| Time | Speaker | Text |
|---|---|---|
| 00:00:00.03 | Ray Withy | 5A, that's approval. Okay. Mom in favor. Aye. Aye. With that, move approval of the agenda. |
| 00:00:06.65 | Thomas Theodores | night. |
| 00:00:12.45 | Thomas Theodores | So move. |
| 00:00:13.41 | Ray Withy | Okay, second. |
| 00:00:14.68 | Thomas Theodores | Second. |
| 00:00:15.30 | Ray Withy | Okay, all in favor? Aye. Aye. Okay, at this time here, we're going to have some special presentations, and that will be from the Willow Creek Foundation on the Sausalicious Partnership. |
| 00:00:30.61 | Unknown | You're up again. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And thanks for having us here this evening. And thank you to Parks and Rec for co-sponsoring SOSLitius for the second year running and making it such a resounding success. Many thanks to Mike Lamford and to Jeff here whose time and energy they put in made it all work. And of course many thanks to the parents of Willow Creek Academy whose volunteer time made it all happen. |
| 00:00:32.14 | Ray Withy | And... |
| 00:00:57.10 | Unknown | um, And a special thanks to Adam Politzer who contributed lunch with the city manager. It's my understanding that he had to put up with two very obnoxious characters at the Trident and that he handled it very well because they report that they had a thoroughly enjoyable lunch. Thanks also to the Saucer Restaurants who participated by providing delicious appetizers for the event, which brings us to the first presentation. Mr. Mayor, would you care to come and make the presentation of the three plaques to the three winners? Thank you. Third place, Sartaj India Cafe. Is there a representative here from Sartaj? I guess not, we set that one aside. Yes. And second place is to Sailor's Restaurant and Bar. And I know Sean and his daughter is here. |
| 00:02:02.85 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:02:07.49 | Unknown | And first place goes to Osteria Tovino. A representative from Australia, Davino. |
| 00:02:18.69 | Unknown | I guess we'll just have to hand it to them. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. |
| 00:02:28.50 | Unknown | For those of you who don't know much about Willow Creek Academy, we're in our 12th year, I think it is, and we now have some 300 students |
| 00:02:37.14 | Unknown | 300. |
| 00:02:38.76 | Unknown | in the school. kindergarten through eighth grade. including 60 in kindergarten this year. Um, I believe it's fair to say that in the last three years, has transformed this town into a family-friendly community. We're gonna have three kindergarten classes this next school year, and we're still, more than 50% of our students come from Marin City, and we're still the most racially diverse school in Marin County. Academically, we were declared a distinguished school. and deemed to be the sixth best charter school in all of California. API scores are well above average for Marin County. All of this doesn't come cheaply, of course, which is why Willow Creek Foundation exists. The budget gap this school year between the public funds available to us and Willow Creek's budget is over $300,000. And that's why Sausalicious goes on. But, of course, Sausalacious makes just a tiny dent in that $300,000. So this is one reason why we just introduced the concept of community memberships to Willow Creek Foundation. For as little as $50 a year, residents can become a member and get connected with the school and stay informed about the school through our regular new newsletter that we've been putting out through email. Um, Two members of the City Council, I'm pleased to say, are already community members by dint of their very generous donations this past fall. I hope the rest of the City Council will join as members and I hope that they will encourage their friends and family and their community members to join as members of Willow Creek Foundation. It's very easy to do. You can just go to willowcreekacademy.org and click on Donate. Or if you forget that, just Google it, Willow Creek Academy, and you'll find your way there. It's now my pleasure to ask Carol Cooper, who's been head of school for the Willow Creek Academy since the day it opens its doors to make the presentation of the check for 20% of the net proceeds of Sausalicious 2012 to the city, to Parks and Rec. So if Carol and the students from Willow Creek will come forward and if... Mike and Jeff would come up here to receive the check. I'm very pleased to say it's a significant increase over last year. 31 cents shy of $2,400. |
| 00:05:45.50 | Unknown | Yeah. figure that out. |
| 00:06:01.97 | Unknown | you |
| 00:06:08.87 | Evan Shepherd-Reef | Thank you. |
| 00:06:14.10 | Unknown | Fox and Red One. |
| 00:06:18.98 | Len Rifkind | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 00:06:20.29 | Unknown | Just a... |
| 00:06:20.75 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:06:20.83 | Unknown | Oh, there we go. |
| 00:06:21.08 | Unknown | There we go. Thank you. |
| 00:06:22.98 | Len Rifkind | Thank you. |
| 00:06:33.25 | Unknown | All right. Okay. |
| 00:06:34.97 | Unknown | Okay. |
| 00:06:35.53 | Unknown | You have the real chance. |
| 00:06:36.96 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:06:37.91 | Unknown | On behalf of these guys, the students of Willow Creek, thank you for everything to make this such a successful event. |
| 00:06:37.94 | Unknown | I'm not. |
| 00:06:45.35 | Unknown | We have third grade represented here, fourth grade, and seventh grade. And we couldn't find any girls tonight. |
| 00:06:55.17 | Unknown | And in case you didn't recognize it, I'm wearing the lower school uniform. So if you see little kids running around dressed like me. You know where they're going. Thank you for your time. Appreciate it. |
| 00:07:07.02 | Ray Withy | And thank you, Doug. Congratulations. |
| 00:07:08.01 | Unknown | Congratulations. |
| 00:07:12.84 | Ray Withy | tonight, would you like to say something? |
| 00:07:14.38 | Unknown | Yeah, I'd like to thank Willow Creek for putting this all together. Well done, Jeff. |
| 00:07:17.67 | Ray Withy | Hold on, Jack. I'm not. |
| 00:07:18.90 | Unknown | But I also do want to say that that money is going towards the Rob and Sweeney Park renovations. So every dollar they made, whether it's coming to Parks and Rec or going straight to the school, is benefiting the children and the youth in Sausalito. Thank you, Mike. Thank you. |
| 00:07:35.45 | Ray Withy | And thank you once again, Doug. Okay, this time here we have public communications, and would anybody like to speak to us on anything that is not on the agenda? Now is the time to do it. So is there anybody that would like to speak? Okay, moving right along then. I'd like to move to the minutes of the regular City Council meeting of January 15th. |
| 00:08:09.37 | Ray Withy | So moved. |
| 00:08:11.16 | Thomas Theodores | Uh, Mr. Mayor, I just have a couple of comments. |
| 00:08:13.96 | Unknown | Okay. |
| 00:08:14.13 | Thomas Theodores | Okay. The first is on page 3A. I noticed that these minutes are a bit more narrative than they've been in the past, and I was wondering if on line 25 says, Council, questions followed, if we couldn't make some sort of reference to my questions about the bike facility being bundled into the sewer rehab project. Yes, page number 3A, 5, sorry, agenda 3A and it's page 5. |
| 00:08:42.33 | Unknown | Thank you. Thank you. He'll pitch |
| 00:08:49.70 | Mary Wagner | Thank you. |
| 00:08:49.87 | Thomas Theodores | Thank you. Page 5 of 7, line 25. you Council questions followed. |
| 00:08:53.63 | Mary Wagner | Councilman. |
| 00:08:56.32 | Thomas Theodores | Something simple like, Pfeiffer asked about the nature of the bike facility bundled into the sewer rehab project. The other comment I had was on the next page, page 6, and it's line 37. She also noted that she wanted to discuss Receiving the agenda only three days in advance. I would change receiving to getting. She wanted to discuss getting the agenda earlier than three business days in advance. I remember I said three business days, and that was my concern was that three business days didn't give a lot of time for ramp up. |
| 00:09:40.45 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 00:09:40.46 | Unknown | All right. |
| 00:09:41.02 | Ray Withy | Can I make a comment? So rather than try to, and again, these are action minutes, and the full tape of video and audio is available online. |
| 00:09:41.54 | Unknown | Can I make you go? Frozen. |
| 00:09:53.76 | Ray Withy | you know, maybe the city clerk in the future. perhaps might suggest just putting actual motions and who spoke and forget any narrative whatsoever so we don't go through this conversation every time about people wanting specific comments, not even motions or actions in the action minutes. Otherwise, we'll have to edit this every time to put in things that people think were important. |
| 00:10:18.31 | Ray Withy | There's a rule. |
| 00:10:23.87 | Thomas Theodores | Well, and I will, Mr. May, I'd like to respond to Council Member Leon. I was just trying to be accurate with respect to the nature of the question I asked at that time. I'm fine if you want to just keep it to motions, but I did want to raise that. But in the interest of accuracy on page six, my concern there was regarding getting the agenda only three business days in advance. |
| 00:10:50.17 | Ray Withy | Which section is this one in? Thank you. you |
| 00:10:53.45 | Thomas Theodores | It's page six and it's line 37. Thank you. |
| 00:10:57.53 | Thomas Theodores | And Councilman Pfeiffer, for those of us who work off the iPad, could you also say the section so it's a little bit easier for us? |
| 00:11:04.33 | Thomas Theodores | Oh, it's Section 7B, Future Agenda Items. Yes, and in the past with the Action Minutes, we have been articulate with respect to what we said for our future agenda items. |
| 00:11:15.76 | Ray Withy | Agenda items. Those three business days are saying here. |
| 00:11:18.27 | Thomas Theodores | I'm saying that it should read, she also noted that she wanted to discuss getting the agenda earlier the end, three business days in advance. |
| 00:11:26.35 | Ray Withy | That's fine. |
| 00:11:27.74 | Thomas Theodores | because that's basically what I said. |
| 00:11:29.48 | Ray Withy | Okay. So were you limited to that? Is that you comfortable with that or are the other ones you're still in the discuss? |
| 00:11:35.75 | Thomas Theodores | Well, I guess my prior comment was more preference, you know, because I noticed that this had more, a little bit more, you know, narrative in it, was just the fact that council talked for an hour. regarding the bike facility that was bundled into the sewer rehab project agenda? And that was the nature of the questions. So just in terms of context. But I'm flexible if you'd rather not include that. |
| 00:11:57.96 | Ray Withy | So. |
| 00:12:02.25 | Ray Withy | Thank you. Yeah, like I said, I think it's – yours is actually the only one who's quoted in – or paraphrased in here in any point other than in the future agenda item. So maybe if we just limit it to actions and motions that either they pass or they pass and then we won't have this problem in the future. Thank you. |
| 00:12:27.09 | Ray Withy | Okay. |
| 00:12:27.93 | Thomas Theodores | Actually, I'm sorry, you said I'm the only one who's quoted beyond an action. Where is that? I see Tom and I. |
| 00:12:37.16 | Ray Withy | So why don't we just limit it to having discussion of motions and votes and actions, and then you won't have to paraphrase anything. We won't have to wordsmith. Is that clear? Does that make sense to folks? I agree. I'm willing to... |
| 00:12:54.14 | Thomas Theodores | I agree, I'm willing to take out my Thank you. |
| 00:12:56.97 | Ray Withy | You can take mine out, believe me, if I mentioned anywhere in here. |
| 00:12:57.11 | Thomas Theodores | You can take mine now. |
| 00:12:59.71 | Thomas Theodores | Thank you. |
| 00:13:00.53 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 00:13:00.55 | Ray Withy | Okay. |
| 00:13:02.03 | Thomas Theodores | Thank you, Mr. Mayor. |
| 00:13:02.98 | Ray Withy | Okay. With that, do we move forward? for approval of the meeting. |
| 00:13:10.44 | Thomas Theodores | Thank you. I move that we approve the minutes of The meeting of |
| 00:13:13.95 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 00:13:13.97 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 00:13:14.00 | Ray Withy | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 00:13:15.11 | Thomas Theodores | January 15th. January 15th as amended. |
| 00:13:18.57 | Ray Withy | second. The king. |
| 00:13:20.58 | Thomas Theodores | Thank you. |
| 00:13:20.60 | Ray Withy | Are you clear of what the amendment is? |
| 00:13:22.52 | Thomas Theodores | Thank you. |
| 00:13:22.71 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 00:13:22.94 | Ray Withy | Okay, all in favor? Aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay, let's move it next to a consent calendar. Matters listed under the consent calendar are considered routine and non-controversial, required no discussion. I expect that they have unanimous council support and may be enacted by the council in one motion in the form listed below. |
| 00:13:24.14 | Ray Withy | Hi. |
| 00:13:45.02 | Ray Withy | There will be no separate discussion of consent calendar items. However, before the Council votes on a motion to adopt the consent calendar items, Council members, City staff, or members of the public may request specific items be removed from the consent calendar for separate action. Okay. Any questions on this? Move the consent calendar? Oh, at this time, you have any public comment on the consent calendar? Good. Okay, with that. |
| 00:14:13.79 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:14:23.42 | Ray Withy | Thank you. Well, you've got to move it. |
| 00:14:26.00 | Thomas Theodores | Thank you. |
| 00:14:26.44 | Ray Withy | Move a motion to accept it. |
| 00:14:28.96 | Thomas Theodores | Right? I move that we accept the consent calendar. Okay. Second. |
| 00:14:30.05 | Ray Withy | I'm not. Okay. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? |
| 00:14:35.95 | Thomas Theodores | I know. |
| 00:14:39.62 | Ray Withy | Now we'll take up an item that we moved up, 6D, which is... |
| 00:14:44.03 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:14:48.04 | Ray Withy | to adopt an ordinance amending ordinance number 1211 to retroactively change the effective date to December 11th, 2012 as an urgency ordinance. |
| 00:15:00.90 | Mary Wagner | Thank you, Mr. Mayor, members of the Council. Excuse me. So on December 11th, the City Council adopted Ordinance Number 1211 which was an ordinance amending the contract between the city and CalPERS. And the adoption of that ordinance was the first step or the final step, excuse me, needed to effectuate the new pension tiers that the City Council approved with the bargaining groups earlier in the year. Ordinances typically go into effect 30 days after they are adopted. You have first read, second read, and then 30 days for the effectiveness. However, under the government code, an ordinance may become effective immediately for the preservation of the public peace, health, or safety, or if other statutory requirements or other statutory provisions allow it. Such an ordinance requires a forfeits vote of the Council, and in this case, we are asking you to actually amend retroactively adopt an ordinance which will amend Ordinance 1211 so that its effective date is December 11th in order to meet the CalPERS requirements for the effectiveness of those new pension tiers. We believed that we had complied with the CalPERS regulations, but when they contacted us in January, we spoke to them about a method to correct what they believed was necessary in order to make that amendment go into effect immediately. I am happy to answer any questions for you on that. The only effect that we have had is that we have a lot of questions. of the ordinance that you're being asked to adopt tonight is that it changes the effective date of the prior ordinance. Nothing else is altered. And your financial services director is also available to answer any questions. So the ordinance before you tonight, we're actually asking that that be adopted as an urgency ordinance, thereby amending the effective date of the prior ordinance. Thank you. |
| 00:16:54.30 | Ray Withy | if you have any questions. Yeah. Thank you. I think there's a couple of, does somebody have any public comment on this item? Okay, so we're back here for comments. Any comments? Okay. Uh... |
| 00:17:13.09 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:17:13.19 | Ray Withy | you |
| 00:17:13.27 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:17:13.32 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 00:17:13.96 | Unknown | Yeah. Thank you. |
| 00:17:18.79 | Mary Wagner | And because it's an ordinance, Mr. Mayor, we're actually asking that you read the title that's in your staff report. And that would be an ordinance of the City Council of the City of Sausalito amending ordinance number 1211 to retroactively change the effective date to December 11, 2012 as an urgency ordinance. |
| 00:17:35.16 | Ray Withy | Yeah, what she said. |
| 00:17:36.91 | Thomas Theodores | Thank you. |
| 00:17:36.91 | Mary Wagner | . |
| 00:17:36.93 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 00:17:36.96 | Thomas Theodores | Bye. |
| 00:17:36.98 | Ray Withy | No. |
| 00:17:37.16 | Thomas Theodores | . |
| 00:17:37.67 | Ray Withy | so much. |
| 00:17:38.01 | Thomas Theodores | Thank you. |
| 00:17:38.99 | Ray Withy | So moved. |
| 00:17:40.27 | Thomas Theodores | Thank you. |
| 00:17:41.59 | Mary Wagner | Thank you. |
| 00:17:41.60 | Thomas Theodores | Thank you. |
| 00:17:41.62 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 00:17:41.72 | Thomas Theodores | Second. |
| 00:17:43.48 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 00:17:43.61 | Mary Wagner | Bye. |
| 00:17:43.68 | Ray Withy | . |
| 00:17:43.71 | Ray Withy | Bye. |
| 00:17:45.06 | Thomas Theodores | Thank you. |
| 00:17:45.23 | Ray Withy | Okay. |
| 00:17:45.97 | Mary Wagner | Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you. |
| 00:17:47.85 | Ray Withy | I now go to item 5A of the hearings on the appeal of Ammonia Wellness Center decision at 2200 Bridgeway. Lilly? Thank you. |
| 00:18:00.98 | Unknown | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 00:18:02.70 | Lily (Staff) | Good evening, Mr. Mayor, council members, and members of the public. We have a PowerPoint tonight. |
| 00:18:02.73 | Unknown | Good evening. |
| 00:18:25.31 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:18:29.11 | Lily (Staff) | So tonight we're here for an appeal of a Planning Commission decision to deny a conditional use permit for Harmonia Wellness Center at 2200 Bridgeway. This is the outline of my presentation tonight. First, there'll be some background on the appeal, then some information on the proposed project, an analysis of the relevant plan documents, an overview of the Planning Commission's decision and then an overview of the appellant's grounds for appeal, and then options for the council this evening. So first, with an overview of the appeal background, On June 4th of last year, an application was filed by Harmonia CEO Jennifer Adler and architect John McCoy for a conditional use permit to occupy a portion of the record plant building at 2200 Bridgeway. The business to occupy that building would be Harmonia, which is a wellness school. Staff recommended that the Planning Commission approve the conditional use permit, and the Planning Commission held three hearings. The first was in July. At that time, the commissioners requested some more information regarding parking, the proposed use, and the childcare services proposed with the use. and the hearing was continued to September 19th. At that time, after discussion, the Commission directed staff to return with the resolution of denial which staff did on October 3rd. and the Commission adopted that resolution denying the conditional use permit. On October 15, Harmonia appealed the Planning Commission's decision. |
| 00:20:18.12 | Lily (Staff) | Some information on the project itself. That applicant, as I mentioned, is Jennifer Adler and John McCoy. The site is located at 2200 Bridgeway and is zoned industrial and located in the Murinship-specific plan area. |
| 00:20:37.05 | Lily (Staff) | The site is known as the plant and has access from Rinship Way. Here's some photographs of the building as it exists today. |
| 00:20:52.26 | Lily (Staff) | There's a variety of uses in that immediate area, including the bay model, tennis courts, public park, a marina, and a variety of office uses, in addition to Burkel Plumbing and the machine shop. |
| 00:21:11.61 | Lily (Staff) | The applicant is proposing to convert space inside the existing recording studio into a cultural education school. The area they would occupy would be the mastering studio, which the plant has stated that has not been used for mastering services. The existing recording studio would remain operational, and the plant has stated that the school would not affect the record plant services. Services Harmonia provides includes workshop and group and private classes and yoga, trigger point therapy, healing arts, dance, meditation, nutrition, aromatherapy, acupuncture and acupressure, life coaching and feng shui, among others. The school would also provide complimentary children's activities during peak operation hours as a service to their patrons who may have children or being taking care of children. And the use would operate Tuesday through Sunday from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. |
| 00:22:14.84 | Lily (Staff) | The interior modifications associated with the project include the conversion of existing storage rooms into classroom, works rooms, and reception area. In addition, the mastering studio would be converted into a classroom and work room. and then the kitchen would be converted into restrooms. And as you can see in the proposed plans, the existing studios A and B would remain intact. and therefore the building would provide a mix of uses, the recording studio uses and the Harmonia uses. As far as the exterior modifications, they would include the installation of 12 additional parking spaces, and including one new accessible space and then the addition of a new patio area at the northwest of the building. Additionally, a portable trailer which exists on site would be removed and a fence would be replaced along the southwestern side of the building. A low reed fence would be installed along the southern property line to separate the overflow bay model parking lot from the plants parking lot. |
| 00:23:23.71 | Unknown | you |
| 00:23:30.07 | Lily (Staff) | As far as looking at all the guiding documents which regulate uses, we first begin with the general plan. The site is located within the industrial design. General plan land use designation. Staff found three policies in the general plan that are most relevant and support the Harmonia use. The project description letter indicates that the use of the facility as a cultural center would support 24 persons on average in various classes. As such, the cultural center use is relatively small scale, low traffic generating, and non-polluting. Furthermore, the use of the site as a cultural center use is relatively small scale, low traffic generating and non-polluting. Furthermore, the use of the site as a cultural center and school offering a variety of wellness classes would contribute to an enhanced Sausalito's economic diversity by offering a specialty service. As such, staff suggested to the Planning Commission that the proposed use is consistent with the intent of General Plans, land use, and economic elements. |
| 00:24:34.10 | Lily (Staff) | Next, staff looked at the Marineship-specific plan. The plan is located in the Industrial Marineship Overlay Zoning District. The area provides for industrial service and arts uses with the necessary support elements considered important to the City of Sausalito. The Marineship Specific Plan, or MSP, assigns specific allowed uses to all parcels in the Marineship area. The plant is located on what the MSP terms Parcel 3B, |
| 00:24:56.22 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:25:05.01 | Lily (Staff) | which allows for general industrial, marine industrial, arts, business commercial, and marine commercial uses. The general industrial uses include a wide range of low intensity, non-polluting light industrial manufacturing, assembly, repair, service, non-office type research and development activities and arts uses. The MSP provides a list of examples of the type of uses that would be consistent with the intent of the general industrial use type, and that's on the screen there. Included in that list is business, professional, trade, and cultural schools, which, as you can see, require a conditional use permit. There are also site-specific exceptions in the MarinShip-specific plan for certain parcels. For this parcel, the record plant, the MSP specifically states that in addition to any industrial development, expanding the art and service use of the site is desirable. |
| 00:26:13.67 | Lily (Staff) | This is the use table from the Marinship specific plan where you would locate the parcel that you're interested in and what uses are allowed on that parcel. The Harmonia is a facility which would offer specialized programs in personal growth and development, including fitness, nutrition, and health. The MSP classifies business, professional, trade, and cultural schools as a general industrial land use, which requires a conditional use permit. However, business, professional, trade, and cultural schools are not further defined in the Marinship-specific plan. Therefore, staff look to the zoning ordinance for definition. The zoning ordinance provides an extensive list of definitions, Table 1026 contains a land use category called, 1026 of the zoning ordinance, contains a land use category called schools, specialized education and training, which is a defined land use category in the zoning ordinance. So the zoning ordinance defines specialized education and training schools as business secretarial schools and vocational schools offering specialized trade and commercial courses. Include specialized non-degree granting schools such as music schools, dramatic schools, language schools, driver education schools, sailing schools, ballet and other dance studios, seminaries and other establishments exclusively engaged in training for religious ministries and establishments furnishing educational course by mail. Facilities, institutions, and conference centers are included that offer specialized programs in personal growth and development, including fitness, environmental awareness, arts, communications, and management as examples. The zoning ordinance requires a conditional use permit for specialized education and training schools, which is consistent with the Marinship-specific plan. And as Harmonia would provide classes and workshops in yoga, fitness, nutrition, aromatherapy, life coaching, staff found that Harmonia met the definition of a school for specialized education training and recommended that it was allowed use with a conditional use permit to the Planning Commission. |
