City Council - Regular Meeting

Alright. Everyone, if you can all take your seats. It is past 06:00. We're gonna go ahead and get started. If you can take your seats, please. Good evening, everyone. Thank you for joining our regular city council meeting of 04/27/2026. We hold meetings in a hybrid format with both in person and virtual participation. The city welcomes public comment on topics within the city's subject matter jurisdiction, and members of the public may provide public 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 at the dais. Please be sure to indicate the agenda item number which you wish to speak on. Attendees who have joined us by Zoom will be called to speak after the in person comments have been given. Detailed instructions for public comment will be provided on the screen when the time for public comment begins. And if there is a high volume of public comment this evening, we may decrease the time allotted for each comment or limit the total time for public comment.

In the event this occurs, please feel free to send your full comments to the citycouncil@councilatredwoodcity.org. Written comments are not read aloud, but will be made part of the final public meeting record. And I'll now turn it over to the city clerk to call the roll.

Good evening. We'll start with council member Chu. Here. Council member g. Present. Council member Howard. Here. Council member Padilla. Present. Council member Sterkin.

Here.

Vice mayor Aiken. Here. Mayor Martinez Caballos. Here. Thank you.

Thank you everyone. With that, we will go to the pledge of allegiance. Council member Howard, could you lead us? Thank you, Council Member Howard. And with that, we go on to item four, but we have all council members present here today.

So we'll move on to item five, presentations and acknowledgments. Our first recognition item this evening is a particularly special one as we honor our highly renowned and deeply admired public or director of public works services, Terrence Jaw, known as known to many as TK. And I see many old friends. Thank you. Yes.

And it's it's not surprising to see many old friends and colleagues here gathered to celebrate TK, which is just a testament to your commitment to Redwood City over the years. For more than twenty four years, Terrence has faithfully served the city of Redwood City through '34. '34. Excuse me. Don't wanna take any decades off there, Terence.

For more than thirty four years, Terence has faithfully served the city of Redwood City through many seasons of growth and change, building the public works services department into the strong, efficient, and high performing team that it is today. His commitment to the excellence of this department has not only resulted in outstanding service to our community, but has also made him a valued colleague and a trusted friend to so many of us. As he begins this well earned new chapter of retirement, we are very proud to recognize and celebrate his remarkable contributions and many years of dedicated service to Redwood City. And there's a lot of work to celebrate. I'll read a few of the whereas clauses from the proclamation.

Whereas Terrence Shaw began his distinguished career with the city of Redwood City in 1992 at the foundational level, literally and figuratively, working from the ground up and through decades of hard work, grit, and an unparalleled mastery of city operations, rose through the ranks to lead the department as director in 2018, embodying the very best of public service and professional growth. And whereas through the years of dedicated service and transparent communication, Terrence earned the deep respect and affection of our residents, becoming a beloved figure known as much for his approachability and character as for his technical expertise. And whereas his legacy is defined not only by the city infrastructure he helped build and maintain, but by the people he built up. Having mentored and guided countless employees towards successful impactful careers through a commitment to professional development and a culture of excellence. And whereas Terrence's infectious positive attitude and constant smile have served as a source of daily inspiration, contributing immensely to the spirit of our community and to his efforts to make Redwood City the second happiest place on earth.

And whereas TK will be greatly missed by the city of Redwood City, its residents, and his many colleagues and friends. Now, therefore, be it resolved that I, Elmer Martinez Caballos, mayor of Redwood City, on behalf of the city council and the people of Redwood City, hereby honor and commend Terrence Jaw for his outstanding service, leadership, and enduring contributions to the community and extend its deep gratitude and best wishes for a well earned and fulfilling retirement. Congratulations,

DK.

And with that, I'd now like to turn it over to our city manager, Patrick Heisinger, for some remarks.

Thank you, mayor. TK, last week's event, spoke a little bit longer, and I'll speak now. But so just want to echo that again, what said last week. I think you are one of the most unique public administrators I've ever worked with. You are all you try to do is get stuff done, and I really appreciate that.

But you this way, this magical way of doing it without upsetting folks and getting people on, you know, on your path and rowing the same direction as you do. When I first started with the city of Redwood City a little over three years ago, you're the first person to reach out and I was like, who's this TK guy reaching out? And they're like, I'll come pick you up and I'll give you a tour of you know, we went to Redwood Shores, he's drove me around. I really I never forgot that. Something that you know most folks would seem as you know, small jester really went a long way, know, with me.

And I've just always appreciated you putting this community and this organization first. So with that, I appreciate you. I appreciate your friendship our friendship, and I wish you nothing but the best in retirement. Thank you, TK. Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you, Patrick. And I'll quickly open it up to my colleagues if anyone has any comments to add. We'll go to council member Howard.

Thank you, mayor. TK, I've known you forever, honestly. I think you were 10 when you started or could have been because you haven't aged today. I just want to thank you for our city manager put it so well, you have a magical skill of working with people and bringing them along. And even when it's a difficult topic or new ideas or difficult ideas, you find a way and you reach out and you listen to people and you get the job done.

You'll be so greatly missed. I know we have wonderful people stepping up in your place because you trained them and they love you. So they're going to be here as you move on to your retirement. But I just want to thank you also on behalf of the Pride and Beautification Committee because you adopted us and you took care of us and just kind of showed us the way on how to get more done and work together. And some of our members are here this evening and they wanted me to let you know how much they appreciate that you are a leader in guiding us through cleaning up Redwood City and we really appreciate it. Thank you and congratulations to you, and thank you to your wife and family for allowing him to serve as long as he did. Thank you.

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

Well, Terrence, thank you doesn't seem like it's enough. Mean, although whereas is our city manager, you've committed yourself to Redwood City. And all of us, not just here on the dais, but all of us in the community, the people that live here, that work here, that come and visit, owe you their gratitude and appreciation. It's and I shared with you outside in the lobby, you've done a tremendous job as leading and you know here in the warehouse is very best in public service. But what you've also done is built a great team as council member Howard has shared.

And the baton, how many ever baton's there are and there's several that you carry and are distributing to the team, you don't need to be perfect. None of us are perfect. You're going to drop a baton, but the thing is pick it up really quickly and keep it moving forward. And that's the magic of leading and building a team behind you so that when you go on and do your next chapter, you can do it with appreciation and thankfulness to the team that you've trained, that you've mentored, that you've coached, and know that Redwood City is in great hands. So Terrence, thank you for everything you've done for all of us here in Redwood City, and best wishes on whatever comes next in your chapter.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, council member Gee. We'll go to council member Stoerkin.

Thank you, Mayor Terrence. Thank you so much for your years of service. I think what we heard, it was thirty four, right? That is longer than I've been alive. Not to make anyone feel old. So thank you. And that takes a lot of commitment and dedication. And to think that this is a twenty four seven job. Right? You know, whenever there was a levee break or a pipe burst, you were there responding. And I want to thank you for, you know, dedicating much of your life to Redwood City. And I also want to appreciate you fielding all my many questions during climate action subcommittee. All my bright ideas. Yes. Very much appreciated.

You you will be dearly missed. Thank you.

Thank you, councilor Serkan. We'll go to councilor MPDO.

Thank you, Terrence. I have the pleasure of having you on the with me on the utility subcommittee. But just piggybacking off what everyone else shared, I I wanna mention the the comments that I get at the park when a dad comes up to me and says, you know, I never got to call in about this, but a pipe burst at my house and someone from public works came and I was on a call and I had my daughter and they were so great. And we always call when we complain, but someone out there is doing something great. And you deal with a lot of things where there's a lot of opportunities for people to complain.

It's a lot of stuff that is time sensitive and upsetting and somehow, there's always praise for you and for your team. And that's from people in the field to, you know, going into the public works office where you're always greeted with a smile and help and assistance, whether that's looking to find a sandbag or resources. It's just you do such hard work, and it shows through in your team and their kindness. And the community doesn't always write in the compliments, but they share them when they're out, and I just want you to know that. Thank you.

Thank you, council member Padilla. We'll go to council member Chu.

So I, you know, I wanted to second everything my colleagues have said, and I have a little anecdote that I think really embodies TK's spirit as public works director. So there's a pedestrian bridge that connects, you know, sort of my community and half of my district with the the downtown area. And this bridge is, you know, it's kind of unseen. It's used by a lot of families, lot of children to get to to school and to the park. And it needed lights.

And there was a group of kids that wanted to put lights on the bridge and going through the the typical way would have been years of, you know, back and forth and an enormous amount of money and TK found a way to do it quickly and affordably. And you know, it was kind of a triple win. Number one, I think, know, obviously the bridge is safer and better now. The kids who wanted to do something for our community saw a win and that develops faith in public service. And I think that that's the kind of innovative spirit that we need in government and to be in the job thirty four years and still be looking for ways to do things better, faster, cheaper, and to serve our community in innovative ways is just so inspiring.

So you will obviously be very missed. You know, I believe that your spirit and your innovation has been passed on to others, and thank you for all of your service to our city.

Thank you. Councilmember, we'll go to the vice mayor.

So, Terrence, you know, how do you summarize in one word, what you have been for Redwood City for thirty four years? So I started thinking about some words maybe, well, before I get to the words, well, no. Let me keep going. So maybe maybe it's operatic. Maybe it's dramatic.

Maybe it's diplomatic. Well, you've certainly, at various times in your leadership and in your role, embodied these descriptive words. But really, the word, I think, is fun. You just seem like you're always having fun. And it it's sort it's sort of infectious and and, you know, I I might call you frantically because a resident is angry about certain things.

And and you you just you take the call and you're you seem to flip it around and make it like a fun puzzle. And then you always seem to have the answer. So but what you really are what you really are, the word is poetic. And therefore, I wrote a haiku poem to have the passage to honor this passage which is in the life of Redwood City and in your life. And so, the name of the haiku poem is Terence Kwa.

Bridges, roads, and pipes. Your work lives on every street. TK signs off now. I'm I'm gonna give you I I have to sign the poem, and then I'm gonna give it to you because I because I wrote it.

Thank you, vice mayor. Some poetry for TK. And while the vice mayor walks over, TK, once you accept, we'll give you the floor. The floor is yours, sir.

Thank you, Mayor Vice Mayor and Memorial City Council. This has been a great honor for me to recognize like this. So I would really treasure this moment throughout my life. So thank you. And there's many people I wanted to thank you for getting me to this stage of my career.

And first and foremost, I would like to thank you for my parents, who showed me kindly to others, empathy to the people and those are the trade that I learned from them. Also, want to thank you for my family, my wife, Tracy and our son, Raymond, for supporting me throughout the year. So thank you for that. And also, I would like to thank you for the community of Redwood City. From the Centennial to Friendly Acre, from Redwood Show to Emerald Hill, everyone in between for over the years understanding that Redwood City Public Works and then recognize our effort to the community.

So I want to thank you for the community. Also, friends and family and community members, those who are attending and celebrating my retirement. So I thank you for each and every one of you. And going on, my big thank you also go to the men and women from the Public Works Service Department, my home department. These are the people that, you know, tend to and also they are the one that the moving cheese every day to make it happen for the community.

So without them, nothing. So really big kudos go to the entire Public Works team and some of the members of Public Works are here. If you don't mind standing up, the Public Works staff, please. Thank you. Thank you. You guys are to make it happen. And also my colleagues, department heads from all the city departments, such as groups. You guys are like, make it laughter during the challenging issue. This is a great group that I ever worked with. Thank you so much for the friendship and I will definitely miss working with all of you.

Also, all the staff members throughout the city departments, great thank you for their relationship, working relationship and supporting each other. This is such a great city to be on. So thank you. And also my in career, I'd like to recognize a few people that may meet you at this stage. First and foremost, I would like to thank you for Larry Bowiek, our Public Director, who hired me and taking a chance on bringing me to the City Of Railroad City in 1992.

And also the City Manager, Peter Ingram, who kind of leading me through my time and mentoring me. So thank you, Peter. Also City Manager at Everidge, mentoring me throughout my time and also cheering me throughout my career. So truly, thank you for that. Further on, the City Manager, Bob Bell, who promoted me to Assistant Public Works Director back in 2012. So I thank you for that. Last but not least, our former City Manager, Melissa Stevenson Dias, who promoted me to the Director position in 2018. And then we had a like great working relationship throughout her career. So I definitely miss working with her. So thank you.

And also, I would like to recognize three departments, especially start with City Clerk office. Jessica and Crystal, you guys are awesome. Thank you so much for helping me with all the subcommittee scheduling, presentation. Without you guys, we are nothing. I'm pretty sure that you will let me speak a little more than three minutes now, too, right?

And then moving on to City Attorney Office, Veronica, Eleanor, and the latest addition, Lolita, thank you so much for your help. Your department helped keep public works out of trouble. Without your help, I'm pretty sure I'll be swimming in the deposition pool for a very long time. So thank you. Thank you, guys. And lastly, the City Manager office. And first and foremost, thank you for Deanna and Reza for putting this event together. Thank you, guys. I really appreciate. That's a lot of work, so thank you.

And going forward, like all these bosses, Patrick, Michelle and Derek, so thank you all for your leadership. Especially Patrick, we were only working for the three a little over three years, but really appreciate your friendships and you are one of the city manager that I can speak freely and candidly. Like that's an opportunity I really treasure for that day, Patrick. Thank you. And some of those my former colleague, former police chief Dan Mulholland, Chris Beth, all the way come from the Washington State.

Thank you for all my former city directors, colleagues. Thank you for you guys still coming by and celebrating with me. Thank you. My last day with the Citi is on May 1, this coming Friday. And then coming on next Monday, May 4, new leadership new competent leadership who will take over and run the public works. I wish them all best. Last thing I want to say, may the fourth be with you guys. Good luck. Thank you.

Thank you again, TK. Before we let you run out the door, we would love to present you this proclamation and take a quick photo with the council. Thank you.

Where's the street sign?

Congratulations again, TK. Thank you for the service. Thank you, everyone. Thank you. Alright.

For our next recognition, we call attention to Fair Housing Month, a time to commemorate the passage of the 1968 Fair Housing Act prohibiting discrimination in housing based on race, color, religion, gender, familial status, national origin, or disability. It focuses on promoting equitable housing access, educating on rights, and addressing discrimination with many local, states, and national events held throughout the month. And I'll read a few of excerpts from the proclamation. Whereas adequate housing is a basic need and right of all people, and whereas this year we celebrate the fifty eighth anniversary of the enactment of the Federal Fair Housing Act of 1968, which states that discrimination in the sale and rental of housing is illegal when based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. And whereas the Fair Housing Amendments Act of 1988 extends fair housing rights on the basis of familial status to families with children and on the basis of handicap to disabled persons, and whereas the city of Redwood City supports fair housing efforts to eliminate discrimination in housing and recognizes the benefits of Project Sentinel to educate home seekers, apartment managers, and apartment owners on federal and state housing laws, and to investigate complaints of illegal housing discrimination within Redwood City.

Now therefore, be it resolved that I, Elmer Martinez Caballos, mayor of Redwood City, do hereby proclaim April 2026 as fair housing month, and do encourage all residents and community organizations to celebrate the value of harmonious and diverse communities of neighbors and to support the goal of equal housing opportunity for all people. And I'd like to welcome Project Sentinel's fair housing community outreach coordinator, Laura Diaz, to the podium for remarks. Thank you for being here, Laura.

Thank you. I'm going to share a few words. Thank you for having me. So again, thank you to the city, Birdwood City and Mayor for your continued partnership and support of Project Sentinel and fair housing in the community. Fair housing is deeply rooted in the civil rights movement, and the protections that we rely on today exist because of that history.

And while we've made progress in housing discrimination, housing discrimination is not a thing of the past. It is something that still happens today every day, and it's something that we continue to see case by case. And it also continues to impact residents, especially during a time when housing challenges are front and center of so many families. Now more than ever, support for fair housing is essential to creating real solutions that promote access, stability and opportunity. Project Sentinel is committed to this work every single day. And to learn more about our free services, we welcome the entire community to visit us at housing.org. Thank you.

Thank you, Laura. And we have a proclamation to present you to and would love to take a quick photo. Thank you.

