Laserfiche WebLink
The audio recording exists. The full transcript exists. At this meeting the <br />City Engineer made a series of explicit, on-the-record admissions that line <br />up with every key element of Respondents’ defense. <br />Significance. This is the single most powerful documentary record in this <br />matter. The senior Engineering official: (1) accepted that the rear CMU <br />wall could remain on a defined condition; (2) accepted the pre-existing <br />nonconforming-structure argument that is now Section 3 of this brief; (3) <br />acknowledged the safety problem that drove the wall design; (4) <br />confirmed that once the roofline is restored to original, the garage is fine <br />relative to the easement; and (5) laid out a clean path for written corrective <br />actions to be confirmed by the City and accepted by Code Enforcement. <br />The City staff that followed O’Connell repudiated each of these <br />admissions. Council should weigh O’Connell’s statements as the senior <br />Engineering position made at the time of the dispute, with audio backup, <br />against later positions advanced by junior Engineering staff and counsel. <br />Audio file: Evidence/Exhibits/JJ - Engineering Meeting <br />Recording.m4a (and .wav). Full transcript: Documents/Redwood- <br />City-Engineer-Meeting-Jan30-2024.txt (877 lines). Excerpt PDF: <br />Evidence/Exhibits/JJ2 - Engineering Meeting Transcript.pdf. <br />JJ-1. The City Engineer agreed the wall can remain (Lines 203-213): <br />O’Connell: “If you can get the structural engineer to say that the <br />masonry wall is in sound condition and it’s not negatively impacting <br />the creek, I would be open to allowing that to remain. Keeping in <br />mind that if the city ever had to come and replace it at any point in <br />the future, we wouldn’t put back a masonry wall… We just put back <br />a fence.” <br />Burns: “That’s fair. That’s reasonable.” <br />6.A. - Page 40 of 64 <br />42