| Time | Speaker | Text |
|---|---|---|
| 00:00:10.44 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. meeting today, Tuesday, June 23rd, and we will welcome Her dream, who I think most of us know. And then she was introduced to Councilmember Riley before everybody else was on. I think that was the only person that she doesn't know. But for an interview for the pedestrian, and bicycle advisory committee. So Marjorie, thanks for being with us tonight. And we usually just ask a couple questions and get to know about your interest and usually lead off kind of with the, most pertinent and obvious question of why you would like to join the pedestrian and Bicycle Advisory Committee, which I think I can guess the answer to. I'll let you give it. |
| 00:00:54.88 | Marjorie (Unknown) | I'm very involved in cycling in Sausalito and I'd like to be part of the conversation as to how we address pedestrian and bicycle needs moving forward to improve the livability of sources of |
| 00:01:13.42 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Great, have you joined any of the PBAC meetings before? Thank you. |
| 00:01:18.65 | Marjorie (Unknown) | Yes, I was at the last one and sometime last year I went to a couple portions there after but I haven't been a regular attendee. Thank you. Come on. There haven't been that many since I've been |
| 00:01:35.04 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Yeah. |
| 00:01:35.29 | Marjorie (Unknown) | Please. |
| 00:01:36.69 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Yeah, they were one of our more recent ones to get back up and running. I remember the first time I met you, you told me, and you came to Sausalito was on a bicycle. Yeah. |
| 00:01:49.70 | Marjorie (Unknown) | Yes. |
| 00:01:49.97 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | you |
| 00:01:50.63 | Marjorie (Unknown) | Yeah, that's exactly right. Craig and I cycled over the Golden Gate Bridge. We were in San Francisco on vacation. |
| 00:01:50.81 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | the because I- |
| 00:01:59.45 | Marjorie (Unknown) | We cycled over and that's how we found Sausalito and we had a conversation at Spinnaker Bar. over a glass of champagne and I said, I could live here. So that's how we ended up. |
| 00:02:10.04 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | I agree with you. That's great. So do other council members have questions? Joe, Council Member Burns. |
| 00:02:20.68 | Councilmember Burns | Thank you. Hi, Marjorie. I know you have experience in cycling and how the bike works in community throughout the United States and |
| 00:02:22.52 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | I, uh... |
| 00:02:33.63 | Councilmember Burns | and abroad. Um, I know this is probably a 100 page answer, but if you could just do a really quick answer on what's one of the most glaring needs we have right here in Sausalito, as far as making us one of those types of communities that you've seen elsewhere. |
| 00:02:49.13 | Marjorie (Unknown) | Wow. Okay. |
| 00:02:52.06 | Councilmember Burns | As quick and short as you can. |
| 00:02:54.67 | Marjorie (Unknown) | If we can show this, okay. Well, I think that it's important that we look at all the needs of everybody, that it's not just about bicycles, it's about pedestrians and it's about, actually it's about the livability of Sorceleta. It's about accommodating cars, but understanding they aren't the priority, people are the priority. And so there's alternatives now, and I think Seeing the e-bike in this transformation, gives a lot of people the opportunity and the ability now to be involved in a more outdoors way of life. And I think that we in Sorcerito are perfectly set to enable that for people. and encourage it in our residence. And. also manage what's happening on an annual basis with the |
| 00:03:45.18 | Carolyn Revell | and you're |
| 00:03:47.61 | Marjorie (Unknown) | big influx of tourists in the tourist season, but also generally during the week and the weekends when we have a lot of people from San Francisco and elsewhere cycling through Sorcerito. I'd like to see in Sorceblito more of a control aspect there. in terms of making it more pleasant for our residents, but also more pleasant for our visitors as well, it's for everybody. So it's really, I'm looking at more inclusive, Um, but, putting in place some rules and guidance because there's a lot of ignorance, I think, and a lot of people about And what bicycles should be doing and can be doing. There's a lot of people who have not been on a bicycle, and therefore don't quite appreciate sometimes the challenges of cycling. in a busy area with fast cars and a lot of parking. |
| 00:04:47.39 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. That was... |
| 00:04:50.20 | Councilmember Burns | Thank you. |
| 00:04:51.11 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Yeah, thank you. Incredibly succinct. |
| 00:04:53.17 | Councilmember Burns | Yeah. That was a better answer than the question. |
| 00:04:55.53 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | And I don't know if all of you got, I think Marjorie sent at least some of us a really great book on biking. Nice one that's on my summer week. |
| 00:05:05.27 | Marjorie (Unknown) | Yeah. I sent unsolicited copy reading material to all council members. Well, I would apologise for that, but hopefully you managed to read something out, which I found is very useful myself. |
| 00:05:17.84 | Councilmember Riley | Thank you for the book, Marjorie. I do appreciate it. |
| 00:05:20.81 | Marjorie (Unknown) | Thank you. |
| 00:05:20.82 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | You're welcome. Great. Are there any other questions? I think Joe's question really captured almost everything. It's a very articulate answer. So thank you for that. All right, well, we are going to start our meeting at 615 so we're going to let you get on to your evening and thank you so much for your interest and then later tonight the appointments to the jack are on our agenda. |
| 00:05:43.76 | Marjorie (Unknown) | you very much thank you everyone for your time have a lovely evening Goodbye. Good luck with the music. |
| 00:05:47.49 | Councilmember Cox | Thank you. Thank you so much for your time and for volunteering. Yeah, thank you. You're welcome. |
| 00:05:53.95 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | about shook minutes before we open up an open session for that so we can just mute and um Didn't Heidi set it up as a separate session? Well, we have to open open. No, this is our open session meeting. |
| 00:06:13.44 | Councilmember Cox | Okay. Okay. |
| 00:06:14.84 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | And so we should, mute ourselves for now and then come back at 615. We'll use this zoom. to open. and then we will go into the other number for the close. |
| 00:06:25.86 | Councilmember Cox | Sounds good. Thank you. |
| 00:06:27.31 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Yeah. |
| 00:06:37.12 | Heidi Scoble | Let me know when you're ready. Surges clicking the record buttons Thank you. Okay, and we're still rolling with the TV channel. So we're ready to go. |
| 00:06:51.21 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Great. Good evening and welcome to the regular City Council meeting of Tuesday, June 23rd, 2020. Will the clerk please call the roll? Thank you. |
| 00:07:01.48 | Heidi Scoble | I'm sorry. |
| 00:07:01.55 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. |
| 00:07:01.57 | Heidi Scoble | MEN. |
| 00:07:01.87 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | RECORDING TO BE ABLE TO |
| 00:07:02.02 | Heidi Scoble | Really? |
| 00:07:02.41 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. |
| 00:07:03.71 | Councilmember Riley | HERE. |
| 00:07:04.67 | Heidi Scoble | Councilmember Burns? |
| 00:07:06.94 | Councilmember Riley | Thank you. |
| 00:07:06.95 | Unknown | I'm not sure. |
| 00:07:07.68 | Heidi Scoble | Councilmember Cox. AND I WANT TO BE HERE. Vice Mayor Withey. here. |
| 00:07:11.91 | Abbott Chambers | Thank you. |
| 00:07:12.32 | Heidi Scoble | And Mayor Cleveland Knowles. Here. All members are present and there is a quorum. |
| 00:07:18.14 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Great, first on our agenda tonight, we have closed session items. We have four items under Section D. And we have a conference with real property negotiator, conference with legal counsel twice for anticipated litigation, and then another conference with the real property negotiator. Do we have any recusals? And I think, |
| 00:07:40.28 | Councilmember Cox | I'm sorry. |
| 00:07:40.31 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Okay. |
| 00:07:40.38 | Councilmember Cox | Thank you. |
| 00:07:40.52 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Maybe. |
| 00:07:40.67 | Councilmember Cox | No. Thank you. Thank you. |
| 00:07:41.51 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. |
| 00:07:41.53 | Councilmember Cox | I will be recuting myself, mayor, from one of the real property negotiations due to my proximity to the property under negotiation. |
| 00:07:52.24 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Okay, and I think that would be D4, the MLK school site. Ximena Vargas- Correct that. |
| 00:07:56.29 | Councilmember Cox | All right. Right. Yeah. |
| 00:07:57.64 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Okay, we will open it up for public comment on closed session items. |
| 00:08:03.01 | Heidi Scoble | Mayor Cleveland Knowles, there are no other members of the public that are present in this meeting at this time and there are no hands raised. |
| 00:08:10.37 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Great, thank you very much. So we will adjourn into, we will go into closed session and we will be back at seven o'clock for our regular meeting. |
| 00:08:21.74 | Heidi Scoble | admit the participants. |
| 00:08:24.75 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Okay, and then just please give me a heads up when you're ready to start. |
| 00:08:28.32 | Heidi Scoble | Thank you. |
| 00:08:28.46 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. |
| 00:08:30.10 | Heidi Scoble | I will do. We have two more people trying to join the meeting. |
| 00:08:43.12 | Heidi Scoble | All participants are present and were able to start the meeting. |
| 00:08:48.03 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | All right, good evening everyone. And we are coming back into open session of our regular meeting. of June 23rd. We just met in closed sessions. and we have no closed session announcements. So now we are going to move to item 3B, which is approval of our agenda. And I would just like to note that under our consent calendar, item or F. We were not provided the materials, so we will not be hearing that item tonight so we'll take that off but I have no other changes to the agenda so if there are any comments or if anyone has a motion to approve the agenda That would be great. move a... |
| 00:09:35.06 | Councilmember Cox | as amended. |
| 00:09:36.68 | Councilmember Burns | Yeah. |
| 00:09:36.70 | Councilmember Cox | Okay. |
| 00:09:36.92 | Councilmember Burns | Okay. |
| 00:09:38.25 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Okay, we have a motion by Councilmember Cox and a second by Councilmember Burns. Please call the roll. |
| 00:09:43.89 | Heidi Scoble | Thank you. Councilmember Riley? |
| 00:09:46.27 | Councilmember Riley | Yes. |
| 00:09:47.40 | Heidi Scoble | Council Member Burns. |
| 00:09:48.78 | Councilmember Riley | Yes. |
| 00:09:49.69 | Heidi Scoble | Councilmember Cox. |
| 00:09:51.31 | Charlene Eldon | Yes. |
| 00:09:52.26 | Heidi Scoble | Vice Mayor Withey. |
| 00:09:53.83 | Councilmember Riley | Yeah. |
| 00:09:53.96 | Heidi Scoble | Yes. Mayor of Cleveland Knowles. |
| 00:09:56.38 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Yes. Karen Hollweg, Thank you that motion passes five zero. And now we are going to move on to our communications. This is a time on our agenda for members of the public to comment on items that are not on our agenda and you will have up to three minutes. Just while we are waiting for anyone who wants to raise their hand, I would just like to add that we have moved our COVID update from kind of the beginning of our agenda to a regular business item this evening so that is later on our agenda. Okay, I see two hands raised. Um, the clerk, uh, give the announcement about how to public comment, please. |
| 00:10:40.77 | Heidi Scoble | Thank you, Mayor Cleveland Knowles. At this time, members of the public may address the City Council regarding agenda item one, communications. Public comment will be accepted by video or audio audience participation by 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 the phone, press star nine. Each speaker will be notified when the time has elapsed. So our first commenter is Curtis Havel. Great. Welcome. |
| 00:11:26.98 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | So I'm not able to hear Mr. Carval. There we go. |
| 00:11:28.99 | Curtis Taubel | Yeah. Just a bit of a communication between me and the host there. Thank you. |
| 00:11:30.13 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | and, |
| 00:11:33.98 | Curtis Taubel | My name is Curtis Taubel. I'm the acting Harbor Master of Richardson's Bay Regional Agency. I wanted to take a couple of minutes to say hello and Hope you're all doing well and your families are safe and healthy. And I wanted to give you an update on what's going on with the RBRA. On June 11th, the RBRA Board of Directors adopted a transition plan for the Anchorage Uh, A big feature of that plan is the implementation of the safe and seaworthy Essentially what this does is it sets up a timeline for folks out in the Anchorage to bring their vessels up to a seaworthy standard. The vessels that are eligible to apply for this program are vessels that were present during the August 2019 census vessel census performed by the Marin County Sheriff's Office. So what that means is vessels that have arrived since then are not eligible to participate in this program. The whole thrust of this program is to encourage and really enhance the safety out on the anchorage and the seaworthiness of the vessels. So the aim is to. bring vessels up to a seaworthy standard so that we don't get vessels going adrift and crashing into marinas in Sausalito or the west shore of Belvedere. The last thing I or anybody else want to happen is have somebody injured or killed on a vessel that's gone adrift, not to mention the environmental impacts involved with that. The program is going to kick off in the very beginning of July. What's going to happen is myself and our assistant harbour master, David Mashinsky, is going to be, we're gonna get out on the boat and go boat to boat and start delivering information packets. So the information packets will contain the application. the adopted transition plan, the safe and seaworthy program, We'll also be distributing those packets through the various outreach programs in Sausalito that are run by the outreach teams, the Downtown Streets, St. Vincent's, so on, you know, Renn City Health and Wellness. I'm also going to look at trying to mail out the packets to vessel owners, you know, that have current up-to-date registration. The way it's gonna work is the first, first, The goal to hit is by October 15, 2020, folks will have to have enrolled in the program. The next goalpost is having valid registration and documentation by February 15th, 2021. And then vessels need to meet RBRA's sea worthy requirements by October of 2021. So it's, The information is all online. I encourage you to visit rbra.ca.gov. Last point, we're really pushing aggressively right now to try to find housing for a number of individuals on the anchorage that have indicated their willingness and want to get off the water and into housing. So we're really working hard with outreach right now to try to make some of that happen. Thank you for your time. |
| 00:14:37.13 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Great, thank you very much for the update. We appreciate it. Okay, next on the list is Sonya Hammonds, welcome. Good to see you. |
| 00:14:47.79 | Sonya Hammonds | Great. Thank you so very much. I really appreciate it. Um, Thank you, Mayor and members of City Council and to the staff. My name is Sonia Hammonds, lifelong resident of Sausalito. I submitted additional comments in writing, including specific requests for information. So thanks so much to the staff for arranging that. I'm here to comment on the public engagement process of the general plan. And this is because like you, I love this town and I want the plan to reflect our amazing community. public engagement on the draft general plan, it's about so much more than just checking a box of a required step in the process. And there's a saying among policymakers that if you're not at the table, You're on the menu. And right now, a lot of our community members are not even getting through the virtual door of these discussions. So I'm asking city council to please consider and to let our community know how the lack of in-person engagement is affecting the quantity, quality, diversity, accessibility, and equity of the input that we're getting on the general plan. If there is an order in place that permits city council to continue to conduct city business online during the state of emergency and you're doing so much great work, But there is a difference between what's the bare minimum of what's legally allowed and what's the most appropriate process for our communities of benefit. And I'm concerned that an online only format for general plan public engagement will not get us the most meaningful input that we could get from our incredible community. So I ask, what's the rush in defining a 20-year plan, so much so that we can't adapt the timeline in a context that's far from business as usual right now? You know, I love that I can talk to you while I'm at home right now. There's a lot that's great about this, but on Saturday I tried for over an hour to access the meeting by phone. I went to a neighbour's house in order to participate. And this wasn't the first time that I've had such great difficulty accessing Sausalito City Council meetings virtually. And I'm here today, so we know that it's inconsistent. And I've heard this stated by other participants during their public comments at city council meetings. But what about our neighbors who never gained access to the online meeting? They never got through the door. So we never heard about the challenges they faced to join. And the two in-person meetings that I attended on the general plan, they were so packed that overflow rooms were created. And now we don't even know how many people have tried unsuccessfully to be a part of these general plan discussions. missing out on their perspective. I think we can all learn from everyone. I have submitted in writing specific requests for information about how the city has analyzed and mitigated impact on accessibility and equity. due to the lack of in-person marketing and engagement. And I really hope that information can be made available to the public before the July 7th. 2020 meeting on the general plan. hope we can all work together on that. Thank you so much. |
| 00:17:56.52 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Great, thank you very much for your comments. Charlene Eldon. |
| 00:18:09.63 | Charlene Eldon | Hi, can you all hear me? Yes, we can. |
| 00:18:13.08 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Okay. |
| 00:18:13.26 | Charlene Eldon | Thank you. |
| 00:18:13.35 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. |
