City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening, everyone. If you can all take your seats, we'll go ahead and get started. Good evening and thank you for joining our regular city council meeting of October 5th, 2026. We hold meetings in a hybrid format with both in-person and virtual participation available. The city welcomes public comment on topics within the city's subject matter jurisdiction and members of the public may provide comments as follows. In-person speakers will be called first. The speaker cards are located at the back of the chambers and must be turned in to the city clerk up front here at the dais. Please be s

Here. Thank you. Thank you, everyone. And with that, we'll move to the Pledge of Allegiance. Council Member Chu, could you lead us, please?

Please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance.

Thank you, Councilmember Chiu. We have all members of the City Council participating in person, so we'll skip over item four and move into our acknowledgements and presentations for the evening. Our first recognition this evening is to highlight Fire Prevention Week, a time to educate children and adults about fire safety, emergency preparedness, and fire prevention practices through school programs, open houses, community events, and educational outreach activities. I'll read a few excerpts from the proclamation. Whereas Fire Prevention Week has been observed annually since 1922, during the w

Thank you, Danny, and thank you, Chief, for joining us today. We have a city proclamation and would love to take a photo with the full city council, but thank you so much for sharing this important education with our youngest learners.

And that includes you, Chief. Come on down. Let's get this photo. Thank you again to our entire fire department for the incredible work that they do. And with that, we'll move to item 5B. Our next item is to recognize the month of October as Domestic Violence Awareness Month, a time to raise awareness about domestic violence and advocate for support for our survivors. I'll share a few whereases from the proclamation. Whereas more than one in three women, one in four men, and one in two transgender individuals experience some form of physical or sexual violence and or stalking by their intimate

Thank you, Crystal. I'm sorry for getting your name wrong there the first time, but we also have a city proclamation and would love to take a quick photo with the council. Thank you. All right, thank you everyone. And for our final recognition this evening, I'm excited to unveil the winners of Redwood City's first ever I Voted and Future Voter sticker contest winners. We believe that empowering our youth to understand and participate in the voting process is so incredibly important, and we help build an engaged community and strengthen the future of our democracy. For this contest, youth aged

Thank you again to everyone who contributed to the contest this year. The future voter is a really great sticker. But we appreciate all the designs and the work to help engage our youth. I know that some of the young folks who are here in this room are going to end up sitting at the stairs, so we're excited to see your growth. Thank you. And with that, we will now move to public comment on the consent calendar, matters of council interest, and items that are not on tonight's agenda. We welcome speakers providing public comment, but please be advised this is a limited public forum and as such,

Then we will move into our consent calendar. Items on our consent calendar are routine in nature and approved by one motion. Are there any items on consent from which council members are recused? Not seeing any. Are there any items on consent that council members would like to pull for discussion? Not seeing anything either. Is there a motion? Council Member Gee. Move to approve consent. That was a motion from Council Member Gee and a second from Council Member Howard. Could we get a vote, please?

Thank you, everyone. We'll move on from consent to our staff reports, beginning with Item 8A. We have our assistant city manager, Michelle. Excuse me, let me just start with colleagues. This is typically an item that would be on consent as an administerial item, but given the communications that we've received from the community, I thought it'd be important to open it up for our community to raise any public comments and for us to be able to ask some questions. So appreciate everyone's entertaining that for the evening. With that, we'll go to Assistant City Manager, Michelle Posh-Flaherty, who

Thank you, Chief, and thank you, Michelle, for the presentation today. With that, we'll open this up for public comments, and I'll pass things over to the City Clerk.

Thank you to our city clerk. And again, thank you to the folks who have made public comment in person and joined us virtually to share your thoughts on this. With that, I'll bring us back to the days here for discussion. If any council members have any questions or comments. And Council Member Howard, thank you.

Sure, I'll get started. Thank you to the community for coming forward and speaking, and thank you to the chief and members of staff who have answered the grand jury report. We have had these letters before, and I'm glad that this came at a timely basis when we were discussing the contract with Flock. I think it's great timing as far as I'm concerned to really let the community know that we're taking this very seriously. With the grand jury process, I've come to learn that as someone said to me, gee, the answers are very brief. They're very to the point, but they're very brief. They don't elabo

And I wanted to thank you because I think you answered the grand jury report in a very professional and succinct fashion addressing each and every point on how you're going to implement change if that's what was asked. And I When grand jury reports, when I read them, that's exactly what you're being asked. And they were tasked to find out. So the next steps would be up to you. Who after this will monitor your program, this program? Grand jury doesn't stay on it after this, I believe. But who would be monitoring this with you to make sure that we stay in compliance?

