| Time | Speaker | Text |
|---|---|---|
| 00:00:00.60 | Heidi Scoble | Good evening, Mayor Cleveland Knowles and council members. This meeting is being held pursuant to section three of executive order N-29-20 issued by Governor Newsom on March 17th, 2020. And all members are joining this meeting telephonically through Zoom and is broadcast live on the city's website and on cable TV channel 27. |
| 00:00:22.17 | Madam Mayor | Great, good evening everyone and welcome to our regular meeting Tuesday May 12th. Could the clerk please call the roll? |
| 00:00:31.00 | Heidi Scoble | Councilmember Riley? |
| 00:00:32.58 | Tom | Thank you. |
| 00:00:32.60 | Abbott Chambers | THE END OF |
| 00:00:33.33 | Heidi Scoble | Council Member Burns. |
| 00:00:34.69 | Abbott Chambers | Thank you. |
| 00:00:35.64 | Heidi Scoble | Vice Mayor Withey? |
| 00:00:36.87 | Abbott Chambers | HERE. |
| 00:00:37.24 | Heidi Scoble | Thank you. Mayor Cleveland Knowles. Sure. And I will mark that Councilmember Cox is absent. |
| 00:00:43.65 | Madam Mayor | but expected re-hosting. |
| 00:00:45.61 | Heidi Scoble | Yes. |
| 00:00:46.81 | Madam Mayor | Great. |
| 00:00:48.28 | Heidi Scoble | We actually sorry for interrupting. It looks like Council Member Cox just joined the meeting. |
| 00:00:48.34 | Madam Mayor | Oh, wait. |
| 00:00:55.06 | Madam Mayor | Great. |
| 00:00:56.49 | Heidi Scoble | Absolutely. |
| 00:00:58.72 | Madam Mayor | Hi, we are live. The clerk just confirmed that council member Cox is here. |
| 00:01:04.86 | Heidi Scoble | Council member Cox, are you present? I think that's a good question. |
| 00:01:07.72 | Madam Mayor | I am here. Great. So we will move on to item one on our agenda. Item number one will be discussed in closed session and that item is listed on the agenda as item D1. It's Conference with Labor Negotiators. Are there any members of the public who wish to speak and while we are waiting, could the clerk specify how the members of the public can participate. |
| 00:01:35.76 | Heidi Scoble | Yes, all members of the public may address the City Council regarding this item and public comment will be accepted by video or audio audience participation via Zoom. Video or audio public comment participation is limited to three minutes per speaker. If you would like to make a comment, please raise your hand in the Zoom application and you will be called upon when it's your time to speak. To raise your hand from a phone, press star nine. Each speaker will be notified when they have one minute or 30 seconds left to speak. And again, when the time has elapsed. And it does not appear as though there are any members of the public that have participated in this Zoom meeting. |
| 00:02:15.54 | Madam Mayor | Okay, so we will close public comment and we will adjourn to closed session and we will be back for open session at seven o'clock. Thank you. |
| 00:02:25.97 | Unknown | you |
| 00:02:49.94 | Heidi Scoble | into the meeting and the meeting can commence. |
| 00:02:52.98 | Madam Mayor | Great. Good evening, everyone, and welcome to We are coming back into open session after our closed session and welcome to the regular meeting of May 12th of Sausalito and we have been working called the role when we started at 6.15. And we are coming back into open session for item number two. We have no closed session announcements. And I would ask for an approval of our agenda tonight. |
| 00:03:23.53 | Mary Wagner | Thank you. |
| 00:03:23.54 | Madam Mayor | Thank you. |
| 00:03:23.65 | Councilmember Burns | of. |
| 00:03:23.91 | Madam Mayor | Thank you. |
| 00:03:26.40 | Councilmember Burns | SECOND. |
| 00:03:27.95 | Madam Mayor | All right, I have a motion by Council Member Cox and a second by Council Member Burns. Could the clerk please call the roll? |
| 00:03:34.33 | Heidi Scoble | Thank you. |
| 00:03:34.39 | Madam Mayor | Council member |
| 00:03:35.03 | Heidi Scoble | Really? |
| 00:03:35.90 | Tom | Yes. |
| 00:03:36.71 | Heidi Scoble | Councilmember Burns. |
| 00:03:38.75 | Tom | Yes. |
| 00:03:39.59 | Heidi Scoble | Council member Cox? Yes. Vice mayor Withey? Yes. Mayor Cleveland Knowles. Thank you. |
| 00:03:45.51 | Madam Mayor | Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. And first item on our agenda tonight is communications. And this is a time for members of the public to speak on items that are not on our agenda. Oh, I'm sorry. We have special presentations first, I'm skipping ahead. Okay, so first a special presentation. So do we have, Abbott Chambers here, Director of Participations. Yes, I'm here. |
| 00:04:14.94 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 00:04:15.03 | Abbott Chambers | I have some here. |
| 00:04:15.91 | Madam Mayor | Good evening. |
| 00:04:19.91 | Abbott Chambers | Let me go ahead and share my screen and we'll get started. |
| 00:04:23.30 | Madam Mayor | Great, so this is a COVID-19 update and we'll hear from Abbott on this. |
| 00:04:36.75 | Abbott Chambers | Well, good evening, Madam Mayor and members of the council. I'm Abbott Chambers, your director of communications. And I'm here to provide another COVID-19 update. This is another in a series of updates I've been giving every two weeks to the council since we first entered the shelter in place phase in in March, March 17th. |
| 00:05:02.04 | Abbott Chambers | As far as what I'll be covering in my presentation, I'll talk a little bit about the Marin County Public Health Order that we're currently under to shelter in place. That went in effect last week on May 4. I'm going to talk about Sausalito's efforts to manage weekend visitors to the downtown area. I'll go into some detail in the process for reopening Sausalito and Marin County. And the framework that the county has set up for that reopening, which is called Marin Recovers. I will conclude with some ideas from other cities. for reopening activities and the local economy with social distancing. These are ideas like parklets, closing city streets, that sort of thing. At the end city staff would be happy to take Any questions from the council? So, We're going to go. are currently under the third shelter in place order that we've been under since march 17th this one continues through may 31st it's in its essence it is the same as past orders just in terms of how restrictive it is but there have been some significant changes to note first off that all construction projects can resume and for Sausalito and the rest of the county that means residential and commercial construction projects. Shared recreational facilities can open, at least some of them. And in Sausalito, the recreational facilities affected are our tennis pickleball courts. Restrictions are things like singles play only, stay on the same side of the court, that sort of thing. Bay recreation has been opened up again, but under the same restrictions, as parks if you can get there on foot or by bicycle to kayak or boat. You're welcome to. So, Then outdoor businesses and landscapers have also been allowed to resume outdoor businesses like nurseries and then outdoor businesses like landscapers. Some other changes include allowing all residential moves and real estate activities to resume. Let me turn now to Sausalito's efforts to manage downtown visitors under shelter in place. Our downtown area was a ghost town the first few weekends, but as the weather has gotten nicer and as people started getting a little more store crazy, sheltering in place. We hit a turning point on April 25th, the Saturday when we had a large influx of outside visitors to downtown Sausalito. On Sunday, April 26, Sausalito put measures in place to try to limit the number of visitors coming into town. And those restrictions have been largely kept intact with minor modifications since then. For parking restrictions, municipal lots one through four are closed. Those are the blue dots in the map at the side of the screen there. Um, metered parking. is still allowed, but it's to facilitate essential travel coming into the downtown area if you're an area resident to pick up a to-go food order. If you have a parking pass at one of the municipal lots, it's being honored on the weekends at our metered parking spaces. And if all the meter spaces are in use and you need to pick up a to-go order, local residents are welcome to use the loading zones on Bridgeway. a lot. Electronic message boards are also in place at the entry points to Sausalito. at both ends of Bridgeway. And another message board at Spencer Avenue at the top of Spencer Avenue and the message board flashes local traffic only parking lots closed resident parking only. And I should mention at this point that I'm using a number of photos to illustrate, and almost all of them were taken by our parking enforcement officer, Beth DeLego, who was featured in a lovely article in the Marin IJ last week as well. So I just wanted to give Beth a shout out for her beautiful job of documenting Sausalito under shelter at home. As far as enforcement, our police officers are patrolling the downtown. warning people to obey the social distancing and mask wearing public health orders. They do have the authority as well to write citations of $500. Um, Our officers are also visiting essential businesses to make sure that they're complying with public health orders as far as social distancing within a restaurant, say, as people are picking up to-go orders or getting ice cream. We have a motorcycle officer who is providing enforcement of cyclists, and that includes both you know, driving regulations, road regulations, and social distancing among cyclists. And then our parking enforcement officers are keeping an eye on the neighborhoods that require neighborhood parking passes. I'm pleased to report that our efforts seem to have been successful. The reports that we've gotten from our officers for the weekends of May 2nd and May 9th suggest Just a slight increase in foot traffic, but no crowds. that pedestrians are by and large practicing social distancing and wearing masks where appropriate. They are not seeing any tour buses coming into town. Our essential businesses in the downtown area are following shelter in place regulations. And here's an interesting data point Captain Bill Frost paid a visit in the early afternoon to Gabrielston Park, and there were 20 groups in the park at that time. And he briefly chatted with all of them, and 18 of the 20 groups consisted of Sausalito residents. It suggests that even though the downtown area may still seem like there are a surprising number of people on the recent weekends and going into the future that it does seem like it's mostly Sausalito residents who are now taking advantage of Sausalito's downtown area. So let me go into a little detail on the process for reopening Sausalito and Marin County. And the big picture is that we're currently under a state of California shelter in place order. And that is indefinite until rescinded. At the same time, we're under a Marin County sheltered place order, as I said, that runs through May 31st. And the way it works is that county public health orders supersede the state orders as long as they're more restricted. So Marin, can have a more restrictive policy in place. We just can't be less restrictive than the state. The state has set up a process where counties like Marin can apply for a variance to be more permissive than what the state of California is allowing as far as relaxing shelter in place orders. We've heard from our public health officer, Dr. Matt Willis, that it's unlikely that Sausalito would apply for such a variant. So we're likely to continue to lag behind the state of California as we relax the shelter-in-place orders. And it goes without saying that Sausalito is following the public health orders from Marin County. So we're following Marin County County orders and Marin County's lead as we're gradually going to be reopening Sausalito's economy. Marine Recovers is the framework that the county has launched to take us through the reopening process. It was an initiative that was launched on May 4th. You can learn more about it at marinrecovers.com, a very user-friendly website that kind of takes you through all the different phases and processes that are involved in reopening Marin. And Marin Recovers articulates three phases of reopening for Marin County. And they are phase one, slow the spread, which is where We have been Um, Phase two is sequential reopening under stay at home, under the stay at home order. That's the, the, see the phase that we're just about to enter into going from phase one to phase two. And phase three is the end of the stay at home order. And the site's quite emphatic in underscoring for us that phase three is still likely a long way off. In Marin recovers, the process that they've set up is to create industry and activity advisory groups There are 13 groups in the graphic that you see there. I believe at least a couple of more have been added in recent days, including libraries. And the process for coming up with plans to reopen are that there will be industry, there'll be groups formed for each of these industries. And those groups will be working with public health to come up with plans, criteria for safely resuming the activity or the industry. That will then go before the board of supervisors for adoptions. And, become kind of a menu of options for our public health officer to determine which industries and sectors can resume based on risk factors. And Dr. Matt Willis has also emphasized that the tempo of reopening is likely to be long enough gaps between changes to the public health order that Marin're in public health is able to gauge if there's been any increase in the number of incidences of COVID-19. Curbside retail is going to be the first of the shelter in place order elements that's going to be relaxed. The state of California lowered the bar for us as of May 8th, allowing counties to permit curbside retail to begin. And by curbside retail, I mean allowing people to pick up orders from retail shops from their cars at the curbside. REN public health has indicated that Monday, May 18th is our target date. for restarting curbside retail. And Governor Gavin Newsom today announced a couple of other industries or areas that he's relaxing. And they are malls, but malls for curbside delivery. I'm not quite sure how that works. And then also some offices, offices that can't easily operate with telework. So just to recap the process for reopening Sausalito, We're going to be So Marin County is following the lead of the state. We then follow the lead of the county. And at this time, Um, even though we'll be watching closely for the county's announcements on, you know, what's going to be opening, what's going to be happening. This is a time for us in Sausalito and for people and businesses. throughout Marin County to start advanced planning for what that sequential reopening is gonna look like. If you operate a restaurant, you're currently allowed to offer takeouts, but the next phase is likely to be some form of social distancing within a reopened physical space. What does that look like? that sort of thing. So we're really in a kind of phased waiting period and it's a time that we can do a lot of planning in advance. And at a city level, we've started thinking hard about what this is going to look like for city services. I'll wrap things up just by sharing some ideas from other cities for reopening their local economies, for reopening activities in their communities with social distancing in place to try to make life better for everybody. The first one is Here's an example from Florida. a community that has changed its downtown parking spots to five-minute pickup spots to make it easier for people to do curbside pickup at restaurants and retail stores. Parklets are another innovation that communities are using. um, Saucida currently has a parklet downtown on Bridgeway, but definitely an option to look at creating additional parklets to facilitate outdoor dining, create more social distancing among patrons of eating establishments. Other communities are looking into street closures for dining, recreation, including Santa Rosa up in Sonoma County where they're looking into closing 4th Street. It's definitely been a hot topic of conversation on Nextdoor about the possibility of closing segments of Caledonia Street. And then other communities like Boston are looking at widening sidewalks, creating larger bike lanes, other measures to make it easier for people to maintain social distancing when out and about in their communities. I will wrap up, not there, but with a final with another Dumpy Park update. There's a photo taken today and I think we could all be thrilled to see that there is grass growing. And I expect that at my next report in a couple of weeks, we're going to see a lot more grass. So some very good news, and I know we're all excited to get some of our outdoor exercise and fresh air under shelter in place in the new . So with that I wrap up my presentation and I'm available with other city staff to take any questions. |
| 00:20:02.36 | Madam Mayor | Thank you very much, Abbott, for another really outstanding presentation. And I also just wanted to note and thank Beth. DeLego for her amazing pictures and that great, um, or an IJ article, And I know we've got a really talented officer on our police force, who's also a talented photographer. So it's great that we've got our City staff who are documenting life under COVID-19. I also just wanted to add to Abbott's presentation that it's really exciting that our city manager, Adam Pulitzer, has been selected to be on the steering committee for recovers. That will be a really excellent way for Sassolito to have a great um, voice in the Marin Recovers um process and then also to bring back important information. So that's very exciting. So I really want to appreciate Abbott's shift. in this COVID-19 update to be not only looking back but also looking forward. I think the city council is gonna have a lot of hard but exciting work to do in the coming and some of our boards and commissions too, I hope, in both planning, you know, all of the great ideas, about reopening you know, there's just going to be a very interesting and dynamic conversation. So we can talk a little bit more about that. after any questions. So do council members have questions or, our Director of Communications. I am seeing none, so why don't we go directly to... Was that a thumbs up or a question? |
| 00:21:49.80 | Councilmember Burns | I was saying thank you, thumbs up. |
| 00:21:51.66 | Madam Mayor | Okay. |
| 00:21:51.96 | Councilmember Burns | Thank you. |
| 00:21:52.42 | Madam Mayor | Yes. Great. Thank you again, Abbott. All right. So I will ask the city clerk to Let the members of the public who have joined us tonight welcome everyone to describe how you can participate If you would like to comment, you'll have up to three minutes. |
| 00:22:12.26 | Heidi Scoble | Yes, thank you Mayor Cleveland Knowles. At this time members of the public may address the City Council regarding agenda item 1A. Public comment will be accepted by video or audio audience participation via Zoom. Video or audio public comment participation is limited to three minutes per speaker. If you would like to make a comment, please raise your hand in the Zoom application and you will be called upon when it's your time to speak. To raise your hand from a phone, press star nine. Each speaker will be notified when they have 30 seconds left to speak and again when time has elapsed. At this time, it appears as though there is one hand raised and it's Sandra Bushmaker. |
| 00:22:51.14 | Madam Mayor | Okay, great, Ms. Bushmaker. Welcome. |
| 00:22:54.53 | Sandra Bushmaker | Thank you. Can you hear me all right? |
| 00:22:58.01 | Madam Mayor | Yep, your audio is very faint, Sandra, every week. But yes, we can hear you. |
