| Time | Speaker | Text |
|---|---|---|
| 00:00:00.03 | Unknown | All those meeting in order. and request a roll call, please, search. |
| 00:00:04.74 | Unknown | Council Member Cox Councilmember Wrightly? Councilmember Withey? Here. Vice Mayor Cleveland Knowles? Here. Mayor Burns? |
| 00:00:13.55 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:00:13.56 | Unknown | Here. and we understand that the council member Cox is on her way we have one item to hear in closed session item D1 conference with legal counsel existing litigation pursuant to paragraph 1 of subdivision D of section 549 5 6.9 Gordon versus Sausalito we'll adjourn first I want to see is there any public comment any public comment on items regarding the closed session seeing them will close public comment and we'll be back here at 7 o'clock |
| 00:01:11.75 | SPEAKER_10 | Whoa, whoa, just Just me. Let's find a spot to cuddle and coo Just us, just we I've pitched an awful lot in my trouble with you |
| 00:01:19.75 | Unknown | Just a minute. |
| 00:01:20.37 | SPEAKER_11 | Bye. |
| 00:01:23.58 | Unknown | Bye. . |
| 00:01:25.84 | SPEAKER_10 | Whoa, Chief! What are your charms for? What are my arms for? Use your imagination, just you, just me. I'll tie the love at night round wonderful you. Thank you. |
| 00:01:40.72 | Unknown | you |
| 00:01:40.91 | SPEAKER_10 | I said I will tie a lover's not round wonderful you. |
| 00:01:41.31 | SPEAKER_11 | Thank you. |
| 00:01:48.64 | SPEAKER_11 | I'll tie a knot. around you. Yeah, I will tie a love but not |
| 00:02:00.62 | SPEAKER_10 | Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, round one, oh yeah. |
| 00:02:00.65 | SPEAKER_11 | Yeah, yeah, yeah. |
| 00:02:05.50 | SPEAKER_10 | Thank you. |
| 00:02:31.97 | Unknown | . you . |
| 00:02:49.32 | Unknown | Bye. |
| 00:02:54.05 | Unknown | . . Thank you. you |
| 00:03:07.97 | Unknown | . Bye. Thank you. Thank you. Bye. . you |
| 00:04:23.97 | Unknown | . Bye. you |
| 00:04:29.42 | SPEAKER_03 | You're listening to Radio Sausalito. a non-commercial Part 15 compliant radio station Broadcasting great music and community information 24 hours a day. You can hear us on 1610 AM in Southern Marin, also heard on cable as the audio accompaniment for Marin TV. Our FCC IDs are NWXAM1000 and MQ5FM10TX. Our web address is radiosausalito.org. |
| 00:06:35.51 | Unknown | Yeah. Oh, no, that's the first. |
| 00:08:01.41 | Unknown | Yeah, that's fine. |
| 00:08:12.36 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:08:12.38 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 00:08:17.22 | Unknown | That's what I thought, because you're down in that. |
| 00:09:44.01 | Unknown | And there he is. Welcome everyone, it is Tuesday, October 8th, 7 PM and we're going to call this meeting to order. I'm going to ask Kay, will you do the Pledge of Allegiance for us? |
| 00:10:02.65 | Unknown | Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. life. |
| 00:10:11.48 | Sybil Boutier | Thank you. Thank you. with liberty and justice for all. |
| 00:10:16.41 | Unknown | Thank you. If you're joining us on TV or out in the audience and you look over and you realize, hey, that's not Jill Hoffman. You are correct. That is not Jill Hoffman. We welcome officially to the dais Tom Riley, who is taking Jill's seat while she's on active duty. And we are excited to have Tom join. So now officially welcome once again to your first full meeting. |
| 00:10:38.92 | Tom Riley | Thank you, I'm very excited to begin my work with all of you. |
| 00:10:42.80 | Unknown | Likewise. |
| 00:10:46.17 | Unknown | We did just come out of a closed session meeting. We had a closed session item on the agenda. There are no closed session announcements. And I will now ask for approval of the agenda. |
| 00:10:59.73 | Unknown | So moved. Thank you. |
| 00:11:00.52 | Unknown | Second. |
| 00:11:01.84 | Unknown | All in favor? |
| 00:11:02.71 | Unknown | Aye. |
| 00:11:02.81 | Unknown | 5-0 on agenda. Mayor's announcements, you know, obviously just talked about Tom, but with something very important tonight occurring, as you've all heard, at least I hope you've heard, there is a planned power shutoff. So we've asked Captain Bill Frost to come up and talk a little bit about what to expect and what we might be looking at. Captain? Captain? |
| 00:11:30.42 | Unknown | Good evening, Mr. Mayor, city council members, and city staff. As of approximately two o'clock this afternoon, PG&E notified us through the County of Marin's Office of Emergency Services that City of Sausalito would probably be impacted by a public safety power shutoff. plan in order to avoid the possibility of fires caused by downed power lines or other you Thank you. infrastructure, that could fail during estimated heavy wind storms that are going to impact our area. Forecasts up to 48 hours ago showed that the city of Sausalito was not to be impacted or very little in Marin County were gonna be impacted by winds. However, just within the last 12 hours, forecasts have changed. and heavier winds are in forecasted to impact the city of Sausalito. which when PG&E surveyed their infrastructure and compared that to the forecasted weathers They determined that the risk was great and a power shutoff safety or public safety power shutoff plan would be the safest route of travel. in order to avoid any kind of disaster. At this moment it is planned for the power to start at approximately midnight. and with all power being out. in the affected areas at approximately 4 a.m. Currently downtown Sausalito is suffering from a power outage which is completely unrelated to the public safety power outage. It is true. I hate to say, it is one of those freaks of nature that occur. a transformer blue in the area of Bridgeway and Princess Strait and power is out in that area with an estimated return for power at approximately 945 this evening. Once the public safety power goes out. It is estimated that the winds and the weather concerns could last until Thursday afternoon. However, with any weather forecast, it is a forecast. It is not a guarantee. Weather could change, get better earlier, or it could last longer. Once the dangerous weather is completed, At that time PG&E has to survey their infrastructure to make sure that there are no issues that if they were to re-energize their lines, the power would cause any flare-ups or any fires. So at this time, it's impossible to say that once the public safety power shut off Stolz. when power will be resumed. PG&E is working in notifying all its partners in public safety and city government and trying to keep them as informed as possible. but it is an unknown. The city of Sausalito has been working together very jointly since being notified. the Fire District, Police Department, Public Works, Parks and Rec, The library and the city's administration have been in constant communication, informing the public and preparing plans to take care of the city during these times. The fire department and police department have already put out operating standing orders for our on duty personnel. to follow in order to ensure public safety remains fluid and there are no downturns or issues. Some of the most important things we must remind individuals at this time is during this time, we want to encourage individuals make sure that if they have any power outlets or anything like that that are still working, to charge up phones as necessary. and to ensure that their vehicles have gas. to make sure that they have plenty of water and other provisions that could last approximately 48 hours to our loan in order to survive. They should also take a look at PG&E's website and see what are the affected areas, and if it's best for them, they may want to consider going to an area that's not as affected. Um, There are numerous areas throughout the Bay Area Like I said, Sausalito was not, or Marin County was not in one of the affected areas up until 12 hours ago. things change. but your city, your public safety agencies, all your public Agencies are working together to make it as much of a smooth transition as possible and to care for the city during this time. And if there are any questions, I'd be glad to answer. |
| 00:15:59.88 | Unknown | Yeah, are there any questions for |
| 00:16:01.03 | Tom Riley | on this item. I'm just curious, 10 hours seems like short notice, what would you have normally expected? |
| 00:16:08.44 | Unknown | Well, I discussed this with PG&E. I was just on the phone with the representatives. PG&E tries to give 48 hours of notification. However, they cannot control the weather and they can't control how things are going to change. They notified individuals as soon as their matrix said that this area could be in danger, and they provided 10 hours. Ideally, they give 48 to 72 hours, but under these circumstances, they could not. |
| 00:16:29.85 | Unknown | Basically, they give 40. |
| 00:16:30.70 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:16:38.15 | Unknown | You might have mentioned this, but I think I read an occurrence today that City Hall will have charging stations. Did you mention that? |
| 00:16:45.95 | Unknown | I did not mention it, but it's as part of our ongoing plan. Anytime there are severe weather-related incidents or other issues in which power outages may occur, the city tries our best to provide charging areas in order for people to, |
| 00:16:48.01 | Unknown | Could you? |
| 00:17:01.73 | Unknown | charge up their cell phones, their tablets, and keep their means of communication going. The city will actually have two locations located here in City Hall. The first will be the game room. down in Parks and Rec. That will open at 7 a.m. tomorrow and stay open during the the regular course of Business for Public for parks and rec. The second location is the library. That will open tomorrow at 10 a.m. and stayed. open until 9 p.m. and they will be a power charging station for individuals to CHARGE THEIR machines, their devices, up until close. |
| 00:17:40.24 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:17:40.25 | Unknown | Great. |
| 00:17:40.78 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:17:41.06 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:17:42.68 | Unknown | Thank you, Captain. We appreciate your time tonight. Good luck tonight. |
| 00:17:44.54 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:17:44.88 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:17:48.45 | Unknown | All right, that's it for our special presentation of mayor announcements. I'm now going to open up to public comment for items that are not on tonight's agenda. We have an agenda posted over here, there's a lot of items that are. But for items that are not on tonight, I have open time. I have one card now from Matthew Holmes. Matthew, come on up, you have three minutes. If there are any others, please fill out a green card and bring them up to the table. |
| 00:18:15.10 | Matthew Holmes | Thank you, Mayor and City Council and staff. You were kind enough to email with me last week, and I was wondering when the city would discuss their intent to purchase the Bank of America building. at 750 Bridgeway. which we understand that is in negotiation right now, what the intent for that acquisition would be and disclosure of the financial ramifications around that transaction. So hoping to get some color on that and when that may become a public item. Thank you. |
| 00:18:43.33 | Unknown | Great. Thank you. |
| 00:18:48.14 | Unknown | Any other item? Any other cards coming up? |
| 00:18:56.24 | Unknown | Let me see if I can read this. Jeff Jacob? Jeff Jacob, are you here? You've got three minutes, Jeff. |
| 00:19:07.60 | Jeff Jacob | Hello, Mr. Mayor. Hello, Council. City workers and citizens. It's the beginning of a special day for the Israelites. |
| 00:19:26.14 | Jeff Jacob | We'll hold off sunset for a few minutes until I'm done with the microphone. That's... I'm not sure. |
| 00:19:40.20 | Jeff Jacob | That's okay. if we don't follow every rule. There are a lot of rules out there. The fact that there's now a power outage in Sausalito on Yom Kippur, it hits me a little bit. At the same time, across the nation, and across the world. There are people, young people mainly, talking about the foundation of all of these issues that are going to come cascading on us as we seem to continue digging a hole deeper. while at the same time trying to lift under the earth for sea level rise, of course. The parking lot's higher. Literally in the case of Dunphy Park, Metaphorically, It seems. at a meeting that I attended at the Bay Model. that was talking about Marin ships. |
| 00:20:52.58 | Jeff Jacob | The sixth. Extinction Rebellion has three demands. Number one. As we can see by Officer Farras' excuse me, Captain, Captain Ferasis, is he still here? His presentation, the government must acknowledge that there is an emergency. We're up two degrees in September. Almost two degrees in average high weather in San Rafael. This is not a joke. Governments must acknowledge this and make this a priority. Number two. is we get rid of our foolishness By going down, accept. for ambulances, Coast Guard, helicopters, and planes and such to zero fuel emissions. No more carbon output. Most importantly, We meet together. in national, Bodies, of course, they're going to have to start local first. Here in our own community to decide the details of how we are going to do this. Happy Yom Kippur. |
| 00:22:08.57 | Unknown | Thank you, Jeff. Any other public comment on items not on tonight's agenda? Seeing none, we'll close public comment and bring it up for action items of the previous minute. |
| 00:22:20.65 | Sybil Boutier | Move approval. |
| 00:22:21.26 | Unknown | you know, |
| 00:22:21.32 | Sybil Boutier | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 00:22:22.76 | Unknown | And that is of the September 10th meeting. Thank you. Motion and second, all in favor? Aye. |
| 00:22:30.07 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:22:30.08 | Unknown | Bye. |
| 00:22:30.76 | Unknown | That is 5-0. Council member, committee reports, committees that we have attended on behalf of the community. As you will hear, there's a lot of them. We stay busy when we're not up here on the dais. And I will ask Tom, do you want to start? What meetings have you had? I think you've had one, haven't you? |
| 00:22:52.46 | Tom Riley | I actually have not had a committee attendance since I was appointed last meeting. I will have an update the next meeting. |
| 00:22:59.61 | Unknown | Okay, and I will clarify, and I don't know if it's here or appointments, but I will clarify in both agenda items that Tom is assuming all of Jill's committee responsibilities until a future mayor changes those. |
| 00:23:19.51 | Unknown | Right. |
| 00:23:23.29 | Unknown | Yeah, very briefly... Uh, Tended a GPAC meeting. We're going to have an update next meeting. So the GPAC discussed the feedback from the City Council. And with the help of the M Group revised a, came forward with some form of vision for the Marinship. So that will be reported next time. Tending to BAC meeting, business advisory committee meeting, I can say |
| 00:24:05.96 | Unknown | that the mood was somber. if not incredulous at some of the actions that the g-pack words was taking so that we can discuss in two weeks time as well it was a very very difficult meeting and Finally, I attended a... MCE Marine Clean Energy technical committee meeting in which we made the decision to change the our projections and goals for renewable energy out in the out years. we had planned to aim to achieve percentage renewables of about 70% in 2028 and we increase that to 85% which is a very significant change and one that's going to be barely achievable but it's a stretch goal. I to 85 percent and remember marine clean energy will be greenhouse gas emissions free by 2022. |
| 00:25:33.16 | Unknown | It's a stretch goal. I'm sorry, Ray, from what percentage to 85? Oh, wow. |
| 00:25:38.73 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:25:54.62 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:25:54.64 | Unknown | Councilmember Joan Cox. |
| 00:25:57.02 | Unknown | I attended the GPAC meeting with Councilmember Withy. we will not only be hearing the vision, we will be reviewing a revised draft vision statement at our next GPAC meeting. We will also be looking at a matrix of various issues to be addressed in our upcoming revised updated general plan, and that matrix will also be coming to the City Council. |
| 00:26:29.77 | Unknown | Thank you. Vice Mayor. |
| 00:26:32.09 | Unknown | Yeah, so as I said at our last meeting, I had a Transportation Authority of Marin board meeting last week. And at that meeting, we had a joint meeting with the Marin Transit Authority Board on a proposal by the Bay Area Council and for a regional initiative called Faster Bay Area, which is to raise about $ hundred billion dollars over i think 40 years for transportation in the bay area and it was really interesting and well received although members did have some questions i as i mentioned at our last meeting did raise the issue of a one-cent sales tax being regressive and also further hampering local government's abilities to use the sales tax for local purposes. The response to that was that that was polling well well it was simple to convey as opposed to a mix of perhaps a bond and other revenue measures so anyway that is still evolving it's not in any definite form yet the majority of the funding would go to transit and moving transit faster in the in the bay area so that is expected for the november 2020 ballot but they are still having a lot of community input and other meetings so hopefully people will get involved if they have ideas around that there was a really interesting presentation by marin transit. They come annually to the Transportation Authority, so I would encourage anyone who is interested in Marin Transit to watch that presentation at the last TAM meeting. And then just as a note to those who know her, it was Diane Steinhauer's last meeting, and she will be retiring. And the new executive director will be Ann Richman, who will be starting soon. She comes from the Metropolitan Transportation Commission. Secondly, I, with the mayor, attended a finance committee last week. And we're going to discuss the Rec Park proposals today on a regular agenda, so I won't discuss that. But one thing I would just like to point out to council members and anyone in the public, the finance department of the city of sassolito presented us with a chart of all of their work product from now through the end of the year and it was really fascinating to look at how much work they are doing and how many significant items are on their plate through the end of the year so that's in the packet for that meeting and then lastly the sustainability commission for for this week had to be canceled due to a lack of quorum. But that's the first time that's happened in the two years that I've been the liaison to that committee. And then just one community item of note, I think everybody has heard that Sausalito Marin City School Board President, Ida Green's husband, Edward Boone Green, passed away. So I think it would be nice perhaps if the mayor or just reached out on behalf of the Sausalito City Council to express our condolences. |
| 00:30:11.26 | Unknown | Absolutely. Thank you. |
| 00:30:11.83 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 00:30:12.56 | Unknown | about. |
| 00:30:12.91 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:30:12.95 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:30:14.41 | Unknown | So many meetings that attended with these people, as well as MCC MC, which nobody brought up. We haven't had one. I mean, we had one since our last meeting. And oddly enough, the program was on PG&E power shutoffs. So we learned, once again, that's I think the second time in a year we've heard from PG&E on potential shutoff and all the work they have done. And, you know, tonight at 12.05 we might be mad at PG&E, but how quickly they did work up on our hillside with replacement of towers, or that they're in the process of completing the SHU and doing the replacement of of towers has been an impressive they've done a lot of work in certain areas so you know obviously they're they're taking this very seriously and have made strides in a lot of areas which I think should continue to come out from their their company but probably have our own issues to talk about the next 48 hours Some of us attended the Spirit of Marin luncheon last Friday, where the chambers of all the communities in Marin get together and honor people from their communities. We honored Christopher Holbrook of Studio 333 as a business of the year. And right here in City Hall last week, I attended a Cannabis in Sausalito meeting that is unrelated to the ordinance tonight, though related in topic as far as cannabis and Sausalito. Very informative. I think we'll probably hear some of that tonight in public comment. But there's opportunities exist sometimes for the community and the public to come in here from outside people on these items that we have. And I think this is an interesting topic right now. Those are the items I've attended. Are we all good? Yeah. |
| 00:32:07.43 | Tom Riley | Thank you. I do want to mention the past two weeks, I have had the opportunity to meet with many of department staff heads, and I just want to thank all of them for their time and openness in educating me on operations of the city. |
| 00:32:20.10 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:32:21.92 | Tom Riley | Thank you. |
| 00:32:21.94 | Unknown | Right. All right, it's time for our consent calendar items. First, I'm going to ask if there's anything we need to look at as far as recusals on here. We're all clear on those. Removal items from consent, matters listed on the consent are considered routine, 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. There'll be no separate discussion on each item. However, we can make some comments. Is there any comments or questions before I open up public? Seeing none, I'll open up to public comment on consent items 5A through 5D. Is there any public comment on these four items? Seeing no hands or no cards, I'll close public comment and bring it up here for... Discussion or motion? |
| 00:33:14.88 | Unknown | I will move approval of the consent calendar. I did want to acknowledge the PowerPoint presentation that accompanied the sewer system management plan audit. which made it very user friendly to understand the success of that program. So I very much appreciated the staff effort in putting that together for us. |
| 00:33:35.46 | Unknown | Good point. All right, did we get a second on that? |
| 00:33:39.31 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:33:39.34 | Unknown | I'm sorry. |
| 00:33:39.38 | Unknown | I moved. |
| 00:33:39.77 | Unknown | Second. All in favor? Aye. That passes five to zero. |
| 00:33:41.81 | Unknown | Bye. |
| 00:33:45.07 | Unknown | We're up to business items. And we have first up, 2019 Jazz and Blues by the Bay survey results. Julie, are you actually going to sing this entire presentation? |
