| Time | Speaker | Text |
|---|---|---|
| 00:00:01.60 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Okay, good evening and welcome to the Sausalito City Council meeting for Tuesday, February 13, 2018. Lily, will you please call the roll? Councilmember Wade. |
| 00:00:12.03 | Lily (City Clerk) | THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 00:00:12.43 | Unknown | here. |
| 00:00:13.19 | Lily (City Clerk) | Council member Hoffman? Present. Council member Cleveland Knowles? Here. Vice Mayor Burns? Here. Mayor Cox? |
| 00:00:19.55 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 00:00:19.66 | Lily (City Clerk) | Thank you. |
| 00:00:19.72 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 00:00:23.50 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Okay, at this point, we are going to adjourn to closed session. We will be considering three items. One is conference with legal counsel regarding existing litigation pursuant to California Government Code Section 54956.9A. The next is conference with legal counsel regarding anticipated litigation. And the third is liability claims pursuant to government code Section 54956.95. um, all of which are listed on our agenda. And the fourth item, it's actually four, not three, is Conference with Legal Counsel regarding existing litigation pursuant to California Government Code, Section 54956.9A, Ford v. Sausalito. And with that, we are adjourned to closed session. Thank you. |
| 00:01:15.21 | Unknown | you |
| 00:01:15.28 | Jeff Jacob | Yeah, it's actually, we'll handle it, we'll handle it. So the Sustainability Commission is still happening. Of course, you're going to be a little bit. you |
| 00:01:23.56 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Good evening everybody and welcome to the Sausalito City Council meeting for Tuesday, February 13, 2018. I'll call the meeting to order and ask Lily to call the roll. |
| 00:01:34.56 | Lily (City Clerk) | Councilmember Withey? Here. Council member Hoffman? Council member Cleveland Knowles? Here. Vice Mayor Burns? Here. Mayor Cox? |
| 00:01:40.67 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Take care. |
| 00:01:45.57 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Okay, we, let's see, where am I? |
| 00:01:50.97 | John Rohrabacher | I think there are multiple people who are in the same place. |
| 00:01:52.91 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | All right, David Suto, will you lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance? Thank you. |
| 00:01:58.88 | Lily (City Clerk) | Thank you. Yeah. |
| 00:02:01.21 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | I understand. |
| 00:02:01.72 | Lily (City Clerk) | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 00:02:01.97 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 00:02:10.46 | David Suto | and justice for all. |
| 00:02:16.69 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | We held a closed session this evening. There are no closed session announcements. Is there any public comment on our closed session items? |
| 00:02:25.71 | Jeff Jacob | Yes. |
| 00:02:33.64 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Okay Jeff, I'm going to hold you to making it relevant to one of our four closed session items. |
| 00:02:50.71 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Jeff, did you want to make a comment? |
| 00:02:52.32 | Unknown | Yes. |
| 00:02:53.00 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Okay. Please don't call out. If you want to chat, please just fill out a speaker card. |
| 00:02:58.89 | Jeff Jacob | Okay, yes, first the comment will be on the fact that there is a closed session. I understand that If... |
| 00:03:08.02 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Actually, that's an item not on our agenda, Jeff, so. |
| 00:03:11.53 | Jeff Jacob | session. |
| 00:03:12.73 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | No, this is about the- |
| 00:03:13.38 | Jeff Jacob | This is about the closed session there. |
| 00:03:14.60 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | This is about the four items on the closed session. If you want to comment on something not on the agenda about regarding having a closed session, you can do that at the next opportunity. But right now, this is about... The closed session items. |
| 00:03:26.66 | Jeff Jacob | I'm OK. So name of claimant, Ravi Muthi. Is that correct? Agency claimed against the city of Sausalito, Name of claimant Elko Cania Gomstein agency claimed against the city of Sausalito. Name of claimant Carolyn Pritchard, agency claimed against city of Sausalito. And there's three more. I think that there's another way to deal with the city of Sausalito besides be against it. especially when somebody is being against it, claiming money. I... Haven't done that yet. And I don't want, certainly never want to do it for myself to be asking the city of Sausalito to give me money. in a legal closed session without witnesses with lawyers who are being paid a part of what they receive. I think that is something to talk about, and I've had my say on it. |
| 00:04:32.29 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. Any other public comment on our closed session items this evening? All right, seeing none, we'll move on to approval of the agenda. May I have a motion? So moved. |
| 00:04:43.41 | Unknown | Second. |
| 00:04:44.38 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | All in favor? Aye. That motion carries 5-0. |
| 00:04:45.27 | Unknown | Bye. |
| 00:04:48.58 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Next is special presentations and mayor's announcements. We have none this evening. So we'll now move on to communications. This is the time for the City Council to hear from citizens regarding matters that are not on our agenda. Except in very limited situations, state law precludes the Council from taking action on or engaging in discussions concerning items of business that are not on the agenda. However, the Council may refer matters not on the agenda to City staff or direct that the subject be agendized for a future meeting is there anyone who would like to comment on an item not on our agenda this evening Okay, kindly fill out a speaker card. |
| 00:05:29.28 | Jeff Jacob | Let's go. |
| 00:05:29.87 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 00:05:29.95 | Jeff Jacob | Thank you. |
| 00:05:29.97 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Okay, Jeff, we'll hear from you. |
| 00:05:36.08 | Jeff Jacob | Okay, I hope I'm the first of three people. I've been trying to get my peeps, my friends and pals to attend these meetings to make this a place for everybody to come to, to fill all of these seats, to not have them merely be filled by police officers and people who have money business with the city council and mayor. |
| 00:06:03.52 | Jeff Jacob | What I do and have done, I don't do it for any particular person. except for most possibly myself, I, uh, I talk about the Torah reading. And I wanna continue that, that is something that's legal here in California still. to do. Where we are in the Holy Word. There's 54 portions. We're in the portion called Terumah. It's in the book of Exodus. And I I find it difficult in three minutes to be able to convey the depth of these words. to get something across perhaps is possible. Maybe one of you will approach me afterwards and tell me about that. So what I did, is I wrote a poem about this. It's about the Mishkan. It's about the tent. That's all we have to build. We don't have to build big temples. We don't have to build giant buildings, parking lots, et cetera. We can make it very small. And this is how it's done. It's wanting to give what is stolen anyway, by time and age those sneaky thieves, on this ground to visit but never stay. With wool and goat and dolphin we weave, a house for one who needs no bed, a crown for one who has no head. Use that wool and linen and goat, the rams and dolphins and wood, the oils and spices that float, an offering to this neighborhood. The world is rising rent, God moves into a simple tense. Thank you very much, council and mayor. Thank you. I have 40 seconds. I think I would like to use the whole three minutes, so I guess I will. There are two people that want to speak. Also now one about rising sea levels. They're now building walls in Greenbrae for this. This is not a joke. It's not good if there's a drought because more tourists will come in here and spend more money in tax dollars. That's not the way people with common sense think. The other person is gonna talk about jobs for everybody, especially My friends on this anchorage, that everybody needs work, everybody's a worker and I am too. |
| 00:08:38.67 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 00:08:42.08 | Unknown | Thank you, guys. This is just a What it is, I'm just going to read this. It's just the simple idea about shore clean-up. Thank you. |
| 00:08:53.97 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Mr. Pflueger, if you can just talk into the mic, because we're recording this so that other residents can hear it as well. |
| 00:08:58.73 | Unknown | THE FEDERAL. I'm just going to read this here. |
| 00:09:03.46 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 00:09:03.47 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:09:03.52 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 00:09:03.54 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:09:03.64 | Unknown | It's called Shore Detail. What it is is there are plenty of debris, garbage, lots of washed up, discarded messes, floating and non-floating. There are also many birds, sea lions, gardens. We live in a beautiful place. There is a need for a shore clean-up crew unless any of us enjoy random messes of any kind, inbound on the tide or up on our neglect. Many of us do our part, and if we need a more beatific, healthy land, both for us and for the birds, the lions, A little cleanup crew would easily manage to employ locals who would enjoy and thrive giving back to our community. the simple idea. I weighed $10 an hour. or $2 a pound. of non-recyclable debris would be all right with this. You got him nervous. It was suggested to me I approach the city as I take care of the many gardens in this town and know a few good people who would only be too glad to help. It would be a benefit for the city, the animals, the people, everyone. Imagine that. Maybe people will stop and see how much we love this place here, Sausalito. It's a very special place, and the Shoreline Crew, will diffuse some of the contradictions and hazards involved. Many times someone vandalizes their what all. These things are left as negative affirmations of only our fears. this junction, the Tiki Junction was marauded. Tiki, this is Steve Weaver, Tiki was yellow with death. He told me he wasn't ready to go upstairs. He wants to paint the totem pole he dedicated to the city years ago. Just today I did a little to preserve that lush garden in which had been ransacked. A few people had left planned plots and things near my rowboat. these things. Those kind of things are what would make community strong. When they see us at work, maybe their minds will change a little. Maybe if you paid us a little, we would take care of those eyesores that burn us, after all, who really has time to take care of the real dirt. Above all, it will give a job to my best friend who shall remain unnamed. He's a magician with garbage and left a panhandle. I know if he does this job, he will thrive. The shoreline will thrive. Without pride, he will clean the messes people turn their noses to. We found a night hearing with a broken wing, stuff like that. Another friend of mine has been trying to get a job with the city a long time. This is a way we can do this and at probably a third the pay of the other city workers. Last night somebody threw a blanket and a laundry hamper in the bay. Stuff like that. Good. |
| 00:11:45.09 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you, Mr. Pflueger. |
| 00:11:46.15 | Unknown | person. Can I give you guys a copy? Or can I leave these? |
| 00:11:48.80 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | You may give a copy to the staff for the city clerk. Thank you. Eos Mahasawi. |
| 00:11:58.48 | Unknown | Thank you. Hello, greetings Council. I know that everyone's very aware about sea level rise and I just, I wanted to |
| 00:12:01.76 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Greetings, Kelto. |
| 00:12:09.38 | Unknown | comment that I see that the kind of public landscaping, if you say the commons, right, what you the city council are responsible for I don't see any... Um, let us say, demonstrations or pilot projects or any kind of beacon to what future infrastructure or the future public space could look like or how we might amend public space to educate people about what we can do. So I'd like And just to follow up on Justin's request, for local people to be able to find a way to make money as stewards basically he's asking to be paid or remunerated in some way to be a steward of the land. So in order for people to take on stewardship, and I wanted to just comment there is a place in Brazil called Curitiba that is a global example of how this has worked. When you pay people for trash collection it works. Trash disappears and people do better and you're engaging your citizenry in a stewardship model which then benefits everybody. I think that is a lovely suggestion There's certain people can't maybe be employees in a regular sense, so it's lovely to have an adjunct program whereby everyone benefits. I'm thinking in similar terms of landscaping. Green infrastructure, blue infrastructure. Building a seawall is a really not, I mean there's other ways we can preventatively do things so proactively I'd love to see a demonstration gardens, cisterns, gray water systems. It seems like city buildings could be exemplary in that you would be demonstrating, you would have cisterns, water collection, rain gardens, infiltration, living roofs. It's basically blue infrastructure and green infrastructure, which is where we're going. And I want to call your attention to the resilient by design challenge that just happened. I hope you're aware of that. Because we are in the middle, like we are in one of the most vulnerable places in the Bay Area. therefore in the country, because we're right, you know, everything's happening here. So I think I'd love to see the city council really take that on and become a demonstration kind of a hub. for people so that people would be incentivized to put in cisterns, native plants, not using pesticides, et cetera, because as the water table rises, everything that's in our soil lens is going to be more and more communicated throughout the environment. That's it, actually. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. |
| 00:14:58.64 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Okay, any other public communications on items not on our agenda? Please step forward. |
| 00:15:11.80 | Suzanne Webro | Yes, hello, my name is Suzanne Webro. I'd like to take this chance to just introduce myself. I've been in this town, well, since 1957, and I have my career and degrees in the arts. I've had a nonprofit in Petaluma, Pennsylvania, and Paris. And I've just recently moved back to Sausalita to stay. And very interested in becoming a volunteer. I tried to give in my information for the historic landmark board. And also, specifically, I'm here today because I'm interested in what is happening. Because I've just been kind of watching and not heard anything. Maybe because I haven't been very participatory. to try to work with the collectivity of nonprofits here in Sausalito. There are quite a few. To create a cultural center that would cover workshops I used to work with the Heath Foundation, with Edith and Brian, and also, cover an area for education and exhibition. So there I have, my main question tonight, and I know it's not on the agenda, but I was told that I could come and just mention it, is I'm interested in finding out what's happening with the machine shop. where that's going. I mean, they've taken the roof off. It looks like it could fall down at any moment. But I'm here to volunteer to try to work with whoever you are that's trying to put some projects together for that building. And if that one is too far gone, maybe finding another site, whether it be out at Fort Baker, where I know the Marin Arts Council is working with the Cavallo Point people out there. And... because the main goal is to start a small art foundry. I know that the Heath Foundation is grandfathered for their kilns, but in working with Marin Made down on Gate 5, it's a small nonprofit that's just blossoming, we're interested in maybe trying to set up a small art foundry, and I would like to know where to go and ask about what the emissions codes are of such a situation and whatnot so I've just written up a little thing that I'll just leave for you so you can have for your records if you'd like to get in contact with me. |
| 00:17:45.96 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you, you can leave that with our clerk. Anyone else who'd like to comment on an item not on our agenda this evening? Okay, seeing none, I'll move on to item three, action minutes of the previous meeting. We have minutes from January 23, 2018, our regular City Council meeting, as well as our special meeting on January 20, 2018. Does anyone have any revisions to the minutes? All right, may I have a motion? |
| 00:18:14.51 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:18:14.53 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 00:18:14.56 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | to a |
| 00:18:14.91 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | you |
| 00:18:15.03 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | PROVIDE. |
| 00:18:15.30 | Unknown | Second. |
| 00:18:16.18 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | All in favor? Aye. That motion carries 5-0. |
| 00:18:17.08 | Unknown | Hi. |
| 00:18:21.48 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Item four is our consent calendar. Matters listed under the consent calendar are considered routine and non-controversial, requiring no discussion, and expected to have unanimous council support. Is there any public comment on our consent calendar? |
| 00:18:36.84 | Unknown | Yes. |
| 00:18:44.68 | Jeff Jacob | Thank you, Mayor and Council. 4C. It says receive and file monthly update on the general plan update. Update from the M Group. |
| 00:19:01.09 | Jeff Jacob | There are many plans that a people can get together to start a family. for a farm. Even we can think about a town of 7,000. that grew to 30,000. during the war to produce ships of war, We are... giving $750,000 to I don't know who. That's $750,000 that could be used for the very limited number of people who are living in destitution on this bay. Most of them born in Marin County. THERE IS NO SUPPORT FOR THEM. We are now In the first week plus a day, of the anniversary of the Poor People's Campaign. That's Martin Luther King in Memphis with the garbage men. That's where he was assassinated, of course. He was uniting whites and black and Hispanics who shared something in common. or shared Nothing in common. They didn't have any money. Now for a group to come up with a plan when there are 90 or so planning people and that's paid employees plus many on advisory boards for the town of Sausalito and the county of Marin. The other one is receive and file a sewer update. Uh, We have to deal with that. On the anchorage, And the way that we do that is we hope that a pump out boat will do it for us. Sometimes that does not happen. It can be a number of reasons, some of them personal. With the person, let's say, who's driving the pump-out boat, or the person whose stuff is being pumped out. There are other ways to do this. There is composting to make flowers. There is something besides Two and a half gallons of fresh water when perhaps we enter a drought being flushed down every single time. flush and forget. Well, one good thing we can say about the anchorage, we don't flush. AND FORGET. Thank you. |
| 00:21:42.80 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Any other comments on our consent calendar? Any questions or comments from council members? Councilmember Hoffman. |
| 00:21:53.29 | David Suto | I don't have any questions, but I do have my usual comment about the library report. Excellent report as always. I'm glad to see that we have a surge in young adults in Sausalito and that you're beefing up the young adult section. And that means kids in eighth grade, our library entails kids 6 to 8, in 6th, 8th grade. So excellent report as always, Abbott, and thanks so much for all your hard work at the programs with the library. You're welcome. |
| 00:22:21.83 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | I was going to make the same comment, so thank you. I won't repeat it. |
| 00:22:25.96 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | I agree. I did have one proposed change to our resolution under 4G, which is simply to, and I've spoken with the city attorney about it, it's simply to memorialize that it was an expert on behalf of the city of Sausalito who reviewed the relevant medical reports. Any other questions or comments? |
| 00:22:47.14 | Unknown | Yeah, I'd just like to... Madam Mayor, thank you for the changes on the protocols. And 4A, I think they were exactly right. Changes the whole tone of the paragraph. |
| 00:22:59.65 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | And that's actually credit to the Vice Mayor as well. |
| 00:22:59.66 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:23:02.26 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. Okay, with that, I'll seek a motion. Oh, go ahead. Okay. |
| 00:23:08.18 | David Suto | excellent sewer report as well. Don't you feel left out. |
| 00:23:10.99 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Stop. |
| 00:23:11.58 | Unknown | . . |
| 00:23:12.74 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 00:23:12.89 | Unknown | . |
| 00:23:15.19 | David Suto | Thank you. |
| 00:23:15.20 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Okay, may I have a motion? Thank you. |
| 00:23:17.65 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Move to approve the consent count. |
| 00:23:19.20 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | there. |
| 00:23:20.30 | Unknown | Second. |
| 00:23:21.13 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | All in favor? Aye. That motion carries 5-0. |
| 00:23:22.01 | Unknown | Bye. |
| 00:23:27.22 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Item five is an update on county homelessness programs, outreach efforts, and mobile showers. |
| 00:23:41.01 | John Rohrabacher | Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, members of the City Council. For people who might be watching this later or at home, my name is John Rohrabacher, I'm the Chief of Police. Tonight we have two presenters to provide you information about, updated information about homelessness programs, outreach, and the mobile showers. We have with us Ashley Hart McIntyre. She's the Homelessness Policy Analyst for the Marin County Department of Health and Human Services. And we have Andrew Henning, who's the Director of Homeless Planning for the City of San Rafael. So they have a presentation for you, and then at some point you can ask questions if you'd like. I'll still be here, and so will my two lieutenants. Thank you. |
| 00:24:17.22 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you and we'll just say welcome back because you all made a presentation for us last year so thanks for coming back. Glad we didn't scare you off. It wasn't pouring rain this time. |