| 00:18:14.09 | Charlene Eldon | Hi, thank you. Um, I'm here to talk about the issues of racism in Sausalito that need to be solved. Namely, that the police need to be defunded and the sheriff needs to get out of Marin City. And the schools need to be desegregated. Two months ago I attended a meeting when COVID first started to ask you all to please donate to the residents of Marin City. I was disappointed to hear all of you, you specifically, pat yourselves on the back for the good work that Paul Austin of Play Marin was doing without any of your financial support. No, no, no donations were made. No other action was taken to protect that community. When I reached out to a friend of mine in that community who has black kids going to MLK, all she said was, don't let them stress you out. They don't care about us. That's what your constituents think of you. That's what the Marin City residents think of you. And we need to fix that. And now that I've attended more meetings, I've heard the public express concern about the pump station and other issues that have been pushed through during COVID. They don't like it. They don't feel that they've been able to participate fully. So I think we have a perfect opportunity here to make some serious radical changes in Sausalito and be an example for how not only the rest of the county, but the rest of this country can function. We have the wealth to support these people. We have the wealth to say Black Lives Matter. |
| 00:19:26.09 | Carolyn Revell | don't want to. |
| 00:19:50.46 | Charlene Eldon | Black Lives Matter in practice, the protection of Black Lives Matter is important to us. prove it to them. prove it to them by desegregating the schools yesterday. I spoke to Superintendent Garcia and he told me that this desegregation process could take as long as a year. That's unacceptable. the best day to desegregate schools is yesterday. I want to see that pushed through. The larger city council meetings throughout Marin County have been asking for a desegregation, or I'm sorry, I did funding. of the police and to have them move from Marin City. Anecdotally, I have two friends who went through the police academy training there, two men. And they know and have told me that Marin City is talked about as if it's war-torn Syria, which means that we have trigger-happy cops ready to make another George Floyd. I'm scared. I'm scared for my friends. I'm scared for her kids. I'm scared for the kids that I volunteered with. And I will be asking for all of you to resign if you don't fix this immediately. I cede the rest of my time. |
| 00:21:04.93 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. All right, great, thank you very much. We appreciate your joining us tonight. All right, is there any other public comment? |
| 00:21:17.59 | Heidi Scoble | Mayor Cleveland Knowles, I do not see any additional raised hands. |
| 00:21:21.94 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Okay, great. And I appreciate the comments both from Mr. Howell and about issues related to the waterfront and then just access. And that is an issue that I have been talking to the city attorney about, and we'll talk more to the clerk about, is how to get online access ramping up as more things are available and whether there may even be opportunities to allow public comment in person for those who don't have access to the internet. So that's something we will be talking about as Marin County opens a little bit more. And then to the Ms. Eldon who joined us we will have on our future agenda items at the end of our agenda tonight. the issue of scheduling just further discussion on racial injustice at our next meeting on July 7th. So with that, we will move on in our agenda. I see no other raised hands from the clerk just confirmed. |
| 00:22:33.83 | Heidi Scoble | Here at Cleveland Knowles, there are no additional raised hands. |
| 00:22:37.46 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Okay, so I'll move on to Um, Item number two, the action minutes of the previous meeting. And I actually did have a few issues on those. The most important one was on the June 4th meeting, page five, line 11. It said that That motion was unanimously approved, but then notes below it that Councilmember Cox voted no. So that's just the unanimously approved should be deleted. And then there were on that June 4th, there was a question mark after Marcy, that's Marcy Montgomery. And on June 9th, there was a question mark after Tricia. And I believe that was Tricia Smith. on page five, line 30. So those were my collections. Anybody else? |
| 00:23:33.90 | Councilmember Riley | Yes, Mayor. This is Tom. The draft minutes for June 9th, item 7A, page five, line 26. There's a grammatical. error, the word with needs to be deleted. Minor, but just a grammatical error. |
| 00:23:49.87 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Great, thank you. Councilmember Cox. You're usually are. Our fly specker. All right. Hearing no other comments. Do we have a motion? Maybe if I could |
| 00:24:04.97 | Councilmember Cox | approval as amended. |
| 00:24:08.56 | Vice Mayor Withey | Second. |
| 00:24:10.03 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Okay, we have a motion by council member Cox and a second from Vice Mayor Withey. Could you please draw the roll? |
| 00:24:17.07 | Heidi Scoble | Thank you. Councilmember Riley? Thank you. |
| 00:24:19.41 | Councilmember Riley | Yes. |
| 00:24:19.89 | Heidi Scoble | Thank you. Councilmember Burns? Thank you. |
| 00:24:21.73 | Councilmember Riley | Thank you. |
| 00:24:21.76 | Councilmember Burns | Thank you. |
| 00:24:21.79 | Councilmember Riley | Yes. |
| 00:24:22.57 | Heidi Scoble | Councilmember Cox? Yes. Vice Mayor Withey. |
| 00:24:26.76 | Councilmember Riley | Yeah. |
| 00:24:27.03 | Heidi Scoble | Yes. Mayor Cleveland Knowles. |
| 00:24:29.39 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Yes, and that motion passes five to zero. Okay, we'll move on to council member committee reports. and this is a time for folks to give updates on committees that they have been part of. |
| 00:24:49.76 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | anybody want to start? |
| 00:24:54.26 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Councilmember Eileen. |
| 00:24:57.06 | Councilmember Riley | Certainly. Just two items to report on. have continued working with the chamber on their Love Sausalito program. I am pleased to report that The Love Style Student program has raised roughly $30,000. and they had their first oversight committee to give grants out. They've given grants to eight of our storefront merchants in our town who are in need of funds during this COVID crisis for an average of $3,200 grants. If you can imagine, if you're a small business, that is very advantageous. So there's only remaining $5,000 in the fund. We continue to ask residents to support our businesses and support the Love Sauce Cedar program so that we can help our merchants. Secondly, |
| 00:25:45.70 | Carolyn Revell | Um, |
| 00:25:47.38 | Councilmember Riley | myself and council member Burns have been working with staff on our plan to close Caledonia Street temporarily to assist the restaurants Our objective was to have closed it last weekend, but we were unable to because the restaurants did not have liquor permits to serve in the street. Um, and, uh, we are trying to get those permits available so that they can serve in the street in our goal is to open this coming weekend. but it's still dependent on hearing back. Some of the restaurants have, but not all of them. So that's the current update. And Council Member Burns might have some more color on that. Thank you. |
| 00:26:33.15 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Great, thank you. |
| 00:26:34.28 | Councilmember Burns | Yeah, well, perfect segue, I'll take that. Thanks, Councilmember Riley. Yeah. And just so people aren't confused that the ABC liquor license was a city issue. It was really the county had to apply for their variants that they did last Tuesday before ABC would process any applications. A lot of businesses, a lot of restaurants send applications to ABC up in Santa Rosa, but they said, until you have a variance, you're not allowed to do outdoor dining anyway. So there was really the county scrambling ABC getting that information. So our part has been as, as Tom said, you know, working with the restaurants there on Caledonia to get that functioning and, and, and we're getting closer. And with that PBAC, the pedestrian and bicycle advisory commission met last this what's today. last week. And when they have a new chair, Aaron Roller is the new chair. Karen Culligan is the vice chair. And they talked about three key items, one being the Caledonia street, Uh, closure, but really how their committee is looking at it is a more friendly bike, pedestrian and circulation plan that allows for the closure to happen in a way that supports good circulation and parking. So as we all heard from David Parisi, he intended that meeting as well and kind of refined that plan a little bit. Um, they also discussed what we've discussed before the bridgeway promenade, the bridgeway corridor between princess and second street and getting some funding from MCBC to. work on plans that we can work with TAM to get funding on that section. And that again would put, take away the median that's being used illegally and improperly to allow for bike lanes on both sides, make it safer for everybody involved, keep bikes off the sidewalk, safer for pedestrians as well. And And then they also made comments on the general plan committee, advisory committee and the task force through this whole process. Some things that the PBAC had said originally was being maybe looked at differently or fallen off the board in the process. So they put together, and I think David Sudha's already sent that to the group, kind of where the committee stands on some of those issues and they're not big. Last week, I also attended my final Marin telecommunications agency meeting. That's the group that looks at our franchise fees that come from our two cable providers and distributes them to the cities as well. Thank you. telecommunications agency meeting. That's the group that looks at our franchise fees that come from our two cable providers and distributes them to the cities as well. Work on broadband issues. That committee has been dissolved and has turned over to the Marin managers via the, uh, uh, MGSA and we're now officially dissolved. Literally within that same couple of day period, we heard that there are landmark decision coming out of the federal side on telecommunications that will pretty much make it impossible for cities to stop 5G or control 5G. So that battle continues to wage And now the Marin managers will be taking that up. And, but, you know, frankly, that's just a federal that's only gonna go the opposite direction when something happens differently in the White House. And finally, I attended what is called the liaison group that was started last year. with members of the school, the county and the city, the school district that kind of meet informally under Mary Jane Burke. We were once a quarter. We're going to move that up to once a month. Kind of shedding light on what's going on in each jurisdiction as well as the school. They've been very powerful meetings. And, you know, in reference to the public comment before, we've been... heavily engaged in the process of desegregation, Um, Unfortunately at this meeting, both heads of school, and Mary Jane herself had previously booked meetings. So it was more just of a social discussion that we had on social justice and Black Lives Matter. And it was very powerful. for us to have that meeting, I think, and really talk more social issues than just the school, which is obviously is important. So that had its own benefit to it. And I think we've all been in tune with the Juneteenth meeting that's gone on to Marin City, as well as the other events they've had over there and attended that as well. That is my report. |
| 00:31:25.53 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Can I just ask a follow-up question? |
| 00:31:27.50 | Councilmember Burns | bet. |
| 00:31:28.34 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | So the committee that you just talked about, is that the unification task force committee? |
| 00:31:32.44 | Councilmember Burns | No, no. So it started It started, I'd say about a year ago during my mayor year and Mary Jane wanted to kind of Mary Jane Burke School Superintendent wanted to get some of us in the room to have, and it was a luncheon actually, and we met physically for lunch. and with very soft agenda, if one was done at all, Curtis Robinson. Um, district on the board. I can't think of what district number four, Board of Education. chairs that somewhat. And, um, so it's an informal group, but The president of WCA Weinheimer is on that. heads of school, Kate Sears. Mary Jane. Mer Terina Mars. And, And we just kind of update on each other and what's going on and how, and like I often update both what we're doing for children in Sausalito, how we're working with the school and what the city of Sausalito is working on. So more of an update social lunch. |
| 00:32:41.80 | Councilmember Burns | Thank you. |
| 00:32:41.82 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Great. |
| 00:32:42.05 | Councilmember Burns | Bye. We've now called it the liaison group. |
| 00:32:42.46 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | What about Okay, that sounds great. Are either you or Tom on the unification task force? |
| 00:32:50.15 | Councilmember Burns | The unification task force, yes, we both attended those meetings when they were a task force. Now that they've broken off, we have not other than gone to the workshop meetings. |
| 00:33:00.03 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Yeah, because I just realized that those meetings have been ongoing, but they're not publicly available and that there's a lot of that's gone on, but, you know, it's just starting to sort of emerge. So, I really hope that they will consider making those meetings public. going. |
| 00:33:18.59 | Councilmember Burns | Yeah, I've seen the public, I've seen the workshop public and I haven't seen, and then I know that task force from schools were working. but nothing that we've been in the future. |
| 00:33:28.31 | Councilmember Riley | Thank you. |
| 00:33:28.33 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Right. |
| 00:33:28.83 | Councilmember Burns | Thank you. |
| 00:33:29.02 | Councilmember Riley | Likewise. |
| 00:33:29.71 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. All right, thank you. Joan? |
| 00:33:37.67 | Councilmember Cox | Thank you. Several meetings to report on. I attended the Richardson Bay Regional Agency meeting. last Thursday uh, june 11th and uh that was actually beth pollard's last night that was also the last night of a representative of audubon rebecca schwartz-lesburgh and it was also the last night of marty winter from the town of Belvedere since he has moved to Tiburon. So, And I was grateful that Mr. Havul came by this evening and gave us an update. Our next update to the BCDC Enforcement Committee is due July 9. And so I anticipate we'll be bringing a draft report to you on July 7 for your consideration. They are seeking an update regarding our efforts to identify alternative housing for anchor outs as well as clean up efforts of Richardson's Bay including eelgrass restoration. So I will update you on our efforts. on July 7. I attended All of us attend, I guess at least four of us attended the general plan community workshop last Saturday. I was pleased to see how well attended That was, and we had lots of thoughtful comments from lots of community members throughout the meeting and I thought the M group did a great job of providing an update of where we are and where we're going. I attended the Association of Bay Area Government General Assembly special business meeting last Thursday at which this year's budget was adopted. It will entail A slight increase to Sausalito's dues roughly $300 for the coming year. I attended a Marin County Council of Mayors and Council Members Legislative Committee meeting this past Monday morning. And not all of the legislation that we would normally weigh in on has yet been finalized, even though a draft budget was tentatively adopted on time by the governor. |
| 00:35:48.24 | Carolyn Revell | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 00:35:54.34 | Councilmember Cox | So we're going to have another meeting in order to be able to weigh in on some of those matters and I will report to you on that pending legislation and the recommendations of that committee following that meeting. And then finally, last year's mayor, Joe Burns, and I attended a workshop in April in San Rafael. Uh, entitled learning about race and values with surge. And Kate Collin of San Rafael has reached out to various council members to renew that dialogue in light of the increased momentum of Black Lives Matter. And so I'll continue to pass along those communications to council members so that those of you who are interested can participate with that group. Thank you. |
| 00:36:46.45 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Great, thank you, Joan. Vice Mayor? Oh, you need your mute. |
| 00:36:54.45 | Vice Mayor Withey | Yeah, to follow up on Council Member Cox's remarks on the budget, the state budget, and what's going on in the state legislature, I'm following through that, all of that through. Um, the League of California cities and I mean at the moment the funds going to start in the next week or so when people actually figure out what's actually in the budget. what is in all the trailer bills. So that's going to be interested to watch and see what comes out of it in terms of any Extra money you could possibly get from the state. That is pretty much zero. And the key question is, what is the road tax dollars going to be like, by how much is that reduced, and all the various things about where state funding might be reduced versus receiving extra revenue from that. And at the federal level, well, it's completely stuck in Congress. Um, The, I, my MCE Clean Energy Board meeting last week was, We have nothing particular to take action on. We will be dealing with the technical committee meeting next week. which I'll report on next time. And then finally, I'm hoping to be able to provide a little written report next time on drawdown Marin, the Uh... strategic plan which sort of wraps up all the work that's been done to date is being released for public comment on July 1st, hopefully. So as soon as it's released, I'll forward a brief memo with the link to that document |
| 00:38:48.04 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Great, thank you all. I was going to ask both Vice Mayor Withey and Council Member Cox if might be worth having a brief update on July 7th about state legislative and budgetary matters if that's a good timeframe or maybe in in our August meeting. But I know you've both been doing a lot of work on those issues, and I would myself have fallen just a little behind, but either in writing or orally. Anyway, we can talk about it at agenda setting, but I just wanted to plant that . there. So thank you for mentioning it. And thank you, Joan, for mentioning the standup um, for racial justice trainings. I'm hoping all council members will attend those. Thank you to Kate Collins for organizing us and reaching out. Um, Just to follow up, Councilmember Cox already talked about the general plan community workshop. But I also just wanted to note that we did all meet with the planning commission last Wednesday for members of the public to consider the draft EIR and to receive public comment on that. And then due to the fact that the draft that was published was missing one chapter, I think, or one aspect to it, there will be another public hearing tomorrow night at the planning commission on June 24th. if there's additional public comment. And then you can always submit public comment in writing. through I think the date was July 20th. Staff can correct me if I'm wrong about that. So that EIR is out there and ready for public comment. Um, and then our meeting of the planning commission will have a hearing on the actual general plan on july 1st and we will have a hearing on the draft on July 7th. The only other major item I wanted to bring up is that tomorrow night, we all have a meeting of the MCC MC, the Marin mayors and city council members. And because of Zoom and the way those meetings are being held now, there will first be a mayor select committee, which I will be voting in. The one action item on that agenda is the LAFCO representatives. And I think Let's see, who are those two people that are not LAFCO, I'm sorry, it's ABAG and it is Pat Eklund is the primary and Joan Cox, council member Cox is the, second member So I just wanted to let you know that that was going first. So thank you, Joan, for stepping up for that important role. And then secondly, during the MCCMC regular meeting, we will be voting on the executive committee president. Eric Lukin has his name forward for that. and vice president is Sashi McEntee. So those votes will happen, but we will only get a Sausalito when vote because there's been a, you know, usually in the past we kind of voted as a room but we will get one vote so if there's any input on that this would be the time to express your input and those are the committee reports that I had this evening. |