| 00:28:32.42 | Lily (Staff) | In terms of compliance with other standards in the zoning ordinance, specifically parking, the plant was approved with a parking entitlement of five parking spaces. However, the parking lot for the building currently provides 13 spaces. The center use requires 15 spaces, and therefore the total parking requirement is 20 spaces. The plans call for a redesign of the parking lot to provide 25, which is five spaces more than what is required by Cubs. So the use does meet the parking requirements in the zoning ordinance. |
| 00:29:11.45 | Lily (Staff) | as far as the Planning Commission decision. In their denial of the conditional use permit in October, the Commission found that they could not make findings A B, D, F, and H for a conditional use permit. Finding A states that the proposed use is allowed with issuance of a conditional use pursuant to chapters 1020 through 1028. which is Zoning District Regulations, Chapter 1044, Specific Use Requirements, or any other applicable section of the zoning ordinance. The Commission found that Harmonia did not fall within the defined use of a cultural school. and therefore, It was not a use that would be allowed with a conditional use permit. so they couldn't find for this required finding. Finding B states that the proposed use is consistent with the general plan, the purposes of the zoning ordinance, and the purposes of the applicable zoning district. The Commission found that the use is not industrial or maritime-oriented and is incompatible with surrounding parcels. and their uses and therefore is not consistent with the purposes of the industrial marine ship specific zoning district. Moving on to finding D. It states that the proposed use complies with each of the applicable provisions of the zoning ordinance. The Commission found that as the use is not an allowed use with an issuance of a conditional use permit and therefore does not comply with Table 10.26 of the Zoning Ordinance. |
| 00:30:52.08 | Lily (Staff) | The last two findings, F and H, F states that the size and shape of the subject property is adequate to provide features needed. to ensure reasonable compatibility with land uses normally permitted in the surrounding area. Features may include |
| 00:31:01.88 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:31:01.97 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:31:01.98 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:31:06.89 | Lily (Staff) | but not be limited to yards, open spaces, walls, fences, parking, loading, landscaping, and such features may be as may be required by the zoning ordinance or the Planning Commission. The Commission found that the project site and the associated features do not provide adequate barriers to ensure compatibility between the proposed use including specifically the provision of the childcare services and the nearby light industrial uses in the MarinShip. Lastly, finding H states that the proposed use will not materially adversely affect nearby properties or their permitted uses, and the Commission found that the proposed use, including providing children's services, is incompatible with the allowed uses on nearby properties, which include marine and general industrial uses, The incompatibility of the proposed use with permitted uses in the area may result in unsafe conditions for the nearby light industrial land uses due to the provision of children's services. |
| 00:32:13.89 | Lily (Staff) | The applicant has provided a letter explaining that their grounds for appeal that the Commission made each of the findings for denial and error. Specifically, Harmonia argues that Harmonia is a cultural school which is allowed with a conditional use permit at the record plant site, and therefore it is a use that is consistent with the general plan, marinship-specific plan, and the zoning ordinance. Furthermore, Harmonia states in their appeal to the council that there are adequate barriers to separate the Harmonia use from other uses in the area, and that the children's classes are an ancillary part of their business, which are provided as a convenience to their customers. |
| 00:32:59.48 | Lily (Staff) | There have been eight letters of support submitted to the council for the appeal hearing, and in addition, a petition signed by 63 people, which are all in support of the Harmonia use. We haven't received any written opposition to the use. |
| 00:33:21.00 | Lily (Staff) | So the options for the council this evening are twofold. We recommend that you evaluate the Planning Commission's determination and the appellants grounds for appeal and either adopt the draft resolution which upholds the appellant's appeal and approves the conditional use permit, or if you agree with the Planning Commission, you would adopt the draft resolution upholding the Planning Commission's decision which would deny the conditional use permit. Alternatively, you may remand the project to the Planning Commission for consideration of a specific issue or continue this appeal hearing for further information or revisions. That concludes our staff report and we're available for any questions you might have. |
| 00:34:08.59 | Ray Withy | Thank you. Thank you, Lily. |
| 00:34:10.12 | Mary Wagner | Mr. Mayor, if I may, before you get to council questions, we've included a new line item on your public hearings on Planning Commission appeals for |
| 00:34:13.11 | Ray Withy | Exactly. |
| 00:34:18.02 | Mary Wagner | opportunity for the Council to put any ex-party communications into the record And since this is the first time it was specifically listed, we skipped over it. So now would be a good chance to put that into the record before you start council questions. |
| 00:34:38.54 | Ray Withy | Has anyone talked to the appellant? |
| 00:34:44.23 | Ray Withy | The applicant, I think, tried to approach every single member who were campaigning during the last campaign for a variety of social events. Ms. Adger, you're very persistent. So there was some very inconsequential discussions at a variety of social events. And the second thing is that at the invitation of the Business Advisory Council, the Business Advisory Committee, Harmonia presented to that committee last week, and that committee made an action, took an action. I'm a member of that committee and I did not participate in the discussion nor participate in any action. |
| 00:35:41.05 | Thomas Theodores | Mr. Mayor, yes, and I talked to the applicant in a social context at the same event that Council Member Withy was at, and I also talked to a member of the BAC, and I also talked to a member of the Planning Commission regarding the... I don't know. application the appeal |
| 00:36:06.53 | Thomas Theodores | And on that subject, I'll top you both. was at the BAC and recused myself as well. But I also, in October prior to taking my position on the council, |
| 00:36:10.81 | Unknown | cruise. |
| 00:36:16.77 | Thomas Theodores | took a tour of the site and spoke with applicant and regarding her plans. |
| 00:36:25.56 | Ray Withy | And I also met with the applicant at the record plant. Spent some time there looking at her proposal. We have that out. Okay. All right. Do we have any questions here from the council at this point? |
| 00:36:45.49 | Thomas Theodores | Mr. Mary, I had a question. |
| 00:36:46.86 | Ray Withy | Go ahead. |
| 00:36:47.92 | Thomas Theodores | So Lily, in reading the planning commissioner's comments, they referred to a number of traffic studies that had been done in the Marin ship with respect to the area behind SWA and the record plant. And I was wondering if you were from, if staff was familiar with any of those studies with regards to traffic flow? I'm not. Okay. Thank you. And I guess my other question is on page, um, I'm not sure if you're in the Page six and... ground five and It says towards the end of the first paragraph on page 6, ground 5, it says, we plan to have no more than eight kids on site in an hour. Again, children will only be permitted on certain hours and days. But then in the next paragraph, it refers to... We've been in conversation with schools in the surrounding district to develop programs around nutrition, leadership, and arts. and for monthly field trips. And to me that, You know, a monthly field trip would suggest more than you know, eight children. Has this, has that Has she been fleshed out a little bit? in terms of what Thank you. |
| 00:38:14.44 | Lily (Staff) | The grounds for appeal came in after the Planning Commission took their action. So these grounds were after the Planning Commission's decision. And I don't think that this second paragraph that had been presented to the Planning Commission So this may be new information that the applicant might have. |
| 00:38:36.78 | Thomas Theodores | Okay, thank you. New information. Okay, thank you. |
| 00:38:41.66 | Ray Withy | Any other questions? |
| 00:38:46.76 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:38:49.41 | Ray Withy | Good evening, Lily. |
| 00:38:51.45 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:38:51.48 | Ray Withy | Thank you. I have been as you know, trying to understand the relationship between the definitions in the zoning ordinance. and the definitions in the marineship-specific plan. And In particular, if we look at table 26.1. |
| 00:39:20.00 | Ray Withy | That's what he said. |
| 00:39:21.03 | Thomas Theodores | What page is that? |
| 00:39:23.14 | Ray Withy | Uh... I don't know, I have the title, I have chapter 26 in front of me, so it's page two of that. Thank you. |
| 00:39:35.66 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:39:35.86 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 00:39:44.08 | Ray Withy | It seems a table to, while you're finding that Lily, it seems that table Um. 26.1, which you've now put up. Is that up there? Yeah. Yeah. |
| 00:39:59.64 | Ray Withy | is a table that summarizes in the zoning ordinance. the allowable land uses in the industrial marine ship district. And included in that is specialized education and training schools. So, That table and our zoning ordinance then asks us to, tells us that, four a specialized education and training school. in the industrial marine ship district. that a CUP. is required. under land use permit. and that... The zoning ordinance then directs us to the marine ship specific plan. to look for specific standards. I presume with respect to the parcel in question, the district within the marine ship specific planning question, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So my question is, Um, When I then go to the marineship-specific plan, if I were to have determined as a practice, if I were to determine that the harmonious use is consistent. with being a specialized education training school. I'm not saying we've got there yet, but let's assume that you do make that finding. that it is in fact such a school. Do I then have to go to the marineship specific plan, as the zoning ordinance tells me, to inquire what is the specific standard under the Marinship Specific Plan I should be looking for? Or do I have to make a fresh, de novo inquiry as to whether a specialized education and training school is an allowed use under the Mariner Ship Specific Plan. That's my question. |
| 00:42:05.31 | Lily (Staff) | The Marineship Specific Plan is somewhat unique in that it provides very specific uses allowed on each parcel. parcels may have different allowed uses. So you do need to go to the MSP to see if the parcel that you're interested in allows that type of use. The table in the zoning ordinance, as you said correctly, it summarizes the allowed uses in the Marinership-specific plan, but in order to determine which parcels allowed those uses, you do have to go back and take a look at the land use table in the |
| 00:42:47.78 | Ray Withy | But my understanding, the Marinship specific plan always trumps the zoning, any specific plan will trump the zoning ordinance. So if there is a lack of clarity between the two, and they definitely exist. that the fallback is what the reference in the specific plan or you have to get, you know, you don't have to garner intent in some cases to, understand definitions of certain things because they're either extremely specific or relatively general. So in order to to get in between. Um, to look for intent, you have to go to the specific plan for the intent. |
| 00:43:32.11 | Lily (Staff) | They're supposed to work together, but in the event of a conflict, the marine ship specific plan, there's a section of the zoning ordinance that says that that overrules. |
| 00:43:41.22 | Ray Withy | Right. |
| 00:43:43.89 | Ray Withy | Could you find that resource? |
| 00:43:50.51 | Thomas Theodores | Hope. May I comment? It's somewhat circular, but in both cases, in the Marineship-specific plan, it says business, professional, trade, and cultural schools, |
| 00:43:52.24 | Unknown | you |
| 00:43:52.30 | Ray Withy | But it's just... |
| 00:44:03.11 | Thomas Theodores | And then in the zoning ordinance, it reflects these schools. So under either one, and they kind of refer to each other, I think the applicant would fall under either one of those definitions. If you consider it a cultural school. Yeah. Of course. |
| 00:44:16.00 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 00:44:16.04 | Lily (Staff) | Thank you. |
| 00:44:16.17 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 00:44:16.31 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 00:44:17.79 | Ray Withy | Yeah, so I mean, you know, and correct me, did you find your thingy? |
| 00:44:20.58 | Lily (Staff) | I did. It's section 10.12.020F. So it's in the applicability of zoning ordinance. F is specific plans. It starts on page 2 of 10-12. When conflict occurs between the provisions of this title and standards adopted as a part of any specific plan, the provisions of this specific plan shall apply. |
| 00:44:37.05 | Unknown | PROVISION. |
| 00:44:49.33 | Ray Withy | I have one more question. There's a follow-on from that. If you now look at the marineship-specific plan to make inquiries as to whether a particular use is allowed, it appears that the majority of the The uses are generally described in Appendix B or 2, I can't remember which it is, B I think. Appendix B, if you actually read the words simply says that this list of uses are examples of uses. The definitions that are there are defined by example. |
| 00:45:42.78 | Ray Withy | It seems to me from the minutes of the July 25 Planning Commission hearing that the Planning Commissioners are using Exhibit B as an exhaustive list of uses and are completely ignoring the fact that the Marinship Specific Plan specifically states that these are simply examples. Our city attorney would like to comment on it. |
| 00:46:14.70 | Mary Wagner | I agree with you the part about Exhibit B or Attachment B in the Marinship Specific Plan that it indicates that those it defines the uses that are identified in the table and provides examples of those types of uses, so it's intended to be and examples and allowed uses but not an exhaustive list of the only uses that are allowed under that use designation. |
| 00:46:40.61 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 00:46:40.62 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 00:46:40.64 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 00:46:40.76 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 00:46:40.78 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 00:46:40.98 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 00:46:41.97 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:46:44.22 | Ray Withy | Thank you. Any other questions? Did the staff or Planning Commission go back and look through the history of similar types of businesses that have sought to get approval for location in the partnership over the recent history to sort of get a sense of consistency of application of definitions? |
| 00:47:09.53 | Lily (Staff) | Not in the Marin ship. We had a martial arts studio, I think, that came in with the CUP in the CN zoning district, but not specifically in the Marin ship. I don't think we have an application in the last four and a half years since I've been here for that type of a use. |
| 00:47:27.77 | Ray Withy | Right. So in the last 15 years, there have been a number of various forms of whether it's exercise, health-related, mix of that with retail in different portions of the marineship, and there have been businesses that have been, those have actually come forward as actual applications versus people who just go to the counter and have been turned away and say you should look for space other places because you can't move your gym across the street from one side of Bridgeway to the other. And the specific examples of that are certainly curves is one specific example. And also the example of schools and what is a cultural school is a very slippery slope um, because there have been a number of schools that have sought to relocate into the Marin and had they known they could spin themselves at a cultural school, would have approached it as a different tactic. So I think it would It would have been a useful exercise to go back and look. at that history to see how the city has applied itself in the past. The flip side of that, because it, you know, it's sort of consistency is sort of part of the element of planning, right, is that everything is different, but you want to be as consistent as possible across that. So I thank you for answering my question on that. The flip side, would you agree that a lot of the zoning, and as Jeremy are married to, in the Marinship, is very specifically oriented and some of it was put in place to allow existing businesses to continue that didn't necessarily conform with the general intent of the overall plan when it was adopted. Now, certainly it is an older plan, but that was one of the ways they decided that on property X you could still have Y, you know, activity versus sort of a I'm going to go ahead and get If there was a gym there already, you can have a gym, but don't try to have a bigger gym kind of thing. Uh, printer. You can have a printer, but maybe don't expand into that, it's not allowed next door. I mean, is that somewhat of a characterization of your read of the flavor of how this was adopted? |
| 00:50:12.83 | Lily (Staff) | you The MSP does provide certain existing uses to continue. So some examples of those are residential uses if they existed at the time of the MSP. Those are allowed to continue. offices, certainly if those existed at the time, those are allowed to continue. |
| 00:50:29.97 | Ray Withy | for it. like marinas or offices that none are new or permitted, but if you had one, it's okay. |
| 00:50:37.73 | Lily (Staff) | And the plan actually goes this far, and I wish I had. If you can see here, This has an E. So if it says existing legal permitted in the table here, it specifically calls out those offices on certain or other uses on those certain sites that are allowed to continue. So it is specific about the uses that are allowed to continue. |
| 00:51:01.66 | Ray Withy | Okay. |
| 00:51:05.17 | Ray Withy | Right. Okay. |
| 00:51:09.93 | Ray Withy | Any other questions? |
| 00:51:11.03 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 00:51:11.06 | Ray Withy | Okay. Thank you. |
| 00:51:12.61 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 00:51:12.88 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 00:51:12.92 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 00:51:12.97 | Ray Withy | you |
| 00:51:13.04 | Ray Withy | Thank you, Lily. Let me ask you a straightforward question, and if you don't want to answer, you don't have to. Do you have a fair sense of what this business does? |
| 00:51:13.96 | Ray Withy | Yeah. |
| 00:51:14.23 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:51:20.92 | Unknown | Yes. |
| 00:51:21.25 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 00:51:21.27 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:51:21.51 | Ray Withy | Okay, so the events that they hold, is that part of the cultural school? You know, by having concerts and retail, is that part of a cultural school? |
| 00:51:32.83 | Lily (Staff) | My understanding of the business is that they would be offering workshops, classes, both private and public in fitness, health, education. And that's the primary purpose of the business. |
| 00:51:47.33 | Ray Withy | So selling tickets to an event would be part of cultural school in your staff's interpretation. |
| 00:51:56.30 | Lily (Staff) | There are ancillary uses for businesses. You know, certain businesses do hold events, and that's an allowed use as a part of the business. So as long as the business, the main intent of the business wasn't holding an event every night, |
| 00:52:05.84 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:52:05.86 | Ray Withy | Right. |
| 00:52:12.94 | Ray Withy | And retail, which is not permitted anywhere in the Maritza, which is part of this my read of it, if you look at their website and blog. to have retail-oriented activities, it's not permitted at all. but that you think is part of being a cultural school. |
| 00:52:29.72 | Lily (Staff) | Retail wouldn't be permitted. |
| 00:52:31.13 | Ray Withy | hooker. |
| 00:52:34.49 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 00:52:34.51 | Ray Withy | Okay. Any other questions at this time here? Comment from the public on this item? |
| 00:52:41.43 | Mary Wagner | Thank you. Mr. Mayor, I apologize, but since it is an appeal of a Planning Commission decision, typically you allow the appellant to go first. The appellant's team total has 15 minutes. They are allowed to use that all up front or retain |
| 00:52:48.38 | Ray Withy | I like it. |
| 00:52:49.07 | Unknown | Thank you. Okay. |
| 00:52:55.42 | Mary Wagner | a portion of it if they would like to be able to come up after you receive other public comment to put additional information in the records We will track the 15 minutes on this timer. When it gets down to 3, we'll start running the clock you can see. |
| 00:53:08.65 | Ray Withy | Okay. Can I ask a clarifying question of our city attorney? If we ask questions of the applicant, does that- We stop the clock while you ask questions. Thank you. |
| 00:53:17.30 | Mary Wagner | We stop the clock while you ask questions. Thank you. |
| 00:53:20.46 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:53:20.48 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 00:53:29.94 | Ray Withy | Has the clock started yet? Thank you. Okay. We didn't tell you, but two minutes has gone by. |
| 00:53:36.30 | Len Rifkind | Good evening, Mayor Weiner and members of the City Council. My name is Len Rifkind and I'm a local real estate and land use attorney. and I'm here representing the appellant Harmonia. And the first thing that I want to say to you is I'm embarrassed that my slides are not anywhere close to the quality of what staff did tonight. My information is somewhat redundant, repetitive of this, so I will move through it quickly and try to answer some of the questions that I heard council ask. But really, I can't do any better than what staff did on their slides. Let's see if we can work this. So I heard council Member Leoni ask, you know, what is a cultural school and slippery slope exactly what it is. And so the next couple of slides are just going to try to, in very summary fashion, try to describe what it is. And you can see up at the top there, let's see if I can get the laser going. |
