| Time | Speaker | Text |
|---|---|---|
| 00:00:03.71 | Joe Burns | Good evening and welcome to the special meeting of the Sausalito City Council for Tuesday, October 17th, 2017. Lily, would you take the roll please? |
| 00:00:12.87 | Lily (City Clerk) | Councilmember Burns. |
| 00:00:14.44 | Joe Burns | Present. |
| 00:00:14.90 | Lily (City Clerk) | Councilmember Hoffman. Present. Vice Mayor Cox? Here. Mary Withy. |
| 00:00:19.55 | Joe Burns | here. We will be discussing item D1 in closed session, which is a conference with legal counsel. Is there any public comment on the closed session item? Seeing no member of the public here, we will adjourn to closed session. |
| 00:00:54.96 | Joe Burns | Good evening and welcome to the special meeting, the Sausalito City Council for Tuesday, October 17th. Lily, would you call the roll, please? |
| 00:01:06.37 | Lily (City Clerk) | Council member Burns. |
| 00:01:07.18 | Joe Burns | here. |
| 00:01:07.51 | Lily (City Clerk) | Councilmember Hoffman. Present. Vice Mayor Cox? Here. Mayor Withy? |
| 00:01:12.51 | Joe Burns | Here. Charles Kaufman, would you lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance tonight? |
| 00:01:18.62 | Charles Kaufman | . |
| 00:01:23.16 | Charles Kaufman | by the release of the flag of the United States |
| 00:01:23.34 | Joan Cox | Thank you. to the flag. of the United States of America. |
| 00:01:27.56 | Charles Kaufman | Thank you. |
| 00:01:27.58 | Joan Cox | Thank you. and to the republic for which it stands. One nation. under God. indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. |
| 00:01:38.55 | Joe Burns | Thank you, Charles. |
| 00:01:45.55 | Joe Burns | The council met in closed session. There are no follow-on announcements. Is there any public comment on the closed session item? Okay, seeing none, could I have a motion to approve the agenda, please? |
| 00:01:59.39 | Joan Cox | No movement. |
| 00:01:59.81 | Joe Burns | you Second. All in favor? |
| 00:02:02.53 | Joan Cox | I. |
| 00:02:02.93 | Joe Burns | Thank you. That motion carries. Last week... at this time, I made a few remarks about the fires in Northern California and I was not expecting that a week later we would be actually involved in our own wildfire event. And so I'd like to make a few remarks about that this evening. So Today on the west side of 101 between Spencer Avenue and Rodeo, Wildfire broke out, and it was really quite a shocking and sobering event for something so close to home. I'd like to recognize the... absolutely outstanding work of our Southern Marine firefighters who were supported by our neighboring agencies Mill Valley, Tiburon, Cal Fire and the Highway Patrol, the National Park Service, the Marine County Sheriff, and of course our own police department working with Southern Marine as well. two vegetation fires in close proximity to each other, I on the western side of 101, move rapidly and move westerly. We were very fortunate to have resources available immediately. There was a rapid and aggressive attack of this fire along with helicopters and aircraft. And luckily this incident was quickly brought under control. Some residents, began an evacuation assembled in the Fire station, we, our city staff and The police department of public works immediately set up our emergency operations center. Remember, we practice for this. We train for this. And that training paid off today. |
| 00:04:48.27 | Joe Burns | So, um... This incident lasted only about an hour and a half. It was quickly resolved, but it's an important reminder to us all that if The winds, it actually, if it had been a really windy day, as was originally forecast, things could have been very, very different. We dodged a bullet today. Thank you. It's one of the reasons why the staff in the City Council have had vegetation management and regular reports from Thank you. Southern Marine fire on I think in the last 14 months we've had two presentations on this matter. So this is really important and we'll be back. But today, it's again, thank you for everybody who mobilized and our fire chief and his staff, our police department and his staff, and all of our neighbors. So thank you very much. Anybody like to comment? No. Okay, so the final thing is that one of the important, what we were able to do today was provide information quickly, especially through currents and social media. Thank you, Abbott, for moving so quickly on that. And also, I think it's important to remember that we do have evacuation plans, disaster preparedness, and we will start making sure that those are readily available in currents and on our website a bit more prominently in the future. So that residents will have somewhere quickly to go and understand what they're supposed to do. Okay, again, thanks to everybody who made this not become a tragic event. |
| 00:07:06.92 | Joe Burns | Okay, our next agenda item is communications. And this is the time for the City Council to hear from citizens regarding matters that are not on the agenda. And as you know, except in very limited situations, state law precludes the Council from taking action or engaging in discussions concerning these items of business. I have one speaker card, and that's David Sudo. And if anybody else would like to address the council, in any matter or not on the agenda, please fill that out of card. Okay, no. David. |
| 00:07:53.36 | David Sudo | So I just wanted to speak on the same subject you just did, Ray. You know, I want to thank our first responders for an excellent job today. It really could have been serious. It was kind of the first stage of what could be our worst-case scenario in town. And I think it underscores that the town needs to get more serious about our vegetation plans and perhaps planning and building codes. You know, we have a lot of houses here with asphalt roofs and things that aren't very particularly, there's a lot of houses in this town that aren't particularly fire safe. And for an event like today, I think, you know, there's a lot of lessons that we can learn from the fires in Santa Rosa, and we should, you know, we should aggressively hit those. You know, and I'm not sure what all the, our emergency plans are, but I had a couple of quick suggestions, and from what I saw in, in Santa Rosa, and one is we should have Sausalito Village and Cars compile a list of people who would need assistance in an emergency. A lot of people who died up in Santa Rosa were people who weren't self-ambulatory. and another thing I was thinking about is perhaps some system of marking our roads so that in an emergency we have a clear one-way path of travel. If anybody's, I mean, everybody who's ever traveled on our roads, like Harrison and things like that, in an emergency, if two people are going quickly in the other direction, no one would be leaving very soon and we need to try to figure that one out if we can maybe we have plans but if we don't we need to work on that I guess those are things I just want to say thank you |
| 00:09:50.50 | Joe Burns | David, thank you for those comments. |
| 00:09:57.17 | Neil Whitelaw | Thank you. Thank you. Well, I'm not going to speak much about... the fact that City Council voted unanimously. against probably 70%, maybe 60% only of the citizens of South State. They were against the ferry terminal in its present state that's going through. And I am not involved with the recall petition that's being passed around. I've just given up on the whole ferry thing because you just did what you wanted to do regardless of what the citizens wanted. I thought you were supposed to represent the citizens, but that didn't happen no matter what the citizens did. between the meetings, two or three meetings we had this time, and two or three years ago with four public meetings we had. Just in spite of that, you voted against the will of the people. So, but there is a recall petition being circulated. What I want to talk about is I almost got run over in a crosswalk. by the Trieste, the Taste of Rum Cafe today, broad daylight. Yeah. I took the woman's license number down. I was going to call the police, but I heard all the sirens going and sound like they were going up on the hill for the fire, so I didn't do that. So I almost got struck again going and crosswalking this. I can't go more than 5.3 miles in the crosswalk or anywhere except off the Empire State Building maybe. A friend of mine last night with a flag was crossing there and came with it and Six inches of getting run down by somebody that was going 45 miles an hour in a 30 or 35 zone there. And we're back to the situation, you can't see the flags at night, tourists are stealing them. Nothing effective is going on. Maybe the one flashing light at Napa Street is working to slow some people down. I don't know. But six years ago, I spoke to city council about doing what Petaluma does with the flashing lights and the crosswalk, which you see then. Everybody stops dead. And it works. And after I spoke six years ago, I was approached by somebody that is in the legal business, a paralegal, and said, now that you've announced this to city council, and it's a known fact that there's a hazard, if there's a serious incident, when there's a lawsuit from a death or a serious injury, It'll be gross negligence because city council is now, now city council is known for six years about the danger that's there. You spend a million and a half dollars on a city park, but you can't put flashing diamonds in the street where there's crosswalks. Sooner or later, and I hope much later, somebody's gonna get killed maybe only seriously maimed. So I beseech you to do something about putting a proper Flashing lights. to take care of this issue. Thank you. |
| 00:13:09.38 | Joe Burns | Is there any other member of the public who? |
| 00:13:18.18 | Joe Burns | Um, Would like to address the council, please fill in the card, Sybil. |
| 00:13:31.18 | Sybil Boutillier | Good evening, I just wanted to follow up on the comment about the list of seniors. Both the Age Family South Salido with the CARS program, South Salido Village, and also the Women's Club have been working over the last couple of years to get seniors to participate in the RUOK program that the police department operates. Stacy Gregory, she's not a sergeant, I don't think, put together a great program that actually maps to the people's homes the vulnerable people that should be contacted in the case of an emergency. And that mapping system, as I understand it, isn't in the police cars. So this is something that we've already been working on and that I definitely take your comments and think that it's something we should work on harder. And try to get more people to sign up with the police department on the RUOK program. Thank you. Thank you. |
| 00:14:41.85 | Joe Burns | Thank you, Sybil. Is there anybody else who'd like to address the council on any matters that are not on tonight's agenda? Okay, seeing none, we'll move on. We have no minutes tonight to approve. So on to item number four, the consent calendar. And the matters listed under the consent calendar are considered routine and non-controversial, require no discussion, and are expected to have unanimous council support, and will be enacted by the council in just one motion. So is there any, before I ask my colleagues, is there any member of the public who would like to comment on or ask for clarification or removal of any item on the consent calendar. I have one card game from David Suto. David, please. |
| 00:15:49.45 | David Sudo | I guess it's my day to be cranky. I saw the Casa Madrona has an update to encroachment agreement. And I think that the seating outside of the Casa Madrona at the Poggio restaurant is one of the best things in town. But I also think that it creates a serious congestion issue in front of that building. And, you know, the agreement is there's four feet of clear space between the planters and tree, but what happens is chairs spill out past the planters, and the planters right now, if you look at them, have vegetation spilling out of them six to twelve inches past the planters and now instead of having four feet of clear you have three feet of clear and when there's people going both directions and their strollers it's just it's it's it's an issue and it needs to be kept on top of that's all I'm gonna say thank you |
| 00:16:48.33 | Joe Burns | Thank you, David. Anybody else would like to comment on the consent calendar? Okay, up here, any thoughts? Anybody? |
| 00:17:02.18 | Joan Cox | I just have one comment. I had a question. from the public today about the disposal of attorney gangway surplus equipment. And my understanding that this is the gangway that was removed and a newer one was replaced. Is that right? Sorry, I'm just, yeah. I see Jonathan approaching podium. |
| 00:17:29.29 | Jonathon Goldman | Jonathan Goldman, you're a public works director and city engineer, you are correct. |
| 00:17:34.09 | Joan Cox | Thank you. That's it. Thank you. |
| 00:17:38.21 | Joe Burns | OK. Anybody else thoughts, comments on the consent calendar? If not, can we have a motion? |
| 00:17:48.44 | Joan Cox | Move to approve the consent calendar. |
| 00:17:52.40 | Joe Burns | THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 00:17:52.98 | Joe Burns | All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Passes 4-0. |
| 00:17:54.21 | Joan Cox | Bye. |
| 00:17:58.63 | Joe Burns | Okay, item number 6A, excuse me. And this is to adopt a resolution for Home Adaptation Grant Program. And I think we're gonna start off with Danny Castro, our Community Development Director. Good evening, Danny. |
| 00:18:27.03 | Danny Castro | Good evening Mayor Withey and members of the council. I'm Danny Castro, your community development director and Thank you. Tonight, this evening, is consideration of the Age Friendly Home Adaptation Grant Program for older adults and persons with disabilities. The Sausalito Community Development Department and Age-Friendly Sausalito Task Force are proposing an Age-Friendly Home Adaptation Program, a special reduced fee or no-cost permit available to eligible residents age 60 and older and to residents with permanent functional disabilities, to make certain adaptations to their living environment in order to remain safely and comfortably in their homes. I am going to turn this part of the presentation to Sybil Boutillier. She is the chair of the Age-Friendly Sausalito Task Force and Marin County Commissioner on Aging, and then I'll come back. |
| 00:19:29.23 | Joe Burns | Thank you. |
| 00:19:33.65 | Joe Burns | Welcome, Sybil. |
| 00:19:35.12 | Sybil Boutillier | Thank you. Thank you, Danny. Good evening, Mayor Withee, Vice Mayor Cox, and council members, ladies and gentlemen. see, let me see how this works. Can I just do this? Yeah. So I'd like to start with just a bit of context and overview. In the next 30 years, there may be as many as 2 billion people over the age of 60 on this planet, about 22% of the world's population. And this will be for the very first time in history. So the population's aging. This is a brand new issue. And as longevity is becoming the new norm, So in Marin County, we're already up to 27% of the population being 60 or older, and in Sausalito, we're over 30%. |
| 00:20:41.64 | Sybil Boutillier | So the knowledge that the community was growing older inspired an upwelling of activity from the grassroots elders of the community who came together under the leadership of South Salido Village. And together we came up with the visioning about how South Salido could work better for everyone of every age and ability. |
| 00:21:07.85 | Sybil Boutillier | Since spring of 2013, this group came before the council, and Betsy Stroman, then chair of the South Salido Village, asked the council if they would appoint an age-friendly task force to explore how South Salido could use the principles proposed by the World Health Organization to become more age-friendly. And some of the members of our task force are here in the audience now. Hilaire and Stella and Charles and our associate Michael Sheets. Thank you for being here. And Trisha's on her way. So the Age Family Salcedo Task Force was created, and Parks and Rec Director Mike Langford was appointed as our liaison. |
| 00:21:58.58 | Sybil Boutillier | So the task force began conducting a citywide survey. Dozens of volunteers helped this very hands-on project so that we could better understand the issues older adults faced in the community and gathered some new ideas. And we also met with many stakeholders and community organizations. We had a remarkable return on the survey, almost unheard of, 50%. 900 surveys were returned in the self-addressed stamped envelopes that we sent out, and 300 came online through SurveyMonkey. Also 3,500 individual comments were written by the survey respondents. |
| 00:22:45.22 | Sybil Boutillier | So survey results were indexed according to the eight domains of livability that the World Health Organization proposed. And this helped us to bring into focus how the needs of the community fit into the work areas of the city structure and enabled the task force to work with city staff, stakeholders, and community organizations to come up with possible solutions to the challenges that were identified. The eight domains, as you can see, are housing, transportation, outdoor spaces, and built environment, respect and social inclusion, social participation, civic engagement, employment, and volunteer opportunities, communications and information exchange, and community support and health safety and health services. |
| 00:23:41.29 | Sybil Boutillier | So after reviewing, indexing, and analyzing the results of the survey, the task force came to the council to request permission to submit an application for the city to join the World Health Organization's global network of age-friendly cities and communities. Then Mayor Withey wrote the required letter committing the city to undertake the five year cycle of improvement. Which includes the base assessment and planning, developing a strategic action plan in the first two years. And then implementing those goals and objectives over the next three years. And finally, evaluating the progress and determining what gaps there may be and what other changes and improvements can be made for the next cycle. |
| 00:24:37.27 | Sybil Boutillier | So the task force, city managers, and community volunteers and partners came together and quickly developed some early programs while we were still working on the full plan. Task force members wrote several grants to help kickstart projects. And we received support from Marin Transit, SCAN Health Plan, Marin Community Foundation, and the Board of Supervisors, thus defraying costs for the city while modeling to the county and the state what a successful age-friendly program could be. And this was noted in articles published in the Marin IJ, the New York Times, and the Washington Post. Once the plan was approved and submitted and early programs were running smoothly, thanks to city staff and partners of Sasslittle Village, we turned our attention to one of the more complex issues that was flagged in the survey. |
| 00:25:42.02 | Sybil Boutillier | One major issue that stood out in the survey was of course housing. Not just lack of available housing, but lack of accessible housing, which is so important to the older community. 98% of respondents said staying in the community as the age was important to them. Over 81% said it was very important. 95% said staying in their current residence was important. And for over 74% of our older adult respondents, it was very important for them to stay in their own homes, whether they were owners or renters. |
| 00:26:23.45 | Sybil Boutillier | So there are many issues around housing, but uniquely at the forefront in South Salido is accessibility. Most residential areas, as we all know, are beautiful, are located in beautiful but steep hills. And so the design of the houses are adjusted accordingly with many stairs and multiple levels, as well as other architectural features that can create barriers for many residents as they become more frail and perhaps develop mobility issues. and thus rendering the beloved homes inconvenient at the least and uninhabitable at the worst. Nearly 54% of respondents said the design of their homes will not make it easy for them to be able to age in place. |
