| Time | Speaker | Text |
|---|---|---|
| 00:00:04.86 | Unknown | Okay, welcome to the Sausalito City Council meeting of Tuesday, March 28th. Debbie, would you call the roll, please? |
| 00:00:20.48 | Unknown | Timmy's right here. Council Member Burns. |
| 00:00:22.83 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:00:22.85 | Joe Burns | Here. |
| 00:00:23.23 | Unknown | Thank you. Councilmember Weiner. |
| 00:00:24.60 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:00:24.62 | Joe Burns | THE PRESIDENT. |
| 00:00:25.09 | Unknown | Councilmember Hoffman? Present. Vice Mayor Cox? Here. And Mayor Withee. |
| 00:00:29.87 | Unknown | here. Item number D1 will be discussed in closed session. This is conference with legal counsel, an existing litigation matter, Sausalito versus the Golden Gate Bridge Highway and Transportation District. Is there any member of the public who would like to comment on this closed session item? Seeing none, we will adjourn to closed session. |
| 00:01:24.73 | Unknown | Good evening. Welcome to the regular meeting of the Sol Soledo City Council for Tuesday, March 28th. Debbie would you call the role for us please. |
| 00:01:38.26 | Unknown | Council member Burns. |
| 00:01:40.61 | Unknown | Present. Thank you. |
| 00:01:41.05 | Unknown | Councilmember Weiner. |
| 00:01:42.07 | Unknown | President. |
| 00:01:42.44 | Unknown | Councilmember Hoffman? Present. Vice Mayor Cox? Here. |
| 00:01:42.56 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:01:46.12 | Unknown | Mayor Withey. |
| 00:01:47.09 | Unknown | THE END OF THE END OF THE Okay, Ashley White, will you lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance tonight, please? |
| 00:01:55.73 | Joe Burns | We planned that. Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. |
| 00:01:59.17 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:01:59.24 | Unknown | Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. |
| 00:02:03.62 | Unknown | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 00:02:03.91 | Unknown | and to the Republic for which it stands |
| 00:02:04.92 | Unknown | THE END OF which is standing. |
| 00:02:07.10 | Unknown | one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. |
| 00:02:07.18 | Unknown | One. |
| 00:02:15.28 | Unknown | Thank you, Ashley. |
| 00:02:20.63 | Unknown | The council met in closed session to discuss a legal matter, an existing litigation, Sausalito versus Golden Gate Bridge Highway and Transportation District. Thank you. There are no announcements from this closed session. Is there any public comment on that closed session item? seeing none. We'll move on to item 3E, the approval of the agenda. Do I have a motion, please? |
| 00:02:48.87 | Joan Cox | So moved second. Thank you. |
| 00:02:50.82 | Unknown | All in favor. All right. |
| 00:02:52.17 | Joan Cox | Aye. Thank you. |
| 00:02:55.73 | Unknown | There are no special presentations or mayor's announcements tonight, so we move on to agenda item two, which is communications. And this is the time for the City Council to hear from citizens regarding matters that are not on the agenda. As you know, except for in very limited situations, state law precludes the Council from taking action or engaging in discussions concerning items of business that are not on the agenda. So is there any member of the public who would like to address the Council on any matter that's not on the agenda? Okay, seeing none, move on to item number three, action minutes of the previous meetings. We have the minutes of the regular City Council meeting of March 14th, 2017. Does anybody have any changes or corrections? If not, could we have a motion to approve it? So moved. second. All in favor. |
| 00:03:57.07 | Joan Cox | Aye. |
| 00:03:57.23 | Unknown | Aye. That motion carries. The consent calendar, item number four. Um, matters listed under the consent calendar are considered routine and non-controversial, require no discussion, and are expected to have unanimous council support, and may be enacted by the council in one motion in the form listed below. Um, is there any public comment on any item on the consent calendar? Yes. Seeing none, is there any comments, questions, discussions on any item of this consent calendar and Council Member Hoffman, you believe you will recuse yourself on item J... |
| 00:04:42.50 | Unknown | you're not. |
| 00:04:42.55 | Jill Hoffman | Yes. |
| 00:04:46.92 | Jill Hoffman | That's correct item J is a receiving file status update on the 27th 2017 streets project. I believe my streets on one of those very very small numerous charts So yes, I will Other than that I will recuse myself for that item. Okay, and |
| 00:05:04.29 | Unknown | Okay, any other comments on the consent calendar? If not, could we have a motion to approve the consent calendar? |
| 00:05:11.51 | Joan Cox | I move to approve items A through B. I, and K of the consent calendar. |
| 00:05:21.75 | Unknown | Okay. Thank you. We've got a second. All those in favor with the understanding that item J, Councilmember Hoffman will abstain. |
| 00:05:31.73 | Joan Cox | No I only moved on items a through I and can we got to go I did not include Jay in my motion. |
| 00:05:32.67 | Unknown | Thank you. And we got to go back to that. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. sleep at the wheel here. So, uh, With that, all in favor? Aye. Any opposed? No, that carries. |
| 00:05:46.75 | Joan Cox | Aye. Move approval of consent item J. |
| 00:05:52.14 | Unknown | Second. All in favor? Aye. |
| 00:05:56.18 | Joan Cox | Bye. |
| 00:05:56.80 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. I abstain. |
| 00:05:58.36 | Unknown | Councillor Hoffman abstains. Okay, thank you. Item five, public hearings. There are none this evening. And so we move on to our business items for this evening. And the first business item is item 6A, strategic plan and financial year 20... 76, no, item 2016 to 18 budget process. We seem to have had a little time warp in our agenda, but there we go. |
| 00:06:44.93 | Joan Cox | We are 25 minutes ahead of time. |
| 00:06:47.43 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:06:50.84 | Melanie Purcell | Thank you. |
| 00:06:50.89 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 00:06:57.05 | Melanie Purcell | So far ahead of schedule, I had to stop and think for a minute. Good evening, Melanie Purcell, Administrative Services Director. It's my pleasure to kick off my favorite time of year, which is the budget season. So our strategic plan and 2017-18 budget process start officially actually a little while ago, but we want to get started and allow council to become part of the process and really understand where we're going and why we make the recommendations we do. So first things first, we want to talk about the strategic plan and where it fits and how this all fits together. The strategic plan is typically a two to ten year document. It is a living, breathing document in that it is updated at minimum every two years. So as you'll see a little bit later, we'll show you how it started its current iteration and format in 2014. The capital improvement plan is a rolling six-year document, and that builds on the infrastructure elements of the strategic plan as well as the organizational input and community input. But that is usually part of the budget process, but does it try to extend out for a minimum of six years. Often you'll see a 20-year timeline, and we'd like to build toward that. But we stick with the traditional six-year at this time. The strategic resources plan was also started in this format in 2014, the 2014-16 two-year strategic resources plan. By law in California, we can only adopt an annual budget. So you see the annual budget is the end product each year, but behind the scenes are these elements that build up to a successful budget that delivers on the goals and objectives that are outlined in the strategic plan emphasized in the commit capital improvement plan and then put forth in the strategic resources plan When we dropped the strategic resources plan when the city council adopts for example last year the council adopted a 2016-2018 two fiscal year strategic resources plan as part of that that included the fy 1617 budget Fiscal Year 16-17, starting July 1 of 2016, ending June 30 of 2017. That's year one, and that is the legally binding budget, the set of spending guidelines that the city staff adheres to, per state law. The second year is presented at the same time and more or less blessed by the council. It goes through the same scrutiny or much of the same scrutiny by the finance committee and the city council in preparation for the second year. While it is not legally binding at that time, it provides not just the skeleton but the bulk of the second year's annual budget. So as you see here, the 2014, the current format was set up. 2014-16 was the first year strategic resources plan. That's the biennial financial plan. The strategic plan was also adopted and that became the second year of the strategic resources plan. So we kind of rolled over the second year, became the binding budget. Last year, we started this 2016-18 strategic resources plan, and we updated the strategic plan. So you've got a lot of strategy going on here. But we purposely built on the existing strategic plan to bring it current with the activities that had already been accomplished. And to set forth any additions or changes in the direction of the city that the council had provided feedback. So in 2017, we'll be updating the strategic plan. And we will be building and adopting, you will be adopting, A second year of the strategic resources plan or the annual budget for 2017-18, beginning July 1 of 2017. The 2018-20 strategic resources plan is going to be an updated and refined but building heavily on our strategic plan that takes us the remainder of kind of the cycle. We want to build out and coincide with the primary focus of the strategic plan, which has been the general plan update. That will be ready in time for us to kick off the 2018-20. I'm not sure. I apologize, be able to talk about the 2018-20 and that end of that cycle will coincide with the completion of the general plan. So we would do one more update of the strategic plan in its current format. and build our foundation to head into a brand new strategic plan in 2020 alongside the general plan. questions? Not yet. So the good news is, is this is a little bit of a lighter year. for what's going to be asked of the city council and finance committee in terms of scrutinizing the expenses, the revenues, and the plan. A lot of that work was done last year. Everything obviously is on the table legally and by design. But it also gives you a chance to start building a foundation heading into this next cycle for next year's biennial strategic resources plan and the updated strategic plan. So we will be asking for quite a bit of effort come fall to build out that. This is actually stems from a presentation by Charlie Francis in 2014. I'm talking about the city's core values and how that those build. goals that create vision and goals that sustain the mission. UC planning is emphasized, community involvement, quality service levels, fiscal resiliency, and infrastructure management. Each of these then build back into the vision and the mission. and give us a safe, thriving, friendly community with an updated general plan. So the intent is that over all of these years, 2014-15 through 2019-20, we will be on time and as planned, completing a general plan and having accomplished many of the goals outlined. So include it in your budget book. budget book. that everybody was blessed with earlier this year. We have, toward the back of the book, you'll see some of the similar charts and graphs as well. If you look to page 125. Thank you. of page 156. There is the strategic plan as outlined. There's also detailed updates about the specific actions and objectives that are included in the budget and planned for the following biennial. The city established goal one of long range planning, The general plan being the fundamental piece of that. community engagement. which we actually have an update later on this evening on the website update. Good timing. Fiscal resiliency, we've talked a lot about how do we plan for changes in our pension contribution, how do we plan for infrastructure repair? How do we utilize a long term financial forecast tool accurately and effectively? Our investment in infrastructure, the city has spent record amounts in the last few years on streets, parks, sewer. And goal five is quality levels of service. We have an intensely high level of service and a very positive citizenry in terms of the support that they receive from their city organization. Mission statement of the city of Sausalito is that we serve those who live and work in the city by fostering new opportunities for improving the quality of life in its unique waterfront community. Sausalito will bring together its residents, commerce, and visitors to create a thriving, safe, friendly community that cultivates its natural beauty, history, the arts, and waterfront culture. Just looking at the agendas of the last year that I've been here, all of these elements come to play every single conversation. The city of Sausalito values its innovation, its creativity, its informed risk taking, honest and open government, creating an environment where people excel to their full potential. Professionalism, a sense of community, quality public service, and esprit de corps. Again, values that you see every single day in the interactions from city staff and city citizens. We all seem to work very hard, very well to accomplish amazing things. These are the goals that create this. We utilize long range comprehensive planning, including land use and transportation to balance the community's character and diversity with its evolving needs. The crux of this will be and is the general plan update. Bringing together all of the different elements to ensure that we are up to date. and looking at the community's character and its diversity and how these needs have evolved and will evolve going forward. We increase community involvement in city governance and decision making through communication and technology. The occurrence has exploded in usage and in popularity. Recently received feedback at a finance committee meeting from Keith Kennedy an active citizen who mentioned how highly praised the currents is by the emergency response community. That they found that it was the best in Marin. So that's a nice compliment to have, but it's just one piece of how the city reaches out and encourages interaction with its citizenry. We sustain the city's mission through the fiscal resiliency. improving and continuing to maintain infrastructure, One of the highlights, I think, of the last two biennial budgets is the intensive investment in infrastructure, particularly coming off some pretty difficult challenges financially. Continually assessing and delivering effective, efficient, and environmentally sustainable municipal services. As discussed at the last finance committee, everything is looked at thoroughly. And that's an important element to see in sustaining the city's future. I want to To go over just the general plan update, I've mentioned several times the Marinship specific plan update is called out in goal one. The decision and recommendation was to roll that into the general plan update. There's been ongoing evaluation of our historic resources. And as we'll discuss later on. the bicycle and pedestrian plan. How do we manage congestion, particularly in our high tourist season? And the increasing inflow of bicycles in downtown. And goal two. We've gathered community feedback through annual surveys. We actually utilize town hall technology to do ad hoc and spontaneous surveys. We also identify technology that can help to inform and engage citizens. I mentioned the currents. We're in the middle of a website update. Abbott Chambers will be presenting on that later. And are continually looking for ways to bring our citizens in touch. |
| 00:18:19.81 | Melanie Purcell | In fiscal resiliency, goal number three, we maintain an adequate level of highly competent motivated staff. We've had a very high level of turnover in this past year, which is both an opportunity to strengthen our skill set and our staff. fresh voices, fresh faces, but also opportunity for internal staff to grow. With maintaining an operating budget and structural balance, we do maintain a very strong financial position. And we'll continue to budget conservatively for revenues and expenditures. Developing and adopting a strategic long-term financial management plan has been mentioned by this council repeatedly, especially following Mr. Bartles. Bartell's presentation at the last meeting, the need to continually refine our forecast and look at how we balance in the long run. And creative and appropriate financing plans for our infrastructure investment. The issuance of the certificates, the participation is a very creative approach. Based on maximizing rental revenues out at one of our greatest assets, the Martin Luther King complex that has gone very successfully. And we're seeing the benefits in Robin Sweeney Park, Dunphy and Southview as well as at the MLK property. You will see the roofs going on several of the buildings during spring break and the remainder during the summer when school is out. So keep your eyes peeled. In goal four, we establish and maintain an asset management plan for all city infrastructure. This is an evolving process in trying to find the appropriate technology as well as the level of detail and intensity for managing our assets. The sewer infrastructure program, this has also been a highlight of several finance committee meetings and grapple with the sheer magnitude of need. in the sewer system and then where do we go from there? Objective 4.3 has been kind of tempered as we go forward, but the best part is we have partnered with Sausalito Beautiful to determine what we can do in remodeling the Civic Center and the library and allowing it to really be a gem and a show place for the community. We establish and maintain a certified local hazard mitigation plan that is actually an ongoing discussions. Our police department, particularly Mike McKinley, our new emergency management officer, Um, authorized as of July 1st has been working very hard to bring that to fruition and in partnering with the county wide efforts and We're working through or developing our service level indicators. There's been a great deal of conversation on what that should actually mean. And what makes the community say that they have received their value for the dollar spent in any particular program? We are in the process of implementing the track it software system for goal number five three and Online application process and tracking for all building planning engineering permits and plan review The go live date is tentatively set for February of 2018 though It is our expectation and ambition that we will be able to move that up some It is an incredibly intensive process that will benefit the community beyond belief. And the staff is very excited, despite the level of work, because we get to document everything we do and how it's done and look for ways to do it more efficiently and more effectively. |
| 00:21:58.91 | Melanie Purcell | 5.3 is actually a great example of 5.4 and looking for technology and continuing to look for ways that will improve our service levels. Currently updating the servers and routers, updating, obviously implementing TrackIt and updating the website and DocuWare were initiatives in this current fiscal year that have made huge strides toward helping. the organization run more efficiently. And we continue to update our departmental strategic operating and staffing plans, and those are identified more in detail in the budget book. |
| 00:22:32.88 | Melanie Purcell | So our budget process. In April, the Finance Committee will begin working on reviewing the revenue forecasts, the non-departmental, which is usually the external requests from other agencies, economic development, taking a careful look at our insurances and how those behave. The other funds will also be reviewed. That's sewer, parking, MLK, other. Those are actually very significant, about half the size. Almost equal to the general fund about half the size of the total budget. And then in May, we will start working on the department submissions. I have the OPEB pension strategy down here and the intent is to come recommend a policy to city council. between May and June. I've got April and May on there because that is actually when the finance committee will continue their conversations of what that policy is. should contain or look like. We've already started conversations about how to communicate the nature of the pension system and what that looks like, how that affects the city, as well as other issues that come into play. CIP. And then coming to city council in May and in June. The first meeting in June will be the formal presentation to council. of the total recommendation from the Finance Committee and the City Manager. and then adoption at the second meeting in June. And as always, a very happy fiscal new year on July 1st. April 5th and 19th are confirmed for our next Finance Committee meetings and we will let you know when the May meetings are confirmed. But once we get past our happy fiscal year celebration. This is what I refer to as our building blocks for next year and the next biennial. We will be coming to the council to talk about the strategic plan review and update. August and September through November. It says July there because we'll be starting with the finance committee and the staff. But we will be coming to council to talk about what that looks like, what should be included, what needs to be trimmed. And how that's going to play into building then the next biennial FY 18 to 20. um, strategic resources plan. So the capital plan will. overlap. and we will be getting into detail on both this six-year and potentially 20-year capital outlay. understanding that the first year is the only legally adopted but we try to get that plan so we know what's coming next. In an idea, we know that the parks will need some significant maintenance probably about the time the COPs are paid off. So what are we planning to do? And then we will be discussing with the departments and bringing to the city council. the goals that feed and support the strategic resource, the strategic plan update and the strategic resources plan. And then we'll be back this time next year to talk about the biennial budget. So any questions? |
| 00:25:31.02 | Unknown | Thank you very much, Melanie. We got a lot of work ahead. So questions from my colleagues who would like to begin? Vice Mayor. |
| 00:25:42.00 | Joan Cox | Two simple questions, I hope. What is the six-year term of the capital improvement plan? |
| 00:25:47.43 | Melanie Purcell | It is a rolling six years, so it always starts with the first year of the budget. It's always the first year. So, for example, this time it's FY 2016-17 through 2022. Okay. Let me see. |
| 00:26:02.99 | Joan Cox | I'm going to pull it up. |
| 00:26:07.08 | Joan Cox | So it's a six year capital improvement plan. It was adopted for 1617. So we're in year two. Thank you. |
| 00:26:14.05 | Melanie Purcell | We're actually in year one. This current year that we're standing in is fiscal year 16, 17. We always speak in three years. And if you're ever in doubt, please ask me to clarify which year I'm actually talking about. Because there's last year, this year, next year, and those change as the conversation goes. But if you want to go to page 113 in your budget book is when it outlays the capital improvement plan. |
| 00:26:18.65 | Joan Cox | school year 16, 17. |
| 00:26:41.48 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 00:26:41.50 | Melanie Purcell | Yeah. |
| 00:26:41.92 | Joan Cox | Yeah. You mentioned I'm not sure. a number of finance committee meetings in which you'll be looking at the pensions and the budget Are those open to the public and are they recorded so we can watch them online? |
| 00:26:58.31 | Melanie Purcell | They are not recorded, however, they are open to the public and we have some frequent attendees who have expressed interest and want to come. We've also had council members come. to attend those, the only stipulation obviously is per the Brown Act, any council members other than those on the finance committee are not allowed to speak during those meetings. The intent, as similar to last year, is that we would come forward frequently to the council so that we're bringing the city council along at the same pace. While the finance committee delves very deep into the details, we want to make sure that the council is familiar with all of the conversations that take place and certainly has the opportunity to meet with staff or get whatever information you need. |
