

That's but I'm just thinking maybe we could plan for something and get input from the people currently living downtown and those future living there on a possible dog park for the future.

Certainly.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Howard.

I see Councilmember Chu reaching for her mic.

We'll go to her next.

Um yeah, so really excited about this project.

Um I just had uh one question for um sorry, can um so and you know, very briefly, can you just uh highlight a couple of the reasons why the new site is is preferable?

Um I know that was in the report, but just for the benefit of the one of the reasons that we're excited about it is that the city did want senior housing, and in the proximity of the site to the recreational trail, uh the medical facility, downtown within walking distance, uh Cal Train, uh which is definitely within walking distance, that will help um with the mobility as well as the employment opportunities for those of us 55 and better who are still in the workforce, you know.

Um so it it it represents uh inactive lifestyle opportunity for our seniors and aging uh in the community who are already in the community looking to live in the downtown uh area.

So uh for that reason, uh among others still uh it is a really, really attractive site and to be part of uh the Veterans Boulevard um expansion and the renewal and and just the excitement of that is is just a fantastic um welcome.

Thank you.

Terrific, thank you for that clarification.

So um I I am certainly sensitive to the community input.

Um wanting to preserve both the heritage trees and the dog park, but I I think we have to remember that life is about trade-offs and that you know 78 uh it at minimum 78 people uh will have a new home in Redwood City who not who would not otherwise uh be able to um live here.

And I I think it's worth thinking about you know what we can do in the downtown area to both replace you know the dog park and and certainly you know not heritage trees, but but really go after uh an excellent tree canopy.

Um the second thing I was very pleased to hear is that is that you will be using union labor.

And just one point of clarification uh skilled and trained is not equal union I'm sorry but it is very very likely that um with the skilled and trained provision that it will be union but the probability though the probability is greater but we won't have a PLA I apologies I didn't I didn't understand that um so you know I'm I'm just excited to see this project move forward um you know Redwood City builds housing and uh I love to see it so thank you thank you Councilmember Chu Councilmember Padilla Thank you for your presentation um I looked at the charts and then I went over and I went to Coupa Cafe and I got a cup of coffee and I thought I'm gonna go and walk through this space because I knew that the drawings that I saw were not going to be enough and I saw the emails that we got and I decided to walk there because we can call them heritage trees and we can talk about all the wonderful things but I think it would wrong would be wrong to not acknowledge that there that is a spot that is currently used even if it was for borrowed time or if the community knew that this dog park it to council member Toward's point we we do have lots of needs in our community yes housing is one of them but with housing comes places to recreate places to exercise clean air to breathe as we keep building and building our downtown I do want us to think of the importance of our canopies I know that we can achieve shade in different ways and clearly that some of that is heights from buildings but I don't want us to rule out the importance of natural green spaces um so I looked at that but I also put pulled up Google Earth and Google Maps I went there I looked at it and then I said I'm gonna go to a cafe and I'm gonna walk here and I did I saw the gentleman and walking their dogs and people meeting with their lunches at work so it it's it's about spaces where people come together.

So this is also a community space so I hope with that we can make sure that whatever we're taking away we're replacing even more and I'll leave my thoughts on that with that thank you council member councilmember thank you I just wanted to transition to a few brief comments um I would just like to echo uh councilmember howard and councilmember Padilla's comments about finding a a way to increase park space and and dog parks within the Greater Downtown Area Plan um and in replacing what we currently do have.

You know when I hosted office hours on Saturday at 830 Main uh the Redwood Plaza village apartments I heard similar comments that we received tonight uh and via email about the loss of the heritage trees as well as the um the dog park so that's also on my mind and you know representing downtown as as well and so I guess the question I just have for Mr Schmidt is um Schwab excuse me uh sorry about that is with the um planned Bayfront park as well as the park next to the library can you remind me to either of those parks have a any kind of amenities for dog owners in there the Bayfront park is going through design so I don't think the final determination has been made on the other facility I don't believe they're oh I have I have an expert I did want to clarify a couple of points is that this project does create a different type of open space at the corner of Maine and Broadway the more civic um public space and um the the project approval did require um replacement and mitigation trees uh planted in the downtown uh as well um so I just wanted to let you know that those things are being somewhat addressed they're not one for one obviously but yeah absolutely there are 28 trees and Derek Wolfgram assistant city manager former parks and thank you thank you Jeff uh good evening counsel Derek Wolfgram assistant city manager uh uh as Jeff mentioned the um the waterfront park is not far enough along in the planning to have really decided anything about amenities um for the downtown library park um which you know we do still have a plan moving forward to um create that park once there's available funding although it's possible that the planning will get um you know redone or integrated if we do move forward with other developments on that library campus um but the current plans for the um downtown library park if it were to move forward as proposed it has a uh small dog relief area but it's not really a

Which, you know, we do still have a plan moving forward to create that park once there's available funding, although it's possible that the planning will get um you know redone or integrated if we do move forward with other developments on that library campus.

Um but the current plans for the um downtown library park, if it were to move forward as proposed, it has a uh small dog relief area, but it's not really a full-on like dog recreation area.

Um so there is a space for people to um allow their dogs to do their business, but it's not really a like get out and run around.

The proximity to the main street dog agility park is close enough for the uh downtown library that it didn't seem like um if we were going to place an additional full-size dog park, then that would be the place to do it.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr.

Wilkram.

And I'm not suggesting you know, redesigning it or or you know, spending more time um for us to just lose ground on that project.

But if it if the opportunity presented itself and it made sense and uh residents wanted um some kind of dog facility there, then that'd be fantastic.

And then as part of the uh Bayfront Parks design process, if as a result of community engagement we hear interest in having some kind of dog run or otherwise um there, that was we would be something I'd support as well.

So just wanted to echo that and um in close with saying that I'm I support this project uh and this this swap for all the reasons that have been mentioned.

But I just want to make the point, and this is not to anyone in the room, but just generally speaking, as we look ahead at the way we plan our city, that affordable housing cannot all be east of El Camino.

So just gotta keep that in mind, folks.

Um, this was a great opportunity at A47 Woodside Road.

There will be others, and I hope that we can prioritize uh locations west of El Camino in the future.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Sturgen, Councilmember Church.

Um I'll keep my comments brief.

So um, you know, two weeks ago, uh the city council elected to turn the length of Broadway, you know, from you know, in front of Sequoia through our city uh down um past um Woodside to 2nd Avenue in in Friendly Acres uh into a person centered street.

And if you've ever I mean I lived on a uh a canal uh I lived in Japan for several years.

I've visited my family uh in Atlanta many times and gone on the belt line.

If you've ever been on what is effectively a linear park, you can walk for hours.

And it's it's you know it's like being in a botanical garden.

And so I I think with more and more constrained space, we have to get really creative about what we mean by park and green space.

A really well-designed street can be quiet and delightful and and a pleasure uh to to be on um and to walk on.

Um, and when I said I want trees that touch in the middle, I I you know I think that's possible.

Uh so uh I think we do have an opportunity to create you know several miles of a glorious, beautiful green space uh coming up.

Great colleagues, thank you.

Um and presenters staff, appreciate you all coming back.

Um I have to say it is really just great to have this project come back.

I have to it is interesting just to see where our conversation around housing has come in a short few years.

It feels like land swaps were like a relatively new tool to the city council to the planning commissions just a few short years ago, and I know there was a little bit of harp and just kind of concerns around what that would look like in practice, and to see it sort of help us get this project to the finish line today is is incredible and speaks to um just the the cooperation, collaboration between all of us to make this project happen and build this incredible project for the people who really need it, the local seniors who don't get to see these projects every day, right?

Um there are fastest growing population in San Mateo County, and yet these buildings aren't happening on a regular basis.

So I think the new site is is incredible.

Um, you know, I think it is a lot closer to some amenities that these folks will be able to take advantage of.

The building itself, I mentioned this when you all last came to us, right?

But love the private open spaces that are going to be available to residents, the outdoor recreation areas.

The fact that you all are providing 36 parking spaces, even though you know we aren't requiring you is appreciated because that is a new neighborhood, and that is going to be um you know one of those growing pains that we'll see as the neighborhood starts to see new buildings come up in that area.

So that's really appreciated.

But um, I agree in principle with what my colleagues are saying uh around you know, the dog park and the amenities, the fact that if we're if we're losing sort of our our neighborhood amenities and green spaces, that we should be coordinating that in the long term and envisioning that in sort of our our future plans so that we're cycling them back in.

And um, you know, I'm I'm thinking of council member Aguirre, who always talked about her downtown square park that she envisions, you know, in um next to our courthouse square, and um I could see something like what you know to uh to to bring in San Carlos.

They have a really great dog park next to their city hall, and something like that would be really interesting where you're giving folks a place to take their dogs, and also there's some really great people centered areas around there where if you don't have a dog, you can also spend time there too.

So wanted to speak to the dog park, but I'll end my comments with um something that Councilmember Stirkin said around you know, these projects.

We're gonna be seeing these projects come up in different parts of towns, not just in our transit corridors, but real estate is finite in Redwood City in San Mateo County, and our state laws are only going to get more restrictive, more prescriptive, and so I think we're gonna need to be more creative and more collaborative to just make the housing work.

And so I think this is a really great effort to connect our skill and trained uh workers to these types of projects and to get them across the finish line.

So I'll leave it there.

I appreciate the conversation from my colleagues, and I will entertain a motion.

Councilmember Stirkin.

I move to approve uh to adopt a resolution approving a substitute site, 705 Veterans Boulevard, as the affordable housing site and designated affordable housing project in the 1900 Broadway Development Agreement and approving the amended and restated affordable housing plan.

Do I need to say the whole thing?

Okay, I'll just adopt a resolution conditionally vacating the Spring Street segment, consisting of a portion of Spring Street and a remnant city parklet located at Marshall and Walnut Streets, and approving a purchase and sale agreement between the City of Redwood City and 1990 Broadway developer for purchase of the Spring Street segment.

Thank you.

Councilmember thank you.

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

Could we get a vote?

Certainly.

I'll take a roll call vote, starting with Councilmember Howard.

Yes.

Councilmember Pattia.

No.

Councilmember Sturkin.

Yes.

Councilmember Chu.

Yes.

And Mayor Martinez Sabayos.

Yes.

The motion passes with four votes.

Councilmember Pattia opposed.

Vice Mayor Aiken and Councilmember G is recused.

Great.

Thank you.

And could we get Councilmember Chi and Vice Mayor Aiken back?

Should be right now.

Oh perfect.

I think the vice mayor is coming right now, so we'll go ahead and get started with item 9A.

Our city clerk, Yesica Castro will give an overview of the item, take public comment, and facilitate the appointments to the Board of Port Commissioners, Arts Commission, Parks, Recreation, and Community Services Commission.

Thank you, Mayor.

Tonight you're being asked to make appointments to fill a total of six seats on the following three commissions the Board of Port Commissioners, the Arts Commission, and the Parks Recreation and Community Services Commission.

A recruitment was conducted earlier this year to fill seats on several BCCs or boards, commissions, and committees, to which you appointed several new members on June 22nd.

At that same meeting, the council voted to keep the applicant list open through January 2027.

At the close of the initial application period, the city clerk's office had not received the desired number of applications for the arts commission and the board of port commissioners, so that recruitment was extended an additional four weeks.

Also, a recent vacancy on the Parks Recreation and Community Services Commission occurred, and we confirm the continued interest of the applicants remaining on that list.

Tonight you'll be appointing to these three BCCs and also voting to maintain and use the current BCC applicant pool to fill any future vacancies that may occur on these BCCs through January 31st, 2027.

By way of process, all appointments will be made by roll call vote.

A candidate must receive a majority or four votes in order to be appointed.

If a majority vote is not reached for any seat, or if there is a tie vote, we'll proceed with additional rounds of voting until a majority vote is achieved.

We'll take the vote to fill full-term seats and then the partial term seat.

I'll also read all the candidates available for consideration for each group, and I'll also repeat back each of your selections before recording the vote.

Before we proceed with the voting and appointments, uh does any council have any questions on the process?

Seeing none, we can also take public comment.

Oh, here's them.

Comes the mayor.

Yes.

Is there anyone who would like to um give public comment?

Happy to take any speaker cards at this time.

Seeing anyone on Zoom.

Sorry.

Seeing none, I will close public comment.

Thank you, Vice Mayor.

Happy to proceed with the appointments at this time.

And again, we'll begin with the Board of Port Commissioners.

We have two full-term seats to fill, which will expire July 31st of 2030.

When I call your name, please state two names only, and the following four candidates are available for appointment this evening.

Noah Gaspar, Stan Moppin, Joseph Muscat, and Nancy Radcliffe.

We'll start with Councilmember Chu.

Stan Moppin and Nancy Radcliffe.

Councilmember Chu has selected Stan Moppin and Nancy Radcliffe.

Councilmember G.

Nancy Radcliffe, Noah Gaspar.

Thank you.

Councilmember G has selected Noah Gaspar and Nancy Radcliffe.

Councilmember Howard.

Stan Maupin and Nancy Radcliffe.

Councilmember Howard has selected Stan Moppen and Nancy Radcliffe.

Councilmember Padilla.

Nancy Radcliffe and Stan Moppin.

Councilmember Padilla has selected Stan Moppen and Nancy Radcliffe.

Councilmember Starkin, please.

Stan Maupin and Nancy Radcliffe.

Councilmember Starkin has selected Stan Moppin and Nancy Radcliffe.

Vice Mayor Aiken, please.

Nancy Radcliffe and Noah Gasper.

Vice Mayor Aiken has selected Noah Gaspar and Nancy Radcliffe.

Mayor Martinez Abaios.

Noah Gaspar and Nancy Radcliffe.

Mayor Martina Sabayos has selected Noah Gaspar and Nancy Radcliffe.

One moment while we tally the votes.

Thank you.

We have received a majority vote for Stan Moppin with four votes, and Nancy Radcliffe with seven votes, a unanimous vote.

So we will appoint Stan Maupin and Nancy Radcliffe to the Board of Port Commissioners.

Thank you.

We'll now move to the Arts Commission appointments.

We have three full-term seats expiring May 31st of 2030.

There are 15 total candidates that are available for appointment tonight, and I'll read the candidates now.

