City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening, everyone. We're gonna go ahead and get started. Thank you for joining our city council meeting of September 14th, 2026. We hold meetings in a hybrid format with both in-person and virtual participation, and 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. Speaker cards are located at the back table in the council chambers and must be turned in to the city clerk here at the dais. Please be sure to indicate the agenda item number you wish to s

Thank you, everyone. With that, we'll go into the Pledge of Allegiance. Council Member Howard, could you lead us, please?

Please join me in honoring our flag and our country. for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you, Council Member Howard. And with that, we'll go to item number four. And we do have a council member who is participating in tonight's evening through this item. And I will pass things over to Council Member Chiu.

No, no worries. We're on item four. I'm just wondering if you could, yeah, share your thing.

Yeah, I am participating remotely due to travel for official city visits.

There's no one here with me, and I will have audio and video on. Okay.

Thank you. And thank you, Council Member Chu, for joining us virtually. With that, I will move into item five, our presentations and acknowledgements. Our first recognition this evening is to celebrate National Hispanic Heritage Month, a time that is near and dear to Redwood City to celebrate the histories, cultures, and contributions of those whose ancestors came from Mexico, Spain, the Caribbean, Central and South America. And I'll read a few excerpts from our proclamation. Whereas September 15th through October 15th is nationally recognized as National Hispanic Heritage Month and the City o

Thank you all, and we have a city proclamation for you. Would love to take a photo, but thank you for making an event from 2008 become a regional phenomenon that everyone enjoys. It's amazing, not only putting Redwood City on the map, but taking people home, too. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you all. Let's take a photo. Thank you, everyone, and thank you again to the Latino Community Council. With that, we'll move on to Item 5B. Next, we'll be proclaiming September 10th through 19th, 2026, as Welcoming Week in Redwood City. In 2017, Redwood City became a welcoming city and joined the Welcoming Cities and Counties Initiative. Since then, the city has committed to building a neighborly community that is inclusive, hospitable, and welcoming. I'll now read a few whereases from the proclamation. Whereas Redwood City has a diverse community in which at least 34% of resi

Thank you, Lisa. Thank you. Great. We really appreciate all the great work you're doing, and it's too bad you scheduled salsa night for tonight. If not, I think the seven of us would have been there, but we've got a proclamation, and we'd love to take a photo. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you again, Elisa, for being here to represent Rowett City together and all the great work you're doing in the community. And our next recognition item this evening is to celebrate the newly graduated students from our career online high school program. I'd like to turn it over to our interim library director,

Great, thank you very much for that presentation, Sarah. The story of tonight's graduates have been very inspiring and we're grateful to have the opportunity to recognize their achievements tonight. I also want to thank the California State Library and the Redwood City Library Foundation for their support of this wonderful program over the years. I also really want to appreciate the work of our Project Read staff members in the library who make the Career Online High School program a success. Congratulations to all, thank you. And with that, we will move to item 5D. Our final acknowledgement t

Our next... City Clerk, before we go to the next comment, I'd like to take a moment to just let our audience know in Redwood City, we do not condone hate, violence, or any derogatory comments. We're going to respect the First Amendment right of everybody here, but... Just want to clarify that for anybody who may be joining our meeting for the first time. Thank you.

I'm going to stop you right there. I'm going to stop you right there. Bring back your comments into the city's subject matter jurisdiction and the rules of decorum that we have here, or your ability to speak will be limited.

City Clerk, if I could have a moment. You all, I'm very sorry that this is just the really unfortunate side effect of being able to provide publicly remote comment. This isn't something that anybody at this day is... agrees with or condones. And I just need to say that in the strongest possible sense that this is not something that represents who we are as a community or who we are as a city, as an organization. So I just want to take that moment to say that before we move on to the next comment. Thank you.

Commenter, bring your comments back into the subject matter jurisdiction of the city or you will be muted.

Thank you. And again, I cannot reiterate enough how some of these comments we received tonight do not reflect the values of this city or this community. And I cannot say that in the strongest possible sense, but again, this is the unfortunate side effect of having remote public comments, and we will keep going. So with that, we will now move to our next item. And that is the, excuse me, that was our consent calendar. And items on our consent calendar are routine in nature and are approved by one motion. Are there any items that council members are recused from? Not seeing anything online or vi

Thank you. That was a motion from Council Member Howard, a second from Council Member Sterkin. And could we please get a roll call vote?

Thank you everybody for sticking with us here. We'll go to our staff reports. Up next we have an update on the downtown parking program and increases to downtown meter rates. Engineering and Transportation Director Tanisha Werner will introduce the item and Parking Demand Manager Christian Hammack will give us the presentation. Welcome both.

presentation. And before we bring it back to the council, we'll open up for public comment on this item.