| 00:27:44.62 | Unknown | Any other questions of Melanie? I'm not. |
| 00:27:48.98 | Joe Burns | Excuse me. Kind of procedural questions, but... I'M GOING TO BE LEADING. Thank you. When we're looking at the objective 3-3, the long term financial plan, that's the primary area we're looking at revenue growth potential, right? So that's like in April, May when we start applying to a long term strategic plan. |
| 00:28:21.08 | Melanie Purcell | In April, we'll start, we will be refining, actually starting now. Refining the revenue projections based on the information we get, for example, from the sales tax consultant, from the assessor. |
| 00:28:21.18 | Joe Burns | Revenue growth. |
| 00:28:31.21 | Melanie Purcell | we do tend to take a very conservative mindset toward that. But at the same time, we are projecting expenditures and conservative on the opposite side that we will always aim a little high on the expense side just to make sure that we cover. Given the significant impact |
| 00:28:39.22 | Joan Cox | and |
| 00:28:47.49 | Melanie Purcell | infrastructure needs and given the significant potential for the pension contributions to affect us, that's going to be a critical conversation. So that takes place in April, May. Again, this is a rolling long-term financial forecast, so it's updated annually. And things like this year has been, we are restructuring it. |
| 00:28:52.28 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:28:52.30 | Unknown | Right. |
| 00:29:06.41 | Joe Burns | Okay, so you're kind of good at that leading question thing too, because you kind of jumped to where I was headed. Last meeting we heard on the pension spike that kind of looks like Mount Tam, you know the way it goes up and If we put an infrastructure graph over that, I have a feeling it almost looks the same way. So within this long-term strategy, we have some serious expense growth coming up. And our revenue growth is often fees and rates and those types of things that in April, May, we're going to look at how those two work together. If we get to the point of having to really grow a revenue stream, say, outside of hikes and changes, but really look at. growing a revenue platform, how does that come to you? What would, does that, would you come back to us and say, you know, in 2028 or 2026, We are looking at the need for this type of revenue that hikes and retail games just aren't going to match given the current projections |
| 00:30:16.64 | Melanie Purcell | There's two ways that I want to bring into this. One, the master fee schedule is not referred too much in here, but we're in the process of the second phase of the update. It's not going to be a massive structural change in fiscal income. However, it's part of that revenue review every year is, do we have something that we've left on the table? Is there something that we are now subsidizing by tax dollars or some other fashion that should not be or is a policy decision? We don't like it that way. When we start getting into the financial forecast and we decide, say, 2030 or 2028, whatever, that there's a stretch we don't think we can weather, based on the numbers today, without significant change, that's going to be the time for a dialogue. Um, Part of my job is to brainstorm and figure out any options that I can bring to the council to determine your, your taste for. You know, are we, able to grow our revenue, because there are very significant state laws that restrict our ability to do that. |
| 00:31:20.33 | Unknown | Mm-hmm. |
| 00:31:20.43 | Melanie Purcell | Thank you. But also, are there- Operation changes, I mean a very significant one was having the fire service merge into the consolidation, the fire consolidation into Southern Marine Fire. That was a structural operating change that greatly affected the city's capacity to move forward. Do I foresee that right this minute? I'm not going there. I don't have those kind of numbers to make that kind of forecast. I will, the conversation will start with the finance committee about this is where I see concern. And this is why I see concern based on these assumptions. Here are some thoughts I have about where we can go and what we can explore, what do you think? And that's also a conversation that I bring to the city council. We want to be anticipating. We absolutely do not want to come up and say, oh, guess what, it's going to really stink this year. I'm. We've got to do this, we've got to do that, because then that really removes options. And so the idea is to anticipate as far in advance. Obviously, many of the revenue streams require several years to get through that process. you know, to alter our sewer fund structure. whether it be through a joint agreement with somebody or whatever. That's a multi- five plus two year process. So the idea will be to highlight those and identify them as fast as possible. Thank you. |
| 00:32:42.44 | Joan Cox | Can I follow onto that? |
| 00:32:44.06 | Joe Burns | Yeah, please, and I still want to make a comment. |
| 00:32:45.01 | Joan Cox | Yeah, so you're saying that we'll look at 2026 in 2026, but I thought Joe's question was, okay, then I'm misunderstanding you. Because are we looking, what you showed us on the PowerPoint is not, we're not looking at 2026 today. |
| 00:32:52.90 | Joe Burns | Thank you. |
| 00:32:52.92 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 00:32:53.17 | Joe Burns | Thank you. |
| 00:33:03.38 | Joan Cox | THE FAMILY. |
| 00:33:03.55 | Melanie Purcell | But should we be? We will do the forecast. Excuse me? We will do the forecast to begin that conversation. It doesn't automatically fold into |
| 00:33:03.59 | Joan Cox | But should we be... |
| 00:33:11.53 | Melanie Purcell | the strategic resources plan cycle. It is part of the budget process. In my mind, you automatically are updating your financial forecast. Because of the timeframe that it may take to address it, We start talking about it now. |
| 00:33:24.09 | Joan Cox | Thank you. So in what we're doing now, we're looking ahead ten years. |
| 00:33:28.00 | Melanie Purcell | At minimum. Thank you. |
| 00:33:28.90 | Joan Cox | Okay. That was not clear to me from the presentation. |
| 00:33:32.31 | Joe Burns | Where I was leading is, I THINK. You and your predecessor have done a great job in managing the beans. I think we're coming to a point where we're just going to need more beans. And I don't know if that falls into your, I mean, it does, but, you know, I think with a general plan update coming and a seated council and all these things, I think we have to become very aggressive in looking at that big mountain that we have to climb in the mid-2020s of serious expenditure growth that's not going to be accomplished that I can see. And I'd love to be wrong that master fee increases or... financial movement of money is going to overcome it's going to need a complete I think redirection in some of the ways we generate revenue. outside of our current scope. |
| 00:34:22.24 | Melanie Purcell | I think that's... To kind of pull this together for both of you, when we talk about the strategic plan, one of the fundamental elements is this fiscal resiliency. And that's where we have to say, okay, what are the strategies that now we bring into these objectives? And are there specific ones that come to light or don't come to light? And more than just, we need to research, because that is pushing it away. We need to have a plan with the next number of times. We would come back to, and frankly, it is a dialogue. This isn't a one-sided conversation because you are the policymakers. And there's things that you're going to like, and there's things that you're not going to like. I'm not sure. Any type of drastic shift to the system, particularly on revenues that affect residents, is going to be very uncomfortable. And as a group and a body, that decision is yours. Now, my job in working with all of the staff is to ensure that you are fully informed on the ramifications and... consequences of any decision you make. what it looks like, legally, financially, that kind of thing. Again, it is a dialogue, it's part and parcel of the budget process in establishing a new, you know, the rolling financial forecast. It's also building into that strategic plan update, are there specific actions we need to take now? or at least begin to figure out if we can take or want to take. You know, it's not uncommon when you do a master fee schedule update in building and community development type fees for people to decide, you know, we don't want 100% cost recovery because that's too high a burden and we'll squelch development. |
| 00:35:53.32 | Unknown | Mm-hmm. |
| 00:35:53.87 | Melanie Purcell | Some communities will make that decision. Others will say, we want 100% cost recovery. Taxpayers are not going to subsidize anything. That's a policy conversation that really is part and part of that hard work in the fall. |
| 00:36:04.81 | Unknown | Mm-hmm. |
| 00:36:05.26 | Melanie Purcell | We'll start it now because it's a good time to have that conversation. I mean, there's never a bad time to have that conversation. But we want to have that dialogue very intensely and specifically prior to starting the next biennial. We are fortunate that we do not anticipate any major pinch. one way or the other in this fiscal year. but we definitely want to be anticipating. Because we do know that pinch is coming. |
| 00:36:27.42 | Joe Burns | And I, Yeah, and I think that's, I'm speaking more to other issues, and I don't want to get off our current agenda item, which is this budget and this strategic plan, but I think that I'm kind of throwing it out there to challenge the other components of our general plan update that we keep in mind as we go forth that we do have some years ahead that are going to require thinking outside of the box on revenue growth. And if you can start to provide that insight in April, May for us on a 10 year plan, I think it becomes more clear that we're going to have to include some of that terminology when we talk about the land use and transportation options what they're trying to accomplish. |
| 00:37:06.20 | Unknown | you |
| 00:37:06.23 | Unknown | Okay. |
| 00:37:06.76 | Joe Burns | Thank you. |
| 00:37:09.22 | Unknown | Any other questions? Okay, let us open this up for public comment. And is there any member of the public who'd like to talk about this agenda item Peter. |
| 00:37:35.00 | Peter Van Meter | Thank you, Peter Van Meter. Having recently wrestled a term ending not too long ago on the fire board as both members of the personnel committee and the finance committee, I'd like to address Joe's comments here. As you, and I regret that I missed your meeting on the pension overview, but I'm guessing what it was probably about. I suggest then as you look at your budget for the next near term that you might revisit what's enabled by the Pension Reform Act, PEPRA, back from 2012. Because there are some elements in there that you might want to consider about your strategic planning of how you approach the next round of employee negotiations. In particular, the fact that that law enables the employees to participate in unfunded liability I'm not sure. remediation, if you will. Thank you. And that's a very important factor, because of course, that's where you're really developing the big deficits going forward. Now, there's going to be trade-offs in those kind of discussions, obviously, in any labor negotiations. But just a big picture comment here is as you're looking at whatever this spike or your threat that you're coming forth in the future, see what the current law really enables you to do you know, advise and consent with your union representatives and maybe give some hints about where you may be going in terms of those next round. I know it's not coming up for a couple of years, I guess, but it's not too soon to start thinking about that because that is the big elephant in the room that affects everything you're talking about here. Thanks. |
| 00:39:15.51 | Unknown | Thank you. Any other comments from the public on this agenda item? Okay, seeing none. I think this is for information only, isn't it, Melanie? Yeah. Okay, so is there any other further questions or any comments before we move on? Okay. I'd like to make a couple of comments. Thank you. So, if, You could put up that other graphic you have on there, which I think is slide four. I think I just want to use this to make a couple of points. |
| 00:40:06.98 | Unknown | So... We are at the final stage, this is my personal view. We are at the final stage of actually piecing together the actual mechanism of how a leading edge public agency does budgeted and forecasting and planning. Because over the last number of years and through this cycle that you're seeing here, starting in fiscal year 14, 15, has been the rigorous attempt to put a strategic plan process in place that it will take us through to a defined end point, which was the completion of the general plan. And, um, and then meeting the five goals that we set up, including infrastructure development, fiscal resiliency, and so on. And so we are now, the final piece of the puzzle we're putting in is that we're doing what pretty much everybody does in the private sector, which is do your strategic planning before you do your budgeting. You do strategic planning, then you do budgeting. We sort of did budgeting and through strategic planning and once ad hoc. But we've now made the final piece, and staff have been working on this for four to six years of moving us to reworking how we do our planning. So that a strategic planning cycle gets introduced during the two year budgeting process. And this is what the process that Mellon has described. And I think it's very exciting because we've got one more two year cycle to go through. on these goals as modified in the fall before the general plan is finished. And then it's almost like we need to regroup and have a real tear apart and redo of the overall basis of the strategic plan that drives us and that now is driven by the general plan. This is going to be a really important component here. And I think the good news is that over the last two years, when every time we made decisions, we looked at it out 10 years, 20 years, and asked, is it structurally balanced? And what you're looking for there is not the answer of what the 20, 28 numbers are going to look like, because that's meaningless. You don't know what they're going to look like. But you can say on your modeling whether they start crossing over. In other words, whether expenses get bigger than revenues. And if you know that occurred in six years' time, you better start planning for it now, which is to Council Member Burns' point. And we've now got the tools and the mechanism that staff has put in place over these years to achieve that goal. So I think this is a really nice time for all these pieces to come together because we got a lot of really important issues to grapple with. I remember some years ago taking, we were, Council Member Hoffman and I were discussing up here about whether we were in a crisis. Remember that? Or whether, you know, what was, and it was like we're always having to make tough decisions, but we've got tools that we can make some of those decisions on an analytical basis, not by, you know. So I'm really looking forward to this, and the Finance Committee and the residents who help us, and the Council, got a lot of work to do. Please. Absolutely. |
| 00:43:45.51 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah, since you brought it up, I still think, obviously, from my comments on the pension aspect that we had during the last, I obviously still feel that we're in a crisis with regard to that issue. And, you know, we're working very hard on that. And to your comments as well. |
| 00:43:47.13 | Unknown | I still think that's a good idea. |
| 00:44:02.07 | Joan Cox | Thank you. May I just say, as a freshman council member, I am really struggling to get up to speed on all of this. And it would be tremendously helpful if the finance committee meetings were recorded. So that those of us who cannot attend in person could at least watch to better understand before it comes to council, what it is the Finance Committee is doing and delving into and the work sessions, etc. So we have two freshman members up here who are not members of the Finance Committee and who if we attend cannot speak, which is torture for me. So. |
| 00:44:48.25 | Joan Cox | So it would be really helpful to have those, especially at this important juncture in our planning process, to have those meetings recorded in some manner and made available to us and to members of the public. |
| 00:45:03.89 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 00:45:08.22 | Unknown | Okay, is there any other comments on this? Thank you, Melanie, for the presentation. We're going to have a lot more in the coming several months on the budget. Is there anything else you wanted? |
| 00:45:19.28 | Melanie Purcell | I don't know. I just want to reiterate my invitation at any point, any member of the public, but especially if city council wants to sit down or has questions, or if there's some way I can assist, please don't hesitate to let me know. |
| 00:45:30.86 | Unknown | Super. Thank you very much. |
| 00:45:33.19 | Melanie Purcell | Thank you. |
| 00:45:33.26 | Unknown | Bye. |
| 00:45:33.29 | Melanie Purcell | Okay. |
| 00:45:33.95 | Unknown | Um, |
| 00:45:40.72 | Unknown | Our next item, which is 6B... is the approval of an agreement with Sausalito Plus to provide ambassador services and manage bicycle parking on Tracy Way. And we have our Chief of Police with us tonight. Good evening. |
| 00:46:02.28 | Unknown | Good evening. We find ourselves ahead of schedule, which I think is overall a pretty good thing, but my co-presenter is not here yet. So I asked him, we were on for 820. |
| 00:46:10.67 | Unknown | Okay. |
| 00:46:13.61 | Unknown | but he said he should be here around 8. So it would be OK to stand down for a few minutes? |
| 00:46:19.11 | Unknown | No, no. Thank you. |
| 00:46:21.10 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:46:21.11 | Unknown | Without. |
| 00:46:22.03 | Unknown | Okay, guess that's the answer. Do we want to take a five minute break? What do you guys want to do? |
| 00:46:29.87 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 00:46:29.99 | Unknown | No, everybody's fine. No, okay |
| 00:46:30.30 | Joan Cox | No. I mean, I'm happy to take a break if that's helpful. |
| 00:46:36.71 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:46:36.89 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 00:46:36.96 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:46:39.95 | Unknown | We got one. You're good. OK. Chief. We're rolling? You're rolling. |
| 00:46:40.17 | Joan Cox | About one. |
| 00:46:44.96 | Adam Politzer | . Okay. |
| 00:46:45.48 | Unknown | Thank you. Thank you. Bye. Thank you. |
| 00:46:47.12 | Adam Politzer | We can take a five minute break if you like, and we can ask Abbott chambers if we want to move the website update. we can we can make better use of that time. |
| 00:46:59.07 | Unknown | Abbott, what do you think? All right, let's take a five minute, so should we, do you wanna take a break or just move on to Abbott? Abbott, okay, you're on. Thank you. |
| 00:47:33.64 | Abbott Chambers | OK. I was planning to be up here until another hour and a half or so, so this is great. I get to go home. I am Abbott Chambers, your Director of Communications and City Librarian, and I'm here tonight to give you a status update on the launch of a new City of Sausalito website. |
| 00:47:59.95 | Abbott Chambers | So as far as what I'm going to be covering tonight, I'm going to start with a brief history of the City of Sausalito website. And we're fortunate that we have Debbie Pagliaro here with us tonight, who is a big part of Sausalito website history. I'm going to talk about why we need a new website. Then I'll review our timetable for launching the new website. And I'll conclude with the demonstration of our new homepage design. I'd be happy to take any questions during the presentation or at the end. So let's start with a little trip down memory lane. We're going back 21 years to 1996. This is the city of Saucydo's first web page, and it was developed in conjunction with a company called Alpha Internet Systems. And on the page here, it credits council members Paul Albritton and George Stradigos of the council's MIS committee, along with Manager of Information Systems, Debbie Pagliaro, with creating the nation's first interactive municipal website. Now, I think there are some municipalities that might dispute that. But in any event, it's clear that Sausalito was a very early arrival on the web. Here's how the page looked in 1998. |
| 00:49:23.64 | Abbott Chambers | And then in 1999, beautiful logo there, |
| 00:49:30.49 | Abbott Chambers | And here's the page in 2003, and I'll direct your attention further down on the page. There's a little note that says, in reference to the community magazine that's depicted there, it says, Please note, this file is 1.3 megabytes and could take up to four minutes to download over a 28.8 kilobits per minute modem. Wow. So those were good times. Here's the page in 2006. At this time, the page was maintained by an IT manager who was essentially entirely responsible for the website uploading pages for the various city departments. In 2007, the city signed its first contract with a company called Vision Internet and launched a completely new website. I WANT TO TAKE A LOOK AT THE Why did the city go with Vision Internet? Well, first off, it was a recognition on the part of council and the staff on the importance of having a 21st century municipal website with a degree of depth, with e-government solutions, and with content that was frequently updated by more than just one person on the staff. The reason the city went with Vision is that Vision was then and is today a leading provider of municipal website solutions. Today they have over 130 websites in California. Working with Vision gave the city of Sausalito access to their design support as far as designing the new site. Also, information architecture support. That means the expertise in creating the navigational structure of the site. Working with Vision Internet also brought the city of Sausalito a content management system. And with the content management system, for the first time, multiple staff members across our city were able to contribute to site maintenance. And by having multiple people able to update and add new pages, it created significantly additional depth to our site. In 2013, the city signed its second contract with Vision Internet. And this was a relatively minor home page redesign and navigation redesign. You'll see the page looks very similar to the way it did in 2007. |