| 00:42:43.12 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Okay, so We will move on. I did want to just say that the Mayor and council member meetings that Joe Burns and I have been attending on COVID-19 issues was canceled so that everyone could attend Juneteenth. celebrations last Friday, which both Councilmember Burns and I were in Marin City for a great event put on by Play Marin. So thanks to Paul Austin for that. All right, we can move on to our consent calendar. we have we've taken off item 4f so there is one two three four five items on our agenda tonight a parcel map for Edwards Avenue, resolution approving a consulting services agreement an accroachment agreement on 4042 Marion. a resolution calling for a municipal election on November 3rd. and the city of Sassolito and Sassolito Marin City. Sanitary District Phase One Consolidation Feasibility Study. And before I move on to comments, I just really wanted to thank Vice Mayor Withey and Council Member Cox for their hard work on the sewer consolidation study. It was a really great report. and really pleased to see that moving along. Councilmember Burns, did you, so thank you. Councilmember Burns, did you have something? Okay. |
| 00:44:29.18 | Councilmember Burns | I had one correction on item 4C. attachment one, the draft resolution. signed by city clerk. Heather Scovel. Okay. Should we change the Heidi school? |
| 00:44:44.29 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Okay, I think we can all agree on that. Um... Anyone else have any comments? And then I'll open it up to public comment. |
| 00:44:55.37 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Okay, seeing no additional comments from council members, we will open up the consent calendar, which is item 4 for ABCD and E for public comments. I am not seeing any hands raised. Could the clerk just confirm that, please? |
| 00:45:14.54 | Heidi Scoble | Mayor Cleveland-Knowles, I do not see any additional hands raised as well. |
| 00:45:19.40 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Okay, great. I will... open it up for a motion or additional comments. |
| 00:45:31.30 | Vice Mayor Withey | So I move adoption of consent calendar items 4A through 4E. |
| 00:45:37.64 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Second. Okay, could the clerk please call them all with the amendment? museums. |
| 00:45:43.99 | Heidi Scoble | Yes. Council member Riley? |
| 00:45:47.99 | Councilmember Riley | Yes. |
| 00:45:49.10 | Heidi Scoble | Councilmember Burns? |
| 00:45:50.35 | Councilmember Riley | Yes. |
| 00:45:50.84 | Vice Mayor Withey | Thank you. |
| 00:45:51.30 | Heidi Scoble | Councilmember Cox. Yes. Vice Mayor Withey. |
| 00:45:55.09 | Vice Mayor Withey | Yes. |
| 00:45:55.65 | Heidi Scoble | Thank you. Mayor Cleveland Knowles. |
| 00:45:58.28 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Yes, and that Martian carries five zero. And that will bring us to item five. which tonight is our public hearing items. We have... two public hearing items tonight. The first one, is adopt a resolution approving the fiscal year 2020-2021 strategic resources allocation plan and fiscal year 2020-2021 budget. And I believe we have our city manager and our assistant city manager, Yulia Kodov. available for a presentation. |
| 00:46:43.24 | Adam Politzer | Yes, Madam Mayor. I will just start briefly by introducing our assistant city manager, administrative services director, Yulia Carter. the last four or five meetings we've had updates and presentations on our fiscal condition and our as we go into this next fiscal year starting on July 1. I just want to take a brief moment to thank Julia Carter and her. staff in the administration department, particularly the finance employees, on all their hard work to get us to this point. that started at the end of April. that we went through a really accelerated budget process I'd also like to thank the department heads, for their efforts and hard work and creativity in terms of getting us also to this point. and really would like to highlight that this has been a monumental task to reduce our budget based on the COVID-19 impacts that we've had on our economy here. significantly something that I don't think that we've ever seen in our lifetime with the city of Sausalito, reducing our budget in this short period of time of roughly $4.3 million. being able to maintain and provide the critical services and the essential services and the valuable services that are public cherishes and supports. And that's every department as we've experienced over uh, since March 16th, when the shelter in place order went in place. Our creative staff, including the leadership from our department heads, have continued to offer city services in every department. And that is our intentions. through COVID-19. as what's proposed in front of you tonight. And when we come out of COVID-19, to be able to move quickly back into providing all the services that may be impacted based on the shelter in place order. So I just want to again thank the staff, I really want to thank the council and our community for their support. and engagement in this effort. And all of the department heads are available for questions when we get to the end of Julia's report. as am I. Thank you. And so at this point, I'd like to turn it over to Julia Carter to lead us through her presentation. |
| 00:49:16.30 | Yulia Carter | Well, thank you, Adam. Um, I'm Yulia Carter, Assistant City Manager and Administrative Services Director. And the item before you tonight is adoption of the fiscal year 2021 of the Rating and Capital Budget. Can you see my screen okay? |
| 00:49:36.41 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Yes, we can see it, Yulia. |
| 00:49:37.98 | Yulia Carter | Okay. |
| 00:49:38.54 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Thanks. |
| 00:49:40.63 | Yulia Carter | So tonight's agenda includes review of the budget timeline, budget highlights. We will review changes that we've made since the last meeting on June 9th. And we'll do a quick budget overview and bring this back to you with the recommendation for adoption. |
| 00:50:00.51 | Yulia Carter | Tonight, we are concluding our budget process, as Adam indicated before. And we are bringing you fiscal year 2021 budget for adoption You can see that we started this process way back in April. when we completed the current year's fiscal year 19-20 mid-year budget review. And since then, we had three public meetings and related to fiscal year 2021 upcoming budget. And at the last meeting on June 9, we brought forward recommended general fund budget for your consideration. and we received your input and direction, which we included in the budget. And tonight, the budget before you tonight includes all the feedback we received so far. |
| 00:50:49.02 | Yulia Carter | So the item before you tonight is adoption of the fiscal year 2021 operating and capital budget. But related to these items, you can see that there are four resolutions in your packet. So the first one is adoption of the budget itself. The second resolution is establishing GAN appropriation limits, which is required by California Constitution. Um, We have another resolution for annual approval and review of the investment policy, and we've two minor changes to the policy, it's also included in your packets. the default recommendation of the auditors to modify the policy slightly. And the, Finally, we include resolution approving classifications for positions changes. that are included in the budget. that we discussed at the previous meeting. and not as a separate resolution, but we're also looking for your direction, on affirming the city manager's authority to administer the city's early separation programs citywide. We briefly discussed this program last time, put together details and it's also included in your packets in attachment 11. and we want to expand this program citywide to all employees who are eligible to participate. Before we go into the budget details, let's look at the highlights for the fiscal year 2021 proposed budget. Well, first of all, we are bringing the structurally balanced budget, which is good news from the start. AND THE general funds revenues are projected to be 18.4 million, which is about 5% below. already reduced current fiscal year, current revised fiscal year limits of 19-20. And you may remember that we reduced revenues for the current year by 10% when we discussed the mid-year budget adjustment and the revenues are 20% below of the 2021 base budget. The general fund expenditures are projected at $18.2 million. which is again 13 percent below the revised and 7.5 percent below the base budget. The expenditures also include almost half a million one-time capital transfers, again, based on the previously approved the council CIP program for the upcoming year. And, uh, We... We'll... talk about general fund balance recommendations a little bit later in the slides but I just want to highlight here that we We have one recommendation for you tonight. we would like you to consider to create the COVID-19 resurgence contingency designation. within the channel fund. within the general fund reserves. and we recommend to set aside 1.5 million in that contingency, which is about the equivalent of two months of general fund revenue losses in case of the pandemic returns and the shelter in place is reinstated. So if this recommendation is accepted by you tonight, then the general fund undesignated fund balance will be the ball. Um, well, it's actually closer to 1.2. 8 million. So there is a type of here for my choice. or 10% of the operating channel fund expenditures. |
| 00:54:18.09 | Yulia Carter | So this slide shows how we actually balance the budget. So let me walk you through this. a little bit more. Our proposed budget general fund revenues 18.4 million, as we discussed in the previous slide, and your total expenditures of 18.2 is a combination of different things. So you can see it's a operating expenditures, operating transfers that include OPAP and pension. And also. allocation towards the CIP. Uh-huh. programs. After factoring in all of this together, you can see that we have a balance of 200 and 23,000. and we recommend that this balance is going to be transferred to this newly established COVID-19 resurgence. research. |
| 00:55:12.68 | Yulia Carter | Now let me, evoke you um let me quickly recap the council's directions that we received on June 9, So we only made a few changes to the budget. The majority of options were discussed at the last meeting. You can see that this slide shows the labor and personnel related changes that we've made since last meeting. So first of all, the early separation program, was originally offered to three employees and now we are moving away from this, we want to expand the program citywide and we realize that it will take some time to realize the savings from the program. And the, since the program is volunteer-linked. by nature, so we removed the savings that we had from the three employees from the budget, I'm not sure. is we are making commitment to bring it back to you at mid-year with the actual savings that we will be able to Generate. from the problem. And again, the details are included in attachment 11 to your staff reports. The second, change is again we are pleased to report that we've we've reached an agreement with the SCAU employees |
| 00:56:26.32 | Carolyn Revell | Thank you. |
| 00:56:29.27 | Yulia Carter | with 10% furlough. for the entire fiscal year 2021. This is a change from the front load of 20% option that we presented earlier. in the previous meeting, it was 20% over the six months. Now we've reached an agreement for 10% over the whole fiscal year. but that will result in the same savings to the general fund. and all other concessions. remain the same as presented in the previous meeting. So all employee groups are participating in concessions. Well, the next item is also good news. PARTICIPATING SUPPERVISOR POSITION WAS ORIGINALLY PROPOSED FOR ELIMINATION. in the previous meeting. Now it's been removed from the layoff list due to expansion of the series recreation programs and the are pleased to announce that we started offering summer camps and fall classes and ready to offer full classes for students affected by COVID-19 environment. and the program already underway. and the, already showing good results. So we expect to generate a net increase in revenues of about 73,000 to general funds. which will nearly full upset the cost of the position. on the vehicle we will be able to keep Forbes and Recreation Supervisor And finally, at the last meeting, presented a shared services agreement with the Marine County Free Library in Sicily, the Marine City School District for the Children's Librarian Service Since the last meeting, this agreement has become no longer feasible to pursue. but we are still assuming the outside grant funding to cover the full. cost of this position. |
| 00:58:23.38 | Yulia Carter | So on the operating side, We made two changes. to follow city council's direction. We funded body-worn cameras. It's a funding of 185,000. as listed before you, so we allocated the full equipment cost of 115,000 in the vehicle and replacement. fun. and the One of the recommendations before you tonight is to rename this fund. from vehicle replacement to the vehicle and equipment replacement to address some of this similar issues and similar funding requests in the future. And that's, personnel costs associated with the property and evidence Clark, 70,000 is being funded through reallocation and reduction of cost within the police department. Wilson included additional allocation for Southview Park project. At the last meeting, City Council discussed the project funding and bid alternative of 236,000. V- which included 192 following the basketball court, uh, City Council partially approved this. additional scope but deferred funding for the court improvements. And then, we incorporated this partial allocation from Measure O funds, but also included additional $100,000 for your consideration towards the cost of the basketball court improvements. So this is included for you. tonight for consideration and the assumption is here that the remaining funds will come from the community donations. |
| 01:00:09.88 | Yulia Carter | Well, the next two slides, just a quick recap of general fund revenues and expenditures. We don't have to spend a lot of time here. on the revenue side, I just want to point out that we have a $3 million difference right here, you can say the difference of the proposed budget over the modified and the big chunk of it is 2.5 million. Um, transfers from other funds that was previously authorized by City Council. And on the expenditure side, we group expenditures five, categories. So the salaries and benefits represent about 67% of general fund. It shows about 8%. decrease or reduction over the base budget, the contract services, currently about 14% of the channel fund expenditures, you can see 4% reduction here, but please keep in mind that that needs to be viewed together with some additional revenues, about the 300,000 that we are anticipating to receive from the shared services agreements and all these initiatives that we discussed at the last meeting. So that's should go together for the consideration And the... Material and supply. is about 10% of general fund budget you can see 16% reduction in this category. and the finally transfers. have shown slight increase and this is mostly because of the additional transfer. for the Southview Park project that we just discussed. |
| 01:01:50.51 | Yulia Carter | To complete our review of the general fund budget, let's take a look at the general fund reserves for a minute. As I mentioned before, we are asking City Council to consider creating a COVID-19 resurgence contingency within the general fund reserves and set aside 1.5 million which is about the equivalent of additional two months of general fund revenue losses if pandemic returns and shelter in places is stated. Um, and if or when the threat of COVID-19 is mitigated, Council can definitely release this contingency back to the undesignated fund balance. If the council agrees with our recommendation, then you can see that the undesignated general fund balance is going to be about 1.8 million. or 10% of the channel fund expenditures. |
| 01:02:47.64 | Yulia Carter | Now let's talk very briefly about other funds. The city currently has 22 different funds. They all grouped in these five categories. The detailed breakdown for each individual fund is included an attachment font of attachment five to your staff reports. I'm not sure. There are only few changes over the base budget that we report Here. on the slide so you can see the same breakdown for 2.5 million in transfers. that we THE BODGE. We also included the impact from the Council approved rent deferral program at MLK. uh, That's about 100,000 also listed on the slide. and the body worn cameras that we already discussed they've been funded in the Vehicle and Equipment Replacement Fund. little note for the name change for the fund here. And finally, the CIP program is also factored in all these funds, as approved by Council plus additional allocation of measure O. towards the Southview Park. improvements as we just discussed before. |
| 01:04:02.74 | Yulia Carter | And just to summarize everything we discussed tonight, the fiscal year 2021, Um, is balanced. The fiscal year 2021 general fund includes 18.4 in revenues, 18.2 in expenditures, Uh, the city's financial position is being significantly challenged by COVID-19, but still continues to be solid compared to some other agencies. And the, recommend to. set aside additional 1.5 5 million in a separate designation, we call it COVID-19 resurgence, Um, And if that recommendation is accepted by you, the total undesignated fund balance will be 1.8 million or 10% in the undesignated general fund balance. the CIP budget is a little bit shy of half a million dollars and includes 16 projects for the upcoming year. And we look forward to continue working with the council and the community. to address any potential. future fiscal challenges that Maylei had. to help economic recovery and ensure continuing high quality of life for our residents and visitors. That concludes my presentation. and, I want to bring it back to recommendation slide. And I'm happy to answer any questions. |
| 01:05:40.43 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Great, thank you, Julia, for a very thorough presentation. The city manager and assistant city manager noted, this has been part of a multi-week a series of presentations that we should all consider as kind of a continuum of a lot of hard work that's been done. So thank you to staff for that. Are there questions from Council members before we open it up for public comment? I know. I have one, maybe I'll start off and then it looks like council member Riley would like to leap in. So we've gotten, as you know, a lot of public comment from members of the public around the cuts to the library. And to the Rec Recreation and Park . I wanted to start with a micro question. Actually I will start with a macro question. Could someone from staff either our city manager or director of communications talk about the cuts to the library and especially impact to residents in terms of service hours and programming. |