Oceana Anderson, Kelly Boyot, Sophia Constantini, Georgina Corbett, Anthony DeQattro, Mark Facett, Jeffrey Goodkind, Gregory Harrington, Megan La Sara, Anthony Lazarus, Jose Maciel, Roberta Newhousler, Leah Nonis, Arovic Roy, and Natalie Wills.

When I call your name, please state three names only.

We'll begin with Councilmember G.

Anthony DeCattro.

Megan Lasera.

Natalie Wills.

Thank you.

Councilmember G has selected Anthony DeQattro, Megan LaCara, and Natalie Wills.

Councilmember Howard.

Oceana Anderson, Kelly Boyet, and Anthony Lazarus.

Councilmember Howard has selected Oceana Anderson, Kelly Boyett, and Anthony Lazarus.

Councilmember Padilla, please.

Sorry.

Arvik Roy.

Jeffrey Goodkind.

And hold on, let me just get up this time.

Megan Lacera.

Thank you.

Councilmember Padilla has selected Jeffrey Goodkind, Megan La Sara, and Arovik Roy.

Councilmember Sturkin.

Jeffrey Goodkind.

Anthony Lazarus.

And Natalie Wills.

Councilmember Sturkin has selected Jeffrey Goodkind, Anthony Lazarus, and Natalie Wills.

Councilmember Chu.

Jeffrey Goodkind.

Anthony Lazarus.

And Oceana Anderson.

Councilmember Chu has selected Oceana Anderson, Jeffrey Goodkind, and Anthony Lazarus.

Vice Mayor Aiken.

Oh, hold on.

Okay.

I will go with the idea.

Megan Lacero.

Jeffrey Goodkind.

And Natalie Wills.

Thank you.

Vice Mayor Aiken has selected Jeffrey Goodkind, Megan Lacera, and Natalie Wills.

Mayor Martina Sabayos.

Thank you.

Um Kelly Boyett.

Jeffrey Goodkind.

And Natalie Wills.

Thank you.

Mayor Martina Sabayos has selected Kelly Boyett, Jeffrey Goodkind, and Natalie Wills.

One moment while we tally up the votes.

Okay.

Thank you.

For that round, we did get two candidates with a majority vote.

Jeffrey Goodkind with a total of five votes, and Natalie Wills with a total of four votes.

So we have one more seat to fill.

We'll do another round of voting.

And at this time, I would only ask that you state one name.

And we can cross off Jeffrey Goodkind and Natalie Wills from the list.

So you have 13 candidates now.

We will start with Councilmember Howard.

One name only, please.

Anthony Lazarus.

Councilmember Howard has selected Anthony Lazarus.

Councilmember Padilla.

Anthony Lazarus.

Councilmember Padilla has selected Anthony Lazarus.

Councilmember Sturkin.

Anthony Lazarus.

Councilmember Sturkin has selected Anthony Lazarus.

Councilmember Chu.

Anthony Lazarus.

Councilmember Chu has selected Anthony Lazarus.

Councilmember G.

Megan Lacera.

Councilmember G has selected Megan La Sara.

Vice Mayor Aiken.

Megan Lacera.

Vice Mayor Aiken has selected Megan La Sara.

Mayor Martinez Saballos.

Kelly Boyette.

Mayor Martina Sabayos has selected Kelly Boyett.

And with that, we have a majority vote for Anthony Lazarus for the third seat on the Arts Commission.

So we have Jeffrey Goodkind, Natalie Wills, and Anthony Lazarus, who received four votes for the three full-term seats on the Arts Commission.

Thank you very much.

We have one more seat to fill.

It's a partial term seat on the Parks Recreation and Community Services Commission.

We have eight candidates left in the active applicant pool from the last round, and I'll read those names to you.

Natalie Badkar, Ulduz, Barrenj Farouch, Zori Gomez, Wendy Moltrup, Molly Neighbor, Jason Simpson, Pratik Verma, and Siang Becky Zhao.

When I call your name, please state one name only.

We'll start with Councilmember Padilla.

Becky.

Councilmember Padilla has selected Becky Zhao.

Councilmember Sturkin.

Councilmember Sturkin has selected Becky Zhao.

Councilmember Chu.

Becky Zhou.

Councilmember Chu has selected Becky Zhao.

Councilmember G.

Molly Neighbor.

Councilmember G has selected Molly Neighbor.

Councilmember Howard.

All dues, farouche.

Councilmember Howard has selected Uldus, Barrenj Farouche.

Vice Mayor Aiken.

Old Duz Farred's Barouche.

Vice Mayor Aiken has selected Old Does Barrenge Farouche.

Mayor Martina Sabayos.

Molly Neighbor.

Mayor Martina Sabayos has selected Molly Neighbor.

And with that, we'll have to move to a second round of voting as we did not receive a majority vote.

When I state your name, please state one name only.

We'll start with Councilmember Sturkin.

Molly Neighbor.

Councilmember Sturkin has selected Molly Neighbor.

Councilmember Chu.

Becky Zoe.

Councilmember Chu has selected Becky Zhao.

Councilmember G.

Molly Neighbor.

Councilmember G has selected Molly Neighbor.

Councilmember Howard.

I'll do Baran Farouche.

Councilmember Howard has selected Uldus Barrenj Farouche.

Councilmember Padilla.

Becky.

Councilmember Padilla has selected Becky Zhao.

Vice Mayor Aiken.

Molly Neighbor.

Thank you.

Vice Mayor Aiken has selected Molly Neighbor.

Mayor Martina Saballos.

Molly Neighbor.

Mayor Martina Sabayos has selected Molly Neighbor, and with four votes, Molly Neighbor has been appointed to the partial term seat on the Parks Recreation and Community Services Commission.

Thank you, Council.

Thank you, City Clerk, and thank you, Council.

Lastly, we have one more council action to use a current applicant pool to fill any additional vacancies on arts commission or the board.

Excuse me, the board of port commissioners that may occur between now and January 31st, 2027.

Is there a motion to approve the staff recommendation?

So moved.

Is there a second?

Second.

That was a motion from Councilmember Gia, a second from Councilmember Chu.

Could we get a vote, please?

We'll start with Councilmember Padilla.

Yes.

Councilmember Sturkin.

Yes.

Councilmember Chu.

Yes.

Councilmember G.

Yes.

Councilmember Howard.

Yes.

Vice Mayor Aiken.

Yes.

Mayor Martinez Sabayos.

Yes.

Motion passes unanimously.

Thank you.

Thank you, everyone.

And with that, we will now move to item 9B.

Consider whether to take a city council position on the citizen initiated ballot measure on the November 2026 general election to amend the city Robert City Code to impose additional rent control and just cause eviction limits.

Spanish interpretation is being provided for this item.

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

Interpretada por favor vaya a la parte trasera de la sal in donde le entregaremos un transmissor.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

We have our assistant city manager, Michelle Posh Flarity, who will start us off with the presentation.

Welcome.

And we'll come back to the days later.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Why don't we just go ahead and move to the next slide, please?

The item before the council is the consideration of whether to take a city council position on the citizen initiated ballot measure on the November 2026 general election to amend the Redwood City Code to impose additional rent control and just cause eviction limits.

This slide outlines the key steps that preceded this item, including previous dates when the city council received analysis of the proposal in question.

The staff report includes links to all the materials that were presented to the city council throughout this process, including prior staff reports, the initial 9212 report, and the supplemental 9212 report.

Therefore, staff will not revisit that information again tonight.

But if you do have a technical question, we have Victor Gaitan from our housing team available on Zoom if needed.

The staff report briefly summarizes the elements of the proposed measure which are referenced here.

I will point out there was a typo in one section of the staff report.

As the first bullet point on this slide correctly reads, the measure would impose rent control on housing built before February 1, 1995.

However, the summary section of the staff report erroneously stated it would apply to housing built after February 1, 1995.

I believe that's the only place in the staff report with that error through the rest of the staff report and its associated materials.

The language actually accurately references housing built before February 1, 1995.

A review of the proposed tenant protections, estimated fiscal impacts, and other details are outlined in the staff report.

And again, those details were presented at length in previous council meetings.

So with that context, uh staff will defer to the mayor and city council to discuss this matter.

Sorry, we're going to actually move into public comment right now.

So this is your opportunity.

We're not gonna we're not gonna engage in a back and forth right now.

Um you can actually take advantage of public comment right now and thank you, sir.

Perfect.

We'll turn things over to the city clerk for public comment.

Thank you, Mayor.

At this time we have 16 speaker cards and three raised hands on Zoom.

So I will give it another few seconds for folks to be recognized for public comment on this item.

And again, once we begin public comment, we will not add any more speakers to the list.

So please fill out a speaker card and turn it in if you wish to speak or raise your hand on Zoom.

Okay.

So it looks like our list is at 19.

Mayor.

Oh.

We'll go with two minutes.

Thank you.

Okay.

Okay.

All right.

We will start with our in-person speakers.

The timer will begin when you start speaking.

And we'll start with Augustine Espino.

Welcome.

Good evening, Councilmember Mayor.

Um my name is Augustina Spino, and I'm over here to well, I support rent control.

I want the council to please look the language because we are my uh house, we had this experience that we for a friend let us uh introduce some a friend to rent a room.

We rented a room, and that turned out to be after a while, it turned out to be a chaos.

And now with the new new language that's been introduced over a year, I'm really scary.

And then I have that room not rented.

I choose not to do it because it's just so painful to go through it.

And then when the new language is being introduced, they'd say that now the landlord is need to pay 10,000 to the tenant to move out and all that.

It's so scary, and I really, really hope that you all think, and people like my family and another family that I know, that they they have a little room and they rent it to a friend, and sometimes that friendships breaks and things going get nasty.

And now with these new uh implementation, they possible will be uh effect.

It is terrifying.

I I argue you all to please consider it change the language.

Yes, I understand that there is uh uh corporations who rent houses, they are in different states, they are in different cities, who knows?

And they they have the money to pay the lawyers, they have the money to go to this to the process with the government to to evade anyone in their properties.

We don't have that privilege.

Please consider it and look into that language because as I say in on uh analysis is that it will repeal existing chapter 42.

Oops.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Alfredo Chorro, who will be followed by Amy Mendez.

Alfredo.

Okay, we'll move on.

Amy Mendez, who will be followed by John Mendez.

Hello, council members.

I just want to encourage the council members to offer uh their careful um study and broad perspective and their expertise to the voters of the city.

Um so that the voters uh and recommend that the voters uh reject the uh rent control measure and the ballot uh in the ballot materials that are sent out to voters.

Many voters do not study the full text of the laws, as you can imagine.

And so um, how do they decide how to make their votes?

Well, they depend on trusted sources of information, and you all are very trusted.

Of course, they may have friends, they may have uh the local papers and that kind of thing, but I think your word carries a lot of weight, and I hope that you will make that recommendation to them.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is John Mendez, who will be followed by Ty Tyson.

Good evening, Council.

Um and Mayor.

Uh Redwood City's form of government is representative democracy.

The people elect representatives who have the access to the budget, legal and legislative talent to help them make complicated and important decisions.

Citizens don't have those resources.

The idea that the citizens will be able to digest this 45-page monster of an ordinance and truly understand the first, second, and third order of consequences is frankly a Shimira.

The 7,000 signatures that were obtained were obtained based on one basic theme.

The rent is too damn high.

We have to acknowledge that it's very unlikely that the other provisions that we've talked about ad nauseum were covered by faith in action when they secured those signatures.

Council, on the other hand, has detailed explanations of what's in that ordinance.

You've heard reports from consultants, from lawyers, from staff representatives.

And at least I don't want to put words in your mouth, but my understanding was the council was almost unanimous in their conclusion that the statute was seriously flawed.

Having reached that conclusion, it's really in your uh responsibility and obligation to let the citizenry know your opinion.

If you don't apply in the ballot materials, the only thing people will hear is from the advocates who are saying the rent's too damn high.

This will cure that.

It won't cure that, and it will create several other problems for the city.

So I hope you will consider putting your opinion in the ballot materials so that your constituents will know what you think of it.

Thank you very much for your time.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Ty Tyson, who will be followed by Anne Pelou.

Good evening, City Council.

Thanks for allowing me to present my case here today.

First of all, I owe you guys an apology.

I posted online, uh Redwood City Council is at it again, and that was merely an attempt to get people involved to get them to engage.

Uh second of all, as I guess I was out of war there when I asked the question for clarification.

Was that before 1995 or after 95?

Which is the increase is going to take place.

So it is not okay.

So before, thank you.

I hope you guys consider when taking this on, the ramifications it'll have from a lot of property owners, uh, small business owners that own small apartment complexes and things like that.

Not only have they received rate increases on all city services as of late, we're now being asked to cut back on their chance to make up that difference.

In addition to there's already a state uh rent control that's in effect, which basically states 5% plus the cost of living, which caps at 10 percent.

That already puts a burden on people trying to survive.

What's going to happen is if this is passed, I hate to say that we're going to become slum lords, but the revenue that they're taking in is not going to be able to make the improvements on the property, especially when turnover happens from rent from tenants.

I also sent you a letter earlier today, which outlines many other points.

Uh, just in the interest of time, I'm not going to go over all that.

You have it already.

And with that said, I thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Anne Pellou.

We'll be followed by Brian Ponty.

Hello.

Last time I was here, I was a little nervous and prepared, so I tried to get a little bit better this time.

I just want to say when at the end of the meeting last time, it was noted that the general fund couldn't pay for any overages or costs that were associated with this.

And I'm just wondering now that you put out they put out 150 dollars a year on the ballot measure, and they're saying it's going to be more like 246 to 62 a year per unit.

Who's making up that difference?

And then I just want to say that I didn't know until the end of the meeting last time that any changes that were being made had to go to ballot.

So if it's not in there now to be corrected by you guys, pardon me for that four or five hundred dollar difference.

It could take two to four years to get it changed if even changed.

So is the landlord absorbing that?

I just let them leave you with some of that.

I did write up the stuff, and maybe I'll just send you the I gave you more explanation of what I talked about last time, but uh one other point that's kind of interesting.

I talked about the city last time.

They charge $59 per unit per year, and the landlord gets to charge back half to the tenant because actually it's helping them.

So it's just a thought, too.

It's part renters and it's part owners that should, you know, share the expense.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Brian Ponty, who will be followed by Lee Ginsburg.

Good evening, Mayor Sabaios and members of the City Council.

My name is Brian Ponty, and I'm here this evening to recommend that you oppose this measure, that you go on record opposing this measure.