| 00:52:01.38 | Abbott Chambers | So why do we need a new website? Well, first off, a lot has happened with technology and web design since 2007, and as a good indicator of that, here's 2007 January, Steve Jobs introducing the launch of the original iPhone. So a lot has changed in the last 10 years. Here's a look at the city of Sausalito's homepage today, and thinking of it as a page that really hasn't significantly been changed in 10 years. It has a dated look and feel to it. If you compare it to other contemporary websites, particularly best practices of municipal websites today, one obvious indicator of that is up in the upper right corner, you see the little go button next to the search box. You'll almost never see a Go button with Search today. It's almost always a magnifying glass icon. The page also is not mobile friendly. Pages today are designed with responsive design so that the web page will automatically resize based on the size of the screen you're using. So if you have a tablet or a mobile device, the web page will automatically rescale. Our page doesn't do that. Another reason why we need to launch a new site, we're currently using what is version 5 of the Vision Internet Content Management System. Dates back to 2011, and it's no longer being supported. So with each passing day, we're more and more out of step with the latest web standards. Another aspect of being out of date with standards is federal accessibility requirements. They've changed considerably over the last five or 10 years. And by relaunching the site, we'll be able to bring our site entirely into compliance with the latest federal regulations. So let's take a look at the timetable for a new website, and we'll start by looking back at the past few months. In late November of 2016, the City Council approved a contract with Vision Internet to build a brand new website for us. In December, we worked with Vision to articulate a six to eight month launch timetable. Also in December, City Manager Adam Paulitzer assembled the website team of myself, City Clerk Lily Whalen, Administrative Analyst Heather Laporte, and IT Manager Rhett Redlings. Then in January and February, we worked with Vision Internet on what is called a user experience, or UX analysis. We looked at what's working and not working on our current page through statistics and a number of other means, this then helping to inform us as we started working on the design of a new home page for the site. In February of 2017, I became the director of communications here in Sausalito and also assumed the role of website project lead. And then in mid-March of 2017, we finalized the design of the new homepage. Looking forward to the next few months, in April 2017 we'll be working on the design of the interior pages of the site, both the graphic design and the layout and structure of those pages. In April and May of 2017, we'll be focusing on developing a new site map, so the new navigational structure at the deeper levels of the site. In May and June of 2017, we'll focus on training staff on the new tool that we will be using with Vision Internet. And we'll also start then working with the staff on building the new site. And we're going to build the site from the ground up. Our current site, because it's so old, currently I believe consists of about 6,000 web pages and PDFs and other documents. A lot of them are superfluous. A lot of them are out of date. And we feel it's really important to not just move what we have in that cache of information over to the new site, but as much as possible to start over and build from the ground up. And then in July of 2017, we plan to launch the new site. So let me now show you the new homepage design. And we'll start by taking another look at our current site. And just to kind of reiterate, it's a site that's very information dense. We have a lot of information crammed into a relatively small screen area. And it's a site that's difficult to navigate, whether you're using the primary navigation categories or the search function. So here's the new homepage design that we've developed. The primary goal that we had was providing a less cluttered appearance, so there's more breathing room between the different components on the page. We also wanted to present a page that gave us an opportunity to capture the natural beauty of Sausalito. And we do that through the large photo that you see on the screen here, and also through the color palette that we've chosen, which are the blues and the greens. I should note also that The page that you're seeing looks considerably narrower than the current page. And the reason for that is that we're designing the page with scrolling in mind. Users today with their mobile devices are much more comfortable scrolling up and down on a page to find information. And that gives us another means to create a little more breathing room on the page in addition to having less content density there. So if you If you were at a computer and you were bringing up our web page, this is what you would see, as they say, above the fold. And you would need to scroll down to see the remaining content on the page. Now I'd like to take you on a little tour through the individual components of the page. First, looking at the primary navigational categories. We've set these categories as city government, departments, services, our city, and how do I. You might say, wow, that sounds kind of redundant. Departments, aren't they part of city government? Services, aren't they provided by departments? And the answer is yes, and quite intentionally. The idea with the navigational structure is to recognize that users have different ways of conceiving of information and looking for information. You might have a user who is looking for permit information. They know that permits are issued by the Community Development Department, and they would go in through the department section to find that information. Another user might not be aware of community development, but would go in through services and find permits there. We're also using this how do I section for people who may think in terms of a question. And they would look there under how do I apply for a permit. I'll also mention that the search box is much more prominent. And another big advantage of going with the new Vision website is that their search functionality is much improved as well. So that gives us a much stronger fallback for users who don't use any of those other ways to think of finding information but go right to a search box. One other new feature that we'll be able to take advantage of is provided by the latest web coding standards. It's something called Mega Menus. I'm going to go forward and then back. With our current site, if you're trying to navigate through our top-level categories, let's say in this case city government, a single menu drops down. And if you want to select something from the single menu that has more categories, you end up having to kind of thread the needle and a second menu pops down. So you end up with absurdities like this police department section, which happens to be way over on the right side of the page and drops below, almost at the bottom of the screen. With most browser settings, it would be off the bottom of the screen. With the mega menu that we'll be able to use, instead of just having a single menu, column of menu drop-down will have a full pane of menus that appear. In this case, it's four columns. And it means that users now won't have to do that sort of thread the needle experience, and they also will have a better picture just right in front of them of all the different options that are available. |
| 01:00:19.21 | Abbott Chambers | Another feature of the new site are these buttons that appear in the middle of the page. They are intended to be shortcuts to popular features on the site. And a big advantage of having buttons like this is that we'll be able to get detailed statistics so we'll know what's being used and not used. And we can swap them around. We can swap in new ones. We can change based on season. The arrows that you see on each side of the buttons would allow you to tab to another set of buttons as well. Another goal that we had with the new site was to provide areas that feature news, alerts, and current events. The first example is a promo box that appears over the photo on the home page. And I should add that these photos are changeable. So this is not the one photo that people are going to see for the next five years, but we'll be able to change them regularly. And they'll even cycle through when you reload the page. But in this case, we're using this promo box to highlight a survey. |
| 01:01:20.49 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:01:23.64 | Abbott Chambers | And then here's another section for news and current events, very similar to the calendar and news sections that we have today. And we know from a survey that we did that these are very popular with our users, so we've maintained them on the news site. |
| 01:01:42.34 | Abbott Chambers | So that concludes my presentation, and I request of you that you accept my presentation, and that you expect another update from me as our website launch date approaches. And I'd be happy to take any questions. |
| 01:01:56.75 | Unknown | Thank you, Albert. Do we have any questions? Please. |
| 01:02:03.01 | Joan Cox | Um... My ears perked up when you said that you're going to start from the ground up and pages, not all of which will be migrated over. who will make the decision about what gets migrated or not? The thing that immediately came to my mind is our housing element, which is one of the elements of our general plan, and which is still evolving. And I think that if there's information that is not going to be migrated over, we should provide notice so that people who are interested in that information can download it and keep it available for themselves. |
| 01:02:50.16 | Abbott Chambers | That's an excellent point. One thing that's a little off topic, but relevant to that, is that we are creating a complete archive of the current site so that if we were ever requested for some information that is then no longer with the site, we'll be able to access it. But as far as the decisions about what's happening or what's being kept, the idea is that it's going to go down to the departmental level and that we'll be working with the department heads and the various departmental representatives that will be on a website team that we'll be creating to articulate the new structure and the content that we'll be using. But definitely, it's a good reminder that we will want to give people a good heads up that this is coming and if they have any favorite documents to make a copy. |
| 01:03:40.38 | Peter Van Meter | Thank you. All the... |
| 01:03:44.85 | Abbott Chambers | Thank you. |
| 01:03:44.87 | Joe Burns | Let's say our agenda's in minutes, that's a portal to a separate. So that would stay this. |
| 01:03:52.97 | Abbott Chambers | Yes. |
| 01:03:53.20 | Joe Burns | Thank you. |
| 01:03:53.24 | Abbott Chambers | Thank you. |
| 01:03:53.26 | Joe Burns | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 01:03:53.57 | Abbott Chambers | you |
| 01:03:53.63 | Joe Burns | Thank you. |
| 01:03:53.66 | Abbott Chambers | Thank you. |
| 01:03:53.68 | Joe Burns | Thank you. |
| 01:03:53.80 | Abbott Chambers | Thank you. |
| 01:03:53.95 | Joe Burns | Thank you. |
| 01:03:53.96 | Abbott Chambers | Great question. Vision is sort of like the... the the structure that we have for the entire site, but that we have different third-party applications that get plugged into that larger structure. And Granicus is one of them, which we're using for all of our agendas and minutes and documents. And there'll be other tools that we'd be plugging in as well, like the TrackIt permit software and the like. Thanks. |
| 01:04:28.64 | Abbott Chambers | Thank you. |
| 01:04:28.69 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:04:28.91 | Jill Hoffman | Did you want, I think it looks great, great job. And I really like the way that it's updated and it's much cleaner and I like to look at it a lot. So, nice job. I do accept, I do accept it. |
| 01:04:33.94 | Abbott Chambers | and it's not. |
| 01:04:34.03 | Unknown | THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 01:04:34.09 | Abbott Chambers | So. |
| 01:04:39.00 | Abbott Chambers | you |
| 01:04:39.05 | Unknown | Thank you, Councilmember Hoffman. Okay. And I think we'll open this for public comment. |
| 01:04:53.09 | Unknown | For someone who actually, was using the internet before Netscape Navigator. It's actually quite exciting to see the first website there from 1996. It's amazing, actually. It's amazing that we had a website up in 1996, if you know the history of the internet. |
| 01:05:10.88 | Joan Cox | Did you have a Wang? |
| 01:05:12.64 | Unknown | So is there any public comment on this exciting presentation? Peter. |
| 01:05:22.83 | Peter Van Meter | Thank you. |
| 01:05:23.03 | Unknown | I'm going to go down right here. |
| 01:05:23.97 | Peter Van Meter | Thank you. |
| 01:05:24.03 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:05:24.65 | Peter Van Meter | Thank you. |
| 01:05:24.67 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:05:24.82 | Peter Van Meter | I'm here, so there's comment. Thank you. |
| 01:05:29.32 | Unknown | Go for it. |
| 01:05:29.95 | Peter Van Meter | Thank you. Talk about migrating things over. I think it's really important to have reports that are not in web-friendly format, but normally PDFs or even Word documents, that are archived and can, in fact, be searched. And brought up. You know, I think as an example, the BAC did a couple of very hefty economic studies back in 2010. And somebody might say, oh, my gosh, that's obsolete stuff. You know, but those kind of economic analyses have not been done since. And there's, you know, numerous other studies, some actually go back decades, that are the last time that particular topic may have actually been studied by a citizen committee or consultants or others. So I think it's really important those archives of reports and documents that normally are getting dust on the shelf will now be free of dust because they're stored digitally. Thank you. |
| 01:06:20.39 | Unknown | Thank you. Good point. Thank you, Peter. |
| 01:06:23.97 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:06:26.70 | Unknown | Is there anybody else who'd like to comment on this? Okay, so with that, let's end public comment. And is there any other questions or comments from Abbott? Other than accept your outstanding report, is there any other action we need tonight, I think? There is. |
| 01:06:45.13 | Abbott Chambers | Thank you. |
| 01:06:45.23 | Unknown | No. |
| 01:06:45.41 | Abbott Chambers | Thank you. |
| 01:06:45.45 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:06:45.48 | Abbott Chambers | Thank you. |
| 01:06:47.41 | Unknown | Anybody else? Well, cool. So we do, I think we've got a consensus accepting that, and thank you very much. So that's a great job. Thank you. |
| 01:06:51.79 | Melanie Purcell | Consensus. |
| 01:06:58.98 | Unknown | Okay, moving right along. |
| 01:07:08.14 | Unknown | Chief, good evening. Good evening, Mayor and Vice Mayor, members of the Council. Thank you for those few extra minutes, and thank you, Abbott. |
| 01:07:15.72 | Unknown | . |
| 01:07:28.76 | Unknown | So tonight I'm here to give you an update about the congestion management plan. I will be your primary presenter, but Tom Riley from South Florida Plus is also here to answer questions if you have any. |
| 01:07:47.70 | Unknown | So the updated items include our agreement with Sausalito Plus, and then also when that business is completed, I'd like to give you an update on the Sausalito Bicycle Return Program. |
| 01:08:02.77 | Unknown | So starting with a little tiny bit of background, just a month ago, We were here to give you information on the End of season report for 2016. and then to give you some ideas about the new 2017 season plan. and you sent us away with some instructions. And so this is them. You asked us to come back with a... I report for you to consider the agreement with Saucido Plus. and our other interested stakeholders for the 2017 season. And very importantly, you put a $250,000 cap on our efforts and then also asked us to take into consideration other suggestions, like from PBAC and from other speakers that were here at that meeting. At the end of that, you also asked us to come back and talk about Other businesses that remove bicycles out of downtown. And so prepare for that tonight. |
| 01:09:09.51 | Unknown | So, Saucyde Plus's proposal in summary. We're proposing a budget that has estimated $273,000 in revenue against $226,000 in expenses. That agreement includes a not-to-exceed... payment of two hundred and twenty six thousand five hundred and it's otherwise approved by you the City Council |
| 01:09:36.17 | Unknown | What that looks like in categories is, the payroll itself is just a little over $180,000. Administrative costs are a little over 22 grand. A few start-up expenses of $6,500 and some change. And then Ventec payment kiosks, those are the machines that take the money and credit cards. We pay service fees for that. And then any contingencies for some out of pocket expenses for Saucydo Plus. Total costs for that are just under. 226,500 so it comes in with that in the agreement to not to exceed $226,500. |
| 01:10:21.52 | Unknown | So, Another big piece of this year's agreement compared to previous years is while we did pay invoices as submitted last year, this year we're going to reconcile our status every single month. So if you recall from previous presentation, as we found ourselves behind last year, We still continue to march on and have a safe you know, bicycle parking and congestion management environment, however, we did not catch up. and found ourselves about 34 grand in the red. So this is intended to prevent that from happening. Thank you. And so there'll be adjustments made And again, not to exceed $226,000 unless you say so. |
| 01:11:09.34 | Unknown | So before we talk about Saucedo Bicycle Return, I can take any questions or Tom is here. to take any of your questions. If you have any. |
| 01:11:21.12 | Jill Hoffman | I have an actual question. So the Vintech machines, are those owned by the city or are those owned by Saucyopla? |
| 01:11:27.78 | Unknown | owned by something. No, neither. They're owned by Ventec and we rent them, actually. |
| 01:11:28.83 | Jill Hoffman | Thanks. |
| 01:11:32.54 | Unknown | for the season, so there's a installation charge |
| 01:11:32.61 | Jill Hoffman | THE RECEIVED. |
| 01:11:35.43 | Unknown | There's a de-installation charge, pack them up and take them away. There's programming fees and then there's also the service fees that go into processing credit cards |
| 01:11:38.24 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:11:44.49 | Unknown | that type, all the money that comes or goes into that, whether it's by credit card or cash, goes directly into a Citibank account. It's not touched by anybody else. And so the overall fees for that throughout the season are forecasted at whatever I said, $14,000 and some change. |
| 01:12:00.81 | Jill Hoffman | I'm just wondering if that infrastructure cost is you know, if that's something that would be on Sausalio Plus books or that would be on the city books for, you know, managing the program. You know what I mean? So, I mean, that's fine. That's part of the budget and Sausalio Plus is fine with that. But I, you know, as far as infrastructure goes, you know, Sausalio Plus manages it, but are the costs, are we pushing all the costs onto that program correctly or not? I mean, that was just a question that I had. Sure. Sorry, I was completely out of left field, I know. |
| 01:12:34.00 | Unknown | Sorry. Our thought on it is that's the cost of the program. |
| 01:12:38.52 | Jill Hoffman | Okay. |
| 01:12:38.91 | Unknown | $226,500. And that includes the service fees and including the machines that take the money. |
| 01:12:46.25 | Jill Hoffman | Right. Thanks. My question. |
| 01:12:49.36 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:12:49.37 | Joe Burns | Thank you. So it looks like our authorization as council is on the expense side, but we really don't have an authorization if something was to be occurring on the revenue side that may put us at a loss. In other words, if something were some catastrophic weather event or something that would change the income potential, we're only really authorized on the expense portion of this agreement to make they could still providing bills for $226,000 or $180,000 in payroll. on something that might not be producing $273,000. Is there any stop gaps along the way that can come back to us and say we're running 10% in arrears or something's not occurring properly on the revenue side that engages |
| 01:13:34.61 | Unknown | Yes, and so that's why we're having monthly reconciliations on the bill. So we can look at how are we doing on revenue, which according to last year's forecast was really very close. And again, it is a forecast only, but with some history behind it and then what the forecast is for this year. But as we look at each month's expenses versus how much money was taken in, we have the ability to say that Saucyutu Plus in the month going forward has to dial back on expenses. |
| 01:14:04.03 | Joe Burns | Thank you. |
| 01:14:04.40 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:14:04.45 | Joe Burns | Thank you. |
| 01:14:04.50 | Unknown | and then, you know, |
| 01:14:04.62 | Joe Burns | Thank you. |
| 01:14:04.72 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:14:04.77 | Joe Burns | I'm not sure what that means. |
| 01:14:07.35 | Unknown | No, we want to do that on our own each month. Yeah, because your cap to us is... |
| 01:14:09.50 | Joe Burns | Yeah. |
| 01:14:12.97 | Joe Burns | Just. |
| 01:14:13.19 | Unknown | a spending cap, but it's our job to manage that month to month on how we're doing. Thank you. |
| 01:14:13.66 | Joe Burns | He's spending a lot of money. |
| 01:14:21.53 | Unknown | Nice to meet you. |
| 01:14:21.98 | Joan Cox | Thank you. I'm sorry. Proposal from Sausalito Plus starts in April. But I thought that there were some expenses incurred in March. So from what kitty do those expenses get paid? Is the 226.5 for the period April through October as enunciated in the proposal? |
| 01:14:44.19 | Unknown | All of the above. So the early expenses of a little over $6,000 are pre-approved for Sauciuto Plus to get started. We will factor those into the first month in April. I don't know that they've actually even spent any of that yet, but we pre-approved the startup expense in March with no income starting until Saturday. So in case there was the opportunity for them to get started on some of the bookkeeping issues and get accounts set up, then they had the ability to do that because they, you know, they do not have a bank balance. You know, that's us, and so we authorized that small amount of money so they could get rolling on our behalf. |
| 01:15:26.02 | Joan Cox | My concern is that the proposal that we have in our packet commences April 1. So what is our contractual mechanism to pay for their expenses in March? |
| 01:15:40.64 | Unknown | All right, I'm in deep water here, so somebody help me out. |
| 01:15:42.97 | Joan Cox | you |
| 01:15:43.03 | Adam Politzer | Thank you. Well, that's under my authority and the city manager authority. Okay. Up to $25,000, I can make those approvals. Thank you. |
| 01:15:49.14 | Mary Wagner | And that's included. |
| 01:15:50.53 | Adam Politzer | That's correct. |
| 01:15:51.03 | Mary Wagner | Thank you. And if I may, Mr. Mayor? It's rolled into the total that's being the not to exceed number. So those up startup costs are rolled into that reimbursement. |
| 01:15:54.48 | Unknown | It is. It's rolled into- |
| 01:16:06.12 | Joan Cox | It doesn't, so. |
| 01:16:07.49 | Unknown | 65-month prostatic carbs. So that's what they do. So they use it up front. and others out there. |
| 01:16:16.16 | Unknown | and we're going to have a |
| 01:16:16.23 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 01:16:16.24 | David Archer | Okay. |
| 01:16:16.43 | Unknown | Thank you. So there's the tally list right there, and the $6,500 is built into that total of $226,386. |
| 01:16:27.08 | Joan Cox | Okay. |
| 01:16:30.84 | Jill Hoffman | I had another question, if anybody else. So I also saw in the proposal, the proposal letter dated March 13th from Tom Riley, the director of Sausalito Plus. that there's a question here under alternative service alternative services. With regard to the ferry queuing area. So are is also plus going to be running the ferry queuing area this summer or. |
| 01:17:03.17 | Unknown | you know. |
| 01:17:04.02 | Jill Hoffman | Who's going to be running that? Or are you getting to that? And I just haven't got there yet. |
| 01:17:07.71 | Unknown | No, that's the responsibility of the Golden Gate Ferry to take care of that. |
| 01:17:12.98 | Jill Hoffman | And okay, when are we going to have a presentation on that? Because that's an integral part of the management downtown. I WANT TO SAY, the, yes, I'm sorry, excuse me, I have the floor, and Herb, you'll be able to speak in a minute, but when we have, you know, the management down there, you know, one of the problems is that it's not coordinated, and that you have these different, you know, agencies running the different systems, which resulted in, you know, lines through the park, down the sidewalk, blocking our sidewalks, beyond the queuing area for many days last summer. So is, Is there some sort of plan to better manage that this summer by the ferry company? Or is it the status quo for what happened last year? |
| 01:18:02.76 | Unknown | That's a really long question. |
| 01:18:02.83 | Jill Hoffman | That's a really long question. but |
| 01:18:04.01 | Unknown | Yeah, the bridge district is responsible for that. they know that we're watching that, but we are not managing that for them. OK. |
| 01:18:14.99 | Jill Hoffman | OK, so we can talk about that as a policy of this city council. Yeah, because I think that's a critical part and a piece of the puzzle down there. And you know, we need to get we need to get a plan together for that and in my mind what happened last summer is not acceptable. |
| 01:18:32.76 | Unknown | But part of what I have to say in a few minutes after this will address part of your concerns. |
| 01:18:33.29 | Jill Hoffman | So. |
| 01:18:37.89 | Unknown | Oh, thank you. |
| 01:18:40.48 | Unknown | Herbie. |
