| Time | Speaker | Text |
|---|---|---|
| 00:00:00.03 | Joan Cox | . Regular meeting of the Sausalito City Council for Tuesday, March 14th, 2017. Lily, would you take the roll please? |
| 00:00:08.89 | Shelby (Staff) | Councilmember Burns? Here. Councilmember Weiner? |
| 00:00:11.62 | Joan Cox | THE BEST OF THE BEST OF THE |
| 00:00:11.66 | Shelby (Staff) | Thank you. Councilmember Hoffman? Present. Vice Mayor Cox? Here. Mayor Withy? |
| 00:00:16.99 | Joan Cox | We will be discussing item D1, which is a conference with legal counsel, existing litigation pursuant to blah, blah, the name of the case is Sausalito versus Golden Gate Bridge Highway and Transportation District. Is there any public comment on these closed session items? Seeing no member of the public, we will adjourn the closed session. |
| 00:00:55.50 | Joan Cox | Good evening and welcome to the regular meeting of the Sausalito City Council for Tuesday, March 14th. Lily, would you take the roll, please? |
| 00:01:09.32 | Shelby (Staff) | Councilmember Burns. |
| 00:01:11.83 | Joan Cox | Cheers. |
| 00:01:12.61 | Shelby (Staff) | Councilmember Weiner. |
| 00:01:13.94 | Joan Cox | THEIR OWNERS. |
| 00:01:13.98 | Shelby (Staff) | THE CITY. Councilmember Hoffman? Present. Vice Mayor Cox? Here. Mayor Withey? Here. |
| 00:01:19.73 | Joan Cox | here. |
| 00:01:20.02 | Unknown | you |
| 00:01:20.10 | Shelby (Staff) | . |
| 00:01:20.91 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:01:21.71 | Joan Cox | Um, Vince Majora, would you lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance tonight, please? |
| 00:01:33.32 | Unknown | Thank you. No, but... I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. |
| 00:01:37.20 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:01:37.30 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:01:37.45 | Patty Monet | . |
| 00:01:37.50 | Unknown | But |
| 00:01:37.94 | Patty Monet | Jesus. |
| 00:01:38.97 | Unknown | to the flag. Thank you. of the United States of America. |
| 00:01:44.40 | Joan Cox | Yes. |
| 00:01:45.70 | Unknown | one nation under God. Indivisible. with liberty and justice |
| 00:01:53.65 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 00:01:55.74 | Unknown | Wow. |
| 00:01:56.54 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 00:01:56.75 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:02:08.67 | Joan Cox | We discussed item D1 in closed session. Is there any public comment on this closed session item, please? Seeing none. We have no report to make on that closed session. |
| 00:02:29.59 | Joan Cox | Could I have motion to approve the agenda, please? |
| 00:02:32.28 | Joan Cox | So moved. |
| 00:02:33.24 | Joan Cox | Second. |
| 00:02:33.36 | Joan Cox | Second. |
| 00:02:34.79 | Joan Cox | All in favor? Aye. |
| 00:02:35.97 | Joan Cox | THANK YOU. |
| 00:02:37.25 | Joan Cox | So item number one is special presentations, mayor's announcements. We actually have three, I think, presentations this evening. And we will start off with the swearing in of Patricia Monge Harrison Biers Stecker, sorry if I'm getting the names a little, and Errico Galvin. And we're handing that over to who? Our police chief. |
| 00:03:08.79 | Joan Cox | Thank you, Chief. |
| 00:03:14.36 | Unknown | So good evening Mayor and members of the City Council. This is one of our more exciting times to be in front of Council. Not that the others are bad, but this is one of the more exciting times when we get to introduce new people to you and to the community. And before I introduce those three people to you, I just wanted to give you a minute of backstory, is that these positions are ones that you, the city council have allowed us to fill over the last few years that are, Two of them are part-time and one is a new parking enforcement officer. So about four or five years ago we came to you and said, we need the position of a property and evidence clerk, but we really don't need one full-time. And so our options were to create one and sell half or buy half from somebody else. And so tonight you're going to meet Erica Galvin and she's our property and evidence clerk that we are buying half of her time from Central Marin Police. It's a great arrangement. She's actually our, Third property and evidence clerk, from Central Marin Police Authority. So it's been, for us, five years, kind of a longstanding thing, and it's working out very, very well. The Harrison Bierstecker is our fourth parking enforcement officer and last year at budget time we asked for council to approve hiring a fourth parking officer because of the intention to cross train them to be community service officers and we weren't gonna be able to do that without having a fourth position and that they of course would pay for themselves through the revenue they generate writing citations. And yet still supply a significant benefit to the community and their community service officer benefits, helping with field evidence and photographs and that type of thing. And again, doing that in lieu of a new officer position. So we're happy that Harrison is here, he's our fourth parking officer. And you'll hear more about him in a second. And then last year we're going to meet Patty Monet. is our new part-time police officer who's gonna work downtown Footbeat in bicycle patrol, and we pitched that to you again last year at budget time and it made its way through finance committee and hearings and so Patty's here. So that's the backstory about those positions. So it adds a lot of value to what we're trying to do in a way that really very efficient and a little bit economical. And so for that, we're very happy for that opportunity and thank you for that. So bringing them up one at a time, I'll talk about Erica for a minute first. As I said, we're using half of Erica's time from Central Man Police Authority, and Erica has graduated from California State University in Stanislaus with a degree in criminal justice just a couple years ago. And she started working for Central Marin in 2015, and now already in 2017, we have half her time. And so we're very excited to have Erica with us. Erica already, of course, being an employee of Central Men Police Authority, she's already sworn in, she already has her own stuff, but we have a little bit of a uniform of pride thing. So when she works for us, she wears our patch. When she stands in our department photo, she's got our patch. When she wears her regular work uniform, it's a Sausalito polo. So we make her come in and forget that she works at Central Marine the other half of the week. And so it's rare that they can, we're happy to have them pull that off, all three of them so far. So we're very, very pleased to have Erica here with us. Erica, you wanna say something? |
| 00:06:51.38 | Erica Galvin | And just really grateful for this opportunity. And it's nice to meet every single one of you. All right. |
| 00:06:57.97 | Unknown | Thank you. from cancer. |
| 00:07:05.10 | Carolyn Carvey | Thank you. |
| 00:07:17.53 | Unknown | All right, and next up is Harrison Bierstecker. Harrison, come on up for a second. In other words, him and Patty then will do the swearing and then we'll do badge pinning for them. So we discovered Harrison on a road trip where we were doing recruiting. And our recruiting efforts took us up to the police academy at the College of the Redwoods in Eureka. And Harrison was a student there already at the ripe old age of 20. And yet he took our on the road oral board exam and did very, very well. And we didn't have an opening at the time for officers so I said, you know, when he did so well, and that is a very mature young man said, we have work for you, stand by, because we're going to get approval from city council, hopefully, with the fingers crossed, for our fourth parking enforcement officer. And so, Harrison is close to finishing his degree and his four year degree from college and he was born and raised in, Yuba City, his mom and dad are here to help pin his badge on in a few minutes. And we're thrilled with Harrison. We have great plans for Harrison. He's gonna, of course, get off probation first as a parking officer, and then we're gonna get him into our police officer programs. We like to grow him from the ground up, right? That's the best deal for us. And so we're happy to have Harrison here. Patty, you want to come up? |
| 00:08:42.06 | Unknown | SHOOTING. |
| 00:08:42.43 | Harrison Bierstecker | Brown and thin. |
| 00:08:43.34 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:08:43.71 | Harrison Bierstecker | Thank you. |
| 00:08:43.81 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:08:43.83 | Harrison Bierstecker | Thank you. |
| 00:08:43.87 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:08:47.41 | Unknown | So we're very thrilled to have Patty. When we learned that Patty was going to be retiring from Central Marin Police Authority after 27 years, we put on the full court press to try and get Patty to come to work for us part time. And so. here she is so we were successful but it took a little while and you know, the ability to get somebody of Patty's experience and skills that come with 27 years in law enforcement is really unusual. I feel very lucky to have Patty here. Her background at Central Marin is very extensive in serving in jobs as a school resource officer and a juvenile detective and a DT instructor and You know, and all the things that you would expect plus more. And Patty is not a person to be shy about getting involved in things. She's been at least 25 years involved in the Special Olympics and helping make that program work here in Marin County. And then besides that, Patsy is actually a master class athlete and could probably outrun and outdo all of us. And so we're happy to have her here for that. And we're going to swear her in just a minute too. Do you want to say how to counsel or say something? |
| 00:10:00.14 | Patty Monet | Thank you, Chief. I'm really looking forward to this opportunity to work at Sausalito Police Department and also work with the members of the community and get to know this area a lot better. So thank you for the opportunity. |
| 00:10:15.01 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:10:30.21 | Unknown | All right, so we'll do this for you now. So our city clerk is going to help us out with that. So Hattie and Harrison, I'll be back. I'm going to break that down. Thank you. Thank you. You know, for the family that wants to take pictures or anybody else, we're going to scooch over here a little bit so that we can face the council a little bit. But your family, if they want to, can come around and get pictures. |
| 00:10:42.75 | Lauren | Thank you. |
| 00:10:42.77 | Jeffrey Chase | Thank you. |
| 00:10:42.78 | Linda Finch | Thank you. |
| 00:10:42.85 | Jeffrey Chase | Thank you. |
| 00:10:42.90 | Lauren | Thank you. |
| 00:10:53.03 | Unknown | Okay. |
| 00:10:54.49 | Unknown | you |
| 00:10:55.02 | Shelby (Staff) | All right, raise your right hand, please, and repeat after me. I, and state your name, do solemnly affirm, |
| 00:11:01.67 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:11:01.80 | Unknown | Bye. |
| 00:11:02.04 | Unknown | and there's that really small list. |
| 00:11:04.33 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:11:04.86 | Shelby (Staff) | That I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of California. |
| 00:11:11.03 | Unknown | and Constitution in the United States and the State of |
| 00:11:14.71 | Shelby (Staff) | against all enemies, foreign and domestic. |
| 00:11:17.63 | Unknown | all I use is pouring into the |
| 00:11:19.69 | Shelby (Staff) | that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of California. |
| 00:11:25.38 | Unknown | of the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the United States of Maryland. I'll point. Both in there. |
| 00:11:31.16 | Shelby (Staff) | Both in there. |
| 00:11:34.40 | Unknown | I'm sorry. |
| 00:11:35.03 | Shelby (Staff) | . |
| 00:11:35.08 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:11:35.18 | Shelby (Staff) | that I take this obligation freely without mental reservation or purpose of evasion. |
| 00:11:40.55 | Unknown | to take this opportunity freely without purpose of residential reservation or purpose of evasion. |
| 00:11:47.16 | Shelby (Staff) | And then I will well and faithfully discharge the duties. |
| 00:11:51.06 | Unknown | She's given it too much. |
| 00:11:53.46 | Shelby (Staff) | upon which I am about to enter. |
| 00:11:53.49 | Unknown | Thank you. on which I'm about to finish. Bye. |
| 00:12:02.69 | Unknown | Thank you. So Mr. and Mrs. Verstecker, if you want to come up and do the batch, just you. All right. |
| 00:12:17.50 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:12:20.93 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:12:31.48 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:12:57.85 | Unknown | All right, and next up for Patty, who's gonna pin for Patty is actually, her name is Christine Green, and Chris was married to the chief of Central Marin and Twin Cities Police for many years before he passed away a few years ago. And longtime friend of of law enforcement have had. |
| 00:13:31.13 | Unknown | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 00:13:38.18 | Unknown | All right. |
| 00:13:47.14 | Unknown | All right, thank you again. |
| 00:13:52.21 | Joan Cox | Thank you, Chief. |
| 00:13:57.74 | Joan Cox | And we have more special presentations. Danny Castro, our Community Development Director, will introduce David Chersonoff. one of our new assistant planner. |
| 00:14:16.40 | Danny Castro | Good evening Mayor Withey, members of the council. I'm here to introduce David Cherzenoff. He's our new assistant planner with the community development department. David found us and we found him as we learned that his interest was to grow and broaden his planning profession by working on interesting and diverse projects in a local government. So I think it was a perfect fit. Before coming on board, David was an associate transportation planner with Caltrans in Sacramento and in Bishop. He worked there for over three years, and he worked on a variety of projects, producing reports and managing studies. Previous to Caltrans, he worked for the town of Mammoth Lakes as a transportation planning intern. David holds a degree in landscape architecture from UC Davis. And he recently moved to San Francisco and is exploring the city by doing what he enjoys a lot and outside of the office is running and hiking, which is plenty of opportunity to do that in San Francisco. The Community Development Department welcomes David Cherzenoff. |
| 00:15:31.57 | David Chersonoff | Hello Mayor Withy and council members. I'm three weeks new on the job. I'm very excited to be working for the city of Sausalito. I couldn't ask for a greater group of coworkers in the community development department and more exciting projects that I've been assigned to. And I look forward to working with you all and with the community. |
| 00:16:07.91 | Joan Cox | And Mike Langford, our Parks and Rec Director, will introduce Linda Finch, Recreation Supervisor. |
| 00:16:20.64 | Unknown | Good evening, Mayor Withey, City Council. It is a great pleasure for me to introduce Linda Finch to you. She started yesterday and that was very exciting, but what was even more exciting is when she came back today. So Linda's got an extensive background in parks and recreation all up in Canada. She worked for the University of British Columbia in their athletics and recreation department. She ran a swimming pool up there. There are no pools here, and that's actually a relief for those of you that know about working with pools. She was a program services manager in a little town called Souk, which is on Vancouver Island. And she was also a community recreation coordinator in White Rock, yes. And White Rock is a... familiar with it a little bit. It's a very small town right on the coast, so a lot like Sausalito. I did ask her if she was going to bring from Canada any ice hockey or curling down with us. And she said not yet, but maybe if those bocce courts freeze over in the winter, we can use those for curling. But Linda Finch. |
| 00:17:31.39 | Linda Finch | Thank you, Mike. I'm very excited to be part of the department, the Parks and Recreation Department. And very excited to work for the city of Sausalito. I'm not sure. Mayor and council members, I'm very excited to meet all of you, work with all of you, and work with the members of the community. Very excited, thank you. |
| 00:18:05.58 | Joan Cox | Thank you, and welcome to you all. Agenda item number two is 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 circumstances, state law prohibits the council from taking action or engaging in discussions concerning these matters. Geoff, could you take your conversation outside or sit down please, sir? |
| 00:18:36.67 | Jeffrey Chase | please sir. |
| 00:18:38.12 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 00:18:38.15 | Jeffrey Chase | Thank you. |
| 00:18:38.56 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:18:38.62 | Jeffrey Chase | I'm just going to fill this out. Bye. |
| 00:18:39.54 | Joan Cox | All right, so this is, is there anybody, and I only have one card here. Is there anybody who would like to make any comments for items that are not on the agenda? Ashley White, I have your card here, so let's begin with you. |
| 00:19:03.90 | Joan Cox | Yeah, these are for later. |
| 00:19:07.14 | Ashley White | Thank you. Hi guys, Ashley White. Good evening, Mayor Withey and members of the council. I just wanted to introduce the home-based business forum that we will be having here next Thursday at Studio 333. So it's for Anyone, we're actually, the chamber is exploring programs of interest and value for home-based businesses here in town. So it's your chance just to share ideas in an open forum with others in a similar situation. That'll be Thursday, March 23rd from 7.30 to 8.30 p.m. If you guys have any other questions, you could reach out to me at Ashley at Sal Salido.org. And then I believe I've also sent the event flyers through Lily to all of you. So thanks, guys. |
| 00:19:52.30 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 00:19:52.32 | Chad Carvey | Thank you, actually. Sorry I didn't get the form to you guys in time. You guys are going to be talking about an ordinance that pertains to anchor outs, but this is a general anchor out comment that I don't know is going to be addressed. Is that okay? Not really, sir. No, it's not on the agenda. So it's just a general anchor out, will not address the particular Sausalito water point. Is that okay? |
| 00:20:18.79 | Joan Cox | I'll let you give you some latitude. But actually, this is a very full agenda topic tonight. Right. Agenda meeting tonight. |
| 00:20:24.80 | Chad Carvey | Right. Right. |
| 00:20:27.15 | Joan Cox | We also have a very specific item on the Anchorage this evening. |
| 00:20:31.13 | Chad Carvey | correctly. |
| 00:20:31.72 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 00:20:31.75 | Chad Carvey | Thank you. |
| 00:20:31.79 | Joan Cox | Therefore, |
| 00:20:32.75 | Chad Carvey | Thank you. |
| 00:20:32.77 | Joan Cox | This is... |
| 00:20:33.04 | Chad Carvey | general comment. |
| 00:20:34.10 | Joan Cox | Okay, go ahead. |
| 00:20:34.84 | Chad Carvey | Thank you so much. And a big part of my comment, too, is a concern amongst us as anchor-outs that our agenda item does start at 10 o'clock tonight. So when living on our boats, having to get into a dinghy afterwards, it seems on purpose. I hope it isn't. It seems very disrespectful to us as a community to start our item at 10 o'clock at night, given the state of our lives. So my name is Chad Carvey. I'm an anchor-out, along with my wife. There are different kinds of anchor outs. Some of us have big, beautiful vessels. Some are semi-retired. Some are pumping taxes and money into our local economy. Some of us are salty and eccentric. But without our community, you lose both the color and spice of the varied characters. And you also further marginalize our low-income residents who would otherwise never be able to live in Sausalito. As an anchor out group, we have dealt with nearly every major concern that has come up. Via water testing, we know that the anchor outs are not polluting our bay. Extensive professional studies have shown that eelgrass has flourished and exploded in quantity over the past 30 years. And we know that when it comes to an ecological footprint, our environmental impact is microscopic compared to those who live on land. My wife and I use, on average, two gallons of fuel per month and all other powers from wind and solar. In general, I want to thank you so much for recent cleaning efforts. Our sheriff and police have done some good jobs there. But still, it's important for you guys to realize as you go into this discussion from an anchor out perspective, it very much feels like we are second class citizens that were not accepted or loved by the city council. We are loved by many residents here, but certainly it is not clear what the end goal of the city council is. If the end goal is to clean up the anchorage and manage it, I love that. If the end goal is to get rid of anchor outs living on their boats in Sausalito waters, then we have to resist full-on resistance from beginning to end. Some of the signs are good. The RBRA recently has asked for an anchor out rep to serve on our committee. And other than Adam Politzer, who's been incredibly open, always has doors open to us, having an anchor out be a part of your committee or the city council in some way, some input from us before you move ahead with these ordinances is something we've asked for years and years and years. I'm not going to discuss that particular ordinance, but anchor outs have been a part of Sausalito life for centuries. We're not going anywhere. The sooner you embrace us, we'd love to be more a part of this process. Thank you. |
| 00:23:12.42 | Joan Cox | Mr. Major. |
| 00:23:13.87 | Vince Majora | I'm Vince Majora. I think it's a popular topic tonight. The sausage is launching ramp. been using for over 50 years and in the past few years it's almost impossible to launch a boat there because of the dinghies ties up One side would be fine, but they used both sides. This weekend, we tried to launch a boat. And one of the dinghies, you couldn't move because you locked it up. We came back three hours later and it's still locked up. I'd like you to just do something about that. Have somebody park on one side and keep the other side open for the public to use. The other thing is not very, could be a bad topic, is human poop. I'd asked Sausalito to put in some porta potties down. When you walk below Bridgeway, You see it, the dogs get into it, and it's pretty nasty. So I'm asking you to put some porta potties down. There used to be some, now they're gone. Thank you. |
| 00:24:15.14 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 00:24:20.07 | Joan Cox | Jeff. |
| 00:24:21.46 | Jeffrey Chase | Thank you, Mr. Mayor and City Council. And thank you all my fellow anchor outs, especially, and other citizens, for showing up for this very important topic My friend handed me The rules for right speech from Buddhism. And it says, that a person has to listen and talk. Be gentle of speech. NOT HESITATE. And not amble too much. I read the ordinances that you're going to be considering tonight. |
| 00:24:55.87 | Joan Cox | Jeff, I'm sorry. I'm going to- |
| 00:24:56.81 | Jeffrey Chase | I'm going to take my religious right now and I'm going to speak some Torah. This is a general, yes, this is a federal right to speak before every council meeting and every legislative meeting. I agree with you. I agree with you. |
| 00:25:07.14 | Joan Cox | I agree with you. |
| 00:25:09.68 | Jeffrey Chase | When you take to some of the children of Israel, this is from this week, It's about It is about a census. So you're counting us. I've heard the numbers counted before. Here's how the holy count goes for this week, Herbie. When you take the sum of the children of Israel according to their numbers, let each one give to the Lord an atonement for his soul when they are counted, then there will be no plague among them when they are counted. This they shall give, everyone who goes through the counting, half a shekel according to the Kadosh shekel, the holy shekel. Everyone who goes through the counting from the age of 20 and upwards shall give an offering to the Lord. The rich shall give no more and the poor shall give no less than half a shekel. This shall be used... to make the tent of meeting. It's called the Mishkan. It's a very well decorated tent and it was the topic of last week's when we were talking about Airbnb. I'm gonna move to page six here. And... Thank you, Abbott, for letting me copy this at the library. |
| 00:26:24.91 | Jeffrey Chase | It says this. The golden calf appears after the census. Moses has been up the mountain, the people lose faith in the leader. The Lord said to Moses, go descend for your people that you have brought up from the land of Egypt have acted corruptly. They have prostrated themselves and they have slaughtered sacrifices to a molten calf. And they have said, these are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up from the land of Egypt. Amen. I'll do a little interpretation in case anybody doesn't understand this. There's a flat tax at the beginning. It's what everybody has to pay. If a poor person doesn't have much money, they still have to pay the same amount. Anyway, despite that perfect rule, the people start worshiping gold. Let's not do that here. Thank you very much. |
| 00:27:19.27 | Joan Cox | Thank you. Kevin, I didn't get a card for you for this item. |
| 00:27:22.63 | Jeffrey Chase | Bye. |
| 00:27:24.55 | Kevin Kiefer | for this item. I didn't put a card in, sorry. Okay, that's okay. |
| 00:27:27.15 | Joan Cox | Okay. Thank you. Please, sir. |
| 00:27:29.41 | Kevin Kiefer | Okay, thank you. My name is Kevin Kiefer. I'm an anchor out. A couple of issues that were just brought up, I'd like to echo the launching ramp issue, the dinghy dock issue, It's an out of balance situation there. The porta potties, the human feces, that's another out of balance situation. It's partially remedied by, I think, by the tourist buses bringing in their own toilets on board. So that you don't have to provide the tourists. Then you just make them run back to the bus if they need to go. If they happen to be a mile from an actual... an actual restroom but those things can all be mitigated and reconciled by use of the tidelands revenues as so specified those tideland revenues have been they have been collected, gathered, garnered, and used by the general fund of this city outside of the regulations which specifically designate the uses of those funds. This city is not a good trustee of the Tideland revenues. This city is not a good trustee of the Publix Trust. It is actually a criminal trustee of the Pub's trust. And now the city has created another agency underneath another agency, underneath some other agency obviously a revenue agency. a finance authority. Now to regather up all these funds and to spend them on chopping up the corners of every sidewalk that you can possibly think of, and then to mortgage lands that were at one time not incorporated in the city of Sausalito, but then became incorporated, yet they should still fall under those Thailand's trust revenue specifications, because they were never redistricted correctly. None of this has been redistricted correctly. The entire bay, the entire special area, plan was an illegal redistricting. AND YOU NEED TO GET BACK to the basics and this little maneuver that you're trying to pull here at 9.45 or 10 p.m., whatever you're trying to do tonight, is illegal also. Thank you. |
| 00:29:50.25 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 00:29:53.64 | Joan Cox | Douglas Crandall. |
| 00:29:55.16 | John Burke | My name's John Burke. Okay. I don't know if we've all met, but I was just wondering if any of you guys have a license to mitigate MLT law. |
| 00:29:56.66 | Joan Cox | Okay. |
| 00:30:04.63 | John Burke | Maritime Admiralty Law. Does anybody in this room Have a license. to message or negotiate. Maritime Amity Law. Can I hear one of you say yes? |
| 00:30:18.97 | Unknown | because |
| 00:30:20.30 | John Burke | You can't? Well, I suggest you guys get a license. to do so because you are barking up something that we are on the base since 1571. Okay? Now, if you think you're going to bypass the federal government or Congress with what you're trying to pull, you are out of your minds. And I'm just here to let you know we're not going anywhere until one of you guys pull up one of those things that you can say, We are the feds. We can do this because you're not. And what you're doing is running in circles. And you are going to meet a JAG one day real soon. Okay, and I'm sure one of you guys up there have a maritime license or something or something, but you are not willing to say at this meeting right now that you have that negotiation to mediate Admiralty Maritime Law. That's the body of water you are dealing with. Now the last time one of you guys were at Congress, I don't know. But they're in charge, not you. |
| 00:31:23.18 | Joan Cox | Thank you. I have one card from Douglas Crandall. |
| 00:31:30.98 | Joan Cox | that was an item on the agenda. Thank you. Thank you. |
| 00:31:34.23 | Douglas Crandall | Thank you. |
| 00:31:38.01 | Douglas Crandall | My name is Douglas Crandall. I'm a mariner here in Sausalito. I've been here about four and a half years working on my boat to travel the country and other places around the world. I've noticed a couple of things. I'm not really sure. I came in a little late. I apologize and was not aware that there was an actual thing going on this evening about a boat to reclaim vessels after 72 hours. But my personal note to this court is to address something that really bothers me and that's that we are being treated so unfairly on shore. I pull in with my wife, who is a beautiful, amazing woman that has lived here all her life, and It just appalls me that we are being restricted in areas just to stop and get a three-gallon thing of water. Or, you know, I guess I'm not really sure if this helps you at all. But, hey, man, I'm working my butt off for this city. And I got to tell you, I just want to live and work on my boat and take my wife's sailing. So we just need a place to land, you know, freely without hassle and bereavement. I immediately concur and walk away and get out of their way. I don't get police called on me. I have no, you know, I have no record of lawlessness. I'm just asking for a place to land my boat. |
| 00:33:10.29 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 00:33:15.04 | Joan Cox | Hold on Bevington. |
| 00:33:20.09 | Alden Bevington | Hi, Mayor. Hi, everyone. I know there are ordinance issues that I'm not going to mention here. I just wanted to ask the city council and maybe the legal or the city attorney to consider looking into the marinas and whether they are meeting their obligations for public access under their grant of the lease of the public trust. I have a sense that they're not. I made a public records request to find out what those agreements are, but just something to look at. Because it is also the dock, there are access issues. And I really understand why a lot of marinas don't necessarily want to have access. But I think as part of an overall integrated strategy, if we're going to be enforcing rules, let's make sure that it's not discriminatory. So thank you. Thank you, Hon. |
| 00:34:19.36 | Scott Wilmore | Sir. |
| 00:34:19.83 | Alden Bevington | you |