| 00:33:58.03 | Julie Myers | Thank you. |
| 00:33:58.58 | Unknown | No, you're not going to say? Okay, good. |
| 00:33:59.17 | Julie Myers | No, but the rest might accompany me. Thank you. Hello everyone, Julie Myers with Parks and Recreation. And as you can see, we did a Jazz and Blues by the Bay survey, mostly because it was time. We hadn't done one in quite a while. And because we really wanted to get a voice to not just the people who come to Jazz Blues but maybe stopped coming for some reason or just didn't come at all. So we publicized the survey through Nextdoor and Currents. And then also, obviously, at the event, I walked around and met with quite a few people and asked them to take the survey. We had 134 respondents. You can see the breakdown there. And there's the age breakdown. It kind of matches, I think, our city quite a bit in some way, shape, or form. And here's where we found out how many concerts people are going to go to. And it's kind of, to me, it's very even. So you just don't know who's going. If the people at Jazz and Blues are going to be there just there one time, or they're going to be there ten times? Um. Overall, everyone loves Jazz and Blues. The good to great is a large percentage of the respondents. and they would definitely recommend this to a friend. So that's good to hear. They like socializing the music pretty close. And we need to work on the food. We did ask if people are open to hearing other things in jazz and blues, and as you can see, overwhelmingly it is yes. Then we asked them what type of music, and they chose jazz and blues. Uh, Thank you. So they did choose quite a few others, oldies, Latin music, bluegrass, cover bands, rock. But it was overwhelming that jazz and blues were the two favorites. There were 118 comments and since I made the PowerPoint, this is the comment I chose. I'll give you a second to read it. I feel at this point I need to say, hello, Sausalito. Hello. um, Digging through the comments. These were the themes. Overwhelmingly, people talked about music, and they gave us kudos. It was really nice to hear. I broke down the music comments, and you can see what people were talking about when they talked about music. And they did want new music to be played at Jazz and Blues. |
| 00:36:39.13 | Unknown | music. Thank you. |
| 00:36:40.40 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:36:40.51 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:36:44.89 | Julie Myers | And... Mike and I discussed the survey at length, and these are our takeaways. Basically, people love jazz and blues, and we're doing a good job, which is nice to hear. We felt that everyone wanted to hear new music, so next summer we're going to start bringing in not jazz and blues bands. Just a couple here and there, just to feel out and see how everyone goes. We do need to take all the food comments and share them with our food vendors and help educate them on what people like at Jasmine Booze. And then we also need to kind of do a better job of educating people because a lot of people wanted the event to go beyond August. Our staff goes back to school. and it gets dark earlier. And then they also wanted us to stay longer, but the staff has to leave at 9 p.m., so we kind of need to do a better job of educating them. So that's it, and thank you guys very much for everything. And do you have any questions for me? |
| 00:37:43.36 | Unknown | Well, we're going to see if we have questions. I know we have a lot of comments, so stick around for those as well. But for now, are there any questions of Julie before we open to public comments? |
| 00:37:46.02 | Julie Myers | So stick around for those as well. 118. |
| 00:37:48.20 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:37:52.49 | Tom Riley | I did, Julie, just in many positive comments, but one question I was curious. Any sense of how many non-residents come into the city? |
| 00:38:00.47 | Julie Myers | Not really, I mean just from my walking around and getting to know people, it's I would say like 25%, 20, 25%. It's mostly the residents. |
| 00:38:14.05 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:38:15.57 | Unknown | Can I just ask how we think we're doing with composting, recycling, garbage collection? I mean, do you have a sense at the end of the night? kind of when people have gone, what it looks like. |
| 00:38:26.84 | Julie Myers | kind of went. I think we do a great job of setting up the bins and labeling them and making it easy for people to compost and recycle. I think it's hit or miss. I think we need to educate people a little better as they leave. They'll just kind of, you know, it's the end of the night. They're tired. They just throw everything in whatever's closest. So we might need to start asking the Sustainability Commission to kind of help us out and maybe get down there and help people sort. |
| 00:39:02.05 | Unknown | Great. Yeah, I think some events that I've been to actually have people standing near the, you know, the bins kind of saying this goes here, that goes there. That might be something we could get some volunteers to do. |
| 00:39:08.53 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:39:16.54 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 00:39:16.73 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:39:16.86 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:39:16.96 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:39:17.08 | Unknown | for grace. |
| 00:39:17.10 | Unknown | Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. |
| 00:39:17.49 | Unknown | We did that when we brought in some new cans one time we had the boards and people standing there doing it But doing it again or at least first few to get it is very good idea |
| 00:39:22.48 | Unknown | you |
| 00:39:26.66 | Unknown | Mm-hmm. |
| 00:39:28.37 | Unknown | Any other questions? All right, I'm going to open a public comment. Would anybody like to sing? I mean, make any public comment about the jazz music? |
| 00:39:33.41 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:39:33.55 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:39:33.58 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:39:37.38 | Unknown | Any public comment at all on this item? Don't go away, Julie. Seeing none, we'll close public comment. Bring it up here for some comments or suggestions. ideas. Anything you'd like to say? Julie. |
| 00:39:55.03 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:39:55.79 | Unknown | I love you. |
| 00:39:55.86 | Unknown | Well, we can say thank you. |
| 00:39:55.98 | Unknown | OKAY. |
| 00:39:56.60 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:39:59.07 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:39:59.59 | Unknown | Yeah, I don't know what the actual number of people from out of town are. I think we, regardless of what it is, we should be welcoming to all our visitors. What I get in hanging around different parts of Marin is that One thing that people remember about coming to Sausalito as visitors on a Friday evening in the summer is jazz and blues, and they're very complimentary. A city council member from another town said to me, this is my favorite thing to do in the summer. On the recycling front, I think at Jazz we introduced a three bin system a long time ago actually. One of the first events to do that in Sol Solito. But unfortunately, at least there's only about a 25 to 30% compliance on anything in terms of composting, so that's just a sobering reminder. |
| 00:40:41.69 | Unknown | No. |
| 00:41:09.91 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:41:10.33 | Unknown | And products are changing. You know, the way things, cups and all that are different products than they were even when we did that. Thank you. |
| 00:41:18.29 | Tom Riley | I'd just like to thank you. I think it's one of the best things in the summer. And my comment actually on visitors was I have known people to come in from out of town and spend the night. And I think it's a great staycation idea to be promoted by our hotels. |
| 00:41:18.33 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:41:18.43 | Steve Flint | I'm not. |
| 00:41:31.37 | Tom Riley | but wonderful event. |
| 00:41:34.31 | Unknown | I agree, I thank the Parks and Rec Department for all their hard work on this. I endorse the idea of new types of music. I have a band to recommend, the Cameroons. That Tom Riley is familiar with, so I'll forward you their contact information. |
| 00:41:51.94 | Unknown | Great, yeah, I just want to say I've enjoyed that event from the first time that I moved here, about 18, 19 years ago, with no kids, then with a dog, then with young kids, with older kids, and it's just, it's a great event. The only suggestion that, you know, having had very small kids at one point, with the rocks and the, you know, the crabs and that, it is difficult. and if there was any possibility of putting some kind of a small jumpy or something over to the side, kind of over by Spinnaker, it probably doesn't fit. But I know that would help relieve anxiety along the seawall there. But anyway, it's always been a really fun time. And, yes, I know people from throughout Marin and from San Francisco that love to come and enjoy it. And I think that's a great event. So thank you. Thanks for all the hard work. |
| 00:42:45.17 | Unknown | Yeah, I think you will find that you're the envy event now of the county. That's what we've heard from other council members. And I think it has a lot to do with you. It's a big group. It's well done, yet you bring that personal, this is still Sausalito. It's got a little bit of salty. It's got weather challenges. We've been out there where we have to hold our plates with two hands, not just one. |
| 00:43:06.80 | Unknown | Two hands. |
| 00:43:10.61 | Unknown | And no place else can do that. And no place can say this is only going to happen in Sausalito. You're going to be cold. You're going to have to get your hat out of the water. But you're looking at the city and you're hearing music, and this is all Sausalito people putting it on. So great job in making that event even better than it ever was before. I know you're going to make some tinkering, and we look forward to that. And we look forward to supporting you next year as you go forward. Good job. Anything else? Thank you, Julie. Next up, 6B, we're going to receive a report on the proposed Marin County Regional Wildfire Risk Reduction Tax Initiative. There's no acronym for that yet, but I think it's in the works, is that correct? Okay. |
| 00:43:54.81 | Unknown | Mayor Burns, Vice Mayor Cleveland, those council, good evening. Thank you very much for the opportunity to be before you tonight. As we are all aware over the past two years, there's been a heightened awareness and concern regarding the increased risk from wildfire here in Marin County. In April this year, the Marin County Civil Grand Jury published a report recommending a new regional approach and new revenue stream to mitigate this risk. over the past several months there's been a significant amount of activity related to this critical issue in the grand jury's recommendations and elected an agency officials been working collaboratively to bring this information and a plan to the community Tonight is an informational presentation for the council and community regarding that work and what is being recommended. Tomorrow night, the Southern Marin Fire District Board of Directors will be voting on a resolution to put this issue before our voters. As a valued partner of the Southern Marin Fire District, this council's input and comments are critically important. It's my intent to share your comments, concerns, and other feedback to the board tomorrow night as they debate this issue. As a matter of fact, our board president, Kirk Chun, is with us as well tonight. I'd like to thank the city manager and mayor for their participation, their insights, and hard work through this process. They've been instrumental in the final JPA that's in the packet tonight. now i'd like to introduce to you in a bottle fire chief uh... bill tyler who's also president of the marine county fire chiefs association who deliver the first part of this presentation and afterwards will be happy to answer the |
| 00:45:27.71 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:45:31.50 | Unknown | Well, Chief. |
| 00:45:34.05 | Unknown | Thank you so much. Before I get started, I just wanted to echo what a wonderful place Sausalito is. I have spent one of the most wonderful days of my life here. I got married to my wife 21 years ago. We had our reception at the Spinnaker and then stayed at the Casa Madrone before heading off out of town and it was really wonderful. And I also think that Sausalito has, I don't know if it's still your motto, but it was the best motto I've ever heard. Sausalito is why they built the Gongay Bridge. I love that. I don't know if that's still here or not, but anyway. I appreciate Chiefs Tubbs inviting me today. We've made this presentation now over to 37 different towns, cities, fire districts, and really any public interest group that would listen to us. And they were also a series of listening sessions as they are tonight as we get additional feedback and we move forward on this initiative. Before I start with the PowerPoint presentation, I'd just like to show a short video that helps provide context for why we're here. |
| 00:47:12.04 | Unknown | Wildfires are bigger, burn longer, cause more damage, and kill more people than ever before. During the fire siege of 2017, when our friends to the north experienced that disaster, Marin was just one ignition source away from that occurring. We have the same fuel conditions, same weather, and same topography that drove that fire that night. |
| 00:47:33.54 | Unknown | Wildfire risk is now a constant threat in California, especially in communities like Marin, with lush vegetation and development near significant areas of natural open space. Marin's natural beauty and abundant undeveloped lands are considered source fuel for a potentially devastating and fatal wildfire. similar to the ones that have ravaged Sonoma, Napa, Lake Counties and Paradise over the past few years. Many Marin neighborhoods are adjacent to wildlands because of a strong desire to live close to nature. Recent fire seasons have been longer, hotter, and among the deadliest and most destructive on record. The 260,000 residents of Marin receive fire protection and emergency response services from 19 separate cities, towns, fire districts, and the county. But there is no single agency responsible for coordinating wildfire prevention. |
| 00:48:29.23 | Unknown | The threat of large destructive wildfires in Marin is real. And one of the most important lessons is that a fast moving wildfire doesn't care about jurisdictional boundaries, but a coordinated large scale effort to improve prevention and safety can make a difference, can save lives and property. |
| 00:48:47.47 | Unknown | In response to the need for coordinated action to reduce wildfire risk in Marin, local fire agencies and municipal governments have proposed creation of a new joint powers authority, the Marin Wildfire Prevention Authority. The new authority's mission would be to improve and oversee programs in early wildfire detection, improved alert and warning systems, resident evacuations, vegetation management and fire hazard reduction, defensible space property evaluations, educating the public about wildfire safety, and more. |
| 00:49:23.82 | Unknown | This new fire prevention and mitigation program is designed to be in addition to, not in replacement, of the current fire prevention efforts currently in place in our Marin communities. The program is designed to bring all of Marin neighborhoods up to a defensible space standard to minimize loss from large damaging wildfires, while also allowing flexibility to address local needs. For example, some communities have local fire issues related to the need for improved fire patrols, road widening, increasing the vegetation removal along critical evacuation routes. |
| 00:50:00.17 | Unknown | Some local community issues that can be addressed, for one, is improving your primary and secondary evacuation routes from your neighborhood. Many communities within Moran only have one way in and one way out. How we improve that is by removing hazardous vegetation that's located along the roadsides. A second issue to address would be improved defensible space inspection program. How that is involved is by allowing a cadre of inspectors to come into our community and to be able to consistently inspect every single property and give recommendations on how you can prepare your home to become more fire safe. |
| 00:50:36.25 | Unknown | Currently, no dedicated source of funding exists for wildfire prevention and preparedness in Marin. Options for securing a dedicated funding source are being evaluated. including placing a local funding measure on the ballot in 2020 for voters to consider. It is estimated that approximately $20 million per year is needed to implement an effective coordinated wildfire prevention program. |
| 00:51:02.93 | Unknown | We've been lucky to avoid a major wildfire in Marin County, but luck is not a strategy. We need a good plan to make ourselves safer. Research and just plain common sense point out the need to have a coordinated countywide wildfire prevention effort. It's been a long time coming, but I'm very excited to see all this come together. |
| 00:51:24.98 | Unknown | In the coming months, cities, towns, and local fire agencies will have the opportunity to join the Marin Wildfire Prevention Authority, and decisions will be made about securing dedicated funding for the authority's programs. To stay informed, please visit www.marinwildfire.org. |
| 00:51:51.11 | Unknown | No? Chief, before you go further, we have one question. |
| 00:51:54.62 | Unknown | Yeah, so one of the things that the video said is that there's no dedicated source of funding exists for wildfire preparedness in Marin. But when I look at our Measure U, The purpose of Measure U was to And it said Southern Marin Fire Protection District is one of the few fire districts in the county that does not have a dedicated public source of funding for our vital fire response services. So that was the whole purpose of our Measure U, and we have Measure U, and we now have a dedicated source of funding for that purpose. So I'm unclear why the video would say there is no dedicated source of funding for wildfire preparedness in Marin. |
| 00:52:38.03 | Unknown | So two ways to think about this. One is that this is on a regional level. This isn't department by department. That historically has been the way agencies, individual agencies, have had to try and secure their own funding, whether that was through their own special tax measures. They usually went to fund additional things, not just wildfire prevention. And so what's unique about this is's it's an original approach that is really going to enhance the work that's already been done here in southern Marin and I look through the staff report that Chief Tubbs put together I think he addressed specifically in that staff report and the differences and the enhancements that are available through this. And so I'm going to let him speak to that a little bit more because I know that is a concern that you all have. So hopefully that sufficiently touches on that, and then we'll let Chief Tubbs also address it more specifically for your region. Is that okay? Okay, thank you. So, you know, it's really by no accident that we're here tonight having the threat of the power safety shutoff, you know, here in Marin County. And originally when the discussion started and you were asking questions about that, there's also a much broader region shutoff that's going on, Napa, Sonoma, and throughout the Bay Area. I mean, there's over three quarters of a million people that possibly could lose their power for up to five or six days. and throughout the Bay Area. I mean, there's over three quarters of a million people that possibly could lose their power for up to five or six days as it's not just the duration of the red flag that's the hazard. There's also going back and checking all of those lines to make sure that there aren't any. breaks in the power before they turn them back on and those have to be inspected visually mile by mile and there are literally hundreds and hundreds if not thousands of miles for PG&E to try and inspect. They're saying that this wind event also along with the low humidities is most closely aligned with exactly what happened in 2017 at the Tubbs fire and that's really why we're here. The fires in Santa Rosa the wine country fires and then also in 2018 which was the most Deadly destructive fire in California history the parent in Paradise, California, which was the campfire and Climate change is really driving this into the future, and this will not be the last time that you're going to have these PSPS shutoffs as they try and control ignitions through the electrical grid. The fire season is actually about 84 days longer since the 70s. Again, more destructive, killing more people, both the public and firefighters. And Marin County, all you need to do is step outside and look up into the hills, and you can see that we've got the type of vegetation that is capable of supporting high-intensity, fast-moving, and damaging fires. We have a strong mutual and automatic aid agreement set up operationally between those 19 different fire agencies, which means we respond seamlessly to incidents. Tonight also, it wasn't reported to you, but there are two different strike teams, which is five engines of both type 3 wildland fires and type 1 engines. So there are 10 additional fire engines. Each one of those fire engines have four additional firefighters. There's a strike team leader. There is a Tamil Pius fire crew. water tankers available there's a type 3 incident management team that's all been stood up tonight over the next 48 hours to be able to respond effectively in an incident the problem is that we don't have that ability on a prevention and a mitigation mindset so that is really what this measure is being designed to try and solve so the because of global warming denser force and vegetation more human ignitions it's not likely that this problem is going to get Thank you. being designed to try and solve. So because of global warming, denser forests and vegetation, more human ignitions, it's not likely that this problem is going to get any less. |
