| Time | Speaker | Text |
|---|---|---|
| 00:00:18.16 | Unknown | of all the very ones. you Oh, no. |
| 00:00:21.97 | Mayor Theodore | you |
| 00:00:22.02 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:00:22.04 | Mayor Theodore | Thank you. |
| 00:00:22.51 | Unknown | Oh, she's... |
| 00:00:22.96 | Mayor Theodore | Thank you. Welcome everyone to the Sausalito City Council meeting for February 10, 2015, the Parking Technology Workshop. I'll turn it over to Charlie Francis, our Finance Director. |
| 00:00:34.61 | Charlie Francis | Great. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, members of the City Council, and thank you for taking an extra 45 minutes out of your schedule this evening to talk about the process of the parking technology and the workshop. I'd just like to have a brief agenda to supplement a PowerPoint presentation and a PowerPoint here to supplement the document that was in your agenda packet, which is City Council Park Technology Workshop. It had a lot of narrative in it. Thank you. PowerPoint here to supplement the document that was in your agenda packet which is a City Council Park Technology Workshop it had a lot of narrative in it I'm going to make some brief introductions talk about our existing technology Then walk through the RFI process that we're in right now and conclude with any questions and discussions and observations Both from the City Council and and from the public First of all, we have a parking technology team. That team, of course, begins with our leader, the city manager, Adam Pollitzer. Jennifer Tejada, our police chief, and our department of public works director, Jonathan Goldman, are key members of the team in terms of where the infrastructure should go and how enforcement should happen. Police Lieutenant Curtis Skoog has just been invaluable working with the parking enforcement officers and the parking analysts to provide input to this process. And then I've been leading the effort to bring us to a new technology solution for 2015 and beyond. And working with me has been Julie Dixon, the parking consultant. This is Julie Dixon here from Dixon. Thank you. technologies fixin resources right now So with that as introducing our technology team, I just wanted to briefly walk through the process. You know, of course, this has been on the adopted priority calendar, and this past year during the priority calendar process, it was taken off the priority calendar and put onto department work plans, and the department work plan it was put on was DPW and administration, with me being the lead on it. We had – it was on page 158 of our adopted budget where this sheet was replicated. There was a priority calendar status report and some finance committee meetings have been going on monthly. I've been reporting to the finance committee since July. And today begins the citizen engagement and that will lead up to council deliberations, council deliberations that will enable you to have make decisions from a completely informed basis. So, I'm going to go ahead and start with the council. I'm going to go ahead and start with the council. I'm going to go ahead and start with the council. What I promised the city manager when he put me in charge of this team is that the report that would come to the city council at some point would be the full spectrum of options that the city has to choose from. We could go back to the past. We could go back to a gated system with proximity cards and a lot of manual labor, or we can explore the future. I mean, we could explore the opposite end of the spectrum is where we just completely outsource the whole parking operations, either through a private-public partnership where they monetize the asset through an operating agreement, or maybe there's a place right in the middle, a sweet spot. We won't know the complete value of the asset until we go through a process to identify what is the value of money to get out of the money. And we're going to have a lot of money to get out of the money. And we're going to have a lot of money to get out of the money. And we're going to have a lot of money to get out of the money. And we're going to have a lot of money to get out of the money. And we're going to have a lot of money to get out of the Before I go into that RFI process, I just want to quickly summarize our existing inventory. Our existing inventory includes 214 single-space meters that are located on the streets. They're identified by the little yellow markers that are in the upper right-hand corner. And then we have 22 – right now we have 22 Siemens pay stations located in LATS, throughout LATS 1 through 4, and they're marked with little arrows there where they're located in our existing So the RFI process had four phases. The first phase was some planning and initiation. Phase two was the analysis. Phase three is where we're at today. That's beginning the pilot testing of all the vendors and the different types of equipment that's out there. And phase four is in the future, and that's when we'll be doing assessment and selection. The city council will receive a recommendation based on all this information gathering that we've been going through there'll be a detailed assessment report and then we'll be recommending a solution to be implemented before hopefully before the summer parking season and not in the middle of it So phase one was basically where we developed a draft request for information. The request for information, we wanted to make sure that it was comprehensive and that it wasn't slanted to one particular vendor or it didn't favor any group of vendors. So we drafted a request for information, and it was, before it was official, was distributed to 10 parking technology vendors for their review. In other words, is there anything in this RFI that we're missing as we draft this document? And the vendors included everyone that you see there on the list, pretty much the universe of current contemporary technology vendors for both multispace and single-space meters. And then we received responses. We received responses from those vendors by September 18th. We had requests for additional documentation, and there were some questions that went back and forth. And finally, the RFI response was October 3rd at 2 p.m., where we did a final RFI, we sent that out, and we received responses from the following vendors, APARC, Calais, Digital Global Parking Solutions, the IPS Group, Parkion, and POM for single space meters. Following – and here are all the proposals. We got all the proposals and several copies of hard forms, but because we wanted to save trees, we also asked for the proposals to be submitted with – on full-time. |
| 00:06:58.73 | Unknown | hard. |
| 00:07:06.67 | Charlie Francis | and thumb drives, which one of them just dropped on there. Thank you. So then we went through all these responses to our request for information and vetted them. And basically there was three different single space meter solutions, and there were five pay stations, and one of the pay stations is a retrofit. In other words, you can just take out the guts of what are in our existing equipment and put in retrofit for a modern technology. So then after all that analysis, then we reached back out to the vendors, and we said to the vendor, we want to perform a pilot test. And we vetted them and said, who's willing to participate in the pilot test? Here are the insurance requirements you have to provide during the pilot test. We had certain requirements. We didn't want to have any cost to the city other than credit card transaction costs, just what we would have incurred if someone would have been parking in an existing machine. And one of the single space meter providers, Duncan, wouldn't waive all their other fees. And to be fair to all the vendors, we told Duncan that we didn't want them to go forward in the pilot test because they weren't playing on a level playing field with all the other ones. There was a couple other factors. One is Duncan is in the process of going out of business. Now they, so, you know, there was not the assurance that, you know, there would be able to support the equipment in the future. There is a possibility that someone else will buy them, but then we don't know what that new equipment would look like. So we didn't feel like we were missing out on competition by not including Duncan in the single space playing field. So we ended up with two vendors to be providing a pilot test for single space meters. Those are, you know, like where we have them on the streets. And that is IPS. Those IPS meters are very similar. They are the ones that San Francisco is using now where they take a credit card as well as coins. And then POM, POM also takes credit card and takes coins and it has an interesting new technology that hasn't been tried before, but we definitely wanted to look at it. And that's where they're kind of mesh networked together so the modem that has the best connection for processing a credit card transaction would be the modem that's used amongst the whole mesh network of modems rather than each meter using its modem to reach out to the credit card validation process. So we're going to have a lot of the information that we're going to have to Thank you. And then we had the multi-space stations. And so we have their CalA, Digital, Global, IPS, and Parkian. We, APARC proposed, who's now called Parktoria, APARC proposed the IPS retrofit. So there was no need to do a double testing of an IPS retrofit since IPS was another proposer. So we did not allow APARC to participate in the pilot. We know what their existing equipment can do, and through the IPS vendor we'll be able to see what the retrofit will be able to do. The retrofit works exactly the same way as an IPS new station would. And so the cost savings is rather than buy the whole casing, you just open the door, replace the door, replace the guts and close it. So we would reduce the cost of the base unless we wanted to move it and the casing that the hardware and software is housed in. So we're in phase three now. Phase three began today with an open house where we invited the public to come, and each of the vendors was there standing next to their equipment, and the public was then walked around as well as a cadre of staff, went from pay station to pay station to see how they worked, how they fit. They talked about their features. We've generated some press release. We've developed the criteria that we're going to be measuring the vendors against. We will be providing ongoing public updates based upon the installation locations and all the user details. And Elliot just did a great job of coordinating all the installation schedules with vendors. so that's where we're at today. We would have liked to have had this workshop before the open house, and then the open house, you know, following this afternoon we had, and tomorrow afternoon, one-on-one sessions with each of the vendors, where they have 45 minutes to, okay, now we saw your operations in the field, now's your chance to make a presentation to a core group, the evaluation team, to, you know, see what they have and what they don't have. These are the locations of all the different vendors and where they're at. We put – we wanted to make sure that they're in the same spots that the EXISTING APARC machines are on. We put the single space meters along Princess Street because our handheld enforcement devices have the least amount of cell phone coverage along Princess Street. Well, the handheld enforcement devices are all 2G modems. Our existing APARC equipment is 2G modems, and all the new equipment that's going in there is 3G. So we have not experienced, through the trial today, any communication issues so far. So we're happy. We just we're hopefully with the cell phone coverage downtown and the higher generation modems we won't have the communication problems that we had with the 2g modems |
| 00:13:12.14 | Charlie Francis | Um, So with that is the really, really brief introduction of what's going on. We certainly want to open up to questions from the city council. We have our technology consultant here, Julie, her partner, one of her associates, David. I forgot your last name, David. Elliot Holtz, who's just been great coordinating, he's one of our parking analysts, works down at the police station, and he's just been great in making sure all the installation and all the operations go through. The parking enforcement officers have been involved every step of the way. This is a process, a process that now is in let's gather the public input, let's do the evaluation, and at the end of the process we'll be able to select a vendor based on an informed basis. So. you I turn it back over to you, Mr. Mayor. |
| 00:14:03.78 | Mayor Theodore | This is it. Thank you. We'll start with Dr. with questions and one or two questions we'll follow on. I'll kick it off with, when will we be able to demo these installations? |
| 00:14:16.59 | Charlie Francis | Oh, well, you can go out and demo it right now if you wanted to out there. They're in use in the parking lots. So anyone who's coming to park now would, you know, just use it as they would any other machine in the lot. If we want it, we have talked about putting together teams of citizen committees as well as council committees where we'll actually use a city credit card and city cash, as well as a bill accept we'll actually use a city credit card and city cash as well as a bill acceptor and a coin acceptor, and then we'll run it through the machines and use this criteria to rate that. And we can coordinate that either as a city meeting if you wanted to do it as a group, or we could do it one-on-one with each one of the city council members, whatever you prefer. |
| 00:15:07.94 | Charlie Francis | Yes, sir. |
| 00:15:09.12 | Councilmember Weiner | you leave the credit card in, it doesn't come out quickly just like that ATM. |
| 00:15:13.96 | Charlie Francis | Okay. |
| 00:15:16.29 | Councilmember Weiner | Yeah, it's just why I can be surprised at him. |
| 00:15:21.52 | Charlie Francis | Thank you. Yeah, let me, so I think everyone heard the question. The question is, is this a swipe credit card or leave it in? And the answer was it's a swipe. All the card readers are swipe meters. |
| 00:15:35.12 | Councilmember Weiner | Okay. Um, on the technology of of the... I guess you would save the screen. We have had problems. in the past, for people not being able to see it. because of the angle of the sun. Is that meant that they didn't get into consideration |
| 00:15:54.04 | Julie Dixon | So yes, the different user screens are- |
| 00:15:55.51 | Councilmember Weiner | Thank you. |
| 00:15:55.53 | Charlie Francis | I'm up here. I'm sorry. Yeah, because we're televising this. |
| 00:15:57.15 | Julie Dixon | I'm sorry. Thank you. Oh, great. I didn't go for makeup before. So the screens actually are all programmable, and one of the things that can be addressed when it comes to glare is that some of them will actually have glare screens that they can also put over those, but during the next two months, that's one of the pieces of feedback that we'll definitely look at. All of the vendors have different types of technologies and different screen displays, and that's one of the items that we'll definitely be assessing. Elliot in particular is going to be spending time with the meters on a daily basis and a weekly basis and going out there and actually, you know, looking at them at all different hours of times a day. We also have meters that actually have automatic lights so that when you approach the meter, it actually lights up, and there's other meters that maybe don't necessarily have that feature. So these are all kinds of the ins and outs of some of the features that we're going to be looking at. |
| 00:16:47.32 | Unknown | you You stay up here. |
| 00:16:53.38 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah, I have a question about the resident cards. I realize from the staff report that the resident cards won't work during this test phase. but is the, well first of all is that correct or not? And the second thing is will irrespective of the fire is the use of future resident cars a key program feature of each of them as a feature to offer in the one selected |
| 00:17:32.78 | Julie Dixon | So on the residential parking cards, the existing pay stations are still in the parking lots so that there wouldn't be any inhibitor on utilizing the program today. So the residents can still go up and use the existing blue APARC machines and basically pay for their parking using the resident cards. But one of the key factors in the RFI process has been the residential parking program. One of the challenges that we pose to all of the vendors involved specifically is we want to be able to provide our residents with three hours of free parking a day you tell us how you would do that and in fact over the process of today and tomorrow we're actually doing formal presentations with each of the vendors and they've actually all been challenged with that individual question and they're actually all coming back now that they've really seen it in the works and have a better understanding of what the need is for the city they're actually coming back with formal proposals within a week of exactly how they would adapt the three hours free residential parking with their solution so that will be taken into consideration with the vendor selection but I can tell you that that's been absolutely a priority for the program moving forward was how we're going to address the three hours of free residential parking in the parking lots and so that's an absolute consideration as we evaluate the technology |
| 00:18:56.87 | Jill Hoffman | So, excuse me, I have questions actually from the lessons learned from the current parking technology. and One of them has to do with the smart cards. |
| 00:19:11.92 | Charlie Francis | I'm sorry, it has to do with what? The smart cards for the room. |
| 00:19:13.02 | Jill Hoffman | the smart cards for the residents with the three hours each day. have we been explicit in terms of that's incremental so that if a resident comes down and, you know, it's only downtown for like an hour. Then later they come maybe for dinner and it's another hour. In other words, it's cumulative, it doesn't keep running. |
| 00:19:35.56 | Julie Dixon | Throughout the parking operation hours, it's basically three total hours. So like you said, if I came down and ran to get my coffee or came to the post office, it's definitely meant to be incremental. |
| 00:19:49.68 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, and... In 2010, when we initially made the investment in the parking technology for the Siemens pay stations, It was very clear there would be a 90-day probationary period in which we had the opportunity to hear from the community, hear from the businesses, and perhaps stop and say, you know, this was not the right choice for us. There were a lot of things that, you know, didn't work. So what type of probationary safeguards would be in place once the decision was made? |
| 00:20:29.07 | Julie Dixon | I'll address it first and then I'll let Charlie touch on this. So I think that from the lessons learned, that's actually one of the reasons why the approach has been taken with the RFI and the pilot. You guys have, I should say you guys, the city has a lot of experience now from the experience that you've had. And honestly, in most cases, you could probably just pick a vendor right off the cuff by running an RFP process. But because of the experience that Sausalito had, we were very cognizant and very cautious as we move forward in this process. And that's really why the RFI and the pilot was really critical, so that we could actually have the 60 days of vendor testing in the parking lots. Now to that, I wanted to address the one point that you were going to say about the probationary period. When a vendor is selected and vetted, one of the really key factors that's a little bit different than what you had in the past would be the punitive damages or liquidated damages that would be associated with this project. The RFI was very explicit and clear regarding revenue guarantees and making sure that the system was up and operational during the requirements. And this is something that coming from right across the bay in San Francisco, they have very strict compliance operational rules about the meters operating, being able to take revenue, being live and operational during meter hours. And so I believe that that's one of the options that all of the vendors have come in with the knowledge and understanding that those same rules are going to apply here in Sausalito. It's actually a direct question that the lieutenant has asked during all of the formal presentations as well to ensure that the vendors understand that they are accountable for the city's revenue and it would be addressed in the contract as well. |
| 00:22:07.76 | Jill Hoffman | As a follow-up to that, still, it it's sometimes difficult to project the unknown, especially since we're entering this with the smart card for the residents unknown. We cannot test that during this probationary period, I mean during the pilot period. So again, my question is, can we bake that probationary period in that 90 day, you know, framework? I just, I wasn't sure if I heard yes or no. |
| 00:22:35.57 | Julie Dixon | So that's a great, and I will be more specific. I want to first highlight the residential card that you're using today is proprietary technology that belongs to APARC. And so I think it's important to understand that the residential parking program will change. regardless because a park will no longer be supporting and servicing your technology so there will be a new program and that's part of what the vetting process over the next 60 days is really going to evaluate is what the vendors are coming to the table with I will say this knowing what the vendors have proposed so far I believe will be a very customer service oriented easy solution that I think your residents are going to appreciate and when i say i think it's something that has to be vetted via the committees and the citizens groups that charlie was referencing as well and when it comes back to this probationary period Anything can be addressed in the contract itself. And I would say that the stipulations of those terms, whether it be a 90 day evaluation process, whatever the case may be, those are terms that we can definitely negotiate and vet via your city attorney when it comes to that particular contract item. I will say it wasn't necessarily a requirement in the RFI, but again, the vendor that wants to come to the table, everything is negotiable at this point. But I also want to just highlight the fact that from the lessons learned in this RFI process and the pilot experience, it's really meant to be so that when you do get to that vendor selection process and we're through it, we've evaluated and vetted all of the solutions and alternatives so that when you are at a position of decision making at this point, we can stand confidently and know that this is the best vendor that's going to be the best customer service solution for your residents |
| 00:24:18.32 | Jill Hoffman | I have a couple other questions regarding the current technology, but I'll yield to other council questions. |
| 00:24:26.74 | Jill Hoffman | Hi. I have a couple questions. So how long – so the pilot started today and it's going to run for 60 days? |
| 00:24:34.43 | Charlie Francis | tricks. |
| 00:24:34.69 | Jill Hoffman | Sorry. |
| 00:24:34.99 | Charlie Francis | It could run longer or shorter, depending on. |
| 00:24:37.96 | Jill Hoffman | Okay. |
| 00:24:38.26 | Charlie Francis | and feedback. |
| 00:24:39.06 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, and so anybody that goes down there that's going to park right now in whatever, space 250, then they can go to any one of the machines and pay for their space for 250. |
| 00:24:46.79 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:24:47.85 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, and then the... except if you're a resident and then you have to go to the blue machine. |
| 00:24:52.93 | Julie Dixon | If you want to use your resident parking card. |
| 00:24:53.82 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah. Okay. |
| 00:24:54.94 | Julie Dixon | THE END OF THE END OF THE And the blue, they're right next to each other too. There's the, throughout the perimeter of the parking lot basically are the six meters. And then they're right next to the blue. APARC machines. |
| 00:25:05.38 | Jill Hoffman | Okay. Is there a way or signage or something that says, you know, this is a test, you know, this is a test, this is parking, this is meter number, this is test meter one? So if someone wants to get feedback, they can give you, they know how to. Absolutely. Sorry, did I miss it? Elliot? Did I miss that part? No, no, no, no, but Elliot actually. |
| 00:25:19.51 | Julie Dixon | That's brilliant. Did I miss that part? No, no, no, no. But Elliot actually was responsible for that. And the meters were all very well marked. And there's also clear information on there on how to communicate your feedback as well. And all the meters were marked and numbered. We'd assumed that the folks wouldn't know Parkion versus IPS. So everything is numbered. |
| 00:25:24.59 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, good. AND THEY'RE GOING TO BE |
| 00:25:35.98 | Jill Hoffman | Sorry. And how do people then give feedback? Can you just give me a really short? |
| 00:25:41.48 | Julie Dixon | So right now the phone number is provided so that, and I don't think you've gotten any calls yet, right Elliot? So right now Elliot is the primary point of contact at this point so that all of the feedback will go there. We also have a customer survey that we were giving out today as well as it can be provided, you know, as the next two months goes over. And I think also tied in with the citizen evaluation groups that are going out there, we have some survey information to be able to collect all of that data. And it went out in the currents? And it went out, yes, in your publications. |
| 00:26:06.84 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:26:08.49 | Jill Hoffman | Yes. Is there some way electronically that they can send an email or a response email? |
| 00:26:13.17 | Julie Dixon | We actually provided Elliot's email address. He's the lucky guy. |
| 00:26:16.66 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:26:16.76 | Debbie | Congratulations. |
| 00:26:18.10 | Julie Dixon | Yes. Thank you. He already gets it now, so phone calls and emails are all going to Elliot.Holtz at... Oh, my God. |
| 00:26:26.10 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah. |
| 00:26:26.11 | Julie Dixon | . |
| 00:26:26.16 | Jill Hoffman | . |
| 00:26:26.30 | Julie Dixon | . |
| 00:26:27.36 | Jill Hoffman | you |
| 00:26:27.55 | Julie Dixon | All right. |
| 00:26:27.58 | Jill Hoffman | All right, we'll see how long the server stays. Okay, great. And then something that I was talking to Charlie about earlier was, are we building into the possibility or at least the flexibility with the machines |
| 00:26:29.74 | Julie Dixon | . |
| 00:26:43.11 | Jill Hoffman | to SEGUE OR SWITCH BACK AND FORGE BETWEEN IF WE WANT TO EVEN TALK ABOUT BICYCLE PARKING, IF WE, YOU KNOW, JUST A KEYING SYSTEM WHERE, YOU KNOW, THE NUMBERS ARE CHANGED FROM THE 20 SPOTS THAT NOW TURNS INTO 750 SPOTS. Is that part of the RFI, or can we build that in? |
| 00:27:03.05 | Julie Dixon | So right now it's not part of it, but I will say all of the vendor systems that are out there today can do customized programming like you're describing. A lot of the current pay stations that are out there are adapted for transit tickets and things like that. So it wasn't necessarily something that was included in the specification today, but it's something that throughout the – actually, Elliot was really great at throwing the curveball at them and saying, hey, we're going to hit you up with different challenges throughout the next 60 days. So it's actually a perfect idea to be able to outline what we're looking for and see what they can come back to. We really can kind of do anything over the next 60 days. And I'm, you know, I'm just throwing it out there as |
| 00:27:10.41 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:27:10.43 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:27:10.58 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:27:32.92 | Jill Hoffman | You really can kind of And I'm just throwing it out there as an idea. |
| 00:27:37.51 | Charlie Francis | Didn't the RFI, though, address that it had to have programmable rates done by staff? Oh, absolutely. And what Council Member Huffman is asking is, can we do programmable rates on the back end? Yeah, because it would. And it's something that is something that can be done by staff. When we say it's customizable, that doesn't mean a custom program has to be written. It means we just open something on the back end and turn a rate on, turn a rate off, or say this space is now $3 instead of $1. This space can, you know, have multiple... |
| 00:27:41.48 | Julie Dixon | Thank you. |
| 00:27:41.49 | Jill Hoffman | Oh, absolutely. |
| 00:27:42.25 | Julie Dixon | Thank you. |
| 00:27:47.69 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 00:27:48.02 | Unknown | And it's up. |
| 00:28:06.69 | Jill Hoffman | And it would have the ability to expand to that, you know, from 20 to maybe 750. Absolutely. Okay. And that would be like a – that would be twice a year, you know, like savings. Also would be part of – |
| 00:28:10.11 | Charlie Francis | 20. |
| 00:28:10.52 | Julie Dixon | . |
| 00:28:10.55 | Charlie Francis | Thank you. |
| 00:28:10.60 | Julie Dixon | Thank you. |
| 00:28:16.61 | Charlie Francis | Yeah. |
| 00:28:16.69 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 00:28:16.71 | Charlie Francis | that. |
| 00:28:16.96 | Unknown | THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 00:28:17.05 | Charlie Francis | And that also will be part of the consideration of the vendor choice. You know, one vendor may only allow three rates per space. Well, maybe that wouldn't be enough for us. We want something with more flexibility. So we would take that into consideration of evaluating that vendor and the rest of their features vis-à-vis the other vendors and the rest of their features. |
| 00:28:39.73 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah, and the interesting thing too in the evaluation going forward would be, you know, the calculation of the increase in revenue if we switched over seasonally to perhaps bicycle parking. One of the. |
| 00:28:48.13 | Charlie Francis | Yeah. One of the vendors today has that feature built into their back-end software where you could actually put in a rate, and based on past experience, we'll extrapolate the new additional revenue. |
| 00:29:00.96 | Jill Hoffman | That would be interesting, I think. Thanks. |
| 00:29:05.97 | Charlie Francis | All solutions are very heavily technology oriented and give great feedback both in dashboard form as well as the detail form that is downloadable in CSV or Excel files that you can do analysis on. |
| 00:29:20.94 | Mayor Theodore | And this is for Charlie. Can you tell us how much we gross on parking now and what we net and how the new system will change. It's going to increase our costs, increase our revenues, decrease |
| 00:29:32.16 | Charlie Francis | Yeah. So the easiest way to answer that would be to go to our OpenGov website |
| 00:29:39.25 | Unknown | except I just hit the wrong button. There we go. |
| 00:29:54.97 | Unknown | I should have had this up for you. |
| 00:29:58.35 | Unknown | Yeah. That was a Sausalito program. |
| 00:30:00.27 | Julie Dixon | I thought that was a Sausalito program, I was wondering. |
| 00:30:15.56 | Charlie Francis | This is a true case study. I did get a call one day asking how much revenues we received in parking lot one. I got it on a telephone call as I was driving out of town to a meeting, and I walked the – I said to the gentleman, are you in front of a computer? He goes, yes, I am. And I said, well, go to this website. You can go to SausalitoCAOpenGov.com. He did. I said, click on revenues. |
| 00:30:44.86 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:30:46.81 | Charlie Francis | I've got to break those revenues down by revenue type. |
| 00:30:52.99 | Charlie Francis | He did. |
| 00:30:56.62 | Charlie Francis | I said, and then come down here to filter. I think I actually walked through this with councilmember Jill to and click in the parking fees and I think that's what I'm doing so I'm going to go to the |
| 00:31:18.72 | Charlie Francis | And right here we can see historically... |
| 00:31:25.29 | Charlie Francis | I'm not used to this computer. But this is all the revenues from parking lot one. But here's all of our parking fees. You can see our gross is $1.9 million that we actually received in 2013-14 versus 1.8 the year before and 1.7. This actually comes from audited financial statements. So this is our gross revenues coming from the parking fund. If we just then – and we can break this down further by how much comes from parking lot one, parking lot two, how much comes from parking meters, parking lot two, parking lot two, just by clicking on here, and you can see parking lot one, meter collections, parking lot three, parking lot two. Charlie? |
| 00:32:09.70 | Jill Hoffman | Does it also show like when we did fee increases, like number of spaces? |
| 00:32:17.33 | Charlie Francis | No, this only shows financial statement information, gross revenues. And then if we just wanted to then look at, come back to Mayor Theodores' question of what's our NOI, our net operating income, we can quickly switch it to see that. And all the data for any of the visualizations is down below, which can be exported into a spreadsheet. So, for example, our actual data was received in the year 2013-14 was $1.9 million, and it shows $1.6 million in expenses. But really, our expenses were broken down into, you know, categories that included transfers out. So we transferred out |
| 00:33:08.83 | Charlie Francis | and fiscal year 14 let's come back up here |
| 00:33:17.90 | Unknown | Well... |
| 00:33:22.25 | Unknown | I love flow. |
| 00:33:28.04 | Charlie Francis | Oh, $1,185,000. So if we just uncheck that, you can see our net operating income coming from there in fiscal year 2014 was $1.5 million. |
| 00:33:43.98 | Unknown | you |
| 00:33:44.04 | Mayor Theodore | with your sins. In fact, the projected revenues |
| 00:33:49.82 | Charlie Francis | Oh, yeah, thank you. That was the second part of your question. So for single-space meters, the industry standard is when you go to accepting credit cards, you're going to see anywhere from a 10% to a 30% increase of revenues just coming from single-space meters. Julie could probably talk more directly on what she's experienced in her. So I just think just in the single-space meters, we'll see an increase in there. And then we'll have a balance. I think we'll have better communication, because right now we're going from 2G modems in the APARC equipment to 2G enforcement. We'll be going to 3G, 4G, or higher in the parking machines to new parking enforcement equipment. So the goal is to get compliance with parking. But as parking enforcement, I think we'll probably end up being reduced a little bit, but parking revenue. So the goal is to get compliance with parking. You know, so, but as parking enforcement, I think we'll probably end up being reduced a little bit, but parking revenues will be enhanced, and we should see an overall increase in our parking revenues as we go off in the future with the new technology. And that's with the current rates. Julie, did you want to add to that? |
| 00:34:53.16 | Julie Dixon | No, I think that's absolutely correct. |
| 00:34:56.28 | Jill Hoffman | So this kind of raises an interesting point, which is we've lost a lot of resident parking with some decisions that were made regarding, like, the lineup of the taxis and some other things that I have had problems with. Is there any way we could – that data, that program, to be able to start tracking the revenue per space so that we can fully understand Yeah. |
