| Time | Speaker | Text |
|---|---|---|
| 00:00:00.03 | Unknown | you you |
| 00:00:04.27 | Jill Hoffman | labor negotiation and our finance director, Charlie Francis, will start us off. |
| 00:00:14.96 | Jeffrey Chase | Good evening, Mr. Mayor, Madam Vice Mayor, and Councilmember Withey. Tonight's agenda item workshop is an introduction to the nuts and bolts of labor negotiations. As you know, the city has two formal bargaining represented units. First is Service Employees International Union with 29 rep positions, and the other is Sausalito Police Association with 21 represented positions. And then we also have an informal group that we don't bargain with, but the city passes a memorandum, passes a resolution that sets the terms and conditions for their employment. We call those groups confidential and management groups. All three of those organizations had agreements that were enacted in 2012, and they're all expiring in June 30, 2015. And so, as part of the preparation for the labor negotiations, which those preparations are quite exhaustive, we do class and compensation studies. We do audits and reviews of the memorandums of understanding. We do industry comparisons, review actuarial evaluations of pensions and other post-employment benefits and strategy formation. So there's a lot of detail that goes into preparing for labor negotiations. This is one more item that we prepare for, and that's we ask Charles Sakai to come to the City Council He came once before in 2012 and to present to the City Council the the complete nuts and bolts of what can be done or what can't be done to kind of talk about the the the legal framework, what are the possible strategies that we could be confronted with, and what are the essentials the city must prepare for in how to defend ourselves against an unfair labor practice, because the last thing we want to do is anything that's unfair. And so with that, I'd like to introduce Charles, who's the partner and founder of Law Firm, with four big words in it. And he's got extensive experience with complex negotiations and collective bargaining issues. He has our full confidence, and we are sure he will. with four big words in it. And he's got extensive experience with complex negotiations and collective bargaining issues. He has our full confidence, and I'm sure that you will enjoy his presentation this evening. Charles? |
| 00:02:27.82 | Charles Sakai | Good evening. I recognize we have a fairly brief timeframe, and I will try to be brief and move quickly through the slides. However, if I'm moving too quickly, do let me know. Obviously, this is a pretty condensed primer on negotiations, and I'm pleased to be doing this in a public meeting. We've got some labor representatives here to keep me honest and hopefully not throw things at the back of my head during the presentation. And I'm hopeful, though, that we can provide you some information to the beginning of bargaining and make the process simpler as we move forward through it. As Charlie said, we're going to talk a little bit about the legal framework of negotiations, briefly about some of the strategies that unions in some places utilize during the process, essentials for success in negotiations, the planning element, which as Charlie mentioned you're already very deeply into, path to reaching agreement, and then which includes dealing with the AB 646 fact-finding process if you fail to reach agreement and have to go through a fact-finding process prior to moving forward. And finally, as Charlie said, some discussion of the Public Employment Relations Board, which is the board which has oversight over cities and counties in terms of labor relations. So the Public Employment Relations Board is the five-member board appointed by the governor that has the legal responsibility to oversee labor relations in California for public agencies, including the state, cities, and counties. So very briefly, legal framework of negotiations. We've only just begun. So the first question, of course, is what is collective bargaining? The statute defines it as a meet and confer in good faith over mandatory subjects of bargaining. We'll talk about what is mandatory, what is not mandatory in a moment. But essentially, to meet with the collective bargaining representatives to confer in good faith over wages, hours, and working conditions in an attempt to reach an agreement. Goals of the bargaining process, the most obvious is to reach an agreement, hopefully a long-term labor agreement in many cases, but more than that, it's to maintain positive relationships with the employees and the employee organizations as well as to underscore the trust that comes along with that and ultimately to have labor peace. You can have peace for a longer period of time and less negotiations. That's always a good goal. Path to reaching agreement, as I said, that's going to be something we'll talk about in some detail in the next few slides. Theories of bargaining, I'll just touch briefly on this. Most of us are familiar with traditional bargaining. It's what's called positional bargaining where I come in, I make an offer, you make a response, we go back and forth until we reach a deal. In the 90s, something called interest-based bargaining became very popular. It was the Harvard negotiations process getting to yes where as opposed to making a proposal, you stated your interests and both sides brainstormed over solutions to those interests. That's something that is very popular for a number of years, but it's essentially a very long process. It's one that doesn't have the same parameters as traditional bargaining. So most places have fallen back on a more traditional approach, but there are hybrid theories out there. One of the things that we utilize is something called fact-based bargaining, and that's something that essentially I think Charlie described pretty well the way that the city does it, which is a lot of research, comparability studies, and then presentations and discussions so that everybody has sort of a shared interest at the beginning of, for instance, the city's financial condition. Nobody thinks that Charlie has a pot of gold under his desk because, you know, obviously you've had a chance to look at the financial information. You've got yours up on the website. It's very easily accessible. But having that shared understanding is very helpful in moving forward in the bargaining process and ensuring trust in the bargaining process. So I mentioned PERB is the public agency that oversees bargaining. The act which empowers bargaining in the first place is the Myers-Brown Act. It gives public agency employees the right to unionize, to collectively bargain, and controls essentially what that bargaining process looks like. Both the agency and unions have to bargain in good faith over issues within the scope of representation. So what does that mean? Scope of representation is defined in the statute as wages, hours, and other terms and conditions of employment. It specifically excludes what are known as the management rights, the merits, necessity, or organization of any service or activity. So things like level of staffing, the number of staff members you're going to have. So things such as layoffs, for instance, are not directly negotiable, although you negotiate the effects on wages, hours, and working conditions of layoffs. But deciding whether to perform a service or not is something which is a managerial prerogative, not directly negotiable. mandatory subject to bargaining, the wages, hours, and working conditions must be negotiated with the point of agreement or impasse. If they are going to do so as an unfair practice, that's what goes to PERB. So if someone accuses someone else of an unfair practice, that goes before the Public Employment Relations Board, which hears those cases, and we've got a whole section on the PERB Board in a few minutes. |
| 00:07:10.88 | Unknown | Amen. |
| 00:07:33.33 | Charles Sakai | bargaining authority is mandatory essentially under the act that the negotiators have the authority to negotiate at the table. They have to have something to be able to bargain back and forth. It doesn't mean they have to have ultimate authority because that rests with the city council, but they have to have the authority to be able to bargain at the negotiating table, and both parties have a duty to negotiate in good faith, free from direct dealing and undue influence. Direct dealing is going around the negotiating table. So as opposed to negotiating with the negotiators from, for instance, SCIU, if the city were instead to negotiate directly with the employees and try to cut out the union, that's direct dealing. and that is prohibited by PERB case law. So good faith bargaining, again, mutual obligation to meet and confer upon request, continuing for a reasonable period of time, and there's adequate time for impasse procedures, which would include fact-finding. Bad faith bargaining is taking unilateral action before impasse, so if a city were to decide they were simply going to move forward and change conditions without bargaining, failure to provide information, failure to exchange proposals, failure to sort of engage in the process, regressive bargaining, which means you put something on the table and then you take it back, put something lesser on the table, or dilatory tactics, trying to slow down the process to avoid reaching an agreement. Hard bargaining is okay. The law is that you have to try to reach an agreement, but not that you necessarily have to concede every point. So hard bargaining means you can draw a line in the sand, decide certain issues are things you're not going to move on. You don't have to compromise on those issues. You're able to take a firm stance on certain things. And we've seen that even recently with the ILWU and the Pacific Maritime Association. Both sides took some firm positions on things, and there were no unfair practices alleged there, but they finally reached an agreement after some time. ILWU and the Pacific Maritime Association, you know, both sides took some firm positions on things, and there were no unfair practices alleged there, but they finally reached an agreement after some time. All right. It's always important, I think, to begin with the end in mind so you understand the end game of the process. In the absence of a negotiated agreement, we have something called a BATNA, best alternative to a negotiated agreement. That's what happens when you don't reach an agreement. What are you able to do? Under your employer relations resolution, which is the adopted resolution by the council that describes how you move through the impasse process, there's a mediation process, there's the potential for a hearing by the city council on the merits, something called an alternative dispute resolution procedure, which in this case really based on new legislation AB 646 means that the city has to go through a fact-finding process and I'll give you some detail on the fact-finding process but in short if you're unable to reach an agreement the union can request to go to fact-finding and fact-finding requires a neutral and member from, an appointed member from each side to hear each of the issues on dispute and make recommendations on them. So if there's a dispute over wages, both sides will make a presentation to this panel, and the panel will make a recommendation back to the council and to the union about what the wages should look like, what should that package look like. And ultimately, if things are not resolved at that point, there's a potential for unilateral implementation or strikes. Those are what the old case law refers to as the party's economic weapons. The union's economic weapon is to withhold its labor, and the employer's economic weapon is to impose changes without agreement of the union. That's the legal framework. I don't know if you have any questions. Feel free to interrupt me if I'm going off the rails anywhere. Very briefly, union strategies. In some cases, we'll have multiple slides on these, and it's often if we have a very contentious situation. Here, it's my understanding labor relations have been very good, and that there's a very good relationship between labor and the city and the city council. And these strategies are largely things that we saw during the recession. So there may not be many of these. I've limited this just to a couple slides to give you some examples. The IFF, the International Association of Firefighters, recognizing you don't have firefighters, but this was their handbook, their guide to surviving an economic crisis. And it really had to do with how do you avoid salary and benefit reductions and layoffs, maintain a level of service, and prevent increases in the work week. Basically, you know, it's a lot of prevention and maintenance in this situation because we were talking about a time when revenues were falling and everybody was looking for concessions from the union. Their goal was really to maintain the benefits that they had at the time. In certain cases, we'll have unions engaging in delay and attempting to wear down the council and city's bargaining team if they want more than you're willing to give or if you want to take more than they're willing to give. There's often an engagement and delay in an attempt to try to get people When you get through the bargaining process, at some point it's just can we finish, right? Can we be done with this process? And that's sometimes an attempt on both sides, frankly, to wear down the other side until everybody's willing just to finish the process. Obviously, the union's goal and their responsibility is to avoid actions that will adversely affect their members while maintaining levels of service, salary, and benefits. In some cases, we will see legal challenges. So they're either going to the PERB process, or other cases, depending on if vested rights are involved, where we've seen litigation in the courts over specific proposals to change things. Essentials for success, these are fairly straightforward. A cohesive and well-trained management team, strong involvement by the city manager, strong and consistent direction and support from the city council, and a recognition of the organization, the complexity challenge, and time-consuming nature of the process. Bargaining always takes longer than we want it to take, and it's always more complicated than we think it's going to be going in. You have an excellent management team here. You have strong labor relations, and I think that you have all the essentials for success already here. It's just good always to remember what we're looking for in a good management team and a good council management relationship. confidentiality is something which is very important for the bargaining process. There's often a lot of dialogue that goes on behind the scenes with the City Council and the negotiating team. We also think that in terms of the process being at the table, generally speaking, both sides look for ground rules prohibiting publicity. So we're not going to negotiate in the press necessarily. Management team and city council ground rules. So often we'll have ground rules between the bargaining groups, so the city and the union will agree to some sort of ground rules such as things limiting publicity. And we also have some council ground rules that I'll show you in a moment about how you deal with the negotiation process. United Front, no direct dealing. It's a way of avoiding piecemeal negotiation. One of the things, there's a book, of course, everything I needed to know I learned in kindergarten. I think everything I learned about negotiating I learned from having kids. And that's one of those things is you've got to have, if my wife and I can be picked off and say something, you know, can we have ice cream? No, yes. They know where to go if they're going to break us apart. So it's good to be able to know we have a chain of command. dealing with negotiation subjects. So really we recommend that the City Council not deal directly with negotiations but be funneled communications through the City Manager and that there's an effective communication so you know what's happening at the table. You know it's been going back and forth but that the communications all go through one channel. Closed session is something that comes up. Obviously we're doing this in a public meeting but a lot lot of your negotiations, discussions will happen in closed session. It allows, it's provided for in the Brown Act. You can use a closed session to give direction to your negotiators. The purpose of it is so that you can have an active dialogue among yourselves, make determinations, and give authority to your negotiators without it having to be open to the public. I mentioned ground rules for city council. One of the things that many cities have looked at is sort of an agreement among the council members of how they're going to act and interact with the unions during the process. This is a sample essentially that the city council maintain confidentiality of closed sessions, the manager is the spokesperson on all matters regarding negotiations, avoiding serial means. Obviously obviously this is a Brown Act prohibition. You can't simply go from one person to the other to create a consensus. That's a serial meeting. It has to be done properly either in a public session or in a closed session. And disclosure of any contact with any members and the content of those discussions, often what we have is the beginning of a closed session, people will just say, I spoke to SCIU or the POA approached me about this and a small discussion of that so that everybody knows what's going on and everybody's on the same page with regard to what communications are happening. Planning for negotiations, I think Charlie talked about the fact that there's a ton of planning that goes into the negotiations from comparability surveys to looking at your pension and OPEB liabilities to looking at the financial plan and what you've got going forward. In a post-recession environment, we used to be talking all about concessions. Now we're moving away from concessions. We're looking to rebuild positive labor relationships, beginning to see COLAs across the board, wages increases in many cities now, and either maintaining or creating cost-sharing arrangements for pensions and other benefits. One of the issues, obviously, that's often in the news is the cost of pensions. And so having some form of cost-sharing relationship where members pay some portion of the fees for the pensions is something that many cities are looking at right now. Again, the goals, fair treatment of employees, positive labor relations, some kind of coal increases, looking probably at maintaining the wage levels with inflation, looking at cost sharing, and considering long-term agreements. One of the benefits of a long-term agreement is obviously you don't have to see me, and you don't have to go through the negotiation process more than every couple of years, and I think there are strong benefits to that if you can have the appropriate safeguards in a long-term agreement, as opposed to coming back year after year after year to do negotiations, which many cities during the past five years have had one-year agreements year after year, so you never stop negotiating. As soon as you're done with the deal, you're back at the table negotiating again, and there's really no time to coalesce and just be a city and perform the functions of a city. Path to reaching agreement, we've talked about a lot of the things in here previously. The city's employee or employee relations resolution, your resolution on how to deal with negotiations requires an impasse meeting, written declaration of impasse, an impasse meeting followed by mediation. So mediation, normally we would go to either a private mediator or the state mediation conciliation service which provides free mediators and I always like free. So they'll send a mediator in to meet with the parties and try to negotiate a deal. Anything said in mediation is confidential and the mediator does not make recommendations. They simply try to get the parties to come to a consensus. Hearing by counsel on the merits and then your EERR provides for any other dispute resolution procedure upon mutual agreement so you could agree to something else. But in most cases if you haven't reached agreement through mediation the most likely next step is the legislative required fact finding process which was passed a few years ago as part of AB 646 which requires the fact finding when an employee organization requests fact finding. So fact finding is not like mediation because it's not confidential and the fact finder will make recommendations at the close of the process. So it's really a hearing process. In some places they have something called interest arbitration where a panel makes a decision and that is a binding decision. It's similar to that process but it's a non-binding decision. So a fact-finding panel will make a non-binding recommendation to the parties at the end of that process if you were to go here. And in most cases we resolve things far before we get to this process but just so you understand what it looks like I'm going to give you a few slides on the AB 646 fact-finding process. So AB 646, one of the things that became more important during the recession was the timelines that are added to the process. If you're trying to reach a goal of getting to resolution by the time your budget year starts, you need to really start planning earlier. In cases where we're no longer in concessions, it's not as important, but it's important to note that you're looking at 50 to 95 days additional on the process because you've got to go through a fact finding. There's a selection of a fact finder, there's a fact finding hearing, and then the fact finders come out with a recommendation that adds a length of time to the process. There are eight fact finding criteria, and I'm going to show those in the next few slides. Expenses, there's an additional cost of extended negotiations. You pay the cost. You share the cost as a neutral fact finder. And in the event that you go to fact finding, you often have an advocate presenting your case. And that additional cost also exists there. The fact-finding panels, as I said, has three members. There's a union member, there's a management member, and they mutually select a neutral member. Normally what happens is you get a list from the Public Employment Relations Board. They supply the list at the request of the union. They have seven names on it. You just strike names. Whoever is the most offensive to the city gets struck by the city or the most offensive to the union gets struck by the union. The least offensive person to both sides ends up being the person who's chosen. If the party don't select, then PERB will simply designate a fact finder, and that's happened in some cases. After within 30 days of the neutrals appointment, there has to be a report. Now this 30 days can be waived and has been waived in most of the fact findings because it's hard to even get hearings scheduled and completed in 30 days. But they're supposed to issue their report within 30 days. We have in certain circumstances where we've needed to held them to the 30-day requirement and that's a hard thing to do. We've done it for instance in Vallejo and San Benito where we said the panel must issue its report in 30 days, and they both were able to do so. The recommendation is not binding. The agency may adopt the findings, may not, but you may hold a public hearing on it. It has to be made public. The fact findings report must be made public, but you don't have to adopt it, And if you're going to implement your last, best, and final offer, you have to hold a public hearing before implementing the last, best, and final offer. But the report itself is not required to be done. You don't have to do anything with the report except make it a public document. Fact-finding criteria, so as I mentioned, there are several criteria. State and federal laws applicable to the employer. That's anything, local rules, regulations, and ordinance. Usually those are things that the fact-finder doesn't pay too much attention to. Stipulations of the parties, obviously, has a significant impact. Interest and welfare of the public and the financial ability of the public agency. This is squished into a single criteria, but obviously this is one of the things that we would find most important. in a FactFinder's report is what is the impact of their recommendations on the interest and welfare of the public and on the financial ability of the public agency to continue to provide services to the public The criteria that fact-finders seem to relay the most on, though, is the comparison of wages, hours, and conditions of employment with other employees. And mostly this turns on wage surveys, wage and benefit surveys of surrounding area. So what do other people make right now in relation to your employees? And is there a disparity in wages that should cause either you to hold firm on your wages because you're so far ahead of the market or to catch up to the market. You know, that's really, in my opinion, not a great criteria. It is one that's statutorily required, and it is the one that is most likely to be relied on by fact finders. But there's so many factors that go into why employees want to be employed by a certain employer. And recruitment and retention data, data to me is much more important than what your neighbors are doing. That said, this is the criteria that if I interview most of the fact finders and we've talked to many of them, this is the one that they're going to rely most on. The consumer price index, again, one that is not generally considered very strongly by the fact finders, overall compensation presently received, and usually that's only considered in relation to what other agencies pay. And other factors traditionally taken into consideration in making fact findings, which is just anything else they want to consider. Anything else they want to think about, they can throw in there. So as I said, AB 646 has changed the negotiation timeline, lengthened the timeline. In some sense, it changes the negotiation strategy for some people. I think in a city like Sausalito, probably not. Because the thing that it really requires is, I think, people to, at the beginning of negotiations, think about what the end is going to look like. And that means preparing for negotiations as if you're preparing for fact-binding. So you prepare your financial data, you prepare your comparability data, you look at your OPEB and pension liabilities. Those are all things that Sausalito has always done at the beginning of negotiations because what it takes to convince a fact finder is the same thing that it takes to convince a well-organized and intelligent union, and it's the same thing it takes to plead your case in the court of public opinion, and all those things are things you have to do in situations where there's a contention about what benefits and wages should be. So having those facts in hand at the beginning of the process is something that is very important and something that you've already been doing. Public Employment Relations Board, so I'll go fairly quickly through these. Is it just a number of different, essentially, ways that the Public Employment Relations Board can get involved in your process? To my knowledge, you've never had a PERB charge? Okay, so knock on wood that you don't... ever need to have that. Public Employment Relations Board, as I said, is a five-member panel that administers and enforces the statute covering labor relations. They began. overseeing schools first the University of California and California State University were added state of California was added and ultimately only in 2000 Cities and counties were added to that it's a five-member board appointed by the governor right now there are four member well Yeah, there are four members One new member has just been appointed. He doesn't start until April 1st and that's unfortunate because he's one of my Consultants who I'm going to lose to the public employment Board. So I'm glad for the state, but I'm sad for myself that he's going. They have three regional offices, Sacramento, Oakland, and Los Angeles. When you go before PERB, generally speaking, what we're dealing with is something called an unfair practice charge, which means either the union, an individual employee, or the employer complains that another party, again generally either the union or the employer, has engaged in what PERB would define as an unfair practice. It can be filed by any of those three people within six months of an alleged violation. So you have to file it within six months, otherwise you've blown your timelines and you cannot go forward. Most common kinds of unfair practices, and we'll deal with these in a little bit more detail, unilateral change, again, that's changing a term and condition of employment without negotiating, direct dealing, which means going around the negotiating team, negotiating directly with the employees or with the council, discrimination based on unit activity, and interference with employees' statutory rights, which generally ties into discrimination claims. Elan or change, as I said, a change in something within the scope of representation. So there has to be a change in wages, hours of working condition without giving the union notice and an opportunity to bargain. You don't have to bargain every change. If you tell the union, hey, we're going to make the following changes and the union says, great, we don't need to talk about this, there's no need to bargain in that case. But if the union says, hey, you know, we have some different thoughts on that. We'd like to bargain over that wage proposal, that hours proposal, then there is an opportunity to bargain. They have to have that opportunity. You can't change, you know, work rules, contract provisions, past practices without going through this process. Direct dealing, again, direct communication with employees, engaging in the give and take of matters within the scope of bargaining. When this normally happens is when an employer, and this happens much more in the private sector and the public sector, reaches out to employees, maybe does a survey. What would you like to see in your next contract? Well, that's a way of getting around the union and sort of make the union irrelevant. It also happens sometimes, maybe more often in the public sector than the private sector, where the negotiating team, where a union attempts to go around the city's negotiating team negotiate directly with the Employers and employer organizations still have the right to engage in free speech. They just don't have the right to engage in give and take. So it's fair game for the union to say, we want to make sure, City Council, you know what the last proposal we made to the bargaining team was. It's not fair game for them to say, but we have some other ideas we haven't told them about yet. How about this? And the same would go for the city. You can't directly deal with the employees and engage in give and take, but you can tell them what you've proposed at the bargaining table. |