| 00:34:19.96 | Scott Wilmore | you Good evening, council, ladies and gentlemen. My name's Scott Wilmore. I'm a new resident of Sausalito. I've been here all of six weeks. I live on an arc near the main dock. And I didn't come here really specifically to address this issue. I came here to commend the city council and the city of Sausalito, who historically, in my mind, has been a city that knows how. And you've proven it over the years so many different ways. By enabling the houseboats, for instance, to build their own docks, to build Galilee Harbor. By working with the Ecumenical Association for Housing to provide low cost loans for people with what you might call dilapidated houseboats. But in my survey of this city, in trying to find a place that was affordable, I found that was completely out of my reach. And I've lived in this county for 35 years, primarily in Mill Valley. However, Mill Valley never really found a way to make it work for everybody. This is a city where you do have some semblance of low-cost housing mostly on the waterfront mostly in these subsidized marinas The... anchor outs, which I didn't even intend to talk about, but in my In my experience as a sailor, I've never found them to be an obstruction to navigation. I've always found them to be helpful when I was in peril and I would encourage you to try to find some workable solution to this issue, rather than simply turning it into the police authorities as it was in the past. The houseboat wars were brutal and, you know, At some extent, there was actual arson involved. The fire department was enabled to actually set homes on fire. And over the years, I've gotten to know a lot of the people who have been enabled to live there in Galilee Harbor. I worked for Stuart Brand at the well. And, um, I just encourage you from the bottom of my heart to try to find a workable solution to this housing crisis. It's been called a housing crisis statewide. The loss of affordable housing is... Like a contagion, it seems like every county now is beyond the ability of an ordinary working person to afford. And I found an average apartment right here in this city to be running between $2,500 and $3,000 a month. So please do what you can to make this work in the city that works. Thank you. |
| 00:37:26.40 | Joan Cox | Thank you, Senator. |
| 00:37:33.01 | Joan Cox | Is there any other member of the public who would like to address the council on a matter that's not on the agenda please? |
| 00:37:41.47 | Douglas Storms | Douglas Storms. |
| 00:37:43.36 | Joan Cox | And Doug, just before you start, could I have a show of hands, is there anybody else who wants to address the council on a matter not on the agenda? Okay, then you're the last, Doug. Thank you. |
| 00:37:54.68 | Douglas Storms | Yeah, real quick, my concern is that the item concerning the waterfront, the change in the laws, that's put on the agenda later on, like at 9, 10 o'clock when we finally get to it, maybe later, midnight, who knows. An issue of this importance, it really, especially when you're dealing with people that have to get out to their boats and all that kind of good stuff. It would really be great if it was put on earlier, if it could be scheduled. It's too late now, obviously, but for the 28th of March, if you decide to go the second reading, would be really very beneficial if it was scheduled at an earlier date. And last thing is I welcome Joan and Joe. Never had an opportunity to speak to you on the dais. What a wonderful adventure. Thank you for your service. |
| 00:39:00.27 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 00:39:01.01 | Douglas Storms | Thank you. |
| 00:39:01.35 | Joan Cox | to get to the right. |
| 00:39:01.54 | Douglas Storms | Bye. |
| 00:39:01.55 | Joan Cox | you |
| 00:39:07.49 | Joan Cox | Thank you very much for all of those comments. |
| 00:39:10.23 | Douglas Crandall | Can I watch Stephanie just for the last one? |
| 00:39:13.27 | Joan Cox | Please go on. |
| 00:39:14.30 | Douglas Crandall | Thank you. |
| 00:39:20.41 | Unknown | It's not about go getting anyone. We're a community. We're here together. There are workable solutions. I just want to say that I'm not really clear what the ordinances are that are going to be enforced. I was asked to come tonight to support. the waterfront community, and I also support the land community, because we're here together. My husband's a boat builder. He's been a boat builder his whole life, a yacht builder, a sailor, a mariner. He sailed down here from Alaska by himself, We have a federally registered vessel and we are in, according to GPS, Federal Waters off of Sausalito. So I don't know really what your criteria are for what your plans are. um if we're affected or not According to the federal laws, all coastline is um, legally bound to allow public access, even private property. So that is the legal. It's written. It's accessible. So I'm not sure if there are ordinances being laid out that are illegal or legal here, but I just felt to mention that. and This community is historically a boat building community. it's the foundation of Sausalito and it's known for its artistic Thank you. Nature, it's what draws people here, the beauty of nature. the beauty of the land. It's not scanning the marinas to look at all white boats. If people want photographs, they look for the unique, the colorful, the self-expressive. Each of you try to be yourself and express in a unique way. That's who we are. So there are many ways of dealing with issues. If there's some way we can work together, it would be awesome. Thank you. |
| 00:41:49.87 | Joan Cox | Thank you very much. |
| 00:42:01.41 | Joan Cox | Okay, item three, action minutes of the previous meetings. We have two minutes, action minutes to approve. Is there any comments, changes requested? |
| 00:42:18.15 | Joan Cox | Do we have a motion to... Approve the action minutes of the previous meeting. Second. All in favor? Aye. Item four is the consent calendar and matters listed under the consent calendar are considered routine and non-controversial. Require no discussion or expected to have unanimous counsel support. So unless we pull the item, there's no separate discussion on these consent items. Do we have any public comment on any item on the consent calendar? No. |
| 00:42:53.25 | Chad Carvey | Can we come back at 10 and we'll expect to be down at 10? |
| 00:42:57.99 | Joan Cox | I can't necessarily, we could start earlier. Can I just finish this part of the agenda? Thank you. Any comment, no public comment on the consent calendar. Do I have a motion to approve the consent calendar? So moved. Second. Thank you. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Okay. I'm going to take an adjournment for one minute, if everybody will just please be patient. Thank you. OK, could I have a show of hands? Now we've had some of you leave. I was going to get a show of hands of how many are here for the Richardson Bay Ordinance question. And are your colleagues outside? Okay. What I want to ask the council, and it's up to the council, not me, do you want to consider changing the agenda to move item 5B now before... I suggest a question, okay? |
| 00:44:13.93 | Joan Cox | So moved. |
| 00:44:18.52 | Joan Cox | Anybody have a problem with this? I don't have a problem with it. |
| 00:44:21.79 | Harrison Bierstecker | Thank you. |
| 00:44:22.05 | Mary Wagner | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 00:44:24.58 | Joan Cox | Okay, in that case, |
| 00:44:24.86 | Harrison Bierstecker | We have our traffic. THE CITY. |
| 00:44:28.12 | Mary Wagner | Mr. Mayor, I apologize for interrupting, and I don't know if you already had this conversation, but we also need Lieutenant Frost. He's the first half of the presentation. Oh, we do. Yes, we do. |
| 00:44:29.28 | Joan Cox | Yes. |
| 00:44:29.71 | Kevin Kiefer | So, |
| 00:44:35.28 | Joan Cox | Oh, we do. Yes, we do. Sorry, he was in the audience a moment ago. Now, just as we should also check, how many in the audience are actually here? apart from our illustrious presenter, to present. How many are here to listen to the pension discussion? Okay. So noted. |
| 00:45:07.66 | Joan Cox | I know, but it's enough. |
| 00:45:09.46 | Joan Cox | If we can get Lieutenant Frost here, then we will do that. If not, we will move on to the pension discussion. |
| 00:45:17.45 | Unknown | Okay. |
| 00:45:19.45 | Joan Cox | However, we haven't formally opened the meeting again, but I got to tell you something. When you got a full agenda, some just got to go last. THE END OF THE END OF THE you Some days got to go last. Thank you, Troy. |
| 00:45:31.89 | Joe Burns | Thank you. |
| 00:45:36.01 | Joe Burns | Mr. Mayor. Thank you. |
| 00:45:37.85 | Unknown | Mm. |
| 00:45:39.64 | Joe Burns | Mr. Mayor, the only comment I would make is that |
| 00:45:41.05 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 00:45:43.16 | Joe Burns | There may be some people that actually relied on the schedule tonight and you know, being here for pensions and then we're going to come later. for the RBRA discussion and if we have it now. And they're going to miss it. but, uh, You know, I don't have an objection other than I think that's going to cause problems for people and I would hesitate to do it for that reason only. I |
| 00:46:06.10 | Joan Cox | And I guess my feedback is, you know, we have at least a dozen people who are here now ready to speak on that issue, who have expressed, you know, who have communicated about the challenge of rowing back to their anchor out later in the evening. So I'm sympathetic. |
| 00:46:23.11 | Joe Burns | I'm not unsympathetic to that either. I see absolutely that argument. But just to the extent that there are some people in that community that are going to come later, they're going to be late to the show. But that's, you know. |
| 00:46:23.12 | Joan Cox | I'm sorry. |
| 00:46:33.45 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:46:33.53 | David Lay | So, |
| 00:46:35.17 | John Hogue | Thank you. And you can't please everybody. |
| 00:46:37.86 | David Lay | Thank you. What's going on? of. agree with the switch |
| 00:46:45.04 | Unknown | which of the kind of Thank you. |
| 00:46:48.00 | Mary Wagner | Mr. Mayor, the council has the ability to move items around on the agenda as they see fit. |
| 00:46:54.90 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 00:46:59.29 | Joan Cox | Okay. |
| 00:47:00.20 | Unknown | about 45 seconds away. Hmm. |
| 00:47:03.05 | Joan Cox | Boom. |
| 00:47:03.27 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 00:47:06.37 | Joan Cox | So I moved that we rearrange the agenda |
| 00:47:10.88 | Joan Cox | Does anybody want to object to this? Okay, so all in favor? Aye. Any opposed? |
| 00:47:16.95 | Shelby (Staff) | Bye. |
| 00:47:17.19 | Unknown | Bye. |
| 00:47:19.08 | Shelby (Staff) | I didn't get a second on that, sorry. Second. |
| 00:47:21.07 | Joan Cox | Second. |
| 00:47:28.31 | Unknown | So, |
| 00:47:30.12 | Joan Cox | If you will just bear with us. And for those who are at home, eagerly waiting for Mr. Bartell's pension discussion, then you can fast forward. |
| 00:47:44.38 | Douglas Crandall | Thank you. |
| 00:47:44.39 | Unknown | for this commercial. |
| 00:47:47.23 | Joe Burns | Mr. Mayor, we might if we're changing the order, we might want to then what's our new order going to be? Are we moving, you know what I'm saying, our RBI is moving all the way to the front and then everything else shifts down? Yes. Are we flipping pensions in RBI? |
| 00:47:54.35 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:47:54.37 | Joan Cox | YOU KNOW WHAT I'M SAYING? |
| 00:47:54.87 | Unknown | I'm not sure. |
| 00:47:57.35 | Joan Cox | Yes. Flipping punches. No, we're no we're sorry I thought I made that clear we're moving item 5 B to go first and then we're following the agenda correct that was my motion of your motion correct. |
| 00:48:08.34 | Joan Cox | Correct, that was my motion. |
| 00:48:11.24 | Joan Cox | Vice Mayor, thank you. That'll be my second. |
| 00:48:16.56 | Patty Monet | Thank you, Councilman. Right, right. |
| 00:48:18.45 | Harrison Bierstecker | Yeah, right, right. Which eye are you talking to? |
| 00:48:29.43 | John Hogue | THE END OF THE END OF THE you Thank you. Thank you. |
| 00:48:30.46 | Harrison Bierstecker | Thank you. |
| 00:48:30.50 | Joan Cox | SHIH. |
| 00:48:31.44 | John Hogue | Thank you. |
| 00:48:31.46 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 00:48:31.47 | Harrison Bierstecker | Thank you. |
| 00:48:31.49 | John Hogue | Thank you. |
| 00:48:31.59 | Joan Cox | Cut it out, honey. |
| 00:48:31.59 | Harrison Bierstecker | Thank you. Cut it out, honey. |
| 00:48:32.98 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 00:48:33.09 | John Hogue | . Thank you. |
| 00:48:34.45 | Joan Cox | Sorry, John. |
| 00:48:34.46 | Harrison Bierstecker | Sorry, John. |
| 00:48:35.32 | Unknown | Bye. |
| 00:48:35.47 | Harrison Bierstecker | Thank you. |
| 00:48:35.73 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 00:48:35.80 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:48:36.03 | Harrison Bierstecker | Sorry, Susie. |
| 00:48:37.97 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:48:41.18 | Unknown | I'm Larry Clinton. We have a secret sauce, we have a historic moment. |
| 00:49:15.97 | Unknown | you |
| 00:49:21.97 | Unknown | you Thank you. Ah. you Yeah. |
| 00:49:36.36 | Joan Cox | Sorry about this, guys. Okay, I'm calling this meeting to order. As we have, again, as we have indicated, we're moving item 5B to now, but we're not changing the order of the rest of the agenda. With that, we are... for public hearing for the Richardson Bay Enforcement Abatement Project update, and in particular an introduction of an ordinance amending the Title 16 of the Sausalito Municipal Code, Boat and Harbor Regulations, Lieutenant Bill Frost. |
| 00:50:17.82 | Unknown | Good evening, Mr. Mayor. Council members, Mr. City Manager and distinguished guests. It is my pleasure tonight to update you regarding the Richardson Bay Enhanced Enforcement and Abatement Plan, as well as introduce some modifications to city ordinances regarding the waters of the city of Sausalito. A little background. In January of last year, Sausalito Police Department presented the City Council with a historical perspective regarding Richardson Bay, the vessels upon it, and the unique public safety and quality of life concerns. During this time, the Sausalito Police Department outlined a program whose goal was to increase public safety and quality of life upon the Sausalito waterfront by gaining community compliance with applicable city ordinances and regulations that govern the Sausalito waters in Richardson's Bay. This program was to be accomplished through many steps. One of which was to have community outreach and community meetings to explain the purposes for what the program was for and to provide information to the public. Second was to distribute information to the public regarding applicable laws and codes that regulate the city of Sausalito's waters as well as Richardson's Bay's waters. Third is, as we stated right from the beginning, we were gonna review the Sausalito City Ordinances to make sure they were applicable, make sure they were improper appliance with all laws, state, federal, county, and municipal, and to ensure that They were fair. and legally binding. in that they were there to address the concerns and the issues with present day Sausalito as well as future Sausalito. If you look at the city ordinances, many of these city ordinances were passed in the 1930s. the 1970s, the early 1980s, in the early 1990s when there were different, dramatic, different issues upon the waterways. Also, we were going to talk about and develop partnerships with our law enforcement partners throughout Marin County in order to assist us with this program. and We were going to try to gain compliance efforts. through enforcement and warnings. In order to make this program work, we developed the Richardson's Bay Law Enforcement Working Group, which is comprised of the Sausalito Police Department, the Marin County Sheriff's Office and the Richardson Bay Regional Agency. during these working groups meeting. we determined that in order to address the quality of life issues, and the public safety issues, we needed to develop an enhanced enforcement and abatement plan. to reduce attractive nuisances that was causing those crime issues. and quality of life issues. The plan called for the Sausseo Police Department and the Marin County Sheriff's Office to work with the Richardson Bay Regional Agency to address the issues of unoccupied marine debris vessels and unattended mooring balls or devices, which were those nuisances. that could cause issues upon our waterways. But before any enforcement began, there was a round of public outreach. We provided community notices. regarding. The removal of unattended mooring balls and devices at all locations where the maritime community can be. We provided notices of public meetings in locations where the maritime community frequents. We had numerous media stories from television, Radio, newspaper, City News Clubs. We held community meetings. We had individual meetings with small groups of citizens and individual citizens. We met with harbor administrators. We provided notification to all the maritime businesses regarding the proposed plan and the programs. And we always had an open door policy to talk to individuals who wanted to know about why we need this program and what the goals and what the aim for this program was. In addition to our public outreach, we are not shy to conduct presentations so more people could understand why the city of Sausalito and the law enforcement working group recommended this program. And in order to get the word out and to gain further additional partnerships, with local Federal. state partners and private partners, we conducted presentations. We conducted presentations to the United States Coast Guard Environmental Working Group The U.S. Coast Guard's Abandoned Derelict Vessel Workgroup, to the Marin County Council of Mayors and Council members We've done three presentations to the city council. This is the fourth. We've done a presentation to the Richardson Bay Regional Agency's board And just recently, we did a presentation to the Bay Planning Coalition regarding the totality of our efforts on the waterway. Once the public outreach was conducted, and which is still an ongoing program and our presentation aspect is still ongoing. We do not stop one to continue with the other. It's a continuous cycle. the enforcement aspect started and the embatement aspect started. regarding the marine debris vessels. Since the enhanced enforcement and abatement program has begun, The Marin County Sheriff's Office and the Richardson Bay Regional Agency has removed 36 unoccupied marine debris vessels from Richardson Bay. Thank you. In addition, the Sausalu Police Department has arranged for the removal of 37 unattended mooring balls or devices from Richardson's Bay. Then, in addition to marine debris, unoccupied marine debris vessels and those mooring balls and devices, They're soft. RBRA. has removed an additional 57 other vessels from the waters of Richardson Bay. that were either abandoned or surrendered. by their owners. |
| 00:56:38.59 | Unknown | Going away from the marine debris and the mooring ball devices aspect is the Marin County Sheriff's Office and the Sausalud Police Department has done a coordinated effort regarding the enforcement of other state, county, Richardson Bay Regional Agency and Municipal Codes. to address several different issues. One of the, improperly or unregistered vessels upon the waterways of Richardson Bay. At this time, 22 citations have been issued to vessels that are not currently registered. A lot of these vessels have received citations were four. and we're in processes of still investigating other vessels to determine if they are properly registered or documented. |
| 00:57:23.43 | Unknown | In addition to our enforcement, our outreach, and our public reach, WE HAVE been doing a review of the RBRA regulations as well as the city of Sausalito's city ordinances. The law enforcement working group regarding the RBRA regulations have met and discussed possible modifications and changes to the RBRA regulations to make a more applicable to today's needs and concerns. and in order to make them the most comprehensive to address the issues that we're facing at today's age. In addition from RBRA regulations regarding the Sausalito City Ordinance, from the beginning of not only the enforced enhancement and abatement program, but from the beginning of the program started back in January of last year, city staff has met to review the Sausalito City Ordinances to determine what codes were still applicable, which codes were not applicable, which needed to be modified, which needed to be reviewed, and which also may need to be completely purged from the system. IN ADDITION TO CITY STAFF THAT REVIEWED IT, WE HAD ATTORNEYS from the California's Division of Boating and Water Review our municipal codes. Take a look and compare them with other state and federal codes to make sure that the laws in the ordinances. We're correct. and we're totally illegal. Sorry, something's buzzing. Now, Our goal, like I said, is to make sure that the ordinances are fair, consistent, and meets the needs of what the city of Sausalito is facing today. and in future days. in order to go more depth in depth regarding the ordinance changes we are recommending to the council. The city attorney will now take over the presentation. |
| 00:59:14.83 | Mary Wagner | Thank you Lieutenant Frost, Mr. Mayor, members of the City Council. |
| 00:59:28.00 | Mary Wagner | Does that work? Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. |
| 00:59:35.98 | Mary Wagner | No. Sorry, Mr. Mayor, we're gonna have to, switching it around here a little bit. to get to the right spot. So as Lieutenant Frost indicated, we've been reviewing the city's existing regulations regarding boat and harbor regulations that are set forth in the Sausalito Municipal Code Title 16. They cover beaching or abandoning of vessels, houseboats, Dunphy Park waters, moorage, and then city waters and beaches. In order to enhance the enforcement efforts that Lieutenant Frost was describing, The proposed ordinance that you have in your packet tonight amending Title 16 consolidates the regulations into a new chapter 16.04. To provide more continuity in terms of definitions and ability to easily determine what the regulations are. So the provisions of 1604, 1612, and 1620 are all incorporated into a new chapter 1604. The existing regulations regarding houseboats that are set forth in chapter 16.08 remain unchanged. We are replacing existing provisions regarding abandoned vessels with just a reference to the marine debris law. Which is set forth in California Harbors and Navigations Code sections 550 to 552. And as Lieutenant Frost indicated, that was the recommendation we received from the Department of Boating and Waterways. That our provisions were inconsistent and were supplanted by the provisions of the marine debris law. We also reviewed the provisions that are in RBRA's code to determine what provisions they have that we don't, that we need to allow our own police officers to enforce those regulations in city waters. And then a new kind of consolidated penalty provision has been added to the code. And I'll go through each of those. So the marine debris law was added to the Pursuant to Assembly Bill 1323, which went into effect January 1st, 2016. It authorizes the city to remove and dispose of marine debris after ten days. Marine debris is a defined term, as is a vessel. And I've set that up there for you. I won't read it all. That requires a notice period of 10 days before it can be removed. However, marine debris that constitutes a public nuisance or a danger to navigation, health, safety, or the environment can be removed and disposed of immediately. unless the owner is identifiable in which case it has to be maintained or stored for 10 days. And then there's also provisions in the code which allow the city to recover cost incurred for the removal and disposal of marine debris from the owner or other specified persons. And as Lieutenant Frost indicated, these are the provisions that they've already been using, both RBRA and the city, to mitigate the marine debris. So a new section 1604.020 is added to the municipal code, merely to say that marine debris may be removed, destroyed, and disposed of in accordance with the provisions of the harbors and navigation code as they exist now or as they may be amended in the future. So that replaces the provisions that are currently in your code regarding abandoned vessels and the removal of obstructions to navigation. We added new definitions to the definition section in 16.04.010. Regarding marine debris, incorporating the definition from the harbors and navigation code as well as a definition of a vessel from the harbors and navigation code. Which are broader than the definition that the city previously had. We also, as I said, went through the RBA codes and I worked with Lieutenant Frost to determine what provisions needed to be added to our existing regulations. To ensure that they had that enforcement ability. One section that we didn't have was that the discharge of refuse is illegal. And so we're adding that explicit language and taking it directly from the RBRRA code. That no person may discharge or print to be discharged into city waters, any refuse, treated or untreated sewage, petroleum or petroleum matter, paint, varnish, or any other noxious chemical. or foreign matter of any kind. I should also mention, I think Lieutenant Frost mentioned this in his presentation as well, that RBRA's also reviewing their codes, so we're going to be watching that and determining if there are revisions that are made to that code that we would want to come back to you at a future date to recommend. We also added a code section taken again from the RBRA code about what is a nuisance with respect to vessels. Although these specifically defined instances would be covered by the city's general public nuisance, which is covered by your chapter. 12.20, we thought it important to actually lay them out so that there was very clear enforcement ability. And they're listed up on your screen and they're included in your staff report and in the ordinance. So our public nuisances are abated in accordance with chapter 12.20. So instead of pulling provisions from RBRA about how to abate a nuisance, we're just gonna utilize our existing provisions. We did need to add slight changes in terms of how you give notice the general Public nuisance ordinance provides that you give notice to the last owner shown on the equalized assessment roll. That obviously doesn't work in this situation. So we would provide notice to the registered legal owner or any other person sought to be charged with the responsibility of abatement. At the address as it appears on the latest DMV registration. or is known to the officer or city employee giving the notice. And then we change the definition of owner also. in that same manner. So you have existing provisions in the code regarding the waters off of Dunphy Park. And what we've done is incorporated those directly into the code unchanged. They indicate that the purpose statement that was included when these regulations were put into effect. indicate that it's an open water area acquired, owned, and maintained for the purpose of providing active recreational boating. And an unobstructed water vista for those enjoying Dunphy Park. It also provides that it's, unlawful to moor any vessel in the waters of Dunphy Park or to construct any water structure. and GO. occupying or going upon a moored vessel or water structure without permission is also unlawful. So we've taken those provisions and just incorporated them, moved them from Their prior location in the code in Chapter 16.12, and included them in a new chapter 16.04.05. A, B, and C. Oops, sorry. We did want to go through what the waters of Dunphy Park mean, and there's a definition in your code that we've pulled forward. With just one change, the Public Works Department, working with the Police Department, is actually undertaking a mapping exercise. I believe using the authority that you gave them to work with a consultant to do some overhead aerial work and other surveying work so once those maps are prepared and recorded those are going to be the best reference to what the dumpers the waters of Dunphy Park mean and also what the city's waters mean and we'll give the police department you know coordinates to know even more clearly whether somebody's in the Dunphy Park waters or in the city's waters period. Again, we changed the definition of a vessel to match the harbors and navigation code. We took out watercraft because it's covered by the definition of vessel. And we included the existing definition of water structure and again, removed a reference to watercraft. |
| 01:07:30.98 | Mary Wagner | Okay, this is just a rough depiction of where the waters of Dunphy Park are, just to give you a little visual reference. Dunphy Park, Galilee, and Cass Gidley are right over here. So they're actually not covered, the line goes right next to that. |
| 01:07:50.05 | Mary Wagner | We did want to bring something to the council's attention and get your direction on. And that is, as you're well aware, the friends of Dunphy Park have indicated their desire for eelgrass protection and shoreline restoration as part of planning for the revisions to Dunphy Park. So we included some draft language in your packet for your consideration. which would, change the purpose statement for the waters of Dunphy Park from providing active recreational boating to limited non-motorized boating. that has minimal impact to shallow water habitat, We sent this language to the Friends of Dunphy Park just today to get their input. And you have some late mail on the dais that was also sent to you late this afternoon. Regarding their response to that, which I attempted to follow up with Mr. Ullman but didn't have an opportunity to make sure I understood what their correspondence meant. But we can talk about that more further if you have questions. |
| 01:08:50.07 | Mary Wagner | So the existing provisions of chapter 16.16 of the municipal code provide that it's unlawful for any person to birth, anchor, moor, store, or beach, any boat in the waters of Sausalito in excess of 10 hours, without first obtaining the written consent of the police chief. and then gives you the definition of what beaching means. It's my understanding that no police chief has ever given that authority, and I know the current chief and the two chiefs preceding him for sure had not. So what we're proposing is to modify the language that's currently set forth to provide that other than those vessels that are lawfully permitted to be within the harbor and marina facilities, which is defined as legally permitted facilities. It's unlawful for any person to more beach any vessel in city waters in excess of ten hours. We explicitly excluded the waters of Dunphy Park because you can't moor a vessel in the waters of Dunphy Park at all. we thought it was important to draw that conclusion. um, So the other provision there that's changed is we've eliminated that language that gives the police chief the ability to issue permits for longer than ten hours. |