Great.

Thank you, everyone. Our final presentation item this evening will be a well, not the final presentation, but our final recognition item this evening will be a report from Peninsula Clean Energy or PCE on their service programs and upcoming events. And I'd like to welcome PCE's chief executive officer, Sean Marshall, to the podium for a presentation. Welcome, Sean.

Thank you so much. Good evening, mayor and council members. It's a delight to be here to see you all again. I feel like it's been a couple of years, but it feels like it's a couple of months, the way the time is flying by. So thank you for having me back.

I am happy to provide just a very brief update tonight connected to a consent item that you have on this evening's agenda related to an administrative change to the Joint Powers Agency requesting approval for our name change to Westlight Energy, and we'll talk about that in just a moment. All right. Let's see if I can get this moving correctly. Okay. So tonight we're just going to start off with a brief level set for folks in the audience and anyone who may not be super familiar with the work that we do.

But essentially, Peninsula Clean Energy is a community choice aggregation program in the state of California. We operate in a joint shared services model with Pacific Gas and Electric. PG and E maintains jurisdiction over gas services, all the pole and wire infrastructure and consolidated billing so that at the end of the day, the city and all of our residential and business customers save money on their electric generation as well as also green the grid. So we are moving steadily toward achieving our goal of 100% renewable product for our default service by 2030. Okay.

So we have been in business now for ten years. This year, we are also celebrating a decade of service. Our the pillars and our sort of value proposition, if you will, are lower costs. We have been, since our inception, a minimum of 10% less expensive than PG and E for electric generation. The second pillar is the delivery of cleaner energy, both carbon free and renewable energy for our customers.

And we have provided significant infrastructure investment and community investment across our service territory, including here, most recently in Redwood City, two zero nine EV chargers, mostly at multifamily housing, including the project at Middlefield Ridge Middlefield Road Garage, which is a county garage located here in the city. So we have saved our customers in total over $225,000,000 in the past ten years of service. Here in Redwood City, that amounts to about $27,000,000 or about a week of free electricity per year, per household, per business. We have invested $7,500,000 in community reinvestment through a bill credit a couple of years ago for low income qualified households, almost $1,000,000 in credits for customers with solar systems, about 20,000 in community sponsorships and school sponsorships, almost 5,000,000 in customer rebates for zero interest rate loans, those are $10,000 loans that you can get to electrify your home, e bikes, vehicle rebates, and then another a little over $7,000 in additional bill discounts through our disadvantaged community program. So all told, rolling up to about 7,500,000 and, of course, providing 100% clean energy resources for

all

of our products since our inception. Our role since our launch in 2016 has expanded. We rolled out with the promise of providing cheaper, cleaner energy onto the grid on behalf of our customers. We have done that, as noted as mentioned, since day one. But now we're really looking at the next 10 of working with our customers as our partners as they make energy investments and decisions for their homes and their businesses.

So we have a multitude of programs available to support those investments going forward this year and into the next ten years. Just briefly, the year ahead, we are currently offering a 10% savings discount to PG and E on our customer bills. We have a $1,300,000 member agency grant coming to the City of Redwood City for city fleet electrification, your EVs, for the city. We are in the middle of development of a solar plus storage project at your police department. We are rolling out a new residential solar plus storage program that will include the possibility of third party financing if customers want to do that at preferred rates.

So look for that later on this year. We are partnering with Casa Circulio Cultural on different education and outreach programs in our underserved communities. And we will be here next week hosting a community feedback forum on May 4 in Redwood City. I don't know exactly where that will be held, but check out our website and hopefully all of you can attend if you would like. All right.

So to the matter this evening before you on consent, the Board considered last year quite a lot of data that we had received from our customers through just feedback through our call center, different facilitation groups, that the name of Peninsula Clean Energy was not landing and, in fact, confusing increasingly confusing PCE with PG and E. And we are also serving a customer base in the Central Valley. And so over time, Peninsula Clean Energy has been very geographically specific to San Mateo County, but for a number of reasons is not necessarily serving our needs as we move into the future. I do want to say that we will always be the same great agency with a new great name. So later this year, we'll be rolling out Westlight Energy, and we're hoping that City Council will go ahead and just adopt that JPA amendment for us tonight.

So our ask, again, to approve the JPA amendment. We also would ask you to partner with us to help us clearly communicate to our customers the name change. We will be doing emails out, mailings out. We will work with the city to put information in the newsletter, on the website so that everybody is aware that as of January excuse me, July and August, they'll begin to see the new name Westlight Energy on customer bills. And then you are all invited to join the many activities that will be commencing this fall to celebrate our ten year anniversary.

We began serving customers in October 2016, which is amazing because here again the time has just flown by. So with that, I will say thank you. I do also want to acknowledge Mayor Sabayo for your ongoing support on our board. You are currently serving on audit and finance. Appreciate all of your longtime service on our board. And then the board alternate Councilmember Stirkin. So thank you for your support and also the many years of Vice Mayor Aiken's support. So with that, I'm happy to answer any questions you may have. Thank you.

Thank you, Sean. And I see council member Howard wants to get us started.

Thank you, Sean, for your presentation. On May 9, Pride and Beautification is going to be doing our citywide spring cleanup. And we always have a table out giving information to everyone who attends, all the information about rebates and energy savings. And you know Vicki Sherman. She's always out there giving out information. Would you be able to supply us some information about your new name or anything else you'd like to have shared at the table so we can give our volunteers that information?

We sure will. In fact, I think it's already on the radar for us. So thank you so much for that.

Thank you.

Thank you, council member. No other comments. I'll go ahead and add my thanks for for you being here, Sean, and for Mark being here. I had a chance to at last week's PCE meeting, we got to see the latest branding proposal, and it looks incredible. So really excited to see that roll out, and excited to see the community conversations start rolling out too. I know that's, I think, county center, if my memory is serving me correctly.

So Thank you.

Yeah. Great opportunity for folks who are passionate and interested in this work to have a seat at the table and share their thoughts. So I'm not seeing anybody else. So, Sean, thank you.

Thank you.

Thanks for having me. Have a great meeting.

Oh, sorry. We don't take comment. We're about to get into public comment, though. So we'll rally back there. Thank you, Shawn and the PCE team. With that, we will now move to item six, which is public comment. This is the public comment section of the agenda, so we'll take comment on the consent calendar, matters of council interest, and items that are not listed on today's agenda. We welcome speakers providing public comment, but please be advised that this is a a limited public forum. As such, speakers must address matters within the subject matter jurisdiction of the city. And if speakers do not, they'll be warned.

And if they continue to disregard city rules, their opportunity to speak will be limited. If you're attending in person, please fill out a speaker card and submit it to the city clerk here at the dais. And if you're attending virtually, feel free to raise your hand on Zoom at this time, or press 9 if you've joined by phone. Once we've gathered all the speaker cards and raised hands and have begun public comment, no additional speakers will be allowed to queue up to speak. And I will now turn it over to the city clerk to facilitate public comment.

Thank you, mayor. At this time, we have four, potentially five speaker cards for in person speakers and one raised hand online. So as the mayor mentioned, now is the time to turn in your speaker card. Once we begin public comment, we won't accept any new cards. So last call for general public comment this evening.

Just for the consent calendar

or the For general public comment. Yeah. And consent calendar. Consent calendar. Yep. Thank you. Okay. So we'll start with our in person speakers. Can I ask David Riber before we begin? Did you intend to speak on this item or a different item? That Okay. Thank you. So we have four in person speakers. Thank you, David. So we'll start with Bill Newell. Bill will be followed by Rona Gundrum. The timer will begin when you start speaking. Yellow blinking light is the thirty second warning on top of the podium, and the red light with the beep means your time is up. Welcome, Bill.

Thank you. I think this is an auspicious or incredible day to have so many people here, leadership positions within our city. What I want to tell you, city council, as most of you know by now, next Monday at twelve noon, we will have our ribbon cutting of our new outstanding Veterans Memorial Building And Senior Center. This is going to be very joyous, special occasion. This has been a program, a project years in the making.

And years, for so people were wondering would we ever see this day come. Now, we're just several days away, one week from today. I can say with some confidence and certainty that our new center will be open. And what I want to say about this center is that it's going to be a very dynamic place. Yes, it's a veteran center, and it's a veteran center first and foremost.

And I'm so happy that we have a place that we will continue to honor the tradition of the contributions of our veterans in Redwood City and beyond. It's also a senior center, but it's also what I call a multi generational. Just as I pride Redwood City on its diversity, I also pride the city on its intergenerational involvement across generations within this city in so many ways. So this is a program, a project that's been long in the making, many, many years in the making. Many past and present leaders have been involved in this, members throughout the community and planning.

I can remember almost ten years ago going to community meetings up in Red Morton Park in the Redwood Room at the center to talk about the plans for something back then that was only a thought. So once again, I hope you all can be there for a very, very important session.

Thank you

We want to honor also the contributions of our directors such as Karin Santano and Bruce Jutek who've also played a big role.

Thank you. You so much. And folks, just as a reminder, the celebration portion of our meeting ended earlier with the recognition of TK. And so moving forward, we won't take any applause. Please keep your your comments to yourself. We'll go to the next public comment. Thank you.

Good evening. Mayor Martinez Caballos, vice mayor Aiken, city council, city staff, members of the community. I'd like to give a shout out to Terrence. Terrence, it's hard to know what to say. We've collaborated on so many things over the past three decades.

No matter what the item, trees, roadways, sidewalks, water, or the ever glamorous sewer and waste, I could always count on you to be well versed on all aspects, shed light, and help resolve the issue. In a true testament to your leadership, your crackerjack team at Public Works will be able to carry on addressing the community's needs. But it is so hard to imagine not being able to say, I know. I'll just ask Terrence, as I have done countless times, unless, of course, you've been keeping count. But seriously, thank you for always being responsive and caring about whatever it happened to be.

If it was important to me or the community, it was important to you. So Terrence, while it's with heavy heart that I bid you farewell, I wish you all the best in the next chapter. Thank you.

Thank you, Rona. Our next speaker is former Chief of Police, Dan Mulholland. Welcome. And following Dan will be Kyle Glasser.

Good evening, honorable honorable mayor, members of city council, members of the community. My name is Dan Mulholland. I'm the former chief of police for the Redwood City Police Department. I stand before you tonight to express my appreciation to TK in his more than thirty four years of service with the City of Redwood City. I was sitting in the back and started doing the math and realized that TK and I worked with one another for thirty one of those thirty four years.

And it was quite a privilege not to both work for the city of Redwood City, but work with an amazing partner like TK. I reflected on the many projects that we worked together on in over three decades, and I could never think of a time where you said no, or you weren't available to help out, or answer a phone call, or be willing to help. And earlier, the vice mayor was talking about a word that she could use to describe you, to and to me, it's a partner. I really appreciate the work that you did with other public safety members, other city departments, and with me especially. It was wonderful experience.

You never said no. And more importantly, you taught your staff that same work ethic of not saying you can't do something, but finding a way to do something and to work together for the betterment of this community, for the betterment of the city, and to improve public safety in the city of Redwood City. So, TK, thank you. Thank you for more than three decades of work with the community. Thank you for more than three decades of partnership with me. I wish you all the best of luck in retirement. Enjoy it. And thanks again for being a friend and for being a great partner as well. Thank you.

Thank you. Kyle Glasser, welcome.

Hello, just two quick things. I know you guys are deciding something about the speed limits in school zones tonight. And I fully support lowering the speed limits. And I also was hoping you would consider implementing or putting in newer more stop signs around schools and parks in the city like Orion, there's a drop off zone and needs a stop sign and Henry Ford Crosswalk should have a stop sign and Park on Hopkins Street, Stafford should also have more stop signs. And also, I support the business owners of the sandwich spot tonight. Thank you.

Thank you, Kyle. We'll now move to our Zoom public comment. We have one speaker this evening on Zoom. Wyatt Hammond, feel free to unmute and begin your comments.

Hello, city council. Good to see you again. I was part of the Community Builders Academy in '25. I just wanna quickly comment about the ongoing pilot on of Lori Duncan Park. A year exceeds a pilot period, and I'd like you guys to consider taking down the pilot and until you're ready to put in some capital investments.

As it currently consists, it's a it's an eyesore with the pub with the orange plastic barricades and an inconvenience to those trying to exit the neighborhoods at best, and it's quite dangerous in reality. The left hand turns onto Brewster. Most people in the neighborhood would exit through the park so that you can make a safe left onto Brewster. But now you have to take a left where the hill obscures the view of oncoming traffic that is generally moving quicker than the speed limit. I have seen children, hit by cars and hit and runs on outer circle, near the corner of of Brewster.

I myself have been in three or four, like, close calls trying to turn left onto outer circle out of or sorry, out of what's the South Gate as cars come by, and I don't have the ability to just kinda zip, pass through the intersection straightforward any longer. There aren't a lot of people using the park that weren't there before. It's the same dog walkers. It's the same teens and 20 consuming marijuana. There isn't parking.

It's a red it's a red curve around the park. And the ability for larger trucks with with larger turning radius is really compromised. Even turning right on the Brewster from the corner of outer circle is is is a bit of a challenge in rush hour or morning school traffic. If you're looking for other options, I suggest the the green space at the water company town. I think that would be a good choice. Thank you.

Thank you. And with that, mayor, that concludes public comment on item six. Thank you.

Great. Thank you, city clerk, thank you to everyone who made comments in person or online today.

Got

a little echo, and it's gone. We will move on to item seven. Items on the consent calendar are routine in nature and are approved by one motion. Are there any items on consent from which council members are recused? Not seeing any. Council member Howard, just making sure. No inch okay. Great. Then I will are there any items on consent that council members would like to pull for discussion? Council member Padilla.

I would like to pull seven o.

Okay. Seven o as in Oscar. Is there a motion for all other items aside from item seven o?

So moved.

Second. Perfect. That was a motion from Council Member Howard. A second from Council Member G for all items except for seven oh. Could we get a electronic vote, please?

The motion passes unanimously.

Great. Thank you everybody, and we will send it back to council member Padilla.

Thank you. Okay. Let me get my notes here. Okay. Okay.

So seven ounce.

Let me pull it up. One second.

You know, I don't know

any notes.

I'll just go generally. So this is I wanted to review our number nine agreement for services with CherryRoad Technologies to extend maintenance and support services and for an additional three years of Oracle Fusion ERP and HCM Cloud services in support at an annual rate of $525,755 or $1,577,265 over three years for a total contract term of approximately ten years and a total contract amount of $8,805,421 I know we've talked about this, and I would just like to mention again that there are multiple amendments. And I would like us in the future to focus on how we can move forward in a constructive way and be mindful of monies and time and productivity and make sure that we aren't just having shelfware. That's that's my statement for today. Thank you.

Thank you, council member. We'll go to council member Howard. False alarm. Well, if there are no other comments, councilor Mapitiya, would you like to make a motion?

Yes. I just once again want to reiterate how important this is and that someone needs to own this project because there cannot be multiple chefs in the kitchen, and I want to see this come to fruition. Thank you. And I will now make a motion.

Thank you.

To Second.

Perfect. That was a motion from council member Padilla, second from council member Howard. Could we get an electronic vote, please?

Motion passes unanimously.

Great. Thank you everyone. That was item seven, our consent calendar. We have no public hearing scheduled for this evening, so we will skip item eight and go to item nine, our staff reports. Turning now to our staff reports, we'll hear an item related to the city's smoking regulations and tobacco retail permits, and we have our economic development manager, Amanda Anthony, who will give a presentation today.

Thank you so much, mayor. Thank you so much, counsel. Tonight, we'll be talking about tobacco retailer permits. This is something that is in our code of ordinances, Chapter 15 in our Municipal Code. Tonight, we'll be talking next slide, sorry about sort of the evolution of city, county and state laws, the state of the tobacco retail market in Redwood City, our options for regular eating retailers, and then what our recommendation is.

As we move forward next slide these are the questions that I want you to think about, please. Does the City Council support strengthening tobacco retailer regulation, inspections and enforcement in Redwood City, particularly to address youth access and illegal sales? And if so, does the City Council support adopting the San Mateo County tobacco retailer permit ordinance as the most efficient, cost effective and immediately implementable approach? So we'll move on. Next slide.

