| Time | Speaker | Text |
|---|---|---|
| 00:00:00.17 | Adam Politzer | Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. |
| 00:00:10.70 | Adam Politzer | Thank you. |
| 00:00:11.57 | Debbie | Oh, because I... |
| 00:00:11.59 | Adam Politzer | Thank you. |
| 00:00:11.61 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:00:11.64 | Adam Politzer | you |
| 00:00:17.50 | Debbie | . Thank you. Thank you. |
| 00:00:19.59 | David Lay | Thanks to seeing you do that. Yes. through the other people, through the media. |
| 00:01:56.40 | Unknown | So you wouldn't be tricking for everything. |
| 00:01:59.59 | David Lay | Yeah. |
| 00:02:00.89 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:02:12.21 | Jonathon Goldman | Thank you. |
| 00:03:38.00 | Unknown | Thank you. The smile says it now, right? Thank you. |
| 00:03:52.33 | Unknown | and do that. |
| 00:03:55.66 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:04:07.91 | Mayor Cox | Good evening everybody and welcome to the Sausalito regular city council meeting for Tuesday, July 31, 2018. I will call the meeting to order and Debbie will you call the roll. |
| 00:04:22.07 | Debbie | Councilmember Cleveland Knowles. is participating through a teleconference link, which is a little iffy at the moment. |
| 00:04:32.16 | Vice Mayor Burns | The video is frozen right now, so. |
| 00:04:36.71 | Debbie | Councilmember Withey? Here. Councilmember Hoffman? Present. Vice Mayor Burns? Here. Mayor Cox? Here. |
| 00:04:38.28 | Councilmember Withey | here. Here. |
| 00:04:41.52 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:04:45.59 | Debbie | So it takes a lot of time. |
| 00:04:45.98 | Mayor Cox | Did we get a yes from Susan? |
| 00:04:47.83 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:04:47.85 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:04:47.88 | John Rohrbrocker | Thank you. |
| 00:04:48.12 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:04:48.91 | Mayor Cox | Still frozen. OK, we're experiencing technical difficulties. We'll let you know when she rejoins us. Erica Pack, will you lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance? |
| 00:05:03.61 | Mayor Cox | I pledge allegiance to the flag 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. |
| 00:05:03.75 | Unknown | Pledge allegiance to the flag. of the United States of America. to the republic. |
| 00:05:11.48 | Unknown | nation. |
| 00:05:12.02 | Unknown | Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. |
| 00:05:15.09 | Unknown | liberty and |
| 00:05:16.00 | Unknown | Justice for all. |
| 00:05:21.47 | Mayor Cox | We had a closed session this evening, there are no closed session announcements. I'm going to open it up to public comment on closed session and we'll call George Dapsavisius. |
| 00:05:38.78 | George Lipsaviches | Thank you. Great job on pronouncing my name. I'm George Lipsaviches, and I just wanted to address a couple of issues. I'm a tenant at the Martin Luther King School. I've been there for 30 years. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Um, And I'm a jeweler, a sculptor, and an artist. And I've gotten behind on my rent. I would like some more time to get caught up. I injured my shoulder. I had it fixed 18 months ago. It's 100%, as you can see. I'm ready for tennis or whatever. And I just need a little more time. I'd like, if possible, to get to the end of the year. And if I haven't been able to catch up by then, I'll abandon ship. |
| 00:06:25.62 | George Lipsaviches | That's it, basically. Thank you. |
| 00:06:26.45 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:06:27.97 | George Lipsaviches | Wait, let me check my notes here. |
| 00:06:35.24 | George Lipsaviches | Yeah, I guess make it quick. |
| 00:06:37.82 | Mayor Cox | Thank you. Any other announcements regarding our closed session items? or public comment regarding our closed session items. closed session, David? Okay. Okay. So next on our agenda is approval of the agenda, and I would like to propose one revision to the agenda. Right now we are receiving an update at item 1A from the Marin Audubon Society in Audubon, California. Typically for special presentations we don't have public comment, but a number of members of the public have indicated they would like to comment on that particular item, so I propose that we revise the agenda to add public comment as item 1B. |
| 00:07:08.10 | Unknown | . |
| 00:07:26.12 | Councilmember Withey | second. |
| 00:07:27.37 | Mayor Cox | you |
| 00:07:27.40 | Debbie | Debbie, will you call the roll? |
| 00:07:31.81 | Debbie | Councilmember Withey. |
| 00:07:33.60 | Councilmember Withey | Yes. |
| 00:07:34.27 | Debbie | Councilmember Hoffman? Yes. Vice Mayor Burns? Yes. Mayor Cox? Yes. |
| 00:07:37.34 | Councilmember Withey | Yes. |
| 00:07:39.88 | Mayor Cox | Thank you. So that motion carries 4-0 and we will again announce when Councilmember Cleveland Knowles is able to join us. |
| 00:08:00.06 | Mayor Cox | All right, hang on, I'm looking at my agenda because, okay. All right, so we're ready for our special presentation. |
| 00:08:09.81 | Mayor Cox | And I believe our chief is going to introduce our presenter. |
| 00:08:17.62 | John Rohrbrocker | John Rohrbrocker, Chief of Police, and it's my pleasure to introduce the first two presenters. We have Barbara Salzman, President of the RIN Audubon, and Rebecca Schwartz-Lesburg, the San Francisco Bay Project Director for California Audubon. They are both here to speak to you about environmental concerns in Richardson Bay. |
| 00:08:46.94 | Barbara Salzman | Hi, I'm Barbara Salzman, as I was just introduced, and thank you for the nice introduction. I've been around this issue for a long time. I have the original plan here from 1984. I was involved in that whole process, so I'm very familiar with what the requirements were back then and what the the proposal and decision to remove anchor outs from the bay and place them in marina berths, how that happened. It was based on the public trust, from my recollection, and that was based not only on the fact that The public waterways should be reserved for people that are navigating for whatever reason, not for private use, permanent use. |
| 00:09:36.82 | Mayor Cox | Excuse me Barbara, I see that you have a PowerPoint presentation but I- |
| 00:09:39.62 | Barbara Salzman | I don't. I don't have a PowerPoint. This is Rebecca's. |
| 00:09:43.82 | Mayor Cox | Okay. And have you emailed that to us? |
| 00:09:44.29 | Barbara Salzman | Yeah. |
| 00:09:48.21 | Mayor Cox | Okay, if it's on a memory stick, can you provide that to the city clerk so that she can upload it while Barbara is speaking? |
| 00:09:55.97 | Rebecca Schwartz-Lesburg | you you |
| 00:09:59.55 | Mayor Cox | That would be great. |
| 00:10:00.04 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:10:02.30 | Mayor Cox | Thank you. |
| 00:10:02.32 | Barbara Salzman | Okay, just one more thing on the public trust. The public trust also covers wildlife as a result of a court decision years ago, not too many years ago, brought by National Audubon, actually. The reason, the main reason we oppose anchor out use on the bay is for wildlife purposes. |
| 00:10:02.74 | Unknown | One more thing. |
| 00:10:20.90 | Barbara Salzman | Now Rebecca will talk about the eelgrass and the importance of that and that is one of the critical pieces there. But we're concerned about a much broader issue of wildlife impacts. Richardson Bay, and particularly this particular section of Richardson Bay, is a critical habitat for species that are really ocean or pelagic species. It's calm, except for when there's a lot of anger out. But it's a place where they can come in and rest and get away from the impacts of a tumultuous ocean. They often come in and raft or rest on the bay and they use it for feeding. important habitat migratory birds they stop by and need to feed when they're on migration routes, especially going north when they're They need to fill up and increase their body weights to make the arduous journey to their nesting grounds. San Francisco Bay and Richardson Bay is an important overwintering habitat for migratory birds. So for all these reasons, The bay needs to be Otherwise, we're going to lose these species. Now, There's a, yeah. Well, the herring runs and the eelgrass are especially important for the feeding of these. which are usually the diving birds, or grebes, loons, cormorants, Thank you. Brown pelicans, they all need and depend on the bay for those purposes. |
| 00:12:07.21 | Unknown | They all |
| 00:12:12.14 | Barbara Salzman | There is a video that one of the anchor routes shows of birds trying to feed around boats, around anchor route boats, I suppose. I would like to say, although it's presented as a way of showing that the birds can feed around boats, it really is a pretty disturbing demonstration of birds. |
| 00:12:36.27 | Mayor Cox | Please do not call out. We will have public comment. Everyone will have an opportunity to speak. Please do not call out during a presentation. If you want to speak with someone, please step outside the council chambers. Thank you. |
| 00:12:48.25 | Barbara Salzman | This is a, some of you may have seen it. This is a video that shows birds trying to feed around boats. And it really is a pretty disturbing demonstration of the the real impacts and disturbance to birds that are trying to feed on a natural herring run. avoid the boats, maybe they hit them, maybe some of them don't, or else it just makes it extremely difficult for them to survive with this kind of impact and intrusion into their natural habitats. Um... So. There's no, the RBRA is currently considering a mooring field. I don't know where this would be. We don't know whether this would be an extremely impactful area because nobody has done any surveys of the kind of uses other than the eelgrass, that's pretty well studied. Um, So we would urge you to continue to pursue what you're doing. maybe two minutes on a recent meeting I attended in Hercules, it was a meeting of the Abandoned Vessel Committee. that's, was attended by maybe 15, 18 agency people and others. State lands, Fish and Wildlife Service, NOAA were all there. Enforcement people and some private organization folks. what was What I came away with was a rather shocking realization of what the impacts of what's going on here have on the whole Bay. and the estuary. With that, the meeting was focused on. on Richardson Bay, the executive director was there and the harbor master and Made a brief presentation and then they went around the room and asked what people's reaction was. They wanted some help or some advice, I don't know how it was set up. Without exception, every single person there said that you need to do enforcement, you need to get these people out. It's damaging to the Bay and it's damaging to the resources. And. Not only is it damaging to them as well. They have come, and I guess they've done this over a period of time, and they found people that have, gotten rid of from their marina areas. They've come down here and found them. This had just happened like a week before they had just found someone. They identified when they came down here. They are so concerned that several of them even offered to come and help with enforcement. So. You know, I think you should take them up on it. I applaud you for what you're trying to do. I wish you would move more quickly to take some And more strong enforcement action, but it is critically important. This has gone on too long, it's gone on since 1984, or before that. So that's our recommendation to you, and thank you for moving ahead. |
| 00:16:17.28 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:16:21.97 | Rebecca Schwartz-Lesburg | the The referee was to be. |
| 00:16:24.91 | Mayor Cox | Okay, can you just hand the memory stick to the city clerk after you're done with your presentation? |
| 00:16:29.75 | Rebecca Schwartz-Lesburg | Did you get the box link? . |
| 00:16:35.50 | Mayor Cox | So Rebecca, you have it on a memory stick. |
| 00:16:38.12 | Rebecca Schwartz-Lesburg | Oh, you don't need it while I'm doing it. You need it afterwards for the- |
| 00:16:39.52 | Mayor Cox | No. Well, I always prefer it so I don't have to type while you're talking. But if you can hand the stick to the city clerk, then we will be able to upload it so everyone will have access to it. |
| 00:16:44.89 | Rebecca Schwartz-Lesburg | Perfect, I can get the stick over when I'm done. |
| 00:16:52.84 | Rebecca Schwartz-Lesburg | Wonderful. |
| 00:16:53.38 | Mayor Cox | Thank you. |
| 00:16:55.04 | Rebecca Schwartz-Lesburg | So good evening, Sausalito City Council, Mayor Cox. Thank you Chief Vorbacher for the introduction. My name is Rebecca Schwartz-Lesberg. I'm the San Francisco Bay Program Director with Audubon California, which is the state office of National Audubon Society. Now, I'm here tonight to present some specific findings from a recent analysis that Audubon California's science staff did. to quantify damage to eelgrass in Richardson Bay from moorings, anchors, anchor chains, and other similar ground tackle. Now, before I get started, I know that the importance of eelgrass isn't news to many for both its ecosystem values and its importance to commerce. I know that it's been discussed extensively here at the 2015 RBRA workshop I know that knowledge of damaged eelgrass in Richardson Bay from ground tackle is also not new. What is new, however, is the work that Audubon California has done to quantify the extent of that damage using peer-reviewed methodology and best available science. |
| 00:18:04.38 | Rebecca Schwartz-Lesburg | So just a little bit about Audubon California, just to set the stage about who Audubon California is, and to say a few words about eelgrass itself. So as I mentioned, we're the state office of national, meaning we're part of the same 501c3. That's in contrast to our 49 chapters throughout the state, including Marin Audubon Society, with whom we work very closely, who are all independent organizations with their own staff volunteers. |
| 00:18:25.98 | Unknown | own staff volunteers. |
| 00:18:27.79 | Rebecca Schwartz-Lesburg | um, And so what is consistent across the Audubon network, though, is a desire to protect birds, other wildlife, and the places that they rely on for the benefit of both wildlife and our communities. |
| 00:18:32.89 | Unknown | though is a disaster. |
| 00:18:41.95 | Rebecca Schwartz-Lesburg | Is that needing to be answered? It's just... |
| 00:18:44.97 | Mayor Cox | on Okay, so now Councilmember Susan Cleveland Knowles is listening in. |
| 00:18:52.70 | Rebecca Schwartz-Lesburg | Wonderful. Welcome. So, Uh. Richardson Audubon Center and Sanctuary I'm on the wrong slide. There we go. Richardson Audubon Center and Sanctuary has been located on the banks of Richardson Bay for over 50 years. We protect both terrestrial and subtidal habitat. This center and sanctuary is one of six Audubon California centers throughout the state. and it's the home base for our San Francisco Bay program, which is a program that I lead. I mean, we work throughout the Bay to protect the sensitive habitats and the water birds that depend on them. Now, one of the reasons that Richardson Bay is so special is because it is part of the San Francisco Bay estuary system, which is the largest estuary on the Pacific coast of North America. Tens of thousands of migratory water birds, many of whom Barbara talked about earlier, pass through these waters every year, and the bay supports over 500 species of wildlife. Now, as we know, San Francisco Bay Area is a highly urbanized system. I think we have 8 million people and counting. That human activity has impacts to the Bay's natural resources through things like habitat disruption, climate change, and pollution. One of the most important resources in San Francisco Bay is eelgrass. Eelgrass that we have here is a type of seagrass. It's a regular flowering plant like you might find in a meadow, except it's adapted to live It's found in shallow bays and estuaries and does best when the water is clear and clean and it gets enough light. Eelgrass beds provide habitat for baby fish like herring and Dungeness crab. The herring then in turn support the last commercial fishery in San Francisco Bay. Now, the eelgrass isn't just important for the ecosystem and for commerce. They're also really important for our coastal communities, because they reduce coastal erosion by slowing down wave energy. They stabilize the shoreline by holding sediment in place. And just like land plants, they breathe in carbon dioxide and breathe out oxygen. So they're really important for carbon sequestration. And on an acre by acre basis, they sequester more carbon than a rainforest. I've actually had people say that we should change our efforts to protect eelgrass to calling it saving the underwater redwoods. It's really almost impossible to overstate how important eelgrass is for our communities and our ecosystem. And despite that importance, we have seen a global decline in eelgrass. Um, From a variety of reasons including climate change, coastal development, changes in sediment supply, one of the most significant impacts globally to eelgrass in terms of direct damage is anchor scour. While there have been moderate gains in San Francisco Bay, In terms of eelgrass coverage, if you compare it to say the mid 20th century, those early increases were largely attributed to us being better at finding eelgrass. We have better methodologies for doing so through things like sonar. The other thing is that eelgrass was reduced very significantly. So those increases that we saw weren't that eelgrass was doing well now, it's that it was doing really, really badly before. Thank you. And a lot of that information that I just said came from this report called this 2015 State of the Estuary, which is the most comprehensive and most recent analysis of eelgrass in San Francisco Bay. It was developed by a suite of, I think it's three dozen government agencies who make up the San Francisco Estuary Partnership and who are very concerned about eelgrass decline bay-wide. But it's not just enough to talk about eelgrass bay wide, it's we also need to zoom in on what's going on in Richardson Bay. So Richardson Bay is particularly important. Half of all of California's eelgrass is in San Francisco Bay. And of that eelgrass, Richardson Bay is the second largest eelgrass bed. This is not insignificant for eelgrass statewide. In 2009, we had 675 acres of eelgrass in Richardson Bay. It is a variable plant, but what we're seeing is decline. So if you compare that number to 2014, we have 335 acres. That was a significant loss. The majority of eelgrass in Richardson Bay, if you have particularly good eyes, you can potentially see this. |
| 00:23:06.72 | Vice Mayor Burns | We don't. So could you spend... Sure thing. |
| 00:23:08.35 | Rebecca Schwartz-Lesburg | Sure thing. On what we're seeing here. Let's see, do I have my…so what we have here is Richardson Bay. The colored areas are where eelgrass is. |
| 00:23:09.16 | Vice Mayor Burns | Thank you. |
| 00:23:16.76 | Rebecca Schwartz-Lesburg | Really, the biggest thing to take away from that image is that the majority of Richardson Bay's eelgrass is located off the waters of Sausalito in the areas where we have the highest density of anchor outs. I think that's what I wanted to say about that image. |
| 00:23:34.64 | Vice Mayor Burns | Thank you. |
| 00:23:34.68 | Rebecca Schwartz-Lesburg | Thank you. |
| 00:23:34.70 | Vice Mayor Burns | Can you just tell me the years on there? |
| 00:23:37.04 | Rebecca Schwartz-Lesburg | Oh, sure thing. Top right is 2003, bottom left is 2009, and bottom right is 2014. |
| 00:23:37.08 | Vice Mayor Burns | Thank you. |
| 00:23:46.93 | Rebecca Schwartz-Lesburg | And those numbers of the 182, 273, and 135 are in hectares, I converted it to acres to describe it because nobody thinks in hectares. Most people don't think in acres either. So, Now, so this is the part of Richardson Bay bed where we've seen the highest density of anchor out boats. And for years there have been reports of damage from ground tackle, they're referred to as the crop circles. Um, In order to better understand the extent of this damage, Audubon California began the project I'm talking about now to quantify or count the number of acres that we've seen damaged from ground tackle in Richardson Bay. So to do so, in July of 2017, we commissioned an aerial photograph of the bay to be taken at a very low tide so that we could actually see the extent of eelgrass in the aerial photo. Once we had that image, our scientists used something called GIS, or geographic information systems, to determine how much of the eelgrass in that photo were damaged by anchor outs. Now, I should say that this is a very specific question that we were asking. We weren't looking at how is eelgrass doing bay-wide, what are the impacts to eelgrass bay-wide. What we were trying to do was put a real value and on when we talk about this question of damage from ground tackle, what are we talking about here? Is it a couple acres? Is it hundreds of acres? To really better understand and contextualize that for the conversations about eelgrass. So now before I show the image itself, just to show you where we're gonna be looking, so we have an image of Richardson Bay here. I'm gonna be zooming in on waters just off of Sausalito. So zooming in a little bit, this orange square is where the next image is going to be focused. So now we are looking at the aerial photograph. This is water mostly across the channel, so the channel is that light part down at the bottom of the photograph. These are the crop circles that are referred to or the damage caused by ground tackle in this eelgrass bed. To orient you to this image in the bottom right, we have the edge of the docks off of Liberty Ship Beach. Each of those white dots is a boat that is anchored or moored in eelgrass beds. The dark blue areas are eelgrass. The lighter areas are either the channel or, in the case of up here, areas where the eelgrass is pretty sparse, or the other light areas that are areas of eelgrass that have been scraped away, the so-called crop circles that people talk about. So though this image is striking, for us that wasn't quite enough. We wanted to know how many acres of eelgrass had actually been damaged through Anchor Scour. So basically we ask the question of, We asked the question of if we added up all of these circles, what kind of acreage are we talking about? Also, what is the average size of each one of these circles? So that's where the GIS mapping comes in. That's what you see on the left. Now, on the left is the GIS mapping technology. That black square is roughly equivalent to the image in the previous slide. I zoomed in on a portion of the image. Um, We took the raw image and then using GIS, each point was identified as either damaged red or undamaged green. |
| 00:27:12.21 | Unknown | Undamaged. |
| 00:27:13.73 | Rebecca Schwartz-Lesburg | Now, these were very conservative estimates. A point was only called damaged if it could be absolutely certain that it was damaged. It was not called damaged for the conservative estimate if it was even classified as highly likely. So that gives us the low end of the estimate of damage with the true acreage likely higher. So that being said, here are the results. We surveyed the area in county waters where the eelgrass bed overlaps with the anchor out area. So we did not survey the entire bed because what we were trying to better understand is the damage in the eelgrass bed. So it's where there was an overlap between the anchor outs and eelgrass. That came to 204 acres, which is about two-thirds of all eelgrass in Richardson Bay. Of those 204 acres, between 50 and 84 acres have been directly damaged or destroyed by ground tackle. So that's the sum of all of those crop circles. To give context for that, 50 acres is about twice the size of Alcatraz. We also found that each individual vessel damages almost a half acre of eelgrass by itself, which is about half the size of a football field if you don't include the end zones. And that's per anchor scour, or anchor scar. So if a boat moves, it can go on to create that same size damage on its next anchor scar. |
| 00:28:34.09 | Rebecca Schwartz-Lesburg | Now, this is not an insignificant amount of damage, but neither is this damage unique to Richardson Bay. We know from studies around the world that boats, moorings, and anchors damage eelgrass. There are ways to minimize that damage by changing the... anchoring hardware and mooring strategies, that's not what this particular study looked like. There is, however, very good literature to support ways that that anchor scour can be reduced. The type of analysis we did here, in addition to being consistent with what we found, what has been found across the globe, this methodology is not new. It has been used in Florida and Australia to demonstrate and quantify the same type of damage that we looked at here. And the reason that quantifying damage is important is not just to get a general sense of the problem, but also to be able to put a dollar value to it. So the state of California has a no net loss policy when it comes to eelgrass damage through the California Eelgrass Mitigation Policy. with that no net loss policy, it requires a 1.2 to 1 acreage restoration if an entity is found liable for damaging eelgrass. And restoration is expensive. So if we're looking at a minimum of 50 acres damage, that would be about 60 acres that need to be restored. At $50,000 to $100,000 an acre, we're looking at $3 to $6 million for the damage that we see off here in Richardson Bay to be mitigated. |
| 00:29:57.96 | Rebecca Schwartz-Lesburg | That was a lot of information. Happy to answer any questions. As we start to think about some closing thoughts, Just wanted to circle back to you. Audubon has been here for over half a century. We're a landowner on the banks of Richardson Bay. and eelgrass is vital to the health of this bay. Richardson Bay. It's important for fishing, for local fishermen that rely on eelgrass for their livelihood. We know it's important for birds. We know it's important for communities. We've known about this damage for the long time, but now we can actually put numbers to it. So, um, I know there have been a lot of questions about how to improve the conditions out here. I'm very happy to be part of those conversations. It's not what I'm bringing here tonight. Um, But what I would like to underscore is the importance of continuing to dig in on those conversations until a solution is implemented. Thank you. |
| 00:30:49.70 | Mayor Cox | Thank you. Couple of questions for you. What is the penalty from the state of California for damaging eelgrass? |
| 00:30:57.56 | Rebecca Schwartz-Lesburg | So I can get back to you on the specifics for that. the California Department of Fish and Wildlife would be able, the wardens with CDFW would be better equipped to answer that. Um, But I don't know that off the top of my head. |
| 00:31:12.90 | Mayor Cox | Yeah, I attended a meeting, Adam, I don't know if you remember. I think it's $250,000 per acre. um, And how long does it take to Remediate an acre of eelgrass. |
| 00:31:31.52 | Rebecca Schwartz-Lesburg | So that is a hard question to answer. Eelgrass restoration has been studied for a long time. San Francisco State and Dr. Catherine Boyer's lab does a lot of work. We have really great scientists here. Fickle? It can be really weedy sometimes and take really quickly, and other times it can be very hard to get it to take. One of the questions that we also don't know is those circles themselves, how long it would take them to fill in. Part of that has to do with the fact that in the circle, you get an accumulation of organic matter, that then makes it harder for that area to regrow by itself. So we don't have, that's one of the reasons why it requires the 1.2 acres for every one acre, because if restoration were perfect, it would only have to be one to one, but it's not. So we don't know exactly how long it takes, but it takes years and it is expensive. |
| 00:32:24.79 | Mayor Cox | So it is years, I just wanted a general order of magnitude. |
| 00:32:27.59 | Rebecca Schwartz-Lesburg | Oh yes, on the order of magnitude of years. |
| 00:32:30.61 | Mayor Cox | All right, other questions? Okay, although this is a special presentation, we are nevertheless going to open it up for public comment. We amended our agenda, so I will call Chad Carvey. |
| 00:32:42.64 | Rebecca Schwartz-Lesburg | Do you want me to be available to answer questions from the public? |
| 00:32:44.94 | Mayor Cox | No, this is just public comment. |
| 00:32:46.20 | Rebecca Schwartz-Lesburg | Okay. |
| 00:32:46.24 | Mayor Cox | Okay. Thank you. Okay. |
| 00:32:47.52 | Rebecca Schwartz-Lesburg | If there is anything I can clarify, I'm happy to though. |
| 00:32:57.97 | Rebecca Schwartz-Lesburg | I don't know how to inject this. |
| 00:33:05.93 | Mayor Cox | You don't know how to reject it? |
| 00:33:09.02 | Unknown | Thank you. the world. |
| 00:33:09.71 | Mayor Cox | Well, I hope it didn't... Okay. Okay. Okay. Chad. Thank you. |
| 00:33:16.14 | Chad Carvey | My name is Chad Carvey, I spent 29 years as a school principal and in 11 months my wife and I are leaving on a ten year voyage around the world. And we are also very proud, safe, seaworthy and environmentally friendly anchor outs. First of all, I just wanted to say that any penalty for eelgrass damage, there would be none, because this is an anchorage for boats. And any discussion of the prime eelgrass would be all the boats in the marinas, which are taking up the very best eelgrass area in our Richardson Bay. Thank you. for boats. And any discussion of the prime eelgrass would be all the boats in the marinas, which are taking up the very best eelgrass area in our Richardson Bay. So I'm a part of the Richardson Bay Special Anchorage Association, that is the anchor routes. My personal goal and many other anchor routes is to have fewer vessels and all of them to be safe, seaworthy, and environmentally friendly. Sadly, the biggest obstacle to these efforts and the cause of what you see there today is folks whose only goal is to get rid of all anchor outs. That is their sole goal. This means the BCDC, our local Audubon folks, not all, just the local group, and sadly our own city of Sausalito. The example is this eelgrass study that you just heard, and I love Rebecca. She's amazing. She's wonderful. I can't say enough about her, and the state Audubon Society, but there's some big problems. Unlike the official studies of eelgrass, this is not a study of eelgrass. This is a study of solely the anchor out's impact on eelgrass. Not all the things every other study that you read talks about. Boat prop wash from the ferry, bat rays feeding, Canadian geese feeding as equal to the anchor out crop circles. Any study of eelgrass needs to study eelgrass, not just that narrow slice of question that Rebecca was very honest that this was about. So what we have is the latest real study that shows, and it ends at 2010, it shows from 1970s to 1910. Not a moderate, but massive explosion of eelgrass in the bay, massive explosion of eelgrass just in Richardson Bay in particular. A couple months ago, I asked Audubon, if the eelgrass problem were to go away tomorrow, if we were to use mooring techniques that mitigated any impact, would that stop you from wanting to remove all the anchor outs? They are still struggling with that question because this is being used to get rid of anchor outs. It is not just about eelgrass. Here's what we need to do. We need to reduce the number of boats to a reasonable level and insist on anchoring and mooring techniques that reduce the impact of eelgrass. Sadly, while the RBRA has finally agreed that folks can live on their boat, we're going to get to a manageable number. Our own hometown of Sausalito has just bumped it down on the priority, but still plans to try to get rid of all of us. Number one, you can work with us, those of us who are legal, who want to do this right, or I promise you, we have heard so many rumblies, you're going to face a battle that is going to make the houseboat wars of the 70s look like child's play. There's a bunch of ex-occupied folks out there who are just ready to shut Sausalito down. Why not stop the war, work with us, and get to a manageable, safe, secure anchorage? |