And if you feel an independent audit is necessary, would that be something you could establish?

Well, I think those answer my questions. I know that's why we're here tonight, to approve the letter. and to send it to the grand jury. And I don't want to be late. I don't know what the fine or the problem is if we don't hand it in on time. I don't want to know. So thank you very much for bringing it to us now. Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Howard. Thank you for highlighting the shot clock that we're working under here. Councilmembers, any other questions?

Council Member Gee. Thank you, Mayor. Council Member Howard, thank you for getting us started. I want to go back to your last comment, and Chief, you had slide four about the penal code, and I want to do our city attorney. I'm going to just do the Jeff question. So what? I've been told by some community members, we took an oath to follow the laws of the state of California, but somebody told me recently, well, you get to pick and choose which laws you want to follow. And I disagreed vehemently with that person, but he insisted we get to pick and choose state laws we want to follow or don't. So

Great. Thank you, City Attorney. And then thank you, Chief, for going through kind of the less than eloquent choices we have, but those are, you know, after having sat here for 15 years and approving letters, that's been pretty consistent over the 15 years I've sat here, that yes, no, and if you don't, or you partially agree, you have to say why or when you're gonna do it. You don't get too many other choices, according to the law that's been here and to our city attorney said. You know, and the other thing is, this is not done. I mean, this is just the grand jury report. The community input,

So it was about, let's call it 10 months old. And has anything changed since the 10 months?

And, you know, having been part of the Cal Cities, I served on the Public Safety Committee, and that's with police chiefs and fire chiefs and DAs from around the state. There are a lot of differences between leadership and different agencies. That was my observation, having sat in a room four times a year with law enforcement and public safety. Is that a fair statement that we're all different?

And so I think... You have heard from this council what our community values are and your leadership team knows what our council community values are and you're working hard together to make sure we achieve that. The community input over the next couple meetings will help amplify that, but I think you and your leadership team clearly understand what our community values are and are working there. We've heard other states, other agencies from around the country, around the state, we are focused on what we have here in Redwood City your leadership, the lieutenants and the captains and everybody

Thank you Thank You councilmember G and we'll go to councillor mature

So first of all, I wanted to thank everyone who came tonight and spoke on this matter. I know that there's a lot of strong feelings and beliefs around this very important issue. And just a few questions for Chief Bell. So the first thing is my understanding is our response to the grand jury report doesn't in any way impede our ability to get community input, to pivot to other technologies, to pivot to no technology that that those are quite separate things. The response to the report is what we will do at a minimum, and then our future decisions are separate from that. Is that a correct unders

Yeah, so my understanding was that your team went above and beyond the sort of normal auditing activity, caught some things that precipitated this investigation. Do I not understand the timeline correct?

Sorry, I had that wrong. So that's helpful to understand. So I think, you know, clearly your team is going above and beyond sort of the minimum necessary. So, you know, certainly I think that this is an issue that merits far more discussion and a deep understanding of the tradeoffs, the benefits, and the risks. But we are on a clock here. And I think we have to respond at this point in time. That in no way impedes our ability to engage with the community further, to understand what people's concerns and values are, and to be responsive to that. I'll leave it there.

Thank you, Council Member Hsu. City Manager, I just have a process question that I wanted to clarify. I know this is a, one of my colleagues mentioned a response in a moment in time, right? But the community input that we're going to be getting over these next two meetings, of course that's not reflected in this administrative response, but how does that get built into the work that's happening in the background right now?

Thank you, Patrick. I didn't want to get lost in us clarifying that this is so formulaic to what's required of us at this moment. So I just wanted to highlight that. Colleagues, any other questions? Council Member Serkin.

Firstly, thank you so much. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. I appreciated hearing the consequences of not turning in this letter on time right but i am curious so if we have a an outreach session scheduled for this wednesday couldn't we theoretically just continue this item to our august august october 26th meeting and give ourselves the chance to reflect on feedback from the community in addition to what we've heard here tonight i understand we couldn't wait until after both sessions because that would put us at October 29th, the day before the deadline. But what harm is there in continuing the

I can respond to that. I don't think there is any harm, but we wanted to make sure that we had the police chief available to guide us through the presentation and respond to any council questions since she's been working so closely on this. So I think that was just a logistical issue.