| 01:06:57.09 | Adam Politzer | Yeah, I'll ask Abbott to join us here and speak to that. more directly and specifically I think the intentions for all of the departments here Um, is to look at minimizing the impacts to the community recognizing that regardless to staff's best intentions, the shelter in place order, has clearly disrupted our programs. Just by the rules themselves, we can't have special events. So a lot of our special events have been either canceled or altered. and same with our programming. But as we look at this next fiscal year starting on July 1, I think this department heads have done a really good job of looking at maintaining the, uh, primary structure of the department including the hours that they're open and also the services that they provide. recognizing that some of it's going to be interrupted just based on how we reopen our services in terms of the amount of people that can be in the building at any given time or any classroom at any given time. and then how we handle material to make sure that we are protecting our residents. But if I could ask Abbott to maybe be specific on any of the program related as we transition out of COVID-19 and into hopefully a more normal you a normal A new normal. That would be really helpful. |
| 01:08:31.61 | Abbott Chambers | Sure. The sad truth is that it may be some time before we were able to return to that beloved community library. I wanted to start off by thanking all the members of the community who have had glowing things to say about the library and are worried about the services that we'll be able to provide in the coming year. That's what a big part of what makes it such a special place. The situation that we're in right now, I think is really one of, Experimentation, it's exactly what we've done throughout shelter in place so far as we were innovating and providing digital programs that in many cases were as successful or more successful. than our in-person programs. The place we're in right now is offering curbside services, checkouts and returns. That's available 12 hours a week right now. And we're just getting a feel for how much demand there is. And we're tinkering together. with hours to see what hours are most convenient for people. And what the burdens are on staff is they're adjusting to things like wearing masks all the time, having to do completely different procedures with the shelter in place requirements for hygiene and cleaning. As we move further out, I think we'll be looking at the next phase for us will be opening the physical facility to some extent, but probably just for limited browsing and will only be able to allow very few people in at any time. And I think we'd be in a situation again, experimenting where we continue to do curbside and then we'd offer some browsing hours and we just see how are we meeting the needs of the community as we evolve. We won't be able to do our in-person programs anytime soon. We won't be able to do our story times and other kinds of special in-library programs. And we won't be able to be that comfortable place for people to sit at their computers until we get direction that it's okay to bring people back in the library to sit for longer periods. Just looking further out, I think the phase after that would be some form of letting people come back and sit in the library, but kind of like refining with the restaurants, we're likely looking at taking away 75% or 50% of our chairs having strict social distancing and mask wearing in place. And then looking further out, hopefully being able to reopen back to normal. With the staffing level that we have now, if we were able to go back to normal, The estimate that I had in the budget documents from the 9th were that we'd be able to be open about 38 hours a week. And that would be somewhat limited from our typical, from a regular year from last year, and that staff would be spending more time working the desk and we'd have less time for programs. But I think we'd also be in a situation where knowing then what services we can provide, and I think this will be true throughout, we would be in a position to go out to the community to do some fundraising to try to make it possible for us to stay open more hours. |
| 01:11:49.57 | Adam Politzer | Can I just add two things too? what Abbott said just to also help clarify from the conversations Abbott and I have had, we are looking |
| 01:11:57.03 | Councilmember Burns | Thank you. |
| 01:11:59.31 | Adam Politzer | to have the library open. five days a week, Monday through Friday, and then partial on Saturday. So we are trying to maintain when we get to this point. Right now we're not there, but I think as Abbott just shared, you know, we are trying to, maximize that every day, but Sunday, there would be opportunities for people to actually come into the library. The other important thing I wanted to note, and again, this is consistent with every department, is that we're trying to use this creative innovation that has occurred in all of the departments using technology and Zoom and keep that moving forward. you know, on a lot of cases, we've had a lot of people that have not been physically able we're able to get to our programs because they don't drive anymore or they have excess issues. And so what Zoom has created is the ability for us to come into our community's living rooms. So that's something that I want to make sure that we continue to provide especially during the time when our facilities are not available to the public. So again, my hat's off. to the department heads and their creative staff. in innovating how we move library services and park and recreation services into the next century using Technology. but still protecting and supporting those valuable services that are also part of our heritage and our tradition. So we don't lose those either, but there's also a lot of good that's coming out of what is happening now. And I want to make sure that we keep that momentum as we head forward and into the future. |
| 01:13:41.53 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Great, thank you. Appreciate those responses. And then my more micro question was at our last meeting, we heard about a really interesting and I thought just fantastic opportunity to coordinate with the Marin County Free Library in Marin City and with the Sausalito Marin City School District to share services with our children's library and that just seemed Like such a, you know, compelling. program given that you know already 80% of our kids are going to school together and the 94965 and that we're working on integrating the rest of those students into our school district so or integrating the school district within itself Can you just talk about, I know Yulia said that had changed and that was no longer an opportunity. And I was just wondering if we could get some clarity on that. |
| 01:14:36.88 | Abbott Chambers | Sure. I agree it was a great opportunity and I'm very sad that it's not going to take place or at least not in this incarnation. We were on a path to have an agreement with the Marin County Free Library and we reached a point where we were going through the specifics of the of the job which the our children's librarian would be doing for them. We have a And our children's librarian decided that She didn't want to perform the work of the school librarian, that she felt that the shared services agreement was going to take her career in a direction that that she wasn't interested in going. and that she would prefer to take the city's option of letting staff go part-time rather than participating in the agreement. And she's essentially the only one on our staff who could have fulfilled the terms of that agreement. That said, I am looking at other ways that we can continue to work with MCFL, possibly with a modified MOU And definitely we wanna be a part of a larger collaboration with Marin County and with the school district. As far as the funding of the position, The original plan was for the agreement with MCFL to provide 40% of the position and then 60% of that funding to come from the Friends of the Library. We're looking at having the Friends continue to fund that 60%. Our children's librarians actually said that I had suggested that perhaps I could go back to the Friends and fully get the position fully funded. There's no doubt that this community needs a full-time children's librarian and we can benefit from one. but our children's librarian prefers to continue to stick with the part-time agreement. And that may either be 60% or I'm hoping more like 75% as we factor in the the 10% furlough into the equation and then the amount of the friends grant |
| 01:16:54.28 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Okay, great. Thank you for that explanation. I appreciate it. And I thank you for all your work looking for creative opportunities like this to continue to fill the positions. All right, are there questions from other council members? I think I saw Council Member Riley's hand earlier and then Council Member Cox. |
| 01:17:16.05 | Councilmember Riley | Mayor, I don't need to ask a question. Your first question regarding the library services addressed my question, so thank you. |
| 01:17:25.72 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Thanks. Councilmember Papps, look like you had a question. Thank you. |
| 01:17:29.14 | Councilmember Cox | Yes, thank you, Mayor. I wanted to confirm something that Yulia said during our presentation, which is that Um, All of Sausalito's employees are participating in labor concessions in one way or another. And we received a lot of mail Um, some asking us to reduce one department in favor of the other and then other emails asking us to reduce other departments in favor of some. I know that our managerial staff are working far longer hours than normal with no additional compensation. I know that our police force have undertaken a lot more tasks than normal with no additional compensation. I also know that some of our and recreation staff and some of our library staff. are undertaking other positions that would not normally be within their scope of work. So I really appreciate all of the flexibility of our various staff members and I just wanted to confirm for those members of the public who are listening that all of Sausalito's staff are participating one way or another in the labor concessions necessary to balance our budget. |
| 01:18:58.82 | Adam Politzer | That is correct. As you heard earlier with SEIU, We reached agreement. And our understanding is when we get to the end of this fiscal year, all of our employees, as you have mentioned, we'll be making similar concessions as laid out in the budget as been previously proposed, both this meeting and at our June 9th meeting. |
| 01:19:27.66 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Okay, great. Vice Mayor? |
| 01:19:30.93 | Vice Mayor Withey | Yeah, thank you. A couple of very specific questions. I'm sorry I didn't get this to you ahead of time, but I've just sort of realized in finalizing the review of the attachments In the, just for clarity purposes, I want to make sure I am getting this correct so that people understand. For the sewer operating capital fund, in the presentation you've been on attachment five, it shows the transfers in 4.5 transfers out of 6.229 Could you explain, am I right in saying this is the normal use of the bonds to actually, the expenditure you're seeing is the operating and primarily capital investment in the use of the bonds. So this is not really a loss of any kind, it's just the use of the bonds. Is that right? |
| 01:20:27.90 | Yulia Carter | Yes, that is correct. and plus additional CIP allocations that you previously proved, so that's factoring in. |
| 01:20:30.60 | Vice Mayor Withey | Awesome. |
| 01:20:33.98 | Vice Mayor Withey | Yeah. Yeah, yeah, cool. |
| 01:20:36.27 | Yulia Carter | Yeah, cool. |
| 01:20:37.44 | Vice Mayor Withey | The other thing I wanted to clarify, and this is important for when we get to discussing, you know, the various fund balances and so on, if we get to discuss that. The, was there in this, but is there in this budget? I seem to recall there was, but I wanted to confirm there was. A transfer from the general fund into either the pension and or OPEB trust fund. this year, in this budget that you've proposed? |
| 01:21:11.91 | Yulia Carter | Yes, we did the building the normal transfers as part of the base budget. If you remember, one of the steps in this budget process, we build a base budget based on what the normal cost would look like. And both OPAP and pension liability, everything was filled in as part of the base budget. based on previously approved the council's direction for the pension liability and based on actuarial reviews, the most recent actuarial studies that we had on site for OPEP. |
| 01:21:43.37 | Vice Mayor Withey | Right. Because some other jurisdictions have been sort of already thinking of raiding or not funding. |
| 01:21:50.22 | Councilmember Burns | Thank you. |
| 01:21:50.47 | Vice Mayor Withey | their trust funds. So I just wanted to make sure everybody listening in understood that we're not adopting that practice. But that doesn't mean that we shouldn't talk about, and I'd like to, I'm going to make some of these comments a bit later on, we shouldn't talk about what are our policies for the use of the trust funds. That's a separate discussion, I think. |
| 01:21:57.39 | Councilmember Burns | But that doesn't. Right. |
| 01:22:10.92 | Sybil Boutoyer | Okay. |
| 01:22:13.49 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Great. Councilmember Burns, do you have any questions? |
| 01:22:16.83 | Councilmember Burns | Yeah, just a quick procedural. First, I want to thank you for the library question. I think that took a lot off all of our lists. And quick procedure, changing the name of the vehicle and equipment replacement is that part of our recommendation that we'll make in our motion tonight or is that just you want that included as item six in our in our motion i guess not that i'm ready to make one but |
| 01:22:38.43 | Yulia Carter | Yes, if you can include it as part of the motion, that would be helpful, because this way we definitely will address the auditors' questions, if they have any questions later. |
| 01:22:50.92 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Okay, great. If there are no further questions, why don't we go to public comment? And then if there's anything else that needs to be clarified after that, we can... come back. So I see Several hands raised and I see Lily Leon first. Welcome. |
| 01:23:10.69 | Jonathan Leon | Hi, you've got a big portion of the Lyon family. Hello to everyone there. |
| 01:23:10.86 | Councilmember Burns | Yeah. |
| 01:23:10.88 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | All the Leon's. |
| 01:23:12.84 | Councilmember Burns | of the Young fans |
| 01:23:13.82 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Hello. |
| 01:23:14.51 | Luca Liam | Thank you. |
| 01:23:16.33 | Jonathan Leon | I'm going to let Luke and Leon go first. It's regarding the Southview Park basketball court. |
| 01:23:22.40 | Luca Liam | Hello, my name is Luca Liam. I'm 12 years old. I've used the Southview Park for almost five years to practice basketball. I play on my school team, a CYO team, and an AAU team. Basketball is my favorite sport, and I hope to one day play in the NBA. My dad and I clean up the core area. We pick up trash, leaves, and dog droppings several times a month. We have hung new nets a number of times. My friends and kids in the neighborhood Play here often. I've shot hoops with a grown man who Good. here who was once a mom student. The Southview Court is not in good shape. In addition to needing new hoops and backboards, the court itself is very selected. The ball rolls away after every basket. The surface is also uneven so that the ball does not bounce back to you in the right way. This makes it hard to do dribbling drills. We should be celebrating and supporting basketball at this time in the Bay Area. We just find the necessary to improve the course. |
| 01:24:30.06 | Lily Leone | Thank you. My name is Lily Leone. I've lived in Sausalito my entire life. The Southview Park has served as a space for our community and my neighborhood and my family to come together. I myself have practiced volleyball, played basketball with my family, and even learned to ride a bike on the basketball court at the Southview Park. The basketball court has been an important part of my childhood and I have many fond memories of playing there, but it is in desperate need of repair. please find the funds to properly fix and level the basketball court. It is imperative this is done so that future generations of young people like me growing up in Sausalito may use the basketball court for years to come. Thank you. |
| 01:25:11.59 | Jonathan Leon | And lastly, I don't know how much time we have left, but, I, you know, I want to, I don't, just sitting through that presentation, I don't wish myself in your shoes going through this budget choices that you have to make. It reminds me of what we had to do post-financial crisis in 2009-10, where furloughs, closed library, cuts in all different departments. And we had a fire department then too to pay for, so it was a very tight squeeze. This process that you're finalizing for the parks began right after that crisis passed, where we started to actually allocate funds for reserves. The city had no reserves post financial crisis. This is a once in a generational opportunity, multi-generational opportunity, to get that park right as you've done with Dumfee and you've done at MLK. And it's an investment in the health and wellness of children and adults throughout this community. Now, my understanding is that people have asked that this fund does not be spent and that it be used for landscaping. Landscaping is nice, but it can be done at any point in time in the future, whereas the improvements to this court can only be done at the most efficient economic manner at the same time the whole project is done. So I would encourage you to take the opportunity of that And landscaping unless there is additional city staff to maintain the landscaping is going to go the way of the current landscaping which was ravaged by dogs and the drought. So I would question that judgment going forward. I know you have tough choices. |
| 01:26:42.43 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | I'm just going to stop you, Jonathan. I am going to give you extra time because there's three of you. So you can finish your comments. |
| 01:26:50.71 | Jonathan Leon | I'm almost done. I wrote a long letter that's in your package. |
| 01:26:54.35 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | No, thank you. |
| 01:26:55.67 | Jonathan Leon | And so I won't take any more time. It's a tough decision to make, but this is one you wish it was at a different point in time, but this is the time to make it, and it's the right thing to do. I've seen your kids down there playing over the years, and it's part of this community. It's the only open space in southern Sausalito. And so if you're going to learn to ride a bike, you do it on that basketball court. because there's no other place you can do it because it's too dangerous anywhere else to learn how to ride a bike for the most part. The Saucena Boulevard near your house is a little flatter than what we have down here. And many of the homes in this part of town Have either small backyards that aren't big enough for basketball. or too slanted to play basketball in them. So this is where the community gathers and it's used for everything. We live right across the street from the basketball court and it's as utilized as any of the neighborhood parks. |
| 01:27:37.64 | Councilmember Burns | You can play it back. |
| 01:27:50.19 | Jonathan Leon | And this park is not the city park at the plaza downtown and it's not the MLK park. It's not the five on five basketball games. And so that use was never intended for this park. I would encourage you to do what you can as your budget proposes to contribute to the restoration of what that basketball court should be. It was redone 20 years ago in a very haphazard and poorly done way. This is a time to get it right. and we'll try to raise the money to close the gap with people in the community to fully fix the court. And at the end of the day, if those funds aren't raised, you can revisit this issue and decide to spend them, the remaining allocation on something else if there isn't enough for the whole. uh, for repaving and reconstituting that court. Thank you for your time. Good luck with your deliberations. I wish you well in those decisions. |
| 01:28:48.21 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. |
| 01:28:48.33 | Lily Leone | Bye. |
| 01:28:48.50 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | you |
| 01:28:48.92 | Lily Leone | Thank you. |