| 00:27:19.37 | Sybil Boutillier | So, Thank you. 38 survey respondents wrote that they would like to make their homes more adaptable. And some comments called out problems with the permit process. For example, one survey respondent said, I recently tried to make my step safer. And the city required so many permits that the contractor gave up and went to another job. Another resident made the following comment, wrote in the following comment, I've been getting quotes for taking out one bathtub and putting in a shower only, which is far more accessible than stepping over a high tub Both of my baths have shower tub combo Such a remodel is costly and the permit fees add 10% to the cost of the project. It would be nice if the city would waive the permit fees as an inducement to making a remodel more affordable. |
| 00:28:21.30 | Sybil Boutillier | So last year, H. Friendly Sausalito, Sausalito Village and Community Development Department held a workshop led by local architect Michael Sheetz. who's here with us tonight. and he's an age friendly associate. And building inspectors Kenneth Henry. Out of the meeting, the idea was born to explore how the city's permit process could better encourage and support seniors to make their home adaptations that could help them to remain in their homes. That goal was included in the Community Action Plan. And for the last year, Age Friendly Task Force members and architect Michael Sheets have worked with Kenneth Henry and community development director Danny Castro and various stakeholders and experts such as fire chief Chris Tubbs who wanted to come tonight. But he's busy doing other things. And Peter Mendoza of the Marin Center for Independent Living who's here and helped advise us. And then we, so we developed a plan. |
| 00:29:33.09 | Sybil Boutillier | To help create public awareness and give people a tool to think about what they can do in their homes to make them more accessible, the task force worked with city attorney Mary Wagner to license illustrations we had seen in a Canadian brochure to create a guide for home modification that would serve our community. And this is without undertaking the extra expense of creating it from scratch. So the Canadian agency agreed to let us customize the material for our own use at no cost. Task force was able to get funding to print the South's legal guide through the generosity of Marine Community Foundation. The self-assessment guide. Maintaining Seniors' Independence Through Home Adaptations will be featured in the next edition of the South Folietal Magazine due out in December. |
| 00:30:27.20 | Sybil Boutillier | And finally... I'd like to touch on two more reasons this program can be very valuable to our community. First, accessible home adaptations reduce the risk of falls. In 2015, 322 older South Toledo residents required emergency medical assistance. EMTs report 80% of those were because of falls. Fall injuries among, and 56% of all fall injuries among older adults occur in the home. And then the second reason that this would be good for our community is that promoting age friendly home adaptations can increase our stock of accessible housing into the future. Making homes more convenient for families as well as elders. Accessible housing will always be needed and it's a good investment in the community. So I'll turn this back over to Danny, thank you very much. |
| 00:31:33.69 | Danny Castro | Thank you, Sybil. Now I'm going to talk about how the program works. It's by a set of guidelines that we established. Number one, again, it'd be a reduced fee or no cost permit based on the project valuation cost of $10,000 for eligible adaptation improvements. Eligibility is available to residents of Sausalito age 60 and older. or residents who need home adaptations due to disabilities. And then eligibility is established by proof of age of 60 or older or by any standard proof of disability. The home permit, adaptation permit, would be issued to eligible individuals for use in their place of residence only. Includes property owners and renters. For renters, a landlord's permission would be required for the adaptation improvements in their rental unit. And it's not to be used by a landlord or builder for global adaptation improvements to a multi-unit building. This is for a unit. And eligible individuals must file a request to utilize the permit. A contractor or a project representative may file a request on behalf of an eligible individual. And this can be utilized for, again, individual adaptation improvements or improvements that also coupled with other remodel project again that the the maximum project valuation of 10 000 would only apply to the adaptation improvement and then the other portions would be subject to the same standard permit fee for building permits Any deviations or representations from approved adaptation project plans may incur penalty fees in addition to the standard permit fee. The program will remain active only as the funds are available through the fiscal year, this fiscal year period. Once the funds are depleted, the age-friendly home adaptation grant program would be suspended, and the council would need to appropriate a new fund for the next fiscal year and so on, if desired. Number nine is a new item that's not actually in the draft resolution, but we had since thought that this would be important to include that eligible residents may be issued up to two home adaptation permits within a one-year period for either individual or combined improvements. This is really to make sure that this program is spread out to those who wish to apply for this and that it's, again, the opportunity to as many eligible residents as possible. The reduced fee, this is an example of a bathroom remodel that's $24,500. And the project valuation is a standard industry term for the cost of labor and materials. And it's often used as a basis in which you then charge your building permit fee. So here's a list for a bathroom remodel that included widening the doorway, installation of grab bars in the shower, the fold-down seat in the shower, a single-handle faucet, and then other upgrade improvements. In terms of what that cost breakdown would be under this grant program, again, the valuation of 24,500 standard permit fee is $800. When you apply the reduction of that valuation of 10,000, that adjusted valuation to 14,500, reducing the permit fee to $520. the grant contribution would be $280. So that's a reduction of that. Another example is a vertical chairlift and a deck replacement that would amount to a project valuation of close to $26,000. Again, the cost of labor and materials. Removing an existing deck, rebuilding the deck from the existing stairs to the house, constructing a concrete pad at the lower level, and then installing the chairlift, and installing new electrical for that chairlift to be utilized. That is a valuation cost with a permit fee of $900. Applying the Adaptation Improvement Project Valuation Deduction, adjust the valuation to $15,890, and then reduces the permit fee to $560. So there's a grant contribution in this case of about $330. Now, these are two examples here of where there would be a no-cost permit, and these are project valuations of projects that are under $10,000 in project valuation. For example, a new access ramp to a front door, handrails and a non-slip surface. Another project valuation for an exterior stair lift at $4,900. Again, both of these are examples that are under $10,000. There would be a no-cost permit in this case. in these cases. So the fiscal impact would be a grant amount of $10,000 that would be appropriated from the general fund balance to be used to subsidize a permit fee cost to eligible residents. The program would remain active only as funds are available through this fiscal year period of up to $10,000. Once these funds are depleted, then the age-friendly a home adaptation program would be suspended And again, as I mentioned earlier, the council would need to appropriate a new grant for the next fiscal year, if desired. The recommendation is that the City Council adopt the resolution as amended, including number 9, establishing the Age-Friendly Home Adaptation Grant Program for older adults and persons with disabilities. So that concludes my report and myself and Sybil Boutelier. Kenneth Henry is also here, our building inspector. We're available to answer any questions. |
| 00:37:34.38 | Joe Burns | Thank you very much. Okay, before we open this up for public comment, there could very well be questions from Council. Who would like to go first? |
| 00:37:45.97 | Joan Cox | Sure. And Danny I reviewed the draft resolution and it makes reference to exhibit a guidelines and eligibility requirements to obtain a home adaptation improvement. It says we... I WANT TO TALK ABOUT THE I approve establishing this program in accordance with the guidelines in exhibit A, but I was not able to find exhibit A. |
| 00:38:10.68 | Danny Castro | Oh. It should be attached to your resolution. |
| 00:38:16.08 | Joan Cox | Oh, maybe mine just didn't fully download. Okay. |
| 00:38:16.30 | Danny Castro | Maybe mine just doesn't. |
| 00:38:19.01 | Joan Cox | Okay, perfect. you Um, then I understand from the staff report that this program will only allocate, that the city will only allocate $10,000 to this program for the first year. Thank you. |
| 00:38:36.01 | Danny Castro | So at- That's the- yes, that's a suggested amount. |
| 00:38:40.38 | Joan Cox | THE END OF THE END OF THE And so that $10,000 will get eaten up pretty quickly if the cost for each project is $500. So I would recommend considering may be raising the age from 60 to 65, since most people retire at 65. Um... but still include the disabled component to it, so that anybody who's younger could still get the relief they need. I'm just worried that the list of projects enunciated in attachment... Three. the list of home modifications is quite broad. It includes replacing a refrigerator or replacing a washer dryer or all kinds of other things that don't even necessarily involve construction. So I'm concerned, As a pilot program, and I'd love to have Sybil provide her feedback if I'm totally off base, but I just want to make sure that this program is as widely available to folks. So were different guidelines considered, and how were these guidelines arrived at? Sure. |
| 00:39:59.23 | Danny Castro | Sure. Well, I just want to point out, and thank you, Vice Mayor Cox, The attachment three includes those adaptation improvements that would be eligible under the program. And then there's a separate list following, and I just want to make clear, Thank you. of the H-Findley home adaptations that do not require city building permit. So I just want to make sure that those are the ones that wouldn't be under this program because it wouldn't require it, it just identifies the difference between the two. You know, installation of refrigerators, for example, would not, a side-by-side refrigerator, would not require a building permit. |
| 00:40:36.49 | Joan Cox | Okay, so this, I see adaptations that do not require a city building permit. And so those would not be eligible for this program. |
| 00:40:40.22 | Danny Castro | I do not. |
| 00:40:45.22 | Danny Castro | They would not, and nor would it require a permit, building permit for that. |
| 00:40:49.35 | Joan Cox | Okay, I see. I misunderstood that. |
| 00:40:53.18 | Danny Castro | but I don't know if there's anything that Sybil wanted to add or... |
| 00:40:56.95 | Joan Cox | Anyway, since we're limited to 10,000, I mean, it doesn't make a huge amount of difference to the city. I just want to make the program as widely available to the residents who most need it. So that's why I was asking whether different parameters were considered. |
| 00:41:14.38 | Joe Burns | And Mr. Mayor, can I just clarify on that point? as it says in the staff report it would be for the balance of this fiscal year so by the time the program was approved by Council and put out to the community as a program, you're looking at roughly six months versus the whole year. So at the mid-year budget, that's when we can evaluate where we are to date. And then if you wanted to make adjustments, you could. |
| 00:41:43.39 | Joan Cox | Okay, and along those lines, my last question is, is there a, do you have a process for reporting back to us on who, what age people used which, availed themselves of which types of permits? So that we can start to measure the efficiency of the program and make sure that we're devoting enough resources or we're devoting resources in the right direction. So is there a plan to compile that type of reporting for us? |
| 00:42:16.16 | Danny Castro | We can certainly track the type of permits being asked for and then those individuals who have apply for this permit sir yes Thank you. |
| 00:42:25.96 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 00:42:26.30 | Danny Castro | Thank you. |
| 00:42:29.54 | Joe Burns | Any other questions? |
| 00:42:31.41 | Joe Burns | I think that's a good question. I guess to follow up while we're doing questions and maybe this is to you or Kenneth, or 20 and a half year permits for an age and friendly remodel be a high number? That seems like quite a few. |
| 00:42:48.46 | Danny Castro | You know, We don't know how many would actually come through. I think this is a good way of measuring when we track it. |
| 00:42:53.06 | Joe Burns | Yeah. |
| 00:42:60.00 | Danny Castro | On average, like if the permits were about $200 to $300 in the grant fund. It could amount to about 30, about 30 applicants who would fall under this program. In the half year. |
| 00:43:17.65 | Joe Burns | in the half year. |
| 00:43:18.93 | Danny Castro | In this remaining period, yes. |
| 00:43:20.16 | Joe Burns | Yeah. |
| 00:43:22.76 | Danny Castro | And that's given that $10,000 amount. Yeah. |
| 00:43:22.86 | Joe Burns | Yeah. |
| 00:43:29.77 | Joan Cox | I have a question, I think this is probably for Sybil. Do you have a sense of how many people have expressed an interest in availing themselves of this program to this point? If you don't, that's fine. I just was wondering if you had an estimate or not. since we're kind of asked |
| 00:43:50.07 | Sybil Boutillier | The only answer I can give to that is that the 37, I believe it was, people who wrote in the survey, they actually made the comment that they would like to |
| 00:43:50.24 | Joan Cox | THE END OF |
| 00:44:01.10 | Sybil Boutillier | make improvements, accessible improvements to their home. Other than that, because we haven't gone public with this program yet, I don't know. how it will be used. We looked at some history, Kenneth and Danny, looked at some history of the types of improvements that people made in the last few years, and estimated the number of people that might be interested in using this going forward. And that's where I think the number came up of around 30 people or so. And that was something that we considered. But that's the best answer I can give you. |
| 00:44:43.53 | Joan Cox | Mm-hmm. |
| 00:44:45.52 | Sybil Boutillier | Okay, fine, thank you. |
| 00:44:46.67 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 00:44:46.70 | Sybil Boutillier | Thank you. |
| 00:44:47.14 | Joan Cox | it. One more question. So what is your plan of how you will publicize this to the seniors who may benefit from it? |
| 00:44:58.02 | Danny Castro | Well, I would certainly have the chair, Sibu Boutillier, help CDD. advertised, but any number of ways. We can certainly put it out in the currents, as well as have these self-assessment guides available at the front counter so that contractors are aware. There's a number of resources, I believe, Sybil, that you have quite a list of that's available for social age-friendly folks and for individuals with disabilities as well. |
| 00:45:31.76 | Joe Burns | Excuse me. Mm-hmm. I have a couple of questions. I was initially a little confused, but I think the presentation has helped me out here. There's sort of like $10,000 floating around, isn't there? There's the $10,000 you deduct from the project cost to give the new permit cost, right? And then there's the $10,000 budget, if you like, and they're totally different $10,000, right? |
| 00:46:07.90 | Danny Castro | Mayor Wether, you're correct. Yeah, okay. They just happen to be the same number. |
| 00:46:08.90 | Joe Burns | Yeah, okay. Right, that was what was confusing me initially. So where did, let's take the 10, forget the budget $10,000, the $10,000 reduction to calculate the new permit costs, |
| 00:46:12.02 | Danny Castro | I WANTED TO BE ABLE TO BE ABLE |
| 00:46:26.01 | Joe Burns | Where does that number come from? |
| 00:46:28.07 | Danny Castro | It was a number we thought about that would, we looked at the number of different types of adaptation improvements that would qualify, that are often associated with project remodels on other aspects that are not qualified. So we really looked at both of it, because when you do an adaptation improvement, for example, a bathroom remodel, you're gonna remove tile, you're going to you know, replace tile, you're going to paint, you're going to do other even structural components of it, that are well beyond a $10,000 project valuation. So we made sure to include those that were, we thought 10,000 was a good maximum to include the majority of home adaptation improvements. Adaptation improvements that are greater than 10,000, we even looked at 20,000 as a possible benchmark, but we thought 10,000 was at least a good starting point for this program. |
| 00:47:30.42 | Joe Burns | Okay, so that actually leads to my next question, which is, I mean, you can imagine a situation where somebody decides to reconfigure their bathroom, redo a part of their house, of which the adaptation work is only a smaller component of a bigger project. |
| 00:47:59.48 | Charles Kaufman | Thank you. |
| 00:47:59.63 | Joe Burns | Thank you. How does that work in that situation? Will the contractor come in with the total project valuation and then the project valuation that's related to adaptation? Or are you just expecting you know, these adaptation changes to come in only as one permit. How does that work? |
| 00:48:26.39 | Danny Castro | Sure, so as part of this application, we will be asking a contractor or a project representative to identify and itemize those adaptation improvements that qualify under this program. and what that dollar amount would be in terms of their evaluations so that we understand how much of that is proportioned of their total project remodel. So we would be tracking it. In some cases, the number of adaptation improvements may be greater than 10,000, but we're only going to this grant funding program will only be up to the 10,000. There may be items that are less will still be able to deduct and use this grant program up to 10,000. So I hope that answers. We expect that there's going to be other improvements that are going to be coupled with these improvements. |
| 00:49:18.24 | Joe Burns | Right, which won't count towards it. Which won't count. And we'll ask for an item. |
| 00:49:19.99 | Danny Castro | Which won't count. And that's okay. And we'll ask for an itemized. |
| 00:49:22.03 | Joe Burns | Yeah. |
| 00:49:22.67 | Joe Burns | Okay. |
| 00:49:22.98 | Joe Burns | I'm not sure if we can. I'm not sure if we can. Okay. All right. Just one quick one kind of following up on the vice mayor's questions. We'll revisit this then right before our budget finalization. If we don't want it to suspend, we want to do it maybe a meeting |
| 00:49:35.09 | Abbott Chambers | Thank you. |
| 00:49:35.11 | Danny Castro | I'm not. |
| 00:49:41.86 | Joe Burns | Would that matter? |
| 00:49:41.99 | Danny Castro | Sure, I think that in my conversations with Melanie Purcell, finance director, she included that perhaps even in the mid-year budget in February that we will you know, either provide a tracking of the progress of this adaptation program and then prior to the next fiscal year. |
| 00:49:58.14 | Joe Burns | Yeah, but we really won't have much in February necessarily. You may not. |
| 00:50:01.13 | Danny Castro | You may not. Thank you. |
| 00:50:02.26 | Joe Burns | Thank you. |
| 00:50:02.28 | Charles Kaufman | and, you know, the |
| 00:50:02.36 | Danny Castro | Yeah. |
| 00:50:02.38 | Charles Kaufman | Thank you. |
| 00:50:02.48 | Joe Burns | Thank you. |
| 00:50:02.55 | Charles Kaufman | Thank you. |
| 00:50:02.57 | Joe Burns | you Thank you. |
| 00:50:03.07 | Joe Burns | Okay. |
| 00:50:03.71 | Joe Burns | Thank you. |
| 00:50:04.03 | Joe Burns | I think we can get, actually I do have one more question, Where does, I mean 60 is not necessarily a magic number, so where does 60 come from? Is there WHO guidelines in that? area or what's the recommendation as someone who is now over 60 myself. |
| 00:50:32.94 | Joan Cox | And someone who is... And someone who is very nearly 60 and I am not in a place, thank the Lord, that I would require this type of assistance yet. |
