| Time | Speaker | Text |
|---|---|---|
| 00:00:08.54 | Unknown | Good evening and welcome to... the new year to The first meeting, the regular meeting of the Sausalito City Council, this is January 10th, 2017. Lily, would you call the roll, please? |
| 00:00:27.49 | Unknown | Councilmember Burns? |
| 00:00:30.09 | Joe Burns | Thank you. |
| 00:00:30.10 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:00:30.12 | Joe Burns | Thank you. |
| 00:00:30.76 | Unknown | Council member Weiner. |
| 00:00:31.87 | Unknown | President. |
| 00:00:32.30 | Unknown | Councilmember Hoffman. Present. Vice Mayor Cox? Here. Mayor Withy? |
| 00:00:36.28 | Joan Cox | Yeah. Vice Mayor Cockley? HERE. |
| 00:00:39.32 | Unknown | Here. It would be my honor to lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance tonight. |
| 00:00:51.50 | Unknown | I pledge to Jesus to the flag of the United States of America. and to the Republic for which it stands. one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. |
| 00:01:08.76 | Unknown | There was no closed session this evening. before We move to approve the agenda. I just want to let you know that business item 6C has been postponed to a date uncertain. THE uh, Battalion Chief who was coming to give the presentation tonight is out with crews dealing with an important emergency issue right now in Mill Valley. So, Mudslide I believe. So I think we can all excuse him and thank them for their good work. The. So with that, can I have a motion to approve the agenda, please? |
| 00:02:03.30 | Unknown | So moved. |
| 00:02:03.88 | Unknown | you Second. All in favor? Aye. |
| 00:02:06.17 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:02:06.22 | Unknown | Bye. |
| 00:02:07.52 | Unknown | Number one, special presentations, Mayor's announcements. We have no special presentations. I did want to say a couple of words. |
| 00:02:20.21 | Unknown | THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 00:02:20.50 | Unknown | We have no closed session, but thanks. |
| 00:02:23.65 | Unknown | Uh, |
| 00:02:27.22 | Unknown | I wanted to say a few words about the The storm. And the fact that we have emergency crews out there have been for some days. For those who we don't have many members of the public tonight, not surprisingly, But many of you could be very well listening at home. And I just want to obviously say, be careful, be safe. The city is issuing bulletins, important bulletins, about how to keep safe, how to spot out, spot for issues. And please keep in touch with the city, the currents. We've been issuing special currents. And I'd just personally like to take this opportunity to thank all of the staff, our public works, our police, our fire, others who are out there working through the weekend, for example, to keep us out of harm's way. So be safe and thank you very much, Adam. I don't know if you were going to include that later on in your comments or if there's anything else to add on that. |
| 00:03:46.39 | Adam Politzer | No, Mr. Mayor, I think that's fine. I'll probably throw in a few highlights at the end of the evening in my manager's report. But I think you touched on the most important part, which is for our residents and community members to be safe out there. and take advantage of the information that has been put out in the currents that are on our website and also posted on our telephone hotline, all that you can find through the currents articles. |
| 00:04:10.56 | Unknown | Thank you. Item two, communications, and this is the time for the Council to hear from citizens regarding matters that are not on the agenda. And as you know, 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. We ask that anyone completes a speaker card and so I'm gonna have one card and Russ, Russ Irwin, We look forward to your continued discussion of tourism. |
| 00:04:53.15 | Unknown | Thank you. Members of the council, you may recall, |
| 00:05:00.81 | Unknown | I came back the last meeting last year and presented a framework for for considering tourism issues in Sausalito, basically a classic Boston Consulting Group two by two where we look at the one attribute on one axis and the other attribute on the other axis, the two attributes being enhancing or diminishing the quality of life for the residents, and then the financial benefit of the city, because we certainly have to make a few trade-offs Thank you, Herb. |
| 00:05:39.02 | Unknown | So, this will just refresh your memory. I'd like to take a look at one of those items now, one which you're probably quite familiar with, which is the rental bikes. Even today, amazingly, there were rental bikes. I followed two people down Anderson at a safe distance, fortunately, in absolutely horrendous conditions. And then when they got to the turn, it's south on to 2nd, Sure enough, one of them dumped all over the road and onto the sidewalk and injured themselves. And I was quite a ways back, so it wasn't a problem, but We continue to be quite popular. These numbers are from the PBAC's report, I think that you saw in late November or early December. 282,000 rental bike visitors in 2016, if we make an assumption that they each spent $20, so $40 per couple, you know, a couple of burgers, a beer, ice cream cone, whatever, maybe a T-shirt, that would generate about $5.6 million of revenue, which looks like a reasonable number, but only results in about $85,000 worth of sales tax revenue to the city. So my perspective on that is that it's a significant diminishment in the quality of living for the residents, 282,000 visitors in return for not much. I'll come back in a couple weeks, and we'll look at some other aspects of tourism. Thank you for your time. |
| 00:07:17.01 | Unknown | Thank you, Russ. Is there any other Communications for items not on the agenda. Okay, seeing none, we'll move on. Action minutes of the previous meeting. Do I have a motion to approve? Are there any changes or corrections needed? Thank you. |
| 00:07:36.04 | Unknown | I had one minor correction. The word nominate, nomination was misspelled on page 2, line 4. |
| 00:07:51.94 | Unknown | sure there was a period after that |
| 00:07:57.41 | Unknown | anything else motion to approve so with that correction so move with that correction second all in favor aye |
| 00:08:00.46 | Unknown | So I'm with you. |
| 00:08:00.97 | Joe Burns | I'm not sure. |
| 00:08:05.15 | Joe Burns | Bye. |
| 00:08:08.33 | Unknown | Next item four is our consent calendar. Matters listed under the consent calendar are considered routine and non-controversial. should require no discussion or expected to have unanimous council support. It may be enacted by the council in one motion in the form listed below. And you can carry on and read all the other aspects of our consent calendar items. There is only one item but it consists of minutes from our COP, BAC, and Finance Committees. Is there any member of the public who would like to comment on or ask that any item of the consent calendar be removed. Seeing none, is there any comments from the council, do I have a motion to approve the consent calendar? Thank you. |
| 00:09:06.14 | Joe Burns | I I'M GOING TO MOVE THE CONSENT CALENDAR. WE MOVE IT. WE KEEP IT GOING. WE KEEP IT GOING. WE APPROVE IT. |
| 00:09:12.15 | Craig Kinkle | Yeah. |
| 00:09:12.26 | Joan Cox | with the |
| 00:09:12.35 | Unknown | We'll see you next time. |
| 00:09:16.74 | Unknown | I'm new. All in favor? Aye. There are no public hearings items tonight. And we have now, |
| 00:09:18.90 | Joe Burns | I'm sorry. |
| 00:09:18.97 | Unknown | All right. |
| 00:09:19.64 | Joe Burns | Thank you. |
| 00:09:19.71 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:09:27.32 | Unknown | two business items. The first is an update on GGNRA, update on Fort Baker, and the introduction of the acting superintendent, Craig Kahn, Craig Kahn. Kenkel. So with that, I'm going to turn it over to Craig. And welcome, sir. Welcome all of you. |
| 00:09:52.45 | Craig Kinkle | Thanks so much. Good evening. Thanks, Mayor Withey. council members and ladies and gentlemen who came out to be with us tonight. So as mentioned, I'm Craig Kinkle, I'm the acting superintendent for Golden Gate National Recreation Area. My permanent job is being superintendent of Cuyahoga Valley National Park. James A. Garfield National Historic Site, and First Ladies National Historic Site, all in Northeast Ohio. Prior to relocating to Ohio in 2014, I was the superintendent for San Francisco Maritime for four years. And before that, I worked at Golden Gate National Recreation Area as chief of cultural resources for three years and deputy superintendent for one year. So coming back here to help out in a leadership capacity is a homecoming for me. professionally, and it was also an opportunity for me to get out of the really extreme weather in Northeast Ohio. . |
| 00:10:54.93 | Unknown | Oh, you got it here now. I know. Thanks for the sunshine. |
| 00:10:55.98 | Craig Kinkle | I know, thanks for the sunshine. Um, So my assignment, well, I'm here for 120 days, and Whether I'm here longer or shorter really will depend on the announcement of the permanent superintendent in the near future. I do want to congratulate all of you on your newly elected assignments. And the National Park Service is really appreciative of the relationship we have with the city of Sausalito, its elected officials, and its staff. I do understand that in the past, the National Park Service and the city had a GGNRA working group, park working group to keep each other updated on issues or items of interest. And we would look forward doing that again with you if you so desire. So I also would like to extend the invitation to all of you, any of you to come visit the recreation area, in particular the Headlands and Fort Baker and especially our park partners who provide great programs and services if you haven't been there lately or if you haven't visited the Headlands Center for the Arts, Nature Bridge, the Discovery Museum, or services and programs and amenities at the lodge, please do let us know. And we will make arrangements for you to learn more about the park and our park partners. I have a few updates for you. And if you have any questions about those, I can Ask my colleagues over here, Brian Avias and Steve Kuzurski to address any details. The first update would be on GGNRA's dog management plan. So we did announce publicly yesterday and again today that the National Park Service has put a hold on signing the record of decision and finalizing a rule for dog management. We took that action because during the course of compiling records in response to a freedom of information request, We discovered in late December that a former National Park employee was using private email for official business. So because of that discovery and in consultation with our solicitors, we decided to place a hold on both of those processes. And we will undertake an internal review of that private email use to see whether or not it affected the planning process or the rulemaking process. Once that review is done, we will share the findings in a report with the public, and we expect that that report will also provide guidance for how to proceed with the planning and the rulemaking at a later date. |
| 00:14:18.92 | Craig Kinkle | For other areas of the park, Vista Point, I know that's a Opportunity and challenge that we all care about, how tourists and bicyclists and pedestrians get from the north end of the Golden Gate Bridge to Sausalito. I'm pleased to announce that the Park Service will be providing an additional $100,000 of funding going towards the planning and design for our solutions for that pathway. And we look forward in the near future to construction of whatever solutions we arrive at. Also for Wolfback Ridge 44, or is it 44 Wolfback? We thank you so much for your support in helping the National Park Service and others receive through donation the Carson property. That's very significant for us because it helps preserve very important open space, habitat, and views in the park and from the edges of the park looking in. Let's see, a couple other updates. Look at my notes here. At Muir Woods, we have a concessions prospectus out. We're seeking interest from a company or entity to help us manage traffic to and from Muir Woods. So we are seeing a lot of interest in that. And as that continues to move forward, we'll keep you apprised. And then at Fort Baker, we have a number of activities to report on. Last December, we finished the final trail connection and native plants installation around Battery Yates and Satterley Road. And the new parking areas were opened in the previous spring. And it appears that in 2015, the Park and Travis Air Force Base extended the special use permit for the Air Force to occupy and manage the boat shop marina through this march. You may well know that as the Presidio Yacht Club or the Travis Sailing Center and the Marina. So the Air Force organization is who we have the formal relationship with since the Army base closure. This fall, park staff or the previous fall, park staff and Travis representatives met to talk about our interest in extending that permit for an additional year, which will be through 2018. And we'll formalize that agreement within the next few months. The Park Service continues to work through a number of issues regarding the long term boat shop and marina operations. And we're hoping to finalize plans to release a request for qualifications to the community later this year as a first step in a public solicitation process. To identify the organization that we'll partner with under an expected 20 year master agreement. |
| 00:17:59.85 | Craig Kinkle | Our current plan is to shortlist two to four of the RFQ respondents and we'll invite them to respond in more detail for a request of proposals from them. And we would include public presentations and opportunities to comment during this two step process. We'll model that. after what we did with the development of the Cavile Point Lodge back at the base closure era in 1999 to 2008. And we really appreciated the city residents participation in that effort, and we look forward to them helping us with this one, and we hope it will be very successful. We also will continue to work and assure city officials that we will inform you well in advance of releasing any solicitation document. And what our progress will be once we move forward on those. For utilities, we're working with the Sausalito and Marin City Sanitary District to finalize a long-term property agreement that will provide for the upgrade of the district's main treatment plant at Fort Baker, which replaces the Army-era agreement that expires in the next few months. And last but not least, from our tenant partners at Fort Baker, The Bay Area Discovery Museum and the Cavile Point Lodge, we've started discussions with them about design work for campus improvements and for rehabbing additional buildings as part of their existing leaseholds. Those were plans that were included in both of those park partners agreements, but were delayed due to the recession and probably other impacts. So the timing is finally right for them to move forward with fulfilling their commitment and realizing the services that they envisioned early on. This will include redesigning the entrance experience to the museum and developing the rehabilitated historic guardhouse at the lodge into a public bakery and cafe. So with that, I thank you for the opportunity to introduce myself and to brief you on what's happening in the park. And if you have any questions for me or for my colleagues, we can take those. |
