| Time | Speaker | Text |
|---|---|---|
| 00:00:00.03 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | I know. He's outside. Good evening everybody and welcome to the City of Sausalito regular City Council meeting for Tuesday, May 1. I'll call the meeting to order and ask Lily to please call the roll. Councilmember with thee. |
| 00:00:18.88 | Jill Hoffman | you |
| 00:00:19.05 | Ray Withey | care |
| 00:00:19.81 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:00:19.82 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Councilmember Hoffman? Present. Councilmember Cleveland-Nulls? |
| 00:00:22.88 | Jill Hoffman | you |
| 00:00:23.03 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Bye. |
| 00:00:23.08 | Jill Hoffman | Vice Mayor Burns? Here. |
| 00:00:25.02 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | COX. |
| 00:00:25.60 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:00:25.61 | Melanie Purcell | Thank you. |
| 00:00:25.78 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Here. Mike McKinley, will you lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance? |
| 00:00:33.95 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:00:34.09 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | I pledge allegiance to the High of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. |
| 00:00:34.15 | Unknown | I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. and to the republic for which it stands Thank you. one nation, under God. |
| 00:00:49.26 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | There are no closed session announcements. Is there any public comment on closed session items? Seeing none, I'll seek a motion approving our agenda. So moved. |
| 00:01:01.62 | Joe | Second. |
| 00:01:02.37 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | All in favor? Aye. Motion carries, 5-0. There are no special presentations or mayor's announcements this evening, so we'll get right to communications. This is the time for the city council to hear from citizens regarding matters not on our agenda. Is there anyone who would like to comment on an item not on our agenda this evening? |
| 00:01:03.38 | Joe | Bye. |
| 00:01:21.86 | Unknown | I guess. |
| 00:01:23.36 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Oh, well, I'm going to call this gentleman first. |
| 00:01:25.28 | Unknown | And do it. |
| 00:01:27.38 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Sir, please step forward. If you could. |
| 00:01:31.34 | Unknown | No? |
| 00:01:33.35 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Are you Mr. Van Dam? Thank you and welcome. |
| 00:01:39.98 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | You have three minutes, sir. |
| 00:01:41.74 | Unknown | They'll do this. |
| 00:01:42.98 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Yes, it's going to start. |
| 00:01:46.65 | Unknown | A few concerns. |
| 00:01:47.96 | Doug Pryor | Thank you. |
| 00:01:48.03 | Unknown | Yes, sir. |
| 00:01:48.98 | Doug Pryor | Thank you. |
| 00:01:49.06 | Unknown | Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. |
| 00:01:53.97 | Unknown | you |
| 00:02:01.30 | Unknown | their monster fears, it's their fun. Passersby can't see into that dark corner. The lights near the entrance off Caledonia are too bright. They need to be dimmed to be able to see into the playground. It would help a lot to extend the back wall lighting into the corner. Something needs to be added that won't diminish the lovely nighttime ambience of the area. Thank you. My second concern is the weekend pedestrians who pile up into crowds at the corners where lighted walk sign signals are when it's... where lighted walk sign signals when it's safe to walk across the street. They think this is like a big city town and those signs are automatic. What's needed is something like a sign beneath the lighted walk sign telling them to push the button to operate the walk sign or stencil this kind of message on the crosswalk pavement immediately in front of the yellow threshold. They get pissed off waiting, then they cross against the light and it's an accident waiting to happen. Maybe the walk sign could go automatic on the weekends. The third concern is the city cars left in the parking lot above City Hall over the weekends. Maybe they could be parked against the back wall so patrons of the library and rec center can use the good parking places near City Hall over the weekends. I'll be happy to move the cars for them if they leave me their keys. Fourthly, Sausalito ought to consider building a separate, modern, magnificent library building with a large, elaborate children's section for the 21st century. Not a computer center, but a reading center where silence is the sound they hear. My fifth concern is Sausalito has acquired so much of its cultural elegance and reputation from the artists who have used and continue to use Sausalito as their work base Sausalito has grown and city income has grown. It would be a small but nice compensation for the city to make to its artist if the city would drop its requirement that artists pay the business license tax. This would extend to all the artists who exhibit and sell their art at the art festival as well. Eliminating this unjust tax could be a good beginning for showing appreciation to the people who brought so much world renown to the city. Thank you. Thank you for the opportunity to speak these concerns. Hopefully something of this interest you, especially the children's playground lighting, the crosswalk signage, the business license fees, the city cars, and a new grand library building. |
| 00:04:49.88 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you, Mr. Van Dam. I see that you're reading from a piece of paper. Would you mind sharing that with our city clerk? So that we can take your suggestions under advisement. |
| 00:04:55.31 | Unknown | . |
| 00:04:58.40 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 00:04:59.88 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:05:01.60 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | All right, any other members of the public that would like to comment on items not on our agenda this evening? |
| 00:05:15.22 | Unknown | That's not gonna be easy to follow. I'll second the idea. of no tax for for artists, art when it's done correctly is kind of a religion that takes over everything. and can be done anywhere, including as a mayor City Council person, the art of politics or however you want to describe it. |
| 00:05:48.26 | Unknown | We have a garden now and we're counting the Omer between two of the festivals, Passover And shavuos. It's a 50-day count. 50 is... THE FAMILY IS A LITTLE BIT OF Captives are set free. THE DEBTS ARE FORGIVEN. and everybody has an equal place to live. |
| 00:06:21.57 | Unknown | Leviticus chapter 21, verse 1. This is for Imor. Imor, it sounds a little like Amor, but Imor means say. And the Lord said to Moses, Speak to the Kohanim, the sons of Aaron, and say to them, Let none of you defile himself for a dead person among the people. unless it's immediate family. the Kohanim is Don't do that. Jesus had something to say about The Good Samaritan. and perhaps a koanim walking to do his temple duty. He's gotta be there. AND He has to stay there. HE CAN'T LET ANYTHING CHANGED HIS CONCENTRATION. Anybody named Cohen or Katz? Catchman, Khan, like that, is a person that for 2000... and more. years. Thank you. has kept their tribal integrity. TOGETHER. They know who they are, whether they say they're practicing reform, conservative, orthodox, or none of the above. In a way, being members of the city council mayor and city staff is a lot like that. And even to the point where when you run, unlike our president, you have to disclose all of your assets. And... We know about those. Most people don't do that. That's what the Kohens do too. So. I appreciate that and I hope you appreciate me only taking three minutes tonight. |
| 00:08:18.21 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. Any other member of the public that would like to comment on items not on our agenda this evening? Okay, then we will move on to our action minutes of the previous meeting. I advise the city clerk of one minor item for the special meeting on April 16 I did announce that both I and council member Susan Cleveland Knowles were recusing ourselves from hearing the appeal so I just wanted the record to reflect that and it did correctly reflect that we both abstained from the vote |
| 00:09:00.59 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Any other changes to the minutes? Thank you. |
| 00:09:03.10 | Joe | for both meetings a movie except the previous meeting minutes as amended |
| 00:09:03.12 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | for both meetings. |
| 00:09:07.71 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 00:09:07.73 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Exactly. |
| 00:09:07.95 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Okay. |
| 00:09:07.96 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Okay. |
| 00:09:07.98 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | you All in favor? Aye. That motion carries 5-0. |
| 00:09:09.36 | Joe | Aye. |
| 00:09:13.87 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | We'll move on to the consent calendar. I have a comment on one item on the consent calendar. The SB 828 letter. We tailored our SB 827 letter to include some statistics about Sausalito's accomplishments. I would like to do the same with the draft letter that was in our packet for SB 828. |
| 00:09:36.29 | Jill Hoffman | I agree. I had the same thought, actually. |
| 00:09:39.50 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Any other comments on closed session, and then I'll hear from the public? |
| 00:09:45.31 | Jill Hoffman | Yes. I do have a question or a comment on closed session item 4A, and that's the right-of-way at Budding 200 Susley Boulevard. I talked briefly with the community development director about this, and I asked him if he could, I don't know if you want to do it now, or if you could just give us a really brief summary of why that's back on our calendar, and we had discussed it the last time about the right-of-way and the stairs. Beyond what's on the staff report? |
| 00:10:11.55 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 00:10:12.02 | Jill Hoffman | Okay. |
| 00:10:12.14 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Okay, then I'm going to move it. I'm going to, so you can pull it from consent and we'll move it elsewhere. That's fine. |
| 00:10:13.45 | Jill Hoffman | I'm gonna- That's fine. |
| 00:10:16.64 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Okay. Thank you. |
| 00:10:18.25 | Jill Hoffman | Later today. |
| 00:10:19.16 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Yeah. |
| 00:10:19.73 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 00:10:19.83 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. All right. Any other... |
| 00:10:22.68 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Yeah, so I actually have questions about 828. And I see our community development director here. I have some questions. |
| 00:10:35.04 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | questions. Okay, so we'll pull that as well. Yeah. Is there any public comment on our consent agenda? Okay, then may I have a motion on 4B and 4C? So moved. |
| 00:10:52.20 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | All in favor? Aye. So that motion carries 5-0. |
| 00:10:53.14 | Unknown | I. |
| 00:11:00.38 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | we have a number of people here for one of our items, so I'm going to move 828 and the encroachment agreement resolution so that it follows so that it follows 6C. |
| 00:11:22.56 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 00:11:22.61 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 00:11:22.64 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 00:11:22.67 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 00:11:22.74 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 00:11:22.76 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 00:11:22.96 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 00:11:23.08 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 00:11:23.35 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:11:23.37 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thanks. Thank you. |
| 00:11:26.07 | Joe | I'm just wondering if it's a long item, do we want staff to stay until |
| 00:11:27.11 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Yeah. |
| 00:11:27.38 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 00:11:27.42 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Yeah. |
| 00:11:31.69 | Joe | 10 o'clock. |
| 00:11:32.46 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | So that was our practice last year. If we moved it, we moved it to the end. |
| 00:11:36.02 | Jill Hoffman | guys want to do something different. I'll tell you, my item's really quick. It's just a way to sort of inform and then maybe give some direction. to the staff going forward. |
| 00:11:46.98 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | beyond the direction that we approach encroachment agreements differently going forward. Which is in the staff report. Mmm. I don't know. |
| 00:11:57.22 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:12:02.06 | Jill Hoffman | not necessarily differently. |
| 00:12:04.68 | Unknown | Okay. |
| 00:12:04.96 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:12:05.03 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:12:05.62 | Jill Hoffman | So I don't know. I mean, I don't know. |
| 00:12:06.79 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | So is there consensus? Do you guys want to do this now? Thank you. |
| 00:12:10.25 | Unknown | THE FAMILY. |
| 00:12:10.33 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | are both items short-term. |
| 00:12:10.65 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:12:10.67 | Unknown | items true. Thank you. |
| 00:12:11.34 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 00:12:11.38 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:12:13.10 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Yeah. |
| 00:12:13.74 | Ray Withey | I think the short period. |
| 00:12:14.78 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | OK. All right. Yeah. Go ahead. So Danny, did you want to come up? And we'll discuss item 4A. |
| 00:12:16.02 | Ray Withey | Go ahead. So, |
| 00:12:26.35 | Danny Castro | Thank you, Mayor, members of the council. So Danny Castro, your Community Development Director. So at your last City Council meeting, you had continued this item for staff to look into the proposed encroachment agreement at 200 Sausalito Boulevard. We have been in communication following that meeting with the applicant, and we, we made sure that the access to those public stairs that are running along the public right-of-way, but access from Sausalito Boulevard, are to be maintained. And so they will be maintained, that access, as well as the access from Valley below the hill. Those stairs are in good shape. The access, obviously, is adjacent to and close to the property at 200 Sausalito Boulevard. I think in the future that we would come to you to recommend how we address public stairs and pathways in the future, especially when they're in association or close to an encroachment agreement that's being requested. But it will be maintained, the public access. |
| 00:13:26.49 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | And then Danny, every one of our encroachment agreements has a provision that allows us to terminate it with or without cause with 30 days notice, right? That's correct, yeah. |
| 00:13:36.95 | Jill Hoffman | So, So let me ask you this. permit that comes out, does it somehow highlight the fact that there are public stairways in that plan or in that agreement? Because if not, then my question to Danny was, can we somehow highlight that so when someone looks at that piece of property Later, it's clear that these stairs are in the public right-of-way and they're to be maintained. So there was a site map attached to the resolution |
| 00:14:00.96 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 00:14:01.25 | Jill Hoffman | Did you think it could be? |
| 00:14:01.98 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 00:14:02.03 | Jill Hoffman | should be highlighted |
| 00:14:02.97 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Yeah, because I couldn't tell. |
| 00:14:03.19 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah, because I couldn't tell. That's what prompted the emails back and forth. |
| 00:14:09.38 | Danny Castro | Yes, it's true. The encroachment agreement includes an attachment to the site map. And it does show the property boundary line of 200 Boulevard and that the stairs run along the Paper Street, which is 4th Street, down into the hill. |
| 00:14:23.17 | Jill Hoffman | Is there a way to better highlight that though? than we're doing? |
| 00:14:27.27 | Danny Castro | We could, yeah. I mean, in this particular application? |
| 00:14:30.14 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah, so that we don't run into the same thing. |
| 00:14:33.55 | Danny Castro | application. |
| 00:14:34.22 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah. |
| 00:14:34.39 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | BUT. Yeah, exactly. The staff report does correctly say that you will be bringing back to the city council an item to revise the manner in which you address encroachment agreements. And so I think that would be a valid. |
| 00:14:35.25 | Jill Hoffman | THE FAMILY. |
| 00:14:46.68 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | suggestion for that item when you bring it back to us. |
| 00:14:47.71 | Danny Castro | Thank you. |
| 00:14:49.76 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 00:14:49.82 | Danny Castro | Certainly, yes, and it is clear in the attachment that it is a public right of way. |
| 00:14:54.36 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | All right. |
| 00:14:54.66 | Danny Castro | And to be maintained. |
| 00:14:56.21 | Jill Hoffman | That's fine. |
| 00:14:56.97 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | you that's it okay any public comment on item 4a |
| 00:14:57.46 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 00:15:01.98 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Okay, so let's turn to item 4D. |
| 00:15:05.91 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | So I have a couple of questions. |
| 00:15:07.53 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | And did you see the report that Danny wrote to us about our statistics when 828 first came out, about our RHNA and our housing element statistics? |
| 00:15:19.23 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | I saw the update to our housing element numbers. This was before that. No, I don't think I was on. So maybe that information would be helpful. I'm possibly just going to ask that we continue this. I heard for the first time at the Marin County Council members and mayor's committee that senator Mike McGuire had supported this and I was trying to find out since then the reasons for that and in reading the staff report, I was |
| 00:15:24.63 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | I know. |
| 00:15:52.86 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | It seems like this, as opposed to SB 827, which we've already opposed, that this particular bill does not affect our actual zoning and what we are required to build, but changes the housing element, law and the way that the arena is calculated. And I just wanted to see if that was correct. Maybe if Community Development Director Castro. So, |
| 00:16:24.03 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Sorry, Danny. I wrote to Senator McGuire's aide and got a response yesterday regarding his support for SB 828. Um, And, |
| 00:16:36.97 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | So would it be possible just to ask if you could forward that to the group, and then maybe we could hear this at our next meeting? Yeah. I think SB 827 and 828 have been grouped together, and on kind of my first reading of 828, it didn't seem, especially now that it's been amended from 200% to 125%, it didn't seem as, I was just very cognizant of having a no reaction to every piece of legislation that relates to housing from Sacramento. And not to say that we shouldn't, and that might be the right approach, but this particular bill did not seem, at least on my first reading, to have some of the same impacts |
| 00:17:30.03 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | as 827. I don't think it has the same. I strenuously disagree. So I think we should add this as an action item on our next council agenda. |
| 00:17:38.43 | Ray Withey | Yeah, I would. |
| 00:17:38.45 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Yeah, I would. THE FAMILY. |
| 00:17:39.73 | Ray Withey | I would support that. I'm a little uncomfortable with this as well. |
| 00:17:44.44 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Yeah. |
| 00:17:46.28 | Ray Withey | The League of California Cities is still making up its mind, contrary to the staff report. |
| 00:17:54.60 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Oh, that came from Nancy Hall Bennett. |
| 00:17:55.86 | Ray Withey | Yeah, but they've not yet made up their mind. There's no, they're, they still are officially on watch. AND THAT WILL- |
| 00:18:03.61 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Not according to the legislative committee of MCCMC. Oh, you mean League of California Cities, Ray? |
| 00:18:08.43 | Ray Withey | I do mean the League of California Cities. |
| 00:18:09.16 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | California. Yeah. |
| 00:18:12.76 | Ray Withey | I think Also, I've got some questions about the opening paragraph of the letter. I'd like to see some modifications in the letter. So I think it might be worth delaying this. I don't know there's the legislative urgency in the sense that this is now out of Transportation Committee. It's going into the Fiscal Committee. It's going to sit and rattle around there for a while. It's when it comes up to the floor, I think, is the next Senate floor, is the next big time. |
| 00:18:21.28 | Unknown | You can see the letters. I agree. |
| 00:18:41.63 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Yeah, I agree and I think any time we take to address the potential removal of local control is something we should pay close attention to and it merits full discussion. So with that, Lily, I'm going to ask you to add this to our future agenda items. |
| 00:18:54.54 | Unknown | Thanks. |
| 00:18:54.62 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | So. |
| 00:18:55.25 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:18:55.28 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:18:59.30 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 00:18:59.36 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 00:18:59.38 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | All right, so then may I have a motion on item 4A? |
| 00:18:59.46 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | All right. |
| 00:19:03.11 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Move to continue item, oh, I'm sorry, 4A. |
| 00:19:05.45 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Poor egg. Thank you. |
| 00:19:06.05 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. MOVE TO APPROVED. |
| 00:19:08.32 | Ray Withey | Second. |
| 00:19:09.67 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 00:19:09.69 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | All in favor? Aye. That motion carries 5-0. And we don't need to take action. We just gave consensus to move 4-D. |
| 00:19:10.42 | Ray Withey | Bye. |
| 00:19:10.97 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Bye. |
| 00:19:17.94 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | All right. With that, we'll move on to business item 6 a Bicycle parking and congestion management plan our April update. |
| 00:19:42.07 | John Rohrabacher | Good evening Mayor, Vice Mayor, members of the City Council. For people listening or watching this someplace else, my name is John Rohrabacher, serving as Chief of Police. So tonight we're very excited to offer our April update, our first 30 days of being in congestion management for 2018. Lieutenant Gregory is here to go through the slides. I'm here to answer questions. Also joining us tonight are John and Lisa Scopazi from Saucieta Bike Return, operating our Parking and Bike Return and Ambassador Services. And Colette Martinez is here from Golden Gate Ferry. I saw that Ashley from the Chamber of Commerce came in. I don't know if she came in to answer questions, but she's here, so we added her. And so with that, we'll get started with Lieutenant Gregory and the slides. |
| 00:20:33.12 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 00:20:38.52 | Stacy Gregory | Good evening, Lieutenant Stacy Gregory. And I'm here to give you the April update. And I also want to thank all of my partners who I work with daily for being here to give their updates as well. |
| 00:20:54.08 | Stacy Gregory | So some of the things we're going to talk about tonight are the Saucelittle Bike Return Program. the ferry landing queuing and the boarding program, the enforcement of the illegal bike parking and the taxi ordinance. So as you all know, we entered into a contract with Sauceto Bike Return to handle our ambassadors, our bike parking, and our bike return. They started business on March 23rd, and that was approximately nine days, well, it was nine days prior to the start of business in 2017. So there's a couple reasons that I want to point that out. March 23rd they started business. March 30th they started counting up on the hill. And then this report, even though it's going to cover March 23rd to April 22nd, that month, We have three weeks of comparable data. So there's only three full weeks where we have data that we can compare to each other. Um, So those are kind of the time, that's the time frame that we're gonna talk about. When we go through and you'll see some of the slides, when it says week one, we're starting on April 2nd, that's Monday, April 2nd. So here's some information from. The March. dates, the parking and the returns. And this is from March 23rd until April 1st. And then you'll see at the bottom there, the bike counts for those three days, March 30th, to the first was the 4100. So even though we started business on the 23rd, we started counting on the 30th. And then my report will show comparison starting on April 2nd. And I think that'll make more sense when we get going. So starting with station one, this is what, if you haven't seen it, this is what the ambassador station looks like at the top of the hill. Friendly face, he's even got his feet in the air. It looks like he's having a great time up there. So his job is to count bikes coming down. give information. When I asked him, he said about 20% of the bikes stop and actually ask questions. And a lot of those are where's Sausalito? So he gives them the directions, he informs them of the bike parking, the illegal, or the fact that it's illegal to park anywhere other than the bike parking. So it's just a friendly face when we enter Sausalito. There's also another ambassador at Princess Street They didn't really have a station where they sit. They're there to monitor traffic. keep people from parking wherever they do, and to inform them where the ferry is and where the bike parking corral is. So here are the station one bicycle counts, and these are the numbers. So like I said, April 2nd is the first week of April. That starts on April 2nd on a Monday, and then we go for until April 22nd, the end of the third week. We didn't have a full week of information by the time this report was due to finish out the month of April. So those are the numbers. The other thing I want to point out is spring break 2017 was the second week of April. I think it was April 16th. So. That spike on the second week is based on spring break numbers. |
| 00:24:31.46 | Jill Hoffman | STACY, CAN I ASK YOU A QUESTION? YEAH. AT STATION ONE, IS THERE SOMEBODY UP THERE EVERY DAY DURING APRIL? I'VE JUST FORGOTTEN WHAT THE OPERATIONAL IS. |
| 00:24:40.24 | Stacy Gregory | Every day starting March 30th. Yep. |
| 00:24:42.79 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:24:43.75 | Stacy Gregory | Thank you. |
| 00:24:43.87 | Jill Hoffman | THE HOUR. |
| 00:24:44.12 | Stacy Gregory | 11 to 4. Okay, thanks. |
| 00:24:51.39 | Stacy Gregory | And we also have to take into account the weather, so you'll see that the numbers are down. Approximately, I think it's 20% from 2017. We move into the bicycle parking and here's the pay stations. You'll see that they were moved from their location last year. They're just on the opposite side of the street. They actually found a location where they would secure into the cement a little bit better. And they actually get more sun on their solar panels at that location. And then you'll see kind of the setup of. the bicycle parking corral this year as they try to move it as a one way in and one way out operation. |
| 00:25:40.08 | Stacy Gregory | Parking permits sold for the first three weeks in April. Again, you're gonna see a decrease, and you'll see that spike in the second week of April. AND AGAIN, THE NUMBERS ARE DOWN. The numbers are down approximately 28% from last year. And then the same graph, same thing, it's just showing the revenue. And so the parking permit sold does not include the return permits. This is strictly parking, the $3 parking permit sold. And the parking revenue, same thing, it's strictly the parking revenue. |
| 00:26:22.97 | Stacy Gregory | And we'll talk about the bike return services. And I put these pictures in so you can kind of see how it's set up. It's there in what we call the official lot, the corner of, Anchor and Bridgeway, or Tracyway. And they've done a really nice job. There's no question that you can't return bikes there. They've got good signage, and they're having success with the bicycle return program. Here are the numbers from the start of their operation, weekly, |
| 00:27:02.12 | Stacy Gregory | And then we have the weekly combined revenue with parking and returns. |
| 00:27:08.38 | Jill Hoffman | Stacey can I ask a question on that slide prior? The bike return, do we have any metrics on what this is from last year to this year? |
| 00:27:19.15 | Stacy Gregory | We do not, no. |
| 00:27:20.42 | Jill Hoffman | Okay. I mean, but it's the same operators, right? Same operators, yeah. Okay. Thanks, I'd be interested in knowing that. |