| 01:10:04.12 | Mary Wagner | Beached vessels, so this is another provision that we pulled from the RBRA code. The city's language currently has language in the municipal code regarding beached vessels. But we liked the very clear statement made in the RBRA code that except in an emergency, it is unlawful for the owner or person in control or custody of any vessel to beach in city waters. And beached means a vessel. when it's resting on the mud or other bottom or does not float freely at ordinary low tide. That's an existing definition that we're pulling forward. Again, more of the sections that are being replaced. We are making an addition to the proposed code section regarding speed and safety. One, we're pulling forward an existing provision and then we're also adding some language from the RBRA code. which limits the speed limit. The Arbor area code is broader, but we're putting it starting at Spinnaker Point in the east and extending to the northerly limit of the city and that no vessel shall exceed a speed limit of five miles per hour. and that within city waters due caution must be observed at all times. No person shall operate a vessel within city waters in a reckless or negligent manner, nor at a speed which will endanger life, limb, property, or wildlife. The way that we've defined this area allows the ferry to not be in violation when they're leaving city's waters. |
| 01:11:30.62 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 01:11:34.58 | Mary Wagner | because we also pulled forward the existing language of the code regarding recreational vessels and personal watercraft that they cannot exceed 5 miles per hour in any portion of city waters within 500 feet of any shoreline. I THINK THAT'S A GREAT we incorporated the definitions of both personal watercraft and recreational vessel from the Harbors Navigation Code. |
| 01:12:02.77 | Mary Wagner | Then with respect to the penalty for violation, there were different penalty provisions in the existing chapters that are being consolidated. I worked with Lieutenant Frost to determine the best section and determine we should rely on the existing penalty provision in Chapter 1.05 for violation of Chapter 16.04. That gives the police department more discretion in terms of issuing a misdemeanor or an infraction. And that's a helpful tool for them to have. And it exists in our code already. In addition to that, for violations of leaving a vessel in city waters actually in excess of 72 hours or beaching for 72 hours. We've added language that the vessel could be impounded, removed, and that the registered and legal owner of the vessel would have the right to secure the release of the vessel upon furnishing proof of ownership and payment of the cost and expense of removal, impoundment, and or storage of the vessel. And that the provisions of the boaters lean law that are currently set forth in California harbors and navigation code apply. This is also similar to language in the RBRA code. So somebody has left their boat in city waters in excess of 10 hours would be issued citations or a citation. And notified that if it's there for more than 72 hours, like parking a vehicle on a city street, it's subject to being impounded. |
| 01:13:32.91 | Mary Wagner | So with that, our recommendation is you provide us some direction on the waters of Dumpy Park language that was proposed. Because you have this language in front of you tonight, you could still give first reading and direct staff to include this language if you so desire. And our recommendation then would be to introduce and read by title only the ordinance and then continue and direct staff to return on March 28th for second reading and adoption. And then those code provisions would go into effect 30 days thereafter. Both Lieutenant Frost and I are available for any questions. |
| 01:14:05.78 | Joan Cox | Thank you, Mary. Thank you, Lieutenant. Let's move into council questions. Let's try and be as efficient as we can and figure out what it is we need to learn from staff. Who would like to go first? |
| 01:14:24.19 | Joe Burns | I have a procedural question. I think this is an easy one. This is probably for Mary. So the ordinance has to have two readings, and then 30 days thereafter, it comes into effect. So tonight's just the first reading. |
| 01:14:24.21 | Joan Cox | Thank you. Yeah. |
| 01:14:36.70 | Joe Burns | there will still have to be a second reading and even at the second reading we can still have further discussion and perhaps further modifications is that right? |
| 01:14:43.15 | Mary Wagner | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 01:14:43.58 | Joe Burns | That's correct, but if you make |
| 01:14:44.97 | Mary Wagner | after the first reading, you have to reread and introduce it again. |
| 01:14:48.86 | Joe Burns | Okay. |
| 01:14:49.24 | Mary Wagner | So we'd have another first, second, 30 days. |
| 01:14:51.65 | Joe Burns | Okay. |
| 01:14:52.12 | Mary Wagner | Thank you. |
| 01:14:52.26 | Joe Burns | Thank you. |
| 01:14:52.38 | Mary Wagner | Thank you. |
| 01:14:53.42 | Joe Burns | So in other words, tonight's not the end of the discussion, we're having the first reading, but but it can be readdressed at the second reading. |
| 01:15:01.96 | Mary Wagner | Thank you. |
| 01:15:01.99 | Joe Burns | Mm-hmm. If someone has a question. |
| 01:15:03.55 | Mary Wagner | Yes, I mean typically we put your second reading on as a consent item, but. |
| 01:15:07.18 | Joe Burns | Yeah, that's right. But we can still remove it from consent. Okay, thanks. |
| 01:15:11.93 | Joan Cox | Any other questions? |
| 01:15:13.44 | Joan Cox | Yes. Mary, if you flip back a couple of slides, you made reference to the enforcement in, oh dear, sorry. |
| 01:15:21.74 | Unknown | Okay. |
| 01:15:22.48 | Joan Cox | Sorry, you made reference to the enforcement procedures in 1.05. Yes. But I didn't see a slide on that and I didn't see them cited in our staff report. |
| 01:15:35.36 | Mary Wagner | Yeah. |
| 01:15:35.57 | Joan Cox | I'm happy to address that, if I may. OK. I do see in the RBRA, they have penalties in 1.04.050. So if we are, so I was curious to know what the difference was between the 1.05 you're referring to and the 1.04.050 that's in the RBRA code. |
| 01:15:35.61 | Mary Wagner | Happy birthday. |
| 01:15:59.64 | Mary Wagner | I can look at that for you. I mean, our provisions allow for violations to be an infraction. um, And as I said, the ability to determine whether it's an infraction or a misdemeanor. AND THEY'RE pretty clearly set forth in our municipal code. I did not compare them to what our BRA's code says, but I can certainly do that for you. |
| 01:16:20.02 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 01:16:20.04 | Mary Wagner | Thank you. |
| 01:16:20.46 | Joan Cox | Can we just see 1.05? Is there, I mean, I, Or what do I look at? It's 1.05 of what? The Sausalito Municipal Code. Okay. And then I observed, as I always do, a couple of typos, which I'll share with you later. |
| 01:16:40.17 | Joan Cox | Anybody else? |
| 01:16:41.03 | Harrison Bierstecker | Any questions before we open? Yeah, I have a question on... the map for dump the if they're non motorized boats in dump the park and waters of dump the park. How does that affect the cruising club? It looks like they would be inside of that zone. |
| 01:17:03.48 | Unknown | Vessels that would be en route to the cruising club would be affected by that ordinance as it is written right now. um, Right now it's illegal for vessels to more in. to dock in the waters at Dunphy Park. it's not illegal for them to transit. if the council decides that it should be THEIR PEOPLE ARE GOING TO only personal power to vessels such as dinghies row boats could operate then motorized vessels would not be able to operate in those waters |
| 01:17:40.06 | Harrison Bierstecker | or we can create a corridor for them to get there in and out through those waters. |
| 01:17:44.21 | Unknown | That could be a possibility. |
| 01:17:45.41 | Harrison Bierstecker | Okay. THANK YOU. |
| 01:17:49.09 | Mary Wagner | If I may, Council Member Burns, the Friends of Dunphy Park, you have their late mail on your dais. They essentially said that they appreciated the eelgrass protection and shoreline protection. They think that the recreational vehicle, or recreational boating use is a broader discussion. That they want to have as part of the Dunphy Park master plan. I emailed Mr. Ullman and asked if this was a good interim step. And unfortunately, we didn't have an opportunity to put that to rest. |
| 01:18:27.43 | Joe Burns | So if I could follow up on Councilmember Burns' question. With regard to the Dumpy Park, the only thing that this ordinance change amendment would affect would be the motorized vessels going in and out. It currently is illegal to moor in the waters of Dumpy Park. Okay. Correct. Okay. Okay, thanks. |
| 01:18:54.82 | Joan Cox | Any other questions before we open it for public comment? |
| 01:18:59.34 | Joan Cox | I just want to get clear so you mentioned 1.05 okay. |
| 01:18:59.49 | Joan Cox | on. |
| 01:19:10.87 | Joan Cox | I'm sorry, give me just one moment here. |
| 01:19:21.40 | Joan Cox | SO. Mary, can you go back to the reference to 1.05? I'm just not clear how we're referring to 1.05. |
| 01:19:32.84 | Joan Cox | It was after that. |
| 01:19:41.04 | Joan Cox | the penalty provisions to any violation of 1.05. I have the code here if that would be helpful. No, I have it in front of me also, but it doesn't. |
| 01:19:48.77 | Unknown | Thank you. I haven't. THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 01:19:52.51 | Joan Cox | It doesn't say. I'm not clear. |
| 01:19:55.97 | Mary Wagner | It's the entire chapter, chapter 1.05 penalty provisions. So all those provisions apply to violations of chapter 16.04. |
| 01:20:07.04 | Joan Cox | So previously, our prior code said that any violation was an infraction. that's the first question. of this of any ordinance is a misdemeanor when provided, but where no specific penalty is provided, it's an infraction. So, do you read that to mean that every penalty of this chapter, 16.04, is an infraction? |
| 01:20:42.73 | Joe Burns | I got it. Thank you. |
| 01:20:45.64 | Joan Cox | I just want to understand what the implications of the revision that the city is suggesting are. Thank you. |
| 01:20:51.97 | Mary Wagner | Sure, and if I can look at that while, maybe while you get public comment and then come back to it. Thank you. Thank you. |
| 01:20:53.74 | Joan Cox | Perfect. |
| 01:20:59.17 | Joan Cox | Any other questions before we open this for public comment? Nope. Okay. So I've got a number of cards here. Could I have a show of hands of those who actually want to make public comment here and? Okay, and for anybody who hasn't filled in a card, Okay, very good. Then I'm going to call you. from the cards. So starting off with Douglas Crandall. |
| 01:21:35.35 | Douglas Crandall | Mr. Mayor, the City Council, my distinguished combined race. First of all, I just really, you got a lot to decide here. It's a big number of things to think about. One of the things that really comes to my mind is my heart is in the water. My heart is on the water and I'm seeing a possibility of the law just coming in and doing pretty much what they feel to do. Now, getting rid of boats that have no registration, I'm for it. These junk boats out here, gotta go. I think the 72 hour thing, come on, it needs to be a little bit modified to make sure that whoever is working on getting registration or is actively working on their boats. I mean, hey man, I got a registered federally documented vessel. I'm also on a tugboat that's also registered and documented. it's not my issue. However, I'm looking at the people that I see that are a little less fortunate than myself and maybe working on their project and trying to get those things. I'm just asking that you please really look at these laws because these You write it up for us, you know, and I love these waters and I love these people. I've grown to love some of these guys that I wouldn't even have talked to years ago, okay. I mean, I've got a college degree. I've been a successful businessman. I love the water and I hope that you guys love this city. I'm getting my butt kicked out of there, excuse my French, but by these these transport boats that people are riding to get to shore. those boats are going, you know, out of there now. And it gets more and more every day. And I work on the water. I'm continually on it. Stuff gets knocked over, gets broken, you know, I mean, and I've tried to be prepared for that. And I understand there's a certain amount of that that will go on. But man, there's got to be some enforcement for that too. I mean, I'm watching boats today as I'm coming to this meeting. that are literally just wow. Okay, so anyway, just keep us in mind. That's all I ask. You guys got a Howard challenge against you? Thank you for being there. |
| 01:23:54.48 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 01:23:58.79 | Joan Cox | For anybody who's filled in cards that haven't yet handed them in, please hand them over to our staff desk, please. Kevin Kiefer, you're next. |
| 01:24:16.64 | Kevin Kiefer | My name is Kevin Kiefer. I'm an anchor out. I've got a cold, so I may not sound normal if any of you have heard me before. Pertaining to the Sausalito Police Department presentation. Tenefress. mention January 26, 2016 police presentation. I believe it was based on misinformation and contains errors and omissions, and this was intentional or erroneous. I believe that the public safety has not been enhanced by the enhanced enforcement as we have seen take place over the past year, year and a half. We now have a body of water which is disjointed And has provided no margin of safety or error to the residents. of the community, of the Anchorage, and we now have, unfortunately, a body count We have a man who drowned while there were five or six other people in the water. And due to your miscalculations of the effects of your removal of traditional traditional moorings and buoys which we normally have, it may have played a factor in this. We won't know because you won't look at it and we can't talk to you about it. But we can talk to you about the fact that during the time when three to six people were in the water, You had emergency personnel which were not acting as first responders, they were acting as first impounders and they were impounding vessels or whatever you wanna call them, vessels or boats, The Superior Court of this county is right now in a circular argument. It cannot decide what is a vessel and what is a boat, whether a vessel is a boat or whether a boat is a vessel. And Lieutenant Frass has testified in a case a life jacket citation violation that has been going on for three years. Call that a circular argument. I've been attending those cases because I have charges pending. in those cases. Who is the we who determine the public's needs? Was it we the people or was it we? the constitutional body of the local government And is it an enclosure? Are you using an enclosure to control the waters? What is the foreign matter which the city attorney mentioned to? And please define. I'm sorry, you're gonna have to turn off the three minutes because you've created a wealth of information here which I cannot respond to in three minutes. |
| 01:27:19.60 | Joan Cox | Yeah. |
| 01:27:28.68 | Joan Cox | Well, sorry. Thank you very much. You're going to have to rest. |
| 01:27:29.93 | Kevin Kiefer | Thank you very much. You're going to have to arrest me. |
| 01:27:32.12 | Joan Cox | Okay. |
| 01:27:32.76 | Kevin Kiefer | What is a foreign matter of any kind? Please define that. Watch the Marine Superior Court. |
| 01:27:38.74 | Joan Cox | Mr. Koefer, would you please sit down? |
| 01:27:41.12 | Kevin Kiefer | No sir, why did you compile such a large body of information into such a small agenda topic? I'm adjourning this meeting for one minute. Sir. Sorry. |
| 01:27:44.17 | Joan Cox | Such a good idea. I'm adjourning this meeting for one minute. Sorry. |
| 01:27:51.66 | Harrison Bierstecker | Thank you. . Thank you. |
| 01:27:54.48 | Joan Cox | Okay, this will take a deep breath. I am going to rigorously enforce the three minutes. Okay? There's folks who actually have agreed to let you guys go first on the agenda. So I expect a little bit of respect in return. Okay, the next is Chad Curry. |
| 01:28:28.72 | Chad Carvey | My name is Chad Carvey and I live on a sailboat on the water called Walk On and my wife and I are getting ready for a circumnavigation voyage in two years. So here are my questions first of all for Officer Frass. It mentions partners with outside agencies. We really, the group of anchor outs we've organized, we've been meeting together every month for two years, consider us an agency. At least consider us an agency like you would the Friends of Dunphy Park. I really applaud you for that graciousness, reaching out to Dunphy Park, the Friends of Dunphy Park, for their input on this. Why not reach out to the Anchor Out group to get their input and include that? Why would you reach out to a group just Dunphy Park without including us? |
| 01:29:16.73 | Chad Carvey | So here are my big ones. As it stands with the ordinances that were proposed, if I were to go on vacation for two weeks and leave my vessel unattended, my $200,000 sailboat could be taken and we would have no recourse because that would fit in the time frame. We would know that it was taken. We would come back from vacation. We went for a month in Europe this summer. We could have lost our vessel, come back to nothing being there. So that's an important thing to note. Dunphy Park. I agree, and many of us agree, we want to protect those waters near the park, but how far out? The square, the box that was shown on there includes mooring balls, the RRBRA mooring balls, and mooring balls that are along the channel there. Are those going to suddenly be gone or to be removed? And I noticed you guys talked about a lane for traffic. You need a lane for traffic to come in to Schoonmaker, a lane for traffic to Galilee, and a lane for traffic to the dinghy dock there. The police cannot suddenly even be allowed to give a permit for longer than 10 hours. We are talking about the inclusion area we're talking about has moorings that have been there for decades. 20, 30 years, boats that have been there, the Boy Scouts boats are out there on moorings. Those areas in the little triangle where we are off the bay model, those boats have been there for ages. I bought a mooring there and it's been there for 20 years. So the 72-hour rule, impounded, removed, it would be a stunning slamming of the door on the conversations that we've developed over the last three years, not including us. And it says to us, and please change this if it's not true, that you want no anchor outs in the Sausalito waters. That's what it seems like, and so if it's not, I'm with you, and I just want to hear that. Thank you so much. |
| 01:31:10.31 | Joan Cox | Thank you. Next, Jeff Jacob. |
| 01:31:23.23 | Jeffrey Chase | Thank you very much, Mayor and City Council, and especially all the people who I asked to come and did attend. I only had a few days' notice, but I'll have more for the next meeting. I think maybe this is going to just be a first reading. I'm hoping so. Now, This is not only for city waters. Difficult to understand, no matter how smart somebody is. It says, living aboard a houseboat or a vessel, anchored or moored in Richardson Bay is PROHIBITED. |
| 01:32:01.50 | Jeffrey Chase | That is in the mooring plan. Any person may temporarily anchor a vessel for a period of not more than 72 hours in any 72, in any seven day period. Any person wanting more than that has to get a special permit from the harbor master, and no permit has ever been given. It says this, this is the whereas part, the proclamation. It says, whereas Richardson Bay is a unique and valuable scenic and natural resource that provides an environment for a wide range of aquatic and wildlife species, I'd like to add, and humans, as it has been before there were ever houses here in Sausalito or Mill Valley or Tiburon. or Belvedere. It says this, it says, whereas the city council finds that adoption of the ordinance is necessary for the public health, safety, and welfare. Public health, safety, and welfare. And then we've heard crime reports, we've heard about sewage disposal and such. Now, we could compare crime reports for the people on the hill versus the people on the water. We could decide whether it's better to flush three gallons of fresh water every time somebody flushes the toilet and have all of the sewage in a storm go out into the bay and kill birds and wildlife en masse, which I've witnessed personally. It says this, that you will not follow the CEQA rules, the environmental rules. I haven't been able to investigate that. CEQA is in the environment, and the environment includes, of course, human beings. It says this. It says that anything that is unseaworthy and not reasonably fit or capable of being made to be used as a means of transportation by water, that's marine debris. We also have no place to land on shore. I'm a sailor. I'm not just wearing the hat today. I didn't sail for a while. I was tucked in there in city waters. This is not only on city waters, people, and especially my fellow anchor outs. Remember that. This is for all of us. So... Please help us, we are begging you here, we the people. |
| 01:34:24.43 | Joan Cox | Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. The next one I have is John Hogue. John? Now, did you want to speak on that? You wrote item 5A, but was it this item you wanted to talk about? I'm sorry. |
| 01:34:40.81 | John Hogue | I'm sorry, I can't hear you. |
| 01:34:42.18 | Joan Cox | You put on your card agenda item 5A. This is 5B. You wanted to talk about this item. Okay, please go ahead. |
| 01:34:50.05 | John Hogue | My name is John Hogue and I've been sailing on these waters since 1971. I HAVE PROBABLY MORE C-MILES. THAN ANYBODY OUT THERE. I'm fifth generation Marin County. All of my great grandparents own property in Inverness. My name's Hogue, there's Hogue Street in San Rafael. my grandfather. As a Cal grad like I am. Civil engineer laid out all the streets. I've been anchored out for one year. and I've relished the community that I live with. and I just would encourage you to be open-minded and completely fair in your appraisals and your litigation here for these folks. |
| 01:35:55.01 | Joan Cox | Thank you. Thank you, sir. |
| 01:36:01.09 | Joan Cox | Uh, Carolyn Curvey. |
| 01:36:12.68 | Carolyn Carvey | Good evening, I'm Carolyn Carvey. I'm a long time resident of Marin from childhood, working as a fashion designer here in Sausalito and Liberty Ship Way, graphic design business in Mill Valley. And now my husband and I support just under 100 non-profit foundations, increasing revenues as benefit auction specialists. We support causes like the Matthew Turner, the Marin Mammal Center, Marin Humane Society, Marin Theater Company, the Redwood Sausalito Lions, and Rotary, and the list goes on. My husband and I are civic minded community members and members of the Lions Club Masons and Christ Church. Husband and I live aboard our 43 foot Qatar sailboat walk on. Our boat is located on the RBR, a mooring ball just outside the bay model, and the anchorage between the two channels. These boats here are mostly moored. We have lived there for about two years, surrounded by highly experienced sailors like ourselves. We have four sets of neighbors, mostly our couples who are getting ready to go cruising. Our nearest neighbor has been captain charter boats internationally and plans to cruise again in a few years. Two other boats are leaving to cruise in a year. Other sailors nearby work in boat yards, Army Corps of Engineers. Others in the triangle anchorage just across us, upward the channel near Clipper. There is local music teacher, two retired sailors of whom he cruised for years. There is a weekend visitor who's a talented musician. All these vessels are nice looking, well maintained vessels and safe sea going vessels, captained by highly experienced mariners and sailors that are responsible citizens and boaters. We often take our vessels with friends and family sailing on the bay and out as far as Drake's Bay and the Fire Lawns. Now we are afraid that when we come home our mooring will be gone. What protection, what does it have for us in this ordinance? It is my understanding that our police department would like to propose the council to start enforcing the ten hour rule, which in my knowledge has never been enforced for decades at least. Again, we are unclear on the goal of the Sausalito Council on the Anchorage if you wish to remove all of us liveaboard, or if you would like to have, if you just have safety and eyesores in mind. If you are considering moving boats from Sausalito waters, why do you wish to do so? For us and my neighbors mentioned above, we have given no reason to do so. We are experienced mariners with seagoing, well maintained vessels that are registered and comply to pump out needs. If you are considering moving those of us mentioned to the Timuron side of the waters, please note that these waters are shallow, so most of us will not be able to anchor there, unless we are moved out way past Schoonmacher. Here the water is much more volatile. On the Tiburon side, much of us will be exposed to the wind and waves, and will expose us to longer dinghy rides to our vessels from shore during the storms. Plus, where we are, there are secure, long established moorings that have been there for decades, so we are much safer where we are. Many of us contribute to actively |
| 01:39:15.20 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 01:39:16.16 | Carolyn Carvey | Two. Please take all I have said into mind and heart before considering to the new enforcement and forcing us to either leave Sausalito or move into less safe, much less comfortable waters. |
| 01:39:25.24 | Joan Cox | that. Thank you. Thank you. |
| 01:39:34.71 | Joan Cox | Who have I got next here? David? |
| 01:39:36.06 | John Burke | Next here, David. I'm sure you guys are going to be able to understand what I have to say here. Excuse me, sir. I'm sure you've all been over this paperwork that I'm about to present to you, and I'm sure there's no problem with it. |
| 01:39:41.00 | Joan Cox | Excuse me, sir. |
| 01:39:47.80 | John Burke | starting with the Granbury Island. |
| 01:39:49.46 | Joan Cox | Do you wish to actually speak, sir? |
| 01:39:51.48 | John Burke | Oh yeah, I'm gonna state a bunch of things. |
| 01:39:52.98 | Joan Cox | Okay, then you're- |
| 01:39:53.49 | John Burke | Then you're in |
| 01:39:55.84 | Joan Cox | And your name is my name is John Burke. I'm an anchor out. Thank you |
| 01:39:57.39 | John Burke | I mean, Anchor out. Okay. And built out of human excavation refuse. Can you tell me what that is? That's a rainbow island. Please, somebody on this committee must tell me what built on human excavation refuse is. |
| 01:40:16.04 | Alden Bevington | Thank you. |
| 01:40:16.05 | John Burke | I can't comment. Excuse me. They can do whatever they want. And I'm just asking for an answer. |
| 01:40:21.11 | Joan Cox | You're not going to get an answer, sir. Why not? |
| 01:40:22.85 | John Burke | Why not? Why not? |
| 01:40:25.55 | Joan Cox | Excuse me. |
| 01:40:26.95 | John Burke | I know I'm just curious, sir. |
| 01:40:28.52 | Joan Cox | We are not at- |
| 01:40:29.32 | John Burke | What is excavation human refuse of Rainbow Island? where you guys want to bring in all kinds of new birds, all kinds of new seals, all kinds of new stuff here into a toxic, toxic environment. OK, like again, I say, who are you people, again, to do admiralty law on a federal enclave? Do any one of you have a license to mitigate Admiralty Law, Maritime Admiralty Law? Okay, do you have no reason to answer this question that built out of human excavation, refuse. What is it, guys? That's a Rainbow Island. I have grown up on this on Belvedere Island for 51 years, and there was no such thing as a Rainbow Island. Okay, professional sailboat racer on San Francisco Bay for 35 years. Okay? Now, I don't know what you think you guys are doing. Okay, but the toxicity levels. Should I read the PCBs that are in the water? Because I have Texas A&M private, private water samples. And if you'd like me to read those to you right now, should I? You wanna know how many different PCBs are in your water? 118 different PCBs live in that water. Where are the samples for all the dredging? Okay, water samples that you guys just dug up that channel and everything. Where are the water samples for that? Do you have them? Can anybody answer if you have the water samples that were done for that dredging? Do you have any idea that the infection rate at Marin General Hospital went up 70% for infections since you guys started dredging the water? on Anchor Outs alone. Do you guys understand that? Okay, I got it all right here. Right here. And now here you are mitigating our lives, destroying our boats, taking them out in the middle of storms and crushing them. Your port captain was out there while a man was drowning. The Coast Guard was out there. And he was out there stealing kayaks and crushing boats while a man was drowning. You understand that? He's a first responder, 700 megahertz hertz. He has the radio as a first responder. He never contacted the Coast Guard. Nobody, nobody was notified. Bill Price was not there. |
| 01:43:00.15 | John Burke | What are you people doing? Tony. You are mitigating the maritime admiralty law with no right to do so. And I don't care about your minutes. Thank you. |
| 01:43:12.02 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 01:43:12.40 | John Burke | No, no, no. Thank you for nothing. Because you guys are in the world of shit. you really are. I don't know who you think you are and what you think you're doing to Okay? But this is the last, I've got to even tell you. It's all right here. |
| 01:43:25.42 | Joan Cox | Would you care to sit down and place it? |
| 01:43:26.89 | John Burke | Okay, and it's all right here. |
| 01:43:29.46 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 01:43:29.93 | John Burke | Thank you. Do you understand me? And this is not the last time you're going to see of this or me or my attorneys. |
| 01:43:35.23 | Unknown | John, your time is up. Please have a seat. You got it. Thank you, John. |
| 01:43:41.71 | Joan Cox | Okay, next up. Thank you. David Lee? |
| 01:43:55.97 | David Lay | Yes, I'm David Lay. I live in the harbor. I've lived here for a long time, since 92. I've been messing around in boats since I was half my height. Um... kind of like the Chinese in Hong Kong, I live in a boat. And I like it. And I've traveled all over the place in a boat, and I like that. And now I'm too old to do that, I'm 77. And, um... I don't understand the 72 hour rule. and there's not time for that tonight, I understand, but there is a rule that, It's really a big safety problem and since we're up against another meeting and I don't know whether you want to hold the process or not. The speed limit rule is really a problem because what you're doing is you're regulating the speed down the channel, which is the safest place to speed if you're going to speed. But you're forcing people to speed relentlessly through an anchorage. And, um, The people in the harbor are less and less and less experienced as the years go on, rather than the other way around. I don't know why that is, but it is. Thank you. I also have some experience rowing around the harbor here. Rowing actually a lot around the harbor here In a shell and the shell does about seven knots or so and I wrote And, um, When you're going through a bunch of anchored boats, That's not a good idea, so I got away from that real quick, because there's people speeding through the anchorage rather than the channel. um, And to cure that, the only thing I can see that will help limit the speeding to really the wide open spaces, which is really everything outside of the line between number two in, in, uh, and the green buoy off of Peninsula Point or Belvedere. People roll out around number two and back, which is the outer marker for our channel. But the channel is the best place to speed and really if all these things take a lot of public education and really the police have to fall into this, it's difficult for them. Because changing a rule is really more complicated, and yet this is really a life or death kind of thing. I've been close more than a couple of times, because I've probably wrote it more than anybody else. And to have a boat a shell. doing, say, five knots even going through the harbor, coming out from behind the boat all of a sudden. Nobody can stop. It's really tough. Beyond that, there's room for some education. going up to the bridge, which is where everybody rose and everybody water skis. And that's not so much of a problem that seaplanes are. Seaplanes aren't so much of a problem as long as People are educated about what the pilot can see. So we need education here, we need a rule change here. Thank you, sir. And thank you very much. And also thank you all for |
