| Time | Speaker | Text |
|---|---|---|
| 00:00:00.03 | Ray Withy | 2013 Council meeting. And could we have a roll call, please? |
| 00:00:06.58 | Unknown | Council member Pfeiffer? Here. Council member Theodorus? Present. Council member Withey? Here. Vice mayor Leon? Here. Mayor Weiner? |
| 00:00:07.96 | Ray Withy | THE END OF THE END OF THE present. HERE. Thank you. Mr. President. Abbott, you want to lead us in the pledge, please? |
| 00:00:21.34 | Ray Withy | I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you, Abbott. Okay, we had a closed session. We had three items of pending litigation. There was no, and some direction was given. At this time here, is there any public comment on those closed session items? Okay, next I'd like to move for the approval of the agenda. I move to approve. |
| 00:01:03.50 | Thomas Theodores | Second. |
| 00:01:04.22 | Ray Withy | Okay, all in favor? Aye. Opposed? Okay. This time here, Adam strikes twice. Introduction of the library assistant, Andrew Benditsen. |
| 00:01:05.67 | Linda | I... |
| 00:01:08.92 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:01:08.93 | Thomas Theodores | Yeah. |
| 00:01:09.19 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:01:17.45 | Ray Withy | Abbott, |
| 00:01:20.02 | Unknown | Good evening, Mr. Mayor. |
| 00:01:21.71 | Ray Withy | Are we a little brighter up here for you to see? Because there's new lighting. You look beautiful. Really, you look sensitive. |
| 00:01:24.98 | Unknown | Because there's new lighting. You look beautiful tonight. I really do look sensitive. I'm pleased to be here tonight to introduce a new member of the City of Saucido family. Andrew Bendixson joins us as a library assistant, too. He's taking over for Jonathan Hirsch, who is moving to New York City. Drew is a recent graduate of CSU Sacramento, and he has seven years of experience working for the Placer County Library System as a clerk and a page. |
| 00:01:47.51 | Linda | I... |
| 00:01:59.42 | Unknown | Drew rose to the top of a very competitive interview pool. We had 59 applicants for the position, so we feel really lucky to have him on board. Accompanying him here tonight is his wife of nine days, Jamie Serp Bendixson. |
| 00:02:16.28 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:02:22.56 | Unknown | And Jamie and Drew live in Petaluma with their dog, Dexter. So please join me in welcoming Drew to South Slido. |
| 00:02:39.15 | Drew | Thank you, Abbott. I just want to say I'm thrilled to be here. I've been here going on, I think this is my fourth week. And every day I come in here, the people have been so welcoming. Everybody I've met that's a part of the city has been so kind. And I'm just thrilled to be here and so happy and glad for this opportunity to be a part of the staff. Thank you. |
| 00:03:03.46 | Ray Withy | Why don't you come up here for a minute? |
| 00:03:13.05 | Ray Withy | You just jumped into the number one item in this town. |
| 00:03:17.55 | Unknown | Welcome to the Albert. |
| 00:03:24.72 | Ray Withy | The President. |
| 00:03:29.85 | Ray Withy | Okay, and thank you, Abbott, again. Okay, at this time here, we have public communications at this time here for the city council to hear from citizens regarding matters that are not on the agenda. Except in very limited situations, state law precludes the Council from taking action or engaging in the discussions concerning items of business that are not on the agenda. Is there anybody here that would like to speak about items that are not on the agenda this evening? Anybody? Okay, let's bring it back. Okay, we'll move on to the consent calendar. |
| 00:04:08.84 | Thomas Theodores | Before we move on to that, I have to... State that I have a conflict regarding 4B because I live within 300 feet of the subject premises. I'm not sure how I'll handle the consent calendar. That's the only item I have an issue with, so I'll have to recuse myself from that one. |
| 00:04:25.37 | Mary Wagner | Yeah, and because it's on the consent calendar, you can just take two separate votes, one separately on that item from which Council Member Theodorus would recuse himself, and then another one on the other items And because it's on consent, you don't have to step down from the dais and leave the room unless there's discussion on it. |
| 00:04:41.44 | Ray Withy | Okay, so on the consent, then we're going to A. Let's see, A, C, and D, is that it? |
| 00:04:47.46 | Ray Withy | Let's see. Yeah, can I ask a point of clarification on B? Is that, is there, Mary, do you know since Jeremy's here, is there any, there's no special parking or curb requests along with this, nothing? There's no green instead of red requests? Okay. So with that, so I'll make a motion to approve the consent calendar items A, C, and D for A, C, and D. |
| 00:05:14.14 | Unknown | Mm-hmm. |
| 00:05:14.51 | Ray Withy | you |
| 00:05:14.78 | Unknown | Second. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Opposed? |
| 00:05:17.50 | Ray Withy | Aye. |
| 00:05:18.06 | Ray Withy | Bye. |
| 00:05:21.28 | Unknown | I'll make another motion to approve item 4B. |
| 00:05:22.36 | Ray Withy | SHIP. |
| 00:05:26.80 | Unknown | All in favor? Aye. Okay, opposed? |
| 00:05:28.79 | Ray Withy | Bye. Thank you. |
| 00:05:30.66 | Unknown | Okay. Thank you. |
| 00:05:32.17 | Ray Withy | Thank you. Tom's abstained. Okay. And note that Tom abstained from that or recused. All right, now we'll move on to business items. And the first one that we have is the Marin Telecommunications Agency Update, and that will be Michael Eisenmenger. Is he here? Oh, yeah, I met you. |
| 00:06:02.15 | Michael (CMCM representative) | Good evening, counsel. Good evening. Thanks for having us. And my understanding was Barbara Thornton was going to speak too, but maybe she'll show up and we'll work her in. So I'm here to speak to you about the packet materials that you receive. This is a request via the MTA to its member jurisdictions for funding for the Community Media Center. |
| 00:06:03.37 | Ray Withy | Good evening. |
| 00:06:12.85 | Unknown | Thank you. So I'm here to speak. |
| 00:06:14.10 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:06:25.86 | Michael (CMCM representative) | during a kind of bridge period during the remaining years of the Comcast settlement, which resulted in a loss of PEG fees. They retained half of the 1 percent, which is guaranteed under DIFCO, the state video franchise. Cities currently receive 5 percent in city franchise fees. PEG fees are set aside for public education, governmental television, and when the MTA transferred to the to DIFCO. Comcast wanted to keep some money to recover their funds under a previous agreement. So that was unexpected and we're kind of in a pinch right now. So I just want to show you a few things about the Media Center in case you aren't aware. and you're always invited to come down. One of the best ways to really experience the center is to come visit. I'm happy to give you a tour anytime. But the center came about in 2006 from a local franchise with Comcast by the MTA. As I said, that's since transferred to the state franchise. The local franchise didn't include any peg fee allocations. It wasn't a sustainable franchise agreement. So Divka was actually a blessing in disguise that we could get away from that. And DIFCA passed in 2007. Also in 2007, the CMCM Board was founded. We're a 501. and a contract was drafted between MTA and CMCM on what type of services we provide and that was done in 2008. And then I came in 2008 and we opened in 2009. and we built out a facility in downtown San Rafael choosing that because it was central to all the service areas in the county. It's near mass transit. So we opened with actually two channels, and we had channel 26, the public channel, and 27 the government. And that was new. Prior to that, Comcast had Cablecast about 12 hours of programming a day. We now operate the channels 24-7. We opened with three full-time staff, |
| 00:08:30.06 | Ed Dudkowski | Mm-hmm. |
| 00:08:30.94 | Michael (CMCM representative) | In the next year, actually about 18 months, we added a fourth staff person when we added the education channel because we needed more staffing for the content that was coming in. We currently have five full-time staff, having just added an educational and government coordinator. |
| 00:08:43.78 | Unknown | you |
| 00:08:48.50 | Michael (CMCM representative) | But for most of these four years, we've had four full-time staff. Two are really dedicated to keeping the channels on the air. One handles all of the community services. in the center and then I'm the fourth person and I kind of do everything else. So in 2011, we requested the MTA to transfer to the state franchise. That happened a year later. and in the process the settlement occurred. And we had now advised, actually we advised the MTA before the settlement that this would be the result. Thank you. that would result in a shortfall. Thank you. So I have a little short video to show you. |
| 00:09:37.11 | Unknown | Thank you. Thank you. ...of Planned Suburban back in 1965. An outbreak of citizens for his former president, George H.L. |
| 00:09:44.31 | Jeremy | Thank you. |
| 00:09:44.73 | Unknown | For a jab at three. |
| 00:10:34.19 | Unknown | for our residents. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Yes. |
| 00:10:39.97 | Unknown | Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Professor Arnold. Very nice. Okay. |
| 00:11:03.27 | Unknown | Brand TV broadcast through Randy Shapiro. |
| 00:11:22.81 | Unknown | Thank you. you trade a diversity. |
| 00:11:27.72 | Unknown | Yeah. Enjoy. and out of the garage. Beautiful ones everywhere. Come down and see these things every year. |
| 00:11:38.03 | Unknown | Thank you. We just wanted to promote the healthy aspect of our older adults to the community and to invite them to participate in that too. |
| 00:11:47.09 | Unknown | Hi, it's Francisco Diaz, and I'm here at Pippa Week Community Center in the Canal area, San Rafael. We are getting ready for integration reform. |
| 00:11:55.60 | Unknown | At the same place with the Palt Society, our primary focus is actually cruelness and prevention. It's an opportunity to better understand the Planned Bay Area, to identify concerns, as well as potential benefits, to ask questions, and to provide a forum for expressing different viewpoints and opinions. We passed Proposition 37, and we're going to be catching up to the rest of the world. |
| 00:12:25.03 | Unknown | As the local provider of public, educational, and government TV programs, CMCM has become a vital tool for connecting our communities. And it's accomplished all of this despite only getting half of what Comcast charges marine residents to allow for public, educational, and government access. This is just the beginning. Support the Community Media Center and keep Marin's independent tradition strong. Keep your voice strong. |
| 00:12:56.28 | Michael (CMCM representative) | Okay. So the center's really come a long way in four years, I think beyond anyone's expectations. Our first two years we just had a flood of users coming in for our services, and in the past two years we started concentrating more on education and government services as that moderated. But our main function under the DAP agreement with the MTA is to provide a center and low-cost training to residents from anywhere in the county, which we do. And it's a real diverse array of people. We have nonprofits come in, representatives from government agencies, cities. So it's really open to all sectors. The facility is always available to anyone. Thank you. And we have about 300 go through the courses every year. It's really been popular. Amen. And when we tally up what that value is of services that we give back to the community, it totals nearly $800,000, and that's pretty much been the pattern all along. So we're actually giving more back to the community than our operating budget. On the government front, we've been carrying a lot of meetings. We've carried the county from day one. We take all the meetings live from the county. We added Mill Valley next, San Rafael, Fairfax. This meeting is actually live tonight on 27. I was showing Adam on my cell phone earlier. So we're slowly doing that. We're the only center in the country that I know of that's actually going into these council chambers, putting the equipment in, and providing a professional service pretty much below cost. you know, sign my phone to Fairfax. We're not making a profit on that work, and we won't for the first four years. I have not found another center anywhere that does that degree of design, integration, and installation and services. So it's very unusual. And that's been working good. It's been working good for the cities. So we have more planned on the way. On the government channel, we also carry legal women voter debates, emergency preparedness videos, anything that any city gives us, or city or county agency. So any videos that you have, you're welcome to bring them in. We also have the education Good progress with Dominican and some of the private schools. We're meeting with MCOE, the County Office of Education, on working with other high schools. We carry a lot of different types of lifelong learning programming. We get full semester courses from Yale University, Khan Academy for the kids, and a lot of other things that are going on. But we really are trying to build more local content there. And this summer we did a great project with high school and Dominican kids. They did live production of Pacific's baseball games, and that was actually really exciting for them. They learned so much in the process. Now when you look at CMCM and how we compare with other PEG centers around the country, And we have a chart here that a consultant worked up for us. One of the first things you see, you see at the top, we have 70,000 subscribers. We service the whole county. These other centers are comparable, but they're smaller by in terms of their reach. But if you look at our operating budget for 11-12, it's nearly half of some of these other centers. And we're operating three channels, as many or more than some of the other centers. And our staffing is minimal by comparison. So we're doing more for less. And when you look at the other statistics, the number of people that we serve in our classes, we're either equal or greater than these other centers. So we've found ways to be creative. We use a lot of open source software for all of our administrative functions, our back end functions for the channel. We've automated as much as possible so we can really minimize staffing. And we've just been creative in how we accomplish things. Equipment, we sometimes build things that we need. Going on eBay is not uncommon for me, unfortunately, but it's necessary. And when you look at the usage, again, we're either exceeding or on par with these other centers. So it's actually, you know, I think those are spectacular numbers. you know, that indicate what we've accomplished here in the room. And part of that usage is what leads us to this point, the equipment that we bought, which is actually the property of the MTA. We're the caretakers of the equipment for the channels and the equipment that's used by the community and the cities. |
| 00:17:40.19 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:17:50.85 | Michael (CMCM representative) | it wears out. And over a 10-year period, we had a capital replacement plan and we had wisely set aside funding for that out of the original $3 million in startup funds. And originally we had a 1.5 million, it's down to about 980,000 now. The problem we're facing is that the Comcast settlement results in an operating deficit $220,000 a year. We have over $700,000 in capital replacement costs over the next four years. And we can't do both. We can't pay staff and replace equipment. And if we do one or the other, then something's going to shut down. So that's the kind of bind that we're in right now. And it's short term. We don't anticipate to be in this area forever. And I think you've got these spreadsheets in your packet. But, you know, we were looking at |
| 00:18:26.44 | Unknown | Mm. |
| 00:18:50.49 | Michael (CMCM representative) | And we spread out our capital replacement over a series of years so we could minimize the impacts on cities. We had originally projected $90,000 in the first year, $290,000 in the second. 290 and a third, and then based on a projection of when the Comcast settlement will end, it might be $90,000 in the fourth year. So that's divided between 11 jurisdictions based on the formula, which you all have. And that's actually probably going to keep pace with the franchise fee increases that you see annually. which usually go up anywhere from 3% to 5%. So it might mean that you don't see a decline in the franchise fees that you receive. They might just flatten out for 18 months or two years. That's what we're hoping. |
| 00:19:29.45 | Unknown | YOU DON'T WANT TO DO THAT. |
| 00:19:39.00 | Michael (CMCM representative) | So when you look at the breakdown by cities, Sausalito carries 4.8% of the total franchise fees. So in those more expensive years, it would be roughly $14,000 or $15,000. And I think there was a hybrid plan that would add to that that would lessen the impact on some of the larger shareholders. So it's a pretty minimal amount, I think, given what we're delivering. It's very minimal. Uh, And actually one thing I forgot to mention, I don't see Jonathan. I always forget to mention radio so I'll still eat off it. That's our local hook. You know, we've carried Radio South Salido since day one. They actually schedule two hour long radio programs a day. that run under our community calendar And it's all local news. A lot of it's Sausalito specific, but great stuff. And if you turn on channel 26 and switch the language button, on your remote. A lot of people do this by accident. You'll only hear Radio Sausalito. So you can get Radio Sausalito 24-7 anywhere in the county if you have cable. So we took, you know, their out there reach in downtown Sausalito and extended it countywide. And that's really what we like to do. It's just clever uses of technology. You know, this is the bandwidth that we have. These are the tools that we have. Let's find ways to really make them work for different parts of the community around Burrini. So that's been real exciting. So Adam had sent me a few questions that you all asked about. So exactly how much money are they asking for, for what period of time? Our projection on the 9290 to 9090, you know, it's roughly 760,000 over those four years. |
| 00:21:28.83 | Michael (CMCM representative) | What have we done to reduce expenses to try and cover the shortfall? Well, we've always scrimped. As I said, we've always had minimal staffing. We've been very careful buyers of equipment. Most of the equipment we own is shared across different purposes. We've designed and built and used open source tools as much as possible so we don't have any expensive licensing. And that's actually saved us a lot. When we moved into the space in San Rafael, we actually built it. The only thing that we hired a consultant for was for the master control head in. And we would have done that ourselves, but there wasn't enough time. What additional fundraising efforts do we plan? We're always fundraising, sometimes successfully, sometimes not. Two years ago we raised about $80,000. It was much more meager this year. drawn off on a lot of this stuff. but we are launching a business underwriting campaign and we do write grants. Grants aren't source of funding for centers like ours? There's just too many centers like this around the And there's no foundation or fund that will fund a center's general operating. That base cost always comes from PEG fees. Typically 80% of centers like ours, their budget is covered by PEG fees. So grants are always for new programmatic work, you know, doing a series on senior health or a youth program, but they don't address, you know, the general operating that we need right now. Why do we need to carry a $500,000 capital reserve instead of spending the reserve down and replenishing it in 2017 when we receive the peg fees? Most centers our size would keep a million dollars on Hannum Reserve, and that was always my target. Non-profits in general will keep a minimum of six months of their general operating costs in the bank. because of, you know, funding fluctuations, which are pretty common. And what that does is it enables the organization, should funding be cut unexpectedly, they can reorganize. There are also reserves are set aside for capital replacement and plan for years in advance. That's what we did. That's why we have this money in the bank right now. And as I mentioned, the equipment actually belongs to the cities. We're just taking care of them and keeping it operational. Reserves are also necessary in our sector of nonprofits and even a cable operator with those peg fees. Seldom happens, but we're in the middle of that right now. Uh... had we not set aside that that funding in a reserve, we probably would be gone by now. So I think we acted very responsibly. as a steward of these public funds. Reserves are also set aside for potential legal costs. Being a cable caster, there's a lot of potential liabilities. We have really good procedures and policies that help prevent that, and we haven't had Good. But this is always a risk, and you don't want to be taken down by a single lawsuit. So you need to have something put away in the event of that. And then why don't we borrow the funds and loan it back when the PEG fees are fully 1% in 2017? I mean, we're really a service provider. You can think of us as a vendor and we're because the funds that are being provided are aren't enough for us to meet the the requirements of the contract. We can't provide the services that the contract requires, nor maintain and replace the equipment. borrowing the money against future PEG fees |
| 00:25:22.80 | Unknown | Amen. |
| 00:25:23.83 | Michael (CMCM representative) | we're not sure we'll have that. all of the peg fees in the future. We hope so. but it also would cut into our ability to save any of that surplus for the next capital replacement. And that's what we have to start doing now. Even if we spend our reserves down to $500,000, we need to build that back up to a million dollars as quickly as possible. and we can only do that through the peg fee reserves. And I believe... That's it. So I'm happy, I know Barbara walked in, she may want to say a word, and I'm happy to entertain questions. |
| 00:25:58.44 | Ray Withy | Thank you. Would you like to say something for us, Papa? |
| 00:26:03.20 | Ray Withy | Or do you want us to ask questions of Thank you. up to you. |
| 00:26:07.58 | Ray Withy | THE FAMILY. Thank you. Thank you. |
| 00:26:11.26 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:26:11.43 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:26:11.79 | Unknown | Amen. |
| 00:26:12.33 | Ray Withy | Yeah, let's get the overview. |
| 00:26:12.38 | Unknown | Yeah, let's get the open. |
| 00:26:13.24 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:26:13.25 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:26:14.21 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:26:15.01 | Ray Withy | Then we might ask both of your questions. |
| 00:26:17.07 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:26:17.08 | Barbara Thornton | Thank you. |
| 00:26:17.25 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:26:17.96 | Barbara Thornton | . We're used to sharing the questions. Barbara Thornton, Executive Officer of the Marine Telecommunications Agency. Sorry I was a little bit late. I thought it would start a little bit later. We surprised you. We moved. I know. That's wonderful. |
| 00:26:31.85 | Ray Withy | We surprised you. The President's Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. |
| 00:26:40.73 | Ray Withy | You made the mistake of actually believing our schedule. That's the problem that you made. You actually came at the time you were supposed to be on, so no fault of your own. |
| 00:26:40.89 | Barbara Thornton | Bye. I hope. |
| 00:26:47.63 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:26:47.76 | Barbara Thornton | Thank you. |
| 00:26:47.81 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:26:47.91 | Barbara Thornton | No flicks. Okay, well, great. It's great to be here this evening, and I thought I'd just give you a little bit of information about the issue and how we fund the Media Center and the funds that the MTA gets and go to the city. In Marin, we have three cable TV providers, Comcast, AT&T, and Horizon. Each one of these are operating under a state franchise and are required to provide us 5% of their gross revenues on their incomes from the customers for the cable TV services. And this is for use of the public right-of-way. They collect these fees from the cable TV providers and then pass them on to us. MTA then pays these members, these franchise fees to the MTA members less a small operating budget for the agency itself. In the fiscal year 2012-2013, Sausalito's Franchise fee revenues were about $179,000 for the entire year. The other source of income that we get from the cable TV providers is what we call PEG fees, and PEG stands for Public Education and Government. And those are the three types of channels that we have. Thank you. on Marin TV. These fees are 1% of the gross operating revenues for the cable TV providers, with the exception of Comcast, the major franchise agreement that we have with them. is half a percent for right now. And that was the result of the settlement that we settled about a year and a half, two years ago. When we went to the state franchise in Marin, um, Comcast said they had not recovered the full $3 million that they had given us up front, which we had passed on to the media center for establishing and operating the media center. So the settlement, so that we wouldn't have to go into protracted legal, Um, activities and could have been very, very costly. We went ahead and settled such that We split the 1% peg fees, they get a half percent, we get a half a percent that we give to the media center, that they get continues to pay down the $3 million that they gave us up front. Once they have recovered that full $3 million, which I'm estimating to be about January 2017, then we will get the full 1% PEG fees. And, um, As I mentioned, MTA pays these peg fees to the media center. The other thing is we do, MTA has an agreement with the Community Media Center of Marin, which is a 501 nonprofit. to initially have built and now manage and operate the center, which has facilities such that the public can come and use them, as Michael went into. It's got the studio and all of that. and that is funded through the PEG fees. We had an initial five-year contract with them, which is expiring October 31st this year. and we're in negotiations with them to have a new agreement for another five years plus. And in those negotiations, the main thing that came up has been the funding. And they've asked for franchise fee funding on top of the PEG funding. And this is a change in the funding or the direction that MTA has had with regards to franchise fees because they have not used franchise fees in the past to fund the media center. And so that's why it's coming back to each of the councils to get input for your MTA board member, for it to come up in our meeting October 9th. Um, Currently, the CMCM gets funds from the PEG fees, as I mentioned, also from membership and course fees, fees for services that they perform, donations and grants. investment income, and they have been using their reserve funds over the last few years to help supplement operating expenses. Michael explained the capital program that they have coming in because their equipment is ending the end, nearing the end of its service life. And that's about $715,000 over the next four years. Um, and then MTA considered the request from the CMCM for the funding at their meeting in August. and recommended a proposal of providing the CMCM $660,000 out of franchise fees. This is lower than what the CMCM had asked for initially and lower than what they most recently are asking for of $760,000. The MTA came up with this amount by increasing the revenues 3% the PEG fees 3% per year because that had not been done. and also taking a look at bringing the reserves down to the $500,000 level as quickly as possible, and then retaining that. So for Sausalito, the total amount, if you just do it based on your percent of the total franchise fees, which is 4.91 percent, would be approximately $32,000 over the three to four years between now and 2017. There's another calculation that the MTA board had considered. which is a hybrid calculation, which also includes a one-time payment of $10,000, but for Sausalito that would be $37,000, the more expensive option for you, and most of the cities that are looking at this are looking at the straight percentage. So that would be approximately $32,000 for you. So that's sort of a general overview of the issue, why we are where we are, and what's being asked for. And Michael and I can answer questions that any of you have. |
| 00:32:49.38 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:32:49.41 | Thomas Theodores | Okay. I just want to welcome both Michael and Barbara and everybody that's supportive of them coming. We really appreciate you taking the time. I am Sausalito's representative on the MTA, so I'm fairly familiar with the material. So I'll turn it over to others who may have questions first, and I certainly will have comments later. |
| 00:33:07.67 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 00:33:07.79 | Thomas Theodores | Thank you. |
| 00:33:07.81 | Ray Withy | Okay. Linda, you have any? Ready? |
| 00:33:13.32 | Linda | Good evening. you A sort of naive question and a fairly basic one. If this money is not provided, what are the real, actual consequences? |
| 00:33:24.68 | Unknown | I think Michael can answer that. |
| 00:33:27.73 | Michael (CMCM representative) | I mean the real consequence is we won't make it to the next four years. As I mentioned earlier, we can either replace the equipment or continue to provide services, but we can't do both. So it's not a rosy picture. |
| 00:33:44.96 | Ray Withy | Has there been any thought of your sort of reexamination of what you actually do as an organization in terms of more of the community center aspect of it versus an operator of public channels? |
| 00:33:59.48 | Michael (CMCM representative) | Well, I mean, that's defined by our contract with the MTA. |
| 00:34:02.36 | Ray Withy | That's what I mean, between you and the MTA, has there been some, first of all, hi, and I know you from years ago. But, you know, because maybe this is the time where that, in your negotiations with the MTA, maybe that's more than you can chew, you know, to provide all this equipment and mainstaff it for people coming in for how many members do you folks have, paying members now? |
| 00:34:07.59 | Michael (CMCM representative) | years ago. |
| 00:34:09.62 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:34:26.05 | Michael (CMCM representative) | We've had nearly 1,000 over the years at any one time. We had between 300 and 400 active users. I mean, it's always rotating. That's a tough one because the facility itself serves all sectors. And I don't even think, you know, the potential is so unlimited. We haven't even tapped into what's possible. So to cut that short would, you know, it'd really be a great loss I think for everyone involved. The operation of the channels, I mean, it goes without saying, we have to do that to meet FCC requirements and everything else. And if that's not done properly, you stand the risk of losing those channels. And believe me, Comcast would like to have those channels back. |