| 00:24:25.59 | Andrew Henning | It was in pouring rain this time. It was a little bit drier. So again, I'm Andrew Henning. I'm the director of homeless planning with the city of San Rafael. And tonight we're going to be talking about a number of things that are going on around the county in terms of systems change to what we're doing to approach homelessness. And two big buckets. One, we're looking at a new process called coordinated entry. And then we're also gonna touch briefly on something called MCHAT, which is a new effort to create more housing around the county. And then we're also going to turn to more of a tactical focus to discussing how people can actually get into this new system of care through the mobile shower program and then potential implications there for the community homeless fund. So a pretty good agenda. And with that, I'll kick it off and then turn it over to Ashley, but starting just kind of with a general framework about some of the systems change that has been going on. So the first thing that we like to start these presentations with is a simple question that we often forget to ask. And it's probably the most basic question there is on this issue. which is what would you do if you became homeless? If you're struggling to answer this question, Imagine you were traveling through space and you encountered a black hole. What would you do? The answer to the question to both is the same. You would try to avoid it at all costs. And what we're finding around the country now is that upwards of 70% of people that become homeless are actually able to self-resolve their homelessness in a relatively short period of time, a month, a couple months. And for them, it's a one-time brief experience. So knowing that, the question then is, well, what about all the people that end up on the street or end up experiencing homelessness for much longer periods of time? And the answer to that is that it's much more complicated. It's never just one thing, it's many things in someone's life that are affecting their ability to regain permanent housing. What we see then is that if you were to look at basically from people that were experiencing temporary episodic homelessness to chronic long-term homelessness the community costs rise exponentially the longer that someone's homeless. So these are health care costs, mental health costs, criminal justice costs, We also find that community complaints or community concerns rise exponentially, especially from people that are experiencing homelessness for a very long period of time. And then just, I think ethically, in terms of people's vulnerability, many studies have found that people that are chronically homeless pass away 20 years earlier than their housed peers. So again, this is a very preventable, unfortunate early death that many people experience. So the question then is, if we have 80% of our challenges from homelessness coming from just a small percentage of the homeless community, what's really going on? And one of the biggest things that we've noticed over time, and this isn't just true to Marin, it's true across I think most of the country, is that a lot of our historical focus has been on this part of the curve, not the chronically homeless part of the curve. And part of this is of our own making. So through a program called the Homeless Outreach Team over the past two years, we've actually mapped out our system of care here in Marin as it's been historically configured, And you can see Howard Schwartz, who's on the right, he's the project director for the hot team, He has a PhD from Brown. He can't navigate this system. Why would we expect someone with traumatic brain injury and schizophrenia to be able to navigate the system on their So really what's going on is you have these two competing cycles. The first is that you have people that are inherently difficult to serve on some level because they have some sort of very challenging issue that they're experiencing. Those folks fail out of programs because programs have certain barriers like attendance requirements, sobriety requirements that might seem minimal, but really the people that are struggling with those high level issues cannot meet those program level needs. And so as they fall out of those programs, they become more distrustful, they don't seek help, and then their situation gets worse and then the cycle repeats itself. Worse, homelessness has a longitudinal bias in the sense that people get better at homelessness the longer that they're homeless. So you can imagine, again, if you're not able to self-resolve your homelessness and you end up on the street for a long period of time, You would find other people who are experiencing homelessness. You would adapt your lifestyle. you would normalize a very abnormal experience, and you would enter survival mode. So one thing that we often hear is, you know, people are choosing to be homeless. I think the reality is that a lot of people honestly have forgotten what it means to plan a week in advance. People are just in survival mode. They're thinking about what am I going to do shelter tonight or for food tonight, they're not thinking about how am I going to get a job six weeks from now. So part of what we're trying to do is how do we disrupt this cycle? So fortunately, there actually is a relatively straightforward way to solve this. And all across the country, from San Diego to Chattanooga, Tennessee, to my hometown of Richmond, Virginia, communities are starting to solve chronic homelessness by using this new framework. So with that, I'm going to turn it over to Ashley to describe that new process. |
| 00:29:21.41 | Ashley Hart McIntyre | Thanks, Andrew, and thank you to the council for inviting us to speak. We're happy to be here. Let's see, so the straightforward way to solve this issue is called coordinated entry. What Coordinated Entry is seeking to do is really minimize the barriers to accessing housing and services on the people who are experiencing homelessness. and more appropriately match people with the services they really need. So we're working to prioritize people based on their vulnerability, just like a hospital emergency room might do. So if you come into an emergency room, with a broken arm. and you're sitting there for a couple of hours waiting and someone else comes in with a heart attack and they're seen right away. If you're there with a broken arm, that makes perfect sense, right? The person who has the life-threatening condition should go first. So we're looking at housing in a similar vein. We look at housing as an intervention that should be prioritized for the people who are the most vulnerable. So the way to do that, if you take your whole countywide homeless population, somehow you have to determine who's most vulnerable. So we have an assessment called the VI-SPDAT. Really don't worry about what that stands for, it doesn't matter. But it's a tool that helps us determine a couple of things, one of which is how vulnerable somebody is, meaning how likely is somebody to die unhoused, combined with what is the most appropriate housing intervention for a person experiencing homelessness. So how likely is it that they're going to be able to access and maintain independent housing long term without assistance? So our assessment has a score range from 1 to 17. The folks who are scoring 8 or 10 to 17 are appropriate for that long-term, we call it permanent supportive housing. It's permanent rental assistance with wraparound supports to meet whatever needs that person might be experiencing. So we are taking everybody who's 10 or above, and then we create a list, specifically by name, of all of the people who are scoring above that number on our assessment. and we work to match them with housing. So you can see here, just a Quick sample, if you are at a 10 or above, you go on our by-named list for permanent supportive housing. If you have a lower score, you're referred to other kinds of interventions, like temporary rental assistance, or some kind of diversion service, like assistance returning home or reconnecting with family. So our by name list is prioritized by score. And we start at the top of the list to place people in housing. So as housing slots across the county become available, they are referred to our coordinated entry system. And there's a placement committee that meets to look at the top of the by name list and place people in those available housing slots. So we work down the list, we start right at the top and we work our way down. And we adjust the list as needed. So if you notice here, that 15 was not on the list. We went from a 12 to an 11. Whoops, we assessed somebody else who got a 15. That 15 is going to get housed before the next person on the list. The 11 is going to have to wait a little while because we found somebody. That's the equivalent of a heart attack coming in. So we continue to prioritize those placements as we go forward. I'm going to turn it over to Andrew to talk a little bit about the housing side of things, because, of course, we can't be successful in placing people in housing if we don't have the housing stock necessary. |
| 00:32:49.65 | Andrew Henning | So as Ashley indicated, we've done a lot of work over the past really two years to shift this system to really focus on coordinated entry. And fortunately, we're having some housing success. So since we launched the program officially on October 1st, we've housed, I believe it's 15 people. So annualized, we're looking at about housing 50 or so people per year. Again, that are the very top of the list, the most vulnerable people in our community. And ideally, if we can build even more housing capacity, then we can actually house even more people. So the idea here is that it's really a stool. So if you have the process, you have the services, you also need the housing, of course. So just like you saw earlier, what we found is that there's this same sort of disorganization around housing creation in our community. So there are all these different stakeholders and entities that are working towards creating more housing, And there really is not this meaningful coordination to really drive projects forward. So what we found is that currently the status quo is that many opportunities don't get pursued because local agencies, and that could be, in our case, local nonprofits, you know, lack the bandwidth, lack the funding, lack the political will or technical expertise to drive projects forward. The process is very ad hoc and reactive versus being strategic and proactive, actually going out and finding projects that make sense for different communities. And there really is not this meaningful coordination across key partners. So funders, different jurisdictions, different advocacy groups. So really the idea with MCHAT, which is short for the Marin Chronic Homeless Action Task Force, which we will be rebranding, don't worry, it's a mouthful. But the idea here is really creating more of a centralized coordination function. So the analogy that we sometimes use is the community quarterback. So MCHAT's not this big scary thing that's trying to centralize everything. It's more trying to connect the dots for all the different stakeholders that are involved. And so you can see here, you know, it's bringing prospective projects to potential funders and linking up funders with potential, policy makers, it's really just kind of creating that funnel and pipeline to really move things forward. So the long-term vision, as I mentioned, is to really quarterback the creation of more affordable housing throughout the county. The short-term mission is to really continue to drive our project now of really focusing on chronic homelessness. And so this group has been represented by city managers from the MMA group, city council members from MCCMC, county representatives, people from the business community, the faith-based community. And so the idea is if we can really create this collective impact model, then our goal is to create a community business plan to actually create enough housing to end chronic homelessness in the next four years. That definitely is something that our community can achieve. And so that's something that our group is putting together right now is what do those kind of targets look like across a whole variety of different housing types. So I think a lot of people immediately go to new construction, but there's a lot of things you can do short of that, such as converting existing properties, doing infill development, working with landlords, working with acquiring houses in the community. So there's a lot you can do to actually drive this forward that this business plan's addressing. So that's what we're doing to complement the new process and service change with a new housing change. So the other important piece to this, and I think the really tactical thing, especially for you all to consider, How do we, and I, you know, speaking for the city of San Rafael, how do local jurisdictions throughout the county go about getting people that are experiencing homelessness in our communities into this bigger system? And basically, one of the ways that we're trying to do that is this new Marin Mobile Care Mobile Shower Program. So the idea here really started, I would say, probably about 18 months ago. And it really started with this, simple question that we were going around asking people throughout the county in terms of their basic hygiene needs. So if you do not shower as frequently as needed, how have the lack of showers impacted your life? And so Downtown Street Seam, which is the organization that's now operating and managing the mobile shower program, went around and did outreach actually down here to the Anchor Out community out in West Marin. And then they have teams in San Rafael and Novato as well where they were able to get feedback. And the answers were really pretty dramatic. So people that do not have regular access to Hygiene services had infections, they lack self-confidence to look for employment or to pursue housing, they felt stigmatized. Again, like I mentioned earlier, there's a lot of preventable chronic illness in the homeless community that could easily be addressed if there was more ongoing hygiene and basic medical care. And unfortunately, from a community point of view, people are going to find a way to keep themselves clean at some point. So what we found is that people were bathing in the bay, they were bathing at the library, they were bathing in local businesses, they were going into people's yards and using garden hoses. So it has a real impact across the board for both the people that need the showers and the community that doesn't have access to the showers. So our answer has been this mobile shower idea, which actually most of the communities now in the Bay Area have some form of this program going. This is Karen, who's the project manager with the streets team and the new shower unit that we acquired with funding from MCF. This is a mock-up of what the branding is actually going to look like. They have the showers now, so they're actually getting this mock-up onto the units and are starting the service next week. So the idea here is really we're trying to create the showers in such a way that they're a platform to other services. They're that entry point or that gateway into that bigger system that we were just talking about. By having the showers as a regular platform for providing outreach, you can do coordinated entry assessments using the VI-SPDAT. It gives an opportunity for local providers to have a spot for ongoing engagement with people. If people's name come up on the housing queue, then, We actually have a place to go find them so that they can get and access to that housing. And again, this is about connecting people with medical care, And someone mentioned earlier about environmental work out on the Bay, doing cleanup, employment opportunities. That's really what Downtown Streets team is. It's an employment program. So for all the people that are coming through the program, they really intend to try to get them involved in their workforce training programs as well. And most importantly, all of this information is being tracked in the county's HMIS data system, which is really how we're going to be able to assess the impact across the entire community. So again, the timing, they've got the units, they've been hiring, they've been training staff. The soft launch is next Friday, I believe. San Rafael's mayor is pledged to be the first shower, so that should be a fun experience. But the idea is to really start rolling out to the different pilot sites over February and March. And over this time, you might have heard, the Ritter Center is going through some changes. so they'll start to draw down some of their services as we start to scale up the mobile shower program. And then our goal is by June, July, or over the summer, that we'll actually be able to fully in service at the Ritter Center, and the mobile shower program will be fully up and running across the community. So in terms of pilot sites, we have two pilot sites in Novato, one at the Marin Community Clinics site and then one at the Downtown Street Steam office, which is basically adjacent to the Homer Bound property up there. And so they're going to be actually able to provide showers five days a week. Right now in San Rafael, we're working with the county to provide showers at the Health and Wellness Campus while there's still showers over at Ritter. And we're working to hopefully scale up additional showers in San Rafael over time. And then a call to action, you know, whether you want to discuss it tonight, I'd be happy to, you know, weigh in or at another time, is we're really looking to match these five days a week, hopefully, in each of these other jurisdictions with some sort of rotation in Southern Marin. So Karen and I have been going around having conversations with the city of Fairfax. We were just there, I guess it was last week, at their council doing a presentation. We've been meeting with the city managers in Larxburg and Corte Madera, and their councils are having these discussions. I've reached out to Marin City Health and Wellness. Obviously, we're talking tonight. And then, of course, you all are very familiar with the rotating lunch program. So I think there's also potential to do one of the shower services in Mill Valley. So that's a potential way to structure this moving forward. And just to pause here, just because I'm sure this might come up, just so you know how it worked, especially in Novato, the showers are very flexible. So you can take water there, or they also have a silent generator that they can use as well for power, but ideally they're looking for sites that have water and power hookups. And so the way that worked was we originally came up with four or five different sites, and then the council weighed in, we went back, revised the plan, and then they approved a final site based on that initial list. So it was a series of months to get to that point. Um, In terms of funding, so as I mentioned, the actual capital costs of the program were funded by the Marine Community Foundation through a $120,000 grant. In terms of the operating costs, the Community Homeless Fund, which has been funding the REST program or partly funding the REST program over the last three years. Ashley's going to touch on this more, but we used some funding from that to get this kind of first year of operations off the ground. We received some additional funding from MCF. And then they, the streets team, did some fundraising with Quest Church and some of the other faith-based organizations in Novato. And then you can see EO Products has had an extremely generous donation to provide all the soap and different hygiene products for the program. And the idea is that once we get more data about how it's impacting people's health, then we can go get bigger sponsorships and partnerships from the local hospitals. So that seems like a really good way to get more sustainable funding as well. So, oh, and then I should mention, we donated one of our pickup trucks from the police department, and the city of Larkspur also donated a truck to haul the units. And this is a better perspective, you can see kind of get a sense of the size of the unit. So with that, I'm gonna turn it back over to Ashley to talk about the Community Homeless Fund and the implications potentially moving forward. |
| 00:43:16.97 | Ashley Hart McIntyre | Thank you. So you all contributed to the Community Homeless Fund, I think it was about three years ago, roughly. All of the different cities and towns in Marin County participated, and it generated $180,000 per year. And historically, that funded REST, and then it also, as Andrew mentioned, funded the startup of the mobile shower program. Now, that Community Homeless Fund is set to expire this fiscal year. So we are asking for a continuation of the Community Homeless Fund. We would like to see the same contribution from all of the different cities and towns in Marin to fund the mobile showers going forward. And the reason we're asking specifically for a contribution to the mobile showers as opposed to a lot of other worthwhile pursuits, I'll go into it in a little bit more detail. So as I think you can... I get the sense from the rest of what we talked about this evening that we're really working to orient our entire system of care around permanent housing for the people who need it the most. However, we still recognize that people have emergency needs. People have the need for emergency shelter and food and hygiene services like showers and clothing and things like that. Our current work to meet emergency needs includes, I think it's 110 emergency shelter beds in the county between Mill Street in downtown San Rafael, or in the canal, rather, and New Beginning Center up in Novato, and those are funded by Marin County. And that's in addition to the REST program, which, as you know, is sunsetting this year. We're also funding homeless prevention and rapid rehousing with state funds, federal funds, and local Marin County dollars for people who need less assistance, maybe just a little bit of assistance to stay in their homes or to return to housing quickly. We're funding employment programs, like Andrew mentioned, through the Downtown Streets team, and then also Health and Human Services operates the Marin Employment Connection through our employment and training branch. And there are many food banks and meal programs, as you know, throughout Marin County. However, so our biggest need is really housing. We need permanent housing more than anything. But as you can see here, permanent housing is very expensive. So that's why we're working with the MCHAT group to fund permanent housing on a larger scale, because it's not practical to ask each city council to contribute $500,000, for example, to build one new unit of housing. So the second need that we've identified is outreach, really to bring people into the system, to engage them, to build trust, and to help bring people in off the streets into the existing permanent housing that we have. We think that the emergency system of care is ideally geared toward bringing people out of that emergency mindset, that survival mode, into a long-term planning system. to bring people back into permanent housing as quickly as possible. We're looking at the mobile showers as a fantastic engagement opportunity for folks. No one using the mobile showers would be required to enter permanent housing, but it's a way to start that conversation with folks and see them on a regular basis for people who may not come into our regular services on a regular basis. I think that was everything I wanted to say. Andrew, is there anything else you wanted to add? Perfect. Thank you very much, and we'd be happy to answer any questions you have. |
| 00:46:45.99 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | What was Sausalito's contribution? over the for the three year period that is ending this year. You said it was 180K altogether, but how much did the city of Sausalito contribute? |
| 00:47:00.53 | Adam Politzer | I think it was $30,000 for the three years. I'm pretty sure it was $30,000 for the total. |
| 00:47:09.01 | Unknown | No. Sounds right. Okay. |
| 00:47:13.48 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Okay, questions of staff? |
| 00:47:19.00 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | I have a couple if no one else does. |