Thank you to folks who have joined to make public comment and did so in accordance with our city rules. Bring it back to our day is here for council conversation and We would like to get us started with any questions or comments. Council Member Serkan, thank you.

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, the staff. Thank you, Director Werner. Thank you, Mr. Hammock. Really appreciate the comprehensive picture here at our downtown parking program and all the efficiencies that you have already achieved through the use of leveraging technologies to make our program what it is today. And I have a number of questions that I want to start with outreach. And I did, you know, go to the River City Improvement Association's meeting on Wednesday and they hadn't heard about this item. Or maybe they didn't say they did. So people have benefited outright. But what does our plan

That is so great to hear, and thank you for reminding me that you were on the parking subcommittee. Thank you for representing the city there and keeping RCIA informed. I am very supportive of the mailer and the town hall ideas. I want to make sure that we are engaging, especially small businesses, in the block of Broadway between El Camino and Perry or California, depending on what side of the street you're on, right? And making sure that mailer is in multiple languages, which is probably standard, but just double checking. And moving on from outreach here, I will start by saying that I suppo

That's right. So any data collected through the license plate readers in our garages, like the Jefferson Garage, for example, stays within the city. It's not going anywhere. Correct. Thank you. Okay. And I'm intrigued by the idea of pricing parking differently during peak days, like Fridays and Saturdays. I would like to better understand kind of the costs and benefits associated with that and, again, hear from our local businesses about how that might affect their business. But as maybe another option for raising revenue that I'm not sure I saw on the list, but... Have you explored that, or d

I understand, and I would appreciate staff looking at that if there's interest on the part of council. And of course, we can't do any of these things without more staff, like you mentioned. recommendations or options rather that you proposed was maybe hiring an additional 0.5 to one FTE. So that is something I would be interested in us looking at because we need human power to make that all happen. So I will pause there, but thank you very much.

Thank you for getting the ball rolling. Council Member Stricken, who would like to go next? We'll go to Council Member Howard and then Council Member Chiu online.

I'd like to let Council Member Chiu speak first, seeing as she's, I'm hoping she stays with us for the whole meeting. So why don't we let her speak first?

So thank you so much for the presentation and your work on this. I wanted to echo several of the comments that Council Member Stricken made and Mr. Finch as well. So the first thing is, you know, if you think about the goals of the program, you know, sustainability and even the goals of our of our transportation program more broadly. So we have a goal of Vision Zero by 2030, which is in three and a half years. We have a goal of 50% of trips being non-driving by 2040. And then the goals specifically of this program are sustainability and to encourage, I didn't write down all of the goals, but s

Thank you, Council Member Chu. Appreciate your comments, and we'll go to Council Member Howard.

Thank you. Thank you for a very thorough report. Both of you did a very good job, and I really appreciate all the research that's gone into this. It's a We didn't have this problem about 20 years ago. You could find any parking place you'd like, and now isn't it wonderful that we have this dilemma to deal with? I mean, I celebrate it myself. I will find solutions, but it's a nice problem to have. Yes, it is. I was looking up. I'm glad you made your goals very clear. You want to achieve financial sustainability. while doing this program as best we can, manage the parking demand, try to change t

Well, I would support the moderate program because it does encourage us to use the better technology that is out there, which I'm hoping makes it simpler. Let's keep it simple. Sometimes technology can make it worse. Sometimes it makes it better, and I'm hoping we can choose to go the way that it makes it simple for people. I was encouraged to hear you looking at possible gateless solutions. I park downtown so frequently. I see how many times the gates get broken. I'm not sure how. If you have a better solution to that, and I know others do, then maybe we should be looking into that so you don

And how does that work with validated tickets? I heard someone mention that, and I want to be sure we're not complicating it by adding this technology.

And this will be at all of our lots, including Box and the underground parking lot?

I see. And maybe we could also talk to our partners, such as Box, ask them to do better signage. I mean, I go to Box very, very frequently because I'm testing the system. And the other night, we couldn't even get in the building, and somebody just rammed the door open, jammed it open, because we couldn't, we were standing out there, the door was not able to be opened. And then the week before... I tried to park where you're supposed to, which is underground, and it was all barricaded. So they led me up to the top level. Where I had to pay, I didn't get the hour and a half. And then it's since

Yeah, I'm sorry one block difference between the Marshall Street and the county garage and And most people don't use it because maybe they don't want to walk that far. But if you can, it's one block and it's free, totally free.