| 00:34:26.24 | Ray Withy | because THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 00:34:31.15 | Ray Withy | I'm not sure. |
| 00:34:31.40 | Debbie Pfeiffer | Thank you. |
| 00:35:11.28 | Ray Withy | Oh yeah, sure. |
| 00:35:12.28 | Michael (CMCM representative) | Thank you. |
| 00:35:12.36 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 00:35:12.41 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:35:12.43 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 00:35:12.43 | Michael (CMCM representative) | Our contract has actually expanded though. Now we have, whereas in our current contract we didn't have any of the government services that we've done over the last four years. None of these city installations, that was not part of what was required of us. We sought that out and offered that as a service because we wanted the government channel to become active and represent all the various municipalities in the county. That's actually part of the contract now. So if anything, our responsibilities are ballooning in the current contract. |
| 00:35:44.59 | Ray Withy | Thank you. Yeah, and that's a question I have here unless you're, is, you know, well, first of all, you are where I didn't want you to end up, you know, five years ago. I didn't want to be here either. Right. And, you know, the economy and other reasons that I know that, |
| 00:35:54.66 | Michael (CMCM representative) | THE END OF |
| 00:35:54.82 | Unknown | I'm sorry. |
| 00:35:54.87 | Michael (CMCM representative) | Thank you. |
| 00:35:59.59 | Michael (CMCM representative) | that I know |
| 00:36:00.35 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:36:02.61 | Ray Withy | But as far as the government piece, and there's certainly an argument to be made on a lot of these things, and I'm not going to walk you through all that stuff. But the... for the government channel. The MTA has amended your contract so that you are providing services to governments or governmental entities for free or are you being reimbursed by these governmental entities? |
| 00:36:25.80 | Michael (CMCM representative) | Well, the equipment's being provided for free, but out of the PEG fees and our services are optional. You know, they're not required. |
| 00:36:34.79 | Ray Withy | So how are some cities getting free equipment and some are not? How did we have to pay for this and other |
| 00:36:38.49 | Michael (CMCM representative) | So how did we Thank you. |
| 00:36:42.39 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 00:36:42.40 | Michael (CMCM representative) | No one's actually getting free equipment. Cities have come to us and requested our assistance. And actually I did a lot of, you know, with your IT, you know, we did a lot of free consulting. I was just here the other day helping with some things. |
| 00:36:42.42 | Ray Withy | the communities didn't actually get any more. |
| 00:36:52.73 | Ray Withy | Right now, I'm ready. |
| 00:36:58.81 | Michael (CMCM representative) | It's just a matter of calling us. But I mean, there's been two models. In Mill Valley, Mmm. Their model was they wanted to own and operate the equipment. They didn't want to contract the media center. So we did the design, the installation, and purchased the equipment, and they paid us for that. We saved them about $30,000 in the process. I mean, they came out winners. San Rafael, Fairfax so far, and I think some of the other cities in line, they don't have the upfront money to purchase the equipment, so they've contracted with us for a production services contract where we bring in part of the equipment, maybe the cameras but not the video switcher, the expensive part, and our staff act as circuit riders and they go around to all the councils on any one night and provide the service. So for instance, in San Rafael that's costing them for 55 meetings a year on average about $12,000. That in itself is a very, very... service. So for instance in San Rafael that's costing them for 55 meetings a year on average about $12,000. That in itself is a very, very inexpensive service contract. Usually it's |
| 00:38:01.99 | Ray Withy | 50. Yeah. |
| 00:38:03.35 | Michael (CMCM representative) | And they didn't purchase any equipment, which would easily be a $60,000 up front. |
| 00:38:06.04 | Ray Withy | Right. So wouldn't it make sense for entities? I mean, we've had this conversation five years ago. |
| 00:38:13.06 | Michael (CMCM representative) | Thank you. |
| 00:38:13.07 | Unknown | Mm-hmm. |
| 00:38:13.36 | Ray Withy | Thank you. And we had this conversation here when we tried to figure it out with you guys to give you the revenue coming for doing this. But my understanding was you were a much more expensive solution than just sticking a granite system in and doing this, right? For us, for a little town. So why should Ross, which has no budget problems, get that kind of assistance but other communities not. And it doesn't make any sense to me and then to come back and ask for money to do that for other communities while you're in a shortfall, |
| 00:38:19.93 | Unknown | Mm-hmm. |
| 00:38:20.24 | Bruce Bagnole | Thank you. |
| 00:38:39.55 | Unknown | make any sense. |
| 00:38:40.36 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:38:44.01 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:38:44.04 | Michael (CMCM representative) | other communities while you're in a short time. That's kind of silly. Yeah, let me just clarify, because the services that we've offered the cities, we've offered equitably. So anyone who wants us to install the equipment, we'll save them money, we'll do that. Anyone who wants to hire us for our production services, we'll do that. Same rate across the board. But you... |
| 00:38:54.91 | Unknown | who wants |
| 00:39:03.78 | Ray Withy | But you're putting money out up front to buy his equipment and then provide it to them for... free. |
| 00:39:09.20 | Michael (CMCM representative) | Thank you. No, I mean, it's a cost-sharing plan. I mean, and the reality is, San Rafael had done what cities typically do around the country. They went out, hired an integrator who came in, did a design for about $12,000, came up with $150 you know, budget and they said, whoa, we can't do that. But we really want to get on there, but we can't afford it. Can you help us? And that's what we do. |
| 00:39:27.02 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:39:27.04 | Ray Withy | Right. |
| 00:39:33.57 | Michael (CMCM representative) | Yes. |
| 00:39:33.65 | Ray Withy | Yeah, but to me, that's not what you should, you shouldn't be stomaching that cost for San Rafael. I would agree, for anyone. |
| 00:39:38.70 | Michael (CMCM representative) | I would agree with that, but that's where we are. |
| 00:39:42.66 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 00:39:42.70 | Michael (CMCM representative) | Thank you. |
| 00:39:42.75 | Ray Withy | But to me, that's the MTA's responsibility. If the MTA wants to subsidize government, then the MTA should subsidize it, not you guys. Right? And it should come out of their budget, and they should argue about it out of their budget. So the cost doesn't fall on you to subsidize government versus the other way around. You know? That's not my argument to have, but... |
| 00:39:42.80 | Michael (CMCM representative) | but that's... And- |
| 00:39:50.22 | Unknown | Right? |
| 00:39:56.62 | Michael (CMCM representative) | Well, I... You know? |
| 00:40:02.42 | Ray Withy | So, I mean, to me, it sort of begs a lot of the question that it goes back to the MTA needs to reexamine its own budget before it, before, as part of this process, you know? Thank you. |
| 00:40:13.34 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:40:15.74 | Barbara Thornton | Thank you. So, MTA, established a policy about three to four years ago where some of the peg fees they were retaining in order to be able to fund government installations. And those funds have been available. We've been working with the media center to get those installed. Fairfax has been installed so far using those funds. And then there's some funds currently where three other cities have been trying to work with them. Now what's in your packet is just a proposal as a part of the new agreement with the media center. It's not an actual, it hasn't been agreed to yet. Yeah. |
| 00:40:54.01 | Ray Withy | I guess my point is I'm not here to subsidize San Rafael or Ross in putting in video equipment. You know, and if that's because they control the votes, San Rafael and the county on this. And if that's how it got jammed through to subsidize themselves, then that's... I would have been raising my hand if I was still on the board at that time. But at this time, it's crazy to say, I need money. Give me your money. I'm going to give it to Ross. Not to pick on Ross. Hi, Ross. But come on. I mean, who's in more position to pay? |
| 00:41:13.43 | Unknown | Right. |
| 00:41:26.49 | Barbara Thornton | position to pay. And where the policy came from is PEG funds are for public education and government. Right. So there was a lot of money that was put into the media center and into equipment for people to check out and that type of stuff. And so this policy, when it was established, was to be able to help get the government going. So, and I hear your point. Yeah, but then making each individual. |
| 00:41:34.19 | Unknown | Right. |
| 00:41:46.17 | Ray Withy | And I hear your point. Then make each individual entity pay for themselves. |
| 00:41:50.44 | Barbara Thornton | Thank you. which can still be done. I've talked with Tom on this. The board has talked about it some, and we'll be talking about it more as far as what they want to do with regards to funding government entities out of PEG funds. You know, the PEG funds are for all three entities, P, E, and G. So when Michael says he's paying for it, I mean, that's what he's getting for PEG funds is for all three entities. |
| 00:42:16.46 | Ray Withy | No, I understand that. So my other question would be, you know, is more back to Michael, not to you, is, you know, obviously fundraising was the main goal for you guys. I don't want to try and find a way to offset |
| 00:42:17.69 | Barbara Thornton | Yeah. |
| 00:42:30.91 | Ray Withy | revenue sources, right? And that's been it. Obviously the economy has been a hard thing to do. Um, but is it also just the direction of content creation in general? away from broadcasting more, you know, as I can stick my own stuff on YouTube, has that also inhibited your ability to just get a consistent source of, you know, foundation-like grants kind of thing? |
| 00:42:55.83 | Michael (CMCM representative) | No, no, no. Actually, I mean, I don't think YouTube has any impact at all. I mean, we host a lot of video on our own site. I mean, we have an on-demand site everybody uses. We host, you know, city video if they ask us to. I think fundraising in general has been challenging the last four years, and in Marin in particular, corporate giving has really dropped, so the big dollars that nonprofits were accustomed to. We're literally growing into that. We're four years old, which is young for a nonprofit, and in the first two years, fundraising really wasn't even plausible because we didn't have an identity, The one we had was usually associated with the old channel 26 which nobody wanted to donate to. So we've had to really build credibility and I think we're at the point where we've done that. You know but again going back any grants are going to go toward new projects. They're not going to fund this general operating deficit. You know they're going to go to creating as I said like you know youth series or senior health. There is a lot of people who are living in the world. I think that's a lot of people who are living in the world. I think that's a lot of people who are living in the world. I think that's a lot of people who are living in the world. I think that's a lot of people who are living in the world. I think that's a lot of people who are living in the world. I think that's a lot of people who are living in the world. I think that's a lot of people who are living in the world. I think that's a lot of people who are living in the world. I think that's a lot of people who are living in the world. I think that's a lot of people who are living in the world. I think that's a lot of people who are living in the world. I think that's a lot of people who are living in the world. I think that's a lot of people who are living in the world. new projects, they're not going to fund this general operating deficit. They're going to go to creating, as I said, like youth series or senior health. There is funding out there for that. We're pursued from some of it, but that's not going to offset the deficits that we have right now. It's going to help create new content, but it's not going to keep the center operating. |
| 00:43:38.57 | Unknown | Right. |
| 00:43:38.96 | Unknown | I appreciate it. |
| 00:43:58.78 | Unknown | I'm not sure. |
| 00:44:14.20 | Michael (CMCM representative) | Thank you. |
| 00:44:14.22 | Ray Withy | Thank you. You technically qualify as public comment, so you'll have to hold on. |
| 00:44:16.17 | Michael (CMCM representative) | You too. |
| 00:44:19.65 | Thomas Theodores | Thank you. your opinion greatly. The question, I may have a little lead into the question. By the way, I think you're doing a great job and I think there's no question that the media center is valuable to Marin. That's not the issue. We have a short-term financial crisis until 2017. That's what we're really dealing with right now. And how do we get through it? We have, I think, possibly different opinions. You would like to have money. We're looking at other avenues and the way I look at it. You know, there are four general things that you can do. One is cut your expenses. Now, we looked at what you've done. And I don't think that may be an option. We seem like you've run a really tight ship, and as far as we can see, that's an issue. But on other things, the reserves, I have to say, when someone's in a tight financial place, to have reserves that are almost 100% of the budget, we don't have that luxury. It's just not the kind of thing that, you know, we think that you have to look to your reserves first and then ask us for money because, you know, we're again, anything that we give here, and the thing to be clear is that while we call it that whatever we would be contributing out of franchise fees, this is money that would otherwise go into our general funds. So anything that we give here today comes out of our general fund and we have to cut up, you know, whatever services that we give there. You know, the fundraising, there's always the pledge drive type thing and looking at some of your users. You know, again, that's in your court, but one of the things that we really want to do is make you, you know, have you be self-sufficient. Because as you said, peg fees can go up or down, and I think coming to the cities is really not a long-term sustainable model. |
| 00:45:54.69 | Unknown | Absolutely, yeah. |
| 00:45:55.63 | Thomas Theodores | But in all that, probably the biggest thing, and I think there's, before we gave you money, we'd probably want you to be exploring these things, but I think this issue of, The money that you'll get in 2017 will really double the peg fees. And what we look at is that your budget's going to be $150,000 over, whatever the numbers are. I'm just rounding those off when we have the numbers guys who may dispute this. But at the end of the day, to give you money when in 2017, you were going to have this other money. Now, don't forget. If PEC fees went down and you had a financial crisis, you can always come back to us. But certainly, if we give you the money now, then you're not coming back. So, you know, we can defer this discussion. But it just doesn't seem appropriate when, by the way, the PEC fees can go up in 2017, you can have a lot more in your budget. My question is, I'm a little, confused how you could say that if we do not give you money, you know, authorize these peg fees tonight that you're likely not to survive because that When I look at all the possibilities, And the timeline, it just doesn't seem to make any sense that you wouldn't survive. |
| 00:46:58.66 | Michael (CMCM representative) | Well, I mean, with $900,000 in the bank, and if we're looking at roughly $800,000, $900,000 in operating deficits and $700,000 in repairs or new replacement equipment, I mean, that $900,000 is gone. So as I said earlier, it's one or the other. In terms of future surplus fees, which I hope there are some, I mean, even if we have a surplus of $100,000 a year, that's rebuilding that reserve back to an adequate level so we can meet our next cycle of capital replacement. And I think that really has to be allowed for. I think the center can be sustainable, self-sustainable. That's our go. Had it not been for the Comcast settlement,, self-sustainable. That's our go. Had it not been for the Comcast settlement, I would not be here now. I'd be here under different circumstances, and I'd be happier. But that's where we are right now. And as I said, we've tried to minimize the impact on the cities. I mean, the first year, $90,000 funding is only about 2% of franchise fee totals. The next year, it's 7%. Thank you. I mean the first year, 90,000 funding is only about 2% of franchise fee totals. The next year it's 7%. That's pretty minimal and although I know that these times for every city, anything is a lot. But that's kind of where we are at this point. |
| 00:47:23.43 | Unknown | have a that's rebuilding that. |
| 00:48:20.44 | Michael (CMCM representative) | Okay. |
| 00:48:21.40 | Ray Withy | Linda. |
| 00:48:22.30 | Debbie Pfeiffer | Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So I just, I'm learning, you know, I was never the city liaison to your organization, but I really admire what you guys do and what you accomplish. So I'm hearing some interesting perspectives here, and I just want to confirm, You're seeking guidance regarding from Sausalito, the city of Sausalito, one option is roughly $32,000 over five years. Is that cumulative? Over five years. So roughly 6,000 a year, correct? From Sausalito. I just want to understand what you're asking from us because I'm hearing a lot of numbers. Yeah, okay, so I'm hearing that is correct or that isn't correct. |
| 00:48:55.52 | Unknown | Five years. |
| 00:49:03.52 | Barbara Thornton | because I'm hearing a lot of numbers. It's a total of approximately $32,000 for Sausalito over the period of time, and whether it's spread across three or four years is yet to be determined, because if it's four years, it would start this year, and you probably already have your budget allocated. That's fine. So it's probably over three years, so it may be about $11,000. Okay. |
| 00:49:25.09 | Debbie Pfeiffer | That's fine. So, Okay, thank you. So I just wanted to clarify what you were specifically asking from us. Thanks. |
| 00:49:35.77 | Barbara Thornton | you |
| 00:49:37.46 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 00:49:38.06 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:49:38.10 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 00:49:38.18 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:49:38.22 | Ray Withy | Thank you. So Barbara, while you're standing up, so my question for you, and not Tom, who's been getting up to speed last, is what's the MTA doing, period? Okay, so in terms of looking at your budget, for your organization, besides administering these contracts, what's the vision for the MTA now? What is its purpose? So is it worth actually having this separate organization, or should we just channel some of this cost into these guys instead of having another JPA? |
| 00:50:05.82 | Barbara Thornton | Thank you. |
| 00:50:08.98 | Barbara Thornton | Thank you. |
| 00:50:08.99 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 00:50:09.22 | Barbara Thornton | Thank you. We've reduced the cost of MTA considerably over the last three to four years, and two years ago we cut everything 20%. The MTA is still working within its strategic plan, which includes the cable TV franchise, working with the media center, legislation, and things that may be going on both at the federal, state, and the PUC level, providing input to that, and working with the cities on various applications. So it's similar, and we've cut the staff considerably. |
| 00:50:47.00 | Ray Withy | And in your report, thank you, and in your report, you mentioned there was some discussion of structuring things as a loan rather than as just kind of here's, and where did that, how did that pan out, that discussion? |
| 00:50:59.82 | Barbara Thornton | Yeah, we're talking about as an advance. Some of the cities had asked, you know, could we just advance the money and then be able to get it back and Greg Stepanisic, our legal counsel, said that that would be possible since the MTA is able to be able to pay franchise fees to the media center and peg fees that they could also do in advance. We'd have to look at the viability of the media center and to be able to pay that back, you know, how much and over what period of time. But that is an option. and it would be part of the solution. |
| 00:51:33.61 | Ray Withy | Okay. And just the last couple of questions, whichever one of you wants to fill them. |
| 00:51:41.77 | Ray Withy | Does anybody else have a question? Thank you. |
| 00:51:43.90 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 00:51:44.74 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 00:51:44.83 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 00:51:44.88 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 00:51:44.91 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 00:51:45.00 | Ray Withy | Ask questions. |
| 00:51:48.30 | Linda | Thank you. |
| 00:51:48.44 | Ray Withy | I... |
| 00:51:48.96 | Linda | I have a technical question. |
| 00:51:50.41 | Ray Withy | Go ahead. |
| 00:51:51.38 | Linda | Well, I'm trying to understand The comment in the staff report that no MTA decision will be valid unless 75% of the franchise dollars vote in favor of funding. Does that mean, what does that mean? Does 75% vote then obligate the city of Sausalito if we decided not to? |
| 00:52:09.08 | Barbara Thornton | What does that mean? |
| 00:52:16.60 | Barbara Thornton | Yes. What the board did is instead of just six votes out of the 11 members, organizations, they set a threshold of 75% of the total amount, 75% of the $660,000. What that does is if, say, San Rafael or the county did not support this, then it would not pass. If about four or a little more than four, depending on the midsize cities, don't go for it, then it wouldn't pass. So it's saying that 75% of the $660,000 the cities representing that or members representing that would have to vote yes for it to be passed. And if it is passed, the amount would come out of the franchise fees prior to them being paid to the cities. |
| 00:53:11.04 | Ray Withy | The only other avenue would be to pull out of the JPA, right? |
| 00:53:15.58 | Barbara Thornton | And that is a process where you have to submit and then wait a year. |
| 00:53:18.82 | Ray Withy | Right. you here. Thank you. Right. So my last question, just kind of on So there's some, just in terms of your budget, because we're, you know, I don't have the ability to look at Barbara's budget here, but we don't have it, but I should have. But the, is, you know, besides the 90,000 for other city that's in your city costs that are in your budget, which is to me not fair to you, just for you to be subsidizing that, there's advertising that over four years, and promotions that, what exactly is that, adds up to about $90,000, is that, what are we looking at there? |
| 00:53:56.03 | Michael (CMCM representative) | Well, yeah, that's a fairly new budget item. We actually haven't advertised much in the last four years, mainly because demand was so high that we really couldn't sustain any more demand. So word of mouth was working just fine. I mean, that's trickled down. The advertising is really geared toward more of a marketing fundraising strategy. It takes money to make money, fundraising. That's really what that is. |
| 00:54:08.35 | Bill (CMCM board member) | Yeah. |
| 00:54:08.57 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:54:24.87 | Ray Withy | Mm-hmm. Thank you. Okay. Got you. And as far as the, you know, you have one major kind of capital expenditure. Is that some sort of a controller? Is that like the master disaster thing? That's a master disaster. |
| 00:54:36.53 | Michael (CMCM representative) | Thank you. |
| 00:54:36.55 | Unknown | That's a nice job. |
| 00:54:38.03 | Michael (CMCM representative) | for . |
| 00:54:39.30 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 00:54:40.03 | Michael (CMCM representative) | that operate all the channels. It's much more complicated now than it was. We actually added a whole separate play out system for government to be able to accommodate everything. I mean, for instance, the meeting right now, |
| 00:54:50.91 | Unknown | Yes. |
| 00:54:53.63 | Michael (CMCM representative) | We're airing it live on the channel, but we're recording it. back at our head end, that recorded file will get scheduled and replayed. So that's all new capacity we added. Just as more cities came on board, we needed a whole separate system. |
| 00:55:09.54 | Ray Withy | Okay. Thank you. |
| 00:55:10.97 | Unknown | Thank you. Any other questions here? |
| 00:55:13.86 | Ray Withy | Okay, public comment, any questions from the public, please come up and state your name. |
| 00:55:21.45 | Bruce Bagnole | Hello, my name is Bruce Bagnole. I'm the board president for the Community Media Center of Marin. A couple of items. First of all, just to address Jonathan's question, the Media Center's proposal currently on the table in the negotiation relates to taking a neutral position with respect to which cities get cameras at what time. Because, just speaking for myself, in the past, it's been my experience in other jurisdictions, such as Berkeley and other places, that typically cities find communication with their citizens and their residents to be a vital government function and pay for it that way. For example, in Berkeley, the council chambers were equipped, some, partly with peg money that they spent |
| 00:55:59.51 | Unknown | residents. |
| 00:56:08.60 | Bruce Bagnole | about a quarter of a million dollars to make sure that things are legible and could have good lighting. And finally, the lighting here has vastly improved from my last visit. And that's really what happened here for sure. |
| 00:56:15.15 | Ray Withy | last visit. |
| 00:56:16.35 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:56:16.36 | Ray Withy | And feel like we're glowing out here. I'm sorry. |
| 00:56:18.83 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:56:18.96 | Bruce Bagnole | You're glowing out here. I'm sorry, it's a blurring for you. |
| 00:56:21.97 | Unknown | It's a blaring for you. |
| 00:56:23.32 | Ray Withy | No, it isn't glaring. It's glowing. It's glowing. I like that. It's okay. I like that. |
| 00:56:23.33 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:56:23.35 | Bruce Bagnole | No. Bye. |
| 00:56:23.64 | Unknown | Bye. |
| 00:56:25.17 | Bruce Bagnole | I like that. It's okay. So this basically is a really, we're an infrastructure provider. And so what you're taking care of here, if you go ahead and support this, is you're taking care of the public commons. Sausalito has a history of taking good care of its public commons, its parks, the waterfront. There's all kinds, the library here is a vibrant part of the city. And really what Community Media Center of Moran does is provide that infrastructure. So we don't actually go out and advocate and take political positions or anything of this sort. We have to carry all kinds of content that's provided to us, but we provide those means. And so it's a cohesive force for the community. And we're taking care of a public electronic commons, very much like what you find in our history. The Boston Commons, for example, is still in a public domain today. Nobody's grazing cows there than last time I was there, but it's a very important center of the community, and that's what this is electronically. And CMCM also does take advantage of the web. Many of our members learn, young people for example, learn to use video, it's ubiquitous, but they don't necessarily know how to tell stories. And so there's an educational function that happens there. Anyway, I'll be very brief, but I'll mention that taking care of this equipment is very important. And if you look at the system that you just mentioned, the Playout system, it's a huge rack of computers. That means there's a lot of software there. You have to keep the software current, you have to keep the hardware current, and they have to march ahead together, or once you're obsolete, you're just gone. And these channels, as Michael said, are worth millions of dollars to Comcast. They would like nothing better than to see them fade into disuse and get them back. But maybe more important was a question that you asked one of your council members about why would a joint powers kind of agreement benefit both Sausalito and the county. And that's because of the synergism with respect to there's a technical expertise that's maintained by people like Michael and his staff that's very precious, and no one individual small city could afford such a thing. And by working together, you get a benefit that happens the same as when you put the police department in several different jurisdictions together and you share that infrastructure. So that's really what it's all about. I think the really most important thing is how it brings us local content. The only place that the League of Women Voters can get an airing of issues that they want to present or candidates is on these local channels. So taking care of them is a really good investment, makes a lot of sense. Thank you. |
| 00:56:28.50 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 00:56:28.65 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:56:46.84 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:56:47.03 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:56:47.26 | Unknown | The dairy here is a vibrant |
| 00:57:44.05 | Unknown | but I'll be very |
| 00:58:47.61 | Unknown | That's right. |
| 00:58:47.92 | Unknown | I'm sorry. |
| 00:58:48.00 | Unknown | Bye. |
| 00:59:07.63 | Ray Withy | Just so you know, we don't have cows on the bus in common, but we do have swans. |
| 00:59:12.22 | Unknown | Yes, there is a swan boat and a duck place. A duck place, yes. |
| 00:59:12.62 | Ray Withy | There's the swan boat and the ducklings. |
| 00:59:16.15 | Unknown | Thank you. Thank you. Okay, any other questions? |
| 00:59:18.14 | Ray Withy | Okay, any other? Please come up and state your name. Please. |