| 00:53:56.84 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:53:56.86 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 00:53:57.25 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:54:31.27 | Len Rifkind | And I mean, basically, we're talking about workshops and classes is what we're talking about. Now, while I'm looking at you, Council Member Pfeiffer, you asked about children and you were concerned about too many kids and field trips. What the applicant is planning on doing is that's been rethought. If there's going to be any field trips, they will actually go to the schools, not bring the kids in, but they will limit the number of kids to a very discreet level. That's what we're talking about. So here it is. It's classes, and here's the kinds of classes that we're talking about. Meditation. I'm not going to read the list. I mean, you can see that quickly. I'm going to move through these slides fairly quickly. And these are the types of classes that we have there. And then these are workshops. Workshops distinguish from classes, meaning that they're longer, maybe like multiple days or something like that as opposed to a single class. And also other activities that will occur at the cultural school here will be private coaching on these different types of matters. Um, And then who are going to be the teachers? The teachers are established teachers that already have existing practices here in Marin County, that already have practices and they will be bringing their students to the Harmonia School or setting up shop there. So that's the beauty of this, is not being created from scratch. These are some very highly sought after practitioners that will be coming and bringing their high skill level to Sausalito. Um, Now the question is, why the plant, why harmoniate the plant, all of that? South Salida, I think, has a real opportunity here is to revitalize a building that's clearly I don't know if I'll use the word blight, but it's certainly decaying and not in great shape. I mean, anyone who goes there, that's kind of self-evident. And so here's a chance to bring in a business. The issue for this council is to make sure it's a business that fits with a specific friendship, specific plan. We'll talk about that in a minute. And so I just want to emphasize and be clear, we're only talking about half the building, not the whole building, that the original studios where Fleetwood Mac, my favorite band, recorded their music and all of that, so the original studios are staying. But you're going to get a facelift. When I say facelift, I mean the existing woods is going to stay but replace some of the broken boards, power washer, put some stain on it. no expanded footprint. The only thing new that's going to happen there on the outside is that you're gonna get the trailer taken away, some plants being added, a greenway, and you're gonna be adding some more parking spaces on the hill slope. right below Bridgeway, so you're getting some more parking. Um, So it's a revitalization, as I talked about. And this is the portion of the plant that if you go there, it's a bunch of, a hodgepodge of storage areas in the building. It's not being used very well at all. And so then why is this a good location? Well, I understand that under the Marin Ship specific plan, the whole goal is it's not for tourists, it's for the residents. That's what we want is we want services that will benefit residents. And so we're talking about a cultural resource that will go into the Marin Ship area that just doesn't exist today. And there's many employees down the area and this is a resource for all of the owners and workers that live in that area to be able to use some of these services that will be provided. I heard the word retail while I'm thinking of it now. There is no on-site retail that will occur. I believe that if there is any retail that Harmonia does, it's online. It's not going to have a physical retail use. One of the issues, unfortunately, is the music industry is no longer what it is. Once was, I actually even owned an MP3 myself. I barely know how to use it, but the concept basically is it's not kind of the way they used to record things, and so we have kind of an anchor in this, and we have an old building that has these studios, and so we're going to actively look for partners to try to use these studios, but the other half of the building is going to be used by this cultural school. and we'd hate to see the owner of the building say, hey, I can't get it used for my building. Let's tear it down. This is a cultural resource for the city that really should be preserved. I can speak about historic, because in Larkesbury, where I hail from, we make a big deal about historic buildings. So I've heard more. And so I think this is a really great resource for Sausalito to try to preserve. And so we've already talked about this, the kinds of workshops and classes. Harmonia has reached out to like the Bay Model, SWA, the Arts Festival. They're all willing to work with Harmonia. They're excited about Harmonia coming to the area. Here I heard some questions by Council Member Leone. Is a concert really within the scope of a cultural school? That's not the primary use. It's an ancillary use. I got excited because I heard that maybe Stevie Nicks, who recorded there, is going to come and maybe do a little small concert for a few people there. That'd be a big deal. Here's the new parking that's going into the bank up above here. That's the new stuff. I want to emphasize again, here's the original studios that are staying in place, not changing. And it's this side of the project that's going to be fixed up. Here's the site from the top. You've seen this already in Lily's thing. Here's a trailer that's going to disappear. Very unsightly trailer. I have more color photos here of exhibits if the Council needs them. If anyone is interested, I'll bring these up right after the presentation because I This is examples of what it looks like inside. It's the hodgepodge of the storage. This is going to be the entrance. This is the opposite side of where the plant studios enters. And so you're going to have a renaissance of this side of the building. And then more cleaning up of the inside that's basically really in a state of disrepair. This is a picture of what the outside of the building looks like where we're going to replace boards, power wash, put some stain on, but nothing, no new materials on the outside. more lovely pictures of the building looks like where we're going to replace boards, power wash, put some stain on, but no new materials on the outside. More lovely pictures of the interior of the building. And so now I'm going to move, I'm going to try and move as quickly as I can. This is the planning issues. And so Lily did a better job than I did. She picked out the general plan. This project is consistent with the general plan. I just want to emphasize that the general plan encourages the diverse business opportunities in the city. We know that this particular parcel is parcel 3B on the specific, friendship-specific plan. there's where it is in the little specific plan map, in case everyone was wondering, I know you all do, Um, And then one of the things is that I picked out what are specific goals and plans under the specific plan, and so I've identified a few of them on page 9B4, B11, and B12. All of them support this type of use in the marineship. Um, This is specifically on page 19 of the specific plan, and I know Lily had this in her project, specifically regarding this site, the record plan. It says, in the membership plan, it specifically recommends expanding the art and service use of this parcel is desirable. So I think that's a pretty clear direction at the specific plan level of what is a, at least from a policy standpoint, what could go on this parcel. at Appendix B that I heard Councilmember Withy talk about, you know, there actually is, it says in Appendix B on page 77 of the specific plan that cultural schools are expressly permitted, provided you can issue a conditional use permit or a COP. And so now we'll just run quickly through the zoning ordinance. This is general provisions about the zoning ordinance, how you got to be consistent with the general plan and the specific plan. On this slide, this is again, one of the goals of the zoning ordinance is to preserve and enhance the city's cultural resources. And I think if you approve the use permit from this project, you'll be doing that very thing. We've had a lot of talk about Table 26, 1026 tonight, and specifically authorizes schools. And 1026 is actually authorized or allowed land uses in the industrial marine ship district, which is this specific parcel, and it authorizes a school. And if you want a definition of a school, you go to chapter 1088, which Lily had up on the screen. It was quite an extensive uh, Um, definition of what is a school and I don't think it's slippery. I think it's pretty right within all four corners that this school, with the classes and the workshops that are provided, and it's not a gym, it's truly cultural aspects, are within the definition of 1088. All right, so then lastly, which is the real job of the Council tonight, is you go to your Chapter 1060, which is your Conditional Use Permit section, and you have some nine findings that you need to make in order to grant a CUP. Your staff report from back in July initially recommended those nine findings, and so, of course, the Planning Commission decided that it wasn't a cultural school. But I've gone through, and in my PowerPoint that I sent you by email and that you have, I've gone through each of the findings to suggest that you actually can make them. I'm probably not going to belabor going through each of the ones other than the ones that the Planning Commission had difficulty with. And I guess the first one is this council is going to have to decide if we have a cultural school or not. I think it's not a close case, not because I'm a paid advocate here tonight, but because it says schools all over the place, in your rentship plan, in the definition of the zoning ordinance, in 1026, everywhere we look and the actual proposed uses that Councilmember Leoni asked that Thank you. |
| 01:04:37.10 | Ray Withy | It's Leone, by the way. I'm sorry, John. And you may want to, you know, for purposes of disclosure, say you're the mayor of Larkspur, and just so we're all on the same page. |
| 01:04:38.04 | Len Rifkind | by the way. I'm sorry, John. |
| 01:04:45.47 | Len Rifkind | Well, actually, I'm not the mayor of the graduates. Council member now. Now I'm a council member, but for purposes of disclosure, yes, I happen to be a council member, but I don't think that's relevant for tonight since I don't have my council member hat on, but thanks for telling me. Okay. In any event. |
| 01:04:45.72 | Ray Withy | Actually, I'm not the mayor of the president. Council member now, the former mayor. |
| 01:04:53.30 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:04:53.45 | Ray Withy | But I don't know. |
| 01:05:03.83 | Len Rifkind | Uh, We are consistent with the zoning ordinance. I actually don't think I need to go through each of these findings unless you have specific questions. I'll go slow through these if the council are interested. But they're effectively paraphrasing what was in the staff report from July. I'm not creative and can come up with my own ideas. I think if you see something good, you plagiarize it. And so that's what I did. This came from the staff report. Okay, I want to let the council know that the other folks that are here that are ready to answer any questions the council might have is of course Jennifer Adler, the CEO of Harmonia is here. Her architect, John McCoy, is here if you have any specific architectural questions. Her contractor, Buck Huffman, Minich is here, and also her business partner, Steve Hammersley, is present. So all of those folks that are intimately involved in this project and actually probably know much more about it than I do are available to answer questions. So let's stop the stopwatch right now in case we've got some questions. Thank you. |
| 01:06:09.27 | Ray Withy | Any questions at this time up here? |
| 01:06:16.44 | Len Rifkind | Is anybody interested in me just going slowly through the findings? I prepared them all. Oh, okay. Well, we'll continue through. Finding E, is it properly located in the community as a whole? And the site is in the Marin Ship. It's right across from the Bay Model and the Marin Ship Park. And the point is that there's a variety of these types of uses in the area. I'm also told, I don't know if it's certain, but there is a dance It's called Stage Door, which I believe is in the Marin ship, and that is a dance performing studio. So that would be, in some sense, a similar use to try to look for planning consistency that's in this area. finding F about the size, well, there's nothing changing about this project other than we're adding some parking and making it more green. Finding G, where the public utilities are fine, we're not adding any load, you're not changing the, no pun intended, the plant. It's staying effectively the same as primarily interior changes. Finding H, it won't adversely affect any adverse uses. We have the support of the Bay Model. |
| 01:07:31.13 | Unknown | we have the same. |
| 01:07:34.70 | Len Rifkind | Finding I, there's no specific findings under 1044. So I would suggest to the council that you can make all nine findings to grant the CUP. Thank you. You too. |
| 01:07:47.21 | Ray Withy | Thank you. Okay. Any other comments? |
| 01:07:51.02 | Len Rifkind | As the council answers, I do have extra photocopies, colors of the Copies of the photographs, so just look so you can have them. Does counsel need these? you want to. Thank you. No. Okay, may I approach? Yes. |
| 01:08:05.62 | Ray Withy | you I have a copy here. I made this. I printed this out. |
| 01:08:11.02 | Len Rifkind | Thank you. Thank you. I have a few. |
| 01:08:13.40 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 01:08:13.52 | Len Rifkind | It's the same as what's happening there. I have this. I just wanted you to have some color. |
| 01:08:15.24 | Ray Withy | I have this. |
| 01:08:24.65 | Mary Wagner | one for the city clerk. That'd be great. Or we don't want to take your last one. We'll share. |
| 01:08:28.64 | Unknown | Well, Thank you. |
| 01:08:38.48 | Ray Withy | Thank you. Okay, this time here, any comment from the public? I have two names up here. Can I have a show of hands on how many people would like to speak? Thank you. All right, well, I'm going to start off with the two I have, and then the others would line up in line over there, please. And I have a Ken Brooks from Mill Valley. |
| 01:09:10.40 | Ray Withy | May I begin? Yes. Stay in the end. |
| 01:09:11.80 | Ken Brooks | Thank you for this opportunity to speak this evening. My name is Ken Brooks. I live in Mill Valley. I'm a prominent Mill Valley citizen. I'm currently a Rotarian. I sit on the board of the Chamber of Commerce. I'm involved in the Mill Valley 2040 general plan vision. |
| 01:09:15.80 | Ray Withy | statement. |
| 01:09:30.37 | Ken Brooks | by officially sitting on the Community Vitality Subcommittee and the Art Cultural Subcommittee |
| 01:09:34.50 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 01:09:35.36 | Ken Brooks | So I come here as the neighbor up north because I only had recent occasion to visit this facility on two kind of special events that they had conducted. I did not, well, I've lived in the Valley since 1988. I did not have the good fortune to have been into the plant during its heyday, but I'm |
| 01:09:54.01 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:09:55.90 | Ken Brooks | history and its mark on our area, so I was kind of a, dismayed and disappointed to hear that this entrepreneur was having difficulty in opening up what I felt was a perfectly wonderful use for that particular location. So it compelled me to take some time and become just another voice, hopefully in a chorus of voices, that is speaking to the benefits of having a business like this in a location like that. |
| 01:10:09.20 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:10:09.31 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:10:09.33 | Unknown | I felt that. |
| 01:10:31.62 | Ken Brooks | An example in Mill Valley that I can bring to your mind was the Sweetwater Music Hall, which was a, you know, Barre. you know, uh, a rock and roll venue, which recently reopened across from the City Hall in Old Valley, has had a whole series of really wonderful, positive consequences in our town that I don't think were either anticipated nor were they presented at the time as a reason to open. So I just want to include that as some experience we have in our town. |
| 01:10:59.28 | Ray Withy | Okay, thank you. David Pfaff. |
| 01:11:07.79 | David Pfaff | Okay. My name is David Paff and I currently live in San Anselmo but was a resident of Sausalito many years ago and during the heyday of the plant. I'm here essentially because no one in the music industry has heard of or knows of what has been going on about the change in the use of the plant studio. Frankly, And I want to thank you for taking, letting me have this opportunity, frankly, I think that the motion should be tabled and delayed members of the local music community can contribute their thoughts, and their feelings about this location. Let me show you that Abbey Road, This is the Abbey Road of the United States. And I think to turn it into a dance studio where the mastering room still has the 72-track system, which is still To this day, state-of-the-art, And I think that room should be preserved. although, you know, restored. And I think the building should be restored, but I think it is an attraction for Sausalito. will increase the revenue base of all businesses in Sausalito And I'm just shocked and befuddled that I'm the only person here that even knows about this in the music business. The Academy of Arts in Los Angeles will be shocked to hear this change in use. The Academy of Motion Pictures, who has had soundtracks done at the plant, I can marshal people from the Getty who would love to restore this location. So essentially, I think my time's running out, but I beg that you table this motion, continue it, and allow an opportunity for people in the music industry to respond. And I share your like. of Fleetwood Mac. And I would hope that Stevie Nicks would come and actually make a presentation that would support what I'm saying right here, right now. And I know she would. Thank you very much. I think. |
| 01:13:20.96 | Ray Withy | Thank you. Others that are going to speak, could you please line up so we can save time on that? Your name? Your name? |
| 01:13:29.96 | Drew Youngs | Mayor Winder, members of City Council. My name is Drew Youngs. Um... I... I haven't been in the plant since 1985. I did albums with Buddy Miles, Heart, Journey, Starship, recording engineer. I have two recording studios now, one at 69 Green Street, San Francisco, which is a state-of-the-art facility. and another studio in Mill Valley, which is another state-of-the-art facility. We're doing film, TV, and surround. I was also set up in the plant, in the garden, with a large amount of gear that I had at the time. about 2006. What I want to say is this. I'm a recording artist. I'm in the industry pretty much my whole life. I'm successful at what I do. I own earthwire.com, which is going to be a social networking facility. I left the plant. when what I would call, it was the Titanic and it was sinking badly. So I left the plant and moved to the San Francisco facility because I had to. The current business model for the recording studio is over. It's over. Studio B where I did the two Buddy Miles albums is sitting with a Neve console that's more than 25 years old with every single piece of electronics out of it. It's been stripped. It's history. the other studios being used for a media, kind of a media My intention is to help Jennifer not only create a new recording facility there, but also a digital distribution center for educational content. which gives them the opportunity to, bring the kind of revenue in for a sustainable business model. without the distribution of Internet and also video content on the internet There is no sustainability. So that's why I'm here. I fully advocate what Jennifer's doing. It is multicultural because we're talking all kinds of music all over the world. Not only that, but the different movements and yoga and what have you. So in my opinion, I think it's an excellent way to increase the the buildings. potential. It's going nowhere. It's been sitting there for six years. hindered and mired with all these people trying to connect to it. Therefore, I just... I really would appreciate your consideration here because it's a good idea. Thank you. |
| 01:15:48.23 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 01:15:52.15 | Vicki Nichols | Vicki Nichols, I'd like to speak to the building's history. I did write you a letter agreeing that I support this project. This building has history from the marineship use and from the record plant use, and I can say that In about 1972, shortly after I came to the Bay Area, I was in the record plant with some friends and they were recording an album. And at that time it was very innovative with its woodwork, etc. And I did go into a tour recently and it needs some work. It's not been kept up. So from the context of it being a historic structure, for someone to come in and reuse this with minimal damage to the building. This is a goal of even our historical guidelines. You want to make these buildings viable. in terms of the land use issues with parking and all that, that isn't something that's a historical concern, but if they worked out parking, That's great. And the other uses that they have to do through zoning. Just listening to this, Lillie's summary, it seems to me from looking and hearing all these uses that it's very clear this is an allowable use with the CUP. And a CUP can be revoked. If this is a problem, or if there's some kind of duplicity, which I don't see, there's a remedy for this. So I think that they should be given an opportunity. I agree with the gentleman before me, I'm not a recording technician, but this equipment is very old. If there's a way to reuse that portion of this and have the other use in there. um I think that you should be able to, and I would encourage you to make the findings to uphold this. the meeting that I attended with the Planning Commission, I think they really got on semantics with this and got kind of balled up over it. But I think that this is a use that would fit down there. And I do think that There may be people that are currently working in Sausalito that could go to one of these classes or facilities on their lunch hour. If I work down there, I'd love to have something like this near me. Thank you. |
| 01:18:00.48 | Ray Withy | Cheryl |
| 01:18:03.76 | Unknown | Thank you. Good evening, Mr. Mayor and City Council. I'm Cheryl Popp. I'm here on behalf of the Business Advisory Committee on which I serve. as representative from the Sausalito Chamber of Commerce. We too have written an official letter which I will give you a copy of. I'm just going to paraphrase it now. Um, Basically, the Sausalu Business Advisory Committee wishes to express their support for Harmonia's appeal for their conditional use permit for their business located at the plant. Um, As you know, the Business Advisory Committee is tasked with advising the city on business issues, and we seek to ensure a sustainable economic future and healthy business community here in town. To that end, we believe it behooves City Council to allow this very innovative new business to operate at the plant. Harmonia, as we believe is very clear, is in fact a cultural and educational school offering classes and workshops, and it's the very sort of independently owned small business that we should be trying to attract to Sausalito. In fact, Harmonia's programming and business model are totally consistent with the recent Marine Economic Forum study funded by the city and the Chamber of Commerce that suggested just this sort of low impact business for Sausalito. especially for underutilized areas such as the Marin ship. a low traffic, low impact, as we say, small business that supports improvement of the local community. Harmonia will be a learning center and resource for residents, as well as for the 3,000-plus employees, as Vicki said, who work in the Marinship area. The local learning opportunities provided will help keep people in Sausalito, which echoes our theme of stay local and buy local. We believe Harmonia is the sort of business that will contribute to what makes Sausalito a special place to live, enhancing the quality of life for residents and those who work in town. while also contributing to the city's fiscal health by generating an estimate at $900,000 in gross revenue a year. and filling a vacant commercial building. As others have pointed out, the plant has in fact been vacant for almost four years and without a tenant has continued to deteriorate. It is home, as we all know, of an internationally renowned musical legacy, where many famous rock stars have recorded. And Harmonia intends to preserve this history, as well as the studio space, to keep the spirit of this famous Sausalito site alive. And we applaud them for that effort as well. We feel this new business has much to offer our community. They've been trying to open since June of 2012 and is unfortunately another example how Sausalito has acquired a reputation as a city that is unfriendly to business. Even those businesses, business ventures that are so aligned with our small town quality of life. Upon review of the Planning Commission's denial for the conditional use permit, we agree with city staff fail to see how harmonia is an incompatible use in the marine ship and would like to note that this ruling only reinforced the critical need for a fresh look at the Mirn Ship specific plan. We urge City Council to overrule the Planning Commission decision and support Harmonia's efforts. It's a worthy new enterprise. Thank you. |
| 01:21:17.70 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:21:22.37 | Karen Atkins | Good evening. My name is Karen Atkins, and I'm one of the instructors that will be hopefully teaching at Harmonia. I'm also in the music industry. I've won the John Lennon Songwriting Contest One of my recent Songs was just awarded the most positive music video of 2012. So coming from both sides. I also teach something, a healthcare system called BodyTalk. and qigong and aromatherapy all over the world. And I live in Mill Valley. And I actually used to own and run a center very similar to Harmonia in New York City, on 25th and Broadway. And I really want to express my support. for Harmonia and for what Jennifer is planning Being a business owner and entrepreneur myself, I know the challenges that can be there. and also how important it is. I moved here from New York City. much to have a kind of opportunity to be in a community that would support this kind of endeavor. And doing that in New York was, I was very successful, had its challenges. but the environment here I thought would be more supportive to something like that. So I was actually kind of surprised that it wasn't something that was being supported here in Sausalito. So I just want to say that I have participated in some of the events that have already been put together around this venue, and I really see no reason why this shouldn't happen. I do think that there is a sore need for this. There's nothing like this. happening anywhere in Marin as far as I can see. And I look for these kinds of things because that's the kind of stuff I like to participate in and I would be happy to have just recently attended an event where some of the instructors discussed some of the workshops as well as myself that would be there. And I was very uh, excited about the different opportunities and plan to go to all of them myself. So anyway, again, I just want to say thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak and I hope that you will to support Harmonia. Thank you. |
| 01:23:41.17 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 01:23:46.82 | Adam Krivajci | Good evening, Mr. Mayor, honorable council persons. My name is Adam Krivajci from 840 Lima Street. I speak for myself. Everybody already said what I intended to say with one exception. You are in a difficult position because you are asked to reverse the decision of a volunteer body that is charged to review project applications, that applies itself diligently, It consists of very responsible people, And now the applicant stands before you and asks to reverse their opinion and reverse their decision. Thank you. And I can say that in this instance, you are not to look at regulations only, which your staff did and your staff supported the application. |
| 01:24:57.75 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:24:57.92 | Adam Krivajci | Thank you. |
| 01:24:57.94 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:24:57.95 | Adam Krivajci | you But you should think about how you can contribute to your community with your decision. And if you think that the empty building there with a glorious historic past would benefit the community better, you should deny the a field If you think Good. life that serves the community, that improves everybody's life, that makes this a richer community, then you should approve the appeal. So that's my take on this because I believe I could imagine myself being in your shoes. As a planning commissioner, I may not like your decision, but Thank you. as a city council person you would think city policy. the city policy would make this a better community then apply the policy and improve the community by approving the application. Thank you. |
| 01:26:13.10 | Ray Withy | Thank you, Madam. |
| 01:26:15.64 | Una Kavner | Una Kavner, the CEO of the Saussevita Chamber of Commerce. I don't want to- |
| 01:26:19.96 | Ray Withy | We know we're horrible, so just get it over with. |