| 00:20:35.96 | Unknown | Thank you very much. There's actually a fair number of issues that interface with Sausalito and you guys. So there may very well be a lot of questions. So, who would like to go first? Yeah. |
| 00:20:56.64 | Craig Kinkle | Thank you. |
| 00:20:56.66 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:20:56.68 | Craig Kinkle | Thank you. |
| 00:20:57.62 | Joan Cox | Hi, thanks for coming, Acting Superintendent Kunkel. |
| 00:21:01.03 | Craig Kinkle | Craig is fine. |
| 00:21:03.83 | Joan Cox | I have a couple questions on different topics, so let me ask a couple, and then our mayor might cut me off and come back to me later. So when do you expect the Bay Vista Trail? Do you have an estimated finish date for that? Because that's really important with our bike management program going forward, and we were hoping that it would be done sometime in 2018, but it doesn't sound like. |
| 00:21:28.20 | Craig Kinkle | OK. And what trail was that? |
| 00:21:30.29 | Joan Cox | The trail that goes underneath, sorry, did I see that Vista Point Trail? |
| 00:21:32.07 | Craig Kinkle | Sorry, guys. |
| 00:21:33.53 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 00:21:33.55 | Craig Kinkle | First appointment. |
| 00:21:34.14 | Joan Cox | Oh, sorry, I said the wrong, yeah, the Vista Point Trail. |
| 00:21:37.63 | Craig Kinkle | This is Brian Avias, Chief of Planning. |
| 00:21:40.38 | Brian Avias | It's nice to be back with you. Some of you I've seen several times now. Vista Point Trail, we're moving forward, resolving a few issues. Some are tricky, like lead abatement related to the lead paint that's on the hillside. |
| 00:21:53.01 | Craig Kinkle | Mm-hmm. |
| 00:21:56.87 | Brian Avias | We have a few more sort of technical issues to move forward with, and then we're still not fully there in terms of our funding. So we have a generous grant we received from Transportation Marin. And we're looking for additional funding to move that forward. We do think that we're going to be in construction in probably 2019. just given the prospects for funding and our own cycle for Uh, contracting and initiating work so that's our I think and that's consistent with how we requested the funding through the grant from Moran County |
| 00:22:41.61 | Joan Cox | Is there any restriction or prohibition on signage? Not necessarily on the Bay Vista Trail, or I keep saying that wrong, Vista Point Trail, sorry. The Vista Point Trail, not necessarily for that, but just to sort of help people route down into the park if they want to. One of the problems is I think a lot of people come off the bridge and they're just lost, and they have no idea where they're going and they just follow the road down. With regard to signs, is that possible or is there any prohibition on that? |
| 00:23:10.72 | Brian Avias | They're so good. No, and we do have a sign package associated with the design for this, and we think it's going to be rather intuitive. It'll be easier in some ways to go down the Vista Point Trail than it will be to sort of detour and go down Alexander. |
| 00:23:15.31 | Joan Cox | Okay. |
| 00:23:20.88 | Joan Cox | Mm-hmm. |
| 00:23:25.23 | Joan Cox | Yeah, I agree, especially with kids. I mean, especially families with kids. It makes so much more sense for them to go into the park with the Discovery Museum and the facilities there. |
| 00:23:27.91 | Brian Avias | . |
| 00:23:34.58 | Joan Cox | But with regard to this season though, with regard to 2018, Is there, I mean, I know they can't go on that trail, but there are other ways to sort of route them down more successfully than we are doing. Thank you. |
| 00:23:46.22 | Brian Avias | Can you work with our group on that? Right, to get them onto the west side? |
| 00:23:46.24 | Joan Cox | Can you work with our group on that? Yeah, yeah. |
| 00:23:48.97 | Brian Avias | Yeah. We can look at that. We are in pretty extensive conversations with both Caltrans and the Bridge District around Vista Point, and you're aware of that. I can bring that back and ask questions. what we're doing in terms of signage to do. |
| 00:24:07.75 | Joan Cox | Thanks, I appreciate it. We might ask our bike and ped committee to circle back with that as well. They're coming up with our. They're working on 2019 plan now I think. I'm sorry, your 2018 plan. |
| 00:24:16.97 | Unknown | I'm sorry. Before you move on, is there any other questions on the Vista Point trail so that we're not mixing? |
| 00:24:20.29 | Joan Cox | Sure. |
| 00:24:20.70 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:24:25.57 | Unknown | Bye. |
| 00:24:25.71 | Unknown | Does anybody else have any questions on that? So maybe I could ask, is there anything that we can do to help you in accelerating this process? |
| 00:24:25.73 | Unknown | I'm excited. |
| 00:24:45.30 | Brian Avias | Well, you have been wonderful in terms of your support. You've been helpful in approaching Caltrans for additional funding. with Senator Levine's office and McGuire's office. Those have been really, it's been great to have their support and their interest in it. We were unsuccessful in getting a grant from Caltrans. We may very well come back now that we understand where we scored poorly and where we scored well. So a ladder of support along those lines would probably be helpful as we reengage that. Um, Any other specifics? We'll come back to you as we move forward with some of these design changes. I think you'll be interested in that. But no other things come to mind at this point. But we appreciate your engagement in this. |
| 00:25:40.84 | Joan Cox | Thanks, I have another question. Brian, this might be to you as well. This was a question about, I think, Craig, you said the marina facility that you're going out for, RFQ for that. Okay. Then, can you tell us, so that's just for the buildings and the marina, and that's for a 20 year lease for someone to manage that? Is that how I understand that? |
| 00:26:03.63 | Steve Kuzarski | Okay. you Thank you. |
| 00:26:04.21 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 00:26:04.31 | Steve Kuzarski | Council members, I'm Steve Kuzarski. I work with the park staff as well, and I think I'm the best person to talk about that. |
| 00:26:04.43 | Joan Cox | Thank you. I'm sorry. Yeah. |
| 00:26:05.59 | Unknown | . |
| 00:26:05.63 | Joan Cox | THE END OF THE END OF THE Thank you. |
| 00:26:10.27 | Joan Cox | Oh, sure. Thanks. |
| 00:26:11.11 | Steve Kuzarski | Our current concept is to have the principal focus on the boat shop and the shore side activities and to preserve an option for that shore side partner to potentially operate the marina as well. We did have a discussion with the Air Force about possible Air Force interest in operating the marina as a separate entity as part of the morale, welfare, recreation activities. So we're keeping that as potentially separable. You may recall that in our approved master plan environmental impact statement, there actually is no long term marina. So we do not want to burden the |
| 00:26:39.90 | Craig Kinkle | THE FAMILY. |
| 00:26:40.07 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:26:40.15 | Craig Kinkle | Thank you. |
| 00:26:55.37 | Steve Kuzarski | the long-term boat shop and recreational water operator with a fixed responsibility for managing the marine assets under our approved environmental documents. So that option will be preserved in the RFQ, and we'll use the RFQ-RFP process to also judge that interest, that long-term interest. |
| 00:27:16.75 | Joan Cox | Have those buildings been designated as historic? |
| 00:27:20.15 | Steve Kuzarski | They're all part of the Fort Baker historic districts, and have the same historic designation as the lodge, for example. |
| 00:27:24.06 | Joan Cox | Okay. And then, |
| 00:27:28.08 | Steve Kuzarski | And Superintendent Kinkle was our Chief of Cultural Resources during much of that era. |
| 00:27:28.11 | Joan Cox | Okay. |
| 00:27:33.24 | Joan Cox | Okay, thanks. |
| 00:27:36.58 | Unknown | The question is on Alexander. coming down What does the Park Service involve? I know it's Caltrans and I know it's Golden Gate Bridge Authority. Are you involved, I know you might be involved in this being, but do you have any controls on Alexander? |
| 00:27:56.93 | Craig Kinkle | No, we don't. You know, we're an interested party in how Alexander Avenue is used and what changes are made to it, but we don't have any control over it. |
| 00:28:06.10 | Unknown | Yeah, and the reason for my question was that either when they have Vista Point open or not open. That exit is becoming log jammed where a lot of the citizens here, residents in Sausalito, have to go further up and go Spencer. |
| 00:28:24.44 | Craig Kinkle | Right, so and by the way, A resident in Marin County while I'm here, I'm living out by the Point Bonita Lighthouse, so I have experienced directly what you say about you to traffic problems when Vista Point is closed and when the Park Service is trying to control for safety reasons, traffic going in and out of the headlands. Based on recent experiences over the holiday weekends when it was really beautiful weather, I've talked with the chief ranger for the park and we do intend on getting together with the bridge district, Caltrans and so forth to talk about how this is not working the way probably everyone intended. and what kind of adaptation should we try. |
| 00:29:12.97 | Unknown | Okay, thank you. |
| 00:29:16.92 | Unknown | Is there any other questions? I probably have something on the, you guys call it the boat shop, right? Okay. |
| 00:29:26.72 | Craig Kinkle | Thank you. |
| 00:29:26.74 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 00:29:26.83 | Craig Kinkle | Thank you. |
| 00:29:26.89 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:29:26.93 | Craig Kinkle | Thank you. |
| 00:29:28.51 | Unknown | So this project you two years ago, three years ago, I can't remember, sent out a request for interest. Um... If memory serves me right, it wasn't exactly overwhelmingly, you didn't get an overwhelming response. Is there, what do you think, what have you done differently? What do you think you might expect from the RFQ? |
| 00:30:02.74 | Steve Kuzarski | Once we can essentially finalize our schedule and plan, we'll have some time to engage with the community and engage with potential prospects, some of which you could help us identify in advance of releasing the document in a more conventional Uh, solicitation manner. We did use that request for expressions of interest as a way to inform some of the concepts we've been thinking about. But we'll have some time to work in advance just like you would want to on any kind of solicitation. And that would include working with the Air Force, for example, on their interest as well. So we'll have several months to work. And certainly a lot of things will depend on economic factors as well. But we can take your suggestions at the same time. |
| 00:31:00.06 | Unknown | Any questions? |
| 00:31:03.74 | Unknown | I have a question on another |
| 00:31:04.89 | Unknown | Yeah, no, yes please. |
| 00:31:06.44 | Unknown | You mentioned that you have a Muir Woods concessions prospectus out to manage traffic to and from Muir Woods. To and from where in Muir Woods? |
| 00:31:17.81 | Brian Avias | No. Actually, the... The prospectus is to manage the reservation system for parking at Muir Woods. OK. So this is really in the park premises and along Muir Woods Road. Thank you. |
| 00:31:29.56 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:31:29.66 | Brian Avias | Okay, thank you. |
| 00:31:30.72 | Unknown | Thank you. I misspoke. Okay, good. You piqued my interest with that one. I had no other questions. Thank you. |
| 00:31:41.74 | Unknown | And Of course, there's been a lot of discussion in the community and a lot of discussions in the press in the past about an actual reservation system for Muir Woods itself, attempt to put a cap on visitors is that at all under consideration anywhere? If it is under consideration, who's considering it? And what would be the timeframe for such consideration? |
| 00:32:16.30 | Brian Avias | The idea for an actual cap is something that has been discussed, particularly in 2014 and 2015, with Congressman Huffman's ad hoc group. It's not really as effective, we think, in terms of managing visitors. It's a rather harsh way of dealing with visitors and just turning away visitors when you reach a certain number we actually feel that we have a de facto ceiling through the reservation system 90 of our visitors do drive and uh through the reservation system and the environmental assessment that we published we actually have uh ceilings for visitation and for numbers of vehicles that we will allow to be parked on any given day. And that actually reduces current visitation to about 900,000 and will be kind of a durable way to manage visitation with a little bit more predictability and certainty, distributing visitors across the day rather than just having a hard and fast number that you may reach at 3 o'clock in the afternoon. And so we think that we've built in a solid way to manage demand and make visitation in Muir Woods more predictable. And with the reservation system actually being extended in a future phase to include buses and shuttles this will be a way that we can really have a good good tool to manage visitation |
| 00:33:59.27 | Unknown | 900,000 per watt. |
| 00:34:02.97 | Brian Avias | That's the annual visitation? |
| 00:34:04.99 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:34:05.01 | Brian Avias | Thanks. The daily visitation is more or less capped at somewhere between 3,500 and 4,000 at the peak. And we actually have a way through the reservation system to enforce lower peak visitations, such as I think we're setting that target at about 1,200 to 1,800 in a winter day to allow for variations. So if you want to come and have a quieter time in Muir Woods, come in the winter when we'll have those variations. we won't be issuing as many reservations. |