| 00:35:24.09 | Charlie Francis | We wouldn't use this program, but all of the back-end software that we've looked at for each one of these vendors provides that back-end data of revenue per space. And usage by space, we looked at one widget today that showed here's the existing digital pay station that we have. You know, one of our pay stations has been a digital loop-to equipment for a long time. And it did a distribution of where the revenue was going to by parking space. And so you can see this big, you know, you know, the graph of, you know, And these core amount of spaces are are being used by that machine. So this will do that system-wide and it can also do it by space. |
| 00:36:10.73 | Jill Hoffman | So I have just two more quick questions. Yep, okay. So first question is, looking at those expenses, what was the investment that the city made in 2010 for the Siemens pay stations? What was that? |
| 00:36:25.99 | Charlie Francis | I know there was original investment, then there's ongoing maintenance costs. It was substantial. I think it's a lot of the things that we've done in the past. |
| 00:36:37.63 | Jill Hoffman | It was substantial and then there were a lot of kind of gotchas that surfaced, which is why I'm keen about this 90-day review process. |
| 00:36:38.79 | Charlie Francis | Yeah. |
| 00:36:47.08 | Jill Hoffman | The other, um, uh, |
| 00:36:53.71 | Jill Hoffman | Oh my gosh, I lost it. I had another question. |
| 00:36:56.38 | Charlie Francis | I can say this, though, that with the improvements of technology, there's also been vast improvements in price reductions. And so I suspect that our upfront investment will be smaller than what it was, and our ROI, our return on the investment, will be in a matter of a month rather than multi-months. |
| 00:37:19.36 | Jill Hoffman | I have my follow-up question, which was... |
| 00:37:20.78 | Charlie Francis | Yes. |
| 00:37:22.41 | Jill Hoffman | One of the surprises I had was that when I would raise questions and when I would get status reports. And the status reports would be we're going to resolve this. We're on the path of resolving. and with the assumption that it was resolved. And I guess my question is how will we how can we build in the contract Uh. repercussions, consequences, incentives to ensure that when problems pop up and they that that we get complete resolution and that the full council is informed, not just the subcommittee, but the full council is informed in terms of resolution as opposed to just status reports. |
| 00:38:05.34 | Charlie Francis | STAY. There's a lot of issues in that question, Council Member Pfeiffer. It goes from policy on how the council operates with management all the way down to how is management alerted when there's things wrong with the system. to Mary's bailiwick, which is contractual enforcement. A lot of questions there, and I'm not going to try to answer them all right now. But I will say is everything that I've seen on the back end is an alert-driven system. It's no longer where you have to go through reams of reports to find the one item that's an exception. Exception high-low parameter reports can be generated hourly, weekly, at whatever frequency you want to come to staff to analyze to be able to respond too quickly, both from a maintenance standpoint or from an enforcement standpoint. We can even put into there five minutes before a meter expires, let us know so that the parking enforcement officer can hurry up and drive over there. If we wanted to go to that level of detail, that can be done. So that kind of an alerting system can be done. As you know, I am very, as the whole council knows, I'm very committed to transparency. And the OpenGov site shows how much. And as I was watching these demonstrations today, I kept asking in my mind, these dashboards that are providing are usually, they're accessible by people with usernames and passwords. But there should be – there could be a way of making that public facing. And if there's a way that we could make some generic reports public facing so that people can actually see the parking usage, well, I'm committed to mixing that information with the financial information. The contractual issues and the policy issues, that's – I'm not going to attempt to answer that. |
| 00:39:49.34 | Jill Hoffman | I have. |
| 00:39:53.24 | Jill Hoffman | I have another question, but I'll look. |
| 00:39:55.99 | Mayor Theodore | and then we'll go to public. |
| 00:39:57.16 | Councilmember Weiner | you |
| 00:39:58.04 | Jill Hoffman | Well, I'll hold my question until after public. |
| 00:39:59.54 | Councilmember Weiner | Thank you. Time-wise, these will be much faster systems than the other ones. |
| 00:40:08.78 | Charlie Francis | Oh, yeah. So we've got some analytics based just on the digital equipment. So time-wise, you mean transaction processing time? The digital equipment is 90% of our transactions are occurring within less than 90 seconds on that one digital machine that's there. So it provides that kind of analytics. Is it taking 30 seconds to process? I think we looked at one machine today, the global. I think it was less than six seconds for the transaction to be cleared through the credit card processor. |
| 00:40:39.67 | Julie Dixon | The industry standards write about 15 seconds, and that's pretty much what we'll probably see in the outcome in your lab. |
| 00:40:44.00 | Charlie Francis | Thank you. |
| 00:40:44.04 | Councilmember Weiner | Amen. The second question is, on the cleaning mechanism, because sometimes these... I'll let you answer this one. That some of these guys... |
| 00:40:56.44 | Charlie Francis | I'll let you. |
| 00:40:59.95 | Councilmember Weiner | I guess when they're sitting in a wallet or something, demagnetize it's only. There's many a time I've had to go out there. I have to turn away from the customer and go, clean it and then it does work. Sometimes after we've tried two, three times doing that. So how often or what's the cleaning mechanism going to do? |
| 00:41:22.22 | Julie Dixon | Sure. So there's a preventative maintenance program for all of the parking pay stations. And one of the things they actually have are card reader cleaners. And there's actually technology companies that that's what they sell are card reader cleaners. And it's one of the tasks that the maintenance staff will actually go out and probably on a monthly basis, depending on utilization, and all they have to do is basically run this little cleaner, swipe through it, and it basically cleans it off. Having supported supported the meters in San Francisco it really only needs to be done once a quarter but I would say from a preventative maintenance standpoint probably once a month especially for a high-profile city like yourselves |
| 00:41:56.68 | Councilmember Weiner | And the last question is we're living in an era of security. What are the security features of being hacked? |
| 00:42:06.24 | Julie Dixon | For sure. So we don't have another target situation like that out here. So there are rules called PCI compliance rules, and there's level one and all sorts of acronyms that I won't try to borrow any of us with. But all of the vendors that are basically proposing today have to basically meet the highest standards when it comes to payment card industry standards. And they actually have to provide the annual certifications. Along with those annual certifications comes along the independent audit controls that go along with that as well and they have to maintain themselves it's called the visa list so that at any point you can actually go and audit to ensure that they are still in compliance with basically the visa and MasterCard programs as well |
| 00:42:44.83 | Mayor Theodore | At this point, do we have any comments or questions from the public? please. |
| 00:42:53.03 | Unknown | Okay, then we'll come back here. |
| 00:42:55.32 | Mayor Theodore | Thank you. |
| 00:42:57.18 | Unknown | Thank you. foreign languages, options. Would that be something that would be considered Push of a button. Nowadays, it's really easy. All over Europe, you get any language you want. |
| 00:43:08.74 | Julie Dixon | Yes, that's one of the requirements that we ask the vendors is which languages their programs could speak to. And so it's one of the things the city basically asks to decide what they want to put the limits on because obviously the list is endless. But most of the meter vendors can provide one or two options for alternative languages. |
| 00:43:26.19 | Mayor Theodore | We'll bring it back up. I'm sorry, Peter. Anyone else? Anyone else? Peter will bring it back up. |
| 00:43:34.00 | Peter Van Meter | I have the benefit of just walking in five minutes ago Thank you. And so my only comment is have a screen where the instructions are readable in the sunlight and have real buttons that click when you push them. Thank you. |
| 00:43:58.01 | Mayor Theodore | All right. Actually, we were hoping to wrap this up at 645. So once we have any other questions, we'll wrap this up. Okay. Well, thank you all for the presentation. Thank you all for coming. And we'll come back at 7 o'clock. Thank you. |
| 00:44:12.76 | Charlie Francis | Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Council. Jill, I keep blanking on your last name. sorry Huh? Thank you. |
| 00:44:21.22 | Unknown | Thank you. Yeah. |
| 00:44:22.35 | Charlie Francis | I should have written right over your son. |
| 00:44:38.80 | Unknown | Hi, Julie. It's nice to see you. Yes. I see you coming in and out of the rock. |
| 00:44:42.99 | Julie Dixon | you |
| 00:44:43.04 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:44:43.07 | Julie Dixon | you |
| 00:44:43.22 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 00:44:43.66 | Julie Dixon | This is Dave. Thank you. You have really... you you |
| 00:44:50.46 | Charlie Francis | Well, it's old. |
| 00:45:05.16 | Charlie Francis | Well, that's 2G modems, communicating the 2G modems in there. |
| 00:45:06.63 | Unknown | Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. All right. It really is to be two, okay? |
| 00:45:24.48 | Charlie Francis | I don't know because I'm charged looking forward. |
| 00:45:28.90 | Unknown | Thank you. Thank you. . Jonathan. |
| 00:45:37.44 | Adam Politzer | I see. |
| 00:45:37.73 | Unknown | you |
| 00:45:37.80 | Unknown | THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 00:45:38.86 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 00:47:03.07 | Danny Castro | Yeah, I'll just kind of put it on one of these. |
| 00:47:16.97 | Unknown | you Thank you. |
| 00:47:19.05 | Danny Castro | Do you want me to put it on that one too? |
| 00:47:19.15 | Michael Racks | you Thank you. |
| 00:47:19.59 | Unknown | No, no. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. |
| 00:47:20.84 | Danny Castro | I'll be up here, I think. You'll be up here. So wait, so tell me when, let me take this out of the way now. |
| 00:47:20.87 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:47:20.90 | Unknown | you |
| 00:47:20.95 | Unknown | I'm not sure. |
| 00:47:21.04 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:47:21.11 | Unknown | I'll be. |
| 00:47:22.17 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:47:26.98 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:47:26.99 | Danny Castro | So when I open it, |
| 00:47:27.03 | Unknown | Thank you. So, |
| 00:47:29.93 | Danny Castro | How do I go to actually play the... Which one do I hit? |
| 00:47:33.49 | Unknown | Do you? |
| 00:47:34.03 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:47:34.64 | Unknown | . |
| 00:47:34.98 | Unknown | Oh, this one right there. |
| 00:47:40.29 | Danny Castro | that slideshow. Okay, it's right there. I just want to make sure I know how to. |
| 00:47:43.74 | Unknown | Thank you. We are like, more here too. Thank you. |
| 00:47:46.77 | Danny Castro | So I should start, oh from the beginning, yeah. Or that one right there, the tiny one, yeah. Okay, got it. |
| 00:47:51.48 | Unknown | That one right there. Tiny one. Okay. |
| 00:47:53.99 | Unknown | Got it. Thank you. |
| 00:47:56.09 | Danny Castro | Okay. Perfect. Thank you. |
| 00:48:02.82 | Danny Castro | tonight. |
| 00:48:05.98 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:48:06.08 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:48:06.13 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:48:06.28 | Unknown | Thank you. I'm going to watch a show. |
| 00:48:09.37 | Jennifer Berry | Thank you. I'm going to watch what I'm like. I'm working. |
| 00:48:11.75 | Unknown | working there. Are you here for this? Are you here for this? |
| 00:48:19.93 | Unknown | See you guys. you you |
| 00:48:24.24 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:48:24.47 | Unknown | you |
| 00:48:25.25 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:48:49.67 | Unknown | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 00:48:53.39 | Unknown | Yeah, but also Thank you. Thank you. So what I'd like to say is that you have a vision in the future and without having your information. Thank you. Yes. |
| 00:49:31.55 | Unknown | Thank you. Thank you. you Thank you. |
| 00:49:46.72 | Unknown | you |
| 00:49:48.66 | Unknown | Thank you. for the last one. |
| 00:49:51.97 | Unknown | you |
| 00:49:52.46 | Unknown | I spoke four years ago. you you Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. If you take about five hours worth of time, you have five hours. You have to know it. |
| 00:50:04.03 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:50:04.68 | Unknown | THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 00:50:04.96 | Unknown | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 00:50:14.51 | Unknown | THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 00:50:14.80 | Unknown | you |
| 00:50:14.99 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:50:15.02 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:50:21.20 | Unknown | I'm going to have some more together. |
| 00:50:32.96 | Unknown | Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. |
| 00:50:38.78 | Unknown | Thank you. you |
| 00:54:08.70 | Debbie | Okay, yes. |
| 00:54:12.97 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:54:15.12 | Debbie | Okay. So that's it. I'm assuming it's one of those? Yeah. All right. The thing is, is if you, I would prefer to dump these onto the desktop. |
| 00:54:15.17 | Unknown | I'm not sure. Thank you. I'm a... I'm assuming |
| 00:54:26.86 | Debbie | Okay. because if you use it, I need to get it into the public record. So is it anyone in particular or is it... |
| 00:54:37.05 | Unknown | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 00:54:38.39 | Debbie | All of it. |
| 00:54:38.79 | Unknown | THE END OF THE END OF THE I'm not sure what this is here. Yeah, that's just the code on the... |
| 00:54:40.72 | Debbie | Yeah, that's just the code on the... |
| 00:54:45.97 | Debbie | See you. |
| 00:54:46.39 | Unknown | Thank you. I can just highlight my |
| 00:54:57.96 | Unknown | you Thank you. |
| 00:54:59.89 | Debbie | Come on. |
| 00:55:01.19 | Unknown | Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. . Thank you. Thank you. |
| 00:55:21.03 | Debbie | I'm still not used to this touchpad. Drag and drop. |
| 00:55:25.60 | Robin Petrovich | Where would you like to drag and drop it? |
| 00:55:26.48 | Debbie | No, I want to take these and dump them over here onto the laptop. My drag didn't work. Oh, it's because you do have to hold that corner. Yes, as if this were the button. Yes, yes, yes. I'm holding control and... |
| 00:55:33.43 | Robin Petrovich | Yes, as if this were the |
| 00:55:34.99 | Unknown | Yes, yes. |
| 00:55:35.76 | Robin Petrovich | Thank you. |
| 00:55:38.68 | Debbie | Thank you. |
| 00:55:38.82 | Unknown | All right. |
| 00:55:40.27 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 00:55:43.54 | Debbie | All right. So that's there if you need them. |
| 00:55:46.48 | Unknown | Thank you. if you need them. Thank you. |
| 00:55:48.08 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:55:48.15 | Unknown | Thanks. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. |
| 00:56:04.97 | Unknown | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 00:56:34.98 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:56:40.43 | Unknown | They have to be, they have to be certain about, So, it's a good answer. |
| 00:56:54.52 | Unknown | I have to end it out on the news list. Thank you. It's a little bit awesome. Thank you. Thank you. |
| 00:57:21.97 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:57:26.11 | Unknown | Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. who's been relegated to football. That was no way. |
| 00:57:58.96 | Unknown | Thank you. Thank you. What do you think? The third time is right. Thank you. |
| 00:58:18.27 | Unknown | Sorry, Andy. Thank you. Oh, why did you do that? Thank you. you |
| 00:58:30.25 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:58:30.27 | Unknown | It's adorable. |
| 00:58:53.98 | Unknown | I just got it. you Thank you. Thank you. |
| 00:59:11.05 | Unknown | . Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Right, right. |
| 00:59:41.18 | Unknown | Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. |
| 01:00:10.79 | Unknown | the city of the soccer scene, which is about seeing you and seeing you all the people debating about |
| 01:00:48.98 | Unknown | you |
| 01:00:49.16 | Robin Petrovich | you |
| 01:00:49.32 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:00:49.43 | Robin Petrovich | Thank you. |
| 01:00:49.45 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:00:49.49 | Robin Petrovich | . Thank you. |
| 01:01:02.12 | Mayor Theodore | Welcome everyone to the regular meeting of the Sausalito City Council for Tuesday, February 10, 2015. Debbie, would you take the roll, please? |
| 01:01:12.91 | Debbie | Councilmember Weiner? Present. Councilmember Pfeiffer? Here. Councilmember Withey? Here. Vice Mayor Hoffman? Present. Mayor Theodorus? |
| 01:01:14.02 | Mayor Theodore | President. |
| 01:01:17.77 | Mayor Theodore | Okay. |
| 01:01:17.84 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:01:17.97 | Mayor Theodore | I'm sorry. |
| 01:01:21.55 | Mayor Theodore | Present. |
| 01:01:23.02 | Debbie | Thank you. |
| 01:01:23.03 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:01:23.07 | Mayor Theodore | Thank you. |
| 01:01:23.12 | Debbie | Thank you. |
| 01:01:23.15 | Mayor Theodore | Can we have Karen Aiken lead us into the Pledge of Allegiance, please? |
| 01:01:26.64 | Debbie | Yeah. Bye. . |
| 01:01:28.94 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:01:28.96 | Debbie | Thank you. |
| 01:01:28.97 | Unknown | I'm sorry. |
| 01:01:35.81 | Karen Aiken | Thank you. Bye. |
| 01:01:37.02 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:01:37.14 | Unknown | the United States. |
| 01:01:37.29 | Unknown | Thank you. in America. |
| 01:01:38.83 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:01:38.86 | Unknown | you Thank you. |
| 01:01:39.57 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:01:39.59 | Unknown | and to the Republic. Jesus, amen. One nation. I do it out. Jesus, Lord. the third year of justice for all. |
| 01:01:54.22 | Mayor Theodore | We did not have a closed session tonight, although we did have a parking technology workshop. you So there are no closed session announcements. Maybe we're moving on to approval of agenda. We have a motion to approve the agenda. |
| 01:02:08.29 | Councilmember Weiner | So moved. Second. |
| 01:02:17.61 | Mayor Theodore | All in favor? |
| 01:02:18.69 | Jill Hoffman | Hi. Okay. |
| 01:02:20.19 | Mayor Theodore | So approved. Okay, you know. |
| 01:02:22.62 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:02:24.22 | Mayor Theodore | Mayor's announcement. I just want to make one announcement and thank you. As most of us are painfully aware, we had two major storms this weekend. I think the council and the public wants to thank all of those that worked pretty much through the weekend to help keep us safe and to clear away the roadways and to get us back in functional order after these storms. And I'll probably miss some, but I just want to start with our public works. We're working all weekend. Jonathan Goldman, Lauren Umbertis, Kent Basso, and all their staff, Chief Tejada and the Police Department, Sergeant Frass, the VIPs, the VIPs were all there. Our southern Marin Fire Department, Chief Tubbs and his firefighters were there. The PG and Ute crews, we had Debbie Pagliaro and Red, our IT managers were out there sending out an occurrence updates for everyone. So we want to thank everyone because it was a big weekend. I think the response was great. There was a lot of communications and a lot of work. So we really want to thank everyone for keeping us safe and getting us back in order and the way we are today. So thanks to everyone. |
| 01:03:45.37 | Unknown | Here, here. |
| 01:03:47.65 | Mayor Theodore | Now, communications. This is the time for the city council to hear from citizens regarding matters that are not on the agenda. Except in very limited circumstances, state law precludes the council from taking action on or engaging in discussions concerning items of business that are not on the agenda. If anyone would like to speak on any issue not on the agenda, please step forward. and Fill out speaker cards if you would, if you'd like to. So anyone have anything to speak on? Items not on the agenda. Okay. Okay. |
| 01:04:30.04 | Karen Aiken | Hello, City Council. Hello, Mayor and new Council Member. Hello, members of city staff and a full audience today, so maybe something right is happening, that you have this kind of interest. I've been reading from the Torah every week that I come to this meeting, and I said that I was going to give you a chance to see the section I was going to read from. And it is in the portion that we as Um. as Jewish people all read together all throughout the entire world. So if you want to find out what portion in the five books it is, you can easily look that up. The portion for the last two weeks, the portion is from Yitro, which his name is Jethro. And he's the father-in-law of Moses. And Jethro says this. This is Exodus 1817 in your Bible, in your Torah.... Moses' father-in-law is watching... Uh, him as he judges the people and it seems much too heavy a burden. So he criticizes Moses, who's the prophet. He says, Moses' father-in-law said to him, the thing you are doing is not right. You will surely wear yourself out and these people as well, for the task is too heavy for you. You cannot do it alone. And I see all the help that you get. I see all the work that you do every week to deal with all the issues of Sausalito, of a small town with 7,000 people. In 1821, Exodus 1821, Jethro sets up it seems like the government that we now have in the USA in a lot of senses, he says this, he says, You shall seek out judges from among the people. Capable men who fear God. Trusty men who spurn monetary gain. People who love truth. Set them as chiefs over the thousands, over the hundreds, over the fifties, and over the tens. So this is the standard that the Torah sets for the way we're supposed to uh, handle the disputes among ourselves, right? Sorry. There's two portions. There's this one. The next portion is the Ten Commandments. In three minutes, there's no way that I can do both of these. So I'm just going to stop here. And I thank you for listening, and I hope that we've learned something together. |
| 01:07:27.25 | Mayor Theodore | Thank you. |
| 01:07:27.70 | Karen Aiken | Thank you. |
| 01:07:27.72 | Mayor Theodore | Anyone else on items not on the agenda? game. Seeing none, we're going to move on to the Item 3 are action minutes of previous meetings, the minutes of the regular meeting of January 27, 2015. And I will start off with one comment. I think at the end on our closed session announcement, I think we should – include verbatim the statement that we released that night and include that in the minutes. Can we do that? Any objectives? Okay? Right? All right, we'll do that. Any other comments on the minutes? Thank you. |
| 01:08:07.56 | Jill Hoffman | We have a motion to approve. So I move to approve as amended. |
| 01:08:14.07 | Mayor Theodore | All in favor? |
| 01:08:14.58 | Jill Hoffman | . |
| 01:08:14.87 | Mayor Theodore | Aye. |
| 01:08:14.89 | Jill Hoffman | Aye. Aye. |
| 01:08:15.70 | Councilmember Weiner | Thank you. |
| 01:08:17.26 | Mayor Theodore | Okay. To move on to the consent calendar, as we go, we have items A through D. Anyone have any comments, questions regarding the consent calendar? |
| 01:08:27.20 | Jill Hoffman | Yes, Mr. Mayor, I would request that we move item number D, which is the resolution approving consulting services contract for sewer projects, move that to the end of the business calendar with the thought that perhaps we might also continue that to the next session. |
| 01:08:45.21 | Mayor Theodore | Any comments or objection to that? Okay. All right, so I would rec—we can move that item, item 4D, to move it |
| 01:08:53.70 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah. you Thank you. Mr. Mayor, could I just ask staff if there's any time urgency here that we would run into a problem if this is delayed? |
| 01:09:09.93 | Jonathon Goldman | Thank you. Certainly, if there are questions that can be resolved this evening, I'll be here anyway, so I'm happy to do that. In the event that there is something substantive that warrants a continuance, we can certainly bring the consultants or anybody else necessary to a subsequent meeting and hear it as a business item. I wouldn't want it to drag on too long, but certainly defer to the council on how that |
| 01:09:40.00 | Mayor Theodore | Jonathan, can you stay up there for a minute? Any... you Objections to moving it, so we have a motion to move item 4D to item 6C, which we'll hear after the hearing on the Edwards appeal. |
| 01:09:56.03 | Jill Hoffman | Mr. Mayor, I'm wondering if we should continue it to the next session if we get too late. We'll evaluate at that time. If it gets too late. |
| 01:10:03.37 | Mayor Theodore | We'll evaluate at that time. If it gets too late, we will. But if not, we'll try to handle that. Okay. And Jonathan, I do have a question on item 4C, the... the amendment to the consulting agreement with Gilda Puente Peters. And I was looking at the fiscal impact and it says $250,000 in funding, but when I read it a little closer, it looks like you're asking for $75,417 to be approved to spend at this stage. Yes. And the others would be approved later. |
| 01:10:30.95 | Jonathon Goldman | Yes. Yes. What was originally appropriated for this project was $250,000. That's in the approved budget. We have incurred approximately $25,000 in expenses so far, and at that point, in order to expend additional funds, the council has to approve a contract Rather than encumber all of those funds at this point in the process, we're coming up on midyear and going into the next fiscal year's budgeting process, staff's recommendation is that we not encumber at all, but encumber the first significant piece so that that consultant can continue to make progress towards the deliverable, and then we'll deal with additional appropriations in the upcoming budget process. Thank you. |
| 01:11:21.35 | Mayor Theodore | Any other questions, comments? We have a motion for approval of items A through C, consent calendar. |
| 01:11:27.58 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 01:11:27.60 | Mayor Theodore | TODAY. |
| 01:11:28.34 | Jill Hoffman | So moved. |
| 01:11:30.35 | Mayor Theodore | Second. All in favor? Aye. So prove. Moving on to business items, this is update on the ferry landing. Before we go on, we have... |
| 01:11:47.88 | Mayor Theodore | I just wanted to note that at the end of our council meeting, Our last council meeting on the 27th, I announced on behalf of the council that we had voted unanimously. on this project, that it is not a repair and replace project but a major alteration which requires the city's consent, and that we are working with the district on the details of the review of the process, which include public hearings in front of the City Council Planning Commission and Historic Landmarks Board. And we stated that the district had agreed to attend a City Council meeting on February 10th, where they will update the Council on their project and where the design review process and timelines will be discussed. So here we are tonight. So Lily, you want to lead us off? |
| 01:12:30.37 | Unknown | Thank you, Mr. Mayor, and good evening, council members. So here tonight – I'm here tonight with representatives from the Golden Gate Ferry District in the front row here, and here to discuss the ferry landing public process. So the objectives of tonight's meetings are to update the council on the fact that the district has agreed to voluntarily go through a city review process for their proposed modifications to the ferry landing. Also to review the proposed public process that has been created to review those modifications, including timeframes for the council. and the Planning Commission and the Historic Landmarks Board. Third, for the Council to provide any direction and approve the process. And fourth, ultimately, for the Council to direct staff, the Planning Commission, and the Historic Landmarks Board to proceed with the approved process. Here's a brief background. The district has been planning on rebuilding the ferry landing for some time now. And on December 2nd of last year, the district provided a presentation to the council on the project. The direction at that meeting was for the city manager to work with the district on a process to review the aesthetic elements of the project, like the gate signage and materials, and the district agreed to go ahead and do that. In December, the Bay Conservation and Development Commission, or BCDC, held a meeting to review the project and provided direction to the district. On December 18th, the city manager sent a letter to BCDC recapping the council's December 2nd discussion and direction, and requested that the Belvederes, which are the public access bump outs on the pier, be removed from the project scope. And that letter is provided in your packet for this evening. |
| 01:14:37.54 | Unknown | At the very beginning of January of this year, the city attorney received a letter from BCDC, which had been sent over the holidays, and it was asking if the city, as the landowner, had given consent to the project. From January 5th through January 26th, the city and the district engaged in discussions and meetings, and the district voluntarily agreed to go through a city public review process for their project. On January 27th, the mayor announced that the council had voted unanimously that the project requires the city's consent, which hasn't been given yet. On February 4th, the city attorney sent BCDC a letter outlining the city's position. as announced by the mayor. And from January 28th through February 5th, the city and the district worked on the details of a public process, which we'll get into right now. |
| 01:15:38.44 | Unknown | So again, the district has voluntarily agreed to this process, and it's modeled after the city's design review process with community noticing, one study session with the Planning Commission and the Historic Landmarks Board where feedback will be provided, two joint public meetings with the Planning Commission and the Historic Landmarks Board. at which point input would be provided, and finally a determination would be made on the project. And then there's also an appeal process to the council that's built in. So I'm going to go through each of the steps that are outlined in your staff report, and on the screen there's the anticipated dates for each of those steps. So the first step is tonight's meeting, where the council will review this process. Step two, if the process is approved, this is where the city would provide notice of the process to the community and include all of the – timeframes for the meetings, and how to submit input. And I have included an email signup list at the front right over here if anyone wants to leave their email so that we can make sure that you get a notice. Step three is a pre-application meeting with the district, city staff, and local architects. And at this meeting, we will discuss submittal requirements and have a discussion regarding the project prior to the district's submittal to the city. |
| 01:17:04.25 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:17:04.30 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:17:04.44 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:17:09.87 | Unknown | Step four is where the city posts the agenda and the packet prior to the study session with the Planning Commission and the HLB, which is tentatively scheduled for March 4th. Step five is where the Historic Landmarks Board subcommittee begins their research of the site and its history. Step six is the first public meeting in a series of three, and this is the joint study session with the Planning Commission and the Historic Landmarks Board. And that's tentatively scheduled for March 11th. And the purpose of that meeting would be to gather community feedback on the design of the project. |
| 01:17:54.66 | Unknown | Step seven is where the district is revising plans based on the feedback they received at the study session. Step eight is an additional community notice of the next Planning Commission and Historic Landmarks Board meeting. So that's the second meeting in the series of three. Step nine is the installation of story poles or some other alternative visual simulation of the project's mass and bulk. and due to the project's location in the water, and this site being a very active location for ferry activities, it might not be possible to install story poles as we do traditionally with a house on land that's building in addition. So we need to work with the district to make sure that there is some sort of simulation of the visual impact of the project. |
| 01:18:46.60 | Unknown | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 01:18:54.82 | Unknown | Step 10, this is where the agenda posting and the staff report publication occurs prior to the second public meeting. |
| 01:19:07.73 | Unknown | And this is Step 11. This is the first joint meeting with the Planning Commission and the Historic Landmarks Board, and that's tentatively scheduled for April 1st. And at this meeting, the public will have an opportunity to comment on the revised design and the Planning Commission and the Historic Landmarks Board will begin to discuss the design review findings. Step 12, this is where the city publishes the agenda and the packet for the third public meeting in the series, and that's tentatively scheduled for April 15th. So that's step 13. And this is where, again, the public will have an opportunity to comment on the project as will the Planning Commission and the Historic Landmarks Board. And also at this meeting is where a determination would be made by those two bodies on the design review permit findings. Step 14, this is the 10-day appeal period that runs after the Planning Commission and the Historic Landmarks Board make their determination. This is a more complicated slide, and this shows three different options for the final step, which is 15. So step 15A, the first one at the very left of the screen, this is the scenario where the findings are made favorably by the Planning Commission, and no appeal is filed of their determination. And this would mean that no additional meetings are required, and staff would be authorized to send a letter to the district with the city's consent to the project, as it was found for by the Planning Commission in the Historic Landmarks Board. The middle step says step 15B. This is the scenario where the findings are made favorably by the Planning Commission and the Historic Landmarks Board, and an appeal is filed by someone in the community. And in this case, the staff would provide a 10-day notice of a city council appeal hearing and the council would then hold the hearing and determine if the findings can be made. The last one on the screen on the very right, this is option C, which is a scenario where the findings are not made favorably by the Planning Commission and the Historic Landmarks and an appeal is filed. Again, there would be a 10-day notice of the council hearing. Council would hold a hearing and determine if the findings can be made. |
| 01:21:40.53 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:21:47.20 | Unknown | And at the end of this process, this would bring us to the May 21st BCDC meeting, which is the hearing that the district is hoping to be heard at for their BCDC permit. |