| 00:56:32.18 | Unknown | This is just an image that's taken right out of the Community Wildfire Protection Plan in 2016. And it basically shows you on hot summer days that are not atypical around here. The red areas are where the flame lengths are expected to exceed 11 foot in height. Why that's important is because you can't just use hand crews at that point to put these fires out. You're going to need. aircraft you're going to need dozers and we've already experienced this summer two recently up in Nevada where we had to use aircraft to put out fires so you can just see on a normal and this is not the kind of wind event that we may experience tonight if you if you laid that over and we ran the modeling with that you would largely see much larger red areas When you think about insurance, you're probably hearing from your realtor friends and from others that are saying that they are concerned about losing their insurance, their non-renewals. Insurance losses are increasing. They're resulting in companies reducing their risk levels, and some companies are leaving California. The overall rates for insurance are increasing. There was about a 6% non-renewal in California last year. And what we know from the North Bay Fire Center is that the North Bay Fire Center has been rates for insurance are increasing. There was about a 6% non-renewal in California last year. And what we know from the North Bay Fires in 2017, that of those people that lost their homes in the fire, 74% were underinsured. which is a big problem. And they're saying now that it's about $500 per square foot is the average cost for a build in Sonoma County, so it's likely to be far greater down here in Marin and especially southern Marin. So that's something that homeowners need to go back and pull their policies and look and see what their rebuild amounts are at. There were three core documents. These are the pillars that we built this program and initiatives around. The first, as I mentioned, the 2016 Community Wildfire Protection Plan. That is a science-based document that used fuel modeling and GIS to help us take a look, a hard look at our risks and help us do predictive analytics on where we might inspect these fires through fuel modeling, through fuel type, slope, wind, fuels, topography, et cetera. And it came up with a series of findings and recommendations. And every year, fire agencies, this was a plan that had many, many stakeholders, fire agencies are required to report out annually to the Fire Chiefs Association on what steps they've taken to try and address and mitigate those goals and recommendations that were made. Also in this document are areas of concern that were identified by all of the different agencies where they had plans and projects ready to go if they had funding to be able to do those. The next document is the 2018 Lessons Learned learned report this was commissioned by the Board of Supervisors immediately following the Tubbs fire in 2017 we brought together all of the emergency responders the the folks that the large landowners the public works the community development and we brought those officials down along with law enforcement and we asked them, tell us what happened that night. What did you have in place ahead of time? What did you wish you would have had? And then we stepped back and we looked at what we have here in Marin County, which is a lot of things that we have actually that was very good to see that are outlined in that community wildfire protection plan, but we did notice that there were gaps. And so we did a gap analysis and we said, okay, what can we do better? uh, for both fire, law enforcement, community development, public works, large landowners, and the public. If you look in that document, you'll see a number of initiatives that begin to come out and need to be addressed. Because I'm the president of the Fire Chiefs Association, we put together a committee, and we decided to tackle the 24 items that were identified in that plan that were fire related. From those 24, we synthesized it down to six initiatives, and those initiatives we brought forward and shared that information with the cities and town managers and other stakeholders, and we said, look, these are the initials that we think we need to tackle from a fire perspective, and then that is what's being brought forward here in a more formal way now. The last document that was also critical was the Marin County Civil Grand Jury Report on Wildfire Preparedness. So this is a group of concerned residents grand jurors who wanted to tackle this issue that looked at it separately, that did their own analysis, their own interviews, and came up with a series of conclusions, two of which were one was they recognized that there was no single unifying prevention and mitigation authority, so they recommended that, and then they also recognized that there just is no funding, dedicated funding revenue to be able to tackle all of those things at that scale. And that was the second recommendation. And they had recommended at that time that it would be a sales tax. So the Marin Wildfire Prevention Authority is really birthed out of that whole process with those initiatives, with the discussions. It's the local fire agencies together with the emergency providers. all the cities and towns that are participating members and also the Marin County and we're working together for the first time proposing this the single joint powers authority so we that we can have some comprehensive wildfire prevention and emergency preparedness here in the county and Um, when I talked about the six initiatives, you can see them here. The first four make up the core of the JPA. It's wildfire detection and evacuation program improvements, which we found is the number one concern of the public right now. They want to know, how am I going to be notified if there is a fire? And they want to know, how am I going to be able to get out? Also vegetation management and hazard reduction. grants and management and also public education those four things make up the core and I'll go into a little more detail in a minute and then there's defensible space evaluations and home hardening that is taking a look at the the vegetation and seeing if the types of plants are in an arrangement that can carry fire to the structure and try and make some modifications around that and then secondly looking at the structure itself going from the top down from the roof and looking at the combustible construction that is really what what most And then secondly, looking at the structure itself, going from the top down from the roof and looking at the combustible construction that is really what most of Marin, we have an existing combustible construction issue. So, you know, the roofs, the vents, the eaves, the exteriors, the decks, the windows, the doors, et cetera, all of these are vulnerable points during a wildfire. And so I'll talk more about that in a second. And lastly, we wanted to make sure that each one of the own communities have their own special needs, their own programs that they need to try and get at additional fuel hazard, additional hazard reduction that's specific to their own cities and towns. So just a little quickly and more into detail, the detection and evacuation would be improvements to early alerting and warning systems. We think that we need to do a study, an evacuation study that can show how long do we think it will take to get these number of people out of these communities along the existing primary and secondary routes, identify those choke points, and come up with specific plans that can be addressed on how to ease that piece of it we also want to organize and coordinate the evacuation planning right now every single city and town has their own sort of level of how they do that and we think that we can standardize it and enhance it and then approve of improvements on those evacuation routes and the infrastructure With regards to vegetation management, I'm still in the core now, those core pieces. We wanna reduce combustible vegetation and plants. We wanna try and protect the communities and those critical infrastructure, primary and secondary evacuation routes are paramount. and we're proposing that we're going to do this through a combination of fuels and fire crews equipment it could be goat grazing There could be a reintroduction of controlled burns or pile burns. all done with environmental sound practices. This is an example here, and I know this is a little hard to see, and I apologize for that. I'm going to use the pointer. But this is the Sleepy Hollow area, and this is San Rafael. And this was a series of these yellow areas are what are called shaded fuel breaks, and that means that anything dead and down was cleared up. They limbed up trees. They cut grass. And they created basically a fire calming area where as the fire moved from one to the area, it gives firefighters a chance to get in and put out those fires. And what this illustrates is really what can be done between communities. So again, if you've got, here into the Ross Valley and Sleepy Hollow, all of the work that they're doing also helps all of the residents over here in San Rafael and the work that they're doing in San Rafael does the same thing for the other side. This type of initiative gives us the opportunity to work in concert. The other thing that's important to note about this is this is very expensive work. This work represents about 600 acres of modifications, and so it was around $1,000 per acre, depending on what method was used. Currently, The county of Marin through the Ross Valley is working on clearing vegetation routes. It's about $18,000 per mile is kind of what the cost is right now on that. So it's very expensive work that would really quickly deplete even dedicated funding that you may have currently. Education is paramount. You know, the fear is very, very high. You're going to see this as this wind event goes on, but the understanding is very low. And so education is really needed to close the gap. We need to be able to help people understand that there's concrete steps that they can take to help protect themselves, help protect their neighbors, and then subsequently the community. And FireSafe Marin has been a great partner with us in that endeavor and we want to really accelerate and amplify those meetings instead of talking to a room full of you know 30 people we want to talk to rooms full of 400 people there's 260 you know residents here in Marin County and they all need to understand what the risks are and what they can do to try and reduce that And then, of course, there's the firewise neighborhoods, which is neighbors coming out, doing an assessment of their own neighborhood, coming up with a plan that they can implement, and sharing in those benefits through that whole process. So those were the four items that make up the core of the JPA. Now we're talking about 20% of the programs that allow an agency to make a decision on how they would like to move forward on this particular item so this is what was known as defensible space evaluations and home hardening so your agencies your fire districts may contemplate either using a cadre of inspectors that would be brought in to be able to do these evaluations across the county or they could develop their own program and bring in their own people using that that 20% of the funds to go meet homeowners face-to-face on their driveways, to help them write a prescription and show them what house and home hardening is all about, to reduce structural ignitability. They can talk about plants, and they can show them, and they can leave them then with an information and a plan going forward. This is not something that can be done quickly. This is going to take a long time to be able to plan for, budget for, and execute. But people need information, and they need to have a good understanding of why they're being asked to do this also it gives us an opportunity for those evaluators to talk about grants grants could be provided to people as incentives to do work this is being done and effectively right now in our jurisdiction where we have a $500 match when someone does up to a thousand dollars worth of work we provide them with $500 matching and we also want to start a dedicated abatement program last is the addressing a local specific needs so an agency for example like San Rafael that's having issues with homeless encampments can come up with their own program in order to deal with that funding. So we're looking at about $21 million annually. This would be a stable source of locally controlled funding dedicated to wildfire prevention. This is to supplement, not supplant existing funds. Potentially the countywide tax measure would be set for March of 2020. It requires a two-thirds majority of support in order to pass. We've done a recent survey of Marin voters that show strong support for the prevention measure. And again, it's ongoing and not one-time or grant-dependent funds that we have right now. This is just the same graph that I showed you earlier, but it's with the different funding amounts that we're plugging in based on those percentages. When we look at the tax polling measures, it was up to 11 cents per square foot they also pulled a 178 per parcel or a quarter cent sales tax and you can see countywide this was a fully informed and poll that was done, which is we told them about it, what the benefits were, and also some of the negative arguments. And this, you can see, well gets past what's required in both the up to 11 cents per square foot and the parcel tax countywide. This is what Southern Marin looks like with their polling. I wanted to show you the operational zones that we're talking about. Five zones, 19 members. You might recognize these zones. They're the ambulance operational areas. But it would be one member from each one of the participating members functioning within these zones. So, public information, we created a website. You saw the video, the background documents, and frequently asked questions. There was over 37 informational sessions. We got feedback about governance, citizens' oversight, the length of the measure, and environmental input from those groups as well. All of those informed and shaped the document. This was a collaborative process. This was a consensus-building exercise, and there was lots of compromise that occurred. Not everyone got everything that they want. It was the biggest civics lesson of my life, but it was important that we go through this process to make it viable. So again, the response from that feedback was to expand the governing board and operations committee to 19 members. The way that you can move a budget or the projects forward is you need both a majority of the members that are participating. those members have to represent at least 50% of the population. There are programmatic reviews built in every five years. We'll take a hard look at the funding and how the programs are working. In addition to that up to 10 cents per square foot language, which is where we're landed now, it gives the opportunity for those elected officials in this JPA, if they need to, to dial down the amount so that they're not always up at that... up to 10%. And we also added a citizens oversight committee that has nine members, including representatives from those five zones, as well as members of taxpayer organizations, environmental fire prevention, and nonpartisan civic organizations. |
| 01:11:33.71 | Unknown | Excuse me, Chief, as you turn the – we have one question on that slide. |
| 01:11:36.42 | Unknown | So this slide might answer it, but the staff report really didn't talk about the governance structure. I mean, I know it's in the attachment, but it was a little hard to wade through. So can you talk about who is on the board and how decisions would be made? |
| 01:11:52.67 | Unknown | Yes, so the board of directors will be made up of elected officials, one from each one of the 19 participating members. These are jurisdictions that have the responsibility for fire protection and the taxing authority for that. So one from each, and then there's an operations group that's made up of agency staff. This will most likely be cities or town managers and fire chiefs. They're the ones that will work through the technical advisory committee, which, again, also has more than 19 members. This is where you would get other groups, large land owners that can help, you know, PG&E, for example, so that we're maximizing those projects and trying to get those implemented. So it would come through the operations group, and those recommendations would come up to the board of directors to have that vote on. So again, in order for something to move, you would need to have, if you've got, let's say we've got all 19 members, you would need at least 10 of those members to agree, and those 10 members would need to have if you've got let's say we've got all 19 members you would need at least 10 of those members to agree and those 10 members would need to have at least add up to at least 50% of the total population those are the two checks and balances and then the citizens oversight committee which is very very important they are able to self-identify that they want to be in this in this role and that when once formed they'll also be able to write the bylaws for themselves about how they want to be in this role. And once formed, they'll also be able to write the bylaws for themselves about how they want to interact. But certainly oversight on the fiscal spending and also on the plan itself would be critical components of that. Did that answer your question? And then there's more details in the JPA itself, but that's the vision for how the JPA would function. |
| 01:13:35.53 | Unknown | And is there included budget allocation for all of the staffing? oversight technical advisory committee. |
| 01:13:46.18 | Unknown | The idea is not to, for the JPA will not be hiring, we don't want to incur you know, any, um, Pension obligations or other post-employment benefit, there's examples of these types of JPAs already that work very, very well. The Southern Marin Paramedic Authority is one of them, Ross Valley Paramedic Authority, and also the Hazardous Materials Joint Powers Agreement. They don't have any full-time employees. They don't have any pension obligations or OPEP obligations. |
| 01:14:16.43 | Unknown | Okay, thank you. |
| 01:14:17.24 | Unknown | The, again, with the funds, mandatory physical accountability, all the funds have to stay local. They cannot be taken by the state. The funds may be used on wildfire prevention and mitigation and cannot be diverted. There is independent oversight along with the annual reporting of the financials and audits. The Citizens Oversight Committee. the annual project and budget plans that will be prioritized. And then there's a 10% cap that we're placing on the administrative overhead. So we can't spend more than that on the overhead piece. |
| 01:14:39.82 | Unknown | him. |
| 01:14:47.77 | Unknown | The structure of the tax itself is up to $0.10 per square foot. That's both residential and commercial. In your packet, you can see an additional breakdown of that. In terms of multi-unit residential or three or more units, this is your apartments, $75 per unit. We also think that unimproved areas, they contribute to the problem, they need to contribute to the solution. So it's up to a quarter acre, it's $25 per year per parcel. A quarter acre to half acre is $100, and then greater than half acre is $150. There's a senior low-income exemption that's built in, and also the possibility of having annual inflation adjustments, the Bay Area CPI with a 3% cap. Again, we talked about citizens oversight, we talked about the independent audits, and the prioritized work plan is helping to maintain that accountability. This is the sample ballot language. This is in your packet, so I won't read this. I think it's important, though, that you see that it says until repealed by voters. And so that's important language here. there are certain groups that would like to have a hard stop that would like to cause us to have to physically stop the JPA and to, you know, bring it forward back to the voters again. We think we've built in, and which I can go into detail later about how this can be handled, but this is more than 10 years' worth of work. Projects that I've been involved with at the fire district over 10 years ago, if you don't have the funding to be able to continue to do that, it's just going to grow back. And we learned in the Oakland Hills fire that they had Miller roost tax after 20 years people had moved away they weren't as concerned about that and the tax didn't pass and we don't want that to happen here The timeline and next steps, I'm right near the end here. We're into October, so we're asking member agencies to join the JPA. The member agencies would then pass a resolution requesting the Board of Supervisors to place the parcel tax initiative on the March 2020 ballot. Then in November, the Board of Supervisors would consider those requests to place the measure, and it would be a March 3rd election. So everything that I've talked about, all the supporting documentations, PowerPoint, copies of the JPA, meeting schedule, frequently asked questions, the core documents, the video, can be found on marinewildfire.org. So we hope the public will take time to review that as well. And that's the end of my presentation. |
| 01:17:12.39 | Unknown | We're going to ask you some questions, I think, Chief. Before, will you tell us what Chief Tubbs is going to talk about so we don't ask into that vein of the conversation? I'll let him speak to that. But stay up there. Do we have any questions for Chief Tyler? I'll stay up here. Okay. |
| 01:17:24.50 | Unknown | Okay. I think we were both going to field the questions depending on what they were. |
| 01:17:29.40 | Unknown | okay anything to this point additional questions have been asked okay Go ahead. You can start that. I just wanted to kind of cut in with the questions, but you're good to go. |
| 01:17:38.46 | Unknown | Yeah, that was the presentation we wanted to open up to the council for questions. We figured that after the staff report and the presentation, it would probably facilitate quite a bit of conversation. |
| 01:17:48.15 | Unknown | Okay. great then that is patients an hour formal Questions? Yes, please. |
| 01:17:54.34 | Tom Riley | Thank you. Thanks for the presentation. How do we know $21 million is enough and how do we measure the effectiveness of that? |
| 01:18:04.89 | Unknown | So we looked at what the initiatives were we began to kind of cost out those items and we knew that there's only a certain tolerance that the public would be able to stand for. So we said, okay, those core initiatives, this is the type of work that we're talking about. getting the fuels crews together, the costs of what these things would be, and we came up with a number that was around $20 million. We then polled to see what the public tolerances were for what they would do. And so we found that there were tolerances for that up to 11 cents per square foot, which matched that funding. We want to make sure that we're very respectful of those tolerances and you know we we think that we're doing enough work that will move the needle we think that it's this is work that also can be We can take advantage of other large grants. Once you have this type of a setup, we're much more appealing to large federal grants, you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not millions of dollars, to be able to execute the rest of those plans. As an example, the Nevada Fire District, along with the City of Nevada, just applied for a $4 million grant through FEMA hazard mitigation, and so I feel that if the Marin Wildfire Authority was to go for those types of grants, it would be much more likely that they would receive them. |
