| Time | Speaker | Text |
|---|---|---|
| 00:00:00.03 | Unknown | I'm the HR Administrator for the City of Sausalito. And I had the great pleasure of being the Academy Coordinator this year. for the Southern Marin Management Academy 2014. This is our second year, and to give you a little bit of background, this was an academy that was started by our city manager, Adam Pulitzer, last year. So in 2013, we had our first academy. And this year, of course, was our second. Last year, the Academy was created by a team of the Sausalito Mostly Management Team. in order to set the sessions. This year we were able to open it up and we included Mill Valley. and Tiburon in order to create a whole co-op in our planning sessions. So we decided this year to bring back the best of the best, to introduce some new instructors, and to build upon an already very strong foundation, and to create a comprehensive understanding of government and how it works in the public sector. So to give you an idea, we have eight sessions. We start in January. We run through August. It's once a month for one full day. And some of the sessions include leadership and vision, strategic planning, conflict resolution and risk management. And then to conclude the whole session and the academy, we were absolutely elated by the fact that we were able to have a graduation and include Supervisor Kate Spears. So I'm kind of big on Quotes. And Adam always refers to his management as a team, So. This quote, which was written by E.M. Kelly, remember the difference between a boss and a leader. A boss says go. A leader says let's go team. So with that, I would like to introduce the 2014 Southern Marin Management Academy graduates. with the city of Sausalito, of course. So, Eric Abdullah? Custodian with Public Works |
| 00:02:18.98 | Unknown | Jeff Dibdahl, Recreation Supervisor with Parks and Recreation. |
| 00:02:29.22 | Unknown | Leslie Johnson, MLK property manager, |
| 00:02:39.33 | Unknown | Lauren Umbertas, our Public Works Division Manager. |
| 00:02:48.16 | Unknown | Peggy Gill, Senior Library Assistant with our library. |
| 00:02:57.86 | Unknown | And Sergeant Stacy Gregory, Sergeant with the Sausalito Police Department, who unfortunately was not able to make it tonight, she's at a workshop in San Diego. Thank you, and I believe they'd like to say something to you. |
| 00:03:12.42 | Unknown | So I went to all eight of these meetings, and apparently they had a secret one without me where they said when they ask for volunteers to step forward, if everybody else steps back, there's one guy that's going to be the volunteer. Don't know how I missed that one. But anyways, I've been asked by the rest of the Academy participants to thank the City Council for giving us this wonderful opportunity by making public resources available with our time, to thank Adam for his vision in putting this together, giving us the training that we need, and for inculcating each of us a desire to ask two very important questions, what if and why not. And to thank Susie for dealing with what if a presenter doesn't come or the technology breaks down and you need some sort of solution for that. And it was just a wonderful experience for all of us, and we really look forward to serving the city, hopefully with some more tools in our toolbox to deal with our managers, to become managers maybe one day ourselves, and to just understand that the city works as a team and functions together, driving forward with a great vision for public service. So thank you for this opportunity. We really appreciate it. |
| 00:04:23.37 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:04:26.94 | Adam Politzer | Thank you. Mr. Mayor, if I can just add a couple things because one of the things that's important is that this is the second year so people in the audience or people watching at home may not be aware of the program. The program consists of the city of Mill Valley, the city of Tiburon, the city of Belvedere, the county of Marin, specifically Marin City, and the Southern Marin Fire Protection District and the city of Sausalito. So there are multiple agencies that make up the 22 candidates that get to go through this management academy. And so it's actually incredibly enriching for everyone involved because there's cross training, there's opportunity to meet people in our neighboring communities, share their concerns and problems, and then actually build stronger relationships between these six entities. And so we're very excited. My deep thanks to Susan Patterson for leading this effort. All of the presenters play a role in this. And then it's all done at a very, very low cost. A majority of the presenters do this in kind. They're usually department heads from around the county and then professionals in the field, either through our risk management pool, outside legal counsel that we use, and then any costs that are associated with the program are divvied out by the six entities. So it becomes a very affordable training program that lasts the eight months, and I think there's a lot of wind. So I'm excited for this class. and we look forward to next year. As we end the program, we start recruiting for the next program, which will begin in early January. So again, thank you very much, Susan, for your hard work. |
| 00:06:16.58 | Mayor Withey | Thank you, Adam, for that. It's a great program, and congratulations to this year's graduates. Thank you. OK, so the next one. item is communications, and this is the time for the City Council to hear from citizens regarding matters that are not on the agenda tonight. Does anybody here in the audience wish to make a public comment on any matter that's not on tonight's agenda? Please. |
| 00:07:04.89 | Sandra Leach | Good evening, Mr. Mayor, Mr. Vice Mayor, and City Council members. My name is Sandra Leach. My husband and I. owned the property directly below 4 Bulkley Avenue. The owner of 4 Bulkley Avenue also owns 6 Bulkley Avenue as his personal residence. On August 25th, 2014, we emailed and subsequently mailed a letter outlining the issues along with the photographs to the city manager about the dangerous condition of this property. 4 Bulkley. It's precariously perched on a steep slope above our home. We requested that the letter he forwarded to city council members received a response on August 29th stating that the copies were forwarded to city council members and various city offices and we could expect to hear from them. To date, we have heard from no one. We have been communicating with the owner of Fort Boakley, his representatives, numerous city employees and officials since 2007. We have repeatedly sought city code enforcement on this property. None of the owner's proposed plans for raising, rebuilding, or most recently renovating have come to fruition, and it seems most likely that nothing will be done in the foreseeable future. We hereby request that the city supply an engineering report by October 10th, 2014, assuring us that Fort Bulkley adheres to the city building code, stability, condition, and ability to withstand the ravages of heavy rains or an earthquake, and that the city-mandated repairs are to code. If this report fails to assure all of the above, we ask the city to execute fines accordingly to secure resolution and safety for my family and our neighbors. The owner is a wealthy individual who would not qualify for financial hardship exemption. and it's in the photograph. is taken from my bedroom window. |
| 00:09:29.44 | Sandra Leach | Thank you for the opportunity to voice my concerns. |
| 00:09:34.00 | Mayor Withey | Thank you very much. As you know, we cannot comment from the dais on matters that are not on the agenda, but I'm going to ask our city manager. |
| 00:09:50.66 | Mayor Withey | Ask our city manager if he can make any comments on this this evening. |
| 00:09:56.73 | Adam Politzer | I don't really have anything new to report other than what was shared in the photograph that was displayed. What the city did require the property owner to do was to shore up the property to ensure that it wasn't going to fall down. Where it is in the enforcement or building process, I don't have any new information on that. So staff will follow up on that. But my understanding is that the engineer, this was back during Todd Teachout's time, working with planning and Jonathan Goldman had that property shored up so that any threat of it falling down was alleviated. So at this point we'll need to go back and see where we are in the process and then report |
| 00:10:46.21 | Mayor Withey | Okay, thank you. Is there any other member of the public who would like to make any public comment on items not on tonight's agenda? |
| 00:10:59.07 | Mayor Withey | Okay, seeing none, I will close communications. Next item three is the action minutes of the previous meeting, which was the meeting of September 7th. Do we have a motion to approve as submitted or are there any changes? So moved. All in favor? Aye. |
| 00:11:21.09 | Jonathan Logan | I know. |
| 00:11:24.89 | Mayor Withey | Item four is the consent calendar. |
| 00:11:32.60 | Mayor Withey | Excuse me one moment. |
| 00:11:39.10 | Mayor Withey | Item four is the consent calendar. Looking for an adoption to a motion to, well, first of all, is there any questions from us on the consent calendar? I'll then open it up to public comment. Is there any public comment on items on the consent calendar? Okay, seeing none, can we have a motion to approve the consent calendar? So moved. Second. All in favor? Aye. There are no public meetings tonight, so we can move to item number 6A, which is a report from Golden Gate Ferry Manager Jim Swidler on the Ferry Landing Waterside Improvement Project. Welcome, Jim. |
| 00:12:46.60 | Jim Swindler | Good evening, Mr. Mayor and esteemed council members, and thank you for the opportunity to brief you this evening on three important aspects of Sausalito ferry service. My goal is to provide an overview of the construction project for the waterside facility as well as a pending project for improvement of the shoreside facilities. And at the end of the presentation, I'll also brief you on what we term as the successes and lessons learned from this year's season of handling a very large number of bicycles and passengers. While there are 21 slides here, I can assure you that I'm going to go through them quickly. Part of this is an old presentation that we put together rather quickly. So if you've got any questions on anything, please stop me. So what you have in front of you, the first slide is just an overview. It shows you the facility, and I'm not sure I know how to – I guess I just click to go to the next one. |
| 00:13:48.59 | Jim Swindler | Thank you. |
| 00:13:48.61 | Councilmember (likely Ray Withy) | Trying to... |
| 00:13:49.28 | Jim Swindler | Are we operating? |
| 00:13:49.91 | Unknown | Help is on the way. |
| 00:13:50.40 | Councilmember (likely Ray Withy) | Thank you. |
| 00:13:50.43 | Jim Swindler | Thank you. |
| 00:13:50.52 | Councilmember (likely Ray Withy) | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 00:13:52.04 | Jim Swindler | Okay. On the point of what? |
| 00:13:58.21 | Unknown | battery. |
| 00:14:13.69 | Jim Swindler | Maybe when you... That's okay. So the first slide is basically just an overview of the terminal. The white box shows you basically the waterside project, and we added the red box today to show you the area adjacent to the terminal that will be affected or that will receive some access improvements to the ferry terminal. So we could move on to the next slide. That would be great. |
| 00:14:49.75 | Councilmember (likely Ray Withy) | Maybe it's not the clicker, maybe it's the computer. |
| 00:14:56.70 | Jim Swindler | There you go. There we go. Go ahead. There you go. We're going to skip. |
| 00:14:56.84 | Councilmember (likely Ray Withy) | Yeah. |
| 00:15:05.86 | Jim Swindler | i'll wait here we're gonna skip right through this one this just shows different areas uh... well will go will skip through this one as well this one about you go back Okay. There we go. This slide here is really just meant to show you that there are two basic reasons we're replacing the waterside facility. And obviously the one you see in front of you, it's tired. It's been there. It started Sausalito Ferry Service many years ago and it needs to be replaced. It's smaller than what it should be. But the major reason and the reason for the $20 million approximately that we received in grant money is because it doesn't meet today's access standards with respect to the Americans with Disabilities Act. uh... so the new facility well to go to the letter of the law so that goes into uh... primary reasons that uh... that were replacing that story and if you go to the next slide next slide is just an overview again, of the facility from the air. And the one thing I want to point out here is the pier, the dogleg pier, that's right at the present time, it's only eight feet wide, and it's quite a choke point for loading passengers and bicycles. And when we get to the next couple of slides, we'll show you the improvements that are going to be made there that will help us accelerate the loading and offloading of passengers and bicycles. So if we could go to the next slide. This again is just the existing facility, just another picture of the existing facility, so let's skip to the next slide. Now this shows you the new facility. As you can see, the float is quite a bit larger. It's in the same location basically as the other facility. It still fits within a leasehold of the current facility. But you'll notice that the approaches are quite a bit wider. If you look at the gangway, the gangway is wider. And another difference is the orange portion right there is now where the security gate will be. So where the security gate was back up next to the blue and the green area, the security gate will now be moved down. And that blue access pier, that's 25 feet wide, clear. So we'll have 25 feet of width to stage passengers and get passengers on and off and stage bicycles. Where the other pier was only 8 feet wide. So those of you that have been following this for quite some time, the past seven years and seen the growth of bicycles, I'm sure you'll realize the advantage here is we'll be able to store more people down on the pier and get them off the streets and get them ready to go and we'll be able to load and offload them quicker. So as I said, you know, the basic improvements here are access not only to and from the vessel but for those that require some help with accessibility. So if we can go to the next slide, I'll show you. This project is about to unfold. We've pretty much completed the design. In a minute, we'll talk about the permitting. We're about 80% to 90% through the permitting. We're scheduled to go with this next summer. Now some of you might raise an eyebrow and think, you know, how are we going to do this in the summer? We've actually got to start it in the summer because of the windows for the different sensitive areas within the water there. So we will start it. We'll start to drive piles. What you see here is what the temporary facility will look like. So we'll drive some piles. We'll get everything ready to go. We'll build that temporary access pier that's colored in blue and we'll have the relocated gangway that's colored in purple. we'll get all that done and then hopefully overnight we'll be able to get down there, disconnect the existing pier and float it over to the new piles, hook everything up and go. I mean we're hopeful we can do that overnight. If not we may have to try and pick a slow day if we can find a slow day in the summer to do that. But that's the plan right now and this is just to kind of show you the temporary facility. So it will be a little further south than it is until we get the new facility in there. But the project is scheduled to be completed in about 18 months, and we're hoping to start this summer. |
| 00:19:03.01 | Jonathan Logan | Thank you. |
| 00:19:03.03 | Unknown | to do that. |
| 00:19:04.83 | Jonathan Logan | Thank you. |
| 00:19:12.20 | Unknown | Mm-hmm. |
| 00:19:12.71 | Jonathan Logan | THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 00:19:21.54 | Jim Swindler | So if we can go to the next slide. This is just a couple of photographs that show you the difference between the existing peer and the new peer. uh... and again you'll see that we've tried to maintain pretty much the same profile so we don't obstruct uh... any views so it should look pretty much the same obviously the uh... the twenty five foot wide ramp requires more structure than what was there before and that's what you see in that white truss area we could go to the next slide uh... again this is just the same view looking uh... from a different angle And again, note the blue gates down there. You know, it's a big advantage for us to be able to move people down on the pier and get them queued up. That helps us get them off the street and out of the parking lot where we've had some challenges there. Next slide, please. Again, this is just some artist renderings of what the gate will look like. I THINK WE'RE GOING TO GO TO THE SHORE SIDE. WE'RE GOING TO GO TO THE NEXT SLIDE. AGAIN, YOU LOOK AND YOU SEE THE WIDE AREA THERE. THE BENCHES AND THOSE BUMP-OUTS WAS SOMETHING THAT WAS REQUIRED WHEN WE MET PRULMINARILY WITH BCBC. AS FAR AS MITIGATION, THAT'S ONLY A PORTION OF THE MITIGATION FOR THIS PROJECT. WE'RE GOING TO USE SOME OF THE ACCESS IMPROVEMENTS THAT WE'RE GOING TO DO ON THE SHORE SIDE AS THE REST OF THE MITIGATION AND THOSE DISCUSSIONS ARE STILL ONGOING. AND WHEN WE GET TO THE SHORE SIDE, again this is just we're going to skip to the side this is just suggested landside improvements we'll talk a little bit more about those in a second This again, it duplicates the sequencing. It kind of shows you the existing terminal. Then it shows, you know, the lower one, it shows both the existing terminal and the old terminal. And just kind of shows the sequence of how things will flow. So we can go to the next one. So the status, we're going to skip through this unless everybody wants to go through all these acronyms and all the permitting, but this first page, all that permitting is pretty much done. I had to make a list tonight, so in case someone wanted to know what one of those was, I knew. |