| 00:50:36.64 | Joe Burns | I think it's a big deal. Yeah. |
| 00:50:46.96 | Sybil Boutillier | OK, so the Older Americans Act, which is the federal act that funds most of the senior services that the county provides, starts, offers those services to people 60 and over. So that's like a benchmark. for general services for seniors. Also the age friendly task force really focuses the CARS program for example is for people 60 and over. So really it came from understanding that the federal Bench bikes. for Services to Seniors is age 60. Even though Medicare may not It's coming until 65, now it's up a little higher I think. Yeah. |
| 00:51:43.18 | Joe Burns | Okay, that's lovely. That's where it came from. Yeah, thank you very much. That was helpful. |
| 00:51:43.88 | Sybil Boutillier | That's where it came from. |
| 00:51:47.93 | Joe Burns | Any other questions before I open this up for public comment? you know. Okay. So, um, Is there any member of the public who would like to talk on this matter? |
| 00:52:07.69 | Neil Whitelaw | I'd like to speak, do you need another card for me? Thank you. |
| 00:52:10.51 | Joe Burns | I'll call you Neil. |
| 00:52:17.21 | Joe Burns | Sir. |
| 00:52:17.63 | Abbott Chambers | Thank you. |
| 00:52:17.65 | Joe Burns | Thank you. |
| 00:52:18.80 | Peter Mendoza | Mr. Mayor and members of the City Council, my name is Peter Mendoza. And I'm the Director of Advocacy and Special Projects for the Marine Center for Independent Living. And I really want to applaud Sybil and the Aid Friendly Sausalito Task Force and all the city staff who worked to put together this proposal for you tonight. At the Merlin Center for Independent Living, we've been in existence since 1979. And we work to support people with disabilities and seniors to remain independently in their community. We provide assistance for people who need home health workers. We provide advocacy services when they're trying to access and service and support. If they need peer counseling because they have a new disability or a change in condition, we provide that. We provide transportation advice and we also provide advice and technical assistance on home modifications. And I can tell you that one of the main things that we hear almost every day is people who are trying to stay in their homes often after receiving after being diagnosed with a disability or change of condition, or someone who has a new family member with a disability. And many people have to move out of the area because their home isn't accessible. And And even if you're Oh, gosh. Excuse me, my voice is a little tired tonight. When you become disabled, you have a lot of expenses. separate from whatever you're working with as far as learning about a new way of life with your change in condition. resolution put together for you this ordinance. will make it easier for folks in Sausalito to remain home in the community they love. I live in Novato, but I love coming to Sausalito because it's such a beautiful city. And we want to work so that people can stay here, so that if something happens, they're able to remain where they live with their family and have the supports they need. This is really important. And we need to remember, and I don't want to state what's been stated already, Marin has the highest amount of aging seniors and aging in place is a key initiative and really important. So I would urge you to pass this ordinance and resolution and it makes Sausalito a leader. keeping people that you care about in their home. Thank you. |
| 00:55:18.23 | Joe Burns | Thank you very much, sir. Neil Whitelaw. |
| 00:55:25.39 | Neil Whitelaw | I'd like to thank Adam and Jonathan, the other staff that's responsible for contributing to Edge Fingley's Auslator with the yellow lips on a lot of places. People don't have trouble getting over curbs. On the other hand, I've had this electric scooter after battling with Medicare for 44 months and finally got it. So I've been able to explore a lot of parts of South Slado. And I do not find Sausalito, at least for getting around on the streets and roads and paths, age-friendly at all. I thank God that my parents had enough money and enough love for me to put in gold inlay fillings when I was a teenager, because otherwise I think my fillings would have dropped out places I've gone in the last month. it is so bumpy and i can't go more than 5.3 miles an hour even though i'd like to go 20. but getting to the spinnaker uh, getting over to the industrial center building, I getting down to some of the restaurants down that direction past milestones is a teeth jarring experience on this. I've ripped the side of my arm on blackberry bushes on Bridgeway. And there's a lot of things in this area that need improvement, not just yellow lips, so people can get through there. If you asked me whether I would check on a list of Saucido was an age-friendly city, I'd say no, because the conditions I was investigated. um, I'm not going to put a helmet on like I was racing in the Grand Prix. Oh, that's a thought. The other thing I'd like to bring up, because I think it might fit in here, every ethnic community around the world. Accepted. white communities. have a elders council Chinese people have it. They have their tongs. Red people have it, Native Americans. They look to their elders. The white communities have no such things. I would like to propose that we start thinking about having A section to report to city council. an elders council, maybe of Some people seven years older and up There's so much untapped The brain power in society of elders that's not being used, that could be in an advisory capacity to city council, and in many sections of the city. There's so much wisdom there, more so than almost any place else on the planet. It's amazing the brain power and the accomplishments our citizens have done. So I urge you to start thinking about having a elders council that reports to the city council. |
| 00:58:27.09 | Joe Burns | Thank you, Neil. Patricia Smith. |
| 00:58:35.08 | Patricia Smith | Hi everyone, Tricia Smith, Seven Reed Lane. And I really want to take the second to acknowledge as a member of the Age Friendly Task Force, The amount of volunteer hours that Sybil put into this, this really was a project that she took on single-handedly and worked. with Michael Sheets, a lot of volunteer hours there too who worked with the city staff. And everybody did a great job. you know, We were at that workshop and it was so, the one little nugget that I remember is a question came up and said, so how much is a permit to put a grab bar in in a shower? $165. who's going to do that. So you either have people who are going to do it illegally or not do it correctly. So that was the thing that started to snowball this. And again, I just want to appreciate that as the past chair of Age Friendly, I do want to also recognize that an Age Friendly, as part of the Age Friendly global network of cities and communities in the world, it doesn't mean that we're there yet, but it means that you, the city, council and staff have committed to working towards an age-friendly community, and I really commend the city for doing that. Thank you. |
| 00:59:48.77 | Joe Burns | Thank you, Trisha. Michael Sheets? |
| 00:59:59.01 | Michael Sheets | Good evening, Council and citizens of the city here. I'm not one of them, unfortunately. the house posts just over the border. but, I wanted to give a design perspective to this, because one of the principles in accessibility as you're retrofitting buildings is removal of barriers. And You can look at the permit process as a barrier that's sort of limiting people from acting. Kenneth and I gave the seminar last year. And part of the goal of that was to Show people what could be done, what could be done simply, to solve problems, and every house and every person has sort of a unique set. But I think there is a component of also selling that's important to make sure people are aware of this program. So I think that The other point is that You're sort of on the cutting edge of this. I don't know of any other jurisdiction that has considered this. And I think what you'll be doing is creating a model for other people to follow. So thank you. |
| 01:01:14.41 | Joe Burns | Thank you. I have run out of cards. Is there anybody else who'd like to speak on this topic? Okay, seeing none, we'll close the public comment and bring it back here. |
| 01:01:34.17 | Joe Burns | would like to go first |
| 01:01:37.58 | Joan Cox | I'll go. On the face of this, I think it looks like a great program, and you guys worked very hard on it. It seems very reasonable, and you put a lot of thought and detail into it, and I think it's something that we would want to try as a pilot program. |
| 01:01:56.31 | Joe Burns | Once again, I'm in awe of the people that work in our community and do things for us. And as everybody's admitting their age up here, I'm not too far off from qualifying in some of these things. And I appreciate people in our border and then floating slightly out of our borders that are contributing to our age-friendly process. And keep bringing stuff to us. You have my support. Thank you. |
| 01:02:12.14 | Charles Kaufman | Amen. |
| 01:02:22.25 | Joan Cox | I agree. I would like to see us implement a tracking program for this. So if we approve this, I'd like to give direction to staff to track. who's using it so that we can better tailor it if necessary as we do an evaluation. I'm gratified that we have a six month period starting out in our current budget cycle because based on people I've spoken to I think this will be a popular program and I agree it's a worthwhile program. And with those parameters in mind, I don't have any problem approving it in its current form. with the idea that we can tailor the parameters down the road if necessary. |
| 01:03:11.08 | Joe Burns | Yeah, I agree with my colleagues. I think it's a logical next step if for our age-friendly community. Um, when I was there in 2013 holding the thing, and it was a great pleasure to have participated in that. I was just under 60 then, I think. But anyway, the So I think in terms of budget, I agree with the tracking, but I think we naturally track all of our permits now. So I think to produce a report for council will be very simple for staff, I think, to do. So I don't think they need any particular direction there, I would have thought. |
| 01:04:09.69 | Joan Cox | Well, I meant to distinguish these types of permits from the others. |
| 01:04:12.44 | Joe Burns | Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I think we should ask that and that will be fairly straightforward. And in terms of the dollar amount in the budget, I think we got a good start and we can evaluate it mid-year budget and see the next budget cycle whether we need to increase it. So yeah, this is a great job. |
| 01:04:13.35 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 01:04:33.67 | Joan Cox | So then Mr. Mayor, may I make a motion that we adopt the resolution establishing the Age Friendly Home Adaptation Grant Program for older adults and persons with disabilities? |
| 01:04:43.86 | Joe Burns | With adding number nine to the exhibit A. |
| 01:04:45.82 | Joan Cox | Correct. |
| 01:04:48.96 | Joe Burns | All right. |
| 01:04:49.03 | Joe Burns | I'll second that. |
| 01:04:49.77 | Joe Burns | Go ahead, Google. you |
| 01:04:51.00 | Joe Burns | Okay, all in favor. Aye. |
| 01:04:51.12 | Joe Burns | Fair enough. Bye. |
| 01:04:53.01 | Joan Cox | Yeah. |
| 01:04:53.58 | Joe Burns | Okay, that motion carries. Thank you very much. |
| 01:05:04.15 | Joe Burns | Okay, our next item, 6B, is Southview Park update. And we're kicking off with Lauren Umbertus, our Public Works Division Manager. |
| 01:05:19.62 | Joan Cox | Thank you. If you look at the timing, it says that 8.15, we're gonna do the sustainability. |
| 01:05:24.40 | Lauren | Could I get a little help with the presentation? |
| 01:05:26.39 | Joan Cox | Yeah. |
| 01:05:26.45 | Charles Kaufman | Thank you. |
| 01:05:26.51 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 01:05:26.61 | Charles Kaufman | Thank you. |
| 01:05:26.78 | Charles Kaufman | that that's not. |
| 01:05:27.57 | Joan Cox | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 01:05:27.94 | Joe Burns | So yeah, could you just hold on a second, Lauren? I just wanted to check with our city clerk. Item B, it says 930. I'm just assuming that's an error. |
| 01:05:41.64 | Joan Cox | And then it says that sustainability is at 815. Item C is 815. |
| 01:05:48.36 | Lily (City Clerk) | Thank you. |
| 01:05:48.38 | Joan Cox | There's some time. |
| 01:05:48.85 | Lily (City Clerk) | I have a vote on the agenda this evening. |
| 01:05:49.74 | Joan Cox | Oh, yeah. |
| 01:05:49.96 | Charles Kaufman | Thank you. |
| 01:05:50.01 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 01:05:50.03 | Charles Kaufman | Thank you. |
| 01:05:50.23 | Joan Cox | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 01:05:50.42 | Joe Burns | Okay, so we are in the right order, Lily. Yeah, okay. Correct. Okay. So, uh, |
| 01:05:51.11 | Charles Kaufman | Okay. |
| 01:05:51.16 | Lily (City Clerk) | Thanks. |
| 01:05:56.78 | Lauren | Thank you. Lauren, over to you. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, and thank you, Vice Mayor Cox and other members of the council. First off, before I start off on my presentation, I'd also like to express my thanks to the Southern Marin Fire Protection District and all the other agencies that assisted so rapidly this afternoon. We got a chance to see that firsthand, and it was a little scary when we saw the smoke, but everyone responded so quickly and took care of that issue so rapidly. It was great to see because everyone is on... eggshells these last few weeks when they hear things about fire. So as my presentation comes up for the Southview park project update. I would like to just thank you all for being supportive of this project. I'm not sure. This one's gonna be a good one. If any of you are familiar, we can start going through some of the details while this loads up. Southview Park is located between 3rd and 4th Street off of North, which is in the south end of town. If you've ever gotten a chance to go there, it's a fantastic park. It is, let's see. Thank you. |
| 01:07:18.84 | Lauren | here. |
| 01:07:19.20 | Joan Cox | Just go up to slide show at the top. |
| 01:07:21.24 | Lauren | Where is that? |
| 01:07:22.22 | Joan Cox | Slide show from beginning on the left. There you go. |
| 01:07:34.93 | Lauren | OK, so here's a great picture of Southview Park. You can see the basketball court, tennis court in the upper left-hand corner. Playground right there. The entryway, that's North Street, that runs up and down on there. And then you can see a little grassy area. It's a little brown right there, so that was probably during the summer. So here's a brief history on Southview Park. The park is located between 3rd and 4th, as I mentioned. It was originally constructed as a school, and it was closed in 1941. It was acquired eventually by the city. It was demolished as a school, or the buildings were demolished in the 50s, and it was configured into a park by the city and worked on by volunteers. And the courts were recently, well, I guess recently, were last renovated in 1998. A QUICK LITTLE STORY ABOUT THAT. Department of Public Works helped with that and ended up putting an excavator on the basketball court and ended up being there for, I think, a winter. we couldn't quite get it out again. so more briefly and you're probably more familiar with some of these dates in January 2016 the City Council did approve the certificates of participation be issued to allocate funds for various projects within the city one of them being Southview Park of which 1.5 1.1 1.15 million was allocated towards the park renovations at South Park. In 2016, the city entered into an agreement with SWA, which is a local landscape architectural firm, to provide preliminary design and get us through the Planning Commission process for this project. In May 2017, we went before the Planning Commission with our design review application. It was initially rejected based upon the Size of our playground structure, which was out of character with that neighborhood We did return back to the Planning Commission again in September 2017 to review our revised design review application, and they approved that unanimously at that time. So our next steps now are to enter into a design agreement with SWA or with a different firm, either a civil engineer firm or. another landscape architectural firm, we need to work with SWA on making sure that that contract goes forward. We're currently working with them on trying to determine that scope and those services. Right now, what the next step will be is once we get that design contract in place, we want to complete construction documents. Hopefully, we can get those done by January 2018. We would like to, if that works, get those plans and drawings out to contractors by February 2018, with the idea of having a construction start date by April 18th, or April 2018, and assuming that we can get in there, have a construction complete by late fall of 2018, so that we don't have to be too much into the winter months while we're doing this project. So some of the elements of this new park, and we'll go over when we show some of the drawings of this, the renderings of this park. We're going to improve accessibility to come into compliance with the Americans with Disabilities We are going to be repairing failed retaining walls. If any of you have been up there at any time in the last seven or eight years, you'll note that one of the walls in the tennis court has completely failed. be repairing that. Uh, Obviously, we'll be repairing the tennis court as part of that. We're going to be placing a new playground structure in there. We have some renderings of that, so you can see that. That'll meet all current safety and accessibility requirements. We're going to, the plan is to put in a terrace seat wall that has extraordinary views of the bay in San Francisco. We're going to be renovating the grass area that you'll also see in the rendering. And then we're going to be making improvements to the basketball courts. So here's a rendering of the playground as it's currently in its schematic design. You'll see that the playground or the whole park doesn't really change from its existing look. We're really focusing on keeping the same elements together. That was done partly in result of local meetings where the local residents wanted to keep the character of the park more or less the same. You'll see in the lower left-hand corner, we still have the basketball court, tennis court again, over in the lower left. You'll see the playground area. We'll go into more detail on the next slide. And then in the upper left, really the dramatic changes of the park are going to be accessibility, the entryway, and that terrace seating area where you'll have really extraordinary views of the bay. And then that little grass area, again, there's one there now. It's essentially going to remain the same. So a lot of the work, is to make this park easier to access for people and to upgrade some of the damage that's happened through neglect over a number of years. The next picture here is this is the currently approved rendering that was put before the Planning Commission. It was also put before the community and residents locally there. This is the one that was chosen after we submitted the first one, which was a much taller tower structure that obstructed views of the bay and just was out of keeping with the local neighborhood. You can see in this one, it is much lower. In fact, these pictures and the actual, these renderings and the actual pictures you would take very similar. So if you were to go there and stand on the sidewalk looking out towards the bay and looking over the structure, you would have that same view of where you'd be able to see the city, see the water, and not have views of Angel Island obstructed. I believe that the existing play structure there is about 11 feet, and I think that this is about 13 feet. So we're not going much higher than what's already there. IF YOU TAKE A LOOK AT SOME OF THE ELEMENTS THERE, In my own personal opinion, there's lots of different types of play elements, climbing structure, slides, vantage points, visibility of points. So I think this is a really great design that we have planned for this park. |