Given the challenges that your general fund is facing in the coming years, these draconian restrictions are some of the last things you need to be dealing with in the coming years, also as evidenced by the concerns raised by some of the low-income housing developers.

The tenant protection uh provisions of this ordinance will present a huge hurdle to overcome in your efforts to have more low-income housing developed in this community, and for that matter, any additional housing.

The proposed tenant protections will also dissuade people from renting out ADUs and single-family homes.

Um will further decrease the available rental stock in the city.

The most durable and effective solution to the housing problem in this community and the region is more housing.

Your efforts to defeat this ordinance will be a step in the right direction.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Lee Ginsburg, who will be followed by Linda Crows Anderson.

Hi, thank you.

My name is Lee Ginsburg.

I'm a property owner here in Redwood City, and I respectfully urge you to vote against opposing this measure, Redwood City Fair and Affordable Housing Ordinance.

It's being marketed as a rent control or maybe even a just cause eviction, but it is so much more than that.

Um it's just ridiculous what's in there.

I did not have the time or the thought process to read all I believe it's 46 pages.

That's ridiculous in here.

Has such an impact to the city and also to the landlords.

I'm uh due to the age of my properties and being a nice guy, my units are affordable, naturally affordable to the tenants.

By increasing the cost to us, by putting more restrictions on here, more regulations.

Um I might just get out of this business.

If I get out of this business, I'm going to be selling to a corporation who certainly is not going to be affordable housing, or to a developer who is going to just tear it all down and rebuild.

That is not helping the tenants at all.

So I urge you to come out in a public opinion against this measure.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Linda Crows Anderson, who will be followed by Fernando Pena.

Good evening.

I'm Linda Croe Sanderson.

I'm the president of the San Mateo County Association of Realtors.

And I agree wholeheartedly with what Mr.

Ginsburg just said.

I, too, am a small property owner.

And we I'm a fair landlord, and people love their property.

But the truth of the matter is, all the people that come in and say that rents are going up and all this, they don't know what's coming down the pike if they vote against this or vote to vote for rent control, because it will be corporations that come in, and they won't care about them, and they won't be able to afford those apartments.

So they'll just be shooting themselves in the foot.

But so I respectively ask that you that the council take an oppose position against the Redwood City Fair and Affordable Housing Ordinance, and let the voters decide on this.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Fernando Pena, who will be followed by Elaine Gilbrick.

Good evening, Mayor.

Members of the City Council.

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

I am respectfully requesting that the City Council take a formal opposed position tonight against the Redwood City Fair and Affordable Housing Ordinance.

This measure asks Redwood City to repeal the anti-displacement program that the council and staff spent years building at a cost of over one million dollars.

Instead, the proponents of this measure are asking or want the city to then spend up to ten times that amount.

And the city's economic impact analysis shows that the measure negatively impacts affordable housing, the city's financial resources, property values, development, and investments and housing supply.

The criminal activity protection impacts public safety, program costs, taxpayer liabilities, creation of a new city bureaucracy, and the targeting of single-family homes, condos, ADUs, and mobile homes found in this measure is deeply troubling.

I again respectfully request that you take a formal opposed position so we can send a strong message to the proponents that the chaos they've unleashed in this community will not be supported.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next is Elaine Gilbrick, who will be followed by David Pollack.

Hi, my name's Elaine Gilbreck.

I'm the executive officer of the San Mateo County Association of Realtors.

I read the staff report, and um the main point that I want to speak on is the financial impact that this would have on property owners and therefore the city.

So on page four, it does state that the city council would have to set the fee that would cover the cost, but it's always already been predicted that that wouldn't happen.

And the last sentence of that first paragraph says if the general fund can't cover it.

However, the city shall front any necessary funds to cover the startup costs until the fees are collected.

So there's a I appreciate the staff report, and I'm glad I read it, but there's a lot of dichotomy in this, especially about the money, and there's a lot of responsibility put on your shoulders.

So therefore, I'm asking that you, the city council, take a formal opposed position.

And I agree with the previous speaker that said the citizens and voters of Redwood City will respect you that and it will prevent this from going terribly wrong.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is David Pollock, who will be followed by Jeremy Levine.

Uh hi, my name is David Pollock.

I'm a longtime uh friend of uh Redwood City.

My uh uh kids all graduated Sequoia High School, and my dog is in love with uh Cellstaff um park um every chance she can get.

Um I want to uh I am a recipient of um naturally affordable um rentals.

It happened I happen to currently live in Menlo Park because I'm I found a place um which was extremely uh 1950s um building and um it's surrounded by a tech bro containment field of uh luxury housing, so it's um especially affordable.

There's lots of those environments in Redwood City uh currently, and um grateful uh to keep on looking for uh opportunities there.

I'm I want to bring everyone's attention back to the first speaker who was concerned about um letting out a room in their house and the challenges um that they had getting that person out and what would happen if this um new measure went in place.

Um expand that uh multiple hundreds of times, thousands of times, uh uh with ADUs and um uh extra rooms, what hip housing is all about, and what the other nonprofits that I am directly involved with uh would be devastated in their efforts to uh address uh housing insecurity, uh trying to manage their way through uh working with this measure.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next is Jeremy Levine, who will be followed by Roby Lynn Antonio.

Good evening, City Council.

Jeremy Levine here speaking on behalf of the Housing Leadership Council of San Mateo County for HLC.

HLC has supported tenant protections, just cause for eviction policies, rent control throughout San Mateo County, including an earlier version of this measure.

We do not have a position on this measure because of some of the questions that remain unanswered after the council's very thorough 9212 report and multiple thorough discussions of this measure.

Questions like how the city will deal with conflicts between this measure's requirements and state requirements related to rent regulations and affordable housing, uh disagreements between the city attorney and the measure proponents about the ability of the city to charge different fees for affordable housing versus market rate housing.

Questions about what happens if an affordable housing project applies for a rent increase in order to cover its operating costs and stay in business and provide the services it needs and what that process looks like and how quickly it can happen and when it can even start in order to provide some certainty.

These are just some of the questions that uh despite a lot of city time and resources have not been answered, and continue to inform how we're trying to figure out what this measure will impact and how it's going to affect the low-income tenants who depend on the ability of affordable housing projects to be financially viable.

So thank you for your time tonight and uh looking forward to future discussion in the city.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Rovy Lynn Antonio, who will be followed by Saulo Londono.

Good evening, Mayor City Council.

My name is Roe V Antonio with the California Apartment Association, a nonprofit trade association representing rental property owners and operators in city of Redwood City.

Tonight's decision is about whether this council believes this measure is in the best interest of Redwood City.

Since the initiative was filed, you have commissioned two independent analyses.

Together, those reports confirmed that this measure is far more than rent control.

It would create a permanent new city regulatory function with significant consequences for city finances, affordable housing, workforce housing, public resources, and the city's long-term economic health.

As elected officials, you have responsibility to evaluate that evidence and provide your honest judgment to the public.

In the previous two meetings, most of you express serious concerns about the numerous new laws contained in the 46-page initiative.

Your own consultants have also identified substantial risks.

Remaining neutral will not help voters make an informed decision.

When the evidence points to significant risks, remaining silent is not neutrality.

It is choosing not to act on the findings before you and withholding your informed judgment from the voters who elected you to exercise it.

The voters will make the final decision in November.

But tonight's decision is whether they will have the benefit of this council's judgment based on two independent reports and the evidence before you, not simply the promises made when the signatures were gathered.

Neutrality may be appropriate when the evidence is evenly balanced, but that is not what the two reports tell us.

Leadership means making difficult decisions when the evidence warrants it.

So therefore, I respectfully ask for you to formally vote to oppose the measure.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Saulo Londono, who will be followed by Truly Lee.

Steam Mayor and Council, my name is Solo, and I'm with WMA.

We work with mobile home park owners and managers throughout California, doing training, advocacy, education, etc.

I'm here tonight representing Homobile Home Park owners in Redwood City to urge you to please listen to your housing providers.

These are housing providers who are proud of the communities they have built and invested in for decades.

They look forward to continuing to do so and provide the service for the people of Redwood City for years to come.

I'm here to ask you to officially take a strong stance against this initiative.

The city's own independent economic impact reports do a great job of outlining several ways of which this initiative will, if passed, have severe negative impacts on housing conditions in Redwood City.

It is essential that voters in the city understand this when they vote on this measure in November.

We also ask that you officially draft an argument against this initiative.

Initiatives are put on the ballot by voters, which, while well meaning, can have severe negative consequences on the very same people they aim to help.

We urge you to understand that this is most certainly the case here and to take a strong strong stance against it.

As housing providers, we sympathize with the impact of the most recent economic conditions, but we make the case that this initiative is not a good solution.

If it passes, it will most certainly make the housing situation in Redwood City worse, not better.

In the case of residents of mobile home communities, the state protections outlined in the mobile home residency law are strong and more than sufficient.

And many of the housing providers opt for to offer rental assistance programs voluntarily.

They do so because they care about their communities, and absolutely nobody benefits from a resident struggling to pay rent.

We urge you again not to ignore the city's own independent economic impact reports.

The reports themselves do a better job of outlining how disastrous this initiative would be than any of us could do up here in just a few minutes.

Thank you again for giving us all the time to share our concerns with you tonight.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Truly Lee.

Hello, everyone.

First, I'd like to thank you for your hard work on all of our behalf.

Uh my name is Truly Lee.

I'm a Redwood City resident and also a small landlord whose property was built before February 1st, 1995.

So I would be directly affected by this.

But um I strive to be a good landlord.

And I want to talk a little bit about um the things that the people who, while well-meaning, uh did not think it through for putting together this um this this uh this ballot measure, um, which is something that I've seen directly in my position as a landlord.

Um the state has very strong protections um on behalf of tenants to protect them from bad landlords, and there are some bad landlords out there.

Um I hope that they're in the minority.

But uh one thing I want to say that I've noticed in the last two years while renting to applicants is that applicants are having a much harder time.

And the reason for that is because the state has implemented some uh processes as part of their rent control that make it much more difficult to get rid of bad tenants.

That what the effect that has is that landlords are much more afraid to rent to tenants who are not perfect on in their application, and the overwhelming majority of applicants and the overwhelming majority of people are not perfect applicants.

Um I will give you an example of a re of a real applicant that we had, which was a young couple.

Um the uh the gentleman what uh is a veteran.

He served uh he served uh as an as an enlisted member and the and had a really good had a really good income.

The woman also had a good income, um, but she was young, she was like 25 and she had been living with her family.

So she did not have any credit.

And because of this, nobody would rent to them, and they were looking for several months.

This is what they told me, and I didn't understand why nobody had rented them.

And they said it was because she didn't have any credit.

And when I looked at it, I had seen that before, because um new college students often don't have any credit, but it's not common because a lot of most most college students do have some kind of credit.

Oh sorry.

We did end up begging to them.

Thank you.

You can unmute yourself and begin your comments.

Soaring rents meant serious response.

Effective housing regulation should treat the disease, not the symptom.

Should target those in need and should surface costs explicitly.

This measure fails all three criteria.

First, scarcity is a disease.

Economists have studied similarly strict laws in many settings and concluded that stringent rent regulation reduces supply.

There are better ways forward.

For example, Redwood City has committed to real rezoning, at least the first steps, and I urge the city council to push those efforts through.

The second issue is targeting.

The rent cap applies only to buildings built before 1995.

A well-off tenant in an old building is fully protected while a struggling family in a 1996 building gets nothing.

Finally, there are hidden costs.

This is no ordinary proposal.

The Faith in Action Organization focuses on the 5% cap, but the proposed ordinance does much more.

It caps increases at 60% of regional inflation, rolls back rolls back rent to last October, and bans billing some tenants for utilities.

This would be one of the strictest regimes in the state.

The city's own report projects an annual cost of up to 11 million dollars, while the ordinances fees cover as little as 13% of that.

The rest hits the general fund, which just closed a $13 million gap by drawing on reserves.

Every side of this debate has its share of motives worth questioning.

I'll leave that to the voters.

What matters tonight and at the ballot is the policy.

And on the policy, this measure falls short.

And to this council, you have the reports and you have made your determinations.

Don't stay neutral.

Please tell us what you've concluded and what you believe.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Jeffrey Shabowski, who will be followed by the Chamber of San Mateo County.

Hello.

I'm lifeline lifelong Redwood City resident and a struggling landlord.

I ask that we as a city take a formal opposing position on the ballot measure imposing rent control of just cause eviction.

I think it is extremely important to advise the public to vote no on the measure based on the 9212 economic impact report, which concluded it is economically unfeasible to both the city and landlords and will backfire costing the very credits.

It was designed to protect more in the long run.

I own a rental property.

A condo at 1122 Whipple Avenue.

The unit is 930 square feet, two bedrooms, one bath.

I purchased a unit in 2021 and rented it to a couple with the minor child for 2300 monthly for one year, then increase the rent to 2500 in 2002, and the rent's still 2500.

So my monthly income is 2500.

The mortgage is 2153.

HOA dues are 800.

I'm losing 453 per month.

Over one year, that's $9,253.

Now you add annual insurance, which is $3,107, and your property tax, which is $7,813.

My total annual loss is $17,000.

I have 24 years to go to pay off my mortgage.

Now suppose I want to sell or move into the unit under the Faith and Action proposed ordinance.

I don't have 22,000.

Thank you, Jeffrey, for your comments.

And we had our final raised hand, Mayor.

It looks like they lowered their hand.

So that concludes public comment.

Oh, okay.

It's back up.

Chamber San Mateo County.

Welcome.

Hi.

Good evening.

Sorry, that was me.

I didn't mean to do that.

Sorry.

Good evening.

Uh this is good evening, Mayor and members of the city council.

My name is Amy Beckmaster, president and CEO of Chamber San Mateo County.

And I'm speaking on behalf of the chamber's thousand strong members to urge you to oppose the position on the proposed rent control and eviction limits on the ballot measure.

First, I want to acknowledge that housing affordability is one of the most important challenges facing our community.

Everyone shares the goal of keeping Redwood City an affordable and inclusive place to live.

The question before you tonight is whether this particular ballot measure is the right solution based on the city's own independent economic analysis and the discussion you require uh discussions you have had over the last several months.

The answer is no.