| 00:34:39.28 | Unknown | Thank you. Any other questions from anybody up here? OK. Thank you very much. Is there any member of the public who'd like to comment on this item? Seeing none, is there any further comments that anybody here would like to make on this issue? |
| 00:35:04.49 | Unknown | I just wanted to acknowledge GGNRA and NPS for its ongoing collaboration with the city on so many ventures. And in particular, I'm so pleased to hear about the Vista Point Trail efforts, as well as I was somewhat involved in the completion of the Carson residence at 44 Wolfpack Ridge. I think that's a really marvelous solution. So just many thanks for your collaborative efforts. |
| 00:35:38.97 | Unknown | I'd like to again thank you for coming out on this stormy night. This was, there's no action intended for tonight, but if you actually think about it, there is a lot of issues on the interface between us and the National Park Service, GGNRA. And the way we get through those issues is to keep the dialogue open. And so thank you very much, and I know we will continue to do our part. Thank you. Okay. |
| 00:36:24.18 | Unknown | Keep dry, keep safe. |
| 00:36:29.83 | Unknown | Okay, the second business item tonight is item 6B, which is an update on homelessness in Marin. And tonight we have with us Andrew Henning from the City of San Rafael, who's the Director of Homeless Planning, and Ashley Hart McIntyre. McIntyre? McIntyre. McIntyre, McIntyre? McIntyre. McIntyre, sorry. From the county... |
| 00:37:00.48 | Unknown | I'm not sure. |
| 00:37:05.25 | Unknown | of Marin homelessness policy analyst. And welcome very much and we're looking forward to this update. Critical issue for all of us and what a lot of people probably don't realize, it's on the state, it's on the League of California Cities, it's on the Marin County mayors and council members, one of their highest priority items. So over to you. |
| 00:37:36.69 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:37:38.16 | Andrew Henning | No pressure then. So my name's Andrew Henning, I'm the director of homeless planning and outreach with the city of San Rafael. Thanks for having us Mr. Mayor and council members, it's great to be down here. So to start off, we wanted to just give kind of a bigger context of the issue and just sort of contextualize what our community's facing as well as communities across the country. So even though homelessness has in some form of of course, existed since the dawn of civilization, I think it's important to note that the homelessness that we see today, whether it's here in Marin and San Francisco and other parts of the state or country, it really is something of a modern phenomenon. And I think that's important when we're thinking about how we go about addressing it in a truly systemic way. If you think back, we've had the luxury of hindsight. but there have been some major macroeconomic trends that have been developing over the past 35, 40, 50 years that have in part contributed to this issue and in ways exacerbated the issue. Part of it is historically the federal government played a much larger role in helping to administer the social safety net that really prevented homelessness for many Americans. And over time, that safety net has eroded. So there have been major cuts to the federal affordable housing budget. Psychiatric beds and mental health facilities have also been dramatically curtailed, both at the national level and the state level. And then, of course, a constant concern even now in contemporary political discussion is wage stagnation and what is really the minimum wage get folks. And so we think about people that even are working 40 hours here in Marin, can they actually afford rent or afford to be in the community? So these are very large issues that are hard to tackle, especially Ashley and I aren't going to solve this overnight. But I think the important thing to note in this is that this has really led to a gradual recognition by local communities that they need to play a bigger role in addressing this issue. And so we've noted that there basically have been five major paradigms in terms of how communities have approached this issue. The first was really this idea of the shelter bed and sandwich. And so here's a picture of then mayor Dianne Feinstein in San Francisco, when really, again, in the early 1980s, homelessness really became very apparent on the streets. And the idea and the thinking was really that this was like any other national disaster, like a hurricane, an earthquake, tornado. This was a temporary phenomenon. People just needed a little bit of respite care, sort of like the Red Cross model. And they'd be able to resolve their homelessness on their own. Quickly though, people realized this wasn't sufficient, and so this idea of beyond shelter emerged. And this is really the growth of, especially at a local level, more support services like social workers, folks that are going to be able to help with mental health issues and things of that nature. Unfortunately, again, given the kind of disparate impact of the previous national response and now a local response that has much more limited resources, it never really felt like providing these services was enough. So the pendulum sort of switched back to really looking at some of the negative impacts of the issue. And so that's really when this idea of what some call the criminalization of homelessness really emerged. And so you think about sit-lie laws, ordinances against panhandling and other ways of sort of tackling the manifestations of homelessness without actually solving the underlying reasons of why it's happening. And so that's something where, like I just described, various ordinances have been passed in communities across the country. So then after this pendulum swing back, there was really just this kind of sentiment, and Willie Brown sort of famously declared in the early 2000s that homelessness is unsolvable. And the best that communities can do is really mitigate the impacts. And so it's just this feeling of frustration and that we can't do anything and just feeling kind of hopeless. But fortunately, the fifth and final phase, and the phase that Ashley and I are very committed to trying to help Marin get to, is really this idea of evidence-based best practices. And so now that we've been working on this for decades, it really is clear that there are different approaches that do work. And by looking at the data and by looking at different programs and having some rigor about how we approach this, just like, you know, scientists would tackle any other problem, we really can find the best approaches that are going to end homelessness. So the first thing, well, first let me say, so if we were to look at this as a timeline of these different approaches, the reality is sadly that Marin is probably somewhere in the mitigation phase where we're really, historically, we have been kind of stuck in terms of implementing some of these bigger best practices. And so that's where we're going to hit on tonight is some of the programs that we're actually looking to implement. So the first aspect of this, again, just to kind of fill out the context, is really having a better sort of business plan around how you address homelessness. So if I asked you right now to envision a homeless person, you know, we all have kind of a stereotypical image. And it's important to recognize that homeless folks are actually a very varied group of people, and they have a lot of different reasons that are driving the reason that they're on the street. So to kind of grossly generalize thinking about this, there are three general segments of homelessness. The first is what we could call the temporary homeless, and these are really folks that are the quote unquote invisible homeless. And so this is when people have a job loss and they miss a rent payment, or a lot of people might through a divorce end up in kind of a dire financial situation. You have a lot of women, for example, that might be fleeing domestic violence situations. So these are folks that are having sort of one episode of homelessness. They're usually able to resolve that episode of homelessness and not reenter it again. But this is a very sizable group of people. And the best thing that we can really do for this segment is to prevent their homelessness in the first place. So really organizations like St. Vincent's and San Rafael, they provided this past year over 1,000 households with rental support so that they didn't actually end up on the street. So that's a huge, huge effort to actually prevent homelessness from happening to begin with. The next group is really the episodically homeless. And before I worked for the city of San Rafael, I spent about five years working with the Downtown Streets Team Organization, which is a nonprofit that started in the South Bay, and then they launched a branch in San Rafael in 2013. And this was sort of a lot of the folks that I worked with during that time. These are folks that have some sort of ongoing issue or challenge that's really, again, kind of exacerbating their homelessness. So it might be a disability. And for example, I worked with a lot of people on the Streets Team who had been gainfully employed, had careers, sustained a work-related injury, And So it might be a disability. And for example, I worked with a lot of people on the streets team who had been gainfully employed, had careers, sustained a work-related injury, and they were never able to sort of regain the economic stability that they once had. There are also folks that have aged out of our foster care system here in Marin. They never get that stability, and they end up just cycling in and off the street year after year. And then, of course, I think it's also important to acknowledge that there is, of course, a group of people that are part of a more transient group that move through different cities around the country in California. And there is something of a criminal element there. But the important thing is that, overall, this idea of rapid rehousing, really trying to get people back inside as fast as possible, as well as, again, wrapping them in programs like the Streets Team or other interventions, Homeward Bound. These are ways to really get people back on their feet from this group. So last but not least, this is probably when I asked you earlier to envision a homeless person in your mind, this is probably the person that you're thinking about. The chronically homeless group is really the last group, and it's really they're the most visible and highest utilizers of our systems. These are folks that have severe and persistent mental illness, or they have severe and persistent substance abuse issues. And a lot of times, and most of the time, those things are co-occurring. So you'll have someone who's schizophrenic, and they're using methamphetamine to self-medicate their schizophrenia. Really, the best way to help these folks is permanent supportive housing, and that's the idea that you're putting someone into housing, wrapping them in intensive support services, and really providing that ongoing stability in their lives. If we were to look at this as a cost function, essentially the cost rise exponentially into this last group. Santa Clara County, I think it was about two years ago now, did the most comprehensive cost study on homelessness in the country. They spend $500 million a year on homelessness. And I think what's most shocking about that is only 10% of that budget actually goes to organizations like the Ritter Center, Homeward Bound, St. Vincent's. 90% of those costs are incurred by criminal justice, mental health, and health care. And it's really by these highest utilizers in the chronically homeless group. And then the other important thing to note, of course, is that we tend to see that complaints also track almost exponentially into this last group. So we're putting more of an emphasis on trying to serve these folks and help them get off the street. And I'll come back to that in a little bit about some of the specifics that we're doing, but I'm going to turn it over to Ashley to talk about some of the specifics regarding homelessness here in Marin. |
| 00:47:00.94 | Ashley Hart McIntyre | Good evening, my name is Ashley Hart McIntyre, and I'll echo Andrew's thanks for inviting us to speak tonight. I also want to introduce Kerry Sager, who's here in the back. Obviously, I'll be going on a maternity leave very shortly, and Carrie is our Senior Homeless Programs Coordinator with the county. So she'll be stepping into my shoes if you need follow-up with us. So here in Marin, we have obviously homelessness is an issue of increasing concern across Marin County and all of our jurisdictions. I'd like to start by just defining what we mean when we say homeless, because it can mean a lot of different things depending on what your funding stream is or what your background is. When we say homeless, we mean it's people who are living in a place that's not meant for regular sleeping accommodations for human beings. So that means sleeping in a doorway, sleeping in a car, sleeping in a house. In an emergency shelter or in a transitional housing program, people who are living in abandoned buildings, all of those folks would be considered homeless. Folks who are doubled up, who are living with other families for economic reasons, we don't consider them homeless for the purpose of this particular conversation. Our unsheltered populations, those folks who are sleeping outside or in cars, is actually really widely distributed across Marin County. About 31% are located in San Rafael. In Richardson Bay, we have about 22% of our unsheltered population. Those are the folks who are living in the boats, the anchor outs. 16% is in unincorporated Marin and Novato has about 13%. |
| 00:48:40.00 | Ashley Hart McIntyre | The good news is that compared to similar counties across coastal California, we actually have a relatively small percentage of people who are homeless per our overall population. It's about 0.5% of our population here in Marin County as opposed to over 1% in Santa Cruz. |
| 00:48:58.15 | Ashley Hart McIntyre | As you'll notice, these numbers are actually from January 2015. That's because we have to do a homeless census on a biannual basis during the last ten days of January. Our next point in time count is coming up January 27th of this year. We'd love for any of you all to participate. If you're interested, please just let me know and we can hook you up with the volunteer coordinator. It's a great experience to go out and actually see. We actually divide the county into census tracts and cover all of the census tracts by car and count people who are sleeping outside. So it's a great way to get a little bit of a hands on experience of what homelessness looks like in different places in Marin. Sorry, I'm a smidge warm. |