| 01:13:37.81 | Lauren | So the good news is that the Planning Commission has approved our our park and we're now looking forward to Moving forward, finding a designer to get us from the schematic design to a place where we can actually create construction drawings and then get this park built. As we know, Dunphy Park... We have that one there. We have this program. We want to get both of these done so that we can can fulfill the obligations that we've made to the community. So right now, if you have any questions about the status of this park, I'm happy to answer them. |
| 01:14:10.26 | Joe Burns | Thank you. |
| 01:14:10.27 | Lauren | Please. |
| 01:14:10.56 | Joe Burns | Thank you. |
| 01:14:11.44 | Joan Cox | in the staff report, you laid out the finances for us. Um, |
| 01:14:25.04 | Joan Cox | Yeah. |
| 01:14:31.75 | Joan Cox | With the issuance of the COPs, 1.5 million was appropriated. And you told us tonight, somewhere in the staff report, I thought I read, that you are going to stay within your budget for SWA. You're going to come back to us with one more contract modification. Um, Have you re-looked at, when was the most recent estimate for the price of building the improvements current reflected in the current plans. prepared. The reason I ask is As you know, we recently had a project come in at nearly double the budget estimate so When was the estimate for this park last updated? |
| 01:15:19.10 | Lauren | We've been working with SWA on trying to put together a price on this. We do have some knowledge internally. Michael Langford is here, or was here for a second. We do have some knowledge about what these pieces cost. We've built one playground out here, so we know some of those costs that we were able to extrapolate towards this park. We have done tennis court renovations in the past, so we do have some knowledge about what those kind of costs are. and given our experience with the Public Works Department, we have some knowledge about what those kind of costs are. And given our experience with the Public Works Department, we have some knowledge about what flat work is. And so we're kind of collecting all these pieces. Right now, since we only have the schematic design, we really haven't gone very far in putting together construction drawings. You know, right now, the estimate that we have of $1.5 million, which also includes design fees, we believe is a realistic price for delivering this project. |
| 01:16:09.70 | Kristin Woelslegel | Thank you. |
| 01:16:09.71 | Patricia Smith | THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 01:16:09.97 | Kristin Woelslegel | Thank you. |
| 01:16:10.00 | Patricia Smith | Thank you. |
| 01:16:13.36 | Joe Burns | Thank you, Lauren, for that presentation. Is there... Any, in terms of the program, the program in this out, was there any difference anticipated between the sort of age levels of the play equipment in this part versus the age levels of the equipment in this part? It's a good question. |
| 01:16:43.78 | Lauren | It's a good question and yes, the answer is yes, there was lots of discussions on that. Okay. Mike has probably a little bit more knowledge on that, so I'll let him answer that question. |
| 01:16:47.07 | Joe Burns | Okay. |
| 01:16:47.55 | Michael Langford | Thank you. |
| 01:16:47.56 | Joe Burns | you |
| 01:16:54.03 | Michael Langford | Well, as Lauren said, yes, we definitely, this playground is designed for much older kids. You've got climbing nets, platforms that are as high as 10 feet, multiple slides, much bigger than we have at the playground here. That's what the community requested, and that's what we've done. I think it's going to be a fun playground. for older kids and young kids. |
| 01:17:12.93 | Joe Burns | Thank you. |
| 01:17:12.94 | Miller Darterbury | Thank you. |
| 01:17:12.98 | Joe Burns | Super. Thank you. |
| 01:17:15.37 | Michael Langford | Thank you. |
| 01:17:15.39 | Joe Burns | Thank you. |
| 01:17:15.90 | Michael Langford | Thank you. |
| 01:17:16.59 | Joe Burns | Any other questions? this stage. |
| 01:17:19.73 | Joan Cox | No. |
| 01:17:19.81 | Joe Burns | Yep. |
| 01:17:20.00 | Joan Cox | Thank you. I'll just confirm my understanding, is it true that if the budget, if the If the cost comes in over budget, you have some backup plans for raising additional funds. |
| 01:17:34.24 | Lauren | We'll have to work with the finance director and obviously with you to figure out how to deliver that if the cost comes over significantly. We've known that this park has needed improvements on some of the retaining walls for a long while without thinking about renovating the park itself. So we've talked about those funds. We do have accessibility funds that may be available because there are accessibility aspects to this park. So like anything that we do, We'll find out what this comes in at, I mean, we have a bit of a benefit on this is that we're not as far along as, say, we were on Dunphy and the design. So we are working with the, architect to design this park within our budget. Now, we do have some constraints. We do have a basketball court that's going to get redone. We do have a tennis court that's going to get redone. We do have a playground that's going to get redone. So we're not working exactly with a blank slate. We are working with elements that we know we have and have to repair. So it's not completely a blank slate, but we have expressed that to the landscape architect that we do have some budgets that we have to work within. |
| 01:18:44.29 | Patricia Smith | Thank you. Yeah. |
| 01:18:47.80 | Joan Cox | more doing it do we have an estimated timeline on this so we expect to go to SBA is going to come back to go with that I was sorry |
| 01:18:56.99 | Joan Cox | Oh, sorry. Thank you. |
| 01:18:57.81 | Joan Cox | I'd type. |
| 01:18:58.28 | Joan Cox | Yeah. |
| 01:18:58.60 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 01:18:59.22 | Lauren | Yeah, so this is a bit, I mean, this is what we're trying to put in. This is kind of some best case scenarios. Okay. We are currently in discussions with SWA and we have to figure out how we're gonna get to the next stage. And within the existing budget and what we have budgeted for design services. Assuming that we can work with SWA or find a different alternative for getting the design services, it would be ideal for |
| 01:18:59.76 | Joan Cox | Oh, sorry. This is a bit... |
| 01:19:22.88 | Lauren | and the construction documents done in January 2018 so that we can get this out to bid in February. So the size of the project and the cost of the project necessitate that it would be a formal bidding process, which is a minimum of 30 days. So that would bring us into April. And then if we were to get this in April, May started, it would be ideal because that would be able to get us – through the project through the summer and get it before we entered into the winter. Now these are all estimated dates, assuming that lots of things fall into place as we move forward, but this is what we're using as our own guidelines. |
| 01:19:58.07 | Joan Cox | Thanks. Okay. |
| 01:20:00.50 | Joe Burns | Thank you. |
| 01:20:00.60 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 01:20:00.65 | Joe Burns | Um, |
| 01:20:00.98 | Joan Cox | I had one procedural issue. |
| 01:20:03.06 | Lauren | THE FAMILY. |
| 01:20:03.41 | Joe Burns | Thank you. |
| 01:20:03.45 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 01:20:03.48 | Joe Burns | Thank you. |
| 01:20:03.50 | Joan Cox | Your PowerPoint had some great timelines and Thank you. pictures in color which were not in our packet but we didn't get the powerpoint can you forward the powerpoint to us and in the future can you make sure we get the powerpoints because not just for us but it gets posted online and it's a great way for members of the community to be able to see what's going on when i look at the pictures in the plans in our packet they are four to a page and they're not in color. And so it's much less demonstrative of what. the plans in our packet, they are four to a page, and they're not in color. And so it's much less demonstrative of what it is you're accomplishing up there. So... |
| 01:20:17.14 | Neil Whitelaw | Yes. Right. |
| 01:20:32.68 | Charles Kaufman | Yeah. |
| 01:20:41.72 | Lauren | My apologies, Vice Mayor. |
| 01:20:42.52 | Joan Cox | No, that's okay. And then if you're going to give us plans that aren't online, maybe it just have some excerpts or something online available to the public. All right. Thank you. |
| 01:20:56.35 | Joe Burns | Okay, let's open this up for public comment. Is there anybody who'd like to comment on this particular agenda item? Okay, seeing none, move it back here. I don't think there's any action required of us tonight other than to receive and follow this report. Any other comments before we move on? Thank you. Okay, very good. All right, well, thank you very much. We're looking forward to beginning of the year and getting the next update. Thank you, Lauren, for that presentation. Thank you. Okay. |
| 01:21:40.31 | Joe Burns | Are we OK breakwise? Should we plow on for the next one? Yeah, okay. So the next item then, item 6C, is to receive and file an update from the Sustainability Commission. And I'm looking forward to this. I haven't seen you guys for a while, so off you go. |
| 01:22:04.88 | Miller Darterbury | All right, thank you very much. Good evening. Yeah. Thank you. Bye. Let me quickly get our PowerPoint up. |
| 01:22:29.94 | Miller Darterbury | She... I think. |
| 01:22:42.72 | Miller Darterbury | Okay, good evening, Mayor Withey, Vice Mayor Cox, and Council Members Hoffman and Burns. My name is Miller Darterbury. I'm a member of the Sustainability Commission. And on behalf of the commission, I would like to thank the city council very much for allowing us the opportunity to summarize our activities for the past year and to provide a preview of upcoming sustainability commission events. Before commencing, we would like to offer our thanks to all of the people who have assisted us. First, we would like to thank Vice Mayor Cox for acting as our liaison to the council. Her input has been very valuable. We would also like to offer our thanks to senior city engineer Andrew Davidson, who unfortunately isn't here tonight, He's been absolutely essential to keeping the business of the commission going. Our gratitude also goes out to other city staff who provided their help. namely Anna Zinchen, Bryant Ho, and Jonathan Goldman. We would next like to thank our guest presenters over the past year. All of them are busy professionals who have taken time out of their schedules to offer their expertise to our monthly conversation. And these include Planning Commissioner Vicki Nichols, Marin County Community Planner Alex Westhoff. Marin County Principal Watershed Planner, Chris Chu. Director of Neighborhood Resilience at the City of San Francisco, Daniel Homsi. And Lieutenant Bill Frost of the Sausalito Police Department. Next, we would like to thank Greg and Kim Christie of Bay Cities Refuse for their regular participation. And lastly, we would like to thank members of the community who have attended and contributed to our meetings. And this includes Neil here. Thank you, Neil. Um, Go on to the next one, actually. This year's commission includes co-chair Rebecca Woodbury, Co-Chair Kristin Woelslegel, who's here. myself, Sam Rubin, Kathy Hutton. and Robin Parvin. |
| 01:25:14.12 | Miller Darterbury | This update is going to cover three topics, and those topics include our greenhouse gas inventory update for 2014. our 2017 multifamily waste study and our focus topic for 2017, sea level rise. |
| 01:25:34.49 | Miller Darterbury | So our first topic, the greenhouse gas emissions inventory update for 2014. will refer to the City of Sausalito Climate Action Plan, which was adopted June 16, 2015. The Climate Action Plan, or CAP, established a goal of 15% reduction of emissions based on 2005 baseline numbers. Since 2005, we have reduced our emissions by 14%. However, a new state mandated calculation methodology will be used next year. which will put that number at 9%. At 47% of the total emissions, transportation is the largest contributor. It is also where we have made the smallest gains, which is a reduction of 5%. Under the new methodology, transportation will move to 63% of our emissions. and will have actually increased by 2% Okay. |
| 01:26:39.67 | Miller Darterbury | This graph shows the trend in community-wide emissions and is based on the old 2014 methodology. The y-axis is the amount of greenhouse gas emissions and metric tons. And the x-axis is the years from 2005 to 2014. It illustrates a previously mentioned 14% reduction from 54,000 metric tons in 2005 to 47,000 metric tons in 2014, with a peak of 58,000 in 2007 and 2008. The key findings in the inventory update are, since 2005, the decline in electricity use was 13% and related emissions was 30%. The commercial sector, which is 56% of the total, has reduced by 17%, with residential reducing by 8%. PGE is 11% less carbon intensive than in 2005. And MCE is 23% less carbon intensive than PGE, in 2014. Additionally, MCE, carries 68% of the load, with 5% of that being deep green. There have been 132 solar energy systems added in Sausalito since 2001 with 60... five being added in 2014. Natural gas use and related emissions declined by 11% since 2005. Vehicle miles traveled, or VMTs, have reduced by 1% since 2005, but emissions have reduced by 5% due to improved vehicle efficiency. Landfill waste has declined by 32% since 2005. |
| 01:28:38.39 | Miller Darterbury | And... What is that? Now this table represents the percentage reduction of each of the primary categories of greenhouse gas contributors for 2014 using the old method Oh. I might be on the wrong one. Here we go. It's this table. So this shows the The old methodology in 2014, the new methodology in 2014, and the new methodology in 2015. And the categories are residential energy, showing a 25% reduction across the board. Commercial energy showing a 13% reduction Transportation showing no reduction using the new methodology waste disposal showing a 57% reduction in 2015. Wastewater processing showing a 10% reduction in 2015. OFF-ROAD ACTIVITY, showing a 19% reduction with a total reduction again being 9% using the new methodology. |
| 01:29:46.43 | Miller Darterbury | The next table is a breakdown of the transportation numbers. showing per capita weekly vehicle miles traveled and total transportation emissions. In 2014, the VMT was 90.5 miles, reducing to 89.9 miles in 2015. The total emissions reduced from 41,841 metric tons in 2014 to 40,000 933 metric tons in 2015. with the percentage of total emissions going from 63% to 62%. Our final table on this topic represents the transportation strategies and reduction estimates from the Climate Action Plan. by increasing walking and cycling mode share for utilitarian trips from 13.6% to 20%, the GHG reduction is projected to be 256 metric tons. increasing public transportation mode share from 10% to 15% projects to an a 85% metric ton reduction. increasing carpooling mode share from 12% to 15% would potentially reduce emissions by 49 metric tons. 25 percent of all workers telecommuting 1.5 days per week would reduce emissions by 24 metric tons. Decreased mode share of children arriving alone in a car to school from 62% to 44% would reduce emissions by 20 metric tons. as would installing 30 electric vehicle charge ports reducing city employee commute VMTs by just 5% would reduce emissions by 20 metric tons. Replacing four city fleet vehicles with hybrid models would reduce emissions by seven metric tons, and establishing market price parking for 100 meter parking spaces would reduce emissions by four metric tons. |
| 01:32:00.89 | Miller Darterbury | So the next topic we're going to go over is our multifamily housing waste study, which was conducted this past spring. and it used the Marin County Joint Powers Authority grant funds And the data was collected by Bay Cities Refuge over the course of three days, and then analyzed and compiled by Envirolution's Consulting. The study measured recovered material that was disposed in a sample of multifamily units. It also measured the participation levels in green waste and recycling programs and compared these numbers to those in our 2013 waste characterization study. The study found that nearly two-thirds of the material was recyclable or compostable. and that compostable organics continues to be the most prevalent divertable waste category disposed. comprising nearly 39% of the waste stream, unfortunately. Now this graph breaks down the waste streams into categories showing their percentage of the total waste in 2013 in light green. And in 2017, in dark green. The categories the materials were sorted into were recyclable paper, recyclable plastics, Thank you. compostable organics, non-composable organics, electronics, recyclable metal, recyclable glass, hazardous waste, and other non-divertible material. The most encouraging numbers are in electronics and hazardous waste. Only a very small amount of the items in this category were counted, indicating that current efforts at diverting these streams are successful. And this includes the yearly e-waste event, which I attended last year and was very well attended. There are also a small percentage of reductions between 2013 and 2017 for recyclable paper and compostable organics. The areas that require the most attention are compostable organics and the other waste category. Strategies to increase composting adoption as well as exploring means of expanding the recyclable and compostable material range are indicated. |
| 01:34:20.97 | Miller Darterbury | Now this graph really illustrate these summary points well, and it shows what can and cannot be diverted. compostables and recyclables make a 60 percent. of the landfill waste in 2017, which is down from 71% in 2013. Material for which there was no alternative but the landfill comprised 33 percent of of the total. While these numbers represent a modest decline in the amount of divertables entering the waste stream in 2013, they do suggest further efforts are required to be on track to meet the zero waste Marin standards by 2025. |
| 01:35:08.79 | Miller Darterbury | The recommendations of the Sustainability Council for this are as follows. Number one, continue focus on green waste with special focus on food soiled paper. Two, focus on paper recycling. Three, maintain e-waste and hazardous waste efforts. And four, add more materials to the recycling program, such as plastic film, plastic bags, textiles, carpets, and ceramics. |
| 01:35:40.65 | Miller Darterbury | In consideration of these findings, the Sustainability Commission will be using this year's zero waste grant from the county to develop materials and conduct outreach to residents to multifamily housing. about composting and recycling. We will continue to conduct outreach at local events handing out free rolls of bio bags to encourage food waste composting in the kitchen. |
| 01:36:06.22 | Miller Darterbury | So our last topic, is again the focus of our focus topic for this year, which is sea level rise. And this year we decided to educate ourselves on the local impact of sea level rise Create community learning opportunities. and make recommendations to the City Council about how to better prepare Sausalito. Now this flood map depicts the areas of Sausalito that would be affected in six different storm surge scenarios, with a 100-year storm surge being the worst, shown in light blue. It's obvious from this that the sea level rise Thank you. poses a significant threat to almost all of the waterfront between Bridgeway and the Bay. |
| 01:37:00.27 | Miller Darterbury | Now, this table shows the projected range of sea level rise by the years 2030, 2050, and 2100. By 2030, the bay is projected to be 1.8 to 11.8 inches higher By 2050, we can expect water levels to be 4.7 to 24 inches above current levels. And by 2100, the water level may be as much as 65.8 inches higher than what we are currently experiencing. |
| 01:37:31.84 | Miller Darterbury | Now, here is a brief list of the Sausalito assets that are most vulnerable to sea level rise. and they include the northerly access to Sausalito, the entire Marin ship area. shoreline homes in my neighborhood Old Town. bridgeway leading to Old Town. And there's a main wastewater force main under this roadway. Swedes and Tiffany beaches and all other shoreline parks. the ferry landing. the fire rescue boat, which is in a vulnerable marina, several shoreline restaurants, hotels, and businesses, Schoonmaker Point, boats in marinas, and unauthorized boats in Richardson's Bay, tens of historic sites, and additionally, inflow and infiltration of tidewaters into underground pipes could increasingly burden the wastewater treatment facilities. |