Your economic impact report concludes that implementing this measure could require the an entirely new city bureaucracy costing between 5 million to 11 million every year with significant uncertainty whether the proposed fees would even cover those costs.

It also in identifies potential impacts on deed restricted affordable housing, reduced incentives to reinvest in older rental properties, and unintended consequences for future housing availability and local workforce.

For these reasons, Chamber San Mateo County respectfully urges you to adopt an opposed position on this ballot and allow voters to understand that while the goal is important, this proposal carries significant fiscal and economic risks identified in your own independent analysis.

Thank you for your consideration.

Thank you, Amy.

And that concludes public comment mayor.

Thank you to our city clerk and members of the public who have joined us in person and online.

And I'll thank Michelle for the great presentation and our staff for just all the support that we've had under such a short timeline.

And I'll take a moment of just mayoral privilege to get us started here.

Colleagues, thank you for what is now our third conversation on this topic.

Um I know we've had two 9212 reports also commissioned on this proposed measure.

Um I mentioned this at our last meeting.

I'm a renter.

My family are also renters.

I've been a renter my entire life, and my district is overwhelmingly made up of renters.

And that's why getting this right is so critically important.

Um the realities of that our neighbors are facing are not born or abstract to me and my family, and uh there are challenges that we faced firsthand, and they're the reasons that I got involved in our city and why I wanted to serve on the planning commission and why I'm here at the dais with you all.

Um, and I've learned in this job that we are financial stewards of the city, and we have a responsibility to look at the big picture.

And when we take a step back, it's clear that this very well-intentioned measure is going to have unintended consequences that will ultimately provide less affordable housing to our community.

And that's why it's important, I think, for the city council to weigh in on this matter.

Some of the major impacts that we've talked about in this 45 page proposal that will impact the city include up to 11 million dollars in program startup costs per year that will land on the city to run this program as currently written.

Those projected fees generated will not be enough to run the program as we have talked about in the last two meetings.

And as written, we're not allowed to use the general fund.

We've been limited only to using the program fees to run the program or draw from other city departments.

So city services will be impacted.

This is also going to be devastating to our affordable housing developers, as we've heard from commenters tonight.

Affordable housing isn't exempted from rent control policies, which is unusual when you look at other nearby cities that do have rent control policies like Mountain View.

So providers like Midpen, like St.

Francis Center, who we've heard from, will have to navigate these new fees and new regulations.

Affordable housing developers who have partnered with us, who have helped us house our neighbors, setting them on the path to civility, will have to move their future projects to neighboring cities.

And the way this citizens initiative is written, we won't be able to make any changes to it without having to take organize another election, right?

We won't be able to make any administrative or policy changes to this without bringing another citywide election.

So that means if we want to make any changes to any of the 45 page ordinance, we need to organize an election.

We can't just take this to a city council meeting or bring this to our city staff to make changes to it themselves.

There's not a time effective way for us to modify this to make it work for us.

Lastly, I think the passage of this measure will mean the loss of the affordable housing policies that we've been working on as a community over years now, that's been developed collaboratively between council members, between our neighbors, between city staff and advocates, both tenants and property owners, over many conversations over many years.

And I just want to remind everyone that Redwood City has been a housing leader, and that's not just in our county, but that's in our state.

And we didn't get here overnight.

We earned this reputation by remaining steadfast from previous councils who started us on our housing goals, and we have looked beyond just doing the state minimums or the local minimums.

And in recent years, we leveraged the gatekeeper process to maximize opportunities for affordable housing.

We've created thousands of housing units, both affordable and uh and market rate in our downtown last year alone.

We had our first uh, you know, the 2025 NOFA, which awarded 13.7 million for the creation of affordable units.

Um we had our tenant protection ordinance that this council passed, which required minimum lease terms, the right to return at a deeper uh excuse me, the right to return after a substantial model, and you know, we had a tough conversation, and we got deeper relocation assistance than what the state offers for low-income but also special circumstance tenants.

So, you know, as state law becomes more prescriptive, like I mentioned earlier tonight, legislation like SB 79 isn't impacting us because we've done that work.

We have that track record.

So we've built this housing, we've shaped policies protecting renters, we've done that body of work because housing is fundamental, and I think that's something that this council all agrees on.

Um, and there are some components to this measure that I think are absolutely worth exploring, and I mentioned that at the last meeting.

You know, there's protection for victims, um, so they're not treated like nuisance for calling 911 and emergency services.

There's greater flexibility around credit scores for credit, excuse me, for subletters who are getting back on their feet.

Um, but I think in its sum, this measures unintended consequences would do the opposite of its intent.

I think it would leave the city in a position of fiscal instability.

Um, and I think it would risk our ability to render the services that our residents expect of the city.

And so before I open this up to my colleagues, um, I did want to put something on the record that in the weeks ahead, I know the campaign will campaigns will heat up, uh, mailers will go out, folks will start knocking on doors and discuss these policies, and I want to be really clear about what my personal expectations are.

Um there is no place in Redwood City for misinformation or bullying or the tactics that we've seen play out in previous campaigns, and that brand of politics is not acceptable from any side of this debate.

So I really want to see us focus on the facts and argue on the policies.

We can disagree without being disagreeable.

And I just want to remind everyone before we engage in this debate.

So I'll leave it there and I'll invite my colleagues to add their comments.

Thank you, everyone.

Councilmember Chu.

Um thank you, Mayor, for your comments.

Um, so really as a city, well, we have many responsibilities as a city council member, but really to uh come to mind here.

The first is to safeguard the the fiscal solvency of the city, the fiscal health of the city, and to do what's right with respect to you know, maintaining a healthy city budget and maintaining city services.

The second is to do what's best for our constituents uh and to tell them the truth, uh, even if it's politically unpopular or or difficult.

Um I feel like on both counts, this this ordinance as proposed uh will harm our city and it will harm uh both our city's financial situation um with respect to five to eleven million dollar a year um budget item that we are not sure we have a mechanism to pay.

Um and then the second group that I really want to talk about is renters.

The thing that gives rent, and I know I said this before, but the thing that gives renters affordability, flexibility and options and power is lots of housing.

If there's lots of housing and there's more housing than there are renters, then if a renter doesn't like their landlord, doesn't like where they're living, they can threaten to move, and then the landlord has to make them a better offer.

Um if there's more renters than there are places to live, then renters are comp uh competing for scarce resources.

Um this ordinance is going to take an already extreme housing shortage and make it much, much, much worse.

Um, you know, when when uh there was some folks uh researchers who looked at what happened in San Francisco when they changed uh the rent control policy uh and implemented similar policies in 1994, there was a 15% drop in naturally affordable housing.

That is a huge drop.

15% of the affordable housing stock went away.

Um and and to Mr.

Diaz's point, uh, the the gentleman who spoke first, this policy affects um deed-restricted uh affordable housing suppliers, it affects single-family homes and it affects ADUs.

That means, you know, that if you have an ADU in your home and and you know you're waiting for your mom or your dad or your mother-in-law uh to be ready for it if you're renting it out, um, and then you know, say something happens and and your mother-in-law has to move in and you know, say she passed away after a decade.

The person who who lived in that unit prior to your mother-in-law would have the right of return at the same price they had a decade ago.

That's an extreme policy.

You know, you typically when you rent, you're looking for someone who's you know responsible, thoughtful, and can pay the rent.

This is much more like committing for life, like that that person could come back at any time.

Um the second thing is that uh, you know, renters uh it it is a communal living, no, but uh how can I say it?

Um a congregate living situation.

Most renters um don't get to pick their neighbors.

Um and so if you make it impossible to remove a tenant who's engaging in criminal activity or is very disruptive or very difficult, what usually winds up happening is the vast majority of renters who are hardworking, responsible, and just want a quiet, safe home, uh they're gonna be the ones who have to leave because they can't handle these situations, you know.

And and as a renter, I I rented from the age of 18 to 45.

Um I had you know, neighbors like that, and I was like, you know, it's either them or me, and it was me because I I couldn't handle, you know, listening to someone scream at their children all the time or having the cops called all the time, things like that.

Um my grave concern is at the end of the day that this ordinance is going to reduce the very thing which gives renters power.

We want landlords competing on price and quality.

We don't want tenants competing for a handful of available units.

Um that's the first thing.

The second thing is it creates an incentive structure that that um sets up an oppositional environment between um renter and landlord.

Many of these landlords for these affordable housing units want a congenial collegial relationship with our tenants.

It discourages improvements to existing housing, it discourages renting out single family homes because that's typically a person's primary residence.

It discourages renting out ADUs, it discourages house sharing.

Because if you take a chance and you're wrong, you have no recourse.

Thank you, Councilmember.

Councilmember Howard.

Just go on down the line.

Thank you, Mayor, for your comments.

I couldn't have said it better.

I I really agreed with everything you said, and I really appreciate the way you spoke and started well, you set the stage for taking this on.

And thank you, Councilmember Chu.

I told I told her earlier as a longtime renter, I really appreciated her point of view and how she looked at it from a renter's point of view, that the power is in their hands only if they have the power to choose.

And I I really appreciate that because I hadn't quite looked at it that way before.

So thank you.

I I just wanted to clarify because uh I know there were things on next door today, and a gentleman spoke up and you were honest and said, get down there, the council doesn't know what they're doing.

And you were just trying to get people's attention.

But I did want to make sure that we all understand this was not brought about by the city council.

This wasn't written by the council, it wasn't supported by the council.

This was brought to us by a group whose intentions I'm sure are good, but it was brought to the council with the required number of signatures, which is the law, and then the council, it is our obligation to follow the law.

If they have this required number of signatures and it is certified, then we have an obligation, and we did to have a choice, put it on the ballot for the voters to vote, or we could have adopted it as is.

We did not adopt it as is.

We chose to send it to the ballot uh in November for the voters to decide.

It's in our hands, all of us here, all of us in Redwood City.

It is our in our hands.

I'm sorry the gentleman who came earlier wasn't didn't stay, because I wanted to assure him that he does have the power to say no, and we all do.

And so it it is not something that we can change.

I think you remember that from our last meeting we asked.

Some of these things are blatantly unfair, unintended consequence.

We cannot change that.

Only another vote of the people can change and undo what could happen with the consequences.

So I just want I think we're gonna have to say that a lot, honestly, because I know myself, sometimes I don't hear something the first time, but I'll hear it the second or third time.

So I think it's gonna be important for us to keep repeating the facts, the state the facts.

We did not create this measure, and I I will formally oppose it this measure because of the unintended consequences, but it really is going to be up to each and every one of us to examine our conscience and read the report and really study and make a decision based on what you think is right for the betterment of Redwood City.

I think there'll be so many unintended consequences with this legislation.

We've already heard from our nonprofits on July 7th.

For those of you who weren't here, it was heartbreaking to hear from St.

Francis Center, midpen housing, and I spoke with um uh HIP housing and Evelyn Stuvers from HLC.

I mean, these are agencies that promote housing, more housing in our communities, and they have grave concerns about the unintended consequence that they see coming, because they already keep their rents artificially low.

Thank God they do.

But as St.

Francis Center stood at that podium and said that will ruin our formula completely because we're already artificially low, and if we can't even recover our costs for repairs and maintenance, then how can we stay in business?

That's a real problem.

And I am remember I want to thank the EPS because that um the supplemental 9212 report, economic report, was a real eye-opener for all of us.

I hope you'll take the time to read it.

It's worth reading.

There was one statistic that just kind of blew me away, and I I said I'm going to remember this one because this one is really, really important.

That um housing rentals in Redwood City, the one to ten units that were built before 1995.

79% of the owners are small business owners and mom and pops.

I hope you remember that.

79% of the people we're impacting are small business owners and mom and pops.

Who can least afford to keep maintenance, a roof in place, all the things that could go wrong in a housing complex?

Who are the ones who are going to least be able to take on the impact of fixing these things with the what's being proposed in this measure?

And not only that, we the city are being asked to charge these very same people to support this agency that we will have to create.

It makes no sense at all.

This can't succeed.

So I all I can say, I mean, when I was on Home for All in Red in San Mateo County, we were told over and over and over the solution is building more housing.

Raywood City has already spent over 17 million dollars to support building of affordable housing, and we are going to continue to do more.

We're a leader in San Mateo County and building housing.

What happens if this does pass?

Who will want to come to Redwood City and build affordable housing?

I dare say no one.

I mean, these are the consequences that aren't being well thought out.

So I like I said, what we do do need to do up and down the peninsula and probably throughout the state is build more housing and make it less restrictive to build more housing.

Those are the answers that we should be doing and looking at.

I mentioned about uh, well, like I said, the fact that 79 percent, that that just really startled me and it concerns me to no end because I don't want to have the mom and pops go away.

I don't want the small business owners to go away or give up.

And why wouldn't they want to give up if you're just layering them with restrictions and penalties and if a bad tenant make it impossible for you to get rid of a bad tenant?

Why would somebody continue to do that?

It's like beating your head and saying it doesn't feel good, but you just keep doing it and you don't know why.

It doesn't make any sense.

So I I really hope the voters will understand this is not a city or city measure.

But we needed to put it on the ballot for you to vote.

But I feel like Councilmember Chu said, that I have a moral obligation to let you, the voters, know how I feel.

I won't be neutral on this.

I will speak up.

I took an oath of office to represent everyone in Redwood City, and I can I'm proud to say I'd like to believe on every major decision I've ever made in Redwood City on my many years on council.

I've always felt that at the end of the day I vote for what was best for the community, not for me, not for you, but the community itself, what's best for the success of our community.

And I feel that I have an obligation to take a formal position on this, and I will take a formal position to oppose this measure in November.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Howard, for your thoughts.

Who'd like to go next?

But we're going down the line.

We can switch it up.

I'll keep mine short and sweet.

I feel like we've discussed this at length, but I will continue with some of the thoughts.

I generally try to keep my morals aside, but the word that keeps coming to my mind is a fiduciary obligation.

I just keep thinking about our fiduciary responsibility to our community.

And I think valid questions were asked, um, which were if we are not allowed to use the general funds, but we can frontload these, but it is shown that these fees will not add who's who's holding that, where is that?

And I think there was a number saying it's a potentially a 13%.

So I don't see the cost recovery.

I see layers and layers of red tape.

And over just c good intentions are not enough.

And when you have good intentions paired with a horribly written initiative, um I think that it doesn't, it doesn't give us it doesn't give me hope.

Um what I want to talk about though is is the title, right?