| 00:36:14.16 | Mayor Cox | Carolyn Carvey. |
| 00:36:24.40 | Carolyn Carvey | Good evening, I am Carolyn Carvey, my husband, a local Marin retired school principal, and I have lived aboard for more than a decade. And as an anchor out on an RBRA marring ball for over three amazing years. We are getting ready to cruise around the world on our 43 foot sailboat and Anchorage has played a big role in allowing this to happen more quickly and prepares for that voyage of living on the hook. In giving thanks for that time, we hope to preserve this anchorage and an opportunity for other mariners, maritime workers, and those needing a leg up. And we wish to preserve the anchorage for those boaters who agree to live on their boats in a safe, seaworthy, and environmentally friendly manner. In response to the rumors that anchor outs are dumping their raw sewage into the bay, we'd like to clarify that by no means is this true. Many pay for a pump out service and have complimentary service arranged to the RBRA. Some have self composting toilets, others dispose of it on public toilets, porta potties, and a few may not be disposing of it properly. Anchor outs should never dispose of any raw sewage in the bay, nor should any of the hundreds of live aboards and marinas, nor the hundreds of thousands of recreational sailors and boaters that enjoy their votes on the weekends on the bay. Richardson Bay Special Anchorage Association has made it part of their contingencies. As a guarantee to be part of the organization, get the that we have mentioned before, that we guarantee a proper disposal of sewage. We are working with the RBRA to continue to provide a regular free pump out service and even holding tanks for those who cannot provide it. Monthly quality testing by the RBRA has not once ever found any water contamination or fecal matter in the anchor out areas. There is a measure of hypocrisy from the folks who continue to spread the fake news that 200 anchor out boats are dumping their raw sewage into the bay and light of the millions upon millions upon millions of raw sewage actually spilled into the bay over the past two decades. And for those who say that those problems have been fixed, here is a recent sewage spill data in the just 12 months alone. Baykeeper, a local non-profit working towards a pollution free bay, reports 504 sanitary sewer overflows, called SSOs, reported in the Bay Area between October 1st, 2016 and February 21st, 2017. In these four months, 12,994,000 gallons of sewage contaminated water reached the creeks and the bay. In Marin, 589,504 gallons of raw sewage overflows and spills entered our bay and creeks in the last five years. Sausalito City was 69,000 gallons, Marin City 39,000 gallons, Quarta Madera 38,000 gallons. Mill Valley, 58,000 gallons. Novato, 152,000 gallons. These never reflect spills reported and raw sewage. Partially treated overflows and unreported spills are not included. So please, let's stop pointing fingers at the couple of dozen bad apples and spreading false information, but instead look at the bigger picture, the real facts and truth so we can work together to improve the health of our bay for all to enjoy, birds, marine life, and humans alike. Thank you. |
| 00:39:26.04 | Unknown | Thank you. Alden Bedingfield. |
| 00:39:38.46 | Alden Bevington | Hi, everyone. Thank you so much. The first correction of the record I'll make is my name, is Alden Bevington. Sorry. That's fine. I am a member of the Richardson Bay Special Anchorage Association. We've been meeting for a number of years on a monthly basis. I have had the good fortune to work with Audubon, with Rebecca's predecessor, and various colleagues that she's had over the years. There's a couple of things. There was one statement from Barbara Salzman that said, I think it was, oh will lose these species, very unsubstantiated claim. I just want to reiterate that there's a lot of species out there. Actually, I think that I'm probably the only mariner in any of your boats and your waters that actually allows birds to nest on their boat. I've had seven babies born on my boat in the last four years. I put up with a lot of shit, but oh my god, sorry. Anyways, main point is that I |
| 00:39:45.51 | Unknown | Sorry. |
| 00:39:45.97 | Unknown | That's fine. |
| 00:40:54.25 | Alden Bevington | The Special Anchorage Association has, in working with the Audubon Society for a number of years, realized, because actually many of us are ecologically oriented and live a very natural lifestyle, we want to reduce our impacts as well. So as part of our Burgee system, which you all maybe know about or not, but I'll explain more at another time, we have as one of our criterion that vessels get off of a single point anchor. So all of those, when there was a statement in the presentation that said each individual vessel creates da-da-da-da amount of damage, it's actually far more nuanced than that. If a vessel is on a single point anchor, it will create a large circle. If it is on a two point mooring, it will not. There is a significant reduction of any harm to the seafloor and that isn't represented in the presentation that you receive now. I send out messages at a consistent rate to the anchorage community and I speak with individuals that I know are on single points anchors all the time, actually. We provide help for people to get off of these. So I think something that's really important is to not have it a binary eelgrass or anchor outs. I understand that there's a lot of issues around here. But yeah, we all want to protect the ecology. I think that the Anchorage community would feel very good and better if our approach towards protecting the ecology wasn't just specifically focused on one small area of the bay. The reason why it's all in the center of the bay is because the marinas create dead zones. So let's work together. Thank you. Thank you. |
| 00:42:43.75 | Mayor Cox | Jeff Jacob. |
| 00:42:52.09 | Jeff Jacob | Hello, Mayor, City Council, and City Representatives. Citizens and the Audubon Society. |
| 00:43:03.78 | Jeff Jacob | We have a phrase. that Sometimes we use the Israelites when we're together. I haven't been able to rustle up a very good congregation here. in Sausalito of Israelites. Most of us are undercover. All of the Audubon Society that has showed up here, are Jewish or married to Jews, what we say is Shonda for the going. It's a shame in front of the nations to show us at war with each other. to be lying and the first lie was that there is actually a proposal to put the anchor outs at marinas. There is no such proposal and I would If I were a betting man, bet a trillion dollars that that will never happen. So that is a lie. There are no social services on offer for Section 8. without extreme waiting lists for the anchor outs. 50% of them are houseless. Now, we'll tell you who is financing the Audubon Society, Mayor. It's the Monsanto Corporation. It's Arch Chemicals, it's Archer Daniels Midland, BlackRock Financial, GE, and the worst miners in the world creating more pollution than anybody else, Freeport McMoran. There are six people making a living off of coming after the anchor outs. Why are they not talking about climate change when there are fires in Northern California burning out of control? The answer is they get on planes, they got on cars to get here, They have TVs, they have big houses that have wiped out all the animals on land. that can't survive with us, with the exception of some coyotes and squirrels and raccoons, |
| 00:44:58.33 | Jeff Jacob | in the Torah for this week. It says this, Behold all of you who kindle fire, who give power to flames. Go in the flame of your fire, and in the flames you have kindled from my hand, says God. Has this come to you? In grief you shall lie down. The war has been declared. There is no peace here. There is a full enforcement on anchor outs that are both seized every week and sunk. They are taken away. There's harassment on every different level. The community garden is being harassed over at Old Town Joe's, Department of Environmental Quality. No accident that they have set the environmental justice against social justice. It's divide and conquer. It's what money does. It's what happens when we have paid employees paid to lie. |
| 00:45:54.39 | Unknown | David Lay. David. |
| 00:46:03.89 | David Lay | My name is David Lay. I've lived on Anchorage for a long time. We just had a presentation that where somebody tried to represent themselves as working with scientists, presenting facts, and building a straw man with facts, and then talking about something else. That's the problem. It's not even the same territory. Um, The thing she was looking at was mostly Not even Sausalito. in another town the things that she was looking at, kind of ignore the Autobahn Property. which is in the north part of the bay. part of Richeson Bank. and there's no boats in there. Closest thing that gets to that area is a seaplane, and they don't even go in it. Maybe once in a while a kayak. Um. but there's not a lot of eaggress there. And there's not only eelgrass that's growing on the bottom, But there's other plants, particularly one that I don't have the proper scientific name for, that is really having a battle with ear grass. anchoring systems that are laid to the blame for all this. Mostly, there's a simple way of doing this. It's not just a two-point system. was just said. In my case, I use three anchors, about 120 degrees apart, plus or minus 15. And, um, Each of those has a chain that goes out in one direction and it stays there, lying on the bottom. As a matter of fact, the bottom kind of fills right in over it and it lasts forever. because it doesn't get oxygen. And leading down the center, that is a swivel. And the line going up to the water is just line, not chain. The line doesn't touch the bottom, comes up clean. because really the swivel is just above the bottom two. So really the bow of my boat just stays right over the center point of three anchors. That's not hurting eelgrass at all. Um... The real pollution in the bay is really around a couple of times. Fleet week and the 4th of July. And we all out there notice that. that's when we have a lot of pollution in the bay. Um We're a long way from facts and listening to this. and this whole business of showing a photograph And then... not talking about that particular thing. This is just not the way to present to present science when you're not. Um, So we need to get some of this stuff straightened out here before we start. taking just plain poor people and deciding we don't like them in the neighborhood. Thank you very much. |
| 00:49:05.60 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:49:06.25 | David Lay | Thank you. |
| 00:49:08.65 | Unknown | Okay. |
| 00:49:08.97 | Mayor Cox | TODAY. |
| 00:49:12.38 | Mayor Cox | Seeing no further public comment, we'll move on to our next item. which is communications. This is the time for the City Council to hear from citizens regarding matters that are not on the agenda. Except in very limited situations, state law precludes the council from taking action on or engaging in discussions concerning items of business that are not on the agenda. I have a speaker card from Jonathan Fibonagy. |
| 00:49:41.83 | Jonathan Fibonacci | It's Jonathan Fibonacci. Thank you for your time. I want to speak to the people here. I'm really, this is really about homelessness. I mean, we can call it eelgrass. It's about homelessness and poor people and elitism and white people who have jobs trying to kick poor people out. Now, you know, my buddy Jeff, I love him. You know, the Bible says you shall love the stranger. or you were strangers in the land of Egypt. Now, that's what the Bible says. We're supposed to love each other. So I know who I'm talking to. Who loves Jesus here? Who loves Jesus? Does anybody love Jesus? Okay, well, Jesus says, feed my sheep. He also talks about oppression. The data, I would love. I would love. In fact, as a homeless person, today's 444 days of homelessness. Now, there's 50 shades of homelessness. This beautiful couple, I would, you know, we need to stop using the term anchor out and use the word homelessness. Because then when we hear data against, and if they just use the word homeless, you would see the venom, in your pseudo data, Now, I'm speaking to you and your dad. I don't know you as a person. I'm really speaking to this thing we're talking about with anchor routes. It's about homelessness, and that's what I want to speak about, is there's a homeless reality. And I'm not expecting you to care about that, but I want you guys in your city to be legally compliant. When you're not legally compliant, let me use a pitch from you. She dollar billed it, okay? She says the eelgrass is $3.6 million. Well, what's a lawsuit worth? when you mistreat us. We can sue you. What's a federally protected status worth? What's a class action lawsuit worth? Now, we don't want to sue cities, we want to live in communities, but we're humans, okay? Here's another species that's hurting right now. It's called the human species. Who's a human here? Okay, who here eats? Who here has food? Okay? So here's a solution. I got a minute left. Here's a solution. Number one, let's stop using the word anchor out. Let's use the word homeless so we see the venom for what it is versus the pseudoscience. And I'm gonna start a church. I'm gonna call it the Jesus Basketball Church. You've closed one church, now that's a violation of the First Amendment. That's a big deal to close a church. So I'm going to start it back. You don't have to love Jesus. You just have to bring food, like basketball or Jesus, and we're going to bring some peace. We're going to create peace today. the way basketball does. And we're going to hopefully heal this community so that humans start feeding humans. And guess what will happen is we'll stop hating each other and we'll stop loving mammon. And we'll start. Well, At least liking strangers. And by the way, in closing, if you're not homeless, You shouldn't have an opinion on homelessness, But you certainly shouldn't be oppressive if you have a home. I mean, if you have a home, why are you coming after our home? Thank you. Jonathan Fibonacci. THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 00:52:46.51 | Unknown | Jacob. |
| 00:52:55.16 | Jeff Jacob | It is true that a larger number of people on the anchorage are not only there to become better mariners. |
| 00:53:09.91 | Jeff Jacob | They're there because they were mainly born in Marin County. 71% of the homeless. that the county is receiving $20 million not spending it on housing. not housing its workers, which leads to traffic jams on Blightdale and on Bridgeway and massive carbon output. Segregating. the rich from the poor, trying to make Sausalito, which has the most beautiful history, into Westworld or Disneyland or a cash machine, a cash register, bringing specifically people into this town of From 10,000 miles away to visit for an afternoon, to go back a few weeks later after they've seen Las Vegas and the Grand Canyon and Hollywood Boulevard too. That is destroying the earth. No way any of the companies that are funding The Audubon Society are going to tell you that. |
| 00:54:18.90 | Mayor Cox | Actually Jeff, this is the time for you to comment on items not on the agenda. |
| 00:54:20.03 | Jeff Jacob | is the time for you to comment on the- The item that's not on the agenda is this county's closing. Of the coffee shop called Old Town Joe's. Excuse me. I can't. Okay, it was a community center, as was Sartage Restaurant. The thing that they both had in common is they both gave away free food. Sartage on Thanksgiving. Adam knows this. There was bleach poured in the food on Thanksgiving Day in an attempt to destroy the tradition of them feeding people. The restaurant was closed. |
| 00:54:58.37 | Mayor Cox | I'm going to comment on items not on the agenda. |
| 00:54:58.52 | Jeff Jacob | for you to comment. |
| 00:55:03.31 | Jeff Jacob | Please, come on. Hey, hey, okay, so the Health Department and the AD and the American with Disability Act closed a place that was giving free food. Old Town Joe's gave away free Coffee and tea. Looking for a health department okay. They tried to get some debate politically. They invited Melissa Blaustein when she was running for city council. Doretta, the owner, is a very outspoken woman. What had the anchor outs to give employment to people Started a community garden in back. What happened? City Council, what happened county, what happened Ms. Cleveland Knowles. It was closed. That was the health department. of Morib County. We, in order to beat Trumpism here, and to bring things back to locality where we understand, must purge the corruption in our own souls, in mine, and here in this body. |
| 00:56:03.03 | Unknown | Thank you. Chad Carvey. |
| 00:56:03.79 | Jeff Jacob | May it happen. |
| 00:56:10.96 | Chad Carvey | Very quickly, Chad Carvey, anchor out. Very quickly, I want to agree with the sentiments about the homelessness, because I think that's very important, and I think there's a truth to be heeded. But some of us estimate that that's about half. By the way, I'm not talking about eelgrass, this is just general anchor out comment. That's about half. The rest of the folks out there are working, tax paying, and that includes local taxes, income taxes, and property taxes. I don't know if you guys knew that we pay property taxes on our boat just like a house. But there's another population that hasn't been mentioned tonight, and that's cruising sailors. We have a rich, salty maritime history in Sausalito we want to preserve. And any discussion of our anchorage must include moorings that are specifically set aside for regular cruisers who are sailing around the world who need a place to stay, and I think that is vital, vital. And just to back up an earlier comment, Your houses have displaced. Tons of local species. Our boats have displaced zero boats. Every single species that was here- |
| 00:57:14.31 | Mayor Cox | Chad. This is your opportunity to comment on items not on the agenda. |
| 00:57:17.62 | Chad Carvey | I'm not, it's not eelgrass. Okay. So just in general, all the animals that are dancing around our boats every day in vast huge numbers are still there, we have displaced none of them. Thank you. |
| 00:57:30.80 | Unknown | Thank you. Sunny Yao. |
| 00:57:39.20 | Sunny Yao | Yes, hi, my name is Sunny Yao. And I'm pleased to be at Anchorage. I've actually am a fire refugee displaced in 2007 in the Slide Fire down in San Bernardino Mountains. My mother was born here in Marin County, And then she became a Deputy Sheriff in Sonoma County. And when I was displaced, it was my grandparents' cabin And. I didn't know how to live anywhere else. And so I've been kind of, |
| 00:58:11.18 | Unknown | else. |
| 00:58:14.39 | Sunny Yao | displaced and irreputably I'm very ashamed. Bye. being homeless. Have you ever been less? than home. Have you ever not had enough, and you couldn't fit into the club because you weren't wearing the right shirt or something? repeatedly. And so I'd like to repeat that I'm actually quite happy to be at Anchorage. And I am a concerned environmental soldier of earth. I love earth and God more than... anything. And I would like to learn the proper ways of mooring and I think that education should be more spread out, more valuable to us, and that we could rectify the situation as opposed to just being pushed off to go somewhere, nowhere else. There's really, there's no other moorings to stay at. When I'm on Anchorage, it's just me and my space and I'm a very sensitive person that I can handle all the cars. And everything that you've created society to be is like my mortal kryptonite in some ways. When I'm working more as an artist and a writer, then I will be able to go and enjoy the restaurant. So I will be able to go to shop in the boutiques and spread my wealth around. At this present moment, I'm just working very, very, very hard. And so to have any kind of conflict about my basic peace and happiness after over 10 years of being less than home, I want to be happy. And I want to be happy here. I love community, I love seeing people getting along, and I love seeing everybody enjoying whatever it is that they have the ability to enjoy. And that's my speech. Ta-da! |
| 01:00:21.66 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:00:21.76 | Sunny Yao | Thank you. THANK YOU. |
| 01:00:23.03 | Unknown | David Lay. |
| 01:00:23.65 | Sunny Yao | Thank you. |
| 01:00:29.54 | David Lay | Last time we met, I talked a bit about fire from Nevada. Langford was at that meeting and The next day, he had a crew out there taking care of some of the problem. He was right on top of it, isn't he though? The real problem there though is not something that he can control because it's private property. Nevada has a driveway that comes down 45 degrees from the square corners. It's also a hill so people coming up the hill sometimes go fast. 15 years ago or so, sitting at the bus stop across the street Guy coming out of Nevada, turning the corner up the hill, looking over his left shoulder. guy coming down the driveway backwards trying to get out into the street and All of a sudden, we had a big problem. Guy coming up the hill. Doing about 50, 20, 30 feet of rubber on the road. that could have been a big accident and a big fire. It wasn't the right weather, it was cold and damp like this. but it, It occurred to me though that that's really a big problem to Sausalito when you look at it from where I live. And that is that that driveway that goes up the hill And the plants and so forth that are growing along that driveway is really a conductor to our whole problem in back of us, or in back of me right now. Um, That's something that the city council really needs to somehow get to your neighbors and Thank you. start taking care of this problem, and it's really a neighbor-to-neighbor kind of a problem. And people don't really understand it when they just come home from a hard day's work every day. But you all can take a look, you can take the same look I've had. And, um, with all the things that are going on with the environment and in this state, we really need now is the time to get people to work on those kinds of problems. But that conductor going up to feed that whole forest behind us is really a huge problem, and leadership is really what counts. Thank you. |
| 01:02:53.40 | Unknown | Thank you. Alice Merrill. |
| 01:03:09.78 | Alice Merrill | Hi. This kind of goes back to the anchor outs, but I'll somehow turn it around. I think that we have such a rich history of the people on the water and the people on the land. They've never been terribly well to get, doing so well to get along. Um, over the years, but we have managed to work together and get along and we have to continue to do that. I think that there's a very big lack of respect, this is my latest, on both sides. I think that people who live on boats are ready to go at people who are living on land and the opposite. It may be there could be some kind of a parties together or somehow, somehow, Picnics somehow have workshops where we could talk about issues in a polite and nice way so that we can say, but when you mess up this, it bothers me, but when you come on board my boat, it bothers me. So that we can understand what is happening and maybe... And somehow work through this without kicking everybody out. And I. You know, I've lived on the hill and I live on the water, so it's a tough one. But I'm hoping that we don't kick all the people on the water out, even though sometimes we think they're irritating. I think they probably agree with us. We agree on the other side. Thank you. |
| 01:04:54.48 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:04:54.63 | Mayor Cox | Thank you. |
| 01:04:58.85 | Alice Merrill | Thank you. |
| 01:04:58.86 | Unknown | Alden Bevington. |
| 01:05:02.86 | Mayor Cox | Thank you. |
| 01:05:03.74 | Alden Bevington | Hi again. Thanks so much for the other three minutes. The item that's not on the agenda I wanted to speak about, which was related to the last waterfront management update that I thought would be tonight, but it's on the 11th of September. After I pointed out that the presentation that was given by Lieutenant Frass, first of all, didn't mention the community one time, but also somewhat inaccurately spoke that they had been doing outreach and outreach to the community. It was a misrepresentation at best, but I wanted to mention that there were two members of City Council that directed staff to, on their next waterfront management update, give you all an update about the outreach that had occurred. And we are two months out. I wanted to let you all know that I haven't gotten a call. The Richardson Bay Special Anchorage Association hasn't gotten a call, and there hasn't really been any outreach. And I think that this is concerning. We are actually making a lot of headway and doing a lot of work to make the anchorage a more sustainable place. Also, speaking of nature preserves, I consider some of the members of our community to be endangered species. And, you know, there's a very, very rich tradition, as you all know. This community has existed longer than anybody on this board has been alive. And I encourage you all to reach out, sit down with the Anchorage Association and individual members, find out what we're doing. The RBRA, though we were at loggerheads for many years, did start reaching out to us and we have been actually, had very good discussions and working out solutions that require compromises on all sides. They're, they're, Anyways, it's a beautiful community on shore and on the water, and I see it as a contiguous whole, and I hope that we can start communicating better. I love the idea of having more gatherings or something. We've probably all been through apparently irreconcilable stalemates in our life with people that we were estranged with or whatever, but it is possible to resolve these, and one of the big ones is reaching out. So we continue to reach out and encouraging good marinership, and happy to teach you more about that when you do reach out. Thank you. |
| 01:07:56.53 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:07:56.54 | Mayor Cox | Thank you. |
| 01:08:00.98 | Mayor Cox | I have another speaker card from Sunny, yeah, but there's this, you've already commented on items not on the agenda. So we're going to move on to Peter Van Meter. |
| 01:08:18.87 | Peter Van Meter | Thank you. We'll take a deep breath and change the topic. I have it on good authority that we may be having two incumbents running for re-election in the forthcoming ballot. Now, if they, in fact, do file and run for re-election, there may or may not be any candidates that come forth to be competitors. Now, what I'd like to suggest is that if the two council members who, in fact, do run for re-election find that they do not have competitors for that office. Here's what I would suggest that they do. and that is to actually file ballot statements Let the public know what your position are and allow according to state law to have a third choice on the ballot, which is none of the above. And the reason I'm suggesting this is the following. When I was, quote, reelected to the fire board in 2013, I was one of 37 candidates for office in Marin County whose names did not appear on the ballot and were then automatically installed in positions that they were running for re-election. I think this is a disservice to the public. I think the public should know what the position of all potential candidates is, even if you are running unopposed. So I'd like to suggest that you provide the funds. Of course, ballots do cost money to the city to provide that information to the public if we find that this is a situation forthcoming for the fall election. Thank you. |
| 01:09:51.92 | Mayor Cox | Thank you. Okay, with that, we're going to move on to action minutes of the previous meeting. They have a motion. |
| 01:10:01.94 | Vice Mayor Burns | I move to approve the submitted minutes of the previous meeting. |
| 01:10:10.95 | Unknown | Debbie, will you call the roll? |
| 01:10:11.96 | Debbie | Thank you. |
| 01:10:11.98 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:10:16.05 | Debbie | Councilmember Cleveland knows. |
| 01:10:18.41 | Councilmember Withey | Yes. |
| 01:10:19.98 | Debbie | Councilmember Withey. |
| 01:10:20.89 | Councilmember Withey | Yes. |
| 01:10:21.82 | Debbie | Councilmember Hoffman? Yes. Vice Mayor Burns? Yes. Mayor Cox? Yes. |
| 01:10:25.23 | Councilmember Withey | Yes. |
| 01:10:26.97 | Mayor Cox | That motion carries 5-0. We'll move on now to the consent calendar. Thank you. Matters listed under the consent calendar are considered routine and non-controversial, require no discussion, are expected to have unanimous council support and may be enacted by the council in one motion in the form listed below. Are there any questions or requests to remove items from the consent calendar? All right, seeing none, I'm going to open it up to public comment regarding the consent calendar. |
| 01:11:00.72 | Jeff Jacob | Hello, Ms. Mayor. This is on 4F. |
| 01:11:07.26 | Jeff Jacob | I'd like to make a comment on this. You say non-controversial. This is. Sacramento San Joaquin Delta abandoned vessel removal account. So it's more verbiage that means get rid of people who live on their boats and are not paying enough gold and silver to the man. Or woman. |