| 00:29:10.10 | Charles Sakai | Discrimination, so we talked a little bit about those are the two bargaining related charges. Discrimination based on protecting union activities, so taking disciplinary action or otherwise discriminating against someone because of their union activity, and it has to be a motivating factor. So this comes up generally in discipline cases where someone feels they've been targeted for their union activity. Interference, again, briefly, interference charges generally tie on onto something else. So an interference charge is one that the conduct undercuts an employer organization's right to represent its members. That's usually in a unilateral change case or direct dealing case the interference charge comes along with that. It normally does not come separately but in certain situations like the right to access to employees or the right to put things on the bulletin board, it might simply be an interference allegation. These are the least common. Unions can also engage in unfair practices, and they're similar to what the employer can engage in, bad faith bargaining, undermining or disparaging the bargaining representative, violating local rules, causing the employer to violate the MMBA, and these are all directly from the statute, discriminating against employees. So it's possible for a union to not represent some employees because, say, they're not union members, and that's a violation of the duty of fair representation. It can also be a discrimination claim against the union. Again, you've never seen a PERB charge here, so I'm not expecting you to have any. So PERB, just so you have the process, PERB investigates allegations, they review statements of the parties, they assume the truth of everything that's in the charge. So if there are any disputed facts, they're going to go with whoever is filing the charge. PERB will defer some issues to grievance procedures that go to final binding arbitration. If your agreements have expired, that's not an option. PERV has an informal settlement process, then they have an administrative law judge hear the case. The administrative law judge makes a proposed decision that is then reviewed by the PERV board, and ultimately that can be appealed to the courts of appeal. Again, I think this is not really relevant to you, but basically you're looking at one and a half to three years to go from initial filing of a charge to an actual decision from the board. And on a complicated case, it's going to be a lot longer than that. But again, hopefully you'll never need to deal with that. So those are the nuts and bolts. Hopefully that's been helpful. But I'm certainly open to questions, more detail on any of these items. |
| 00:31:45.72 | Jill Hoffman | We only have five minutes, but we should start our questions. Yeah, John. |
| 00:31:50.42 | Jill Hoffman | Charlie, when do we expect to start the bargaining process and when are we targeting to end the bargaining process for this cycle? |
| 00:31:58.70 | Charles Sakai | So bargaining for most places is going to begin, and I haven't talked directly to you, and I don't know if you're going to address. Normally, you start in March or April, and you look to finish by the end of the fiscal year, so by June 30th, roughly. |
| 00:32:04.64 | Jill Hoffman | I'm not sure. |
| 00:32:05.00 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:32:14.38 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:32:17.30 | Jill Hoffman | I have a question for Charles. So when you talked about the negotiating team, you had the city manager as the point person. Do you normally or ever bring in an independent negotiator to represent the city, or when would you do so? |
| 00:32:25.97 | Charles Sakai | Thank you. |
| 00:32:32.69 | Charles Sakai | So, yes, I actually act as a negotiator for a number of cities and sit at the bargaining table. It really is a question of what you're dealing with. So a lot of the places I work in are contentious negotiations. When you've got a good relationship and deals are being made on a less formal basis, it's often better not to have an attorney at the table. We tend to screw things up a little bit. |
| 00:33:01.11 | Charles Sakai | Not all of them. Only labor lawyers. But, you know, I have some clients. So the city of Napa, I've negotiated for the city of Napa since 2000. But last year they said, you know, the firefighters would like to come in and negotiate a deal without attorneys. And I said, that's a great idea. Why don't you see what happens? They negotiated a one-year agreement. They're going to do that again this year. If things go sideways, then we'll probably come back to the bargaining table in a more formal process, but it's often better. So I think it's useful to have an outside negotiator in contentious negotiations where somebody's got to be the bad guy. And frankly, that's a position that I'm often in where, you know, if I'm working with the city of Vallejo during the bankruptcy or Stockton, |
| 00:33:01.14 | Unknown | not only labor lawyers um... |
| 00:33:44.07 | Charles Sakai | we're doing things that nobody wants to do and nobody wants to have done, but somebody's got to do them and somebody's got to take responsibility for being the person who's at the table doing that. And, you know, I get to leave at the end of the process. You don't have me coming back every day and trying to work with people who feel like I've imposed draconian terms on them. So that's when I would say it's most effective to have an outside negotiator. |
| 00:34:08.03 | Jill Hoffman | Bye. |
| 00:34:08.39 | Charles Sakai | Thank you. |
| 00:34:08.52 | Jill Hoffman | sort of a related question, who normally represents the unions in a situation like a small city like us? |
| 00:34:17.04 | Charles Sakai | In a small city, either the unions would represent themselves, so the president could come in with the executive team and negotiate. If you're part of an affiliated union, often there's going to be a representative, so SEAU often brings in a business agent to do negotiations. Firefighters and police often hire lawyers, but not always, depending on the relationship |
| 00:34:48.53 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. Anything else, Charlie? Anything for... |
| 00:34:53.19 | Jeffrey Chase | that no we look forward to working with the council and bringing forward a negotiating position to the city and then the City Council would give staff the negotiating team directions on how to proceed and we'll do that at a future closed session |
| 00:35:06.98 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. And before we break, any public comment on this issue, on this closed session issue? |
| 00:35:07.09 | Jeffrey Chase | Thank you. |
| 00:35:16.11 | Jill Hoffman | Seeing none, we'll stop until 7 o'clock for a break, and we'll resume at that time. |
| 00:35:53.87 | Jill Hoffman | Welcome to the regular meeting of the Sausalito City Council for February 24, 2015. Debbie, would you take the roll, please? |
| 00:36:06.07 | Unknown | Councilmember Weiner. |
| 00:36:07.20 | Unknown | President. |
| 00:36:07.95 | Unknown | Councilmember Whitty? Here. Vice-Mayor Hoffman? Present. Mayor Theodores? |
| 00:36:08.97 | Jill Hoffman | here. |
| 00:36:13.14 | Jill Hoffman | present. Okay, next on the agenda. Adam Karachi, would you lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance? No? Okay. |
| 00:36:23.88 | Unknown | Well, you will now. |
| 00:36:28.48 | Unknown | pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic. |
| 00:36:30.24 | Unknown | to fly. United. |
| 00:36:31.97 | Ray Budde | Thank you. |
| 00:36:32.03 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:36:35.32 | Unknown | what you said. Amen. you |
| 00:36:39.33 | Jill Hoffman | to this world. liberty and justice for |
| 00:36:41.97 | Unknown | you |
| 00:36:43.97 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:36:48.01 | Jill Hoffman | We did not have a closed session today, so there are no closed session announcements. Moving on to the agenda, can we have a motion for approval of the agenda? Thank you. |
| 00:36:58.25 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:36:58.28 | Unknown | So moved. |
| 00:36:58.77 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:36:58.79 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:36:58.81 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:36:58.84 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:36:59.16 | Unknown | Second. |
| 00:37:00.59 | Jill Hoffman | All in favor? Aye. |
| 00:37:01.34 | Unknown | Bye. |
| 00:37:05.78 | Jill Hoffman | The next thing is we have an announcement on mayor announcements. An issue relating that some concerned citizens brought up to us regarding the spraying of Roundup at MLK, which was scheduled for this morning. I'm happy to announce that that was postponed. It was not sprayed, and we have indefinitely put a halt on spraying of browned up for similar herbicides in our parks, playgrounds, and open spaces pending a review. And so rest assured that will be done. Nothing will happen until we have a a review of it. And certainly, We're looking for alternatives. The process that we are planning to take at this point is to have some hearings before the Parks and Rec Commission because we think that's the appropriate body to look at what the parks and our open spaces and our playgrounds need, what are the dangers of the pesticides and herbicides, and that's a more appropriate place for having a full discussion of the issues. Once that's resolved, we can bring it back here. Some of the alternatives will be that we just discontinue use forever indefinitely. Or we may have other alternatives. So we'll bring it back. But I just want to make sure that everyone, we had a lot of concerned citizens, we want everyone to know that we have suspended any use of such of the Roundup and similar pesticides and herbicides pending review and coming back to the council. |
| 00:38:46.59 | Unknown | No, I'm sorry. That's not on the issue. It's very good. . |
| 00:38:56.36 | Jill Hoffman | This is the time for the city council to hear from citizens regarding matters that are not on the agenda. Except in very limited situations, state law precludes the council from taking action on or engaging in discussions concerning items of business that are not on the agenda. Please, if anyone would like to speak on issues not on the agenda, we ask that you complete a speaker card. Adam, go ahead, but at the end, would you please do so? That helps us track and for purposes of minutes. Thank you. |
| 00:39:23.32 | Aram Krivachi | Thank you. Does this work? |
| 00:39:27.09 | Jill Hoffman | Yes. |
| 00:39:28.86 | Aram Krivachi | Mike works. My name is Aram Krivachi, 840 Olima Street. I am here to thank the council. for appointing two architects to represent the city in dealing with the ferry terminal redesign and reconstruction And I very much appreciate the fact that you selected very thoughtfully two architects who can represent the city competently. I also would like to ask the City Council to think about how we are going to address ferry arrival on the land because I commute by ferry I notice that is not a smooth operation and it's not a gracious arrival experience and perhaps the council could sign a task force or a Thank you. steering committee or a group somebody who has given enough thought what the city would like to look like when you arrive by ferry boat And... submit recommendations to the City Council after Uh, I don't know. inviting public commentary, And. I see this as an opportunity for not only dealing with the Golden Gate ferry system but also to look at ourselves, what we can do and what we can create here as a gracious arrival experience. Thank you. |
| 00:41:24.55 | Jill Hoffman | Anyone else like to comment on anything not on the agenda? Okay, with that, I'll close public comment. Moving on to action minutes of previous meetings. We review the minutes of the regular meeting of the City Council for February 10, 2015. Do we have a motion for approval? |
| 00:41:47.28 | Unknown | So moved. |
| 00:41:48.18 | Jill Hoffman | Second. All in favor? Aye. Aye. |
| 00:41:52.40 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. I'm sorry. |
| 00:41:54.79 | Jill Hoffman | Inannos. Okay. Moving on to the consent calendar. Minutes listed under the Consent Calendar are considered routine and non-controversial. require no discussion, are expected to have unanimous council support and may be enacted by the council in one motion in the form listed below. There are generally no separate discussions of the consent calendar items. Do we have any public comment or any request to remove items from the consent calendar? |
| 00:42:24.28 | Jill Hoffman | Seeing none, do I have a motion for approval of the consent calendar? |
| 00:42:29.14 | Jill Hoffman | I move to approve the consent calendar items for A through F. |
| 00:42:37.96 | Jill Hoffman | Second. |
| 00:42:39.82 | Jill Hoffman | All in favor? Aye. |
| 00:42:40.69 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:42:40.71 | John Donovan | Bye. |
| 00:42:42.28 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, moving on to Business items and the first item is a adopt resolution approving mid-year 2014 2015 budget modifications and that will be led by our Finance director Charlie Francis |
| 00:43:07.66 | Jeffrey Chase | Good evening, Mr. Mayor, members of the council. This is the time of the year when we do the midyear review of revenues and expenditures, and staff makes specific recommendations and recommends adjustments, and we're going to talk about the details in this report. Your staff report detailed the summary of each type of revenue and the major revenue expenditure sources. This presentation is to talk more about the the summary of each type of revenue and the major revenue expenditure sources. And this presentation is to talk more and less with the strategic financial management planning and preparation for the fiscal year 15-16 budget. We'll conclude with adopting the midyear budget resolution. So first, the mid-year budget review is part of a process. As you know, the financial management, strategic financial management is part of a cycle. The cycle is we prepared a two-year budget. Then we adopted the first year of the budget. And then we had the annual financial report. The annual financial report was on your consent calendar just a few moments ago. And the financial report usually answers three questions for the public. Can we pay our bills? And the answer was yes. Did our ability to pay our bills get better? And the answer was yes, it did. And then the third question is, well, is our financial condition such that we can continue to pay our bills in the future? And, you know, And the long-term financial plan, which was a component of the consent item that you just adopted, I'll review briefly here in a second to answer that question in the affirmative also, that yes, our ability to pay our bills is getting better. Along the way, in between when you adopted the budget and tonight, staff is continually involved in analyzing monthly budget to actual reports. Not only is staff involved in doing that, but the city council finance committee is involved in reviewing the budget to actual reports. Quarterly, we prepare treasurer reports on our cash positions. We calibrate our financial projections on a monthly, quarterly, and on an as-needed basis if there are any significant shifts. And then, of course, we do continual analysis and alignment. Then we come to tonight where we do the mid-year budget review. Between now and June, we'll be in budget preparation for fiscal year 16, which is the second year of a two-year budget, and we're continually doing all this monthly analysis. Then we'll have another annual financial report, another midterm review, and prepare the 16-18 budget. So on top of all that, that's the financial planning and management cycle, we'd have something that we call strategic financial management planning. The strategic financial management planning is something that has been going on since 2009. In 2009, our number one strategic plan goal of the city council, this is the general strategic plan, was to achieve and maintain fiscal stability. and nineteen of 2009, stability was our word. We needed to become stable because we had some rough times coming to that. And in 2009, we were able to cross that off our strategic plan because we had reached stability, and now we wanted to enact those certain financial policies that brought us to sustainability. Can we sustain this growth in revenues and expenditures and delivering a good level of service to our citizens and investing in infrastructure? And finally, in 2012, we had a new project in the U.S. and the city council and the community have been instrumental in supporting the financial policies and the structural balance adjustments that we did to get there. And the community also participated by enacting Measure O, which gave us a half-cent sales tax to be able to meet some – our infrastructure needs in the future. So, as I said, we've developed a long-term financial planning. You had a full presentation of it in your consent calendar. the assumptions in the long-term financial plan assumed a 2.61 percent general inflation. I arrived at that assumption by looking at the past 15 years history and what was the average growth over the past 15 years, and then I applied that going forward to our expenditures, our labor costs, except for health care and pension. For health care and pension, I said health care costs grow faster than general inflation costs and are looking backwards, what was the past history and put an inflation number going forward at 5 percent. for pension costs we wanted to be the most conservative as possible and so the 10% annual pension cost inflation is not what we expect But it is a worst case scenario that triples the pension costs over the next 10 years. And so I modeled that to see what would be the results. Would we continue to be sustainable if we experienced 10% pension cost growth? Finally, we looked at the four major revenue sources of the city. The four major revenue sources are property tax, the sales tax, transient occupancy tax, and our parking revenues. And looking backwards over those 10 years, then we were able to make projections. And this graph is a result of those projections. This graph shows that the green line, which are the revenues, are higher than the red line, which is the expenditures, and in our general fund, that's where we want to be. That is also having the reserves in place in order us to be resilient and meet the challenges of the future. Now, I invite the public. I'm going to click on this link. And. Let's do it. |
| 00:49:10.83 | Jeffrey Chase | I invite the public to, they can go to the Sausalito CA As I highlighted here on the screen, at any point in time in the long-term financial plan is up there available for the citizens to review all the way down to the lowest line item. So, for example, this long-term will be clicked on revenues, revenues, revenues, revenues, It will change the graph type to a stacked area chart. You can put the cursor in at any point in time, and you can see what the change is over the prior fiscal year and what the revenue growth is expected to be. I mentioned four major revenue sources. Here's three of them. Our property tax, you can see, are growing at a rate of the 5.21 percent, the rate that I showed you in the assumptions. The sales tax, very conservative rate of growth at 2.8%. Our transient occupancy tax, we've had a significant change in our tax base, and we have that escalating at 5.3% annually. And then finally, our half-cent sales tax. Thank you. And the same thing can be done with expenses. People can go onto the website, click on expenses, and see how much the city pays out for salaries and expects to pay out for salaries in the future for benefits, for professional services. This is for a continuation of the same level of service that we're delivering today. And then, of course, if people are interested, they can change the expense type to departments, and they can see how much is budgeted now and for the future in the police department, in the library, in recreation, and in public works, in community development, et cetera. So I just wanted to bring that to everyone's attention that the facts, the historical facts are on this website, and the historical facts based on those assumptions are what used to present the long-term financial plan, and it's available for scrutiny. Thank you. by the public. Now, how did I get this bigger than the screen? |
| 00:51:24.04 | Jeffrey Chase | Where did the screen go? |
| 00:51:28.70 | Jeffrey Chase | All right, we're going to have to improvise. The, um, |
| 00:51:42.84 | Unknown | Ah, here we go. |
| 00:51:51.01 | Jeffrey Chase | Okay, so now we're back in here. The transfers to the capital project fund represent, you know, the half-cent sales tax along with the other revenue sources and other than the general fund going into the capital project fund. So we're putting significant amounts of resources into the capital project fund to meet all the items that were on page 149 of the budget, the page 149 that showed the storm drain and the concrete streets, the parks, and the ADA improvements that are needed by the city. In strategic financial planning, we're continually looking at operations of the levels of service. We're looking at an efficient and effectiveness measure, ways that we can deliver that service, and we're continually analyzing the infrastructure for what kind of infrastructure improvements need to be made. And then we go to the city council on a continual basis in a number of different forums, as well as the community, and we'll be continuing to do that as we look for direction for preparing the next year's budget, the next year's resource allocation plan. We do that through the mid-year budget review, through the strategic planning discussions that will be on your agenda in the few months, the priority calendar process coming up in the spring, of course the continuing finance committee reviews of the budget as well as the city's financial position with management. And then, of course, in June, you'll have your city council budget hearings. So with that as kind of an overall of strategic financial management planning is all about, let me go into just the general fund review. Where do we stand today? Where we stand today is we had a budget in the general fund of $12,978,291. And it looks like, based on Measure O passing, that we will accrue between April, May, and June $250,000 in sales tax. And we had some declines in our original projections, so that's how it came up to $240,000. But it looks like we might be receiving $100,000 more than we budgeted for property tax, and we're on track to, if the economy stays the same, to receiving $100,000 more than we budgeted in transient occupancy tax. And due to a one-time adjustment from a collection of a state mandate's Senate Bill 90 collection, we picked up an extra $18,000 that we weren't expecting. So that, you know, shows that we're getting about $458,000 more in revenues during the current fiscal year than we initially anticipated. But it's important to point out that that sales tax is accrued. In other April, they have a month to report that to the state of California. So they collect it. And then they collect it. then they send it to the state, then the state has a month or two So we don't actually get the money from that $250,000 until July of 2015. But because of the basis of accounting as accrual, basis of accounting and generally accepted accounting principles forces us to accrue it in this current fiscal year, I'm showing it as a revenue increase but not a cash increase for a fiscal year ending June 30, 2015. In the same way, I'm taking the same 250,000, and I'm going to putting it over into the capital projects fund, not to be spent during the current fiscal year, but is recognized that it's a resource that will be available in the capital projects fund for allocation during the 15, 16 year. At the end of June 30, 2014, We had decided that $131,000 of Please. Department budget that had not been spent should be carried over into the 2014-15 fiscal year in order to effectuate the records information management system That was scheduled to have been bought last year. So if it would have been purchased last year Then that money would have came out of last year's budget So we just carried over last year's budget to this year and that's an appropriation that needs to be reappropriated this year so the total expenses are 381,000 over our original budget of 12 million nine hundred and ten thousand to give us a new budget of 13 million two hundred ninety one thousand for the year ending fiscal fiscal year ending 2015 |
| 00:56:40.33 | Jeffrey Chase | That was a mistake on the shirt there. Okay, so the... General fund summary for fiscal year 15 is we originally budgeted revenues of $12,978,000 And we expected a net surplus of 68,000 to carry us forward for contingencies during the year It looks like we're gonna have an extra seventy seven thousand dollars So our surplus being carried forward over into next year is a hundred forty five thousand one hundred sixty four dollars and staff is recommending that the mid-year budget adjustment that go that hundred forty five thousand goes back to the Finance Committee along with the consideration of the other resources for fiscal year 16 to be to look at what's the correct reserve policy what are all the requirements that are on the city and and allocate those resources in conjunction with all the other needs in front of them The only other item I wanted to point out was the very positive news in our sewer fund. In our sewer fund, we originally anticipated that the bond issue would be for $5 million. we generated $6,218,000, so we had an increase in our sewer fund of money available for sewer fund priority projects of an additional $1.2 million, which means that in the rate study, we had identified a total of $6,295,000 of projects that could be a total of $6,295,000. that we thought were a priority that needed to be done, but because of the rate structure, we were only able to generate $5 million in revenue bonds. However, the market was very favorable to the city. By keeping the debt service level the same, we were able to leverage more resources to meet those priority projects, and we have a process in place now to start designing and delivering those sewer capital projects so there's some adjustments that need to be made to the budget for both revenues and expenses there That concludes my midyear budget review. And I'll try to answer any questions. And then finally, this council action that we're asking you to make tonight. and to amend the budget and provide for supplemental appropriations as reflected in exhibits A, B, and C. And I will say, But... A, B, and C, that D was not included in your packet. That was a mistake on this slide. Any questions that the council has? No questions. |
| 00:59:28.49 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:59:30.44 | Jill Hoffman | Charlie, thanks for that report. Could you – I've had a number of people ask me about the fact that we budgeted the $131,000 for the new capabilities in the police department. What's the mechanism by which we need to re-appropriate? Because if it was carried forward, why, was it a line item in the budget or, you know, |
| 01:00:01.41 | Jeffrey Chase | So it wasn't formally carried forward. The money that was not spent in last year's budget went to the general fund fund balance with the understanding that it would be supplementally appropriated this year. |
| 01:00:17.07 | Jill Hoffman | So that was always an understanding of what we were going to do. |
| 01:00:17.09 | Jeffrey Chase | So that was... Yes. |
| 01:00:22.54 | Jill Hoffman | Charlie, we seem to be continually in the budget process. And by the way, this is great news and it's good to hear that we're doing better than we anticipated. And as we go, we're at the mid-year budget. cycle, and for those members of the community that represent different interests that are looking for possibly requests for funds for next year's budget, what would be the process? When would they need to do that? |
