San Mateo is focusing on a handful of priorities over the next couple years, such as implementing an electric pump station, partnering more with school districts and implementing more regulations for food trucks and in-home restaurants.
Mitigating flood risk is particularly salient for Councilmember Danielle Cwirko-Godycki, whose district has been affected from flooding over the last couple years. The City Council met Feb. 22 to discuss its priorities for the upcoming year.
“The meeting was pretty efficient. Obviously, my two big projects are climate-related and infrastructure related. One is an all-electric pump station for the lagoon and bringing us into the future and the levee project,” Cwirko-Godycki said.
Many of the goals could be grouped into public safety, economic development, housing and procedural tasks, Mayor Rob Newsom said, though each is also grouped by priority level.
One of Newsom’s listed priorities was updating Fire Station 27, located on De Anza Boulevard.
“Our downtown one was built in 1939 but was restored in 2022,” Newsom said. “The others have all been replaced in the last 20 years except Fire Station 27, which is pretty old and run down, so we put that as a goal to prioritize.”
Other priorities included establishing senior hubs at the Martin Luther King Center and Beresford Recreation Center, helping school districts fund additional resource officers and exploring the possibility of more business improvement districts.
Councilmember Nicole Fernandez listed exploring retail cannabis operations downtown, which Cwirko-Godycki said could be another revenue stream for the city. At the end of 2023, the city decided to hold off on moving forward with retail cannabis operations.
In 2017, San Mateo passed an ordinance to prohibit the commercial sale and cultivation of cannabis, but residents can still consume and receive cannabis deliveries from other cities for personal use. To change the city ordinance and allow tax revenue from retail stores, voters must approve the measure in a general election ballot.
The council will meet again to discuss the priorities March 14.
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anna kuhre said:
Mike Caggiano said:
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(3) comments
"Councilmember Nicole Fernandez listed exploring retail cannabis operations downtown, which Cwirko-Godycki said could be another revenue stream for the city."
Downtown cannabis operations have a higher priority in San Mateo than safe-routes-to-school?
In the end it's always seems to be about the "revenue stream" for our politicians, but never about improving Quality-of-Life for the residents. Where are the bike lanes promised in the city's General Plan?
So is San Mateo saying that an electric pump, partnering with school districts and more food delivery regulations are considered a higher priority than low income housing, climate change, homelessness, and law enforcement - items that have been in the news for the past few years? I can’t complain too much as these “new” priorities is less nebulous and we’re likely to see progress. That being said, how much is all of this expected to cost taxpayers? And is an electric pump station feasible or recommended, based on our history of electrical power outages? Are backup fossil-fuel generators budgeted?
I was thinking the same thing about the electric pump station.
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