| 00:47:22.74 | Unknown | I'll go. I believe last year we talked about homeless moving. and some moving into the community, and it looks like a lot of this... assessment, you know now within the county who's here and if people came in, And I guess looking at the VISBAT numbers, VISBAT-D-D-D-D-D-D-D. Yeah. |
| 00:47:46.01 | Ashley Hart McIntyre | The FBI Spanak. Assessment. |
| 00:47:50.03 | Unknown | THE END OF THE END OF THE Is it a certain level are they no longer able to move county to county? Like at 13, 14, 15 are they more set in their space and they are the highest assessed risk anyway? |
| 00:48:03.66 | Ashley Hart McIntyre | We found that most of the folks who are scoring at the very top of the range are people who are from Marin or who lived here before they lost their housing. Most folks, as their acuity gets higher and higher, the less likely they are to travel between communities. That's right. |
| 00:48:10.57 | Unknown | Okay. |
| 00:48:10.90 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:48:17.54 | Unknown | That's right. Thank you. |
| 00:48:19.70 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Since your VI SPDAT assessment, incorporates the how likely someone is to die unhoused. For our anchor outs, do you include the danger of them living on the water? in unnavigable boats and being unable to navigate those boats in storms and wintry weather. Do you include that on your continuum of risk factors in the VI-SPDAT assessment? |
| 00:48:55.96 | Ashley Hart McIntyre | I'm glad you asked that. The VA SPADAT is actually a packaged tool. It's evidence-based. It's being used in communities across the country. Probably 85 or 90 percent of the communities who have implemented coordinated entry are using the same tool. So no, that tool does not specifically include extra points for people in an anchor out situation. primarily because the anchor out situation is really very rare. But we are currently working on a second layer of assessment for folks who are in that 10 plus permanent supportive housing bucket. Once you take the VI-SVIDAT, you score a 10 or above, we're going to drill down a little bit more to look at how vulnerable you are and prioritize with a little more finesse. And one of the things we're looking at, so we're looking at different medical conditions, behavioral health conditions, history of domestic violence. And one of the things that we're considering adding to that is living in an anchor out situation. |
| 00:49:55.29 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Now, you said living in an anchor out situation is rare. Are you talking nationally or are you talking nationally? Because obviously locally it is not rare. |
| 00:50:02.04 | Ashley Hart McIntyre | NATIONALLY, YEAH. No, locally it's not rare, but nationally it is. We are not entirely unique, but close. |
| 00:50:11.32 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Okay, and then at the beginning of the presentation, uh, You talked about the... Homelessness builds complacency in homelessness and normalizes an otherwise abnormal experience. How do you, Um, How do you balance that tendency with the mobile showers program? How do you prevent the provision of mobile showers from building complacency and homelessness? |
| 00:50:48.40 | Andrew Henning | It's a really good question. I mean, I think one of the things that our outreach teams are trying to do, I mean, this isn't anything new. It's something they're always trying to do, is really use a process called motivational interviewing to help get people to start to even just take small steps towards achieving kind of different outcomes throughout their day-to-day life. So I think really for us, we're viewing the showers as a way to create opportunities for continued interaction with individuals so you can have that kind of follow up on a pretty regular basis. So I'll give you a good example. I mean, I used to do outreach. So one of the things we would do is every time you would encounter someone, you would say, hey, why don't you go apply to this job? Or if you don't have a resume, why don't you go up to Marine Employment Connection and meet with someone? And then you would talk through what that would mean and how they would go about doing that and what are their barriers. And then by having that repeated engagement opportunity a couple days later, you could then follow up with that person, talked about what went wrong or if it was a success, you can build on that and that. That's what's been kind of missing now. I mean, again, I think probably across the entire county, is that we just don't have that regular engagement really, except for at some of the major service centers. So by, I think, having the showers and being able to pair that with outreach and all these other resources, we can continue to build that sort of motivation into a situation that doesn't currently exist. |
| 00:52:15.44 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | So I think you were at the presentation last year at the MCCMC homelessness meeting where we heard from a preeminent expert who said that it's useless to provide all these services. It really needs to be housing first. Do you remember that presentation? I've forgotten his name. |
| 00:52:34.02 | Andrew Henning | Was that Ian? |
| 00:52:34.56 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 00:52:35.13 | Unknown | . |
| 00:52:35.39 | Andrew Henning | Yeah. |
| 00:52:35.40 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Yeah. |
| 00:52:35.89 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:52:36.03 | David Suto | AND I THINK IT'S A GREAT |
| 00:52:36.45 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:52:36.58 | David Suto | Thank you. |
| 00:52:36.67 | Unknown | Thank you. the director of Health and Human Services for, sorry, |
| 00:52:38.24 | David Suto | Yeah. |
| 00:52:41.80 | David Suto | I think it was the director of Health and Human Services for Marin County. Now, |
| 00:52:45.04 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | No, it wasn't Grant. It was not Grant. No, this was. Was it at the Civic Center? Yeah. Yes. Long-haired guy. |
| 00:52:46.27 | David Suto | It was not grant. |
| 00:52:47.59 | Andrew Henning | Thank you. Wasn't that the Civic Center? |
| 00:52:51.10 | Ashley Hart McIntyre | Yes. Yes. Uses profanity. Yeah. |
| 00:52:54.49 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Yeah. you So his philosophy is that all these other services do and all this outreach is useless until someone actually has a home base. And so housing first is the approach. So can you please address this tension between wanting to have contact with with this housing first approach. |
| 00:53:26.92 | Ashley Hart McIntyre | Sure, so I'll start and then Andrew, you can chime in. |
| 00:53:29.23 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Yeah. |
| 00:53:29.39 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 00:53:30.91 | Ashley Hart McIntyre | So we absolutely are, we have adopted, the Board of Supervisors has adopted Housing First as a priority. We're implementing Housing First across our system of care. Our Coordinated Entry Program is operating on a Housing First basis. We absolutely, completely believe that housing is the solution to homelessness. And no, you're right, that providing services to people on the street in a vacuum is not actually going to solve the homelessness problem, which is why we're looking at things like the mobile showers services really as primarily an engagement opportunity, an opportunity to get somebody's immediate needs met, to build a little bit of trust, to help break that mindset of normalized homelessness, so that we can bring people into housing. We're not expecting people to find employment while they're unhoused, to get sober while they're unhoused. Really, it's just an opportunity to come in, get a shower, start talking about the process of housing, start considering what you might like out of a housing opportunity, to get an assessment done, to get on our list. And then when your name comes up at the top of the list and there's a unit for you, you're ready to accept it. You're in a frame of mind where you can make that transition into housing, at which point you can focus on longer-term goals. Like for some folks, it might be some... for you, you're ready to accept it. You're in a frame of mind where you can make that transition into housing, at which point you can focus on longer term goals. Like for some folks, it might be sobriety or employment. |
| 00:54:47.33 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Okay, I think this is my last question. So we've already done outreach. We did a garbage collection program on the water last year. We had a caseworker on the boat. We identified folks who want to come out of the water, but there's no housing available for them because they're not high enough on your VI SPDAT assessment. And so... |
| 00:54:47.38 | Ashley Hart McIntyre | Okay. Thank you. |
| 00:55:12.51 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | are you not premature in doing all of this coordinated outreach when you don't yet have the housing stock to offer to the people who actually want housing? |
| 00:55:23.53 | Andrew Henning | Well, I would say it kind of merges with the last question too. One thing that Ian talks about, we went to a training of his up in Santa Rosa. He kind of really urges this difference between type one and type two outreach and he uses, I think, coarser language for this. But it's sort of this idea that there are some people, I think the Council Member Burns' question earlier, that are kind of more in a transient sort of situation. And so he recommends that it's important for communities to be very mindful and to personalize who's homeless in your community because For those individuals, you want to let them continue to to transition. without getting them caught into these services that might not be beneficial, but for people that you know are long-term residents of the community and clearly they're not going anywhere, this is really something that we need to figure this out for them, he really recommends providing targeted outreach to these individuals. So my impression is that, I think the one-off events are great. And again, just a personal experience, when I first came out here, I was running Project Homeless Connect in Santa Clara County. And that's all that event is, is one-time, one-day outreach events. And we had a lot of caseworkers there. And it was really positive. But I think for, again, these folks that have more long-term challenges, you need more ongoing, regular outreach. I think that's super critical. And then the other piece of that is when you build these long-term relationships with people or you have a platform to build those relationships, then you can also check through a number of other options beyond just, you know, permanent supportive housing. And I think that's really what we're trying to move towards is to have a way for outreach workers to go out and then build those relationships and then really run through the gamut of opportunities to get someone back into housing because that can mean, you know, reevaluating a relationship with a family member or a former friend that maybe that person feels like is frayed, but over the course of a number of conversations, you could encourage them to rebuild and mend that relationship and that could be a housing opportunity. So it's just something that it takes time to build those relationships. |
| 00:57:21.79 | Ashley Hart McIntyre | And I can speak specifically to the garbage collection event, which I thought was a really great first outreach step. But a lot of the folks who were approached for the assessment during that event refused. And that's totally commensurate with our experience with outreach and this assessment. The folks who are the highest in need tend to be the hardest to engage. And it takes, as Andrew said, repeated engagements and a relationship of trust before some folks are willing to answer some of the questions on the assessment because frankly, some of them are pretty personal and you're not likely to just answer those questions for anybody who comes in off the street. That's why we really view the showers as an essential engagement opportunity. Thank you. |
| 00:58:02.47 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | THE FAMILY. |
| 00:58:02.66 | Ashley Hart McIntyre | Bye. |
| 00:58:04.53 | Unknown | Thanks for that presentation. I've been following all of your good work since really you started it. Is there, I'm presuming we're not the first community, I mean, Marin County, the first community to adopt, use mobile showers as this entree into services and housing. Okay. Is there some good, published, sort of fairly rigorous studies that shows the efficacy of that approach is there sort of academic work on this now |
| 00:58:46.01 | Andrew Henning | The President Trump's question. |
| 00:58:47.34 | Ashley Hart McIntyre | I'm not aware of any studies specific to mobile outreach. can likely find some information on on outreach best practices in general, if that would answer your need. |
| 00:59:01.40 | Unknown | Yeah, I was just wondering if there happened to be anything specific on showers. Yeah, not. |
| 00:59:05.20 | Ashley Hart McIntyre | Yeah, not that I'm aware of, but really showers are just the tool. It might be anything. It could be anything from a food pantry to backpack medicine. Folks can go out like a nurse practitioner and serve people in the community. |
| 00:59:13.70 | Unknown | Yeah. practitioner and certain people Thank you. Thank you. And so presumably through this effort, you're going to be able to possibly track the efficacy of this. I use efficacy. I mean the efficiency with which you can achieve these goals of using it as a sort of port of entry, so to speak. |
| 00:59:35.99 | Andrew Henning | Definitely, yeah. And one of the measures that we're enacting through the process with Novato is that we're trying to track utilization based on each site and then measure are people moving between sites. Because the goal is really to take the service to where people are. And so if we find that there's a lot of movement, then something's not really working correctly. So that's something that will be revealed throughout the course of this year-long pilot. |
| 01:00:04.16 | David Suto | Any other questions? Yeah, I have some follow up questions based on. very good questions that have already been asked by our council members. So, Ashley, I wanted to go back to this multiplier idea for people that are living on the water and want to transition out. And so you said that you're considering that, but I want to ask specifically, how soon do you think you can get that into place and what do you need from us? What information do you need from us to give to you? I mean, we have very clear evidence that these people are at risk, especially the people that don't aren't boat handlers and don't understand how to live on the water. I mean, we've had deaths in Sausalito for that very reason. So I'm having, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm, Uh, I WOULD LIKE TO know how fast we can move on that. And when someone, you know, I know that when they did the outreach, at least two people self-identified as willing to move off the water that lived on the water. And so as part of our efforts in Sausalito at better management and safety on the water, we'd like to be able to respond to that in a timely way. So, and as far as I know, they haven't been able to move off the water. |
| 01:01:09.25 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 01:01:09.62 | Ashley Hart McIntyre | No. |
| 01:01:10.19 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | And just to add on, not only are they at risk, they put our public safety personnel at risk. Because our public safety personnel are deployed in the middle of the night in stormy, rough waters to rescue these people who are at risk. |
| 01:01:27.37 | Ashley Hart McIntyre | Absolutely. So as to a time frame, we've just begun these conversations. We're starting with the medical and behavioral health side of things. And then we'll branch out just a little bit. We're really hoping to have a preliminary formula in place, hopefully by the end of April. We're operating on a. Let's try it and see if it works and reevaluate philosophy. So we'd rather have something in place soon and test drive it and then fix it later on. So hopefully this spring we'll have something. And then the remainder of your question was, oh, so I know also that there are some folks who are out on the water who are, skilled at being out there and others who are not. So we don't want to lump everybody into the same into the same pool. So I think it's gonna, it'll take some conversations probably with the folks who are living out there, as well as we've been working with Chief Rohrabacher and with Adam, and we'll continue to do so to really help drill down |
| 01:02:16.54 | Unknown | Thank you. Yeah. |
| 01:02:29.62 | Ashley Hart McIntyre | how to distinguish between the different populations of folks living on the water. |
| 01:02:33.27 | David Suto | I appreciate your answer, but I think the urgency is now. It's not in April. I mean, we're in the middle of a storm season, and you and I talked in December about a very specific event that was ongoing at that day, literally that day, of somebody who needed to transition off their boat who was an older gentleman who I believe had a disability. So, you know, I don't like to hear things like, we'd like to have more meetings and we'd like to talk some more. I really would like to have some specifics if you can give them to us here today at this meeting about when you can sit down with the city and with our representative about clear criteria for a multiplier in your assessment. So are you able to do that? Are we, I mean, I frankly don't understand why it would take months to be able to do this. We have very specific evidence of threat to people's lives who live on the water and threat to our public safety people. So if I could Thank you. to be able to do this. We have very specific evidence of threat to people's lives who live on the water and threat to our public safety people. So if I could, since you're here and you came and get a great presentation, I'm taking this opportunity to press you for action. Thank you. |
| 01:03:29.85 | Andrew Henning | Yeah, I think we- And you're always welcome. |
| 01:03:29.93 | David Suto | Yeah. And you're always welcome here in Sausalito. |
| 01:03:33.07 | Andrew Henning | Thank you. We definitely hear the urgency and the city manager and police chief have definitely conveyed it as well. I think the important thing to note is that We can't make that decision. It's a group-driven decision by the providers. So I think if we wanted really urgent action, we could almost maybe invite someone from the city to come to our next coordinated entry meeting. But it really is, the reason I think the system's going so well is that we're not making those executive decisions, we're making them as a group. |
| 01:03:57.61 | Ashley Hart McIntyre | Yeah, the coordinated entry is being run by a steering committee that includes representatives from St. Vincent de Paul, from Homeward Bound, from the city of San Rafael, from the county. It's a collaborative of different folks who are... impacted by the system. So we can't just unilaterally make a decision like that. But I agree with Andrew. We'd be happy to have somebody come and speak to us. We meet weekly. |
| 01:04:15.78 | Unknown | I'm not. |
| 01:04:19.55 | Ashley Hart McIntyre | We're moving very quickly, and this system is brand new. We just started in October, and we're realizing that our assessment system is not actually capturing the vulnerability of folks who are here in Marin, so we're already retrenching and reevaluating. |
| 01:04:33.45 | David Suto | So what I'm hearing is an invitation from the city of Sausalito to come to your next assessment meeting. And, you know, we're not asking for a lot. I mean, my sense is we're probably talking about maybe three to five people. Yeah. And so that doesn't seem to me to be insurmountable in the level of risk that these people experience, you know, by virtue of living on the water right now in the middle of storm season. So that's good. Thank you very much for that. Okay, I have a couple of other follow-up questions. That's okay. This will be an easy one. I think. So I was very happy to hear, I believe our city manager told me that you had, or someone on your team had, been engaged to go out and talk to landlords to bring in more units. Can you give us a sense of that effort and how many units you've been able to bring online as transitional units? I think that was a very good News. |
| 01:05:29.38 | Ashley Hart McIntyre | Sure. So Health and Human Services has been funding for the last, I believe, 18 months a housing locator position at Marin Housing Authority. And she is not a social worker. She's actually a real estate professional. So she speaks landlord. And she's been extraordinarily successful. And since it's not my program, I can't speak specifically to how many units she's brought in. Andrew, do you happen to remember how many landlords? |
| 01:05:50.77 | Andrew Henning | 82. |
| 01:05:51.99 | Ashley Hart McIntyre | In a year? A year. Yeah. That's great. |
| 01:05:52.93 | Andrew Henning | A year. |
| 01:05:55.65 | Ashley Hart McIntyre | She's amazing. And we actually are in a situation now where we have more units available and ready to place people in. And then we have people who have the documents in order to place in the units. So that's a fantastic problem to have. |
| 01:05:55.68 | Andrew Henning | She's amazing That's huge |
| 01:05:56.76 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:06:04.19 | David Suto | THE DEMO. |
| 01:06:08.26 | David Suto | Fantastic. Great. Okay. |
| 01:06:15.93 | David Suto | I think those are all my questions right now. Thanks very much. |
| 01:06:20.20 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Other questions? All right, I'm gonna open it up to public comment. Paul Mowry. |
| 01:06:28.17 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Just a clarification. Those units, they're not supportive units. |
| 01:06:32.18 | Unknown | Hi, I'm Paul Mowry, pastor of the Sausalito Presbyterian Church. And just trying to say a lot of things here. It's so amazing this came up today because on Sunday in my church we have period in the service where after the sermon, the congregation, anyone in the congregation can join in the conversation, whatever the sermon was about. And somebody, it was relevant to the topic, somebody stood up who's been a resident of Sausalito since the 1950s and shared a story about Sausalito Presbyterian Church in the 1960s when the pastor there, David Jacobson, had opened the doors to the sanctuary and to our fellowship hall for anybody who was in Sausalito and homeless. He told it in a very folksy kind of funny way, and he said, you know, after several weeks, we found that it wasn't really working out, that their hygiene level was different from ours, and, you know, it became a conflict. And the way he told it, there was laughter, and that was sort of the end of the story. A few more people spoke, and then this woman spoke from the back of the congregation, from the back of the sanctuary, And she's somebody who is a mariner who lives on the water. And the guy who had first spoken said that, he said, you know, life on the water, it's easy. You don't have to pay taxes. You're off the grid. She said, you know, it's really not easy. And she said, you know, and it's also, you know, a lot of people aren't comfortable with the level of hygiene, but there's no place to take a shower. You know, these are certain basic human things, you know, that are unavailable, very hard to do. People sponge bathe in our bathrooms because we have a Wednesday lunch that people come to. And so the relevancy of this is so, so immediate. And I wanted to say it's such a complex issue. And when I first came here and we were doing our Wednesday lunches and I walked in and I thought full employment for everybody in two years, this is going to be great. And I saw that this is not a monolith community. And when we talk about the needs, when we talk about the ideologies, and when we just talk about the living situations, it's very, very complex. And so it requires a very complex response. And I think part of that complexity is, you know, we say, is it housing first or showers? You know what? We have to do all of these things. We have to do all these things and figure out how to do them quickly and appropriately. I think the showers, are so key because if I would have made up my own sort of cyclical chart, when you're walking around the community and your clothes are dirty and you smell, then people look at you a certain way or look through you in a certain way. And then that reflects on how you're feeling as you move through the community. And it becomes this, you know, it becomes a real negative, self-fulfilling cycle. And actually, it sounds simple, but a child can make a big difference to someone. Thank you. |