| 00:59:28.05 | Cynthia Abbott | I'm Cynthia Abbott, a resident and also a member of CMCM. And I'd like to speak as a member and a community member, but I'll just read my statement. I'm here to ask the City Council to please support the work of the Community Media Center at Marin by approving the requested short-term financial support. I have been a media center member for two years, and through their training programs, video equipment, and editing facilities, I became a national award-winning producer for Seriously Now, a weekly news program on Women TV. As a volunteer field producer, my focus is with non-profit and community groups whose concern and work is on the environment. After broadcast on Channel 26, non-profits can post the short news piece on their website, blog, or Facebook page. The non-profits and community groups have been very appreciative for the center's support in making available videos that would otherwise be out of budget for these very small groups. Also as a member of the Environmental Forum at Marin, I am very grateful for Channel 26 as a vehicle in which the important speaker series is broadcast several times a year. The Forum is a non-profit group dedicated to the protection and enhancement of the environment through education about environmental issues. The recording by Media Center volunteers and the broadcast of the speaker series on channel 26 allows for greater coverage of the speaker's important message throughout the community. When considering support for CMCM, please remember that the center provides services and support for individuals, nonprofits, and all the municipalities in Marin. |
| 01:01:11.49 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:01:12.71 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:01:29.43 | Ray Withy | Thank you. Anybody else would like to speak? Public comment? |
| 01:01:34.04 | Ray Withy | Bill, you're not going to tell us what's going on. Thank you. |
| 01:01:39.61 | Ray Withy | Go ahead. |
| 01:01:40.03 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 01:01:41.83 | Claire Blotter | My name is Claire Blotter, and I've lived in Sausalito for about 13 years, and I teach at Tam High two days a week as a tenured independent study teacher, and I teach poetry out loud and poetry writing in the schools through California Poets in the Schools and Poetry Out Loud program. And in the last, I'd say, three or four years, CMCM has overlapped and enriched my work both as a poet and as a teacher about four or five different times. I just want to say a couple things. My neighbor up the street on South Street came to me and said that she had gone through the training with CMCM and she wanted to do a video of a writing workshop that I was teaching at the Marin Arts Council Gallery in St. Rafael. So she did this amazing 12-minute video, other which was on the Transition Mill Valley website. When I went on book tour this summer, people had seen that video and came to the reading and were really supportive of what I was doing. that CMCM is doing is really going out into the world. And later, Michelle went back and ended up teaching classes there. So it's a process that is affecting a lot of people on a lot of different levels. When students did the Poetry Out Loud finals, county finals, the five Marin High School students, there was CMCM there. And I didn't even know they were coming to document it. I worked briefly working on a grant proposal for the Creative Work Fund, and CMCM was just very supportive and there, and we got into the second round, didn't get to the final round, but there was so much support there. And I just want to say something's coming up where I'm going to be videoed for a series through the libraries, Mill Valley Libraries, they're archiving the poets. So just in a few years, the work has been so powerful in my life as a force, and I just wanted to say that |
| 01:02:55.68 | Unknown | This is... |
| 01:03:58.59 | Claire Blotter | that it's go down to CNCM, look what's going on. It's really a community happening. It's a very exciting place to be. it would be a travesty to lose this source of energy and creativity, especially in terms of technology, to have in Marin County a place that a video for Sausalito, too, to get the word out what's going on in Sausalito. So I just am here because it's been a very big force in my life and a real gift to the county. So please, please support it. Thanks. |
| 01:04:48.93 | Unknown | Okay, Bill. I have to speak. I want to thank you all. |
| 01:04:49.03 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:04:49.08 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:04:49.14 | Unknown | Hey, Bill. |
| 01:04:49.87 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:04:49.97 | Unknown | I don't know. |
| 01:04:50.36 | Ray Withy | All right. |
| 01:04:50.43 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 01:04:50.65 | Ray Withy | All right. |
| 01:04:51.22 | Bill (CMCM board member) | How far? |
| 01:04:54.07 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:04:54.14 | Ray Withy | How are things up at Cable Roadway? |
| 01:04:54.49 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 01:04:54.51 | Bill (CMCM board member) | up. |
| 01:04:54.86 | Unknown | THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 01:04:54.90 | Bill (CMCM board member) | THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 01:04:54.95 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:04:54.97 | Bill (CMCM board member) | cable roadways. |
| 01:04:55.89 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:04:55.98 | Bill (CMCM board member) | Brothers. Yeah, I've been involved in this since before CMCM was incorporated. In fact, I signed the incorporation papers. I've seen the $3 million of public money that was invested in this, and tens of thousands of hours of volunteer labor, people that are dedicated to this. And that's a valuable asset. And it would be a shame to see it destroyed or weakened or crippled for the lack of a little money that, you know, for one to nail the kingdom this lost. Just a little personal story. I've been on the board since the start, but I'm up for election again. Please vote for me. I'm an old film camera guy and I never really got into the digital stuff, you know, all those buttons to push. I broke down and took the camera class at CMCN six or eight months ago. And the reason I did it was I planned to shoot the Sausalito People series that Adam was working on. Well, I was a little afraid to go on my own, so I got picked up a few volunteers. Michael loaned me a staff cameraman or two, and a lot of good editing work. And somehow we muddled through. We're getting ready to start the next shoot, this time |
| 01:05:58.79 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:06:25.92 | Unknown | you |
| 01:06:38.63 | Bill (CMCM board member) | I originally envisioned it as a way of showing off the library. I'm on the Friends of the Library. I've worked with the Friends of the Library, and I'm on the board of the Foundation. And we're very proud of the library remodeled and very grateful for the city. I think that was practically a miracle of city-private cooperation. And I know Adam had to bend things to make it work, but it worked. And we've got a library that accommodates kids in a way that it never did before. And I think we ought to show that off. So I've got Bill Broder helping me on coming up with a little screenplay, and I've got to talk to Adam and see how he would like to do it. We'd like to do a little 30-minute documentary featuring some of you guys. Please ring the... foundation people and brag on themselves, help their fundraising. and of course promote the media center. That's just a... Tiny example of the kinds of things that the media center can do. You know, if you're political, we've been working with split screen technology and have told Jared Huffman the kinds of cameras he needs to put in his office in Washington to do an interview from Washington. It wouldn't be hard at all to take a camera into Adam's office for a monthly report. You know, I'm not trying to suck up to you. Well, I am, but you know. Uh... These are examples that come to me because I live here, but this in every jurisdiction in this county can do this kind of stuff. Now some of them are still afraid of their cameras. They don't want cameras gone. Business of government is dirty. Let's keep it out of the public eye. I don't want sausage being made. But that's going to change. Thank you. On your issue, The proposal that the Media Center made was that we would do a |
| 01:09:17.02 | Bill (CMCM board member) | free, well, forget the word free. There's no free lunch. We would install a four-camera setup with a shared switcher in any city that requested it. That would be funded through the MTA at $30,000 a pop. That's far below what it's worth. Now, if the city didn't want that elaborate system, that's fine too. we think that's the way to go. That's the way to get the cameras out there. The MTA has been more reluctant to do that, and they seem to want to fund the cameras by retaining peg fees and telling us where to put them in. But, yeah, we started off on this, and we didn't really have a good model, and so we tried one thing and we tried another, and it's not entirely consistent. Our proposal was really an attempt to make it consistent. cameras for everybody. Now we did have to condition that Some of the early cameras were given to the cities with no strings attached, and we did have to condition that we're responsible under that contract for maintaining all equipment that we bought for the MTA. So, obviously, we can't come in here and fix it if you've got some guy that's stuck chewing gum in the works. So we would be asking the cities to agree to take on the responsibility of securing and safeguarding and maintaining the cameras by signing a maintenance contract with us to repair them, replace them, whatever. at cost. So that's still all under negotiation. We don't know exactly how that's going to come out. I'll take one more time. No. Longer than I showed up. |
| 01:11:34.90 | Ray Withy | Yeah, that's okay. We know you. Thank you, Bill. Hello, Sausalito. |
| 01:11:42.63 | John Westling | jazz and blues by the way. Sorry. John Westling, Lincoln Sausalito, also for 13 years. And I just want to take this up to the 20,000 foot view just to establish, get us back to out of the details and into the main idea if I can. Obviously I support CMCM because they carried Radio Sausalito since day one when they took over the channels, which I really appreciate, which brings the creativity in this community around to the entire county, and I appreciate that very much. I've also been appointed to the board because of that, and hopefully a couple of IQ points as well. But essentially what has happened is the reason that this is happening, just to be absolutely clear for those folks who don't know it or are watching or whatever, Comcast, in my opinion, got away with not donating the $3 million that they were originally going to donate |
| 01:11:43.76 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 01:11:43.78 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:11:43.90 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 01:11:43.95 | Unknown | Sorry. John Wesley. |
| 01:11:47.00 | Unknown | of us. |
| 01:11:47.43 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:11:47.54 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:11:47.68 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:12:17.02 | Unknown | essentially what is |
| 01:12:33.97 | John Westling | to start the CMCM and community media here in Marin, and they've decided they wanted to recoup those costs. Well, thanks to the settlement, they've gotten away with lowering the payments that they're providing us here in the county by half. |
| 01:12:45.83 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:12:47.16 | John Westling | and the And that's why we're here today. or the JPA as it is, contracts Marin TV, which is the community community center of Marin, of which I'm a board member. It's a separate 501 from the JPA. And Marin TV has decided that we really can't do what we are contracted to do with the money that's coming in from Comcast. And so we're in the position of asking communities to help fund a little bit more so that we can continue to provide the community and the county with the services that are being seen on three TV channels every night by hundreds, if not thousands of people right now. And so it's that community meeting, it's that valuable free speech, that outreach that is available to the community that we are contracted to provide on three channels that need some additional funding. I mean, that's why we're here tonight. And I certainly appreciate the fact that so far other communities have that we are contracted to provide on three channels that need some additional funding. That's why we're here tonight. I certainly appreciate the fact that so far other communities have gone through these discussions, and I know Michael can tell you he's been up and gotten his speech through before, and so far no one said no. So it would be really sad to me personally if Sausalito was the first to say no. But with that, I certainly encourage you to say yes and support community media and Marin. Thank you very much. |
| 01:14:03.10 | Ray Withy | Thank you, Jonathan. Anybody else? |
| 01:14:11.64 | Steven Olson | Hello, I'm Steven Olson, been a resident of Sausalito since 1990 and the president of a nonprofit organization here called Cultural and Educational Media. We produce television programming. We are a member of CMCM family. Our staff has all been trained at CMCM. Four the studio production, editing, immensely helpful. We also produce three series at CMCM. One of them you may have seen. It's carried, presented by KQED to PBS national system called Global Spirit. I'm speaking about that next week actually because I'm part of the Sausalito speaker series. And two other series. And I must say this issue of deciding which arm to cut off when it comes to equipment replacement or staff time, from the point of view of our nonprofit organization, both are essential. Michael has purchased wonderful video equipment about three years ago, which has been a lot which is high definition and which is of a caliber which one can produce a program for national public television. He's been very smart with equipment. I've seen a lot of media centers where there's a lot of decisions to be made, hundreds of decisions. And everything I've seen there, I know because I'm one of the founders of Link TV and my job at Link TV was to also purchase equipment. Nothing but praise for what he's done and yes, where he's going to really stay in the game, you need to replace particularly those cameras. Camera technology is such that you get about two, two and a half years, maybe three years. That period is just about coming to a close. The other thing about the center, which if you do go and visit, you'll see there's a lot of vitality. There's a place where people can actually realize an idea. They can have training in storytelling and producing and actually put something on the air, can show their friends. It can be picked up. We at Link TV have picked up programs that were produced at CMCM. Amazing resource in an environment where there's a lot of other doors that are closing, film schools, film departments, communication departments. So I really urge you to support the center through this difficult period. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Next. Thank you. Thank you. |
| 01:16:44.15 | Ed Dudkowski | you |
| 01:16:50.62 | Ed Dudkowski | My name is Ed Dudkowski. I've been a broadcast television producer in Marin County for about 45, almost 50 years. starting at the major broadcast stations and eventually having a production company in Tam Valley that had national clients such as IBM and Intel and Safeway stores. So I have a pretty good perspective on this. About 14 years ago, I was appointed to be on a committee called the MAC, the Media Access Advisory Committee. And we met once a month for nine years. And what came out of it after we brought in some major consultants from around the country that had worked with systems that had dealt with Comcast before, eventually was the recommendations for the media center and for the nonprofit to set it up. In our wildest imaginations, we never realized that we would be outpacing cities like Cambridge and others that you saw up here tonight in so many aspects in both limited budget and production of programming and training of people in the community. And it's even more amazing when you consider that that this particular operation comes from a JPA that has 11 entities that have to come to an agreement on it. And that's one of the problems we're having right now is just we need to all come to an agreement. I'm just asking for the same kind of unity that we need nationally and we need here now tonight with the other communities in this county. So please support it. It's an important contribution to this community. to |
| 01:18:15.90 | Ray Withy | Thank you. Thank you. Anybody else? Okay, with that, let's bring it back up here. Comments? |
| 01:18:23.38 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 01:18:23.63 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 01:18:23.67 | Ray Withy | Can I ask Barbara one more question? Sure. Barbara. Or Tom could answer it. Whatever happened with Novato and combining the media centers with Novato's media center now that we're all on state, when does their franchise agreement run out? |
| 01:18:38.01 | Barbara Thornton | They've gone to the statewide franchise, I think, about two years ago. We did talk with them, and they continued on with their existing entity, which was with Nevada High School. I think it was Nevada, one of the high schools up there. And I'm not sure they're continuing with that, so they may be back. |
| 01:18:41.42 | Ray Withy | Mm-hmm. |
| 01:18:49.47 | Unknown | Right. |
| 01:18:55.53 | Unknown | you |
| 01:19:00.30 | Barbara Thornton | to their own facility at the school district, so I'm not quite sure on that. So we actually looked at, MTA took a quick look at our agreement of formation, and to add Nevada would be quite complex. And so we hadn't continued to pursue that with them, and vice versa. Thank you. |
| 01:19:24.94 | Ray Withy | Okay. |
| 01:19:27.61 | Ray Withy | Okay, thank you. All right, with that, ma'am. I guess we have to vote on this. |
| 01:19:34.09 | Ray Withy | Thank you. Somebody's first. |
| 01:19:35.67 | Ray Withy | Oh, I'm sorry, comments, Linda? Thank you. |
| 01:19:39.42 | Linda | Okay, Ray, could I just ask a question of Mary or Adam? What exactly are you asking of us tonight? Is it to give guidance to Council Member Theodorus when he is asked to vote at an upcoming MTA board meeting? Is that what we're asking? |
| 01:19:48.21 | Unknown | to, |
| 01:19:51.72 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:19:51.76 | Unknown | . |
| 01:19:57.71 | Unknown | Okay. |
| 01:19:58.10 | Thomas Theodores | Thank you. |
| 01:20:01.56 | Thomas Theodores | Well again, thank you all, Barbara and Michael and everybody else here in supporting the Media Center. And as I said earlier, I think the Media Center is doing a great job. I don't think that's the issue here today. I think it's something we need. We need uh, the the Boston Commons of media and I think it's wonderful we have it. I think it's wonderful that we're on TV. I think Sausalito has been one of the early ones to adopt that we want to our proceedings we now have our planning commission on. I think it's a wonderful thing that we do. As I said before, what we're looking at is a financial issue that goes to 2017. We're not talking about whether we want the media center to exist. We're talking about what we should do to get through this financial crisis. One of the I think frustrations I've had as an MTA member is that during these discussions with the MTA is that The media center has been consistent that it wants funds from the cities that, again, have to come out of our budget and go for other things rather than exploring the possibilities of fundraising, of the advances, of bringing down the reserves. I'm in favor of... looking at creative ways to help them, again, possibly of the advances or loans. I think that makes a lot of sense. If you have a short-term financial I think this is one of the rare times that we ever have that we actually are looking at additional money in a future year, three years above. To me, it just makes all the sense in the world. In the interim, I think we have to look at what we're going to do with reserves or fundraising. I don't see the existence being threatened And I have I'm only not too far out of my campaign for this office. And what we heard over and over is fiscal responsibility that we want from our city management and our council to be fiscally responsible. We need to look at other ways of funding these things other than having just coming from the city budget because not everyone has access to Comcast. Sausalito residents, there's a more limited percentage of who gets to use this, yet we're asking for money from the general fund. I do want to respond to one thing, a comment that was made that no other city has said no. So far, only several cities have voted on this, and I may, I don't want to get into the tally at this point, but certainly Corte Madera has only approved, possibly given in advance. I think another was silent, and maybe one other said yes. This has not been We're the only ones holding out. We have to be very clear. So we want to be very clear that this is, we don't want to be looked at, this is some pressure that we're the naysayer standing between the survival of the media center and everything else. We want to make sure and we have to make our decision based on what we think is the right thing to do. Again, thank you all for coming. |
| 01:22:58.16 | Ray Withy | All right. Thank you. |
| 01:23:00.13 | Unknown | Yes, Ray. |
| 01:23:03.62 | Linda | You know, each of us have different responsibilities for representing the city on JPAs, various JPAs. And so, In terms of the details, very much going to rely on Council Member Theodorus. He knows this subject much more than I do. I just want to make one observation, which is We're talking about $32,000, $33,000, maybe not this year but next year, so a three-year period. I heard the number 11,000 a year, say for three years, for example. And even though we've got a general fund budget of about $13 million, I sit on the Finance Committee and $11,000 is a lot of money. $11,000 means that we're going to have to, something is not going to get done. And that's a reality. |
| 01:24:10.03 | Ray Withy | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 01:24:11.04 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 01:24:11.29 | Linda | Thank you. |
| 01:24:11.31 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 01:24:12.54 | Debbie Pfeiffer | Okay, so I want to... the Media Center for their informative presentation in this great packet. And I want to also say that I appreciate all the comments that I've heard. I've learned a lot in some of the insights from the council members who have served as liaison and have a deeper awareness of this. And I can believe certainly that there are probably opportunities for budget efficiencies. And I also confirm I have a very solid track record of fiscal responsibility and really being very careful with respect to this sort of thing. But transparency was also a very important issue. And I think that when we bring Saucedo Council sessions and the Planning Commission sessions to the homes of Sausalito residents through these broadcasts, we are doing an incredible service to our residents for transparency. I also believe that, I mean, let's face it too, we listen to Radio Sausalito broadcast by this facility. We don't listen to Radio Ross. We listen to Radio Sausalito. And it's absolutely fantastic. 11,000 a year is a lot of money, but I'm looking at this report, at least that I received, and I'm seeing The time period is from 2013 to 2017. That's in 2017, it's my understanding, that's when the Comcast settlement readjusts. And the center gets full funding because right now Comcast has cut a deal where they're withholding half of the revenues that should actually be going here. So, which really angers me, by the way. So, you know, I'm thinking, well, over a five-year period, that's not 11, that's 6,000 a year. And I know that there was a line-item budget at one point that said that the little pizza dinners we get, you know, as a line item was 6,000 a year for this council. I'm sorry, I know that it's 32,000 in total, but it's over a five-year period. According to what I received as a council member, it says 2013 to 2017, that's five years, 32,000, that's roughly 6,000 a year. What I'm saying is the line item on the budget for this council dinner, the little pizza we get in closed session is $6,000. I'd be fine as a former Arts Commission member, and my hat's off to our founder, Jonathan Westerling of Radio Sausalito, who's also a former arts commissioner, to sacrifice my slice of pizza and give up that line item to help fund this. I have no doubt that in the next five years they will revisit the budget efficiencies, the opportunities for equity and for perhaps a little bit more streamlining. But I think Sassuro is known for the arts. We're known for transparency. At least transparency is very important to me. And that's why I would encourage my fellow council members to consider supporting this request. |
| 01:27:26.52 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:27:28.44 | Ray Withy | Yeah, so for purposes of clarity and transparency, I sat on the MTA as associate representative from 2006 to 2012, right? So, and this is, as I said to Michael before, I knew this was going to happen. And this was my problem with the whole setup, was that the cities wouldn't get their act together through the MTAs to contract with the CMCM at a fair rate to provide all these services at a reasonable cost to the cities and do it through the MTA in a way that made sense for everybody without getting played by the bigger cities and for people with an agenda. And that's what happened. And, you know, the fundraising didn't materialize both from the economy and who knows if it's a reality. I don't know the ins and outs of public access around the country. But from my knowledge, it varies from city to city how much public fundraising goes into each one of these entities. So to come back and ask, and so, and I saw that the MTA change from a very well-functioning board to a board that became very political, and I was happy to let go of it. And so what the, I think coming back for, uh, money is I hear you're saying your job is to run that organization, make sure it survives, right? So if I want to have enough reserves to survive, if I had the wherewithal to do that, I wish my business had the wherewithal to survive, whatever, come what may. And as far as 501c3s and cities supporting nonprofits, we can't support every nonprofit that has a viable sense of purpose because we just don't have that capability. So I'm going to put the blame back on the MTA and not the CMCM because the MTA has to, first of all, the plan that you have a fixed, you have to pay to play $10,000 and then it split amongst the... That's crazy. That's silly. That's the kind of crap that happened on this board when I joined it. And that is ridiculous. play by the politics nonsense that goes on in these JPAs. And I'm not blaming Barbara, because she's trying to herd the cats. The... The MTA needs to suck it up. reexamine its own budget. come back with a loan to these guys so they stay above board and find out where it can dig its own money up instead of taking it out of the public's pocket. All right? And that's what needs to happen here. This is a great thing. You know, this media center is a great thing. Maybe the structure needs to change. Your contract's too onerous, in my opinion, to provide walk-in service for every, and we're not paying for it? But, It's. The contract needs to come back with a solution that you can live with. You're still searching for a viable model to support yourself. The contract between the MTA and the media center needs to be redone. The funding for these public, I mean, it is, again, silliness I mean, it's financial irresponsibility on the part of the members of this board that they should agree to a contract that makes some cities subsidized versus not others. Right? And that You know, that's why we didn't do that. We didn't want to go play politics at the MTA. I didn't want to do it. So we just bought our own camera, stuck it up, and stuck it on the Internet. Okay? Because I could see it wasn't going to happen through the MTA. without without putting you guys in a really horrible position. So this is the MTA's problem. They've got to clean it up. They've got to clean it up inside their bone budget. And don't come back here for money if you can't get your act together. |
| 01:31:20.09 | Ray Withy | you |
| 01:31:20.10 | Ray Withy | Well, with that being said, you know, I think the only thing that could be feasible is some kind of a loan structure, and that might be feasible. I think we just have |
| 01:31:35.97 | Ray Withy | . Bring it up and vote. I mean, Bill was right. There's so many people who put so much effort into this nonsense. From Ron Auer before me and this Comcast contract, which was the main issue back in the day, and then switching over to this, the difficult thing is it came back to bite in the butt because Comcast could pay a lot more lawyers than we can and took and withheld some of those fees to transfer it over. So here it is. |
| 01:31:38.55 | Ray Withy | There's no. |
| 01:31:58.27 | Ray Withy | It's not my problem that the MTA created. I can't go to my electorate and say, I'm gonna fund this 503. I'm gonna get money to the art festival. instead of this other one. Right? So I'm happy to give you a contract for services that covers your costs and gives you cash flow. And has anybody been able to a higher quality of video feeds, I'm happy to do that because that's fair. And that providing public with a service But to say Ross gets money and Fairfax gets money, whoever it is gets money, and one other community doesn't, that's just irresponsible government, and that's the MTA's fault. |
| 01:32:29.85 | Ray Withy | you |
| 01:32:29.93 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 01:32:29.97 | Ray Withy | Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Any other comments? |
| 01:32:34.59 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 01:32:34.62 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 01:32:34.72 | Ray Withy | Okay. |
| 01:32:34.98 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 01:32:34.99 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 01:32:35.03 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:32:35.53 | Jeff Bradley | Well, |
| 01:32:36.75 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 01:32:36.77 | Linda | Yeah, I'm really torn here, in part because of... Thank you. the unfamiliarity with the complexity of what's going on here. But I'm also a little worried you know, Um, I mean, the arguments here I'm hearing are arguments Um, about some structural problems with MTA That's what I'm hearing, really. |
| 01:33:06.79 | Ray Withy | That's what I'm hearing, really. The contract that these guys have and how they're funded and the MTA itself, in my opinion. |
| 01:33:14.21 | Linda | No, no, that's perfectly all right. I'm sort of trying to get my arms around this and understand it. But I'm also Um, Quite. resonate with Council Member Pfeiffer that, you know, Okay, 32,000 divided by three or 32,000 divided by five, whatever. It's 32,000 over some period of time. Yes, it's a lot of money, and this is a struggle. I've got to be honest. |
| 01:33:47.47 | Unknown | Okay. |
| 01:33:51.86 | Unknown | So, |