| 01:28:49.00 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. |
| 01:28:49.39 | Jonathan Leon | Thank you. |
| 01:28:49.75 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Thank you all. We will come back to this issue at the end of public comment and clarify what we are doing tonight on Southview Park. We know that Jonathan Leon knows has been in this position before and knows exactly where we are. All right, welcome to Bryant Ho next on our public comments. Bye. |
| 01:29:12.97 | Adrian Brinton | I truly want to thank Adam and Kevin and the management team from the bottom of my heart for working so tirelessly. To save the city's jobs and community services. You guys deserve a pat on the back after the pandemic is over. And I recognize how hard you work. Um, I really hope that I can get it in writing after this meeting that my layoff is rescinded though. I would like it added to the record that eight city employees, including myself, reissued notices of layoff after hours on Friday the 12th, through email. It was very hurtful. and been living under. constant fear. I hope you understand how it feels like a bullying tactic Um, It would be incredibly hard to say goodbye to everyone here. and all of the community members that I've developed relationships with I value those relationships that I've developed with the community and my coworkers. And I hope the city council sees the value in those relationships also. Um, If I don't get a chance to thank everyone in person and say goodbye, Before the 30th, I would like to take the opportunity to do that now. Um, I wanna thank and wish farewell to the people that were not able to avoid layoffs or chose to take their time of package early especially Rhett and Mark. Thank you. I really appreciated working with you. um, And if I still have time, I'd like to add that it's unfair to cut sewer staff hours when there has not been an impact to the sewer funding source. and that should pay for police equipment not using capital funding for Southview Park. Thank you. field. |
| 01:30:58.11 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Great, thank you, Brian. Sandra Bushmaker, welcome. |
| 01:31:14.03 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | I cannot hear you. |
| 01:31:25.74 | Sandra Bushmaker | All right, hear me now. |
| 01:31:25.82 | Lily Leone | I'm sorry. Thank you. |
| 01:31:27.38 | Sandra Bushmaker | Yes. Good evening, everybody. With regard to the budget discussions here, I have a question with regard to consent item 4B, which was cost recovery on staff contracting. approving up to 250,000 each for the MIG, the M group and the RSG. for cost recovery, et cetera. That comes to $750,000 if I'm reading this correctly. And I just would like to know the source of those particular funds. Thank you. |
| 01:32:04.40 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Okay, thank you. Next we have Charlene Eldon, welcome back. |
| 01:32:12.52 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. |
| 01:32:12.53 | Charlene Eldon | Hi again, I wanna declare, can you hear me? |
| 01:32:20.41 | Charlene Eldon | Yes, we can. |
| 01:32:20.48 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Yes, we can. |
| 01:32:21.56 | Charlene Eldon | Okay, sorry, I had to start the video. I wanted to clarify what is being either added to or cut from the MLK budget on one of the slides that was put up on agenda, a website, It says that there's going to be a 7% decrease, but then on another one, it says an increase. I just wanted to clarify that. And I'm also wondering if now with the talks about defunding the police, especially the Marin County Sheriff, if we still need the full budget to go towards body cams. |
| 01:32:54.01 | Unknown | and body. |
| 01:32:55.72 | Charlene Eldon | Yes. we are in fact going to remove the sheriff from Marin City. That's all I wanted to clarify. Thank you. |
| 01:33:03.97 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | All right, great, thank you. The next public commenter is labeled Saucy. Welcome. |
| 01:33:17.69 | Saucy | Hi, thanks. I would just like to ask, is it reasonable to ask the question council to consider Thank you. Uh, to and redesign the police department the police don't respond or don't have to respond to non-emergency calls? And would it be something that would save the city money if they had people that were more like guardians than police who could also serve the public and save the city money by you know, hiring to do things that are not at the expense uh, that I think a normal police officer would be at Additionally, I would like to hear what they, resources the city is using to help. Uh... reduce racism. in Sausalito, in in the police department, especially And in in the school system and helping the community of Marin City and Sausalito be able to find ways to bond together. Um, possible public events that combine the two so that There isn't. so that it reduces racism and animosity of the city. and I'll Oh. I'll leave it there, thanks. |
| 01:35:10.58 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Great, thank you very much. Next we have Carolyn Revell. Welcome. |
| 01:35:22.72 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Hi, we can't hear you. |
| 01:35:25.82 | Carolyn Revell | Yeah. |
| 01:35:26.60 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Yes, now we can hear you. |
| 01:35:28.52 | Carolyn Revell | Good evening. I'm Carolyn Revell, a resident of 515 North Street. I'd like to address funding for Southview Park. There is a proposal before you tonight to allocate 100,000 from the city budget toward resurfacing the basketball court with the assumption that the other 100,000 would be raised by the community, As a neighbor, I signed the letter in your packet from several neighbors whose homes overlook the park. And with all due respect to Jonathan Leone, who I admire greatly for his service to the community, we believe raising $100,000 from the community for the basketball resurfacing is unrealistic. I'm speaking tonight on behalf of Sausalito Beautiful. At a meeting this afternoon, our board endorsed the points made in the neighbor's letter, that resurfacing the basketball court may be an unnecessary expense, considering the court's primary use for solo players or small groups shooting baskets. We believe the money would be better spent on installing and maintaining landscape material to enhance the park along with the necessary irrigation. Our president, Bill, who's familiar with the site as the landscape architect on the park renovation plan estimates that between $50,000 and $100,000 would be needed for purchasing and installing appropriate plants. Sausalito Beautiful looks forward to working with the neighbors and the city to achieve an attractive and functional park. Thank you. |
| 01:36:51.85 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Great, thank you very much for those comments. Next we have Melissa Blaustein. |
| 01:37:01.45 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Welcome. Melissa, I can't hear you. Great, thanks. |
| 01:37:09.69 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you, council members, for having this discussion and hearing from members of the public. on this important issue at a difficult time. I think it's clear based on the public comment today and in the letters the council received on this topic, including the letter submitted by the active allies of Sausalito It's time for a reimagining of public safety in our community. We deeply appreciate that you heard us a few weeks ago when we requested police-borne body cameras. overwhelmingly approved that funding in an innovative way for that program. Particularly the fact that you and management and staff were able to modify existing police budgets and the vehicle equipment fund rather than impact the general fund is outstanding. We applaud that effort, especially in such difficult times for budgeting. But as we mentioned in our letter, this is just the beginning of the work that needs to be done to make our community actively anti-racist and welcoming and fair to our city's workers and that demonstrates the needs of our community as a whole. The police policies adopted for these body worn cameras must not make us a surveillance city. We should adopt the ACLU suggested regulations for the cameras. Further we should do more to reimagine our public safety budget that looks deeply at why the suggested cuts as is with the community library a beacon of our city at risk as well as our Park and Rec department and our lowest paid SEIU workers. We are extremely fortunate to have an exceptional force led by Chief Rohrabacher, who is one of the most forward-thinking and informed police chiefs on this topic in the county, if not in the state. as requested in our letter, We should have a collaborative discussion on this topic altogether, including the council, the police chief and residents. Why not consider reallocating funds from the public safety budget where we will have less need as a result of fewer tourists and parking traffic in the wake of the pandemic. to support these library and park and rec programs. We call on you to think more seriously about these issues. Our library should not need to host a fundraiser to stay open for normal hours. I love Sausalito and I would love to see a budget that more clearly expresses our values as a community. The Fairfax City Council recently made the decision to wait to approve their budget until they have a better opportunity to look more deeply Thanks. I believe in these unprecedented times is what the community is calling for. I also believe that you're aware of the seriousness of this issue and what this budget means for the future of our city. As we stated in our letter and was once said by FDR you have convinced me now go out and make me do it and make you do it we shall so thank you so much for your hard work on this budget especially to city management who has spent several hours into the Council for looking more deeply at this issue. |
| 01:39:43.08 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Thank you very much. Oscar Lusario, welcome. |
| 01:39:48.95 | Oscar Lusario | Hi, good evening. City Council and Mayor. |
| 01:39:58.10 | Oscar Lusario | to the University Council Thank you, Mayor. I want to thank you for coming to an agreement with the management to representatives of SEIU. I kind of feel sad that, um, my coworkers and people that are represented receive letters of layoffs on a Friday afternoon. I think there could be more more time to deal with this. Um, I feel, deeply for them. I think we definitely need to come to a far from preferred budget. But I want you to think that we're moving forward. And a lot of talent and dynamic energy that has come from Brian Ho from Tula. I cannot tell you how much benefit I get from talking to them, from looking at the future of sustainability, from looking at the future of energy, from looking at how we can improve the city in all of its infrastructure, starting with the parks. So part of them is to have the library open. Part of that is having an engineer that is trained and capable of dealing with circumstances. Climate change is a big issue, sea level rise. I really want you to invest in good people and talent to work for the city of South Salido. I don't want them to go. They're amazing co-workers, and they represent the future for this city. And I want you guys to have a look forward into the future to have them working for us. Thank you. |
| 01:41:23.65 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Great. Thank you, Oscar. I think Councilmember Cox has a question for I'm sorry. |
| 01:41:31.85 | Councilmember Cox | Thank you mayor. I'm so confused by some of the comments from employees because as I understand it, if we adopt this budget this evening, there will be no layoffs. And the layoff notices, there was an advisory given on Thursday that if no agreement was reached, off notices would go out on Friday. So I feel terrible. if the SEIU and other bargaining representatives did not notify their membership about the layoff letters. But since then, it's my understanding that we've reached agreement and that if we adopt our budget this evening, there will be no layoffs, no need to say goodbye to people, no need to lose our talented resources. Do I have that wrong? |
| 01:42:18.36 | Adam Politzer | Senate Mayor, would you like me to respond? |
| 01:42:20.12 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Yes, the city manager could. I think that question is on all of our minds. |
| 01:42:24.35 | Adam Politzer | Yes, thank you, Councilmember Cox. for asking the question. Thank you. That is correct. on Thursday. prior to Thursday the 11th. we communicated to SEIU that if we could not reach agreement, By the end of the day on Friday, we would send off We had not on that moment received agreement from SAU. So we sent the layoff notices as we shared. Thank you. Thank you. And then the following week on Monday or Tuesday, we reached agreement with SEIU And as Councilmember Cox has stated, assuming that the council adopts the budget tonight, which is what our recommendation is, then the layoff notices will be rescinded tomorrow. and none of our employees will be late on. |
| 01:43:16.33 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Right, and then just maybe one other point of clarification while we're in the middle of this. there's a required legal notice for a number of days to issue layoff notices. Is that correct? So if we are to adopt a budget by July 1, we do need to issue those notices in a timely fashion. So this was not a calculated strategy. required minimum time. Is that correct? |
| 01:43:42.84 | Adam Politzer | Yeah. That's correct. We were required a minimum of 14 days advance notice to the SEIU employees. if we were to move forward with layoffs. But again, I'd like to reiterate if the council passes tonight's budget, there will be no layoffs and those eight employees that receive notices will receive rescinding letters tomorrow Um, engaging their full employment with the city. |
| 01:44:12.13 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Great, thank you. Thank you for that. Okay, we'll go back to public comment. We have two additional members of the public. to comment and if there's anybody else, please raise your hand at this point. Tula Wiedermann, welcome. |
| 01:44:28.91 | Tula Wiedermann | Thank you Madam Mayor, Vice Mayor, with the council and everyone for having us. I did not write remarks ahead this time, as I clearly have the last several meetings. I'm not sure. I wasn't even sure if I was going to speak. because I feel... I want to clarify a few things. One, that we were never told that there wouldn't be layoffs if this budget was passed. We were informed that there would still be layoffs if employees didn't choose to retire. So assuming, you know, without making the assumption that someone will choose to make that massive life decision, We can't assume there won't be layoffs. If that it has changed, it has not been clarified to SEIU. Furthermore, we were given names that would potentially be laid off I don't think that that forgives the responsibility of management to reach out to employees in a more personal fashion, employees who've served the city loyally, I hear about these large corporations of thousands of people who at the very least have a Zoom call with people who are being laid off. I think that even knowing ahead of time, it's very unceremonious and very unsupportive, especially after at the meeting, Adam kept saying no layoffs. Vice Mayor Whitby kept saying no layoffs. The reason we've been talking about layoffs throughout is because They have been looming over our heads. They're the sort of Damocles. It's because, you know, if we don't find the deal acceptable for the variety of reasons we laid out, then layoffs are the alternative. And we don't think that that's a fair choice. We don't think it's the only choice. So, you know, I also received a layoff notice. I'm very lucky that I work for the library. I love the library. I'm starting my master's program in the fall so that I can be an actual librarian. And while working full time, going to school full time, I've also picked up two side jobs so I can afford to stay in Marin And I feel deeply demoralized. I think that that is true of many of my colleagues as well. to feel as though the management and potentially elected officials. don't understand what we're saying, that it isn't a clear message. and that were being misinterpreted. I think that what it really It really comes down to, you know, I do give my all to this job. I leave everything on the mat for the job, for the union, for all of my coworkers. I'm lucky that I work for the library because the library is very visible. And we clearly have a lot of really fantastic supporters. We've been getting so many nice patron comments as we've processed thousands of items over the last three weeks. But I think public works, maintenance, custodial staff, they don't have that kind of public recognition. They aren't getting these letters to save them. They're not getting these fundraisers. And I don't think that's fair. So when I speak at these meetings, I speak not just for the library, which I do deeply value, but for all of my coworkers who would like to feel like a community and like to feel like we have clear communication with leadership. For the most part, we just don't. Thank you. |
| 01:47:32.19 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Great, thank you very much. All right, last public comment that I have is Wendy Richards. Welcome. |
| 01:47:47.56 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | And I think you're still on mute. |
| 01:47:55.49 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | I still can't hear you, so we'll just hang on a minute and let you get situated. |
| 01:48:01.85 | Heidi Scoble | Mayor Cleveland Knowles, Miss Richards is unmuted. However, I don't believe her earbuds are working. So there is a setting on the bottom of the screen by the microphone. And since she is using earbuds, just try to find the connection next to the icon or the carrot next to the microphone. |
| 01:48:25.38 | Unknown | Is that working? |
| 01:48:26.64 | Heidi Scoble | Thank you. |
| 01:48:26.66 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Yes. All right, thank you to our clerk and welcome to Ms. Richards. |
| 01:48:29.51 | Unknown | and I'll see you next time. Great, thank you. Thanks for the instructions. I'll know that next time. Um, I appreciate all the comments this evening and empathize with the employees. And I, at the same time would like to reiterate a point I have made at a prior budget meeting, which is to, Reiterate the call for structural reform. We are at right up to the wire here. And talking about losing this job and that job, and those are real people and real lives. And if we can sit at the table and create structural progress, such as raising a retirement age, then these jobs would not be on the docket. And I understand that in order to meet the current Budget. that The changes that are being made are not long-term changes. you need long-term changes. Life expectancy is no longer what it was when the structure of these public contracts was designed. We cannot in the long run employ jobs that, are eligible. for retirement at 55 when life expectancy is 80s and 90s. So while I really applaud the efforts and the comments tonight, I think it is critical that we not just finish this and put it aside, but that we focus longer term on being able to keep these jobs and, At the same time, think about who's paying for it. Because as I also said previously, You treble the tax on our service businesses and that tax, the variable rate kicks in at forty one thousand dollars. on gross receipts. crazy. that we are making our service businesses in this town pay taxes When they don't have retirement, they don't even have, they're not even open, many of them right now. So lastly, in the last few minutes, I would also like to I was very impressed by the way you resolved the issue of Southview Park at the prior meeting. And I'm disappointed that it seems to have come back up because I thought that was one of the most productive council discussions I have seen in a long time. coming to a balanced resolution on a number of issues and I understand the desire of the children in the neighborhood and at the same time, I reiterate my objection to using additional variable funds that can be used for maintenance of our streets. Thank you very much. |