| 00:23:02.36 | Sandra Bushmaker | Okay, I will talk a little louder. I'm just curious whether We have a reaction in Sausalito or within the county, Dr. Fauci's comments to the Senate today. about warning us of the tragedies and untold suffering and deaths that can occur with the premature opening of the businesses. And I just would hope that Sausalito would take that information seriously. and not rush into a reopening. And I realize that has to be balanced against the The, yeah. fiscal finance viability of the businesses downtown. But at the same time, I don't want to see Sausalito I WANT TO TALK ABOUT a position that we are too early in this process so that we have a, resurgence or a surgence actually of the disease process. In, in his report and another reports today, the communities across the Midwest. that have, or the heartland as it was referred to, have had extreme THE FAMILY. increases in their. COVID-19. or coronavirus infections. For example, Amarillo, Texas opened at 72% more infections since they opened a few weeks ago. |
| 00:24:28.97 | Unknown | IF YOU WANT TO BE ABLE |
| 00:24:30.40 | Sandra Bushmaker | So I just would like to put that out there as a concern of this citizen and I'm sure other citizens that we take the necessary precautions to avoid a premature opening |
| 00:24:30.67 | Unknown | EDUCATION. |
| 00:24:44.04 | Sandra Bushmaker | and put our are citizens at risk. And certainly now with the new information on the children, being infected. I think that is a great concern here in Sausalito. Thanks. |
| 00:24:58.48 | Madam Mayor | All right, great, thank you. Alice Merrill? Welcome, Alice. |
| 00:25:07.47 | Alice Merrill | Okay, I'm unmuted. All right. I am back to my Marin ship saw, we can call it. that I, I wanna say on the record that we need to keep the services and the Marine services, the light industrial, et cetera, down there. only if we |
| 00:25:33.61 | Madam Mayor | Can I interrupt you for just a moment? Yeah. This is public comment on our COVID-19 update. And then we'll have- I thought this was public comment on anything. No, I misspoke and I skipped over the presentation. And so now we're on the presentation and then we'll have general public comment. |
| 00:25:51.11 | Alice Merrill | Okay, well, I'll back off and |
| 00:25:52.88 | Madam Mayor | Thank you. |
| 00:25:53.21 | Alice Merrill | do it again. |
| 00:25:54.20 | Madam Mayor | We're very interested to hear what you have. Oh, I know. |
| 00:25:55.91 | Alice Merrill | Yeah. Thank you. |
| 00:25:56.97 | Madam Mayor | Thank you. |
| 00:25:56.99 | Alice Merrill | Thank you. |
| 00:25:57.09 | Madam Mayor | Thank you. |
| 00:25:57.14 | Unknown | Mm-hmm. |
| 00:25:57.58 | Madam Mayor | Okay. All right, so then I have Colin user number one. |
| 00:26:06.84 | Lauren Durema | I'm like Alice, I'll wait for the next one, I'm sorry. |
| 00:26:09.85 | Madam Mayor | you No worries, thank you. I think that was my fault. Kevin Carroll? |
| 00:26:16.07 | Kevin Carroll | been a pedestrian and bicycle safety meeting since November. And I'm wondering if that might not be a forum to get some of the restaurants people involved with as far as making plans for opening up our sidewalks and streets for the restaurants when it's appropriate in the future since It's already a standing committee that includes the and the police department public works. and they might have input and I think that's a good question. in the future. |
| 00:26:56.45 | Madam Mayor | Great, thank you. Appreciate that. Okay, I do not see any additional hands raised. Can the clerk confirm that we have no additional public comment? |
| 00:27:09.21 | Heidi Scoble | There are no additional public comments. |
| 00:27:12.54 | Madam Mayor | Okay, so I'm going to bring it back up here. And first I did just want to I've said this at a number of different meetings that you know, not only is the Bay Area and Marin County following the state. But the Bay Area counties have been a very unified and strong force with the health officers, taking a very, in my opinion, very cautious and our health officer, Dr. Matt Willis, has continued to indicate that he is moving with the other Bay Area health officers. So I think fear is about too rapid reopening are probably, I don't think we have to fear that at this moment. And Marin Recover's effort is being very conscious and conscientious and about how they reopen. So I think I'm feeling very confident in the process that we have here in Marin County. And right now we're just planning for the opening of different businesses. And I think that's something we should be doing because we don't want to be caught flat-footed when certain businesses can open. So I do think we'll talk later tonight about starting the discussion at our boards and commissions on all of the various options to help our local businesses, all the options that Abbott already mentioned, like street closures, more parklets, wider sidewalks, slowing traffic, um, expediting permits needed for work. you know, what can we do to help curbside retail? all of that. So that's a really exciting conversation that I'm really looking forward to having at the right. with the right people and a lot of public outreach in that process. I think the second issue that's on everyone's mind is kind of us as a visitor, as a, a town that experiences a lot of visitors. So I've actually been talking to the city manager and I'm hoping that we can have some additional conversations in the coming weeks about how we manage Um, visitors as the economies in the Bay Area. reopen, including using our ambassadors to help educate about new protocols. um, And kind of how our communication strategy can really be coordinated with the county and with other counties. So I think these are really um, important conversations and going to be a big focus in the next couple of weeks. Are there other council members who want to comment on some of the things that they've been working on in this space. |
| 00:30:01.86 | Councilmember Burns | I could just really quickly answer Kevin Carroll's conversation. And yes, Mr. Carroll does attend our park bike and ped commissions. And it's great to see him there. Sorry, we haven't had any meetings, but we just did. and Council Member Riley and I were gonna talk about this further into the meeting, but I'll just mention on his one point, we did include two members from PBAC Because we still, with all this going on, we're still adhering to Brown Act laws. And they have kind of stymied us in some areas, but we were able to get two members to walk and do a little look at Caledonia from an engineering bike and ped style conversation. So we have engaged that group and we'll be getting an agenda out quickly to have that first meeting as well with the bike and ped to come online with a public meeting. |
| 00:30:49.62 | Madam Mayor | Great, thank you. Anyone else? Okay. Seeing no additional comments, we will move on. to general public comment. This is... The time for all members of the public to comment on items that are within our jurisdiction but which are not on our agenda this evening. Um, And could the clerk let people know how they can participate? |
| 00:31:19.52 | Heidi Scoble | Yes, thank you. Again, public comment will be accepted by video or audio audience participation via Zoom. Video or audio public comment participation is limited to three minutes per speaker. If you would like to make a comment, please raise your hand in the Zoom application. and you will be called upon when it's your time to speak. use the raise hand function by pressing star nine on your phone. Each speaker will be notified when they have 30 seconds left to speak, and again, when their time has elapsed. It does appear as though we have two hands raised. |
| 00:31:51.51 | Madam Mayor | Great. Joan, did you want to say something? Great, so Alice, welcome back and sorry to interrupt you in your public speaking earlier, but you'll have three minutes. |
| 00:32:04.47 | Alice Merrill | fine. Um, because my theory is that a lot of people who live in Sausalito We don't, Oh, you want to start my video. really don't understand or know what the Marin ship is, what's there, why it's important, why it's historic. And so I've been doing some research the last two weeks, a week, and realized that a lot of people really don't know why what's down there and why it's important. So I'm on an education campaign. And I'd be happy to take any of you down there and show you around and a little stories and anecdotes that I've learned over the years. I'm not sure. And the reason I say they don't know is because when I was a kid, My parents' friends cared about the view. They cared about pretty boats out sailing. If it hadn't been for my parents, they would not have known about the Marin ship as a working place. they wouldn't even have known what it was because who went to the Marine ship was like, out of the world, it was too far away. in those days. So even, I think it's still true. I think that there are a lot of people who live here in town who really don't know what it is. So I am. I just want to keep harping that it is super important that we not, lose it, that we don't lose it because we just think that something that sounds like a great idea and oh, there's an empty building, it's perfect. And we know what I'm talking about that it is, it's the beginning of the end And just so you know, Right down there in the Marinship in Joe Lemons property, which is the old Arquez, which would Don Arquez was the grandfather, the Santa Claus. He was a wonderful, wonderful guy. who just took care of so many young folk people. workers and et cetera. that they haul out the big ships in this bay. They haul out the ferry boats, they haul out the, Um, tugboats and the harbor patrol boats and our fire boat. that's where they get hauled out. And if that leaves, if that goes, They have to go to San Diego right now. That's the next spot. And so imagine You know, if we allow that to happen because we, WANT. because we just think that this is too great. We're gonna lose that kind of thing. And look at Alameda, if you wanna see how it got lost, because now it's just big, it's lovely. People go down there. They have wonderful restaurants. They have places to live. But the Marine... You have 30 seconds left. It's gone. So that's my thing. I will keep saying it. And thank you very much. Goodbye. |
| 00:35:18.37 | Madam Mayor | Great, thank you, Alice. Good to see you. Okay, now call in user one. |
| 00:35:27.33 | Lauren Durema | Thank you Mayor Cleveland Knowles and Council Members. This is Lauren Durema. I'm a softlito native. I made this comment at the very end of the last meeting, but wanted to repeat myself for all those who weren't still online. In relation to the future of the Marine Ship and South Sudan's general plan, I worry that maritime is being a bit overlooked. because of critical components of it on the land side are quite quietly under attack by zoning being up for debate. Personally, I feel that the whole block of Artez property should remain designated for maritime, That said, there's a historical preservation there that includes renovation and revisioning, because what is there is falling apart, like we all know. and most at risk. And I feel that issues such as affordable housing, homelessness, and senior needs should be a separate conversation. I also think that at a certain point, a town just gets maxed out. You cannot continue housing developments forever. To me, quite frankly, it's a bit of a cheap sellout in that area and not a sustainable solution or wise use of this space. So what is lacking is a vision for what this section of Sausalito can turn into. I see it being a lot like Hyde Street Pier with a foundry, a trade school, a sailmaker shop, a chandlery, et cetera. And Port Townsend, which I've mentioned before as a leading example, has about the same acreage for their section of maritime by the water. And they can't go anywhere else like housing can. And these old marine ways are critical to preserving and passing on of the trades. So keep in mind too that Maritime will need some level of storage as well to effectively operate. So perhaps it should be storage only for them. I don't know. But I really want to second what I noticed Alan Olson submitted and build upon that in the Land Use 8.1 objective with a suggestion of a maritime programs expansion component, which I submitted to Lily Whelan. I worry that at the end of the day, we will still have the ICB building and Gate 5 Road for Light Industrial and the Floating Home Community or Galilee for artists, but what will be left for Maritime? treading too lightly on this part worries me. Having potentially adjacent housing next to power tools and air horns worries me. I think we need strong community involvement here regarding marine ships future that includes the topic of water and land access, perhaps through an economic study of what is there now and what we hope and want to see happen to it and build upon that in a way that includes, for example, public health efforts like the emergency medical manufacturing group, which was created down there in result of the pandemic. |
| 00:38:01.61 | Wendy Richards | You have 30. |
| 00:38:01.97 | Lauren Durema | 30 seconds. And as someone who has taken care of a senior on the waterfront and as a tourism professional, I feel this is the best way forward. So please give us a chance to show you and the property owner that it can be profitable even amidst economic downturn. and public health hardship. Thank you. |
| 00:38:25.31 | Madam Mayor | Oh, sorry, I was on mute. Okay, thank you, Lauren. I see Kevin Carroll. |
| 00:38:32.66 | Kevin Carroll | Yeah, on something completely different. When we used to meet in the council chambers, I never thought I'd miss that place on a warm evening, especially. But when you'd all sit in front of us, you had name tags in front of you that also said your positions and the thing I noticed about when I click on the participants Um, in the zoom meetings is I see where Heidi is listing herself as city clerk and Chris Tubbs is fire chief I think it would be helpful if both council members and some of the other city officials had their positions after their names on the Zoom meetings. |
| 00:39:17.62 | Madam Mayor | Great, thank you for that comment. We will. try to make that happen as we evolve. Technologically. Okay, I do not see any additional public comment. Can I just confirm with the clerk? |
| 00:39:34.45 | Heidi Scoble | Yes, you are correct. There are no additional public comments. Okay. |
| 00:39:38.95 | Madam Mayor | Great, we will move on to item three on our agenda, which is action minutes of our previous meeting. of April 28th. Are there any comments, corrections, or do I have a motion? |
| 00:39:58.90 | Vice Mayor Withey | I move approval of the minutes. |
| 00:40:02.90 | Madam Mayor | Second. Okay, we have a motion by Vice Mayor Withey and a second by Council Member Cox. Could you please call the roll? |
| 00:40:12.55 | Heidi Scoble | Council member Riley? |
| 00:40:13.70 | Madam Mayor | Thank you. |
| 00:40:13.71 | Heidi Scoble | Thank you. |
| 00:40:14.29 | Tom | Yes. |
| 00:40:15.11 | Heidi Scoble | Council Member Burns. |
| 00:40:16.36 | Tom | Yes. |
| 00:40:17.71 | Heidi Scoble | Council Member Cox? Yes. Vice Mayor Whitty. |
| 00:40:21.58 | Tom | best. |
| 00:40:21.93 | Heidi Scoble | Thank you. Mayor Cleveland Knowles. |
| 00:40:23.96 | Madam Mayor | Yes. That motion passes five zero. and we have adopted our draft minutes. Moving on, we are now on item four for council member committee report. Sounds like Councilmember Riley and Burns have some Announcements. So why don't you, one of you start. |
| 00:40:47.23 | Tom | Certainly I'll start and then is that okay, Joe? Yes, please. Okay. Mayor, you had asked that we be liaisons to the business community. We've had stayed, both of us, in close contact with not only businesses, Um, but also the Chamber. Just yesterday, the Chamber arranged a virtual meeting with Supervisor Pete Sears and Supervisor Elect Stephanie Moulton Peters and was very well attended by the business community The discussion was recover Moran. I will not review what Abbott had said. But it was educating our businesses about recovering The one thing I will highlight It was very apparent that our businesses did not know how to get on those advisory committees, five to eight per industry. So, We're probably not as well represented as we'd like to be. And there's an effort to get some more of our are business owners involved in those recovering efforts. And the chamber is leaving that. Um, Secondly, we've had several meetings with the chamber and representative merchants about are small merchants that are struggling in how we can help them survive this crisis and be ongoing businesses in our community. It's possible that 20 to 30 percent of our merchants could be shutting their doors and going out of business if we don't find ways to help them beyond what the government's done. We talked about a number of ways of doing that. And one of the things that we, decided to do is put together a campaign called Love Sausalito. There is a page available on the chamber website. where we are trying to raise $100,000 of donations that can be used as emergency funding to support some of our smaller businesses. The idea is that, um, if a small business can use $5,000, $10,000 to whether a month or two of bad business while the recovery is happening, we can help save some of these businesses. To date, it's only been a few days. We are approaching $5,000, but we certainly hope that the community supports our residents through the Love Sausalito campaign. We're working on phase two of this project. The idea is that our merchants want to recognize the generosity of residents that do donate. at a certain level. And what a group of merchants are talking about is how can they offer promotions back to those residents in regional community that have supported the businesses during this period. Furthermore, I am recommending |
| 00:43:35.91 | Unknown | Furthermore, |
| 00:43:38.78 | Tom | along with Council Member Burns that the city contribute to this fund. We want to show support from the city and we think our funds can go a long way. We're asking that $10,000 out of our current year budget be allocated and this will be in the for us to approve when the budget comes to us But we would like to use current year funds to go into this fund. It's hard to make such an investment when We're also later in this meeting talking about cuts we need to make. But this is an investment and I do believe it's a wise investment. If we can help a few stores stay, open. through this period. It will. the stores around them. The last thing we want to have is vacancies throughout our street. this effort is all about. Finally, I ask, My other council members to support this program, to reach out to your constituents and help, help. bring awareness to the Lovesau Salido loyalty program. Thank you. Joe has some other great updates. |
