| Time | Speaker | Text |
|---|---|---|
| 00:02:02.85 | Adam Politzer | familiar to you? |
| 00:02:04.28 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:03:01.24 | Dan Mullen | Good evening, my name is Dan Mullen. I'd like to welcome you to the Sausalito City Hall, City Council Chambers. Good to see a good crowd out here tonight after some days of rain. As I think you all know, we're here to talk about the fire annexation and the benefits both to the financial side for our city and to fire services, and also to hear a lot of feedback from you as citizens and answer any questions any and all questions that may come up that you may have again my name is Dan Mullen I am a public affairs consultant and what that means is I help cities and different governmental agencies to work through a number of different issues and communications challenges that they may have. And so what I've done in the past is I worked on Measure S here in Sausalito, and I see some familiar faces from that effort. Yes. And it's good to see those faces again. I've also worked for the Twin Cities Police helping to get their LEED certified building up and going and under construction. And currently I'm working with the Moran Emergency Radio Authority on some of their communications challenges as well. So, with that, I'd like to introduce our speakers panel. You may know Charlie Francis, who's a finance director for the city of Sausalito. Chief Jim Irving, who's with the Southern Marin Fire Protection District. Adam Pulitzer, who's our city manager, as you know. And Duane Mills. Am I pronoun I pronouncing that correctly? Thank you. Dwayne is from CityGate. He's also a consultant. He works with governments and agencies. He's also a former city manager of Stockton, California, I believe. And he has a specialization in fire. So he's been retained by the city. Our speakers tonight are going to include, we're going to start with Charlie, and then we'll move on to Chief Irving. And then Adam and Duane are here to answer questions as well. At this time, before I hand off the mic, I wanted to invite folks. I have some note cards that I'll be passing around. and if you have any questions or if you think of anything while Charlie or the chief are speaking, please feel to write them down. We want to make sure that we have everything from you that you may just think is of interest or you may have a passing thought or anything along those lines. And I'll be collecting them while they speak and then categorizing them as necessary for the question and answer period after the chief is done speaking. So with that, I'd like to hand it off to Charles. |
| 00:05:59.99 | Charlie Francis | Thank you, Dan, and welcome everybody to our forum tonight. I want to start with the recommendation that was made to the City Council and the action the City Council took was to proceed of submitting an application to LAFCO, to annex to the LAFCO, to the Southern Marin Fire Protection District. and to do that annexation without a parcel tax but with a transfer of property tax. That recommendation was made because it continues the excellent high level service that the city is already receiving from the Southern Marin Fire Protection District acting as our command staff to our fire department, 15 fire employees. It continues to ensure the cost-effective delivery of services. It minimizes the tax impact on our citizens, and it provides the fiscal stability the city needs to meet the challenges of the next few years. because it will be structurally balanced. It'll eliminate the current year cost of an election. It provides for additional budget savings from an expedited annexation and But primarily the alternative that was facing the city was a full fire department which would cost us an additional 1.4 million dollars over what we currently are spending and establishes an opportunity to have local control by having our citizens on the Southern Marin Fire Protection District Board So how did we get here? It's a fascinating graph. I like putting these two graphs together because it tells a wonderful story. The first story it tells us is about seven years of successful operations between the Southern Marin Fire Protection District and the city of Sausalito. Those first three years were integrating the operations, coming out with standard operating procedures, standardizing the equipment, and then working on making sure that the memorandums of understanding between the respective organizations and their uh, uh, respective labor organizations were in line so that there was similar pays, similar health benefits, similar working conditions and just the way they do business. And then through that process when we saw that the operation was working, it was successful, we reengaged In 2007 when the city manager came, we called two by two meetings. Another fascinating part of this story is they're all open meetings. They were either open meetings advertised at the city council level or they were committee members that were picked by the city council to participate in the committee meetings that were duly noticed as required by law. So, Why did they start this whole process? And that's the story of the bottom graph. shows a line here. where basically... The city, that little you there, is showing that the city had negative cash. The city was facing a fiscal crisis. Our revenues were less than our expenditures, and our fund balance was becoming Thank you. negative. I mean, you can't go lying in that kind of a situation. And the city council met in a strategic planning session, and their number one goal that they set was to stabilize the fiscal condition. And in order to stabilize the fiscal condition of the city, they took a number of interventionary steps. They looked at raising some revenues. They looked at cutting some expenditures. Steve was here and probably remember some police officers that were eliminated during those days. and then they went and they said how can we deliver the same fire services to our citizens or better fire services officers that were eliminated during those days. And then they went and they said, how can we deliver the same fire services to our citizens or better fire services, but with less cost? And so part of the reason of going with the Southern Marin Fire Protection District is we were able to contract for headquarters staff, a chief, battalion chiefs, and supervision of operations at less cost than what the Southern Marin Fire Protection District could have charged us for it. And as we found out during the study that the cost of those services that was being subsidized by the Southern Marin Fire Protection District was about $700,000 a year. Well, I said all that to say the strategy worked. You can see Our revenues exceeded our expenditures during this time period. We built our fund balances and we reached to the point where in 2010 and 2011 we knew that gotten to a point where we we changed our strategic plan goal from stabilize the fiscal condition to sustain the fiscal condition. And at that point, about 2009 is when I came on board and I was delivering the, the midterm budget review, the annual financial reports. And I reported consistent with this lower graph that we were able to pay our bills. Our ability to pay our bills is getting better, but we had challenges in the future. And one of those strategies that the City Council had adopted and was working on. was to move forward towards fire annexation. Uh, So we're at that point now where Our expenses are going to be once again more than our revenues, And so it's time to implement the fire annexation. Now, before I go into a little bit more detail on the fiscal impact, I'd like to turn it over to Jim for a few minutes to talk about the level of service that we're receiving. |
| 00:11:48.49 | Jim Irving | question is why does annexation make sense operationally? You know, we know that it makes sense fiscally, but how about operationally? |
| 00:11:55.97 | Unknown | you |