| 01:22:02.42 | Unknown | With that, staff is recommending that the council review the proposed public process, as I outlined tonight, provide direction or modifications as appropriate, and then also approve the process. Next, we would ask you to direct staff the Historic Landmarks Board and the Planning Commission to proceed with the approved process and also to waive any applicable application fees. And that concludes my presentation and I'm available for any questions. |
| 01:22:32.34 | Mayor Theodore | Thank you, Larry. And we'll bring it up to council questions, but before we do so... |
| 01:22:32.69 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:22:32.74 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:22:36.47 | Mayor Theodore | Tonight, we're going through the process, and we're going through our full Planning Commission HLB process. The Ferry District has not submitted its submittal of the ferry plan, so we're not reviewing that today. We won't be looking at it because it hasn't been submitted yet. So today is what the process will be. The Ferry District will add, I think the timeline is in 20 days or 15, how many days, Lily, they'll submit the submittal. And then there will be open public hearings as we just went through, and the public will have time to review and make comments on the submittal. So with that, we'll bring it up. Who would like to start it off? |
| 01:23:22.20 | Jill Hoffman | I have a question. This is a process question. If the Planning Commission and the Historic Landmark Board, if they make their findings, if they, you know, I think it's 15B, if the findings are made and there is an appeal, who files the appeal? Anyone can file the application. |
| 01:23:40.61 | Unknown | Anyone can file the appeal. |
| 01:23:42.03 | Jill Hoffman | Anybody in the public? Yeah. The public. Okay. |
| 01:23:44.11 | Unknown | Not just a city resident, anyone can file. |
| 01:23:46.59 | Jill Hoffman | . |
| 01:23:46.76 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 01:23:53.25 | Jill Hoffman | I have a follow-up question to that question, but then I have my role question. |
| 01:23:58.43 | Mayor Theodore | A couple questions. |
| 01:23:59.68 | Jill Hoffman | Okay. Usually there's a $1,000 fee associated with any appeal. Council waive that fee. Yes. Okay. So my question is, if I look at the staff report and I look at page 2 of 4, it's step 2. And I don't know if you have it up here on your slides. It was kind of going quickly. Step 2 says, staff and local architects to provide design direction based on community input received to date. And I guess that's not open to the public as a private meeting with staff and the local architects to discuss design direction. I just wanted to make sure that the staff |
| 01:24:09.64 | Jonathon Goldman | Thank you. |
| 01:24:45.77 | Jill Hoffman | that that meeting is not, um, predetermining what can and cannot be reviewed that we have to do with the design. And I think that's a good question. is not saying look at the Belvederes, look at the gate, but that's all. Or look at ADA, but those three, you know what I mean. I just want to make sure we're not predetermining and framing what can be looked at. |
| 01:25:16.04 | Unknown | it won't be what the the first public meeting which is scheduled for March 11th that will be open to any comments the district would be able to respond and let the public know at the next public meeting which is the April 1st if those if that's feasible for them to work in those design suggestions and they'll let the public know why it wouldn't be feasible but all the comments are welcome at that study session meeting. |
| 01:25:45.57 | Jill Hoffman | So just to, I'm sorry, go ahead. So just to clarify then, regardless of what the district comes back with, we're still looking at the entire design, not just aesthetics, not just discretionary. We are looking at the entire design that is before us. Okay. Thank you. |
| 01:26:01.89 | Unknown | CRYSTAL. |
| 01:26:08.81 | Jill Hoffman | Just to clarify exactly the process and to understand exactly what the City Council is doing here, Is the will the Planning Commission be issuing a design review permit? |
| 01:26:33.65 | Unknown | Thank you. Not a permit. They'll be asked to make a determination on the design review permit findings in the zoning ordinance. |
| 01:26:44.13 | Unknown | So this is under the city as the landowner has the ability to institute this process. And the process that's been outlined before you tonight is that the Planning Commission and the Historic Landmarks Board would make a determination if those findings, they can favorably make those findings or not. So they wouldn't be issuing an actual permit, but they'd be going through the same process as an applicant applying for a permit. |
| 01:27:10.57 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, so we've sort of used our design review perm, I'm sorry, if I may, I'm just trying to make sure I fully understand legally what we're doing here. So we're using our process. that would under other circumstances issue a design review permit. We're using that process as a city council, as a landowner, to make the decision as to whether we would give consent. |
| 01:27:39.53 | Unknown | Correct. And those would be the same findings that would be required through a design to reparm. |
| 01:27:43.39 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, I got that. And so one follow-up question is, therefore, tonight, when we approve this, because obviously we are, we will, tonight when we approve this, we are essentially then, delegating our duty as a city council to act as landlord under a lease to our planning commission |
| 01:28:11.68 | Unknown | You're telling the Planning Commission and the Historic Landmarks Board if they can make those findings, then the project can be approved and the district can go to BCDC for the permit. |
| 01:28:20.45 | Jill Hoffman | for the permit. And so that will effectively be the planning decision, planning commission's decision is effectively, we're delegating to them our consent. |
| 01:28:32.67 | Unknown | Absent an appeal. |
| 01:28:33.70 | Jill Hoffman | Absent an appeal. Okay. And so we won't hear it back again at all unless a party, someone, decides to appeal to bring it back. Correct. This is the last time the city council will hear this. |
| 01:28:34.86 | Unknown | Okay. |
| 01:28:43.06 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:28:43.08 | Mayor Theodore | Correct. |
| 01:28:45.85 | Unknown | what we're doing. |
| 01:28:46.12 | Jill Hoffman | that line. Yeah okay. |
| 01:28:46.15 | Unknown | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 01:28:46.51 | Mayor Theodore | Thank you. |
| 01:28:46.61 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:28:46.62 | Mayor Theodore | you I think that's a good thing. clarification and with Mary my understanding is that the City Council We'll need to vote on whether we grant written consent under the lease, and obviously we'll have to look at what the Planning Commission and HLB does. So I think it will need to come back from it. |
| 01:29:03.28 | Mary Wagner | you. If I may, Mr. Mayor, the process that's been outlined and as was described by Lilly and staff's recommendation is if the Planning Commission and HLB can make the findings, for, you know, similar findings as a permit. and there's no appeal of that. then the council tonight is saying then we consent as the landlord under the lease. That's what staff's recommending. If there's an appeal, it would be brought back to you. If the council wants to give different direction and have the project return to you regardless, you could give that direction tonight as well. |
| 01:29:48.30 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah, so I have a follow-up question to that. I guess my first question is if the findings are made, what are the finding categories? What are the findings? |
| 01:30:03.76 | Unknown | There's a... Probably, I think there's 12 normal design review permit findings and an additional eight in the historic district. I don't have them in my head right now. I can look them up and share them with you. but it's related to various items, mass and bulk, privacy, light, compatibility with the neighborhood, views. |
| 01:30:30.10 | Jill Hoffman | So my follow-up question is, I guess I'm nervous about the default. From what I'm seeing, the default here is consent unless there's an appeal. But what I heard is that the Council, we can change that. We can require that to still, you know, come to Council for discussion and a formal vote for consent. |
| 01:30:56.39 | Unknown | This is your process. This is what we're recommending, but you can modify it this evening. |
| 01:31:00.49 | Jill Hoffman | Okay. And I have a follow-up question. When I look at this lease, which was done in 1998 or so, is there an opportunity for us to renegotiate some of the terms of this lease? I mean, some of the things like $600. I mean, some of the terms I'm seeing here, you know, I'm questioning. So is that something that is an opportunity for us to... to renegotiate that lease. |
| 01:31:38.18 | Mary Wagner | Councilmember Pfeiffer, if that was a direction from the majority of the council, we'd have to come back to you at a future date to have that discussion. That's not part of what we've been prepared to discuss this evening. |
| 01:31:52.84 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you, I have a follow-up question. |
| 01:31:55.88 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:31:57.53 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, so then my other question. Oh, so I'm looking at these scenarios, and... Sometimes what I see happen when the Planning Commission is looking at something is they'll they'll make some findings and then they will adjust they'll there'll be some compromise discussions going on ad hoc in the conversation. where the applicant might say sure we'll change that, et cetera. So findings are made with the caveat of X, Y, and Z. |
| 01:32:37.22 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:32:37.69 | Jill Hoffman | Is there an opportunity if there are like compromises made in this process for the district to come back and share what that final design would look like? |
| 01:32:51.11 | Unknown | With the council? |
| 01:32:51.78 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. with the Planning Commission again. |
| 01:32:55.09 | Unknown | So we scheduled three meetings in anticipation that the plans would change. So the study session was scheduled to take a look at the project as it is. either as it was presented in December or if it's been modified. and then get some feedback on that. The district to revise the plans, go to that |
| 01:33:10.89 | Unknown | Thank you. you |
| 01:33:15.24 | Unknown | first joint hearing, which is the second public meeting, have more discussion possibly the plans could change at that point or As you said, Councilmember Pfeiffer, there's some sort of compromise, and then the third meeting, would be hopefully the final meeting where a decision could be made. |
| 01:33:32.66 | Jill Hoffman | . So another question I had is I'd like to see the findings perhaps during public comment if staff could get us, you know, a copy of those categories because I'd like to look at them. I just want to make sure, too, I feel nervous that I want to make sure that this entire process does not in any way preclude the entire council from not giving consent. In other words, if the Planning Commission makes all these findings and says everything's great and the residents are unhappy and it's appealed to council that we can not give consent. |
| 01:34:13.14 | Mary Wagner | If I may respond to that question, Council Member Pfeiffer, if this project is appealed to the council, we brought back up to you and then you would make your determination on whether or not to give consent as the landlord with respect and understanding the terms of the lease. So you are. |
| 01:34:30.60 | Jill Hoffman | Within reasonable parameters, yeah. |
| 01:34:33.78 | Mary Wagner | Thank you. |
| 01:34:33.96 | Mayor Theodore | you Any questions? I'd suggest that we open it to public comment at this point. And how many, can I get a show of hands, how many would like to comment on this issue? Would you please come up? We ask that you, if you would, fill out a speaker card, but just go ahead and start speaking and lining up. It would be helpful. |
| 01:34:59.19 | Mayor Theodore | One more show of hands. How many of you are going to comment on this? Okay, thanks. |
| 01:35:04.15 | Peter Van Meter | Peter Van Meter, CloudView Circle. I have just one question. We've heard all along that the The pass-through grant has some time limitations to it. I think the staff has done a tremendous job of working with the district, of coming up with a tight timeline. But I'd like to hear confirmation that even this accelerated program will not compromise the pass-through grant for land-side improvements. If someone could answer that question, it would be helpful. |
| 01:35:33.82 | Mayor Theodore | THE WEEK. |
| 01:35:34.19 | Peter Van Meter | Thank you. |
| 01:35:34.29 | Mayor Theodore | you |
| 01:35:34.49 | Peter Van Meter | you |
| 01:35:34.54 | Mayor Theodore | you |
| 01:35:34.61 | Peter Van Meter | Thank you. |
| 01:35:34.78 | Mayor Theodore | Mary? |
| 01:35:35.68 | Mary Wagner | Mr. Mayor, why don't we keep a list of questions if you would like? And I think that we can then determine who's best able to address this one. I will have a question. The alternative would be. |
| 01:35:42.15 | Peter Van Meter | The alternative would be if there is jeopardy to that which is critical for the infrastructure of Sausalito then you need to consider adjustments to the timeline to make sure that that grant is not jeopardized. |
| 01:35:59.11 | Mayor Theodore | Next, please, would you line up, who would you like to speak next? |
| 01:36:15.10 | Ed Fudge | Ed Fudge, I live at 2 Alexander, but I'm here tonight representing the Pedestrian and Bicycle Committee. So just a couple quick comments. First, to the extent that the pier or the ferry landing is seen as impacting bicycles, I just suggest that among the folks who review this would be the pedestrian and bicycle committee because you've kind of charged us. and frankly use up our Monday nights to talk about bicycles and pedestrians. And so to the extent that it's seen as impacting particularly bicycles, we would be happy to take a look at it, although to Mr. Van Meter's point, we don't want to add to the process, so we would expedite it on our agenda. I mention that because I've seen in the public dialogue online and in discourse with some of my fellow Sausalitans. I've been here 35 years, so I know some people in town, and there's some discussion about how this will impact bikes. So if that's part of the consideration for the council, you might refer it to the pedestrian bicycle committee. Based on our preliminary observations, I would just comment because we discussed this at our last meeting that we look at bicycles basically from three standpoints at a high level. One is volume. What's the total number of bicycles? particularly of rental bicycles for visitors because the recreational bikers kind of blow through town, but the ones who stay tend to be the Rental biker. So we look at volume. We look at parking. And we look at queuing. and it's, from our last discussion would appear that this Thank you. whether you leave the ferry terminal, whether you go to the you Um, what's there, whether you expand it, probably won't have a big impact on volume based on the information we've It won't have any impact on parking because there's no bike parking per se out on the It would have an impact on queuing. on the queue for the ferry. And I'll just speak now personally as someone who commutes. When there are bicycles and there are, you know, bicycle visitors and other visitors, and then there's those of us who are commuting, the line gets very long and it stretches way past the pier. Now that really doesn't have much of an impact on the visitors because they'll stand wherever they need to stand. It does have an impact on those of us who live in town. So, Volume doesn't seem, based on what we've seen so far, to have an impact, not a big impact on the volume of bicycles. Parking, no impact at all because there's no bike parking out there. Queuing, it would have an impact. But frankly, that is sort of a preliminary low flyover look given because frankly no one asked us our opinion so we're just sort of volunteering it here. And if there's a nexus seen between the ferry terminal and bicycles, I would suggest we would be more than happy to take a look at this and give a more complete opinion from the pedestrian and bicycle committee. Thanks. |
| 01:39:23.13 | Mary Wagner | Oh, good timing. Dr. Koch. |
| 01:39:23.60 | Unknown | you |
| 01:39:23.66 | Ed Fudge | Thank you. |
| 01:39:23.82 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:39:23.96 | Ed Fudge | Thank you. |
| 01:39:23.99 | Unknown | you |
| 01:39:24.18 | Ed Fudge | Thank you. |
| 01:39:24.20 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:39:24.23 | Ed Fudge | Thank you. |
| 01:39:24.25 | Unknown | Next question. |
| 01:39:25.14 | Mary Wagner | I almost caught it. I was right there. |
| 01:39:28.60 | Unknown | My question is for the Bridge District. Who's funding this? |
| 01:39:34.14 | Mary Wagner | We're going to keep a list of questions. |
| 01:39:35.10 | Mayor Theodore | Yes, the list of questions we'll do comment, and then we'll go through the questions and see who's appropriate for each of them. |
| 01:39:40.38 | Unknown | Okay, because I don't want to see our bridge tolls go up any higher. |
| 01:39:46.45 | Mayor Theodore | Thank you. Next. |
| 01:39:53.37 | Alden Bevington | Hello, counsel. My name's Alden Bevington. I'm a resident here and also I'm, I guess, considered somewhat of a domain expert in collaborative projects, decision-making processes. I made a big book on it. And I've also worked in content development in the past. And I'm not exactly clear who is making the final decision on this design. And I know that there's a lot of stakeholders, let's just say, in this final product. And the findings as I've heard them listed, the few that I've heard are related to functional elements. |
| 01:39:56.02 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:39:56.07 | Unknown | Amen. |
| 01:40:35.75 | Alden Bevington | clearly strong aesthetic elements. I know often when you have a large public works project you have maybe a design competition from various firms. The way that it, and I'm very uneducated on this issue right now, but I'm not exactly sure how the person has, the group has been chosen to do this design and I was wondering if there was any consideration of opening up for review, opening up for review, not just, okay, we present a design, you know, is the roof too slanted, but like have people participate. I mean, maybe like the gingerbread house contest that we have here in Sausalito. But, you know, just something so that people – what I've found in my work in this is that there's always going to be people not liking whatever happens, but for people to feel like they've been able to participate in the process and that it's theirs seems to encourage buy-in in the long run and less grumpiness. So anyways, I look forward to a great project, and I just wanted that stuff clarified. Thank you. |
| 01:41:42.00 | Mary Wagner | doesn't impact that on the |
| 01:41:45.86 | Pat Zook | Hi. Excuse me. Pat Zook, Monty Mar. First of all, I'm very impressed with the process that the city has put together. It seems eminently fair and thorough. I do have one reservation, which is actually a question perhaps for our city attorney. The – hello, city attorney. |
| 01:42:03.21 | Unknown | I'm writing it down. |
| 01:42:04.36 | Pat Zook | you Okay. |
| 01:42:04.98 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:42:05.06 | Pat Zook | No. The Bridget District has agreed to this process. Under their lease, however, with us, once they submit their plans to you guys, there's a 45-day period. after which in the absence of any comment from the city, Consent is presumed. I am wondering whether or not there has been an official agreement to waive their rights under that section of the lease until the conclusion of this process. I would hate to think that 45 days after submission, the bridge district would say gee that's great wolf finish the process We, in effect, have your consent, and that would make moot and unfortunate any opinions and actions. |
| 01:43:13.97 | Karen Aiken | Hello, council and mayor again. I guess I'm hearing that the people here want all the voices to be considered for this ferry project. The Parsha Yitro continues. It says about the people who are there on the mountain of Sinai. it says that God calls them... His holy treasure... He says, mine is the whole earth, but you are my treasure and you are to all be Kadosh Goyim. Now, maybe Herbie knows what Goyim means. Goyim is a word that we use sometimes to describe the people who aren't from the Jewish nation, but here it says, you will be a holy nation, and you will be a kingdom of Kohens, a kingdom of priests. And then when the thunder comes, All the people come to the mountains. And- God says, I have brought you out of bondage. I am here for... |
| 01:44:25.45 | Karen Aiken | I'll read this. This is, All the people witnessed the thunder and lightning, the blare of the horn and the mountain smoking, and when the people saw it, they fell back and stood at a distance. Speak for us, they said to Moses. Lest we die. These were people that had seen the miracles of Moses, and yet they were intimidated by the power. of God face to face. So these people here I consider very brave for coming and speaking to the council, trying to get bikes represented, trying to get pedestrians represented, trying to unite all the people of Sausalito. All the people. together. So thanks, counsel. And I'm finished with Yitro now. |
| 01:45:12.31 | Unknown | . |
| 01:45:13.91 | Karen Aiken | Thank you. |
| 01:45:14.52 | Mayor Theodore | Thank you. Public comment, anyone else? |
| 01:45:24.73 | Jennifer Berry | Hello, my name is Jennifer Berry and I live on Rodeo Avenue. I've been a Sausalito resident since 2005. And up where I live on Cypress Ridge, it's a hot tourist spot. Every single day that I'm out in my garden, I have people asking me for directions who are from foreign countries and out of town. And lately I've heard a lot of people commenting, especially when I watched the minutes in the video from the last meeting, that there seems to be this sort of backlash against the tourism in Sausalito. And I sort of wanted to speak to that because I started to do some research on how long tourism has been sort of an issue in Sausalito. And some of the earliest points that I can see is that there was an account by the Sausalito Historic Society saying that in 1959, it was the fifth year of the Sausalito Arts Festival. And at the time, they had a record-breaking 25,000 people attend the event, and it was a record from all of Marin. And at the time there was also a protest put on by the Sausalito Preservation Society, and this other counter-protest or event was sort of to speak about the rights of Sausalito residents and how they didn't like all the tourism. Now if we fast forward and look at the Sausalito Arts Festival now, it's a very well handled event. And we've done things to address the tourism issue, and I think that it's time for Sausalito to look at tourism in a positive light And I'm really excited about the new ferry terminal because I ride the ferry every single day to work on Embarcadero. And tourism is a real problem for the ferry. People back up on the queue. There's a long time for people to unload and load, especially with their bicycles. And people get really impatient, and it's embarrassing because we are being subsidized as a Sausalito resident. My ferry ride and my parking is subsidized while the tourists are paying full price. And I think that we should have a better attitude towards them and recognize that they are a vital part of our community. They bring in a really vital resource, and it's time that we update our ferry terminal so that we can accommodate them. And I think it would be better for the environment, too, because if we had better loading and offloading, we wouldn't be idling the boats for so long. So I think it's part of a sustainability looking forward. So I'm really excited about this project. Thanks. |
| 01:47:54.68 | Mayor Theodore | Thank you. Next. |
| 01:47:57.85 | Nancy Osborne | you |
| 01:48:04.00 | Nancy Osborne | I'm Nancy Osborne on Kendall Court. getting 35-year resident. I guess I wanted to comment on the previous comments, because I think we've all lived with tourism, and slowly but surely, it's become more and more of an impact, and then the bikes entered it, and it became HUD. just progressively more and more of an impact. Not from the people. but from the bikes themselves. This is a conclusion I've reached. I went to the last bike meeting and the I can't think of his name who is proposing what seems to me to be a very sensible thing which is to get the bikes away from people and have the people still get to Sausalito. Any woman here will tell you she'll shop a lot more if she doesn't have a bike to worry about before she gets on the ferry. The fairy would not lose it. the argument. merchants would not lose it and someone could pick up a lucrative way. to ferry bikes back to the city, and this is – I would like to encourage more people to come to this. which Ed chairs, because I think they meet a week from tonight, usually on a Monday, but because of President's holiday, and just hear what people are saying the things that bikes are demanding, hosts and hostesses, all sorts of things that we're doing, and we're doing that draw on our financial resources to host the bicyclists, and the bicyclists are fine, but the bikes, I'm really convinced that this ferry project could be reduced, the amount of fill is just just terrible of what they're doing. to that site. The way the increase is huge And it's all brought about, not all, a huge amount of it is brought about not by the bicyclists, but by the fact that they're bringing bikes onto that ferry. Thank you. |
| 01:50:19.03 | Mayor Theodore | Thank you. |
| 01:50:22.68 | Unknown | Hello, Christian Walz-Legel, 101 Edwards Avenue. Um, I've been following the story of the new ferry landing for quite some time, haven't been able to make it to any other meetings, and this is my first one, so my comments are accumulated over the past few weeks. But to comment on tonight's agenda, I think the new planning process sounds very good. So I'm here to voice my support for the new ferry landing. I appreciate many of the aesthetic concerns that my neighbors have expressed, and I do hope that we can continue to have an engaging dialogue and review of the plans so that a new beautiful design can be agreed to by all. And I'm here tonight because I really hope that we do eventually move forward with the plan. Why do I see a new ferry landing as important? I come at it from the perspective of environmental sustainability. I understand that there are concerns about the damage that the construction will do to the waterfront in terms of more concrete being poured and the size of the ferry landing footprint. These are certainly very valid concerns. And watching the past meetings, it really warms my heart to hear that there are so many people who care about our marine ecosystem and who care about our local waterways and have expressed that kind of environmental concern. And it's a very tough decision for me, but I come at supporting a new ferry landing by weighing all of the environmental advantages and disadvantages to this project. From my perspective, the environmental advantages are the following. And I do believe that they outweigh any potential environmental damage. They are faster loading and unloading of passengers. We've all seen the long queues. And wider gangway and loading from two doors on the ferry instead of one. This will speed up the process. And from my perspective as an environmentalist, it results in less engine idling of the ferries so they're not just sitting there running their engines, and this reduces greenhouse gas emissions. Secondly, more timely departures, potentially resulting in increased ridership. So if the ferry leaves on time, potentially it may encourage more people to use the ferry. Currently, weekday use is about 1,800 passengers, with up to 6,000 on weekends. That's a huge number of cars taken off the road. We sure don't want them on our already crowded streets, right? So I support any changes that improve our communities and transportation experiences and any improvements that will help get more cars off the road. Reducing greenhouse gas emissions is important for halting global warming and reducing sea level rise. Let's do what we can to protect our climate. I do not believe that this project is too large, and I believe that it will improve our community. So I really hope that after all the debate that's planned, that this project does not get stalled and moves forward before our federal funding is lost. Thank you very much. |
| 01:53:16.71 | Mayor Theodore | Okay, anyone else? |
| 01:53:24.62 | Unknown | Rich Conley, Sausalito Boulevard. Just we've come a long way since the last time we met, so the process is very good to see. One of the underlying objectives that was stated is the goal to try to have Larkspur, San Francisco, and Sausalito ferry landings be common from a design standpoint. And I hope that in this process we're not tied to something that might be appropriate in San Francisco or in Larkspur. And so just to make sure that as part of this process what we're trying to do here has a level of sensitivity, I think, that's appropriate for Sausalito. And we shouldn't have to be hooked to a common design requirements, which would sort of come down on us from the Golden Gate. The second thing is it appears that the negative Thank you. or the mitigation of the environmental impact report because this was just to be a reconstruction of the of the ferry landing that that which was passed back in 2012 appears to still be in place and that's still going to be the city's position is that a new environmental impact report will not be required. And that's, I don't know whether that's out there or has been sort of decided, but that was part of a 2012 process when I think the scope of this thing looked a lot smaller. Then my last point is that we worked very hard since our last meeting to go to some extra resources. Technology is great when it works, but attempting to assess a design by just looking at the online pictures is very difficult. They cannot constitute what one would call a working set of drawings. And we heard that there were things here at the library, so we came to the library, we went to Lilly, we went across the Golden Gate Bridge to the administration building, had to clarify for them that no, we weren't looking for the plans for the Golden Gate Bridge. And at any rate, we have gone full circle, including finally with the Golden Gate Administration, John Every. There is not yet available a set of working drawings, e-size drawings or whatever, which we require as a city for any review of anything that a homeowner does. And they really are much more helpful if a set of those could be made available in the library so that one could come in, take a look at the drawings, and be able to scale it. It's 3 16ths to a, you know. So having a working set of drawings would certainly be helpful in this process if you wanted to take elevations and that would be a help in the process, and we look forward to continued participation. Thanks a lot. Thank you. |
| 01:56:44.12 | Mayor Theodore | Thank you. Anyone else? |
| 01:56:50.87 | Unknown | Okay. |
| 01:56:50.94 | Mayor Theodore | Okay. Thank you. We're going to follow him. Okay. Um, I'm seeing no other speakers. I'm going to close public comment, and I think what we'll do now is go back to the questions, and I think our city manager has taken them down, and we'll leave the – Lily, do you have another comment on that? |
| 01:57:09.97 | Unknown | I took the opportunity to photocopy the design review permit findings. So I'm going to hand those out right now. And I have copies available for the public I'll put up there in a second. |
| 01:57:15.17 | Jill Hoffman | so I'm going to hand those |
| 01:57:19.84 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 01:57:22.20 | Mayor Theodore | I think that's a good question. What would you suggest? Do you have them grouped by very district, Lily, yourself, or how we want to do this so that someone can come to the podium and answer questions? |
| 01:57:33.85 | Mary Wagner | Sure. Well, why don't I start with the list that I kept and we'll see. Just go down the line? Yeah. Okay. Because I think there were a couple of questions related to the funding, and I don't know the specific name of the grant that the district has received from the federal government, but it's my understanding that the funding is going to be a little bit more. |
| 01:57:38.49 | Mayor Theodore | Just go down the line. Thank you. Okay. |
| 01:57:53.24 | Mary Wagner | Some, if not the entire project, is being funded with a federal grant, and if there's more information that you need from the district on that grant, we would need to look to them. It's also my understanding that the timing of this process doesn't impact the district's receipt of the grant, and if that's incorrect, I would look to the district to respond to the timing on the grant as well. |
| 01:58:19.77 | Mayor Theodore | So that's the kind of... |
| 01:58:20.26 | Mary Wagner | Those are the funding questions that I heard. |
| 01:58:22.52 | Mayor Theodore | I have funny questions. So would a representative of the district like to comment on those, on the funny questions? Would you, Eva, would you want to come to the podium? Because we have an audience on television and the web that would like to hear you. |
| 01:58:36.23 | Eva Bauer | Sorry. Yes, I'm Eva Bauer, Chief Engineer for the Golden Gate Bridge Highway and Transportation District. And the land site and water site projects are separate projects. They have separate designation of funds. So there is no connection between this process and the land site project. |
| 01:58:57.82 | Unknown | I've |
| 01:58:58.98 | Mary Wagner | There is no... Through the mayor, please. We can't do that. |
| 01:59:01.92 | Mayor Theodore | Yeah. Well, and basically, and maybe I can rephrase the question is, this process, we'll take both of them. Going through this process with the end date for looking at the BCDC meeting for May 19th does not jeopardize the funding for the water side of the Golden Gate. Otherwise I'm sure you wouldn't have agreed to this process. Is that correct? |
| 01:59:23.00 | Eva Bauer | That's correct. |
| 01:59:23.37 | Mayor Theodore | And now on the land side, I think Peter, that might have been your question. Thank you. Do you know, Eva, or who else might, whether going into May, which the decision would be, jeopardize our landside funding in any way? |
| 01:59:39.64 | Eva Bauer | No, it will not because these are two separate projects. |
| 01:59:40.87 | Mayor Theodore | the client. Okay. |
| 01:59:46.50 | Mary Wagner | Sure. Then there was a question about who's making a final decision on the design, and that is the process that we're laying out, and the council giving the direction on whether the Planning Commission and HLB making the findings, as staff has recommended, will result in the city as the lessor's consent, or if, as the council was discussing, you want it to come back to you. So we'd be looking for direction from you on that. Thank you. |
| 02:00:18.78 | Mayor Theodore | THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 02:00:20.98 | Mary Wagner | It is. I can talk more closely. |
| 02:00:23.24 | Mayor Theodore | home. |
| 02:00:25.33 | Mary Wagner | So then the next question I have noted was Pat Zook's question about the 45-day trigger under the lease. I have had that conversation with the district's attorney, and the 45 days is triggered by the submittal of detailed plans, and what we've discussed with the district and what we've documented is that that would occur so that the time would run in order to meet the BCDC meeting and it would terminate on May 12th. So we've built in that timeframe so that the plans are submitted April. It's either it's a date between a couple days before April 1st would be the formal submittal which allows that 45-day timeframe to run to May 12th. That allows them time to get information to BCDC for the BCDC staff report and packet for the BCDC discussion on May 21st. |