| 01:33:53.78 | Thomas Theodores | And the last comment. I'm not so concerned about the MTA. That's a larger issue that we're going for. I'm still coming back that this is a short-term financial issue. I do think that there are funds available that are other than us giving them the money. They're the funds that we could advance them, There are funds that they can be raised. There are reserves that can be brought down. I think it's a simple financing issue. And I agree, if this was something that said, okay, $32,000 and it's gonna save the media center, otherwise it's going down, No problem. But I really think, and I also think it sets the precedent for down the road that we have to look at the media center, that they have to be self-sustaining. When there's financial crisis, maybe they have to do fundraising. They certainly have to look at financing alternatives. And so I think rather than just ask money. So there's certainly money and $32,000, we can do a lot in this city. But there's also setting the precedent further down the road when the peg fees go up or down. So that's my thing. Again, we love it, but it's for that reason that I would Advocate only in advance rather than gift of money. |
| 01:34:59.36 | Debbie Pfeiffer | And Mr. Mayor, I have a comment. So I'm more concerned with setting a precedent with respect to supporting the arts, supporting broadcasting local government to locals. And the fact that, and I hear what, it resonates with me when I hear that there are concerns regarding structural issues or concerns regarding the way the budgeting is structured with these organizations, MTA. But at the same time, I'm also hearing that the main reason they're up here asking for this money is because of the Comcast settlement, which resolves itself in 2017. And I have absolutely no doubt that especially after hearing this conversation up here that the MTA and CMCM will go back and with guidance from its members, you know, revisit some of the things that are being discussed here and the concerns. But to me it comes down to the $6,000 a year over five years, the $32,000. To me, again, it goes back to, you know, I'm comparing what we're getting for this. To me it's invaluable and I would hate to say no to this. |
| 01:36:16.46 | Ray Withy | Thank you. Yeah, I don't disagree with you that the CMCM is a good thing and it's doing |
| 01:36:19.57 | Unknown | No. |
| 01:36:24.97 | Ray Withy | It's doing a public good. And we need to pay any public good, somebody's got to pay for it. Some one way or another. Because there's no free public goods. There's no free private goods. maybe the government should be paying for the E and the P part of the PEG aspect of things, but as far as any governmental costs that are being subsidized by the CMCM. We should pay. right, if it's a governmental cost. and pay at a fair rate that allows Michael to operate his organization if it's structured right in a survivable way. that. I think there's two entities here, and I think those two entities need to solve this bigger problem, is that it's not viable, right? It's not viable going forward, the CMCM and the MTA needs to sort of see what it does. Does it need to have legislative lobbyists anymore? Since all these things have moved into contracts that are state-run. It's a bigger picture question. It's not going out of business tomorrow. And I would encourage the MTA to revisit the whole issue and look inward rather than look outward into our pockets. Okay? Because we're already funding a budget at the MTA and that budget needs to be, and Barbara's cut it under her watch, but needs to be reexamined first. And then take the risk. If the MTA wants to subsidize the CMCM, then have the MTA structure a loan to the CMCM, keep them afloat. And then if it doesn't work out, they have to clean up the mess. And don't have it subsidized out of our current budgets because we're going to later on we have to defund the historic downtown National Register application to fund the housing element. Right? we gotta make hard choices too. So these guys have to make some hard choices. |
| 01:38:13.62 | Ray Withy | All right, so what do we send? Can we make a motion? Yeah. Yes. We'll make a motion. |
| 01:38:15.80 | Debbie Pfeiffer | and |
| 01:38:16.41 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:38:20.29 | Debbie Pfeiffer | So I move to, well, obviously I guess if I were to make a motion, Supporting this, it would not succeed because I don't have the votes for that. So, well. |
| 01:38:31.44 | Ray Withy | Well, you don't know that. |
| 01:38:36.66 | Debbie Pfeiffer | Thomas, you're the liaison for the media center. |
| 01:38:36.74 | Ray Withy | Thomas, you're the lady. |
| 01:38:38.40 | Barbara Thornton | Bye. |
| 01:38:38.45 | Ray Withy | for the meeting. |
| 01:38:39.04 | Barbara Thornton | Media Center. you |
| 01:38:40.22 | Thomas Theodores | Well, I'll move that we give authority that we certainly support the media center, but that we do so in form of advancing the same amount of funds that they're asking for as an advance and that we vote in that direction. But that I would not have the authority to gift or allow them to be taken from the franchise fees otherwise. Thank you. |
| 01:39:03.96 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:39:04.08 | Ray Withy | Could I just amend your motion and say that absent the cost subsidies for other cities, we're happy to advance, you know, vote to advance money of the MTA to keep it afloat. But the subsidizing city cost of $90,000 in here is crazy town. |
| 01:39:04.11 | Thomas Theodores | Thank you. |
| 01:39:04.13 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:39:04.18 | Thomas Theodores | I'm just... |
| 01:39:19.79 | Ray Withy | not accept the exact wording, but would you take the general flavor of that? |
| 01:39:28.04 | Ray Withy | Okay. |
| 01:39:28.90 | Unknown | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 01:39:32.47 | Ray Withy | Debbie, you wanna? |
| 01:39:36.78 | Debbie Pfeiffer | I'm grappling with this because I'm grappling with So let me understand your motion. Are you, your motion is to grant them this? |
| 01:39:49.34 | Thomas Theodores | My motion is to grant them the money in the short term to help them through this particular |
| 01:39:49.66 | Debbie Pfeiffer | Okay. |
| 01:39:54.60 | Thomas Theodores | a financial crisis, but that in 2017, when they get additional PEG funds, which they double and they'll have actually overage, that they, that we get a credit for that and we get it back. So instead of paying for it, that we're advancing that. That gets them through the financial crisis, but does not, |
| 01:40:03.28 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:40:03.31 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:40:03.33 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 01:40:07.43 | Unknown | I see. I see. |
| 01:40:11.68 | Thomas Theodores | Uh, But we would ultimately get it back so we, in my mind, I consider that a win-win, but others would disagree. |
| 01:40:13.62 | Debbie Pfeiffer | Okay. but others would disagree. Okay. All right. I understand. Well, if we have the votes for that. |
| 01:40:20.03 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 01:40:20.05 | Thomas Theodores | Yeah, well, if we had |
| 01:40:21.03 | Ray Withy | votes for this. |
| 01:40:21.54 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:40:21.72 | Thomas Theodores | Hi, Debbie. |
| 01:40:25.81 | Unknown | Council Member Pfeiffer. |
| 01:40:27.90 | Debbie Pfeiffer | Yes. |
| 01:40:30.19 | Unknown | Council member Theodorus. |
| 01:40:31.60 | Debbie Pfeiffer | Absolutely. |
| 01:40:33.20 | Unknown | Council Member Withey. |
| 01:40:34.92 | Ray Withy | Yes. |
| 01:40:37.53 | Unknown | Vice Mayor Leon. |
| 01:40:39.43 | Ray Withy | Yeah, and just, and I'll, if you'll give me a second, I mean, we're pulling out a lot of these things. We're pulling out the drug task force nonsense because these things have got to be cleaned up, and the only way to vote and clean them up, not that the MTA is in the same structure as the drug enforcement task force, but if they're not providing the services or they're not being treated as fairly as the CMC and should in this case, then the only way you can make things happen is by causing a stink. And that's what we need to do to keep you guys, to help you guys out. Okay. Debbie? So I vote yes to Tom's motion. |
| 01:41:09.78 | Unknown | So I vote. |
| 01:41:11.99 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 01:41:12.45 | Unknown | Mayor Weiner. |
| 01:41:13.39 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 01:41:13.41 | Ray Withy | Yes. Okay. I thank you very much for coming, Barbara, Bill, all of you. Thank you for your efforts. |
| 01:41:24.99 | Thomas Theodores | Yes, thank you all for coming. |
| 01:41:26.91 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 01:41:26.93 | Thomas Theodores | I think you're all moving, taking a road trip from here. |
| 01:41:32.26 | Michael (CMCM representative) | Good luck. I don't want to comment on your proceeding, but I want to thank you for taking the time for us. I know we ran late. You're scheduled until 2 AM live. Take all the time you need. |
| 01:41:39.26 | Unknown | Right? So... I'm not. |
| 01:41:44.41 | Ray Withy | We got it. |
| 01:41:44.78 | Unknown | hello you |
| 01:41:44.97 | Ray Withy | Tom, we'll stick around afterwards and just talk into the microphone. |
| 01:41:46.44 | Unknown | We'll see. Thank you. Yeah. |
| 01:41:47.38 | Michael (CMCM representative) | afterwards. You can do that as long as there's a signal you'll be on. But be careful. If you don't want to be on, make sure the mic's on. |
| 01:41:50.23 | Ray Withy | as long as there's a signal you'll be on. Thank you. |
| 01:41:56.95 | Ray Withy | Now you tell me. Thank you. All right, next item that we have is Historic Preservation Regulations Update. Jeremy? Jeremy? |
| 01:42:21.18 | Jeremy | Let me wait a moment while we get the PowerPoint presentation. Ready to go. PowerPoint presentation is ready to go. |
| 01:42:30.75 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:42:32.35 | Jeremy | Marijuana Council members. The item before you that I'll be discussing is the update of the historic preservation regulations. This has been a project on the |
| 01:42:49.21 | Jeremy | on your calendar for many years. An overview of what I'll be briefly discussing tonight is first to ask the Council to appoint one of your members to what staff is describing as a three-member subcommittee to advise staff and the consultant on preparation of the historic preservation regulations, and second, to authorize the City Manager to enter into a contract with our consultant. In terms of background, the updated historic preservation regulations, these are basically the regulations in our municipal code, in our zoning regulations, which prescribe the process for identifying properties that are on our local historic register, procedures that the Historic Landmarks Board should use in evaluating landscaping, sites, structures in terms of their historic significance, how the Planning Commission and the Historic Landmarks Board together should approach design review of properties that may have some historic importance, be it on the National Register, which would be the most significant, the state register or the local register, or none of those but still have historic significance and add character to the neighborhood, the residential neighborhood, as well as the commercial neighborhood. The project objectives of the update is to In addition to the items that we have listed on our slide here is also to increase the effectiveness of our regulations to address issues such as demolition by neglect where a property owner may not agree with the city's interest and the community's interest in protecting the property and allow his or her property to decline, essentially get to a point where the city has faced this quandary of allowing him to demolish it in order to, because it's become such an eyesore for the neighborhood. Also to update our procedures for the review of properties that are on our local register, to work with our historic design guidelines, which the council adopted about two and a half years ago, to maintain consistency of our regulations with the state regulations for protection of historic properties and also to establish more clear guidelines on how the decision makers both the HLB, the Planning Commission and the Council should approach environmental review for historic properties, the CEQA process on projects which involve historic properties. So to address these, the staff put together a request for proposal, or an RFP, and we sent this request for proposal to 10 consulting firms, asking them to give us proposals on update of our historic preservation regulations. We received proposals from three firms, and then we had a subcommittee of the Historic Landmarks Board that was staffed essentially by Morgan Pierce and Carolyn Carnot of the Historic Landmarks Board as well as Heidi Scoble and myself. We reviewed these proposals that we received and it was unanimous consent of the subcommittee that the proposal we'd received from Diat and Bhatia was most responsive to our RFP and it's the recommendation of the subcommittee, of this subcommittee, that that would be the proposal that we should move forward with. |
| 01:46:25.01 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:46:29.26 | Jeremy | Their proposal is a $30,000 contract composed of $25,000 in fixed costs for the actual preparation of the document and its different iterations. And then also a $5,000 component, which would be on a time materials basis for meeting attendance and public participation. The graph you have here, the graphic, shows a seven-step process that we have put together to incorporate ample opportunities for public input. The first step is for the consultant to meet with various stakeholders. This will be part of the kickoff process with the consultant and getting to know the historic character and importance of those features which are historic importance to the community, obviously with the |
| 01:47:22.94 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:47:26.11 | Jeremy | the Historic Society, and other property owners and business owners involved in historic matters. The second item, second box here we have, The subcommittee, which would be as staff is proposing one member of the city council, hopefully appointed by the city council tonight, one member appointed by the planning commission, and one member from the historic landmarks board. This three-member subcommittee would work with the staff and the consultant to put to assemble draft regulations, which would be responsive to our historic needs in the community. We've identified an option here for legislative committee meetings, if that would be seen as appropriate at this point. After the draft ordinance has been put together by the consultant and with the input from the subcommittee and the staff, We'd be moving over to a community workshop with invitations to all of the stakeholders and advertising for the community. We'd get, taking that input, we might, the subcommittee might feel it'd be best to make some revisions to the draft regulations to address concerns we've had at the committee, or her at the workshop. once again. for additional subcommittee meetings and legislative committee meetings. After that has been coalesced, then we would take it to the City Council for a general temperature, to get a temperature from the city council. Are we heading in the right direction on this? We're looking for the council to say yes, staff and subcommittee and consultant. We feel comfortable with this set of draft regulations beginning to moving into the hearing process at the HLB, which is the next item on our flowchart here. Public hearings at the Historic Landmarks Board, followed by Planning Commission hearings. And, of course, any points here we might want to, the feeling of the subcommittee might be that maybe we should have legislative committee meetings to address some concerns or additional subcommittee meetings with the consultant, finally culminating in city council hearings on the draft, hopefully for adoption. |
| 01:49:35.19 | Ed Dudkowski | Amen. |
| 01:49:56.99 | Jeremy | The City Council review of the draft ordinance, this is a model that we used with the The Council's review of the construction time limits regulations where we got the Council's endorsement of those before we initiated hearings for adoption by the Planning Commission and City Council was a process that worked well. So that's why we are proposing it at this point. So in summary, the staff recommendations is for the council tonight to appoint one of your members as the council's representative to this three-member subcommittee to work with the staff and the consultant on the regulations, and second, to authorize the city manager to enter into a contract with Dyat and Vatia for updated the historic preservation regulations for $30,000. That concludes our presentation, and we're available for questions. |
| 01:50:52.54 | Ray Withy | Okay, thank you, Jeremy. Okay, questions? Linda, you have a question? |
| 01:50:56.97 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 01:50:57.88 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 01:50:57.98 | Ray Withy | Right? |
| 01:50:58.82 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:50:58.97 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 01:50:58.99 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:50:59.04 | Ray Withy | So, |
| 01:50:59.26 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:51:00.15 | Ray Withy | Jeremy, was the, and just refresh my memory because I didn't have time to go back and look at the budget. Is the budget amount for this in your budget? Is it this exact amount? |
| 01:51:10.75 | Jeremy | Pitch the nail on the head. |
| 01:51:12.46 | Ray Withy | How does it always work out with these consultants? This is my question. We work with consultants to make sure that they're in the money. All right, so okay. So it's not like we have to reallocate funds here. |
| 01:51:14.04 | Jeremy | This is my question. Bye. Thank you. Thank you. We work with consultants. We make sure that they're in the money. |
| 01:51:24.71 | Jeremy | This was the dollar amount that the Council had allocated for this project as part of |
| 01:51:24.79 | Thomas Theodores | What's the name? |
| 01:51:30.72 | Jeremy | Yeah. |
| 01:51:30.73 | Thomas Theodores | You showed the process. Did you have an anticipated date when they would be completed and they would be approved by the City Council? Or at least a general idea of that. |
| 01:51:38.98 | Jeremy | Or at least a general idea of that. These are the steps that we have. I know there's another item on the agenda tonight following this, and so the staff is going to be integrating those two. But back to the end date for the council hearings on this, we're looking at spring. This spring? Okay. Spring 2014. 2014, great. |
| 01:51:55.61 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:51:55.62 | Ed Dudkowski | Thank you. |
| 01:51:55.72 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:51:55.86 | Ed Dudkowski | Thank you. |
| 01:52:01.97 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 01:52:01.98 | Jeremy | you |
| 01:52:02.52 | Ray Withy | Thank you. Any other questions up here? Any questions from the public? Okay, let's bring it back for comment. Any comments? No way. |
| 01:52:18.25 | Linda | Yeah, I would encourage us more frequently to incorporate the step of a City Council review of the draft ordinance. I think that would have been very helpful for the previous discussion we had two weeks ago, right? And make that part of our normal process. So I fully support that. Thank you. Okay, good. |
| 01:52:41.56 | Debbie Pfeiffer | Mr. Mayor, I'll just say that I |
| 01:52:42.42 | Linda | Yes, I'll tell you. |
| 01:52:44.31 | Debbie Pfeiffer | I'm happy to see the process and moving forward for the historic preservation regulations. And I also like the subcommittees. I think any opportunities for more Community participation is a good idea. So I just wanted to go on record as |
| 01:53:03.14 | Unknown | Okay. |
| 01:53:03.49 | Debbie Pfeiffer | because I notice it says option and I would I would support. |
| 01:53:07.85 | Thomas Theodores | Thank you. Yeah. |
| 01:53:08.76 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:53:08.91 | Thomas Theodores | Thank you. And I'm just going to express my happiness. So we've been looking at this since back when I was on the HLB. And I'm glad it's there. And I'm glad it's another item that's above the line that we're getting done. So thank you for bringing this forward. |
| 01:53:22.34 | Ray Withy | Okay. So just two things. One, so this is a little bit of background. So the legislative committee, I think, was initially established to try to facilitate pushing legislation more quickly to the council, whether it was legislation that was coming up from a board or a commission or something that originated here like this, which has also come up from the board and commission. So the, and also, frankly, to disseminate or this distribute power from outside of other committees, right? The finance committee or the OMIC committee, just kind of like when I first joined everything went through the Finance Committee, man, and you didn't know what the hell was happening. So the, now we're, that purpose of, I put this in place was to try and spread that out a little bit more. So in terms of the, where it says option, Linda, I believe, and correct me if I'm wrong, Jeremy, the option is whether we use a subcommittee or the legislative committee as a, in these particular roles. I don't, I think the, what we're doing on the 30th, right, with the, what's that one, |
| 01:54:35.38 | Mary Wagner | That's regulations for single family dwellings and high family |
| 01:54:36.44 | Ray Withy | Regulations for single family dwellings and family blinders. Is a good structure later in the process. I think it's good to have a subcommittee early on and then you get a little bit more hands-on community feedback. But at some point it becomes our responsibility. And so, you know, where we have to work it out up here, and if we have questions, we can reform a committee. So I would use the subcommittee early on and then push it through the legislative committee, which is Tom and I at the moment. that would be my suggestion rather than just pick a or have the legislative committee be the part of the subcommittee of this whole thing. And whether it's Tom there or I know it doesn't really matter. At least somebody's going to be there and then the whole process is consistent. So there isn't, you don't get too much circular churn. But it's great to have a subcommittee. I don't know who we would appoint. What are the other, how many people are on the sub, you want to be on? Three. So who are the three? Or what type of human beings are on the three? |
| 01:55:44.11 | Jeremy | They're all very articulate individuals, and so we're looking for one representative from the council, and then we'd be requesting the Planning Commission and the HLB to appoint their respective representatives. |
| 01:55:52.24 | Bill (CMCM board member) | Thank you. |
| 01:55:52.28 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:55:52.30 | Bill (CMCM board member) | Thank you. |
| 01:55:59.21 | Thomas Theodores | I'm a little confused. I think I like your idea, but I'm not sure I understand. So are you saying that instead of a Council member on this committee, we have the legislative committee be inserted in the process. |
| 01:56:10.00 | Unknown | Bye. |
| 01:56:10.87 | Ray Withy | The more I thought about it after you and I talked about this today, Thank you. I think that's a good flow because it's going to be consensus driven anyway. It's not going to be, you don't need an odd number of people to take a vote or else we've got some problems with who's on the planning commission and the HLB, to be frank. Because at some point we should all be reaching some consensus. So maybe that's a good scenario. At least we can try it and see if it works. |
| 01:56:37.67 | Jeremy | I'm sorry. Thank you. One thing to keep in mind, and there's the next item on the agenda following me, we are proposing, you'll see this graphic or a variant of that in the presentation there. And we are also recommending a subcommittee, a comparable subcommittee for the housing element, but that just being a two-member committee with one member from the council and one member from the planning commission. project, the housing element, does not involve historic issues. We're going three here because we also have a representative from the HLB. So my thought is... when you're identifying the best advisory committee here for the historic preservation regulations be mindful of the next item coming up which will be asking similar questions. And so do you want to have the legislative committee being in that role also? And also that is going to double up the amount of work in front of the legislative committee or is it better to have one city council member who specializes in historic issues to work on this one and another council member who specializes in housing issues to be working on that housing subcommittee? Just thoughts for your consideration. |
| 01:58:04.76 | Ray Withy | different issues and require different skill sets and all that good stuff and we can debate the housing element one in the next. |
| 01:58:10.85 | Thomas Theodores | Yeah, I agree with that because I can make a distinction. I mean, this is about the draft ordinance. This is classically the legislative committee, whereas the housing element is somewhat different. So I think we can make that distinction. And so I would say let's talk about this one, finalize it and move on. |
| 01:58:26.63 | Linda | Yeah, the... I agree with everything I've heard. |
| 01:58:31.54 | Unknown | So one struck one |
| 01:58:32.98 | Linda | So one structural issue is, if we were going to generalize this concept, is |
| 01:58:40.64 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:58:43.26 | Linda | If you appointed a city council member on a subcommittee, who isn't on the Legislative Committee, You can't have the subcommittee and the legislative committee meet together. |
| 01:58:53.63 | Ray Withy | It's true. |
| 01:58:54.58 | Linda | because of the primaries. |
| 01:58:55.29 | Ray Withy | Right. Yeah, for sure. |
| 01:58:56.52 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:58:56.54 | Linda | Now, that might not be a problem, because unless you want a member of the legislative committee on every single one of these things, so, you know, there is an issue to resolve. |
| 01:58:58.26 | Ray Withy | Yeah. |
| 01:59:03.44 | Unknown | These steaks suck. |
| 01:59:04.31 | Ray Withy | Yeah. I agree with Jeremy. there. I think each situation is a little different. And maybe that other committee is a totally different makeup than two people. Maybe that's something else we need to talk about. So. So with that, I'll make a motion to, is there a need for a motion in here? Oh, so while you're the mayor, you have to be able to, you do the appointments, so I'll have to shut up. |
| 01:59:34.07 | Unknown | All right. |
| 01:59:37.37 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 01:59:37.48 | Ray Withy | Well, what's the consensus here? |
| 01:59:37.58 | Thomas Theodores | Well, Well, it wouldn't be technically an appointment because the council would vote on difference in the process. So I don't think he's appointing anybody if it's truly, if we change the process to go to the legislative committee, there's no appointment. So I guess we have to decide whether we want to take your amendment to the phone. |
| 01:59:58.55 | Linda | But I don't think that was your suggestion, was it? You were suggesting the subcommittee form. Yeah, but he. And then at some point moved to the legislative, sort of handed over for review by |
| 02:00:10.03 | Ray Withy | Is that what you were... No, I think what I was trying to... This is why I thank you for making me restate it. While you need to follow my random thoughts, is so in this particular instance, I think it would be... |
| 02:00:11.65 | Linda | No, I think what I- |
| 02:00:27.12 | Ray Withy | because this is the same thing happened with the zoning ordinance. It went through the legislative committee, I think, You were on it recently and then to the council. But I think in this case, because we want to get the HLB involved, we want to get the Planning Commission involved early on to have a representative from them, whereas the zoning ordinance thing, we didn't try it that way, but it could have been a good structure to use for that. That you have the two members of the, or whoever the two members of the Legislative Committee would be involved in this and a member of the planning commission and a member of the HLB. And whether that changes later because you want to bring in some other stuff or you don't want to go back to, you know, maybe we don't need to go through the legislative committee at all later because it's already churned through that earlier on. But I hear what Jeremy's saying in terms of workload and flow and all that good stuff. |
| 02:00:54.86 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:01:21.27 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:01:30.05 | Ray Withy | In this particular instance, it's a good thing. Tom was on the HLB for a long time. Um, This is a very important issue for me, and I've been very active in this too, so I'd like to play a part in it, frankly. And I think the Legislative Committee is a good place to channel this particular issue through, versus the housing element, which I think is a different beast altogether. |
| 02:01:50.08 | Unknown | Thank you. Okay. |
| 02:01:51.61 | Ray Withy | So in the legislative committee, just as we did the other day, it schedules joint meetings with this other subcommittee for whatever the multifamily housing |
| 02:02:03.29 | Mary Wagner | Just for clarification, Mr. Vice Mayor, so we would be going back to the HLB and the PC for their appointment to work with the legislative committee at that early stage in developing the regulations, and then it would be the legislative committee and not just one council member who would work with that group. |
| 02:02:10.31 | Ray Withy | Yes. |
| 02:02:10.63 | Unknown | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 02:02:22.02 | Unknown | Right. |
| 02:02:23.81 | Ray Withy | Okay. But they, again, they don't appoint people to these things. They suggest someone from their own ranks. And we appoint them up here. Okay. Thank you. No, because there's some, man, the dynamics have changed in the way the government works here since 10 years ago. I'll tell you that. |
| 02:02:28.22 | Mary Wagner | from their own. |
| 02:02:28.81 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:02:28.93 | Mary Wagner | I'm sorry. |
| 02:02:28.98 | Unknown | All right. |
| 02:02:42.78 | Ray Withy | Okay, so we're all in agreement of the legislative process? committee being the representative said all, correct? |
| 02:02:56.94 | Adam Politzer | Thank you. |
| 02:02:56.95 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:02:56.97 | Adam Politzer | I need you to approve the contract. Mr. Mayor, you have to authorize the need to execute the $300,000 professional service |
| 02:02:57.07 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:02:57.22 | Ray Withy | to approve the contract. |
| 02:02:58.29 | Unknown | So, |
| 02:03:00.19 | Ray Withy | Yes, I see that. |
| 02:03:01.88 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:03:01.95 | Ray Withy | Yeah. Okay, all in favor? Aye. Opposed? Okay, so be it. |
| 02:03:04.87 | Adam Politzer | Bye. |
| 02:03:08.43 | Adam Politzer | I |
| 02:03:14.17 | Ray Withy | Okay. All right. Let's take up to a three-minute break. |
| 02:03:20.23 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:03:33.40 | Ray Withy | Okay. We're all back. Okay. Next item is the historic housing element update. Lily, you're on. |