| 00:11:57.40 | Jim Irving | The benefits of annexation are you have standardized training. All the fire departments in Southern Marin train together on some level. but we don't necessarily have standardized training between all the agencies. By having a single agency, we're able to better standardize that training. We're also able to standardize equipment. If you look at all the fire engines throughout Marin, you find different types of equipment on all the engines. Again, by having a single agency we're able to standardize the equipment so that everyone's using the same stuff. We also have unified command. and that is that we have a single incident commander in charge of an incident if you compare say southern Marin area to an area like San Rafael or Novato. You have a battalion chief in Nevada or San Rafael serving the entirety of the population in those areas, which is, you know, roughly 55 to 65,000 people. Here in Southern Marin on a daily basis, not just Southern Marin Fire, but when you include Mill Valley and Tiburon, we have three battalion chiefs on. The question is, do we really need that? And prior to this agreement, there was actually at 1.5 battalion chiefs in Southern Marin area. So we've been able to eliminate that overhead and thus put more and more firefighters on the line. We're also able to have specialized response. And what I mean by that is that the fire department doesn't just do fire departments. doesn't just do fires we do EMS we do USAR, USAR is urban search and rescue confined space rescue, high angle rescue, dive rescue, water rescue, and hazardous materials. All of those things take a lot of specialized training. And for a small department like Sausalito to be able to do any of those efficiently is just not possible. So by combining the agencies together, we're able to better address those needs. And then last I mentioned earlier, but by reducing the number of chief officers, we can place more firefighters on the engines. You know, we actually have the engines staffed at what they should be rather than having chief officers, you know, in offices not doing what firefighters should be doing. |
| 00:14:11.02 | Jim Irving | So what's needed for a building fire in Sausalito? We're going to need one engine from Sausalito, and that's what Sausalito has, one rescue ambulance. Again, that can be provided by Sausalito. One command chief, and that comes from Southern Marin Fire. Two more engines. One of those comes from Southern Marin Fire. One of those comes from Marin County Fire, Marin City. We need a rescue unit, and that also comes from Southern Marin Fire, and then a ladder truck, and that would come from Southern Marin Fire as well. We like to have a total of 16 people to fight a fire. And if you look at that, Sausalito only has five people on duty per day. We get an additional three from Marin County fire, and then eight more people come from Southern Marin fire. |
| 00:14:58.40 | Jim Irving | So what agencies assist the city of Sausalito? Our first alarm, as I just noted, you get Southern Marin Fire District. provides eight people, Marin County Fire providing three, and then on a second alarm or any greater alarm, then you get assistance from the city of Mill Valley, Tiburon Fire Protection District, as well as Quarter Madera Fire. So this is a map of the area, and if you look at the area, you can see sort of how we're laid out here. Sausalito, obviously, on the end of the peninsula. The nearest neighbor would be Marin County Fire. However, Marin County Fire has only a substation there. They have three people in that station. They have no management or command services there. Thank you. And then you have Southern Marin Fire District, you have the next closest agency, and also the largest agency in the Southern Marin area. then followed by Mill Valley, which is actually quite a bit farther away, and then Tiburon, obviously out on the peninsula. is a much longer response as well as Corte Madera, you know, farther up the freeway. So in terms of response and the number of people responding to an incident, It just simply makes sense because Southern Marin is the largest agency in the area and also the closest with the available services that Sausalito needs. |
| 00:16:24.69 | Jim Irving | you |
| 00:16:24.72 | Charlie Francis | Okay, thank you, Jim. |
| 00:16:28.91 | Charlie Francis | And just real quick, we'll cover some of the additional fiscal... studies As I mentioned earlier, Fiscal 12 is the pivotal year. Once again, the district has indicated that they are no longer willing to provide fire command services at a subsidized price. In fact, they've sent a letter to the city saying that it's either annexation or form your own fire department. Even if they did want us to continue to provide under a contract for service, that would cost the city an additional $700,000 a year, additional $700,000 that the city does not have. Our revenues would be less than our expenditures. And in order to pay for that, we would have to go into our fund balance, in other words, into our bank account, or we would have to ask our citizens for a tax increase. So in terms of negotiation then, we sat down with the district and we said, what are the incremental new costs that will be incurred by moving the 15 firefighters from the city of Sausalito, into the Southern Marin Fire Protection District. And those incremental costs totaled the $2,969,250. So then we said, well, how are we going to pay for this? And the first thing was we'll transfer ambulance revenues. and that's 111 then we'll transfer the city's share of the GGNRA contract GGNRA is the Golden Gate National Recreation Area that recreation area is a contract between the recreation area and Southern Marin Fire Protection District. but under an agreement between the city of Sausalito and the district we share revenues of that contract. And, We'd also provide the district other post-employment benefit payments and then transfer city property tax in the amount of $2,667,250. I want to point out something here. |
| 00:18:43.40 | Charlie Francis | We look at that number, Under the column that says, you'll see a number of $3,268,312. That's the amount in the current fiscal year 2011-12 budget that we're budgeting to pay for fire services. $3,268,312. Someone 312. And If we divide that by the amount of property tax that the city receives, which is the $5,975,000 figure, does everybody see that? |
| 00:19:21.86 | Charlie Francis | That equals 55%. In other words, our fire department expenses consume 55% of the city's property tax. This graph right here. leaving 45% to spend on other city services, including police services. after annexation, We'll be. we'll be transferring $2,666,000 $2,667,000. 250. And if you divide that by the amount of property taxes that the current city currently has, we're only transferring 45 percent. And that means that 10% of the property taxes The citizens of Sausalito pay to the city. will be freed up to use for other city services. |
| 00:20:21.75 | Charlie Francis | And how that would work on our long term fiscal projection is that it'd be the same as if you had a household where you had two incomes. And the second income, Let's just for an example say two income household. First income is $100,000, the second income is $40,000. And he said to Well, we're going to give up the $40,000 income. You say, well, how are we going to balance our budget? Well, because it's cost $60,000 for the individual to go to work. So you end up with a net gain of $20,000 that can then be reinvested back into the household to meet day-to-day levels of service and that's what we're proposing to do here where you can see that We reach this critical point And instead of going into fund balance, We're able to sustain and maintain our fund balance by our revenues being exactly equal to our expenditures as we go off into the future. In fact, this gains $184,000 for the city using the fiscal year 2011-12 budget. |
| 00:21:31.78 | Charlie Francis | Finally, in order to accomplish this, we submitted our application to LAFCO. And the process for LAFCO is on the board over here. This is the reproduction of it here. And all the information that you want to find about LAFCO is at the website, which is also down over there, and we can email you that address. LAFCO, thank you, Peter. LAFCO stands for Local Agency Formation Commission. Every county in California has a LAFCO. And LAFCO is charged with reviewing the municipal boundary changes or district boundary changes. And then they're saying, Number one, Because... will the new agency be able to provide the services that are being proposed? And number two, do they have the fiscal resources to provide those services? And number three, will the agency that's giving up the revenues and giving up the resources be able to maintain its fiscal revenues? And the process that they use Oh, I'm sorry, that question came from Peter Van Mead. Oh, Peter Banning. Oh, thank you. Peter Banning, would you please stand up? Peter Banning is the executive director of our Marin County LAFCO. And he'll be here to answer any questions that we might have of this LAFCO process. So the documents were submitted. The application is right now, Peter is reviewing our application. bringing the matter hopefully to his board on November 10th of 2011 for the board to consider the proposal. The board at that time can either say the proposal doesn't meet the conditions of LAFCO moving forward with an annexation or he'll say it does. If LAFCO disapproves the proposal, it stops there. But if they approve it, then the LAFCO sets an administrative hearing for I think it's 30 days after as little as 30 days after the November 10th meeting So for example purposes, I put December 12th would be the administrative protest hearing. And then at that point, uh... Landowners and voters can submit protests, and all the forms to submit the protests are located, as well as the procedure, is located at that website. uh, Finally, then, on January 12th, LAFCO will meet to count the protests. If the protests exceed 50% of registered voters and landowners, then the annexation is terminated. But if less than 50% protest comes from registered voters and landowners, then the next threshold is where there are at least 25% protests. And if there were 25% protests, it moves to the next stage, which is where LAFCO orders a special election to be held with 50% of the votes to either approve or disapprove the annexation by the Southern Marin Fire Protection District. If less than 25 protests are filed, then Lefkoe orders the change and the annexation is confirmed. |
