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2008 Redwood City "State of the City" Address
Presented January 10 and January 30, 2008
A Look Forward
by Mayor Rosanne Foust
Good morning everyone!
When you signed up for today’s program or if you’re a resident who may eventually tune in to this program on our local cable access channel you are expecting a State of the City address…both a look back and a look ahead.
Vice Mayor Howard provided an excellent look back to where we’ve been in Redwood City over the past year and all that has been accomplished. It is tremendous and there is much to be proud of. For me this will be more of a “State of Mind….of the City” address.
I have spent the last several weeks walking that tightrope in my mind about whether to deliver a cheery, peppy, enthusiastic, and energetic look ahead - or whether to stand up here and bring up some rather uncomfortable, although…possibly… thought-provoking observations about our community.
Neither approach in my mind would tell you the whole story or even get a coherent message across. On one hand going with the peppy, "we’re terrific, we have no issues" approach would have many of you saying “she just doesn’t get it…there are problems, her head is in the sand.”
On the other hand being the bearer of doom and gloom and showcasing the ugly warts on our community isn’t the best way to encourage insightful thought and engaged participation.
So I decided that the best way to approach this dilemma is to tackle both because I truly believe that we are in this together and in order for us to be a healthy and strong community we need a combination of optimism and realism rolled together, paving the path for our future.
I want to use this “State of the City” opportunity to encourage you to take a good hard look at Redwood City and decide what you can do personally, and with your friends, your neighbors, and your business associates to make this community into what we all know it can and should be. Before we can get there… we all need to ask ourselves the following question and be honest about the answer.
WHO IS REDWOOD CITY? For me right now…. at this place in time… it is a city and ….more importantly…. a community divided. It is divided geographically by El Camino Real, Woodside Road, Highway 101, the Alameda, Jefferson, Whipple, and the Caltrain tracks.
It is divided by its neighborhoods, by its ethnic make-up and by its socio-economic diversity. More significantly though, it is a community divided by its ambivalence to change or in other words to what was, what is and what could be.
First I think all of us need to acknowledge and recognize that Redwood City is not the City it was 50 years ago, 30 years ago, 15 years ago or 5 years ago. It is a City that has undergone change. For some, the changes have been very positive…downtown and Courthouse Square bring back that central meeting place feel of many years ago. You can meet friends at concerts in the summer, at hometown holidays or for dinner on a Friday night or tea in the afternoon.
For others the downtown means traffic, parking meters, empty storefronts and a move towards urbanization that feels wrong.
In our neighborhoods, some people believe that houses being remodeled, different ethnic groups moving in and adding to our cultural diversity are positive changes. Others see this as monster homes and illegal immigration.
The addition of business parks like Westport in Redwood Shores and Pacific Shores at the end of Seaport Boulevard, the world headquarters of Oracle and EA and now Stanford Medicine have both supporters and detractors. The supporters point to workforce development and skilled jobs, increased revenues for the city coffers and a diverse range of businesses that support economic shifts. Detractors point to traffic, pollution, use of resources, especially water and the potential impact on city services like police and fire.
As you can see through these and many other examples there are both positive and negative impacts of change. That being said I come back to us as a community managing change and not having change manage us. What we need to do from all our different perspectives is to understand that we have the ability and the opportunity to manage change going forward. If we don’t take this seriously or learn how to effectively manage change IT will manage us.
That brings me to what I perceive as one of our biggest warts…one that needs to be laid squarely on the table….it can no longer be an “us and them” mentality as it relates to change. Please do not mistake what I said to mean growth versus no growth. It is far more complex than that limited concept... It is the knowledge that change is here and it always has been and always will be. We need to focus on our ability to guide and direct it, not fight it or ignore it or say it doesn’t have to happen.
Human nature points to us not liking or wanting change but…. like growing older we acknowledge it as a reality and we manage to it. We can do that in Redwood City, without compromising our values because we are an intelligent and committed community. But we need to do it together, not separate, and not divided.
If we don’t get a handle on this, learn the word compromise, get over winning and losing and open our eyes to the needs of the entire community and the personal responsibility that we all have living here we will continue to be a divided community. It is what I fear the most as a policy maker!
Let me be more specific and bring this message of personal responsibility and managing change to three particular interest groups…the development community, the business community and our downtown merchants/building owners.