| 01:09:34.94 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you, Mr. Mowry. Thank you. Mm-hmm. Peter Romanowski. |
| 01:09:42.94 | Peter Romanowski | Was he first? |
| 01:09:44.41 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Peter Romanowski, you're my next speaker card. |
| 01:09:47.01 | Peter Romanowski | Oh, yeah. Put that off over the camera. Peter Romanowski, pastor of our Waterfront Community Church, which meets every Sunday from 11 to 3 at the Senior Center. AND, UM, half of us are seniors. It's the only place us seniors have to go. We have no other place to go except people hang out at the park, you know. And the police are constantly being called down to the park. over whatever. And since. We started having our services, we have a. a dinner program. Which I've been paying out of my pocket for two years now. I'm on social security. And I also get disability. So it's only 1,000 a month, 1,012. And out of that, At what money I could raise playing my guitar, our bill is sometimes $900 a month. The food alone, $500 a month, which out of my pocket, I haven't been able to get the social police to give a donation. One gave a dollar. Instead, whenever somebody calls the police on some homeless person that's already intoxicated and comes to our church and... AND, AND, The police come and people call and quality of life stuff. And the police say... You know what? Peter and the church is the problem. And I say, the church isn't the problem. It's people are the problem. Last Sunday, one of these homeless people panhandles in front of 7-Eleven, THE BEST OF THE BEST OF THE threaten to beat me up. AND I TOLD HIM, You want to step outside, I'm not going to call the cops anymore. Because whenever they come, we're the bad guys. We're always the bad guys. So when the police came, I said, you know, you perpetuate this problem by arresting these people over and over again. I don't expect you guys to do anything. I've been around here for a long time. This is all a sham. It's a scam. You're going to weasel your way out of the shower thing. It's hopeless. All I can say as a minister is, God forbid, an earthquake come or a fire come and burn you out of your houses. And I'm just excited because I might have to cut out the food program and go down to coffee and donuts on Sunday morning and cut hours. And I'm serious that we need financial help if we're going to feed these people and we need the police to quit attacking us. They attack us on the water, they attack us in the park, They attack us in church. They come to church to arrest people? You know, it's sickening. And it's like we're living in a Nazi state. Thank you, Mr. Romanowski. God bless you. |
| 01:12:52.88 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | God bless. |
| 01:12:56.26 | Peter Romanowski | Jeff Jacob. |
| 01:12:56.97 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 01:12:56.98 | Peter Romanowski | Thank you. |
| 01:12:57.09 | Jeff Jacob | Yeah. That will not be easy to follow, Peter. I'm going to give it a try. Uh, |
| 01:13:14.60 | Jeff Jacob | I think I'll read a few stanzas from a poem called The Female Vagrant by William Wordsworth. By shore's side my father's cottage stood, The woman thus her artless story told One field, a flock, and what the neighboring floods supplied, to him were more than mines of gold. Light was my sleep. My days in transport rolled with thoughtless joy. I'd stretched along the shore. My father's nets or watched, when from the fold high over the cliffs I led my fleecy store, a dizzy depth below, His boat and his twinkling oar The sons of twenty summers danced along, ah, little marked, how fast they rolled away. Then rose a mansion, proud our woods among. And cottage after cottage owned its sway, no joy to see a neighboring house or stray through pastures, not his own, the master took away. My father dared his greedy wish gain say, he loved his old hereditary nook. And ill could I the thought of such sad parting brook. But when he had refused the proffered gold, to cruel injuries he became a prey. So are traversed in whatever he bought and sold. His troubles grew upon him day by day, till all his substance fell into decay. His little range of water was denied, all but the bed where his old body lay. All, all was seized. And weeping side by side, we sought a home where we uninjured might abide. There has been one person from the waterfront the entire time I've been here that's gotten away. |
| 01:14:59.48 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Please speak into the microphone, Mr. Jacob Brown. |
| 01:15:01.17 | Jeff Jacob | I just to tell these people so they know that there is no housing here for the people. I'm a little bit leery about names and personal questions being asked. Those can be used in lots of different ways. |
| 01:15:17.05 | Jeff Jacob | I give showers in the park at noon on Saturdays. as well as food. And now I think it's time that we call the houseless from all over this county and the city to come here and live on the boats that are unoccupied in Sausalito. Sausalito has had its chance. to take care of a very, very few number of people with more money than any county in California. Sausalito. has not taken that chance up. It's not gonna be money that solves this problem. It's gonna be people's hearts, and people's heads. It's not gonna be money that solves this problem. It's gonna be us, And if it's not us, God will do it. |
| 01:16:04.65 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Okay, I have no more speaker cards. Did anyone else want to speak on this subject? All right, seeing none, I'll bring it back up here for discussion. As our staff report points out, this is to receive and file the report and to also give direction. A direction we could give, as mentioned during the PowerPoint presentation, is, we want Sausalito to continue to contribute, uh, $10,000 per year. Um, and if so, do we want that money to be dedicated towards homeless, uh, shop mobile showers or towards some other goal? And I'm looking at the city manager. |
| 01:16:48.61 | Adam Politzer | Yes, and Madam Mayor, I just wanted to let you know that I did get a message back from our finance director it's 11,540 that we committed for the last three years, so a little over 30. 30 seconds. |
| 01:17:02.11 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | And by way of further background, the first two years that money went to the rest program. Um... |
| 01:17:08.86 | Adam Politzer | All three years. |
| 01:17:10.11 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | actually last year MCC MC unanimously decided to divert that money from rest to the homeless to the pilot program of the mobile shower. |
| 01:17:21.84 | Adam Politzer | Yeah, just for clarification, the balance of the money. The balance of the money, correct. So there is an excess of that $180,000 for the rest program, the balance of the money went to the showers, that's correct. |
| 01:17:21.85 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Yeah. |
| 01:17:25.50 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | balance of the money, correct. |
| 01:17:33.60 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Correct, okay, so if you all want to consider that in your comments. |
| 01:17:39.89 | Unknown | Could I ask a question of, Um... Maybe... Ashley or or maybe staff, I don't know which. What's your funding cycle? So when does the current year end up, when does your new funding for the 180,000 begin? |
| 01:18:05.10 | Andrew Henning | I'm pretty sure it's in the new fiscal year. So, okay. It would start in July, July 1. |
| 01:18:08.07 | Unknown | So, okay. Okay, okay, all right, thanks. So really it's more direction from the council to the finance committee as to whether it would want to include this in the budget process. |
| 01:18:20.16 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. Exactly. |
| 01:18:20.70 | Unknown | That's why I needed that. Thank you. |
| 01:18:20.85 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. That's a great clarification. Thank you. |
| 01:18:25.59 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | And I think in the staff report it also mentioned, so I'm the representative this year to MCCM homeless or MCCMC homeless committee. So I think we also do want to give some indication at our next meeting whether Sausalito is. you know. trending towards recommending this in our budget or not, and an opinion about the showers as a possible funding tools. So obviously we won't know until we adopt the budget. and the Finance Committee is the first step there, but I think the committee is hoping for some feedback from the various cities. |
| 01:19:04.35 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | OK, I understand. I understand. OK, and I'm going to ask the city manager again, because I know this has been a topic of discussion. |
| 01:19:04.47 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Bye. |
| 01:19:04.56 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 01:19:04.61 | Adam Politzer | Thank you. |
| 01:19:04.64 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 01:19:04.67 | Adam Politzer | And I |
| 01:19:10.63 | Adam Politzer | Yeah, I think what the MCC, MC Homeless Committee, they're asking two questions, and Councilmember Susan Cleveland-Knowles I think that's a good question. Part one, part one is how do we feel about the mobile showers program? But the real question is, is Sausalito willing to continue to fund the homelessness fund regardless to the priority? If it goes towards shelters, food, clothing, whatever the other services are, they want to make sure they still have a budget of roughly $180,000 a year. The discussion of where that money goes, each council can help weigh in on that direction. But there's really a two point question, are we going to continue to fund? And if so, how do we feel about the shower program? |
| 01:19:54.03 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. THE FAMILY. |
| 01:19:55.84 | Unknown | Yeah, in light of that, thanks for the clarification about wanting some indication. I mean, I think we just say, personally, I think we just say yes, we're gonna fund this. I mean, that would be my position as of today. And I see no reason not to say that, that we should be contributing towards that 180,000 a year and just the way it is. |
| 01:20:22.08 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | And then did you want to weigh in now on whether you think that should go towards? |
| 01:20:25.45 | Unknown | I don't care. I leave it up to the discretion of the team it's going to to actually decide where it's going. I'm not going to want to micromanage that. |
| 01:20:34.80 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Who wants to go next? Yeah, I agree with Ray's approach. Okay. Anyone else? Susan? |
| 01:20:42.50 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Yeah, I just think, I mean, it was really interesting being at the last meeting, and I want to thank Ashley and Andrew for their really excellent presentation, both at the last meeting and tonight. I would really like to see Sausalito continue to fund this. This is a regional issue, and no one town can approach this issue on its own, and I think this kind of regional countywide effort is fantastic. I also think it's a very modest amount of money for Sausalito with a much bigger opportunity to have an impact if we join with the other cities and counties. And, you know, I think on some of the questions, I think the staff has made a great case for the fact that that mobile showers are a way to do really good outreach. I also think, you know, regardless of whether there's data to support how good that is, as Paul Mowry said, you know, it's an issue of dignity. It's an issue of public health. And it's, you know, even if it isn't successful or as successful as we'd all hope, I think it's definitely something that people would appreciate. So I'm very supportive, you know, for the small dollar. I think it has a high reward. And, you know, I'd like the council's support to go forward. |
| 01:21:55.73 | Unknown | THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 01:22:06.38 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | I agree with my fellow council members. I do want to acknowledge Andrew and Ashley for a great presentation and for coming back this year. We gave you a hard time last year, then we gave you a hard time this year, and you keep coming back, and we do greatly appreciate your efforts on what is really a regional issue. I also want to thank our Chief Rohrbrocker and our police department for being both strategic and proactive in reaching out on numerous occasions, including the garbage collection efforts that I mentioned, but numerous other occasions as well, to be in contact with, to inventory, and to address issues for our homeless population on our streets and on our waters. I also support this funding, the continuation of this funding from the city of Sausalito. I like the idea of mobile showers so long as they are operated in conjunction with coordinated entry. And I think if Sausalito is going to continue to contribute to this effort, that I think that this VI SPDAT criteria really needs to be updated to reflect Sausalito is going to continue to contribute to this effort, that I think that this VI SPDAT criteria really needs to be updated to reflect Sausalito's specific needs. So I would like to see that happen sooner than later. Thank you. |
| 01:23:30.64 | Unknown | Madam Mayor, could I just |
| 01:23:31.67 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Yeah. |
| 01:23:33.88 | Unknown | I need to add one more comment. Possibly stir it up a bit. So I think the finance committee and staff should basically assume the council saying, okay, let's go in and program that funding in. Okay, so that's that. But the second part of this, which Councilmember Cleveland also addressed, was the mobile showers. And I'm just going to basically state what get out there and state what i think that needs to happen and that is i think this this mobile shower program needs to be enhanced it needs to be made available throughout the whole of marin county and this city needs to work constructively with its neighbors and the county to figure out suitable sites in southern marin it's that simple. And I realize that for some is going to be controversial if in fact some of those sites are within Sausalito, but it's the only way to move the ball forward. As Reverend Mowry pointed out, this is a complex system, we've got a team in the county, San Rafael, Novato, and others working with the Homelessness Committee that's actually trying to dissect apart this complexity and doing a fantastic job. And I'm convinced that mobile showers have a role, an important role, and we should be actually embracing it. |
| 01:25:12.70 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | I agree, but I would like to proceed cautiously. If we start mobile showers here in Sausalito, I'd like to see us start them at our rotating luncheons where we already have folks coming to our luncheons. We have water. We have power. There's also a mobile dentist available. So I'd like to see, again, a coordinated entry approach on a pilot program basis if that's something we decide to do here in Sausalito. |
| 01:25:46.03 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Any other comments from council members? |
| 01:25:48.37 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Yeah, I guess I'd just like to add, it sounds like this is a future agenda item in the sense of we've got the direction, you know, an agreement on continuing to fund It seems like we've got general consensus on the shower with some um messages to the county on that. But then it seems like the next decision down the road will be, do we have the mobile shower here in Sausalito? And if so, at what location? So I think that would be. definitely something, as I understand it, maybe Ashley or Andrew can clarify, the pilot is in Novato and San Rafael right now. |
| 01:26:26.58 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:26:26.60 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | It's interesting. |
| 01:26:28.87 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | But the expectation is that if this funding continues, it would be available in other jurisdictions. |
| 01:26:34.68 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | There's a call to action for other jurisdictions. |
| 01:26:36.65 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Right, and so would that be starting in July, the new fiscal year? Is that the expectation? |
| 01:26:42.90 | Andrew Henning | Well, it's basically ready to go right now. So it's really just a question of how soon other jurisdictions would want to host it. So I'm more than happy to work with the city manager, figure out a date that works to come back. I can bring, have Karen Strolia, who's the project manager with the Streets team, come. And then give more of a kind of an operational rundown of how does it actually work and some more of the specifics. And if it's, what I'm hearing is it sounds like there's interest in trying to combine a potential site with the lunch program. So we could go meet with a different host of that program, kind of vet their sites, come back and do more of like, you know, here are your options based on these sites if that's something that you would want us to do. |
| 01:27:21.57 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Great. So. |
| 01:27:22.10 | Andrew Henning | Exactly. |
| 01:27:22.42 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Bye. |
| 01:27:22.45 | Andrew Henning | Thank you. |
| 01:27:22.47 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 01:27:22.49 | Andrew Henning | you |
| 01:27:22.57 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. I'm going to go ahead and ask. Can I weigh in on this then? This is not on the agenda for tonight. Our direction for tonight is whether or not to continue the funding. And so I think Susan is correct. This is an item for a future agenda. |
| 01:27:23.01 | Andrew Henning | I'm going to go. Thank you. |
| 01:27:24.39 | David Suto | Thank you. |
| 01:27:24.60 | Andrew Henning | All right. |
| 01:27:24.61 | David Suto | I'm sorry. |
| 01:27:26.27 | Andrew Henning | Bye. |
| 01:27:35.92 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | And so I'm going to ask that our board clerk add this to our list of potential future agenda items. |
| 01:27:42.03 | Unknown | Can I just ask as far as a future agenda item, will we be initiating that as a one-off or will Susan come back from the homeless committee on more of a regional approach to how we implement that? I don't know. |
| 01:27:53.57 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | I don't understand the question. |
| 01:27:55.73 | Unknown | is the reach is the subcommittee going to be working with each community on how where when they might want to |
| 01:28:03.44 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | They're offering to come back and make another presentation. |
| 01:28:04.66 | Unknown | another presentation. |
| 01:28:05.60 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | us. So, well they have done a call to action to all communities. this is our response our potential response they're going to come back and speak to us about our potential |
| 01:28:15.03 | David Suto | response. Jill. So I just want to In light of all the other comments since the last time I spoke. this matter. in this meeting. So I just want to be very clear with the citizens and the residents of Sausalito that if we do address the mobile showers in Sausalito that we're going to pay very close attention to the impacts on those neighborhoods where we're talking about perhaps having these mobile showers and have public hearings on that schedule before we implement any system. before. for implementing this program. It's also taking into account what's happening in other areas in Southern Moran. |
| 01:28:52.19 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Absolutely, all we're doing now is adding this as a potential future agenda item. |
| 01:28:52.58 | David Suto | That's really important. |
| 01:28:57.07 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | ALL RIGHT. Yes. At this point, we're going to take a five-minute break. And then we'll resume. Thanks everybody. |
| 01:29:17.35 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Okay, everybody, thank you. Welcome back. We're going to move smartly on to item 6A on our agenda, consideration of an amendment to the Saucedot Municipal Code 5.12 entitled Taxi Cabs for Hire Vehicles. We'll welcome Lieutenant Stacy Gregory. |