But with council direction tonight, feedback from community members at the upcoming recession this Wednesday could be incorporated into the letter, if any is relevant. And then put on consent, I would say, August, August, there I go again, October 26th meeting for council to approve then and there, right?

Yes, thank you for the question. I understand it is a template response, but there could be additional feedback that we just haven't heard yet. i think we've heard from a number of advocates consistently over a few meetings and that has been definitely welcome and helpful feedback but now that we are scheduling an outreach session we could hear from folks who haven't engaged thus far and so i'm very curious to hear what other residents of redwood city have to say before moving forward on this and with the rp and all that but And maybe that's just me. Thank you for helping kind of walk us throu

I move to approve the response to the grand jury report.

That's a motion from Vice Mayor Aiken. Is there a second?

And a second from Council Member Howard. Before we vote, Council Member Serkin.

Yeah, I wasn't quite done, so I do have some more questions and comments that I'd like to ask, if that's all right. Please.

All righty, so my understanding based on the... grand jury's report and then our own policy is that there are two types of information that are required that we gather. It's the offense type and then there is the case ID. But then we also, if we're conducting a search, there's a reason kind of field as well. Can you just clarify like what is the difference and what is required and what's, please, thank you.

Yes, it does. So we've evolved since then and required additional context when a search is being conducted, it sounds like.

Thank you. And then in terms of actionable items here, I heard it was the city attorney mentioned something about kind of support for or openness to safeguards. And then I heard some community members mention requiring fines or damages if there are violations of our policy. And so was that incorporated into... Yes.

Sorry, council member. Just want to make sure that we're talking about this response to the grand jury report versus what we'll have a deeper conversation when we do talk potential RFP contract language. So I think at that point, that would be a place where we can take a deeper dive on this too. I just want to make sure we're trying to draw a clear line in the sand here.

Absolutely. I appreciate that. And since it was already mentioned, the concept of, I think Council Member Howard, you'd mentioned your openness to fines or damages, just some kind. We can check the recording if you want. So in the interest of kind of getting ahead of that conversation that we have on the actual applications from the RFP. I just wanted to voice my support for that because I know my colleagues appreciate a heads up. And then, Chief Bell, you had said something about an independent audit. I forget who had asked, but that it's expensive but is doable and would be workable, somethi

That's a very important consideration. I appreciate you bringing that up. And I definitely would support looking to the city manager to evaluate the feasibility of that. Should there be sufficient council support for that? I think that is a reasonable and helpful practice that we could implement going forward. And... Okay, those are all my questions, thank you.

Thank you Council Member, Council Member Chiu.

Just a clarifying question. So as I read through the letter, the responses fall into two buckets. One is that we understand the grand jury's concern and agree with it or acknowledge it. And then the second is, have we made the requested correction and modified our policies or SOPs to be conforming with their requested change? WOULD ENGAGING THE COMMUNITY PRIOR TO OCTOBER 26TH BE LIKELY TO AMEND ANY OF OUR RESPONSES IN ANY SUBSTANTIVE WAY? LIKE, THEY SEEM VERY, AGAIN, FORMULAIC, LIKE EITHER WE'RE COMPLIANT OR NOT, EITHER WE ACKNOWLEDGE THE CONCERN OR NOT. LIKE, WOULD, DO YOU ANTICIPATE ENGAGING

Thank you, colleagues. Council Member Strachan.

I think Council Member Hsu made a really good point of clarification. I appreciate that. So I would like to make a different motion, given that community input we may receive on Wednesday could influence our response to the letter. So that is, so my motion, if we could, oh, but we can make two motions. You can make a motion. ACTUALLY, I THINK I CAN MAKE ANOTHER MOTION. SUBSTITUTE MOTION?

I will begin with a friendly amendment actually then. Thank you, Councilmember G. That's very helpful. So I would like to make a friendly amendment. Can we please put up the recommendation slide just for ease of drafting this? Okay. So I would say My friendly amendment would be to continue this item to our October 26th meeting to approve a letter responding to the San Mateo County civil grand jury report titled is our flock of ALPR cameras properly tended and authorize the mayor to execute and transmit the letter at that time. Is that helpful, city attorney?

Well, actually, I'm asking the motion maker. Sorry, thank you. To the motion maker. To the vice mayor.

So what I heard Chief Bell say is that it would not change the letter, the five-page letter, because we agree with all the conclusions already and the one, so the assumption at the beginning, you had an assumption when you said, and I believe that your assumption was incorrect because Chief Bell said it wouldn't change anything, so no, I won't accept the friendly amendment.