| 01:38:35.55 | Miller Darterbury | To help raise awareness of this challenge, the Sustainability Commission Sustainability Commissioner Robin Parvin, joined the Disaster Preparedness Committee as a liaison to help create awareness around resiliency and adaptation measures. Robin also organized a disaster preparedness awareness neighborhood event for her marina and it was a great success. We're also currently working with the County of Marin to host an educational event for the community centered around the game of floods which was created by the County of Marin staff. |
| 01:39:14.63 | Miller Darterbury | Let's see. Additionally, we have discussed several ideas for outdoor educational installations. And? We plan on hosting more Game of Floods nights. And briefly going back to the community event I mentioned earlier, it is very tentatively scheduled for February 3rd at the Bay Model. |
| 01:39:46.94 | Miller Darterbury | Again, on behalf of the Sustainability Commission, I'd like to thank you very much and do my humble best to answer any questions, maybe with the help of our co-chair, Christine Wozleckel. |
| 01:40:00.56 | Joe Burns | Thank you very much, Muller. I think we may have lots of questions. Maybe not. I don't know. So Joe. |
| 01:40:08.65 | Joe Burns | I'll start off with one. Thanks, Miller. I'm just not clear, and I'm sure this is obvious to some. Why is the greenhouse gas inventory update for 2014? And is 16 numbers not out? How does that stay so far lagged behind? |
| 01:40:26.78 | Miller Darterbury | Yeah, unfortunately they aren't available. I am, to be honest, I'm not sure why, you know, I don't know the nature of the lag other than, you know, based on what it took to create our multifamily study. It does take time to compile these studies. |
| 01:40:47.71 | Joe Burns | Okay. And then on the recommendations for waste. Number four add more materials to recycling program who determines that the Do we have a say in that? |
| 01:41:02.15 | Miller Darterbury | You know, I imagine that would be Bay Cities. And I believe the City Council could have, we could definitely have a say in that. |
| 01:41:07.15 | Charles Kaufman | Yeah. |
| 01:41:18.09 | Patricia Smith | uh, |
| 01:41:18.62 | Miller Darterbury | Kristen, would you have any ideas on that? |
| 01:41:18.64 | Patricia Smith | Kristen, would you have any ideas last year. |
| 01:41:25.10 | Kristin Woelslegel | Thank you. I don't know. Right. |
| 01:41:25.76 | Miller Darterbury | Thank you. |
| 01:41:25.78 | Sybil Boutillier | Thank you. |
| 01:41:25.83 | Miller Darterbury | right? |
| 01:41:25.90 | Sybil Boutillier | All right. |
| 01:41:25.93 | Miller Darterbury | Thank you. |
| 01:41:25.97 | Sybil Boutillier | Thank you. |
| 01:41:26.14 | Michael Sheets | Thank you. with. |
| 01:41:27.97 | Kristin Woelslegel | plastic bags and any soft plastic films, wrappers around paper towels when you buy them, Those can be diverted now, but it was recently revealed to us by Bay Cities within the last year that we could do that. And so now we have to make the effort to convey this information to the larger community, that we can do that. So any of these changes take time when they do initiate. But yes, I do believe it's Bay Cities and then beyond that it's the larger transfer stations and the ultimate repository of the waste, which is not in the Bay Area. So it is a bigger issue. And it will largely be driven statewide. |
| 01:42:13.62 | Joe Burns | So number four for us is conveyance of information on what we can now do. |
| 01:42:17.52 | Kristin Woelslegel | Exactly. That's what we can do now. |
| 01:42:18.21 | Joe Burns | . Okay. Thank you. |
| 01:42:23.68 | Kristin Woelslegel | That's it. |
| 01:42:28.98 | Charles Kaufman | . Thank you. |
| 01:42:30.31 | Joan Cox | This is a, this is kind of a general plan question, but since I have two people here on the general plan, I think I'll ask it anyway. Even though I've given no notice, I'm gonna ask this question. I was very happy to see the sea level rise slide in your presentation. And so as we move forward with our general plan update and evaluating certain areas, particularly the marinship, I'm wondering if this is also one of the subsections with regard to the merchant. it. |
| 01:43:03.30 | Joan Cox | Yes, so the General Plan Advisory Committee actually, at its last meeting, received an update on sea level rise, including a description of the different measures for sea level rise. And you saw on Millard's presentation how vastly the measures of sea level rise vary depending on which standards you use for evaluating it. And so at the last Sustainability Commission, Alex Westhoff, the planner with the county of Marin, who's responsible for sea level rise, made a presentation. And so... He's not responsible for sea level rise, to be clear. He's responsible for evaluating sea level rise made a presentation and so not responsible for sea level right to be clear responsible for evaluating sea level rise and he would like to be sure that the city of Sausalito uses the same parameters used by the county of Marin for evaluating sea level rise and so we have put him in touch with the M group who is the g-pack |
| 01:43:42.43 | Neil Whitelaw | So, |
| 01:43:42.52 | Charles Kaufman | So, |
| 01:43:42.53 | Joan Cox | not responsible for Cee LaRoy to be clear. |
| 01:43:44.76 | Neil Whitelaw | . |
| 01:44:01.64 | Joan Cox | consultant to make sure that future discussions of sea level rise include county participation. |
| 01:44:11.78 | Joe Burns | A couple of questions from me. If I may. So on the first part of your presentation, you had the change of methodology, the old methodology, the new methodology. Was that due to The state staff decided it needed a new methodology or was that the result of some legislation? I can't remember. So do you know? |
| 01:44:40.91 | Miller Darterbury | I'll be honest, I wish our co-chair, Rebecca Woodbury, was here because she's really the transportation expert and put together that section of the report. Thank you. |
| 01:44:49.83 | Joe Burns | Okay, no worries. |
| 01:44:52.08 | Miller Darterbury | Sure. |
| 01:44:52.36 | Kristin Woelslegel | Thank you. The inventory itself was conducted by the Marin Clean Energy Partnership. And they did inventories of this type throughout the county. |
| 01:44:57.58 | Joe Burns | you |
| 01:44:57.73 | Neil Whitelaw | Thank you. |
| 01:45:02.45 | Kristin Woelslegel | using identical methodology for all of them. And they're essentially an information clearing house. They collect data from various agencies. None of it is direct CO2 emissions per se. There's nobody out there with a monitor measuring CO2 as it comes out of your vehicle exhaust. It's really more about activities. And each activity is correlated with a certain type of emission. |
| 01:45:16.23 | Neil Whitelaw | No, I haven't. |
| 01:45:25.96 | Kristin Woelslegel | and then they just do the math. It's not direct, it's implied, but it's based on activity. |
| 01:45:34.31 | Joe Burns | And. |
| 01:45:34.84 | Kristin Woelslegel | Thank you. Bye. Thank you. Thank you. I'm not sure of the difference between the new and the old. Bye. |
| 01:45:41.20 | Joe Burns | Bye. |
| 01:45:41.25 | Kristin Woelslegel | Okay. |
| 01:45:41.34 | Joe Burns | Thank you. |
| 01:45:41.49 | Kristin Woelslegel | But we could check with Marine Clean Energy Partnership and get you more information about how it's conducted. |
| 01:45:48.61 | Joe Burns | Okay. The other question you may not be able to answer, but at some point it would be interesting to know. advance the progress that we've made. How does Sausalito compare with its peers in Marin? Is there comparison tables of how we're doing compared to, I don't know, one of the other jurisdictions or the county itself? Is that data available? Do you know? |
| 01:46:02.21 | Neil Whitelaw | Mm-hmm. |
| 01:46:27.74 | Miller Darterbury | Yes, it is available in the Climate Action Plan. One thing that's very promising is that we're one of the few communities that's actually created a sustainability commission, so that's certainly promising. If I recall, and again, it's been about two years since I've seen the Climate Action Plan. Unfortunately, I don't think we stacked up well against the other communities. I think we were, if I, again, I need to check the numbers. I believe we were the second lowest. |
| 01:47:02.64 | Joe Burns | Okay. Switching to the waste. I'm reasonably familiar with this because I was on the sustainability commission when we did the 2013 one. |
| 01:47:20.85 | Charles Kaufman | Mm-hmm. |
| 01:47:26.57 | Joe Burns | The reason, and so we, first of all, why did we decide on this to use the grant money to focus on the multi? family dwellings. Had that been particularly less effective and so we were specifically monitoring or as opposed to all residential or looking at business as well? |
| 01:47:51.78 | Miller Darterbury | Talking among ourselves, we felt that was where we'd get the most results just based on anecdotal evidence. And you know, the waste studies, actually, that's the area I'm most interested in myself. And yeah, it was just a consensus that focusing on that would provide the most bang for the buck with limited resources. |
| 01:48:07.83 | Neil Whitelaw | Thank you. |
| 01:48:07.84 | Charles Kaufman | Mm-hmm. |
| 01:48:18.51 | Kristin Woelslegel | And there are unique challenges of multi-unit dwellings. Infrastructure, space limitations, residence sharing, receptacles, and in the 2013 study, some of the data suggested that there was lower compliance in multi-unit dwellings. So we thought it would be worthwhile to start there. kind of the low hanging fruit, if you will. Yeah. And then we could use that data to generate a specific outreach and education campaign. |
| 01:48:51.57 | Joe Burns | Yeah, that's great. I seem to remember there was less compliance for multi-units. Okay, those are all my questions. Excuse me. Okay, we may have some more. Let's see if there's any public comment. Anybody? like to comment on this item. No, okay, so again, this is a file for information purposes. Thank you very much. Thank you. That was a great presentation, please. |
| 01:49:24.09 | Joan Cox | This is a great present. As the liaison to the sustainability commission, I'd also like to formally thank you for all of your hard work. And in, you know, really the very creative and informative slate of speakers that we have each month is so commendable. I also saw some of you at the Chili Fest handing out bio bags. So thank you for that and for hosting the game of floods and for, you know, all else that you do for the city of Sausalito. |
| 01:49:57.45 | Unknown | Thank you for that. Wow. I'm losing my voice. I'll stop talking. |
| 01:50:04.87 | Charles Kaufman | THE END OF |
| 01:50:06.15 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 01:50:06.46 | Joan Cox | Bye. I just want to echo that. Thanks for your hard work on this, and I love those bio bags, so thanks. |
| 01:50:16.01 | Joe Burns | I'll say thank you as well. |
| 01:50:17.29 | Unknown | Good job. I gotta tell you, since the composting has been introduced, |
| 01:50:22.94 | Joe Burns | Thank you. The amount of actual landfill waste, that we generate at home has gone down to a volume of about this small now. It's really quite remarkable. And if we could find a way to outreach to the, the multi-unit group, then we could do a lot more, I think, there. So I think absolutely on the right track. So thanks a lot. |
| 01:50:54.28 | Neil Whitelaw | Did you stop eating steak? |
| 01:51:01.57 | Joe Burns | Okay. Anybody want a break? Oh, we're good, all right. So, moving. |
| 01:51:10.43 | Kristin Woelslegel | Thank you. Oh wait, he wants to. |
| 01:51:12.96 | Joe Burns | You're good? Okay, moving right along. So item six. Item 6D is to receive and file the website launch presentation. And Abbott, your website's been up for a while, and it's looking great, so I'm looking forward to this. |
| 01:51:38.65 | Charles Kaufman | you |
| 01:51:44.57 | Michael Sheets | Thank you. |
| 01:52:18.42 | Abbott Chambers | All right, while my documents open, oh, here we go. |
| 01:52:48.32 | Abbott Chambers | There we go. All right, well, thank you, Mr. Mayor and members of the council. I'm Abbott Chambers. Thank you. director of communications and i should say your part-time director of communications uh it's been a rather exciting day for me um and uh i guess this is a little bit of a a step down to uh to tell you about our website launch but i just wanted to second what uh the mayor said and what lauren said and others have said about how impressive the first responders were today i. I was having lunch up on Ray Avenue, and the helicopters with their buckets, giant buckets, full of water were flying overhead. And it was very impressive. And to have witnessed that and to know that we're being so well taken care of is very reassuring to someone who was not far from that fire. So on that note, let's talk about the city of Sausalito's website. My last update to Council was in March. And for my presentation tonight, I'll give a brief recap of some of the things I talked about during that presentation. I'm also going to talk about the project timeline that led us to the launch of the new website on August 15th. I'm going to talk about some of the features of our new website. Oh. recap some of the responses that we've gotten from the community about the new site. And then I'll acknowledge the efforts of our project team that helped us to build and launch the site. I'll conclude with a few bullet points on what's next for the City of Sausalito websites. So at my last presentation in March of 2017, I kind of took us through the history of Sausalito's web presence. Dates back to 1995. This is the page circa 1998. At this time it was being, I believe, maintained almost entirely by the IT director, IT manager, using Microsoft front page. Ditto circa 2003. And then in 2007, recognizing that we needed a more comprehensive solution to our website management, we began a relationship with Vision Internet that continues today. 2007 was also the last year that we did a comprehensive top-to-bottom update of the city's website. In 2013, we signed a new contract with Vision and received a new back-end toolset from Vision, and along with that new toolset, we did a minor homepage redesign and redesign of the navigation of this site. But essentially, between 2007 and 2013, the basic navigation remained the same. and content was just moved over. Come November 2016, when you, as the council, approved a new contract with Vision Internet, we still essentially had that same website that we'd had for 10 years with just content sort of accreting onto it and being updated as we went. In December of 2016, we had a kickoff meeting with Vision. The hard work began in January, and in the period January through March, we were working hard developing a new design, particularly focused on the website homepage, and also a new navigational structure for the website. In March 2017, about the time that I last presented to Council, we finalized the design of that homepage. And then in April, we were able to finalize the design of the interior pages. And this timetable is pretty consistent with Vision's timetable for all the municipalities that they work with. From May to June, Vision was busy at the back end building the site for us so that we could start actually populating it. And during that time, staff was focused on preparing content for this site. And we were beginning to train staff using the new toolset Then the hard work really came in July and August, and that's when we built the new website. And unlike what we'd done in 2013, we didn't map any content over automatically. Vision does work with clients, and they'll just take your old templates and your new templates and just shuffle everything over and we decided that it had been so long since the last update and so much content had kind of drifted out of currency to put it nicely that we really needed to to start over and and rebuild every single page so between july and august of 2017 we literally built 500 new web pages for the for the city. In many cases, we were taking content that was on the existing web page, but we were reformatting, updating all the content. In some cases, we were breaking pages into multiple separate pages if those original pages were too dense. In other cases, we were combining pages that were very brief into a more digestible single page. We also ended up creating a lot of new pages as well. And then the big day was August 15th when the new website went live. |
| 01:58:13.82 | Abbott Chambers | So I'll take a minute now and just kind of walk you through some of the highlights of the new site. This is a screenshot of the new homepage as it looked today, sometime this afternoon. And the first element that I'll call your attention to is compared to our old site, there's just a lot less clutter. The old site was very information dense. And we've created a little more breathing room on the page. And that makes it a little more easily digestible for people who visit the site. If you're accessing the site from a laptop or desktop computer, you'd only see about the top half of the screen, you'd need to scroll to see the news and the city calendar areas. We also created a new feature area. So here we've got the fire at southbound 101 headline. And this is a great example. We really wanted to be able to have an area where we could draw attention to a particular hot topic. In recent weeks, we've had the ferry landing featured and been driving traffic to our ferry landing page. We have a more prominent search box. Search results are much better now, so we wanted to make sure that the search box was in a more prominent location up here in the upper right. And we wanted to create an area of shortcuts to popular pages here in this middle section so that users would have a quick route to some of the most commonly used tools on our website. We kept the news and calendar sections from the old web page, but we've created a little more breathing room around them. But those are among our most highly used sections. And last but not least, we launched the new site at Sausalito.gov, replacing our former web address of ci.sausalito.ca.us. And I think we're all delighted to have the change. It affects all our email addresses as well. And it was a non-trivial effort. Largely, credit goes to Rett Redling's, our IT manager, but Rett filed multiple forms with the government. I can't even remember what department it was. We got a signed letter from our mayor asking for Sausalito.gov. The default that they wanted to give us was Sausalito.gov. So we had to tell the government, or make the argument, that Sausalito was unique enough that we didn't need a state identifier. So we're delighted to have Saucelito.gov as our web address. Some other new features on the website. If you mouse over one of the top-level navigational categories, the mega menus pop up. These are the sort of four-column large windows that give you a quick overview of all the content that's going to be available within a particular section. With the old site, you would just get a single column dropping down. And we think this is a much easier way for people to see the breadth of the information that's available within a section. As I mentioned, the search results are vastly improved, both in terms of how they're presented, but then also in the accuracy of the results. And we also have some tools now that we can use to bump up results if we think that a certain city web page should appear higher in the results. |
| 02:01:32.73 | Abbott Chambers | Another big effort that we made when we were developing the templates for the new site was to come up with consistent ways of presenting city departments. This is actually true of pages in general across the site, but departments stands for a good example. In this case, we're looking at the community development page. And we have, you'll note that we have common elements that you would see if you go to the police department also. buttons with popular content on the site, a bar along the side with contact information and news, and then bulleted items about the department and its mission and what it does. The old site that we had tended to have vastly different templates, vastly different ways of presenting the information for each different department, and that required users to have to learn a basically new navigational language as they moved around the site. So by coming up with a consistent template, we make it much easier for residents to bounce around the site and immediately know how to read the content, how to parse the content. The same is true for our boards and commission pages, as well as our special committees. The templates that we've used for the boards and commissions also has buttons, contact information, and the names of the commissioners along the right side, and then general information about the board or commission in the center column. And you'll see moving between the Planning Commission and the Library Board of Trustees. We've also introduced separate meeting and agenda pages for each of the different boards and committees. We used to have just a single page that would list everything. And now, as you're moving around, you can go into the page for just a single Board or Commission. |