| 01:18:40.86 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:18:41.08 | Joe Burns | Yeah, just a note. That goes up to the end of September. Don't we usually go to October 15th? Or do we just leave it open? from from the end of September to October 15th. |
| 01:18:54.40 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 01:18:54.46 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:18:54.48 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:18:55.90 | Unknown | It's going through October 15. October 15 is the date in the |
| 01:18:59.86 | Joe Burns | Thank you. |
| 01:18:59.88 | Unknown | Okay. I don't know. I'm going to finish that. |
| 01:19:07.90 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:19:07.93 | Unknown | in the state's mind and stuff. |
| 01:19:07.96 | Unknown | and start coming up with that. |
| 01:19:10.44 | Adam Politzer | THE CITY IS GOING TO BE |
| 01:19:13.85 | Unknown | Tom, is there anything you'd like to add? Don't want to put you on the spot, but first of all, thank you for all the work you're doing with the Bike and Peg Committee and with this. So thank you. This is communication number one, but anyway. |
| 01:19:19.25 | Unknown | twice a year. |
| 01:19:31.23 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:19:31.25 | Tom Riley | Well, thank you, Tom Riley with South Seattle Plus. And we're pleased to operate the ambassador program again this season. We are a non-profit, so all we are passing through is our actual cost to operate the Ambassador Program. Our objectives are to work with the city manager and the chief of police. First and foremost, to reduce congestion in our city streets. Second, to operate this program at a break even and more likely at a profit. Last year we did not. We worked with the city manager to lower cost. The way we structured our program. is we've projected costs by month, by staffing levels, by station, by services. So if we do fall behind at any point, we can work with the city manager or the chief to reduce services. specifically with what we're providing with the Ambassador Program. So we think we're in better control this year. We do aspire to combine the queuing, Council Member Hoffman, as you said. We have met with the Ferry District and the bike rental companies. We didn't reach agreement this year to figure out how to do that. I do think we have ways to improve the queuing substantially from last year in collaboration with them. And I think we'll work towards next year to find a way to combine it. |
| 01:20:52.96 | Unknown | And he, Other questions of Mr. Riley or the chief on the Sausalito Plus piece of this? Okay, so Sorry, did you? No. OK. So I know the chief, you have another part here. |
| 01:21:11.20 | Unknown | I do. So at the meeting in February, one of the questions that was posed of me and others was, what else can we do? There seemed to be a missing component that we were not addressing entirely, was frankly how to get more of the bikes out and relieve congestion. We didn't have a complete answer last month. This time we are much closer to an answer. We are once again working with John and Lisa Scopazi of the Bicycle Return Program. They operated last year in a pilot program with our cooperation. Their collection point was a little too far away. It was on Locust Street and a little too distant for, you know, a real successful program, but we learned a lot, as did they. One of the things we learned is we need to be closer to the action. We have some plans for this year working with them, and I have a few photos for you. The goal is to show you what our idea looks like, so that you can answer or ask questions tonight or of me or John or Lisa, because on the next meeting on April 4th, we intend to bring an item forward as a consent counter item, which is the agreement with Saucedo Bicycle Return. So let's see, what did I do wrong? |
| 01:22:45.06 | Unknown | There you go, brother. |
| 01:22:49.97 | Unknown | All right. getting closer to the action. Everything takes place and around municipal lot one. And a lot going on there. The picture on the left, what we're calling option one, does not mean preference one, but option one was to allow for the collection point of the bicycles for return to take place in that little raised parking area that we always call the official lot. I think it was because some cop cars could park there sometimes, but we don't have that happen anyways during the I'm bicycle season and in previous two years South Sea to Plus has used that for oversized bicycles and effectively and we were mindful of that because our goal is to have programs that complement each other not compete with each other and so we looked for alternatives with John and Lisa's cooperation the option two is the area where the parking booth used to be, and right now there's underground utilities there, And however, no paid parking spaces will be lost if we are able to use that spot, which is our goal. |
| 01:24:09.81 | Unknown | OK. |
| 01:24:12.29 | Unknown | would think I'd be so challenged. All right. So... This is a picture that we took. We asked John and Lisa to bring their truck and trailer down so we could actually see what things would look like when the trailer's in position for that short period of time when they need to load up some bikes. And how many and when they do that, of course, will be dependent on how well people receive the idea of being able to pay a return fee and divest themselves of that bicycle and still get on the ferry without it and shorten the line and so we looked at where the truck and trailer would park on on anchor and the Truck and trailer would not really first appear until mid or late afternoon because during the earlier part of the day it's probably not really necessary. So the picture on the left under option one shows the trucker trailer parked closest to the little official lot. And then the picture on option two shows the truck and trailer parked right across from that little spot where the underground utilities are located. And so we are recommending that we work on option two, both as the collection point for the bikes and also for the pickup point. close in comparisons of their pros and cons. but this is a good spot. We did look at others, by the way. We looked at spots on Humboldt. We looked at spots in the Bank of America lot, lot number two. There was some congestion issues that I was not comfortable with just moving people across those intersections and crosswalks and such and didn't feel it was as safe as it is having that happen here. So, if you have questions about those locations before I get into that part. I'm happy to answer them now, and John and Lisa are here. It's an opportunity to ask them questions ahead of when we bring it back as a consent calendar item next week. Week on the 4th. |
| 01:26:13.40 | Unknown | you Thank you. I think there will be some questions. Can I kick off by just I'm looking at either option one or option two. I'm looking at that picture of option two, and I'm remembering what 4 p.m. on a Saturday afternoon is like in August. So with what's going on in that street, right, which you would agree is going to be. Pretty hectic, right? So what would normally be there in that space that you're trying to put the trailer? Sure. Is it taxes? Mostly. |
| 01:26:53.11 | Unknown | IS IT TAXING? Most days up until the taxis move from in front of the Bank of America, which is the designated taxi stand up to 1 o'clock in the afternoon, and then they move over onto Anchor. And then throughout the day, they're part of our transportation and management plan by having the racks on the back of the cabs, and they take some bikes away. At late in the afternoon, they either could be parked there, some of them, or they could be en route with customers already going to the city. But either way, we will displace them in order to put the truck and trailer there in order to accomplish that The time on site for the truck and trailer is about 30 minutes or so. That's the projection from John and Lisa. It seems reasonable, and then they'd be gone. And then whatever it takes for them to make their trip to the city and back, then they'll be back to... |
| 01:27:37.96 | Unknown | Mm-hmm. |
| 01:27:47.19 | Unknown | Caps again, if they come back, And so there's a repetition that would occur. And we did consider that Talk. concern about there's a lot happening there, especially let's say on a Saturday at 4 o'clock. but if the bicycle return program is to be successful it needs to be where all that action is taking place and they will hopefully be removing some of those bikes that are the very cause of the congestion So, you know, we are moving forward in a very optimistic way. frame of mind that this will help considerably In that area. |
| 01:28:23.94 | Unknown | Thank you. I know there was a question. Yeah. |
| 01:28:29.24 | Joan Cox | I completely endorse the idea of moving the trailer closer because the location last year was a bit far. But I wonder how... Will there be any directional signage or will the ambassadors be directing bicycles here? How will the bicyclists know? Because they're going to come to Tracy Way to park their bike. How will they know that they can go beyond Tracy Way? to this locale to drop off their bike. |
| 01:29:02.44 | Unknown | Yeah, I think that John and Lisa could answer that question the best. I'm talking about it. |
| 01:29:08.60 | Tom Riley | I'll share it with you. |
| 01:29:09.44 | Unknown | Yeah. A lot of good ideas here, so here they are. |
| 01:29:12.97 | Tom Riley | Thank you. Yeah. Um, Tom Riley with South Cedar Plus running the Ambassador Program. We're very supportive of this. Our number one mission is to reduce congestion. Formerly I was on the Pedestrian Bicycle Advisory Committee. Going back several years, we were coming up with ideas for trailers. This is the first. We'll make every effort to make it successful. We'll have our ambassadors offering our visitors options. You can park your bike, enjoy town, get on a ferry. You can bring your bike over to the trailer staging area and get on the ferry and not have to worry about your bike. So we will work to make it successful, and we are hopeful. |
| 01:29:56.76 | Lisa Scopazi | Hi, Lisa Scopazi, Saul's little bike return. So to answer your question directly, we're going to be placing our manager for our team right in the end of Tracy Way on El Portal. We will also have, of course, someone staged at the corner or at the actual location where the bikes will be returned and then also Right around three o'clock or four o'clock on the weekends and busiest days We will have someone staged at the end of Tracy way working directly with Sol's lead a plus team Thank you. |
| 01:30:32.78 | Joan Cox | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 01:30:33.22 | Joe Burns | Show. Okay. Lisa, stay there. Sorry. Thank you. |
| 01:30:37.12 | Lisa Scopazi | Thank you. |
| 01:30:37.24 | Joe Burns | I'm going to leave. |
| 01:30:37.70 | Lisa Scopazi | Thank you. |
| 01:30:37.76 | Joe Burns | I'm sorry. How many companies will you return for? All of them? |
| 01:30:46.10 | Lisa Scopazi | No, we can't unfortunately return for a lot of the smaller. Herbie has the list of about 65 companies last year. We worked with Blazing Saddles and we hope again to work with Bay City Bikes and between those two companies they |
| 01:30:54.27 | Joe Burns | THE FAMILY. |
| 01:30:54.57 | Melanie Purcell | Thank you. |
| 01:31:04.91 | Lisa Scopazi | they capture probably between 60 and 75% of the bikes. And we worked out logistically last year to be able to return Jeff's company's bikes to one location, working with him. In fact, he kind of drew up our, our log sheet, for lack of a better term. I see his son here, too. He had a good Hand in it as well and so we we've narrowed it down to two return locations in the city one for Jeff's group and one for Bay City bikes |
| 01:31:33.33 | Joe Burns | So then kind of talk numbers, if you will, what how many turnarounds you can do, let's say on a busy day, and how many bikes that takes off of the street, so to speak. Maybe just a slight comparison to what that might have looked like on a busy day last season. |
| 01:31:45.26 | Lisa Scopazi | Sure. |
| 01:31:49.21 | Lisa Scopazi | Sure. Our hope is to do at least three trailers on a real busy day or a sunny day. Each trailer can accommodate 85 bikes. So if we have to do a fourth trip, we can. So we hope to get at least a trailer or two a day during the busy. We'll be open every day during June, July, August, of course. And so on the busy days, you know, if we have to even obtain another trailer to get even more trips in, we can do that. |
| 01:32:21.88 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:32:22.64 | Jill Hoffman | So and I just have a couple of operational questions first. So in that area that the chief pointed out where the underground utilities are now, where the booth used to be, that will be fenced in by you guys? Or how's that going to work? I'm sorry. |
| 01:32:37.91 | Adam Politzer | I'm not. |
| 01:32:37.93 | Jill Hoffman | THE END OF |
| 01:32:37.96 | Adam Politzer | THE FAMILY IS NOT ABLE TO |
| 01:32:38.03 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah. |
| 01:32:38.62 | Adam Politzer | It's actually already fenced in. |
| 01:32:40.48 | Jill Hoffman | Oh, okay. |
| 01:32:40.49 | Adam Politzer | Thank you. Public work, just like public work stages the Tracy way, we've staged the other areas. |
| 01:32:46.37 | Jill Hoffman | Oh, got it. Great, so it's going to be an enclosed area and then you'll have someone there and your staff working and intaking the bikes, is that how that works? Thank you. |
| 01:32:53.54 | Lisa Scopazi | Yeah, we estimate we can put between 200 and 300 bikes in that area. We don't need racks or anything because we just basically we're going to be cabling them together. Obviously, we want to keep them as safe as we can. And so we'll be taking the payment there as well as my other team members can take payment as well and offer the ticket to get right in that. |
| 01:33:05.54 | Melanie Purcell | . I'm not sure. |
| 01:33:14.30 | Lisa Scopazi | of that area. |
| 01:33:15.26 | Jill Hoffman | And so you just, right now, currently, you only have one trailer, the one trailer in the truck. Is that right? Right. So when you said two to three trailers a day, you meant two to three trips? Yeah, two to three trips with one trailer. One trailer. Yeah. Okay. And then, and you anticipate it being in that location on, that's Anchor Street, Chief? Is that right? |
| 01:33:27.09 | Melanie Purcell | Yeah. |
| 01:33:27.17 | Lisa Scopazi | Thank you. |
| 01:33:34.72 | Jill Hoffman | That's Anchor? Correct. Yeah. So it's only going to be there. The truck's only going to be there. you know, operationally, it'll pull in, you'll load the bikes on there, and it'll take off. It's not going to sit there in that location. |
| 01:33:45.24 | Lisa Scopazi | I'm not a patient. |
| 01:33:46.63 | Jill Hoffman | Um, And how many trips, sorry. How much per bike are you guys, can you tell right now? Like what are you gonna charge per, yeah. |
| 01:33:55.93 | Lisa Scopazi | And a charge per... Thank you. Bye. |
| 01:33:58.09 | Jill Hoffman | you |
| 01:33:58.12 | Lisa Scopazi | Bye. |
| 01:33:58.14 | Jill Hoffman | Where's the bike? |
| 01:33:58.58 | Lisa Scopazi | Okay. |
| 01:33:58.78 | Jill Hoffman | Okay. |
| 01:33:58.91 | Lisa Scopazi | for return. And that includes, we can also, obviously, that's the same price for regular bikes, tandem bikes, as well as electric bikes we can take back as well. |
| 01:34:09.65 | Jill Hoffman | OK. And then have you talked with any of the bike companies about doing pickups at earlier points along the way? So in other words, the south side of the Golden Gate Bridge, the north side of the Golden Gate Bridge, and maybe down in Fort Baker? Is that part of the conversation yet? |
| 01:34:22.91 | Lisa Scopazi | Is that part of the conversation yet? I think that that would be, yeah. |
| 01:34:25.17 | Jill Hoffman | Well, yeah. |
| 01:34:26.47 | Lisa Scopazi | Not for this year. I mean, I'm sure there's been a lot of talk to be picking up sooner than downtown for now. This seems the most logical and easiest until |
| 01:34:28.07 | Jill Hoffman | Yes. |
| 01:34:37.34 | Lisa Scopazi | There's a lot of factors in that side of town. |
| 01:34:39.09 | Jill Hoffman | Mm-hmm. Okay. Okay, thanks. Thanks. |
| 01:34:45.73 | Unknown | or Yeah. |
| 01:34:47.24 | Unknown | Joe. Thank you. |
| 01:34:49.84 | Unknown | Thank you, Lisa. So I think you had, you still got some more stuff. |
| 01:34:57.79 | Unknown | Just a couple of slides more. So if you had any questions about the plan, the idea, then... No, is there... |
| 01:35:05.03 | Unknown | Any other questions on these? It kind of sounds like we're option two. Is that right? |
| 01:35:09.32 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:35:09.35 | David Archer | Thank you. |
| 01:35:09.69 | Unknown | Yeah. Okay, well, we can't make the decision until we've heard public comments, but that's okay. That's okay. She... |
| 01:35:15.17 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:35:15.19 | Unknown | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 01:35:15.63 | Unknown | Well, that's so good. Thank you. |
| 01:35:18.83 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:35:18.85 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:35:18.94 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:35:19.00 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:35:19.05 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:35:19.12 | Unknown | So where we are tonight is just that the $3 bicycle parking ambassador services are slated to begin on Saturday, April 1st. And then negotiations are underway to finalize that agreement with Solstice to Bicycle Return to operate on Anchor Street and collect and return bikes for a fee. So you'll hear about that in the consent counter item in a week. And this is our recommendation for tonight. So this is an action item for you to turn into a resolution. And unless you have other questions, that's my last slide. Okay. Thank you. |
| 01:35:54.76 | Jill Hoffman | So, you know, I have to ask this question, so don't get mad at me. But, so, I mean, we are, you're essentially leasing city property, right, to a for-profit business, which is Sausalio Plus. No, I'm sorry. For the bike return. Sausalio Plus is a non-profit, but the bike return is OUT AND SEE HOW IT WORKS. I THINK FROM A POLICY STANDPOINT, FROM OUR PERSPECTIVE FROM THE CITY COUNCIL, THAT HAS TO BE PART OF OUR CONVERSATION IS WE UNDERSTAND THAT. giving parts of our city public property owned by the citizens of Sausalito over to a for profit business. And likely, we'll find that the balance of that is, yes, we want to go forward with that. Yes, Mary has her hand up. |
| 01:36:50.52 | Mary Wagner | At least on my mic. Thank you, Councilmember Hoffman. You'll see in the agreement that comes forward for your approval next week that there is a fee involved in utilizing that city property. Excellent. |
| 01:37:02.73 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, you buried the lead on that one. Thanks |
| 01:37:07.71 | Unknown | And I was going to point that out, that's part of the negotiations that are underway right now, finalizing those agreements. Okay, great, thanks. Discussions have been taking place for the last couple of weeks. |
| 01:37:12.23 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, great, thanks. |
| 01:37:13.03 | Adam Politzer | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 01:37:15.78 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:37:15.79 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 01:37:15.86 | Unknown | So, |
| 01:37:16.01 | Adam Politzer | right your way ahead of me. Thanks. Yeah, Mr. Mayor and Council members, if I can just add, because I've been the one working with Lisa and John on this, and I the You know, really the direction that we received from the Council last year when we had other interested parties come forward was do what we can to make this work. We want to encourage this type of activity to give the customers, the visitors an option if they would like to release the bike in Sausalito to do that. So that was part of the premise that we started. But we also recognize that the city needs to generate revenue to offset our costs. So you'll see in the agreement that there is a sliding scale to use that as the example of you know there's a set percentage that the city will receive but then that percentage will go up as they're more successful we'll get a bigger piece of the revenue that's generated and I And I think there'll be an opportunity to do a check-in for both parties' sake to make sure that the bike return program is successful. Because I think to your question, Council Member Hoffman to Lisa Scalpazi, is there an opportunity for this to grow? Can we duplicate this model at Vista Point, Vista Trail, Fort Baker, different parts of town? And I think if this is successful, and it's a benefit also to the bike rental companies, then we can expand on this. So we don't want them to be underwater and financially not succeed. So we want them to be motivated because there's a little bit of money that they can be made as well. So I think that you'll see in the item that we bring before the council, it's a fair deal. I think that's feel that it's a fair deal that we've worked out. But an opportunity if necessary to check in in July and help either party if necessary. |
| 01:39:23.18 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, great, thanks. |
| 01:39:25.88 | Unknown | Any other questions before we open public comment? |
| 01:39:30.96 | Joe Burns | Please. And I don't know if this is appropriate. I see Mr. Sears in the audience. I'm curious if this type of option will be made to the patrons prior to their ride over. Is there something said when they rent that hey, you might be able to release your bike early? Is this kind of supported by the rental company as an option? Sorry to put you on the spot there, Jeff. |
| 01:39:56.49 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:40:06.92 | Jeff Sears | That's a great question. And to answer you, I would say this is not something that the moment we would be doing, we did do it a few times last year during peak conditions, maybe about 10 days during mid-August at the height of the tourist season when the lines were the longest as an option. But our marketing campaign is based on returning on the ferry from either Sausalito or Tiburon. And that is our plan for 2017. It's great to have options and it's gonna be great to have something down there that's visible near the ferry terminal for someone else, for another option to be able, for our customers to be able to return, whether it's a taxi cab, or the Sausalito bike return. but it's not something that is currently going to be in our marketing campaign. |
| 01:41:10.85 | Joan Cox | Can I do a follow-on? |
| 01:41:12.35 | Unknown | Good. |
| 01:41:12.94 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 01:41:12.95 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:41:13.02 | Joan Cox | THE END OF |
| 01:41:13.11 | Unknown | IT'S NOT A BAD. |
| 01:41:13.41 | Joan Cox | Jeff, there's, I mean, as I envision it, people drop off their bikes, then they have two hands to shop and eat in Sausalito and then ride the ferry back without having to lug the bicycle onto the ferry. Is that not an advantage for your customers? |
| 01:41:29.22 | Jeff Sears | It is an advantage for some of the customers, but it would be generalizing all of them. The majority would. That is the game plan, and they do. come back from Sausalito with their bikes. There's a large percentage that continue on. And we're giving them an information transfer that is, there's a lot of information that's transferred in just a few minutes. We think that last season worked great. It worked better than the year before. Options are great too. Currently, though, we don't plan on including that as a priority of an information transfer that we'll be giving out to our customers unless we feel it necessary for some reason. |
| 01:42:17.99 | Joan Cox | So... Um, you understand that having all of the bicycles queued up with customers in the city of Sausalito is causing a problem for the city of Sausalito. |
| 01:42:29.97 | Jeff Sears | I don't agree with that. I completely don't agree with that. |
| 01:42:33.65 | Joan Cox | Okay, so you don't think that having queues down to the Spinnaker and you know, crowds of people standing in line for over an hour to be sure they don't lose their place in line so that they can take their bike on a ferry. You don't see that as creating a problem for the residents of Sausalito or the town of Sausalito. |