So maybe we need to also try to get the message out about that, that we've got places that are really not heavily utilized that should be, be the first to get up there and have free parking. And nobody has to know. I'd like to see more people utilize that. There was something I couldn't figure out, and that's the performance-based pricing. Could you explain to me about using zones and triggers that reflect how the parking demand actually varies downtown? These are new phrases to me, so would you mind explaining that to me?

Okay, so it's constant monitoring, isn't it?

And I wanted to ask, the new, the parking electronic signs that we have that tell you the spaces in each garage, are they successful? Are you getting any feedback on those at all?

So maybe more education, letting people know what those signs mean, how do you interpret them, that might be helpful. I've heard people say, well, I don't even look at them. And I just wonder if maybe we just need to make people more aware of how valuable the information is.

And I wanted to know about the new technology. Would that include, if I parked on the street, that I can increase by my phone the number of hours without leaving wherever I might be at that moment. Is that something we'll be able to do once again? I know we were able to do it in the past.

I think that would be... not that I'm encouraging people to park on the street, but that is a convenience so that people can be aware. It's so education once again. But we still want, the goal is to get people off the street and into the garages, which I feel are safer. I just, myself, I always try to park in the garages because of that. So we need to educate and price accordingly. As far as when to implement, I'm a little worried about implementing immediately without some kind of you know, real robust outreach message through whatever channels we can use to let people know that this is going

And like I said, the difficulty of doing something like that, but certainly isn't going to help getting people off the street for parking. Did I answer all of your questions? I think I did. Well, thank you for putting this. I just think this is wonderful. And The more information we can get out to people, the better. Maybe using our big electronic signs to make announcements around the town that this is coming. And if you have questions, contact whatever you, maybe you. No. No problem. But thank you very much. I really appreciate the report.

Thank you, Council Member Howard. We'll go to Council Member Padilla next.

Christian, thank you for your report. I'll keep this brief. I agree with several of the comments already made, so I will not repeat them. But I do agree with the pricing seems a little bit backwards with the garage and the street, so I think that's already been said enough. Something that hasn't been said that I think is fundamental to whether we stick with whatever you coined it, simple or moderate, is enforcement. because that is one thing that is going to change behavior the reason now people know is that they're not going to get a ticket people will just not pay because they know that the

Okay, are they always done during this? It's always based on just the transaction, so it changes based on the amount of transactions?

Okay, thank you. And then could you speak a little bit more just so we know about, I think one of my colleagues already spoke to being able to use different garages like Box or the County Garage. Can you maybe mention where some of these are and when the public can access them, when they're available for them to use?

Okay, thank you. And I know that it's free to the public to park, but do we as a city, do we contribute, do we pay for using the parking at Caltrains or the county building?

For the after six and weekend use for the public? Okay, thank you. Oh, I just wanted to say that, yes, I would, moderate program, and I too, I'm not sure that the fees, the fees with this, it's still not even close to being sustainable, so I really think that we should focus a lot on education and enforcement. Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Padilla, and we'll go to Council Member Howard.

There we go. I just wanted to say thank you to Councilmember Padilla because, and say I support what you said, because I had enforcement in my notes, I didn't bring it up, and I thought, my gosh, I forgot a pretty important thing. Thank you very much for bringing that up.

Thank you both. And I see Councilmember Chu's hands raised, so we'll go to her online.

Yeah, I actually raised my hand to say the same thing. I really appreciated her bringing that up. And, you know, insofar as we can automated enforcement, like I think the certainty of a ticket for parking out of bounds is much more important than even the price of the ticket. I remember when I lived in Berkeley, if you didn't park legally, you were 100% guaranteed to get a ticket. And so people tended to be very careful. The other thing I was going to comment on is the education. One thing I would like to pursue is, you know, when I put in my route to downtown from my home, Google Maps gives m

Great. Thank you, Council Member Chu. Not seeing anyone else's lights on. Thank you again, Christian and Tanisha, for the great presentation. To quickly answer some of these questions, I think I was in support, am in support of the city implementing the moderate program. I know the sophisticated program was something that staff looked at and I know that's a big investment. So I'd like for us to sort of go through with moderate and also keep an eye to what moving and transitioning to sophisticated and just keeping the planning for that sort of transition in the back of our minds as we build out

THANK YOU, CITY MANAGER. I'LL JUST RESPOND TO THAT REALLY QUICKLY. I THINK THAT MAKES SENSE FOR US TO KEEP THIS MOVING TODAY AND TO THINK ABOUT WHAT THE LONG-TERM SORT OF PROJECT IS, RIGHT, ESPECIALLY AFTER WE GET SOME FEEDBACK FROM BUSINESSES AND OUR DOWNTIME NEIGHBORS. BUT I'LL OPEN IT UP TO MY COLLEAGUES IF ANYONE ELSE FEELS DIFFERENTLY.