| 01:51:32.77 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Great, thank you very much for joining us. Okay, I do not see any raised hands from people who have not spoken and I would just like to add that we do allow each member of the public equal three minutes of time with one time to comment. So I will just take a look. Could the clerk confirm if we have any additional public comment? |
| 01:51:58.81 | Heidi Scoble | Mayor Cleveland Knowles there are no additional hands that are raised |
| 01:52:03.64 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Karen Hollweg, Okay, great well, thank you to everyone that joined us tonight for your comments. Could we just, I think there were some questions that came up about funding for Southview Park. Maybe we could just clarify either the city manager or our the changes that were made from last week or last meeting. So I wanted to thank the assistant city manager the changes that were made |
| 01:52:28.66 | Adam Politzer | Yeah, so the gender setting meeting discussed some of the feedback that we received during and after the last council meeting and recognize that this was an important item. for reconsideration. But we also thought that raising $200,000 as the council had suggested for either the playground equipment or the basketball court depending on the timing of when the basketball court decision had to be made. recognizing that the. Playground was the last item. to be installed at the end of the project in December. So, We thought that $200,000 was a pretty high lift for the community. So creating a matching fund of $100,000 contributed by the city, which is what's before you tonight, and then asking the community to match the other 100,000 So dollar for dollar was something that we thought could be achieved and we wanted to have the council reconsider adding the $100,000 as a matching fund so that we can in fact complete the entire part. as proposed at the last council meeting. |
| 01:53:41.78 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Great, thank you. Yes, Councilmember Burns, then Councilmember Cox. |
| 01:53:46.96 | Councilmember Burns | Yeah, so following up on that, we had a fairly airtight plan for the park prior to the last meeting that went off the rail and we removed the 192 000 Where did that money go? It was measure of funds. What is that being applied to? |
| 01:54:05.49 | Yulia Carter | Well, the unallocated funds from the last meeting remained in the general fund budget. So because those measure all funds and they're just part of the general fund. |
| 01:54:19.75 | Councilmember Burns | OK. |
| 01:54:20.41 | Yulia Carter | So what the recommendation before you today, as Adam said, additional 100,000 allocation would come out of channel funds. into the CIP project fund. |
| 01:54:35.23 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | And then isn't, Yulia, isn't some of that money then going also to the COVID contingency fund? |
| 01:54:44.80 | Yulia Carter | measure all phones? No. So the, we are talking about measure of funds allocation to Southview Park Improvement Project. So what we're asking you to do today to approve additional 100,000 allocations as a transfer from general fund into the, Um, Capital Improvement Fund 140 towards the basketball court and program project. |
| 01:55:10.29 | Councilmember Burns | Yeah, in last week's or last meeting's proposal for the, there was no general funds considered for that they were to measure up. |
| 01:55:17.60 | Yulia Carter | We had it as an option for you. We didn't build it in the budget, but we had it as an alternative. So if you were to approve the entire bid, the alternative was 236, I had the scenario that how funds would change, but it wasn't included in the budget. |
| 01:55:23.62 | Councilmember Burns | Thank you. |
| 01:55:35.72 | Councilmember Burns | But all the funds for that entire park project, the last meeting were coming out of either Measure O or other funds that weren't general funds. |
| 01:55:44.73 | Councilmember Burns | That works. |
| 01:55:45.09 | Councilmember Burns | That weren't undesignated funds. They were designated in either measure O or LOP. So now that we've taken that- |
| 01:55:53.56 | Yulia Carter | What the council discussed was just beat alternative. So that was part of consideration. |
| 01:56:00.34 | Councilmember Burns | So the 92,000 difference then is just sitting in measure O for something else available. I'm not sure. |
| 01:56:08.71 | Councilmember Burns | Thank you. |
| 01:56:08.75 | Vice Mayor Withey | Thank you. So, may I ask a question about that particular point? |
| 01:56:11.33 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Okay. |
| 01:56:11.52 | Councilmember Burns | Thank you. |
| 01:56:11.55 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. |
| 01:56:16.02 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | So... And then we'll go to the number of cucks. |
| 01:56:17.96 | Vice Mayor Withey | So... If I'm sorry, I'm sorry if I'm going on a turn here. But just to immediately follow up on Council Member Byrne's concern here. Sorry, let's get my hands out of it. picture. So just as my understanding, that Measure O funds reside within the general fund. as undesignated fund balance, is that correct? unless it has been transferred to the capital. Improvement funds. And right now, we have only authorized the transference of 300, 400, whatever the number is, of the undesignated measure O fund balance to the Capital Improvement Fund. What's the number, 400 and something? |
| 01:57:11.52 | Tula Wiedermann | 96, yeah. |
| 01:57:12.59 | Vice Mayor Withey | Okay. |
| 01:57:13.01 | Yulia Carter | Thank you. |
| 01:57:13.56 | Vice Mayor Withey | So there's still miniature row money there. And I think we did that, We don't know how the sales tax is going to go. So we don't know what the size of measure row is. We don't know what the scenario for further opening or closing would be. And so we're basically, remember, we've got a much lower reduced capital fund balance. Sorry. Sorry. capital improvement of fun. uh, expenditure because we backed off on capital expenditure. So it makes sense that the measure of money is still sitting in the general fund. And if it's going to be up in the capital, it'll get transferred. Is what I just said right? |
| 01:57:53.61 | Yulia Carter | That is correct, yes. |
| 01:57:53.64 | Vice Mayor Withey | Yeah. Okay. |
| 01:57:55.94 | Yulia Carter | Absolutely correct. So there are some funds available based on our assumptions, but the assumptions are just assumptions at this point. |
| 01:57:58.39 | Vice Mayor Withey | There are a few. |
| 01:57:58.74 | Alice Merrill | Thank you. |
| 01:58:03.97 | Yulia Carter | and the, If once council decides to allocate additional measurable funds to specific projects, the additional transfer will happen from general fund into the capital fund. And that's exactly what we've done. tonight when we added additional 100,000 transfers. work. |
| 01:58:26.01 | Yulia Carter | Thank you. |
| 01:58:26.03 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Okay. Great, thank you for that Councilmember Cox. |
| 01:58:31.70 | Councilmember Cox | One of the public comments had to do with the funding of the MIGM group and RGS. Our staff report said that all work of the MIGM group and RGS. Our staff report said for that item would be paid on the basis of cost recovery from applicants and there would be no fiscal impact to the city of Sausalito. I know that's true of MIG and RGS. I was not aware that the M group was processing applications, attending meetings and doing other things on a cost recovery basis for the city of Sausalito. So I just wanted to confirm the accuracy of the staff report in light of the public comment that the staff report was not aware of the staff report in light of the public comment. about the fiscal impact of those services. |
| 01:59:18.49 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Great. It looks like we have our community and development director, Lily Whalen here. |
| 01:59:25.02 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | So. Yeah. and Meridio. |
| 01:59:28.68 | Lily Whelan | There we go. Thank you. Good evening, Mayor Cleveland Knowles, Councilmembers. Thank you for the question, Councilmember Cox. It is true that M Group The contract is entering into an amendment recently signed contract with the city manager. about a month ago for the M group to perform cost recovery planning services for the city of Sausalito. So they will be handling a few of our cost recovery projects and the larger projects. Just like RGS and just like. MIG. No, no impact to the city in terms of the budget. |
| 02:00:00.46 | Councilmember Cox | I mean great with all the work they've been doing on the general plan they're certainly more than qualified to address some of our applications, so thank you for that clarification. |
| 02:00:11.19 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Great. And then I would just like to note that another public comment also talked about MLK and the sheriff's office. And maybe our city manager could just clarify that I believe the budget presentation was about old MLK facility here in Sassolito. that was a long time ago, former school site and the relationship with the Marin Sheriff to Sausalito for the public. Thank you. |
| 02:00:41.41 | Yulia Carter | So let me try to answer that question. So if I remember it right, the question was what exactly changed for the MLK fund? and the changes that were referred in one of the attachments. So there are two things here. So if you remember one of the transfers that you approved before, in the prior meetings was 200 000 transfer from mlk fund to help balance the channel fund budget. So that change was built in in the budget. And the only thing we've added to this for this current fiscal, for this current, meeting is impact of the rent referral program, which is reduction in the revenues. It's about 100,000. reduction in revenues. So those are the two major changes in the budget. I can't think of anything else. |
| 02:01:32.51 | Adam Politzer | I think that's just a positive thing to support our our artists and the two schools on that campus. So I think these are positive. moves on the supporting our our local tenants there at the MLK campus. |
| 02:01:48.26 | Vice Mayor Withey | could I |
| 02:01:48.64 | Adam Politzer | I remember what the question was, Madam Mayor, on the Sheriff's Right. I don't. |
| 02:01:54.72 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | I don't think it was a question. I think there just might be a little bit of confusion about the fact that the Marin County Sheriff's Department serves the Marin County and the unincorporated of the county and that Sausalito, like some other local jurisdictions has its own separate police force. So they're just two different entities. And I guess I was just hoping for to clarify that for members of the public. |
| 02:02:24.10 | Councilmember Burns | And to take that clarity further, it could be confusion with MLK as well. The MLK that we're talking about is the complex on Coloma Boulevard behind the Shell Station. There's also an MLK school next to the Sheriff's Department in Marin City, both not affiliated with the City of Sausalito. |
| 02:02:43.69 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Right. not directly within our jurisdiction. |
| 02:02:47.94 | Councilmember Burns | Thank you. |
| 02:02:47.96 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | but. partners and men. |
| 02:02:50.14 | Councilmember Burns | others. Thank you. |
| 02:02:52.45 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Okay, great. |
| 02:02:53.06 | Councilmember Burns | Okay. Thank you. |
| 02:02:53.63 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. All right, so any additional questions? Okay, if not, I think we'll move on to comment section and if it's okay with the rest of the council members, I think I'll just kick off. It's been a, Council Member Cox has given me a frown. I just, you know, it's been a really long and tough budget process this year. And I really wanna thank Julia Carter for all her hard work and to our city manager and to staff. We have done a lot in a very short amount of time with a very uncertain situation. And I think we've received a lot of public comment since we started going through this And that public comment has evolved and changed. And I think we've done a lot of hard work to respond to the various members of the public and the very good input that we've gotten from our employees and from the public and from others. So it's a difficult and uncertain time, both in terms of COVID-19 and in terms of the conversation that we're having around racial justice. And our task and developing a budget at this point in time has not been easy, but I think We have made a lot of progress and I'm supportive of moving forward with our budget tonight. I guess first I would just like to say that tonight we heard some comments, some public comment from our employees that I was a little bit surprised by. until I recognize that we are just in a very uncertain time and that this COVID-19 pandemic and the conversation around racial justice is been very emotional and just very difficult. for many of us, including myself. So I'd like to thank the employees. I'd like to thank them for the sacrifices that they're making. And I'm very gratified that we've been able to come through this with minimal and it sounds like perhaps no layoffs. and I am grateful for the employee concessions. And I'm grateful for our city manager and for our attorney who helped us negotiate that we were able to turn around and provide a set of concessions that were more suitable for what the employees really wanted. So I think it might have been difficult and both emotionally and otherwise, but I think we have come to a good place and I wanted to thank everyone for their good faith and working through that process. Second, in terms of working through all this with COVID, I think the biggest challenge is finding the right balance between taking significant actions to reduce our spending But while at the same time retaining flexibility, so that we can come back from this economic downturn in a nimble way. but also retaining reserves that are sufficient that if we do not have a quick recovery, we are not caught in an untenable position. And so we've been urged several times to dig even further into our reserves. But as we've said in the past, I just don't think that that's a prudent thing to do at this point. um, In terms of the racial justice issues that have come up, I'm very proud of the council that we were able to restore the funding for the body cameras. And I think that was the right thing to do. I think the rest of our work with our public safety funding is a much more structural change. And as I said, at our last meeting, I'm really excited about the collaboration and the cooperation that we've achieved so far with our neighboring jurisdictions. And I think our best approach to looking at significant reductions in our spending on public safety is to continue to go down that path of looking at shared services and structural reform. So I'm very excited to continue that hard work with both the vice mayor, myself, the city manager and the police chief and our counterparts in neighboring jurisdictions. to be a community conversation as we look for efficiencies and reform in our police budget, but I'm not in favor of cutting anything additional at this specific point in time too quickly, I think that would just have adverse consequences or unintended consequences of increasing our spending due to overtime or other issues. So I'm comfortable with where we are now and committed to making this a priority for the coming year. And then as I asked in the question fourth, I just wanted to talk about the cuts to the library and the park. These are two areas that are obviously near and dear to myself. and to probably most of the other people in our community, and it is very difficult to cut them. As we talked about last week and as I'll talk about a little bit more tonight, we are forming a Blue Ribbon Committee and those two departments will be the focus of our initial efforts. I'm also really encouraged at the creativity that our director of communications, Abbott Chambers, has shown and his commitment to retaining as much programming and services as possible with the library. We heard so many great comments from the public, including that, you know, that's our community living room at the library. And I know that through online and virtual programming, Abbott will continue to provide a very high quality of service. And if we are able to restore some funding I think the library and increased hours is one of my first priorities for that. Lastly, I did just want to emphasize to everyone that this is a one-year budget. We are not doing our normal two years of planning. And in fact, it's probably not even a one-year budget. We are gonna be re-looking at this budget constantly over the next year and I know this is a comment that Councilmember Burns has made several times we are going to come back in three months. if not sooner. We're going to look at where the numbers are. We're going to look about how our predictions are looking. And we're going to continue to revise and innovate and stay flexible. So while not everyone is getting everything that they hope for in this budget. I think we've done a reasonable job given |
| 02:09:53.46 | Carolyn Revell | you know, |
| 02:09:57.26 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | all of the challenges that we're facing. So I'm pretty comfortable. I'm open to hearing what other council members are thinking tonight. I want to thank all the community that's participated and emphasize that this is a continuing conversation. that we will have this year as we see how COVID-19 plays out. So I'll turn it over to either the vice mayor or anyone else who would like to... Thank you. Continue. |