Oh good, we're here. So tobacco retail permits have a long history in Redwood City. The first ordinance was adopted in 2009 and delegated enforcement authority to San Mateo County Environmental Health, who's been our partner in issuing permits and conducting inspections for quite some time. In 2019, in response to a general push can you guys hear me okay? Okay.

In response to a general push to limit flavored tobacco and e cigarettes or vapes, which were attacking a new generation of smokers, the city adopted restrictions on the sale of flavored tobacco and e cigarettes throughout the city and continued to delegate enforcement authority to the county. At that time, any retailer which had a valid tobacco retailer permit and offered hookah for on-site consumption was still allowed to sell flavored tobacco under the new regulations. This was three businesses at the time who had their valid tobacco retailer permit who were ultimately grandfathered in. In 2022, after the new flavored tobacco ordinance became effective, the county informed the city that they would not be enforcing any ordinances which did not match their own. So they had started to do an analysis of all the ordinances throughout the county and realized that there was a lot of differences between each city's ordinance and they said, you know, don't want to enforce this unless it's all standard and it's all ours.

And so that brought us to a decision point where we had just adopted this ordinance and we needed to decide how we would want to run our tobacco retailer permit program, whether we wanted to continue to delegate responsibility to the county, which meant adopting an ordinance that matched theirs, or running our own program. And that's the topic that's before you today. Next slide. So at the same time that we were the city of Redwood City was considering its flavored tobacco ordinance, there was a lot of other state and county laws that were evolving. In 2018, the county adopted its first ban on flavored tobacco in unincorporated areas, and then it added restriction on e cigarettes or vapes in 2019, so around the same time that Redwood City was considering its own.

In 2020, Senate Bill seven ninety three was signed into the law by the governor which restricted the sale of flavored tobacco at the state level. This was immediately challenged and it ultimately went to the voters in 2022 who upheld the ban on flavored tobacco in the state. The state's law had three narrow exceptions, one of which was the sale of flavored tobacco for use in hookah or shisha pipes in places that were 21 plus at all times. So in 2022, in November 2022, voters upheld SB seven ninety three. And then 2023, two additional things happened.

Number one, the state decided to adopt major changes to the labor code that outlined where people could smoke in public and how they could smoke in enclosed spaces if at all. And so that also added a lot of restrictions that are going to influence us today. We discussed that in January 2025 and we ultimately adopted changes to Chapter 15, which is our tobacco ordinance related to smoking in public. The second thing that happened in 2023 is that the County Of San Mateo adopted a more comprehensive ordinance governing tobacco retailer permits, flavored tobacco, and e cigarettes. The ordinance did not have any exceptions for flavored tobacco, including the sale of flavored tobacco for sale for use in hookah or shisha pipes.

The county also at that time reintroduced the possibility of enforcing the ordinance in cities in San Mateo County which adopted the ordinance verbatim or by reference. And so they hadn't been issuing tobacco retailer permits for any cities. Prior to that, when they adopted their new ordinance, they allowed cities to delegate authority again. Next slide. Oh, no.

Go back. Oh, maybe I'm sorry. Yep, sorry, forgot to flip my page. Okay, so what was driving adoption of the stricter flavored tobacco laws? The biggest things were youth access, disparate impact, and addiction potential.

So the push around regulating flavored tobacco and e cigarettes was largely driven by the desire to reduce youth access and usage. Back in the early 2010s and certainly through the middle of the 2010s, vaping became extremely popular among teens and particularly the flavored vapes were very, very popular and led to very big increases in tobacco use in youth. Teens were using at rates not seen in decades and that really compounded the impacts that tobacco had on public health outcomes that we already see disproportionately affecting men, Latinos, and the LGBT community. They are using at higher rates than other populations. So finally San Mateo County also took a stand on retailer density, noticing that research shows that where there's a higher density of retailers you're seeing higher use rates.

It's easier for people to it. All right, now next slide. Good. Okay. So the May 2023 San Mateo County ordinance had a few really big rules.

Number one, there could be no new tobacco retailers within 500 feet of an existing tobacco retailer. And when I say new throughout this presentation, new means new completely new, Hi, I'm Amanda Anthony and I want to open a tobacco store, or 'Hi, I'd like to buy your tobacco store and I'm a new owner'. So new ownership or completely new to the location. You also couldn't open a new tobacco retailer or change ownership within 1,000 feet of a youth populated area, which is your schools, your parks. Notably this does not include family child care centers because those are really hard to, I think, identify.

No discounts or coupons on the sale of tobacco products that was a new piece of their ordinance that was introduced in 2023. No sales of flavored tobacco or e cigarettes of any kinds, and then no sales of tobacco products at pharmacies, which the city had already done. So just as a note, like, if retailer A and B were 500 feet from each other and retailer A decided to retire and sell the business, the new owner wouldn't be able to get a tobacco retailer permit from the County Of San Mateo. All right. Next slide.

So you might be wondering, how is this working? Is it having the effects? So some of the first tobacco ordinances flavored tobacco ordinances came into effect in 2018, we added a big one in 2022 when SB seven ninety three was upheld, and we are seeing decreases in use. So we've seen a drop of three percent of Redwood City residents using tobacco, We've seen a drop of almost four percent of California residents using tobacco. The eleventh graders reporting current tobacco use, a smaller percentage decrease but not insignificant.

And then I think this is the biggest one that I think is really important is the percentage of San Mateo County eleventh graders reporting current vape usage. So that has really tapered off. But five percent is still a lot of kids, so that's one of the reasons that we are looking at having more regulation. So let's flip to what does it look like in Redwood City. Redwood City has 55 tobacco retailers and you can see sort of on this map the red dots represent the retailers.

You can see that many of them are very densely populated. There's lots of retailers that are right next to each other. They're along our main corridors, they're downtown, but we have a really high density. And these are split across a lot of different types. So we have gas station retailers people where you can buy just at gas stations.

I have convenience stores, grocery stores, and liquor stores all in kind of one bucket. We have smoke shops that are primarily selling tobacco as their main source of products, and then we have restaurants. And so I think this is a really telling statistic. Since 2022, I pulled the data from the state database, we have three new owners or new permittees for gas stations. We have two new owners of convenience liquor stores, but we have seven new owners of smoke shops.

And many of those are new smoke shops to Redwood City. That's not just a change in ownership, that's an establishment of a new smoke shop. We haven't seen any turnover in the restaurants. Next slide. I mentioned that the San Mateo County ordinance takes into account how close retailers are to each other and also takes into account how close they are to youth populated areas.

We used a map to show the red buffers are how close retailers are to each other. The red buffer is the 500 foot buffer. So you can see a lot of businesses are within each other's buffers. And then you have the gray buffers, which is the youth populated area buffers. So any business that's within the gray buffer would be would have a difficulty, like, transferring their license and you couldn't open a new license in one of those areas.

We did outreach to tobacco retailers. As I said, we have about 55 retailers. Between 10 to 12 retailers came to our outreach. We did it on Zoom. When we asked about some of the options, there was generally just like not a lot of support for additional regulation.

They did not support the ban on all flavored tobacco many of the retailers who are on the call who either benefit from selling hookah tobacco or just want to be selling that. There was a few people who just didn't have an opinion it was sort of like, well, whatever you guys decide to do, we'll adapt. Same with e cigarettes. As I said, most of them did not want to have a tobacco retailer permit they felt that the state was doing enough. I really do want to point out that the state does not regulate e cigarettes, so those are not regulated by the state and they do have exemptions for certain types of flavored tobacco.

So that's a question. Generally not a lot of support for adopting the county ordinance. Most wanted us to just do enforcement and penalties. I think one of the things that is really important to mention is that some businesses weren't aware that Redwood City had already banned the sale of flavored tobacco with the exception of hookah for this on-site consumption. And so when we were talking about enforcement, you know, I really tried to emphasize that enforcement takes money and if we're not having a sort of proactive approach through inspections and whatnot, we're also not getting funds to do enforcement it's just putting people out there to enforce.

Didn't resonate a whole lot, but I know that it's something that I'm concerned about, so I'll just mention that. So when it comes to staff recommendation, really it is a little bit about the money. We have a tight budget. If we go with the county ordinance, which is what I will be recommending in a couple of slides, the county manages all the administration at no cost to the city's general fund, and the retailers pay significantly less for a tobacco retailer permit. They have a highly efficient program they've been doing it they have the expertise.

The county is also able to implement effective immediately after the ordinance effective date. So if this gets adopted, they could be implementing the program as soon as July because we have to have a public hearing for the second reading, which is going to be in June. So it could be that. The county manages all enforcement in cases where retailers are permitted or selling illegal products. If they are selling if retailers are selling really illegal products like illegal drugs, they are coordinating with the narcotics tax force and doing all that kind of work too.

And the big tension of course is that this county does not allow any flavored tobacco, which means that the exemptions that we've had in place would be not allowed going forward. But the county does allow hookah lounges to use nontobacco products if as a compromise. So, you know, this is all good and well. I've learned a lot about tobacco in the last year, and I can tell you that it's not it's a lot of work to learn this. And so, you know, if we decided to do a city run program, it would take several additional months.

It would cost the city a lot of time to develop the program and implement it, and it would require a level of knowledge and expertise to be built among staff that I think is not currently in staff. So last time we met was at the study session in September 2024, and council members had a few questions that I wanted to address directly. One was, can Redwood City just run a separate program for the businesses offering hookah on sites or having two simultaneous programs? The answer is no because then we would have an ordinance that doesn't match the counties and so they wouldn't let us delegate the authority. Number two, can Redwood City collaborate on permitting or enforcement with other cities?

I'll go through this in the next couple of slides but no other cities with their own programs were interested in collaborating. They either don't have very many operators, and so it was just easier for them to not collaborate with us. Or the other two really big cities that are doing their own thing are located in North County, and so there's not a lot of economies of scale there. So it's Pacific and Daly City they could probably partner up, but we're probably not going to partner with Daly City. And then three, would the county reconsider its stance on flavored hookah tobacco?

The answer is no. The county has remained firm on its position that flavored tobacco is flavored tobacco period, and there's no interest in allowing it. So that has come up in both San Bruno's and South San Francisco's adoption, and both of those cities which had hookah lounges I think the hookah lounge opted to use nontobacco hookah. So just to go into the details, these are the cities which are using the county's tobacco retailer permit program. South San Francisco and San Bruno I think are the most recent to add it, and then South San Francisco had the hookah lounge like we do, and they switched to non tobacco hookah.

San Bruno had a hookah only lounge and I'm actually not sure what's going on it sounded like they never had a state permit and so there was a lot of other issues that were with that one, I think it may just not be operating anymore. Next slide. As I said there's a couple that do have their own program. Burlingame has its own program Foster City and Pacifica. So they're running their own program. Burlingame uses their police department to run their program. Foster City uses their code enforcement, and Pacifica I think is either economic development or code enforcement, but I'm not sure which one. And then finally, there are a number of cities that don't have an active tobacco retailer program, including us. Daly City is the other one that has a lot of retailers. The rest are very few.

So that's just something to keep in mind. So we are recommending that we go with the tobacco the county's tobacco retailer ordinance, but if we did decide we wanted to do our own, there's a lot of steps that would still have to happen. We would need to draft the ordinance language and return to the City Council for adoption. We would have to conduct a fee study for setting our program fees at a cost recovery level to train staff on tobacco laws in the new permit program and then conducting outreach and training to the tobacco retailers and new regulations. So my understanding from the county is that when they do outreach it does take a couple of months, so it's not something that's like, you know, they're not going out and saying 'Hey, you have to submit all this paperwork tomorrow.' They say, 'Hey, here's what there's a new program.

By this date you need to submit your documents.' And if they don't submit, then they're treated as a new retailer. Next slide. This is just to emphasize that the county's program is significantly cheaper than ours would be, especially since we'd be looking at cost recovery. If we were to do a program, we would try to wrap all of the program development into the initial processing fee for the current operators. So this is cost recovery only if every single operator decides that they want to continue doing it.

If they decide that they don't, then we'll have set the fee based on 55 retailers, and if only 50 decide that they want to, then we're eating some of that. Annual inspection fee would be a little bit more expensive on our side as well, and then the new business permit would also be a little bit more expensive. I noticed that I don't have the county's prices up there. I think it's in your staff report, dollars $3.72 for a new retailer and then $8.85 for annual permit. But my colleague from San Mateo County Environmental Health Wehman is here, so he can answer questions if we do have questions on that later.

All right. So that brings us to the recommended action. Staff do recommend that we waive the first reading and introduce an ordinance amending the code to repeal our current tobacco retail permit and flavored tobacco ordinance and then adopt by reference the county's ordinance in full. We would have to amend some definitions in our code as well because some of our definitions go speak directly to the articles that we'd be repealing, and then setting a public hearing on the second reading and adoption of the ordinance on June 8. So that's off a bit of a distance in the future, but it's because we need at least fourteen days to set the public hearing in this case for an adoption by reference.

All right. Going back to the questions. So does the City Council support strengthening tobacco retailer regulation inspections and enforcement in Redwood City, particularly to address youth access and illegal sales? And if so, does the city council support adopting the San Mateo County tobacco retailer permit ordinance as the most efficient, cost effective and immediately implementable report? Thank you.

Thank you, Amanda, for the great presentation. We'll now take public comment on this item, and I'll turn it over to the city clerk to facilitate.

Thank you, mayor. At this time, I have 13 speaker cards for in person speakers and two, three speakers on Zoom. And, again, once we begin public comment, we will not accept any more speaker cards or raised hands on Zoom, confirming with the mayor that we'll give two minutes to each public comment. Thank you. Okay.

So I will close the speakers list for Zoom. Lucy Lot two will be the final speaker, and we will begin with our in person speakers starting with Manny Marad, who will be followed by Ali Ahmad. Welcome.

Thank you so much, City Council, everyone, for bringing me in here to speak on this issue. I just want to say one thing for the local businesses. First of all, just to let you know, beside me being a DJ here in Redwood City, I'm also a pilot and a biochemist. So my insight on the whole situation, I want to

say

that further regulation, it did come up with T21 regulation that could actually regulate selling of cigarette, cigar and vape as well. I could assure you one thing. When we go to those places, we don't have to mention name, but hookup places or any of those things. First, no person can enter the place under 21. That's number one.

Now for me, as a DG, should take a look around from safety perspective, ventilation, I was sick because you're going to smoke, obviously, right? So mostly, it's outside seating. So basically, we're coming in with the family and basically, we're sitting outside, we enjoy and we have some music and it's outside seating. So I'm not concerned about the ventilation at all. Another thing I want to mention also in 09/30/2024, The federal regulation also imposed checking and ID.

So before you enter those places, ID is also being checked. So there's nobody like what we're saying, like selling anything illegally or something like that. So it's everything is regulated 100%. Nobody admit at all the places that I can to, always a check anybody who comes in and I've seen a scenario where you have to exit that place. And then I was going to say as well, so what's it give it to us benefits really quick. Okay. Thank you.

You.

Our next speaker is Ali. ALISTAIR We'll followed by George Baslamit.

Hi. My name is Ali Ahmad. I'm the owner of Rack and Wraps. I've been here in Erdovese City like thirteen, fourteen years. We've been doing hookah since thirteen years. We never allowed any kids or anybody to smoke until you're 21, and we we check their IDs, and we we have open space for the hookah, and it's a culture. People come, get together, smoke and have tea, and talk to each other because a lot of people, they don't wanna drink. They just wanna have some some culture and sitting down together. This been happening, like, maybe since seventeen thousand years, people smoking hookah, and a lot a lot of people are dying from the hookah. A lot of people are dying because the thing we throw in the ocean.

The government, they throw a lot of the, you know, the the the smoke and all the stuff, not just us hurting the country. I mean, they make an own equip nuclear plant for the electric, and they throw everything all in the ocean. All the factories, all the smoke from the cars, all this from the plane. All this affects our health. The the plastic is our because our health, not just a smoke. Not just smoke hookah. Smoke hookah is that affect everybody. Not everybody getting sick from the hookah. And the kids, the youth, they smoke electric cigarette, all this. That's very bad.