| 02:00:25.47 | Mayor Theodore | that they're going to be |
| 02:01:17.59 | Mayor Theodore | And then just a clarification, I think the process builds in. We have a city council meeting after the process. And so if there was something where the timeline was about to expire, we didn't have APPROPRIATE DECISION, WE COULD vote as a council to THE END OF THE END OF THE POSE OR SEND IN SOMETHING TO THE BCDC, IT WOULDN'T AUTOMATICALLY, WE WOULD HAVE THE OPPORTUNITY TO PREVENT IT AUTOMATICALLY LAPSING, CORRECT? |
| 02:01:40.48 | Mary Wagner | If there was anything that happened to modify that process, we would probably either bring it to the next regular council meeting or if need be bring it to a special city council meeting to discuss that. |
| 02:01:51.41 | Mayor Theodore | That's an important point that we have a safety valve that if something goes off the rails that we can take a position without it automatically happening. And we do. |
| 02:02:01.28 | Mary Wagner | We would carefully calendar that 45-day time frame. |
| 02:02:08.27 | Mary Wagner | THE FAMILY. |
| 02:02:12.93 | Mary Wagner | Then the rest that I have are comments. There was a question related to the commonality between San Francisco, Larkspur, and Sausalito. I think that that would need to be addressed through the design process and these hearings that are coming up with the Planning Commission and the HLB. That would be the appropriate forum for the district to be able to respond to that type of question. And and that other than the council's requests for the findings that are made under a design review process by the Planning Commission and HLB which were distributed to you those were the list of questions that I had taken note of |
| 02:02:51.77 | Mayor Theodore | Thank you. With that, why don't we bring it up for Any other questions we may clarify any questions and then we'll go into discussions. |
| 02:02:58.22 | Jill Hoffman | Yes, I heard a couple questions that were not addressed. One was with respect to the EIR mitigated NEDEC, would that carry to this new design? Would a new MND be done? |
| 02:03:17.93 | Mary Wagner | the district's environmental review was concluded in 2012, and that project was a very good idea. was the same size, I believe, as the project that was most recently reviewed by the City Council. So a new environmental document would not be required. |
| 02:03:34.99 | Jill Hoffman | I have a follow-up question. So who is the, I guess the term is regulatory agency that's recognized in the MND? |
| 02:03:44.69 | Mary Wagner | I apologize, Councilmember Firefly, if I don't have that in front of me. I'd have to go back and look at that. It's certainly something we could bring back to you. |
| 02:03:50.45 | Jill Hoffman | I'm interested in that. |
| 02:03:56.45 | Jill Hoffman | Mary, under the lease, in order to give consent for a major alteration, that has to specifically come from the City Council, isn't that correct? Have I got that right? |
| 02:04:07.36 | Mary Wagner | It says that the city as lessor. The council through this process has determined that the council or a designee of the council will be giving that authority. |
| 02:04:14.75 | Jill Hoffman | Okay. And so the designee would be the Planning Commission and AHLB unless there's an appeal. |
| 02:04:19.81 | Mary Wagner | It's the City Council saying if the Planning Commission and the HLB can make the findings that are set forth in the code, that we then consent and authorize staff to send that letter, the way it's being recommended by staff currently. But if it was appealed, then it would come back to the City Council. And as we have stated a couple times, if you would like to alter that and have it come back to the Council, regardless, that's within your purview. |
| 02:04:26.12 | Jill Hoffman | THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 02:04:40.16 | Jill Hoffman | to the |
| 02:04:44.65 | Jill Hoffman | And specifically with regard to the March 15th and the April – sorry, pardon me, the March 11th meeting study session and the April 15th meeting, those are perceived to be the public input meetings. Is that correct? |
| 02:04:59.30 | Mary Wagner | Yes the meeting on March 11th is a study session of the HLB and the Planning Commission |
| 02:05:00.98 | Jill Hoffman | the |
| 02:05:07.38 | Mary Wagner | so that the project is introduced to them, they have an opportunity to review it, question is an answer, is public input at that time. then the district would have the opportunity to incorporate any direction that they received into plans that are then submitted and go to a public hearing on the 1st and if need be on the 15th. |
| 02:05:33.74 | Mayor Theodore | I have a question regarding appeal. If during this process, which I certainly appreciate and this is certainly what we've been looking for and I think it's the best way to get public input on this, but if Council was concerned with the findings that came out of the joint HOB and Planning Commission, Is there a way under this? proposed system that count that City Council could appeal. Who would need to appeal it if we had some concerns on this? Or would we just have to hope and wait that someone would appeal? |
| 02:06:10.00 | Mary Wagner | Any interested party has the ability to appeal a decision of the Planning Commission and the HLB. If the Council wants to direct some other process as we're utilizing the process that's familiar to the community to determine if the Council or the City, excuse me, consents as the landlord, you could alter that. But the code language is that any interested party can appeal a decision. |
| 02:06:39.50 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah, there was another question which I think perhaps the district could help us with to provide a set of full-size drawings in the library, I guess, when they're made available. |
| 02:06:54.18 | Mary Wagner | Certainly, Councilmember Pfeiffer, when the plans are submitted, we do require full-size sets, and we could provide a copy in the library. That would not be for the March 11th meeting. The plans would come to the Planning Commission and the HLB as part of the April 1st meeting. |
| 02:06:55.73 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 02:07:20.54 | Mayor Theodore | Okay. I think – can we bring it back up? |
| 02:07:23.12 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. One more question I heard, which is who's funding this? |
| 02:07:24.39 | Mayor Theodore | Yeah. |
| 02:07:27.27 | Jill Hoffman | And we know the answer. |
| 02:07:27.78 | Mary Wagner | WE HAVE A LITTLE BIT OF We addressed that at the beginning when we talked about the grant, the federal grants that are being received by the district. |
| 02:07:30.14 | Jill Hoffman | at the beginning. that are really good. |
| 02:07:33.94 | Unknown | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 02:07:34.63 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 02:07:34.65 | Unknown | Yes. |
| 02:07:39.88 | Unknown | Mm-hmm. Thank you. Randy. Thank you. |
| 02:07:44.05 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:07:44.35 | Unknown | Who is the federal grant of the United States? |
| 02:07:44.37 | Unknown | Who is the federal grant? I was asking. Yeah. I mean, specifically, what agency? |
| 02:07:52.10 | Mary Wagner | MS. Mr. Mayor, it would be appropriate for you to determine who – if someone else needs to come up to answer that question or if that would be addressed separately. |
| 02:07:57.97 | Mayor Theodore | And actually we have closed comment, but we'll answer any questions. |
| 02:08:01.63 | Nancy Osborne | Thank you. |
| 02:08:06.88 | Nancy Osborne | So, |
| 02:08:07.39 | Eva Bauer | Majority of the funding comes from the Federal Highway Administration. |
| 02:08:13.61 | Mayor Theodore | Thank you. Thank you. Okay, let's bring it back now for comments. |
| 02:08:22.30 | Mayor Theodore | would like to start. Sure. |
| 02:08:28.50 | Eva Bauer | Thank you. These agencies to us are very similar. It comes from FTA, Federal Transit Authority. |
| 02:08:38.05 | Mayor Theodore | Thank you. |
| 02:08:38.06 | Eva Bauer | Administration. |
| 02:08:38.12 | Mayor Theodore | I'm not. Okay. |
| 02:08:39.33 | Eva Bauer | Thank you. |
| 02:08:39.36 | Mayor Theodore | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 02:08:43.52 | Mayor Theodore | Okay, now we're bringing it back up to comment. And who would like to start? |
| 02:08:46.72 | Jill Hoffman | I'll start. You know, it's not a perfect process because we're sort of putting, you know, |
| 02:08:51.53 | Unknown | you |
| 02:08:53.99 | Jill Hoffman | different thing, a different sort of a process than we're sort of putting into the process that we're all used to, so that's why it's a little bit different. |
| 02:09:00.66 | Unknown | but |
| 02:09:02.23 | Jill Hoffman | the way that it's being applied in this case, but overall I think it's a very good public process and designed for public input. So people should put those dates on their calendars, March 11th and April 15th. Oh, sorry. April 1st. April 1st. Sorry. You're right. I had it. And so put those on your calendar. And I should have asked, is it 6 o'clock here or what time? Do we have a time and a location for those? 6.30. 6.30. Okay. So anyway, I think Thank you. So put those on your calendar, and I should have asked, is it 6 o'clock here, or what time, do we have a time and a location for those? 6.30. 6.30, okay. So anyway, I think people have worked very hard on it. The Bridge District has been very helpful in participating in how we work out the process, so we appreciate that as well. |
| 02:09:04.86 | Unknown | in this |
| 02:09:18.55 | Mary Wagner | April 1st. |
| 02:09:28.28 | Mary Wagner | 6.30. |
| 02:09:41.92 | Unknown | THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 02:09:45.19 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah, so I think we've made a lot of headway here with the review process, and I'm really relieved about that and happy. I do have some concerns. I think we should waive the $1,000 fee for the appeal. I think that we should empower residents to participate if they disagree and they have something to say. I also would like to see Bye. I THINK IRRESPECTIVE of where the Planning Commission lands, I think there is value in having this come back to City Council and for City Council to give formal consent or not. I think it's in the lease that we give consent or not, and I think that makes sense to me. And of course it won't a big issue if everyone is happy with the outcome of the Planning Commission and HLB review and findings. You know, I want to stress this is not about being against tourism. This is about I mean, the reason why we have our guests come from around the world and love Sausalito is because we are a small town. We're a warm, small town. We are not a San Francisco. We're not a big city. And so I think the intent here and the reason why this has generated so much concern. is because we are seeing something of such an industrial size that has caused great concern with respect to the future of what could happen to our small town character and our small town ambience. the situation with the bicycles too. I concur that the current situation with the tour rental bikes is just not sustainable. because right now I've heard projections of, you know, anywhere from, you know, possibly 8 percent growth a year and you do the numbers and you're looking at what, a million bikes a year to a little town, our little town? I mean, it's just not sustainable. So my comment on this is there's a reason why we are going through this. There's a reason why people are saying we need a strategy to cap the number of bikes. Not to say no to the cyclists, but to cap the number, to make this reasonable so that we wind up with, you know, preserving the reason why Sausalito is famous around the world and viewed as a paradise and is wind up with preserving the reason why Sausalito is famous around the world and viewed as a paradise and is such a beautiful environmental and fragile ecosystem that is admired worldwide. So I want to thank everyone who spoke and everyone who's here and who is participating in this process. Your voice is important and it makes a big difference. Thank you. |
| 02:12:50.03 | Unknown | Mm-hmm. |
| 02:12:50.90 | Jill Hoffman | Well, I would definitely reiterate that. You know, I remember several years ago I said that, you know, one of the key things is to listen to all points of view because you never know where a good idea, when a good idea is going to come up. So this process has been, and the development of this process has been pretty important. But I want to pick up on and agree very much with something that the Vice Mayor Hoffman said. We are actually shoehorning a consent that we have to or that ordinarily the City Council as the landowner would make and we're putting it in through a process that is we use to issue design review permits in order to facilitate public input and communication and that's good because we know our process. I don't know if we have ever in the past actually delegated our authority as a City Council to make a decision as a landlord to a Planning Commission. I believe this is the first time that's ever happened. But I may be wrong. And so I am also a little nervous about just having a process where you've hardwired in a default consent without it affirmatively coming back to the city council for it to make that consent decision. were relying on the fact that it would only come back to the City Council for it to make that consent decision. We're relying on the fact that it would only come back to the City Council if it was appealed by one party or the other, depending, you know, by a resident or by the ferry district. And so I'm wondering, it's not, I don't, you know, I'm not saying I won't agree to this process without it, of course, because we've got a process and I'll go with it. But if I had some more – if we had consensus up here to consider adding that final piece of bringing it back regardless, I would be a lot more comfortable. |
| 02:15:09.65 | Councilmember Weiner | Well. I think the process that we're going through is going to hopefully prove fruitful. |
| 02:15:21.78 | Councilmember Weiner | People come to Sausalito because it's probably one of the most advertised in the bike industry and the bus industry. You can't see San Francisco from San Francisco. You have to come over here to see San Francisco. That's why they really come over here. And that's how it's advertised. As long as this economy keeps on improving, We're going to have more and more. coming to our city. It's funny, we're our own worst enemy because when we traveled all around the world, we told people we came from Sausalito. not from San Francisco. So we really advertise ourselves out. where now everybody wants to come to Sausalito. So I think as this economy is, will be what dictates how many tourists that we have. And the weather also dictates what we have. So I think the important thing is that this ferry terminal is designed that we really do go forward with the idea that we're making it more accommodating for people that live here to take the ferry, people that visit to take the ferry. The idea or the intention isn't that if you build it bigger, more will come. That isn't the idea of this. The idea is to accommodate what we really have. And I've mentioned it before, we don't have all the numbers in, but last year I believe that 850,000 people came to Sausalito by Golden Gate Ferry. And out of that, 185,000 were bikes. That's about a 20%. So I think hopefully this process will bring it to a point where we can make sure that we can accommodate or handle it as we move ahead. So thanks. |
| 02:17:28.36 | Mayor Theodore | I want to thank everybody in the public for their concern and their participation in this process. And I certainly want to thank the Golden Gate Bridge District for coming and for recognizing our concerns of the aesthetic value and the importance to our historic district of the Bridge District and being willing to go through our process to get the maximum input from our public. I think the process is a good one. It's the one we're used to. We're having HLB and planning go through. I do have to say I do have concerns about the final piece of it, both because we're on a timeline. We'll have a 45-day notice coming. We'll have a BCDC issue. I don't think this will affect, I know the Bridge District is sensitive to any timing, but I think we've already built in a city council meeting at the end of the process, because The. what the city council needs to do is give its written consent. I think the most appropriate thing is to go through the process and bring it back to the council and then have us formally give written consent. I think because we haven't gone through this process this way before and we don't want to take a chance that anything comes up. We want to make sure that we have the safeguard of coming back to the city council. Certainly we're going to respect. what the Planning Commission and HLB do, and of course they'll have the input from the because it's new to all of us, we need that safeguard to come back. We'll have a meeting which is before the 45 days expire, before the BCDC MEETING IS SET THAT'S ALREADY IN OUR SCHEDULE. SO THAT'S THE ONLY THING I'D RECOMMEND. OTHERWISE I THINK IT I think there's a lot of opportunity for public input and that would be the only change. I think we wouldn't need to worry about waiving any appeals fees. I think this whole appellate process is very difficult. We found that in the Fission Pure. So that would be my recommendation. |
| 02:19:18.42 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. Yeah, if I could weigh in. I think that's a good idea. And I think, you know, that way you take the appeal issue out of it. It's just going to come to us. Of course, we're going to give the great weight to what the Planning Commission and the HLB and the whole public process up to that point. I'm looking at my calendar. I wasn't texting just now. I was looking at my calendar on my phone. |
| 02:19:34.94 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:19:36.58 | Jill Hoffman | And if we're talking about, you know, in April, and I'll leave it to you guys to work out the details, but if we're talking about public meeting with the design review on April 15th, then we have a city council meeting, it looks like to me, on the 21st, and so that would be the natural flow, I think, instead of the 10-day appeal process. Mary has her hand out. |
| 02:19:57.39 | Mary Wagner | Yeah, we just need to make sure we have time to turn around documents for you. |
| 02:19:57.84 | Jill Hoffman | We just need to... DETERMINED. Right, right. Yeah, yeah, I leave it to you guys. I'm just saying that, you know, it takes that issue out of it. And I think that's the right thing to do. |
| 02:20:11.29 | Mayor Theodore | Anyone else before we call for a motion here? Any other comments? Would someone like to make a motion? . Well, |
| 02:20:21.89 | Unknown | I THOUGHT YOU WERE |
| 02:20:23.42 | Jill Hoffman | Did you have a draft motion or I mean looking at the thing is to. Yeah, Lily has. |
| 02:20:24.92 | Mayor Theodore | All right. |
| 02:20:24.96 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 02:20:25.19 | Mayor Theodore | Yeah. |
| 02:20:25.25 | Unknown | Motion. |
| 02:20:25.70 | Mayor Theodore | Thank you. |
| 02:20:25.74 | Unknown | you Thank you. |
| 02:20:26.85 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:20:27.03 | Councilmember Weiner | Thank you. |
| 02:20:27.07 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:20:27.19 | Councilmember Weiner | it's a good thing. |
| 02:20:27.32 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:20:31.98 | Mary Wagner | Thank you. |
| 02:20:32.00 | Nancy Osborne | Of course she does. |
| 02:20:45.17 | Unknown | Before I pull up that slide, just for clarification, we would be then eliminating step 14 and 15 and then replacing it with another – coming back to the council. for consent. |
| 02:20:59.59 | Mayor Theodore | Just to be clear, and Mary, does that work with that change? I just don't want to make a change that would screw up either the schedule or or the validity of what we're doing here, but I mean, that seems right, the change 14 and 15. |
| 02:21:12.70 | Mary Wagner | Yes, I mean, it's my understanding in the conversations we've had with the district are that they're willing to engage in the process that's directed by the city with the concern about the timing and then being able to get to BCDC. And as you correctly pointed out, Mr. Mayor, we did build in that City Council hearing into the schedule so it doesn't affect the schedule. And if we can get it to you as early as possible, I'll give you the time to consider it as well. |
| 02:21:22.33 | Unknown | and being able to |
| 02:21:39.01 | Mayor Theodore | And it'll really streamline the process in case there's any difficulties regarding appeals and how they're filed and such. |
| 02:21:47.60 | Jill Hoffman | So, yeah, I will move that we approve the process that has been outlined by staff with the modification that following the Planning Commission's final determination, It will then come to the City Council for the City Council to formally grant its consent or not. And that would be the modification to the process. |
| 02:22:21.85 | Mary Wagner | Within that same time frame? Within that same time frame? |
| 02:22:23.07 | Jill Hoffman | within that same timeframe and so then direct staff the HLB and the Planning Commission to proceed with the approved ferry landing process as modified and to waive any applicable application fees for any step in that process you |
| 02:22:42.37 | Councilmember Weiner | Thank you. |
| 02:22:42.52 | Jill Hoffman | said. |
| 02:22:42.79 | Councilmember Weiner | Thank you. |
| 02:22:42.98 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 02:22:45.07 | Mayor Theodore | Do you want a roll call, Debbie? Amen. No. Can we do this by consensus? All in favor? Thank you. I'm not sure. |
| 02:22:52.13 | Councilmember Weiner | Bye. |
| 02:22:52.28 | Mayor Theodore | Bye. |
| 02:22:54.67 | Mary Wagner | Mr. Mayor, that motion passed 5-0. Thank you. |
| 02:22:56.73 | Mayor Theodore | Okay, great. Should we take a break? |
| 02:22:58.54 | Mary Wagner | Thank you. |
| 02:22:58.57 | Mayor Theodore | We'll take a five-minute break. Thank you all. |
| 02:23:21.79 | Mayor Theodore | Now moving on. Yeah. All right. Okay, thank you. There you go. Hey, that feels good. That feels good. All right. |
| 02:23:30.89 | Councilmember Weiner | I was here for twice for nothing. I wish you could. |
| 02:23:32.20 | Mayor Theodore | Thank you. |
| 02:23:32.68 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:23:34.48 | Mayor Theodore | Okay, here we go. All right, now we're moving on to business item 6A, the Ferry Landing Rehabilitation Project, Waterside Improvements, and that's Lily again. |
| 02:23:45.70 | Unknown | Thank you. Oh, shh. |
| 02:23:45.99 | Mayor Theodore | I'm saying, oh. Get the glasses. We just did that one. All right. |
| 02:23:52.15 | Councilmember Weiner | you |
| 02:23:52.34 | Mayor Theodore | Thank you. |
| 02:23:52.40 | Councilmember Weiner | Thank you. |
| 02:23:52.44 | Mayor Theodore | I'm excited about hitting the mallet now. All right. I can do it again. All right, everyone, can we have a seat? Okay. We have an update. This is the analysis and evaluation of the Marineship-specific plan. But once again, it's really. |
| 02:23:52.45 | Councilmember Weiner | THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 02:23:52.64 | Unknown | I'm so excited. |
| 02:23:53.20 | Councilmember Weiner | you All right. |
| 02:23:54.75 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:23:54.88 | Unknown | in the next video. |
| 02:23:54.93 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:23:54.95 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:23:54.97 | Unknown | Do you? |
| 02:23:55.04 | Unknown | Bye. |
| 02:23:55.09 | Unknown | Bye. |
| 02:23:55.12 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 02:23:55.20 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:23:55.31 | Unknown | Bye. |
| 02:23:55.44 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 02:23:56.18 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:24:07.47 | Unknown | Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So tonight we have a discussion of the work product of many months of work by your Mirrenship Specific Plan Steering Committee. And here's an outline of today's presentation. I'll first give a brief background of the Marinship Specific Plan and the Steering Committee's formation. I'll also provide you with the list of council meetings that this project was – I'll came to the council as an update at, and then also provide an update of the steering committee meetings. And then I will hand it off to Charlie Knox. He's the city's consultant with PlaceWorks, and he's going to go into an overview of the project scope as a whole. the public engagement portion where the community found common ground. and then the committee's recommendations on the marine rails in the marine ship. At that point, then he'll hand it off to Robin Petrovich, who is the Marine Ship Specific Plan Steering Committee Chair, and he'll go into the committee's recommendations for the Marine Ship Specific Plan. And then I'll provide a staff recommendation, and then it'll go back up to the council for a discussion tonight. So with that, in terms of a brief background, the 200-acre marine ship area was created on Bayfill in 1942 during World War II, where it was created for use as a shipyard. And the shipyard produced 15 Liberty ships, 16 fleet oilers, and 62 tankers during the course of World War II. The shipyard was decommissioned in 1946, and the land was sold to public and private entities. Today, the area has a very rich history and is very important to Sausalito. There's a mix of arts, industrial, marine, business, commercial services, office, and restaurants in the area. In addition, it employs approximately 3,000 people, which is 60 percent of total employment in the city as a whole. In 1988, the specific plan for the area was adopted. And the intent of the specific plan is to promote the waterfront area and promote diversified water-dependent uses, and also promote the development of other lands in the area with industrial uses and uses compatible with an industrial area. This specific plan was amended a year later in 1989. That was the only time that has been amended and that was for some clarifications. |
| 02:26:55.70 | Unknown | In March of 2013, staff presented a Marineship 101 staff report to the council. In that report, it was noted that there are a number of potentially problematic factors affecting the marine ship area. |
| 02:27:03.51 | Unknown | I'm not ready. |
| 02:27:10.19 | Unknown | And we presented this diagram that's on the screen right now, which showed the interface of three components, land use, economics, and infrastructure. We presented land use issues such as inconsistency with the zoning ordinance and the Marineship-specific plan. economic issues like the perception of economic stagnation in the area and infrastructure issues such as deteriorating storm drains, flooding, and subsidence. At the conclusion of that presentation, the council directed staff and a subcommittee of two council members to work together to conduct an analysis. which was done and presented on May 7th of 2013 to the Council. And at the conclusion of that meeting, the Council then formed a steering committee whose membership is noted in your staff report for this evening with the purpose to evaluate the specific plan using studies already completed on behalf of the City and any new studies as to recommended by the Marinship Steering Committee to determine to what degree the Marinship Specific Plan is adding to the health of the City and to the degree that's recommended by the Marin Ship Steering Committee to determine to what degree the Marin Ship specific plan is adding to the health of the city and to the degree that it is necessary to avoid the negative consequences of doing nothing to identify areas in the marineship where improvements can be made to the marineship-specific plan, to add to the health of the city and to avoid the negative consequences of doing nothing, to develop a community engagement plan and a property owner outreach program, and then finally to recommend changes to the marineship-specific plan as required. |
| 02:28:44.26 | Unknown | The council in October of 2013 approved a contract with our consultant, PlaceWorks, who was interviewed and selected, recommended by the steering committee at a prior meeting. The committee then began work with staff and the consultant, and staff has provided regular updates to the council on the steering committee's activities, all of which are provided here. The steering committee has held 13 public meetings and hosted a community forum, which was held at the Bay Model and video recorded so everyone can watch it, in order to develop the recommendations that are in the report, which is a part of your packet for this evening. And with that, I would like to introduce Charlie Knox, who is principal with PlaceWorks. |
| 02:29:40.05 | Charlie Knox | Thanks, Lily. |
| 02:29:44.21 | Charlie Knox | Mayor and Council, thanks for the opportunity to be here. I just went the wrong direction. As Lily mentioned, when this project began in early 2014, we were under direction from the council working with the steering committee to evaluate the specific plan. find areas of the partnership where improvements can be made to add to the health of the city, And specifically, we made significant efforts to try to build on a lot of the work that's been done over the past several decades in Sausalito. And here is a list of some of the many reports and data sources that we mined and paid close attention to throughout the process. I also want to say that the work that was done by the WAM report recently and the stewardship of Chris Gallagher and others kind of bringing the WAM process into this process was invaluable in our public engagement. That leads us to the recommendations you'll see this evening. So as Lily mentioned, public engagement was a big part of the process as directed by council. We had tours of the land area in the marineship. We toured the water and got a very different perspective from the water than from the land. We did community interviews in several intensive days in this building. We interviewed 138 participants, and you probably recall from Lily's portion of the presentation that it was important to engage landowners. We had a group of 15 landowners and landowner representatives at one of those interviews. And then the community forum in April 2014 at the Bay Model, we had 70 participants and we had several stations of boards and information about land use, infrastructure, circulation, and people were able to mill around and go back and forth. And we had one of the more robust, positive, collaborative discussions that I've ever seen at a community workshop. It was really something to participate in. As I mentioned, there were 13 steering committee meetings, and I was in front of council in April 2014 to let you know where we stood at that time. And just a quick recap of that. Here's a recap of the community forum. And you can see we basically had continued to divide things into land use circulation and infrastructure following the triangle and circle diagram that Lily showed from the So there was a lot of common ground that came out of the public engagement. Basically, people said the marine rails are something that's unique and worth protecting. Infrastructure is clearly an issue in the marineship and needs to be improved and maintained, and we've got to figure out ways to do that. The economic vibrancy of the marineship as the major piece of the job base in the city could be still increased beyond what it is now and provide revenue generation citywide and additional benefits for the citizens. There was some attention to nighttime safety in the marineship and talk of how activity and activity centers there could help with that. And then issues about circulation and access were raised a number of times. So the committee basically came up with two recommendations. I'm going to let Chair Robin Petrovich talk about the update of the specific plan, which was the meat of the process. But the other thing that really came out from the discussion was to explore protection for the marine rails. And the options that we've talked about, and it's in the report, And the report kind of focuses possibly a little bit too much on a zoning overlay as the solution, and there are certainly others that can be explored. The committee at its last meeting, which was just Two weeks ago? really talked about the immediacy of this exploration and separating out from the specific plan process an effort to really determine what the council thinks we should do about the marine rails. So I'm just going to go into the marine rails for a few minutes and then turn it over to Robin. So the marine rails, which are shown in plan view in the bottom, abounded in the red. all exist on one piece of property, although they are not the entire waterfront of that property. And it's very hard to see from the slide, but there are yellow parcel lines here. And so you can see there is a piece here between Spalding, Boatworks, and Fish, where there's a significant portion. I'm sorry, that's on the other side of Spalding. But there's a significant portion here where there's water access, but not the rails. The rails are these systems here, which you may well have seen and experienced and they are a unique resource in that there are very few places in the country. They're the only ones on the continental U.S. west coast where you can actually haul a boat right out of the water to work on it in this rail system, and this is another one of these legacies or remnants of the Liberty Ship building that Lily talked about that makes the Marinship unique and comparable maybe only to the Rosie the Riveter area in Richmond. So here's a San Francisco fireboat, and the boats that can come out into the marine rails can go up to 250 tons. You can see there's really nothing like it at all in the entire United States. Yes, Louisville, Kentucky has rails for pleasure craft, but really to see something like this, you've got to go to Alaska where much larger boats are hauled out on a regular basis. So the rails have issues related to them both of historic preservation, environmental issues, et cetera. But the committee agreed very strongly that that they wanted to recommend to the council that we take a clear look just at this particular issue before going on to the remainder of the specific plan update and its relationship to the general plan. So with that, I will introduce Chair Robin Petrovich of Heath Ceramics, who has guided us through this process. |