It's called the afford what is it, the afford fair and affordable.

Yet when I read it, there's nothing fair and affordable about anything.

It's I I and what I there's there's no affordability for anyone.

And when I think about fair, it's not fair to anyone.

It's it's very misleading.

Uh and it puts a horrible burden on some of the community members who have been providing our naturally occurring affordable housing without being forced to, who have done so.

We have heard people here, we heard a man say that he is in the red.

He is renting to a husband and wife and a child and with his mortgage and hoa, he is losing money year over year.

And that is not a one-off.

There are multiple people here who, you know, we talk about corporations who maybe their first home is now their rental home.

So they are still in this city.

And I I want us to get away from this big corporation that we with that that we sometimes have this image of, and that see that there are people.

Just because we have a list and someone says that they are an LLC, that doesn't mean that they are a giant corporation.

That could be one individual, that could be two individuals.

People protecting themselves does not mean that they are evil corporations.

It's also in the interests it so I don't want to penalize people for the way they have set up their businesses.

Um, especially when they have been going out of their way to give us the housing that we so desperately need.

Um I think about what this does to our friends in the affordable housing sector.

I think about all the wonderful services, and I looked at, I went ahead and I looked up the financials for a lot of the affordable housing developers who have come in.

And you know what?

There's not a lot of wiggle room there.

They can't absorb this, they won't.

And you know where it's gonna get cut?

It's the programs, it's the maintenance, it's the homework centers where these children go from 8 to 5 p.m.

I just want us to know that there are real, real life consequences for the decisions people make, and I don't I feel a fiduciary responsibility, but I also think that we have.

We've read these reports more times.

I I'm dreaming about these charts and these numbers.

I I can't get them out of my head.

And I do I'm always one for community engagement, and I always want people to have all the information they have.

And I know that there was a way of delivering information, and I appreciated the mayor's point about us sharing information in a great way, but I will say that the campaigning has started.

Flyering has started, door knocking has already begun.

Um, and there are there is a lot of confusion already out there.

I've had people asking me questions.

Oh, well, no, it's okay.

Affordable housing providers can get just get waivers, so it doesn't really affect them.

So I I there with this affects our entire community, whether people know it or not.

And we know people aren't going to read everything, and we all signed up for these jobs.

We put ourselves in these positions, and I feel that we owe it to our community to provide them with the information they need to make an informed decision.

After reading all of the reports, I will also be formally opposing this measure because I think it it hurts the very communities it claims to want to help.

Thank you.

Thank Councilmember.

Councilmember G.

I promise not to take as much time as it did in the last two meetings.

But I want to thank everybody, it's particularly our staff.

This wasn't something that, as Councilmember Howard shared, that the council put together.

It was brought to the council.

It was a citizen initiative.

And congratulations to the proponents.

They got the signatures.

But once that happened, I want to just say thank you to our entire staff.

To our city clerk and her team who had to review the signatures, make sure they were valid to our housing staff, to our city managers, and everyone involved, because it wasn't just looking at signatures.

We had to hire a consultant.

We did the original 9212, then we had to do a supplemental 9212.

And this was all done within about 45 days.

And except for the language and the measure, the city had to pay for it.

All the effort.

Housing affordability is very real.

We live in a place that is expensive to live.

And there are many people in our community that have done their part to provide housing at affordable rates to many of our residents have continued to do that.

And as many of my colleagues have said, we have worked, not just this council, but previous councils very hard.

And Mayor, thank you for going first to set the tone.

We've worked damn hard to be a pro-housing community.

And we've been very clear that housing is one of our strategic priorities.

And not just housing, but housing at affordable levels, affordable, low, very low, and extremely low.

There's no question about that.

If you are a developer or someone coming to our city, there's great clarity on what the council and the previous councils want on our community.

Yeah, as a pro-housing city, it's hard for us as a city to create housing.

We're not a builder of housing.

We facilitate the creation of housing.

It's the opportunity for housing through land use, as one of the speakers says.

Clarity about council priorities, certainty and efficiency in the planning and building permit process.

And through these efforts and other programs like the gatekeeper, like community benefits and others, we have been able to attract and help facilitate the creation of thousands of units of affordable housing in Redwood City.

So thank you to this council and those that came before.

Because those keys and the doors, those families moving in, are happening and have happened.

Through the 9212 report and the supplemental report, the council and the community learned about the initiative.

And really, there are two parts to this initiative, as the mayor said.

There's the rent control piece for buildings built before 1995.

And then there's the tenant protection piece that applies to most housing that is rental in Redwood City.

Just let that sink in for a minute.

Most rental properties in Redwood City would have the tenant protection ordinance applied to them.

The affordable housing components, the condominium that one speaker talked about, non-owner occupied single-family homes, ADUs, and we went through the ADU discussions here.

And people built ADUs for multi-generation families for extra income to get to make ends meet.

And now through this potential measure that would be taken out of their hands, as Councilmember Chu said.

Makes no sense.

But this is the hard part is making sure everyone understands that the TPO, tenant protection part, applies to nearly all non-owner occupied rental properties here in Redwood City.

We'd have to create a housing department that I don't know how we're going to fund it because the numbers that were in the report and the ordinance were so drastically apart from each other.

Those costs cannot be passed on to the tenants.

The utilities part, if they're not separately metered, cannot be passed on to the tenants.

And it has a disproportional impact on people that own the older properties built before 1995.

These partners, HIPP, St.

Francis, and we've heard from them, are gonna be devastated.

That's their business model to buy older properties, rehabilitate them, and rent them at affordable rates.

This would devastate their business here in Redwood City.

Ask the true backers of this measure.

Yes, faith in action is the local proponent.

But they're not the backers of this.

The money, the lawyers, the legal resources come from a group in LA of the office here in Oakland.

And so when the affordable housing developers went to ask them, can you rewrite this and remove the for affordable housing projects out of this?

They said no.

You are to be included.

They would not rewrite it.

And instead, they tried to game their support of the local nonprofit developers by saying, we'll rewrite you in the implementation manual.

We'll look for a waiver.

As you heard from our colleagues, my colleagues up here, this is a voter initiative.

We can't change it.

The only way we can change it is going back to the voters every two years and ask the voters to say yes.

In the meantime, we're all stuck with it if the voters were to approve this.

And as we learned over the city process over the last two weeks, this is going to be really hard and really devastating to our community.

It puts the city's general fund at risk.

It will decrease housing production in Redwood City.

Not as impactful as this.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you, Councilmember Gl.

Councilmember Stricken.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you, colleagues, for a very robust uh discussion and members of the community for making public comment, those online as well.

And for staff to uh thank you for all the hard work you put into this over several um several weeks now.

I guess I just have some final questions.

I know we have um discussed this at length already, but to address just some of the comments I've heard.

So beginning with uh rooms for rent in people's homes.

Um councilmember G, you made a good point that this measure would apply to nearly all units that are not owner occupied.

And that is a very important distinction to make.

Uh if you are renting a room in your home through hip housing or otherwise, uh, I just want to clarify, and maybe staff can help me with this.

I know Elenn's not here tonight, but the would the rent control piece apply to units that are um in a owner-occupied home.

Thank you, Councilmember.

I'm gonna ask uh Victor Gaitani zombie just got elevated.

Uh Victor, did you hear the question?

I did.

Yes.

Uh good evening, uh mayor members of the council, and thank you, uh Councilmember Sherman for your question.

Uh so just to confirm I heard it correctly.

Your question is if the measure applies to units in owner-occupied homes, correct?

Yes, that's correct.

Um so units in uh homes where it's the primary residence of the landlord since the start of the tenancy, and where a landlord shares a bathroom or kitchen with a tenant are exempt from all requirements of the proposed ordinance.

But if not all of those are met, then uh it could potentially apply it.

Thank you so much, Victor, for clarifying that because that would exempt from rent control home-shared units um that are run by hip housing.

That I used to help people find uh those rooms.

Um then we talked about a lot about our housing stock, and there were some statistics that were cited that I actually believe were not in the supplemental 9212 report, namely that 79% of our housing stock uh, specifically the units properties are one to five units one to ten, somewhere thereof, um owned by small kind of mom and pop landlords.

And and that that's not in this report.

I'm not sure if that was double-checked, but that was provided in in public comment uh at a previous meeting.

So I want to make sure that we're clear with the data that we're sourcing.

There's also been other numbers that have been cited from Faith in Action, right, that have uh called the majority of um housing stock corporate-owned.

So there are two different numbers there from subjective third parties, and so it's important for us to use objective data when we are making decisions.

Um I appreciate the spirit of the discussion and the intention behind citing those numbers, but that's that's not in here.

Okay.

So I really hope we can just avoid making broad generalizations when making a decision tonight.

What is in here on page 32 is the composition of Redwood City's affordable housing stock.

And that finds that 45% of derestricted and inclusionary units would um rent control would apply to them.

And and that is the rub right there, right?

And I agree with you, my colleagues, that um this measure is problematic and flawed.

Um that it would impact those 45% of units detrimentally.

I I I agree with you.

Um to the point about the proponents of this measure themselves and them being from elsewhere in the state, yes, that is true.

And those who actually conducted the outreach and um helped to shape uh the measure are from River City.

In fact, 7,000, I think someone said 7,000 of them are Redwood City residents.

So we can't discount that and use a broad generalization when discussing uh the proponents or opponents uh of this measure because the opponents will also be from elsewhere in the state in Sacramento.

Uh but what I really wanted to get to tonight is something that the mayor uh mentioned, and that is what the campaign may look like and my concerns around that.

And City Attorney, feel free to stop me at any time.

Ten years ago, I was a signature gatherer myself on a tenant protection measure in the city of San Mateo.

Um when that measure got on the ballot, a very fierce opposition campaign organized and distributed hateful mailers to voters in the city of San Mateo.

And I actually thought it would be helpful as part of the council discussion for my colleagues to see some of these mailers.

And they don't just include one moment, please.

This one, Councilmember G.

Okay.

And so it's not only that election, but elections afterwards, like in 2022, where one of our former colleagues, Giselle Hale, ran for assembly, and because she supported tenant protections to a degree, um, opponents came after her and um distributed some of these mailers that I have given to some of my colleagues.

And the one that struck me the most, I will say, is the one that uh Councilmember Pidia has right in her hand over here.

Oh, this one's best really, but okay.

So one of the no on measure Q rent control measures depicted a woman of color smoking a cigar and holding a bottle of whiskey in her hand.

It said, do you know who your neighbors are?

And according to sense together, this was one of the most overtly racist hit pieces they had seen in years.

And a friend of mine said, I remember how it made me gasp the time that I saw this, and still it sends chills down my spine today.

And I share these mailers with you because I'm concerned that if we vote tonight to formally oppose this measure, our opposition for good valid reasons, fiduciary reasons, will be misconstrued as an endorsement of the opposition's campaign that will be led by bad actors that will distribute mailers like this that paint elected leaders who have sworn a duty to protect the residents of Redwood City as evil, as and then they will paint our neighbors, tenants like myself, like the mayor, like some of my colleagues in the past, as criminals, like in this mailer right here.

And we cannot be associated with that.

As a city, it tarnishes our reputation, it misleads voters, it divides the community, it's divisive, and it's harmful.

And so I implore you, despite my agreement with your concerns regarding the flaws in this measure, to remain neutral, neutral on this measure.

That's all councilmember Sturgen, thank you.

Um your concerns are well heard, and as somebody who received these mailers and spoke to wanting to see a campaign that's focused on the issues and the impacts that this would have on the city, I want to say that our work stops at the water's edge, and there's a division between the education that we'll do around the impacts that we'll have to the city and the FAQ that we'll put out, and the financial situation and modeling that we'll do to the city, and that'll be it.

And that'll be it.

That'll be the end of the political work that the city does.

We have now put on the record, myself, you, other council members of what our expectations are of these campaigns.

And if we received mailers like this, that is our personal duty to call that out, right?

Whether regardless of where it's coming from, but that is our responsibility.

But that I feel is separate from the work that we're doing here.

So I understand the concern, and I hear where you're coming from.

Absolutely.

And trust me, I don't want this to appear like it's an endorsement of these tactics.

But I don't want us to remain neutral because of an optics issue of where people might jump to a conclusion.

So I want us to be very clear about why the city is making a stance.

And I think we have a recommendation, the second recommendation where we get a verbalize why we're not being neutral.

And we can stick to that.

And the second that we see, if we see any of these types of materials again, we call the actors who are doing that out for what it is.

And I have the strong feeling that the people who go down this path and start employing these tactics, like I I truly feel like that's going to blow back.

And there will be consequences for the folks who again employ these tactics.

So I'll leave it there.

Um, but I do think that there is a difference between the two.

And um again, I do hear where you're coming from, and it is well taken.

City attorney.

Thank you, Mayor, and thank you, Councilmember.

Um, just before the rest of the council chimes in, I do want to remind you that um what is before you today and what the elections code allows for is for the city council as a whole to make a determination on whether to take a position and whether to write an argument, and that campaigning is not part of that.

So I do appreciate you, Mayor, um kind of bringing it back to that just to remind everybody else on the council.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And we'll go to the vice mayor.

I will I will be very brief.

Um I'd like to thank everyone who came here tonight for a third time.

I'd like to thank staff.

Um council member uh Padilla, the word is fiduciary.

It's in a very, very important word.

And we've had um two 9212 reports that talk about a lot of problems.

I have grave concerns about the language contained in the ballot measure.

Um what it will do um uh if instituting rent restrictions on older building stock in Redwood City, much of it which we call naturally occurring affordable housing owned by small mom and pop uh community members.

It's important to recognize that current renters in Redwood City already have rent control as required by state law.

In addition, Redwood City has many renter protections, including a very robust newly adopted right to return ordinance and housing services like Project Sentinel for free service to help tenants work with their landlords.

We are a housing leader, as has been pointed out.

Uh one of only two percent of the cities in the entire state who got their housing report in on time in 2023.

This mallet this ballot measure would cost an estimated five to ten million dollars to administer costs which would be borne exclusively by landlords or it's unclear.

Um of the concerns that I have is that if it passes, many small landlords of older buildings will sell their buildings at bargain basement prices because people will look at the law and so then who's gonna buy that is someone with not the best intentions for tenants.

Um sometimes they're called slum landlords, but you know, that's who's gonna be interested in buying this kind of asset if it's so encumbered by, as Ms.

