| Time | Speaker | Text |
|---|---|---|
| 00:00:12.86 | Unknown | Good evening, and welcome to the regular meeting of the Sausalito City Council for Tuesday, October 21, 2014. Debbie, would you call the roll, please? |
| 00:00:27.54 | Debbie | Councilmember Pfeiffer? Here. Councilmember Weiner? Present. Councilmember Leon? |
| 00:00:30.04 | Unknown | President. here. |
| 00:00:32.11 | Debbie | Vice Mayor Theodorus. Present. Mayor Withey. |
| 00:00:33.33 | Unknown | present. here. This evening, Tricia Smith, would you lead us in the pledge this evening? |
| 00:00:40.28 | Debbie | Thank you. |
| 00:00:40.46 | Unknown | this evening. |
| 00:00:41.59 | Debbie | Thank you. |
| 00:00:42.88 | Unknown | man. like, |
| 00:00:45.04 | Unknown | allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. |
| 00:00:45.31 | Unknown | to the fact of the United States of America. Thank you. |
| 00:00:49.96 | John | Thank you. |
| 00:01:00.56 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 00:01:01.39 | Unknown | trash can |
| 00:01:06.82 | Unknown | We just met in closed session to discuss conference with legal counsel on an existing litigation matter. Does any member of the public have... Any public comment on this closed session item? OK, seeing none, move on to approval of the agenda. So move. |
| 00:01:33.64 | Unknown | Second. |
| 00:01:34.63 | Unknown | All in favor? Aye. |
| 00:01:35.61 | Ken Shapiro | I know. |
| 00:01:39.41 | Unknown | Okay, well, it's fun to be able to start off with a special presentation, and I'm gonna turn us over to our Administrative Services Director, Charlie Francis, to discuss a very exciting Distinguished Budget Presentation Award. Thank you. |
| 00:02:04.69 | Unknown | Thank you, Mr. Mayor, members of the City Council. It's my pleasure tonight to formally announce that the city was – received the Distinguished Budget Award from the Government Finance Officers Association. The Government Finance Officers Association is a major professional association serving all the finance directors from cities, counties, the national government, school district throughout the United States. In 1984, they developed a budget award program, a budget award program that set very rigid and stringent criteria in order to be deemed to have a distinguished budget. As you can see, only about 1,400 entities received the award last year, only 153 from California, and the only other Marin County city that received the award in 2013 was Novato. So we're joining a very small group by having a budget that's clear, it's very readable, and it's understandable. And for the audience's, our citizens' sake, this is the copy of the budget. It's available online either through the city's website or on the OpenGov website where we have all of the city's financial information for the past 11 years and looking forward two years available for you to examine online and download whatever you want to do with So the award was established. And it examines the budget document through four lenses. The lenses of does it meet the criteria of being a good policy document? Is it a financial plan that's understandable? Does it provide operations guidance to the city management? And does it do a great job of communicating to the public what's inside and help understand the city's budget? And the criteria, we could go through it really quick. I think it's a good question. inside and help understand the city's budget. And the criteria, we could go through it really quick. You know, from a long-term perspective, it says, does the budget demonstrate the organizational-wide policies, the goals, the long-term concerns and issues that we're trying to meet? Does it talk about and provide for what strategic planning efforts the city goes through every year? Does it give a clear prioritization of key initiatives and designates changes from the prior year? In terms of a financial plan, you want to make sure that it has a summary of all the funds, major funds, expenditures, and financing sources and uses. It analyzes the current year from the prior years and the major assumptions that went into developing the budget. It provides key performance metrics for all of the departments, has objective measures of progress towards accomplishing the organization's missions, goals, and objectives. And finally, it communicates to the public the financial the proposed financial condition of the city as we move forward through the year. So the award is a significant achievement. It's a significant accomplishment, and it reflects the commitment of the city council and staff to meeting the highest principles of governmental budgeting, transparency, and accountability. It couldn't have been done without the financial leadership of the finance committee who, when I initially approached the Finance Committee through the City Manager, who said, let's do a seat change in how we present budget information not only to staff but to the City Council and to the public and provide a budget in this kind of format. The Finance Committee was on board with it, and when we brought it to the City Council, City Council embraced it and encouraged me not only to continue with it and develop it, but to submit it for the award. Now the content of the budget could not have been possible without the whole senior management team. They worked really hard to gather the performance information and to, you know, put the numbers in there, the narratives that describe what we do. Mayor Withey has often referred to this document as like the Bible of all the city government. You can find out almost anything that the city does in terms of encyclopedia. Yeah, thank you. Thank you. I'm a... You're resolved now. You're resolved. |
| 00:06:14.69 | John | I don't know. |
| 00:06:15.21 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:06:15.38 | John | THE FAMILY. |
| 00:06:15.57 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:06:15.58 | John | you |
| 00:06:15.67 | Unknown | I'm not. |
| 00:06:17.20 | Unknown | I'm more of a Christian man. I call it a Bible. So... the secular world we live in. Okay, so with that, this is the Distinguished Budget Presentation Award, and we just say the most important investment a city can make is a continuous investment in the public trust. And by using tools like this, like OpenGov and our financial report, we just want to let the public know that we're accountable and we're transparent. So thank you for that opportunity, and I'd like to ask the audience to give the city council a big hand for achieving this award. |
| 00:06:25.25 | John | Bye. |
| 00:06:59.64 | Unknown | If I may, I'd like to just say a couple of words. I think Council Member Leon and I, who saw this process unfold as the Finance Committee, were really quite excited as it sort of emerged. And I would just like to also echo, first of all, thank Charlie very much for his leadership here, but also the whole of the senior management team, department heads and staff. This was a formidable task. The budget can be found online. You can go there and you can find it also within our OpenGov tool to see what we're doing. For those who don't like spreadsheets, there's plenty of them there, there's plenty of tables, but there's as many paragraphs of text explaining what is going on You know, it's, I can't say it's a thriller, but it's, you know, for someone who's financially inclined, it's a fascinating document. So I'd encourage you all to actually go look at it and once again thank all of the staff who worked really hard on this one. Thanks, Charles. |
| 00:08:22.08 | Unknown | Thank you, Mr. Mayor. The city will get a plaque. The plaque comes in about eight to ten weeks. But so beforehand they gave us a little piece of paper. |
| 00:08:31.63 | John | Thank you. |
| 00:08:31.66 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:08:31.68 | John | There we go. |
| 00:08:34.18 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:08:35.78 | John | I just wanted to thank Charlie and the senior management team. It was a lot of work. Let me just sort of, from a layman's perspective, it's not, as Ray said, it's not just numbers. If you ever wonder what a department does or how many offices are on patrol at a certain amount, how many times the public works guys go around the town, it's all in there. So it's not just financial information. It's actually how the city works and how we measure how the city manager and management team measure how well their departments are doing. And it's a very much of a not just a budget, it's very much of a here's what we do and here's how we pay for it kind of thing. So it's really if you ever wonder, like, oh, how many times do they come to this park? Well, you can look it up and there it is. in that document online. So it's really educational for everybody. Not that, as you said, you're not going to flip through it in your bed late at night as a way to – you might if you want to fall asleep. But it's very – if you ever wonder anything, it's a good place to start to wonder what – how your city works. |
| 00:09:39.82 | Adam Politzer | Thank you. |
| 00:09:40.09 | Unknown | Okay, thank you, Charlie. So item number two on our agenda, public communications. And this is the time for the City Council to hear from citizens regarding matters that are not on the agenda tonight. And I think, as you know, that except in very limited situations, state law precludes the council from taking any action on what anybody wants to talk about or engage in any discussions. So anyway, I know that there are a number of folks that do want to address the council on matters tonight. So... Could I have a show of hands of people who want to? So please, why don't you line up there, and if you could kindly limit your remarks to three minutes, that would be most helpful. |
| 00:10:32.62 | Keith Kennedy | Absolutely. My name is Keith Kennedy. My wife and I have lived on prospect for since 2003, We have two locks on every door. We have an alarm system, and we just purchased video cameras, and yet we still don't feel safe. You can see where I'm going. Several people from the Booker, Cloudview, Channing, Cable Roadway and Prospect signed a petition that I've already presented to the clerk asking for more police officers. We feel. that. There is not enough to handle incidents in our neighborhood. I want to add that Chief Tejada had no idea we were doing this. I did place a courtesy call to her office today, but this is coming from the grassroots I also have to say that I was incensed at the candidates night when the two members running for election or re-election said, just lock your door. We have some speakers tonight who just locked their door and had serious problems. It is very difficult. to, then hear Mr. Weiner read about how all the crime statistics are dropping when in our neighborhood, They're going up. and they're becoming more aggressive crimes. I know the council has to sit as both judge and jury on the budget. I realize you can't respond tonight, as you said, Mr. Mayor. We would like a date when it would be on the agenda. But we feel as a jury you didn't have our testimony when you made a decision. And then as a judge, you sentence us to live in fear. I hope that we can appeal that sentence. You will hear Leslie. Hale talk about returning to her house and finding people inside it. You'll hear Holly Stewart talk about her house being burglarized three times. Bunny will speak for Kathy Page on Booker. Nancy Curran will talk about a locked door with a deadbolt that was kicked in. Just lock your doors. And Kay Powell will speak for Julie Farrell. whose locked door and alarm were, not enough as they smashed in a sliding door. Ken Shapiro and Ed Carey will also finish the speakers. Your Measure O resolution talks about diminishing the quality of life. You, ladies and gentlemen, have diminished our quality of life. And we hope that you will repeal the sentence of fear you have given our neighborhood. Thank you. |
| 00:13:44.76 | Unknown | Sorry, I didn't have the microphone, please. |
| 00:13:47.23 | Leslie Hale | I'm Leslie Hale, and I live with Ed McCann at 10 Cloudview Road. I've been there off and on since I was a teenager. Ed was out of town, and I was at home working on taxes April 3, 2011. One of our kids came to visit for the weekend. I was working on taxes, and I had the sense that someone was watching me all afternoon, but I could not see anyone. Henry had gone on a hike and It is documented that in 17 minutes, he texted me. I left and picked him up and returned, and there were probably three men in the house. I saw two. We made a big turnaround and left and walked down the driveway. I was calling the Sausalito Police Department as we walked down the driveway. They responded to another house, even though they had my address, and I'm waving at them the entire time to stop. We couldn't get back in the house until the next morning. They had the SWAT team and the police dogs and the Sausalito police all there. The doors were all bolted, Locked. We did not have an alarm. The inside hall doors were all bolted and locked. They broke five doors apart with crowbars. And finally, when they couldn't get through the doors, they broke a window to get in. There was considerable damage to walls. They were vandals as well as stealing anything they could get their hands on in those 17 minutes. I would like to say that the police response was, well, no one was hurt. It was just stuff. I corresponded from me to them two or three times after that. I never got a single other call. I corresponded with the insurance company. That was it. And I would like to say that whether it's just stuff or not, sentimental, the tremendous destruction I feel, good as they may be, the police and liked and respected, and I do like them and respect them and the police force They are here for our safety. The police seem too busy with other things to do anything for us to follow up, and they are clearly understaffed. And or possibly the SPD is overwhelmed or disinterested because our whole neighborhood is being attacked. I felt and still feel unsafe. I feel unprotected, and I'm always looking over my shoulder. We have an alarm. I keep it on day and night, whether I'm in the house or not. |
| 00:16:52.23 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:16:56.18 | Holly Stewart Carey | My name is Holly Stewart Carey, and I live at 4 Cloud View Road, the corner of Prospect, with my husband, Ed Carey, and my dog, Max. We are here as a neighborhood asking for your help. We don't feel safe in our homes. We are requesting the police to patrol our neighborhoods, and we're requesting surveillance cameras. We feel that if cameras will assist in deterring criminals for coming into our neighborhood and assist police in following up crimes that have occurred, We want our police to protect and serve our community. We want to feel safe in our homes. We've been burglarized three times. Four months after arriving in Sausalito from San Francisco on January 4th, 2007, Our Cloudview home was broken into during the day while we were at work. Our French doors and front door were crowbarred open. The house was ransacked. There was a lot of damage. They stole everything. They stole huge TVs, cameras, video cameras, All of my jewelry. So we thought that was a fluke. That'll never happen again. We got everything fixed. got a superior burglar alarm. The second time we were burglarized was November 30, 2011. They came through the upstairs window. The alarm was triggered, and the thieves got in and out before the police arrived at the scene. The last burglary was this year, June 6th, and it was between 1.30 and 6 p.m. Because I was home having lunch and I left at 1.30 to go back to work, came home at 6, and the house had been ransacked. Every drawer, every closet had been thrown on the floor and the place was a mess. After our last burglary, Detective Mather told me about apprehending two suspects. He told me they were, he suspected gangs, a gang of criminals suspected in our recent break-ins. According to Mather, The other two suspect, not in custody, are hardened criminals. When I asked what he meant by a hardened criminal, He said, they carry guns, and they've been in and out of prison numerous times. When I was down at the police, I was also told by the police, we were told because Sausalito has a high percent of false alarms due to wind, the police department will respond faster to glass break alarms, not motion detectors or door and window sensors. When I was down at the station identifying some of my stolen articles, the clerk told me, look at it this way. We shop at Nordstrom's criminal shop in Sausalito. None of this is very comforting. I am very concerned about our safety. I don't even like leaving my dog at home for fear some intruder will harm him. Every time I come home, I have fear that it's going to happen again. We need police presence in our neighborhood. We need it. |
| 00:20:01.53 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:20:05.60 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:20:06.42 | Bunny Zaruba | Good evening. My name is Bunny Zaruba. I live at 19 Booker Avenue. I've been a resident of Sausalito for 38 years. On February 21, 2013, my neighbor crossed the street Kathy Page left her home at 4 Booker to go walking with friends at 8.15. When she returned, her home had been burglarized, that her credit cards were stolen, her jewelry, her new Apple computer. She had been in the process of doing taxes. She had all of her checkbooks out on the table. Thank you. She was charged with a credit card. She left the house at 8.15. At 8.29, there was a charge to her credit card at a gas station on seminary. So they were in and out very quickly. And then there were charges to prison services for phone calls to prisoners. There were numerous charges, anyway, Kathy is a widow. Her husband had died in September of the previous year, and she is alone, as I am alone as a single woman. I feel very afraid in our neighborhood. We need a police presence, and I would implore the city council to to find in your award-winning budget some funds to staff the police department so that we can feel safe. Thank you. |
| 00:21:49.16 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:21:52.89 | Nancy Kern | Hi, my name is Nancy Kern, and I've lived at 51 Cable Roadway with my husband, Terry, since 1975. And on or about March 12th of this year, our next door tenant at 53 Cable Roadway, he had locked his door and deadbolted it, and he was broken into about 3 p.m. In fact, another neighbor had seen someone knocking on his door. But he was a not but but he was a white Caucasian male and He looked like our neighbors about 40 and so forth so he thought it was just Someone visiting but at any rate when he didn't answer he kicked the door in totally destroyed it and went inside and took some money that was around a table and and and rummage through the drawers. Now, across the street on Cable Roadway, there were some workmen on a roof, And so they could see in, possibly, and that might have deterred him from doing more damage. So he left and I guess was never found again. But at any rate, our carport, three car carport, and it can be seen from either Cable Roadway or Prospect, and everybody was gone to work. Actually, we were out of town. So, you know, that is an invitation. Since then, we do have a burglar alarm, and we do have the signs from the company are all around the house. But still, you know, that's just a deterrent, and we turn it on all the time, even when we're gone for a short time because I'd heard the other story about somebody just coming in in a few minutes. So, I mean, we just feel, we just, and this was just this year, and we've had so many incidents that we just have to have more police protection in the neighborhood. It's too uncertain, and I was just glad our tenant didn't pick up and leave out of fear. So, anyway, thank you for your consideration. |
| 00:23:58.62 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:24:01.43 | Kate Powell | Good evening. My name is Kate Powell and I also live on Prospect Avenue at 113. I am here tonight to report on our neighbors, Julie and Frank Farrell, who live on Cloudview. They were broken into, again, in the middle of the afternoon, on a Sunday afternoon. They have an alarm system, a very sophisticated system. The thieves came in. They disabled the system. They also cut telephone lines. They disabled the system when they stole the computers which. The thieves came in, they disabled the system. They also cut telephone lines. They disabled the system when they stole the computers, which interrupted the computer. call to the alarm moderator. These thieves were pros. It was a Sunday afternoon. They were not deterred by an alarm system. They were very bold. It was the middle of the day. Again, they had just left. They were destructive. Many of us in our neighborhood have lived lots of different places. I, for one, have lived in Chicago and L.A. and Hong Kong and Tokyo, and I have never lived in a place that has had a spate of crime and bold crime. These people are professionals. They're very worrisome. Many of us are retired, we're around during the day, and these folks are coming during the day. So it's very scary to all of us. And we feel like our concerns have not been addressed. You know, we hear stats that crime is down and South Lito's a perfectly safe town. Well, it certainly isn't safe if you live anywhere in our neighborhood, so we would appreciate your help. Thanks. |
| 00:24:39.87 | Alex Kacheff | THE FAMILY. |
| 00:25:34.90 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:25:34.91 | Ken Shapiro | Thank you. |
| 00:25:38.41 | Ken Shapiro | My name is Ken Shapiro. I live on Prospect. And I've only been here five years, but I have to say I've never used an alarm in my home before. I'm moving here. |
| 00:25:41.33 | Kate Powell | I've only... |
| 00:25:41.66 | Alex Kacheff | you |
| 00:25:47.43 | Ken Shapiro | During the candidates debate the other night, I was really certain that Councilman Wiener would sign our petition. to increase the staffing of the police department. He pointed out that there were only two police officers per shift available to handle all the downtown traffic snarls created by our visiting bicyclists. I thought that he was calling for more police just as we do in our petition. Sadly, he did not point out that the term public safety applies not only to our city's guests, but also to the safety and security of the taxpaying residents of Sausalito. The same two on-duty officers also protect the residents of Sausalito from criminal acts. If there are too few police to protect those who visit us once a year, there are obviously not enough to protect us who live here year round. The admonition voiced by one of the candidates that night that we need to lock our doors just seems very out of touch with our neighborhood's reality. Since the recent burglaries on Cloudview and Prospect, there have been more signs for home security monitoring than there have been signs for people running for council office, which I think says something. Um, I happened to have had the opportunity to live in New York City during the 1970s when the norm there was three bolts on every apartment door. But the new norm here is very different. It's a wired security system. It's a wireless security system. It's video monitoring and it's video monitors connected to your smartphone. I think that's just wrong. And I'm hoping that we can influence that. One of the... One of the issues that concerned me is that Our neighboring town of Tiburon has video plate monitoring. The town provides that. We are told we can't do it, so our neighborhood is paying for it. That doesn't seem right to me. And I think that it's really time that the city start hiring more police officers. Because if they can't do it, maybe we should as neighbors. That doesn't seem right. So we are asking you. to Give us the necessary police officers we need so that the next burglary doesn't turn into a violent crime. Thank you. Thank you. |
| 00:28:34.26 | Ed Carey | My name is Ed Carey, and I live at 4 Cloudview Road. You've heard our disturbing history of burglaries from my wife Holly and a number of other residents in our neighborhood. I think at this point you've heard sufficient testimony of how these burglaries have affected the quality of life in our neighborhoods. Living with fear and uncertainty is not acceptable. I think we need to begin addressing solutions to the recurring threat to our safety. my opinion, a large part of the solution lies here in this chamber. with you, our elected officials. We have met with Chief Tejada on two separate occasions to discuss our frustrations with occurring home invasions. She has suggested a number of ways we as a neighborhood might help deter these crimes. We have implemented a number of her suggestions. We have created a neighborhood watch group And I know a number of our neighbors have increased their own home security. We have even taken the extreme measure of securing video cameras for all access roads in and out of our neighborhood, at our own cost. I think you'll agree. As a neighborhood, we have taken more than reasonable measures to protect ourselves from this continued invasion of criminals. We need to let the criminal element know that the measures are being taken to prevent these repeated home invasions. We've requested. that Chief Tejada provide more police presence in our community. Her reply is that she doesn't have the resources available to comply with our request to appropriately monitor our neighborhood. We then suggested the possibility to at least temporarily reallocate some of her existing resources to patrol our streets. Her reply was, this is not an option. The chief was very adamant that the only real option to provide more police presence was the hiring of more police officers. If I could ask all of those that are attending tonight's meeting because of their concerns about this issue to stand. We have come here this evening in hopes that the Council will now have a better understanding of the gravity of this issue and how it affects the quality of life for so many people in Sausalito. We are looking for constructive solutions to this serious issue. not flippant remarks by council members that have suggested just lock your door. This is not a solution but an insult to those of us that live with this continued fear for our safety. It is our hope the Council will work with Chief Tejada to find some resources she needs to adequately serve and protect the citizens of Sausalito, and the council recognizes the urgency that this issue must be addressed. We, as a united group, look forward to working with the Council and Police Chief Tejada to achieve our goals of a safe and secure community. But let it be known that we will not go away until this plague in our community goes away. Thank you for listening to our concerns, and we eagerly await the Council's actions to remedy this very serious issue. Thank you. |
| 00:32:04.54 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:32:13.65 | Jeffrey Chase | Hello, Mayor and Council and citizens of Sausalito. Uh. Wow, I guess I heard a lot about people stealing stuff. That happens on the waterfront, too, quite a bit in the last week. Jeff? I guess they're going. Could you? |
| 00:32:29.87 | Unknown | Jeff? I guess they're going. |
| 00:32:33.36 | Jeffrey Chase | People want to leave. |
| 00:32:33.38 | Unknown | Do people want to leave? |
| 00:32:34.75 | Jeffrey Chase | I know another lead. Okay. Thank you, mayor. |
| 00:32:35.84 | Unknown | Okay. |
| 00:32:36.11 | Unknown | Thank you, Mayor. |
| 00:32:36.86 | John | Thank you. Is your comment separate from this? |
| 00:32:39.20 | Jeffrey Chase | Well, I mean, it's a hard act to follow. You understand, John. |
| 00:32:39.22 | John | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 00:32:43.03 | John | that. |
| 00:32:43.10 | Jeffrey Chase | Yeah. |
| 00:32:43.12 | John | Yeah. Thank you. |
| 00:32:43.59 | Jeffrey Chase | Thank you. Okay. |
| 00:32:45.28 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:32:45.43 | John | Okay. Why don't we have the city staff respond? |
| 00:32:46.12 | Unknown | Thank you. I will let you – yeah, what I'd like to do, if you may, is I'm just going to pause public comment. Please come back in a moment. But I'd like either our city manager or police chief to – we can't comment up here about what we've heard. So I'd like perhaps our chief of police, who's here, or our city manager, just to say a few words. I'm sure we'll be picking up this topic at some point in future agenda items. |
| 00:32:57.16 | Alex Kacheff | Okay. Yeah. |
| 00:33:26.00 | Unknown | Thank you. Good evening, Mr. Mayor, Vice Mayor, and Council Members. Thanks for the opportunity to respond to the previous comments. I want to thank this community for coming out tonight. We have, they have experienced several burglaries in their neighborhood earlier this year, and it's a very traumatic experience, and it's very unsettling when it happens more than once. And so we certainly get how you feel. Resources are quite spare, but I stand tall and proud of the job that my staff does. We did apprehend the suspects who were responsible for the Cloudview burglaries and not only solved those cases, but several others up and down the county. And so it stands as evidence of the good work that my staff can do. I think since we had our meetings, we have had more calls for service from your neighborhood, and that has helped me direct resources to your neighborhood, and we have had no additional burglaries. |
| 00:33:34.94 | Alex Kacheff | you |
| 00:34:34.04 | Unknown | primarily because, as somebody said, these suspects were part of a gang, not in the context of a Norteño or Sereño gang, but they were connected to each other, and those people are now in custody. And I also want to commend this neighborhood for calling in suspicious activity and suspicious persons because we've been out in their neighborhood responding to these calls and contacting people who we presume to have been casing the neighborhood for the opportunities to commit crime. So I'm committed to working with you to continue along the vein that we're working. and making progress in keeping your neighborhood safe and enhancing the safety measures that we have, and working with you to understand how we deploy resources in the city. You know, I could have six more cops, and I still couldn't stand here and say, you'd have a cop on your street every hour of every day. It's not how it works. But what we can do is work together to come up with more solutions. You have demonstrated that you really are committed to working with us, and I cannot do it alone. And so for that, I applaud you, and I really appreciate you coming out here tonight. You know, we do. Every department in the city needs more resources, and we've found creative ways. I have added one more position. This last fiscal year, I'm in the process of finding resources to add another position. So we are making progress, but working together, we can really make it happen. And so thanks so much. |
| 00:36:15.42 | Unknown | Okay, thank you, Chief. And I'm sure we'll pick up this matter under future agenda items. Jeff? Thank you. |
| 00:36:24.94 | Jonathon Goldman | We still have |
| 00:36:26.39 | John | Can I say one thing about the budget process, since that was an item on our agenda? So each department determines its own practices. The last thing you want is politicians determining how policing efforts or gardening efforts should be done. |
| 00:36:40.67 | Alex Kacheff | I'm sorry. |
| 00:36:40.68 | Kathleen Schaefer | Yeah. |
| 00:36:40.70 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 00:36:40.72 | Unknown | So... |
| 00:36:40.80 | Kathleen Schaefer | Thank you. |
| 00:36:40.82 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:36:42.94 | Unknown | I disagree. |
| 00:36:43.40 | Unknown | This is... |
| 00:36:44.34 | John | Thank you. |
| 00:36:44.38 | Unknown | OK, I see the problem. |
| 00:36:45.83 | Unknown | This is a priority. |
| 00:36:45.85 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:36:47.45 | John | It is a priority, and let me just say this. |
| 00:36:51.52 | Unknown | See, we're not supposed to be talking about this. |
| 00:36:51.60 | John | See, we're not supposed Thank you. I'm talking about the budget. OK. Yeah. |
| 00:36:55.63 | Unknown | Okay, yeah, but it's not time to do that. Okay, Jeff, you've got three minutes, man. |
| 00:37:08.21 | Jeffrey Chase | I just wanted to say to the people who are being robbed that there might be a solution that comes to mind from reading the housing plan is that Not only is Sausalito not doing high density housing, that the density of the housing is getting lower and lower, So these big houses have less and less people in them. and maybe it would be good to invite somebody who helps in the house or some neighbor or, well, you invite your neighbors over for something besides crime fest, but invite relatives, I don't know, but just more people in the houses. that will segue into... This is This just came into the 7-Eleven, and the 7-Eleven, I heard, was gonna be used for high-density housing. It was one of the places, and a lot of people didn't like that, because the laundromat would go, and the 7-Eleven, you know, That wasn't going to happen, right? But this right here says place of refuge. Enterprises, 1905 Bridgeway. And that's the address of the 7-Eleven. They began, perhaps, closing the laundromat late at night, and during the winter season, some people do use that as a refuge for all night if they can't get out to their boats, et cetera. So I'm just mentioning. These are coming to mind after listening to them. I The blessing of the Levites that Moses gave Um. He said this, he said, bless his powers, Lord. He's saying this to the tribe of Levi. And accept the work of his hands. And so... I feel like, in a way, I really love that Herbie doesn't accept the salary, that he is following in the Levites' footsteps, that these people, the Levites now, are supposed to be, this is in the Israelite tribes, without possessions or inheritance. So it's a little different position. They're able to judge things honestly because their self-interest isn't involved. They're looking at the higher picture. And I really admire you for the way that you're able to do that. much of the time. So thank you. We're now returning to the beginning of the Torah. It's Genesis 1. is the portion. So the portion for this week is Noah. And in Noah, God gets upset, but he also says something. He says, never again, never again will I flood the earth. I hope the drought ends, but God has already promised that he does not have it in for the human race. He becomes Nechum. It's a name of God when he does that. And that is sometimes translated as a God who repents. So if he's capable of it, we're capable of it too. So thank you. |
