This story first appeared in the print edition of the Monday, Dec. 23, Daily Post. To get important local news stories first, pick up the Post in the mornings at 1,000 locations. No need to read the plagiarized stories that come later in other publications.
BY AMELIA BISCARDI
Daily Post Staff Writer
Redwood City police are at Sequoia Station and the Caltrain station so often that the shopping center owner is setting aside space for officers to work between responses in the area, the city manager said.
The shopping center, train and bus station at El Camino Real and Jefferson Avenue has become a haven for people “drinking, littering, loitering and taking over our transit shelters for their own personal use,” resident Kris Johnson said in a letter to City Manager Melissa Stevenson Diaz. He asked her what the city could do to help the people living at the station and clean up the area.
“In the last five to 10 years it started having ongoing problems with security and petty crime,” Johnson told the Post.
Stevenson Diaz told Johnson that her office was working with the owner of the shopping center, Hunter Properties, SamTrans and Caltrain, but ultimately, the city’s hands were tied.
Stevenson Diaz said during a Monday council meeting that the property owner has repainted areas, improved lighting and plans to have a space for police to write reports and stay on site.
Homeless problems
Johnson is specifically worried about people drinking, using drugs, loitering, and the homeless taking over the bus stations.
Johnson said he has seen many bus stops that the homeless use as shelters.
“I went back to Sequoia Station about a week ago under the false hope that they had actually done something about it,” Johnson said. “The same bus shelter had been taken over by somebody. It’s just not good.”
SamTrans is increasing power washing, adding weekly inspections, planting new plants where encampments used to be, adding trash can lids to prevent dumping large items, and monitoring security cameras, according to Stevenson Diaz.
Tucked between buildings, the Caltrain station, which has a semi-raised platform, is considering a tickets-only area to minimize loitering, according to Stevenson Diaz.
Vacancies
The previous property owner, Lowe, worked on the redevelopment of Sequoia Station and let vacancies occur.
Current property co-owner Deke Hunter told the council in February that he hopes to make the shopping center “vibrant, safe and engaging.”
Caltrain and SamTrans did not respond when the Post reached out for comment about the station.
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