| 01:47:08.27 | Joan Cox | Thank you, sir. Okay. |
| 01:47:12.60 | David Lay | your tolerance, we're struggling along. Thank you. |
| 01:47:15.92 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 01:47:16.16 | David Lay | Thanks. |
| 01:47:16.54 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 01:47:16.60 | David Lay | Thank you. |
| 01:47:17.99 | Joan Cox | Darkstorms. |
| 01:47:23.80 | Unknown | hit the button. |
| 01:47:24.69 | Douglas Storms | Three minutes. Doug Storm, 700 Wadlow Point. Hey, three decades ago, 1987, January, I moved here. I was going to seminary first year over at Golden Gate Baptist Seminary. And, uh, I got involved with the maritime community and 1987 was the first reading of 87-1, which created the Richardson Bay Regional Agency. And so from 1987 to 1992, I had a great time. Met a lot of people out here. And I really... became part of the community, it was the people took me in as family, I was considered I had a great time. I mean, I was a diver, a sport diver, and I was able to keep my gills wet. And they looked out after me, and I was involved in the legal battle. And maybe that's one of the things I want to stress now is that, Bill has done a great presentation. Great presentation, and if I wanted to buy a used car, Go for it. But you know what, you're being led off the cliff like lemons or like briar rabbit. Make no mistake, you're dealing, 30 years ago I was involved in this. I'm an old man, now I'm 60 and for some reason there's a fire in my belly. I see this happening. On the last page of the report, Really? Fiscal impact? None? None. I mean, Come on. There's no impact. How about the moral impact? Roger and Christy got kicked out of South Ciddle Yacht Harbor. They're an elderly couple. They're right off from Bridgeway Marina. Roger Rickey, he broke his neck, and he had to live near the shore. So you're talking about relocating, pushing people out. Well, I guess that's one way to solve the problem. kick it down the road, push it over in the county. So is that really what you're doing is you're pushing the problems in Sausalito over to getting back at them? And you probably have a good reason to get back at them because I wouldn't want to be part of the RBRA neither. But it kind of reminds me of the splitting of an atom. When Sausalito breaks from the RBRA, you go in opposite directions. And I think this is an overreaction. This right here is an attempt to do what's right. You really want to do what's right. But you're going at lightning speed in this direction. And believe me, every force there's an equal and an opposite. Reaction opposite force. expect to get kicked back if you do this. You've been sold a false bill of goods. If I had time, but I don't, I only have ten seconds. For a year we've been meeting, we've been working on all these issues. Richardson Bay Anchoring and Safety Guidelines, we're working toward the solution. Work toward us, don't deceive, don't lie, don't tell falsehoods, don't give false presentation. |
| 01:50:33.61 | Joan Cox | Thank you. Thank you, Doctor. |
| 01:50:41.56 | Joan Cox | Um... Thank you. Oldham, Bellington. And if there's anybody else who wants to talk, submit a card, because this is the end of public comment. |
| 01:50:54.01 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 01:50:54.03 | Alden Bevington | Alden. Hi, everyone. Thank you, Council, for giving this time and this public space. My name is Alden Bevington. I live on Wood and Yaw, built in the 1920s, in Sausalito Waters, with my wonderful partner, who is as salty as Venus. Remember, Venus was born from the sea. So, gosh, there is so much. Underlying everything, seeing these ordinance changes and proposition makes people wonder what is the goal and what's the agenda. Some of you may know, but maybe you don't, that we have an Anchorage association that has been meeting for the last two years we are addressing these problems um i also um was a motion was made at the rbra to put me on a subcommittee and i'm working on these issues with kate sears and with Supervisor Wickham. And there's a lot of solutions that are in the works. And this proposition of enforcing a 72-hour ordinance, which I'm not really sure, I can't ask you all the question, but if you intend to enforce this, I mean, it's one thing to put it on the books, but if you were to enforce it, it would be short-circuiting an enormous amount of work that's going on. It certainly wouldn't have zero fiscal impact, obviously. And I think when we look at the situation out in the harbor, because you all have probably pasted things from the special area plan, there's two camps at least that I found in the Anchorage. There are those that believe that they were not enforced because of conflicting legal authorities in maritime law. And to those people I say,, maybe that is the case, but we still need to be good neighbors. It's not enough just to claim that we can be there. The other group thinks that they haven't been enforced, possibly because it's not the right solution. There isn't the political will. The community doesn't really want that, that what they want is a thriving and healthy Anchorage community, which we are working on. I agree with removing the problems, and I think actually we agree on what those problems are. I'm going to be meeting with the Audubon Society next week. Actually, they called me. They want to work with the Anchorage. I'm hoping that you all will continue to work with the Anchorage community in your deliberations and in policymaking. Thank you. |
| 01:53:54.47 | Joan Cox | And I love these guys. I have one card left which is Christy Williamson? No. |
| 01:54:07.92 | Christy Williamson | Hello, my name is Christy and I just wanted to speak on behalf of the Anchorage here in Sausalito. I wanted to speak on behalf of keeping a tradition alive, on behalf of pride within a community, what makes things unique, places unique, nodal points on this planet Earth. I come from Camden, Maine. I come from a place where the people of that town value their maritime culture beyond a lot. It's a place where people travel from all over the world to visit. The boats are beautiful. The owners are beautiful. They care so much about the presentation of their vessels. and maritime culture is deeply honored. This place, Camden, Maine, is a sister town to Sausalito, and I've heard that comparison made. Recently, I heard it made by the owner and founder of Wooden Boat Magazine. The difference, I feel, is that there is not as much of a camaraderie between the folks that are out on the water and those that are in powerful positions within the town. And I imagine that there is a solution to this and a way that we can all work together to keep this unique culture thriving and to fix the parts that aren't working. Thank you so much. |
| 01:55:44.48 | Joan Cox | Thank you very much. Okay, I have no other cards. Is there anybody else who wants to? Yes, sir. |
| 01:55:52.65 | Corey Carter-Pate McClellan | Thank you. question. Thank you. |
| 01:55:55.01 | Joan Cox | Yep. |
| 01:55:55.69 | Corey Carter-Pate McClellan | Thank you. Thank you. Um, My name is Corey Carter-Pate McClellan. and I'm just going to... I HAVE A Thank you. A couple of really interesting questions. Number one is the definition on there of city waters that makes you liable in responsibility, right? And your bonds, like the city attorney's bonds, and police department's bonds liable for anything or any accidents or any damage that happens to the vehicles that are out there, right? Because if it's a federal enclave, then that's one thing, the Coast Guard has to be separated from it, and all those bills have to be paid out literally by those people's bonds. But if the city is to commandeer that and claim that that's the city's waters, the city then becomes liable. And a federal enclave, which now pays for the Coast Guard's things as well as part of the county's things, the state things when they come and help these people remove their boats or whatever, that would become your fiscal responsibility, which would also become the taxpayer's responsibility. So I'm just wondering, have you guys found some sort of financial way of dealing with that? |
| 01:57:00.10 | Corey Carter-Pate McClellan | Oh, there's my comment. |
| 01:57:01.09 | Joan Cox | Okay, thank you. Okay, so with that, we will close public comment on this item. Sir, you have already spoken, so. I think I can speak again. No, you can't. So we are closing public comment, and. Security. |
| 01:57:15.44 | John Burke | I can speak again. You can't. |
| 01:57:20.53 | John Burke | You don't want to hear me? Bring it. Is there enough time to hear me? |
| 01:57:22.07 | Joan Cox | spring. |
| 01:57:27.42 | Joan Cox | Excuse me no. |
| 01:57:28.99 | John Burke | The Press. |
| 01:57:30.03 | Joan Cox | I have closed public comment. Now, we're bringing it back up here. Is there any more questions of staff? Some quick discussion and then let's move on, thanks. |
| 01:57:41.68 | Joan Cox | I have a question. Please. In the new ordinance, my mic is on. I don't usually have, I'm usually the loudest of the loud. Okay. In the new ordinance, we prohibit, we define as abandoned. Sorry. We say that any vessel that has been left in city waters or beached for 72 or more consecutive hours may be removed by the police. So we don't confine that to debris. We actually call that any vessel. That is different from. our existing ordinance which says that a vessel is considered abandoned if there is no watchman or guard regularly safeguarding it or checking on it or whether it's continuously occupied. So was it our intention to Make that change so that we are empowering our police to Remove from the water any vessel, occupied or not. Um, in our waters for 72 hours. |
| 01:59:03.57 | Mary Wagner | Yes, Vice Mayor Cox, that is the ordinance that you have in front of you this evening for your consideration. |
| 01:59:12.41 | Joan Cox | Any other questions? |
| 01:59:13.44 | Joan Cox | Yes. We mentioned that there is no mechanism to more than 10 hours because no police chief has ever issued that permission. Um, This new ordinance that our old ordinance contained a mechanism whereby someone could have permission to moor more than 10 hours. Our new ordinance now removes any mechanism for mooring more than 10 hours. Correct. Okay, and what about the harbor master who had the permission, who grants the 72 hour rule? So you don't |
| 01:59:45.47 | Mary Wagner | So, |
| 01:59:47.31 | Joan Cox | I'm sorry. I would look to Lieutenant Frost for that. Thank you, Lieutenant. Sorry. I didn't know to whom to address my question. So under this new ordinance, does the harbor master still oversee the 72 hour rule? |
| 02:00:02.74 | Unknown | under this circumstance no they would not this is specific to the city of sausalito and this rule cannot be overrided by the harbor masters The harbormaster has never given a 72 hour over that allowance. |
| 02:00:16.71 | Joan Cox | So we now have no mechanism to allow someone to stay in our waters more than 72 hours. Under this new ordinance. Correct. If there exists a mechanism now, it's just not used. But under the new ordinance, there's no mechanism for anybody, attended or unattended, to stay on our waters more than 72 hours. |
| 02:00:36.62 | John Hogue | Thank you. |
| 02:00:36.64 | Unknown | Correct. |
| 02:00:36.99 | Joan Cox | Thank you. Okay, thank you. Oh, one more question. David Lay suggested confining the speeding ordinance, the five mile per hour ordinance, to the wide open spaces. Will you please comment on that suggestion by David Lay. |
| 02:00:56.85 | Unknown | Five mile per hour speed limit exists for the safety of everybody. In the anchorage as well as in the Channels. when we have the vessels going faster than that, it throws wake. no matter what size of vessel, that's going to impact everybody else. Currently right now, the anchorage is in the Marin County Sheriff's Office jurisdiction, and that's not regulated with any speed ordinance. The Sausalito has had a five mile per hour speed limit in our |
| 02:01:22.49 | Christy Williamson | Thank you. |
| 02:01:22.54 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:01:22.59 | Christy Williamson | you. |
| 02:01:27.41 | Unknown | city ordinance for all Sausalito waters If I remember correctly, that is one of the 1970 codes and it has been enforced prior. It's a safety issue. having vessel speed in an area where it's open or causes safety issues. having vessel speed in an area that has crowded with anchored vessel is as it's Thank you. |
| 02:01:50.20 | Joan Cox | More dangerous. So any portion of the anchorage that's in Sausalito waters is still subject to the five mile per hour rule. There is no portion of the anchorage that is installed. |
| 02:01:59.63 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:01:59.65 | Joan Cox | Okay. |
| 02:01:59.80 | Unknown | Okay. |
| 02:02:02.11 | Christy Williamson | Thank you. |
| 02:02:02.13 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 02:02:02.16 | Joan Cox | Okay, thank you. |
| 02:02:05.16 | Joan Cox | Okay, no more questions. |
| 02:02:08.68 | Joan Cox | Oh, and Mary is prepared to address 1.05, which I asked before. |
| 02:02:13.52 | Mary Wagner | Thank you. |
| 02:02:13.81 | Joan Cox | Mary. |
| 02:02:14.31 | Mary Wagner | Yes, and thank you for that question, Vice Mayor Cox. So currently, the chapters that are getting consolidated have three different penalty provisions. For a violation of 1604, which is beaching or abandoning vessels, it's a misdemeanor with a fine of $500 or imprisonment in county jail not exceeding three months or both. For chapter 1612, Dunphy Park Waters, it's a misdemeanor, same thing, or imprisonment, excuse me, $500 or imprisonment, but not exceeding 30 days or both. For chapter 1620, City Waters and Beaches, it's an infraction. I would recommend that you We modify the language that's in your proposed ordinance to say that any person violating any provisions of this chapter 1604 shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor. Punishable by a fine or imprisonment and then would look to the council. I would suggest the provision of 1604 which is the $500 or county jail not to exceed three months or both, then automatically we have the language in 105, which gives the police department the authority to make an infraction instead of a misdemeanor. So I think that was an excellent point and something that should be modified if you want to move forward with first reading this evening. THANK YOU. |
| 02:03:35.51 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 02:03:35.61 | Mary Wagner | Thank you. |
| 02:03:36.85 | Joan Cox | Good. So do we want to move ahead with first reading this evening? |
| 02:03:41.71 | Joan Cox | I would like to propose some revisions to this, and I'm not prepared to this evening have all of those. I'm not proposed, although I often do, I'm not proposed this evening to dictate what each of those proposals would be. So I would like the opportunity to... THEIR OWNERS. the city staff here. at least my suggestion, see if there's consensus and give them the opportunity to come back with some revisions. That would be my... preference and also to give, you know, to include our community, to have more transparency so that our community can write to us and let us know their feedback. on more than three days notice. |
| 02:04:24.30 | Joan Cox | Any other questions? |
| 02:04:24.97 | Lauren | Thank you. |
| 02:04:25.02 | Harrison Bierstecker | Comments. |
| 02:04:27.67 | Lauren | Thank you. |
| 02:04:27.69 | Harrison Bierstecker | I would agree with that. It seems like we jumped really quickly from debris and derelict to a larger platform. AND I DON'T KNOW IF THAT'S WHAT OUR GOAL WAS RIGHT NOW, I would definitely. look at more of them. Excuse me more discussion. but not for me and not right now. |
| 02:04:49.17 | Unknown | right now. |
| 02:04:50.37 | Harrison Bierstecker | So I'll continue to listen. |
| 02:04:52.97 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:04:55.85 | Harrison Bierstecker | I'm not heard. |
| 02:04:56.21 | Unknown | Joe. |
| 02:04:59.38 | Joe Burns | Well, I think there might be portions that we can go ahead with first reading. I don't know. The marine debris, it seems like we don't have any problem with that one, right? And what are the other ones? Dunphy Park Waters, do we have any problems with that? I think there's... As councilmember Burns pointed out the Avenue to the cruising Club I mean, I we might want to look at that so I would think so on that one and |
| 02:05:25.59 | Joe Burns | And let me... |
| 02:05:29.40 | Joe Burns | Does anybody have any other thoughts on ones that we could go ahead and go ahead and have the first reading? I mean, there's no reason not to. The public nuisance maybe? |
| 02:05:36.91 | Joan Cox | you know, Before we, can I just interrupt? I was trying to make a picture. I'd like our city attorney to comment. I get a little bit worried when we're trying to pick and choose pieces just to force a first reading. Oh, that's fine. As opposed to delay. You know, I don't want to, I don't want to argue about that. |
| 02:05:40.27 | Joe Burns | Do you want to make it? |
| 02:05:47.54 | Joe Burns | first reading as opposed to delay. You know, I don't want to get out. I don't know. So could I. So I let me withdraw that. And if you guys want to delay this, let's just delay the whole thing. I have that's fine. See what our city attorney. |
| 02:05:55.46 | Joan Cox | Let's just delay the whole thing. Can I have, see what our city attorney thinks about this. |
| 02:05:58.58 | Joan Cox | I'm sorry. I don't want to delay it. I want to give feedback and have them come back for first reading. Okay, you can rephrase it however you want to. That's fine. Okay. |
| 02:06:06.04 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 02:06:06.09 | Joan Cox | TODAY. |
| 02:06:06.17 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 02:06:06.31 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 02:06:06.39 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 02:06:06.80 | Joan Cox | . |
| 02:06:06.97 | Unknown | What? |
| 02:06:07.03 | Joan Cox | you |
| 02:06:07.22 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:06:07.84 | Joan Cox | Thank you. I think that's what I said the first time. |
| 02:06:09.33 | Joan Cox | So again I'm trying to get to are we going to have a first reading tonight or not. No, no, no. Okay. So what direction do we need to give staff then? |
| 02:06:23.00 | Joan Cox | So I have some suggestions, and I don't know whether there's consensus here or not. |
| 02:06:28.01 | Joan Cox | No, I'm suggesting that at 9.15, as a first agenda topic, we're not about to edit this ordinance here tonight. But we can give direction. We need a process to give direction rather than right now because |
| 02:06:36.18 | Joan Cox | We need. |
| 02:06:41.48 | Joan Cox | I mean... It sounds to me like we're just not ready. |
| 02:06:42.57 | Joan Cox | It sounds to me like we're just not really. This is a public hearing. I would like to be heard on those issues that I would like to see addressed in the first reading. Please. Okay. So I would like a mechanism. First of all, I don't think we should declare all vessels to, I think we should remove that portion of the ordinance that suggests that the Sausalito Police may remove a vessel that has been in our waters for 72 or more consecutive hours. If that vessel is occupied and not abandoned and not I think this ordinance should focus on, at this point, should focus on the debris. And I do think this ordinance should have a mechanism for someone to get permission. You know, what if someone shows up on our waters foundered and needs to have a motor repaired? I think we need a mechanism to get permission from someone to be here while their vessel is undergoing repairs, for example. |
| 02:07:56.03 | Joan Cox | So those are the, and I would like to look further at our ability to control I am worried about David Lay's comments. I don't know the mechanism for confining speeding to open waters as opposed to those portions of the anchorage that are not specifically in city waters. But I would like to maybe have that be part of what we suggest to RBRA. I would like to understand a mechanism for addressing that issue because it's It's odd that someone would be able to zoom through an anchorage before they have to slow down. That is a safety issue. Um, And overall, I would like to see us reward those folks who are here, registered, licensed with a contract with a what is it called, the boat, that was... A honeypot. A honey boat. So I would like to see us treat those folks differently from the folks who are conducting illegal activities or who have a bunch of debris stored in an empty boat. Those are my thoughts. |
| 02:09:15.95 | Joan Cox | Okay, I'd like... City staff, city manager, city attorney, lieutenant frost, somebody to actually try and put this in context as to why this is on the agenda tonight. What you seem to want to get this done with some urgency. It seems to me, based on these comments, which need a considerable amount of thinking through, this is nowhere near ready to be adopted, is what I'm hearing. |
| 02:09:47.56 | Joan Cox | In which case, it needs a little bit, I mean, is this something that should go to the legislative committee? |
| 02:09:55.56 | Joe Burns | Is Lieutenant Frost, I see you back there. So one of the issues that we have, especially with the marine debris and some of the other, is that we're thinking about withdrawing from RBRA. Right. So we have to tighten up our own ordinances so that we're able to effectively police our own waters, which we have voted 5-0 that we want to do. Yes. So I don't think that we want to delay on those issues. for a long time. for any amount of time, certainly not. You know, we have to get those things. So we can, you know, I think, we can narrow down what we need to accomplish before that time Um, pretty effectively. With regard to a broader issue that the Vice Mayor brought up I think that's the longer discussion. And that's the discussion that we can kind of carve out and that's gonna take a lot of time. And certainly a lot of outreach to the residents of Sausalito about what that's gonna look like and how we move forward on that part of it. So I think when you're talking about beaching or abandonment of vessels or Lieutenant Frost, tell me what you need. Like, what would be your priority? Certainly, I think marine debris. Like, what do we need to get into place so that you can effectively police our waters as of anticipating you know, June 30th. So it's gotta come back in April and May for second reading. |
| 02:11:16.47 | Unknown | 30. |
| 02:11:20.57 | Unknown | I'm going to go. |
| 02:11:20.98 | Joe Burns | right? So what would be your sections that you need to, we need to think about before that time? |
| 02:11:28.00 | Unknown | If withdrawn from RBRA, we lose several valuable ordinances and regulations that we count on to keep our water safe. |
| 02:11:35.07 | Unknown | Mm-hmm. |
| 02:11:35.79 | Unknown | some of which are the nuisance laws regarding the debris, so that is a section that we need action on. The marine debris is Valuable it's also what we have for the state law and harbors navigation. We have that |
| 02:11:46.63 | Unknown | It's all right. |
| 02:11:46.96 | Christy Williamson | So, what? |
| 02:11:51.81 | Unknown | However, also the regulation about vessels being in our waters for excess of 72 hours is extremely important as well because what happens is you could have vessels that are stored out on our waterways for long periods of time. They do not meet the criteria of marine debris. but are left there for days, weeks, months on end. So in order to ensure that these do not become those attractive nuisances, that cause other route problems, we do need a 72-hour removal ordinance, which is consistent with numerous other ordinances that regulate the waterway. |
| 02:12:28.88 | Joan Cox | Can I ask a question? Sure. Is there a way to have that 72 hour ordinance apply to unoccupied vessels? Does that help you? I mean, I don't understand why. Do you need that regulation to apply to occupied vessels? And registered. Occupied and registered vessels. |
| 02:12:29.29 | Unknown | Okay. |
| 02:12:50.01 | Joan Cox | in order to continue the enforcement actions you have already undertaken. Thank you. |
| 02:12:55.36 | Unknown | The issue is the one day's vessel that's occupied is the next day's vessel that's not occupied. |
| 02:13:00.62 | Unknown | Yeah. I'm sorry. |
| 02:13:02.95 | Unknown | So we do need |
| 02:13:06.46 | Joan Cox | Could we have some, quiet please. Thank you. |
| 02:13:12.27 | Unknown | So we do need something that's encompassing due to the fact that when you start drawing lines like that, it could be used against us saying that we are enforcing |
| 02:13:19.42 | Joan Cox | That's right. |
| 02:13:19.74 | Kevin Kiefer | Yeah. |
| 02:13:19.76 | Christy Williamson | Yeah. |
| 02:13:24.27 | Unknown | with one set of individuals get a certain rule and law applied, other set of individuals do not. So it has to be fair and impartial, and the law has to be encompassing so we can address many different issues Understood. |
| 02:13:37.90 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 02:13:38.05 | John Burke | Is this Abileneut Law? |
| 02:13:39.88 | Joan Cox | Could I just make a recommendation? You know, we could go on for another hour here trying to craft what is the content of a first reading, and that's not going to work. So we need staff to come back with an ordinance that this council feels that it can have a first reading. But we need some input into that. We have a legislative committee. This is a piece of legislation. Why don't we have the subcommittee of this council meet with you on the committee. I'm on that committee. Councilmember Hoffman's on this committee. We've got our two lawyers here on the committee. |
| 02:14:09.62 | Danny Castro | Oh, no. |
| 02:14:17.30 | Joan Cox | And, um, And let's move quickly to then come back with a modified ordinance that can work for us. Does that work for everybody? Thank you. |
| 02:14:26.42 | Joan Cox | to the next day. That's fine for me as well. |
| 02:14:28.05 | Joan Cox | Okay, thank you. And we'll do this pretty fast in light of the need. Yes. |
| 02:14:35.66 | Joe Burns | Okay. The goal would be to come back in April for first reading. Then we have second reading in May. |
| 02:14:41.16 | Joan Cox | Yeah. |
| 02:14:41.48 | Joe Burns | Yeah. |
| 02:14:42.68 | Joan Cox | Okay, good. Is there anybody else, anybody up here wants to say? In that case, this agenda item is closed, and I'm going to break for five minutes. |
| 02:14:57.52 | Harrison Bierstecker | I'm reading. |
| 02:15:12.30 | Joan Cox | Are we ready to go? Okay, let's re, Let's get back to business here. Business item 6A, pension and other post-employment benefits discussion. And we're going to start off with Melanie Purcell, our Administrative Services Director. |
| 02:15:36.46 | Charles Melton | Good evening. |
| 02:15:36.50 | Joan Cox | Good evening. |
| 02:15:37.93 | Charles Melton | Thank you, we wanted to talk about pension and OPED, primarily pension. and give it just a second, we'd actually like to walk through some of the basics just for those who may not be familiar in the public. in particular with how pension systems work, particularly public pension systems. So we're going to... |
| 02:15:57.39 | Lauren | word. |
| 02:15:58.20 | Charles Melton | There we go. |
| 02:16:02.72 | Charles Melton | Thank you. It's still thinking. |
| 02:16:04.38 | Joan Cox | Okay, there we go. |
| 02:16:05.61 | Charles Melton | So we just wanted to cover a little bit of how the system works before we jump into all of the details. Mr. John Bartell from Bartell Associates is going to walk through Sausalito's specific, and particularly the details, long-term forecasting. and where we're at for the city of Sausalito regarding our pension. Okay. Wanted to talk real quickly, when we talk about pensions, we are talking about what's known as a defined benefit retirement plan. Sometimes you hear people talk about defined contribution. That is where The distinction is in how the money is put in and what the expectation is when you get out. When you have a defined contribution, which we do not have, but is often seen in the private sector, is where there is a percentage or a specific amount of an employee's pay put aside. for the employee for future use. There is no guarantee on the return, there is no guarantee what will happen at the end of their employment. So that's a contribution side. What we have and most public employers use is defined benefit. Okay, sorry. Our defined benefit means that we promise a percentage of the final pay will continue after the employee retires, and it's based on a multiplier. And then the years of service are based on their final pay. So for example, I've used here the final pay times number of years, 2%. That's what the PEPRA formula is right now. So you see in our little magic ball there, we have salaries, multiplier, and the time worked. That is what influences the cost of the pension obligation. |
| 02:17:46.64 | Charles Melton | Okay. So when we talk about annual pension cost, we talk about the normal cost. That is the cost of the services being rendered for the year. So an employee works from July to June. That year, we estimate what the cost is to the pension for their service, for the promises made. So we really think of that as the current cost or the normal cost. Then we have what's called the unfunded accrued annual liability. This is talking about how do we pay for What has not been, what has already been earned, it is an obligation, they've been promised this. They've already provided their half of the equation, the services, and an obligation to pay that. When the earnings are insufficient, prior contributions and prior earnings are insufficient to cover that, then you have an unfunded liability. So it can be zero, it could actually be a negative, in which case you're overfunded. But that cost gives you your total pension costs. So, we're going to have to do that. Just a note here, the UAL, the unfunded liability, because it is previously earned, must be paid. There are cities that shut down, that can happen. They still must pay their unfunded liability. So even if operations start tomorrow, you have zero employees, you still have an obligation to pay that portion. So, We talk about how we pay for all of this, and I have included in here both the normal and the unfunded in one big pool. Recognizing those are two very distinctly different. animals, but we talk about contributions and earnings. The employee makes contributions, the employer makes contributions, and CalPERS invests them on behalf of the agency. When contributions, contributions react to how earnings happen. So if earnings are above anticipated, contributions can come down. If earnings are below anticipated, contributions go up. So it's pretty basic math for us. So the contributions are determined by calculating the liability, how much we owe. what the obligations have been that we promised. And then taking how much we remains after the earnings and previous contributions to be funded. So it is how much we owe less how much we have using two different value systems, actuarial liability, market value, as of today's date, and then the net is the unfunded, unfunded liability and how much we have to pay for it. And I want to make sure that I'm clear when we talk about the contributions, there's unfunded and then there's the normal both are paid toward this. But when we talk about how much we have to pay, it's the net of how much we owe us, how much we have. |