| 01:19:32.60 | Unknown | The second part of your question about effectiveness. So one of the things in your board packet, we've tried to provide a little bit of context about that. So, for example, in the Southern Marin and Sausalito area, we have 151 road miles. And we know that it costs about $18,000 to clear that. That wouldn't be the maintenance. That would be the initial go through. So with that, we can determine what the costs are to clear a specific area of land. How we prioritize that, Bill mentioned earlier that we have the CWPP, and in the CWPP, every community is required, when we first started that document, and we update it regularly, is to identify those top areas, those top hazards in our communities and to apply our funding there. So that work will continue, and we'll actually see the accuracy increase when we have defensible space inspectors, because part of the work they do is they'll actually be looking at and evaluating every parcel by parcel, so our accuracy at the parcel level will increase. And that will continue then to shape the policy decisions on where do we spend our money and is that money being effective in reducing the risks from the vegetation does that answer your question |
| 01:20:41.91 | Unknown | I do follow him. So, Sausalito obviously has already invested a good bit of money through Measure U, and we've already been doing a lot of defensible space work, just as you've described. So how will jurisdictions such as Southern Marin Fire, Mill Valley, that have already adopted their own, fire protection measures ensure that We receive a commensurate and fair level of service, given that we've already invested the monies to do many of the things that you're discussing tonight. commencing anew for some of the jurisdictions that haven't undertaken such works thus far. |
| 01:21:26.63 | Unknown | So as Bill mentioned earlier, one, the new funding can't supplant existing. So we know that any funding that we would be receiving through this or services will be in addition to what we're doing with the Measure U funding. This past week, some last-minute work by a number of our city and town managers and fire chiefs and county staff resulted in addressing some of those concerns, which were born primarily out of the Southern Marin area and, again, worked very closely with the mayor and the city manager on this. So the JPA was amended. If you look at Sections 9A and 9B, 9A, the language in the original JPA, did not specify that funds in that first year would be directed to the individual agencies so that we could accelerate the work on vegetation removal and reduction that language has been added into the JPA so that comes back to the local jurisdictions with regards to the sixty percent the bucket the bill mentioned which is where the largest amount of funding is section 9b has been amended and you'll note that each of the five regions is required to receive 80% of that that fund with over the course of the five years. And if you're, if you don't receive that 80%, you're required to make it up in the next five year period. And so when we do some rough calculations from that, we see that those numbers coming back into Southern Marin are very, very significant. We're not concerned about them going outside of the Southern Marin area. We'll be able to see those tax dollars that work here. I don't know whether the mayor, the city manager want to add any additional comments to that. |
| 01:23:03.74 | Unknown | I don't know. |
| 01:23:08.52 | Unknown | no that was I mean I'm gonna say this later but our city manager was on that early and often and I'm glad it did transpire to that. There was a lot of potential solutions and discussions around that, as there is still another point. But for that to have come back to that point was a great final part of that JPA. And then one of the things that we've done |
| 01:23:32.66 | Unknown | And then one follow up is how will we ensure that jurisdictions that are more densely populated receive priority over jurisdictions that are comprised more of more open space. |
| 01:23:38.44 | Yolanda Bellissimo | . |
| 01:23:49.09 | Unknown | Well, it'll certainly be the hard work of the JPA, so the governing board and the operations committee. The operations committee is designed to tee up those projects and budget expenditures by prioritizing where the risks are. Ultimately, the governing board makes that final decision. But, again, the whole intent behind this regional approach is for us to identify where our highest risks are and to apply the funding there. Because Bill mentioned earlier, fire knows no jurisdictional boundaries. We want to address the risks where they're the highest. |
| 01:24:19.04 | Unknown | But if the high risk is in a, if you're competing high risks in an open space where you don't have people, Versus a densely populated area, how do you make that, how do you. ensure that it's the people. |
| 01:24:30.48 | Unknown | AND SHE IS ABLE TO TAKE A |
| 01:24:32.84 | Unknown | And the houses that are protected... First. |
| 01:24:37.23 | Unknown | Great question. You know, if you look at the community wildfire protection plan, you'll see that the the areas of concern and the areas that we're trying to do most of the work around are the populated areas. So there are maps in there specifically designed that show us where those risks are. We want to make sure, our priority is for lives first. We want to make sure that we can get people out alive, protect their property, and the environment. So the intention is not to do work often some very large parcel somewhere far away. what actually will burn a person's home down is right within close proximity to their home itself. And so what's interesting to note is over 50% of all of the landmass in Marin County is privately owned. So actually more than 50%. So that's where we need to get the buy-in from people through education and giving these incentives to get the work done so that their homes can remain safe. |
| 01:25:38.94 | Unknown | along the lines of the JPA. And I will say that that document as it is now, obviously, as you mentioned, much better than when it started, but it is... It's a complete document and a lot of work went into it. The one item that I think we'll hear a lot about is still a sticking point and you did bring it up, Chief Tyler, is the sun setting. I know there was wording, I asked the Chief Tubbs if there was any wording on the ballot measure, I mean on the polling that used maybe in perpetuity or anything other than a softball of the voters approval. The reason I kind of bring up the sunset is a few reasons. One, the CPI at 3% grows faster than even our own Prop 13 tax base of property taxes at 2% cap. So it's a fast growing CPI funded potential. So it can escalate quickly over a 30 year period. But what happens is the complacency, and I want to get back to this item, maybe in question and comment. Fire doesn't know a jurisdictional boundary. But that always sounds funny coming from 19 different fire agencies in one county. So. Given that there's that many agencies, would a sunset with the opportunity to say at the end of that sunsetted period, 15, 20 years, you don't have 19 agencies. So we have maybe a goal to really bring in a cost efficiency measure to this process more than just what currently set up. Because we are going to be battling the 19 fire agencies that have come up for a cost effective efficiency program. So my question then is, what is the wording? or do you feel very safe in that wording when we get out into the naysayers and the anti-tax people bringing up that sunsetting item given the CPI growth, given in perpetuity that this tax can go on. Granted, there's a wonderful board of directors and a wonderful operational mechanism in there, but is that going to be enough? |
| 01:27:32.04 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:27:49.16 | Unknown | So a couple things. First is the language that was polled in the ballot measure was until repealed by voters. They also took a look at the language like with a nine-year and with an 18-year sunset. And the support for the measure under those nine and 18 dropped dramatically. It dropped well more than 10 points so that there was not support for those. It was, you know, people seem to understand and feel that if they have the control to be able to repeal it, whenever they feel like it needs to be repealed, that that was more powerful, they were more in favor of that. Specifically to address the issue of the sunset is we've through listening to these groups, we came back and built back into the JPA You know, first of all, it's an up to 10%, so annually that rate is going to be set by the board. It can be adjusted down as well. There are five-year checkpoints where they'll go in and take hard looks. We've got this Citizens Oversight Committee that you better believe is going to be looking very closely at the budget and what those projects are going for. And then there's also another piece that was introduced at the end for the Board of Supervisors at 10-year intervals to be able to basically have a public hearing and make decisions on whether or not there needs to be modifications or a ballot measure placed repealing it. What's important about that is rather than have to go out and get X number of voters to sign a petition, you really only have to convince three members of the supervisors to do that at the 10-year mark. And so we felt that those were adequate tools to be able to address and get at those the funding issues that people have the hard stop is a real concern this this initiative this is going to go on well beyond ten years there's no way that in ten years we're going to be able to say we've got this problem licked it didn't it didn't come about in ten years it came about over a much longer period of time and if we don't get serious about it make long-term commitments I think that would be a mistake and we'd be doing a disservice to the public |
| 01:30:07.37 | Unknown | And I think we'd all agree on 10 years might be that. What we just heard, though, is... The 2016 CWPP identified needs and there was actually projects ready without funding. Yet 18 agencies chose not to do anything for a funding mechanism in that time frame. |
| 01:30:24.74 | Unknown | No, I mean, that's not true. They're all different. Dedicated funding. Yeah, I mean, measure U was an attempt to kind of get at that. It was just a timing. It was a timing issue. All of the other fire agencies have those types of special taxes. The fire, Nevada Fire Protection District has it. |
| 01:30:26.85 | Unknown | Dedicated funding. Yeah. |
| 01:30:39.97 | Unknown | Well, I mean, I'm saying dedicated funding to. The mitigations that we're talking about in this program, we've already mentioned, nobody's done it. Even though we've had information. your own slide said that nobody's done anything. |
| 01:30:55.40 | Unknown | Yeah, a dedicated funding source, so what I'm talking about, most of the. |
| 01:30:57.10 | Unknown | Right. |
| 01:30:59.33 | Unknown | Fire agencies were designed for response primarily. What I'm talking about is a unified, you know, prevention and mitigation work that can be done. Each agency does what they can with what's left over. They might have some reserves that they throw at a particular project. They'll go after grants, one-time grants, to try and fund projects, and then those grow back. |
| 01:31:13.13 | Unknown | you know. |
| 01:31:24.78 | Unknown | by having that dedicated funding stream that is not taken by the state of California, but that we can spend here, we think makes the most sense. |
| 01:31:32.15 | Unknown | Okay. |
| 01:31:32.39 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:31:32.45 | Adam Politzer | Thank you. |
| 01:31:32.47 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:31:34.13 | Unknown | Okay. you |
| 01:31:35.44 | Unknown | Any others? |
| 01:31:35.88 | Unknown | you |
| 01:31:36.22 | Unknown | Yeah. I have a question. So you talked about the impact of fire regionally and making sure that all the communities are working together. But here in Sausalito, we're mainly surrounded by federal properties. So that's our biggest neighbor. So how do you see the JPA working more cooperatively with the National Park Service and our other neighboring you know federal agencies |
| 01:32:09.94 | Unknown | Well, as we've discussed before on this issue, of course it is a challenge. We have no authority over the federal government. But having said that, we have a very good working relationship with the National Park Service. And although their funding is limited and in some case nonexistent for that work, what we have found is a willingness on their part to allow us to do work on their land if we can acquire the funding. So we've got homes, for example, as you know, back up to the GGNRA. We look for a certain clearance space. The Park Service says, we're fine with you coming on our property and clearing that and using your funds to do that. Again, in a perfect world, we'd be able to access federal funds, but because we don't have that kind of influence, we certainly try to do what we can with what we have. So that would be what we would do going forward, be doing more of that same work. |
| 01:33:00.00 | Unknown | Okay, thank you. And then did you consider a lot of committees and discussions that have been forming are trying to take a little bit more of a holistic approach to disaster preparedness as opposed to fire or earthquake or flooding or sea level rise? You know, all of these things that are kind of on our |
| 01:33:19.58 | Unknown | THE FAMILY. |
| 01:33:22.38 | Unknown | forward looking future list, all of these things that we're going to need to be funding over time. So, and I'm not at all taking issue with the fact that fire prevention is up there on that list. But did you think about some slightly more global approach to going to the voters with some kind of more cross disaster for lack of a better word approaches? |
| 01:33:49.90 | Unknown | You know, I think one of the things that this allows us to do is to work more closely together. If this works by, you know, it brings us all closer to fire agencies to be able to address other issues, you know, and concerns like that. But we were really focused on wildfire mitigation prevention. talking to the public with all the different interests, you wouldn't believe who wants to jump on board and try and solve global warming with this JPA. It's just we can't solve all problems for all people, but we do know that we can really move the needle with this, and so that's why we're bringing this forward. |
| 01:34:30.28 | Unknown | Yeah, I would add just a final piece of that is there is a lot of crossover between the work that is proposed in this JPA and all types of disasters and emergencies. So we see that in our evacuation planning. We see that in our notifications. We certainly see that in the public education. So while it certainly has a heavy bent on the risks from wildfire, there's a lot of things that have a crossover to all of those areas that pose a threat to our region. |
| 01:34:30.62 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:34:57.27 | Unknown | Great, and then just one last question. So you talked about your polling and this kind of end date. And I don't think the issue is necessarily with the fact that this issue is going to be important for more than ten years or twenty years. did you get it right with a JPA and should that last for more than 10 or 20 years? So I don't think people are saying this problem is going to be solved in 10 years. But did you poll something that would say until repealed by the voters or 20 years, whichever is shorter? |
| 01:35:30.83 | Unknown | Yes. We did. And what did the voters- It was eight years, it was at 18 years, excuse me, nine years, 18 years, and then until repealed by voters. |
| 01:35:32.30 | Unknown | And what did the voters- |
| 01:35:40.33 | Unknown | No, but did you poll until repealed by the voters or 20 years, whichever is shorter? |
| 01:35:48.85 | Unknown | I don't have the poll in front of you. |
| 01:35:49.12 | Unknown | for, I mean, just as an example, that would be ballot language that would say voters can repeal this at any time. And in no event will this go for more than 20 years or something like that. I mean, it gives people confidence. We can get rid, which of course they can get rid of, the voters can get rid of anything they vote on at any point. But anyway, I was just wondering if you would poll the combination. |
| 01:36:12.19 | Unknown | I don't have this, I'm sorry, I don't have the specific poll in front of me, so. |
| 01:36:15.80 | Unknown | Okay. All right. Thank you. |
| 01:36:18.45 | Unknown | Any other questions before I open up to public comment? Seeing none, I'm going to open up to public comment now. Comments related to this fire initiative. Any green cards? Staff? None? Any comments? Any? You have. |
| 01:36:41.27 | Belle Cole | Hello. |
| 01:36:42.80 | Unknown | You have three minutes and your whole name please. |
| 01:36:44.81 | Belle Cole | Yes, my name is Belle Cole. And, um, I'm speaking on behalf of the of an ad hoc coalition of environmental and climate activists We call ourselves the Marin Wildfire and Climate Coalition, and we support the Marin Wildfire Prevention Authority And the parcel tax initiative. The initiative targets and prioritizes the greatest wildfire threats and consolidates resources and expertise to get the job done. The fire chiefs have gone to great lengths to Invite input. from the communities And the resolution reflects the process We are encouraged. that the initiative names climate change as a primary factor contributing to the new level of wildfires. we face and states that intensifying impacts of climate change, quote, should be addressed through ecologically sound practices that minimize release of greenhouse gases and protect the biodiversity and resilience of Marin's landscapes. So moving forward. It's our hope. that the Marin Fire Authority will continue to draw on the expertise of the climate and environmental communities to plan the implementation of the initiative. And there are many ways we can help. One is compiling a guide for best practices of vegetation management. For fire mitigation? resiliency, composting, and other green waste and sequestration practices refining a list of fire resistant plants that promote carbon sequestration, biodiversity and healthy landscapes, coordinating efforts with Drawdown Moran, To help homeowners reduce carbon as they harden their homes, and manage their properties against fire, contributing to public education. that mitigates wildfire threats with fire resistant structures defensible space and lowering carbon emissions, which we think should be part of an educational The threat of wildfires. To our lives in Marin is a growing problem that will get worse. as the planet warms. and at Marin's Fire Chiefs have emphasized, fire knows no boundaries, and we must act collectively to meet this threat. The JPA is the most strategically and fiscally responsible way forward It is vital that all 19 jurisdictions adopt initiative to bring our resources and expertise together to fight the long game Reducing fuel wisely. tamping down climate change. as aggressively as we can, and helping all residents to protect their homes and assure their safety. That's it. |
| 01:39:47.90 | Unknown | Thank you. Sybil Boutier |
| 01:39:56.63 | Unknown | Are there any other public comments? Oh, are you all right, Sybil? Are you okay? You're kicking the chair. Any others, if after Sybil, fill out a green card for her. Thanks. |
| 01:40:08.76 | Sybil Boutier | Good evening, Mayor, Councilmembers. I was very glad to see that seniors were called out in the report, although it wasn't discussed here. It's very important because in the northern fires, the majority of the deaths were among older adults. and I just wanted to commend Chief Tubbs for his generosity in giving a lot of time to South Salido seniors and doing information and planning on how folks can prepare and also what's involved with evacuation. And my northern colleagues on the commission have told me that Chief Tyler's also done quite a bit of work. But I think this is a very important issue, and representing the older adults, which is a third of our population here, I hope that we can find a way to do more work to prepare people and to prevent a complication in our community. So thank you very much. |
| 01:41:17.07 | Unknown | Thank you, Sybil. Any others? Seeing no other hands or green cards, I'm going to close public comment. Bring it up here. We don't have an action item, obviously, but we have the opportunity to formally... make a kind of suggestions. We have ears on this meeting tonight, which namely is the board of the Southern Rind Fire District that will be hearing this. So if we have ideas, other comments that we want them to hear, short of we don't have to do a full approval, but they are listening. So keep that in mind. And if we are on something that we really want to make a bold statement, we can do that as well. Who would like to go first? |
| 01:41:57.98 | Tom Riley | You bet. Thank you for the presentation. And also, thank you for the collaborative process that you went through in gathering that. One, I believe this is important we do. And I think all of us here, our interest is how do we protect the citizens of Sausalito when we think from sitting at this diocese. But I also think of it this way. The fire on Mount Tam would be disastrous to Sausalito. The fire in San Rafael. disaster of Sausalito, a fire in Novato. our roads be closed our workers can't get here we're all gonna be wearing masks and so we do need to look at the broad community I think it comes down to how do we get voter approval in 2020? My recommendation is to follow the vice mayor. I think if the ballot says that we Uh... that this can be repealed at any time by the voters, or will sunset at 20 years, will actually increase the likelihood of this passing, then that would be my recommendation. |
| 01:43:06.93 | Unknown | Yeah on the sunset issue I'm Really surprised your polling came in as it did Haven't seen and done a lot of this I I certainly hope that the polling didn't mislead you in any way. Because nearly always you're going to get a five to ten point difference with a sunset. And so I'm really surprised. But you got the result you did. The other question, the other issue rattling around in my mind here is that it's really sort of a question for Chief Tubbs, but it's a little bit more rhetorical. Are you in any way worried that because you have Measure U funding, that Southern Marin fire is not going to see enough of this new funding? Yeah, please comment on that, because that would be certainly a concern of mine in the absence of understanding this issue in depth. |