| 00:27:26.74 | Stacy Gregory | Yeah, and Lisa and John might be able to answer that question later when they come up. OK. But I don't have that answer. |
| 00:27:37.22 | Stacy Gregory | The ferry landing, we've done some reconfiguring. um, We relocated, as you can see in the top left corner, we relocated the benches that were along the landing there in order to move more bikes into that area, to even be able to put more bikes into the queuing area itself. They've also done some new nice signage that replaced some of the weathered cattle gate covers. So it looks really nice and professional down there. And we have our new banners, the ferry banners. Uh, um, They're working with, let's see. |
| 00:28:27.31 | Stacy Gregory | Sorry. |
| 00:28:30.89 | Stacy Gregory | Okay. So the queuing and the boarding program, that's the responsibility of the Golden Gate Ferry District. They coordinate with the Chamber of Commerce, with the staff. So the paycheck comes from the Chamber of Commerce. Golden Gate Ferry schedules and manages the staff down there as far as how they want them to operate with queuing the bikes to get them onto the boats. Currently, it's staffed from Friday through Sunday. And as the season progresses, probably Memorial Day weekend, it will be staffed seven days a week. |
| 00:29:12.41 | Stacy Gregory | Their reservation system is designed and has been implemented. It is working. Currently, it's not mandatory. So somebody could essentially get a reservation and would be guaranteed a spot on the boat if a cure is present. Um, As the season progresses, those reservations will be mandatory in order to be on a specific boat. And that probably will not be in place, and Colette will be able to talk about this a little bit more until my understanding is mid-June. And as of right now, we have not seen the need for it. But I know that once we get there and we need it, it's in place and we'll be ready to be implemented. And then so far this season, as of April 22nd, between Golden Gate and Blue and Gold, they have sent nine extra boats over for the bike traffic from Sausalito. |
| 00:30:14.31 | Stacy Gregory | Here's the Golden Gate Ferry bike counts, which you can tell are also down. from last year. |
| 00:30:25.74 | Stacy Gregory | And then this chart shows the bike counts, the parking and bike returns, and then the ferry. So you'll see it stays fairly consistent. And then again, you see the spike in the, in the April second week of April. The other thing to note is the March 26th to April 1st, where it's the 4,103 bikes, that was only counting for three days. So those numbers would be higher. Question. Yes. |
| 00:30:59.34 | Unknown | THANK YOU. |
| 00:30:59.66 | Unknown | So, |
| 00:31:03.49 | Unknown | I agree. you |
| 00:31:05.60 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Can I explain the bar graph? So if I understand it, the light blue is how many bikes we counted coming in. I see, so the dark blue is parking and returns? |
| 00:31:17.69 | Stacy Gregory | Parking and returns, correct. |
| 00:31:18.84 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | But if there were any returns, how can you have almost the same number going back on the ferry? So the blue and the green, the light blue and the green, just take the first 326 to 41. There's 4,103 bikes that we counted, 4,000. There's actually more going back on the ferry, which I'm not sure how that worked. |
| 00:31:40.43 | Stacy Gregory | That was the statement I just made. That was the week we only counted three days, because bicycle counting on station one started March 30th. |
| 00:31:52.22 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | So blue and gold was counting for the full. Blue and gold counted the whole month. Okay, we only counted for three days. |
| 00:31:53.66 | Stacy Gregory | blue and gold counted the whole month. They only counted Thank you. So those numbers would be higher if we counted for the other four days. |
| 00:32:00.41 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | But if you look at the next graphs and you add the blue and the dark blue and the green. They almost add up. And the thing, no, they're less than the light blue. Okay. |
| 00:32:00.44 | Stacy Gregory | but if you, |
| 00:32:07.97 | Stacy Gregory | Thank you. |
| 00:32:07.98 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 00:32:08.17 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 00:32:08.20 | Stacy Gregory | Thank you. And you'll notice on the very first week, or the very first couple days, there's no bike counting because we weren't counting at that time. |
| 00:32:17.42 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Okay, and then do you have any theories about why the number of bikes this year is less than last year? Is it sort of a global economic issue or other weather or? |
| 00:32:28.97 | Stacy Gregory | Weather. Weather has been, yeah, weather's been poor. I know there's been a couple days where they didn't count because of weather, so. Okay. |
| 00:32:29.16 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | weather. |
| 00:32:35.24 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Mm-hmm. |
| 00:32:39.25 | Stacy Gregory | Thanks. |
| 00:32:39.98 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Bye. |
| 00:32:40.70 | Joe | I think that's something that we need to look into the past too, because last year we had the same story. Weather was the reason last year was less than the year before. So I kind of want to expand this graph, and I think I'm just going to take it on and do some of this where I start putting rainfall totals on it as well. No, seriously, having some weather correlation, and we've talked about sales tax revenue as something as well as. You have too much free time. |
| 00:33:00.03 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | You have too much free time. |
| 00:33:01.93 | Joe | Sales tax revenue as something as well as ferry ridership going this direction because I've seen a lot of bodies without bikes. So I think we're seeing trend shifts that we don't have manageable information. |
| 00:33:14.44 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Okay, thanks. |
| 00:33:15.04 | Joe | And we shouldn't because we haven't asked. |
| 00:33:15.99 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Okay, well, so I understand. I want to let Stacy finish her presentation, then we'll get into... |
| 00:33:21.12 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 00:33:22.70 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Yeah, yeah, no worries, no worries. But I want Lisa to respond later. She wanted to come up and respond now. you So we'll let you respond later, Lisa. |
| 00:33:33.18 | Stacy Gregory | OK, the bike share and scooter share that we're seeing come into town. We've seen it all over the paper in San Francisco. These are the three companies, essentially, the Lime Scooters and Bikes, the Jump, which are the red ones, and then the Bird Scooters, which are the little white ones, gray ones down in the corner. They're coming into town. Believe it or not, as many of them that are coming in aren't staying. They do go away. We have had to impound some, meaning not just impound in place, we impound them in place, they're there the next day, and we have a process working with DPW where if they are there the next morning, we go and scoop them up and then they have to come and pay the $100 to get them back. We've had to do that with one jump bike and two line bikes. um, I have been in contact with all the companies, including also Ford bikes, which we haven't had any of those stay yet, although they do come. They are working on, doing something to their geo-fence, whatever that means. So the bikes know that they're not supposed to go past that location, and then when they do and they're left outside of the geo-fence, then they get charged a big dollar amount. I know Lisa's staff is counting them specifically for me, so I know how many come in. We can see it on the app. So we're working to try to stop this problem before it really becomes a problem, because it isn't as of yet. So. That's that. The scooter thing, it's not really a bike, so it doesn't fall under our, unless we decide differently, but it doesn't really fall under our bike illegal parking ordinance. So we might have to address that if it becomes a bigger issue. But we're just trying to stay on top of it as of right now. And the bike parking enforcement Compliance has been really good so far this year. And I think that's because of the work of the ambassadors, the fact that we've been doing it now for a while, a couple of seasons. The work of the parking staff are telling people, Don't park there, you're gonna get locked up, and the signage. We are currently working on hiring a young gentleman who will be our, we've named him our congestion management coordinator. So not only will he lock and unlock bikes, but he will kind of get an idea of the flow of the taxis and the buses and help us run the circle and the chaos in the downtown area. So you see the numbers of bicycles impounded. That just means bicycles that we've put cables on. As you know, we've given the discretion to our parking officers to, um, to be a little flexible with the fines, so we have sold, sold, we've made people pay for 15 impounded bikes and collected $375. And then our taxi ordinance. This is one that we're still working on the education. They're pushing back, and we're regularly communicating with them. I put that picture of the taxi flag banner thing there because we did move it. They feel like they're in no man's land, so we're doing our best to increase the signage. I'm... working with DPW now to develop some signage that really just lays it out, saying taxis one block north. So we're working on that. The ordinance went into effect March 29. We're still kind of in the leniency phase. They know they're pushing their limits, and they know we're also watching them, and that at some point we're going to stop being such nice guys. Um, And that's it. Any questions for me? Questions? |
| 00:37:42.19 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. Yes, go ahead. Stacy, if you could go back to the last slide that you had. that showed the B of A, where the taxis were lined up. So there used to be, do you have any sense, and this might be a question for Lisa and John too, but behind the bathrooms there, like if you look behind that fence, like on the other side of the block from that fence, there was a couple of rings, bike rings, where you could park your bike. And it used to be fairly well abused by the, by the bike companies where they would load up, you know, that whole, like the three rings with like 30 bikes all together. Do you have a sense of how that's going this year? Is that still a problem or is that still being used in that way or, or, I was thinking maybe because of construction there that's not |
| 00:38:26.98 | Stacy Gregory | Yeah, it's not being used in that way only because I called them and told them they needed to stop using it that way. |
| 00:38:27.16 | Jill Hoffman | It's not. |
| 00:38:32.93 | Stacy Gregory | Um, They had kind of a system where if somebody had a broken down bike or something, you know, they had a system for somebody to go pick up a bike. They could tell them where it was. And so, yeah, we have no tolerance for that, and they know that. |
| 00:38:44.73 | Jill Hoffman | Okay. Okay, thanks. |
| 00:38:46.37 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. Any other questions? Yeah, just while you're here, I just want to note that I've heard a number of complaints from regular commuters and local residents about the removal of the benches at the ferry. It's a really popular place to kind of get in line in the morning, drink your coffee, read your paper while you wait for the ferry. And I think people feel that, you know... I understand what you're saying when it's congested, it looks like it's working better, but I think people feel like their kind of comfort has been replaced because of the need for the outside tourists. So I just note that, I mean, if there's a way to have seating there when it's not congested, I can only imagine moving the benches back and forth is kind of a pain, but I just wanted you to hear that comment. Um, |
| 00:39:25.40 | Unknown | for the outdoor. |
| 00:39:41.03 | Stacy Gregory | Yeah, and I appreciate that. We did leave some of the benches out |
| 00:39:41.04 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Yeah, don't I? |
| 00:39:45.99 | Stacy Gregory | increase the seating capacity out there, it's definitely not on the landing. |
| 00:39:51.72 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Yeah, I mean, it's sort of how people queue up. Right, yeah. So you're kind of, if you're... I don't know if, Adam, you have anything to... |
| 00:39:53.77 | Stacy Gregory | Right. |
| 00:39:57.60 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Yeah, I mean, it's just a comment. I get why you've reorganized it that way, and it does look like when there's a lot of folks down there, it probably works better. wasn't welcome for the morning commuters. |
| 00:40:10.73 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Yeah. you. Thank you. |
| 00:40:13.32 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:40:13.43 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 00:40:13.48 | Jill Hoffman | any questions of Stacy I have I probably do have another question and it's about the cameras the kiosk cameras so there's just a brief mention of this in the staff report on page five of six and so it may be questions for John Elisa or for or Thank you. STACY, SO I CAN WAIT UNTIL EVERYBODY IS TALKING AND SORT OF GOING TO THE CAMERAS OR Thank you. |
| 00:40:38.69 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Are we going to get a set? |
| 00:40:38.70 | Jill Hoffman | Are we going to get a separate presentation? |
| 00:40:39.97 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | from John. And Lisa, are they just here to answer questions? No, they're not making a separate presentation. So go ahead and answer your question. Okay. |
| 00:40:43.77 | Jill Hoffman | just here to Oh, okay. Go ahead and answer your question. Okay. So I have to give just a tiny bit of background. I had hoped there would have been more of this in the staff report about the kiosk cameras, but there's not. So, and Lila, I asked you to put some, I had some pictures, some pictures to you. So the kiosk, when Sausalio Plus managed the parking corral, They had at some point there were cameras put up on the kiosk so that they could monitor the area, right? From their house. |
| 00:41:18.36 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Right. |
| 00:41:19.85 | Jill Hoffman | I don't know who, they had an operator that did it. It wasn't specifically, I think they had access to it, but it wasn't like at their house. It was the operator. And Adam has all that information about who it was that operated and who. Originally, they were installed so that there was a system they were going to use. And if I get this wrong, you let me know. So, Jill, you have to give this background to ask a question. I have to, because you guys have to understand it, and it's not in the staff report. And my understanding was that we were going to discuss this fully, the cameras at the kiosk at a city council session. This is it, and you got three sentences. But we're not in discussion yet. This is just questions. So why don't you ask your questions, and then we can have a discussion. I'm getting there. But you have to understand the background and you got three sentences. But we're not in discussion yet, this is just questions. So why don't you ask your questions and then we can have a discussion. I'm getting there, but you have to understand the background and why they were there. So anyway, |
| 00:41:57.90 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | I'm getting there. discussion. |
| 00:42:05.63 | Jill Hoffman | You know, as we're moving forward this year in March, the Thank you. Dr. Fotch, who was the head of the bike and ped, sent me this picture that he took on the morning of, I think it was March... 27th, right? And so occasionally we would get, he would send us pictures, hey, line's out of control, what can we do? So they used it as a management tool, right? |
| 00:42:26.99 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | So, |
| 00:42:27.35 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:42:27.36 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Since you're brazing the fact that he sent us the picture, let's talk about the fact that you asked the chief about what that picture shows after you forwarded it to him. |
| 00:42:33.86 | Jill Hoffman | after you forwarded it to him. Okay. YOU HAVE TO BE ABLE TO BE ABLE TO |
| 00:42:36.90 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Yeah. |
| 00:42:36.91 | Jill Hoffman | I told her. So I sent the picture to the chief and to Adam saying, hey, this looks really crowded for a Monday afternoon in March. And then the chief sent me back an email that said, He wasn't too concerned about it. Well, he spoke to you and me about it personally. |
| 00:42:50.57 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Well, he spoke Yeah. THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 00:42:53.43 | Jill Hoffman | Right. |
| 00:42:53.64 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | and said everybody is exactly where they're supposed to be. |
| 00:42:56.78 | Jill Hoffman | Well, okay. But you can see they're blocking the sidewalk. So everybody's not exactly where they're supposed to be. And so that's the concern, right? And that, to me, that's the value of having the cameras there so that we can have accountability about how it's being managed. And especially when we're talking about you know, when we did our agreement with the ferry company about where they were going to keep their queuing area, it's a really important tool for us to have as a city council members, is everybody compliant, right? So you're still commenting. What is your question, Jill? |
| 00:43:27.20 | Unknown | OK. |
| 00:43:28.92 | Jill Hoffman | I don't understand. So, okay, so I sent this email with a picture to the city, to Adam, and I think the chief on the morning. And then three hours later, the city, meaning Adam, sent Public Works to take the cameras down. |
| 00:43:42.95 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | It was not three hours later. You and I had a discussion with the chief two days earlier. No. |
| 00:43:43.08 | Jill Hoffman | not three. |
| 00:43:48.78 | Jill Hoffman | So, yeah. |
| 00:43:48.99 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 00:43:49.04 | Jill Hoffman | We had it during the legislative committee meeting. I sent the, no, that was later. So I sent that picture on March 27th. There's a timestamp on that picture that you can't see, but they were removed on the same day at 1.53. So. |
| 00:44:03.11 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | So... THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 00:44:03.74 | Jill Hoffman | MEETING. |
| 00:44:03.97 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 00:44:04.34 | Jill Hoffman | and it's a great day. |
| 00:44:04.49 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | way. |
| 00:44:04.75 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:44:04.85 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | So we're going to disagree about the timeline. Chief, that was later. Do you want to answer her question about what the picture shows? |
| 00:44:04.87 | Jill Hoffman | So we're going to disagree about the timeline. Do you want to answer that? |
| 00:44:15.57 | John Rohrabacher | I'm happy to. Should I just do a little narrative? Sure. So the picture on the left, the one showing people lined up, I still state that All the people in that picture are where we wanted them to be based on the design of the Cuyen area. The little bubble window with the arrow, sort of indicates up in the upper left corner there might be some bikes on the sidewalk right there. That's the only place in that picture where the sidewalk is... I don't know how many bikes might be there, but let's just say there are some. But all the other people in those pictures are where we wanted in the queuing area. This is the first weekend that we're open for business. And so that's what that is. And so when I got the picture from Council Member Hoffman, then I shared the information about my interpretation of the photo. And however, the existence of the photo and the camera still being in operation caused me some concern. and so I requested that they be disconnected, not removed. There's a difference because they're not our property. They belong to a private contractor. The picture you see on the right-hand side is our public works crew coming out with a ladder to be able to reach up and unplug them, which is all we did. is unplug them so that they were no longer functioning as being able to take pictures, but we did not remove anything because they're not ours. But we did call the man that owns them, and I've simply forgotten his name, but he came in collected his property both on the exterior of the chamber kiosk and the interior of the chamber kiosk and collected his stuff. And also we were not, of course, paying for any surveillance service, and without the cameras being used for an operational purpose like they originally were for queuing and the reservation system. is my belief that that constitutes a surveillance camera that we don't have authorized. and that caused me as the chief of police to be very concerned about that. I'm not at all concerned about the accountability issues. We're accountable all the time. I mean, we, the police, we're accountable every moment of the day and night. and we're there. as well as our partners working. I wasn't seeing the need for having the camera. I know we disagree, Council Member Huffman and I, |
| 00:46:41.20 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | And is Sausalito Bike Return taking pictures? |
| 00:46:43.69 | John Rohrabacher | Yes. |
| 00:46:44.35 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | And how frequently are they taking pictures? |
| 00:46:46.11 | John Rohrabacher | You know, I believe they're trying to take pictures every hour or so. Our people are taking some pictures too. I believe John and Lisa brought some to share. I'm not sure. Pardon me, but again, there's lots of us there all the time taking pictures and watching. But the whole topic of surveillance cameras, in my opinion, that's what it is, requires a separate action to go down that path and I didn't think that was warranted for the operation what we were trying to do at this point. And so the fellows came out and unhooked them, just undid the cable. |
| 00:47:15.15 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | And so Chief, this was your decision? |
| 00:47:17.55 | John Rohrabacher | Yes. |
| 00:47:18.32 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | It was not the decision. |
| 00:47:20.57 | John Rohrabacher | It was not. |
| 00:47:21.11 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | There would be no reason to berate the Skopazis for the removal of the cameras. Had somebody berated the Scopazes? |
| 00:47:28.03 | Jill Hoffman | That was what was reported to me. |
| 00:47:28.24 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | for the- |
| 00:47:30.29 | Jill Hoffman | That is absolutely untrue. Well, I'm not saying who did it, Jill. I'm just saying that I did. |
| 00:47:33.86 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | That is an absolute falsehood. Who told you that? |
| 00:47:37.04 | Unknown | I did that. |
| 00:47:38.10 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | I'm not saying who said it or who did it. I'm just asking, the Skapazes had nothing to do with that decision, correct, Chief? |
| 00:47:40.58 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:47:40.60 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:47:40.63 | Unknown | I'm just kidding. |
| 00:47:40.97 | Jill Hoffman | THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 00:47:41.02 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:47:41.03 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:47:46.30 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 00:47:46.32 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah. That's my understanding as well. No one that I know of has ever accused them of having anything to do with the removal of the cameras. So in this whole thing about, I mean, this was a discussion of email. This is the first time I've heard that you're the one that requested the cameras. I asked. I'm hearing that you were the one that had requested them be removed and that it was for some sort of concern about the surveillance. |
| 00:48:07.48 | John Rohrabacher | Yeah. |
| 00:48:10.21 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah. |
| 00:48:10.25 | John Rohrabacher | She didn't care about them being removed at the moment, just to put a fine point to it. I just ask that they be unplugged. I guess it's semantically. They're not working anymore. But we did not do anything to physically remove them. |
| 00:48:18.11 | Jill Hoffman | Uh, I... Okay. I spent a lot of time over three days going to different departments and asking about the cameras and why they were removed. And this is the first time I'm hearing that it was you and that it was a concern about surveillance. Now, the whole issue was that Again, this is not comment. This is just questions. We can talk about issues once we get through all the questions. Okay. Any other questions? Who else did you have? No, I do have some. Based on these comments, I do have some further questions. Great. Who else did you have conversations with about your concern about the cameras down there? |
| 00:48:40.89 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | OK. Any other questions? |
| 00:48:51.51 | John Rohrabacher | Well, my first conversation was with Stacy. so that I could ask Stacy to go down and make sure this got done. That was, you're just asking me who I talked to next. |
| 00:48:58.71 | Jill Hoffman | Removal, unplugging the camera. |
| 00:49:00.50 | John Rohrabacher | Yeah. I didn't ask her if she wanted to. I said, Stacy, make sure you get the camera simple. So that's how that conversation goes. But just so you asked, and so that's the conversation I had. And then later I had a conversation with Adam just letting him know what I did, because that's what I do. I report to the city manager, so I just told him what I did. And again, I didn't ask him, I just told him what I was doing. and |
| 00:49:23.92 | Jill Hoffman | And you knew they weren't the city's cameras. You knew they weren't being operated by the city. But you had seen that picture. And that's what prompted you to Even though everybody knew that the pictures were being taken, those cameras were operational when Sausalito Plus was operating them because you continually got pictures of them throughout the season when the pictures showed that there was congestion on the sidewalks. |
| 00:49:48.43 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 00:49:48.46 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 00:49:49.17 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Right. |
| 00:49:49.22 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah. |
| 00:49:49.44 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | like 60. |
| 00:49:49.57 | Jill Hoffman | for the first time. Thank you. |
| 00:49:49.98 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | So let's just ask, did you unplug the cameras in response to this picture? |
| 00:49:50.70 | Jill Hoffman | It's just. |
| 00:49:50.97 | John Rohrabacher | Thank you. |
| 00:49:55.99 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:49:56.00 | John Rohrabacher | Yes. |
| 00:49:57.01 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 00:49:57.03 | Jill Hoffman | But you had known, but okay. Let me ask a question again. Those cameras didn't belong to the city, correct? |
| 00:50:03.78 | John Rohrabacher | That's correct. |
| 00:50:04.34 | Jill Hoffman | The system didn't belong to the city. |
| 00:50:05.79 | John Rohrabacher | That's correct. |
| 00:50:06.35 | Jill Hoffman | The system wasn't operated by the city, |
| 00:50:09.25 | John Rohrabacher | Well, I think that's sort of a fine line there because we were originally being charged for those cameras when it was operated by Saucyuta Plus. I have to tell you, I did not know that they were actually still up on operational after the end of last season. Whether that's sloppy on my part, I don't know. But I'm just telling you that I didn't realize that they were still functioning. I thought that they were... |
| 00:50:09.33 | Jill Hoffman | I think that's true. Yeah. |
| 00:50:22.26 | Unknown | So what's the... Okay. |
| 00:50:29.03 | John Rohrabacher | Um, unplugged or just turned off after the end of last season's bicycle parking. |
| 00:50:30.44 | Jill Hoffman | Okay. |
| 00:50:30.65 | Unknown | or, you know, |
| 00:50:30.71 | Jill Hoffman | So, we're going to have a |
| 00:50:38.27 | Jill Hoffman | But they were operational last year. |
| 00:50:40.47 | John Rohrabacher | Correct. |
| 00:50:41.21 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, for whatever status then, I suppose. So, okay, okay. All right, any other questions? |
| 00:50:47.98 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | staff. |
| 00:50:51.74 | John Rohrabacher | So just to add for, you know, John and Lisa brought some pictures to show if you wanted about some of the, you asked a question about did they take pictures? Yeah, great. How many and they're here? That would be great. Answer any questions or show a few of the photos. Sure. Days are busy, days where they're not. And then Colette's here if you had any questions about. |
| 00:50:58.83 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | THE END. Thank you. |
| 00:51:09.29 | John Rohrabacher | the you know, the very part of the business and the work that they're doing. |
| 00:51:11.35 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Do you want to ask about that? |
| 00:51:11.97 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:51:14.18 | John Rohrabacher | I just want to make sure that you, the council, have the opportunity to ask all of our partners anything that you wanted while we're all here trying to give you the update on our first month. It's important for us to get your feedback because we've been in operation now one month. And now actually because of the delay of getting staff reports to council ahead of time and all that, we now have another week behind us. And so we're very excited about the rate of our progress, but knowing that everything we learned in the first month is lessons learned because this is actually pretty light right now. And if, you know, if history repeats itself, we're going to be busy later on. And so this is the time for us to work out those things that are, you know, might be some sort of wrinkles or bumps that so by the time we're in, you know, full summer mode, And, you know, we're we're not seeing things for the first time. |