But not the hookah. Never see a youth or kids get together and smoke a hookah together. And we're not allowed to to anybody allowed to come smoke hookah if you're 21. And we check IDs, and we're careful. We're watching everybody. And we want the city to work with us to keep us in business, especially these days. Everything too expensive. To run a business is very expensive these days, electric, insuring, employees, everything. I mean, if we need help, we need to stay in business, not to go out of business. And we are the one who orders three places to bring the bigger downtown to reduce city when there was nobody in downtown. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next speaker is George Bazlamit, who will be followed by Ayub. George?

Good evening, everybody. I had to write this down so I can try and be as eloquent as possible. I'll do my best. So on this anniversary of fair housing discrimination, we face a different challenge of discrimination. For those who do not know, this is the Middle Eastern American Heritage History throughout the entire country. It's hard to ignore what feels like a clear double standard playing out in Downtown Redwood City. At the time that there is heightened sensitivity around the world and Arab and Middle Eastern communities are being perceived globally, How many of our families in The Middle East are being persecuted among ongoing conflicts. Actions like this hit even harder when it's local. When cultural spaces are targeted here at home, these things don't exist in a vacuum. It feels personal and it feels discriminatory.

Shisha or hookah or ragile or kachimba, however you want to call it, it's not a trend or a nuisance. It's a deeply rooted cultural tradition across The Middle East and North African communities. It represents gathering, hospitality, conversation, connection. These values have been passed down through generations and hopefully will continue to be. These establishments are not just businesses, they are cultural spaces that preserve identity and community.

The three impacted businesses two are airborne, one is Turkish owned and part of the fabric of the city. A city that prides itself on diversity and that's what should matter here. Yet at the same time we have to ask a very real question. How these cultry rooted establishments are being treated? And that's the real problem, especially while multiple marijuana dispensaries operate within close proximity to schools in the same area.

If the concern is truly about public health, safety or youth exposure then the standard must be applied continuously across the board. Instead what we're seeing raises concern that cultural expression is being scrutinized more heavily than others. The inconsistency does matter because when businesses tied to specific culture and is appropriately targeted especially during the month meant to celebrate their culture, it raises serious questions about the fairness, representation and equal treatment. This isn't about shisha, it's about whether the cultural traditions are being respected or practiced and thank you very much.

Thank you.

Thank you. Our next speaker

is

Ayup, who will be followed by David Kasuf.

Good evening, mayor and council members. My name is Eyup. I am the owner of Pasha Materion Restaurant in Redwood City. For over a decade, Pasha has been part of this community. We have broadly served in Redwood City residents, created local jobs and contributed to vibrant downtown environment.

Our business is built on hospitality, culture and bringing people together. Hookah for us is not just product, it's a part of a long standing cultural tradition. It creates a space where people from different backgrounds, cultures and religions can come together, relax and connect in a peaceful and respectful settings. Over the years, we have operated responsibly and maintained a safe environment for our guests. We take pride in being a positive part of this community.

2021, the city allowed business like ours to continue operating under the grandfathered exception. Based on that decision, we continued to invest in our business, our employees and our future here in Redwood City. Removing that exception now would have a serious impact on our business and the people who depend on it. We understand the city public health concerns, and we are not here to oppose regulation. We are here to ask for a balance and reasonable approach.

Cities like San Diego have adopted structures regulation that allow business to continue operating responsibly, and we are fully willing to comply with clear rules oversight.

Our next speaker is David Casouf, who will be followed by Rolando Delval.

Good evening, mayor and council members. My name is David Cassouf, owner of The Sandwich Pot in Redwood City. For over fifteen years, my business has been part of the community. We've created jobs, supported local events and build a space where people from different cultures come together. Hookah for us is not just a product like Ayub said, it's a cultural tradition and peaceful social experience that bring people together regardless of background or religion.

In all these years, we have maintained a respectful, safe environment and have not had any major incidents. It is not like alcohol in general. We take that responsibility very seriously. And me in person, 20 fourseven in my own restaurant, and everybody from the city council knows that. In 2021, the city allowed businesses like mine, Pasha and Rock and Wrap to continue operating under a grandfather exception.

Since then, we followed the rules, invested in our businesses, renewed our leases, spent money, hired more people and relied on that decision in good faith. Removing that exception now would have a devastating impact on my business, my family, my employees, and most of them, many of them sitting in here too. And most of them actually Redwood City citizens. We understand the city's public health concern. Like everybody said, we check IDs.

Everybody walks in the sandwich pot, at Pasha, and Rock and Wrap after 5PM has to be 21 and over. Anybody under age will sit inside where there is no smoke or anything at all provided. Thank you. I just want to say at the end, taking tobacco away, it's not the solution. Thank you.

Our next speaker is Rolando DelVal, who will be followed by Bandar Almatari.

Good evening. Hello, Mayor. How are you guys? I'm here to support the SandwichPot. I've been work I'm a manager at SandwichPot.

Been working there for more than ten years, and we always created a good environment, you know, family and and everybody else. And like he my boss said that we strictly enforce our the rules, 21 and over. No matter what, if they buy alcohol or they they get hookah, nobody is allowed to be in the patio where the smoking is allowed for us. And I'm just I know times change and regulation change, but I'm just here to support the sandwich part. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Omar Salam, who will be followed by Neil Lundy.

Good evening, Mayor and council member. My name is Omar. I'm a Redwood City resident. Thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight. I'm here to respectfully ask the council to carefully reconsider any proposal that would ban businesses offering hookah in our city.

Most importantly, make the distinction between the sale of vapes, e cigarettes versus hookah on-site consumptions, 21 plus businesses at all times. Tobacco retailers versus hookah lounges. These are two different things. We cannot have the same regulation for the same thing for both of them. Especially noting that the main concern behind all the laws and legal history mentioned earlier is teen smoking.

The 21 plus rule fixes that. We don't need to have new rules. We don't need to have new regulations about the HOKA businesses regarding that philosophy or concern behind the whole history that we went through, through the earlier presentation. Hookah lounges are not simply places centered around tobacco. These are social spaces, community gatherings places, destinations that bring visitors into Redwood City from across the Bay Area.

These establishments are limited in numbers regionally. People travel here especially for them and when they arrive here, they also dine at the local restaurants. They buy coffee, they shop downtown and they support Redwood City businesses, other businesses that they wouldn't have been here in the city if not because we have an edge. In that sense, hookah lounges help generate foot traffic and economic activity beyond their own walls. At a time when downtown districts everywhere are competing for investors and spending, that matters. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Bandar Almatari. I apologize, I may have skipped you. Not present? Okay. Thank you. So we'll move on to Neil Lundy. And Neil will be followed by David Ryber.

Good evening, mayor and members of the city council. My name is Neil, franchise manager of Hot Works Belmont. I know a lot of you personally. I'm here completely respect to the response we share of the goal I'm gonna talk fast because no time. First, I'd like you to take a look at the county takeover versus money brought in by the three grandfathered businesses if they say grandfathered.

And I'd also like to have you to stick to the existing framework, s b seven ninety three, that delivery of health and look at their facts and see if they have been able to abide by the law and not have any fines or anything like that. Also, money was mentioned multiple times here. Let's let's think about the money lost not only for their employees, but for the city. You're having a money problem, this is not the way to go. I completely agree. Banning retail, you know, vapes, all that people buying, kids selling them to kids. This is 21 and older. You go in, you sit, you relax, you smoke some hoop and get the sandwich. That's not threatening our youth. Let's be clear about this.

It has nothing to do with youth. These grandfathered businesses taking them offline, no tobacco, unflavored tobacco, it's irrelevant. You want to focus on the retailers, not these businesses, and that's all. Thank you. Appreciate your time.

Thank you. Our next speaker is David Ryber, who will be followed by Astrid Ryber.

Hello. My name is David Rieber. I am from Caracas, Venezuela. I moved to Redwood City about thirty years ago. I raised my three children here. I saw the increase of tobacco consumption in young kids going way, way, way up, as was highlighted in the presentation. Tobacco is not what it was for hundreds of years. In the last about twenty five years, it has changed. It's not the same thing. It's a much more dangerous product.

The real cost here of doing nothing is not in dollars, but it's on the health of our community, starting with our children, but everybody. I am familiar with one of the places, restaurants in downtown that has hookup lunch. I love the food. It's a wonderful restaurant, and I hope it remains successful for the food and beverages. But I think Railroad City has here an opportunity to do something about this.

As the presentation showed, things don't stay the same. If we do nothing, those numbers that went down in recent years are very likely to go up. There is I think it would be responsible in the City Council to do nothing. Here is an opportunity. Please do not allow the sale of tobacco products, flavored tobacco, e cigarettes. Thank you. Thank

you. Our next speaker is Astrid Rieber, who will be followed by Tricia Barr.

Yes. Hi. I I have

been

a resident of Redwood City for over twenty five years, and I appreciate the the growth that we have seen, the diversity, the number of businesses that have come in. I have really enjoyed, you know, some of that that that the changes, some one those wonderful restaurants. But I do believe that I think the individual who made the presentation today made some very strong points. I trust that that our staff and the recommendations that our staff are making, they're they're for the good of our community. And I believe that, you know, simply this is something for the city council to please strongly consider adopting this ordinance simply for for the overall good of our community, for the health, for the safety, and, you know, just please consider it.

Thank you.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Tricia Barr. And then we'll move to our Zoom speakers list.

Hi, city council members. Thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight. My name is Tricia Barr. I'm a Menlo Park mom of three sons with one currently at Menlo Atherton High School. In addition to serving on MA site council, I also serve as the chair of the San Mateo County Tobacco Education Coalition.

I'm here tonight to urge you to adopt the ordinance to strengthen tobacco retail permitting and enforcement in Redwood City. For both my volunteer work, I should say, the coalition and my experience as a parent, I know how easy it is for young people to get flavored vapes and other flavored tobacco products in our community despite state and local laws that are supposed to protect them. We see it in the schools. We see it in our city's own research that found the vapes, vape liquids, flavored tobacco are still widely available and easy to buy. That means more kids continue to get exposed and addicted to nicotine.

Neighboring communities of Menlo Park, East Palo Alto, San Mateo, as mentioned, and other neighboring communities have adopted the county's ordinance. I know that Menlo Atherton students often get their products here in Redwood City. I'm especially concerned about the handful of restaurants in Redwood City that continue to serve hookah and allow smoking. Licensed tobacco retailers that are private smoking lounges are dedicated to tobacco use and do not serve food or alcohol. The restaurants and bars that serve food and alcohol food and drinks simply cannot simply call themselves smokers' lounges and allow smoking, yet that's effectively what's happening when zoochka is served in restaurants and in spaces right next to where families are eating.

Other communities have shown that restaurants can transition from tobacco products like shisha to nontobacco alternatives like flavored steam stones. This allows businesses who want to continue offering that experience to do so without a tobacco product. You have an opportunity tonight to make a decision. I hope I hope you you do in favor of youth and public health. Thank you.

Thank you, Tricia. We'll now move to our Zoom speakers. We'll begin with Blythe Young, and Blythe will be followed by Divya Ramumurthy. And Blythe, you may unmute yourself and begin your comments.

Good evening, mayor and council members. My name is Blythe Young. I am the region senior lead for community government relations in California for the American Heart Association. I'm here tonight to express support for the proposal to adopt the San Mateo County model policy for a tobacco retail license ordinance. This proposed policy will reduce access to the products that are tobacco key industry strategy for targeting and addicting new smokers, Redwood City's youth.

The American Heart Association spent three years helping to develop and pass the San Mateo County model ordinance. I have worked on these kinds of policies for seven years throughout the state. This ordinance was based on the best practices present in the public health law center model developed for communities in the state of California. We have seen the success of this policy through the widespread adoption of incorporated cities. Additionally, we have advocated for Redwood City to join the program or adopt matching standards for compliance and enforcement for many years now.

We are hopeful that tonight, Redwood City will join the county by adopting the model ordinance without exemption. You heard from local businesses this evening that the county policy will put hookah lounges out of business. We have not seen that happen in other various cities that have restricted the sale of all flavored tobacco products, including Shisha. Even San Bruno and South San Francisco who were holdouts, who have similar businesses, moved forward with the county match. Hookah lounges are still open in San Francisco and other cities that have full restrictions on flavored tobacco.

We have seen through store observations that you need local control, local compliance, inspections, and a local tobacco retail license. We are talking about a business license for a product that when used directly kills people. I hope that you will adopt the county or if you fall short of that goal, that you will match the same licensing compliance and enforcement standards present in the model. Adopting the county's policy will help protect the community from tobacco addiction and is crucial to preventing tobacco related death and disease. The American Heart Association respectfully asks for your support of this vital health policy. Thank you.

Thank you, Blythe. Our next speaker is Divya Ramamurthy, who will be followed by Lucy Latu.

Hello, everyone.

You can begin your comments, Divya. Go ahead.

My name is Aditya Narayanan. I am a ninth grader at Carlin High School where I'm passionate in public health. I'm a member of the San Mateo County Tobacco Education Youth Advocacy, so a group where I learn about the impact of tobacco on youth and how environmental factors may contribute to its prevalence. I am passionate about this issue because I believe in the power of collective action. Seeing our community embrace our diverse stories and then use them as fuel for inspiring change, help inspiring to pursue a career in public service.

For example, after hearing our peers explain the misinformation surrounding tobacco use, we made their tradition to host an annual public service announcing contest. This contest engaged hundreds of students across the country to share their presentation I'm sorry. Their their prevention messages. As another more recent example, we we once had a meeting where we realized that tobacco products lined our streets. Weeks later, we made this a tradition to host annual community cleanups to pick up cigarette litter and raise awareness in local public spaces.

Our group of 12 to 15 students can do this alone. We were supported by staff from the San Mateo County Health Education Program and San Mateo County Office of Education. Here's my story. I see vape pens in the hands of teens. Even our education is being disrupted. We pause for blaring fire alarms because students vape in bathrooms. This is in part due to the widespread availability of their sales. Retailers are blocks away from homes, schools, or jobs. And this helped to fuel youth inspire change. Limiting the number of tobacco retailers is the direction that can prove effective to decrease the exposure.

I urge you to recognize the public policy chief community health, especially Thank you so much for listening to me.

Thank you for your comments. Our final speaker is Lucy Lot two.

Good evening, mayor Martinez Servais and council members. My name is Lucien Latu, and I'm a resident of San Mateo County and the city of San Mateo. I'm also the assistant director of Dalama for Tongans, a community rooted nonprofit organization serving Pacific Islander individuals and families across Redwood City and San Mateo County. In our Pacific Islander communities, gathering spaces matter deeply. Spaces where we come together to share meals, to talk story, or storytelling and space and to immerse ourselves in our culture across generations.

That connection is something I value deeply. And I want to be clear, protecting public health should never be framed as choosing between culture and policy because our health is what allows our culture to continue. At the same time, we cannot ignore what's happening around us. Here in San Mateo County, over 80% of use report that flavored products were the first tobacco product they used. We also know that tobacco use overwhelmingly begins during use.

And at one point, youth vaping rates in our county were nearly double the state average. And here in Redwood City, there are tobacco retailers located near schools and youth serving spaces, including areas around Sequoia High School, Kennedy Middle Middle School, and downtown corridors where young people spend time daily. That level of proximity increases both access and normalization. And I want to name something clearly because it matters in this conversation. Retailers are not passive actors in this system.

Like any business, there is a responsibility to understand and comply with the laws that govern. What can be sold, how it can be sold, and to whom. Businesses adapt to regulations all the time. That is part of operating responsibly. We should not be treating retailers as if they're unaware or helpless. The reality is the community, especially our youth, are the ones who need protection. That said, I also want to acknowledge concerns around enforcement cost and fairness. A county aligned tobacco retail licensing model can address these concerns. You.

Thank you. And that concludes public comment, mayor.

Great. Thank you to our city clerk and to the members of the public who joined us in person and online to share their thoughts on this really important item. And we will bring it back to the council discussion for for my colleagues to share any thoughts, any questions. Who would like to get us started? Councilmember Chu, thanks.