| 01:00:51.24 | Jeffrey Chase | and submit requests through their committees, through the department heads that they interact with the most, or direct to the city manager or to myself. And we would include it into the committee and we would include it into the committee and we would include it into the committee Budget. supplemental proposal process that's a part of the budget preparation for next year so we that's one mechanism by which we receive community input for next year's budget another mechanism is the priority calendar setting process where we have items recommended from staff items recommended from the council and then of course we reach out to all the commissions and committees the city and and say we're now entertaining items that you may want to include on the City Council's priority calendar. Then, of course, as agenda items come up during the year, the City Council can also then remand them back to staff for staff to put into consideration for next year's budget. I keep a list of all those, and we put them in the budget as what's called supplemental approval requests that go before the City Council Finance Committee. The City Council Finance Committee reviews them along with all the other requests that are in the budget and then makes a formal recommendation to the City Council at their first budgeted public hearing. Now, unlike prior years, we will be keeping on our OpenGov website, Um, And then budget milestones, you can see the And in here, we have a lot of different types of things that we've seen in the past. And we've seen a lot of different types of things. And we've seen a lot of different types of things. And we have the budget for the current year. And we have the budget for the current year. estimated today's midyear budget review estimate, and then the original proposed second year budget that was in the two-year budget that we've adopted now that we know that there are certain changes that will occur next year because of the measure o passing we have a revised second year proposed budget which is your far right hand column as we go through Finance Committee and Finance Committee adds changes or makes recommendations and and the budget changes There will be... Bar. THE END OF graphs. added to the right as we go through the various meetings so the public and the other city council members can follow the recommendations that are being made by the finance committee. And this can be drilled down all the way down to the line item just like the other charts that I showed you. |
| 01:03:48.80 | Jill Hoffman | Tony, it's... |
| 01:03:48.83 | Jeffrey Chase | Did I answer all of that? |
| 01:03:51.35 | Jill Hoffman | it. |
| 01:03:51.70 | Jeffrey Chase | Councilmember Huffman. |
| 01:03:52.48 | Jill Hoffman | Is there somewhere... Is there somewhere on there where it shows appropriations for the different groups, non-funded groups, I guess you could say, in Sausalito? |
| 01:04:02.15 | Jeffrey Chase | Well, there is a group that's called non-departmental. I'm going to click on it here, and then I'm going to change this to expense type. and then come down here to I think it's other services. |
| 01:04:22.92 | Unknown | Nope. |
| 01:04:26.60 | Unknown | It's going to take me a second here. Operations, let's try that. Oh. |
| 01:04:42.16 | Jeffrey Chase | Here we go. So... As the council knows, all of the visualization on top is supported by tables underneath. And so here you can see how much has been appropriated In the past and going forward for the Business Hospitality Committee, for Animal Control, for the Marine General Services Authority, for the Historical Society, and some of those groups where we've made those kinds of proposals, too. We don't have in here formal line items like for the organizations that we give donations to at Christmas time, things like that. |
| 01:05:25.61 | Jill Hoffman | Charlie, you ran by it very quickly. So for those here who are interested and also for those who are watching at home, could you explain very briefly again the concept of our two-year cycle and where we are right now in that process? Because I think that's a little confusing for some people. I understand the chart you've got, but you don't need to use a graphic for that. Just to explain where we are. |
| 01:05:55.16 | Jeffrey Chase | All right. There we are. Okay, so yeah. So we're in the – just completing the first – we're in the middle of the first year of a two-year budget. At that time, the city goes – what's an intensive look at the budget. We go back to all the line items and all the levels of service that we're doing are saying, what do we need to – what do we need to – what do we need to do? what resources do we need and how are we going to deliver that service so it's we usually start that budget review process in January city manager meets with all the department heads they review levels of service and make recommendations going forward how we're going to do that for a two year period and then as we go through the year there's adjustments made there always are but the second year is more of a perfunctory review we usually start that review later in the year and we just say what minor tweaks and adjustments need to be made in order to keep us within that two-year time frame the two-year time frame is sandwiched in between history and our long-term financial plan which is continually being adjusted by saying are we still on track our financial policy still adequate to keep us resilient as we look at towards the future So I hope I did that justice. |
| 01:07:12.75 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. And just to be clear, the first year was the current year we're in, and the budget that we will be doing now is the second year of the two-year budget. |
| 01:07:26.89 | Jeffrey Chase | Correct. We're seven months, seven and a half months into the first year of a two-year budget. |
| 01:07:36.85 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. Now it is time for public comment on the budget modification presentation. I'm pretty sure. And this is the time. my announcement regarding public comment to give everyone an opportunity to be heard and to ensure the presentation of different points of view. Council requests that members of the audience who wish to speak complete a speaker's card, and when called on, always address the chair, state your name, state your views succinctly, and limit presentations to three minutes. So, would anyone like to speak on the mid-year budget presentation? |
| 01:08:22.34 | Gerry Taylor | Good evening, I'm Gerry Taylor. I'm here representing the Saucydo Historical Society of which I am the president. With me tonight is Dana Whitson, who will be making the formal presentation to you. We also have in our audience Susan Frank and Jim Muldoon, who are members of the Board of Directors, Alice Merrill and John Fedor, who in fact is our Volunteer of the Year. in about 1999, with a donation of Michael Rex. and a collection of $34,000 from members and concerned citizens. The Ice House building was moved from Caledonia Street and established down on Bridgeway. It has been a source of pride for all of us in Sausalito, and it represents the best because this was a citizen movement. This was not government from the top down. This was government from the bottom up. |
| 01:09:13.76 | Gerry Taylor | For many years, the ladies of the Ice House, who in fact were honored this year by the city as the grand marshals of the Fourth of July parade, Specifically Doris Berdahl, Robin Sweeney, B. Cyder, Julie Warren, and Fritzie James have provided the bulk of the staff time down there. But that can't last forever obviously just from that list of names These people are not just docents, they are not just restaurant recommenders, they are part of SOSO history. This is something that is felt by visitors to Sausalito. This is good for ourselves to feel this, to see this, to learn this. For newcomers to our city, it's good for business. |
| 01:10:00.07 | Gerry Taylor | For many years the Ice House has been operating at a deficit that our general membership funds have been supporting. We need help. We have made several steps. We've gone to the members and asked for specific donations to support the Ice House, make changes that we feel are necessary. We have gone to the art festival. They have given us a grant. We need your help now with the supplemental funding, and Dana Whitson will explain some of the details of what we would like and how we intend to do it. And I believe you have a letter from me and the board in your packet. do you know? |
| 01:10:40.41 | Dana Whitson | Thank you. |
| 01:10:48.85 | Dana Whitson | The ICE House was installed with $34,000 in funds from the community. As Jerry said, it was a total community effort. And you'll notice the Phil Frank graphics here. They were – Phil was instrumental in getting this done, and in fact, he created – the designs, and Susan Frank is here as well, and she's continuing to work on this project. um, The Ice House entertains visitors from all of the continents. We recorded 43 different countries just in one year. We have about 31,000 visitors a year We also recorded about 46 states. These people come in both for enrichment, and we like to believe it's part of seeing the authentic Sausalito, the Sausalito history and the things that they may not see if they never venture out of the immediate downtown. I wanted to point out that your own economic development study points out that museums and historical sites and parks are all part of a big economic generator in the community, that they have multiplier effects so that the services that are given out by the docents at the ICE House are something that contributes to the economic well-being of the community. You might be surprised to know that TripAdvisor says that the Ice House is the number two tourist attraction, and I love the quote of, it's so quaint and cute. wonderful comments from people, one that appeared in our guest book was from someone that runs a small museum in New York. And she says, I know a good museum when I see one, and this is it. And it's very popular, particularly with foreign visitors some reason We've had some challenges this year. The Historical Society has been subsidizing by more than 5,000 this year, and minimum wages increased in July, so that's put us under some challenges We raised $3,400 in donations from our members, specifically dedicated to the Ice House and the Bay Model exhibits. And, um, We're also approaching other community organizations we've talked to the Chamber of Commerce. We've sent requests to downtown businesses as well. We got a $1,500 grant from the Sausalito Art Festival, And we're also working on improving our merchandising strategy to help boost the revenues from that source so that we can make it more sustainable in the future. |
| 01:13:55.49 | Dana Whitson | We have a community advisory group that met last night, in fact, of business owners that are giving us some input on things that we can do to both improve the exhibits and to reach our goals of self-sufficiency. We're going to be doing mobile phone-based guides that people can pick up a map and use their own telephone to walk around and see historic sites. We're enhancing customer service training. We've hired three new people to manage the ICE House. Doris Berdahl is retiring. And Robin Sweeney is probably not too far behind. celebrating her 90th birthday this summer, and she deserves an opportunity for retirement. We're going to be refreshing the exhibits and putting some modern support systems and including computers. In closing, we are requesting $4,200 in supplemental funds, and we pledge our continuing participation with partnerships with the Chamber of Commerce in the City of Sausalito. And I trust and hope that in future years, we'll be able to come to you and say that We're I'm not sure. building the self-sufficiency. I was pleased last night, one of the businesses that came to advise us on our merchandising strategy said, She thought our goal of 6,000 this year was easily achievable if we would just concentrate on that. So we're looking forward to moving forward to better things. And just as an aside, I want to congratulate you on the budget report that Charlie gave you and the progress that you're making for fiscal sustainability. |
| 01:15:46.29 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Ellen. |
| 01:15:53.50 | Jill Hoffman | Anyone else like to public comment on the mid-year budget presentation? |
| 01:16:07.39 | Ron Albert | Yes, hello, Ron Albert, resident Sausalito. I hadn't expected to speak on this item, but one of my first service projects with the Rotary Club was doing the trench through the parking lot to bring power to that building. First time I'd ever operated a concrete saw or a jackhammer. And I'm also a longtime member of the Sausalito Historical Society, although a relatively passive member. And I didn't, especially in light of our increasing TOT revenues, I mean, this is really an appropriate expenditure from that particular income source, because they were canned and loved together. This provides something for the people who are staying in our local hotels. So I just wanted to speak in support of this very modest grant request by the Historical Society. Thank you. |
| 01:17:10.36 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. Any other members of the public like to speak on the budget modifications? |
| 01:17:21.26 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, seeing none, we'll bring it back up here for comment. |
| 01:17:26.04 | Jill Hoffman | Mr. Mayor, I have a question of Dana, if I may. |
| 01:17:28.15 | Jill Hoffman | Sure. |
| 01:17:32.16 | Jill Hoffman | Just to be clear, are you requesting the 4200 for as a modification for this current budget? For the current budget. Or you're giving us a heads up of what you'll be doing for next year's budget? |
| 01:17:41.85 | Dana Whitson | for the current budget. |
| 01:17:46.52 | Dana Whitson | We had submitted to your staff a budget that showed a deficit of about, I think, 4,500, and we're asking for 4,200 from you. We're still optimistic that we're going to do everything, including increasing donations in our donation box. We've raised the bar on everything, so it would be for a modification to this budget, and we would work with your staff to try and increase our budget. ability to self-sustain the operation Initially it was the Chamber of Commerce that supported this operation fully and Gradually, it fell half to the city and then Um. have to the city and the the Historical Society. So we're proud and pleased to do it, but 4,200 is nearly a third of our operating budget. |
| 01:18:49.05 | Jill Hoffman | Thanks, Dan. |
| 01:18:49.47 | Jill Hoffman | you Okay, now time for comment. Any comments? |
| 01:18:59.75 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah, so generally on the comments on the midyear review, you know, this is my – I've just started my third year on the Finance Committee, so I've been tracking the budget pretty closely. I've, for the last two years, been saying that we are in a financially extremely well managed city. We have managed to look ahead, make sure that risks are identified. Part of what Charlie explained was the long-term financial strategic planning, 10-year financial model and so on, which is looking ahead and modeling through various scenarios. We're going to have a lot of challenges in the next budget, particularly with capital improvement needs, mandated mandates, some of which ADA, storm drains, and so on. And we had the foresight to raise the sales tax in order to provide money for that. But it still means that we're going to have to enter a time of really intensive capital expenditure over the next time period. so for next year's budget, I think that's going to be the thing that we need to focus on. And I'd just like everybody to know that I think we are moving ahead prudently, carefully, and Charla's major report demonstrates demonstrates that fact I would like to also perhaps recommend if my colleagues are interested in perhaps modifying our current budget by meeting the historic society's request and would like us to consider adding that $4,200 to the budget. |
| 01:21:18.46 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah, I do have some comments. I think because of the nature of the Ice House that it's a visitor center slash historical society, it provides, you know, a public service in the town as well as, you know, historical functions. So I think the modest request, I think that's warranted in this case under this budget. So I would support that. |
| 01:21:42.32 | Unknown | I also agree with both the Council and the Vice Mayor. That building used to be on Caledonia Street. And in the 1990s, that was my shock. |
| 01:22:00.27 | Unknown | And then Michael Wax came along and I took it out, but I think that it's done wonders down there. I think it's a great addition, and I would be fully in support of that. |
| 01:22:16.71 | Jill Hoffman | Well, I also would support that. Not only is it an extremely valuable asset to the community, but it is extremely well managed, as is our budget, and it's really good news. Certainly kudos to our staff and particularly our finance director for managing us through this process. We're a very well managedmanaged city on a budget process, and we're certainly open, OpenGov, for all our residents to see. So I think it's all good news, and I would support it. So if, Charlie, if you can come back with the proposed resolution, and then we'll do that with the amendment to give the $4,200 in supplemental funds to the Sausalito Historical Society. |
| 01:23:07.45 | Jeffrey Chase | Let me... |
| 01:23:14.09 | Jill Hoffman | so what charlotte's getting the details up there i would uh... move to adopt the resolution approving the midyear budget 2014-15 modifications, including the supplemental appropriations as reflected on Exhibits A, B, and C, and as also amended by Charlie's chicken scratch on the slide there, which includes $4,200 for the ice house. |
| 01:23:46.15 | Jill Hoffman | Second. We lose. All in favor? Aye. That's unanimous. Thank you. Thank you. |
| 01:23:49.44 | Jill Hoffman | Bye. Thank you. |
| 01:24:02.38 | Unknown | It can take a minute and let them. |
| 01:24:03.56 | Sam Silverman | Thank you. |
| 01:24:03.58 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:24:23.29 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:24:25.01 | Jill Hoffman | Our next public hearing is to introduce and read by title only an ordinance of the City City Council of Sausalito amending Title 10 to modify SMC Section 10.28. regarding the management plan and annual compliance review standards for emergency shelters in the emergency shelter overlays zone and continue the reading to March 3rd, 2015. |
| 01:24:38.06 | Unknown | Guardian. |
| 01:24:50.49 | Jill Hoffman | quite an objective we hit, but really will walk us through it and we'll figure this out. |
| 01:24:52.40 | Unknown | will |
| 01:24:56.06 | Unknown | I will. Good evening, Mr. Mayor, council members, and the public that's here this evening and watching tonight. Tonight, I have a discussion for a zoning ordinance text amendment regarding the emergency shelter ordinance, which was adopted last July. |
| 01:24:57.11 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 01:25:11.42 | Unknown | The Planning Commission has reviewed the proposed ordinance amendment and has recommended 5-0 that the Council adopt the modifications. In terms of the steps for the City Council, the Council is required to hold two hearings on any proposed zoning ordinance text amendment prior to adoption. In terms of a brief background, in 2007, Senate Bill 2 was adopted, which required, among other items, cities and counties to address homeless housing needs for the homeless in their communities. In 2012, the city adopted an updated housing element, which included a program that was to address the requirements of Senate Bill 2 by establishing a zoning district where emergency homeless shelters would be allowed by right and also establishing standards that would manage those shelters. In July of 2014, so July of last year, the city adopted an ordinance which addressed the requirements of Senate Bill 2. In January of this year, the city adopted an updated housing element. And during the state's review of that housing element, the state identified that the adopted ordinance the city adopted in July overreached a bit, and the state required three specific modifications to that ordinance. that adopted housing element that the council adopted in January of this year included a program to make those minor modifications. And so that's Housing Element Program 27. |
| 01:26:57.14 | Unknown | So as a refresher, Senate Bill 2 requires cities, like I said, to identify at least one zoning district in their community where emergency shelters are allowed without any special permits. and emergency shelters are defined by the state as temporary housing for homeless persons that is limited to occupancy of six months or less by a homeless person. In addition to selecting a zoning district where that type of use would be allowed without a special use permit. standards that the city is allowed to impose upon such a shelter, and those are limited the the number of beds per person in that shelter the off-street parking requirements, the location and the size of waiting areas in the shelter, the provision of on-site management. the proximity to other shelters with the maximum requirement of them to not be more than 300 feet apart. the length of stay of a resident of the shelter, lighting, and then security during operation. Otherwise, the shelter is mandated to be subject to the same standards as other uses in that zoning district. |
| 01:28:25.48 | Unknown | The required minor amendments that are before you this evening are located in the emergency shelter operations section of the adopted emergency shelter ordinance. So the first two are related to the management plan. And the city is allowed to require a management plan, which is a plan for the shelter operator. They're required to submit it, indicating how they're running their shelter, essentially. And we can ask them to submit in their management plan items like hours of operation, admission hours, security, guest rules, and that sort of thing. However, the city is not allowed to approve the plan once it has been submitted. So the first modification is related to the fact that the current ordinance requires that the management plan be approved by the city so the state is requiring that we remove that approval we're allowed to require the management plan but we're not allowed to approve the management plan The second modification is also related to the management plan. The state told us that the city is required to clarify that all of the items that are listed in the management plan requirements are not actually required of the shelter operator to provide. So with particular reference to the resident counseling and treatment reference, the state thought that by saying that – by listing it the way that we did in the ordinance, there was – it was implied that we were requiring that type of treatment and counseling as part of a shelter. They wanted us to clarify that if a shelter operator provides that type of service, that it needs to be included in the management plan. So we've made that modification by adding the sentence to the extent applicable before the listing of the items. And the third amendment is the removal of the annual report And this report was required going to be required of a shelter operator to be provided on an annual basis indicating their compliance with the standards and the zoning ordinance. And the state has told us that since the city does not require such a report for other uses in that same zoning district, we can't require it of an emergency shelter. So we need to remove that section. |
| 01:31:08.68 | Unknown | Staff has indicated in the staff report that this ordinance amendment is consistent with a number of policies in the housing element of the general plan. including Program 27, which requires this very modification. Also, as stated in the staff report, this minor text amendment is exempt from environmental review for the same reasons that the original ordinance was exempt from CEQA. |
| 01:31:37.53 | Unknown | Public notice was provided in the manner on the screen and also as listed in the staff report. We have received three written comments, two of which are late mail items and were provided to you earlier and tonight. So with that, staff is recommending that the council introduce and read by title only the proposed ordinance, which modifies the provisions of the management plan and annual compliance review sections in the emergency shelter regulations of the zoning ordinance. and then also to continue the second reading to March 3rd. That concludes my staff report and I'm available for any questions. |
| 01:32:17.77 | Jill Hoffman | bring it back here for questions. Who would like to start? Okay. Move this way. |
| 01:32:22.59 | Jill Hoffman | I do have some questions. I don't really understand what introduce and read by title only in ordinance, because I think there's been a lot of questions from the public on this ordinance in the past few weeks, and so I'd like to ask some questions about the ordinance itself. And I'm not prohibited from that as far as I know. |
| 01:32:42.52 | Mary Wagner | Vice Mayor Hoffman, if I can just speak to that. Sure. It's a government code section. It's a, you're certainly not prevented from discussing the ordinance. In fact, that's the whole reason for this public hearing. It literally just means that in the past, you had to read the whole ordinance. And so the statute allowed you to read just the title instead of having to literally read the entire ordinance into the record. |
| 01:32:50.27 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 01:32:50.45 | Unknown | THE END OF THE END OF THE Great. |
| 01:32:57.93 | Jill Hoffman | Yes. |
| 01:32:59.21 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:32:59.23 | Jill Hoffman | I got it. Okay. |
| 01:33:04.00 | Jill Hoffman | Great. Thanks. Okay. That's great. Okay. So I had some questions about do we have the map or do we have a map of the zones? Okay, great. So there's been a lot of questions from the public since the notice went out about the zones that have been identified, and especially the zones that include school districts or within close proximity to school districts. And so I think that's certainly one of the questions we want to talk about. We're talking about modifying the ordinance, which we have to do anyway, then I think we definitely need to address that issue. And the zones seem to be fairly, you know, large and so modifying that to deal with the school's issues I think is a valid issue and something that we should discuss. I also have some questions about – go ahead. Sure. You want to do one by one or you want to get all of them out of market? No, I just meant on that point. Yeah, sure. |
| 01:34:01.95 | Jill Hoffman | I think it may be valid as we enter into this discussion. Pardon me for interrupting that. We may want to get clear, maybe we have the city attorney voice too, what we're able to do tonight and what we're not able to do tonight because we have certain modifications that needed to be both noticed and go through the Planning Commission that come here that we are able actually to do tonight. |
| 01:34:05.61 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:34:05.63 | Unknown | THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 01:34:05.71 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:34:06.17 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:34:06.19 | Jill Hoffman | Right. |
| 01:34:06.64 | Unknown | Bye. |
| 01:34:24.12 | Jill Hoffman | And there are other things we can't, which we may be getting through. Would one of you like to address that issue so we're clear both up here and with the audience about what we can and can't do? |
| 01:34:34.87 | Mary Wagner | Sure, and thank you, Mr. Mayor. Under the Government Code and is set forth in the City Zoning Ordinance, modifications to the zoning code have to be reviewed by the Planning Commission and then they make a recommendation to the City Council. So if the City Council were to direct modifications to the ordinance tonight that weren't previously reviewed by the Planning we would need to return those to the Planning Commission for their review and then bring that recommendation back to the Council for action. So the modifications that are Um, that were reviewed as part of the housing element adoption and were reviewed by the Planning Commission or what's in front of you tonight, and if we need to make other we would have to take that back to the Planning Commission. |
| 01:35:20.45 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, great. Well, let me get through all my changes. And then we'll decide, you know what, I understand that we won't probably get anything accomplished tonight, but it's on the table, and if we have to have a second reading, then we have a second reading, and there may be motions at that time, I don't know. specifically that's a big area. The second area that I wanted to ask Lily about was I was looking at SB2, and about multi-jurisdictional agreements. And when you're talking about specifically under Section 3A4C, And again, I'm just listing out all of my questions, and we can get through them as we because if you have a multi-jurisdictional agreement that can accommodate that jurisdiction's need for emergency shelter, that you can have zoning requirements that do require conditional use permits. So one of the issues with, I think, this ordinance and the concern from the public is that Um, the use of shelters throughout town in all of these areas that we've identified is allowed without a conditional use permit as we've included it in the housing element. So that's one that's a question of concern. And then of course the other questions of concern have to do you know, the 90-day period up to 90 days and then an additional six months. So and again we're going back to the public's concern about especially the districts next to the schools if you're talking about you know the inability to to look at what types of emergency shelters are going to be in place, how long they're going to be there, and the close proximity there to the schools, I think warrants further discussion from the City Council and modification. THE END OF our program. understanding that it seems to me our program is very broad and goes you know, goes far beyond the minimum of what's required. So I think the changes that I'm looking at, shouldn't affect the housing element update because they seem to be in excess of what's the minimum required under the code. So that – and it may be that I would request or make a motion that it go back to the Planning Commission with regard to that, those issues specifically – specifically the ones next to the schools and the volume that's presented in our plan. |