| 00:52:02.02 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | So Chief, I'm going to ask the Skapazis to come up and show us some pictures. We're going to ask any other questions that we may have, then I'm going to open it up to public comment and then we'll make our comments up here. |
| 00:52:12.35 | Unknown | Thank you. Thank you. you Thank you. |
| 00:52:17.57 | Lisa Scopazi | That's her secret password in the future. |
| 00:52:35.18 | David Sudo | What do you have to do? |
| 00:52:43.70 | Stacy Gregory | Lily, you might have to help us. |
| 00:52:51.03 | Stacy Gregory | you |
| 00:52:51.08 | Unknown | Absolutely. |
| 00:52:53.61 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:52:55.05 | Unknown | and pop up. |
| 00:53:18.70 | Melanie Purcell | Magic. |
| 00:53:23.01 | Melanie Purcell | Thank you. |
| 00:53:23.02 | Lisa Scopazi | So. |
| 00:53:23.55 | Adam Politzer | Does not. |
| 00:53:24.04 | Lisa Scopazi | Thank you. |
| 00:53:26.35 | Unknown | Thank you. . |
| 00:53:29.82 | Lisa Scopazi | Thank you. Right here, removable disk, no? |
| 00:53:53.38 | Unknown | Mr. President, do the presentation. |
| 00:53:55.73 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Pictures of bikes. So, well, but I want to make sure all of us know that there's still some continuity in recording what's going on down there. |
| 00:53:55.74 | Joe | PICTURES OF PICTURES OF PICTURES |
| 00:53:56.50 | Unknown | So |
| 00:54:04.70 | Danny Castro | This is where to put the U.S. |
| 00:54:06.97 | Lisa Scopazi | I don't even know where it would be over there. Is this permit? No, that's a CD, huh? |
| 00:54:11.44 | Unknown | THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 00:54:13.75 | Lisa Scopazi | This looks familiar, so let's see if that works. |
| 00:54:14.02 | Unknown | Thank you. Thanks. |
| 00:54:17.09 | Lisa Scopazi | Well, while it's loading, why don't we just begin with any kind of questions that you might have for us? Or should we answer the ones that you, I was raising my hand. Yeah, you wanted to raise your hand. Go ahead. So the first question that came up, I believe, was about the bike return numbers from last year. Yes. As in comparison, and the reason there's no bike return numbers is because we didn't begin until the middle of May last year. So once we get tracking into another week or so here, we'll be able to have good, solid comps from last year. |
| 00:54:24.30 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Yeah. |
| 00:54:31.35 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Yes. |
| 00:54:46.28 | Lisa Scopazi | Uh, let's see. Also, I wanted to tell Joe, we can save you some time because I am keeping track of the weather patterns up at station one for you. Um, I have rain windy like today, you know, everything was blowing all over the place and fog patterns. And, and, uh, so I do have access to that if you want to take a look. and also just not to harp on the weather it has been a weird april as far as weather patterns but we have talked to our partner bike companies. They are all experiencing slower than normal bike rental sales. So they're all kind of grasping at the same pace. the same question. |
| 00:55:26.74 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Lisa, can I ask you a question about that? I've seen a couple of very bad reviews on TripAdvisor about the bike experience. Are you aware of any negative feedback that's impacting ridership? |
| 00:55:26.77 | Lisa Scopazi | Lisa, can I ask? |
| 00:55:41.59 | Lisa Scopazi | Not from our partner bike companies. No, I'm not, honestly. Are you? No. Honestly, I don't know. Let's see, while we're still having this circle here. Any other questions? |
| 00:55:56.64 | Colette Martinez | here. |
| 00:55:59.47 | Lisa Scopazi | popped up. that you might have. |
| 00:56:04.59 | Adam Politzer | Madam Mayor, if I can just also remind the Skapazes that last year on the bike return program, you had a very successful first day. and then you went out of business the second day. So the ramp up from where you thought you were going to be on the first day to what happened the second day, subsequent weeks, maybe months. Might want to talk about, because it's not just about |
| 00:56:25.93 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:56:25.97 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:56:26.00 | Unknown | I mean, |
| 00:56:30.25 | Adam Politzer | when you started this year, but you had to build a program last year that you've. thought you had already built. |
| 00:56:36.83 | Lisa Scopazi | We did. We had to start from scratch, basically, because we had worked with our partner at that time, Blazing Saddles. And after the first day, which was Good Friday of last year, it was April, I can't remember the exact day, 14th or something, we returned about 300 of their bikes. And after that, then they said no more. They didn't want to partner with us for all of last year. So we basically went out and reinvented ourselves. I talked to every single bike company, and we personally met with all of them. And then it took about a month to ramp that business back up. So that's a little recap from there. Thank you. |
| 00:57:11.46 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | So I see a check mark on this disk that was loading. Does that mean, oh, it's still loading. No, it's a. |
| 00:57:16.47 | Unknown | I'm sorry. |
| 00:57:16.88 | Lisa Scopazi | Thank you. |
| 00:57:17.65 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | So I would say, how about if we take some public comment, if there are no more council questions, and then you can come back and show us your pictures when and if they get loaded. |
| 00:57:22.41 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:57:22.45 | Lisa Scopazi | Thank you. |
| 00:57:22.57 | Unknown | THE FAMILY IS |
| 00:57:22.72 | Lisa Scopazi | Thank you. |
| 00:57:30.21 | Unknown | It's okay. |
| 00:57:31.29 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | All right, so I'm going to open it up to public comment. Who would like to comment on the update on our bicycle plan downtown? Thank you. Don't all raise your hands at once. |
| 00:57:48.87 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | We recognize Mayor Herb Weiner. |
| 00:57:52.28 | Herb Weiner | Thank you. Herb Weiner, 315 4th Street. just the citizens. |
| 00:57:58.07 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Once a mayor, always a mayor. |
| 00:58:00.87 | Herb Weiner | Some comments. First of all, this year here, there's a very, very... aggressive THE BITE RENTALS. RETURNED WHERE LAST YEAR IT WAS ALMOST NOTHING. YOU HAVE THREE COMPANIES THAT ARE DOING IT. You have this Kapazis, you have Bay Cities that has a setup here on Bridgeway, and you have Blazing Shadows that has a setup. So hopefully that in the future, this summer, I hope that together they could work on returning about 450 bikes. That represents three ferry loads, and that would definitely have an impact. on the ferry. Uh, cameras. CAMERAS ARE SET UP FOR SECURITY. All businesses do that. And we do it for crime or stealing. You don't have crime down there. That's not any bicycles that are stolen. and you don't have any stealing because the machine, there is no changing of money, it's only by the machine. The police, and also, I'd like to know, what time was that picture taken? you know? |
| 00:59:19.59 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | I don't know. |
| 00:59:20.20 | Herb Weiner | Oh, |
| 00:59:20.42 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 00:59:20.44 | Herb Weiner | Thank you. Because first of all, the phenomena takes place between three and six, three hours of the day. And you are going to get some congestion because there are some people that will come down And don't want to pay the $3 so they sit there and they decide what they're doing Well, at 3 o'clock, 2.30 in the afternoon, you have a lot of bikes coming in. That's when the bulk come in. So you're going to have congestion. And there is gonna be a couple of days that no matter what, the perfect storm. YOU'RE GOING TO GET SO MANY BIKE THAT YOU'RE GOING TO HAVE AN But, and then you also have late in the afternoon, you have the people that are, the meter people, they're constantly down at that area monitoring to see if there's any congestion. I've seen it. I've done it myself. All right? cameras. |
| 01:00:20.07 | Herb Weiner | To me, cameras represent laziness. All right, not hands-on. And that's what was going on, in my opinion, last year. Not hands-on operation. all right, working from a remote area. So I really do recommend. The Scapazis are on it. They know what they're doing. They're hands on. And I think you'll see the difference. And the numbers will show that. Thank you. |
| 01:00:45.03 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Herbie, can I ask you a question? Sure. So you've been down there every year. |
| 01:00:46.60 | Herb Weiner | Thank you. |
| 01:00:50.31 | Herb Weiner | Even this year. |
| 01:00:51.26 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | You've been and I've seen you several times this is my blood |
| 01:00:53.40 | Herb Weiner | several times this year. |
| 01:00:55.66 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | So can you share with us your impressions of how this congestion management has evolved from two years ago to last year to this year? |
| 01:01:08.35 | Herb Weiner | Well, it's, It took a step back, in my opinion, in the last two years because the concept was good, the delivery wasn't. There were so many people working in that bike area there. And we're in a different era today. You don't see full service gas stations anymore. If you go to Home Depot, you go to Safeway. self-service counters, all right? So the direction of full service on that delivery was not correct. And it isn't self-serve because they have people there that will assist them. To me, that's called courtesy serve. They might point where they are to put the bikes, all right, but that's a courtesy. And they also are very, very helpful. And if you look at the people that are working, most of those people were from last year. Go ask them what they think of it now. There's an older fellow there. He was telling me by the time 4 o'clock came along, he was exhausted because he's an older person trying to put bites in place. Now you don't have that. When he goes home at six, |
| 01:02:18.47 | Melanie Purcell | Thank you. |
| 01:02:18.52 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | THE FAMILY. |
| 01:02:20.38 | Herb Weiner | HE FEELS GOOD. HE'S READY FOR THE NEXT DAY. |
| 01:02:24.53 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | So for those of us, I know that Joe's been down there several hours, I've been down there several hours. So this year, people are being directed to where they can park their own bike as opposed to having the- |
| 01:02:38.36 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:02:38.38 | Herb Weiner | And... |
| 01:02:39.07 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | It valeted. That's what you're talking about. |
| 01:02:41.77 | Herb Weiner | That's correct. And when days, if you're shorthanded, weather days, this fits into, this should have been done three years ago. But it wasn't. It went in a different direction. And I think there's been a correction made. And we'll see what the reservation system and how that works. But I think now, if anything, I would say I feel it's going in the right direction, in my opinion. |
| 01:03:07.73 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thanks. Any other questions of her? All right, thank you so much for coming by. All right, any other public comment on this? David. |
| 01:03:22.04 | David Sudo | Just a couple of quick comments. One is we shouldn't really be seeing any of those scooters in town because they're not allowed on the bridge. There's no scooter on the bridge, whether it's electric or not. So if the patrol on the bridge is doing their job, then we shouldn't see those, hopefully. And maybe they could get geofence too, so the motor shuts down when they hit the bridge. |
| 01:03:43.92 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Well, yes. So that's something that's being put in place, even as we speak. |
| 01:03:47.01 | David Sudo | Even as we Thank you. I'm not sure. And I have some questions about the queuing, and maybe that can be answered at some point. Is there a process for, when we go to mandatory queuing, is there a process for someone who arrives without a reservation to make a reservation, especially given the poor nature of Internet access down there. Even if they have a working smartphone, it may not be able to access a website to make a reservation. |
| 01:04:22.36 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Now I thought the chamber, so I'm going to call Jeff up here. Jeff, I thought the chamber had increased the Wi-Fi. She's going to stop it. |
| 01:04:29.81 | David Sudo | Okay, so those were my comments. |
| 01:04:32.88 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Okay. |
| 01:04:39.43 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Is that thunder? |
| 01:04:42.50 | Jeff | Yes, a couple comments before I go to your question about the Wi-Fi, Madam Mayor. In regards to, I think we've had multiple meetings down at the ferry landing, at the kiosk, and looking at the whole area with all of our partners here tonight. What's been great is definitely we're ahead of the game as far as we're not in the middle of the season trying to fix things. We've met a few times down there discussing how we can change things, how we can move the queuing line, what still needs to be done. Colette, Ashley and I met today actually looking at what the next steps are as far as signage. Colette brought some new signage down there. Colette from Golden Gate Transit that is. Also, Ashley and I looked at the kiosks today, looking at where we're gonna put the monitor for the reservation system. So we're looking at putting the reservation system into the kiosk where people, if they don't come to Sausalito, don't have a smartphone, they can make a reservation |
| 01:04:48.62 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Bye. |
| 01:04:48.76 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:05:38.82 | Jeff | at the kiosk. where there's Wi-Fi. |
| 01:05:41.00 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | where there's Wi-Fi. |
| 01:05:42.39 | Jeff | With Wi-Fi, correct. Right. There is Wi-Fi. The chamber does have Wi-Fi down there. Definitely the bandwidth is not probably what we need, as it's like a funnel. So the funnel is only so big, but things get clogged up, especially when you have a lot of people down there. But we're working on ways to increase that bandwidth if we can. Yeah. |
| 01:06:00.26 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | And then are you able to answer the question about reservations for those who don't have any, or should we ask Colette? |
| 01:06:06.23 | Jeff | That would probably be more of a collect question, but I do know that we are working on that. So it actually is operational now, of what I understand. We don't have the terminal in place, but it will be placed in the kiosk in the next week or two. So people that, once again, don't have that reservation on their smartphone can make it. But we're not really in the middle of the season yet where it's needed really as of yet. But as you're seeing some of the pictures from midday, especially on the Saturday and Sunday times, it's great to have a reservation so you can get on that ferry boat at that time. |
| 01:06:37.90 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | So I met with Ed Fotch, and he was pointing out some of the challenges of the queuing system from before. And one was, you know, sometimes the Golden Gate Ferry adds extra boats. And so people, there may be one group of reservations available in the morning, and then all of a sudden that changes. So I think that goes to David Sudo's point. How does someone make a reservation if they do add a boat and now there's room? How do you make a reservation instead of being stuck at the end of the day? |
| 01:06:43.79 | Jeff | Mm-hmm. |
| 01:07:08.51 | Jeff | Right, that's going to be more of a question than a question here. |
| 01:07:09.59 | Colette Martinez | Thank you. |
| 01:07:09.63 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | I'm not going to be a |
| 01:07:09.97 | Colette Martinez | question here, so. Thank you. I'm not. So the way we run extra boats is we don't put them on a printed schedule. And so there won't be an option to get a reservation. But what we will do is we'll open up to double reservations. So you'll see a departure of 345, and there will be 300 reservations available. So the first boat really will leave a little early. The next boat will leave on time. So that's how we handle it. But we can't print that, we can't have that on the schedule all the time because what if we're down a boat and also some leeway We need to have some flexibility. I can't have a reservation every seat fixed. What if there's a broken boat? |
| 01:07:52.42 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | And so not every bike company is a little bit different, and not all of them are... models of providing lots of information to their riders. And so how do we deal with people who end up here in Sausalito with a bike, without a reservation? |
| 01:08:11.80 | Colette Martinez | So that is what the monitor is going to be doing at the kiosk. It's just that's all there is on that one monitor. Also at the top of the hill, when those people stop there, they're going to be given just a business card side of the site that they can go to so they can just relax, go enjoy the city, and while they're having lunch, book it then. But also, we had a lot of pushback from the bike companies when we started talking about this last year and early this year. And I think they've come around. They were very resistant. We don't want to make people panic about I can't get back. That's not the message they want to give when they're riding their bike. that we have sort of pared it down. If they want to go in the prime time, that's where we want them to have a reservation. You don't have to have one at 12 o'clock, but you really need one at that 3 to 6 o'clock. So I feel like we, especially from the big two, we've really had some good discussions with the police department and with the Chamber of Commerce. So I think they're definitely going to be a message. Might not be a big message, but they're definitely added this year. Thank you. |
| 01:09:19.72 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you so much. Any other questions of Colette? Thank you. |
| 01:09:25.81 | Jill Hoffman | I'm sorry, Colette. Oh, Colette, please. How many managers of the line are you gonna have? THE CUEING LINE? |
| 01:09:33.98 | Colette Martinez | Yes, we're going to have one during the week and two on a Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday. And then during those really busy, like the four weeks after Fourth of July. then we're going to have to be staffed to it. And last year we had three and we just don't need it. |
| 01:09:50.35 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, and so my understanding, Chief, is that the area for the queuing is limited to that section of the sidewalk or section of the parking lot that was actually, you could see on that picture that I showed. |
| 01:10:03.74 | Unknown | So... |
| 01:10:04.40 | Jill Hoffman | So... What is the plan when you just are at capacity in that area. |
| 01:10:10.78 | Colette Martinez | We're telling people not to stand in line. that come back there's no need to get in line, your seat is reserved. We're going to be holding more than two boats worth in that line. So that means they have an hour wait, maybe an hour and 15 minute wait, when they are holding a reservation. So that's why we're asking don't even come back. Just stay parked or stay somewhere else in the city. |
| 01:10:19.05 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:10:19.07 | Unknown | . |
| 01:10:19.24 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:10:25.28 | Unknown | you |
| 01:10:25.43 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:10:25.53 | Unknown | I'm sorry. |
| 01:10:34.24 | Jill Hoffman | Is there going to be some way to notify people when your boat is coming up? I mean, is there like, you know, because what you're telling me now is that, that you're going to have two boats maybe for like two, three o'clock boats, but neither are going to actually leave at three o'clock. Or maybe one will leave a little bit early. Right, right. So how do people know? |
| 01:10:51.32 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 01:10:51.37 | Unknown | Right, right. |
| 01:10:53.83 | Jill Hoffman | How are they going to know what boat they're on or they just want they'll just know they'll have a ticket at some time around 3 o'clock. |
| 01:10:59.62 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | I mean, it would be great if there was like, you know, some alarm or some alert that said you're, because many apps do include alerts. It would be great if there was an alert that said, hey, your boat's coming up in 30 minutes. Yeah. Yeah. |
| 01:11:02.54 | Jill Hoffman | No, no. |
| 01:11:12.11 | Colette Martinez | 30 minutes. whatever. That'd be great. It's this all through blue and gold fleet. I could ask them if that's something they can add. Yeah. That's a great idea. |
| 01:11:22.69 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | And I had another question. just as we're getting everything lined up now, we're gonna undertake construction. What impact and what are you doing to manage the upcoming construction? Thank you. |
| 01:11:37.57 | Colette Martinez | on the phone. |
| 01:11:37.84 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | on the ferry landing. |
| 01:11:39.01 | Colette Martinez | I can personally say we haven't looked beyond this summer. |
| 01:11:44.22 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | I think at the next report, we'd like to start asking you to start thinking about that. Because, you know, one of the things we want to do is minimize the impacts on our residents of the community. AND I THINK THAT'S A renovation of the ferry landings so that's going to be something important to consider. |
| 01:12:03.59 | Jill Hoffman | Certainly. So let me follow up on that. Do you have a, I mean, I know this isn't your thing, but do you have a date when construction |
| 01:12:04.62 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Amen. |
| 01:12:11.45 | Jill Hoffman | Do you expect construction to begin? No, I do not. Is it just some time in? |
| 01:12:11.49 | Lisa Scopazi | I do not. |
| 01:12:15.00 | Jill Hoffman | I don't think it's even this year. Not even. Okay. |
| 01:12:15.73 | Adam Politzer | It's not even. madam mayor if i please comment on that as you as the council took action a few council meetings back to uh recommit uh our agreement with the uh golden gate uh with uh golden gate ferry and going to bridge district on the use of the pastor agreement since that action of the council the general manager dennis mulligan and I have had a couple conversations. He was, I think, on vacation last week, and the intent is for Dennis and myself, Jonathan Goldman, our public works director, and Jim Swindler to get together to start looking at all of the activity that will happen, including coming and giving a report to the council on that schedule. As we also look at the land side improvements so that we are in tandem with them as we move forward together. |
| 01:12:17.85 | Jill Hoffman | If I can know. |
| 01:13:13.30 | Adam Politzer | Thanks. THANK YOU. |
| 01:13:14.97 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Any other questions? OKAY. Jeff? I'm here to conversation. |
| 01:13:19.16 | Jeff | I don't know if there's one more thing. Just to reiterate a little bit about which boat's coming in. The ferry staff does do a great job of letting people know what boat is coming in. I've kind of hidden in the bushes a few times down there just to watch what's going on. Well, I want to be unknown, especially being in a coat and tie doesn't help things down there a little bit. Maybe we should be in shorts. |
| 01:13:19.60 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Yeah. |
| 01:13:36.54 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | No. I think you think you're hiding, Jeff. |
| 01:13:40.69 | Jeff | Exactly, they know what's going on. But I wanted to really see what the ferry staff was doing, what the bike staff, but also what even the taxi drivers are doing. So it's kind of just observing. So really got to feel what was going on behind the scenes. The ferry staff did a great job really letting people know what was going on, where they should stand, and keeping the lines going, which is important. |
| 01:14:03.12 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. And thanks for the chamber's leadership down there this year. All right, I know the Skapazis have some pictures they want to show us. I don't think we need to see a ton. I think everybody's been down there. |
| 01:14:16.47 | Lisa Scopazi | I just do a little sampling so you can kind of see. |
| 01:14:18.22 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Okay. Thank you. |
| 01:14:20.75 | Lisa Scopazi | Yeah, OK. Well, I mean, without boring you, like my Uncle Bill in the 1970s with his slide projector, really, this is what it looks like about every day during the middle part of the week. You can keep kind of going through. This was one very particular busy day. We did have, and remind me what her name is, the corral gal, Colette. |
| 01:14:20.99 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 01:14:47.23 | Lisa Scopazi | Anyway, she's fabulous. You'll see her in the orange vest there. And this was like several boats full, and she is absolutely amazing. Like she corrals them literally in like you see. We haven't had any problems down there. My staff is trained also to jump in during the week if there isn't anybody there, and you see the single file thing going, it takes literally five minutes to just jump in where she is and say, everyone move ahead, and before you know it, they aren't single file in line again. are corrals |
| 01:15:23.10 | Jill Hoffman | Lisa, can I ask you a question on that? Sure. picture that you just showed. Chief, I think we're going to start seeing the Disneyland you know, back and forth. So you get more people in the corral? Is that Is that starting or no? Am I got that wrong? |
| 01:15:37.41 | Lisa Scopazi | That's for crux. The foot traffic side, she says. |
| 01:15:42.27 | Jill Hoffman | Oh, on the foot traffic side. |
| 01:15:44.01 | Lisa Scopazi | All right. |
| 01:15:44.08 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 01:15:44.10 | Lisa Scopazi | Thank you. |
| 01:15:44.13 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 01:15:44.16 | Lisa Scopazi | Thank you. |
| 01:15:44.18 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 01:15:47.15 | Lisa Scopazi | Just a typical weekday. very windy weekday. As you can see, this is just some of the pictures, just a little sampling. Keep going. Stop if you have any other questions. Thank you. They try to take them down so I can see how many bikes we have, and then they'll go down at the end and see how many return bikes we have. |
| 01:16:08.73 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | And then, Lisa, I see the arrows. So I watched you one day. And so people go straight through, park their own bike. Then they go to the end to get their ticket. |
| 01:16:18.03 | Lisa Scopazi | THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 01:16:18.34 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 01:16:18.96 | Lisa Scopazi | I'll just talk you through the process real quick. So they come up. If it's one of our partner bikes, we ask if they would like to do the return now. If they do not, we'll say you can park here for $3 all day, and kids are free. Marin County residents are free as well. We stage those first about eight racks. Then you'll see some chains in the middle. And after the first racks are full, we direct people down to the other end, and then they start filling up at that end. and when that end is full, believe it or not, the... in the middle, and after the first racks are full, we direct people down to the other end, and then they start filling up at that end, and when that end is full, believe it or not, the front end is empty again, so we reverse the process. We have yet to take off the change section in the middle, even though I think one day we had over 800 bikes. So it's working really well. It's one-way only. Pay station's down at the end. They can't get out with either a hand stamp or a ticket, they can show us either one, because we stamped their hands, kids love it in particular. |
| 01:16:19.03 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | So, Yeah. |
| 01:17:11.41 | Lisa Scopazi | And the flow is really well. On all of the bike racks, you can't really zoom in, but there are black dots about this big. There you go, yeah. And we direct them to park their bikes. We basically are doing parking with assistance. And we say put your tire on that black dot, and if you want to, turn the other bike around, and then you can use one lock on them. And people are doing it great. They just follow the black dots and follow it down to the other end. Some people take one minute, some families take 15 minutes. So once they have their direction, then they go down and then they pay. Again. |
| 01:17:55.11 | Joe | continue that at least if you would they retrieve their bike and then do what |
| 01:17:56.35 | Lisa Scopazi | Yeah. |
| 01:17:59.82 | Joe | at the end? Yeah. |
| 01:17:59.96 | Lisa Scopazi | At the end? Yeah. You mean when they're ready to get their bike? When they're done. Then they exit out and they have to show us their receipt. On the far end? On the far end. There are some people who sneak through the front, but I always have a manager like here on the front and that's fine too. |
| 01:18:06.13 | Joe | On the far end? Thank you. |
| 01:18:14.64 | Joe | So then they come down this forbidden sidewalk. with their bike. How did they get from the far end to the ferry? |