| 00:24:52.05 | Charlie Francis | These were all the documents that were submitted to LAFCO. I just wanted to point out that even though there was land use tables and zoning map and land use map, there's no land use changes being proposed, only boundary changes. So in summary, what the city considered and the district considered in making this decision to submit the application to annexation was, does it provide for equitable tax burden for the citizens? Does it make sense in terms of the strategic plan goal of stabilizing and sustaining our fiscal condition? Does it protect the city's current level of service? Will it eliminate any duplication of services or duplication of equipment Lower the cost of administration. and will it still provide transparent and accountable control? And when we applied these criteria to analyzing the options, the city directed staff to submit the Uh, that they said it indeed met those criteria and let's submit the application to LAFCO for the next step based on our recommendation. So that's a summary of the process. turn it back to Dan Maloney. |
| 00:26:04.77 | Dan Mullen | If anybody has any questions, please feel free to give me them. I have one set of questions thus far, and I'll just start. Some of this is comment, so if you can perhaps respond or clarify. One, the sum of $2.7 million is the set figure. not the percentage of property tax revenue. If the property tax revenue, for example, dropped to $5.4 million, the percentage would be 50%. if the property tax revenue increased to $27 million, the percentage would be 10%. care to comment? |
| 00:26:44.57 | Charlie Francis | Yes. The assumption about the fixed number being fixed in the future is wrong. The percentage is what gets transferred and if property values drop, the amount received by the Southern Marin Fire Protection District drops in accordance with that percentage as does the city's revenues. If it goes up, The 45% still applies, and it works in that favor, too. |
| 00:27:12.03 | Dan Mullen | Okay. Why is there no so-called prenup to this annexation agreement, or is there? |
| 00:27:25.87 | Dan Mullen | By prenup, I'm assuming that there's a preset agreement that if something goes terribly wrong and you want to extricate yourself without any harm done to either party, you have that |
| 00:27:39.03 | Charlie Francis | Well... The option to separate from the agreement is exactly the same as going into the agreement. The city would, or the district, would apply to LAFCO. LAFCO would analyze all the terms and conditions and say, will the same level of service still be able to be delivered, and will both organizations still be fiscally secure. And so the reversal of it occurs in the exact same way that the application process does. |
| 00:28:11.01 | Adam Politzer | Dan, can I just add to that? Um, I think in some of the agreements that are part of the application, It addresses the equipment the facility the fire station as well. So there are terms in the condition that allows the city to regain control of its facility. and take back some of the equipment in its condition that they've been given the equipment. So if we go 30 years and something goes south and we our community goes back through the LAFCO process and it comes out that we should be a standalone fire department or in a relationship with a different agency. than our Our facility. and some of our equipment will come back to the city. So there is some level of a prenup in there as well. |
| 00:29:15.00 | Dan Mullen | Um, How much would Sausalito property taxpayers be paying for firefighter pensions before the annexation and after the annexation? And can you please cite your sources on that? |
| 00:29:28.11 | Charlie Francis | Sure. The amount that the city of Sausalito taxpayers will be paying for pensions aren't Oh. First of all, Let me talk about pensions. |
| 00:29:46.67 | Charlie Francis | First of all, City Sausalito firefighters belong into the system called CalPERS, which is the State of California Pension for Employee Retirement System, CalPERS. And in that system, there's a number of components of pension contributions that are made. The firefighters are at 3% 55. The city pays two components. They pay the employee's share of the firefighter's pension and they pay the employer's share of the firefighter's pension. After annexation, the firefighters would move into EMCERA. EMCERA stands for Marin County Employees Retirement Association. And when they move into there, they'll be going into, from a one-tier system, which the city of Sausalito is, and they'll be going into a two-tier system. And they'll be going in at the lowest tier. That's what every agency in the state of California is trying to accomplish right now. Pension reform, moving into a two-tier system. The second thing is that when the employees move over to the Marin County Employee Retirement Association, they'll be they'll be paying 50% of the employee's share of their pension, which is another element of pension reform that most agencies in California are seeking to gain from their employees. So we're accomplishing that element of pension reform as well. And finally, By moving into MSERA, our employees will be added to their rate reduces the MSERA overall rate that's being charged to their organization. And it increases the number of employees in the pool so that it allows the unfunded liabilities to be spread over a larger base and it gives the ability for the city to take funds that have accumulated in the equipment replacement fund and lower our side fund costs. Now I said all that to say that this accomplishes pension reform. And it accomplishes it only by them moving over into the new system of which the only cost the city is moving over and therefore the only amount of property tax that the city is moving over to MSERA is the incremental new costs of our employees going into a new pension system which are lower than the CalPERS costs. The costs that stay with the city are the costs that always would stay with the city because it's their past service credits and only the unfunded part that the city assumed an obligation for at the present time. |
| 00:32:27.05 | Dan Mullen | I'm going to try and go back to the question I just asked you because it It's pretty similar to the question that was next. So the last question was how much would Sausalito property taxpayers be paying? for firefighter pensions before and after the annexation. And the next one is also pension related. What would be the firefighter pension liability? for social little property taxpayers before and after. annexation. So the question seems to hinge on how much taxpayers will be paying and what is the pension liability. Do you need clarification on that? |
| 00:33:06.91 | Charlie Francis | Thank you. Thank you, Don. In terms of how much the city is paying, The city is transferring $2,995,000 of expenses over to the district. One of the components of those expenses is the amount that's for pension, for the MSERA costs. And I do not have that exact dollar amount at the top of my head, but it's something that we could email or put on the website as a breakdown of those incremental expenses that are being transferred to the district. In terms of the liability, there's a side fund liability that would stay with the city. It's approximately $1.4 million, and then there'd be a recalculation of by CalPERS. of the difference between the first side fund and a new side fund and CalPERS would have to calculate that and when that is calculated we could provide that information but we estimate that that side fund cost would be $200,000 a year. |