| 01:26:22.12 | Una Kavner | Oh, that's fine. I don't want to repeat everything that everyone said, but as you know, one of the missions of the Chamber of Commerce is to make Sausalito a better place to live and work. And from what I've heard this evening and from conversations with Jennifer and conversations with her neighbors like the Bay Model, Kimber Properties, SWA, it would appear that this organization would definitely improve. this as a place to live and work. it would provide, it would revitalize a building that has been vacant since I started with the Chamber five years ago. and they struggled to get someone in the music business to buy it. Here you have someone in the cultural business who's not going to ruin the historic integrity of the building that just wants to provide a service for our residents and our locals. in the marine ship area. and I would urge you to support it. I think it's a great idea and thank you very much for your time. |
| 01:27:28.36 | Michael Westgate | Hello, Mayor and City Council members. My name is Michael Westgate. I'm one of the practitioners that would be teaching at Harmonia. And I sent a letter in support. And the thing that I wanted to emphasize that I don't think has been quite pointed out clearly enough is what's different about Harmonia than what's offered in Marin in general. which is that the alternative healthcare industry in the United States is kind of what's really happening, on the cutting edge, is happening here in Marin County. So we have an opportunity here is that Harmony is taking what used to be perceived as a bunch of hippies with crystals and incense to a new level of actually Thank you. being at par with the medical industry and maybe even more effective in some ways, and putting it in a professional light where people have more respect for the work that we will be teaching and showing people. I have a thriving practice in Corte Madeira, and I've been in Marin for almost 10 years with that practice. So when I met Jennifer, what I saw was someone that had the same vision I did, which was let's take these alternative therapies and make them accessible to people by attracting the best possible professionals and then presenting it in a professional light so that the average citizen would look at it and not run away from the crystals and incense. No offense to anyone that uses crystals. And that's really what I wanted to kind of put forward is that this would be a unique center in Marin County as well as maybe even the country in the sense of its quality and its offering. So that would be something of great benefit to the citizens of South Slater and Southern Marin. Thank you. |
| 01:29:31.34 | Ray Withy | Okay, thank you. Yes, you may. |
| 01:29:36.74 | Alice Merrill | I'm Alice Merrill. |
| 01:29:38.09 | Ray Withy | I didn't recognize you with your |
| 01:29:39.38 | Alice Merrill | Oh, I know it's really short. Yesterday. You did it just for the |
| 01:29:39.65 | Ray Withy | Oh, I see. |
| 01:29:41.23 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 01:29:41.44 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 01:29:41.59 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:29:41.72 | Ray Withy | . Thank you. Um, |
| 01:29:44.05 | Unknown | I'm not sure. |
| 01:29:44.83 | Ray Withy | Bye. |
| 01:29:44.98 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:29:46.07 | Ray Withy | You did it just for this meeting, right? Yeah. |
| 01:29:48.23 | Alice Merrill | Yeah, thanks. Let's see, I live at 200 Johnson Street. I'll just be just a citizen. I think this is a really cool thing. Down there, I understand that, you know, you make an exception, then what happens to the next guy? That's a problem, I agree. But also we have to also look at the other side, which is where can we grow and where can we expand and where can we think in a forward manner. I think this is a really neat thing and I'm hoping that you guys don't just stick to... I know how hard it is. There are times when I wish that you could stick even closer, but I just think this is a good thing. Thank you. |
| 01:30:40.33 | Ray Withy | Okay. All right. Any other public comment? All right, let's bring it up here for the comments. |
| 01:30:48.68 | Ray Withy | I think that the government still has time. |
| 01:30:51.57 | Ray Withy | Do you still want to use? Can I have a couple minutes? Yeah. Yes, you do, John. Two. Two will do. |
| 01:31:02.64 | John McCoy | JOHN MCCOY, My name is John McCoy. I'm an architect at Turntown. I've been working with Jennifer on this project for almost two years at different sites. And this will be really quick. I just wanted to respond to a couple of things that were said. The gentleman who's left, I don't remember his name, had concerns for the recording studio. I want to make it very clear. The recording studios are not part of this renovation. We are going to rehab the exterior of the building. |
| 01:31:04.07 | Ray Withy | It is. |
| 01:31:25.96 | John McCoy | and bring in this new cultural school as a service. The property owner, however, has stated that with revenue coming in, he does intend to upgrade the studio to bring in more of the music industry to revitalize and bring it back. So it's a win-win all the way around. But our application does not touch Studio A or Studio B. In addition to that, those of you who took us up on the invitation to tour the facility as it is now, you can see the disrepair that it's in, but there's also some really unique hand-carved woodwork that is in the half of the building that we'll be occupying. That is not to be touched either. So everything's...we're very, very serious about keeping it with the heritage that it has and bringing in this new entity and the symbiotic relationship that can be there. And then I just wanted to also say thanks, Alice, for speaking on our behalf. But there is no exception that needs to be made here. This is completely approvable. So there's the findings that I've read for everything. We don't need to discuss any exceptions or anything like that. So I just wanted to make that pretty clear. |
| 01:32:24.16 | Unknown | discovery. |
| 01:32:29.54 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 01:32:29.56 | Len Rifkind | Okay, thank you John. Glenn. I just want to thank the council for your time and attention for hearing us. The most compelling speaker to me that I heard was Mr. Kravatsky about making an overall policy decision. You can get hung up on all the semantics, but I think there's enough support to approve this project, and so that's why I specifically left my conclusions slide up for you to look at for the last 15 minutes, and so that's how we feel about it. Thank you for your time. Okay. |
| 01:32:59.89 | Ray Withy | Any other comments from the public? Okay, we'll bring that back up here for comments. Thank you. |
| 01:33:06.47 | Ray Withy | Okay. |
| 01:33:06.79 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 01:33:06.92 | Ray Withy | Yeah, let me start if you would, Mr. Mayor. So I'm just going to read from your Facebook page and from your website. And it says, Harmonia is a vitality spa located in Marin County that combines movement, education, and luxury wellness under one roof. And the mission is to create an integrated holistic health and fitness business delivering its products and services via vitality spas located in high-demand communities. And on the website for the blog, |
| 01:33:45.41 | Ray Withy | that... |
| 01:33:50.27 | Ray Withy | I'm trying to edit it down here but not too far that it loses the context. A space that was modern, beautiful, offering classes focusing on cultural values and a place where your children could learn as well. Not a typical membership gym, but a holistic wellness gym for your mind, body, and soul. And then I look at the mercantile section of the website, and maybe it's an online store. I'm not sure, but at some point. But it says, Megan Strecker is our retail buyer operating out of New York, where she focuses on furniture, restoration, and art. Please visit our store soon to be dazzled by our first Harmonia collection. And that may be online, as you said before. So what I still don't have, and maybe the events that you've had before are more building awareness, and that's fine. I have no problem with that. The question is not whether this is a good business or an interesting business or a business that would benefit the community. Is it a business that's permitted in that particular plot of land, given how it zoned? and the Um, So I'm not going to debate the pluses or minuses of the business, but I'm still not quite sure what the business is, except for what you've written in ink on your website and your Facebook page. which are what you're telling the world what you're about, rather than trying to shoehorn something into... weird definition of something in our zoning ordinance or in the partnership plan. Um, But the intent of the marineship plan, if we had faster internet in here, is, and this is where all the gray comes in and where you have to sort of look in between lines, Oh, God, this is longer than I thought. It's taking a little longer to download here. Okay, we're going to find it. Yeah, we got to get some better technology in here. We got an old plan. |
| 01:35:44.72 | Unknown | We got a better technology in here. We got an old plant ourselves. |
| 01:35:52.31 | Ray Withy | Yeah, I got it here, thanks. I was just downloading from online. But the intent of the, I mean, the Rent-Shift Plan is a plan that was done at a specific time and place for specific purposes. So, but the intent of the plan as a whole is to promote Sorry, I'm done. |
| 01:36:22.98 | Thomas Theodores | Yeah. |
| 01:36:23.53 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 01:36:23.65 | Thomas Theodores | Thank you. |
| 01:36:23.70 | Ray Withy | I'm not sure. |
| 01:36:23.87 | Thomas Theodores | Thank you. |
| 01:36:24.01 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 01:36:26.15 | Thomas Theodores | Well, I'd like to ask the applicant to respond to Councilman Leon's. Leon's, sorry. He's got pink elephants, Leon. Just briefly, we've been told that... |
| 01:36:31.01 | Unknown | Yeah, you're off too. He's got, |
| 01:36:33.03 | Len Rifkind | Thank you. |
| 01:36:33.23 | Unknown | you |
| 01:36:33.39 | Len Rifkind | Pink elephants. They all include. Just briefly, we've been told that what Jonathan has been discussing is an old website that hasn't been up for at least six months and it's not…if you went on the web tonight, you wouldn't be seeing what he's reading. |
| 01:36:49.05 | Ray Withy | You wouldn't be single. Um, um, that's... It's right here. It's your Facebook page in South Sioux, California. I'm clearing my cache. That's the first time I've ever been to this site. |
| 01:37:05.01 | Ray Withy | Go ahead. |
| 01:37:06.95 | Thomas Theodores | Well, I'd like to hear the applicant respond to that. |
| 01:37:07.29 | Ray Withy | Bye. |
| 01:37:07.32 | Ray Withy | Like, |
| 01:37:07.54 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 01:37:13.11 | Jennifer Adler | No council. We had on our first website about six months ago a marketing term, Vitality Spa. It does go into workshops and classes on that site as well. I may not have cleared it on my Facebook page. My mistake. I thought that was cleared. But a wellness gym also is just a term. We are a cultural school, very evidently. We're having classes and workshops, and we have yoga classes as well, which is a type of fitness, just like stage door down the street. But we are a cultural school. So I just want that to be very clear, that we're doing classes and workshops and education around culture and arts, hence why we've had events around music. |
| 01:37:44.77 | Jenny Flynn | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 01:38:01.98 | Ray Withy | Mr. Mayor, while the applicant's there, am I allowed to ask a question without eating into my three minutes? |
| 01:38:08.56 | Ray Withy | No. Bye. Bye. Yes, you can. |
| 01:38:10.06 | Ray Withy | Okay. Jennifer, in your when you first submitted this application, in your summary of the nature of your business, you called yourself a cultural center. And that was, you know, |
| 01:38:18.15 | Jennifer Adler | Yes. |
| 01:38:31.88 | Ray Withy | Thank you. How you introduced yourself and then you spent quite a bit of text explaining all of the uses So then, You switch to cultural school. And from what I can see from the record, That was almost demanded of you by the Planning Commission. Could you comment on the process by which you went from cultural center to cultural school |
| 01:38:50.19 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:38:50.21 | Jennifer Adler | Could you? the |
| 01:38:55.68 | Jennifer Adler | I think it's semantics. I mean, if you have a center or you have a school, in both of those cases, we're offering education, we're offering workshops, we're offering classes. It's just a word change. It doesn't change anything about our intent of what we're doing. |
| 01:39:03.46 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 01:39:12.03 | Ray Withy | Go ahead, John. |
| 01:39:12.16 | John McCoy | Go ahead, John. Can I just respond to that? When we brought this application to the planning desk and met with the planner and reviewed what Harmonia wanted to do, originally I believe what you saw in the application was Harmonia's Wellness Center. We discussed what we were going to do and the space we needed because we've been to three different sites in Sausalito already looking at different sites. And when we discussed this application, there was nothing for centers. There were schools and cultural schools. And this business plan, this model fits into the definition of the cultural school. |
| 01:39:15.62 | Ray Withy | When? |
| 01:39:54.60 | John McCoy | So the application was made as a cultural school, but at that time the business was called a Wellness Center, which is again semantics, it's pretty much the same thing. That's where the terminology came from, Center. So we were like, yes we can be, you know, the business name could just simply be Harmonia. It doesn't need Center or School or anything. A business name is a business name. |
| 01:40:14.31 | Jennifer Adler | And the ammonia at the plant. |
| 01:40:16.51 | John McCoy | That's where that came from. |
| 01:40:18.97 | Ray Withy | You know, can I ask a question since there are any answer questions? So you're telling me, oh, this is an old website. It has advertisements for your events that are happening in the future. |
| 01:40:28.52 | Jennifer Adler | It's not. Are you looking at the Facebook page? |
| 01:40:31.21 | Ray Withy | I'm looking at harmoniamorin.com. |
| 01:40:33.53 | Jennifer Adler | Okay. |
| 01:40:34.13 | Ray Withy | Right? So it's a current website. It's not an old website. Right? And it has what I just read. And also, you know, in your cultural, in one place about your values, it's, we were saying we're an integrated cultural center. So, I'M NOT SAYING WHAT YOU'RE DOING IS CRAZY OR BAD OR A GREAT IDEA OR A HORRIBLE IDEA OR WON'T BENEFIT THE COMMUNITY OR IT WILL. AND THIS IS THE HORRIBLE PART ABOUT PLANNING IS THAT YOU HAVE TO SORT OF SAY, Adam sort of hit it on the head in a certain degree, how much do you want to be a jerk, or how much do you want to say, treat everyone the same? And, uh, If you don't treat everyone the same, then you're being a jerk by definition. And so part of the problem here is you're in like a lot of land use, people try to shoehorn things into certain definitions to make it work. I would have rather you just came in and said, this is what I'm going to do. And say... |
| 01:41:21.46 | Jennifer Adler | But I didn't shoehorn anything. |
| 01:41:25.19 | Ray Withy | So then why doesn't this, how you're marketing your business, how doesn't that follow what you're saying your business is here? |
| 01:41:35.40 | Jennifer Adler | I think it does. Thank you. I do. And I've looked at my website like the other day, so I'm slightly confused at what you're looking. |
| 01:41:39.31 | Unknown | I've... |
| 01:41:39.84 | Unknown | Look at that. |
| 01:41:40.29 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:41:45.88 | Ray Withy | I'm looking at the Harmonia Facebook page and the Harmonia |
| 01:41:48.24 | Jennifer Adler | THE CASE. |
| 01:41:50.32 | Ray Withy | harmoniamarin.com blog, which you're calling your blog because you're saying your other site isn't built yet. |
| 01:41:56.09 | Jennifer Adler | Thank you. And on the blog, there's listing of the events and so forth that we've been doing. Right, as well as... Yeah, there's nothing about a vitality spa on that blog. |
| 01:41:59.60 | Ray Withy | that we've been doing. |
| 01:42:04.46 | Ray Withy | No, there's stuff about a cultural center and about You want me to read it again? You know, I don't want to be combative with you, but I'll read it again if you were trying to imply that I'm not... Well, I am crazy, but besides that... Um, |
| 01:42:23.85 | Ray Withy | You're calling yourself here also a luxury holistic wellness gym. |
| 01:42:32.60 | Jennifer Adler | Right, and we are a luxury, holistic wellness gym, you know, in a sense. What we're doing there is we're having classes and workshops, and it's all around wellness and well-being and culture and arts and music. So in a way, you could say that's a gym. That's a way that you're working out your mind and your body. It's a marketing term. So that is my marketing. |
| 01:42:57.26 | Steve Hammersley | I'm Steve Hammersley. I've been involved in this project from the beginning. And what I've seen happen is I've seen there be several iterations of Jennifer's vision of this. One of the things that the Planning Commission had trouble with is, just as Jennifer mentioned, is semantics. |
| 01:43:12.82 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:43:16.06 | Steve Hammersley | because there isn't anything, as several of the speakers mentioned, there isn't really anything that we can point to and say, that's what that is. and it has a label and that's what you call it. So a lot of these words, council member, are there to try to describe in terms that people can understand what's going to happen there. Now, if you're concerned, is, you're going to approve this permit, and then you're going to go down there a month from there, and you're going to see a bunch of people jumping around as if it were a gym, you can revoke the permit. So I mean if that is the concern, I'd just like to make sure I understand |
| 01:43:47.56 | Ray Withy | I'd just like to make sure I understand what your concern is. There's two issues, and I don't want to get in the back and forth of you completely, but there's two. One is I'm not quite sure what you're doing. to The general intent of the Marinship Plan is one to promote waterfront uses and promote diversified water-dependent uses. And the second is to promote development of other lands in the marinship with industrial uses and uses compatible with an industrial area. Okay? That's the overarching point of that whole plan. Right? That's what they wanted to do when they developed that plan, is preserve those things and encourage those things. And they had to poke holes in it to allow, well, I'm already here. and I'm doing activity X, I don't want to be illegal all of a sudden, so we'll permit the gym that's on Bridgeway. You know, that was there. when they adopted this. It was called something different. Um, So it's a question of what, and again, sorry we're getting into a back and forth, but that's where my two concerns are here. |
| 01:44:40.77 | Steve Hammersley | That's, that's, that's, Okay. And I spent 15 years as an entrepreneur. I started three businesses. The process of starting a business involves iteration and it involves re-looking, re-focusing. And so some of the things that Jennifer is doing there is an... I understand. I'm an... |
| 01:44:59.69 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:44:59.70 | Ray Withy | I understand exactly where this one's at. I call myself an entrepreneur because I hate that word, but I own my own business too. |
| 01:45:01.97 | Steve Hammersley | this week's I own my own business too. So you understand. |
| 01:45:07.77 | Steve Hammersley | Thank you. |
| 01:45:07.79 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 01:45:07.81 | Steve Hammersley | Thank you. |
| 01:45:07.92 | Ray Withy | I understand. Okay. Thank you. All right, any other comments? |
| 01:45:15.64 | Thomas Theodores | Mr. Mayor, I'd like to comment. So I looked at this with just completely open mind and I was not biased in reading through everything. I want to thank everyone who came and talked because I learned a little bit from each and every one of you. |
| 01:45:17.20 | Ray Withy | you |
| 01:45:17.47 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:45:35.36 | Thomas Theodores | Uh, So my field is education. So when I saw cultural school, my mind resonated with the Planning Commission's finding of technical and vocational training where there is a structured, kind of a measured way of what you're coming with and leaving with, and there is a certification or a degree or some form like this. At least this is my interpretation of cultural school. I would agree with Council Member Leon's comments. I'm looking at the blog, too. It does refer to the concert series. I do agree with, I mean, I'm confident your architect would respect the historic nature of the building. I think John's good at that. At the same time, I am concerned, and I find myself agreeing very much with the Planning Commission's finding with respect to the CUP. With regards to the cultural school definition as being vocational and technical training. With respect to, I don't see live music events, you know, falling under that definition. And also I'm concerned with the Planning Commission have referred to a number of traffic studies regarding the routing behind SWA and that structure as being very key for traffic flow. Unfortunately I don't have access to those studies and staff wasn't aware of them. But I did. as being very key for traffic flow. Unfortunately, I don't have access to those studies and staff wasn't aware of them, but I did talk at length with a planning commissioner and I've read the notes. And so I would concur with the planning commission's finding on this and, you know, it's not a reflection on what I'm seeing. I think the vision is, is lovely and I hope that there would be a place in Sausalito you know, to locate this, but I can't see it as aligning with the Marineship-specific plan. |
| 01:47:53.47 | Unknown | Amen. |
| 01:47:53.80 | Thomas Theodores | Thank you. I too had a little bit of a problem of defining what was done and some of the changes, but when I went on to Harmonia Marin and what I've seen in general, it seems to have enough of a cultural school, and when you take a look at What is a cultural school? I mean, if it's not this kind of thing in this day and age, I'm not sure what a cultural school is. I don't think we're going to have with books on their heads walking down the aisles. I think this is the type of thing. When we look at the definitions of general industrial business, professional trade, and cultural schools, and, but the other thing, and to the comments that the intent of the marineship specific plan, and I agree, but a lot of it was defined by what we didn't want. And we didn't want increased traffic. I don't see any traffic from this. We didn't want office or retail or residential. I don't see any of that kind of thing. low impact, and it has services for residents, which is also specified in the Marinship plan. Prior to this, I believe, it wasn't mentioned, I believe most of the space was a print shop before that. And I think what moves me is, partly is, it's on the side of the marine ship on Bridgeway. It's next to Bridgeway. It's not near the water at all. And it hasn't been rented for many years. If we don't put this in, I'm not sure what's going to go in there. I don't think you can use it for marine industrial, particularly for its location. And I guess at the end of the day, we definitely, there's no question to me that we need to make sure that this complies with the Marineship-specific plan. I guess it depends on how, whether we want to find ways to not let this happen or find ways to make it happen. I think that. Um, I think this fits within the cultural school, although as I said, I would have been a little happier if we had a clearer statement of what was being done there or something we could get our arms around a little better. Thanks. |
| 01:49:56.69 | Ray Withy | Right? Um... I'm coming in fresh to this, reading all the documents fresh. As far as I'm concerned, I... must just read the documents. I must read the zoning ordinance and the marineship-specific plans. and use each within the four corners of the document. I must assume they are both valid in which case it's to me, perfectly reasonable that The harmonia as defined by all of the materials that the applicant has provided. um, and with the changes the Planning Commission asked, essentially. that the use that is being described, not the label that is being given by various peoples, the use that is being described easily fulfills the definition of a specialist technical school under the zoning ordinance. That is, A facility that offers specialized programs in personal growth and development, including fitness, environmental awareness, arts, communication, and management as examples. That is what the Zoning Ordinance says. The Zoning Ordinance was actually adopted 14 years or so after the MarinShip-specific plan. I have no way of making the two documents coherent and valid without actually saying Therefore, the zoning ordinance in 2003 interpreted the marineship specific plan and every use on table 1025 must therefore be somewhere within the marineship and allowed use. And it tells us specifically to go to the marineship specific plan and find out where it can be used. And if you go to the marineship-specific plan, which, with all due respect to the vice mayor, is much more nuanced in intent, with about 10 pages of intent of what the various intents are, I go to the record plant, And it says clearly under the record plan that Arts uses, service uses in particular, right, in addition to industrial uses. Now if I have to, I will end up with the marine ship specific plan and ask Is this therefore a cultural school? I'm not sure I even need to answer that question, yes or no. But if you want me to, it would be yes. Thank you. |
| 01:52:30.27 | Ray Withy | Okay. |
| 01:52:30.96 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 01:52:31.03 | Ray Withy | Thank you. This is the Planning Commission resolution, October 5th, 2012. Down on B it says, The proposed use is not compatible with the Marinship Specific Plan which is aimed at the preservation and enhancement of maritime industrial uses, including discouraging non-industrial uses encouraging public access and increasing businesses that serve Sausalito. So they're all over the board. Here they're telling you you can't do something, and they're telling you, well, promote something that can be used in Sausalito. I'm There were three pieces down there. You've got S.W.A. S.W.A. S.A.W.E. Walker, which is an architect building there. You have the plant, and you have the Bay model, so there's actually four then you have burke l plumbing at the corner this building here. if you let it sit, and we talk about preservation. Preservation is one thing. Letting it deteriorate down to nothing is another. And I think if we don't go in that direction, let this applicant, let something get in that building, so that monies can be exchanged enough to be able to maintain and take care of this building so it doesn't just go nowhere. Ah. and I really think that You're really limited in what you're going to put there. You've got the Bay model who is Thank you. Thank you. who can very easily object to something, and they didn't. They welcomed this. So I really think that we've got to get by some of the uses that are down there and adapt to something that was... The Marineship Specific Plan was passed 27 years ago. I don't think we had computers then. All right. |