| 02:35:25.00 | Robin Petrovich | Okay. Thank you, Charlie. Good evening, everybody. So we've been through about, I think, 13 meetings overall through this whole process. And I was also part of the WAM committee, and I do want to say that's still a very – recently gone back and re-read that report. It's still a very excellent report that has informed us very much and is worth going back and reading again. So with all that work and months and months of looking at this, it's a pleasure to be able to come up here and make a recommendation on the Mauritius specific plan to the council here. We even though we had a couple options to look at in these recommendations and throughout the whole process of the research that we did and working with Charlie Knox and his team, And we started on this process with the assumption that there was going to be a recommendation to do something. I still want to call out that doing nothing which is what's happening right now. is not something that the community feels is attractive. that course has not served the Marinership area well, it has not served South State well, and it does nothing to encourage forward movement. So moving on, the second option we looked at was updating the Marinership specific plan as a stand-alone plan as it currently functions. So the specific plan stands alone outside of the general plan. There are a lot of issues inherent to that, some of them being there's a lot more detail in the report that was prepared, but some of them being that there are inherent contradictions between the specific plan and the zoning ordinances And that causes a lot of confusion as to the land use in that area. And that's one of the main issues with updating it as a stand-alone issue. You're not necessarily going to resolve those kind of conflicts, and you're not going to be able to have a smooth process moving forward in that area. So the third one that we looked at which is our recommendation, is to update the Mauritius specific plan in conjunction with the general plan update. Move this forwards here. Whoops, there we go. So the reason why we're making this recommendation here is that we feel it's the most efficient use of planning resources and finances. So there's in terms of resources of planning resources as well as budgetary resources, the money being spent to put together studies and make recommendations, pull together reports, all of which would have to be repeated as part of the general plan process. So doing them together is our recommendation for those reasons. Um, Updating this specific plan, Congestion and General Plan would also help ensure that as we look at the two together, the key areas of the specific plan and general plan are going to be aligned so they will actually start to work together and they won't have these inherent conflicts in zoning ordinances and other areas. The final point that we want to make is that the general plan is actually due to be updated. It was last updated in 1995. So practically 20 years have passed. It's about time that update happened. And as we're speaking of this specific plan, now it seems like a great opportunity to fold that into the process here. |
| 02:38:57.71 | Robin Petrovich | So there's a number of efforts and objectives that would need to be undertaken in preparation for making the update to the specific plan and as part of the general plan process. And this is kind of the homework that needs to be done to be able to kind of inform the decisions that will be coming later. The first is a complete infrastructure analysis. So that's really kind of understanding the problems with the infrastructure, what needs to be fixed, how it can be fixed, what it's going to cost, all those kind of questions that are going to come up in making a plan to move forward. Identifying potential circulation improvements. If you know the marine ship, you know that there's a lot of dead ends. This is kind of a project from a circulation point of view that was not finished. It's not something that is finished and functional. in that way. And circulation is something that does add to access and economic vibrancy and improve those opportunities. Conducting an economic feasibility study to inform future potential for the marineship area. So a lot of this goes hand in hand with identifying land uses to encourage and discourage in the marineship going forward. So this is really about what kind of uses in that area are going to be more likely of success rather than failure. It's about looking at what are feasible uses within the context of what the city and the people of South Salido want from the marineship area. continued water related uses, industrial uses as it is now. But what is going to be more likely to succeed moving forward what's different in 2020 and 2030 from perhaps 1988 when the specific plan put those, was first put into place. |
| 02:40:42.17 | Robin Petrovich | So following all that kind of homework, all that research, we have identified a number of key actions that would be important in actually making the update to the specific plan as part of the general plan update. First is examining the need for site-specific regulations. Right now the plan has a lot of what some may call spot zoning. Specific parcels are limited to specific uses. Is that really functional? Is that limiting? Is that damaging to the potential of the area? And is that causing some of the problems that we see there today? determining whether waterfront industrial boundaries should change. So there's an industrial boundary, industrial zoned area, and then there's a waterfront area. Is that line in the right place? Is there more of an emphasis now on one or the other? Is there more potential on one or the other? So should that line change, should one of them be given a little bit more space in order for the area to be successful and again be able to rebuild. Specify appropriate uses for water parcels. This may sound unusual, but there are a number of water parcels in the Marinship Specific Plan. And I think as one goes through an update, it's important to note And to not ignore those, and be president of the future and make sure that those are also identified appropriately. considered flexibility uses for the W zone. Things are different now than 1998, and again, there are water uses that may be more appropriate and more likely of success. So taking a look at those and broadening perhaps or even tightening those for the future of what things economically look like today and what needs there are today is an important part of the process. Determining whether allowed users should change to support the intent of the I-Zone is another key element that needs to be looked at. Again, what are industrial uses as we see them today? How is that different from 1988? What kind of industrial uses are desirable? And what are what industrial uses are seem to be more likely for success in that area? And finally examining definitions, requirements, processes, and arts inclusionary ratios. So the arts is certainly an element that's been a major part of the marine ship's history and is so today. and it's something that one needs to look at in order to be able to continue to work in that area. So this is our roadmap for future land and water use in the marineship. So how do we approach the project? This is our recommendation here. As Charlie spoke earlier about the marine rails, this is a separate kind of a project. And I do want to add that certainly, you know, the committee saw that as being an important recommendation to make. um, And something that, you know, if something is not done there, there's potential that also could lose a really important historical identifying resource. So the next step, the first next step, would be to explore the creation of a marine rails protection overlay. And that's something that can be done completely independently of the specific plan, general plan. There's no reason why that couldn't happen in the very near future. The second step in the roadmap is the points and objectives that were discussed earlier documenting existing site conditions. These are the various studies that need to be done before they update to the plan. conducting infrastructure deficiency analysis and also potential ways to fix the infrastructure. The fourth one, identifying the need of circulation improvements. We discussed that as well. That's another study. And the fifth one being completing an economic sustainability study. So if we are able to do all these things in this roadmap, within. the right kind of a time period, that can all be done before it's time to do the general plan update and therefore update the specific plan in conjunction with the general plan, having all the information that's needed. and to be able to align the specific plan with the general plan and start to bring the specific plan more in line with the city of Sausalito and the potential zoning for the general plan in the future. So with that, I'm going to turn it over to Steph. |
| 02:45:16.25 | Unknown | Thanks, Robin and Charlie. Just have our staff recommendation here for you to consider, which is to receive the report that we just gave from the staff, the consultant, and the staff. steering committee representative. And then to form a subcommittee composed of one historic landmarks board member, one planning commission representative, and two city council members in addition with city staff to develop a timeline and next steps including a preliminary budget to carry out the steering committee's recommendations which Robin just presented and are also listed in. Section 2.6 of the report. and then to come back to you and provide a presentation regarding that timeline, next steps, and budget. And that concludes our report and we're available for any questions you might have. |
| 02:46:12.28 | Unknown | Okay. |
| 02:46:14.02 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you Lily Charlie Robin. That was great Specifically question on the recommendations, on the staff recommendation. You want to develop a timeline and next steps to carry out the recommended actions. So presumably, you know, to confirm costs of the infrastructure analysis. I'm making it up. I don't know. I'm guessing that's what you mean. You know, look at the various components. But is this committee also going to be charged with looking at the marine rails? Because you made the point that this was an important almost separate project. Could be done totally independently. So Do we perhaps need to be talking about the marine rails as a project and what needs to be done there? And then potentially, and that could be with staff, and then a subcommittee in order to look at the more general steps I'm costing to be able to program into a budget and long range plan. Sorry for that compound question, but hopefully. |
| 02:47:32.37 | Adam Politzer | Well, I think you hit it right on the head. It would be two projects if directed by the council, and we would direct on the marine rails. We would ask the council to direct staff to work, and I just think that's something that Lily and Danny Castro can do. and bring back a recommendation in terms of what the process is, what the cost estimates may be. I think there was $40,000 listed there on the road map. And then confirm that it's actually something that would protect the marine rails if we went through that process. So that's a separate direction that we look to the council to give to us tonight for staff to work independently and come back at a time certain and we can work with the agenda setting committee to come up with the appropriate date for us to come back. Thank you. |
| 02:48:27.57 | Mayor Theodore | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 02:48:28.19 | Adam Politzer | Thank you. |
| 02:48:28.22 | Mayor Theodore | Other questions? I mean, just for full disclosure, Ray and I sat on the committee, so we're quite well versed with this. So any questions you have? We'll just start off. Maybe Jillian will start. |
| 02:48:38.96 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah, I have a couple questions. With regard to the process going forward, there haven't been specific recommendations with regard to rezoning yet. What we're talking about is just that's what we want to look at and that's the scope of what this next committee is going to do. And with regard to a good question. I think that's a good question. |
| 02:49:21.55 | Charlie Knox | Yes, it goes all the way back to Road 3, so if you're walking from the park through to the graveled area of Road 3, past where there used to be rails and the wetlands have have crept back in right here. This gets you on the trail, gets you along the waterfront path right here into the park. |
| 02:49:37.95 | Jill Hoffman | Uh-huh. So the big curved wooden structures that's inside the red line? |
| 02:49:43.28 | Charlie Knox | Yes. |
| 02:49:46.81 | Charlie Knox | I don't know what you mean by big curve in the structure. |
| 02:49:49.49 | Jill Hoffman | . |
| 02:49:50.79 | Charlie Knox | you Oh. |
| 02:49:51.79 | Jill Hoffman | It's where they used to build the Liberty ships where they built them at the beginning. Yes. Okay, so that's inside the red zone? Yes. |
| 02:49:55.82 | Charlie Knox | Yes. Okay, so that's inside the red zone? Yes. Okay, great. Yeah, it actually comes all the way back out. I think you're talking about these buildings here. It comes all the way back out basically to the first access road, which is – you probably recognize this is a gravel road, not a – |
| 02:50:09.73 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 02:50:09.74 | Unknown | . |
| 02:50:10.01 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. the historic aspect of those and the reason you're carving out is to preserve those historic buildings there as well as the unique nature of the rails. |
| 02:50:22.10 | Charlie Knox | That's really up to council and how you want to direct this group that looks at this, but I think that's a very valid purpose. And the committee really discussed two approaches to the protection of the rails. One is the rails themselves as a resource. Committee member Werner, who's also on the Planning Commission, really talked about how the cables of the cable cars in San Francisco are the thing that's really protected and allows that to continue. Versus a lot of discussion we had, which is not mutually exclusive, about the working waterfront. So the committee kind of came at it from both directions, probably primarily from the working waterfront direction for most of the conversation because a lot of the discussion about the specific plan was uses and activities and what happens. But I think there was a lot of momentum for both. One, it's a place where this kind of work is happening and it's dependent on that structure in this format, and this is a place where the council might consider defining the types of uses that can occur there as being related to pulling the boats out of the water. But the actual infrastructure itself of the rails was also deemed a valuable resource by the committee. So it really, whether you do a historic overlay or a zoning overlay or some other method, it could really take into consideration both of those components. |
| 02:51:30.54 | Jill Hoffman | Okay. Just to be clear on that, I think my position would be that we would want to preserve the historic buildings that are there that are related to the Marineship when it was a naval shipyard back during the war. I think that's an important aspect of the Marineship is that historic tie-in. that needs to be preserved as any part of the plan for that area. Okay, thanks. I think |
| 02:51:52.44 | Adam Politzer | Councilmember Hoffman, can I just clarify the next step isn't for this committee to do anything other than what's being recommended which is to look at a budget and timeline. So they're not going to start going into... |
| 02:51:54.45 | Jill Hoffman | you |
| 02:52:07.89 | Adam Politzer | the process, they're going to come back with, you know, so we're taking baby steps here. So community come together, look at what the report recommends in terms of the next steps, then come back to the council with a process and a budget and then recommendation to the council to move forward. |
| 02:52:08.93 | Unknown | They're going to come back. Okay. |
| 02:52:26.62 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, thanks. QUESTION? SO I'M CURIOUS AS TO ITS SLIDE. Thank you. THE BULLET SAYS THE TITLE IS RECOMMENDED PLAN UPDATE ACTIONS AND THE BULLET SAYS DETERMINE WHETHER WATERFRONT INDUSTRIAL BOUNDARY SHOULD CHANGE. THE RECORDING TO to put a big office space there and kick off the kayaks. Now we have this partnership subcommittee form, and coincidentally, the kayak lease is up and they've been relocated. So why are we looking at this determine whether waterfront slash industrial boundary should change if there is – I'm not seeing support to revisit that in the community. So I'm not sure if you're looking at the waterfront and the waterfront and the waterfront, |
| 02:53:42.10 | Charlie Knox | I'm actually, I would defer to the mayor and council member with you because I think actually some of the discussion was the other direction. That the waterfront uses were so valuable and such a part of the context and culture of the marine ship that actually the waterfront uses might take over some of the |
| 02:54:01.66 | Jill Hoffman | That was not the way it was initially presented. |
| 02:54:04.14 | Jill Hoffman | If I may comment. |
| 02:54:05.98 | Jill Hoffman | I mean, not in this session, but earlier. |
| 02:54:09.15 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah. This was actually brought up by several of the Marinship Steering Plan Steering Committee members, including... Bill, our Planning Commissioner representative there, and it was basically saying that the boundary line Um, the water. the boundary line between the water and the I zone, between the W and the I zone, we need to consider whether we need to pull it actually back towards away from the water. Now, no analysis was done. It was just throwing out there that the current boundaries as is aren't necessarily the optimal ones, and it wasn't at all to necessarily... say let's move the I-zone towards the water. It was quite the opposite actually. But no analysis. |
| 02:55:09.41 | Jill Hoffman | Well, I like that answer a lot. And I think that I'm wondering if we could change the wording of that recommended plan update action instead of determine whether waterfront slash industrial boundaries should change to be more specific about determining whether waterfront, you know, boundaries should be expanded. |
| 02:55:35.99 | Jill Hoffman | That was a question. I'm wondering if we could reword that bullet to go from determine whether waterfront industrial boundaries should change to determine waterfront boundaries should be expanded. |
| 02:55:46.33 | Mayor Theodore | The President's question is, I think that's a comment and we can talk about it when we make some decisions. It's not quite a clarifying question. |
| 02:55:50.08 | Jill Hoffman | Oh, all right. It's not quite a clarifying question. Thank you. |
| 02:55:53.00 | Mayor Theodore | Thank you. |
| 02:55:53.03 | Jill Hoffman | Bye. AND THE FAMILY IS you Thank you. So I think that's a good question. tag. And point five says complete economic sustainability study, emphasis on marine uses. Again, I really like that. I'm wondering if we should also include – I know that the traffic initiative was mentioned. What I wasn't clear on, and perhaps you could help me – you The... any economic sustainability study will be done with a nod to and respect for the parameters as defined by the traffic initiative, which as you know is those in northern Sausalito from |
| 02:56:48.89 | Charlie Knox | All right. |
| 02:56:49.21 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. severe traffic congestion. |
| 02:56:51.39 | Charlie Knox | I think really you're getting at both sides of what's really a balancing act, which is how do we identify viable uses for the marineship that fit the culture and the context of the marineship that are good for Sausalito, that yield benefits for the community, good jobs, revenue for the city, and at the same time, not tend towards uses that are going to exacerbate existing problems, including traffic. Part of the answer lies in whether or not there are circulation system improvements that could go along with different uses that would make them more compatible. But I can tell you we heard a lot of discussion at the community forums, at the workshop, and on the committee itself about the ways the fair traffic initiative works well and the ways it doesn't work well and what the different types of uses are that fit well with it. And one of the big issues in the Marinship is deliveries and the infrastructure that exists for deliveries to buildings and where loading docks are, the relationship of roll-up doors to the street. I mean, there's a lot of traffic and circulation stuff to figure out. But I think the way these come together is And the committee actually tussled quite a bit with whether to put four before five or vice versa. In other words, did we – and I'm looking at Council Member Withey, who I think really kind of thought very carefully about this. I think the committee's ultimate recommendation to Council was, We really need to think as a community and council about where and how we want to change circulation to determine where businesses might be most viable, then have the economists come in and take a look at what kinds of businesses really can support the working waterfront in the maritime context of the partnership. |
| 02:58:23.88 | Jill Hoffman | So you are looking at the traffic initiative as the guidelines for that as you go through that process? Oh, yeah. We look very carefully. Okay, great. Thank you. |
| 02:58:30.80 | Charlie Knox | Oh, yeah, we look very careful. I'm just going to stay up here. |
| 02:58:45.85 | Jill Hoffman | I'm nervous about the taking away the if I read this correct, you're suggesting that the Marin ship specific plan would ultimately go away and there would just be a general plan? Okay, correct me. Please explain. |
| 02:59:01.73 | Charlie Knox | No, and this was a significant discussion of length we had at the committee. That was one of the options that we started with. Um, And the committee's determination was it's really the economy of scale and efficiencies that you're going to get out of doing all the technical background work you would do in the general plan update anyway, since the general plan update is relatively imminent, that's going to inform what the data is that backs up the decisions you make on the marineship. And to do those separately, to take the process separately, not the plan separately, could end up with redundancies and spending money that you don't, an effort you don't need to spend. And so the idea was not to get rid of the specific plan, but to make sure that when the general plan is updated, it aligns well with the specific plan and maybe becomes more simple to navigate and more efficient. Because one of the problems we heard a lot at the committee was just the uncertainty that property owners, potential tenants, businesses have in the marineship. And I can't speak for city staff, but I can tell you that if I were on city staff, and I have been on municipal staffs, it's pretty hard to get through the specific plan and give somebody a clear answer about, yes, you can do this, this, and this with this piece of property. And so it was the committee's consideration that because the general plan is soon enough to be at least on the horizon, that rather than spend the kind of money you see on the infrastructure deficiency analysis, the circulation report, economics, just in the context of the marineship, let's do it citywide. It seems to... It seems to the mayor you know, people working in the community and I think the committee that Largely, the area of change for the next general plan update will be number in shift. You know, there's not There's not another area you can point to in Sausalito where you would say, wow, this is an area where we really expect a huge amount of change and things are really in flux. And so I can tell you in other places I've worked and I'm working now where there's one central focus area of change in a general plan update, you really get a lot of good technical information about that. And so just to put that all together, I think the committee was basically saying, don't do them separately because you could end up wasting resources. It wasn't about getting rid of the specific plan. |
| 03:01:06.69 | Jill Hoffman | So just to clarify then, because of course the difference between the Marin ship and other parts of Sausalito is the Marin ship, the majority of infrastructure is privately owned. So the sidewalks, the streets, the roads, even the sewers are privately owned. And so when I see the term up here, or do nothing, it's a very, very, very, very, very it's kind of like well, the city does nothing but the property owners do nothing too. You know, I mean it's their infrastructure. So I guess what I'm hearing here, and correct me if I'm wrong, is that we would, the city would be spending money. |
| 03:01:36.89 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:01:47.29 | Jill Hoffman | to assess. the marine ships privately owned infrastructure. |
| 03:01:52.64 | Charlie Knox | as a part of the general plan update where there may be other infrastructure, economic or circulation issues that you want to explore. But I think your point is well taken. And I think, you know, the do-nothing phrase really says it all, and it really came from the council's direction before we started the project. So there was at least a perception at that time that, have negative consequences. And I think specifically that infrastructure was degrading. And so I think that the It's probably realistic to presume that the Council at some point will consider what kind of private-public arrangements if any, would be appropriate for infrastructure upgrades. And I think the property owners there have been pretty clear that they understand that they bear quite a bit of responsibility that isn't typical for the rest of Sausalito. |
| 03:02:33.88 | Jill Hoffman | Are we asking the private THE MARINESHIP TO CONTRIBUTE ANY FUNDS TO THE this update given we will be assessing their private infrastructure needs? |
| 03:02:45.98 | Charlie Knox | The specific plan committee did not go into that level of detail, and I think that with the staff recommendation to prepare a preliminary budget and timeline, the council certainly could provide direction that got to that. but that's not something that was discussed explicitly at the committee. |
| 03:03:04.37 | Mayor Theodore | Okay, I recommend that we'll take public comment at this point. And... Can I get a show of hands? How many people? Comment on this? And maybe you can stand in line. please. Okay. Come on up in public comment. |
| 03:03:32.62 | Mike Linder | My name is Mike Linder. I want to introduce myself. I'm the business owner of Bayside Boatworks, which is, I own five rails in the Marinship |
| 03:03:39.15 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:03:43.49 | Mike Linder | So if you have any questions for me. |
| 03:03:51.30 | Mike Linder | Okay. |
| 03:03:51.98 | Jill Hoffman | you We like what you do. Okay. We really support your business. |
| 03:03:53.92 | Mike Linder | Okay. Good. Well, I've been there 27 years. Okay. |
| 03:04:00.45 | Jill Hoffman | Mike, thanks for coming. |
| 03:04:01.26 | Mike Linder | Thank you. |
| 03:04:10.52 | Michael Racks | Michael Racks, local architect, somebody who has been working with the Marineship plan |
| 03:04:10.67 | Alden Bevington | I'm not. |
| 03:04:17.63 | Michael Racks | the last 28 years since it was adopted. I sat through the hearings when it was created. So I know it very well. And I'm here tonight to encourage you to take the next baby step. This is what you're asked to do tonight is a continuation of a process that you've actually begun. quite some time ago. The console created the WAM. Committee. to get citizens' input, and a terrific report was are prepared, led by Chris Gallagher. Then you formed the steering committee and 13 hearings later, and the help of consultants with significant public outreach, outreach I've never seen in this town before. That many people interviewed, that many forums and workshops. I ask that you take the next step to keep this process moving forward, and it seems perfectly reasonable to put together a timeline, a budget, and next steps as the likely next baby step. So I wouldn't fuss with the wording of the recommendations. I think that's why you had a committee that was extremely diverse. They've made these recommendations. They're sound. I think you should stay with it. I ask that you do and that you proceed as recommended by staff in your staff report. Thank you. |
| 03:05:43.20 | Mayor Theodore | Thank you. |
| 03:05:43.34 | Michael Racks | Thank you. |
| 03:05:43.40 | Mayor Theodore | Thank you. |
| 03:05:43.50 | Michael Racks | Thank you. |
| 03:05:44.75 | Mayor Theodore | Peter? |
| 03:05:51.55 | Peter Van Meter | Yes, Peter Van Meter. I would hope that you direct this little subcommittee that's been talked about. When they're looking at budget considerations in some of these studies, to really take into account the prior work because there's been tremendous amount of prior studies that I don't think are all obsolete. that in fact can be the building block here. So if you're talking about hiring consultants You know, $40,000 to $80,000. that there can be some significant cost savings by really relying on prior work that's been done. I don't think you have to start this over from scratch. So I hope that the sharp pencil applies to this subcommittee. to really look at that, that could also affect the timing and the timeline of the project. I mentioned to Tom this morning that way back in the day, this is around 1980 more or less, when I was involved in Planning Commission and in your seat. In fact, on the Planning Commission, we actually wrote a general plan update, the planning commissioners themselves. Now, I've been told by staff the world is much more complicated today, and it is. it. I would hope that there could be a combination of activities by consultants, staff, and public volunteers that can affect significant cost savings in this process. I'm afraid that the big ticket item Is that $750 the total of all? Or is that a million dollars total of all? Regardless, it's a big number. I just think that's crazy. I just think there's got to be solutions. And I hope that your committee your subcommittee really, focuses on that and cuts that number down, because I think it really can be with community involvement. Thank you. |
| 03:07:47.06 | Mayor Theodore | Susan? |
| 03:07:51.70 | Mayor Theodore | Jeff. |
| 03:07:53.07 | Karen Aiken | you |
| 03:07:53.14 | Mayor Theodore | Please keep it to the branch of Pacifica. |
| 03:07:53.58 | Karen Aiken | Please keep it to the branch of the system. I'd like to talk about this. |
| 03:07:56.95 | Mayor Theodore | Marinship Pacific plan, please. |
| 03:07:58.83 | Karen Aiken | specifically. you I looked at I'm not going to talk about the Torah and Neil. Um, I come here as a Jubilee messenger. from the Anchorage where many of us don't use money normally. that's kind of the basis of our life. And so we have to believe in something a little larger than that. I looked at the agenda for today and I saw the the consultancy fees for the first three projects and everybody voted to accept those. That was hundreds of thousands of dollars as well. I don't know if people here are familiar with the budget of Sausalito. It's about $12 million. This might be a year ago. THE END OF Um. Three quarters of it goes for police. and fire. That only leaves $3 million. Now, these consultancy fees, specifically when I talked about Jethro, where it says that the judges must hate money. And now we are paying money. I say we, of course, as a Jubilee messenger, I'm not using a lot, so it's not coming from my pockets. But this money is being spent for people who perhaps don't live in Sausalito. This is their business. And it's very difficult to be honest when you're getting so much money. it makes things a little bit easier and a little bit simpler when you're not. So I second Peter's idea that the money is not the central point, There were places like Little Hong Kong that used to be in Sausalito way before I was here where small artisans had little shacks. It's 2015, not 1974. That's not going to happen again. Tomorrow, anyway. But this isn't about the money. This is about making this place a good place for the people who live here, whether we're Jubilee messengers, city council members, or or citizen. So I'm Jeff. I'm on the boat to Tanya right across from Salido's next to the channel marker. So anybody wants to say hi? Come and meet us. Thank you. Thank you. |
| 03:10:31.78 | Mayor Theodore | Thank you. |
| 03:10:31.80 | Karen Aiken | Thank you. |
| 03:10:39.98 | Unknown | Susan Frank, and I want to thank the committee and the consultants and staff for a great job and a really interesting and thoughtful list of recommendations. The one idea I wanted to mention, Jill, I think it was yours, of does the preservation of the marine rails include the Waze houses, which are incredibly interesting and could provide an opportunity for adaptive reuse in the marine ship. And I think that is something I'm hopeful that the committee could look at. There has been certainly a history of workshops, small workshops, and small businesses that develop in little spaces such as the Waze houses provide. So I think that's an interesting historical use in that area that could be an opportunity for the city. So thank you. |
| 03:11:48.04 | Mayor Theodore | Bruce. Okay, so we're going to, I know that's the other shoe to drop. |
| 03:11:53.59 | Unknown | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 03:12:00.31 | Mayor Theodore | So we'll bring it back up here. Clarifying questions. |
| 03:12:07.83 | Mayor Theodore | All right, we can open it to comment. We'd like to start. |
| 03:12:15.65 | Councilmember Weiner | Well, first of all, I'd like to thank... I'm hoping it does come off the shelf. It's time. I think it's time to get to the point where we can get to the and Robin, thank you for I think that's a good thing. Blight is not preservation. So I think it's really important, no matter what, that we move ahead with this. So thank you again. |
| 03:13:03.47 | Jill Hoffman | I, you know, I'd like to echo Peter's comments about the costs that I'm looking at over there, which appear to be substantial. And I also have read the WAM committee report and the substantial work that was done previously. So I echo his comments, and I think he's on the right track that we use as much as already has been done. There hasn't been a whole lot of change down there. I mean, that's the good and the bad of it. So I support the recommendation of staff today to form the committee to do the next steps. I think that's a good thing. But with the idea that we're going to keep a very close eye on how we proceed and how we're using what's already been done before. And thanks to you guys who've done so much work, by the way, on this. We appreciate it. |
| 03:13:57.99 | Jill Hoffman | So I would agree with Vice Mayor Hoffman's comment about the pricing here, the $350,000 subtotal and the $750,000 general plan update. I guess my concern here has to do with the cost of the cost the fact that the Marin ship is the majority of the infrastructure is privately owned and when I hear do nothing Well, it's the property owners who are doing nothing as well so I I can understand the city taking a leadership role in moving forward on a vision of maritime services I put a high priority on the the marine rails protection in the preservation of that area. But I have concerns about the funding here and I also would like to see the property owners be part of the conversation in terms of funding if the city is going to do some sort of an economic analysis. And also I would. echo my recommendation that the the zoning comment bullet be changed to be that the Thank you. The W zone would expand for clarification. And with regards to the WAM report, thank you for the folks who worked on the WAM report. You'll recall there were some controversial elements of the WAM report. I remember because it was one of the reasons I was elected in 08. Some folks liked some parts, but there was a lot of controversy and concern about other parts of the WAM report. People don't want to see the tourist creep. We have a light industrial section. We have a working waterfront, and the focus needs to be to preserve that. So when I look up here, that resonates with me, but I can't support the numbers that I'm seeing up here. And I also want to just clarify that the echo when I heard that the traffic initiative will be used to set the parameters of the study economic analysis. |
| 03:16:24.74 | Jill Hoffman | I have very little to comment on. I was part of this steering committee, and I talked a lot during it, so everybody pretty much knows what I think about this. To reiterate briefly, we have a working waterfront that is dying. We have infrastructure that is falling apart. We have some really important historic resources which we're going to lose if we don't do something. And you cannot have historic preservation when everything around you is falling apart. It doesn't work. The economics don't work. Everything will just fall apart. So this is the first steps to be able to act. And what it is is really to ask the question, what are the first sets of studies to be done? Planning Commissioner Werner pointed out that one of the really first things that needs to be done is to document the existing site conditions. They haven't been done. So at least from my perspective, that's going to be one thing that I think we need to do pretty early on. On the general concept of how we start programming programming and over multiple years, the activities that need to take place as we start moving towards this marineship and general plan update. With regards to the marine rails, I think we need to act quickly. Tony Badger has been relentless in pushing forward the fact that the marine rails need to be preserved and he couldn't be here tonight. So I've been getting emails from him all day telling me that if I didn't, you know, get up there really pushed the marine morels. I was going to hear even more from him. So this is really important. To me, this can help unlock some of the solutions in the marine ship. And I think that could be very important. But in the end, I'm sorry, folks, we're going to have to spend money. You know, and part of what I think the subcommittee can do, it can't work out exactly how much to spend, but it can start recommending to the staff and working with staff the pacing so that when we come to our budget discussions, we can actually ask, which study should we fund? Should we fund one study, two studies, more studies? That's when we're looking at it in the context of the budget. So hopefully the subcommittee can give staff some help there. |