| 01:38:10.74 | Jill Hoffman | We're going to have questions. |
| 01:38:11.90 | Jill Hoffman | We're at questions. So isn't that right? |
| 01:38:15.89 | Jill Hoffman | All right. |
| 01:38:15.97 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 01:38:15.97 | Unknown | I'm ready to... |
| 01:38:17.68 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah, I think that's my checklist, yeah. |
| 01:38:24.49 | Jill Hoffman | Well, I'd like Lily to answer it. I'd like that question answered before I ask my question. |
| 01:38:28.91 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:38:29.03 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah. |
| 01:38:29.30 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:38:33.35 | Unknown | THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 01:38:33.44 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. Mr. Mayor, I may need to clarify my question. |
| 01:38:36.78 | Mary Wagner | Yeah. I think I – I mean, I'm not sure what the specific question was, but I do think it's important to reiterate that the emergency shelter overlay zone exists. It was adopted in July of 2014. If the City Council wants to direct that this be reopened and re-looked at, that's something that you can do. It's an element that's required under your housing element. It's an element that required HCD to review and approve it, so if the Council wants to look at undertaking modifications to the the overlay zone itself and the sites that are included in that zone Um, we would need to go back and revisit the discussion that was had actually in beginning in 2012? when the council directed that this be the zone that was be created that the public institutional zone be created STAFF WOULD RECOMMEND that you take action in compliance with your housing element program. to make these minor modifications now and that if there's direction to do additional research or bring the council additional issues that you direct us to do that independently of making these modifications that are required under your adopted element. |
| 01:40:03.50 | Jill Hoffman | So actually, my questions sort of are an attempt to fill in some of the blanks with yours, if I may. So there's a couple of things I want to make sure everybody understands. Or maybe I need to understand as well. requires us to identify one of our zones, right? Correct. Right, and in 2012, the zone that was identified by the city council then was our public institutional zone. Do we actually, and could you just point out for everybody what the public institutional zones that – and so then we put an overlay on top of the public institutional zone for the emergency shelter. And so which ones of the PI zone did we put the overlay on? So that's my first question. |
| 01:40:38.16 | Greg Price | Okay. |
| 01:41:13.65 | Unknown | Sure. So the public institutional zone is what's in purple on the screen here. So I'll point to some of the sites. This is the Spencer Fire Station site here. Here we are at City Hall. This is police and fire station over here. So the overlay that the council adopted in July are the sites that are outlined with the little dots here. Here, here, here, here, here, and here. |
| 01:41:48.07 | Mary Wagner | Councilmember Withey, if I may, in your comment that SB2 required that you designate a zone, absolutely correct, and not only required that you designate a zone, but that those uses be allowed by right without any development restrictions or different standards than other uses that already exist in the zone. |
| 01:42:08.95 | Jill Hoffman | And we had a lot of, if I recall, discussion at the time. There was a lot of discussion in 2012. I wasn't on the council then. But then there was a lot of discussion during the housing announcement, and there was a lot of discussion last year when we adopted this ordinance of the emergency shelter overlay. What was the rationale for picking the public institutional zone in the first place? |
| 01:42:39.05 | Unknown | The council had a variety of options. So, you had your residential zoning districts, which the council didn't find appropriate for emergency shelters. You had your commercial zoning districts downtown and then also sprinkled throughout the town in commercial neighborhood districts. And then you have your industrial zoning district and the marinship in addition to the public institutional zoning districts. Council ultimately selected the public institutional with all of those options. |
| 01:43:08.89 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah, which a lot of jurisdictions do, I believe. So the other thing is, isn't in general the city the landlord or the property owner of most of the sites in the PI zone? That's correct. Right. And so even if the state demands by SV2 that we're not allowed to put a CUP, have a CUP for that use and therefore it has to be somewhat less discretionary, the city still has its rights as property owner for anybody who wanted to come in and try and put and make a case for putting a shelter in one of our PI sites. |
| 01:43:26.93 | Unknown | That's correct. |
| 01:44:04.64 | Unknown | Correct. |
| 01:44:06.62 | Jill Hoffman | Mary, is there anything you wanted to add to that about our rights as property owner |
| 01:44:12.40 | Mary Wagner | No, that statement's actually absolutely correct, Council Member Withey, that the, just like any other use that goes on a site, you have to have the land owner's permission to locate that use on the site. |
| 01:44:29.58 | Jill Hoffman | Okay. Okay, I think that's really all I, just clarifying questions there. |
| 01:44:39.40 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. Well, yeah, I guess I do. Do you want to do a public comment? Let me, yeah, let me, I have like just. |
| 01:44:44.97 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 01:44:47.50 | Jill Hoffman | very quickly. Um, So under SB2, though, Lily, there's no requirement for the volume of sites that we've provided. Is that correct? |
| 01:44:59.84 | Unknown | We have to demonstrate that we have capacity for the unsheltered homeless in our community. There's a point in time count done every two years. The last one was done in 2013, I believe, at which time there were, I believe, 30 unsheltered homeless in Sausalito. |
| 01:45:16.80 | Jill Hoffman | THE END OF THE END OF THE Yeah, I think that was 23. |
| 01:45:24.27 | Unknown | There were two different numbers. One was the 2011 number, one was 2013. I can't remember which one was which. We can go back and take a look from the housing elements from 2012 and the one that was just But we have to show capacity for that number in our jurisdiction. |
| 01:45:41.23 | Jill Hoffman | Okay. But again, there's no reason that we have to designate how many sites we have, like one, two, three, four, five. |
| 01:45:50.95 | Unknown | The state doesn't say you need to have 13 sites, for example. We just have to show the capacity on those sites for such a shelter in the future. |
| 01:45:54.50 | Jill Hoffman | for example. |
| 01:45:55.41 | Mary Wagner | Thank you. |
| 01:45:55.43 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 01:45:55.48 | Mary Wagner | Bye. |
| 01:46:00.17 | Mary Wagner | Thank you. |
| 01:46:00.19 | Jill Hoffman | Okay. |
| 01:46:00.44 | Mary Wagner | Thank you. And if I may add to that, Mr. Mayor, the HCD does want to know that there is actual capacity. They do look at that when they reviewed the city's zone. They looked at the specific areas that were designated to determine if they believed there was sufficient capacity in those zones. |
| 01:46:17.45 | Jill Hoffman | Okay. And then there's no requirement under SB2 also for a minimum number of beds. No. AND THERE'S NO REQUIREMENT FOR THE TIME. for the days that you allow the stays. Thank you. |
| 01:46:34.71 | Mary Wagner | No. Thank you. However, it does allow us to regulate those. Those are the areas we were allowed to regulate. |
| 01:46:39.32 | Jill Hoffman | Right. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. That's up to us. Okay. |
| 01:46:44.57 | Mary Wagner | Well, yes, it's up to the city, and it's then reviewed by HCD. |
| 01:46:50.24 | Jill Hoffman | And then we have, so I also saw in there that we have further amendments. So after we adopt a plan, and so we adopted our plan in July of 2014, or was it |
| 01:47:01.22 | Unknown | So, the housing – the 2012 housing element was adopted in 2012. It included a program to go through the ordinance adoption. We did that in beginning of 2014. This ordinance was adopted in July. of 2014. After the adoption, the state reviewed the ordinance as they were reviewing our updated housing element, and they identified these changes that needed to be made. And so, those – these changes that are before you tonight are included in your current housing |
| 01:47:30.82 | Jill Hoffman | Okay. And so when you talk about – when it says you have further amendments, you have a year from adoption, does that year start from July of 2014 or does that start from – |
| 01:47:40.56 | Unknown | What section are you referring to, Vice Mayor? |
| 01:47:40.59 | Jill Hoffman | November. I just have a note here that further amendments you have a year to adopt. It's somewhere in this nice packet that you gave me. I was just wondering when the year starts to run or has it already run because this was adopted back in whenever it was. |
| 01:48:03.29 | Unknown | We'd have to take a look at that if it's a section of the government code. I don't believe it's part of our ordinance. |
| 01:48:05.33 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 01:48:09.06 | Jill Hoffman | Just to be clear, the ordinance has already passed. These are requests. And we could change the ordinance in the future, provided the thing that we have to be clear is HECD reviews and approves it. And just to be clear, we have gone through a lot of process on this, starting from 2012 and through the housing element and passing it. And this has been negotiated with HECD, so this is not something I think there's Good. some implication that this is something that we just decided and were well above the minimum. This was very difficult to negotiate with ACD and as you can see, ACD came with even minor things so this is not something that we have i think most people that have voted on it and we've gone through planning commissions and the three different councils this is we've tried to keep this to bare bones so this is uh just so you know those kinds of things this is not something that we just decided and and and went beyond the uh what was necessary this is required by law we We have to do it. We've had it passed by three councils, all the planning commissions, just went through our planning commission unanimously. And I think the other thing, and I think Councilmember Withey was pointing out, we are the owner, one of the reasons that this is public and institutional, we are the owners of this property. Number one is, and I think people miss this, there is no plan for an emergency shelter at all. No one's approached this. There is no plan whatsoever. The city owns the properties in each case so that we are the landlord and would certainly have to agree as a landlord, not only as the city, to be able to do this. This is not something that's eminent. I know there's people that are concerned, but we're long ways away of having any emergency shelters on city property, and we certainly have. the, as owner of the ability. And we are also, and when it comes to the schools, we are both the landlord and the owner, and we are, we would own any property that an emergency shelter. So the city right here has total control over that. So just to be clear on that portion of it. |
| 01:50:25.46 | Jill Hoffman | Mr. Mayor, could we perhaps get public comment? Because we might have questions after that. |
| 01:50:33.07 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, could I get a show of hands who would like to comment on this issue? Okay. Now, again, we would ask you to There's a three-minute limit. Could you maybe get in line so that we can move the process? We ask you, if you would, to fill out a speaker card, if you would, and to state your name as you come forward. Thank you. Hi. Well, actually, I have the card, so. No, just go in line. We'll take them. |
| 01:50:56.63 | Sandra Cannon | Well, |
| 01:51:00.71 | Sandra Cannon | My name is Sandra Cannon. Are you ready for me? Yeah. Sure. Okay. So I live in the north end of town next to the schools. |
| 01:51:03.16 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, so I live in the northern |
| 01:51:09.22 | Sandra Cannon | And we understand we're a little late in the process, but I've spent the past couple days talking to everyone in my neighborhood. We're very unclear on this about what is an emergency. So the issue is 2012, it kind of is a long time ago in our neighborhood because our neighborhood has changed dramatically. I've lived on my street for 20 years. We have kids there now. They play. The street is full of kids. I have families. It's a whole different thing than it ever was, and even from three years ago. So what we don't really understand is, Okay, it seems like most of us were under the impression that it was emergency housing which is great. we need emergency housing for floods or earthquakes or whatever. But what concerns us is the treatment center aspect of it. So I'll be really succinct about that. We are concerned about this being in our neighborhood, in our schools, next to our kids. And I don't have kids. I just live there. I guess it's very vague, and even from the discussion previously, it's very vague about what's happening here. 59 people in a treatment center for nine months? Or are we talking about Bo? Or are we talking about people coming from out of town? Or who's going to be in these treatment centers? What our issue is, So, I mean, we, actually would be okay with taking this back to the Planning Commission because we want to know, I mean, if you're going to stick this in our neighborhood, we want to know that. Bye. Bye. Thank you. Um, I'm a member of Alcoholics Anonymous, and I have been for, you know, 20 years. I spend a lot of time on the street level in this town helping people. I can't say I'm affiliated with that organization at a public level because it's anonymous. And, you know, but when your sisters and your brothers and your family need someone to come, I go. I do that in Sausalito. So I'm very keen on, you know, homeless shelters. I go and speak at them and things like this. I know that really the wrong place for it is in that neighborhood. It's just not the right place for it. I don't have anything against homeless centers. I don't have anything against people trying to get their lives together. I help people all the time try to get their lives together. I have an issue with it at the schools and on my street because I'm selfish, but I really – so we don't understand it, and we are asking that, you know, yeah, we'd like it to be taken back to the Planning Commission, even if that's what has to happen, because the neighborhood's changed. I mean, it's really changed. So if you talked about this at 2012, we're really sorry we didn't participate. But we'd like to participate now. Thanks. Bye. |
| 01:54:20.02 | John DeRay | Hello, my name is John DeRay. I'm going to read quickly here because I have about two and a quarter pages. Over the past several weeks, after receiving several of these flyers, I decided it was going to be necessary to understand SB2 if you were going to understand this issue. So I read SB2 several times. I understand it. I've become familiar with what is mandated requiring emergency homeless shelters. The issue here tonight is the amendments that the state is requiring us to remove. The items in question seem to a clear violation of sp2 city council has no choice but to approve these amendments it says emergency shelters may only be subject to development and management standards that apply to residents or commercial developments within the same zone so it's clear the city cannot approve the management plan because other developments cannot approve the management plan because other developments in the zone do not have their plans required to be approved the same goes for the annual report what I don't understand is how this was missed it's very clear in SP2 it made me realize that the ordinance that was approved last July did not fully reflect the requirements of SP2 it made me examine the ordinance more closely I assume these provisions were included by the City Council as a way to have control of the institutions, even though that control was minimal, and I appreciate that. However, once these are passed, we will have a lot less control. Then it made me question how the scope of the ordinance was greater than what was required by SB 2, nine parcels, zone for emergency homeless shelter for 23 people, arguably an accurate number, but I won't get into that, for a maximum of six months. The ordinance seems like an overreach, so I understand that these amendments will be passed because of the public institution zone that was chosen. I read the minutes of the previous meetings. Several sites in the zones were excluded for a variety of reasons. Spencer Fire Station, Post Office Bay Model, I think one or two others. The sites that were not excluded were the two school properties and the corporation yard, which is about 300 feet from the preschool. That is why I'm concerned. I believe we need emergency homeless shelters, but not so close to the schools. SB2 says the shelters will target, and this is a quote, persons with low income who have one or more disability, including mental illness, HIV or AIDS, and substance abuse. These shelters are not to be used by residents during natural disasters. That's my understanding. I believe with the four elementary and preschools on these properties Sausalito was once again attracting young families we are at risk of jeopardizing what is happening here I'm just going to go right to the solution. The last thing I want is a solution. SB 2 says, if a local government cannot identify a zone or zones with sufficient capacity, the local government shall include a program to amend its zoning ordinance to meet the requirements of this paragraph, within one year of the adoption of the housing element the local government may identify additional zones where emergency shelters are permitted with a conditional use permit. So I think that is a solution. I think this idea of controlling this with the lease process is not going to work. If you think that the lease process is going to trump SB2, I kind of doubt that. And I also think this is a liability issue for some of the schools. It's a disclosure issue and a liability issue for the disclosure. They're going to need to tell the parents that this is happening. you |
| 01:57:34.94 | Carolyn Patrick | is setting up there. |
| 01:57:39.72 | Jenna Sarray | Good evening, Mayor Theodores and City Council members. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak. My name is Jenna Sarray. I've lived in Sausalito for 32 years. We live on 21 Gerard Avenue. I'm a mother, a grandmother, and a concerned citizen of our town. I very much respect the needs and requirements of our homeless. However, tonight I speak on behalf of the children of this town. I would like to express my serious concern for offering up public and private school sites such and playgrounds and parks adjacent to these properties as permanent homeless shelter locations. For the first time in my years in this town, young families and their children are coming to our city for good schools, playgrounds, and recreation. Sausalito is experiencing an amazing and wonderful phenomenon, a renaissance. Therefore, it is not appropriate to locate a permanent emergency shelter on or adjacent to these locations. I ask that it not be a political issue, but a responsibility for our council and community to provide a safe environment for education and recreation. Please remove these sensitive sites from the list. Thank you. |
| 01:59:01.36 | Tyler Manson | My name is Tyler Manson. I'm a resident of Sausalito. My wife was born and raised here, and as much as we always kind of had a dream of raising a family here, she tended to suggest other locations because her childhood in the 80s, it just wasn't the family-friendly place with the positive public park schools that it has now. I mean, the families who have come here in the recent years has been dramatic and changed the fabric of this community, and that's really why we live here and why we want to raise our family here. So as a father and resident of Sausalito, I'd like to seriously consider any of the locations adjacent to schools and public parks. Thank you. |
| 01:59:50.38 | Mike Soray | Mayor and council, thank you. I'm Mike Soray. I'm a 40-year resident of Saucedo, and in most of those 40 years, the schools are substandard, and Dumpy Park was not a place you'd take your kids to. I'd like to commend the council and the city for doing a marvelous job in turning it around. Now, I hope my grandchildren get a better shot at schools and playgrounds in this town. So this is not about the homeless issue. I'm a 20-year member of Swords to Plowshares in the city of San Francisco, one of the oldest veterans organizations. We are responsible for over hundreds of homeless each night. This is about our moral and civic obligation, and I know you guys are tasked with a very difficult job of how to integrate it into the city. But I don't think we should be debating the management rules or these other ordinance that I think this meeting was really intended to be. I think we have to address the core issue is we cannot let the state Have any opportunity. to put a homeless shelter next to schools and playgrounds. It's non-negotiable. The reasons are so obvious. It's not even worth discussing. So I'm encouraged to hear what you're doing tonight, looking at that ordinance again, seeing what options you have about going back to the Planning Council to see what you can do. This gentleman who preceded me, two gentlemen, he came up with a very good idea about possibly putting some other sites back on the list on a conditional basis I implore you to look at all those options but not for the moment think that the state can turn around the fabulous work that the city and this council has done to turn this town around Thank you. |
| 02:01:35.26 | Lance Alameda | Good evening. My name is Lance Alameda and I've been a resident here for over 20 years. I also operate a small educational nonprofit. Some of you actually might know me as the walking dad because I push my two girls five miles around town every single day. So if anyone has an idea of the homeless situation in this city, I have a pretty good idea and so do my girls because we see the handful of people that are visible out there every day. So I appreciate the fact that you guys said you've been working on this issue for a long time and that you have no imminent plans to move forward. That said, I don't even know why the schools are on the table. I walk by the machine shop next to the Bay model several times a week. It is a very large venue. It's in purple, so obviously it's in the zone. And that's by the water. It's not near any school or anything else. And it's someplace where maybe If the homeless were sheltered there, they could help to improve it. because it is ramshackle and I've often wondered, why isn't this a bowling alley? Or a family fun center for the people? But the bottom line here is, if the state is mandating something down to you, and this is the result we've gotten, to have... shelters with potentially homeless people or not with homeless people who potentially have mental issues, health issues, and as we've seen, we may not even be able to tell if they're sexual predators. We have no idea. And as somebody who spent his formative years working with the homeless and helping the mentally disabled, And... people of with all sorts of problems All it takes is one person. If you have 30 people, And everybody's fine, but all it takes is one person. And you don't want that one person near the school. Now, I live over on Tamala Street. And just a few months ago, a man who was part of the community, who I've known for years, who turns out was mentally ill, Well, he murdered somebody. We had no idea. He was always just kind of quirky, whatever. But can you imagine how those odds are going to go up if suddenly you let 30 strangers who don't have an address, who you have no idea about them at all, and suddenly you're letting them, oh, it's 5 o'clock. The kids are coming home from late care. And now all these people are coming into a shelter. And they're going to be there until 8 a.m. when the school's going to start work in 15 minutes. You're going to get everybody in and out of that area in that time. And I'm not saying it's happened. But if... This is where we are right now. You got it wrong. We've got to go back. Thank you. |
| 02:04:38.74 | Ron Albert | Hello, Ron Albert, City of Sausalito. I'm very sympathetic to all the comments I've heard, and I'm not speaking in opposition to them at all. But I want to make a broader observation, which is that whenever these state mandates come along, typically there's a lot of complaints. And whether we're talking about a mandate to provide zoning for a homeless shelter or a mandate to provide zoning for affordable housing, often there's a lot of complaints that this heavy-handed, one-size-fits-all approach doesn't take into account our unique community attributes. And fair enough, but Sausalito historically has had a lot of affordable housing, and that's greatly diminished today and it's declining steadily. And for as long as I've been here, 26 years, we've had a homeless population as well as a significant near homeless population, referring to some of the anchor outs who are on boats that barely, you know, float. So what I'd like to see us as a community do, however you resolve this, is that once we resolve the state mandate, wouldn't it be great if we actually had a conversation as a community What kind of community do we want to be in 25 and 50 years? Do we want to still be an economically diverse community, or do we want to slowly evolve into a community that's only for the wealthy? And do we want to provide any services for our homeless? So I'm glad I'm no longer up there on the dais to wrestle with this particular issue, because I am very sympathetic to the comments I've heard. But this is once we've resolved the state mandate, it would be great if we as a community came back and addressed it as a community, disregarding any state mandates, and how are we going to deal with this as a community? |
| 02:06:46.42 | Rob | Good evening. My name is Rob, and I live adjacent to the corporation yard. And I just have two quick fundamental issues that I've seen, and luckily a neighbor of mine just turned me on to this, so I've been out of the loop. But what I see is obviously, one, let me just start. I think there's empathy from everyone who's been speaking about this topic. I don't think anyone's trying to discard these people's lives and the needs, but the fundamental issue is taking it to the kids and where families are. That's the issue, as opposed to other opportunities that we all see that there are. But if I strip everything away, the one that is at the core is not having a loophole for these people at the emergency shelters that could be predators. And there's no screening for sex defendants. So I think if you look at all angles, it really comes down to are we protecting the children? Are we protecting the community? So again, you know, I'm a father of two girls that live directly in that street, and I strongly oppose. And I realize you have a tough issue and a tough job, but I just urge you to take another look through a different lens on this topic. Thank you. |
| 02:08:09.97 | Madhur Dayal | Hi, my name is Madhur Dayal and I'm a resident of the community. business owner in the community, and a father. My daughter was here trying to represent herself. Very concerned father, 2012, Like some people say, it was a long time away. My daughter was born in 2000. I understand the issues that you'll have here. is related to some minor legal issues of what you'll intend to pass for now. We understand that's the issue in front, but going back to one of the council members in White May's point, we have to really revisit this issue. I understand that you all don't have any plans to open up an emergency center. but, Right. But That's great. We understand that. But you're opening the doors that if that event were to happen, there's a 33% chance, 33% chance that that emergency center is going to be open. right behind my house, right in front of one of the three schools that my kid would probably go 33% chance am I willing to let my daughter say, Let's continue staying in this community because Right there, this could happen. When that door opens, it's gonna be opening one of those three places. You've got nine locations. Three of them. I would then in a school. right next to a school right within, The housing district, not somewhere a little further away. Nowhere else. That is so concerning. um, we can pass the legal issues that will always pass irrespective of where that location is. I think we really need to open the fact that this is not the right place to open emergency centers, or even open the doors for that possibility. Thanks. Namaste. Namaste. |