| 00:40:14.14 | Unknown | Thank you, Jeff. OK, is there any other member of the public who wants to comment on any item that's not on the agenda tonight? Seeing none, we have closed public communications. We have no action minutes for tonight. The consent calendar. Is there? Anybody up here needs to ask any question or clarification on the consent calendar? If not, let's open it up for public comment. Does any member of the public wish to say anything on the consent calendar? Okay, seeing none, let's... |
| 00:40:52.14 | Unknown | mr mayor i'm sorry i do have one comment on one of the the finance committee meeting notes this is item 4b attachment one page one of two |
| 00:40:54.57 | Unknown | Sure. |
| 00:41:07.56 | Unknown | There's a reference by the Butte Street Task Force Committee Chair update, and I am not sure if the wording accurately reflects the intent of the task force. And without going into detail, I'm wondering if we could pull those minutes just to go back and ensure that the Chair has had a chance to take a look at this. I'm talking about item 4B attachment one, page one of two. |
| 00:41:37.67 | Unknown | Attachment 1, page 1 of 2. Council Member Pfeiffer, just for clarification, this is the October 15 meeting notes of the Finance Committee. Correct. Is that correct? And you're referring to... |
| 00:41:46.98 | Abbott Chambers | Correct. |
| 00:41:49.78 | Unknown | Discussion Items 1, entitled Butte Street Task Force Committee Chair Update. Correct. Okay. Leanne Huntington and John Lerner from the Butte Street Task Force. The Task Force would recommend......establish... |
| 00:41:55.50 | Unknown | Correct. |
| 00:42:05.98 | Unknown | So the property can help trust for a long time. So what's the issue here? |
| 00:42:12.56 | Unknown | Oh, okay. Well, to be specific, what happened is a nonprofit was established and is in the process of filing, and this is residence. It's completely removed from the Butte Task Force, and it's called, I believe it's called Open Space Sausalito. And it's the intent of the Butte Task Force, per our recommendation, that the city donate its portion of the land towards open space and that the Butte Task Force disband and then allow the residents to raise funds, which folks want to do right now, for the benefit of that nonprofit to purchase the other half, which is privately owned. And so what this says is it says the task force had recommended that a nonprofit be established, and that's actually we did not recommend. I mean, that makes it sound like the task force is establishing a nonprofit on behalf of the city. It's not clear. |
| 00:43:16.52 | Unknown | I don't think it says that at all, actually. Well, that's the way. I mean, what about had the task force has recommended to the city? |
| 00:43:18.51 | Unknown | Well, that's the way. |
| 00:43:19.95 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:43:25.77 | Unknown | or to the City Council or to someone that a non-profit be established. |
| 00:43:29.65 | Unknown | No, I think the point is the nonprofit is already established. They're just waiting for the designation. And it was established by residents, private residents. |
| 00:43:39.54 | Unknown | Why don't we just remove that the task force had recommended and just simply say that we were informed that a nonprofit has been established? |
| 00:43:49.49 | Unknown | Well, no, by private residents, aside from the city. No, it's very important, actually, from a legal perspective, because the way this reads, it implies that the nonprofit is under the umbrella of the city, and that's not true. |
| 00:44:06.01 | John | add a word that says recommended that an independent nonprofit be established. The nonprofit isn't established yet because it hasn't received its designation as a nonprofit yet. So it's not established. I would recommend. |
| 00:44:16.43 | Unknown | I would recommend a different wording, which is that the task force recommends that the task force disband and allow a private nonprofit to raise funds for purchase of the privately owned property. |
| 00:44:35.53 | Mary Wagner | Mr. Mayor, if I may? Yes. If it would be at all helpful. So these are your finance committee meeting notes, not a summary of what the task force recommended or didn't recommend? Correct. You may want to be as succinct as saying that you received an update from the task force. This isn't intended to be a record of the task force meeting. It's really just a summary of the presentations that were made to the finance committee. |
| 00:44:36.86 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:44:36.91 | Ed Carey | Yes. |
| 00:44:37.28 | Unknown | I hope you at all. Yes. |
| 00:44:43.16 | Alex Kacheff | THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 00:44:43.19 | Ed Carey | Right. |
| 00:44:43.44 | Alex Kacheff | Yeah. |
| 00:44:44.59 | Ed Carey | Correct. |
| 00:44:59.17 | Unknown | And my recommendation, to be clear, was to allow the chair of the task force to go back and look at the wording on this and reword it to be accurate. |
| 00:45:10.16 | Mary Wagner | Again, Mr. Mayor, I mean, it's a summary of the Finance Committee meeting. MR. I would sooner actually. |
| 00:45:14.32 | Unknown | I would sooner actually just simply say we received an update from the Chair of the Task Force. |
| 00:45:21.75 | Unknown | That would be fine, too, and I know that the chair has a letter that was signed and reviewed by the task force and could be inserted as a supplement to this for clarity. |
| 00:45:26.49 | Unknown | And reviewed by... |
| 00:45:32.08 | Unknown | Okay, so we'll make it simple, one sentence. Okay. With that. We have a motion to approve the consent calendar. |
| 00:45:41.83 | Unknown | I move that we approve the consent calendar items 4A, 4B, and 4C with the amendment to the Finance Committee meeting notes of October 15th that we just discussed. Second. |
| 00:45:57.57 | Unknown | All in favor? Aye. |
| 00:45:58.89 | Unknown | I... |
| 00:46:04.22 | Unknown | So moving on to business items, Our first item, 6A, is the first quarter library update. And welcome, Abbott Chambers, our city librarian. |
| 00:46:19.31 | Alex Kacheff | Chamberlain. |
| 00:46:29.69 | Abbott Chambers | Well, good evening, Mr. Mayor, Vice Mayor, members of the Council. Let me ask you to turn your thoughts towards your public library for a few minutes with me. I'm Sausalito City Librarian. |
| 00:46:40.37 | Alex Kacheff | I'm a Los Lito City librarian. |
| 00:46:43.19 | Abbott Chambers | I'm Sausalito City Librarian Abbott Chambers, and this is an update on Sausalito Public Library operations. As far as what I'll be covering in my talk, I'll speak briefly about the core values of our public library. Then I'm going to provide some updates to you on the resources that are available from the library, on our program offerings, and we'll talk about some of the performance measures that we use to gauge how the library's doing. I'll conclude with some remarks about some projects that are coming up next for us in the ensuing months. So what are the library's core values? And when I say core values, I mean the guiding principles that we follow as a library when we're developing our collections, services, and programs. Our first guiding principle or core value is sharing resources. Our library is a place where the community together pools its resources to create a collection that everyone can share. It means that each of us as individuals doesn't have to build up our own collection of stuff, but that we have this shared place. This remains a somewhat radical idea Promoting lifelong learning is an important value to us as well, and this is true of the toddler that you see here at one of our programs, all the way up through the seniors that borrow books from the library and attend our evening programs. And building a sense of community is very important to us. And this is true of the people who come into the library to use our physical space, to sit and read, to study, to work, and also the people who come to our programs. And many of the programs that we have that bring people from the community together are conducted by someone who's a Sausalito resident or have a theme that is Sausalito culture or Sausalito history. Let me first start by giving you an update on our library resources. You'll see in the picture here some of the new signage that we brought into the library in the last few months. The new book section here. Sausalito's current collection consists of about 36,000 books for adults, another 8,000 children's books, 7,000 DVDs, CDs, and audio books for people of all ages, 100 magazine subscriptions, and those magazine subscriptions are available both for use in the library and for checkout, and then we also have five newspaper subscriptions. Not a huge collection, but it in fact is only the tip of the iceberg. The Sausalito Public Library is a member of the Marinnet Consortium. That's all the public libraries in Marin along with Dominican University and the College of Marin. Collectively, the libraries in Marin provide 400,000 books and another 100,000 DVDs, CDs, and audiobooks. These are all available for the people of Sausalito to borrow. They can be requested online and delivered within one or two business days. There's no charge for that. But we even go further than that. The library is a member of a consortium called Link Plus. Link Plus consists of about 50 public and academic libraries, including libraries from the California State University System and the San Francisco Public Library. And through Link Plus, we have access to 10 million different books. And these, as with the MarinNet titles, can be requested by Sausalito residents from home and delivered to the library within a week. And for both the MarinNet titles and the Link Plus titles, there's no charge to make these requests. We also have vast digital collections, and they're large collections and they're growing collections. You see here three of our e-book and e-audiobook collections, ANKI, the Marinnet Overdrive Collection, and the 3M Cloud Library. Collectively through these resources, Saucyuta residents have access to 40,000 different e-book titles and another 2,500 e-audiobook titles. These are available for a wide range of mobile devices as well as laptop and desktop computers. All you need is a library card and a password you create for your card. For people who are interested in learning more about our e-books and e-audiobooks, we recommend that people have a look at our website and we also invite people to come into the library and we offer free one-on-one tutorials. |
| 00:51:04.43 | Abbott Chambers | We've also recently introduced a new resource for Sausalito residents. And this is a product called Hoopla Digital. It's a collection of downloadable and streaming video and music. It's another free library service. It consists of about 10,000 television shows and movies, as well as about 150,000 music albums. And this is a way for us to begin to bring the library into video, into music, understanding that CDs, DVDs aren't gonna be around forever. In fact, we're surprised that they're still hanging on. |
| 00:51:42.55 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:51:44.69 | Abbott Chambers | The Sausalito Public Library website has a variety of other online resources, a website being sausalitolibrary.org. We have an online language learning package called Mango Languages where you can take tutorials in 64 different languages, including Spanish, French, Portuguese, and Pirate. That's also available as an app for mobile devices. We also have Discover and Go, which is a museum pass service that's been created for public libraries. Through Discover and Go, Saucelito residents have access to free and discount museum passes from 40 different regional museums and cultural centers. And you can reserve a pass and print it out online. You don't have to come into the library at all. Thank you. We also have a wide array of research databases available from our website, covering just about every subject under the sun for people doing research. Very useful for kids doing homework as well. Another important resource from the library is our living room. The library is a very welcoming place for people to come and hang out, to work, to read, to study. The Sausalito Public Library is open seven days a week, and we're open 63 hours a week. And that's more than any other public library in Marin, something that the people of Sausalito can be really proud of. Also in our library, we have free Wi-Fi, and we have lots of people in every day using that. And we have eight public computers for people to sit and do their email, surf the internet, write papers. |
| 00:53:30.20 | Abbott Chambers | So let me continue now with our update and talk about the program offerings at the library. And this is a picture from a program that we had just this past Friday. It was Bill Broder reading from his new book. We had over 90 people in the library on a Friday evening after we'd closed. And after the reading, Bill treated us all to a catered Russian tea. |
| 00:53:56.50 | Abbott Chambers | As far as adult library programs at the Sausalito Library, in fiscal year 2014, we offered 79 different programs for adults. Those programs were attended by over 1,600 people. That's an average of about 20 people per event. Our flagship series is our speaker series. The speaker series is coordinated by assistant city librarian, Augie Webb. These are eight flyers, posters, from eight recent and upcoming speaker series events, and we pretty much cover just about any subject that you can think of. The events typically take place either here in the council chambers or down in the Edgewater room, and generally last about an hour or an hour and a half. We also have special program series, the Sausalito People Series being one of those. The Sausalito People Series is one that we offer in the fall and in the spring on consecutive Friday evenings. The theme essentially is having a person who lives in Sausalito to come and just talk about their work, an area of expertise or some kind of interesting experience. In this case, this is a recent photo of Robert Timoneri, who's a volunteer with Wild Care in San Rafael, and he's telling us about his adventures in Thailand, volunteering at an elephant nature park. You'll see that we have a picture of the screen on our screen here. The beautiful large screen in the library was donated by the friends of the library, along with a high definition short throw projector. It's allowed us to transform the library into a theater, and it's a lot of fun. We also have book groups and our opera group meeting regularly. And we've recently started holding art exhibits in the library. The Friends of the Library also donated a art hanging system between the tall windows in the library. And we've been hosting an artist every six weeks. The current artist is Bill Kirsch. We'll have a new exhibit going up this Sunday. It's Joan Arbel. The exhibits are limited to people who either live in Sausalito or who rent studio space in Sausalito. We'll be offering some new programs in the coming months, one of which is coming up in early November, on the first Sunday of the month, November 2nd, our Read to Me adult story time. After the library closes, we'll be taking over the library, and some local actors will be presenting stories from well-known authors. So let me move on to our children's program offerings. This is a picture of Aaron Wilson, our exceptional children's librarian. The amazing number of things that take place in the city of Sausalito around children's resources, children's programming are entirely due to Aaron's dedication and imagination. In fiscal year 2014, the program was a great opportunity We had 170 different programs for children that were attended by over 3,800 children and their caregivers. Just remarkable numbers. The sort of starter program that we have as a library is our toddler story time. That's here in the council chambers. We have two story times every Wednesday. And this is kind of the first introduction for the youngest kids to the library. And it's really getting kids started with reading and started with using the library. And that's a picture of Molly McCall, who's our storyteller. We typically have about 20 toddlers at each of those story times. And I think as anyone who works here in City Hall will testify, Wednesday mornings are toddler morning in City Hall. We also have regular craft programs for children of all ages. This is a picture of a girl with a collage that she made at a collage workshop we held last week. It was taught by a woman named Bethany Murguia who's a local illustrator and author. We have for somewhat older kids, a Young Writers and Artists Club that's been meeting every Thursday in October. And we have our Lego Club. Lego Club's meeting every month. We share a large collection of Lego with the Mill Valley Library. And once a month, Aaron gathers up the huge bins of Lego that we have and hauls them down to the Edgewater Room. And we turn the kids loose to make projects. Aaron has also organized some special event days, one of which is Talk Like a Pirate Day, and complimenting talk like a pirate day, fairy day. Everything that we do for children's programming comes together with our summer reading program. The 2014 summer reading program ran from June 14th to August 9th, so it's an eight-week program. And summer reading is a way for kids to continue reading and learning during the summertime. Instead of kind of taking the summer off until the school year starts up again, it's a way for us to help them and help parents keep their kids engaged throughout the summer. During these eight weeks in 2014, we held 31 different programs along with the regular weekly story times, and we had 741 kids and about 500 parents and caregivers attend those events. The theme of this year was Up, Up and Away, take flight this summer with great performances and programs. In addition to the programs that we have in the library, We also have a summer reading challenge. And this year we had 136 children participate in the challenge, and the participating kids were rewarded with a prize for every three hours of reading that they did to themselves or with a caregiver. And this is a picture from Summer Reading Program. It's an event with some acrobats that we held in Sweeney Park. And we did a number of our special performer programs in Sweeney Park this year. So let me continue with my update and talk a little bit about performance metrics for the library. The first metric I'll talk about is library circulation. This is the number of times that materials owned by the library are checked out. In the first quarter of 2015, we circulated almost 40,000 items. That is an 8% increase over the same period last year. And we're up 47% over the first quarter of fiscal year 2011. So to me this is, people sometimes say, well, people aren't using libraries anymore. They can get it all online. What we're seeing here is that we're a busier place and that the people like what we have to offer. It's really thrilling to see numbers like this. The numbers for children's materials are even more impressive. We checked out almost 9,000 children's items in the first quarter of 2015. That's up 18 percent over last year and a full 90% over the first quarter of 2011. And this is testament to the work that Aaron Wilson and the rest of the library staff are putting towards children's programming and to improving the resources that we have available to check out in the library. Thank you. I think also the uh, The enclosed children's space that we have has made using the library a much more appealing place for Sausalito residents and their kids. |
| 01:01:59.48 | Abbott Chambers | Our circulation of electronic materials has risen steadily as well. In the first quarter of 2015, a little over 2,000 checkouts of e-books and e-audiobooks. So that number's just about doubled over the last couple years. And we're at a point now where electronic circulation is about 5% of our total circulation. And I expect that number to continue increasing in the coming years. As you might expect from the number of programs that we're offering, our program attendance has also skyrocketed. Adult program attendance has more than tripled since 2011 and 2012 to the point where we had about, as we said earlier, 1,600 attendees in programs in 2014. I'm not sure what's going on with this slide, but children's program attendance has also increased dramatically, more than doubling since 2011 as well. We're also very pleased as a library that in the recent City of Sausalito Community Survey, the library came away with a 93% total favorable ranking from respondents, and that was included a 72% very favorable rating. And we're proud that the library helps contribute to the sentiment that the people of Sausalito who responded to this survey have, which is that the city of Sausalito is moving in the right direction with 68% of respondents saying that the city of Sausalito is on the right track. So what's next for the library? We'll be bringing more new signage into the library. This is an example of some new labels that we'll have for our service desk. We'll be upgrading the library's computers. And at the same time we upgrade the computers, we'll also be upgrading the scheduling software that people use to log into the computers and to reserve them in advance. We're going to be making it possible for people to remotely sign up, authenticate, and then later renew their library cards. Currently you have to come into the library to get your card or to renew it. Particularly with eBook users, we want to make it easy for people to get set up with their card, start checking out library materials. They shouldn't ever have to come into the library. We'll be holding a giveaway in January, well, at the end of January, but we'll be publicizing it in January. It's a win an iPad mini contest. The iPad's being donated by the Friends of the Library. And it's going to be a way for us to encourage people to sign up for library cards and to promote our e-book collections. And the last thing I'll mention is we're collaborating with the Galilee Harbor Association and with the friends of the library on developing a little free library. A little free library is essentially a standing kiosk that has a shelf of books and invites anyone who comes by it to take a book or leave a book. There are little free libraries all over the country. If you Google, you can see a map of thousands of them actually around the world. And, excuse me. And we're thinking about placing it on Galilee Harbor property adjacent to the art car. We think that this design here, which is pretty conventional for Little Free Libraries, since it looks like a giant birdhouse, is probably not a good fit for Sausalito. So the design that we're working with right now is a pilings design that looks like some dock pilings lashed together and will actually cut out a center section and insert a shelf for the books. And that will be a seagull statue on top of it. So we're hoping to get that going in early 2015. The funding's coming from the Friends of the Library. The Galilee Harbor folks will be building it, and I think it's going to be really exciting, really fun. Everyone I show this picture to chuckles, and I think that's the reaction that we want. So with that, I'll conclude my presentation, and I just wanted to end by saying thank you to the City Council and to the people of Sausalito for taking such good care of your library. |
| 01:06:27.14 | Unknown | Abbott, thank you. That was a great report. Thanks a lot. Does anybody up here have any... |
| 01:06:37.40 | Unknown | Does anybody up here have any questions of Abbott before I throw it out for public comment? |
| 01:06:42.39 | Unknown | I have a question. Yes, so I continue to be so impressed with what you're accomplishing, your team and everyone. It's just really amazing. So my question is, you mentioned the expansion of the online library and the e-books and everything. And does this mean that folks who wanted to do research online, access journals, like from Sage and I think Clio or |
| 01:06:57.12 | Alex Kacheff | Thank you. |
| 01:06:57.23 | Unknown | you |
| 01:06:57.28 | Alex Kacheff | in the future. |
| 01:07:08.01 | Unknown | et cetera, or references, can we, I mean, can folks do online research? |
| 01:07:12.62 | Abbott Chambers | That's a good question. |
| 01:07:14.25 | Unknown | Like university? |
| 01:07:15.52 | Abbott Chambers | Within the research databases that we have available from our website are a couple of products. The primary one for searching journal articles is called EBSCO. You'll find thousands of journals and magazines in there, but I don't think it's up to the level of what you would find at a research library. Fortunately, now that we are affiliated with Dominican University, anyone with a library card, and actually pretty much anyone off the street, can go into Dominican University and use their computers. And within their library, they have a lot of these scholarly databases and access to them. |
| 01:07:31.03 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:07:31.08 | Alex Kacheff | the |
| 01:07:58.36 | Unknown | That's great. Thank you. |
| 01:08:00.61 | Unknown | Thanks any other questions about it? Let me open this for public comment. Does anybody in the public, from the public, want to say anything about our library? |
| 01:08:19.80 | Betsy Stroman | I wasn't planning on doing this, but I can't be quiet about this because as some of you know, I wrote a book about the library, and I've been fascinated with the library for many years. I'm Betsy Stroman, by the way. |
| 01:08:21.31 | Unknown | But I can't. |
| 01:08:30.38 | Betsy Stroman | But I also have another hobby, which is research, and I've been working on a book about somebody named Jean Varda. This library is like working in an academic institution, except it doesn't have any of the fuddy-duddiness of it. It's just an open, comfortable place. And if I have a question, Adam is, excuse me, Abbott is helping immediately. Abbott finds me microfilms from here and there, and when I can't figure out how to run the microfilm, he comes up and fixes it for me. I mean, this is a real incredible resource. I can't imagine anything better. I'm going back to visit my father in New Haven, and I will go to the Beinecke Rare Book Library in a couple of weeks, and I'm sure that I'll find some really interesting stuff there, but I also know I'll be wearing white gloves, and people will be standing over me, and it'll be quite an experience, very different from this. This is a great guy, and we are so lucky to have him in a great library. Thank you. |
| 01:09:30.77 | Unknown | Thanks, Betsy. Any other member of the public? |
| 01:09:34.85 | Jeffrey Chase | Bye. Are you the one that that wrote the book that's available free at the library? Yeah, it's a very interesting book on the history of Sausalito Library. Probably the most exciting library except for Alexandria, maybe. Pretty good book. Yeah, the library is so incredibly great, just to watch the events that happen at night and how many people show up. It's just really beautiful, the energy that Abbott has brought. And I was talking about repentance earlier. I... the best copy of the Torah. It was in Hebrew and English. I'm the one that is responsible for it not being there right now. And I'm going to do my best to replace this in the future. So thank you, library. And sorry. |
| 01:10:23.03 | Unknown | Thanks, Jeff. Hi, Mike. |
| 01:10:26.17 | Mike | I wasn't here for this purpose, but I saw this, and I usually come here and complain about things. But this time, I want to command you because I remember library about a few years ago, they were closing a couple days a week. And coming to this stage right now, I'm really proud to see Saucido moving in the right direction. I wish every department would be the same way. But I'd like to say whatever formula you use for this one, apply to city police department too, maybe you can resolve their problem, lack of budget, and bring it up and have more people so people will not be. Obviously, you have to spend some resources to bring the library to this degree and make it active. Maybe we can apply the same formula. And the other thing is I see kids around here my God, we are dying. We are getting older and going. We see the next generation coming up. It's nice to see that. Thank you very much for your effort. And you too. |
| 01:11:38.82 | Unknown | Thanks, Mike. |
| 01:11:43.41 | Sybil Boutillier | Hi, Sybil Boutillier. Another little piece of my background is I worked for San Francisco Public Libraries for 12 years. And I have to say that I am so impressed with Sal Salido's library. I was chair of the California Library Association's digital section for a couple of years. And I know how difficult it is to balance the digital library world with the paper library world. And I've been really so enthusiastic about what's been going on here and the very careful collection that they put together both on the shelves and online. And I think you have an exceptional library. And I hope that everybody realizes that it's unusually good for such a small city. We've really done a great job. |
| 01:12:40.77 | Unknown | Thanks, Simon. Any other member of the public? Okay, let's close the public comment. I think everything's been said, but... Does anybody want to? |
| 01:12:53.98 | Unknown | you Just that, you know, we just have to echo that. I'm part of the 93%, and I think it's a wonderful thing, and Abbott and your whole staff and the library board and everyone. And it is the kind of thing that we wish we could put it to every department. I think it's a special thing, and we can't. But it really, and it's more than the books. What I really love is the way you've made it kind of our cultural center, that we can all come and hear and talk and discuss. And we have the writers' workshops for the kids, and it's really a wonderful thing. Thank you. is the way you've made it kind of our cultural center that we can all come and hear and talk and discuss. And we have the writers' workshops for the kids, and it's really a wonderful thing. So thank you so much for your work. |
| 01:13:26.80 | Abbott Chambers | Thank you. |
| 01:13:31.73 | Unknown | Well, I just want to say again, thank you so much to you and your team and all the hardworking residents who support, you know, the efforts. It's such an exciting time right now, I think, to be in the world of the library and knowledge and working knowledge and just research and everything. I mean, everything is at our fingertips now. And to have that vision and to have that, you know, just to go with that technology and bring that out and disseminate that here in this small town environment, it's just been wonderful to watch that unfold. And so congratulations and much appreciation. |
| 01:14:09.53 | Abbott Chambers | Thank you. |
| 01:14:13.65 | John | I'll just say two things. One, thanks go to Abbott as well as to the Friends of the Library and the Library Trust, what's it called now? The – not the board, the – the Foundation. The Foundation. The Foundation. Because with that coordinated effort between those three – the board, obviously, and the library as well, it sort of creates a unique situation in Sausalito where you have different funding sources and a lot of community involvement, I think unlike any other department directly, except for maybe Park and Rec in some ways. But I think Park and Rec is going to involve along the model you've laid out is the goal, I think, that city manager and council have. But I'll say this. So my oldest child is 10, and she never wanted to come to the Sausalito library when she was younger. She wanted to go to Mill Valley because they had a much more active children's environment there. And now she wants to come here. And my son, who's five years younger, this is the only library he knows. And that's a testament to both the hard costs that you guys have done with creating a walled-in children's area so they don't disturb everybody. I mean, it's a comprehensive look about, and you've done this with electronic media, with refactoring how the shelves work. |
| 01:14:26.19 | Alex Kacheff | Foundation. |
| 01:15:34.80 | John | creating it more of a, you're reassessing, you've reassessed, a lot of how the library delivers goods and services to the community. And I can say my kids vote a resounding thank you for you doing that. It's really been a big change, and it's one of the things that I know the council over the years has tried to encourage, and you're putting it in place. And we're not telling you what to do. These are you as a professional telling us what the right things to do are, and we're helping you as much as our budget allows, and the friends and the board and the foundation are helping you with other resources and not. Thank you very much for doing that. |
| 01:16:11.62 | Abbott Chambers | Thank you, John. |
| 01:16:14.03 | Unknown | Okay. So thanks, Abbott, very much. I got my first library card when I was four and a half years old. And he lost it. But that was on a different continent, and I've been in libraries ever since. So for the kids, yeah, this is really important. Thanks. Okay. |
| 01:16:26.25 | Alex Kacheff | That was on a different continent. |
| 01:16:38.03 | John | And Betsy is right about the Beinecke Library. That's how it works. Having researched in there, even though it has translucent marble walls, it's still not a homey experience, as this is. Okay. |
| 01:16:53.98 | Unknown | We're going to now switch topics to stormwater permits. Before we begin our next thing, our age-friendly folks are leaving us. Congratulations and good luck with your grant application. Okay. So the next item, 6B, is our Phase 2 Municipal Stormwater Permit. And I guess we're starting off with Jonathan Goldman. |
| 01:17:27.41 | Jonathon Goldman | It's... Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I came to the podium just to get the slides set up, but I'm going to distribute handouts for Terri Fashing, who's our guest this evening, who's the program manager for Marin County Stormwater Pollution Prevention Program. She just wants to give you and the communities some information about our new permit, and I'm not leaving, so I'm available for questions afterwards. Terri? |
| 01:18:00.06 | Terri Fashing | Good evening, Mr. Mayor, Vice Mayor, and Council Members. Thank you so much for this opportunity to come and present to you tonight. I almost didn't make it to the meeting tonight because I found myself in your library and I didn't want to leave. |