I WOULD AGREE. I THINK, CHRISTIAN, DID YOU MENTION THAT THIS HAS NOT BEEN UPDATED SINCE 2005?

I'm also in agreement. I think we we I paid for parking in neighboring cities and I think we are still well well below appreciate all your efforts. Thank you.

and is that a motion council member i just had some other comments oh okay sorry before we get there council member circuit please um i echo my colleagues i agree uh and it sounded like there was sufficient support for the moderate approach i think i counted one two um three and myself four okay so um and i wanted to echo and agree with uh the mayor's suggestion regarding the zone three i'm also open to that option too and agree that we do need a more robust discussion in the future on the residential parking permit program. And I also support the automated enforcement. I think the sensors tha

Okay, great, because I know you had mentioned automation for permit programs in terms of pivoting to license plate reading to verify if someone has a permit, right? Yes. Okay, fantastic. But I think there's just nothing like boots on the ground, I think, to complement automated enforcement. That's all I'll say on that. Gosh, this is such a complex issue here. I just have so many notes. And I agree with the mayor regarding taking a citywide strategy approach, developing a citywide strategy with regards to partnering with privately owned, publicly accessible parking garages, just to make sure th

Thank you all. Appreciate the robust discussion on this, and I will move staff's recommendation. Council Member Chua, saw your hand go up.

Oh, I was going to make a motion, but second.

Great, thank you. And City Clerk, can we get a roll call vote, please?

My apologies. That was about meter rates.

Okay. To make my city attorney's life a little easier, I was proposing the staff recommended meter rates that we just discussed and a moderate program approach here. And just double-checking, Councilmember Chiu, is your second still okay? Yes. Great. Thank you. Can we get a roll call vote, please?

Thank you, City Clerk, and thank you again, everybody, for the great discussion. Thank you, staff. We will move now to Item B, which is the consideration, adoption of a position on the Connect Bay Area Transit Initiative on the November 2026 ballot. And we have Assistant City Manager Derek Wolfgram who will be giving us a presentation. Welcome, Derek.

Thank you so much, Derek. And thank you for the great presentation. And before we bring it to the days here, we'll go to public comment. So I'll hand things over to the city clerk.

Thank you to both of our public commenters for speaking on this item. And before I bring it to my colleagues for comments, I just wanted to quickly say I thought it was important for us to consider taking a stance of support on this because our downtown is so intertwined with the health of the Caltrain Station, the Sam Tran Station in Redwood City, and this would offer such a valuable lifeline to the services that aren't just serving folks trying to get to San Francisco or San Jose, but the people who are using it to move around our community here in San Mateo County. So I will leave it there

Thank you. I just wanted to mention, after reading all the information, I saw that they had it outlined who was receiving what from for each county and so forth. And it was mentioned San Francisco Bay Ferry was mentioned as one of the recipients. And I wasn't familiar with that phrase. I'm familiar with the Water Emergency Transit Authority. But for whatever reason, San Francisco Bay Ferry was utilized. And I noticed that three counties gave a certain amount of money. It was certainly not significant. It was 1% or lower of the money that was being distributed to support, it was Contra Costa, A

Thank you, Council Member Howard, and thank you for adding that clarity to the mix, too. I know lots of people were interested with the return to source funding that was available to the county, so it's good to make sure that that's clear, too. Colleagues, who would like to go next? Councilmember Chiu will go to you online.

Great. I'll keep this brief. So, you know, I use Caltrain twice a week at least. And it is such an important part of our transportation system. I wish it wasn't necessary to do these sort of emergency measures constantly and that we had a more rational system to fund transit. But unfortunately, that's reality. And I will be supporting this measure. If we don't have good transit, particularly Caltrain, the traffic will be unbelievable. It will hurt everybody, drivers and transit riders alike, if this measure doesn't pass. And I think it's important that we take a position on it. So I'll also be

Thank you, Council Member Chu. Appreciate your thoughts, and we'll bring it back to the base. Council Member Sterkin.

I happily support this resolution and the measure, and I appreciate it being brought forward. This measure's success is inextricably linked to our downtown success. And, you know, based on our previous conversation, parking is a guarantee, right? But transit isn't. And this measure helps us change that by shifting how we fund, how we think about people getting from A to B, to school, to work, to play. And I can't stress enough how important it is that we support this measure. So I support it. Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member. Council Member Padilla.

Thank you. Derek, can you come back up here, please? Thank you. Thank you. I don't know. So the last time Sam Chance was here, I actually had a question. But maybe Derek, stand by too. I had asked about the ridership along El Camino. I had asked if they could share the ridership numbers on El Camino. So if that... Sam Tran's rep is on the line. I would love the opportunity to, if they have that information available now, about our ridership in Redwood City on El Camino. They had referenced it at our last meeting as their bread and butter, so I would just love to have the data.

