You're right. What happened is the appellant filed a petition for certiorari, and the appellee (the city) filed a waiver of their right to respond. This is good practice, because filing a response to a petition for cert can pique the court's interest when the case is reviewed prior to going to conference, which may result in the petition being granted. As the appellee, you lose noting by doing this, because if the court is interested, they will direct you to file a response later. This is what happened here. It still doesn't mean that the petition will be granted, or that the appeal will be heard, but it does mean that there is some interest in it.
Does the request for response mean the case was not heard at conference on 24 April?