| 02:03:46.43 | Lily | Good evening, Mr. Mayor, council members. Tonight we will have a discussion of the implementation of our recently adopted housing element from 2015 7 through 2014. and then a discussion on the upcoming deadline to update the 2015 through 2022 housing elements. |
| 02:04:08.57 | Lily | Housing element law requires cities to update their housing elements. A housing element is a mandated component of a city's general plan, and the law requires to update every planning period. The update also must address the RHNA, which is the regional Housing needs allocation, which is a prescribed number of housing units in a variety of income levels. A city also must gain certification from HCV, which is the California State Department of Housing and Community Development. New to housing element law now is a longer planning cycle. It's now eight years. And if a city does not adopt a housing element or gain HCD certification within the prescribed deadline, the cycle reverts to a four-year cycle. So that's new. In terms of background, from December 2009 through November of last year, the city underwent an update of our housing element. This was a three-year period to update our housing element. We had significant challenges, and this included two planning cycles and a total of 372 housing units. The housing element update process took us through 45 housing element task force meetings, three community workshops, and numerous planning commission and city council hearings. In September of 2011, the city contracted with Metropolitan Planning Group, or M Group, for assistance with the housing element update. In October of 2012, the city adopted our housing element, and in November of 2012, the housing element was certified by HCD. |
| 02:06:00.17 | Lily | The current housing element cycle, which covers 2015 through 2022, includes a RHNA for Sausalito of just 79 units. And this is significantly lower than the RHNA from past years. The prior cycle was 165 units and the one before that was 207 units. And the due date for the city's updated housing element is January 31st of 2015, which is about 16 months away. |
| 02:06:33.29 | Lily | New to this housing cycle is what HCD is calling a streamlined review process in terms of HCD review. The streamlined process gives priority to those jurisdictions that meet certain criteria, and this provides a simpler and quicker review process on the HCD end of things. It provides templates to complete the update, flexibility in having only to minimally update sections of the housing element, or not even update certain sections of the housing element at all. and gives permission to show just those portions of the housing element that have been changed in a red line or a strikeout format. If a city does not adopt a housing element by January 31, 2015, the city will not qualify for the streamlined approach with HCD. and we'll have to go through the traditional housing element review with HCV. And then the city would also be out of compliance with housing element law. The council in the community should note that the HCD streamlined review does not mean an expedited process on the city's end of things. The streamlined review is only for the HCD review process. The city's normal extensive community outreach and participation would still occur. And that would be prior to submitting the element to HCD for their review. |
| 02:08:03.61 | Lily | So in order to qualify for the HCD streamlined review, there are a number of requirements that apply. The first is to have an adopted certified housing element. And Sausalito has completed this requirement. The next is that any programs that were given conditional compliance by HCD need to be accomplished. And Sausalito did have three programs that we were conditioned to comply with from HCD's perspective. That was the ADU programs, the new and the amnesty ADUs, and then the liveaboard component as well. So with regard to that, those tasks, the city did adopt regulations regarding new ADUs and amnesty ADUs, so that portion is taken care of. We do need to complete the remainder of the level board commitments that are in our housing elements. |
| 02:09:02.82 | Lily | The next item is that the city needs to complete the commitment we made in Program 21 of the housing element to permit emergency shelters by right in a zoning district. And we have not done that yet. That's a zoning ordinance amendment. We also need to complete the commitment we made in Program 21 as well to permit transitional and supportive housing as a residential use. And we have not done that either. WE ALSO NEEDED TO That's right. |
| 02:09:35.81 | Ray Withy | That's to let you know Oracle's still out there practicing. |
| 02:09:39.12 | Lily | Thank you. |
| 02:09:44.38 | Lily | We also need to complete a zoning ordinance amendment for the reasonable accessibility component, and that's to have essentially an ability in our zoning ordinance for the zoning administrator, the community development director, to make reasonable accommodations for folks with disabilities, and that has not been done yet either. And then the last item is a zoning ordinance amendment to update our current density bonus section in the zoning ordinance, and this needs to be updated per current state law. And that was Housing Allentment Program 19, and we need to do that as well. |
| 02:10:30.17 | Lily | So again, our housing element is due January 31st, 2015. The penalty for not adopting a housing element by that time is that our update cycle will go from the eight-year cycle to the four-year cycle. This would mean that a city would have to do an update in 2019 in addition to 2023. The city would also not be eligible for the streamlined review offered by HCD if we don't adopt by January 2015, and this would result in a full housing element review by HCD and additional scrutiny by HCD of the housing element update. |
| 02:11:13.16 | Lily | Like I said, we have 16 months to complete these tasks, which include four major zoning ordinance amendments, the liveaboard component, and then the update of the housing element itself. |
| 02:11:26.88 | Lily | So we've received a proposal from M Group to assist us with these tasks. And the M Group is the city's prior housing element consultant who helped us achieve compliance with our housing element last year. They've submitted a proposal on a two-phase approach. And the first phase would be the ordinance amendment work that needs to be done, and the liveaboard work as well. The second phase would be the housing element update itself. In order to fully engage the council in the process, the proposal includes, similar to what you just heard from Jeremy, a two-member council and planning commission subcommittee that would meet to review the amendments and the housing element update at different stages in the process. There's also optional legislative committee review meetings of the draft ordinance and the housing element. And that would be built on a time and materials basis. And then also there is a council check-in prior to the Planning Commission review of the draft ordinance and the housing element update. The proposal also includes two community workshops. So I'll go through that process. So it starts with the subcommittee review of the Zoning Ordinance Amendment. So this is phase one. And then we have an option for a legislative committee meeting at that point. And then we move on to the community workshop where we would be introducing the housing element update and then going into details about the zoning ordinance amendments that need to be. made, and we would be eliciting community feedback at that point. we again have an option for the subcommittee meeting or a legislative committee meeting or both. At that point, the city council will be reviewing the draft ordinance amendments. We again have an option for a check-in with the legislative committee or the subcommittee or both. And then the Planning Commission would be holding hearings on the draft ordinance amendments and make a recommendation to the City Council. We have another option for a subcommittee or a legislative committee meeting. And then finally, the city council could hold a hearing on the draft ordinance and adopt them if appropriate. So the next phase is the housing element update, which would occur after phase one. So similarly, we start with the City Council and the Planning Commission subcommittee review of the housing element update and the requirements that we need to undertake. we could have an option for a legislative committee meeting at that point. then we'd hold a community workshop on the housing element update. Again, an option for those meetings with the subcommittee or the legislative committee. we would have the council check-in reviewing the draft housing element and that would have all of the feedback that we elicited from the community workshop it. We again have an option for the subcommittee and legislative committee meetings. We would hold Planning Commission hearings on the draft housing element. Again, another option for those additional meetings with the subcommittee and the legislative We would then hold a city council hearing on the draft housing element. It could then be forwarded to HGD for their streamlined review. Again, one last option for the subcommittee, legislative committee meeting, and then back to the city council for a hearing on the draft housing element for adoption. |
| 02:15:25.36 | Lily | So M Group's proposal is, for both phases, is a fixed fee of $88,150. And this includes two subcommittee meetings, two workshops, four planning commission meetings, and seven city council meetings. The additional legislative committee meetings or the additional subcommittee meetings would be billed on a time and materials basis as needed. And for that, staff is recommending a buffer of 10% of the contract amount to cover additional meetings if they are required. In order to accommodate funding for this work, funding currently allocated for some projects 2013-14 budget. needs to be reallocated to the housing element implementation and update project. and that includes $75,000 allocated for the downtown Historic District National Register nomination and $22,000 allocated for other planning projects. With that, staff is recommending the council appoint one council member to be a part of that two-member subcommittee. And then we would also go to the Planning Commission for their nomination and confirmation from the city council. The second item is to reallocate funding in the fiscal year 2013-14 budget to the housing element implementation and update project. And then lastly, to authorize the city manager to execute an agreement with M Group in the amount of $88,150 with a 10% contingency for a total budget of $97,000. That concludes our staff report. We also have Jeff Bradley here. He's the principal of M Group, and he is here to introduce himself to those council members that have not met him yet and answer any questions you might have about their proposal. |
| 02:17:21.73 | Ray Withy | Okay. Linda, you have any questions? |
| 02:17:27.49 | Debbie Pfeiffer | Thank you, Ms. Samir. Thanks, Lillie, for that presentation. I just had a question regarding the process, because I'm looking at, for example, the zoning ordinance process, and And I'm only seeing one Planning Commission hearing for review of that. Is that correct? |
| 02:17:53.18 | Debbie Pfeiffer | And then I'm only seeing one Planning Commission hearing right now allocated for the housing element. |
| 02:18:03.07 | Lily | Is that correct? It's two planning commission meeting hearings for both phases. So for the zoning ordinance amendments, it's two planning commission hearings for the housing element update. It's two planning commission hearings. Additional hearings would be billed on a time and materials basis. |
| 02:18:13.98 | Debbie Pfeiffer | He said, So where it says is, where does the second Planning Commission meeting occur? Is that considered like if they have to do a continuation or something or? because I'm just seeing one block for the zoning ordinance. I'm seeing a Planning Commission subcommittee |
| 02:18:36.11 | Lily | The two planning commission meetings are in the M Group's proposal for each phase, and we required two planning commission meetings because we thought that it would take two planning commission meetings to review the materials and get to a consensus. |
| 02:18:52.69 | Debbie Pfeiffer | Could I see your process so that, yeah, so this is what I have in my staff report. So I look up there and I see that the planning commission, it's this planning commission hearing and I only see one block. And you're saying there are two, two. |
| 02:19:07.10 | Lily | to hearings. |
| 02:19:08.53 | Debbie Pfeiffer | hearings. Okay. And so, Would that happen one after another, they would the public would have two opportunities to weigh in. Is there a reason why also the Planning Commission isn't weighing in right after the community workshop and before it reaches the City Council? |
| 02:19:28.85 | Lily | In the past, we've taken our work products directly to the Planning Commission, but to better involve the City Council in the update of the zoning ordinance amendments and then the housing element, we thought we would take it to the Council first and then forward it to the Planning Commission to get the Council's input. |
| 02:19:46.67 | Debbie Pfeiffer | Interesting. The other question I had was I see at the very, the last, the block before it goes to Sacramento. It says, city council hearing on draft housing element Is that another two hearings that would be Sequential for the community. |
| 02:20:02.06 | Lily | is. visit you as well. |
| 02:20:04.98 | Debbie Pfeiffer | Okay. And then it would go to... Thank you. HCD. Okay, I just wanted to clarify the Thank you. the process. I have a comment on that, but I'll hold that until later. Thanks. |
| 02:20:17.15 | Linda | Okay, Ray? Yeah, I have a question for either Lily or Jeff. In your table of Streamline review requirements and their status. Is there a difference between the I know it all needs to get done, but is there a difference between the importance of getting the 10A, 10B, and 11 done because that was part of the conditional certification Thank you. Thank you. versus the other things? Does that have an extra special importance? |
| 02:21:08.06 | Lily | thing. |
| 02:21:11.69 | Lily | might be able to better answer that question. My understanding is that all of these items need to be completed in order to be considered for the streamlined review. |
| 02:21:20.46 | Linda | And so all of these were subject to conditional Thank you. |
| 02:21:24.06 | Lily | No, only the ADUs and the Livivores were subject to the conditional compliance. Yeah. |
| 02:21:24.07 | Linda | No. |
| 02:21:30.13 | Linda | And a related question is what exactly do we have to do, left to do for the Liberal boards? |
| 02:21:35.16 | Lily | That is, so there is a requirement for the city to determine if the CUP was required for five marinas in the city, and if the CUP was required and those marinas don't have the CUP to bring a resolution to the city council blessing those marinas to have live awards. There were some additional requirements about working with the marinas to have mailing services, I believe, at the marinas, some more administrative. The only task that rose to the level of council review was that CUP requirement. |
| 02:21:45.10 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 02:21:55.71 | Unknown | There was some additional requirements |
| 02:22:25.23 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 02:22:25.24 | Unknown | Okay. |
| 02:22:25.34 | Ray Withy | Okay. Jeff, you want to? We have some questions for you. Okay. Thank you. Linda, you have any questions for Jeff? |
| 02:22:27.07 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:22:34.75 | Jeff Bradley | Thank you. |
| 02:22:38.90 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 02:22:39.50 | Unknown | you |
| 02:22:39.57 | Ray Withy | Right? Thank you. |
| 02:22:42.58 | Linda | So... Give us some sense, Jeff, of, you know, in the last housing element, we ended up with our three or five part strategy for sort of getting a balance, as I recall, a balanced element. That was, if you combine both the previous cycles, that was like 360 odd units or something. 372. 372, okay. So we've now got a RENA number of 79, which is like really... |
| 02:23:13.42 | Jeff Bradley | 372. |
| 02:23:23.55 | Linda | dramatically different from that. I mean, do you think that there is really much to change in the housing element? I mean, if it was good enough for 372, or let's be more cautious, for the last cycle, it was good for 170-something, 169, or whatever the number was. Now we're going in with considerably less than half of that. I mean, how's HCD going to view this? |
| 02:23:50.36 | Jeff Bradley | From the RHNA perspective, in terms of showing that the city has adequate planned capacity for future housing growth, I think we're in really good shape because we had to carve out that big number through all those different strategies. And to the extent a lot of those units haven't been built yet and that capacity still exists in the community and that 79 number is so much smaller and we can show that that fits within the larger number that we demonstrated previously, that should not be a problem at all. |
| 02:24:14.56 | Unknown | them. |
| 02:24:24.38 | Linda | So where do you think the nub of this is then? |
| 02:24:26.74 | Jeff Bradley | of this. I think. I think the most challenging thing will be really to implement those ordinance changes that the existing element committed to. With that conditional approval, HCD was basically saying, we're going to approve this, but It's conditioned on you following through and doing those things. Thank you. Um. and then you get into the other items. but also, you know, You know, HCD is kind of trying to put that out there as a carrot. you know, do these things now and we'll streamline your element. but there's also a stick in that they're all required by state law, you know, regardless. So it's really... I think the heavy lifting at the policy level has been done by the city, and now it's time to come in and really reinforce that with the ordinance updates. the nitty gritty, if you will. |
| 02:25:26.99 | Linda | Thank you. Jonathan. |
| 02:25:30.51 | Unknown | One more question for Jeremy. |
| 02:25:33.30 | Unknown | Okay. Theo. |
| 02:25:34.01 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:25:34.02 | Thomas Theodores | Theodore. Theodore B. Well, of course, these are all the requirements and they're the things that we are going to be completing the next 15 months for this. Do they all have to be done completely, or is there a concept of substantial compliance when we're applying for this? or if we, We're short. Just a little bit on one of them, we're done. And we can't submit. |
| 02:25:55.52 | Jeff Bradley | It's pretty black or white. They're either done or not. Unfortunately, that's kind of how it's played. |
| 02:26:08.52 | Unknown | Okay, Linda. Thank you. |
| 02:26:12.36 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 02:26:12.79 | Unknown | you |
| 02:26:13.01 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 02:26:13.02 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:26:13.41 | Ray Withy | Let me ask these guys a question. Thanks. Appreciate it. So, Lily or Jeremy, whoever the right person to answer. So, was there a bid process for this or is this a sole source |
| 02:26:20.43 | Unknown | you. Thank you. |
| 02:26:26.29 | Lily | We solicited the proposal from M Group alone. |
| 02:26:28.63 | Ray Withy | Okay. What was the last question? Timeline, in terms of the timeline of all those steps. |
| 02:26:39.43 | Lily | Let me grab my... |
| 02:26:57.77 | Lily | So in the proposal that MGRIP submitted, the City Council would be concluding with the zoning ordinance amendments in July of next year? And then the The work, there's a little bit of overlap with the housing element update. We would have that first workshop. It would be both the housing element update and the ordinance amendments, kind of a kickoff for both. And that would be set to occur in the very, very early next year, in the January, February timeframe, the first time the subcommittee would review the housing element work would occur in the March, April timeframe. And then that would take us through December of 2014. |
| 02:27:53.51 | Debbie Pfeiffer | Mr. Mayor, I have a question. |
| 02:27:54.56 | Unknown | Okay. |
| 02:27:55.50 | Debbie Pfeiffer | Um... So, Lily, with the streamlined housing review for Sacramento, you said that it doesn't suggest that anything would take any less public review or, you know, outreach. It's more streamlined from the Sacramento perspective that they review it in a streamlined manner. |
| 02:28:21.80 | Lily | Correct, it's their review process, it's extremely not specific. |
| 02:28:22.05 | Debbie Pfeiffer | Okay. Not ours. Okay. So my next question, I just wanted to confirm that by pursuing the streamlined review, that we are not subjecting we're not subjected to any higher bar in terms of requirements on the housing element. In other words, all the requirements are are still the same irrespective of what type of review Sacramento does. |
| 02:28:49.54 | Lily | It would actually be a lesser of a bar if there is any comparison because the HCD wouldn't be looking at every aspect of the housing element. There's only certain portions of the housing element that would be required to be updated if we went through the streamlined review. If we didn't go through the streamlined review, we would be in the same process as we were a couple of years ago, where HCD looked at every single aspect of our revised housing element. |
| 02:29:16.72 | Debbie Pfeiffer | So just to be specific, like adoption of, I'm reading here from the report, adoption of a density bonus ordinance consisted consistent with 65915, that's something we would have to do anyway. if we were not pursuing the streamlined review process. Thank you. |
| 02:29:36.16 | Lily | That's correct. |
| 02:29:36.57 | Debbie Pfeiffer | you are. |
| 02:29:36.64 | Lily | Thank you. |
| 02:29:36.65 | Debbie Pfeiffer | Thank you. |
| 02:29:36.67 | Lily | Thank you. |
| 02:29:36.70 | Debbie Pfeiffer | All of the... |
| 02:29:36.72 | Lily | All of the programs on this screen are programs that we committed to in our housing element. |
| 02:29:41.11 | Debbie Pfeiffer | and the programs that are specified. here in our council packet. |
| 02:29:47.64 | Lily | Are you on page three? Page three. Yeah, so that table is the table on the screen. |
| 02:29:47.66 | Debbie Pfeiffer | Are you on page three? Page three. Yeah. Um... Let's see. Actually, the table and the screen. Oh, that's three of five. I'm sorry. I'm looking at page three of six, item 6C, not the attachment from the M group. Their page too. |
| 02:30:15.67 | Lily | PADMA RAMANI- Page two. Where it says specifically evidence of the following |
| 02:30:19.79 | Debbie Pfeiffer | under the subheading HCD Streamlined Review. Yes, specifically evidence of the following. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah, those are the items that are on the screen here. All right. Okay, thanks. |
| 02:30:28.09 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 02:30:29.05 | Lily | Those are the items that I have. |
| 02:30:29.88 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:30:29.98 | Lily | Okay. |
| 02:30:30.35 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:30:33.91 | Ray Withy | Okay. Thank you. |
| 02:30:34.97 | Linda | Right? Yeah, Lily, where does, if at all, the, mixed-use zoning requirements in commercial districts fit in, if at all. |
| 02:30:47.56 | Lily | So that's a program in our housing element that the city is committed to. It's not a part of the, the streamlined review is a package that's given to every city saying these are the things that you need to do in order to qualify for the streamlined review. In order for HCD to say we will consider you for streamlined review. The other programs that we've committed to in the housing element, that's a part of the review and revise section of housing element or law law where the city is reporting on if we've completed certain programs that we've committed to or haven't to each city |
| 02:31:26.58 | Linda | So do we have to complete those zoning ordinance amendments? |
| 02:31:31.45 | Lily | I'm gonna hand it off to Jeff to answer my question. Thank you. |
| 02:31:40.11 | Jeff Bradley | I think the best answer would be the reflection that if we don't do those things and we show up with a new housing element for the next planning period, they're going to take a really hard look at it. And to the extent we say we're going to do things and we haven't done things from the existing housing element, that could be a real challenge. |
| 02:32:01.58 | Linda | So is that included in the work plan? |
| 02:32:05.31 | Jeff Bradley | the updating of the BMU and the HMU. |
| 02:32:06.25 | Linda | of the mix of, yeah, yeah. Yeah. |
| 02:32:14.81 | Linda | So I'm confused. |
| 02:32:30.97 | Debbie Pfeiffer | Page 3 of 5, the first paragraph, it says compliance with implementing programs such as VMU, HMU, and multifamily standards. |
| 02:32:45.94 | Jeff Bradley | Is that the staff report? |
| 02:32:47.56 | Debbie Pfeiffer | Staff report page 3 of 5 under the table that Lily had up. |
| 02:32:57.16 | Debbie Pfeiffer | the first paragraph underneath that. It should be noted that a significant part of the housing element update will include requirement to review and revise. and it refers to the VMU, HMU, and multifamily. |
| 02:33:20.42 | Thomas Theodores | right under the chart. |
| 02:33:39.72 | Jeff Bradley | Excuse me. Our specific proposal is basically to do those critical path items to qualify for the streamline review that Lily has on the screen here, and it didn't include all the other. There's quite a few other, some of which the city has already tackled, such as the ADU and the multifamily changes currently under progress. And so that's our current proposal. |
| 02:34:10.03 | Linda | Yeah, okay, I understand that, but I'm thinking. Let's start answering now. Yeah, so, no, I fully understand that. So that wasn't part of your proposal. |
| 02:34:12.16 | Jeff Bradley | Let's try to just know. |
| 02:34:17.45 | Linda | But... Surely it's got to be part of the work plan if you're saying that we really need to have done the things we said we were going to do if we're going to credibly submit a new housing element. So it's got to be done before we submit the housing element. |
| 02:34:26.94 | Unknown | Right. Thank you. Thank you. |
| 02:34:33.72 | Linda | Yeah, yeah. |
| 02:34:35.24 | Debbie Pfeiffer | I have a follow-up question. |
| 02:34:36.77 | Ray Withy | Is that a yes? Is that a yes? Yes. Okay, let me get that wrong. |
| 02:34:37.38 | Debbie Pfeiffer | actually. |
| 02:34:42.95 | Ray Withy | Oh, no, I had a question. I did have a question. Linda, can I ask my question before I forget it? |
| 02:34:43.02 | Ray Withy | Oh, no, I had a question. I did have a question. Let me get it. Yeah, go ahead. I'm going this way. |
| 02:34:47.96 | Unknown | Okay. |
| 02:34:48.20 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 02:34:48.22 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 02:34:48.25 | Ray Withy | Okay. |
| 02:34:48.67 | Ray Withy | you |
| 02:34:51.78 | Unknown | Oh, geez, now I forgot my question. Go ahead, Lyndon. All right, go ahead. We'll go back to you. Good night. |
| 02:34:53.08 | Ray Withy | Go ahead, Linda. |
| 02:34:57.78 | Debbie Pfeiffer | Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So the multi-family standard topic came up and you know I was when I read that in the housing element. I don't have it in front of me, the exact wording right now. But the way it was stated was open to interpretation. Um... And it's my understanding too that Sacramento is flexible with respect to if we meet the number, in good faith and we have reasons behind why we craft certain things, that there is some flexibility. from what I hear from other towns, is that the case? |
| 02:35:43.47 | Jeff Bradley | In regards to implementation of that specific ordinance amendment? |
| 02:35:45.90 | Debbie Pfeiffer | information. Right, right. And if you have a number of programs in your housing element and they're stated in kind of general ways and you... you come back and It turns out maybe one program required some tweaking and so it's not exactly what was proposed. It's my understanding that Sacramento is flexible as long as we're meeting our arena in good faith. |
| 02:36:16.61 | Jeff Bradley | Right. That's my understanding. |
| 02:36:22.72 | Jeff Bradley | Yeah, in several of those programs, we tried to add language to give the city that ongoing discretion and not totally lock your hands right from the get-go, knowing that you had to still go through a robust public participation process to implement a lot of those code changes. So I think, yeah, the city's working in good faith with the spirit of those policies and programs that were developed. I'd have to agree with you, Councilman. |
| 02:36:33.77 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:36:53.73 | Debbie Pfeiffer | Thank you. |
| 02:36:56.06 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 02:36:56.30 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:36:57.17 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 02:36:57.19 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:36:57.31 | Ray Withy | Thank you. Has anybody started to go through this streamlined approach and is it really Is it really, what's your opinion of it? |
| 02:37:06.05 | Jeff Bradley | No one's done it in the Bay Area, because we're just starting now with the timelines and everything. But if you recall, Karen Warner that we teamed up with last time, she's based out of Southern California and SCAG, her A-bag equivalent down there is ahead of us. |
| 02:37:24.28 | Ray Withy | That's a terrible name, by the way. No, it isn't. It's a good name for Southern California. |
| 02:37:26.18 | Jeff Bradley | No, it isn't. It's a good name for sudden change. |
| 02:37:28.97 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 02:37:29.07 | Jeff Bradley | I'm sorry. |
| 02:37:29.12 | Ray Withy | Bye. |
| 02:37:29.15 | Jeff Bradley | It's not as bad as slow transit. So their cycles are different than ours and they've already actually gone through it down there. And she has actually been amazed. And it's exactly what Lily said. It doesn't take a huge amount of time off of the city's commitment and time effort to update the housing element. But in terms of what happens on the ACD side, it's night and day. And they're almost competing with each other to turn these things around really quickly. Because before, by statute, they had up to 60 days to tell you anything about your element. And you would get your letter reliably on the 60th day. And then you'd have to resubmit, and there'd be another 60 days. But they've been doing, with this streamlined process, some of the reviewers have been turning them around in less than a week, and it's just been amazing. And they've sort of taken it upon themselves to really use this and show the cities that there's a tangible speeding up of the process. |
| 02:37:29.96 | Ray Withy | Yeah. |
| 02:37:30.03 | Ray Withy | I'm just a slow fan. |
| 02:37:30.98 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 02:37:31.03 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 02:37:31.09 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 02:37:31.35 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 02:37:31.40 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 02:37:31.45 | Ray Withy | I'm not. |