| 00:21:22.73 | Unknown | I know. |
| 00:21:23.63 | Jim Swindler | So anyways, we're going to skip through that. All that's done. And we jump over to... really the only permitting left to be done is we have a design review board scheduled with bcdc on october 6th uh... we're hopeful that that will go well we have a couple more permits we're also in discussions with the city uh... on a few uh... few issues encroachment permits and things like that and uh... i'm sure that will work through that so those are really the only outstanding issues left on the waterside project as far as permitting goes so as you can see we're pretty much ready to go if we can go back to the So this kind of transitions us into, that completes my report on the waterside, and this transitions us to the shoreside improvements. To recap that, many of you remember about, probably two years ago now, we applied for a grant The city was very helpful in writing a letter of support, and together we applied for the grant. We received a grant of $2.5 million to do some shoreside improvements and primarily access to the terminal and some things that needed to be done on the shoreside. We received the grant. We were moving along, getting ready to go. We actually had secured or thought we had secured some additional FTA money, which increased the amount of the people who are not aware of the grant, we had secured some additional FTA money which increased the amount of the grant. Unfortunately, we ran into the problem of the sequester that was going on in the state and the Public Employee Pension Reform Act where a number of people were not aware of and we're going to have a lot of work on the program. We're going to have a lot of work on the program. We're going to have a lot of work on the program. We're going to have a lot of work on the program. We're going to have a lot of work on the program. We're going to have a lot of work on the program. We're going to have a lot of work on the program. We're going to have a lot of work on the program. to getting everything done on the shoreside that needs to be done and we're out there actively working. If we need some more funds, we'll work with the city and try and get those. So we're confident that this project will go well as well. The pass-through agreement is in its final stages. Again, I met with Adam and Jonathan last week. We've probably got a couple of minor things to work out, but I think we're pretty close. We want to get that going. We'll talk a little bit later about the number of bikes that we carried this year and everybody will understand why we need to get it going. The CCS group is a group out of Boston that's done a number of ferry terminals and we along with the city a year and a half ago had him out here and he's helped us out kind of lay out what those shore side improvements should be and we're going to use the CSU group hopefully again to develop that as we go forward and get ready for the public input. We're certainly aware that anything like this will, I'm sure there's a lot of interest on the public side given some of the things we're going to do. So we can go to the next slide. |
| 00:24:17.04 | Jonathan Logan | Thank you. |
| 00:24:29.45 | Jim Swindler | this artist kind of lays out uh... what the land side planning issues are and uh... i'll go through them quickly but obviously one of the key things is crew pedestrian circulation patent uh... ticketing kiosk down there is uh... something we uh... we put in play rather quickly it's not in the right location uh... so it needs to be integrated with a uh... proper circulation, circulation arrangement down there. Obviously we want to increase bicycle staging area so we're looking at how that can happen and we want to obviously improve the presentation of information and potential reservations down there for bikes and just basically circulation and improve that. So we can jump to the next slide. |
| 00:24:45.91 | Jonathan Logan | play radical. |
| 00:25:18.92 | Jim Swindler | So, again, this identifies more areas. And if we could jump ahead maybe two or three slides, I'll walk through the slides on paper. But I think it's better to have the map. There you go. |
| 00:25:36.50 | Jim Swindler | So we're talking about extending. Number four there, that's where the bus area is. And we think that that's also critical. We think, you know, we've talked to Jonathan Goldman and others, and we realize that we don't have a continuous sidewalk. We don't have enough width of a sidewalk offloading and loading buses there. And that's a direct connection to the ferry, and we recognize that. And so we recognize that the grant funds should be used for that. And I'm sure no one can tell you better than Herbie that we have insufficient area there where the buses load and offload. Optimization of parking, obviously the city has been more than gracious in allowing us to basically the purple area there that you see, a lot of that area was lost for us to be able to stage bicycles to get them on the boat. for us to be able to stage bicycles to get them on the boat. So a lot of that area, some of that area has been restored with the closing of Tracy Way this year, but we still obviously recognize that we need to go back and take a look at that parking lot number one, and that's part of the program as well. Improved signage and information, that's a great idea. So we have to look at the parking lot number that's a natural provision of a sidewalk network. One of the things that was recognized early on is that while we focus a lot down there on the bicycles and the tourists, we can't lose sight of the commuters. We do have a core group of commuters, and they typically, when they get off the boat, they don't want to go left down the yellow walkway there towards the town. They want to go directly across and get picked up or get to their vehicles, and there's no real safe way to get through the parking lots. So again, that's another area that we're committed to looking at with the city, and that's what the funding is there for, is to make sure that we have a safe access for the commuters as well. |
| 00:27:46.34 | Jim Swindler | So I think that kind of lays out here that whole area there, everything that you see in color there is all up for consideration for improvements to make the access greatly improved from all of those areas to the to the ferry terminal. that pretty much sums up what we're going to do on the land side planning side. So if we could jump to the next slide, I'd like to talk just for a minute. about what I would term as a very successful season in Sausalito carrying more bikes than we've ever carried before and more passengers than we've ever carried before. I don't have Blue and Gold's numbers at this time, but I'm sure their numbers are up as well. But I'd like to just comment on the collaboration between the different entities, between the city, the police department, the DPW. The Chamber of Commerce especially was... huge this year, really huge. The businesses themselves, I mean we used Cafe 2D this year to help us make sure that everybody was refreshed with water and everything over there. and they were in the act too. Bicycle companies, we couldn't ask for more out of them this year. They were really cooperative. I'm sure if you talked to Jennifer Tejada and others, they'll tell you the same thing. They were very cooperative and they came up with the funding this year that we needed to hire the additional personnel that the chamber, the chamber hired additional personnel to manage the bike line, which made all the difference in the world. The ferry companies, obviously right in there, and there's probably a number of people that I haven't mentioned. But some of the changes that happened this year was the addition of the bike queuing area coordinators. And again, thank you to the chamber. Thank you to the bike companies for funding that. We were very fortunate. We had five or six kids. Two of them were sophomores in college. We hope to get them back. We had a couple of kids that are seniors, and we're going to go out and try and initiate some programs with the high schools to get these top quality kids. We just had unbelievable kids this year. They did a great job. As some of you saw, we added a reservation booth down there which actually got the bikes. It gave them something to focus on and it got them off the street and into the bike racks. Customer brochure, we've got a slide of that at the end. I'll show you that at the end. We designed a brochure that had the schedule, had information on how to get a bike on the ferry. We handed out 60,000 brochures, so pretty much everybody that came out of a bike company this year had the brochure. So there was a lot of proactive communications between us and the bike companies, and again, I can't say enough about the bike companies this year. Closing of Tracy way, huge. I mean in my mind it was a huge success. It really enabled us to capture all the bikes. The four bicycle coordinators that we had down there where they were working it all the time and getting information to the people. We added some bike racks. We bought some more bike racks down there. And again, I just want to mention the financial contribution from the bike companies. That was big. They funded basically four kids. If we go to the next slide, we'll talk about the staffing that we increased down there this year. On weekends, we had four kids pretty much full time handling all the information to the people that came in on bikes. We had the ferry company had two and a half people down there. We had a four hour supervisor and an eight hour supervisor as well as as a terminal assistant. We had a police officer there and on weekdays it was just a little bit less. But again, you I just can't say enough about what I think was a very successful year, improved coordination with the bike companies. And this just gives you a snapshot of what we did. In 2012, we carried 110,000 bikes. 2013, 150,000. This year, at the end of August, we're already at 141,000. So we've already exceeded what we carried last year. Our walk-on numbers were up as well. in August of 2013. We carried 98,000. LAST YEAR. OUR WALK-ON NUMBERS WERE UP AS WELL. IN AUGUST OF 2013, WE CARRIED 98,000. 2014 we carried 105,000. So it just continues to grow. So we need to get both of these projects done and get them done quickly. And the last slide is just a snapshot of the bike brochure that we did this year. And we think it'll work quite well. So that concludes my presentation and I'd be more than happy to answer any questions that you might have and I'd just like to conclude by saying thank you to everybody from the city, the police department, the DPW for what I, I mean I just can't say it, I know I've |
| 00:32:34.68 | Mayor Withey | Jim, thank you very much. I'm sure there's some questions. |
| 00:32:35.98 | Jim Swindler | Thank you. |
| 00:32:39.76 | Mayor Withey | up here. |
| 00:32:45.17 | Councilmember (likely Linda Pfeifer) | Mr. Mayor, I have a question. Thank you. |
| 00:32:46.74 | Mayor Withey | Thank you. |
| 00:32:47.00 | Councilmember (likely Linda Pfeifer) | It doesn't matter. I don't have to go now. |
| 00:32:47.07 | Mayor Withey | THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 00:32:47.13 | Vice Mayor (likely Jill Hoffman) | Yes. |
| 00:32:47.34 | Mayor Withey | Thank you. |
| 00:32:50.41 | Councilmember (likely Linda Pfeifer) | Oh, well, |
| 00:32:51.00 | Mayor Withey | Thank you. |
| 00:32:53.09 | Vice Mayor (likely Jill Hoffman) | Thank you, Jim. Thanks for the presentation and thank you for all your cooperation with the city and the handle all the passengers and the bikes and everything this year. And we're excited about the new ferry. And one of the things, one question I have on the access peer, which on your slide was in blue and you said we'd be able to stage more bicycles there. And I was just wondering, did you have some number that you approximate that could be staged there and how would that affect what we have to do in Tracy Way and other places in terms of staging of bicycles. How How much difference will it make and what numbers do you have? |
| 00:33:31.85 | Jim Swindler | Well, I think that on the pier we'll probably be able to stage anywhere from on the low side 75 maybe to 125 customers with bikes down there. And the effect that'll have, I guess if you take and you look, that sometimes the line gets back to the corner of Tracy and what's that? Anchor. The line sometimes goes around Anchor. You'll see that hopefully that line will never get any further back than maybe halfway down Tracy Way. And if we make other improvements on the shore side, maybe the line will never even get back there. So it should be significant. We think it will be significant. |
| 00:34:12.69 | Councilmember (likely Linda Pfeifer) | Thank you. So I'm looking at the land side planning issues slide, and you've got parking lot one, Thank you. highlighted and it says revisions in parking lot one and then you your comment was we're looking at parking lot one so I guess my question is what kind of changes are you looking at for parking lot one and does it involve any loss of parking |
| 00:34:49.75 | Councilmember (likely Ray Withy) | It's actually a question for the city, actually. Because we'll be doing it. |
| 00:34:51.79 | Councilmember (likely Linda Pfeifer) | It's a question for whoever can answer it. |
| 00:34:55.30 | Jim Swindler | Adam can talk. |
| 00:34:55.86 | Adam Politzer | Thank you. Yeah, I think what Jim had indicated earlier is that the funding that we've been able to these locations are eligible for the funding. and the public with starting with the City Council having various public meetings will help actually come up with the details and the specifics of what elements may be part of these shaded areas that have been identified that are eligible for the funding. The pass-through agreement, why the pass-through agreement is so important to the City, is that at this moment we have no funds to go out for requests for interest or requests for proposals and then actually go out to bid to hire a design firm through that public process to then come and lead us through this effort. So this will go through a public process. So at this point, what you see is basically identifying what the funds are eligible to be spent on. And what I would point out is that parking lot two is not eligible. So, you know, that's, that's, |
| 00:36:10.90 | Councilmember (likely Linda Pfeifer) | I'm sorry, my question was not answered. My question was, I'm seeing revisions to parking lot one, and I heard the comment from our speaker that they're looking at parking lot one. And so my question is, I know that a few years ago, Imagine Sausalito recommended some very controversial changes to parking lot one that involved a good question. I think that's a good question. idea in mind is it repave me repaving I mean why are we why are we spending staff time pursuing funding to revise parking lot one When I'm not hearing what the plans are |
| 00:37:02.92 | Adam Politzer | plans are. Yeah, I think, again, similar to my previous answer, what this identifies, which is one of the major deficiencies, is looking at that red line from lot one to lot three is there is no continuous path for people that get off the ferry and either walk to anchor and bay and then onto the commuter lot, which is lot three. So one dealing with people that get off the buses and then come and take the ferry or vice versa or people that are getting off the ferry at the commute hour and are walking to their cars, that was the original intent was to make sure that there is access from the ferry to the various areas through through one to the parking where lot three is. What we had ‑‑ so I can't speak on the man in South Florida. I wasn't the city manager back during that period of time. I wasn't involved in any of those controversial discussions about what was possibly being considered. What we've looked at and what's been in the previous budget is repaving and restriping lot one. And then in further conversations during my tenure and with Jonathan Goldman and something that we continue to deal with is the trees. The trees are in Dire Strait, pretty common throughout most of the trees on the Bridgeway location. So I think that we want to look at circulation. We want to look at repaving and restriping and creating public access. When we worked with the CECL group and you can see the data on the bottom of this graph, May 2, 2013, one of the things that they identified is drop off and drop off for drop on drop off and pick up needed similar to what you see at Larkspur Landing and then an accessible path of travel for people that are parking in ADA spaces that are going to take the ferry. So again we have to look at the ADA issues related to our parking lots, all three parking lots in that area. But the funding, why it's shaded, the funding is eligible for these shaded areas. |
