By: Miranda de Moraes

Billionaire Democrat Tom Steyer visited Redwood City on Friday as part of a Bay Area campaign swing, where local Peninsula officials and community members raised issues pertinent to Redwood City, like sea level rise, housing and a state funding dispute affecting San Mateo County cities.

Steyer, a San Mateo County ranch-owner and former presidential candidate, is among the Democrats running in the June 2 primary to succeed Gov. Gavin Newsom. 

Mayor Elmer Martínez Saballos led Steyer on a walking tour of downtown landmarks, which included stops at the Fox Theatre, City Hall and the Domini Hoskins Black History Museum and Learning Center. The group later attended a private brunch at Angelicas on Main Street.

During the walk, Martínez Saballos raised Redwood City’s concerns over the Vehicle License Fee mechanism, a state funding issue local officials say could shortchange Redwood City and the rest of San Mateo County by as much as $1 billion over a decade.

Redwood City staff attributed its projected annual shortfalls of up to $19.7 million beginning in fiscal year 2028-29 to this Vehicle License Fee problem, revising its related funding assumption from the state from $4.8 million in June to $0.

Redwood City Mayor Elmer Martínez Saballos leads gubernatorial candidate Tom Steyer on a sightseeing tour of Redwood City on May 1. Photo by Miranda de Moraes

“We have not seen the revenue we imagined from [the state],” Martínez Saballos told Steyer on the walk.

Sea level rise also came up during the visit. Foster City Council member Phoebe Shin Venkat said her city’s $90 million levy project to address sea level rise will ignite the economy, while Martínez Saballos said Redwood City is looking to “match” that work through an $8 million levy project in Redwood Shores.

Martínez Saballos also told Steyer that housing remains a major concern for Redwood City. The city has exceeded some low-income housing targets but remains slightly behind its overall housing element, according to the February Planning Commission report.

To stay on track for the state-mandated target set in the housing element adopted in 2023, the city would have needed to issue building permits for 1,719 units in the first three years of the 2023-21 housing cycle, rather than 1,321 by the third year, as it did.

Gubernatorial candidate Tom Steyer pays Redwood City a visit on May 1 to meet local leaders and community members. Photo by Miranda de Moraes

Nonetheless, Redwood City has made progress on developing units for low-income households ahead of schedule, as it must offer 826 extremely-low-income or very-low-income units, 340 low-income units, 713 moderate-income units and 1,388 market-rate units by 2031.

Nancy Goodban of Fixin’ San Mateo County, who said she was not speaking on behalf of the organization, hopes to see the next governor of California prioritize criminal legal system reform, she said, seeing as people of color are disproportionately more likely to be incarcerated.

She pointed to the latest data from the County Sheriff’s Office Transparency Portal, which shows that Black people were nearly five times more likely to be arrested in San Mateo County than white people from April to June of 2025, even though Black folks comprise less than 2% of the county’s population.

Recently, Steyer polled second at 15%, just after Republican candidate and Fox News host Steve Hilton at 16%, in an April survey by CBS and YouGov. Xavier Becerra, the former state attorney general, ranked third at 13%, a big bump from previous polls.