| 00:49:44.04 | Ashley Hart McIntyre | Oh, thank you. OK, so Andrew had a great graphic a few minutes ago of a guy trying to solve a riddle and being really, really frustrated. And so I want to talk a little bit more about why it's such a frustrating problem, why it seems so unsolvable. And fundamentally it's because. Homelessness is a very complex issue that requires all kinds of cross-sector partnerships to solve. No one entity can actually solve this problem. This is data from our 2015 point in time count, and we've included this to highlight how diverse the population of people who are experiencing homelessness in Marin actually is. Almost a third of our homeless population is employed, which is an extraordinary number. It's much higher than in any other community I've ever seen. And it goes to show how expensive housing is here in Marin. Even if you're employed, there's a good chance you might be homeless. About 28% of people are unable to work due to a disability. 30% have a mental health condition and about the same number have a drug or alcohol abuse condition. 28% are over 51 years of age. I'm sure you know that Marin County's population is rapidly aging. We expect to see that number increase. And a large percentage, about a quarter, have history of domestic violence experience. About 14% have been in foster care, not necessarily here in Marin, but foster care is a very common thing for people to have in their backgrounds. 5% are vets, and most importantly here, about 71% of people who are homeless in Marin lived here before they became homeless. |
| 00:51:19.62 | Ashley Hart McIntyre | So most of the things that people cite as their triggering factor into homelessness are things that most people who are housed will also experience at some point in their lives. Most people will experience some kind of break up or divorce at some point. an illness or medical problem, a job loss. And for the vast majority of people, those things don't result in homelessness. Housing is already unstable. When many of these things happen at once, people who are already vulnerable will fall into homelessness. Thank you. |
| 00:51:56.25 | Ashley Hart McIntyre | which means that homelessness is really fundamentally about housing. The average apartment rents in Marin County as of about six months ago were $2,500 a month. Which is a 20% increase from two years before. The average one bedroom apartment costs $2200 a month to rent. And if you are a single adult who is living on SSI, So if you're disabled or a senior, you are receiving a check of about $890 a month. So as you can see, the cost of an apartment is more than 2 and 1 1 times the amount of your SSI check. |
| 00:52:38.15 | Ashley Hart McIntyre | I'm going to turn it back over to Andrew and he's going to talk a little bit about some of the evidence based practices we're talking about to solve the problem. |
| 00:52:45.82 | Andrew Henning | So I think when I started about 10 months ago, well, really prior to that, there was a growing realization, kind of the graphs that we had shown you earlier with the exponential costs and complaints up into the chronically homeless group, that something really needed to be done to help this group of folks. And this really kind of goes back to this idea of when you're kind of just left to mitigating and you're not really being very strategic about trying to end the issue, what sort of system just naturally emerges. And so we've developed this graphic that I think is kind of a helpful representation of sort of the dynamic that can happen. So communities, just by nature of this, have very limited funding. And with limited funding, communities and funders obviously want results. We also have sort of cultural norms about how we expect people to recover. They are on the street, they go into a shelter, they get sober, they get medicated, they get housed. This leads into different agencies needing to get results. They need to make sure that their staff feels empowered and that they're making a meaningful dent on the issue. And so what happens is that for some homeless people, their needs really come last in this equation. And we really found that that sometimes is what's driving chronic homelessness and actually making it worse over time. So really, again, in communities across the country, you see this dynamic where there's just an organic tapestry or quilt of different programs that develop. And so it's not always, it emerges to needs at the time, but it's not always done in a coherent way as you're moving forward. And part of the issue is that every program can sometimes approach things or approach the issue with their own prescription. So if you do X, Y, and Z, then you get into housing. Or if you do A, B, and C, then you get into employment. And while this is great and does work for a lot of people, it can lead to not a lot of success for people that are chronically homeless. And really what we see is that you've got people that are difficult to serve to begin with. They fail out of these programs that have these barriers or have these hurdles that people have to go through. They become distrustful of the system. They don't seek help. They get worse. And then they're more difficult to serve. And we're in sort of this vicious cycle that's really driving chronic homelessness. It's why I think a lot of people look at San Francisco and say, well, they've housed all these people, but things seem in a way worse than ever. I think it's partly this challenge of trying to really make sure that chronically homeless people are getting prioritized for care. So what we have in Marin is that we have approximately 200 people countywide who are high visibility. They're high cost to our system. And I think the other important piece of this is really the ethical piece, which is that these are folks that are really vulnerable. And studies have been shown that people that are homeless end up dying 20 years earlier than folks that are housed. So this has a tremendous negative impact on people's well-being. So again, our friend, the very frustrated gentleman. So what do we do about this? So what we decided to do is really start to look outside of Marin at some of these, again, what are other communities doing? How are they having success? What is the data showing? So last summer, well, I guess two summers ago, we went down to Palo Alto to look at a program down there. And we heard about something called the Hot Team, which was actually founded in San Mateo. And they were approaching this whole issue of helping people that are chronically homeless in a bit of a different way. If you take the pyramid, they flipped the pyramid on its head. And they really decided that, you know what, instead of thinking about this group of people, this is really a small set of people as just a block that we need to try to create policy around, we really need to start putting their needs first, triaging their individual needs, and designing our system around what they need versus what we think is best for them. And as a result of that, it's really using what every private company does in America, which is designing your system, designing your product around the customer. Uber, as just a basic example, there were problems and holes in the experience of getting a cab or the taxi cab industry. And they came in and created this great solution that worked for customers. It's using the same kind of design business thinking to our challenge in our community. So once those folks are on top, your organization starts to adapt, there are new types of accountability in your system, and then funding resources begin to shift as well. So that's really where we're trying to move. And so the HOT team, as I mentioned, is our local example of doing this. And so HOT is our attempt to bring together as many different service providers as we possibly can. The county, the city, Ritter, St. Vincent's, Homeward Bound, the Housing Authority, basically getting everyone into one room, and finally basically talking about individuals that we've all been working with independently and separately for all these years. As just one example, there's one person that we're working with, and she was literally having individual relationships with probably five different providers. And so finally being able to talk to each other, we can come up with a more coherent and efficient plan around how we can get that person back into housing. And so after 1,000 hours of basically, this program started as a sort of a pro bono effort to just do things differently, and now the county is officially funding the program. We, for the first time, I think, mapped out what people's real experience is with our system of care. And you can see here this sort of jumbled maze of different connections and pathways that people were traveling and their attempts to get housing. And we joke because the project manager for HOT, Howard Schwartz, was saying, Vincent's, he's a PhD, and even he gets lost trying to navigate this system with people. So I think a couple important insights from this is, one, obviously silos, it's kind of a buzzword, but it's clear that different organizations are siloed off and they're not necessarily communicating. And that's really the second piece, is that there's really broken communication across different organizations, and there's not alignment about what we're trying to actually achieve. And then the last piece is, it's sort of the analogy of the blind man and the elephant. Everyone has been grasping some piece of this system, and they think they understand what it is, but no one's seeing the bigger picture of how it's all fitting together. And so that's what I think we're really trying to do for the first time, is understand how all these pieces fit together. And the results, well, let me say first, you know, we can talk about this abstractly, but the reality is that there are real human failures with the design system that we have now. As an example, there's a gentleman. He was, you know, he had been causing a lot of issues in our downtown. He had a long history of homelessness. And through the work of Haid, we were able to get him taking medication again. He was living in a sober living facility. And there was a relapse situation. And with this sort of approach, you just kind of expect relapse is part of the game. You need to quickly scoop people back up and make sure that they're getting the help that they need. And unfortunately, between regular mental health and going back to jail, there wasn't communication about the medication he was on. He got on a new prescription, it totally did not interact with him well, and he spiraled out and ended up on the street. Another example, and we've been working on this, and the county's been working on this as well, is the challenge where historically a lot of people think, well, we deal with substance abuse. So if you come to us and you have symptoms of mental health issues, then you need to go get that treated first before we actually deal with your substance abuse. And then you have the exact same conversation happening on the other side of the house where people are saying, well, we'd like to treat your mental health, but you need to get sober first. And so there are a lot of people that we've been working with that we're getting balanced between these systems. And so we're really working to merge those efforts together because that really is, again, the national best practice for behavioral health. And then lastly, it's really just this idea that we've designed a system where we have to make appointments and people have to phone in and schedule time with a psychologist if they need help with medication. There's someone in San Rafael. I mean, we tried for months and months and months to get her to be able to go to one of these appointments, and it just doesn't work. They're not able to do it. And so if we can redesign the system so that people are actually going out into the field to do in the field interviews and assessments, that goes a long way to erode that barrier. And so despite all these challenges, we've actually had a tremendous amount of success. And so I just wanted to show you kind of two quantified ways of showing this. The first is really kind of our police contacts with these folks. So when we started this effort last March, we started with 12 of literally the hardest to serve folks in San Rafael. And among those 12 individuals, they had 28 documented police interactions just in March. And the important thing is that these are actual citations or trips to jail. These aren't all just the regular interactions or 911 calls that these folks were generating. And you can see that quickly over a matter of months, this dropped in a very dramatic way. And then also thinking about just kind of the health care issue of this, this is for one gentleman in the program. In March, he was getting transported six times per month to the emergency room. And to give you a sense of sort of the public cost of this, each visit to the emergency room and all that, it can cost upwards of $10,000 per visit. So you've got someone that's going six times a month, March, April. This was a major challenge. And again, this guy was very vulnerable. He really needed help. And so we were actually able to get him stabilized in a motel. We've got him connected with a health aide who's actually another formerly homeless individual. So it's a great opportunity to get two people stabilized and house at once. And since August, he has not had any more return trips to the emergency room or needing that kind of high level of care. So it's been a really significant success. So the other major best practice that we wanted to highlight tonight is something called coordinated entry. So I'll turn it back to Ashley to quickly go over that. |