| 03:19:27.36 | Councilmember Weiner | Didn't do that when you were mayor. Thank you. |
| 03:19:30.78 | Jill Hoffman | you. |
| 03:19:31.65 | Councilmember Weiner | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 03:19:32.00 | Mayor Theodore | Thank you. |
| 03:19:32.02 | Unknown | . |
| 03:19:32.03 | Mayor Theodore | All right. I echo council member with these comments. And I want to thank the staff besides Robin, Mike Kelly and Tony Badger, Leon Hunting, and Ray and I were both on it, so I appreciate all the work. We had quite a diverse group, many of whom had been involved in WAM and been involved in the marineship before, and I think we had quite a group, and thanks to Charlie Knox, our consultant, and our staff |
| 03:19:51.03 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:20:00.92 | Mayor Theodore | And Bruce Huff and Chris Gallin and Michael Rex who came to all the meetings, and, you know, we had a lot of other public, but they were the ones standing at the end, so. We appreciated that. I would say... I think we do have to be careful with the money, and I certainly you know, Thank you. One of the reasons that we decided to do this is the Marinship Pacific Plan update is part of the general plan. So actually, we're going to need to do a general plan, and that's very expensive. That's the big number, $750,000. That's something that we're going to do coming up. And there are actually some cost efficiencies, even though these are big numbers. One thing, I certainly echo Peter's comments about taking a look at work that we've done before. One of the other things, I really think that it's really important that the council, when we decide to go forward, that we just don't take ones or twos, because I'd hate to have studies that just sit on the shelf. When we go do it, I think we have to decide that we're going to do it all the way and go all the way with the general plan. Otherwise, we might end up with documenting site conditions that never get off the shelf, and that's just a waste of money. And I think that's the next step that we have to do with this committee. I do also think that we should take some action on the marine rails probably tonight. I think that's something that staff can carry forward. I don't think we need to have this committee do. I do have to mention that. We have to be careful because the thought is having this as a working waterfront and marine industrial and |
| 03:21:25.94 | Unknown | And. |
| 03:21:27.68 | Mayor Theodore | And there's a balance with historical. And sometimes if we protect the historical, we may impinge on the working waterfront part. And that's something we're going to have to look at when staff takes a look at this. So I would be... I would recommend that we go forward with the staff's recommendation, but I also think that we should take some action on the Marin rails separately and have staff come back to us with a report on what it needs to be done. We have a general estimate of $40,000, but I think we have to take a look at what some of the options are before we even spend that money and then come back and see what it would cost a more defined number and go back with that. So that's my comment. |
| 03:22:07.92 | Jill Hoffman | I think if we give that to staff, perhaps if Council could define a timeline around that, In other words, it's something that we either a timeframe now or ask staff to come back with a timeframe because I think we need to have that time bound given the urgency of the preservation of that. Another comment I had, I heard, you know, our working waterfront is dying. of the work of Um... We need to be careful as we move forward, that we send a strong message that we are looking at maritime services preservation, that that is the economic diversity we want to maintain. Because this could actually be the death knell of a waterfront if we don't do that. |
| 03:23:23.42 | Mayor Theodore | And that's why it says Marin Rails Protection. |
| 03:23:25.47 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah, that's my point. |
| 03:23:28.11 | Mayor Theodore | Okay. Any other comments and anyone willing to make a motion on this? |
| 03:23:34.59 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:23:34.61 | Jill Hoffman | you |
| 03:23:34.68 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:23:34.78 | Charlie Francis | Thank you. you |
| 03:23:42.59 | Jill Hoffman | Sorry, I think we've got to ask whether we need separate motions here for the marine rails and for the... |
| 03:23:45.50 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 03:23:45.51 | Jill Hoffman | here. |
| 03:23:50.74 | Jill Hoffman | I'd like to make a motion. I THINK THERE'S CONSENSUS FOR THAT TO DIRECT CITY STAFF TO |
| 03:23:54.49 | Jill Hoffman | Go for it. |
| 03:24:09.36 | Jill Hoffman | create a marine rails protection overlay study, and do we also want to do step two, document existing site conditions, come back to us with a time frame for that? And I guess I look to city staff. |
| 03:24:23.50 | Unknown | I look to see. |
| 03:24:24.11 | Councilmember Weiner | STAY. |
| 03:24:24.36 | Unknown | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 03:24:24.65 | Councilmember Weiner | Thank you. We have. |
| 03:24:26.32 | Jill Hoffman | I'm sorry. Thank you. |
| 03:24:27.28 | Adam Politzer | Thank you. |
| 03:24:28.02 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 03:24:28.04 | Adam Politzer | Thank you. Just to clarify, if I may, staff would come back with a recommendation on the Marine Rail Protection overlay. They'd come back with what the process would look like and what the costs associated with |
| 03:24:29.17 | Jill Hoffman | Just to clarify. |
| 03:24:44.41 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, and the timeframe. I'm sorry, I was thinking step two also applied a little bit to marine rails, but I understand it doesn't now. Gotcha. So. |
| 03:24:54.19 | Jill Hoffman | So is that a motion? |
| 03:24:55.29 | Jill Hoffman | I moved to direct staff to create a budget, a timeline, and a process for step number one, create marine rails protection overlay. |
| 03:24:56.69 | Jill Hoffman | Ugh. |
| 03:25:04.56 | Jill Hoffman | And I'll second. |
| 03:25:06.92 | Mayor Theodore | All in favor? |
| 03:25:08.07 | Jill Hoffman | Bye. |
| 03:25:08.13 | Mayor Theodore | Bye. Right? |
| 03:25:11.27 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah, and then I would, I would say, basically make a motion which follows the recommendation of staff, which is to form a subcommittee composed of one HLB rep, one PC rep, two city council members and city staff with the following objective to develop a timeline and next steps including a preliminary budget to carry out the steering committee's recommended action, B to provide a presentation of the city council, read the timeline, next steps and preliminary budget. Thank you. |
| 03:25:45.26 | Councilmember Weiner | Second. |
| 03:25:48.23 | Jill Hoffman | I have a great day. |
| 03:25:48.97 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:25:50.52 | Adam Politzer | Let me get a clarifying comment. Councilmember Withey, we would also recommend that if you have a recommendation on who those members would be. Council members. I HAVE A RECOMMENDATION FOR THE PLANNING COMMISSIONER AND I THINK YOU WOULD BE I don't have a recommendation for HLB. I would look to the council to make that recommendation. But it would be helpful within that recommendation if you were to actually appoint those folks because otherwise we've got to come back to the council at a future meeting and ask you to appoint those folks. If you need time, please. we would understand that and obviously take that direction as well. |
| 03:26:28.96 | Mayor Theodore | I mean, it's a good suggestion to consider it, but I actually think we need the time to decide who might. THE COMMUNITY TO DO THAT. AND THEN WE COULD COME BACK WITH A RECOMMENDATION IN TERMS OF APPOINTMENTS. I MEAN, I THINK THE MAYOR HAS THAT AND WE COULD GO BACK. I MEAN, I THINK I WOULD CERTAINLY LIKE TO GIVE IT SOME THOUGHT ABOUT WHO WOULD BE APPOINTED. AND WE MIGHT WANT TO ALSO REACH OUT AND SEE IF SOMEONE IS WILLING TO TAKE ON THAT EXTRA |
| 03:26:54.92 | Jill Hoffman | I mean can't it be included on the next meetings, commissions and boards appointments, agenda topic? Yeah. |
| 03:27:02.83 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 03:27:02.88 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:27:06.49 | Jill Hoffman | you Okay. |
| 03:27:07.47 | Jill Hoffman | I HAVE A CLARIFYING POINT THAT THIS MOTION DOES NOT INCLUDE ACCEPTANCE OF THIS BUDGET UP HERE. |
| 03:27:14.21 | Mayor Theodore | Because it's a committee that's going to look at this, and of course they have to come back. |
| 03:27:15.20 | Jill Hoffman | IT'S A COMMITTEE THAT'S GOING TO LOOK AT THIS AND IT'S GOING TO |
| 03:27:17.82 | Unknown | THE END OF |
| 03:27:17.89 | Jill Hoffman | work. |
| 03:27:17.97 | Unknown | that have to come back. |
| 03:27:21.60 | Mayor Theodore | Thank you. |
| 03:27:22.17 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:27:22.19 | Mayor Theodore | Thank you. |
| 03:27:23.71 | Councilmember Weiner | I'll second. I did second. |
| 03:27:25.85 | Mayor Theodore | Exactly. |
| 03:27:30.47 | Mayor Theodore | All right, can we do this by consent? All in favor? Hi. |
| 03:27:33.68 | Jill Hoffman | Bye. |
| 03:27:33.75 | Mary Wagner | Bye. |
| 03:27:35.60 | Mayor Theodore | Linda, did we get in? |
| 03:27:36.04 | Mary Wagner | Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Mayor, I believe the motion carried 5-0. Okay. Thank you. |
| 03:27:41.32 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 03:27:41.38 | Mayor Theodore | Yeah, good. |
| 03:27:41.41 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:27:41.44 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:27:41.48 | Unknown | Thank you. GOING TO BE ABLE TO BE ABLE TO GO TO BE ABLE TO |
| 03:27:42.02 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:27:42.13 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:27:42.25 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:27:43.20 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:27:43.47 | Mayor Theodore | Thank you, everyone. |
| 03:27:43.58 | Unknown | Thank you, everyone. Can we read a break or we're going to go back to life? |
| 03:27:47.33 | Unknown | Oh, wow. |
| 03:27:47.58 | Mayor Theodore | Thank you. |
| 03:27:47.62 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:27:47.80 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:27:47.89 | Unknown | by the way. you Thank you. you Thank you. Thank you. |
| 03:27:51.28 | Mayor Theodore | that drew me. |
| 03:27:51.97 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:27:54.88 | Adam Politzer | Thank you. |
| 03:27:54.89 | Councilmember Weiner | Thank you. |
| 03:27:54.92 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:27:55.11 | Adam Politzer | Thank you. |
| 03:27:55.28 | Unknown | you |
| 03:27:55.36 | Councilmember Weiner | Thank you. |
| 03:27:55.57 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 03:27:55.82 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:27:56.24 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 03:27:56.26 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:27:56.31 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 03:27:56.33 | Councilmember Weiner | Thank you. |
| 03:27:56.38 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 03:27:56.55 | Mayor Theodore | Thank you. |
| 03:27:56.63 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:27:56.66 | Mayor Theodore | Thank you. |
| 03:28:02.84 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 03:28:09.98 | Mayor Theodore | I know it's a hard one. Thank you. Are we going to take a break? Linda, are you okay to keep going? Do we need a break? We have one. Okay. Thank you. We'll let them file all of it. |
| 03:28:21.88 | Unknown | All right. Thank you. |
| 03:28:26.41 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:28:27.78 | Peter Kleinbrode | Thank you. |
| 03:28:47.25 | Unknown | Thank you. She was right there. |
| 03:28:52.76 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:29:21.38 | Mayor Theodore | All right, we're now on item 5A, the appeal of a planning commission decision. Approving an initial environmental study mitigated negative declaration and A design review permit variance and tree removal permit to allow previously constructed retaining wall and patio area and removal of a protracted tree at the existing single family residence 9 Edwards Avenue. That's a long one. Okay. And we have Danny Castro, Community Development Director will lead us. Good evening, Mayor. |
| 03:29:54.53 | Peter Kleinbrode | Good evening, man. |
| 03:29:56.56 | Mayor Theodore | thing. Before the presentation, I think we have on here Disclosure of Ex-Party Communications, so I'll just follow our agenda here. |
| 03:30:02.09 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:30:02.11 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 03:30:02.16 | Peter Kleinbrode | Thank you. |
| 03:30:02.26 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 03:30:02.32 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:30:10.18 | Jill Hoffman | So I visited the site and I talked with the applicant and viewed the situation from above |
| 03:30:21.20 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah, I also visited the properties accompanied by the vice mayor, actually, and looked at the wall and went up to Nine Edwards and looked at the patio. Had a brief conversation without discussing the merits of the matter with the owner, Nine Edwards. |
| 03:30:39.15 | Mayor Theodore | And I did exactly the same. |
| 03:30:41.94 | Jill Hoffman | I did the same. I also reviewed the past Planning Commission meeting. I watched the video. |
| 03:30:49.18 | Councilmember Weiner | And I also went up with the mayor. |
| 03:30:53.75 | Danny Castro | Okay. Danning. Danning. Thank you. Good evening, Mayor, members of the Council. The issue before you is an appeal of the Planning Commission decision approving the retaining wall project. |
| 03:30:55.03 | Councilmember Weiner | Thank you. |
| 03:31:07.00 | Danny Castro | at the September 17, 2014 Planning Commission. meeting. The Planning Commission approved the project. The entitlements granted are a design review permit to allow a 10-foot-high retaining wall with a 42-inch high safety rail and patio. a variance to allow retaining wall and the safety rail to exceed the height standard of six and a half feet, by 3 1⁄2 feet and to allow the elevated patio to extend into the required 3-foot side yard setback by 1 foot and 6 inches, and a true removal permit to allow the removal of the protected tree. In accordance with the California Environmental Quality Act, an initial environmental study mitigated negative declaration was conducted for the project. Here is a site plan. I know it's very busy, but what we're attempting to do here is show you the site area here is 9 Edwards. The outline of the existing home is about right here. And this is the rear yard area, and the dashed line is the rear patio area and the northeast wall is the subject of this design review permit and variance and tree removal request that has again gone before the Planning Commission and now before you on appeal. Just to be clear, it's this wall here as it wraps this corner, northeast wall. |
| 03:33:04.18 | Danny Castro | This is a photo of the original condition before the improvements were made. In February 2004, the City Council issued a building permit for multiple poured concrete retaining walls on the northwest and northeast side of 9 Edwards Avenue. The retaining walls were approved to replace existing failing wood retaining walls. As constructed, however, the project exceeded the scope of the building permit. The northeast Wall, approved to be approximately six feet in height, was built to a height of approximately 10 feet above the restored grade as measured to the top of the wall. |
| 03:33:50.62 | Danny Castro | Here are photographs showing different viewpoints, but this is the grade – the grade is the grade. Retained by the retaining wall, the elevated patio was finished with concrete, replacing a brick patio that had previously existed. The northeast wall, approximately 25 feet. In length. was constructed in the side yard setback, approximately six inches to one foot from that setback. by the Northeast property line that's shared by Ann Watson, the neighbor at 1 Edwards. |
| 03:34:36.47 | Danny Castro | That's just another. Here is the adjacent property on this here is 1 Edwards. This is 9 Edwards. Here's Edwards. The street. |
| 03:34:52.68 | Danny Castro | To give you some background, this project initially came to the Planning Commission in March of 2005. And the project was referred to the Planning Commission, again, as the project exceeded the scope of the building permit Between 2005 and 2009, technical studies and staff's research into the project were conducted and no public hearings were held within this period. In March of 2009, the applicant began preparation of the initial environmental study and independent peer reviews of the project and engineering studies provided by the applicant's engineer were conducted as directed by the Planning Commission. These reviews were incorporated into the initial study mitigated negative declaration. in September 2014. of last year, the Planning Commission approved the environmental review, the initial study, design review permit, variance and tree removal permit to retroactively approve the retaining wall project. |
| 03:36:03.03 | Danny Castro | In terms of findings the Planning Commission made, they found that the 9 Edwards Avenue project site has exceptional circumstances, including the steepness of the slope, the instability of the hillside, the proximity of nearby structures, the age of the existing residents, the limited building coverage of the residents, the narrowness of the parcel, the irregular shape of the parcel, the small size of the parcel, and the limited amount of usable outdoor space. The Commission found that when considered collectively, these conditions and circumstances are unique to the property. and do not apply generally to other properties or uses in the R2 2.5 two-family residential zoning district |
| 03:36:51.23 | Danny Castro | The Commission found that literal enforcement of the applicable zoning ordinance provisions would prohibit the reasonable use of outdoor private space, prevent a retaining wall and patio necessary to create usable outdoor space, and preclude single-level egress – this is the exiting from this patio door – from the home to the patio in case of a fire or other emergency. The variances allow a modest amount of private outdoor space for a detached single-family residence, a substantial property right enjoyed by most properties in the zoning district, The option of lowering the retaining wall to the height of 6 1⁄2 feet was considered and determined that it would be adverse to the preservation of such substantial property right possessed by other property owners in the zoning district. In terms of the design review permit, the Planning Commission found that all findings can be made to approve the project with the tree removal that request. The Arborist Report associated with that request determined that the subject tree to be removed was not a candidate for preservation. And the Planning Commission granted approval for the treaty to be removed. |
| 03:38:08.30 | Danny Castro | The appeal following the September 1st, meeting on September 29th, an appeal was filed by the property owner at 1 Edwards Avenue. The basis for appeal is that the environmental review relies upon assumptions, is unsubstantiated, it lacks supportive evidence, the findings necessary for approval of the entitlements are inadequate, not supported by substantial evidence, and are based on false assumptions. Rainy planning and management. prepared the initial study pursuant to the CEQA guidelines. The initial study mitigated negative declaration identifies the potentially significant environmental impacts relating to geology and soils. The study has determined that measures are available to mitigate the potentially significant adverse impacts to less than significant levels. A mitigation measure of the environmental study is the internal retrofit. have engineered an internal retrofit measure that will provide additional stability of the retaining wall and resolve any ambiguities as to the strength of the or constraint of the critical center pier of the wall or its resistance to movement The 10-foot high retaining wall will be retrofitted internally by first excavating and underpinning to a sufficient distance into competent bedrock, a depth of approximately 15 feet below the top of the wall and a minimum of two feet below the elevation of the downhill walkway surface at 1 Edwards Avenue. Then an engineering steel reinforcing cage tied into the reinforcing steel from the existing wall will be installed. with approval by the city engineer, cement concrete will be poured to create a strengthening pier or a counterfort The retrofit measure has been reviewed and supported by numerous engineers from the city and independent firms. The retrofit will satisfy the requirements of the California Building Code and ensure that the retaining wall will not result in adverse on- and off-site impacts. So what I just described is basically as clear as I can how this retrofit will be installed in the existing improvements. To the left is an area dashed right here where there would be an opening cut into the portion of the concrete patio. Here again this graphic is very, very busy, but it shows here is the existing retaining wall. To this left here is where the property line is with Ann Watson, 1 Edwards Avenue. Here's the retaining wall. And then beyond that, within the patio area is where this up to 15 feet depth pit would be dug in and reinforced, attaching to the existing structure of the retaining wall. |
| 03:41:31.00 | Danny Castro | The staff reviewed the findings for the design review permit, variance and shoe removal, and conclude that there are appropriate and substantiated. The independent review of engineering studies and field inspections were conducted. by engineering professionals, and it was determined that the wall and patio do not represent a public safety hazard and are in compliance with all local and state building codes. The engineering professionals, and here is a list of all the engineers. Some were – two were applicant retained. There were three with the city of Sausalito, and there were a number of independent peer review of the engineering studies, as well as field inspection was conducted. They've reviewed the plans and concluded that no evidence existed that the wall was improperly built or designed. The concrete retaining wall contributes to the stability of the subject hillside. And to further substantiate its stability, the internal retrofit counterfort will be installed as a mitigation measure. |
| 03:42:39.41 | Danny Castro | The City Council has options this evening to deny the appeal and adopt the resolution. which upholds the Planning Commission approval or direct staff to prepare a resolution upholding the appeal and denying the project, or continue the public hearing for additional information. It is staff recommendation that you deny the appeal and adopt the resolution which upholds the Planning Commission approval. Again, after reviewing the elements of the project, we determined that it's consistent with CEQA, the general plan and the zoning ordinance, and that the retrofit measure provides the additional stability, removing any ambiguities as to the strength or constraint or resistant to movement. and that's supported by numerous engineers. That concludes my report. If you have any questions, I'm available to answer them. |
| 03:43:37.41 | Mayor Theodore | Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Danny. Thank you. We'll bring that up here. Any questions of our community development director at this time? Questions? Okay. Right here. |
| 03:43:53.93 | Jill Hoffman | I don't know if this question is for you Danny or with a tour city engineer I I'm trying to understand, and I know this has been a long moving process starting in 2004, |
| 03:44:15.28 | Jill Hoffman | We've probably had something longer pending before the Planning Commission, but I don't know what it is, 11 years, but whatever it is. What I'm trying to understand is, How did we end up having what's the purpose of this retrofit, this work that's being done that appears to be as a mitigation measure in a, I would argue, IES that I'm not even sure how we ended up with that. So, you know, what is the, I mean, did the, whether, I understand the wall was built not in conformance with the building permit because it was built too high for the building permit and that eventually, staff determined way back then that that then eventually triggered design review. What I'm trying to get at is the wall when it was originally built, presumably was it built to the building code standards or not? And if not, is this mitigation measure to actually bring it up to standards or is it up to standards anyway and this is being done for some other reason because it makes absolutely no sense to me? |
| 03:45:42.34 | Jonathon Goldman | Hopefully I can help, although I do want to compliment Danny Castro on the presentation. The fact is that, as you rightly, correctly point out, what was built isn't what was designed. The calculations after the fact to address the stability of what was built are the most are in a very small sense ambiguous, and other engineers, other than the responsible engineer at the time might perform those calculations differently. That raises an element of ambiguity, and because of the potential for adverse impacts, it's in the public interest as well as all of the private parties' concerned interest to resolve that ambiguity. And for that reason, the applicant retained different engineers who evaluated what was built and addressed the ambiguity by designing a counter fort and have satisfied all of the, satisfied me, satisfied the other engineers, including our contract building official, other structural engineers, that that ambiguity is resolved and that what will result after the counter fort is installed will not only comply with the building code, but will comply with the required factor of safety under the building code. |
| 03:47:23.13 | Jill Hoffman | Thanks. Thanks a lot. |
| 03:47:25.86 | Jill Hoffman | I have a follow-up question. So the potential for adverse impact, was this something that surfaced from the MND or the environmental impact, or was this, in other words, was the ambiguity something that was uncovered there, or was that not uncovered in that? |
| 03:47:46.64 | Danny Castro | In my understanding of the record, this was even prior to the initial study being prepared. So there's a level of concern raised about the structural stability of what was built. And then a number of studies have been peer reviews and studies were following and then were incorporated into the MND. |
| 03:48:12.74 | Jill Hoffman | So then I'm hearing perhaps the ambiguity resolution was taken after the assessment. |
| 03:48:26.40 | Jill Hoffman | Is that correct or did I get that? opposite way. It wasn't it. |
| 03:48:29.99 | Danny Castro | It wasn't, well, there was concern about the ambiguity. |
| 03:48:31.71 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 03:48:37.53 | Danny Castro | issue raised as to whether it was constructed. So engineers had weighed in on it, and then all that evidence was put into the initial study mitigated negative declaration and into the record. |
| 03:48:52.55 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 03:48:55.61 | Mayor Theodore | Any other questions from Council at this point? |
| 03:48:59.52 | Jill Hoffman | I don't have any questions at this point, but after I hear from the parties, then I'll probably circle back to both of you. |
| 03:49:04.04 | Mayor Theodore | Me too. |
| 03:49:15.43 | Mary Wagner | Yes, Mr. Mayor, the applicant and then the appellant, they each have ten minutes apiece for their entire team and then public comment, three minutes each and then the rebuttals of five minutes per team, appellant and applicant. |
| 03:49:29.36 | Mayor Theodore | So we'll start off with the applicant. |
| 03:49:36.17 | Peter Kleinbrode | Good evening. Vice Mayor, and council members, may it please the council. My name is Peter Kleinbrode. I'm an attorney at the Marin law firm, the Freitas law firm here in Marin County. |
| 03:49:42.25 | Unknown | I'm bro. |
| 03:49:47.92 | Peter Kleinbrode | And we represent the appellants. Mr. and Mrs. Woodrow. I want to thank also Danny Casper for the excellent presentation that was given on this project and as well as the city engineer Jonathan Goldman's response to you. I hope that in my presentation I do clarify some of the timeline for you. Um, because it did start 10 years ago. And for the first five years, the wall stability and safety was the real challenge. multiple engineers, structural, geotechnical, along with other technicians as well as the city staff and its engineers conducted site investigation plan checks, reviews and analysis During that process, the applicant decided to retain an independent review themselves to look over what the project engineers had put together Dr. Karp was retained to bring in his 50 years of experience in design and construction, specializing in soil structure interaction with applications to foundations, for buildings and other structures, ground support systems, reinforced and pressurized concrete, technology, demolition, shoring, Stability evaluation. excavation, slopes, Et cetera, et cetera. He concluded the wall was sound. |
| 03:51:17.73 | Peter Kleinbrode | Dr. Josh Carden, was then also brought in a structural engineer he did his own independent investigation and reviewed Dr. Karp's work. He practices as a structural engineer for only over 40 years. Four years ago, Dr. Cardin, was approved and elected as American Society of Civil Engineers Fellow. And I want to point that out because |
| 03:51:42.75 | Unknown | fellow. |
| 03:51:45.44 | Peter Kleinbrode | There's no direct admission to the greater fellow. Fellow status must be attained by professional accomplishments by election. It's an honor held by fewer than 5%. of the members of the Association of Engineers. He concluded, The wall was sound. Part of that study is that Dr. Karp said the wall is sound, but the current building codes have changed. get the factor of safety of one and a half times You need to do this. He did that. similar to an elevator. You get in an elevator, you go up and down a hundred times, it's safe. But, code will require you to be one and a half times the strength of safety in case something happened. So when we got to the five-year mark, applicants shift the tactics and decided to bring up CEQA. They emphasized hill instability at this point and slides in the area. In terms of land use regulations, the that have far-reaching effects on development in California, the application or misapplication of that word SQL. sends shivers to many because it's near the top of the list. Seek what? when first implemented, certainly had a well-intentioned purpose. to protect the environment. But, Too often, sequas pose as a Trojan horse. to delay or ultimately toward increasing costs Thank you. Increasing, excuse me. increasing in the cost along the way. One of the most egregious examples of this took place in San Francisco and I'm sure you're all aware of that, where a sequel lawsuit even delayed the construction of environmentally friendly bike lanes. So now after 10 years of investigation, studies, analysis, evaluations, including a CEQA review, which looks at everything, That SQL review integrated every prior review and had its own engineer. looked at geology, looked at soils, countless professionals, including multiple geotechnical engineers, civil engineers, structural engineers, planners, we find ourselves here on an appeal which I encourage you to deny. |
| 03:54:05.57 | Peter Kleinbrode | basis of The approval would be the ZF2 mitigation measures. One of them is to strengthen it to 1.5 times in the second is to, as everyone is mentioning, conclusively take care of the ambiguity. The elephant in the room is that there really is no ambiguity. The pit's been there. The pit's been looked at. Everybody knows what's in the ambiguity. So the base of the appeal is that in over the last 10 years, assumptions were made. which are not substantiated by adequate engineering evidence. Mrs. Watson claims false with the engineering studies and maintains that the review process was incomplete. That is the basis of all sorts of litigation. which was filed in 2013, nine years after this started. and is simply not supported. multiple engineers, structural, geotechnical, civil, including the Rainey Group. all come to the same conclusion. So what assumptions does Ms. Watson find fault with? They go to the question raised in the beginning, the first five years. That went into the support. for the strength or constraint of the critical sector of the critical center pier section of the retaining wall. Essentially, it's the resistance to movement. The adequacy of the wall. without the increased factor of safety. was verified. The test excavation that I said is the elephant in the room. which... penetrated dense undisturbed bedrock. Mr. Karp is here today and can attest to that. This Watson's engineer is going to argue against that. I don't expect him to do otherwise. There's the real elephant in the room, the ongoing litigation. But... to then accuse all these other engineers And professionals as being biased is farcical. Bob Sedgast did the original on-site geotechnical work. He monitored the drilling and the construction of the wall. His report describes all support bureaus being drilled into sedimentary bedrock. His report states that bedrock was encountered within typical depths of 3 to 5 feet as anticipated, and the piers were extended to typical depths of 11 feet. He actually lowered the drilling site, which is part of why the wall got higher. to not only get to the historic raid but to make sure the new wall didn't add additional load to Miss Watson's lower wall. That added a foot and a half by itself. |
| 03:56:54.91 | Peter Kleinbrode | Bob Setgas has been a geotechnical engineer in this county for a considerable length of time. and knows these hillsides I've seen his reports for other properties expressing landslide concerns. He's not shy. Yeah, his credibility is being attacked because he's the project engineer that supervises construction. The worst is he's being challenged with no real facts. The excavated pit already supports Bob's observations. OK, so that brings Larry A car buff to be challenged. The question is why? Why would his credibility be challenged? Would he put his license on the line 50 years? for one property owner for a residential retaining wall replacement. How about Josh Carden? How about the Phillips group? which has been doing for years plan checks and reviews for the city of El Salado. |
| 03:57:55.37 | Peter Kleinbrode | How about Heidi Burns? Jeremy Graves? The list is endless. What's disheartening is the extent someone will go to impede this result. Last year, a report was lodged with the Planning Commission shortly before one of the hearings, written by Craig Herfsocks. For those of you who know Craig, he's a geotechnical engineer for about 25 years now. Craig's report was to review reports and plans given to him he was lodged by Miss Watson |