| 01:42:54.66 | Jeff Sears | I wish that there were no lines at all and I wish people didn't have to wait. But I can also tell you that this is a very popular activity. Sausalito is a very popular place. I don't think you have enough time for me to give all of my ideas on how we can improve the situation down here, but I think that we've been making a great effort in doing that, and I think we should continue in adding new things, for example, like and it's a plus, but I don't think it's going to solve the lines on the sidewalk, there are going to be lines, unless you're able to have a very service that has a larger capacity a terminal that can have a faster turnaround and be able to absorb all of the bikes coming into town. I can tell you last weekend was our busiest day of the year. interviewed. customers returning. and tour guides that were there. Ask them how bad was the line, how long was it, what was your experience, and there was a line. But the ferry service was so robust last weekend. that even though there was a line, they were able to absorb the the line rapidly and we had very few complaints. And that's not like it was a few years ago, so things are getting better. |
| 01:44:22.65 | Joan Cox | Well, okay. We could debate this for quite a while. The burden to the tourists was less last weekend, as you just said, because the ferry bumped up its service. So the ferry is subsidizing your profit by bumping up its service to accommodate all of those customers. My question to you is, does it not benefit your company and the city both to reduce the queues, get more bicycles out more quickly, and would that not be beneficial for you to make a marketing pitch to make that available? |
| 01:45:03.57 | Jeff Sears | If you want to reduce the queues on the sidewalk, then there's only so much space at the ferry terminal. You would need to give up space in the parking lots, and that's what I was going to be bringing up during public comment, but I could be glad to go over that now. I think an RFP should be issued. for the services that both do the parking and the line queuing and the ambassador program. And the revenue that would be lost from the meters that's being taken away both on Tracy Way and any space given up in the parking lot A would be the first revenue that's paid back to the city for the organization that was awarded the RFP. And if you were able to give space back in the parking lot, then you could get the line off of the sidewalk. So that would be the first thing I would do to mitigate that situation. |
| 01:46:12.54 | Unknown | Any other questions of Mr. Sears before we return to the Chief? No, thank you, Mr. Sears. Chief, I have a question about, I realize overall congestion, this is in the context of overall congestion management, part of which also relates to the efforts of enforcement and impounding of bicycles that are illegally parked. When is that activity going to begin? |
| 01:46:42.47 | Unknown | It should also start on Saturday the 1st. |
| 01:46:45.19 | Unknown | Okay. Thank you. Any other questions before we open for public comment? |
| 01:46:49.32 | Jill Hoffman | I do have a follow-up question. And this has to do back to your comments about the fee for the bike trailer to have that area, have the leased area. I notice that there are bike companies that bring in trailers that sit on our streets that remove bikes. And I've seen them down there at various times throughout the day that they're loading. It looks like a lot of bikes on the trailers. Do we have any agreements with any of the bike companies with regard to their use of our lots or our streets for their own trailers? |
| 01:47:22.82 | Adam Politzer | Not that I'm aware of. |
| 01:47:24.15 | Jill Hoffman | Have we ever approached them about that? Have we ever talked to them about |
| 01:47:30.72 | Adam Politzer | Well, I think that as those are reported to the city or if we witness that activity, then the police department can contact those companies and issue them a warning and then report it to community development for further code enforcement action |
| 01:47:51.68 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:47:52.93 | Joe Burns | I think it's a good question. |
| 01:47:52.94 | Adam Politzer | Okay, thanks. |
| 01:47:55.71 | Joe Burns | Most of the time, 95% of the time, they're picked up at Spinnaker Drive, which is not the city's. That's spinnaker. |
| 01:48:07.76 | Unknown | Okay, why don't we at this point open it up for public comment? And so is there any member of the public who'd like to talk about this item? |
| 01:48:25.78 | Unknown | Well, thanks for coming. Any member of the public? |
| 01:48:29.56 | Joe Burns | public. They're back up on prospect. |
| 01:48:34.00 | Unknown | I'm going to get home. |
| 01:48:34.68 | Joe Burns | Thank you. |
| 01:48:34.69 | David Archer | I'm gonna leave too. I'm on the top. |
| 01:48:37.34 | Unknown | David, good evening. |
| 01:48:40.53 | David Archer | Thank you, honorable mayor and city council members. I just have a couple brief comments about it. As you know, the Chamber's working diligently on the management of the congestion down there. We're working with the bike companies and the ferry companies to come up with a solution for the queuing this year. As you might remember, a few years ago, the Chamber was intimately involved with the queuing process. We stepped back for a couple years, and now we're going to step back in and see if we can have a hand in managing that process for this year. Another comment about the bike returns, I spoke today with another member chamber member who is willing to pay for a spot apparently they can rent the spots in front of their businesses pay the city a fee to do that and they have a return mechanism that they're willing to also offer up if there's an appetite for that or how they would be able to do that and so they feel like they don't have a voice so i want to be the voice of business here so i'm bringing that to you as another alternative either for this year because if someone's already doing it in the Spinnaker parking lot and they're willing to pay for a Spot in front of their business to return bikes seems like a natural fit to me So that's all I have if you have any questions for me. I'd be happy to answer them Thank you. |
| 01:49:59.78 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:49:59.79 | David Archer | Thank you. |
| 01:49:59.88 | Unknown | . |
| 01:49:59.91 | David Archer | Yeah. |
| 01:50:00.03 | Unknown | Thank you. Any other questions for David? Okay, thank you. Any other member of the public like to say anything on this topic? Okay. No. Jeff, please. |
| 01:50:20.38 | Jeff Sears | Okay, I wanted to finish up a couple of the items that I was unable to earlier. I've read the staff report, and I am pleased that there will be additional signage to alert and warn bicyclists that might be parking on Bridgeway or all the other downtown streets that could be impounded. impounded i think that's a really good move and i think that will drive more uh parking over to the paid lot on tracy way so i think that is a positive as well as the uh bike return so salida bike return with them and i would also like to regarding the um in the future I really think the city should issue an RFP to manage Tracy way and I mentioned earlier that the reimbursement for the revenue that was generated on Tracy way and lot a that That used to be a real number one topic that just seems to have fallen off the table. I'm not sure why that happened. And I would really like to make sure that that is part of the RFP when it's issued. The current arrangement, that is on the board tonight that's going to be voted on in a few minutes I'm I'm really concerned about that. I really think there's a conflict with members on the BPAC committee also being related to or on the board of directors of the Sausalito Plus. I think there's a real major conflict of interest and I feel like with a really large budget, hundreds of thousands of dollars like that, sent out to the public and, be given an opportunity for other entities to put proposals down. And I really feel that there could be a great service provided for much less money and any excess revenue could be going back to this city to improve bicycle infrastructure for Sausalito, so that would be my. hope that the city council could do that in the future. Thank you. |
| 01:52:48.81 | Unknown | Thank you. Yoshi. |
| 01:53:00.76 | Yoshi | Good evening all. Good evening. Mr. Shira. I would suggest to adapt to those resolutions. Please let SASRIRO Plus do the job. I want to say thank you for SASRIRO Ambassador Program. People, without their work, would be a nightmare downtown area. It has been so bad three, four years ago. Yes, we lost money for operation, but without their effort, service. |
| 01:53:01.23 | Unknown | Oh, yeah. these. you |
| 01:53:26.41 | Yoshi | It's going to be terrible. Then our manager, Mark, I spoke with him, meet with him in person, talk about this program. Without Sassero Plus, this ambassador program, his hotel become an information center, dealing with all the bike riders and everything else, creating huge trouble, really creating a lot of chaos on the downtown area. So he'd like to come here at the meeting today. I connect with him tonight. Today is his daughter's birthday. I said, go party with daughter. I've spent... area so he'd like to come here at the meeting today. I connect with him tonight. He said today is his daughter's birthday. I said go party with daughter. I speak on behalf of you. Make sure city will move forward with the program. So I would strongly suggest to do the job. I know it's not perfect, but it's a volunteer organization. It costs a lot of money for us. Hopefully, they can experience with a better way to manage it, to do saving money, make a few bucks, and I think better for SAS Lira. For us business people, if downtown is congested, if we cannot drive through, cannot come to SAS Lira, everybody suffers. not only the residents and the business, everybody. More bike riders, more tourists will come to Saus Riro because we are living on the paradise. So let's manage a better way to handle this. Thank you. Thank you. |
| 01:54:49.33 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:54:53.96 | Tom Riley | Hello, Tom Riley with Sausalito Plus. First, I want to assure you that there is no conflict of interest with Sausalito Plus. I served on the pedestrian bicycle committee for nearly four years. I stepped down to be the chairman of Sausalito Plus, so we do not have a conflict of interest. We have an independent board. Thank you. We have the gentleman who runs Price Waterhouse Coopers for the Western US on our board. To make sure we have complete transparency, we operate as a non-profit. A conflict of interest, we have no desire to make any money. We're volunteering our time to help the city. It's through the PBAC, working with Herb many years to get Tracy Way closed. And we became creative to figure out how to charge valet parking to generate revenues. we're feeling confident we can break our cover our costs this year. I think the alternative is not to charge for biking. And for all those spots that have bikes in them, we charge at rental companies. And we're certain that that's not what they'd like to see. So we aspire to work with them, figure out how we get collaborative, and I think we have to work as a team. |
| 01:55:57.80 | Unknown | Thank you, Tom. Anybody else like to comment on this item? Seeing none, let's close public comment. Okay, I see what we need to get done here. Is there any comments from my colleagues up here before we move towards the motion? Thank you. |
| 01:56:22.25 | Joe Burns | Anybody got anything to say? I'll make a comment just because I kind of addressed it. |
| 01:56:23.24 | Unknown | I'll make it clear. Yeah. |
| 01:56:29.30 | Joe Burns | Well, I didn't, but I initially brought Mr. Sears up to the podium. And I appreciate the idea of going forward with an RFP for next year. And I think that's a good idea for the 2019 season. If we can test a lot of different options in 2018 season, and I hope we're not done with testing options. I'm intrigued by this self directional option that might get bikes turned around. And I would like to see a rental company, any rental company, take ownership of promoting that as a test option for the 2018 season that might be implemented in the 2019 season. in the queuing options explored in 2018, because I agree, we should go out with RFPs, or at least with the idea of somebody coming in with an encompassing plan that looks at the options that were tested this year. We can't simply go through another year and then ask the same question again next April or March. We're gonna vote on something tonight and we're gonna have an update in July but I hope the continually looking out of the box happens all the way through October 17th so that we have a very good platform to agree by December of 2018 what we want to do in March of 2019. And it very well could be go out to bid for that. The one area I think that we all kind of mentioned, maybe I missed it that it was a direct response, but I don't think we really liked the term valet and we're hoping that was gonna go away. It sounds like valet is staying as a term for the bike parking. If everybody's good with that, but we really saw it as an opportunity to alleviate that. that term so that was my only comment on going forward I guess I missed Please. |
| 01:58:17.06 | Jill Hoffman | Oh, yeah. So I'm in favor of better management congestion downtown, and I like Saucelio Plus. A, it's a nonprofit. B, it provides almost 45 jobs for people in town, seasonal jobs for seniors, for active seniors, for kids, for anybody that wants a seasonal job. It's a fantastic opportunity for somebody that's active and wants to be involved in the town and talk to. It's actually kind of a fun job. It's a great job for kids. So, you know, and I look at it the way that we had this very robust management system with, you know, 35 to 45 employees, I think, last year. But it only cost the city $32,000. So we, it covered their costs more than $200,000. So, you know, I don't like to look at it in the negative. I like to look at it in the positive, that we received a huge benefit that was very much largely paying for itself. I think we're very close to, obviously, this season break even. Saucy-o-plus could have been told at any point throughout last summer, shut it off. Decrease your mani. We want to have lower services on the street and lower you know, worse management on the street, but they were told to continue. And so, you know, that resulted in a bit of a shortfall. But like I said, I thought we got a good, pretty good benefit for only $32,000. All ideas are good ideas, so Scopazi is awesome. I hope that you're successful, and the city's going to support you in that. I agree that transparency is great. I love it. Anybody that has questions about how Sosslio Plus is managed, let's answer those questions. Yes, an RFP next fall. You're going to have a tough time beating a nonprofit, though, the level of service that we got from Sauselio Plus, but have at it if someone wants to try to take that on. I'm fine with that, but I have to. Yeah. Thank you. I have confidence that Sausley Pletson, if they choose to keep going. Keep in mind, this is a volunteer board. It's run by... some people that donate a bunch of time. There are paid directors and paid managers, but, you know, Hopefully we will support this successful operation in our town. And I, you know, You know, Jeff Sears and I are just always going to disagree on the policy issue of the impact of his business on our town. And so I've said this many times, you know, Saucel Plus was stood up because of the impact that his business and other bicycle rental businesses had on our town that was not being properly managed by them. And that's why we had the nonprofit step up and start their operations. I am very concerned about the continued blockage of our sidewalks. So we have a bicycle queuing area for the ferry that, you know, that we've let them use. I'm not sure we're getting paid for that queuing area. So, and now they've morphed down into Tracy Way. And I had pictures, I saw copies that were forwarded to us from last weekend by a member of the bike and ped committee that was down there at 5.30 on a Saturday afternoon where bicycles were too deep. on the sidewalk all the way down into the park. And that's all the way down the sidewalk by Tracy Way on down into Gabrielson Park. So as a city council member and policy maker, I don't think that that's acceptable, that's not safe. Our citizens can't get by on their own sidewalks that they're paying for. So anyway, I hope that we vote yes on this proposal tonight. And I look forward to seeing the proposal for the bike return system as well. |
| 02:02:08.69 | Unknown | Herb. |
| 02:02:09.18 | Joan Cox | I'm actually going to go next. |
| 02:02:10.38 | Unknown | Okay. |
| 02:02:10.45 | Unknown | Please. |
| 02:02:11.07 | Joan Cox | I'm going to piggyback on Councilmember Hoffman's comments. I completely endorse everything she said, and I want to take it a step further by pointing out that there is actually a legal cause of action when a company imposes damage on a public agency where it impacts the public agency as a whole, and that is called a public nuisance. So where a company overwhelms our downtown with bicycles, clogs our sidewalks, our streets, and fails to cooperate with us in mitigating and managing that damage, we actually could take action. So I think it would behoove the bicycle companies, all of them, and not singling out Blazing Saddles or Bay Cities, to cooperate to the fullest extent possible with us in managing this issue that they have foisted upon us. They are profiting mightily on the backs of our residents, and to the tune of $30,000 last year that the city has had to absorb. And it's inexcusable in my view. So I am very interested in seeing further cooperation in all aspects of our bicycle management from the bicycle companies. I want to applaud the Chamber of Commerce for getting back involved in assisting with the queuing issue. And in proposing any ideas as it has for reducing the adverse impacts to our downtown that occurs because of the bicyclists. And look, I think the bicycle program is wonderful. If I was a tourist, I'd want to ride a bike and take the ferry back. But it's a great thing. the management becomes an issue for everyone except the bicycle companies. It's an issue for the tourists who are saddled with their bikes and have to stand in line. It's an issue for the residents and the businesses who are adversely impacted by the congestion. So I'm thankful to Herb and to Sausalito Plus for coming up with the solutions thus far. I'm grateful to the Skapazis for jumping in to help address bicycle returns. And I think we're well on a path for greater amelioration of this issue. I do think as a public agency, we have an obligation to test the waters and to issue an RFP enough in advance that interested companies can provide us with ideas to consider and to weigh and to ensure that the revenues that are generated from the parking of the bicycles are utilized in the best manner possible. So I also endorse the idea of an RFP this fall. Thank you. |
| 02:05:26.43 | Joe Burns | Thank you for me. I'll try to do it in three minutes. Thank you John, I know you've been working real hard at this, appreciate it. Adam, Tom Riley. the Scapazis. and David Atcher. |
| 02:05:50.23 | Joe Burns | I think I proposed something in front of you before at the last meeting showing you how we could run it. YOU ALL RECEIVED THIS? It shows that we could run this for about $95,000. And also giving $30,000 for Sausalito Plus. to operate out in the street. you know. The idea of this year was to attempt to get the ferry people. Bicycle people all working together. That didn't work up till now. And sometimes you have to put on a carrot and by the way this this proposal that was given to you was based upon $2 a bike. not $3 a bike. It was based upon paying employees $15 an hour, not $13.50 an hour. Okay, very efficiently. You don't need people to park their bikes, you need attendees to guide them where to put it. You don't need all that labor. You could run that on the busiest day on Tracy Way with four people. And that's adding one person to just stand by the machines to help people pay. All right. We've had limited communication. And I know the captain has attempted to very hard to work with the bike companies, the ferry. We need a comprehensive transportation plan in this town. It isn't just the bikes. And if you really look at it, 15, 10 years ago, there were more automobiles bumper to bumper on Bridgeway. Now you can whiz through Bridgeway on the weekend. So they are coming in by bicycles and not by automobiles, that we know. They're also coming in by bus and ferry. 230,000 people come in by bus and ferry. You have the taxi cabs. Now you have the return section. And this has to be all put together in one comprehensive way, all right? This operation should and has to make some money, all right, and it should. All right, so when we do put it out for bid, we have something to show. I hope that they make, and the indications I get is that if you took in $250,000 that you did last year, then you should probably make about $25,000 this year. under this proposal. Um... I THINK THAT IT'S It has to be very, very efficient. And as far as your lineups, during the peak season That takes place between 3 or 2.30 on weekends to 6.30 at night. All right, and you're not going to be, because that's when everybody, rents their bike at 10, 11, 12. They're not over here till one, two. They ride around the town sometimes because $3 was too much for them to pay. One of the things that we proposed that we wanted to do is go to the bike companies and say here, Educate your customers, and we will give you a dollar discount. Get them into the habit. Because it was maybe 10 times last year that on the weekend we were sold out. But during August and July, we weren't sold out. As the indication shows, last July, there were 57,000 tourist bikes came into town 85% of them went down El Portel that means 48,000 bikes and yet we packed 18,000 bikes and those people that pulled right into El Portel at 3 o'clock in the afternoon you're not gonna get right on a ferry you're not just gonna roll up and get on you're gonna get in line on the sidewalk All right, and this phenomenon, no matter how many bites you pull, I mean 300 a day is okay. I think it really adds up to 9,000 a month and that is a small step, but at least it's a positive step. But when you're taking across 300,000 bikes, And that's 185 and 120 from each of the ferry companies. You know, this is going to happen no matter what, because it's like going out of a Golden Gate Warriors game, no different than any other event. Everybody's piling in at one time. So no matter what we do, we're going to have to live with that until some way that we can set it up that maybe down at Cavallo Point we could have a staging area there where they could leave their bikes I don't see that happening for a few years I So I really think that we And I think Tom Riley from Sausalito Plus has done a great job even coming with this proposal. It's not the best proposal. It's the only one you got on the table. |
| 02:11:36.40 | Unknown | Thank you, Herb. |
| 02:11:41.48 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:11:41.51 | Unknown | . |