Okay, I'll move on for now, but maybe as a follow-up later, if we could, that was something that I think is relevant and would be helpful. Derek, could you tell me what our current sales tax is in Redwood City?

That's okay. So my point here is I want to talk about sales tax. I hear we're all talking about how important... transit is, and yes, getting from A to B is very important, but so is sustainability and business model sustainability. And the pandemic has ended and ridership has changed. And what I'm still failing to reconcile is how asking the taxpayers... We have to ask, this is what this is, is this is asking the taxpayers... to fix a really big deficit. This is a very big ask of the taxpayers. And everyone can say, oh, it's half a cent here, it's one cent here. But as our city manager pointe

So we could expect that in 15 years, these transit agencies will not come back to the taxpayers and ask for more money?

Okay, thank you. So that leads me to, in a previous world, I... worked for a private company that had a board. And so when I'm thinking about these things, and then I have this responsibility for the public and the public's money, and I'm thinking, The nature of work has changed. And I feel like until it is acknowledged, it's like this elephant people don't want to address that people work from home now. The way people use the train is different. Yes, I wish we had Giants games every single day. Fantastic. Yes, I love how full the train cars are. But I guess as a person, if I was on a board, I

Thank you, Mayor. So I just wanted to respond to Council Member Padilla's concerns. So she is absolutely correct that transit agencies need to be run efficiently, are accountable to the taxpayer, and that Um, you know, they should leverage, especially the land that they have, you know, and optimize it for the most economically productive land use available to them. That is that is absolutely true. But I think the thing we have to remember some things number one. Transit isn't a business, it's a service. It is a service supported by the government, and we don't expect highways or freeways to tu

Thank you. Thank you. Okay. I appreciate that. So I I'm not going to get into the arguing about subsidies over what the government should or shouldn't subsidize. But it did remind me that one of my other big issues with supporting this as a council is the lack of oversight. And just as council member Howard talked about having to find out if something was really covered or if it wasn't. Derek, maybe you could talk a little bit about the boards that would oversee the monies allocated to our county and what that oversight really looks like.

I guess I have more of a comment. So as a resident, my comment, and this is from my own research, is that there would be four independent experts, four transit agency reps, the MTC chair. But when I looked at what you were given, it said like, oh, board updates. You know, we're talking about a lot of money. It's just a big pot of money to get an update from a board. It's just... It's really hard for me to give such a big pocket of money to four independent experts. How are these people picked? Who picks them? It's just a large bucket of money, and I just do not feel comfortable with the levels

Thank you, Council Member. And I think Michaela has her hand raised to respond.

Thank you, Michaela, and thank you, Council Member Padilla. See you, Council Member Sterkin, and then we'll go to Council Member Howard.

Thank you. When I think about this measure, I think about working families in Redwood City. I do, both in terms of the costs to their wallets, their pocketbooks, right? But also the fact that transit is not an option for them, it's a necessity. And yeah, I still remember clients I supported in finding rooms to rent when I worked for HIP Housing, right? Who were commuting from Daly City. You know, this one client, she worked at the See's Candy, factory up there and actually it's in Millbury, one of those two. South City. Thank you. South City. Thank you. Don't tell the South City Council. And l

Councilmember Howard had her light on. Let me just double check. Councilmember, do you have anything else you want to add?

I just wanted to say that there's obviously a lot of interest on the council on wanting Sam Trans to be accountable. And we have a representative on that board Council Member Jeff Gee. So what we could do is ask Council Member Gee to keep us frequently informed. Are they really cutting costs? Are they really addressing their operational deficits? Are they really making that effort to keep salaries, especially at the very highest level, stable? I mean, that's a concern for me when I see what some people are making. if you're really in that much trouble maybe you need to all take a little pain a

Thank you, Council Member Howard. Council Member Padilla?

No, I was just going to point out there was a very helpful information in the staff report about a transportation survey that I think that it would be nice if we could share it with all council. I know I asked for it, but it would maybe shed a little... I mean, it's a small sample size, so I don't want to speak too much to it, but... Derek, if we could get that out to the full council, that would be great. Council Member Strickland, it compares city employees to a percentage of low-income workers located near transit and asks their use of public transit. And it actually shows that some of our

Thank you, Derek. Thank you, Councilmember. Not seeing anyone else's hands raised. I just, again, want to add my thoughts to this, especially after such a great discussion. You know, I was also born and raised here in Redwood City, and I've mentioned before that I frequently would take the 296 to get from Sequoia High School to different places around town. I would jump on Caltrain to visit friends and vice versa. I had friends who would commute to Sequoia using Caltrain. So I know it's not just for Giants fans. And I know ridership changed, especially during COVID. I feel... I feel a couple o