| 00:39:20.22 | Councilmember (likely Linda Pfeifer) | Okay, thank you. |
| 00:39:22.58 | Councilmember (likely Ray Withy) | Jim, is there any update on the other end of the line when the San Francisco Tournament? I think at one point you've enlightened us over the years that there's a talk of changing the loading from upstairs to downstairs. Is that still in the picture, or is that a little further off now? |
| 00:39:38.56 | Jim Swindler | No, it's still in the picture and hopefully we'll start construction right about the time we're finishing construction in Sausalito. We're actually pushing our engineering group to hopefully when we award a contract for Sausalito, the float in Sausalito will be identical to the two floats that are going to go in San Francisco to issue a contract to build three floats instead of one float. So we're doing everything we can to accelerate it because that impacts us as well. As you well know, it's much easier for us to put the bikes on at the main deck, which is the lower deck, and get them off on the other end of the main deck. So that is big for us. |
| 00:39:59.91 | Jonathan Logan | Sure. |
| 00:40:12.70 | Councilmember (likely Ray Withy) | Right, I know it's important for you to try and keep on your schedule. Certainly that's been an issue given the time it takes to unload with a full load of bikes especially. |
| 00:40:22.76 | Jim Swindler | It has, and my apologies. I know that we did fall down a few times this year in turning that boat around and left a few angry, not tourists, but commuters. One day I happened to be there and was trying to help run the place, and I overloaded the boat and came back. And when the boat came back, there was a couple of angry commuters on there that I listened to, and we deserved it. So it only happened a few times this year, hopefully. We are aware. We are sensitive to that. |
| 00:40:50.40 | Councilmember (likely Ray Withy) | And if I could, just I'm sure we'll talk about this more in the future, but as far as the construction and hours and things like that, I'm assuming it's all going to be during the day and given the time frame you're talking about. So folks, that's not something people should be concerned about, is it being a nighttime project and that kind of thing. |
| 00:40:51.34 | Jim Swindler | uh, |
| 00:41:04.24 | Jim Swindler | Thank you. |
| 00:41:09.16 | Jim Swindler | We're very sensitive that we've got some businesses there that obviously that wouldn't work too |
| 00:41:16.89 | Mayor Withey | Any more questions up here before Tom? |
| 00:41:21.43 | Vice Mayor (likely Jill Hoffman) | Jim, do you anticipate or are you You're going to encourage any change in riderships or type of passengers or change in scheduling, either more ferry scheduled or fewer? |
| 00:41:34.41 | Jim Swindler | last year you may last year we actually got approval from the board we added the second ferry for the summer season we tried it the year before it was a little more ad hoc than it was this past year so we've actually effectively not doubled but we've increased by 30 percent the number of trips we think we're good right now and blue and gold increased their number of trips and we've got There's a period there late in the day where we've got about eight trips coming in and they're coming in about every 30 minutes. So we're in pretty good shape right now. But as I said, you know, these numbers continue to grow and we're prepared to handle it. We've got a San Francisco, which is one of the other Spalding vessels, the sister ship to the Marin, is in San Diego right now completing a $20 million refurbishment. And we did to the main deck of that what we did to the Marin so we can carry all those bicycles. |
| 00:42:13.90 | Jonathan Logan | THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 00:42:27.85 | Jim Swindler | We're good on the water side. We're going to be really good on the water side as far as capacity. So we'll do whatever we need to do to make sure that we've got the level of service over here that's necessary. |
| 00:42:39.56 | Councilmember (likely Linda Pfeifer) | Mr. Mayor, thank you. So I'm looking at the land side planning issues, and I'm seeing this sidewalk going along the rim of parking lot one through parking lot two, and then right down the middle of parking lot three. Is that just a – I mean, is that just a – you're not looking at putting a sidewalk there, right, in the middle of the parking lot, right? Right. |
| 00:43:06.06 | Jim Swindler | Well, I think that will come out in the final design. It's just where the CECL group showed it. And I think we've had some discussions. Jonathan Goldman may have some thoughts on that. But it's not – this is just a concept. As Adam said, it's just to show that that area we've identified as an area that's qualified for funding because we've identified that as the commuter lot. So we need to get a path. It could come from one side or the other. |
| 00:43:34.93 | Councilmember (likely Linda Pfeifer) | So it is then a potential sidewalk down the middle of parking lot three. |
| 00:43:40.28 | Jim Swindler | It's kind of where it's. It's conceptual. It's conceptual. Very conceptual. |
| 00:43:41.95 | Councilmember (likely Linda Pfeifer) | It's conceptual. It's conceptual. Very conceptual. Okay. |
| 00:43:45.05 | Jim Swindler | Thank you. |
| 00:43:48.11 | Councilmember (likely Linda Pfeifer) | And then my next question is it's hard to see the bulk regarding, when I look at your designs for the new landing and the new gangway, I know it's going from 8 feet to 25 feet. You know, the gangway, the pier, I can tell that it's substantially wider. It's hard to see that footprint in terms of view impact, you know, in bulk. Um... |
| 00:44:20.34 | Jim Swindler | There's a couple of slides if we want to go back to them. Or we can come back with, we can send you something that's maybe a little more detailed. It might answer your question. |
| 00:44:29.13 | Councilmember (likely Linda Pfeifer) | Okay. And then you said there's a design review board meeting on October 6th. What time on October 6th and where is that meeting? |
| 00:44:37.49 | Jim Swindler | I believe it's 5.30, but I will have someone send an email to Adam. |
| 00:44:43.16 | Councilmember (likely Linda Pfeifer) | Okay. |
| 00:44:43.46 | Jim Swindler | I believe it's 530 in the city at the BCDC headquarters, which I'm not sure where that is today. But we can get you that information. |
| 00:44:43.48 | Councilmember (likely Linda Pfeifer) | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 00:44:52.54 | Councilmember (likely Linda Pfeifer) | And my last question is, you mentioned, you know, I see a lot of accommodation for visitors, you know, with the big, the tour bikes and the bus, the tour buses. But I know that we have, as you mentioned, a lot of commuters, and they've often told me how wonderful it would be to offer additional earlier morning ferry services and later in the day as well. And I was wondering if that's something that you might be looking at in terms of expanding services for our core commuters. |
| 00:45:27.64 | Jim Swindler | we look at all time because we had service early in the morning or late in the evening crew of five or six people and uh... you know unfortunately it's uh... no it's a business that it's a tough one uh... we always look at it and Lax a tough one. We always look at it because we always do get those types of questions and comments, and we do it in Larkspur as well. So that's all I can say is we're looking at it. I really don't want to give you any false hope that it's doable. It's very expensive to provide that sort of service for the next approach. |
| 00:46:09.27 | Councilmember (likely Linda Pfeifer) | And I do, I lied, I have one more question about boating safety. So I had a resident snap a photo about eight months ago of a ferry where bikes were lined up on the deck, on the main deck. And people were actually perched up on the rim of the benches because there were bikes all over the deck. And I was just wondering, what is – obviously, the bikes should be secured, and I can get you a copy of that picture if you like. But can you comment, what is the litmus test for adding another ferry run? When is it too much? |
| 00:46:54.44 | Jim Swindler | too much as far as... |
| 00:46:54.71 | Councilmember (likely Linda Pfeifer) | to my friend. THE FAMILY IS Thank you. In terms of safety, bike parking on the ferries, and this sort of thing. |
| 00:46:59.81 | Jim Swindler | What you explain, I'm not going to say that it never happens. Hopefully it wasn't to the – I'd like to see the photographs. That would be great. But, you know, occasionally they do put bikes up on the main deck. It's very unusual. We typically carry anywhere from 150 to 175 bikes. That's our standard operating procedure. However, if we're late in the day and we have 250 passengers with bikes and we only have a total of 300 passengers, so there's not very many passengers but there are bikes, we will put bikes between seats. We do have that flexibility. The captain has a large amount of discretion. The captain is obviously responsible for the safety of the vessel in each trip. So the captains have received a number of briefings and they are supposed to make sure that those bikes are stowed in a safe manner. So I would hope that if that was the case, I would hope that it was a case like that where we didn't have that many passengers on the boat, but I can't explain why somebody would be sitting on the back of the seat rather than the seat itself. |
| 00:48:03.72 | Councilmember (likely Linda Pfeifer) | Yeah, I saw a couple people perched. You'll see the photo. Okay. |
| 00:48:04.20 | Jim Swindler | I know. |
| 00:48:04.36 | Mayor Withey | Thank you. |
| 00:48:04.46 | Jim Swindler | Thank you. |
| 00:48:04.51 | Mayor Withey | . You'll see the front. |
| 00:48:06.91 | Jim Swindler | Thank you. |
| 00:48:06.99 | Mayor Withey | Okay. Why don't we open this up to public comment? Is there any member of the public who would like to comment on this particular item, the update on the future Sausalito ferry terminal? |
| 00:48:23.48 | Unknown | Sure. |
| 00:48:27.81 | Jan Fidler | Jan Fidler, 501 Ulema Street. and Mr. Mayor and Council Members, I think you know what I'm gonna say about Tracy Way. And I was rather hoping that at the end of the summer, you would reopen Tracy Way and have it for residents instead of bicycles and put those bicycles somewhere else, like in the parking lot, and charge for them. |
| 00:48:55.08 | Mayor Withey | Thank you. Any other member of the public? |
| 00:49:03.00 | Ken | I don't have any prepared comments, but I just wanted to tell you all how nice it's been working with Golden Gate Ferry the last couple of years. great collaboration and They've been very supportive to our ideas and including us in pretty much everything that's been going on related to bikes especially and ferries down at the ferry landing. So I wanted to tell you that. I also wanted to say that we used the brochure on our website. We actually, on the Sausalito Chambers website, we created a whole new section called Bikes, Buses, and Ferries, and it tells people how to get on and off, and it has the brochure for download and things like that, too. So hopefully we're sending some out as well. Thank you. |
| 00:49:50.03 | Mayor Withey | Thanks, Ken. Michael. |
| 00:49:56.69 | Michael Racks | I'm Michael Racks, architect. I'm delighted to see these improvements going forward. They're needed. I'm always pleased to see alternative modes of transportation being promoted, certainly quieter and less pollution to get to Saucedo by bikes and ferry than automobiles. And I would just like to ask that as we move into the public portion of the land site improvements, that the planners be made aware of the North-South Greenway planning that a lot of money and effort went into to create a bike route that's out of traffic That would make it easier to commute by bike and safer for people of all ages to travel by bike and It's kind of been envisioned in the similar locations that strike through the lots there. And also I ask that the city make available the Imagine Sausalito vision. A lot of people and a lot of time went into imagining circulation enhancements in our downtown district, and I like that information to be considered. Thank you. |
| 00:51:13.74 | Mayor Withey | Thank you. Anybody else like to comment on this topic? Okay, seeing none, we'll close the public comment. And I think this was just for information purposes. I don't know if anybody else wants to say anything. |
| 00:51:31.07 | Councilmember (likely Linda Pfeifer) | I'd like to say something. Please. But I don't have to go now. |
| 00:51:32.48 | Mayor Withey | Please. |
| 00:51:35.34 | Councilmember (likely Ray Withy) | Go ahead. |
| 00:51:37.35 | Mayor Withey | I have nothing to say, so you go for it. |
| 00:51:42.21 | Councilmember (likely Linda Pfeifer) | So I want to echo Jean Fidler's comment about Tracy Way. I am very concerned to see our beautiful, quaint downtown turning into a bicycle parking lot. I think the bikes should be picked up. I think we need to direct staff to research alternative staging areas. And I also will follow closely this project because there seem to be a lot of unknowns, especially when I look at this land side planning. So, thank you. |
| 00:52:17.70 | Mayor Withey | Thank you. |
| 00:52:17.72 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:52:17.75 | Mayor Withey | Thank you. |
| 00:52:17.84 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:52:17.89 | Mayor Withey | Thank you. |
| 00:52:17.97 | Unknown | Thanks. |
| 00:52:18.04 | Mayor Withey | Thank you. |
| 00:52:18.07 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:52:18.29 | Mayor Withey | Thank you. Anybody else? |
| 00:52:19.93 | Unknown | Yeah, my comment is, I think... |
| 00:52:21.40 | Councilmember (likely Linda Pfeifer) | is just... |
| 00:52:21.68 | Mayor Withey | Thank you. |
| 00:52:23.78 | Unknown | Tracy Way was the right thing to do. It will be opened. I anticipate probably sometime in either late late October, like we told the public. I think it was the right thing to do. Jim Swindler and the Golden Gate Ferry did an excellent job this year, handled an increase of bikes. And I think that as we move forward. Also noting that Tracy Way, we can actually put in probably another seven bike racks there, and that would allow that we will be able to accommodate almost 900 bikes that you'll be able to park there. And as we As we go into this, That is now your transit hub. You have a tremendous amount of buses coming in. Thank you. to visit. And by the way, you can't see San Francisco from San Francisco. You have to come over here to see San Francisco. And that's the... And... the buses have already caught on to what The bicycles have already pushed. The idea is when they advertise this, the number one thing to do when you come into San Francisco You just take a ride over the Golden Gate Bridge And take a ride. back on what was voted the second most beautiful ferry ride in the world. And that is not going to go away. It's just also a matter of how well we handle it. There's a comment about staging. Wonderful idea. where you're going to do it. Number one. Number two, also keep in mind, we now have taxicabs, believe it or not, in this city. Go back a few years ago, you couldn't find three cabs in this town. Now on a given day you have anywhere from 15 to 20 And out of that, 80% of them have bike racks. So there is some way where we are able to take back, and by the way, they put four bikes on a taxi cab. So there are ways because some days we transport in the taxi somewhere around 120 bikes. So there is some other alternatives on that. But right now the idea is to make sure that we can accommodate and take care of the people that are coming into this city with bikes, buses, ferries, and taxis. So there's your transit hub, and I hope, and I want to thank Golden Gate Ferry for working together with us. to be able to accommodate this. So thank you. Now, |
| 00:55:16.04 | Mayor Withey | Thank you. |
| 00:55:18.31 | Councilmember (likely Ray Withy) | Thanks, Mr. Mayor. Well, first I wanted to thank Jim for coming tonight and all the hard work that he and his staff have put into handling an incredible increase in volume of both pedestrians as well as bikes. I mean, it's amazing, given the volume increase in a very short period of time, that you folks have been able to handle it just on the transportation side. And thanks to the Chamber and others who've worked with the Golden Gate Ferry to help us handle things on the shore side. I'm looking forward to this project. We've had a number of conceptual ideas over the last few years, both with parking lot one. We did something, and Michael presented things for around parking lot two as well as some other. We had some outside consultants do work around the, not parking lot two per per se but humboldt and some of the other things there and to give people a clear path of travel and a safe path to travel to their parking spots and certainly certainly for people with ADA requirements yeah I look forward to John's reopening Tracy way and reexamining the need for it as we relook at the whole design of parking lot one and the new capacity to offload to stage people in the gangway going out in the water now that it will be larger. And, uh, the last comment I had is if Jim, if you're looking for mitigation measures, may suggest the city, um, you know, we certainly have some underwater streets. We'd love to sell you, um, and put their development rights, uh, out, out to pasture forever. So if that's something you need to run by BCDC, we would love to, uh, I know I would love to talk to you about that. Um, not both from solving a couple of problems or their. There are headaches hanging over the cities and the community for a long period of time, have underwater streets that encourage development. So that being said, thanks so much for your help. And I look forward to another set of solutions and for next summer's traffic coming up, as well as these capital projects. |