| 01:03:03.96 | Ashley Hart McIntyre | So coordinated entry is a fancy term for basically making the system work a lot better and minimize duplications of services. and help people make sure that they're appropriately matched with the services that best meet their needs. So coordinated entry is something that is mandated by our federal funders, so we actually have to put this into place. Also, it turns out it's really effective. A lot of communities have been working on these systems for a long time. and are seeing a lot of success with streamlining and improving their systems of care. So basically, it's a two step process. Step one is to make sure that everybody who's entering the system, everybody who's experiencing homelessness, is receiving the same assessment tools so that we can measure apples to apples and actually get a good sense of what somebody needs. So we've selected an assessment tool and we're beginning to implement that. And then step two is once you have an idea of what everybody's needs are, how do you prioritize people for the available resources? The most effective principle to do that with is vulnerability. So basically how likely is somebody to die on the streets, to have a major medical emergency or a psychiatric emergency if they're left unhoused. You can kind of think of that as how you would think of an emergency room triage. So if somebody comes into an emergency room with a bullet to the head, And somebody else has been there for six hours with a broken arm. Nobody questions that the gunshot wound is going to go first. because they're far more vulnerable. So the same thing happens with housing. We know that housing is actually an effective medical intervention for many, So people who are the most vulnerable should go first. So for those reasons and also because our national and state funders require vulnerability, those are all very good reasons to be prioritizing based on that principle. Also, the most vulnerable folks have the highest systemic cost. Those are the folks, like Andrew mentioned, like our gentleman who had six emergency transports in the month of March alone. They also elicit the most fear and concern from the community members, folks who are super vulnerable. may be acting unpredictably out on your streets or making people nervous because they seem very ill. So that's another good reason to prioritize them. And they're the most close to death. So with alignment, we can actually make sure that we know who is experiencing homelessness and we know what their needs are and we know where to find them when housing becomes available. We have a list, like Santa Claus, of prioritized folks. And when housing becomes available, we can look at our prioritized list and say, all right, you are eligible for this bed and you are at the top of our list, so we're going to actually place you in this bed. All referrals in the Coordinated Entry System are coming from a centralized location into all of the available beds in the community. So people are not going piecemeal from door to door looking for their own housing. They go to one location, they get on a centralized list, and that centralized list places them in the most appropriate unit. So with that, we wanted to share a little bit with you about our areas of focus in 2017. |
| 01:06:26.50 | Andrew Henning | Yeah, just before we jump into the Q&A part, we did just want to highlight kind of where we're going and how you can play an integral role in that. So I'll just cover one of the – we have three general areas. I'll cover just the first quickly. Really, I mean, I think we're making a bigger effort to really increase the housing and services that are available in our community. And I think there are two major ways that we're really doing that in the short term in this coming year. I could have Googled a house. I felt like that was boring. I decided to put Senator McGuire's picture. Increasing housing is not only a local priority, a countywide priority. I mean, it's clearly now a statewide major issue. And so Senator McGuire, among others, has been a big champion of trying to get more funding to the local level so that we can really address this in a meaningful way. And so I think that's just something that Ashley and I are trying to have conversations throughout the county about how can we actually increase our housing stock. And I think there's been an important recognition that it's very difficult to build new things in Marin, but I think there are very creative ways to utilize existing housing stock to really help address this issue. We can bring on new landlords. There's a really creative idea floating around where if, let's say you're a landlord and you're making $3,000 a month in rent, but an affordable unit would be $2,000, what if you could get paid for basically the present value of all those over market, or sorry, above affordable difference payments up front. And then you would accept a family that's working minimum wage job as an alternative. So there are a lot of creative solutions in that vein. And then I think the other thing that we're trying to do is really recognize, again, that there really are people, and I think the point in time count is going to show this again, there really are homeless people throughout our entire community. And so the question is, how do we best reach and help those folks? And unfortunately, I think, again, we've seen the debate a lot of times around traditional brick-and-mortar interventions. And so I think there's growing awareness and excitement, honestly, about moving to more of a mobile service model. And so showers are one example, but you could imagine that this platform, which we're sort of nicknaming Marin Mobile Care, could also serve as a platform for mobile health care, mobile pantry, mobile dental care. It kind of runs the gamut. So those are two major areas where we're focused in 2017. |
| 01:08:50.88 | Ashley Hart McIntyre | In addition, we're working to align our efforts countywide a little bit better. As we saw earlier, the unshielded population is really pretty evenly distributed across Marin County. So it's something that all of our different jurisdictions are dealing with. We're grappling with it separately. And we'd like to streamline some of those efforts and work together a little bit better. So you'll be receiving an invitation shortly to participate in some city and county coordination meetings with some of the three major jurisdictions. in Marin that are primarily impacted by homelessness, San Rafael, Sausalito, Novato, along with the county so that we can actually just have some staff conversations and coordinate our efforts. We are working with MCCMC, as well as the Marin Managers Association, to make sure that everyone's on the same page and better communications with those groups. And we're also working on putting together of the bigger structure, a higher level structure to coordinate some of our executive leadership across policy makers and funders county wide. So that's very early in its development, but we wanted to give you a little bit of a heads up that we're hoping to better coordinate with our policy makers across our jurisdictions. And then we're trying to improve our access to resources. So we're working really hard on implementing that coordinated entry system we talked about earlier. And we're also working with all of our nonprofits and other service providers to make sure that services are accessible to everybody who is in need, regardless of how high needs they might be. And with that, I think we are ready for questions. |
| 01:10:30.36 | Unknown | Thank you very much. Okay, so. Who would like to go first? I'm assuming there's going to be questions. All right, let me kick off with a few. |
| 01:10:44.67 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 01:10:45.97 | Unknown | So I want to really address, I want to sort of take the discussion down two avenues. The first is to pick up on your idea of streamlining and We participate, the city of Sausalito participates in Obviously, the Marine Managers Association, which is paying close attention to this. And also, in particular, through MCCMC. MCC, I was mayor in 2014 when we formed the homeless committee, MCC MC's homeless committee. And in fact, one of our outgoing retiring council members was the city representative on that committee. We have to appoint someone for moving forward. But it seems to me that What is the, help us understand the coordination that needs to occur between the cities and the county in particular. Because is the county represented on MCC, MC's homeless committee? I don't think so. Maybe one of the students, right. So why not? You know, what's the best way to get the policy makers or policy thinkers aren't in silos? |
| 01:12:19.35 | Ashley Hart McIntyre | So I spoke with MCCMC with that subcommittee last December, and that actually was a topic of conversation, whether there should be county representation in that group. and I'm not actually sure what they've decided to do, but historically the county has not participated in those meetings, which is why there's not representation currently. We think that there are... um, Between the various city councils, between the county, the housing authority, county staff at HHS, Marine Community Foundation. There are a lot of people who are making policy and funding decisions about homelessness. not just our elected officials, and we'd really like for all of those folks to be on exactly the same page. And there currently isn't a body that encompasses all of those groups. |
| 01:13:08.02 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 01:13:08.75 | Andrew Henning | Yeah, I would just add real quick. Ashley mentioned it, but I mean, so we are working, sort of the executive group that Ashley mentioned is kind of our nascent effort to try to get representatives from all these different bodies talking together. So it doesn't necessarily mean that all these groups are going to merge, but I think having representation around one overall vision that they can then take back to their respective bodies is really key. And I think we're just finding that, I think just, the pure utility of having a more transparent set of efforts is really powerful. Because I think we're finding that we started looking at potentially doing mobile showers. Some folks in Nevada were looking at maybe doing mobile showers. It's totally wasteful and duplicative to both be pursuing that when we could be investing in a shared asset that could go between both communities as an example. So I think we're just really trying to, for the first time, figure even out what does this structure look like, but just realizing that it's important to be aligned. |
| 01:14:05.04 | Ashley Hart McIntyre | While at the same time minimizing the number of meetings we're asking people to attend. |
| 01:14:08.89 | Andrew Henning | Always. Yes. |
| 01:14:11.88 | Unknown | Okay, the second line of dialogue is around data. We, um... I think your point about the fact that homelessness throughout Marin County is well taken. Um... So first of all, let me understand who is responsible for and could you help people who are listening at home as well as us here, how the point in time count works. because my follow-up point, and I'll give you fair warning, and I'm not trying to shoot the messengers here, A lot of people in social media just don't believe the numbers. And number two, we need to have a further discussion about Richardson Bay. Because so anyway, help educate us as to how that's done first of all. And then we'll ask some follow up questions. |
| 01:15:19.46 | Ashley Hart McIntyre | Sure. So I'll start because the county is leading the effort to plan and implement the point-in-time count. The point in time count is a federally required thing that we have to do. So we follow the HUD definition of homelessness, which we talked about before. And we are working with a consultant that's nationally recognized as using the best practices For this kind of count, we do a one day, it's a point in time count, which means it's a snapshot of homelessness on a single day. in our community, so it's not capturing all of the people who are experiencing homelessness over the course of the year. on any given day in Marin, how many people are homeless and what are their characteristics. It's a two part thing. We count the people who are unsheltered, and we count the people who are sleeping in shelters. the people who are unsheltered, as I mentioned before. We divide the whole county into census tracts, and early in the morning, we go out with volunteers as well as homeless guides who actually know where people are located, and we count people who are sleeping outdoors. The sheltered count we use, we have a database. that all of our homeless housing providers enter client level information into, and we use that database to count the number of people who are sleeping in a sheltered location on the same night of the count. In the couple of weeks following the count, we do surveys for people who were sleeping in either an unsheltered location or a shelter. on the count night to find out more, all that detailed demographic information that we presented. So the folks who are sleeping in, who are living out in Richardson Bay, do get counted in our point in time count because they meet the HUD definition of homelessness. Does that answer your question? |
| 01:16:59.55 | Joan Cox | I have a follow up on that. So how does someone that lives is voluntarily living on a boat, they bought the boat, they've acquired it somehow, they want to live out there, it's public land. How does that meet the definition of someone that's homeless? |
| 01:17:15.58 | Ashley Hart McIntyre | The HUD definition doesn't take preference into account. It's really just if you're sleeping in a place not meant for human accommodation, then you're considered homeless. Most communities have found that given the right housing options, most people will choose not to retain their homeless situation. So whether it's living on a boat or living in an encampment, Sometimes, Folks will say, well, I'm perfectly happy here. For now, because they have community, because they have freedom, often it's because the housing options that are available are not practical. or they are too restrictive for folks. Many communities have found that as the housing options open up, people are very willing actually to move out of those locations and into permanent housing. |
| 01:17:59.74 | Joan Cox | Great, so I have a follow up. So I'm the socio representative for the RBRA Council and I've been fairly critical of the RBR, Richardson Bay Regional Authority for not being active enough in helping move people off the water into stable living situations. So I think as we move forward, if we move forward with RBRA. And even if we don't move forward with RBRA, we'll need to work closely with you in developing a plan for that transition of people that want to move off the water. And helping ease that pathway for them. Anyway, that's all I want to say about that, I guess. |
| 01:18:42.18 | Unknown | I wanted to follow through on the concept that boats are not meant for human habitation. Because here in Sausalito, we have 10% of every one of our marinas occupied by liveaboards who are counted within our census as residents of Sausalito who are allowed to vote and who have chosen to live on a boat because they prefer that lifestyle. And so I'm wondering who made the decision in these point of time analyses that boats are not meant for human habitation and therefore Anyone living on a boat in Richardson Bay is classified as being homeless. |
| 01:19:26.21 | Ashley Hart McIntyre | Just to clarify, it's not the fact of living on a boat specifically that makes it not fit for human habitation. It's the lack of plumbing and electricity that would define it that way. And that's a HUD definition of homelessness. That's who HUD is asking us to count. |