| 01:30:00.50 | Lieutenant Stacy Gregory | Okay, Mayor, Vice Mayor, Council Members, thank you. Lieutenant Stacy Gregory and I'm here to talk to you tonight about the taxi regulations and the ordinance that we're presenting. um So taxis, as you know, are a big part of our congestion management. And we do have some taxicab drivers here tonight, and I do want to thank them for coming to the meeting. They are a very important part of our congestion management. But they're also a part that we felt that we needed to add a little bit of regulation to so we can further control the chaos that happens down there at times. So we do need to better regulate the taxi cabs. And with that is parking, the ability to solicit fares, the taxi stand operation in general, and denying fares. And so it's going to kind of regulate what they can and cannot do down there to help smoothen out the operation. It'll also give us the ability to adjust the taxi stand as we need it based on the time of year. So the existing ordinance reads that no driver or company can operate a taxicab in the city unless such operation complies with the terms and requirements of the program. The program is the Marin County Taxicab Regulation Program that's operated through the Marin General Services Authority. So there's already an existing ordinance, and I wanted to just kind of run through that so it gives a basis for what we're building on. Taxi cabs are already required to have permits through the JPA. There's a driver permit, a vehicle permit, and a company permit. All three of those permits are required. We don't issue those permits directly through the JPA. And this JPA regulates all taxis in Marin County. They test for the controlled substances, alcohol. They make sure the insurance is, the required insurance is in place. They have the standards, such as properly equipped taxicabs, what they're required to have, how they have to be maintained as far as cleanliness, and those standards. The operational requirements, they can carry a passenger from where they're picked up to their direct route, have to have their permits displayed. And the information has to be visible in their cab, such as their rates, their company's name, the permit number for their company, the driver's permit, the vehicle permit, and the taxi cab identification number. Those are already in the existing ordinance, and we do, on a regular basis, requirements are being followed. They're required to give a permit, I mean a, excuse me, receipt upon request. And again, they have to have a clean cab, free of offensive odors, and they have to have their name on the cab. It can't just be a blank car driving around town picking up fares. And it also specifies the fines, the infractions. It's kind of a sliding scale. First infractions, $100, and then we go up to $500, depending on, and then we have an option for a misdemeanor, and that would be based on the actual violation. So the proposed additions to the ordinance, we added a definition of taxicab. It wasn't in the original ordinance. So taxicab stand is now added as the area where it's designated where they can stop and pick up their fares. So that's the only place that they will be able to park and wait for a fair and actually pick up a fair other than being called to one. The schedule of rates, we revise that to make sure that they're posting the rate for the bikes because there is an extra charge for bikes, additional passengers, bridge tolls, any other sort of additional fee that would go along with their fare has to be posted. And it's specifically bikes because most of them are transporting bikes. The driver would not be able to leave their taxi cab once it's in the taxi stand. So what that's going to do is going to keep the taxi cab drivers from walking over and trying to solicit a... are fair. They will no longer be able to go to the ferry line and try to coax people to their taxi cab. The driver must obey all laws and orders in the direction of the Sausalito Police Department staff. That's police officers and our parking enforcement officers who will be doing regular inspections. And that's not a new thing. I think the relationship between the taxi cabs and the police department is pretty good. They know the requirements, they know that we're going to check on them, and they can come to us when there are issues, and they do on a regular basis. The driver shall only solicit fares from the driver's seat or while standing immediately adjacent to the taxicab. AND I THINK THAT'S A So in the taxi cab stand, the first driver is the first driver up. They can't solicit from other taxi cabs. They can't be the third cab in line and try to solicit from the first. So it's just going to kind of regulate the order and how that taxi stand operates. You can't use other people to solicit fares. The third party in the ferry line, bring them back to a cab. It can't happen, and they can't be loud and obnoxious trying to get people them back to a cab. It can't happen. And, you know, they can't be loud and, and, uh, you know, obnoxious trying to get people to come to their cab. um, And this is one we've seen a little bit is They can't refuse to transport people. So if it's a local fare that's not a bike and just wants to go to the top of the hill, they've got to take it if they're the first in line. But they can if somebody is obnoxious, intoxicated, or they feel in danger, then they can refuse that fare. And at that point, they're going to be encouraged to call us because it's probably somebody that we're going to want to chat with also. And that's it. Anybody have any questions? Thank you. |
| 01:36:39.61 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Any questions? Yeah, I had a couple questions. First of all, I just wanted to clarify the relationship between Sausalito and the county and the regulations. Did they comment on these proposed rules, or what's the interaction there? |
| 01:36:43.29 | Lieutenant Stacy Gregory | Thank you. |
| 01:36:43.39 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 01:36:57.77 | Lieutenant Stacy Gregory | With the additional? Yeah. This wouldn't affect anything from the General Services Authority. This is in addition to what is existing through their JPA. |
| 01:37:09.26 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | OK, and they don't usually get involved in local jurisdictions adding regulations. |
| 01:37:11.41 | Lieutenant Stacy Gregory | They wouldn't get involved. Local jurisdictions adding regulations. Yeah, the additions are saucy to specific. I don't think there's probably anybody else in the county that has the specific issues that we do with the ferry and the bikes and the congestion downtown. |
| 01:37:26.19 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Okay. And then I was curious, in San Francisco, many cabs operate with an app called Flywheel. It's similar to other TNC ride-hailing services. And I was just wondering if our ordinance is drafted to say a driver shall only solicit passengers from the driver's seat or while standing immediately adjacent to the taxi cab. do taxis in Moran use... A DRIVER SHALL ONLY SOLICIT PASSENGERS FROM THE DRIVER'S SEAT OR WHILE STANDING IMMEDIATELY ADJACENT TO THE TAXICAB. DO TAXIS IN MORANN US AN APP? |
| 01:37:58.81 | Lieutenant Stacy Gregory | That I don't know. It's really, what we're trying to regulate is the taxis that are waiting for the fares from the ferry and whatnot on the bikes. That doesn't mean that they can't still solicit a fare somewhere else. Somebody hails them, they can still stop and pick it up. They can still get their calls. I'm sure there's, I mean, there's probably a few different ways that they get called. So we're not trying to get in the way of that process because that process is not a problem. |
| 01:38:02.00 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Because... |
| 01:38:27.31 | Lieutenant Stacy Gregory | It's mainly keeping them from parking anywhere and leaving their vehicle parked and trying to solicit fares. Okay. This is creating the little, the order. |
| 01:38:36.78 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Okay. Thank you. Understood. And so just for discussion later, I think it could, even if taxis in Marin are not currently using an app, I think that could be anticipated to happen later. soon, potentially, and that we should just make sure this is drafted in such a way that it would not preclude that innovation if it's not happening now. I think those are my 2 questions. |
| 01:39:10.65 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Any other questions of Lieutenant Gregory? All right, seeing none, I'll open it up for public comment. I have no speaker cards. Is there anyone who'd like to speak on this? Please step forward. Thank you. We have a three minute time limit for our speakers. And your little clock is right there. |
| 01:39:27.93 | Unknown | Okay. So honorable members of the City Council, so I am one of the various taxi drivers that service Sausalito at times. I'm probably speaking informally on behalf of probably 10 other drivers in our company. We're about the third largest company and we do a lot of service in Sausalito. A lot of our drivers are immigrants and they are not, you know, good in communication and of this, you know, skills. So I've kind of taken a consensus of people in my personal company that operate here. uh i i agree with the officer here i think our relationship has gotten much better with the with law enforcement and um we're we're trying to respect one another uh at the same time taxi drivers we're trying to stay in business and conduct business and unfortunately the situation here in sausalito is this is a tourist industry we all the local people for the most part, except for very few, what they are doing is they're using Uber and Lyft when they come into town to go up to the hill to their homes. This isn't the business we're doing here. We are serving the public. We are serving people that are coming into town on bicycles and they sometimes need to get back to the city quickly or to their lunch appointment or their restaurant or their hotel. And, we just want to be able to conduct business I think we do a pretty good job of ordering ourselves in the taxi line I don't think we need more regulation to keep us strapped to our taxis where we can't we have to worry about if we're you know if we're taking too much time going to the bathroom it's just it's just going to be a rule that's going to cause more harm than good that's my personal opinion As far as the other regulations go, absolutely. We all try to follow those regulations, and we all should follow those regulations, and I personally encourage all drivers to stick with the rules, the Marin County rules. I'm not sure. One of the big problems really is In this hub where the people meet the ferry and they come downhill on the bicycles, During the summertime when the peak season is happening, when these concerns are happening by the officers here, what's going on is they're all Thank you. They're all coming down on the bikes and they're hitting that hub. And the bicycle, the bicycle The place where they're storing the bicycles are right there at the hub. So that creates madness and congestion right there. The best idea is really to take the bicycle zone and move it to where our current taxi zone is. It would actually allow even more bikes to be parked because this is either going to stabilize or get to be a bigger industry. And then put our taxi zone back where it originally was in the key position by the ferry terminal where we can conduct our business and also partake in the tourist industry here. We're going to die if nobody helps us. Nobody upstairs cares, but you folks I know can do something at least at a grassroots level for us here. Thank you for your comments. Thank you. |
| 01:42:33.15 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you for your comments. Thank you. Thank you. |
| 01:42:34.46 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:42:34.65 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 01:42:34.72 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Can I ask you? |
| 01:42:34.97 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | That's good. |
| 01:42:35.29 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Question. |
| 01:42:35.57 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | . |
| 01:42:35.66 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 01:42:35.74 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Yes, sir, do you mind stepping back to answer a question? |
| 01:42:40.32 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Okay, so you said I think you said that you objected to the new regulation about standing near your taxi cab and not leaving it unattended. Is that correct? Yes. Were there other aspects of the new regulations that you, there's a regulation for posting fares and cost of bicycle delivery. Is that something you object to? |
| 01:42:52.52 | Unknown | Yes. |
| 01:43:07.15 | Unknown | Only in the sense that it really causes more disturbance to us conducting our business than it helps any real situation. Sometimes we are in communication with each other. We're in communication with bikers. We're asked to go and gather groups and then bring them to our cars. And we can't, if we're made to stand next to our taxis, we just can't conduct business. That's the problem. |
| 01:43:33.14 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Okay, so that's the main issue that you have with this. |
| 01:43:35.11 | Unknown | That's the main issue. And also, I think there's a huge problem in that hub, in that zone, by having the bicyclists coming down the hill and being parked right there. At least if the taxis were parked along that zone, you just have taxi congestion. You don't have a bees hive of people in bicycles tripping over each other. And you know, the other thing is, is people are trying to hit those bikes. |
| 01:43:57.55 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | So, sir, thank you. I think you've answered my question, and the issue of where the taxi stand is is not actually something we're going to be talking about tonight. But thank you. That makes a lot of sense. |
| 01:44:04.83 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | I WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT. Okay, sir. |
| 01:44:13.69 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Oh, can you speak into our microphone because we are recording this meeting. |
| 01:44:17.06 | Nicholas Comins | Thank you. or My name is Nicholas Comins and I'm a cab driver. And I drive in Sausalito. And I'm concerned about what's happening in Sausalito, especially because of Uber and Lyft. since they've come into town they are stealing a lot of our business and we can't make any money They're part of a corporation. And It's been a number of weeks now and I haven't got a single call. two or three weeks in a row and the Lyft and the Uber drivers come in and they just take everything. So I'm kind of concerned for us cab drivers. If you want to keep the cab drivers in Sausalito, I suggest maybe you figure out some way to deal with Uber and Lyft. I don't know. Yeah, I've been in the taxi business for many years. I worked for Bel Air Taxi for 20 years before I started my own business and came to Sausalito. And another thing, let's see here. |
| 01:45:36.17 | Nicholas Comins | I don't know. That's pretty much all I wanted to say. |
| 01:45:41.20 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | May I ask you a question? |
| 01:45:42.52 | Nicholas Comins | Thank you. |
| 01:45:42.75 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Have you heard of the flywheel application mentioned by Councilmember Cleveland Knowles or of any similar application that taxi drivers can use to be able to compete with Uber and Lyft? |
| 01:45:55.10 | Nicholas Comins | Oh, no, I've never heard of it. I don't believe any of the other drivers are familiar with it. |
| 01:46:00.12 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Is that an app you'd be able to take advantage of? |
| 01:46:03.48 | Nicholas Comins | Uh... I don't know if that's the case or not. It's called the what now? |
| 01:46:08.13 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Flywheel. |
| 01:46:09.67 | Nicholas Comins | lie with. |
| 01:46:10.24 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. If there were an app like Uber or Lyft for taxi drivers, is that something you'd be interested in using? |
| 01:46:16.47 | Nicholas Comins | THEIR OWNERS. for weeks now, we're all just lined up, sitting there doing nothing. Of course, during the summer, everything goes ballistic. because we have all the tourists, like the man before me was telling you, all the bicycles are coming in and all the tourists are coming in, the sun's shining, and we're running around constantly during the summertime. but the rest of the year things kind of slow down. some kind of an app for the Taxi drivers would be a real great thing. Thank you. Okay. |
| 01:46:51.08 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Any other questions? |
| 01:46:52.38 | Nicholas Comins | Well, so how would I? |
| 01:46:54.23 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Well, |
| 01:46:55.33 | Nicholas Comins | THE FAMILY IS |
| 01:46:55.59 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 01:46:55.65 | Nicholas Comins | Thank you. |
| 01:46:58.42 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | I wanted to ask you that question so that we can consider that as we deliberate on this matter. |
| 01:47:05.44 | Nicholas Comins | Oh, okay. Thank you. |
| 01:47:07.26 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | THANK YOU. Any other questions? members of the public who'd like to address this item. Okay, please step forward. |
| 01:47:21.69 | Khalil | My name is Khalil and I own the Bridgeway Taxi. I work here based in Sausalito for almost three years. First thing, I would like to thank you guys for having us here and talking to the things that we're having. And I would like to thank the police department because they provide a lot of help and support for us all the time. So I just want to make it quick and go to the point for the Flywheel app. I would like to address the issues about that. I think the app, it's a very good thing to have. It will make things easier to communicate with customers and just follow the order. But one of the problems that I see between Uber, left, and taxis, and I think this is the main thing, which is the regulations. I personally love the regulations of the tax. program. because they cover all kind of stuff and they make us really organized and be right where we need to be. So, but this is cause the taxi owners, it's very expensive. The overhead, our overhead is very high. And Uber and Lyft, they don't have this much over it. I believe the problem here, it's the overhead. We have a high overhead, Uber and Lyft, they don't have that. and That's having issues on the prices. The taxi prices are a lot higher than Uber and Lyft, and this is the main point where we cannot compete with Uber and Lyft. I like the regulations because there are a lot of protections about the regulations. They protect customers, they protect drivers, they protect public. But I think we have too much regulations that we're paying too much expenses that making us not being able to compete with Uber and Lyft. So this is the main issues, which is the overhead. |
| 01:49:23.36 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. May I ask the three speakers who spoke to please write their names on speaker cards? We don't know you, so it's hard to hear your names, and we need them for our minutes. Is there any other member of the public who'd like to speak on this item? Yes, sir, please step forward. |
| 01:49:50.38 | Napui | My name's Napui. English is my second language, but I will give a shot. I've been driving a cab almost six years. I have a two cab. Everything my friend said about calves, that's true because The regulation we have is too expensive for us, and that's why we cannot complete with whatever. And it's so hard for us. We spend a lot of money by doing everything we can. And thank you for the police also taking care of the city, cab drivers. And the reason why we go inside to go bring customer just because they don't have a big sign, who show that they have a taxi who can carry bikes. They do have a sign, but the sign is too small for them to see it. That's why we always go inside to bring the customer so We can take them to anywhere they want to go. |
| 01:51:05.96 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. When you say go inside, so I have seen you in the parking lot one downtown soliciting customers. But when you say go inside, what do you mean going inside? Thanks. |
| 01:51:19.97 | Napui | Yeah, go inside, like the police said, to go solicit the tourists, to go solicit them. You're talking about lot 1. |
| 01:51:29.10 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Lot one, yeah. I've seen you. So, yeah. Okay. Thank you. |
| 01:51:30.02 | Napui | THEM. |
| 01:51:34.19 | Napui | Thank you. So that's why we go inside just to go tell them they do have a cab. We'll have a bike ride so we can take them to anywhere they want to. |
| 01:51:43.83 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | But you're not carrying a placard. You are calling out to people loudly that you have taxi service available. |
| 01:51:53.01 | Napui | We do have a sign. So we just showed them the sign, taxi, but for buy |
| 01:51:59.32 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | But you don't just hold up your sign. You actually call out loudly to them. I asked you one day to please not shout at people in the parking lot. |
| 01:52:09.80 | Unknown | Okay. |
| 01:52:10.25 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | . Thank you. |
| 01:52:13.97 | Lieutenant Stacy Gregory | So just to clarify to you, that's kind of on our whole plan as we develop what the season's going to look like, is to make sure that people who want to take the taxi as an option will know where they are, and, you know, there's going to be plenty of directional signage. |
| 01:52:16.56 | Unknown | THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 01:52:16.63 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:52:16.75 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:52:28.97 | Lieutenant Stacy Gregory | to help them feel better about people knowing where to catch them and where they are, that's all going to be taken care of in the plan. |
| 01:52:36.81 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | And will they be able to have a sign At their car when they're standing next to their car, can they hold up a sign? |
| 01:52:45.44 | Lieutenant Stacy Gregory | Well, if all goes as planned, they won't need to because there's going to be a stand and they're going to be lined up and as people come, they just funnel in. I mean, it's going to be very obvious that that's what they're |
| 01:52:58.43 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | So will the stand say taxi stand slash bicycle return? |
| 01:52:58.87 | Lieutenant Stacy Gregory | Yeah. Yes. It'll say taxi stand, and it will make sure there's a bike symbol so people know that even if they have a bike, they can still catch the cab. |
| 01:53:10.97 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Okay, thank you. Any other questions? Any other member of the public like to address this? I'm sorry. |
| 01:53:18.83 | Unknown | could I have a possibility |
| 01:53:20.98 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Sorry, we only allow three minutes per speaker. I'm going to close public comment, bring it back up here for discussion. Who would like to lead off? May I address the issue of the app. So I went ahead and added a def, I drafted a definition for our ordinance, for our draft ordinance. Solicit means approaching or hailing passengers through personal contact, either by the taxi driver or by a colleague of the taxi driver, solicit does not include the use of mobile software programs such as Flywheel. Thank you. |
| 01:54:01.00 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | That satisfies my issue. So thank you very much. Yes. And I can provide the lieutenant with just some basic information on Flywheel. You know, there's a company in San Francisco, so I don't think... outside of that jurisdiction, they might be able to use it, but at least it would be a model, perhaps, that Marin County might want to look at. It's been helpful, I think, for the taxi industry. I can comment. |
| 01:54:31.70 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Sure. |
| 01:54:33.69 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | I'm a big supporter of the cab industry. I'm not a very frequent user of Uber and Lyft if I can find a cab. So I really would like to support the taxi industry where possible. And I'd really like to see a vibrant taxi industry remain in Sausalito. I'm probably one of those annoying people who does take one of your cabs up the hill occasionally late at night on a short ride, not very far, but I really appreciate it when I can. And I am also cognizant of the decline of the taxi industry with the heavy competition and over subsidies being provided by ride hailing services. And so, you know, the taxi cab industry is already vis-a-vis TMCs, Uber and Lyft, is very heavily regulated. So I'm really sensitive to that difference in the playing field. That said, it looks like our police department and our legislative committee have tried to narrowly tailor some additional regulations for Sausalito, but I would really like to make sure that they're not overly burdensome to the extent that they, you know, harm harm the industry here so i'm cautious about it but i'll be supportive i trust that everyone's taken these concerns into account i'm really happy to hear that there will be some also some proactive measures like additional signage and directional help because it is a really confusing area and it's not really clear where to go so I kind of like to just take a look back at this after we have our new bike services and congestion management plan in maybe another year or two and just make sure that these regulations are serving their purpose and what we are trying to achieve. So I'm generally supportive, but I'm also a little cautious in over-regulating this very challenged industry. Who would like? |