| 01:44:19.83 | Unknown | Yeah, it's going to be an odd answer. I'm going to say yes and no. So again, in working through this collaboratively over the last nine, ten months, the Measure U has been front and center in the conversations I've had with the various groups that I've been involved in. our community being penalized, if you will, as a result of that. And again, we saw language in here that talked about not supplanting. And so I think there's an intent by the parties in good faith that that would not be the case. But, of course, as the old saying goes, the proof is in the pudding. I think the onus is on us here in the southern EOA, or operational area, to remind the other parties as we move forward that the district or other agencies that have contributed should not be penalized. This is meant to augment, and that was actually the recommendation. in the grand jury report, even after we had passed Measure U, the grand jury said, you're still not doing enough. So our intent, I think, moving forward would be to try and hold our partners to that. |
| 01:45:33.91 | Unknown | Yeah, and so thank you Chief for those comments. So those would be my concerns and in particular the sunset. I still just don't understand why the polling came in as it did. But obviously this is a really serious issue. I can't say I've had the pleasure. I've had the... awakening and the shock of having along with Councilmember Cox visited our neighbors at the north as short as one month after the major fires up there and then again we've held two months after the fire we had in Sausalito an MCC MC meeting where fire chiefs joined us so we recognize the deadly seriousness of this and so let's just make sure the wording of the ballots right because you need the funds. |
| 01:46:48.21 | Unknown | Yes, I agree with my colleagues, there's no doubt fire protection is a high priority for ours in every community in Marin. I'm pleased to see the amendments to the JPA that address the equitable allocation of funds, as well as ensuring that our Measure U investments are not supplanted. But I do believe that if you're going to ensure yourselves of getting the 66% of the vote, you should consider a sunset date. 20 years I think is fine. I think the need for that is compounded. by the 3%. CPI, which I think is is high. and higher than the cpi for other really key property taxes as our mayor mentioned so i think the combination of those two factors is something your board should seriously consider in weighing the viability of this as a ballot measure I personally think the 10% cap on administrative overhead is too high, given the enormous amount of the revenue that's going to be generated. So. you know. It's our job up here to protect the public FISC, as is yours, so my comments are based on those priorities. But I do think that there's no doubt that there will be a lot of support for this, particularly in communities that don't already have Measure U. I'm very proud of our efforts, but despite our efforts, our residents want us to do more. So properly managed, this measure could provide us with that opportunity. |
| 01:48:28.60 | Unknown | Thank you. Thank you, thanks for all your hard work on this. Having 19 jurisdictions come together around this measure could not have been easy. And thank you also to our city manager and mayor for participating. I agree pretty much with all of the recommendations that everyone here on the dais has spoken about. But particularly Councilmember Cox, I do think the 10 10 cap on administrative costs for an organization that is not going to have any employees is quite high um and then um I am just concerned about voter fatigue here in Southern Marin, given that we just went to the ballot last year on Measure U. I mean, that doesn't speak to whether this is an important project and whether these funds will be well spent, but I think we've got to pay particularly close attention to messaging about how this is different and additive to Measure you as opposed to just more of the same or will not be coming back to Southern Marin. So I appreciate the work that's been done around that more equitable distribution and the 80% of the funds. And If that amount is not coming back to certain regions, then I think that was good language and I appreciate those additions. And then just to echo what everyone has already said, the sunset, I think you were It's not just the polling, it's the attacks that will be that will come from, I mean, we already got one piece of correspondence today, but if you don't have the sunset, there will be... um certain groups that will come out against this and then you'll be fighting that so i would definitely as council member riley already said favor um a cap and 20 years, sunset date, 20 years seems reasonable to me. And then if you need ballot language along the lines that I had proposed earlier. So indicating, of course, that the voters can repeal this at any time, but then no event will it last more than 20 years. I think those are my main comments, but obviously so much work to be done in this area. And thank you for continuing all the hard work. |
| 01:50:59.40 | Unknown | That's great. Thank you. Chief Tyler, I think you've said you've done it 37 times. I think I've seen six of them, so at least. For those who didn't know, I sat on Supervisor Katie Rice's committee that started with electeds sometime in the spring. About the same time, I was on a North Bay Division phone call with MCCMC and our president of the MCC, John Dunbar, I'm sorry, of North Bay Division, John Dunbar asked, We meet with the governors. Any other items, we should talk to the governor. MCCMC and our president of the MCC, John Dunbar, I'm sorry, of North Bay Division, John Dunbar asked if we meet with the governor, is there any other items we should talk to the governor about? and you know because everything was housing housing housing I said yeah I got one how about the state finding a way for us to get better economy of scale out of our expenditures fighting fire. How do we get a program that we as agencies can buy into that gets $1.15 return for $1 spent, $1.20, whatever. And nothing happened with that, but when this conversation came up, that was already in my head. That was the first thing I looked at. I'm going into this meeting and they're going to discuss something I really want. I really want that. How do we get more buying power? How do we leverage our Measure U into 1.2 million dollars instead of 1 million? How do we get something better? all along I wanted that from this and maybe that was my perspective coming in as this developed I've seen so many more new advantages most namely that yes as as as Tom Riley has said and others and and the chiefs have said Any fire in Marin is a bad fire for Sausalito and vice versa. So there is no jurisdictional and all that. We don't want to have any fire. But at the end of the day, I want my community to have even more peace of mind than any other community. Because that represent this community. And that's what we're going to have. We're going to have a very strong peace of mind that we have. maybe doing a little bit more or just have a little bit additional protection in prevention going forward. So for that... I see a really benefit to Sausalito regardless of how the structure is. But then when it came to the structure, you know, I looked at the previous slide. It wasn't too long ago where there was 11 members and our city manager said, got together continuously with other city managers and the fire chiefs and worked tirelessly because he did tell me one morning that he didn't sleep the night before. That's how tired it made him going through this negotiation to make this the best JPA. So when I do say that given the different additions that we had with this document, this is a very good document now. So for that, I'm not only thankful, but I'm supportive of the process going forward I think our board members for our Southern Fire District have heard a lot I've talked to individuals not about this particularly but how they're taking this so seriously so you've heard from us how we feel about sunset and even upwards of two million dollars in admin costs if we can whittle those down you have a fantastic 67 to 75 percent win rate because it is that important to our overall county so I would do whatever you can dig you know I don't I don't always tell pull I trust pollsters anyway but I would do whatever I can to start looking at a 70 and and and get up there because it's that important so hopefully that's the direction that you were looking for you have our appreciation for all the work you've done and the support you know tonight going for all that you do thank goodness you're out there working on that for us so thanks a lot |
| 01:54:46.85 | Unknown | Before the cannabis we're going to talk about parks. |
| 01:54:59.58 | Unknown | So now we're going to call up, Kevin you're going to take the lead on this. MLK field improvement projects, Dumpy Park improvement project, and Southview Park improvement project. Our now seasoned, tenured, and long term employee, Kevin McAllen, Public Works Director. He's seen it all in just four short weeks. |
| 01:55:19.93 | Kevin McGowan | Good evening Mayor Burns and members of City Council. I'm Kevin McGowan with the Department of Public Works, and this evening I've got Andrew Davidson and Lauren Umbertas are also here to help me out with the presentation and with any questions that we might have. Looks like we lost some things. |
| 01:55:37.60 | Unknown | And Mr. Mayor, may I just make a comment about my participation in this item? I ask the city attorney to make a comment about my participation in this item. Yeah, please, I'm going to recuse a little bit. Given that I live so close to MLK Field, which is a component of this presentation. |
| 01:55:45.93 | Unknown | Yeah, please, on the recuse of the board. |
| 01:55:47.27 | Mary Wagner | A little bit of care. |
| 01:55:54.66 | Mary Wagner | yes so thank you councilmember Cox members of the council because this item is informational only and Because Council Member Cox won't be providing any feedback related to the MLK projects, I think it's okay for her to remain on the dais, hear the entire report, comment on the other portions of the report, but in order in an abundance of caution not to appear to be influencing any decision-making regarding MLK, the recommendation is to just not comment on those projects. |
| 01:56:24.68 | Unknown | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 01:56:26.96 | Kevin McGowan | Okay. Thank you very much. I'll just start again. I'm Kevin McGowan with the Department of Public Works, and glad to be here this evening. Andrew Davidson and Lauren Umbertus from the Public Works Department are also here to help me with some of the questions that may come up. So I really appreciate them being here this evening. I'd also like to thank Yulia Carter and Amina Baporia from our finance department, as well as Mike Lanford from our parks and recs department, who have really helped out with putting the staff report together as well as the presentation. So many thanks to all of them since the fiscal impact is quite complex, at least as far as my research has been throughout this project. or these three projects. So I'm gonna lead you through several different slides on three different projects this evening, and I'll start with the MLK Park improvements. And the improvements at Martin Luther King Campus are composed of several different portions. The portions we will summarize relate to the playing field improvements, tennis courts, exercise equipment, and the pickleball courts. The pictures shown here are taken from the existing tennis courts before the improvements were implemented. And you can kind of see that the courts were in pretty bad shape before they started. So as of early this summer, construction on this project, on the quartz project was implemented. And, uh, The work was completed and it's currently being utilized by the public. Thank you. The work included resurfacing as well as replacing fences, nets, paths, and a path to travel from a parking area close to the facility. |
| 01:58:14.69 | Kevin McGowan | The reconstruction of the field area took a bit longer and in the end required city staff to step in to assist with the work. In this case the subcontractor was not as responsible to the city as we would have liked Some of the soil areas had a bit few too many rocks in it and they had to be removed by hand So our staff helped out with that specific project |
| 01:58:39.10 | Kevin McGowan | In addition, this field is traditionally utilized for parking related to the Sausalito Art Festival. In this case, staff felt that seeding and hydro-mulching the area should be done after the festival in order to allow the plants, or basically the grass, to establish in the cooler weather of the fall and the winter. The park area also included, improvements to the existing pathways, installation of exercise areas, as well as improving the field. So these are also being utilized by the public at this point in time, with the exception of the field, which is... I think we call it under plant establishment period. |
| 01:59:25.26 | Kevin McGowan | So currently the main field has been mulched, seeded, watered daily, and grass is currently growing in the area. It is important to allow the grass to establish itself before allowing the public to utilize the area. Using the field too soon may cause damage and may not be easily repaired. Staff recommends several months for plant establishment with the parks director determining when the area can be opened to the public. In addition, there are still some improvements that need to be implemented at this area. You can see that the infield is still being prepared, and I think there are still some issues with the infield area. It still needs a bit more work. I'm not an aficionado on dealing with baseball or softball, but I know there are several in the room, such as our city manager, who is. And so I'm sure there's some more work that needs to be done there. |
| 02:00:27.14 | Kevin McGowan | The project also includes significant tree and shrub planting. Funding for the installation of trees and shrubs is partially from the city's parks department as well as donations from Sausalito Beautiful. Planting is anticipated to occur on October 12th, and that's just right around the corner. So pretty excited about that, as well as our parks department is helping out with that as well. Additional construction is anticipated on the baseball slash pickleball area scheduling a contractor who specializes in placing this type of surface could not be achieved until the spring of 2020. In addition, placing this type of material in the cooler weather months is not preferred. We want to have a little bit warmer weather to put this material down. This work is anticipated to commence in late spring of 2020 when the weather is a little bit warmer. Now we kind of look at some of the fiscal impacts. Funding for MLK improvements was developed from many sources. In prior years, improvements on the site supported renovation work on existing buildings. The remainder of the work related to the field, tennis courts, and other amenities supported primarily from certificates of participation. The total of 1.5 million supports the construction, which includes the field, tennis courts, and other amenities. At the top of this slide, I've noted that the total MLK site allowance is $3.4 million. And I'm basically stating that that's for certificates of compliance. I just wanted to make that clear. I believe it came up in the Finance Committee meeting, and there was some question about what that funding was from. |
| 02:02:19.98 | Kevin McGowan | At this time, the expenses for the project are anticipated to be equal to or under the total revenue for the project. This includes the installation of the pickleball surface and fencing which should be Be the last part of this specific project |
| 02:02:39.88 | Kevin McGowan | We're gonna move on to Dumphy Park next. and |
| 02:02:44.72 | Unknown | Sorry. Sorry to interrupt, Mr. McGowan. Pickleball, we are scheduling to install the nets and reconfigure the courts this fall with temporary striping available to make it useful. And then the final preparation of the surface and completing of the surface will happen in the spring of 2020. So I just wanted to get that straightened out. |
| 02:03:08.38 | Kevin McGowan | Thank you, Andy Our next project to discuss is more complicated dumpy park improvements have been a complex project since it sits on top of an old burn dump site and initially like to take a look at some scheduling. So while the project has taken some time to move forward, we anticipate the work to be completed the first or second week in November. with a plant establishment period to follow for several months with the grass area growing at that point in time. So you've got about three months, that's my estimate, maybe not Mike Lanfords, but our parks director, his estimate. But he should have a plant establishment period of at least three months. |
| 02:03:59.90 | Kevin McGowan | Now, many of you know the park project was designed several years ago. Not all of the original improvements designed for the park were considered in the construction projects simply based on the amount of funding available for the project. Several internal pathways were not included in the construction. Staff is recommending that the pathways circled in blue in this slide be added at the time since they provide key connectivity to the park spaces. The southern area of the park is an area where unsuitable soils are currently being stockpiled. These materials will need to be removed in the near future. This is an added expense to the project since the original project scope did not anticipate the level of unsuitable soil at the site. Thank you. So to just familiarize you, if you're not familiar with this, there's my cursor. These two paths, shown in red, were not included. Oops, sorry about that. We're not included in the regional scope. However, we're suggesting adding these pathways around the parking area in order to connect into the other amenities at the park, such as the bocce ball area and the restroom. Currently, the area to the south where my cursor is showing is where we're stockpiling material that is unsuitable at this point in time. Additional unsuitable soils have been removed from the site under direction from regulatory agencies. These areas are excavated two feet below the surface and then backfilled with clean material. Now, I'm sure you folks know that this was, like I said, an old dump site, but also the railroad tracks ran through here as well. So probably not surprising that when we excavated this area, what do you find? Old railroad tracks, old ties, all sorts of stuff. |
| 02:06:02.75 | Kevin McGowan | The funding source for this project is also complex. Additional funding has been added to the project budget over the last year to address increases in project scope, such as unsuitable soils. Recently, our Parks Department received notification that a $275,000 grant for recreational use could be applied to the site. Thank you, Mike Lainford, for this. Appreciate that. This funding will help the project. The grant does have specific guidelines which we need to comply with. There may be some more questions. I think this grant is associated with the Costco-Boussant grant. And at this point, I think Mike is also looking into trying to find some more grants for the project Maybe from Cal recycling or from a brownfield site type of grant as well. I know he's been looking into it Current project expenses are at approximately $3.4 million. Removal of the unsuitable soils is a large expense to the project and an estimated $250,000 for that removal even with the new funding from this parks grant. Staff anticipates that an additional $140,000 will be needed to finalize the project. |
| 02:07:28.88 | Kevin McGowan | I'm going to move on to our next project. And I'm kind of looking at council going, if you want to interrupt me, please feel free. |
| 02:07:33.84 | Unknown | Yeah, do you have any questions on this so far? Please feel free. Yeah, let's do that. Kevin, that's a good point. |
| 02:07:38.07 | Unknown | Thank you. Sure, where is the 140,000 coming from? |
| 02:07:40.59 | Unknown | THE NEXT WEEK. |
| 02:07:40.89 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 02:07:40.93 | Unknown | That's right. |
| 02:07:43.04 | Kevin McGowan | I don't know. That's a very good question, and I'm hoping Yulia is here to maybe help us out with that question. Thank you. Okay. |
| 02:07:52.44 | Adam Politzer | This question came up at the Finance Committee meeting as well. And our initial response, and Kevin alluded to it earlier, was to seek additional grant funding. And the primary source that I'm hoping that we get traction on is with CalRecycle. As you remember, they gave us the maximum amount of money available of $750,000 to address the issues related to the burn dump. Obviously, the scope of the contamination that we found is significantly greater than originally identified when we went for the grants. We hope that they would be one of the sources of that additional funding, and then we'll continue to seek all additional organizations that could potentially, and agencies that could potentially give us additional funds. At the very least, we know that, there is a balance as you remember of the $600,000 that we had original in this Budget of Measure O money. when we got the grant of 750 we had originally only estimated about 250,000 of grant funds and so because we got such a large grant we were able to shift that 600,000 a portion of it I think roughly 300,000 of measure 0 funds to Southview Park to help |
| 02:09:09.64 | Unknown | to help. |
| 02:09:10.33 | Adam Politzer | closed the gap on Southview Park to have that project funded. So there's still a balance. As you also recall, when we approved the trees, our portion of the trees, with the support of Sausalito Beautiful on sharing that expense of $50,000, and then the pickleball tennis basketball court project that Kevin just talked about a moment ago, that's a roughly $90,000 project. So we've taken money from that balance to apply towards MLK. So right now there is enough money in Measure O to cover that 140, but it's staff's intentions not to touch that money to seek grant funds to cover that cost. |
| 02:09:56.48 | Unknown | Thank you for that. |
| 02:09:59.81 | Tom Riley | One question, can you explain the blue lettering and what the potential risk is? |
| 02:10:07.27 | Kevin McGowan | Very good question. you Throughout this project, we found that things haven't been how we originally anticipated. And In other words, when we start digging things up, we are finding more and more material and things that aren't suitable. So our plans tend to change. At this point, we're not anticipating that there is a need for any additional contingency for the project. However, we're not quite to the finish line of, let's say, getting out of the dirt completely. So originally in the spreadsheet that I laid out, I wanted to put in a line item there for some. contingency, but there is a potential at this point. In other words, there's no money allocated at this point for contingency. But there is always a potential that we might need additional money in case we dig up something that we weren't anticipating. |