| 02:10:24.78 | Vice Mayor Withey | I'm happy to go next if you wish. So, I would have, First of all, I agree with everything the mayor said, and so I'm not going to repeat it. The only thing I'm going to repeat is to echo my thanks to the staff and the labor groups for their flexibility in working through this. That's the only part of what you said I'll try it try not to repeat anything else but that is sincerely how I think it's working even though there's going to be some bumps in the road that I echo what the mayor said, it's an emotional... subject and time because it's about people's lives and livelihoods. And we understand that. I'm not sure. I want to remind, so I want to build on what the mayor said and actually look forward. But in order to look forward, I just want to remind us of a few things about decisions we've made and actions we've taken as this, Uh. COVID-19 pandemic unfolded. THE I'm not sure. Remember, we were getting all geared up to do our two year resource allocation. which is a really in-depth process where we go through each department's budget line item by line item, understanding it. Um, Part of it was coinciding this two-year resource allocation plan with the strategic plan that we developed and we were unfolding. And this was happening also at the time where the general plan was reaching a climax and this was not By accident, this was planned. The trouble is best laid plans I'm not sure. go awry and the COVID-19 swept us all Um, in a direction which meant that we had to But those plans aside, rework it, figure out what we were going to do. And the first thing that we figured out was this is not going to be a normal year. We've got to not scrap all of that, But we're going to work on put in together a one-year temporary budget, that's based on a middle ground scenario that we looked at economically, if members are good, bad, the ugly, or the bad, the ugly, whatever. Um, And we chose the middle one. with the flexibility that we would be able to pivot We would be able to pivot if we got a V-shaped recovery. into restoring services that any we had cut. quickly. And but we would make sure that we were positioned that in case there's a rebounding of the virus, in the fall and beyond such that our revenue reductions were in the long term, we would not deplete our reserves, but in a way that would not give us maximum flexibility. So I'm very pleased with the fact that we actually decide to focus some of our undesignated reserves into a designated fund that's related to a contingency fund to be used should that pessimistic scenario unfold. Now, we put forward a whole bunch, and staff put forward a whole bunch of possible strategies to work for expense reductions, including you know, early retirements, freezing colas, possibly furloughs, layoffs, changing how we deliver services such as innovation and community development, virtual permit, you know, virtual inspections, We had realized that parks and recs, it's somewhat fungible because you can try and build a revenue stream and indeed we are, due to the hard work of Um, our, a parks and rec supervisor found a revenue stream to pay for his own position. So, We have done a lot of important things, including shared services. Now, the thing is, one of the fundamental goals was I'm not sure. fairness. But that was also that everybody had played a role in reducing expenses. But at the same time, we looked at each department and asked, what are the needs in the short term ahead? And hence, you know, as Abbott explained the stages at which the library was reopening, it was very clear that the library needed some temporary restructuring until we could see where that goes. And I think we've achieved that. with our public safety, we've got COVID-19 has affected the economic and operational trends throughout many, many industries in a way, mainly by accelerating trends that were already happening and causing us to need to accelerate things that we were already realizing we needed to do. And one of the most important things that was a long-term structural changing of the police department and police services, such that we moved more and more to shared services so that we were actually amortizing command structure over a larger office service. group and therefore reduce the per capita expenses across a larger area. That's what we're slowly moving towards. So it made sense to apply that strategy of the police department together with other concessions, which are different than the concessions from another department. because they are structurally different. And when we have a recovery, we'll be recovering in a different way. And so in a sense, what we're doing is if we turn this to the positive, we have a really good opportunity as Wendy Richards pointing out, of reinventing how we do how we pay for and how we do local government and deliver the services. But I'd also have to say to Wendy to remember that some of the favorite things that you think you would like to do are actually in the hands of our state legislature, and it's not city council. Um, So the final thing, Madam Mayor, if you want to point out is because of the way we're moving forward, we're evolving how we're gonna deliver services. I don't think that we should just automatically say we're freeze-framing our strategic plan. What I think we should be doing is asking the question, which of the ideas that were in the strategic plan are really relevant now that we need to execute to be able to do this restructuring that we And one of the items, for example, was a review of all the department structures and it's basically fiscal structures and so on. We'd already determined was work that needed to get done. It's work that needs to get done irrespective of COVID. In fact, one could argue makes much more sense right now to accelerate that in the fall so that we're armed ready when we get more data to know whether we're going to leverage into a different scenario. So with that, we've got lots of work to do. our vehicle and equipment replacement fund. What are the risk factors? What should it be? Size B. Employee, same with employee benefit funds. how we use our pension and trust funds. We need to establish policies. How we use that contingency fund that we've just put aside for so. COVID, how we use our 10% budget stabilization, what are the circumstances in which these are being used? I think having a few of those pre-conversations would be very helpful. as we approach the next review of this one-year budget when we get more data. Sorry for for a long time, but I wanted to just sort package that together and Fully incorporate everything you said, Madam Mayor. |
| 02:18:44.77 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | No, thank you. You're right, there's much more to do. Who would like to go next? Council member Burns, Riley Cox? Amen. |
| 02:18:57.21 | Councilmember Burns | Sure, I'll go. So spoiler alert, I'm going to vote for this budget tonight and the six recommendations that we have on the motions. However, that wasn't always the case since about this time, two weeks ago until Friday, I had thought of voting no as out of a protest to last week, week last meetings handling of the parks. And as you sure can imagine that's very close to me and how I came involved in public service. in that of the four projects that I've worked on in the past. the three other parks and the ferry landing We had not seen plan come together so easily as it had for selfie park as far as the funding mechanisms that we were so close to the COP allocation on that park where we were so far away on the other three. And then we had to make so many concessions and changes and value engineering's on those other threes and still don't have a plan on the ferry landing because of that type of thing. We finally had a strong bidding structure. We had a cluster of bids that were consistent. and we had funds dedicated in measure o that we could have applied to that and i thought that was a no-brainer the only thing that threw that away away was where it was on the agenda and that it was next to the request for body worn cameras, which I also supported. I just didn't support them from the parks. So the reason I bring all that up is because apparently I'm still not Um, in agreement with having to go back to the community for those additional funds when I thought we had the tightest budget process we've had with a park to date. But I bring all this up because I've come a long way to, because of the staff's work and because of the things that have happened the last 10 days on this budget, to make it just an incredible document and a credible process. I hear the confusion in the employees and maybe not understanding what happened in the negotiations but I see it exceptional work on our our leadership's behalf to protect as many employees as possible. and to continue services that are warranted during COVID times. I think the Vice Mayor brought it up appropriately as the Mayor has to do with the library. It's closed for some hours. There's just going to be a cut to it. But the more important parts of this budget are in the opportunity for restructuring that I think we've all identified. Again, I want to thank the vice mayor for bringing that up and putting it in the context of the, um, the work we did this last winter in our planning for the future, because that was an important part. We as council members, have to look at this budget, but always in the back of our mind is future budgets. It's just how we have to be looking at this. Our employees are employees for a long time, not just until So we want to create the type of platform for them to succeed over a long period of time. And that takes a lot of planning and I think the restructuring that we're committed to doing. So I'm glad that we've got to this point. I had to air that because at one point I was not here. And I had a different plan. um, what Yulia and Adam and and Abbott and the other The other department heads have put together the employees that have been on board that have as far as we know had agreed to a lot of what we've put forth here. It's just been an incredible transition and process to get to this budget that I think is um strong given that we have $4 million in revenues and if you look at some of those slides nearly $10 million difference of where we were two years ago in our complete fund balances. So we have juggled a lot and to keep the employees and our structure together that I think says a lot for our staff. Mayor and Vice Mayor, you said so many great words on the process. I really appreciate that. So I look forward to voting for this. Thanks. |
| 02:23:36.10 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Great, thank you. Um, Council member Riley, council member Cox. Once you duke it out. |
| 02:23:46.45 | Councilmember Riley | Um, customer Cox, I would refer to you if you like. |
| 02:23:50.56 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. |
| 02:23:50.60 | Councilmember Cox | Um, sure. Okay. All right. I'll let you close it out. Okay. I would like to say first of all that I also appreciate the staff's hard work in negotiating really challenging decisions about how best to maintain the highest possible level of service, how to maintain the valuable resource of our employees and yet meet the challenge of hugely decreased revenues and the prospect of additional decreases in revenues over time. So very much appreciate that. hard work and strategic thinking. I appreciate the mayor's comments about our need to be compassionate and understanding during these challenging times as everybody reacts differently. to the challenges in front of them. And I also appreciate the vice mayor's comments and Wendy Richards comments about our need to restructure and to not avoid our strategic plan simply because our revenues are so reduced. In fact, we need to more embrace our strategic plan process in order to improve our strategic plan. figure out how to move forward in a totally new reality unfamiliar to all of us. So I definitely agree that we need to restructure the way that we do business. I want to commend the spreading of labor concessions over the entire year instead of over the first six months. I think that made a big difference to our employees. I was pleased to see that the parks and rec supervisor was removed from the layoff list, that the children's librarian position was funded by outside sources, and that we are not going to lay off any employees. I'm pleased that we included body worn cameras and the cost of the property and evidence I support the Southview capital improvement project improvements including the budget revisions. I do want to give a special shout out to our former mayor for his generous support and for marshalling the neighbors to also participate in supporting that much needed project. I want to thank you for being here. I want to thank you for being here. As a construction lawyer, I believe now is the time with the bid in hand to embark on this project rather than waiting through uncertain times and hoping to get a better bid at a later time. I think we've invested in the budget appropriately the revenues that our residents voted in favor of in our other parks and we need to close the loop with Southview Park. I appreciate the flexibility of our library and parks and recreation forces to assist where needed and to identify grant funding and other grant and other funding opportunities prior to the full resumption of their departments once the COVID-19 threat has abated and the alterations to our programs due to the shelter in place order and social distancing requirements have eased. Um, In the meantime, as we watch surges occurring throughout the country, we have to plan and be prepared in the event this virus rebounds here. And so I'm very much in favor of the COVID-19 contingency fund which we can then reallocate if unneeded but we are ensuring that we have the funds to be in which we address issues that may arise. We had a lovely letter from Jerry Taylor. I would love to see us figure out a way to put back into the budget as soon as it's feasibly appropriate. the ice house funding, which is very small. budgetary amount but something that makes a big difference to our community, to our residents, to the volunteers who work down there but also to the tourists who visit Sausalito. I agree with the need for structural reform, as I said, but I do not favor digging into our reserves now. So regarding the calls to defund our police department. This is such a challenging issue and I understand The challenges being faced throughout the country, but we cannot ignore what is working. Rather we need to figure out how best to address what is not working. As Melissa Blastin pointed out, we have one of the best police chiefs and one of the best police forces in Marin County, if not in Northern California. We would be foolish to throw away the good in order to address the bad. Rather I am pleased as the mayor pointed out that we have the opportunity to raise the level of our conversation when it comes to race and values. When I was the mayor in 2018 I and Vice Mayor Joe Burns started a leadership forum to start that dialogue here in Sausalito. Last year then Mayor Burns and I participated in a gathering of Marin County and local officials to continue that dialogue And I look forward to continuing that dialogue with all of us and identifying our best path forward here locally to address these important issues. And finally, I agree with Councilmember Burns that this budget is essentially a placeholder. We have to pass a budget. We have to balance our funds. But we have to remain nimble in order to evaluate further impacts to our revenues and expenses of COVID-19. . We hope that our businesses are able to spring back and that not just our revenues but the revenues of our residents and the revenues of our businesses will rebound and that this will be a temporary blot But if not, we, I am confident that we are enacting with this proposed budget adequate measures to ensure that we protect the level of service, protect our employees and protect our ability to make decisions as we need to moving forward. Thank you. |
| 02:30:15.38 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Great, thank you. All right, also member of the library. |
| 02:30:17.96 | Councilmember Riley | I will try to be brief. Tremendous comments. I'm going to repeat a lot of what you said just to put an emphasis. Staff, you did a tremendous three-month process with a lot of community involvement to respond to an unexpected pandemic and run a process we've never done before. Um, And tonight we're approving a balanced budget that we were facing a $4.3 million shortfall that you've closed with very creative plans. To Jonathan Loan's comment, a lot of this we owe to the fiscal discipline we started exercising 10 to 12 years ago. And it's because that fiscal discipline, we're all proud saying, We're doing no layoffs. Um, I think we're probably one of the only cities in Marin doing no layoffs and probably one of the only cities in California. doing no layoffs. And it goes because we had, exerted fiscal discipline. Um, but also creativity. We ignore the fact that there are 29 light items of things like the ice house that Councilmember Cox said where we're saying we're going to have to sacrifice these things, not labor costs, but other things, whether it's maintenance or whatnot, So there is pain in this. I am most excited about the COVID-19 resurgence recovery plan or reserve. Um, I'm excited about it because I think we're going to need it. And we can all feel optimistic that things are opening up now. But if you look what's happening across the country, COVID is not going away. If COVID is not going away, our tourists are not coming back. Our visitors are not coming back. And so Are. We settled on a middle plan. with a bunch of assumptions of what our revenues are gonna be. And we have to be visiting those assumptions and revenues on a very regular basis. to make sure that we're making adjustments like the mayor said and Council Member Burns and Council Member Cox you know, This is our best guess of what's going to happen. We need to make adjustments. Um, I commend Abbott and the library service for the excellent service they deliver and also creativity to continue delivering services. We got a lot of comments because there's a 36% budget cut. on the library. um, cost. but that doesn't tell the full story. And I spend time trying to understand the full story and We got creative on how we get alternative funding so we can still deliver the services. We are getting creative how we deliver services without having a physical facility. I do believe that in a world of COVID we have the finances to deliver the best library services. I am supportive of our new approach to Southview. I led the discussion two weeks ago on taking a different approach, but I was most interested in building a reserve for the future the staff has come back with a coven 19 resurgence reserve which i think addresses my concerns i agree with the comments on the police i am so pleased that we move forward with body-worn cameras it sends the right signal the right message and it is absolutely the right thing to do not only for sausalito but for for the broad community. I hear the cries and read plenty about defunding. I agree with my colleagues, that's not the right thing. What we need to do is rethink what our law enforcement and public safety approach is. and get creative. It is a significant part of our budget. It is nearly 39% of our spend, 40% of our spend goes to law enforcement. So this is where we should work. And then I just support Everyone's comments on this is the time to look at the structural reform. My final thing goes out to our employees. Thank you for your participation in all your comments in our meetings. What I came away most impressed was how you feel about one another, how you feel about the community, how you feel about as a team. And that really resonated with me. So I thank you. And I'm glad we all continue to work together. So those are my comments. Thank you. |
| 02:34:46.93 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Great, thank you. Thank you everyone. Thanks for all those comments. and especially thank you to Councilmember Cox for calling out Jerry Taylor's letter which I neglected to mention And also for the fact that we have our Rec Park supervisor has worked so hard to retain his position through increased revenue. I think those were two highlights. of the whole budget process that, or not two highlights, but two things that I am grateful that you highlighted. So thank you. Okay, so unless anyone has further comments, it looks like we should probably go back to the slide. from Yulia's presentation that had the last six actions that we are being asked to take tonight. And again, just thank you for all the members of the public who have hung with us through these many, many hearings and expressed your comments. All right. Okay, it wasn't six things, it's four. And five. All right. Do we have a motion? |
| 02:36:01.42 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | to have... four resolutions and a request to affirm the city manager's authority to administer the city's separation. program. |
| 02:36:12.78 | Councilmember Burns | I move we approve those five and add in the change name of the vehicle and equipment replacement fund. |
| 02:36:22.61 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Do I have a second? |
| 02:36:24.91 | Councilmember Riley | I'll second that. |
| 02:36:26.61 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Okay, Councilmember Burns moving the budget and Councilmember Riley seconding. Could the clerk please call the wall? |
| 02:36:33.94 | Heidi Scoble | Thank you. Councilmember Riley? Yes. |
| 02:36:36.98 | Councilmember Riley | you |
| 02:36:37.03 | Heidi Scoble | . Council Member Burns. |
| 02:36:38.98 | Councilmember Riley | Yes. |
| 02:36:39.76 | Heidi Scoble | Thank you. Councilmember Cox. Yes. Vice Mayor Withey. |
| 02:36:44.54 | Councilmember Riley | Thank you. |
| 02:36:44.55 | Heidi Scoble | Yes. Mayor Cleveland Knowles. |
| 02:36:47.47 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Yes. So that motion carries five to zero and we have a budget. So thank you everyone. All right, we're gonna, unless anyone needs a break, I'd like to move on to item 5B. which is prioritizing and incentivizing battery backup as an alternative power source and introducing and waiving first reading of an ordinance about emergency generators. And I believe we have our Community Development Director, Lily Whelan here with us tonight. Welcome back. |