| 01:18:09.86 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:18:14.96 | Unknown | didn't want to leave. Thank you. |
| 01:18:16.21 | Terri Fashing | Thank you. |
| 01:18:16.23 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:18:16.26 | Terri Fashing | Thank you. It was so nice. So as Jonathan mentioned, I'm Terry Fashing. I manage the Marin County Stormwater Pollution Prevention Program, three Ps. I think the purpose for talking to you tonight is to tell you a little bit more about the phase two permit that your municipality, that your city must and is complying with, and to tell you a little bit more about the countywide program that you guys are part of and you contribute to, so thank you so much. And also to say that I've heard from Jonathan that next month you have a ballot measure coming up to try to raise some – the sales tax to help perhaps to help fund the – the possibly staff, possibly whatever funding is needed to assist the city with compliance with this set of requirements. Anyway, I'll launch right in. I wanted to talk a little bit about the background of McStopp. We've been around since 1993. We're a joint effort of Marin Cities, Towns, and Unincorporated Areas, County Marin. We work on a coordinated and consistent approach to protecting water quality countywide. Our member agencies, including the City of Sausalito, each of – everyone implements local stormwater programs, and they fund the countywide program, and in this way they achieve compliance with your stormwater permit. So, next up, program staff consists of me, and we have a vacant position. Our longtime program outreach coordinator retired this summer, so we're actually looking at restructuring our program a little bit and changing the staffing. Our hope is to have staff that can provide more direct support to the municipalities with permit compliance, so we're looking at that. And we have a stormwater technician who assists with some of the technical work that we do. He's a halftime employee. So we also have a citizen advisory committee. I'm not going to go through all of these names, but we have representatives from various different areas, including contractors, engineers, environmentalists, community members, and municipal staff. We also have an agency staff committee, and this is made up of representatives from each city, town, and the county. We meet monthly. This is a way for us to communicate with each local agency to make sure that everybody is keeping on top of the permit requirements and gives me a way of communicating. helping them track all of these much more complicated now requirements. The countywide program provides several services to the cities. We provide compliance tools and templates. We do – we've been in charge of coordinating annual reporting to the Regional Water Quality Control Board over the years. We conduct water quality monitoring. We track new regulations. We implement a lot of public outreach and education, produce several publications. We hold workshops and trainings. We have a couple coming up. We have the agency staff committee, the citizen advisory committee. We hold permit coordination meetings so that project proponents can come. and get advice about the permits, the outside agency permits they need for their projects that are near creeks. I think even your city staff has benefited from these meetings. And then we collaborate with several different organizations, including a Bay Area-wide stormwater management association and the North Bay Watershed Association, we work to get additional funding from them to help you with permit compliance. And we coordinate and collaborate with the water districts and the sanitary districts, try to share costs a little with them, and we reach out to businesses and have business partners throughout Marin as well. So why all of this? Well, because Marin's storm drain systems are regulated. Notice that Abbott directed your attention to the library. I'll ask you to get inside the storm drain system tonight. So the Federal Clean Water Act, as you know, The permitting arm of the Clean Water Act is known as the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System. It's a requirement of all laws like this to have really complicated language, NPDES. So this – the Clean Water Act requires that the discharge of pollutants to waters of the United States from any pipe is unlawful unless in compliance with one of these NPDES permits. And so Marin, all the municipalities in Marin are under a Phase II NPDES municipal stormwater permit. So we like to call it the Phase II permit. The permit is issued by the State Water Resources Control Board. It's enforced by the San Francisco Regional Water Quality Control Board. I know you have a citizen here in Sausalito who's actually on the State Water Resource Control Board. Marin cities, towns, and the county of Marin are covered by the permit, and we – as you know, I know you know this, the State Board just adopted a more prescriptive permit in 2013. So this, we're not gonna go through this. You have a printout of this. It's a history of how we and under we're now in the Um, Very quick update. We've submitted the first annual report under the new permit. I've worked with your staff to make that happen on October 15th. We're in the middle of implementing the year two requirements, and we're preparing to implement several new requirements to really kick in, become effective in fiscal year 15-16. So as I said, the phase two permit is more prescriptive. And here's a bit about the permit term. It's a five-year permit. |
| 01:25:06.51 | Terri Fashing | And why do we do this? It's, you know, in Marin, we have some very precious water resources and habitat resources to protect. And I grabbed – I didn't grab a picture of Richardson Bay. I should have, but this is Willow Creek right here. And actually we got Willow Creek on our little watershed map here. A lot to protect in Marin, so it's a good thing that we're working on this, although sometimes it can seem rather like an unfunded mandate. I mean, it is an unfunded mandate in many cases, and it's difficult to find the funds to implement the requirements, and sometimes they seem kind of, out of touch with achieving water quality objectives, but we're working on that. This is not supposed to look this way, but I just wanted to take a moment to say that the way that the system works is that we have permit tasks in the permit, and then there's usually a mixed-up role and then a city, town, or county role. So for instance, the new permit requires the development of several new plans such as spill response plan, monitoring plan, public outreach and involvement, and education plan. So MIXSTOP is really taking on the responsibility of preparing most of these plans. We already prepared this bill response plan. Right now we're working on a pesticide monitoring plan And we have to get both the monitoring plan and the public outreach plan in by June 30th. So we do that. We get input from the agency staff committee and the citizen advisory committee. And we train, provide tools, so on and so forth. And then in some of these plans, the local stormwater program has to implement them, such as the spill response plan. Then the – I'm sorry for how this showed up on the screen here. So this is just to really just to point out, get it, I won't go through this whole table, but just to point out that We try to find the best place for a mixed stop to fit in to the system to provide the service that the cities need to assist with permit compliance. We just try to do as much as we can with the resources we have. So, Now the rest of the presentation kind of gets into the permit. I'm going to run through it pretty quickly. I don't want to take a lot of your time. And I think you've gotten the picture before that this is kind of a bit of a bigger beast than it's been in the past. But we have this new permit, and it has all of these different sections. And the ones in yellow represent new sections that weren't in our permit before. Something to note is that we've always – we've been under a stormwater permit since 2003, and we've been really implementing stormwater requirements in Marin since 93. one really But, under the new permit we have to prohibit non-stormwater from entering the storm drain. We've always been doing that for many years. and there are some exceptions such as individual car Individual residential car washing is allowed as long as it's properly managed. However, on a new permit, we have to prohibit excessive over-irrigation from landscaped areas, and so this is reported to us. We – well, we need to adopt updates to our existing code – city code – to require people who are doing irrigation, private residents and businesses, they're supposed to detect leaks and correct in 72 hours, properly design a name, sprinkler heads, and no irrigation can be allowed during rain events. So this means that this is something that the city has to be in charge of enforcing. Obviously, we're not going to have – you know, given law enforcement is you're not going to have people out enforcing over-irrigation, but when these things are reported, it is something that has to be enforced because it's written in the permit. So as I said, some updates to your city code will need to be considered and hopefully adopted by June 30, 2015. Mixtop has already provided a template of proposed code changes for City of Sausalito's Urban Runoff Pollution Prevention Ordinance. And this slide just kind of describes some of the changes that need to be made to the city code. I think Jonathan has briefed you on this a bit. So in the public outreach section, we have much more detailed staff training requirements. So again, McStopp's part is to work with the municipalities to provide training opportunities, and then the responsibility of the local stormwater program is to send staff and make sure staff are properly trained. We have to, because the permit involved the public in the implementation of our program, so luckily we're already way ahead here in Moran because we do have a citizen advisory committee and we already have our countywide program that works directly with different groups. The illicit discharge detection elimination system has multiple requirements, and I'll just let you know that luckily we put together a good two-year program that we're more than halfway into to have mixed-op staff go out and do the visiting of all the outfalls throughout East Marin. And we have to conduct dry weather outfall monitoring. We're looking at the quality of dry weather flow that's discharging from outfalls. So we've completed all of that work in the city of Sausalito. There are other mapping requirements in this section that we're also completing on behalf of the city and all the towns and the county. So without going through all of these, you have this in your possession, so you can kind of take a look, and I'm happy to answer any questions anyone has. But just kind of you're getting the point that there are many new requirements we have to each city has to and I'm happy to answer any questions anyone has. But just kind of you're getting the point that there are many new requirements. We have to – each city has to maintain an inventory map of certain business types. We must notify the water board if a certain business needs an industrial general permit, like a boatyard, say a new boatyard gets going in the city of Sausalito, if they don't obtain the proper NPDES permit, our permit tells us that as a city we have to report them. Best to go to them and ask them to get the permit, and hopefully they will. We... As mentioned, we have to have kind of beef up our enforcement program so that we can ensure that we can enforce the non-stormwater discharge prohibitions. Then there's the construction site management requirements. They've become more involved in that. um, We have to have – staff has to be specially trained or supervised by someone who's specially trained and certified to review erosion sediment control plans, and we have to require much more formal erosion sediment control plans. So to help this mix up, put together some procedures as required by the permit to review erosion sediment control plans, we're hoping that helps staff. On the ground, it's local staff who have to implement these requirements. And then the inspections of public and private sites will be more frequent inspections and better tracking and reporting of these. And then for all of the municipal operations. There are many, many more requirements We have to Um... inventory and map all our facilities. Again, Mixtop is taking care of this on your behalf. And the point of this is that we just have to have a map of certain types of business, all of our municipal facilities, all of our outfalls, and then we identify priority watersheds within our cities in order to go out and try to find any kind of potential non-stormwater issue or non-stormwater discharge issue. Again, we're going to try to provide as much support and guidance to cities as possible to do this in a cost-effective manner. So again, I don't want to go through every single thing, but we have to have better documentation of the best management practices we're implementing around a lot of different practices that we have to implement as cities like bridge maintenance, road and parking lot maintenance, right-of-way maintenance, so on and so forth. you And then we're going to have to do much more detailed storm drain system assessment and maintenance, better tracking of all that work that we're going to do. And, um... I kind of got into this a little bit. I think this was an accidental repeat slide. And then we have to develop more detailed stormwater pollution prevention plans for any hot spot facilities that we identified, but I know that City of Sausalito has just updated your corporation, yard, SWP, so I think you're kind of ahead of the game And it's just going to be a matter of identifying whether or not you have any other facilities that by year four will need these new SWPs to be put into place. You may not have any others. And then inspections of all facilities, including your municipally owned parking lots, will need to be conducted once we get to year five, these facilities will have to be inspected, and MixSOP's actually going to help you with a few of those this year, but This is going to be something we'll work out. how to get this done by the end of the permit term. So then there's the post-construction measures, and these apply to certain types of development projects. In a nutshell, They, for certain development projects, there has to be low impact development site design treatment of runoff in an ongoing manner, peak runoff controls for very big projects, which I don't expect to have in Sausalito, where you add or replace an acre of impervious. And then the real kicker is the ongoing facility maintenance, the stormwater treatment facility maintenance that the municipality has to verify. So the post-construction measures apply to only certain project types. And for single-family detached homes and small projects that add or replace 2,500 to 5,000 square feet of impervious, the requirements are pretty minor. You just have to implement one site design measure. such as disconnecting downspouts. So it's pretty easy to get there. And we've provided a guidance manual and a template that can be used, that project applicants should use and will use to show compliance with this one. When it gets to certain roads or linear utility projects that add 5,000 square feet of contiguous impervious surface or projects that add or replace 5,000 square feet of impervious, anything greater than that, the requirements become much more prescriptive. And the project proponent will have to put in very specifically designed bioretention facilities that can remove pollutants from a certain size storm. And so to help with implementing these requirements, I worked with municipalities throughout the North Bay to request funding from the North Bay Watershed Association. They gave us $30,000, and we worked with the consultants to put together manual that will be used by development professionals, municipal staff as well, to design projects to comply with the new permit requirements. So that is complete. We're holding a training on how to follow that manual next week. And this just gets, these next two slides just get into some of the details on the requirements. I'm not going to go through that. We have some water quality monitoring requirements, as I mentioned. have to do some water quality monitoring in creeks in East Marin. And everyone's on the hook for this, even Belvedere, who doesn't have any creeks. We have to do monitoring to look at pesticides because years ago, the Regional Water Quality Control Board said that all the urban creeks in East Marin were impaired for diazinon and pesticide toxicity. So to comply with our total maximum daily load under this set of requirements, we have to implement this water quality monitoring. So we're working on that on your behalf. And then we have to do a lot more tracking and reporting to assess the effectiveness of these permit requirements. Kind of seems crazy to me that the state said, here, do all of these really specific things and then tell us how effective they are. But we're. But it's good to have performance measures and do effectiveness assessments. So we're putting together a plan. We got another grant from North Bay Watershed Association. We're working with our North Bay partners, Phase II permittees, and we're putting together a full North Bay plan that we will be able to use to come up with some good performance measures that we can use to track the effectiveness of the implementation of these requirements. This ends up getting really complicated, and we're doing our best to try to simplify it, come up with some really good systems of tracking and reporting. And just to let you know, in the future, that the state is going to amend some statewide water quality plans to include um, they're going to include They're going to describe in the plan future stormwater permit requirements. And they're planning to adopt these draft amendments um, maybe even by the end of 2014. But it's looking like they won't get the permit requirements into our permit until around fiscal year 17, 18, maybe not until they reissue the next permit after this five-year cycle is over. And then we'll have 10 years from when the the requirements end up in our permit to comply, but So therefore, by 2028, more or less, in certain land use areas such as commercial, industrial, transportation stations, and high density residential, and this is defined in the permit, We cannot. We will not be able to allow trash five millimeters and greater from leaving our storm drain system. So that means cigarette butts cannot go into the municipally owned storm drain system and discharge out into the bay or into Willow Creek. And so we're going to be able to pick either one way of doing that or another way. The one way is to install trash capture devices everywhere. or we can use a combination of approaches that could allow us to take credit for zero waste, plastic bag bans, Crete cleanups, things like that. However, if we go with that second track, we're going to have to do very detailed and expensive monitoring to show equivalent compliance with track one, which is the use of these trash capture devices, which aren't that expensive, but it's the ongoing maintenance that's the issue. So this is just to give you a heads up that this is coming. Um, and yeah, it's coming. So, so, and just a little bit about our budget process. We, um, I draft a budget usually in December. Uh, January through May, we present the draft budget to the agency staff committee, our citizen advisory committee, Marin Public Works Association, and the Marin General Services Authority Board. And usually it's really actually in March. I'm sorry that this is slightly incorrect. In March, lately, we've been having MGSA review and recommend the budget. They have to, by our agreement, do so by May 15th of each year. And then in June, July, our board, which is the Marin County Flood Control District, they hold hearings, actually the county of Marin does, to adopt our budget. And then in the fall, we have an outside auditor perform an outside audit in coordination with our CAO's office of our last year's program. And so, and just to let you know right now, our municipal contribution, shared contribution, has been around $550,000. And when you look at the 20 years of mixed up, 21 years, it's been about five, the average is around 550,000. It's been pretty flat for all these years. So we do our best to, we do a lot with the resources we have. I forgot to say, we actually, all of us, we pay into some bay monitoring. We pay about 50, so we out of that $550,000. We pay $57,000 to fund water quality monitoring that happens in the Bay that's conducted by San Francisco Estuary Institute. Anyway, so just so you know, what your share of that is at this time is about $14,000. Then separately, not through MixStop, you have to pay for your permit, which is in 14-15 about $6,300. But then they can't increase this 20% every year after you've done your budgeting process, suddenly using emergency fee increased regulations, they can say, oh, 20 percent, 25 percent increase suddenly within that fiscal year, so you haven't had time to plan. So I do recommend planning for increases here in these fees. And just to say about the mixed-up contribution future, you know, maybe we'll be increasing what we ask for in 1516. We're going to go through a process. And then in order to fund the program, we may need to increase in this range. And we've published this before. We don't know. It all depends on the level of service that's requested by the cities and towns. We hear that the cities and towns want more assistance with on-the-ground implementation because it's hard for them to add staff. But in any case, this is a bit about the contribution formula that we use. And then that's about it. That's all I had to say. I hope it wasn't too boring. And thank you for your time and attention. And thank you so much for supporting Mixed Stop. And I hope I can answer any questions you might have. |
| 01:46:10.39 | Unknown | Thanks, Terry. Do we have any sort of technical clarifying questions of Terry. Thank you. Thank you. |
| 01:46:22.19 | Unknown | Well, thanks, Terry, for your presentation. And there's a lot going on. And it's complicated. I see on this phase two we're in the second year of it. And I guess I just have a basic question. How are we doing? I mean, are we in compliance? Do we have any issues that we should be concerned about here? |
| 01:46:36.69 | Terri Fashing | Thank you. I, I think you guys are doing a good job. I think your staff is doing a good job, and you are in compliance. And we verified that and reported that to the state on October 15th. We met all of our – like, we had several things we needed to get done in year one, and we did that. Any areas where there's room for improvement, I think that from what I can say, What I observed with Jonathan Goldman is he's doing this great job of identifying where There are some areas of improvement, and he's finding ways to improve the implementation of local program. Also, you have a staff member, Pat Guasco, who just has historically done this fabulous job of responding to illicit discharge complaints. So it's always been a pleasure working with the City of Sausalito's staff. |
| 01:47:37.74 | John | It's my understanding from the various presentations we've had that not only are there a lot more reporting requirements here that in various ways of tracking both implementation, outreach, and everything, is that there are also, you know, as you said at the beginning of your presentation, we have certainly some capital needs to focus on just the transmission of discharge, but the discharge permit, actually, you know, the quality level of what you're discharging, the standards for that have been raised as well. So you're catching a – there's a lot of different expense levels that are happening all at the same time. MS. Yes. Is that a fair way of putting it? |
| 01:48:16.85 | Terri Fashing | Exactly. Yeah, I think that is... Thank you. |
| 01:48:25.48 | Unknown | Council Member Fyfford. Okay, let's open this for public comment. Is there any member of the public who would like to comment on this agenda topic? Nope. Okay. Then we'll close public comment. And unless anybody has anything more to say... |
| 01:48:45.36 | Unknown | And Mr. Mayor, I have a comment. So I just want to thank you for your presentation and thank McStopp for the hard work and everything. I know these permits are onerous and there's a lot of stuff you have to do to make everything come together. So thank you. |
| 01:48:45.41 | Unknown | And Mr. Mayor, I have a comment. |
| 01:49:01.39 | Unknown | And Terry, thanks for coming months or so ago and informing our sustainability commission of all of this. So double duty. Thanks a lot. OK. |
| 01:49:16.52 | Unknown | Okay. Uh, 815, so... Hmm. Can we get through the next agenda topic before a break or do we need a break now? |
| 01:49:28.54 | Unknown | Mr. Mayor, I'd like to take a quick break. Okay. We could. |
| 01:49:30.50 | Unknown | Okay. Okay. So let's take a quick five-minute break. Thanks. |
| 01:49:38.68 | Unknown | on the wrist mat. I'm I'm sure Jonathan can explain exactly what the rest of that title means. Fist firm up. |
| 01:49:46.60 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 01:49:46.73 | Jonathon Goldman | I'm sorry. |
| 01:49:50.16 | Jonathon Goldman | date. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Jonathan Goldman again, your Public Works Director and City Engineer. I'll be brief. Just really want to introduce Kathleen Schaefer, who's an engineer with Region 9 of Federal Emergency Management Agency. I know that I've given the Council a presentation on this process at least once in the past. There are some kind of upcoming milestones in the process of the process Um... promulgating our new flood insurance rate map and flood insurance studies. That's what those acronyms were. But without any further ado, I'm going to let Kathy Schaefer, who's the expert on all of this in this region and a Marin County resident, give her presentation. |
| 01:50:39.11 | Kathleen Schaefer | Thank you, Jonathan. Thank you very much. And thank you, Mr. Mayor and City Council members for allowing me to come before you this evening. I'll just talk briefly about the San Francisco Bay study and some of the ramifications and give you a little overview. I wanted to just share this slide because I know that you're going to be having this put archived. And I wanted to share that my team and my fellow coworkers, I'm joined by a gentleman, Michael Hornick, who's also a Marin County resident who helps in the administration of the mapping products. We have a fabulous flood insurance liaison, Edie Lohman. She's available to answer anyone's questions on flood insurance. And then we have Olivia Humolde, who helps with the public affairs. And then we're assisted with the technical services of Chris May, who is with the Baker AECOM, and Lisa Masano. And so we have a wonderful team of folks that support me in this effort. Just by way of introduction, the National Flood Insurance Program is a |
| 01:50:39.13 | Jonathon Goldman | Thank you, John. |
| 01:51:47.62 | Kathleen Schaefer | a federal program that was put in place about 40 years ago when the private sector got out of the flood insurance business. So it has evolved with time. It started out 40 years ago being a fairly simple program. It consists of three parts. It starts with a flood insurance rate map that shows areas of high, moderate, and low flood risk. And the arrangement is that these maps are created and then presented to the communities to adopt. And I often joke that it may be an ugly baby, but you all did agree to adopt them. And in doing so, then you use them to guide your building practices, to build wisely in the flood plain, to elevate homes or to encourage development away from flood-prone areas. And then in exchange for that, the federal government provides flood insurance to anyone and everyone who wants it, in many cases, at a subsidized rate. So the federal flood insurance program started out 40 years ago being purely voluntary. The requirement to purchase flood insurance was not a requirement. But with time and with disasters, we found that as a nation who have investments in people's properties through programs like Freddie May and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, that just as when you have a car that you have a loan on, you're expected to have insurance. The federal government decided that it was prudent to require that kind of investment our loans to homeowners. A number of years ago, they enacted the rule that if you have a federally backed mortgage, and are in a high flood risk area, you are required to demonstrate that you have flood insurance. And then with time, they've also strengthened the penalties for lending agencies to ensure that they are complying with this rule. So that's where you see a lot of those kinds of things. And it is a requirement mandated by Congress. So we are embarking on a study of the entire San Francisco Bay. And the question has come up, why are you doing this now? And the reason is that the old study is old and out of date. The study that was last done was done in the 1980s using 1980s technology. And if you think about the computer power and the things that you've used in the last 30 years, you can understand that there have been some changes. We now have, for the first time, the computing power to fully model the entire San Francisco Bay. And the other And that is what forms the basis of our study We were also mandated by Congress, who gave us a special appropriation, that we study 100 percent of the U.S. populated coast. So the San Francisco Bay study is part of a larger study currently ongoing by my colleague for the – one of my colleagues on the open coast of California. We are studying the entire open coastline of California, and those new maps will be rolling out shortly. In general, the results of our study are showing that the base flood elevation, or the elevation that has a 1 percent chance of occurring each and every year. Our study is showing that, in general, the base flood elevations are increasing about a foot. In Belvedere, as you get closer to the Golden Gate, the flood – base flood elevations are increasing a little more, and I'll kind of explain why. The real basis for this is that the old study did not have the capability of computing wave run-up and the effects from wave run-up at the immediate shoreline. And that's really what's accounting for much of the change that you have. So what this means is that homeowners and you as a community will have a better understanding of your flood risk in the immediate shoreline. It will also mean that as you move forward that a new construction and substantial improvements will need to have their first floor elevated the base flood elevation. That requirement of elevation above the base flood elevation exists today, but it will just be a slightly higher requirement going forward. So this is a map that roughly shows the shoreline of Sausalito. the dark blue line or area shows the areas that are increasing between 1 and 2 feet. The base flood elevation is increasing between 1 and 2 feet. And then as you see the elevation, as you get closer toward the Golden Gate increases by increasing between 3 and in some cases slightly over 5 feet. Those are the immediate shoreline areas right next to the Golden Gate that are very steep. Thank you. three and in some cases slightly over five feet. Those are the immediate shoreline areas right next to the Golden Gate that are very steep and not particularly developed. I want to show you this. This is what you currently have. You have a – along the shoreline, You have toward the north, you have a boundary that's listed as a zone AE. That stands for – what it means is that the wave height is less than three feet in that area, which is what you would kind of expect, and that the base flood elevation is elevation 9. in terms of vertical datum, NGVD-88 vertical datum. So not 9 feet above mean high tide or mean low, low water, 9 feet above the 0 NGVD-88 vertical datum. So that's just a – kind of want to be clear about that. Then as you move closer to the outboard, you have a zone VE. A V stands for velocity, and it has a wave height of greater than 3 feet. So as that boundary shows, within that dark line, it's an AE zone. And then as you would imagine, as you get out into the bay, there's the ability for waves. So that's basically what that is saying. The proposed mapping will change that somewhat. In this map, you'll see here – I don't know I don't know if I can do this here – you see this is a transect. And the process that we used to develop the base flood elevations are that we generated a computer model of the entire San Francisco Bay. And we extracted data from 31 years of record from Gauge data. at the Golden Gate and at a number of gauges around the bay, We then took wind record data from Travis Air Force Base, from Oakland Air Force Base, and from San Francisco Air Force Base. We obtained SEAS data, which measures the long wave in the outboard. We got that from Corps of Engineers. And we had new topographic data, the LIDAR, which is a technology that's used for – same technology that policemen use to track your speed, only it's used for elevation. So we have a host of very sophisticated data elements that were put into a two-dimensional a computer model. That computer model was then run to simulate 31 years of record And at over 8,000 points around the bay, the water surface elevation was extracted, and it was extracted at 15-minute increments for 31 years. Those 15-minute increments were then fed into a data set that was then evaluated using statistical techniques to determine the 1 percent elevation for that location at the bay. And that forms what we call the Stillwater Elevation. Then on top of the still water elevation, we cut these transects where we've looked at the topography at this particular location, and then computed the wave run-up and the surge that would come with the wind and wave effects at that location. And that is what establishes the base flood elevation at that particular location. So with that very kind of complicated description, the end result is that in this reach of Sausalito, we are proposing that there be a base flood elevation of 10, where in the past it was elevation 9. And again, it's an AE zone, so our calculations showed that the wave run-up