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The End of the Year: Out with the Old, In with the New
In the Christmas post, one of my holiday movies of choice was the Czechoslovakian version of Cinderella, named Popelka, and her Norwegian counterpart Askepott. Cinderella has three hazelnuts that grant her three wishes – one being a ballroom dress including a pair of delicate shoes. The story is straightforward from there. Popelka runs away and loses the shoe, the prince finds the shoe, the prince fits the shoe on Cinderella’s petite foot, and it snows. Happy ending.
But the holidays aren’t over; New Year’s is upon us. So now it might be a good time to turn a page and start looking toward the future.
“History Doesn’t Repeat Itself, but It Often Rhymes.” [maybe Mark Twain]
Or maybe “turning the page” isn’t always the best advice. Maybe keeping a record of history is the better way to go.
Talking about Filling Shoes
Our current city manager, Melissa Stevenson Diaz, is retiring, and her assistant city manager, Patrick Heisinger, has been named as her replacement. He said he will not try to fill her shoes (no Cinderella pun intended), but he will try to emulate how effectively she communicated.
In an interview with a local newspaper, she was communicating how proud she was of Redwood City’s Navigation Center. However, that wasn’t a city-led project; this was all county. Even worse, because of Redwood City, this county project stalled for many years and ended with the demolition of the well-liked and much-needed Maple Street Shelter.
The county’s Navigation Center and the former Maple Street Shelter are in the same general area and were part of a county–city land-swap and street‑extension deal. That’s right, Melissa Stevenson Diaz needed the shelter gone to pave a new street for luxury townhomes here.
As her greatest accomplishment, she tries to take credit for something the county got no help from Redwood City? Interesting choice. Let’s just hope the new city manager learns from what was probably just “miscommunication.”
Before They were Famous
Before coming to Redwood City, Melissa Stevenson Diaz held positions in Fremont and Mountain View – two of the most bike-friendly cities in the Bay Area. Unfortunately, those talents for providing quality-of-life projects didn’t follow her here. Since arriving in Redwood City, she has not really been a champion of children on bicycles.
Not a single foot of useful bike lane has been added west of El Camino Real (ECR) while still taking County bike funding (Measure W) for at least four different projects. Yes, despite having a General Plan, a Transportation Plan, a Vision Zero Plan, a Climate Action Plan (CAP) and a whole Safe-Routes-To-School organization (Redwood City Together), she managed to install not even one bike lane at one of the many schools in her jurisdiction.
Melissa Stevenson Diaz spent millions on consultant fees to create plans that she and the council could then neglect. Several times, that failure to execute, led to budget shortfalls, as car-centric development and roadway expansion is probably some ten or twenty times more expensive than adding a few bike lanes here and there.
Asking for Controversial Raises
It’s no coincidence that an article about her retirement mentioned not just one but two controversial pay raises. One was in 2021, and during the pandemic. She followed it up with another request in 2023.
It’s also no coincidence that the article did not highlight many major achievements on big capital projects. Residents apparently weren’t too impressed by the new Veterans Memorial Building or the rather expensive Woodside Road – Highway 101 interchange project either. And frankly, they had a point. The reason behind these controversies was that the residents felt their needs were mostly neglected – unless, of course, we count the People’s Budget.
Their fees and rates for water, sewer, garbage, and permits went up, while large development companies were courted and often heavily subsidized through incentives and infrastructure investments (i.e., more ‘streets’, no bike lanes). She and her team were mainly brought in to accommodate newcomers and commuters, but she never really focused on those quality-of-life projects that cities like Mountain View or Fremont would have.
Three Wishes For City Manager
The city manager had three wishes for the City Council: a 10% raise for herself, another 10% raise for herself, and more pay raises for her attorney. In her opinion, she and the city attorney deserved those raises because her salary lagged behind that of Mountain View’s city manager.
The city council granted each of these three wishes.
Which in turn must lead to the question, does Redwood City and its leadership stack up to the lofty results we have seen in Mountain View or Fremont over the years?
… to be continued.
More Information
- Redwood City: Navigation Center
- County: Navigation Center
- RWCPulse: Redwood City manager, attorney to see retroactive pay raises of 10%
- RWCPulse: Redwood City increases city manager, attorney salaries
- RWCPulse: City Manager announces Retirement
- RWCPulse: Heisinger officialized as new Redwood City manager
Editor’s Note: The views and opinions expressed in all blog posts are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the Redwood City Pulse or its staff.