| 01:11:33.18 | Jeff Jacob | You have never in this council in all the many years that I've been coming here had such a controversial topic at the very beginning of your meeting. Usually it's to award the badges to police and stuff like that. This was the first time. Thank you for opening that up afterwards for public comment. I'm not sure. This 4F? is specifically about people up in the Delta. trying to remove the captain and crew. from a commercial boat. Commercial boats are given some added protection from that. They've already come after the anchor outs in every other place in San Francisco Bay. successfully. They are unable to do that here on Richardson Bay the government, that is, and they want to. Now, I spoke a few weeks ago, and I said I had been doing an experiment on living off very little money, and it helps me to understand the people that also do that, that call themselves homeless And Here, we're talking about people who are fishermen, or maybe have an art studio. or a CB&B or whatever it is. And you now are in favor of this. I assume that it's going to be a five to nothing vote. I see now that there's not even competition. for the city council election. There is no way we are going to beat Trumpism, authoritarianism, fascism, worship of money. destruction of the earth, setting the fires, It was 106 in Tokyo right before you were visited. by the people from Japan who put that up in front. We are not going to be able to beat climate change either until we have a way where local government is responsive to the people and the people who stick their heads out or up and engage in political debates are not closed down. Whether it's the anchor outs or Old Town Joe's or commercial vessels. Thank you very much. |
| 01:14:00.70 | Mayor Cox | Thank you very much. Any other public comment on our consent calendar? Seeing none, I will move it up here and I'm seeking a motion first on items 4A through 4F. |
| 01:14:14.90 | Councilmember Withey | I move adoption of the consent calendar items 4A through 4F. |
| 01:14:21.27 | Vice Mayor Burns | second. |
| 01:14:22.79 | Mayor Cox | Thank you. |
| 01:14:22.81 | Debbie | Debbie, will you please call the roll? |
| 01:14:27.15 | Debbie | Councilmember Cleveland knows. Councilmember Withey? Yes. Councilmember Hoffman? Yes. Vice Mayor Burns? Yes. Mayor Cox? |
| 01:14:31.35 | Councilmember Withey | Thank you. |
| 01:14:31.38 | Mayor Cox | Yes. Yeah. |
| 01:14:34.61 | Councilmember Withey | Yeah. |
| 01:14:35.45 | Mayor Cox | Yes, that motion carries 5-0. I'm now seeking a motion on items 4G and 4H of the consent calendar. |
| 01:14:42.96 | Councilmember Withey | I move adoption of items 4G and 4H of the consent calendar. |
| 01:14:49.12 | Vice Mayor Burns | Second. |
| 01:14:50.54 | Mayor Cox | DEBBIE, WE HAVE A |
| 01:14:51.02 | Debbie | Please call the roll. |
| 01:14:51.90 | Mayor Cox | Thank you. |
| 01:14:54.70 | Debbie | Councilmember Cleveland knows. |
| 01:14:57.67 | Unknown | Yes. |
| 01:14:58.48 | Debbie | Councilmember Withey? Yes. Councilmember Hoffman? Yes. Vice Mayor Burns? Yes. Mayor Cox? |
| 01:14:59.73 | Paul Smith | Thank you. |
| 01:14:59.75 | Unknown | Yes. Thank you. |
| 01:15:02.67 | Mayor Cox | Thank you. |
| 01:15:02.77 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 01:15:02.79 | Unknown | THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 01:15:02.82 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 01:15:02.96 | Mayor Cox | Thank you. I will abstain. That motion carries 4-1 with. Mayor Cox abstaining. We'll now move on to our business items. First business item is 6A, accept pedestrian and bicycle advisory committee resolution PB 2018-1. And adopt a resolution finding that the city's adopted bicycle master plan update remains valid. And Jonathan Goldman. |
| 01:15:33.11 | Jonathon Goldman | Thank you, Madam Mayor. Jonathan Goldman, your public works director, city engineer, and ADA coordinator. This is really two items. The first this evening is for your consideration for action. The background, the details are in your staff report, but as I think council is aware, staff and the pedestrian and bicycle advisory commission have been or committee have been working with transportation of authority of Marin and their consultants on an update to 2008 bicycle pedestrian plan for some time and have not successfully brought forward something for your approval before now. And with the currently constituted Pedestrian and Bicycle Advisory Committee, the consensus was that asking the council to kind of reaffirm that the 2008 bike ped plan update still has a significant amount of validity for the purposes of establishing project priorities and things like that, background information, especially in the context where we are in the process of updating our general plan and a circulation element. So that being the case, with staff's concurrence and a resolution passed at the last pedestrian and bicycle advisory committee meeting, staff is recommending that council consider adopting a resolution that, as I said, just kind of reaffirms that that plan remains valid in my judgment that leaves us in a good position and I have touched base with staff at Transportation Authority of Marin on this it leaves us in a better position in terms of compliance with the expectation that we would regularly update a bicycle and pedestrian plan for grant funding opportunities so that's the recommendation from Pedestrian Bicycle Advisor Thank you. plan for grant funding opportunities. So that's the recommendation from Pedestrian Bicycle Advisory Committee and staff. Happy to answer questions about that. And then the subsequent item is we have the chairperson of the committee here who would like to deliver a presentation on broader topics. So the first item is yours. |
| 01:17:59.67 | Mayor Cox | Questions of Jonathan? |
| 01:18:04.51 | Councilmember Withey | Thank you, Jonathan. My understanding is that by statute we have to regularly update the pedestrian bicycle plan in order to be eligible for certain grants or could you help us understand that part? And then I realized that there was a big disconnect at the moment between that work of updating it for those purposes and the fact that the plan didn't seem to have much relevance to the major bicycle issues that we face. So is this a method of keeping our rights, if you like, by having an active plan while we wait for the general plan and the circulation element to then move over to a more, help us understand that piece. |
| 01:19:02.12 | Jonathon Goldman | Yeah, certainly the short answer is yes. The intent is for reasons that are laid out in the resolution, for example. All of the statutory requirements, and unfortunately they're not quite as specific as I would like, but as time goes by with the expectation that regularly updated is something like a five-year frequency. With our current adopted plan, the plan adopted by Council dated 2008, In my judgment, and I think the pedestrian and bicycle advisory committee ultimately agreed, it's not necessarily productive for us to continue to spend public resources trying to refine an update through consultants who aren't really as tuned into the realities of the situation in Sausalito as I think we would like. Rather than continue to expend energy and resources in that direction, Pedd bike advisory committee concurred with staff's recommendation that simply recognized expand energy and resources in that direction. Pedd bike advisory committee concurred with staff's recommendation that simply recognizing that the plan that was adopted in 2008, which was also an update, still has a significant amount of validity to carry us forward through the general plan update process is what we're recommending and for that purpose. |
| 01:20:25.30 | Councilmember Withey | And Tam is okay with this. |
| 01:20:28.85 | Jonathon Goldman | Yes. I don't have a piece of paper signed by the executive director and action by the board. But I think because of the ambiguity and the vagueness in the requirements, bringing something like this to Council and asking if you're willing to affirm the validity, I think that probably satisfies any reasonable test that we could expect from TAM or another funding agency. |
| 01:21:02.06 | Mayor Cox | So next we're going to hear a report on congestion management. But the PBAC for a while did devote itself to congestion management until it split off into, and another group was formed, Sausalito Plus, to whom we owe a great deal for its work on congestion management. Do you foresee revisions to the bicycle master plan, that could address remaining issues remaining regarding congestion management once the general plan update regarding circulation And Traffic is completed. |
| 01:21:42.22 | Jonathon Goldman | Yes, and as you'll hear, I think, from the chairperson of that committee, the Pedestrian and Bicycle Advisory Committee is committed to that course of action and is actually seeking reaffirmation of council's direction to proceed in exactly that direction. |
| 01:22:01.71 | Mayor Cox | Because right now the bicycle master plan does not address congestion. |
| 01:22:05.66 | Jonathon Goldman | Yep. |
| 01:22:05.94 | Mayor Cox | So that would be my one concern about simply reaffirming the 2008. Master Plan. Okay, any other questions? Then I'm going to open up for public comment. |
| 01:22:21.34 | Mayor Cox | David Lay. |
| 01:22:24.79 | David Lay | First, I have to beg Jonathan's forgiveness. Something else that was going on today just made me say Lankford, and I really meant Goldman. But he's a great person working for this town. Bicycles. I've raced a bicycle. I know about bikes. I've walked all over the DGNRA and... there's ways to make a big improvement here. And we've got a problem, but really the people have a problem is, is the bike riders and really they're the best of us all because they're not burning up all that fossil fuels. And- this report and the committees that went before didn't include the DGNRA. That was a great oversight. I wrote a report to them when they were redoing the circle up there on the approach to the bridge from the north end. They like that. But then they threw in the basket, of course, because it was talking about a new bike path going across the GGNRA between the fire road and the pedestrian path which is part way down the cliff. The pedestrian path is a great walk and so is the fire road. But really, there's a pretty good way to run that whole route down to... Muir Beach at least. and maybe just up that spur then on to the rest of Point Reyes there from the tunnel that goes over to The... the big valley there, the first valley, or from the headlands, Big gun emplacement right at the very top. There's a great drop right down that road right all the way to the lighthouse. That's a great bike run. And that shouldn't be run by anybody except the park service and a bike. the rest of the people can go somewhere else. Or there's a trail right along the ridge. but we really need to get the GGNRA involved in with the state too. in creating a new bike route to solve the problem in the Northern Bay here. because it's going to get bigger and bigger, and it's a good thing, not a bad thing. And so we just need a new route to handle that, and it costs a lot less than another row of pavement. down 101 or whatever it is. Thank you very much. |
| 01:25:01.33 | Mayor Cox | Thank you, other public comment? All right, I'm going to close public comment, bring it back up here for discussion or a motion. |
| 01:25:11.60 | Vice Mayor Burns | We're going to hear from |
| 01:25:14.12 | Mayor Cox | It's two parts. |
| 01:25:14.81 | Vice Mayor Burns | Okay. |
| 01:25:16.02 | Mayor Cox | So let's, may I have, anybody would like to move approval of the resolution? |
| 01:25:16.09 | Vice Mayor Burns | Thank you. |
| 01:25:23.10 | Mayor Cox | of the City Council. Of the city of Sausalito, accepting the Pedestrian and Bicycle Advisory Committee's recommendation, affirming that the city's adopted bicycle master plan 2008 update remains valid, and directing the Pedestrian and Bicycle Advisory Committee to advise the city's general plan update process in order to assist in the subsequent production of an updated bicycle and pedestrian plan. |
| 01:25:46.27 | Councilmember Withey | So moved. So, |
| 01:25:49.98 | Mayor Cox | Second. Thank you. |
| 01:25:51.07 | Vice Mayor Burns | Yeah, Susan got it. |
| 01:25:51.65 | Mayor Cox | Thank you. |
| 01:25:51.66 | Vice Mayor Burns | Thank you. |
| 01:25:52.31 | Mayor Cox | All right, Debbie, will you please call the roll? |
| 01:25:56.29 | Debbie | Councilmember Cleveland Knowles. |
| 01:25:58.57 | Mayor Cox | Yes. |
| 01:25:59.06 | Debbie | Council member Withey? Yes. Council member Hoffman? Yes. |
| 01:26:00.29 | Mayor Cox | Yes. |
| 01:26:02.50 | Debbie | Vice Mayor Burns. |
| 01:26:04.46 | Vice Mayor Burns | Yes. |
| 01:26:04.81 | Debbie | Thank you. Mayor Katz. |
| 01:26:05.64 | Mayor Cox | Yes, that motion carries 5-0. And now we'll move on to a bicycle parking and congestion management plan update. |
| 01:26:15.81 | Jonathon Goldman | Madam Mayor, the Pedestrian Bicycle Advisory Committee does have a brief presentation, forgive me. And with no further ado, I'm going to introduce David Sudo, who's the chairperson of the Pedestrian Bicycle Advisory Committee. |
| 01:26:18.75 | Mayor Cox | No. |
| 01:26:25.28 | Mayor Cox | Okay. Well, I just said, |
| 01:26:26.97 | David Sudo | I'm going to interrupt. |
| 01:26:27.74 | Unknown | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 01:26:29.82 | David Sudo | Thank you. |
| 01:26:29.84 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:26:29.85 | David Sudo | Thank you. |
| 01:26:29.90 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:26:29.92 | David Sudo | Thank you. |
| 01:26:30.06 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:26:35.07 | David Sudo | Good evening, Mayor and City Council. Maybe I'll try to give you the brief version. Fortunately, it seems like tonight this is the least controversial part of our meeting. So... |
| 01:26:38.05 | Jonathon Goldman | Maybe I'll try to give you the brief. |
| 01:26:47.27 | David Sudo | Just an outline of what I'm covering is, you already talked about the 2018 pedestrian bicycle plan check-in, but I guess I'll make a couple of brief comments. We wanted to convey our key project priorities regarding to that plan that we'd like to have the city staff concentrate on, and then kind of where we're going in the future, looking at the circulation master plan. We have currently our committee has five members seated plus one resident alternate voting member and one not voting member from the MCBC. We're kind of split up into a couple of subcommittees. We have Russ Irwin and Nathan Scripps are our pedestrian subcommittee. They also are kind of taking on congestion. And Alex Frankel and Aaron Sanchez are our bicycle subcommittee and then we have our non-voting member Aaron roller he's been really involved with getting working with Willow Creek and Safe Routes to Schools kind of programs for them I'd love to have him come here he has a great presentation on what he's been doing there and it would be great to get him before you sometime to show you what he's been working on. Also, besides the members of the community, we have Joe Burns, our city council member, Chief Robacher from the police department, and Jonathan Goldman from city staff as our liaisons. And as I said before, I think five of our members are brand new, and we've been getting back up to speed, getting people, you know, at looking at topics with a fresh new look and just finding out what the issues are. Our meetings are the third Monday of the month and City Council Chamber is here and we are recorded for people who can't make the meeting but would like to see what's happened. Thank you. Participation from our community, usually we only have one or two members from the community here and we would love to have more people. Especially as we go talking about the general plan and what the public would like to see from the pedestrian and bicycle committee in the plan. |
| 01:29:25.59 | David Sudo | I think we can pretty much skip this, as we already just talked about it. I would just note that in tonight's meeting documents, there was a copy of the 2008 plan, and in front of that there was a summary of the plan, and if you look at that summary, probably 90% of those action items have not been completed, and that's the strongest reason why we thought we should just continue with that plan for now until we get a general plan update because we have so many open issues that were identified in 2008 that we've kind of been frozen in time for the last 10 years looking at congestion management and we haven't gotten to looking at our pedestrian and bicycle facilities as a whole in our community because of the concentration solely on congestion management. So our 2018 goals for the PBAC that we kind of decided on, that we're concentrating on safe routes to school, looking at Bridgeway from Richardson to Princess along the waterfront, rideshare drop-off and pickup facilities, and the general plan update. Um, For safe routes to school, we have a growing number of children in Sausalito and Marin City, and we have very limited transit options. We have a school bus that comes and drops kids off. Everybody else has to either have their parents drive them or they have to ride their bike or walk. And there's a big – because of all the kids going to the school that wasn't really designed for parents to drop everybody off in cars. We have a big congestion issue at Willow Creek every morning. And it also creates a safety issue with the kids. Kids don't feel safe crossing the bridgeway and Nevada Street. And I included this particular picture because Willow Creek has about four driveways. This is the only driveway with a sidewalk. So all the other driveways, the kids are mixing with cars as they try to walk to the school. So it's just one of those fundamental things. You start looking at the issues that we have around here and safety with our children, you realize we have some really fundamental issues that at some point need some attention. We had a quick list of items that need some attention. They're basically crosswalk updates to make both the crosswalk at Bridgeway safer for children, and there's another crosswalk just uphill from the campus. It's kind of the back, it goes across the back driveway to the school. Again, that crosswalk leads across the school in a driveway, but there is no sidewalk for those kids once they get to the other side of the street. |
| 01:32:38.81 | David Sudo | But, you know, with this whole program, it's a matter of the city working with the school to identify what improvements need to get made and then identify funding to get them made. Um, One of the most novel things that we came up with, which is actually in the 2008 plan, is we would like to get staff to look at converting our current median from Richardson Street to Princess Street into the northbound lane and then use the current northbound lane for a buffered bicycle lane. The picture I have here shows a couple of cars and a tourist bus. The tour bus has left the lane and is in the median to pass a bunch of bicycles that are on the side of the road. And this creates kind of an unsafe condition when cars in both directions are leaving the lane and then entering that median either because there's not enough room in the lane to pass the bicycles or they feel like there's enough room in the median for them to do that. And there's just an ambiguity there that Thank you. that that median allows and then space that most of the time is empty. And we feel it would be much better utilized if we converted that lane into a buffer bike lane that provides space for bicycles to pass each other in that lane. It provides some safety area between the cars and the bicycles. Thank you. that buffer bike lane would be wide enough since it's going to be equal to the lane right now. It would allow, in the event that emergency vehicles need to use Bridgeway, it would allow space for cars to pull into the bicycle lane so that the emergency vehicles could traverse the center unimpeded even during congestion times on the weekends. |
| 01:34:58.04 | David Sudo | Um, The other thing that we noticed recently is that rideshare vehicles are stopping at very inappropriate places along Bridgeway and in downtown. They're stopping in bicycle lanes. They're stopping in places without bicycle lanes, causing traffic to back up and discharging passengers into the lane of traffic. So what we're suggesting is looking at creating zones where they're loading and unloading this happens to be a taxi area where it looks like a ride share is pulled in but that perhaps would be a good place for them to discharge passengers and pick up passengers rather than at random places where they impede traffic and create safety issues for bicycles. So we're suggesting that we identify areas for pickup and drop off, maybe create some loading zones where they don't exist, and also work with ride sharing apps to geofence locations so that they don't pick up people where they shouldn't. |
| 01:36:10.47 | David Sudo | and then finally we're going to be starting at our next meeting in september we're going to be looking at the circulation plan update uh... we welcomed city council and resident input last time we started looking at the pedestrian bicycle plan we really lacked resident input and that's one reason why uh... it didn't really go forward uh... so We're really encouraging people to get out and give us comments so that we can feel like we have a valid plan moving forward. And then we, |
| 01:36:57.65 | David Sudo | Along with that, we have been talking about a few of these other items. We didn't make them into our major goals, but we've been having a conversation about them. We've been talking about tour bus management and whether we should have additional regulations on tour buses, maybe the size of buses, to cut down on some of the congestion and improve flow downtown. We're also looking at going back over resident and visitor bike parking again. Some of our new members have new concerns. And we've been talking about, again, we would love resident and city council input onto our current parking system. uh, We also have been talking about sidewalk congestion and parklets, and we have the one parklet. I know that drivers have at times asked for a parklet there, and we feel like we should have some kind of – element probably in our general plan about how to create a parklet if we desire to have parklets in town just to make it a more regular procedure for getting permits. And then finally, stairs and pathways. And I've been pushing stairs and pathways. I think it's a big, first of all, it gets people walking because it makes it much more efficient to get up and down our hills. And also it's a big issue in emergencies such as up north where people need to get up and down out of the hills. We don't want to be like Greece where people were trapped in their cars and couldn't get down the hill or the Oakland fires. We need to make sure that our residents have ways to get from their houses to areas of safety in an emergency. Thank you. Any questions? |
| 01:38:58.77 | Mayor Cox | Thank you. |
| 01:38:58.80 | Jill Hoffman | Hi. |
| 01:38:59.03 | Mayor Cox | Any questions? |
| 01:38:59.96 | Jill Hoffman | David? I think so. I mean, I don't know if this is the appropriate time to ask or not, but I'm not sure who the appropriate person to ask is. But I'll ask it and then we can direct. So it seems that the bike and ped committee is moving away. Well, they moved away from congestion management, I guess, when the management plan sort of veered into and was taken over by Saucel Plus. But now Saucel Plus is a non-profit, has been dissolved, my understanding is. and it's no longer operating in Sausalito Plus. But now Sausalito Plus as a nonprofit has been dissolved, my understanding is, and it's no longer operating in Sausalito. We have the Sausalito Bike Return who's implemented some of the recommendations that Sausalito Plus originally advocated for in the congestion management plan. But now it doesn't seem like there's anybody that is specifically tasked with the congestion management issues on the south side of town. And so that's my question. |
| 01:39:53.03 | Mayor Cox | Our next staff report is going to be from Lieutenant Stacy Gregory on bicycle parking and congestion management. |
| 01:39:58.98 | Jill Hoffman | I understand that's her report, but my question is either to Adam or the Bike and Ped Committee is who now has ownership of that issue? which is congestion management. |
| 01:40:10.16 | Mayor Cox | Thank you. |
| 01:40:10.45 | Jill Hoffman | Is it back to the police department or is it? |
| 01:40:13.03 | Mayor Cox | So for now, it's the police department, but I think earlier the questions from Council Member Withy and I, |
| 01:40:18.28 | Unknown | Mm-hmm. |
| 01:40:18.53 | Mayor Cox | concerned, adding that back into the charter for PBAC. |
| 01:40:19.29 | Katherine Streetman | Yeah. |
| 01:40:22.62 | Mayor Cox | after the General Plan Advisory Committee Does its work on circulation and other issues. |
| 01:40:28.59 | Jill Hoffman | But that's, okay, but that would be years from now, correct? |
| 01:40:31.02 | Mayor Cox | It will be less than two years from now. Okay. Or a little over two years from now. |
| 01:40:33.43 | Jill Hoffman | Okay. Or a little over to you. NEWS. And I'll see you next time. Okay, so then my concern then is who's managing this effort in that interim? So everybody can think about that, I guess, and answer that when it comes up. |
| 01:40:43.34 | Mayor Cox | Thank you. Thank you. Any other questions of David? All right, I'm gonna open it up to public comment. |
| 01:40:47.73 | Councilmember Withey | Well, before that, can anybody lay their hands quickly on the charter for The PBAC? Yes. Or David, I mean, I thought you were actually specifically in your committee addressing congestion management. |
| 01:40:56.15 | Mayor Cox | Thank you. |
| 01:40:56.35 | Mayor Cox | Thank you. |
| 01:41:05.24 | David Sudo | I believe that's part of our- Charter, isn't it? |
| 01:41:06.76 | Councilmember Withey | Charter. |
| 01:41:07.94 | David Sudo | Yeah, and we're definitely still looking at it. You know, Russ Irwin, that's his particular point of interest. So he's definitely looking at it. It's, you know, we're, but we have these, we've had, you know, we have the pedestrian bicycle plan and the general plan that need to get kind of spooled up. and so we've kind of taken a little bit of a breather from actively working on the congestion plan itself. But we're definitely looking at those elements as we look for our recommendations to give towards the general plan committee about what we think needs to be added. I'm sure there's going to be some recommendations. But yeah, I mean, as far as active management, I think that's gone from the pedestrian bicycle committee and being handled by other people. But we're certainly looking at it and giving our suggestions to what needs to get done. |
| 01:41:15.65 | Councilmember Withey | Thank you. |
| 01:41:15.67 | Unknown | THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 01:41:15.96 | Councilmember Withey | Thank you. |
| 01:41:15.98 | Unknown | Interesting. |
| 01:42:08.83 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:42:08.88 | Councilmember Withey | that. Thank you. |
| 01:42:09.20 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:42:11.34 | Mayor Cox | If there are no other questions of David, I'm going to open it up to public comment. All right, seeing none, I'm going to close public comment. Our, I think we're simply being asked to accept the PBAC update. I have comments. |
| 01:42:25.52 | Vice Mayor Burns | So, um... I appreciate the questions on congestion management and I think that's valid in that we have. a congestion problem It's also cured by circulation. So, What the committee's doing is forging a new path, one. Looking at how they're going to interact with the general plan, because success in circulation and pedestrian management and all the things on this will help solve what we call congestion, at least to an extent. Say sidewalks in the busy area or bike traffic, all those things are part of the solution. When you look at the verbs of the goals, and this is, David pointed this out in the summary, not only are they, some of them not done. They're perpetual, I mean they're forever, improve pedestrian and bicycle safety, that's a goal. Well, I hope that never ends. Develop and prioritize, all these things are forever. And so the committee I think has taken a good step in identifying some things and they're a new committee and they've identified some items that will help with circulation that will improve congestion management as we go. |
| 01:43:40.26 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | I could just jump in too. I just want to thank the PBAC, and I know they've got a lot of new members, but I think the priorities that David outlined are really exciting. I'm glad they're focusing... on Safe Routes to Schools and the buffer bike lane. Along Bridgeway, I think is a kind of exciting idea and might help with congestion management. And also the rideshare geofencing is great. So I just want to thank them for creative thinking and their hard work. |
| 01:44:12.69 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you, Susan. Jill? So, yeah, just to follow on my comments before, and I agree with what Joe just said too about these are ongoing concerns. But my concern specifically is that in the last two years, the last three years we've made significant efforts at very specific things to manage the bike congestion. I don't think anybody here on the dais would say we've solved that and that we should stop working on those very specific issues and specific efforts to solve that problem. So my concern is now that we seem to veer away from those efforts and we're moving on to other things that are priorities to be sure. But now I don't know how the city is going to address these important issues and the gains that we've made in the last two years. And I hope that we don't lose those gains because we're not actively managing it going forward. There were also some initiatives that were put in place that were that were started but not carried forward. And so my concern is that we're not, We're not moving forward. impressing those successes that we've had, so that's my concern. Lieutenant Gregory can address that when she gives her report. |
| 01:45:30.47 | Vice Mayor Burns | I agree and I'll just say one more thing. Thank you. |
| 01:45:32.81 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 01:45:32.86 | Vice Mayor Burns | Thank you. |
| 01:45:32.88 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 01:45:33.00 | Vice Mayor Burns | Okay. One of the goals of the committee, so it's work with the Golden Gate Transit and Golden Gate Ferry to reduce delays in loading times for bikes and ferries. That's an ongoing item, and it is also what the PBAC has talked about as far as having a representative discuss with the ferry landing, the land site improvement on the ferry landing. They'll have an input and a voice in that process as well because that is one of their goals is to help reduce delays. It's a circulation issue, but it results in better congestion management. |
| 01:46:10.46 | Mayor Cox | Right. I will just echo the comments of my fellow council members and praise the PBAC for its 2018 goals, safe routes to school, the Richardson to Princess Waterfront, the ride share, drop off and pick up facilities and working with the general plan update. I think those are all commendable, timely, appropriate, so job well done. Thank you so much. Okay, with that we will move on to item 6B, congestion management update. How timely. From? Police Lieutenant Stacy Gregory. |