| 01:54:34.77 | Ray Withy | God. So time's... But you have to deal with that as a whole. Yes, not by poking holes in there. And that's where the Planning Commission is coming from, I believe. Is that it's not consistent with that because there have been a million businesses that have been turned down there because they weren't consistent with the rent-sensitive plan. |
| 01:54:36.36 | Ray Withy | Times... Yes. |
| 01:54:40.37 | Unknown | Thank you. And that's... |
| 01:54:45.32 | Ray Withy | I know. |
| 01:54:54.31 | Ray Withy | But here it says, in increasing businesses who serve Sausalito. I mean, that's the thing that moves me. You know, it is serving Sausalito. So. I very honestly, I would be at this time here, I would be in favor of this. |
| 01:55:14.49 | Ray Withy | Yeah, you know, so I agree. It's not a clear-cut thing, obviously. Otherwise, the Planning Commission wouldn't have had to hear the thing for multiple hearings. But the... |
| 01:55:18.44 | Ray Withy | No, what is it? |
| 01:55:27.77 | Ray Withy | And that's fine, it looks like the die is cast here, but I think you will regret it because at the end of the day, this is gonna open the door for the next guy and the next guy and the next guy. And because there's a school that wants to go in Marina Plaza, which it's certainly not zoned for that, and they'll come up with a way to, of course, |
| 01:55:30.00 | Jonathon Goldman | No. |
| 01:55:44.62 | Ray Withy | And both precedent and consistency are important here. There have been a number of different cultural, physical, uh, other types of classes. And one of the reasons that it was turned down was also that if you have classes, you have an increase in traffic because people come and go, come and go. And that's why one of the reasons that Curves was not Now, curves is known or near what you're doing. It's a very different kind of thing. but it's similar, right? It's similar where you have classes, and it has a retail aspect, and it has a bigger traffic generation. So this is what tends to push tenants out of the marineship in general is that you allow uses that don't fit that push out light industrial. And if you do it for one, you have to do it for all. |
| 01:56:32.66 | Ray Withy | One last comment. There is only one way in and out of this plant. In other words, you don't just drive around and go out the other way. It's just one way in. No, no. No, when you go to the back of the record plant, you can't get out unless you come back out the same way. |
| 01:56:54.33 | Ray Withy | No, you can get out the other end. |
| 01:56:55.56 | Ray Withy | No, you can't. |
| 01:56:56.30 | Ray Withy | Thank you. No, no, you can't. |
| 01:56:57.18 | Ray Withy | No, you can't. By SWA. No, you can't because there's now bullets there that blocked it from doing that. Unless they put the art. Oh, no. Believe me, I know. I deal with it every year at the Isasa Little Art Festival. No, I deal with it at the Isasa Little Art Festival. And you can only go in and you have to turn around and come out the same way you came in. There are bullets there that now separate the two properties. |
| 01:57:07.10 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 01:57:07.14 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 01:57:07.47 | Ray Withy | Right. |
| 01:57:07.86 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:57:07.96 | Unknown | I think it's a good thing. Thank you. |
| 01:57:09.26 | Ray Withy | That's a stretch of the new thing. |
| 01:57:22.58 | Ray Withy | The amount of traffic that's down there, I really don't think that that would really have a great impact. It's not that big to be able to have a great impact as far as traffic and as far as I'm concerned. But that is only one way in and one way out. You can't go around. Okay, right? |
| 01:57:42.89 | Ray Withy | A quick comment in response to the Vice Mayor's comments. you can't make the judgment that if you let quote one in or whatever exactly what it was, then you've opened the door for lots more. Thank you. |
| 01:57:56.73 | Ray Withy | I'll work. |
| 01:57:56.77 | Ray Withy | or something akin to that. |
| 01:57:58.06 | Ray Withy | to that. My point there being that it will, there is no guarantee. There is precedent and then there is not precedent and everybody will use that as an argument as they see fit. |
| 01:58:09.27 | Ray Withy | I understand. You have to admit, surely, that if you read the marine ship-specific plan, down to the parcel level, should be called the Marinship Parcel-specific plan. |
| 01:58:19.95 | Unknown | Why? |
| 01:58:20.71 | Ray Withy | You know, I mean, it gives you detailed instructions as to what to do. You can't just extrapolate from the record plant and say you've opened the door. I can take. five, ten properties that are listed in the Marinship Specific Plan for which this use would not be allowed. Quite clearly. |
| 01:58:38.04 | Unknown | Mm-hmm. |
| 01:58:40.44 | Ray Withy | So I don't think I can agree with your argument that therefore by this we're creating a precedent. Everything is absolutely case specific. |
| 01:58:48.64 | Ray Withy | Yeah, it's on an individual basis, I feel. |
| 01:58:48.79 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:58:48.91 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 01:58:52.94 | Ray Withy | Any other comments? Okay, let's call for a vote. I, well, you need the motion and all that. |
| 01:59:03.19 | Ray Withy | I would like to propose a motion to adopt a resolution upholding the appellate's appeal and approving the conditional use permit for this project. |
| 01:59:17.19 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:59:18.35 | Ray Withy | Is that an appropriate motion? Thank you. |
| 01:59:22.19 | Thomas Theodores | Second. |
| 01:59:23.15 | Ray Withy | Okay. |
| 01:59:24.02 | Ray Withy | You want to call the vote, Debbie? |
| 01:59:26.54 | Thomas Theodores | Thank you. |
| 01:59:29.73 | Unknown | Councilmember Pfeiffer. |
| 01:59:31.18 | Thomas Theodores | No. |
| 01:59:31.40 | Thomas Theodores | Thank you. |
| 01:59:33.86 | Unknown | Councilmember Theodore. |
| 01:59:35.25 | Thomas Theodores | Yes. |
| 01:59:36.75 | Unknown | Council member Whitting. |
| 01:59:37.91 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:59:37.93 | Ray Withy | Yes. |
| 01:59:39.25 | Unknown | Vice Mayor Leone. |
| 01:59:40.68 | Ray Withy | No. |
| 01:59:42.35 | Unknown | Mayor Weiner. |
| 01:59:43.38 | Ray Withy | Yes. Okay. |
| 01:59:52.80 | Ray Withy | Now your obligation now is to keep everybody well in Sausalito. |
| 01:59:58.40 | Thomas Theodores | Mr. Merrim, can we take a brief break? |
| 01:59:58.84 | Unknown | Thank you. Yes. |
| 02:00:01.62 | Ray Withy | Yes, okay. We're going to take up to a five-minute break. |
| 02:00:12.10 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:00:12.17 | Thomas Theodores | Thank you. |
| 02:00:12.19 | Unknown | your vice mayor from Bell on. I can't make that mistake again. Oh, I didn't hear what you said. |
| 02:00:12.96 | Unknown | I didn't hear what you said. |
| 02:00:20.62 | Ray Withy | You don't have to. you. No, no, no. No, thanks. Ray? |
| 02:00:26.35 | Jennifer Adler | Thank you. |
| 02:00:27.05 | Unknown | No. No, thanks. |
| 02:00:34.33 | Ray Withy | That's why I'm not having it. |
| 02:00:41.26 | Ray Withy | All right, we're going to continue now with our... I believe it's 6A. And that would be on a proposed procedure. for the creation of a Dunphy Park schematic master plan and support for a public forum shock. Ms. Jacques here. You're on. I'll try to get you out early because I know you've got a long way to walk home. |
| 02:01:15.86 | Ushua Coleman | I'm Ushua Coleman, friends of Dumpy Fart. |
| 02:01:18.54 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 02:01:19.70 | Ushua Coleman | Um, |
| 02:01:19.82 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 02:01:20.07 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:01:23.48 | Ushua Coleman | So first of all, what is a schematic master plan? A schematic master plan is a guideline that will assure that detailed plans for each incremental improvement to the park are compatible with the city's long range view for park development. |
| 02:01:29.69 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:01:45.32 | Ushua Coleman | of. An important thing to point out is that this park is going to change incrementally for a number of reasons. First of all, various needs will come up at different times, and also there isn't enough money to go into the park and just renovate the whole thing at once. So therefore, there's a real danger that the thing gets done piecemeal, and that's why we feel that there needs to be a schematic master plan that defines the city's priorities, and that's really what the schematic master plan is all about. Some of the things that will come up no doubt fairly soon are parking issues. There are now several new uses being rehabbed or coming to the area that will require parking or require toilet facilities. The beach situation is in need of renovations. It became quite evident when we had the Hobie races last year. And there's some habitat restoration issues that need to be dealt with, so there are plenty of things that need to be done and there are sources for revenue for these different things, but it's hard to get the sources of revenue unless you can present that they're part of a rational plan for the improvement of the park. |
| 02:03:09.34 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:03:09.36 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:03:09.37 | Unknown | you |
| 02:03:24.16 | Ushua Coleman | Whoops. This is the first time I've done a PowerPoint. So the purpose of the public forum is to solicit public commentary on the priorities for the park, and then this input will provide Friends of Duffy Park a basis upon which to create this schematic master plan. And one of the things we feel very strongly about is that there's a history in town here of a lot of different plans for downtown and other places that have met a lot of opposition from the public. And I served on some of the committees for those various plans, and I could see how the people running the various workshops, forums, tended to push their own agenda. And then that really created a lot of negative feeling. And we want to have this be as open a process as possible and be very careful to have this forum to gather public opinion. The master plan that comes out of it, the schematic master plan, may not satisfy everyone, but at least we'll be able to point to the fact that we did the best we could to bring in public opinion. |
| 02:04:56.75 | Ushua Coleman | So the proposed procedure to set up this forum is first to review any available information from any previous public input. We actually haven't gotten much. There was a Philips plan years ago, but we haven't really been able to get any information on what information they gathered. But we did get from Mike Langford the minutes of some of the hearings on that plan and unfortunately Councilman Leon is not here, but in particular something that stood out was a comment he made when he was a planning commissioner that he was concerned that the habitat restoration and the access to the water be maintained, and particularly in view of the funding that was received for the purchase of the new property. Thank you. south of Litho Street Um, So then we would organize the public workshop, prepare background information by contacting different people in the city government to make sure that we make everyone aware of all the limitations, whether they be technical or governmental, BCDC for instance, financial and other restrictions to the park alterations. Because we want to be careful to have a disciplined and focused public input and not have it go all over the place. So it has to be well coordinated and this is why we believe that there should be a facilitator to help us both in the pre-planning and during the forum and also to compile the information that we get from the forum. |
| 02:06:24.48 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:06:24.52 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:06:24.57 | Unknown | you |
| 02:07:03.70 | Ushua Coleman | So some of the limitations that will have to be made clear are there certainly will be parking requirements and I'm going to push for the planning department to really give me some definition as to what parking is required for the cruising club, for the park, for all the various facilities around there. And we kind of demonstrate to the public how much space that kind of parking will take because when you do your schematic plan you've got to be realistic about those needs. There are also some ADA requirements for pedestrian circulation through the park that will have to be dealt with. So those kinds of things have to be defined to the public so they realize the things that have to be accomplished. So, |
| 02:07:57.01 | Ushua Coleman | We'll prepare visual aids such as a Google aerial photo with overlaid information and photos of existing site conditions. I'll show you some examples of what we might be doing. Find a good facilitator. I've actually contacted two people that I got through various county agencies, Annan Patterson and Holly Van Hooten, who have both given me some proposals. They're preliminary proposals, but they give me an idea of what we might be able to get. And then we find a proper venue. Maybe it will be the City Hall, I don't know. And formulate an outreach program, that will be very important. Because one of the things we realize is that the people who have very specific uses for the park will all come, but there are a lot of people in town who don't really have a specific use of the park. They just like it being there. It's a passive thing for them, a place where they want to go and look at the water and so on. We have to encourage them to come too so that we can have a balanced opinion. |
| 02:09:14.82 | Ushua Coleman | So... The proposed format for the forum is first to explain, as I did here, what a schematic master plan is and present an overview of all the existing parameters that control improvements Um, |
| 02:09:39.85 | Ushua Coleman | We'll have, this is just an area map just so that, strangely enough, we finally talk to people about the park and not everybody realizes exactly where it is and what the neighbors are and so on. So that's just an area map. But more importantly, we'll try to have some sort of a background map which will show all the various things that influence what we do. |
| 02:09:39.88 | Unknown | WE'LL HAVE TO DO IT. |
| 02:10:06.91 | Ushua Coleman | People need to know that there's going to be a bicycle path running along here and that has great influence potentially on how we enter the park crossing across the spandex warriors that are coming along and so on. And there's the eelgrass preservation area, there's the BCDC 100-foot line, all sorts of things that people will need to know. And I don't know if this graphic is strong enough yet. But one of the things that we can do is to just have this as an introduction, but then we can do other graphics that we can put up when we're discussing individual subjects so that they aren't confused with the other ones. If there's any question about land ownership, it could be interesting for people to know what land we own, the city owns, the Bridgeway Marine Corporation, Galley Harbor, all the various neighboring owners. And it's also important for people to realize that the city owns all the streets. |
| 02:10:41.17 | Unknown | This is an |
| 02:11:13.60 | Ushua Coleman | So. you Um, |
| 02:11:22.36 | Ushua Coleman | So we'll identify the various subjects that will be open for public commentary. We want to organize the forum one subject at a time and focus on each subject. The subjects could include access and entry, pedestrian circulation, visual qualities to be preserved, for instance, transparency, view of the water, relationship to bridgeway, parking as I mentioned, toilet facilities, active facilities such as play areas, bocce courts and volleyball, habitat restoration, beach improvements, passive facilities, and types of large group functions that people might do, that it does accommodate, and people want that to continue. And, uh, So this is an example of how we might be able to just pull out, and here you just make a little more emphatic the BCDC line and the eelgrass and so on. And then as we discuss different issues, we might have photographs. It's just an example. We try to have a collection of photographs that we can flash on if we're talking about the beach. |
| 02:12:41.34 | Adam Krivajci | Yeah. |
| 02:12:50.41 | Ushua Coleman | or, We're talking about the shoreline restoration area or the park. visual qualities or large events. Um, And then once we've had all of this discussion, then we will record the public commentary and compile it into a document that will become part of the public record. So the Friends of Dunphy Park request that the Council pass a resolution supporting this proposed procedure for setting up a public forum and giving its official backing to the forum and schematic master plan process. Putting the form and master plan up for consideration on the priority calendar with some funding to cover facilitator and outreach expenses. Now I want to make clear that the schematic master plan that we put together will be based on the public input, but it'll also have to go through the normal Planning Commission procedures. So it'll have to be reviewed and there'll be an opportunity for the public to comment on it, and it'll have to be approved. So I'm not implying that if you were to pass the resolution that I'm proposing, that you would be approving a plan that you haven't even seen. You're approving the process. Thank you. |
| 02:14:25.52 | Ray Withy | Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Do you have any questions? |
| 02:14:30.58 | Thomas Theodores | Mr. Mayor, I have a question. So thank you Jacques for a really good presentation. |
| 02:14:32.93 | Ray Withy | So, |
| 02:14:37.15 | Ray Withy | You've got a question coming at you. |
| 02:14:38.65 | Thomas Theodores | And thank you for a very thorough presentation. And I'm very excited to see this coming together. You mentioned choose a date in there. And I was just wondering, has the Friends of Dunphy Park considered the best case scenario timeframe? How soon you might be able to do this? It's OK if the answer is no. But I just had to ask. |
| 02:15:01.04 | Ushua Coleman | Yeah. Well, I mean, we have talked about it. There has been a comment that it might have to wait till the fall. You have to be careful in the summer. So many people are not here, including myself. So I don't know if there's enough time to get it going before the summer. I mean, I think we have to maybe find a facilitator and see how much work is involved to get it together. I think the outreach program is what we need time for, too. |
| 02:15:37.14 | Adam Politzer | I also want to thank Jacques. He and the friends have spent a lot of time on this. But a specific response back to Councilmember Pfeiffer's question. One of the requests is financial support and asking it to be part of the priority calendar. priority calendar will happen later this spring, and the next action of the council on items that are above the line, than to put the resources, both staff and financial So, for us to move forward on supporting this effort financially. It would be part of the budget process, which would go into effect during May and June. And so there would be a known dollar amount if, in fact, the council was able to fund this. requests are known on June 30th and that way planning for a fall, you know, late summer, early fall program, they would know certain on what level of support they have from the |
| 02:16:33.97 | Thomas Theodores | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 02:16:36.25 | Unknown | I'm not. |
| 02:16:36.42 | Adam Krivajci | question. |
| 02:16:37.01 | Thomas Theodores | Thanks, Jacques, and thanks to all the friends for the work they're doing. Who do you envision, have you worked with the city in terms of, you know, normally I'm I see that there's a joint presentation with the city and the city staff and yourself and i don't see in any of that so i'd like to have that addressed how that will be coordinated with our city staff |
| 02:17:00.97 | Ushua Coleman | Well, first of all, of course, this aspect of the planning didn't require a whole lot of city staff, although I have to say that we did have, in my little tiny studio, quite a few people for one meeting that kind of kicked us off. And so the head of the Department of Public Works, the city engineer, and Mike Langley, and of course Adam were there and and that's what made us aware that we have to look at all the various restrictions that there are so there actually was input and definitely we look forward to a lot more input I think we'll have to be in contact with all the various departments. There are some, the head of public works made it clear that there are some real issues relative to the beach and the hydrology and all that kind of habitat restoration work. So this will have to be very, very well coordinated with the city staff. |
| 02:18:09.64 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:18:09.98 | Thomas Theodores | And I take it at this point, you only need funds for a facilitator, and the question is how much are you envisioning? So when we discuss it, we'll probably need to have a number. |
| 02:18:17.57 | Ushua Coleman | Thank you. |
| 02:18:17.60 | John McCoy | We're going to... |
| 02:18:17.69 | Ushua Coleman | Thank you. |
| 02:18:17.72 | John McCoy | Thank you. |
| 02:18:17.86 | Ushua Coleman | I'm not sure. |
| 02:18:17.87 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:18:19.68 | Ushua Coleman | Well, I can pursue this further. From the two facilitators that I've contacted so far, both of their proposals came in under $3,000. Now, they were, of course, very careful the way that they did it, up to approximately and so on. But, well, I mean, it's understandable. And also, a lot of it has to do with their learning how much our input there will be. We can try to minimize how much of their time we need beforehand and afterwards. But I think, actually, not only for their expertise, but even from a political point of view, I think unlike some of the other forums that have taken place or workshops I think it's really important that an outside person be sort of controlling it or running it |
| 02:19:09.26 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:19:12.73 | Ray Withy | Thank you. Any other questions? Thank you. At this time, here, any questions from the public? Any public comment? Okay, let's bring it back up here. |
| 02:19:28.72 | Thomas Theodores | Mr. Mayor, can I open comment with a motion? |
| 02:19:33.51 | Ray Withy | Is there any other comments? |
| 02:19:34.35 | Thomas Theodores | And we can, well, just to make a motion and we can discuss. So I move to, I guess I don't have the... |
| 02:19:36.66 | Ray Withy | Right. |
| 02:19:43.14 | Thomas Theodores | Slavery. |
| 02:19:43.99 | Ray Withy | Slide. |
| 02:19:44.36 | Unknown | It's right. |
| 02:19:47.14 | Ray Withy | Here, right at the end. |
| 02:19:49.42 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:19:49.47 | Mary Wagner | Mr. Mayor White, Mr. Mayor, or Council Member Pfeiffer, while you're looking for that, I know that Mr. Ullman requested that Council pass a resolution. You don't have a resolution in your packet tonight, but you can do it by minute order. You know, you can just make the motion. It'll be part of the record. You don't need, or you can direct us to bring back a resolution. |
| 02:19:49.49 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 02:19:49.50 | Unknown | Mr. Mayor White, or |
| 02:19:57.76 | Unknown | No. |
| 02:19:58.03 | Thomas Theodores | But you can do it by meeting. Yeah. |
| 02:20:06.04 | Thomas Theodores | Okay, so I move that Council support the proposed procedure by Friends of Dunphy Park for setting up a public forum and giving and subsequent schematic master planning process and putting the forum and master plan out for consideration on the priority calendar with some, and to consider funding to cover facilitator and outreach expenses. |
| 02:20:34.97 | Thomas Theodores | Second. Okay. |
| 02:20:36.82 | Ray Withy | All in favor. you Aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay, cool. |
| 02:20:38.81 | Thomas Theodores | Thank you. |
| 02:20:38.93 | Thomas Theodores | Nice. |
| 02:20:39.32 | Thomas Theodores | you |
| 02:20:42.10 | Ray Withy | And Jacques, thank you for all the work you've done. Yes, wonderful. Thank you, Jacques. I mean, when I got on this council, |
| 02:20:43.98 | Unknown | Yes, wonderful. Thank you, Sean. |
| 02:20:47.62 | Ray Withy | Six, seven years ago you were hard working at it, so. |
| 02:20:50.68 | Thomas Theodores | Yes. |
| 02:20:50.93 | Ray Withy | Thank you for your effort. |
| 02:20:53.16 | Thomas Theodores | Yes, it's very exciting to see this. |
| 02:20:55.42 | Ray Withy | Okay, moving right along there. Thank you. Let's see, acceptance of the final traffic report regarding Lisez Francais School and MLK property. Jonathan Goldman. |
| 02:21:13.90 | Jonathon Goldman | Thank you, Mr. Mayor, members of council and staff. I have a PowerPoint presentation that was not with the packet, but I'll take a minute and hand that out if it's all right. I know there are a number of people here for this item as well as for the next item, so I appreciate the opportunity to make a presentation. I'll probably be as brief as I can, but I encourage you if you have questions to make sure that you get the information you need from me. |