| 02:37:31.97 | Ray Withy | All right. |
| 02:37:32.04 | Unknown | . |
| 02:38:07.41 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:38:12.62 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 02:38:12.89 | Unknown | Thank you. Bye. |
| 02:38:43.30 | Unknown | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 02:38:47.28 | Ray Withy | Okay, let me bring it out there. Any questions from the public? Okay, let's bring it back here for comments. I'm going to stack. |
| 02:38:58.51 | Debbie Pfeiffer | So I think that this is going to be a very, there will be elements that the community will be very engaged in, in some elements of controversy and I think that While I appreciate the idea in this case of the subcommittees and legislative meetings, I think that we need a higher level of visibility on this, and I would recommend the Planning Commission reviewing this after the community workshop and weighing in before it comes to the council for our first review of that draft and then going to the Planning Commission again and then the City Council I think that and I would I would support that for both the Planning Commission's and I would also consider adding a community workshop to this as well after the first review by council and planning commission. And in the same thing with the ordinance as well as the housing element. I think this is really key and people need to get engaged and involved. |
| 02:40:12.44 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:40:19.41 | Linda | Um. I think to be pragmatic we must do this. We must get this housing element done on time in certified and forget about it till 2023 or whenever it is. You know, this took up a lot of community time. It took up a lot of council time, from what my witness, and it took up a lot of the task force time, you know, 45 meetings. It's going to go faster and hopefully smoother because there's going to be some of the same issues are going to come up. The same issues are going to be talked about, you know. There's going to have to be some... the rubber's gonna meet the road on certain things, such as, you know, We talked about where the homeless shelter might go, but that's different than actually |
| 02:41:11.09 | Unknown | see. |
| 02:41:11.41 | Linda | saying, you know, passing legislation to put it there, and that's probably going to be one of those hugely controversial parts of this. But it's really got to be done, otherwise we're going to be churning through this every four years, and it doesn't make any sense. |
| 02:41:11.43 | Unknown | with him. |
| 02:41:11.97 | Bill (CMCM board member) | I think. |
| 02:41:12.06 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:41:24.80 | Unknown | Four years. |
| 02:41:25.59 | Unknown | Thank you. It doesn't make any sense. |
| 02:41:28.32 | Linda | I think we've got a good low RENA number. We need to take advantage of it. get as much of the previous work as we can that and build on it and just get this quickly done. I agree with Council Member Pfeiffer with the community input, but that is not going to be lacking. |
| 02:41:53.69 | Ray Withy | Yeah, I would separate this into three pieces myself. First of all, the process, I think this is a different process than what we were just talking about before, because it's much more core to the controversial in nature, so in terms of opening it up to more public meetings or not having to go through the legislative committee and having a, I'd be more inclined to say let's have more people involved I don't want to fall into the same trap we fell in the last time where you had a big committee and it went off on this tangent for too long and then we had to bring it back. And so that elongated the whole process before we brought you folks in as well. |
| 02:42:24.42 | Unknown | with. for too long. |
| 02:42:33.48 | Ray Withy | But so I don't know the answer to how big that committee should be, but it shouldn't be the legislative committee in this particular example. It's one issue. Second one is... and this is a pet peeve of mine, is we put in this language for service contracts to go out to multiple bids. Because this is in prior councils, and I push for it, is because just to make the city do it. And I would no doubt think that you have a leg up on anybody in a bid process because you've already done most of the work. But, and I know we want to, it's a short timeframe we're dealing with here, but we're starting to get this more and more frequently coming back where we're not going out to bid on these service contracts. To me, I don't think there's anything nefarious going on, but I'd rather see us go back to doing that. The work that the M Group did on the previous thing was we wouldn't be where we are today without your help, so let me just say that. And the last piece is where the money comes from. Well, I think your question earlier was, well, there isn't money you can do what we're supposed to do here. So where's that money coming from, first of all? I think I'd get it as part of your question. And the second one is, hey man, don't this, this, not hey man, sorry, public. Don't, let's not necessarily take this as a penalty to Jeremy's budget and make him defund |
| 02:43:58.88 | Unknown | Um... |
| 02:44:08.52 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 02:44:08.57 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:44:08.72 | Ray Withy | downtown district, let's go and look at somebody at the city's budget because this is an above the line thing and we don't have the housing for this cycle above the line in our priority calendar. Whether that was our lack of foresight or or whatever, it's not in there. So let's look at the priority calendar and defund let's take the whole priority calendar to look at if it's a priority calendar type of issue, and defund something else. I think we're trying to push through the finishing get to the finish line with all the historic legislation we've been pushing for for the last jump years and you guys are helping push through now, getting the dirty work. But rather than defund that one to fund this, this we have to do, in my mind, let's take a look at some other options of funding. |
| 02:44:54.67 | Unknown | we have. |
| 02:45:02.64 | Thomas Theodores | Well, I certainly support the streamlined process. And I mean, we have to go through the pain, but we will be set for eight years and extending it won't help. The one thing I do agree, we have to make sure that we're very sensitive to public participation. particularly on notice for all the meetings, you know, the workshops, whether we have to put banners along Bridgeway. I want to be able to go to any resident and if they say I haven't heard of it, I want to be able to say you haven't seen these things. And I think that just ensures that they actually do have the notice. So I think We want to give, and I know we have on other ones, but I think we just want to go the extra mile in providing notice to any of the meetings, whether it's a legislative or or Planning Commission or any of our meetings. That's I just think that we have to be very sensitive to notice to the public. And but I fully support going through this process. |
| 02:45:53.61 | Debbie Pfeiffer | Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Yeah, I think that this is, like I said, a very controversial process and requires a lot of community outreach. One community workshop, in my opinion, is not enough. I think the Planning Commission should review this right after the first community workshop. I also want to reflect on the last process. The M Group is part of this process because of the citizens of Sausalito. We're counting liveal boards for the first time and the second units because of the citizens of Sausalito who volunteered their time. So we... some of the most creative solutions came from the citizens, and I think their involvement here is key. So, and I think that when we allow the Planning Commission to look at this twice, I agree that this is urgent, we want to move this through, but I don't want to Um, I don't want to compromise that community outreach and that transparency and that buy-in for just kind of pushing it through. And I think that one community workshop for the zoning ordinance amendments, not enough. One community workshop for the housing element, not enough, my opinion. |
| 02:47:11.12 | Ray Withy | Well... I think it's very, very important that we get to this streamline. As you know before, we brought the M group in, and I really feel if they didn't come in when they got when they did We wouldn't be sitting here. We'd be still struggling with our An old housing element? Um, Boy, four years as opposed to, rather, I should say eight years as opposed to two fours. It's not only costly but very time consuming, so I think it's very important that we move forward on this. I kind of understand where you're coming from with, you know, being able to get multiple bids. I really, and I think that's the direction on most items that we should go. I really have a real comfortable feeling with the M group. I think I know they know the direction to get this done. And I really think that It's worth it, and we'll save Many will save money and time. by getting this done on time. And I think the time factor is very, very important to this. And I feel totally confident with the M group. So with that, Go ahead. |
| 02:48:33.74 | Ray Withy | Oh, go ahead. You've got time if you want to use it. |
| 02:48:33.76 | Ray Withy | Okay. Okay, no, I'm fine. |
| 02:48:37.86 | Ray Withy | Well, so, yeah, no, so as far as... Again, I think the Planning Commission in this, this is a general plan update. It's not a zoning ordinance update. There's certainly a review function the Planning Commission performs as part of a general plan update, but it is not the policy, the place for debate and formulation of policy. It's not the Planning Commission for the general plan, in my mind at least. So, but however many meetings they want to meet and discuss it, it's up to them. You know, if they want to churn on it, that's great. But as far as policy development which is our job, Having sat on the Planning Commission for far too long, that's not where policy comes from. So. But I think as far as review and people's chance to come to public meetings and give their two cents and have five different eyes looking at it or whatever, that's great. And how many meetings that takes as far as they're concerned is fine with me. I think we only have 40 below-market units in this particular one, so I don't think it's going to be as big a challenge to come up with solutions that meet that. That being said, I think we should, I think we're all in agreement, whatever the form it takes, we should have a broader public input function in this than maybe what you scoped out here. But my point, that's number one, I agree with that. The, is on the funding side, I'm willing to compromise on the on the professional services agreement, if it really is going to be this is what it is, my guess is that's not what it is. It's going to be bigger than that. because you're going to have many more meetings and these guys are going to have to attend. So I'd rather scope it out for more Public. input meetings at the M groups there and bite the bullet for that up front But also, I'm not in favor of how it's being funded, proposed here, and the actions we're being asked to take from staff. I'd like to come up with a different way of funding it. |
| 02:50:51.66 | Ray Withy | Any other comments? All right. At this point, I'm going to recommend that we appoint Ray Withey as our representative from the Council. Do I have any other names? in there. Okay. Debbie, do we vote on that? Just the it's appointed. |
| 02:51:24.84 | Ray Withy | Well, |
| 02:51:25.50 | Unknown | Thank you for your patience, sir. |
| 02:51:26.86 | Ray Withy | All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Okay, let's go to the second item. |
| 02:51:34.05 | Ray Withy | So on that item though, do you want to have a subcommittee? I think you're proposing just two individuals. That's just a planning commissioner and a |
| 02:51:42.44 | Ray Withy | and a council, city council. |
| 02:51:43.82 | Ray Withy | So I guess my question is what role do you want that subcommittee to take? Is it a role where it's in charge of scoping out the flow here, working with staff? Or is that going to be in terms of how many meetings and forum, just so we don't leave this room without a better answer? |
| 02:52:01.39 | Linda | I mean, you can't have a subcommittee of two to deal with all of this. I mean, let's get real. So, you know. |
| 02:52:04.17 | Ray Withy | Right. |
| 02:52:06.81 | Ray Withy | So... You're welcome. |
| 02:52:12.41 | Linda | Thank you. So there's going to need to be more input, the question is, because we've got an element, we've got a strategy, we're not fundamentally going to change We're not suddenly going to ask to pull out of the air something brand new. I don't think so, because that sort of defeats the whole object of the exercise, which is building on what we've got, using the strategies we've got, tweaking them a bit, and getting it off to HCD. I think the real work is in all the zoning ordinance amendments. That's where the real work is. you know That's us. |
| 02:52:57.38 | Jeremy | What's not in here? |
| 02:52:58.44 | Linda | Yeah, so that's the bit I'm struggling with. I mean, if you raise the question of what is, what do you want the subcommittee to work on? I'm suggesting that perhaps we work with staff to sort of work on |
| 02:53:19.49 | Ray Withy | what that is. That's fine. That's really where I was going. Maybe you start with that and then come back and say, hey, here's what we think the reality is or how we want to do the process, but let's start with the small group and then if we want to expand it to a different process or a certain number of hearings or whatever. |
| 02:53:19.99 | Linda | what that is. Yeah. |
| 02:53:27.79 | Linda | Right. Yeah. Yeah. But I think what we do need to do is find a way to, you know, we need to get and I would argue the M group would be perfect for this, to we need to get consultant help right at the very beginning to start this. So we need to find a way to fund this, or at least to start funding it. |
| 02:53:53.17 | Ray Withy | Or Yes. |
| 02:53:55.41 | Linda | Thank you. Thank you. And that's the challenge. |
| 02:53:57.52 | Ray Withy | Yeah, and I tried to go up before. |
| 02:54:22.82 | Thomas Theodores | Can we, on that point... |
| 02:54:24.13 | Ray Withy | Let me ask you something. On this funding, we can go in the direction that it states or it's written here, but that doesn't mean that we can't change it or make shifts on it somewhere along the line, take funds from another area as we see possibly and move it in there and shift it around. I mean, this is kind of like a base start so we can get it going. I mean, we is kind of like a base start, so we can get it going. I mean, we all agree that... Well, there's two things. Sorry to interrupt you. |
| 02:54:53.83 | Ray Withy | Go ahead. That's okay. He doesn't care where it comes from. He's relying on the credit of the city's auslito. Thank you. |
| 02:55:02.07 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 02:55:02.09 | Ray Withy | to pay him. |
| 02:55:02.10 | Ray Withy | to pay him. Charlie's famous words, follow the money. |
| 02:55:05.04 | Ray Withy | So that's our problem, not his. So we could direct staff to come back. We could obligate the city and direct staff to come back, hey, this is where you can pull it from, come back with some other ideas, or some other priority calendar items that should be removed to fund this. And they could still proceed with the contract. The city's still on the hook. It's just you don't know where this house is going to be funded. So it won't slow down that process. |
| 02:55:06.73 | Ray Withy | All right. |
| 02:55:06.88 | Unknown | I'm sorry. |
| 02:55:07.17 | Ray Withy | I'm not. |
| 02:55:23.74 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:55:23.75 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:55:23.77 | Ray Withy | Jesus. |
| 02:55:30.08 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 02:55:30.17 | Ray Withy | Is that correct? That's what I'm concerned about. Does it? |
| 02:55:30.59 | Ray Withy | THE END OF |
| 02:55:36.63 | Ray Withy | If you were given the money or if it was approved tonight, OK? as opposed to us going back and trying to find it in other sources. What, tell me what the time frame could be on that, as opposed to getting M Group on and moving ahead. |
| 02:55:57.77 | Jeremy | The council can direct staff to use the funds that were allocated in the current budget in the planning division's professional services account to use those funds toward this program. And then later we can come back at a future meeting and ask for direction on backfilling or reallocation of those funds. |
| 02:56:27.25 | Ray Withy | or back from another department's budget for that matter anyway. |
| 02:56:28.69 | Jeremy | Thank you. |
| 02:56:28.81 | Thomas Theodores | going for a month. The department's budget can happen anyway. I have a question. I'd like to hear staff's |
| 02:56:33.21 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:56:33.33 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 02:56:33.68 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:56:33.73 | Ray Withy | I'm sorry. |
| 02:56:35.91 | Thomas Theodores | Reasoning for picking these two and maybe that would help us in deciding where they should come from. I mean, why did you pick these two items? What was the thought on it? Thank you. |
| 02:56:46.04 | Jeremy | about. So I spoke with Charlie Francis, our Administrative Services Director, on this to review the different options we had within the Planning Division's Professional Services account. And we have $75,000 for the Downtown National Register and Mills Act. And that was money allocated in those two programs. $75,000 for the Downtown National Register and Mills Act. And that was money allocated in those two programs for this budget, $75,000. $60,000 of that was for the Downtown National Register. |
| 02:57:01.75 | Linda | THE FAMILY. |
| 02:57:01.93 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:57:23.84 | Jeremy | National Register nomination of 15 was for the Mills Act. Then we have other planning projects at 25. Then we have Yes. the Marinship Historic District and Historic Register nomination at 15. What I'm going down is listing monies that were allocated but have not been committed. Thank you. tied up in a contract yet. And then we have noteworthy structures for $25,000. |
| 02:58:05.42 | Jeremy | So another option, the target here is $97,000 because that's That's the M group budget plus the 10% cushion. So I can get us to $80,000 and how I got to 80, an alternative, Vice Mayor Leon said, was suggesting he didn't feel comfortable with dipping into the Downtown National Register Mills Act component. |
| 02:58:42.71 | Ray Withy | So the... No, no, you're not going to get there for me. So rather than solve this problem right now, I think it's, you know, technically we don't have to say where it's coming from. This has been a practice that we adopted when Adam became city manager that we don't start spending money unless we can see where it's coming from or try our best to do that. So I'd rather punt it back to Adam because he's the broker between Jeremy and all the other department heads of budgets and say, okay, somebody's got to... |
| 02:58:43.03 | Jeremy | No, no, I can't try it. No, no, you're not going to get there for me. |
| 02:59:12.85 | Ray Withy | This is the way it works now. Somebody's got to lose something. So where are we going to lose it from? Or it's Charlie saying the budget We'll fund it through this manager, through mid-year, and at mid-year we'll revisit the rest, depending on how the results come in on the revenue side. So I'll put it back to you. |
| 02:59:29.57 | Adam Politzer | Yeah, I mean, I'm comfortable with that. I just wanted to add that it's not just what we defund or choose to fund. It's also a staff load issue, and that was one of the conversations that Jeremy and I have had. Let's look at some of the items that were discussed earlier tonight. Items that are later on the agenda tonight, marinship, for example, and we're under transition. in that department. So, you know, it's also a workload. What are we actually going to get done between September 24th. and July 1st. within the budget and so that's also in the I think, conversation that Jeremy and Charlie had It's like capital projects. We can list them all, but unless we have the manpower to do them, doesn't mean anything. I think we have to kind of step back And that's something that staff can do and come back at a future time and either make recommendations to follow what is before you tonight or recommendation to do something different and then let council make that decision. We can also easily bring it to the Finance Committee and have that discussion there. before we bring it back to the council. So I think you have options. I think what I am hearing from the council And from staff, it would be good to approve the contract with the M group. move that forward with the committee, let them talk about the process, and bring an update to the council. |
| 03:00:57.31 | Ray Withy | think that's the right direction to go. So I'll make a motion. |
| 03:01:03.58 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:01:03.72 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 03:01:03.73 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:01:03.85 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 03:01:05.56 | Debbie Pfeiffer | Thank you. |
| 03:01:05.57 | Ray Withy | Uh. |
| 03:01:05.66 | Unknown | Bye. |
| 03:01:05.79 | Debbie Pfeiffer | Mr. Mayor, I just have a comment. Oh, go ahead. Okay. So I would agree. I'd rather not pull the funds from not only the historic district, but also the Mills Act or the Marinship. And so I think that we're going in the right direction with that. And the other comment I had was I still have, and I can go with the M group, my one concern remains the process that is being presented here. And so I would ask that our motion |
| 03:01:06.03 | Ray Withy | Thank you. of, |
| 03:01:21.23 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:01:41.77 | Debbie Pfeiffer | you know, somehow incorporate that, that they review that process and come back to us with a new recommendation? |
| 03:01:48.45 | Ray Withy | Yeah. |
| 03:01:48.81 | Mary Wagner | Mr. Mayor, may I ask a question or make sure I understand Councilmember Pfeiffer's comment on the process for professional services? |
| 03:01:48.84 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 03:01:56.38 | Mary Wagner | It's built into your purchasing ordinance, it's chapter 3.30 of the Municipal Code. There is flexibility for granting contracts for professional services, which the consultant, the M group, is considered a professional services contract. And it specifically provides that if it's in the best interest of the city There's services to be provided by a specific consultant with contract terms, blah, blah, blah. that you can do that and it can be based on direct negotiations. I just wanted to clarify that there is a process in the code to allow for that to occur. |
| 03:02:26.05 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 03:02:26.34 | Debbie Pfeiffer | Excuse me, Mr. Mayor. Yeah, Mary, what I was referring to was the process being proposed for the review. Oh, I apologize. The housing element and the review of the zoning ordinance amendments. Because for one, I think the Planning Commission needs to review that more than just one, at one data point in that flow, especially the zoning ordinance, actually, and the housing element too. |
| 03:02:27.67 | Mary Wagner | EXACTLY. |
| 03:02:34.42 | Mary Wagner | Oh, I apologize. |
| 03:02:35.26 | Lily | I love it. |
| 03:02:35.87 | Unknown | How? |
| 03:02:35.96 | Unknown | Yeah. Yeah. |
| 03:02:51.63 | Mary Wagner | Thank you, Councilmember Pfeiffer. Sorry for the interruption. |
| 03:02:51.68 | Debbie Pfeiffer | Thank you. |
| 03:02:51.72 | Linda | Thank you. So perhaps... No, I think you're getting it there, but perhaps one of the first tasks of the subcommittee is to report back on that. |
| 03:03:05.64 | Ray Withy | Thank you. Thank you. I thought you were there already. So I'll make a motion. I hear you, Linda. So why don't we do this? So there's three pieces of this. So first motion, there's three separate recommended actions here, right? So the first one is to appoint Ray. We already did that. The second one is an amendment to that. of this particular piece is for the first task of that committee, whoever the Planning Commission |
| 03:03:33.72 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 03:03:38.04 | Ray Withy | suggests that we put on there and it says you could come back here obviously and be blessed is to from the first actions is that subcommittee to meet with staff and the M group or whatever, you know, and come back with a proposal for Linda for public meetings and frequency of input and all that kind of good stuff. |
| 03:04:03.55 | Debbie Pfeiffer | And the Planning Commission revisit that. |
| 03:04:06.19 | Ray Withy | Yeah, well the whole structure, the structure of what, you know, just revisiting those bubbles that we already looked at of meeting stuff. And within the scope of your contract, obviously. And if it changes, then you've got to come back here and redo the scope of the contract. That's number two. Number three is for staff to come back to authorize the city manager, execute a professional service agreement with the M group. |
| 03:04:13.68 | Unknown | of. |
| 03:04:29.32 | Ray Withy | from the amount of $88,150. in conjunction with the housing element cycle 2015-2022. The total budget of $97,000 but to return to future council meeting, whether it's going through the finance committee or what have you before, it doesn't matter to me, with a suggestion of where the funding sources would come from. Hopefully for the next meeting or the following meeting. |
| 03:04:54.99 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:04:55.02 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:04:55.04 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:04:55.06 | Unknown | Okay. |
| 03:04:55.34 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:04:55.36 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:04:56.44 | Ray Withy | motion |
| 03:04:56.47 | Unknown | Does that cover everything? |
| 03:04:56.98 | Ray Withy | I'm going to be here. Thank you. All right, okay, we're there. Second? Second. Okay, all in favor? Aye. Opposed? Okay. |
| 03:05:01.40 | Unknown | Second? Yeah. Bye. |
| 03:05:06.72 | Ray Withy | Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I hope that gives you the direction. And Jeff, thank you. And glad to have you on board. |
| 03:05:11.88 | Unknown | Thanks. Thank you. |
| 03:05:17.38 | Ray Withy | Okay. Next item here is the appropriate supplemental funds for and authorize the City Manager to approve change orders to Majora and Gelati for MLK Park improvements. Jonathan? Thank you. Your time has come. |
| 03:05:34.68 | Jonathon Goldman | Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you. I wasn't sure that that was going to happen this evening. |
| 03:05:41.06 | Ray Withy | Before you start, since you put this picture up here, I won't say the word crap during this particular segment of the evening, which I used earlier. |
| 03:05:48.03 | Jonathon Goldman | Thank you. |
| 03:05:48.06 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:05:48.11 | Jonathon Goldman | to. |
| 03:05:48.28 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:05:52.23 | Jonathon Goldman | Yeah. Bye. Thank you. |
| 03:05:52.43 | Ray Withy | Yeah. Which, right here, it appears. |
| 03:05:52.55 | Jonathon Goldman | Which, right here, it |
| 03:05:54.27 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 03:05:54.41 | Jonathon Goldman | I'm sorry. |
| 03:05:54.54 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 03:05:54.73 | Jonathon Goldman | If I were you, I wouldn't make that statement. |
| 03:05:55.06 | Ray Withy | . |
| 03:05:55.17 | Ray Withy | Why were you? Thank you. |
| 03:05:57.02 | Ray Withy | Yeah. He'll just use the word movement. Go ahead. |
| 03:06:00.30 | Jonathon Goldman | Go ahead. Mr. Mayor, members of the council, staff, audience and the folks still watching at home. Jonathan Goldman, your Public Works Director. This is item 60 in the package. I'm going to go through some photographs that were kind of hurriedly put together, so I can't guarantee that I necessarily know what's in all of them, and then go through the staff report. As you have probably already forgotten because you've been hard at work since the recess in August, there was a lot going on in Sausalito in August. And we took advantage of the opportunity to make some improvements at MLK Park during the course of the work that was being done by one of our current tenants now that schools opened. They invested a great deal of money there. In anticipation of their occupancy, we wanted to make sure that things that weren't in compliance or needed to be repaired or that they needed to have done but that we had the resources to do and that they would reimburse us for got done before school started. And in going into the budget setting process this year, we made a reasonable estimate of what those expenditures would be. And in fact, as we got into the details, we found that we needed to do more than we had requested budget for. I want to highlight these tables aren't even particularly attractive, but what they are |
| 03:07:55.70 | Jonathon Goldman | This is the format that we document manhole and pipeline condition assessments in with the inspection software and the operators that we have working in our wastewater enterprise. This symbology represents a manhole or probably politically correctly there's a different term but I'm not going to say that. We still call them manholes. Manhole to manhole or probably politically correctly, there's a different term, but I'm not gonna say that. We still call them manholes. Manhole to manhole, there's a pipe segment and the flow direction of the sewage in that pipe segment. |
| 03:08:15.55 | Unknown | a man. |