But you know, that's who's gonna be interested in buying this kind of asset if it's so encumbered by, as Ms.

Padilla called it, red tape.

Um that's not good for the community.

If if third generation uh landlords sell and slum landlords buy, uh very very quickly, you start to have a very different community feel in Redwood City, which has many, many, many, many rental units.

So I feel it's my fiduciary duty to to recognize this and make sure that voters know what they're gonna get if they do something that maybe feels good at the ballot box to protest how expensive housing is, and it is expensive.

So although I believe that voters should actively decide for themselves whether or not they support this ballot measure, and they will, but I do feel there's a fiduciary duty for we as a council to um uh exercise our judgment because we were elected to exercise our judgment.

And it's important for me to say that my judgment is that this is extremely poor legislation that will reduce the quality of life for Redwood City residents in pretty short order.

And for that reason, I will support publicly opposing this measure.

Uh to make sure that the campaign is professional and uh polite.

Uh I guess what also influence says my opinion is the effect it will have on hip housing and St.

Francis Center and our affordable housing partners.

And um I I really urge the stakeholders in this room to uh use a modicum of judgment and uh use factual information and and not mean mailers.

Thank you, colleagues for the robust discussion.

Not seeing anyone else's lights on.

I will go ahead and keep us moving.

I will move the first staff recommendation and make a motion that the city council take a position of opposition to the measure.

Is there a second?

Second.

That was a second from Councilmember Chu motion from Martina Savos.

Could we get a vote, please?

Councilmember Padilla.

Yes.

Councilmember Sturkin.

Abstain.

Councilmember Chu.

Yes.

Councilmember Howard.

Yes.

Councilmember G.

Yes.

Vice Mayor Akin.

Yes.

Mayor Martinez Sabayos.

Yes.

Motion passes with six votes.

Councilmember Sturkin has abstained.

Thank you, colleagues.

Next, I'll move the second recommendation.

I'll motion to appoint myself and councilmember Chu to draft the argument and organize the remaining signatories.

Second.

And could we get a vote, please?

Councilmember Sturkin.

Abstain.

Councilmember Chu.

Yes.

Councilmember Howard.

Yes.

Councilmember G.

Yes.

Councilmember Padilla.

Yes.

Vice Mayor Aiken.

Abstain.

Mayor Martinez Saballos.

Yes.

Motion passes with five votes.

Council members.

Councilmember Sturkin and Vice Mayor Aiken have abstained.

Thank you.

Thank you, colleagues again for the discussion this evening.

And we will keep going.

We've got a few more items.

Nine C is next.

We're going to hear an item on the 84101 interchangeed reimagined projects.

And we have our city consultant in the House, Leo Scott with Gray Bowen Scott, who will give us a presentation.

Give him some time to make his way.

It's good to see you again, Leo.

Welcome.

Good evening, Mayor and Council members.

So the deck that uh is before you is uh 18 to 19 slides.

And uh having gone through this once, I realize there is quite a bit of information here.

So I'm gonna highlight a few points on these slides to keep us moving.

Happy to return to them uh and answer any questions that you may have.

So we'll with that we will we will jump in.

So to start off tonight's presentation, I want to give you a couple highlights of things that have been taking place on the project so you know where we are uh and uh start off just making mention here of the first bullet.

We have completed redesign and calculations for seven bridges and fifteen non-standard retaining wall structures.

Uh that's significant because we've had to undergo a new seismic criteria requiring us to do that.

And you'll see that here in a moment on another slide.

The other two bullets to highlight on this slide are the last two.

Uh we have uh reached a reached an understanding with uh the Federal Government to enter into an agreement for the 105 million dollar infra grant that the project received some time ago, uh just before the Trump administration took over.

So that's a pretty significant step for us to receive that grant.

Uh it has yet to be executed between Caltrans and FHWA, but it is at FHWA, which is the Federal Highway Administration for execution.

And then the final bullet there is a highlight that uh we received in conversation regarding the amendment that's before you tonight uh that the staff at SMCTA, the almost 50 percent funder of the project has agreed to request of their board 2.8 million dollars to assist in the funding of the amendment.

So with that, we'll go to the next slide.

Quick update here on the progress of the right-of-way.

We have acquired six properties.

Uh we are currently working on the other 14 in the negotiation phase of those 14, 9 are in condemnation and uh closing in on finalizing that act activity.

So we believe we are very close to uh the 20 properties.

Next slide.

And then finally, utility is something I haven't highlighted in the past, but I thought was worth mentioning here.

We do have a considerable number of relocations required by the project.

Nine of those happen to be PGE electric utilities.

And one two two gas line relocations.

Uh, one of those is uh an early, an early relocation that's required and requires the Denny's parcel.

So we do have a relationship between parcel acquisition and utility relocation.

The other highlight I will make on this slide is that generally speaking, we're doing very well at moving towards agreements with each of the utility owners.

The one exception right now is we're still waiting on ATT to finish plans for their relocation.

So with that, uh we'll move from sort of the status of the project on the the ground, so to speak, to the details.

So let's go to the next slide.

Uh look first at the schedule.

Uh so as has been the case, we have been shooting to to finish our design right away and the railroad grade crossings by the end of this year, 2026, so that we can actually advertise and begin construction in 2027.

Depending on how quickly we continue to move forward with those three things right away, railroad grade separations and the and the final design will determine when exactly we can advertise, and that will then obviously determine when we can begin construction, which right now we're targeting to be in the middle part of 2027.

Next slide.

The one thing that will happen very quickly, and you will see this one once it obviously happens, is that we we necessarily need to begin removal of trees uh in this year, the 2020 within the 26th calendar year, uh, because there is a bird nesting requirement that requires us not to take trees when the bird nesting season is actually in full swing.

And it it expires, the bird nesting season expires in September, late September.

So over the winter is the time to remove trees that we need to have out of the way to allow the contractor once on board to proceed.

Uh so what what we will what we're working on now is the draft contract.

We will be here for council approval of that uh later this year, and then the tree removal will take place in November and December.

Uh we will precede that with uh sufficient public outreach, so you will hear from us as a project team.

Uh I I believe plenty, uh, because obviously we need to notify the public of this, uh, which will be very obvious once it takes place.

And you can see there on the bottom the numbers of trees that we need to remove completely.

And you can see there on the bottom the numbers of trees that we need to remove completely, 600 over 600 trees.

This first this first activity will be at about 139 of them.

All right, next slide.

So that gets us to the budget, which is certainly uh one of the more important things as far as my perspective is concerned.

We have a $350 million budget.

That's what we what we've had as I've previously shared with you.

Uh what I want to highlight here are the the shaded uh items there in the budget column.

The the three million, the five million one hundred fifty-four thousand and two two point two million dollars.

Those those are contingencies for risk in those categories.

So when we formed the budget, we were expecting that we would encounter risks.

That's a part normal part of our process for delivering capital projects.

In addition to those numbers, the blue number is the escalation that was put upon the estimate to cover the anticipated growth and cost over time.

So as it takes us, it will take us several more years yet to get to the center midpoint of construction.

So that's it at that 24.4 million dollars was the escalation on the number uh a couple years ago that brought us to 2029.

So we actually have some flexibility here uh that exceeds that 22 uh 220 million dollar number that's right above it.

All right.

So when we actually go to open bids, we need to be under about 240 million.

That's what we anticipate having monies for.

All right, so that gives you an idea of where we have flexibility in our budget today.

We can come back and answer more questions when when we get to the end.

Next slide addresses some of the risk, maybe well, some of the risk, the significant risk on the project.

So as part of the process we go through with Caltrans, since this is a state highway project that we're talking about, Caltrans has some requirements of us.

One of them is that we conduct a risk register exercise, and their risk formula is uh is an automatic, and that those first two numbers are calculations in the midst of the risk register process.

So $31 million of that $40 million risk that could surface during construction is from a calculation.

Now the challenge here isn't to say we need to find 40 million.

The challenge is we need to actually remove the risk of 40 million dollars.

So my job along with the rest of our team is to make sure that we don't encounter the things that would cause us to have to pay out 40 million dollars.

Now that's the construction capital, so that's the that's the construction work.

We also have risk on the engineering, which is the next slide.

And this is not also, this is also a fairly significant number, and it includes the number that is before you tonight, the $2.8 million ACOM amendment.

As with the capital, these numbers would project as possible cost to us if we aren't to manage them effectively.

Uh we do have some cost pressure from from the Caltrain staffing plan.

Caltrans is going to administer the construction.

So working with them to make sure that we have a number that we believe is reasonable and affordable is going to be important.

Otherwise, we would see an increase of probably on the order of $5.4 million.

So each of those requires some diligence in the creation of the estimate to make sure that we don't actually have to pay out an additional $13.5 million.

We do have to pay out some of that, obviously.

We have the $5.2 million in contingency on the bottom, and as staff, SMCTA staff offered us, we would be given another 2.8 to augment that.

So we have some money to work with uh in a good in a healthy dollar amount for that risk.

All right, so that then transitions to the next slide, which is a little bit of a lead up here to the amendment that's before you.

So one of the things that I think is very important to understand is this project has been underway for quite some time.

It started back in 2013, and in the middle, we paused the project uh as a result of getting to 95 percent but not having all the funding to do the project.

We were short over 180 million dollars at that point uh for the project.

We were hired on our team, the the Gray Bow and Scott team was hired on to begin management of the project near the end of that gap, uh, and then we had to relaunch the ACOM team to complete design.

And what you'll see here is that we had 95 percent done when the pause button was pushed in 2017.

When we resumed, we had to actually apply, well, apply, we had to reapply, in a sense, new criteria to the design.

So the seismic criteria changed significantly, and as I indicated at the beginning, seven bridges and fifteen structures all had to be redesigned and recalculated.

Significant amount of work.

And so that leads my to my next slide, which shows you the development of the contract.

In 2013, it was the environmental contract.

Amendment 7 was the amendment that we put in place when we restarted in June of 2024.

When we put that estimate together, we made quite a number of assumptions about what we thought we would encounter.

We thought we had a pretty good handle on how much it would cost to actually do this redesign based on the new seismic criteria and a few other changes to legal requirements on the project.

The initial estimate that we received from ACOM was much greater than the amount that we ultimately executed for, that $3.68 million on the left side there.

It was through combined efforts of our team and the ACOM team to bring that number down.

But when we do that, that adds risk because we anticipate certain things will happen, and there's a likelihood that other things might.

And so some of those other things have happened, which I will get to in a second, which leads us to needing money in amendment eight.

So with that, let me go to the next slide and show you a little bit of the timeline history here because we have encountered some changes, some some problems here that we need to own up to.

What you see on the top is the schedule of the actual design progression.

So back in December 2024, the ACOM team completed the roadway design.

There are two pieces to the design, one's roadway and one's structures.

The structures lag behind for the reason that I mentioned.

We had to redesign the seismic criteria to satisfy seismic design criteria.

So those two submittals occurred at different times.

In the midst of finalizing the structures PSNE for September, what you see below there is what we anticip what we intest estimate now and looking back is that at about that point in time, 67 percent of the ACOM budget was expended.

But it wasn't until about six months later that the information came forward because the invoice delay was six months.

And the final number that that we've reduced now for tonight's uh amendment didn't come until seven months after that point.

So we had a lag there of about six to seven months of time before we became aware of the need for the change.

And I have to confess and apologize to the council because by not knowing that for six months, it arrested from you essentially the control to say, as the council and the sponsors of the project, we made the decision that you should have made.

You're the team, you're the team player that is responsible for the overall delivery of the project, and our inability to communicate to you basically removed that decision.

Because the decision is either you amend or you don't amend, not what other options do we have, unfortunately.

So I'm sorry that that is the case.

And what I'm going to share with you here in a moment are the things we're doing to avoid that.

So we're back to talk to you when we get this when we get a situation such as this in the future.

So next slide.

This just illustrates uh the financial picture.

Uh there are two key cells here that are pointed to by the green lines.

Uh in the February 7th, that the February 17th date, that was the date upon which the July invoice was received.

And so that July invoice would have triggered attention to the cost challenge that we had.

And what you can see is that in about that same time frame uh we also were $475,000 in the hole without an amendment.

So that is the that is the problem that our inactivity and action created, uh, which is why I wanted to apologize tonight for that.

Going forward on the next slide.

The other the other piece of this and the other challenging thing from from the management standpoint is we have a process in place with ACOM to notify us when they are out of scope.

But as you can see on this slide, those notifications didn't come in until March.

A few days, a few days, a couple weeks after they notified us that they had a cost problem.

So there were some challenges for us in understanding the picture properly to come to you soon enough.

Next slide.

So the work that is part of this amendment uh covers a range of things, but you'll see in the center here the 1.2 million dollar and 260,000 and 323,000 uh figures make up the bulk of the change.

Those are all directly tied to the seismic design criteria change.

In addition to that, there's added time, which adds project management and administration costs.

That's the 280,000 at the top line.

And then the bottom two lines, the right-of-way support.

We've had additional work necessary for the parcel along veterans, which is owned by the county and serves to provide the county with access to their flow meter.

We've gone through several different iterations of design with them which has added cost.

And then the last item are as needed items that we now know actually exceed that amount.

And so that's on the next slide.

Because this again is more risk that we have in the support side.

So what you'll see here is this adds up to 1.5 million dollars of risk.

Uh we need to manage that to a 420 dollar cost.

And so that's the challenge before us now after you approve uh or you consider approval of this amendment.

Next slide.

Gets to the final things I wanted to mention here in terms of what are we doing to avoid this mishap from occurring.

I I can't guarantee that we won't have cost increases, but we need to get to you quickly when we do.

So we have established a project leadership team and an executive steering committee structure which allows us to address issues when they're when they surface at the at the staff level.

This is important because we need to we need to know quickly what issues require addressing so that we can agree with Caltrans sooner rather than later.

Uh time is money for us, and and it's important that we resolve them quickly.

So that structure will help us.

Risk management is key, and one of the things that we have asked and agreed to with ACOM is that they submit to us not necessarily their invoice, although that would be great, but that they give us an estimate of what that invoice amount will be 15 days after the month close.

That will avoid that six-month lag that I shared on that timeline.

Once we have that, we are we've scheduled meetings now to do a monthly risk review.

So we'll be reviewing that invoice cost, reviewing the risks associated with finishing the work and then being able to report that out to the ad hoc committee so that so that the council is aware of what's happening on the project.