in this area is less than three feet, which is what you would, I think, intuitively expect. As you get closer to the Golden Gate, we then start to have – or see that we have wave effects, and the base flood elevation at the shoreline is then – increases. So here it's at elevation 11. And then as you kind of work your way around toward the Golden Gate, then here it starts to increase to elevation 13 right here and elevation 15 right adjacent to the Golden Gate. And all of that is – this is a table that just shows what the calculations are. This is the still water elevation. And again, we round up if it's 9.5 or above. and round down if it's 9.4 and below. So the base flood elevation of 10 comes from the still water elevation of 9.8 at that particular location. This column is the total water level, and that takes into account the wave effect. And it is the higher of the two that forms the basis for the base flood elevation. So you can see as we walk down that you have the higher of the 2. So at kind of halfway through your town, it transitions to elevation 11. And so that matches what you see right here. So that's a very quick overview of the results of the study and what that means to you and your community. I wanted to just kind of reiterate, again, what a base flood elevation is and what that means. The base flood elevation is the elevation of the 1 percent annual chance flood height. And in order for someone to remove the requirement that they purchase flood insurance, they have to demonstrate that their lowest adjacent grade or the elevation right adjacent to their house is above the base flood elevation. If they do that through the use of an elevation certificate, they can then apply for a letter of map amendment, and that letter of map amendment removes the requirement that they have to buy flood insurance. So, you know, what are – we know what will happen as a result. Interestingly, I think if you go back to this, you'll see the shoreline of the ocean, Thank you. What we're finding around the Marin coastline is that although the base flood elevations are increasing, you'll notice that the distance inland is not changing significantly. So by and large, even though the depths are going up, the shoreline is so steep that it really isn't changing the horizontal distance. So in Sausalito, not a lot of homes are going into a flood zone for the first time. Those homes that are adjacent or on the water are not going to be their base flood elevation is going – they'll see their flood elevation go up a foot. But you're not going to – like, oftentimes you'll see a lot of homes going into the flood zone or that the boundaries are changing. That's not really the case for Marin County. So generally, again, you know, unless someone is applying for a building permit, you know, they're probably not going to see a significant change. And what this means for you is that you now have some better data for you to help manage your flood risks along the bay. And with climate climate change, you know, we do not consider climate change in this because it is a flood insurance program. So you can make the kind of assumption that things will only get worse with time and that these are a good tool for you to use as you consider climate change and what kinds of things you may want to do with climate change. So just kind of an overview of our study process and what the timing will be. The mapping process is, by design, very slow and deliberate. We have been working on these maps for a very long time, and we've had a number of outreach meetings. A couple of them were held here, hosted by Marin County. And so we took the comments and rolled them into a proposed preliminary map. We shared those with your county and city staff. at a community coordination meeting, community CCO meeting. And then we went through the formal appeal process. That process recently closed, and we are now reviewing the comments and the appeals that we've received. We will be responding in writing to everyone who submitted a comment or an appeal, and those are being carefully considered and reviewed. reviewed. And once we have completed the review, we will be able to review the review. And once we have completed the review, we will be able to review the review. We will be able to review the review. We will be able to review the review. And those are being carefully considered and reviewed. And once we have completed that process, we will then go through the final steps of the map production. The final – the last – second to the last step of our process is to issue what's known as a letter of final determination. That letter, Mr. Mayor, will go to you, and it will be the first time that you as a community know exactly when the new maps will become effective. So until that time, the schedule is a little flexible. But once we've pinned it down and issued the letter of final determination, that sets the schedule, and the maps will become effective exactly six months from the date of the letter of final determination. That six-month period is a period which is intended to be used by you, the community, to ensure that your local ordinances comply with any zone designations on the map, and it provides you with another opportunity to outreach to your citizens, if you so choose, and then also to ensure that any building that you have will be in compliance with the new maps once they become effective. And then if you so choose, we can also follow it up with a meeting to talk about actions and things you may want to do to reduce your coastal flood risk. So this is a proposed schedule. We again have closed the appeal period. We will be issuing the letter of final determination in the spring of next year, and then the maps are projected to go into effect. And I have in here September. I think at this point that schedule is also going to slip a little bit. It'll probably be closer to October or November. We have a number of resources that we have made. If you have any questions about the status of our study, we have a link, R9 Coastal. The R9 stands for Region 9, FEMA Region 9, r9coastal.org. And then for your citizens, we strongly encourage you to route them to the floodsmart.gov website. It's a really terrific site, specifically designed to answer citizen questions and to be a place where citizens can get information about insurance and their flood risk. I also want to commend Marin County. The MarinMap.org has created – has taken our digital data and incorporated that into the MarinMap.org layers. And you can go to your iPhone and see the new map and see the old map. And it's a really wonderful tool. So kudos to them. So I want to just close by saying that, you know, there's a lot of perspectives on the FEMA maps. And from my perspective – well, first of all, you know, one of the obligations that you have as city council is to protect your citizens from natural and man-made disasters. And so from my perspective, I see a beautiful young woman. I'm giving you this wonderful tool. We've spent a lot of money to develop it. We're very proud of it. And it has gone through a very rigorous quality assurance, quality process. But I also recognize that other people may see something else by looking at the maps, and that is true. They do come with some restrictions and some things that make giving the message. One of the things that we have found in our research and in our surveys is that the citizens of Sausalito expect to hear about their flood risk from you. They don't want to hear it from me. They don't want to hear it from your public works director. By and large, our studies have shown that they want to hear it directly from you. They also, while they look to websites and those kinds of things, they really do expect to hear about natural and man-made disasters from their elected officials. So I know that's a challenging thing to do when folks may not want to hear the news, but those are the – that's the story. So it's kind of hard to talk about floods on a drought, but Mother Nature, I think, will answer all our prayers at one time. And the other kind of talking point I have is that as we have done the studies and looked at the data from around the Bay, What we're finding is that if you think about the 1906 earthquake as being an earthquake that has a 1% chance, which is what the seismologists tell us, so it's a 1% chance event. The FEMA flood 1% chance is sort of our version of the big one. What we're finding is that if you look around the bay, when the flood version of the big one happens, Mother Nature is going to take back the land she occupied in 1930. So if you want to know where is it inundated, look at an aerial photo of the San Francisco Bay from 1930, And amazingly, our special flood hazard area boundary almost mirrors that boundary. So that's our story. So I'll be happy to entertain any questions that you may have. |
| 02:14:34.30 | Unknown | Thanks, Kathleen. Mm-hmm. |
| 02:14:36.71 | Kathleen Schaefer | Okay. |
| 02:14:36.96 | Unknown | Anybody? |
| 02:14:38.03 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:14:38.21 | Unknown | Have an E. |
| 02:14:38.80 | Unknown | Thank you. Questions? |
| 02:14:41.11 | Sybil Boutillier | Thank you. |
| 02:14:42.24 | Unknown | Kathy, thank you. And looking at the map there, and we note that in the downtown area that we go from a baseline of 9 to 10 feet, correct? And as you go closer to the Golden Gate, as you head south toward the Golden Gate, it was a little hard to see where you have the boundaries, but it looks like it goes to around 13. At our border, what would you call it at our border? |
| 02:15:09.60 | Kathleen Schaefer | I'm not sure if I know where your community border is, but... And I'm not... This white line is what we call a gutter line, and it's the dividing line between the 11 and the 13. So this is a little bit hard to tell because the scale, but that's roughly... |
| 02:15:09.77 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:15:33.01 | Unknown | All right. |
| 02:15:37.91 | Unknown | Well, Well, if you want to take that up. But I mean, we had seen other FEMA maps that took us from 10 to 17 at our border. And I just want to reconcile that. I mean, I can understand this. What would you talk about the wave action and such? And we were a little confused. And so maybe has there been a change or am I reading something wrong? Or maybe you can explain that. |
| 02:15:41.07 | Kathleen Schaefer | We'll be right back. |
| 02:15:59.50 | Kathleen Schaefer | I haven't looked at the I didn't look at the map right before I came, but I think that the 17 is closer to the San Francisco, to the Golden Gate. So this may have just chopped it off a bit. I think at the gate, it may be closer to 17. Thank you. |
| 02:16:19.55 | Unknown | We're looking at 17 at our border, which is actually still quite a ways from the gate. |
| 02:16:19.56 | Kathleen Schaefer | Thank you. |
| 02:16:23.53 | Kathleen Schaefer | Thank you. |
| 02:16:23.81 | Jonathon Goldman | I'm not. |
| 02:16:24.09 | Kathleen Schaefer | If I... |
| 02:16:24.22 | Unknown | It's a very good question. |
| 02:16:26.68 | Jonathon Goldman | Our border is there underneath the words preliminary data. Okay. So it didn't pick it up. The BE there is plus 13. Okay. Didn't pick it up. On the land side, as you go offshore, the BE there is 15. And I think it does increase the closer you get to the gate outside the city. Okay. |
| 02:16:31.16 | Kathleen Schaefer | Okay. So it didn't pick it up. |
| 02:16:48.18 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:16:48.33 | Jonathon Goldman | Thank you. |
| 02:16:48.35 | Unknown | Okay, so Jonathan, you want to talk about it? |
| 02:16:50.83 | John | So some feedback we've gotten from some people who have residential dwellings along the water. It's like, if I live at that gutter line you're calling it, |
| 02:16:50.97 | Jonathon Goldman | All right. |
| 02:17:02.86 | John | and the topography is not much different five feet this way from five feet that way. |
| 02:17:09.85 | Unknown | Why is there such a difference in the changes or? |
| 02:17:12.82 | John | are the requirements much more drastic, you know, 100 feet apart versus you would think it'd be a gradual transition of risk, you know, as you go through. |
| 02:17:27.84 | Kathleen Schaefer | Yeah. It has to do with the number of transects that we cut and the interpolation between the transects. We have... limited dollars, and we are doing this bay-wide. So we tried to do a representative and tried to be diligent about the number of transects. And so if someone wanted a finer resolution, one of the things that they could do is to make sure that they could have a better resolution We have the topographic data. They could hire an engineer. It takes some engineering, but it's not an undoable thing to cut some additional transects, and then that would give you a more gradual transition. |
| 02:18:28.84 | Unknown | Anybody else? I have one question before I open this up for public comment. Could you just clarify that the changes that are inherent in this new map, Am I right in saying that you're not factoring in, as you said, any sea level rise and so the changes that are occurring are due to methodological changes and using better technology. Is that correct? Because there's a lot of confusion around it. |
| 02:19:01.33 | Kathleen Schaefer | Is that? Yeah, that is correct, although, Interestingly, as part of an appeal that we received from the town of Tiburon, We went back and kind of looked more closely at the statistics and we find that the statistics that we've used are valid, and we're, at this point, not seeing any reason to change them. But what shows up in the data is that is, as I mentioned, we used the last 31 years of record, or we used 31 years of record in the last 40 years, kind of. And there has been a pronounced shift in the tide at Golden Gate in the last 50 years, and it's showing up in this 31 year of record. And so that's part of the answer. Certainly part of it is that we have better technology. Absolutely. And that's the brunt of the changes. The other part is the old study did not factor in the wave run-up, and that's what we – is really adding a bit of it. And then kind of the fact that we are sort of seeing in the history and the record a change in the last 50 years that is coming out in the record. |
| 02:20:34.26 | Unknown | Interesting. Okay, thanks. Let's open this for public comment. Is there any member of the public who would like to comment on this topic? Okay. |
| 02:20:47.74 | Jonathon Goldman | Please. And then I have one thing to add, if that's OK, Mr. |
| 02:20:57.95 | Diane Andrews | Hi, my name's Diane Andrews. I'm a resident here. I'm also a realtor. I have a couple of questions on that. I'm also a sailor, so Um, I was wondering when are these maps available for us to use? And with the wave action, I was wondering, about like with Belvedere, As the waves come in on the windward side here versus the other side, is there a difference in that map? And the same with Sausalito because as you come around the corner there, there's a difference there. |
| 02:21:41.03 | Kathleen Schaefer | factored in. So, again, the maps that I'm showing you today are available on the r9coastal.org website. They're also available by going to the marinmap.org website. And they will soon be available on the FEMA Map Service Center website. So there's a number of places you can get them. And I don't know if you can kind of see it here. You see a tip of Belvedere. You'll see that it has a VE of 13. That does reflect the different wave conditions and the different wind conditions that you encounter when you go from one side of the bay to the other. |
| 02:21:44.31 | Diane Andrews | So, again, |
| 02:22:35.91 | Kathleen Schaefer | Base flood elevations do change as you go around the bay to reflect the different wind, wave, and surge conditions. |
| 02:22:47.03 | Unknown | sir. |
| 02:22:47.33 | Jonathon Goldman | Thank you. While he's getting up, I will also mention that these maps are available from the city's website, and we have paper copies at the Community Development Public Works counter and also in the library. And if anyone has any trouble getting access to any of this information, just contact me, Jonathan Goldman, Public Works Director. |
| 02:23:15.23 | Unknown | Hi, I'm Robert May and I'm a resident of Sausalito and also a technology CEO and data geek. So this is really fascinating. I'll be frequenting the websites. I actually had a question as you were presenting, Kathleen, and it's a happy accident that I happened to be here and see this because I've been reading a bit of FEMA. And one thing that perhaps you could answer or someone else here who's qualified could answer is, so knowing the information that you've gathered and knowing the regulatory timeline here, what is the actual effect on homeowners with respect to requirements to conform with a new, is it base flood elevation? Is that the way to say it? So if, for example, I comply, I'm a homeowner, I comply today, but then the new regulations will throw me out of compliance, what happens? And if I'm out of compliance, if I'm in compliance today, but out of compliance with the new projected, whatever, September, October 2015 regulations, and I decide to do a development project or something, then what, under what guidelines or under what requirements am I doing my development project today as opposed to after September, October 2015? Thank you. |
| 02:24:38.10 | Kathleen Schaefer | So the building requirements are governed by the map, in effect, at the time you request your permit. So if you request a permit today, then the building requirements that your community will impose upon you are based upon this map that I'm showing you now with a base flood elevation of 9. And if you build your home in compliance with this map, then you are grandfathered in at the flood insurance rate associated with this map. So that's sort of the rate that you are charged. When the map changes, and if it goes from a 9 to a 10, then |
| 02:24:38.44 | Unknown | So, |
| 02:25:25.94 | Kathleen Schaefer | All right. And if you then decide that you want to do a major improvement, over 50% of the assessed value of your home, then you would be required to elevate your home to an elevation of actually 11, because here in California we require an extra foot of freeboard. And I think you have one foot of freeboard? Yeah. So you would be required to elevate it to 11. And again, anytime there's a map change and you build your home into compliance with the map at the time, you are grandfathered in at the flood insurance rate for the map that you built your home. So the concept is you did it in good faith. You shouldn't be penalized. We have a lot of questions. So the concept is you did it in good faith. You shouldn't be penalized. The other part, though, is that things are changing, and If you know today that the map is likely to be 11, or elevation 10, um, It may be prudent for you to build your home at Elevation 11. You don't have to. The city doesn't have to require you to, but you may choose to do so as a wise measure. And then you'll kind of be ahead of the game. That's sort of the concept. |
| 02:26:56.21 | Unknown | Mr. Mayor? |
| 02:26:56.71 | Unknown | Yeah, we still have public comment open. So is there any other member of the public who'd like to say anything? Sorry, I'll come back to my mic. |
| 02:26:57.13 | Kathleen Schaefer | . |
| 02:27:04.51 | Mike | Thank you. I'm a realtor also, and the issue that this gentleman you brought up is very interesting. Is the grandfather goes with the building or with the person who lives in the property? |
| 02:27:23.97 | Unknown | you Thank you. |
| 02:27:26.51 | Mike | Well, that's not true because what happened, I sold a piece of property in San Rafael, and it happened to be in a flood zone. And originally it was $1,800 for the flood insurance. And as soon as he bought it, it went to $6,000. And that's one of the problems right now in the market of the consumer. Right now, as soon as they want to get a loan from the institution, the flood insurance jacks up. Even the building, you don't change the building, the building where it is. So I am not quite convinced if you can answer that question. |
| 02:27:52.35 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 02:28:07.96 | Kathleen Schaefer | Let me just say that the insurance piece of this is very complicated, and I encourage if you have real questions to contact our insurance liaison, she can answer your specifics. It depends on the age of the home, and if the home is older than the first map that was issued by FEMA, then that situation can occur where |
| 02:28:24.33 | Alex Kacheff | you |
| 02:28:34.62 | Kathleen Schaefer | The home is not able to be grandfathered, but a new home that's newly constructed, can be grandfathered. So it's all very – the bottom line is that I really suggest that everyone contact their insurance agent for the details and the specifics. And if they have any questions, we have floodsmart.gov and our insurance liaison. With the recent passage of Biggert Waters and then the Homeowners' Affordability Act, there was a lot of changes and are a lot of changes, and it's really incumbent on the homeowner to really look at the situation for their Act, there was a lot of changes and are a lot of changes, and it's really incumbent on the homeowner to really look at the situation for their particular structure. |
| 02:29:14.08 | Unknown | Thanks. Is there anybody else who wants to say anything? Okay, I'm going to close public comment. I think you may have some more questions from up here. |
| 02:29:24.22 | John | I just wanted to ask, since he's standing there now, Jonathan, my understanding of part of this process is that The city actually conducted some outreach to to property owners that were in the proposed change of flood zone areas. |
| 02:29:43.59 | Jonathon Goldman | It's absolutely true. And in fact, Kathy mentioned the regional coordination that Marin County did with FEMA in getting the word out that things were changing and giving members of the public the opportunity to come to a workshop, hear about what was changing and why, and ask questions. we did here was created a mailing list, not just for everyone in the 1% annual exceedance area, but the 500-year floodplain. And I did that because it's those folks who I think as time goes on, first of all, the definition of a special flood hazard area is a foot or more of water. So implicitly, somebody can be someplace where there's six or eight inches of water, and they are going to feel just as flooded as somebody with a foot or more of water. In addition, those 500-year floodplain areas, and to some extent those are visible here as the kind of golden shaded areas, those folks are at risk from climate change. And as time goes on, I don't know how frequently in the future FEMA will be able to update the maps, but assuming that sea level does in fact rise, what's 500-year floodplain now has the distinct potential to be 100-year floodplain within our lifetimes. And you may have other questions, but one of the reasons, one of the things that I wanted to say in the context that you asked the earlier question is if you or I are considering a significant investment in a piece of property that we own, whether it's a commercial property or a house, and we're splitting hairs about whether it's 13 or 12, the fact is that I don't think we're doing a good job of managing our investment. A long-term investment here, a 30 to 50-year investment, we want to think about what our risks are during the entire life cycle of that investment. So if I know that I have to elevate my house or elevate something to protect it from flooding, the incremental cost to elevate it, you know, one to two feet is very, very small. So the information that we have available even before this map becomes effective is of great value to our community for people deciding about significant investments. And I think that's our responsibility as a community is to take advantage of that information and make sure that we protect our investments and protect our community that way. |
| 02:31:17.30 | Alex Kacheff | MR. |
| 02:32:37.27 | Unknown | Mr. Mayor, I have a question. So in response to the gentleman who asked a question, the resident regarding the grandfathering in of the elevation, et cetera. My question is, how often do you... recalibrate these elevations and study this. |
| 02:32:54.36 | Kathleen Schaefer | Well, the last time we did it was 1980, so I don't anticipate that we'll be doing it for a long time. Thank you. Thank you. |
| 02:33:02.19 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:33:02.71 | Kathleen Schaefer | you |
| 02:33:05.87 | Unknown | Any other questions or comments? So my only comment is to thank you very much. |
| 02:33:12.99 | Unknown | Thank you for the opportunity. |
| 02:33:20.08 | Unknown | All right. |
| 02:33:25.19 | Unknown | So our next topic is item 5, public hearing, item 5A. And I believe Council Member Leon is going to recuse himself on this matter. |
| 02:33:42.54 | John | Right, by state law, if you live within 500 feet and you're on the decision-making body, you have to recuse yourself. And I live within 500 feet of a hollow property, so I have to recuse myself. Thank you. |
| 02:34:01.93 | Unknown | Thank you. OK, so this is the public hearing on the Valhalla residential condominiums. |
| 02:34:15.56 | Unknown | Mr. Mayor, if I may, regarding the recusing, it didn't even occur to me. I'm not within that at Tugula at my address. I think I'm about two blocks away. |
| 02:34:28.02 | Jeremy Graves | I have, I don't. |
| 02:34:30.31 | Unknown | I'm sorry, I just didn't... |
| 02:34:30.36 | Jeremy Graves | I'm sorry, I just didn't... Thank you. |
| 02:34:32.27 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:34:32.34 | Jeremy Graves | Thank you. |
| 02:34:32.35 | Unknown | Yeah, I'm fine. Okay, good. I just wanted to double check. |
| 02:34:32.64 | Jeremy Graves | Thank you. |
| 02:34:32.67 | Unknown | Yeah, I'm fine. I just wanted to double check. Yeah, yeah, I think so. I think they checked it. |
| 02:34:38.85 | Unknown | Oh, you checked it. Okay, thank you. |
| 02:34:38.89 | Unknown | Thank you. Thank you. I checked it. Okay. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Yeah, I think so. Okay, so... I believe... |
| 02:34:52.50 | Unknown | that we are in the very capable hands of our Community Development Director, Jeremy Graves, to kick us off here. |
| 02:35:06.39 | Jeremy Graves | Good evening, council members. Let's see, let's get to the beginning here. So our presentation this evening is on the Valhalla Residential Condominium Project. And the presentation I have tonight is basically divided into three headings. The first I'll be providing a very broad overview of the project and a summary. And then the next component will be I'll cover the project's environmental review and then get into the project's entitlements or its permits. |
| 02:35:24.65 | Alex Kacheff | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 02:35:46.66 | Jeremy Graves | some of which have already been taken care of by the Planning Commission and some of which are in front of you this evening. So let's first establish some terminology that I will be using this evening. The Valhalla, for analytical purposes, we've divided the Valhalla site into two components. The first is what we call the single-family residential site. It involves a single-family residence at 206 2nd Street. And then the second is the Valhalla site, which is addressed as 201 Bridgeway, but also has frontages along Main Street and 2nd Street, as well as the Bridgeway Boardwalk running along the Bayfront. |
| 02:36:27.97 | Alex Kacheff | Yeah. |
| 02:36:35.61 | Jeremy Graves | The applicant, Dr. Alex Kacheff, has different components for each of these sites. The Valhalla site itself, we have the existing Valhalla structure, and that will be reconfigured, rebuilt to have two buildings where the existing Valhalla site is today. One will be a two-unit residential complex, and the second will be a five-unit residential complex. The Valhalla structure that we all think of, the taller component, is in the five-unit portion of the building. Also, there will be new garages constructed where the existing parking lot is today. And then there will be two open parking, those will accommodate 12 vehicles, the garages, and then there will be two open parking spaces. Another component of the project is to divide the Valhalla site into seven condominium units plus the parking lot and common area. Moving over to the single family residential site, the improvements show a new garage and parking spaces on that site, as well as that site being split off from the Valhalla site. The project also includes several components in the public right of way. These are the primary, one of the ones that will provide the most benefit will be a new accessible switchback ramp at the foot of Main Street down to the beach at Swedes Beach. Then also will be a reconstruction of the Main Street boardwalk along the Main Street frontage of the Valhalla building. and then improvements will be made to the Bridgeway Boardwalk a 2nd Street bus pullout, and then a ramp going between the west end of the Main Street boardwalk where it meets the sidewalk, and that ramp will allow disabled individuals to drop down to Main Street. Moving over to the second broad topic we'll be talking about tonight, the project's environmental review. In the big picture for the environmental review, there are two documents which have been prepared for the project's environmental review. We initially started off with one environmental review that was the project's initial environmental study mitig mitigated negative declaration. That was released for public review on April 1st. It went through a 44-day public review period, which concluded in the middle of May. Comments that were submitted during that comment period were responded to, and a final draft dated June 18th was published. However, that seemed to coincide with the applicant deciding that they would also like to have a variance for the |
| 02:38:46.36 | Alex Kacheff | Thank you. |
| 02:38:46.54 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:38:46.58 | Alex Kacheff | in the future. |
| 02:39:35.89 | Jeremy Graves | from the city's floodplain regulations for the Main Street boardwalk. And the city's environmental consultant, PlaceWorks, working with consultation with city staff, determined that a supplemental environmental review would be needed because of that variance. And so the second document, the supplement, was prepared. That also went through a public review period, 30 days. That public review period concluded on September 10th. One week later, the consultant had prepared the responses to all the comments received during that comment period. And then the Planning Commission on September 17th took the two documents and collectively approved those documents as the project's environmental review, subject to confirmation by the City Council. And so collectively these two documents, the issue, the environmental issues that were identified as potentially having significant environmental impacts are listed on the screen, air quality, biological resources, cultural resources, geology, hazards, hydrology. Hydrology is the environmental review word for flooding, which we are all experts on, and then of course, noise. With those seven environmental resources, all of the, any of the impacts were identified. Mitigation measures were also identified with those, and with the imposition of those mitigation measures, those impacts were mitigated to a level of less than significant. images of the two documents we'll be asking you tonight to approve as the project's environmental review the document dated June 18th as well as September 18th. And so in conclusion, the staff's recommendation is for the council to adopt the draft resolution in the first of your packets. I believe that's packet attachment 5 or attachment 4 in and item number 5A1. And so that concludes the environmental review. Moving on to the entitlements or the project's permits. As I mentioned, the Planning Commission took action. On September 17th, it took action, final action on three of these entitlements. The Commission's action on those entitlements is allowed by the respective regulations in the municipal code, the design review permit, condominium conversion permit, the responsibility for those actions is delegated to the Planning Commission unless there's an appeal. And then with the tentative subdivision map, that is also delegated to the Planning Commission absent an appeal. The Planning Commission also made recommendations on the five additional entitlements, recommendations to the City Council, and those recommendations were approval, in some cases subject to conditions of approval. And those were the general plan amendment, zoning map amendments, plan development permit, encroachment agreement, and floodplain variants, which I'll be going into a little more detail. So the first of these entitlement actions that we're asking for the council to take action on tonight is the general plan amendment. And so we have diagrams here of the existing general plan map designations on the left and the proposed on the right. So the project site is outlined here in the bold black dots. And as you can see, the Valhalla site's current general plan designation is neighborhood commercial, while the single-family residential site is high-density residential. The proposed general plan amendment would make the entire project site high-density residential. And, of course, as you can see, that high-density residential designation would be consistent with the designations of the parcels to the north and the south of the project site. This image has additional information on the permitted land uses under today's neighborhood commercial and tomorrow's high-density residential. The residential, of course, is only for residential purposes where the existing commercial allows commercial uses with residential above the ground floor. Staff is in support of this general plan amendment for consistency with the adjacent land uses and the adjacent land use designations, as I've already outlined. Ironically, the amendment of this designation would bring it back to its designation. It had pre-1978 when the Valhalla was a restaurant, and the council at that time had approved a change in the land use designation for the Valhalla site from high density residential over to commercial. Now essentially what we're doing is talking about restoring it to its prior 1978 designation. We also in the intervening years we've seen that the site has not proved to have a long termterm viability for commercial uses. Restaurants have come and gone. The site has been vacant for the last five-plus years. The neighborhood impacts from a residential development are lower than a commercial development, pertaining pertaining to traffic and noise. And then, of course, converting this site from commercial over to residential would increase our housing supply, and that would be consistent with our housing element. So it's for these reasons that the Planning Commission and staff recommend the council approve the general plan amendment. Moving on to the zoning map amendment, the designations on the left are comparable to the general plan designations. The difference with the proposed designation on the right is that we are adding a plan development overlay, the crosshatched overlay onto the proposed base zoning designation of high-density residential R3. So this PD overlay does provide some flexibility for the project in how it complies with the development standards. And so we'll be talking about that more in a moment. These are the respective development standards that apply in the current commercial zoning designation for the property as well as the proposed residential. The allowed uses are basically comparable to what I described for the general plan. The density is the same, both as the density, the maximum density, the number of units one can provide per square foot of land area is identical under the existing commercial and the proposed residential. However on the floor area ratio or FAR, the existing commercial has a maximum floor area of.5 whereas the proposed residential is.8 And I'll be talking a little bit more about that in a moment. The building coverage is less under the residential, 50 percent, than is allowed under the current commercial of 70 percent. Impervious surface does not have a standard for commercial, but it does have a 75 percent maximum impervious surface for the residential, and the height is the same at 32 feet under both zoning designations. |