| 02:11:42.59 | Unknown | The bike and ped committee was formed, I don't know, back in a long time ago, 2008, and then it went dormant. And then in 2013, Herbie, who's mayor, resurrected it. A year later we had Sausalito Plus and I remember my first year on the council, sat just there, Joe, where we were talking about the fact that I think Tracy Way had been closed the year before, maybe the two years before that. And what we were doing, we were trying different things to see what worked, as we were piecing together pieces of the puzzle. And over the last four years that I've been on the council, pieces of the puzzle have been put in place. There's a couple of things that I think are important. We've been moving towards trying to figure out what is the best way for our overall congestion management operations. downtown, and that involves a whole number of elements. Unfortunately, there's one factor that, in part, causes the downtown to be overwhelmed, and that's the number of rental bicycles that come in. And therefore, a lot of our congestion management plans have had to be steered towards that. Now, I think we put a lot of pieces together, and I must admit, as I said at the last meeting, I'm gratified that there's a bit more cooperation between some of the players now, and that's fantastic. And this has been bolstered by the really good work of our volunteers and our non-profit, and I can't say enough good things about Sausalito Plus and how it's all been working, you know, it's been trying to bring... People together, a bit like herding cats, right? You know, you've been trying to marshal all the forces and put all the pieces in place. But there's a piece that does still have to be worked on and we can't just do it by dictate up here because there's other players involved. And that is the land side of the ferry dock. I mean, The Ferry, the Golden Gate Bridge District, ferry operations. are using our public spaces Thank you. way beyond what it was ever contemplated to do. We have now had to reconfigure our downtown to provide parking for the ferry, for bicycles. And that's not something that we ever contemplated having to do, but we've done it because we have to in our role and our principal role as safety and congestion management downtown. And we've cobbled together various ways of doing it by parking, by getting parking fees, trying to cover the cost of the cost of congestion management. We do have some pieces still to solve, and that's the land side of the ferry. And that's going to take a while, and it's very difficult to have long-term productive conversations, obviously, when you're in a lawsuit with someone. So a lot of these things are all tied together, and I fully agree the queuing has got to be dealt with. I mean, I'd like to see a robust reservation system so that people don't actually have to queue. They have to park if they want to get on the ferry, and they have to then move from that parking lot to the ferry with their bicycle efficiently. We've got to still put some processes in place to make that work. But in the end, that's the only way to reduce, in my view, to actually reduce the piece of the congestion puzzle that we haven't still got our arms around, which is the queuing piece. And that's going to take a bit more time. And then once we've figured out that piece, I think because I've had conversations many months ago with Sol Soledo Plus, there needs to be succession planning in terms of how this operation gets robustly put in place. So I think the idea of understanding all the congestion management pieces and then start figuring out how to put together an RFP to start figuring out what the comprehensive service is. So that's what I personally like us to move towards and I think we've made some good steps. So I'm supportive of this. We're looking for a motion to get this done. And who would like to? Thank you. |
| 02:16:22.95 | Joe Burns | THE END OF That the city council adopt a resolution of the city. Council of the City of Sausalito approving the agreement for bicycle ambassador services with Sausalito Plus from April 1st 2017 to October 15th 2017. |
| 02:16:40.89 | Jill Hoffman | Second. |
| 02:16:42.09 | Joe Burns | Thank you. |
| 02:16:42.11 | Unknown | Okay. Do we need, can we? Yeah. Do we need a roll call? Okay, Debbie. |
| 02:16:51.61 | Unknown | Councilmember Burns. |
| 02:16:53.38 | Joe Burns | Yes. |
| 02:16:54.04 | Unknown | Council member Weiner. |
| 02:16:55.29 | Joe Burns | I'M GOING TO BE ABLE TO |
| 02:16:57.99 | Unknown | Councilmember Hoffman. |
| 02:17:00.15 | Joe Burns | Thank you. |
| 02:17:00.16 | Jill Hoffman | Yes. |
| 02:17:00.42 | Joe Burns | Thank you. |
| 02:17:00.43 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 02:17:01.72 | Unknown | Vice Mayor Cox? Yes. And Mayor Whitty. |
| 02:17:02.75 | Joe Burns | Yeah. |
| 02:17:04.35 | Unknown | Yes. Okay, thank you. Thank you for all those who are diligently working hard together to try and make this work. Thank you very much, all of you. Yes, and with that, I'm going to call a five minute break. Thanks, Tom. |
| 02:17:24.87 | Unknown | Thanks Debbie, so we're back on the record here. Item 6D. Is... opportunities for efficiencies, collaboration, consolidation, or elimination of a number of city boards and commissions. And this is something that we ask staff to come back with. There's a lot of staff time, there's a lot of city council time, there's a lot of work done by a lot of volunteers on all our various boards and commissions. And we thought it was worth sort of at least asking where a refresh needs to take place. Number one, cognizant of the fact that we have the general plan that we're working on, which a lot of boards and commissions will be involved with. So there's all kinds of moving parts here. So it's time to reflect on do we need to make any changes? And with that, I believe our city manager is going to lead our discussion on this tonight. Over to you, Adam. |
| 02:18:37.04 | Adam Politzer | Thank you, Mr. Mayor and council members. I, need to start by giving credit to Lily Whalen, who our city clerk assistant city manager she actually put this presentation together uh... but she's been traveling uh... and uh... she is not with us uh... to deliver this presentation so worry have a three-member team that are here to help you uh... we have historic uh... information from debbie who um... has has a lot of history on some of the original discussions on these items and how they evolved. And then obviously we have the city attorney here that can help us also look at some of the objectives of some of these boards and commissions, specifically trees and views and undergrounding as we do have some recommendations. I think as... As we look back a little bit in time, roughly 10 years, one of the things that became clear to me when I became the city manager is that this city has always had an abundance of boards, commissions, committees, subcommittees, working groups, task force. And when you talk to other city managers, and as Ray and I experienced when we went to the League of Cities conference and we met, we actually had dinner with the San Rafael city clerk, which is an elected position. And the city manager, and we were talking about how do you have such a robust operation of a city with very few boards and commissions. And when we explained the number of boards and commissions that we had, they tried to figure out how we can actually operate with that many slots to fill with resident volunteers or business community members, depending on the commission and then actually how you can have effective meetings. because we lack meeting space for the number of meetings that we have night and day here at City Hall. So from the initial effort, it was trying to look at how could we become more efficient and effective in utilizing our volunteers that serve on these boards and commissions. And then also kind of refresh what the objectives are of these boards and commissions. You know, the Underground Committee and the arts commission, they have had various levels of success over time, but they've also had a lot of challenges, including the art commission forming. I call it where they had a revolt against each other at one stage because they couldn't agree with how to move forward. We had that group all turned in their resignations, and then we reappointed another group, and they were working nicely together, focused on the art walk is one of their main focuses. But then somewhere down the line, they had a disagreement on how to move forward on various things, and they too submitted their their resignations all except for the chair. And we had to dissolve the committee because the chair would not resign. Which was probably part of the reason why the other members were resigning. So that's just an example of some of the challenges that you have when you bring these group of meaningful people together and ask them to work together. They don't all necessarily have the same agenda, same goals, same objectives, and that's been challenging. Tonight is the beginning of this conversation. There may be opportunities tonight to look at some of these and give direction to staff to come back. There'll be others where you'll want more information. There'll be others where we think that we need to go back to those groups and have further discussion before we come back. The Disaster Preparedness Committee is one of those that has asked that before you take any action that you defer that discussion tonight and allow staff to meet with them to talk about the concept that's being proposed here in our staff report i know there's members of the business community here that would also like to continue this discussion regards to the hospitality commission and how how it interacts with the business advisory committee as also proposed here so we we're not asking the council to necessarily take sweeping actions tonight, but to give us some direction so that at the end of the day, again, we're using our resources to the best of our abilities. Many of these boards and commissions are staffed. And again, we have limited members of staff that can attend meetings. The public would prefer that most of our meetings are in the evening so the public can attend. Well, we can't accommodate all of our meetings in the evening. Some members would like our meetings early in the morning so the public can also attend those before they go off to work. So asking staff to extend their day either prior to work hours or after work hours is another consideration that needs to be included in this. So the Underground Committee, the Trees and Views Committee, the Sustainability Commission are an example of where we have a lot of staff involved on those boards and commissions in advisory roles to help them make decisions and move forward. So without further ado, I'm going to go through Lily Whalen's slides here fairly quickly. I think the staff report is fairly self-explanatory, and I think between Mary and Debbie and I we'll be able to answer most of your questions. And then if you want recommendations on next steps, I think that I can help provide some guidance there if it's not clear from either your own questions or comments from the public. So here we go. |
| 02:24:52.41 | Adam Politzer | Okay, so let's see how we get to advance this. All right. . Okay, so tonight's focus is mostly on the 13 boards and committees and commissions. So this is not ad hoc groups, not blue ribbon committees, not task force. This isn't the general plan task force or the advisory board or the task force that looked at short term vacation rentals. It's not the Marineship Steering Committee. So there are probably another 15, 20 other committees and then JPAs that take up staff and council members time. So we're just focusing on 13 of the existing. And as you can see, all of these are appointed by the council. So the applications are received by the council. We interview the applicants and then they make appointments. right now of these are appointed by the council, so the applications are received by the council. We interview the applicants and then they make appointments. Right now of these 13, three of them are inactive. And of the balance of the ten active ones, we have four of those that are fully seated and at full capacity with its volunteer members. And then we have five that have at least one or two vacancies and then we have one that's completely vacant. This is the list of those active boards and commissions. I won't read them. And then the list of the three inactive ones, which represent the ARC Commission, Citizens Advisory Review Board on Police Matters, and the Undergrounding Committee. The Arts Commission has been vacant since 2010. We've had a lot of discussion on how to move forward with the Arts Commission. And so what we are recommending as kind of an intermediate step is to add two members to the Park and Rec Commission that are artists. And any items that have review of public art in public places be reviewed by the Parks and Rec Commission. And obviously the two artists that play a role on the Park and Rec Commission can provide expertise in terms of subject matter. And if necessary, the Park and Rec Commission can spin off a subcommittee, which could be led by the two artists that are on the park and rec commission to engage additional artists or additional expertise at a subcommittee level and then report back up to the park and rec commission and then make recommendations to the city council. As this effort gains traction and if there are more public art items for discussion for the city's consideration, we can then build from this model and spin the two artists off of the Park and Rec Commission and form an arts commission at that point in time. So we think that this is a good step to move move forward and give some credibility to discussion items that are related to art in public places and look at opportunities to work with Sausalito Beautiful and as we move forward with the historical society and another so staff is recommending that we actually eliminate the Arts Commission and take formal action on that so there is no confusion. And then to amend the Parks and Recreation Resolution number 3292 to expand the Park and Rec Commission membership from five to seven seats where the two additional seats would be artists. |
| 02:28:35.21 | Adam Politzer | The business advisory committee, this is a committee that is also ups and downs in terms of what they've been focused on, the levels of discussion that have included staff. At one point it was chaired by the mayor and that for many years was then chaired by Paul Alburn who was a council member and I'm imagining he was the mayor when this was formed and that's why he became the chair. But then when Paul stepped down from the business advisory committee, Jonathan Leon was the mayor and he chaired it and then we made a decision as a council that the mayor cannot be the chair of the business advisory committee. And so now the council members that sit on that don't serve as the chair, but serve just as liaissance to the business advisory committee. So we've actually changed the role of the council members that have sat before on the business advisory committee. In addition, different staff members have chaired that committee. And one point it was staffed that committee. At one point it was the city manager and at the time that was Dana Whitson. Then eventually it was the community development director, which was Jeremy Graves. And then eventually it changed over to Lily Whalen, who was our finance analyst, supported with Charlie Francis, who would attend those meetings as well. Then at one point it was not staffed at all. They met on their own and we did not have staff attending their meetings. And then eventually to where it is now, we have Melanie Purcellcell who is the staff assigned to the business advisory committee. So looking at how they work with the city and how we continue to build that relationship with the chamber of commerce is something that we think that the council needs further discussion with both the staff and with the chamber. And then looking at the business hospitality committee, the hospitality business development committee. And looking at their role, and we're recommending that we look to roll up that responsibility into the business advisory committee. And that can either be done as a subcommittee of the business advisory committee, or to roll up those responsibilities and add them to the business advisory committee's roles and objectives as we move forward. We do believe that there's further discussion that's necessary there, including meeting with the hospitality committee and the business advisory committee in a joint meeting. But we think that ultimately, if you look over the past ten years, and even longer than that, The hospitality committee has really had some challenges in terms of having regular meeting schedules, having regular staff appointed to them, and then looking at a pretty restricted budget that has been constant since I've been with the city of about $30,000 in terms of how they operate and how that money has been used and recommended by the hospitality committee to help foster as they labeled back then heads and beds. So that's one of the two committees that we would like to also consolidate similar to the Arts Commission and the Parks and Recreation Commission's. Can we ask questions? |
| 02:32:14.01 | Joe Burns | Can we ask questions? |
| 02:32:15.83 | Adam Politzer | Yeah, if you want to stop and ask questions about that. |
| 02:32:17.22 | Joe Burns | Yeah, we give the BAC and the hospitality combined, what do we give them, 30 and 10? |
| 02:32:25.27 | Adam Politzer | The business advisory committee actually does not have any money that is designated for their use like the hospitality has a $30,000 allowance that they bring to the council for the council's approval and then they can spend that money. And traditionally they've had a series of programs and events that the city has sponsored. In the past years, what the city has done is at one point there was a $10,000 amount in the business advisories account. And we would bring joint projects that were usually sponsored by the Chamber of Commerce or the business community and match it with the city and so some of the reports that you heard from Mr. Van Meter earlier were reports that the business advisory committee sponsored and we shared the cost of those reports through our relationship with the chamber. Where we've moved the last two or three years is that there is a fund in the city's budget for economic development. And regardless if it came from the business advisory committee, the hospitality committee, or a member of the public, those funds are available to help us do studies, reports, or try to trial programs with those funds. I'm not sure if we're going to |
| 02:33:48.73 | Joe Burns | Thank you. thought of working on like if it's 30 and 10 maybe a percentage of the t ot like I believe they did 1.6 million so if you gave them 2 and a half percent that comes out to 40,000 and if it would increase that would be their increase would be on the t ot Have we maybe considered something like that? |
| 02:34:16.29 | Adam Politzer | There's been a lot of different proposals that have come before the finance committee, from the Chamber of Commerce, from the hospitality committee, specifically. I think tonight's action isn't really looking at those types of functions. But the question is, regardless of those types of ideas, can that be administered through the business advisory committee as one body versus having two bodies competing for those same type of funds. And in some cases competing with each other on the use of those funds. So again, rolling the hospitality committee's responsibilities up. into the business advisory committee, we can look at the makeup of that committee, expand it, shrink it, have subgroups of that. That's a different discussion, not for tonight. But again, if there are monies available, that would come through the budget process, and that would be a very different conversation. |
| 02:35:14.34 | Adam Politzer | Okay, I'll continue on. |
| 02:35:20.65 | Adam Politzer | So here again, when you look at the presentation, this is just taking the formal action of the recommendation of incorporating the Hospitality Business Development Committee functions into the Business Advisory Committee. and eliminating the Hospitality Business Development Committee by rescinding resolution number 5155. And my, modifying the resolution number 5426 to incorporate the hospitality business development committee functions. Again, just a reminder, we're not actually asking the council to take action on this tonight. We just want feedback and direction and as I mentioned earlier, I'm sure you're going to receive public comment from our business community. on things that may be in concert or other options for the council's consideration. The Citizens Advisory Review Board on Police Matters last met in 2012. And this is a group that did not have regular meetings. They met as complaints came forward and they would form their group. And then they would hold their meetings and then report back to the chief and move forward. We think that this is an outdated model for a small town and as the chief here has suggested, it's not something that we think is needed. It was the same recommendation that Chief Paulin had made probably back in 2012 or earlier when we were looking at evolving this group into a different board. Which is later on in the slides is more of a public safety board where you have an umbrella group that can have some of these functions where the residents have the ability to either come and lodge a complaint towards an officer or towards a policy of the police department and be heard and have those issues vetted at those meetings. So we're recommending that you eliminate, formally eliminate, the Citizens Advisory Review Board on police matters. This item, as I said at the very beginning, we're asking you to continue it on the discussion on disaster preparedness. We just rolled it here in front of you so that you can see that our recommendation is to rename this the Public Safety Committee and have disaster preparedness as one of the offshoots of this Public Safety Committee. There's many ways to move forward. You can continue to have the disaster preparedness committees stay appointed to that responsibility and that objective, and then appoint other members to take on some of the other responsibilities. But we'll come back with additional information after we've had an opportunity to talk to the disaster preparedness committee on what the intentions of the city council and staff is here to try to expand from not just disaster preparedness but also some of the other important issues. The city council and staff is here to try to expand from not just disaster preparedness, but also some of the other important issues related to public safety for both fire and police and public works. |
| 02:38:32.99 | Adam Politzer | One of the recommendations for the Public Safety Committee is to have a sustainability commissioner serve as a liaison to the Public Safety Committee. Because there is a connection between sustainability and resilience planning with disaster preparedness and we don't think that that's being addressed. So we think that formally adding one of the sustainability commissioners to the public safety committee would be a good idea. But again, it's premature for that discussion. As you look at these slides, we want to make sure you understand the context that is before you. |