Okay, no worries. Then I would like to make a substitute motion. for the purpose of responding to community feedback that we received. Recognizing that should different people engage in our meeting, outreach meeting this Wednesday, that could inform staff's response in the letter and could add clarity and additional context that would, I think, better respond to community feedback in it more than has already been done. So I would like to propose a substitute motion to continue this item to the August 26th, August, October 26th council meeting to approve a letter responding to San Mateo County

Thank you, Councilmember Strzok. And before I ask for a second, I see our city manager has his light on.

Thank you, City Attorney. Coming back to the dais, is there a second to Council Member Stergen's motion? Substitute motion. Not seeing any. That'll... And again, Council Member Sirkin, I think we all agree with the spirit of wanting to gather more community input. That's why I thought it would be important for us to make this a public item for tonight so that we could hear from the public. And I know this letter, the response doesn't capture all the work happening right now to update the policies and then gather input from the community. But there will be more time for us to be able to have a

I appreciate all I've heard and all the context and guidance. I just, I think what I've heard tonight is that the response specifically to the recommendation is just not yet satisfactory. So that's why I proposed that motion, but I understand that I did not receive a second. So thank you.

Thank you, colleagues. Thank you, Council Member Stricken. Now we'll go to the votes or the motion that we do have on the table to approve the recommended action. That was a motion from Vice Mayor Aiken and I think a second from Council Member Howard. Could we get a vote, please?

And thank you, everyone. Thank you to the public for joining us for that and contributing to the discussion. And we hope that you'll stick with us for the next item. But if not, we'll see you on Wednesday. With that, we'll go to item 8B. We have our Assistant Public Works Director and Chief Sustainability and Resiliency Officer, Justin Chappell, who will give us a presentation.

Thank you so much for that great presentation, Justin. And before we bring it to the council for discussion, we'll take some public comment. I'll pass things over to our city clerk.

Thank you to our city clerk. And I'll open it up to my colleagues if there are any questions or comments on this. Council Member Howard.

Sure. Thank you for the report. I wish there were more people here and listening about potable water because, boy, that's a big concern to me and many of us in Redwood City. So thank you for bringing this forward. Appreciate it. I do have a couple of questions. Can you give me an example of what would be an immediate health and safety concern that would require you to use potable water?

There are specific... that guidelines that you would follow in regards to that. I can see that. I mean, fire department says we have to use potable water because that would be an exemption, I would presume. Potentially, yes. But it sounds kind of rare, too.

My next question, we're not plumbed throughout Redwood City. We are plumbed in many places, but not throughout Redwood City. And some of these areas that you showed would not have plumbing necessarily that would produce recycled water. So could you tell the public how that someone could water their area safely and where they could get the recycled water?

But it would more be for properties that are plumbed, is what you're saying, like area like, let's say Kaiser Hospital, for instance. Maybe there's a decorative area, and you would say that doesn't need to be used. You don't need to use potable water, and you are plumbed with recycled water.

That's good. Lawn Be Gone, could you briefly tell us what that program is? Sure.

Wow, that's terrific. I hope everyone does something like that. That's interesting. And they would contact Vicki Sherman, I'm guessing, at Public Works and find out more about that or go on our website?

Thank you. My last question, you talk about backflow prevention assemblies and that it's up to the customer to maintain and test it. It's the first I'm hearing about it, and so I'd like to know more. Who can get something like this? Why would they get it? And are they shown how to test it and make sure that things are running properly?

Would a backflow tester be used for properties that have trouble with drainage? Is that what we're talking about? Because how would you know you needed one of these?

Oh, I see. Well, thank you very much. And again, they can get more information on the website if they go to Public Works.

Thank you for getting us started, Councilmember.

and we'll go to Councilmember G. Justin, thank you very much for the presentation. And working backwards, I know you had a chart here about how many HOAs are included, and there's quite a few in District 1, probably over 30. And I was gonna ask about the backflow inspection program, because we have to do annual inspection of all of our backflow preventers. And so, consistent with that, I don't know how many have cross-connects or cross-connect backflow, but this is part of the annual program. We would just amplify the annual inspection, is that correct?

Given the number of HOAs in District 1, I think if we can work together in getting the word out to all the HOAs, there is quite a few. I mean, we're not talking about front yards, but I know there are quite a few that have adopted recycled water. I know my HOA was probably the first one that adopted recycled water for the main thoroughfare, but it's inside the HOAs that have the non-functional turf that is not a front yard and so those are going to be have to be removed or I don't think the city was too excited about extending recycled water inside the HOAs so I think the consequence is that t

Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Gee. And I see Council Member Chiu's mic's on.