| 02:03:31.50 | Abbott Chambers | We've also launched an improved mobile interface. The screenshot that you're seeing here is a mock-up of an iPhone. And the new site uses what's called responsive design. So as the window of your web browser is increased or decreased, the content on the page scales and optimizes to the most readable format. So we're very pleased to have been able to launch that as well. With the new site on the homepage, we included a survey. And we asked users a number of different things about the new site. But the bottom line question that we asked was, overall, are you happy with the changes? And I was very pleased that with the 26 responses that we got, 24 people replied yes. And only two replied no. I would have been delighted if it had been 100%. But I'm actually quite pleasantly surprised that it's this favorable. Generally, when you launch a new website or a new piece of technology, Um, you've moved the furniture on people. And even if you've created a vastly improved product, a lot of people are going to say, help, I don't know how to find the stuff that I always found so easily. And so I was very pleased that the results were as strong as they were. Here are a few quotes that we got from people. Awesome job and improvement, easy access to information and professional look, excellent job, well done. Congrats on the modernization effort. What a feat. and overall a much improved website. And on that note, I'd like to give some acknowledgements to the people who worked with me on this new website. There was our core team, which consisted of myself and Lily Whalen, your city clerk and assistant city manager. Rhett Redlings, IT manager. and Heather Laporte, administrative analyst. And the four of us met literally every week, beginning in January, all the way up through the launch of the new website, and made innumerable decisions about design, about content, about templates. So it was a collaborative effort, and we ended up with a much better site because we had such a strong team. Then when it came to building the individual department sections, we had representatives from all the different departments working on their areas. And they were Calvin Chan from Community Development. JOSHIA MONTEMAYOR FROM THE ADMINISTRATION DEPARTMENT. Julie Myers and Linda Finch from Parks and Recreation. Elliot Holt from Sausalito Police. Anna Zengen and Brian Ho from Public Works, and Augie Webb from the library. And I'd like to particularly acknowledge Julie Myers from Parks and Rec, Elliot Holt from the Saucyuta Police Department, and Augie Webb from the library for their outstanding and creative work. So what's next for the city's website? We have a lot of checking and updating to do every day, every week. Thank you. checking for links that have gone bad, checking for spelling errors, updating board and commission information, posting new calendar information, posting news on the website. I'm keeping a close eye on the new pages that go into the site. And when I catch something that looks a little odd, it's a great opportunity to do some staff training. So there's definitely a lot of ongoing training that we're doing in order to make sure that everyone's up to speed on the new tool set that we're using. I'm also paying close attention to the statistics for the site, just to get a sense of how people are using our website. And taking a look at our search logs. And the search logs in particular are a really good indicator of how people are using our site and what they're looking for, and potentially what they're not finding on our webpage. And a recent example is from looking at the search logs, I noticed that people are searching for short-term rentals. And we actually don't have a good page right now that explains our current regulations on short-term rentals. So that's an example of an area where you can identify a need, and then I can then work with the department to build that content. I've also been developing a style guide to act as a guide for the staff that work on the website. It covers things like formatting dates and times, use of capitalization, not using bureaucratic language, that sort of thing. And I'm going to begin working with the various departments on their development priorities so that we can have a hit list of new content that we want to add to the site. The last thing I'll mention, What we want to avoid having happen is in Five, 10 years from now, someone, maybe me, someone else, is now tasked with developing another new website. And they have the same reaction I do, which is, oh my god, look at all this out-of-date content. So how do we avoid that? Well, we're going to have to have a real focus on regular review of that content. And the way we're going to do it is making sure that department heads or senior people within the departments are reviewing the content on the website on a regular basis and signing off that that content is still up to date. That concludes my presentation, and I would be glad to take any questions. |
| 02:09:20.68 | Joe Burns | I have this great questions. I'm getting kickoff. Okay. I love this website. I especially like the consistency between departments and commissions and all of that sort of stuff. Because quite frankly it was a nightmare before. One of the things that I'm wondering is how what's the best practices and what sort of SOPs if you can call it that do you need to put in place so that there's a rigorous updating method and I realize you which is slightly different than review It's how does a department add new stuff? How do we, you know, I mean, let's pick the department I know really well, like the finance department and sort of we're going through the budget, we're going through, right. So things can be moving pretty fast and complex documents need to be uploaded and so on. So how do you manage that? |
| 02:10:10.96 | Neil Whitelaw | Thank you. |
| 02:10:10.98 | Charles Kaufman | Yeah. |
| 02:10:31.77 | Abbott Chambers | Yeah, it's a great question, and it's one that I ask myself. And I think in large part it's going to require a cultural change, you know, that really within each department there has to be a sense that the content on the website is really your reflection of your department out in the community. And in the same way that you wouldn't want to say, make a presentation or put out a flyer or something out in the community that wasn't well taken care of, we want to make sure that we're not representing ourselves poorly on the website. And how to get there? you know, I'm sure that I'll get assistance from Adam in driving people in that direction, but it'll also take some pestering from me and just making sure that I'm encouraging people to update their content. I think that the currents also helps because when we're preparing currents articles and updating, when we prepare currents articles, it often highlights when we're linking to pages on the website that they need to be updated, and we'll catch things that way as well. |
| 02:11:46.58 | Joe Burns | Great, thanks. Any other questions? Mm-hmm. Okay. Public comment. Any member of the public like to say anything about this? David. |
| 02:11:53.27 | Charles Kaufman | Okay. |
| 02:12:05.86 | David Sudo | I'll just make a quick comment that I really appreciate the mobile website. It's so much better than the old one. And as I use mobile more than desktop to access city information these days, I really appreciate it. The only hiccup I noticed, and it seems to be clearing up, is that when you do a Google search of, city documents, a lot of it was ending up in dead links. It seems like it's starting to improve, so maybe Google's kind of crawling through our system. But it was an issue, at least when the system first rolled out. |
| 02:12:42.69 | Joe Burns | Thank you, David. |
| 02:12:43.78 | Abbott Chambers | Yeah, I can address that. It is accurate. It takes Google a little while to catch up when a new website launches. And all of our web addresses changed. with the new website so that we essentially had to update everything from scratch with Google as well. One advantage of the new website and the reason why all of the different web addresses changed is that our paths have gone from what previously was a rather confusing numerical system where instead of having a link that actually had the path to the page that would say departments, public works, building, instead it would be index question mark hyphen 574 or something like that. So that was a really important change and worth, I think, the speed bump that we went through having all the links change on people. And we did make an effort also to notify, to identify links that were out there in the community and ask people to update them. The other point I'll make is that with the mobile interface, about 40% of the users of our new web page are coming through from mobile. |
| 02:14:00.11 | Unknown | Wow. |
| 02:14:04.02 | Unknown | Yeah, please. |
| 02:14:04.98 | Joan Cox | Did you say how long mail will be forwarded from Sausalito.ca.gov to |
| 02:14:10.45 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:14:10.47 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 02:14:10.57 | Unknown | . |
| 02:14:11.03 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 02:14:11.04 | Unknown | Thank you. Thank you. THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 02:14:11.97 | Joan Cox | Because a lot of people are still sending stuff to me at CI.SauceLito. |
| 02:14:17.22 | Abbott Chambers | As far as I know, in perpetuity, We'll continue to have both of them. |
| 02:14:21.76 | Joan Cox | That's a good answer. you |
| 02:14:23.09 | Abbott Chambers | Thank you. |
| 02:14:24.63 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 02:14:25.62 | Joe Burns | With 40% is great. I mean, I had no idea. Should there be maybe an app done? I mean, is there a better application to that mobile device? |
| 02:14:38.35 | Abbott Chambers | I don't think so. I think the vision's thinking, and it's consistent with web development, is that there's kind of an oversaturation of apps, and that by having a responsive design and driving people through the web browser, you're actually going to end up generating a lot more traffic. |
| 02:15:01.79 | Joan Cox | Well, with that being said, the one thing that is a little challenging still to do is to watch a meeting. Through the, I know a lot of people watch the meetings through their phones, but that is buried. Like I have searched under how do I, or under the search. Well, I looked at how do I, there's no watch a meeting. And then if you go to search and you go to watch a meeting, it gives you all the meetings that have happened in the past, but it doesn't take you to the page. There actually is a page called webcast that's buried three clicks in. So I would recommend perhaps, have you considered adding to the how do I? a thing for watch a meeting. I turned it into a question. |
| 02:15:51.23 | Abbott Chambers | Yeah, absolutely. Vice Mayor Cox, and really for anyone who's watching, We really want to hear what's working for you and not working for you. And the wonderful thing about having control of this website and being able to maintain it ourselves is to make the changes you're recommending would take me three minutes. So we love that kind of feedback. I think we'll also be trying to do some more formal user testing as well, now that the dust is clearing after the launch, where we'd actually bring people in and give them tasks like the one you're talking about, and say, you know, let's say you want to watch tonight's meeting. How do you find it? And see what they do. And you can learn a lot about ways to improve a site that way. |
| 02:16:48.37 | Joe Burns | Okay, we sort of mixed up public comment questions a little bit, but that's okay. I'm assuming there was nobody else in the public who wanted to say anything and, I think we're done. |
| 02:17:02.36 | Joan Cox | I just have a comment. It looks great. Great work. Great job. I'd love the change to.gov. I mean, you know, who could ever remember all that? I could never remember it. Totally echo that. Thank you. Yeah. |
| 02:17:09.31 | Charles Kaufman | Who could ever remember all that? I can never remember it. |
| 02:17:11.54 | Joe Burns | Thank you. |
| 02:17:11.57 | Charles Kaufman | Totally echo that. Thank you. |
| 02:17:13.58 | Joan Cox | Yeah. |
| 02:17:14.39 | Joe Burns | And I'll comment that we've kind of got to see a lot of this process with your, I could have sort of something between March and now, because I just, I feel like I know more about it. But maybe it was through your position to change, I don't know. But watching you go through your change and this come about and the way you've described it to us in a couple of meetings has been wonderful. And I want to congratulate you because I know it's been a ton of work. So nice work. |
| 02:17:36.61 | Abbott Chambers | Much appreciated. |
| 02:17:39.26 | Joe Burns | Congratulations to the whole team, because I know I've walked past when you were having big meetings in here of training sessions for this. So doing something like this is a big effort. You know, kudos to everybody here. Good. All right. Well, now I'm definitely going to have a break. |
| 02:17:58.92 | Charles Kaufman | Yes, absolutely. |
| 02:17:59.23 | Joe Burns | So we're adjourned for a while. |
| 02:18:05.39 | Charles Kaufman | you |
| 02:18:05.67 | Joe Burns | you |
| 02:18:37.52 | Joe Burns | Okay, we're back and we're on item 6E, which is our ADA Transition Plan 101 and the status of said transition plan. Jonathan Goldman. |
| 02:18:56.03 | Jonathon Goldman | Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I know the agenda indicated that Melanie Purcell would be presenting this item, and I'm not Melanie Purcell. Just wanted to do a couple of quick things here. No, you don't have this presentation either, I apologize. In fact, it was still being worked on at 5.30 this evening. |
| 02:19:18.22 | Joan Cox | The only thing is when we don't have the presentations, I have to type in order to keep track of what it is we're seeing because it doesn't appear anywhere else. |
| 02:19:18.44 | Jonathon Goldman | THE ONLY THING IS THAT |
| 02:19:26.83 | Jonathon Goldman | understood and At a minimum, I will do almost anything that I can to prevent you from having to type. |
| 02:19:35.48 | Joan Cox | well, I don't mind typing, and I don't mind getting a draft. I just would love a roadmap. |
| 02:19:40.24 | Jonathon Goldman | Yes. |
| 02:19:40.66 | Joan Cox | that I can take notes on instead of having to try to catch keep up with you. |
| 02:19:44.36 | Jonathon Goldman | understood. |
| 02:19:45.07 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 02:19:45.66 | Jonathon Goldman | Thank you. |
| 02:19:45.76 | Joan Cox | THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 02:19:46.03 | Jonathon Goldman | . |
| 02:19:46.20 | Joan Cox | I'm not sure. |
| 02:19:46.38 | Jonathon Goldman | Thank you. The presentation will certainly be available both at the moment and then in the archive, and I am happy to provide copies of it to any of you or anyone in the public who has trouble finding it. This presentation is really kind of split in two pieces. wanted to do do a real brief update on the high-priority barrier removal projects that the city has been involved in for some time. We've been involved in barrier removal projects since the Americans with Disabilities Act was passed. But as Council may recall, we were involved in litigation several years ago and have been following a roadmap that that was derived from settlement of that litigation the priority one projects that were identified in that litigation have been completed there's some overlap between three different projects the gate six intersection improvements project includes elements that will be completed when that construction happens. There's some complexity to resolving the barriers to accessibility that exist at the Bridgeway and Ensign intersection on two sides of the Taste of Rome. restaurant and then in addition we recently completed the state pathways project that included curb ramp improvements at bridgeway and eb tide and then as a separate project bridgeway at coloma the priority two projects and there's a little bit more detail in a subsequent slide but we have the advantage you know the disadvantage if you will of of having bids that we opened for the dunphy park project come in at significantly more than at least I had hoped they would. And I'm sure I'm not alone in that. But Dunphy Park is actually the barriers to accessibility that exist in Dunphy Park are part of the priority two projects that were identified in that settlement. So there is funding to remove those barriers and assuming we're successful in delivering that project, we'll be able to to have accomplished those priority two barrier removal elements before it's all said and done. Again, just a quick summary, and I think the Finance Committee saw this. Um, kind of tabulation some time ago, it may have even been two years ago, but 2015 cost estimates for all of the Priority II items, including Dunphy Park, about $1.3 million, including 3% per year cost escalator on time. Project three, again, 2015 cost estimates, 88 total priority three items. And again, some future value factored into that, $1.3 million in capital barrier removal projects identified as high priority in that context. Our fiscal 17-18 budget includes $265,620 for Americans with Disability Act traffic and transportation projects. Those funds are some of the funds that were identified as a funding source for Dunphy Park for the reasons I had just described. And again, from our current adopted budget, which includes projections of future budgets for capital projects, I've just kind of listed these dollar amounts for context. I like to show this slide because at least the city manager and I regularly get to talk about it, as do any number of other people. The reason to show this slide is to remind you and members of the community that our emphasis in dealing with these barriers that were identified in the litigation was to remove the barrier. And sometimes that went elegantly and beautifully and sometimes it didn't. And this particular curb ramp, we were successful in removing the barrier and it isn't elegant and isn't pretty. That doesn't mean that we can't do something else with it later. But for purposes of compliance with the settlement agreement, we have removed the barrier that was identified at this location. All right, an update on the city self-evaluation and transition plan project. Our consultant for several years at this point, Jill DePoente Peters Architects, she is an architect and also a certified access specialist in California and, in fact, is an instructor both through Division of State Architects and her own practice as really a teacher, educating certified access specialists. They have completed almost all of the work that they have been contracted to perform. We have, and you'll see later in the presentation and in the staff report, we have an access compliance manual and staff training program that remain to be finalized. And one of the reasons to take some time to do that is the compliance manual, and I included a draft table of contents in your, staff report on this item, the policies and program advice if you will or policies that are included in that manual are fairly significant and it's while it i think will always be a living document as will the transition plan if it if it is well managed and well implemented it's still a a significant volume of information and and volume of change that staff has to manage we need to make sure that that we aren't adopting a policy or conflicting policies, and then we also need to make sure that our staff understands what the policies are and why they are so that we don't end up with just a document on the shelf that people don't understand and don't put in place and fall back into a mode that's easy to do for people who aren't necessarily familiar with barriers. I think one of the benefits to having the age-friendly group and the conversation about accommodating Those of us who are getting older, which is all of us, some of us at twice the normal rate, as well as members of our community who want to stay in their homes, want to continue to enjoy what Sausalito offers and aren't as mobile as they once were, and are, as you heard from one of our speakers, just a bit more tuned into some of the details of barriers to accessibility than they might have been when they were 30 years younger. One of the reasons I like working with Jill DePuente Peters, for example, is that |