| 03:08:31.51 | Jonathon Goldman | Typically, we try to have 300 feet between manholes because that gives us the ability for the cleaning and inspection equipment we have to get in and to a place where it can be recovered again instead of being out in the middle of nowhere and something happens and we have to dig it up or something like that. But I just provided these two sheets as examples. You can see the way the software tracks the inspection distance here, 87.2 feet from where we started here. A factory, this is called a tap, a factory defective tap was noted during this inspection. Here's another one where what's called a water level sag was encountered. And there's a photograph in a few minutes that we may not be able to see on the screen very well either. But a sag in a gravity wastewater line is a place where waste and water is going to collect and in the absence of active routine maintenance to scour that out, that, you know, becomes anaerobic, creates equally or worse smelling and sometimes way more corrosive chemicals than what free flowing wastewater would and as a maintenance burden. So these are up as examples. Here's one of the points of entry. We're at zero feed on this inspection. This photograph isn't necessarily perfectly illustrative, but on the other hand, any fool can tell you that this is not a new, excellent condition piece of infrastructure. It's pitted looking and doesn't look like... All right, next. This particular photograph, again, captured with our equipment. You can see we're 200 feet from where this inspection started. If you think about the way sewer pipelines are supposed to work, you wouldn't expect that what in this case is called a joint offset, a large joint offset. You don't expect large joint offsets in a pipeline. Large joint offsets allow groundwater to infiltrate into a sewer, and to the extent that the sewer is running full, are going to allow sewage to escape into the environment, which is not where it's supposed to be. So this actually is standing water in one of those sags that was noted on one of the other logs. And you can see again the condition of what's probably ductile iron pipe, pitted, corroded looking. This pipe has been in the ground for some time and the presence of standing water, as Um, creates hydrogen sulfide and the possibility of sulfuric acid in an anaerobic environment that's probably the worst chemical you could put in contact with iron pipe. Here's another. This is a little bit hard to see, but you have smooth pipe wall and then the absence of pipe here. And it's not clear which side is up. In this photograph, these are just frame graphs from the video. But again, not what you want to have in a well-maintained, we're confident that the environment is being protected by our stewardship of this infrastructure kind of setting. |
| 03:12:12.08 | Unknown | I suggest you give this video to CCMCM to put on public access. |
| 03:12:16.54 | Jonathon Goldman | public access. That's a wonderful idea, and you remind me of an idea that I have not yet implemented, which is a contest to see if people can identify their own sewer lateral. Just one more of these defects. The camera is sideways here. We have standing water in the bottom of the pipe. And this may actually be the same defect I just showed, but from a different vantage point. Pretty big piece of pipe missing here. This looks like abstract art. That is, in fact, you can see that we are in a sewer pipe. But these are roots that have exploited a joint offset and are happily bathing in high nutrient rich wastewater whenever they get a chance. And the longer they're allowed to do that, the more damage they do to the pipe, the higher the probability that they will actually completely capture what's there, cause the backup, and uh, um, either damage to one of our tenant's spaces or release of waste water into a surface water body or something like that. These, on the other hand, are brand new facilities. And this is a manhole, and this is what's called a Ronning Inlet. It's an access point to allow our cleaning equipment to get into the sewer lines there. We ended up having to replace, as I recall, on the order of $130,000 worth of sewer infrastructure outside the buildings in MLK that we found in a condition that just wasn't acceptable for us to leave in place and wait. Some other improvements that we made. This is in the vicinity of the gymnasium, Building 7 at the lower part of the, or Building 6, lower part of the campus. You might even be able to see story poles for the proposed playground up here. This is the field house. The disabled accessible parking that we had at MLK was not compliant with the current code for either pavement markings or in many cases the dimensions. This is a van accessible space. There's a no parking zone so that the equipment that moves the wheelchair in and out of a van can have unobstructed space to load and unload an individual. And then the code requires a path of travel with certain slope limitations that gets them directly to a safe place to get into the building. They're not allowed to cross behind any other vehicle in order to do that. So because we had a contractor mobilized, because we knew that we had work that needed to be done there, we took advantage of the opportunity to bring this lower part of the campus up to code with respect to not only parking, but also this path of travel. This is, again, behind the gymnasium, the path of travel from the campus. the accessible parking spaces at this end, the accessible parking spaces here, as well as this is the entire loading and unloading zone for students coming in by bus to Lycée Francais. So we needed to have a compliant path of travel for those folks and their guests, as well as anyone that uses the gymnasium and the upper campus from this parking. A couple other areas here, this is behind where Lysa is currently holding classes. There were improvements that they made that transitions had to be built between what was in their plans and what was in their contractor scope, as well as our driveways and our accessways. This, too, is the area where our sewer line work happened. Some of it we were able to do trenchlessly underground. Some of it had to be open trench and point to point. So rather than just doing a lot of work, of dither about which contractor did what. We made the city's contractor on the streets the competitive procurement, the low bidder, prevailing wage contract available to, because they were already mobilized, to handle any of the issues that needed to be handled outside the footprints of the buildings and not between the buildings. This is a poor photograph of another one of those areas. Thank you. And those are all the photographs I bought. The important part, I suppose, |
| 03:17:11.48 | Jonathon Goldman | is that The Maggiora and Gelati's contract did not include most of these improvements. Maggiora and Gelati's contract that was awarded in June included the widening of the gate because we knew we needed to do that. And as I said in the staff report, once they had been awarded a contract, we're in the process of, which was in June, we're in the process of working with the Lycee's contractor and the Lycee knowing the work that we anticipated needed to be done in the parking lots and things like that, knowing what needed to be done in the sewers, we spent some quality time with them developing, you know, a more detailed understanding of what it would cost to make improvements that, in my judgment, needed to be made, take advantage of the fact that there was already construction going on there, so we're minimizing the period of time that nearby residents are subjected to construction activities and things like that. And, you make these changes. And in order to do that, we needed not only the funds that were originally appropriated in the budget, but we need to, we're asking you this evening, to appropriate additional funds to cover the costs that were actually incurred. with the understanding that The Lycée has already committed to paying for the, reimbursing the city for the gate. The Lycée has already committed to reimbursing the city for the fire code pavement and some of the storm drainage work and other elements of the transitions in the back of the buildings. Um, and |
| 03:19:06.22 | Jonathon Goldman | So we anticipate that, and I don't have an accurate dollar amount at this point, that given what was originally appropriated from MLK, given the, as I said in the staff report, there was $100,764 available and unencumbered as of September 13th. The driveway funds, $36,100, had not been encumbered, and we know now that we have some additional work to do before the rainy season. So I'm asking you to set aside $20,000 of that originally appropriated amount. and requesting a total supplemental appropriation to cover all the work that was done at MLK of $162,000. We're expecting reimbursement from, it's actually all at this point, for some of those improvements. Um... And we don't anticipate the need to expend any additional funds there this year other than what we're asking you to appropriate for for Maggiore and Gelati and those that I already talked about that I'm leaving available in the original appropriation. So I'm happy to answer questions. It's a little bit awkward in that this work is done. We will be compensating the contractor, but under the circumstances, you know, I did what I needed to do. I informed the city manager and the finance director. We're here before you this evening as a business item to make sure that everybody has a chance to understand what happened and what we're asking you to do and answer any questions that you have. you |
| 03:20:56.66 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 03:20:56.68 | Jonathon Goldman | Thank you. |
| 03:20:56.75 | Ray Withy | Bye. Mr. Mayor. |
| 03:20:58.72 | Debbie Pfeiffer | So, Jonathan, I just wanted to get clarity on this. With regards to change order 8, it says MLK accessibility, restructuring law at 86,000, |
| 03:21:09.18 | Unknown | and so. |
| 03:21:14.99 | Debbie Pfeiffer | Is that, does that include the restriping for the Lise? I get the bus turnaround or something or? |
| 03:21:22.02 | Jonathon Goldman | It does. There was work done Lise, as you may recall, with our kind of prodding, hired a traffic consultant, paid for a traffic consultant to help evaluate the change from having the Marin School there and look at the use that they intended to put to the site, how their students were going to get there, how their students were going to get home. And one of the advantages that Lysay offered was we're going to run buses. And that's great. That site, when it was originally or when it was last a public school, accommodated buses. The problem is that the way the parking was laid out would not accommodate a 40-foot bus and allow it to safely make turns. So what we did is to some extent with Kimley Horn's help, but actually Andy Davidson and I took um, the turning radius information available, it's actually Caltrans information that allows you to bring the the wheel tracks of a 40-foot two-axle vehicle into a cab drawing and figure out how they could make all of the turns that they needed to. That's how we determined that the gate needed to be widened. And then because that results in changes to where designated parking spaces were on site, we needed to re-stripe the lot. So the answer to your question is yes, it includes that re-striping, and that re-striping is a result of the fact that the Licea is running 40-foot buses there. |
| 03:23:01.10 | Debbie Pfeiffer | So, |
| 03:23:13.21 | Debbie Pfeiffer | And the laissez is paying for that, restriping, or a portion of that, or what, how much? |
| 03:23:19.14 | Jonathon Goldman | We did not actually anticipate that the Lise would pay for the striping. The Lise has committed to pay for widening the gate. What we didn't anticipate when we originally talked with the Lise about the cost of striping is the magnitude of repaving that we were going to have to do to make sure that the disabled spaces complied with the code, that the paths of travel complied with the code, or the amount of paving that the lycée was going to have to do. There was an issue with the fire code compliance actually behind the building because they had designed a conform for pedestrian travel that would have resulted in a fire truck in that space exceeding the cross slope for fire trucks. And it took me a long time to figure out what was going on there. So we still have to negotiate with the Lise to sort out all the details of this total change order number eight and clarify what they will pay for. It will be more than $36,100, but I can't tell you at the moment exactly how much more |
| 03:24:10.44 | Debbie Pfeiffer | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 03:24:29.61 | Debbie Pfeiffer | Because the follow-up question to that with respect to the buses goes back to the inquiry I I sent to the city manager... a couple months ago about the use of buses to, as a means of stopping at MLK and transporting students to their San Francisco campus, which, so I'm just concerned about the buses and the expense and, |
| 03:24:55.58 | Cynthia Abbott | Thank you. |
| 03:24:55.59 | Jonathon Goldman | All right. about the buses and the expense and... Yeah, I'm aware of that issue. Independent of that issue, the Lycee runs two buses a day for the benefit of students attending this campus and students leaving this campus. So whether, you know, there's a separate issue about whether there are other buses that are using the facility, and I think at this point, Lycee is on notice that there aren't supposed supposed to be any, but with the buses that are using the facility. And I think at this point, Lise is on notice that there aren't supposed to be any. But with the buses that are supposed to be there for this campus, based on Kim Lee Horn's study, we needed to reconfigure the parking lot so that the buses could safely maneuver and drop their passengers or pick their passengers up and then get back out onto Columbus. |
| 03:25:44.80 | Unknown | Okay. Thank you. |
| 03:25:48.58 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 03:25:48.63 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:25:48.65 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 03:25:48.67 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:25:48.72 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 03:25:48.73 | Unknown | man. |
| 03:25:49.04 | Ray Withy | No. Jonathan. We talked about this at the Finance Committee, I believe, but as far as where the money's coming from to pay regardless of how much we get reimbursed, where's it coming from? |
| 03:26:03.31 | Jonathon Goldman | The MLK fund is an enterprise fund, and it doesn't have the resources to cover this additional $162,000 in the current budget, nor does it have, will it have the revenue to offset it. So the Administrative Services Director, Treasurer Charlie Francis, has identified this essentially as a loan from the general fund. The advantage to the MLK fund is that within a relatively short period of time, the cash flow out associated with debt service will end. Revenues because they'll own the property outright and not have to make any more payments. So he's comfortable at this point with the fact that revenues will be coming in either at midyear or certainly next year, adequate to repay this relatively small loan from the general fund. |
| 03:26:27.02 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:26:27.19 | Adam Politzer | Thank you. |
| 03:26:41.99 | Steven Olson | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 03:27:02.36 | Jonathon Goldman | Okay. |
| 03:27:03.27 | Thomas Theodores | Thank you. |
| 03:27:03.31 | Unknown | And... |
| 03:27:03.59 | Thomas Theodores | with you. |
| 03:27:03.68 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:27:03.93 | Thomas Theodores | Thank you. Of the $162,000, you said we're going to be reimbursed. And you don't have the exact figure, but I mean, are we going to be reimbursed? The majority of it or a small fraction? Do you have any... |
| 03:27:15.74 | Unknown | THE FAMILY. |
| 03:27:16.03 | Jonathon Goldman | Thank you. |
| 03:27:16.06 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:27:16.10 | Thomas Theodores | Well, it won't be a small fraction. |
| 03:27:16.16 | Jonathon Goldman | Well, it will be a small fraction. The $36,100 we will be reimbursed for. The change order 8, which has the rest of the lease-based stuff in it, is $86,413. And the I can't really speculate. There was a significant amount of work to be done to bring the accessible parking spaces up to code because we have plenty of this to do and we've talked about this issue in general terms in closed session earlier. We had to do that in this context. We had to do the paving to make sure that the paths of travel from those parking spaces to the places where tenants and visitors are going to use the facility to the best of our ability could be constructed. I had not anticipated those costs in either proposing the budget amount or in communicating to the city manager about what did need to happen before the restriping could be done. So I don't know if it's – I don't really want to speculate on total amounts because I don't know – I haven't seen the breakdowns of pavement quantities. A subtle change to get a 2% cross slope in a segment of walkway is one thing, but having to add tons of asphalt to accommodate the fire code on cross slopes for a fire engine in the back, which was completely the Lysay's responsibility, is something else. So we will sort that out and you have my commitment that a detailed accounting for that will come back to you. But I it would be a mistake for me to |
| 03:28:14.03 | Steven Olson | you |
| 03:28:14.20 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:28:32.10 | Unknown | I |
| 03:29:12.77 | Jonathon Goldman | to represent whether it's a significant portion or 50-50 or a small portion at this point. |
| 03:29:18.98 | Adam Politzer | If I can, if I may, Mr. Mayor and Council, I just want to underscore something that may have gotten lost with the amount of detail that Jonathan is walking through. Some of the work there as the landlord is our responsibility. and so the ADA compliance the restriping to maximize the number of public parking spaces not just for the Lysse's use, but for the public's used, be it the the artists and tenants in Building 7, the participants at Playland in the gymnasium, the activity on the ball fields, that come there with their dogs for the dog parks, both for up at the park and out on the field I mean, there's a lot of different uses at that facility. I think what Jonathan tried to do when he started this was what's the traffic study say we need to do And a lot of that cost is being passed on to the least same. But what does the landlord need to do? And that's where all of a sudden just kind of exploded into much bigger cost than what we originally anticipated. So I think Jonathan is absolutely correct that the LISSE will be responsible for their share of costs that are directly associated with their Um, their occupation on their occupancy on the property. But what we want to be careful of is not all of a sudden say, for making the lease a pay for this percentage well, then the artist should pay this share kind of the discussion we just had with MTA, with. you know, who's going to pay this. Some of it is just our costs. And we need to do that. And we get value from that cost. And I think you heard Jonathan say, You know, this is a value. It's not money going down the drain. for the first part of the slideshow. But it is money that's going into hard property. And I think that's why Charlie's, I'm confident that over time that money comes back. Those are costs that we would have paid for. |
| 03:31:05.60 | Unknown | that. |
| 03:31:05.61 | Unknown | Thank you. He's getting it now. |
| 03:31:08.01 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:31:08.06 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:31:15.33 | Adam Politzer | you know, a year from now, two years from now, five years from now because we would have been required by law in some cases. Um, And then it is really important that the major the most significant costs listed on these four items. is the sewer work and that won't be shared by anyone other than the landlord. |
| 03:31:35.01 | Ray Withy | Well, I... I commend you for getting it done, especially for schools and school children. I think you can see where the Oakland Coliseum has had literally had to move players out of the bullpen because of backups with their sewer system and what it created. I don't want that kind of atmosphere around children, and we don't know what the reaction of how they could get sick from this and other things. So I'm glad you got it done and used it as a priority. |
| 03:32:16.47 | Ray Withy | The only question I had, it came from one of the tenants, and with the restriping, certainly around Building 7, because the buses need to get around. A number of spaces have been eliminated there, so they're worried. And this is a general point of view. I've talked to a couple of them who've tagged me, saying, hey, we don't feel so important here because there's a big entity that's come in. The new village appears to be taking over and they feel like they're getting the short end of the stick. |
| 03:32:33.83 | Unknown | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 03:32:40.53 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 03:32:49.80 | Ray Withy | whether it's through labeling or something, because we definitely lost spaces around Building 7. So maybe there's some of the spaces that are closer to Building 7 in this lot that we're seeing here. Maybe we can... Try to say, hey, you know, Thank you. These are for the tenants, not necessarily priority parking or something of that nature. just because the artists, they're not paying top dollar, but we want them to feel, and I know you feel the same way, that they're top of the list. Thank you. |
| 03:33:14.96 | Jonathon Goldman | We have actually the advantage of Leslie Johnson's involvement and Lauren Umbertus' involvement to some extent. I mean, Lauren, having a construction management background, has been responsible for really trying to be the go-between between Lise's contractor, Leslie, who's representing the landlord in a sense, but she's on a day-to-day basis, they're responsible for dealing with tenants and lots of issues. |
| 03:33:15.06 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 03:33:45.35 | Jonathon Goldman | and even to the point where people have wanted my attention and my time, and I've said, you know, we're doing what we need to do, and I'm not really interested in meeting with you to tell you about what we're doing. And Leslie said, you know what, you just need to spend some time with these other tenants. You have never met them. And it's not that they, I mean, they may tell you they think you're an idiot and that you don't know what you're doing, but that's not the point. The point is exactly what you said. They are entitled to be heard and the commitment that we made to them, and I think this is Leslie and Charlie and Adam's philosophy, is We don't necessarily know that this is perfect. The objective is to make it better than it was and to keep paying attention and to the extent that it can be improved further if we're missing the boat and Leslie's already been an advocate and has the authority to assign parking spaces at this point as long as she's conscious of the consequences. That's our role as the combination of landlord and regulator and, you know, public works department. So by all means, I would encourage you and anyone that you talk to to not not be afraid to reach out and make sure that if there is an issue that we hear them and that we either satisfy them that it will pass with time, which the first week of school, I don't know if you were here, but... Thank you. The first week of school was pretty wild for Lyce. New Village School's first week was pretty wild too, but I think they're a little more used to it. But letting those kinds of issues just work themselves out and making sure that no one gets hurt or killed or that there aren't fist fights in the parking lot is important. Um, watching what happens and trying to figure out how to make it better. It's like we have relatively successfully done for years with tourist bicycles downtown. If we can pay attention and learn and make incremental improvements, that's what it's all about. |
| 03:36:08.64 | Debbie Pfeiffer | I have a question. So is there, would it be possible to put in a process where you would engage with the artists and get their feedback before these types of decisions were implemented before they lost spaces, before they lost |
| 03:36:25.04 | Jonathon Goldman | before they lost. And that's exactly what we did. The problem is that For some folks, being invited to a public meeting or a workshop on what the Lise is going to do doesn't flip the switch that says something's going to change next to my space. And so I think large numbers of especially Building 7 folks didn't actively participate in the outreach that we did in advance and that Kim Lee Horn and the Lise did in advance. That doesn't mean that I shouldn't meet with them while it's going on or that we shouldn't continue to follow up, but I absolutely agree with you. Yes, we should have and did. So they, |
| 03:37:08.46 | Adam Politzer | Thank you. |
| 03:37:08.48 | Debbie Pfeiffer | So they were notified that they were going to lose parking spaces? |
| 03:37:09.03 | Adam Politzer | were notified that they were going to |
| 03:37:10.69 | Claire Blotter | Thank you. |
| 03:37:12.97 | Adam Politzer | Well, I think the question that, you know, they're not their parking spaces, and that's the bigger challenge here. It's they're the communities Um, The community's parking spaces, that's a community facility. And so there's not a designated parking spot Some of our tenants have multiple people that Um, You know, they come and go. Lorna, she has a great pottery program but she's not, designated to have classes there but we allow it. She has classes there. and she might have six or seven people. Does that mean that she should have six or seven parking spaces reserved for her business. We look at it that she has won. Here's one space. And- through what Jonathan shared with Leslie's level of participation. She was holding monthly meetings with them. She was meeting with the entire community and going door to door and talking to them one on one on the changes that were being proposed. I think what got lost in this is that people you know, felt that they had the right to when they pulled in that there would be a parking spot right in front of their area. and that would be reserved for them. a privilege that was given to them. at any given moment, there can be some activity there. that fills up parking spaces. The play land is a good example of recreation class. the activity in the ball field on the weekends is another opportunity where the All those parking spaces are taken. Um, So there's a discussion now on, I think as the dust settles, and we get into a normal pattern. We'll take a look at it. What we don't want to do is reserve our parking spot that says tenants parking only for Building 7. And then let's say vacant because they're not there because not all of them are full-time they don't have all full-time activity. in their locations. The Lyce right now, now that it's settled down, you can go there at 9 o'clock, And there's ample parking on the lower level of the campus. significant. availability of parking. At 3 o'clock, it's packed again because that's when parents come in to pull out. their kids from class, And so there's the pickup. process. that, creates a jam in the parking. But come 4.15, Once again, there's ample parking. So that's the case at any of these school sites, be it Willow Creek, or New Village School on the upper campus. or the Lycee. But during the majority of the time, you know, basically, other than two hours, at the very beginning of the morning, in the middle of the afternoon, There's not a parking issue out there. |
| 03:40:00.01 | Debbie Pfeiffer | Thank you, Adam, and I appreciate that. having that context and I if I misspoke, what I was trying to say is I think what the artists really wanted was they just wanted to be informed as to the changes that they were specifically going to lose spaces. Not that the spaces were their parking spaces, but that that type of reconfiguration was going to take place. |
| 03:40:24.02 | Adam Politzer | And I appreciate that. I think one other point of clarification is there's actually a lot of illegal parking going on as well. in non-designated parking. where we said, You can't park here. because that's now where the bus is going to pass. But it wasn't a legal parking space. before, but it was more convenient to them because it was right outside their door. you know. There may be worth I was taking some time to see if it was one or two parking spaces that was the net of this. versus maybe the perception because of the use of illegal areas. that were never enforced or had trailers parking there that's out there for weeks on. months on end. You know, there's a whole transition here that Leslie is trying to clean up. And in addition to the monthly meeting, she was also putting out a monthly newsletter that For the people that didn't attend the meetings, I'll try to get information out newsletter. I think staff has done a good job giving Absolutely, always can. but I think that we really worked hard TO BE AS INFORMATIVE and inclusive as possible during the process. |
| 03:41:31.67 | Debbie Pfeiffer | Thank you, Anne. |
| 03:41:32.79 | Ray Withy | Uh, I'd like to give you an observation. I've been down there a few times at 8 o'clock in the morning, 3 o'clock in the afternoon. The opening of that driveway on Coloma was a great idea, made a real big difference. I've watched the traffic. The most that I've seen going down Coloma to Bridgeway, seven cars, that's about the maximum, before the lights change. So that worked. I went up to Ebb Tide, spent some time up there. And just so you know, in the morning, they have a traffic director. in a vest like I have. |
| 03:42:14.12 | Unknown | Screw. |
| 03:42:15.79 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 03:42:15.82 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:42:15.97 | Ray Withy | it And they do the traffic control at their end. And I notice at Ebtight, once again, six cars, seven cars, which are maximum. And I spent some time there. I think the flow is working. Could it be improved? I guess if I spent a little more time down there, there might be one or two. But other than that, it is working, and there is no backups that I see. So that's just my... two cents. So anyway, we... Thank you. Any other comments? Any public comments, questions? Well, we have a recommended motion to adopt the motion appropriating supplemental funds for and authorizing the city manager to approve change orders to Majora and Gelati for MLK. Park Improvements. I'll make that motion then. Do I have a second? |
| 03:43:13.26 | Thomas Theodores | second |
| 03:43:14.11 | Ray Withy | All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Thank you. Okay, moving right along now, we'll go to... City manager. information on Council. |
| 03:43:28.79 | Adam Politzer | I think I've talked enough tonight. Just a reminder for those that did not respond to Debbie MCC. MCC is tomorrow night, and that's in Ross at Lagunitas Country Club. So if you'd like to join us, please do. Other than that, I will defer until October 8th. |
| 03:43:36.52 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:43:36.58 | Unknown | and, |
| 03:43:36.64 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:43:50.32 | Ray Withy | Okay, any questions, public comment? Okay, next item, future agenda items. |
| 03:44:02.15 | Unknown | Our commission... |
| 03:44:04.14 | Debbie Pfeiffer | Yes. You took the words right out of my mouth. |
| 03:44:06.55 | Unknown | Right out of my mouth. |
| 03:44:07.97 | Debbie Pfeiffer | Arts Commission, I would love to see that relaunched. I've raised that a number of times. So I think there was consensus at the last meeting to move forward with promoting that and generating applicants and moving forward and or putting that on the agenda. I think is a first step to get consensus on that we want an Arts Commission. I think we have a majority now that wants an Arts Commission. And the other topic was raised by a resident, I believe at the last meeting, regarding the increase of tour buses going down Alexander. It's a very treacherous corner, very narrow, with the cyclists and the cars and the pedestrians. It's getting rather dangerous and also rather noisy. So there was a request to put that on our future agenda. |
| 03:45:05.19 | Adam Politzer | Mr. Mayor, can I just respond to that? |