| 00:57:25.59 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:57:25.60 | Mayor Withey | And so... |
| 00:57:25.69 | Councilmember (likely Ray Withy) | Thank you. |
| 00:57:25.69 | Councilmember (likely Linda Pfeifer) | Anybody? Yeah? I have a follow-up, yes. Okay. Because I had earlier asked that we direct staff to research staging areas, and I heard the comment up here, where are we going to put that? My request was to direct staff to research staging areas for bicycles, and that's the first step. So we can't – we should not say no to something before we've even researched it and we've even looked at what the opportunities are. And I have to say that I am personally dismayed that our town has lost not one but two blocks of metered short-term parking spaces that used to be used by residents and folks who were dropping by downtown and that now have been replaced with lines of empty taxi cabs Thank you. that used to be used by residents and folks who were dropping by downtown and that now have been replaced with lines of empty taxi cabs. It's quite a sight. |
| 00:57:25.86 | Mayor Withey | Thank you. |
| 00:57:25.89 | Councilmember (likely Ray Withy) | to do. |
| 00:57:25.96 | Mayor Withey | I have. |
| 00:57:27.53 | Councilmember (likely Ray Withy) | Thank you. |
| 00:57:27.78 | Unknown | Hollywood. |
| 00:57:28.22 | Councilmember (likely Ray Withy) | Thank you. |
| 00:57:28.37 | Unknown | Okay. |
| 00:58:19.91 | Mayor Withey | Thank you. So I have just one thing to say, which is, Jim, thank you for coming tonight and for a very informative update. Okay, this matter is closed. Thanks. So the next item on our agenda is an update on Marin City, and this is a three-part presentation. What I'm trying to figure out is if we have all our presenters here. I know, hey Jonathan, how are you? |
| 00:59:00.05 | Councilmember (likely Ray Withy) | you I don't know if you can see through the podium to see one of our presenters. No, there's Diane I know. |
| 00:59:05.69 | Mayor Withey | No, there's Diane I know. And there's Lily? Lily? Lily. So we have the three, I'm going to be a little bold here. I'm going to say we've got the three subject matter experts on Marin City, transportation in Marin, and PDAs and the county planning for housing. So I'm really looking forward to this comprehensive presentation. We do have a bit of a squeeze for time in that. Diane has to leave in about 35 minutes. So we will try and get through the presentation part reasonably quickly. And I think you guys need to decide if, we were thinking you'd get through all the presentation and we'll reserve questions. I think that's what you asked. So that's what I'd ask us to respect that. So, |
| 00:59:19.83 | Unknown | you |
| 01:00:11.75 | Mayor Withey | Over to you, Jonathan. |
| 01:00:13.14 | Jonathan Logan | All right, thank you, Mr. Mayor and City Council and City Manager for the invitation to come and share an update on what's happening in Marin City. And I'm happy to report there are a lot of good things happening in Marin City and being a neighbor right around the corner, I think it's important that we maintain this dialogue. We have a lot of conversation at the staff level, but I think being able to give presentations to your council periodically makes a lot of sense, and then also for city staff to come over to the community services district board meeting and provide updates in terms of what's going on here in the city of Sausalito. Thank you. I thought what I would do today was, number one, just again, thank the city staff, Mike Langford with Park & Rex. We do a lot of joint activities there in the community, and we are appreciative of their support there. Jennifer Tejada, the police chief, she's been very engaged at times around certain public safety issues. It's really good to have her come on to the school campuses periodically to visit with the kids and show our young ladies and young girls that there are opportunities for them beyond school that would put them in charge of something. So it's really cool to see their reaction to a female police chief. And then, obviously, Adam Pollitzer. I'll just share a quick story. When I first became general manager of the CSD back in 2005, Adam was the park and recs director here. And we run park and recs in Marin City. And so my first meeting with him was like, Adam, what do I do? And he gave me a blueprint for how to keep the community happy through public Park and Rec's program. So I thank you for that. And also your leadership with the Southern Marin Management Academy. We've sent three of our staff members through that particular program. And they all had great things to say. And I had an opportunity to present there as well. Now that all the platitudes are done, let me just say who I am. I'm Jonathan Logan, and my connection to Marin City goes back to 1984. My daddy pastors the Cornerstone Community Church there in Marin City. And so growing up as a little boy, I remember fond memories of the flea market, fond memories of fully funded recreation programs, and just the community atmosphere that existed in the town. And so I went away to school and came back, and there was a position open, and so I took it, and I've been there ever since. And someone, I was in a seminar today, and someone said that the way to move forward is to look at the past and sort of understand the past. And when I think about Marin City and the things that makes it special for me and what made it special growing up, it was really that community atmosphere, people connecting with each other with a common agenda around, you know, what the community should look like. So with that, I want to just talk a little bit about Marin City revitalization as we're leading as a community services district. And prior to doing that, I just want to share with you a little bit of history of Marin City and sort of who the CSD is and what it is we do. Do I drive this thing? Okay. Okay. Let's see. Oh, perfect. All right. So just to reiterate, the purpose here today is to introduce the community services district and to some reintroduce the community services district. And before I go there, one more thank you to Herb Weiner, who's been involved with our facilities capital fundraising efforts, and I'll touch on some of that in a sec. And then the second bullet there is provide the city council with a good neighbor update on community development activities happening in Marin City. And then after both Diane and Lili have spoke, I will go into questions. So the CSD was formed in 1958 under Government Code 61,000, which is the Community Services District law. And Community Services District is no different than Marin Municipal Water District or the Sausalito Marin City Sanitary District. It has a five-member elected board of directors, and they are responsible for providing certain municipal services. And in our case case it's street lighting, garbage pickup, parks and recreation programs. Back in 1958 the CSD provided today to present it provides Marin City residents with the local government. Nowhere else in the county do you have a board or a commission or a council with elected officials solely made up of Marin City residents. And so it puts us in a unique position of providing a public voice, public forum for debate around Marin City issues or issues affecting Marin City. we liken it to a city council and they appoint me as the general managers likened to a city manager to run the day-to-day operations of the district. mess up. |
| 01:05:43.80 | Jonathan Logan | Okay. So CSD continued. Some of the programs we run, we operate a 27,000 square foot community center with a gym, fitness center, senior center, teen center, offices, and health and wellness clinic. We provide a public voice on all public policy matters affecting Marin City and its residents, and this includes health and wellness, which we started and founded the center in 2006. We also get involved in economic development initiatives, transportation initiatives, education, land use planning, and zoning. And our vision is really simple. We want Marin City to be a thriving, healthy, inclusive, safe, and environmentally conscious community. We have the most diverse community in Marin County. That's not always saying a lot, depending on where you look. But we have 38% African American, 11% Asian, 38% white, and 13% Hispanic. Because we're an unincorporated community, these percentages oftentimes fluctuate, and it just is a function of or the result of how the census collects data and updates it periodically. But the mean income is $61,000. It's about 55 percent of the households or residents are female and 45 percent male. And this one is very important. Property taxes collected in the community are lower than neighboring cities and towns, and that's because about a quarter of all of the housing stock is public housing, which pays no taxes. So when we think about Marin City revitalization, first we start with what are we trying to do with this? And we think shiny buildings, new fields, new structures, that all makes sense. That's one of the social determinants of health is a quality built environment. So we think that makes sense and it stands alone in and of by itself. But we thought when we started to think about revitalization, were there some things that we could really impact beyond just new structures and a new home for our programs? And some of the ideas that we came up with was, number one, we wanted to change the public perception of Marin City. Many people currently use our recreation center and our ball fields for activities outside of Marin City. And what we found is that when they come in and they see the people, they meet the folks, and they recreate with them, they get a new perspective of what Marin City is all about. And it's not just what you necessarily read or what you heard in a rumor mill, but it's a true community. And so we thought by revitalizing the center of town, if you will, our downtown, you would have a space that would be attractive for folks outside of the community. The people in the community would greatly benefit from it because they have new facilities, expanded programs. And so that was our vision for why we wanted to do this. So if you look up top, your top left-hand corner, everything that's outlined in yellow represents a project that we are currently classifying as Morin City Revitalization. So up top is the Rocky Graham Park. Right below it is our community center space. We own everything on that side of the road with the exception of the sheriff's substation and the apartment condos right above the community center space. And then across the street, outlined in red, is the school district's property, and the ball field there is a point of interest. And so we're working with the ball field to, or the school district, to revitalize that ball field there. did it again. Okay, all right. So Rocky Graham Park, which is a multi-generational park, youth sports field, stage, amphitheater, playground, adult fitness equipment, track, and legacy wall to memorialize names of community residents, both past and present, who have lived in the community. The cost for this project is about $4.9 million, funded by the California Department of Parks and Recs through Prop 84 bond measure. We have secured all of the funding for this project. We partnered with Trust for Public Land, and they've been a great partner throughout. We're happy to announce we broke ground in August of this year. Great event. And we anticipate that we'll be done with construction in the spring of 2015. One of the things that I'm most proud about with this project is the fact that as a public agency, we're spending public funds, and we feel like besides just building a great park, we could create some jobs through all the work that would be happening at the park. And so we partnered with the local organization, got some guys trained, and 30 percent of all man hours will go to Marin City residents who are now part of a union and they can participate in projects not just in Marin City but throughout the Bay Area. So it's really exciting to see this park be leveraged to create jobs for some of our young men. We sent nine guys to the training, all nine graduated, and between all nine there was about 45 years of incarceration between all of them. And now they're in a career track that we're going to support continually along with the Community Development Corporation to make sure that they can be successful beyond just Rocky Grand Park. Another thing that I'm proud of is our community advisory committee. We created a committee of stakeholders to sort of learn this process, build some local capacity around development, provide us with input. I mean, they chose the colors of the garbage cans and the types of plants that would go into the park. We asked questions about safety, how do we keep it safe, and they gave us all their feedback, and we incorporated it into the park. So this community advisory council is something that we're committed to, giving residents local voice in all matters, and it's been a great model that we'll carry over into the other projects that we have. The Betty Times Ball Field, this is our master plan for it. It's owned by the school district. We are working on a joint use agreement with the school district now that will give them access and exclusive use to the field during school hours and then after school and on weekends and during the summer. The community services district will run the field. We would program it with our activities, but then it would also be available for outside organizations to use and generate lease income. And with that, we would put that back into our youth recreation programs, those proceeds, as well as maintain a capital improvement fund for needed improvements down the road. The start date is to be determined. As I mentioned, we are still negotiating the joint use agreement with the school district, but we'll put in about $1.5 million of our funds for that project. A local hire will be in place as well as a community advisory committee to help us think about all the issues associated with the field. The final is the community center project, and I mentioned Herb. He's been a part of this committee, really looking at how we I can envision a new center there in Marin City. And at the end of the day, it's all about show me the money. We can dream all day long about what this center will look like, but unless we can raise funds to actually make it a reality, it's a great dream. But our goal is to make it a realistic project. So we ask some stakeholders from the broader community to join us and provide some input into, you know, are we planning this right? But also how do we raise funds? How should we go about raising funds for the center? And we have folks like the former mayor of San Rafael, Al Burrow, who's a part of it, and Jay Paxson from the Marine Community Foundation. Kate Sears is the chairperson, along with some community residents, Nancy Johnson, Everett, Brandon, and a few others. So this project, Master Planning, is currently underway, expected to be completed in November. Fundraising is underway. We've raised about $2 million to date. The center will house an expanded health and wellness center, a technology center, a community-based organizational offices, a gym and a fitness center, dance studio, early childhood development center, and family resource center. And this will really be our community central address where we like to call it the hub of Marin City. And so that's what we're creating. um, Before I go, yeah, I'll go here. I'll mention something about the shopping center. It was purchased in 2011 by the Garrity Group. It's about 182,000 square feet of retail space, source of local entry-level jobs. As you all know, West Marine recently relocated where Babies R Us is. I'm sorry about that. I know. I'm sorry. Interest in the Best Buy site from several retailers. I get calls all the time just trying to get more information about the community. And the owners have, we've been in contact and they're certainly committed to that site remaining a retail site for shopping and to meet the needs of the community, not just Marin City, but the broader community. And so what they're considering now is subdividing the former Best Buy site so you have two smaller shops that will potentially be more attractive to someone like a grocer, and that's something that we need Seriously, in the community is a grocery store where residents can access healthy fruits and vegetables. Um. And they also mentioned, you know, more restaurants and really creating a community center type atmosphere, town center type atmosphere where our folks can come and just kind of hang