| 01:46:59.03 | Mayor Cox | No pressure Stacy, but you're on this agenda for five minutes. That's perfect. |
| 01:47:08.31 | Lieutenant Stacy Gregory | Thank you. |
| 01:47:08.71 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:47:08.77 | Lieutenant Stacy Gregory | Thank you. Start it. Good evening, Lieutenant Stacy Gregory with the police department and I'm here to give you the June update on congestion management. With me today are representatives from Sausalito Bike Return, the Chamber of Commerce, and unfortunately Golden Gate Transit could not be here tonight. But they're here to answer questions after I give you my quick update. I just want to say that This year has been awesome so far with the communication with the players, the hard work that's going on down there every day. The police department has not had any complaints, which is, pretty amazing considering the last few years. So that's what I want to start off with, is thanking the people that are doing the hard work down there and moving the bikes and controlling the chaos. So these are the things we're going to talk about, bike return, the queuing, the illegal parking of bicycles, and the taxi ordinance. So you'll see station one bike counts, they kind of fluctuate, but we are down 11% from last year's numbers. And I think that's consistent with tourism. And you'll see that in the number of parking permits sold, they're down 14%. from last year. And just a quick peek at the revenues. Susso to Bike Return. Last year, let's see, in 2017 in June, Sausalito Bike Return returned 693 bikes. So they are making progress, the word's getting out. One thing we did is we put a price point on the pay machine, so if somebody had already paid to park their bicycle, They could then, when they see the ferry line or whatever, they could go back, they could pay the extra $9 and return their bike as opposed to having to pay the full Monty to return their bike. So that, according to Suss Little Bike Return, has increased the returns on the weekends about 40 bikes and on the weekdays about 20 bikes. So that's pretty significant. The other neat thing is I was down there today just kind of watching, knowing that I was going to come here and talk about it today, and I saw a guy, you know, Bloody face. I had to walk up to him to see if it was a bloody face, and he was, he crashed up by the Golden Gate Bridge, Rode back down into Sausalito. I mean, he was bloody. I thought it was a Halloween costume. That's how bloody he was. called the fire department, did all that, wrapped him up. And I said, Lisa, you know, is there anything you can do with these bikes? And she took all three. It was a family of three. Took the bikes, returned them, no charge. This guy was able to get in a cab and go to wherever he needed to get his medical attention. So it's things like that. They do rescues of crashes, broken bikes. So the return program is pretty great for our community. Here's the revenues, the parking and returns combined totals that our pay stations report for the month of June. |
| 01:50:29.21 | Lieutenant Stacy Gregory | Queuing and boarding, if you've been down there, you've seen the configuration this year that they have. They kind of have the Disneyland line for the pedestrians that manages that. And they have... a very large queuing area for the bicycles. We have not had any lines on the sidewalks. The Sausalito Bike Return and the queuing staff are working very well together. They're communicating when El Portal is filling up with bicycles. They're both working to move those people on, whether they park, get in the ferry line, or go to the free parking, or wherever else they're going to go. So that's been wonderful. 11 extra boats this month have been brought to town to take care of the bicycles. And you'll see in my in my staff report that has all this information, but, um, Last year they brought in 17 boats carrying a total of 6,043 passengers. This year they brought in 11 boats, but those 11 boats only carried just over 2,000 passengers. So we're seeing a significant difference. in numbers of people that are taking the ferry. And here's the numbers. They're also down 14%. You'll see the commuters at the bottom. They're consistent. But everything else is down. |
| 01:51:57.60 | Lieutenant Stacy Gregory | There's our bike parking enforcement numbers. 32 were actually impounded with cables and if we cable three bikes, we count them, so that's the 32. And then our parking enforcement staff have discretion to charge maybe a one bike fee for three bikes or whatnot. And so we've collected 18 parking fees to get the bikes unimpounded. And we still have, and it's actually not very common anymore. We have the ride share that jumps the limes that we end up physically impounding and then they have to come and pay $100. But we haven't had very many of those. And we haven't seen any, I don't think, any scooters recently that stay. They may come, but they go away. In the taxi ordinance tonight was the second reading of the amendment to the language, just to clarify what our original ordinance meant to say. So that will go in effect August 30th. We are writing citations down there to the taxis. They are very blatantly disregarding it, they're looking around when they're down there. Um, and actually running when we walk up. So that's pretty funny. But when this goes into effect, right now it's kind of a thing where the officers are a little hesitant to write a ticket if they think it's not going to stick in court. And so once this amendment happens, the game's on and we'll be writing citations. And once it hits them in the pocketbook, which unfortunately that's what's going to have to happen, I think they'll start abiding by the rules. |
| 01:53:15.19 | Unknown | That's pretty funny. |
| 01:53:43.23 | Lieutenant Stacy Gregory | And that's all I have. Do you have any questions for me? |
| 01:53:46.81 | Mayor Cox | Thank you, any questions of Lieutenant Gregory? I do. OK. |
| 01:53:50.96 | Jill Hoffman | So, Lieutenant Gregory, this is, and I'm following up on my questions before. So, with regard to the congestion management and The role that Sausalio Plus played last year with regard to working with the other companies and and working with the ferry company and the overall management of the system down there. Who now has taken over that? role. |
| 01:54:14.49 | Lieutenant Stacy Gregory | I'd say that'd probably be me. |
| 01:54:14.66 | Jill Hoffman | I would say they'd probably |
| 01:54:15.89 | Lieutenant Stacy Gregory | Thank you. I mean, I'm regularly in contact with all of the players, including the bike companies. The communication doesn't even really necessarily always include me because the relationships are pretty strong, and so it just happens. But, you know, if there's something significant or needs to be worked out, I'll be contacted. |
| 01:54:31.07 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 01:54:35.92 | Jill Hoffman | Okay. Who, Who, if anyone, is looking strategically at additional methods for further lessening of congestion or what are proposals might come forward in the way that the bike and ped used to and then Sausalito Plus did. Is anybody doing that function now or are we just basically holding it in place, which is kind of what it seems like we're at? |
| 01:55:05.60 | Lieutenant Stacy Gregory | The police department is working on the downtown congestion plan. Yeah, I would say PBAC would be the person or the group that would be looking at that. But that's not the police department's role. Our role is to make sure everybody's enjoying their time and doing it safely. |
| 01:55:08.72 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah. |
| 01:55:16.45 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah. TO BE ABLE TO DO. Right. |
| 01:55:22.16 | Mayor Cox | Okay, thanks. Thank you. Any other questions? Any public comments? All right, I'm going to close public comment, bring it back up here. There's no action. We're just accepting this report. Did you have a comment? |
| 01:55:38.61 | Jill Hoffman | I do have one, I have one more question for Lieutenant Gregory, if that's okay. And it's okay if you don't have this, I can follow up with you on an email. But do you have the total revenue to date from Saskia bike return for the season? |
| 01:55:40.67 | Mayor Cox | that's and the other side. |
| 01:55:51.62 | Lieutenant Stacy Gregory | I do not, no. |
| 01:55:52.13 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. Okay. |
| 01:55:52.50 | Lieutenant Stacy Gregory | Thank you. But we can get that to you, no problem. |
| 01:55:54.20 | Jill Hoffman | That's great, because my recollection, Adam, is that when they hit a certain revenue point, didn't we start sharing in the revenues? Is that right? And my recollection was it 70,000? Or, okay, that's fine. If my recollection's wrong, we can talk about that. |
| 01:56:10.42 | Mayor Cox | So can you just plan to include that in your next update to us? Absolutely. Okay. Thank you. All right, any comments on the update? |
| 01:56:18.97 | Jill Hoffman | I have a comment. Okay. Yeah. So based on my comments, and again, and it's my concern that we're That we're losing focus on congestion management, because what I've heard today is that pedestrian bike or bike and ped, I keep saying it wrong, I'm sorry, has shifted their focus to other priorities, which I understand. It seems that the police department, which was the reason why Bike and Ped was originally... originally formed and why Sassily Plus was performed because it's not particularly the highest and best use of our police officer time to sort of work on these management plans and management assessments going forward. So my concern is it doesn't seem like anybody has that mandate anymore and so I don't believe anybody in the city council would say that we have solved that. We came up with a solution, a private company has taken over that solution, but now we don't have anybody that's carrying forward that same sort of management focus. And so my question is, hopefully, We will find out who's going to take that over, if at all. Or have we decided as a city that we're done and we're not going to do that anymore? I hope that's not the answer, but it seems like that's where we're at. |
| 01:57:39.10 | Mayor Cox | Other comments? I'll just, I do see that John and Lisa Scopazi are here, so I do want to say great job. The fact that we've had no complaints this year is outstanding. Thank you. I do take issue with the comment that the PBAC was formed for the purpose of downtown congestion management. It was formed in large measure to make us eligible for various grants, and we added congestion management to its charter. And I believe the communication earlier this evening was that they intend to fulfill that mandate. In conjunction with the work of the general plan advisory committee which will come up with a circulation plan and other measures to assist in the downtown congestion management. So from my perspective. I'm not going to be mayor for much longer, but from my perspective this year, that does remain a priority of the city of Sausalito. All right, thank you all. With that, we're going to move on to item 5A, consideration of ballot measures related to TOT and BLT, as we like to call them. |
| 01:59:07.59 | Brian Mora | take a quick look and see if we can find the presentation. |
| 01:59:11.74 | Mayor Cox | Well, that would be good. |
| 01:59:13.31 | Brian Mora | Yes. |
| 01:59:21.22 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:59:21.27 | Brian Mora | Thank you. |
| 01:59:21.95 | Unknown | Does anybody need a break? |
| 01:59:24.38 | Mayor Cox | Thank you. |
| 01:59:24.40 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:59:30.27 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:59:30.71 | Alice Merrill | Yes. Seriously. |
| 01:59:35.79 | Unknown | Great, I'll play. No. |
| 01:59:37.96 | Vice Mayor Burns | They're kirsten strong. |
| 01:59:41.41 | Mayor Cox | Yes. |
| 01:59:52.85 | Unknown | Thank you. Okay. |
| 01:59:55.26 | David Lay | All right. Thanks. |
| 01:59:58.11 | Brian Mora | Thank you. |
| 02:00:03.29 | Brian Mora | Okay, I think we're all set. Thank you, Mayor and members of Council. Brian Mora, administrative services advisor to the city. And also tonight I have with me Josh Davis from HDL and Melanie Purcell, of course you all know, administrative services director. And so tonight we're going to talk about the proposal to place two ballot measures in front of the voters of Sausalito in November to consider the TOT and the BLT. Just to give the council and the public some quick background. And again, some of you are very familiar with this. In June, the council approved the 2018-20 fiscal year two-year budget. The budget funds the current level of city services and some capital improvement projects in Sausalito. to get to a balanced budget for the current 18, 19 fiscal year. There were some expenses that were decreased. In departments, around $50,000, there was also a two year suspension. of vehicle replacement funds in the city budget uh... and so that gave you a balanced budget for the current fiscal year however in the following fiscal year in nineteen twenty and subsequent years there's a need for revenue enhancements uh... multi-year projection in the budget that was adopted in june assumes A minimum of an additional $475,000 of revenue per year starting in 1920. And on top of that, another $275,000 per year starting in the following year in 2021. On July 17th, the council held a meeting and reviewed a rather extensive list of revenue options, two pages worth. And at tonight's council meeting, we're going to talk about placing or proposal to place the T.O.T. BLT revenue measures on the November ballot. This would enable voters to decide whether to enact these proposals. So let's start with the transient occupancy tax, as the Mayor indicated, sometimes called the TOT or also in some circles referred to as a hotel tax. This is typically charged as a percentage of the room rate to occupy a hotel in for less than 30 days. It is collected by the operator of those facilities and then remitted to a city or county. It's a fairly common revenue in California. The information that I reviewed showed that 430 of the 482 cities in California now have a TOT with additional TOT measures on the November ballot. The rate these days for a TOT is typically in the range of 10 to 14 percent. The highest one that I found was in Healdsburg, which is currently at 16%. um In the coming November ballot, this is a fairly common proposal that is being put before the voters. I found just on the peninsula alone, 11 other cities besides Sausalito that are proposing a TOT ballot measure. To give you some quick history about the TOT ordinance in Sausalito, it was established in 1966. The voters approved increasing the rate of the TOT to 12% in 2004, about 10 years ago. Currently, it brings in $1.6 million per year to your general fund. The proposal tonight is to increase the TOT rate from 12% to 14%, which would bring in an additional $300,000 per year. And because this is a general revenue, the revenues are not earmarked for a specific purpose, it would take a majority vote to change. This is a quick look at the 11 cities outside of Sausalito that either have already voted or are considering putting a ballot measure on the November ballot to increase TOT. And as you can see, moving from either 10 or 12% to 14% is actually the most common proposed action. There are two cities, namely Palo Alto and Daly City, that are proposing higher rates. Daly City going from 10 to 15, and Palo Alto going from 14 to 16. And then there are a couple of cities that are moving from 9 1⁄2, 10 1⁄2, to around 12 1⁄2%. The other item before you tonight to potentially put on the ballot is the business license tax, also known in some circles as the BLT. It is typically charged to anyone that is doing business in a city, and that is done to create a link, or recognize the link between city services and infrastructure and the use of those services and infrastructure by the business community. It is an even more common revenue than the hotel tax, with over 450 of the 482 cities in California having a business license tax. In Sausalito, the BLT was established in 1968. Your ordinance is a little unique because being an older ordinance, similar to other ordinances I've seen of that vintage, has many business categories. You currently have 22 business categories. Some folks find it a little confusing or hard to administer currently in the town. Although I've also heard from some businesses that claim that because it's a little vague, some folks kind of like that because they end up finding ways to save a little money. It currently raises $623,000 per year, that's the estimate in your current year budget. and again because this these revenues are not earmarked it would take a majority vote to change this ordinance. The proposal that you have in front of you and what we suggest placing before the voters is a equity measure that the city staff developed in cooperation with HDL companies, which is both an expert in this field, but also in the community. is a contractor that provides BLT collection and administration services currently for Sausalito. The focus of the equity measure is to streamline, simplify, and modernize your ordinance. And as you can see, we're recommending significantly reducing the number of categories from 22 to four to establish a minimum A business license tax rate of $125. That's fairly typical these days. Usually cities have a minimum rate somewhere in the $100 to $150 range per year for modernized ordinances. The proposal includes a reduction in the gross receipts rate for small businesses from $1.13 per thousand to $1 per thousand for your small business general retail categories. Commercial property owners and subcontractors which are exempt in Sausalito, which is a little unusual in most cities, they are covered. would no longer be exempt if the equity measure were to pass. Um, There's also a suggestion, a recommendation from your finance committee, which we'll talk about in a minute, which suggests making this proposal effective on July 1st of 2019 to provide some additional time for outreach and education. If this measure was to be placed on the ballot by the council and ultimately passed by the voters, it would raise almost $900,000 in additional general fund revenue per year. And then below that, you see the four categories. Category one general retail and hotel, which is $1 per 1,000. Uh, The second category, rental, commercial, and residential. $2 per 1,000. The third category, service and professional, $3 per 1,000. And finally, the contractors, $2 per 1,000. Now there's two tables I want to show you. These are both from the HDL reports. the first has been updated from their original report and it shows the proposed uh... that that was a recommended by each deal staff and uh... moved ahead by the finance subcommittee and as you can see in the first |
| 02:08:14.22 | Unknown | Amen. |
| 02:08:19.32 | Brian Mora | For example, a small business bringing in $25,000 per year would pay the minimum $125. The next two categories, both being in the retail in general, namely a restaurant, bringing in $60,000 a year and a major retailer bringing in $2.5 million a year, their business license tax would actually decrease because they're in that group that went from $1.13 to $1.000 per thousand. We're also showing hotel rental, doctor's offices, professional firms, and both small contractors and regular contractors. And below each category, you'll see the assumption of the amount of gross receipts. And this shows a comparison of neighboring cities, including Corte Madera, Daly City, Mill Valley, Richmond, and San Francisco. I should also note in response to some questions and inquiries we had about the two cities in Marin County, namely Corte Madera and Mill Valley. We found out today that neither city has updated its ordinance since 1978. So they're rather old ordinances and that would explain why they are currently at some of the rates that you see today in Sausalito pre-update. This is another comparison that shows the BLT rates compared to tourist communities in the general area. And it shows a somewhat different mix of businesses in comparison, including both residential and commercial rentals, service businesses, architects, contractors, et cetera, again, for purposes of illustration. Turning to the finance committee, they reviewed these proposals on July 20th and Recommended that we bring to the council the TOT increase of 2%. They also recommended moving ahead with the BLT streamlining, simplification, and modernization. As I mentioned earlier, the subcommittee recommends to you that we delay the BLT effective date so that there can be additional outreach and education on the changes, again, given the fact that we're reducing the number of categories and dramatically simplifying that program. And then finally, they recommend forwarding this to the council for consideration to bring to the voters, which is the action tonight. And then finally, we have a summary of the four actions that are in your council report, I would note that as the city attorney has indicated in the report, because this is placing a measure before the voters, it requires a two-thirds vote of the council or four affirmative votes. So with that, I'd be happy to answer any questions, and obviously, Josh and Melanie are here as well as resources and of course the city attorney. |
| 02:11:16.69 | Mayor Cox | Thank you. Any questions of Brian? |
| 02:11:20.39 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | I have a question. |
| 02:11:21.92 | Mayor Cox | Yes. |
| 02:11:23.88 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | I'm not sure. Have you looked at, or did the Finance Committee look at how raising the business license tax might affect Sausalito's competitiveness with other neighboring jurisdictions. |
| 02:11:40.10 | Brian Mora | I think we had some discussions about that both with the subcommittee and also with HDL and with staff and A couple observations, one is as I indicated earlier, The two cities that were looked at in HDL, it turns out that those are sort of pre-modernization, and that's the reason they have significantly lower rates. But in terms of looking at other cities around the Bay Area that have modernized their ordinances, the recommendations that you have tonight are not that dissimilar from what we've seen in other communities. I don't think it's going to have a significant impact on the competitiveness of your businesses. But again, I'd also suggest that if you'd like, we might ask the gentleman from HDL to comment on that as well. |
| 02:12:19.11 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:12:30.87 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Okay, that would be great. you |
| 02:12:33.45 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:12:38.10 | Unknown | Good evening. The analysis certainly takes place as part of the report. What we want to be able to provide to council and to the community is looking at, in addition to just the tax equity amongst your own business community, looking at the potential of comparisons to other jurisdictions. We do face some situations, as Brian indicated, that there is difficulty in terms of the regionally close cities cities have some very sort of old and sort of outdated codes that are using things that don't necessarily have a direct correlation. And as well as the fact that Sausalito is a very unique community. It's not something simple that we can simply just create and pick up another apple and compare the two. Which was part of the reason that the chart that Brian showed earlier that perhaps we can pull back up again. Where we did do some analysis on some similar types of tourist destinations and other cities that have modern codes and tried to do something to create some equity there. So it was looked at. Certainly many of the communities around do have some lower rates. But we also took into consideration the desirability of some of those locations may not come into play. |
| 02:13:45.34 | Mayor Cox | So I don't know if Susan has access to email. Susan, do you have access to email because the slides he's referring to were emailed to the council and included in the online. |
| 02:13:57.98 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Yeah, I have those. Thank you. |
| 02:13:59.35 | Mayor Cox | Thank you. Okay, great. |
| 02:14:02.20 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:14:02.22 | Mayor Cox | Any other questions, Susan? |
| 02:14:04.48 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Yeah, we had some correspondence, I believe, from Tom Theodorus in the packet suggesting a few modifications, and I was wondering if staff had any... reaction or recommendations on those. |
| 02:14:20.73 | Brian Mora | Well, a couple of comments in terms of some of the recommendations. Certainly, it's up to the council on the content of the ordinance that you wish to move ahead. Our philosophy on this particular ordinance was to focus on equity, and so, as I noted earlier, the two categories that were currently exempt, we are now including. So we would not recommend an exemption for that the mayor has In terms of the- You mean for the rental units? For the rental units and for the seniors. Again, the staff view at least and the HDL recommendation as well is that we're trying to include everyone in the coverage of the business license tax and also again on this theory that if you're doing business in the community, you should contribute towards the cost of services and the cost to maintaining the infrastructure. I think in terms of the rentals of bicycles and the hop-on, hop-on buses, in talking to HDL, what we found is some of these companies have sort of voluntarily taken out business licenses, apparently, in Sausalito already, so some of that is already covered, and so if they continue to license business, they would be under the new rates. However, we have had some back and forth, I think, with HDL and the attorney about the difficulties of enforcing these license requirements on those businesses that are not specifically based in Sausalito. So we are collecting some of that revenue, but I think, I guess it would be fair to say at this point, there's some questions in our mind about to the extent some of these businesses are not based in your community, how well that could be policed. |
| 02:16:10.15 | Mayor Cox | Aside from enforceability, do you have any issue with adding the word motor into Section 5.04.250 or any objection to including tour operator in Section 5.04.230? |
| 02:16:25.65 | Brian Mora | I don't believe the staff did. Did you have any concerns about that, Josh? No. Okay. |
| 02:16:32.76 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:16:32.78 | Mayor Cox | Thank you. |
| 02:16:32.88 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:16:33.18 | Mayor Cox | Thank you. Susan, any other questions? |
| 02:16:36.13 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Just a clarification from the city attorney. I agree with the principle of equity that was just enunciated by staff. But it is possible, is it not, for... the city council later to decrease attacks once the ballot measure has gone forward, if that was something that we wanted to consider. |
| 02:17:02.14 | Mary Wagner | Yes, so thank you, Councilmember Cleveland Knowles. The answer to your question is yes, that it's the increase or new taxes that require submittal to the voters. So if the council were to later decide to decrease a tax, that would not be something that would be required to be submitted to the voters. |
| 02:17:21.90 | Unknown | Great. Thank you. Thank you. That's very helpful. |
| 02:17:24.25 | Mayor Cox | Thank you. |
| 02:17:24.36 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:17:24.45 | Mayor Cox | Thank you. |
| 02:17:25.65 | Unknown | Any other questions, Susan? No, that's all for me. Thank you. |
| 02:17:30.12 | Mayor Cox | Other questions from council members on the dais? All right, I'm gonna open it up, Jill. |
| 02:17:38.54 | Jill Hoffman | Brian, I'm looking at the comparison charts, and I'm sorry if I missed it, but there's options, different options and models. |
| 02:17:49.24 | Brian Mora | Yes, there were in the original report. |
| 02:17:52.12 | Jill Hoffman | Okay. And then there's |
| 02:17:52.38 | Brian Mora | And then there's, in your packet, you also have what's called the addendum. |
| 02:17:56.32 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 02:17:56.34 | Brian Mora | And in the addendum, we only included the model that was recommended by the finance subcommittee. And so, and what I have done here in this first chart, what we're calling neighboring cities, the reason that's different than the one in the original |
| 02:17:56.39 | Jill Hoffman | and the |
| 02:18:03.63 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:18:13.18 | Brian Mora | HDL report is we took out all those options that you're referring to, Councilmember Hoffman, and instead we only included the proposed column. |
| 02:18:18.57 | Jonathon Goldman | Thank you. |
| 02:18:18.58 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah. |
| 02:18:24.07 | Jill Hoffman | Is the model that was chosen and recommended by the finance committee, is that explained in the staff report? Thank you. |
| 02:18:31.96 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:18:31.98 | Jill Hoffman | Someplace? Okay. Okay. Thank you. |
| 02:18:32.96 | Unknown | Mm-hmm. |
| 02:18:34.46 | Jill Hoffman | I'll go back and look at that. Thank you. Thank you. |
| 02:18:36.47 | Mayor Cox | Okay, I'm going to open it up for public comment. Who would like to comment? We are grateful to see so many of you here. |
| 02:18:46.59 | Mayor Cox | Oh, Jeff Shirash. |
| 02:18:56.50 | Jeff Shirash | Madam Mayor and City Council. I was pointing, actually, Yoshi over there, but I'm definitely happy to start things off here. He's a good one. |
| 02:19:01.80 | Mayor Cox | He's in my line of sight too. |