| 03:58:18.03 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:58:18.24 | Unknown | and then, |
| 03:58:18.25 | Unknown | INSURANCE. |
| 03:58:21.26 | Peter Kleinbrode | Apparently, reading from his report, which was dated over four years earlier, Craig didn't review critical reports on file with the city. He didn't review Dr. Karp's retrofit. He didn't review the retrofit report of July 2008 with plans and specifications which forms the mitigation number one, He didn't review follow-up proofs and checks dated March 2010 by Dr. Carter, Josh Cardin, Why am I mentioning this? is that the proposed new construction is the sending of drilling tie backs from Ms. Watson's property. That's what Craig Herzog proposed. It didn't conclude a schematic sketch of how he intended to have that drilling performed, as well as discussing the staging, the scaffolding, and drilling, which was all going to be as supposedly on Ms. Watson's property. I can just imagine. how we would have gotten out of planning if that's our proposal. Nevertheless, as Dr. Karp can point out better than I, the idea is not a comp... The idea is not accompanied by calculations showing how shear reinforcing can be added to the existing retaining wall stem to resist the concentrated forces exerted by these tiebacks. But what I want you to be aware of when you listen tonight to the appeal is that Mr. Hartzell discussed faulty borings, most likely because he didn't supervise or observe them being performed. Boring number one. I'm going to... Tell you real quickly, Boring number one was drilled, was not drilled on the Woodrow property. or nor on space. It was drilled on the Watsons property three and a half feet from the existing piers of the Woodrow property. Why that's important is because when you use drilling, the challenge set gas and carps findings of bedrock, the bedrock shapes or flows, slopes 45 degrees. So in order to hit that bedrock, he would have had to have gone deeper than he did. He didn't go deep enough. He didn't find bedrock. He challenged the findings. |
| 04:00:18.71 | Mayor Theodore | I'll save the rest for him. |
| 04:00:20.04 | Peter Kleinbrode | Dr. Karmann, thank you. |
| 04:00:20.06 | Mayor Theodore | Doctor. So we're stringent on the time. So now the appellant has 10 minutes for your entire team, and you can break it up any way you like, but a total of 10 minutes. And then we'll come back, and both sides will have five-minute rebuttals. |
| 04:00:39.53 | Michael Hicks | Good evening. My name is Michael Hicks. I'm a structural engineer. And this seems like I've been here before. I've been in this room more than once. In 2004, I was asked by Ann Watson to come and look at a retaining wall that was built above her house. She was concerned that it hadn't been through plan check, and it had exceeded the height that, as you know, the height that it was primitive for. And so I took a look at the design. It didn't look adequate at the time. And so we requested that the engineer submit to us the calculations justifying that. I noticed at the time that there were significant flaws in the way it was designed. And so I brought this issue up with the city and also Also it was sent to Sal Lucido who was the plan checker at the time and also the individual who had reviewed the work. And at the time he agreed with me that there was a problem with the wall. The wall, particularly the way the piers were designed, they were designed to be fixed at the base, at the top, and so that meant that there was something there holding them in place so that when the wall pushed on them, they were much more fixed. Unfortunately, the only thing there was the wall on Ms. Watson's property. and the slab that's Ms. Watson's patio and Ms. Watson's house. And so this went on for a while, so I can't remember exactly how – we talked to the city some more about this, and I know Ms. Watson did quite a bit of research on her own. However, in 2005, she told me that she wanted me to come by the site and see if there was any – to review some damage that was occurring to her home. the damage was some cracking in the hallway and on one side of her home adjacent to the retaining wall. And that cracking didn't extend all the way through the building. It was only the bottom part of her structure as the structure was shifting this way, being pushed by the bottom of the wall. And so I wrote a report. It should be in the materials that was provided for you. And so at any rate, at this time, I understood that we were still arguing with the city. We went before the Planning Commission. At that time, the Planning Commission agreed. that the city's performance on this was questionable and that they proposed to have a peer reviewer review everyone's performance in this, including my own, and to come up with a finding. That review was never done. In 2008, I was called back to the site and the cracking that had been observed was even more extensive at that time. And the low, just a rock wall that's at the base of the new retaining wall was moving even further and it exhibited some cracking. And there's two possibilities for that. One is that the wall itself is moving and the other is that soil is flowing under the wall. One of the problems with the wall as built is it doesn't extend far enough down below the edge of where Ann's property is. It stops short and so there's a possibility of pressure and flow pushing underneath the wall as built and that was a concern. Anyway, of course as you know, the adjacent property owner who had the wall built, they brought in Dr. Carr And he reviewed the wall, and to say that he found that the wall was acceptable is incorrect. Read his report. He found numerous flaws, many of which were the same as the flaws that I had noticed in its design and construction. In addition, pointed out that the wall had not been adequately supervised in terms of how it was built, how the piers were poured. There's requirement for special inspection for all of that concrete. None of that work was done. So the piers were suspect as well. And so he proposed to sink a shaft and look at the soil profile and look at the condition of the wall there. To my knowledge, though, he also pointed out there should have been a Giatek report before the well was even built to verify the design conditions for the site. Now, he proposed at the time to as he excavated, to test the soils. And to my knowledge, there's no report that describes that testing, And so we decided, or it was decided by Ms. Watson to hire Craig Herzog for that purpose, mostly to provide an actual geotechnical report. And then what you do is you do some borings and you test the soil. And as he tested the soil, he found that the top ten feet or so he believed to be colluvial material, which is just, you know, clay. And I know that Dr. Karp feels that that's weathered rock. And I don't care what you call it. However, if you look at the tests that were done, that material is very soft. relative to soil, it's down about 10 feet when the tests show that the material begins to firm up, harden up very quickly. And that's 10 feet below Ann Watson's. How do you know? So. The bottom of the piers go down about, I presume, four or five feet below Ann Watson's patio. The new caisson or the new pier is supposed to be at about that level, and yet we find that just adjacent, only a few feet away, even at a 45-degree angle, if you extrapolate that rock profile, you'll find that the pairs, the existing piles, and the proposed caisson, or whatever you want to call it, the underpinning pair, is They barely, if at all, go into the rock. And that's our concern. and So, We haven't seen that. particularly issue addressed in any of the peer reviews or by Dr. Karp. or, and I, And so I think that at this time, I don't think that the peer review for this has been adequate. It's been mentioned that numerous engineers have been consulted. I haven't seen numerous engineers' reports discussing each and every one of these issues. I think that these particular issues are very important and it's very important that whatever we do, It needs to solve the problem and solve the problem completely for Ann Watson. And in addition, for the owner of the property, for the Woodroves. And I think that, I also think that Dr. Karp and also Craig Hertzlott, I think their work needs to be thoroughly reviewed. So that's my position that I don't think that this particular issue has been very well addressed. Now, it's been mentioned that tiebacks are a possible solution and they are. One of the good things about a tieback, and I think Dr. Karp would agree, is that it can be drilled into the hillside and it can be tested. And you know how strong it is. He pointed out correctly that the piers that were originally poured for this foundation weren't adequately tested. And so they are potentially problematic. And so the good thing about tiebacks is that they're tested when they're installed. It's been, it was mentioned by the attorney that it didn't seem possible to design a wall that could be, that could resist tiebacks. Well, we design them all the time. And he also mentioned that it would be difficult to install them. What I suggest is that the wall be, first of all, the wall needs to be advanced further down so that it cuts off the soil as it flows into Ann Watson's property and onto her retaining wall, onto her patio slab and into her house or pushing against her house. I think that also that the that increases the amount of force you have to design the tie back for. I recommend that the top part of the wall be cut back and shelf bag. in order to provide enough space. to be able to drill the tiebacks, and that new section can be easily designed to resist the tieback forces. We design these kind of things all the time. I've designed several, and so I think it can be easily done, and I don't think that that needs to be benched back particularly far. I think if it's benched back a short distance, it can easily be – the patio area outside egress. of the Woodrow home. can be maintained. In addition, the upper part of the patio could also be maintained with a solution. giving them a patio that they could easily use and it'd be smaller than the one that is there. Now it's true. But I think it's a relatively easy solution. I think it's an extremely reliable solution, and I think that it should be explored and really, really, But in closure, I'd also like to point out that I don't believe that the expert hired agreed that the solution that Dr. Karp proposes is adequate as presented. I think you should read that report and you'll see that he has a large number of reservations and I don't believe those have been resolved. And one of them of course is the type of soil that this, as I mentioned, that we believe the peer is embedded in. And so I feel that there is enough, oh, just in time, I feel that there's enough uncertainty here that I think the city owes a diligence to resolve these issues before making any Thank you. |
| 04:11:03.87 | Mayor Theodore | Thank you. Now we'll open it up to public comment and please step up. You have three minutes. We have a timer if you're interested to see how much time. Anyone here would like to comment on this issue? Please. |
| 04:11:29.64 | Janine Moody | My name is Janine Moody. I have lived at 6 Alexander Avenue on this, at the base of the same hillside for 30 years, more than 30 years since 1984. I have seen Amen. Many SOS Salido staff members and elected officials come and go. Newer members almost always are unaware of the repeat problems and injustices that have come before My message to you tonight is this. Impunity is the best predictor of repeat behavior. |
| 04:12:16.48 | Janine Moody | I have been to countless meetings like this one with the same issues. Construction greatly exceeding the scope of the building permit. I could give you chapter and verse. Tonight, the staff report has recommended that the City Council approve. a retroactive design review permit, a retroactive variance to allow the wall and rail, a retroactive variance to allow the elevated patio to extend into the side yard setback, and a retroactive tree removal. Permit. The recommendations boggle the mind. Most Sausalitos are law-abiding neighbors, get their permits and build accordingly. You have a fine, respected building inspector in Kenneth Henry. So why did this happen? Scarflaws build what they want. what they please with or without permits and not specifications So then this causes countless hours of city staff time being consumed. innumerable long meetings being held But go ahead, build whatever you want, because nothing... will be done about it at all. All will be approved Retroactively. A lot of citizens are fed up with this. And in fact, The damaged neighbor is often the one who ends up being called contentious. Does anyone wonder how much this cost the city? let alone the people involved. How much did it cost to our law-abiding citizens? What is the cost to the sense of justice in this community when this kind of thing is allowed and then retroactively approved? A Scofflaw neighbor on Alexander Avenue has built whatever he has wanted without countless permits through many years He's encroached onto the national park, which required him to move remove his construction from parkland But what did the city of Sausalito do? Retroactively, it approved all of everything he was asked for. These people know how the system works and they know how to work the system. They have contempt for the city. I have heard One person. the Scofflaw neighbor, not these people. I find the city staff to be incompetent, but I don't believe this is where the true problem lies. Tonight, I urge you to prevent a great travesty and to find for Anne Watson. She's been through enough. And I'm asking the city council tonight to break the chain of impunity. It's long overdue. Thank you. |
| 04:15:28.20 | Mayor Theodore | Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else? Public comment? Okay, now we'll move up. Counsel, would you prefer anyone like to ask questions now or after rebuttals? Okay. And I think what we have here is that we start with the applicant on the rebuttals, appellant. So appellant goes first at this time. Five minutes, and I think what happens is after the first two, you'll see the countdown on the three minute clock. |
| 04:16:02.83 | John Sharp | Thank you. I see a laptop here. I hope I'm not going to mess it up by opening this binder. on it. My name is John Sharp. I am the attorney for Ann Watson, the appellant who resides 1 Edwards Avenue. Time is short, so I will get right to the heart of the matter here. Mr. Kleinbrodt raised the issue of why are we here? Why are we being such obstructionists? And there's a very simple answer to that. Ms. Watson's house is damaged. If you went to the lower portion of her house, you saw the cracking on the exterior wall of her house. your city engineer, Dr. Karp, lots of members of both teams who are before you this evening have been inside Ms. Watson's house and have seen the cracking that has occurred contemporaneously with the construction of the wall in question. I might point out, you heard from Michael Hicks from Shareline Engineering, Among the the long list of engineers who have been involved in this matter over the years. He's the one who's been here from the beginning. and the only one who's been here from the beginning. So I would urge you to take that into account when you think about credibility of the testimony that has come before you. I would like to invite your attention to a graphic that appeared before you. It is in page, at page, I should say, four of six in your staff materials this evening. It's a list of engineers, and it was presented to you in conjunction with staff's representation to you that all of those engineers have approved this project and believe it to be safe, or I paraphrase, but words to that effect. I have a couple of observations about the list of engineers. The most important is you will see under the heading Independent, You see Kleinfelder Terry Craven. And then field inspection, Kleinfelder, Terry Craven. Among the engineers who are referenced here, Mr. Craven was one of the few. to write a report which appears in your materials That report is dated March 30th, 2010, couple of years after Dr. Karp's design came on the scene. It reviewed Dr. Karp's design, And contrary to the assertion that Kleinfeld her. who was the independent peer review engineer appointed by the city that the wall was safe, here's what in part Mr. Craven said, and you can review this yourselves. However, I'm reading at page three or four. The current calculations that we were provided do not adequately demonstrate the stability of the proposed wall in a manner that is consistent with generally accepted geotechnical engineering practice. Since these calculations indicate that the wall is unstable under the assumed loading, conditions, they could also imply that the new wall is actually dependent upon the lower undocumented wall for support. He goes on in his summary. But his recommendation is that the applicant's engineer reevaluate stability, redesign or repair with a minimum factor of one and a half safety against rotation and sliding. Because of the potential damage to the downslope property, this should be accomplished in an manner. Mr. Hicks told you, why it is that the so-called revisions or reevaluation that occurred are not effective to address that issue, and that issue goes to the heart |
| 04:19:51.91 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 04:19:54.25 | John Sharp | THE END OF what is maybe the most important finding that would be required to approve this project, and that is that the project not materially affect adversely the health or safety of other persons or properties in the vicinity. As of. And the safety of Ms. Watson's property and the property itself already been damaged, so we ask you to consider carefully how you go forward. I have written... much about various other findings and I do not mean by pointing out the the avoiding adversity finding, I do not mean to minimize any of the other findings. You've been to the property. We've submitted photographs into the record. You can see the extent to which this wall looms over Ms. Watson's entry area, her living room window, All of those things are contrary to findings that are required to be made to support the granting of variances the approvals that are sought here. I'll just speak very briefly because I only have 17 seconds. On the initial study mitigated NECDG side of things, there was a lot of reliance given Other peer review. independent peer review. I can find no record of that in the administrative record. I find no evidence or reports that support the assertions that Dolman engineers or anybody else found safety sufficient to make the recommendation for approval of the independent study mitigated negative declaration. With that, I thank you very much. |
| 04:21:34.67 | Mayor Theodore | and then the applicant, five minutes for rebuttal. |
| 04:21:42.29 | Peter Kleinbrode | And that's Dr. Clark, too. Since it's the engineer's testimony, we're leaving a rebuttal. I'll leave it to him. Thank you. |
| 04:21:53.84 | Larry Karp | I'm Larry Karp, engineer. uh, I'll try to answer the things. The first thing is what the mayor asked why this, what I call an internal retrofit. It was because there was about seven engineers involved and everyone had a different idea. So I went and did that series of calculations and drawings, and they were put up on the screen here. Those are the ones that I did. And then the other engineer sort of fell by the side, and Mr. Hicks never did any calculations or drawings. So he wants things redone, but I don't know what he's talking about because I haven't seen anything he's done. |
| 04:22:47.76 | Larry Karp | Factor of safety means sort of what Mr. Klinebrot said. If you need three cables to lift an elevator up, you put in five so that you have a factor of safety. uh, The only thing wrong with this wall, and I went through every possible conceivable way of showing that the wall was good was that there was a technical lower factor of safety than is required by the newer building codes, which is 1.5, a 50 percent factor of safety on overturning and sliding. Now, there's no sliding with piers, so you have overturning. Bye. by making it so there wouldn't be any question ever I decided to put this counter fort, which would hold it back and give you that extra factor safety against overturning. It hasn't been built. And the world's been there 11 years. It hasn't moved, it hasn't done anything. bedrock does not flow under retaining walls that are fastened into the bedrock. I just have to tell you one more thing. I was in Mrs. Watson's house, and the reason her house is moving is because long before Mr. Woodrow's retaining wall, her house was moving. She hired a contractor, not an engineer. but a contractor who decided he would put a couple of tons of concrete at the lower part of her house. And he did that, and it just made it move more – more weight. And that's all there is to it. And Mr. Craven is not the peer reviewer, as John has said. The peer reviewer of the city is the Phillips Group. Sal Lucido does the work for the city. And he's a good engineer. I did the SCOMUS retrofit, those cross braces you see underneath there. And he put more time into checking what I did than I did to design it. I think he's really good at engineering. He's the city's reviewer, and he's the man that, along with the CEQA people, have approved it and all those engineers. And so, you know, it's been 11 years. by stopping this or having to appeal, Mrs. Watson's never she's never going to succeed in a lawsuit because the problems to her house are her own problems. Um. Thank you. I'd like to answer any questions that somebody may have. I'd be glad to. You have another minute, and we'll come back. We're going to have somebody else here talk. |
| 04:25:49.69 | Mayor Theodore | And I think on both sides. So we'll bring it up. to the council for any further questions. Oh, you have- You can use... |
| 04:25:57.25 | Larry Karp | I'm not sure. you Thank you. |
| 04:25:58.55 | Mayor Theodore | Thank you. |
| 04:25:58.58 | Larry Karp | Thank you. |
| 04:25:58.70 | Mayor Theodore | Thank you. |
| 04:25:58.74 | Larry Karp | Oh, somebody had a question? I love questions. |
| 04:26:01.86 | Mayor Theodore | Well, why don't you finish your presentation? We won't take any further time. If we have questions, we'll ask, and there won't be any time limits on that. |
| 04:26:04.88 | Larry Karp | Well, |
| 04:26:08.98 | Mayor Theodore | So you have a minute 19. Why don't you finish your presentation and then we'll go to questions. |
| 04:26:11.48 | Peter Kleinbrode | and then we'll go to questions. I do want to wrap it up that there's a danger when you quote an engineer five years before a final report comes out. It's the same thing that – I can give you an example when I was cut off about Mr. Herksock's looking at it. Mr. Herksock didn't mention a report he did for John Decker, a neighbor in 2007, and that report that was submitted to the Planning Commission He made, Mr. Hurchog made geotechnical recommendations for 19 Edwards, which is John Edwards' property. And the Decker Report has the same retaining wall recommendations as Mr. Setgath. provided Mr. Woodrow and Jay Hallberg designed. for the Woodroves. The use of tiebacks was not even considered or even mentioned in Mr. Herzog's report. The emphasis I want to say is I can take snippets of what maybe Mr. Sal Lucinda said originally, or I could take something another engineer said five years ago. The bottom line is the IES pretty much puts everything together. And it's a representation of a A committee. including Mr. Craven. He doesn't want to sign off on it. He didn't have to sign off on it. He signed off on it. It came out with two mitigations. Mitigations are what we proposed. It was approved. Thank you very much. |
| 04:27:33.25 | Mayor Theodore | Okay, thank you. All right, now we'll bring it back. I'm going to start Vice Mayor. Any questions? |
| 04:27:40.36 | Jill Hoffman | I do have some questions. I know that part of it is, you know, the recommendation of the bill that you're asking for, but I think that's a good question. the planning commission that the variances be issued and that the the retroactive applications be granted. But is your issue with the patio the structural issue or is the issue with the patio the height or is it both? |
| 04:28:19.47 | Jill Hoffman | Go ahead. |
| 04:28:19.79 | Mike Linder | Thank you. |
| 04:28:20.50 | Jill Hoffman | Okay. Yeah, I'm sorry. We're recording it, so it's got to be. |
| 04:28:26.58 | John Sharp | It's both. We focused here this evening on the engineering aspects, but again, within the context of the finding that's required to be made with regard to safety. |
| 04:28:37.76 | Jill Hoffman | Okay. Because when I look at this, one of the questions that maybe it was addressed in this pile and I just, you know, didn't uncover it. the issue of what the effort it would take to bring that wall down to 6.5 feet, has that ever been specifically addressed and has an estimate or plan ever been proposed to bring that down to the original permit? |
| 04:29:03.97 | John Sharp | It has not been addressed by us because we do not believe that it is our burden to do so. I didn't talk about the legal construct here and the substantial evidence requirement to support findings that need to be made in order to grant the approvals that are |
| 04:29:15.14 | Unknown | Right. |
| 04:29:18.05 | John Sharp | being sought or who bears that burden, but we view that as the applicant's burden. We do not believe that substantial evidence exists to grant any of the entitlements |
| 04:29:18.40 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 04:29:22.35 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 04:29:27.75 | John Sharp | or to grant the |
| 04:29:29.81 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. Thank you. That helps. And that question could go to the appellant as well. I mean, because I'm looking at the variants, and I |
| 04:29:29.98 | John Sharp | Thank you. That helps the net. |
| 04:29:38.92 | Jill Hoffman | You know, I tend to have sympathy for both. I have overwhelming sympathy for both homeowners in this situation. And so I'm really trying to get to the root of it. And when I'm looking through, you know, the issues on the variants, and I did watch the Planning Commission meeting, I'm looking at the findings for and the other things that we're going to do is to make sure that we're going to be going to be a little bit more. And I think that's a good question. that we have to do with the |
| 04:30:09.97 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 04:30:10.19 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 04:30:10.21 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 04:30:13.43 | Jill Hoffman | as well as the 10-put structure. the question of whether or not you want to retroactively you know, approve a 10-foot structure as opposed to a 6-foot structure really isn't, I don't think, applicable to the question before us, which is, a six and a half foot structure was approved, now why do we need a 10-foot? So I look down here to the variance find, and there's a question for you, and I'll let you know. Respond. But when I'm looking at the variance exceptional extraordinary circumstances under number two, when I look at the response, this is the same response you would give for a six foot. I mean there's nothing that requires the 10-foot structure. WHEN I LOOK AT B, THE EXCEPTIONAL OR EXTRAORDINARY circumstances illiterate enforcement of the provisions of the title shall result in practical difficulty or unnecessary hardship You know, you look at that, gee, you know, It seems to be a good... big hardship to bring a 10-foot wall down to a 6-foot wall, and that's why I asked the question about, you know, the burden of bringing that wall down. Would that cause structural damage, or would that cause further impact into the hillside and attack the integrity of the foundation of not only the applicant's home but the home surrounding and the appellant's home. And so I look at this and it's really the same analysis for a 6.5-foot wall. I mean, and the safety issues are the same. The, you know, issues with uniqueness and the issues of ingress and egress are, you know, there's no justification that I can see for a 10-foot wall as opposed to a 6.5-foot wall. So that's sort of what And, So one of the recommendations and where I'm at right now is you know, maybe, um, And as always, I'm open to the comments of my friends after I, you know, after we finish our conversation, of further study about what that would look like and with, you know, in keeping with the overall situation. And I'm looking at this kind of as a global thing of both homeowners and the burden to both homeowners. So, yes, you came up to answer one of my questions that I posed to both councils, so I invite you to give me your answer. Thank you. |
| 04:32:25.12 | Peter Kleinbrode | Thank you. Actually, the more I listen to you, I think Dr. Karp should answer. But I was going to state that it did come up, and Dr. Karp actually answered to the Planning Commission that this wall – first, the wall, as I said, was increased because the historic grade was lowered and the soil was removed, which raised at 18 inches. And this also was placed there for greater stability in terms of the load that would have been there that would have endangered the lower wall. But then the rest of it was the patio. |
| 04:32:29.92 | Jill Hoffman | Bye. |
| 04:32:52.86 | Peter Kleinbrode | The patio, as you saw, was falling away. And so when the wall was originally approved, it was 6 feet 8 inches, 8 inches of concrete for the patio. That didn't comply with the building code. The building code would require it to be level or a series of stairs or platforms. So that required the wall to go higher to accommodate that. But Dr. Karp was asked about that question you answered, and he said, actually, this increases the stability to the hillside. This design, the wall increases. You take that away and obviously the answer is the opposite. But let me just really quickly have Dr. Karp tell you that |
| 04:33:24.44 | Larry Karp | . |
| 04:33:28.30 | Larry Karp | The wall is not just a wall. It has returns on it, so it's a big box. |
| 04:33:33.74 | Unknown | you |
| 04:33:34.04 | Larry Karp | Thank you. And the reason it seems like it's so high is because there was an old wall there that had to come out. So the wall is lower. And that's the first reason. The second reason is Mr. Woodrow, who seems to be the most unfortunate person I've ever seen coming up against code changes. It's a cycle every three years and the codes that change all affect him. But what it is is when you walk out of a door, you cannot just start down a stair or just step off into nowhere or one step. You have to have a landing. By the time you put the landing there, there's no patio. So it had to come up a little bit, a couple of steps. Then the rest of the height is due to the fact that the old retaining wall went to the dump. It was rotted wood and brick and things like that. So it isn't exactly that it's, It's a 10-foot wall. but the lower part of it is now a solid wall that goes down. Now Mrs. Watson has an 18-foot wall right there on the street. And the other people up the hill, I did, you know, went around and measured everybody's walls. They range up to 21 feet high. So it's a steep part. The last thing is I want to tell you about Radiolarium Church, which is the bedrock. that they have there. It's 165 million years old. and the pit we dug down into it needed jackhammers to get into it. and the ladders to go into it. and I think it's a good thing. in the Franciscan formation here. It used to see it outside the tunnel, the ribbon shirt that waves like that. Very, very strong. It's made out of tiny little skeletons that were deposited over literally millions of years old. It's the most stable rock, I think, in the Franciscan Formation. And that wall, not only that, the big pit we dug has gone through about six years of filling full of water and it hasn't moved. |
| 04:35:42.22 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 04:35:44.31 | Larry Karp | So the way they're talking, it would have been in the Bay a long time ago. It's not at all. And now it has a factor of safety of about 1.6, which meets the code of the current code. |
| 04:35:57.06 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 04:36:01.97 | Unknown | And... |
| 04:36:02.61 | Jill Hoffman | Uh. |
| 04:36:03.97 | Unknown | I had. |
| 04:36:05.53 | Mayor Theodore | If you have a rubric, we keep it short. And I think all the responses to our questions, we should be direct. Right, relevant. Go ahead. Relevant to the question I asked. We should be fair and happy. |
| 04:36:10.17 | Unknown | Right, relevant. Go ahead. Relevant to the question I asked. |
| 04:36:15.20 | Michael Hicks | It amazes me to hear people say that by adding more soil and by making the whole site taller, it makes things more stable. I've been hearing that since things started and that just can't be true. It's pretty obvious. You know, otherwise you need big retaining walls to hold things up like this. The second thing is that, yeah, the landing they're talking about is pretty small. You've seen landings before. I mean, not only that, but you know, It would be a dam site cheaper than building a giant huge retaining wall and building up a huge patio over the whole site. Also, remember what we're talking about here isn't cutting the whole patio down. I think you can bench back the retaining wall and achieve a much more stable situation, getting in tiebacks, making it much more positive. You can extend the skirt of the foundation down and cut that soil off. It's currently pushing on Ann Watson's house. And so I think you can do that without significantly decreasing the usability of the backyard. I'm convinced of it. But like I said, once again, the idea that you had to raise this whole patio up to provide them with some sort of, with a way to walk out of the back of their house is just patently ridiculous. You know, there's plenty of room back there, and it's only like a – all you need is about a four-by-four landing. You've seen plenty of them. You know, it's a $500 thing. I could build that in a weekend with a hammer and saw. So I just think that that's a bit much. Thank you. |
| 04:37:47.91 | Jill Hoffman | I have one more. I'm sorry. Yeah, this is going to be a short question. It'll be short. This is for Jonathan Goldman because I see your name here on the – that's one of the people that looked at. And my question is, do we have a report that specifically addresses the proposed or the alleged damage to Ms. Watson's house from the wall, from the retaining wall? |
| 04:38:14.38 | Jonathon Goldman | I'm sure we do, and you've heard more of it this evening. And the fact is that my conclusion is that what has been built is not damaging anything. And the issue before us, before you, is whether what was built, which in the city engineer's judgment and the building department's judgment, is safe and complies with the building code at its current factor of safety, should be allowed to receive design review entitlements. |
| 04:38:52.64 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, thanks. |
| 04:38:54.70 | Jonathon Goldman | Mr. Mayor. Thank you. |
| 04:38:55.96 | Jill Hoffman | Oh, sorry. Actually, I wanted to catch Jonathan before. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry for making you woke up down there. That's good for me. Yeah, I sort of want to put you on the spot by asking you directly the question, in your professional judgment as a licensed civil engineer, do you believe that in any of the reports so far generated, there is rigorous technical evidence to say that the damage it won Edwards is caused I'm going to go ahead and do it. There is rigorous technical evidence to say that the damage at 1 Edwards is caused by the retaining wall built at 9 Edwards. |
| 04:39:49.29 | Jonathon Goldman | Thank you. |
| 04:39:49.66 | Jill Hoffman | you |