| 02:22:19.57 | Jonathon Goldman | Thanks, Debbie. Your Public Works Director, Jonathan Goldman. Brief history on this item. May 2012, the council approved entering into a lease of premises at MLK to the Lycée Francais. Under a certain section of the lease, the tenant was obligated to conduct a traffic study to be paid for by the tenant and performed by a consultant jointly selected by the city and the tenant. Among other firms, Kimley-Horne Associates, a 45-year-old transportation engineering and parking consulting firm, submitted a statement of qualifications and a proposal to perform the study for a lump sum of $20,000. Kimley-Horne was jointly selected by the city and the lycée, and the lycée deposited the funds for the study before we authorized them to start their work. Kimley Horne conducted their study and prepared a draft report, which we made available to the community on the website, as well as to people who had expressed interest in having access to it in advance of a public meeting that was held Tuesday, January 8th, 2013 in the gymnasium at MLK. Their study methodology really focused on looking at existing conditions, specifically including the operations of the New Village School, which is also a school tenant at the MLK, as well as the Marin School, which is currently a high school tenant that is departing as the lycée comes in. They then evaluated the existing conditions plus the project conditions. In other words, what would things look like from the baseline taking into account changes that they would expect as a result of Lysay's occupancy at the site. Five different intersections were identified as important or germane to the study. They're listed here, Ebtide Avenue at the New Village, which is functionally right now the New Village School driveway as well as the Marin School driveway, Ebtide Avenue intersection with Bridgeway, Coloma Street and Olema, Coloma Street which will be the, kind of jumping to conclusions already, but the recommended access point for the Lyce, and then also the Coloma intersection with Bridgeway. I copied this table for those of you who are quantitative and tabular rather than qualitative and graphic. This is table five from the report, which lists what's called level of service for each of the intersections analyzed under existing conditions, morning peak, school afternoon peak, level of service and delay. You can see that under existing conditions, the intersections that were studied are all level of service A or B. And then with the existing PLUS project, the intersections are still all level of service A or B. Our criteria for private projects, our criteria that we used for this study is we accept a level of service of C or better without considering it a significant impact. |
| 02:25:09.35 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:25:45.95 | Jonathon Goldman | They evaluated queuing, in other words, how many vehicles would stack up in a turn pocket or stack up anywhere for that matter and potentially create a traffic impact. None of the turning movements at any of the study intersections would result in the existing queue or queue with the project exceeding the available storage. So again, no significant impacts to level of service with respect to queuing at those intersections. They evaluated potential effects on transit, bicycle, and pedestrian mobility did identify one potential concern but not necessarily an adverse impact, and that is that with an increase in projected traffic on Bridgeway at the Coloma intersection, southbound Bridgeway turning right on Coloma, there's the increased likelihood of conflicts between motorists and bicycles or pedestrians. Kim Lee Horn made some recommendations about that, specifically including the recommendation that this is. likelihood of conflicts between motorists and bicycles or pedestrians. Kim Leehorn made some recommendations about that, specifically including the recommendation that the city monitor those operations and be prepared to either establish regulations or provide additional warning to make it clear who has the right-of-way at that intersection to avoid those conflicts. I won't read all this. It's in the report. We asked them to look at a cut-through analysis because of sensitivity to concerns, people living between 101 and 21. Coloma as if some And a crazy parent decides to start trying to take a shortcut and come through residential neighborhoods or go leave through residential neighborhoods instead of following the recommended traffic pattern, you know, what kinds of effects would those be? Kimmelhorn looked at that. They would basically be adding time to their normal route. So there's a disincentive for that to take place. There are circumstances under which that might take place, but their analysis was that those were less than 5% of total trips, which doesn't rise to a level of significance as far as they're concerned. |
| 02:27:43.24 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:27:43.37 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:27:43.39 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:27:51.44 | Jonathon Goldman | Summary of impacts. No significant impacts associated with the project based on Kim Lee Horn's study. The project won't contribute to any deficient level of service or queuing concerns at any of the study intersections. recommendations that Kimley Horn made. I leapt to the graphic display first, this time instead of the table. The table will follow. Basically, recommendations include, as I mentioned earlier, establishing the access to and egress from Lycée Francais operations being the Columbus Street entrance in the vicinity of Building 7 in MLK, which we refer to as the bus barn. This graphic depicts a number of the recommendations that they made to improve the operations of those traffic activities, those traffic operations, in order to make them flow smoothly. They're talked about in the report, but if you want to ask questions about them, you're welcome to. I then listed all 18 of the recommendations in the PowerPoint. And again, I'm not going to read those unless they're specific questions or if someone from the public has questions about them. They are contained in the report, which was reproduced in HOLA as part of the staff report. Other issues that were raised during the course of the public meeting, for example, and other communication with residents and other members of the community. Some issues with the width of Ebtide that fundamentally are independent of whether the lycée comes in or not. That with the Safe Routes to School sidewalks that we were fortunate enough to be able to install there last year, that there are places where Ebtide is too narrow for two-way traffic with parking on both sides. Thank you. to school sidewalks that we were fortunate enough to be able to install there last year, that there are places where Ebtide is too narrow for two-way traffic with parking on both sides. That's the city engineer's office and my office's responsibility to investigate, and to the extent that we can make improvements there, we have the authority to do that. And if we need more authority, we know where to come to the City Council to get it. Looking at traffic signal timing is something that most communities do routinely. It's certainly something that with this change, some additional study is warranted at some point in the future. Also my department's responsibility. The fact that the shoulder of Coloma has, in the time that I've been here, used for city project construction staging is a use that really wouldn't necessarily be consistent with these changes to NOK, so the burden is ours to address that. the suggestion and again the obligation as far as I'm concerned that after the Lisset begins their operations the city and the Lisset jointly have the obligation to pay attention to what's going on and if assumptions that got made in the traffic study aren't borne out, if we find that we have queuing issues or something like that, it's the city's obligation to make sure that those issues get addressed. Turning radiuses, this is just kind of a design detail, but for those of you who are familiar with that proposed route at MLK now, a school bus, for example, would have difficulty. A big school bus would have difficulty making some of the turns, even with a widened gate. So we want to take some care in designing the improvements that we make there to make sure that the vehicles that would normally use or even in certain rare occasions use that route can do so safely without damaging their vehicles or other vehicles or buildings |
| 02:30:03.05 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:31:42.41 | Jonathon Goldman | anything we don't want them to damage. And then the obligation at this point, given that the traffic study has been completed, is that we need to have these more detailed plans and estimates of what it's going to cost to make the necessary improvements for us to move forward, work with the Licee, and make sure that the improvements necessary to get them in business and educating French school students as quickly as possible happen. So our suggestion this evening, after you've had the opportunity to ask me questions and have the public talk about it, is that you adopt a motion accepting the final traffic report regarding Lisee France-Stay at MLK. |
| 02:32:16.17 | Evan Shepherd-Reef | Thank you. |
| 02:32:24.98 | Ray Withy | Thank you, John. Any questions? |
| 02:32:27.90 | Thomas Theodores | Mr. Mayor, I have a couple questions. So my first question concerns Ebtide. And with respect to Ebtide, I saw it listed as one of the the streets that they looked at But I didn't see it listed as one of, would it be feasible for Ebb Tide to serve as a crossover as well, a crossover route to the Lise School building? |
| 02:32:54.21 | Jonathon Goldman | It's possible that it could, but the recommendation was that Ebb Tide be limited primarily to serve New Village School and the dog park, and that Coloma be the primary route for drop-off and pickup of Lycee-Francais students. and it's possible and we'll'll see what Licee-Francais proposes in terms of their development plans, but it's possible that they will use the space between the proposed drop-off route and, say, Building 2 for their staff parking, and then with the exception of emergency vehicles, there wouldn't be any vehicle or traffic through that area during the day. That would provide the safest environment for both New Village school students who regularly cross in order to use the field, as well as Licee Francaise students. |
| 02:33:04.25 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:33:04.33 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:33:13.13 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:33:44.85 | Unknown | that way. |
| 02:33:55.13 | Thomas Theodores | I'm still perplexed as to why the traffic study did not analyze the ebb tide as a potential crossover. Because if I were a parent taking my child and all the cars are backed up and everything and I saw an opportunity to zip down this street |
| 02:34:11.24 | Jonathon Goldman | Yeah. Perhaps I misspoke. Okay. I don't think that they did not analyze it. I think that they looked at that and recommended that New Village School and the Dog Park have ebtide, which is actually a reduction in traffic compared to what's there now, because the Marine School uses that area to access their school, and that Licee Francais use Cologne |
| 02:34:15.12 | Thomas Theodores | Okay. |
| 02:34:36.10 | Thomas Theodores | No, I completely concur and I completely agree with that. I guess my question is, I thought I mean, how are you going to prevent parents dropping off their children you know to lose a from using ebtite |
| 02:34:53.58 | Jonathon Goldman | we have ways. |
| 02:34:58.16 | Thomas Theodores | Okay, the reason I ask is because that to me would seem like a very logical kind of cross-over, cross-through route and very dangerous because as you know there are a lot of dogs in the parking lot as people unload and load their dogs and a lot of things could go wrong with also children arriving at the... |
| 02:35:04.84 | Unknown | MMM. |
| 02:35:21.44 | Thomas Theodores | at the new village school. Councilman, I'll apply for a second. |
| 02:35:22.83 | Adam Politzer | Council Member Pfeiffer, I just want to clarify because I'm seeing a little bit of this crossing paths. What Jonathan just stated was |
| 02:35:25.43 | Thomas Theodores | Okay. Yes, please. Cross the game. |
| 02:35:35.75 | Adam Politzer | um, First, the LISEE will give clear direction to their parent community on the on the drop off and pick up. Um, route. and being a parent of three kids, you pretty much, once you're told that, you realize that you have to stay in that path. But what he also mentioned was once the faculty, which will arrive earlier, enter the school and as I think showed on the graphic, Um, The faculty will park in the enclosed area So that route going up there will not be accessible. And as it says there, faculty to direct traffic. right there near the drop-off area. Also on the left side, up near the top, is this one-way traffic. They're also recommending that the traffic be one way so that you don't have the ability to either go through the area that's closed off on the front of the school, or go up the one-way route that's on the back of the school So I think the parent education will be effective. It is at almost all schools. and that the actual physical barriers and signage We'll also. I help prohibit. that cut through approach. I just wanted to clarify that. |
| 02:36:49.57 | Thomas Theodores | Okay, so, and I still have to say that if, you know, instructions are one thing, but if you can zip through in a short, it's a short cut, you know, it's just a concern I had, just wanted to raise. And my other question is, when we approve the lease, they mentioned that there would be carpooling and there would be vans. et cetera. And so I was a bit surprised to read in the traffic study report that only an estimated 20 children out of 250 would be potentially in these vans or buses. I was wondering if The traffic study is one recommendation could in some way promote more carpooling, more van use, |
| 02:37:40.71 | Jonathon Goldman | Well, certainly it could. I think the assumptions used in the traffic study are intended to be conservative with respect to impacts. the minimal assumption about The effectiveness of those is the conservative way to evaluate potential impacts. The fact that no significant impacts have been identified, I think, is a good thing. But obviously, in the same context that the city manager was pointing out about how the manages its students and their means of transportation, by all means, I I would encourage them to do exactly that, and I don't know that we need to pay Kimley-Horn to modify their report again, for example, to change a recommendation or make a more specific recommendation. |
| 02:38:40.47 | Thomas Theodores | Okay, well you answered my question with regards to the 20, how they chose the 20 children. It was supposed to be a conservative and so. the study was based off the most conservative estimate, but I'm certainly hopeful that there will be more than just 20 |
| 02:38:54.15 | Unknown | that there are... |
| 02:38:56.23 | Thomas Theodores | The other question I had is, And perhaps this is stepping Outside the bounds of the traffic report but it applies to kind of staff monitoring the traffic you know, situation to kind of validate that the study is is the predictions are accurate. Will there be another public outreach session two to four weeks after the lazy school opens? Are there plans for something like this? |
| 02:39:24.39 | Jonathon Goldman | Not in those specific terms. I think as you know and members of the community who expressed interest and participated in the meeting here know. I'm pretty easy to get a hold of. When I'm in my office, I answer my phone, and if I'm not in my office, it takes me a really long time to respond to a voicemail, but I respond pretty quickly to email. And if there's an issue, I'm going to be a We take responsibility for it. I don't know that that means that we need to set up a public meeting, but I'm happy to, one of the things that we have tried to do with MLK and with the public meeting that we held on January 8th is develop a contact list of people who are interested in this issue and make sure that there's regular communication and dialogue. |
| 02:40:00.81 | Unknown | Thank you. you |
| 02:40:06.11 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:40:19.61 | Jonathon Goldman | I frankly don't expect, because we have the benefit of a professional traffic consulting firm who understood full well what the potential issues were and gave us the benefit of their professional expertise, I don't expect for there to be any problems. But if there are problems, as I've indicated at the public meeting and have indicated here tonight, they're my responsibility. So I certainly expect to find out about them to the extent that I'm in a position to observe personally and identify any of those problems. You have my personal professional assurance that they'll be addressed. |
| 02:41:01.69 | Thomas Theodores | Thank you, Jonathan. And just for the record, I didn't mean to imply that you were not responsive to resident inquiries. I know you're very responsive to that. It was just more a... Uh, feedback I'd received from some residents that would there be a follow-up following the initial public, you know, workshop and so That was my question. And frankly, I think, well, I'll hold it to a comment, but I think it's a good idea. |
| 02:41:29.96 | Ray Withy | As far as using that shortcut, Mm. That's not such an easy shortcut to use. You have a couple of pretty good-sized speed bumps that you would have to go down, attempting to go from ebb-tide to to the, we'll say, the gym part. The driver would have to drive very, very slow anyway for the amount of young people that are walking there. So I don't see them really using that, so to speak, as a shortcut. We're very fortunate that Coloma Street, it's kind of what I consider an easy street. It's pretty open. There's not too many homes on that street. During the art festival, we're able to park. That's park. Approximately 650 automobiles there in a very short period of time. And looking at the data here, between 7 o'clock in the morning and on Bridgeway, because I was happy to see this, there's approximately 1,211 cars coming down to that intersection. Out of that, 66, go up ebb tide in an hour and 45 minutes. I'm sure that will increase, but even then, that's a very small number. And I noticed between the hours of 2 p.m. and 3.45 on Bridgeway, 924 cars came in to Sausalito, and out of that was 138 automobiles went up ebb tide, which is still in an hour and 45 minutes is relatively to me a very small number. So I think this was very helpful and I really don't see any problems with traffic. And I think we'll just watch it when the school opens to see how the flow goes. But I don't anticipate that we should get much problem with that. Any other questions? At this time here, any questions from the public? Public comment? Bring it back here. Comments? Okay. |
| 02:43:46.31 | Thomas Theodores | Mr. Mayor, I do have a comment. And again, not to, you know, question the traffic study. It's obviously, you know, valid and very rigorous and I really appreciate it. But I'm just going to state my preference that some sort of a follow-up public forum outreach, you know, occur. |
| 02:43:48.64 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 02:44:12.38 | Thomas Theodores | a month or two after the school has opened just to kind of take a pulse on the community. I think it would be a nice gesture. But that's just a comment I wanted to make. |
| 02:44:25.19 | Ray Withy | We could always do a quick study just like they did, from 7 to 8.45, an hour and 45 minutes, and see the difference of how much traffic really has changed or how much it's increased. And if that increase makes any difference, it's already laid out for us. That's all we have to do is put some new numbers in right after they open the school and see what happens. With that, can I get a motion? |
| 02:44:54.87 | Ray Withy | I move to accept the final traffic report regarding Lycée Francais at the MLK properties. |
| 02:45:02.25 | Ray Withy | Thank you. Second. Okay, all in favor? Aye. Opposed? Okay, thank you, Jonathan. Next item up is... |
| 02:45:05.67 | Ray Withy | Yeah. |
| 02:45:05.98 | Evan Shepherd-Reef | . |
| 02:45:14.77 | Ray Withy | Approved street tree replacement, 42 Caledonia Street. And Jonathan, you're on again. |
| 02:45:23.12 | Jonathon Goldman | Thank you again. |
| 02:45:24.03 | Ray Withy | Mr. Mayor, I also have some handouts on this. Thank you. We don't really take handouts here. Thank you. |
| 02:45:30.19 | Unknown | Okay. |
| 02:45:30.21 | Ray Withy | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 02:45:48.42 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:46:10.10 | Ray Withy | All right. Okay. Don't go out on the limb now. |
| 02:46:14.12 | Jonathon Goldman | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 02:46:14.59 | Ray Withy | Oh. |
| 02:46:14.81 | Jonathon Goldman | Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Leave him alone. While Debbie's pulling this up, I'm going to leap to the advance of the city manager's report and announce that the city of Sausalito was successful in receiving a $160,000 grant to rebuild the fishing pier. Yeah, excellent. Sorry, that wasn't on the agenda. Just information, but it's pretty cool. We'll let you know when that officially happens, but we were notified recently. This item... |
| 02:46:18.54 | Thomas Theodores | Leave him alone. My snare drum was here. |
| 02:46:26.62 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:46:46.05 | Unknown | Yeah. you |
| 02:47:00.69 | Jonathon Goldman | kind of came up on short notice, or at least this most recent iteration of it. Spring of 2011, a pretty significant 18-inch diameter limb fell off of one of the big ficus tree at the end of Caledonia in front of 4042. Those ficus are the same variety that are planted down in Municipal Lot 1 along Tracy Way. Some beautiful big trees and unfortunately an 18-inch limb from a beautiful big tree is capable of doing quite a bit of damage. Fortunately for us, it didn't do very much damage when this one fell, but because that occurred... quite a bit of damage. Fortunately for us, it didn't do very much damage when this limb fell, but because that occurred, in my judgment it was important that we have an arborist look at the trees, both trees, but most importantly the big one that the limb fell off of, and give us some advice. The arborist's report stated at that time that the trees have, quote, outgrown this location and are not intended for such a restricted space. The arborist report had a lot of other stuff to say as well, but Ed Gurka, who retired from the city of Sao Sudo, was an arborist and is only a consulting arborist, has no financial interest in the product of his report. In other words, he doesn't have a ficus chip sales agency or anything like that. He doesn't have a chip on his shoulder. He gave us that, which is kind of surprising given that he retired as a city arborist. In any event, we posted the trees because we wanted members of the community to know that we were considering removing them, and then issued a news release in Susslative Currents in June of 2012, letting people know that we had identified the need to remove both trees. |
| 02:48:36.37 | Ray Withy | Does it? Okay. |
| 02:49:05.36 | Jonathon Goldman | After posting the trees, we received comments from concerned residents asking if any alternative measures could be taken instead of complete removal. I didn't have an answer, so we went back to Mr. Gurkha and also one Ochoa at Bartlett and |
| 02:49:07.32 | Ushua Coleman | Thank you. |
| 02:49:24.57 | Jonathon Goldman | asked that question. Are there ways that we could stabilize the trees? In addition, the members of the community who contacted us after we posted the trees removal said, you know, it'd be really nice if you, I mean, it's one thing to kill a magnificent huge tree, but it'd be really nice if you told us how you were going to replace the tree. the beauty and the value to the streetscape that those trees provide. And I didn't have an answer for that at that time either, but agreed that it was reasonable and prudent for us to gather this additional information and try and develop a replacement plan. |
| 02:50:05.91 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:50:09.34 | Jonathon Goldman | This picture may or may not show up very well, but this is a Google Earth street view image looking south towards a police station here and fire station at the intersection of Johnson. The smaller of the two trees here and then the larger there, and then I have a reverse angle. This is Johnson Street in the foreground, but in the north on Caledonia, you can see how big the biggest is. And another thing I want to point out here, and again have the benefit of at least one gentleman here in the audience who has helped us with some of the context and pointed out the inadequacies of our initial recommendations on this. We also have street trees in this neighborhood that aren't doing particularly well at all either and are kind of a waste of the space that they're in. |
| 02:50:20.71 | Unknown | in our community. |
| 02:50:30.04 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:50:30.06 | John McCoy | Amen. |
| 02:51:05.99 | Jonathon Goldman | The most recent development is that the owner of the property at 40 and 42 Caledonia, after the tenants that were there left, has building permits and is actively involved in renovating those spaces. And among other things, they're required to improve the frontage of the property, the access to the buildings, the sidewalks, to comply with the California Building Code for accessibility. And doing that, because of the uplift of the sidewalk that both trees have created, is a fairly significant undertaking. Not that I'm an expert on the California Building Code, but I think that's a very important The maximum cross slope that's allowed under the building code for wheelchair access is 2%, and that's not much of a cross slope. And there are, there's probably 40 feet of sidewalk there that doesn't comply, doesn't have a 48-inch wide path of travel with less than a 2% cross slope on it. Under city code, damage to sidewalks and underground utilities caused by city trees is the city's financial responsibility. |
| 02:52:12.19 | Unknown | of the |