| 02:10:58.89 | Tom Riley | May I ask this, does the hazardous soil removal include removing soil from the south area of the park, or we haven't considered that? And that could be the surprise. |
| 02:11:11.81 | Kevin McGowan | At this point, we have a quote for $250,000 to remove that soil from the site. So it does include its removal at this point. |
| 02:11:25.21 | Adam Politzer | I think there's a little bit more information there and I'll let Lauren step in here to be more specific. But keep in mind there's two phases. So when we say south end of the park, We've currently taken contaminated soil and moved it to the south end of the park, the undeveloped area. which has been a secondary phase of this project. So if we want to Uh... end up with a natural vegetative area with walking past through it, that will be the second phase, which is not in this budget. So Lauren, if you want to expand on that, please. |
| 02:12:05.46 | Lauren Apertus | Sure. My name is Lauren Apertus. I'm the maintenance manager for the Department of Public Works. Welcome, Mr. Riley. Thank you. The south end of the park, we're currently staging that material there. That material has to go away, and we know that. And that's part of that $250,000. The south area of the park was always kind of designed as a We keep on getting told not to use passive. But as a less active portion of the park, it was going to have the pathway. It was going to have native grasses, some trees and shrubs to allow for natural habitat. But it wasn't going to be developed as much as the northerly part of the project. The anticipated work that's going to take place on that southerly part is planting trees, shrubs, and the pathway. the What we have on the southerly part of the portion is identified location of cultural resources. So the potential is that if something is really found there, that requires additional investigation or additional information. excavation, we may have some costs associated with that. We don't. currently expect that we're going to be doing enough excavation on that area where we're going to be dealing with contaminated soils. As far as I know, the extent of the burn dump area was on the northerly portion, not on the southerly portion. So we're not expecting to find that the Southerly portion is affected as much as the northerly portion, in terms of the burned up material. But on the southerly portion, we may find other things that have to do with cultural resources. So the costs that are associated that you're seeing here are to remove the soil that's now currently stockpiled there but not necessarily to go and deal with any other soils that we find on that side. |
| 02:14:06.74 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:14:06.76 | Lauren Apertus | Thank you. |
| 02:14:06.77 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:14:06.93 | Lauren Apertus | Thank you. |
| 02:14:07.03 | Unknown | Thank you. Yeah, one more question, but not for you guys. |
| 02:14:10.62 | Unknown | So could I just clarify that at the moment we don't have a budget for the planting and pathways in the passive area? In the southern area. We don't have a budget for that at the moment, right? |
| 02:14:30.36 | Lauren Apertus | We do. What's going to change is when we mobilize on. The current contract that we have is a general engineering contract for moving soil and material, and that is for both the northerly portion and the southerly portion. We do have a, uh, an irrigation scope. That was a change order that we've executed with the contractor that is for irrigation in the northerly portion and the southerly. the city was going to procure the plants itself. And we have a contract which is, we have a purchase order with the North Bay Conservation Corps for the planting of all the materials for the park. So those dollars are in this total project. But because that section of the project may have to wait for six months, eight months, there may be remobilization costs associated with that. We may actually be done with the majority of the contract with the existing contractors such that they may not want to come back or we may not want them to come back. So we'll have to figure out how to do that work there. But currently, the grading work, an irrigation scope, is understood to encompass the entire part. |
| 02:15:58.27 | Lauren Apertus | Thank you. |
| 02:15:58.30 | Adam Politzer | Can I just add, it goes back to Council Member Riley's question about the contingency. There's no contingency related to potential cultural resources or potential contaminated soil. even though we're not anticipating the contaminated soil because it wasn't our intentions to remove the soil like we had to do on the north. Northern End. But the budget for the planting material, the irrigation, the pathways, that's in the existing budget. But there's zero contingency for any surprises. |
| 02:16:32.47 | Belle Cole | Yeah. |
| 02:16:34.97 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:16:35.80 | Unknown | One last question. And I've lost track of this project, to be honest. What's circled in red, pathways not included in the project. So why is it on the diagram if it's not included in the project? |
| 02:16:43.00 | Unknown | Bye. |
| 02:16:56.96 | Lauren Apertus | In the very beginning of the project, we had a scope of work that had three alternates. And those alternates had to do with the bocce court lighting. It had to do with the extended pathways throughout the park. And the third item, I believe, was... Thank you. I don't remember it though. It might actually be up on that. screen. But those pathways, those two pathways, that north-south orientation pathway and that east-west orientation pathway and the upside-down L-shape around the parking lot were an ad alternate. And we when we first went out to bid that was presented to the city as an ad alternative, I believe approximately 250 280 thousand dollars to add those pathways there at the time We did not execute that ad alternate when we approved the contract. So we approved a contract for 2.175 million dollars which did not include those pathways. In looking at the construction as we are right now, that blue outlined area, we recognize that that makes a lot of sense to add that pathway for those people who are exiting their cars and need to have a place to walk. So we want to add that areas in blue for a cost of approximately $25,000. And the other two pathways will hold off until we have adequate funding. Lots of designers like to call those pathways and hold off until they actually start becoming desire lines where people are actually walking them and you can see where they are. But that's why those weren't included. They were included in the original design but were pulled out as ad alternates during the business. |
| 02:18:45.04 | Unknown | Was volleyball that third. |
| 02:18:47.10 | Lauren Apertus | It may have been volleyball, and we are actually going to be putting in the volleyball. So right now, one of the areas of the contaminated soil is right where the volleyball court is to be placed. So one benefit is that we've removed that soil to two feet depth. The volleyball court will be approximately two feet of sand. So we've been able to take advantage of that one particular issue. So we will be putting in the basketball, the volleyball court as part of this. |
| 02:18:58.49 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:18:58.52 | Unknown | you |
| 02:18:58.61 | Unknown | you |
| 02:19:10.83 | Unknown | Good job. |
| 02:19:20.19 | Adam Politzer | Mr. Mayor, can I just interrupt one more time on that path there, the parking lot? Because it came up in an earlier discussion about safety at a previous meeting. council discussion it actually helps lead the path of travel so if someone's at the cruising club or paying playing volleyball or a Cass marina or Cass or Cass Gidley or Galley Arbor it actually leads back to the path heading south so you don't have to walk through the cars which in some cases may not be safe at night versus working on a path a path that connects to the main bridgeway corridor thank you |
| 02:19:57.47 | Lauren Apertus | Thank you to add to the city manager's comment there. There is a pathway that exists right here that will go along. There is an accessible parking spot here. So anyone who could. |
| 02:19:58.52 | Adam Politzer | THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 02:20:10.41 | Lauren Apertus | use this accessible parking spot or this one, would have a path to get down to the bocce ball courts and to the cruising club. This obviously adds more convenience, especially for those people who are coming across on the street and over, so it creates a better pathway in there. And there is going to be lighting here. I believe there's another light somewhere over in here. So the parking lot will be lit. It will provide some better coverage there. |
| 02:20:37.28 | Unknown | Thanks for refreshing my memory. |
| 02:20:38.93 | Unknown | you Thank you. |
| 02:20:39.30 | Unknown | Nice. |
| 02:20:41.18 | Unknown | Thank you. Southview Park. Thanks, Lauren. |
| 02:20:47.56 | Kevin McGowan | Thank you, Lauren. Let's move on to Southview Park. |
| 02:20:55.32 | Kevin McGowan | Southview Park is a small park between 3rd and 4th Street the park is located on an old school site with stepped foundations The intent of the project is to improve access to the lower tiered areas, as well as replacing the play structures and resurfacing the play areas. |
| 02:21:24.29 | Kevin McGowan | Authorization to proceed for the construction occurred in January 2019. However, work has not started on the site for several reasons. The uncertainties associated with Dumpy Park scope related |
| 02:21:24.76 | Sean Cleary | Thank you. |
| 02:21:37.66 | Kevin McGowan | to contaminated soils necessitated caution in proceeding with Southview Park. In other words, we have the same contractor on this park as we do on Dunphy Park. Staff is discussing the construction with the contractor for the project, since performing the work at this time of year is not preferred due to the potential of inclement weather. |
| 02:22:02.12 | Kevin McGowan | Funding for the project, which is also linked to certificates of compliance, certificates of participation, excuse me, equates to approximately $1.83 million. |
| 02:22:17.80 | Unknown | Mr. Mayor. Can I just comment? These three slides online are completely illegible, so perhaps at some point we can just update these three slides, the three financial slides, as part of this presentation, so that members of the public can see what they say. |
| 02:22:34.69 | Kevin McGowan | No problem. Be glad to. To date, the design of the project has been completed, and the amount available for construction equates to about $1.65 million. we do recommend not moving forward with this construction project since it is pretty late in the season. And we anticipate the contractor starting in the spring of 2020. |
| 02:23:04.28 | Kevin McGowan | Looking at all three projects together, we find that Southview Park Project may have some funding that can be utilized by Dumpy Park Improvements in the very end. So, however, staff anticipates requesting an additional authorization amount of about $140,000, as we talked about before, for the Dumpy Park Project. If all goes well with both Dunphy and Southview Park and no significant additional unforeseen conditions arise, we may be only needing about $40,000 for the whole project. Excuse me, for both projects. To kind of add some clarity to it, we had a previous slide that showed that certificates of participation were utilized for MLK in some of the buildings. And here you have a total, if you look at the top row, of certificates of participation of 4.16. If we add the two together, there's a total of certificates of participation of about 6 million. So I just wanted to kind of clarify that. I didn't add that to the slide itself. So my apologies. Thank you. |
| 02:24:18.22 | Kevin McGowan | So with that, we simply recommend that the city council accept the staff report, and we anticipate coming back to city council to request additional funding for Dumpy Park, hopefully on October 22nd. |
| 02:24:32.62 | Unknown | For clarity, just on that last comment, sorry, Kevin, 4.1 million. On that slide, plus, as you said, the buildings at MLK brings it to six. But then there's also Sweeney that then rounds out the entire certificate of participation number that the community got so attached to during the Measure F. So at some point, we can even bring that old COP number up in future presentations. And now we have the full scope. Now we can say, you know, all. Six. |
| 02:25:04.46 | Kevin McGowan | you items. Thank you. Thank you. |
| 02:25:06.47 | Unknown | That would be great. Yeah. |
| 02:25:06.49 | Kevin McGowan | That would be great. Honestly, it took me quite a while to kind of patch this all back together. So I apologize for my lack of knowledge on these things. |
| 02:25:11.63 | Unknown | No doubt. No, and that wasn't needed for this, but just in the future. I think we'll bring a lot together. |
| 02:25:18.11 | Kevin McGowan | There's quite a few staff reports to go through to figure out where this is coming and going. So my apologies. And with that, we're here for questions and comments and anything that we can do. |
| 02:25:28.10 | Unknown | Any other questions? |
| 02:25:28.81 | Kevin McGowan | Sure. |
| 02:25:31.33 | Unknown | So one other question, we had a community member at a recent city council meeting ask, when was our COP THE END OF THE END OF THE committee going to oversight committee going to be meeting again So... Do you know when, I know you've now gotten up to speed, so do you know when that? Five on the 10th. Say it again. |
| 02:25:49.53 | Unknown | Five of them on the show. Thank you. 5 p.m. on the 10th. |
| 02:25:53.50 | Unknown | This Thursday. Sweet. Perfect. Thank you. |
| 02:25:59.79 | Unknown | All right, any other comments? I'm going to open to public comment. Is there anybody from the public that would like to talk about |
| 02:26:04.28 | Unknown | Yes, please. |
| 02:26:05.43 | Unknown | I'm sorry. |
| 02:26:06.04 | Tom Riley | Just one comment. Well, one, I just want to commend everyone |
| 02:26:08.28 | Unknown | I have a question. |
| 02:26:08.33 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:26:08.45 | Tom Riley | It's a question. |
| 02:26:08.67 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:26:09.24 | Tom Riley | We're going to do comments after, yeah. |
| 02:26:10.44 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:26:12.06 | Tom Riley | No question. |
| 02:26:13.97 | Unknown | Is there any public comment or questions, but comment from the community on this item? See, none. We'll close public comment. And now... Go ahead, Tom. |
| 02:26:26.94 | Unknown | Come, please. |
| 02:26:31.10 | Tom Riley | One, I just want to commend the city staff on creative funding, all the additional grants and pursuing funding beyond the original measure that was pursued in good progress. My biggest concern is the unknown lack of contingency to finish Dunphy Park. I think it is good that Southview is delayed till spring that allows us to get more clarity on what it takes to complete Dunphy and then at that time you know possibly revisiting what funds we may have for Southview be my comment so that we don't just have a huge expense of you know serious contaminants at the rest of Dunphy so that's my thoughts Thank you. |
| 02:27:16.24 | Unknown | Thank you. comments? |
| 02:27:20.27 | Unknown | So we heard this at the finance committee, but I will just repeat some of my comments from there, which is I just want to thank the Department of Public Works and Rec Park for all of the incredibly hard work that has transpired since we received funds to update our parks through Measure F. And as Council Member Riley said, for leveraging that funding in such an extraordinary way to get us close to the finish line over the finish line with robin sweeney close to the finish line with mlk and a really significant way along on dunphy which of course is our most challenging park so we have a small but mighty staff and these have been some really large capital projects and I'm excited to see the progress and appreciate the presentation |
| 02:28:18.40 | Unknown | Yeah, I agree with all of that. It's a couple of comments just to remind ourselves and to remind our residents that our COP oversight committee or that's what it's called, right? COP oversight committee is to oversee and make sure that the that the use of the COP funds are proper, are correct. It's not to actually look at all the funding sources for all the capital projects. It's really just the appropriate allocation of COP monies. And it hasn't been allocated to something it shouldn't have been allocated to. So that's the first comment. Second thing is that, I am not so sure that we all appreciated just how for our small public works department, very as the Vice Mayor said, very capable public works department, just how much they were biting off with doing three parks, four parks essentially, and together with the MLK that was a real challenge for us and it really stretched us i think um now we don't have another eight million dollars to throw around so we probably won't be doing something at quite that scale again but this was a significant challenge and i think a major achievement for a small city like ours so uh well done on that i do share a little bit of concern about what is else is to be found in Dunphy Park. So we've got to keep our fingers crossed that that is. But also we can't raid Southview because A certificates of participation don't allow it. But also I remember in a community meeting when I was out there selling measure F. Someone said to me, I know what's going to happen, Ray. You're going to run out of money, and you're not going to be able to do Southview Park. And of course, Southview was his favorite park. But rest assured, we will be completed in Southview. So that's the only other comment I would make. So it's capital projects of this size for a small town is a challenge. |
| 02:31:01.91 | Unknown | I'll agree with my fellow council members and remind us that when we went out for Measure F, we were not dealing with current estimates or fully burdened estimates. And so the fact that we've managed to bring all of these parks this close to fruition through the creative funding, and I also want to acknowledge Mike Langford for his efforts on this, is remarkable. So I look forward to reaching the finish line, and thank you for taking this over and updating us in such a capable manner. |
| 02:31:36.06 | Unknown | Great. You guys said it. We built $6 million to park for $4 million. And we had to do a lot of value engineering and a lot of grant seeking and a lot of corner cutting. But we're going to have some great parks. And Lauren and Andy, I want to call you out since you've been there through the whole time. Thank you from our community. Thank you for your work on this. Kevin, you came to a great party. Hopefully it's ending. Trust me, it was a great party. So thank you all for our parks and let's get them wrapped up and have some fun next year. |
| 02:32:03.04 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:32:15.70 | Kevin McGowan | Thank you very much. |
| 02:32:17.08 | Unknown | Thank you. All right, I know we're trying to get to marijuana before the lights go out, but we have one more item. What's that? It's going to be really quick. We're going to get the bill up here. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. |
| 02:32:29.88 | Steve Flint | Thank you. |
| 02:32:29.91 | Chris Monroe | Thank you. |
| 02:32:31.41 | Unknown | Thank you. Welcome, Steve Flint. Sorry. Yeah, we're going to adopt a resolution for amendment to health and safety element of the 1995 South Dakota General Plan. Steve Flint, our Interim Community Development Department. |
| 02:32:42.13 | Steve Flint | Thank you for that introduction. Yes, and good evening to see council members I'll make this quick. I don't have a presentation to put up there. So it'll just be the words we are Proposing an amendment to the city's general plan. It is a very minor amendment It has no effect on the overall general plan update that's now going on although it may be incorporated into the work that the M group in the city takes on the purpose is actually to bring it into alignment with what the state has recommended and in applying FEMA emergency funding across the board this is really aligning the city with the rest of the jurisdictions within Marin County and making us eligible for additional OES monies through the state which is a which is a plus the Planning Commission did hear this item on the second and did recommend it unanimously and our our recommendation is that the council also follow through and men or adopt the resolution amending the city's general plan health and safety element to include a reference to the county's multi jurisdictional hazard mitigation plan which brings us into alignment with the rest of the county. And that's, in a nutshell, the proposal. And I'll be happy to answer any questions |
| 02:32:42.18 | Unknown | THANK YOU. |
| 02:34:12.63 | Unknown | The President. |
| 02:34:13.93 | Unknown | Thank you. I have a question. All right. So sorry, I just. So the report, the actual county plan includes a lot of detailed information for almost every other jurisdiction but Sausalito. |
| 02:34:34.23 | Unknown | Oh, okay. Well, it doesn't, so for example, it notes that other communities are updating their general plan. It doesn't say that Sassleet's Okay, so on page 21, anyway, I was just wondering why maybe I didn't look at the whole... But on attachment for... |
| 02:34:53.31 | Unknown | the 324 page report. |
| 02:34:55.05 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 02:34:55.32 | Steve Flint | Thank you. There's quite a bit of information presented there, yes. I'm sorry. |
| 02:34:58.86 | Unknown | Yeah. Okay. |
| 02:34:59.15 | Steve Flint | I think because we're probably one of the smaller jurisdictions, there's not as much volume in terms of what the analysis prepared. |
| 02:35:09.78 | Unknown | Okay. It just didn't look like we had provided sort of an update on where we were. So I was looking at the planning process on page 21. I mean, I'm in favor of going forward with this, but on page 21 on Sausalito, just doesn't. include much information so i don't know who in our community development department had input into this plan but i was just wondering whether this was current as it applies to Sausalito. |
| 02:35:58.06 | Unknown | Okay. |
| 02:36:02.40 | Unknown | So. |
| 02:36:05.89 | Unknown | Anyway, it's just kind of interesting that our section on page 21 in terms of the planning process doesn't note as it does for other jurisdictions. kind of how we've been incorporating this. But since nobody seems to know why, well, that was my only question. |
| 02:36:29.84 | Unknown | Any other questions? I'm going to open up to public comment. Is there anybody who would like to speak from the public on this item? |