| 04:39:49.90 | Jonathon Goldman | The answer is no, but let me qualify that. I'm not a structural engineer. I'm a lot closer to a geotechnical engineer than I am a structural engineer. And as I've indicated previously, I've relied on the benefit of our contract plan check firm and their structural engineers, Dolman Structural Engineers, who's a structural engineer who's provided service to the city on other projects. We have the benefit of the same kind of review from Phillips Group. |
| 04:39:57.22 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 04:40:25.23 | Jonathon Goldman | who's the predecessor to CSG, our contract plan check firm, and further want to rely on the engineers who you The applicant has retained who've clearly stated that the the the criterion for the counterfort includes the requirement that it be installed in competent material. So the pit is there now, and before the counterfort is poured, the water is filled we and everybody else and their brother has the opportunity to inspect what is at the bottom of the pit and satisfy ourselves that it's competent Franciscan formation bedrock. you |
| 04:41:07.67 | Jill Hoffman | Okay. Um... This is an appeal of the design review permit invariances. If it wasn't retroactive, and let's remember the design review application was filed in 2005, I believe, maybe 2004. I don't know. So it took 10 years to get to the Planning Commission to even take an action. um In the – if we were back in 2004 or 2005, in a design review hearing or an appeal to a design review hearing, there wouldn't be a wall other than the existing wall because a permit wouldn't have been issued at that point. We wouldn't be talking about any of this. We'd simply be talking about entitlements, privacy, shade, light, right? Is there any, so then if the planning commission or on appeal, the city council had approved the project back then, then a wall would have been built. Let's say they'd have proved it at 10 feet. A wall would have been built. Would that wall have been substantially in the engineered, substantially different than the wall that's there now? |
| 04:42:30.09 | Jonathon Goldman | Well, that's a pretty broad speculation for me to offer. But certainly I think it's reasonable to assume that what is there now could have been approved at that time before the fact. in the same context, assuming that the findings for a design review could be made. The engineering issues are not a significant part of the design review. this and therefore again in a prospective sense I certainly think it it would have been approvable at that time |
| 04:43:04.65 | Jill Hoffman | One last question on the wall. I mean, in terms of the technical challenges of a project, of building a wall of this kind to retain that much Is there – give me a sense of is this a really challenging project? Is this a sort of run-of-the-mill wall for Sausalito with all its hillsides? Give me a sense. Is this some really unusual, complicated wall? |
| 04:43:31.31 | Jonathon Goldman | Thank you. It's certainly not a complicated wall. And I have yet to come across the run of the mill wall in Sausalito. I do want to point out that as Dr. Karp mentioned, it's not actually doing a whole bunch of retaining. its purpose is to keep it there. the piers, the wing walls, the fact that it's built as a box is intended to keep it from doing what folks might be concerned that it is not going to be a box. And it's the ambiguity about whether it was adequately designed and constructed that is really the substance of the issue. That's why the counter fort was designed. That's why I recommend that it be constructed. Thank you. That answers my question. |
| 04:44:27.49 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 04:44:30.24 | Jennifer Berry | Yeah. |
| 04:44:31.96 | Jill Hoffman | Sorry, Jonathan, I've got a question for you. I didn't turn on my microphone fast enough. So if this 10-foot wall had been approved initially and the design work that they have wound up with, you know, to mitigate the adverse, the ambiguity aspect had been required. And then the result was damage to a neighboring I mean, would the city be involved? Would it be between the two? private private homeowners, would it be I mean, does the city have liability? |
| 04:45:23.21 | Jonathon Goldman | While I have a vast degree of experience and qualifications in engineering, I think that's a legal question, so I'm going to defer to the city attorney. |
| 04:45:37.22 | Mary Wagner | So, Council Member Pfeiffer, your question was if this wall had been approved before it was constructed and then constructed and there was resulting damage to a downslope neighbor who believed that the damage to their home was related to the construction of the Thank you. My supposition is we'd be in a similar type of litigation as we are today. The city may have other defenses in that situation that we would have raised. I can't speculate as to what those are and as due to the fact that we are currently in litigation, I think it's unwise to speculate as to what those would be. And as I've informed the council independently, You know, the fact that we're in litigation, isn't relevant to your decision this evening. the fact that you're hearing all the engineering is, the substance of the litigation. And as you also know, we were in mediation last summer, July I believe it was. And the mediator said, you need to get through the city's process, have the city complete its process as it would irrespective of this THIS. The other thing I think it's important to keep in mind is you're being asked to determine if you can make the findings that are in your staff report based upon the project that's in front of you. And that is the substance of what the council is being asked to do tonight, to determine if the council believes that the findings that were made by the Planning Commission approving this project retroactively can be made by the council on this appeal. |
| 04:47:17.79 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. So I have a follow-up question for the applicant. Um. And it has to do with the explanation that I heard from the, I mean, a question for the appellate. It has to do with the answer I heard from the applicant referring to bedrock not moving, you know, um, in that direction. And, and I, can you respond to that? that seemed to make sense to me that, you know, you wouldn't have that movement with bedrock. So can you comment? |
| 04:47:52.32 | Michael Hicks | The issue is is it bedrock? The only testing that we have is from Craig Herzog. And Craig Gertz, I'd say it's not big, Ron. that it's clay. Thank you. and what they call colluvial soils, which is essentially soils that have weathered in place from the existing bedrock. And that's the answer. If it wasn't moving, Then how come the low wall, have you been to the site? Do you see the low stone wall? Do you see it's moving? Do you see it's cracked? If it doesn't move, if the soil doesn't move, why is that wall moving? And that's been noted in every one of the reports. So. I'm not a geotechnical engineer. I certainly don't have Mr. Karp's experience. I think if it looks like a duck and quacks like one, it's probably a duck. |
| 04:48:47.74 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah, while you're there, Mr. Hicks. Sure. The – Another senior moment. I've lost my question. I'm sorry, it had come to me. |
| 04:49:04.14 | Councilmember Weiner | Thank you. |
| 04:49:04.19 | Jill Hoffman | . |
| 04:49:04.44 | Councilmember Weiner | Thank you. |
| 04:49:04.78 | Jill Hoffman | So, |
| 04:49:05.03 | Councilmember Weiner | Thank you. |
| 04:49:08.56 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 04:49:08.58 | Councilmember Weiner | I just have some. When was one Edwards built? Thank you. |
| 04:49:15.56 | Michael Hicks | Okay. I'll come back. |
| 04:49:19.56 | Councilmember Weiner | And that question also goes for nine, Edwards. |
| 04:49:25.69 | Ann Watson | I'm, I'm not really sure. At first, Dr. Karp alleged I was built in 1945. I notice now that date's been moved back to 1932. I was told when I moved into the property by the Historical Society that the house was one built by a ship's captain on that hill, one of five houses between, I think it was 1901 and 1910, and that I was the only one left. And they said something to me about there's some pictures and some old sunset magazines. I know the Marin Municipal Water District has told me that they – the old Sausalito Water Works that they bought serviced my property around that time. So I honestly don't know when it was built. |
| 04:50:22.19 | Councilmember Weiner | And Wendy. |
| 04:50:22.22 | Ann Watson | I know it's an older house. |
| 04:50:24.43 | Councilmember Weiner | And you moved in what year? |
| 04:50:25.98 | Ann Watson | 1994. |
| 04:50:26.05 | Councilmember Weiner | Thank you. |
| 04:50:30.69 | Ann Watson | And the work that Dr. Karp is referring to, which he claims with no reports saying this, is causing the damage to my property, was a lateral support beam that a structural engineer recommended, and did the calculations for and it was built to his specifications. It wasn't something that the contractor decided to do. That was done properly and properly permitted with the city, and it impinges nowhere on anybody's property line. |
| 04:51:06.60 | Councilmember Weiner | Okay. Thank you. And nine, when was that built? |
| 04:51:13.91 | Unknown | you |
| 04:51:19.85 | Peter Kleinbrode | The best records we have is that it was the first house that the house below was cut out, excavated below it. It was in the early 20s. |
| 04:51:28.42 | Councilmember Weiner | Okay. Thank you. |
| 04:51:30.19 | Peter Kleinbrode | you First House on that slope. |
| 04:51:33.82 | Jill Hoffman | Mr. Hicks, I've remembered my question now, sorry. That's okay. I gather that there's been testimony that there's been now a kid dug. Yes, and there has been one. And there's been one. And that's the pit that's eventually going to get the retrofit pursuant to the plan. |
| 04:51:57.58 | Michael Hicks | So. |
| 04:51:59.22 | Jill Hoffman | Okay. Have you actually gone and looked in that pit, sir? Yes. And what did you observe there? |
| 04:52:02.09 | Michael Hicks | Yes. I observed that it's cribbed on all four sides and that the only visible surface that was at the very bottom of the pit. The time that I went out there, there was no way for me to climb down there and observe the bottom of it, but I understood that I believe Mr. Herzog and the gentleman from Kleinfelder, I think they both went to the bottom of that pit and looked around, I believe so. Okay, thank you. Thank you. |
| 04:52:33.24 | Unknown | Mm-hmm. |
| 04:52:36.68 | Councilmember Weiner | Can you hear a second? Yep. |
| 04:52:45.00 | Mary Wagner | Yeah. Mr. Mayor, if I may, I apologize for interrupting. I think it's important that the council has focused on this mitigation measure that's contained in the IES MD that's been reviewed by our consultants and by city staff that relates to the retrofit or the fix, if you will, and that it is required to be installed, and I just asked the city engineer, public works director, to confirm into bedrock. I mean that's the City's requirement is that it meet that. I know there's been some discussion about what's in that pit, but that is the nature of the mitigation measure. |
| 04:53:33.09 | Mayor Theodore | And the appeal is based that the planning commission's approval of the IESMND is appealed on the grounds that the environmental documents rely on assumptions that have not been substantiated by environmental engineering evidence, adequate, and that's what we're deciding tonight. Right. |
| 04:53:51.79 | Mary Wagner | Yes, one of the actions before you is to decide on the environmental document. |
| 04:53:59.94 | Mayor Theodore | All right. Now, comments, please. |
| 04:54:05.85 | Unknown | Okay, sure. |
| 04:54:09.36 | Jill Hoffman | I think I also have spent hours listening to the Planning Commission various proceedings and reading tons of documents. From my perspective, I think it was very important. I was aided by Planning Commissioner Werner's analysis of the situation when I listened to the September 17th recording of the Planning Commission hearing. The best way and the way I'm looking at this is if this was before me to build this 10 feet wall and put a patio up there, would I be able to make the findings with regard – all the findings that are necessary with regards to the design review, the variances, and I mean a bit ludicrously a tree that got removed ten years ago. So and I can make those findings just as three of the four planning commissioners did. I can make each of those findings. The only one I thought through carefully was the privacy issue, actually, especially with regards to if you lowered it, you'd actually have less privacy. So I can easily make, not easily, I can carefully make all of the findings, and both with the environmental document and with the various entitlements, would be able to vote in favor of the project and thus deny the appeal. |
| 04:56:07.01 | Mayor Theodore | Yeah, I echo Councilmember Withey's opinion. And first of all, I start off with – giving deference to the Planning Commission staff and prior staff all the way through in terms of their findings that they've made. I think one of the basis is for the approval Um, The other thing is that the assumptions have not been substantiated by adequate engineering evidence, and although we have some conflicting evidence, I think the vast weight appears to be that it does substantiate the IESMND, so I think they can make that finding. the 6.5 feet versus 10 feet and whether it's done retroactively, but if you look on page two and three of the report, it goes into extreme detail about the Planning Commission found that the project had exceptional circumstances, including the steepness of the slope. instability of the hillside, the proximity of nearby structures, et cetera. the option of Lowering the retaining wall to the maximum height allowed of 6.5 feet was considered and determined it would be adverse to the preservation of substantial property rights possessed by the other property owners in the zoning district. So that was given careful thought on both of them. And so I think there was certainly substantial evidence to support the findings made by the Planning Commission and the staff, and I would also be inclined to vote to deny the appeal. |
| 04:57:57.64 | Councilmember Weiner | Well. The only comment that I'll make was about a year, two years ago, they built a brand new house next door to me, went down, put new foundations in and everything else. And after that was built, I noticed that there was a crack in my foundation. I called some engineers to come down and look at it. And my house was the first house built in the street. It was built in 1891. Thank you. And he... Both engineers looked at that and said it was not caused by the foundation being, or the house being built next door. And it just was from – and that's on bedrock. Both of the houses are on bedrock. So I really think that you go back and you don't know – the house was built a long time ago. And you do have – Thank you. A lot of our homes, we have springs underneath them. There's a spring underneath my house. So I think there is going to be movement, but I really think that this wall really didn't cause that to the bottom house. And I really find that I would have to go along with staff and deny the appeal. |
| 04:59:23.81 | Councilmember Weiner | Now it's you. |
| 04:59:24.58 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. Thank you. Somebody. I'll go ahead. I think when I'm looking through this and struggling with this, I just don't see that there's anything exceptional and necessary about a 10-foot wall. I mean, the same issues that you're talking about, exceptional circumstances... with the steepness of the slope, the instability of the hillside, the proximity of the nearby structures, all of that, It has nothing to do with a 10 foot wall versus a six and a half foot wall. So I don't see those things. And then the literal enforcement of applicable zoning provision for the program, the reasonable use of outdoor private space, et cetera. |
| 04:59:54.28 | Unknown | you |
| 05:00:04.21 | Jill Hoffman | has nothing to do with a 10-foot wall versus a 6.5-foot wall. You get all that stuff with a 6.5-foot wall. So that's what I'm struggling with. And that's why at this point I would vote to grant you. |
| 05:00:23.88 | Jill Hoffman | So I waited because I wanted to hear my fellow council members weigh in, and I – I agree with the logic regarding the 10 foot versus 6 foot, and I also have concerns regarding the, I see that there could be grounds with respect to the project, I mean, potentially materially adverse. I mean, because we're looking at having listened to both sides and really weighing this, and believe me, I have – I'm seeing things from both sides, both the applicant and the appellate. But I have concerns here when I'm hearing things from both sides, both the applicant and the appellate. But I have concerns here when I'm hearing the testimony on the appellate side that I haven't had those concerns really addressed by the applicant. So I would be inclined to uphold the appeal. |
| 05:01:33.24 | Mayor Theodore | So I think we've heard from everyone. And can I have a motion on this? Well, I'll go ahead and I'll make a motion to deny the appeal and adopt the resolution which upholds the Planning Commission approval. And I guess we should. You want to take the roll? |
| 05:01:50.48 | Jill Hoffman | I'll second that. |
| 05:01:57.91 | Debbie | Councilmember Weiner. |
| 05:01:58.87 | Councilmember Weiner | Yes. |
| 05:02:00.61 | Debbie | Councilmember Pfeiffer. |
| 05:02:02.48 | Jill Hoffman | No. |
| 05:02:04.10 | Debbie | Councilmember Whitty. |
| 05:02:05.17 | Jill Hoffman | Yes. |
| 05:02:07.87 | Debbie | Vice Mayor Hoffman. |
| 05:02:09.35 | Jill Hoffman | No. |
| 05:02:11.56 | Debbie | Mayor Theodore. |
| 05:02:12.72 | Mayor Theodore | Yes. Okay, so the denial is Pell 3 to 2. Okay, thank you all. |
| 05:02:35.98 | Unknown | you Thank you. |
| 05:03:08.97 | Unknown | THE END OF |
| 05:03:13.41 | Mayor Theodore | Okay, moving on. We move on to item Just... |
| 05:03:24.24 | Unknown | I'm not sure. |
| 05:03:24.87 | Mayor Theodore | Yeah. We need to move on. Excuse us. Okay. All right. Thank you. Okay, moving on to item 7A, city manager information for council. I forgot 4D. Oh, she's back to 48, in trouble. Oh, we do. So we have a... item 4D, which was moved from the consent calendar. So I guess we decided that we would check in at this point. What I might recommend is we can have a brief overview and see if it satisfies council. If not, we can move over. |
| 05:04:02.78 | Unknown | . to understand those numbers. Thank you. |
| 05:04:11.98 | Adam Politzer | I'm sorry I missed the discussion about moving the item and Vice Mayor Hoffman actually alerted me in advance and I appreciate that. What I would recommend to the council is for our public works director to just give an introduction and then have the council continue it to the next meeting. So not try to satisfy the council tonight but at least introduce the topic so that the Council can take that information and then either follow back up with our Public Works Director. So not try to satisfy the council tonight, but at least introduce the topic so that the council can take that information and then either follow back up with our public works director between now and the next meeting or just wait until the next meeting. But I think an introduction might be helpful. |
| 05:04:21.26 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 05:04:50.22 | Jonathon Goldman | Thank you, Mr. Mayor, Vice Mayor, members of the council and staff. Jonathan Goldman, your Public Works Director. I don't have a PowerPoint, and it's late, so I can't do finger puppets at this point in the evening. But the item, it just won't be very communicative. My hands will wave, but you won't understand what I'm saying. The item that was on the consent agenda this evening is a professional consulting services contract for an initial phase of design work associated with the sewer capital improvements that were enabled by the most recent set of sewer rates and then a bond issue that we recently successfully sold and closed. The short version of this is the city is currently operating under an EPA administrative order that was issued to us jointly with Saus Lidenburn City Sanitary District, the general manager Craig Justice was here earlier this evening for this item, and Tenalpais Community Services District in probably 2008. There were a number of conditions of that administrative order, not the least of which is the requirement that we do things differently in how we maintain and operate our sanitary sewer system, with the objective being to reduce or eliminate overflows, both from public facilities as well as private facilities, facilities despite the fact that our ordinance establishes responsibility for lower laterals even within the public right of way as being the private property owners, the fact is that EPA regards us as a regulator in that context and expects us to prevent overflows even from private facilities. We enacted a set of sewer rates shortly thereafter, which were to some extent, well, first of all, which gave us the benefit of three full-time equivalent California Water Environment Association certified wastewater maintenance technicians. We were able to significantly increase the quality of maintenance that we were performing in our system. Those rates were also the expectation was that we were going to deliver some significant capital improvements on an annual basis but funded by loans from the California Clean Water State Revolving Fund. As it turned out, our experience with the Clean Water State Revolving Fund was that the administrative burden associated with borrowing money basically from the federal government through the state created a significant surcharge and posed a significant burden on our ability to deliver projects. So in about five years, we successfully delivered one Clean Water State Revolving Fund loan program capital improvement, the Spinnaker Anchor project that is essentially completed but not entirely completed. So we have the benefit of rates that the council and the community enacted and supported, the benefit of a very competitive bond market and the the ability to expend within the next three years more than $5 million in long overdue capital improvements. And in order to deliver those projects, the staff that you see at these meetings has to rely on significant consulting expertise, not only for design but also for permitting environmental compliance to the extent that there are CEQA issues as well as constructability and construction management services. So we took advantage of an opportunity when Sausalito Marin City Sanitary District was also engaged in a significant capital campaign solicited competitive proposals from design firms including three that had previously done work for the city of Sausalito. They invited us to sit on their interview panel, Andy Davidson and I from the city of Sausalito Department of Public Works, and assisted them in selecting a consulting firm. And at the same time, advised that consulting firm, who in my experience was previously one of the most expensive on a unit rate basis of the firms that had done work for us, that we had this capital program underway and we pointedly asked them if they would reduce their rates in order to take advantage of the opportunity to work on both South Lutemar Sanitary Districts and our capital program. The firm that we're recommending be retained, Carollo did in fact that. And they are the rates that Sausalito Marin City Sanitary District, who are again largely the same rate payers that pay for sanitary sewer collection in the City of Sausalito and the City of Sausalito will be paying, assuming council approves that contract, are their 2012 book rates. So it's on the order of a 10% discount for their labor and their work. If you do have specific questions about, you know, the bigger picture, I've asked for authorization for just that initial phase of work because we don't know accurately what the design costs for subsequent phases of work will be. You're welcome to ask now. You're welcome to get questions to me directly and to the extent that I can prepare a more detailed presentation for your next meeting. I'm happy to do that. |
| 05:10:34.96 | Councilmember Weiner | Exactly. very quick question. |
| 05:10:39.33 | Jonathon Goldman | Thank you. |
| 05:10:39.35 | Jill Hoffman | A very quick question, Jonathan. This design work associated with the whole sewer programming was programmed into the sewer fees and part of our capital improvement budget? Yes. Yes. Thanks. |
| 05:10:58.87 | Mayor Theodore | So we will move it to next, but I guess the question I have for council is this, and particularly the vice mayor, is this something that you feel you'll be able to get up to speed on and we can have it on the consent calendar or will we need a full public hearing? |
| 05:11:10.53 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 05:11:13.69 | Mayor Theodore | All right, so we can start there, and again, if we have other questions, then we can again move it. |
| 05:11:18.97 | Jonathon Goldman | One other question for counsel in general. I spoke with the consultants in advance of tonight's meeting, let them know that I had proposed that it be on consent. Do you think it would be a benefit for representatives of the consultant or certainly the Sanitary District to be here next time? |
| 05:11:19.05 | Mayor Theodore | Yeah. |
| 05:11:25.38 | Mayor Theodore | But... |
| 05:11:42.41 | Jonathon Goldman | It's... Wonderful. Thank you. |
| 05:11:48.58 | Mayor Theodore | Thank you. Now we move on to item 7A, the city manager report. |
| 05:11:55.81 | Adam Politzer | And once again, the lateness of the hour. my remarks brief, but there are two in particular that I want to share, and then the third one I think the mayor did prior to me arriving to the council, which was thanking all the community members and specifically city staff on a job well done over the weekend during the storm. Just as the Parks and Recreation Department starts looking towards the special event season, which is just around the corner. I think the… Just as the Parks and Recreation Department starts looking towards the special event season, which is just around the corner, I think the – Easter egg hunting parade are the first event in April. But one of the big events that looks like it's going to evolve to something different this year will be the Caledonia Street Fair. Caledonia Street Fair started in 2000, and that was an event that transitioned from the chili cook-off, which used to be on Caledonia Street, and then the Chili Cook-Off had transitioned from the Chili Cook-Off that was in the park, which has now transitioned back to the Chili Cook-Off at Dunphy Park. So the Caledonia Street Fair is looking to transition to a different form of an event, and from talking to Mike Langford, our Parks and Recreation Director, it looks like it's going to have a family orientation towards the event. So hang tight. We'll have Mike come in the near future to give a special event preview for the year, but thought I'd let you into where it's evolving to today, and we're very excited about where it's heading. The other interesting item to share with you, and many of you have noticed it, some of you may even have questions about it, I know that the community may have even forgotten that the council took action on this two years ago and that's the parklets that are being constructed in front of Angelenos, Venice Gourmet and the Bridgeway Cafe. And so those are under construction. Part of the reason why it's taken so long is that if you remember the council gave direction for it to be constructed prior to last summer, summer of 2014, and the folks worked very hard to make that deadline, but the engineering involved and the safety concerns brought up once we got past the planning process but into the actual design and construction documents, a lot of questions came up and the safety of the people that may be dining there or enjoying the parklets came up and so the project got delayed. So they are now well underway and you're watching the construction happen that the parklets will go into place for this summer. We'll conclude the end of the program. I didn't have a chance to go back and look at what we actually approved, but my understanding was that the project was a pilot project. It would come back to the council in December or early in the winter of 2016 for public comment, the opportunity for the public to say if they liked them, opportunity for staff to share what concerns may have been raised by the public or from our own observations, and then also the successes, you know, assuming that the reason why we approved it is because we thought that this would be a good thing for the community. So look forward to seeing the parklets come in this summer and then we will come back to the council at the end of the process. We'll look back at what dates we determined then, and we'll work with the agenda-setting committee to schedule a session back with the council, a report back to the council. And then the last item is MCCMC. I'll always remind the council how important it is for us to attend those meetings. Great opportunity to work with our other council members. There are obviously opportunities to volunteer on committees and JPAs, and a lot of reports from those committees and JPAs take place at those meetings. And so the next meeting is hosted by the city of San Anselmo, and I believe it's going to be at Jason's there in beautiful downtown Greenbury. Thank you. So the next meeting is hosted by the city of San Anselmo, and I believe it's going to be adjacent there in beautiful downtown Greenbury. So that ends my report. Happy to answer any questions of yours. And just for the public, in case the mayor didn't share this at the beginning, my appreciation to the council for the flexibility this evening to allow me to go to my daughter's senior night for the winter sports program. It was very, very Emotional for me. My first daughter of three as a senior and going through the pomp and circumstances between now and the six months is going to be very difficult for this father. So thank you very much and appreciate your support and obviously the support of the city attorney, our city clerk, and Lillie Shin-Sing, who again I hope that you recognize is a superstar in the making. and two heavy with the Marineship, 13 meetings. all that can be viewed that are web streamed. So we want to again plug that these meetings are recorded and videotaped and are at your viewing pleasure. But big thanks to the three of them in particular for their support and allowing me to have some flexibility this afternoon and evening. |
| 05:17:37.78 | Jill Hoffman | So I have just a couple questions. So thanks for the comment about the parklet in front of the Venice Gourmet and Angelina's. And just a little historic comment on that. I did not support that. I voted against it. I am concerned about the loss of a potential bike lane precedent setting for the rest of the street as well as the loss of five more metered parking spaces. My question is going back to the parking technology workshop we had in the beginning, This is not something you need to answer now, but I'd love to hear back from you later. which is a resident came up to me in the fall earlier and mentioned that that heard that serious problems with the current parking technology had cost the city a lot of money. And I had thought the problems had been resolved. At the time, another council member said, I knew about the problems and I didn't because I thought they'd been resolved. So on a matter of principle, I would very much like to know from you, you know, you can send me an email just what the problems, if there are existing problems with the current technology, what they are, and has there been a cost to the city? I would like to know. Thank you. |
| 05:19:03.08 | Unknown | I'm not sure. |
| 05:19:10.56 | Mayor Theodore | Anything else? Any other questions? City Manager? Okay. We move on to Council Member Committee reports. |
| 05:19:21.68 | Jill Hoffman | The Butte Task Force met, and we will be hopefully on the next agenda. It's very, actually, it's imperative that we're on the next agenda. And the chair of the Butte Task Force will be communicating that to the city manager. Adam, you want to respond? Thanks. Thanks. |
| 05:19:44.41 | Adam Politzer | Yeah, Leon Hunting has reached out to me and actually met with me. We've agreed on the March 3rd date and I know that he is reached out to the city attorney and there's a meeting maybe next week, you know, to make sure that they understand the process that we're recommending that they are embracing, and they'll come on the March 3rd date to give their update. |
| 05:20:09.82 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 05:20:12.40 | Mayor Theodore | Any other committee reports? I have one. I would like to appoint Vice Mayor Hoffman to replace Jonathan Leon in with myself to represent the city along with staff in any negotiations with Bridgeway Marina that we may have. They have certain proposals they want to present to the city, and we And they have. been ongoing and, um, Previously, it was Councilmember Leone and myself. I propose appointing Vice Mayor Hoffman. Certainly anything that comes about, anything that would be the fruits of that negotiation would come to the council. So it's just to represent the city in any discussions on that point. I appoint Vice Mayor Hoffman for that. Moving on, future agenda items. |
| 05:21:03.65 | Jill Hoffman | So I don't have to say butte because it's coming up, but of course we talked about the marine railways. I think that's a very important topic, so I hope to see that in the next meeting or two. And then the Airbnb nuisance neighbor enforcement. I'd like to talk about that. That's a real hot item, and you will discover it's especially lively with respect to Bridgeway Marina where they have I guess someone who has Air B&B boats as well as homes on the other side of town with you know visitors and people who are in the city. crazy parties and a whole lot of craziness going on and upset neighbors. |
| 05:21:51.04 | Adam Politzer | Thank you. That item, the short-term rentals, right now it looks like we have dueling department heads wanting to give the presentation. One is on the 17th and the other one is on the 17th. So we'll sort it out at the agenda setting committee, but it is on your list on future agenda items for March 3rd and also for March 17th. I would suggest that it will be on March 17th, and then we'll figure out which department head, and I know the city attorney is also involved with this as well. |
| 05:22:25.53 | Jill Hoffman | And speaking of March 17th, I will need to attend via distance teleconference for that meeting. just a heads up for the March 17th City Council meeting. I will attend this via teleconference speakerphone. |
| 05:22:37.58 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 05:22:40.38 | Mayor Theodore | I will attend this meeting. speakerphone. And you can work with |
| 05:22:45.56 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah. |
| 05:22:46.02 | Mayor Theodore | Thank you. We haven't done that so work with them and |
| 05:22:48.87 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 05:22:48.89 | Unknown | Okay. Yep. |
| 05:22:50.66 | Mayor Theodore | Thanks for letting us know. |
| 05:22:51.72 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 05:22:53.24 | Mayor Theodore | Okay, any other reports of significance? |
| 05:22:56.02 | Councilmember Weiner | Yeah, I would like to make one that on March 14th, I believe that's a Saturday, there will be a forum by the BCDC, RBRA, Richardson Bay, and that will be at the Bay Model starting at 9 a.m. And that will be... on all the anchor routes and where we're going with that. So it's kind of a very important one. 9 to 12. |
| 05:23:27.40 | Jill Hoffman | Did you say that was, what was the date? |
| 05:23:30.11 | Councilmember Weiner | I believe it's a Saturday, the 14th. |
| 05:23:31.26 | Jill Hoffman | Saturday the 14th, February 14th? |
| 05:23:32.81 | Councilmember Weiner | 14th? No. Mark. |
| 05:23:34.90 | Jill Hoffman | March 14th. Thank you. |
| 05:23:39.97 | Mayor Theodore | Anything else? We have a motion to adjourn. |
| 05:23:44.24 | Councilmember Weiner | So moved. Second. |
| 05:23:44.39 | Mayor Theodore | So moved. Second. All right, and we're adjourned. |
Peter Van Meter — Neutral: Requested that screens be readable in sunlight and that machines have real, clickable buttons. ▶ 📄