| 01:19:38.07 | Unknown | you |
| 01:19:38.26 | Unknown | you |
| 01:19:39.27 | Unknown | And one sort of follow on to that is that, |
| 01:19:40.73 | Ashley Hart McIntyre | Yeah. |
| 01:19:40.75 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:19:40.77 | Ashley Hart McIntyre | CARRIE. |
| 01:19:44.90 | Unknown | Thank you. Your matrix takes into account all of these various types of people who, given other options, would prefer mortar and brick or other types of shelters. But where does your paradigm account for those who don't want brick and mortar, who don't want shelter, who don't want to be constrained to be required to take medication, who prefer the freedom as there are some who do prefer the freedom of living on a boat and not having someone govern their activity. |
| 01:20:31.38 | Andrew Henning | That is definitely undeniable that there are some people that feel that way. But I think, at least from my professional experience working in this field, I mean, the percentage of people that actually truly are in that category, it's single digit percentages. I think, as we kind of showed earlier, there are a lot of people that have been in the system or have been homeless for a long time. And they might, at first glance, say, oh, I'm fine with my situation. But it also can be a dynamic where they don't trust providers anymore for whatever reason. There's been a lot of, there's something now in San Francisco called the Navigation Center, which is a very low barrier shelter because a lot of people won't even go into programs because they have a dog, and their dog's not allowed in programs. Or they're married, and they can't go to a shelter because it's not for both genders. So there are a lot of reasons that people give for why they don't want to get off the street. And it would suggest maybe that they're comfortable, but I think the reality is that well over nine out of 10 people you know, probably would, if really given the option, would want to be off the street. And the other just note that I would add about the point in time count is that some of this stuff, I mean, our hands are kind of tied because it is what the federal government wants us to count. But I will say it's a very, very powerful experience to go out on the morning of the count and to see if people are sleeping on the street or see what the circumstances might be on the water. I know, like, when I first started in this field, I still vividly remember the very first day I did outreach and seeing people sleep under an overpass. I think it just really kind of drives home some of that. So it's a really great opportunity if you all are available. |
| 01:21:52.66 | Craig Kinkle | water. |
| 01:22:07.24 | Joan Cox | So let me go back to the votes for a second. When you guys count the boats on Richardson Bay, do you count all the boats or do you try to determine what boats are occupied and not occupied? |
| 01:22:19.14 | Ashley Hart McIntyre | Our counters go out with guides and also I believe they're going out with the, Carrie, correct me if I'm wrong, with the police department, is that correct? So they're actually trying to, they're identifying |
| 01:22:27.02 | Joan Cox | I'm not sure. Thank you. |
| 01:22:30.08 | Ashley Hart McIntyre | boats that are inhabited. Thank you. |
| 01:22:31.73 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 01:22:31.75 | Ashley Hart McIntyre | Thank you. |
| 01:22:31.81 | Joan Cox | that. |
| 01:22:31.85 | Ashley Hart McIntyre | Okay. |
| 01:22:34.38 | Joan Cox | I mean, there are boats out there that have electricity and have working plumbing. And have honey boat contracts for their plumbing. So, but I'm sure the chief back there is helping you with that. |
| 01:22:39.54 | Unknown | Me too. |
| 01:22:44.15 | Joe Burns | And the numbers here suggest that, hi, thanks for coming tonight. The numbers here suggest, it's my first time speaking. |
| 01:22:53.36 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 01:22:54.90 | Joe Burns | Thank you. I want to make a motion. I don't even know what to do here. The numbers here would suggest with 22% of the 1309 that there's 290. |
| 01:23:05.24 | Ashley Hart McIntyre | So just to clarify, the 1,309 is the total number of people who are homeless, both sheltered and unsheltered. |
| 01:23:10.39 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 01:23:10.73 | Ashley Hart McIntyre | The 22% is just of the unsheltered population. So it's actually a smaller number than that who are out there. And I don't have the number on me at the moment, but I can get that to you. We have an exact number of how many we counted. I think it was about 180, 150. |
| 01:23:24.77 | Andrew Henning | Thank you. It's about 830 that are on shelters. 830? |
| 01:23:27.48 | Ashley Hart McIntyre | Thank you. |
| 01:23:27.52 | Joe Burns | I don't know. |
| 01:23:33.37 | Ashley Hart McIntyre | I want to say it's 183, but I could be... You're right. Awesome. |
| 01:23:38.25 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:23:38.64 | Joe Burns | So it's 183 unsheltered on the bay? |
| 01:23:38.67 | Ashley Hart McIntyre | So it's 183. |
| 01:23:41.81 | Joe Burns | Is it number? |
| 01:23:41.90 | Unknown | the number counted as being under sheltered on the day. |
| 01:23:44.12 | Joe Burns | Even that still seems high. 280 sounded really high, but 180 still is that? Chief, did that seem right when you were counting with them? Bye. It seems like it would be in the 50s, right, or 40s or something? Yeah. |
| 01:23:56.58 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:23:56.59 | Joe Burns | Okay. |
| 01:23:56.91 | Unknown | Well, I mean, we can't, you know, this conversation go down, you know. Right. Right. |
| 01:24:01.71 | Joe Burns | BUT IT HAPPENED AT ONE POINT AND |
| 01:24:03.53 | Unknown | So yeah. |
| 01:24:05.64 | Unknown | you |
| 01:24:05.67 | Adam Politzer | Thank you. |
| 01:24:05.69 | Unknown | Please make me. |
| 01:24:06.94 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 01:24:07.90 | Adam Politzer | One question, just because it's on the same track, and it might be helpful for you to provide this information after the fact. |
| 01:24:10.50 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 01:24:10.72 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:24:10.82 | Unknown | Bye. |
| 01:24:15.04 | Adam Politzer | But it would be one of the questions that I think that we're also having is, What did this number look like four years ago? you know, was this a new count? Because that was the other thing that was a question, is that we don't remember counting the people on the water before, and was this a new count? And so having a little perspective going back more than just two years ago, but let's go back 10 years ago and understand, you know, what has changed in Sausalito or in Southern Marin for that matter. |
| 01:24:44.16 | Ashley Hart McIntyre | That's a very helpful question. Our methodology changed dramatically between 2013 and 2015. In 2013, we did a services-based count. So we were counting folks who came into our service providers for services on the day of the count. And as you can imagine, that doesn't capture many of the folks who are either more independent or highly vulnerable and who are not accessing services. So in 2015, we switched to this evidence-based counting model, working with this particular contractor, to actually get a much more robust unsheltered count. And as you can imagine, because of that, our numbers went up by about 40%, which doesn't indicate a 40% increase in homelessness. And based on our service providers and our outreach workers, we actually think that there was a, Just a very small increase in homelessness, not the 40% between 2013 and 2015. It just is a reflection of our methodology. our 2015 and 2013, our 2015 and 2017 methodologies are going to be much more comparable. |
| 01:25:43.89 | Unknown | Thank you. on the percentages. It's still very confusing because Richardson Bay is an, comes under unincorporated. So why isn't it added in there? Sausalito waters, we have approximately 60 some odd boats. And out in the bay, there's almost 200. But yet the way it looks, When people look at Hink about it, they think Sausalito. And yet, you have the percentage of them not, and then you divide it or separate it and put unincorporated. Well, both of those are unincorporated. Richardson Bay is unincorporated area. |
| 01:26:24.37 | Unknown | Right. |
| 01:26:27.20 | Unknown | Is that correct? Most of it, yeah. So the majority, those should be put together. |
| 01:26:28.59 | Unknown | most of it. |
| 01:26:33.58 | Unknown | THAT'S UNINCORPORATED. |
| 01:26:36.65 | Ashley Hart McIntyre | County. |
| 01:26:37.23 | Unknown | County. |
| 01:26:38.24 | Ashley Hart McIntyre | Yes, so it's not actually in the point-in-time count. Those folks weren't attributed to Sausalito. The primary entry point for land for those folks is through Sausalito. but it is unincorporated, it's just, it happens to be, A rather unique feature of Marin homelessness, to have people anchored out. It's actually very uncommon to have something like this. Some of the East Bay communities have it, and there's a couple in Southern California. But it's actually a really uncommon thing, which is why it's broken out separately in our particular area. |
| 01:27:05.61 | Unknown | Well, that's because they've cleared out Redwood City and the Oakland Estuary cleared out all of the Anchorout style living in. |
| 01:27:05.83 | Ashley Hart McIntyre | THAT'S BECAUSE I'M NOT |
| 01:27:14.47 | Unknown | And it came over here. |
| 01:27:15.69 | Ashley Hart McIntyre | Just nationally speaking, though, it's unusual to have folks who are living out and basically floating shanties. |
| 01:27:21.27 | Unknown | Thank you. But still that percentage should be unincorporated. |
| 01:27:25.44 | Andrew Henning | Yeah, I would just say overall, I mean, I definitely, I think we both sense the frustration about the numbers. I think it just speaks to the fact that, you know, again, historically, I think each city has been looking at, you know, their numbers and how does this play out. And I think that we're really trying to make a very concerted effort to try to create platforms and opportunities for policymakers to get together with, you know, the different jurisdictions to discuss this. Because even if it's Sausalito or unincorporated, I mean, it still exists as a challenge. And so I think we're really just trying to look at it as a county wide, how do we address homelessness with all the cities, the county, everyone at the table. So I really encourage, I mean- But you're saying that the county isn't at the table. |
| 01:28:01.79 | Unknown | But you're saying that Yeah. |
| 01:28:04.49 | Unknown | at the table. And yet they're responsible for the unemployment. |
| 01:28:06.02 | Unknown | No, that's... |
| 01:28:07.04 | Andrew Henning | IT IS A LITTLE BIT OF THE Well, the county, I mean, the county is. |
| 01:28:08.69 | Unknown | I mean, the county is. |
| 01:28:09.85 | Unknown | Bye. |
| 01:28:09.87 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 01:28:10.26 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:28:10.44 | Andrew Henning | Because we have the Marine Managers Association, Matthew Heimel attends those. |
| 01:28:14.27 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 01:28:14.90 | Andrew Henning | MCCMC was set up for the cities, but Again, there's a lot of conversation and dialogue. I'd say, at least from my perspective, working here for a couple of years now, The most communication that's ever happened on this issue is happening now, so we really are moving forward on that front. JUST KEEP IN MIND. |
| 01:28:31.98 | Unknown | that four or five years ago there were 89, 90 boats out there, and now there's over 250. |
| 01:28:38.63 | Ashley Hart McIntyre | Yeah, we absolutely sense the frustration county wide with the homeless problem that's happening. And Health and Human Services, which is my employer, We actually do, I think it's a twice yearly outreach event to the anchor outs to try to bring people in, to try to engage in the services, to try to connect them with housing. We've been working on a lot. and then, Do do it. actually it's quite a significant event a couple of times a year trying to engage that population, get them off the boats. |
| 01:29:03.97 | Unknown | Okay, does anybody else have any specific questions on the counts? On the, no, okay. Yeah. |
| 01:29:14.37 | Adam Politzer | I think the frustration is also because when you look at the slides, this PowerPoint presentation, which is now, on its fourth or fifth time through various groups. it distorts that Sausalito's got a 22 percent, so unless you start asking the questions as our council is asking Our number is really in the neighborhood of one. homeless people under the real definition from our perspective of homelessness. But we're not seeing what's in San Antelmo. or what's in Mill Valley. So we're lumping this discussion about Bridgerton Bay, which is complicated by itself. and showing the rest of the leadership in our county and whoever else is receiving this presentation, that you got three population of homeless. And that's not accurate. And I think that's why you're getting some of these questions, but it's really important that as you I'm not sure. continue to fill out these presentations that that information is more truly reflective. |
| 01:30:20.62 | Ashley Hart McIntyre | Thank you. |
| 01:30:20.69 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:30:20.74 | Ashley Hart McIntyre | We absolutely recognize that homelessness is really, it's a county wide issue. Every jurisdiction needs to be at the table, it's really, it's impacting. |
| 01:30:20.82 | Adam Politzer | Absolutely. |
| 01:30:29.09 | Ashley Hart McIntyre | every jurisdiction across Marin. The anchor outs, I think, Because most of them are accessing land through Sausalito, I think they wind up more visible here, more impacts on your community. And so when we talk about that being relevant for you folks, that's the only reason why. And we do recognize that they are unincorporated county. So I have a comment but not a question. |
| 01:30:51.80 | Unknown | COMMENT. |
| 01:30:53.03 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 01:30:53.09 | Ashley Hart McIntyre | Thank you. |
| 01:30:53.20 | Unknown | Thank you. The Press-up. |
| 01:30:53.71 | Joan Cox | So yeah, I do. So if somebody wanted to, this is an info thing. If somebody wants to volunteer for your point in time, do you have a website? Do you have a phone number? Is it somewhere in the package somewhere? How would they get in touch with you? It's for all of us at home. |
| 01:31:09.30 | Andrew Henning | We can, well I guess an overall website. |