So I first wanted to thank everyone who came and spoke tonight, and I understand that this issue is very personal for many of us and that, you know, it's a it's a difficult issue and a complex issue. And I certainly want to respect, you know, you know, traditions. However, things do change as as has been pointed out. And in light of new information, there's often shifts. And an example would be The United States.

In the fifties, about half of Americans smoked. It was deeply embedded in the culture. And in light of new information those trends have changed. Now it's about 16% of the population. Similarly, many other cultures, tobacco has been an inherent part of the culture, and in light of new information patterns have changed.

And so, you know, to that note we received a letter from a professor of pediatrics and I want to read an excerpt from that letter. It was new information for me. She says, Drawing on my lab's research and tobacco prevention curriculums that are being used in most schools in California and The US, we have seen that flavored tobacco products including flavors e cigarettes, cigars, and hookah play a central role in youth initiation and continued use because sweet mint and fruit flavors mask the harshness of tobacco and nicotine, make smoke and aerosol easier to inhale, hide their use as they no longer smell like tobacco yet yield the same risks and create the misperception that these products are less harmful than traditional cigarettes. While many believe that hookah use is safe, that is not at all the case. Flavored hookah tobacco is as addictive and harmful as cigarette use despite smoke passing through water, it still delivers addictive nicotine, tar, heavy metals, charcoal, and other toxic chemicals.

A single hookah session can expose users to high levels of carbon monoxide and other dangerous substances while shared hoses and mouth pieces may increase risk. A one hour hookah session is equivalent to smoking a 100 cigarettes. By limiting the available availability of flavored to all flavored tobacco products including hookah and near schools and other use populated areas and by sharing consistent licensing inspections and penalties for illegal sales. Their proposed ordinance would be a critical step towards reducing youth access, correcting dangerous misperceptions, protecting the health of adolescents in Redwood City. And I think these are things I didn't know.

And and in light of this information, I I will be supporting adopting the county ordinance. Continuing to make an exception for one form of tobacco comes with considerable costs and even risks in that we may not be able to be in line with state. You know, I want to make sure that we're aligned with the county and with the state. And I believe the more parsimonious our policy is, the more the easier it is to enforce, the more cost effective it is. And and I will be supporting the the move to treat all forms of tobacco with the same standard.

Thank you, council member. Any other colleagues have any questions or comments? Council member Gee.

Thank you mister mayor. I wanna thank everyone for coming and sharing your thoughts, speaking, sending in emails, and just raising your voice voices and sharing with the council. Before I get into some comments, I just wanted to ask some clarifying questions. Excuse me. One of the speakers indicated that, know, Amanda, you had the map of all the different that that was just as pervasive as cannabis.

And I know this council and the previous councils spent a lot of time on thinking through how we might bring cannabis and allow cannabis in Redwood City. I mean we spent a lot of time and the previous council spent a lot of time going through different phases. I'm going to ask her city attorney because she was deeply involved with it to kind of clarify that where we allow cannabis retailers and it is not as permissive as may have been suggested. So can you maybe give some history and the distances from sensitive receptors and things like that? Thank you, City Attorney.

Thank you. As Councilmember G alluded to, the city really studied heavily cannabis retail. First, allowing only delivery. And then when deciding to allow cannabis retail, the making the process an arduous process and a very meticulous and involved process. The city only allows up to six retailers in the city.

There are no more than six, and actually, we don't have six retailers in Redwood City today. And that was after an interview process and a very detailed application process where they needed to comply with all of the strict regulations of the city. And no cannabis retailer is allowed to locate within 600 feet of schools, childcare facilities, public parks, youth centers, or libraries. So there are very strict distancing requirements. I don't know if there's anything else that you would like, but we we are in full compliance with the city council's ordinance.

If I remember, and and thank you for sharing that, when we considered the the policy that the city was gonna adopt, there was a map that showed all those sensitive receptors, and there were just little pockets left. Am I remembering that correctly?

That's correct. There were very few locations where a cannabis retailer could locate after looking at those minimum distancing requirements that had been established by the council. The council didn't mind if it was less than six retailers that could actually locate as a result of trying to protect these sensitive receptors.

And if I remember there was a scenario where we said a thousand feet and then there was nothing left in the city at that distance.

That is correct.

I'm glad I can still remember a few things. Thank you. Amanda, in your presentation, you indicated what we have about 55 ish outlets. I'm a little bit surprised at how many new are without permit. So can you kind of spend a little more time about that? How does that happen? I mean, I just can't come into Redwood City and open a business without a permit or buy a business without obtaining a new permit or license.

I am going to look at City Attorney Ramirez for support on this question. But the answer is that our ordinance requires that you get a tobacco retail permit. We are not issuing that permit, and the county is not issuing that permit. And so if somebody comes in and asks me, can I open this business? My answer is no, you can't get a permit for that. But they are choosing to open it anyway.

What has happened is that there has been no enforcement in Redwood City in four years. And so you're seeing businesses pop up without any regulation, without any enforcement. And until we have something adopted by the city council, there's nothing we can enforce.

I think that that's kind of an important note because as someone who's in construction reminds me that you don't need a contractor's license in Texas. You just need a pickup truck and a shovel, and you can show up and start building. That's not where we are right now. We need to have a process so that we can regulate new businesses in your definition. So how does enforcement work for the existing businesses right now? Is it based on somebody calling and complaining or I'm having someone some young person below 21 go in and how does it work right now?

Yeah, for the existing businesses, if we receive a code enforcement complaint, we are going out to investigate that complaint. Community Development Director Jeff Schwab is also on the line if we have any clarifying questions about code enforcement. But it is complaint based, it is not a proactive enforcement where we are going out to see if businesses are selling products that they shouldn't be.

I thought I saw Jeff go back and forth. I think he's trying to log back in. We'll give

him a minute to see if

he can come back into amplifying your answer.

Councilmember G. Jeff Schwab is on.

Oh, there he is. Good.

Good evening, Councilmember G. Jeff Schwab, community development director. I oversee code enforcement. It is true that basically we respond on a complaint basis, and we do have occasional complaints in this area. And then we go through the enforcement process. But we're also having some challenges in getting compliance with our enforcement actions.

Jeff, thank you for attending. What does that mean where we're having challenges with compliance? I mean, is that somebody just refusing to comply? A business just kind of ignoring code enforcement?

That is the case. We have issued citations, sometimes numerous citations to try to get their attention. I think some operators feel that the cost of the citations are the cost of doing business. So now we're beginning to escalate those enforcement activities to, you know, more robust actions to compel compliance.

Jeff, thank you. So remind me what other businesses that we can code enforce that can ignore citations and accumulate citations and just keep going on is, quote, the cost of doing business?

I mean, in essence, it's possible that other, violations, that are issued citations could choose not to pay those citations. However, we do generally see some compliance on most cases. There are always some holdouts.

Very good. Thank you. Amanda, if I remember your slide presentation correctly, you gave kind of the linear history of the issues here in Redwood City from '19 whatever to '20 whatever, but the world kind of shifted after 2021, if I recall correctly. SB seven nine three, and then the county adopted its ordinance. Am I remembering that correctly that

Yes.

After the city grandfathered at that moment, subsequently, the world shifted a little bit in terms of regulations and ordinance?

That's correct. We the the city council adopted the ordinance in December 2021 with an effective date of April 2022. Later in 2022 in May 2022, the county informed the city that they wouldn't be enforcing anymore, and then in November 2022 is when voters upheld SP seven ninety three. So 2022 was a big year, and it all came after the council had adopted the ordinance grandfathering in the businesses. So yeah.

Thank you, Amanda. And then I'm just gonna ask my city attorney here one final question. Mean, I was engaged in that conversation on Saturday with someone who was very supportive And so you can pick and choose counsel which rules and laws you want to follow and don't want to follow. So talk to me and talk to us about can we really pick and choose which rules and which laws we want to follow, especially when we have regulations and things like that and county ordinances?

I think it's important for the city to and for folks to remember that the city needs to apply all laws evenly. It's local laws as well as the state laws. And really can't pick and choose. We really could get in trouble for preferential treatment, for a different treatment. And so we are always trying to be even handed in any law, and we always want to comply with all laws and expect all businesses to comply with all laws as well.

Thank you, Steve. Turn it for that. Now this is a challenging subject for us here. I don't think decision we're gonna make tonight lightly, any one of us. We thank our businesses that have been here for a long time and contributing to our community.

We thank all of visitors that come here. At the same time, I think it's no mystery that this council along with several other past councils have been very very consistent with our strategic priorities for our community. At the top, if not at the very top, is youth and children. And that has been consistent, not only of this council but for several going back. And I think as much as you know, I'm not a fan of regulating business anymore, you know, I shared with the person who talked to me about how do we get to pick and choose rules.

I'd like to say every new law we take two off, but I don't think we always have that choice. What I would like to see is see if we can work together to move forward by adopting this ordinance and then working together to find alternatives. I think Amanda you've worked hard with the businesses and the retailers. Some as we heard have ignored enforcement. Others hopefully will be more cooperative if we do, if the council chooses to move forward with this, to find alternatives and find a way to continue operating businesses, continue having visitors come to River Road City and having everybody participate here in the community.

So look forward to other colleagues and their comments before we take any action tonight. Thank you, mayor, and thank you, colleagues, the time.

Thank you, council member G. Bringing it back to my colleagues. Who would like to go next? Councilmember Howard.

Thank you, mayor. I have a question, a couple of questions. Maybe one is for our city attorney. We were talking about cannabis, and I wanted to thank you for refreshing our memory on that process that took a long time, a lot of study, a lot of public outreach, and I thought it served us well. I wanted to know the distances we chose, I believe, are stricter than what the state is currently saying about tobacco, I believe. We're saying 600 feet from certain business or schools and isn't the state 500 feet?

I don't believe we have state minimum thought minimum in the

report they mentioned distances, but

For tobacco, I do not believe there are minimum distance requirements. And remind me what the county's minimum distance requirements are for tobacco.

For the county, it's 1,000 feet from youth populated areas. Okay.

And 500 feet from another establishment? Correct. It's the county I'm referring to. Thank And I know ours is stricter, which that's a good thing, I think. But anyway, I did want to know let me see here. It's always mentioned about tobacco product. I see and I've walked into some establishments, and they're clearly doing what's wrong. They're selling paraphernalia, and I can see they're selling product. And of course, we report things as we see them, but we don't have an enforcement arm in place at this time. I wanted to know is what we're proposing tonight, does it include also paraphernalia?

I would love to invite up my colleague, Deputy Director Weymond Wong from San Mateo County Environmental Health to answer that question.

Good evening council members. Weymond Wong with San Mateo County Environmental Health. And to your specific questions regarding tobacco paraphernalia, it is inclusive in this ordinance. So enforcement of all tobacco products, paraphernalia, we're talking pipes, bongs, other devices that are used for smoking, wrapping papers. So it's a pretty broad definition that is included in this ordinance.

And that's what is being proposed tonight before us, right?

Correct.

Okay. Thank you. Because sometimes that word gets lost and I see a lot about tobacco, but when I walked into this one shop I saw what I saw and I know that that would be used for flavored tobacco and such substances like that. But thank you. That's helpful.

There are more people in Redwood City, more businesses in Redwood City that have the paraphernalia behind the counter and other places than we'd like to believe, but it's there. The other question I had is remind me for the city attorney, what is our ordinance regarding smoking in public places? Because I wanted to remind people that cannabis does not have to be smoked. It is legal in California, but it does not have to be smoked. But there are regulations about smoking in public places to answer the gentleman's remarks about cannabis in Redwood City. But it would also answer a question about how do we handle smoking when it's not inside a facility?

I think actually, probably, Amanda, do you feel comfortable answering this? The city regulates smoking in public places as well as smoking in multifamily dwellings. And so the city currently prohibits it. But I'll let Amanda speak to the public places. It's a little bit more nuanced than the multifamily dwellings.

Yes. We follow the state law when it comes to the distance between around entries and exits to government buildings, schools it's 25 feet play areas. We also, in January 2025, the Council adopted changes to also prohibit smoking within 20 oh my gosh, I should that's either 20 or 25 feet of restaurant entrances and exits as well. And I think it's really important to point out that wherever tobacco smoking is prohibited, cannabis smoking is also prohibited.

As well as within pedestrian malls? Yes.

So our parks are protected and our I know our courthouse We square did have a problem in the beginning, but we haven't since, since we are enforcing that. Yes, so thank you. I just wanted to say we've made progress. We've made steps to push smoke away from people and so it's not as irritating. But this is taking it a few steps further and I think in the right direction, honestly.

I'm a public health I mean, excuse me, I'm a health professional and I've for years I've had to be I've spoken for the American Heart Association, American Cancer Society. It's really important that we support eliminating these products and keeping them out of the hands of our young people who would be the next generation of smokers. And I'm real concerned about the trend moving up, and we have to stop that. And so I'm hoping I mean, we have our competing values and policies here, but I'll always side on the public health and safety of our community, in particular our young people in this city. And I'm hoping we'll move to a smoke free California in the future.

Thank you for answering my questions.

Thank you, council member Howard. Colleagues, who would like to go next? Councilman Padilla.

Thanks for your presentation, Amanda. I think let me see. There was a statistic I wanted to share that stuck out with me. I think we all kind of assume we've heard everyone talk about the teenagers and the eleventh graders, and we heard a mother talk about students coming from MA to Redwood City. Those aren't good things we wanna be known for. We don't wanna be known for where underage people can get their flavored nicotine. But there was one line that I I highlighted it three times. On page six seventy two, it said there were some statistics about eleventh graders, but then this one really hit me. It said, more concerningly, two percent of seventh graders report current vaping. I have a fourth grader.

I have a 10 year old. So and I've heard her tell me stories about middle schoolers and hearing stories about kids vaping in bathrooms, and is it true, and sometimes they smell things. And you think, really? Are these kids making it up? And then you see a statistic like that and you say, no. They're not. I've been in school parking lots where I've seen the crushed vapes. My daughter said, what is that? And I've said, oh gosh, someone dropped their USB. Let me pick that up and, you know, we'll return it to the office.

But how long can we bubble them and protect them, right, with with just throwing away or covering until we start making policies. So I I will say, I do I do feel conflicted because I will admit, when I was in college at USF, one of the first places that I went to on HATE was a hookah lounge with my friends. I've never been a smoker. I wasn't a smoker, but it was. It was I was a freshman in college and it was welcoming and it was a place of of exchanging stories and belonging and just it was a very welcoming environment.

So I do feel that it's unfortunate that we have businesses that I know are checking cards and promoting culture and values and things that we all care about, and they're being kind of lumped in the same time with retailers that maybe are not performing in the same good faith. But I think about our students and I think about our youth, and I can't keep thinking about this 2% of seventh graders and what grade it will be later and how young that they're getting introduced to this. I would really hope that there would be a path because I do think that there is cultural significance, and people do come here from far away. And I walk by, and I see the restaurants filled with not smoke, but laughter, with conversation. So I I would never want anyone in our community to feel like they were being singled out, especially when they have contributed so much to the vibrancy of our downtown.

But at the end, I have to think about our youth. Thank you.

Thank

you. Thank you, sir. I appreciate it. Thank you. You have the power. Thank you. That's not losing it. Thank you. Conservative Padilla.

Yes. So I understand that this is not easy. And but I also am understanding that we are lacking funding and resources and staff capacity, and I don't know how many times we could clone Amanda right now to run this program, but I don't think that is possible. So I appreciate all the work you've done. Thank you, Amanda.

Thank you, council member. We'll go to council member Stirkin.

Thank you, mayor. Thank you so much, Amanda. Thank you to everyone who spoke tonight and online as well. I wanted to start with just a few questions. We we did touch briefly on the legality at the state level, but I I would like to just get a little clarification with regards to hookah, if I may.

So and I'll start with you, Amanda, actually. You provided a comparison of other cities who have adopted the county's ordinance, right, who do have hookah establishments in their cities. And one did adopt a nicotine free alternative. But as for the other businesses, are they still open at this time to our knowledge? Oh, thank you. Thank you.