| 02:19:03.03 | Jeff Shirash | I'm sure he is. As you initially know, as far as the hospitality committee, as far as being in business here in Sausalito and on the Chamber Board of Directors, we were not initially thrilled with hearing the idea of raising taxes, whether it be the TOT and or business licenses. So definitely we were very against it. Yoshitome and myself, among others, did speak against it a couple weeks ago, probably a month and a half ago at this point. and since then we've had multiple communications with City Council with staff and look among others did speak against it a couple weeks ago, probably a month and a half ago at this point. And since then, we've had multiple communications with city council, with staff, and looking at ways where we can work together to reinvest in our business community here. And that's definitely an important piece in us moving forward here is a partnership within our community. I know earlier we were showing some TOT figures from other communities looking to increase their rates. If you look at those, definitely it looks like there's increasing rates, but money is being utilized in different ways. St. Helena is looking at utilizing some of their fees for workforce housing. Napa is looking at 2% going to tourism improvement. So definitely the money is going back into the community in different ways for, mostly of course for tourism, but also the workforce development, definitely helps business as well. So something just to really keep in mind. But at this time, with the reinvestment in our business community, and really working with the small independent businesses, which is known for the as far as I'm not hospitality committee being a business owner of the spinnaker also being on the chamber board as a board member you know I'm in support of raising the TOT and of course increasing the business license I think it makes sense it's something that we need do as a community, but also the partnership in giving back and reinvesting in our businesses will definitely help that small mom and pop who may be struggling on Caledonia or Bridgeway now that we need to support now and in the future when Main Street being our Bridgeway, there's going to be a downturn. We haven't hit it yet, but let's get ahead of it. And let's get ahead of those other communities who are, definitely putting a lot of tourism money in their budgets to support business, such as St. Helena, St. Escalistoga, such as Monterey. They are taking our customers away from us. We need to do something now to protect Sauce Salute and protect what we have here in town. So thank you. |
| 02:21:31.02 | Mayor Cox | Thank you so much, and thank you for meeting with members of the council and staff to better collaborate on allowing the voters to consider these measures. |
| 02:21:42.28 | Jeff Shirash | Thank you. Thank you for having us. |
| 02:21:45.01 | Mayor Cox | Yoshi. |
| 02:21:45.52 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:21:45.54 | Mayor Cox | Thank you. |
| 02:21:51.21 | Yoshi Tomei | Hi, good evening. I'm really, what Jeff said, second with him, in terms of any business owner raising taxes, why would come here to support? I've never seen like this city staff. We had a meeting with a city manager and a city council person. And a month ago, first time, approval of $50,000 line item to reinvestment business. I haven't seen like this city staff, city council, working with the business community, the same spirit, reinvestment, working together. I see, I never seen like this. I'm here, business leader over 30 years. I think we are better placed than ever before. And the hoteliers, we talk about it. What do we do, those TOT tax raise issue. Again, we work on the team together, city and the business people, clean street and traffic connection, all those things cleaned up. And then those two big hotel areas are the one, they will support that I believe you have with you. And we talk about those issues. Is a cleaner city, they are promoting to the world to become world destination city. We don't need any more bike riders. Those people coming here to spend money, stay with those expensive hotels. There is so much upgraded, and we are a better city to become. And then I do believe such a way we have a cleaner, better, wonderful place to live, and a business to do. I think it will be better for everybody. That's why we decided to do supporting TOT tax rates, and as well as I did not say in my letter, I do agree with business tax structure changes. So thank you all for working with the business community. We truly appreciate it. Thank you. |
| 02:23:53.08 | Unknown | Thank you very much. David Lake. |
| 02:23:58.85 | David Lay | I'm David Lay. You know, she is right on track. as he always is. There's always a downturn. And he says, and every time we think about it, whether it's an airplane disaster or whatever, We've had some. And that really kills the visitors in San Francisco, which then kills us. But then something at the same time happens, and that is people around the bay, 20,000 boats. those people that own those boats get on their boats and just start floating around the bay. Sausalito is the best place to come, it's right near the best sailing. And it's... a Mediterranean kind of look of the town when you come in by boat. And it has good parks, good place for kids to just mess around in their boats. And son of a gun if they don't go to all the restaurants. While people on bikes, not so much. Ice cream cones are about the limit. And same way with. People that suffer the parking things, parking problems and all that stuff, but people that get back in their boats because they don't want to get on an airplane. They're the ones that come with a family and stay for three or four days or more, stay for a week or so, do a vacation, go to Angel Island, come back again, resupply at the best store right downtown. Those are the people that we should be taking down the barbed wire from the gates, letting people come in to. |
| 02:25:29.67 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:25:29.77 | David Lay | Various little vacant spots go up the gangplank, and it's a welcoming place that has that look. But the barbed wire on the gate, that doesn't help them. And if you notice, right now there's only two foreign flags in town. When I first came here in 92, there were 14. There was two today. One of them was from Finland. And the way to go around the world now is east about, not west about in the old milk run. Alaska down to us. Thank you very much. |
| 02:26:05.28 | Mayor Cox | Thank you. If we have other commenters, if you can fill out a speaker card, please come forward. It's okay, please come forward, you can fill one out after you speak. |
| 02:26:14.00 | Katherine Streetman | I'm Katherine Streetman. I'm not a business owner, I'm just a citizen, but I'm so glad I came tonight. I never heard of the BLT, I'm feeling very educated. And it sounds like a good idea. We're behind everybody else. We just up a little bit. And when he comes in, I'm just in approval. That's my vote. |
| 02:26:32.53 | Unknown | Thank you. Peter. |
| 02:26:37.36 | Peter Van Meter | I think you heard the most important ingredient here from Yoshi and from Jeff, and that is the sharing and the reinvestment in the community. And I think it's a terrific gesture that there's significant additional funds coming out of this. But I look forward in the future to actually have that sharing be codified. I know a lot of other jurisdictions have a particular percentage of the TOT tax going to promotion of business development because it can be a self-feeding cycle. We've already talked about in our general plan update committee, for instance, having opportunities for low-impact, high-revenue-producing businesses, of which hotels have to be probably one of the best examples. And to the extent that that long-term, high-paying visitor can be promoted, perhaps in lieu of these bicycle folks that we've been talking about tonight, that investment is really important. So again, in the future, let's hope that we can actually codify that kind of sharing. Thank you. |
| 02:27:32.22 | Unknown | Thank you. David Souto. |
| 02:27:37.06 | David Sudo | This is probably the least, I'm probably the least competent to talk about this, but I saw a couple things here. And, you know, one comment I would make is that how we tax people kind of encourages, discourages those businesses from being in town. And I just was looking at, you know, the biggest one seems to be professional firms, which I'm guessing would be covered by, like, advertising companies and things like that. And I seem to have read articles about other jurisdictions who've tried to raise taxes on advertising companies, and especially for multinational companies, they find very interesting ways to reduce their exposure to taxes when they're increased in localities. So I hope we've taken that into account when we're looking at how much we think we're going to be able to raise from them, that they may shift their revenues to $1.5 million. to localities with lower taxes and they might do it very easily. Thank you. |
| 02:28:45.83 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:28:45.86 | Mayor Cox | Thank you. Any other public comment? All right, I'm going to close public comment and bring it up here for discussion. Susan, did you want to lead off? |
| 02:28:55.46 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Sure. So I'm generally very supportive of both measures. I really want to thank the Finance Committee and staff for their extensive outreach to our business community. Thank you. And I would really like to let the business community know that I greatly appreciate all of the communications that we've received this week and for their openness to supporting both these measures. And I, for one, I am very interested in reinvesting in the business community and encouraging the small independent businesses that make our town I'm you know, thrive and be so unique. On the BLT specifically, I In addition to the revenue opportunities, I am really glad that we are streamlining our ordinance and that we have a higher principle of equity and are more in line with other towns that have also modernized their ordinances. So I think that that, if approved by the voters, a big benefit all around. Um, I think those are my main comments. But I do want to thank staff for the extensive work on this in a short amount of time. I think we've come a long way. and a lot of my initial concerns and questions have been answered. |
| 02:30:18.88 | Mayor Cox | Did you want to comment on the Tom Theodorus proposed amendments? |
| 02:30:23.80 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Yes, I am in favor of adding the... motor, you know, the two tour operator and motor to the sections that Tom recommended. And in terms of going to the ballot, I would prefer to keep our options open and have the tax apply equally, but reserve the ability by ordinance to exempt or decrease certain segments of the community if we decide that that's warranted. |
| 02:30:58.85 | Unknown | Thank you. JOKE. |
| 02:31:00.27 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 02:31:04.10 | Jill Hoffman | Well, thanks for all of the hard work from the finance director and her staff, which I think is herself and Brian. It's nice work. I mean, this is a really elegant and complicated budget that we passed this year. And I think Ray said in the past, it's finely tuned and has some risk in it, but I think these are good measures and in our effort to simplify and become more efficient, I think this is a really great stride toward that. And making it more equitable amongst the players, and so the players know what the field is. I mean, that's really important too. So I think this is, I'm in favor of this and I think the council member Cleveland Knowles comment how this might affect us with regard to other communities. I think it makes us fair with other communities, but it also makes us a whole lot cheaper than our closest neighbor, which is San Francisco, or at least one of our closest neighbors. So for San Francisco businesses who are looking for a little bit more cost efficient place to have a business, Sausalito is a great place. The 92 comes here, right here. So, the 92 bus. Yes. |
| 02:32:29.64 | Unknown | Yes. So. |
| 02:32:30.68 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 02:32:32.39 | Unknown | Right. |
| 02:32:34.09 | Councilmember Withey | Thank you. So let me first of all thank the staff and Council Member Hoffman is quite right. This was a lot and Council Member Cleveland-Knowles are quite right. This was a lot of work from staff here to pull this together. So and it's the product that's been produced, I... Um, Unreservedly support. I think it's very well done and I totally support it. I want to make a comment about the fact that one of the things I find the most encouraging is that we have I think laid the foundation over the last time period that we're now just beginning to see come to fruition. Of a real understanding in both the business community and the city council and the staff and those who work and think about these things that there's a lot more that the business community and the city can do together. It's really important. And what we can do together importantly are things that can't be done alone. And so what we need to do when we're talking about reinvestment is to make sure that what we're doing creates a synergy so that one plus one equals three. And that's we have an opportunity to do it, but the business community understands that. And we have a great dialogue with the council and the city generally. When I first ran in 2012, I remember just as I kicked off my campaign, I had really my first substantive meeting with Una Kavanaugh, who was then the CEO of the chamber. I then had many, many meetings with her. But in that first meeting, we ended up talking for about two and a half hours. and it wasn't only me doing all the talking, that... Why is it that we have apparently this disconnect between residents or the appearance was residents in the business community or the city council in the business community. And realized that it was gonna take time for that dialogue to get going again in a productive way. And we've had some ups and downs. I am extremely encouraged. by the state of play today. I think that there's lots and lots that we can do if we find those things only that we can do. That can't be done unless we do it together. That's the most useful thing that this partnership can create. In terms of generally, more abstractly, in terms of the budget, yeah, it's fairly finely tuned, the budget that we passed. And it's, yeah, there's some risk in it. There's no question there's risk in it. But with these revenue measures, what this does is create a lot of space whereby we can, even though decisions about allocation of resources are always going to be difficult, we've got room here to be able to make some bolder decisions because we've got a bigger universe of revenue to play in. And so the revenue streams are getting more in balance because sales tax is leveling off and potentially going down. There's a structural issue in the sales tax. And so to be able to see a more balanced revenue stream is actually very healthy and de-risking for the city. So, again, I'm fully supportive here. |
| 02:37:01.23 | Vice Mayor Burns | job. |
| 02:37:01.51 | Mayor Cox | Thank you. |
| 02:37:02.47 | Vice Mayor Burns | I will first agree with the comments about how hard staff worked on this. We got to see it firsthand in the last moments from finance meeting till this meeting with watching staff enact all the reports into coalescence and meeting with the business community and getting these numbers put together for us but also for something that's going forth into a ballot initiative it was a tremendous amount of work and it was work well done because it it it means a lot and it's so important to where we're going and And I'm so glad that the speaker who spoke this evening touched on this with the reinvestment. The gains that we'll receive from this are wonderful in a short term. In that long term picture that we've looked at in our budget, |
| 02:37:54.09 | Unknown | THE FAMILY IS |
| 02:38:04.17 | Vice Mayor Burns | everything. But they give us the great opportunity to create programs and managing our tourism in a way that we can create revenue to cover those shortfalls that could occur possibly in the long term future. And that really is a brave step. And I said at one point that it's going to take courage to do some of this, and it's going to take courage to look at going after a style of tourist when for so many years we were running from the tourists and we didn't want to see more tourists. And that passivity caused us to have a tourist that has very little money into the till. And there's a lot of history and there's a lot of proven track record of abilities to have a lower body count and more money in the till. And we have the opportunity to start looking at those styles and those programs and kind of reinvent how we interact with our tourists and what we offer our tourists and how we can provide more and get a lot more and cover those. So this is a huge step in our overall budget and I'm glad that the community gets to discuss it and choose it. And choose it based on some very good merits of what this means in a long term for our community. I applaud the business community for seeing that, for being a partner in this, and seeing that this is a long-term solution to their business as well. So thank you to everybody in the staff and in business community and people that worked on this. I look forward to the discussion we'll have as a community in the next couple months. |
| 02:39:45.94 | Mayor Cox | All right, thanks. I also want to give some thanks. I want to thank the numerous members of our business community who made themselves available for dialogue and collaboration on these important measures. Jeff Shirash, the Chamber of Commerce, Yoshi Tomei, the Hospitality Committee, Mark Faraddy, Carmen Cruz, and Bruce Huff. I want to thank the members of the Finance committee, including Keith Kennedy sitting in the back, for their efforts in sorting through the minutia to ensure these ballot measures were simple, clear, and appropriate. I want to say thank you to the staff and the consultants for distilling complex information and creating resolutions that make sense. I appreciate the Vice Mayor's commitment to making a greater investment in the business community, something that we've really been able to take up the mantle and run with. Ultimately, our decision is simple because all we have to decide is whether or not to put these measures on the ballot and place this decision in front of the voters. So for that reason, I appreciate that the BLT has the potential to streamline, simplify, and modernize our existing ordinance, and that the TOT appears consistent with direction numerous other municipalities are taking. I endorse the additions of the word motor into section 5.04.250 and the words tour operator into category one, Thank you. in section 5.04.230. And I agree with Councilmember Cleveland Knowles that we should keep our options open by applying the tax equally. with the ability to revisit an exemption or decrease the tax for certain segments of the population at a future date. if appropriate. And so with that, I have the pleasure of Um, Go ahead, Liz. Madam Mayor, I apologize. |
| 02:41:35.97 | Mary Wagner | Madam Mayor, I apologize for interrupting. May I ask a question of clarification on the first revision you directed to the ordinance, which is to section 504-250A is my understanding that we're deleting the word motor. |
| 02:41:48.77 | Mayor Cox | Yes, deleting the word motor. Thank you. From the first paragraphs of section A. Thank you. Okay. And we're adding the word tour operator to category one. not category three, I think it belongs in category one of section 5.04.23. Okay, so I move that we introduce, give first reading and read by title only an ordinance of the City Council of the City of Sausalito, amending section 13, sorry, 3.12.030 of the Sausalito Municipal Code to increase occupancy tax, hotel tax by 2%. And adopt a resolution of the City Council of the City of Sausalito establishing November 6, 2018, as the date for municipal election on a proposed ballot measure seeking voter approval to increase the city's existing transient occupancy tax for general fund purposes by 2% establishing policies and procedures in connection with such an election and requesting that the Marin County Registrar voters conduct such an election and requesting that the city attorney prepare and file an impartial analysis of the proposed ballot measure. |
| 02:42:55.90 | Councilmember Withey | Second. |
| 02:42:57.52 | Mayor Cox | Debbie, will you call the roll? |
| 02:43:02.30 | Debbie | Councilmember Cleveland Knowles |
| 02:43:07.72 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Yes. |
| 02:43:08.19 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 02:43:08.83 | Debbie | Council Member Whitty? |
| 02:43:10.03 | Councilmember Withey | Yeah. you |
| 02:43:10.30 | Debbie | Councilmember Hoffman? Yes. |
| 02:43:11.93 | Mayor Cox | Yes. |
| 02:43:12.76 | Debbie | Vice Mayor Burns? Yes. Mayor Cox? |
| 02:43:13.81 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 02:43:13.83 | Mayor Cox | Yeah. |
| 02:43:13.91 | Councilmember Withey | Thank you. |
| 02:43:14.01 | Mayor Cox | I'm going to go. |
| 02:43:14.03 | Councilmember Withey | Yes. |
| 02:43:15.21 | Mayor Cox | Yes, that motion carries 5-0. Next, I move, we introduce and read by title only an ordinance of the City Council of the City of Sausalito amending chapter 5.04, business licenses of the Sausalito Municipal Code to streamline, simplify, and update the business license tax ordinance of the city of Sausalito with the amendments previously enunciated to sections 5.04.250 and 5.04.230. And that we adopt a resolution of the City Council of the City of Sausalito establishing November 6th, 2018. As the date for a municipal election on a proposed ballot measure seeking voter authorization to amend the city's existing business license tax for general fund purposes. Establishing policies and procedures in connection with such an election. Requesting that the Marin County Registrar voters conduct such an election and requesting. that can't. that the city attorney prepare and file an impartial analysis of the proposed ballot measure. |
| 02:44:19.39 | Vice Mayor Burns | you |
| 02:44:19.92 | Mayor Cox | I said the changes. |
| 02:44:22.62 | Vice Mayor Burns | SECOND. |
| 02:44:24.01 | Mayor Cox | Debbie, will you please call the roll? |
| 02:44:29.21 | Debbie | Councilmember Cleveland knows. |
| 02:44:31.48 | Mayor Cox | Yes. |
| 02:44:31.92 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 02:44:32.33 | Debbie | Councilmember Withey. |
| 02:44:33.71 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Yes. |
| 02:44:34.91 | Debbie | Council member Hoffman? |
| 02:44:36.04 | Mayor Cox | Yes. |
| 02:44:36.63 | Debbie | Vice Mayor Burns? Yes. Mayor Cox? |
| 02:44:37.73 | Mayor Cox | Yes. Yes, that motion carries 5-0. Thank you to everyone, greatly appreciate it. |
| 02:44:46.13 | Adam Politzer | Yeah, we're going to take a five minute break. Mayor Cox, just before your five minute break, I just want to take a moment. I know this is unorthodox, but Melanie Purcell, our administrative services director. This is her last day, just wanted to give thanks to Melanie. Working with the city, this is our last council meeting, her last sale will be in two weeks. But I just wanted to take a moment, this effort from the budget to tonight, wanted to make sure we give her a special recognition. Thank you. All right, thank you. |
| 02:45:12.71 | Unknown | All right, thank you, and thank you to Melanie. |
| 02:45:19.46 | Mayor Cox | All right, we will resume in five minutes. |
| 02:45:32.44 | Mayor Cox | Welcome back, sorry we took five minutes longer. Our next item is item 5B, 27 Central Avenue, Appeal of Planning Commission Decision to Overturn Zoning Permit from Deck Construction. Um, Point of clarification. We had a request from. Let me get my notes here. |
| 02:46:09.86 | Mayor Cox | We had a request that the neighbor who originally appealed the 27 Central Project, have the same amount of time as the a pellet this evening. And so, um, Both the applicant and slash appellant and the neighbor will have ten minutes to present and five minutes to rebut. |
| 02:46:39.57 | Unknown | Mayor Cox. |
| 02:46:40.41 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thanks. |
| 02:46:41.18 | Mayor Cox | Thank you. |
| 02:46:41.22 | Katherine Streetman | Thank you. |
| 02:46:41.24 | Mayor Cox | Yes. |
| 02:46:41.66 | Katherine Streetman | Thank you. |
| 02:46:42.64 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:46:42.65 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | This is Susan. I was informed... that I am within 500 feet of this property. So unfortunately, after reviewing all the materials, I will need to recuse myself from this item. |
| 02:46:58.38 | Mayor Cox | All right. Well, are we then going to say good evening to you? |
| 02:47:02.41 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | I think you will. I have, yes, I think you will. I have no committee reports. Okay. Okay. |
| 02:47:02.77 | Mayor Cox | Thank you. |
| 02:47:09.23 | Mayor Cox | All right, well thank you for making the effort to join us. It was really important, I think, that we had all of us participating in this evening's decisions. So thank you very much and enjoy your trip and we will see you when you get back. Thank you. |
| 02:47:21.21 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Absolutely. Thank you very much. |
| 02:47:23.00 | Mayor Cox | Ciao, Bella. |
| 02:47:25.85 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Arrivederci. |
| 02:47:26.95 | Mayor Cox | Thank you. |
| 02:47:30.44 | Mayor Cox | All right. So I'm going to invite to the podium David Chersonoff. for the staff presentation. |
| 02:47:39.44 | David Chersonoff | Thank you, Madam Mayor. I am David Chersenoff, the assistant planner in the city's community development department. Tonight's item is the City Council's consideration of an appeal of a planning commission decision to overturn the zoning permit for an expansion of a second floor deck at 27 Central Avenue. To set the stage, the parties involved in this appeal are the applicant of the zoning permit and the appellant for tonight's item, Miss Mika Stefani, the property owner for 27 Central Avenue. Also in attendance is her neighbor at the property owner of 31 Central Avenue, Miss Heather Wiles. |
| 02:48:22.33 | David Chersonoff | The options for the City Council tonight are to consider the merits of the appeal and to adopt a resolution either upholding the appeal that has been provided or to deny the appeal of the Planning Commission's decision. |
| 02:48:40.46 | David Chersonoff | Just to provide a brief summary of the project history, in May of 2017, a zoning permit, ZP17-146, was approved at 27 Central Avenue for the 130 square foot extension of an existing second floor deck and for the addition of a roof cover. This deck is located on the east elevation of what is a duplex structure. And you can see a photograph in the upper left-hand corner of this slide showing the construction of the proposed deck. In November of last year, the neighbor at 31 Central Avenue, Ms. Wiles, filed an appeal of the zoning permit decision on the grounds that the project impacts her views of the San Francisco skyline from her residence. You can see in the lower left hand corner of the slide of the vicinity map showing 27 Central Avenue highlighted in red. And the neighbor at 31 Central Avenue highlighted in blue. Two planning commission meetings were held in March and April of this year, which resulted in the planning commission's adoption of resolution 2018-12. The planning commission upheld Ms. Wiles' appeal and overturned staff's decision to approve the zoning permit. Subsequently after, Miss Stefani, the deck owner, appealed the planning commission's decision, citing five grounds for the appeal, and that's why we're here tonight. |
| 02:50:14.30 | David Chersonoff | So on May 15th of last year, the Community Development Department approved the zoning permit for the deck's extension and for the addition of the roof cover. An assessment was made at the time on views from neighboring properties, primarily using aerial and street view photos of both the property and the neighborhood. The zoning permit was given a posting date the following day on May 16th and subsequently a building permit for the zoning permit scope of work was issued on July 6th of last year. |
| 02:50:49.99 | David Chersonoff | In order to provide a visualization of what the deck looked like prior to the construction, staff has provided a few shade diagrams superimposed over the project plans. Shown here is the plan view of the deck. The old footprint is highlighted in blue, showing approximately 150 square foot footprint. Highlighted in green is the 130 square foot extension of the footprint of the deck. And outlined in a dashed red outline is showing where a roof was added over the deck. Shown here is a second shade diagram provided by staff. Again, this is showing the east elevation of the deck as seen from Central Avenue. You will see the old footprint highlighted in blue and then the extended portion highlighted in green. |
| 02:51:48.53 | David Chersonoff | And lastly, a shade diagram over the north elevation. And this is the view that is most directly viewed from the neighbor at 31 Central Avenue. |
| 02:52:00.53 | Jill Hoffman | David, can I ask you a question? That's a view from 31 Central, but it's true that Is the blue part that's shaded there Is that the new part too? I mean, it looks on the prior diagram that it was extended closer to 31 Central as well. |
| 02:52:19.82 | David Chersonoff | It was extended closer. The difficulty with, or the limitation with the shade diagram is that it's basically showing from an elevation perspective. So if you were looking directly at the deck, you would have seen this profile of the deck because it did extend horizontally towards the neighbor. |
| 02:52:25.47 | Jill Hoffman | Is that it? |
| 02:52:28.76 | Unknown | Okay, got it. |
| 02:52:34.14 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:52:34.16 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:52:34.18 | Jill Hoffman | So... |
| 02:52:39.73 | Jill Hoffman | Okay. How many, and that was five feet or something? |
| 02:52:45.36 | David Chersonoff | The extension is approximately 10 and 1 1 |
| 02:52:48.79 | Vice Mayor Burns | I was actually going to question that same thing I had on my list. I was going to say maybe green slanted boxes or something on it to show that it is not either one of the two on the north elevation. So it could have been a splash box. you know. Yeah. |
| 02:53:03.77 | David Chersonoff | Thank you. |
| 02:53:09.34 | David Chersonoff | On July 20th of last year, Miss Wiles visited the Community Development Department in order to object to the, or claiming that there was, that the deck's construction, which she was observing at that point, was obstructing views of her, views of the San Francisco skyline from her residence. Shown here is a photo of her residence as seen from the deck at 27 Central Avenue. Ms. Wiles also claimed that she never saw a notice of an approved zoning permit posted at the property back in May of last year. |
| 02:53:46.17 | David Chersonoff | To provide a background on this document, a notice of approved zoning permit is a sign that is posted at the front of a property for a period of 10 days following the Community Development Department's decision to approve a zoning permit. The contents of this notice include the decision date, the posting date, the appeal end date, and information to the community that an appeal may be filed by the appeal end date, which is what constitutes a 10-day appeal period which is afforded to the community for all zoning permit decisions. Staff did prepare a notice of approved zoning permit for ZP 17-146. However, evidence of the notices posting was not found in the city's project file at the time that Ms. Wiles came in with her concerns. |