In addition, we're doing two things uh concurrently right now.

We do have a semi-independent cost estimate uh that is we're undertaking with Caltrans on the CM cost of their construction management activities.

I'll have more information for you on that uh going forward.

And then we also have an independent cost estimate on the capital cost in order to make sure that we have sufficient funds to fund the project when it actually advertises, uh, undertaking this cost independent cost estimate is important.

So those are two key QA key carriers, and then we have two a couple more areas on the final slide, which is schedule control.

It's going to be important for us to make sure that that UP work is approved.

We're working to uh fast track the actual CNM maintenance agreement with Caltrans.

So that's a a parallel activity to help us keep the schedule tight.

Uh and then also working with Caltrans to avoid repeated sequential reviews so that we can get to the finished product faster or without delay.

And then the last thing is reporting to ad hoc.

So we will be uh reporting on a monthly basis on the financial performance, both cash flow as well as earned value analysis, as well as all the way through construction uh reporting out on changes and and risks associated with construction.

So that will be a format that uh we put together with with the ad hoc over the next month or two.

And then finally, obviously coming to you uh to report out on all things where council approval is required.

So those are the actions we're gonna take.

The last thing I will share is the final slide, which is what we see forthcoming.

We have tonight the ACOM amendment number eight uh for your consideration, and then we will be back with an ACOM amendment for design services to for cons uh through construction.

So tonight's tonight's amendment gets us through the design phase, but we will be in construction, as we said, in 2027, for which we will need their support.

And then finally, we do need to come back for a construction management procurement that will tie into that Caltrans cooperative agreement.

So in the September, October, maybe November time frame, we'll be back with some amendments and new agreements for additional contracts.

So with that, I will stop and take questions.

Thank you, Leo, for the great presentation.

Before we field any council questions, we'll take some public comments.

So I'll turn things over to our city clerk.

Thank you, Mayor.

At this time I don't have any comment cards.

So last call to our we have one comment card, maybe.

Yeah, please.

And if you've joined us on Zoom, go ahead and raise your hand at this time.

Okay, we'll close the speakers list and we'll call up Greg Hefter.

Welcome.

Thanks.

Yeah, um Greg Kafka, I'm the department manager for our uh surface transportation uh group uh at AECOM.

And I just wanted to say a couple words here about uh the project and and how it's going.

Um, we've been on the project a long time.

We see all the benefits that it's going to bring to the community.

It's a great project, it's a big project, it's complex.

Um it's a fun one to work on, and we're eager to be turning the the last corner here and and heading towards the finish line.

So you know, there's a lot of excitement and in pushing to get this thing to construction.

Um as Leo said, we did have some lapses with our um reporting and invoicing, and and I acknowledge that and and as Leo's mentioned, I apologize to the to the council for taking that um decision making from the council and and uh pushing it uh to uh you know months out before we reported on it.

Um we've taken some measures to to fix this.

We've got a senior uh project controls uh manager that we've assigned to the project to track and monitor things so that this doesn't happen again.

Um we've also worked with Trinity and Leo and and the project management team um closer, and we're gonna stay working closer, uh especially as we get towards the the end of the project.

There's a lot of decisions that need to be made quickly, and um we just don't want this happening again.

So we've made those changes and uh I think you know learned a valuable lesson from this.

We're not gonna let this happen again.

Um if I could just say one more thing too about uh mitigation.

Um we have been working all the way through uh this amendment uh preparation, which has been about a six-month period.

Um and that may not sound like a big deal, but the alternative would have been to stop work uh as we were uh going.

Can I keep going?

Please finish.

Okay.

Um as we were working through the amendment, and if we would have stopped work, we would have lost six months of schedule on that.

And that obviously at this point in the project would have been a pretty big deal.

Um we'd lose construction escalation.

That that that risk would increase.

It's about four percent per year, and on a big job, you know, over 200 million dollar job, losing six months of that would be about four million dollars potentially, you know.

You never know where the escalation is gonna go.

Um, the other thing is losing review staff, these agencies, Caltrans and the other agencies we're dealing with, are all busy.

They've assigned staff to review our submittals.

Uh if we had a long pause in the project, there's a good chance or a chance we could lose those staff and be assigned new staff when we start back up, which is further disruption.

It it it uh decreases efficiency and it just it causes a lot of uh inefficiencies as we pick back up.

And then lastly, um we were able to make two submittals, uh a major structure submittal and a major uh roadway submittal in April.

And those all go towards the funding considerations.

As we're looking for new funding, um being closer to shovel ready and having the 100 percent uh plans uh submitted uh is a big bonus and you know adds to the ability to get funding.

So there's there's some items there that you know that were positive.

And um I think you know, from from our point of view, continuing work uh throughout here has has been uh a good offset to to our mistakes that we made and the lapses, and we feel like uh you know hopefully we're back on even ground and just put move forward and and get this project finished and and get it into construction.

With that, uh wrap it up.

Thanks.

Thank you.

That concludes public comment here.

Thank you, City Clerk.

Thank you, Mr.

Hefner and um Leo, thank you for the great presentation and just outlining the next steps here.

Um before I open it up to the ad hoc.

I wanted to just ask Mr.

Hefter here a quick question.

If you can come back to the podium, sorry to make you walk all the way back.

Um stay close.

Yeah.

You know, when we um met as an ad hoc, I I had mentioned you know how important it would be to demonstrate, you know, any show of good faith, just considering the six-month of delays in reporting, the lack of any communication to Grape Owen Scott or our city project team before coming back to the city council and explaining, you know, outlining the situation.

So I appreciate like all the the staffing supports that you mentioned to our city manager, but can you share why you didn't waive any of the the outstanding invoices from those six months?

Yeah, I mean I I think the in my mind or in our mind the offset is working through this has offset or mitigated any damage or or limitations that occurred.

So there was a a delay in in responding and and um uh bringing these uh issues forward that created some decision making delays.

So we by keeping uh by staying working through that time, I feel like we mitigated that and and didn't have a big lull where we would have had to pause the project and things like that.

And to me, that feels like the mitigation that's that's matches the damage, I guess you'd say as opposed to just saying, hey, here's some money for it.

It's like oh the this you know there was a delay in in reporting and we had to um you know recover from that by not having a delay in in uh preparing the amendment.

So working through that is is the offset, I guess I'll call it, you know, as opposed to just a straight payment.

Yeah, I um I'm no expert.

Um I've gotta say I think time is money and getting that heads up would have um I think some decisions could have been could have been made a little sooner.

So um a token of good faith would have helped, I think.

Um, but I I'll open it up to my ad hoc colleagues um and then the rest of the city council.

But oh yeah, can go first.

You guys have had more information than the rest of us.

I'm trying to plug in.

I was sorry.

Council members, uh councilmer Chu.

Sure, I can go council member G reignites his machine.

Um so thank you for the um the presentation, and it was very clear.

Um I think you know, again, most elected officials kind of deal with uh other fields, right?

And in in most fields, um this kind of lag in communication would be not reasonable and customary.

Um and these numbers are are not typical of other fields.

Um, you know, I'm on so you know, I'm in I'm in a research field and we're on soft money, and we cannot tell the NIH we we spent all the money, can we have more?

Um we promise to deliver X, and if we don't deliver X, that's on us.

Um, and so I think most people operate in that kind of environment where cost overruns, it you know, again, sometimes there are cost overruns and we do have to communicate with our grant officer, but it's most people don't operate in a field where you could do that.

Um and so I think we're we're experiencing this as people who could never do that and get away with it.

Um I mean, not to be too harsh, but that is not typical in in any field I know of um or workaround.

And so I think from our perspective, you know, certainly even if we would have said, yes, of course, you know, we need this work done, time is money, et cetera.

I think knowing and and being communicated with and having the option to make that choice.

Um, and and I know that's been acknowledged, but also, you know, I think being willing to kind of take some of the hit uh would have meant a lot.

And again, we don't have a choice.

We're gonna take the hit.

Um but sorry, I didn't make the uh I'll leave it there.

Um, you know, this project needs to get done, it's incredibly important for our city.

We have waited 20 years, it's gonna happen.

Um this is a major bump in the road, but this is not something most people would would experience in their professional life.

Just to respond, I mean, the the way the contracts are set up though.

I mean, if there's out-of-scope work that comes along, that is uh negotiated and and considered, right?

So I think the biggest issue here is the timing and and the lag.

The part about this being um like an NHA grant or not, it I mean for this industry it is customary to have change orders and and as things change, you can't assume everything if you you know you all the variables can't be in the contract.

So that's why in in our industry this isn't super unusual.

The thing that's unusual is the timing, and I I get that.

And I think you know, the idea is we've covered that, or you know, offset that with continuing to work and and carrying that cost too.

Because there's a cost to us for the labor, which I know you know it doesn't sound that that uh it doesn't make a difference to you guys, but it by working through it, we have been uh absorbing more cost even, and we we understand that.

So hopefully that makes sense.

Thank you, Councilmember Chu.

Councilmember G.

Thank you, Mayor.

And to my colleagues, you know, the last ad hoc meeting we had was uh I would just characterize it as pretty uncomfortable for Greg and his colleagues, but he's brave enough to come here because we told him it was gonna even be more uncomfortable here.

So thank you, Greg, for being here.

Yeah.

Does your upper management care?

Care about what?

That you're here and having this conversation in public?

Yeah.

They we've How do we know that?

You're here by yourself.

I don't see anybody from upper management.

Well, I'm I mean I'm middle management.

I don't know how much higher we could have or should have gone.

Mark Akawa has been involved.

He's the Northern California.

My experience is AECOM is so big, this is just noise to them.

No.

No.

We've I mean, and I've talked to my boss about it, and he said, hey, if I have to get involved, I'll get involved, you know.

But I thought, well, you should have been here with keeping a company.

It's hard to come by yourself.

Yeah.

Scott's here, the project manager.

I mean, I know that's not upper management, of course.

But Greg, you know, one of the things as I would assume that you are professional experts in this line of business.

You know, when when typically in the work I do, if there's going to be a pause, Caltrans doesn't just make up new seismic criteria in the back room and just publish.

They know.

Right.

So did you advise the city and the city team that if you pause, you might walk into a code change?

You mean uh which which pause?

On the four-year pause?

Yeah.

Let's start with the four-year pause.

Did you advise the city and the city team that you're likely gonna walk into a code change with the pause?

I don't know whether we did or not.

I doubt we did, but uh, Scott, maybe you know, but I doubt it.

Why not?

Because what when's the next code change from Caltrans?

Because they're talking about it right now.

So when's that going to become effective?

Why did as a professional advisor to the city?

Don't you owe the city team kind of a heads up if you're gonna delay, you're gonna walk into I do that with DSA, I do that with HoshPod, HCI.

Everybody has code changes on a regular basis.

We approve code changes here.

So if you're working on a project and you know there's a code change coming, don't you need to advise the city or your client?

Yeah, I mean, I I think that it would depend on um the circumstances though, you know.

We we the seismic code change that came was at from 2013 to 2019.

And you know, those it's every six years.

Um so I don't think that you know being 180 million dollars short would have.

But if I do my math, 2019 plus six, we're walking into a new code cycle.

Right, right, right.

Did you tell the city team that we better hurry up and finish?

No, because we're dealing with the right now with the seismic design criteria.

So during your assignment here with this project, were you doing monthly reports to the cities team about where you were with the status, were doing cash flow, were you forecasting financial needs?

Did you share that with the city, or was this kind of uh oops, we didn't tell you, and we're out of money now.

Please pay us.

I think the we weren't giving the the um monthly updates that we should have been.

The oops were out of money part was more based on uh extra work that came, and that's that's what we're talking about right now.

It's not but you didn't give the city a heads up.

Oops, there's more extra work until we came in.

I I acknowledge that.

And I think votes came in late.

Right.

And now the city is uh expected to pay it because the work's been done.

You know, one might call it leverage.

I have an E-word I might use, but I won't say it.

But the city doesn't really have much choice now, do we?

I not really.

I mean, the the project should keep going forward, you know, I feel that um you know if the city feels it shouldn't be.

So what would happen?

What should our expectation be as a council when you come back and ask for more money and you don't tell us?

Well, I think that's that's the lesson we've learned is we're not going to do that again of not telling you.

We're gonna, I mean, like Leo's talked about, we've got the monthly reporting, uh, two weeks after the end of the month, we're going to uh sit with Leo and and Trinity and the team and go through the progress report, the estimate from the month before, and um and do that on a on a regular basis invoice within 60 days.

And um and then any out-of-scope work we're gonna have to bring to the project management team uh when it becomes uh when we know about it.

Does that mean immediately, six months later, two weeks later?

No, I'd say within a couple days.

Why should I believe you?

Um I don't there's all I can do is is say that we're committed to the project.

We've been working on a long time.

Um we're making good progress.

We've had the laps, and I acknowledge that, but I think beyond that, the project's gone well, and um and we've been providing good service for the city.

So um I think you know, I guess in one sense me being here, hopefully shows and it doesn't sound like it's it's convincing you, but um, you know, me being here and and saying, hey, that we take this seriously is uh is important.

Again, we knew you were gonna be here.

I thanked you at the ad hoc for being brave to show up, but I did tell you it was gonna be more uncomfortable than the ad hoc.

Yeah.

So I held up my bargain.

Told you it was gonna be more uncomfortable.

So, you know, I know ACOM does a lot of work in the region.

So, what should I tell my colleagues on other transit boards and other transportation agencies across the region about your performance?

I would say you know, we had a slip up.

We acknowledge the slip up, we've fixed it, and and we've you know, um you don't you won't know if we've we've picked up or carried it from there, but that's the intent, and that's what we're gonna do.

So in my mind, I'd say, you know, if someone asks about it, hey, how how do they do?

Well, they did pretty well.

They slipped up, they owned up to it, they fixed it, and then moved on.

So, what would you do if you were up here at the Dais and I was in your shoes asking for more money after the fact.

Well, I don't mean tax mayor dollars.

Yeah, no, I I understand that.

But the the problem, or well, not the problem, but the issue is the work is extra work, and I think that's where we've we've kind of had the discussions in the back and forth of it is extra work per the contract, you know, and the way it's set up, I understand different industries work different ways, but in you know, for us, for this industry, when there's out-of-scope work, that's what the change rules are for, the amendments, right?