| 02:52:19.16 | Jonathon Goldman | So, taking into account the age and magnitude of deferred maintenance on the ficus trees that are there, as well as the apparent extent of the sidewalk and utility damage caused by the trees. The decision that I made last year that the trees needed to be removed has really been reaffirmed. And what's more, we can't just remove them and leave the stumps there, which we have a tendency to do other places in town, in order to make these repairs to the sidewalk and make them in a way that they'll They'll last for a long time in order to make the repairs to the utilities. The roots and everything need to come out of the ground. In order to try to address the concerns of the community about replacement trees, we came up with a proposal to mitigate for the loss by purchasing, placing, and maintaining three of the same variety of tree, the ficus, uh, and then putting them in precast concrete containers, similar to those that we have in municipal parking lot one now. Vicus is a tree species as it is in indoor plants. It's a species that lends itself to being containerized. It can actually be pulled out of containers and be root pruned. but there's no way that a ficus in a container is ever going to get as big as what's been planted there. Alternatives to that scheme are Obviously, it's the Council's authority to do, to plan for a budget and direct any number of the different You can modify the number of trees. We could change the type of tree to be used with the note that not all trees are suitable for planting containers. Council could direct that we place in-ground replacements to the extent that suitable locations can be found or determine that no replacements need to be made. Since the staff report was prepared and the public has had an opportunity to think about it and weigh in some more, and I'm confident that you'll hear from some members of the audience later, there are some other points that I thought were worth making. Again, we recommended an inexpensive alternative that can be readily accomplished once the ficus have been removed. It doesn't have to happen at all. It doesn't even have to be a permanent solution, but it's something that came to mind that perhaps poorly addressed the community's concern. but I made the recommendation anyway. According to Paul and Ursula Leffingwell, Tristiana and Larina were planted to replace the ficus lost after the devastating cold spell more than 25 years ago. They killed most of the rest of the ficus that had been planted on Caledonia. Tristiana were selected by a group of horticultural experts and the tree committee, including the late Marianne Sears. quote, they have for the most part provided an aesthetic unifying as well as modifying element to counter the great variety of building styles on the street. They've generally not looked at sidewalks, which I concur with. They provide shade, especially on the south side, and are environmentally important for air purification on this busy street. As I mentioned in looking at the street view images, there are several locations where there are existing in-ground street trees that would benefit from replacement and improved maintenance. And just as an aside on this kind of topic, the City's Maintenance Division Professional Services budget is almost entirely devoted to mitigation of fallen limbs and removal of dangerous trees from public lands and rights of way. The fiscal 12-13 budget for public works operations professional services, which includes paying for things like a GERCUS work, pruning, removals, chipping, and emergency response is $42,000, and we've already spent 99% of that this fiscal year. We have one tree alone, Monterey Pine and the right-of-way on Casino. It cost the city $12,500 to clear fallen branches, and then in the light of day, when we examined the tree itself, find that it was destabilized by the loss of the branch and had to remove the whole tree. So we're letting the council know that those ficus do need to come out. There's not a way of getting out of the way significantly changing that determination. We could spend money trying to stabilize them, we could do lots of things, but we're not going to be able to address the the damaged underground utilities and the sidewalk problem by leaving those trees in place. And certainly I am open to continue, and I have reassured a number of folks who were here and members of the community, open to continuing to try to develop a program that does a lot more than just put three containers on Caledonia to address the street tree issues, but wanted to give the council an opportunity to hear these issues and hear from the public and direct me as to what he'd like to see us do. |
| 02:57:53.92 | Ray Withy | Okay, any questions? |
| 02:57:56.29 | Thomas Theodores | Mr. Mayor, I have a question. So thank you, Jonathan, for the presentation. I've also heard from a number of residents about this with respect to the character of Caledonia Street. And the tree that is referenced in Paul Leffingwell's letter, Paul and Ursula Leffingwell's, the Tristiana Lorena, I just have Googled some pictures of that in San Francisco. It looks like it's been planted. in a number of kind of urban streets in San Francisco and it looks like a very, a tree that would not you know, potentially give you a lot of trouble. And I was wondering if that is a possibility in terms of putting it in a container in the ground, not the planter. |
| 02:58:48.48 | Jonathon Goldman | Yes. |
| 02:58:49.56 | Thomas Theodores | And do you have a personal opinion about that? |
| 02:58:53.53 | Jonathon Goldman | I'm sorry. |
| 02:58:56.92 | Thomas Theodores | I'm sorry, a professional opinion about that. I mean, what's your... |
| 02:58:59.36 | Jonathon Goldman | personal profession. just just just |
| 02:59:01.76 | Thomas Theodores | I just want to make sure you're not totally opposed to something like that. |
| 02:59:04.53 | Jonathon Goldman | No, in fact, that, and I mentioned this at lunch with the city manager today, our maintenance division supervisor, Camp Basso, who's been here for some time, his recommendation that Tristiana be in ground how we replace the MICA's. So absolutely, I have no problem. I think that's fine. My suggestion is that there's the need to, I think, broaden this process a little bit and figure out where are our logical places. And to the extent that there are trees that aren't doing well that are in ground now. They should come out at the same time. to the extent that we can afford you know, larger, commercially grown examples. You know, there's some quicker benefit, but there would be a lot of work to be done before we could figure out how many trees, where they need to go, and what it would cost, and then factor that into the budget. Ideally, we'd have an active Caledonia Street merchants organization here with a check for $75,000 to get this started, but they may have left already. Thank you. |
| 03:00:24.97 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 03:00:26.90 | Jonathon Goldman | I know. So any other questions? President and merchants. Right. |
| 03:00:29.14 | Ray Withy | President. Jonathan, is there any other of the precast concrete examples on Caledonia itself right now? |
| 03:00:31.60 | Jonathon Goldman | Thank you. I'm sorry. |
| 03:00:42.56 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 03:00:42.73 | Jonathon Goldman | Thank you. |
| 03:00:42.88 | Ray Withy | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 03:00:50.00 | Thomas Theodores | Regarding the tree that you mentioned that is failing, the little sad little thing we saw, do you know what type of tree that is and do you know why it's failing? Does it get watered? Is it regularly on a system, sprinkler system? |
| 03:01:04.76 | Jonathon Goldman | Spanky. I unfortunately don't know what it is. What we normally do is hand water for two years. And if it can't survive on its own after two years, it should be replaced. We aren't in a position to lay and maintain irrigation systems for street trees and actively discourage it, even if a private party wants to irrigate a street |
| 03:01:12.24 | Thomas Theodores | Oh. |
| 03:01:12.56 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 03:01:12.58 | Thomas Theodores | Thank you. |
| 03:01:13.25 | Ray Withy | Mm-hmm. |
| 03:01:18.11 | Ray Withy | Okay. |
| 03:01:26.09 | Thomas Theodores | Mm-hmm. Thank you. Mm-hmm. Okay, thank you. |
| 03:01:31.04 | Ray Withy | Okay. |
| 03:01:31.48 | Jonathon Goldman | Thank you. |
| 03:01:31.49 | Ray Withy | Thank you. All right, Jonathan, any public comment at this time? |
| 03:01:43.00 | Vicki Nichols | Vicki Nichols, 117 Caledonia, 32 years on Caledonia Street. So you may see where I'm going to go with this. |
| 03:01:50.58 | Ray Withy | So you're branching out? |
| 03:01:50.93 | Vicki Nichols | reaching out. First of all, I would be, I would like to state that I'm totally opposed to any containers on the street. Caledonia is a resident serving street. I know we have our businesses there. The containers look like more of a business oriented streetscape. and we don't have any precedent for them, so I would obviously encourage in the ground trees, but I appreciate the city's budget. and I appreciate the cost of that. So I would love to also see this tree that's been proposed, whatever this thing is from the Luffingwells, Tristiana, whatever it was. And maybe there is, as Jonathan said, with the merchants, It isn't just the residents care about the streetscape too. Maybe there is a way to come up with a little plan where we I don't know how much the trees cost, but maybe we can chip in and do a little event or something to replace the trees. It's certainly not going to come up to $75,000. But if the intent is also to remove all the trees that are bad, or those little ones like Linda just referred to on the end there, and Jonathan showed us, It might be nice to be able to do it in a staggered manner if you could, because otherwise you've got this stripped stripped streetscape with no trees and if they're somewhat staggered. But please, no containers. |
| 03:03:27.31 | Jenny Flynn | I'm Jenny Flynn. I live at 411 Litho Street. And I worked for 14 and a half years at Pine Street Papery at 42 Caledonia. So I have great affection for those two big trees and I hate to see them come out because we work very hard trying to keep them alive for a long time. but I understand the problems with the sidewalk And so I feel that if they have to come out, I really hope that you'll do something to put trees in the ground. the idea of containers out in front. First of all, I can tell you, trying to clean up the front of that store for 14 and a half years those containers will be full of trash. And I think they'll be unsightly. And I also think that we have to think about possible car doors opening into them where we place them. So I'm strongly in favor of some trees in the ground and hope we can help scrape up some money to pay for new trees if we need to. Thank you. |
| 03:04:26.89 | Adam Krivajci | You're welcome. |
| 03:04:31.40 | Ursula Leffingwell | some of our I have a comment, Senator Paul and I, I'm Ursula, 415, Lissow Street, that we made, and I think you have a copy of that. And of course, Minister Gordman did not talk about the boxes. The boxes, I think, are the real issue of concern here, because any – if you were to replace them with the ficus lily dye again, you would have to |
| 03:04:32.90 | Unknown | name. |
| 03:05:03.33 | Ursula Leffingwell | they have a very invasive food system. And they, like you see, they grow to what you might see there now. And they have outlived their lifespan. And they have to come out. I know there's a lot of infrastructure that you have to do before you, all the root system, and they're probably under the buildings and all of that. But when they were replaced, after the cold spell in 89, I guess it was, there was a lot of research done on how they should be replaced. And like Mr. Goldman said already, it's a unifying part of what there is now. And they have lived for now almost 24 years. And so why not continue that rather than coming with a completely new solution and especially the boxes. You put them in concrete boxes, the root system will outgrow the boxes even though they are concrete. |
| 03:05:49.70 | Unknown | said already. |
| 03:06:16.65 | Ursula Leffingwell | roots can be so strong that they break the buses. and then the drainage, the irrigation, all of those parts, who will take care of that? the city, the home owner, unless you, if you were to insist on the Ficus tree just because they were there, for emotional reasons you might think about that, then, Well, Maybe they would survive if you bonsai'd them. but not like a regular tree. And so for that reason alone, I think you really consider what other problems they would provide. create. |
| 03:07:02.95 | Jennifer Adler | Okay, that's all. |
| 03:07:08.56 | Evan Shepherd-Reef | Mr. Mayor, Council Members and Staff, Evan Shepherd-Reef. I'm a physician of Oriental Medicine and a partner at Marine Oriental Medicine. I've been at 38 Caledonia Street for about 12 years. You might see me out there sweeping up that ficus every day that I can. I love taking care of the sidewalk and take care of the tree, cleaning up cigarette butts and whatever. And I recognize that the trees have outlived their location. And as much as I would like to see them remain, I think that that's a moot point. The question really is, how are we going to mitigate the blight or the emptiness that will be remaining once those trees are removed. and how to replace it in such a way that's going to be consistent with the flavor of Caledonia Street. I see Caledonia Street as a gateway to to the heart of Sausalito. Police there or firefighters are there, library, city hall. so many things that this is the gateway to. And as Mr. Goldman has pointed out, it's not just those two trees, but as you come around the corner from Johnson onto Caledonia, There are four that are toothpicks, essentially, trees that didn't make it. And those also need to be replaced. What I would recommend, and I know you have business to do, and some of the business is helping public works move on to doing the work at hand for public safety. The sidewalk is dangerous there. And while I think that the trees have some integrity, nobody really knows what could happen there, and we do want to be a condition for everybody's safety and happiness there. I would like to see that this proposal move forward with a condition that the work not be done pending a landscape, streetscape land. we need to know how to remedy the situation. We need to know how quickly we can remedy it in a consistent manner. that's going to provide the flavor, maintenance of the flavor of Caledonia Street in that area. I like the idea of changing the species of trees to one that does not is not so invasive into the sidewalk and the utilities that are underground. I think a landscape architect could be hired. We could have a streetscape plan, a community meeting to approve it, and perhaps do some fundraising, perhaps a special assessment or a combination of all of these things. so that we can keep Caledonia Street as a beautiful gateway into the heart of Sausalito. Thank you. |
| 03:09:50.69 | Ray Withy | Okay. Nancy |
| 03:09:58.10 | Nancy Osborne | Thank you, Mr. Mayor and Councilmembers. I'm Nancy Osborne. I live on Kendall Court. I agree with those who have said, no containers, let's have in-ground trees. And I would certainly favor going to one that has the track record that the Levingwells have documented, rather than going with the ficus. And the only thing I wanted to add new is that perhaps you could talk to Diane Alper, about the success she's had with the beautifying the fundraising for the median strip at the north end of town. I know there are She puts out, I don't even know how she got it going, but I think it's been very successful. I know I contributed to it a couple of... times, and maybe some variety of that, the merchants and the residents along Caledonia would get their own act together with some, certainly a lot of input from the city, but Diane has done a wonderful job there, and certainly something to be investigated as to how that worked out. It could work out on Caledonia. Thank you. |
| 03:11:03.39 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:11:06.81 | Ray Withy | Okay. Thank you, Nancy. Any other comments from the public? All right, let's bring it back up here for our comments. |
| 03:11:15.98 | Thomas Theodores | Mr. Mayor, I have one more question for Mr. Goldman, if that's okay. Jonathan, is there a reason why the trees and views committee has not been involved Um, given, you know, it's downtown Sausalito and involves No. Okay. I just wanted to ask that question. That's fine. |
| 03:11:44.43 | Jonathon Goldman | Yeah, they wouldn't normally have jurisdiction over it, but that's not, I didn't make a conscious decision not to involve it. |
| 03:11:55.78 | Thomas Theodores | Okay, just wanted to know the history. Thank you. |
| 03:11:57.66 | Jonathon Goldman | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 03:11:57.71 | Ray Withy | Quick question, Jonathan, before you go. It's okay. You go back up there, there's no escape. |
| 03:12:01.01 | Thomas Theodores | Good. |
| 03:12:01.25 | Ray Withy | like, |
| 03:12:06.70 | Ray Withy | How imminent a danger do the trees pose right now? Is it safe to let them stay for a period of time until you've got a plan, or do you feel that the threat to human life, basically, as well as property damage is such that you need to get them out of there fairly soon? |
| 03:12:32.17 | Jonathon Goldman | MR PRICE. the Arborist's recommendation was that the big one needed to be addressed. And some time has gone by since it dropped the 18-inch length. I don't have the expertise to say we have four days, 15 minutes, and 77 seconds. I don't really want to be here the day after something happens that I had an opportunity to prevent. And neither do I. And in this case, given the |
| 03:13:14.14 | Unknown | you |
| 03:13:14.22 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:13:14.32 | Unknown | case. |
| 03:13:17.86 | Jonathon Goldman | that the FICAs have to come out. And they have to come out in order for the owner of 42 and 40 Caledonia to make improvements that are of significant, in my opinion. How long will that take? Public benefit. I don't know. I'm waiting for that information from them. Because the city has some financial responsibility, I've asked their contractor to prepare an estimate that clearly delineates the extent of work that is related to the trees and also clearly delineates the work that is necessary simply because his client has to make these improvements. |
| 03:13:31.09 | Ray Withy | Mm-hmm. Thank you. How long will that take? |
| 03:13:59.36 | Ray Withy | And if the trees were taken down and the property owners have a period of time to for their repairs, the city for its repairs on the sidewalk, presumably, it's responsible, right? |
| 03:14:11.97 | Jonathon Goldman | The city is responsible, although at the present time, the understanding between the city and the property owner is that the property owner will be reimbursed for its cost in repairing the sidewalk for damage caused by the trees. |
| 03:14:28.10 | Ray Withy | So there's inevitably going to be a period of time when trees are taken down, work is being done before one would even consider planting new trees. Thank you. |
| 03:14:38.71 | Jonathon Goldman | Yes and no. It's entirely possible that there are no suitable locations for replacement trees, given the existence of underground utilities, in the segment that's being replaced, and that instead we need to identify locations outside the area that's being replaced. We already know that there are some number of sticks which don't rise to the level of street trees in our hierarchy of desirable streetscape things that we already know need to be replaced. So I would advocate for removing the trees, moving on with the sidewalk repairs, and the clear direction to staff that to the extent that we need to retain a landscape architect, which is a perfectly reasonable direction, then we need to figure out where that money is going to come from to pay a landscape architect, identify the locations and the species and the details associated with installing new trees. How long would that reasonably take? |
| 03:14:48.99 | Unknown | Please. Thank you. |
| 03:15:41.52 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 03:15:43.72 | Jonathon Goldman | uh, |
| 03:15:48.02 | Jonathon Goldman | Till budget. So three months. |
| 03:15:58.53 | Unknown | Okay. Jonathan. Jonathan. |
| 03:15:59.27 | Thomas Theodores | I'm not. So we can go forward with the removal of trees and sidewalks and put in the replacement trees after so we can move ahead on this. But secondly, on the stick trees, do we know what type they are so that we don't designate those trees to go back in in that spot? |
| 03:16:19.93 | Jonathon Goldman | Well, I don't know what type they are. It's possible that they are also Tristiana that, for some reason, didn't survive. It's hard to believe that we would have had sticks for 25 years. But I'm not always surprised. |
| 03:16:33.93 | Thomas Theodores | Ursula's shaking her head. |
| 03:16:34.96 | Unknown | I'm not always the... Bye. Thank you. you |
| 03:16:36.84 | Jonathon Goldman | Thank you. |
| 03:16:36.85 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:16:36.87 | Jonathon Goldman | Thank you. for... Ms. Levingwell may have. |
| 03:16:41.97 | Ursula Leffingwell | Uh, Thank you. you Thank you. |
| 03:16:43.30 | Thomas Theodores | Oh, Chair, you've got it. |
| 03:16:44.45 | Ursula Leffingwell | Thank you. They lost their cherry. |
| 03:16:45.71 | Jonathon Goldman | of the United States Sherry. . |
| 03:16:46.93 | Thomas Theodores | . |
| 03:16:48.36 | Thomas Theodores | Thank you. |
| 03:16:51.99 | Thomas Theodores | We need you on the microphone if you're going to talk much more. Thank you. |
| 03:16:58.03 | Ursula Leffingwell | Thank you. They retreated for the owner of the building, the dentist, Mr. Cutler. And that's why they were planted. They go around the corner, too. So they were cherry-polled. |
| 03:17:10.54 | Thomas Theodores | So they were cherry trees, is for the record. |
| 03:17:12.07 | Ursula Leffingwell | you |
| 03:17:12.14 | Jonathon Goldman | Thank you. |
| 03:17:13.22 | Thomas Theodores | Thank you. |
| 03:17:13.24 | Ursula Leffingwell | Okay. |
| 03:17:14.49 | Jonathon Goldman | Thank you. |
| 03:17:16.44 | Ursula Leffingwell | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 03:17:21.22 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:17:21.25 | Ray Withy | No, I'm just ready to make my comment, really. |
| 03:17:21.29 | Unknown | No. |
| 03:17:24.14 | Unknown | you |
| 03:17:24.41 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:17:24.59 | Unknown | you |
| 03:17:24.64 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 03:17:24.78 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:17:25.18 | Ray Withy | you Okay, go ahead. |
| 03:17:26.40 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:17:30.97 | Unknown | to visit and I saw the sidewalks on the way. And so you're talking about opening up the sidewalks for repair and remove the trees. And the ADA access, is that why it's kind of a question whether or not the first tree can be replaced? because of the writing and that you talked about. Thank you. |
| 03:17:58.28 | Jonathon Goldman | No. When you, let me just try to understand your question a little bit. |
| 03:17:58.29 | Unknown | No. |
| 03:18:06.71 | Unknown | Bye. |
| 03:18:07.69 | Jonathon Goldman | the accessibility gets addressed no matter what. Thank you. The locations for new trees, we want to select as intelligently as we can. We certainly don't want to put a new tree, even if it's in an appropriate root box to stop its roots from going sideways, we don't want to put it over a sewer lateral or a water line or something like that. |
| 03:18:24.99 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:18:25.01 | Unknown | Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. |
| 03:18:32.78 | Jonathon Goldman | Because, as an example, we had two trees that we had to remove over here in the 500 block of Caledonia that had wrapped their roots entirely around a three-inch high-pressure gas main. And I... Gotcha. The buckling sidewalk is small change compared to the damage that a gas main break. Oh, yeah. |
| 03:18:45.26 | Thomas Theodores | Gotcha. to the damage that he was saying. Oh, yeah. So is this something that you would discover after you've removed the ficus that you would be able to assess right there with the sidewalk all opened up? I'm just trying to save money. I mean, if we have, you know, this plan, you know, from prior residents historically that had identified this one tree species, that if the sidewalks opened up and it looks like we, you could do that if, you know, if we couldn't just replace the tree with the Tristiana Lorena. |
| 03:19:24.24 | Jonathon Goldman | It's possible, yes. And it's certainly true that any underground utilities that would conflict with a tree should be pretty obvious when we're removing the roots from the trees that are there now. So if there are candidate spaces there, I think it's really straightforward for us to identify them. There are some other permutations to this issue, though. |
| 03:19:38.16 | Unknown | Mm-hmm. |
| 03:19:43.24 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:19:43.27 | Unknown | Mm-hmm. |
| 03:19:48.27 | Jonathon Goldman | Thank you. the accessibility code, the building code, has certain requirements for the grates that go around trees. We cannot... |
| 03:19:48.67 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:19:59.79 | Jonathon Goldman | install new street trees without providing a surface that a wheelchair can move over safely. And so, you know, there are some other details to be worked out that I certainly agree that a landscape architect or an urban planner with experience in these areas would be very well suited for, and it's not something that I'm going to be able to do on the fly or that |
| 03:20:11.15 | Michael Westgate | Mm-hmm. |
| 03:20:27.05 | Thomas Theodores | So in other words, my question regarding is there something that we could potentially take care of this, you know, in the process of removing the old tree and possibly seeing an opportunity to replace it with the Tristina Lorena, you're saying that you hesitate to go that route? |
| 03:20:46.86 | Jonathon Goldman | No, I'm saying you're absolutely right. It is possible for us to confirm that we could accommodate a new tree in a given space as a result of what we do. I don't know that that means that that tree will be planted before the sidewalk is poured, but if we can identify a location, for example, we can designate that the score marks on the concrete get laid out so that an appropriate space is there and we're demolishing a minimum amount of concrete if we have to come back in and put it there, something like that. If we're fortunate enough to have the |
| 03:20:59.18 | Unknown | that |
| 03:21:19.61 | Jonathon Goldman | budget available to hire a landscape architect tomorrow, the landscape architect could be working on that. But as I've mentioned to you, the budget that I have available would normally be the operations budget or we go to the general capital fund. We don't have a line item right now for street tree replacement project on Caledonia. So we're going to have to spend some time with the finance director and potentially the finance committee and then come back to council if we want to transfer funds from something else that have been identified as a priority and devoted here, that's fine. That's your domain. If we need to budget for it in a coming fiscal year, that too is council's domain. So that's why my advocacy for separating the removal of the trees and the facilitation of access from the replacement, the larger scale replacement project. |
| 03:22:17.38 | Ray Withy | Okay. |
| 03:22:17.92 | Thomas Theodores | Thank you, John. |
| 03:22:18.74 | Ray Withy | Any other comments? The only comment that I... Thank you. It's kind of |
| 03:22:30.25 | Ray Withy | It doesn't matter. |
| 03:22:30.88 | Ursula Leffingwell | That we mentioned in the letter that we sent in the email. it's also known and sometimes Porticultural names get changed, and recently there have been quite a few. And the newest name of that is Tristania neopsis. Oh yeah. |