| 02:54:34.58 | David Chersonoff | On July 24th, staff issued a stop work order on the building permit in order to give the community development department time to investigate Ms. Wells' claims. Staff paid multiple visits to the site on July 27th, July 31st, and August 29th in order to investigate the claim of the view obstructions. Shown in the photo here are where photos were taken from staff from several primary living areas at 31 Central Avenue. |
| 02:55:07.10 | David Chersonoff | Without making a determination on the view obstruction, the stop work order was lifted on August 7th. After receiving a petition on October 18th from neighbors of 27 Central Avenue, claiming that the zoning permit was not posted in the May 2017 timeframe, staff evaluated if in fact the zoning permit had been posted by staff pursuant to the community development department's procedures for zoning permit notifications. |
| 02:55:35.01 | David Chersonoff | Shown here is one such photo that was taken during this time period. |
| 02:55:47.11 | David Chersonoff | Due to a lack of evidence in the city's project file that a notice of approved zoning permit was posted at the project site following the decision date, staff posted a notice on November 29th of 2017 in order to ensure that the appeal right was maintained for the community. The two photos shown here are the posting on November 29th. |
| 02:56:13.35 | David Chersonoff | Ms. Wiles filed a timely appeal of the Community Development Department's decision on December 5th following this zoning permit noticing. Subsequently, the Planning Commission held two public appeal hearings on March 7th of 2018 and April 11th of 2018. where all interested persons were heard. On April 11th, the Planning Commission unanimously voted 5-0 to uphold the appeal filed by Ms. Wiles, effectively overturning the Community Development Department's decision to approve the zoning permit. The basis of the Planning Commission's decision was that the extended deck and the addition of a roof cover presented a potential for view impact from multiple primary viewing areas of Ms. Wells' residence. The Sausalito Zoning Ordinance requires that projects for any duplex residences which have the potential to impair views from other properties shall obtain a design review permit. Following the Planning Commission's decision, Ms. Stefani was given the options of either filing a design review permit application pursuant to the Planning Commission's upheld appeal, or to remove the improvements made to the deck under the zoning permit. Ms. Stefani filed a timely appeal of the Planning Commission's decision nine days later on April 20th. |
| 02:57:33.29 | David Chersonoff | Ms. Stefani provided four grounds for appeal in her original appeal form on April 20th, and then further supplemented with a fifth ground for appeal on July 23rd in a supplemental memo. Staff will go over each ground for appeal in detail and provide a response to each ground, but to summarize the five grounds. Ground number one, Ms. Stefani claims that there is no view impact and that panoramic views were not considered by the Planning Commission. Ground number two states that the goal of the hearing was not addressed as outlined by City Attorney Mary Wagner at the first Planning Commission hearing. Ground number three states that the decision was based on subjective unconventional opinions. Ground number four claims that the Planning Commission was biased due to Ms. Wiles' appointment to the Historic Landmarks Board earlier this year. And finally, the fifth ground of appeal claims that the Planning Commission resolution is not valid as the appeal rights for the zoning permit were administered from May 16th to May 26th of last year by Ms. Stefani herself. |
| 02:58:43.25 | Councilmember Withey | Could you go back to that last slide? Your last point needs a little bit of clarification for me, or basically I don't understand what it means. |
| 02:58:53.14 | David Chersonoff | So staff will further detail this in some later slides, but Ms. Okay, that's fine. Okay, that's fine. |
| 02:59:15.06 | David Chersonoff | So staff will cite each of the grounds as they were written by the appellant. Ground number one states that we maintain that the applicant's deck expansion has no impact on a primary view seen from the appellant's primary viewing area. It has minimal impact on the applicant's overall panoramic view as stated in case 2011. And the appellant cites two excerpts from the meeting minutes of a former design review application back in 2011. stuff. |
| 02:59:46.85 | Mayor Cox | Regarding that same address. |
| 02:59:49.33 | David Chersonoff | Thank you. Yes, it was a retroactive application at the same address. |
| 02:59:54.50 | Vice Mayor Burns | Thank you. Thank you. Can you go back? The Appellant's deck expansion. had minimal impact on the applicant's deck expansion had minimal impact on the applicant's overall panoramic view. Is that what I'm seeing? Okay. |
| 03:00:11.57 | David Chersonoff | I'm seeing, okay. Yeah, this was verbatim from the appellant's metmode. |
| 03:00:18.05 | Mayor Cox | So just to be clear, the excerpts are from a 2011 hearing regarding that property, but a different application entirely from what is before us now. |
| 03:00:28.80 | David Chersonoff | It was a different project. It was similar in scope in terms of a deck extension. At that time it was a completely different property owner and there was no roof cover that was involved. |
| 03:00:38.64 | Mayor Cox | And so for purposes of disclosure, I will disclose, I was on the Planning Commission at that time and hear that matter, but that has nothing to do with the matter before us this evening. Thank you. |
| 03:00:50.93 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:00:51.03 | Mayor Cox | Thank you. |
| 03:00:53.73 | David Chersonoff | So staff would like to go over a few of the definitions in the zoning ordinance, which pertain to this claim, to this ground for appeal. The zoning ordinance defines a primary view as any view distance from primary viewing areas of a dwelling, such as the living room, the dining room, the kitchen, master bedroom, or deck and patio spaces serving such living areas. Secondary views are defined from bathrooms, accessory bedrooms, passageways, and utility areas. Furthermore, a view is defined as a view of any one of various visual landmarks that can be seen from properties in the city of Sausalito, including the city of San Francisco, and that the term view does not mean an unobstructed panorama of any of the features that are mentioned in the definition. Staff would like to also call attention to the trigger for design review being found in section 1054.50 where design review permits shall be required for projects for duplex residences that have the potential to impair views from other properties. |
| 03:02:08.28 | David Chersonoff | The Planning Commission was provided with photographs taken by staff, by Ms. Stefani and by Ms. Wiles, which were included either as exhibits to the two Planning Commission staff reports or as late mail items. Furthermore, the Planning Commission was afforded the opportunity to visit both properties to assess the degree of the view impairment firsthand. Based on this evidence, the Planning Commission unanimously voted to overturn the zoning permit decision on the basis that the expanded portion of the appellant's deck bears the potential for view impact, which is a design review trigger. |
| 03:02:46.91 | David Chersonoff | Staff contends that the excerpted comments from the two Planning Commission meetings in 2011 bear no relevance to an impact determination for the current project. |
| 03:03:03.93 | David Chersonoff | Ground number two states that the objective goals of the hearing, as stated by City Attorney Mary Wagner, were not addressed. Ms. Wagner, about two hours into the first Planning Commission meeting, responded to one of the Planning Commissioners stating, in order to provide guidance for the scope of the meeting, as you are sitting in the place of the planner who was at the counter when this application came in, should the application for the zoning permit have triggered a design review or not that is a direct quote provided in that meeting by Miss Wagner. Planning Commission resolution 2018-12 states that the Planning Commission overturns the decision of the Community Development Department to approve a zoning permit application on the basis that the project has the potential to impair views from other properties, which requires that it undergo design review pursuant to the cited zoning code trigger. Staff disagrees with the assertion made by Ms. Stefani. The planning commission did assess the merits of the zoning permit application as if they were at the counter. and determine that based on the potential for view impact that it would ever triggered design review. |
| 03:04:16.68 | Councilmember Withey | Yeah, my question perhaps for the city attorney is, and is that what we're deciding tonight, that the We're putting ourselves in the place of the planner at the counter when the application came in and determining whether this should have triggered a design review. |
| 03:04:37.62 | Mary Wagner | Correct. |
| 03:04:37.96 | Councilmember Withey | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 03:04:44.05 | David Chersonoff | Ground number three in the appeal form states that during the last hearing, only subjective, unconventional opinions prevailed. View obstructions are inherently less quantifiable than other zoning standards, such as setback distances, heights, floor area. Therefore view impact assessments are treated on a case by case basis and they can be subject to different protocols or methods of measurement. The planning commission used photographs, site visits, and public testimony in their two public hearings in order to make a determination on the potential for view impact. Staff finds that the manner and the level of Planning Commission review was sufficient for its determination on a potential for view impact. |
| 03:05:25.52 | David Chersonoff | Ground number four, Ms. Stefani states that the appellant is a member of a closely related board, and then she provides a meeting minutes showing such, which created potential conflict of interest and should not receive special privileges. Staff's response to that, well, Ms. Wiles was appointed to the Historic Landmarks Board on February 14th of this year. However, the HLB has no jurisdiction over the Planning Commission's decision, nor did it have jurisdiction over the underlying zoning permit. Ms. Wiles is participating in these appeal procedures as a property owner and as a resident of the city. And staff finds that Ms. Wiles has not received any special privileges as part of her appointment to the HLB. |
| 03:06:12.93 | David Chersonoff | Staff will read the last round for appeal, which is a bit lengthier, but basically Ms. Stefani states, the late filed neighbor appeal was allowed based on a mistake by the CDD staff regarding the posting of the required notice of approved zoning permit. The notice was timely and properly posted in accordance with the Sausalito Municipal Code, and the appeal period expired on May 26th of 2017, approximately six months prior to the filing of the neighbor's appeal. In this submission and at the hearing, the Stefanis provided uncontroverted evidence that the required notice was posted on May 26th, 2017, effectively invalidating the neighbor's appeal filed on December 5th, 2017. |
| 03:07:01.82 | David Chersonoff | So to go into more detail on that point, on July 20th of 2017, Ms. Wiles, as stated before, came in to express concern about the about the DEX extension and the lack of or not noticing a notice of approved zoning permit in May of 2017. The Community Development Department's procedure for zoning permit notification is to print the zoning permit on a yellow sheet of paper to laminate that yellow zoning permit, to retain laminated yellow zoning permits until they are posted on their posting dates. A white photocopy of these zoning permits are retained in the city's project files, and staff will take a photograph of the posted zoning permit in order to document that the zoning permit was publicly noticed. As mentioned earlier, staff was unable to locate this photographic evidence in the city's file. That posted notice was posted at the property on May 16th, the day of the posting. |
| 03:08:07.19 | David Chersonoff | On page six of Ms. Stefani's supplemental memo, she argues through a constructed chronology of 19 events and seven corresponding exhibits that she posted the notice of approved zoning permit on her property in accordance with the zoning ordinance's procedures. Staff maintains that Ms. Stefani's account of project events, which support her assertion, do not correspond with staff's accounts of events. And suggests that they do not conform with the Community Development Department's procedure for zoning permit notification. So to pull out the relevant chronological events that were provided in her memo. On May 15th, Ms. Stefani asserts that the Community Development Department issued a zoning permit. Ms. Stefani then asked Planner Chersenoff if she should take the sign and post it at her property. Mr. Chersenoff responded that he would personally post the sign later that day on May 15th, 2017. |
| 03:09:14.17 | David Chersonoff | Then the next day on May 16th, Ms. Stefani claims that she finds the notice in the Community Development Department's file for 27 Central Avenue. She picks it up and personally posts it on the morning of May 16th, 2017. She used orange tape to tape the notice to the white post at the bottom of the stairs at her property. Ten days later, on May 26, 2017, the appeal end date, Ms. Stefani claims that she personally takes a photograph of the posted notice to show that it remained posted after ten days from May 16, 2017. And the photograph that she took is shown in the lower right-hand corner. |
| 03:09:57.68 | David Chersonoff | Ms. Stefani's account has changed with the submitted supplemental memo on July 23rd. Staff contends that Ms. Stefani has denied posting the zoning permit when asked by staff when the photo was not found in the city's file. Shown here is a July 25th email correspondence with Ms. Stefani, where Planner Chersenoff asked her if she posted the zoning permit herself after providing the photograph to the Community Development Department. He then asked, if so, how did you obtain a copy and when did you post it? Ms. Stefani's response was, I was told the sign would be up that same evening. Next day it was stapled to my post and I put some bright orange tape on it to draw attention to it. This corresponds with verbal accounts of Ms. Stefani denying posting the zoning permit herself, but claiming that the bright orange tape was placed by her to call more attention to the zoning permit. That is a relevant fact in the sense that the Community Development Department does not use the color tape shown in the photo here to post zoning permits. The community development department uses blue painter's tape or yellow duct tape, but not this color tape. |
| 03:11:21.39 | David Chersonoff | In chronology event 11 in Ms. Stefani's memo, she states on July 28th of last year that after determining from Planner Chursinoff that the Community Development Department had no record in its file that the notice had been properly posted at the property, Ms. Stefani emails on May 26th a photograph to Mr. Chursinoff showing the posted notice, the photograph that you've seen. Ms. Stefani provided this photograph in several forms. The first time was embedded within a PDF, and the second time was embedded within the body of an email. Staff was unable to determine when this photograph was taken, given the forms that it was provided to the Community Development Department. Essentially, a time stamp was not able to be reviewed in the forms that the image was given. So on multiple occasions, Planner Chersenoff requested that Ms. Stefani provide the original JPEG image to see if it could be used to make a determination that the committee was given its due appeal rights. Shown here is an email correspondence between Planner Chersenoff and Ms. Stefani on August 17th, where Planner Chersenoff asked Ms. Stefani to provide the original JPEG files of the photos that she emailed to him. This was expressed for the purposes of confirming by timestamp when the photos were taken. Ms. Stefani's response to this email was, since the case was closed, I deleted all those photos, including the ones I took when the flyer was posted the day after the zoning permit was issued. Planner Chersonoff responded a week later, again asking that Ms. Defani provide the original photo, the original JPEG image of the photo that she provided. Her response to Planner Chersonoff was, I cannot find the picture anymore. I delete hundreds of pictures and obsolete information by regularly emptying my trash. |
| 03:13:28.70 | David Chersonoff | Staff made the decision to post a notice of approved zoning permit for the project on November 29th of 2017 in order to ensure that the appeal rights of the community were preserved. This decision was made due to staff not being able to confirm with time stamped evidence that a notice of approved permit was posted at the project site following the May 15th zoning permit approval. |
| 03:13:58.23 | David Chersonoff | On December 7th of 2017, Planner Chersenoff informs Miss Stefani that Heather Wiles had filed an appeal based on the November 29th posting of the zoning permit. And the following day on December 8th, Miss Stefani responded back with a screenshot of a timestamp of the image or one of the images, despite claiming that the photos were somehow deleted from her computer. |
| 03:14:31.49 | Unknown | Can you go back to that? |
| 03:14:32.57 | David Chersonoff | Yeah. |
| 03:14:38.56 | David Chersonoff | The date on the timestamp reads May 26th of 2017. This was the appeal end date for the zoning permit. |
| 03:14:59.17 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:15:02.71 | David Chersonoff | Sausalito Municipal Code Section 108410A3, Decisions on Zoning Permits or Administrative Design Review Permits, states that an administrative decision regarding a zoning permit shall be prominently posted on the project site by the applicant within 24 hours of the decision and shall remain posted for a period of 10 days. Ms. Stefani is claiming through her constructed chronology of events that the notice of approved zoning permit was posted by herself after finding it in the city's project file on May 16th of 2017. By posting the zoning permit the day after it was approved, Ms. Stefani argues that the project was properly noticed in May of 2017 pursuant to what is stated in the city's zoning code. |
| 03:15:50.41 | David Chersonoff | Due to property owners not following the procedure outlined in the aforementioned code section, the Community Development Department has followed an established policy of having staff post the zoning permits and retaining photographic evidence of these posted zoning permits. Ms. Stefani acknowledges being told by staff that the Community Development Department would post the notice in chronology event two of her supplemental memo, which conforms with the Community development department's established noticing policy. After denying posting the zoning permit herself, Ms. Stefani provided photographic evidence taken by herself that the notice of approved zoning permit was posted at some point in time. Staff did not find the photographic evidence sufficient in the forms that it was provided to make a determination that appeal rights were maintained. Ms. Stefani failed to provide follow-up information requested by staff on multiple occasions in order for staff to determine if the photograph was sufficient to verify that appeal rights were maintained. Staff determined that there was not sufficient evidence in the city's possession to verify that the community was provided its due appeal rights for the zoning permit. In order to ensure that the community was given its due appeal rights, staff posted the notice of approved zoning permit on November 29th, six months after the approval date. from which Ms. Wiles filed an appeal in a timely manner. Staff also notes that if Ms. Stefani's screenshot of a timestamp were to be determined as valid evidence, it would only verify that the notice was posted on the appeals end date, May 26th, not within 24 hours of staff's decision on May 16th. |
| 03:17:36.64 | David Chersonoff | Staff recommends that the City Council adopt a draft resolution denying the appeal to overturn the Planning Commission's decision. If the appeal is denied by the city council, the appellant will have two options to pursue. Either remove the improvements made to her deck under the zoning permit, or to apply for a design review permit pursuant to the planning commission's decision. Alternatives for the City Council to take tonight, of course, are to direct staff to return to the City Council with a resolution upholding Ms. Stefani's appeal to overturn the Planning Commission's decision. This would reinstate the zoning permit and permit the deck as it is under Zoning Permit 17146 or the City Council can continue the hearing for more information. This concludes staff's presentation. I'm available for questions. |
| 03:18:30.10 | Mayor Cox | I have a question for the city attorney. So since the timeliness of the appeal goes to the ability to even hear the appeal, do you want us to make findings both on the timeliness of the appeal and the merit of the appeal? |
| 03:18:51.77 | Mary Wagner | you |
| 03:18:52.01 | Mayor Cox | Thank you. |
| 03:19:03.85 | Unknown | Yes, please. |
| 03:19:08.46 | Councilmember Withey | What would you, when you say that you could find no evidence, that the notice was posted Thank you. what form of evidence do you normally gather? I'm really confused about this noticing thing, I gotta say. |
| 03:19:34.77 | Mayor Cox | So you did not have the white photocopy in the city's project file of the yellow posted notice. |
| 03:19:43.90 | David Chersonoff | No, there was not a white photocopy in the city's public file, but in terms of the evidence of the posted zoning permit, staff will post the zoning permit, take a photograph from multiple vantage points once the staff does the posting on the posting date, and then those photographs are retained in the city's digital files. So that basically proves that the zoning permit was posted at the project site on the posting dates. When Ms. Wiles initially came in with her concerns, staff was not able to locate photographs in the city's digital files of the posted zoning permits. |
| 03:20:25.85 | Councilmember Withey | But to use your argument backwards, that would only prove that it was posted on May 16th. |
| 03:20:32.99 | David Chersonoff | Correct, the photographs only prove that staff post the zoning permits on the posting date. |
| 03:20:40.12 | Mayor Cox | And... posting the zoning permit documenting the notice on May 26 would not be a timely posting. Is that right? |
| 03:20:53.73 | David Chersonoff | Not according to the zoning code section that the appellant cites, which is that the applicant shall post a zoning permit within 24 hours. Staff was merely noting that the photograph doesn't prove it was posted on the posting date. It proves that it was posted if found valid on the PLN date. |
| 03:21:14.97 | Vice Mayor Burns | I'll ask, do you remember posting on May 16th? |
| 03:21:18.97 | David Chersonoff | you No, I don't remember posting on this property and all planners within the community development department were asked and no one could specifically recall posting on this date at this property. |
| 03:21:30.61 | Mayor Cox | Have you visited this property? |
| 03:21:32.52 | David Chersonoff | Multiple times. |
| 03:21:33.45 | Mayor Cox | And this is a pretty challenging property. |
| 03:21:36.82 | David Chersonoff | It's very unique. |
| 03:21:38.56 | Mayor Cox | And had you posted the notice, where would you have posted it? |
| 03:21:42.73 | David Chersonoff | I would have posted it where I posted the November 29th posting, which was on the white stair banister, on the white stair railing. |
| 03:21:51.54 | Mayor Cox | At the bottom of the, at the Central Avenue, at the bottom where the driveway is? |
| 03:21:57.06 | David Chersonoff | Correct. Staff's procedure is to post the zoning permit as close to the street as possible, where convenient, where there is something to staple it to or tape it to. |
| 03:22:12.63 | Mayor Cox | And then you would have had to walk up and down Central Avenue taking photos of it on the post. |
| 03:22:19.67 | David Chersonoff | Staff typically takes two or three photographs, one close up so that the information on the zoning permit is legible, and one or two photographs from far away so that if ever needed to be recalled later on, one could easily identify where this zoning permit would have been posted. |
| 03:22:36.39 | Mayor Cox | And what camera do you use to take those photographs? |
| 03:22:39.72 | David Chersonoff | Staff uses a digital camera. That's part of the community development department. |
| 03:22:45.02 | Mayor Cox | And did you look at the digital camera to see if there were pictures on it, even though they had not been digitally uploaded to the city's files? |
| 03:22:54.47 | David Chersonoff | Yeah, there were no photographs on any of the cameras or in the digital files. Typically, photos taken for site visits or posted notices, they're transferred and then not maintained on any cameras. |
| 03:23:12.69 | Councilmember Withey | The claim that the notice was found in the CDD's file the next day by the appellate, right, |
| 03:23:25.45 | Mayor Cox | Appellate. |
| 03:23:26.16 | David Chersonoff | Thank you. |
| 03:23:29.87 | Councilmember Withey | How would she have had access to the CDD file? |
| 03:23:34.83 | David Chersonoff | um, Well, property owners or applicants will typically come to the public counter to request information, to look at their project plans, to request looking at their old files. Staff does not have direct knowledge as to how she had access to the city's permit file. It was an active permit application, so it was probably brought to her attention to look at something. But I have no direct knowledge of who specifically or how she obtained access to that file. Okay, thank you. |
| 03:24:11.03 | Mayor Cox | And I think I heard you say earlier that at one point Ms. Stefani stated that she posted the notice herself, that she took it out of the file and she posted it. Is that correct? |
| 03:24:21.24 | David Chersonoff | So in a supplemental memo to her appeal that was submitted on this a week ago on July 23rd, she states in a constructed chronology that she took the laminated zoning permit out of the city's file. She took it away from the community development department and posted it herself. And this would have been done without staff's knowledge. |
| 03:24:46.97 | Mayor Cox | But then in a different account, she stated that she did not post the sign that she simply added the orange tape to the posted sign. |
| 03:24:58.26 | David Chersonoff | When the photograph was first provided to staff, we asked her, did you post this yourself? If you did, how did you obtain it? She's always maintained that she found it posted, but that she herself didn't post it. When staff noted that a tape was used that is not used by the Community Development Department, she explained that by saying that she did put the tape on the posted notice, but as a way of attracting more attention to it, not as a way of actually posting it herself. |
| 03:25:26.10 | Mayor Cox | In the picture of the posted notice that was provided to you, in addition to the orange tape, did you observe the yellow or the blue tape that staff customarily uses when posting the sign? |
| 03:25:40.01 | David Chersonoff | No, staff did not find any evidence of any other tape. I can personally say when I post zoning permits, notices are never taped to wood. They're always stapled. Tape is only reserved for surfaces that notices cannot be stapled to, like windows or brick walls. So it's very unlikely that staff would have taped a notice to a wooden post, but it's possible. Okay. |
| 03:26:07.47 | Mayor Cox | Well, and you say staff, it would have been your responsibility to post this notice. |
| 03:26:12.75 | David Chersonoff | All planners have in the past posted notices, but principally the postings have been done by the assistant planner myself, yes. |
| 03:26:26.30 | Mayor Cox | Any other questions of staff? |
| 03:26:31.28 | Sunny Yao | Thank you. |
| 03:26:31.63 | Jill Hoffman | At any rate, so this happened in May. The original posting should have been from May 16th to May 26th. Correct. But because of this irregularity, you found the planning department and you found that, |
| 03:26:31.65 | Mayor Cox | At any rate. |
| 03:26:45.38 | Jill Hoffman | You could not credibly represent that the notice had been posted and so you reposted in November. Is that right? |
| 03:26:51.58 | Mary Wagner | Correct. |
| 03:26:52.12 | Jill Hoffman | And then during that 10 day notice period, that's when Ms. Wiles, who's the neighbor at 31 Central, filed the appeal. Thank you. |
| 03:26:59.49 | David Chersonoff | Correct. |
| 03:27:00.10 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, and then she she time yeah, okay, and then it went to the Planning Commission |
| 03:27:02.48 | David Chersonoff | THE END OF THE END OF THE I went to the Planning Commission in March and April of this year. |
| 03:27:07.10 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, thank you. |
| 03:27:09.60 | Mayor Cox | Okay, so with that we will hear from the appellant. who will have ten minutes to present and five minutes to rebut. |