| 00:44:45.33 | Councilmember Burns | Thanks. And that, you know, any money that we give would be coming out of, again, like Tom said, this current budget and not the budget discussion we're having tonight. or the budget that we're looking to approve here in the short couple months leading up to that. It is whatever we can scrap together from different accounts Um, that we have current budget. Um, Another item that Councilman O'Reilly and I have been working on, as you know, is the convergence of the BAC and hospitality business development. So we have two committees we're trying to bring together in one economic development advisory committee. And we have received Upwards of 40, I think 40 now, and that number might get to 50 here shortly. of applicants. A beautiful problem to have much like we had with general plan update committee and some other things that we've put out notice to our community in requesting their assistance. And it's kind of causing us a little delay in how we're going to get that that's what we're doing. that we have proceeded through. So we're going to, work on with the city clerk and the city manager Um, recontacted some of these people for, and potential with more information. We're, sending out to the other council members, ideas of how we can maybe meet in, In coming weeks, I know we've talked about meeting this Thursday. But for the people that have applied, and I even see some of them on here, and first of all, thank you for your applications your consideration of this, we are going to be scrambling to get this together. We want to get it together quick because obviously we're having an economic Uh, conversations right now related to COVID as well as going forward with future budgets. We do want to get this going fast. We've been overwhelmed with the number, but that's a great problem to have. We're working through it and we'll ask our council leniency too on some of the scheduling and then quick action points. Um, I will also mention that part of this economic development, it's put me in a different group with the mayor, through the MCC, MC Marin County council members and mayor's committee that had put together kind of an ad hoc group from different communities in Marin to talk about recovery. That program now is going to obviously have a great symbiotic relationship with the Marin recovers however they'll look at areas outside of the public domain and back into the city's abilities to make changes within and that goes back to a lot of stuff we've worked about with on our own budgets from between the Marin managers association and what we might do with cost cuttings as well as opportunities to share some ideas and services along the way. You know, we're all going to be looking at different applications. If we can kind of combine those into groups that we work with the other students and we're in, it might be a lot smoother and easier. It's really hard to describe all the meetings that one can attend from league seminars to, and I'm talking a lot with other communities across California regarding economic development and their COVID responses, as well as with our chamber, as council member Riley has mentioned. So I couldn't possibly list them all, but, Okay. |
| 00:48:11.48 | Madam Mayor | Thank you. you |
| 00:48:11.83 | Councilmember Burns | Thank you. Just know that there's a ton of them. Thanks. |
| 00:48:14.65 | Madam Mayor | Great, could you also just speak, Council Member Burns, to when the next, it sounds like the bike pad committee will be meeting What day will that be? |
| 00:48:24.61 | Councilmember Burns | Yeah. Boy, I almost lost my screen. I don't know. We just literally had a meeting Friday of that small group and we got to get that scheduled. So I'm hoping that we can turn around as early as next week or probably the week after. |
| 00:48:41.60 | Madam Mayor | Okay. |
| 00:48:41.72 | Councilmember Burns | Okay. the week after that. |
| 00:48:44.05 | Madam Mayor | Okay, great. Thank you. Council member Cox, do you have an update? |
| 00:48:54.58 | Councilmember Cox | THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 00:48:54.66 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:48:54.86 | Councilmember Cox | you Um, So as the mayor knows, she and I attended a three hour general plan working group meeting on May 5, at which we discussed the waterfront element and many thanks to all of the community members who participated as well as for the extensive preparation that all of the members of our working group invested in advance of the meeting to be sure that we could streamline the manner in which we shared our comments. We will have our next general plan working group meeting on May 19 at which we will discuss the land use element. Um, The city manager and I have had continued meetings with Senator Mike McGuire in furtherance of our partnership with him and the Richardson Bay Regional Agency on identifying issues for Richardson's Bay issues, including providing housing for the homeless and restoring the bay and especially the eelgrass. And then as council member Burns mentioned, There have been myriad daily briefings, weekly briefings, and weekly educational seminars from the League of California Cities and others about how best to grapple with the challenges of COVID-19. Thanks. |
| 00:50:18.46 | Madam Mayor | Great, thank you. |
| 00:50:22.29 | Vice Mayor Withey | Yeah, I have little to report this evening. I have been focusing, as you know, the League's efforts at lobbying both the state and national federal governments on finding funding to I'm not sure. make up the revenue loss that cities are facing. but I think it's a good thing. were I don't really have much more to report since last time, except that the state is moving into its budget mode, The state is reporting a you know, tens of billions 50 60 70 depending upon which agency is reporting billion shortfall. and the governor is quite frankly playing hard ball. and basically saying the state needs all the money that the feds will provide. So the lobbying efforts have really geared up, however, the policy of the government League has put in an ass for $7 billion for the cities. from the state. Thank you. for planning purposes. I would very much caution that we should assume that we are going to see zero dollars. That's probably the best advice at the moment. And if we do in fact see something, then we can regard it as upside and that can reflect, can alter some of the decisions possibly we make in our budget and discussions that are going to ensue later on. Don't rely on anything. If anything occurs, it's upside. At the NASHA, at the federal level, I don't have to report that the Senate and the House are in total deadlock. And we may find something emerge that could support the cities, but I wouldn't hold my breath on that, to be honest. I was going to report on some exciting news from MCE, the established partnership for battery technology to support our power shutoffs. But I want to do that next time, if I may, Madam Mayor, because we're going to have a lot more details and a lot more interest and stuff from MCE that I could report at that time. So I'm going to hold off on that, if I may. |
| 00:53:02.74 | Madam Mayor | Great. Thank you. And that might be a good subject to also include a written report on our late mail if there's something, a press release or something. Yeah. |
| 00:53:11.67 | Vice Mayor Withey | Yes, exactly. I will do that. I'll try and do that. I promised I'd do the last thing and I still haven't done it. So Heidi is waiting for my long list of reports that I will, I promise, submit. |
| 00:53:26.62 | Madam Mayor | All right, great, thank you very much. So I think a lot of the things I think that's what I was going to report on have already been touched on. In terms of the general plan, I think it's been asked when that will be coming forward to the council again. And I think we are looking at a meeting either in late June or early July, but I would encourage other council members who want to stay up to date to tune in. Um, through our working group meetings. They are kind of, you know, a little painstaking as we go through pretty methodically. As you heard from some of the public speakers tonight, most commented upon issue at our last meeting on the waterfront was around housing, in that area, specifically the Marina Plaza potential and then the comments you heard about maintaining and preserving maritime uses. So it was a really interesting discussion. We had a various Council Member Cox that very, very good. turnout from members of the public with a lot of good public comment. So, We'll try to keep keep you updated as we move forward. I also wanted to The Marin Recoverers effort is really what folks should look at if they are wanting to be involved with that. I also wanted to note that the county, we all got a lot of information about this federally funded great plates delivers initiative and I urged our County Supervisor Kate Sears and I think a lot of other local jurisdictions did too for the county. to be the sponsor of that program because it's too hard for small towns like ours to administer federal funding. So that the Marin County Board of Supervisors did adopt that program today. It's a program that has two I have two goals to feed seniors three meals a day who cannot prepare meals themselves. And the second thing is the meals come from local restaurants. So it is both providing food for seniors but also So that program is now open. will accept the first 1,000 Marin County residents who apply. There are eligibility criteria It is not meant to be for people who are already on subsidized food programs, but for seniors who are up to 600% of the poverty line. So, If you know people or are interested in that program, you should apply as soon as possible. There's a phone number. I posted something on Nextdoor. earlier there's the whistle stop phone number that you can call to find out if you're eligible. And then there's also a link for restaurants. And I know that the chamber has already sent that out. but it will be the first 50 restaurants that apply. So hopefully that can be, um, a good way to get some federal funds. If we can't get them directly, then to support our population. The other thing I would just say is our sustainability commission is going to have its first virtual meeting this week on Thursday. So they will be needing And then I just wanna thank City staff Lauren Umbertus and Mike Langford, who gave the Vice Mayor and I a tour of Dunphy Park. It is really looking amazing. It was such a complicated project. We were out there on a beautiful day, and it just um, Made me exceedingly grateful for all the hard work that staff have done. how great it is. It also did was a little bittersweet to recognize that you know, the park will be opening at a time where we can't have a lot of social gatherings. But in any case, it's a great project. So I want to thank them very much for that. And I think that was it. All right. So we will move on to our consent calendar, item five. Um... So we have one, two, three, four, five, six. Thank you. items on our consent calendar. Seven. And these are matters that are considered routine and non-controversial and should not require much discussion. But why don't we take public comment? Are there any comments from council members on our items on consent? Okay, seeing none, why don't we open it up to public comment? |
| 00:58:33.73 | Heidi Scoble | Public comment will be accepted by video or audio audience participation via Zoom. Video or audio public comment participation is limited to three minutes per speaker. If you'd like to make a comment, please raise your hand in the Zoom application and you'll be called upon when it's your time to speak. To raise your hand from a phone, press the star nine buttons. each speaker will be notified when they have 30 seconds left to speak and again when their time has elapsed. It appears as though we have one hand raised from Sandra Bushmaker. |
| 00:59:05.11 | Heidi Scoble | Great. Sandra? |
| 00:59:06.35 | Sandra Bushmaker | All right. Let me get on the screen here. I just wanted to raise the issue. Can you hear me? Yes. I just wanted to raise the issue that the police report for the first quarter I realize we are in the, for the end of the second quarter, but since we had our new, rules limiting out of town visitors to Sausalito. I was curious what the figures were, what the stops were, whether there were any citations given and what the general reaction was to the police department by those visitors who or coming through Sausalito uh, in light of our new regulations. Thank you. |
| 00:59:54.41 | Madam Mayor | Great, thank you. there any additional public comment? |
| 01:00:03.76 | Heidi Scoble | There are no other hands raised. |
| 01:00:10.81 | Madam Mayor | In response to Ms. Bushmaker's question, I think our director of communications did report on that in the COVID-19 report and we'll ask for a little bit more detail in our next because nothing. So are there Any questions or a motion on the consent calendar? |
| 01:00:30.86 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:00:30.87 | Vice Mayor Withey | So I move adoption of the consent calendar items five |
| 01:00:34.97 | Unknown | A through 5G. I second that. |
| 01:00:41.96 | Heidi Scoble | Right. I apologize for that. Councilmember Riley? |
| 01:00:47.80 | Tom | Yes. |
| 01:00:48.88 | Heidi Scoble | Councilmember Burns. |
| 01:00:50.38 | Tom | Thank you. |
| 01:00:50.40 | Vice Mayor Withey | Yes. |
| 01:00:51.38 | Heidi Scoble | Councilmember Cox. Vice Mayor Withey. |
| 01:00:55.14 | Vice Mayor Withey | Thank you. |
| 01:00:55.16 | Heidi Scoble | Yes. And Mayor Cleveland Knowles. |
| 01:00:58.19 | Madam Mayor | Yes. So that motion passes five zero and our consent items are approved. So that takes us to our business items. 6A through 6C. We'll start with 6A. This is our capital improvement program methodology and FY 2021 budget approach to capital projects. And I think we have our city manager, and Yulia Carter. Welcome. Oh, I'm Kevin Madown, Director of Public Works. technologies. |
| 01:01:35.59 | Kevin McGowan | Good evening, Mayor. I hope you can hear me. |
| 01:01:39.57 | Madam Mayor | Yes. |
| 01:01:39.98 | Kevin McGowan | Thank you. Okay, this is a little bit new to me. I'm gonna share my screen for my presentation. |
| 01:01:45.86 | Madam Mayor | Great, thank you. |
| 01:01:52.36 | Kevin McGowan | Hold on here. Thank you. Sorry for your, there we go. |
| 01:01:59.89 | Kevin McGowan | Thank you. |
| 01:01:59.97 | Kevin Carroll | Thank you. |
| 01:02:00.02 | Kevin McGowan | Right. |
| 01:02:00.46 | Kevin Carroll | Thank you. |
| 01:02:08.70 | Kevin McGowan | All right, can you see my presentation at this point in time? |
| 01:02:13.41 | Madam Mayor | We can, thank you. |
| 01:02:14.23 | Kevin McGowan | Okay, great. Thank you very much. Good evening, Mayor and Council members. I'm Kevin McGowan with the Department of Public Works. |
| 01:02:15.68 | Madam Mayor | Thank you very much. |
| 01:02:21.99 | Kevin McGowan | This evening I have a presentation for you, but I'd like to thank Andrew Davidson and Lauren for being available this evening to help me address some of your questions. Tonight, working in conjunction with our finance department, we've prepared a short presentation on the capital improvement program based on impacts from the COVID-19 pandemic. |
| 01:02:49.43 | Kevin McGowan | There are several topics I'd like to cover this evening. As you know, the recent pandemic has required residents to shelter in place and non-essential businesses to close their doors during the shelter in place order. The city of Sausalito's budget is dependent upon sales tax revenues for its programs and services. As a result of the pandemic, It is anticipated that the funding that supports the Capital Improvement Program will be reduced to a bare minimum for fiscal year 2021. This presentation will cover how staff is viewing the impacts of the pandemic on the capital improvement program. and we'll address the minimum capital projects for fiscal year 2021. In addition, staff has put together a list of secondary projects that can be addressed if funding becomes available. |
| 01:03:45.19 | Kevin McGowan | Our normal process for developing the capital improvement program has several steps. City staff have been meeting throughout the year in order to develop a six-year list of projects. Public Works has been reviewing older project lists and meeting with other department directors in order to identify future needs and prioritize projects to develop a comprehensive list that will help guide future public improvements in Sausalito. With a shortfall in funding, a modified CIP process is being recommended, which includes identifying the minimum number of projects for fiscal year 2021. This slide shows our normal process of CIP development and notes that a modified CIP approach is needed. In addition, staff has identified a secondary list of projects that can be pursued if funding becomes available. |
| 01:04:47.27 | Kevin McGowan | A list of all projects is included as attachment one to your staff report. This list includes 90 projects which were intended to be included in the six year capital improvement program. In order to manage the CIP program, we have separated the more than 90 projects on the list into six categories containing drainage, facility and parks, general capital, sanitary projects, streets and pathways, and traffic projects. The projects in it, projects on attachment number one are separated into these categories for your reference. |
| 01:05:27.35 | Kevin McGowan | Staff has reevaluated the list of CIP projects and recommends approving 14 projects for fiscal year 2021. These projects are lumped into categories as well. They consist of grant funded projects in which the city has already entered into an agreement to pursue. They also include required maintenance projects, which are projects that come up throughout the year that need a contractor to perform since the work may need specialty equipment or personnel. They also include high priority projects, which include projects that are of importance to the city and its residents. These also include sanitary projects that are funded separately. Most of these projects have multiple funding sources. Staff has developed attachment number two to your staff report. to show the estimated cost of these projects. Measure O funds are being recommended to partially fund some of these projects. |
| 01:06:30.78 | Kevin McGowan | The table in the staff report and shown here details the estimated cost of the minimal CIP projects and the minimal commitment of measure O funds. Keep in mind that most of these projects have multiple funding sources. |
| 01:06:48.76 | Kevin McGowan | Also included in the staff report is attachment two, which is a list of minimal projects recommended for fiscal year 2021. and each of their associated funding sources. The attachment deserves some explanation. in that the projects shown there. is shown to the left and their funding sources are also showed in blue boxes. So you can see this particular project has two funding sources, one of Measure A and one of a grant. In addition, these funds are added up at the bottom of the page to establish an amount needed to support the projects. And that's noted down here. In this case, we are recommending a commitment of $352,940 in measure A funds for the next fiscal year. In addition, City staff also reviewed the 90 projects on the initial CIP list. to develop a secondary list of projects which may be considered if additional funding becomes available. These projects are in no specific order or If funding becomes available throughout the next fiscal year, staff will revisit this list and make a recommendation to Council on whether to move forward with a project or projects. Attachment three to your staff report combines the minimal recommended projects listed in attachment two and adds the secondary projects to that list. our parks director, and our public works staff are working to identify additional grants and funding sources to support these city projects. For example, if a per capita grant becomes available for Southview Park, staff anticipates returning to council to confirm that the project is a priority to the community before moving forward. Other projects not listed here may also arise throughout the year. This is not uncommon due to the age of our infrastructure. If this occurs, staff will seek approval from council prior to moving forward with the design or construction efforts of these types of projects as well. Staff is recommending approval of the minimal CIP list Notice attachment two. to be included in the preparation of the fiscal year 2021 budget. Keep in mind that staffing requirements to manage these minimal CIP projects are also being impacted by the pandemic. However, we believe that we have the capacity to manage these minimal CIP projects for fiscal year 2021. |
| 01:09:38.48 | Kevin McGowan | So thank you very much for your time tonight, and we are more than happy to address your questions and comments. I will stop sharing my screen now. There we go. |