| 02:47:41.53 | Jeremy Graves | I mentioned the project sites FAR, and that comes into importance due to the fair traffic initiative which, as the council was aware, was approved by the voters in 1985. Its purpose is to reduce increases in automobile traffic generated by new development in the commercial and industrial zoning districts. How it applies to this particular project is that the change in zoning designations from commercial to residential would establish a higher FAR, in other words, allow more development on the site under the proposed residential zoning designation of R3. In recognition of this, the discussions between the applicant and staff, it was proposed that a plan development overlay with its associated plan development permit could be used to address this issue. |
| 02:48:29.10 | Alex Kacheff | Go ahead. |
| 02:48:44.36 | Jeremy Graves | I'm going to take a step aside for a little bit. This is for the – to explain the plan development overlay process and plan development permit process. This ironically is the first time in the city that we've had a plan development overlay project proposed for a particular piece of property. We've had the option for at least since 2003. but it seemed to really be a good fit for this particular project. So what the plan development overlay does, it's an overlay zoning district comparable to the historic overlay zoning district that we have in the downtown, but in this particular situation, it allows for some flexibility in the application of the development standards. And then there's associated with every plan development overlay district is a plan development permit, and that is in front of you also this evening. The plan development permit essentially establishes what the exceptions are to the development standards that would be allowed for this particular project within this particular plan development overlay district. So that's the background on planned development overlay districts and PD permits. Now applying it to the particular project we have here, one of the conditions that is proposed and has been integrated into the conditions of approval for this project is to establish, to pull back that.8 FAR to.5 FAR for this project site. And that pullback, that restriction would be memorialized through by being recorded against the property and kept up at the county recorder's office. So any future buyer of this property, when they get their title report becomes aware that there's an embedded restriction on this particular piece of property restricting the FAR at.5 which is what the FAR is currently under the commercial zoning designation. And therefore, the proposed zone change would maintain consistency with the fair traffic initiative. Now, there's some additional deviations from the development standards, and I'd like to go through those now. These are also identified in the plan development for the project. So the first of these is, so this is right on the borderline. So here we have the single-family residential site, the garage that is for the project, and the deviation that is identified in this area is a garage and a roof deck that is part of the single-family residential structure, and it would encroach into the side yard setback along the common property line between the two parcels. The next deviation is to allow this building. This is units five and six of the Valhalla site to encroach into the side yard setback along the common property line with the adjoining parcel. Once again, the garages for the Valhalla site would encroach into the side yard setback. And this is necessary in order to have enough room to park all the cars that need to be parked for the site. And so the planning commission and staff looked at this closely and felt this was a good tradeoff, an allowance to provide for the property. What we have outlined in red here represents the height increase for the Valhalla building itself. It is currently at 43 feet in excess of the 32-foot maximum building height allowed for new structures, and so this is documenting that the Valhalla, the part of the structure that we all appreciate, can continue to have its identifiable roof form. |
| 02:53:07.44 | Jeremy Graves | This box up at the northwest corner of the site is to allow the trash enclosure to encroach 6 1⁄2 feet into the special setback along 2nd Street. And then the next two boxes represent the modified parking stall standard that is proposed for the site. The standard that's proposed is a parking stall that is 8.5 feet wide and 18 feet long. This is the standard that Marin County uses for its parking standards. It's 6 inches narrower than the city standard and 1 foot shorter than the city standard. But from the staff perspective, it's something that we have mentioned at legislative committee meetings as part of the update as an option that staff recommends the city should look at. And this is a situation where it happens to serve the project well and staff is in support of this |
| 02:53:23.03 | Alex Kacheff | uh, |
| 02:54:13.33 | Jeremy Graves | These are some additional deviations from the standard project requirements that didn't fit quite so well on the map. the first of these Thank you. is the north, the setback on the north side of the single family residence. What we see here is the setback that is required in that area is to be 6 feet 3 inches. The project is built right up to the property line. So in essence, the two-car garage and roof deck encroach into the north side yard setback 6 feet 3 inches. The second is to allow the project to voluntarily demolish 68 percent of the nonconforming exterior walls of the Valhalla structure. That is needed to do in order to be able – that's obviously mandatory in order to be able to reconfigure the Valhalla structure. That is needed to do in order to be able to, that's obviously mandatory in order to be able to reconfigure the Valhalla structure as proposed. The building coverage for the Valhalla site would exceed the maximum building coverage by 5.8 percent and for the single family site would exceed the maximum 50 percent building coverage by 0.8% impervious surface. Once again exceeds the 75% maximum. We've put in here the floor area ratio. This is the reference to the deed restriction that I mentioned a moment ago to satisfy the Fair Traffic Initiative requirements. And then the last item is the fence heights. Our standard fence height allowed is six feet, but the planning commission recommended. embraced a request by the applicant and the adjoining neighbor to allow the fence heights in that area to a range between 9 feet and 12 feet in height. One other, as long as we're on the deviations, one thing I want to bring to your attention is a yellow sheet that is distributed at the council dais, and copies are also over on the table by the door here. These are some minor cleanups that came to our attention after the staff report was published. These do involve some of the analysis for the development standards as well as minor cleanups for the deviations that are referenced in the attachment to the Thank you. Thank you. TO THE RESOLUTION. STAFF FEELS VERY COMFORTABLE WITH THESE AND THE APPLICANT DOES ALSO. AND SO OUR RECOMMENDATION TONIGHT, IF YOU MOVE FORWARD WITH THE with the resolution for approval is to include these modifications in that. |
| 02:57:13.66 | Jeremy Graves | So in conclusion, on the plan development overlay and the PD permit, the staff concludes that the project is very well designed. It minimizes impacts on neighborhoods. On the neighborhood, the project would rehabilitate a historically significant structure. It's consistent with the findings, and the Planning Commission and staff support approval of the plan development overlay district and plan development permit. The design review permit was approved by the Planning Commission, but there, as part of its approvals, there is some, was, is the opportunity to brief the council on some discussion that took place between members of the public, the commission, the applicant, and staff. And three topics I want to briefly touch upon are historic preservation views and the building or the bus pullout. So with the historic preservation, this site is outside of the downtown historic overlay district and also is not located on the local historic register. However, it does – it's a fascinating and attractive site. AS PART OF THE APPLICATION FOR THE for the project, the applicant retained an architectural historian who prepared a detailed study of the site And then as part of the project's environmental review by PlaceWorks, the PlaceWorks had its own architectural historian prepare an architectural historical resources evaluation of the site. Both of these studies concluded that the site was not eligible for the state historic register. However, they concluded that it was a potentially locally historic structure, and on the basis of these studies and the HLB concluded that the Valhalla structure itself was historically significant, although the single family residence was not. So then the HLB was using its abilities under its powers under the 50-year review process and examined the applicant's design for the project and determined that the design was consistent with the Secretary of Interior Standards and made recommendations on these five components that are listed under the June 25th bullet on the image here. And the applicant integrated all of those into their architectural design, and they became part of the design that was approved by the Planning Commission as part of the design review permit. with regard to views and protection of private views. The owners, two homes adjacent to the second family residential site, the owners of 208 Second and 210 Second Street objected to impairment of their views. This is one of the benefits of the story polls, and there was a lot of discussion and testimony at Planning Commission hearings. Photographs were evaluated. Site visits were conducted by the Planning Commission, and the applicant, the architect, and applicants' architects, plus the owners of 208 second and 210 second and their representatives, their architect got together and were able to work out some compromises whereby the two unit structure of the Valhalla was lowered in some areas and the condition of approval was imposed upon the project that is in the conditions of approval in your resolution tonight that the onsite landscaping be maintained to a level which would not impair views. This image here briefly shows the Unit 6 and Unit 5 structures. You can see the Unit 5 structure here was lowered slightly over three feet to accommodate the concerns of 210 and 208 Second Street residents. Moving over to the bus pullout, numerous residents testified as to the need to have a bus pullout at the – on the project's frontage at the corner of 2nd Street and Main Street. And the applicant in response to these requests from the public offered to construct a bus pullout in that area to ensure that the bus pullout satisfied city needs as well as the needs of the transit district. Staff imposed conditions on the project which once again are in your resolution that the applicant must design the bus pullout, the design must be, must have a sign off both from the transit district as well as the city engineer and that the applicant must transfer the property of the bus pullout to the city. Here we see a diagram of the bus pullout. This is a bus parked in the pullout here. These are the garage structures and so the sidewalk has a jog in it as it wraps around the bus pullout. This is a schematic, but the conditions of approval have been applied and all parties have embraced those conditions of approval. condominium conversion permit was approved by the Planning Commission. These are the considerations that the Planning Commission took into account when in approval of that. Also the Planning Commission recommended City Council approval of an encroachment agreement for the improvements which are listed there, improvements in the public right-of-way. I've already mentioned the Main Street and Bridgeway boardwalks, the public access at the foot of main street and the accessible ramp. The applicant is proposing to locate a transformer for the project on the south side of main street in the vicinity of where the pump station is for the Sausalito Maroon City's sanitation district, and then access driveways, and then a small cornice on the Bajala building that slightly intrudes into the Main Street right-of-way. The Planning Commission also approved the subdivision map, which created the condominiums and separated the single-family residents from the project site. Moving over now to another approval that is needed by the council tonight. This pertains to the Main Street Boardwalk. As I mentioned earlier, in June the applicant requested a variance for the Main Street Boardwalk to allow the elevation of the Main Street Boardwalk to, well, it's a variance from the elevation requirements of the city's floodplain management regulations. The applicant's technicians prepared several technical studies which were subsequently reviewed by engineering staff, and engineering staff determined that those studies provide the basis for the City Council to make the findings for approval of the variance from the floodplain management regulation elevation requirements. We have added a condition of approval that that Main Street boardwalk maintained consistency with the guidelines of the Americans with Disabilities Act as well as the accessibility requirements of the California Building Code. Several then later in the summer, the applicant also, they amended their floodplain variance application to add the bridgeway boardwalk and submitted additional studies. And the engineering staff has determined that those studies once again provide the basis for the council to make the required findings for approval of the variance for the floodplain elevation for the bridgeway boardwalk. And once again, the conditions of approval have been added to this, to the bridgeway boardwalk to ensure that the bridgeway or that the boardwalk deck and railings comply with the ADA requirements. And this is the only additional work that is required by the conditions of approval for the bridgeway boardwalk. So in conclusion, the staff recommendation is that the council take three actions tonight. The first of those is to approve the resolution approving the final two documents. Two documents we have here, the June document as well as the September document for the environmental review. Second, to approve the resolution which is part of your packet. That's resolution or attachment number 15 in the entitlement staff report. That's a resolution approving the general plan amendment, plan development permit, floodplain variance, and encroachment agreement for the project. The third action is to review and introduce a zoning ordinance amendment. Zoning ordinance – zoning map changes are by ordinance rather than resolutions, so that's a two-step process, the first of which we are recommending you take tonight, and the action is identified there to introduce the ordinance. And then, of course, after the ordinance is introduced, it takes a second reading, and we're recommending that that would occur at your November 11th That concludes our presentation. the ordinance. And then, of course, after the ordinance is introduced, it takes a second reading and we're recommending that that would occur at your November 11th meeting. That concludes the staff report. I've had great assistance from City Attorney Mary Wagner and Public Works Director Jonathan Goldman, and we are available for questions. |
| 03:07:31.30 | Unknown | Should we hear from the applicant really before digging into questions, because there's probably going to be the same subject matter is going to be covered. |
| 03:07:40.95 | Jeremy Graves | I think the applicant has a very comprehensive presentation, so there might be value in that. |
| 03:07:43.39 | Unknown | Right. Right. Okay. So why don't we move right along then to the applicant's presentation and Michael Rex. |
| 03:07:54.96 | Jonathon Goldman | THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 03:08:13.67 | Michael Rex | Yeah, I'm looking for our PowerPoint here. |
| 03:08:13.86 | Unknown | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 03:08:17.24 | Michael Rex | it. was here earlier. |
| 03:08:20.86 | Mary Wagner | you |
| 03:08:21.79 | Michael Rex | No, they said it was right here. Let's go to the desktop. Can we go to the desktop? There you go. And that's it. Okay, hang on here. Yeah, I see. And that one. |
| 03:08:42.19 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:08:42.21 | Michael Rex | THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 03:08:42.58 | Unknown | . |
| 03:08:42.75 | Michael Rex | Thank you. Michael Rex, Project Architect, and I'm here with the property owners, Dr. Alex Kacheff and his wife, Hania. I, uh, I want to start out with thank you. to Alex and Hania and his parents. Alex said, has hung in there all the way through, and he's chosen to be solution-oriented. He never gave up. We've actually been at this three years now, a year and a half on this particular application. I also want to thank the city. city staff, PlaceWorks, and the very complicated application. I particularly want to thank Jeremy Graves, who's taken this on personally, and Mary Wagner and Jonathan Goldman. We couldn't have gotten this far without their careful guidance. And I want to thank the many neighbors who've hung in there with us, who worked hard to resolve issues we've had in a very cooperative way. And I want to thank the many neighbors who've hung in there with us, who worked hard to resolve issues we've had in a very cooperative and amiable way. It's not always that way. And I particularly want to thank David Thomas, Phil Nicholson, and Greg Butler. And last, the supporters who came to many hearings, who stood up and spoke and wrote letters. So anyway, I'm gonna start here. Um, I'm primarily going to hit the high points. Here we go. Yeah, the project's fully vetted. We've been at it a year and a half just with this application. We've had two public neighborhood workshops. I thought it felt like about two dozen public hearings, but according to Jeremy, this is only our 19th hearing. Fully IRS, he explained, and we went over the neighbor's support, so we came a long way from the graffiti you may remember painted on the wall. Um. And, Here's what we're not proposing, no restaurant. After Sally's business closed, three other restaurants opened and closed. The place is really just too remote for foot traffic and it's there's too little parking to become a destination. So it worked for Sally, never worked for anybody else. We're not proposing an office, which was approved by the previous owner, which we know creates peak hour traffic. And we're not proposing low-income housing that had been suggested in the last round of the housing element. What we are proposing is seven residential units. And that's a big change from a 200-seat restaurant, full bar, banquet facilities. We've determined that this is the only financially viable sustainable use for this property. We think it's the only and right answer. It's consistent with all the zoning that's surrounded. That change to CN Work for Sally. never worked for anyone else. It's going to limit the floor area to that CN zone, even though we're going to be in an R zone. That'd be in perpetuity with the deed restriction unless his owning ever changed. So in a nutshell, it's the lowest intensity use we can imagine for this building. It's going to be quiet. and have the lowest impact on the neighborhood. When it comes to traffic and parking, the numbers are staggering. A 70% reduction in daily trips. When Sally was in full operation, according to the coach, she should have had 500, there would be 572 trips a day. That's right out of our traffic study. We're going to have 41. So less traffic impact. And the parking, another staggering number. Sally should have parked 122 cars on her property. No wonder there was parking problems in the neighborhood. during those banquets and when the restaurant was in its heyday. For the first time ever, this property will have all the parking it's supposed to have required by code. And they're going to, be more parking in the neighborhood. We talked about historic preservation. The voilhalla is what it first looked like when it was built in 1870. 93. Actually this This part of the veranda, these three bays were added later. It started with just these three. That's why the flagpole's only here, not there. You can see we're not replicating it, but we're trying to honor that tradition. The bank facility came later. Sally built that. We're not going to really change that building except we're taking the entire front of the the building, moving it back, and creating open verandas on the bay side. And so we're gonna restore this empty and deteriorating building. Rain pours through the roof. Bearing walls have been removed by a previous owner and the roof was collapsing. It's in terrible shape. That's why we have to remove so much of it. A lot of what we're removing is not historic, as determined by a historic architect. And it's not considered a historic building officially because there's so little left to the original building. What is left for keeping. And we were guided from day one. We had that historic report before we started planning this project. And it clearly enhances the neighborhood. In fact, I think it's going to be beautiful. I put in front Just thought you might like to see the color board. Let me set this down. |
| 03:14:25.97 | Michael Rex | I'm not sure. |
| 03:14:38.21 | Michael Rex | We're. Thank you. Ah, OK. Thank you. I'm going to walk up so you can see this. We're going to replace the shingles with the original siding, this horizontal siding. All the decking will be a weathered cedar. This is roof color. It will be planted with lavender flowers, wisteria vines. We have, here's the lavender. We have a Boston ivy that will change colors in the fall. It's going to be this bright white, fresh, a sparkling building. |
| 03:15:23.35 | Michael Rex | put this down. |
| 03:15:24.22 | Alex Kacheff | Yeah. |
| 03:15:29.98 | Michael Rex | Yeah. |
| 03:15:34.08 | Michael Rex | Okay. Let's go to the next. Housing by adding seven units. We're going to help the city with the arena numbers And they're not all the same. There's one with one bedroom, one with three bedrooms. The units vary in size significantly. So there'll be a range of values also. On the bus pullout, we actually, in the drawing packet, you don't see these drawings that Jeremy showed and I have here. because it hasn't been determined exactly what that bus fallout configuration should be. But the condition of approval is that we will plan what's acceptable to the city and the transit authorities. This shows a full bus pullout where you still have a full travel lane heading north, but it means the bike lane right here has to be abandoned across the street, which has, It appears not to be necessary. That bike lane was put in just about a year, a little over a year ago. and it's on the west side, so bikes can They go slow going up the hill. But actually, this part of Second Street is going downhill. so we probably could remove that bike lane on that side. and accommodate an entire bus pullout. That's the largest bus the British District has. And the trash enclosure won't compete with that or conflict with it. So we'll probably be leasing that 10 feet of land. I don't think it gets deeded to the city, but we will plan it and build it. For the first time, we'll have a bus pull out. Um, this is the main trees on to show you we're gonna plan around the perimeter and and and the vine know that to will screen the garage buildings. The planning commission wanted these gates lowered and the lattice, they were solid panels. They want to look through it, so it'll have big openings in the lattice. So we're not gonna wall off the place. You can look into it. We added more hedges. We articulated the roofs. All these changes came from the review process. And we ended up with a better looking project. Um, Jeremy talked about the main street boardwalk. I don't know if you realize it goes up and then back down. And it went up to get to the front door because this was Sally's front door. Well, that door's gone. In fact, we're removing access from the Valhalla to both the Bridgeway Boardwalk and Main Street. What we're proposing is that we run at level with the highest end of the Bridgeway Boardwalk. And the bottom framing will be a foot above the current map, which is nine. The bottom of the frame will be at 10. And we're asking for a variance from 13. But what we did is we hired the best and brightest engineers that calculated the wave force, the run-up wave force, during that 100-year storm at 13 feet. And this boardwalk, we submitted details that it will be built to resist those forces, and that's the basis for the variance. And the good news about not only will it look better level, but when you walk along the Main Street down the beach, you don't have to look underneath at the superstructure. And for ADA, it's more convenient without the slopes. Bridgeway Boardwalk, this is at the 10. That's the floodplain here. Um, But then it drops down, and it's actually below the floodplain. Um, We're asked for a variance not to raise this. It'd have to go up. For 13, this would go up 3 feet. This would go up 4 1⁄2 feet all the way across, and then it'd have to be raised further down as well. And if that ever happens, we've agreed to pay a fair share if that's part of the community's goal and all the neighbors pitch in. But in the interim, also you should know this is – we had a structural engineer look at this. It was nearly completely rebuilt in 1996 by the city. We have all those drawings. We had an engineer study those drawings, and we had an engineer calculate the forces that would be on the Bridgeway Board Law. So – and our engineers concluded that if it needed to be raised or strengthened, it certainly could be. But at the moment, it's found to be safe. So that's, again, the reason for the variance. However – and in fact, we don't really need the variance except that – because the law will have a – a permit we expect before the maps change, But because, as Jonathan explained, it's anticipated that the maps are going to change, that the variance covers that anticipated revision. Um, We are going to do some work on it, though, besides the engineering studies I mentioned. We're going to replace all the decking. We had an ADA expert look at it, and they said the gaps are too far apart on the boards, and they're badly worn. And we think the railings are fine, but if they need upgrade for access standards, we'll do that as well. We also proposed for the first time access to Sweets Beach with a series of stone-clad ramps at the foot of Main Street, so everybody can now get down to Sweets Beach in a safe manner, including those in a wheelchair. And we're also proposing landscaping to screen portions of the Sanitary District's pump station. So, The sanitary district has in the last year opened Main Street, so you can now walk all the way down to the bottom of the street, and now you can go further and once this is built and get to the beach. Um, Here you see the Main Street boardwalk. It leveled with the Bridgeway boardwalk without the hump. And we're proposing a white railing here because you really see it against the Valhalla more so than you do against the Bridgeway Board wall. And here's the Main Street Boardwalk. This is a ramp. We're going to bring people down onto Main Street. If you're on the boardwalk, you can get here without going out into the street or driveways. And a wheelchair can roll down here, down the series of switchback ramps to get to the beach. This portion of the street is a little bit steeper than ADA, so we're not characterizing that is actually a the a compliant uh... This portion of the street is a little bit steeper than ADA, so we're not characterizing that as actually ADA compliant, but you'd have to tear up the whole street to do that, and it's full of equipment from the sanitary district. It's not really that steep, and the wheelchair should be able to handle it, and it's out of traffic. We're also going to provide ADA access signage, and we're going to provide a new signpost here to announce the boardwalk to the public. Not a big sign, but BCDC requires that that public access feature be visible. So this will be the end result, and we're I just want to mention that Alex has a few comments that he likes to offer, and then I'm available for questions. Thank you. |
| 03:23:30.29 | Unknown | Okay. Um... |
| 03:23:36.10 | Unknown | Let's try and figure out how to do questions here, because there's a lot of topics, a lot of moving parts. So the sensible thing would be, well, maybe not the sensible thing, but at least it would seem to me a reasonable thing, is that we direct any questions to either staff or to the applicant around the environmental review and then any of the entitlements. You know, it may all get mixed up in the end, but let's try and figure out if there's any clarifying questions we need of staff or of the applicant before we open this up for public comment so who if anybody has any |
| 03:24:27.02 | Unknown | questions. Mr. Jose. I've reviewed the entire Planning Commission tapes and reviewed the documents. I spent quite a bit of time with staff where I had clarifying questions and made a site vision. And with these excellent presentations, I don't have any questions at the moment, although I want to reserve my ability to ask questions after I get public comment. . |
| 03:24:50.33 | Unknown | Yeah, I think that's |
| 03:24:51.14 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:24:51.26 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:24:54.31 | Unknown | Yeah, thank you, Mr. Mayor. So I do have some questions for the applicant. So this looks lovely, Michael. It looks very nice. And I just have a couple questions. I was also happy to see a lot of support in the community for a lot of the letters. I thought that was very nice. I did get some input from a few residents before I came here, so that's where I'm going with my questions. Also, with respect to the support in the community. I don't think the support is like unconditional. I think there are assumptions they're making regarding the property with respect to views, the boardwalk, the switchback. the bus turnout. And so that's really where my questions are. So first with views. I know in the beginning I've heard that the view issues were mitigated, but I guess I have two questions. One is, was the mitigation both structural and landscape, and are they baked into the conditions of the buildings? |
| 03:26:07.89 | Michael Rex | the middle. |
| 03:26:08.70 | Unknown | In other words, trees can grow up and, you know, abstract view corridors and the like. And, you know, is that... Has that been resolved or any issues like that? |
| 03:26:19.30 | Michael Rex | There are conditions of approval to regulate some of the landscaping, specifically hedges. |
| 03:26:19.31 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:26:28.32 | Michael Rex | There's a hedge between 208 and 206 that can't get higher than 12 feet because that would start blocking some city views from 208 and 210. Oak trees won't be higher than the roof lines. There was some question about planting on the deck, on the roof deck. We've agreed to limit the height of those plantings. The staff had some concern about to the extent they wanted that to be a conditional approval because they thought it could get into undue management from the city. So there's understandings between the property owners on those. |
| 03:27:19.07 | Unknown | on the |
| 03:27:20.28 | Michael Rex | on roof deck planting. |
| 03:27:21.67 | Unknown | the roof deck planting, and what are those understandings? Are they documented as part of the project? |
| 03:27:22.75 | Michael Rex | Right. on. I don't believe in Jeremy. I don't think that made it in the conditions. We agreed to have him in the conditions, but staff had concern about that. |
| 03:27:38.89 | Jeremy Graves | Am I correct? I think maybe I can clarify this. So I'm looking at attachment 15. It's the draft resolution for the council's action tonight. And I'll wait until everyone catches up with me. Attachment 15, page 20 of 23. |
| 03:28:13.66 | Jeremy Graves | And I'm looking at condition 61. |
| 03:28:19.44 | Unknown | I've got the wrong document opened. Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. |
| 03:28:22.35 | Alex Kacheff | Yeah. |
| 03:28:28.30 | Unknown | There's so many documents here. |
| 03:28:32.32 | Jeremy Graves | I'll wait till you're ready. |