| 03:27:24.95 | Paul Smith | I'm Paul Smith. I promise I will address the 800-pound gorilla here. There's lots of competing stories, and it kind of sounds like there's some falsity, and I'll address that, I promise. Everything I'm gonna talk about here is in attachment nine. I'm sorry that it got buried in your staff report. but I have a limited amount of time, and so I am going to focus on Attachment 9 because it addresses, again, that 800-pound gorilla issue. I asked Ms. Stefani to prepare a declaration under penalty of perjury, and that's Exhibit 1 in Attachment 9 because I wanted it to be clear what she says really happened here. Attachment 9 essentially is the core of the Stefani's appeal in that it provides substantial evidence that the sign was in fact posted by Ms. Stefani on May 16th. The appeal period expired on May 26 and no timely appeal was ever filed. Because of the confusion over this issue, I assembled that in attachment nine, and I'll get through some of the documents there. In case you didn't get a chance to go through it all, I'll try and walk you through it to make it clear what really happened here. There actually is no basis to consider the substance of the neighbor's appeal, and that's whether or not there's a potential view impact. We don't get to that if there was never a timely appeal filed. It was a mistake, actually, to allow that second bite of the apple, that November time frame, because, in fact, there is substantial evidence that the sign was posted in May. The Planning Commission, I was a little bit surprised when I listened to the Planning Commission hearings and went through the staff report and all of that, the minutes, because they spent very little time on this issue. They seemed to skip forward into the substance of the question of whether there's a potential view impact or not. And I think that's pretty much because staff had told them that there just wasn't any evidence in the city files to show that the sign was in fact posted. And they spent a lot of time in the staff report here explaining that Sausalito has a standard practice of what they do. The staff posts a notice. And I get that makes a lot of sense because having the staff post the notice means that you've got evidence in their files. And that's part of the problem that we have here. Um. The problem is that the Municipal code specifically provides that the applicant posts the notice. So what happens here is you have a standard practice, a practice that has gone on for a long time here, that is flat out inconsistent with the legal requirements of your municipal code. Your municipal code says specifically, the applicant is to post the notice. And that's exactly what she did. So some of the staff report sort of impugns Ms. Stefani's integrity and some of the late male that we saw and all seems to just flat out call her a liar. And I hope you'll keep an open mind here because I think that's kind of an unfair characterization. As I'll go through here, she took the sign out of the planning file, and she felt a little unclear about whether that was a right thing to do or not a right thing to do, and it made her very concerned about how to respond to that. But quite frankly, what she did was exactly what your code requires. So I asked her to sign a declaration under penalty of perjury to explain exactly what happened. And it's a serious document to be presented to a public agency in a public hearing setting. It is evidence in a court of law. So this is what Ms. Stefani says happened in her declaration. This is what she's swearing to under penalty of perjury. She met David Cherzanoff on May 15 at the Community Development Department to pick up the zoning permit. And at the time, she said, hey, she saw the sign in the file. She said, hey, should I? Post to the side. And he said, no, no, no, I'll take care of that. I'll post the sign later today. He said, that's what she heard, later today, meaning the 15th. The morning of the 16th, she went to check to see if the sign was there, and it wasn't posted. So she went down to the community development department. Now, when you go to the CDD, they have a countersign-in sheet. So when you go to ask for a file or to talk to a planner, you sign in. And that. I went and got that countersign in sheet Thank you. It's exhibit A to her declaration. You have it. And it shows that she did, in fact, go to the Community Development Department on the morning of the 16th. exactly as she says in her declaration she did. So it sort of corroborates that statement in one sense. She says she asked for the file. Mr. Churzanoff wasn't there. They handed her the file. She found the sign in the file. She took it, she posted it with the infamous orange tape. She put it right where other signs have always been and it's where I think you just heard staff say it should have been. |
| 03:33:03.40 | Paul Smith | I just want to point out that later that day after she says she posted the sign two neighbors including Ms. Wiles signed in on the countersign in sheet for the afternoon. I don't know why they were there. It's exhibit D to to her declaration, you have them. But both Ms. Wiles and another neighbor who were interested in this project went down in the same afternoon where Ms. Stefani says she posted the notice. to look at something in the file. Susan York, is the tenant at 27 Central. Her letter is Exhibit 2. It was actually provided to the Planning Commission as well as Exhibit K to the March staff report, but nobody seemed to pay a whole lot of attention to it or maybe didn't believe it or something. If you read it, you'll see that she says that she repeatedly, she lives at 27 Central, she saw the sign on a regular basis from mid-May to early June. Ms. Stefani's declaration under penalty perjury says that she left the sign up actually until June 8. But it also says that she took a photograph on May 26th, it's Exhibit B. We included the JPEG data for that photograph, which shows it was taken also on May 26th. We also included the email that she sent to Mr. Cherzenoff on July 28th, sending that photograph and the JPEG data to the city. For some reason, there seems to be a lot of confusion. For some reason, the city kept saying that they didn't have any evidence as opposed to the side. Um, But she did send it to them. I think it's really important to recognize that your ordinances say that the sign is to be posted by the applicant. And the staff spends a lot of time explaining to you that the problem here is that we don't have this evidence in the file, The staff didn't get a chance to post it like the staff always does. But that's kind of punishing her for adhering to your code. What you ought to do is amend your zoning ordinance because I agree staff ought to post the sign, it makes sense. But it's just not what your code says. And she did exactly what your code says. It's kind of like what's called an underground regulation. Sort of like a secret handshake. You know, she's kind of being punished, in essence, for doing what the code said. because it wasn't done the way staff normally does it. And you actually can't have something like that that's completely inconsistent with what your zoning ordinance says. I would like to draw your attention to, and I can see I'm running short on time, and I might ask if you'd indulge me to take a little bit of my rebuttal time. This won't take me long. I'm pretty close. Exhibit 3 in the package is an email from David Cherzenov, which I noticed wasn't in the presentation here, It's an email from David Chirzenoff to Ms. Stefani on August 4. And I'll just read you part of it. After conducting an in-depth review of city procedure, the Community Development Department has determined that because the building permit has already been issued for this project, staff cannot forward the project to the Planning Commission for discretionary review of a design review permit. The 10-day appeal period for the project zoning permit, which was approved on May 15, has passed. So there is no procedure for the Planning Commission to receive and review it. This is kind of what I'm saying. So as of August 4, the staff was saying, It's done. It's over. No appeals filed. Something obviously happened after August 4. And by the way, that is cc'd to Danny Castro, who I talked to about this. And his response to me was, geez, you know, we had no idea that there was all this evidence that the sign was posted in May. We just didn't have the evidence. That's what happened at the Planning Commission. We just told them we didn't have the evidence. And that's why I put together attachment nine. Okay. This email actually reflects what's called vested rights, vested legal rights. You know, when someone gets a building permit and they take an action they build pursuant to it. May I take a couple minutes of my reply time? |
| 03:37:29.67 | Alice Merrill | What are you guys doing? |
| 03:37:30.38 | Mayor Cox | Thank you. |
| 03:37:32.39 | Paul Smith | I'm almost done. |
| 03:37:33.37 | Mayor Cox | Okay, will you set the timer, Mary, for five, and we'll count down the reply time. |
| 03:37:37.96 | Paul Smith | Thank you. |
| 03:37:37.99 | Mayor Cox | Yeah. |
| 03:37:38.02 | Paul Smith | All right. |
| 03:37:38.31 | Mayor Cox | Thank you. |
| 03:37:38.38 | Paul Smith | Thank you. Vested legal rights is a concept where when someone gets a building permit and they start to build in accordance with that building permit, They have a vested legal right to finish that project. In other words, you can't change the rules, you can't change the law, you can't change things after they've committed to that. And the defense that Citi's always raised on that is it's not a, quote, validly issued building permit. This one is a validly issued building permit. That building permit just flowed from the zoning permit. As long as the zoning permit was properly issued, The building permit is properly issued and they had a vested right to complete this project. And you can't kind of change the rules after the fact. One of you asked something to the effect of, Are we sitting here sort of in the shoes of the planter? But the planner actually, On page two of the March Planning Commission, SAF report It explains what staff did. Staff considered the alignment orientation of both structures from an aerial view of the neighborhood as well as street photos of the properties when reviewing the project for a potential view impact. Staff did not identify a potential view impact in the review of this project. They did exactly what they were supposed to do in order to decide to issue a zoning permit. Can you second-guess them now? Can you say, gee, I don't agree with them. They should have done something different. Well, one, that's what the appeal period is for, by the way, is if someone disagrees with what they do. But you can't sit here after all of this time and say, now that we look back on this, we don't think we agree with staff's conclusions. The only issue is, did staff do the things they were supposed to do? Did they make this evaluation? They did make this evaluation. And based on their evaluation, they decided to issue a zoning permit. If people disagreed with that evaluation, they were supposed to file an appeal. And he didn't file an appeal. So, It's over. Thank you. And... Thank you. One last thing. |
| 03:39:41.08 | Mayor Cox | Sir, you're down to three minutes. I'm not going to extend your time. |
| 03:39:43.34 | Paul Smith | Thank you. One last thing. On May 24, Ms. Stefani says that she was in her yard, and Ms. Wiles came over. Thank you. to get her dog because her dog comes over there from time to time. And they had a brief conversation. And Ms. Stefani said, hey, you know, nobody's... Files an appeal. And Ms. Wild said, Good. And watch what? That was two days before the 26th, during the appeal period And it's very suggestive that at the time, Ms. Wiles knew all about this. What's happened here is that there was a change of heart, and Ms. Wiles decided she needed to appeal this, but she needed to appeal it after the appeal period, and that's what I think happened here. That's it, thank you. I got two minutes. |
| 03:40:34.23 | Mayor Cox | I'm not sure. |
| 03:40:34.32 | Mary Wagner | Thank you. |
| 03:40:34.42 | Mayor Cox | Two minutes, it looks like. |
| 03:40:35.51 | Mary Wagner | Thank you. |
| 03:40:35.53 | Paul Smith | Thank you. |
| 03:40:36.34 | Mayor Cox | I have a question. Where in the declaration is the recitation of that conversation? Thank you. |
| 03:40:43.58 | Paul Smith | Which one? |
| 03:40:44.59 | Mayor Cox | the conversation with Mrs. |
| 03:40:45.40 | Paul Smith | It's very good. That conversation, I learned of that conversation after we created that declaration. So Ms. Stefani is here and can actually testify to that if you would like her to do that. Okay. |
| 03:40:56.58 | Unknown | Okay. |
| 03:40:56.90 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:40:56.96 | Paul Smith | Thank you. |
| 03:40:57.01 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:40:58.28 | Paul Smith | Thank you. |
| 03:40:58.31 | Unknown | Thank you. Mm-hmm. |
| 03:40:59.34 | Vice Mayor Burns | Yes. |
| 03:40:59.41 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 03:41:00.07 | Vice Mayor Burns | I don't, obviously the mayor knows more about that. I don't know what the word she just said was. That's her. Thank you. |
| 03:41:07.34 | Mayor Cox | Recitation. |
| 03:41:07.78 | Vice Mayor Burns | But in that document on the declaration, are those Ms. Stefani's words? I don't know how those things work. |
| 03:41:14.56 | Paul Smith | So what a declaration is, it's just simply a statement that's created under penalty of perjury that allows it to be introduced in court proceedings and the like. And so I interview her. I ask her various questions. I write out what I hear. I send that to her. I ask her if that's exactly the way that she believes that to be true. And once I'm comfortable with that, I finish it and |
| 03:41:15.59 | Vice Mayor Burns | How did those? |
| 03:41:48.16 | Vice Mayor Burns | But you can add words to describe her thinking. If we see words in there, they're her words. |
| 03:41:48.82 | Paul Smith | Submit. |
| 03:41:54.02 | Paul Smith | They are the words that I heard from her, that I wrote in the document, and that I submitted back to her to say, are these accurate, are these correct? |
| 03:41:59.55 | Vice Mayor Burns | Yeah. |
| 03:41:59.79 | Mayor Cox | Thank you. |
| 03:41:59.84 | Vice Mayor Burns | Thank you. |
| 03:42:03.23 | Vice Mayor Burns | Thank you. |
| 03:42:04.24 | Paul Smith | Thank you. |
| 03:42:04.94 | Mayor Cox | um, You have in the declaration, it authenticates a photograph taken on May 26, 2017. Do you have any photographs taken on May 16? to demonstrate that the notice was posted on May 16, as is staff's typical practice. |
| 03:42:24.21 | Paul Smith | I asked her about that and she did not take a photograph on the 16th, she took a photograph on the 26th, but as I think everybody, recognizes you can post it on the 16th, staff can take a photo, and some kid skateboards by and pulls it off 15 minutes later, and you're never gonna know. But her declaration is evidence that she says it was posted on the 16th. I'm clear. And the countersign in, she corroborates that. |
| 03:42:45.07 | Mayor Cox | I'm clear. Well, the countersign and she corroborates that she was here on May 16th. Good point. Um, I'm not sure. |
| 03:43:11.88 | Mayor Cox | So, we have in our staff report correspondence, from your client stating that she had deleted all of her photographs. And then there was a screenshot of a photograph provided after the date that she said she had deleted all of her photographs. Where did that photograph come from? |
| 03:43:32.75 | Paul Smith | My understanding is that she took the photograph on the 26th, Mr. Cherzenoff contacted her and asked her, you know, do you have any evidence that you posted this? And that's the July 28th email. where she sent that to him. They then communicated back and forth for quite some time about all of this. She says she could not find any of that until December of 2017. And it was in December of 2017 that she found that same photograph with the JPEG data. |
| 03:44:02.60 | Mayor Cox | So, and has the native JPEG data now been provided to David Chersenoff so that he can confirm that the picture was actually taken on May 26th? |
| 03:44:16.04 | Paul Smith | I think that's a yes or no. But I don't know whether, in other words, did he go over to her house and look on her computer or something? Because there's a photograph of the JPEG data in the declaration. |
| 03:44:17.22 | Mayor Cox | I think that's a yes or no. |
| 03:44:30.25 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:44:30.62 | Mayor Cox | Thank you. |
| 03:44:31.07 | Paul Smith | Yeah, I think it's exhibit C. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. |
| 03:44:36.44 | Mayor Cox | Okay, and now we'll hear from Heather Wiles. |
| 03:44:44.91 | Mayor Cox | You also will have 10 minutes and five minutes. |
| 03:44:47.42 | Heather Wiles | Okay, I will be brief. Good evening, thank you for hearing all this. I'm not a liar. If you give me a Christmas present I don't like, you're going to know. So it's been. really long year. I'm hoping I learned a thing or two. This last I don't know why on May 24th I would have a conversation about no one appealing a deck that's going to block my view and then wait six months or however many months and incur legal fees and go through all of this. I mean, that just seems like insanity to me. My lawyer's going to come up and speak on my behalf. I just want to say, I bought this house because I love the views and because I wanted to stay in that neighborhood in Sausalito. Neither of which do I have right now, the neighborhood experience, nor the views that I originally purchased the home for. I'm going to turn it over to Mark, and he will speak about the rest of the details. Thank you. |
| 03:45:40.58 | Mayor Cox | Thank you, wait, we're gonna stop your time, you have a question. Go ahead. |
| 03:45:46.81 | Vice Mayor Burns | Why were you in the building department on May 16th? |
| 03:45:48.82 | Heather Wiles | Because there was a building permit posted for replacing the joists on a part of the deck. and David Chursnov can tell you what building permit number it was. And I saw that. And after a situation with Mika Stefani, where she asked me to allow her to expand the deck and I denied it. I was very vigilant about what was going on at that property. So when I saw the building permit, I immediately went down to the office and said, what's going on? this deck's not getting bigger, is it? She's trying to get me to sign something, saying it's going to get bigger. And they said, nope. That's just a permit saying that she has to fix the joists on the deck. |
| 03:46:37.52 | Mark Epstein | Thank you and good evening. Mark Epstein on Heather's behalf. And I want to try to quickly get some quick background. I'm sure that this is a big agenda. You've had a lot to look at. I don't know how much time anyone has had to spend in looking at the background. But the background is really important here. And as the city attorney said, there's two questions, really. One, put yourself in the position of the original planner. Should this have gone to design review or not? And then two, Was there a proper appeal? Was it timely? Those are absolutely the right two questions. So covering the first question first, I believe some of you have been to the home. All of the planning commissioners went to the home. All of the planning commissioners walked up and down the hall, looked out the window, and saw the deck. |
| 03:47:27.99 | Mark Epstein | This is the deck that they saw. They saw the deck that is completely blocking out the San Francisco skyline. They saw that. They saw it with their own eyes. They didn't need the picture. They saw it personally. And you can see it too. You can see it in the photograph to the extent you weren't there. And it does, in fact, block out the vast majority of the San Francisco skyline, the gem, the jewel. I mean, the bay is awesome. The bridge is awesome. the San Francisco skyline, especially at night when all the lights are on, it's magical. The pyramid, unfortunately now you've got the Salesforce Tower that kind of takes away from that. But it is a massive and amazing view, and it's world-renowned. And Heather can't see it anymore because there's a deck there. |
| 03:48:15.66 | Mark Epstein | Same is true when you go up to the third floor and look out the bedroom windows, the roof of the deck. takes out, the vast majority of the San Francisco skyline. There's no question there's a view of destruction. Question one is really easy. There is a view obstruction. And you don't have to put yourself in the position of the planner and just review what the planner reviewed You've got all this evidence and you've got all this testimony and you've got these pictures and videotapes now. So there's nothing that says you go back and just look at the the screenshots that were shown, you get to look at all the evidence. Unfortunately, The planner didn't look didn't see what the view was, didn't go back in your own files and look in 2011 When this same deck this same deck. was built without the roof. And design review said, no way. and yanked it. Unfortunately, that wasn't done either. But you have all that. So you know the answer to question one is, Yeah, it's a view obstruction, and it's a significant one. The history of this is really important. Heather moves in. She meets her neighbor. Heather's, the woman that sold her the home said, you should talk to your neighbor, you have the right to trim the trees to restore the view, I haven't done it for a while. You're going to have to pay but you get to do it, so talk to her. Heather talked to her. And Ms. Stefani actually acknowledged, yeah, that's something you can do. I would also like something for you. I would like to put a roof Thank you. on my existing deck. And if you look at the exhibits that we've attached to the Declaration of Heather, you will see that the documents that my client signed that were put in front of her by Ms. Stefani. talked about the existing debt. existing, existing, existing. Never new deck, never massively expanding deck, It's going to take out your views in the photographs that I showed you. the existing debt. And so the trees were trimmed. And there's an email in there that shows you the timing and frankly, It shows you that Ms. Stefani is not truthful. She does lie. She's lied several times. in this matter and there's documentary evidence for it. I wouldn't say it if the documents and the facts and the evidence didn't support it. So what happened then was Miss Stefani wanted three more feet. Not a massive deck, the one that was built, She wanted three more feet. And she specifically asked Heather if she'd agreed to it. Heather said no. I'm not going to do that. And the relationship got really bad. They got uncomfortable. And then Heather started hearing stories about all the problems with this house and the Community Development Department and doing unpermitted work and exceeding the scope of building permits and she got really And she made a commitment to herself to keep an eye on that house and to monitor what was going on so that this extra three feet, that's all she was worried about at the time. doesn't somehow creep into the project. So when there was a posting, and it's a building permit, And I've attached a copy of it to her declaration. When that was posted, Heather did go down to the billing department. Chief. just what she just said. What's going on? Is she going to build that extra three feet? The answer was no. It's to replace and repair some things. just what Miss Stefani had told Heather she was going to do from the start. So there was nothing to challenge. There was nothing to appeal. And more importantly, there was no posting of any notice that said this project was going to be any different than a simple repair and replace of existing members. Heather watched the house, and you'll see it in her declaration. Every day. She walked by it a couple of times a day. She parked her car right in front of that post where, allegedly, this notice was placed. She never saw it. If she had, You can bet she would have appealed. just like she did when it was actually posted in November. It's not just Heather. This isn't just two neighbors with different stories and different accounts. It's the whole neighborhood. Look at the petition. that Heather provided to the Community Development Department. She went around and talked to all of her neighbors that walked their dogs and run by there and walk by there and park their cars there. And she said, did anybody see this? Nobody saw it. Nobody saw that posting. And so she provided a petition where they all signed saying, we never saw this, we don't think it was posted. Several neighbors wrote a letter to the community development department saying exactly the same thing in a lot more detail. The reason I'm dwelling on that is that's substantial evidence that was given to the planning department to say, you know what, this posting didn't happen. It did not happen. So now, The Community Development Department has got a petition signed by 17 neighbors very detailed information from Heather. and a really fuzzy, funny story about how this posting occurred. So let's go to that. It's clear in the record that Ms. Stefani said She didn't post it. That's how this started. No, I went out and it was stapled to the post in front of my house. She specifically said that. Now she's got a declaration saying something different. But what's happened is time has evolved. two hearings, we've got declarations being filed, we've got a lot of testimony, She knows now what the story has to be. She knows what she can construct to try to support this made up story. And what that is is Well, you had to have posted it because there's no evidence that the Community Development Department did it. David knows he didn't do it. He's visited the house several times, as he's talked about. So this is the only thing she can say now. I posted it and I put bright orange tape on it. Another misrepresentation that's coming back to BIDER is she also said if you look back at those emails, that she took that picture the first day. not. the 26th. The first day, that's what she said. I took the picture after I put the orange tape on it. but she doesn't have any evidence of that. And I'm not even sure that the May 26th date is accurate. We've got a photograph of metadata. We don't have the actual data. That's suspicious to me, and if it's so important as it is, it would have been provided. But I'll tell you, even if it is provided, What probably happened is Ms. Stefani went out on the 26th, After having that, placard in her garage in her house, whatever, for a week and a half, She stuck it up there with some orange tape. that I guarantee you Heather and all the neighbors would have seen if it was really there for two weeks, just a quick picture. She ripped it down, threw it wherever it had been before, and that was going to be her deal. because she knew She wasn't going to be permitted to build this deck. She knew it blocked the views. She's got amazing views unobstructed from all of the different decks on her home. She knows how great it is. and she knows what a big loss it would be to somebody else. She also knows that Heather refused to even give her three feet And one other important thing she knows. She knows that the homeowner back in 2011 that built the same deck Sons the roof, so even a less impactful deck. was forced to rip it all out. She used the same drawings in the submission to the Community Development Department for her permit. as the 2011 homeowner did. She knew all about what happened earlier. She knew it wasn't going to be allowed. This is a big farce, and it's made up. |
| 03:55:53.55 | Mayor Cox | So I allowed the appellant to eat into their response time. I will allow you the same courtesy if you choose, or you may reserve your five minutes to respond to comments from the appellant. |
| 03:56:07.32 | Mark Epstein | I'd rather save the five minutes, but I would also really like to answer any questions that if I've left something unclear, if I didn't hit an issue that you think is important, I'd love to address it. |
| 03:56:17.02 | Mayor Cox | You mentioned a petition signed by 17 neighbors, but you didn't mention the letter from Susan York. |
| 03:56:24.43 | Mark Epstein | Yeah. As an attorney, I'm going to only talk about the really great things, right? I don't know Susan York. She doesn't actually say it's that particular posting. If you look at the language that she used, she says she saw a posting. Well, it might be the same posting that Heather saw, and that was a permit to repair some joists and replace some embers. She didn't have a picture of the posting that is now curiously in front of us and say, I saw that posting. She said, I saw a posting. Let's also remember that she is a tenant of a landlord and is not in the best negotiating or power position. So it's not under penalty of perjury. It's suspicious to me for the way it's worded and it's a tenant. So that's how I would address it. |
| 03:57:08.78 | Mayor Cox | Okay, but the petition is not under penalty of perjury either. |
| 03:57:11.85 | Mark Epstein | That is true. |
| 03:57:12.46 | Mayor Cox | Right. All right, any other questions? Okay, we will hear back from the appellant. |
| 03:57:21.72 | Councilmember Withey | Do it for the comment. |
| 03:57:24.08 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:57:25.72 | Councilmember Withey | Thank you. |
| 03:57:25.77 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:57:25.89 | Mayor Cox | Yeah, so we'll take public comment. Thank you. But we're not going to have public comment from members of a team. We're only going to hear public comment from people not affiliated with each side. |
| 03:57:40.33 | Unknown | Is this public comment on that? |
| 03:57:41.26 | Mayor Cox | Yes, it's public comment time. So is there any public comment on this matter? |
| 03:57:51.56 | Mayor Cox | Can you come up to the podium and please identify yourself so that I can identify whether you are a member of one of the teams. |
| 03:57:59.76 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:57:59.79 | Mayor Cox | Thank you. |
| 03:57:59.84 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:58:00.03 | Mayor Cox | Unfortunately, I was the architect that... Well then, sir, I'm sorry. Your team has 15 minutes. So if your team wants to designate its remaining two minutes for you to speak, they can do that. |
| 03:58:22.62 | Mayor Cox | Okay, yes ma'am. |
| 03:58:27.31 | Helga Cannon | My name is Helga Cannon. I'm the neighbor at 35 Central Avenue. Thank you. I noticed that Ms. Stefani has, that my name appears now on these papers on the sign-in sheet. I just would like to say that, yes, indeed, I may have been signed into City Hall on, or to the Planning Commission, whatever it was, on May 16th. But it was on a totally unrelated matter, and I left for Europe on May 17th, and I certainly was not aware of any of these posting signs. So my name does appear in these papers, but I just wanted to clarify that. |
| 03:58:32.06 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:58:52.98 | Unknown | May 16th. |
| 03:59:13.55 | Mayor Cox | Okay. I did. Thank you for the clarification. Any other public comment on this matter? Yes, sir. |
| 03:59:25.63 | Mike Cirollo | I am Mike Cirollo with Tree Masters Tree Service. We had Mrs. Stefani come into our office, and she was not a client, but Heather is a client of ours. She came in from our office. A woman came into the office on Tuesdays, |
| 03:59:44.75 | Unknown | Thank you. Please follow the prayer to... |
| 03:59:50.98 | Mayor Cox | Okay, so were you involved at all with the Um... Preparation of Heather Wiles appeal or with Heather Wiles appeal. |
| 04:00:12.85 | Mike Cirollo | We did the tree trimming work at the property. |
| 04:00:16.63 | Paul Smith | just like he's the architect for |
| 04:00:21.19 | Mayor Cox | Well, the tree trimming is not related to the deck. The architect designed the deck. |
| 04:00:30.89 | Mayor Cox | Okay, I'm not going to have you call out, I'm sorry, I'm not going to have you call out from the dais. Sir, you have five minutes left. Do you want the tree trimmer to use part of the five minutes? I'm going to err on the side of caution here. |