| 01:56:43.97 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | to go next. |
| 01:56:45.13 | Unknown | I will, really a lot of the same comments. I appreciate everybody coming tonight and I appreciate the way the lieutenant started with Europe. You're a big part, the tax industry is a big part of the solution to our congestion management problem. And then the way she ended it as well with, it's a bigger plan and looking for ways to bring exposure to the taxi stand. As commissioner, why do I keep calling you commissioner? Thank you. THE END OF Bye. As Councilmember Susan Cleveland-Knowles said, |
| 01:57:16.33 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | As Councilmember Susan Cleaver. the Commissioners. |
| 01:57:20.26 | Unknown | I wish your industry didn't have the explosion it did with the shared economy of Lyft and Uber, because you do play such an important role in the large cities that you have in our congestion management. So one of the first things I did reading through here was, you know, with the eyes of how is it going to impact you, and do these things impact you? And I think for me, and possibly up here as well, I don't think these things are going to impact your business. I'm sorry, you do have a challenge to your business. The bigger message, I think, is you are a part of the solution for us. We appreciate you. I've seen all of you guys out there working, sometimes hailing, and I'm not hailing, but soliciting. But I've seen you actually help with the line. I remember being out there one time where you said this is where you need to stand and helped when we didn't have other staff out there. So I know you play an important role. And I don't think these changes will interfere with that process. So I do support where we're going with this, but I wanted to make sure that you knew that we do support your efforts in what we're trying to do here with congestion management. Thanks. |
| 01:58:32.96 | David Suto | Joe? No, I had a hand in drafting, so I'm good. |
| 01:58:36.64 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | That's true. |
| 01:58:39.07 | David Suto | Right? |
| 01:58:40.23 | Unknown | Yeah, I thought this was actually pretty well done. fairly restrained So I think it was good, because it's a balancing act of trying to find the right level of regulation to get the job done. And remember, what we're trying to do is needing to feel we need to put some regulations on because of the congestion management challenges. And I think I support what we've done here. |
| 01:59:13.06 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | I agree with my fellow Council members. I also want to thank Lieutenant Stacy Gregory for the thorough report and for acknowledging the importance of taxis here in Sausalito. And I agree with, um, Councilmember Cleveland Knowles, in supporting the taxi industry, I would like to suggest having our ambassadors empowered to direct people to taxis that have the ability for bike return, if that's something they're seeking. So in addition to the signage, I'd like to have our ambassadors briefed about the availability of taxis, because as people are queuing up, they're worried about their place in line. They're not always that observant of their surroundings. I don't think that needs to go in the ordinance. That's just a recommendation. I endorse having a defined taxi cab location and not having drivers solicit fares. It's, again, people who are confused or worried about their place in line aren't always as receptive as they might be to being approached by spotters for taxis. I endorse having specified charges for transporting bikes and not allowing taxis to refuse fares unless the passenger is Um, disorderly or threatening. um, I'm gonna go ahead and make a motion. Can we amend the ordinance and still have first reading this evening? Okay, so I'm going to move that we wave first reading, read by title only, and introduce an ordinance of the City Council of the City of Sausalito amending Chapter 5.12 of the Sausalito Municipal Code entitled Taxi Cabs for Hire Vehicles. With the revision that we add a definition to the draft ordinance, the definition of solicit means approaching or hailing prospective passengers through personal contact, either by the taxi driver or by a colleague of the taxi driver. Solicit does not include the use of a mobile software program such as Flywheel. |
| 02:01:29.27 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | All in favor? Aye. Aye. That motion carries 5-0. Thank you. |
| 02:01:30.72 | Unknown | Aye. |
| 02:01:35.55 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Can you pass that over to the city? I work. |
| 02:01:42.53 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Okay, with that we're going to move smartly on to public hearing item 6B, introduction of ordinance establishing regulations for unmanned aircraft systems, aka drones, and we will hear from another police lieutenant, Bill Frost. |
| 02:02:23.49 | Bill Fruss | Good evening, Madam Mayor. Mr. Vice Mayor. Council members and city staff. I am lieutenant Bill Fruss and tonight I will be speaking of unmanned aircraft systems or drones for short because I'm going to get tired of saying that long three-word phrase very quickly. I'm going to talk about Drones were once actually homemade, a hobby, very rare, because they were very expensive. We didn't see many of them out there. And because they were rare and very expensive, that limited the amount of drones that were in circulation. However, in the early 2010s, Major manufacturing companies started producing drones. And this actually caused a dramatic explosion of drones into the market. because as the price went down, The everyday person could actually afford to buy one And? It was something that was cool, something that was different. something they could buy at Costco or any small he's a place that sold interesting things. So they picked them up. A perfect example was in the holiday season of 2015. 2.1 million drones were purchased. That's a very short period of time for a whole lot of devices to be going out. Well, what happened was once was a niche or a hobby community aspect that kind of were very good at self-policing themselves. dramatically grew to a point where jurisdictions started thinking we have to have some regulations. And it wasn't... major states that were talking about it it was individual small jurisdictions that were saying we're beginning to see these all over the place we need to regulate these However, there's a dilemma regarding jurisdiction. If things are flying in the air, usually that falls under the FAA. They don't want our navigable airspace to have so many different roles that if one person is flying from one area. of the country or the state to another, they're going to be crewing into 25 different jurisdictional areas with 25 different rules. So the US Congress has stated navigable airspace is controlled by the FAA, and they set those standards. However, navigable airspace is anything that is above 400 feet. California has considered passing laws to regulate drones. that are operating in non-navigable airspace. However, California has yet to pass these rules. One of the tricks, though, is while FAA has guidelines for individuals that are operating in navigable or non-navigable space They are guidelines. They're not criminally enforceable. could threaten to have someone's pilot's license taken away if they're truly a pilot but they can't do anything on the criminal nature Because of all these different issues, That is why numerous jurisdictions and municipalities throughout the United States have been passing ordinances to regulate drones. |
| 02:05:42.01 | Bill Fruss | couple guidelines that the FAA has put out over the last few years regarding drones. drones to be operated in the in non-navigable airspace must be underneath 55 pounds. They must fly. within the visual light or line of sight. And that's unassisted. That is what your eyes could see, not what the camera on your drone can see. THEY MUST FLY. below 400 feet. They could only fly during daylight or civil twilight. They can't fly near other aircraft or other people. They cannot fly within the controlled airspace within airports or without the FAA's permission. If flying within five miles of an airport, they must notify the airport and the traffic control tower prior to flying. They must never fly near an emergency response effort And they are never to fly under the influence of drugs or alcohol. But once again, these are safety guidelines. There's nothing that makes any of these things criminally uh, liable. for the people that violate these. Some of the incidents we have seen in Sausalito regarding drones. We went from never having any calls at all to having calls. We have had reports and complaints of drones that are flying over people's residences. drones that are flying over vehicles and pedestrians along bridgeway, And in one incident, the drone actually flew into a residence. And when I say into a residence, I'm not saying crashing into a residence. It actually flew through either an open door or an open window into the hallway, and the poor owner of the house was confronted by a drone. that was a unique incident because when it was reported to us we kind of all looked at each other and said what do we have here and we consulted with the district attorney's office we consulted with FAA we determined There was no law that was being broken. But it was Misbehavior. And these are not just incidences that Sausalito is dealing with. When I was away training over the summer, Drones are often a major topic of conversation across the United States about the same issues that everybody is having. people using him to be voyeurs on other people. people operating them in unsafe manners, people harassing or annoying others by buzzing houses, If I remember, there was an incident somewhere in, I believe, Montana, in which an individual shot down a drone because somebody was using it to spy on that individual's. 16 year old daughter as She stood by the pool. So that's what we're facing, and it's not only things that are happening in other places, the Golden Gate Bridge, or neighbor, has had issues. in which a drone that was being operated outside of line of sight crashed into the South Tower. and then fell to the roadway. Thankfully, nobody got hurt. And just within the last couple of weeks, as they were checking, the South Tower, FOR seismic. abilities and capabilities and looking at what they need to paint as they were going up there on the top of the tower They actually were startled to find a drone that was sitting there because somebody had flown it against regulations against what They've put out about that being a safe and secure zone, crashed it up there. and it was later abandoned, just waiting for a wind gust or something to blow it off the tower. in. onto a vehicle or onto an individual that would cause damage or danger. |
| 02:09:24.99 | Bill Fruss | When we started seeing all these drone complaints come in, we had to start researching to determine, could we pass some ordinances to regulate this poor behavior. So we reviewed the relevant FAA regulations and guidelines. We reviewed case laws regarding drones. We made inquiries through the California Police Chiefs Association and the International Association of Chiefs of Police regarding what other departments and what other cities and municipalities are doing regarding drone ordinances. From those inquiries, we had numerous different departments tell us These are the places you want to look at for their drone ordinances. And surprisingly, three of them were California. Richmond, California, Hermosa Beach, California, Laguna Beach, California. And then Speedway, Indiana of all the places. but they were one of the first in the nation because Indianapolis 500. drones zipping around them. So using that information, We were able to start researching determine what would fit best and work best for the city of Sausalito But also during our research, we talked to the National Park Service. regarding the drone ordinances they passed as well regarding the Golden Gate Bridge and National Park Service territory. because we want to make sure that our ordinances are going to address the issues Sausalito are facing not only now, but in the future. And we wanted to have the most input from the most people. So based on our research, we came up with some draft ordinances. The draft ordinances provide for the safety and reasonable usage of drones within our city boundaries. And our draft ordinances specifically prohibits the following uses and operations of the drone. And? The first would be for audio and or visual recording, including video recording, live streaming, and photos where there is a reasonable expectation of privacy. A second one will be to harass, intimidate, disturb, annoy, threaten, frighten, vex. injure or victimize a person. for the drone to be operated outside of daylight hours, and that's between our local times from sunrise to sunset. for the drones to be operated more than 400 feet above the ground. for drones to be operated at a speed faster than 20 miles per hour. And we kind of think, well, that seems like it's really fast for drones. There are some drones you could buy that are relatively inexpensive that can reach speeds of 65 to 70 miles per hour. AND THAT'S JUST WHAT WE'RE a normal person going and buying something from, a very, Costco or a store like that. for drones to be operated beyond the visual line of sight. for the person operating the drone. And what's important about that is the perspective aspect. When you're operating something through a camera or through video recording, you don't have a sense of depth. You don't have a true understanding of where you're Um, drone is. or the surrounding issues. One of the drones that crashed into the South Tower, the Gwinnigay Bridge, was being operated by a extended viewpoint. We found that out because when National Park Service and the Golden Gate Bridge looked into the incident there was still video recording on that drone's SIM card. that actually showed the purse people that were operating the drone as they sat in their hotel room in their bathrobes. Drone went up, took a picture of them, they flew it out to the bridge. So that was just obvious that people are not doing what the FAA are telling them to do. And we're stating that drones should not be operated or cannot be operated closer to 25 feet from any human being other than landing or taking off. And furtherance? This is what I refer to as the common sense article. Drone should not be operated while under the influence of alcohol or drugs or other intoxicating matters. They will not be operated in a careless or reckless manner that would jeopardize the public. They will not be equipped with hazardous materials or any weapons or items that may be considered to be weapons. in a manner that is prohibited by any federal state statute or regulation. or in violation of any temporary flight restrictions or notice to airmen, issued. by the FAA. They will not be operated in the path of any manned aircraft. and they will not be operated in any manner that directly interferes with police, firefighter, or emergency response activities that would jeopardize the integrity of such public safety activities. That became a major issue in the Southern California wildfires where Cal Fire had ground. flights because people were flying their drones into the emergency areas. We do not want to have that incidence happen here. PENALISTS. Anyone who violates the provisions of the proposed ordinance is subject to a fine. and the drone can be confiscated by the Saso Police Departments or a local, state, or federal law enforcement agency operating on our behalf. This does not... The proposed ordinances will not impact individuals that are flying model airplanes. There is a dis... slight difference regarding that, that there has been case law. However, the model airplanes still cannot be operated with any cameras or visual live streaming or video recorders. And these ordinances we spoke of will not apply to any law enforcement or public safety agency, because In the case of an emergency, we may have to operate our drones in how we have stated that we will not. |
| 02:15:44.18 | Bill Fruss | The legislative committee has reviewed the proposed ordinances and recommended their approval. There should be minimal, if no, fiscal impact at all. to the city regarding implementing the drone audiences. And it is the staff's recommendation that the first reading is waived. This is a lot of lawyers speaking. I'm not a lawyer, so I'm going to do my best on this one. And read by title only, and introduce any ordinance of the city's Council of the City of Sausalito adding chapter 12.40, regulation of unmanned aircraft TO TITLE 12. for the Sausalito Municipal Code. And with that, I'll be happy to answer any question. the council may have. |
| 02:16:32.37 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Any questions of Lieutenant Frost? |
| 02:16:37.10 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Okay, oh yes. Oh, yeah. |
| 02:16:40.94 | Unknown | Do you? First of all, I'll start. It's a comment. I like that we're having this, and it's needed and well overdue. But getting back to the problem of, just so I get kind of a concept of what we're talking about, you can still fly over houses. |
| 02:16:56.40 | Bill Fruss | You could fly over houses. However, you cannot fly in a certain manner that if it's attached with a camera. or a vigil that you're gonna be actually looking in to a place where somebody has a reasonable expectation of privacy. The best way I like to put that is if I'm walking down the street, AND I SEE the rooftop. of a person's house. and I can't see anything. If it's a flat roof and somebody's jumping up there waving A weapon. I could plainly see that. that a person could take action on. However, if they have a large fence around it, I can't easily see that. So drones were extending the a law enforcement's line of sight to drones here. where we don't want to allow people that are using their drones to be voyeurs on other people so they're looking into places where people have a reasonable expectation of privacy |
| 02:17:59.68 | Unknown | Yeah. Thank you. And I agree with that. I was just more going off, you know, what brought us to this point were people flying over Bridgeway, people flying over houses, and then the one incident where they actually flew into the house. Thank you that you... that there wasn't a crash because I was curious about that. So yeah, so that was my question. So the same thing is in on Bridgeway. We could still, they could still go over Bridgeway. They just can't do the other things that are on the list. |
| 02:18:23.54 | Bill Fruss | They just can't do the other things that are on the list. They can go over Bridgeway as long as they're operating in a safe manner, staying 25 feet away from any pedestrians, and they're not operating in a reckless manner. They could still fly over Bridgeway. They could still fly over Bridgeway. |
| 02:18:26.68 | Unknown | Right. |
| 02:18:35.98 | Bill Fruss | vehicles as long as it isn't with the regulations. |
| 02:18:38.33 | Unknown | Or what seems to be the key to all this, the intent to annoy people. Well, if... |
| 02:18:41.74 | Bill Fruss | Well, that is one portion. You can't have a drone flying around, hovering around somebody, spinning around them. with the intent to annoy them. |
| 02:18:51.40 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 02:18:51.96 | Bill Fruss | but you can't have a drone flying within 25 feet of a person no matter what. If you're operating your drone, and you're not purposely trying to annoy somebody, you still can't operate within 25 feet of some |
| 02:19:04.25 | Unknown | Right. And that's why I like the detail of this, because I think everybody's annoyed by drones right now. They're annoying. |
| 02:19:04.70 | Bill Fruss | That's right. |
| 02:19:10.84 | Unknown | But the intent to annoy is |
| 02:19:12.46 | Bill Fruss | Yeah, there's the intent. the old, one of the key words in there is vex. And what is vexing? Vexing is purposely |
| 02:19:18.47 | Unknown | Mm-hmm. |
| 02:19:20.23 | Bill Fruss | I love that word. Best way I like to say it is the vexing is the equivalent of doing the old chess... pointing your finger in a person's chest going, I am here trying to bug you. Oh, I know what that means. |
| 02:19:30.82 | Unknown | Oh, I know it's excellent. |
| 02:19:32.46 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 02:19:34.01 | Bill Fruss | He has to sit next to me. |
| 02:19:34.98 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | on the dice. |
| 02:19:35.75 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:19:37.52 | Unknown | Thank you, Lieutenant. |
| 02:19:39.57 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Um, Lieutenant, um, So provision D of your draft ordinance says, the conduct described in this subsection includes but is not limited to using a UAS to follow and film, video record, live stream, or photograph a person who has not consented to such activity. So if they are staying 25 feet behind and the person's walking down Bridgeway, then they would be able to follow them legally. Okay. |
| 02:20:10.01 | Bill Fruss | If it is With that circumstance right there, if the, The drone is 25 feet behind. and consistently following the same person everywhere they go or consistently harassing that person, it could fall under that category. This is basically stating that if a drone is to fly over bridgeway and That is not... Recording somebody flying over is not annoying or harassing. It's not the intent of that. to making sure that somebody isn't being spied on. or being Thank you. |
| 02:20:47.08 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | STALKED. |
| 02:20:47.79 | Bill Fruss | Yeah. |
| 02:20:48.13 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. So that would, so right now, provision D, the first sentence says, no person shall operate a UAS with the intent to harass, intimidate, disturb, annoy, threaten, frighten, vex. That would be the stalking aspect. The second sentence, I'm wondering, you know, in paragraph C, you have a descriptor that says that no one can operate a UAS with. order to THE FAMILY IS invade someone who has a reasonable expectation of privacy or without their permission. I wonder if we should add that same clause that was in paragraph C to paragraph D so that they can't use a UAS to follow and film, video, record, live stream, or photograph a person who has not consented to such activity under circumstances in which the person has a reasonable expectation of privacy. Because the whole thing about stalking is covered in the first sentence. So, and I actually, this is a collaboration with Jill. Jill and I are on the legislative committee, and we, I think Jill pointed out that we might have missed that one descriptor to make it clear that we're not, you know, when someone's out filming the Matthew Turner, they're hovering, they're, you know, filming all the people observing. That's not illegal because everybody who's outside watching the Matthew Turner doesn't have a reasonable expectation of privacy. If they're doing it and stalking someone in Bridgeway, that's covered by D, the first sentence that they're vexing. But if they're just filming overhead, I think, do you think it's appropriate to include that it's just not appropriate where someone has a reasonable expectation of privacy? |
| 02:22:40.53 | Bill Fruss | Based on my experience in working, stalking cases and working other issues is a lot of times people are stalked are vexed or harassed in places where There is no reasonable expectation of privacy. in on sidewalks, on walkways, you name it. That is why several of the jurisdictions that we reviewed have separate or have written these codes like they are. Because you may have a violation of one, and not a violation of the other, but you have to cover, we wanna make sure we cover as much of the, as wrong behavior as possible. And by putting in the moving up the reasonable expectation of privacy that other code we could be handcuffing ourselves into a situation in which we're now allowing wrong behavior because we didn't, wrote our ordinance so specifically. |