| 02:20:27.34 | Joan Cox | Melanie, quick question from up here. Did we have this particular presentation in our package? |
| 02:20:33.68 | Charles Melton | package. No, it was not, because generally it was something we were providing. Just as an overview. |
| 02:20:39.13 | Joan Cox | Just a second. Yeah, okay, thank you. |
| 02:20:40.50 | Charles Melton | Okay, thank you. it. |
| 02:20:41.65 | Joan Cox | And is it possible to get a copy of this? Absolutely. Okay, thank you. This is helpful to at least me who's new to this. |
| 02:20:48.85 | Charles Melton | Thank you. |
| 02:20:48.95 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 02:20:48.97 | Charles Melton | So thank you. Absolutely. We'll definitely send that to you. Factors that can increase how much we have to pay as an employer are the increase in the total number of employees. increase in salaries, and lower and expected returns on investment. Those impact the contributions in different ways. So the number of employees and the increase in salaries affects normal cost, how much you owe in that year. The other affects your unfunded liability. So that's the pension side of the house. OPEB is other post employment benefits. This is also often spoken of as a bigger number, and it is. It's the retiree medical and life insurance for the majority of employers. It's limited in the city of Sausalito to employees hired prior to 2012 and with over 20 years of service. So it's a very small pool of eligible employees at this time. It's also limited to the lowest cost medical plan for employees and retirees. and it only pays for the retiree. So again, you can't just pay for anything. It does have very strict limitations. The contributions right now are strictly actual cost and anything that we put aside toward the trust to pay for any future cost. So this one has all of the limitations built into the system that are possible at this point. So I'm going to get us out of this one. |
| 02:22:14.92 | Charles Melton | I apologize. took his plan. |
| 02:22:29.36 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:22:29.67 | Charles Melton | I shut down. No, I'd shut down. Can you fill that up there? |
| 02:22:51.92 | Charles Melton | My apology, technical difficulties for hitting the wrong button. |
| 02:22:55.84 | Unknown | Thank you. you |
| 02:22:58.54 | Harrison Bierstecker | Yeah, you give it a shot now. |
| 02:22:58.91 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:22:58.98 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:22:59.03 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 02:23:00.28 | Harrison Bierstecker | Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. They've got help. |
| 02:23:03.11 | Mary Wagner | Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. |
| 02:23:09.96 | Charles Melton | Thank you. |
| 02:23:14.98 | Charles Melton | Okay. Thank you. |
| 02:23:18.03 | Mary Wagner | I'm here. Yeah, that'll work. |
| 02:23:20.97 | Charles Melton | Thank you. So it's my pleasure to introduce Mr. Bartell and have him go through the details of what was provided in the packet. And explain the valuation and where the city stands today. |
| 02:23:36.31 | Unknown | Thanks. Thank you. |
| 02:23:37.10 | Unknown | you |
| 02:23:37.17 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:23:38.74 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:23:40.08 | John Bartell | Thank you very much. So I hope every time I've talked to you all before, I've started off the conversation by absolutely telling you what an honor it is to be here to talk with you all about this. So we've talked before. One of the things that I've noticed about you all is that you're not particularly bashful. So I will certainly encourage you all to interrupt and ask questions as we go. What I'm going to do is go through some of these slides very, very quickly, some of them very slowly though, because some of them are particularly important. But what we're really gonna do is spend a little bit of time talking about what CalPERS has recently done, most notably what they have done or are expecting to do with the assumed investment return. So people refer to that as the discount rate. We'll talk a little bit about that because that's going to have a big impact on your contribution rates. We'll talk a little bit about some historical investment return. And then we'll talk about each one of your, the city has three plans with CalPERS, the non-sworn safety miscellaneous plan, the police safety plan, the fire safety plan. And then we'll go into what I think of as what are your options, what can you do, and sort of what is the order of magnitude can you do to mitigate where the contribution rates are going to go. Slides one and two are definition of terms. Melanie did a really nice job of going through that information. I'm gonna skip over that if we get to some terminology a little bit later associated with numbers. I'll redefine the terminology when we get there. So let's talk about what CalPERS has done. The first couple of items here I'm going to go through relatively quickly. We've talked about this before. CalPERS has changed, if you will, the way they are asking you to pay your unfunded liability. So they are asking you to pay it using a closed amortization period. What that means is no more rolling amortization, no more sort of not paying sufficient amount, and it will get you to the point where your unfunded liability ultimately is paid off. They are making that change. They are no longer using What some people refer to as an artificial value of assets. They're using a market value to determine your unfunded liability and really stepping into that contribution over a five-year period. So the way to think of it, this is not exactly right, but if you think of it this way, you're 90% of the way there. If your contribution rate is 15% of pay and CalPERS says you should be at 20%, they're going to step into that 20 rate over the next five years, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, on a five-year ramp-up basis, if you will. So that's number one. And by the way, that first one was included in the June 30, 13 valuation, impacts your fiscal year 15, 16 rates. Because of the five-year ramp up, you get full impact in fiscal year 19, 20. And the second one is CalPERS made some assumption changes, most notably mortality, longevity. How long will people live. What they are now doing is anticipating that mortality will continue to improve, that people will continue to live longer. And the very first time they did that was as part of the June 3014 valuation, first impacting 16-17 rates, full impact in 2021 fiscal year. They made some changes to risk pools. The changes had a very, very modest impact to you folks that had bigger impact for some other agencies. The big deal coming down the road is what CalPERS did in December. What happened in December was They had their chief investment officer, their chief financial officer, the chief actuary, the outside, two outside investment advisors going to the CalPERS board saying, we have on the agenda next year, so this was in December, so we have on the agenda in the summer of 2017 what they refer to as an asset allocation or capital market study. And we think all of the folks in unison said, we think that's going to result in a lower discount rate of 50 basis points. And we think you are better off recognizing that sooner rather than later. And I have to tell you, I certainly agree with that. The CalPERS board said, well, okay, here's what we're going to do in the next valuation. That's the June 30, 16 valuation. Those numbers should be out later this summer. We're going to drop the discount rate, really meaning CalPERS, going to drop the discount rate from 7.5 to 7.3.8. So, taking a bite, if you will, out of that difference between 7.5 and 7. And initial impact of that is your 18-19 year. They're phasing it in over five years, full impact in 22-23. The June 30-17 valuation uses a 7.25. The June 30-18 valuation will use a 7% discount rate. So there's really kind of two phase-ins going in. They're phasing in over the next three valuations to get to the full seven, and then each impact of those is phased into your contribution rate over a five-year period. So the full impact of these will be 2024, 2025 fiscal year. Damn it. |
| 02:30:11.57 | Joan Cox | John, may I interrupt you? |
| 02:30:12.77 | John Bartell | Yes. |
| 02:30:13.69 | Joan Cox | Now, would you prefer that we wait for questions? |
| 02:30:16.61 | John Bartell | No, I'd rather you ask questions. |
| 02:30:18.17 | Joan Cox | Okay, so I've simplistically had in my head since we first started chatting a number of years ago that we had this ramp up period and It all gets paid off after 30 years. Yes. That's the model in my head. So what have we done now? |
| 02:30:32.75 | Unknown | Yeah. Thank you. |
| 02:30:33.98 | John Bartell | Thank you. |
| 02:30:39.24 | Joan Cox | done many ramp ups or several ramps? |
| 02:30:41.18 | John Bartell | There's several. Thank you. |
| 02:30:42.08 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 02:30:42.13 | John Bartell | Pops. |
| 02:30:42.95 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 02:30:42.97 | John Bartell | Thank you. |
| 02:30:43.02 | Joan Cox | I'm not. |
| 02:30:43.11 | John Bartell | Help me understand that. I don't have anything to write, but here's the picture. |
| 02:30:43.39 | Joan Cox | So help me understand that. |
| 02:30:48.96 | John Bartell | The So what I want you to do is think of it this way. If they do something that increases or decreases the liability, increase the disc or decrease the discount rate, your liability goes up. Let's just pick a number, a million dollars. What they do is they say, In the first year, we're going to look at that million dollars as an increase in your unfunded liability. but we're not going to ask you to pay for that full million dollars right away. What we're going to do is we're going to take one-fifth of it, $200,000, and we're going to amortize that, ask you to pay it off over a period of time. And then one year later, they'll take the next $200,000. So now you'll be amortizing $400 of the million. And then in the third year, they'll get to $600. In the fourth year, $800. In the fifth year, $1 million. So by the time you get to the fifth year, you're paying on your full million dollars. You still have several years to pay for those. Each one of those pieces has a amortization period so you get paid off. So the way this has been described is you're ramping up to the contribution And because the first one gets paid off sooner than the second one, you actually begin to ramp down at the end of the period. OK? So it kind of looks like that, if you will. So that's what they're doing with every change. Gains and losses paid off over a 30-year period. These assumption changes paid off over a 20-year period, shorter amortization period for assumption changes than gains and losses. |
| 02:32:48.08 | Joan Cox | I think you may have one more question before you move on. |
| 02:32:50.99 | Joan Cox | And so each year recently, CalPERS has been reducing its discount rate. you |
| 02:32:57.21 | John Bartell | Not yet, so here is where we are today. CalPERS last valuation was June 30, 2015. Your June 30, 15 determines your 17, 18 contribution. There's a two-year lag between the valuation date. They have not yet prepared the June 30, 16 valuation. So you haven't seen those numbers yet. We're doing our best when we get to the contributions to tell you what we think you're going to see when you see those numbers. |
| 02:33:29.65 | Joan Cox | So there's always, since they always give us two years notice, there's going to be two years between each. |
| 02:33:37.10 | John Bartell | Each valuation and when you begin to pay on that unfunded liability. No, but I'm saying... |
| 02:33:41.95 | Joan Cox | No, but I'm saying there will be two years between each of these incidents that causes us to then absorb it one fifth at a time. |
| 02:33:52.21 | John Bartell | That's right. You're gonna have sort of, because they're doing the discount rate in three steps, you're gonna have, three, five year phase in. So all of these phase in and they kind of get all added together. |
| 02:34:06.28 | Joan Cox | We're going to get all added together. Following on one after the other. That's right. So we'll have several simultaneous. |
| 02:34:08.41 | John Bartell | That's right. So we'll have several simultaneously. So if you think about this for a second, that means layer on layer of contribution increases. And because we have other things that have not yet been factored into your rates, these are going to be tacked on to increases that CalPERS established because of the contribution policy and the mortality change. |
| 02:34:34.78 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:34:35.05 | John Bartell | Okay. |
| 02:34:37.11 | Unknown | like, |
| 02:34:37.33 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 02:34:39.41 | John Bartell | So CalPERS is looking at their capital market assumptions. We think that study is likely to, corroborate the 7% discount rate. But just to be clear, It is possible they will So I'm not a betting guy, but if I were a betting guy, I would say I think they're gonna justify the seven. It's possible they will come up with a number below seven, six and three quarters, I would say the odds aren't very good that they will do that, but I think it's greater odds that they'll get to 6.75 than they would to 7.25, for example. But I think the odds are on the 7%. Um, We're gonna talk about one thing that is so crucial when it comes to California pensions. We're gonna talk about how mature your retirement system is. Mature in a context of a retirement system means that you have a large portion of your liability associated with people who are no longer working at the city, who have already retired. The reason why that's important, here is where CalPERS is overall. And it's particularly true for your plans too, by the way. the contributions going into the system, are less than the benefit payments going out. in and of itself, is not a particularly big problem. What makes it a big problem is that CalPERS does not have a lot of money sitting around in cash. So where they get the difference between the contributions and the benefit payments, where they get that difference is from investment earnings. take a portion of the investment earnings and they pay that difference. So if you have a year where your investment returns are very poor, You don't have the cash to make all of your benefit payments, so what do you have to do? You have to sell some of your investments. to meet your benefit payment obligation. What happens? So if investment return is not sufficient, they have to sell investments. And what happens is when you sell investments, you typically don't sell underperforming investments because you are locking in those losses. You will sell. investments that are doing particularly well. When you have a investment mix that has a lot of volatility, that has a lot of stocks, you increase the chance that you need, you will have a year when investment return is not good, and you have to sell something to make your benefit payments. So CalPERS has recognized for the past couple of years that this is an issue they have. So what they have done, what the CalPERS board has done, has adopted a risk mitigation strategy. What that risk mitigation strategy says is over time, they will make the investments more conservative. So what they're going to do is when they have a good year of investment return, they're going to take some of those investment gains off the table and make the investments more conservative. We think, we don't know, by the way, we think that means that the 7% discount rate will likely go to 6%. because the investments will be more conservative, but go to six over likely about a 20 year period. When you look at slide five, you see sort of our projection of how we think that's gonna happen. Let me be clear on this. If they don't do this, if they don't do something, then they will be putting the trust at a higher level of risk that higher level of risk could result in very severe problems, particularly if you have two very bad investment years in a row. And the definition of very bad, by the way, is negative, below zero, just so that you don't get, so that you really are, you don't get those additional investment earnings to help pay the benefit payments. What you see on slide six, is a history of CalPERS investment return, going back to, my eyes aren't good enough to read that, I think 1994. And what you really see here, what you should absolutely understand is here is the significant volatility of the investment return. Really, two or three years of good, two or three years of bad. And what has really happened is over the last 20 years or so, CalPERS actual investment return below the assumed rate of return of seven and a half. Recent returns over the last decade, noticeably below the assumed rate of return. It's important, though, to understand when the investment advisors, when the CIO, when the CFO, when the chief actuary talk to the board, they really weren't looking at historically what CalPERS has gotten. They are looking at what they think they're going to earn in the future. And so they're afraid that there's really going to be a downturn in the investment return over the next 10, 20 years. So let's take a look at. |
| 02:40:48.60 | Unknown | Thank you. Thank you. Please ask. |
| 02:40:49.78 | Scott Wilmore | Thank you. |
| 02:40:49.81 | Unknown | Yeah. Bye. |
| 02:40:54.07 | John Bartell | I'm sorry. |
| 02:40:54.98 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:40:58.64 | John Bartell | Yeah. |
| 02:40:59.20 | Unknown | Thank you. you |
| 02:41:01.09 | Unknown | Press it. |
| 02:41:02.20 | John Bartell | Well, so let me just ask if it's okay to answer that question. |
| 02:41:06.28 | Joan Cox | Yeah, it's okay to answer. The problem is that we don't pick up the question if you're not at the microphone. |
| 02:41:14.00 | John Bartell | So I'll repeat it. |
| 02:41:15.51 | Joan Cox | So if you could do it so anyway. |
| 02:41:19.41 | John Bartell | Thank you. |
| 02:41:19.45 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 02:41:19.46 | John Bartell | Please, John. So the question was, when we look at the expected return at June 30, 17, we are showing a return that's about 7.2%. And the question was, doesn't that seem a little aggressive? Let me tell you how we got that number. How we got that number was we used the actual CalPERS investment return through December 31, and then we used the assumed return |
| 02:41:20.54 | Joan Cox | Please, John. |
| 02:41:51.34 | John Bartell | I annualized, if you will, for the last six months. What's fascinating is if you look at CalPERS actual return through December 31, it's noticeably below what people think of as the investment return for the six month period. If you look at the Dow, big run up in the Dow, CalPERS equity investments did not have that big run up, partly because they de-risked the portfolio to mitigate that volatility. So the way we got that number, that 7.2, was looking at actual CalPERS investment return, So we used through December 31. Relatively recently, we have more current information through the end of January. We're actually expecting the 7.2 to be a little higher. January was better than expected. So that's where we got the 7.2. those numbers from. Uh, Slide seven. So I'm just going to point out a couple of things on slide seven. So these are your non-safety employees. You had 63 active employees in 2002, 46 in 2015, 57 retirees in 2002, 87 retirees in 2015. Now, for your non-safety plan, not all of those retirees are career employees. Many of them work here for a few years, work someplace else for a few years, might retire with 25 years of total service, but the city service, you're only responsible for the portion of their benefit that is city service benefit. So, but the thing that's fascinating about this is, like you to look at the right hand column for a moment. Your total actuarial accrued liability at June 30, 15, $31.9 million. You have assets of 24.4, so you've got an unfunded liability of $7.5 million. Of your 31.9 million, 9.6, less than a third of it, is for active employees. Ciao. That means two-thirds of your liability, most notably $17.8 million of your liability for people who have already retired receiving their benefits. So this is a crummy, crummy analogy. But what I would like you to do is think of the way you're funding this plan as if you were saving for your own personal retirement. You're 25 years old. You have a long ways to go to retirement. the investment return you make at the age of 25 doesn't matter that much. Number one, you haven't set very much money aside. Number two, you have a lot of years to make it up. The closer you get to retirement, the more important the investment earnings you make or don't make Become... and the more conservative typically people are the closer they get to retirement. Not everybody is, but if you're gonna retire at 65 and you're 64 and all of a sudden you get a negative 20% return the year before you're gonna retire, you're gonna get a negative 20% return. That's just not a great thing. means they're not really going to retire at age 65. So what's going on here is, Your system, your non-safety system, you're no longer 25 years old, thank you very much. You're not yet 64, but you're moving in that direction. You have a large portion of your liability for people who have already retired. Does that mean you ought to CalPERS, ought to stop investing in equities? No, it doesn't mean that at all. But it means that when you have a large portion of your investments in equities, you will have volatility. This gets back to the risk mitigation issue that CalPERS has. So you're going to see this in even a bigger deal when we look at your police safety plan. So think of this as this is a problem partly because you've been around for a long time and you've been in CalPERS for a long time and you have a lot of folks receiving benefit payments and that just comes with the territory, if you will. |
| 02:46:53.27 | Joe Burns | John, can I ask a question based on that slide right there? From 2014, June 2014 to June 2015, on that bottom line, the unfunded liability grew $1.4 million? That's right. In one year? That's right. And that's just because of the interest? Thank you. |
| 02:47:11.22 | John Bartell | Yeah, there's really the single biggest reason for that growth is CalPERS investment return at June 3015. If you remember this slide, June 3015 investment return was well below the assumed return, 2.5%. Can I read? I'm 2.4. |
| 02:47:31.78 | Unknown | Mm-hmm. |
| 02:47:32.17 | John Bartell | as opposed to the expected return of 7 1 1. So that is the single biggest reason why your unfunded liability went up. |
| 02:47:40.21 | Joe Burns | I don't know. And so can we go back to that slide again? |
| 02:47:43.17 | John Bartell | Yeah. |
| 02:47:43.49 | Joe Burns | Thank you. So if that debt, that unfunded liability debt, was in some other... holding that didn't have a 7% projected, if we had it refinanced at some sort of mechanism, that was a 2% or 3%? |
| 02:48:00.11 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 02:48:00.38 | Joe Burns | Thank you. then you wouldn't see that 1.5 million It would be less volatile, I mean it would be less- |
| 02:48:08.97 | John Bartell | things |
| 02:48:09.73 | Joe Burns | Thank you. |
| 02:48:09.78 | John Bartell | Thank you. You would see two things. CalPERS said, no, we're gonna invest this much, much more conservatively. What the nature, go back to the earlier conversation, the way a defined benefit plan works is, really, this is the way a defined contribution plan works too. People just don't think of it this way. The way it works is, if you have a target amount of money that you need at retirement, If you get a low investment return, What has to happen? Contributions have to be higher. So there's only two ways to get money there to pay the benefits. Way number one is contributions. Way number two is investment earnings. So if you think investment earnings are going to be lower, your contributions have to be higher. The reason I said it like that is if you invested it conservatively, the $31.9 million would not be $31.9 million. It might be. significantly higher. I'll just pick a number, 60 million rather than 32 million. I'm picking a number not because it's tied to any particular discount rate, to give you a feel for if you thought you were going to get 2 percent investment earnings, your liability would be significantly higher. The actuarial accrued liability, I've described it as the value of benefits due to service that's been rendered, but here's what it also is. It's the portion of the benefit payments not paid by investment earnings. |
| 02:49:58.05 | Unknown | Mm-hmm. |
| 02:49:58.54 | John Bartell | So if you think you're going to get a high investment earnings, your liability is going to be lower. If you think you're going to get a low investment earnings, your liability is going to be higher. So if we go back to your question, your liability would be higher. Your assets would absolutely be less volatile because they're not invested in things that are volatile, if you will. But you will expect to earn a lower return. That's the price for mitigating volatility, if you will. |
| 02:50:32.07 | Joan Cox | May I add to that question? And this unfunded liability is not what it would cost us to pull out of CalPERS and invest these assets elsewhere. |
| 02:50:44.51 | John Bartell | THE FAMILY. |
| 02:50:44.67 | Joan Cox | Correct. So what we would have to spend over 50 million in order to withdraw from CalPERS and and create our own playground. |
| 02:50:57.97 | John Bartell | So I'm going to, before I answer that, I'm going to give you two choices for my answer. A short answer. or a more explanatory answer. |
| 02:51:09.36 | Unknown | The answer is correct. |
| 02:51:09.38 | John Bartell | answer is yes. Yes, you're right. |
| 02:51:09.97 | Unknown | Yes, you're right. |
| 02:51:14.93 | John Bartell | Okay. |
| 02:51:15.20 | Harrison Bierstecker | Thank you. |
| 02:51:17.31 | John Bartell | Thank you. |
| 02:51:17.33 | Harrison Bierstecker | So was there another question? Yeah, I was going to. Were you going to give the short answer? I did, yes. It was so short you didn't see it. |
| 02:51:25.44 | Unknown | Yes, we're right by your joke. |
| 02:51:28.80 | Harrison Bierstecker | I sniffle once and I miss the whole answer. You've mentioned the low risk equities. Do they shift to treasuries and bonds or what's their outlook on those? |
| 02:51:40.01 | John Bartell | their outlook on those. Their investment mix right now is, this is about, this is a, this will give you a feel. It's not exactly right. They're about 60% equities, about 10% real estate, and about 30% in fixed income, bonds, you know, and the equities are, you know, all sorts of equities, but But more recently, lower risk equities than they have historically been. And the bonds or the fixed income are all sorts, corporate, government, international, domestic. Does that answer your question? Yeah, yeah. |
| 02:52:24.84 | Joe Burns | Yeah, yeah. |
| 02:52:25.69 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 02:52:27.83 | Joe Burns | I have another follow-up, John. My question wasn't directed that we pull out of CalPERS, but it was that do we have the ability to pay off the unfunded liability so that it doesn't keep growing and growing? |
| 02:52:41.77 | John Bartell | Well, everybody should understand. You should understand you have complete control |
| 02:52:42.23 | Joe Burns | or- |
| 02:52:49.01 | John Bartell | over what you pay to CalPERS. Obviously, it's a function of having the money, right? |
| 02:52:54.31 | Unknown | Right. Right. |
| 02:52:55.12 | John Bartell | But if you have the money, you can pay it. But no one should think. just because you pay it off, you might not have another unfunded liability down the road. |
| 02:53:07.62 | Joe Burns | Because every time you don't hit the 7% or whatever the rate is, there's going to be another unfunded liability. |
| 02:53:12.08 | John Bartell | That's right. That's right. The single biggest driver of that unfunded liability, by far, everything else gets wiped out in comparison, is whether they will meet that assumed rate of return. So just to be clear, you pay the unfunded liability off and CalPERS earns more than expected. You now have an excess of assets over liabilities. If they earn less, you have a new unfunded liability. So CalPERS is not an insurance company. They are holding things for you. They have the plenary authority to invest that money. They get to decide how that money is invested. You don't. They are investing it for you, but if they mess up, We get the bill. You get the bill. |
| 02:54:00.78 | Joe Burns | We still get the bill. |
| 02:54:03.21 | John Bartell | Thank you. |
| 02:54:03.34 | Joe Burns | Thank you. |
| 02:54:03.36 | John Bartell | It's absolutely right. |
| 02:54:03.60 | Joe Burns | Absolutely. And that's where that 7.5 million came from. that rose from 6.1 to 7.5. |
| 02:54:07.82 | John Bartell | There really are two components to the 7.5 million. The single biggest component is maybe three components. The single biggest component is poor investment return, particularly in 2008, 2009. So if you go back to this graph and you look at 2009 minus, I should know this off the top of my head, minus 24%. The expected return back then, seven and three quarters. So- you really need to compare the seven and three quarters to the minus 24, that means they had a 32% lower asset value than they thought they were going to in one year. And so that That is the single biggest reason why you have a $7.5 million unfunded liability. Okay. |
