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1. Delay the scheduled vote on initiating the EIR for the Redwood Life proposal and the Alternative. This will allow time to refine a true “Community Alternative,” that addresses feedback gathered during the February 12 community workshop, and which Alternative 2 fails to reflect. 2. Strengthen Alternative 2 in collaboration with the community to produce a plan that addresses more of the community’s concerns, including environmental and safety issues raised in the very recently completed (January 30, 2025) Sensitivity Analysis. This would build upon community input already provided and strive for a solution that truly meets both community needs and the City's strategic long-range planning, economic and sea level rise goals. Alternative 2, misleadingly represented as “a 20 percent reduction of the project,” is in fact only a 13.77% reduction of the project size; see calculation below.1 Councilmember Gee’s question, on March 4, about whether an additional, smaller alternative could undergo full environmental review suggests an acknowledgement that the size of both the original proposal and Alternative 2 remains a real concern. As a council member who attended the public workshop, he understands the community sentiment that Alternative 2, while it does address some of the immediate neighbors’ concerns, remains inadequate to address concerns about the project's overall scale and impacts. Prior to initiating the CEQA process, the City has an opportunity to strike a better balance, alleviate persistent, legitimate community concerns, and avoid the potential need to try to mitigate or override findings of significant environmental impact. In a similar case, for East Palo Alto’s recent “Ravenswood Business District Specific Plan", the City Council adopted a 26 percent reduction in size from the original developers’ proposals, in order to address community concerns2. 3. Clarify Council direction regarding the scope of analysis for landfill contamination risks, including those associated with construction impacts, groundwater rise, and sea level rise. Multiple Councilmembers at the Joint Session asked for, and received, assurances that the upcoming environmental review would analyze sea level rise, groundwater rise, and contamination risks associated with building on the former dump. However, it is important to clarify a key limitation of CEQA; while CEQA requires analysis of how a project may impact the environment, it does not require analysis of or mitigation for how the environment might impact a project. As a result, a typical EIR might examine whether construction activities, like piercing the landfill cap, could release contaminants under current conditions, but it would likely not analyze how 2 Four Years of Hard Work Paid Off in East Palo Alto, December 19, 2024 “After four years of hard work, East Palo Alto’s City Council approved a scaled-back expansion plan for the shoreline Ravenswood Business District (RBD) on December 17th. While the plan remains substantial in size and impact, it now includes a majority of our policy recommendations to protect Baylands ecosystems, enhance sea level rise resilience, and minimize harm to the community….” 1 Original project size is 3,316,970 sf and Alternative 2 is 2,860,000 sf . That is clearly only a 13.77% reduction of the overall project size. sierraclub.org/loma-prieta ~ 3921 East Bayshore Road, Suite 204, Palo Alto, CA 94303 2