Thank you for your presentation. And just a few clarifying questions. One is, I actually toured the water purification facility in Redwood City. It was amazing. I'm so impressed. But I actually asked about recycled water. And one of the engineers told me, actually, they've basically gotten so good at purifying water that it's more expensive to lay the purple pipe than it is to do potable water. And so if there's a way, you know, obviously it's a state law, we have to comply. You know, there's no pushback there. But if there's a way to put sort of wiggle room where if at any point it doesn't ma

So if they really want to keep their lawn, they would pay for the purple pipe to be okay. And then for the lawn to be gone, is there any sort of parameters, you know, obviously planting things like native, native flowers, pollinator gardens, things like that. Those are more drought tolerant, but they're not Xeriscape. Could you talk a little bit about are those sorts of plantings also eligible or does it have to be Xeriscape? Is that the right way to say it, Xeriscape?

Terrific. OK. Thank you. That concludes my questions. Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Chiu. Any other thoughts from our colleagues? Councilmember Strachan.

Thank you. What is the outreach strategy for institutional, commercial, and industrial water users?

Thank you. I appreciate targeting the source, right? And in addition to that, I imagine this may already come up in conversation at RCIA, Riverside Improvement Association, or maybe the Chamber, just giving our, yeah, thank you, our major businesses a heads up.

Thank you, Councilmember. And I'll quickly add my thanks, Justin, for the great presentation. I sit on the Silicon Valley Clean Water Board, so I get some of this on a monthly basis, but Lawn Be Gone sounds like an incredible program I didn't know about. Really appreciate that you all are thinking about really creative ways to encourage people to plant native plants. I think the pollinator gardens that Council Member Chu mentioned are some of my favorite when I get to see that just out and about in the community, so thank you for helping us encourage that. And... Not seeing any other comments

No, I was going to make a motion to accept the staff recommendation.

Second. Great, that was a motion from Council Member Howard and a second from Council Member Gee. Could we get a vote, please?

Thank you, colleagues. I appreciate the discussion and the great questions on this. And with that, we'll move to item 8C, presentation on our Road City Priority Projects to be included in the San Mateo County-wide Transportation Plan Update. And we have our Transportation Manager, Valhalla Rang, who will introduce the item. And we have our City-County Association of Governments of San Mateo County Program Director, Jeff LeCap, who will give us a presentation. Thank you both.

Thank you, Jeff, for that great presentation. And before we open it up to the council, we'll take some public comment.

And just like that, we're back to city council discussion. And we'll start off with the vice mayor.

Thank you so much, Malahat and Jeff, for an excellent report. It's wonderful that we are working with our regional partners across the Bay Area to plan now for future transportation projects that will be interconnected. In this regard, I'd also like to thank Councilmember Gee for serving as chair of the Transbay Joint Powers Authority and also on the boards of Caltrain and Samtrans. When we look at what's best for Redwood City in terms of public transportation, I think we all agree, and as your report showed, we need to look at what will bring jobs and businesses and therefore tax revenue to R

Thank you for getting it started, Vice Mayor. And I got my mailer of the Dumbarton survey just this past weekend. Never filled it out so quickly. So please, if you get one in the mail, make sure to participate. So thank you. Colleagues, any other questions? Council Member Serkin.

In response to the questions, thank you, first and foremost. Definitely, these are the right local projects. I just want to expand upon why. Starting with the four-track station and grade separation project, I mean, that's been on our to-do list for ages at this point and is much needed to revoke the city downtown's continued success and development. And then the... El Camino Real Multimodal Improvements and Implementation of Grand Boulevard Initiative. Very much excited for that. El Camino is, of course, one of our deadliest roadways in the city, and this is a key to making that a reality, re

Thank you, Council Member Sturgeon. We'll go to Council Member Chu.

So first of all, thank you so much for this presentation and just the vision to connect our community and to help people have a variety of choices for transportation. So I'll just kind of go through these. The first is the vision and goals. They really resonated with me. And one thing I really appreciated was the emphasis on connectivity. We don't build bridges that only go 80% over the river. It's so important to connect. particularly for people on foot and bike who travel outside of cars. They're so often these disjointed. And Google actually did a study, and those big wide roads, when you c

Thank you, Councilmember. Any other comments, questions?