| 02:39:17.95 | Adam Politzer | The trees and views committee, when I started as the city manager, the trees and views committee was managed by our maintenance division of the city. And that was fine if you wanted to understand the species of the tree and the various challenges that come with pruning trees. But the planning process was totally lost and this whole function was needed to be moved into the planning department and at the time Lily is starting to sound like Debbie to me because when Lily first started with the city she was an assistant planner and her responsibility was trees and views so just like when you saw the website being the first website being designed with our with Debbie as the manager of our um, Computer Information Services Department, something I can't remember existed back in college. But the same here was with Lily where she took this responsibility on. We structured it more like planning commission meetings on how findings were made and how the meetings were agendized and how the meetings were conducted. Again, this has had some ups and downs throughout the years of good members, to members that were traveling a lot and having a tough time having a quorum, to actually finding people that were interested in serving on this committee. So we're recommending that we actually roll up this responsibility to the planning commission, because we believe a lot of the times when people are looking to remodel their homes or make changes to their landscape, the views that are affected either by the property that is making the landscape changes or the next door neighbor, those are issues that the Planning Commission routinely deal with. When it comes to sunlight and privacy, same thing. People are concerned if you remove a tree or prune a tree, how that's going to affect their privacy or their sunlight if you let the tree grow too tall and not maintain the tree. So we think that this is a great opportunity to roll up this responsibility to the Planning Commission. And so we would recommend that you eliminate the Treason Views Committee by rescinding ordinance number 1050. Similar with the underground committee, here's another committee that hasn't been meeting on a regular basis for many years. And when they were actively meeting, it wasn't very frequently as items came up. There is some duplication here because you have a planning commission member that sits on the undergrounding committee. And so again, this we think is another item that makes sense to move up to the planning commission. So when the project comes before the planning commission, at the very beginning stage of the approval process, the undergrounding issues are addressed then. What is happening now is they go through the process and then they get into the building process. PG&E now comes in and they say, well, we can't do what you planned and we gotta change this. And next thing you know, the whole neighborhood is in an uproar because a new line has gone across someone's view. Or a new pole has to be erected and has to move two feet away from the old pole and that causes a problem. And so we just think that it's best addressed at the beginning of the planning process rather than in the middle or halfway through in the construction stage. So staff is recommending that we eliminate the undergrounding committee andind ordinance number 1042 and expand the planning commission's responsibility by modifying their chapter 1808 of the municipal code. you And 2.58 regarding sitting on both committees. Oh, remove language, so you won't be sitting on two committees. And then take on the duties, inform the planning commission that they'll now be taking on the duties of the trees and views committee and the underground committee and adopt a new ordinance modifying the Sassana Municipal Code Chapter 11.12 and Chapter 18.8. 18.08. at this time we're not making any uh recommendations to changing uh the historic landmarks board or the library board of trustees although um you know with the library board of there are as you know three different groups and sometimes it's confusing to know which one is which and if you um call if you label one person you they're very offended if they're the friends, they don't want to be called the Board of Trustees and so on. So we do want to take a look though at how the three entities work with the library and how they report up to one another and to eventually to the council because there are some confusion there. That's one of the groups, the foundation is satellite. They do not report to the city council. And that has a similar relationship to the Friends of Parks and Rec through their foundation that hosts the liquor license and sells all the beer and alcohol at the various events for the city. But they keep the money and then they offer grants back to park and rec to buy tables and supplies. The pedestrian bicycle advisory committee, you heard on the last discussion for the bicycle management plan from Councilmember Weiner and from the mayor and others on the council, that we need to look at this a little bit broader than just downtown bikes, which has been their main focus, but really look from one end of town to the other end of town. So the gate six and the pathways and how the commuters are coming through town. And tie this in probably to some level with the general plan and the circulation element and have them play an active role and try to broaden their responsibility a little bit. That's not for tonight's discussion. We haven't had this discussion with the Ped and Bike Advisory Committee, but I think that opportunity presents itself here in the very near future, now that we're actually moving forward with the general plan discussion. So just for the council's consideration, if you want to give us any direction on any of these three tonight, to come back with additional information, we're happy to do so. So Staff recommendations have been changed a little bit. Let's go back and look at some of the items that we focus on with the boards and commissions. Give us direction if you want us to come back on any of the items there that we don't believe are controversial but could be ripe to move forward. We can come back with proposed language and changes to the ordinances for council's consideration. On the other items, we ask that you delay those discussions for tonight in terms of the disaster preparedness committee and potentially delay any action until the hospitality and business advisory committee can continue talking with the city about how to move forward working together. I'll conclude my report and happy to take any questions of the Council. |
| 02:47:14.41 | Unknown | Thank you, Adam. So let's obviously... Our city manager is looking for feedback on all of these various things. I'd like to restrict this point specifically to questions, then take public comment, and then have the discussion about what recommendations we'd like to give. So do we have any specific questions for Adam? |
| 02:47:43.05 | Joan Cox | I had one. |
| 02:47:43.67 | Unknown | Please. |
| 02:47:44.43 | Joan Cox | Adam, with respect to the Arts Commission, the recommendation is to create two new seats on the Parks and Recreation Commission. But I think I heard you say in the staff report says that the two additional seats would be for artists. So is that really, I mean, would it be artists or members of the artist community or, I mean, are we really restricting it to People who have their livelihood as artists, perhaps a finer point. when I look at the application, at the list of potential applicants it didn't seem as though they all are artists per se. |
| 02:48:29.08 | Adam Politzer | Right, so you're currently interviewing for park and rec commissioners absent this recommendation. |
| 02:48:36.63 | Joan Cox | No, I'm talking about the list of boards and commissions when we have a list of all the applicants. |
| 02:48:40.73 | Adam Politzer | Okay. |
| 02:48:41.08 | Joan Cox | Not everyone who's an applicant for the Arts Commission is an artist. |
| 02:48:44.83 | Adam Politzer | Okay, good. Thank you for the clarification. and then, you any of the boards and commissions are open to any resident so if you have an interest in a subject matter and you think that you would be a valuable asset to the city we encourage you to apply for the arts commission historically it has been actual artists and now you know again the range of artists and type of artists has varied greatly and some would say that's part of why you have such a difficult group because it's're all very creative, but they have a very different way of looking at how to move forward as one group. But even when you look back at the Arts Commission from the early 2000s, you had members of there that were art lovers, but but not necessarily artists and I think that that group had a little bit more success because you had some diversity of interest but in this case we're recommending to artists specifically artists because we think the other five seats of the Park and Rec Commission represent a broader interest and so the art the artists we don't believe, are represented, at least not at this moment, in the same way that the Arts Commission that was restructured the last go around was focused on actual fine art. |
| 02:50:05.12 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 02:50:07.08 | Unknown | I have a specific question about the trees and views committee. Is the proposal... to roll that up to the Planning Commission and keep the same process or sort of rejigger the process so that we've got maybe some administrative trees in views thing that then moves to the, Analogous to an administrative design review permit versus a design review permit, is there some sort of thing so that not every single little permit gets to Planning Commission as a question? Yes. |
| 02:50:47.97 | Melanie Purcell | Thank you. |
| 02:50:48.00 | Adam Politzer | Correct. |
| 02:50:56.30 | Adam Politzer | Yeah, that's an excellent question, and it's something that we'll need to come back and give that further consideration. I think that there are components of the Trees and Views Committee that can be handled at the staff level. I think there may be other things that we need to create that don't exist now on how to deal with some of the disputes that may not be at the staff's level. But we also don't want to bring it up to, we don't want to bring it to the planning commission. So we may look at some of the mediation services that the county provides now and try to exercise some of those resources to deal with it. But I don't know if you want to add anything to that. So I think we would look at the majority of the responsibilities rolling up to the planning commission during the design review process. But if there are other services and functions that the trees and views committee had responsibility for, then we need to come back and further discuss how to move that forward. |
| 02:52:04.73 | Unknown | Okay. Okay, any other questions? Let's open this up for public comment then. Is there any member of the public who'd like to say anything about our board's commissions and the presentation that Adam has just given. Yoshi. |
| 02:52:32.91 | Yoshi | Hello again. Tonight, before coming down here, I had people from Genentech, 16 of them having their good time eating sushi, drinking sake. I don't want to leave there, but I had to come to the important meeting. Bicycle issues, this is another issue. I need to show up tonight. Hospitality committee. was created by I believe 2003, 2004, when city decided to raise TOT tax 2%, current 12% from 10%. At the time, I believe we had about $600,000 TOT tax. As of last year, before, 1.6 million. We expected $1.8 million creating. We may not need more bike riders, but what we need to do is creating, inviting people staying in Sassariro and then spend money with us locally. We don't need a bus roadie people. We need a quality of the visa that are coming to Sausalito. That's what we're trying to do with the hospitality committee, promoting business in such a way. And then, two, wintertime is that how we can promote wintertime. That's what we have done. One of our corrections is a city manager's report. Yes, you may not get all the reports we had. I have been at the member of the hospital committee for almost 10 years. Probably we did not have a meeting, what I remember, maybe two or three times. Ten years. This is one of the most important meetings, what I have, my commitment to attend it, and then we do get the proper way to support hospitality committees. Earlier discussion of the bike issue, matter of fact, I am going to suggest mention about the bigger program to how we can manage conjunction of the downtown area. And then maybe allocate those TOT tax money to how we can do better management to downtown. Not only bike rider, tourists, everything else, and the parking lot issue. The other issue we can do better with with it, better hospitable to visit the community of Sassadiro. That should be instead of eliminating Hospitality Committee, I like to see expanding goals in the direction originally how we funded the study of the Hospitality Committee. If we do become a part of the Business Advisory Committee, I think we lost the direction of originally how we started. Sassariro, we have so many visitors, so many restaurant, hotel rely on to quality visitors. We need to promote those people. And we need the better management. So please do not eliminate my committees. Thank you. |
| 02:55:39.43 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:55:39.45 | Peter Van Meter | Peter. |
| 02:55:40.09 | Unknown | you |
| 02:55:43.36 | Peter Van Meter | I endorse what Yoshi just said. The roles of the hospitality committee and the BAC, in my opinion, are completely different. There may be some overlap. But as a former member of EAC for an extended period, it's much more of a research organization looking at the economic vitality of the town, economic development, and not actually promoting visitors. specifically coming, such as Yoshi just described here, The problem is since you're not adequately funding out of the hospitality TOT tax. that function of the hospitality committee. In other words, if Sausalito devoted the kind of percentage like Herb suggested, that a lot of other cities do. then their role would really be fulfilled. And because that's their idea, it's much more of a marketing activity, while BAC is much more of a study organization. So I don't think they're really compatible to go together. You talk about splitting off a subcommittee for hospitality purposes. Well, that's pretty much the same thing as having a separate committee to begin with. So I don't think merger makes sense for that. I'd also like to make a comment on the Trees and Views Committee. I kind of like the idea of having it go to the planning commission. I know I'm aware of a situation where people are going through the step-by-step process under that ordinance, where they're first looking for some documented results of a tree and view committee action. I found that that documentation has been notably lacking in the past from some personal experience. They want to use that as their record when they then next go to arbitration, and then they're next going to go to their lawsuit. And so it happens that in those issues that that record keeping is important. I think you're going to get better record keeping in the Planning Commission. And then I would also add to your criteria for Planning Commission members, get somebody who's a landscape architect as well as just an architect or even an arborist, you know, as a potential member of the Planning Commission when you take on that role. But my main comments here tonight are against do not merge the BAC and hospitality. Thank you. |
| 02:57:45.10 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:57:49.62 | Unknown | Jeff, good evening. |
| 02:57:54.30 | Jeff | Thank you for having us tonight. I'm also against the emerging of the hospitality committee as well, and also BAC. Very similar to what Peter and also Yoshi mentioned, alluded to, they are very different committees. I have sat on at various points in my career here, and both BAC and hospitality. BAC advises the city council on what the ongoings of businesses in Sausalito. Will it be real estate, whether it be even hospitality, retail, whatever it might be. Meanwhile, yes, hospitality is promoting the town, promoting what we want to have here in Sausalito. You know, such as for many years we had to pay for the kiosk. We paid for the ice house. So of our limited funds of $30,000, over half of those funds went to pay for, to me, I believe, city services. And something the city should provide. At the same time, we paid for maps. We paid for what there is to do in Sausalito in two hours, two days. Also, we paid for, of course, parts of Tour of California. We paid for the gingerbread house tour, the concierge tour. All these different things help promote Sausalito. Right now the hospitality fund is also working on a website for destination management companies, as well as corporate groups. These corporate groups bring a lot of money to Sausalito and can bring more money in the off-season. And the off-season being, of course, those November, December, January, February times, which, as we all saw in the last few months here, have been really slow times in Sausalito. I know for my business, our sales are down about 15%. Obviously, Alexander being closed, that's not a normal occurrence in the course of winter time, but nonetheless it affects business and affects of course what the city can spend for sales tax and TOT because it affects all of us in this room here. So with that website, with other things that we're working on, we want to raise the bar on what we can provide to Sausalito and as far as sales tax and TOT. So let us help you fix the pension problems, the other problems that city council has, by allowing us to do more and get that corporate hospitality person in either our beds, our seats, in our different establishments. Right now, the Spinnaker, we've got a group in for nine days. It's called Learning as Leadership. They're there for breakfast, lunch, and some dinners. Pojo has them for a couple dinners. They stay at In Above Tide, Hotel Sausalito, and Casa Madrona. Nine days, 80 people. A lot of revenue. They also, of course, are using services here in town, Nancy Ann Flowers and other things, too. Everyone's getting a piece of this. So why can't we do more of this? It's bringing money for all of our businesses, but also, ultimately, the city council or the city of Sausalito. The more we give visitors to do, the more we give them advice and people to advise what's going on in Sausalito, we get a higher spend. It's one thing to have them spend on an ice cream cone for $6, $7. Let's have them buy lunch and an ice cream cone for $100. It's a no-brainer, but people in Sausalito don't know to do that unless we show them and lead them down the road. And we all know that in town here. By the couple hundred thousand visitors to come to Sausalito, it adds up quite quickly. So please, let hospitality do what it does well. Keep us separate, but allow us the funds that we need to move forward and do well in Sausalito. Thank you. |
| 03:01:24.76 | Unknown | Thank you, Jeff. David. |
| 03:01:34.34 | David Archer | Good evening again. David Archer, President and CEO of Sausalito Chamber of Commerce. The only thing I would normally have to say is ditto. Those guys did an excellent job of presenting, I think, a cohesive case. One item Jeff forgot to mention that the hospitality committee was instrumental in was bringing the toilets to town, right? Downtown restrooms, we did that. And so we're working on things like that. As I said earlier, we are the voice of business, and if you co-mingle the businesses of hospitality with the BAC, which have different purposes, you're going to be stymieing that. Right now, the businesses feel like the city isn't very business friendly. And so we're trying to change that because through education and helping them understand how the city process works. In the past, maybe that didn't work or happen, but we're working on doing those types of things. |
| 03:02:28.43 | David Archer | We're looking at the cost of services. Some of our members are complaining about cost of services, the laundromat situation. They've got the chamber involved with that on the price increase there. The signs are always an issue, parking's an issue, congestion management, we already talked about that. And the chamber's working on a comprehensive plan for all those things. Some of the other things, we're gonna be working closely in the general plan. We're going to be working with the budget process. But one simple solution to merging the two is just how about a bi-monthly meeting of each? You still have the same number of meetings. You're meeting less frequently. So that's a solution. Or do it quarterly, and I saved you four meetings. Thank you. Let's see what other things do I have down here. Some of the other concerns that the members have are redoing the curb several times. they look at that and they say, oh, well, that's a poor use of funds if you have to redo the curbs a number of times. And so I think part of the confusion where the notion is it's the Chamber of Commerce. I have a very active board, and they do a lot of volunteer works, and so they sit on multiple committees, the Women's Club, the Yacht Club, the Rotary, Lions, and BAC, Hospitality Committee. And so sometimes I think when people look at them, they don't necessarily view them that they've got different hats on. So I would be in favor of postponing any action tonight, readdressing it with the various... necessarily view them that they've got different hats on. So I would be in favor of postponing any action tonight, readdressing it with the various committees. The chamber and the committees have already met and are proactively seeking a solution to this problem or this merger. And so we would request humbly that you don't do any action tonight, but give it back to the staff and have them discuss it further with us. |
| 03:04:19.79 | Unknown | Thank you, David. Anybody else from the public want to make any comment? No, okay, I'll close public comment and bring it back here. So we want to collect some recommendations back to staff. |
| 03:04:37.88 | Jill Hoffman | I think this is a good start. I think the move toward streamlining and consolidation and elimination of redundancies, especially efforts amongst the staff and with regard to certain committees that overlap and consolidating those, I think that's a great effort. But I agree that we probably need to go back to the committees. If we're consolidating their efforts, we need to talk a little bit more with those committees and have a little bit more input. So I think this is a great place to start. I don't have any, you know, I saw the email from Tom Perrazzo for the Disaster Preparedness Committee. He makes a lot of good arguments for not consolidating that, and so that's a concern. And I'd like to get the input from the, when we have a Parks and Rec, committee because we are interviewing for that committee. And of course our city council member here that's from the Parks and Rec would be able to give us some great input on that as well, that recommendation. So that's kind of my perspective at this point. |
| 03:05:43.94 | Joe Burns | I'll take that lead then. I APPRECIATE THIS WHOLE PROCESS, AND I CONGRATULATE THEM. THE MAYOR FOR KIND OF BRINGING THIS FORWARD AS AN IDEA FOR THIS TERM. I THINK IT WAS WELL OVERDUE. HAVING AT ONE POINT BEEN MARRIED TO STAFF IN VARIOUS CITIES, AS WELL AS BEING INVOLVED IN A LOT OF COMMITIES, I KNOW THE TOLL THESE COMMITIES TAKE ON STAFF. THIS MEETING, YOU KNOW, THAT WE HAVE FOUR OR FIVE, SOMETIMES SEVEN OR EIGHT, IS ONE THING, BUT WHEN THEY START SHOWING UP TO EVERY LITT to every little committee, and I don't mean every little committee in a belittling way, but they do seem to add up quickly, I can appreciate the direction toAN JUST WHAT WE KNOW AS RECREATION OR EVEN AT OUR PARKS. I WOULD LIKE TO FIND OUT MORE ABOUT THE PUBLIC SAFETY DISASTER ISSUE, BOTH TOM'S LETTER AS WELL AS JUST KIND OF HOW THOSE FUNCTIONS WORK. So I'm willing to talk about that further. But really the issue. more about the public safety disaster issue, both Tom's letter as well as just kind of how those functions work. So I'm willing to talk about that further. But really the issue that I feel most appropriate to talk to is on the business side. And between the BAC and hospitality, having a lot of experience in both the private sector in business, as well as being part of chambers and other community quasi government groups like economic development and a conference and visitors bureau. I look at it in business, you have, and a lot of companies have a sales team and a business development team, and they're completely different, and they have completely different tasks. And I kind of look at the business, the BAC as kind of a sales element where they are looking to enhance the community option for business, they're looking to enhance the tax base, they're looking to enhance what we know as the current visitor or a current client, provide proper services and so many things that really fall into the sales realm. But the business development end is really the key that even I spoke to earlier during the budget presentation of that's where the new revenue is. That's where the, you know, outside of master fee schedules and rate increases and all those things, where are we going to find the new business? THE BOARD S to go out and unearth the stone to find out the new nuts that are underneath it? |
| 03:08:35.55 | Unknown | I said that, did I? |
| 03:08:37.45 | Joe Burns | um So, you know, As soon as I say the word business development, the two evil words that that the community can look at as growing stuff that they don't like. I think there's a really good opportunity for us to do that in a way that doesn't grow tourism, it doesn't have a tourism impact, it doesn't take away from our community character, it doesn't pull from our historic relevance, and it definitely doesn't Increase what the community is spending, because we keep going back into the community's pocket for additional revenues. And we need to look outside of the community and outside of the current base for new revenue ideas. And that could be done with protecting all the goodness and the things that we want to protect in our community. And I think hospitality is one of the few areas left in our communities in general that can do that. Retail is dying, unfortunately. I hate to say that, but it's going down with all the other options we have for commerce now. I don't mean it's dying, but it is not gonna be a revenue enhancement. Events. Food and heads and beds is the growth option, and we can do that in a way that does not have a tourism impact, but we need a separate group. And I'm not even sure it needs to be a city group, frankly. I don't think we need to waste a lot of city staff time on it. I think these are professionals that can set up their own district, their own assessment areas, their own group, their own all sorts of things. So I'd like to see us help spawn that for them, but we cannot just blend business development into sales and expect to develop business. I think we'll cross over lines, and we will have an impact on these things that I think we need to separate, which are the character and the tourism and all those things. So I want to find a way to keep business development and sales separated. |