| 02:23:37.92 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | And is this a complaint-driven ordinance? So when you'll respond is if someone complains about a drone's behavior? just like Andy. |
| 02:23:47.04 | Bill Fruss | kind of violation of a city ordinance criminal or anything it would be based on complaints or if an officer observes a violation. Most municipal code violations and city ordinance violations are often complaint-based. Thank you. |
| 02:24:05.99 | David Suto | I can just follow up on that I see I see what you're saying but I think that's covered in sentence one so and here's my then I should have caught this in the meeting but I didn't catch it until I was rereading this today so in section D is what I'm talking about it that's what we're addressing And it's just the second sentence. I think the second sentence is too broad. And here's why, the first sentence says no person shall operate a UAS with intent to harass, intimidate, disturb, annoy, threaten, frighten VEX, injure, victimize, or place in extreme mental or emotional distress a particular person whether they are on public or private property. That's the stalking part. Right? That's it. That's stalking. Whether you're on private or public property, it doesn't matter. If you're operating your drone with the intent to intimidate VEX, et cetera, you know, that's a violation. And then the second sentence, though, I think it's either, it's too broad The conduct described in this subsection includes, but is not limited to using the US to follow and film, record, livestream, or photograph a person who has not consented to such activity, Period. That's just way too broad. That's never going to stand a challenge, I don't think. Because you can't say that you're operating a drone in a public place and you're you know, your... you're by definition going to be violating everybody who operates a drone and takes pictures is going to be violating this. There's no way you're going to be able to. fly a drone. that's a good thing. live stream or photograph a person And we've already talked about intent to harass in the prior sentence. So I think you have to either have the modifier in there with a reasonable expectation of privacy or just delete that sentence. |
| 02:25:50.70 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Well, although it does say using a UAS to follow and film. So I think to follow and film is the operative verb, perhaps, because if they're just filming, they're not following. If they're just in the sky, it's the follow and film, I think, that ties back to the first sentence of that. Uh... Can I make a suggestion? Yeah. |
| 02:26:13.56 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Can I make a suggestion? Yeah. Why don't we just put follow and film up in the first sentence. No person shall operate a UAS to follow and film with the intent to harass, intimidate, blah, blah, blah, and then just take out the... Sure. |
| 02:26:25.41 | David Suto | And just take out the second. Then delete that second. Yeah, that's great. |
| 02:26:26.64 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | THE END OF THE LAST WEEK. |
| 02:26:29.26 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | to follow on film. |
| 02:26:31.38 | Unknown | Thank you. But does that take away just harassing somebody without filming them? Just buzzing there. So no person shall ever |
| 02:26:37.66 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | So no person shall operate, including following or filming? Following or. And or. And or filming. |
| 02:26:39.04 | Lily (City Clerk) | I love them. |
| 02:26:41.51 | David Suto | Thank you. |
| 02:26:41.52 | Unknown | or |
| 02:26:43.92 | David Suto | . That's fine. |
| 02:26:46.70 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Okay. |
| 02:26:47.38 | David Suto | Okay, cool. |
| 02:26:48.04 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. Yeah I'll call it out when we do the motion. Okay. Any other questions? of Lieutenant. Okay, any public comment on this item? Okay, seeing none, I'll bring it back up here for discussion, which has pretty much already happened, but please, who would like to discuss this proposed ordinance? All right, I'm supportive. |
| 02:27:17.32 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Seeing none. I'm going to move that we waive first reading, read by title only, and introduce an ordinance of the City Council of the City of Sausalito, adding Chapter 12.40, quote, regulation of unmanned aircraft, quote, to Title 12 of the Sausalito Municipal Code with the following two revisions. Uh, paragraph D is revised to add the phrase to follow and or film after the words operate a UAS in the first line. And the second sentence of item D is deleted. And item, paragraph M, the word statute is changed to the word statute. |
| 02:28:07.08 | Unknown | I kind of feel like D got softened down a little bit. And I would really like to hear law enforcement's opinion of that. What? follow and send it. |
| 02:28:19.08 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | So I'm just gonna ask for a second on the motion and then we can discuss. So is there a second? Second. |
| 02:28:21.20 | Unknown | Okay. |
| 02:28:25.29 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | open for discussion. Lieutenant Frost, would you mind addressing, here I'm going to hand you this piece of paper so you can see what the proposed revision looks like. |
| 02:28:38.08 | Unknown | I guess my question then would be is there a way to annoy disturb threaten without following. |
| 02:28:47.33 | Bill Fruss | and or filming. So it's operate, follow, and film. |
| 02:28:47.53 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | And or filming. Or filming. Follow and film. Right. |
| 02:28:58.84 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | the other thing we could do is is again have this be a you know pilot for a year and come back to us to see how it's working |
| 02:29:06.18 | Unknown | Yeah, I just want to make sure they're comfortable with you. |
| 02:29:08.78 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 02:29:08.79 | Bill Fruss | Yeah. As I review this, how it is written should address our concerns. Yes, there are ways to harass or annoy other than just following, however, that's also would be covered in also a reckless manner that could jeopardize public safety |
| 02:29:28.00 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Great. Thank you. Any other comments? All right, Lily, will you call the roll? We have a first and a, we have a motion and a second. |
| 02:29:41.28 | Lily (City Clerk) | Councilmember Withy. Yes. Councilmember Hoffman. Yes. Council Member Cleveland Knowles? Yes. Vice Mayor Burns? Yes. Mayor Cox? Yes. That carries 5-0. Thank you. |
| 02:29:51.60 | Unknown | Yes. |
| 02:29:51.98 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Mayor Conway. Thank you. |
| 02:29:58.71 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Okay, item seven on our agenda is city manager reports, council member reports, city council appointments, other council business. And first we will take public comment on items 7B through 7F. Any member of the public like to comment on items 7B through 7F? Okay, seeing none, we'll turn first to city manager, information for council. And I'll note that we are two minutes ahead of schedule right now. |
| 02:30:26.69 | Adam Politzer | I'll note that- Yes, and I'm going to help you stay on schedule. I have no city manager report for you this evening. I think that you folks are all aware of the activities that the city's been involved with the last couple weeks. So I will leave it at that and happy to answer any questions of the council. |
| 02:30:44.42 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. Any questions of the city manager? Okay, we'll move on to council member committee reports. |
| 02:30:54.40 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | I have a report from the Sustainability Commission that met last week. First, I think the most important thing was that the Sea Level Rise workshop was a huge success. It was held at the Bay Model, I think, two Saturdays ago. There were about 110 people there. The room was completely packed. Mayor Cox gave an introduction, as did Supervisor Sears. There were great speakers, and the county was just a really great partner. The Sustainability Commission and the county, I think, worked really, really well together. Alex Westhoff from the county was a big part of organizing the workshop and I think the sustainability commission really wanted to extend their thanks to him and to the county for making him available. So if there's no objection from the city council I'd also like to send an email to his supervisors in the county to just thank them on behalf of the city council for his time and energy. The county thinks it went so well that they'd like to consider repeating that type of workshop in other communities and use kind of a lot of the volunteer efforts that the Sustainability commission was able to bring to that as a model. So that was A good success. Danny Castro also gave a presentation on the general plan, and it sounds like the Sustainability Commission will have general plan meetings and activities kind of as a recurring item on their agenda so that they can be involved as necessary. And then the last thing on the topic of leaf blowers, the Sustainability Commission clarified that it is not a priority for them, that they have a little time and they want to concentrate on reducing waste and sea level rise. But they don't object to it being moved forward by others in the community or the city council. So that was that. And then on our agenda, there was the school's town hall report and some FAQs. And I did just want to note that one of the board members, Jeff Knowles, has noted that the FAQs have some inaccuracies and he's asked that the organizers correct them and he hopes that they will. So that was that. |
| 02:33:36.40 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. I did attend that and I did attach those just for council information. Yeah, but I do want to make it clear that I do not have an opinion about the accuracy. That was I am simply attaching the handout that was provided at the meeting and indeed one of the speakers in the meeting, I think also questioned whether. No, I think it was the announcement that she thought had been inaccurate, but anyway. Okay, I just said verification. |
| 02:33:59.11 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | I appreciate that clarification. comment that I heard. I'm passing along, but I think it was good that you put them in there, and I know that you were there, and maybe you'll want to report on the town hall. That's all. Thank you. Thank you. |
| 02:34:13.42 | Unknown | Right. |
| 02:34:15.85 | Unknown | Yeah, excuse me. Um, The, let's see, internally, Finance Committee, I'm not sure there's anything to report there. The last Finance Committee, we looked, the major new thing we did was take a fresh beginning look at the capital, five year capital plan, I think. next meeting was it you've agendas that so I think you'll be here in there so you don't need to hear from me on that externally the Marine Clean Energy, really nothing to report. Last meeting, board meeting was canceled. The next meeting is this Thursday, so I'll report on it next time. Major thing that that organization's dealing with right now is pricing its energy and budgets. The TAM has got a lot of interest in things going on. I think the really, the sort of thing that's buzzing around Marin at the moment is the third lane on the Richmond Bridge, the bicycle lane on the Richmond Bridge in particular, Supervisor Connolly, who is the representative for the county and all of our 11 city jurisdictions on MTC, has been, and Tam is now also, raise the question as to whether the proposed bike lane pilot four-year program should be more considered in terms of multimodal transport. And that study is going to be analyzed. needless to say Our bicycle coalition friends came out in force at the meeting because they don't agree with that. They think it should be only bikes. So this is a discussion that the community needs to have. So it will be having it over the next time period. Importantly, In terms of transportation, RM3, Regional Measure 3, which is the bridge toll increases are now definitely on the ballot for June 3rd, for June whatever it is. And this is something that TAM's been involved in because a number of projects, if that goes through a number of projects, could very well get funded. And one of the most important ones for us actually is the 101-580 interchange. Because to actually, I think there's like $120 million being potentially proposed to actually |
| 02:37:19.84 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:37:25.46 | Unknown | be able to get from 101 to 580 without going on surface streets, which is the most ludicrous organized transportation problem we've got, and actually, Marin. But also funding for the Bettini Transport Center in San Rafael, plus the Sonoma Narrows, which could be finished with RM3. So that's going to be the big thing on the ballot in June. And then the thing that TAM is struggling with right now and eventually is going to be up to the Board of Supervisors to make this decision with input from TAM. And that is whether to put on the November ballot the measure A sales tax extension, runs out for regional transportation in 20... T2? something like that. And so the question is, but because some funding streams are coming to an end, They've been discussing whether to actually go for a 30-year extension of that early and put it on the November ballot. That's very controversial. the basically Diane Uh... The executive director there is trying to get on the calendar for every jurisdiction in Marin to actually give a TAM update. And so I imagine staff there is working with our staff to try and get that on. So that's really my report there. |
| 02:39:16.78 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Can I just ask, is that true of regional measure three as well? |
| 02:39:21.37 | Unknown | Is what true? |
| 02:39:22.32 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | that there's any interest in having a further staff, further briefing or? |
| 02:39:29.32 | Unknown | I think Diane's going to give a complete picture as to what, of all the transportation funding, all the measures that are going on. |
| 02:39:32.39 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Of everything. |
| 02:39:37.18 | Unknown | I think. |
| 02:39:37.22 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 02:39:37.25 | Adam Politzer | I think. |
| 02:39:38.84 | Unknown | Adam, you may know better, actually. You may know his... Yeah. |
| 02:39:42.62 | Adam Politzer | Yeah, I think that's the intent is a larger briefing, but there is a specific discussion on the renewal of the sales tax. |
| 02:39:51.78 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Okay, if it's possible, I just think it would be helpful to have information Thank you. on regional measure three as well since that's coming up in June. And I think it's just confusing all these different funding mechanisms and measures. what they do. |
| 02:40:04.59 | Unknown | but they do. Thank you. Well, to make matters worse, it's still, I would say, significantly up in the air. But a group of California residents and actually the Republican Party is behind collecting signatures to see if it can put on the November ballot the repeal of SB1. They're a bit short on their money raising, from what I can gather, because if they can raise more money, then they'll just get professional signature gatherers. And at the moment, they don't have professional signature gatherers. And we won't know until about mid-May whether the repeal of SB1 is also going to be on the November ballot. That's going to make things hugely complicated and confusing. And so I totally agree, Diane needs to give the whole picture. Because the money coming in from RN3 is for a totally different set of projects than the sales tax. And it's a totally different set of projects from SB1. But with tax fatigue, these things are in real jeopardy of not passing. |
| 02:41:22.21 | David Suto | Thank you. |
| 02:41:22.23 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Jill? Jill? Okay. I'm not sure if I reported on this at the last meeting or not, but the legislative committee has met, and we're meeting again on February 27. So tonight we brought to you two ordinances, and next week we're going to bring to you another ordinance. So we're trying to clear the decks a little bit. |
| 02:41:51.04 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Can I just ask a procedural question? So if someone on the city council has an idea for legislation, is the appropriate thing to ask Thank you. |
| 02:42:02.95 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | to put it on the future agenda items and then future agenda items that we then refer it to finance committee or legislative committee or however. So that's, I think that's our new process for making sure everything someone suggests goes through the same process. Thank you. |
| 02:42:18.88 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Okay, great, thank you. |
| 02:42:22.54 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Okay. All right, I'm gonna move on to appointments to boards, commissions, and committees. We interviewed a whole bunch of people this evening. I... But first and foremost, I'm going to propose an appointment to the Sustainability Commission. I met with Melissa Blaustein on Sunday. She has put in an application to serve on the Sustainability Commission, and I said that's in line with her background and her passion. And so I am nominating her as a member to fill our vacancy on the Sustainability Commission. |
| 02:43:12.34 | David Suto | Second. |
| 02:43:14.64 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Are there any alternative nominations for, this is for one appointment, I'm going to go to another appointment for sustainability next. |
| 02:43:15.23 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 02:43:21.79 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Okay, that was going to be my question. |
| 02:43:25.11 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Any other nominations? Okay. |
| 02:43:26.41 | Unknown | Could we just clarify the number of positions? Sorry, I'm just opening the staff report. |
| 02:43:29.18 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Sorry. Yeah, so according to Lilly's report, we have one vacancy and then we also have an alternate, Rebecca Woodbury. |
| 02:43:37.82 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:43:37.84 | Unknown | Oh, that's right. |
| 02:43:38.67 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | whose term is expired, who's not interested in a second term. And so we actually have two vacancies to fill. That's right. |
| 02:43:43.20 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Yeah. She was just reappointed. So I think she is still interested. |
| 02:43:52.74 | Lily (City Clerk) | So the council recently moved Rebecca from a full member of the sustainability commission to an alternate member per her request. Her request was that she would stay on as an alternate until a replacement was found. |
| 02:44:00.05 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | All right. |
| 02:44:05.60 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | because she's very involved in some things that are happening in San Rafael. So she ran the... C-level workshop, but my understanding is that she had asked to be replaced. If you want to go, if you would like us to postpone replacing her this week, it's fine with me if we want to have the city clerk check with her one more time. But right now, this motion is for the open position. |
| 02:44:29.07 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | I GET THAT AND I'M SUPPORTIVE OF THE CURRENT MOTION. I JUST DON'T WANT TO She just seems very committed. I thought, I wish Andy was here, but I thought at our meeting she expressed, she thought she was an alternate and that she was going to stay as an alternate. But maybe, I could have that wrong, so I don't want to. |
| 02:44:44.36 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Okay. |
| 02:44:44.87 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:44:48.43 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Well, that's fine. We can take action on this in our next meeting. |
| 02:44:48.51 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Bye. |
| 02:44:48.53 | Unknown | Well, that's... |
| 02:44:49.17 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | We have a great day. |
| 02:44:49.32 | Unknown | We can do it. |
| 02:44:50.05 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | I'm not going to miss it. |
| 02:44:51.33 | Unknown | That was the information presented the last time when we made this switch and moved her to the alternate. Okay, she said she. I thought she wanted to stay as the alternate, but. |
| 02:44:51.43 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | No. Yeah. I thought she wanted it. Okay, so I'm going to ask. So... |
| 02:45:01.35 | Unknown | So I'm going to ask. |
| 02:45:03.68 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | So let's take action on Melissa Blaustein. All in favor? Aye. |
| 02:45:08.47 | Unknown | Hi. Bye. |
| 02:45:09.33 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:45:10.31 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | That motion carries 5-0. I So, Lily, we're going to give direction on the Sustainability Commission Committee for you to reach out to Rebecca Woodbury. to find out if she would like to remain as an alternate or if she would like us to replace her. |
| 02:45:26.53 | Lily (City Clerk) | And if I can ask, is there any action on the members who |
| 02:45:30.44 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Yeah. |
| 02:45:30.60 | Lily (City Clerk) | have second terms |
| 02:45:31.86 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Yes. So, um, um, Kathy Hutton and Kristen Wolslagle have upcoming term expirations. They have asked to be reappointed, and so I am now moving to reappoint Kathy Hutton and Kristen Wolslagle for a second term on the sustainability committee. |
| 02:45:54.76 | Unknown | We don't need a second, do you? You don't need. Do we need seconds? I don't know. I don't know. Well, whatever. |
| 02:45:54.80 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Yeah. |
| 02:45:54.98 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 02:45:55.03 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Yeah. |
| 02:45:55.10 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | I don't know. |
| 02:45:55.49 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 02:45:55.52 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 02:45:55.57 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | second. |
| 02:45:56.08 | Lily (City Clerk) | I agree. |
| 02:45:56.16 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | THE END OF |
| 02:45:56.32 | Lily (City Clerk) | Thank you. |
| 02:45:56.42 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | need... |
| 02:45:56.85 | Lily (City Clerk) | THE END OF |
| 02:45:56.94 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | . |
| 02:45:57.02 | Lily (City Clerk) | you need to say I don't know. Lily, do I need... So the typical process, unless there's consensus on the council, is that the mayor announces her nomination, solicits additional nominations, and then there's a roll call vote. But if there's consensus, then there can be a nomination and then agreement from the council. |