| 00:34:18.93 | Dan Mullen | So this next question has to do with how the funds have been managed over the last few years it appears. I'm going to reverse this with your permission. I'm going to start with the last part first. Looking at the 2008 Southern Marin Fire District, Marin County Employees Retirement Association's losses, What is the financial impact of the negative amortization of those losses? Does that make sense? |
| 00:34:49.85 | Charlie Francis | It's a great actuarial question and none of us up here are actuaries. We have had actuary studies conducted both by the district on the MCERA system and the city for the remaining liability that would stay with the city. And those studies, I believe, are posted on our website. |
| 00:35:12.65 | Dan Mullen | Um, So some of this, let me see if I get this question correctly, it's hard to read. Why are you using $273,000 for the city's quote unquote after annexation firefighter case when Bartell? Bartell Associates project $355,000. |
| 00:35:35.85 | Charlie Francis | I can provide a complete... reconciliation between Bartell and ours. But basically there's components to Bartell's Oh, by the way, Bartell is the city's actuary, and the city's actuary every year looks at the CalPERS actuarial report and then prepares a report to the city council on what that means in terms of looking forward towards the future. And we asked them to do a special report on what would be the costs remaining to the city when our employees are annexed into the district and the employees move to MSERA. And they came up with the dollar figure. And that dollar figure, what was it on the card? I think it was $455,000 in the report. $355,000. |
| 00:36:24.70 | Unknown | 3.55. |
| 00:36:25.97 | Charlie Francis | So the $355 was comprised of two components. One is the existing side fund that the city has with CalPERS. And then the difference would be the new side fund, which would be the amount of money that is an unfunded liability from when the city went from its old plan of having its own pool and a side fund until today. So the reason I – and then there's – the city has agreed to pay the district a payment of $58,000 a year called OPEB, Other Post-Employment Benefits. So I added the $58,000 from the Other Post-Employment Benefits to the $355,000 in the Bartell report. And then because the city has generated the financial resources through the negotiations in this deal to pay off the first side fund of the firefighters, that would reduce the city's expenditures by $140,000, and then that leaves the $200,000 and some. thousand dollars I hope I answered that reconciliation, but I can provide that on the website, too. |
| 00:37:38.12 | Dan Mullen | fun with numbers. The last, this is really a comment so I'm going to try and put it in the form of a question. When you're talking about the quote-unquote savings being at most $184,000, This would not be 10% of the property tax revenues of nearly $6 million, or would it? Or how do you make those numbers work? |
| 00:38:06.85 | John Slavin | Thank you. |
| 00:38:06.88 | Charlie Francis | Thank you. |
| 00:38:07.00 | John Slavin | Thank you. |
| 00:38:07.03 | Charlie Francis | Thank you. |
| 00:38:10.85 | Charlie Francis | Yeah, you're absolutely right. The net savings to the city is $184,000, and that savings occurs because of two major components. One is... The what I just answered. The $355,000 plus $58,000 for OPEB is now reduced by $140,000 and that $140,000 is a component of this $184,000 net revenue gained to the city. The other represents the difference between the other expenditures and revenues. So yes, 10% of property taxes would be $600,000. But the resulting gain, because of expenses the city already has incurred, less the expenses that we'll be saving by paying off the side fund, results in a net gain to the city of $184,000. |
| 00:39:06.14 | Dan Mullen | So just to follow up on that, how does that Can you relate that back to the 55% of property tax going to 45% of the property tax and maybe that's where the 10% is coming in and the numbers don't seem to correlate closely? |
| 00:39:27.32 | Charlie Francis | Well. I explained the mathematics between the the 55% of the property tax to the 45, purely being a function of expenses that we incur now versus property taxes that we pay now. and Property taxes that will be transferred are only 45% over. Currently, it's 55%. The city doesn't realize... all 10% of that gain because we have expenditures that stay with the city and then we realize more of the gain because we're transferring revenues and getting revenues. For example, the district will be paying rent to the city for the next |
| 00:40:17.05 | Dan Mullen | So, |
| 00:40:17.14 | Charlie Francis | 30 years and $100,000 a year for the use of the new public safety facility movement |
| 00:40:24.75 | Dan Mullen | That concludes our written questions. Were there any other questions that came up out of those questions perhaps? |
| 00:40:32.11 | Rich Portman | Yes, sir. not directly, but my name is Rich Portman. The question, Charlie, is that you've looked at the benefit to the city of the annexation compared to where we are today. It seems to me that the elephant in the room here is that where we are today is not a viable thing that we can continue doing because Southern Marin has already indicated that they're not willing to continue where we are today. So really the more meaningful comparison might be rather than where we are today versus annexation would be annexation versus what it would look like if we had a standalone fire department here and what it would cost us in that case. And that's going to be far, far more dramatic, I believe. than the numbers that we've looked at. in the comparison between where we are today in annexation |
| 00:41:28.52 | Charlie Francis | Thank you for the question, Rick. Um, |
| 00:41:47.61 | Charlie Francis | This is the city's long term. These are graphs that come from the city's long term fiscal model. We have a 30 year model. It looks 10 years backward and 20 years forward. And what I modeled was what would our revenue and expenses look like if we had to form our own fire department? And adding that $1.4 million of of cost to the city. Without a tax increase on our citizens, would use up our fund balance in two years and we would be right back to where we were in 2003 to 2006 with no money in the bank. and forced to go to an election saying, $400 per unit per parcel property tax. So it would be quite a fiscal shock to have to go back to our own fire department. |
| 00:42:42.75 | Dan Mullen | Thank you. Did you have a question, sir? Thank you. |
| 00:42:45.34 | Jim Irving | Thank you. |
| 00:42:48.68 | Jim Irving | Thank you. |
| 00:42:48.74 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:42:48.78 | Dan Mullen | Thank you. |
| 00:42:48.95 | Jim Irving | Thank you. |
| 00:42:49.00 | Dan Mullen | Thank you. |
| 00:42:49.01 | Jim Irving | you |
| 00:42:49.18 | Dan Mullen | Yeah, if you could identify yourself. |
| 00:42:49.70 | Jim Irving | It's... |
| 00:42:49.96 | John Slavin | THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 00:42:50.11 | Unknown | I'm sorry. |
| 00:42:50.16 | John Slavin | Yeah. |
| 00:42:50.20 | Unknown | THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 00:42:50.36 | John Slavin | of Thank you. I'm John Slavin. Probably well known. Um, My problem on the answers on the pension fund questions that I raised were that yes, they've been answered relative to the city, and to the district. But it doesn't say What are the taxpayers' exposures prior to and after the annexation. And I'm not. I've been. That's all I've been asking for for some time. I'm not opposed. Jim explained to me the whole logic of the number exchange and what he needed to do to make money make it balanced, and that made all the sense to me in the world. The only thing I'm struggling with is this whole issue about what is the pension liability vis-a-vis before and after Because, I mean... And I'm not an actuary. I've tried these things. I've done the negative amortization. I went to Ms. Sarah's actuarial consultant and figured that out. It's staggering what that number means. And there's a lot of questions. If it was all laid out, I could look at it, I could say, yep, I understand it. No, I don't. right now. I am as confused. When I sat up here the night that the council approved proceedings, I asked one of the council members whether there was going to be an immediate unfunded liability for the Sausalito city taxpayers transferring to the district. The answer was no from the council. But Jim and I both know that there is one. And it's not a big deal. It's parata. It works out. It's not unreasonable, but it is. We're just not being clear here. And we're talking a huge percentage of our revenue. If I could address. |