| 01:18:23.06 | Lisa Scopazi | Oh, we tell them to walk their bikes on the sidewalk back up or to go around through. But most of them, they know right where they're going because when they enter in and kind of where My managers are also trained. So when the ferry system does require reservations and they are mandatory, the client will hear it three times or the bike passenger will hear it three times. Right when they come in with my manager, in the middle with my assisted parking person. at the end again with the pay stations and I also have a ferry schedule down there too so they'll say this is your ferry schedule make sure you get your reservations they'll have heard it three times so that's another way to communicate it also at the top of the hill they'll be getting those little cards that will say the information so we're going to direct them right to them if they don't have it already direct them to the kiosk reservations |
| 01:19:12.22 | Joe | Thank you. We saw a picture earlier that the queue was not full, but there was people on the sidewalk. They could be coming down the sidewalk to get into the queue. Yeah. In the picture that we showed from March 27th, the queue wasn't full. |
| 01:19:19.34 | Lisa Scopazi | Thank you. |
| 01:19:19.35 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 01:19:24.82 | Joe | so they have to go on to the sidewalk anyway. Is that... They come down the side. |
| 01:19:30.00 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | People are allowed to be on the sidewalk, they're just not allowed to stand still and loiter on the sidewalk. |
| 01:19:33.73 | Joe | Right, so, but for, again, for a still shot is all we can see is an empty queue that wasn't full and somebody on the sidewalk. Okay. |
| 01:19:41.68 | Lisa Scopazi | Yeah, and it really helps. And remind me, Colette, what is her name? I love her. Mara Carr, she's great. Right. |
| 01:19:48.82 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | So are you observing a lot of people standing around on the sidewalk with their bikes? No. |
| 01:19:54.19 | Lisa Scopazi | No. We had a couple of the very, very first busy days when it was Easter Sunday. Again, it was only because they were doing the single file thing. Once you get in there, it's truly like a two to three minute process to get everyone in the queue. Right again. |
| 01:20:14.96 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Okay, anybody want to see more pictures? We're going on pictures? I think that's about it. |
| 01:20:16.04 | Lisa Scopazi | See more pictures? I think that's about it. you |
| 01:20:18.94 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | All right. |
| 01:20:19.53 | Lisa Scopazi | Okay. |
| 01:20:19.80 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. Any other questions of Lisa? Just one more thing. Yeah, go ahead. |
| 01:20:20.61 | Lisa Scopazi | Other questions of Lisa? Just one more thing. Yeah, go ahead. I think Stacey wanted me to mention it too. We also did implement a rescue program for our partner bicycle companies. If someone is stranded, their tire's flat, the chain falls off for whatever reason, we will rescue them on this side of the Golden Gate Bridge and return their bikes. So I just wanted to throw that in there. |
| 01:20:44.17 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | It was in the staff report. You actually let people return their bikes for free. You got them rides. I mean, it's commendable what you're doing. All right. Thank you. Okay, any other public comment on this item? All right, I'm going to close public comment, bring it up here for discussion. Who would like to lead off? |
| 01:21:06.58 | Jill Hoffman | Jill, okay. Okay, so just very briefly, going back to the cameras at the kiosk. So the purpose of the cameras at the kiosk, to Herb's point, aren't, for crime, they're for management, so that we can hold our partners accountable on what's going on down there. And whether or not they're actually performing in the way that we've contracted with them to perform. And also for the ferry company to hold them accountable for their agreement on where they're going to hold the bikes before they get on the ferry. So I mean, I'm happy that Lisa's taking pictures, and I'm happy that other people are taking pictures. I'm not necessarily interested, I mean I'm interested in how it's going overall and the value of the the value of the live stream was that you could tune in at any time. You didn't have to be down there. And not necessarily for the operators, but for us as people holding them accountable and having that information available to us. And so I was the one that went and figured out who operated it, went and talked to him about how we could keep it going, how much it would cost. It would cost $60 a month to keep it going, which I thought was pretty nominal for this season, and the value of the information that we get from that. So I'm not happy with the way it was handled, obviously. I think that's clear. Joan, our meeting was on April. on April 3rd, I think our, our, our legislative committee meeting was I think it was on April 3rd or April 4th. You know, at that meeting, it wasn't clear that the chief had removed or that was at his behest or why they had been removed. So I think we've lost an important accountability tool for us as city council members because of this. I wish it had been handled differently. But, you know, I think they could be reinstalled. If we wanted them to be reinstalled, I just don't know now the cost and if that operator would do it and how we would do that. My thought was that had I known, I mean, it just didn't occur to me how it all worked, before our city council meeting when we awarded the contract to Sausalio bike return. And if you remember, in the morning of that day, we didn't even have a contract with terms. And so we all worked really hard all day to get the terms into that contract. And that was just one thing that wasn't in there. I would have requested that that be part of the contract and that Sausalio bike return that $60 cost. I mean, when you're talking about $280,000 at this program, is projected to generate this year, and you're talking about $60 for an accountability, not just for Sossley, specifically for Sossley of Buyer's Return. It's mainly for the congestion in the area and our ability to manage that and hold people accountable and clearly see. And the thing I like, I always say this, no matter what we're talking about, I like cameras because then I don't have to argue about it. I mean, it's great. If Lisa's coming in here and saying what a great job everybody's doing, okay, that's great. I'm happy to accept that. But I also want to see some objective backup on that. I just don't see why why it became this kind of a problem and why I was not able to get straight answers out of our city manager and our chief of police. And so that, I'm very disappointed in that. But overall, I think there's probably some ways now that we can Institute some accountability measures. I mean, it's a little bit more clunky, but we can just say, okay, go down and take pictures at whatever time of day we want to say and have people texting to us. I mean, we can do that, but overall, I'm excited to see how this program is going forward. I think that was... That was an unfortunate blip in the management of this overall, and I hope that we can do better going forward. So, Jill, I think |
| 01:25:05.44 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. The chief is responsible for managing this, right? |
| 01:25:11.65 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | or do you think we should be managing it personally? |
| 01:25:14.99 | Jill Hoffman | No, but here's an example. Many, many times over the course of the management of the last year and the year before, we would get pictures from either Deb Fotch or Ed Fotch or whoever. I don't really even know where they came from. But we would get pictures. Look what's going on down here. The pictures from this kiosk camera. That was incredibly valuable to us. So whether the chief managed it or, well actually it was Saucleo Plus. So my wish would have been that Saucleo Biotic return, that had been part of their contract and we could have continued that. that I don't know how to say it any clearer than that. Who else would like to comment? |
| 01:25:56.96 | Unknown | Okay, thank you. |
| 01:25:57.89 | Joe | I appreciate everybody coming out tonight in our first of six or seven of these this year. They're going to be exciting. We know that we had a starting point and that we're looking at getting into a busy season. We're doing everything we can to look at trends. Everybody's getting their feet on the ground on how this is going to work. So luckily we do hit the ground. Luckily we do have these months of preparation before the crowdswell comes. So thank you, Scapazes, for Sausalito bike return, Colette for what the ferry district is doing, and Chief and Stacy. It looks like it's working great. I just feel like the trend is going to be down this year. I just kind of feel like I have seen bad reports on the Yelps, and for no other reason, I think, you know, we need to have really good measurables so that we can identify trends, both for personnel reasons as well as policy expectations on how we view things going forward. So there's more parts of the matrix that we can continue to add in, but I think we're off to a great start. On the camera, to be fair to Jill, I will opine on how I saw that. I didn't see that picture until just now, which I think is a problem, that pictures kind of go around without complete viewership. If one person gets it, then they have an opinion, but two other people don't see it. If it's one source of information that's a consistent source of information at a consistent time to all five people plus staff, great. But if it's just one-offs going around, especially now that I do see the picture, and the queue wasn't full, so it actually doesn't do what the picture intended to do. It actually kind of misses the mark. But when this came about, I do think that ultimately, if we're going to have a line in the sand with queuing, that some type of very strong, consistent, not still photoed apparatus would be great. I'm going to leave that into the chief of police's hands on how that's followed because there's much more information as far as surveillance and the legalities of all that than I want to get involved with. But ultimately, if there is a way that we can have consistent information on where that queue is so that we can hold the other people to their accountability, I think that would be great. I just don't think we're there yet. So all in all, great job. I'm glad this was our April format and that I look forward to the future months. Good job. |
| 01:28:30.93 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | THANKS. |
| 01:28:32.92 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | I just echo, I won't repeat all the thanks that Joe and others already gave, but thank you everyone for being here. I think this is a good format. I look forward to future months when there's more data to look at, and I think it is good that everything's organized now while the traffic isn't so heavy. I also am interested in kind of finding ways to look at how... local residents are experiencing downtown. I mean, this is all kind of managing one issue but sort of to the to the point of making downtown enjoyable and accessible to everyone so both our tourist community and residents um so you know whatever measures we have of kind of can you still um you know walk on the sidewalks park take your dog for a walk all those things i'm definitely interested in looking at as we move forward |
| 01:29:31.41 | Ray Withey | I have nothing to say. Not quite. There's not enough data yet to know how this year is going to be. I do get a same sense of Joe that, I mean, it's likely this could be, you know, the second year that we're down. I think 2016, we may have reached some sort of peak, whether it's back there. We'll see. I don't know. We don't have the data yet. But it looks like it's very interesting to hear your operation. It's different. And I have no reason to believe it won't work. So as I said last time, good luck. |
| 01:29:36.07 | Unknown | Done. I'm sorry. |
| 01:30:19.47 | Ray Withey | When it comes to this camera, I feel like I've been a participant in a conversation. I don't know the details, but I've now sort of caught up. The thing I'm sort of, if we're going to have a discussion at some point about whether we want a surveillance camera downtown, let's have that discussion. And if we hear from our chief of police that he thinks it's needed for some security safety reason, then I'm all ears. Other than that, I'm not interested, personally. It's... And as I've been thinking about it real time up here, I'm actually scratching my head and wondering, how do we get a surveillance camera up there in the first place in the hands of a private citizen, basically. Did we grant permission for that? Did we recognize it was a surveillance camera, et cetera, et cetera? Not interested in the answers to that, by the way. I'm just making the point that once you realize that you've put a surveillance camera up there, then there's implications in that, which I think the chief is trying to tell us. So I think that's a totally separate conversation. And I would rely on our police department to advise us if we need some sort of surveillance system there. |
| 01:31:40.05 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | So I also want to thank everybody for attending this evening. That includes the Skopazis, the president of our Chamber of Commerce, and Colette. I agree, it looks like it's working well. For me, I believe it's our job up here to set policy and then for staff to carry out the policy. And so with respect to cameras, I would say the chief is in charge and I defer to him unless A, I think he's not doing a good job. which I don't think that's going to happen, or B, he thinks it's needed, in which case I want to hear from him and I will support whatever it is he thinks is required. But I, over the little over a year that I've been on this council, I've come to develop great confidence in the manner in which our Saucyut Police Department functions and operates and oversees its various obligations. I also want to take a moment to thank Ed and Deb Fotch, Tom Riley, Patricia Pigman, and Jim Henry, the members of Sausalito Plus, who set up this initial system downtown from which this year's program has evolved. I invited them here tonight to present them with a proclamation to thank them, and not all of them were available, so you all will have to put up with that some other evening. But I think it's an important acknowledgment because their leadership in forging a system that has evolved and developed different approaches, all geared towards reducing downtown congestion, I think has been of great service. And even though Saucyta Plus is not involved this year, they are still involved. So Deb Fotch is still down there, you know, having dialogue with the Skopazes. And Ed Fotch gave me some ideas regarding congestion management that I'm going to bring to the council at some point. And so even though they're not involved as the vendor this year, they're still demonstrating leadership in the city. And I'm very appreciative of that. Okay, and with that, this is a report for information only. No action is required, so thank you all very much. |
| 01:34:07.03 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:34:07.18 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | . |
| 01:34:11.55 | Joe | Don't leave, we're doing pensions next. |
| 01:34:13.02 | Unknown | Thank you. SHELBY LAUGHS |
| 01:34:15.03 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 01:34:17.19 | Unknown | Hmm. |
| 01:34:18.76 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | I forgot to acknowledge Herb Weiner, who really needs no acknowledgment. But Herb, thank you for your leadership as well. |
| 01:34:24.14 | Unknown | well. |
| 01:34:26.03 | Melanie Purcell | Thank you. |
| 01:34:26.15 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:34:26.27 | Melanie Purcell | All right. |
| 01:34:26.30 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | I'm not. All right. |
| 01:34:28.80 | Unknown | Oh, she's. Everybody get to keep going? Thank you. |
| 01:34:38.52 | Unknown | Yes. |
| 01:34:38.89 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 01:34:39.13 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Okay. All right, next on our agenda is the Pension OPEB, Other Post-Employment Benefits presentation from Melanie Purcell and Doug Pryor, a partner with Bartell Associates. I know, that's what I want to do is... Thank you. |
| 01:34:56.98 | Danny Castro | It's just gonna roll right out. THE END OF THE END OF THE High school day. |
| 01:35:03.21 | Melanie Purcell | Good evening. I know you guys are all wildly excited about talking about pensions and actuarial sciences, but I wanted to start real quick with some basics. One of the things that has been interesting to me over the last 25 years of working in this arena is that it is constantly changing and wildly complex, and sometimes there's lots of misconceptions and misperceptions, and the rules change. So I wanted to go over just a couple of the basics real quick and then also talk about some of the rules that have changed and then it's my privilege to introduce Doug Pryor. First things first, we talk about pensions. They're also known as defined benefit retirement plans. It basically is a promise from the employer to the employee that a percentage of their final pay is going to be multiplied times the number of years that they worked, and then they will get that for the rest of their life. The intent is that this is all built up prior to their retirement. But it is a promise in a pension system, lots of variations of it, but they all work pretty much the same way. There's a multiplier, there's how much they made while they were working, and the number of years that they worked. All of the major auto industries, most manufacturers, this is a very common place activity. Parties involved in the relationships sometimes gets a little bit confused. A lot of headlines have been out about various issues that have come up with agencies that haven't made their payments or lots of other things, particularly with agencies that have been in a bit of financial trouble prior to their relationship with CalPERS falling apart. But I wanted to make note that the contracts in place are between the CalPERS and employer, so the employer is contracting with CalPERS in order to implement the contract between the employer and the employee. There is no direct contract between CalPERS and the employee. So when an employer doesn't make their payment or they back out of CalPERS or anything, they still have an obligation to their employee and they still have an obligation to CalPERS. The benefit payment is established via those contracts and CalPERS implements that paying it to the employee on behalf of the employer. So both of those contracts are subject to obviously state contract law, but then also federal and state labor law. Thank you. |
| 01:37:22.27 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 01:37:22.29 | Melanie Purcell | So just to clarify. |
| 01:37:22.97 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | you |
| 01:37:23.03 | Melanie Purcell | that. |
| 01:37:23.45 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. But, Melanie, sorry, what's not included in here is the fact that because of unfunded liability, so what is not in here is the indirect contractual relationship that is being used. so financially challenging for cities. So this shows it as a direct. We give it to CalPERS, they give it to the employee. That's not true. CalPERS invests it and expects a certain rate of return and gets underwater and then comes back to us |
| 01:37:57.04 | Melanie Purcell | It is, and that is part of the contract between Calperson and the employer. But I'll get into explaining kind of where the unfunded liability, because as you note, it is the crux of the issue. So we fund pensions, both annual and the long-term funding, is made from, as you mentioned, contributions from the employer and the employee, as well as the earnings from the system. So it's kind of three things come into the bucket to pay out. I've lumped the contributions together because those are the bulk of it. The earnings in good years can be quite high, in poor years not so much. It still has to be made whole and that's where the funding from the employer comes in. So if earnings go down, contributions have to go up. And because the contractual relationship between the employer and the employee is fixed, the employee contribution can only go up at times when that contract is open for negotiation. So the employer... is obviously in an annual relationship with CalPERS long term, but is discussing that contribution each year. And that's when we get our notice and they say, this is how much you have to contribute each year. So we talk about the annual pension cost, we have the normal cost. That's what is the actuary calculates to determine what is paid for the services rendered this year. So for July 1st through June 30th, there's an assumed cost of how much that employee's pension will cost in the future for this time frame. Then there's the unfunded liability, and that's the accrued time when there hasn't been sufficient payments made. Most of the time it's because of earnings have been insufficient or that the benefit has changed. So sometimes employers, and this is where Vallejo and a number of others have had some issues, when the systems were all 100-plus percent funded, they decided to give more benefits. Well, those benefits were not fully funded then. They were living on excess, surplus, earnings, and then the earnings fell. So now they're not funded. So those two items together, the normal cost is what we pay every year, and then the unfunded accrued liability. Just a couple of years ago, CalPERS stopped lumping those together. So they're now actually calculated and presented to the cities and the participants as two separate payments. The reason for that is because the unfunded actuarial liability has to be paid no matter what. That is an obligation of the city that it has already incurred. So City Hall shuts down tomorrow, that payment still has to be paid. So that's part of why that is calculated so differently and why it's now presented differently. So we pay that payment at the beginning of the fiscal year. They give us a little bit of a discount because we're not paying it over the year, but it's a fixed amount. So our contributions are determined by calculating the liability. So that's how much we think those benefits are going to have earned to date and how much remains after those and the previous contributions and everything. The factors that can increase our contributions as an employer, increasing the number of employees. Increasing salaries and lower than expected returns on investments. In 2013-14, the state passed what's called the Public Employee Pension Reform Act, PEPRA. So you hear us talk about our acronyms and alphabet soup. PEPRA is the big one. And that changed the benefit structure significantly statewide for new employees. What has happened is for employers that do not provide Social Security, such as the city of Sausalito, our contributions for miscellaneous PEPRA employees is comparable to what we would normally contribute for social security. The benefits are much lower than those for tier one or tier two. Tier one are people who've been employed with the city prior to 2013. Tier two are those who have come from another CalPERS agency as an active participant, active member in CalPERS. So there's been less than six months in their employment tenures. And miscellaneous PEPRA, or excuse me, PEPRA at all, is those who've not been in a California government agency. PEPPER employees are also not eligible to buy government time in CalPERS, so that's one change. Their benefits are capped, as in the maximum salary that can be counted toward retirement, and then obviously how much can be earned. Their multiplier is lower, and they must work longer. So there's a number of things that reduce the benefit, which is why these contribution rates are so significantly different. Between tier one, tier two, and tier three. And a little later on I'm going to show you exactly how many employees we have distributed amongst the tiers. |
| 01:42:46.06 | Joe | Can you just clip, they cannot buy into the government |
| 01:42:49.24 | Melanie Purcell | For example, I have 25 years of government service. |
| 01:42:49.26 | Joe | know, for example, |
| 01:42:54.02 | Melanie Purcell | Prior to PEPRA, I would have been able, if I had the funds, to buy my time into CalPERS. So I could count years of service from another employer. toward being able to earn that benefit from CalPERS. I would have had to pay for that privilege, cash out of pocket, but I'm not allowed to do that any longer as a government employee. So that can make a significant change, particularly as earnings fluctuate. And as I mentioned, the benefits themselves are actually capped for PEPRA employees. |
| 01:43:30.08 | Melanie Purcell | So our current benefit plans, this is just a quick rundown. So you're aware, miscellaneous employees at tier one are 2.5% at 55. This means their multiplier is 2.5%, their annual salary is whatever it is when they retire, and 55 years of age is when they're eligible to retire. Currently they make an 8% employee contribution. Safety employees have a slightly higher multiplier, that's pretty common across most government agencies in the country. And they have a 9% employee contribution. These employee contributions are fixed by contract. Tier two, slightly different contribution rate and slightly different So they have a lower benefit in the same number of years. PEPRA employees have much longer years and lower benefits. And by interpretation, because PEPRA was passed at the time that our contract was put in place, we've worked from the 50% of normal cost contribution as recommended by PEPRA. In all of these cases, in tier one particular, employees are eligible for several what we call final average compensation in which they get to expand what years are included. They have to pay for that per contract. So the city does not pay that add on, the employee does. |
| 01:44:53.27 | Jill Hoffman | Melanie, how hard would it be for you to give us just you know, like an example for each tier. And if you just said, okay, this person, they're going to retire at 55, they make $100,000 a year. Can you just, I mean, is that an easy number for you to just go down it real quick and say, okay, if they retire at 55 and they have X number of years, this is what they're gonna make, And forever, once they retire, right? Once they retire, yeah. |
| 01:45:18.35 | Melanie Purcell | Once they retire, yeah. So somebody who makes $100,000 who retires at 55, assuming they have 20 years of service, will make 50% of that. So they'll make $50,000 a year. |
| 01:45:28.24 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | But that's separate from their defined benefits. That is their defined benefit. Sorry, that's separate from their- I'M GOING TO BE ABLE TO medical, dental. Absolutely, totally separate. So medical, dental. |
| 01:45:37.67 | Melanie Purcell | Totally separate. |
| 01:45:40.36 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | the health care |
| 01:45:41.03 | Melanie Purcell | is Is only eligible for tier one, who've been here for longer than ten years as of 2013. So yeah, they'd only be tier one. |
| 01:45:53.54 | Jill Hoffman | But I, hold on, so you're 50, if you make $100,000 when you retire, you're going to make $50,000 in your pension. Is that tier one, tier two, or tier three? That's tier one. Okay. Okay. |
| 01:46:03.97 | Melanie Purcell | So for tier two, if you make $100,000, you retire at age 62 with 20 years of service, you'd make $40,000. |
| 01:46:11.81 | Jill Hoffman | that was tiered. |
| 01:46:12.93 | Melanie Purcell | Tier three, I'm sorry, correct, thank you. |
| 01:46:18.49 | Melanie Purcell | So our staffing distribution, to kind of bring us up to date, and thank you, Councilmember Hoffman, for asking me to clarify this. The positions here, you'll see a definite shift from 2014 from Tier 1s into Tier 3s. And that's either retirement or people have left the organization and have been replaced with new employees. We have picked up a couple of miscellaneous Tier twos. We have zero safety tier twos. And you'll notice that there is one position that changed from a contractor to a PEPRA employee in miscellaneous, that would be me. And then in 1617, we added an employee, a miscellaneous employee who was hired in at PEPRA. That position's currently vacant. |
| 01:46:59.82 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | So Melanie, I thought that this council, not this council, but a council had made a decision not to hire in tier one or tier two. |
| 01:47:07.18 | Melanie Purcell | We cannot hire in tier one. Right. That state law, we don't have that option. When the contracts were approved in 2014, those contracts included the provision for tier two. And that was a recruiting tool so that it was not quite as low. PEPRA had not been fully ironed out. And I don't know if you want to add to that. But it basically allowed for some recruiting from experienced people within California without giving them full benefit, but not completely cutting it off at the PEPRA level. Thank you. |
| 01:47:35.68 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | But when you show two people in Tier 2 in 15-16, is it the same two people now in 16-17 and 17-18? Yes. So are we now no longer hiring? We're only hiring in Tier 3? Um, |
| 01:47:51.04 | Melanie Purcell | The majority of our hires are tier three. We did pick up a tier two recently who was somebody coming from another California city. with that experience level. |
| 01:48:00.82 | Adam Politzer | Yeah, I think what... The mayor is asking is that peer two, it's not eliminating, we've eliminated hiring for peer one. Peer two exists so that you can hire other employees that are in the CalPERS system. So if someone like Danny Castro, our community development director, came from another city, but he's a CalPERS employee. But why we did that was that we were able to eliminate some of the benefits that tier one provided before PEPRA was enacted. So it actually gave us, it decreased our costs, our pension costs to the employees by implementing a peer two. So anyone that transfers from another CalPERS organization comes in at peer two versus peer one. PEPRA is someone that comes in that doesn't have any government experience working for a CalPERS agency. and then they're required that they don't have another option. They don't have an option for tier two. |
| 01:49:02.27 | Jill Hoffman | That's right. Melanie, can I ask you a follow-up question on the, I think it's go back, you know, aside when I had you do the calculation, because I think my notes are wrong, you know. But I have the tier one miscellaneous employees retire. If they retire at age 55 at 30 years times 2.5%, that equals 75%. |
