So, we'll call to order. I don't think
we need a formal roll call visual
confirmation. All five present. Um,
we'll move right on to communications.
Are there any members of the public or
otherwise that would like to make a
comment during public communications?
>> I have any comments.
>> Ah, okay. Thank you. Just for the
record, um I'll indicate that council
member Gold has indicated to me that he
will be recusing as you move into close
session is a real uh property interest
conflict which is recognizing.
>> Great.
>> Thank you.
>> I am I'm going to mention that right at
the top here. Uh so tonight, thank you.
I am speaking as a private citizen
tonight because I'm recusing myself from
the close session. Um, I'm here to talk
about the parcel that runs along the
east side of Interstate 280 that you're
going to be discussing in a few minutes.
Sadly, this public comment session will
be the only opportunity that I or any
other interested party doesn't look like
there are any, um, will have to provide
input to our elected officials. So, my
first question for you is where did this
issue even come from? When you sit on
that side of the room, you're supposed
to know pretty much everything that's
going on in the town.
Um, but I never heard of this possible
land deal before I got an email from the
town just 4 days ago. Who authorized
this? What's behind this? And why is
this discussion being held behind closed
doors? This could have been done at our
regular town council meeting. It's not
like tonight's agenda is so jam-packed
that we couldn't have squeezed this in,
mayor.
Um, but shouldn't our citizens know that
we're contemplating such a consequential
act? This is a big deal. Uh, but my
larger point is why are we doing this at
all? Who wants this? From what I can
tell, there's just one person in our
entire town who's interested in doing
that, and that's Chris Shaw. And he's
not an elected official. People voted
for you. They didn't vote for him. You
set the agenda, not him. And the reason
I took the time to put this little
speech together, which by the way runs 3
minutes and 40 seconds if I do it right,
um, is that the four of you are about to
open up Pandora's box
because once you start discussing the
terms and the price of a parcel, the
last chapter of this story is going to
be a painful repetition of the
contentious housing element hearings we
had in this very room a little over a
year ago. I'm sure you all remember
that. You're going to be forced by the
state to build a bunch of apartment
buildings on a 22acre parcel. That's not
a secret. That's the plan. Chris Shaw
said so in the San Francisco Chronicle
that's sitting in front of you right
now. This article that I had sent to you
this afternoon.
It starts by talking price and terms and
the dominoes then start to fall. It's
going to be a bargain price now that
Calrans has been strong armed by Senator
Becker, who did so, by the way, without
any of us asking him to. So, be prepared
to be peppered with endless
uncomfortable questions. How can you
possibly pass up this bargain? Closing
that Pandora's box is not going to be so
easy. This is a blunder, I think, of
epic proportions with major consequences
for our town. I know I'm prone to
hyperbole. I don't think I'm
exaggerating here.
If we learned anything from the last
housing cycle, it's that the only
leverage HC has over us is forcing us to
build on parcels that we own and we
control. That's the lesson we learned.
If we own parcels, Raundo and High Road
and anything else, they can force us to
do stuff. In this case, what how many
times did I hear people say Sacramento
is holding a gun to our heads?
You probably all said that. I know. I
heard Chris say that many times. Our
town's one saving grace is that we own
so few parcels, most of them are
unbuildable. Do you really want to give
HCD an additional 22 acres to use
against us? And owning this parcel is
hardly going to be free. Right now, we
get 100% of the recreational and scenic
benefits of this parcel for zero cost
and zero liability. It's all on CALR.
Why would we want to change that? So,
what I'm asking you to do is hit the
pause button and first determine if
Woodside should be acquiring any surplus
lands before we go off halfcock
negotiating price and terms before this
Kines's out of control. And if our
citizens don't want it, we should tell
Calrans, "Thanks, but we're not buyers
at this time." That's the right answer.
A little caution costs you absolutely
nothing, but it will spare everyone a
lot of turmoil and stress. But if this
discussion about acquiring this parcel
goes any further, the dominoes are
surely going to start to fall. And don't
be surprised when you find yourself
forced to go out against our citizens
and put a bunch of apartment buildings
there. I'm sure you'll complain that
Sacramento is holding a gun to our head
again, but the unfortunate truth is that
you gave them 22 acres of ammunition.
Good governance and transparency. Two
things Woodside prides itself on is
first finding out if our citizens want
or need additional lands and the
consequences of those. Thank you and
thank you for the accommodation on time.
>> Of course. Thank you, Mr. Gold. Any
other public comments? Mr. Burrow.
>> Uh David Burrow, 135 Sheridan Way. Uh
thank you. I would I'm here really to I
uh when I found out about the uh topic
for this meeting, I was quite surprised.
Uh again, as Paul, I had not aware of
any prior discussions about the town's
interest in acquiring land. And um I'm
not aware of any pressure that
Sacramento is putting on us to do
something that would cause us to want to
do this. And uh if we want to do this
just in case, that's not a very good
reason. And I think the one thing you
should think about is as Paul mentioned
is that when you see and and and maybe
there's a legal reason why it's reads
out the way it does in the agenda, but
when it looks like you're negotiating,
it looks like the decisions already been
taken that we're interested in buying
land. And again, I think you you you
know, this has the risk of, you know,
losing a lot of trust that I think the
town has in the in the council, in the town staff and in the processes
that we followed in the past. I can't
think of another issue in, you know, in
my time where something caused me to
wonder, you know, what is really going
on? Can we is this really a transparent
organization that is going to seek input
before it takes action? And so whether
or not that it you know is it was really
what you maybe you were just trying to
find out what the price was and there
was no other way to do it. But if that
was if it was anything more than that
then you you're really you know starting
to break the bonds of trust with uh with the town residents and and I and I think that's a a sad thing if that
happens. And I would certainly encourage
you to think hard about uh how you're
presenting how this looks and whether
you meant it to look that way or not I
don't know. Uh but it does look that way
and you should be aware of that and uh
maybe maybe we'll find out someday soon
why that was worth it for you to take
that step or maybe you were just awkward
and not doing it in a proper way. I
don't know what the cause was but um but
anyway I just wanted to add that to the
to Paul's comments. Thank you very much.
>> Thank you Mr. Burrow. Any other Yes.
>> Have one hand raised in Zoom. Thomas,
I'm going to allow you to talk.
» Yes. Good evening. I um share Paul's and
view that this is really happening too
quick without any real discussion or
prior information to the rest of the
public of the town of Woodside. I don't
understand why this is on the agenda.
um it's very confusing and a little
unnerving considering the the costs of
considering something of this scale. So
I strongly advise
the council to terminate this and not to
go forward without
more discussion and involving the
community that you serve. Thank you very
much.
>> Thank you Thomas.
Jen, anything else? Okay, thank you all.
We're going to close uh communications
and move into the close session. So,
we'll just give it a