| 03:28:47.73 | Unknown | I'm getting close. I'm at 14. So why is my, I've got, I go from 14 to 17. |
| 03:28:56.30 | Unknown | Thank you. Yeah. |
| 03:28:58.24 | Unknown | Other, yeah. |
| 03:28:59.10 | Unknown | you The Resolution 23, page 9. |
| 03:29:07.01 | Ed Carey | Thank you. |
| 03:29:07.03 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:29:07.49 | Ed Carey | Thank you. |
| 03:29:07.64 | Unknown | Thank you. Oh, this was the one that came later. That was one of the challenges I had, is I just got some of this this afternoon. And frankly, that really was not. |
| 03:29:10.36 | Ed Carey | That was wonderful. |
| 03:29:18.79 | Unknown | It was one of the three that came this afternoon. Yeah, that was... |
| 03:29:26.88 | Unknown | And it looks like this. |
| 03:29:39.65 | Unknown | Yeah. Linda, why don't you just turn on it. Somebody has another copy of it. Because we're going to look up this in our insurance. |
| 03:29:40.33 | Jeremy Graves | Yeah. Thank you. |
| 03:29:42.60 | Unknown | you |
| 03:29:42.77 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:29:42.91 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:29:42.99 | Unknown | Oh, okay. All right. |
| 03:29:46.92 | Unknown | THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 03:29:47.09 | Unknown | Yeah, because I did pick up my packet, and I do have that. The challenge is that This stuff came late. Yeah. All right. Go ahead. |
| 03:30:00.59 | Jeremy Graves | So we're looking at page 20 of 23, condition 61. |
| 03:30:06.85 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:30:06.89 | Unknown | Okay. |
| 03:30:12.42 | Jeremy Graves | And so that condition 61 identifies what needs – some requirements that need to be put into the CC&R for the homeowners association. And the first one is that the height of the perimeter plants on the Unit 7 roof deck need to be maintained at, you know, XYZ levels. It defines in there. And then condition A2, the height of the oak tree in the courtyard of Unit 5 and the height of the Japanese coral maple trees in the central courtyard shall not exceed three inches above the top of Unit 7. So those were the conditions that assured to the neighbors at 208 and 210 2nd Street that the vegetation would not get too high. |
| 03:30:50.65 | Unknown | Okay. All right. So that's the answer to my question then. Mm-hmm. Okay. |
| 03:30:55.08 | Michael Rex | I can add. That was kind of a Solomon decision. Those two items were going to be regulated by the homeowners, not the city. There was concern about how the city could manage plants on somebody's roof deck. So some of the conditions, the ones I mentioned about the hedges, those are in conditions of approval for the project. These other plant materials are conditioned that they be in the CC&Rs. |
| 03:31:23.62 | Unknown | Okay. So I guess going back to the spirit of my original question is I know that there are view corridors that were initially obstructed and I just want reassurances that that has been resolved and that, you know, including the landscape conditions that that Thank you. |
| 03:31:41.29 | Michael Rex | To our knowledge, they are, and those property owners are here tonight, and you could probably ask them what they think. |
| 03:31:41.30 | Unknown | To our knowledge they are. Yeah, okay. Yeah, yeah. What they think. Yeah, okay. And I have a couple follow-up questions, |
| 03:31:49.32 | Michael Rex | . |
| 03:31:52.49 | Unknown | Yeah. Please. I have nothing, so. Oh, okay. |
| 03:31:54.45 | Unknown | I have nothing, so. Oh, okay. All right. Well, I do. So the boardwalk, I think, folks, you know, this is really key in Sausalito, this beautiful boardwalk. And I'm looking at the lower elevation, and does that mean at high tide it's going to get flooded? |
| 03:31:58.84 | Unknown | Go ahead. I do. |
| 03:32:15.44 | Unknown | Or is that just a respect to the going below the |
| 03:32:18.82 | Michael Rex | Are you speaking about the Main Street Board law? |
| 03:32:21.26 | Unknown | I'm talking about the... Over here? |
| 03:32:21.52 | Michael Rex | No, I'm talking about the... Um... |
| 03:32:25.13 | Unknown | because you said it'll go down. I wasn't sure if this photo is showing high tide, low tide. |
| 03:32:27.79 | Michael Rex | You can see the Bridgeway boardwalk slopes down. Yeah. The lowest part of the framing here is at 10 base flood. |
| 03:32:31.56 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 03:32:38.83 | Michael Rex | 10 feet, that's a foot above the current nine. |
| 03:32:38.86 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:32:38.88 | Unknown | . Thank you. |
| 03:32:42.27 | Michael Rex | But it drops a foot and a half down here. So this is about six inches below that current base flood elevation, the existing boardwalk at the north end. |
| 03:32:52.95 | Unknown | So is the answer to my question no? |
| 03:32:56.60 | Michael Rex | What'll happen in high tide, you should probably ask Jonathan Goldman |
| 03:33:01.93 | Unknown | I guess, okay, is Jonathan here? |
| 03:33:03.72 | Michael Rex | but |
| 03:33:05.51 | Unknown | Linda, can I just help with one quick question? |
| 03:33:05.58 | Unknown | Okay. |
| 03:33:12.02 | Unknown | The boardwalk is shown there is the existing |
| 03:33:14.79 | Michael Rex | Exactly. |
| 03:33:15.94 | Unknown | so whatever it is, it is because it's the same as what's there |
| 03:33:20.87 | Unknown | Oh, okay. I thought that the elevation was getting lower. Uh-oh. |
| 03:33:25.20 | Unknown | Uh-uh. No. |
| 03:33:27.40 | Unknown | Okay. And my next question has to do with lighting. I didn't see anything here about lighting for the boardwalk at night, because I know that there are going to be residents there, and you don't want the light shining in the residents. And so the current boardwalk has lighting that |
| 03:33:40.05 | Alex Kacheff | Right. |
| 03:33:45.45 | Unknown | rather the older boardwalk had lighting along the bottom of the boardwalk that illuminated at night and it was very soft and I know some of that has gone out. So can you comment on the lighting? |
| 03:33:55.63 | Michael Rex | you can. Well, on the Bridgeway Boardwalk, the only thing we're doing is decking. We're not changing anything else unless the guardrails need upgrading for ADA. So we're not proposing any other changes like lighting to the Bridgeway Boardwalk. On Main Street Boardwalk, we haven't proposed any lighting. |
| 03:34:15.14 | Unknown | I'm referring to the is what we're looking at. I mean, I'm talking about the bay-facing boardwalk. |
| 03:34:21.33 | Michael Rex | Yeah. Is that the Bridgeway Boardwalk? This is what we call the Bridgeway Boardwalk. And then this new portion is what we're calling Main Street Boardwalk. |
| 03:34:22.66 | Unknown | Is that the Bridgeway Boardwalk? This is what we call the Bridgeway Boardwalk. Okay. |
| 03:34:28.67 | Unknown | Okay, thank you. So the Bridgeway Boardwalk, the current existing structure has lighting at the base of the guardrail. And it's very subtle and it lights, it illuminates the boardwalk at night so that the public can access. A couple of those lights have gone out |
| 03:34:40.90 | Alex Kacheff | Thank you. |
| 03:34:40.94 | Michael Rex | Guardrails. |
| 03:34:41.61 | Alex Kacheff | guardrail. |
| 03:34:57.04 | Unknown | there have been temporary blinding sensory motion lights that have been installed just you know that kind of flood the whole area with light and of course anyone living there is not going to like that. So my question speaks to what is the lighting solution for the evening for residents? |
| 03:35:09.58 | Alex Kacheff | Thank you. |
| 03:35:09.61 | Michael Rex | Thank you. |
| 03:35:17.56 | Michael Rex | For the Bridgeway Boardwalk. We're not proposing any lighting upgrades on the Bridgeway Boardwalk. And for the Main Street Boardwalk, we haven't called out new lighting. |
| 03:35:17.64 | Unknown | Thank you. Thank you. for the Bridgeway Boardwalk. |
| 03:35:30.06 | Unknown | So you said we're not planning any upgrades. Does that mean the existing lighting in the current boardwalk, including some of the lighting that may have been shorted out, those will be restored? |
| 03:35:43.63 | Michael Rex | We're not doing lighting on the Bridgeway Boardwalk. If it's a city boardwalk, it would be part of the city's maintenance program to maintain that lighting. What we're proposing in this project is to replace the decking and upgrade the guardrails if they're needed for ADA, and that's all we're proposing. |
| 03:36:03.24 | Unknown | So what you're telling me is that when you're going to be updating this boardwalk that the existing lighting will be maintained that's currently embedded in the guardrails. Because if you're replacing the guardrails, you're going to replace, because the lighting's built into the side of those guardrails. |
| 03:36:22.83 | Michael Rex | It hasn't been determined to what extent there will be any work done on the guardrails. Our ADA consultant concluded that they meet ADA. If they meet ADA standards, then there will be no work on the guardrails. If it's determined, actually, ultimately by the city, that they didn't agree with our consultant and there needs to be some upgrade, Once that scope works identified, we're obligated by this project to do those upgrades for ADA. If lighting's part of that standard, then there would be lighting improvements. The scope really hasn't been defined yet on the guardrails. |
| 03:36:57.05 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:36:57.07 | Unknown | Okay. |
| 03:37:02.13 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:37:06.03 | Unknown | Okay, I'm going to just assume that when you say you're just replacing the planks, et cetera, that the existing lighting, which is embedded on the side of the guard wheels, will be retained. |
| 03:37:18.48 | Alex Kacheff | I'll be happy to replicate that thought. I'll be glad to replace the lights if we have to adjust the railing. |
| 03:37:20.39 | Unknown | I'll be here. |
| 03:37:24.61 | Unknown | Okay, thank you. Okay, and so I have |
| 03:37:29.35 | Alex Kacheff | and the |
| 03:37:29.42 | Unknown | Anybody? |
| 03:37:30.75 | Unknown | More questions? |
| 03:37:30.80 | Unknown | WELL, I WANT TO BE ABLE TO Thanks. All right. |
| 03:37:32.35 | Unknown | Let's go to the bus stop. Is that a half bus stop or a full bus stop that's proposed? |
| 03:37:35.10 | Michael Rex | Thank you. |
| 03:37:38.90 | Michael Rex | I'm going to switch back to it. These are sketches we prepared to provide some ideas of various options. I personally think this is the optimum solution. This pulls the bus stop far enough out of the travel lane that there would be plenty of room for northbound traffic to proceed. In order to accomplish this, though, the center line has to be moved back where it was. About a year ago, when this bike lane went in along the west side, the bike lane was moved back to the west side. um, The center line was moved over to here. We need to go back to that configuration if we want a full bus pullout. In Jeremy's PowerPoint, he showed a different sketch we prepared, which was a partial sketch. Thank you. bus pull out. which left the bike lane on the west side in place. The public wants a full bus pullout. And we asked about the bike lane and we learned that the whole reason the bike lane was on the west side is, as I said, they needed climbing the hill because they go slower in the traffic. They didn't need it coming into town from from the Golden Gate because bikes go so fast down the hill they go with traffic. Well, it just so happens that this portion of 2nd Street is sloping down to the south to Main Street. Main Street's the low point. So if you go out and look at it, you'll see we probably don't need that bike lane on that side. And that would give us a full, a room for a full bus pull out. |
| 03:39:22.33 | Unknown | Yeah, well, we're going to probably have to look at that again because still the majority of the bikes are coming northbound. coming by. And that's something that we have to look at. |
| 03:39:31.05 | Michael Rex | Yeah. |
| 03:39:35.74 | Michael Rex | We did have consultations with the traffic engineer about this. This wasn't just our ideas, and we sent these plans to the Bridge District for their opinion. We don't have anything official, but they said, you know, this looks doable. We have even that in a letter. But there's been nothing official. You could ask Jonathan Goldman about it, but during the hearings, it was clear that there's going to be further studies of the bike lanes and South Street, the whole length of South Street, and the city wants this bus pullout analysis to be part of that. So this is just a possibility, and that drawing's not in our set. It's not what we're asking for approval. What we're asking for approval is in our project, We are going to provide that 10-foot space, and we'll do all the planning for it, and we'll build what's necessary. What needs to happen is the city and the transit district need to determine what they want. We can't plan the city streets. That's the city's job. |
| 03:40:41.74 | Unknown | . I'm not. |
| 03:40:44.59 | Michael Rex | Thank you. I mean, we can't define the criteria. If we're given a criteria, then we'll do the planning. |
| 03:40:51.40 | Unknown | Okay. Question to Jonathan Goldman. The bus stop opposite that, or diagonally, is that a half a bus or is that a full? |
| 03:40:54.50 | Michael Rex | I'm not. |
| 03:40:54.80 | Jonathon Goldman | Thank you. |
| 03:40:54.82 | Michael Rex | Thank you. |
| 03:41:02.26 | Jonathon Goldman | It's a full pullout, and going back to the question you asked previously, I believe, in consultation with the same traffic engineer that Michael alluded to, David Parisi, that a full bus pullout can be accommodated at this location without the loss of the bike lane on the other side of the street. So assuming that council approves this project this evening, we're then in a position to work with Dr. Kacheff and Mr. Rex to establish those criteria and those parameters and get the detailed design work done and approvals from the transit district. |
| 03:41:43.67 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:41:43.69 | Unknown | Okay, thank you. Jonathan, just a quick clarifying question on that. That would then become part of the built-in permit submission? Yes, it'll be. Or prior to the built-in permit, but the event? |
| 03:41:57.51 | Jonathon Goldman | Yes, it'll be. |
| 03:42:02.51 | Jonathon Goldman | Yes, it will be part of the project. |
| 03:42:05.10 | Unknown | Yeah. Okay. |
| 03:42:08.93 | Unknown | Yes, so going back to the bus pullout. So I received some feedback that the, so the actual dimensions of the bus pullout have not yet been agreed upon? Is that what I'm hearing? |
| 03:42:23.51 | Jonathon Goldman | That's correct. |
| 03:42:24.73 | Unknown | And can you share how that is, why, you know, everything else was so discussed and the public really wants this. So I'm just wondering why the dimensions were not |
| 03:42:37.12 | Jonathon Goldman | Well, the short answer is that it is not the highest priority project for me to work with the transit district to design a bus pullout. And maybe the question is more of the applicant. You know, I don't know. The condition of approval, in my judgment, addresses this issue completely and doesn't really put the cart before the horse. As I've said this evening and said at the Planning Commission, I believe, as your city engineer, that a full bus pullout can be accommodated at this location and this applicant has agreed to design it and construct it. And for purposes of what you're being asked to approve this evening, I think that gets us where we need to go and gives me the opportunity to work with the transit district and the applicant to develop those details with them having the entitlements that allow them to make this part of their project. |
| 03:42:49.32 | Unknown | And maybe the question is not, it's more of the applicant, you know, I don't know. |
| 03:43:18.33 | Alex Kacheff | your |
| 03:43:37.34 | Unknown | Does this include a bus structure and bench? It does not. It does not. |
| 03:43:41.33 | Jonathon Goldman | It does not. |
| 03:43:41.97 | Unknown | Thank you. No. |
| 03:43:44.36 | Unknown | So one of the feedbacks I received was there is a development at 123 2nd Street, a kind of kitty corner from this, where the city did require the bus turnout and did require the structure be built and did require the bench and stuff. And so I'm just wondering why the city... It seems to me that the public really wants this, that, you know, a lot of the condition, a lot of the support out there was assuming that this would happen. So I'm just wondering if perhaps this is something we could firm up and include a structure and a bench and, you know, the amenities like we did with the other property. |
| 03:44:28.02 | Jonathon Goldman | Um, I'm not sure that that's a question for me. I think what you're asking is a question of the applicant, so I'm not going to answer. |
| 03:44:39.43 | Unknown | Michael, would you like to respond? |
| 03:44:45.33 | Michael Rex | We aren't proposing. There's a bench there now. It could stay. We're not proposing a cover over it. In our discussions with the Planning Commission, it was talked about that many of the bus stops have been designed by community groups like the Rotary or the Lions Club. And we might get something in that manner, and it might be more distinctive than something stock. Also, it's close to the garage there. It might compete. It might feel cluttered. We thought that that decision, and when I say we, the Planning Commission concurred with this that further improvements beyond what you see here or what we've offered could be determined down the road. It's also from our position, we think we're doing enough to improve the frontage on 2nd Street. We're removing a dangerous driveway. We're replacing all the sidewalks. We're providing an easement to dedicate the land for public use. We're doing all the landscaping. We're even going to design the bus stop and build it. That's on top of all the other public benefits we're offering, like rebuilding the Main Street boardwalk and putting steps down to Sweet's Beach. And, you know, hey, enough's enough. We think we've done enough. And staff agreed with that to meet what's expected through our subdivision map, and so did the Planning Commission. |
| 03:46:25.35 | Unknown | you |
| 03:46:26.43 | Unknown | Michael, also wouldn't you agree that the southbound bus stop, that's a commuter bus stop. you And the people need that for waiting for the bus. If you notice the northbound one where this would be, that's nowhere near the amount of people. And when they get off that, they're not waiting. They're just leaving. So there is a difference. |
| 03:46:54.44 | Michael Rex | I don't have that firsthand knowledge, but we heard that from members of the public who use the bus frequently. |
| 03:47:00.99 | Unknown | That's an observation that I've made. |
| 03:47:02.95 | Michael Rex | Thank you. |
| 03:47:02.97 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:47:03.02 | Michael Rex | Thank you. |
| 03:47:03.03 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:47:03.05 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:47:03.20 | Michael Rex | Thank you. |
| 03:47:03.24 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:47:03.25 | Unknown | Thank you. Okay, any other questions before I open this up for public comment? Because I think we may very well have more questions once we've had public comment. |
| 03:47:15.50 | Unknown | Sure, that's fine. I do have more questions, but I'd be happy to listen to the public. |
| 03:47:20.19 | Unknown | Okay, all right. So why don't we open this for public comment? I know there's a number of you probably who do want to have something to say. So... Don't be shy. Please. |
| 03:47:42.62 | Joan Proctor | I'm Joan Proctor, and I have One question and one comment. The question is, this is a a project which is sort of backwards on the lot in that the front of it is on the water and what's usually the back is right on our main street. So I'm wondering with the row of garages and the garbage area, as I understand, that sounds like it's pretty ugly from our main street, but I'm wondering how has that been addressed? Is there anything to visually hide the fact that this is the back row of garages and a dumpster? I don't know who answers that. |
| 03:48:31.41 | Unknown | Why don't we have Michael answer that for you, the applicant answer, and perhaps didn't you have in your presentation renderings of what the what Second Street looked like? Could we go back? |
| 03:48:43.84 | Mary Wagner | AND I WANT TO TAKE A LOOK. And, Mr. Mayor, whichever way you prefer, we can also keep a list of the questions and have the staff or applicant respond to each one of them, whichever you prefer. |
| 03:48:51.34 | Unknown | Yeah, either way. The sad route. Whichever you prefer. I just don't want to lose them. Yeah. So why don't we go to that, for this particular question, I'd like that answered now. |
| 03:49:11.20 | Michael Rex | Thank you. I'm just going to go back. Let's see. It's this way. Sorry. Yeah, that's a view from Main Street and Second Street. after the trees grow, We have other images in your drawing packet. that show it without the trees so you can see the building. I don't have this on the PowerPoint. Um, I know. |
| 03:49:38.43 | Unknown | No, but I think that does this not directly answer your question? |
| 03:49:41.15 | Michael Rex | But what- If I could respond a little bit, the – It's true, the Valhalla has always faced Bridgeway, and what's on Second Street was a parking lot. To see the parking lot and all works for commercial use. When we go to a residential use, particularly one right at a bus pullout, we're looking for some privacy and some screening. Instead of looking at a bunch of cars, you're going to look at you're not going to really look at these garages because the wall here is going to be completely covered with the Boston ivy, with the lavender planted in front. So in a way, you can say it's turning its back, but in fact remains, it will become a private space. And the Planning Commission struggled with this because they didn't want the Valhalla walled off from 2nd Street. And that's why they insisted on these gates being lowered and the gaps in the lattice being three feet. In fact, I put it full size on the wall. |
| 03:50:47.76 | Alex Kacheff | Yeah. |
| 03:50:57.78 | Michael Rex | that gate on the wall so they can see it, how well you can see through it. We need to park all these cars. There's always going to be a parking lot there. We actually think to green it up and not see the cars as a benefit. |
| 03:51:13.88 | Unknown | you |
| 03:51:20.90 | Michael Rex | No, it's a solid wall concealed behind a vine. |
| 03:51:25.37 | Unknown | Michael, could you perhaps explain that the entry into the garages is through the parking lot, not from Second Street? It's through Main Street, not through Second Street. I think there's some confusion here. |
| 03:51:32.53 | Michael Rex | mainstream. I think there's some confusion. This is your entry gate, and you loop around, and the car's exit here. So it's actually going to be a very green and quiet presence on 2nd Street, residential presence. |
| 03:51:45.54 | Unknown | Okay. I think the question's been answered, actually. |
| 03:51:50.82 | Unknown | And the trash is also going to be behind the wall as well, correct? |
| 03:51:51.16 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:51:55.09 | Joan Proctor | I guess the comment, I mean, that looks very nice because they're big mature bushes and big mature trees, but that's what, 10 years down the line to get them that size? Or will there be any bushes and whatnot between the street and the wall of garages? |
| 03:52:13.06 | Michael Rex | The maintenance trees won't be this tall, but the crowns will hide the roofs. This is where they've grown after a few years, and they're beginning to peak up above the roofs. But we picked maintenance trees because the crown would be pretty much right where the roofs are and not get so tall that it starts blocking views. |
| 03:52:31.94 | Unknown | Mm-hmm. Okay. |
| 03:52:33.53 | Michael Rex | And the trash enclosure, you don't see it, but again, it's on the drawings. It's completely covered with the vines and has a trellis over the top. So that whole streetscape along 2nd Street will be landscaped in green. |
| 03:52:47.92 | Joan Proctor | Then the other comment was, if I heard correctly, it sounded like there was a question of will there still be the bike path going along past the bus stop. And... Somebody commented that that shouldn't be a problem going north because people go so fast down that hill. However, there are lots of families with little children, and they're not all bus racers, too many of the bus racers, but there are lots of people of every age, and I wouldn't at all think that those bikes would be faster than the cars. I bicycle down there myself, and I know I don't go fast down that hill. So I think presence of a bike lane sounds like a safety feature. |
| 03:53:31.73 | Unknown | Okay. Thank you. Who else would like to comment? |
| 03:53:40.90 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:53:40.91 | David Thomas | David. David Thomas, 208 2nd Street, Mayor Withey, and Council Members, thanks for having me tonight. I just want to start off by just saying, I mean, I think we're looking at a beautiful project. that also encompasses, you know, some considerable enhancements to our little neighborhood there. And I also want to note before I kind of get into just a couple of comments I have for tonight, again, just want to publicly thank, you know, Dr. Kacheff, Michael Rex. You know, throughout this hasn't been a short process, as we all know. There's been a lot of reiterations. You know, they always took me seriously. They addressed all my concerns. So really just want to thank them, their team, for, you know, just handling this, you know, business-like fashion and truly a class act. Moving on. I just want to cover if we could go to the project nerd for a second specifically attachment five page twenty two |
| 03:55:14.69 | David Thomas | And about halfway down on the page, we can start at requested conditions of approval. |
| 03:55:33.25 | David Thomas | Can we stop it while they're getting there? |
| 03:55:36.10 | Unknown | So it's page 22 and it's page 23 of 27 for the staff report. Item 5A-2, attachment five. |
| 03:55:53.65 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:55:53.67 | David Thomas | Okay. You there? All right. Cool. So I just wanted to clear up one thing. You know, this is what the applicant, Bonnie Johnson at 210 Second Street, and myself, owner of 208 Second Street, agreed upon. This is what the applicant submitted, formally requesting that these items be conditions of approval, specifically roof heights, which they have been, so we can put a check there. Now, the landscaping for the roof deck plants and for the trees at the ground level, it was recently brought to our attention |
| 03:55:54.82 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 03:56:34.35 | David Thomas | The city didn't want landscaping items included as conditions of approval. And so these two items were moved over as potentially CC&Rs. Obviously from my perspective, I would like everything encompassed as a condition of approval. You know, with CC&Rs, it's my understanding they can be amended over time. It also raises questions, who's going to draft the language around the CC&Rs, who's going to approve it. So I would like to request that, I mean, based on what the applicant requested, based on what we've requested, we formally submitted the request as well, if we can encompass all these items as conditions of approval. And then if we turn the page, the hedges, yeah, and for consistency's sake. Carry on, David. So, and then the hedges, this is a condition of approval, but, you know, we were asked by the Planning Commission to really define, get specific around the solutions that we're looking at. And you know, Michael Rex and Jeffrey Butler did a hell of a job defining everything. I mean, we have all the elevations and NGVD, and if you look at the hedge as it's documented in the conditions of approval, Item 5A-2, Attachment 15, Number 8, Just want to point out we're missing that elevation. |
| 03:58:11.06 | Unknown | Could you just hang on one moment, Dave? Linda, can I please the table right for a second? Thanks. Sorry, could you repeat that again, Dave? |
| 03:58:22.03 | David Thomas | Okay, so we're going from the hedges, how – Michael Rex drafted it in the project narrative, and we're just looking at how it's drafted in the conditions of approval. Just give me a number. Item 5A-2, attachment 15, page 14 of 24, number 8. |
| 03:58:54.31 | David Thomas | So condition of approval number eight is the issue, right? Well, I just want to point out that we have |
| 03:58:55.24 | Unknown | You're my answer. |
| 03:59:03.34 | David Thomas | In the project narrative, we went through the trouble of defining a specific height, so we may want to include that. I'm just providing that feedback. Because basically, what we're looking at, the project, if we go back to the project narrative, It's documented to the T. It's exactly what both parties have agreed on. |
| 03:59:31.35 | David Thomas | Um, And the last thing that |
| 03:59:35.15 | Unknown | Can I get a clarification? Yeah. But when I'm looking at this number eight, it says at a height between 11 and 12 feet. |
| 03:59:36.42 | David Thomas | Yeah. |
| 03:59:43.35 | Unknown | Correct. |
| 03:59:44.52 | David Thomas | That is correct, but we were asked to get really specific from the get-go, so we did basically around all of these items, we did specific heights and NGVD. So I'm just pointing out that we had the work in place. It may make sense just to carry over our dimensions. Um, |
| 04:00:09.63 | David Thomas | And then really the last thing, if we go back to the project narrative, which is 5A-2, attachment 5, page 24. |
| 04:00:27.31 | David Thomas | Which section, David? Item 5A-2, attachment 5. No, no, no. But where on page 24? Roof, deck, accessories. Got it. |
| 04:00:33.91 | Unknown | Uh... |
| 04:00:38.55 | David Thomas | And Thank you. Thank you. you This is an item that we... you know, decided to handle just kind of in a neighborly manner. But I think there is value in just documenting this. Um, So I would ask that it's put in the conditions of approval. I mean, it's not asking the city to enforce anything. It's just a data point that would be nice to have documented. So really, I guess all in all, what I'm getting at is the in order to be consistent with what Dr. Kacheff Bonnie Johnson at 210 Second Street, myself at 208, What we agreed on We're missing the roof deck accessories being documented somewhere. And then the two landscaping items that are CC&Rs |
| 04:01:41.39 | David Thomas | I just, I think it would require more due diligence. I mean, you know, I would have to have people review the language of the CCNRs and, you know, kind of revet that out and I think tonight If we just get these as conditions of approval, It's a done deal, and I will continue to support Alex all the way to the finish line, and I think it's a great project. I think, you know, it keeps it consistent since both sides have requested specific items be included as conditions of approval. We're in complete agreement. And I would just ask that, you know, since, you know, we truly work together, I mean, I can't tell you how many times we met during the day, at night, we looked at every single detail And I would just like to see, you know, both of our efforts and our work just be documented how we documented it. |
| 04:02:42.58 | Unknown | So just to summarize, you're suggesting that item one, the roof deck plants, number two, the trees, number three, the hedges, and then over on page 25 of 27, the roof deck accessories, those items be put as conditional? |
| 04:03:01.21 | David Thomas | So roof heights, we're done. There are already conditions of approval. Right. |
| 04:03:05.40 | Unknown | Bye. |
| 04:03:05.70 | David Thomas | Thank you. So we're good there. |
| 04:03:06.90 | Unknown | Right. |
| 04:03:07.54 | David Thomas | Um, |
| 04:03:08.49 | Unknown | Roof deck plants. |
| 04:03:09.26 | David Thomas | The roof deck plants and the trees at the ground level are currently proposed as CC&Rs. |
| 04:03:14.38 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 04:03:14.41 | Unknown | Mm-hmm. |
| 04:03:15.88 | David Thomas | I would like to have those as conditions of approval. If we can't, I would at least like to understand the process of who's going to draft |
| 04:03:17.99 | Unknown | They're approved. Okay. |
| 04:03:24.01 | David Thomas | the cc and ours and how do we go about making sure the language is right, and so forth, it seems to me that the easiest solution is to put these as conditions of approval, and move on. |
| 04:03:38.81 | Unknown | And so just to finish that thought, the conditions approval were the roof deck plants, the trees. Did you also say the roof deck accessories and the hedges? |
| 04:03:48.97 | David Thomas | The hedge is a condition of approval now. All I pointed out was that Michael Rex put together a specific elevation that you may want to use. I think it just makes the documentation more sound. The roof deck accessories, we're going to handle that in a neighborly fashion, but it would be nice. There is some good language in there that Michael Rex crafted. |
| 04:03:52.26 | Unknown | I have a condition of approval now. |
| 04:04:16.29 | David Thomas | And I think it would make sense just to take exactly what we have in the project narrative that we submitted, or that Michael Rook submitted. We also submitted that as well. which was requested by the Planning Commission. |
| 04:04:29.84 | Unknown | So you're talking about three items as the condition of approval in a perfect world. |
| 04:04:33.30 | David Thomas | Rufites, which we already have. |
| 04:04:35.63 | Unknown | Rift deck accessories. |
| 04:04:37.11 | David Thomas | roof deck accessories, landscaping, which is roof deck plants and trees, and then the hedge. |
| 04:04:41.36 | Unknown | Yes. And the hedge, yeah. And the hedges are already currently conditioned up. |
| 04:04:45.99 | David Thomas | And the hedge is already currently, correct. So all we're really talking about here, I know there's a lot of stuff here, but all we're really talking about is the roof deck plants and the ground trees. |
| 04:04:47.80 | Unknown | Okay. |
| 04:04:58.70 | David Thomas | instead of being CC&Rs, let's get those as conditions of approval, or if not, can we figure out a process to draft this |