| 00:44:40.03 | Unknown | I'm proud of it. |
| 00:44:46.41 | Jim Irving | Amen. And we're talking about each other. |
| 00:44:48.57 | Unknown | We're so excited. |
| 00:44:48.74 | Jim Irving | Yeah. |
| 00:44:49.01 | Unknown | I'm not sure. |
| 00:44:49.65 | Jim Irving | Yeah. If I could address that and then actually I'll let Duane address it. The reason the city council member didn't know that is because it's not something that directly affected the city. It was something that affects the district. The district board was well aware of it and actually voted to move forward knowing full well that that additional liability was there. And it's not something we've tried to hide. I gave you those numbers. And so I'm not sure exactly what you're saying. It's not visible because I gave you the numbers. |
| 00:45:21.80 | John Slavin | Okay. And I say though, that those city council members sat up there and said they represented the property tax payer throughout the city. And your distinction is the very one that I've been challenged with throughout. The city's got its issues on this side, the district's got its issues on this side, and we, Sausalito property tax payer, are straddling. |
| 00:45:23.52 | Rich Portman | Thank you. |
| 00:45:44.55 | Unknown | Thank you. you |
| 00:45:49.66 | John Slavin | We are, we're going to be accepting that liability and I would like to have the City Council be aware of that liability as they did their calculations. They're sitting there approving it because it does look good for the City. I understand that. It does look good for the District. I understand that. And I, hopefully, it does look good for the Sausalito City taxpayer, but I don't So, ask my |
| 00:46:22.16 | Jim Irving | Well, I think that if you look at it, and the bottom line is it costs the taxpayers less, then obviously it is good for the taxpayer. Does that make sense? God. |
| 00:46:33.20 | John Slavin | Thank you. Thank you. you that that you I mean, if it's true and I can verify that, I'm happy. If I can see it today and five years from today, then I'm happy. If it's not, then I've got a problem. |
| 00:46:58.85 | John Slavin | Thank you. You've been negotiating on behalf of the city. The city's had an attorney. The city's had an actuary. The districts had an attorney. The districts had an actuary. |
| 00:47:24.97 | John Slavin | Thank you. is. Yes. All I'm asking for I wanna know specifically, what a taxpayer's pension liability is for firefighters, and after. I want to know how much we're paying for pensions before and after. It's not that much to ask, and I may Thank you. |
| 00:47:53.02 | Jim Irving | So are you asking the specific Percentage? I mean, you know what the unfunded liabilities, I gave you those numbers. Correct. |
| 00:48:04.96 | John Slavin | The incumbent liability is on your side. Yes. and then it goes up and you have it, this would be one of 10 and a half. I know that. I don't know what the city side is. Thank you. I'm going to... |
| 00:48:24.71 | Jim Irving | I don't know. Charlie can probably answer that. I don't know the answer to that. |
| 00:48:31.12 | Charlie Francis | Thank you. |
| 00:48:31.14 | Peter Banning | Did you want to jump in or you want me to? |
| 00:48:32.79 | Adam Politzer | Thank you. |
| 00:48:33.43 | Peter Banning | Yeah. The words city and word district, that's exactly the same as saying taxpayer, because a human who is a member of the district after annexation, is a taxpayer. and before they're a member of the city. I'm confused by John's comment that a taxpayer is something other than included in the name district or included in the name city. I don't see a third existing entity other than just a taxpayer within those two things. |
| 00:48:57.80 | Adam Politzer | Thank you. |
| 00:49:03.61 | Adam Politzer | Let me comment, if you may, Charlie. Um. I'm not going to, to answer your question, John, on the pensions. maybe Dwayne here or Charlie Kemp, But I do want to answer your question on the taxpayer, because I think that's important. And I think that what the city's staff has done working with the City Council and the Consolidation Committee uh, representatives of the district and the city Thank you. was to study carefully the financial impacts to both the city and the district and the taxpayer. And I think what we brought forward on the September 27th meeting Um, was the option which was supported, which was not to tax our residents. And so any future tax obligation of our residents would start at zero. versus the taxpayer that will be part of the district that's part of the district today that's starting at $90. And any increase to tax any increase to tax our residents will start at zero and will also require two-thirds vote. for approval. So that's a difficult threshold at best, but if they raise it $10 to make it $100 for the our taxpayers will be Uh, paying $10 in tax for fire service, which is still cheaper than what we were proposing earlier in the year, which was $90, which is significantly less than what we would be asking our residents and taxpayers to pay if we were to go back to a standalone fire department. So to answer your question on what are we doing to protect are, taxpayers, I think that the city, this team, Um, and your council in its powers to make sure that, What we know today has no immediate tax implication to our residents. It starts at zero. for any increased tax that they would be required to pay, require a two-thirds vote. to increase it and it would only go up the same level as the district. So if the district asks their members to pay $100, they would go up $10 and ours would go up $10. And I think not only are we providing a more stable, and operationally powerful fire department into the future. we are also protecting our taxpayers for future increased costs. Now, we don't know what the future is going to bring, but I don't think that future would be any different if we were staying in our own, a contract for service or a JPA or a standalone fire department, we would still have employees that would have unfunded liabilities and pension challenges. just as they have now. So I think that those degree of increases would happen in any one of those four scenarios. |
| 00:52:18.43 | Charlie Francis | And one last comment on the The city has not tried to not tell you the amount of unfunded liability that the firefighters have in the calpers pool You know, John, that because you've contacted CalPERS and talked to the city's actuary from CalPERS that CalPERS will not and cannot calculate the unfunded liability for any specific city that's in the CalPERS pool. So the city has to go through the same kind of back of the envelope calculation that you've gone through estimate what the city's unfunded liability is for the firefighters portion within the I've done mine as well. And we can certainly sit down and compare those, as I think we've done in the past. So I think that you who wants to dig down to that level of detail and should have those answers that you're asking as a taxpayer in order to make an informed decision. |
| 00:53:19.46 | Duane Mills | Sure. Let me come at it a little bit differently. And this is information that I think I recall telling the Council Currently, with the employees, the fire department employees who are on the city payroll, the city is in the CalPERS retirement system. And the city pays a percentage, I'll say roughly 30%, of the employee's wages every year to CalPERS. And what CalPERS promises with that is that when the employee retires, that the employee gets their return. every year to CalPERS. And what CalPERS promises with that is that when the employee retires, that the employee gets their retirement check That 30% is made up of essentially several elements. One of those elements is what Charlie is referring to as the side fund. When the city went into the went, When CalPERS a number of years ago took the city, as they did most small cities, out of an individually rated pool where they said, we're going to rate you by yourself. They lumped all small cities and small fire departments into a large pool so that they all paid a common rate. At that moment, they looked at each agency and said, As you come in, do you have an unfunded liability? Some did and some didn't. They called that the side fund. so that when they calculate the annual retirement percentage that the agency pays, a portion of that percentage is paying off that side fund. So that currently the size of that side fund for the city of Sausalito