| 02:10:05.46 | Ogi Khashy | Good evening, my name is Ogi Khashy and I live adjacent to the yard at Bullock Creek Academy and I've been a Sassuido resident for 13 years. I have this 7-year-old daughter, she goes to Bullock Creek. My concern is that every community has homeless problems and has to address them and help the community understand that. But calling this an emergency homeless shelter is not in case of emergency. My first impression when I heard was that in case of a flood, fire, earthquake, the residents can have a place to go. but it's only for the homeless, the chronically ill, abusers and things like that. So it's not for the residents. It's for people who have chronic problems and trying to work out their problems and improve their life. But my concern is these three sites I believe should be eliminated entirely from the program because like what our gentleman said, it takes one. There's no check or security for sexual predators or people with past history. And if something should happen, God forbid, Who is responsible? Who picks up the liability here? for allowing such INSTITUTIONS IN SUCH CLOSE PROXIMITY, IT'S RIGHT NEXT TO MY HOUSE. AND RIGHT NEXT TO MY DAUGHTER'S AT SCHOOL, LESS THAN 300 FEET AWAY. That's unacceptable to me. And to say that you're the landlord and you've repeated that several times, that's great. But the way this plan has moved forward doesn't give me very much confidence that the landlord part is going to step in at the right time. No disrespect, but I don't feel confident. And as a member of the community, I need to feel comfortable, safe, and know that the future is going to be better. or at least the same. Thank you. |
| 02:11:59.81 | Ray Budde | Good evening, Mayor and Councilmembers. I'm Ray Budde, and I represent Lise Francais, your tenant at the MLK school site. Um, uh, There are different ways in which you could, I think, effectively deal with this issue. I think you could, for example, put in place a required buffer zone in the event that there is a school on the property that is being considered for this overlay zone. The buffer zone could be large enough that it may simply make certain properties then not developable for this use so long as the school is on the property, which may not be forever. You go back 10 years, there wasn't a school on the MLK property. And sometime in the future, there may not be again. But I think that's appropriate. It would still leave other sites that would still be available so you'd satisfy the state law. And you've solved this issue, at least with respect to the school properties. And I think that's something that could legitimately be done. I'd – staff would have to take a good look at it and see just what's workable. But some buffer zone, maybe it's 300 feet, maybe it's more, I think is reasonable. Beyond that, what I'd say is I know this has gone through a long process. I realize that this was considered a year ago as part of it. I know that my client did not get notice a year ago, but of course, they weren't yet a tenant on the property a year ago. We had signed the lease with the city, but they weren't occupying the property yet. So what I would say with respect to that is that I would ask the city to consider something more, some other responsibility that they have, at least with respect to my client, and that is you're also the landlord. So when the city is considering something as the city that is an issue that might affect its tenants and its tenants' livelihood, its ability to attract students, to run their then the city as the landlord should be giving us more than just the notice that you're required to give when you're considering doing something, you know, as the city. So you give your notice to the town, you publish the notice, you do whatever you're going to do to do a zoning change, that's fine. But I would say always in those cases, remember, you're also our landlord. And as our landlord, we need to hear from you as tenants when something's happening that might affect our livelihood out there on the site. So that's a total additional issue that I think the city needs to consider. So I think there are ways to deal with this. I would very much, I think, given the concerns people have here that you consider, is there a way you can not act on this in its current format, send it back to the Planning Commission, try to do something to. address some of these concerns. You have time. I don't think the notion that because the city owns this property is going to protect in the long run, and that's simply because if we got to a situation where we put this in place and somebody's able to go to court or go to the state, and demonstrate that they asked 20 times for a site and the city kept saying no and wouldn't let them. wouldn't do a lease with them, wouldn't give them the property, wouldn't make it available. I think we get into a situation where somebody would try to force it on us. And we certainly don't want that. So thank you very much. |
| 02:15:23.96 | Eric Frouchet | Eric Frouchet, Director of Institutional Advancement at the Lycée Francais de San Francisco over on MLK property. I want to echo what Mr. Vardias said. It's, I think, a fair suggestion that he's making and a reflection, but I also want to, I guess, just let you know that already. at the school. There has We're getting feedback from parents. who know very little, who've only heard news that may be misinformed or not altogether accurate, but there is a sense of alarm. in our parent population at the school, that they may have a homeless shelter next door to the institution. and the excitement that we felt, that they felt about being located next to MLK Park. suddenly has a shadow over it. not understanding what is coming, what is imminent. Our concern administratively is we've been through our re-enrollment process, but we next week will begin our enrollment process for new parents. And now we have these rumors being going through these concerns and it's worrisome. We want to have a viable school here. We don't want to lose new enrollments. We want to enroll Sausalito families as part of the school. We like your kids to learn French. And I guess one of the things that – If there's a pressing need right now, it's for some sort of communication to our community. our constituents that's not in counselees. It doesn't have to be in French, but it could be in easy English. uh, that would give us some kind of reassurance. to calm things down a little bit. for them. So, but just to let you know that the school is concerned, our parent population is concerned, we're trying to put a control on everything and give some reassurances about all this, but we need your help. Okay? Thank you. |
| 02:17:51.01 | Kristen Golden Testa | Kristen Golden Testa, and I'm a 10-year resident here, and I'm a parent with two children. And I humbly apologize for not joining this conversation earlier. I greatly appreciate that you've been doing a lot of thoughtful work on this, but I do humbly request that you do revisit looking at exempting the schools or excluding the schools from these overlay zoning areas, or at the very least creating some sort of a buffer zone. It does seem that other counties and districts have been able to do that and meet the state requirements. So it's not so much of a state requirement issue. It sounds like we possibly can do that and still meet those requirements. And I would say just as a parent that I want to have both balances. I'd like to make sure that my kids are safe at school, but I also want to make sure that as a community, we're taking care of all of our community members, including our homeless residents. And, you know, my daughter loves seeing Beau on the street. She loves talking with him. So I feel as a parent I would like to be an example showing that as a community we do care for this population while also as a parent knowing that. It's in an area of the town that is safe for the residents as well as the members of the homeless shelter. So thank you. |
| 02:19:14.98 | Greg Price | Hi, long-time listener, first-time caller. No, sorry. I'm Greg Price, a parent at the New Village School. Reading through things, and I'm coming to this late as well, I wasn't able to figure out why some of the P1 zones were excluded, so I don't know if that will be covered in the Q&A here. And then second, in my letter, I noted a few cities do offer buffer zones to schools, so I don't know if that is being considered as well. Those are the two questions I had. Thank you. |
| 02:19:49.72 | Unknown | Hello, Mayor and City Council. Hello, staff and residents of Sausalito and guests. My dad's name, and he was a city council member in Southfield, Michigan. His name is. In Hebrew, that means repent. I'm asking the people here who have come up against this ephemeral issue that is not going to happen in 2012, it didn't, in 2013, it didn't, in 2014, it didn't, in 2015, chances are it's not going to happen. We already have Jeff. We already have room for a few. |
| 02:20:33.19 | Jill Hoffman | Would you address the council? |
| 02:20:34.17 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:20:34.29 | Jill Hoffman | Yes. |
| 02:20:34.31 | Unknown | Yes, I will. Thank you. We already have room for the homeless out on the water. I'm housing two of them tonight. OK? I do not want to feel that I live in a community where there is a conflict between the poor and the rich. Jesus said, when you give money to the poor who are always with you. Do not charge interest. Okay? That's in Exodus 30. His quote was... Well... Why? Why are you asking me why my friend is pouring anointment oil on my feet? Okay, Judas, why are you asking this? The poor will always be among you. Judas says, I'll give it to the poor. He's lying, of course. And I'm saying, please don't be lying about this. I'm, I'm a Jubilee messenger. I've gone without money basically for a couple years. I live on a boat. Last time I was at a council meeting, I stood through the whole thing. I went outside, my bike was gone. I'm all right with this. I don't expect everybody to agree with me. Jubilee, at the end of Jubilee, everybody goes back to their ancestral heritage. There is no person without a home. Everybody has not a right, because a right could be taken away. God says, you are only tenants and aliens. I am the owner of this land. Okay? So now, we're in a situation where... This issue is not going to happen. They're not going to build a homeless shelter on MLK. They're not going to build it anywhere else in the near future. That's okay. We can handle it on the water. And I would like you each in your hearts to look at people as human beings and not as wallets that are empty or rich. I... I hope somebody comes here and gives a spiritual message, and I hope that next time it doesn't have to be me. I'm not doing this for money. I'm not doing this. I hope I'm not doing it for my ego. I pray. I'd just like to say, lo kaha samastaha suki no babantu. May all beings be happy. |
| 02:22:55.79 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 02:22:59.20 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:23:04.55 | Jill Hoffman | Anyone else like to comment? Okay? |
| 02:23:10.62 | John Donovan | because I can't. You guys all know me. John Donovan. I've lived at the 700 Olima property above the MLK school now for since 2008. I'm not going to be able to do that. I know a lot of homeless people in Sausalito. I know a lot of the Anchor Out community and have a lot of respect for the whole community and you guys as a whole. The MLK property, I hold it dear to my heart. I think one of the things the community is trying to say here is, when do we just take our hands off it? It is one of our greatest parks, perhaps the greatest in Sausalito. It's really coming of age now, thanks to the Lise. We've got a fabulous playground there. about their kids in the community. I have a kid in the community moved here before there were kids in the community. It's a fabulous spot. It would be wonderful if we can just say, you know what? It's great how it is. Let's leave it that way. That's all. Thank you. |
| 02:24:15.74 | Jill Hoffman | Anyone else? Okay, so we'll close public comment, and I guess we'll – if there are any other questions from Council, and then we'll go into comment. So first for questions. All right, let's go with comment. |
| 02:24:33.76 | Jill Hoffman | Well, I think, you know, my comments are consistent with my questions previously. You know, I think we need to revisit it. I think we need to send it back to the Planning Commission if that's what we need to do and take the school's sites off and take a hard look at what we've included in the plan as a whole and whether or not that is truly a minimum required under the code. This is the time to make the amendments. This is the process that we're involved in and as, you know, another public official said, no one sitting here said, sometimes you get the most public involvement when you get to the crucial point and that's just the way it goes. And that's our job to accurately reflect what the wishes are of the community and I think that's what we need to do. I think I would like to look at other multi-jurisdictional agreements that we might enter into to satisfy the code as well as part of the discussion and see where that leads us. But that's what I would propose the process be going forward. |
| 02:25:43.39 | Jill Hoffman | Well, this is a... This is a very complicated issue. So SB2 demands we pick a zone, and the public institutional zone was picked. There was a vigorous debate about this in 2014 when we adopted the ordinance. It's perfectly okay that we're coming back to do some text changes to the ordinance. It's perfectly okay that the parents and those interested in our schools have really just become aware of this. So I fully understand that, and I'm very sympathetic to your concerns. Any parent would be. So I understand that and I'm very sympathetic to your concerns. Any parent would be, so I understand that. Now, remember, I just want to reiterate This overlay zone exists. They exist right now, and it's not a question of just going back to the Planning Commission. We would have to start again, and that's okay. I'm not saying this necessarily, you know, that's a bad thing, but don't think you can just go back to the Planning Commission, make some other changes, remove a few sites, bring it back here, and we're fine. We're not fine. This would have to go to HCD, which, again, is okay. It went to HCD in the fall last year with a capacity analysis and HCD determined that this zone was acceptable. So if we want to take more sites off, then it's not just going back to the Planning Commission. We've got to essentially do a bunch of work and go back to HCD. And HCD may say, this zone is unacceptable. You're going to have to find another zone. And again, that's okay if that's what we need to do. If we took no action tonight, this ES overlay still exists. It's not going away until we completely rewrite the ordinance if we wanted to. If we took no action tonight, this ES overlay still exists. It's not going away until we completely rewrite the ordinance if we wanted to. Okay. So I think it's important for us to... So we've definitely got to go back to HCD and ask the question. The question is, do we do it? Do we show good faith to them, make the changes they wanted, and then ask the question, should we revisit the whole of the homeless shelter zone and where it should be? Or do we go to HCD now and say, we want to remove a few sites. Is the public institutional zone the right way to go? With the various suggestions that may or may not be legal, like buffers and so on. So those are the options we have before us that we've got to decide tonight, I think. |
| 02:28:47.46 | Unknown | Well... This is how we really find out how small our community is. Because if you really look at that map, you're looking at 2.1 miles. So where do you put these? We're really limited to what places are available. I do think that we should look back and see maybe a buffer zone. And also keep in mind that even when this comes under the eight, this will be, it comes under eight years if we pass this or HCD approves. And we do have the right always, within that period of time, to go back. If we have another site or something else comes up and we have the right to be able to go to HCD and ask them to change it, delete one and add another. So those options are still there. It's not an easy decision, like I said, because We are so small. And if you really look at those sites, and it was mentioned like the V down there where the Marine Shop is. Well, right now that's owned by the federal government. And apparently they still want to go forward and build something there. his federal government. |
| 02:30:21.58 | Unknown | The last time we asked them to do something on Marinship Way, they made it a one-way on us. All right. So anyway, that's all I have to say. |
| 02:30:33.08 | Jill Hoffman | Well, thank you all for coming out tonight. And it's an important issue, and obviously it's a critical to all of you involved in schools with children and all of us. And the thing to keep in mind, we have the ordinance is in place at this point. Although as we've said, we're the owners. There's no plans to do anything on that. But we hear loud and clear that we need to take a look and revisit. particularly around the school issue. And I think what we should do is I think I'll look towards that, but what I'm inclined to say is possibly have Um, I think the buffer might be the cleanest, maybe the easiest, but we may have to revisit all of it. So that's the first thing. I think we'll have to go back and take a look at this. What we can do is go through the questions and make sure that the questions are raised tonight, that they're answered in the future. Many of these, as we've gone through this, have been answered, and there are answers to them, but we can make that public. we can make that public. But I think the issue that we do have to address is what we do relating to the MLK property particularly and schools. So I would recommend that we appoint a task force of two members. I think the issue that we do have to address is what we do relating to the MLK property TO GO LOOK AS WE SAID WE CAN'T SIMPLY GO BACK TO THE PLANNING COMMISSION. THERE'S NOTHING TO BRING BACK TO THE PLANNING COMMISSION. WHAT WE REALLY HAVE TO DO IS TAKE A LOOK AT THIS. determine which staff, probably go with our consultant HCD, what is possible. These things get quite technical. Come with a plan, bring it back to the council, and then go to planning and back. IT'S SOMETHING, YOU KNOW, WE NEED TO DO. IT'S NOT AS SIMPLE AS GOING BACK AND TELLING THE PLANNING COMMISSION, JUST, YOU KNOW, TAKE CARE OF THIS. AND SO I RECOMMEND WE DO THAT. Staff, do you want to weigh in on that? And I'd go in further. I think because this ordinance is in place and because what's on the table tonight are very small technical issues required by HCD. that we pass those because If we don't, We'll be out of compliance. actually it won't help us because they're administrative, but they could put us out of compliance and actually jeopardize. So I would recommend that number one, we, of committee with the task of taking a look at what we can do specifically about the school issue. And then we. that we're going to be doing. vote on the motion to pass these administrative things. |
| 02:33:00.30 | Unknown | Thanks. |
| 02:33:03.59 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah. My, you know, my comments are remain consistent. I don't think we should pass the ordinance. I think if we're looking at making the amendments, now's the time to do it. It's very dangerous if you have an ordinance on your books and then you go back and try to change it. You know, people... So, I mean, let me finish. I have the floor. So, you know, I think now's the time. If we're going to look at this, now's the time to do it. You have a council here that's motivated. It's hard to know what's going to happen in the future. So. And I understand that we have a timing issue with the HCD and the update, you know, the YOU KNOW, coming up at the end of June. So, I mean, it's part of a bigger plan, but now's the time to look at it. I would not support making the changes now. I would say, if we're going to amend the ordinance, let's do it now. |
| 02:33:52.92 | Jill Hoffman | But we can't. I mean, you have to be clear. The ordinance is in place. We're not passing an ordinance. It's in place. We're making minor changes to it. And unfortunately, even if we wanted to, we couldn't do anything tonight. It'd have to be noticed and such. So I'm just recommending that we |
| 02:34:04.59 | Unknown | Right. you Right. |
| 02:34:08.07 | Jill Hoffman | I mean, we'll have our task force, we'll go back and we'll make the substantive changes. These are nothing. But don't forget, this does not – we're not going to have a plan to make the The ordinance is in place either way. We're not passing an ordinance. We're passing a couple of minor changes to an ordinance. |
| 02:34:36.32 | Jill Hoffman | when You know, the critical discussions, which I'm sorry you missed, you know, the critical discussions took place last year, mid-year, when we adopted the ordinance. We adopted the ordinance because we promised we would adopt the ordinance when the City Council in 2012 passed the housing element in 2012. Now we then went on to pass another housing element just in – but that was because we were so late in passing the previous one, okay? We promised HCD we'd pass an ordinance. In order to get our new housing elements certified, they reviewed that ordinance and said, no, that's not good enough. You've overreached. You've got to make these text changes. And that's what tonight's all about. And so I agree with the mayor. We need to get on and make those text changes. It would signal to HCD that we're acting in good faith in terms of what we promised to do now. They certified our housing element if we make these changes. If we don't make these changes, again, we're not adopting anything new other than these text changes. We're going to be in a stronger position to go back to HCD, and that's one of our first steps. After staff have done the research, is to options, and thank you for those of you who suggested some options for us to examine, Um, We have to go back to HCD. We've got to prove to HCD that by removing sites, we still have, by their criteria, enough capacity there in the public institutional zone to house a homeless shelter. Personally, I think Sausalito is too small for homeless shelter. It should be done in combination with jurisdictions and South Marin, but that's going to take quite a while to put into place. I would certainly support that if we could get Mill Valley and Coor Madera and whatever to play along. Right now, we have our next steps, I think, should be, first, staff has got to get some work done. I support the idea of getting a small group together to help staff work through these issues. The next thing we've got to do is talk to HCD. If they say, no way is this, if you don't have the capacity in your public institutional zone, if you remove these sites, then we've got a different decision to make. We've got to come back here and say, we're scrapping the PI zone. And we've got to find somewhere else. Because unless we just say, forget it, State of California, we're not interested in what you do. We're going to go on our own, scrap the ordinance altogether. So there's some steps that we've got to take. I think we've heard you all. I'm supporting getting this text change done then forming a task force, then approach an HCD, see what we get. If things work out really well, staff can come back here and say, HCD are okay with moving these sites. And that would be the easiest way to do it. If not, then you've got to ask us to make a decision. Do we still keep them on the school sites or do we find a different zone altogether? That's it. If not, then you've got to ask us to make a decision. Do we still keep them on the school sites, or do we find a different zone altogether? That's our decision, and that's going to take a period of time. So I think we need to just get on, make this amendment. With all due respect, Council Member Hoffman, you want to open the whole ordinance. I know you do. You want to discuss beds, you want to discuss, and this was discussed ad nauseum last year. With a different council, I agree, with a different council. It was amazing. I don't like state mandates. I think actually the communities can often solve their problems on their own, right? But that's not the law. right now. |
| 02:39:05.97 | Unknown | you |
| 02:39:07.03 | Jill Hoffman | My understanding is no action is going to be taken tonight anyway. This is the first reading. There will be a second reading in a week. Or whenever we set the second reading. |
| 02:39:13.96 | Mary Wagner | Second reading? First reading is an action. I mean, we're asking the Council to take a vote on giving the ordinance first reading. Every ordinance of the Council except for an urgency ordinance requires two two readings, a first and a second. Okay, thanks. So, okay. |
| 02:39:29.98 | Jill Hoffman | So There are two issues here. One is, do we want to approach HCD and just ask the question, hey, if we take these off? That doesn't really take a lot of time. That's just an inquiry. And if we can do it in this step, when we're making some minor, you know, we're making the And these are not minor changes either to the ordinance. I mean, these take away what small local controls we tried to put into the system. And, you know, the requirements of the state have A different idea. It really is more of a fundamental change, I believe, in the city's ability to manage these sites than just, you know, Scrivener's change. So I think that's one possibility we might want to do. But, yeah, I think we may want to look at this whole ordinance, and it may warrant whether or not it's too broad. I never got – I was involved. in the discussion. last July because of the housing element update. I didn't get a good response as to why it was so broad and why so many beds were included when they weren't required under the ordinance. So that's my perspective. |
| 02:40:45.27 | Jill Hoffman | So what I recommend, and maybe help from staff putting this together, I'd like to appoint a task force, a city council task force of Vice Mayor Hoffman and Council Member Withey, who's been through this quite a bit, to take a look at our emergency shelter ordinance and specifically the overlay and how it affects the schools as the primary thing. But in the course of that, we could take a look at any other possible issues that have We can take a look at it in the course of that. I think it's more than just going HCD next week and asking a few questions. These are fundamental. They're important. The community has raised them. We should take a hard look at this and do it in a fundamental way. It's a lot of work, but I think it's something we have to do with that. I do think so I would make that, I think I can just do that. So I'm doing it. And I will point those two unless anybody objects. And they will work with staff on this issue. |
| 02:41:39.80 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 02:41:48.39 | Jill Hoffman | In the meantime, because we already have an ordinance, because it gets technical and these are very minor changes, I recommend that we change them because it makes no difference. And it helps us when we, if we change the overlay, for example, if we just decide that we're only going to do a buffer, then we only go to HCD with a buffer. And as Council Member Withey said, you know, we've made all the other things and comply and we're dealing with the big issues and not little issues. So what I'm recommending, so I've made the appointment of the task force. We're going to come. Uh, work on that. We'll bring it back. to the council. And that's, you know, the public will be notice of that. And in the meantime, I think we should pass these minor ordinance changes that were proposed that we started out with. Thank you. Can I have a motion from anyone on that? We're somewhere on that part of it. |
| 02:42:47.35 | Jill Hoffman | I move to introduce and read by title only an ordinance of the City Council of the City of Sausalito amended in Title 10 to modify SMC section 10.28.080 regarding the management plan and annual compliance review standards for emergency shelters and the emergency shelter overlay zone attachment A and continue the second read into March 3rd, 2015. |
| 02:43:14.11 | Unknown | Second. |
| 02:43:19.75 | Unknown | Councilmember Weiner. |
| 02:43:21.17 | Unknown | Yes. |
| 02:43:22.72 | Unknown | Councilmember Whippy. |
| 02:43:24.17 | Unknown | Yes. |
| 02:43:26.41 | Unknown | Vice Mayor Hoffman. |
| 02:43:28.19 | Jill Hoffman | No. |
| 02:43:30.02 | Unknown | Mayor Theodore. |
| 02:43:31.09 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah. |
| 02:43:31.17 | Jill Hoffman | Yes. |
| 02:43:31.26 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 02:43:31.31 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. Okay. |
| 02:43:33.35 | Jill Hoffman | May I ask, Mr. Mayor, do we need a motion for the task force or is that done? No. |
| 02:43:38.26 | Jill Hoffman | Well, that's what I asked. I think it's a task force. It's a task force. I have appointed. We've got heads nodding, and we're all going to work on it and roll it together. |
| 02:43:38.77 | Unknown | Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. |
| 02:43:39.53 | Jill Hoffman | I think |
| 02:43:39.97 | Unknown | It's a task force I have appointed. |
| 02:43:41.87 | Unknown | you |
| 02:43:46.43 | Jill Hoffman | Well, thank you very much, and we'll obviously, as the work comes, we'll keep you posted, and it'll come back to the council again. Thank you. |
| 02:43:50.12 | Unknown | Thank you. again. |
| 02:43:57.25 | Jill Hoffman | We'll take a five-minute break. |
| 02:44:19.84 | Jill Hoffman | Okay. Now we're back in session. We're moving on to item... 5B, public hearing, appeal of a Planning Commission decision to deny design room review permit 14-196 to allow modifications and additions totaling Actually, it's a table. one well additions of a new floor area to the 38 Woodward Avenue. So we have our community development director, Danny Castro. |
| 02:44:53.78 | Unknown | Male Speaker 1 of the Council. |
| 02:45:02.03 | Jill Hoffman | you And before, one minute. The first thing on our agenda is disclosure of ex-party communications. So can we start with... Councilmember Weiner. Thank you. |