I can speak to at least two of the businesses that have in cities that have recently adopted as of last year. One is in city of San Bruno, and one is in city of South San Francisco. Both have chosen the option to use a nicotine free product as their alternative to shisha tobacco. So they are as far as my last review, they are still operation.

Thank you. Glad to hear that. And then also, is there a way for understate law for businesses that do serve hookah to continue operating as such?

If we had our own ordinance or no ordinance, then there is a way forward for businesses to continue to sell hookah tobacco, if we chose to have that in our ordinance. The state allows three exceptions. Our current code doesn't only allows one exception for the hookah for on-site consumption. If we had our own ordinance, then the business would have to come into compliance with the health and safety code and with the labor code that governs hookahs, the sale of tobacco, and the use of tobacco for those things. So there's yeah.

I may refer to city attorney to add anything that I'm not adding correctly here.

No. Think you did a good job. Thank you. And the answer is yes. If the city would adopt a local ordinance that allowed for it, there is a path forward. Thank

you both. And thirdly and finally, in terms of questions, if we were to adopt the county's ordinance tonight, what would that transition look like for hookah serving establishments as soon as the I'll I'll let you take it.

I will refer to my colleague.

Apologies. Yes. Thank you again the county.

Sure thing. So essentially, upon adoption and full implementation of your city's the adoption of the county's ordinance, we would work with each of the businesses, and specifically in this case regarding the hookah businesses, to ensure that observe their operation and ensure that they are not using any shisha tobacco on-site as it is considered a flavored tobacco in this ordinance. I know the state does prohibit that and provides an exemption for it, but the county's ordinance has decided to go stricter on this particular product. So we would ensure that that those products are not being used on-site.

Thank you. And just recognizing, as we heard from some of the businesses tonight that that would be a hardship, is there any leeway to provide time to transition, to diversify operations to or is it just as soon as the ordinance goes into the next thirty days after adoption, you Cold Turkey can no longer serve hookah?

Yeah. Essentially, once the ordinance is in place, the business any business, any tobacco related business is expected to be in compliance, whether it's obtaining a permit through environmental health as well as meeting all the restrictions. As Amanda pointed out, one of the differences as an example is the state does not specifically prohibit electronic smoking devices. However, the county's ordinance does. So the expectation was would be that as soon as the ordinance is fully implemented, that the business remove all electronic smoking devices from their premises for sale.

Thank you. And I appreciate you bringing that up. That is a good transition into the first question here for council consideration. And does the city council support strengthening tobacco retailer regulation, etcetera? Absolutely. I'm speaking for myself rather. Absolutely. It is a no brainer. We're experiencing a public health crisis. Smoking is part of that.

And but I do want to respond to some of the concerns that I heard earlier in that in concern about being targeted. And I wanna say that I'm sure it was very unintentional for us to consider this ordinance during in Muslim American Heritage Month, during Arab American Heritage Month. I can identify to a degree with the feelings of being targeted. And, you know, being a member of the LGBTQIA plus community, the smoking vapes affect my community very high rates. And so that is something that comes up for me as part of this discussion, not only because it's something that's personal to my community, but that we all know someone who is part of that community.

We have friends, family members, neighbors, coworkers. So it affects all of us, and it's all of our responsibility to address. And so I heartily agree with the first point there. As for the second point, this is challenging. You know, on the one hand, indisposable vapes are a chronic, you know, persistent pollutant in our waste stream nowadays.

Nowadays and be serving on the Rethink Waste Board for the county. We are supporting a bill, s b seven sixty two, that would prohibit the sale of ecigarettes of e vapes starting in 2028 because they end up in our waste stream. They cause fires that are toxic, and we don't have effective ways to dispose of them. So there's not only a public health argument for the the banning of the enforcement of the ban that we have in the county of on flavored tobacco, but there's an environmental argument as well. But as for hookah establishments, You know, I I heard loud and clear that there is near and dear cultural significance and a tradition that is rooted in the smoking of Huka, and it's definitely not my intention nor I think the city's intention to prohibit that or to hamper that.

As was mentioned by one of the speakers, you know, we we celebrate our diversity in Rapid City. And in terms of demonstrating our value of equity, it is important for us to, you know, support spaces where people can practice their cultural traditions. But at the end of the day, it is costly to the city, and we are facing a deficit starting in 2728. We have to consider carefully each dollar that we spend. But, you know, recognizing that there is a very narrow and defined pathway for, you know, hookah establishments to continue operating under state law.

You know, I am open to the alternative because of the value of the culture traditions that are represented as well as the revenue that is generated by our local businesses representing downtown where these three businesses reside. It is important to me and my responsibility to support and uplift small businesses. And so I look forward to my remaining colleagues' considerations and would like to continue the conversation.

Thank you.

Thank you, council member Sturkin. We'll go to vice mayor Aiken.

Thank you, mayor. So I really appreciate the conversation that we've had here tonight. And I'm trying to find my notes here. You know, some things that really so I really appreciate the businesses, the downtown businesses, the three hookah establishments that were grandfathered in during prior times. The significant thing to me is that they can still operate if they adopt tobacco free hookah, which other cities throughout the Bay Area, some have done successfully and are still in business.

And, you know, everything is counterbalancing. And so what you have on the one hand is an option for them to keep in operation. And on the other hand, my colleagues have adeptly put out some statistics, some things that I put on the margins of my notes here. Among California high school students who currently use tobacco, eighty four point five reported using flavored tobacco products, eighty nine point five used vapes, and seventy five point six used hookah. As my colleagues have said, our youth is our future, and we've known since the nineteen fifties how harmful tobacco is.

So while I am cognizant of the the cultural relevance of the hookah and the ambiance, and this is very important, and I do respect that. But counterbalanced is the danger, the very real danger for our youth to flavored tobacco. And I also think, you know, Redwood City already has, more than double the, smoking rate of San Mateo County in general. San Mateo County in general, adults, three point three percent of San Mateo County adults smoke versus in Redwood City, it's eight point five percent of adults. So we we need to catch up with the rest of San Mateo County, and it's just cost prohibitive for us to enforce a an an ordinance on our own.

San Mateo County, it sounds like to me, took many years, took several years to perfect the ordinance that they have now implemented, and they will implement it in our jurisdiction for free. And, I just can't in good conscience I I wanted to help the hookahs establishments a year or two ago when this last came before us, but this these additional statistics paired with the fact that hookah establishments can use nontobacco products and stay in business, it it's a no brainer to me. And I don't know this anyway, there there are a lot of statistics here that that show that smoking is a problem in Redwood City, and the anecdote of the woman who said that kids at MA know they can come to Redwood City to get their flavored tobacco no problem. We have 55 establishments that we it's it's past time. As as mister G mentioned, our our one of our priorities is children and youth.

And, yeah, I so I I will be supporting adopting the county ordinance. And and it's worth it to note, as I read in the staff report for my colleagues is it's a it's black and white. We either adopt the county's enforcement policy or we don't. We can't say, hey, which we tried to do a year ago. Hey. Could you enforce, but just give us, grandfathered in for the hookah? Or, hey. Could you and and the county was really, really clear. We asked you and, you know, go to the county and ask this. And they came back and they're like, no.

So we either adopt it or we don't, and I'm in favor of adopting, letting the county enforce, for us. I think it's best for our community.

Thank you, vice mayor. Any other comments before I begin my remarks? Not seeing any. Thank you to my colleagues, and thank you again to the members of the public for joining us this evening. Before I start my remarks, Amanda, thank you for the presentation. I had a quick question for our friends from the county. Just wondering if you could outline what steps would follow if we were to pass the county ordinance tonight.

There you go.

If the council proceeds to adopt the county's ordinance, our first efforts are to identify those businesses that are currently in existence through the state's California Department

of

Tax and Fee Administration's tobacco registry, and those would indicate which businesses currently are licensed within the city limits. We would initially conduct outreach to those businesses to ensure that they're aware of the new ordinance requirements, the expectation of the two inspections per year and the enhanced enforcement associated with an unapproved sale of flavored tobacco, electronic smoking devices and the like. So they would receive that outreach initially with to apply for a permit through the county. Once that's completed, we would be performing inspections soon thereafter. And I can't give you an exact date, but essentially, that would happen in short order.

Thank you so much. And could you quickly just describe what does an inspection look like of one of these shops when you would receive a complaint?

Sure. So these inspections are routine inspections. So they are unannounced, not complaint based. So we would be going out to the business to inspect to ensure that they're in compliance with the ordinance with, again, the prohibition on sale of electronic smoking devices, flavored tobacco products, ensuring they have proper signage about selling and what who's approved to sell the products, checking IDs and the like. So there's multiple line items that we check over while we're on-site. And again, that's two inspections per year, and they're unannounced.

Thank you. And when a business goes to to, you know, pull their renewed permit, Are there any inspections that have to happen at that point too, separate from the routine inspection of their of their shop?

So the inspections do necessarily associate with their renewal time lines. There's an annual fee and an annual renewal process that a business must follow. Our inspections, again, are unannounced, so they we don't necessarily tie them to a specific date of when they renew their permit. We also we do respond to complaints as well. If we do receive complaints of inappropriate items being sold on-site, we will respond to those complaints and conduct an inspection at that time.

Great. Thank you. That helps. And I appreciate to know just exactly what the process our next steps would look like. Right?

So I'll transition into my remarks. I want to start off by just thanking the businesses who are here and those who have joined us over Zoom to share their thoughts throughout this process. Our downtown is a destination because of how because of how active and how thriving our downtown is due to the businesses, the social spaces that are available to so many of our residents. And it's exactly why this council advocated so hard. Our staff advocated to the county, looked to our our partners around the county to find out what creative solutions we could do.

We even looked internally to what city driven processes we could do so that we could maintain the businesses that we have in the current state that they're in. Right? And I in this issue, it's home. SB seven ninety three was one of the the state bills that I had when I was a state staffer for senator Jerry Hill, and this issue was was a big part of that legislation. And it's a reason why there was a an exemption for hookah and at the state level.

And I and I know this puts our businesses in a a difficult position where they're gonna have to think about next steps, but this is really not about targeting the businesses that are upholding the current regulations. Right? This is about reversing the tide that we're seeing because we're losing progress. We're losing the progress that was gained with this most recent generation where, you know, there wasn't a lot of smoking. It was really on a decline, and I can say that in my youth, in high school, there were there were not that many people smoking, and that has dramatically changed.

By the time I was a staffer out of college, we were hearing about how vapes and e cigarettes had just completely targeted our youth again, and products and options are expanding. Like council member Howard mentioned, it's not just smoking anymore. There are other options available for people to consume tobacco and nicotine, and it's why we need just common standards, why we need these so we could just enforce the problem actors, right, who are operating, who are taking advantage of our youth, who know the rules, and who are bending them. And so I agree with my colleagues. I'll be supporting the staff's recommendation because there is a path forward where businesses can continue to operate hookah like we've seen in South City where it's a

a

nontobacco product that's offered. And so thinking about our our our youth and the next generation of folks who are are being targeted and being hooked on these products again. I'll be sort supporting the staff recommendation. And if councilor. Yeah.

Thank you, mayor. Just a quick follow-up comment. Again, I reiterate that I support enforcing regulations. I wish we could have done this differently. I really do.

I think we have lumped in together, I think, was mentioned, you know, some of our local businesses with bad actors, and that's just not not right. But at the end of the day, you know, we, as I mentioned before, are facing a public health crisis and communities that are being targeted by big tobacco, not by our businesses, not by so I'm deaf I am supportive of moving forward with the ordinance. I just wish there was I wish we could have given, like, a runway or some other kind of accommodation or support to our local businesses.

Thank you, council member Sturkin. Is there I

move to adopt the the staff's recommendation on adopting the county ordinance. Did I say that right, city attorney?

Yes. There are two recommendations. I'm guessing you're moving both staff recommendations to introduce waive the first reading and introduce the ordinance as well as set a public hearing for the second reading? Yes. Thank you.

That's what I'm moving.

Second.

Great. That was a motion from I believe that was council member Serkin.

Vice mayor Aiken.

I'm sorry. Vice mayor Aiken. Excuse me. Second. And seconded by council member Chu. Could we get a electronic vote, please?

The motion passes with five votes. Council members Padilla and Sterkin opposed.

Okay. Thank you, city clerk. Thank you, council colleagues for the robust discussion again on item nine a. With that, we will move on to item 10, our study sessions. Beginning with ten a, our study session where we'll be discussing the fiscal year twenty six to twenty seven capital improvement program or CIP, and our five year CIP study.

As a reminder, study sessions are for community and council feedback, and no action will be taken on this item tonight. City manager Patrick Heisinger will introduce the item, and then finance director Beth Goldberg, engineering and transportation director Tanisha Warner. And this it can't be right. I think we gave TK the night off. But we have his incredible team here to present on his behalf as well as assistance park and recs and community services director Lucas Wilder, as well as interim library director, Latora, who will give the presentation. Thank you all for being here.

Great. Thank you, Mayor. Patrick Heisinger, City Manager. Just really quick, I just want to express a lot of gratitude for every department. You will see the CIP is very similar to the budget document, where pretty much every department is in the mix here. For those who don't know, we really start the CIP plan, and we actually started it earlier this year, thanks to BEST recommendation. Thank you, Beth. Like going back to late September and October, for those who don't know, there's a lot of negotiation that goes on behind the scenes, especially on Fund three fifty seven. We'll get in the weeds here. So to get all the department heads to agree on the final recommendations takes some work, but

I

really appreciate everybody's efforts. Now the second point I want to hit on, it's no surprise now that one of my main objectives as your new city manager is to really do a comprehensive look at utilities, infrastructure and facilities next year. Some of that work is underway. You'll hear some tones on that in the presentation, and it is in the staff report as well. The final thing I'll mention is trying to show how this work is really coming to fruition.

You may recall a couple of years ago when the city studied looking at the community development department at that time, which was community development and engineering together and then through the organizational study, really split off those two departments. You're going to start to see that really at play here. And what I mean by that, I want to give a lot of gratitude to engineering department and Tunisia Warner is really engineering now is really taking over all the projects for all the cities. It's not territory at all. What I mean by that is the department say, Tanisha, really help us.

Because engineers know how to drive and lead projects. So you'll see a lot of projects on here. There's still some elements of projects that might have been started before, But we have a true fully functioning engineering department that is really dedicated on designing, breaking ground and delivering projects. You'll see some of that today. So with that, I want to turn it over to Beth to get us going. Thank you.

Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, and Council members. I'm looking at my my name is Beth Goldberg. I'm the Finance Director. And I'm looking at my friends over in the clerk's office because I'm kind of wondering if there's

a problem pulling up the PowerPoint. It's the technical problem with the computer, not your PowerPoint. We'll have it up in a second.

Okay. So shall we pause? Can I be so bold as or do you want me to Go ahead and start? Okay. Will You'll go ahead have to trust what I am showing you on the screen.

So the first slide, to keep this moving, would have shown you our budget schedule, and it would have shown that we are on April 27, and we are having our CIP study session. And that will be moving us forward to transmitting the budget to all of you on June 1 with the first budget study session on June 8 and then budget adoption, including the first year of the CIP, the appropriations for the first year of the CIP at your June 22 meeting. And in terms the next slide would have shown you that we were going to provide tonight a capital improvement program overview and kind of the funding environment that we're finding ourselves in. It will also cover the recommendations for the CIP budget that we are recommending to you tonight, and we'll provide you a summary of the five year CIP. The slide after that and thank goodness I printed it out.

The slide after that was oh, here we go. So if we could go to slide, I believe it's five. Before that one, four maybe. So as you're listening to the presentation tonight, the questions we have for the council is if there are any of the funding categories or projects that you would like to know more about. And we'd also like feedback from all of you about whether we have identified the right mix of capital projects for funding with our limited resources that are available.

And we'll, of course, take that feedback and incorporate that into the budget that we present to all of you in June. So let me see if I can get the clicker to work. I have a dark technology cloud over my head, starting with the PowerPoint not working and now the clicker not working. So if you can advance two slides. So I'm going to go into now an overview of the capital improvement program.