| 02:27:02.53 | Neil Whitelaw | as well. |
| 02:27:35.39 | Jonathon Goldman | and I won't belabor this, but we did take advantage of the opportunity to do a significant body of training, 16 hours of training with her that we invited representatives from all the communities that we're in to participate in. And one of the things she did for me not to me was to put me in a wheelchair for two hours and ask me to get from here to the police station for example and there's not really any substitute for that when you know as an engineer the abstraction of sidewalks are supposed to have less than two percent cross slope well that's easy that's doesn't really mean anything it's just a number but when you're in a wheelchair trying to get somewhere and the sidewalk is trying to throw you in the street you start to appreciate what those numbers really mean. Um... So the survey of all of our facilities, including the entire public right-of-way in Sausalito, has been completed. Our next steps are to develop what really is not necessarily a formal Brown Act committee or an appointed committee from the city council, but more of a stakeholders group, an ongoing public participation process to get members of the community involved in, and Age Friendly has actually already participated with us in this process, involved with understanding where the barriers are in our community, and then because we don't have infinite resources, helping us prioritize the removal of those barriers. So the budget for these services, and I've included a draft set of PowerPoint slides for how these community meetings would be held, but the objective is to develop consensus on the prioritization process and priorities. So we've got a comprehensive look at all the barriers that our professional consultants have identified at this point in time. The very clear realization that we cannot, as a community, remove them all, not only instantaneously, but probably can't remove them all very fast. honor the settlement agreement. We have to comply with the law when, for example, we're completing other capital projects, capital improvements. Sweeney Park was an example. There was work that needed to be done partly because of the settlement agreement, but partly because when we engage in new construction, we're required to make sure that the California Building Code is complied with at that facility. When we do a street renovation, even as something as straightforward as a microsurfacing project, U.S. Department of Justice says that alteration of a roadway triggers the requirement that the curb ramps, if there aren't any, that they have to be installed. And that if they're already there but they're not compliant with the current code, they need to be brought up to the current code. And once we have that stakeholder group and their active participation in the process, I guess, we'll be asking the council to adopt the transition plan and related policies. And at this point, anyway, I anticipate that that task will happen as part of the strategic planning and next fiscal year's budget process, because we want to make sure that we're accurately laying out... the council's expectations about what funding levels and so on and so forth will will happen as a result of the policies and the transition plan update Thank you. As I mentioned, we also need to train staff, even staff that some of us have been here for a little while. Some of us haven't been here very long at all. We want to make sure that we have a comprehensive training program and then that that program continues, that it's a self-sustaining program with the objective of ensuring that our programs, services, and activities are accessible and usable by persons with disabilities. That's what the law requires. Those new policies will then be compiled into our accessibility compliance manual. We need to then, once those milestones have been accomplished, periodically see how we're doing, just as council has talked about things like the website update and things like that. It's not, compliant it's not good policy for us to create a document an expensive document and put it on the shelf and um and leave it alone um it's important and that's one of the benefits to having a stakeholder group is that um they're involved in interacting with the city and dealing with the barriers that um that they identify um and can you know relatively objectively help us stay on task and then monitoring the implementation is very similar. One of the advantages, hopefully, that this process will create is that will be much more thorough in kind of an asset management context, asset management and liability management jointly, much more thorough at documenting what is and the decisions that went into what is. For example, if we replace a curb ramp and, you know, of the eight different parameters that define compliance with the building code we've accomplished seven of them but the eighth if we accomplished it would have created a flooding hazard or a hazard to bicyclists riding in the bike lane or something we need to document why we didn't completely comply because that process consistent with our transition plan helps protect us against the kind of litigation that that we've seen in the past and that i think we can reasonably anticipate in the future i'm not Thank you. transition plan helps protect us against the kind of litigation that we've seen in the past and that I think we can reasonably anticipate in the future. I'm not saying for sure that that will happen, but having a robust transition plan and a robust process associated with it provides a lot of, from my context, risk management, risk avoidance process. Thank you. So I just thought I'd fly through some of these examples. These were prepared by our consultants and are just listed as an example, the kind of organization that we would apply to the stakeholders groups, to the community meeting, Um, identifying the types of barriers, reviewing the facility types, and then ranking those facilities, giving people the opportunity to talk about specific issues. Again, not that the consultant knows perfectly, but having a group of people who are interested and are willing to consult helped the city to participate in the process and identify issues and locations that we haven't, um, is an important benefit. Types of barriers. I won't read all these. Ranking city buildings, and I've labeled these examples because I don't want anyone to think that they've already been ranked. It's not really, well, I have my own opinions. What we want is that group of reasonably independent stakeholders to prioritize based on their experience rather than rely on staff or as a matter of policy what our priorities are. Parks and facilities, parking lots and other city facilities. public rights of way, stairs, steps, and paths. As you all know, we have plenty of those. And it's not that the law requires that they all be rendered accessible and wheelchair accessible. But again, if we have a significant constituency of stakeholders who regularly use, and you've seen some of this in some of the things that the city has been able to do over the last few years. And we have a number of people who express concerns about safety, lack of handrails, things like that, with a set of stairs or a pathway. prioritizing the removal of those barriers then becomes a really important way for us to figure out you know what resources we need and then when the resources are scarce help us make sure that we're spending them in the places where the community that perceives that there are barriers most would like to see them removed uh... so this is just a repeat of next steps |
| 02:37:12.65 | Jonathon Goldman | And I will leave it at that for questions. I did append to the staff report kind of a luminous City of Oakland document that I thought was Helpful in this context, you may disagree. But just to give an example of the kind of comprehensive work that other jurisdictions have done along these lines, Oakland's obviously a much bigger city than Sausalito is. But the idea between the compliance manual table of contents and the city of Oakland document was to provide some more context before we give you the really voluminous documents that will be our transition plan and compliance manual to adopt later on. Questions? |
| 02:38:05.37 | Joan Cox | question. Removal of barriers. In our last couple of meetings, we've heard comments from seniors regarding lighting. |
| 02:38:15.63 | Charles Kaufman | Mm-hmm. |
| 02:38:16.10 | Joan Cox | For me, and I have personally observed that, for example, I attend meetings in the fire, department conference room. And when you walk out the back to go to the parking, it's for whatever reason, the streetlights on the fire building are not illuminated and it is, impossible to see without a flashlight. |
| 02:38:41.11 | Charles Kaufman | Mm-hmm. |
| 02:38:41.61 | Joan Cox | Um, is Is lighting included in this removal of barriers? Because really the inability to see, although not perhaps a traditional barrier, is definitely a barrier to... to mobility. |
| 02:39:03.03 | Jonathon Goldman | Absolutely. And I can't say that I know that, for example, our public right-of-way survey, in fact, I know that it didn't. didn't include lighting, but it's absolutely a barrier. Thank you. as you know from living here, and doing things like you've just described, a lot of the infrastructure that we have here is here because it's been here. And while we have made, for example, as I recall, Mr. Whitelaw complained, or Steve Frazier complained about lighting. And I immediately after that meeting reached out to our street light maintenance contractor and said, I've received complaints about the lighting levels at these intersections. And they said, well, we can increase, we can replace those fixtures with fixtures with higher power. |
| 02:39:41.23 | Neil Whitelaw | Yes, Steve Frazier. |
| 02:40:01.99 | Jonathon Goldman | And I believe they have already done that. But it's exactly that kind of information that if I don't know it, and it's not that, you know, I have no reason to be defensive about it. It is the way it is. The fixtures that were installed there when we retrofitted were. The wattage of those fixtures was based on the wattage of the fixtures they replaced. And finding out that those intersections weren't adequately illuminated, not that I necessarily think that what we have done completely solved the problem, but at least if I know there's an issue, if we know there's an issue, and we have a direction that we can go without, you know, that's not a significant capital cost. We don't throw away the old fixture. They're still a value either to us to put somewhere else or a value to our contractor. So the purpose of having that stakeholders group, not that it's an exclusive group, but the purpose is exactly that. We need to know where they are. It's not just Jill DePonte Peters or some plaintiff's expert wandered around and found all kinds of things that they could lodge a complaint about. It's our community. And that, again, is one of the great benefits of having such a well organized and proactive, age-friendly community here. |
| 02:41:27.85 | Joan Cox | Other question has to do with roads. So in your staff report, You mention The principle, and you mentioned it again during this presentation, essentially once you touch something, you have to bring it into ADA compliance in terms of construction. But I believe, and you mentioned that over on Coloma and other places that when you did the road |
| 02:41:56.47 | Charles Kaufman | Mm-hmm. |
| 02:41:57.06 | Joan Cox | accessibility, removal of barrier, you also had to upgrade curb and gutter. But in some places in town, we don't have room |
| 02:42:06.26 | Charles Kaufman | Mm-hmm. |
| 02:42:06.78 | Joan Cox | to install curbs and gutters because the roads are already so narrow. We heard a presentation several months ago on the Alexander Avenue corridor. |
| 02:42:17.21 | Charles Kaufman | Mm-hmm. |
| 02:42:17.65 | Joan Cox | So, and we were given to understand regarding our MTC funding that We were obligated only to do what is feasible to do, that we have local control without losing that funding. So now my question to you pertains to this ADA, these ADA obligations. How do you balance between accessibility when there are physical constraints on how much you can do? |
| 02:42:46.44 | Jonathon Goldman | Well, the short answer is that that's our job. And it's what you pay me to do and it's really what the community i think kind of automatically or does or or should do an example is rodeo that was reconstructed last year for a variety of reasons in my opinion all good and important ones but the funding sources sources, including Transportation Authority of Marin, our countywide measure funds that contributed funds to that project, as well as kind of the doctrine of complete streets. Our final report to TAM about that project, we're required to address those very issues. And what we aren't required to do is acquire additional real estate or widen a road for the purpose of creating a pedestrian or bicycle path of travel where, for example, there isn't necessarily demand or where creating a compliant path of travel would Um, would be prohibitively expensive. |
| 02:44:04.60 | Neil Whitelaw | Thank you. |
| 02:44:07.74 | Jonathon Goldman | So we have to ask ourselves that question. And if you look at the Complete Streets policy, for example, that council did adopt, and that is really formulated based on MTC's guidance, the discretion to make those decisions is vested with the local jurisdiction. What's important is that the local jurisdiction exercises that discretion and documents it and doesn't say, oh, we can't reconstruct Rodeo because we'll have to put bike lanes on both sides and bus pullouts every 50 feet and then, you know, sidewinding path of travel for people in wheelchairs to get from 101 down to Nevada Street. There's no need for that. And it certainly wouldn't be a good use of not only our money, but anybody's money. So the challenge for us is to... and you've probably heard me talk about this in a different context, the challenge for us is that all those pieces, we kind of have to hold them together. Our pavement management system, the pavement condition assessment and so on and so forth, doesn't look at any of those issues. It just looks at what is the asphalt or other pavement condition with respect to motor vehicles? And then there are algorithms that tell us if we want to raise our PCI by so many points, it's gonna cost us this, and here's what we do with it. Well, that's only a fraction of the kind of universe of issues that we need to factor in to deciding what to do and when to do it. doesn't take into account underground infrastructure, for example. the answer to your question is absolutely, those are our responsibilities, and we continue to try to discharge them to the best of our ability, and obviously, and I pointed to the to the curb ramp that I'll probably never forget. I'm sure it'll be on my some kind of retirement celebration that Adam will bring out a photo history of that curb ramp or something. A barrier was identified, federal court lawsuit. We removed the barrier. And it isn't perfect. And in the long run, I think it should be replaced. I mean, in some respects, that sidewalk is incredibly narrow and doesn't serve the numbers of people who use it. |
| 02:46:41.35 | Joe Burns | Jonathan, can I interrupt you for a second and make two points. One point is going back to the curb cut that you mentioned. What you're forgetting to mention is that it was speed and cost. It wasn't that we made a decision to find the most difficult or abstract barrier or design. We had speed and cost that we were racing against related to the settlement, so part of |
| 02:47:12.40 | Charles Kaufman | Ooh. |
| 02:47:12.69 | Joe Burns | why that was built the way it was is that you have utilities there and trees that would have had to be reached, rerouted, reconfigured, redesigned, and that would have taken time and an extensive amount of money. I think what's the vice mayor, part of the vice mayor's question is when you look at page seven of the staff report, it's important that there are hardships that give local control one is what our public works director was talking about jonathan was talking about in terms of costs it can't be unreasonable we can't spend it says trisha smith talked about it's 125 dollars to get a permit to put a handrail in your bathroom that doesn't make much sense in the same case, we don't have to, they list at least six different items here that you have to consider that could create a hardship and we can review. I think it's also to recognize, and we had the discussion with Southview Park earlier tonight, we don't have to make the tennis courts or the basketball courts or the playground 100% accessible, because those facilities exist elsewhere in town. So what we have to make accessible at Southview Park is that viewing pad, because that is unique to that park. So I think it's important to just underscore that we have a lot of local control, but there are things that we're required to do. And working through the engineer's office, look at where hardships exist and where the will of the community, like lighting, for example, and then use the budget process and the strategic planning process to accomplish those goals over time. |
| 02:47:25.40 | Neil Whitelaw | AND EXTENT. |
| 02:48:54.11 | Neil Whitelaw | Thank you. |
| 02:48:54.23 | Jonathon Goldman | I'll see you next time. |
| 02:48:54.38 | Neil Whitelaw | I'm not sure. |
| 02:49:01.23 | Jonathon Goldman | Yeah. The other point I wanted to make, and thank you for that, When we talked about the priority two and three projects under the settlement agreement, it looks like that's a whole bunch of money that has to happen in addition to everything else that we normally do. but Dunphy park is a good example. And, um, Any number of other examples in the future will also be good examples of where The barriers exist. There wasn't really any disagreement about that. But the timing on when they get removed, we have some discretion on. And to the extent that we do a rodeo or a microsurfacing project or something like that, and... |
| 02:49:52.73 | Charles Kaufman | Thank you. |
| 02:49:52.77 | Jonathon Goldman | those road segments or segments of the public right of way or public properties happen to include issues that were identified in that lawsuit, it's not it's not we have to spend the money twice it's the same money so that's part of our challenge unfortunately with the priority one projects we ended up having to replace some ramps that you know i don't Yes, they didn't comply, but in my judgment, we did not accomplish a huge public benefit. But they didn't comply, and we removed the barrier that was identified in the lawsuit. We're now in a much better position to be able to integrate these projects together and try to minimize the cost of those projects in the bigger picture, the grander scheme of things. |
| 02:50:46.57 | Joan Cox | Okay, one more. So may I frame a comment as a question? You included the City of Oakland example and Could you, in preparing Sausalito's corresponding document, at the back of that, 125 page report were eight pages of a chart. |
| 02:51:09.08 | Charles Kaufman | Mm-hmm. |
| 02:51:09.31 | Joan Cox | THE CHART IS SO VISUALLY friendly, whereas the pages are double spaced with big type and it's impossible to at a glance see what they're all about. So may I ask that you in preparing Sausalito's focus more on ease of You can have the City of Oakland document as your backup, but for transparency, perhaps have a table like the last seven pages that really is user friendly so that folks can see what our requirements are and how we're complying with them. |
| 02:51:47.70 | Jonathon Goldman | Yes. Thank you for asking that question. |