| 04:00:43.95 | Unknown | Okay, I understand. I would suggest he's not part of our team, but I would allot him if you can get through whatever you've got to get through in less than a minute, please do that. |
| 04:00:52.41 | Mayor Cox | Okay, will you go back to a minute, Mary? Okay. You have one. |
| 04:00:55.59 | Mike Cirollo | Thank you. So, Mrs. Stefani came into the office and asked for, pretended she was Heather in our office and asked for all the documentation of the tree trimming work that we did. Um... |
| 04:01:10.24 | Mayor Cox | Did you speak to her personally? |
| 04:01:11.98 | Mike Cirollo | I did not, no. This is one of our office |
| 04:01:12.45 | Mayor Cox | No, this is. |
| 04:01:15.54 | Mike Cirollo | managers and one of the officers. |
| 04:01:17.41 | Mayor Cox | And how do you know it was Mrs. Stefani and not Heather who came into your office? |
| 04:01:21.73 | Mike Cirollo | because the second day she came in and asked for photographs and we said are you Heather can we see your ID and she said no I'm I'm mrs. Stefani and she asked for a for her email to be changed to her email to Mrs. Stefani's email. So she was. trying to get all our information. |
| 04:01:42.42 | Mayor Cox | information. prior day she had said her name was Heather Wiles. |
| 04:01:45.63 | Mike Cirollo | Uh-huh, and even the second day she did say it was Heather Weiss. |
| 04:01:49.04 | Mayor Cox | Okay, you can start the time again. |
| 04:01:52.67 | Mike Cirollo | So on Tuesday, she introduced herself as Heather Wild and asking for a copy of the proposal and photos from the jobs we did for her last year. She handed me a card and said this is all her information, so I looked it up in the file, and it matched for Heather Wild. She gave me a different e-mail address and said to use this one going forward. The e-mail was mckaystefani at gmail.com. When we spoke this morning, that situation stood out because the woman claimed to be... mckaystefani at gmail.com. When we spoke this morning, that situation stood out because the woman claimed to be you and in the office. I did give her a copy of all the proposals, thinking it was Heather. It is not our policy to ask for identification. So the next day she introduced herself as Heather Wiles. |
| 04:02:38.85 | Mayor Cox | Okay. So. it. Does anyone have any questions of this gentleman? |
| 04:02:45.18 | Unknown | Okay. |
| 04:02:45.57 | Mayor Cox | Thank you so much. |
| 04:02:45.59 | Unknown | Thank you so much. Thank you. |
| 04:02:46.75 | Mayor Cox | Thank you. |
| 04:02:50.58 | Mayor Cox | All right, any other public comment? |
| 04:02:57.28 | Mayor Cox | So sir, I allowed him to speak on the time of the respondent. And so if you want to testify and the appellant wants you to do so, you may. Okay, then I'm going to close public comment and it's now the appellant's time to speak and you have two minutes and 37 seconds left. Two minutes and seven seconds left. |
| 04:03:20.85 | Unknown | Okay, I'll just, my name is Joe Stephanie of 27th Senate. I just want to clear up a few things. The petition that he talked about with all the neighbors signing it was not asking, did you see the posting? Rather, it was asking, should the city post permits? Should the city post permits in a timely way, et cetera? And of course, everyone says yes. I would say yes, too. The city should post in a timely. It did not ask on this date several months ago, do you remember it being posted? It wasn't asking that. It was asking a procedural issue. Number two. In 2007, or 2011, the question It was denied not for purposes of the view. Rather, in 2007, it was denied not for the view, but for having a lack of a permit. That's why it was denied. The view had nothing to do with it. And lastly, my wife never posed as Heather Wiles. She posed as neutral party, just looking for a receipt for damage that was done on her property. Not as Heather Wiles. And she gave her own email address in corroboration of that. Okay, she'll continue. |
| 04:04:20.14 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 04:04:25.59 | Mayor Cox | You have one minute. |
| 04:04:26.80 | Mika Stefani | Since the tree issue was brought up, this was Miss Weil's view when she bought the property. She had no view at all of San Francisco. That was her view of San Francisco, and that's my treat. When Ms. Wells introduced the tree master on the property, I was not allowed to attend the meeting. |
| 04:04:59.17 | Mika Stefani | This is Ms. Wiles' new view of San Francisco. Her view stretches here from Fort Mason all the way to Angel Island. That's her new view at my expense, which probably has added, well, a good view of San Francisco is probably worth a million dollars. So at my expense, she increased her property value. What I want to say, Is that in the late mail, Miss. |
| 04:05:32.40 | Mayor Cox | Actually, I have a question for you. Can you stay at the podium? |
| 04:05:41.78 | Mayor Cox | Did you assist your attorney in the preparation of this declaration that is attached as an exhibit to It's called Declaration of Maki Stefani. |
| 04:05:56.07 | Mika Stefani | Thank you. |
| 04:05:56.10 | Mayor Cox | Yeah, I wrote an email to him. Okay, and when you met with your lawyer to prepare this declaration, did you consider it important? to provide all of the relevant facts pertaining to this appeal within this declaration. Sure. Yeah. Okay. And so in writing this declaration, you intended it to be a whole and complete account of all of the interactions between you and your neighbor pertaining to the property. No. |
| 04:06:20.44 | Mika Stefani | pertaining to No, well, no. A lot of interactions. I mean, yeah, it's probably, it could be a 40-page report. |
| 04:06:22.31 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 04:06:32.33 | Mika Stefani | I mean, it's, but anyway, what I wanted, what I did not, I think, I don't even remember what I said in my declaration, but I did send a JPEG photo in the email to David at the end of July when this matter came up. And I later, and so everything was squared away, so it was fine. And I misfiled my picture, so maybe I threw them out, but I misfiled them and I later retrieved them in December, as you can see. |
| 04:07:05.19 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 04:07:06.35 | Mayor Cox | We have in our packet a letter dated, an email dated Tuesday, July 25 from you to David Chersonoff. It says, hi David, I was told the sign would be up that same evening. Next day, it was stapled to my post and I put some bright orange tape on it to draw attention to it. Did you write that email to Mr. Chersonoff? |
| 04:07:25.81 | Mika Stefani | Yeah. |
| 04:07:26.30 | Carolyn Carvey | Thank you. |
| 04:07:26.40 | Mayor Cox | So that was, and at the time you wrote it, did you understand it to be true and correct? Yeah, absolutely. And then in your email, in your declaration, so that was July 25, 2017. |
| 04:07:37.19 | Mika Stefani | Excuse me, let me just explain. It was posted, yeah. I mean, it was stapled to my posts and I put things to it. I mean, Ms. Wells' attorney is implying that I'm lying about it, but I mean- I'm just asking you. I didn't say I posted it or David posted it. I did not imply that David posted it, it was posted. |
| 04:07:54.72 | Unknown | I'm just asking you. |
| 04:08:03.51 | Mika Stefani | by whomever, including me or whatever, So I, you know, it was. Thank you. |
| 04:08:10.72 | Mayor Cox | I see, so now, so you're telling us today that when you wrote the words next day, it was stapled to my post and I put some bright orange tape on it. You're now telling us that what you meant by that was that I stapled it to my post and I put some bright orange tape on that. Is that what you're telling us today? Correct. Okay, I have no further questions. |
| 04:08:37.18 | Vice Mayor Burns | Just as the mayor asked you the question on the declaration, did you say you emailed the information to your attorney for the declaration? |
| 04:08:44.96 | Mika Stefani | Yeah, well, I don't remember. What did I do? Okay. Did we talk to you about it or emailed or? |
| 04:08:47.44 | Vice Mayor Burns | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 04:08:51.98 | Mika Stefani | work together. Yeah, I mean, yeah. I met him also in person. |
| 04:08:55.03 | Vice Mayor Burns | Okay. Thank you for making your home available or the property available for me to tour yesterday. |
| 04:09:02.35 | Mika Stefani | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 04:09:05.63 | Vice Mayor Burns | You offered some information that's not anywhere in this testimony today, but that the tenant in the unit that would be below the deck, Thank you. |
| 04:09:18.45 | Mika Stefani | Yeah. |
| 04:09:19.77 | Vice Mayor Burns | moved out solely because of the construction that may occur if the deck has to be torn off. |
| 04:09:27.94 | Mika Stefani | Well, it would be a risky situation to continue living there, correct? |
| 04:09:28.21 | Vice Mayor Burns | Well, |
| 04:09:33.83 | Vice Mayor Burns | Yeah, and so there's a financial hardship because that person moved out because of something that could occur and for no other reason than that. Right. Yet you can't find how to contact that person. |
| 04:09:38.35 | Mika Stefani | because of something that could have Right. |
| 04:09:46.15 | Mika Stefani | how to contact that person. I don't know where they moved to, but I can definitely find out for you, certainly. |
| 04:09:55.17 | Vice Mayor Burns | Excuse me. Thank you. |
| 04:09:56.59 | Mayor Cox | All right, thank you. We'll now hear from the respondent and you have four minutes remaining. |
| 04:10:09.80 | Mark Epstein | Thank you. The gentleman from Tree Masters handed me a piece of paper, which is a Xerox copy of what Miss Stefani gave to his office saying who she was. Heather Wiles, 31 Central Avenue, Sausalito, California, asking for the arborist estimate and photos. Every time Miss Stefani says something, it seems It's not accurate. I didn't say I was Heather Wiles. I said I was. Ms. Stefani, well, no, that's not what happened. She went in there and she gave a card and she tried to change the email address from Tree Masters from Heather's email to her email. That's what she did. Mr. Stefani gets up here and he tells you that the petition that is attached as part to Heather's declaration, didn't say anything about there not being a notice posted. What it said is, should the notice be posted? Well, that's not what it says at all. And there's no misunderstanding. If you read the language of the petition, It specifically says, the deck expansion project at 27 Central Avenue, was constructed without adhering to the proper zoning process. No zoning permit was posted. The failure to post the permit resulted in the residents of the neighborhood losing their rights to appeal this project. It didn't say what he said. He got up here. right in front of you, just like she did. just like the documents that are submitted to the Planning Commission, to the Community Development Department, and to this council, and lied, and I'm sorry, I'm not going to call it anything different because it's not anything different. And that's what Heather has been contending with from the start. She had you |
| 04:11:57.97 | Mayor Cox | Sir, please don't call out. Your time to speak has ceased. Thank you. |
| 04:11:57.99 | Mark Epstein | Thank you. Please don't. |
| 04:12:03.29 | Mark Epstein | The planner talked about the process and why it's done the way it's done. And we know why it's done the way it's done. This is a great example. If the community that's really involved and biased is in charge of posting things, This is going to happen each and every day. Unfortunately, there are dishonest people out there that will try to get one over, especially to get a million-dollar view. |
| 04:12:20.28 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 04:12:27.69 | Mark Epstein | especially to expand their deck that's unobstructed into the San Francisco Bay and take more. Miss Stefani already had a big deck. Actually, there's decks all over that house. There's like four or five different decks. And she already had a deck. right where She extended it. And unfortunately, that wasn't enough for her. She needed to extend it over. And as the pictures that I show you, she needed to take away someone else's view. She didn't have enough already. She didn't have enough with all those decks. And they're amazing, those views. And it's on Google. because this is a rental property that's being rented out three, I think four units from what I saw. And That's what they get to see, and that's great. And she shouldn't be penalized for that. But she should be stopped from cheating and lying and stealing an extra big portion that takes away the view of another neighbor. That's not fair. That's not right. This process, it's kind of obvious what happened. There was knowledge that a deck expansion was not going to be granted because it's a It intrudes on the view. And It had already been rejected. It had been rejected by the neighbor that was going to have her view blocked. And in 2011, unlike what Mr. Stefani said, It was rejected because of the review. He's right, they went back and tried to retroactively permit and unpermitted project, But that's not what killed it. What killed it was it had to go to design review, and design review said, You can't build this. You've already got other decks. You don't need this deck. And this impedes on a view. So that's the reason it got rejected in 2011. And they knew that coming in. Thank you very much for your time. |
| 04:14:13.09 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 04:14:26.32 | Unknown | I'm happy, of course, to answer any questions, but I think we got through. |
| 04:14:46.54 | Mayor Cox | So again, Mary, our charge tonight is to A, there's obviously a dispute about whether or not the appeal was timely and So we have to decide the merits of that and then we have to decide whether The zoning whether the Community Development Department had the authority to issue a zoning permit, or whether they should have required a design review process because of the potential for obstructing views. So those are our two issues. Correct. All right, so who wants to lead off? Okay. |
| 04:15:33.47 | Jill Hoffman | So we do make our |
| 04:15:36.89 | Mayor Cox | Before we speak, I did not ask, as I used to do in the planning commission, for declarations regarding contacts with the appellant or the respondent. |
| 04:15:48.22 | Jill Hoffman | So. |
| 04:15:49.06 | Mayor Cox | Let's go ahead and disclose site visits, contacts, whatever there may be. |
| 04:15:53.53 | Jill Hoffman | Okay. I viewed, I walked around the properties and I viewed the interior of 31 central and I stood in the primary living room area and viewed the deck. And Ms. Wiles was there and I spoke with her briefly at that time, but that's all I've done. Okay. And I watched the planning commission meeting. |
| 04:16:16.53 | Unknown | and we're going to have a |
| 04:16:16.61 | Unknown | Okay. |
| 04:16:20.18 | Jill Hoffman | Ciao. |
| 04:16:20.82 | Vice Mayor Burns | Yes, I watched the Planning Commission meeting when it happened and visited both properties yesterday. |
| 04:16:27.97 | Councilmember Withey | I've had no ex parte communications. I watch both planning commission hearings. |
| 04:16:33.83 | Mayor Cox | I visited the site today. I was familiar with the site from 2011, and I watched the Planning Commission hearings. All right, now, and I believe that I received correspondence from somebody, I don't recall who, regarding this deck. perhaps six months ago, and I simply forwarded it to the community development department for handling. And I don't remember who it came from. |
| 04:17:07.27 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, so based on the review, of the site and my review of the materials, my preliminary finding is that my preliminary And the conclusion is that, There are potential view impacts, substantial impact. and expansion into the primary view corridor of 31 Central Avenue and that They are view impacts of San Francisco Bay and San Francisco itself. So I find that design review, there is a potential to have impaired views from the other properties that a design review permit should have been required for this property. Secondly, I find that there's a lack of credible evidence that the permit was posted in a timely manner in May. My basis for this is the community development has a process that was conveyed to the applicant that that process was not followed. And furthermore, the applicant's differing testimony undermines the credibility of the claims that it was posted on May 16th through the 26th. So I find that, that it was a real proper for the community development department to repost and that there was a timely appeal. |
| 04:18:34.40 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 04:18:34.42 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 04:18:35.77 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 04:18:35.80 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 04:18:35.95 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 04:18:35.97 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 04:18:35.99 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 04:18:36.71 | Councilmember Withey | Yeah, let me deal with that latter point first. I also agree that there was a timely appeal. I agree, again, there is no credible evidence that a notice was posted in May. In fact, I find the whole story quite bizarre, to be quite frank. But clearly there was an error. I mean, it should have been posted. And that's a fact. So I think it was right and proper for the community development department. lacking that credible evidence to repost when it did. And so therefore, in my view, the appeal is timely. So the second question then is, and remember this isn't a design review. |
| 04:19:26.76 | Unknown | Right. |
| 04:19:28.25 | Councilmember Withey | We're not looking at the merits of whether it's the question is, is there a potential for a view impact so that design review is triggered? I mean, quite frankly, it's obvious there is. In my mind, there's obvious there is just from the record. I mean... The community development department in that project file, in the houses in that property file, should have the 2011 story there. I mean, the very fact that you had a deck, same drawing submitted, that's already been rejected once, should have at least raised a concern. Maybe there is a view impact. and therefore, if you then look at the actual what was built, it's very clear there's a view impact, with the caveat that I've not visited the property. So, And then finally, I just wanted to make a comment, and that is I find that one of the grounds for the appeal that the – a poet is a member of the HLB and therefore biased to be quite frankly offensive. It would imply that If you join a commission or a board in this city, you actually lose rights. That's nonsense So as far as I'm concerned, this appeal should be upheld. |
| 04:21:09.25 | Vice Mayor Burns | As you started where Councilmember Hoffman left off, I'll start where you left off. I find that odd as well. And it was a little funny thing when I met with Miss Wiles yesterday. And kind of in the course of looking at the property, she said, yeah, I'm on HLB and ran for the committee, when I sat for the committee, you know I said something. And I realized she didn't even know who, that I was one of the interviews. people that interviewed her and I kind of forgot some of the stuff that I interviewed her as well too so I don't think we have the knowledge or the ability as to think of who's on committees and how to special treat I think that is just beyond the scope of any of our thinking so that one lost all credibility with me as well |
| 04:21:58.67 | Vice Mayor Burns | I also agree that thankfully I don't have to make a decision whether this view is impaired or what it is. I appreciate views for both what I do for a living as well as what I hear at the Planning Commission. In this regard, I don't have to make a statement to that, but I can make the statement that I think there would be enough information there to say it should have been. So on that point, I think I'm in unison with the other two. Where we all then start to apply maybe our own thoughts and our own experiences is really trying to determine who said what and how and when regarding the permit posting. really only one person knows or would have knowledge of that on a daily basis, and that's the appellant then applicant. Neighbors wouldn't know if it's not there. If a staff member didn't put it up, they wouldn't know each day that they didn't put it up. Only one person has that information. We have to establish that one person's credibility and I don't know if that has been completely established through the course of this meeting. Or through the course of my conversation yesterday, that somebody would leave a viewed property in Sausalito simply because a deck reconstruction may occur on a property that the person believes that it would not need to be deconstructed because they are the person who built it. that didn't make sense to me. I know that if I had a viewed property and how valuable that is and how demand they are, people don't just leave them because there might be a construction process someday in the future. So, um, it, it comes down to testimony and, and how we feel. And I, um, I believe that, uh, as unfortunate as, as it was regarding the permit process that, um, |
| 04:24:01.83 | Vice Mayor Burns | that it was not posted properly and that the staff took the proper steps to repost in November. |
| 04:24:11.06 | Mayor Cox | I'll agree with my fellow council members. I do agree with Ms. Stefani's lawyer that we should revise our ordinance to make it clear that the responsibility to post rests with the community development department and not the applicant. I, |
| 04:24:39.49 | Mayor Cox | In weighing what we've heard today and the evidence in the record, I see Um, inconsistencies in the appellant's statements. And on that basis, in weighing the credibility, that not all of the statements are credible and therefore I have no credible evidence that the notice was timely. and properly posted on May 16, Um, Therefore, I believe it was proper for the Community Development Department to repost upon discovering its error, and therefore I believe the appeal is timely. Um, I also believe that one of the grounds for the appeal that membership on the HLB somehow afforded Ms. Wiles additional rights is unfounded. I'm sorry, but I would not recognize you if I ran into you on the street, even though we did. appoint you to the HLB, we in the last year have interviewed over 100 people for our various boards and commissions. And so it's very difficult to keep track of everybody. Thank you. Um, To me, it is obvious there is a potential to impair views from other properties, and therefore this project should have been submitted to design review For that reason, I don't believe there were any vested rights because I don't believe under our ordinance, the Community Development Department had the authority to approve the zoning permit in the first place. And so for these reasons, I too, would vote, Thank you. So let me see, let's just make sure. I always get confused about whether I'm upholding an appeal. |
| 04:26:34.38 | Councilmember Withey | Thank you. it. |
| 04:26:35.27 | Mayor Cox | Yes. If I could. |
| 04:26:35.89 | Councilmember Withey | Yes. |
| 04:26:36.89 | Mary Wagner | If I could help Madam Mayor, so the appeal is of the Planning Commission's decision, which was to overturn the staff's decision to issue the- |
| 04:26:39.32 | Mayor Cox | Yeah. |
| 04:26:45.07 | Mayor Cox | So I would vote to uphold the Planning Commission's decision. |
| 04:26:48.15 | Mary Wagner | So you would deny the appeal? |
| 04:26:49.23 | Mayor Cox | And to deny the appeal on three grounds. One, that, and so I will move that. the City Council uphold the Planning Commission decision and overturn Miss Stefani's appeal on the grounds that A, the appeal was timely. B, that there is no conflict of interest and that Ms. Wiles membership on the HLB did not afford her any additional rights. Beyond that of any other applicant or respondent and the Community Development Department. did not have the authority to approve the zoning permit in the first place because There is a potential to impair views from other properties, and therefore this project should have been submitted to design review. |
| 04:27:43.28 | Councilmember Withey | I'll second that. |
| 04:27:46.50 | Mary Wagner | And you have a resolution in your packet that staff prepared denying the appeal. |
| 04:27:54.48 | Mayor Cox | Yes, okay. So, but I'm not sure this resolution has all the grounds. |
| 04:28:00.84 | Mary Wagner | We can certainly add the three items you gave specific direction of. |
| 04:28:02.09 | Mayor Cox | Thank you. Yes, so I will move approval of the resolution with the additional grounds that we've stated here this evening. |
| 04:28:11.19 | Councilmember Withey | also second. |
| 04:28:12.00 | Mayor Cox | Thank you. Thank you. All in favor? Aye. That motion carries four zero. |
| 04:28:14.26 | Councilmember Withey | Bye. |
| 04:28:15.15 | David Chersonoff | Thank you. |
| 04:28:18.46 | Mayor Cox | Thank you everybody for your time. |
| 04:28:31.07 | Mayor Cox | All right, we're going to move on to item 6D. Consideration of designating voting delegates and alternates for the League of California Cities Annual Conference September 12-14. Debbie, your name is on here. Do you have something to present to us? You just want us to select a delegate for the League of California Cities Conference in Long Beach September 12 to 14. |
| 04:28:56.77 | Councilmember Withey | I move it's the mayor and the vice mayor. |
| 04:29:01.64 | Mayor Cox | All in favor? Aye. That motion carries 4-0. |
| 04:29:02.39 | Councilmember Withey | Aye. |
| 04:29:03.03 | Unknown | THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 04:29:06.30 | Mayor Cox | Item seven is city manager reports, council member reports, city council appointments and other council business. Is there any public comment on items 7B through 7F? Seeing none, we'll move swiftly on to the city manager report. Thank you. |
| 04:29:22.97 | Vice Mayor Burns | time, Adam. |
| 04:29:23.55 | Mayor Cox | Thank you. |
| 04:29:23.70 | Vice Mayor Burns | Thank you. |
| 04:29:24.26 | Mayor Cox | Thank you. |
| 04:29:24.27 | Vice Mayor Burns | . |
| 04:29:24.73 | Mayor Cox | Thank you. |
| 04:29:24.93 | Vice Mayor Burns | . |
| 04:29:25.40 | Mayor Cox | Thank you. |
| 04:29:25.42 | Vice Mayor Burns | Thank you. |
| 04:29:25.47 | Mayor Cox | Thank you. It's not my fault. We're an hour behind. |
| 04:29:29.50 | Adam Politzer | Thank you, I have actually no further items for council or public information, happy to answer any questions from the council. |
| 04:29:40.71 | Mayor Cox | Thank you. Councilmember Committee reports. |
| 04:29:45.81 | Councilmember Withey | Yeah, very briefly, TAM last week, TAM voted to recommend to the Board of Supervisors that put the half cent sales tax, Marin County sales tax for transportation funding onto the November ballot. I think we heard about that at the last meeting and supported that. So that was done, and the Board of Supervisors should be voting on that. |
| 04:30:05.41 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 04:30:17.68 | Councilmember Withey | The second thing that happened at that meeting is that the TAM board approved the programming of 360,000 to Sausalito for the gate six intersection improvements. This is not a done deal yet, has to go in front of the Clean Air something or other Clean Air Commission, the state. something and technically also be approved again by MTC. But I think that's likely. So that's good news. So that's my report. |
| 04:30:50.67 | Unknown | Bye. |
| 04:30:58.55 | Mayor Cox | Jill. OK. Go ahead. |
| 04:31:01.12 | Vice Mayor Burns | Thank you. |
| 04:31:01.17 | Mayor Cox | Thank you. |
| 04:31:01.29 | Vice Mayor Burns | Thank you. |
| 04:31:01.46 | Mayor Cox | Okay, I attended an RBRA meeting and I did a couple of things at the RBRA meeting. First, I brought along a page from the February PowerPoint, page four of the PowerPoint from Chief Rohrabacher and Bill Frost, that outlined the priority in which we will address the vessels on the waterfront. And I urged that RBRA adopt a similar priority and they agreed. So two of their members, all three of their members, at least three of their members publicly commented that our approach to first deal with abandoned marine debris and second unoccupied storage vessels and third vessels that are occupied by those who are a danger to themselves or others and with the lowest priority. being the occupied, licensed, registered vessels. they agreed that was the appropriate approach to addressing vessels on the waterfront. So I thought that was positive. In addition, during public comment, explained why Sausalito's Ordinance 1244 is not preempted by the CFR Special Anchorage Area. I provided The opinion that came from the Judge Advocate General together with the authority from the code of federal regulations and the case law upon which that ordinance depends. |
| 04:32:35.80 | Councilmember Withey | It seems like we got more influence over RBRA, now we're out. I know. |
| 04:32:40.55 | Mayor Cox | I know. So this is not a committee report, but I was interviewed yesterday by the Marin IJ regarding an unfortunate incident in one of our stores downtown. The City Manager and the President of the Chamber of Commerce, or the Executive Director of the Chamber of Commerce, personally addressing this issue, Susan Cleveland Knowles, council member, asked that we place this on future agenda items. I have personally corresponded with the customers who complained, and so we have an open dialogue, and we are committed, of course, to upholding the highest levels of customer service by all of our retail merchants. And so I'm going to ask that Debbie place this on a future agenda items list. either for the city manager can provide us an update and then we don't have to bring it back or to for proper handling. Okay, I have no appointments to boards, commissions, or committees. You have looked at the future agenda items, we're down to just over a little over one page. I am determined to get through it this year, and there are no other reports of significance. They're... I have forgotten. I wanted to adjourn. We lost someone. We got an... An announcement from ABAG. You probably got it. Let me take one moment because I want to adjourn the meeting in honor. |
| 04:34:24.36 | Mayor Cox | Yes, so this evening we will adjourn the evening in memory of Jeremy Nowak. He passed away on Saturday, July 28, after complications from a heart attack. He was a leader in the world of community development financing. He was the plenary speaker at the 2018 General Assembly, where he shared ideas from his new book on urban development. Um, He believed in the power of cities to address the most serious social, economic, and environmental challenges. So we extend our sympathy to his family, and we will adjourn this meeting in his honor. |
| 04:35:00.66 | Unknown | Thank you. |