| 03:22:53.49 | Thomas Theodores | Neopsis. |
| 03:22:54.58 | Ursula Leffingwell | Yeah, to sustain you and me also. Thanks. |
| 03:22:56.83 | Ray Withy | Okay, thank you. Okay, let's bring it back up and move on this side. My only comment that I have is that before Jonathan Goldman came here and, and, um, Adam became the city manager We really let these trees really grow way out of proportion. That's what really happened. We weren't able to top a lot of these trees. And if you look at the size, the bigger they get up on the top, the more they reach down in the bottom of the roots. And this was a budgetary thing that we were that was going on before U2 came on, and then we, Ed Gurker was removed. So what happened was these trees, and this isn't just taking place in the last five years. This has been going on for the last eight to ten years. They've gotten huge. You go down to the parking lot one, you'll see how big they got. And because there is no area for them to really have their roots grow, what they start doing is they start wrapping around and choking. And that's what you see there. So it's something that we have to address also in the future. just throwing these trees isn't the answer. You've got to be able to prune them. You've got to be able to top them. You have to make sure that they really just don't grow out of hand and just do all the damage that they're starting to do in our community. |
| 03:24:26.94 | Adam Politzer | I just, you know, we put in the back of the council packet the approved 2012-13 priority calendar and when you look on the items that did not make it above the list, Item 43 is downtown slash Caledonia Street beautification project. So, That's part of the problem is that when you try to prioritize the budget to reflect what items are above the line this is exactly a challenge that our Public Works Department has both in maintenance and beautification in and being proactive. So as you go through the process, either tonight or in the near future, to move money or reprioritize money. It's just really important that we look at at how these things end up where they may. I just want to point out that it was on the calendar. last year but it didn't get ranked high enough to be funded. |
| 03:25:25.36 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 03:25:26.63 | Adam Politzer | Okay. |
| 03:25:27.03 | Ray Withy | with that. And I, uh, Do we have a motion? Drop the motion. |
| 03:25:37.66 | Adam Krivajci | Thank you. |
| 03:25:37.70 | Unknown | to |
| 03:25:38.78 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 03:25:38.80 | Thomas Theodores | Right here. |
| 03:25:38.86 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:25:40.85 | Thomas Theodores | I move that we approve the removal of the two ficuses as specified in the report and replace them with trees to be determined after an arborist landscape design report. and the trees to be placed in suitable locations along the effective frontage of Caledonia per the Landscape Architects report. |
| 03:26:05.98 | Ray Withy | Could I amend that to, would you accept an amendment to say that those trees must be put in the ground and not in concrete boxes? you |
| 03:26:14.22 | Ray Withy | Well, they could be in containers inside down the ground. No, no, that's up to the arborists. |
| 03:26:14.25 | Ray Withy | Yes. No, no, that's up to the arboretum. But I mean in the ground as opposed to street containers. Absolutely. Yeah. |
| 03:26:19.24 | Ray Withy | Yeah. |
| 03:26:22.94 | Ray Withy | Okay. Thank you. |
| 03:26:25.05 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 03:26:25.39 | Ray Withy | All right, second. Do I have a second? |
| 03:26:33.03 | Mary Wagner | Yeah. |
| 03:26:33.20 | Ray Withy | I thought it was a second pitch. |
| 03:26:37.32 | Mary Wagner | Thank you. Thank you. . Thank you. |
| 03:26:39.11 | Thomas Theodores | I accept his motion. |
| 03:26:39.97 | Ray Withy | Okay. All in favor? Aye. |
| 03:26:41.35 | Mary Wagner | Thank you. |
| 03:26:41.42 | Thomas Theodores | I'll have a good one. Thank you. I have a comment, Mr. Mayor, in the voting. I just wanted to comment that, in my mind, prioritizing as a beautification project is different from removing, what, 30, 40-year-old trees, you know, and pouring concrete, you know, over them. So am, so I'm happy with the motion. I'm glad we're putting them in the ground and I'm happy to see momentum, you know, towards more, you know, replacement. But I did want to clarify that to me, the beautification priority is different from a maintenance, you know, response where there's an emergency, you need to remove a tree and you need to replace it for the greenery. |
| 03:26:47.51 | Ray Withy | Well. |
| 03:26:47.85 | Unknown | Voting. |
| 03:27:31.40 | Ray Withy | Okay, all right, so we're moving along then. Thank you very much. Thank you. for your comments. City Manager, report for Council. Thank you, Jonathan. |
| 03:27:46.12 | Adam Politzer | Thank you. |
| 03:27:48.28 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 03:27:48.31 | Adam Politzer | Thank you, Mayor, Councilmembers. A handful of quick items here of significance. Councilmember Theodorus and Mayor Weiner and I had a meeting at Fort Baker last week, very productive conversation. And they are coming to our February 12th meeting to give a presentation, an overall vision of what's been going on there, a little bit of the history and then what's being proposed. The three of us were very pleased with their response, their openness, and their commitment to being a good neighbor and partner of the city. So I invite the public that are interested and obviously raise some concerns based on what was reported in the newspaper. back in December. and then their invitation for interest on the Uh, um, Fort Baker Cove. and the facilities related to that. Those interest proposals for interest are due on February 14th or 15th. So obviously we'll have an opportunity here before they've received those letters of interest. So happy to answer any specific questions and Councilmember Theodorus and Mayor Weiner may choose during Council reports to I expand upon what I just reported, but just thought it was worth noting that they will be coming to our next City Council meeting with a full brief of what's been going on and where they're going. Also in the paper recently was the school district's action at their last meeting on Thursday to move forward with consolidating Bayside School with MLK Academy. That was approved and was reported in the paper as such on a 4-1 vote. uh, with, uh, Board Member, Dr. Thornton, being the one vote against. I continue to encourage the council and the community to pay attention to these events and important that our community is heard. And strangely enough, and I think others have commented on this, as well, there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of dialogue in our community about this. So either they don't care, where they support the move. or it hasn't yet because we don't put up story polls That's part of the activity in our town is when we put up story polls, you'll come out and share their opinion. I'm hoping that at least at the council level and the folks that are listening to our meetings that they engage in this discussion. I have invited the superintendent, Valerie Pitts to come to a future meeting and kind of help uh, help us understand what the actions of the board Amen. and the timing of that, which is my understanding, the new school collaboration would take effect. I'll come next fall. And the students would then move over to the MLK campus starting the next school year, which would be at the end of August, beginning of September. So that's just my quick update there. Councilmember Leon is our Liaisons between the council and their school board and I know that he has attended meetings in the past I did not get confirmation if he was at that meeting or not before he left tonight, so I can't report on anything that he participated in. Harrison Park on a very exciting front. had its ground break breaking ceremony on Saturday and I know that Councilmember Weiner was there, very well attended event. The Lions Club was very proud of the moment that technically, was, uh, taken 11 years, it was a little exaggerated. by the emotional speech of Mike Monsef. that it had been over 15 years, but it actually started when I was Park and Rec Director. and I started in 2000 and that discussion started roughly in 2002 Mayor Belser. received a shovel at the time, of saying we're going to start this project. But regardless if it's 15 years or 13 or 11 years, it's been quite a project to get underway It was nice to have Supervisor Kate Sears there. who obviously Thank you. whose mother was very, very instrumental of being the protector of that park. person that planted many, many of the plants and flowers during the... the prosperous times of those parks back when I played there in the 70s. in the early 70s. And one person that wasn't mentioned at that groundbreaking was Steve Buckley, who's an Alliance Club member. who really did shepherd the process. with the Lions and the City and the Park and Rec Commission meetings and was a real champion also in raising a community fund. So I just wanted to give him the recognition that he too deserves. And then a very a heartfelt appreciation of Mike Langford and Jonathan Goldman and Lauren Umbertus for their role on the city. As you heard, from Jacques Ullman earlier. These community efforts are really important and valuable and the partnership is excellent. and to build to consensus obviously is the value of this partnership with the community. but it does take an incredible amount of staff time to get into the detail make sure that the building code and the various rules of the city are followed so that at the end of the day we have a project that can be approved, which this had been by the Planning Commission. we have our council retreat. this Saturday and we will The retreat will be held at the Spinnaker, so 9 a.m. at the Spinnaker. half hour reception, We're just going to... Yes. get there and sit down and get going. There will be coffee and refreshments, but Come in, grab your coffee, and roll up your sleeves. It's a Saturday. And so we should all be determined to have an excellent and positive team building, together. but also recognize that it's Saturday and there are other you opportunities to enjoy our weekend if we can have a successful retreat. I do have to note, and I think the public would share the comments I physically smiled tonight during that discussion on Harmonia. because of the level of debate. and even though it was a three-two split, It's very civil. very professional. I think that the public that is paying attention heard the different arguments and the struggle that the council was observing through the process And I think that our public is being well served by that type of discussion and debate. I hope that we can continue that level of discussion at the retreat to a commitment of that level of doing our homework ahead of time. going out and visiting the site, talking to experts, talking to people most involved. sharing that information with the public before we state our own opinions here that we've had. ex parte communications and then continue with the type of debate that was civil professional appreciated by all involved. So well done. to you folks. on an item that could have been very, very difficult to manage through, and you did it at a very high level. I pointed out to Councilmember Pfeiffer because it was one of the things that she called out in the minutes about trying to get information ahead of time in terms of agenda items in the council packet. Today we have a three-month look ahead You'll always see that the next council item will be much more populated. So in this case, You can see that February 12th, It's populated with a lot of items. It's important to know that just because it's on this look-ahead doesn't mean that it will stay. Um, We're here at 5 to 11. Our commitment is to be done at 10. So we obviously try to estimate how much time each of these items will take and then either add items on that come up that have some urgency or remove items that are able to be pushed off to a future meeting for us to accommodate the 10 o'clock, trying to accommodate the 10 o'clock request for items to come before the council. So this will continue. The City Clerk has the role of working with the department heads to populate the three-month look ahead. and we will do our best to do that. The city clerk and I have also talked about how do we put this on the website? so that the public, not just the council or whoever reads the packet, can have some look forward. I'm sure that there will be discussion of Open City Hall. at our retreat. at our future strategic planning meetings in future council meetings because I think we all have that interest. and how we facilitate that is what's yet to be identified. Last two items here of significance is that the Marine Transit Authority has met with staff here at City Hall. They have funds. to fund bus shelters that Um, host, They're passengers, so they duplicate some of Golden Gate Transit's bus stops, but not every single bus stop the Golden Gate Transit stops at the Marin Transit Authority bus stop at. And so they've identified two locations that they would like to help our city in providing shelters, and one is at Enzyme by Tastes of Rome. the ongoing northbound, that location. for a bus stop. And also on Bay Street adjacent to the Ice House is another location where the buses come in. Most notable, the Muir Woods MTA bus comes through there as well as some of their commuter service that comes from other parts of Marin County. We, as our number one priority for the city's perspective, We think the number one priority should be at Liberty Ship. We've moved that bus stop that, well, there's been a There used to be a shelter that fell down or may have been pushed down at Liberty Ship that we are suggesting gets moved to the north side of Liberty Ship. And because of the activity Down in the Marinship there, a lot of the workers used that bus stop to go back home. that we have a shelter at that location. So we'll continue discussions with them. The good news is that they're funding it. They have money for this. The question is, is making sure it fits in their priority to serve their you their bus service either Jonathan or I can answer questions of that tonight or come forward at a later date. to give more information at a future meeting. The other one that has caught the attention of our residents and countywide. is that a lot of cities are on the five-year cycle for looking at their sewer fees and doing sewer fee studies. And the South City of the Marine City Sanitary District has obviously noticed their public meeting which I believe is tomorrow night to talk about their sewer fee study and then their series of meetings and their... uh, different, sorry, you their schedule of how this would roll out. Um, folks are jumping to the conclusion that it means an automatic fee height. And in some cases, it actually may make a recommendation of the opposite. TAM Valley, my understanding just did theirs. The recommendation was for a fee hike, but the board actually took the opposite direction. Every five years, we've kind of all been together on this now because of a variety of reasons. So we're also going to start our process and we'll bring forward in the near future, probably at the second meeting in February, the first meeting in March, a presentation to the Council to one, just update on what we've been doing. where we are and then what the purpose of the feed study is One, to educate the council and also to educate the community. But I want to make sure that people aren't coming to the conclusion that the fee study means automatic fee increase. Now, and then there's also some talk that the fee increase that was imposed by either the Celestia and Marin City Sanitary District or the city went to nothing. And that we've seen no improvements and, in fact, we've seen more pollution into our bay and that we've seen no improvements and in fact we've seen more pollution into our bay and that is absolutely false. So I welcome the opportunity when Jonathan Goldman, our Public Works Director, comes and gives a presentation. We're going to ask the Asosio Marino City to come to the office. Sanitary District to join us as they've done in the past and give a co-presentation. That's what our practice was before their general manager had to take a leave of absence. So we're trying to reconnect that policy so that our public can hear from both and then move forward on what steps the city has to take to look at our funds and our funding for the sewer projects that we're required to maintain. Sorry for the lengthy report, but thought that it was important on some of these items to get them in front of the Council sooner than I would. Happy to take any questions. |
| 03:42:34.38 | Ray Withy | Public comment? |
| 03:42:37.96 | Nancy Osborne | Thank you. |
| 03:42:38.01 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:42:38.03 | Nancy Osborne | Thank you. |
| 03:42:39.53 | Ray Withy | Well, you're spry for this time of night, aren't you, Nancy? |
| 03:42:41.44 | Nancy Osborne | Thank you. So, Mr. Mayor and council members, I just wanted to inquire if Sausalito Currents has a policy of always publishing when the school board meets. and if not, could I suggest they do it? This subject has Well, it's amazing how people are talking about it, but they don't really know about it. A lot of people have never heard about it. There have been a couple of articles in the IJ, but my feeling is that not many people in Sausalito subscribe to the IJ. And I think it would be appropriate for it to be on Sausalito Currents. |
| 03:43:23.12 | Ray Withy | Okay. Thank you, Nancy. Appreciate that. Any other comment from the public? Okay. Just a quick comment on the, I believe that the Lions Club now has come back into wanting to take on that bus stop down at Liberty Ship. All right, so that's a plus. Okay, let's move on along to future agenda items. |
| 03:43:54.76 | Thomas Theodores | So, Mr. Mayor, with respect to the Arts Commission, when Councilmember Kelly was a member of the council, I had expressed to him my feeling that the Arts Commission resolution and meeting guidelines as they were initially passed by prior councils. meeting committee guidelines as they were initially passed by prior councils was something that I completely concurred with. So what I would like to do is email those to you and recommend that that be on a future agenda item. If not next time, then hopefully sooner rather than later so we can have a discussion on the original resolution. |
| 03:44:44.02 | Ray Withy | Thanks. you Yes. By the way, I hope that you have the opportunity to pick up one or two applications down at the admin office, so when you do run into some interested people, I've given out two or three now for the art commission that you give them that. The other thing is please come back with the mission statement because we would like that. |
| 03:45:01.30 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:45:01.36 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 03:45:09.13 | Ray Withy | I think that was requested before, and I think... I think it's important that And it doesn't have to be a long one. That's up to what you basically just a shot. Shorter is better in that case. |
| 03:45:20.70 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:45:20.72 | Thomas Theodores | Yeah. |
| 03:45:25.87 | Thomas Theodores | Yes, Mr. Mayor, and I believe that that's included in the documents that I'll be mailing you because prior councils discussed that, and so I'll just let you take a look at that and see what you think. Thank you. |
| 03:45:36.99 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 03:45:37.00 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:45:37.21 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 03:45:37.38 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 03:45:37.39 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 03:45:37.44 | Ray Withy | Thank you. Thank you. you |
| 03:45:38.18 | Ray Withy | Right. |
| 03:45:38.56 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 03:45:39.03 | Ray Withy | I have two agenda items. The first is the marine ship specific plan. |
| 03:45:42.77 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 03:45:49.76 | Ray Withy | and this is on the priority calendar I realize it was very controversial last year when it was put on the above the line on the priority calendars. And at the moment it's on the priority calendar saying review and update. But I think we need to take some baby steps here. And the first step we need to take is for the staff and our city attorney to perhaps Just with the aid of an outside consulting attorney in land use litigation matters, as you decide if you need or not. Thank you. that the staff should come before the City Council and in the spirit of education session, and actually try and help us understand or help me understand at least, why a reading of the zoning ordinance and a reading of the Marinership-specific plan without certain assumptions lead to what I view as a large degree of incoherence. And I'm using coherent there in the legal term. And so I really believe that we need to get to grips with this. I struggled, I didn't actually struggle making the decision tonight about what I had, what I concluded. But I really struggled because I have enormous respect for our planning commissioners. I think they do a wonderful job and I just think they actually got it wrong. It's very difficult to actually Tell your personal friends and they are my personal friends, most of them, that I just think they got it totally wrong. No. These are very intelligent people were hopefully bright, intelligent people or the voters thought we were, right? But we see this in such different ways. I'm taking off this sort of regulatory hat and putting on |
| 03:47:47.80 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:47:48.16 | Unknown | were. |
| 03:47:48.59 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:47:49.39 | Unknown | I thought we |
| 03:47:50.38 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:47:59.14 | Ray Withy | Um, how I feel about my fiduciary duty, I believe that the risk profile that that discordance has created has created a potential future litigation risk for us. that needs to be resolved. I think this is a risk management issue. So that's the first thing. And the second, and so I'm not asking for an update to change the marine ship-specific plan. I'm actually asking for... Show me how it works with his own inordinates, please. as a first step. And then the second agenda topic is five-year planning and requests that when, as we start going through our budget cycle, I think we're soon going to have the mid-year budget update, that Charlie begins to introduce how, I think it's second or third on our priority calendar. I'm how long-range planning is going to become an institutionalized process as we go through our annual budget cycle year in, year out. Sorry for... |
| 03:49:16.02 | Ray Withy | No, you were about long term. |
| 03:49:23.09 | Ray Withy | Okay. Any other comments? Okay. Public comment? Okay. Council, any committee reports? I know that you're new on some of the committees, so I really won't push you for reports now, but in the future, either the next meeting or the following meeting, I would like to get some specific reports back as liaison or committee reports. I have a few appointments to make, and one is the RBRA. I'd like to make a change on that. And I would like to be the liaison for that move. Jonathan, who I spoke to earlier, about being the alternate. All right. Thank you. Do we need a problem? |
| 03:50:31.61 | Adam Politzer | We're in the Energy Authority. |
| 03:50:34.14 | Ray Withy | Um... |
| 03:50:35.12 | Adam Politzer | Ray is the alternate there. They were asking Don Weiss. |
| 03:50:39.79 | Ray Withy | Yeah, let's change that and let's put Jonathan on as alternate and Ray Withy. That's the rep. And you're on the MCC legislation. Okay. All right. Is that clear? Okay. All right. |
| 03:51:00.14 | Ray Withy | No, no. It's already in place. Yep. Okay, I think with that, any other reports of significance? Before we adjourn, I'd like to, tonight's meeting, I'd like to leave that in memory of Teddy Anderson. Teddy Anderson's... have. Parents are Jola and John Anderson, and they've been members of this community for about 45 years, and it's sad that a child would go before the parents, but that is what happened, and I'd like to adjourn in his name. All right. With that, move for adjournment. So moved. Okay. Second. All in favor? Aye. Aye. All right. Thank you, and good night. |
| 03:51:49.45 | Thomas Theodores | Second. |
| 03:51:51.07 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:51:51.09 | Thomas Theodores | Thank you. |
| 03:51:51.11 | Ray Withy | Right. |
| 03:51:51.41 | Thomas Theodores | Aye. |
| 03:52:21.40 | Unknown | Thank you. |
David Pfaff — Against: Urges tabling the motion to allow input from the music industry, arguing the Record Plant is a historic site (the 'Abbey Road of the United States') that should be preserved for recording, not converted. ▶ 📄
Drew Youngs — In Favor: A recording engineer supports the project, stating the traditional recording studio model is over and Harmonia offers a sustainable business model that includes digital distribution for educational content. ▶ 📄
Vicki Nichols — In Favor: Supports from a historical perspective, noting the building needs revitalization and the use seems allowable with a CUP, which can be revoked if issues arise. ▶ 📄
Cheryl Popp — In Favor: Represents the Business Advisory Committee in support, stating Harmonia aligns with economic studies, is a low-impact business that will serve residents and workers, and its denial reinforces the need to update the MarinShip Specific Plan. ▶ 📄
Karen Atkins — In Favor: An instructor slated to teach at Harmonia supports the project, stating there is a sore need for such a wellness center in Marin and it would be a valuable community resource. ▶ 📄
Adam Krivatsy — In Favor: Encourages the Council to think about city policy and community benefit, arguing approval would improve the community by activating an empty historic building with a life-enhancing service. ▶ 📄
Una Kavaner — In Favor: CEO of the Sausalito Chamber of Commerce supports, stating Harmonia would revitalize a long-vacant building, provide services for locals, and align with making Sausalito a better place to live and work. ▶ 📄
Michael Westgate — In Favor: A practitioner who would teach at Harmonia supports, emphasizing it would professionalize alternative healthcare and offer unique, high-quality programs beneficial to the community. ▶ 📄
Alice Merrill — In Favor: A citizen expresses support, acknowledging the difficulty of exceptions but urging forward-thinking to allow this 'neat' project that represents growth. ▶ 📄