out and be a part of the center. So what they have promised is that there will be a new look coming soon for the center with new landscaping and rethinking circulation and some of the other things that would just make that center more of an asset for the community. Other activities, we have a healthy eating, active living campaign that we're really excited about. As I mentioned before, we are in the process of recruiting a grocery store to the community, and our first step in that was to do a market research study to just do a better assessment of how much dollars are actually spent here in Southern Marin on groceries or similar products or products that you would find in a grocery store. And we had a great economist that came in and took a look at it, and the findings were very promising. There's about $195 million of potential market spending on grocery store items, and only about $123 million of those dollars are captured in Southern Marin, and so that's from Corta Madera down to Sausalito so there's about seventy million dollars in market potential for for a grocer So that was step one step two is it try to identify a grocery store that fits and meets the needs of Marin City But also has a broader appeal to Southern Marin residents because the Marin City numbers alone won't support the type of grocery store that we're interested in. So we have a short list of potential grocers that we're going to be reaching out to with a letter-writing campaign and, you know, trying to sit down with their folks. We're going straight grassroots to make this happen. And then on the other side, working with the county and with the shopping center owners to make sure that there's adequate space if, in fact, a grocer wants to come to the community. We also have some local health nutrition specialists who are trained to teach nutrition to students, to seniors. And, you know, it doesn't make sense just to bring a grocery store. You have to, you know, sort of teach people what good eating actually looks like and how to prepare meals. And so we have these health nutrition specialists who go in and out of the various portions of our community to just spread the knowledge. Local schools, we have Denise Sudo here, who's a Sausalito resident. Good to see her, but she's a teacher at MLK, Bayside MLK. And I'm really excited about the foundation that's being laid for the school. As you all know, there's been challenges from year to year, and I've seen it for over the last 10 years in a professional capacity, and I've observed it pretty much all my life just as a private citizen. And so there's been some challenges there. What I like about what's happening now is that, you know, there's a good foundation, so the budget is balanced across both schools, Willow Creek and Bayside MLK. And I happen to be on the Willow Creek School Board as well. And so I'm not speaking in any official capacity, but what I like is that there are balanced budgets and everyone agrees that the core programs need to be taken care of, but then both schools are now looking at how do we collaborate across schools to enhance the academic experience for all kids. And so that's really promising. What I also like is by having a consolidated school there in Marin City, you have parents now bringing their young kids to school and coming to pick them up. And that's just another energy from, you know, putting them on a bus, and then they drive somewhere, and then they come back home at 3 o'clock or 3.30. So I'm really encouraged by that. I would say that there's still work to be done, but I think that the team is in place to actually tackle those challenges. And I would recommend, you know, you guys invite Steve Vanzette here and Royce Conner, who's a phenomenal head of school there at Willow Creek, just to come down and share their vision for how the schools are going to move. as that here in Royce Conner, who's a phenomenal head of school there at Willow Creek, just to come down and share their vision for how the schools are going to move forward. together. in a coordinated way, providing options for all kids. One of the things that we have to |
| 01:20:29.72 | Diane (Transportation Authority of Marin) | When it is. |
| 01:20:31.48 | Jonathan Logan | make sure though is that we maintain diversity in both schools. I mean that's really what makes these communities together great is the fact that there is diversity here. And so for our kids to have that experience when going to school that they're going to carry out for the rest of their life is very important. So I hope everybody along with myself and others will be cheerleaders for that concept of really creating diversity and maintaining it at that very early age for our kids in the community. Public safety, the collaboration with the Sheriff's Department has been steadily improving. We have a great station commander there in Scott Anderson, and the basis of any great relationship is communication. And I can say that communication is great right now with Lieutenant Anderson and the local community. So we're hopeful that public safety will continue to improve. And just to be clear, our public safety issues in the Marin City community, they're at the hands of a very tiny few. Everyone is not out breaking the law. There are a lot of great people in Marin City. And so our job is to make sure that we maintain that and enhance it as we move forward. And then the last thing is just a community-based transportation plan. And Diane's going to say a lot more, but when we look at you know, some of the needs that we have had in the community. you know, like the transit center being improved, that's something that happened. And there were some robberies that occurred there because it was very dark. So these dollars from the community-based transportation plan, as a result of that plan, went to make some improvements there. And we saw crime be reduced. When we look at our vision for revitalizing the community, is there a light on this one? |
| 01:22:36.79 | Jonathan Logan | Okay. I didn't want to cut it off. Perfect. Okay, so this corridor here is Phillips Drive, and this is really the spine of this revitalization project here. And this is one of the things that I think will certainly emerge as a much-needed infrastructure improvement there in the town. And if, as I mentioned earlier, raising funds is what's going to make this a reality, and to the extent that we can leverage both private and public funds for this project. Keeping in mind we can't float a bond because we don't have a tax base to do it. It makes this a very viable option. And so the community-based transportation will give the community an opportunity to sort of weigh in on that and inform us. is that really a priority for them and for the funds that are attached with that plant. COMMUNITY-BASED TRANSPORTATION WILL GIVE THE COMMUNITY AN OPPORTUNITY TO SORT OF WEIGH IN ON THAT AND INFORM US, IS THAT REALLY A PRIORITY FOR THEM AND FOR THE FUNDS THAT ARE ATTACHED WITH THAT PLAN. SO WITH THAT, THAT'S GOING TO CONCLUDE MY PORTION. I'LL TURN IT OVER TO DIANE, AND SHE'S GOING TO TALK A LITTLE BIT MORE ABOUT THE COMMUNITY-BASED TRANSPORTATION PLAN AND WHAT HAS BEEN DONE TO DATE. THANK YOU. |
| 01:23:41.74 | Mayor Withey | Thank you, Jonathan. |
| 01:23:46.01 | Mayor Withey | Welcome, Diane. |
| 01:23:47.11 | Diane (Transportation Authority of Marin) | Good evening, welcome. Thank you, Mayor Withey and members of the council. It's a pleasure being here this evening. I have a handout I wanted to to make sure you got what your able-bodied public works guy is going to distribute. I wanted to start out by, no, I'm going to leave those out. Thank you. I just wanted to start out by congratulating and noting the hard work of your city manager and your public works staff with respect to local infrastructure improvements. The circulation area around your ferry terminal, the work at Bridgeway and Gate 6 Road. We've also been working very closely on school access opportunities for an upcoming school pathway program that we're going to have funds for, and the South Gateway evaluations and Alexander Avenue. They've been present and active, and it's been a pleasure working with them, and I look forward to continue to work with them and wanted to note their excellent work in addressing some of these infrastructure issues. I'm here to talk about the community-based transportation planning process that we're kicking off in the Marin City area. Back in the 2000-2001 time period, the federal government exhibited a willingness to fund programs out in the communities around the United States regarding low income and underserved communities and their needs in transportation. This was not only a transportation program, but also an air quality and an environmental stewardship program. Starting around that time, the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, who's our regional agency that addresses and deals with federal statutes and receives federal funding as a result and distributes it. began a process of identifying communities of concern, disadvantaged communities around the Bay Area. In Marin, the communities identified were the Canal neighborhood in East San Rafael and Marin City. They asked for the county transportation agencies, and TAM is the joint powers, authority addressing transportation needs in Marin County. We have Herb Weiner as our representative and we have a member of every city and town and all five supervisors sitting on our board. They asked us to do community-based planning starting around 2005 to look at the needs from the grounds up of those particular communities. We completed a community-based transportation plan in the Marin City area. What I have here is an up-to-the-minute update on the projects that came out of that process. It was about 12 projects. We worked very closely with both seniors and teens and students in the community, which we plan to do for the next round of updates. We were very fortunate then and very fortunate now to have Jonathan Logan and the community service district as a board, as a forum for us to address the needs of the community with respect to transportation. I think what you'll see here in this list is some forward thinking regarding the needs of the community at the time. Volunteer driver program, car share program, those were things that in the 2008-09 period weren't a reality in Marin. We now have those programs growing in Marin and we're actually implementing them as well as some of our senior transit and travel center services in the Marin City area. We work very closely with not only the community but with the county of Marin, with Marin Transit and with Golden Gate Transit who are all members of the effort that we're going to be kicking off starting this month in Marin City. The Marin City Community-Based Transportation Planning process will build on the 2009 study. All of our activity will come through the Community Service District Board in terms of both input, review of progress reports, and review of draft ideas for improvements. In many ways, this process is a happy one. We're trying to identify the transportation needs of the community. So we turn to the communities to say, what do you need and what do you want to put on the list? The output will be a final report that will be accepted by the TAM board sometime after the 1st of January 2015. I was asked once if I had a nine-foot stack of planning studies in my closet at work of ideas that never got implemented. And what I wanted to report tonight, and you can see some of that evidence in this status sheet that we distributed, is that we have a good track record of implementing the projects and the programs, and we plan to continue that and have even more opportunity in Marin City than we did previously. How will we use the community-based transportation plan update? Part of our scheduling around this, and we're getting off to a fast start and plan to complete our work in the next four or five months, is that sometime in the February-March time period of 2015, MTC is going to release to us about a million dollars in funds for Lifeline projects. These projects will be in one of our three communities of concern, Marin City and the Canal neighborhood, and also select areas of Navajo, which we're also trying to address the needs of the disadvantaged population there. We hope to complete this process and be able to assign some of those funds to the higher priority projects coming out of the of the Marin City community-based planning effort. That's just the beginning of the news. Along with the Lifeline funding, which comes down from federal fund sources, the state is emphasizing disadvantaged communities such as Marin City in a couple of programs that they've kicked off this summer. One is called their Active Transportation Program. These are bikes and pedestrian facilities. I'll note that we've talked quite a bit with the Community Service District and with Jonathan about the needs around their community development site in terms of making improvements for bikes and pedestrians. There's an absence of sidewalks and bike paths in that area. Projects and programs in Marin City would also be eligible for cap and trade funds. The state has decided to take the cap and trade program and have it basically as their future of transportation funding from the state of California. So I didn't bring a lot of detail on this. I tried to give you a light dose of acronyms tonight. But there are specific programs under cap and trade which are assigned to disadvantaged communities. So again, the planning process that we go to will be a source of applying for grant funds associated with those programs. And then last but not least, the status of Marin City as a priority development area makes it eligible for 50 percent of our federal gas tax that we receive. There's a long history, and I'm sure you've followed it if you read the local papers and talk to the local electors and other cities and towns here regarding PDAs. A priority development area is an area self-designated by the local jurisdiction to focus future housing. There are about 135 PDAs around the Bay Area, and we had nine in Marin, and we have two now, nine sites, and we're down to two plus sites. Downtown San Rafael in the vicinity of the Bettini Transit Center and the Future Smart Station. And what the county designates, which Lili's going to talk about, is the Highway 101 corridor, California Park, and particularly Marin City. Now the reality of this, and I've come to the community service district to talk about this at Jonathan's request, is that we're going to get about $2.5 million per year in federal gas tax money, and 50% of it needs to be spent in PDAs. So whether it's downtown San Rafael or Marin City, California Park doesn't have transportation needs identified specifically. So we're really talking about two primary locations. That's where we're going to be spending that money. We expect those funds to be released in 2015, 16, for 2016 and beyond. So again, whether it's the federal lifeline funds, the state funds, and they're emphasizing these communities of concern and disadvantaged communities, or our own federal gas tax returns, We have high hopes that what comes out of this planning process can be funded and be funded quickly. So we're looking forward to continuing to work with Marin County, Marin Transit, and the CSD to complete the planning process in the next several months, again, with the hope of being able to implement projects much like we've implemented many of these. And again, I want the CSD and the community for having quite a bit of foresight in what they developed back in 2008. We've been able to start some of these innovative programs and hope to bring them back to the community under this round of planning. With that, I again apologize. I've got to go care for a sick family member, but I'd be glad to answer questions through your staff and would be glad to come back again also and give you an update on this process. So thank you. |
| 01:34:12.72 | Mayor Withey | Thank you. |
| 01:34:15.03 | Diane (Transportation Authority of Marin) | I'm the executive director of the Transportation Authority of Marin, and I will leave some cards for any of you that may want to follow up and ask questions. |
| 01:34:24.19 | Mayor Withey | Thank you. Thank you. And now, welcome to Lily Thomas. |
| 01:34:30.39 | Lili Thomas | Thank you. |
| 01:34:30.89 | Mayor Withey | from the county. |