| 02:55:14.30 | John Bartell | When CalPERS sends you your contribution rates, this is just a little bit of background. I'm going to talk about this very, very quickly. You all actually have three benefit tiers for your miscellaneous plan. Your tier one, an enhanced benefit formula, two and a half at 55, a tier two, which is 2% at 55, and then PEPRA, I refer to it as a tier three, 2% at 62 benefit. When you hire a new employee, If they were not in any California retirement system before January 1 of 13, they go into the tier three or the PEPRA formula. If they are a lateral, meaning that they were in a retirement system in California prior to that, they go into tier two, the two at 55 benefit formula. CalPERS gives you your contribution rates separately for each of those three tiers. Let's look very quickly at that right-hand tier, the right-hand tier, the PEPRA. Total contribution rate at the very bottom, 6.9% of pay. Why is their contribution so low? Because they don't have much prior service. You don't have much of an unfunded liability for those folks. So if you kind of look at this, your tier one, your contribution rate, 24.9, your tier two, 9.1 again, More modest benefit and not much prior service liability. Tier 3, 6.9. What we do when we project your contribution is we mush those together to get to a combined contribution of about 21.5%, and then we project out into the future how you're going to hire people. When you hire people, will they be classic? Will they be Pepper employees? That difference does not matter very much. The bulk of your contribution is really related to that unfunded liability for your Tier 1 folks. That's where your retirees are. Generally speaking, tear-up. is really related to that unfunded liability for your tier one folks. That's where your retirees are. Generally speaking, tier one retirees. So I'm gonna, with your permission, not spend much time on 13 and 14. These are the assumptions we made. And what I want you to do is look at slide 15. So slide 15. projects out your contribution, the green line, is where we expect your contribution rate to go, by and large, over the next decade. And what you see is a range of numbers above and below that green line. So the green line represents what your expected contribution, assuming CalPERS will not earn seven, but will earn six and a half. We're using six and a half because CalPERS outside investment advisors are saying over the next decade, they think CalPERS will earn less than expected, So for sake of argument, that's what we're using. We said that on one of the previous slides that I just skipped over, just so you know. But you also see some higher rates there. Those higher rates, by and large, represent even more crummy investment return. and the lower rates represent better investment return. The upper numbers are not worst case scenario and the lower numbers are not best case scenario. Could be worse, could be better than those. What we have here on slide 16, so I have Since a very young age, worn glasses, I can't probably read any of the numbers on this graph. The purpose of this graph is actually not to read the numbers. It's to look at the shape of the graph. if CalPERS does get that 6.5 over the next decade, Your REITs will fall, generally speaking, along the green line, so it will rise relatively steeply. cap out, and then gradually begin to come down in some fits and spurts with one great big spurt down. And that great big spurt down means you have an amortization base that is being paid off. It's kind of like if you have a home mortgage and then you do a room addition and you finally pay off your room addition, all of a sudden you have more money in the budget. And so that's what's going on with that big decrease in the contribution rate. And so we are expecting. your contribution rate in the long run will get to something reasonable. It will absolutely be painful. in the interim. And there is no doubt in my mind, if you look at your budget, When you look at the growth in your contribution rate, that is growing probably noticeably more than what your revenue is growing. And what we've done on slides 17 and 18, |
| 03:00:21.31 | Christy Williamson | So, |
| 03:00:21.40 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:00:21.44 | Christy Williamson | Yeah. |
| 03:00:29.95 | John Bartell | is to split your contribution into two pieces. The two pieces are, if you go back to the early presentation, the payment on the normal cost, and then the payment on the unfunded liability. So the payment on the normal cost is that orange line at the bottom. That's a combination normal cost rate as a percentage of pay. And then that reddish line is the payment on the unfunded liability with the green line being your total normal cost rate. So if you are somebody who thinks in your budget as a percentage of payroll, you should look at slide 17. If you're somebody who thinks of your contribution as a dollar amount, then you should look at slide 18. We should have put at the top of slide 18 that these numbers are in thousands of dollars. So when you look at slide 18, your 17, 18 numbers, will more than double over the next decade to be about $2 million. This is just for miscellaneous. And again, the bulk of that $2 million It's a payment on the unfunded liability. common. for Council members to think of, to describe the problem as an order of magnitude of the unfunded liability. For me, I don't think it is. I think the problem is whether or not, when you look into the future on your budget, can you make these payments? If, when you look out into your budget, you can make these payments, the unfunded liability, thank you very much, will take care of itself. Doesn't mean it's necessarily guaranteed to go away, but from a budget standpoint, if you can't make these payments, that's a much more urgent issue than the order of magnitude of your unfunded liabilities. I'm going to skip to police safety. So police safety back in 2002, you had 21 actives. 2015, 19, oops, sorry, you had 35 retirees in 2002, now you have 59, so you almost have three times as many retirees. Take a look at slide 22. Your total liability, 32.3 million. Assets, 23.6. Unfunded of 8.7. So, Of that $32 million, $6.4 is for active employees. $23.9 is for retirees. So here you have a very large retiree liability compared to active. And so your safety plan looks more mature. Why does it look more mature? Number one, the benefits are more generous than miscellaneous. Number two, the safety officers retire at earlier ages. And so you have gotten to this point sooner than your miscellaneous plan. Again, |
| 03:04:02.24 | Joe Burns | Sorry, John, can you go back to that? Yep. |
| 03:04:02.31 | John Bartell | I'm not sure. |
| 03:04:06.59 | John Bartell | This one? |
| 03:04:07.32 | Joe Burns | Yeah, I just want to look at that. So we have the same problem there with the same unfunded liability. Do you have a slide that's a total of... all of the different pension funds that we have and a total of the entire |
| 03:04:21.44 | John Bartell | We did not put together a total, but it would be easy to take this slide, the miscellaneous slide, and the fire safety slide, add them together. Because you comply with GASB 68, you have those numbers in your CAFR now. I just don't know what they are. |
| 03:04:39.87 | Joe Burns | I think that was one of the questions that I asked. that I emailed you. Which was the total? |
| 03:04:42.82 | John Bartell | Yep. I think the answer was in there. |
| 03:04:48.71 | Joe Burns | No, that's okay. I'll go back. Yeah, we'll talk back in a minute. Okay, thanks. |
| 03:04:49.86 | John Bartell | Yeah. . |
| 03:04:53.64 | John Bartell | So again, your tier one, three at 55, tier two, two at 50, tier three, 2.7 at 57, 53.9% contribution rate for tier one, 16.5 for tier two, 12.8 for tier three. So a combined contribution rate of 51%, about $1.1 million contribution for the 17-18 fiscal year. And I'm going to skip through this. Let me point this out on slide 29. One of the differences you all have for your police safety plan is you have an amortization base that is due to be paid off relatively quickly. So from a budget standpoint, when I look at where your contribution rates are going to go, I'm not a budget guy, but your issue relative to safety is, can you get through that hump, if you will? Can you get to the point where your contribution rate drops from 75% to 61%? So the budget is a shorter term issue for police safety than it is for miscellaneous. And slide 30 is the longer term projection. Same issue on 31. We split the contribution into the normal cost rate and the unfunded liability. That amortization base coming off, it decreases your unfunded liability component of your contribution noticeably, and so you've end up with an increase in your contribution from beginning of period to end of period a little more modest. But the reason it's modest is because you're at 76% in the interim. Same thing for dollar amounts. You're at $1.1 million. For $17, $18, you get up to $2 million, and then you drop down to $1.7 million, and then get back up to $2 million over that period of time. This is a projection. We had a similar projection of your funded ratio. You're going to see funded ratios decline in the short run. They're going to decline for a couple of reasons, the June 30-16 investment return and the decrease in the investment return assumption. But in the long run, we have an expectation that you will be at 100% funded. Again, assuming CalPERS gets that 6.5% investment return in the short run. fire safety numbers look significantly different. You don't have any active employees, so you have all of your liability for people who don't really work at the city anymore, $22.9 million. Your contribution is really all based on Tier 1, $55,000, $360,000 a year. So when we project where your contribution rates are gonna go, they're still gonna go up steeply. because that discount rate impact still impacts fire safety, so we think your contribution rates are going to go from about $360,000 to almost a million bucks in 27, 28. all because of the discount rate change. But again, you have this relatively steep decline because you've got an amortization base being paid off. Um, I am, maybe in the interest of time, I'm going to, unless you want me to talk about the normal cost and PEPRA, I thought what I would do is go to the issue of the header here is paying down the unfunded liability. I sort of think of it as a combination of paying down the unfunded liability and what can you do to mitigate against those higher contribution rates. So I really think it's kind of a combination of those two. Let me also mention that, um, Just because I put something up here doesn't necessarily mean I'm a big fan of it. So pension obligation bonds, that's a scenario where you go out to the marketplace you borrow, you give that money to CalPERS, and you're really making an arbitrage bet that CalPERS will earn more than your debt service on the pension obligation bond. There's a whole variety of reasons I'm not a big fan of these. If the city were really interested in doing this, my comment to the city would be make sure you do your complete due diligence before you do this. I think you will probably find not a particularly good idea. People are still looking at this sort of thing. I listed as borrow from the general fund. I've been at, I did not know before the past few weeks that there were cities that had reserves that were 40% of revenue. And so we have a couple of clients with very large general fund reserves, and what they are doing is looking at sort of borrowing against the general fund to mitigate that unfunded liability. Borrowing meaning paying with an intention to pay that back, kind of like a low interest loan, if you will. So you're earning, 0.75, maybe 100 basis points on your investment mix. So the idea would really be to pay that back at something like a lost earnings rate. One-time payments, you get to the end of the fiscal year, you have a budget surplus, half a million dollars. You have a council policy that says you take half a million dollars and you go one-third to beef up reserves, one-third for one-time projects, and one-third to pay down the pension unfunded liability, just as an example. And then a few years ago, a fair number of agencies were setting up internal service funds as sort of a rate volatility hedge, if you will. And so what they would do is invest money, put it into a restricted assets. This council could, of course, change that, and so you have control over that, and the investment return is not particularly good. I'm going to skip to slide 49. I think you all know about Irrevocable Supplemental Pension Trust, you all have set one up. In the interest of full disclosure, I am becoming a bit of a fan of them. What they are doing is gives the city much, much more flexibility on how to use that money than it would be if you gave it directly to CalPERS. Having said that, everybody should understand your Supplemental Pension Trust is not going to out-earn CalPERS, the odds are excellent. You will earn less. But the difference between what CalPERS earns and what you earn, you really get back in terms of flexibility of how you use that money. So we recommend everybody to kind of look at those pension trusts, think about how you're putting money in, think about how you're going to pull money out, and sort of set up some parameters of how you use those trusts. Fact of the matter is, is I can keep talking, but I'm guessing you don't want me to. I have a question. So I'm going to shut up at this point in time unless you all have questions. |
| 03:13:46.74 | Joan Cox | Thanks, John. I think there's going to be a number of questions before we put this out for public comment. Could I, if I may, kick us off by... |
| 03:14:04.07 | Joan Cox | We, you know, this is each time you've kindly come here and given this, I've sort of I've tried to probe you a little bit as to where do we compare, how do we compare. And in particular, what I'm trying to get an understanding of is... Right now everybody's in the same boat in terms of everybody's in is subject to the progressive reductions of the discount rate. And they're going to have their contributions go up. |
| 03:14:40.30 | John Bartell | Yeah. |
| 03:14:50.07 | Joan Cox | depending upon the various funds they've got, it's going to be either, there's going to be, like us, there's going to be a lot of the contributions are for the unfunded liabilities for retirees, such that if we fired every employee in the place, we'd still have that number to pay. That's right. Right, okay. |
| 03:15:10.05 | John Bartell | That's right. |
| 03:15:14.15 | Joan Cox | Help us understand, therefore, As we, how you would see the the Rate of increase of the contributions because of the five year phase in period, and now apparently we've got multiple five year phase in periods. How does that |
| 03:15:33.37 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 03:15:35.89 | Joan Cox | Uh... compared to us further superfunding, I call it superfunding, my term, not yours, our trust fund. Okay, how do we make those two vectors work such that, you know, do you see what I'm saying? Do you know where I'm going? I want to get your advice there because this is, I think, the issue that our finance committee and the budget and then our strategic planning process over the next two years is going to really have to grapple with. Is funding of the trust fund and its role and how it plays into the volatility of the contributions that we actually got to make. And I'm on your page, I'm not interested in percentages, I'm interested in actually numbers as they relate to the budget. |
| 03:15:44.98 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 03:16:26.17 | John Bartell | So I'm going to do this a little bit from memory. Our folks did some numbers, but because I'm probably the only one in the room that could be still talking about this at midnight. And so I took out some slides that we had. One of the slides we had was what would your contribution rate be if you went to 7% immediately? Here's what definition of immediately is. It doesn't mean July 1, 17, we had to do something. We said in the June 30, 16 valuation of CalPERS did not go to 7 and 3 eighths. If they went to 7% immediately, what would your contribution, how much higher would your contribution rates be, And It varies a little bit, but let me just kind of give you some rough numbers. So let's go to... I'm going to... I don't with this know how quickly to get to here, but let's go to here. This shows your June 30, 16 contribution rate. So we're not talking about dollars. Contribution rate in the 18, 19 fiscal year, if my eyes are good enough, that shows about 24%, right? If you went to 7% immediately, I think that 24 would probably be about 29 percent. I can give you the precise numbers. And I think that next year, instead of being 27, it'd probably be 31 or 30, something like that. You would pay about five or six percentage points more in the first year, about three or four percentage points more in the next, about two or three percentage points more in the next, and then in the next year, you'd be about where you would have been, and then if you look at your contribution over the next, 20 plus years, you'd pay about $1,000 1.5% less. |
| 03:18:52.66 | Unknown | Mm-hmm. |
| 03:18:53.19 | John Bartell | That one to one and a half would probably save, again, I'm gonna do this off the top of my head. I know we have this number, and this is just for miscellaneous. I think you would probably save, if you began to make contributions early on, you'd probably save more than half a million dollars over the period, maybe three quarters, between half and three quarters of a million if you made those contributions early. So if you think about a supplemental trust, What I would have in my head was pay more sooner. You're gonna get to mid to high 30s. So from a budget standpoint, to the extent that you can afford to get to, a higher number than what the green line chose, That will mean you will save money at the upper end. That setting money aside in the supplemental trust will mitigate that peak. So if you're looking at ways to save money, literally save budget in the future, that's the thing to do is to put more money in the supplemental trust and think about how much of that you're going to carve off. So, I'm not sure I gave you as precise a number as I would like to give you, but it's conceptually that's roughly what's going on. If we were looking at police safety, those percentages would be higher than the five, that I just talked about. |
| 03:20:43.15 | Joan Cox | A quick follow-on. |
| 03:20:44.00 | John Bartell | Yeah, please. |
| 03:20:44.76 | Joan Cox | But the money that we save in the future, the amount you're quoting to us is not in present That's absolutely right. So the money that we would be saving in the future will not be worth as much in the future- That's right. As the money we'd be spending today to accomplish that savings. |
| 03:20:51.26 | John Bartell | Thank you. |
| 03:20:51.28 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:20:51.31 | John Bartell | $1. |
| 03:20:51.97 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 03:20:52.04 | John Bartell | Right. |
| 03:20:57.61 | John Bartell | That's right. |
| 03:21:02.53 | John Bartell | Yeah, and so you get to, I would leave this up to somebody else as to what you would discount it at. Obviously, if you discount it at 1%, which is kind of what you're earning, you're closer to that. quarter of a million, half a million, whatever the number is. But if you discount it at four or five, you're much farther away from it. |
| 03:21:25.74 | Joan Cox | Yeah. So, if I may and then I'll. I'll shut up and let others jump in. When we originally set up the trust fund, our goal was, if you recall, that Well, A, we had the seed money to better put in it, number one. And number two, that |
| 03:21:43.29 | Christy Williamson | Yeah. |
| 03:21:49.50 | Joan Cox | we would um develop a plan for how to fund |
| 03:21:55.10 | Unknown | Mm-hmm. |
| 03:21:55.15 | Joan Cox | Thank you. THE TRUST FUND, IF AT ALL, FURTHER, THE TRUST FUND, WITH THE IDEA THAT IT WAS GOING TO BE A, WE WEREN'T GOING TO TRY AND BEAT COMPARES. IT WAS GOING TO BE A LOWER RETURN IN PART, |
| 03:22:03.55 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:22:09.02 | Joan Cox | a risk mitigating strategy, dovetailing into CalPERS now risk mitigation strategy, right? Yes. Such that we would |
| 03:22:15.15 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:22:15.28 | Christy Williamson | Right. Thank you. |
| 03:22:15.86 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 03:22:16.23 | Christy Williamson | Thank you. |
| 03:22:18.79 | Joan Cox | be able to risk manage really significant volatility down the road. Does that strategy still hold? |
| 03:22:26.52 | John Bartell | Oh, I think it really does. But, but, but. Um, CalPERS is doing kind of exactly what you talked about. But it's a 20 year plan. So if I were the city, I would not think of the supplemental trust as something that's gonna be there forever. I would look at Where is my contribution rate peak? Let's see if this shows up on the screen. But... I look at this as kind of a mountain. Right? And anything I can set aside here, I can shave off a piece of the mountain. |
| 03:23:10.13 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 03:23:10.43 | John Bartell | But once I get to the point where you see the big drop in the contribution, the need of the supplemental trust is becomes less important. I don't mean that you should dissolve it and use it all up. What I mean is, for me, it's valuable to carve off the peak and the mountain It's less valuable as time goes by. |
| 03:23:41.08 | Joan Cox | Would you also say then the challenge for nearly every jurisdiction, agency, JPA, whatever it is that has this problem, the Rubber's going to meet the road to see if the agencies can structurally adjust their budgets during this ramp up period. Because if they can't make that, then there's significant problems. |
| 03:24:07.42 | John Bartell | I'm sorry, I interrupted because I was so enthusiastic about agreeing with you on that. |
| 03:24:11.15 | Joan Cox | So you know where I'm going there. I'm agreeing with you on that. That's right. Could you comment on that then? |
| 03:24:15.28 | John Bartell | Yeah, I think... So, this is a, I think, I think, I'm not a politician. I'm an actuary, and I spend my day doing actuarial stuff. But I spend a lot of my time talking with clients about where they are in the budget process, about where things are going, and what can they do to mitigate. Thank you. Thank you. And the definition of mitigation is, ALL ABOUT We're going to be right back. How can we afford to make these contribution rates? So it's mitigating where those rates are going to go. |
| 03:25:04.94 | John Bartell | One definition of mitigation that I am not a fan of, I'll just tell you I'm not a fan of it, and that is extending the amortization period. CalPERS won't allow you to do that. Even if you wanted to do that, they may change their mind about that. But for me, that's refinancing your mortgage again and again and again, and you're really just shifting debt. You're going to pay more interest down the road, and the interest you're paying is the lost opportunity on the money. It's at the assumed rate of return. So given that I'm not a fan of fixing that hump by backloading the contribution, making it higher in the later years, and lower in the hump, given that's a personal bias that I have, What are your options? You have two options. sock it up and make those payments when they come due, or plan for it ahead of time. In my opinion, you will be better off, meaning you will save more money in the long run. You will be in a better budget position to the extent that you can set money aside sooner rather than later. For me, That is, I don't want anybody to misunderstand these words, but I'm just going to say it. It is the fiscally prudent thing to do. But let's also be clear, the fiscally prudent thing to do is not something that every agency can do. |
| 03:26:36.73 | John Hogue | Right. |
| 03:26:37.01 | John Bartell | Thank you. And that, for me, the conversation about what you can do is part of the budget process. It is what can you do with the means that you have? Because if you are pulling money aside, The odds are excellent. You're pulling it away from other things that you would like to spend it on. And that's where I have to, because I can't tell you what you should spend it on. I can tell you you will save money if you do it, but that's a myopic point of view. It's without regard as to what else you would not spend your money on. Let me give you one other comment. um, I'm gonna apologize if I offend anybody by this comment. I irritate people all the time. It doesn't matter who they are. There are people going around the state saying that what is the problem here? CalPERS will invest out of this. I am so sorry, I think that is wrong. It is up to you, it's up to each jurisdiction to decide what they're gonna do. If you look at this and you go, no, we can afford this, you shouldn't bother doing anything. I mean, but if you look at that and you go, oh my goodness, what are we not going to have because of this? then you are better off doing something sooner rather than later. |
| 03:28:23.31 | Joan Cox | Any, I will be quiet now. Any other questions of John for, please? |
| 03:28:29.96 | Joan Cox | you |
| 03:28:30.01 | Unknown | Thank you. Go ahead, Sonica. |
| 03:28:32.00 | Joan Cox | Okay. Isn't one of the issues that CalPERS has that they are not required to follow the same rules as private sectors for defined benefit plans to the extent that they are allowed to understate future liabilities? |
| 03:28:50.85 | John Bartell | I'm gonna give you my same answer before, your choice. A short answer or a long answer. Now, let me just tell you, I am a fan in this case. I'm always a fan of a long answer. But if you, you know, we're sitting here at quarter to 11. No, it's fine. I can't give you, I can give you a short answer. |
| 03:29:06.07 | Joan Cox | No, it's fine. |
| 03:29:11.66 | John Bartell | you just tell me |
| 03:29:13.68 | Joan Cox | Well, if the short answer is yes, |
| 03:29:15.77 | John Bartell | No, it's not. |
| 03:29:16.36 | Joan Cox | No, it's not. OK. I've noted a lot of them. Well, because there is so much, you know, I don't know if it's fake news out there. But I go to all these lectures about the sky is falling. Yes. |
| 03:29:26.07 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 03:29:31.96 | Joan Cox | And so that's why I'm asking this question. |
| 03:29:35.97 | John Bartell | So I just, it's like a perfect lead in. I promise you I will irritate somebody who says there is no problem, and I can equally promise you to say that the sky is falling, that the world will come to an end because of defined benefit pensions. So I'm going to try my best to make my long answer short. Thank you. The regulatory environment for public sector pensions is different than the regulatory environment for private sector pensions. My firm. does not have a defined benefit plan. Why? We are not a public sector entity, and the cost associated with not really just having a plan, but the floor and the ceiling, the whiplash relative to the maximum we can put in and the minimum we can provide, makes it cost prohibitive. Public sector plans don't have that regulatory environment. So people sometimes say, because you don't have that regulatory environment, that's bad. Let me just tell you, I don't think it's bad at all. Now, it's bad. if you don't follow good actuarial practice. If, for example, when you look around the country at the systems that are in die or fiscal stress. almost without exception, They are because the plan sponsor did not make the contribution that they should have made. You don't have that. Um, you don't have that ability to do that in California, with one exception, CalSTRS. Every other plan in the state. The system tells you to make the contribution, you have to make that contribution. Let me also tell you that if you said that If you said that, so let me give you a personal bias that I have. I'm going to, again, apologize. This is going to be too long of an answer. I know this already. The personal bias that I have, I want you to listen to my words very carefully. I am a fan of defined benefit plans. Thank you. provided the regulatory environment doesn't cause issues relative to the plan sponsor, and provided the benefits are set at a reasonable level. There is a very strong argument that three at 50, which you all don't have, by the way. IS not a reasonable benefit. There is a strong argument that 360 for non-safety that you all don't have, by the way, is not a reasonable benefit. for if we talk about comparisons, the entities that have those enhanced benefits have bigger fiscal issues than you all do. Now, would it have been better had you not gone to 355 Could you afford the contributions more? Yes. Would it have been better if you had not gone to an enhanced formula for miscellaneous? Yes. But, but. Um, But, But where you are, if a plan is managed appropriately, so if we could go back in time, and we go back to the late 90s, your pension plans had assets significantly greater than liabilities. And then what happens? the legislature, encouraged by the unions and by the way encouraged by CalPERS. |
| 03:33:44.90 | Unknown | I think. |
| 03:33:46.82 | John Bartell | allowed you to, and everybody else around the state, to enhance benefits. So the excess assets was used up for enhanced benefits, and then we had the dot-com bubble right after that. |
| 03:33:57.33 | Unknown | Mm-hmm. |
| 03:33:57.62 | John Bartell | So we ought to learn that lesson the... I think What we need... is... more attention to fiscally prudent approach rather than a regulatory environment, rather than forcing accounting rules and a regulatory environment on the private sector. My opinion, and that would be A BIG MISTAKE. |
| 03:34:32.23 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 03:34:32.87 | John Bartell | Okay. Any more questions? |
| 03:34:34.91 | Joan Cox | Not from me. |
| 03:34:35.03 | Joe Burns | Yes. Question. |
| 03:34:35.88 | John Bartell | Thank you. |
| 03:34:36.16 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 03:34:37.39 | Joan Cox | OK. |
| 03:34:37.83 | Joe Burns | submitted some. So I did. Because I don't think the presentation, the problem with the presentation is, which by the way, I know it's a lot of work, so thank you so much for that. It's very complicated. But there's no summary pages. So there's, you know, you have these in different locations, the totals, but part of the, the reason we have this presentation is so that people of Sausalito understand the gravity of the pension problem and that they can see it in one place and understand it. One of the questions that I asked you was, what's the total unfunded pension liability for all SOSO pensions as of the day of this report? |
| 03:35:15.43 | John Bartell | Maybe next slide. |
| 03:35:16.46 | Joe Burns | Yeah, I think it's the next one. It's the... |
| 03:35:18.84 | John Bartell | THE FAMILY. |
| 03:35:19.02 | Joe Burns | Yeah, so the total is 19 million. And that's in addition to our overall pension liability, but this is just the unfunded part. Have I got that right? Okay. |
| 03:35:31.09 | John Bartell | to the next one. |
| 03:35:31.28 | Joe Burns | Thank you. And then for 2015, because we always have this argument about how the unfunded, is the unfunded pension liability growing or is it not growing? And what's the rate of growing? So clearly we can see that from 2015 it was 17 million and 741 $671.00. And then as of this report, and this means for 2016, it had grown $2 million in one year. Our unfunded pension liability has grown $2 million in one year. So this stuff. |
| 03:36:05.04 | John Bartell | This number shows 1617, which would be a June 30-16 number going from 22.5 to 19.8. So that 1718 number would be a projected June 30-17. There's an expectation of a drop. |
| 03:36:28.95 | Joe Burns | There's always an expectation of a drop. Every time I talk to somebody about unfunded pension liabilities, there's always the expectation of a drop. So we'll see if that happens. I'd be happy if it did, but I haven't seen it yet. And also, so my next question too was, on this slide is what's the overall percentage of our annual budget that goes toward pensions? And that's in the bottom part there. 2016-17, as adopted is 9.4% of our overall budget for 2018. It's 2% higher. So, and that's just one year. Again, that's one year. And so when you're looking at us as your city council elected officials, and you're looking at policy decisions about our hiring practices, about our management of our salaries for our employees, this has to be part of our discussion about what percentage of our overall budget is going for our pensions and what's that going to look like. So this was one year, it grew 2%. So, Melanie, I think one of the last questions I asked was, if you project this out ten years, at the current, At the current, what is it going to look like, and I don't know if there's a slide, if there's a prepared slide for that already, but Thank you. |