| 04:05:07.67 | Unknown | Yeah, so we're going to come back and answer all those questions. Great. Now, what I want to know is, first of all, is there anybody else who's going to want make a public comment on, okay, is it on this particular topic or is it on the bus pullout or is it on this specific topic? No. Then I suggest we deal with these specific topics now. So we're sort of, otherwise we're just going to get you back to have the discussion. |
| 04:05:37.61 | Unknown | to have the discussion. |
| 04:05:39.21 | Unknown | And... And I recommend that we do them one at a time because there are slightly different solutions possible for you. So why don't we just go through them and decide what we're going to do one at a time. |
| 04:05:47.38 | Unknown | Right. And I think our city attorney wants to say something. |
| 04:05:52.21 | Mary Wagner | Yeah, and I think it's important first to also acknowledge the public outreach and the manner in which the neighbors work together to develop these solutions with the lowering of the roof height, which is, you can check that off. That is baked into the project plans. The issue on the CC&Rs, it is set forth as a condition of approval. It's condition of approval 61 that the CC&Rs include that specific language, and those items are drafted by the applicant or someone on behalf of the applicant, submitted to the city to review. |
| 04:06:03.77 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 04:06:24.77 | Mary Wagner | and this very explicit language that's included in Condition 61 has to be explicitly included in the CCNRs. So I believe that you have it covered actually both ways and therefore you also know who's responsible for maintaining that condition and you have a direct route through the Homeowners Association to ensure that it's been satisfied. Staff had recommended to the Planning Commission, and your Community Development Director can speak to this, as well. that these actually not be conditions of approval at all because although you say with respect to the furniture on the roof deck, that you don't want the city to have to enforce that. If you include it as a condition of approval, that's what happens. Just automatically, someone will call and ask that that be enforced by the city. So I believe the hedges are built in there, and I would leave it to the community development director or Michael to speak to the specific language and how detailed it needs to be. But I do think that the language on the CCNRs is included here, and that was worked out with the Planning Commission at their hearing conference. |
| 04:07:29.52 | Unknown | Yeah, so question, if I recall from this, the conditions of approval are, it's a responsibility, once this is triggered to actually get this recorded, is that correct? Were the conditions of approval going to be recorded? |
| 04:07:52.68 | Mary Wagner | Well, the CCNRs have to be recorded either concurrently with the tentative map or I believe it's concurrent with the map itself. So they're submitted as conditions of map approval, and they have to be approved by the city as part of the map approval. Then they are actually recorded concurrently with the map itself. |
| 04:08:07.61 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 04:08:12.73 | Unknown | Okay. So the conditions of approval will be in some recorded documents. |
| 04:08:17.05 | Mary Wagner | The CC&Rs will be in a recorded document, and then the conditions in the PD are also recorded. |
| 04:08:21.52 | Unknown | Got it. Okay, because it's the PD. Yeah. Right. |
| 04:08:25.48 | Mary Wagner | And that's a lot more recording than we do for most projects. |
| 04:08:28.69 | Unknown | Understood. But the CC&Rs, which are, you know, is how the homeowners associate, how that property runs, basically, right? Correct. Right. And all the commitments that it's got to enter into that are... |
| 04:08:37.61 | Mary Wagner | Correct. |
| 04:08:45.12 | Mary Wagner | It's the binding obligations of the various units or condo units on what their responsibility is to maintain all of the common area. |
| 04:08:45.16 | Unknown | It's the... |
| 04:08:49.97 | Unknown | Okay. |
| 04:08:54.76 | Unknown | Okay. You may have a question, but my question for you, David, is what is it that you're trying to get to that, I mean, you've got it in CCRs which are recorded, which have to be approved by the city, which, what are you looking for? And it's a condition of approval, which, so what is it you, I don't understand what you're |
| 04:09:20.04 | David Thomas | Well, it's a condition of approval that those two items be included as a CCNR. And then maybe I'm missing it, but I don't see language in here... suggesting that the CC&Rs can't be amended or basically what I'm trying to avoid is to have to revisit this again in the near future when we can nip it in the bud now and basically the direction that that that we got from the planning commission and i think both the applicant and and myself were we're under the impression hey Let's get together, let's find some solutions which the applicant and the architect did a great job at, and we'll include those items as conditions of approval. right before the Planning Commission did their approval of the project, and now we're here tonight, it was brought to our attention that Generally, landscaping items aren't included as conditions of approval, which we had no idea. And it wasn't brought to our attention, so we were caught a little off guard. But I think. Ultimately, it still leaves some questions out there. I mean, I'm still gonna have to follow through, look at this language, I'm gonna have to have legal counsel look at this language, because I'm not a lawyer, when, And from my mind, if we just have other landscaping items as a condition of approval, we're looking at two items, and if we can just encompass those, it's a done deal. |
| 04:11:10.86 | Unknown | Yeah, could we ask our Community Development Director to help us out a little here and tell us how the Planning Commission handled this and |
| 04:11:20.51 | Jeremy Graves | Ugh. |
| 04:11:25.93 | Unknown | what you see is the issue here. |
| 04:11:27.92 | Jeremy Graves | I'd be happy to. The Planning Commission looked at these various issues and their direction was to any of these neighborhood applicant concerns that could be placed in the CC&Rs should be placed in the CC&Rs. The ones that could not be placed in the CC&Rs should become conditions. One of the things that I hear Mr. Thomas concerned about is that after they are placed in the CC&Rs, I don't think he stated it this way, but my assumption is that this was his concern that the CC&Rs may be changed to delete them. And that is I understand Mr. Thomas' concern there. And I think a standard clause the city requires in CC&Rs is that any clause in the CC&Rs that has been inserted in there pursuant to a city requirement. cannot be changed without the written approval of the city. Now, since that's a standard item that we have, Certainly from the staff perspective, I have no objection at all in just repeating that, something to that effect here in hopes that that would give Mr. Thomas some more assurance that that would not be deleted. On other concerns that Mr. Thomas had about the definition of the height of things, I've been in enough code enforcement cases that I know I get a call about this hedge is too high. Well, I don't pull out my NVGA tape measure to go and measure one of these things. What I do, and so when we wrote the condition of approval on the hedge height, up between 11 and 12 feet above the height of the adjoining pavement. And that was the wording that was used in Mr. Rex's proposed condition of approval. So I feel that we have certainly, what I'm trying to do is also have a condition of approval that is enforceable if and when city staff has to go out there and conduct an investigation. |
| 04:13:40.34 | Unknown | Could I ask Michael, why did you draft that the way you did with... Acronyms or words, I don't understand. |
| 04:13:53.82 | Michael Rex | You're talking about the NAVG. Yeah, yeah. All of our elevation heights are based on data on our plans. So if you want to be really specific, that's what we measure from. |
| 04:13:55.14 | Unknown | Yeah, yeah. |
| 04:14:06.29 | Michael Rex | But I understand Jeremy's point of view that When you're out in the field, that won't mean anything. But, you know, from a technical standpoint, everything's measured from datum when it comes to height on our drawings. So that's how we can be specific. it's a good thing. |
| 04:14:25.78 | Unknown | No, I understand that. But there's one thing to be specific on a piece of paper and then figure out where the bottom of the hedge is in the field, right? by using your level of precision when Jeremy or someone or his replacement member successor goes out there with a tape measure to measure this, I mean, are we talking fractions of an inches error because it didn't use your thing? |
| 04:14:58.99 | Michael Rex | I suppose somebody can change the grade of the parking lot one day, but you're not changing datum. |
| 04:15:07.65 | Unknown | Okay, I get it. |
| 04:15:09.27 | Michael Rex | Can I comment on a couple of these things that were just said? Well, we're... Thank you. |
| 04:15:14.47 | Unknown | if you can add to those items, but we don't want anything outside of that. |
| 04:15:16.47 | Michael Rex | to have those items. I'd like to add to it. |
| 04:15:23.98 | Unknown | because you guys are in violent agreement, it appears. |
| 04:15:24.02 | Michael Rex | Because you guys are in violent agreement, it appears. Well, we debated this at great length with the Planning Commission, and staff actually didn't want a lot of this landscape stuff in there. in the conditions. And so this was a compromise actually struck. during those hearings between staff's recommendations and the request from the |
| 04:15:43.20 | Alex Kacheff | . |
| 04:15:44.79 | Michael Rex | and we were willing to go either way. Personally, I think we're covered. In fact, personally, I have to say, David might have a better time getting enforcement from the homeowners and from the city. Thank you. And I can tell you why. um, There's a lot of things to maintain on this property, landscaping and painting and There will be a – there's going to have to be a maintenance management put in place by state mandate. And they're going to have to follow the CC&Rs. I think Jeremy's suggestion of a little added protection, if you want to add this condition that CC&R conditions that are mandated by the city can't be changed without city approval, He's made that suggestion. we're okay with that if you want to go there. Maybe that's a little more ironclad, but I have to say in the real world, I'd rather deal with a homeowner association than the city when it comes to enforcement of landscaping. |
| 04:16:49.08 | David Thomas | Well, I... |
| 04:16:49.86 | Unknown | And I just comment, David, you probably haven't – we're not going to give you legal advice here, but certainly you have it in the conditions of approval that it goes to the CCNRs, and I certainly agree with Michael. This way you have it both ways. You have it in CC&Rs, which actually is more direct. as things move, then pull out conditions of approval years later. And then if they, for some reason, and we have the language that Jeremy proposed, change that, you still have the condition of approval that's got to be in your CCNRs. So you almost have a double protection. I mean, that's the way I'm viewing it. |
| 04:17:21.06 | David Thomas | Yeah, I mean, if we could have that language, see I don't see that language. |
| 04:17:21.11 | Unknown | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 04:17:26.43 | Unknown | I don't see that language. |
| 04:17:29.89 | David Thomas | The language that the CCNRs can't be amended or like, |
| 04:17:34.98 | Unknown | It's not there yet, but that's what we're considering. |
| 04:17:36.06 | David Thomas | That's what we're considering. Exactly. That's the only reason I'm providing the feedback that I am. But if we were to add language around that, then we're all good. Okay. |
| 04:17:49.73 | Unknown | Can we do that, Jeremy? Right here. Okay. Now that's one of them. |
| 04:17:54.39 | Mike | Thank you. |
| 04:17:54.41 | David Thomas | One of them. And the only other thing was the rooftop or the rooftop deck accessories. THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 04:18:02.98 | Unknown | Okay, let's remind ourselves about that one. Yes, please. |
| 04:18:06.88 | Unknown | On that one though, it does say right here, direct us to the narrative that regulation of this condition shall be up to and between neighbors and that responsibility of the city. So, I mean, you were right there. I mean, |
| 04:18:21.81 | David Thomas | That's correct, but if you get here. |
| 04:18:22.22 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 04:18:36.48 | Unknown | There's a three-minute rule, but we have been asking questions, and the council basically has the right to ask questions of a person who makes a public comment for hours. |
| 04:18:52.03 | David Thomas | We wish. The only reason I go back to this is the way it was drafted establishes intent. You know, even though that we're going to handle it on a neighborly, or in a neighborly fashion, it's, you know, let's see here, freestanding accessories when protecting above the perimeter guardrail of Unit 7's roof tech and located within the views of the San Francisco skyline and Bay Bridge enjoyed by neighbors shall be in place on a temporary basis for a limited duration. |
| 04:19:26.24 | Unknown | Would you be happy if we put that in the CC&Rs as well, the same way? Yeah. |
| 04:19:30.76 | Unknown | Yeah. Thank you. |
| 04:19:32.26 | Unknown | you |
| 04:19:32.35 | Unknown | So remove that last sentence. That's what you're saying? |
| 04:19:32.43 | Unknown | you |
| 04:19:32.60 | David Thomas | THE FAMILY. |
| 04:19:32.97 | Unknown | remove them. |
| 04:19:39.01 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 04:19:39.03 | Unknown | We can still |
| 04:19:39.47 | David Thomas | No, we can still handle it on a neighborly basis. I just want to have that establish his intent. |
| 04:19:41.92 | Mary Wagner | Oh, okay. You would add it to condition 61 that we were discussing previously on the CCNRs to add another element to that which includes this language absent the last sentence. |
| 04:19:55.47 | Unknown | That's perfect. |
| 04:19:56.40 | David Thomas | Perfect. |
| 04:19:57.68 | Mary Wagner | Thank you. |
| 04:19:57.69 | David Thomas | All right, thank you. If that's agreeable to the applicant. Yeah, that'll do it. Again. |
| 04:19:57.71 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 04:19:57.73 | Mary Wagner | I'm sorry. |
| 04:19:57.85 | Unknown | Right. |
| 04:19:57.93 | Mary Wagner | Thank you. If that's agreeable. And that's it. |
| 04:19:59.69 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 04:19:59.97 | Mary Wagner | Yeah. |
| 04:20:00.92 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 04:20:03.65 | David Thomas | I want to thank Michael Rex, Dr. Kacheff. Honestly, they don't just have my support. They have my whole family's support. Sally Stanford was our late aunt, so I think it's a fabulous story of two parties coming together. And again, just want to say thank you. Thanks. |
| 04:20:27.97 | Unknown | So, before we proceed, let me clarify something. We are in public comment, and when we're in public comment, the city council can ask questions of anybody who's here, and the time limit, therefore, doesn't count towards that. We have a particular neighbor with particular issues to resolve that was the subject of at least 90 minutes worth of conversation at the Planning Commission so I think we at least deserve or should he the applicant and David deserves us to deliberate this thoroughly so I hope that answers your question Yep. No, not at all. Okay, so public comment's still open. I think we've exhausted that topic. So, Charlotte. |
| 04:21:33.88 | Charlotte | I'll keep it real short. It's 11.30. Thank you. I just want to make a comment that I'm delighted, absolutely delighted with the bus pullout. I worked hard on this and I just so much appreciate we're having it. And as Michael Threx said, there is already a bench there. Paul L. Britton, former city councilman, arranged for that bench. He may have even paid for it. I don't know, but I know he made an arrangement. And I also want to say that. We don't. It's not that you arrive in Sausalito and you go home at night. We do that. That's true. But in the morning at 7.30 in the morning on Fridays, I notice there are little school children sitting on that bench waiting for either the school bus or the Golden Gate Transit. I don't know which because by then I've gone the other way. But I do want to say that the fact that there's going to be garages there, that will help with the wind factor while you're waiting for that bus there. You have to remember those buses only come once an hour during the day. It's not like the commute buses that are more regular. So I think that it would be nice if we had a little awning on the back of the bunch, back of the garages, or perhaps we could all wear hats or carry our umbrellas. That would be helpful, too. But, and when I received my anonymous hate letter, it was suggested that I might contribute to this, and I would be happy to, but they didn't return. have a return envelope so if they would let me know in the future where this money should go I would be happy to contribute to it |
| 04:23:33.49 | Unknown | Thank you. Thank you, Charlotte. |
| 04:23:44.73 | Mike | The bus issue, the bus, I'm a member of Lions Club. I was an ex-president of Lions Club. Although we had a bus stop that we want to build by, in front of the 7-Eleven, the other side we haven't done it yet because we got some problems. But issues like that, it shouldn't be on the burden of the people who are trying to contribute so much to the beautification of our town. I mean, people are asking about Am I going to see, is it going to be beautiful to see that? But what do you see now? What do you see now? You see cars parking over there. So, Obviously a professional, when they work on it, That's what they present to you. So, The bus, having the, you want to add a ceiling for it, you want to have a crown on top of it, these are the responsibility of the community himself, not to burden on the people to do that. If it was me, I wouldn't do a damn thing for any of those things. It's my property. I'll do it the way I want it. I'll take it to court for that. But that's not nice. He's done a lot for this property. Enough is enough. |
| 04:25:07.37 | Unknown | Thanks, Mike. |
| 04:25:14.41 | Phillip Nicholson | Good evening, council members. My name is Phillip Nicholson. I'm an attorney, but I'm also the personal representative of Linda Jenkinson, who lives at 207 Bridgeway, which is immediately adjacent to the Valhalla. I've been involved in this only since the beginning of the summer, and I have very brief comments. First of all, in its present configuration, with all the changes that have been made, all the adjustments, all the fine-tuning with the neighbors, the planning commission, this is a wonderful project. And I hope you approve it. |
| 04:25:43.70 | Alex Kacheff | I'm not. |
| 04:25:43.78 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 04:25:43.80 | Alex Kacheff | THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 04:25:45.27 | Phillip Nicholson | Secondly, I do want to specifically thank Dr. Kacheff and Mr. Graves of the Planning Commission and Mr. Rex as well. This has been an incredibly complicated project, as you know, from reviewing the material, and I think the city staff has done a wonderful job of fighting their way through the complications, coming up with appropriate resolutions. And we're really looking forward to someday going down to the beach on the new boardwalk. |
| 04:26:18.82 | Unknown | Thank you. Any other? Yes, please. |
| 04:26:27.46 | Unknown | Hello again, and I want to thank also the City Council and the Mayor, everyone here, and really just add my voice to all of the neighbors. I live at the Cote d'Azur. I look out on Swedes Beach, and like many of us, I'm struck by the wonderful increase in baby carriages. in Sausalito. And I've been here eight years. I love seeing new families come into our community. This development looks like a wonderful place for new families to alight in Sausalito. The rampway down to Swedes Beach is a spectacular idea. I spend a lot of time, actually I walked the boardwalk twice a day going to and from a restaurant. And looking at the opportunity to have a gently sloping rampway down to Swedes Beach as opposed to half falling, half walking down the old timbered stairs, the historic stairs that are rotting away, first of all, it looks like a fabulous opportunity for the city to save money and have a different means of access to a public beach. And second, it looks like a wonderful improvement, again, for families with young toddlers, baby carriages, ADA. So I just want to compliment the architect, compliment the vision of the family that's paying for all this development, and thank them as a neighbor and a resident for the energy and time and effort that everybody in this room has put into this. So I add my voice to the general acclaim of the project and hope you'll vote to approve it. |
| 04:26:50.98 | Alex Kacheff | Thank you. |
| 04:28:04.27 | Unknown | Thank you. Is there any other member of the public who'd like to say? Yes, please. |
| 04:28:10.14 | Unknown | Yes. |
| 04:28:16.92 | Diane Andrews | Diane Andrews again. I don't know if it's really more of a question or a comment, Based on those new proposed maps for the FEMA and the flood, I just want to bring up I think it brings up quite a few different questions for the future in case the water does rise. I know there was a variance just on the boardwalk It didn't say anything about the building, If the rules are that if it does flood, and that FEMA requires you to literally raise your building up, preferably it was a smaller building. It's just a question kind of like, especially with the historical nature too, kind of what's the city's position going to be on that. And, you know, if you do have to raise it up just for insurance, it's just an interesting, concept because you also have new homeowners association there so I was just thinking if that happens, it's something that the, future owners and the neighbors and the city need to be thinking about. |
| 04:29:28.41 | Unknown | Thanks. any other anybody else like to comment I see. Well, Michael, you're the applicant. This is for the rest of the public. But I am going to let you, the applicant, come back in. |
| 04:29:46.46 | Michael Rex | Can I comment on that last question? |
| 04:29:46.48 | Unknown | Can I comment on that? and for the rest of the day. Thank you. |
| 04:29:48.98 | Michael Rex | The buildings – there's a base flood elevation certificate in your packet, and the building is above even the 13 base flood elevations. |
| 04:29:49.03 | Unknown | Right. |
| 04:30:00.05 | Unknown | Thanks. Okay. We're going to bring it back up here. I'm closing public comment, but I know, Alex, you wanted a, there was some time left in your presentation. So if you just want to wrap up very briefly. |
| 04:30:25.43 | Alex Kacheff | Good evening, my name is Alex Kushef, I'm the owner of the Valhalla. Mayor Withey, Vice Mayor Theodorus, Council Member Weiner, Council Member Pfeiffer, I'd like to thank you for taking the time to look at my application. I know it's been a long time to get here, and I'm the very proud owner of this property. As many of you know, you've seen me walking back and forth in front of it like a crazy man. That's mostly been because I'm trying to find solutions how we're going to connect the Main Street boardwalk to the Bridgeway Boardwalk if we have to elevate it three feet and a million things like that. That's just the most obvious one that we've talked about tonight. I'd also like to take the moment to thank city staff, starting with Mr. Graves. He has personally been amazing with this project, and I couldn't thank you enough for your guidance and your dedication. I don't want to say to this project, but for seeing an opportunity to improve this part of Sausalito and being involved with it. So thank you, Jeremy. I'd also like to thank... Attorney Wagner, her help and guidance to guide us through the challenging portions with solutions we had that go along with solutions that the city needs were pivotal for this project. And I'd also like to take a moment to thank Jonathan Goldman. and he, I feel, more than anyone else, is really an unapplauded champion for things that occur in the city, and I really appreciate his challenges and his limitations, and his guidance has really been pivotal for us getting through the really challenging technical elements of this project that most people would not be able to notice or appreciate firsthand. I'd like to discuss with you what an honor it is for me to be here, as I've mentioned. We started this as a hotel project almost three years ago, and from the beginning we were involved with the neighborhood. Michael mentioned some of the public outreach we had, but that was just for this portion. You have to remember that we started with a hotel, and it was very obvious that the neighbors were not happy with that. We had a full project designed and ready to go. We were ready to get started with it, and you can imagine the cost of that. I withdrew that application because of things that had happened, but also because I listened to the neighbors and I realized that that was not a project they wanted for their neighborhood. So we've really spent a lot of time to make sure we have a project that's a natural fit for the community and the city. To share with you how long this project has been going on, you know, every two or three weeks I go out there with my hammer and my drill and I fix the story poles because in the parking lot somebody runs them over. I don't know what they're thinking, but they run them over every two or three weeks. The last one I fixed, my story poles have termites now. I'm not kidding. They have termites. So I'll be looking forward to bringing them down in the near future with or without approval, hopefully with approval. It's time to move on with this project and build something beautiful. The other thing, Michael, if you could hold up your pencil. When we started the project, that was a full pencil. I just noticed... That is true, and now we have a baby on the way. |
| 04:33:44.33 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 04:33:46.19 | Alex Kacheff | I mention this jokingly, but I also mention it because it's important, because the time we've spent on this project has allowed us to bring a beautiful Valhalla before you. This is not what we started with a year and a half ago. This is not what we started with three years ago. There's a lot of moving parts and a lot of details that are involved. And we all remember that This was the hot topic years ago. look at who's here tonight. We've been able to appease almost everyone in the neighborhood and be able to provide something that I think the neighbors will really benefit from as well as the city of Sausalito. I mentioned we've had meetings with the immediate neighbors. We've had town hall meetings. We've had news articles that have been published. I've put signs up on the Valhalla. I even handed out postcards to let people know when the planning commission meetings were. I personally handed those out as well as putting them on the building. There's been Internet outreach. There's over, I think, 50 letters of support now in your packet that we've accumulated since the beginning of this in May. My father and I used to hang up the sign every day to say there's a Planning Commission meeting, and then at 12 o'clock we would go and take it down because I didn't want somebody showing up Thursday night. This is how involved we've been with this. I listened to the immediate neighbors, as Mr. Thomas and Ms. Johnson had mentioned. One of the buildings, it's not that it was just lowered. We were limited with the heights in the building. The plate on the second floor is only 7 1⁄2 feet or so. I sank that building into the ground. Basically, the tenant of that building is going to be sitting in his living room and feeling like he's living in a basement. But I thought it was important to not only preserve their view, but actually improve their view as well. I want to make note of that. We worked closely with Ms. Jenkinson. We provided privacy for her property and also provided a a parking garage on my property for her car. |
| 04:35:42.86 | Unknown | Uh, I like to show up about one minute. Okay. Okay. |
| 04:35:44.43 | Alex Kacheff | Okay. We're going to repave all of the sidewalks. We're going to provide beautiful landscaping. I mean, this is so thought out that the reason we chose the Maitan trees, other than what Michael mentioned, that's going to be beautiful in the wind that comes through Hurricane Gulch. We're building a new bus pullout. We built a new boardwalk along Main Street to replace the dilapidated one. I mean, we've gone through this ad nauseum tonight. But let's not lose sight of why all of this is happening. I'm providing all of these things out of my own pocket so that ultimately I can rehabilitate the Valhalla. I know that for the last three years people have painted me as the developer. I'm the bad developer. A developer would come to a meeting like this with their team of attorneys. I came here with my mom, my dad, my wife, and my mother-in-law. I'm a local member of this, and I also wish Tuxedo was here, Michael. I'm a little disappointed Tuxedo's not here. I came here tonight Thank you. I'm a local Sausalito resident who, like everyone else, has walked by the Valhalla and said, what a grand building this could be. And I took on that challenge, for better or worse. And here we are tonight with this beautiful project. I've worked closely with the city, with the neighbors, and the community to assure that this project meets all of their needs and enhances the area, ultimately. This is a project by a local Sausalito resident, just like everybody here. And tonight, with your support and vote, we can assure an opportunity to bring the Valhalla back to the beauty and glory it deserves and pay true homage to the Valhalla's past and future for the city of Sausalito. I thank you for taking the time to look at this. I thank also the Planning Commission for all the time they spent on this and city staff and all members of this team. I hope that we can make a positive vote so that we can move forward with this project and have a beautiful building in its place. Thank you. |
| 04:37:44.50 | Unknown | Thank you, Alex. Okay. Spring is back up here. for comments, and then we've got to decide what we're going to do. Yes. |
| 04:37:54.74 | Unknown | Mr. Chairman. Actually, I had a question about the last photo that was shown, Michael. You showed me with the landscape in the front, and this goes to the resident question regarding the bus turnout and the landscaping. There we go. I don't see the bus turnout in here. How will that impact the landscaping when the bus turnout? |
| 04:38:20.04 | Michael Rex | Ah. |
| 04:38:20.22 | Unknown | goes in. |
| 04:38:21.20 | Michael Rex | Good question. You don't see the bus pull out there because it hasn't been designed yet. But we've designed the landscaping specifically so the main trees can stay and the vines and the lavender can stay. this green foreground ground cover would come out, and I can show you that in our plan here. |
| 04:38:45.92 | Unknown | So... I'm not sure. |
| 04:38:46.78 | Michael Rex | Wait. |
| 04:38:46.80 | Unknown | What you're saying is that the landscaping could remain, we could still have the trees, the vines, with the bus turnout. |
| 04:38:51.68 | Michael Rex | Right. Here's the maintenance trees. This would be the row. This is all lavender. The only place we lose the lavender is where the bench would be. And these are ADA areas for wheelchairs. They need a huge amount of room to load. Thank you. |
| 04:39:14.98 | Unknown | Okay, thank you, Michael. I think you've answered my question. I just wanted to make sure. My last question is why did I get the balance of the materials today? |
| 04:39:15.54 | Michael Rex | Thank you, Michael. |
| 04:39:25.76 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 04:39:25.78 | Unknown | Why did you write? I got a lot of materials today about this project. Oh, I do. |
| 04:39:25.92 | Unknown | I got, |
| 04:39:29.95 | Unknown | I don't think that's a question for you, Michael. |
| 04:39:30.79 | Jeremy Graves | Thank you. |
| 04:39:30.88 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 04:39:30.90 | Jeremy Graves | I don't know. |
| 04:39:30.95 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 04:39:30.96 | Jeremy Graves | I think that's a question for you. |
| 04:39:32.43 | Bunny Zaruba | Bye. |
| 04:39:32.48 | Jeremy Graves | Jeremy. |
| 04:39:32.89 | Bunny Zaruba | you |
| 04:39:32.99 | Unknown | Oh, okay. I'm sorry, Michael. |
| 04:39:37.93 | Jeremy Graves | The three material, in answer, in response to your question of why some of the, you received some of the materials late, the resolution by the Planning Commission, the draft resolution of the City Council and the draft zoning ordinance amendment, we were not able to get those out with the rest of the packet on Friday. And so we wrap those up late Monday evening. and I apologize for getting it late to you. |
| 04:40:03.56 | Unknown | And the yellow one with the edits? |
| 04:40:05.30 | Jeremy Graves | The LOE, Michael and I had a conversation on that this afternoon, and so that's what I gave to you. I've circled the changes on here so you can see them. From the staff perspective, they are minor cleanups, housekeeping items. |
| 04:40:25.15 | Unknown | Yeah, so they're just minor corrections. Yes. Okay. Okay, so... Comments. |
| 04:40:36.76 | Unknown | My comment is that the photos I see look really lovely. I really love the access to the beach. I think it's a great public service and would be a wonderful legacy as well as the bus turnout. I'd like to see the dimensions of the bus turnout clarified. But frankly, the reason I'm struggling with voting and considering abstaining is just the fact that I got so much of this late. I mean, today, and I work during the day, which means I really got some of this an hour beforehand. And so I need to think through that because... I don't know. Just, yeah, I don't like getting things |
| 04:41:28.73 | Alex Kacheff | Thank you. |
| 04:41:28.75 | Unknown | Okay. |