Councilmember Gee. Jeff, thank you for coming to Redwood City and praising our community and the council about the county transportation plan. One of the hardest things about these plans is we're talking 20, 30, 40, 50 years. And so we are looking ahead in a very complicated funding landscape. And when we look at MTC, it's a constant negotiation. I mean, I think when you look at the nine region counties, I think if you, I think you used the term unconstrained, I think the total is somewhere around $200 billion, if not more. And ultimately, Plan 2060, and MTC just approved Plan 2050, will const

Thank you, Council Member Gee. Any other? We'll go to Council Member Howard.

Thank you. I don't want to be on the menu. I haven't heard that one in a long time. Thank you. I wanted to thank you for all the hard work putting into, Jeff, and prioritizing, well, not just you, but of course, CCAG and the TA, really working hard to try to prioritize with each city what are the important projects. We have so many in Redwood City. I'm just so pleased. I think it's a great first attempt. I really do. I think that if we can get even some of these done, what progress we will have made. But I hope. Just the grade separation project scares me because that is so expensive. And we h

And that's a real important one for us, but we also have to address the other crossovers. We don't have as many as, well, I think right now, don't we have more than anyone in the county? Yeah, I thought so, six. And not all of them need to be necessarily, I mean, I understand we have other options, but it's gonna be a very, very expensive project. So I guess we all have to be aware that we'll have to do our lobbying as best we can. Can you tell me about next year Measure A will be on the ballot? I think it's Measure A, a renewal of Measure A funding for transportation projects. COULD YOU TELL

2028, YEAH. 2028? I WAS TOLD 2027. GOT IT. GOT IT. WELL, YEAH, THAT'S A GOOD IDEA. STARTED EARLY. And you said the TA is going to initiate that?

What I learned from the last time, you have to be in the room. you have to attend those meetings. I know because I was there and we got 50 million to do the study of water transit from just being in the room and saying, we care enough, it's important to Redwood City, please. So when the time comes, I think we all have to rally up and do that kind of proactive work, sit there, listen, and also speak in favor of our projects. I don't know what, and maybe, who's our representative or would somebody be able to, I know, I don't think we have a representative on the TA. Okay. But I'm sure we can get

Well, I know you'll let us know. Please let us know when our appearance and speaking would be important, because if you're not in the room, How do you compete? No one knows that it's a priority for you because you didn't bother to show up. So I think it's real important on that one in particular. Also, I wanted to know, do you know, right now I understand it's the environmental review phase for the Port of Redwood City. What website can we go to? Because we are asking for community input. I'd love to see people in Redwood City really have robust suggestions about it so that we show that we hav

Okay. November 5th, everybody, please link on, because I get calls a lot, and I know others do, too. When's it happening? When's it happening? Well, we need their help now. Speak up. This is of interest to you, and you want to see that happen. I love the Vision Zero corridors that are here. If we can get this done, that would be major. If we could make, as we said, bike safety is so important. And these include a lot of that. So I'm hoping that we can get moving on that. So thank you again. I don't have any other questions. I feel you've done your job in picking out what's important. And I gue

Thank you, Councilmember. And we'll go to Councilmember Chiu and then Vice Mayor.

Can I ask a clarifying question? So are we, I mean, we're not voting on anything tonight. This is more just feedback or? ARE WE MAKING ANY FORMAL?

I WOULD LIKE TO MODIFY THE LIST. I would like to swap out the bay project for improvements to Broadway, if that's possible. Just going back to the Walk, Bike, Thrive plan, Broadway was the most upvoted corridor It got more attention than almost anything else, and at present, there's still no plan to continue bicycle infrastructure on Broadway through the Woodside Corridor, and I am concerned that that's the desired path, and so people are gonna take that, whether there's bicycle infrastructure there or not, because it's the direct route. And so I think that there would be an enormous safety ga

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

So I have a clarifying question also, and then I wanted to... So the Transportation Authority, that's a San Mateo County agency? It's a division of, it's a subsection of CCAG?

Okay. And who are the board members? Or, I mean, are there any elected officials that are part of the Transportation Authority? Who?

That's all right. I'll look it up later. No problem. I think I saw it today, so thank you. So then another clarifying question just to follow up on Councilmember Chiu's comments. So this report was first vetted by the Transportation Subcommittee of Redwood City, is that right?

Okay, so this staff report and these staff recommendations were studied deeply by the Transportation Subcommittee, which has three representatives from the Redwood City Council. Is that right?

Attack. Okay. And so that organization vetted these various projects and studied them and put them in the priority? Yes.