I just, I wanted to mention as well, youth and families are the top priority for this council, right? And we know The studies show that youth are driving less. They're not getting driver's licenses because owning a car, paying for car insurance is cost prohibitive. And to your point, Mayor, we don't have... we don't have yellow school buses so much anymore right and so kids going to redwood city schools are dependent upon sam trans service in order to get to school and if that goes away or is diminished in any way that's going to directly affect redwood city families and youth and and i will r

Thank you so much, Michaela, for offering those data points. It's really helpful. Council Member Sirkin, anything else? Council Member Padilla?

Okay, well, with that, I just... SOMEONE WHO SEES CHILDREN ON THE BUSES, AND I'M GOING TO PUT THIS OUT TO SAMTRANS. I KNOW SO MANY STUDENTS WHO WOULD LOVE TO SEE MORE DEDICATED BUSES AND BUS ROUTES FOR THEM. SO, IF WE WANT TO ENGAGE SOME YOUNG RIDERS, I KNOW A LOT OF ELEMENTARY SCHOOL KIDS AND MIDDLE SCHOOL KIDS WHO WOULD LOVE TO GET perhaps a bus route that maybe connected them to programming at a rec center. I mean, these are just very simple things. So if there's going to be funding flowing, I would love to connect the children to programming. So if we could take the children from their sch

Thank you, Councilmember. Not seeing any other lights on. I will go ahead and move a position of support on the Connects Bay Area Transit Initiative for the November 2026 ballots. Second. And I heard a second from Councilmember Chiu. Could we please get a roll call vote?

Thank you, everybody, for that robust debate and discussion. And with that, we will move to item 8C. And we have our city manager, Patrick Heisinger, who will be providing a brief overview on the item before turning it over back to assistant city manager, Derek Wolfgram, who will introduce the item. And we have public works utility supervisor, Linda Chang, who will then give the presentation.

Linda, thank you for the great presentation. Derek and Patrick, thank you for keeping us up. And before we get to council conversation, let's have some public comment.

Thank you, City Clerk, and thank you to our public commenter this evening. Appreciate the City Manager bringing such a timely and sensitive item to us. Who has any questions or comments for staff? Council Member Howard.

Thank you. Very good report. I really appreciate it. I did want to ask, do you happen to have or will there be created a one-page frequently asked question sheet in English and Spanish that we can print off and hand to people and get the message out? Do you have something like that? We can certainly work on one. I'd really appreciate it because I know I see people all the time and I don't mind handing those things out, but this is so important. And I have some upcoming meetings that I'd love to have something, just a one-pager, anything more than that. I'm afraid people won't read it. But the

Are you also reaching out to the managers and owners of the mobile home parks?

And one thing I noticed from the last time, is that part of the problem was that people were doing quite a bit of storage underneath their their homes and that storage was causing more problems with the flooding and so maybe that's something that could be added to what they say for preventative measure don't be if you see a storm coming or feel the storms coming start moving things up and get them off the ground like that i saw gas cans and other things like that very dangerous so that kind of information ahead of time might be helpful in maybe helping them identify where they could in fact pu

And then are we including the port on these communications? I mean they're right by the water and there may be problems there, maybe not, but we probably should be in communication with them. And how is that done?

And I didn't see it in the report, but I believe you are out there trimming trees. Not you personally, but I see trucks out there by the dozens almost and they're Scanning the neighborhoods and looking for low hanging limbs and loose limbs and I think that's wonderful Maybe that could be put in the information that be aware that you may be inconvenienced and Diverted in your traffic pattern. However, this is why that we're actually out there trying to take care of possible hazards during a storm and

the health of the trees look better. That's good to hear. Lastly, a member of the public talked about curb cuts. I'm not sure. I know what a curb cut is, I think, in Redwood City, but is this applying to something else that might be useful?

Thank you for getting us started, Council Member. Council Member Padilla.

Thank you for your presentation. I know that in my neighborhood, I always go out when I see the leaves come. I am one of those people who goes out, I bring my rake. So I was very excited to see that we could have a more formal program where we could adopt one. I think that that is a great way to build community and engage with your neighbors. I just think that's fantastic. And when it comes to CERT, I would love it if we could... I think I've read something where we did a CERT with a school, but if there's any way that we could do more partnerships with the schools in getting our youth involve

Thank you. Yes, if we could encourage everyone to come in and also fill some sandbags, I think that would complement very nicely.

Thank you, council member. We'll go back to council member Howard. All good. Who would like to go next? Council member Sterling.