And as mentioned from the outset, we're presenting two things to you tonight, if you will. One is the year one CIP, and this would be the funding for the projects that we have outlined in year one of the CIP, and that will come to you for adoption in June. The one year CIP is part of the larger five year CIP, which we are required to submit every year, and that is a look, not just for year one, but also two, three, four, and five of projects that we anticipate on the horizon in years two through five. It's not funding for those projects, and in many cases you will see we don't have sufficient funding for those projects, but it is kind of the road map and the vision and the look ahead. So that's what we're talking about this evening.

If we can go to the next slide, please. One theme that you will hear me talking about tonight and that the council is keenly aware of from previous deliberations is the city's funding for CIP projects is really, really limited. We have a couple of buckets of money that we rely on. First is the general fund, and the primary source from there is the utility users tax. And if there's onetime funding available, onetime funding.

But you may recall from the midyear budget update that that we don't have as much of that as we used to. We also draw from special revenue funds. And within special revenue funds and also within the general fund well, maybe I'll stop there. With we grants are an important source of revenues for us, and we are actively seeking grants when we can to help offset costs. Impact fees are another source of funding.

Enterprise funds and rates, this is primarily water and sewer, can support those types of capital investments. And then similarly, capacity fees can also support water and sewer. In total, the twenty six-twenty seven CIP budget that we're recommending tonight is totals $40,500,000 from all of these sources. If we can go to the next slide, please. So the perennial funding gap.

So on this chart, this displays the five year CIP funding gap. And what you will see is for the next five year period, '26 through '31 at the far right, we're projecting a $427,000,000 shortfall over, the five years, meaning that we have needs that exceed anticipated resources by $427,000,000. And you'll see that that is actually a very similar gap to what we saw on the left side of this chart between for the five year period 'twenty four to 'twenty nine. The middle of this chart had a smaller gap, and the main reason for that is that last year we were able to identify and dedicate a substantial amount of one time fund balance from the general fund to boost our investment in the CIP program. So that's why the green chart the green bar in the middle there, estimated revenue, is so much higher than what you're seeing in the other two years.

If we could go to the next slide, please. So for year one of the CIP, the one that you'll be asking to approve for funding this year, as I mentioned, we're recommending $40,500,000 worth of investments. And that is not enough to have satisfied all of the requests we received. We received requests totaling $58,900,000 worth of recommended investments. So that leaves a gap of about $18,000,000 or onethree of the needs that had been identified were not able to fund in this year's CIP.

If we can go to the next slide, please. So the question is, why are we in this perpetual imbalance, the state of imbalance? And the first reason is that revenues to support capital projects are essentially stagnant. If you look over the last couple of years, they're at roughly $40,000,000 if you remove the onetime funds that we had found. And you'll see this particularly acutely when I talk about Fund three fifty seven, our capital operating fund, that those revenues are stagnant.

And the timing is unfortunate because costs, unfortunately, are not stagnant. There are inflationary pressures on capital investments. And in recent years, for a whole variety of reasons, the inflation on capital investments has actually been higher than your average inflation rate. We're also seeing aging infrastructure. We're seeing impacts on our infrastructure from climate change, population growth and increased and changing demands.

So there's upward pressure on the number of investments, the amount of investments that we need to make, but unfortunately, our revenues are not keeping pace. If we can go to the next slide, please. So the City Council, in adopting the budget, the twenty five-twenty six budget, expressed or directed staff to start looking at capital funding strategies so that we could identify a more sustainable mechanism or revenue sources to support all of these needs. And this slide is intended to give you all an update on where we are with this. We did have a kickoff meeting with the Finance and Audit Committee in February.

We are, on the verge of issuing an RFP to select a new municipal adviser. You may recall that Bill Eufrat was our previous municipal adviser. He last helped us with, refunding our water bonds. He retired, so we need to identify a new municipal advisor, and that's important to this process, because it's it's that municipal advisor that is going to be able to offer guidance and steer us along the way of debt financing, how to leverage and maximize revenues. So getting that individual or that firm on board is going to be very important.

You will also see in the CIP that we are talking about tonight that we are recommending funding being allocated in the CIP this year to support capital infrastructure and planning readiness. And so this will include, for example, a facilities assessment study that will allow us to really understand what our facility needs are, both from a one time capital investment, but also ongoing maintenance. So that work will be underway if council approves this funding. If we can go to the next slide. So this next slide gives you a breakdown of the types of funding allocated by functional area in this year's CIP.

And you will see that the most investments from a thematic perspective are coming from the Water and Sewer Fund. We also have investments made in transportation, storm water, parks. But the important thing about water and sewer is those are really the only two functional areas that we have a dedicated revenue source, and that is the water and sewer rates. Next slide, please. This now is a segue into the funding sources.

And again, you will see over, to the right that orange, nearly half of the pie is utility revenues. And then the magenta wedge over to the left is our other big funding source, and that's our utility user tax that we use to fund our general government investments. Next slide, please. Okay. So our utility user tax, the council by policy has allocated that utility user tax revenue to capital investments.

So we collect that revenue in the general fund, and we transfer it to the capital outlay fund to support general government capital investments. The problem with utility user tax revenues is this is largely stagnant. So we are anticipating collecting about $11,700,000 this year, and the forecast is suggesting we're gonna collect about the same amount next year. So essentially no growth. So this this small pot of money that is is not not really growing is is what we have to rely on.

You'll see a purple bar at the top, in twenty six-twenty seven and, twenty five-twenty six, and that is, one time fund balance that we true up with utility user tax when we see what the actuals come in. It also includes some interest. But in essence, we've got about 11,000,000 to $13,000,000 of kind of a reliable source. The blue bars in the previous years or the blue chunks were one time revenues that we had in the General Fund. Again, as the General Fund gets tighter, we don't have that flexibility.

So it's a modest amount of money that we have for general government investments. Next slide, please. Okay. One aspect of the capital outlay fund that we wanted to get the city council oriented towards is that this year with the utility user tax at 11.7 plus that one time money, that one time balance, we're projecting about $13,900,000 transferred from the general fund for capital investments. But there's an additional challenge on that fund in that during the Great Recession, a decision was made to, fund capital project related staff, also to the capital outlay fund.

And the cost of that complement of staff is about $4,500,000 So when you remove that from the $13,900,000 we have less than $10,000,000 to dedicate to capital investment. So that's another pressure point. And we are going to be looking as part of our capital work in the upcoming year of different ways for budgeting that staff so that we can maximize the utility user tax that we have available to invest in projects. So that's work that will be coming in the next year. Next slide, please.

Okay. So now we get to kind of the fun part, or maybe the fun part. The previous part was kind of boring. But the fun part of what is what we're recommending for funding in this year's CIP. And I'm not going to go through each item on this list, but I want you to be aware of the mix of projects that we're funding this year, and we have our CIP department directors here, and we're going to talk through a couple of highlights for all of you.

But this is the complement of projects that we're recommending for funding in twenty sixtwenty seven. If we could go to the next slide, please. And now the bad news, Beth, slide, which is we wanted to provide also a summary for you in light of in an effort to be transparent of the projects that we are not recommending for funding, because not because we don't think these projects are worthy, it was just the dollar amounts were limited. So these were the requests we received that are being deferred or delayed and not being funded in twenty sixtwenty seven. If we could go to the next slide after that one.

And then back to good news, Goldberg. Here are some highlights, a summary, and again, in the interest of time not going through all of these, but we have the department directors here if folks have any questions about them. These are projects that are recently or will be completed this year. And while we don't have a lot of money and as much money as we would like to have, we are making an impact and are able to be making some important investments as this slide indicates. And with that, I'm going to step back and turn it over to the department directors to share with you highlights of what we're recommending for funding this year, starting with Tanisha Warner.

Thank you, Beth. Good evening, City Council staff. My name is Tanisha Werner. I'm the Director of Engineering and Transportation. And tonight, I'm going to talk about engineering's CIP. So if we could go to the next slide, please. So before we really dive into CIP, the most important part of our CIP is our planning process. Construction gets the most flash, but planning is really where a lot of the work happens. We have utility master planning, and that's with our recycled water master plan. We have, utilities master plannings for sanitary sewer, where we look at our collection system as well as our pipe capacity.

And then we have our stormwater planning. And through stormwater planning, we have a few different items. About a year ago, we presented a stormwater road map, which was just a blueprint of the bones of a stormwater master planning process. And this coming fiscal year, we'll be diving into our stormwater master planning. Planning is also important for the maintenance and the replacement of our current infrastructure.

A lot of our infrastructure is aging, and it does need to be replaced or resized in order to meet the demands of our continuing to grow community. We have this huge network of future growth in our downtown area, but also in all areas of the city, and the network has to be able to support that growth. And then finally, flood protection. So the picture on the bottom is from a few years ago. We had some pretty significant storm events, which led to flooding.

For flood protection, we're looking at capacity study for Redwood Creek. We're looking at strengthening and improving our levees that surround Redwood Shores, and we're also looking at our stormwater master planning process. Next slide. Two projects that I'm thrilled to highlight that are ongoing projects. The first is our largest project right now under active design, and that is the State Route 84 U.

S. 101 interchange reimagine project. This project is located at Woodside Road and Highway 101. It will replace an irregular five legged intersection with a more standard four legged intersection, increasing bicycle and pedestrian facilities as well as access for freight to and from our port. We have an estimated cost of $384,000,000 and we're thrilled to say that we are 100% at our funding approval level for construction.

We're currently in the right of way acquisition phase, and we are looking forward to going into bidding and construction later this calendar year. The second project that I'm really happy to highlight is the Roosevelt Avenue permanent build traffic calming project. This project is many, many years in the making. It started with its planning in 2020. And in 2024, we did some quick build improvements, which introduced new ramps, some striping improvements and some really good connectivity improvements for a bicycle network.

This project is really bringing some of the concepts from our transportation plan, which is Walk, Bike, Thrive to life. It has a current estimated construction budget of $4,700,000 and we are just finishing up design right now and looking forward to break ground early next calendar year. Next slide. So looking at some of our project recommendations, I'll start with the utility side. On our utility side, we have collection system and capacity improvements for our sanitary sewer pipe.

We also have water tanks, water pump stations and a cathodic protection program, which helps to take care of corrosive soils and help better protect our pipes so they last a little longer. Our next biggest project that is in active design is the Redwood Shores Sea Level Rise Protection Project. This project has an estimated or projected construction cost of about $200,000,000 and we are marching towards 60% design development in order to meet some deliverables for a FEMA grant. And then finally, want to wrap up utilities with 707 Bradford. This is a creek bank repair project that we are just about done with design, and we'll be ready to secure our construction funding.

Next slide. And then moving on to our transportation projects. Right now, the city is partnering with Caltrain to look at the six at grade crossings in Redwood City and do grade separation for those. We are currently in preliminary stages of that process and entering into the environmental stage. We have a grant that's worth about $15,000,000 and that grant is going to be used to fund our environmental stage.

We also have Page Street Bike Boulevard. This project is taking care of the entirety of Page Street from Marsh to 2nd Avenue or 2nd Street, and it is 100% located in one of our equity priority areas. It is going to be adding more connectivity to our bike network, and we are very thrilled to be moving this one forward. We're doing some really good work on our traffic calming program as well. So we are getting a huge influx, which is wonderful, of traffic calming requests from our various neighborhoods.

The number that we're getting and the complexity really means that our analysis takes a little bit more time, but we're working really closely with the communities to really figure out what their area of concern or their priority areas of concern are and to see what we can do to help alleviate some of those congestion concerns. And with that, I'm happy to pass it to your Assistant Director of Public Works Services, Adrian Lee.

Thank you, Tanisha. Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor and City Council members. As Tanisha mentioned, my name is Adrian Lee. I'm the Assistant Public Works Director. We did, in fact, give Terrence the night off. So I'm just going to run through some of the project recommendations from Public Works Services. Many of them might look familiar as many of them are kind of on an annual or ongoing basis. So I will just go through them. First is the Bayfront Canal and Coradillaris Creek annual maintenance. And this is annual maintenance that's done to clear sediment and debris to help minimize flooding risks.

We also have a closed circuit television program. This allows us to video cam the sewer lines throughout the city to prioritize repairs and maintenance. The electric vehicle supply equipment and infrastructure program, so this one is new. This one is funding that's required for a matching grant from PCE. You heard earlier tonight about PCE providing a grant to the City of Redwood City for electric EV charging infrastructure and equipment.

So that's fulfills our portion of the matching grant. This would allow us to install EV charging infrastructure and equipment to support our fleet transition from gas to electric. We also have the HVAC program, a replacement program. This project is going to replace HVAC at several different facilities where the HVAC has kind of reached the end of its useful life. Some of the facilities such as PD, Public Works or Red Morton GM are kind of the contenders for this.

Last on this slide is the municipal regional stormwater permit compliance, and this is to assist the city with meeting requirements set by the Water Board, including a requirement to reduce trash loads by 100%. Towards that end, we accomplish that in a variety of different ways, but one of those is through the installation and maintenance of trash capture devices. Next slide, please. Top very top of this list is Pump and Controls Replacement Program. So this is for the repair and maintenance of 31 different sewer pump stations.

This is such as to help reduce the likelihood of sewer spill and backups throughout the city. We have a roof replacement program. This program looks at repairing or replacing roofs of various buildings. Some of the notables include PD, Fair Oaks, CAB, which again have, know, due to aging infrastructure have reached the end of their useful life. We have third bullet down is the supervisory control and data acquisition system rehabilitation.

That's an awful this is SCADA. So the SCADA is a supervisory control and data acquisition. So this is SCADA for both water and sewer. This project would fund the hardware and software that's used to monitor and control both the wastewater and water systems. This allows us to control it remotely or on-site.

Fourth bullet down, tenant improvement program. So this project this is a project to for the maintenance and preventative maintenance of our city facilities throughout. So this includes fire stations, community centers, libraries, city hall, the police department, public works, all of the major buildings. And last but not least, we have the water tank cathodic protection system replacement. So this is a project that's just used to extend the useful life of our water tanks through corrosion protection.

So similar to one of the programs that Tanisha mentioned for the pipes, this is a similar vein we try to protect and extend the life of our water tanks. And that's all the projects for public works. I thank you very much for your time. At this point, I'd like to pass it on to Lucas Wilder, assistant director for Parks Recreation and Community Services.

Thank you very much, Adrian. Lucas Wilder, Assistant Director for Parks, Recreation and Community Services. Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, Council members. A couple of projects to speak about tonight. Recommendation is the demolition of the existing senior center and parking improvements, and this is part of the agreement our obligations with the agreement with the YMCA to demo the existing veterans building and then make the improvements throughout Red Morton Park that came before the council previous this year in regards to slight adjustments to parking lots in the area where we've realized that they're just inefficiently striped or lined or something like that or adjustments can be made.

Additionally, synthetic turf replacement programs, so this is some funding to help contribute to the design development of the next field at Red Morton Park. That's we additionally have to address some drainage issues and things like that. So it will take us a little bit of time to kind of work through like some of the things that we've been doing this storm season with some infrequent rains and kind of monitoring drainage and flow rates through different sections of the park and things like that. And then lastly, public art would be funded as part of the recommendations for this year. And that is it, and I will pass it over to Interim Director, Sarah

They're all so tall. Good evening, counsel. Sarah Latoura, Interim Library Director. I'm here to talk about potential new bathrooms in the downtown library. This project would address security issues, improve lighting, and it would improve the enclosed spaces that we currently have.

Currently what we have is single occupancy bathrooms in our children's section that are used by the whole public because these are the only all gender restrooms in the facility, and what we would like to replace is to take our women's and men's bathroom and turn all of those that area into single use bathrooms with a shared sink space, and it'd be a much more open space. So not only would this improve customer experience, but would address security concerns of these enclosed spaces that are used for bathing, that have other problematic behavior that we've witnessed, and then this would also allow for improved lighting and just a better experience overall. Let's see. This project, in case you're wondering about where did the budget number come from, is we did do an estimate with zone four construction to just develop an estimated budget. And then we will work on a design phase and then hopefully be able to go out to bid if this project is approved.