| 01:49:21.22 | Melanie Purcell | If they retire with 30 years. Okay. It's not a minimum years of service other than you cannot collect unless you have at least five years. Okay. You don't invest in the system. |
| 01:49:22.75 | Jill Hoffman | Okay. |
| 01:49:28.68 | Jill Hoffman | OK. Right, so let's say, okay, so if you go back to my example of, you know, 2.5% 30 years and you retire at the age of 55, you make $100,000 your salary, When you retire you're going to make $75,000 a year. |
| 01:49:45.50 | Melanie Purcell | here too? |
| 01:49:46.23 | Jill Hoffman | No, that's tier one. |
| 01:49:46.26 | Melanie Purcell | No, that's tier one. Tier one. Yes, you had to start at 20. |
| 01:49:47.73 | Jill Hoffman | Yes, you'd have to. And it's. |
| 01:49:49.84 | Melanie Purcell | Thank you. |
| 01:49:49.85 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 01:49:49.97 | Melanie Purcell | FACTS. |
| 01:49:50.04 | Jill Hoffman | For the police employees, they retire at 55 at 30 years, assume 30 years. At 3%, they would get 90% of their final salary. So if they made $100,000, they'd get $90,000 a year. Okay, thanks. |
| 01:50:05.09 | Melanie Purcell | Okay, so some of our, this just includes some of the positions so that you're aware of where the movement has been. Obviously officers, those are all PEPRA coming in. That's, we're not picking up a lot of officers from other agencies and transfer. Miscellaneous, the majority, again, are coming in as miscellaneous PEPRA. And then we had, as you see, the three positions in miscellaneous tier two. So these, we do have a couple of employees. As I mentioned, if you're not here for five years, you do not vest, and there is no pension liability. And those, we had two employees that came and then also left. So these are, and then we had an employee change from miscellaneous to safety. It sounds like a really easy question, I get a little bit uptight about making sure I'm completely accurate and saying what happens. So if we say they're all miscellaneous, we do have currently... And the custodian landscape worker position just started this week, so those are both miscellaneous PEPRA. And in any future hires in there will be PEPRA. So OPEB, as you mentioned, is the healthcare side. And it's calculated totally separately. And the city has, as I said, they have to have over 20 years of service prior to, excuse me, it was originally 10 years of service, but they cannot collect it unless they have 20 years of service and they were hired prior to 2012. So it's also limited to the lowest cost medical plan for employees and retirees only. And it only includes the retiree, it is not for family. Contributions are currently actual cost and then voluntary trust contributions. So OPEB is something that is traditionally by a lot of employers done as pay as you go. We have an idea of what it is, it's not managed by another agency on our behalf, other than we do go through CalPERS to purchase that insurance, which allows us to keep that cost quite low. But we're not given a bill each year that says you have to contribute this amount. Because of GASB, which is the Government Accounting Standards Board, and the changes that have recently rolled out, we now calculate that, or have actually been for probably the last six years, calculating what that liability would be if it was treated as if it was a pension. And then we calculate that and present it in the financial statements. So it's all there and it's actually now shows us on the front of the financial statements. So it's just treated a little differently. The city has created both a pension trust and an OPEB trust. There's about 1.3 million, 1.4 million dollars in them currently. And obviously the finance committee is going to have some very detailed conversations about how we distribute those funds and how we build those where they had. The last couple of years, all the transfers have been made predominantly into the OPEB, because that was at one point considered a much higher risk. With the changes in CalPERS this past two years, that concern, frankly, from a staff perspective, has changed a bit. So that we would prefer to put more funds aside against pension costs and obligations rather than OPEB, given that that's a much more immediate concern. |
| 01:53:19.96 | Adam Politzer | Sorry, Madam Mayor, if I can just add on this slide, I think it's important to note a handful of things. One is it's implied that if you were hired prior to 2012, you're eligible for that benefit. But all new employees, this benefit doesn't exist. So the OPEB trust is paying a defined number of people. There's no one being added to this as we go forward. So that's important to recognize. Also important to recognize is when we negotiated the contracts probably back in 2012, we gave the younger employees that had been hired, that were hired prior to 2012, the opportunity to buy out of the OPEB benefit, which we offered them basically $1,000 per year that they could take with them if they moved to another employer. So if they worked here for three years, they could take $3,000 in an account, in a retirement account with them so they wouldn't lose it. So in Sausalito, if you worked here for 15 years and you went to another city, you walked away from that benefit. So I think it's important to recognize that there's no new employees ever going into this. It'd be nice to know, and maybe we can come back with this number at a future meeting, what's the total number of employees that are in there? Because I know that a significant number of the employees took the buyout option, because the younger generation doesn't want to stay in one place for 20 years. So taking that option was a good deal for them. |
| 01:54:57.35 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Except Lily Whelan. |
| 01:54:59.73 | Adam Politzer | but that. |
| 01:55:00.74 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | I said except Lily Whalen. |
| 01:55:06.36 | Melanie Purcell | So real quick, I just wanted to give you, and I apologize, there's not a slide up here. Doug has a couple of slides that he'll walk you through as well. But just to clarify real quick, we've talked a little bit about some of the changes that CalPERS has made. To sum those up, in 2016, CalPERS changed the amortization rate, lowering it from 7.5% to 7%. That is probably not finished. As you've heard, there's lots of conversations about should that come even lower. But as of right now, there was a ramp up to the 7%. We're about halfway there. They also changed the amortization timeline. So it was fixed at 30 years, and it also has a fixed drop-off. So the easiest comparison would be to be thinking of a variable rate mortgage that never ends, or line of credit kind of thing, or now it is a fixed time. So you will pay it off in 30 years. What happened this fall, or in December of 2017, is they changed the unfunded liability timeline to 20 years. So that also altered the timeline. The gist of all this is the system is infinitely more stable and has much greater success for future. We will see and recoup some savings in the long run, but the long run is about 32 years out. In the meantime, our rates will go up considerably over the next five to seven years. And then stabilize for a number of years, probably close to ten, and then start to come down. This is a product of the ramp up and the ramp down that they have created for the actuaries to ease, frankly, ease cities into this. |
| 01:56:46.97 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Melanie, the chart that you handed out of the Finance Committee, It didn't look to me like we were going to be stabilized at the top for 10 years. |
| 01:56:59.41 | Melanie Purcell | There's a lot of fluctuation in there. I have, I believe the chart that I gave you included the city's finances, which actually does not follow the exact same pattern. Our stabilization. I should say our peak for CalPERS, which Doug can show you what that is, is in about seven years and it stays high. For ten years? |
| 01:57:15.42 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:57:15.45 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | DECADES. |
| 01:57:15.77 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:57:20.85 | Unknown | Mm-hmm. |
| 01:57:21.26 | Melanie Purcell | Thank you. I thought it was six years for some reason, so. Yeah, it's a range, but it's ten years, thereabouts. I am going to defer for the gory details to the expert in actuarial sciences. Happy to talk budgeting and accounting, but I try to stay out of his expertise. |
| 01:57:38.51 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Well, and Melanie, so Keith Kennedy sent you a, curve. like a diagram. |
| 01:57:43.75 | Melanie Purcell | Okay. Grand. |
| 01:57:45.27 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | From the Finance Committee? And it showed The curve of what our revenues will be compared to the curve of what our obligations will be. Right. |
| 01:57:55.45 | Melanie Purcell | Thank you. |
| 01:57:55.48 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 01:57:55.50 | Melanie Purcell | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 01:57:55.70 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Do you? |
| 01:57:56.06 | Melanie Purcell | Do you have that chart? No, I don't. I have a variation of it, but I'll bring it back to the finance committee and then to the council. |
| 01:58:01.15 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Okay. |
| 01:58:05.93 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Okay, okay, all right, great. |
| 01:58:10.42 | Melanie Purcell | Are you guys ready? |
| 01:58:10.97 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 01:58:14.23 | Melanie Purcell | Good. So we have a 92 slide presentation here. You will not be enduring all 92 slides. Doug has agreed to hit the highlights for you and kind of emphasize some of the what can we do. |
| 01:58:15.21 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Okay. |
| 01:58:21.00 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | OK. |
| 01:58:28.09 | Melanie Purcell | And be available to answer questions. So it's my pleasure to introduce Doug Prior. He's Vice President and Partner. Melanie, I have one more question for you. Sure. Sorry. |
| 01:58:37.97 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | people. I have to go to my... Are you aware of the California Municipal Financial Health Diagnostic? Okay, so there's a gentleman out there, Michael Coleman, who was an advisor. You know Michael Coleman. I know Michael. Okay, and he came up with 13 questions that essentially diagnose a city's financial health. But in addition to that, he has the California Municipal Financial Health Diagnostic. At one of our future meetings, I would be interested. He did a pilot study with the city of Lafayette and was actually able to assess that city on each of the diagnostics and by that predict the city's long term financial health. And it's sort of an objective way of looking at this. Ray often talks about what we have to worry about is a cash flow issue. |
| 01:59:31.57 | Unknown | Mm-hmm. |
| 01:59:31.91 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | as opposed to the total amount of our overall obligation. So at a future meeting, I wanted to ask if you would I'd be like, |
| 01:59:41.03 | Melanie Purcell | My pleasure. This is something I have done for other agencies, and it's actually a lot of fun. |
| 01:59:41.61 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Okay. |
| 01:59:45.20 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | If you would report to us on our financial health. |
| 01:59:48.90 | Melanie Purcell | Thank you. |
| 01:59:49.09 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 01:59:49.12 | Colette Martinez | Absolutely. |
| 01:59:49.51 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | . |
| 01:59:49.71 | Colette Martinez | Thank you. So. |
| 01:59:53.03 | Melanie Purcell | My pleasure to introduce Doug Pryor. He is Vice President and partner of Bartell Associates. He is one of the eminent actuaries here in the state of California and has updated the review of our Pension status using our 2016 valuation, which is the most current one available. |
| 02:00:22.38 | Doug Pryor | Good evening. So yes, I was going to mention we have a very long document here, which is also probably not the easiest read in the world. So what I'm going to do is try to cover the key points here and talk through what's in this document. You know, kind of as background, as Melanie mentioned, you know, it seems every year there's a major change or two from CalPERS. And since we were out here a year ago, again, there's been another change with the amortization policy, which is we're going to kind of see the impact of that. Overall, if, you know, I can't remember what I did yesterday, but if you happen to remember the numbers we had a whole year back, these are a little better than they were a year ago. Investment returns have been slightly better, and that's kind of an overall underlying theme here in terms of what's driving your costs, certainly. Um, We move forward. This has historical investment returns on the CalPERS trust. It is probably unless you're a number savant, you can't really see a trend here. What we tend to point out is that over the long term, returns have been really pretty good. Almost if you look over a 30-year period here, this would average to about 8 plus percent. But as you start shortening that period, you look at 20 years, it's closer to 6.5 percent. And you look over the last 10 years, it's at 4.3 percent. So, you know, long term, they've done fairly well. The problem's been the last 5 to 10 years. Last five years have actually been pretty good. Last five years have been been close to 9%. We do have one projection year here. The last data point there is 2018, which we, based on the returns, I think through January, are well above expected. And so we're projecting a 13% return for that year when we go to to project your contributions so again these two years are what's new since we're out here a year ago and as you can see those are well above the seven and a half percent we have a couple years here with the one with 11.2 and one with 13.8 percent returns |
| 02:02:42.14 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | So this investment return is really volatile. Have you prepared a moving 10-year average of the investment return? |
| 02:02:55.49 | Unknown | Ray, I'm sorry I'm showing my naivete here. Not at all. |
| 02:02:55.50 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Yeah. |
| 02:03:00.04 | Doug Pryor | Yeah, sorry. Yeah, no, that would, I think I've looked at longer periods, 20 years smooths it out even more, right? And certainly, as you look back, say, on a rolling 20, there, I think if you looked at that chart, you would see that it's, you would come to the conclusion it's gradually been declining, right? |
| 02:03:22.03 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | But when you look at the 10 or 20 rolling, even 6% is optimistic. |
| 02:03:31.60 | Doug Pryor | Um... Well, yeah, I suppose if you looked at the, again, depending on the time frame, the last 10 years certainly, right, was 4.3%. The last 20 years, 6.6%, right? We're just not looking back, just looking at where we are today, right? That's why I'm saying over 20%. |
| 02:03:32.73 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | THE FAMILY. |
| 02:03:45.84 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Right. That's why I'm saying over 20 years, even 6% looks optimistic. |
| 02:03:53.01 | Doug Pryor | Thank you. Right, right. Now, just as, you know, the caveat with investment advisors about, you know, your history doesn't predict your future or whatever that, and I'm not coming up with the term correctly there, but, I mean, really what's more important, obviously, is what happens going forward, right? And really what's happened is the, you know, the investment advisors that we've surveyed are certainly a lot more pessimistic about returns in the future than they were five years ago. And that's right. I mean, the fact is they could have earned 3% for the last 10 years, but if the investment advisors were right and really thought they were going to do really well going forward, we might not, things will look much different, right? |
| 02:04:35.42 | Joe | Thank you. Well, In 10 years or 20 years, we're going to get rid of that 2009 here pretty soon. And that's so really if you did a number where you just took out the highest and lowest, you're going to get a lot closer to 7 or 8 percent. |
| 02:04:37.97 | Unknown | Bye. |
| 02:04:37.98 | Doug Pryor | So, |
| 02:04:42.52 | Unknown | Right? |
| 02:04:47.62 | Joe | than the six that were straddled with because of 2009, which I think we learned so much from that investment strategy that we probably won't go there again. Yes. I mean, jobs were lost on that decision, so. |
| 02:04:56.06 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | One would hope. |
| 02:04:59.36 | Joe | Right. Um, |
| 02:05:01.69 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | But, Don't we have a target ROR and if we dip below that, aren't we liable for the difference? |
| 02:05:08.97 | Doug Pryor | Yeah, to the extent you don't earn out cow purses, adjusting what that expected return is, right? As Melanie mentioned, they were at seven and a half, they're ramping down to seven, and then they have another strategy going forward to reduce that further that I'll talk about in a bit. But to the extent you don't achieve the assumed return, your unfunded liability will increase, and it will create additional pressure, upward pressure on your contributions. Okay. |
| 02:05:37.69 | Jill Hoffman | And so, in fact, that's where the unfunded liability comes from, correct? When you don't meet your pen... |
| 02:05:44.03 | Doug Pryor | The vast majority of it, yes. There also were benefit improvements that came into play that increased the unfunded liability. Yeah, but it's a structure of the system. Yeah, the big driver here has been the investment return. |
| 02:05:52.39 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah, but it's the structure of the system. Yeah. Right, so if the best return is below 7 and 7.5 or whatever it was, whatever it was through the years, then the unfundable liability, that's the unfunded chunk of it, Right? Have I got that right? And that also earns interest, correct? |
| 02:06:08.54 | Doug Pryor | Yeah, right. |
| 02:06:08.92 | Unknown | THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 02:06:14.71 | Doug Pryor | you need to hit that target, right, to stay basically on track. |
| 02:06:18.58 | Jill Hoffman | Well, no, that's not the, the question is the unfunded liability itself also earns interest. So, for instance, you have $5 million unfunded liability. You're also being charged interest for that portion of your unfunded liability. So it just keeps growing. Isn't that right? |
| 02:06:19.12 | Doug Pryor | that's, |
| 02:06:35.28 | Doug Pryor | Right, and that's exactly right. Now, the other problem that's occurred here is that, take that example, and suppose the interest rate is 5%. Okay, so you should be charged 5% interest, right, at least. That would keep you at the same unfunded balance. If you charge more, just like a mortgage, you're paying a little bit of the balance down. If you charge less, you're actually kind of in a negative mortgage situation where your balance is going to grow. Right, and so, pointing this out because CalPERS has for many years charged less than interest. So your target is if the discount rate is 5%, if you pay 5%, then your unfunded liability will just kind of expect to sit there and not grow over time, right? If they charge you more, you pay it down over time. If they charge you less, it's expected to grow, and unfortunately, For a number of years, CalPERS has charged less than that 5% in this example. |
| 02:07:35.69 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Yeah, so in 2005, our unfunded liability was... 5.3 million. And on page 35 of your report, it tells us that today it's 27 million. So in 13 years, our unfunded liability has grown by almost $22 million. And that's huge for a city of our size. |
| 02:07:59.08 | Doug Pryor | Right. And that's, you know, investment returns, right? They've adjusted the assumptions. And then the third factor, the one I was mentioning is that they haven't, demanded that you pay interest on that liability, right? So it's been growing over time, just as if you don't make your mortgage payment, you end up owing more down the road. |
| 02:08:19.23 | Unknown | Right. |
| 02:08:19.42 | Doug Pryor | Thank you. Okay. So Melanie, I think that's a good question. |
| 02:08:34.91 | Doug Pryor | in terms of contribution. Right, right. I mean, Melanie mentioned that they have adjusted the time over which you're paying the unfunded liability over, right? And that's been reduced over the years now, finally, too. So Melanie covered the kind of the basic benefits, the one that, you know, kind of the three tiers. So I won't be redundant here and go back through this. So we'll just mention that you do have the former fire employees. The fire group was outsourced to South Marine Fire back in 2012, I think it was. But what you have left from that then is you no longer have active firefighters that you're paying for, but you have firefighters that work for the city before that time that have earned a benefit and retired or have earned a benefit and not yet started to collect, that's a liability for the city. Okay. And that's, that in itself has unfunded liability and we'll kind of get to that in a bit. |
| 02:08:43.16 | Unknown | I, |
| 02:08:44.24 | Unknown | 30 to 20. |
| 02:08:45.47 | Unknown | Yeah. to be able to get the |
| 02:09:39.15 | Doug Pryor | So really there's three sort of groups, right? Your miscellaneous, your police, and then your inactive fire group. This has, I'm trying to maybe not cover all the changes going back to 2013 that CalPERS has implemented. I will kind of mention a few. The discount rate change we've been talking about, and I'll just kind of mention, you know, The most recent report, June 30, 2016, they used a 7.375% discount rate. The valuation that's supposed to be out in July will drop that down to 7.25. The following valuation dropped to 7. But with each of those changes, you'll see an increase in the unfunded liability. And rather than CalPERS having you start to pay that on a schedule to pay that unfunded liability down, they're going to sort of defer the payments for five years before you get to a full payment. So the example would be, a simplified example would be if you're at 15% of payroll for a contribution and they increase the liability for the discount rate and should go to 20, they're not gonna jump you up to 20. They're gonna say, well, you're at 15, go to 16 next year, 17 the following, and ramp up, get to the 20, and then level out. So that's the basic. |
| 02:10:54.30 | Unknown | And |
| 02:10:57.91 | Doug Pryor | strategy they're taking to help smooth out contributions help budgeting a little more i mean i don't know any agency that really wants to jump from that 15 to 20 percent immediately and that's just example the rates aren't going that much up that much for the discount rate you just kind of a couple changes since we were out here a year ago they did kind of review their asset allocation and adopted a policy that they believe will sustain the 7% return long term. So that was in December. |
| 02:11:33.41 | Jill Hoffman | But shouldn't we be concerned about that? Because as we've just discussed, it's unlikely that we're going to get 7%. So we're still in this, we're perpetuating this unfunded liability even further. If we're thinking we're going to get less than 7%, not we, CalPERS. I guess we, we're the taxpayers, but whatever. So CalPERS, so I mean, this doesn't give me any, |
| 02:11:46.24 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 02:11:52.87 | Jill Hoffman | I'm not. you know, this doesn't give me any comfort when I see this and when you say something like, you know, there's no further change in the discount rate and it's going to stay 7%. |
| 02:12:00.31 | Unknown | Stay safe. |
| 02:12:01.83 | Jill Hoffman | I mean, that's another, it's perpetuation, this unrealistic, you know, rate that's even, just gonna be further compound the problem. So I don't, anyway, I would like that, when you give a report to us, I would like that sort of, you know, perspective as well. When we're trying to figure out what's the way forward, we're trying to chart the way forward. you know I think we have to take that into consideration. |
| 02:12:26.35 | Doug Pryor | Yeah, so if I could maybe just a few comments on that. CalPERS believes, and actually we have done some modeling based on sampling of investment advisors, we believe that for the current portfolio, if you look long term, 7% is a reasonable assumption. So that may sound surprising, but the fact is, and if you look back over the long, they haven't had a great track record the last 10 years, right, if you look back over the long term, 30 years, they were at over 8%, right? |
| 02:13:00.17 | Jill Hoffman | But no one expects that to continue. Like nobody. Right. |
| 02:13:02.50 | Doug Pryor | I don't know. Right. So, okay. |
| 02:13:03.74 | Jill Hoffman | So, okay. |
| 02:13:04.71 | Doug Pryor | Yeah, well, I'm saying in looking at what outside investment advisors believe, we think that that can be achieved. CalPERS, I know, There's some skepticism in terms of whether or not they're be able to achieve what they they're saying they can achieve, but they believe they will get the 7%. An important caveat to this. THE BEST OF THE BEST OF THE when they changed the, when they made this change to drop the discount rate from it was at 7.5 down to 7, they had a outside investment advisor that told them that their advice was, their expectation was that the fund would earn 6.2% over 10 years. And that was part of the reason they dropped their discount rate down to seven. Now, the 6.2%, certainly had a very low CPI inflation assumption built in, which would mean 6.2% might not be really the best estimate for the next 10 years. But nonetheless, the point is that returns over the next 10 years are certainly We believe, and I think CalPERS really does too, that they will be below 7% over the next 10 years. We think probably around 6 and a half maybe not as low as you might have been thinking, we think six and a half, and then over the long term, it should average up to about seven. Amen. |
| 02:14:32.03 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | You really think it's going to be seven? I mean, with the... |
| 02:14:34.73 | Doug Pryor | Yeah. |
| 02:14:34.97 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:14:34.99 | Doug Pryor | Bye. |
| 02:14:35.92 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | I don't get it's we so over 20 years it's 6.6 but the last 10 have been at 4. So how from there do we get to that we think it's going to be 7? |
| 02:14:43.98 | Doug Pryor | Okay. |
| 02:14:48.29 | Doug Pryor | But for the last 10 years do include a negative 24% return. |
| 02:14:56.12 | Joe | How can we possibly come up with a half percent? We don't have that knowledge ability on this diastole question a half percent. |
| 02:15:00.65 | Unknown | THE FAMILY. |
| 02:15:03.20 | Doug Pryor | But we, again, we surveyed, I don't have the firm four or five outside investment advisors and what they expect over the 10 year period. And based on that, we get to six and a half over the next 10 years. So it's actually. Thank you. and I could give you more data on this, but it's really in some ways this is not an actual opinion, we're saying we're looking at what the investment advisors are saying and they're saying, and these are not, CalPERS investment advisors, right? These are outside separate, independent from CalPERS. They're saying they expect 6.5% over the next 10 years for this type of portfolio. Thank you. |
| 02:15:41.22 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | So, I mean, if you hear, I mean, Ray and I have both heard, Ray what was his name who did the pension? presentation. I think Jill's heard it too. Um... And then Dick Spotsawood has written tons of articles on this. none of them get anywhere near 7%. So we're not experts up here. I don't have any business questioning you, but 7% just Way too optimistic and I don't think it's something the city should plan for. |
| 02:16:17.84 | Doug Pryor | . you know, splitting the airs a little bit here, but I wanna make clear, 7% is a 30-year return assumption. Over the next 10 years, we're lower at 6.5%. I think when Joe Nation looks at discount rates, I don't think, you know, the very low rates he's looking at are not really what the fund is expected to return, right? The very low rates that he will quote are based on how you should value the liability Right? Right. It's a whole different way of looking at it, and it doesn't really have to do with what the expected return is on the trust in a situation like this. Um, |