| 01:34:32.02 | Lili Thomas | Thank you. Good evening, Mayor, Councilmembers. I'm Lili Thomas. I'm a principal planner with the Marin County Community Development Agency. I don't have a PowerPoint for you tonight. I have a very brief update about the priority development areas, specifically the one in Marin City that Diane mentioned. And the priority development areas came out of a program that was established by the Association of Bay Area Governments with the intent of aligning transportation funds with communities where there was residential growth potential. And the county applied for that program in August of 2007 and designated a priority development area along the 101 corridor. And no zonings or increased densities were included in that application. And so the PDA at that time is consistent with the countywide plan which focuses the limited growth that's going to happen in Marin along the 101 corridor. along those communities the 101 corridor. So the PDA was consistent with our countywide plan as it's been revised over the years since 1973. to really focus our growth, again, close to transit and services. The board did revise the PDA twice, our Board of Supervisors revised the PDA twice and removed communities in Marinwood, Strawberry and the Tam Junction neighborhoods from the priority development area. And so the current priority development area is, as Diane mentioned earlier, portion of central San Rafael called the California Park neighborhood and parts of Marin City within about half mile of the 101 freeway. and the existing zoning in those areas has been in place for a number of years, and there's no rezonings or increased densities that are proposed as part of the PDA. And as you heard from Jonathan, so far the PDA has been able to support some local COMMUNITY, COMMUNITY, COMMUNITY, projects that he mentioned. There's a number of funding sources that have come through. because of Marin City being a priority development area, it's eligible for some additional infrastructure and transportation dollars that are part of the revitalization efforts that the community is working on. Finally, the projects that have been funded through the priority development status have been aligned with the community's goals and benefits and have supported that community revitalization process that Jonathan talked about. So that's all that I have to say about our priority development area and I'm happy to |
| 01:37:47.77 | Mayor Withey | Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. So we have Jonathan and Lili here, who I'm sure would be happy to answer questions from us. Does anybody have any questions they'd like to start with? Anybody on this side, anybody on this side. |
| 01:38:10.27 | Vice Mayor (likely Jill Hoffman) | Thank you. |
| 01:38:10.28 | Mayor Withey | Thank you. |
| 01:38:10.30 | Vice Mayor (likely Jill Hoffman) | Absolutely. Uh-huh. For... Lily. On the PDA, you said it was established in 2007, and The revisions have been merely to take out certain So it's essentially, been in place for Marin City since 2007. |
| 01:38:29.98 | Lili Thomas | That's correct. |
| 01:38:30.58 | Vice Mayor (likely Jill Hoffman) | And is there any, with the Plan Bay Area and the Plan Bay Area 2 being contemplated, is there any plan to make any changes to it? As you said, there was no zoning changes or increased density when it was originally designated. Are there any plans to make any changes based on Plan Bay Area or these further revisions of Plan Bay Area? |
| 01:38:30.60 | Lili Thomas | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 01:38:55.24 | Lili Thomas | No, there isn't. |
| 01:38:55.88 | Councilmember (likely Linda Pfeifer) | Thank you. |
| 01:38:59.64 | Councilmember (likely Linda Pfeifer) | Mr. Mayor. Okay, so you've said that there's no plans for increased density, is that the case? |
| 01:39:08.00 | Lili Thomas | That's correct. There's no plans for increased density that have been associated with the priority development area or the status of the priority development area. And the zoning in those areas has been in place for a number of years. |
| 01:39:22.07 | Councilmember (likely Linda Pfeifer) | Okay, so here's a mystery. Maybe you can shed some light on this, because you're saying there's no increased density associated with the priority development area, but the Marin Transportation Investment Strategy Report, and that's April 25, 2013, states two PDAs will be accommodating 34 percent of the county's, Marin County's projected growth, and 23 percent of its job growth. Yet the PDAs themselves, the two that are designated in Marin County, represent less than 4% of the developmental land in the county. So those numbers don't jive with what you're saying. How do you avoid intense intensive high density growth with those percentages. |
| 01:40:05.45 | Lili Thomas | What was the date of the report? |
| 01:40:07.43 | Councilmember (likely Linda Pfeifer) | April 25, 2013. |
| 01:40:09.64 | Lili Thomas | So it sounds like the, I'm not familiar with the details of that report, but it sounds like it was based on the priority development area when it was larger than what it is today, before those communities that I had mentioned had been removed, before the Marinway community, Camp Junction, and Strawberry had been removed. So what are those percentages? |
| 01:40:28.83 | Councilmember (likely Linda Pfeifer) | So what are those percentages? |
| 01:40:32.42 | Lili Thomas | primary area, those are the areas within the unincorporated part of the county along the 101 corridor are the places where we have planning control are really those communities. It's Marinwood, There's some parts of San Venetia, and then there's the other areas that are priority development areas. So those are really where the county has planning control, the rest of the county. the rest of the 101 corridor is really within incorporated cities and towns. And that's where most of the growth within the county is going to be, within cities and towns, rather than unincorporated parts of the county. |
| 01:41:11.47 | Councilmember (likely Linda Pfeifer) | I've just quoted a report that's just a year old, and you're saying the percentages are incorrect. So what are the correct percentages for the PDAs? |
| 01:41:21.07 | Lili Thomas | I don't know what the correct percentage is of the PDA, because I would have to know, to give you that, I'd have to know the whole build-out potential of all the towns and cities. I can only talk about what's in the unincorporated part of the county. Well, we're here for Merit. |
| 01:41:34.28 | Councilmember (likely Linda Pfeifer) | Well, we're here for Marin City. |
| 01:41:36.12 | Lili Thomas | Right, and so Marin City has a very small portion of the unincorporated county's development potential. and that hasn't changed based on its status as a priority development area. The zoning that's in place in Marin City hasn't changed because of its status as a priority development area. |
| 01:41:57.27 | Councilmember (likely Linda Pfeifer) | you've stated that before but you haven't answered my question which is what are the projected growth percentages |
| 01:42:04.48 | Lili Thomas | I don't know what the percentage is compared to the whole unincorporated county. Is that your question? I'm happy to get back to you on that. I don't have that information. Well, yeah. |
| 01:42:10.67 | Councilmember (likely Linda Pfeifer) | Yeah, because that's kind of the cracks of the whole issue. |
| 01:42:13.44 | Lili Thomas | I wish. |
| 01:42:14.13 | Councilmember (likely Linda Pfeifer) | Thank you. |
| 01:42:14.16 | Councilmember (likely Ray Withy) | Mr. Mayor, can I ask a question, please? When were those, the strawberry and Marinwood and I forget the third, when were they removed from the Tamsin? |
| 01:42:17.22 | Unknown | to him |
| 01:42:17.76 | Councilmember (likely Linda Pfeifer) | Remember? |
| 01:42:26.80 | Lili Thomas | DRAWBARY WAS REMOVED THIS YEAR, AND MARINWOOD WAS REMOVED IN 2012, ALTHOUGH IT WASN'T REFLECTED IN THE PRIORITY DEVELOPMENT AREA MAPS UNTIL THIS YEAR. SO THERE WAS A LAG TIME BETWEEN WHEN THE ASSOCIATION OF BAY AREA GOVERNMENTS MADE ADJUSTMENTS TO THEIR MAPPINGS. they waited until there was a number of different changes. So it could be that some of that information was not |
| 01:42:53.73 | Councilmember (likely Ray Withy) | And Temp Junction, has that been a recent change as well? |
| 01:42:56.42 | Lili Thomas | Yes. |
| 01:42:57.53 | Mayor Withey | So I think it would be helpful if you could kind of get the information back to us. |
| 01:43:03.71 | Lili Thomas | Yeah, and I'll need to clarify exactly what her question is. But, yes, I'm happy to provide that information if we have it available. |
| 01:43:07.13 | Mayor Withey | I'm happy to provide that information if we have it. Super. Mr. Merribe, have I clarified my question? Yeah, please. |
| 01:43:10.59 | Councilmember (likely Linda Pfeifer) | Can I, Mr. Merribee, have to clarify my question? Yeah, so I'm just, I mean, I'm an elected official and I, and you're here to represent the priority development areas, projections for Marin City. And the question is just, what are we looking at in terms of density? I mean, I have a, newsletter here from Plan Bay Area that states, you know, 78% of the growth will be focused on priority development areas around the Bay Area. Right. And so what the question is, is what is the percentage of growth rate targeted for Marin City as a PDA designation. |
| 01:43:48.32 | Lili Thomas | I'll get back to you. I don't have the information about what percentage of Marine County unincorporated It's total. growth potential, the total build out potential, what percentage of that is in Marin City? But I can answer that question for you. |
| 01:44:04.54 | Mayor Withey | Could I perhaps ask it in a different way? Does... Has the county in – if we took some quantitative measure, let's take the RHNA numbers for sake of argument, right? If you took the RHNA numbers for the county, do you have – have you guys sort of subdivided it into figure out how the Marin City area is going to contribute to the county's RHNA numbers? Does that give us a proxy for – |
| 01:44:12.30 | Unknown | And... |
| 01:44:12.37 | Jonathan Logan | Thank you. |
| 01:44:39.45 | Mayor Withey | what the figure you're trying to get to. |
| 01:44:40.92 | Lili Thomas | Well, no, the Reno process is part of the housing element process, which is a separate planning process. |
| 01:44:46.15 | Mayor Withey | A separate planning process. |
| 01:44:48.89 | Lili Thomas | And you know, there isn't |
| 01:44:52.31 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:44:52.36 | Lili Thomas | the county doesn't go through and say you know Marin City has 12% of the county, unincorporated county's population, so therefore we're gonna put 12% of the housing that were projected in our arena, it doesn't work that way. We look at sites that are available and sites that could that have potential for development and so it's really not based on that. If you look at our existing housing element, we have one site that's in Marin City and there's 15 And as you may know, the county's regional housing need, our arena went down significantly this time. Previously it was 773 units and now it's gone down to a total of 185. It's not likely. The draft housing element also, the one that we've submitted for the 2015 through 2023 period also only includes that one site in Marin City with 15 units. |
| 01:45:48.51 | Councilmember (likely Ray Withy) | Perfect. I have a question, and maybe the two of you, Jonathan, you kind of addressed it earlier, but just to both of your knowledge, so there's a lot of rumor mill stuff that floats around with much of this, and I would assume that West Marine is a smart company and entered into a very long-term lease when they moved into the babies are us space. But to your knowledge, and you've dealt with the developer or the owner of the property, there's no big plan out there to build housing where the shopping center exists as far as, you know, nothing's been submitted to the county as far as, you know, or, you know, that's one of the rumor mill stuff we – and I think you kind of addressed it earlier. But, |
| 01:46:28.20 | Jonathan Logan | Yeah, nothing's been submitted to the county along those lines, and all the conversations that I've had with the shopping center owners has indicated that a retail center is their vision for what's going to happen there for a long time. The other, the one thing I would just mention is that any potential development project will have to go through the county planning process and as Lely stated, There has been no changes to zoning or to density up until this point. And in the event that a developer came to town and said that we wanted to, you know, we want develop a site and put high density housing it's going to be subject to an environmental impact review it's going to be subject to community outcry not even debate outcry because there's one entry into Marin City one entry out and if you look at the percentage of low-income housing in the community now there's a disproportionate share when you compare that to other communities around which create some challenges for us in terms of providing services so Thank you. NOW, THERE'S A DISPROPORTIONATE SHARE WHEN YOU COMPARE THAT TO OTHER COMMUNITIES AROUND, WHICH CREATES SOME CHALLENGES FOR US IN TERMS OF PROVIDING SERVICES. SO I THINK THERE WILL BE A LONG PROCESS FOR, YOU KNOW, HIGH DENSITY HOUSING DEVELOPMENT TO ACTUALLY EVER MOVE FORWARD. |
| 01:47:52.32 | Vice Mayor (likely Jill Hoffman) | We're asking questions of both. Are we sticking on PDA or could I? You can go wherever you want. So I'm going to move it around a little bit. And for Jonathan, it's really great that you're here. I think it's long overdue that we have this connection. You are our neighbors, and it's wonderful to hear, and it was great to meet you several months ago. And so what would you say, what would be something that you'd be looking for in the relationship between Marin City and Sausalito, in ways that we could cooperate, work together? How can we help you? |
| 01:47:55.81 | Jonathan Logan | Thank you. |
| 01:47:55.91 | Michael Racks | Bye. |
| 01:47:55.96 | Jonathan Logan | I'm not sure. |
| 01:47:56.03 | Mayor Withey | Go wherever you want. |
| 01:47:57.45 | Michael Racks | Thank you. |
| 01:48:21.61 | Jonathan Logan | Yeah, I think definitely around programs and activities. I think this relationship potential is really around building a stronger community, and that starts with communications. And so just having sort of the staff-level conversations about what's happening here, what's happening in Marin City, we can figure out ways how we can plug in and support each other. But then I also think raising it up to the policy making bodies in the respective communities makes a lot of sense. So without any real concrete, you know, ideas for how we work, I just think, you know, periodic updates will make a lot of sense. And obviously we're raising funds for a community center. And so any leads you have, folks that might want to support health and wellness, support early childhood education, support community center activities, send them my way. |
| 01:49:20.96 | Councilmember (likely Linda Pfeifer) | I have a question, Mr. Mayor. MR. Yeah, please. So with respect to going through design and community outreach, |
| 01:49:21.76 | Jonathan Logan | Yeah. |
| 01:49:21.96 | Mayor Withey | Please. |
| 01:49:28.66 | Councilmember (likely Linda Pfeifer) | Were you aware that the California Environmental Quality Act has been streamlined to allow exemptions by SB 743 and CEQA law applied to projects in PDAs? you And can you comment on that? |
| 01:49:44.32 | Lili Thomas | I, I, |
| 01:49:44.67 | Councilmember (likely Linda Pfeifer) | I can't comment. |
| 01:49:45.10 | Lili Thomas | briefly on that. This is not environmental law environmental policy is not my field of expertise. We have somebody else at the county who handles that but It is my understanding that there's a distinction that because Marin County's priority development area is classified as a potential development area that the CEQA streamlining provisions that are outlined in SB 375 do not apply to the county's potential development PDA because it has a different status. It's called potential. And so it's more about the level of specificity of the planning process that has been entailed in that area. |
| 01:50:30.03 | Unknown | and |
| 01:50:30.25 | Councilmember (likely Linda Pfeifer) | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 01:50:30.69 | Unknown | you |
| 01:50:30.86 | Councilmember (likely Linda Pfeifer) | Thank you. |
| 01:50:36.65 | Councilmember (likely Linda Pfeifer) | So yeah, and I have a follow-up question. |
| 01:50:42.22 | Unknown | THE CITY IS GOING TO BE |
| 01:50:42.65 | Councilmember (likely Linda Pfeifer) | So I've heard there's been a lot of debate about the term potential PDA. that term didn't carry a lot of weight with the other communities that were very concerned and you know, rallied to get their potential PDA status revoked with, I think, personally, I think good cause. Where I'm confused about, and I attended the Plan Bay Area meeting in Oakland where, I mean, literally the panel was just about to vote and they said, oh, we better define what potential means. So, I mean, this has been just all over the map. And there has been a lot of confusion about that as well, because even in Abag's own newsletter just six months ago, It lists, it has a chart with the PDAs in the Bay Area and it lists two PDAs in Marin County. It doesn't say potential PDAs, it just says PDAs. So can you clarify that? |
| 01:51:41.11 | Lili Thomas | Yeah, there has been a lot of both misunderstanding and some miscommunication around the distinction between a potential and a plan, And originally, there was distinctions on which funding sources you could be eligible for based on which of the classifications you had. but really the only distinction at this point is around the sequence streamlining. The only distinction that I'm aware of at this point is IT'S A LITTLE BIT OF A the type of funds you're now eligible for both infrastructure funds capital and planning dollars regardless of whether your potential or plan but really it's the level of specificity of planning that has been done in that area. For example, if there is a specific plan for a a priority development area. For example, in the East Bay, along the, there's a corridor that they've done a planning process specifically along that corridor. and it's a multi-jurisdictional priority development area. And so they've said, this is what we want the corridor to look like over time. and we want to see a bike lane and fix transit and they've planned that process together. priority development area because it's very specific. They've talked about the number of residential units they'd like to see in that area. and the specific infrastructure needs. Our area was much less, it's much less specific. Our PDA is much less specific. And so we've said it's consistent with our general plan. We're not proposing any changes, but it's really that lack of specificity that makes us not qualify for the Seqlis Streamlining provisions. |