| 01:31:12.85 | Ashley Hart McIntyre | So there's an electronic sign up. You can sign up online to volunteer. Anybody who's interested. The website is rather long, and we don't have a slide for it. So I'm gonna say if anybody is interested, they can reach out to me, to Andrew, to Carrie, and we can leave you our contact information if that's helpful. |
| 01:31:30.97 | Joan Cox | And you guys are at, what's the name of your, like if I want to look you up in the phone book. |
| 01:31:35.05 | Ashley Hart McIntyre | So Carrie and I are both with Health and Human Services. Okay. You can reach me at amcintyre at marincounty.org, or you can reach Carrie at cseger at marincounty.org. Okay. Thanks. |
| 01:31:44.05 | Unknown | Yeah, maybe we can get that in the coverage. |
| 01:31:46.78 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 01:31:46.80 | Ashley Hart McIntyre | Yeah. |
| 01:31:47.03 | Joan Cox | That'd be great. I think so. |
| 01:31:49.67 | Unknown | Okay, is there any other questions? Because I know we got some comments. to egg. And is there any other specific questions? No. Okay. I'll reserve my comments a little bit later on, but let me just thank you very much. And... It's a difficult problem. It's a complex problem and The more we talk about it, I think the better we are. So thank you very much. And let's bring it up here. public comment, I'm guessing, as we have no public other than our visitors. So let's bring it back up. Thank you very much. Does anybody have any further comments? I know I do. |
| 01:32:43.72 | Unknown | Well, I do appreciate your program. So it's interesting. I do a lot of work with jails, and I notice a lot of overlap in some of your nomenclature as with some of the programs that go on to reduce recidivism in jails, such as alignment and reentry and evidence-based programs. And I know that some of those principles have seen some success in addressing those challenges, which ironically are also largely related to substance and alcohol abuse. So I'm very encouraged by your sort of continuum, by your evaluation and then the continuum of care that you are adopting through your HOT program to try to address some of these issues. I do feel like I'm going to address some of these issues. I do think that your program would benefit from including in the analysis that segment that I referenced who really don't want care. Even, I think, although some of them think they don't and they ultimately do, I think there is a segment out there that really don't want care. I do want to endorse what our city manager said and request, specifically request that you update your slide 28 to reflect a more accurate counting and allocation of percentages of homelessness in Marin County to reflect that the Richardson Bay anchor outs are not, although they may come ashore through Sausalito, they are not a Sausalito population solely, as evidenced by the fact that the Richardson Bay regional authority is comprised of the county and five cities. And so this is not a population that is solely Sausalito's. The reason that the counts are so important to Sausalito is that ABAG, when putting together requirements for identification of housing in Sausalito and elsewhere, includes in those requirements the homeless count. So when you artificially inflate the homeless count of Sausalito, it has an adverse impact on Sausalito in that ABAG subsequently requires that Sausalito identify land based housing for that homeless population. When in fact, it's not Sausalito identify land-based housing for that homeless population when in fact it's not Sausalito's population and the liveaboards or anchor outs, many of them don't want land-based housing. So it's a challenge, and I think we would request that you reconsider the manner in which you allocate the homelessness in this chart, particularly since you're disseminating this information throughout the various cities and counties. I want to say that I think the city definitely wants to partner with you in addressing this issue. Despite our reservations about some of the counts, that doesn't lessen our commitment toward addressing this issue, which is Sausalito's and the balance of the counties. So thank you. |
| 01:35:57.65 | Unknown | Would you want to add anything? |
| 01:35:59.59 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:35:59.60 | Joan Cox | Do you have a couple things? Thanks for your hard work on... bringing more efficiency and streamlining all these different agencies. Because I know the challenge of trying to bring these different disparate agencies together with different viewpoints and different, you know, methods, methodologies. So I think that's extremely important to helping those people that are the most extreme navigating out of homelessness. So I think that's great. And also bringing the greater efficiencies and the lower costs overall, I think, is really, really important. And also, you know, increasing the confidence of the people, of the populace in the efforts. So I think is really really important and also increasing the confidence of the people of the populace in the efforts so I think that's great. Your efforts with the most extreme population in San Rafael, great great job in bringing the the cost for medical and the visits down. And I know that there is a direct correlation. I've read other studies. Absolute, no question, direct correlation between bringing those people out of just homelessness, i.e. sheltering them. and the decrease in their medical emergency issues, which is a huge, huge cost on the community. So great, great work there. You know, obviously, as we've stated, you know, we keep a really close eye. We're such a small community, and we have such a limited, you know, geography where we can actually put, you know, different things. So we keep a very close eye, or we try to keep a close eye, on how these counts affect us. And so that's why, as the Vice Mayor mentioned, we're very, very sensitive to overinflated numbers, like very sensitive. And especially when you're talking about the population out on the water. And I agree that it's unique, and I agree that it maybe not fit into one hole or the other, but we might want to think about how we're defining that and how we're counting that entire population as a homeless as homeless um I think some of them are more vulnerable than others out there and their vessels are definitely some more vulnerable than others. that's something that we're going to keep an eye on. And then, you know, thank you. I hope that we can build a partnership when we move toward our later phase in, um, trying to transition some of those people off the water. It's not a particularly safe place to be, especially in rough weather, if you're not an experienced boat handler. And thank you for your efforts. I appreciate it. |
| 01:38:36.20 | Joe Burns | I will echo the prior two. I think you got the message on the numbers and the data. But, wow, what a THAT'S A GOOD AND I THINK THAT'S A GOOD functioning people are to a homeless situation. And we don't even see it until it's occurred. You know, and it's just one slip of a medicine or one slip in a healthcare provider's interpretation of the medicines and then it gets missed and that person goes off into a schizophrenic or some other type of behavior. And before you know it, they're on the street and how quickly that can occur. And what we can look at our communities is, you know, that population of who's close as well, because I think it's an interesting number that 71% come from our community. So 71% of the next round of homelessness are right here right now. And I think that's something for us to keep an eye on. So thank you for your time and coming tonight. |
| 01:40:00.93 | Unknown | Thank you. The thing that I would like to see is when you list percentages or numbers, We here at the Council like to think that we're part of Marin and we like to look at every city in comparison. We compare sometimes things in San and Salmo, similar population. So I would recommend I'd like to see all the cities in the county and and the county unincorporated. in a number that I think we could put into perspective is where we stand. rather than the way this looks. I mean, when you look at this, you're saying, you know, we have a population of 7,000. We're ahead of Nevada, which is a population of 49,000. So I'd like to put that into perspective. Thank you. |
| 01:41:01.38 | Unknown | Again, thank you. I'VE BEEN FOLLOWING THIS ISSUE AT VARIOUS LEVELS, MCCMC ON THE PERIPHERY. But with the League of California Cities, which is their number one priority. And we've been working at the executive board level in the North Bay Division to make it so. And we spent half a day last fall on this issue up in Napa. So I understand its complexity and it was great San Rafael got a specialist on board and yourself and the count has been working very hard on this. Again, I said earlier, please don't think that we're trying to shoot the messengers here. I'm trained as a scientist. I rely on data. And I've believed as I transitioned into politics, you can use facts and data to help formulate policy. Um, One of the most important aspects though in formulating policy is bringing your whole community along. They believe you're credible. And the problem is, Our community doesn't believe your numbers. period and so and our community also doesn't believe that you really understand which is a It's far more complex than just homelessness. It's far more complex. And the danger is if you don't get the data right, then you're not going to make correct policy. And more importantly, we, are unable to bring our community along because they don't believe the numbers either. And that's the fundamental problem. So I'm hoping that working together, the cities, the county, the region, I mean the North Bay division, even at the state level, we've talked a lot to Senator McGuire about this. That we need to make sure that we understand the complexity of the problem, especially with the Richardson May issue, it's far more nuanced than quite frankly, as I think you've presented. But with that said, please, I'm not trying to shoot the messenger. I think things are going in the right direction. were committed to actually more actively participating with you so that we can help get these things, what we believe in a better position numbers wise. Thank you. |
| 01:43:56.74 | Ashley Hart McIntyre | If I may, we're happy to send along with the point in time count a sign up website and our contact information. I'd be happy to send also the 2015 information. IN FULL. so that you can actually see what the different numbers are countywide. And then also just to clarify that we had framed the Richardson Bay issue as relevant for this conversation just because it impacts your community so much. But I believe, and I can double check on this, in the actual point in time count, the Richardson Bay population is not allocated to Sausalito. So it is separate, we want to make sure that. I want to lay your concerns on that one. |
| 01:44:33.30 | Unknown | Great. Thank you. Thanks for coming. |
| 01:44:40.08 | Unknown | Okay, so How are we doing with regards to, I realize we have not very much to continue. Are we okay? Let's move along quickly then. We don't have item 6C. Item 6D, approval of the City Council meeting schedule. I know some of us have made some changes. The proposed changed calendar was in the package. Is everybody OK with that? And can I have a motion to approve that unless there's changes needed? |
| 01:45:17.98 | Joan Cox | Yes. I WANTED TO BE ABLE TO BE ABLE after the package after our package was okay. No yeah I'll move second. |
| 01:45:23.63 | Unknown | No. AND I WANT TO TAKE A LOOK AT |
| 01:45:27.97 | Unknown | Check. |
| 01:45:28.83 | Unknown | All in favor. |
| 01:45:29.57 | Joan Cox | Aye. Aye. |
| 01:45:29.96 | Unknown | Aye. Item 7A, city manager information for council. |
| 01:45:41.44 | Unknown | we did not need public comment on the approval of the City Council meeting schedule because the room is empty. |
| 01:45:48.35 | Unknown | The bathrooms are loaded, but the tables are used. you |
| 01:45:52.69 | Unknown | by the way. OK. Our city manager. |
| 01:45:57.91 | Adam Politzer | Thank you, Mr. Mayor and Councilmembers. Welcome to 2017. This is going to be a very exciting year. on many fronts and obviously the storm front that's kicked off the new year has brought lots of anxiety, excitement, challenges, and for the little ones, a lot of fun, splashing in the puddles and enjoying a different type of playground out there in our community. But as the mayor stated earlier, these are very serious storms with very serious conditions, and the conditions continue to challenge our residents and visitors in our town. We will continue to update the currents and for anyone that is listening at home, if you have not registered to receive the city's electronic newsletter, please go to our website. It's very easy to do and register. And for those watching at home that know friends that aren't receiving the currents, at least forward it to them and or encourage them to receive it. We want to use the currents and all of our tools, social media tools, to communicate to our residents. And as many also are aware, we are partnered with the county Partnered with county sheriff's office. Partnered with the coast guard. And so we are part of one network of emergency communications and preparedness throughout the county and sharing our resources to make sure that we are able to protect life and property throughout the county. We won't go into a lot of detail of the events that have happened over the last three days, but we probably will put that in a current article. And after the effect, let folks know of the number of trees that came down and which trees took down power lines. I know that our vice mayor had her power, her neighborhood was affected by the ebb tide tree that came down and took out the power lines there. And she had shared with me that her power came back on at 6 o'clock last night. So that's so far the longest outage of power that we experienced down on the north end of town. But it is interesting talking to our residents, the people that were without power for a few hours, and the folks that weren't affected at all. People that are affected by finding new leaks in their roofs that they didn't know were there. To folks that experienced flooding through their back door as the grading on their back patios slanted towards their back doors. And with this volume of rain per minute. It was pretty significant what we've experienced. I didn't have a chance to look exactly at all the information that just came across. But as the mayor shared, there was a mud slide, significant mud slide in Mill Valley. I'm seeing here that we've had a few small they've called small mudslides