And so bringing that forward and and discussing it and going through and saying, yeah, yeah, this was due to the code change, this was due to PGE or whomever, um, those different factors.

If if it makes sense to the management team, then I think that it's worth uh moving forward with.

So if I were to use my words, I know Councilmember Deal would like to chip in here pretty quickly.

There was extra work.

We didn't tell you timely, we screwed up, we kept working, so pay us now.

Did I capture that pretty correctly?

Yeah.

I mean, I think the way it's said, I guess, you know, that's factually though, yeah, that's it.

Okay, just so I was clear.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember G.

Councilmember Padua.

Okay.

Thank you.

Um I'm not on the ad hoc, so I had the privilege of going over these agreements and amendments all this weekend and highlighting and printing out lots of things.

So I guess I just want to go back to the original contract.

Where it all started.

Seems something because when I'm here and hearing all the things that you're promising to make us now, those all seem like things I read in the original contract.

So I'm actually just gonna read it out loud.

Just this one section when I see under the original contract number six compensation.

City shall pay to consultant an amount not to exceed 7,187,555 for the completion of all the work and services described herein, which some shall include all costs or expenses incurred by consultant but consultant payable as set forth in exhibit B attached here.

Okay.

And then I go and it's perfect.

Then I go and I look and I think oh gosh, we have this clear thing.

I go, I look at exit B, and then I look and I see all these things, you know, you guys are gonna give us.

You're going to have monthly invoicing, there's going to be reports.

So I guess that was part of the original contract.

So you know, Councilmember G is being very graceful and thanking you probably seems like we've actually paid you quite a lot of money to be here today.

And I'm I'm having a really big disconnect.

You keep saying we did this for you, we did this, this extra work, but that was a choice you unilaterally made.

You worked out of scope, you took your contract, and you took a decision that sh did not belong to you, and you made it yourself, and now you're demanding to be paid for it.

I once had a friend who was a wedding planner.

She thought this bride had picked this one package, and she just wanted to do a little extra for her.

So she got her the more expensive flowers, she did this whole kid.

And you want to know what that wasn't in the contract that the bride had signed.

So in the end, my friend learned a very expensive lesson.

She gave that woman a very special moment, and she ate those costs.

This is not a wedding planning contract.

This is huge.

And I guess I'm hearing these things when you talk about ACOM as so big, and where this is your back of the house.

This is your this to me, if you are such a big operation, these are things that are foundational.

You need to have these.

I mean, this is part of when we hire you.

This is what when we signed this original contract, we're we're counting on that.

And to have you come here and say, oh, you know, well, actually, we thought, mayor, we thought about giving you a discount, but we actually, you know, during that pause, we we went ahead and did all this for you.

I don't appreciate that.

I don't like decisions to be made for me.

I like information, and then we collectively are a group, and that's who makes our decisions.

We did not hire you to do that.

You had a scope of work and you decided to go rogue and go out of it.

And now you want us.

Uh I I I'm having a really hard time coming around with this because I I read the original contract and every subsequent amendment.

And I hear that I think I don't I don't know how you've really learned your lesson yet.

You you're saying you've learned your lesson, but I'm not really sure you have, because what you're saying is you you did something for us.

Oh, and maybe you shouldn't, but you shouldn't have.

You worked out of scope.

I just want to make sure we're very clear with that.

There are certain things that change with these amendments, but that section didn't, and you worked out of scope and you made unilateral decisions that you should not have made.

And I'll leave it at that for now.

Thank you.

Can I say one thing about it Oh, I didn't have a question.

Oh thank you.

Greg, please, you're more than welcome to respond to that though.

That's okay.

Then we'll go to Councilmember Sturgen.

I appreciate the apology.

That's kind of you.

I respect you taking responsibility.

Uh when there's a lapse in communication in the industry I come from, nonprofit sector, right?

When I started in my previous job as a community and corporate partnerships manager, taking over relationships with corporate partners who sponsor uh safety net programs for the community.

There was a lapse in communication with a sponsor, and what ended up happening was we lost that sponsorship.

We lost those dollars.

And then you cited that with Union Pacific Railroad as an example, there was a brand new team of 25 people or so that were brought on that you had to establish a new relationship with and work with and get up to speed and whatnot, right?

Again, in the sector I come from, working with a variety of community partners who change over all the time.

I don't get paid more to develop a new relationship with each of those partners.

I have to make do with what I have and deliver.

And what you have proposed here as a means to make it up to us is as Councilmember Padia put it, the bare minimum.

This is what you should have been delivering all along.

And we are charged with responsibility of stewarding, we talked about fiscal stewardship earlier, right?

Taxpayer dollars.

And this is fiscally irresponsible.

So right now, and I could be convinced otherwise, I would vote no on this amendment, despite how important it is to the city, because you have violated our trust and that of our constituents who have entrusted us with stewarding their dollars.

So with all due respect, I appreciate the efforts you have made to repair the relationship, but I'm not convinced at this very moment, though I could be swayed so.

Thank you.

Can I make a comment to that?

Please.

I think the answer is yes.

And you know, it is out of scope.

These are things that changes, and I I I know everybody's got different industries and different norms within those industries.

I I get that.

But in this industry and in ours, these are the types of things that happen.

And when when UP comes in and and you know, we have all new requirements or all new reviews and all new comments, and we have to go back a bunch of steps, that's out of scope work.

That's that's work that wasn't uh anticipated in the original contract.

Now I get that you know we've we've taken that decision away from you in some ways, like it forced it, I guess.

But I the way if to me, if you look at it and you say, hey, listen, is this out of scope or not?

And is the is it fair the the money that we've negotiated for that work, is that fair?

It is, I to me at least, and on it, and we've talked to the project management team and you know city staff and and come to an agreement on what the effort would be.

So I I get that I know everybody it it it feels bad that we waited you know six months to to bring this up and it was kind of like, oh, by the way.

But you know, if you look at it aside from that, it is work that's out of scope per the contract, and we've negotiated a price to do that extra work, or what that work's been.

Now, you know, whether we have uh accounted for the six months or the you know the damage that the city has endured, that's a different issue.

And uh we can talk about that more if we need to.

But that's you know, if it feels like the spirit of this thing is is you know, the the the context has really um driven it a lot.

And and you know, take that part away and you say, okay, this is extra scope of work, that's fair.

And I'm not saying you have to say that, I'm just saying for this industry, though, that's where it comes, and that with the contract, if you look through the original contract, there's a scope in there.

That's you know, it's the things that come out of that scope is what we've negotiated in the previous amendments, and it's this is very similar to that.

Or it's it's it is it's the same.

The timing is not great, I I'll give you that.

But I think the the contract and just the way that the these projects go, and I don't want to act like you know, we're just jamming this contract down your throat, but I mean the contract is we need to be clear about that and be fair, right?

That it protects you guys, it protects us, it protects everybody.

Um that's where we're coming from, and that's that I think it's important to realize that.

Um, knowing that, yeah, okay, the timing was bad.

Um, but should this work still count towards an amendment?

And that's that's where I think the answer is yes.

Councilmember Sirkin wants to respond to that.

And then I'll wrap up.

Um the mayor had suggested initially, you know, waving an invoice or two, and then you just mentioned the concept of damages.

Now I know the Hadhawk and you talked at length about lowering the cost of this amendment.

And I think I'm past that at this point.

I think what I'm looking for is a penalty for breaching.

Is this a breach of contract?

I mean, this is I don't know who answered that question.

But I think you owe us a reduction in this amendment.

And in whatever form, shape or form that looks like I think you owe us a reduction in this amendment.

That's all.

Thank you.

Thank you.

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

I'll try to keep this brief.

Um so I think you've alluded to something, and I think it's worth spending a moment on it.

Um so there's certainly things outside of your control, for sure.

I understand that.

Things like tariffs, material costs, et cetera.

But I think what I'm and I think it's worth dwelling on, um, you know, a lot of what erodes public trust in government is a perception that government isn't held to the same standards as private sector, or that government is not careful with people's money.

I mean, people don't have a choice whether or not to pay taxes.

And so when we're not disciplined uh and careful with their money, there can be a lot of feelings about that.

And so I think what I mean what I feel or or interpreted a lot of this as is the expectation of cost there's just an expectation of cost overruns that the the original budget is practically a fiction, that that constant changes in costs are so common that it's just you know considered reasonable and customary.

And there doesn't appear to be a mechanism for us to control those costs.

You know, once it's baked, we can't shrink the project.

Once it's baked, you know, and and that's a real problem.

Um I'm not sure what to do about this particular invoice tonight, but we need mechanisms to control these costs and to anticipate them and to be able to make choices about them.

And when when this is just sort of the norm uh around these huge infrastructure projects, I mean, you know, I know California high speed rail has been beaten up, but this is just a norm in infrastructure projects in the U.S.

We are way more expensive than any other industrialized nation for the same thing, often lower quality here.

This erodes public trust, and we have to have a way to control costs, be disciplined, and the the incentive for that is that if you can't meet your deliverables on the agreed upon budget that you eat it.

That's how you incentivize controlling costs.

Does that make sense?

Oh, yeah.

No, we eat money all the time.

I mean, we do.

And I don't mean to act like it just it it just happens or we just things get more expensive, but it but you know, things do change, and you can't assume you can't get all those variables into a contract without you know a bunch of contingency or something like that, and that's that's you know one of the things we have.

Um go to the vice mayor.

So just talking about different industries.

I uh you know worked in a different life in the for-profit industry, and so Leo and Greg, I appreciate your being here, and in a way, I'm saddened that a higher-up person wasn't here, because in in government, every July 1st, we have to have a balanced budget.

We can't uh, you know, we can't carry a loss from year to year.

We have to balance every July 1st.

You guys are for-profit.

So your higher-up bosses, trust me, and you know this too, they have their eye trained on the profit line.

How much money, how much money is in reserves, how much money is is being distributed to shareholders, how much money you have probably floors in multiple uh uh skyscrapers, multiple buildings of people with um MBAs and and CPAs and JDs who just look at the money.

And you you can have a loss, you know, then it's in the news that that you lost money.

We can't.

We can't ever have a loss.

And you know, if you have a huge profit, that's in the news, and your shareholders are thrilled, and they all make money.

So I don't really understand, to be frank with you, why one of your bosses isn't here and saying why because they I I'll tell you why, because they don't want to tell their shareholders, you know, we made a mistake, and therefore we had to we had to take a hit in profit because we didn't um we were six months late in invoicing a government agency.

I mean, when I worked in a for-profit industry, six months late with an invoice.

I mean, I worked with people who stare at the bottom line like you wouldn't believe.

And you know, if if you went to your boss and said I was six months, uh I mean, if the MBAs and the in the skyscrapers of of your very, very large organization, if if they routinely were six months late on uh accruing interest on on looking at the money, they that that would just be unacceptable.

And so I'm sort of surprised.

I don't you guys are middle management.

I I'm just sort of surpr I I'm disappointed that a large organization like yours that has government clients throughout the State, maybe throughout the country, I don't know.

But that you're kind of saying, no, profit is more important to us.

That that quarterly statement to our shareholders is more important than your city.

And and the thing is that this is a million dollars that isn't budgeted.

And for you guys, okay, sure, then you just say, well, it was a loss this quarter.

But we can't do that.

And um so I I don't necessarily I you know when we were negotiating with you, uh I heard you know, the ad hoc, and you know, you readily admitted the mistake, but then every time we said, well, how about this concession?

It would come back, nope.

Well, how about this concession?

It would come back, nope.

And didn't anyone go to a higher up and say, look, this government agency, you know, they're they're really not happy with us.

And so can you talk a little bit about that for me?

Yeah.

Um we did talk internally.

And um, you know, I I think the the feeling is that the the impact was time-related and schedule related.

And so that's by keeping working, staying working through the the six months, um, offset that.

That that's that's the thinking.

Um I don't want to for some reason it feels like there's really uh I'm not uh I don't know how to explain this exactly what the upper management part, what's upper management and what's not, but um you know it's it's gone up two levels to me.

Um there's there's a zillion levels within the company, like you said, there you know, we're a big big organization, but this has you know, it has a lot of people's attention.

We don't like um messing up like this, and we don't like having un unhappy clients at all.

And you know, we do take losses on projects if if we make a mistake and you know we have to uh do some rework or something like that, that happens pretty often.

So I mean I think the we are taking it super seriously.

We've talked internally.

That was the idea was that hey, you know, the the damage or the the impact has been time, you know by not m not reporting and and we kept working.

Um the the cost of money is is there for sure um on both sides, right?

Like the invoicing, we we got behind on that.

Um but also you know, by working ahead this six months, we haven't invoiced for for this money, and that's that's a lot of money uh for carrying costs.

I'll just finish up quickly and say um I I understand that you know you did the work and that the problem was you just you invoiced late and that the work was out of scope for unforeseen.

I mean, I understand.

I I just would say two things.

So, first of all, you know, all those slides showing all that intricate data and and columns and everything.

That that's because you lost trust and you lost our trust, and so you had to show all this detail.

We don't need to get into the weeds of all that detail if we had trust.

But we have a problem with trust now, which is why you had to bring all those columns and all those uh rows and everything.

And I just feel I'll I'll just end by saying this.

I just feel like a concession on your part would go a long way.

And I'm talking about money.

I'm talking about a monetary concession would go a long way to building back that trust.

I don't really want to look at a whole bunch of columns and dates and I don't need to know about engineering, but but there I I do need to have trust.

And so I I'm looking for I So I you don't have the authority, I understand that.

And anyway, I'll just leave it there.

Thank you, Vice Mayor.

Councilmember Howard.

Well, I I've learned a lot just by sitting and listening to everybody here, to be honest with you.

But sir, you've mentioned twice now.

We eat money a lot.

Basically saying we make mistakes a lot.

I've heard it's a good idea.

No, I I knew.

I knew when I said that that was good was gonna get to go.

Well, it you said it.

Yeah.

Um you're in an uncomfortable position, and uh I feel for you, actually.

But uh you've said it twice now, and I thought this Redwood City is an important city in this community.

Trying to do something magnificent with this 10184, this is a big deal for you as well as for us.

Yeah.

I mean, who wouldn't want to hire you if everything goes smoothly and you can say you delivered this project for Redwood City.

So for you to admit that you make mistakes all the time and and we make up for it, and I'm thinking, but we don't get that respect.