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From:tomercer@comcast.net To:publiccomment Subject:March 4, Joint Study Session -Agenda 5.A. Redwood Life Date:Tuesday, March 4, 2025 10:33:37 AM You don't often get email from tomercer@comcast.net. Learn why this is important Redwood City Council and Commission, Redwood Life has yet to produce a comprehensive sensitivity analysis or to justify the need to override the existing Westport Plan. They have not listened in good faith to resident concerns, andhave attempted to rig community dialog. I attended two “community engagement” meetings at Redwood Shores library, and what I saw at both was a room of 100 residents, voicing unanimous opposition to ANY alternative beyond “no project”. Residents asked informed questions about the status of the toxic dump, the failed levee, documented methane discharge, and more, none of which the applicant or city has addressed. Any claim that the community supports this proposal would be a lie. Here’s how I see it. 40 years ago, the city made a bet with this developer. While neighboring cities (San Mateo, Menlo Park, Palo Alto) were capping their shoreline dumps and leaving them undisturbed, Redwood City gambled that they could build on top of their dump, next to a bay estuary and wildlife reserve. Then the City upped the ante by building housing right at the base of that 30-foot-high toxic mound. And they sealed this wager with the Westport Plan; a promise that in exchange for building 1 million square feet, the developer would guarantee no toxic leaks from that dump. Now, 40 years later, the developer has lost the bet. They admit the dump has settled more than expected, exposing building foundations, and they don’t know the status of the mud cap or toxic leaks. We have state citations for jerry-rigged attempts to vent excess methane without informing neighbors of the toxic exposure. We have dangerous and repeated failures of the levee - the levee that the developer promised to maintain to prevent bay water mingling with the underlying dump. The levee that taxpayers had to pay to fix. We have groundwater rising to flood the site whenever a king tide coincides with an atmospheric river. And now - 40 years later - we know so much more. We know the Hayward fault poses an even greater seismic risk than the nearby San Andreas fault, and we know the dynamics of bay-mud liquefaction. We’ve watched the tilting of the Millenium tower. And most importantly we know about sea-level-rise, and how rising salt water pushes up adjacent groundwater, which will infiltrate the dump to leach out toxins into the bay. We know the dynamics of our bay ecosystem, and how it impacts fisheries even into the Pacific. And we know how a little biological leak can lead to a worldwide pandemic. But now, having lost the bet, the developer wants to double-down. They want off the hook for that original Westport Plan. Double or nothing, they want to build twice as many square feet, their own leaning millennial tower of Piza, bring in twice the number of employees, twice the daily car-trips. Plus, they want to up the ante with bio-toxin research facilities, so when the inevitable natural disaster occurs, we also have to contend with leaked covid, anthrax or whatever next pandemic virus. Double or nothing; do residents want to take that wager? I say no. No more gambling with public health, biotoxins, our environment or our taxpayer funds. No more gaslighting. Redwood Life lost the bet and it’s time to pay up by removing their failed project and remediating the dump. Kristin Mercer resident