So I just, you know, we can, this is, so I would just say this is all aspirational, and I hope we don't have a two-hour conversation about second-guessing a project whose job it is to look at this and who came up with these recommendations. This is a snapshot, it's aspirational. We'll be looking at things for years to come. We can't fund everything anyway, I am okay with exactly the prioritization that our TAC and our community studied deeply. I'm sympathetic to Councilmember Chiu. I revere her knowledge. We are so lucky on this dais in this council to have so many, to have some real fine mind

Thank you, Vice Mayor. I see Council Member Howard has her light on, and then we'll go to Council Member Chu.

Well, my question is, because I'd like to consider if it's something that makes sense, but it says here that Bay Road is, it's a new project, but it's the planning and design phase. So I wanted to ask our staff, how far along are we on this particular project compared to Broadway?

I was going, that was my second question. We decided to move, you know, South Woodside Road on Broadway, following it through the city, going out to the end of Redwood City. So we incorporated Broadway into it, and that's our downtown, our broader downtown area plan. So is that being funded in any way, shape, or form, or is that something that's going to have to start from scratch?

I'm guessing that Bay Road is considered by the agencies more of a regional road that can tie other communities together, because that's the theme I'm seeing here. You've chosen things that can cross cities and tie things together. So, okay, this is a struggle because we know Broadway is very important to us and we really do want to make it. But I would say that if we stay with Bay, I'm just saying if we do, whoever brings in Whatever developer comes to Redwood City and wants to settle on Broadway, which I think will happen in our near future, I think they're going to have to be part of the so

Thank you. Jeff wanted to say something.

Thank you, Jeff. And we'll go back to Council Member Chu.

Sorry. You know how I feel about bike lanes. So a few concerns. One is that, well, a question. When you were presenting to the, I'm sorry, it was the TAC, was a protected bike lane on Broadway presented as an alternative?

Okay. So the only time that our community has had a choice presented to them, a head-to-head of a protected bike lane on Bay versus a protected bike lane on Broadway, They upvoted Broadway by a ratio of about four to one. And so, you know, they selected Bay because Broadway just wasn't even presented as an option. That's the first concern. The second is that, you know, I was taking scooters, you know, when we had shared micromobility. Shared micromobility is geofenced at any intersection or any boundary between the county and and the city, meaning that Bay is not an option for micromobility, w

Thank you, Council Member. Go to Council Member Sterkin. Thank you.

Thank you. I would support doing that swap. I think that makes sense. And I'm glad to hear that if we were to make the swap that, say, the Bay project would still be considered in the universe of potentially funded projects in the future. And I agree with the reasons that Council Member Ruchu shared. I also want to kind of take another step back. I think maybe Council Member Howard may have mentioned it briefly, but the 101-84 project directly intersects with this project that we're discussing. And so that project offers a bike and pedestrian only route over What side in its own stand alone th

Sorry, visuals are more helpful for me. I pulled it up. My apologies. Way too many tabs open. Well, anyway, what I'm getting at is, that project doesn't do what Councilmember Chiu is asking and what, directly anyway.

So they are crossing each other. I do recognize that the 101-84 project provides east-west underneath 101 along the railroad tracks, but there was the flyover in addition to going north-south. But anyhow, that's not what we're discussing. Anyway, so since that project doesn't meet the need that Councilmember Hsu has mentioned, I really wish I had better data. Okay. Let me just pause there. I support what Councilmember Chu's proposed. Let me just do a little bit more research. Vice Mayor.

I just wanted to clarify, Jeff. So if I heard you right, what you said is we can go ahead and keep Bay and add Broadway and make it six preferred projects instead of five. And I'M OKAY WITH THAT. I REALLY RESPECT THE EXPERTISE ON THIS PANEL. I WANT TO KEEP BAY BECAUSE AS COUNCILMEMBER HOWARD ELICITED, IT'S CONSIDERED MORE REGIONAL AND THIS IS THE WHOLE PART OF THE POINT OF THIS PLANNING AND THIS OUTREACH IS TO NOT BE SILOED CITY BY CITY BUT TO ACT you know, not only just cities and counties, but multi-counties. So anyway, I'm okay with just adding the Broadway and having it be six projects. I

We'll go to Council Member Gee and then Council Member Howard. Thank you, Mayor. I just want to do a couple of clarifications. The San Mateo County Transportation Authority, the TA, is a separate agency in the county. Sam Trans is the managing agency for the TA, but it is a separate board. It is chaired by Mayor Julia Mates of Belmont, representing the Central Judicial District. Anders Fung is at large. Up north, it's Mark Nogales, who is the Northern Judicial District. Southern Judicial District, which we're part of, is Carlos Romero, and then two are supervisors. They are appointed by the Ci