| 01:09:50.92 | Madam Mayor | Great, thank you very much for that presentation. I really appreciate it. I will kick off with a question that I had. We did spend quite a bit of time at the beginning of the year, pre-COVID-19 on our strategic I was just wondering in terms of the second tier priority project, how how you looked at the kind of progress that we had made on our strategic plan and how you came up with these particular projects. |
| 01:10:26.88 | Kevin McGowan | These were simply projects identified by staff at this point in time. We haven't gone into too much on the details. I know that we have included the items from the strategic plan into the list of projects, the 90 projects on attachment one. But specifically, we looked at a little bit of things that we thought we had to accomplish in the next fiscal year. Some of those on the list associated with, let's say, Dumpy Park and putting in the pathways. That's important to the community and also the council. It's my understanding. So, Basically, we just picked out certain projects that we thought were the most important |
| 01:11:13.88 | Madam Mayor | Yeah, I thought it was very well documented and explained how you came up with the projects in the first priority group. I'm talking more about the second bucket, the secondary priority project. |
| 01:11:30.53 | Kevin McGowan | Again, it's just staff's opinion at this point in time. So we do have a process with the capital improvement program that includes rating all the projects and giving it a numerical rating. That's a starting point. And then we basically take a look at which projects we think should be started in the next year. It's only a staff recommendation at this point in time. We can also revisit those in the future and look at all the projects and consider that with sitting down with the council on this. |
| 01:12:02.97 | Adam Politzer | and Mayor Cleveland knows if I may, Um, Kevin is correct in terms of the initial assessment. from staff. The other considerations were what projects did we think eligible for outside funding and grants. And so some of the things related to fire safety. you know, that's where we can work with Southern RENT FIRE, and look for some shared opportunities on either additional grants or funding that they may be But as Kevin said, as our Public Works Director indicated, We'll continue to refine this list. And then as funding becomes available, and we'll compare it with also the list that was created from the strategic plan. So very good. important point that you've highlighted for us. Thank you. |
| 01:12:49.39 | Madam Mayor | Okay, great. |
| 01:12:53.20 | Tom | Yes, Kevin, thank you. I applaud the approach and making these priority decisions are difficult Um, Your initial list is great on the secondary list. I have one question about Southview Park. And I believe it belongs on that secondary list, maybe even further down. But are we at all constrained by the certificate of participation that came with those park projects? |
| 01:13:17.98 | Kevin McGowan | That's a good question. I don't think I have an answer. Maybe Adam can help me with that. |
| 01:13:23.44 | Adam Politzer | The constraint is that the agreement that the council entered into was that every part of the four, MLK, Robin Sweeney, Dumpey and Robin Sweeney, would have a minimum of $1 million other certificates of participation dedicated to those improvements. So as you've seen on one of the attachments, there's $1.2 million of COP money dedicated for Southview Park. We've identified through the state, through our parks and recreation director, Mike Langford, that the state stimulus program in their proposed budget is going to have funding available for park projects. So it's our intentions. That's why it's on the second tier of projects here. It's our intentions to apply for those grants from the state. and use those secondary funds to complement the COP to move that project forward. hopefully later this summer or fall, once those numbers are available. |
| 01:14:24.72 | Tom | Well, and, um, City Manager, there's no time deadline on a COP. We can get to that project when we can get to it. We just eventually have to. |
| 01:14:36.41 | Adam Politzer | Yeah, I would just note, and this again came from our director of public works, Just like we experienced with the public safety building during the downturn in the economy, the construction market was in our favor. And so we were able to actually capitalize on lower bids and hungrier contractors, a bigger, deeper pool So we are hoping that we have that same experience. as the longer you go into the economy rebounding, the project could get more expensive so the million to may not go as far. So we're keeping a close eye on this. And clearly, if the state makes park grants available, we're gonna be ready with a shovel ready project to apply for those funds. |
| 01:15:20.94 | Vice Mayor Withey | Madam Mayor, if I may ask just a follow on question to Council Member Ryder's question. Um, a number of You know, inevitably in an environment like this, people are going to be coming up with all kinds of weird theories and so on. I think it's important, and I'll address this question to the City Manager, to assure residents, and hopefully this is true, that in fact we still do have in our fund balance the $1.2 million dedicated for Southview Park Should we find the extra grant funding to be able to complete that project and that we haven't spent that money on anything else, nor do we intend to? |
| 01:16:08.14 | Adam Politzer | HE HAD A LITTLE BIT OF THE |
| 01:16:13.16 | Adam Politzer | That is correct. And in addition to. that information being available with the public through the budget. It's also a part of the attachment on Kevin's staff report here that it indicates that we have $1.2 million of COP funds available for this project. |
| 01:16:35.57 | Madam Mayor | Thank you for that clarifying question. Any other questions from council members on this report? |
| 01:16:44.76 | Madam Mayor | Okay, so why don't we open it up for public comment? Yeah. |
| 01:16:51.95 | Heidi Scoble | Yeah. This is a time where the public may address the city council regarding this item. Public comment will be accepted by video or audio audience participation. via Zoom. Video or audio public comment participation is limited to three minutes per speaker. If you would like to make a comment, please raise your hand in the Zoom application and you will be called upon when it's your time to speak. You may also raise your hand using the phone by pressing star nine. Each speaker will be notified when they have 30 seconds left to speak and again when the time has elapsed. In looking at our Zoom meeting, it does not appear as though there are any hands raised at this time. |
| 01:17:34.27 | Madam Mayor | Okay, I'm just going to give a couple more seconds. Are we experienced, do we, because of our public broadcasting Heidi, are we experiencing a a delay again tonight or not. |
| 01:17:47.93 | Heidi Scoble | There is about a 30 to 40 second delay. The bandwidth is kind of going in and out, but in terms of who's logged on to this meeting at this given time, there are no hands raised. |
| 01:17:59.25 | Madam Mayor | Thank you. |
| 01:17:59.28 | Heidi Scoble | Okay. Great. |
| 01:18:00.21 | Madam Mayor | All right. So having waited a little bit, we will close. public comment and bring it back up to the council. I understand I think that the most important part of this item tonight for direction. or staff is to determine whether the 300 last exact figure, but the $350,000 allocation. to the budget is the most important issue that they would like our direction on tonight. So that is what we are being asked to provide. I would just, I guess, want to kick it off that, you know, this is a very tough report. to read very thorough, but, um, also hard to look at really how limited we are going to have to be this year. at this point in time. in terms of all of the great projects that we have on the attachment, a lot of the great discussions that we had at the strategic planning. phase and to kind of look at the hard reality lined up with the priority one projects. Seems like a very modest amount of work. Still good work. So I thought the staff report was very thorough in terms of the priority one projects. And I am willing to go forward with staff's recommendation on those projects and on the amount |
| 01:19:22.58 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 01:19:31.12 | Madam Mayor | spent. I would like to perhaps reserve the right to have a more robust discussion on the so-called second priority projects and to understand a little bit more how we got to those and sort of what our options are and maybe have some criteria about those projects in terms of the city manager mentioned, what projects, how much outside funding we can get for those projects. But I'd also like to look at them in terms of how much money we've already spent on them. how far along they are, um other criteria. So I don't think we have to make that decision tonight. I think we can continue to keep that second bucket open. Some of them clearly rise to the top in my opinion and some of them I'm not. that we have. completely sure how, you know, why they're there, but. In any case. Those are my initial thoughts. Anybody else like to? comments. |
| 01:20:35.19 | Councilmember Burns | I will agree with you, Mayor. I think that I support the allocation as well and the process that we've gone through. I think it's kind of doubly hard for us. You know, I've been following this process for maybe six, seven years, including my park and rec days. we have had such an incredible run-up of capital improvement and infrastructure improvements and taking a very old system in sewer and storm water and streets and parks and updating them to the tune of millions and millions of dollars and it's a tough hiccup for us to go through this but we've had other hiccups and it's a short-term break hope, and we'll get back on pace. But that we're approaching it in this manner that we're ready in so many areas and ready to attack is kind of what we've been talking about. The best way to get through this is being nimble and ready. And that the director and city manager are willing to amend this as we go and come back to us, I think is extremely important. And... It's hard but it's also so many positives in how this has played out for us. So thank you both and I'll support the allocation as well. |
| 01:21:44.55 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:21:44.63 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:21:44.68 | Unknown | I'm going to go. |
| 01:21:48.06 | Tom | Thank you. |
| 01:21:48.14 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:21:48.21 | Tom | Thank you. |
| 01:21:53.32 | Tom | And Madam Mayor, just like the one clarification from probably our city manager, So on that secondary list, we're going to eventually approve a budget that funds the minimum CIP. And if we find our revenues are greater than we expected or we find other sources of revenues, then we will be making amendments to those budgets. And it'll probably be a project by project at a time. And so we'll have a forcing mechanism that secondary list or other projects. City manager. |
| 01:22:25.47 | Adam Politzer | That's correct. |
| 01:22:26.06 | Tom | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 01:22:31.38 | Madam Mayor | Yeah. I think that's right. There definitely, we might get extra... funding that is project specific, but we might also, you know, if things go well, we might actually just get extra money. And then I think we need to have this list kind of honed. to determine the most effective use of any additional funds that we might get that aren't already targeted to a specific project. my point, but I think you make a good point as well. So thank you for that. Councilmember Cox? |
| 01:23:05.58 | Councilmember Cox | Thank you. I agree with the prior council members who have spoken. I particularly appreciate the modified approach utilized by the public works department and the city manager for analyzing our capital improvement projects including the obligations to our residents based on measures that they voted on and including the availability of grant funding in the analysis. And I too am prepared to endorse the projects identified as priority one project and the amounts allocated towards them. |
| 01:23:46.52 | Councilmember Cox | Thank you. |
| 01:23:46.87 | Madam Mayor | Thank you. Vice Mayor, do you have any comments? |
| 01:23:50.57 | Vice Mayor Withey | Um, Yeah, I agree with everything that's been said. You know, if If anybody has followed my involvement with this city, it's been to focus on infrastructure and capital. And in my early discussions with Julia, um, And then, when our Kevin, our director of public work started You know, we were planning this great, big capital improvement plan, which was gonna be like a masterpiece. And we were gonna, it was gonna be the icing on the cake, a pesky little virus has gotten in the way of that. Um, We have... prioritize this correctly, in my view. And I think Council Member Riley and others are absolutely correct. We're gonna have to then come back to the secondary list on a project by project basis. and try and do this. I'm particularly sensitive to Southview Park We promised. the voters that we would spend, you know, make sure that there was money reserved for each of our parks. And I'm. really pleased to hear and I'm sure our residents are going to be that there's still the money there to finish Southview Park when we find the extra funding that's available. Um, but Let's not. fool ourselves. longer term, medium term, We have enormous liabilities in our storm drain system. We have enormous liabilities in the infrastructure in the Marin ship. We have enormous liabilities potentially with our sewer system. Luckily, we are in partnership with the other sewer district to be able to um, risk adjust that. I think we should not. lose sight of the fact that we need to continue our discussions at figuring out possibly sewer consolidation. This is not something we should leave behind just because of COVID-19. because this is the way we can make our infrastructure dollars spread further. Good prioritization, we've got an enormous amount of work to do, and then eventually we're going to get back on track and focus where we absolutely need to, which is on infrastructure. |
| 01:26:37.80 | Madam Mayor | Thank you. That's a bitter pill for all of us who have been committed to this for years. I think we are gonna be ready to bounce back when we can, whether that's, you know, a shorter timeframe or a longer timeframe. We've got our good planning tools and long-term funding mechanisms in place. I think that is encouraging. I would just echo the Vice Mayor's comments about Southview Park. really encouraged that there may be some state funding as part of the stimulus package to get money into some public improvement projects like like parks. So hopefully that will be a way that we can, we are certainly shovel ready. And hopefully that will be a way that we can access some of those funds. Okay. I will turn to the city attorney. I think we have agreement that we are that we agree with the amount of money to . dedicate for the capital improvement program. Do we need to take a vote on this tonight? |
| 01:27:53.98 | Mary Wagner | It's my understanding that they just needed their general direction on that. And that would return in the budget documents that are back brought back to you. If that's incorrect, I would look to the city manager or the Administrative Services Director to correct that. |
| 01:28:09.15 | Madam Mayor | Okay, well, I heard consensus. Is that sufficient? City Manager? |
| 01:28:14.78 | Adam Politzer | Yes, because it'll be in your next item. It's listed on your next item just now. Now you can see the connection between the budget amount in the CIP to the budget presentation you're about to receive. Item 6B. So yes, the consensus. is all that we need. |
| 01:28:35.17 | Madam Mayor | Okay, great. And thank you to my fellow city council members. All right, so with that, we're gonna move on to item 6B. which is a review and discussion of the fiscal year 2021 general fund based budget. and direction on desired budget strategies to address the protected general financial efforts. And we have our city manager and finance director, Julia Carter. assistant city manager. |
| 01:29:17.52 | Madam Mayor | AND YOU |
| 01:29:18.03 | Julia Carter | I can't hear you yet. Sorry, I've had a delay getting my microphone on. I apologize. Thank you. Good evening. Madam Mayor and City Council the item before you is Continuation from now last discussion at the last Council meeting, It is still the fiscal year 2021 based budget review. and discussion of strategic options on how to develop the how to I'm not going to balance the budget. Share my screen. and start this much Do you see my screen now? |
| 01:30:00.99 | Madam Mayor | Thank you. |
| 01:30:01.03 | Julia Carter | Yes, we do. |
| 01:30:01.40 | Madam Mayor | Thank you. |
| 01:30:01.57 | Julia Carter | Thank you. |
| 01:30:05.40 | Julia Carter | So tonight, we will continue to review the fiscal year 21 based budget. We'll discuss changes that we made to the general fund based budget assumptions, you'll talk about, a non-general fund based budget for all other funds. And we will revisit and revise and review the general fund structural deficit with you. Also, later in the presentation, we will look for your direction. on, well, we just received the action on the CIP program for 2021. This is really helpful. And this is what we actually built in the budget, as we will see later on the slides. We will review fund balances in all funds across city funds and we will move discussion to preferred strategies to balance the remaining deficit? And as far as the next steps, on June 9, we will return to you once we receive this direction from you tonight, we will return to you with the recommended budget options for the fiscal year 2021 budget. |
| 01:31:09.07 | Julia Carter | So very briefly, where we are in the budget process, the budget process started with the mid-year Thank you. analysis of fiscal year 19-20, you received this report on April 14th. at the last meeting on April 28, We presented general fund-based projects And we, identified at that meeting a projected upcoming structural deficit in the fund. And today we are bringing forward the general-based budget, for non-general fund funds. And we made some adjustments to the general fund that I will review a little bit later. We are also bringing in CIP program, revised structural deficit, and discussion on the budget strategies. |
| 01:31:58.02 | Julia Carter | At the last meeting, we presented three economic scenarios, financial scenarios that up. possible in light of COVID-19 development. And you directed us to build our fiscal year 19, 2021 budget. around the most probable scenario. which is highlighted in the middle of the page. And the next slide, is going into the details on some elements of the financial scenario that we used for all or most of our base budget assumptions. I don't want to go into details, but left the slide just for the reference. So now, since the last meeting, We further refine the general fund revenues and expenditure projections. and included some updated information that we received that became available last week And I'm really happy to report some of the good news in light of all the other reports we've been presenting to you. up to this point. we actually devised some of the general fund revenues based on this new information that we received from Uniservices and HTL, Those are our sales tax and profits tax advisors. And you can see on the slide the summary of additional revenues that we captured. Um, We added additional 61,000 in VLF, portion of the property tax the biggest portion is sales tax. We revised our projections to include additional 815,000. 727 was is the channel cell stack. and 55,000 of it will be a measurable portion. The total measure of projected revenues are going to total about $1 million for the year. We added some plan check, cost recovery, funds of about 12 Southend, we spent some time with the community development director and were able to identify this fund. same thing the our parks and recreation director helped us to find this additional 40,000 in revenues that we are projecting to receive next spring. as repayment for the following years of special events and we are hoping that those are going to be happening. we also factor the Anticipated the grant that we are hoping to receive for the for the |