| 01:53:33.13 | Councilmember (likely Ray Withy) | Jonathan. On that point, my understanding, and you know this much better than me, is that the difference, the CEQA streamlining is put in place if you've already addressed a lot of the issues that a normal CEQA review would require you to take into account if you hadn't addressed them before in these planned development areas. So that you've addressed a lot of the myriad of things that CEQA would, not necessarily all of them, but a good chunk of them, so therefore you wouldn't have to revisit them again, versus my understanding of these potential land development areas in Miranda. Excuse me. you know, these are more conceptualized areas, targeted areas, that would help target some of this not necessarily development, but actually rearranging some of the way those communities work in terms of transportation and other things. But they're not eligible for CEQA, because that level of planning has not yet been, CEQA streamlining, because that level of planning has not been done yet. Is that? Yes, that's consistent. From a layman's, a little bit more of a layman's |
| 01:54:31.51 | Unknown | Yes, that's consistent. From a layman's group? Yes. Okay. Sorry. |
| 01:54:35.61 | Councilmember (likely Ray Withy) | Thank you. |
| 01:54:35.72 | Mayor Withey | Thank you. |
| 01:54:35.80 | Councilmember (likely Ray Withy) | Thank you. |
| 01:54:35.85 | Mayor Withey | Thank you. Yeah. May I? I'd actually like to ask you a question, if I could. Could you help me understand the fact that people associate PDAs with Plan Bay Area? Plan Bay Area was only adopted last year. So yeah, last year, right? But you adopted, you designated a PDA, ABAG presumably must have, the concept of PDAs is predates planned Bay Area. So could you help me link all that together? Yes. Yes, too. |
| 01:55:15.07 | Lili Thomas | Yes, it's a little confusing because the The focus program, which is how the priority development areas were first introduced, was before Plan Bay Area was adopted. But it was starting that process, and it was going out kind of ahead of time and saying jurisdictions in Moran sorry not in Marin but in the Bay Area where do you see your residential growth happening over the next number of years and where do you see that there is transportation needs in those communities? What are the transportation and infrastructure needs? and trying to align funding with that. And so it was really kind of getting ahead of the Plan Bay Area process and then they were then rolled into the planned Bay Area once that planning process moved forward. And again, as you know, the planned Bay Area process was part of the aligning transportation and residential growth so that we could reduce greenhouse gas emissions in alignment with SB 375, the state law that was aligning those practices and those planning processes. |
| 01:56:25.25 | Mayor Withey | Thank you. Linda. |
| 01:56:27.61 | Councilmember (likely Linda Pfeifer) | Yeah, it's my understanding first came Focus, then came AB 32, then came SV 375, and then came Plan Bay Area. Is that there? I think AB 32 came before the Focus program. That would make sense to you. |
| 01:56:35.04 | Lili Thomas | I think AB 32 can be for the focus program. But that would make sense. And then the focus program |
| 01:56:40.03 | Councilmember (likely Linda Pfeifer) | and then. |
| 01:56:40.56 | Lili Thomas | ESPY. |
| 01:56:40.90 | Councilmember (likely Linda Pfeifer) | 75. |
| 01:56:40.98 | Lili Thomas | 75 years. |
| 01:56:42.41 | Councilmember (likely Linda Pfeifer) | So these are all little pieces and they all link together and they all fold up. So again, yeah, so my question just comes back to, again, this newsletter. I'm reading this. PDAs are a focus of growth in every county in the region. PDAs are infill areas designated by local governments to take on the bulk of the region's growth. |
| 01:57:04.86 | Lili Thomas | Yeah, I think that it's important to remember that in Moran, there's not a lot of growth that's happening. We have the slowest growth in any of the Bay Area counties. you know, the term, the terminology, and that's not true in some other Bay Area counties where there is significant growth that's planned over the next number of years. Marin has a very slow growth rate, and so we're talking about, a very limited number of housing units or growth that is going to happen in Marin. Although, you know, there is a need for some additional types of housing, we are looking at providing a different range of housing so that we can accommodate folks with different needs, folks with disabilities, seniors and a variety of incomes. So there is a need for some additional housing units but it's important to remember that within the county it's a very small number and we are projected, we have the slowest projected growth rate. of any county in the Bay Area and that's expected to come. |
| 01:58:04.56 | Councilmember (likely Linda Pfeifer) | And what is that growth rate? |
| 01:58:07.06 | Lili Thomas | I don't have it off the top of my head, but it's because |
| 01:58:09.42 | Councilmember (likely Linda Pfeifer) | Because when I compare the figures under Plan Bay Area with that growth rate, was they're substantially higher than the 25-year average of growth rate that Marin has had in the past. So I'm, again, you know, you're talking about growth rates, |
| 01:58:26.53 | Lili Thomas | that you're talking about Thank you. |
| 01:58:28.03 | Councilmember (likely Linda Pfeifer) | I'm not hearing the percentages. |
| 01:58:29.57 | Lili Thomas | I don't have the presentation at the top. We have that information. It's all in our, you know, some of the stuff that we have to do in our in our general plan that we're updating currently. The county has a very slow growth rate, has over the past, and is projected to continue. Nevada did have, a few years ago, had a fairly high growth rate compared to any of the other cities. They grew at a rate of, I think, 9% in a 10-year period, but that was higher than any of the other jurisdictions throughout the county. |
| 01:58:43.32 | Unknown | . |
| 01:58:43.52 | Jonathan Logan | . |
| 01:58:59.08 | Councilmember (likely Linda Pfeifer) | Well, yeah, well, what I'm seeing here is projected total growth rate of 35 percent and annual growth rate of 1.4 percent over the next 25 years, compared to historic numbers of 10.5 percent and 0.4 percent in unincorporated Marin. So what I'm seeing in earlier reports, from the county. and in agencies. are historically low growth rates like you're saying, but then Planned Bay Area comes in with explosive growth rates and they're all focused on these the potential priority development areas. So you're saying that there's a slow growth rate, but then you don't have the percentages and you don't have the numbers. So I'm feeling frustrated. |
| 01:59:46.86 | Mayor Withey | Thank you. |
| 01:59:46.87 | Lili Thomas | So... So let me just let you know just one point before I, yeah, and you can, you have, I'm happy to leave my card with you and you can email me and I can send you the links to our housing element that has that information. But I think that one of the things that's |
| 01:59:49.90 | Councilmember (likely Linda Pfeifer) | Just one point before I. |
| 01:59:59.94 | Lili Thomas | You know, the priority development areas in the unincorporated county are consistent with our general plan that has been in place and has principles of environmental protection and those are consistent with our priority development area. So there hasn't been any significant changes based on that. They are aligned with our principles that says, yes, we are going to expect some limited growth over the next number of years. And that limited growth we expect to happen along the 101 corridor and in these parts of the unincorporated county. |
| 02:00:31.69 | Councilmember (likely Linda Pfeifer) | Well, see, again, I have a quote that says the initial vision scenario focuses more housing growth within the urbanized 101 corridor PDA um, then is currently contemplated by the countywide plan. So now you're telling me that it's an alignment. So I, I just need to see the figures and the facts. |
| 02:00:49.65 | Mayor Withey | So why don't we make sure that happens? |
| 02:00:52.67 | Councilmember (likely Linda Pfeifer) | Thank you. |
| 02:00:52.85 | Unknown | Yeah, you're welcome to get in touch with me. I'll leave my card for you here. |
| 02:00:55.44 | Mayor Withey | Thank you, Lily. At this point, why don't we open this up for public comment? And does any member of the public like to say something about this topic of our update on Marin City, our update on its transportation projects, update on what the PDA there means. Any comments or questions? No. So a closed public comment. And is there any other, before we sort of close this out for our commentary, is there any further questions of Jonathan or Lili before we say thank you very much? |
| 02:01:37.84 | Councilmember (likely Ray Withy) | I just want to ask Jonathan because he said something before that was actually pretty meaningful in terms of Marin City's approach to this whole, to their future in a sense. Where you stated that Marin City currently houses a disproportionate amount of public and affordable housing versus the rest of Marin. What I take from that is that Marin City is saying, you know, we're not necessarily the destination point, and I'll put that politely, of affordable housing for the rest of an unincorporated Marin. I mean, that's not exactly what you said, but I mean, is that – I just wanted to give you a chance to kind of – I can put it in more blunt terms to people who don't quite get with all that means, but maybe you might want to do that instead of me. |
| 02:02:25.52 | Jonathan Logan | Yeah, I mean, my board hasn't taken a vote or set any policy around it, but I think the general sentiment is that, you know, to be equitable, affordable housing should be spread throughout the county of Marin and not just centralized in, you know, the canal district and Marin City and parts of Nevada. All right. So my take on that. |
| 02:02:47.76 | Councilmember (likely Ray Withy) | away from that is that, you know, that's for folks who have this fear that Marin City wants to gravitate that, that's not where the community is coming from. And they're in charge of their own destiny and they have a powerful, anybody who knows Marin City, they have a powerful voice of what they want and, you know, I appreciate you coming and stating that tonight. |
| 02:02:47.79 | Jonathan Logan | Wait. |
| 02:03:08.73 | Jonathan Logan | Thank you all for the time. |
| 02:03:10.89 | Lili Thomas | I'll point to that. the county's housing element, which really talks about our growth over the next |
| 02:03:13.29 | Councilmember (likely Linda Pfeifer) | THEY ARE NOT GOING TO BE |
| 02:03:13.36 | Jonathan Logan | THE COUNTY IS |
| 02:03:17.96 | Lili Thomas | THE EIGHT YEAR PLANNING PERIOD IS IN ALIGNMENT WITH THAT. WE ONLY HAVE OF OUR 185 UNITS THAT WE ARE PLANNING FOR, ONLY 15 OF THEM ARE WITHIN THE COMMUNITY. |
| 02:03:32.69 | Mayor Withey | Thank you. |
| 02:03:34.18 | Councilmember (likely Linda Pfeifer) | Yeah, I just have a response to that comment about the housing element. |
| 02:03:38.89 | Mayor Withey | So- Are we, we're not in a comment period or a question. |
| 02:03:41.66 | Councilmember (likely Linda Pfeifer) | We're not in the comment period, right? I'll turn it into comment. No question. |
| 02:03:46.15 | Mayor Withey | Who knows questions, if you will. |
| 02:03:47.46 | Councilmember (likely Linda Pfeifer) | Questions. Okay. I have a question about the last comment regarding the housing element and only 15 units going to Marin City because I understand that the housing element is separate from the priority development area. A friend of mine, and actually I'm My data is coming from Marin City residents who are very concerned. And, um... the From what I understand, two of them were attending a workshop in Marin City and someone made someone in an official position made an offhand comment about the potential is 600 or more units. And I was beat with respect to the priority development area. So I was, I'm just, you know, |
| 02:04:31.79 | Jan Fidler | you should |
| 02:04:32.33 | Councilmember (likely Linda Pfeifer) | and inviting you to comment and say, oh, that's not true, or whatever you'd like to respond to on that. to on that. |
| 02:04:39.17 | Lili Thomas | It's hard to respond to a comment I didn't hear of that's kind of third hand, but I can say that Um, The housing element, which is a different planning process, absolutely, but it's more concrete because it's talking about what's happening in a much more smaller time period. it has definite numbers attached to it. And that planning process only has 15 units in it that are IN THE MARIN CITY COMMUNITY. The total growth projections or the numbers, the PDA numbers in Marin City, there was no specific numbers attached to it. |
| 02:05:17.51 | Councilmember (likely Linda Pfeifer) | What are the total though numbers for the PDA, for overall, for the county? I thought it was something like 710 at one point. And I'm not talking about the housing element. I'm talking about the PDA. |
| 02:05:31.39 | Lili Thomas | I have to look at it since it was revised. Given the revisions, I don't know what they are, but they didn't change based on its PDA status, so I'm not sure how significant they are because they are aligned with what our general plan says and our general plan has been in place since prior to that PDA process. |
| 02:05:53.36 | Councilmember (likely Linda Pfeifer) | And again, I have different data, so until I get your facts. Okay. To see if they're different from the prior facts that the county provided. |
| 02:05:55.64 | Jonathan Logan | Thank you. They're different. Okay. I was just going to make one comment. I've been in meetings where that number has been thrown out. by the person in the official capacity. And what he's referring to is the potential based off of, you know, density rules. So given the site that he's referring to, if it was maxed out and, you know, that would be the number but that's not most likely feasible given the fact that as it goes through EIR, there's going to be a traffic study associated with that, parking, and a lot of community input about if that's really what the community needs. So that, I don't want to sort of go back and forth, but I've heard that comment as well, and I can just provide a little bit of clarity that it's referring to the potential if you're able to max out the density. |
| 02:06:59.45 | Councilmember (likely Linda Pfeifer) | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 02:07:01.79 | Mayor Withey | Okay. We've closed public comment. I think we're through with questions. I don't know if anybody wants to comment. I would like to just simply, we can reserve, we can certainly comment in a moment, but I think we should let these folks go. And with a very great thank you from us for coming, it's great to hear what our immediate neighbors up to and to continue on with our great relationship and Lili come back to and give us a further update on county housing matters and PDAs at some time in the future because it's a moving target. But thanks very much for coming. It's really appreciated. Thank you. Okay, does – I know we're almost through our agenda. Does anybody want to say anything else about this before we close this matter up? |
| 02:08:02.66 | Councilmember (likely Linda Pfeifer) | Yes, I would like to say something about this. You know, talk about, frankly, misinformation and rumor and innuendo. I mean, I'm... Thank you....quoting numbers, hard facts and percentages from newsletters that were published six months ago and from county and agency documents. And, you know, I didn't get any... |
| 02:08:12.60 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:08:25.34 | Councilmember (likely Linda Pfeifer) | any data, any answers to the questions I was asking about that I know many Marin City residents have asked me to find because they're not getting the numbers. There was a comment earlier about affordable housing. The questions are not rooted in fear or anything with respect to affordable housing. It's about density. It's about the explosive density associated with these priority development areas. As to the definition of. It's about the explosive density associated with these priority development areas. As to the definition of potential, like I said, I was in Oakland at the time when the even the board hadn't yet voted on what they thought potential should mean. This is all over the map. CEQA is completely gutted for priority development areas, from what I've read. You know, it's a really cause for concern, and I have to say I'm disappointed that I didn't get more answers tonight. And I hope we can bring them back for more answers or have some way of distributing those answers to the public when we get them. Thank you. |
