Annual Meeting

A few weeks ago, RSCA hosted our Annual Meeting at the Redwood Shores Library. This is one of our most important regular events as it brings leaders and staff from Redwood City and the Belmont-Redwood Shores School District to the Shores to speak about issues that matter to us.

This year, about 100 community members attended and heard presentations from Mayor Jeff Ira and Council Member Jeff Gee on the state of the City and Redwood Shores and from Dr. Emerita Orta-Camilleri on the School District budget and developments at our Elementary and Middle schools. We also heard from Interim City Manager Bob Bell and Acting Police Chief Ed Hernandez. Their messages were similar — money is tight, and the city and schools will need to approach problems a bit more creatively than in the past. For example, Interim City Manager Bob Bell described how Redwood City is looking into performing some city functions with the help of a corps of volunteers (the Shores’ own Carole Wong is helping to launch this initiative).

While RSCA appreciates that the City needs to live within its budget, we also continue to advocate for basic City services in the Shores, which are our due. For example, we have been concerned for a while about the time needed by Police in Redwood City to respond to incidents in the Shores. Even though the Police Department has had some layoffs, we do not accept that this means that we should accept even slower response times. To the contrary, RSCA is going to continue to press for improved Police response times and coverage in the Shores, as would any City neighborhood. Similarly, we have over the past few months asked the City to replace the many burned-out street lights in the Shores and to smooth the rough spots on our Parkways that wreak havoc on our cars’ suspensions. I am happy to report that the City has recently embarked on a program to address both of these issues — which we appreciate.

Redwood Shores Elementary Matching Funds

Despite the prevailing financial mess, there was one good piece of news – from the School District. As you may have read in our local papers, and as reported by Dr. Orta-Camilleri at our Annual Meeting, it appears that the School District will be awarded $8.75M in matching funds from the State to be used on building projects at Redwood Shores Elementary School.

As a new school with state-of-the-art facilities, Redwood Shores Elementary certainly does not have $8.75 in needs to address. Accordingly, RSCA expects the District to use these funds prudently and transparently, and we specifically want the District to use a substantial portion of these matching funds to pay off some of the $25M in Measure C Bonds that we passed and are paying for with our property taxes. Further, if for some legal reason the District can’t use these funds to pay off Measure C bonds, we want to have a say — before the fact — in how the funds will be spent, to ensure that at least some of the projects will benefit the entire Shores community.

Welcome to the New Officers of RSCA

I have been honored to be President of RSCA for the past two years. It has been a busy and successful two years for RSCA and much of this success is due to your membership support and the outstanding RSCA Board I’ve been privileged to work with. At our February meeting the RSCA Board elected a new slate of officers who will continue to provide strong leadership of RSCA and advocacy for the Shores. Please join me in welcoming our new officers: Harris Rogers (President), Sue Nix (Vice President), Lynn Adams (Secretary) and Ian Gunderman (Treasurer). Godspeed!

— Doug Crisman , former RSCA President