| 02:45:10.99 | Unknown | No, well, I went down there. A couple of days ago, I really didn't meet with the owner. I just met with a neighbor across the street. |
| 02:45:23.51 | Jill Hoffman | I met with the architect on Sunday and I toured the site both from the Woodward side and on the decks and then by myself I went down a couple times and walked past the site on Marie Street. I've looked at all of the – I've watched all the Planning Commission videos. I've read all the comments. I believe I may have spoken with Michelle Yellen several months ago before I was elected about the site and some tree issues, but I'm not entirely sure it was Michelle. And I also spoke with Wendy Richards, who lives at 38 Woodward, about the site, and I looked at the site from her deck. She was kind enough to show it to me. Thank you. |
| 02:46:05.53 | Jill Hoffman | I met with Pellins Architect John McCoy, visited the site from the Woodward side, made a separate visit to review it from the Marie Street side, and reviewed the Planning Commission tapes. |
| 02:46:21.54 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah, I have not spoken with anybody on this topic, but I did visit Woodward site, Marie Avenue, and the Marie Street walked up and down, and I've also reviewed all the Planning Commission tapes. |
| 02:46:37.41 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, with that, please. |
| 02:46:40.17 | Unknown | Mr. Mayor, members of the City Council, as stated previously, this item is an appeal of the Planning Commission decision for a design review permit and encroachment agreement at 38 Woodward Avenue. I know you have a very thick packet with many staff reports and sets of minutes and other information. And I know it's getting a little bit late, but I feel it's important to give a little context to some of the main issues that have come up as part of this appeal. So bear with me on these slides. They're text heavy. I don't have any Phil Frank illustrations to give it some pizzazz, but important facts nevertheless. So the first few slides will be background, followed by some plans that were considered by the commission, submitted by the applicant. and followed by the grounds for the appeal submitted by the applicant, who is also the appellant in this case. This project was reviewed by the Planning Commission at three meetings, October 1st, October 15th, and November 5th of 2014. At the first meeting on October 1st, after the usual staff presentation, public comment, applicant presentation, et cetera, The Planning Commission voted to continue the item and directed the applicant and staff to research sizes of other homes in the vicinity. And this came out of the discussion at the Planning Commission that evening. And just two of the main points are highlighted here. One issue that was raised was the extent that that public views would be blocked by the proposed addition. And the second main issue that... that was raised was the extent that public views would be blocked by the proposed addition. And the second main issue that arose out of that meeting was the size of the residence with the additions compared to other residences in the neighborhood. So hence the request and the direction from the Planning Commission for additional information to be provided about the size of other homes in the neighborhood. The item was continued to October 15th, which was the second meeting, and at that meeting There were revisions to the plans that had been presented at the October 1st meeting. These revisions were proposed by the applicant as a result of meetings and conversations that had taken place with the neighbors that had voiced concerns at the first meeting. And I should point out that part of the direction and the reason for the continuance from October 1st was to allow the applicant an opportunity to have further dialogue with the neighbors to make sure that their concerns were heard and addressed. So at this October 5th meeting, the revisions were formally presented to the Planning Commission in the plan packet. The revisions, again, were intended to address the concerns of the neighbors. It included reducing window sizes on the west elevation, adding windows on the south elevation to provide air and light, removing a trellis from the west elevation, adding windows on the south elevation to provide air and light, removing a trellis from the west elevation, and retaining a coast live oak. With the initial application, there was a tree removal permit to remove a live oak tree – coast live oak – and it was determined that that oak could be preserved. So the tree removal permit was subsequently withdrawn. |
| 02:50:38.95 | Unknown | At the October 15th Planning Commission meeting, the floor area study that was submitted by the applicant was considered by the Planning Commission. At that time, there was no change in the proposed floor area. There were other changes, just as noted with regard to window changes and other revisions to the plans, but no change in the footprint or the square footage proposed. And at that meeting, there were concerns expressed by the Planning Commission related to the size and mass of the residents, again, compared to other homes in the neighborhood, prominence above from the down-sloped areas along Marie Street. and public views from Woodward Avenue. |
| 02:51:25.60 | Unknown | The item was continued, again, to the meeting of November 5th. And at that meeting, revised plans were submitted by the applicant and presented to the Planning Commission, which proposed a reduction in floor area by 324 square feet, and that was accomplished by pulling in the west wall of the second-story addition, as well as the first level of the addition. In addition, some additional changes to the windows were made, again, to address concerns of the neighbors. And a revised landscape plan was provided, which provided additional landscaping on the lower portion of the property down near Marie Street, as well as along the perimeter of the adjacent properties to provide privacy and screening. I should mention that this property – and we'll get to some site plans in a minute that will be helpful to picture how this all fits together. The property at 38 Woodward, the home is – the existing home is up near Woodward Avenue. Access is from Woodward Avenue, but the property actually has frontage along Murray Street as well. |
| 02:52:47.29 | Unknown | At the November 5th meeting, the Planning Commission considered the update to the floor area study submitted by the applicant. Very similar to the first floor area study, it did add, I believe, one or two additional properties with information that became available. And it also put the proposed home at 38 Woodward in context of the size of the other homes given the reduction in size, the 324-square-foot reduction, very similar to the original floor study submitted by the applicant. In addition to that information, A floor area ratio, or FAR analysis, was considered by the Planning Commission on November 5th. And ultimately, the decision of the Planning Commission that evening was a 3-2 vote to deny the application. And the reason is because the majority of the commission was unable to make the design review finding number three in the affirmative. |
| 02:53:55.45 | Unknown | Finding number three is one of, I believe, ten findings on the design review permit that are required to be made. So now we get to a site survey, which represents the existing conditions at 38 Woodward. |
| 02:54:25.37 | Unknown | I'll just leave it here. |
| 02:54:32.83 | Unknown | I need to see if I can show you. while still talking into the microphone. |
| 02:54:35.03 | Unknown | I'll still talk. |
| 02:54:37.72 | Unknown | Would it be possible to move the easel, or is that |
| 02:54:51.89 | Unknown | That's great. |
| 02:54:56.91 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:55:03.39 | Unknown | you Thank you. So here you have the Marie Street frontage. and 26 Woodward is the property adjacent. |
| 02:55:20.31 | Unknown | Because of the lot configurations in that area and the slope, the neighbors on Marie Street are adjacent to the Woodward Street addresses. |
| 02:55:33.37 | Unknown | This slide is a proposed site plan of the proposed addition and renovation. |
| 02:55:43.57 | Unknown | This is the proposed landscape plan that was submitted and considered by the Planning Commission. These slides, by the way, their plans are the same plans that were presented to the Planning Commission on November 5th, and the same that are included in your package. This is a slide showing the existing south elevation, which is the front elevation. The top slide shows the existing car deck, |
| 02:56:16.24 | Unknown | And as mentioned previously, the request includes approval of an encroachment agreement that would allow for the rebuilding of the existing car deck. |
| 02:56:31.54 | Unknown | This is the proposed garage, proposed car deck. Most of this area would not be visible from the street unless you look down. |
| 02:56:42.71 | Unknown | It's the west elevation, the side elevation, existing and proposed. |
| 02:56:51.89 | Unknown | the east side elevation. existing and proposed. and the rear elevation existing and proposed. |
| 02:57:05.53 | Unknown | This is a site section that shows the steepness of the property and the section cut through showing how it basically follows down the downsloping property. |
| 02:57:24.98 | Unknown | The applicant in this case is the appellant who filed the appeal of the Planning Commission's decision. in the appeal form attached as a letter, which includes four grounds for appeal, as indicated in the staff report. And I have them here on the slide. read them, although I'm not sure I can do that and speak into the microphone at the same time. But I do have my little cheat sheet here. The first ground was that the Planning Commission stated it could not make the finding required by the code section. We refer to it as finding number three, which reads that the proposed project is consistent with the general scale of structures and buildings in the surrounding neighborhood and or district. The appellant's ground for appeal goes on to say that the Planning Commission concluded that finding number three could not be made due to their analysis of surrounding properties and their respective floor area ratios. Finding number three does not refer to FAR whether a project is consistent with the general scale of structures, requires the Planning Commission to make an important but somewhat subjective determination of the look and feel of the proposed project relative to what already exists in the surrounding neighborhood. So this is one of the grounds for the appeals that the applicant has included in their statement of appeal. And in the staff report, staff provides a response to these grounds for appeal. You will see as we work through each of the grounds for appeal that the issue of floor area ratio comes up quite often. And in staff's response, as indicated in the staff report, staff agrees that the finding number three does not specifically discuss or state anything regarding floor area ratio. It is one of the many factors to consider when considering whether or not a project is consistent with the general scale of a neighborhood. But it's not the only factor. There are many others that tend to be more subjective than a floor area ratio calculation. The different factors that we as staff look at include the lot pattern, in the neighborhood, the general development pattern, the building height, relative to the grade and relative to other homes in the area. The overall mass, height, and bulk of a structure is also important, as well as the architectural style and the extent to which the structures or the structure falls and follows the natural terrain. When considering all of these factors, staff believes that finding number three can be made. This is consistent with the staff recommendation to the Planning Commission when it was before the Commission. The second ground. |
| 03:00:50.96 | Unknown | The planning, again, from the applicant's ground for appeal, the Planning Commission's decision was based on a detailed analysis of the FAR of neighboring properties introduced for the first time by a commissioner after public comment had closed and without any opportunity for the applicant to review or respond to that analysis. That analysis inexplicably omitted all neighboring properties that had nonconforming FARs. All structures in a neighborhood contribute to the general scale. That analysis inexplicably omitted all neighboring properties that had non-conforming FARs. All structures in a neighborhood contribute to the general scale and feel of a neighborhood, regardless of whether they are conforming or legal non-conforming structures. And again, in the staff report, staff goes on to provide a response. This one has many facets. The first item was the opportunity for the applicant to respond. A review of the video of the meeting shows that there was time for the applicant, although it might not have been provided with enough advance notice, but there was time for the applicant to respond to the issues that had come up related to floor area ratio. And the second item about nonconforming structures being omitted, that is something that if that is what the Planning Commission based their decision on, staff is not aware of any basis to exclude nonconforming structures from any type of finding that would require compatibility with the general scale of the neighborhood. |
| 03:02:40.99 | Unknown | Ground 3 relates again to the general scale of the structures in a neighborhood is not susceptible to a mechanical application of a formula based upon the existing FARs of buildings in the area. When assessing the general scale of a structure, particularly when assessing its relationship to surrounding structures, That structures and those within the neighborhood physical size and presence within that neighborhood contribute to the general scale of the neighborhood. Gross floor area is one contributing factor but not FAR. Floor area ratio is the direct relationship of a structure to its own particular lot, not its relationship within the neighborhood or the district. So again, that was one of the grounds submitted by the applicant and the appellant related to the Planning Commission action. I think as stated previously tonight and as stated in the staff report, there are other factors besides floor area ratio that should be considered. And it does not appear based on review of the minutes in the record, that FAR was the only reason that the Planning Commission made the decision to deny the project. It is, however, what is reflected in the resolution of denial, and it was a focus of discussion that evening. |
| 03:04:09.68 | Unknown | Ground four, a request that the City Council expressly reject the mechanical FAR formula for determining general scale adopted by a majority of the Planning Commission and approve the project based on a correct application of the design review findings, including finding number three. And again, this is... It brings back to the focus that FAR is not the only factor that should be considered. And if – the City Council considers the Planning Commission's actions, and if the City Council agrees that finding number three, which is based on many factors, including many that are somewhat subjective, If the City Council agrees that the finding cannot be made, then the City Council should uphold the decision of the Planning Commission to deny the project. |
| 03:05:15.49 | Unknown | This is a slide, and I'm not sure how legible it is, so I know that there are copies of it in your packet. I also have copies here if it would make it easier to follow. This is the floor area study that was prepared by the applicant. It's the table portion of the study. And I know while it might be quite small to read, this is the list of properties that were included in the applicant's floor area study. It includes homes on Woodward, on Marie Street, homes up on Platt and other streets in the neighborhood. |
| 03:06:08.48 | Unknown | This map shows the addresses of the homes that were included in the applicant's floor area study, and there's a color coding that goes along with this that shows the general range of the size of the structures in the vicinity. So you can see – we're going to 38 Woodward right there in the middle. And all of the circles that have a color on them are included in the floor area study. |
| 03:06:46.57 | Unknown | This is the floor area ratio analysis that was considered by the Planning Commission at the November 5th meeting. It is based on the same list of properties, but it provides another column the FAR column. which provides for the floor area ratio calculation for each of the lots that were included in the applicant's floor area study. |
| 03:07:23.24 | Unknown | And again, I do have color copies. If it would be helpful, we can hand those out. |
| 03:07:32.84 | Unknown | So as indicated in the staff report, the City Council may make one of the following actions. The City Council may grant the appeal and approve design review permit and encroachment agreement. And there's a resolution in your packet, Attachment 1, that provides the findings as presented initially to the Planning Commission and now to the City Council. if the City Council chooses to approve the project. The other option is to uphold the Planning Commission decision denying the design review permit. Attachment 2 is provided to you if that is the action that the City Council wishes to take. And it is in the draft findings the same findings that appear in the Planning Commission resolution denying the project. The other option is to remand the project back to the Planning Commission for further consideration of a specific issue. And the other option is to continue the public hearing with direction or additional information – on additional information to be provided or project revisions. And staff would request that if either of the last two alternatives are what the City Council action is, then it would be appropriate to provide specific direction on additional information or what should be looked at if it goes back to the Planning Commission. |
| 03:09:02.23 | Unknown | The recommendation of staff is, again, the same recommendation that was presented to the Planning Commission, and that is for approval of the design review permit after considering the Planning Commission's determination and after considering the applicant's grounds for appeal as well as the staff response to the grounds of appeal. That concludes my presentation, and I'd be happy to answer any questions. |
| 03:09:31.13 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. Any questions from Council at this point? |
| 03:09:36.23 | Jill Hoffman | I might have some later, but I don't know. I don't have friends. |
| 03:09:39.81 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:09:39.82 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 03:09:39.96 | Unknown | Thank you. Okay. Thank you. |
| 03:09:42.44 | Jill Hoffman | you |
| 03:09:42.59 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:09:45.41 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah, one question. On the... FAR analysis diagram that the applicant, the pallet provided, what was the difference between the yellow colors and the red colors? I never quite figured that one out. |
| 03:10:00.59 | Unknown | Thank you. Let me actually pass out the the hard coffee so you can follow it. |
| 03:10:38.83 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah, that was my question. Maybe I should ask the applicant or a pilot when he makes his presentation. But I was just wondering on this one. |
| 03:10:40.03 | Unknown | I'm sorry. |
| 03:10:40.05 | Unknown | you. |
| 03:10:40.37 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:10:48.18 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:10:48.22 | Ron Albert | Thank you. |
| 03:10:52.22 | Jill Hoffman | Some of these are colored red and some are colored yellow. What's the difference between red and yellow? That's all I'm asking. |
| 03:11:03.66 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:11:04.25 | Jill Hoffman | Well, wait, wait, do you want to hold that question? Yeah, I'll hold it. Why don't you address it, John, in your presentation? |
| 03:11:12.70 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah, I'll ask that question during your presentation. |
| 03:11:14.71 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. Thanks. Thank you. Thank you. So now we're ready for the applicant and appellant's presentation, and he'll answer that question And so you now have 10 minutes. We'll then have time for further council comments and possibly rebuttal. I take it there's. No other side of this. There's just, okay. |
| 03:11:44.26 | Jill Hoffman | 15 minutes. |
| 03:11:52.17 | Jill Hoffman | And our city attorney will let you know when there are three minutes left. Correct. Okay. |
| 03:12:22.31 | Unknown | So, good evening, Council Members, Mayor Theodorus and staff, and a lot of members of the public at this one. Thank you, Janie, for that informative catching up and covering up the grounds for appeal and staff's response and continued support of this project as they have from the very |
| 03:12:26.56 | Unknown | Amen. |
| 03:12:39.56 | Unknown | So I'm going to – I apologize, Council Member Withey, but I'm going to wait for that question to the end because I'm probably going to run out of time anyway. So what we're going to – what I need to address tonight is first in twofold. I'm appealing Resolution 2014-38, and then I'm going to request approval of this project based on the resolution of approval as prepared by staff and attached to your staff report. We're going to demonstrate why FAR and FAR averages cannot be used in findings to determine finding C. And then we're going to demonstrate how this project is consistent with the general scale of the surrounding The Planning Commission is required to make a total of 18 findings for approval for this project. They made 17 out of the 18. Only finding C of the design review findings was not made. And I noticed it was called finding 3 in their presentation. The zoning ordinance actually says C when you look. It's A, B, C, D, E, F, G. So I'll try to say 3 to keep it clear. The Planning Commission concluded that finding C could not be made due to their analysis of surrounding properties and their respective floor areas. Um... This is their finding, the highlighted area, and I emphasis added. This is straight from the resolution of denial, and they talk about properties within 5% of our lot size, and basically they get to the average property size and the average gross floor area and the average FAR. And they say because our FAR would be.4, it's determined to be inconsistent with the general scale of the neighborhood. That right there makes their finding based on the floor area ratio. It's spelled out in their own finding, even though we're well below the allowable FAR. So can we use it? Janie went over these. These were excerpts from my grounds for appeal. I think they're all important, but I want to jump down to this one here where it says gross floor area is one contributing factor but not floor area ratio. I'm going to take it further than staff. Floor area ratio is not to be considered in making finding C. Floor area ratio is specific to your parcel with your gross floor area. The table that I submitted that you were looking at and asking about listed the gross floor areas in an attempt to The gross floor area plays into size. So without measuring the width and height of every house, gross floor area is the closest we could get for the analysis, and it showed that our home was, you know, there was about, if you go through that, there's about 10 or 12 that are larger, two or three of the same size, and then the rest of them, it's broken down those colors. Some are within, some are, you know, 1,000 square feet, and some are significantly smaller than that. |
| 03:15:27.14 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:15:31.31 | Unknown | When we talk about FAR, there's a leading expert in smart growth within urban and suburban environments named Andres Duany, who's also an author of Smart Growth Manual. His thoughts on floor area reads, advocating to floor area ratios, the market forces, is the opposite of aiming a community towards something more than the sum of its parts. He also states, FAR, a poor predictor of physical form, should not be used when the objective is to conserve and enhance neighborhood character. Also, here's one from a local architect and correspondence that I had with Michael. When I was denied and I was trying to figure out what was really going on, we talked a little bit about this. And I won't read the whole thing. This is his summation paragraph here. You know, at the end of the day, all that really matters is how the building is viewed and perceived, not a ratio of floor area. So when the Planning Commission denied our application due to the floor area ratio not being within the neighborhood average, that is not what Finding C asks or requires them Binding C, the floor air ratios are clearly addressed in our zoning ordinance. Yeah, table 10.22-2, the site development standards for residential zoning deals with floor air ratios, coverages, and pervious surfaces. That's all addressed. We meet every standard of the zoning ordinance for development in a residential area for our R1 zoning. If the Planning Commission starts arbitrarily adding new standards, like it must be within the average of the FAR of the neighborhood, most development could not be approved. regardless of any other merits it may have. For example, if Property A has an FAR of 0.3 in the R6 where 0.45 is allowed and the neighborhood average is 0.28 per this new standard, Property A cannot develop any additional area regardless of size or zoning. So they've created a new standard. They've gone outside of the zoning ordinance and outside of the findings, and they've created this new standard. And if held to it, if this project's held to it, it's only fair to assume that all projects would be held to it. So these findings have set a new standard and precedent. There's the finding again. So it's very clear that they based this finding on the floor air ratio analysis prepared by Commissioner Warner. |
| 03:17:56.17 | Unknown | Um, |
| 03:17:57.47 | Unknown | when there were some letters where he said that wasn't based on that. These are excerpts directly from the video that you all watched. He says, what describes bulk better than anything? That's Fourier ratio. He said, having waded through this, my conclusion is that I don't care whether it's Woodward or Marie, a.26 FAR is kind of the average descriptor of the neighborhoods, all of the neighborhoods. And given that, increasing this building to the point of.40 makes it impossible for me to make findings safe. So he's very clear in his summation before they voted that this is what he based his findings on. And as you watch the tape, you can see that it influenced other commissioners as well. So it's important that we all be aware of the consequences of this Planning Commission finding, the potential for detriment to property rights throughout Sausalito. It's extremely serious. We would be homogenizing all of our neighborhoods. We would say, if all your neighbors are at point three or point two, that's what you can do and no more unless you're lucky enough to have a larger house already. So what we ended up with is everything being very similar. I'm trying to move fast because I'm running out of time. Um, So we've demonstrated why FAR cannot be used in determining finding C. So now I'd like to demonstrate how do we make finding C or 3, that the proposed project is consistent with the general scale structures. And we're going to ask you to make this finding tonight and vote in approval of this project. Um... |
| 03:19:36.94 | Unknown | Oh shit. Jumping through this. So, yeah. So, what we're talking about is the presence of this house in the neighborhood. This is Marie's – I'm sorry, this is the Woodward presence. That's our proposed house there. This is the existing hillside presence that it has right now, and this is our proposed presence. And I actually think that our proposed presence is no more. In fact, it could possibly be less. If you go back to the existing, you can see all the vertical architectural elements and forms and all the siding is vertical. And it makes this house read much taller than it actually is. With the proposed design, we've moved on to a more horizontal oriented house with horizontal architectural elements and forms. The use of a gray stucco siding helps it blend better with its natural surroundings as well as an organic wood siding. Another thing since I'm running out of time, I'm going to jump here. When you look at this and you think about the general scale of the surrounding neighborhood, this is Easterby. These are small homes down on Easterby, maybe with an exception. This is Marie. They're larger homes here than they are on Easterby. This is Woodward,, and they're larger homes than they are on Marie. And this is Platt. And as we get up into here, we get much larger homes and much smaller homes, and it gets very eclectic. It's standard Sausalito hillside living. That's where we live. That's how our communities have been developed over the years. You can look and see we do have large houses. This is a house on Woodward. This is a house on Marie. We have larger houses above the Marie Street houses. This is consistent with our project that we're proposing. Here's another house. This little pyramid is a roof on Marie Street. This is a house on Woodward. Presence. Yeah, and it's experienced on Maurice Street And ours wouldn't be this visible by far. But again, it's consistent with our proposed project that there are houses on Woodward that are above Marie Street. And here's another one. The same thing on the same street. These are homes on Marie. This home is on Woodward. |