| 03:37:52.91 | Charles Melton | No, there's not, because that's a whole other set of calculations based on budgetary figures, not on the pension figures. So I have to incorporate those into the long-term financial plan. |
| 03:37:59.03 | Christy Williamson | Thank you. |
| 03:37:59.07 | Joe Burns | Okay. |
| 03:37:59.47 | Christy Williamson | I'm going to go. |
| 03:38:02.75 | Charles Melton | What we're looking at here though, I do want to make note, when you talk about percentage, you're talking about two elements, both the numerator and the divisor. |
| 03:38:02.81 | Carolyn Carvey | I'm going to go. THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 03:38:10.64 | Charles Melton | In this case, she'll notice the numerator, the pension went up. But the budget itself also went down. So by definition it had to become more. We do anticipate fully, especially with the changes that CalPERS has made, We fully expect that the percentage of the budget that's going to be necessary to make the contributions as required by CalPERS will go up. I will prepare as part of the budget process the long term financial plan that shows a forecast of where that goes. |
| 03:38:37.04 | Joan Cox | Can we have that for the next 20 years? Because that's when the bubble, the bubble that John showed us is projected in the mid-30s. We're now in the mid-teens. So I'd like to see what that means in the mid-30s, both in terms of how our budget is expected, our revenues slash budget are expected to grow, and our pension liability. |
| 03:38:47.77 | Christy Williamson | Yes. |
| 03:39:00.26 | Joe Burns | Yes. So I have one more question. Well, maybe maybe one one. |
| 03:39:04.58 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 03:39:06.20 | Joe Burns | And so. And this, either Melanie, you or John can answer this question. I don't know who would know this. But if you use PEPRA. And I can never remember what that stands for. What does that stand for? Anybody? Okay, never mind. If no one knows. This isn't stumped. Yes, John knows. Yes, John, what does PEPPER stand for? |
| 03:39:20.34 | John Bartell | This doesn't stump the, like, finance. Yes, John, no. |
| 03:39:27.80 | John Bartell | attention. for the rest of the day. |
| 03:39:29.92 | Joe Burns | Thank you. |
| 03:39:30.01 | John Bartell | Thank you. That's right. |
| 03:39:31.04 | Joe Burns | Thank you. Awesome. So there are some tools in PEPRA that we're not using. I know we've incorporated some of them. I know we're not using all the tools that were offered in PEPRA. Which ones are we not using? |
| 03:39:44.06 | John Bartell | Thank you. So just to be clear, |
| 03:39:48.18 | Joe Burns | straight out of the ballpark. |
| 03:39:49.09 | John Bartell | Straight up. So just to be clear though, |
| 03:39:52.75 | Joe Burns | Yeah. |
| 03:39:52.99 | John Bartell | I'm not sure I know what you mean by tools, so I'm gonna answer and you tell me, please, if I'm not understanding the terminology right. PEPRA allows an employer to negotiate employees to make a higher contribution. So you could negotiate with your employees and have them pay more than the statutory required contribution. So I don't know whether that's one of the tools you were talking about or not. What that will do, of course, is if to the extent that they pay more and to the extent that you use that to pay down the unfunded liability, that certainly gets you moving in the right direction. The other possibility you have is you have, for example, an automatic post-retirement survivor allowance for miscellaneous employees. You could negotiate to have PEPPER employees not get that. That would lower your contribution 6 tenths of a percent for anybody hired into that category. So I don't know whether those are the tools you're talking about. |
| 03:41:18.24 | Joe Burns | Well, I. |
| 03:41:18.97 | John Bartell | THE FAMILY. |
| 03:41:19.04 | Joe Burns | not. I... I wanted to look at all the Pepper tools that we're not using. So that's cool. I know I'm throwing this at you at 1130 at night. No, it's not 1130. |
| 03:41:25.15 | John Bartell | Oh, that's right. |
| 03:41:28.43 | John Bartell | Well, no, Pepper didn't give you a lot of tools. All it did was mandated that new members, everybody hired on or after January 1, 13, who was not in a system prior to that date, gets a uniform basic benefit formula. There were, other than negotiating employees to pay more, there's really no tool in PEPRA that would allow you to pay down your unfunded liability. |
| 03:41:31.59 | Joe Burns | Yeah. |
| 03:41:40.35 | Unknown | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 03:42:06.35 | Joe Burns | Well, I'm not talking specifically about unfunded liability, I'm talking about overall. So let me ask you this, Melanie, do you understand what I'm talking about? Okay, that's fine. Then we'll just address this then in the larger budget. So let me just give this direction then to staff. When we start talking about the larger budget discussions, I would like to see that analysis. And with regard to, because I think there were like 12 tools or 10 or 12 tools in PEPRA that were by Governor Brown that were offered to the cities. Have I got that wrong? |
| 03:42:32.97 | John Bartell | offered. Did I get that wrong? With all due respect, that's not right. |
| 03:42:35.80 | Joe Burns | OK. . Okay. |
| 03:42:38.08 | John Bartell | know. Because I know the 12 points the governor had in his original pension reform, not all of those made it into PEPRA. But those were goals that he had, not tools that the legislation gave the city. |
| 03:42:56.41 | Joe Burns | Okay. Okay. Are we in agreement that there are some tools in PEPRA that we're not using, two of which you've enumerated that you just talked about? I think that's about it. There are some other ones? No. Okay. |
| 03:43:06.51 | John Bartell | I think that's about it. I think that's about it. We could quantify those for you, but I don't think there's a big quiver of arrows. |
| 03:43:20.42 | Joe Burns | You agree with that? Anybody else? Okay. All right. |
| 03:43:23.89 | Joan Cox | Thank you. Any other questions? Do you have more questions? |
| 03:43:27.15 | Joe Burns | Let me see. Hold on just a second. |
| 03:43:36.52 | Joe Burns | Oh, shoot. Can we go back to the other slide? So there were three other questions on another slide. |
| 03:43:38.98 | Erica Galvin | Bye. |
| 03:43:39.01 | Unknown | Can we go? |
| 03:43:39.39 | Erica Galvin | Bye. |
| 03:43:43.59 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 03:43:48.25 | Joe Burns | Okay, so I think we talked about that. The first one was what can we do to more aggressively cut, it says undaunted, but that was autocorrect. It meant unfunded employee pension debt. Okay, number two and three were more policy issues. Number two was, so we had a big pay raise in 2015. And my question in that number two was, how did that affect our overall pension debt? Because to me, it makes sense that if you're raising to the tune of a million dollars a year are our salaries, if you're raising across the board, that would seem to be that you're going to have a larger But your answer indicates that you're That's not right. Correct. Thank you. |
| 03:44:36.51 | Charles Melton | What happens when you hire an employee, any employee? |
| 03:44:36.52 | Joe Burns | What happened? |
| 03:44:40.49 | Charles Melton | they have a cost associated with that employee. This is the normal versus unfunded conversation. |
| 03:44:44.42 | Joe Burns | Bye. Thank you. Yeah. |
| 03:44:46.23 | Charles Melton | That normal cost is part and parcel of what you put in the budget, and you pay that. So that is the cost of giving those raises is that pay was in there. |
| 03:44:51.14 | Joe Burns | Yeah. |
| 03:44:56.00 | Charles Melton | What? Okay, hold on. How personal? |
| 03:44:56.83 | Joe Burns | Okay, hold on. Hold on, because that doesn't make sense to me. So if I'm giving somebody a raise, right, they're going to get a higher pension at the end of the day, right? |
| 03:45:06.55 | Charles Melton | That's where this other half comes in. |
| 03:45:08.52 | Joe Burns | OK. |
| 03:45:09.48 | Charles Melton | CalPERS in fact calculates and assumes a level of raise associated that is built into our unfunded liability. The raises, if they are lower than that, If we actually give lower raises, we end up with a net lower. then we actually gain against that unfunded liability. If we give more than, which some cities did, they lose against their liability. We in fact gained because the total cost of our raises, the money that went up, was less than what CalPERS assumed. |
| 03:45:40.24 | Joe Burns | Okay. Thanks. And then. |
| 03:45:42.66 | Charles Melton | And then... |
| 03:45:44.06 | Joe Burns | Okay. So then the next question, I just wanted a figure because we Ray and I have this conversation a lot in the finance committee meeting about if you hire a new employee, what's the cost of that? you know, Basically, if you hire a tier one or tier two employee, what does that cost the taxpayer of Sausalito? What is that, because as an employee, you're incurring, you're incurring |
| 03:46:13.44 | Unknown | When you hire. |
| 03:46:13.44 | Joe Burns | When you hire... |
| 03:46:14.79 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:46:15.95 | Joe Burns | John and I talked about this after he provided whoever provided that answer that has no effect on unfunded liability. We talked about that, that there is an effect. It's just a very small effect when you look at the overall If you look at 19 million, what's the cost of a new employee? It's going to be, I got it, it's going to be very small, but there's still going to be an increased cost. Right? |
| 03:46:41.53 | Charles Melton | You can't hire a new tier one employee, first of all. That's not possible. |
| 03:46:42.63 | Joe Burns | Yeah. |
| 03:46:47.02 | Charles Melton | You can hire a tier two. Okay, because you're hiring somebody from... Yeah, I got it. That's it. So what you're looking at is the effect that that employee is having. You're covering that cost, your normal cost, in your budget. There's absolutely a cost to adding an employee. No question to that. Okay. If there are losses in the future... |
| 03:46:48.92 | Joe Burns | Because you're hiring somebody from, yeah, I got it. That's it. |
| 03:47:08.20 | Charles Melton | So you go five, 10 years out, you now have an employee that's been around for a while. There may be some unfunded liability that's built up over time as a result of the market. That potentially gets there, but that is so minuscule. $44 compared to 19 million. |
| 03:47:25.48 | Unknown | Mm-hmm. |
| 03:47:26.00 | Charles Melton | relatively speaking, because the very bulk as a mature system is based on employees you can't add, tier one. Thank you. Okay. |
| 03:47:36.01 | Joan Cox | So, I'm going to suggest we . See if there's any member of the public who'd like to comment on this issue and then we'll quickly wrap it up here because people are waiting for other agenda items. So is there any member of the public who'd like to comment? I have one card here from Keith Kuifer. Keith, if Kevin, I'm sorry, Kevin. Thank you. |
| 03:48:10.15 | Kevin Kiefer | Thank you. I'll be brief. What distinctions of employer contributions, I guess this is addressed to the Bartell Association, What distinctions of employer contributions have involved raiding the public's trust, Thai lands revenues in order to contribute to pension contributions and seed monies of an irrevocable trust of any kind? The big impact is actually the misappropriation of restricted revenue, assets into internal service funds, or other misappropriations of the public trust, Thai lands and submerged lands revenues. Is that the public trust? that this city council is supposed to be the trustee of, or has public trust been placed at risk for the personal gains of the city's employees, PEPRA or no PEPRA? Due to various inconsistencies of the manners and procedures of this council meeting, I am commandeering this agenda packet for legal purposes. I will return the packet or pay the equivalent value to the city offices at a future point. Thank you. |
| 03:49:26.84 | Joan Cox | Sorry, any other member of the public like to comment on this? No, I see none. Let's bring it back up here. Can we make our comments brief in light of the hour? Comments. |
| 03:49:38.91 | John Hogue | you can get. |
| 03:49:40.00 | Joan Cox | Who wants to talk about pension? |
| 03:49:41.86 | Joan Cox | I made my comments in terms of requesting the 20 year projections. That was my. |
| 03:49:45.71 | Joan Cox | Okay. |
| 03:49:48.10 | Joan Cox | So I have no further comments other than to thank Melanie and John for shepherding us through this very complex and data-intense topic. Thank you. |
| 03:49:48.20 | Joan Cox | Yeah. |
| 03:50:04.84 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 03:50:04.88 | Harrison Bierstecker | I just thank you for all the work. It's something that we have these types of numbers on this item and this issue of our budget being pensions where we have other portions of our budget that we're going to have to make decisions about. And if you just take one being infrastructure, |
| 03:50:04.98 | Joan Cox | Yeah. |
| 03:50:23.32 | Harrison Bierstecker | We don't have the benefit of that with infrastructure, but boy, wouldn't that be if we did, if we knew if we put more percentage here that there'd be less in the future and that type of thing. We don't have that. If we can figure a way to overlay those types of decisions, that helps with both our trust, how much we're putting aside for other items as well as... When do we go seven? Or when do we start going six and a half? But thank you for all this work. It's a lot. |
| 03:50:59.52 | Joe Burns | I'll just be brief. I mean it's clear I've been in the past I've talked a lot about pensions and My concern is that our pension debt, especially the unfunded pension debt, is going to continue to eat up more and more percentage of our overall budget. and that you know, when I first started talking about this in 2012, we were looking at 12 million. And I thought that was really high. And that was within range of us really if we aggressively paid it down to getting it down to a manageable sum that it wouldn't continue to keep snowballing and eating more and more of our budget. And so to Joe's point, it is concerning to me that we're paying more and more of our budget toward this unfunded pension cost instead of paying for our parks, fixing our roads, doing things that we should be doing. I like that we're using as many tools in our tool belt as we can find. I think we can do it more aggressively. I think, you know, It's really, really important for the people of Sausalito to understand where their tax dollars are going and what they're going for. And so I think this is one of the biggest issues that we have facing us here. |
| 03:52:11.24 | Joan Cox | Okay, well thank you John, sorry for keeping you this late hour. Melanie, considering you were thinking you were going to talk at 7.30. |
| 03:52:24.11 | John Hogue | John, you're gonna sleep like a baby. |
| 03:52:25.97 | Joan Cox | So, um, |
| 03:52:26.00 | John Hogue | Thank you. |
| 03:52:28.01 | Joan Cox | Our unfunded pension liability is important and it's been important for this city for a long period of time and we're doing lots to deal with it. But of course it's going to take up more of our budget in the future, as it is every jurisdiction in this state. Okay, the question is, do we have the financial resiliency to manage it? And that's what we've been working on for the last four years. Because in the end, it's a lot of... We got the... Folks need to understand that the vast majority of our pension liability is the unfunded liability for retirees who have already left. And if we shut down the operations of the city, we still have to pay that. And everybody needs to understand that. That isn't going away, and that number's getting bigger, and that's we need to factor into our budget, into our long-range strategic plan and financial forecasting. Absolutely right. Absolutely right. Right. |
| 03:53:33.03 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 03:53:34.03 | Joan Cox | Okay, John, Melanie, thank you very much. Okay, let's. |
| 03:53:47.69 | Joan Cox | you Thank you. Thank you. |
| 03:54:07.96 | Lauren | It just powered up. |
| 03:54:14.29 | Lauren | She's going to go first, but I can give a few. Okay, just turn this off off. |
| 03:54:21.17 | Shelby (Staff) | They have it on a USB and I don't see it. |
| 03:54:30.56 | Lauren | I think you gotta take this. Thank you. |
| 03:54:31.87 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:54:31.89 | Shelby (Staff) | Because it's on that. |
| 03:54:32.65 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:54:33.65 | Lauren | Oh, okay. |
| 03:54:34.15 | Shelby (Staff) | How did this get out? No, no, no. There's this one here. This is not a USB. It's an antenna receiver that goes on. |
| 03:54:36.80 | Lauren | There's this one here. |
| 03:54:41.05 | Unknown | Oh. Thank you. |
| 03:54:42.08 | Lauren | I didn't realize that. |
| 03:54:42.98 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:54:44.23 | Shelby (Staff) | I told you. |
| 03:54:44.26 | Unknown | I told you. Thank you. |
| 03:54:46.72 | Shelby (Staff) | you can have a start. |
| 03:54:47.53 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:54:48.09 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:54:49.96 | Unknown | Thank you. you Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. |
| 03:55:01.49 | Shelby (Staff) | Shelby's my first name. Thank you. |
| 03:55:02.91 | Lauren | I will go first and then face it. |
| 03:55:05.89 | Shelby (Staff) | Okay. Thank you. Let's do it this way then. I'll put it on my computer. Thank you. |
| 03:55:13.49 | Lauren | Good evening, Mr. Mayor and Vice Mayor Cox. Good morning. It will be when I'm done. I know that you've all been here for a long time tonight, so we'll try to run through this briefly. and we'll go through our presentations quickly. So first off, I'd just like to start in the beginning Many scientists believe that many thousands of years ago, this world started with a single massive continent. Pangea. And after some time that turned into seven continents that now we all live, I'm kidding. |
| 03:55:50.09 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 03:55:51.46 | Christy Williamson | The right is so good. |
| 03:55:54.16 | Lauren | We're not going back that far. We're not going back that far. Only to 2014 are we going back to tonight. |
| 03:55:55.94 | Unknown | Oh, boy. |
| 03:55:56.15 | Christy Williamson | Not going back that far. |
| 03:55:57.02 | Unknown | So what happened to it? |
| 03:55:57.97 | Christy Williamson | THAT'S A FRIEND. |
| 03:56:02.83 | Lauren | I'm here tonight on, on, on really some great news. And, and there are some, uh, guests in the audience tonight who I am really happy to see. And, uh, I'm really happy to be able to represent some of the things that they've pushed forward for the last few years. And I'm going to let... One of them come up and speak. Some of them might rush up as well. I'm not sure. But I'll let one of them speak and kind of talk about a few things. But we're here today to talk about the Medians and Civic Center Improvement Project update and the Civic Center Improvement Project. Before I get too far in, I want to call up Faye Mark, who is the current president of Sausalito Beautiful, THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 03:56:48.70 | Lauren | OK, so we'll hold off. I'll start off on my presentation then, and we'll get you to come up in a little bit. Basically, we are Let's go here. |
| 03:57:04.37 | Joan Cox | And do we have this, Lauren? |
| 03:57:06.58 | Lauren | If you don't have the presentation tonight, this is a very simple, straightforward presentation. I knew that we were going to run through this pretty quickly. So this is just some brief highlights of what has happened with Sausalito Beautiful and what we've kind of got going on. The information that you have within your staff report really talks about the two projects that we're dealing with. Briefly, these are some of the things that Sausalito Beautiful and the Department of Public Works have been working on in the last geez, three years now that we've been working and meeting with them on a monthly basis. You've got Beautification Day events that we've worked on that many of you have attended, which have been fantastic and very exciting. We've renovated Bolinar Plaza, which is just out here on Napa. Tiffany Park, we've repaired that little house to make it work again, which was a great part of the Beautification Day event. We've got the establishment of Green Thumbs. If you have any questions about that, please ask me. We're now looking at the Civic Center Improvement Project, We are looking also tonight at the Medians Improvement Project. We've also done some minor little small improvements at the fire and police station, which make that corner and that area, along with five-star optometry, just look a little bit better. And we're also currently working with them on Caledonia streetscape, which is going to include trees along the stretch out in front of our building here. Just a quick picture, it's always nice to put a picture of the mayor in your presentation. I'm not sure. But these are some pictures of Tiffany Park, the last beautification effort. I'm not sure. So jumping into what we're working on today is the Civic Center Improvement Project. And you may, some of you were here during that time, but we, Sausalito Beautiful was created with a lot of the intent of beautifying some of our public spaces. Notably, Civic Center. Some of the individuals felt that our Civic Center needed to look better to represent really the quality of our community. And so the... a woman here in the audience, Shelby Van Meter, met with a local international landscape firm that has a local office here, SWA, and was able to get them to produce a report, a pro bono report, that assessed the condition of the... um, Civic Center and did a fantastic job of outlining a number of different improvements that they felt needed to be made. They put together some conceptual drawings, And they made a presentation to you on July 22, 2014. In your staff report, there was a link to this report. And so now, What we're going for is we're taking this concept, this conceptual idea is from SWA, and now we're moving towards reality. So to give a reminder to the audience and to yourselves, if you haven't had a chance to look at that link, some of the pages that they created were an overall landscaping review and plan with some suggestions as to planting new trees, They took a look at pedestrian access which included accessibility for the building We've addressed a lot of that with the Robins-Sweeney Park, but there are also other areas that need to be addressed as well as part of accessibility. And here's just another example. This is just a page that they said, what could we do? What are some of the options we can have? This is a concept idea for the parking lot to cover that ugly concrete retaining wall that wraps around our parking lot and put some type of vegetation on there to make it look a little bit better. So that's just one idea that they have. The idea behind the current scope is to take all of these ideas and forward on creating plans and specifications that we can use for the basis of estimates and that eventually we can use for going out to bid. And so some of the concepts or some of the scope of work that's going to be included in that are going to include assessments of accessibility, site furniture, landscaping improvements, irrigation improvements, repairs to the walkways, making sure that our retaining walls are put together, site lighting, taking a look at how we are lighting up around this area so that it's safe for people to walk around. If you walk down to Robin Sweeney Park, you'll notice that we have a significant number of lights for the safety of our pedestrians. We would be looking at something up here. There would also be some examination of the signage type not necessarily the graphic design that's a much larger scope but at least some of the signage that we would have around the perimeter of the building fencing would be included in that to kind of just increase the Uh-huh. the beauty of the property rather than having chain link fencing. So that's what we're asking the council to approve tonight is the ability for the city manager to enter in an agreement with SWA to provide those site meetings, site evaluations, and eventually go into plans and specifications that they will then assist us in trying to find a contractor if the council approves. those funds for that capital improvement project. And it also includes some construction administration on the part of SWA during that capital improvement project if we are able to move to that direction. Moving quickly on, the other project that we're talking about tonight are the medians. So the medians are, as you well know, along Bridgeway, and they represent probably the one thing that everyone sees all of the time. I mean, visitors come through Bridgeway, we drive along Bridgeway. And the meetings, They just need some help, and we'll go into some of the details here. Back in 2013, the Department of Public Works hired Cuesta Engineering Corp. to do and provide an evaluation of the condition of the medians, and they found a whole number of things going on with them, such as very shallow soil. They cataloged the variety, the number, and the types of plants that we have out there, And they made some suggestions and said, you know, maybe you could do this, you could try to do this. And so we took a look at that. And that became the basis of additional conversations that the Department of Public Works has had with members of Sausalito Beautiful as well. And what we're really trying to do now is we're not going to really tear up those medians and completely redo them. We just need to get in there and clean them up and spend a lot of time and effort on them. What you see here is the medians, the plants have overgrown. For instance, on the picture on the right, you'll see that the lavender, once you let lavender go for a little while, it becomes very gray and stringy. You just got to pull it out and you got to replace it. So what we're anticipating, what we're planning on doing and moving forward with, just to give you the update, is really taking a look at the existing vegetation, what can stay, We'll keep. Things that we think have overgrown themselves or outlived their life really, we're going to pull that out and we're going to replace it with plants that are either the same type, or very similar in their size. We're not going to be putting in anything dramatic that's going to change. But we are also considering adding the addition of decorative boulders to increase the amount of hardscape. That reduces the amount of maintenance that staff has to maintain, and it reduces the amount of area that we have to water. So we're going to be adding that. So it's going to look a little different, but essentially we're following the same concept that is in place now we're just cleaning it up a little bit so we are currently we went out to bid we received three bids the lower bid is a pacific landscape so we're going to be moving forward with them there is a pre-construction meeting that I have planned on Friday with them to start this project. So you'll start seeing work on the medians in the next, probably next few weeks, which is going to be done cooperatively by city staff as well as Pacific Landscaping. Now we're focusing right now on only two medians, from the median that begins at Coloma and ends at Harbor, And that goes from Harbor and goes to Nevada. So those are the two medians that have a lot of shrubs on them. The other medians have grass, turf on them. And then we have the agapantha median, which goes from Nevada over to spring. So these are going to be the two that we're going to focus on now. So we're going to get these two done this season. And then in following years, with the council's approval, And with the support of Sausalud Beautiful, we'll continue to try to upgrade and provide this enhanced maintenance in the other ones. We're going to see how this goes, and we're going to take a look at some of the options that we have for the other medians and see if there's anything that we want to do differently or if we want to just continue kind of this process. But you can see here, you know, here are some pictures of some sycamores. We have sycamores out in front of the City Hall along Caledonia and they're 100 feet and they look healthy and vibrant and great. And you look at these and it's like they're like out of a Tim Burton film. They all look scraggly and they just don't look very good. We're going to be removing a couple more trees as part of this project, but essentially what we're going to be doing. is moving forward. on this. And here is a page that was pulled from the Quest of Engineering document This is the two medians that we're looking at. The one at the top is the Coloma to Harbor median, and then there's a portion of the Harbor to Nevada median. Thank you. I wanted to jump through this because I figured if you have questions, I'm here to answer any of those questions about that. But that's essentially what we're doing. And it's very exciting because both of these items have been very high on the wish list for Sausalito Beautiful. And I have been meeting with Shelby and now with Carolyn Ravel on a monthly basis. And always at the top of that list is where's the Civic Center project in your guys' focus? And where is the median? And so it's a great moment for me now to be able to say, I'm not sure. uh, we're now on the cusp of creating these improvements to the meetings in the Civic Center thanks to the council's funding of these two projects. I'm going to step now and ask Fay to give a few words. about Sausalito Beautiful and about our relationship, and then I'm here available for questions. |
| 04:07:30.64 | Faye Mark | I tried to bring you eye candy because I knew it was really white. I have a little bit of eye candy. So good evening, Mayor Withey, Vice Mayor Cox, and the City Council, everybody else. I'm just going to keep this very brief. In the last couple of years, just following the previous presentation, Consistent advocacy by Shelby with respect to City Hall has really brought us to where we are today through her attendance at budget meetings and hearings. And I think she sits there with great pride this evening. But there is a concern that I have, and it's about the duration of the project. Right now, I think it's slated for four years. And if there's anything we could do to reduce that to one, I think the impact would be much greater. and even if we could reduce it to two years I think it would have much more of an impact for the community as well as for those who work here at City Hall and those visitors who come here on a daily basis. Also, in the interest of full disclosure, in 2014, Bill Hines, who is an employee at SWA, was not on the Sausalito City Board. However, in 2016, Bill did join the board and he's currently Vice President of Sausalito Beautiful and will be President in July of this year. We look forward to seeing more landscape around City Hall and are pleased that Jonathan is moving forward with this. We enjoy very much working with Lauren and Jonathan and the DPW and the staff and we hope that the council will find that this project is worthy of public funds. As far as the medians are concerned, I have a little bit of eye candy that I can leave the podium and show you. Just as an example. Okay, well we thought I came |
| 04:09:51.78 | Joan Cox | You have to talk into the mic. |
| 04:09:53.10 | Faye Mark | I'm sorry. |