is about $1.4 million. Another component of that rate is the amount of unfunded liability, if any, that exists from you the moment that side fund was created up until now. And, that unfunded liability tends to fluctuate a lot. Five or six years ago, almost nobody had an unfunded liability because the because the earnings by CalPERS were huge. And CalPERS earnings have been less, as we all know. And so, because of that. this city and every other fire agency in the state who's part of CalPERS has an unfunded liability. And I think Charlie has anticipated that that number is somewhere below $500,000. But CalPERS can't tell you what it is until the moment that the annexation occurs and the employees transfer over because it has to do with exactly who's on the payroll at the time, what their earnings were, what CalPERS earnings were, so on and so forth. So we can only estimate what that is. So the aggregate of the unfunded liability that the city pays against every year is somewhere south of about $2 million. And currently the city pays that off at the rate of somewhere between $150,000 and $150,000 a year. Because annexation is occurring... Charlie has an opportunity through some of the savings that are occurring here to pay off. Uh. those unfunded liabilities. which is a tremendous savings for the city because What CalPERS charges you going forward if they're amortizing this is they charge you an interest rate of 7.75% a year. and We all know that that's an exorbitant interest rate right now. And so by paying that off, Charlie saves a lot of money for the city. and erases most of that unfunded liability. So what the city has before and after annexation is the responsibility for that unfunded liability. what the city taxpayers have before and after annexation is that unfunded liability. and most of it is being erased as a result of savings that are occurring through the annexation. So the annexation is not causing the city taxpayers extra funds from the CalPERS side It is in fact, The annexation saves the city and its taxpayers money going forward. Once the employees go over to the district, as Charlie mentioned, they enter a different retirement system. And the city of Sausalito, has no responsibility for any liability associated with that. when they go into that retirement system, there is no unfunded liability. because the retirement that they earn is from that moment forward, and they're paying a retirement rate for the time that they are going to work for the district. has handled the unfunded liability. And when they retire, They will receive retirement money from two entities. one from CalPERS, and the other from Imsera. And it's based on the number of years that they worked in CalPERS and the number of years they worked in MSERA. So in the aggregate, before and after annexation, the unfunded liability obligation of the city and the city taxpayers on either the Kalproside or the Amsara side is the same as it is today. It is that CalPERS unfunded liability, most of which is going away, and that is being paid with money that is not being essentially ratcheted up by the 7.75% annual interest rate that CalPERS charges. Now, if that's not clear, I'd like to hear additional questions from you, and we can try to clarify it for you. |
| 00:59:52.58 | John Slavin | And Jim pointed out to me where I was wrong. And the problem comes from the fact that MSERA has a 10-year eligibility requirement They waive that. for purposes of people moving from CalPERS over to MSERA. So if somebody retires a year after they've joined MSERA, They've only made a year's contribution, but they're going to get 3% of their salary for that year and there's not adequate funds in MSERA, so there is, as of day one, an unfunded liability on behalf of the fire district representing the 15 employees moving over. |
| 01:00:29.29 | Unknown | you |
| 01:00:29.35 | Duane Mills | Yeah. |
| 01:00:29.66 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:00:31.26 | John Slavin | I came to the same conclusion you did. I'm not faulting you, but Jim explained it to me. |
| 01:00:36.17 | Duane Mills | Yeah, but based on my reading of the AMSERA annual valuation report, that that any unfunded liability that is created by that is largely offset by the fact that when when the employees go over, it actually lowers the rate that the district pays. We looked at that element. |
| 01:01:05.40 | John Slavin | You know what? i tell you what All I would love to see is that laid out somewhere. Why is this such a dental job trying to pull teeth here? |
| 01:01:16.15 | Duane Mills | Yeah. |
| 01:01:17.11 | John Slavin | If you've done all this, I mean, Jim's oftentimes has sat me down and said, John, you're wrong. I've made corrections on my radio show when I'm wrong. I don't have any problem with that, but right now, I don't think, Barthel and Associates did a detailed analysis for the city of what they would look like before and after the annexation. All I'm asking for is something very similar to that for the taxpayer before and after the annexation. Now it might require a conciliate, you know, work between Bartell and EFI, but I don't think that's an unfair thing to do. Your council of mayors and council members just said that this pension exposure is huge. We ought to know that number because I understand why Peter's confused as to why there are three parties here. There is a city and there is a district and there's a taxpayer who's straddling in between the two. I'm going to be responsible for any unfunded liability in the district, at least some percentage of it. |
| 01:02:14.22 | Unknown | THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 01:02:27.21 | John Slavin | I was responsible for the city side. it's moving back and forth and i'm picking up both tabs the city may not be concerned about it because it's no longer their problems |
| 01:02:30.26 | Unknown | moving? |
| 01:02:37.82 | John Slavin | But it's still my problem, and it's not being represented. |
| 01:02:39.48 | Duane Mills | Yeah. it. Okay, let me respond. There are really two parts. One is that a report was done, and I believe you may have seen it, that indicates that when the employees go over, that the district rate goes down. and that rate is reflective of an actuarial anticipation. of exactly the element that you're fearful of. It is in anticipation of the age of the employees, the time at which they are anticipated to retire, and what is the appropriate rate to be charged so that when they retire there is enough money there. And that rate is lower than what the current rate for the district is prior to annexation. Now, one of the reasons that people can't give you a precise set of numbers is because you have to make assumptions about And if you give me the assumptions, An actuary can do it. of the employees that are going over exactly what What year are they going to retire? At what salary will they retire? and What are the investment earnings of IMSERA over that period of time. All of those elements create, the liability. And what INSERA tries to do every year is they redo an actuarial report to look at age, length of service to determine the rate so that they keep that rate going in a way that pays off uh... the this liability. And, Currently, the anticipation based on the best known data and projections that anybody has is that. the district's rate will be lower and will be adequate to pay for those things that you're |
| 01:04:50.39 | Duane Mills | you |
| 01:04:50.53 | Peter Banning | you |
| 01:04:50.55 | Duane Mills | you. |
| 01:04:50.56 | Peter Banning | Yeah. |
| 01:04:50.61 | Duane Mills | Yeah. |
| 01:04:50.65 | Peter Banning | Yeah. |
| 01:04:50.71 | Duane Mills | So, |
| 01:04:50.78 | Peter Banning | you |
| 01:04:50.87 | Duane Mills | Thank you. |
| 01:04:54.32 | Peter Banning | in Sausalito. would be simply a proportional share of all the taxpayers in the district. So they're not totally exposed to the proposed or suspected unfunded liability of the 15 people going over. They don't get the whole exposure. They only get a part of that exposure. |
| 01:05:01.51 | Unknown | So, |
| 01:05:01.55 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:05:01.61 | Unknown | There's a lot of people. |
| 01:05:07.76 | Duane Mills | Yeah. They don't. If an unfunded liability occurred, That would be reflected in a higher retirement rate. and that retirement rate would come out of the district's budget, which is the responsibility and property tax sense of everybody across the entire district. And so the city's exposure of that in sort of a percentage basis is about 25%. |