| 01:34:37.02 | Julia Carter | Oops, I apologize. |
| 01:34:42.62 | Julia Carter | for the for the year. I apologize, I'm having technical difficulties with me. slide for some reason. with a zero waste state grant. And finally, included transfer from MLK fund. We built a little bit of a transfer, like 35,000. This is our projected difference between the revenues and expenses for the year. Of course, this does not factor in any potential policy decisions that the council may choose to implement I'm going to go ahead and get related to the financial relief of to the MLK tenants. So if that happens, we will have to revisit our projections. Now, if you put all these revenues together, you can see we're looking at 975,000 additional revenues. That's great news. It's about 6.8% increase over the revenues that we presented to you at the last meeting. |
| 01:35:49.41 | Julia Carter | We also made some adjustments on the expenditure side. You can see there are four major points that we It's an additional 44,000 in unfunded accrued liability that we missed to include for FHIR portion of it. incorporated all the active departments, Now we captured the fire portion of UAL. as well. Included 86,000 for in the community development department for ongoing code enforcement services agreement that somehow was missed in the previous fiscal year. we reduce some expenditures of about 60,000 Again, related to, thanks to Mike Lanford, he was able to identify these expenditures the remove them. for due to cancellation of the July 4th, firework and picnic and just by the Bay events. And as we discussed earlier today, we included capital transfers of 350 pre-salvent-olemys of measure O. And we build this into the base budget. for. Kevin's the recommended CIP program for the year. |
| 01:37:07.46 | Julia Carter | Again, if you look at All of this changes together. We're looking at 424 and increase to the general fund expenditures. That's about 2.2%. increase of what we reported last time. And again, this includes the biggest chunk of it is CIP program location. |
| 01:37:31.27 | Julia Carter | Now this brings us to the revised general fund structural deficit number. You can see that after fact, remain all the increases in general fund revenues and expenditures, we managed to reduce the structural deficit a little bit to Well, slightly on the formula. But if you add or when you add the one-time CIP transfer, we are looking at 4.3 million net change to the general fund balance. I also want to point out that the CIP includes measure O allocation of 353,000 that leaves the remaining approximately 650 of measure O in general funds. And again, it's going to be council's policy decision. whether this funds should stay in the channel fund. for the future year. |
| 01:38:29.86 | Julia Carter | we transition from the general fund i want to step back a little bit and talk about fund accounting basics. Most of the city funds, as you well know, have some restrictions and limitations on how this one could be used. the talk to depth about the general fund uh, At the last meeting, you can see some of the other fund categories listed here on this chart, special revenue funds, capital improvement funds, debt service, enterprise. and all these funds have specific purpose and specific needs. I don't want to go deeply into this, but just wanted to leave the slide All right. for the record, you can see that again, about general fund that it's our primary rating fund. It provides general services, day-to-day activities, the special revenue funds, All the special revenue funds are generally restricted whether internally or externally. capital improvement funds. address. different structure needs, whether it's construction or improvements, that service funds paying off the loans and bonds. We also have enterprise and internal service funds. We have four enterprise funds. sewer park in the Milky Way and Old City Hall. Those operate like a business enterprise. So that's where the name is coming from, internal service funds. or provide for internal business services. like equipment replacement, vehicle replacement, employee benefits and risk management funds. And All of these different funds categorized in this bigger group categories presented here in the table before you right now. They also listed an attachment free to your staff reports. So you can see the general fund revenues, transfers and expenditures and and in fund balances, projected fund balances for each individual fund. |
| 01:40:35.19 | Julia Carter | And over the next three slides, I want to very briefly go over some notable assumptions that we use to build the base budget and enterprise. special revenues in internal service funds. For enterprise funds, we applied a 4% rate increase we included 1.5 million in CIP projects, fonts. Kevin reviewed this earlier in his presentation, We also included personnel allocations to, again, so you'll find MLK as listed here on the slide. and we factored in transfers to general fund So, I think that's a from MLK and 1.5 from parking. And again, we talked about it. already before. For the special revenue funds, we removed some of the one-time expenditures and the factored in, again, CIP program at the minimum commitment level. as presented earlier this evening. |
| 01:41:41.39 | Julia Carter | and internal service funds will be budgeted workers' compensation BUDGET AND WORKERS COMPENSATION AND GENERAL LIABILITY INSURANCE PREMIUMS. using 5% increase. We budgeted contributions to OPEB and pension trust. again, based on Um, latest Actuarial Evaluation Report for PAB and what was previously approved as a Funding Strategy for Pension Trust. by city council. And we removed expenditures to vehicle use fund. at the base budget level, what it means, that any requests for new equipment or new vehicles will have to come to you with the budget amendment request. |
| 01:42:35.93 | Julia Carter | So, Combining all of this together and summarizing, We are facing 3.9 million structural deficit for the fiscal year 2021 budget. this number goes up to 4.3 million net change to the general fund if we add on. CIP expenses. To resolve this issue, we will have to develop some budget options or strategies for structural and programmatic reductions in spending. And we will go over the next few slides, we will be discussing some of them. elements of this strategy. as you see listed in front of you. So there's a use of reserves, reductions in personnel costs, reductions in spending, that includes capital spending, as well as material cost and supply. And we will touch base a little bit on the alternative ways of delivering services. But before we jump into discussion on solutions, I wanted to bring your attention to the general fund budgetary reserves for just a minute. You may remember that we used the 10% shortfall policy. as a solution to our current year's projected shortfall. So you can see on this slide that with the projected deficit that we are listing right now, at the base budget level, which is simply don't have enough general fund reserves to breach this gap. It's definitely going to be a council's policy decision of whether you want to restore the shortfall policy for... for the upcoming year and what level of reserves acceptable to you at the budget adoption but, I just want to point out right now that at the base budget level, we obviously don't have enough to reach the gap and general fund just cannot be balanced the way it is So we definitely knew some external AND I THINK THAT'S A as well as some adoptions in services. |
| 01:44:44.25 | Julia Carter | At the last council meeting, City Council used analogy for pre-leg, STOOL APPROACH. to the budget deficit. with one leg, of this tool being one-time use of available. fund balances, and the other two legs being program reductions of personnel and other periods in budget. So we intend to balance this budget without relying on federal or other state financial subsidies. but this, relief funds when they come or if they come, would definitely provide needed relief for economic recovery. and will serve as a fourth leg of the stool. you know, metaphor. |
| 01:45:34.13 | Julia Carter | So now let's talk a little bit about the first leg. or the use of fund balances. We identified the following fund balances that considered to be discretionary and could be used help balance the general fund. You can see it in the table right here. LINE ITEM HERE IS A PARKING FUND. We are proposing to use 1.5 million out of this funds. And you can see that this will leave us with approximately 679 remaining fund balance in this fund. to cover any unexpected expenditures or any other unexpected events related to parking, called occurring upcoming year. Similar situation with the vehicle use font. if you take half a million dollars from this fund. It lifts sufficient reserves to cover any emergency fleet or equipment needs and Also leaving a little bit of extra funds if we need to tap into this funds again throughout the year. The employee benefit fund is an internal service fund and it currently has a fund balance So we proposed to use this fund balance, this fund is serving as a pass through for our funds to to fund the OPAP and the, pension trust. publications. And finally, via listing 200,000 from the MLK and, This number pretty much matches our historic contribution that MLK has been paying to general fund. and you may remember that we had to reduce it at the mid-year. due to some reduction of MLP revenues. So if you apply all of these reserves as listed here, It will leave us with approximately a little bit under 1.5 million in remaining deficits. So now the fundamental questions are why we are proposing to use the fund balances. First of all, it allows to reduce the deficit to somewhat manageable levels. between now and July 1. and the avoid drastic across the board cuts because we do believe that across the board cuts just spread the pain but don't really resolve the issue because It's a. not sustainable long term. Instead, it allows to focus on strategic and more targeted cuts that require some serious discussions, of community values and benefits and analysis of long-term implications. And we talked about that length at the last Council meetings when we We talked about the strategy for the strategic approach to this year's budget to look at services and programs. What is really important that allows us to buy some time? to develop sustainable alternative service models. that, includes consolidation, outsourcing, reorganization, all of this significant structural changes take time. Well, but I think that's a good thing. at the end of the day, what is the alternative? to use in fund houses. The only alternative we have is more service cards. So E. Tonight you will not give us direction to use this fund balances. at approximately 20% cut across the board. |
| 01:49:17.60 | Julia Carter | Now for the other two acts of the tool, we want to just touch base quickly on what options we are looking at please keep in mind we of put some ranges in some of these options but this is just the guidelines obviously everyone of these options would have to be defined further. And we intend to do this between now and June 9. give you more concrete and specific options. but we are looking at hiring freeze, at eliminating call increases, salary step increases, some reduction of service level, including reduced work with. and layoffs, we're looking at and already doing some of the personnel, sharing personnel across departments. the considering allowing voluntary part-time status. mandatory and voluntary time off, and we are looking at early retirement options. It's very important to note that there is a process that would be required for most of these options. and the, number one and two on the list is reopening labor agreements that we have in place right now And this process would require meet and confer process with labor groups. if you want to reduce any employee benefits. In addition to that, and I just want to point out that we already started this process The peer manager already met with the SCIU and is planning to meet with Yoy shortly. But in addition to the meet and control process, we also need to look very carefully and do Additional risk analysis for any of these reductions. to see impact on any additional things like all time calls. one. impact on other critical functions, other city revenues. and whether we are going to lose some efficiency due to stopping issues. So all of this requires risk analysis. |
| 01:51:26.48 | Julia Carter | Now the appearance and budget. God's. Again, the list is long here, as you can see. we are looking at all kinds of options that hopefully will bring us some savings and call for students. be a little bit more efficient. We are looking at reexamining our maintenance and replacement standards. each department is looking at their ongoing contracts to see how the scope of those countries could be reduced or whether we can renegotiate some of them to kind of forego. CPI increases for the year. We're looking at personnel equipment needs, that includes cell phones, desktop printers, and all the equipment. that the invoice might be using. looking at reducing paper and printing costs. saving energy and implementing some green practices Also, throughout this process, we are looking at some overlapping program that we may have between departments. and see how we can consolidate and eliminate and achieve some savings here. In my department, I know the IT staff is looking at the software maintenance contracts. looking at telecom agreements and see if we can reduce some of the recurrent IT costs. As part of this conversation, the program reductions we are looking at our policy for any subsidies that we provide when we waive fees or we provide some additional relief any outside agencies or tenants or residences. to make sure that we are consistent in this approach. We also look at new revenue categories. and the opportunities to maximize cost recovery. community development department has made a lot of progress there and the move in this direction and And as the last bullet on the slide, you or when. how the savings can not be identified, unfortunately, will be looking at some additional personnel reductions. Thank you. to meet the service cards targets. |
| 01:53:47.20 | Julia Carter | For this category of reductions, The required process or the process we are going through will conducting core or basic services analysis by each department and work unit. Again, we've talked about it at the last meeting, a little bit more in depth, I just want to reiterate again that we programs. And when we think programs, We. looking at the priority of this programs which one of them considered to be on main course or the highest priority which one's a side dish or beverage You're looking at efficiencies and cost recoveries. for all in-house. services. But the bigger question is, would it be enough? And, If not, THAN What is the alternative? and we will have to analyze this alternative. suit. All. quarantine. service delivery options. and see you. certain functions could be delivered differently. |
| 01:54:49.96 | Julia Carter | each department is looking at these options trying to identify what programs would be eliminated, what services could be contracted out, Shane. CONSOLIDATE IT. All of these decisions are very tough and very and structural in nature. And as we go through this, we need to consider key performance measures, which is also important, and each program will have different performance measures. that may include response time or service level or community expectations. for a certain service level. And most importantly, that all of this alternative service options. involve external factors. that may be outside of city control and will require additional time. that we'll need. need to flesh them out and develop and prepare for your consideration. So what do we need from you today? Um, in order to proceed with the recommended budget. We need that. on the CIP and we received that from you. So thank you very much for that. We also need |
| 01:55:59.62 | Unknown | you. |
| 01:56:01.39 | Julia Carter | You too. tell us if we can use the available fund balances as we are proposing. And we also want to see what problems and changes that we identified we should or should not pursue. for the upcoming project. |
| 01:56:20.65 | Julia Carter | This slide is just what's next in the project. want to kind of go back to the budget methodology that we already outlined before you in the last meetings. IN THE in previous meetings. and see how we're building the budget. So you. We established the base budget of the current level of services. based budget revenues and expenditures assumptions, be determined the deficit for this year So all of these items to the first three is where we are today. And what is coming from this point is our job to develop decision packages for service changes. in this particular case reductions, to balance the budget. So all departments, as I mentioned, are working on those packages right now, as we speak. DEPARTMENTS WILL SEND ME the ranks. decisions to the city manager. in order of their priorities, and the city manager will rank them prioritize them. as he sees feed organization wide and then put some of them for. his recommended options for fiscal year 2021 budget. AND WE WILL PRESENT THOSE recommended budget options for your approval. on June 9. And this is just a little bit of a preview. what you should expect in your packets when we submit report to you next time. So you can see the budget form That's what departments are looking at. on. giving you some additional information on each one of the options that hopefully will your job a little bit easier to make these hard decisions that you're facing right now? |
| 01:58:12.31 | Julia Carter | So, with the next steps. Again, as I mentioned already, we will make any changes. We don't need to make any changes to the CIP. program. And, be real. We are continuing working on the budget options, and we will take your direction. tonight. to build together recommended one-time use of reserves, reductions in personnel costs, the operating expenditures, and so, We will return until 9. with Fiscal Year 2021 budget program options. And the at the following meeting on June 23rd, We are going to bring final 2021 budget for adoption. That concludes my presentation and I'm happy to answer any questions. |
| 01:59:07.15 | Madam Mayor | Great, thank you very much, Julia. I'm really amazed how every two weeks we receive another staff report from you that is really taking a difficult and moving target of kind of our financial projections and making it understandable and easy to follow. and very thorough. So I really want to, I know you and your staff have been working around the clock I understand you got a little break on Mother's Day when your kids stole all of your devices. So I was very glad to hear that. But anyway, thank you. Thank you so much and please thank all of your staff who have been involved in these efforts on behalf of all of us here. We appreciate that. Okay, so are there questions from my... fellow city council members. |