| 03:21:37.18 | Unknown | So to get back to, you know, this is what we're proposing here. And it's actually a benefit to the neighborhood, as you're going to hear. We have overwhelming – just jump in. We have overwhelming support provided on the record, not just we've done outreach for months before we brought this in, and we still have overwhelming support. We have 14 letters on the record. I saw two written responses attached to the staff report. I'm aware that there's more people who may speak to that. If it doubles, if it triples, we're still looking at almost three to one in support. This is overwhelming neighborhood support, and I think that's very important. Additionally, if I had more time to slow down and show you how this house fits in, and it's very consistent with the homes around Woodward, how those homes are experienced on Marie Street, and how this home will be consistent with that scale of architecture and development in the Woodward and Marie areas. Thank you. |
| 03:22:45.12 | Jill Hoffman | So I'd recommend that we, any questions of counsel at this point? |
| 03:22:51.11 | Jill Hoffman | I think John answered my question actually. So I understand now what the colored dots meant. |
| 03:22:57.88 | Jill Hoffman | So at this point, we'll bring it up for public comment. And can I get a show of hands? How many would like to comment? Okay. So as you come up, please fill out the speaker cards, and you can start coming up. |
| 03:23:13.92 | Jill Hoffman | Don't be shy. |
| 03:23:31.47 | Jill Hoffman | Oh, no. Yeah, someone could come up. Please. Hey, Ray. If you could do it afterwards, so we just – I don't mean to slow down the process, but if you can and – and then who's ever next? |
| 03:23:33.68 | Mike Soray | Please. |
| 03:23:34.33 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:23:41.24 | Unknown | Sure. |
| 03:23:41.50 | Jill Hoffman | Peace. |
| 03:23:42.26 | Unknown | Ray Grigas is my name. I live at 60 Woodward Avenue. And I'd like to, first of all, compliment the architect and the owner on the architectural approach of the property, as well as the landscaping that they have proposed. My concern is with the sheer size of the house. As I've said at the planning commission meeting, I consider it to be out of proportion to the rest of the neighborhood. I've lived at 60 Woodward Avenue for 58 and a half years, and I've seen a lot of changes in that – in Woodward Avenue, the block that I consider my neighborhood. I consider my neighborhood from the very beginning of Woodward Avenue to Spring Street, and there are about 23 houses there now. When I moved in, there were four houses, and mine made the fifth, and the adjoining made the sixth. Of those 23 houses, I do consider mistakes to have been made. If 38 Woodward is approved as it is now being proposed, I I, in my opinion, consider it to be a mistake. Other mistakes of that same nature I see at three other residences in that, within that neighborhood of my definition, particularly two that were shown by the architect to me are, I would define as obnoxious to look at. How they ever happened to exist, I cannot explain, but they do exist, and I consider them to be mistakes. Unfortunately for Woodward Avenue, those are not the only mistakes that have been made in my neighborhood, and this might be diverging a little bit, but it keeps it in perspective. The first terrible mistake was made at 100 Woodward Avenue, which occurred before there was a tree ordinance, and they cut down a 100-year-old oak tree in order to make room for the house. The second mistake occurred at 67 Woodward Avenue, where they wanted to put in a driveway next to a very pleasant creek, which I enjoy looking at all the time. It was decided to make it cheaper to put in the driveway that the creek be covered up, and so it was covered up. Mistake again. Third mistake is my neighbor at 77 Woodward Avenue who owned a beautiful 100-year-old oak tree, and he decided to improve his view had it cut down. He completely ignored the tree ordinance. So if you add those mistakes to the ones I've already identified, we have what I consider to be six mistakes on Woodward Avenue. I don't want a seventh mistake. We have more than our fair proportion of mistakes. Thank you. |
| 03:26:55.80 | Ron Albert | Hello, Ron Albert, resident of Sausalito. I live on George Lane. I'm about two blocks above this. I walk my dog by this project sometimes. I do share something in common with Marie Street residents in that I have a smaller home relative to the homes above me. There are several homes immediately above me on Montemar that are about 1,000 square feet bigger than my home. And like the homes on Marie Street, my house is oriented towards the water view. I can see those larger homes from the street as I'm approaching my house, but once I'm inside my home, I cannot see those larger homes above me at all. And like most Marie Street residents, I have no concerns regarding those homes above me that I cannot see at all from inside my own home. I took particular interest in this Planning Commission decision because I was the chair of the Planning Commission when the zoning ordinance was drafted and subsequently adopted by the City Council. We met for a year and a half, having special meetings every month, going through the zoning ordinance chapter by chapter. I never understood this particular finding to have anything to do with a project's floor area ratio, let alone a calculation of the average floor area ratio of a neighborhood. I understood this to be a somewhat subjective finding of the project's massing and visual presence relative to its surroundings. I took a look at some other zoning ordinances. I did a little online research. I couldn't find any zoning ordinance that defined scale or general scale. Scale is a term commonly used in zoning ordinances, general scale not so much. Locally, I looked at the ordinances of the four communities closest to us, Mill Valley, Tiburon, Marin County Unincorporated Area, and Corte Madera. Out of those, only Tiburon even uses the phrase general skills. None of these ordinances contain any reference to square footage in connection with the concept of scale. Mill Valley's building design guidelines include a guideline that refers to scale, mass, and height, that refers to scale generally in connection with the massing and visual presence of a building. Puerto Madero, this is Marin County. Marin County's ordinance uses the word scale when talking about scale of the surroundings or scale of the neighborhood, but no reference to square footage, let alone FAR. Corte Madera uses the term scale generally. And the phrase that says, new work shall be differentiated from the old and shall be compatible I'm sorry. Can I go very quickly with the massing scale of the neighborhood? General scale was only used in the Tiburon Wireless Communications Facilities Ordinance. A wireless communications facility has no floor area. Uh... There's no living area in a wireless communication facility. It has zero floor area. Obviously, none of these ordinances considered floor area in connection with the design review of scale and Sausalito's was not intended to. I think we'll be opening up a world of unintended and undesirable consequences. We start looking at neighborhoods average FAR, we should throw out the concept totally and tell the Planning Commission to do that. This home is well within its allowable FAR. that fits within the neighborhood scale. and the council should side with the overwhelming majority of neighbors and the staff and adopt the staff's resolution of approval. |
| 03:31:09.83 | Michael Rex | MICHAEL RACKS, I'm Michael Rex, local architect. And I'd like you to know no one asked me to come here tonight to speak. I'm here because I want to. I want to speak for two reasons, because I have a procedural concern about a flawed review process that impacts us all. And I'd also like to briefly speak about the specific merits of this particular project. I think it's questionable to use averaging FAR in a neighborhood as a method or criteria to judge the relative scale of a building in a neighborhood. I happened to be at that last hearing. I was here for another reason. And as I sat there and listened to what the Planning Commission was doing, I was surprised and I was troubled by it. I was troubled that the Planning Commission would introduce and apply a new criteria that doesn't exist in our zoning ordinance as a way of evaluating and judging a project. FAR is used to measure a building's relationship of scale to its lot size. It's not used to measure its relative scale to the surrounding buildings. We do that by looking at the surrounding buildings. And the Planning Commission further aired when in their analysis, they arbitrarily throughout all the buildings that didn't conform to the code. Even whether they conformed or not, they're the buildings nearby. So they ended up with a skewed analysis and resulting wrong decision. Um, I ask you to uphold this appeal tonight. because it sets a bad precedent when the Commission invents and applies a development standard that's not in our code. That's not their job. specifically about the project. I go along with Stasso recommendation that tonight you adopt Attachment number one, to uphold this appeal, and approve the project as currently proposed. After the hearing, I studied what's proposed. And I've concluded that this is a good design It's thoughtful and carefully executed. I think. actually looks smaller because it is horizontal and it steps down to the existing building, which emphasizes vertical. Um, I think that John has made significant changes, reducing the size of the building and adding additional screening and preserving trees, all in direct response, a significant response, to concerns that were raised in the hearing process. Because it's a good design and appropriate to the neighborhood, I ask that You approve it tonight. Thank you. |
| 03:34:21.30 | Unknown | Good evening. Mike Kelly, former Planning Commissioner and Councilmember. And I'm here to talk about what I think is a dangerous precedent. It's been said already, but it needs to be said again. Averaging FAR to determine what is conforming or nonconforming in a district is a scheme that I don't know exists anyplace else other than in this Planning commission. I can find it not in San Francisco or in any of the jurisdictions that I've been in. I've never heard of it before. That we would deny the FAR spread which is given to each zoning district in favor of a new methodology seems to be very dangerous. That could then, as someone has already said, pass on to every other district and become, |
| 03:34:37.99 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:34:38.03 | Unknown | Bye. |
| 03:34:38.09 | Unknown | Amen. |
| 03:35:17.64 | Unknown | Commissioner Keegan said, a wonderful algorithm that dictates design and scale that we can use on other cases. And that's kind of almost a quote from his Planning Commission meeting. The analysis that we have that has been made would in the favor of well, let me say this, that Commissioner Cox said that the project entitlements are within the code and the applicant is not even seeking heightened review because that is far within the allowable FAR but it's the size of the lot that's a problem. So suddenly the lot and the coverage of the lot becomes the criteria instead of the context of the house within its setting. They then the Commission actually then began to talk about how they were going to present this. And at one point, Commissioner Werner said, I think we should deny it. this application. and let the city council tell us what the neighborhood should look like. Well, that's the job of the planning commission is to let the designs go through that they believe they can find for. There was a motion to or a discussion to grant a continuance and then Commissioner Cox then recanted that and then they denied the application. So one of the dissenting commissioners, Susan Cleveland Knowles, said on tape that the average in the FAR bothered her. that the character of a neighborhood is so much more than the numbers that you saw represented there. and that this analysis was really not enough and that she had never seen that approach before. And I support that view because I've been before a lot of planning commissions with a lot of different projects and I've never seen that kind of approach made for a project. So this is an excellent design. I've studied the design. I didn't start out with that. But as I look at it, it fits in the neighborhood in a wonderful way. And you We just saw some pictures of it showing that. So I ask you to take action. I've studied the design. I didn't start out with that, but as I look at it, it fits in the neighborhood in a wonderful way, and you just saw some pictures of it showing that. So I ask you to take action. The PC is spoken. Hello? It's unlikely to change its view. And so I think it needs to be heard here and action be taken here. It's a great project, fits the neighborhood, and we need all kinds of different sizes in our neighborhoods. |
| 03:37:33.05 | Unknown | It's unlikely to change its view. |
| 03:37:56.75 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:37:57.55 | Sam Silverman | I'm Sam Silverman. I live at Sixty Marie and have done so for 30 years. The debate seems to be based on this FAR, which was One of the factors that the Planning Commission Considered. and it's now being used as a tool to negate everything else that was said. I travel fairly extensively. And when people ask me, Where do I live? I usually say San Francisco Bay Area. And then they say, well, where? And I say, Sausalito. And without a doubt, everybody that asked me that says, Sausalito. I love Sausalito. I love the walk on the water. I love to look at the homes nestled up in the hillside. Will it? architecturally, This is a nice design. but it's not a nice design as compared to the Murray Street area. The design as it is looks right down into 61 Marie's living room, looks right down into my front bedroom. The photographs that were presented by the architect were panoramic views. They're fine. If you look at the images that I took, you'll see that the footprint of the new building is extensive. and it's magnified by the slope of the property. and there is no landscaping that's going to hide this gigantic structure. So this is a Marie Street project. people on Marie Street see it. This is not a Platt project. And so, you know, there's a saying in science that If you select the correct number of mice, you can prove anything that you want. So if the first mouse has the disease or doesn't have the disease and you can the experiment, guess what, you've got a positive result. adding these homes on Platt and everywhere else is manipulating the data. It doesn't have anything to do with what the people on Marie Street see. the people on Woodward again. They may walk by this project, but it really doesn't affect them. It affects everybody on Marie Street. I also put some photographs in to show that When you walk the area, you have little snippets of view. And you don't have a big vista point. But as you walk the area, and I photograph that, you can see that the view is significantly impacted because of the building. Now, it's not a gigantic structure above street level, but it still limits the view. So, I understand the legalese and all of the factors into whether or not this FAR is the end. But I'd like you to also consider the people on Marie Street. Thank you. |
| 03:41:13.15 | Michelle Yellen | Michelle Yellen, I've been a resident on Murray Street since 1987. and I would like to make a few comments. Um, This is a Marie Street issue as Dr. Silverman just said. If you go on Woodward, you mostly see the garage and the driveway. But this property has street to street footage and it will be, as proposed, more than double three of the adjacent properties. It is, as Dr. Silverman said, impossible to disguise or mitigate the volume of this house because it terraces down the hill. And it's very, very evident. as you walk any part of Marie Street, it feels like a Marie Street property. Um, the uh... Mr. Withy, you had mentioned about the dots in that little chart, and I'd like to say that when that chart was submitted to the Planning Commission, it was flawed. It had the red color on Marie Street where it was supposed to be houses in the 2,000 to 3,000 square foot range, but there was no house that was bigger than 2,200 square feet. So, yeah, it was truthful, but might as well have said 2,000 to 10,000 square foot range. It wasn't really giving a good picture. I'm against the volume, I'm against the loss of my personal privacy, I have great concern as to what's going to happen with the proposed screening. We're in a drought. What happens if you can't put in new landscaping next year? What happens if they put in small landscaping and it doesn't grow? What happens if whoever buys this property, because it's not going to be an owner-occupied property, what happens if they don't maintain the landscaping? Then the privacy into my living room is lost. I've been there since 1987. I have floor-to-ceiling windows in the living room with no window covering for a reason. I would like some protection as a long-term resident on Marie Street. I have never objected to an expansion project before. There's one going on on Marie Street right now. It's very tasteful. and it's fine, I've signed off on another one. They're all conforming, they fit into the neighborhood. I'd also like to say that two of the commissioners at the planning meetings also said that the house was just too large for the neighborhood. So it wasn't just an FAR discussion, it was also how this house fits in the neighborhood. I found out that this appeal was last week. Mr. McCoy has been planning this unbeknownst to me since last November. There's a lot more people here now than there were at the Planning Commission because he had time to talk to them. I didn't have time to talk to anybody, but there are quite a few people on Marie Street. It's here. It's really a Marie Street versus Woodward Street issue. Help us, please. |
| 03:44:53.03 | Jill Hoffman | Take your time. We're on the video and we have TV. |
| 03:44:57.77 | Randy Perretta | As I said, my name is Randy Perretta. I live in 51 Marie Street, the house directly below the parcel in question, ground zero, as it were, if the old house comes down, which is why I'd like to make my comments. I'm trained in geology and have worked in the field before. This is an old house that I'm living under right now. We're in the middle of the 150-year earthquake cycle on the San Andreas Fault. The next big one, 1906 event, is due somewhere in the middle of this century. |
| 03:44:57.79 | Jill Hoffman | As I said, |
| 03:45:30.12 | Randy Perretta | During the remainder of that period of time, earthquakes like Loma Prieta are going to become more frequent. Indeed, since Loma Prieta, the focus of the strain has moved about 50 miles north, 30 miles north say to Crystal Springs Reservoir. I'm living under a very old house that's taken a beating in terms of its adhesion and connection to the ground because of the vertical aspect ratio in the design elements of the house. I do not feel safe living under that house. And I would hate to see this project be disapproved because one out of 18 requirements was rejected for dubious reasons. In the end, we all have to live there. We have to live with the aesthetics. We have to live with the law. And we have to live with the decision of bodies such as yourselves in the planning commission. Nonetheless, I believe that there's a significant current if not potential safety issue with the existing structure as we move farther into this century and being the person whose bedroom is right underneath that uh... That structure, I have a real stake in the process, and I would ask you to approve the construction and the renovation of that property. Thank you. |
| 03:46:56.77 | Alice Merrill | Hi, my name's Alice Merrill, and I'm just here, this is all new to me, but my take is, Somebody just said this is being made for resale, and I asked the owner, and he said yes. Well, To make something so big, you know, it can be rebuilt so that this fellow just spoke, isn't having anything fall in his house, and the house that's there isn't gorgeous, the one that's being remodeled. And John's design looks very pretty, but it also looks huge. And Why are we don't need to have Sausalito just loading up with huge houses that then get turned over? And that's just a value thing that this town needs to address. And I guess that the council, I mean, the planning was trying to address it. Design something smaller, for heaven's sakes. That's easy. John can do it. He can do it. So I say get him to. Thank you. |
| 03:48:17.91 | Jill Von Berg | Good evening, thank you. My name is Jill, Jill Von Berg, and I live at 26 Woodward Avenue, the house right next door to 38 Woodward Avenue. And I am just, excuse me, gobsmacked. what I'm hearing here tonight. If there is anybody that's impacted by this house, it is me, it is my family, it is the people that live right next door to it, right underneath it, as you said. And to make this into a Marie Street versus Woodward is the biggest lot of nonsense that I have ever heard. And forgive me, neighbors, that's what it sounds like. |
| 03:48:33.92 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:48:33.94 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 03:48:52.81 | Jill Von Berg | You're exactly right when we say we live in South Salito, people say, wow, South Salito, it's fabulous, love it, it's a hillside community. The reason that we live here is it's a hillside community. we have houses above us, we have houses below us, I can reach out next door, to number 20 Woodward I think it is, which has a 60% FAR. I can reach on the other side to the tiny house that's not even on the map. It was excluded. It's a maybe 1,600-square-foot house on a 3,000-square-foot lot. And I can reach over to my late neighbor's house and say, good God, Doug, why didn't you build it when you were here? Because he wouldn't have been here tonight asking permission. He would have just built it, and we all know that. So... I just can't believe that we're having this discussion even. We're looking at the most beautiful design that you could put on that lot. It fits into the community like no other design would. It may be that it's looking down on somebody's roof. I'm looking down on somebody's roof. Somebody is looking down on me. It may be next door to somebody. There's somebody next door to all of us. It is the beauty of this hillside community. It is really beautiful. The design fits with the neighborhood. The nonsense about FAR should be just stricken off the record, and let's look at the beautiful design that's there and move on, and I urge you to approve it. Thank you. |
| 03:50:15.31 | Jill Hoffman | Anyone else for public comment? Okay. |
| 03:50:26.93 | Maria Polk | My name is Maria Polk and my husband and I have lived at 37 Woodward Avenue now for 32 years. And I'm amazed that it's not a Marie Street or a Woodward Street issue. And My next-door neighbor and I live right across the street from Doug's old house. If you knew Doug, you would know that it's time to renovate that house, and I can't imagine you know, um, If I had the money, I would have bought it. And I couldn't imagine going through the kind of stuff They went through I have no motive except to say, gee, I wish they could get on with renovating the house. I lived through, I'm right next door. I know what the house looks like. I've looked at it for 32 years. I've looked at the silver tarp. I've looked at the designated oak tree. And don't get me started about the designated oak tree. It was hung with wires. At the last big windstorm, because Doug was very sick, And we were all worried because one of the big branches was going to fall right into his house. So we rushed to the city saying, for God's sake, the designated oak, the designated oak, it's going to kill Doug. I mean, you know, they can only live for so long, like all of us. Okay, I love oak trees, but come on. You know, that oak tree was held together with spittin wire, and so is that house looking at next door to Doug's house. We all know what. you know, Doug's house looked like and the tarp and the trucks. I mean, really. |
| 03:52:20.28 | Unknown | THE END OF THE END OF THE Thank you. |
| 03:52:21.26 | Maria Polk | You know, so of course, I would love to see it. You know, this is a beautiful plan. I've looked at it. My husband and I have looked at it. And please get on with it already. Thank you. |
| 03:52:40.50 | Peter Rosenthal | Peter Rosenthal, I'm the owner of the property and |
| 03:52:46.10 | Jill Hoffman | This is for public comments, so you would be included in the rebuttal. |
| 03:52:50.57 | Peter Rosenthal | Oh, okay. I'll do whatever. |
| 03:52:52.80 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah. Sorry. Thank you for catching it in. |
| 03:52:52.83 | Peter Rosenthal | Thank you. |
| 03:52:55.75 | Jill Hoffman | anyone else from the public before me? Thank you. Thank you. It's okay. You'll have time. You have five more minutes. |
| 03:53:03.28 | Carolyn Patrick | Hi, my name's Carolyn Patrick. Maria and I live directly across the street from 38 Woodward Avenue. I believe that we are very directly impacted by this property. I was concerned that the buyers might propose some big behemoth of a house. I don't believe they did propose a behemoth of a house. It's a beautiful design. I think it is going to beautify the entire neighborhood. It's going to increase all of our property values. It's going to be a delight to look at. I don't believe it's going to have a very significant impact on the neighborhood views. We do live in a hillside, Village. There are a number of charming hillside villages around the world. We happen to be one of them. The nature of a hillside village is that you have a lot of houses of an eclectic size and sometimes an eclectic style. And everybody's looking into each other's rooms. That's the way it is. If we don't like that, we could move to Novato or something and not have to have that kind of a situation. We use landscaping to mitigate it. I think Mr. Albert was correct when he said when you have a home, that's looking out on lovely views, you look out on the lovely views. You're not so much concerned about what's behind you. If you're concerned about your privacy, Put a shade on your bedroom window. You know, it's just the way we are. This home is going to enhance our neighborhood. It's going to be much more beautiful than some of the mistakes that Ray Gerges was mentioning. And I'm just very eager for this construction to begin so that we can have a more beautiful neighborhood. And I urge you to approve the project. Thank you. |
| 03:55:05.66 | Carl Phillips | I'm Carl Phillips. I live at 54 Marie Street, just opposite the downhill frontage of the lot on Woodward. I'll be very brief. I'll just read the letter I sent to the Planning Commission. I live at 54 Marie Street facing the lower section of the lot of 38 Woodward. Until the proposed framework was erected, we did not realize just how big this building was going to be looming over the homes below. It's our opinion that the structure is much too large for this residential neighborhood. Thank you. |
| 03:55:46.68 | Wendy Richards | Wendy Richards, and my house is a direct neighbor to this property on Woodward at 48. I live just above Michelle's house, and the property does impact my property directly. The side of the house faces directly into the master bedroom of my house, and as I submitted in my comments, the architect has done several things to mitigate the impact. At first, I was quite shocked, and actually Michelle and I examined the plans together because I understand the mass and the issues that it impacts on the lower houses. My house is on the upper part of the hill. But the architect went out of his way to make changes that reduce that impact. It's not going to go away, but I'm quite satisfied with the changes that were made, and I am happy to live here. And I understand that we live in a hillside community on top of each other. What's most troubling to me here is the procedural issues. I think as property owners here, there are rules. It is hard enough to get things built in Sausalito that this FAR issue is a very important issue for us as property owners. So I think we need to be very clear to distinguish the questions around the size and the impact and the scale of this building. That's one set of issues. But if we're going to start changing the rules, that is going to affect all of us. This is our major investment for nearly everyone who owns a home here. And at some point in time, we are going to care as property owners buying or selling. And this is a very large lot. The lot size impacts what people want to do with it. It was very hard for the seller after Doug's passing to find a buyer because our rules are already very, very tight. So that lot size then leads to a large building. So there's, to me, that's three very distinct issues is what is, you know, the lot size and what are you allowed to do with it? That's what buyers are doing when they're buying. They're finding these things out. And if we're going to change the rules, this is not the way to do it. If there are still issues around the neighbors, then that's a separate thing. But let's be clear that these are distinct issues, and I urge you, please do not allow this FAR issue to go through, because it will impact all of us. Thank you. |
| 03:58:28.29 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. Anyone else from the public like to comment? OK. Seeing none, we'll close public comment, and we'll move to the applicant who has another five minutes, and you can split it up any way you like. |
| 03:58:50.97 | Unknown | Again, I'll try to be brief. I would like to give the property owner at least a couple minutes to introduce himself and discuss his own property. |
| 03:58:52.22 | Unknown | Bye. |