Thank you Mayor. Thank you so much for your presentation and for all the hard work that you are already doing to prepare our community for the incoming storms. I also want to thank you for some of the, to the second question, additional and alternative services that we're considering. One that I had raised, you know, with the city manager, and the city manager was installing fencing along the railing of the Stafford Bridge to prevent illegal dumping into the creek, which residents, you know, sent me photos of shopping carts and other debris that people just dumped in there, and that adds to th

Thank you. And so that, just to confirm, means that San Carlos is the owner for both bridges, right? Definitely industrial, but...

Thank you very much. Okay. And moving on, um, Yeah, I understand that we have very limited authority to install anything on the creek other than where we have, where we maintain it, which is under the two bridges. Once again, I raise the idea of some kind of debris capture device. Not even a device. This is not the same as what is installed in inlets, right? You know, those storm drain grates. But rather, in Red Morton Park, for example, you have just that very simple metal kind of grate, you know, very... very like rebar kind of looking that just prevents large logs and other natural debris f

I definitely should have watched that video. So I put those in my Corolla and I was wondering if it was going to die on me. Okay. Thank you for sharing that. Also, and I know I need to wrap up here. I've noticed this trend of us filling tree wells, one, liability purposes, right? We don't want anyone tripping in these tree wells on our downtown streets and otherwise. But also medians, too, like on Arguello, between Marshall and Brewster, you know, any... I understand why we have to fill them, but maybe if we could use permeable pavements, just something so that we're not adding to runoff and s

Thank you, council member. And we'll go to council member Chu.

Thank you so much for this presentation and all the work that your team and the city staff have done to kind of get ready for what is very likely to be some pretty intense storms this this season um just a few comments one is um you know i you know the mobile home communities are in my district and i'm happy to go and you know i i have a good relationship with the managers there and i'm happy to go door-to-door and pass out materials and even if there's customized materials particularly high-risk communities or the mobile home parks or if I can work with you to to sort of customize the messagi

Thank you, Councilmember. Go to Councilmember Padilla.

I have one more thought, and I think this is related. So Public Works with our sidewalks. When people participate in our sidewalk repavement program, and there are certain streets we have that are straight, and there are certain streets that are curvy and windy because of trees or not trees. So I do notice that water does like to flow straight. It tends to flow better. So I was just wondering... if there's any way we could look at our sidewalk replacement program and who it who can use it whether because i know that there are issues whether you're an owner or a renter because if you if like fo

Thank you, Councillor Padilla. We'll go to Councillor Strickland.

Just a quick follow up on that. As part of that program, I wonder if you haven't already considered where there's the opportunity to do curb cutting or installation of any kind of green infrastructure bioswales, which is more costly, I recognize. But just if we're gonna replace the sidewalk there and the curb, why not use that as an opportunity like we do in so many other cases to install green infrastructure and sequester some of that stormwater and prevent it from going downstream?

Thank you, council members. Council member Howard.

One last thing. We're doing our Pride and Beautification cleanup this Saturday. And I know Vicki Sherman always puts information out on the table. You might ask her, I'm sure she's already thought of it, putting out information regarding just what we spoke about tonight, giving people an awareness that maybe a quick one-pager or something so they know storms are coming, we want to be prepared, and this is how you can be prepared. Thank you.

Thank you, colleagues. Not seeing anyone else's light on. I will add my thanks, Linda. Thank you for the great presentation. To go off of what I had heard from my council colleagues who brought up the 2022 floods, I remember one of the concerns we heard from some of the neighbors who came out to public comment was around our emergency responders making it out to the mobile home parks and it being so flooded that folks didn't make it to door to door to connect with neighbors. And I'm wondering, is our staff prepared to be able to still go door to door if there's flooding? What have we done sinc

Excuse me. And thank you, Linda. I was also happy to hear about the in-person outreach event that staff is planning on hosting on the 10th. I think that's going to be a very well-attended event, just on the curiosity that I'm seeing. But I'm also thinking about just general outreach, I have to say. Councillor Starkin mentioned going door-to-door. I think if we can leverage our... incredible team at Rapid City together to have them sort of start this work, that would be helpful. I know Council Member Chiu and I had a sort of a neighborhood meeting for the mobile homes a few months ago and would

Thank you, Linda. That's great news. I just remember so many of the videos we received after 2022, after that... it looked like a waterfall coming into that garage. And for the folks who didn't get their cars out in time, right, that's a whole other set of costs and damage to their vehicles. And yeah, just thinking about that part of all of this too. And then I was also curious, how did we, happy to hear we expanded the number of sandbag filling stations. How did we land on the Fair Oaks Community Center? Just kind of curious how staff got to that decision.