| 02:36:46.90 | Steve Flint | Well, oh. Sorry, I'll get down to you. |
| 02:36:50.10 | Unknown | So I would just like to say I'm very supportive of this because without doing this, we won't be eligible for these funds. But I believe we're the last jurisdiction, and the conditional approval was that everyone sign on. So I would hate for Sausalito to be left out. So I urge you to sign on. |
| 02:37:08.30 | Unknown | you |
| 02:37:08.36 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:37:08.38 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:37:08.40 | Unknown | THANK YOU. |
| 02:37:08.48 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:37:12.48 | Unknown | Any other public comment on this item? Seeing none. |
| 02:37:19.65 | Unknown | comments and a recommendation for a resolution. |
| 02:37:23.40 | Unknown | Well, I'll go straight to a motion. Great. Move to adopt a resolution amending the health and safety element of the 1995 Sol Solito General Pan to include language stating that the city of Sol Solito has adopted the 2018 Marin County Multi-Jurisdictional Hazard Mitigation Plan as the local hazard mitigation plan for the city. |
| 02:37:45.35 | Unknown | Second. |
| 02:37:46.62 | Unknown | All in favor? |
| 02:37:47.31 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:37:47.45 | Unknown | Bye. |
| 02:37:47.50 | Unknown | Hi. |
| 02:37:47.97 | Unknown | Aye. That passes 5-0. Thank you, Steve. |
| 02:37:53.10 | Unknown | I can hear this. |
| 02:37:57.45 | Unknown | Calvin, where did you come from? Where were you? |
| 02:37:59.70 | Unknown | Where were you? Right here. To me is the, this summarized. |
| 02:38:00.37 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:38:06.95 | Unknown | City of South Africa. |
| 02:38:07.78 | Mary Wagner | Thank you. |
| 02:38:10.46 | Unknown | Next up, adopting or zoning ordinance amendment to adopt marijuana regulations. Kelvin Chan, everybody. Remember Kelvin Chan? Welcome back. |
| 02:38:22.46 | Kelvin Chan | It's great to have him back. Welcome back, Kelvin. Thank you, Mayor Burns, members of the council, members of the public. The item before you is a zoning ordinance amendment to adopt marijuana regulations. bringing us back a little ways back for when we began the interim ordinance. On October 30th of last year, the City Council voted to extend our interim urgency ordinance, which we put in place in November of 2017. Our interim ordinance is effective up to and through November 24th of this year. What is currently allowed in our interim ordinance is the delivery of medical and recreational marijuana into Sausalito as well as personal indoor cultivation. What is not allowed are brick and mortar retail sales dispensaries and distribution centers. Within our marijuana regulations, we have a specific requirement that businesses that conduct cannabis-related deliveries into Sausalito would need to register or notify the city. Thus far, we've received notification from three businesses. |
| 02:39:29.59 | Kelvin Chan | the City Council's January 2019 meeting there was direction provided from the council to staff to explore the possibility of non storefront type businesses specifically non storefront retail delivery or distribution and to also consider a development agreement approach development agreements are contracts that are entered into the city into by the city and a developer to expressly define development projects, their rules, regulations, commitments, and policies for specific periods of time. We have received numerous correspondences from different people that are engaged in both storefront and non-storefront cannabis businesses. And we have encouraged cannabis businesses that are non-storefront to work with property owners to gauge acceptability and potential in establishing at different locales throughout our city. |
| 02:40:25.97 | Kelvin Chan | Before our interim urgency ordinance expires on November 24th, it is recommended that the city re-adopt the existing marijuana regulations currently contained within our municipal code, chapter 1047. The adoption of our current regulations again would ensure continued compliance with state law and allow additional time for staff analysis of potential amendments. The readoption of our current marijuana regulations would not preclude us from future modifications to the marijuana regulations. The Planning Commission did conduct a study session for the Zoning Ordinance Amendment and did recommend adoption of the Zoning Ordinance Amendment to the City Council. |
| 02:41:09.31 | Kelvin Chan | The recommendation from staff this evening is for the council to conduct a public hearing on this proposed zoning ordinance amendment to re-adopt our marijuana regulations, to introduce and read by title only this ordinance, and to continue the second reading to October 22nd. And lastly, to authorize a summary of the ordinance to be published and all applicable notice. That concludes staff's presentation, and we are available for questions that we may have. |
| 02:41:35.53 | Unknown | boy it's great to have you back |
| 02:41:38.41 | Kelvin Chan | question. |
| 02:41:39.53 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:41:40.20 | Unknown | I love it. Yes, please. |
| 02:41:41.84 | Unknown | So did the Planning Commission discuss any expansion of the ordinance, or did they discuss storefront, you know, non-retail storefront or storefront? |
| 02:41:55.32 | Kelvin Chan | No, the Planning Commission did not engage in those discussions. If and when we were to look at potential amendments to the regulations in the future, then that discussion would be had with the Planning Commission. |
| 02:42:05.90 | Unknown | Okay. And then I think at our last hearing on this issue, we had discussed the idea, there were a couple of speakers that were interested in non-storefront retail, and we discussed the idea of pursuing some progress on that front through a development agreement as opposed to a wholesale rezoning since we weren't really sure how many um businesses there might be that would be interested in operating in sassalito or where and what we might change so has there been any uh activity on the staff level around that |
| 02:42:44.90 | Kelvin Chan | Sure, absolutely. We have been in contact with that entity. We have provided them general planning information. They're specifically looking at patients within our marineship. So we provided them the correct planning documents, the marineship-specific plan. And guidance in terms of who they might want to talk to or potential contacts in that field. They have requested a meeting with myself and the community development director to go over this further. That meeting has not been finalized, but we have not talked more about the development agreement approach since that time. |
| 02:42:51.77 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:43:22.06 | Unknown | Okay, but I'm assuming given that this is moving forward, did... Thank you. the city attorney have the chance to, I think we had some questions at our last hearing about whether that was a viable path forward. |
| 02:43:38.90 | Mary Wagner | Yeah, I think you did. I think you had questions both from the legal front and the practical front. |
| 02:43:43.68 | Unknown | . |
| 02:43:43.73 | Unknown | tonight. |
| 02:43:44.07 | Unknown | THE END OF |
| 02:43:44.77 | Mary Wagner | and having the entity that was interested engage with the community to find out if there was a place and a willing landlord, if you will. I do think it's a viable option for us to continue to pursue. It has not been on the front burner. Sorry for that pun. But we're happy to put some resources toward that, and I think the meeting at the staff level will be the first step forward. |
| 02:44:12.75 | Unknown | Great, thank you. |
| 02:44:15.91 | Unknown | Calvin, I sent you a question and I just want to bring it up here instead of in comment. And I know you answered me, but I didn't really get it all. So I had asked, as we do this, this is our opportunity to change this document, our current regulation. I know we have many more bites at the apple, but in the meantime, I just want to clarify really. what's summed up in our purpose and the purpose says in enacting this chapter it is the intent of the city of Sausalito to protect the safety and welfare of the public by prohibiting medical and non-medical marijuana. I think at one time that might have been even something that a council would have said hey if we can not have any marijuana we're protecting our community. At this point in, the evidence is more than clear that by not having legal sale of marijuana, you're putting your community at risk to a black market and to nefarious activities. I'm not comfortable by saying that it's our intent to protect our community. by prohibiting medical and non-medical marijuana sales, facilities, activities, delivery, and cultivation. because that would then say if somebody came for a development agreement, it would suggest, no, we can't have any of that because we're protecting our community. And it's kind of the opposites now in a pack, in fact. So your comment was, because I brought up the word consistent with state law, that that might be... not state law it's our our ordinance we want to say our ordinance believes that if you have proper legal sales you're protecting your community |
| 02:45:58.75 | Kelvin Chan | Sure, I think I understood your question from your email a little different. That's why I had this language. You suggested the potential of changing consistent to inconsistent and I understood what you meant by that. But I think it is more important to stress our continued compliance with state law at this particular moment in time. And when we're ready to do those amendments to our marijuana regulations, I think then we can work on that language to craft our state law. |
| 02:46:06.35 | Unknown | off. |
| 02:46:28.21 | Unknown | Okay, so how do we allow delivery if we say we're protecting our safety and welfare by not having delivery? |
| 02:46:30.57 | Kelvin Chan | if we say we're protecting our safety So that references brick and mortar distribution centers. Currently, some big cannabis business can deliver into Sausalito, but they cannot have a brick and mortar delivery facility here. |
| 02:46:48.69 | Unknown | Okay, but it currently says the delivery of all marijuana would be bad for our community. |
| 02:46:52.04 | Kelvin Chan | you |
| 02:46:52.36 | Unknown | you Thank you. |
| 02:46:53.00 | Kelvin Chan | within the city's corporate limits, it points to having a brick and mortar location, but we can fine tune that language. |
| 02:47:03.41 | Unknown | And then when we do that, I think we change everything to cannabis, but that's just kind of a. |
| 02:47:03.55 | Kelvin Chan | when we... |
| 02:47:08.27 | Unknown | Oh, yeah. Sorry. |
| 02:47:09.25 | Mary Wagner | So, Mr. Mayor, if I may too, so when you adopted this language, when we adopted the urgency measure, we were under a deadline from the state to put these regulations in place or to have to accept all types of these facilities. And I think what we were doing at the staff level was trying to delineate what it was we were doing. |
| 02:47:10.18 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 02:47:29.55 | Mary Wagner | in a very specific purpose statement I don't think there's a problem with the council. Revising that purpose statement. I don't think that means we have to take it back to the Planning Commission because I think your Intent or your regulations are the same So if you think it's inconsistent to say the delivery of marijuana because we allow, for Marijuana delivery? but not brick and mortar. And we could change it along those lines. I concur with Calvin though that the Compliant was better than inconsistent in my perspective because your regulations are consistent with state law. They allowed you to put these restrictions in place. As we move forward and if you open up other avenues, we can certainly modify the language at that point too. |
| 02:48:11.35 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:48:11.47 | Unknown | The only reason I brought up inconsistent is if it's saying anything inconsistent with state law, then we would be prohibiting it against because that's how we protect our community is by not being inconsistent. That's why I brought up the word inconsistent in my e-mail because otherwise this sentence is still backwards to me. |
| 02:48:30.67 | Unknown | Yeah, I actually, in reading this again now, very much agree with the mayor. I mean, if you actually parse this, what this says is that by prohibiting, the delivery of all marijuana. |
| 02:48:47.46 | Unknown | And that's not what we're doing. No. We're allowing the delivery of all that one. |
| 02:48:50.70 | Unknown | We're allowing it. So that should be changed. |
| 02:48:54.58 | Mary Wagner | We can take that. Why don't we just strike that provision? That phrase. That phrase, the delivery of all marijuana. Yeah. It's clear that we don't allow brick and mortar. Yeah. We do allow delivery from jurisdictions. |
| 02:49:00.08 | Unknown | Yeah. Yeah. |
| 02:49:05.23 | Mary Wagner | physical locations outside of Sausalito. I think that's consistent with your regulations. |
| 02:49:10.36 | Unknown | And I think changing it to compliant is better because state law is still evolving. That's why we postponed taking final action on this six months ago was to allow state law to catch up. to allow their provisions to catch up a bit, And then we could piggyback on them. So I think using the word compliant is far stronger. and more appropriate. |
| 02:49:32.50 | Tom Riley | I agree with the mayor, but to go a step further, if we have a development agreement in the marineship, isn't that a commercial marijuana activity? |
| 02:49:43.25 | Unknown | But we can update this. We can always update this. We're just adopting this now so that... because we are on a deadline to adopt a regulation so as not to um, abdicate our ability to do so. We can always update it. as soon as we hear about the development Potential. Anyway, I think we're commenting and not questioning at the moment. |
| 02:50:10.57 | Unknown | Thanks for your answer. Any other questions? I'm going to open up to public comment, and this is the time for the public to speak on this item. |
| 02:50:26.87 | Unknown | Do we have any cards I should have asked? Just fill out some cards, Connor, if you would, just put your names on them so we'll have them for the public record. You can go ahead and start, Chris. |
| 02:50:37.72 | Chris Monroe | Good evening, council members. Thank you for having us. Do I have – oh, there it goes. All right. My name is Chris Monroe. I am a San Francisco native and the owner of CrossFit Sausalito on the Bridgeway. sure you've seen our members are running around outside if you've ever gone down to tommy's walk or kitty's to pick up dinner that's where our gym is located For the past eight months or so, my business partner, Connor Johnson, and I have been working toward our goal of opening a small business in Sausalito cannabis retail store. A little bit of information about myself. My dad, who was in his early 70s, recently started using cannabis products for his Parkinson's. My mother also did it to CBD for generalized anxiety. I'm a recovering alcoholic of nearly 10 years, and I counsel other people who are in recovery, and have seen how effective cannabis can be in helping people transition of alcohol and other hard drugs. Connor and I recognize that Sosalitans overwhelmingly support regulated cannabis both at the polls and in the survey you conducted earlier this year. We also know that before we do anything else, we would need to get out there and speak directly with the community. So that's what we've been doing for the past seven months. We have spoken with every merchant in town. We've walked the corridors and stopped into every business. We've spoken with each of you, with the exception of the newly appointed Councillor Riley. We've met with Reverend... of the Christophysical Church, and spoke with Father Quinn from St. Mary's Star of the Sea, we presented at the Lions Club. We've worked closely with Julie from the Chamber of Commerce and presented to their business executive meeting. We've been with Fire Marshal Hilliard. We've reached out to the police department. presented at the Rotary Club we spoke with the Edie of the Montessori Sparrow Creek School we reached out to Lacey Francais Little Creek and Bayside we work with leaders of the women's club to invite their members to meeting with us we spoke with Sausalito Village we have attended other community meetings like the marineship workshops And two weeks ago, with the help of Reverend Larimer, we held a community conversation about cannabis at the library. It was an overall very positive event. Thank you, Mayor Burns, for joining us. and we have stayed in touch with your economic development and planning staff. We've been amazed by the positive feedback we've gotten from all walks of life. Your survey earlier this year was not wrong. People have been almost unanimously supportive of our proposal. Folks at the Land Club seem to light up as soon as we mentioned it. elderly women have told us they'd love to have a place to buy their CP topicals. Many people have asked, how soon can you open? I'm tired of driving to the city for cannabis. We have over 100 signed letters. signed support letters from Salisado residents and merchants so far, And? I'll let Connor take it from here. |
| 02:53:38.81 | Connor Johnston | It's good. Should I wait? No. Okay. We don't know how long the power is going to be on. I'll go fast then. Good evening, counselors. Connor Johnston, as my business partner Chris Monroe mentioned, he and I are very interested in opening a storefront cannabis retail store. in Sausalito. I am a Mill Valley native, grew up just one exit away in Tam Valley, and as I say, I have a closet full of Sausalito Arts Festival shirts that say garbage on the back, and actually some of my first memories were at the Sausalito Education, the Board of Education office where my mom worked when I was a little toddler. You know, the mayor put his finger on it a second ago. There is no such thing as a cannabis retail ban. Cannabis is being bought and sold in Sausalito in Marin all over California. There is a 10 billion with a B. dollar illicit cannabis market in California and and that has consequences Over 1,800 people have gotten sick from what's now being called vaping-associated pulmonary illness. 18 people have passed away so far. That is happening because of illegal cannabis products that are not regulated and that are being bought and sold in communities all over the state and all over the country, including our own. So there isn't a cannabis prohibition option. That option doesn't exist. There's a legal, safe, regulated option. Thank you. and there's an illegal and dangerous option. And what I would suggest to you is that having a cannabis store in town, improves public safety, and it also inures to the benefit of the community. You know, you're talking about shortfalls on funding for parks. What we would like to do is develop a development agreement with the city that would allow us to contribute to city purposes, to the community, a portion of our revenue, a portion of our profit. I own the only cannabis store in the Haight-Ashbury in San Francisco, and we have actually committed 4% of our profit back to the community. Thank you. portion of our profit. I own the only cannabis store in the Haight-Ashbury in San Francisco, and we have actually committed 4% of our profit back to the community. Chris and I would like to do the same here. We're very committed to Sausalito. I hope to move here soon if I can convince the boyfriend. But specifically, our request this evening is for the council to direct your staff to begin the process of discussing a development agreement with us. We have done a ton of outreach over the course of the last eight months. We have a potential location lined up. We're now hitting a roadblock where We feel like we have a ton of public support. We have a lot of people behind us, but we can't really engage with city staff yet to start the framework of a development agreement. until they have that imprimatur from the council. And so that's our request this evening is to just say, Let's start the conversation about a development agreement for storefront retail. We don't have to commit to it, but let's see what those terms look like. and allow us to continue moving with the project, which I think can really be a benefit to the community, and Chris and I would love to have another business here in town. Good timing. |
| 02:56:50.27 | Unknown | Thank you, Connor. Any other public comment? I see one coming up. Thank you. And then when you're done, you can give your card to... Thank you. |
| 02:56:59.05 | Yolanda Bellissimo | Thank you. |
| 02:56:59.06 | Unknown | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 02:56:59.84 | Yolanda Bellissimo | Thank you. Hello, my name is Yolanda Bellissimo, and I'm here to speak on behalf of Reverend Chip Larimore. The Reverend wanted to be here this evening, but he's out of the state, so he asked that his message be read to you. It says, good evening, my council members. My name is Chip Larimore. I serve as the rector of Christ Episcopal Church here in Sausalito. But I write to you not in my capacity as pastor, but simply as a resident of Sausalito who has his own experience with cannabis. Just three decades ago, in 1988, I was diagnosed with bone cancer I was 25 years old. Along with excellent doctors, my friends, family, and my faith, one thing helped me through the months of surgery and chemotherapy. It helped boost my appetite and helped me with the pain, and that treatment was cannabis. I finished treatment late in 1989, a time when too many young men like me were starting to use cannabis to ease the devastating impacts of HIV and AIDS. Many of my closest friends had their lives greatly improved through cannabis. What I want to say to you is this, cannabis is not sinister, it is not wrong. Cannabis is not what Reaper Madness and decades of scare tactics have tried to make people believe. Cannabis can be used as a medicine, a very effective one. I know that from my own experience, and for adults who choose to use it, cannabis can be safe, regulated, and enjoyable. It is a product like other products used by adults. I support Chris and Connor's efforts wholeheartedly, and I hope you will as well. Thank you. |
| 02:58:45.41 | Unknown | Thanks, Chip. Can you, yeah, bring your card there, perfect, thank you. Any other public comment? Comment on this item? |