| 01:05:39.28 | John Slavin | you I just want to correct Peter. I understand what you're saying, but the total unfunded liability is 14.2 million. Our 24% is that number that I'm speaking of. Total unfunded liability is 14.2. So it is spread across the whole district, but our percentage is 3.7. Thank you. |
| 01:06:08.39 | Peter Banning | My understanding was that the taxpayer of Sausalito assumes no pre-annexation unfunded liabilities |
| 01:06:18.38 | Jim Irving | that. That is essentially correct. When we look at the percentages of employees and contrast that with the percentage of unfunded liability, they're roughly equal. So there really is no additional you know, the The SOSO taxpayers are not picking up the unfunded liability of current district employees. |
| 01:06:48.79 | Pat Zook | I think you answered my question. What you're saying is that I, as a new member of the SMFD, will my property taxes will not be going to fund or I will not be responsible for funding. The currently existing 30 percent unfunded liability relating to the 17 existing employees of SMFD. Is that what you're saying? |
| 01:07:17.90 | Jim Irving | We have 38 employees. |
| 01:07:20.02 | Pat Zook | Oh, shit. |
| 01:07:20.41 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:07:20.46 | Unknown | I don't want to. |
| 01:07:20.80 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:07:20.97 | Jim Irving | Bye. I read 17. |
| 01:07:21.66 | Pat Zook | I read 17, perhaps it was 17 firefighters and 38 employees. |
| 01:07:26.13 | Jim Irving | That's correct, and there was a slight What is it, John? You know the numbers. I think it was a 3% difference in the unfunded liability. Yeah, 3% difference in the number. But what you need to contrast that with is that The Saucyut residents are coming in in only the incremental cost to the district. So the Saucyut taxpayers are paying nothing for the command and overhead staff that's already in the district. So you're essentially getting an incredible deal here, to be very blunt. And even if you were picking up some percentage of the district's unfunded liabilities, it would really be irrelevant because you're paying less than you're paying now. |
| 01:08:12.64 | John Slavin | Just the correct way to say it. John, can you describe |
| 01:08:16.03 | Adam Politzer | John, can you just speak into the mic because people are listening at home. |
| 01:08:20.18 | John Slavin | The correct way to say it though is that we're not picking up $3.7 million liability we're picking up 28% of a $14.2 million liability. Isn't that correct? I mean, it works out to be the same thing, |
| 01:08:33.63 | Unknown | Thank you. It works out. |
| 01:08:35.86 | John Slavin | But it just means we are, it's just a, it happens to be mathematically the way it works out. The reality is we are picking up whether or not it's enough, there is an unfunded liability of 14-2. We're picking up our pro rata share of that. It just happens that we are contributing $3.7 million because of this M-CERA calculation. So it works out that we are not taking a disproportionate share of the unfunded liability. Is that clear? |
| 01:09:07.53 | Rich Portman | That is correct. |
| 01:09:09.24 | John Slavin | Yeah. |
| 01:09:10.56 | Adam Politzer | you |
| 01:09:11.18 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:09:11.20 | Dan Mullen | Thank you. |
| 01:09:11.23 | Rich Portman | Point of agreement. |
| 01:09:12.02 | Dan Mullen | Thank you. |
| 01:09:13.36 | Adam Politzer | You got a question? |
| 01:09:18.77 | Unknown | Hi, Alice Merrill. If we didn't do this, if we didn't but annex ourselves to this group. And we went back. all by ourselves and we don't have the support or the trucks or whatever, what are we looking at then? So if we don't like what this is, what would it be if we didn't have it? |
| 01:09:48.57 | Peter Banning | Thank you. |
| 01:09:48.59 | Pat Zook | I'll let her know. |
| 01:09:48.61 | Peter Banning | What? |
| 01:09:48.68 | Unknown | let you know we completely talked about that sign it just seems like |
| 01:09:49.74 | Adam Politzer | So, |
| 01:09:53.00 | Unknown | Bye. Oh, it's been answered. |
| 01:09:56.05 | Adam Politzer | Yeah, the simple answer is 1.4 million. |
| 01:09:56.49 | Unknown | Yeah, okay. Because I, to me, it's obvious that this is a good deal, given the fact that we would have, you know, not even enough places for the trucks and not enough people to run them and all those things, so. |
| 01:10:10.07 | Adam Politzer | Alice, if I can just expand on that a little bit because there has been a lot of discussion about the future costs. And you can look at of the state of California is an example of where fire consolidations are going on all over the state. I just attended the League of California Cities annual conference at the Moscone Center this past couple weeks ago. And one of the primary sessions was on shared services and again, fire consolidation and annexation was highlighted. but the cost of fire service for a small town It's only going to get more expensive. And one of the things that we were successfully able to do working with Southern Marin and our neighbors in the county in Mill Valley and Tiburon was defer the replacement of our ladder truck, which would have cost somewhere between $800,000 and $900,000. And Jim may have a better figure than that. And instead of replacing that and having our own ladder truck sitting here, as we've done in in the past we asked the other neighbors to participate in sharing that cost the ladder truck now sits in Mill Valley Thank you. |
| 01:11:25.81 | Jim Irving | that. |
| 01:11:25.82 | Adam Politzer | Thank you. Southern Marin Station. Southern Marin Station 4. Thank you. and is able to serve all those agencies, but now everyone is contributing financially towards that. When you stand alone, It's not just the cost of the day-to-day service, it's replacing significantly expensive equipment. including a fire boat, the engines and then all of the other Cal OSHA and safety requirements that get uh, more and more expensive for a small town to absorb. So that's why You know, this is also not just a $1.4 million, but that number could go up for a small agency such as Sausalito. |
| 01:12:19.20 | Dan Mullen | Are there any more questions? Yes. |
| 01:12:27.40 | Pat Zook | I did just get here, so if this was asked and discussed, please shut me up quickly. Pat Zook. Thank you. We in Sausalito just built a building. You have two other stations, I believe. Are they, were they built by the district? Are they in such condition as they would be? replaced over time, and if they were replaced or rebuilt, who would pay for that? |
| 01:12:52.65 | Jim Irving | Both the buildings that we currently have are in very good condition. The headquarters station was built in 93, and it was built by the fire district. It is owned and built by the fire district. |
| 01:12:56.23 | Pat Zook | Yeah. |
| 01:13:05.44 | Jim Irving | It was built in 93. It's in excellent condition. Matter of fact, we just had some substantial remodel unplanned because of some weather damage, but the building is in very good condition. |
| 01:13:05.78 | Unknown | you |
| 01:13:05.79 | Unknown | you |
| 01:13:05.84 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:13:16.61 | Jim Irving | We have a station in Telmopolis Valley. It's also in reasonably good condition. It was built in 76, I believe, but has had... It was built by the, then was the Tamal Pius Fire Protection District. And it is in very good condition. It went through a substantial remodel roughly 10 years ago. Both of our buildings are in very good condition. |
| 01:13:48.11 | Jim Irving | That is correct. They would be replaced. Correct. |
| 01:13:52.81 | Dan Mullen | Just to get that on mic. The question is if they needed to be replaced, they would be replaced by the residents of the district, the taxpayers of the districts. You agree. |
| 01:14:02.80 | Jim Irving | Great. That is correct. |
| 01:14:04.23 | Dan Mullen | Thank you. MULTIPLE. Are there any more questions? Okay, with that... The team here is going to be continuing to talk to residents, anybody who may be interested in getting more information. |
| 01:14:21.63 | Jim Irving | Thank you. |
| 01:14:21.66 | Dan Mullen | Yes. |
| 01:14:22.57 | Jim Irving | I wanted Mike Martinez, one of our fire captains, if he could come up and say a couple of words. |
| 01:14:35.33 | Adam Politzer | And while Mike is coming up, I wanted to mention two things about why we asked Mike to say a few words. One is that Mike, like myself, is a homegrown kid here from Sausalito, and just lived down the street from where I grew up. But also I think to John Flavin's comments, you know, there's actually four legs to our chair. And we talked about the city, the district, the residents, but we really haven't talked about the employees themselves. And I think that they should also be heard from. So we asked Mike to come and talk about this as well. Thank you. |