| 02:09:33.26 | Mayor Withey | Anybody else want to say anything? I think Mike, oh sorry Tom. Oh go ahead. No please go ahead. |
| 02:09:37.41 | Councilmember (likely Linda Pfeifer) | Thank you. |
| 02:09:37.43 | Vice Mayor (likely Jill Hoffman) | I don't know. |
| 02:09:37.50 | Councilmember (likely Linda Pfeifer) | Good. Thank you. |
| 02:09:38.66 | Vice Mayor (likely Jill Hoffman) | No, I think it was very helpful. I think, first of all, we had the right people here. I think it would be helpful when we're quoting statistics from newsletters rather than real sources that we should actually have the whole council have these things so that we can understand them and be able to respond to them because we're all sitting here in the dark and as we get quoted from not actually official sources but newsletters. |
| 02:09:59.79 | Councilmember (likely Linda Pfeifer) | I'm sorry, one is an official source. It's the TAM Report Marin Transportation Investment Strategy. |
| 02:10:02.81 | Vice Mayor (likely Jill Hoffman) | Thank you. Or... Well, and answers will come as you said. I think a few things for the public for really the basis is, and there has been a lot of misinformation and a lot of things passed around, is this PDA has been in place since 2007. At the time, there was no change in zoning, no change in density. There's been no change since then. We also had from our officials that with the advent of the Planned Bay Area and even this Planned Bay Area update there's no change no contemplated change in zoning or density we've had it right from Jonathan Logan that they're actually no plans for any development that the community is not in favor of any development that the RHNA number had one site with 15 units and that there's no plans for development there. So I don't see, there may be a lot of information and statistics out. When you get down to what's actually happening, I don't see any |
| 02:10:25.09 | Jonathan Logan | Amen. |
| 02:11:01.93 | Vice Mayor (likely Jill Hoffman) | any... Um, development whatsoever, plans for development whatsoever. Going on to the good news, I think the – we've talked about the PDA, but really, to me, the benefit of this meeting was that we had Marin City here. It's been long overdue. This is our neighbor. We need to find ways to work together. I was really gratified to see a lot of people. what's going on there. I like to hear the... what's going on with the schools, and I actually think that that may be a good place for us to have, is all our schools in the area here to present to us to see, because they're so important to us, and we haven't had updates on that. And so I think it was really a valuable exercise. I certainly think a lot of things were cleared up, and I think we made some connections here that we can go forward with. |
| 02:11:49.04 | Mayor Withey | Yeah, I would actually have very little to add to that. I agree with everything that Vice Mayor's just said. I think the very important thing was it's really important for our community here, our residents who are watching, to get as many of the facts as they can about Marin City, about neighbor and that was the primary goal of this topic and I think it was we learned a lot of information I did anyway I think with regards to some specific questions and percentages and numbers I would suggest that we make a list of what the information that we want and go get the information because it's there. It's numbers, it's there. We've just got to find it. And if we, I'm sure the county will help us put those numbers together if we want. And over and over again, we keep hearing the same thing about high density and the problem is that, we need to perhaps start defining what we mean by density. because it's very clear The PDA does not increase the density in Marin City of the zoning. I mean, that's a fact. And it's no good keep saying it is high density when it is the density that's there. |
| 02:13:19.25 | Councilmember (likely Ray Withy) | Mr. Mayor, if I can say one thing. I know Adam speaks with Jonathan all the time, and we have extended invitations to the school district. As you know, this was a new superintendent in the last year or so, so to come and present, and maybe that's time to re-extend that invitation to come because the two major entities that, you know, the three major entities in this general geography are us and the city services district and the school district. And so the more, the better communication that we have is better. So, but let's re-extend those invitations. We tried before, but I know Adam and staff, Mike and other folks are doing a lot of cooperative, trying to do a lot of cooperative progress with the school district, but as well as with Willow Creek, which is part of the school district, but in a certain way. But, you know, I think we should re-extend those invitations to make sure those lines of communication are open as well as with us. |
| 02:14:18.33 | Councilmember (likely Linda Pfeifer) | Yeah, I just really briefly will respond beyond a shadow of a doubt. I mean, it's called a priority. development area. The area has been targeted for priority development. And all of the incentives around the transportation funding we heard about earlier, all those incentives are linked to high-density CEQA streamlining. That's what we're talking about. In terms of density, what density we're talking about, we know that on September 24, 2013, I guess a 30-unit-per- acre affordable housing overlay was applied countywide. So that encompasses Marin City. So basically what you have is you have a lot of little pieces that are strategically going on, and when you pull them all together, it's high density. And it's high density that is really urbanization. It takes us far beyond the small-town ambiance we have today. This is a fact. |
| 02:15:22.78 | Mayor Withey | Okay, nobody else has anything to say. This was for information purposes, so this matter is now closed. We've missed our break. We've got – we're almost at the end. Does anybody urgently need a break, or can we just go on to the end? Okay. So the next topic then is our city manager report. |
| 02:15:53.32 | Adam Politzer | So I take that as a cue to be brief, since we're not leaving any breaks. So I'll go through this fairly quickly. I do want to take a moment and reiterate the importance of our relationship with Marin City and also a unique moment in time, as you learned from Jonathan Logan, being raised in town, having his family, a part of the Marin City community, and with the parallel city manager, my position as city manager, being raised in town, being part of the community, there is a real strong bond between Jonathan Logan and myself. He's a very talented individual and has very very very obviously we did that with the school district with Deborah Bradley and Rose Robertson and so forth. So I think that the timing is right. There was a lot of fear and concern when the school districts made this latest change moving Bayside off of the campus and over to Marin City. And you heard Jonathan Logan reiterate the importance of keeping the students together and giving them a choice of schools and so far that's going forward. Also the presentation from Diane Seinhauser, I get to talk to Diane on a regular basis. Herb Weiner sits there on the board and you heard that all five board members are a part of TAM and all five supervisors are a part of the board. And so there is a lot of valuable communication going on. Those meetings are open to the public so we invite our community to attend those. We'll look at how we advertise those types of important meetings in the current and see if we can make sure that that information is also available. But in addition to my regular contact with Diane, Jonathan Goldman, our Public Works Director, is also in constant contact and working with another group of Public Works Director, |
| 02:15:58.35 | Jonathan Logan | Thank you. |
| 02:15:58.45 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:15:58.91 | Jonathan Logan | . |
| 02:18:14.55 | Adam Politzer | directors countywide to look at things to help improve transportation in Southern Marin and in Sausalito. So Diane's another person that is very valuable to have come to future meetings. She obviously has access to funds and grants and has some expertise on her staff to work with ours to look at where we can try to leverage money to help make improvements in terms of our pedestrian sidewalks, our streets from Alexander Avenue to Gate 6 Road, and then how we deal with our parking lots to accommodate the regional use from buses and ferry service. So again, we'll invite Diane back in the future. There is a lot of things for her to talk about. Our partners with Safe Routes for Schools, you've heard Jonathan talk about that, some that last year that participated at the MCCMC event in Fairfax. Heard from David Parisi who works for Safe Routes for Schools, does presentation. He actually is a consultant to the city on a variety of projects. We're actually having him work with us in relation to the Marinship and Bay model on looking at alternatives to what right now is creating some heartburn in the community on this one-way direction that the Army Corps has initiated on Marinship Way. So we'll look at the calendar with the agenda setting committee. The challenge for this past year is that we've had a lot of big items that haven't given us the ability to bring these folks from the outside. And with that, we're going to have some challenges for the rest of this year with our agenda. So I'd like to just dovetail to this. The future agenda that is attached hasn't been updated, but it's worth noting that the October 7th Council meeting will be exclusively for the housing element. There will be one item on that. We know that it's important to our community. We don't want to have any distraction of other items going longer than anticipated. Um, and have sole focus on that item so that the public can come and participate and the folks that are presenting have ample time to go through the presentation. So that will happen on the 7th, which means that all those other items that are scheduled for the 7th will be rolled up to the 27th, I'm sorry, the 21st. We looked at the 14th to have a special meeting, but that is the candidates' night for the – at the Women's Club post, so obviously you don't want to compete with the candidates' night. And then our next regular scheduled meeting after the 21st is – then that would be our next scheduled meeting, which would be the 21st. So you can anticipate the 21st potentially being a very long evening. So I think that's a good thing. have a strong dinner, healthy dinner, and come energize. And if the Valhalla is the main item of the evening, then we know that we will have a robust discussion and hopefully be able to move that project forward. With that said, we are looking at – we have the We have the Third Street Appeal coming back to the Council. The Planning Commission has taken action. I recommend that if you haven't done so already to watch the video that is videoed. You can watch that hearing and hear the deliberation that took place, the public testimony that was given, and then the recommendation that the Planning Commission has made to the Council, you'll have an opportunity to hear that appeal as it comes back to you. We are looking at the 28th, which is the following Tuesday. It's a sequence of Tuesdays here. To hold that meeting, we've already been notified that one of the council members may have a conflict, so the alternative would be to move it to another weeknight, like a Monday, Wednesday, or Thursday. or continue that item to the 11th, which just kind of pushes out the issue. And we're trying, you know, for both the neighbors and the applicant, we're trying to get this resolved so those folks can go on living their lives and trying to move forward. So know that the agenda setting committee this Thursday will be looking at these meetings, the items that are forecast on there, and then try to burn some balance so that we can try to remain holding meetings that end at 10 o'clock at night when we are doing our best and invite the public to participate. With that, Debbie did send out a notice to you folks, because I didn't catch it, the MCCMC that have been up on this hill cleaning out the old vegetation, working with the public works department, and working with the public works department, staff members that have been up on this hill cleaning out the old vegetation, working with Shelby Van Meter and SWA. And I think that's a great question. |
| 02:22:46.10 | Unknown | that we're going to be going to be |
| 02:23:38.33 | Adam Politzer | We've done the tree work. You can see that the majority of the trees have been trimmed. We're waiting for the winter to kind of roll through so that we can take care of the remaining trees. Staff is working actively with SWA and South Studio Beautiful to look at the planting scheme so that when we go into the winter and the spring, any new plants that are being proposed secured and planted during the right period of time. They've done an outstanding job, not just here at City Hall and hopefully take the time to walk around it and see the improvements that have been made, but also throughout town. I think that throughout town the maintenance staff working with volunteers have really stepped up to the challenge to make Sausalito beautiful and I wanted to recognize their efforts and once again thank Shelby and her group as we move forward. The Lions Club and the Rotary Club have been working with Lauren and Sausalito Beautiful. I don't know the date, but it's in October. I'm going to throw out a random date, like the 18th of a work day where the community can come out. Rotary and Lyons are going to take the lead. And whatever additional maintenance that they can do, pulling weeds and improving the look of the city, they'll be working with staff to do that. So maybe it's already gone out in the currents, but it definitely will go out in the currents this week if it has not. And I'll stop there. |
| 02:25:10.74 | Mayor Withey | Thank you, Adam. Any questions of Adam? Is there any member of the public who would like to comment on the city manager report? Okay, seeing none, council member committee reports. Is there anything anybody wants to report? Yeah, council member Pfeiffer. |
| 02:25:28.39 | Councilmember (likely Linda Pfeifer) | I actually have a report. The Butte Task Force met. We recently received, I guess there's a new nonprofit in town, and it's dedicated to open space in Sausalito, and they raised their own funds and did an appraisal, and it became apparent with the task force members that that is the correct and most effective venue for the fundraising. So the Butte task force actually voted to disband and crafted a letter to submit to council to review and also wrote a courtesy letter for the Hunts who own the private part of the parcel to provide them with the rationale and so I wanted to to share that with council with the caveat that you'll be you know receiving in the letter you'll be receiving the letter in the next you pocket, presumably, and can review that rationale. But it's a very positive, I think, transition. And I believe it sets up the community for some robust fundraising from this nonprofit to provide fair compensation for the hunts. |
| 02:26:57.83 | Mayor Withey | Thank you. Any other update? Okay. Any public comment on committee reports and future agenda items? |
| 02:27:11.16 | Councilmember (likely Ray Withy) | I just mentioned, you know, what I proposed earlier is to scan the invitation to the school district and Willow Creek's, the individual boards as well. Completely agree. Yeah, and whatever time frame is appropriate. And it might be good to know... |
| 02:27:18.97 | Mayor Withey | Mm. Yeah. Thank you. |
| 02:27:28.91 | Councilmember (likely Ray Withy) | probably before that they come, which I imagine will be some time before we get that on the extent of what you're already doing with both schools in terms of Park and Rec and Public Works and whatever else. So maybe I don't know which staff member might come back and kind of update us on the current shared services, but I know there's further opportunities to do that, both in the state. bigger things as well as small things, whether it's the city vans or to name small things, not small to some, but or, you know, like things we've talked about before as far as shared services, maintenance and that kind of stuff. So that would be good to know before they come so that we're not learning about it at that particular time. you |
| 02:28:20.01 | Mayor Withey | Anything else on future agenda items? Members of the public comment on future agenda items? Seeing none, we'll move on. Appointments to boards and commissions, the Historic Landmarks Board. I have no nominations for this evening. |
| 02:28:40.56 | Mayor Withey | and suggest that we put this matter off. |
| 02:28:45.40 | Councilmember (likely Linda Pfeifer) | Mr. Mayor, it's my understanding we have additional interviews for that. Is that the case? And that's the reason why we're waiting. Okay. |
| 02:28:52.27 | Mayor Withey | There is possibly, but there's also the other commission we're looking at. My suggestion is we put this off for at least a meeting, if not more. Any other reports of significance? Seeing none, we are going to adjourn at... A record 20 minutes early. Okay. This meeting is adjourned. |
| 02:29:46.96 | Unknown | Thank you. Thank you. |