| 02:59:00.77 | Unknown | Mayor, fellow council members, hi. My name is Megan Boynton, I'm a former resident of South Ligo, grew up here. And I'm actually here just to speak in support of Connor and Chris. I'm incredibly impressed by the approach they've taken to this process. I think that their offer and your Um, Openness to a development agreement is a fabulous way of starting the conversation. I would urge you to do that. I come as a supporter of cannabis, the product as well. I see what's happening in the rest of the community in the Bay Area and the fiscal and financial, I won't say windfall, but I will say substantial. financial revenues that can come to the city are something that Cecilita would need. I was compelled, I'm actually thrilled that I was here all night, because I was compelled by the parks conversation. And I think something like a development agreement that could actually contribute to something like cleaning up in Dunphy Park and Filling those gaps in the shortfall would be behooves. I'm, as I said, I'm a huge fan of Sausalito. I actually am a former resident, and I actually believe that something like Sausalito breaking the barriers in Marin County and bringing those dollars that Connor so aptly talked about were are either going legally or going to San Francisco back to Marin County would be not only a powerful statement to the rest of the county, but also put you in a position to influence how it was going to happen to the rest of the county. Thank you. |
| 03:00:38.08 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:00:38.12 | Unknown | THANK YOU. for your time. |
| 03:00:38.94 | Unknown | Thanks any other public comment |
| 03:00:44.95 | Jasmine Garrity | Hi, my name is Jasmine Garrity. I live here in Sausalito. I'm a resident, and I also do a lot of the vaping and tobacco education in all the schools here. I'm here tonight just to speak on behalf of young people because we've seen a huge increase in the rates of use not only among e-cigarettes but also with cannabis use here. in Sausalito among the school district. I think that it's really important that going through these policies, making sure that we're keeping youth and young people as a huge key part of this, Um, Looking at buffer zones, making sure we're being very conscious of that. really defining the difference between medical outlets and recreational because those are two completely different entities and it's important to break those apart. Also being very aware that we do have tobacco flavor bands here. Is that going to go along with cannabis flavor bands? Is that going to be something similar? Yeah. what the regulatory processes are gonna look like. There's a lot of cities that are doing different localized policies because with cannabis, you can really do anything. You guys here right now have the ability to take control of what's gonna happen in Sausalito, and you have a lot of control over it. So you can look at potency level regulation, you can look at buffer zones, you can control a lot of these bits and pieces about what's happening. We're not necessarily concerned about the people here who can own stores. They're going to own a great shop, or they're going to own a great business and be able to run it right. It's more about the products that are going into those stores that we're concerned about. A lot of the cannabis industry is owned by big tobacco and big alcohol businesses, and so what we're seeing is that those big corporations are coming into local towns. And I, for one, living here in Sausalito, I don't want to see the McDonald's or Starbucks of cannabis move into our little town here. And I think that being very cautious and wary as we move forward with this process, and I know that It's a short deadline, a quick turnaround with November coming up, but be very aware of all the different components of this and be thoughtful with all of the decisions that are being made. Thank you. |
| 03:02:55.26 | Unknown | Thank you. Yasmin, will you fill out a card and just give it to us? Can I actually ask? |
| 03:02:56.27 | Unknown | Thank you. Can I actually ask her question? |
| 03:02:58.62 | Unknown | We have one question for you though. We have a question for you, Jasmine. |
| 03:03:02.75 | Unknown | Yeah, hi, thank you, thanks. So are there local regulations that you've seen that you think are a good model? for other jurisdictions as they relate to youth? |
| 03:03:12.84 | Jasmine Garrity | as they relate. Definitely. So there's other jurisdictions that are doing a lot of, right at this point, there is no storefront recreational retail. We do have, in Fairfax, there's two medical licenses that were issued for medical storefronts. And then a lot of people are moving forward with delivery because it's hard to regulate delivery businesses coming in. So there's a lot of delivery businesses that are popping up. As far as monitoring youth, it's really hard because when you have more product in the environment, there's going to be this normalization factor with young people. The same way that they were normalized with having a liquor store on the corner, it's going to normalize the same thing with a cannabis store. I'm not saying that a liquor store is a good thing either because they've normalized that it's in the community. |
| 03:03:58.64 | Unknown | THE END OF |
| 03:04:01.92 | Jasmine Garrity | So when we're seeing cannabis stores showing up, the more and more they show up, it becomes more normalized and the perception of harm with young people goes down. And when it goes down, then the use rates go up. And so as far as local policies to go from, it's pretty hard. A lot of policies are still being created. But I think that putting in, you can put in little regulations to... move forward. applications that have a direct additional funding that's gonna go to youth prevention efforts, that's something to look for that you can put in when going through the application process, looking at the efforts that will be made for young people. |
| 03:04:44.22 | Unknown | OKAY, GREAT. |
| 03:04:45.44 | Unknown | Thank you. Any other public comment? Is there any more about comment? I'll have you fill out cards before we give them to the staff. |
| 03:05:01.30 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:05:01.32 | Unknown | Well, he... |
| 03:05:01.69 | Unknown | Not right now, you can do it afterwards. And Jasmine, you can do it too. We're going to keep it going. We've got time. |
| 03:05:01.74 | Unknown | Not right now. You gotta, Gotta get done before the lights go out. |
| 03:05:10.23 | Sean Cleary | Council members, good evening. My name is Sean Cleary. I was born and raised in Sausalito and currently reside in North Beach, San Francisco, but my parents are still in the same house in Alexander, which is pretty cool. So there was actually a lot said here that resonated with me very personally. What Chris and Connor and Meg all talked about definitely applies to my parents. They are getting a little bit older. They are dealing with some health issues. And they are a definite enthusiast for cannabis products, not necessarily just cannabis itself, but the products, those that are found on the other side of a legal, commercially available market. I think that kind of thing is something that... |
| 03:05:34.16 | Unknown | there. |
| 03:05:49.53 | Sean Cleary | is a foregone conclusion as far as presence, but I think that its very presence and the products that can be offered are something that could really find a home in Sausalito for people like my parents. As was said earlier, there is a really large amount of community support behind that. I think that they are part of that grouping. But as Chris mentioned, there is an issue with them being able to locate the products that they want to get them here Versus sending me over to shop and stop in San Francisco and bring them back I think those are susselet of dollars that are going into San Francisco. They'd be better kept here Also, I'd like to say just In terms of the type of business presence I would see as viable in Sausalito, I think it takes the right team to do it. I think this is a special community. Always has been. I hope it always will be. And I think that after sitting in on the info session that Chris and Connor presented a few weeks ago, I was extremely impressed by their capability, by their feeling for what the sentiment is in this community and the kind of business that would suit us the best and be the best for our citizens. And as a result, I think that they're the team to do it. So that's really all I had to say. I think that this is a necessary presence. I think a lot of people in this community want it, and I think what they're presenting is a good option for us. Thank you. |
| 03:07:02.24 | Unknown | Thank you. Any other public comment? Seeing none, we'll close public comment and bring it up here for... Thank you. |
| 03:07:07.36 | Unknown | Yeah, I had a question for staff. So there's been lots of comment tonight about staff's unwillingness to meet with these folks. And I thought we had already directed staff to explore development agreement and to meet with these folks who are interested in this. |
| 03:07:20.60 | Adam Politzer | Can I respond first? Unless the mayor. |
| 03:07:24.11 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:07:24.15 | Unknown | Yeah, storefront and non-storefront are different. |
| 03:07:28.20 | Unknown | I know, but we gave clear direction to explore this. On non-storefront. Yeah, on non-storefront. |
| 03:07:28.69 | Unknown | Okay. |
| 03:07:31.52 | Adam Politzer | I'm sorry. |
| 03:07:32.35 | Unknown | On non-storefront. Yeah, on non-storefront. And Connor and Chris are talking about storefront. |
| 03:07:35.03 | Unknown | Okay. Okay. |
| 03:07:39.32 | Unknown | THE END OF THE END OF THE ANY OTHER TALKING? Comments? No comments? Okay. Thank you. |
| 03:07:49.21 | Unknown | Bye. |
| 03:07:49.80 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 03:07:50.61 | Unknown | I mean, I think there's two things in front of us tonight. I mean, one is this particular permanent ordinance where we need to, if I understand correctly, we need to enact permanent legislation to replace our interim controls. Or we would open every place in Sausalito up to potential development of cannabis uses. i think you know the prudent first step is to continue with our current uh language and to close that gap um with the interim ordinance and i understand we need to do that before november correct so we want to do a first reading at least today tonight so i'm in favor of that um secondly both at our last hearing and tonight we heard about people who are interested in other types of cannabis uh commercial enterprises in town and i think really we've had overwhelming support from the electorate on generally the legalization of cannabis but i think for Sausalito it's just going to be a big question about what type of business and where and I think what we said at our last hearing was that the development agreement approach would allow us to explore that in a more fine-tuned way than a zoning change that would affect a large area so I'm in favor of continuing to direct staff to meet with interested parties and to work up proposals and at the appropriate time to take it first to the planning commission or to other public forum and then eventually to check in with us about about how that public outreach is going and what those businesses look like so i'm in favor of continuing both on the storefront and the non-storefront retail to have that those exploratory conversations continue to do public outreach as staff deems appropriate and to consult with the planning commission and eventually the city council |
| 03:09:56.95 | Unknown | So I'm just not clear why we're discussing this tonight. This is not part of our agenda. Our report tonight was to consider this revised amendment, and I think we've already given direction about exploring development agreement so Thank you. |
| 03:10:13.67 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:10:13.69 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:10:14.08 | Unknown | Okay, fair enough, but I am questioning if we're going to explore a development agreement, then we can't be saying we're going to prohibit elements. |
| 03:10:24.19 | Unknown | And Mr. Mayor, if it's okay with you, I actually have revised proposed language for us to consider. |
| 03:10:27.70 | Unknown | for us to consider. And before you say that, I want to say something else. Every day that we go without establishing legal marijuana, we're putting illegal marijuana in the hands of children. So it's not a question anymore. And if it's a question for you, please do some research. It's no longer a question. Colorado is throwing out stats every week on the drop of teen use. you know when we were kids we'd go into the liquor store at 17, 18 we'd buy it We'd put money on the counter and run with the beer. Whatever it took, we got our alcohol. You cannot do that with marijuana if you're a teenager. You just simply cannot buy it legally. It's not like the old liquor stores. So when we say that we're going to get all this done by prohibiting any of these things, we're going to protect our community by controlling these things. And I think the better verb in there is to control. |
| 03:11:07.64 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:11:20.60 | Unknown | facilities, control activities, control deliveries. |
| 03:11:22.91 | Unknown | How about regulating and monitoring? |
| 03:11:24.82 | Unknown | Regulating and monitoring are perfect. There we go. Something that says prohibiting is not the answer to the issues at hand. |
| 03:11:26.03 | Unknown | There we go. |
| 03:11:34.28 | Unknown | So I got motion, I think. |
| 03:11:35.65 | Unknown | Agreed. So if I might, can you go back to the prior slide? All right. So that language where it says, in enacting this chapter is the intent of the city of Sausalito. to Protect. I would like to say to protect the safety and welfare of the general public by regulating and monitoring medical and non-medical marijuana facilities, commercial marijuana activities, and the outdoor cultivation of marijuana within the city's corporate limits in a manner compliant with state law. |
| 03:12:06.64 | Unknown | Sounds good. |
| 03:12:07.29 | Unknown | Okay, then can you go to the next slide, Calvin, sorry. So with that revised language in mind, I Move, we introduce and read by title only an ordinance of the City Council of the City of Sausalito to adopt marijuana regulations, Sausalito Municipal Code, Chapter 10.47. continue the second reading to October 22 2019 for adoption and authorize a summary of the ordinance to be published five days in advance of the second reading and 15 days after its adoption |
| 03:12:39.44 | Tom Riley | I like your wording, Councilmember Cox. The way you phrased it, we should put back in the words and the delivery of marijuana. |
| 03:12:48.35 | Unknown | I think that's fine. Yeah. So I accept that friendly amendment to my motion. |
| 03:12:52.81 | Unknown | I'll second that motion. I don't know if there's any further discussion, |
| 03:12:55.81 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:12:55.84 | Unknown | to further discussion. |
| 03:12:56.72 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:12:59.08 | Unknown | All in favor? Aye. Aye. That passes five to zero. |
| 03:13:00.52 | Unknown | Bye. |
| 03:13:00.87 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:13:06.96 | Unknown | Oh boy, we're getting close at over under, aren't we? |
| 03:13:13.02 | Sybil Boutier | Let's have a look. |
| 03:13:13.65 | Unknown | Um. I'm now going to take public comment on items 8B through 8E. These are our city manager report, city council appointments, and other council business. Is there any public comment on items 8B through 8E? I've seen a lot of people standing, but no one coming to the podium. I'm going to close public comment and open it up to the city manager. We have all sorts of time, Adam. |
| 03:13:36.07 | Unknown | Joe Burns. |
| 03:13:36.95 | Unknown | You know what, we haven't heard from Adam. |
| 03:13:39.95 | Unknown | Yes. |
| 03:13:41.35 | Adam Politzer | Thank you, Mr. Mayor and Council Members. I will keep my remarks brief. I would like to thank the Council for acknowledging the good work of the Public Works Department, especially during this 10-month transition between Jonathan Goldman's retirement And Dave Bracken serving as interim, and now Kevin joining the team. and the constant good work of Andy Davidson Lauren and Burtis, amongst others in the department. where I would like to direct both the council and the public is to take a look at the last Finance Committee meeting materials not necessarily watch the video which they're welcome to do that that meeting is available online for the public but one of the attachments that our administrative services director assistant city manager attached was the the department's calendar and why this is so important for the rest of the council to take note of not only is it pretty comprehensive and a little bit overwhelming based on the amount of information on it and you need to have Glasses to actually read all the fine print on one sheet of paper but There are there three They're all important items on there, but there's three big ones that Illustrate that the council and the very immediate future will be taking action on The first is that we will be looking to the council to approve moving forward with an organizational study and As we go into the strategic planning session, as we go into the budget process, really looking at how we're delivering services to the best of our ability with our current staffing levels, an opportunity to look at do we need to contract out more staff, do we need to hire more staff, do we need to reduce level of services in the various departments to be able to deliver based on the resources we have in hand? So that study will come back and give the council and the public some information based on |
| 03:15:52.05 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:15:60.00 | Adam Politzer | our staffing level kind of similar to the post study that the police department did several years ago which lent us to hiring part time staff. during the peak season. to address some of the issues related to congestion and circulation. The next big item that we'll also be starting later this month, early next month, and continuing to the end of the year is the update to our strategic plan, which is a six-year cycle. So we'll be looking at it through a six-year lens, but we'll be working with that document to actually fund our next two-year budget cycle, which will also begin. the end of the year and then continue right up to June 30th so as as these kind of all overlap their big ticket items that I wanted to make sure that both the public and the council took note of as it was addressed at the Finance Committee meeting I'll end there. I'll stop there but I would like to recognize and you saw and heard from Calvin tonight. Calvin as we heard took a three month leave absence for family reasons. Obviously, that had a huge impact on the department, compounded with Lily going out on maternity leave. And I think now with Steve Flint and Bill Meeker, they're both kind of tag teaming the planning department, short range and long range projects. And then Thomas Ahern, who's the building official, are working together. So having Calvin back, having the staff back with the leadership of those four individuals, I think we'll see that department move back in real positive direction serving the community but I also want to recognize the impacts that that's had on the staff like Anita and Katie and Kenneth you know who are taking on the burden absent some of those leadership roles. So thank you for indulging, and that's the end of my report. |
| 03:18:17.43 | Unknown | Thank you. We have a question for you. |
| 03:18:21.23 | Unknown | Thanks Adam for that report. In the staffing study, is it the intention For this, is this the sort of thing you're going to write an RFP for? Is this something that you're just going to look at multiple potential vendors? Is this coming back to council so we can see the scope of it? Or is this all under your discretion and moving forward? |
| 03:18:54.99 | Adam Politzer | the last part is probably where it will land under it does fall within my discretion based on the amount of money. Um, because of the timing of this, we wanna move swiftly. So similar to hiring a consultant for performance evaluations. or strategic planning we normally don't go out with an rfp but i can assure you that both julia and i are working together to talk to other cities that have done this and have had high level of satisfaction with the consultants that they've hired so um we can definitely come back to council not to go through the scope, but to tell you what the scope is that we negotiated in the price and terms related to those but if we um, come to you on October 22nd. for direction and then come back to you later in November, we've lost a month. So we're trying to make this and hope that you trust both myself and our Administrative Services Director to make this decision on the study itself. |
| 03:20:04.23 | Unknown | Yeah, I wasn't, I sort of don't care either way how you do it. I understand the timing. I wanted to make sure that, and you went through it fairly quickly, that included in this scope is going to be an analysis of whether we should be changing anything with respect to contracting out versus, you know, maybe we contract out too much or maybe we don't contract out enough, and rather than it just be staffing levels. |
| 03:20:39.08 | Unknown | So aren't we getting a little in, I mean, shouldn't we agenda this if we're going to have this discussion? |
| 03:20:41.09 | Unknown | No, I'm asking the question. I'm asking the question of what if the city manager said it was under his discretion, so what's he going to do? |
| 03:20:50.17 | Adam Politzer | And that is correct, that's why I compared it to the post study where they came back instead of hiring more police officers, there's an opportunity to hire part time officers can't really contract out police officers. So that would be the case is looking at what we're already doing particularly in community development in terms of code enforcement, including contract plan checking. We're looking at that for engineering as well. So those are some of the areas that we would be seeking feedback. |
| 03:21:25.08 | Unknown | Thank you. All right. Appointments to boards, commissions, and committees. I have none other than I wanted to clarify once again that Councilmember Tom Riley will be taking all of Councilmember Jill's posts. And if you have any questions with those, please don't hesitate to contact us, me or any other Councilmembers. We've all kind of been on some various committees. But anything you need from us as you dig in, good luck. Future agenda items. Anybody here anything today they want to throw on here for now? |
| 03:21:35.80 | Unknown | all of us. |
| 03:21:53.73 | Unknown | At some point, the Bank of America, when it's appropriate to be discussed publicly. |
| 03:21:57.33 | Unknown | We definitely won't negotiate that. Yes, thank you. All right, seeing no weather, we'll adjourn this meeting. Thank you. |
Jeff Jacob — Neutral: Discussed climate change, noting a power outage on Yom Kippur and referencing Extinction Rebellion's demands for government acknowledgment of the climate emergency, transitioning to zero emissions for emergency services, and local community collaboration on solutions. ▶ 📄