And that's all for me, and I'll turn

it back over to Beth.

Okay. So I'm going to wrap up the presentation, and then we'll turn it over to you for discussion with a brief overview of the five year CIP. So this slide here lists the projects that are included in the five year CIP. And we'll remind you that this is where the tension between the desires and the amount of revenue really comes to play. What we're recommending in the first year CIP is what we can fund.

So that funding gap I spoke about earlier really comes out in these future years. If we could go to the next slide, please. We do have an online portal for you to look at the recommended projects, and this slide provides you links to that online portal for you to take a look at, at your leisure. And if we could go to the next slide, I will wrap up by reminding you of the questions we would like you to consider as you're deliberating this evening, The first of which is, are there any funding categories or projects that you would like to hear more about? And are we identifying the right capital projects for funding with the funds available in this upcoming fiscal year?

And with that, I'll turn it back over to all of you for discussion.

Thank you, Beth, and the whole team for the great presentation today. We really appreciate it. Before we bring it back to council, we will take public comment on this item, and I'll turn it over to our city clerk to facilitate.

Thank you, mayor. We do have two speaker cards. Last call to the audience or anyone else on Zoom. Did you fill

out speaker cards already? Perfect.

So you must be our two speakers then this evening. Kate Allison, you are the first speaker. And then Ed Connolly, you will follow. Yes.

Welcome.

My name is Kate Allison, and I live in Eagle Hill in Rapid City. This is actually the second time I have spoken to this council, and I have had many independent meetings with many of you about my vehement dislike for the Lori Duncan Park project that is on the CIP for the five year plan. I've been very disappointed in the response from leadership on this project with not wanting to address the fact that there's a large swath of constituents who are against the street closure at Southgate. We haven't had a lot of addressing the traffic concerns and the safety concerns from the closure of that street, and the citizens haven't been listened to on the concern about both pedestrian and traffic safety as a result of that street closure. I feel like we've already suffered thirteen months of these ugly orange barriers through blight on our neighborhood, and I'm really not willing to continue to look at it for another thirteen months while this council decides whether or not they're willing to put money, almost $1,000,000 into some projects that hasn't been discussed with the community in any way, shape or form and continues to be said that the community supports it without any backup proof and no continued community meetings.

Thank you.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Ed Connolly. Welcome.

Hi. My name is Ed Connolly. And I wanted to come I don't get out much, but I wanted to come here and at least voice my opinion about this Lori Duncan project and the traffic calming. You know, I'd really appreciate it if while people are deciding what to do on this project, if those orange barriers can be removed, please. And if the astroturf that's been soiled by many, many dogs using it, if that could also be removed, and there's a few park benches there that are temporary in nature if those could be removed, and basically restore the park back to its original luster.

And that will help everybody kind of calm their own harsh feelings about the park itself. In terms of the traffic, I don't know what to think about that. I think if you expand your study of the traffic, you may find that there is a lot of congestion on both Whipple and Hopkins. Hopkins because there was a project there, a beautification project where they put in trees and so forth, that road was difficult to navigate for a period of time. And, you know, traffic is a lot like water.

It finds its own level. And so people, when they're stuck in traffic, will seek the path of least resistance and that happened to be Brewster. And I think that's what temporarily caused a lot of the problems on Brewster, but that's calm. And Whipple is a different story because when that Caltrain passes over, it it can be congested there for eight to ten minutes and traffic will build up on Whipple all the way back to Hudson. And if you expand your study of the traffic, you may find that that's the culprit with excess traffic on Brewster.

And I think you could save yourself a little bit of money by just restoring the park to its original luster and spend the money on more important projects. Thank you.

Thank you. And with no virtual speakers, I'll turn it back to you, Mayor.

Great. Thank you, Jessica, and thank you to our two public speakers for hanging with us this evening. And I will bring it back to council for any council member questions or comments. Council member Howard, thank you.

You're welcome. I have a couple of questions before I have comments. Lucas, would you mind coming to the microphone? I have two questions for you. Yes.

The money that would be used regarding the future YMCA project. I've spoken to a number of people on the board and people involved with the YMCA. There's a lot of uncertainty about when they're going to begin. It feels like not in the next even couple of years. I don't know what the status is of that, but my concern is if we have this money and we do this, if the project isn't going to get started for some time, could you address that maybe we should put this at a later date to be addressed or maybe you have better information than I do about the YMCA site that currently is occupied by the old Veterans Memorial Senior Center?

I'm not having the higher level discussions with the YMCA in regards to the like the actual time that they're looking to move forward with. I do know that they have submitted plans to the city and their current the city's building department is currently working through those plans, and so I'd say that they're making progress on that side of things. But I'd say that the city is obligated to under the agreement move forward with the times that are set forth in there. Should there be some adjustment to those times, think that that would come back to the city manager for further discussion about some adjustments at that point.

Thank you. What I would say is it is unlikely that they will break ground next year. Everything Lucas just said, they do have building plans in or what, but they're still slow on the fundraising aspect of it. I think from a budgeting perspective, we do have an obligation currently that's bound by an agreement. So we would like to put the money aside, but it could be maybe two years or whatnot. But we would not demo the building unless we knew they're moving forward with the YMCA project.

I'm sure the seniors will be happy to hear that. But you're putting a place mark with the money so that it's there, so that we can keep our obligation when the time comes.

Correct.

Okay. Thank you. That answers my question. The second question well, it's not even a question. I'm happy to hear that can you tell me more about the public art? There are a lot of people in this community pretty excited to hear you say that.

Redwood City is the 1% for public art ordinance and part of the capital improvement fund, 1% of that is set aside for public art. And that's money that our arts commission kind of allocates through different processes that they have throughout the year. So some of that could be utility box murals or other murals in the community and things like that. I don't have the specifics on the sub programs that they're going to be contributing to this year. But the city through its ordinance does have an obligation to kind of set aside those funds to help fund it year after year.

So if people were wondering how they could find out more, I would say tune into the agendas of the Art Commission? Correct. I'll do that. Thank you. That's good news.

I have a question for Adrian. Adrian, I heard a lot about the trash capture devices. And I've heard that they're so successful that it's really helping with flooding issues down where we have right next to the water level. And so could you tell me this sounds like a good investment that we are going to be but we've been using them for some time. Is this expanding the use of them or is it replacing what we currently have?

So both. It's, you know, the plans to eventually expand the usage of them as well as replace existing so, you know, they have a useful life like anything else as they age and require replacement that's part of it. But it's also to help maintain them as well. So both.

Well, I know people kayaking out in the creeks, they were saying that they've noticed that it makes a tremendous difference in capturing the debris because they've been cleaning up and helping us out for years, but they're noticing an improvement using those devices. So good for you. I'm glad you're using them. Thank you. And my final question, I don't know who to give this to, but we've heard twice, three times tonight about Lori Duncan Parkway. So I thought, let's just rip the band aid off and talk about it because I wasn't aware. I don't think I was aware that there was a real problem with that.

I'll let Lucas take a shot at it.

Yes. So about a year or so ago, our colleagues in engineering and transportation brought forth the kind of traffic calming that they wanted to see implemented over on Brewster as a result of kind of community input, our feedback regarding accidents, unsafe driving conditions, things like that. The intersection at the park and with Brewster is kind of a regular large five way intersection. So it creates a significant amount of space for cars to Donuts, other things like that. So when they came to us and said that they wanted to look at shutting down the section of it in between to see how that could impact kind of a lot of these traffic issues that they were having, we had also looked at possibilities for Lori Duncan Park as part of the 2017 Park Needs Assessment and recognizing that it would help serve a section of the city that's further away from kind of an active park.

There aren't any active recreational amenities there. And we could use that street space to kind of like pilot some very basic things that you could set up that don't require fall zones and all the other things that you run into when you actually build like a park and a playground. So we worked together to kind of figure out what looked like a more proper four way intersection to create like a proper traffic pattern in that area. The city has the orange barricades that are out there in stock. And so the Parks Department uses them for various things throughout the year.

So these aren't rental units or anything, and so we deployed them on-site in order to kind of implement the closure and the footprint that you see there. We held a meeting last April with neighbors to discuss. We heard from both neighbors that were for the closure and those that were against the closure. They didn't want to see any changes, but decided to kind of like leave the closure in place. A little bit later, we did a traffic count looking at the impact of the kind of diversion rates of vehicles onto the side streets or something like that, and didn't see any significant increase on traffic counts to the surrounding streets or anything like that.

And had reports anecdotally from neighbors of hearing both on the sides of there's increased traffic on mine and others reporting that their street is no longer a like shortcut or something like that to the like kind of James Jefferson, Gem Streets that are beyond there. And so we've left the closure in place as the department has kind of looked at other options for that section of Street and with the delay of funding that would just kind of delay our ability to kind of implement any significant change. And at that point, with the ability to do that, we would bring forth the kind of public input process to look at what that actually looks like moving forward.

Well, mean, I'm hearing complaints and it's been a year since the public's been asked to weigh in on this. I'm wondering would it be time to have a meeting, a neighborhood meeting, and just talk about it and go over possible plans but get input. I'm just thinking that I'd like to have more citizen input from the people in that neighborhood before we do anything permanent. Would that be something we could do?

Yeah, we can definitely look at opportunities there.

Okay. Well, I'm not sure that

Sorry, the time for public comment ended, but if you can reach out, we'll make sure we answer any questions afterwards. Thank you.

Well, would imagine you'd have the engineers as well as parks involved. It wouldn't just be parks and rec because I know a lot of this is around engineering.

We could look to bring our partners in engineering over also.

And have that conversation. That would be really appreciated, I'm sure, if the neighbors could weigh in. And then nobody rushes into anything. You take it all in and see what needs to be done next. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. That may not be the end of that conversation, but I always feel better at least if we have communication with the neighborhood and let them get it out, what's working in your opinion and what's not. So I'm hoping we can do that. But thanks, Lucas.

Thank you. I think I've been through a few of these budget hearings and CIP discussions over the years, just a few. And what I do know is that our staff, every department is involved in this planning. Every single department, including finance and legal. Hundreds of hours are spent really making these decisions and it's probably like going into a room and all coming out and saying, Well, I'll give you this if you give me that.

Kind of a checks and balances for every department. So the last thing in the world I choose to do is to nitpick at something and try to move the pieces around. I'll tell you why. Because when you know there's probably hundreds of people who've had their fingerprints on this document. If I take something out, something else is going to fall through the cracks.

And I have to think about that. I can't just move things around. So I look it over really carefully. I see things that maybe I don't know about and ask questions about them. But at the end of the day, I trust our city staff because I know how much time and effort you put into this, and you care so much about our community. You try to do it all, but you're smart enough to know you can't. And that I really appreciate too. You're giving us the honest feedback we need to hear. We can't do it all, but we can do phases, and this is what we're suggesting. So I want to thank you for that, each and every one of you, because this was hard work.

And thank you, Patrick. You're probably the orchestration director of the and before you, Melissa. But thank you. I really appreciate this report very much. I'm on the Finance and Audit Subcommittee. I'm really looking forward to our work ahead. I really am because I know you're going to be doing studies regarding well, of all, we want to get a fiscal consultant. I think that's absolutely necessary. Let's figure out how we can do all the work that we want to do. And these master plans in facilities and other parts of Redwood City, there's going to be a recycle master plan, levy, storm water, and sewer.

These master plans are going to help us plan for the city's future. And we hope this financial consultant is a magician and will be able to help us figure out how we're going to pay for all of this. And so I'm really looking forward to my work on that committee. And I was told that this October that we're going to have presented with funding opportunities for the future. So I look forward to October.

But between now and then, we're working with this, and I want to say I support your efforts. I support your recommendations. I hope you'll always continue to look for grant opportunities. I know you do. But I really appreciate that you continue looking because you never know what you can find. And I think that's it. We'll see if we can find ways to raise revenues. We'll always look for those. But right now, I think what you're doing is great, and I really appreciate the work you presented tonight. Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Howard, for getting us started here. Who would like to go next? Council member Sturkin.

Thank you, mayor. Thank you to all the staff for your hard work. You're doing a lot with a little, and it's very impressive and quite a feat. So firstly, thank you. I would like to just ask some questions.

You know, firstly, talking about transportation then parks. So starting with transportation, specifically parking, And I wanted to ask you let me just get the title of the program right with regards to the alright. So the county parking garage parking permit program, I think it was. And so could you director Warner, think you you had already answered one of my questions, very healthily, and you had said that the program, is meant to serve, you know, downtown employees. Right?

And when you mentioned that, just to get a

little

clarification, which employees in downtown does that include?

Thanks for the question. So it's not geared to city employees Mhmm. But employees of restaurants, some of the businesses downtown.

That is really great to hear because that is a need that I've heard consistently from employees at on Broadway in the pedestrian mall, you know, at Bushwalkers on Broadway, the Arenes. However, none of them mentioned that we have this program specifically at the county garage. Right?

Mhmm.

So I wonder if maybe there's some additional outreach we can do to employees at local businesses. But I also wonder if maybe a parking garage that's a little bit closer to home, so to speak, might be a better candidate for this program, specifically the Marshall Street garage and the Top Floor at that. Anecdotally, what I've heard from employees is that it's underutilized, never full. We've had incidents occur because the parking garage is underutilized, including, you know, someone falling from the second story at one point. And, you know, kids messing around up there, to put it lightly.

Right? So if there's a way that we can activate that space through maybe this program or otherwise while also meeting a need of local workers that are, you know, serving our community, that is definitely something I'm interested in. But it's definitely a creative and helpful program, and I appreciate you helping me understand the purpose and value of it more clearly. Thank you.

Thank you.

Alrighty. And then traffic calming. So, you know, I was gonna ask about this. So I can remember last year asking when we would allow for the collection of digital signatures and expanding the definition of 50% of representatives in the project in a given project area to include all residents, not just people who are property owners, and also offering the form in multiple languages. May I ask, do we have an update on where we're at with that?

So I I will introduce our principal transportation planner, Malohat O ring, to give you

an answer.

Thank you. Thank you, Malhot.

Hello. I'm Malhot Oraeng, principal transportation planner with Transportation Division. We did create a subcommittee of our Transportation Advisory Committee, TAC, consists of three TAC members. They're currently working to update our policy, which is, I believe, about twelve years old. So we are in the process of updating policy.

I assume it will be at least one year process. At some point, City Council will see that. So the way we are going to evaluate the request will be different with the new proposed policy. Sending the notifications for traffic calming, we always do both tenants and owners because we do have the inner GIS database. When we do communicate, we communicate with people who live one block at two sides of a corridor, including tenants and owners. Did I answer your question?

You you did. Thank you. But just to clarify, only people who are who are property owners can sign. Right? No. Tenants are not allowed?

No. It is both. It doesn't so the when we receive the petition, it doesn't matter if they own the property or they're renting it. As long as they live within one block at two sides of the corridor, their signatures are counted.

Okay. That's great to hear. I because I misunderstood the program. Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay.

And the residential parking permit program. Our favorite. It's time for a downtown residential parking permit program. I've heard it consistently from residents through downtown neighborhood association meetings, residents getting regularly ticketed. So I'm glad, you know, our, you know, code enforcement is doing their job, but it is coming at a cost to residents who simply, are parking their cars.

And so that's something I'm interested in us looking into in the future, as part of the existing framework. And everything I'm suggesting right now is within the existing framework. I'm not asking for new funding, recognizing we don't have much to choose from here. Okay. And then moving on to parks.

So the Bayfront Canal and Cordilleras Creek annual maintenance. I was really glad to see thank you, Adrian, that the amount for that increased slightly to a 180,000 from, like, a 150,000, I think it was. Maybe that's inflation, but it it was nice to see. And I appreciated, and I agree with council member Howard's, you know, valuing of the trash capture devices and how effective those are in reducing flooding and pollution at the same time. And so I'll say it again.

I would love to see us include a trash capture device on Cordilleras Creek. That's something that the neighborhood is fixated on. And based on what I've heard here, would be effective, an interim measure while we figure out the long term vision of the Cordillera's Creek. So, Adrienne, could you please answer this question? Is it possible for us to put a trash capture device on Cordillaris Creek?