But it's a portion of the local match. It doesn't preclude anybody, including Redwood City, from pursuing other grants. And so having this visibility is important. but it doesn't guarantee anything's gonna happen because it's always about the money. And those projects that are advanced, if we don't keep them moving, we'll just fall backwards. But we can start other projects and add them to the list to get them started and moving forward. And I'm not interested in moving backwards. I'm interested in moving forward. And so that's why I support adding Broadway as our sixth priority so we can keep

Thank you, Council Member Gee. Council Member Howard.

Thank you, Council Member Gee. I guess a great example is Dunbarton and what happened to that pot of money. I was on the committee at that time to study doing the rail across the bridge and because there were several cities who tried to make sure this didn't happen, we lost that money. It just went away. It did something else. But what bothered me most is that the people voted for Dunbarton Rail. The people voted for it. And it was removed and taken out without their approval. which is wrong. But it happened. So I'd hate to see anything like that happen again. And I agree with Councilmember G.

Thank you, Council Member Howard. Council Member Chu.

Thank you so much to my colleagues for being willing to entertain this conversation and adding Broadway. So my one request would be that we would prioritize Broadway over Bay. Again, when our community had a head-to-head comparison, they preferred Broadway four-to-one. So I love the idea of having six. As I understand it, the Bay project is only about two to five percent. That's what I was told in a previous meeting in the recent past, that it's only two to five percent planned. So I love the idea of adding Broadway. If we could prioritize it over Bay as the community has requested, that would

Council Member Strickland. Thank you. I've had the chance to collect my thoughts. I appreciate the patience. So what I was referring to is the, gosh, so we got the, wrong page. Okay, so the Class 1 multi-use pathway, which is green, as well as the purple Class 4 protected bikeway as part of the 101-84 project, that's great and all, but it terminates at Charter and is not a direct route to Councilmember Chiu's point, nor is Bay, where if I look at Google Maps here, this is where it terminates at Charter. chestnut i believe thank you and um to council member two's point you cannot just bulldoze

JUST WANT TO MAKE SURE THAT WAS THE END OF YOUR COMMENTS.

Thank you both, and we'll go to the Vice Mayor. Oh, I'm sorry. Oh, please.

Thank you all. We'll go to the Vice Mayor.

Yeah, I feel like we, as a council, are starting to delve into micromanagement. We've got a list of six. Jeff says we can do six. I'm not comfortable with... We've had a robust discussion here, and I think we're getting into the area of angels dancing on the head of a pin.

Thank you, Vice Mayor. And I'll add that I think adding Broadway, so we have a list of six, makes a lot of sense, and having a study session so that we could take a deeper dive into what our overall strategy would be, I think, valuable for not only us, but for staff who are thinking about this on the day in and day out. So not seeing anyone else's lights on. Vice Mayor?

I move that we... support the staff recommendation with the addition of the Broadway project.

And I will second that unless Council Member Chu. Okay, let's get a vote. That's a motion from the Vice Mayor and a second from the Mayor.

Thank you, everyone. Thank you again, Jeff and staff, for the great presentation tonight. That was Item 8C, and that takes us to Item 9, Matters of Council Interest, beginning with 9A, City Council Member Report of Conferences Attended. Does anyone have anything they'd like to share? Council Member Chu. Thank you.

So I attended a one-week workshop in Vienna, Austria learning about social housing. It was incredibly informative and you know obviously Vienna is quite different culturally or I'm sorry Austria is quite different culturally from the United States but I felt like there were many lessons that I could take away to sort of implement those sorts of principles in Redwood City.

Thank you, Councilmember Chiu. Not seeing anyone else's lights on. I'll go to 9b, City Council Committee Reports, and I have a quick report from our 84-101 ad hoc that met this past Friday, October 2nd. The committee is composed of myself, Councilmember Gee, and Councilmember Chiu. The consultant reported on the 84-101 interchange reimagined project, which included the project schedule, progress, cost, and next steps. And our ad hoc next meets on November 6th, 2026. And we'll move to item 9C, our city manager update.

Thank you, City Manager. And with that, that takes us to Item 10, Adjournment. We really appreciate everyone joining our City Council meeting tonight. We will meet next with a special meeting on Wednesday, October 14th. And we wish you a great weekend. Take care.