| 02:17:04.70 | Doug Pryor | So... And then finally, just in February, the CalPERS changed the amortization policy. So this will be effective with June 30, 19, and forward valuations. Effectively, they're going to have agencies pay off the unfunded liability over a quicker period. So we have some numbers later that will cover what the impact is on contributions, but they're essentially going from a 30-year amortization payment for asset gains and losses in the future to a 20-year period. This is, you know, one other issue related to the discount rate, what's called the risk mitigation policy, and this is a busy chart, but if you focus on the thick green line here, this is showing with the June 30-18 valuation, CalPERS would be at 7% for their discount rate. They don't have a set schedule to reduce that, but their intent is over time to reduce the equity exposure and reduce the risk in the portfolio. And over a 20-year period, we expect them to be down to 6%. Okay? So that's, you know, also going to, of course, increase added or result in additional increases in contributions going forward. So I am to try to cover a lot quickly, kind of jumping forward now. We're going to get to the miscellaneous plan and cover quickly the police safety, the safety police and safety fire program. So this is the miscellaneous program. I think although the time frame is a little different, Melanie kind of covered these counts, but this is 48 employees as of the June 30, 16 valuation with CalPERS. What you see here is you had 86 former employees of the city that are already collecting benefits. And so that's a fairly high ratio. If you look at this in terms of the liability, what you have for the miscellaneous plan, now I should have mentioned this is, you have the three tiers, CalPERS issues three separate reports. This is aggregating those three reports for miscellaneous, so you're looking at kind of one set of numbers for the entire miscellaneous program. $33.7 million accrued liability, $23.9 million in assets, and $9.8 million unfunded liability. So this I think this is a little bit of a rosy picture here because this is based on the CalPERS report at June 30, 16. which uses a 7.375% discount rate, right? We can debate about, whether it should be seven or lower, but I think there's no argument that if you really like I said, we think long-term, if the current investment, with the current portfolio, that they will get 7%, that would mean I wouldn't use that number if I were trying to tell you what the infant liability were. I would use probably seven, and that would increase that by another million and a half dollars. But we also see here is if you look at the liability for AAL is actual accrued liability. If you kind of go back up to the first few rows in that table, accrued liability for actives at $10 million, retirees $19.3 million, and inactives $4.4 million. So inactives are former employees of the city that are vested, that are due a benefit, they just haven't started collecting yet. But what you see, if you look at the $19.3 million and the $4.4, what you have there is almost $23.7 million liability for inactive, former employees, $23.9 million in assets. So effectively, at this point, with the funding policy CalPERS has given, with all the changes, what you have is Thank you. you have assets to set aside for people that left the city, but you also have a number of employees in their 40s and 50s and 60s getting right on the edge of retirement, and you look at it from this perspective, nothing's been set aside for them yet, right? We move forward to contribution projections now. This is including the, there's some employee cost sharing with the city, but what you see here is, let me stick to the thick green line for now. What that shows is you're currently at 20.9% of payroll, expected to go to 23.2% of payroll for miscellaneous next year. This is aggregate miscellaneous plan. That's projected increase to 33.9% by fiscal year 29. The thick green line is where we expect returns to be. that's where we expect the contributions to be if you earn really technically 6.5% over this period, because we're assuming you're gonna earn 6.5% for 10 years. So that's sort of the par for the course, where you expect to go. And then we see the lines shooting up and down are sort of good and bad investment scenarios. Under a kind of good investment scenario, these are statistically like these 25th and 75th percentile of the returns, but think of them as kind of good and bad, not best case, worst case, but kind of good and bad. A good scenario would be you'd be at 23.2% of payroll in that year. That scenario would be 43% of payroll. Okay, so when you look at this, you know, the takeaway, of course, is significant increases are projected even kind of under a good scenario, you're still expected to be well above where you are today for contributions for quite a while. if you look at this longer term, this is the same chart, but now instead of 10 years, this is going out 30 years. What you see, again, it has the thick green line is where we expect the contributions to be in the future and then shooting up and down in kind of good and bad case scenarios. But you do see that over time, long, long time, the rates are expected to come down because the policy at this point does pay the unfunded liability down, right? So you see this significant ramp up and then long term it comes down, But you have this kind of mountaintop, if you want to call it that, that you have a significant ramp up and then kind of a peak there for quite a while. |
| 02:23:57.18 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Yeah, your mountaintop is even longer than 10 years. |
| 02:24:00.67 | Doug Pryor | Yeah, well this is a 30 year, oh, you're saying how many years are in there? Yeah, I guess it depends on which ones you pick out, right? Where you wanna pick the mountaintop to be. |
| 02:24:15.13 | Doug Pryor | So this chart, the new amortization policy, I'll cover this quickly. You may or may not be interested. But what this is showing is, as I said, the amortization policy that they shortened the period that you're paying liabilities over had the following impact. It went from moving you from the blue lines here to the green. So if you look at the thick blue line in the middle, that's where we expected the contributions would have been before the change, and the green is where it is after. Okay, but what also happens here is that Under kind of a good scenario, you would have been at this line, and now under a good scenario, you could be a little lower, right? So, and then under a bad scenario, instead of being at that line, you could be up there. So there's going to be a lot more variation going forward as the investment terms, returns are volatile. CalPERS is going to make you pay that off quicker, and you're going to have a much bigger spread in terms of where your contributions are in the future. So that's, oh. |
| 02:25:26.31 | Doug Pryor | the miscellaneous program for police safety now. You know, a couple notes in terms of the numbers. You know, this is, you know, CalPERS, these evaluations are June 30, so this is, this column here is a snapshot at June 30 of 15. This is then June 30 of 16. So for whatever reason, there was kind of a drop in the number of active police officers. So you have not only a drop in the counts, but also a drop in the payroll from 2.2 million down to 2. So when you start looking at costs as a percent of payroll, that's going to drive the costs up because you still have those same number of retirees. You have a lower payroll to pay the cost over. So what you'll see when you look at the police numbers are increases. This is then the unfunded liability for the police program here, $33.6 million in total accrued liability, $22.9 million in assets, $10.7 million unfunded. Again, this is at 7.375% discount rate. And you also have here, if you look at, again, that number of retirees and inactives, you have $25.8 million for retirees, $2.1 million for inactives. So you have 27, almost $28 million in liability for former employees of the city and $22.9 million in assets. Okay. So I'll run through these, try to get through this quickly. This is then the projection of the police safety program, 49 and a half percent of payroll for the contribution rate this year. That's expected to increase to 59.8 by next year and you kind of have this peak at 76.7. What happens is CalPERS has, they're not taking your unfunded liability and just say, well, pay that off over X years. They have each time they do a valuation, they have a different base they set up. And so what's happening here is that you have this base that they set up, which is significant, almost 17% of payroll that drops off here, and so you go up the ladder and then you're going to come back, expect it to come back down and then kind of end up at the over the long term about 64% of payroll. And then you have the volatility here. Oh, I didn't highlight that one. Okay. This is longer term for police again. Sure. |
| 02:28:05.53 | Ray Withey | Okay. |
| 02:28:09.46 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Sure, we're going to ask you a question. Doug, |
| 02:28:10.03 | Ray Withey | I'm going to ask you a question. Doug, can I, Doug, sorry. |
| 02:28:13.51 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Yeah, Pryor, Doug Pryor. |
| 02:28:15.30 | Ray Withey | I WANT TO TAKE A LOOK AT THE Just to clarify, correct me if I'm wrong here, the difference in the long-term shape, which you see in the short-term here, between police safety and miscellaneous, so if you go back to the long-term one for police safety, just go one more slide. Yeah, you see the drop in the 23-24, which you don't see in miscellaneous, I think that's due to the fact that CalPERS rolled in the police fire side fund, which then went on a different amortization schedule, and what you're seeing in the drop there is the actual payoff of the side fund. That's my impression of what's happening. Is that true? |
| 02:28:59.07 | Doug Pryor | That's more. Is that true? I think that is the side fund, yes. And so in miscellaneous, backed up to miscellaneous, you do have a drop, it's just much further, further down because, yep. |
| 02:29:03.41 | Ray Withey | Oh, yeah. |
| 02:29:11.27 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | So you're showing us all kinds of data, which is really, a lot of it is supposition, and with lots of ranges of what it might or might not be. For me personally, I'm wondering, Your report didn't focus too much on what do we do about this. So I want to call the question. This is my frustration with donations. |
| 02:29:35.27 | Unknown | Yeah. Yeah. |
| 02:29:37.60 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Presentation, he goes in to all this data that the sky is falling and doesn't give any suggestions about how |
| 02:29:44.52 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:29:44.55 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | to solve it. So as leaders here, I'm hoping that you will soon get to the part of your presentation where you're going to tell us |
| 02:29:44.57 | Unknown | Yeah. So... |
| 02:29:53.41 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | what you recommend. |
| 02:29:54.56 | Doug Pryor | Amen. |
| 02:29:54.58 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Amen. |
| 02:29:56.18 | Doug Pryor | AND SO MAYBE I'LL, BECAUSE IT'S A SIMILAR TREND FOR POLICE FIRE. |
| 02:29:59.79 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | exactly fire and we have we all got your presentation in our packet. |
| 02:30:01.95 | Doug Pryor | Yeah. Right, so maybe I'm gonna spend too much time on the background then. I mean, here's what I would, and what we have at the end is what we would recommend, kind of recommendations on what to do, but the challenge is, |
| 02:30:03.92 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | So. |
| 02:30:19.89 | Doug Pryor | How do you how do you stay on that path? How do you meet that ramp up, right? And when you look at these, I think the takeaway is that you're gonna pay more to CalPERS eventually, right? It's a matter of can you afford to stay on that path and is there anything you can do to pay it up front? |
| 02:30:41.84 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Okay, so I've asked Lily to put up a slide that I mentioned earlier that Keith Kennedy prepared for our finance committee meeting. |
| 02:30:58.85 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | So this is what we're facing. So we have our revenues are somewhat fixed, and we have this pension obligation that's going to increase. And for a long time, it's going to be way above what our currently projected revenues are. And we have some time now to save. So in the red, we can pay now, perhaps into a trust, so that we have money to. survive the mountain. |
| 02:31:33.31 | Doug Pryor | Yeah. And that, so that's, Thank you. that's variation of a picture we have later on with the 115 trust. So let me, while we're looking at this, let me just mention the concept of giving more money, if you give it to CalPERS, right, well, I don't know about colors here, but If you're on the the black line, right? and you give more money to CalPERS, what you're really doing is you would just shift that down. It would be parallel, right? And so you're shifting down, you're right back in the, you're in a little better boat, but you're still facing this uphill battle, right? And so that's the advantage to the 115 trust, the supplemental trust, that helps you level that out exactly what is you showing there. Correct. Okay, so maybe we should just then, oh, if we could, um, |
| 02:32:13.19 | Unknown | Yes. |
| 02:32:19.83 | Adam Politzer | It's a snuff. |
| 02:32:30.55 | Doug Pryor | And the city has, let me jump forward to I don't know. |
| 02:32:39.71 | Doug Pryor | So it's... |
| 02:32:47.39 | Doug Pryor | At this point, we do have the total unfunded liabilities here aggregated on 60... 67 and then the total contributions if you want to kind of look at we have it all separated but here it is in aggregate But let me move on to the 115 trust in what we did so you the city has set aside money in one of these supplemental trusts $733,000 is there the way we recommend agencies use this move forward which is the graph similar to what you had okay, which is a |
| 02:33:18.78 | Unknown | Mm-hmm. |
| 02:33:20.38 | Doug Pryor | The green is where we expect your contributions to go with the miscellaneous program, okay? And in this, I don't know if I have them highlighted here. So you're there, and the idea would be to, you set a target rate. In this case, it's 30% of payroll. And so the idea would be to the extent CalPERS contribution, to the extent CalPERS asks for less than 30% of payroll, you contribute. you suppose CalPERS you're in a future year CalPERS asked for less than 30% of payroll, you contribute, suppose CalPERS, you're in a future year, CalPERS says your rate's 29% of payroll, you pay 29% of payroll to CalPERS, you put 1% of payroll in the trust, in a year where CalPERS wants 31% of payroll, you pay 30% to CalPERS, you take 1% out of the trust. So it does exactly what you were looking at in that other chart, is it's leveling out your contributions. you know, the more you can put in earlier, the more you can kind of carve off that mountaintop, right? And so this is the illustration we have for safety where we allocated some of the initial assets and then also assumed that you have an additional 3% of payroll going to the 115 trust, supplemental trust, for the first couple of years. So the way we're looking at this, there's really kind of a number of levers to pull here for the model. One is how much initially do you have, right? The other is how much are you going to put in in the near term? In this case, it's 3% per year. And then the final sort of parameter here is where would you be comfortable leveling out your contribution, right? If you want to level it out at you know, 27% of payroll, it's going to take a lot more money up front to do that, right? If you're comfortable with a much higher rate at 35 or something, right, you probably don't need to put anything more in. So this is the kind of model that we've looked at, and we do kind of volatility. Because the fact is, if everything would go as expected, this would not be very complicated, right? And so when you look at these lines, these lines are showing where we expect things to be, but we know that there's going to be a ton of volatility in the assets going forward. you can stay, you can move from that green and go to the orange as long as you have money in the trust to pay that difference, right? And so we have... |
| 02:35:50.64 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 02:35:50.69 | Colette Martinez | Okay. |
| 02:35:53.17 | Doug Pryor | this model here to show, based on these parameters that are kind of circled in the red, the thick blue line is what the supplemental trust balance is expected to be, okay? And so the fact is is that there are no guarantees, but in this scenario, expected to still have a balance at the end of the 10-year period. Also, it's true that in kind of a bad scenario, expected to still have a balance at the end of the 10 year period. Also, it's true that in kind of a bad scenario, this would be the last year you would still have money. And at that point in time, you would have to go above your targeted rate of 30%. Okay, so that's the model. And we've done kind of similar analysis. Again, it would be something to kind of work on what parameters the city is comfortable with. But this is a great question. And we've done kind of similar analysis. Again, there's, it would be something to kind of work on what the, what parameters the city is comfortable with. But this is kind of an initial illustration. And then we have a similar illustration for the police safety plan, which is, I tap through here. This is more kind of a leveling out of the contributions, right, because the police safety is kind of zigzagging. So this is not so much is shaving off the mountaintop. It's almost kind of leveling out, right, the contributions in the future. And you can, to a certain extent, do the same thing here with the police, with the fire program. But this, again, is more of a, this one is more of a leveling out of the mountaintop than, or off the mountaintop than leveling out these zigzagging rates. |
| 02:37:21.98 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Or an offer. |
| 02:37:26.08 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Aside from these pension trusts, you also mentioned pension obligation bonds. |
| 02:37:31.19 | Doug Pryor | Yeah. So we have that in our document only because, well, we have it in there to mention all the options that are out there, okay? We have agencies that are looking at those right now that I think a couple that are very likely to issue large agencies. So agencies are still doing that, right? The GFAO report recommends that it not be done. So you have that kind of going against it, but it certainly is kind of a gamble that you'll earn more in the trust than you will in debt service that you pay over the period. So it's in there only to make sure we kind of run the gamut of everything that's out there. |
| 02:38:22.66 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | And that assumes our revenue stays steady. So for example, our measure O is going to expire while we're on the mountain top. So unless we. renew it. So, anyway. You're showing us ways to smooth our pension contributions, but here on the council, we actually have to figure out our cash flow. in order to even accomplish what you're recommending. |
| 02:38:55.94 | Doug Pryor | Right. I'm not a finance person. Yeah. So I can only, again, the long-term projections going, well, you're going to give more money to them eventually. So to the extent you can do something sooner rather than later, you could be better off. |
| 02:39:00.78 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | I predict. Right. |
| 02:39:07.94 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | to smooth it out, right. |
| 02:39:09.07 | Doug Pryor | Thank you. not just to smooth it out, but to get that, you know, you may be skeptical of the investment earnings, but the fact is, is that, I think it's very likely you'll earn more in the trust than you will with cash you have, right? So having just said I'm not a finance person, I would have that comment too, right? |
| 02:39:29.12 | Unknown | Yep. |
| 02:39:29.35 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 02:39:29.37 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:39:31.18 | Ray Withey | THE CITY IS A LITTLE BIT OF Yeah, please. |
| 02:39:31.92 | Doug Pryor | Thank you. |
| 02:39:31.94 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Yeah, please. |
| 02:39:35.82 | Ray Withey | This is more a sort of comment along with a question. I'm looking primarily and trying to, I want to focus on slides here. 81. |
| 02:39:57.96 | Ray Withey | 85. |
| 02:40:02.51 | Ray Withey | in 88. WE HAVE 88 UP THERE. GO BACK TO YOUR PREVIOUS. I FIND PERCENTAGE OF PAYROLL FOR THE VERY CAVEATS THAT YOU GAVE PREVIOUSLY TO BE NOT VERY GOOD. THAT'S WHAT ARE WE LOOKING AT? THAT'S MISCELLANEOUS. |
| 02:40:05.99 | Unknown | We've got 88 up there. |
| 02:40:16.03 | Doug Pryor | Yeah. |
| 02:40:22.93 | Doug Pryor | I can't remember. |
| 02:40:27.57 | Ray Withey | To me, these three charts are the most helpful because it shows it in dollars, in dollar amounts versus percentages, and it shows |
| 02:40:35.35 | Unknown | Mm-hmm. |
| 02:40:40.62 | Ray Withey | the target right so the idea would the idea would be to Aim towards the target is that is that what? And in. And the diagram that Keith prepared, which is funnily enough, Melanie and I produced exactly the same diagram on the whiteboard in the conference room after one of the finance committee meetings. Because it's right on. It's absolutely right on. And that's what we've got to be discussing in the next month. Exactly. Is what is the rate of funding in that early yellow sign? Well, I think it's a good thing. |
| 02:41:08.50 | Unknown | It's up. |
| 02:41:12.27 | Unknown | Exactly. |
| 02:41:13.17 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:41:16.78 | Ray Withey | The target here, I'm assuming, is a target based on 7%. |
| 02:41:24.14 | David Sudo | Well, |
| 02:41:24.51 | Ray Withey | Or is it a moving target that moves to 7%? |
| 02:41:24.59 | Doug Pryor | We'll be right back. |
| 02:41:29.71 | Doug Pryor | Well, it actually, this used to be an easy question to answer, but we have built into this model that CalPERS can reduce the discount rate to seven. There's the risk mitigation we're expected to reduce more. And we also built in that the CalPERS trust will earn 6.5% over 10 years. |
| 02:41:32.00 | Ray Withey | So help me understand. Yeah. |
| 02:41:59.88 | Doug Pryor | And was it? |
| 02:42:00.18 | Ray Withey | And was there any assumption on what the 115 would earn? |
| 02:42:05.18 | Doug Pryor | Yeah, but we've assumed just a 5% return on the 115 trust. Okay, which is very reasonable. That's a bear. |
| 02:42:06.22 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | I don't know. |
| 02:42:06.70 | Ray Withey | Thank you. |
| 02:42:06.82 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 02:42:06.90 | Ray Withey | Thank you. |
| 02:42:06.93 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Yeah. |
| 02:42:09.72 | Ray Withey | Okay, which is very reasonable. |
| 02:42:11.08 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | They're stabilizing. |
| 02:42:12.05 | Doug Pryor | And you, which I assure you know, you have control over how that money is invested, right? Yeah, sure. Yeah, yeah. |
| 02:42:12.06 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 02:42:15.84 | Ray Withey | Yeah, sure. Which we've chosen moderate, so five might be a good number. So the difference between these two would be if we move towards the target that you're recommending would be to if in the |
| 02:42:20.99 | Doug Pryor | Yeah. Yeah. |
| 02:42:32.67 | Ray Withey | the most, I'm not saying extreme, but in the most prudent would be to fund the trust with the difference between the green and the |
| 02:42:42.39 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Yep. |
| 02:42:44.36 | Ray Withey | And the target. Is that right? Between the 50th percentile and the target, that difference, you fund the trust, and when it's higher, you use the trust to pay it. Right. And that creates a stabilization. Right, right. Okay. What would the green look like, or how would the target move if the CalPERS trust return was six, not six and a half over 10 years, what would that orange line look like? Because I think that's what's probably on, and I'm trying to focus it on a diagram so that people can understand. And I know you can't probably answer that off the top of your head, because that's a massive actuarial calculation. |
| 02:42:55.09 | Doug Pryor | Right, right. |
| 02:43:16.36 | Doug Pryor | I understand. you can. Massive. First of all, if Calipari's earned six, the green is going to ramp up, right, be more upslope? That's going to change too. And so, yeah, I'm sorry, I could not, I couldn't give you a number to say, well, the 1.9 is going to 2.1 or something. But I think for the. |
| 02:43:29.52 | Ray Withey | That's going to change too. |
| 02:43:38.48 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Yeah, we could run that. I agree with Council Member Withey. I think for a future presentation, we would like to see what that delta is between the target and the 50th percentile if the assumption of the CalPERS rate of return changes from 7 to 6.5 So that Our most pessimistic, council members has five, so that we can, again, we have to predict up here an uncertain future. And some of us are more pessimistic about that future than others, but it would be a good practice for us to understand what that means in terms of dollars so that as we're looking at actual budgets and looking at the finance side, we know what the difference between a prudent versus a conservative versus a liberal. |
| 02:44:02.17 | Unknown | It's pessimistic. |
| 02:44:31.52 | Ray Withey | Right. And we can't, I don't. |
| 02:44:32.48 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | strategy would be. |
| 02:44:33.95 | Ray Withey | I don't believe we can take this conversation too far until we've done more analysis in the next month in Finance Committee. |
| 02:44:37.69 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Agreed. I agree. |
| 02:44:40.82 | Ray Withey | But, you know, I think probably you would find that no city could actually accommodate that in their budget. |
| 02:44:51.04 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | in their budget. |
| 02:44:53.05 | Ray Withey | Thank you. |
| 02:44:56.22 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | I'm sorry. |
| 02:44:56.85 | Ray Withey | Would you agree? I mean, the statements I've just sort of said, are we on the right track in terms of thinking about this structurally? |
| 02:44:58.06 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:44:58.16 | Doug Pryor | The statement. Yes. |
| 02:45:04.88 | Doug Pryor | Yes, the actuary is trying to, in my head, draw a distinction here between the trust earning 6% over the next 10 years, and CalPERS reducing the discount rate to 6%. |
| 02:45:18.89 | Unknown | Right. |
| 02:45:19.58 | Doug Pryor | Right, and those are two, although they should be related, they're kind of separate events, right? And which one you're thinking of. I think, I don't know if you're thinking of both or one or the other, but yeah. |
| 02:45:24.59 | Unknown | It's totally different. |
| 02:45:25.79 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | THE FAMILY. |
| 02:45:31.46 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | I'm more confident in our rate of return that we're earning on our stabilization fund than I am on the solidity of the CalPERS. on the stability of the CalPERS. Calc number that we're going to be. ACCOMMODATING. I think it's going to keep going down. |
| 02:45:55.49 | Doug Pryor | The discount rate. Yes. |
| 02:45:56.16 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Yes. Thank you. I think it's going to go down at least to six. Jill says five, but I think at least |
| 02:46:02.74 | Ray Withey | The state of California would go bankrupt if CalPERS brought the interest rate, discount rate down to 5%. So, I mean, and so in a sense, you can't plan for, as Jonathan Leone used to say, you can't plan for the sun exploding. Yes. You can't do that. That's not part of a planning scenario that makes sense. |
| 02:46:19.10 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Yes. Yes. He soundly criticized me for saying in 2010 that the sky is falling. Right. |
| 02:46:29.20 | Ray Withey | So, but, um... Because I think we're going to find that just meeting this is going to be structurally challenging in our budget. |
| 02:46:38.08 | Joe | Yes. Yeah, I think that's the thing is we're looking at a blend. |
| 02:46:40.48 | Ray Withey | We're looking at a blend. really cool. |
| 02:46:41.98 | Joe | we look at blended, but the number is 999,000 to 1.96. Right. That's a huge number. |
| 02:46:47.60 | Ray Withey | Right. Right, so that's what we're going to be doing this next month in |
| 02:46:49.50 | Joe | So. |
| 02:46:54.89 | Ray Withey | Sorry, Doug, for... But I wanted to get to this, because these are good ones to at least a starting point to show the difference. I like that. |
| 02:47:01.25 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | I like it. I like the 81, 85, and 88. |
| 02:47:08.47 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | So Doug, we've interrupted you so much. Was there more of your presentation? |
| 02:47:10.45 | Doug Pryor | Thank you. No, that's good. Okay. No, this was really kind of the end, where's the rate stabilization fund and how it might be used. We couldn't wait |
| 02:47:13.57 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | OK. |
| 02:47:17.38 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | FAMILY. Yeah. We couldn't wait to get to the end. |
| 02:47:21.31 | Doug Pryor | I was. To go back to the comment about 5 or 6%, what would happen, I mean, that $27 million unfunded liability, The CalParis measures that 6%, it's 44 million. |
| 02:47:33.67 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 02:47:34.00 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:47:35.18 | Doug Pryor | Yeah. Yeah. |
| 02:47:38.27 | Ray Withey | Not bad back of the envelope calculation. |
| 02:47:41.34 | Doug Pryor | Yeah, well I had it written down. That's out of the CalPERS report, so yeah. |
| 02:47:41.43 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Yeah. |
| 02:47:42.80 | Ray Withey | up. |
| 02:47:46.41 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | All right, so other questions of Doug? All right, I'm going to open it up to public comment. All right, I'm going to bring it up here for discussion. |
| 02:47:59.77 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | this is a receive, we're not taking any action, so. We've managed to weave a lot of discussion into our questions already. |
| 02:48:08.43 | Jill Hoffman | So I have some comments. Go ahead. I had asked prior to this for an executive summary of this report. And so are you familiar with what an executive summary is? |
| 02:48:17.20 | Doug Pryor | Yeah we could we could put one together yeah yeah. |
| 02:48:20.66 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah, so that would be helpful, right? So it would be helpful if we had a three or four page executive summary that really summarized the total liability. Right, so you don't have to go through five different pages and do some arithmetic to figure out what the total liability is. The next thing I think, as Joan mentioned, if you could do also the 10-year rolling calculation as just another calculation, that would be helpful, I think, for our discussions. And also, you know, When we're talking about the trust, right? it would be helpful so now it's at $700,000 a fluctuation of one point below target wipes it out right so when we're talking about what are the hard facts of if we're trying to fund this trust to smooth what's you know I want to see the number on that what is that that's going to what is that 5 million a year that we're going to put in that we're gonna be taking out millions of dollars in the years as we go out. I found your report sort of interesting in a theoretical sense, but it's not really helpful for us as a planning tool going forward. Again, that's the financial |
| 02:49:30.97 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | manager's job. So he's giving us the data, and then it's going to be our job to figure out key |