| 01:15:11.29 | Mike Martinez | Thank you. Excellent, thanks Adam. Where shall I start? I actually have a few points that I'd like to bring up. And then I'll segue into my main body of point. 2001 was an interesting year for all of us. And it was a year where it brought light into the fire service. It brought attention to the fire service. It really is something that, it was a pinnacle for me, it was a pinnacle for the members of our organization. And as a leader in the organization, I was able to really bring our personnel forth into looking in the future and saying, How are we going to carry this on? The people love us. They want to come in and bring us food. And we were held on a pedestal. And we wanted to provide back to the community at that point to make them not proud for the moment, but to sustain the pride for this community. And it's interesting to me today. So 10 years later, where have we gone wrong? Now it seems that we're vilified. We're making too much money or we're creating too much and unfunded liabilities. It's just a little food for thought there. For us, for me, I grew up here. I provided service to the community for, or lived here for 44 years, quite a long time. My family, I'm a fourth generation Sausseletan. I make a lot of money according to a lot of people, or I'm too much of an unfunded liability, but I can't afford to live here. so I don't happen to live here. My parents live here. Why am I here? I'm here because I love this community. I'm here because I want to provide to the community what the community gave to me. I want to provide the best service. This community doesn't deserve mediocre service, in my opinion. Back to 2001. In 2001 when we got together as members. Captain Matt Bouchard and I spoke to our membership at large at the time was more than 15 people. But we said, Men, this is something that we owe the community. This is not sustainable. They love us now, but we need to provide better. We need to provide a better service. We need to keep the quality service on the table, but what you thought was the quality service at the time, I'm being honest with you, it wasn't a quality service. We weren't able to provide for the larger incident to provide for you the service that you deserve. And it's a very difficult community to serve in. So we came to the membership and we pitched an idea and we said, we really think that the redundancy that we have, and I'd like to mention something, a side note, unfunded liabilities, and I'm not a mathematician, I'm not really good with the numbers, I'm not a lawyer, but very simply, in our minds, unfunded liabilities would have and they would be if we had to have the command staff that we had in 2001 or in the future would be higher. And so that's just, that just my simple numbers. And at the time, for us, they were simple numbers. Again, we're not math geniuses. We're firemen. We're professionals. And we love the community. We were very good at what we do for the community. And our simple numbers were, we need to cut from the top and provide a decent level of service from the bottom. We need to expand at the sides so that we're all operating under the same plan, under the same training, under the same standard operating procedures so that we can deliver seamless quality service to the community. So this is something that we sold to our members. And it wasn't a bill of goods. It was a wonderful idea. And it was very difficult for us to approach the fire chief at the time and say, hey chief, you're a great man, but we have a better idea. We have an idea that is going to be something that's long lasting and we want to see if it sticks. And we pitched it and he didn't disagree. He didn't disagree with us. He said, you're right. It only makes sense. So, you know, I think it's a good all these numbers, this is incredible to see all this stuff because I didn't create all this. Our idea, which was before all of these gentlemen, our idea has transformed into this. And I really can tell you that For my family that lives here right now, I make the travel to work here, to provide here, to provide them the best service. And I wouldn't want a second-rate service for my mother and my father. So that's what we're providing. Is it still the best service? I think the service is, if you want to know in my mind, is better business by reducing the redundancies and creating a better service at large for the area of Southern Marin. So I think the product that we're putting on the table, the product that is put forth currently to the community is an excellent start. And for a fourth generation, so I'll still even 100 years of family in this community. we give you our best and we give you our commitment. So thank you for listening. |
| 01:21:34.25 | Dan Mullen | Thank you, Mike. And on that note, is there one more question? |
| 01:21:44.43 | Pat Zook | And actually, these comments were a very good lead-in to the question that I have. Not to my credit that I was not at the board meeting that I heard that this subject was discussed. And in looking through the minutes, these comments are not reflected in the SMFD board minutes. So I could have been misled, and I'll preface my comments by acknowledging that. Many of you know, or many of you should know, about 41% of the incident calls in the district or from Sausalito. which is a rather high percentage. and it could be high because we have bikers coming through town, it could be high because we have an aging you know, perhaps an older population, I don't know, but it still is a relatively high number vis-a-vis the 26% or so of the district that we would represent. It's my understanding, and again, I could have been misled, that there was some discussion at the board level of this number and the fact that perhaps Celis Leden's are overusing or perhaps need to be educated as to the proper use. of the fire department. Now, part of much of this discussion has been always prefaced by compliments about the level of service that we receive in Sausalito. And I don't think there's anybody that ever has voiced a complaint that has made its way to the public forum. I worry and I'm wondering. if that comment or those comments about how we need to be reeducated as to the proper use of our fire department and the services associated there with. might preface, some reconsideration of the kind of service we do get. And, well, you're scowling at me. So perhaps I'm in error. And I'm willing to be corrected. |
| 01:24:03.31 | Jim Irving | Yeah, I don't know what you're referring to. There is a higher percentage of calls in the city of Sausalito. And that's likely because of an aging population a lot of tourists come through here. As well as Sausalito has a much larger commercial area. than does the other parts of the district. To my knowledge, the board has never made any discussion that we run too many calls in Sausalito. So I don't know what you're referring to. But if you can give me a date and approximate time, we could certainly go back and see if we figure out what it was. Thank you. Okay. We are happy to serve the city of Sausalito. We think that... That Sausalito being a part of our district is a great part of our district. Since we've been running a joint fire department with the city, we feel that it has significantly enhanced our operation. It has made us a better fire department as well. |
| 01:25:11.50 | Dan Mullen | Anything else? Okay, so with that, as I was saying before, thank you all for being so courteous and inquisitive, and thank you for all your excellent questions. And certainly this is a large process for something that is very important to everybody who lives here. And we'll continue to be available to answer questions. I did want to give out the website for the city. It's www.ci.sausalito.ca.us. And if you go onto the homepage there, there is a button right on the front page that says fire annexation, and there'll be more information there as well. So thank you again, and have a good night. |
John Slavin — Neutral: Repeatedly requested clear data on taxpayer pension liability exposure before and after annexation, expressing confusion over city vs. district responsibilities. ▶ 📄
Alice Merrill — In Favor: Asked about the alternative if annexation doesn't proceed; after hearing the $1.4M cost for standalone, stated annexation seems an obvious good deal. ▶ 📄
Pat Zook — Neutral: Asked about district station conditions and funding for replacements; later raised a concern about potential board discussions on Sausalito's high call volume and service reconsideration. ▶ 📄