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After decades of service on the Redwood City Council, Diane Howard, 76, is running unopposed to represent District 6 for what she said will be her final term. She believes she is the longest-serving council member in the city’s history.
The Pulse interviewed Howard about why she plans to leave the council after 2030, the work she is proudest of and what she hopes to accomplish in one more term.
Final term
The council member decided not to serve on city council after this final term, in part because she can’t — sort of. According to the city charter, council members are limited to four consecutive terms. If they want to run again after that, they must sit out the next regular election.
This would be Howard’s fourth in a row since her 2013 election, so she could not run in 2030. While she could run again in 2034, she’s decided not to.
“At the end of the four years I’m going to be 80 years old,” Howard said. “I’m going to still hopefully be filled with vim and vigor and doing Pilates all the time. But I think it will be time for me.”
Howard also wants to step aside to make way for someone “with the energy and willingness to learn,” who is ready to take the city “to the next level,” she said. She hopes to put all her “historical information” on the city to use by mentoring someone in her district, ideally someone who has “a basic foundation about Redwood City” and has served on a board, committee or commission, she said.
The past and future four years
From her most recent term, Howard said she has been most committed to “safe and strong” neighborhoods through police, parking and traffic strategies, especially through Vision Zero, Redwood City’s initiative to eliminate traffic fatalities and severe injuries for all modes of transportation by 2030.
The council member said she is also proud of the opening of the new $56 million Veterans Memorial and Senior Center, which required nearly a decade of planning and faced pandemic-related construction delays. The new facility expanded recreation, wellness programs, senior services, community events and veteran recognition in Redwood City.
Looking forward, Howard said she’s “anxious” to work with the Sequoia YMCA on its planned facility next to the senior center, which would add pools, a fitness and wellness center, an early childhood learning center and other amenities. The council member served on the Sequoia YMCA board for two decades, she said.
“One big thing on my plate that’s been there since 1998,” Howard said, is to establish a transit ferry service for Redwood City. Howard said she was appointed to a task force in 1998 to explore ferry service in the city. A draft environmental impact report for the Redwood City Ferry Terminal Project can be found on the Port of Redwood City website.
“We need public transit in every fashion we can get it to move people along,” she said, citing the area’s population explosion and the potential support role of ferries during disasters.
Howard also remains committed to “my downtown,” she joked, referring to the reinvention of Redwood City’s downtown, for which she feels like she’s been around “since the very first time [city staff] put pencil to paper to work [it] out.” She’s particularly focused on addressing speeding e-bikes and litter, which she said will require working with Redwood City police, as well as expanding the downtown area, introducing more mixed-use zoning and supporting small businesses.
Howard’s home life
Howard grew up on Long Island, New York, as the eldest of eight children. She pursued a degree in nursing as a single mother and eventually met her husband, a family doctor, who was completing his residency at the hospital where she worked. After marrying in 1981, the couple moved to California, lived “up and down” the Peninsula and ultimately “fell in love with Redwood City.”
Howard and her husband have lived in the same house in the city ever since, she said, where they raised her son. Her son served in the military and became a nurse as well, she said, marrying a nurse himself. Howard worked at Sequoia Hospital and also as the office manager for her husband’s practice.
As Howard settled deeper into Redwood City, she began serving on the Housing and Human Concerns Committee and the Parks, Recreation and Community Services Commission for over a decade. At the time, she said, retiring council members asked if Howard would run, and she obliged because their goals aligned with hers in fostering a vital downtown with more housing.
Howard was first elected to the council in 1994 and served every year since, except for a break between 2009 and 2013. She was appointed as mayor twice from 1997 to 1999 and from 2019 to 2021.
Howard is no longer a full-time nurse, but rather a nurse advisor, so she has more time to serve on the council and sit on the board of Kainos, an organization that aids adults with developmental and intellectual disabilities. Howard also contributes to the Redwood City Woman’s Club and Arts RWC.
“I just love to be involved,” Howard said. “I love to serve with people and make things happen in our community.”
Reflecting on her decades of service in Redwood City, Howard noted that she “really want[s] to make sure that people understand that [downtown] wasn’t always here,” that the council used to share its chambers with the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors and that the movie theater was a “little strip shopping center before.”
“I want to tell that story,” Howard said, referring to her final term on the council and her interest in mentoring the next District 6 representative. “I want people to understand that there’s a great history in Redwood City of working together and collaborating to create great things. I want to see that continue.”