| 02:00:07.73 | Tom | Yes, Tom has a question. Um, one thank you as well for this excellent work On, um, In round numbers, we're solving for a $4 million budget shortfall. Um, we saw for 2.5 million of that by pulling from the funds. And you identified four funds. I guess my question is, Why 2.5, not two or three? And what's the impact, it would help me understand what's the impact of taking these monies out of these funds, what's the risk? in doing so. Vehicle fund, okay, the cost is we're not going to buy new police vehicles for 12 months. or 18 months. MLK, we're taking $200,000 out. we may not repair the roof. Do we have a way of looking at what the risk is or what the trade-off is by pulling these funds out? It just seems like easy money to just say, okay, let's do it, versus understanding what it's costing us. |
| 02:01:13.83 | Julia Carter | Well, we only propose them to take discretionary funds. So something that can help to balance the budget. And, um, We are trying to be conservative because we at the end of the day, all of this are projections, right? So they may hopefully be wrong on the, being conservative side, but things can get better, but things can get worse. So we want to make sure that we don't deplete full fund balances and leave some of them available for Oh, in case some of the some of the projections get worse. And another thing I want to point out, things like parking fund and MLK. funds have expenditures attached to that so for parking fund for example it's not just the revenues that we get we also pay the vendors for the parking equipment. We allocate some positions there, so we want to be careful and strategic to leave enough reserves to cover all the unexpected things that may come with that. That's what we based our proposal on. So the 2.5 million seems to be prudent under the current circumstances. and leaving the company. |
| 02:02:27.76 | Tom | So these funds weren't already earmarked for like the parking fund that million half for using wasn't earmarked for something else already. It was there in case we needed it in the future. |
| 02:02:38.48 | Julia Carter | It's. So we collect the general revenues. available for any specific purpose. But as I said, I've pointed out that we have expenditures attached to that as well. |
| 02:02:48.13 | Adam Politzer | But the situation. |
| 02:02:53.02 | Adam Politzer | Can I add to the answer there? on the parking funds in particular prior to our partnership with the Gongi Fridge, and the grant that we have from the Highway Transportation department. Um, for us to repave parking lot one, for example, which we desperately need to repave as we do with parking lot three and four. If we didn't get that $2 million grant, we would have looked to that fund balance to help repave that parking lot, as we just did with parking lot number two. The grant was not eligible to fund parking lot number two, so we moved that project forward. That helps. |
| 02:03:35.83 | Tom | I have one more question, and I'll let the other counselors go. It was unclear as I was looking through all the charts and staff reports |
| 02:03:36.05 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:03:36.15 | Adam Politzer | I don't know. |
| 02:03:36.20 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 02:03:36.24 | Adam Politzer | I won't. |
| 02:03:36.54 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:03:42.79 | Tom | What happens to the general fund reserve after we take these, if we find the corrections to the $4 million, |
| 02:03:47.92 | Unknown | We find that |
| 02:03:50.92 | Tom | It starts at 9.2, where does it end up at? |
| 02:03:56.37 | Julia Carter | So... we will bring you revised budget budgetary reserves for general fund at the next meeting when we find all the solutions. So let's say if you authorized us to use this 2.5 million in reserves, we will transfer these funds into general fund. So that will be recorded as additional revenues to the fund. So it's part of the solution. Once we reduce expenditures, which is our other legs that we discussed, the expenditure line will go down, leaving additional reserves in the fund. |
| 02:04:30.81 | Tom | Yeah, I mention that because we, you know, ideally you wanna have a minimum of 50% of your operating expenses in that reserve fund. And I'm just wondering how that looks. |
| 02:04:39.99 | Julia Carter | that's going to be very difficult to achieve for the upcoming year. |
| 02:04:44.48 | Tom | Thank you. |
| 02:04:44.52 | Unknown | I'm sorry. |
| 02:04:44.53 | Tom | Right. |
| 02:04:44.70 | Julia Carter | Eventually, yeah, that would be very helpful to have a policy discussion, that that's our goal, and we will probably bring you the multi-step |
| 02:04:44.72 | Tom | They've been- |
| 02:04:54.89 | Julia Carter | plan how we're going to achieve it but just by looking at the numbers right now, I don't think we will be able to reach 50% reserves in the general fund. considering the magnitude of the whole problem. |
| 02:05:05.10 | Madam Mayor | Thank you. I'm actually going to just have a follow-up question to Tom's set of questions. Could you answer the same about our budget stabilization and 10% shortfall policy. just remind us how much I think you covered it in your presentation, how much is in there and what the risks of spending further down after we've already spent some of that on this year's budget, what those risks would be. |
| 02:05:37.59 | Julia Carter | So the budget stabilization and shortfall policy is just a designation in the general fund reserves. And the council has previously adopted the policy for 10% and 5%. for this reverse to be designated. to a separating contingency. for budget stabilization in shortfall. And you remember that in the current fiscal year, reduced the shortfall policy. We pretty much eliminated the 10% shortfall policy. and we haven't restored it yet for the base budget. that's the policy of the council, we will try to do it, but as of right now, at the base level, it looks like we've just unable to do it. We just don't have enough reserves to do it. So at the base budget level, the slide there, showed earlier. I don't know if I can. Share the screen. |
| 02:06:40.14 | Madam Mayor | Do you need. our clerk to help you do that or? Do you see? |
| 02:06:43.96 | Julia Carter | Do you see the screen now? |
| 02:06:45.56 | Madam Mayor | Thank you. |
| 02:06:45.58 | Julia Carter | Now. of the I apologize, I'm having difficulties with the... at my Thank you. rather than a quote seven. |
| 02:07:06.65 | Julia Carter | I think I'm sharing my screen now, right? So the slide I had here, you can see what the, budgetary reserves look like. at the base budget level. and in the middle under operating contingency You can see that we haven't touched the 5% budget stabilization yet. So we have this 759,000. But, we haven't restored the 10% short-haul policy. Sofía. team player. I guess if you look at undesignated fund balance, what we have at base level that's about three percent of our operating expenditures so that's definitely not sustainable and not enough as of right now. So as I mentioned during my presentation, I definitely need to do some work here. to balance the funds. |
| 02:07:58.60 | Sandra Bushmaker | but just in terms of that. |
| 02:08:00.97 | Julia Carter | PRACTICING, |
| 02:08:02.14 | Sandra Bushmaker | you |
| 02:08:02.32 | Julia Carter | I mean, this is already well below what would be... Yes, it's definitely below the best practices. So GFA best practices, I believe, It requires us to go with 4% of operating expenditures. and In the past, it was like the unspoken target was 20% in reserves. I just want to remind you again before. COVID-19, we were at 51%, which was very comfortable number. and I heard the council member Riley that that's the comfort zone and that's where we want to be eventually. 3% is definitely way below this. |
| 02:08:45.03 | Madam Mayor | Thank you. Okay. All right, other council members? And I think we can Yes. See. Okay. Thank you. |
| 02:08:55.01 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:08:57.00 | Madam Mayor | Anyone else have questions? |
| 02:09:00.61 | Vice Mayor Withey | Oh yeah, I did. Um, So, Just I have a couple of questions. So the first one is to follow on on the earlier discussions from the other council members. If we, follow the use of fund balances that you're suggesting. And if we are able to find the $1.4 million in savings, let's call it savings. then by this budget, proposal that you this budget that you're proposing we would not be using further general fund balance this coming year. Is that correct? |
| 02:09:56.35 | Julia Carter | That is correct. We actually will try to rebuild some of the needed fund balances. |
| 02:10:01.51 | Vice Mayor Withey | Right. |
| 02:10:01.93 | Julia Carter | and reserves required or some of them are required |
| 02:10:03.59 | Vice Mayor Withey | Quiet. |
| 02:10:05.95 | Julia Carter | Because right now the channel fund is not balanced. |
| 02:10:06.10 | Vice Mayor Withey | Right. Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly. So, okay. The second question is with regards to the in your proposal, You are, um, suggesting that we transfer Right. 280,000, if memory serves me correct, into the pension. trust and I don't know a certain amount into OPEP or that may have been both amounts I can't remember but it doesn't matter I'm not interested in the specific dollar amounts. Um, So in this proposal, we are continuing to build the Um, pension and open balances for the projected sort of ballooning of the CalPERS payments that we're expecting. Correct. |
| 02:11:07.73 | Julia Carter | That's correct. Based on the previously approved funding strategy. |
| 02:11:12.71 | Vice Mayor Withey | Yeah. Okay, good. And then the third question is, |
| 02:11:20.08 | Vice Mayor Withey | uh, Have you... begun to think about I'm already thinking for the next year, because One fear is, of course, that we're looking at we were looking at just the mid-year, then we're looking at this, sort of emergency, if you like, revised budget for the next year. But by making the savings of 1.4 million, Are we confident that we're still not baking in a long-term structural deficit in light of the future, expenditures that we know are going to occur in years two, three, four and beyond. And so. when do you think is I know you're really busy and it's almost impossible to even ask this and I feel bad asking it but When do you think you're going to be able to start getting arms around whether we're building in a long-term structural problem and, are the savings that were those cuts or the restructuring that we're going to do now, are we assured it's going to create a longer term structural balance? Does that question make any sense? |
| 02:12:45.05 | Julia Carter | It does make a lot of sense and that's why we talking about the strategy again. As Adam mentioned before in the previous meeting and earlier today, it creates an opportunity to reinvent ourselves as organization. So we are looking at structural changes, we are looking |
| 02:12:59.59 | Unknown | Thank you. and the |
| 02:13:04.76 | Julia Carter | how sustainable these changes are going to be long term. So unfortunately, we have some time constraints. We have to adopt the budget before the end of June. And we are making all these projections in the middle of it. So that makes it very difficult, as you can imagine. So as I mentioned several times, nobody has crystal balls. |
| 02:13:21.87 | Unknown | mentioned |
| 02:13:25.07 | Julia Carter | Things can get worse or better. But we definitely And that's one of the reasons why we are asking to use this fund balances right now. to allow us for this time. to develop and look at the more structural changes and see if they're sustainable. So we would have to, look into long-term financial outlook. And that's the only The only way to determine if any of the changes we are making are structural sustainable, just to look how it fits in. for the future. So we cannot be you |
| 02:14:00.63 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:14:00.65 | Julia Carter | you |
| 02:14:00.68 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 02:14:00.85 | Julia Carter | I think in one year at a time. even though they are forced to do it now to balance the fiscal year 2021. as soon as we are done with this task, we have to start working on the long-term planning. |
| 02:14:13.09 | Vice Mayor Withey | So that's going to be a sort of H1 fiscal, next Cisco year, |
| 02:14:20.46 | Tom | Yeah. |
| 02:14:20.48 | Vice Mayor Withey | work to get that done as we're getting more information about |
| 02:14:20.88 | Julia Carter | Thank you. |
| 02:14:25.59 | Vice Mayor Withey | what the economy is looking. |
| 02:14:25.61 | Julia Carter | Exactly. And I would say maybe not even next fiscal year, it's more mid-year of the year. |
| 02:14:33.81 | Vice Mayor Withey | Yeah. Yeah. Okay, great. Thank you. |
| 02:14:40.15 | Madam Mayor | Bye. Council member Cox, did you have questions? Thank you. |
| 02:14:43.34 | Councilmember Cox | Thank you. Yulia, thank you for that comprehensive presentation. really helped to translate a lot of the information that was packed into the staff report. Um, I asked about our pensions. So I appreciate the fact that we are planning to make the pension. the, contribution to the pension fund that we aligned upon several years ago, and we balanced the manner in which we would write out the increased amounts that we know will come due to our uh, pension funds. but we've heard a great deal over the last weeks about the impacts to the CalPERS accounts. So what are we doing? to project our ability to meet what we know will be our increased obligations to CalPERS in order to offset the losses that they've communicated, you know, were incurred by their funds during these and all of our retirement funds during challenging times. |
| 02:15:56.92 | Julia Carter | So, uh, we actually a little bit ahead of the game here. So we started this work already, um, right before we went into strategic planning. and it was planned for the upcoming years budget so we were going to TO GET THEIR PEOPLE TO GET THE kind of remodeling our financial impact. and now they put it on hold right now because we don't know what the impact is going to be yet so we don't want to do this work twice And, uh, Uh, because we, well, you, we have heard that the culprits reported losses of the magnitude that are uncomprehensible. due to COVID as well. SO, BUT WE ALREADY, have a mechanism and method in place right now to bring this information to you at the. different levels at the mid year as well. So we will, that will, allow us enough time to build it in and unfortunately you're absolutely right that the numbers will look very different or required numbers will look very different than what we are putting in the budget right now. But for the lack of this information right now, we are just sticking with the policy that you approved before. |
| 02:17:08.43 | Councilmember Cox | Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. Other people had covered some of my other questions. So thank you. |
| 02:17:15.05 | Vice Mayor Withey | Um, just for clarification, I'm sorry for jumping in here. But the the losses which, you know, we don't know how CalPERS is going to end the fiscal year. Um, But the losses are going to be reflected in the ramp up, the amortization that's going to start in 2022, right, for this losses, right? Yes. So there's, and that will be part of the analysis you'll be bringing to the table. |
| 02:17:47.18 | Julia Carter | that's going to be part of the analysis it's going to be multi-year analysis and see how we can create this issue yeah similar to what you did a few years ago but we are going to use |
| 02:17:51.25 | Vice Mayor Withey | Yeah. |
| 02:17:53.02 | Unknown | Simulist. |
| 02:17:56.66 | Julia Carter | actual experts to help us with that. |
| 02:17:58.67 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 02:17:58.97 | Julia Carter | you |
| 02:17:59.24 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:17:59.38 | Julia Carter | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 02:18:02.50 | Madam Mayor | Okay, great. And Council Member Burns, you don't have questions right now, is that correct? |
| 02:18:07.75 | Councilmember Burns | No, mine was, Council Member Cox covered that, so thank you. |
| 02:18:12.29 | Madam Mayor | Great. Just a quick question, Yulia. The first two buckets, you've put some numbers on them, but your last kind of program reduction category you didn't have any even kind of rough numbers. Is that just kind of a work in progress right now? Yeah. |
| 02:18:35.03 | Julia Carter | So the last two legs of the stool, they're kind of... Um, depend on one on each other, right? these are program cards, whether it's personnel or operating budget, they kind of to each other to a certain extent so the 1.5 million that we are talking about it's going to be combination of all these factors together. And we will have to enjoy. |
| 02:18:59.79 | Madam Mayor | you'll have to internally. |
| 02:19:01.33 | Julia Carter | Thank you. |
| 02:19:01.34 | Madam Mayor | waiting for our feedback. |
| 02:19:02.73 | Julia Carter | you |
| 02:19:02.90 | Madam Mayor | tonight. Got it. these will get fleshed out. Exactly. Great, well, why don't we open it up to public comment If the clerk wants to announce public comments, |
| 02:19:22.81 | Heidi Scoble | Yes, this is a time where the public may address the city council regarding agenda item six B public comment will be accepted by video or audio audience participation via zoom. Video or audio public comment participation is limited to three minutes per speaker. If you'd like to make a comment, please raise your hand in the Zoom application and you will be called upon when it's your time to speak. To raise your hand from a phone, press star nine. Each speaker will be notified when they have 30 seconds left to speak and again when their time has elapsed. It appears as though we have one hand raised at this time and we have David Sudo. |
| 02:20:00.14 | Madam Mayor | Right. Welcome, David. |
| 02:20:02.36 | David Sudo | Hi. Thanks for a thorough report. I would think I just want to tie in this budget with our crowd management issue. You know, it seems that from the last couple of weekends, it's, apparent that as many visitors from the Bay Area will come as we will allow them to come. I'm not sure. And it's really, you know, as we start to open up for restaurants, it's going to be, you know, what are we comfortable with the level of visitors we're comfortable with having here. I'm not sure. And, I was just revisiting our parking fees for our downtown lots and we are ideal compared to San Francisco. especially compared to Pier 39. where our parking fees are, half of less than half of what they are Um, So, I think if we want to maximize our revenue and maybe deter some of those cars coming into town because most of our visitors are going to be coming to town in cars for next year. that maybe we want to So we look at So, That's all I had to say. Thank you. |
| 02:21:17.96 | Madam Mayor | Great. Thank you. Excuse me, great. Thank you so much for your comment. Very helpful. And we have W-R His hand is raised. |