| 03:59:01.89 | Unknown | Listening to the comments that I heard, it's apparent the overwhelming support for this project. And there is support from people on Marie Street within your staff report and the letters provided to you. You will find Marie Street letters of support in there as well on the record in addition to any conversations that I've had with people I'm speaking of on the record support. What else did we talk about? Ms. Yellen's concerns with privacy. I don't have time to go through all my slides. I've visited her house. I've been there. And kind of the reality of this situation is she will not see this house, and this house will not see her house. There's a mass dense vegetation already existing. It's thinned in this environment of drought, quasi-drought that we're in. I was out there with Councilmember Hoffman and I was like, wow, it's actually thinner. And if I could show you the images, it's a wall of green in the summer. Even before I knew it had thinned, our proposed landscape plan has additional screening that would be year-round. We've worked with a licensed landscape architect to come up with drought-tolerant and hardy species, and that's in the proposed landscape design plan. I don't have time to go through all the plants and discuss their growth patterns and how they stand up. And they were designed for sites specific to this environment you know this general environment privacy we talked about somebody mentioned drapes which is funny this project does not look into any windows period I've created models I've done studies we see houses and when you walk along Marie Street when you come from Fil, you see it at that end, and when you get to the end of the cul-de-sac and you look back, you see it from that end. As you travel up Marie Street, you do not see it. You're on Marie Street. There's already dense vegetation there. We're adding to that, augmenting that. We've come up with a tiered system to work up the hill with larger and larger screening. This house will have minimal impact on the Marie Street people, and I'm going to let – what do I got here? I got a quick second. So their experience in this house will be minimal. As they travel up and down Marie Street, they'll see it from the far ends, and they won't see it from basically the bulk of the property. Additionally, when they're in their homes, they won't see this house. They will still enjoy the same experience of living in their homes that they enjoy today. That is not going to change. I'll let Peter introduce himself a little bit here, but I'll answer any questions if you have any after Peter speaks. |
| 04:01:45.56 | Peter Rosenthal | Hi, sorry about the snafu there. Thank you for taking the time tonight to hear us. As much as this has been very stressful, I think it's been productive for everybody. Again, my name is Peter Rosenthal. I've lived in the Bay Area for the better part of the last 20 years. I have offices over here in Sausalito for over two years now. And yes, I develop or redeveloped a house a year, typically smaller infill type projects. I'm a one-man band. When I hired John, I had met him through a friend. I was really impressed with his body of work and the fact that on his website he had a tab called Sausalito Hillside Homes. So I was Um... John has done a terrific job. my directive to him was to build a house that we can get through. It wasn't max out the lot, okay? It's never been max out the lot. It's been build a house we can get through because I can't deal with the stress of all of this stuff. He did a great job. It was very important to me that we do a lot of neighborhood outreach. He went out to 85 people with letters. My partner and I at the time, he's no longer my partner, but we had gone around to about 10 houses that were part of that 85, but put letters in the door, knocked on the door, gave our cards, because neighbors are important to us. Every neighbor that has directly approached us with an issue that wasn't sort of at the 30,000-foot level, we have addressed. we will continue to address. We had a meeting at John's office. There was about 20 people there. It was overwhelming support. The first time we heard a single negative comment was the night before the first meeting. I thank you very much for your time. However this ends up, it's been an enlightening process. |
| 04:04:13.00 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, so we'll bring it back here. I guess we'll start. Does anyone have any questions at this stage? No questions. Okay. So now let's move into comment. |
| 04:04:36.98 | Unknown | Sure, I'll start. |
| 04:04:39.05 | Jill Hoffman | I seem to lead off on these things. Okay, so significant to me is the impact on the neighborhoods. And to me, with respect to the people on Woodward, the most significant impact with this project undeniably is on Marie Street. Woodward Street you see pretty much the same outline although there is some some encroachment of the public view, which is always of a concern, But really based on my – and this is my independent conclusion based on walking around on the Woodward Street and Marie Street. when you walk down Marie Street, the bulk of what's facing Marie Street is almost doubled. and the height of the narrowest part of the view from Marie Street from the Marie side of that piece of property leads straight into the corner of the largest section of the house. So that to me is one of the most significant issues about whether or not this project is within scale with the neighborhood. The other significant things that I look at are the neighbors. And so I read through all of the written materials and I certainly have listened to everybody here tonight. And, you know, from my perspective from Marie Street we have, you know, Michelle Yellen at 61 Marie Street, we have Ray Gerges at Woodward but also, you know, in conjunction with the Marie Street, Sam Silverman at 60 Marie Street, I think Ray Bakke, who owns 51 Marie, and then we have the resident of 51 Marie Street, Initially they were against the project because it was too big Now I understand that they are no longer against the project because the architect has negated some of those issues that they have, but the bulk issue is still highlighted by their objections. And I have information from 54 Marie, Carly and Mary Ann, Barbara Knowles at 64 Marie Street, Sam Silverman, I think I said, Murray Adriscoll, who lives in Ebtide but also She submitted an objection, but then withdrew her objection. Um, And then I see the support from Woodward. not only Woodward but also Marie Street and I understand the support from Woodward and I'm sympathetic to that as well. It's so much better to have you know, something other than what's there, which is, you know, kind of a horrible, derelict eyesore. I get it. And I want the architect to be successful in getting his beautiful plan. you know, built. But I think the way I come down on it is, and as always I'm willing to listen to my other fellow Council members, but my I come down on it that it is a significant change to the Marie Street streetscape. And, you know, the encroachment of bulk is well taken. And I think if you look at 20 Woodward and 26 Woodward are pretty substantial, surrounded by smaller, much smaller houses, then the encroachment one step further with 38. And so... Because of the configuration, that's the concern. I think there was a comment. It's like a battleship jetting to Murray Street, that one corner on the west side. And and that seemed to be the case when I walked down the street. |
| 04:08:01.43 | Jill Hoffman | So, uh... I went into this not really, really torn. This was, going into this, I thought this was a very tough call because after listening to all of the Planning Commission stuff, and I'm going to come to that in a minute. I then went up to visit and spent a lot of time this morning walking up and down Murray Street looking at it from all various angles, looking at what have been called mistakes, looking at the general bulk of the buildings that you would look up at. To be honest, I didn't actually find this particularly out of place. I think the, you know, story polls unfortunately magnify the bulk because they're holding up a deck. And the other thing is that, you know, John and the owner here have done the right thing. They've reduced the size. there is, I don't know I'd use the word overwhelming, but there's a significant majority support in the neighborhood for this project. There's no question about that. And then when it comes to the FAR issue, About a month ago up here, I got very emotional about another appeal, which poor Michael Rex down in there in the audience was the brunt of. Sorry, Michael. And that was because I believe the Planning Commission was – rewriting the zoning ordinance. This is an even more egregious example of rewriting the zoning ordinance. You cannot possibly average FARs. It's just wrong. It's not the right methodology. I mean, you'll get regression to the mean. You would homogenize all of our neighborhoods. And most importantly, you'd significantly reduce property values if we took that approach. It's just not the right methodology. So I can make finding number three. And this is supposed to be a de novo process. I went through every finding and I can make them. So that's where I stand. Reasonable minds can agree to disagree. But I also think we need to redo these rundown houses. |
| 04:11:01.75 | Unknown | Well, I agree with what Councilmember Withey just stated. |
| 04:11:08.51 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 04:11:09.25 | Unknown | I was up there a couple of times. I looked and I looked to see if I thought it was I don't really use words like scales and things like that. I just attempt to use just good common sense. And I looked at it and looked at it, and I spoke to a couple of the neighbors, And I knew John, I knew that house. Not only did he not take care of the house, he never took care of his cars or anything else there. and everything is falling apart. And I really feel that after hearing everything here, that I could find for the findings of number three. And that's my thought. |
| 04:12:02.46 | Jill Hoffman | Well, when the Planning Commission reviewed this, and I think everyone here or certainly most people here commented on what an excellent design this was. And the Planning Commission wasn't troubled by any other issues. So some of the issues that were raised, they had been dealt with in privacy and other types of things at the Planning Commission level. The Planning Commission was troubled by finding number three. They went into the FAR. Um, I think it may have influenced them. It certainly was a 3-2 vote. I certainly defer to the Planning Commission and respect their judgment, and I do on this case as well. I think it's a very important thing. But it was a 3-2 vote and there was Certainly a lot of victims. equivocating, it wasn't easy for them. And I think the I think the FAR is not a good analysis. I think it takes away. I certainly, by walking, I think it's a good idea. and Woodward, and also by looking at some of the renderings gives you a much better feel for where it would fit in than the FAR would. I'd like to suggest that the FAR is probably not a good analysis, but I'm not taking that as the basis for the Planning Commission's judgment. They looked at other parts of the scale, but I think it's within the scale, I think, As Commissioner Cleveland Knowles said, 3,200 square feet is not a huge home, and we have to have homes for families that come in. We can't have all very small homes. We need some diversity as long as they meet the scale. It's a dilapidated home, and we certainly heard overwhelming support for making that change. The neighbors generally like it. I know there are the exceptions that are here. I think it would be difficult, and I think the Planning Commission acknowledged this. The Planning Commission could have continued and asked for the structure, the design, which we've all noted is an excellent one, to be redesigned, but that would be a difficult thing. And I'm certainly not inclined to make that change. I think it's a good design that fits in the neighborhood. And I would support the applicant and uphold the, I guess, uphold the appeal. |
| 04:14:31.30 | Jill Hoffman | Are we ready for a motion or a vote? |
| 04:14:35.11 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah, I'm ready to make a motion. Do we need separate motions on the encroachment agreement, or can we just marry? What do we need to do here? Danny, do you have a draft motion for us? |
| 04:14:50.18 | Unknown | It can be together because the resolution was crafted such that you would both uphold the appeal and approve the encroachment agreement. |
| 04:14:59.24 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, so I move that we uphold the appeal and approve the design review permit and encroachment agreement 14-196. I think that's it. I'll second. |
| 04:15:20.05 | Unknown | That's it. |
| 04:15:23.04 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 04:15:32.86 | Unknown | Council Member Weiner. |
| 04:15:33.79 | Unknown | Yes. |
| 04:15:35.02 | Unknown | Councilmember Whitty? |
| 04:15:35.90 | Unknown | Yes. |
| 04:15:36.30 | Unknown | you Vice Mayor Hoffman. |
| 04:15:41.92 | Unknown | And Mayor Theodore. |
| 04:15:43.00 | Jill Hoffman | Yes, yes. Okay. |
| 04:15:45.70 | Unknown | you |
| 04:15:47.74 | Jill Hoffman | Deals upheld. Thank you, everyone. |
| 04:16:22.86 | Unknown | This is Radio Sausalito. |
| 04:16:32.73 | Unknown | If you're like most people, 20% of your home electric bills go directly to lighting. Every light we switch to one during the government's energy star window uses at least two-thirds less energy than older bulbs. Such a light will save more than $30 in energy costs over its lifetime. Just replace traditional light bulbs with energy-efficient bulbs and constituents. |
| 04:16:55.76 | Unknown | A public service announcement from Radio Sausalito and the U.S. Department of Energy. |
| 04:17:22.11 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 04:17:38.69 | Unknown | you Thank you. Never. Bye. you you |
| 04:17:56.80 | Unknown | Thank you. We love you. you Okay. you So you |
| 04:18:23.47 | Unknown | Thank you. you you Thank you. I'm going to go. |
| 04:18:36.27 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 04:18:36.29 | Unknown | you |
| 04:18:36.56 | Unknown | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 04:19:06.07 | Unknown | He he he he you |
| 04:19:41.88 | Unknown | Bye. I |
| 04:19:59.48 | Unknown | Bye. |
| 04:20:12.71 | Unknown | . you Thank you. Thank you. you you Music you I got a gold. |
| 04:20:21.64 | Unknown | Bye. Any about... |
| 04:20:28.39 | Unknown | Oh, |
| 04:20:30.62 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 04:20:31.90 | Unknown | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 04:20:32.15 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 04:20:35.61 | Unknown | Thank you. I hope you don't think this is a good one. Yeah. you Thank you. you Thank you. Thank you. All right, let's clear that. |
| 04:20:46.51 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 04:20:46.53 | Carl Phillips | Yeah. |
| 04:20:46.82 | Unknown | All right, let's clear the hall. |
| 04:20:47.93 | Unknown | Go home. |
| 04:20:49.03 | Unknown | Thank you. . |
| 04:20:49.64 | Unknown | Very good. |
| 04:20:50.08 | Unknown | like a big stick. |
| 04:20:50.80 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 04:20:53.32 | Unknown | I think that's why it's all good. Absolutely. |
| 04:20:54.07 | Unknown | Yeah. During the last week, two hours running around. |
| 04:20:58.76 | Unknown | I think we should buy a solid grade. |
| 04:21:00.96 | Carolyn Patrick | I think so. Thank you. I'm not. No, that pissed me. I don't know. Me too. This is how it's my business. |
| 04:21:10.16 | Unknown | Oh, that's good. |
| 04:21:10.24 | Unknown | Oh, that's good. you All right, Gary. Yeah, thanks to C.S. |
| 04:21:23.89 | Jill Hoffman | All right, now we move on to the manager, Report for the City Council. |
| 04:21:29.11 | Adam Politzer | Thank you. you |
| 04:21:29.53 | Jill Hoffman | Adam? |
| 04:21:29.85 | Adam Politzer | you Thank you, Mr. Mayor and Councilmembers. I have a little bit of a report that I've tried to squeeze to just the essentials, but some of these are really important. |
| 04:21:33.73 | Jill Hoffman | Uh, |
| 04:21:33.97 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 04:21:42.00 | Adam Politzer | As John McCoy just said, go quickly through them in my three minutes or less. So you heard Adam Carvazzi earlier this evening thank the council and staff for working with two architects here. One was John McCoy and the other was Bill Warner with the working group that we put together of the joint meeting, joint study session of the planning commission and HLB which is scheduled for March 11th. So Bill Werner, as you know, is the vice chair of the planning commission and John McCoy is the chair of HLB and they are both design professionals. So that that was going to be helpful to meet with their architect and engineer and their staff with our staff, including Lily Shin-Sing and Danny Castro, Jonathan Goldman, and myself. I walked out of that meeting feeling that it was productive, that we were able to give them some recommendations specifically on things that we heard loud and clear from the community related to the gate. and then talk about the size and understand the components that drive the size of it. So we left giving them pretty clear direction on what we think they should bring back when we have the joint meeting, joint study session on March 11th. And we've also continued to communicate with the district and have asked Bill Werner and John McCoy to continue to keep those channels open as well as other ideas or comments to or questions come up so that they continue to communicate to the district. in preparation to the March 11th meeting so that we put the district in the best position to introduce reintroduce the project and put potential changes to that. Some of the questions that have come from the community since then are focused on communication to the public. And so we're going to put a banner up on the – at City Hall here on the basketball court where we put other banners in the past, making sure that each time there's a public hearing starting with March 11th that it says that there's a Ferry Landing public hearing here at City Hall on March 11th. After that meeting's concluded, we'll change the date. We can leave the banner, but we'll change the date and say April 1st will be the next public hearing. And then after that, assuming that there's an April 17th meeting, put that date on there as well. We're going to put out a community postcard to the entire, to all residents in Sausalito versus the 300-foot. that were required. There's not a whole lot of people or residents around the 300-foot area. So we thought that it would be best to send out to every resident in town so that they are aware of all of the dates that have been scheduled as directed by the City Council when this item was last heard. We'll continue to use the currents and we'll continue to encourage the local newspapers, the MarinScope and the IJ. to keep people informed. We'll use our social media that exists here in the city and then continue to encourage our community to use social media such as Nextdoor and newsletters and what have them to continue to make sure that the community is well aware of the date that's coming. Once we have a study session and we have materials to distribute, again we will use all vehicles at our disposal to get the information out and make sure it's available to the public both in hard copy here at City Hall. in the library and at the administration office and in the community development office that there could be three sets for people to review at any given time. but also make sure that material is online. So we'll work very hard. And I have a lot of confidence in Danny and Lily to make sure that the information is widely broadcasted and continue to be maintained so that information is updated as we receive it. So I remain hopeful that the process is in place for the public to be heard and for the Planning Commission and HLB to give direction and for the district to make changes where possible and when not possible to clearly articulate to the community why so that the Planning Commission and HLB can make a recommendation to the council at the end of the process. Moving on to another important subject, we had a study session at the last meeting on parking and then we announced to the public that we are testing at least six machines, six different machines out in lot one and that is continuing to happen and we're also new meter heads on Princess Street. And we're seeking, and this will go out in the currents later this week, but we're seeking 50 Sausalito residents to be our – our community. to be evaluators for us and we will give them a debit card or money to actually feed the machines and test it and then fill out an evaluation card on each of the machines and give us their feedback. And so again this will go out in the currents but if people are interested they can contact we have a website or an email set up for people to provide feedback to the community and to the city and so it's Sausalito parking all one word at gmail.com. So anyone that's interested in being a test pilot for our parking Um, equipment, we would appreciate that. And we are restricting that to residents, asking it to be residents that that provide that. And as it says here on the note, there's no special skills necessary. We will train you if needed. We had a meeting earlier this morning with our newly Thank you. created a communications committee and it was something that was important to our mayor, Tom Theodores, and so Abbott Chambers from our library and Lillie and myself make up that committee. Lillie was given the charge to look at what the city of Nevada is doing. They have a full time communications coordinator and then you probably read in the paper about six eight months ago the city of Mill Valley has a communications team where they've also put some significant dollars into hiring a consultant to help their librarian and their assistant to the city manager Thank you. in upgrading their communication tools to reach out to their community. So we are at the beginning of this process. I think we had a productive meeting. And in the very near future, we'll come to the council and give an update of of what we would like to propose. and how we plan to roll this out. And so just wanted to give you a heads up on that. You also heard earlier that Robin Sweeney is turning 90. I was fortunate enough to be the Parks and Recreation Director when she turned 80. Thank you. And so we had a party in Robins-Sweeney Park celebrating her 80th birthday, so we thought that after talking to her daughter and to Robin, that it was very appropriate that we have a 90th birthday and that the city participate in that and we host another party here at Robin Sweeney Park. And so we're going to do that in August. Mike Langford. and his team down in the Park and Recreation Department will be working with Robin and her family, her two daughters. So we're very excited about that. So as soon as we get a date and we'll do something really special for her and the family to recognize her 90th birthday. So that's an exciting announcement. The last thing that I'll share here, and it kind of goes back to the budget discussion and tonight was a first where we didn't have a line of people asking for money. So our work, our advance work worked. We have no money to give, so please don't come. But the reality is that one of the things that we don't, we're not aware of, and we're aware of a lot of things that we have, and a lot of that's on page 149 of our budget, you where we know that we have expenses that we have not aware of and we're aware of a lot of things that we have and a lot of that's on page 149 of our budget where we know that we have expenses that we have to come up with funds for. But what we haven't yet heard is that each of the JPAs that we belong to have been pretty much living on a shoestring and been cutting their budgets and now that, you know, the economy has changed, they too are going to be coming back to the cities and asking people the cities to contribute a few more dollars. animal control services, Tam. I'm sure the media center in Marin Uh, Tom serves on a homeless committee which is looking at proposals and those are yet being formulated still premature to discuss but it will be a request for each of the cities of Marin you know to contribute a few more dollars so that won't hit us in the next couple of months, but when we come to adopt the budget for the 2016 fiscal year, there will be new invoices that roll in from these bodies. that say you have a 10% increase or 50% increase based on population, based on a variety of formulas. So I just wanted to give you a heads up that even though they weren't here tonight, when you folks sit in your boards and commission meetings outside of the city of Sausalito on these GPAs and county committees, if you haven't already been told that they are going to be looking at modest increases be forewarned that those requests are coming and then those will be to the city. The challenge with these is that it's almost impossible to say no because for us to do these things on our own. like animal control services as an example to have our own pound and have our own people dealing with stray cats or dogs or the unfortunate part of scraping animals off of the road that get hit. It becomes very expensive and so that's why these JPAs are so valuable and important. In each case, I believe that the council members that sit on these boards or the managers that sit on these boards, you know, work very hard just as we do with our own budgets to scrutinize the requests and to make sure that the county and the cities that are in the county are getting the biggest bang for the buck. But that probably across the board we'll be seeing modest increases. And each of you and Charlie and I, as these increases are being proposed, we'll make sure under council reports or the city manager's report or budget updates, you know, that we make sure that we point these out to you so you're all aware of it as we move forward. I think I'll end the report at this point and answer any questions from any of you. you Thank you. |
| 04:33:51.52 | Jill Hoffman | Questions? Yeah. Okay. Public comment? |
| 04:33:56.97 | Unknown | Good job. Thank you. |
| 04:33:59.00 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, so moving on to councilmember committee reports. Any councilmember committee reports? |
| 04:33:59.03 | Unknown | Okay. |
| 04:34:07.18 | Mike Soray | Thank you. |
| 04:34:09.22 | Jill Hoffman | Okay? Future agenda items, I guess we should note that we do have a city council meeting next week, so we normally have them every other week or every two weeks. There'll be another council meeting. Feature agenda items that a council members like put on the agenda |
| 04:34:25.32 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah, I'd just like to reiterate my previous request that we, at the appropriate time, get a joint meeting with the City Council and the Planning Commission. I think there are a lot of issues that we could talk about, and And in particular, everybody on the Planning Commission is really working really hard and we are working really hard. And I think just a dialogue would help in sort of especially some of these policy issues to see if there's a meeting of the minds or not. And that's okay. |
| 04:35:11.54 | Jill Hoffman | Public comment on future agenda items? Thank you. Okay. Moving on to appointments, we'll start with the Library Board of Trustees. I'd like to nominate – there are two positions open, and I'd like to nominate Dale Barnes and Judy Ann Inund. AND We just, any other nominations? Thank you. |
| 04:35:38.14 | Unknown | No. |
| 04:35:38.36 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. And we, do we need a, can we just do all in favor by all in favor of appointing those two? you |
| 04:35:45.90 | Unknown | Bye. |
| 04:35:45.99 | Jill Hoffman | Hi. you |
| 04:35:46.51 | Unknown | you |
| 04:35:47.57 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. unanimous. We will not be making appointments to sustainability tonight. And for the marineship specific plan working group that we discussed, last week which would take some of the recommendations of the marineship specific plan group task force and work on that i the nominations and uh what we had agreed to last week with is that we had a point two council members one member of the planning commission and one member of the hlb and so i am appointing vice mayor hoff, Council Member Withey, Commissioner Bill Werner on behalf of the Planning Commission, and Chair John McCoy of the Historic Landmarks Board for that committee, for that working group, I should say. |
| 04:36:36.88 | Jill Hoffman | UK. And he... |
| 04:36:37.98 | Adam Politzer | comments. |
| 04:36:38.60 | Jill Hoffman | you |
| 04:36:38.75 | Adam Politzer | Thank you. |
| 04:36:38.77 | Jill Hoffman | Amen. |
| 04:36:38.97 | Adam Politzer | you |
| 04:36:39.02 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. Any public comment? |
| 04:36:41.56 | Adam Politzer | Mr. Mayor, just to be perfectly clear, they have a very narrow scope, and that scope is looking at the budget, timing, and process. |
| 04:36:54.77 | Jill Hoffman | And that's outlined in the staff report from our last council meeting, but that's exactly right. |
| 04:36:57.22 | Adam Politzer | Thank you. |
| 04:37:04.49 | Jill Hoffman | Okay. |
| 04:37:04.86 | Mike Soray | Thank you. |
| 04:37:04.94 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. Any other reports of significance? Okay. Move to adjourn. Okay, we're adjourned. |
| 04:37:12.18 | Unknown | Okay. |
| 04:37:12.27 | Unknown | to |
| 04:37:12.57 | Unknown | turn. |
| 04:37:12.84 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 04:37:12.88 | Unknown | you |
| 04:37:12.92 | Unknown | Thank you. |