on spencer avenue and on san carlos and on bulkley you may have seen our public works director who had gone home come back in with his rain gear in so obviously the eoc called our public works crew back in for this evening to deal with the amount of rain and the aftermath of of much saturation. So we will send out something because I think it's of interest, but I also think it's of interest for the community to know what we did to prepare. A lot of action went in with our fire chief, our police chief, and our public works director and many others in coordination of how does information get placed on the website. Well, you either Lily is doing that or Redlings, our IT manager, is doing it off-site. How are the phone lines being updated and then how are people disseminated and called in to do the extra work that is required when when these types of events come forward so we'll put together a current article and then working with the mayor and the vice mayor it may be an opportunity to do a presentation at a future council meeting on all the preparation because we're it's's a reminder, we're at the beginning of the storm season. This is not the end. This is the beginning and at this moment, they were just talking about 22 straight days of rain that's coming our way with a few minor breaks in between. And so as we watch the rivers, local rivers and creeks continue to rise, and one of the big disadvantages that I think we all had was that the last storm didn't come with snow. It came with rain, and that rain ended up melting a lot of snow, a lot of snow which also impacted the creeks and rivers and looking at the watershed and how it actually all impacts us here. Even more dangerous, which is one of the reasons why we put out the special announcement on Monday, was that this storm coincides with the king tides. And the king tides on a normal non-storm day, we all see the effects of those. But when you bring in the complexity of the king tide with the storm and the strength of wave action, and you look at the Trident and the Cruising Club, the Yacht Club, Spinnaker, Skomas, and then all the other folks there along the water's edge as you go north. that significant flooding and property damage and threat of loss of life and property damage is very, very high. So the tide tonight or this morning did not crest over Ridgeway, but there is a strong possibility, especially if the storm continues to be as strong as it has been for the last several hours. There's a strong possibility that it could crest tomorrow morning between 9 and 10 o'clock or in that window of 8 to 10. So that's why our public works has staged the tremendous amount of sandbags that they've been generating. Because back in the early 2000s, it did come over. And the businesses and property owners on the other side of Bridgeway were affected, and we scrambled to get sandbags to those folks to help protect their property. So we're in a better position this time around. So again, depending on the wind and the wave action and the amount of rain and storm activity combined with the king tide that's supposed to be higher than today, tomorrow is a great risk. We are also working with the marinas and the marina operators because, as our vice mayor noted in the last presentation, we do have people that permanently live in our marinas. And those is, and those are their homes. And you're out there by yourself with a lot of activity. And so our police department, public works department will continue to reach out to the harbor master and to the marina operators to make sure that those folks are receiving the same information that our residents are. then obviously our assistance to help them if in fact they need shelter outside of their boats. And then lastly, there are people out on Richardson Bay that are a risk to themselves and a risk to others and the police department, the sheriff's office, we are consistently communicating with them to see which of those folks need shelter. And then there are others out there that are actually enjoying this because they're mariners and have a lot of experience and know how to protect themselves and their property. So it's very comprehensive, the activity that's going on, but it's also a good test to our team, led by the police chief and the fire chief and our public works director and all the staff that support them. We have opened up our EOC on several occasions during the storm. The county has. The county's closed. We've closed, we've remained open. So it's a good opportunity to test our services to make sure that when something even more significant happens, like an earthquake or a massive earth movement of mudslide or something even worse, like a terror sack, that we've had a lot of practice working and pulling our resources together again not just here within our own city limits but also with our partners outside of of Sausalito so that really ends my report but I'm happy to answer any specific questions of the council and any other matters of the city thank you any questions for the city manager |
| 01:54:48.15 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:54:48.69 | Unknown | you |
| 01:54:48.76 | Adam Politzer | Thank you. |
| 01:54:48.85 | Unknown | Thank you. I guess a new word for 2017, and I think we're hearing it. at the Spirit River. Thank you. |
| 01:54:56.47 | Unknown | Atmospheric river. |
| 01:54:57.52 | Unknown | Whether people are calling this or that, until 2017. |
| 01:55:05.90 | Unknown | Okay. you No public, no comment. Councilmember committee reports, I'm not anticipating any this evening. I'd just like to make the comment that moving forward, it's going to take a few meetings to get us there, but moving forward, we're going to try and make sure that during the course of several meetings, or at least each month, each of the committees actually do report. I have the committee reports, in particular the ones for the outside, because often we put our minutes for finance, for whatever omit in them. And in fact, also maybe we could start figuring out how to pull a staff report together with links to agenda packets and minutes of some of the outside agencies. Trust me, on some of these things you do not want hard copies. The last agenda packet from Marine Clean Energy was 570 pages. So we don't need. Right. Right. We don't. Right. So we don't. probably links would be fine. So anyway, we'll start getting into a system of trying to get that done. Likewise, appointments to boards and commissions, we've been traditionally on the, with the new council, making those changes on the second meeting of January. I think there's only one thing which has come up which is urgent, and that is our ABAC delegates, both our delegate and our alternate delegates. I want to make those appointments tonight. Joan Cox is the ABAC delegate, Joe Burns as the alternate. The reason is that Pat Eklund and Marin team are trying to get meetings together to prepare for an ABAC um, uh, general assembly, which is going to discuss the future of a bag and its relationship with MTC, et cetera, et cetera. Um, I think we need some representation at that. And so, um, I would like to make those appointments tonight. Okay. Um, and we'll talk about other boards and commissions, uh, in two weeks time, some of the boards and commissions, I think we will just hold and, um, Because I know that there is some discussions about how some of these boards and commissions may be streamlined a little bit. And so we need to wait for that before we move forward. So we're looking for the staff recommendations there. Likewise, future agenda items. We're going to be discussing in a couple of weeks our Council protocols, some of which include how to get agenda items on the agenda. We're also, the Agenda Setting Committee met. yesterday and started thinking through how we can get agendas out for a little longer time line than we normally do and also to start talking about the context of this. And so for instance, next week, in two weeks time, we're going to have this probably a significant item on the mid-year budget. and our capital improvement plan. In that, we're going to be bringing in a discussion of a number of issues in relating to capital projects, so that should satisfy some of the desires for discussion on those topics. What we'll do, I think, is on future agenda items, once we get going, I think the Vice Mayor and I have suggested that we will start feeding back to the Council. but more importantly, our residents, those listening, and those that may be remaining in the room at the late hour, when we usually discuss it, so that... If we decide that something If somebody desperately wants something on the agenda, and the agenda setting committee meets, and he says, well, you know, that is probably better done in connection with this discussion that's going to occur next month, or this discussion, which is going to occur during the budget season, and so on. We may not have been very good at giving the feedback that that was our decision. So I think in future agenda items, we don't want to just list off our wish list. We're going to, the vice mayor and I are also going to give some feedback as to how we've prioritized it and working with the city managers and staff is why we've prioritized it that way. That I think would help everybody. Thank you. . I've sort of gone through this fast. I'm just going to ask, is there any questions, comments on any of that stuff before... You know? |
| 02:00:25.43 | Joan Cox | are we still on appointments, awards and commissions? Yes. Or have we gone down to. |
| 02:00:27.97 | Unknown | Yes. I've moved to future agenda items. And so is there specifically anything that you want agenda setting committee to consider? |
| 02:00:32.30 | Joan Cox | Okay. And so. |
| 02:00:41.33 | Unknown | at this point. |
| 02:00:42.19 | Joan Cox | Yes. |
| 02:00:42.75 | Unknown | Okay. |
| 02:00:43.61 | Joan Cox | So let's go back to the South Gateway project. So that was a topic of discussion for agenda for several months. And in December, I specifically asked it to be on tonight. And here's why I asked it to be on tonight as a stand alone. THE END OF I'm not sure if you're not bring it in with something else or you want to add it but there's a lot of the people that live along that corridor now have a lot of questions about what that project is and we sitting up here have some insight on to what it is and how active it is and what it means but they don't and so I think that it needs to be on I was hoping that it would be on tonight it wasn't I would hope that it would be on very soon. What I envision is maybe a five minute summary from our public works and that it's an actual, you know, With a report so that somebody six months from now, somebody a year from now, the next time the South Gateway something or other is mentioned, they can go back to an agenda and they can look at it and they can pull up the report and they can look at the video and say, okay, that's what it's about. That's what it is. And to me, that's a standalone thing because it's not just Councilwoman Pfeiffer was very concerned about that, but it's not just her. It's people that live along that Alexander corridor going up and they're very concerned about this issue. So I think that is a way to alleviate a lot of those concerns. And the other thing is The other thing is the machine shop. |
| 02:02:24.77 | Unknown | Uh-huh. |
| 02:02:25.45 | Joan Cox | We haven't had You know, come on. Again, they promised us how long ago that they were going to put a wrapper on it and it's still on it. When did we last speak with them? |
| 02:02:32.52 | Unknown | It's still alive. |
| 02:02:32.98 | Craig Kinkle | Bye. |
| 02:02:33.02 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 02:02:33.14 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:02:33.16 | Unknown | We'll be right back. |
| 02:02:33.23 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:02:33.85 | Joan Cox | Was it last spring? And that was the second time. The first time was in the fall of 2015. And they said, oh, fine, yeah, we're going to get something up by March 2016. Didn't happen last spring. And now here we are in the rainy season again. |
| 02:02:37.04 | Craig Kinkle | Yeah. |
| 02:02:37.09 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 02:02:37.24 | Craig Kinkle | Thank you. |
| 02:02:47.93 | Joan Cox | A very rainy season and is the hope that it's going to fall down? I don't know. I wouldn't want to speculate as to that, but I would hope not. So and then the third thing is update on the Measure F efforts and the COP. It's just kind of an annual update. And that can be part of the capital improvement or wherever you guys want to put it, but I think people are interested in Obviously we've got Robin Sweeney done, where are we at with Dunphy, where are we at with Southview? And to us, we're interested in MLK, but maybe, you know, that's That's important as well, but really the parks are what people are focused on and that's all I have on my list today. |
| 02:03:29.34 | Unknown | I'm not sure. My only comment on the capital projects is that we're going to be dealing with the capital projects next week or in two weeks' time. So I think the South Gateway project and other, yeah, let me just finish this thought. And then that project and others, um, I think we can address. those issues in two weeks' time. |
| 02:03:57.11 | Joan Cox | Yeah, I think that's fine. But the thing is, I ask that the South Gateway be a separate However we can do it, and whatever's easiest, by the way, for the staff to do that as part of a report or whatever the agenda. Just so that it's easily searchable later. |
| 02:04:09.57 | Unknown | Just, Sure, sure. I understand that. Yeah. I think it's important to put it in the context of the overall capital projects. It is after all placeholder for 2020 in our budget. Okay. that. Um, |
| 02:04:28.97 | Unknown | Anything else? No, just clarify. Just a minute on clarification for the South Gateway. Because at that time there, I was the mayor. |
| 02:04:31.47 | Unknown | Sorry, Herb. |
| 02:04:38.96 | Unknown | At that time there, we went up to Transportation of Marin, and we asked them, I was with Todd Teachout, And we asked them for a grant. to study because Linda Pfeiffer, council person then, was concerned about the south end of So we went and got a $120,000 grant. to just study over there, and yet the report that they came back with really got people confused and in the wrong direction. Basically, unless you start moving houses and everything else, nothing's going to change. |
| 02:05:20.04 | Unknown | Yeah. Can we punt this until two weeks time because this isn't agendized and I don't want us to be. Thank you for that. It's not an agenda topic technically. Any other reports of significance? I'm guessing not in which case we're adjourned. |