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San Bruno staff brief council on 2025 "Downtown Pulse" survey; cleanliness, parking and dining mix top concerns
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Summary
City staff presented results of the 2025 Downtown Pulse Survey showing 294 unique responses, an estimated $4 million invested in San Mateo Avenue since FY2021 and recurring public concerns about cleanliness, parking-meter rules and restaurant variety; council asked for clearer public communication and next steps.
Brian Adam, assistant to the city manager, presented the City of San Bruno’s 2025 Downtown Pulse Survey and urged the council to "receive" the results while staff works to communicate changes already made.
The presentation, introduced at a special study session, said the survey produced 359 total submissions with 65 duplicates removed, leaving 294 unique responses. Adam told the council staff had identified approximately $4,000,000 invested in San Mateo Avenue since fiscal year 2021, covering regular cleaning, maintenance and capital beautification projects.
Adam said Bay Hill ranked highest overall in residents’ area preferences but that about one-third of respondents said they shop outside San Bruno. On open-ended responses, the most-cited topics were metered parking, improving the mix of businesses and beautification/ambiance. "Cleanliness and ambiance" and greater restaurant variety were among the top drivers that respondents said would make them visit San Mateo Avenue more often, he said.
Council members pressed staff for more detail on several points. Councilmember Hamilton asked whether respondents differentiated between street cleanliness and storefront appearance; Adam said the ranking responses were vague but open responses split roughly between the two. Councilmember Salazar requested sales-tax breakdowns by business type or region; Nick Pegueros, the city’s administrative services director and CFO, said the data shown were limited to taxable sales and excluded hotel stays and business-license taxes, and that staff would have to anonymize details that could reveal a single business’s revenues.
Several council members and the city manager stressed that some complaints reflected a gap in public communication rather than new policy gaps. Adam and city staff said some meter and parking-hour changes already had been made and that the next step was to inform the public about those updates and promote existing downtown activation programs such as First Thursdays and Centennial Plaza leasing.
The city manager, Alex McIntyre, framed the survey as feedback rather than a statistically valid sample and recommended a strategic review of downtown goals before expanding ad hoc interventions. Staff’s formal recommendation was that council receive the survey results and authorize staff to improve outreach and coordination with property and business owners; council accepted the presentation and discussed next steps.
The council did not take formal regulatory action on the survey; staff will follow up with additional outreach and report back as part of ongoing downtown work.