| 02:49:38.03 | Jill Hoffman | and |
| 02:49:38.68 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | you |
| 02:49:38.84 | Jill Hoffman | raise well chart right but as part of our pension right this is the pension presentation was the next |
| 02:49:44.04 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Well, the next part of this is the budget update from Thank you. |
| 02:49:47.38 | Jill Hoffman | I know. But I mean, I got to have that. I got to have that kind of stuff. And however you guys want to do it, |
| 02:49:47.77 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 02:49:51.86 | Jill Hoffman | whatever. But I think that's what we have to have up here as a city council when we're looking at this issue. Agree. You know, if we're in comments now, you know, I found it really interesting |
| 02:49:59.84 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:49:59.94 | Unknown | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 02:50:06.13 | Jill Hoffman | you know, Um, not interesting, but culmination of things we've been talking about for a long time, especially me and what I've been talking about for three years, is when Melanie gave part of her I WANT TO DO THAT. So those are my comments. Who else would like to comment? |
| 02:50:50.28 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 02:50:54.21 | Ray Withey | We have a lot of work to do. |
| 02:50:56.01 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Mm-hmm. And, you know, Jill, to your point, that's one of the reasons I asked for this financial report card, because I definitely agree in those areas we could be perceived as... missing the mark a bit, but there are various other factors by which they are objective factors by which to evaluate the city's financial health. And I think that will help us decide which route we want to adopt. Do we want to be super conservative and predict the worst and scrimp and save to the fullest extent now? Or do we want to take a more moderate route? And I think better understanding from an objective perspective, the city's financial health will help us determine which strategy is the best to adopt. |
| 02:51:44.73 | Ray Withey | Can I make one more comment, which is, you know, For people who like numbers, you can get right in the middle of this, and it can get quite exciting, right? Or scary, depending upon which way you want to look at it. But in the end, this theory has got to be looked at in the context of the overall budget. Because in the end, we're about managing risk. And part of the disconnects in these conversations all the time is that people have different perceptions of the risk of the pension liabilities versus the risk of |
| 02:52:08.80 | Unknown | Mm-hmm. |
| 02:52:28.78 | Ray Withey | the failure to invest in infrastructure. That's, you've got to balance those risks. And, you know, if, you know, violation of the EPA order contaminating the bay, you know, when you've got hundreds of thousands of dollars of fines accumulating on a daily basis, that's a pretty big risk. You know, and so, which would be hundreds of, potentially a liability of hundreds of millions of dollars of infrastructure compared to this liability. You know, we know a payment schedule for this, and a possible increased payment schedule for this, but if it's done in the, to, at the expense of not investing, for instance, in infrastructure, then what you've done is you've actually stabilized a moderately risky thing by sacrificing an incredibly risky thing. |
| 02:53:33.58 | Unknown | Okay. |
| 02:53:34.96 | Ray Withey | And we're gonna make sure we understand all of that in the next time period before we start making decisions that are misapplied to the risk involved. |
| 02:53:42.98 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | But the flip side of that, Ray, is which of those can we evade through other means? You know, some cities have sought to evade pension obligations through bankruptcy. And some obligations you can... avoid through bankruptcy and some you can't. So again, I agree. It's a... |
| 02:54:01.42 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:54:03.17 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | You've got to look at the whole picture, as my point. |
| 02:54:03.23 | Joe | Yeah. |
| 02:54:03.29 | Ray Withey | Yeah. |
| 02:54:03.31 | Joe | You've got to look at the whole picture is my point. And you said at the end we need to, and I think we kind of need to at the beginning. Yeah. |
| 02:54:05.57 | Ray Withey | Yeah, yeah. |
| 02:54:09.98 | Joe | you I think that's kind of the start of the conversation is, This isn't the time, to me, there's too much risk and there's too much fixed cost in the unfunded to look at how we're gonna downsize. We have to go full steam ahead in its revenue. I know I've said it and we've all talked about it, $2 made is better than $4 saved in this situation because the fixed liability cost is something we can't change if we start cutting employees back, we start risking our quality of services, especially when the economy continues to go up. That's when we need to be making hay at a much higher level. rate than looking at trying to cut back. So as we go into these next few years, We need to be capitalizing on what's going well because cutting back is not going to save us the amount of money that we're looking at here. There's only one way out, and it's... |
| 02:55:04.92 | Ray Withey | Agreed, totally. |
| 02:55:07.03 | Joe | EARNING. Thank you. |
| 02:55:07.84 | Ray Withey | I agree totally. |
| 02:55:08.85 | Joe | So I think that's how we look |
| 02:55:09.88 | Ray Withey | The problem is to simulate revenue growth is a medium term Thank you. |
| 02:55:16.95 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 02:55:17.27 | Ray Withey | gain and that means we need to start it now. Exactly. That means |
| 02:55:18.27 | Unknown | Right. Exactly. |
| 02:55:24.14 | Ray Withey | you know. things need to happen now, you know? |
| 02:55:28.39 | Jill Hoffman | Well, if I could speak to that then. That, what Joe, the comments that Joe just made do cause me concern. Because we can do things to be more efficient. We can do things to cut down on our costs that I don't see that we're doing. And so we haven't really taken a hard look at, I don't think, how we do business, how can we do better going forward, And do we need to spend the money on some of the things that we're spending our money on? Thank you. I don't necessarily see looking at how we can save in certain areas as lessening services or I see it as increasing Efficiencies... and increasing technology and increasing other ways to that we're going to have to At the same time, I'm all for increased revenues. I mean, I have no problem with that. I think it's a double problem. |
| 02:56:23.03 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | I think it's a double pronged strategy. Yeah. And we did hear from our public works director, Jonathan Goldman, in the finance committee said, absolutely, it's possible to shave expenditures and maintain levels of service. And so I do think it's a dual pronged strategy. |
| 02:56:24.55 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah. |
| 02:56:40.48 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 02:56:40.52 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | strategy. |
| 02:56:40.99 | Jill Hoffman | And by the way, you know, people that are working for us now, they are entering a pension. It's not that we're going to hit this cliff and then we're not going to have pension liabilities. It means they're going to go down, especially when our tier one employees, but we're still going to be paying for the tier one employees until the next 50 years. So, I mean, these things, we can do things to help us now, of people that are working, In the situation that we're in now. So I don't see it as a foregone, you know, that anything we do is not going to have any effect. |
| 02:57:13.96 | Unknown | No, I don't. |
| 02:57:14.76 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:57:15.68 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 02:57:15.97 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | haven't heard at all from Councilmember Susan Cleveland knows I want to give you an opportunity to weigh in on any thoughts you might have. Thank you. |
| 02:57:24.98 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Yeah, I mean, I definitely agree with what folks have said. I mean, we definitely need to be looking at both sides of the equation. I really would like to have a... We've talked a couple of times about having a discussion about revenue, new revenue sources. I think that conversation has to happen. You know, what is our timeline for looking at Measure O? I mean, you know, I think the TAM example of going out, you know, ahead of the last possible day when Measure O sunsets is very wise. I think that planning ahead and planning out what types of revenue sources we'll be looking at. You know, we can't hit residents or taxpayers all at once. It's not fair and it's not prudent. So I do think that discussion is something I would really like to have. a specific set aside time for. In terms of the pension issues, I mean, You know, just probably as the newest council member, I do not feel like this presentation or the staff materials were geared towards any kind of executive summary, any kind of context. I mean, I've done reading on my own, but I really would have appreciated more context setting for this discussion. I may be the only one |
| 02:58:45.17 | Unknown | Oh, no, not the only one. |
| 02:58:45.73 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | But, you know, I definitely feel like I can do my homework when I have the materials to read. I found this report incredibly difficult to read. The assumptions, very hard to find. Yeah. So that's just, it could be me, but it was not, it was a difficult item to prepare for, for me. So that's the executive summary that Council Member Hoffman requested, I think, would have been a huge asset in this, and perhaps a more complete staff report. But, you know, I'm looking forward to the discussion. I do feel like, you know, pension is just one piece of the... It's one big complicated piece of the pie. But we do need to be talking about the whole pie. So I concur with all those comments. |
| 02:59:38.03 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | All right, thanks everybody. Thank you for your presentation. |
| 02:59:43.85 | Unknown | THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 02:59:44.20 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | We'll see you again. Yeah, we're going to take Melanie, we're going to take a couple minutes for personal convenience. |
| 02:59:50.09 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:59:50.80 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Really? Okay, we are back on and we're ready for Melanie for our fiscal year 2018 to 20 budget update. |
| 03:00:03.46 | Melanie Purcell | All right, so we've had lots of background information, kind of ad nausea. This is a continuation of background information, but not nausea. So, sorry, I get a little punchy by this. I acknowledge it. Wanted to kind of go through briefly what the Finance Committee received in less detail, but the Finance Committee got full detail of the departmental budgets. So I'm going to kind of go over that and then. answer questions as you wish along the way, and then at the end kind of explain where we go from here so that we can address being able to get all the information you need and work through and have conversation and dialogue about the options available to council going forward. Okay, and Melanie, we have 20 minutes on our calendar for this whole item. I can do that. Okay, awesome. Okay, so in your packet was everything that was received by the finance committee. Okay? This is actually just the highlights. So administration and finance, all we've done is present what was presented to the finance committee. We're kind of the breakdown of what was included in professional services, operations, other services, and supplies. In a couple of instances, there's also equipment and things like that. So really just noticing that there's some specific items that come in here. increasing special project consulting, compensation study, looking at the regular election. Sorry, can I just interrupt? What slide are you on? This is actually a summation of the administration. But what slide are you on? You gave us your PowerPoint presentation. |
| 03:01:28.57 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 03:01:28.61 | Unknown | Very good. |
| 03:01:28.96 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Can I just interrupt where Okay. |
| 03:01:33.65 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | But what slide are you on? that we're going to be able to |
| 03:01:38.83 | Melanie Purcell | PowerPoint is in there? |
| 03:01:40.35 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Yeah. Yeah, it says, Finance Committee, Department |
| 03:01:44.03 | Melanie Purcell | budget PowerPoint presentation. OK. This is, I don't have the numbers in front of me. So this is the administration. |
| 03:01:50.71 | Jill Hoffman | I think that's page, it's page 2043 and it's the top part, I think. |
| 03:01:56.35 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Correct. Well, the top, this starts with, no, this starts with professional services and our top one starts with direct department revenues. So Melanie, you gave us this presentation ahead of time. |
| 03:02:09.83 | Melanie Purcell | What I gave you was all the material that was provided to the Finance Committee. I've summarized it. |
| 03:02:12.67 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Have you provided to us this presentation? No, ma'am. |
| 03:02:14.49 | Melanie Purcell | Presentation. This is a cut and paste from those documents. |
| 03:02:15.79 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | to cut and paste from those documents. |
| 03:02:18.62 | Melanie Purcell | This is a cut and paste of those documents into PowerPoint so that they could be seen on screen. |
| 03:02:25.53 | Joe | Page six of 43, it's titled page one. |
| 03:02:28.70 | Melanie Purcell | Okay. I did not include all of the detail that is included in your packet. |
| 03:02:34.83 | Unknown | Okay. |
| 03:02:35.87 | Melanie Purcell | IT'S A Yeah. |
| 03:02:37.29 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 03:02:42.62 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | OK, you know we like to get PowerPoints ahead of time that you're going to show us so we can follow through with you. Yes. Thank you. |
| 03:02:49.08 | Melanie Purcell | Thank you. |
| 03:02:49.12 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Okay. |
| 03:02:54.89 | Melanie Purcell | This is just highlighting the changes and what's included in the discretionary line items. And by discretionary, I'm simply referring to the operating accounts. The salary and benefits are outlined in their detail, We presented some of that at the last meeting, and we went through the organizational charts that are included in your packet. I'm not including that in the presentation, because you've already seen them. I'm not sure. The intent was to give you just an update of what was presented to the Finance Committee. So that you could see some of the details. |
| 03:03:32.13 | Melanie Purcell | So if you go to the bottom of that page, it says information technology. This is, as you've noticed, a large number of contracts that we have for support as well as for specific software. |
| 03:03:45.36 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | So again, what you have up here is not what we have in front of us. In front of us we have a change from fiscal year 2018, 21.74%, and you have 22%. So this is not a cut and paste, you've created new slides. |
| 03:04:00.45 | Melanie Purcell | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 03:04:01.06 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | All right, I'll send this out. |
| 03:04:02.03 | Melanie Purcell | Perhaps it would be easiest if we simply skipped to the back. |
| 03:04:08.06 | Melanie Purcell | to the next steps. |
| 03:04:11.92 | Melanie Purcell | What will happen is the finance committee is scheduled to review, we don't have a date yet, for capital projects, other funds, and discussion items. The discussion items is patterned after prior years in which we bring forward options, the pension to discuss, and policies, specific policies going forward. That meeting is yet to be scheduled for the finance committee, but that will include going into the same level of detail as we've done for the departments. That will wrap up the detailed conversations so that the foundation has been built. The finance committee is scheduled for May 18th to have a conversation in depth. It's a four hour meeting. scheduled for that Friday in which the entire budget will be previewed, including revenues, expenditures, and discussion items. The finance committee has typically made a recommendation back to the city council as a whole on those discussion items. Both the items included within the budget and the items not included. And itemized those separately as ones in which there was consensus and one in which there are not. So those items will go to Finance Committee. They will begin at our next meeting and be in its entirety on May 18th. The City Council has a May 22nd Council meeting. in which we bring the full budget to them as a preliminary look at. |
| 03:05:30.53 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 03:05:30.58 | Melanie Purcell | with those. |
| 03:05:30.97 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | So sorry, Melanie, but May 18th, that's a Friday. Correct. And the city council report will have gone out Thursday. Correct. For May 22. So the city council on May 22 will have none of the benefit of the work done in the four hours on Friday, May 18. |
| 03:05:49.97 | Melanie Purcell | Yeah. other than what I can submit to you by late mail. We have then the June 12th is when it is brought forward as an actual recommendation. And then I receive feedback from the council, staff receives that, we incorporate it. We have the opportunity for another meeting of the finance committee. If the council so desires and the committee chooses to meet, the final adoption is June 26th. |
| 03:06:15.68 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | And tonight we asked for a bunch of data from Doug Pryor. Correct. So when in this schedule will that data be received and woven into the decision making that we have in front of us? |
| 03:06:29.76 | Melanie Purcell | I will get together with Doug in the morning. And determine when I can get the rest of the details. I've already started working up how these various targets could be incorporated into the long term financial forecast. And I'll have that refined prior to the next meeting of the finance committee. So that work has already been started. in anticipation of the Finance Committee having detailed conversations. One thing I would encourage is that we, I'm available to meet with council members certainly to go through detail, to give background, to explore some of the questions that you have and certainly I encourage you to ask me questions and I'll provide the answers to the entire council. |
| 03:07:11.51 | Adam Politzer | May I make a comment here? Sure. when In past years during the budget process, it has been I'm not sure. a practice of ours to have at least one or two additional special council meetings and i know that you have actually made this statement before about having a study session before a meeting or having a special meeting and you know the last time we went through the two-year budget process you know we had three meetings i think mond, Tuesday, and then the following Tuesday as special meetings because of the amount of discussion that was needed two years ago when we went through this process. And so that's something that Melanie and I have talked about that we want to I propose back to the Council that it's going to be important that we add in either a study session before a Council meeting. I think Councilmember Withy the last time we had a budget update said to the agenda setting committee, we might need to take all the items off of an agenda so that we can have the amount of dialogue and discussion that we're going to need to when we get into this, and that May 22nd is really the beginning of it. So I recognize the The strain. and or frustration we create by having a finance committee meeting on friday and then having action on the council meeting but at this moment it's the introduction of the big pot of things that we're going to need to decide if it's going to remain in the pot or not but it'll be really the next three or four meetings where we're getting into the decision making and making those hard decisions. While we come to the May 22nd, we're hoping that the finance committee's efforts and staff's efforts that we have everything on the table that has to be discussed. We will be asking the council Thank you. and the community is what don't we have on there? |
| 03:09:18.32 | Unknown | THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 03:09:18.51 | Adam Politzer | I'm not asking them what we should take off the table. We're not at that point on May 22nd. Do we have everything on the table and are the costs associated with all of those projects. accurate for consideration. |
| 03:09:34.66 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you, Adam. And when will we have the survey results from F3? |
| 03:09:41.97 | Unknown | the May of the game of June. |
| 03:09:43.10 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Yeah, so I do agree you read my mind because I was going to say to Melanie I think we need more meetings in order to get through the level of detail particularly because We have three very new council members who are just getting their head around all of this. |
| 03:10:05.73 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Me? to. |
| 03:10:09.29 | Unknown | Bye. |
| 03:10:09.86 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | you |
| 03:10:10.03 | Unknown | Which one of them? Thank you. |
| 03:10:10.92 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 03:10:11.02 | Melanie Purcell | Exactly. |
| 03:10:11.77 | Unknown | Thank you. Oh, my God. |
| 03:10:12.48 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | . |
| 03:10:14.64 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:10:16.95 | Melanie Purcell | One note, the finance committee has one additional meeting tentatively scheduled for May 25th that I did not put on this list. Obviously, it's up to the council and the committee as to when they would prefer to meet. And I want to acknowledge... |
| 03:10:32.98 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | I'm, look, the reason we probably meet on Fridays is that's when I can meet. And the reason we don't have a date for next week is I was absent last Friday for our scheduled meeting. So I'm part of the problem here. but I appreciate what the city manager said about adding additional meetings, I am myself in favor of a study session when it's not late at night after a full day of work when we can focus on some complex issues with fresh eyes. |
| 03:11:04.92 | Joe | Are we in general discussion questions? |
| 03:11:06.27 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 03:11:06.34 | Joe | Thank you. |
| 03:11:06.42 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Yeah, because we have no public here. |
| 03:11:06.48 | Joe | Yeah. I talked to Melanie a little bit about this, and this is the type of stuff that we can ask her individually, but... since I can't say this in finance committee, for the next reports, and I get, it doesn't need to be a global change in how we do our reporting and information, because I know we're too late in the year to do that. But at some point on these types of reports, and I'm looking at page one of this, which is similar to all the other pages, where it gives down, go further, where it just has the breakdown of a lot of detailed numbers. What do you have as page one of your presentation? |
| 03:11:46.17 | Melanie Purcell | You're page six. There, that. |
| 03:11:49.19 | Joe | Not even that one. Oh. Was that your first one? No. |
| 03:11:51.65 | Melanie Purcell | What you're probably referring to is the line item detail out of the system. |
| 03:11:51.97 | Joe | Okay. Line items. Yeah, so as the city manager said, you know, We're going to get into the detail, and we're going to look at supplies for $27,500. They're going down to $22,000, so we've got $5,000 savings. And we're going to micromanage that type of thing. But then on direct department revenues of $548,000, and there's no notes. We have no idea what those revenues are, business license, fees, whatever they are. because if we can start line itemizing those, then we can start line item, line itemizing those, then we can look at what a 2% gain in business license might mean. Um, And I have a feeling that something like that would be more than the operations cost of $12,500. So we have a lot of detail and a lot of minutiae in expenses that we're going to look through and say, okay, these look great or they don't look, I have no idea. The big ones, we have no information. So at some point, we have to kind of turn that tight upside down and say, we get together and look at the big numbers, and you guys work on the operations for $2,000. We don't care. So that's kind of, you know, I know it's too late to change that course, but... |
| 03:12:51.42 | Unknown | to kind of try. and say, |
| 03:13:03.05 | Joe | AS A COUNCIL, THAT KIND OF WE WANT TO LOOK AT IS |
| 03:13:03.11 | Unknown | AS A CITY. Thank you. |
| 03:13:05.92 | Joe | what can we start looking at as a percentage of change on a something as large as a department revenue of 548 000 that might make a difference so thanks |
| 03:13:15.33 | Melanie Purcell | I'll provide that. |
| 03:13:18.08 | Ray Withey | Can I ask a question to follow up on that? didn't we we've put the revenue forecast is the council's seen the revenue forecast, right? Broken out into each of the line items. |
| 03:13:28.53 | Melanie Purcell | Thank you. |
| 03:13:33.05 | Melanie Purcell | Mm-hmm. |
| 03:13:33.41 | Ray Withey | or was it just an overall global forecast? |
| 03:13:36.36 | Melanie Purcell | It was by category. |
| 03:13:37.56 | Ray Withey | It was by category, so real taxes, property taxes, sales tax, that sort of thing. Permits and charges. |
| 03:13:41.29 | Melanie Purcell | Property taxes, sales tax, that sort of thing. |
| 03:13:47.63 | Ray Withey | I think it's very important for us to be asking the question, especially in terms of the long range forecast because you can't I mean, there's not much we can do to change next year's revenue. We don't know what next year's revenue is going to be, right? But we can certainly put policies in place that will affect revenue in three years' time or four years' time or five years' time, right? Yeah. |
| 03:14:09.82 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 03:14:14.40 | Ray Withey | In the revenue forecast, Melanie, like Charlie before her, for budgeting purposes, was very conservative on revenue. And that's a budget tactic to, Because if you're wrong on the other way, you got upside, then you can decide, put it into pensions, put it in the infrastructure, put it in the bank, whatever. |
| 03:14:40.30 | Ray Withey | But if you're wrong on the revenue and you've You've got your expenses, because remember the general fund is supposed to balance out to zero. You're not trying to make a profit on the general fund. It's supposed to be zero at the end. So if you budget too aggressively for revenue in the budget piece of it, not the long range forecast piece of it, but in the budget piece of it, and you're coming under, you're going to put your general fund in the structural imbalance, right? So... I agree with you. But from the budget perspective, I think we want staff to be very conservative on revenue. |
| 03:15:17.39 | Joe | Yeah, doesn't that make sense? Yeah, totally. No, I totally get that. It's more in the document itself and how it reads because we have percentages of increase in expenses on the side that that we're, that's what we're poning on. As we look at this, first thing we look at is what's 10%, what's a 3%, what's a 2%? But we're not doing the same thing on revenue. Revenue is just a mass category, taxes. |
| 03:15:18.40 | Ray Withey | Yeah, totally. |
| 03:15:31.67 | Ray Withey | I wish that was good. to be able to get the Thank you. |
| 03:15:36.09 | Ray Withey | We shouldn't be micromanaging $5,000. |
| 03:15:38.80 | Joe | $5,000. all the reports we get is all these you know. |
| 03:15:41.83 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | I think he was being facetious when he said that. No, I understand. |
| 03:15:43.90 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 03:15:43.93 | Joe | THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 03:15:43.97 | Ray Withey | Bye. |
| 03:15:44.00 | Joe | to an extent, but this is the numbers that we have. |
| 03:15:45.22 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | STILL. |
| 03:15:45.28 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Yeah. |
| 03:15:45.30 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Yeah. But it also is a two-year process that we can make decisions soon that will impact revenue in year two. Especially on fee increases. |
| 03:15:54.30 | Joe | Especially on fee increases and potential bond changes. |
| 03:15:56.32 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | you know maybe not on some things but on demand |
| 03:15:59.51 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | THE FAMILY. All right. |
| 03:16:00.02 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 03:16:00.03 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Okay. |
| 03:16:00.27 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | I mean there are things we can control for year two |
| 03:16:06.43 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Okay, any other comments? Melanie, thank you for the update. |
| 03:16:12.66 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | I would only add if we are scheduling extra meetings, I would really ask that we do that, or at least get times held as soon as possible. I mean, it's the incredibly busy time of the year, it's the end of the school year, |
| 03:16:25.77 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | It's the end of the fiscal year for those who work with municipalities. Yeah, and we're looking at you. |
| 03:16:26.38 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | school year. Lily, we're looking at you. |
| 03:16:30.91 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | you know, maybe a doodle poll or you work with Melanie and Adam to figure out um to to go ahead and let us give us a heads up about when these meetings might be yeah |