| 02:21:28.04 | Wendy Richards | Thank you. Yes, hi, this is Wendy Richards. Can you hear me? Yes, we can. Welcome. Thank you. So thank you very much for the very detailed report, Yulia. And thank you to the council members for your very insightful questions. You asked several questions that I had myself. I'm, I'm, Pleased to see that you are starting discussions on personnel issues with the union representation. I would like to encourage much deeper thought as to not so much long-term structural problems as you asked Vice Mayor Withey, but long-term structural reform. This virus is giving us all the opportunity to drastically change how we organize our businesses and our organizations. And I would like to see what businesses are doing happening here, such as across the board, pay cuts for everybody. Why do we have to lay off people when we have very highly paid people that could take pay cuts. stopping double dipping, rolling back, not just stopping colas going forward, but rolling back the increases. Let's look more broadly. By dipping into these funds, we're avoiding actually making structural changes. We could, as a city, we could look much, much beyond this immediate Uh, fix. and band together with other cities, work with our unions to increase the retirement years, the age for retirement. That would save us. hundreds of millions across the state. Why are we thinking just in our immediate world here? Let's think more broadly. That's my idea. big encouragement and, um, Secondly, I also would like to say we have the opportunity to repair a major inequity in the tax code. for our businesses. the tax on gross receipts is highly regressive. especially in this environment. Paying the city on gross receipts before any business can pay themselves and pay their wages and pay their salaries. Yes. Not right. Last with Measure M, You suddenly imposed a gross receipts tax on home-based businesses. And now, guess what? We're all home-based businesses. We do not require any more services than our next door neighbor. who is paid from a wage somewhere. So there are many opportunities for reform, and I would be happy to meet with you individually offline to discuss some of these. And I encourage you to not tap into the excess funds so that we can see what the cuts might have to be and then choose if we want to use those extra funds or not. |
| 02:24:47.70 | Heidi Scoble | Your three minutes is over. |
| 02:24:49.20 | Madam Mayor | Thank you. Great, thank you very much. Appreciate that. All right, I do not see any additional public comments. So we will bring it. back up to the council for discussion. |
| 02:25:10.75 | Madam Mayor | Anyone want to start off? |
| 02:25:16.71 | Councilmember Burns | I don't mind starting off. I think Uh, Kind of pulling up my slides here. we're really, as far as what we need to do, you need direction. We've already pretty much given it on the, the IP program. And I support the, use of available funds. So really we're kind of talking now about what changes we should or should not. pursue, correct? that kind of, |
| 02:25:44.98 | Madam Mayor | I think the main feedback that staff would like is whether the use, the one-time use of fund balances at the level that staff is proposing. is something that the council is comfortable with. And then if there are items, if I understood it, that are kind of off the table, |
| 02:25:59.66 | Unknown | Right. |
| 02:26:05.24 | Madam Mayor | I think they'd like to hear that as well. Yulia or Adam, do you want to add anything to that? |
| 02:26:07.86 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:26:13.66 | Unknown | No, that's correct. You summarized it perfectly. |
| 02:26:16.80 | Councilmember Burns | Yeah, so, and I just said that I'm comfortable with the fund balance. number two and number one with the CIP. So really for number three, on program changes. I, Truly appreciate what you and staff have been going through, Yulia, on trying to figure out this complex part of it. Um, because now we're balancing services and we're balancing all sorts of things that it's bad enough we don't know what the or the outlooks or the opportunities are gonna be, but now you have just this layer of services and how those are applied to an area that we don't know what it's gonna look like in August, let alone December or April or any other part of the budget process, budget timeframe. So I appreciate that you're starting with a kind of a tiered and a a few different choices to choose from and I support those. just like we've talked about in capital improvement, I support those and how you've presented them because I know there's some things that we can go back and visit, both in the structure you presented here within this timeframe before July 1, But then even after July 1, a lot of these are fairly liquid in how And I think the newspaper last week said, I said, we'd look at budgets weekly. I think I said weekly and I surely didn't mean to say weekly if I did. But monthly is definitely something, if not quarterly, that we're going to want to be looking at these things. So as a starting point for where we are now, I support the changes that you have recommended and I hope that we can come to conclusion on a lot of those, especially in Like you said, not just cutting straight out. me, like Ray mentioned, I need a haircut. I plan to cut all the hair and not just rip certain part pieces out. And I'd really like to do that with our budget. I'd like to kind of just, you know, with some of these choices, trim the whole thing back. So with personnel costs, taking that into consideration. So we don't have to just rip things out because we want to be whole when we can be whole again. So I appreciate this, Eli, and I, unless other comments come up, I appreciate the comment of the program suggested. |
| 02:28:37.84 | Madam Mayor | Right. Thank you. Anyone else? Tom, right? |
| 02:28:44.10 | Tom | Yes, Madam Mayor, may I? Um, want to, you know, thank staff for a wonderful detailed presentation. These things are really, really hard to go through. But here's what I do know. In the long run, it makes us better. will be more efficient, will be more streamlined, will be operating better. And so it's always when you come out through these things after doing these hard decisions, |
| 02:29:04.10 | Unknown | He's always been. |
| 02:29:07.71 | Tom | things do get better. And I really, I love the stuff. There's a whole list of things like technologies. Can we get rid of printers by using more digital signatures? Those are the things that we should be driving for. that make us better and our services to our residents will be better as well. Um, I know that this is a stepping stone to what was in this presentation we didn't talk much about, which is pursuing shared services for the next fiscal year. And what I'd like to see in our next meeting is just, I'd like to see the full list of what those shared services are, not necessarily what the savings are, but what are the ideas? And so we can start understanding how much more efficient we can get as we're working in the quarters to come, pursuing some of these shared services. I've heard some of them, but I'd love to see a list. And we wonder what the savings are, but at least what that potential list is. And then finally, On one of the earlier comments, We don't know how this pandemic recovery is going to play out. And our vice mayor suggested, you know, picking the middle plan allows us to flex either way if things are better or worse. in the future. I love on that most fearful scenario, For us to kind of spitball how bad of a dollar amount that is, so that when we look at our remaining fund balances, we know that we can weather that storm as well. And you know, so, It's not the level of detail you've done here, If you say in the most fearful scenario, we're going to have another $3 million shortfall and we If we had to tap our funds, we could do it roughly. I think that'd be comforting because we're dipping into our Funds down. I just don't know if we're over dipping or not. I'll stop there. |
| 02:31:06.16 | Madam Mayor | Thank you. |
| 02:31:06.21 | Councilmember Cox | Thank you. What's up? Sure, I agree with the comments of my fellow council members. I agree with the approach outlined in the staff report and the PowerPoint presentation. I think a multifaceted approach is appropriate that includes the use of our reserves, reductions in personnel costs, reductions in capital spending, reductions in operating expenses, including programmatic spending. And Uh, identifying alternative ways of delivering services. particularly accomplishing economies of scale by teaming up with other municipalities such you know, having a centralized corporation yard in San Rafael. um, I think that in developing our approach as as Julia mentioned with respect to pensions, We, Right now, we're trying to put a bandaid to stop all the bleeding but we have to also be looking to a multi-year strategy as the vice mayor referenced earlier we can't confine our strategy to although we have to get this year done right now. But as we continue down this road, we have to be looking at multi-year strategies and you know, holistic changes in the way we do business. I liked some of the comments from Wendy Richards about you know, how to reduce personnel costs, but avoid layoffs to the extent we can by rolling back So we have a lot of colas, stop double dipping. Um, And again, consider ways that we can team up with other municipalities with shared services. So I really appreciate the level of detail and thinking that has gone into the options that have been presented to us to date, but we've just hit the tip of the iceberg here. um, And thank you for the announcement about our city manager and his leadership position that he was appointed to. You know, I'm grateful again that he's gone through this process before and he and the vice mayor can provide us with a lot of guidance based on their prior experience. that was. Great, thank you. |
| 02:33:51.82 | Madam Mayor | Thank you. Vice Mayor. |
| 02:33:54.17 | Vice Mayor Withey | Mayor. Yeah, just a few... comments to add to that. Well, everything I agree with, everything that's been said. here. Um, First of all, Let's look at our reserves. we worked really hard for many, many years, long before I was on the council, but also during the last eight years to make sure that we had the reserve resiliency to be able to weather, Thank you. is stormed. um, This council member is not going to let, or at least, unless everybody else disagrees with me, our reserves to go any lower than they we are now projecting. I agree with the use of these reserves. I agree with actually with the bias towards using the parking revenue, because remember the parking, parking reserves, because remember on a annual basis, parking provides over $2 million net without using its reserves into our So, that makes some sense. And it may very well be, as David Sudow's indicated, you know, if we let people in, you know, the parking lots are going to fill up. So we probably are going to be okay with parking revenues eventually down the road. Um, But with that said, We cannot afford to let our reserves drop any lower than that's being projected. And I think Yulia would agree with that. We just absolutely cannot. Um, And so, We can't use any more reserves. So we have to find the $1.4 million and possibly more if things go sideways in the fall. Um, from savings. And Quite frankly, Um, I'm going to be just put it out there. We have two choices, which is our labor groups are going to Um, figure out that there are less painful ways of perhaps spending together and taken some of the reducing colas, reducing freezing some of the step increases, all the various ways in which the staff has indicated that we could do that. Um, Or, and. there, but there are still going to be layoffs. It's that simple. We have no choice. And unless we can work together collaboratively with our labor groups, to actually find ways in which to spread the pain then more people are going to lose their jobs. And that's the fact. Um, I very much worried about the fact that Um, And Wendy Richards is quite correct. I hate to use the word opportunity, but this is the, It's not really an opportunity, it's an opportunity we must seize to actually rethink how we deliver services and how we restructure our city finances because You can't use fund balances without having a plan for how to build them up again. which means therefore we have to have a structural budget the, actually provides in the coming years for us saving money away again. And, Right now, unless suddenly we have some big economic boom, that's not going to happen unless we figure out how to restructure our finances and make ourselves slicker and more efficient so that we can actually put more money away. Because the next time this happens, there won't be the reserves there. So we really do have to worry about the long-term structural balance of the budget. And I know Yulia is, worried about that and thinking about that. and working towards that end. there's a lot of work still to be done we got this short-term issue But we have to get ourselves structurally in a place for the, and I hate this term, the new normal moving forward. You know? And that means some We're all, as I said last time, we're all going to have to you know, Um, feel the pain. reduce services, reduce staffing levels, Um, And that's just the way things are going to be moving forward. Thank you, Yulia, thank you to your staff, and thank you to our city manager and all of the staff for the work they're doing. grappling with this very, very you know, important issue. It's not easy. It's very difficult. And, They deserve our things. |
| 02:39:14.12 | Madam Mayor | Thank you and thank you all for your really excellent comments. You've covered a lot of what I wanted to say. I think I would probably just emphasize that in this budget process and like a lot of other things right now, we really need to, find balance and we need to be flexible. and we need to stay nimble. And you what I like about the proposal, from staff about the use of the fund balances now. is that we can get a little bit of time, take a short breath, and come up with some more creative strategies to reduce to find savings in the other two areas that we're talking about. And I think we, you know, we can take a very short breath, but we've got to get working on these other strategies at the same time. So, you know, to Councilmember Riley's point, we are already the city managers in conversation with city managers about shared surfaces, The vice mayor and I have opened up conversations with Mill Valley and we'll continue to get creative and to look for those opportunities. because we do need to think long term. That's the only way we're going to be able to plan through this. So I know a lot of you have already mentioned that. Um, I think the other thing is, As the Vice Mayor said, you know, this is going to be a hard time for all of us and especially for our staff. Um, and you know, looking at what's on this list, I would certainly want to prioritize the extent to which we can find savings without layoffs. There may still be layoffs, but to the extent that we can find the savings and keep some of our our great staff, that would be my preference, but we can only do that with the cooperation of our labor partners. We cannot implement most of these solutions. without agreement. So, you know, I'm really looking forward to having our city manager work with our labor groups and to find really creative and good solutions to find as many savings as we can and to spread that pain as evenly as possible. I also think that a lot of these solutions here that are the, um, either the co-os or working reducing the work week, Those will allow us to be more nimble and to pivot more easily back to full fighting strength if we are able to manage our way out of this crisis. So I like that approach, but we can't do it unilaterally. Um, so. I'm really hoping for a good partnership moving forward and to be able to really use some of these strategies that are laid out in our staff report. So this is a tough, it is a very tough time. These are really hard discussions. But again, as I said last week, I think we've got a great team Um, both here at the city council level with our city manager and our staff just feeling Very grateful. every week to be meeting here and having these discussions with this group. So thank you. for that. Does anybody have Anything to add? Okay, and then I think we, I think we have unanimous agreement about the level uh, the number and the amount of the use of the fund balances. Is there any council member who is not in agreement with that staff recommendation. I think I heard everyone. express agreement. Okay, so that is the direction to staff. I think that was the main point. along with the CIP. and we can move on. on our agenda to item 6C. So I wanna thank our fire chief, Chris Tebbs for being here tonight and for waiting for the end of our budget discussion. We wanted to have fresh, Fresh Mimes for that discussion. So thank you very much for being here later in the evening. We really appreciate it. |
| 02:43:50.11 | Chief Tebbs | Thank you, Madam Mayor. And good evening, Council. It's good to see everyone tonight. With all of our focus on COVID-19, it's hard to believe that the fire season is upon us again. And with that in mind, I've asked our deputy chief, Tom Welch, to prepare and present a report on our assessment of the upcoming fire season for the council in our community. Um, as I, I'm gonna have a few opening comments, but, um, as I'm speaking about, uh, a couple of points, I'll ask chief Welch to go ahead and bring up our slide presentation. So as the council knows, 2017 and 2018 were two of the worst fire seasons on record in the Northern California area. number of powerful lessons came from these experiences many of which turned into action here in marin county These events have also caused heightened attention and concern on the part of those we serve. Tonight we'd like to share with the council and the community The current forecast for the upcoming fire season We share this to help arm the community with information that they can leverage to take action. And we also wanna share with the community what their fire district and firefighters are doing in preparation for the upcoming fire season. Finally, we also wanna take this opportunity to again reinforce with the council and the community, the importance of preparing for emergencies and disasters, whether we're talking about wildland fire, earthquakes, or other natural or manmade disasters. Individual preparation is a key element to our strategy that decreases the risks to our citizens and our way of life. And with that, I'll ask Chief Welch to kick off our presentation. |
| 02:45:26.65 | Tom Lepcher | Thank you, Chief Tebbs. I just want to confirm with the panel that you can hear me and I'm sharing my screen with you. |
| 02:45:33.01 | Unknown | Yes. |
| 02:45:34.11 | Tom Lepcher | Thank you. |
| 02:45:34.46 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:45:36.13 | Tom Lepcher | Madam Mayor, council members, manager Poulter, my name's Tom Lepcher, I serve the Southern Fire Protection District's deputy chief of operations training Tonight we're going to review current conditions, provide some projections, As Chief Tebbs mentioned, armed you with information to share with your constituency. and share, I'm sorry, We're going to also review some of the opportunities that we're taking to inform the community and work with the community and protect the community. educational opportunities in a COVID sensitive way. engineering controls that we're working on day in and day out. enforcement activities. and our emergency response and then I'll stand by with Chief Tubbs to answer any questions you may have. |