| 03:10:33.00 | Joan Cox | I also want to thank the mayor and staff for spearheading this effort. As a lawyer, I'm required to track my hours that I bill clients, and so I've also been tracking the hours I spend on city business. And just attending meetings, not the time I spend preparing for meetings, I'm spending 50 hours a month. as a city council person. So it's a huge burden. And so I'm greatly in favor of streamlining. And that being said, I agree with some of the concerns expressed by members of the public that we have to be careful about what we combine with what. And I think this has been a great opportunity to get the feedback, and we can go back and give some more thought to some of these proposed consolidations and really navigate the best way through this process. My feedback tonight is, I do think that the Arts Commission serves purposes other than simply those known by artists. So I would like, you know, will we accept this piece of art from Cascade? Yeah. And so it has business implications, not just art implications. So I would like to see us broaden the definition of the residents who are eligible to apply for the two Arts Commission seats on the Parks and Rec Commission. But I do think that combining those two commissions is a solid. Um... is a solid recommendation. I don't yet have a strong opinion on the BAC and the hospitality. I endorse the suggestion of David Archer that the city manager and city staff meet with these agencies to get their further feedback and then come back to us with recommendations. As a new member of the Sustainability Committee and understanding its focus on resilience and the city's entitlement or eligibility for grant funding, the more able it is to show it's able to respond to disaster preparedness, I completely endorse having a member of the Sustainability Committee serve as a liaison to the Disaster Preparedness Committee or the Public Safety Committee, however it ends up being constructed. And I agree with the mayor's suggestion about perhaps handling some of the trees and views committee matters administratively. but having the planning commission, having that process rolled up into the planning commission, I'd like to see us consider the same thing for some of the undergrounding issues. Some of those are smaller issues that are not necessarily connected to a wholesale project, and so could be handled perhaps administratively, without ever getting to the planning commission, but I endorse wrapping those committees up. |
| 03:13:51.33 | Unknown | FOR ME? Okay, so it looks like... For those committees that the staff has at least thrown the suggestion out that we merge, BAC hospitality, disaster preparedness, et cetera, we should set up a process whereby we have a joint meetings of those groups and have this discussion again. Hear the... we have a joint meetings of those groups and have this discussion again. Hear the... The comment I'd make about hospitality and BAC is that you cannot get away from the fact that this discussion is wrapped around or gets... It's impossible to have this discussion, it appears, without discussing the funding and whether there's a um, I'm going to use the word entitlement, maybe that's the wrong word, entitlement to some proportion of the TOT to run through a, that gets spent under the direction of a committee, because that's basically what hospitality is. So that, in a sense, we're sort of smack in the middle of budget discussions because in the end, this council's got to decide in the next couple of months whether it's going to vote for economic development or not. Because without it, there's no money for the hospitality committee to work on. So those two conversations are tied. You can't help it. And so that's going to be part of that discussion, and that's going to be some of the difficult decisions that we're going to have to make here. when Finance Committee gets its hands on it as well. So I just wanted to point out that those interrelationships. Um, With the trees and views, again, I appreciate you recognize that we need to do some work there. I think it's bigger than that, we need to look at the whole ordinance. And we need to put some teeth into it in various ways. And there's some examples of developments of ordinances locally, which we might want to look at. So in one sense, What's also we need to have a discussion of is the charter of the functions. In other words, written down what are the functions you want. So what does the trees and views committee actually want it, what do we want it, or what that function is that we want planning commission to take on. So I think that's my feedback to the next time you see this, let's ask, is there any revisions to the charters that we need to make, as well as possibly merging them? I'm trying to think, is that sort of collected most of the, do you guys need any further direct, do you have any questions for clarity as to what our direction is? Or do you think we've sort of been clear? |
| 03:17:13.90 | Unknown | Thank you. you Thank you. Thank you. |
| 03:17:17.86 | Unknown | So is there anything you want us to take action on tonight, in light of where we are? |
| 03:17:20.76 | Adam Politzer | Well, it's... It sounds like there was some consensus on bringing forward some changes to the Park and Rec Commission to add to new positions, broaden the artists. definition but but that being a primary focus of those two new positions being in our component but what they're |
| 03:17:31.73 | Unknown | Thank you. Yeah. |
| 03:17:31.97 | Melanie Purcell | Thank you. |
| 03:17:40.51 | Adam Politzer | background is doesn't necessarily that they need to be an artist so it looks like there's consensus on that on all the others We either be coordinating meetings or bringing back additional information for consideration |
| 03:17:43.66 | Melanie Purcell | artist. |
| 03:17:54.26 | Unknown | Okay, to actually take action, you need to come back with language for ordinances, changes and the like. So all we can do is recommend that yes, we agree with that process. |
| 03:18:06.92 | Joan Cox | And I'd like to add one. I endorse Peter Van Meter's comment about if we roll up trees and views into Planning Commission, I'd like to see us focus on a landscape architect. The Planning Commission periodically over the years has had a landscape architect, and it's been hugely useful and helpful to have that area of expertise. So if the Planning Commission is undertaking that additional role, I'd like to see us consider that. |
| 03:18:20.84 | Melanie Purcell | Yeah. |
| 03:18:31.40 | Joan Cox | uh, either adding a member, or seeking members, at least one member with that expertise. |
| 03:18:43.11 | Unknown | you need a motion for the parks and recs thing or you're fine okay we're fine. Anybody else want to add anything on this? Okay, good, we're done. Thank you very much and thank you for those who came and stuck with it. |
| 03:19:02.54 | Unknown | Okay, well, we were ahead. We were ahead. |
| 03:19:06.45 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:19:06.55 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 03:19:06.57 | Unknown | Bye. |
| 03:19:09.73 | Joan Cox | We're right on time when we started this item. |
| 03:19:11.60 | Joe Burns | Thank you. See you guys at Smitty's. |
| 03:19:12.12 | Joan Cox | See you guys. Thank you. |
| 03:19:15.61 | Unknown | you |
| 03:19:15.67 | Joe Burns | Thank you. |
| 03:19:15.97 | Unknown | Thank you. Okay. city manager reports, et cetera. Section 7A, is there any public comment on any of the issues that we're going to discuss in connection with committee reports, boards, commissions, future agenda items, or anything else? Seeing none. |
| 03:19:37.87 | Unknown | Thank you very much. |
| 03:19:40.47 | Abbott Chambers | Are we gonna do committee reports? |
| 03:19:41.57 | Unknown | Yeah, yeah, we're going to get into it. But if you look, I'm asking for public comment on any of this. I was pulling up the page and I was saying. No, no worries. Seeing none. |
| 03:19:44.07 | Unknown | THE FAMILY. |
| 03:19:53.30 | Unknown | We will move into Vicki, just if I may for a moment, we changed the way we do this so we don't do public comment on every individual item. We now have public comment on the section seven matters first. Because I thought you were looking a little perplexed as to what I was up to here. Okay, thanks. All right, Adam. |
| 03:20:22.47 | Adam Politzer | I don't have a lot of items to bring forward. Just a reminder that we are meeting next Tuesday to the public. So we have back-to-back council meetings this Tuesday and next Tuesday. And then it is important, and Council Member Hoffman may bring this up in her committee reports, RBRA meets every other month, and their April meeting has been canceled. And so their next meeting technically is not till June, but they are trying to schedule one in May. And that's meaningful because obviously we have a letter. Thank you. to our BRA with our withdrawal. And so conversations and discussions at the board level have, you know, are at a standstill. So that's that I want to make sure the council was aware. and also the public being aware of those meetings being postponed. Obviously, we have a lot going on with bikes and getting up to speed on what's going to happen starting this Saturday and working with our partners. And we'll continue to work hard getting prepared for this tour season. And then last, and I know that at least two members will talk more specifically, but the first general plan Advisory Committee meeting that was held last week. and the legislative committee meeting, which has been the first legislative committee that we've had in quite some time. also met last week. So there are a lot of other discussions that, as Councilmember Burns mentioned, require a lot of staff time. And as Councilmember Vice Mayor Cox said, there's a lot of planning that goes into them, a lot of prep work to get those meetings agendized, materials put together. And so there's a lot of activity right now at the city and then earlier this evening we kicked off the budget process for this this coming budget review process that will conclude on June 30th with the adoption of the 2017-18 budget year so that concludes my report happy to answer any questions of the council |
| 03:22:41.76 | Unknown | Any questions for Adam before we move on the committee reports? Council member committee reports. I think there's gonna be a fair amount tonight. I've got a long list written here, so I imagine there could be an update from the school stuff. There could be, there's the general plan, there's a whole bunch of stuff. Do we want to start off with the school? Sure. Why not? |
| 03:23:10.43 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:23:11.05 | Unknown | you |
| 03:23:11.12 | Joe Burns | Yeah. |
| 03:23:11.34 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:23:11.48 | Joe Burns | Thank you. |
| 03:23:11.49 | Unknown | you |
| 03:23:11.93 | Joe Burns | Okay. Councilmember Hoffman and I met with the superintendent of Marin County Board of Education, Mary Jane Burke, and that was in our role as liaison to the school district, which is Marin City Sausalito School District, and as we all know, that's somewhat of a hotbed of things going on right now with their budget and their... boards and a lot of different areas. We were on a fact-finding mission, I believe, just really to kind of get to the top and find out what what that emphasis was. And what we found out is then what became public in the following days, which is that the Board of Education, the County Board of Education is proceeding in an RFP to re-look at the merger of Mill Valley and Sausage and Marin City again. And I know this has been talked about over the years. JILL AND I THROUGH THAT DISCUSSION HAD THE OPPORTUNITY TO ASK MARYJANE BURKE A FEW QUESTIONS TO TRY TO CLEAR UP WHAT MAYBE THE INTENT WAS. I DON'T KNOW IF WE GAINED ANY TRACTION IN THAT AREA, BUT WE voiced our concern on the divisiveness that is occurring and how that couldn't possibly benefit a merger. So we'll have definitely more discussions going forth. Our liaison is through the school district, which is Will McCoy, and now Will is basically partnered with somebody from the Board of Education, which is Tarina Mars, who works directly for Mary Jane Burke, and she's kind of shadowing Will, and they're working together. So I think that's probably our future direction, but our emphasis as a city council liaison is to protect the interest of our community as far as providing a public school education. And that was how we started the meeting is that is why we're here, is to make sure that |
| 03:25:05.09 | Melanie Purcell | I'm sure. |
| 03:25:20.64 | Joe Burns | Families and the residents of Sausalito have a public school option. We were told that she believes that will happen, but she doesn't know what that will look like. And now we have found out what that might look like, which is an attempted merger with Mill Valley. So a lot of information to come. But I think those are very big... So very big things to be on the lookout as we go through a general plan update. We've had a demographic change in our community and we hate to go in opposite directions because of this type of thing. So that's more than my five minutes. |
| 03:25:57.14 | Unknown | Do you want to? Is there any RBRA stuff you need to do? |
| 03:26:03.79 | Jill Hoffman | No. |
| 03:26:04.63 | Unknown | Do you want to do the machine shop update? |
| 03:26:06.60 | Jill Hoffman | No, sure. Yeah, I'll do the machine shop update. |
| 03:26:07.65 | Unknown | We did. |
| 03:26:09.91 | Jill Hoffman | So RBRA, nothing new. It looks like the news on that is same. It looks like we will likely withdraw. We've taken steps to... um, you know to accommodate that here in Sausalito and that was part of the legislative committee update we were looking at the ordinances that needed to be refreshed and updated Sausalito's ordinances so that our public safety guys are ready to take that on um And the machine shop. So we met with a group from the VA again. And we were promised again that they were going to They're coming on April 4th. Oh, okay. They're going to, you know, protect the machine shop from further deterioration. And they're coming to the city council, thank you for reminding me of that, on April 4th to give a presentation on their plans going forward. And the interesting mechanism that they're using to try to find a tenant for that building or potentially a swap with another historic location. So you want to add anything? That's fine. |
| 03:27:24.03 | Unknown | You want to add anything? No, that was great. Thank you. Anybody? |
| 03:27:30.07 | Joe Burns | different people on that this year. |
| 03:27:35.37 | Jill Hoffman | Essentially the same group. |
| 03:27:37.48 | Unknown | Yeah, essentially. Some new people sort of like float in and out, but there was generally some. |
| 03:27:43.69 | Joe Burns | Usually when they hit the wall, when they bring in someone else. |
| 03:27:46.54 | Unknown | Right. It's still the acting deputy director or whatever he is, is still the acting director, so. Thank you. |
| 03:27:59.51 | Joan Cox | Sure. So the Sustainability Commission met, and we've actually heard a number of presentations. One, we heard from Daniel Holmesy, the Director of Neighborhood Resilience at the City and County of San Francisco. We had Bill Frost from our police department there as well. And it was a fascinating presentation. I don't think San Francisco was aware of what Sausalito already does in terms of the police meeting with neighborhoods and doing outreach for disaster preparedness. But I think we all learned, including the police department, what more we could do. And again, this entitles us to grant funding, potentially. And so it behooves all of us to be better prepared in any event. Something interesting I learned is that there is legislation proposed by AT&T to eliminate landlines. |
| 03:28:56.45 | Unknown | Mm-hmm. |
| 03:28:56.98 | Joan Cox | I had no idea. I am a firm proponent of landlines. I've had one forever, primarily for disaster preparedness, because when the cell towers don't work, and electricity doesn't work, and your cell phone dies, you can still make a landline phone call. We also had a presentation on zero waste, which was, Heath Ceramics is doing an amazing job. and really has a goal of reducing their waste to zero. Watching them is inspiring to see that it is far more doable than we realize. Although Sausalito has made great strides thanks to the implementation of our three waste cans now as opposed to one. It's amazing the footprint that has gone down and we're gonna hear a presentation on those results. All of us attended an MCC MC meeting in which we heard about Sausalito is not a member of the Major Crimes Task Force, having withdrawn in 2014, but... Our police continue to carry out many of their missions and knock on wood, we're not necessarily subject to some of the challenges they Um, deal with, grapple with. We also heard from the Honorable Lonnie Hancock regarding Reducing Recidivism, and intervening early through education in the lives of our kids and their success in society Serving time in incarceration. And then the general plan committee had its first meeting. We have a great group of really smart and people who invested a lot of time to prepare for our very first meeting. So we made the decision not to have the M group come to every meeting because we want to conserve city resources. But I think we walked away with a clear charter about developing a process for appointing other members and for getting the word out to the community, and so it was in the currents within days of our meeting. that the general plan process is starting and that we will be actively seeking the talent from our community to join the ranks, whether on the general plan committee itself or simply providing their valuable feedback in the process. And then I think you covered our meeting with the legislative committee, right? Okay, thanks. |
| 03:31:54.26 | Unknown | Okay, very quickly fill in a few gaps here. Finance committee starting on 5th of April will be kicking off the budget process. And the calendar for that was in Mellon's presentation. BAC, well, you can see where we're at. So I think the BAC is a bit more receptive to emergent than hospitality, but those discussions will continue. I've got nothing to add about the general plan. I, too, am excited about the kickoff. Thank you for that update, Joan. And then two outside things. TAM, I've noticed that next time the executive director, is that still on from looking at our future agenda items, Diane Steinhauser, who knows absolutely everything about transportation in Marin and the state of California, will be here to talk about TAM and give us an update, so I won't say anything to the |
| 03:32:41.29 | Unknown | and |
| 03:33:08.19 | Unknown | spoil her presentation. And the only other thing I was doing last month was Marine Clean Energy. Oh, I don't have my thing on. Sorry. Marine Clean Energy. We could hear you. Sorry about that. And... |
| 03:33:20.14 | Joan Cox | We- |
| 03:33:25.24 | Unknown | Uh... We've done the budget and we... reduce the price of energy so reduced reduce the rates so um that's the only news there and that's all i've got |
| 03:33:32.75 | Joan Cox | energy. |
| 03:33:39.92 | Joan Cox | And I forgot one, which is Joe and I spent a Saturday morning, of all things, meeting with a committee on the MOU between ABAG and MTC. |
| 03:33:50.78 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:33:52.05 | Joan Cox | Did we report on that the last time? I don't think so. Association of Bay Area Governments, and Marin Transportation Commission. And we spent great effort with Pat Eklund, and the lobbyist was right there with us. And he said yes, yes, yes to every one of our suggestions. And then he implemented exactly none in the revised MOU. I mean, he. |
| 03:34:16.89 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:34:16.99 | Joe Burns | Thank you. |
| 03:34:17.03 | Unknown | Amazing. And he... |
| 03:34:22.09 | Joan Cox | Yes, you know, just... |
| 03:34:22.68 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:34:27.52 | Joan Cox | a lovely process. So this is something the city needs to be very vigilant about because this does have an impact on our housing mandates and on other important city business. And so many people are not fully aware of the implications. But Joe and I will continue to. do everything we can at the local level and put our vote where it counts to try to ensure that this merger has as little adverse impact on our town as possible. |
| 03:35:03.84 | Joe Burns | I think the discouraging part of that is the discussion with with ABAC staff was that we were producing ideas that other counties and other cities in a bag were going to appreciate. |
| 03:35:22.33 | Abbott Chambers | Great. |
| 03:35:23.24 | Joe Burns | And I have a feeling that somebody else got to him. further down the peninsula or something where I thought we thought that information was going to go that way and it looks like the information might have come the other way. So it's a little concerning that this might be driven by bigger cities more than we came to believe before. |
| 03:35:28.58 | Unknown | that I |
| 03:35:43.80 | Unknown | Having someone who I've lived that time story for the last four years all I can say is I'm really glad I'm not doing it anymore. Okay, moving on. Appointments to board's commissions committees, we're not making any appointments tonight. We're continuing our interviews for Parks and Rec and we may be able to make some appointments next time. |
| 03:35:53.11 | Melanie Purcell | So... |
| 03:36:12.43 | Unknown | And did you want to? |
| 03:36:12.60 | Jill Hoffman | And did you want to say anything about the quality of applicants we've had for Parks and Rec? Yes. It's amazing. |
| 03:36:19.28 | Unknown | Yes, I'd be happy to. I think we've had some outstanding candidates. I mean, it's also, they'll never never disappoints when it comes to its volunteers. To the point where... That's for sure. That's for sure. |
| 03:36:29.16 | Joan Cox | That's a good point. To the point where we know we can't appoint all of them to parks and recs, so we're already mining them for other boards and commissions because. |
| 03:36:40.11 | Unknown | All right. So outstanding group. Future agenda items. The rough agenda through the budget. The last meeting of June is sort of in your packet. I don't know if there's any comments on the future agenda items. Obviously, things are going to get very detailed with the budget process, which is going to dominate our next few months. Any thoughts on future agenda items? And if there's no other- There is. |
| 03:37:15.97 | Joan Cox | I do it for me too. I'M GOING TO BE ABLE TO |
| 03:37:18.99 | Unknown | As there are now other reports of significance. Really quick. Thank you. |
| 03:37:23.06 | Joe Burns | joke. Mine is really quick, and it wasn't a committee, so I didn't do it then, but I attended a group of 15 other council members and city managers, Jim McCann being one, from Marin that went to San Quentin as a guest of Jessica Sloan, the mayor of Mill Valley. It was, you know, I think very behind the scenes as we, you know, we spent all morning and a little bit into the afternoon with inmates and got a very good perspective of that community. And that's exactly what they wanted to portray, is that it's a community within Marin, and the input that other communities in Marin have with them. But the takeaway that they wanted us to all come back to our diocese and report is... integrating these people back into our communities and hiring them and those types of things. And as I'm sitting there, I'm thinking, the gentleman I were talking to, they're much more adjusted and ready for hire than the ones that haven't been caught yet. that sometimes we do hire. So it was an eye-opening experience. I think we all walked out of there with our jaws open on what we saw and what we learned. And so we promised that we'd report back to our our councils on that so. |
| 03:38:35.43 | Unknown | Yeah, thank you for that. I'm sorry I missed that visit, actually. |
| 03:38:39.74 | Joan Cox | And some of you have seen some mention on Nextdoor recently, and you've heard from our favorite anchor out, Jeff, every week about community gardens. So I wanted to make everyone aware that there's an opportunity to help rehabilitate Marin City's Golden Gate Village PublicITY GARDEN THIS SATURDAY, 10 AM TO 4 PM. I WILL BE THERE. IT'S AT 35 COAL DRIVE IN MARIN CITY. LUNCH WILL BE PROVIDED. IF YOU WANT TO COME, BRING GARDENING AND WORK GLOVES AND WEEDING TOOLS. |
| 03:39:18.73 | Unknown | The one night that Jim doesn't show. So that's what I do. |
| 03:39:23.53 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:39:23.56 | Unknown | So that's what I have. And with that, I will adjourn this meeting. Thank you very much. |
| 03:39:24.59 | Unknown | I have. you Yeah. |