| 02:46:11.75 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | But if there's a THEIR COMPANIES. Okay. All right, so consensus. Okay, so that handles sustainability for this evening and you'll report back to us on on Rebecca. I'm now going to turn to Historic Landmarks Board. We have two vacancies. Um... A number of applications. All of whom we've interviewed. We did not interview this time around Nate Berkowitz. However, we interviewed him for the GPAC, so we're not required to interview him again. He was offered the opportunity to come in for a second interview. And so I am nominating I want to make sure I get his name right. |
| 02:47:19.64 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | I'm sorry. I've got too many papers. |
| 02:47:25.65 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Here we go. I am nominating Nathaniel Berkowitz and Heather Wiles to our Historic Landmarks Board. Are there any alternate nominations? |
| 02:47:38.00 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | So, I'm just going to make a note that I was not able, since I was not on the council when many of these people were interviewed, I did try to meet as many people as possible on these lists, but I was not able to meet the folks, all of the folks for the Historic Landmarks Board. So I don't want to slow anything up, but I just wanted to make a note of that. Thank you. |
| 02:48:05.10 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Are there any alternative nominations |
| 02:48:10.08 | Unknown | It's been a pickle with the next one, so. |
| 02:48:13.85 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | So do we have overlapping applicants? |
| 02:48:16.02 | Unknown | Applicants? Yeah, I have a person interested in, if it doesn't get. |
| 02:48:21.64 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Has he submitted for HLB? |
| 02:48:24.26 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:48:24.34 | John Rohrabacher | Thank you. |
| 02:48:24.41 | Unknown | Yes. |
| 02:48:27.13 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Is it okay. |
| 02:48:28.66 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 02:48:28.68 | John Rohrabacher | Bye. |
| 02:48:28.90 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | you Thank you. |
| 02:48:31.09 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Okay, I only have four people on Bike Impact. Alex Frankel, Frank Alizaga, Aaron Sanchez, Russ Irwin. none of whom are on the list for HLB. |
| 02:48:41.86 | Unknown | Nathan Scraps. |
| 02:48:44.69 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | I don't see him on bike and ped. I've got, I must have an old list. |
| 02:48:49.28 | Lily (City Clerk) | So if you look at the staff report in item 7D3, it states the pool available for appointments. So Nathan Scripps interviewed for the historic landmarks board, but he also submitted an application for PBAC. |
| 02:48:53.17 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Okay. |
| 02:49:07.37 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Okay. Well, I'll tell you what, I'm going to make one nomination to start out for Biking Pet. How's that? So. or we can do bike and pick. um, So right now there's a motion pending. I've nominated Nathaniel Berkowitz and Heather Wiles. Thank you. |
| 02:49:27.39 | Unknown | Over three hours. |
| 02:49:28.65 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Yes, I am, because there's not consensus. So Lily, will you call the roll? |
| 02:49:39.22 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 02:49:39.23 | Lily (City Clerk) | Councilmember Withey? |
| 02:49:41.95 | Unknown | I'll I'll go with the mayor's 2 picks. |
| 02:49:44.11 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. Thank you don't we ask for alternative nomination. I did ask for another you did it. Okay, so you okay. |
| 02:49:48.50 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Yeah, I did. |
| 02:49:49.81 | Unknown | THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 02:49:49.90 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 02:49:49.93 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:49:49.97 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. for an alternative. Thank you. Yeah. Okay. |
| 02:49:52.97 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | I'm sorry, I didn't hear that. Okay. |
| 02:49:56.28 | Lily (City Clerk) | Thank you. |
| 02:49:56.55 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Councilman. |
| 02:49:57.04 | Lily (City Clerk) | HOPPIN? |
| 02:49:58.77 | David Suto | Oh, I said that. |
| 02:50:00.29 | Lily (City Clerk) | Council member Cleveland. Yes. Vice Mayor Burns. |
| 02:50:06.45 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 02:50:06.57 | Unknown | Yes. |
| 02:50:08.23 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Mayor Cox. Yes. Okay, and Lily, as these appointments are made, are you going to reach out to these folks and let them know congratulations? Yes. Okay. Or sorry. |
| 02:50:17.32 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Yeah. |
| 02:50:19.04 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Okay. All right, now I'm going to turn to bike and ped. So I nominate Russ Irwin. to bike and pet advisory. Right now, we have two vacancies and we have two people whose terms have expired who have told the board clerk that they do not intend to reapply. So right now I am one of the vacancies is an advisory non-voting member one of the vacancies is someone whose term expired I am I am nominating Russ Irwin for the vacant position. Are there alternative nominations for the big- |
| 02:51:01.16 | Unknown | I nominate Nathan Scripps for the vacant position. |
| 02:51:07.88 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Okay. So are there more? There are two other. So there's one other vacant advisory non-voting. There are two other people whose term have expired who do not intend to reapply. And we have not been able to have a quorum of this committee in months. And so I am going to fill those other positions as well. But right now. |
| 02:51:24.77 | Unknown | to find. Right now. Who are the two people who are now? |
| 02:51:28.52 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Ed Fotch and Robert Page. |
| 02:51:30.79 | Unknown | Haha. |
| 02:51:32.62 | David Suto | Could I... Yeah. Could I suggest something? I agree that we should fill all these, but I would like for Ed and Bob Page to fill their fill their terms through June. So can we- |
| 02:51:49.04 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Their term has expired. Oh, you're right. Their terms have expired and they've said they'd not be available to meet. |
| 02:51:51.03 | David Suto | Oh, you're right. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. |
| 02:51:56.09 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Yeah. |
| 02:51:56.16 | David Suto | I misread that. Okay. Totally. |
| 02:51:58.10 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | So it's my intention to nominate people for Ed Fotch's and Robert Page's position as well this evening. |
| 02:52:04.41 | David Suto | That's fine. So we have lots of. |
| 02:52:07.41 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Lots of knowledge. |
| 02:52:08.29 | Unknown | you |
| 02:52:09.25 | David Suto | THE END OF THE END OF THE Go ahead. So can we just nominate a slate? Do we have to go one by one? |
| 02:52:13.13 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:52:13.24 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Sure. |
| 02:52:14.64 | David Suto | So we don't have to go because I think Nathan I think you want to nominate Nathan right OK. |
| 02:52:14.69 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:52:14.72 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | that we would |
| 02:52:18.31 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Okay. That's fine. |
| 02:52:19.33 | David Suto | That's fine. Russ, yes. I would also nominate Alex, Alex Frankel. Oh, wait, hold on just a second. Who did we interview tonight? |
| 02:52:33.26 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | We interviewed Frank Alizaga, Alex Frankel, and Aaron Sanchez. |
| 02:52:33.30 | David Suto | We interviewed. |
| 02:52:34.02 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Karen Sanchez. |
| 02:52:35.12 | David Suto | I'm sorry. |
| 02:52:38.24 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | I'd like to nominate Aaron Sanchez. I thought he was very impressive. |
| 02:52:43.85 | David Suto | you |
| 02:52:45.84 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 02:52:45.85 | David Suto | Yes, and I'd like to nominate Alex Frankel. So we have. |
| 02:52:50.07 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Okay, so we have four nominations and we have, so which of those would be the vacant advisory non-voting member? |
| 02:53:00.25 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Maybe Aaron Sanchez. OK, I agree with that. He hasn't been in the community for that long. OK. |
| 02:53:03.17 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | I can hear you with that. Okay, so I'm going to take this feedback and I'm going to make a nomination and see if I can get concurrence. So I nominate Russ Irwin. Alex Frankel and nathan scripps for the three open voting positions and i nominate |
| 02:53:20.28 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Nathan. |
| 02:53:26.76 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Aaron Sanchez for the vacant advisory non-voting member. |
| 02:53:31.87 | Unknown | I'm sorry, say yours again. |
| 02:53:33.31 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Okay, Russ Irwin, Nathan Scripps, and... Alex Frankel. |
| 02:53:47.50 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | And then for the vacant advisory non-voting member, Aaron Sanchez. |
| 02:53:54.08 | David Suto | do we is there any way sorry, is there any way that we can just have a little transition period? Like, I don't want, the only thing I'm trying to avoid is that |
| 02:54:02.64 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | So I don't mind having a transition period, but at the next meeting, if people who are invited to transition don't show up, I don't want that to hold up the meeting. Because we have a circulation plan. They were supposed to weigh in on the bicycle proposal. The meeting didn't happen. They are holding up |
| 02:54:10.40 | David Suto | Thank you. Because we have a circular... |
| 02:54:18.48 | David Suto | I see that, but I also want to have some kind of continuity. |
| 02:54:18.50 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Oh, I see that. |
| 02:54:23.41 | David Suto | Thank you. |
| 02:54:23.46 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Could I make a suggestion? |
| 02:54:23.48 | David Suto | Could I make a suggestion? |
| 02:54:25.03 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | patricia pigman and david suto who's here who's a faithful member who attends every meeting he's very good at that yeah |
| 02:54:25.10 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | you |
| 02:54:25.42 | David Suto | Yeah. |
| 02:54:29.47 | David Suto | Thank you. |
| 02:54:29.48 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | He's a faithful member. |
| 02:54:30.53 | David Suto | THE END OF |
| 02:54:32.37 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 02:54:32.39 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 02:54:32.40 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Could I make a suggestion that we respectfully thank Ed Fotch and Robert Page, but request that they try to attend as many meetings as possible between now and July 1st? Yes. And that we think the city would really benefit from their long history and expertise on the bike ped committee? |
| 02:54:32.42 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Yeah. Yeah. |
| 02:54:52.96 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Yeah, that's great. |
| 02:54:53.06 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Yeah, that's great. Thank you. |
| 02:54:53.97 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | We're already in the process of preparing a proclamation. |
| 02:54:54.24 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | AND THEN WE CAN... But as I understand it, they haven't been able to attend meetings, so they don't have a quorum, so they can't act. Is that correct? |
| 02:55:01.90 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Right. I don't know who it is that hasn't been able to attend, but there has not been a quorum of this committee in months. |
| 02:55:10.67 | Unknown | You better hurry before the other two expire in a couple months. |
| 02:55:10.78 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Yeah. |
| 02:55:14.08 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Okay, so Lily, will you please call the roll on my slate of four people? |
| 02:55:14.10 | Unknown | I'm not sure. Okay. |
| 02:55:21.36 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Unless there are alternate nominations for that slate. Okay, Lily. |
| 02:55:27.03 | Lily (City Clerk) | Councilmember Withy |
| 02:55:28.24 | Unknown | Yes. |
| 02:55:29.29 | Lily (City Clerk) | Council member Hoffman? Yes. Council member Cleveland Knowles? Yes. Vice Mayor Burns? Yes. |
| 02:55:35.70 | Unknown | Yes. |
| 02:55:36.82 | Lily (City Clerk) | Maricox. Yes. |
| 02:55:40.66 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | No. OK. Thank you. |
| 02:55:44.14 | Adam Politzer | So I'm not sure what the status of Dr. Fudge and Mr. Page, are they continuing as Advisory members. Non-voting members. |
| 02:55:57.27 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | through the month of June to the extent that. to the extent they're available. |
| 02:56:07.46 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | And we do have plans to issue a proclamation thanking them for their service to the city. Right. So. We'll figure out the appropriate timing for that. Okay, next. |
| 02:56:26.34 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Okay, the planning commission. We have interviewed a number of qualified applicants. |
| 02:56:41.83 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | And I have invited Bill Werner to attend a meeting here on February 27, at which I would like to present him with a proclamation. And so I am making a nomination to replace him effective March 1. And I am nominating Sean Mercer. Are there alternate... Alternative nominations. |
| 02:57:06.42 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | I'd like to nominate Lori Freed. And, uh, The reason that I'd like to do that is she's Thank you. So are we? Okay, nevermind. Yeah. Okay, last week you both gave. |
| 02:57:15.65 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Oh, are we? |
| 02:57:20.50 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Explanations for you. |
| 02:57:21.39 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | I mean, it's fine. So, Lily, what is the process on that? |
| 02:57:24.31 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. That's fine. I don't need to say anything. |
| 02:57:27.28 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Okay. I'm trying to find my notes on my interview of her. |
| 02:57:36.63 | David Suto | We only interviewed about 100 people this year. |
| 02:57:38.42 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | When did we interview her? 12, 12. |
| 02:58:18.49 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Okay, I found my notes. Okay, any other nominations? |
| 02:58:25.51 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | All right, Lily, will you call the roll? So in this case, each person simply states the applicant for whom they are voting. |
| 02:58:36.60 | Lily (City Clerk) | Kenza Marawithi. |
| 02:58:41.16 | Unknown | Lori Fries. |
| 02:58:44.11 | Lily (City Clerk) | Councilmember Hoffman. |
| 02:58:54.29 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | We need more time. |
| 02:58:55.30 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | It's fine with me if we want to postpone this until our next meeting. It's not going to be effective until March 1 anyway. So if people want more time, this is an important position. So it's really fine with me. if we postpone to our next meeting. Anybody else? I mean, I just was able, I did not know who was going to, we're not allowed to talk with each other about this. |
| 02:59:13.41 | David Suto | I mean, I just. |
| 02:59:19.14 | Unknown | Yeah, but you've just called for a vote. You've just asked. I've just voted. Okay. |
| 02:59:23.01 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Bye. |
| 02:59:23.06 | David Suto | Thank you. |
| 02:59:23.16 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | I'm not voted. |
| 02:59:24.31 | David Suto | it. |
| 02:59:24.75 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Okay. |
| 02:59:25.52 | David Suto | I'm going to ask for more time. |
| 02:59:26.01 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | I'm still coming. |
| 02:59:28.44 | David Suto | Maybe I'll just abstain and go ahead and take the vote. I mean, right? That's... I'm okay with that too. |
| 02:59:35.33 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Well, typically you abstain if you're conflicted out or for some reason. Is there a different applicant you'd prefer to Sean Mercer or Lori Freed? |
| 02:59:41.91 | Suzanne Webro | Thank you. |
| 02:59:42.02 | David Suto | Is there a different application? Thank you. |
| 02:59:46.83 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 02:59:46.87 | David Suto | I don't know. |
| 02:59:47.16 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 02:59:47.21 | David Suto | No. Okay, but I don't on the fly. I don't know. Okay, I'm just not comfortable voting I guess I don't know come back to me. Can you come back to me like work dinner and just come back around. |
| 02:59:54.21 | Unknown | you |
| 02:59:55.10 | Lily (City Clerk) | Thank you. |
| 02:59:58.75 | David Suto | Can I see her? |
| 02:59:59.32 | Unknown | I'm not sure. I |
| 03:00:01.85 | David Suto | Yeah. |
| 03:00:03.03 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Yeah. With a little bit of a |
| 03:00:07.03 | Lily (City Clerk) | discombobulated up here. Councilmember Cleveland also. |
| 03:00:10.29 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 03:00:13.11 | Lily (City Clerk) | Vice Mayor Burns? |
| 03:00:14.17 | Unknown | Mark Reed. Glory for you. Laurie Freed. |
| 03:00:19.84 | Lily (City Clerk) | Mayor Cox. Sean Mercer. Council member Hoffman? Lord. |
| 03:00:27.82 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | And can I, I mean, I know we don't have a lot of discussion, but I just think we had a really tremendous group of applicants, and I think they all have done a great job. |
| 03:00:40.08 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Yeah, I agree. It was a tough decision, and After struggling to find applicants, we have been blessed with a wealth of applicants to where we actually had to carefully consider who to appoint where. So that's really a blessing for the city. |
| 03:01:03.23 | Unknown | Can I make one? So first of all, we also have a |
| 03:01:04.81 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | So, |
| 03:01:07.14 | Unknown | possibly a second action if we want to consider Vicky's reappointment, right? Oh, I agree. That's the other matter. But before we do that, I also, you said the bill's going to... |
| 03:01:12.54 | Unknown | Oh, I agree. |
| 03:01:19.70 | Unknown | be attending one of our future council meetings so we can thank him personally. Our next council member. |
| 03:01:22.67 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Our next council member meeting on February 27 at the beginning. |
| 03:01:25.92 | Unknown | Yeah. Yeah. I want to make the comment that if you remember when we formed the general plan advisory committee, in fact, I specifically, arranged in that motion that Bill would remain on the general plan advisory committee, irrespective of whether he was on the planning commission or not, and so let's just remind ourselves that Bill will be contributing through that, and we look forward to that. |
| 03:02:04.40 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Agreed. Okay, I will move that we reappoint Vicki Nichols to her second term of the Planning Commission, which expires in one year. And thank her for her long service to the city, both on HLB and on the Planning Commission and in various other functions. Second. All in favor? Aye. That motion carries five zero. |
| 03:02:27.01 | Unknown | Hi. |
| 03:02:27.62 | Unknown | Bye. |
| 03:02:31.10 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Okay, I... |
| 03:02:33.27 | Unknown | Congratulations, Mayor, on making so many appointments in one evening. |
| 03:02:36.36 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Yes. |
| 03:02:36.77 | Unknown | Wow |
| 03:02:37.31 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:02:37.32 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 03:02:39.08 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:02:39.09 | Unknown | I'd just like to make the point that it seems like we've been interviewing so many people. Because we started off with the general plan advisory committee and then interviews for the city council. I mean, how many people did we interview for the city council? 13. 13 of them or something, whatever. All it says to me, it continues to say to me, what a wonderful wealth of volunteers we have to choose from. The talent we've got in this town is amazing. |
| 03:02:56.26 | Unknown | 13. |
| 03:03:08.37 | Unknown | So you |
| 03:03:09.52 | Unknown | Yeah, exactly. We've had 50 people who are willing to actually come forward, step forward and offer the volunteers. Absolutely fantastic. |
| 03:03:18.85 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Okay, in the spirit of productivity, I am also going to announce a couple of appointments to our boards and commission. Sorry, to our liaison and committees. So for The Transportation Authority of Marin I am keeping Ray Withey as our designee, and I'm appointing Susan Cleveland Knowles as our alternate. for marin clean energy i'm keeping ray withy as our appointee and i'm appointing joe burns as our alternate for the um Sewer ad hoc committee, I'm keeping it as Ray Withy and Joan Cox. And the same with our Fort Baker task force. For ABAG delegate, I am appointing myself as our board. appointee and Jill Hoffman as our alternate. Okay. And I think Okay, and then for MCCMC, we have subcommittees. And for the MCCMC Pension Subcommittee, I'm appointing myself and Ray Withey. And for the MCCMC Disaster Preparedness Committee, I'm appointing myself and Susan Cleveland Knowles. Those are my appointments for the evening. Okay, are there any other reports of, oh, no, next on our agenda is future agenda items. Any comment on our future agenda items? Okay, seeing none. Any other reports of significance? All right, then we stand adjourned at 10.17 p.m. Thanks. Oh, and I would like to adjourn this evening's meeting in honor of Tom Hoffman, who passed away recently, and I've asked Council Member Hoffman to say a few words. about him. |
| 03:05:28.20 | David Suto | Tom, we were not related. Related. Just let me put that. I knew Tom at Star of the Sea. He was a wonderful member of our community. He passed away on January 7th. He was a graduate of University of Oregon. He was a member of the Coast Guard for six years, as I always like to point out. He and his wife, Ginny, have been members of Star of the Sea Catholic Church here for many years. He's survived by his wife, Ginny, his son, T.R., his daughter, Theodora, or Teddy Friedman, his son-in-law, Kit Friedman, his sister, Sue Hoffman, and brother-in-law, Jerome Neal Herrick, who all of his kids grew up here, I think, in Sausalito and have been members of our community for many years. So he was a wonderful man. And it was a wonderful service at Star of the Sea for his funeral, which I attended. Thank you. |
| 03:06:19.75 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you, and may I ask our board clerk to please notify his family that we adjourned this meeting in his honor. And with that, we stand adjourned at 10.18 p.m. Thank you. |