| 02:46:28.11 | Tom Lepcher | So fire season is on its way. California has a foreign fauna and climate that is conducive to that. In fact, many of our plant life is necessary for it. but we are having and experiencing drought conditions currently. and we've had a below average wet season that contributes to this drought with below normal snowpack in the northern region of the state. And as you can note from this, that there are several areas within the northern part of the state that are abnormally dry, moderate drought, severe drought, and then in the extreme northern part of the state at the Oregon border, we're in that bordering that exceptional drought for that area. Drought leads to disease and bug kill off of our trees. vegetation and it primes our vegetation to be able to burn. more readily. During drought conditions, we've had similar disastrous fires, such as the Tubbs Fire, the Valley Fire, the Nunn's Fire, and the Thomas Fire. Um, Those fires led to large acreage loss, structure loss, and sometimes fatalities. Last year, we'll note that the Kincaid Fire, just 40 miles north of us, was the largest fire on record for Sonoma County. and last season actually was considered by many to be a much lighter season than the previous seasons experienced in 2017 and 2018. Brought to you by the Predictive Services for Northern California, and a little bit of information from NOAA. about our weather conditions. This is what is being predicted for April through May, a normal type fire season, which is what we've seen up into the recent wet the last couple days, which was fires in Marin County, small fires that were able to be contained by initial attack resources. And in the East Bay, the Eastern edges of Contra Costa Alameda County, in Santa Clara County that had an increase or an uptick in firestorms but they were all able to be contained by initial attack resources. As we move into June, you'll notice the red And that's the above normal. areas in the Sierra at that three to 6,000 foot level. what's left of the snowpack sitting on dry and ready fuels. And then as you move into July, you can see how the of abnormal area spreads across the northern state and then comes down the mend just, you know, various. And then I ask you to use your imagination here, what August, September, and October could look like if July is already ready. it'll give you an understanding of what we're anticipating for later fall. So we operate a from the four E's, education, engineering, enforcement, and emergency response. And this is some of the information we provided, and I hope you've received it in the mail, regarding our anticipation of fire season and the simple things that you can do. This was a mailer that came out about two weeks ago. We also have other COVID-sensitive things that we're doing, living with fire classes to help inform the community, educate them, and arm them with simple things that they can do to help protect themselves during a wildland-type fire. We have videos that are under development will be pushed out through our social media outlets, websites and things of that nature. And Chief Tebbs has written a letter to clarify some of the shelter in place order information and what you can still do under this COVID-19 type situation. We were planning several evacuation drills through Sausalito and through the other communities, and those have all been postponed for obvious reasons. Engineering controls. Engineering controls is the basic step of placing buffers between wildland and our residents can do this in a number of ways by reducing fuels. In this picture here, you see grazing opportunities. that are being taken that take the fuels down and offer as a fuel buffer. A silver and fire protection district was successful in securing a large Cal Fire Grant for almost three quarters of a million dollars to enhance some already done work and put some new work in the Tam Valley area, Tennessee Valley, that will create a nice separation between Town Valley and Brent City. We're going to have a The neighborhood chipper programs, very popular programs, I think through our Sausalito and our neighboring areas serve to assist residents in removing the biomass. and hauling it. And then we have started to work aggressively reducing fuels along our primary and secondary evacuation routes to allow for good egress and ingress for our firefighters. Enforcement activities always start with education. It's a high touch, I touch operation where we're knocking on doors, we're talking with people, helping arm them with information, and that they can take and use to help prepare their home. But that gets us about 90% of the way, there are still some who don't participate as much. And so we go through an enforcement process where we provide a number of notices generally in our areas that we do have high compliance. from our residents. And then emergency response. Our firefighters are learning how to walk and chew gum in the COVID situation. We will have firefighting operations in close close kind of combat situations here so we're learning how to do that putting plans together practicing those plans Currently we're training often on responding to wildland fires and then making sure that our equipment is maintained and ready to go. And this is a copy of the letter that Chief Tubbs sent out to the community, all communities served by the Southern Fire Protection District and the city of Mill Valley. And it provided excellent information for communities too. take appropriate action to help repair their homes. And with that, I'll stand with Chief Tubbs to answer any questions you might have. |
| 02:53:06.02 | Madam Mayor | Great, thank you. I'm trying to get my video back on here. Great, thank you both. It is definitely important when we're in the middle of one emergency not to lose sight of the other issues that are probably a lot more likely that we'll face than a pandemic. So I really appreciate your coming tonight and keeping our focus. as it should be on this important issue. Are there questions from council members? Okay, that was a great report. Why don't we see if we've got public comment? |
| 02:53:46.18 | Heidi Scoble | is the time for the public to address the city council regarding this agenda item. Public comment will be accepted by video or audio participation via Zoom. One may comment via video or audio by either raising their hand in the Zoom application, or if you're using a phone, you can press star nine. Each speaker will be notified when they have 30 seconds left to speak, and again, when their time has elapsed. |
| 02:54:13.01 | Madam Mayor | Okay. I don't see any public comment. I see anyone raising their hand. |
| 02:54:19.85 | Heidi Scoble | That is correct, there are no hands raised. |
| 02:54:23.63 | Madam Mayor | Okay, great. Really appreciate your time, both of you tonight and a thorough presentation. And again, for keeping our focus on our other I was hoping we were just here. We didn't have to worry about that this year, but. |
| 02:54:43.93 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:54:43.94 | Tom Lepcher | That's great. |
| 02:54:44.89 | Madam Mayor | not the reality. |
| 02:54:47.94 | Tom Lepcher | Thank you, Mayor. Thank you very much. |
| 02:54:50.34 | Madam Mayor | All right. Any other council members have anything to say? We really appreciate your being here. |
| 02:54:56.26 | Councilmember Burns | I think this is great timing to have this kind of conversation especially as so many of us are home to do our own veg management and a reminder that chipper days are going on right now so that we can use this to get stuff out into our front yard. My street is this week, this coming week. So keep an eye on that because that's a good opportunity to be clearing our yards. We had such great plans last year about what this spring and summer meant for veg management. It kind of got lost in all this conversation, but it'll be top of mind come September and October. So I'm glad that we're having this conversation now to remind our community to get out there and do their part in their own yards. |
| 02:55:40.36 | Madam Mayor | Great. And I would just say I really appreciated your letter, Chief Tubbs. I thought that was really, just as Joe said, very timely. And You know, I had also sort of confused those issues in my mind in terms of what type of vegetation management was permitted, what kind of outdoor work was permitted during the shelter in place orders and what kind of work could be considered essential. So I thought your clarification of that was incredibly timely and very important. So thank you for sending that out. |
| 02:56:14.34 | Chief Tebbs | Thank you and I'd like to also acknowledge Chief Rohrabacher and the police department for their support. There were some communities across Marin County that were not applying the health order properly and ran into some conflict. between local law enforcement and again, our great partnership with John and his folks, I think really helped make this seamless for our citizens. So much thanks to chief Rohrabacher as well. |
| 02:56:41.72 | Madam Mayor | Great, we will pass that along. Oh, he's here tonight, actually. I see him. All right, anyone else? |
| 02:56:50.02 | Unknown | Just thanks for the presentation. Good to see you. Chief and And Tom, good to see you. Thank you both. |
| 02:56:59.00 | Madam Mayor | Right. All right, good. So we will move on to... We have no public hearing items tonight. We'll move on to our city manager report, city council appointments and other city council business. And we will have one set of public comments for all of these items. The clerk could open it up for public comment. |
| 02:57:23.16 | Heidi Scoble | Yes, similar to the last agenda item, this is a time for members of the public to address the items relative to agenda item 8A through 8E. Public comment will be accepted via video or audio participation via Zoom. You may either raise your hand in the Zoom application, or if you're using your phone, you can press star nine. Each speaker will be limited to three minutes, and each speaker will also be notified when they have 30 seconds left to speak, and again, when the time has elapsed. And it does not appear as though there are any hands raised at this moment. |
| 02:58:03.97 | Madam Mayor | Yeah, I do not see anyone. So we will go to item 8B. Does the city manager have anything to report tonight? |
| 02:58:15.24 | Adam Politzer | Yes, thank you, Madam Mayor. I will just share Just a few quick items here. First, you heard an excellent report from our communications director Abbott Chambers And as you saw, it was really a well-balanced report with information on both sides of the column as the mayor had pointed out, you know, looking back and also looking forward And again, I want to thank Abbott for his good work in the currents and keeping up with social media. Again, the teamwork amongst the department heads has been really outstanding. Um, You just again want to thank them Looking at crowd control that was mentioned by the mayor earlier as we kind of look at reopening Sausalito. over the course of the next several months. um, And obviously, as you heard from one of the members of the public, David Sudo, I think that we do need to take special care in attention to the details related to this. |
| 02:59:13.03 | Unknown | you know, |
| 02:59:17.86 | Adam Politzer | Um, One of the areas that will be new starting this weekend and moving forward is that we've re-enlisted the help from Sausalito Bike Return from John and Lisa Scappozzi. but we're going to use the ambassadors. differently than we've done in the past because we don't have the same bicycle volume but we sure still have the same activity on the sidewalk. So the ambassadors are going to serve in that capacity, just as that as ambassadors reminding people of social distancing. requirements. talking to the merchants to help them with whatever queuing may happen outside of their, stores. and be another set of eyes and ears for our police department. You know, we are limited with a number of officers and parking enforcement officers So here's a great opportunity. to get our young college students that are back from school and out of school now, many of them. And then our high school students that are soon to be out of school, in the weeks to come. to kind of build up our ambassador the and have them assisting our police department in some of the crowd management You also heard in the report from Abbott Chambers as we move towards Monday the 18th of May with the reopening of certain retail and the limitations that are being placed on it at this moment curbside. Again, our ambassadors can help us directing traffic helping connect people with with those businesses as deliveries or service to their cars or to those that are queuing out in front. of the business. are doing it safely. We're very appreciative of Lisa and John again These are two folks that anytime we call on them, they step forward, they lean in, And again, my heartfelt thanks to them for their commitment to our community and thankful they're on our team. The mayor also shared earlier that I was appointed by the city managers association to represent the city, the 11 cities in our county on the Marin Recovers Steering Committee. and we'll be holding our first meeting this coming Thursday afternoon. And so I'll have things to report as we come out of those meetings. My understanding, I have not yet seen the agenda but my understanding is that we will get briefings of the 15 subcommittees that are working on all of the different component of reopening Marin County. As the mayor said in conjunction with the other five counties here in the Bay Area that our county health official is working with One other committee that the Marine managers have appointed me to along with my fellow City Manager from Larkspur, Dan Schwartz. is that we're joining the mayor and Councilmember Burns on the Marin County Council Marin County Council of Mayors. committees. economic recovery committee and they held a meeting, the first meeting I attended, they've had a couple meetings in advance, but the first meeting that I attended was this past Friday and again, a lot of really great ideas coming from that committee. Again, the main focus that I have shared with the co-chair of the MCCMC Committee. is that we have to be working in cooperation and collaboration with the county, with the council members and with the managers so that we're complementing and not competing as we move forward. And I can't tell you how strongly that has been embraced by our fellow elected officials here in the county. So. we're off to a very good start. I will end my report there. I think a lot of what you heard earlier from committee reports and also from our Public Works Director on Capital Projects, and then obviously from our Administrative Services Director, Assistant City Manager, Julia Carter. Those are other things that I've clearly been working on with your fellow department heads. So I'm happy to answer any questions. That ends my report. |
| 03:03:40.67 | Madam Mayor | Great, thank you so much. Are there any questions for the city manager? Okay, seeing none, we will move on to appointments to boards, commissions, and committees. I have been working with the clerk about getting this process back up and started. We do have a number of of folks who are over their terms. So we will get back on track with that. But I think the most important committee right now to populate is our economic Development Advisory Committee, So as was mentioned earlier by Councilmember Riley and Burns, we are going to try to get a special meeting set up, I think, as soon as we possibly can. It's very encouraging that we've got huge number. of applicants, but I think we need to think creatively about how we are going to conduct that interview process. So... I believe you are working with the clerk and the city manager on that. Is that correct? Great. Okay. So we will stay tuned. Is there anything you want to share here since we're in a public meeting and you can inform us about any ideas you have for that process. |
| 03:05:02.62 | Councilmember Burns | Well, in hindsight, we probably should have asked for the people that don't want to be on the committee. It would have been a shorter list to work with. But, no, it really is great. And reading through the initial set of applications, there's, once again, a lot of qualified people. So I think what we need to present to the group is maybe another line of kind of questioning that are really specific to the group. So we can help get more information on paper prior to sitting down with so many bodies in this type of interview process. So that's really what we're working on between now and tomorrow morning or tomorrow afternoon to get that out so that we can give the other council members kind of more information on each person that we get on our standard application. Because it is that complex with this type of, Thank you. kind of more information on each person that we get on our standard application. Because it is that complex with this type of both a kind of a new committee as well as a number of candidates. |
| 03:05:56.33 | Madam Mayor | And do we have, you've seen the list of applicants so far? |
| 03:06:01.68 | Councilmember Burns | Yes. |
| 03:06:02.73 | Madam Mayor | Okay, great. So that'll be coming to the rest of us at some point soon, |
| 03:06:07.37 | Councilmember Burns | soon. Yes. |
| 03:06:08.87 | Madam Mayor | Okay. Great. Anything else on boards and commissions? Okay, future agenda items, item 8D. As you can see from the attachment, the, Vice mayor and I in the agenda setting context worked with staff Thank you very much to all of the staff that participated to try to get and especially the clerk to try to get this list in a little bit more order. So as you can see, we tried to prioritize things and then fill in where some of the things were assigned to the legislative committee or other committees. So then when we had dates where we saw things coming to the council, we tried to populate. that timing. So if there's anything of concern or something that was not prioritized as you saw fit, you could comment on that now or at our next meeting. But we did try to bring a little order to the chaos. |
| 03:07:15.52 | Councilmember Cox | Madam Mayor I just want to commend your the agenda setting efforts and the efforts of the city clerk and the city manager it's really A VAST IMPROVEMENT over the list that we had at our last meeting. It's well organized. It's irrational in deciding what's going to be heard when. I think we all like to hear some of the matter sooner but I really appreciate the efforts to organize and streamline the list. Thank you. |
| 03:07:43.28 | Madam Mayor | Right. And I do think, you know, we are going to have quite a bit of work coming forward for both our bike head committee and maybe our planning commission. to facilitate some of the reopening strategies that are going to be bubbling up through Marin recovers through. you know, our, um, citizens enthusiasm. So I think just for the city manager kind of future agenda items I think we do need to start getting our planning commission, and bike ped committee hearing some of these proposals and kind of organizing what's going to need action and what, um, what can be done under you know, maybe under your authority or staff. So for example, the idea of parking fees increasing kind of a lot of, there's just a lot of ideas. And I think we need to start grappling, with which ones we want to take seriously and, kind of start. moving towards implementation so that, again, we can stay flexible and use these tools as we |
| 03:08:47.69 | Sandra Bushmaker | Thank you. |
| 03:08:52.76 | Madam Mayor | and is allowed by the county health officer. Um, you know, this, I, you know, As much as we love the idea of outdoor dining, you know, we first need to be told that's a good idea from a health perspective. So any other items to put on future agenda items? |
| 03:09:16.74 | Madam Mayor | Okay? I am not seeing any. And again, if you have feedback on the way this list is organized or prioritized, please. make sure to bring that up. at another future meeting. Other reports of significance? Seeing none. And that brings us to adjournment. 12 minutes past 10, not too bad. Didn't get in before 10 o'clock though. Joe will be happy to hear that. |
| 03:09:44.38 | Councilmember Burns | Los middies. |
| 03:09:45.68 | Madam Mayor | Thank you. That's true. All right, well. Thank you to the public who joined us and hung in there to the end of our meeting. Thank you to staff again, and everybody have a great night. And I will- adjourn the meeting. |
| 03:10:01.88 | Vice Mayor Withey | Thank you very much. |
| 03:10:03.28 | Councilmember Cox | Thank you. |
| 03:10:03.30 | Madam Mayor | Thank you. |
| 03:10:04.43 | Unknown | Thank you. |
Kevin Carroll — Neutral: Suggested using the existing pedestrian and bicycle safety committee (which includes police and public works) as a forum to involve restaurant people in planning for future sidewalk and street openings to support businesses when appropriate. ▶ 📄