| 04:41:29.10 | Alex Kacheff | Thank you. |
| 04:41:32.35 | Unknown | And this was when we walked in, so. |
| 04:41:35.74 | Unknown | Yeah, but this is trivial. |
| 04:41:37.34 | Unknown | Well, I don't know if it's trivial. I haven't walked through it. |
| 04:41:39.82 | Unknown | Through it. |
| 04:41:40.61 | Unknown | Anyway. |
| 04:41:41.76 | Unknown | you |
| 04:41:42.42 | Unknown | Well, Mike, I think it's a great project. I mean, I agree with Alex's comment that, you know, the input of the neighbors and... |
| 04:41:42.88 | Unknown | I don't know. |
| 04:41:52.46 | Unknown | a lot of the burdens that came has made it a better project over time. And I'm glad you recognize it because you went through all the burdens and had to suffer through that. I certainly appreciate all the work you've done, Michael, your family, the neighbors particularly. I have to give them credit because it's easy to say no to things and not want to have change. But to work together for something that's better is really important. Certainly our staff, as I went through everything, the mountains of paper, it took hours to go through. and I had to think that people had to develop that and they had to argue certainly our staff. As I went through everything, the mountains of paper, it took hours to go through and I had to think that people had to develop that and they had to argue about that and it had to take time to move it along. And it just took hours just to get to that final product. And also the Planning Commission has moved it along. What's made my job much easier is that staff and Alex and Michael and all the neighbors did all the work. And as of the September 17th Planning Commission meeting, you guys had it all hammered out. So it made the job a lot easier today because I was prepared at that point. And we just looked at some of the various changes. and the way I look at it now, I think we're ready to go with... hammered out. So it made the job a lot easier today because I was prepared at that point and we just looked at some of the various changes. And the way I look at it now, I think we're ready to go with a few minor changes to condition of approval number 61 to address David Thomas's concern. I think we're ready to go. |
| 04:43:10.08 | Unknown | I also think we're ready to go. I think we can, with Mayor's suggestion, accommodate, David, your concerns. We'll get that into, we'll get the appropriate resolution here. I also want to... You know, this has been really interesting to see how with good, a really good sort of spirit and a lot of very hard work. What appeared to be a while ago a situation which was tense, to say the least, has resolved into something that in situation like this I get applause for you know the the project and I know Jordan one of your workshops, the same thing happened, same thing happened in the Planning Commission. That's just fantastic. And so I'd just like to congratulate and thank everybody who's been involved in this because you've all traveled a long road, and I think you've come to a good place, to a project which I think you said very well is just beautiful. And most importantly, it preserves something that's very precious to us in Sausalito. So I'm ready. Her. |
| 04:44:49.82 | Jeremy Graves | THE FAMILY. |
| 04:44:53.11 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 04:44:53.12 | Unknown | How you did it, I don't know. Yeah. Really. |
| 04:44:56.41 | Unknown | Yeah. Really. you |
| 04:44:59.03 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 04:44:59.05 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 04:44:59.17 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 04:44:59.94 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 04:44:59.96 | Unknown | I've been in this time. |
| 04:45:00.01 | Unknown | And I've been in this town a long time. but I think you did a great job. I think you really worked with the neighbors, the city, everybody. And this will be something that... you and the city will be very proud of for the years to come. |
| 04:45:18.05 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 04:45:18.38 | Unknown | So thank you. |
| 04:45:19.33 | Unknown | Let me add that you don't very often, for late mail, get a letter from Ragianti and Freitas that's written in bold, we fully support the project with the exclusion of the conditions of approval. I mean, that doesn't happen very often, so well done. |
| 04:45:40.44 | Unknown | And I'm just going to say that, you know, I still feel like I am going to need to abstain from this, having received the materials today. Not all the materials, but a bulk of materials. And frankly, I'm missing one. You know, I had to get it from you. So, I mean, I don't, and it's a shame because, you know, I think that everything I'm seeing and I'm hearing I really like. But I do need, you know, the time. I need to get the materials on time, and I need to be able to review this. |
| 04:45:57.38 | Kate Powell | Yeah. Well, |
| 04:45:59.04 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 04:46:15.64 | Unknown | So, Tom, can you help us craft whatever motions? Oh, we can. |
| 04:46:19.05 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 04:46:19.12 | Unknown | Whatever motions. |
| 04:46:20.79 | Unknown | . |
| 04:46:20.84 | Unknown | Thank you. Are they here? |
| 04:46:23.57 | Unknown | So we need three separate actions, I gather. And we must start with the environmental review. So is what's written up there good enough? |
| 04:46:37.33 | Mary Wagner | It is, and the modifications that you were discussing would be to your second resolution? Yes. So staff would recommend and ask that you first take action on the environmental |
| 04:46:42.17 | Unknown | Yes. |
| 04:46:42.52 | Alex Kacheff | Thank you. |
| 04:46:46.96 | Mary Wagner | document and that I believe is attachment number four to 5A1 of your staff report. Then move to the resolution approving the project entitlements and you could make any modification to the conditions at that point. And then we would suggest you introduce and read by title only the ordinance making all those suggested modifications and unfortunately you have to read the whole title on that one. |
| 04:47:10.32 | Unknown | Okay. Yeah. So that's the thing you really have to read, though. You really do. |
| 04:47:16.09 | Mary Wagner | You really do. And then continue that ordinance to your consent calendar on November 11th for a second reading. |
| 04:47:25.40 | Unknown | Well, I'm sorry. So let's take one at a time. And the first one, should I cite the attachment in the report? Which attachment was it again? |
| 04:47:27.06 | Mary Wagner | Thank you. |
| 04:47:27.07 | Alex Kacheff | I want to. |
| 04:47:33.77 | Mary Wagner | You don't have to. I was just for your edification pointing out where it was located. So I can just read? |
| 04:47:35.12 | Unknown | I was just for you. So I can just read off the first one. So I move that we approve final Valhalla residential condominiums project IESMND and mitigation monitoring and reporting program. |
| 04:47:54.40 | Unknown | Debbie, call the roll, please. I need a second. |
| 04:47:56.52 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 04:47:56.89 | Unknown | Oh, sorry. Second. getting ahead of myself. Debbie, call the roll, please. |
| 04:48:02.44 | Debbie | Thank you. Councilmember Fiver. Abstain. |
| 04:48:10.38 | Debbie | Council Member Weiner. |
| 04:48:11.35 | Unknown | Yes. |
| 04:48:15.76 | Debbie | Vice Mayor Theodorus. |
| 04:48:17.50 | Unknown | Yes. |
| 04:48:19.18 | Debbie | Mayor Withey. |
| 04:48:19.86 | Unknown | Yes. |
| 04:48:24.06 | Unknown | game. |
| 04:48:24.97 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 04:48:25.12 | Unknown | Can we read number two, is that enough or do we have to |
| 04:48:27.96 | Unknown | That plus modification. |
| 04:48:28.43 | Unknown | . |
| 04:48:28.58 | Mary Wagner | Thank you. So that's great. You just adopted the resolution of improving the environmental document and now you can move to the project entitlements, the first of which is the resolution approving the general plan amendment, plan development permit, floodplain variance and encroachment agreement. and this is where you were having the discussion about modifying condition number 61, and I believe this is also where the modifications on the yellow sheet that's in front of you tonight on the dais come into effect. And if you can bear with me and let me summarize what I believe to be was the direction that we were receiving, and if Jeremy can can correct me where I'm in error. I believe that you're discussing modifying condition of approval 61. to add the information that's contained on page 25 of 27 THE END OF of attachment five in your staff report. regarding the umbrellas, canopies, and similar elements to include that language regarding those roof deck accessories with the exception of the last sentence that talked about regulation between the neighbors, which wouldn't be applicable. And then we can also add to that same condition of approval, language indicating that any modifications to the conditions of approval that were required by the city would need the approval of the city in order to be modified, whether that be amending or deleting them. |
| 04:49:46.12 | Unknown | Okay? |
| 04:49:49.77 | Unknown | Okay. |
| 04:49:51.44 | Unknown | So I will move that we approve a resolution approving a general plan amendment, planned development permit, floodplain variance, and encroachment agreement to develop seven residential condominiums at |
| 04:49:55.40 | Unknown | Bye. |
| 04:50:08.21 | Unknown | 201 bridgeway and to create a separate parcel for the existing single family resident. Residents at 206 Second Street with the Um, amendments to the conditions of approval that were just recited by our city attorney. And with the further corrections specified in the was it a document entitled, Bajala Residential Condominiums Development Standards Analysis, revised October 21, 2014. Is that enough identification for you? |
| 04:50:49.20 | Unknown | Second. Okay. |
| 04:50:53.29 | Keith Kennedy | Yeah. |
| 04:50:53.30 | Unknown | be. |
| 04:50:53.57 | Keith Kennedy | you |
| 04:50:57.39 | Debbie | Councilmember Pfeiffer. |
| 04:50:58.70 | Unknown | I'm speaking. Okay. |
| 04:51:02.20 | Debbie | Councilmember Weiner. |
| 04:51:03.85 | Unknown | Yes. |
| 04:51:05.27 | Debbie | Yeah. Vice Mayor Theodore. |
| 04:51:07.56 | Unknown | Yes. |
| 04:51:10.97 | Debbie | Mayor Whittington. |
| 04:51:11.56 | Unknown | Yes. And so our final... resolution on this matter for this evening |
| 04:51:20.81 | Abbott Chambers | just as this. |
| 04:51:21.50 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 04:51:21.55 | Abbott Chambers | you |
| 04:51:21.60 | Unknown | THE FAMILY IS |
| 04:51:21.84 | Abbott Chambers | Thank you. |
| 04:51:23.66 | Unknown | I move that we review, introduce, and read by title only an ordinance of the City Council of the City of Sausalito amending the City of Sausalito zoning map to modify the zoning of 201 bridgeway brand-by-hallis site from neighborhood commercial CN1 zoning district to multifamily residential R3 zoning district and to add a plan development overlay to 201 Bridgeway, the hollow site. |
| 04:52:02.14 | Unknown | Second. |
| 04:52:05.80 | Unknown | Debbie. |
| 04:52:08.06 | Debbie | Council member Fyder. |
| 04:52:09.22 | Unknown | stage. |
| 04:52:13.44 | Debbie | Why not? Thank you. |
| 04:52:14.03 | Unknown | Yes. |
| 04:52:17.78 | Unknown | Yes. |
| 04:52:18.08 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 04:52:18.10 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 04:52:20.43 | Debbie | here with you. |
| 04:52:21.54 | Unknown | Yes. |
| 04:52:24.97 | Debbie | Bye. |
| 04:52:25.00 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 04:52:27.97 | Unknown | Now you can take down the story polls. |
| 04:52:29.68 | Unknown | I'm sure. |
| 04:52:30.03 | Mary Wagner | I think we have one more. |
| 04:52:31.40 | Unknown | No, no, that's for... |
| 04:52:32.93 | Mary Wagner | MS. Mr. Mayor, we just need you to formally continue the second reading of the ordinance to November 11th. |
| 04:52:37.20 | Unknown | Okay. So we will continue the second reading of the ordinance to our meeting on November 11th. And with that, this matter is closed, and congratulations. |
| 04:52:41.47 | Mary Wagner | Ooh. |
| 04:53:01.40 | Unknown | Yeah, two-minute break. |
| 04:53:31.67 | Jeremy Graves | It's a nice project to go out. THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 04:53:41.97 | Unknown | Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. |
| 04:54:41.17 | David Thomas | Thank you. |
| 04:54:41.18 | Keith Kennedy | How does it feel? |
| 04:55:04.37 | Unknown | Folks, this is Well gone midnight, let's try and wrap this up. |
| 04:55:10.41 | Phillip Nicholson | Thank you. |
| 04:55:10.44 | Unknown | Yep. |
| 04:55:12.00 | Unknown | No. |
| 04:55:13.03 | Unknown | Today is Wednesday. Let's go. |
| 04:55:17.14 | Unknown | Jonathan's taking a break. |
| 04:55:17.75 | Unknown | . . |
| 04:55:19.17 | Unknown | you |
| 04:55:19.25 | Unknown | It's stinky. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. The Pressure The President |
| 04:55:34.81 | Unknown | Okay. |
| 04:55:43.47 | Unknown | Item seven, city manager information for council. |
| 04:55:48.45 | Unknown | I'm coming to school. |
| 04:55:52.21 | Adam Politzer | Okay, so it's 1210, so I'm going to really abbreviate this as best I can. I need to recognize the folks from Sausura Beautiful and our public work staff. They had their workday this weekend and took care of the area between the Ice House and Enzyme Street. I had a chance earlier today to take a look at it. They did a terrific job. But what I wanted to highlight after talking to Lauren, and Lauren shared this with the roughly 45 volunteers that showed up to do the work. that that two and a half hours that they spent out there, which was about as much time as it sounded like people wanted to spend, was basically the equivalent of three weeks of work for one maintenance worker. If that's all they did for three weeks, that would have been the outcome. So to be able to do that in two and a half hours in one day and have that type of product is outstanding. So I think there was a lot of enthusiasm and excitement going forward to look at doing this a few times a year, pick locations, and make those improvements. It is worth noting, I think that the council is aware of this, that the Rotary is actively working with Public Works and Park and Recreation with CASNO. That project is moving forward in terms of the rehabilitation of that playground. And then the Women's Club is also working with the Public Works Department and have adopted the intersection here at Napa and Bridgeway where the sculpture is to do the landscape improvements there to go in there and put in new plants. And so I think that they have made great headway. And then you've all seen over the last month the excellent work that the Public Works Maintenance Team has taken on here at City Hall, again working with Sassueta Beautiful and SWA. We're just waiting for SWA to give us the landscape plan for the parking lot. You've seen that we've cleared out all of the debris on the retaining wall. We removed a lot of dead plants and weeds around the area. And once they give us their planting scheme, we'll go forward and purchase those plants and do the planting and hopefully before the winter rains so that they can benefit from natural water versus the city's water. Two other quick items here. We had a letter from Mrs. Leach regarding Fort Boakley. She came to the council asking for the city to look at the stability of Fort Boakley. Our public works director has gone out there and will continue to work with our building Inspector Kenneth Henry and with CSG to work with them to make sure that that property is stable. At this current condition, based on our public works director's review of what has happened in the past meeting with their architect. There is no imminent threat of that property causing any harm to the folks below, but there is further action that our public works director thinks that the property owner will need to do in the near future, and he will work with them to require those improvements. So we'll communicate that back out to the council once we get to that point. We'll communicate to Mrs. Leach to let her know that we've done the inspection, the initial inspection, and that we'll continue to update her as we move forward. There's been a lot in the news on air B&Bs with what has happened in San Francisco. There's a lot of discussion here in the county. |
| 04:59:04.13 | Alex Kacheff | uh, |
| 05:00:07.49 | Adam Politzer | and a lot of discussion here in Sausalito. Our Finance Committee met and we had a presentation from both Charlie Francis and Jeremy Graves looking at the pros and cons of this issue. The cons outweigh the pros in my opinion and I think by the opinion of the Finance Committee to move towards how do we create more effective and efficient enforcement tools. There are vendors out there that do this type of work. So Charlie is exploring, bringing in a vendor to actually identify the illegal bread and breakfasts that are going on, short-term rentals that are going on, and then start the enforcement action through the consultants' efforts. So we'll bring this information. We look to have some conversations with the vendors that provide this service. We'll bring this to the council for direction probably in the first of the year as we move forward and hopefully be able to address the issue that is creating a lot of concerns from our residents here in Sausalito. A couple other items that's worth noting. There's also been questions on the plastic bag ordinance. The plastic bag ordinance went into effect this month. It's something that the council adopted back in March. Six months later it came into effect. The sustainability commission has done the initial outreach. Their members identified all of the businesses that need to comply, went door to door to educate them on that. Our city magazine that went out earlier this fall also had an article about it, including that there – you know, for people that forget their reusable bags and want to use their bags, it will be a 10-cent charge on paper bags that are out there. But we thought that it's worth sending another notice out and just reminding our local. paper bags that are out there. But we thought that it's worth sending another notice out and just reminding our local stores of the requirements and working with them to comply with the new ordinance. MCC-MC, it's going to have a rough time tomorrow night because it's a World Series night and it's up in Novato, so I'm sure the people that were on the fence to drive up in rush hour traffic to Novato at 6 o'clock may be watching the game. Now, if the game is lopsided, they might head over there and get there by 6.30 and in time for the program. But do make an effort to go if you are planning on going. I know that at least three of you had confirmed they do appreciate us making the effort, and they make the effort to come to ours, so it's worth coming to. I sent out an email letting the council know that our strategic planning session, the dates have been set. We're doing it a little bit differently this time around. We're having three sessions that kind of build up to the final session, but two of those sessions will be in the evenings. It will be Monday, December 1st from 6 to 9 p.m., Thursday, December 11th from 6 to 9 p.m., and Friday, December 12th from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. So we hope that the public is able to participate, if they so choose, on any one of those three dates. But please reserve those dates on your calendar, and we'll give you more information as we get closer to those dates. The last of my lists that I'm going to share tonight, drum roll please, is the Chamber Gala is on November 14th and the city traditionally has a table. So please respond back to Debbie if you are planning to come. Important to support our Chamber at the Gala, it's the night that they award the business of the year for both small and large business volunteer of the year. So it's also a celebration of all the great things that the Chamber of Commerce and our local businesses do for our community. Happy to answer any questions the council may have. And that ends my report. Thank you. |
| 05:04:44.84 | Unknown | Any questions? |
| 05:04:46.49 | Unknown | Yes, I have some questions. So regarding the leech concern regarding Ford Bulkley, I was just wondering what is the timeline for the initial inspections? Because I ask because I know when she brought it to council, she had a a requested deadline, which I think was like mid-October. |
| 05:05:14.60 | Adam Politzer | Yeah, I'll let our public works director answer the specific question. But yeah, when she came to the council, she had a timeline of October 10th as her initial wanting some reassurances and then in the email correspondence she just recently sent, it was October 24th, |
| 05:05:26.25 | Alex Kacheff | Thank you. |
| 05:05:26.28 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 05:05:26.38 | Alex Kacheff | Amen. |
| 05:05:30.80 | Adam Politzer | that she wanted to hear back from the city, that we understand her concerns and are taking action. So that's what Jonathan Goldman can comment on. |
| 05:05:39.53 | Jonathon Goldman | Yeah, the three engineers who work for the city inspected today. There was emergency stabilization work done in 2013. We verified that that work was done. In addition, a building permit was applied for and has not been issued yet. So as the city manager indicated, we've clearly communicated to the representative of the property owner that what's there now is adequate temporarily, but that permanent improvements need to be made. So whether those get made in the form of finalizing building permit for the remodeling that was initiated maybe in 2011 or supplemental work gets done, one of those two things will happen. |
| 05:06:33.04 | Unknown | So I heard the city manager mention initial inspections. So do you have a timeline for the initial inspection? |
| 05:06:41.07 | Jonathon Goldman | I inspected today along with Andy Davidson and Alex Chan from my office. |
| 05:06:43.31 | Unknown | along with Oh, so that's been done. Yes. And so then what you're saying is you're going to write up the report and send that to Ms. Leach? |
| 05:06:48.41 | Jonathon Goldman | Yes. |
| 05:06:53.51 | Jonathon Goldman | I certainly will let Ms. Leach know that the city has inspected and what will happen subsequently. But it's up to the property owner to do one or the other of the alternatives available to them. |
| 05:07:11.24 | Unknown | Okay, and you'll cc counsel on that, so just to keep us in the loop, |
| 05:07:14.85 | Jonathon Goldman | Thank you. |
| 05:07:14.89 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 05:07:14.92 | Jonathon Goldman | Thank you. |
| 05:07:14.94 | Unknown | Absolutely. |
| 05:07:16.02 | Unknown | Okay. |
| 05:07:17.67 | Unknown | Any other questions of our city manager? |
| 05:07:19.06 | Unknown | I do. I do. Regarding you mentioned the Airbnb, and you said you were going to look at, you know, enforcement tools, which I think is good. |
| 05:07:20.58 | Unknown | Go. |
| 05:07:35.48 | Unknown | I, uh, council received a packet. with, I'm sure you're familiar with it, regarding the Liboboards. I guess some photos of a real dire situation on the waterfront with an Airbnb, I guess, nuisance, short-term rental again. And from what I understand, it's the same owner as the problem we had inland in Hurricane Gulch, who I guess just received a hearing. So clearly this person is, you know, violating our ordinances. So do you have a comment on enforcement for that? that seems like it would be low hanging fruit to kind of move forward on. |
| 05:08:33.34 | Adam Politzer | Yeah, I wish it was low-hanging fruit, but it's not. We haven't yet verified the information that we received, but we're working on it. Staff has it on its list of things to confirm. But even with the situation on 3rd Street with Mr. Wong, what he has now done, which which is what was suggested to him based on the hearing officer's hearing that they conducted, was to make a note on his advertisements that even though he's showing the per day costs or the weekend costs, that he had to put a note, an asterisk, that said that he can't rent it for less than 30 days. So that's what he's done. So it's not solving our problem, it's not solving the community's problem, but it's creating a situation where he's working within the system but not having a positive effect. So that's why we need, you know, and the case that was heard was on a one case moment, not his unit and how often, but it was on the complaint that he rented it for this specific time for less than 30 days. And so for us to follow up on that same property, let alone additional properties, with the tools that we have today is not going to be efficient or effective. So that's why we are looking towards this consultant and working through a consultant to see if there's a way that we can use someone else, their resources to go through and make these enforcement and actually have some teeth and penalties that can come back to pay for this effort through what we're looking at right now. So the activity at Sussan Bridgeway Marina, we received all the information. We've passed that information forward to our halftime code enforcement person, and, you know, we're looking to validate it. We have notified the owner of the marina that these complaints have come in. We've notified him that this use of the marina is, that type of activity at the marina is illegal and he says that he would comply and make sure that all of the folks that lease or rent slips are told that they cannot operate short-term rentals. So that's what we've done, but we'll continue to pursue it and bring back a report to the council in the beginning of the year. |
| 05:11:29.62 | Unknown | And this consultant that you're looking at, is council going to see what is there a big cost with this? I mean, I don't understand. We've got an ordinance. Enforce it. You know, it seems pretty straightforward to me. |
| 05:11:41.01 | Adam Politzer | It doesn't work that way. It's a lot more complicated than we have an ordinance to enforce it. You have to give the person the ability. to make their case and they appealed it. and when they appeal it, it goes to an outside officer. We paid $2,000. for the outside hearing officer to come in and hear the case. It took, I don't know, a month, two months for the hearing officer to make their decision, and the fine is $100. Um, So the situation now isn't working. No. So that's why we're saying we'll bring back not the consultant, this is what they're going to do, a proposal on what recommendations we have that we would like the city to give us direction on. And then that would be including this option using the consultant. |
| 05:12:07.55 | Alex Kacheff | Thank you. |
| 05:12:07.57 | Unknown | That's. |
| 05:12:07.97 | Alex Kacheff | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 05:12:09.04 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 05:12:09.10 | Alex Kacheff | Thank you. |
| 05:12:11.37 | Unknown | No. |
| 05:12:31.08 | Adam Politzer | So we're just exploring it at this point in time. We don't have a proposal from a consultant. We have a vendor that this is what they do. So Charlie's working with them to find out how it would work in SOS. |
| 05:12:36.68 | Alex Kacheff | Thank you. |
| 05:12:40.71 | Unknown | So Adam, this is a future agenda item. Thanks. OK. Any public comment? Do you have a question for Adam? |
| 05:12:51.68 | Jonathon Goldman | I was going to say some of the analysts, |
| 05:12:53.44 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 05:12:53.76 | Jonathon Goldman | Thank you. |
| 05:12:53.96 | Unknown | Any member of the public want to comment on the city manager's reports? Seeing none. Okay. Council member committee reports. Anybody have anything to say on committee reports at this late hour? No. Okay. Any public comment? No. Future agenda items. |
| 05:12:54.01 | Jonathon Goldman | Thank you. um... |
| 05:13:18.24 | Unknown | So the ferry landing, I think we need a full public review on that with Planning Commission, et cetera. It was promised, and we need that. I would like to see that on the future agenda item. Also, what we heard tonight regarding the crime in Spencer, we urgently need a solution on that. The Airbnb issue and the enforcement what Adam talked about I think that needs to be a high priority and and finally I look forward to hearing about the follow-up with regards to the forb bulkly situations |
| 05:14:01.41 | Unknown | Anybody else have any comments on future. |
| 05:14:04.31 | Jonathon Goldman | Joe Jen. |
| 05:14:04.73 | Unknown | Thank you. No, public comment? No. We now need to move on to appointments to boards and commissions, and we have the opportunity to appoint up to three members of the Sustainability Commission. So I'm going to kick us off here by, first of all, The first position I'd like to make a nomination for is to fill the current vacant position on the Sustainability Commission, and the term would expire in February 2018. And if I'm my, I would like to nominate, and I'm gonna, last name's gonna, I'm gonna get this wrong, sorry, Kristen. Wolvesley call. Is that... Sorry, Kristen. Okay, so that's my nomination there. I don't know if we want to do this in turn or whether you just want me to roll through all three. Go for it. Okay. The second position is we have a situation where we have two, at the moment, two members of the Sustainability Commission, Sue Currier and Monica Towers, who has done great service. They're both, their term expired a while ago, actually quite a while ago, and they're both termed out. And we have a bunch of good applicants, and now's, I think, the time to consider that. So to replace the termed-out position of Sue Currier, the term which would expire in 2018, I would like to nominate Rebecca Woodbury. and the termed-out position that is currently Monica Towers is kindly filling. I'd like to nominate Millard Arterbury. For the first appointment that I've proposed, Kristen suggests that begins straight away as it's vacant. For the other two appointments, I'd like to see a little bit of overlap. So I'd like to see them, actually their term begin in December so that they can come to the meetings if they want to, October and November. And I would encourage that they do. But importantly, I'd like Sue and Monica to stay on until December so that we can have some overlap. With all of that, those are my nominations, and so I'd ask, does anybody have any other nominations or want to say anything? |
| 05:17:25.76 | Unknown | Okay. All right. So do we need to vote? What do we need to do, Mary? Or we're fine? Okay. |
| 05:17:34.07 | Ed Carey | Okay. |
| 05:17:34.62 | Unknown | We had a number of. |
| 05:17:34.62 | Unknown | We had a number of great candidates, and it was hard to choose, and we'll find places for all of them. |
| 05:17:36.95 | Unknown | Yeah. We have had a lot of great candidates, and with the Sustainability Commission, there happens to be a lot of turnover at the moment. In February, there's going to be another person turned out, and so we have also good candidates potentially to fill that role already here. So any public comment on that? Any other reports of significance? I'm assuming no. And then finally, for the adjournment, I actually would like to adjourn in the memory of someone you probably don't know. Adjourn in the memory of Michael Harris. Michael Harris, who was 92 years old and actually lived on the East Coast, having left Sausalito a decade or so ago, he was a reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle. He was also a former city council member back in the 60s or 70s. I'm not quite sure which. but what he's actually mainly known for is as council member back in the 60s or 70s. I'm not quite sure which. But what he's actually mainly known for is, as a reporter for the Chronicle, he ran a 10-week piece back in the 1950s that exposed how local governments work. And that inspired a certain assembly member which persuaded Brown to actually initiate that legislation. And so both a former city council member and a very important leader politically. So we're adjourning in his memory. |
| 05:19:12.09 | Alex Kacheff | the brown. |
| 05:19:29.53 | Unknown | And I do want to also just add that it is Velma Gamble's 100th birthday tomorrow. So... |
| 05:19:37.37 | Unknown | So happy birthday. Yes. |
| 05:19:38.55 | Unknown | Yes. |
| 05:19:39.92 | Unknown | Okay. Today or tomorrow? |
| 05:19:41.49 | Unknown | day it's not to its my sis when i can't okay |
| 05:19:43.72 | Unknown | Okay. |
| 05:19:45.10 | Unknown | Thank you. That it I |
| 05:19:45.91 | Unknown | That's today. |
| 05:19:46.33 | Unknown | today is the twenty always say after midnight happy birthday down |
| 05:19:47.97 | Unknown | It's after a minute. Yeah. We're adjourned. Thank you. |
Leslie Hale — Against: Described a home invasion where thieves broke in despite locked doors; felt police response was inadequate and follow-up lacking; feels unsafe and unprotected. ▶ 📄
Holly Stewart Carey — Against: Reported three burglaries at her home; noted thieves are 'hardened criminals' who carry guns; requested police patrols and surveillance cameras to deter crime. ▶ 📄
Bunny Zaruba — Against: Spoke for neighbor Kathy Page, burglarized quickly after leaving home; as single women, they feel afraid and need police presence; urged council to fund more police staffing. ▶ 📄
Nancy Kern — Against: Described a burglary at a neighbor's home where a locked door was kicked in; emphasized need for more police protection due to frequent incidents in the neighborhood. ▶ 📄
Kate Powell — Against: Reported on neighbors' burglary where thieves disabled a sophisticated alarm system; described thieves as professionals operating boldly during the day; feels concerns are not addressed. ▶ 📄
Ken Shapiro — Against: Criticized council for focusing on visitor safety over residents'; highlighted need for more police officers to prevent burglaries from turning violent; suggested city should provide surveillance like Tiburon. ▶ 📄
Ed Carey — Against: Summarized neighborhood's efforts to improve security; stated Police Chief Tejada said more officers are needed but resources are lacking; urged council to find resources and address the issue urgently. ▶ 📄
Jeffrey Chase — Neutral: Suggested increasing occupancy in homes as a deterrent; commented on biblical references and admired a council member for not taking a salary; spoke broadly without direct position on police staffing. ▶ 📄