| 04:10:00.66 | Faye Mark | Before I get to this Before I get to this, let me just say, Meg Fawcett, who is also here this evening, and Sausalito Beautiful partnered with the city to rejuvenate the Bridgeway Medians 3 and 4, running from Gate 6 Road to Napa, as Lauren has already explained. The goal was to replace unhealthy shrubs and trees and enhance the physical beauty of the landscaping for the enjoyment of residents and our visitors. We gained commitment from Tom Wilhite, who I'd also like to acknowledge this evening, of Green Man Garden Design, and he was also a founding board member of Sausalito Beautiful. Worked very closely in assisting Lauren in evaluating the landscape alternatives for the medians and developed a landscape design focusing on drought-tolerant, low-maintenance, but aesthetically pleasing plants, enhancing the existing landscape, and to introduce into the medians just a few Sonoma field stones, primarily as accents. Actually, they're boulders. They're not even stones. They're fairly large, as you can see in that photo that I gave you. The pallet was approved by the Sausalito Beautiful Board. So again, we're very excited about the progress that we've made and very much appreciate the time and effort that Meg has given us as a volunteer with this project. |
| 04:11:30.50 | Faye Mark | So the eye candy portion of this is to show you, let's see. where we've come. So this picture illustrates Bridgeway at Donahue and Gate 6, and this was started by Blooming Bridgeway, which Tom Wilhite, founded years ago. And so as you come into Sausalito on bridgeway from the north end of town, this is your entry, this is what you see. through the efforts again with DPW and Sausalito Beautiful, We made improvements at Easterby, which I'm so happy because now people are actually sitting there eating lunch. I never used to see that before. I mean, I think people were almost afraid to go over there, and it's really a lovely little spot now. And you can see the difference in the bus stop, the before and the after. Again, here's Bolinar Plaza, and if any of you have driven past Bolinar in the last month, It is just pure eye candy. It is so beautiful right now. And again, on the right side, you'll see this is what it looked like before we all partnered together. And now you can see some of the photos on the left in the middle of what it looks like today. This is South Caledonia. So this is the little planting area. I left the police bike in there. So you could tell this was at the police station. This is another one of South Caledonia. These are new plantings, so next year they will grow to be even bigger and better, just like Bolinar is today. So on the left, you can see what the section looked like. This is in front of the... optometry five star building and you can see how the plants and as they come into bloom, how they bring color into the area. And again, this is in front of the police, excuse me, the fire station. So couldn't end the presentation without a photo of Lauren. So again, we've really enjoyed working with Adam and Lauren and the DPW staff and really appreciate being given this opportunity to work on both the medians and these other beautification projects and continue to look forward to that partnership. So thank you very much for your time this evening. |
| 04:14:05.60 | Joan Cox | Thank you, Faith. Thank you. Do we have any... Questions. |
| 04:14:13.01 | Joan Cox | Please. |
| 04:14:14.02 | Joe Burns | So, Lauren, I think the plans look great, but I know there are citizens that are concerned about the trees, cutting the trees. Can you? Instead of cutting all the trees in a medium, can you- cycle in some new trees and leave some of the more mature trees. I mean, I know that's an ongoing concern. |
| 04:14:38.33 | Lauren | The answer is yes. What we did as part of the Cuesta report If you go back to that and take a look, they evaluated the health of those trees. So if you're not familiar with some of the details of the medians, What happened is that the meetings were added later. So the trees are actually the medians are actually set upon the roadway. And where the trees were planted, they basically dug a hole through the asphalt and then planted a sycamore there. So the general depth of most of the soil in many of those meetings is only about 12 inches, maybe some degree. And then the trees are supposed to survive through this little opening cut through the roadway. And so that's why they don't look very well. They're not the right tree for that location, and they don't have the right conditions to thrive. And then as you get down towards the harbor areas, you're starting to go into areas that might have tidal conditions in the soil. So they really aren't very healthy if you take a real good look at those sycamores versus other sycamores. Now, there are a couple that are. And what we did when we first, if you remember, we took out a number of them through the agapantha median, which I expected to be much more controversial, but it really made that stretch of roadway look really good because you could see out towards the water. And we got a lot of compliments on that. What we did do at that time is we did leave a few of the trees that we felt were healthy that could be, that looked like they were going to thrive a little bit more. |
| 04:15:54.44 | Christy Williamson | which, |
| 04:16:14.59 | Lauren | What we have now in the two meetings that we're focusing on today are about Now we're taking a look. Four are probably going to come out that we just don't think are doing great. The other ones are going to remain. So we have four that are listed right now that we're planning on removing. And they were in that picture. And you'll see that they're surrounded by two other ones 8 inch 12 inch trunks and then there are these 4 together that have maybe a 3 inch trunk so we'll probably remove those but that's kind of what our goal is. Now going further on the other mediums, I think that there's some discussion to be what can we do and what kind of trees would be appropriate for those locations. |
| 04:16:52.37 | Faye Mark | I just want to make a clarification. The photo that I gave you is for median six, which is not median three or four. That's going to be privately funded. Okay. Yeah. |
| 04:17:04.49 | Lauren | Yeah, so I'll add to that. So median six is the median that is located in front of sailors, and that is another median. It's a short median. It has a bunch of shrubs that are in front of that. When we started taking a look at the medians, that was one of the ones that we want to look at because it has shrubs in there, and we can remove and replace shrubs to kind of keep that same thought. That is going to be hopefully on a future project that we're going to try to get together and put together and try to raise some public funds for to see what we can do in that particular median. The other goal for the medians in kind of a longer term is we want to move away from turf medians. So we want to get rid of the grass and put either hardscape or some drought tolerant plants, native plants, but get away from just watering grass. So where you have the median that enters into town, we have some ash, and I believe we have some sycamore in there. There's no plan on removing those trees. They're doing actually pretty well, but we do want to move away from the turf medians. When you get closer here to Napa, same thing. We have a grass median. With trees. We're not looking right now at removing any of those trees. We're just trying to get rid of the grass, you know, typically not a good use of water resources. |
| 04:18:15.67 | Joan Cox | but, |
| 04:18:16.23 | Joan Cox | I'm not sure. One of the great slides was the entrance to Sausalito as you're traveling north. I Sorry, if you're traveling south. Coming into the south. |
| 04:18:28.34 | Unknown | Coming into the south. That's correct. |
| 04:18:30.20 | Joan Cox | However, the What is going to be done with the entrance to Sausalito if you exit Marin City traveling north? that someone Thank you. Thank you. |
| 04:18:42.53 | Joan Cox | . |
| 04:18:42.82 | Joan Cox | No, no, I'm talking about the tunnel. Someone was killed in that tunnel six years ago. Right. It remains unlit. It remains full of graffiti. |
| 04:18:42.87 | Joan Cox | No, no. |
| 04:18:49.27 | Joan Cox | Right. |
| 04:18:53.81 | Joan Cox | So I know that Sausalito Beautiful is working with Sonia Hanson and other community leaders to address that issue, but I'd be interested to know. |
| 04:18:54.72 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 04:18:54.73 | Joe Burns | So- |
| 04:18:55.90 | Christy Williamson | Thank you. |
| 04:19:03.61 | Lauren | Sure. What the timing is. There's a lot of history, and I suspect that Adam might be able to add to this. My understanding is, well, let me first start off with that as you're driving north on Bridgeway along the eastern side, Department of Public Works through a subcontractor has added a whole bunch of new star jasmine and a whole bunch of mulch just along that right-hand side. So we're trying to improve the look for the people who are leaving town. |
| 04:19:04.08 | Joan Cox | what the timing is. |
| 04:19:27.08 | Lauren | There is, I believe, some anticipated work that's going to happen with the whole Gate 6 intersection, which Jonathan will probably be able to give more information on that. Now, turning left and taking that walkway and going into Marin City. There are a number of jurisdictional challenges and there have been a number of people who have tried to put something together. Murals, planting, maintenance agreements, but because there are |
| 04:19:47.08 | Christy Williamson | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 04:19:53.59 | Lauren | There is the county who says that it's the responsibility of Caltrans to maintain. Caltrans says no, it's the responsibility of the county to maintain. And somewhere our property line is in there and it tends to move, it seems like, depending upon who's asking for something to be done. So there have been a lot of people who have really wanted to work on that. and haven't been successful doing it. We, Department of Public Works, in conjunction with Caltrans finally said, we need to go and clean up the dead vegetation that's hanging on that wall And we went out there, I think, six months ago or eight months ago, and we did a significant cleaning job. There was some other mysterious individual who showed up a day before we did and did a little cleaning, too. But we cleaned that up to make it look a little bit better. But it's just a jurisdictional challenge. We, the Department of Public Works, can't spend public funds to maintain something that isn't the city's property. So we have that challenge. We have a desire to help, and we have a desire to assist. |
| 04:20:27.85 | Christy Williamson | I THINK. |
| 04:20:53.89 | Lauren | But it's a challenge. It's about as clear as I can make it. |
| 04:21:01.43 | Joan Cox | Any other questions of Lauren or Fay? Okay. Public comment. Does anybody want to... also say anything else. |
| 04:21:13.72 | John Hogue | We don't want to wake you up now at the same time. |
| 04:21:19.64 | Vicki Nichols | Vicki Nichols, I want to first of all compliment Sausalito Beautiful I've talked with Shelby recently a little bit about Caledonia Street improvements, but What I would love to see and I wonder if anybody else in the community We always see these things after they happen. I haven't seen any sort of conceptual plans. I'm hearing just maybe some rocks here and some hardscape. I think we really, as a... City should be moving towards native plants. That cuts down on water. I don't like the idea of putting in hardscape, particularly what you see that they put in in Tiburon. It's very harsh, personally. But I don't know what's being proposed. I heard rocks, but no design. And I also wonder, too, with the improvements that SWA talked about doing at City Hall, we've just totally remodeled Robin Sweeney Park, so I hope that landscaping holds up and that anything that they had done prior to the planning for that is not needed now because I think the park looks pretty nice, so. |
| 04:22:24.54 | Joan Cox | Thank you. Anybody else? No, in which case, any other questions? Please. |
| 04:22:38.53 | Unknown | I fall down. |
| 04:22:40.88 | Unknown | We have actually raised $10,000 for median six so far, and we are fairly confident that we can raise the rest so it'll all be privately funded, and that'll be South Little Beautiful driven. So just wanted you to understand that we're doing our part in terms of funding. THANK YOU. |
| 04:22:58.71 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 04:22:58.92 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 04:22:59.86 | Joan Cox | Thank you, shall we? |
| 04:23:01.09 | Lauren | If I may, to comment to Vicki's questions, to Rob and Sweeney Park and to the work that's going to take place here, the intention for SWA is really to be a complement to what has already been done. So all the landscaping and the work that's been done down there, that's going to be not part of SWA's work. They're going to be focusing on the areas that were not improved, so they're going to be expanding that. And that's really going to be right around the perimeter of the building on this side up here. So that's one answer to that. With regard to the medians, what we've been working with Tom is kind of a number of plants that we want to purchase and place. And we don't have really a conceptual plan because it's really just we're throwing a lot of effort at going in at what's existing and making it kind of look the way it probably did when it got first started. We're not changing the concept. A lot of the plants that are in there were placed there back in the 80s because they were water drought tolerant plants to begin with. They're native species. So we're really going along with many of the same types of plants. and where some of the plants don't make any sense because they're either difficult to maintain or after a period of time they just start to... along with many of the same types of plants. And where some of the plants don't make any sense because they're either difficult to maintain or after a period of time they just start to look poor, we're looking at some other alternatives. But essentially, those two medians are not going to change dramatically in their appearance, which is why we're not going for a whole review of that. It's really just kind of an enhanced maintenance project, and it's going to cost a lot of money to get in there and really do it right. So for median six, what we're doing is we're going to do a review of that. It's really just kind of an enhanced maintenance project, and it's going to cost a lot of money to get in there and really do it right. So for median six, what we've asked Tom Wilhite to do is to spend a little bit more time and effort on putting together a drawing, because it's, one, hard to raise money when you can't show somebody what's going to be placed there, but also it may dramatically change, or it may not dramatically change the look of that median. So for something like that, we want to make sure that we get some community input by still trying to keep everything consistent with what the intent was. But that's what's going on in that particular meeting. That's the discussions that we've had up to date. |
| 04:25:03.05 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 04:25:03.25 | Joan Cox | We can't hear you. |
| 04:25:04.18 | Joan Cox | Thank you. Thank you. Thanks, Lauren. Okay, let's bring this up here. We need a resolution. Comments and a resolution. |
| 04:25:11.79 | Joan Cox | I have one comment, which is for the future. What we're being asked to do tonight is approve a contract with SWA, who has already done extensive work on this project as a volunteer for the city. Because of updated rules and rulings regarding Government Code 1090, that can be problematic. So if in the future we plan to take such an action where we're hiring without competition a consultant who has already done significant work for the city I would like to see a 1090 analysis in our staff report this is a $55,000 expenditure so I don't have an issue with this with that small of an expenditure but I want our staff to be aware of the evolution of that issue Thank you. |
| 04:26:00.10 | Joe Burns | And with that, |
| 04:26:00.95 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 04:26:02.80 | Joe Burns | I agree, I had the exact same concern. And we didn't talk about it. We didn't. We didn't talk about it. But thank you to Sauslio Plus, I mean Sauslio Beautiful. I love the partnerships from our very well qualified citizens. |
| 04:26:06.19 | Joan Cox | We didn't. |
| 04:26:08.39 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 04:26:08.67 | Christy Williamson | Thank you. |
| 04:26:12.24 | Unknown | Oh. |
| 04:26:20.33 | Joe Burns | And you guys do such a tremendous job. Sassily, beautiful. Thank you so much for all your hard work. |
| 04:26:24.44 | Mary Wagner | I know. |
| 04:26:24.50 | Joan Cox | THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 04:26:24.77 | Mary Wagner | I'm sorry. |
| 04:26:25.30 | Joe Burns | Thank you. Yeah, you're hired. |
| 04:26:25.52 | Joan Cox | Yeah. Yeah, I agree. We are so fortunate. Sausalito Beautiful is just one example of our very talented resident pool who are not only talented, but have the spirit to volunteer their efforts. |
| 04:26:39.71 | Joan Cox | Well, I agree with all that. Can we have a resolution? |
| 04:26:47.10 | Unknown | Do you? |
| 04:26:48.95 | Joan Cox | All right. Okay. |
| 04:26:50.42 | Harrison Bierstecker | I want a movement. |
| 04:26:50.93 | Joan Cox | All right, I move to adopt a resolution of the City Council of the City of Sausalito, approving and authorizing the City Manager to execute a professional services agreement with SWA Sausalito for design services and construction administration for the Civic Center Landscape Improvement Project. Second. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? That motion carries 5-0. |
| 04:27:12.16 | John Hogue | Bye. |
| 04:27:12.17 | Joan Cox | I. |
| 04:27:16.19 | Joan Cox | Let's go. Thank you, and thank you very much. |
| 04:27:19.82 | John Hogue | THEIR OWNERS. |
| 04:27:21.39 | Joan Cox | 10. |
| 04:27:21.74 | John Hogue | I, |
| 04:27:21.96 | Joan Cox | Okay. No, we got a quicker one coming. |
| 04:27:26.43 | Joan Cox | . Did you hear that challenge, Danny? |
| 04:27:29.20 | Joan Cox | Okay. Leon, sorry it's quarter to midnight. |
| 04:27:35.33 | Unknown | No, actually, it was a number of people who were going Thank you. |
| 04:27:39.56 | Joan Cox | There you go. |
| 04:27:40.66 | Unknown | that. |
| 04:27:40.96 | Joan Cox | Okay. |
| 04:27:42.53 | Unknown | Yeah. We're actually in |
| 04:27:45.28 | Joan Cox | Item 5A is to adopt a resolution to approve an amendment to the general planned land use designation and zoning district designation of the Lincoln Butte property located at Butte Street and Lower Anchorage Road, Danny Castor, Community Development Director. |
| 04:28:10.28 | John Hogue | You have 30 seconds. Thank you. |
| 04:28:13.75 | Erica Galvin | Thank you. |
| 04:28:13.75 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 04:28:13.77 | Joe Burns | Yes, we've read the report. |
| 04:28:13.79 | Erica Galvin | Yes, we've read the report. |
| 04:28:15.39 | Chad Carvey | Thank you. |
| 04:28:18.73 | Joe Burns | Thank you. |
| 04:28:18.75 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 04:28:18.76 | Joe Burns | you |
| 04:28:18.93 | Joan Cox | Do you want me to make a motion? Yeah. |
| 04:28:20.92 | Chad Carvey | Thank you. |
| 04:28:20.94 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 04:28:20.96 | Chad Carvey | He can get a campaign if he wants. |
| 04:28:23.18 | Joan Cox | Well, Leon probably wants to comment. |
| 04:28:24.99 | Danny Castro | Thank you. Thank you, Mayor Withey, members of the Council. Let me try to be brief here. So before you is a recommendation to adopt a resolution concerning the Lincoln Butte parcel to amend the general plan land use designation. for this parcel from the current designation as medium density residential, to open space and to amend the current zoning designation of the parcel from R2-5 to open space. Here's an aerial image of the site. Another aerial image defining the parcel. And here is the parcel and an assessor parcel map showing that it's a little over two acres in size. Here's a map showing in 1950 that the designation was multifamily residential. Here is a diagram that represents the recent actions and the steps that were taken by the City Council and the Planning Commission. In July of last year, the council approved a resolution authorizing the conveyance of the Lincoln Butte property to Open Space Sausalito. And the execution of an Open Space Conveyance Agreement with conservation easement on the property. Open Space Sausalito is a resident led nonprofit that was organized to buy and preserve the Lincoln Butte parcel to protect it from development. In September of 2016, the Planning Commission approved a resolution finding that the proposed conveyance of the Lincoln Butte property for conservation purposes is in conformance and that is consistent with the general plan. And then on February of this year, the Planning Commission held a public hearing and approved a resolution recommending that the council adopt a resolution. uh amending the general plan and the zoning Here is a aerial that defines the open space. The change to the general plan designation and the zoning conserves undeveloped open space in Sausalito in perpetuity. The undeveloped open space on the east side of the highway 101, consists of approximately 51 acres of undeveloped land, The Lincoln Butte parcel is located at that northern most boundary of open space. And it stretches to Cypress Ridge to the south. A designated open space preserve of approximately 12 acres owned and maintained by the city. The site is unique in that it has an accessible freshwater creek located on the north edge of the parcel and is listed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as a wetland resource. It is only one of two sources of water in Sausalito. There are other seasonal creeks and springs, but were diverted to underground into culverts. The spring fed creek is accessed daily by wildlife in the area, including black-tailed deer, coyotes, bobcats, foxes, dusky-footed wood rat bats, and many other species. This is cited in the report on the value of the Lincoln Butte parcel to remain as open space, prepared in April 2016 and prepared on behalf of OSS, Open Space Sausalito. The conservation easement that I believe I referred to, the purpose of the easement is to protect the open space, the value of the property, preserve opportunities for habitat connectivity, increase open space and habitat buffer, maintain the wild and relatively undeveloped condition of the property, and to protect the continued natural use of the property by wildlife. Here's the general plan land use currently. |
| 04:32:33.98 | Danny Castro | Again, with the current current land use objectives, here is the proposed land use of open space. |
| 04:32:49.83 | Danny Castro | Here's the zoning district. Again, it's R25. This is the R25 zoning standards. And then again, the proposed is to change the zoning to open space. |
| 04:33:09.76 | Danny Castro | In terms of open space, it ensures, again, that it's open space conservation use, consistent with both general plan land use for the site, The conservation easement was recorded against the property, restricts and recorded against the property, and again, it preserves the site as undeveloped open space for wildlife habitat with the stated purpose of these that you see, A through E. |
| 04:33:43.07 | Danny Castro | In order to make consistency with the general plan, it must be of the public interest. And these public interest consistency items are listed here. Preservation of open space, conformance with the council and planning commission authorization, very recently, fiscally conservative and habitat preservation. And for zoning consistency with the general plan, these are the policies that were identified that match with the general plan. For public comment period, there was a notice sent out within a 300 foot radius, including open space Sausalito, Marin Open Space Trust, and the Water District, and no comments were received. So, tonight's recommendation. is to adopt the resolution to approve an amendment to the general plan land use designation for the Lincoln Butte property for the medium density residential to open space, and an amendment to the zoning designation of the same property from R25 to open space. Your other options are to deny and your other options are to continue. |
| 04:34:56.51 | Joan Cox | Thank you, Danny. This is the end of a long process of this property. So is there any questions anybody needs to ask? |
| 04:35:05.79 | Joan Cox | I need to make one point of order, which is I did I was on the Planning Commission when it made its decision in September of 2016 that had to do with the consistency with the general plan, but I was not on the Planning Commission. when it made the recommendation to the city council that we are voting on tonight. And so I see no need to recuse myself from this decision. Thank you. uh, |
| 04:35:31.32 | Joan Cox | Any questions? |
| 04:35:32.18 | Joan Cox | One question is, Danny, this property was already removed by the city from the housing element inventory of potential developable housing units. Isn't that correct? Vice Mayor Cox, that's correct. |
| 04:35:47.64 | Danny Castro | Thank you. So there is no conflict in terms of housing element |
| 04:35:47.93 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 04:35:51.32 | Danny Castro | Thank you. |
| 04:35:53.36 | Joan Cox | Anybody else? Is there any member of the public who'd like to comment on this? |
| 04:35:59.18 | John Hogue | Thank you. |
| 04:35:59.33 | Unknown | The President. |
| 04:36:01.04 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 04:36:01.43 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 04:36:01.44 | Unknown | Please. Had enough, Leon? |
| 04:36:01.58 | Joan Cox | Yeah. |
| 04:36:01.75 | John Hogue | Thank you. |
| 04:36:01.80 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 04:36:04.53 | Unknown | Thank you. Thank you. I just wanted to bring you up to date. |
| 04:36:05.75 | John Hogue | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 04:36:11.84 | Unknown | project active In the sense of a survey, we're going to have a survey done for our boundary lines. That was part of what we needed for the conservation easement also. But we'll probably start sometime this month with that. |
| 04:36:26.01 | Christy Williamson | months. |
| 04:36:27.33 | Unknown | Thank you. Caltrans is going to do a small portion and we have contracted with another person who is very familiar with that area so that will be done and we'll keep you posted. Thank you again. Thank you. Leon, thank you for all your efforts. |
| 04:36:41.52 | Joan Cox | Thank you. Thank you. Anybody else want to? Okay, I'll close the public hearing, bring it up here. And Should we move for? |
| 04:36:53.97 | Unknown | I'll see you next time. |
| 04:36:54.03 | Harrison Bierstecker | move. I move that we adopt the resolution to approve an amendment to the general plan land use designation for the Lincoln Butte property from medium density residential to open space. And an amendment to the zoning district designation of the same property from R25, two family residential, to open space. |
| 04:37:13.60 | Joan Cox | SECOND. |
| 04:37:14.68 | Unknown | Ooh, young Quay. |
| 04:37:15.81 | Harrison Bierstecker | Thank you. |
| 04:37:15.96 | Joan Cox | All in favor. |
| 04:37:16.20 | Joan Cox | Thank you. Aye. |
| 04:37:17.43 | Joan Cox | Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries 5-0. So I think that's the end of a very long road, so well done, Leon. Congratulations to everybody involved. Okay. Item number seven is a combination of city manager reports, council member reports, etc. Is there any public comment on item 7B through 7F? Seeing none. City Manager. Information for Council. |
| 04:37:52.92 | Unknown | I'll defer, and if there's any questions from the city council, I'd be happy to respond. Bless you. |
| 04:37:58.25 | Unknown | if you're not. |
| 04:37:58.88 | Joan Cox | Okay, thank you. Council member committee reports. I have two things to say. We have a finance committee tomorrow and we haven't met for a while, so that would be lots of fun. And in terms of the various outside things I'm on, I will be more appropriate to report next time as we've got a meeting this weekend and next week. I would alert the community and this council to litigation that hasn't yet been killed in Sacramento, which is SB 35. is uh sb35 the author of that is weiner actually um and uh so yeah and uh this is probably one of the i believe the most dangerous pieces of legislation with respect to local control it will basically strip each jurisdiction of their local land use authority when it comes to building multiple apartment buildings. So this is a very serious piece of legislation. |
| 04:39:13.45 | John Hogue | I need no relationship to me. |
| 04:39:15.19 | Joan Cox | So that's all I've got on committee reports. Anybody got anything? No? All right. Moving on. Appointments to boards and commissions and committees. We are in the process of interviewing, seeing some excellent candidates for our Parks and Recs Commission, and we'll be making those appointments at a future date. Future event, anybody else? Anything on... Future agenda items. We have a list in the package, some of those that you've mentioned before. We either have internal meetings coming up, I'm thinking of the machine shop, others, and that will get up to the City Council appropriately. Does anybody have anything to say on future agenda items? Assuming there's no other reports of significance, I am adjourning tonight's meeting. |
| 04:40:05.34 | Unknown | Happy trails. |
| 04:40:07.97 | Unknown | . |
| 04:40:09.37 | Joan Cox | And it's... |
Chad Carvey — Against: Anchor-out expressing frustration about item scheduled at 10 PM, feeling marginalized, and requesting inclusion in city processes. Stated anchor-outs are not polluting and have low environmental impact. ▶ 📄
Vince Majora — Neutral: Complained about dinghies blocking both sides of the launch ramp making it unusable, and requested porta potties due to human waste problems below Bridgeway. ▶ 📄
Jeffrey Chase — Neutral: Gave a religious allegory about census and golden calf from Torah, implying warnings about fairness and worship of gold/money in city decisions. ▶ 📄
Kevin Kiefer — Against: Anchor-out echoing launch ramp and porta potty issues. Accused city of misusing tidelands revenues and illegal redistricting, calling the evening's maneuver illegal. ▶ 📄
John Burke — Against: Questioned if council has license to mediate maritime admiralty law, asserted federal jurisdiction over waters, and warned council is overstepping authority. ▶ 📄
Douglas Crandall — Neutral: Mariner requesting fair shore access without hassle, stating he works hard for the city and just wants to live and work on his boat peacefully. ▶ 📄
Alden Bevington — Neutral: Asked city to review whether marinas are meeting public access obligations under their public trust leases to ensure rules are not discriminatory. ▶ 📄
Scott Wilmore — In Favor: New resident commended Sausalito's historical efforts for affordable housing (houseboats, Galilee Harbor) and encouraged council to find workable solutions for anchor-outs, not just police enforcement. ▶ 📄
Douglas Storms — Neutral: Requested that important waterfront items be scheduled earlier in future meetings (like March 28) for accessibility, especially for those needing to return to boats. ▶ 📄
Unknown (Stephanie?) — Neutral: Spoke about community unity, noted federal laws ensure public coastal access, emphasized Sausalito's boat-building and artistic history, and urged collaborative solutions. ▶ 📄