Okay. Um, Yeah, great. And I was also thinking of the floodplain. You know, Councilmember Stricken had mentioned maybe having something at Mezzies Park. I thought of Redwood Shores just because that's way out there and that's a drive if you live in that neighborhood. So just thinking of maybe future opportunities. And then the last thing I'll mention is I guess I'm kind of curious about the inclement weather shelter that we offer. How is that funded and what sort of support is available to the folks who do take advantage of those shelters?

I see Derek making his way, but thank you for clarifying that it's county funded. It's good to know.

Thank you, Derek. And this question just came to me because we're talking about these new spaces. But I guess I'm just kind of curious, what is our sort of power backup situation like at some of these facilities if we were to direct some folks? Just wondering, yeah, what that situation is like.

Thank you. It's good to know. It makes me feel better and I know if we're directing folks there, they'll feel better knowing that if their lights are off, the senior center, the library, it's still gonna be up and running and they'll have that sense of comfort, so thank you. Thank you, and those are just all of my questions. I really appreciate just being able to talk about this and get the information out because this is the right time to do it. Way ahead of any rain coming our way, letting people know what is available. So I'm glad we're starting this work early and we'll be able to back it

Thank you. Tomorrow morning I will be attending a press conference at the San Mateo County Board of Education. They are our partner. I'm the vice chair of the HART Board, the Housing Endowment and Regional Trust, and we are going to make a wonderful announcement that we are partnering with the Board of Education to purchase an existing multi-unit apartment building for teacher housing in the North County. This is a wonderful direction that HEART has taken. We have one purchase already in Redwood City, which is Stombau-Heller, and this is terrific that it's teacher housing. We've been saying it

Thank you, Council Member, and congratulations with the great work at heart. Colleagues, I'm seeing anybody else. We will move into Item 10B, starting with Council Member Padilla with a report from ESJ.

Thank you, Mayor. Equity and Social Justice Subcommittee, consisting of myself, Vice Mayor Egan, and Council Member Sterkin, met on Wednesday, September 2nd, Interim Library Director Sarah LaTorre shared an update on efforts to revise the library's meeting room policy in response to community concerns about a controversial event held at the main library on June 7th. The event was not sponsored nor endorsed by the city. Council member Sterkin and myself shared several suggestions for consideration in the library's revision of its meeting room policy. Community members will have an opportunity t

Thank you, Councilmember. And we'll go to Councilmember Stern.

If I may just specify the suggestions for consideration that we discussed at the committee meeting. Please go ahead. Thank you. So one was to consider reviewing the bylaws of any nonprofit that wants to use one of our meeting spaces in the library for consistency with the library policy and all applicable policies and laws. Another was to offer additional LGBTQIA plus sensitivity training to library staff. And another suggestion was to incorporate into our existing library policy some sort of kind of game plan for if an event taking place in our library meeting rooms does not align with our po

And the date for that library board meeting is estimated for October.

Great. Thank you, Councillor Stricken. Councillor Padilla, just double checking.

I am not sure of that suggestion, but thank you for bringing it up. And yes, thank you for also going into more detail about our notes.

Thank you both for your work on that committee. And with that, we'll move to our utilities subcommittee. And Council Member Howard has an update.

Thank you. On Friday, September 11th, city staff presented the next steps for the Redwood Shores Sea Level Rise Protection Project, which included some potential nature-based solutions to evaluate, place-making amenities, and other agencies to coordinate with. Staff also presented preliminary findings from the ongoing sewer rate study and tentatively anticipates presenting the final findings to the City Council in fall 2026. Lastly, staff presented new state legislation that will prohibit potable water irrigation in non-functional turf for various types of properties and anticipates bringing m

Thank you, Council Member. And I've got two quick reports. The first is from our 84-101 ad hoc. The ad hoc committee comprised of council members Chu, Ji, and myself met on August 25th. The consultant reported on the 84-101 interchange reimagined project, which included the project progress, cost, and schedule. The project team also updated the committee on the next steps for the project, and the ad hoc is scheduled to meet on October 2nd, 2026. And then we also had a meeting on our ad hoc committee on intergovernmental relations, and we have Council Member Jeff Gee, Vice Mayor Aiken, and myse

Thank you, City Manager. And that takes us to Item 11. We'll now adjourn to closed session to discuss existing litigation as identified on the agenda. Before we move to closed session, I would like to ask the City Clerk if there's any public comment on this item.

Thank you. And as there will be no reportable action following closed session, we'll adjourn the meeting immediately following the end of closed session, and the City Council will not return back to the dais. With that, I thank you all for joining tonight's City Council meeting. We meet next on Monday, September 28th, and I wish you all a great evening and great week ahead. Thank you.