| 02:51:56.33 | Joe Burns | on priority two, did I see 259 |
| 02:52:01.12 | Jonathon Goldman | including Dunphy, yes. |
| 02:52:02.42 | Joe Burns | Thank you. Okay, what are some of those? What would some of those smaller ones be? |
| 02:52:06.40 | Jonathon Goldman | smaller ones be? Well, they're not necessarily smaller. They're just the priority one to be really brief about it, simple about it. The priority one issues were issues that were identified where Something had happened after the Americans with Disabilities Act had passed. And, for example, a roadway segment got overlaid, repaved. And the curb ramps, for example, that were there were not compliant. It's not clear whether they were compliant with the code that existed at the time the roadway alteration occurred, but they were compliant. with the strategy of trying to move those issues out of the lawsuit to begin with, we identified those kinds of things that would have been triggered and made an effort to try to move them, try and remove the barrier before the trial date. Those became the highest priority. to remove as a result of this settlement. |
| 02:53:11.62 | Joe Burns | Can I just add to that? So we paved in the mid early 2000s, we paved Bridgeway. but we didn't make all of the curb ramps compliant at that moment in time. that's why you see all that activity during the phase one effect mostly downtown downtown and i would say downtown for phase two gabelson park parking lot one you know those those would be examples of phase two projects |
| 02:53:35.80 | Jonathon Goldman | Thank you. |
| 02:53:40.73 | Jonathon Goldman | And again, the prioritization, fortunately, We did settle the lawsuit. And in the process of settling, we're able to pull as much of the settlement towards reasonableness as we could. So trying to identify areas of the public right of way. And my recollection is that almost, well, all the substantive issues in the litigation were public right of way issues or public property issues. So those areas where we have the highest concentration of people, the highest numbers of pedestrians and things like that, were identified as the priority two and then lower level priority three issues. There's a pretty comprehensive list that is incredibly difficult to read and isn't nearly as user friendly as the vice mayor at least would like, but I'm happy to share that with |
| 02:53:47.16 | Joe Burns | Thank you. |
| 02:54:33.28 | Joe Burns | Will that be shared during these public outreach meetings? I WANT TO TAKE A LOOK AT THE Yeah. |
| 02:54:36.96 | Jonathon Goldman | Thank you. |
| 02:54:36.98 | Joe Burns | It certainly can be. I mean, not that I'm asking, but is that the type of thing that would be started as a basis of what those barriers need to do? |
| 02:54:43.42 | Jonathon Goldman | Well, except that the city is obligated to remove those whether the stakeholders agree or not. Right. So in some respects, it would be great to have a bunch of stakeholders say, we don't want these barriers removed nearly as quickly as the city already agreed to remove. But that might not be as wonderful as. |
| 02:54:46.90 | Joe Burns | with a stick. |
| 02:55:04.60 | Jonathon Goldman | who would like. |
| 02:55:08.14 | Joe Burns | Any other questions or questions? Might as well say comments as well because we're not taking public comment because we have no public. So any other questions, comments for Jonathan? Um, |
| 02:55:22.62 | Joe Burns | I have a question for Jonathan that may respond a little bit too, Councilmember Burns's question. We have. roughly 13 years. for phase two and three. Yes. And we've got a dollar amount basically per year. that we're committed to spending. So to Councilmember's Burns question, stakeholder group would help prioritize even the settlement items. We still have to do them, but they're, Some of them may be done in the next three to four years. Some of them may be down downstream. So the stakeholder groups, is that accurate? Thank you. |
| 02:56:06.14 | Jonathon Goldman | Yeah, and again, it's... |
| 02:56:07.12 | Joe Burns | Thank you. |
| 02:56:12.61 | Jonathon Goldman | In the best of all worlds, if I'm doing my job as well as I can, we're integrating those two things so that we're maximizing the overlap. We're not doing a project because it was identified in the settlement agreement, kind of stand alone, but instead we're deciding, for example, and there are areas of Bridgeway that are begging for some attention now, Um, we're recognizing that we do have other obligations than simply the barrier removal that we've agreed to as part of the settlement. Let's try to double cover those. So if we worked on the roadway segment of bridgeway between Nevada and Spring or Easterby, for example, those intersections, there's a lot of opportunity both to remove Barriers that were identified in the lawsuit as well as barriers that we all have to deal with every day when when we use those those road segments. So that's the the management challenge, if you will, and then the accounting challenge because Every year we're required to report on what barriers we have removed, both in terms of the settlement, but also in terms of just accountability to our community. So keeping track of those, documenting A barrier was identified in the litigation, a barrier was identified during the course of designing this paving project and the here's how they were removed. That's the challenge, I guess. But also an opportunity, because it doesn't make sense to spend all the money we agreed to in the settlement agreement and go off and do a bunch of other things that also require accessibility improvements at the same time. The extent we can bring them together, we're optimizing our resources. |
| 02:58:13.04 | Joe Burns | I'll just comment then that it's more out of just curiosity of that type of list. It's 259 is a lot. I'll just comment then that it's more out of just curiosity of that type of list. It helps me understand more what barriers look like and how they, you know, 28 of them might be in lot one, I don't know, but that type of thing of where they are and what the scope is of those. |
| 02:58:34.25 | Jonathon Goldman | I'm happy to share that in any form, anytime. |
| 02:58:38.17 | Joan Cox | Not the part. |
| 02:58:39.69 | Jonathon Goldman | I'll put you in a wheelchair and we'll go. |
| 02:58:43.25 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 02:58:43.27 | Jonathon Goldman | you |
| 02:58:43.32 | Charles Kaufman | . |
| 02:58:43.40 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 02:58:43.42 | Charles Kaufman | I told you that maybe. Thank you. |
| 02:58:45.14 | Joan Cox | I've been on crutches for eight weeks three times. |
| 02:58:53.75 | Joe Burns | Any other questions or comments? |
| 02:58:59.16 | Jonathon Goldman | Thank you. |
| 02:58:59.18 | Joe Burns | Thank you. |
| 02:58:59.21 | Jonathon Goldman | Thank you. |
| 02:58:59.60 | Joe Burns | Thank you. I, sorry, Jill. |
| 02:58:59.77 | Jonathon Goldman | I'm sorry. |
| 02:59:00.02 | Michael Sheets | Thank you. |
| 02:59:03.33 | Joan Cox | This has been a huge undertaking for you on top of many other undertakings in the past couple years. So nice job and I know it's an ongoing puzzle to put together. |
| 02:59:15.33 | Joe Burns | I do. FOR Folks who may be listening who've just tuned into this particular topic and haven't been tuning in in not this meeting, but this topic in the past. it's really important This is actually, I've found, one of the most complex things that I've had to get my arms around in the five years I've been on the council. So, and especially starting off because we had the lawsuit unsettled is one variable coming in here. Then the fact that the law you know compliance with ADA and the development of transition plan happens to be the law. We've got then capital projects that we're doing for reasons that are totally unrelated to this, including as Jonathan didn't really dwell on much, thankfully, because it's a long conversation. All the stuff that you don't see in the ground. You put all that together with a finite budget, And It was a huge headache. I mean, we're talking about a lot of complexity here. And hats off to the staff on this one, because we're not there yet, but... Um... you know, this was a very complex thing, I don't think... we can underestimate the fact that the settlement of the lawsuit at least sort of fixed some variables and took some uncertainty out of the equation, even if there were some large numbers, it took uncertainty out of the equation. But this is a very complex issue. |
| 03:01:09.44 | Joe Burns | Yeah. the reasonability once again came up and that jonathan mentioned it as well that seems to be important |
| 03:01:12.37 | Joe Burns | Yeah. |
| 03:01:19.26 | Joe Burns | Okay, thank you, sir. All right. Lifeson number seven. We have no public comment on any of these topics. Adam, any further information for the council? |
| 03:01:39.12 | Joe Burns | I have two, I had one but I got a text message. I'll start with the text message from Mike Langford to remind the public that this Friday night there is movie at the park at Gabelson Park and it is Jaws. And so it's at Gabelson Park at 630. |
| 03:01:55.84 | Joan Cox | Thanks, I haven't been in the water for 20 years. Weather will be nice. |
| 03:01:56.18 | Joe Burns | Thanks. Weather will be nice. Because of JAWS. And it will be fun. And I think all of our community could use some fun. after all of the efforts that went in with the ferry, the election, the fires, And listening to Jonathan's presentation tonight. So that's the reminder there. I wanted to let the full council know, I think that I've shared this with a few of you. But on Wednesday night, I got a call from the county and from City of San Rafael. There was an expectation that there was going to be 15,000 new evacuees coming into Marin County, and there was a call for employee support. And so I brought as an urgency item to the Finance Committee their support of what I feel I was exercising my own authority, which was to allow staff to work in the shelters as emergency workers. And the challenge with that is they get paid overtime but the i appreciate the finance committee's support and we went ahead and made the announcement to all city employees that they were encouraged to volunteer for shifts from friday night to monday night and they were eight hour shifts for that 24 hour cycle for those days. And we had a handful of employees that reached out to the county and made themselves available. Luckily, they were not required. The number of people that were evacuated because of the change of winds and the good work of our first responders and firefighters. ended up not needing to open up additional facilities here in Marin County. As you all know, we're not out of the woods. There is significant containment. From the last time we reported, we were at zero. Now we're closer to the 50 and 60% across the board, and that number continues to grow. We know that people are being let back into their homes and into their neighborhoods, of the neighborhoods that are still standing. We have several employees that were evacuated, and several of them that have gone back to homes that are still without power, without water, without sewage. And it makes it difficult for them to do some of the basic steps. But to a person that I've talked to, they are pleased to be going back to their home, regardless to its condition. But it's a reminder that for all the folks that suffered much more devastating effects, including losing their homes or losing their loved ones, there's still a lot of work to be done. So just the news is is going in the right direction um still stay tuned to how we can help as a city as a community as a county and we'll continue to keep our occurrence information updated on ways people can be involved so that ends my report happy to answer any questions from the council |
| 03:05:10.34 | Joe Burns | Any questions around him? Okay. Council member committee reports. |
| 03:05:18.75 | Joan Cox | We've had a couple of committees last week. One was the legislative committee and the other one was a waterfront committee. And so I'll start with the waterfront committee. We had a very good presentation. from Chief Robacher on some of the work they've been doing to map the bay and identify different vessels in order to prioritize their efforts on the water. And so that's been a very big effort, very detailed and precise map. And so I think it's going to make us going forward. much easier and so the public should have confidence that we're making very good progress in our efforts to have better management of our own waters and remove vessels that should be removed that are, first of all, debris and then secondly, that we have safety concerns about. And moving forward on our phase process that we've talked about many times here at the city council. And on the legislative committee. We've also made good progress there. We talked about I'm going to have to get some help from the vice mayor, but we talked about some drone, the possibility and the parameters for drone legislation, and also for taxicab management. There was a third one, but I can't remember. |
| 03:06:43.36 | Joan Cox | the third woman. ADU. So we got an update on an ADU ordinance that will be coming to the council on November 28, as well as some projects in progress, marijuana regulations, Turney Street boat ramp regulations, and use of sidewalks in the downtown area. |
| 03:06:47.17 | Joan Cox | Right. an update on an ADU. |
| 03:07:08.99 | Joan Cox | Well, we're meeting again on November 1 and we're going to report back to the Council on the Waterfront Committee in November. We'll have a formal report to the Council on that and then we'll be bringing some legislation hopefully to the Council this year because we're determined to get some of these on the books this year The use of sidewalks has to do with bicycle management downtown. So. And then you already heard about sustainability. That was my other committee meeting this week. or last week. |
| 03:07:40.47 | Joe Burns | A committee meeting that I recently attended is the MTA, the telecommunications agency, and they, as a normal course of business, but don't do it often, reaffirmed our relationship with Comcast as far as getting PEG fees, which is the public, educational, and government channel fees that we get from the providers. So we'll continue to get that income, and we also, they worked on a budget, I mean, an audit of, I know I'd get them mixed up between AT&T and Comcast. I think AT&T. And there's a chunk of money coming back, so we'll get a little bit. It's not going to pay for our roads or our parks, but a couple thousand. But more importantly from that, you know, we also talked about what we've talked about in our other groups through leagues and MCCMC, which is the governor's veto of 649, which is great for our towns and our revenue. But unfortunately he didn't. VETO OF 649 WHICH IS GREAT FOR OUR TOWNS AND OUR REVENUE BUT UNFORTUNATELY HE DIDN'T VETO A BILL THAT I'M GOING TO HAVE A HARD TIME WITH 1 1235 OR 1225 WHICH WAS ANOTHER TELECOMMUNICATIONS BILL THAT IMPACTS local funding and federal funding and how we can receive money to expand broadband and this impact was more completely for the county in relationships to bringing broadband out to West Marin and I wish I had more memory on the details of it but basically that that bill was not vetoed and it does put at risk the ease and feasibility of bringing more broadband and internet out to the West Marin communities. |
| 03:09:24.40 | Joan Cox | I have one more update which was not a committee meeting but I serve on a committee, the MCCMC Homelessness Committee and they mentioned several months ago possible sites for |
| 03:09:25.21 | Joe Burns | Yeah, please. |
| 03:09:35.00 | Joan Cox | mobile showers and I gave you all a written update |
| 03:09:37.04 | Neil Whitelaw | update. |
| 03:09:38.42 | Joan Cox | They are continuing to seek Southern Marin location. And they would love it to be Sausalito. I'm not sure that's the most feasible location. So I think Adam is having our police chief meet with them and then come back to us with a recommendation. They're wanting to meet with you and me, but we're going to... see, have this take its proper steps to find the best solution all around. |
| 03:10:16.19 | Joe Burns | Good. Finance Committee. We are Thank you. essentially pretty much I'm going to be working on I'm updating the tactical part of the strategic plan and there's an important update at the next meeting which I'll talk about very as well. I can transition into future agenda items if I may. A moment before I do that, let me remind you that we got MCCMC coming up next week, I think. I should know. Yes, next week in Tiburon and Senator McGuire is giving his annual update on where things were. |
| 03:11:00.84 | Neil Whitelaw | to, |
| 03:11:10.88 | Joe Burns | with everything going on in sacramento so that should be a good meeting on the finance committee which sort of moves into agenda items the future agenda items so let's move on to future agenda items i wanted to highlight a couple of things for the next meeting we got a lot of stuff to do in the next meeting but the particularly i want to highlight the fact that we will be talking about the strategic plan and where that is heading and the THE FULL COUNCIL INVOLVEMENT THAT WILL BE NEEDED. AND ALSO, THE NEXT MEETING WE WILL BE GETTING AN IMPORTANT UPDATE Our bicycle management plan, the whole downtown congestion, it's an important follow up to the ferry discussion. You guys have been dealing with it in legislative committee as well. So that's going to be an important meeting for people to pay attention to. So just wanted to make those few points. Anything else on future agenda items? |
| 03:12:20.56 | Joe Burns | Are we going to appoint? Do we have commissions that we're going to appoint? It says if applicable, but I didn't know if there was anybody. Not tonight, but we're going to. But next week, it depends what we do with it. |
| 03:12:26.12 | Joe Burns | Not tonight, but we're going to... But next week, it depends how we do it, because we're interviewing next week. |
| 03:12:34.90 | Joan Cox | Is there someone we've interviewed that you want to appoint |
| 03:12:36.94 | Joe Burns | Nope, nope, nope. Oh, okay. Lily, I don't know where we were with appointments to boards and commissions. I think we were going to try and put some interviews together. I don't know if that's coming together. It's on our agenda for our next meeting. Yep. |
| 03:12:47.08 | Unknown | It's on our agenda for our next meeting. We do have several individuals that we can interview coordinating the times if we have time for those interviews. |
| 03:12:56.33 | Joe Burns | Right, so whether we appoint will really depend upon that. |
| 03:13:00.67 | Joan Cox | So on future agenda items, I want to point out that we have a number of business items for all of our next meetings. I actually an ambitious number of business items Um, And what's not included with the future agenda items is the list of items that aren't yet on the agenda. I'm not sure. And we're only meeting once in December, that's our practice, but I really would, I'm worried about how, much pressure we're going to be under to try to accomplish everything we want to accomplish this year. I know how much Joe loves our special meetings. So I'd like to float the idea of another special meeting between now and the end of the year to make sure that we're actually able to accomplish all of the business in front of us. We have a number of meaty items to consider. |
| 03:13:55.16 | Joe Burns | And so many of them are update. I mean, they're update, update, you know, a lot of updates. |
| 03:14:00.93 | Joan Cox | But some of those updates involve decisions about how to move forward, too. So that's my comment. |
| 03:14:07.97 | Joe Burns | Okay. Thank you. We're not doing any appointments tonight. We've talked about a future agenda items. I'm assuming there's no more. Reports of significance, in which case this meeting is adjourned. |
| 03:14:22.19 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
Neil Whitelaw — Against: Criticized the Council for voting against citizen opposition on the ferry terminal, shared a personal near-accident in a crosswalk, and urged the installation of flashing lights in crosswalks to enhance pedestrian safety, warning of potential negligence lawsuits. ▶ 📄
Sybil Boutillier — Neutral: Highlighted existing efforts through the RUOK program with the police department to map vulnerable seniors for emergencies and suggested working harder to get more people to sign up for the program. ▶ 📄