For the development community….Redwood City is not the place anymore to get "any old project" approved. Think about added value, community benefit and existing zoning. You have a proactive council, a dedicated and smart city staff and a community that expects quality development whether it is office, industrial, or residential. The days of being grateful for anything that comes our way is over. Now it’s about what social, economic and community related benefits you will put on the table. Learn how to give and take. Council recently sent back a project along Woodside Road because it wasn’t acceptable to the neighbors, the Council or the staff. The project was modified, the developer, neighborhood and staff worked together and a better project emerged and was passed. Compromise has the ability to create a healthier, more balanced long term relationship built on mutual benefits. Peninsula Park and the Preserve in Redwood Shores were both approved following the path of compromise.
For the business community…help us retain and attract quality employers that get the concept of community. Become a partner on the Redwood City team and weave yourself and your employees into our community fabric by participating and helping our non-profits, our schools and our city become stronger. We have so many outstanding businesses here in Redwood City that fully support and respect this concept. Help us identify and attract others.
For our downtown property owners and merchants…stop waiting for the city to bring you business. The revitalization of downtown took time, patience and energy from all of us and millions of dollars in public money that flowed into creating an environment that you could grow and thrive in. Things are not perfect but we are actively working to fix those issues. I am asking you to look at the successful newcomers and start fixing up those dilapidated storefronts, putting pressure on absentee landlords to make changes and encouraging those who spend more time complaining and promising to get off the dime.
Your time is now and we the residents deserve better. I just have to look to an article in yesterday’s San Jose Mercury News to illustrate a proactive approach. The San Jose Downtown Property Owner’s Association has started a program called GroundWerx that provides 10 ambassadors who will be acting as downtown concierges. The funding came from this property owner’s association voting to tax themselves last year to raise $1.6 million for this program.
Going forward we have some very large issues facing our community…decreased revenues due to the overall economic climate, the state budget situation, the housing market, finite water supply, dysfunctional education system and an aging workforce.
Coming together in the months and weeks ahead, Redwood City has many opportunities for you to be a part of our future. Tonight, the City Council and Planning Commission will hold a joint workshop kicking off our new General Plan. Over the next 20 months we will join together as a community to define, describe and design Redwood City’s roadmap and blueprint for the future. This will relate to land use, economic development, cultural and natural resources, transportation and critical infrastructure needs. Join us, have your voice heard.
In addition the City Council is working with our Interim City Manager to design and implement a city-led public outreach process regarding the Cargill lands. Over the last year I have watched our community line up on opposite sides of this issue and it is very discouraging as both a resident and public official to see the rhetoric, misinformation and polarizing tactics again play out in our community. I ask everyone to please step back and work with us in defining what the majority of residents want for this area. It doesn’t have to be all or nothing and to continue along that vein is to continue fostering a divided community. We deserve better.
Other opportunities to be a part of our community’s future include our Partnership Academy for Community teamwork, our annual recruitment for boards, committees and commissions and our February 7th “Cool Campaign” kickoff.
In addition, on February 25th the Council will begin setting its priorities for the next two year budget cycle beginning July 1st. Two community meetings are being held to get your input for this priority setting, the first was held last week and the second will be this Thursday, January 31st. Again have your voice heard.
In conclusion I want to leave you with two thoughts that circle back to this tightrope walk in my mind between optimism and realism. From the optimism side my motto for the Redwood City community for the next two years is Redwood City Pride…even with our ambivalence about change and what is good and not so good I would bet that each of us can find something in our community to be proud of. Think about your neighborhood, the non-profit you are involved with, your front lawn or garden, your job, your children’s school, your religious community or whatever it is that you can say “hey, that makes me proud.” Reflect on it each and every day.
From the realism side I want to share with you an inside tip on a bank that we all have direct access to. Imagine a bank that credits your account each morning with $86,400, carries over no balance from day to day, allows you to keep no cash balance and every evening cancels whatever part of the amount that you didn’t use during the day. What would you do? My guess is you would draw out every penny every day.
Well we all have such a bank. Its name is TIME.
Every morning it credits you with 86,400 seconds. Every night it writes off as lost, whatever of this you have neglected to invest to a good purpose. It carries no balance. It allows no overdraft. Every day it opens a new account for you. Each night it burns the records of the day. If you fail to use the day’s deposit, the loss is yours. There is no going back, and there is no drawing against tomorrow.
There is never enough time or too much time. There is exactly the same amount of time in every day…and it is our decision how to spend it. My commitment to you and the Redwood City community is to spend a share of my time bank on working the issues and striving to add value as your Mayor.
Thank you for “spending” your time to listen to us today.
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