| 03:16:41.09 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Yeah, I have. |
| 03:16:42.44 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | They're all going to be before the end of June. |
| 03:16:44.53 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | I know. So I have very little time until the end of June. |
| 03:16:48.65 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 03:16:48.70 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 03:16:48.94 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Okay, thanks Melanie. |
| 03:16:48.99 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. Thanks, Mel. |
| 03:16:51.18 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | All right, we're going to move on to the city manager report. |
| 03:16:54.47 | Ray Withey | Before we do that, can I just say one thing? I agree with everything that's been said. But let's not schedule a meeting for the whole council until we've actually got everything up on the table and everything to talk about. |
| 03:17:07.19 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Yeah. |
| 03:17:07.19 | Ray Withey | We shouldn't have anything left that we still haven't analyzed. We should have it all. Agreed. So we can make decisions. |
| 03:17:10.67 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | THE FACT THAT WE HAVE TO So we should schedule it later in the process then sooner, but we still have to get it on the calendar. |
| 03:17:18.97 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 03:17:19.04 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | All right. |
| 03:17:19.13 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | And I would rather have a meeting scheduled that we cancel than something we try to put on the calendar. I mean, even if we're not sure we need them, let's get them on the calendar. |
| 03:17:30.74 | Ray Withey | I was referring to when more than in the... |
| 03:17:32.36 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Yeah. More than in the... |
| 03:17:35.68 | Ray Withey | process. |
| 03:17:36.44 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 03:17:36.49 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Yeah. Adam, anything to report? |
| 03:17:41.45 | Adam Politzer | Nothing to add other than, We are working obviously on budgets. So I'm happy to answer any questions from the council. |
| 03:17:53.20 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Any questions of the city manager? All right, then let's move on to Council, wait, that's 7B. Yeah, Council Member Committee reports. |
| 03:18:10.61 | Jill Hoffman | I actually have a report. |
| 03:18:12.57 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 03:18:12.60 | Jill Hoffman | I'm so excited because I had to I mean, because you couldn't attend. So that's why I have a report, because I'm the alternate for the A-bag. So it's very exciting. But as usual, it was a very exciting meeting. |
| 03:18:20.53 | Unknown | Yes. That's why I have a report. |
| 03:18:33.12 | Jill Hoffman | I'm sorry. I'm going to get that to you, Joe. |
| 03:18:34.47 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | I'm going to get that to you, Thank you. |
| 03:18:36.08 | Jill Hoffman | Sorry. |
| 03:18:38.12 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | town. I owe everybody a list of who's on what committee. |
| 03:18:38.57 | Jill Hoffman | I, I, okay. |
| 03:18:42.40 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | So I will get that to you before our next meeting, and I apologize for not getting it to you sooner. |
| 03:18:48.01 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 03:18:49.10 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 03:18:49.17 | Jill Hoffman | So, ABAC meeting is about the Bay Area whatever it stands for of cities |
| 03:18:56.88 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | CITIES. |
| 03:18:57.78 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah. There you go. And so this is for Marin County, right? So this is the Marin County group. You know, to the point of, you know, when we're talking about the new housing bills that are coming up, it was just more of that, right? So more of, now there's three agencies, right? There's MTC, there's ABAG, right? They've tried to merge them, but they didn't quite merge them, but they're still separate, but they share the same staff. And now there's a new agency called CASA. So now there's a third agency that's in here and sticking their finger into... There might be a more Less pessimistic way to say that, but anyway, about planning, right? So right now, we had a presentation about sort of how the staff is is looking forward in planning for the next housing element cycle and a lot of talk about the arena numbers and about 828 and how that is going to be affected and sort of alarm signals going off about what what all of these things together are going to mean so It seems to me from attending that meeting that there's a very concerted effort on behalf of these state-run agencies to impose... Thank you. more ever increasing restrictions on the cities and requirements on the cities and taking away local control. And so that was most of our conversation last night. So. you know. I think the next you know we're looking at the next rena numbers are the next you know planning plan barrier 2040 and so we're starting this cycle for that yeah. So that was a perfect thank you it's very exciting. |
| 03:20:45.71 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | So several of you attended MCCMC, but some of you left early at subjecting me and Ray to the political quagmire of San Rafael. |
| 03:20:58.67 | Colette Martinez | Thank you. |
| 03:20:58.70 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 03:20:58.72 | Colette Martinez | Yes. |
| 03:20:59.02 | Jill Hoffman | What, your alarm's? |
| 03:20:59.97 | Colette Martinez | though. |
| 03:21:00.37 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | I know, but we had this two San Rafael council members, neither of whom sits on the San Rafael Homelessness Committee, approach me and Ray and demand that Sausalito, site homeless showers right now in Sausalito. And I said, well, gosh, we have a process. And there's a pilot program. And they said, yeah, we're in the pilot program and we're sick of it. And I said, oh, so it's not working for you, so you want to put it in Sausalito. Anyway, that's something that they've asked us to put on our council agenda, but I did speak the following day. Kate Collin, who's the chair of the MCCMC Homelessness Committee, kindly called the next day and said, look, we're right on the path they want us to be. They've asked Sausalito and other cities for money, which Sausalito has already made that commitment. They've asked other cities to step up to the plate and have a pilot program for homeless showers. And I said, and I think this is correct from my stint on that committee last year that Sausalito and Larkspur and others that are considering it have asked for data so that we can understand what's working what's not and then Make an informed decision and Kate Collin is committed to presenting that data But because Ray and I were both there I couldn't discuss it with Susan unless I do it in the full council So that's why I'm bringing it up |
| 03:22:30.05 | Unknown | I say. |
| 03:22:34.15 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Okay, great. Well, you know, I sit on that committee this year, and so I appreciate that, and I appreciate the update. Yes, it's completely my understanding, and Adam has been at these meetings as well, that we, all of the cities involved, the first step was to both reconfirm every city's financial commitment and the concept of the fact that the money would be funding the mobile showers. And then at subsequent council meetings over time and at the convenience of each city, |
| 03:23:00.44 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:23:00.47 | Ray Withey | Yes. |
| 03:23:00.84 | Unknown | AND THE FAMILY IS |
| 03:23:07.41 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | each city would decide if it was if and where it would be appropriate to have the pilot or the permanent program in their own city. And so that was, I think, where most some of the cities hadn't even had the discussion yet about reconfirming their financial commitment. So I felt that Sassalito was, you know, we were kind of ahead and that we were right on track according to our commitments to the MCCM Homeless Committee. So, you know, I... That was completely my understanding. |
| 03:23:41.78 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Yeah. So something that I think we as a city have to address is this misperception that all of the homeless on the water belong to Sausalito. So that was something that both of these council members thought was the case. And, you know, again, I tried to point out to them that a very small percentage are actually Sausalito residents in Sausalito waters, that the majority of them are in county waters. This is something that is a county issue, not any single city issue. So, but I think... We want to make sure that we're clear Because I don't want Sausalito to be perceived as, you know, a nimbyist, elitist, which is what some people call us. So, you know, this is an, I shared that we're already bearing the total burden of all of the homeless on the waterfront who come ashore in Sausalito, even though most of them don't live in Sausalito waters. And so we're already shouldering more than our fair share in some ways of this issue. So I just think it's something we have to keep on top of about the way in which we discuss it with our fellow cities and council members and be clear that, you know, we're all in this together moving forward. |
| 03:25:03.42 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Ray and I, oh, no, I attended a GPAC meeting last week we started our visioning process and it was so exciting because every single member of the gpac chirped in which has not been the case in all of our past meetings and we by the end of the meeting we had gotten down to the point where we were focusing on the 10 goals that were enunciated in the general plan that was prepared in 1995. And many of our members, surprisingly to me, found many of those goals still relevant and that were working towards them. And so each GPAC member went away with the self-assigned homework to provide their feedback to those goals and then to add any goals they see based on everything that we learned in the understanding process. But the manner in which the GPAC committee was working so collegially and collaboratively was really inspiring. So I have great hopes for the work that this committee will do. All right. |
| 03:26:08.29 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:26:08.31 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 03:26:09.46 | Ray Withey | Obviously, unfortunately, I couldn't make that GPAC meeting, so probably I should stay away from future ones as it went so well. Okay. |
| 03:26:15.02 | Unknown | Thank you. I'm sorry. |
| 03:26:25.18 | Ray Withey | Did you have any, I got one or two things. |
| 03:26:27.68 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | No, I think I've covered |
| 03:26:31.51 | Ray Withey | Yeah. |
| 03:26:32.39 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Yes. |
| 03:26:32.81 | Ray Withey | Okay, so I went to the, now, I'm not going to go into detail because you've just heard a lot, but you know MCCMC has a pension and OPEB subcommittee that they're working on. I am a, and this was the meeting that Joe Nation came and gave presentation. I've heard him before, same stuff. I remain amazed at the different places that the cities are in, or at least some of the representatives the different places are. Some people are at the stage of saying, well, should we form a trust? So they're sort of at that stage, based on what CalPERS has done in the last year, that's a bit late, you know? Then there's others who are sort of so focused on the discount rate, and obviously it's an important issue. I mean, we were focused on it tonight. But I'm still convinced that, and some have no multi-year, have not started the multi-year forecasting of what these CalPERS payments are going to do to them. Okay? So I think that, um, uh, |
| 03:27:47.30 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:27:47.32 | Unknown | TODAY. Thank you. |
| 03:27:54.28 | Ray Withey | I think we've got that group really starting to think about the fact that this is a cash flow issue and it's gotta be looked at in the context of the budget. And I think Larry Chew, who's chairing this, is really there now and understanding it because I think he's been running the numbers. Sir Larkspur, now he understands that this is the cash flow, doesn't matter what the damn discount rate is. It's can you even pay at 7%. |
| 03:28:21.17 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 03:28:22.11 | Ray Withey | So anyway, that's going to evolve, and we're trying to get all the city's data together so that there's a comprehensive look at the 11 cities in Marin, where we're at. And I think that, you know, that will be, and some people have tried some things, other people have tried other things, and it would be a good collective pooling of ideas so that, you know, and they've also, I think that group has also realized and, CalPERS has made them, had to make it realize that Policies that are going to work for and try and deal with the unfunded liability are different policies to affect the going forward with the current workforce. They're two different problems in a sense. And that's come to be understood as well. So I think the MCCMC subcommittee will be producing, I think, what will be a very useful report to get some more tools for how to handle that. Follow up from the last meeting, you know Tam, Diane was here, gave the presentation. We had some chatting about electric vehicles. The TAM board approved the expenditure plan should this be taken to the, should the extension of the measure A tax, sales tax, half cent sales tax, be put on the November ballot. The expenditure plan approved was basically pretty much what was presented here. With no major change, there was an extra half a percent added to crossing guards at the expense of strategy for which there had only been 1% of the budget allocated anyway, which was commute alternatives and trip reduction strategies. So in the end, the important thing is no money was taken out of roads, local roads, which comes directly to us every June or July. I can't remember when they write the check, but it's like that, for local roads and streets, and that was the major thing that I was trying to protect and made sure it got protected. The expenditure plan that was approved is, is going to be much more flexible. There's going to be five, sorry, four, five, and divide the numbers, six, Every six years, the allocation of funding is going to be reexamined, so that there's flexibility moving forward. The key issue now is whether it's going to go on the ballot, and whether in November. I don't know. It will be 67%. You know, it's a two-thirds vote. So if that sales tax renewal is going to get approved, it's going to be 67% of the vote. And TAM intends coming back to get each city's view, I believe, on... I don't know whether it's whether to go on the ballot or final approval of the expenditure plan. I can't remember Adam. Do you know in the manager's bill? Anyway, Tam's going to be back. and Ultimately, the decision as to whether it goes on the ballot is pretty much with the Board of Supervisors, because it's their vote that puts it on the county ballot. And in relation to that, it looks like California Republican Party has managed to get the signatures, they've not been certified yet, for the repeal of SB1. That is the gas tax. |
| 03:32:22.48 | Unknown | THE END OF THE |
| 03:32:27.51 | Ray Withey | increase. That is likely, which SB1 was approved by the legislature, you remember last year, it's going to give us an extra, I don't know, $150,000 a year in funding for roads. |
| 03:32:28.62 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:32:40.85 | Unknown | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 03:32:43.83 | Ray Withey | 900,000 signatures have been gathered, they're now being certified by each county, and they need about 560,000 signatures for it to be on the ballot. That will only need a 50% vote. to try and repeal SB1. So that, if you don't like gas tax increases and you don't want that, then that's probably good news for most cities that have already started spending the money for SB1 in the future. It wouldn't be retroactive, but for the future, it's very bad news. So, and in an environment where, during the summer, gas prices are going up, this measure is, SB1 is in very serious jeopardy. |
| 03:33:34.42 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | So, Ray, you reminded me that I attended two MCC committee meetings also. So the legislative committee, I'm not going to discuss. I attached for you to this agenda the legislative committee information that was handed out. And then I attended the MCC-MC Disaster Preparedness Committee meeting. And they are putting together a matrix of who has done what in terms of disaster preparedness. Primarily in order to establish a coordinated county approach to disaster preparedness. Sausalito, no surprises, way ahead of the curve, has done more and is doing more. with less money than most of the other municipalities. And so that meeting happens to coincide each, it's now set schedule and it coincides with my HOA meeting. Susan Cleveland knows has kindly agreed to take my place on that committee and I'm going to take her place on the uh, VA building. committee. |
| 03:34:39.39 | Joe | Ray, did MTA talk about any more, or Tam talk any more about the roundabout idea at Larkesburg? Did they... That didn't come up? Thank you. |
| 03:34:48.60 | Ray Withey | No, nothing came up on the roundabout. Although I like roundabouts. They're very efficient. Yes, very efficient. That's exactly right. Joan, one thing that |
| 03:34:55.30 | Unknown | that. |
| 03:34:55.37 | Unknown | THAT'S EXACTLY. |
| 03:34:55.97 | Unknown | efficient. |
| 03:34:56.63 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 03:34:56.97 | Unknown | That's exactly right. |
| 03:34:57.73 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:35:01.07 | Ray Withey | In my experience last year on the MCCMC Legislative Committee, the report that I was trying to get out of them all year and never got, and we could have used, I could have personally used it today, is a rolling sort of spreadsheet that documents what decisions the committee is taken to either oppose, support oppose, or watch in bills. You know, they make these decisions. Alice gives a verbal report at MCCMC, but I went today to try and look at the MCC. I didn't have a chance to call you, and I was trying to figure out what the legislative committee had done with 828. In the end, I had to get onto the Senate website and realize that a letter had been sent from MCCMC legislative committee because and And in the end, I had to get onto the Senate website and realize that a letter had been sent from MCC, MC Legislative Committee, because, and all last year I tried to get that report. So have a go at trying to get that report. It is very frustrating. |
| 03:35:25.69 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 03:35:42.02 | Unknown | Right. |
| 03:35:54.48 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | RIGHT. It is very frustrating. Very useful. Because we went one month from watching. Thank you. |
| 03:36:01.99 | Unknown | you |
| 03:36:02.41 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | And then we didn't even talk about writing the letter. We just got, and at the last meeting, we said, well, what happened with this? Oh, well, we want you to write a letter because Nancy Hall Bennett was missing at the April meeting. And so anyway, it does get, sorry, she was missing at the March meeting, so... Between February and March, the status had changed So it is challenging, I agree, I will work on that. All right, any other council member committee reports? All right, then let's move on to appointments to boards, commissions and committees. We have Well, first of all, the Planning Commission, I'm going to take these out of order as I get my notes together. We have Morgan Pierce, whose term has ended and he has applied to be reappointed, but we also this evening, interviewed some very qualified candidates. So does anyone have a nomination for the Planning Commission appointment? You know. |
| 03:37:11.14 | Jill Hoffman | I'll nominate Morgan to, yeah, Morgan Pierce. |
| 03:37:14.47 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | I'm sharing. Okay. |
| 03:37:18.89 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Yeah, I'd concur on that. I think there's some pretty qualified folks on the, but I think it's really important to have that continuity, and Morgan's done a great job. |
| 03:37:26.03 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Continuity. |
| 03:37:29.40 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | So. |
| 03:37:30.77 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Okay, and so Lily, do we have to make a motion or? Can we do it by acclamation? Accumation. Okay, so consider it done. All right, and then we have the... the bike and ped committee and again that committee is for the alternate we have members on that committee it's the alternate the spot that is vacant and it is a non voting member we interviewed tonight Andrew Sullivan Randy Brown Regan Fulton and Aaron Roller And we also interviewed Frank Alizaga back in February. |
| 03:38:12.95 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | We didn't interview Regan. |
| 03:38:15.60 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | We did not interview one of the applicants. Sorry, we did not interview Regan Fulton. We were supposed to, but unfortunately, his phone had been turned to silent, so we were not able to get through to him. |
| 03:38:40.90 | Unknown | Any thoughts on PBAC? |
| 03:38:46.94 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | I was very impressed with Andrew Sullivan but I want to get him involved in other things so I would nominate Randy Brown. |
| 03:38:56.88 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | But I know you guys also like Aaron Roller, so. |
| 03:39:00.58 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Yeah. |
| 03:39:04.90 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | All I can say is that Aaron Roller has an excellent track record of already you know making progress on concrete projects in the city so i and i i'm not saying anything negative that randy brown could not do that i thought he was very impressive as well um |
| 03:39:25.21 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | So I'm glad they're all want to be involved. Okay. And I would like to see Andrew Sullivan be involved in |
| 03:39:34.17 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Yes, so yeah, for sure. |
| 03:39:41.58 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Okay, so I'm going to go ahead and take roll. Jill? Thank you. |
| 03:39:47.61 | Jill Hoffman | Um, |
| 03:39:48.62 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 03:39:48.75 | Jill Hoffman | Well, I got the... I don't know what I should do because I got the tail end of Randy's. Okay. But I was delayed and not able to interview. So I don't know if I should recuse myself, if I should vote for Randy. I like Randy. |
| 03:40:00.97 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | You had the opportunity to review their resume, so you do whatever you may. You are more than welcome to abstain. |
| 03:40:01.14 | Jill Hoffman | You had the opportunity. |
| 03:40:07.03 | Jill Hoffman | That's up to you. I think in fairness I'll abstain since I wasn't able to do the interviews. |
| 03:40:12.55 | Ray Withey | So whose names do we have in the pack here now? |
| 03:40:12.57 | Jill Hoffman | THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 03:40:12.75 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 03:40:14.74 | Jill Hoffman | Bye. |
| 03:40:14.78 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | We have Randy Brown and Aaron Roller. |
| 03:40:18.69 | Ray Withey | Okay. |
| 03:40:20.26 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Joe. |
| 03:40:20.90 | Joe | Yeah, I think that's a tough one. I like them both. I think I heard what I wanted to hear from Aaron, which was that there's because he was very specific on what he worked on with the bike, with the schools, and he seems open to being a part of kind of a bigger discussion on overall bike and ped through the city, and he has done a lot. So I'm going to put my vote for Aaron Roller. |
| 03:40:48.41 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Okay. Susan? Yeah, it's tough, but I would probably give the edge to Aaron Roller. Okay. |
| 03:40:56.03 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 03:40:56.32 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | you |
| 03:40:56.58 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Ray? |
| 03:40:57.77 | Ray Withey | Aaron Rohr. Thank you. |
| 03:40:58.95 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Okay. All right. Well then so Lily we will appoint to the I nominated Randy Brown. So we will appoint to the PBAC as the alternate Aaron Roller. All right, and then on the Sustainability Commission, we have the task of accepting the resignation of Cassie Berdeshaw. |
| 03:41:31.90 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | And, um... We already interviewed Wilford Welch and David Nunez. And Lily, Wilford Welch let us know he does not live in town. |
| 03:41:47.20 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Yeah. |
| 03:41:49.72 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | But I did not think that was an impediment to the Sustainability Commission. He told us that as he was walking out from his interview. And indeed we interviewed someone tonight for the planning commission that lives in Marin City. Thank you. |
| 03:42:05.07 | Melanie Purcell | So I do check the addresses that they list on their applications. |
| 03:42:08.16 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Yeah. I think he thought he may have listed his street address and put Sausalito because... It took Joe cross-examining him to figure out that he lived. in Marin City he thought it was all part of one community. So, Lily, I would like to postpone this appointment until we confirm Wilford Welch's candidacy that he is indeed a Sausalito resident, because I'm pretty certain he told us as he was leaving the interview that he was not. |
| 03:42:38.08 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | And is that a requirement? |
| 03:42:39.67 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | I'm asking Lily to do that research and then will you come back to us at our next meeting Lily on that? |
| 03:42:40.32 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Okay. |
| 03:42:44.39 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Sure. All right, and so that's all the appointments tonight. We've circulated the future agenda items. You'll see some of the things you all requested at our last meeting are on there, or we'll be moving to the legislative committee or elsewhere. Lily's going to add something else from tonight. So any other requested future agenda items from folks? |
| 03:43:08.79 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah, I'd like to put the issue of the, whatever you want to call it, cameras down at the ferry landing, or some accountability via cameras. whatever you want to call it. And I like Joe's comments. It needs to be accessible, it needs to be consistent, it needs to be... But to use that as a management tool, Um, And I was hoping that we had been, the staff report would have had more information and that we could have had that. discussion here tonight in a more informed way. And to Ray's point, Ray, I couldn't talk to you because I talked to Joe, and so that's why you got up for the first time. So, you know, and I don't, you know, it doesn't have to be on the next City Council meeting, but I think as we see how this shakes out, I think it's really important because I don't want to be in a position where it's a gotcha thing, right? If it's something that's... So we're not going to discuss the merits, Jill. Well, that's why I went on the agenda. |
| 03:44:05.32 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Yeah. Well, that's why I went on the attack. Those are my reasons. Okay, so we're going to add it to the list of potential future agenda items to be considered by the agenda setting committee. And then we'll decide how to dispose of it. |
| 03:44:07.75 | Jill Hoffman | Those are my reasons. |
| 03:44:18.53 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | All right. Any other future agenda items? Other reports of Significance? |
| 03:44:29.94 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Okay. Um... In that case, Yeah. I'm going to adjourn this evening's meeting in honor of Steve Buckley. Paul, Stephen Buckley passed away in his home in Sausalito on Tuesday, April 10th after a long battle with cancer. He has survived by his beloved wife of 49 years, Penny, daughter Allison, Jamie Keenan, son Patrick, Joanna, Buckley, and grandchildren Charlie and Brody, Keenan, Jack, and Lulu Buckley. Steve was born and raised in Sausalito, moved to Honolulu, Hawaii in his teen years, where he became a member of the Outrigger Canoe Club. He attended the University of Oregon, Go Ducks, before entering the US Army where he served in the Pershing Massile Unit in Nekarsum, Germany. During his career as a commercial real estate broker, Steve enjoyed riding the ferry to and from San Francisco. He was an avid basketball player, sailor, snow skier, and golfer. He was an active member of the St. Francis and Sausalito Yacht Clubs and the Sausalito Lions Club. Steve was a generous and enthusiastic host who loved nothing more than spending time with friends and family. He had a loquacious, engaging, and entertaining personality and was known for being the life of every party. He was a kind, thoughtful, and loyal friend. Steve's humor and larger-than-life spirit will be greatly missed by all. A memorial service is planned for May 10th. And so with that, we'll adjourn this meeting in honor of Paul Stephen Buckley. Thank you. |
Unknown — In Favor: Seconded the idea of no tax for artists. Spoke about art as a religion and drew an extended analogy comparing the duties and integrity of city council members to the biblical Kohanim (priests), referencing Leviticus and themes of disclosure and tribal integrity. ▶ 📄