| 03:45:05.51 | Ray Withy | Mr. Mayor. |
| 03:45:07.96 | Adam Politzer | Uh, I actually was going to share a little bit on that item on manager's report The... Police Captain John Robacher is starting to work with Mary. to look at what other cities do with this type of problem. We can't be alone on this. I'm thinking about Beverly Hills, Carmel. as examples that you know where you just have these tour buses that are just driving through and what ordinances can we do to restrict the size, the frequency. the route, the direction, So that is something that the captain is working on. and we'll work with the city attorney. And so we'll bring something back We've heard several concerns from residents, mostly residents from the south end of town, and from a handful of businesses right in the downtown area. Unfortunately, we are continuing to see a growth of activity. be it the bicyclists, the taxicabs, and now the buses. The mayor had shared with me when he and I had discussed this, you know, we're not even talking about the number of minivans or tour vans that are in addition to that. It is something that we're aware of, we're taking seriously, and we hope to bring back some proposals and some options to the council for their consideration which may include Ordnance changed. In the meantime, we are going to reach out to a handful of the companies that we're aware of. and see if at a minimum, And these are suggestions that we've heard from the council and from the community, at a minimum that it's a one-way trip into town, that they come in through Alexander and depart on the north end of town so that we at least cut the number of trips in half that go from downtown through Alexander Avenue. And then let them know that there is a concern, that our public is concerned We'd prefer not to create ordinances to restrict the activity and see what level of cooperation we can get because It can't be any good for their business to have empty buses driving in a circle. and hopefully their trial period of this comes back that that's not a good business model. in connection to our concerns from our community, it may be an opportunity for them to change their practice. We're going to start with that conversation, but at the same time on a parallel path, is reach out to other communities and find out what other ordinances may exist that may help us reduce the impact on our community. |
| 03:47:45.61 | Debbie Pfeiffer | Adam, just a comment that I know San Francisco has that type of ordinance for the area around the Legion of Honor. There's a neighborhood, Seacliff, that was it. They have a similar ordinance. |
| 03:48:01.59 | Ray Withy | Well, the only comment I can make is there has something, something has changed with the buses and it has transformed. And it's transformed not at the beginning of the season, but has taken place almost midway through to the latter part. You have now three companies. that are now doing what they call hop on and hop off. These are the problem ones, because they come in every 30 minutes, each one of them. So you can count on 16 trips per day, per company and the three companies are The big bus, big bee. City sightseeing, which is the red buses. and San Francisco sightseeing. which is the ones with the trolleys. looks. They're coming in And I think You know, we're near the end of the season. So, I think what we have to do is how do we plan to sit down and reevaluate all of the transit hub. for the next year, and that should take place no later than March on how we're going to do. One of the things that, like Adam mentioned, is possibly if you have less than, maybe we could make it 36 seats. Oh, I can't talk about that. Okay, I'm finished. |
| 03:49:30.10 | Debbie Pfeiffer | Thank you. Well, I'm glad we're going to look at that because I think it is a priority. |
| 03:49:32.71 | Ray Withy | because I think it is a problem. Yep. Okay. Sorry about that. Council member, committee reports. |
| 03:49:43.46 | Debbie Pfeiffer | The Butte task force is meeting tomorrow night, and things are moving forward. |
| 03:49:47.06 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 03:49:51.26 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:49:51.28 | Ray Withy | Okay. Okay. Any public comment? No, no public. Okay. Appointments to Marinship Specific Plan Steering Committee. I have two nominations that I'd like to put across for that, and that would be Tony Badger, And the other one was Robin Petrovic from Heath. |
| 03:50:22.56 | Ray Withy | Can I ask a question? Yes. How many... |
| 03:50:26.56 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 03:50:26.58 | Ray Withy | people. |
| 03:50:27.03 | Ray Withy | Thank you. It's five. Made application. We have- |
| 03:50:32.22 | Ray Withy | to, since? |
| 03:50:34.10 | Ray Withy | We've interviewed five people. |
| 03:50:36.26 | Ray Withy | No, I mean, how many are on this committee? I can't just, five, right? It's two, you two guys. |
| 03:50:40.72 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:50:40.74 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 03:50:40.79 | Thomas Theodores | All right. There are two, there's a committee of five |
| 03:50:47.17 | Ray Withy | And with you guys. |
| 03:50:48.08 | Thomas Theodores | And it would be two residents, two former city council members, and one planning commission. |
| 03:50:49.06 | Ray Withy | And it'd be. |
| 03:50:54.95 | Ray Withy | Oh, right, right, right. |
| 03:50:56.13 | Thomas Theodores | Thank you. And I think for clarification, you were nominating on the residents. Is that correct? I... |
| 03:51:02.14 | Debbie Pfeiffer | So, Mr. Mayor, one comment, if I may. One of the things that was recommended was that we create a position on the committee for a working waterfront, someone who is, you know, reflecting. |
| 03:51:02.18 | Thomas Theodores | So, Thank you. Thank you. |
| 03:51:06.56 | Thomas Theodores | Amen. |
| 03:51:19.33 | Ray Withy | Tony Badger has been there for even before I came. He's very knowledgeable on it. And you've got Robin from Heath Pottery who's had a stake down there and been very involved in this. So I think those are the two that were brought up. |
| 03:51:24.65 | Debbie Pfeiffer | What? |
| 03:51:34.94 | Debbie Pfeiffer | Oh. |
| 03:51:35.14 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:51:37.89 | Debbie Pfeiffer | Well, my point being that if we added one slot for a working waterfront, we could appoint Tony and then we could appoint two residents. Or we could have two representatives of the working waterfront. We could say Tony and actually Robin with Heath Pottery. It's in the Marin ship. It's historic. and then we could add two more residents. But I think that there needs to be more representation Thank you. |
| 03:52:10.99 | Ray Withy | Of the |
| 03:52:11.19 | Debbie Pfeiffer | We can add. At the Maritime, frankly, Maritime Services. |
| 03:52:14.38 | Ray Withy | there. |
| 03:52:16.23 | Debbie Pfeiffer | Thank you. |
| 03:52:16.28 | Ray Withy | So there's two. |
| 03:52:17.01 | Ray Withy | Right now, if we want to change it, now is not the time to change it. We can do that. |
| 03:52:17.55 | Debbie Pfeiffer | Thank you. |
| 03:52:24.28 | Ray Withy | if we want later, but right now I put in two names and you can add someone's name if you want to for nomination or accept. but I'd like to... |
| 03:52:36.36 | Debbie Pfeiffer | Well, I would – so what you're saying is you don't have to – |
| 03:52:38.63 | Ray Withy | What you're saying? Do you have any other names you want to put in? Can I ask a question first? |
| 03:52:41.04 | Ray Withy | you want to put in as a... Can I ask a question first before we do that? Just to, you know... Go ahead. So it's five people in the two council, there's two citizens or whatever, planning commissioner, who are the other two again? |
| 03:52:46.73 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 03:52:46.74 | Ray Withy | Yeah. |
| 03:52:54.76 | Thomas Theodores | The former. |
| 03:52:55.77 | Ray Withy | of former |
| 03:52:56.40 | Ray Withy | from. |
| 03:52:56.90 | Thomas Theodores | Thank you. |
| 03:52:56.92 | Ray Withy | Thank you. Yeah. Okay. And I believe that's who? Is that Mike Kelly and. You have listed here. |
| 03:52:59.21 | Adam Politzer | Thank you. |
| 03:52:59.23 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:53:02.86 | Adam Politzer | You have listed here Mike Kelly and Leon Hunting. |
| 03:53:05.44 | Ray Withy | Okay. So... |
| 03:53:07.23 | Linda | Thank you. |
| 03:53:07.25 | Adam Politzer | Thank you. |
| 03:53:07.26 | Linda | So, out of |
| 03:53:08.60 | Ray Withy | Out of the five names that we have for applications that are put in and we've interviewed, I would like either some nominations or I, my two nominations are... Tony Badger and Robin Petrovich. And he's... |
| 03:53:25.98 | Linda | Could I ask, are we, before we try, if I may, Is it our goal to appoint the whole committee tonight? Okay. Do you want to do that as separate votes for a separate vote on, I think, we only have two former council members apply. So if we're going to do that tonight, then we're, so we're gonna do this in pieces, are we Mr. Mayor? Yeah, that's fine. So you want to have the first discussion about the two residents. That's correct. Other than, yeah. |
| 03:53:47.12 | Unknown | Right. So we're going to do this in pieces, are we, Mr. Mayor? Yes. |
| 03:53:53.70 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:53:53.75 | Unknown | God. |
| 03:53:53.97 | Ray Withy | fine. |
| 03:53:54.19 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:53:54.24 | Ray Withy | So, |
| 03:54:01.97 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 03:54:01.99 | Linda | Thank you. |
| 03:54:02.00 | Ray Withy | And because this is agendized, we can talk about this, right? City Attorney? Okay. So I have a suggestion. And I don't remember. I wasn't here when you formed the... I think it was in March when you guys debated this. So unlike the earlier two items where we wanted to sort of have... Different, yeah. |
| 03:54:20.26 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 03:54:28.50 | Unknown | to him. |
| 03:54:30.62 | Ray Withy | Planning Commission or HLB or whatever other development In this one, I'm not so sure. you need the Planning Commissioner on this particular body, because this is really a at some point is going to get down into the details, but at least at this stage, it's about policy, right? And so whether it's a working waterfront representative or, like the other way you've put it together, or another member of the community that you've already interviewed, I think it would be good to have, you know, if you're going to keep it small, you don't want to have this ever-expanding committee where you have 9, 12, 15, and then it becomes unmanageable. Thank you. that it might be worthwhile to have greater citizen because the Planning Commission is going to have a lot of opportunity to weigh in at some point. But at this point, when you're just developing strategies for procedures and policy and that kind of thing, I think it might be better to have a little bit more citizen involvement. |
| 03:55:35.85 | Ray Withy | I think we wanted a little balance of everything in there because it's going to take everything to move this ahead. And if we feel that it's not necessary, then we can always drop one. if that's the case. I think the general thought was that we have this representation from the former mayors like Mike Kelly and Leon Henning who have some history and some knowledge in that. I thought that by the choice of Robin who's very stakeholder, very involved, been there. So, and Tony is, this institutional knowledge about the marineship is a great value to us. Amen. It's kind of a start if we feel that it's... the formula isn't working, then we can change it. But I think I'd like to go with the formula that we have. And then we have the choice to change it along the way. You know, I'm open to that. So... I think there was a general feeling that we would get one from here, two from there. |
| 03:56:55.83 | Debbie Pfeiffer | Mr. Mayor, I have a question. Is this committee going to, and I voted against this. I had an issue with the way it's been constructed. I think it needs far more citizen participation and the working waterfront, and I think the, |
| 03:57:10.52 | Ray Withy | That will be up to them if they want to put subcommittees, whatever they want to do. |
| 03:57:14.40 | Debbie Pfeiffer | Here's my question. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Here's my question. Is this subcommittee going to look at that? I heard some buzz about a public-private partnership, public-private investment. Is this subcommittee going to discuss that? |
| 03:57:14.45 | Ray Withy | Here's my question. |
| 03:57:32.10 | Ray Withy | That's news to me. Well, it's been discussed. |
| 03:57:34.80 | Debbie Pfeiffer | Well, it's been discussed. It's absolutely been discussed. Well, listen, I guess I wanted to understand the scope of what this steering committee is going to be discussing and what they're going to be talking about. And is this public-private partnership buzz going to be part of that? |
| 03:57:41.09 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 03:57:41.16 | Jeff Bradley | I'm going to... |
| 03:57:41.51 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 03:57:53.28 | Ray Withy | What's the point? I don't know exactly what you're... |
| 03:57:54.54 | Adam Politzer | I know exactly what you are. I think the- |
| 03:57:58.54 | Debbie Pfeiffer | Well, it was mentioned during the campaign by in the debate. when, I mean, I didn't say it, but I heard So, of you mentioned for the Marinship the public-private partnership for investment. |
| 03:58:13.48 | Linda | Right, but what is that? |
| 03:58:15.87 | Debbie Pfeiffer | Well, I guess I would ask you because you brought it up. I mean, a public... |
| 03:58:18.08 | Linda | I mean, public-private partnerships in anything is worthy of discussion, but that's not in of itself. role of the steering committee will be to, you can read it yourself, page 1 of 3 of the staff report. There are four bullet points. I don't need to read them all out. You can read. |
| 03:58:36.83 | Debbie Pfeiffer | No, I read, thank you, Councilmember. I read the staff report. That's what it is. I guess I just wanted to also kind of ask that specific question about the private-public partnership. That is, is this, |
| 03:58:38.81 | Linda | Right. That's what it is. |
| 03:58:51.24 | Debbie Pfeiffer | included in that. |
| 03:58:53.27 | Linda | I, not in my mind, in of itself, unless it comes forth. But it could come forth as an outcome, just like anything could come forth as an outcome. |
| 03:58:54.67 | Debbie Pfeiffer | Okay, thank you. |
| 03:58:55.75 | Thomas Theodores | Thank you. |
| 03:58:56.37 | Debbie Pfeiffer | Thank you. |
| 03:58:56.96 | Thomas Theodores | Thank you. |
| 03:58:56.98 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:59:03.38 | Thomas Theodores | I just want to be clear. I'd like to see where you've ever seen me say public-private partnership. I mean, it's a concept that can be out there, but I don't know what a public-private buzz you're talking about. What we're doing here is, We have decided as a council that doing nothing option won't work. We've got a committee to take a look at all the work that's been done before, and we're trying to find out what the next step is. Of course, it's totally wide open, but I don't think there's any buzz. |
| 03:59:17.18 | Unknown | Decided it. |
| 03:59:31.64 | Thomas Theodores | predetermined outcomes of anything. And we've got a committee that has a lot of experience in the area and that can look at everything we have, but it's a total open slate at this point. |
| 03:59:33.58 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 03:59:33.70 | Jonathon Goldman | I think. |
| 03:59:33.95 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 03:59:41.48 | Linda | I want to emphasize that, reiterate that. I mean, I'm on record on this diocese saying I have absolutely no predetermined outcome. I have no idea what the outcome is going to be of this. |
| 03:59:56.67 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:59:57.04 | Debbie Pfeiffer | Thank you. |
| 03:59:57.06 | Adam Politzer | Thank you. |
| 03:59:57.07 | Debbie Pfeiffer | Okay, it was a question. I got an answer. Thank you. |
| 04:00:00.43 | Adam Politzer | Mr. Mayor, I do need to comment because I think it is important that the staff, specifically Lili Xin-Singh, has brought forward at least on three different occasions, |
| 04:00:02.35 | Debbie Pfeiffer | because I can't. |
| 04:00:14.28 | Adam Politzer | updates on how we've been progressing. occurring at least One, if not two, and I think the second one would have reiterated it, as part of the RFP that we went out and are looking for a consultant to help us through this process, she showed a slide that was a three-legged stool. And the three legs of the stool is infrastructure, land use and economics. I don't want anyone to walk out of here thinking there's not an economic component of this. But as we've heard several council members say, There's no predetermined understanding of what that means, but economics You can't lead. to what you're suggesting which could be some private public partnership because Economics, that's a component. of that, but I wanted to make sure that no one left tonight forgetting that the the discussions that we've had in the past at least at the last presentation, if not on multiple of the presentations was the discussion about a three-legged stool economic land use and infrastructure. |
| 04:01:22.31 | Ray Withy | Can we move forward on this? I put two hands up. Can we start with that? So... Yeah, I did that before I go in. Are there any other names out of the five people that we interviewed that you want to put forward? |
| 04:01:31.08 | Debbie Pfeiffer | So... |
| 04:01:31.62 | Jeremy | I love it. |
| 04:01:43.05 | Debbie Pfeiffer | I nominate Tony Badger and Pat Fitzgerald. |
| 04:01:48.97 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 04:01:49.00 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 04:01:49.04 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 04:01:49.10 | Ray Withy | Thank you. Yeah, I just wanted to put Adam Cravazzi out there instead of a planning commissioner. |
| 04:02:12.66 | Unknown | nations. |
| 04:02:16.97 | Unknown | you Councilmember Pfeiffer. |
| 04:02:19.87 | Debbie Pfeiffer | I just say two names. Tony Badger and Pat Fitzgerald |
| 04:02:29.59 | Unknown | Councilmember Theodora. |
| 04:02:31.63 | Thomas Theodores | Tony Badger and Robin Petrovic. |
| 04:02:37.67 | Unknown | Council Member Withey. |
| 04:02:39.09 | Linda | Tony Badger, Robin Petrovich. |
| 04:02:43.22 | Unknown | Vice Mayor Leone. Thank you. |
| 04:02:45.10 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 04:02:45.18 | Unknown | I just want to call. |
| 04:02:45.97 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 04:02:52.01 | Unknown | Mayor Weiner. Thank you. |
| 04:02:53.38 | Ray Withy | Amen. |
| 04:02:54.34 | Ray Withy | I said before, I'll be back. |
| 04:02:58.73 | Unknown | Based on that. |
| 04:03:04.23 | Ray Withy | Okay. Thank you. |
| 04:03:05.47 | Unknown | to |
| 04:03:06.04 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 04:03:06.06 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 04:03:06.07 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 04:03:06.59 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 04:03:06.97 | Ray Withy | Let's go to the... |
| 04:03:08.00 | Ray Withy | the two councils. I, uh, |
| 04:03:10.68 | Ray Withy | You only have two. Thank you. Yeah. Who said they would do it. All right. |
| 04:03:14.10 | Unknown | We said. |
| 04:03:14.41 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 04:03:14.46 | Thomas Theodores | They're not. |
| 04:03:14.53 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 04:03:14.54 | Thomas Theodores | You would do it. |
| 04:03:15.77 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 04:03:15.89 | Thomas Theodores | you |
| 04:03:15.98 | Unknown | MR. |
| 04:03:18.22 | Ray Withy | No one else was foolish. |
| 04:03:18.66 | Thomas Theodores | No one else was foolish enough. I move that we nominate. Leon Honti and Mike Kelly. |
| 04:03:19.98 | Ray Withy | Thank you. I moved that we nominate. Thank you. |
| 04:03:23.60 | Debbie Pfeiffer | Thank you. And I'm going to abstain from this because I just disagree with the makeup of that combination. |
| 04:03:53.98 | Linda | Second. |
| 04:03:55.55 | Ray Withy | All in favor? Aye. |
| 04:03:57.00 | Linda | Bye. |
| 04:03:58.03 | Unknown | Vogue. |
| 04:03:58.50 | Ray Withy | Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. |
| 04:04:01.19 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 04:04:01.25 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 04:04:01.34 | Linda | to upstairs. |
| 04:04:01.41 | Ray Withy | Good. |
| 04:04:01.84 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 04:04:02.03 | Ray Withy | upstairs. |
| 04:04:03.97 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 04:04:04.22 | Ray Withy | OKAY. |
| 04:04:04.65 | Unknown | Bye. |
| 04:04:04.70 | Barbara Thornton | abstain. It's like, |
| 04:04:04.92 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 04:04:05.34 | Ray Withy | Next. So, yeah, so my point here, again, and you can take it for what it's worth, I shouldn't put that out there. This may not be worth very much. I don't... |
| 04:04:17.00 | Ray Withy | Don't worry, don't say. |
| 04:04:18.53 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 04:04:21.86 | Ray Withy | I think we're better suited here to have as many diverse points of view in this process, in this sort of a steering committee, is what I view this as more of a steering committee, than to have a functional member alone. So that's my point. |
| 04:04:34.58 | Unknown | It is. |
| 04:04:34.97 | Unknown | and |
| 04:04:48.98 | Unknown | have next on our names |
| 04:04:52.30 | Unknown | You have a confirmation of a Planning Commission representative |
| 04:04:57.33 | Ray Withy | Okay. And the Planning Commission has already chose |
| 04:04:57.75 | Unknown | And you saw cheese. |
| 04:04:58.97 | Adam Politzer | And... |
| 04:04:59.03 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 04:04:59.10 | Adam Politzer | . |
| 04:05:03.42 | Adam Politzer | I will vote on Bill Warner. |
| 04:05:04.97 | Ray Withy | Okay. |
| 04:05:07.17 | Ray Withy | Thank you. Okay. |
| 04:05:08.28 | Unknown | Well. |
| 04:05:08.74 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 04:05:08.92 | Ray Withy | Was that the last planning commission or this makeup? |
| 04:05:13.76 | Linda | That was the last one. |
| 04:05:14.61 | Ray Withy | Last one. We've since put two new planning commissioners in the middle. Okay, well. |
| 04:05:24.09 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 04:05:25.59 | John Westling | Thanks, family. |
| 04:05:26.34 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 04:05:26.37 | Linda | Now, sure. I moved to... First of all, Cam, could I before, I'd like to ask a question. I mean, can we at this stage, |
| 04:05:27.82 | John Westling | Thank you. |
| 04:05:27.86 | Unknown | I move. |
| 04:05:28.55 | John Westling | . |
| 04:05:28.72 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 04:05:35.20 | Linda | I suppose we can, without it being specifically the agenda, is to actually change the composition. I mean, the vice mayor has suggested that we don't have a planning commissioner. Is that something that we could do even if we wanted to? |
| 04:05:55.55 | John Westling | for the eternity. |
| 04:05:56.76 | Linda | City Attorney. |
| 04:05:57.74 | John Westling | Yeah. |
| 04:05:58.40 | Linda | you message. |
| 04:05:59.21 | Ray Withy | at 1120. |
| 04:06:00.41 | Linda | you |
| 04:06:00.46 | Ray Withy | She's already checking her fancy football. I'm reading your agenda, sir. |
| 04:06:00.54 | John Westling | Thank you. |
| 04:06:00.97 | Mary Wagner | I'm checking her fancy football. I'm reading your agenda, sir. If the council wants to change the composition of the committee itself, I would suggest that you give us direction to bring that back to you as a separate item because it wasn't agendized that way and it's not in your staff report that way. |
| 04:06:22.34 | Ray Withy | Let's put it this way. Because there are, what do we want to do? Because there are two new planning commissioners, do we want to throw it back to them to see who they vote on with a new planning commission? No. You're not going to get it. All right, let's look. Look, we could always change this if we want. Is that correct? So it's our discretion. |
| 04:06:48.03 | Debbie Pfeiffer | I'm gonna move to then can I move forward with a motion, Mr. Mayor? Go ahead. I'm going to move to approve Commissioner Bill Werner as selected from the Planning Commission to represent the Commission. |
| 04:06:52.67 | Ray Withy | Mr. President. |
| 04:07:02.95 | Unknown | Okay? |
| 04:07:07.96 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 04:07:08.36 | Thomas Theodores | Well, I think before we do that, I think that motion was we should complete our discussion and then the motion. I mean, that was somewhat of a, to black it off, and that doesn't mean that there's anything wrong with the motion and, you know, that we'll vote. But let's complete this and then let's vote on the motion. I mean... |
| 04:07:25.36 | Bruce Bagnole | I mean. |
| 04:07:27.60 | Thomas Theodores | Well, I think certainly we agreed that we would go with the Planning Commission's recommendation in this and it's just as good as anything whether we send it back. But I think we should go with that. That was something that we agreed to. There's no reason not to. And I think we should probably entertain the motion. I just want to make sure that we finish the discussion. |
| 04:07:45.25 | Linda | I mean, |
| 04:07:45.32 | Thomas Theodores | Thank you. |
| 04:07:45.37 | Ray Withy | I'm sorry. |
| 04:07:45.44 | Thomas Theodores | Amen. |
| 04:07:45.50 | Ray Withy | Even if you counted or figured the formula with two new planning commission, it still was a 5-0 voting. So if you even discarded two, it's 3-0. Thank you. |
| 04:07:59.80 | Linda | I mean... |
| 04:08:00.49 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 04:08:00.83 | Linda | Let's just stand back for a second and ask to play devil's advocate. Sure, sure. Okay. |
| 04:08:08.96 | Linda | um, We Thank you. |
| 04:08:11.32 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 04:08:12.24 | Linda | I mean, one of the reasons I think we thought of a Planning Commissioner was that we are talking about the Marinship specific plan and there is going to be a lot of land use. Land use is a major component of this. Now the Planning Commission may not be have much of thought perhaps about the economic component other than general knowledge and so on. one of the three legs of the stool which were important was the whole land use component. Certainly there would be a domain knowledge being brought to the table there if it was a planning commissioner. So I think I'm still leaning towards the original concept of how the committee should be constructed. |
| 04:08:57.63 | Thomas Theodores | And I think, I mean, there's a big element is that we're redoing the marineship-specific plan, and there's a lot of planning issues. It was number one on their priority list, and Commissioner Werner has experience with the WAM committee, so I think there's a good fit. |
| 04:09:13.73 | Debbie Pfeiffer | I agree with Councilmember Theodorus that Commissioner Werner was on the WAM Committee |
| 04:09:13.80 | Thomas Theodores | Thank you. |
| 04:09:13.83 | Unknown | I don't know. |
| 04:09:13.96 | Thomas Theodores | Yeah. |
| 04:09:13.98 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 04:09:14.00 | Thomas Theodores | Yeah. |
| 04:09:14.03 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 04:09:14.05 | Thomas Theodores | Mayor. |
| 04:09:14.42 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 04:09:14.71 | Thomas Theodores | Amen. |
| 04:09:22.15 | Debbie Pfeiffer | He knows the Marinship Specific Plan backwards and forwards and he's a long-term resident. And so I think he adds to the expertise of this committee and complements it. |
| 04:09:37.88 | Ray Withy | Okay. All right. So what do we have? Do we have a motion? So I'll second Linda's motion. Okay. All in favor? |
| 04:09:45.89 | Debbie Pfeiffer | Bye. |
| 04:09:45.91 | Ray Withy | Aye. Opposed? |
| 04:09:47.97 | Linda | I'm just going to abstain on this one as well. |
| 04:09:50.01 | Unknown | Okay. |
| 04:09:51.33 | Linda | But could I also make the point that, you know, we have... some very capable people who expressed an interest, took the time to put in an application, come meet with us and talk about this. And I would encourage, you know, those folks to come to the meetings, be part of it, and just like we want as many residents to come and be part of it. The steering committee is there what it is, which is a steering committee, but hopefully there will be a larger group coming up with good ideas. And I think we should thank everybody who submitted their applications here. |
| 04:10:41.34 | Ray Withy | Thank you. Do you like that to be like kind of a letter to be sent out to them? |
| 04:10:47.52 | Ray Withy | Yeah, we should start doing that. We talked about doing that to the other... I think that's a nice touch. Yeah. |
| 04:10:50.39 | Ray Withy | I think that's a nice touch. Yeah, I like that idea. To leave him in the dark and never answer, it's no respect. |
| 04:10:57.93 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 04:10:57.97 | Ray Withy | They never answered that. |
| 04:10:59.20 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 04:11:03.18 | Ray Withy | Okay. |
| 04:11:03.21 | Ray Withy | Okay. |
| 04:11:09.02 | Ray Withy | Is that it? Are we finished there? Oh good. Other reports of significance? |
| 04:11:09.08 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 04:11:17.71 | Ray Withy | No. With that, can I have a motion to adjourn? |
| 04:11:22.28 | Debbie Pfeiffer | So moved. |
| 04:11:23.41 | Ray Withy | Okay. All in favor? Aye. And to all, a good night. |
Cynthia Abbott — In Favor: CMCM member and award-winning producer highlighted how CMCM training and resources enable nonprofits and community groups to create and broadcast content they otherwise couldn't afford, benefiting the environment and community education. ▶ 📄
Claire Blotter — In Favor: Sausalito resident and teacher described multiple ways CMCM has enriched her work as a poet and educator, documenting events and expanding community reach, calling it a vital source of energy and creativity for Marin. ▶ 📄
Bill (CMCM board member) — In Favor: Longtime CMCM board member shared personal experience using CMCM resources to produce community content, advocated for equitable camera installations for all cities, and emphasized the value of shared technical expertise across jurisdictions. ▶ 📄
John Westling — In Favor: Radio Sausalito representative and CMCM board member framed the issue as Comcast withholding funds, urged support to maintain community media services, and noted other cities had not rejected the request. ▶ 📄
Steven Olson — In Favor: Nonprofit president praised CMCM's equipment quality and staff, stating both equipment replacement and staffing are essential for producing high-caliber content, and emphasized CMCM as a rare resource for realizing creative ideas. ▶ 📄
Ed Dudkowski — In Favor: Veteran broadcast producer commended CMCM for outperforming similar centers nationwide despite limited budget and complex JPA structure, urging unity and support to preserve this community asset. ▶ 📄