| 02:37:27.47 | Lily Whelan | Good evening again, council members. Can you see my screen? We can. Great. I'm just gonna move on to the Sorry about that. |
| 02:37:44.54 | Lily Whelan | I'm trying to advance the slide here. Okay. So just by way of background for this agenda item tonight in 2017 through 2019, As everyone knows, Northern California experienced a series of catastrophic fires which were started due to failures in the PG&E power lines or towers. In February of 2019, PG&E implemented plans to preemptively de-energize high-voltage transmission lines and distribution lines during certain climatic circumstances to help prevent destructive wildfires. And these are known as public safety power shutoffs, or PSPS. And these power outages can last from two days to over a week in some parts of Marin. to support the Sausalito community, including residents, critical service businesses, healthcare and utility providers needs for readily available emergency power during unexpected catastrophes or PS PS events staff is recommending backup power alternative options be provided to the community. |
| 02:38:56.36 | Lily Whelan | So the agenda item before you this evening is a two pronged approach. First, we are recommending the council prioritize and incentivize battery backup as an alternative power source. And then secondly, we are recommending the council consider an ordinance amendment which would allow emergency generators to run under certain conditions and exceed the city's noise ordinance limitations. |
| 02:39:27.46 | Lily Whelan | So during the 2018 power shut off, some residents relied on portable or permanently installed emergency generators and interest in installation of permanent emergency generators has since increased. However, the noise limitations in Sausalito municipal code do not address generators and there is not an emergency exemption from the noise limits and compliance with the noise standards would be difficult to achieve in some cases. |
| 02:39:59.92 | Lily Whelan | The first item is the backup battery power. It offers many of the same backup power functions as conventional generators, but without the need for refueling. A home battery backup system runs on electricity. and can be charged either from the grid or from a rooftop solar panel system. storage system can be designed for off-grid backup power, allowing recharging when the grid goes down, which adds an extra layer of security for situations where having access to fuel for a generator may be compromised. One major advantage of a battery backup system is that it operates quietly and it doesn't burn any fuel. unlike a conventional gas powered generator. As a result, there are not any exhaust fumes or other polluting emissions. Generators powered by fossil fuels like natural gas or diesel can have higher maintenance requirements than battery backup options and in addition to refueling, some generators need to be run and tested regularly to ensure they'll be operational. The cost is one of the major constraints to the battery backup system. There are many standby generator options available in the $2,000 to $5,000 range that can power American home. By comparison, a home battery backup will start around $6,000 before installation costs. And in many cases, a home will require multiple batteries to provide whole home power. Altogether, one can expect to pay anywhere from $10,000 to $25,000 to install a battery backup system. |
| 02:41:42.13 | Lily Whelan | Therefore, staff is recommending the council prioritize and also incentivize backup battery installations in the following manner. Staff would put together and maintain an easy to understand checklist of how to gain approval for a battery backup system with required materials, documents, and plans that are required clearly identified. We're also recommending the reduction of a building permit fee by 50%. We are recommending prioritization of battery backup system permits in the building permit queue, meaning that staff would ensure that they get processed first above all others. We're recommending also an expedited over the counter or over the virtual counter processing, meaning that most permits would not be sent out for outside plan check and will instead be reviewed and processed by the building inspector and the building official. And we would recommend that that happen with all in-house plan check fees waived or only at cost plan check fees assessed when it is necessary to send out those plans for plan check. And then lastly, whenever feasible inspections would be conducted virtually to save time to the applicant. Staff has drafted a resolution with these incentives and prioritization components for Council's consideration this evening. When it is not feasible to install a battery backup system due to costs or other constraints, staff anticipates that the community will look to generators to provide emergency power. So there's two different categories of generators. First are stationary generators, which most of them use natural gas as their fuel source and are piped to the home's gas system. Many have automatic transfer switches which convert the home's power supply to the generator in the event that utility provided electrical supply is interrupted. And the other category here is our portable generators. They're a cheaper alternative to a whole house stationary generators. And many households will use them in conjunction with extension cords to run critical devices, such as the refrigerator and some lighting or computers. A more sophisticated installation would employ the use of a manual transfer switch, which provides an interface between the portable generator and the home's electrical circuits, whereby the generator can be used to energize selected circuits within the home's electrical system and eliminate the need to run many extension cords. Portable generators use a variety of fuels, but the most common are gasoline and propane. Manufacturers are working to make quieter and quieter generators. However, the good quality fixed generators range in their noise output between 55 and 80 decibels, measured at 23 feet away. In Sausalito, it is not permitted. to create any noise which would cause The noise level at the property line of any property to exceed the ambient base noise level by more than 5 decibels. and ambient. Noise level is the level obtained when the noise level is averaged over a period of 15 minutes without inclusion of noise from isolated. identifiable sources at the location and time of day that. at which a comparison is to be made. Therefore, to meet the sound levels as required by the municipal code, one must either have an ultra quiet generator a very good soundproofing enclosure or position the generator at a significant distance from the property line. and utilizing a mix or all of these strategies may not bring these generators to the appropriate noise level. Additionally, it would be problematic in terms of both permitting and enforcement to impose these restrictive noise regulations on generators during an emergency scenario. which may render the majority of these devices non-compliant. if you depend on the ambient noise at the time of operation. When it comes to damaging levels of sound, researchers have discovered that extended or repeated exposure to sounds over 85 decibels can cause permanent hearing loss. And all generators staff is aware of are below that level. It's important to note that emergency generators would only be running and a noise issue In the event of an emergency where normal electrical service was interrupted, in all other circumstances, the devices would not be running and not creating noise. However, there's one exception and that's for maintenance. Most standby generator manufacturers require that a device be run for a 10 to 15 minute cycle roughly. at two week intervals year round in order to maintain operational capability. And the test cycle is normally set to a time of day where ambient noise is usually at its highest and the device may not even exceed that ambient level. |
| 02:46:43.85 | Lily Whelan | This is a very small table with lots of text, but it is in the staff report. And this is just a summary of the survey that staff did of other marine county jurisdictions to see what other communities have done regarding emergency power during public safety power shutoffs. And we found that six out of 11 jurisdictions and then also the county allow for emergency generators to run during public safety shutoff events. |
| 02:47:15.27 | Lily Whelan | to address the anticipated increase in permit requests for installation of emergency generators and to support the community need for readily available emergency power during unexpected emergencies or public safety shutoff events. staff has prepared amendments to chapter 1216 which is the noise control section of the municipal code and these amendments are modeled after the ordinance mill valley enacted in September of 2019 and provides for exemptions from the municipal code during the public safety power shutoff events or other emergencies. The amendments are slightly more restrictive than the Mill Valley ordinance in that an upper limit on noise is established at 75 decibels at the property line and this is similar to San Anselmo's limits. And testing is limited to coincide with normal business hours, which We've recommended 9am to 5pm instead of 9am to 8pm. Otherwise generators for commercial uses are suggested to allow for 24 hours run for 24 hours a day with an emphasis on being a good neighbor in terms of noise. And for residential uses, they need to comply with setbacks put in an area that's least disruptive neighbors and not operated at night. We did reach out to the planning and building director in Mill Valley regarding any noise complaints received in Mill Valley during the public safety power shutoffs in 2019 and he did not receive any complaints about noise during the public safety power shutoffs. And he was not able to suggest any modifications at this point that he would make to the mill valley ordinance after experience the public safety shutoffs in 2019 and they have that ordinance in place as a urgency ordinance so it was in place during the shutoffs last year. |
| 02:49:11.42 | Lily Whelan | Since the staff report and draft ordinance were published, staff became concerned that the restriction in residential properties for non-compliant generators to be shut off at nighttime Although beneficial for the neighborhood in terms of noise may lead to unintended food spoilage consequences. The FDA recommends that during power shutoff or refrigerator we'll keep food cold for about four hours if it's unopened. and a full freezer will keep the temperature for about 48 hours. 24 hours if it's half full, if the door is closed. Therefore, it might not be practical for everyone to turn off generators during nighttime hours. should be noted that Mill Valley is the only jurisdiction that we found that in Marin County that has regulations regarding emergency generators with the nighttime shutoff restriction. So we are proposing some language changes that you can see in red here on the screen. to soften the nighttime restriction. And so that would read for residential use that generators supporting residential uses should be shut off when not critically needed |
| 02:50:13.59 | Carolyn Revell | and, |
| 02:50:20.92 | Lily Whelan | to minimize disturbance of neighbors and in particular should not run during the hours of 10 p.m. to 7 a.m. except as required for a bona fide health or medical need or when required to maintain food spoilage or manage food spoilage apologies. and the council may consider this language modification this evening. |
| 02:50:44.45 | Lily Whelan | The fiscal impacts associated with the ordinance are the costs associated with staff time to prepare the ordinance and the staff report. Once the ordinance is adopted, applicable building permit fees for emergency generators would partially cover the cost of staff time to review permit applications and corresponding inspections The fiscal impact associated with the incentivizing backup battery installations are summarized in this table on your screen here. We've estimated that the anticipated total impact based on 10 permits. Issued is around $3,000 plus staff time. COB, Jean Gatza, And so this evening staff is recommending that the Council consider the language modifications to the proposed ordinance as i've identified. a little bit earlier. adopt the resolution prioritizing and incentivizing battery backup as an alternative power source and then introduce and read by title only. |
| 02:51:41.17 | Councilmember Burns | Thank you. |
| 02:51:42.03 | Lily Whelan | the ordinance of the city council to modify chapter regarding use of emergency generators during power outages or emergencies and then continue the public hearing July 7th for second reading and adoption. And I'm available for any questions. And I also have Thomas Ahrens, our building official, on the line now if you have any technical questions for him. Thank you. |
| 02:52:06.28 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. Thank you very much. Lily, for the great presentation. And I'll open it up for council member questions. I have, yes, Council Member Riley. |
| 02:52:22.04 | Councilmember Riley | Thank you, Lily. I'm very supportive. Just one question and it may not be related. I think the combination of solar and battery backup is tremendous. If someone has a home that's built to the maximum height, are they restricted from putting in solar? |
| 02:52:44.10 | Lily Whelan | No, my understanding is no. Sorry, there's an echo here. I feel good. There we go. No, my understanding is that we are not allowed to regulate the solar installations. |
| 02:53:00.32 | Oscar Lusario | Thank you. |
| 02:53:00.38 | Lily Whelan | Thank you. |
| 02:53:00.74 | Oscar Lusario | Thank you. |
| 02:53:02.10 | Councilmember Burns | Thank you. |
| 02:53:02.12 | Lily Whelan | We are allowed to regulate them through a building permit. We are not allowed to regulate them with regards to height and views. |
| 02:53:12.82 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | My only question is about, it seems like the whole ordinance is done in the framework of prolonged power outage and that's defined as four hours or more. And it seems like the provision for people who need emergency generators for medical devices should be able to run those generators for any length of a power outage. So I think it's just a drafting issue, but I would take out. Um, the four hour required minimum because I do think that there might be some people who need to immediately go to a generator if they are on a particular type of medical device. And so that should be permitted at any time. for any power outage. That was just a comment I wanted to, it's page 10 of our staff report, looks like it's, The exemption only applies for four hours or more. Any other questions or? Clarifying comments. |
| 02:54:21.32 | Councilmember Riley | I just want to support what the mayor just said. My own mother is on 24 hour oxygen. And so 30 minutes would be deadly for her. you know, in those medical needs to be able to turn on a generator if you need for medical needs at any point in |
| 02:54:42.27 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | I think it's inadvertent, but it was just the way it was drafted. |
| 02:54:45.51 | Councilmember Cox | I thought there was already a provision for someone to apply for a waiver. if they had a medical condition. |
| 02:54:56.26 | Councilmember Cox | Maybe I read that in the chart and not in our draft ordinance. |
| 02:55:00.58 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Yeah, it's just that the waiver is from the requirements that only apply in a power outage of over four hours. out. If the city attorney maybe could just take a look at it and staff, and if there isn't a problem, great. But if there is, if we could close that loophole, that would be fantastic. |
| 02:55:21.88 | Lily Whelan | So if I'm hearing you correctly, Madam Mayor, the desire would be for medical folks with a a medical need or a health need to be able to run emergency generators during an emergency or a power shut off of any period of time. 24 hours a day. All right. |
| 02:55:46.15 | Councilmember Cox | Yeah, it's addressed on page nine of our staff report that if a new individual has a medical need to have an emergency power supply. reasonable accommodation section can be used to process and file a waiver. |
| 02:56:00.52 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Yeah. You might want to look on page 10 too, but in any case, again, why doesn't staff take a look at it offline and then or we're actually, I guess we're approving the ordinance now tonight, is that correct? |
| 02:56:13.08 | Lily Whelan | Yeah. |
| 02:56:13.48 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. |
| 02:56:13.50 | Yulia Carter | Look to see how to edit it. |
| 02:56:14.97 | Lily Whelan | Thank you. |
| 02:56:15.04 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. |
| 02:56:15.05 | Lily Whelan | If you look at it first read and then a second read at your next council meeting, I'm thinking that maybe we can move the medical exemption into C. Is my screen still shown here? Yeah. |
| 02:56:26.93 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | that. |
| 02:56:27.14 | Lily Whelan | Thank you. |
| 02:56:29.72 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Yeah, I think the emergency, I think the medical exemption just needs to be moved outside of the |
| 02:56:36.22 | Lily Whelan | Yeah, I think it could be moved into C and we can make that generators for essential emergency services and those with a medical need, something like that. And then that gives them operational for 24 hours a day. Right. |
| 02:56:50.46 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. OK, if there aren't other questions or comments, let's open it up for public comment. |
| 02:57:01.44 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | I am not seeing any public comment. Could I? Yes, I do see one actually, Samantha Ramirez. |
| 02:57:11.58 | Samantha Ramirez | Hi, so I I've never attended a Sausalito City Council meeting, but I'm just really curious to know how you're right next to Marin City, yet there's no Black representation. Your whole meeting, you have not said the word Black. There are Black people in Marin County. There are Black people in Marin City. There are Black people that are in Sausalito because they're literally the same thing. So I just really feel like this whole presentation was so tone deaf because you're talking about the sounds of fucking generators when really there's very serious things happening right now. We are at a crossroads. Marin wants to evolve and wants to change. The people are protesting day in and day out in all nooks and crannies of Marin County and the leadership leadership and local government doesn't wanna understand that and doesn't want, you guys just gave this whole presentation and are talking about still giving the police money when you don't understand the damage that they've caused to the black community and to people of color. You completely wanna erase this like we don't exist in Marin County. And I'm sorry, but that's not true. We are here, and you as people in the city of Sausalito should care about your brothers and sisters that live right under the bridge, right next to Mike Spikes and all of your little yachts and all of your, you know, San Francisco yacht clubs, all that BS. I really think that if you are in these positions, it's because you want to make society better and you want to make a difference. And I'm sorry, but the conversations that you're having right now are not helping the lives of the people that live in the community. And I really need you to reflect on that. Have you not talked to your homies and the board of supervisors in Marin County, all the demands that people are making? You are also part of that infrastructure. You are representing white supremacy. You are not saying with your actions that you believe black lives matter. The cop, the cameras that the police are going to wear, that doesn't change. That doesn't help people feel better or safer. You are the change. You guys can change the makeup of Sausalito. You can demand, we need Black representation. The city, Marin City and Sausalito are right next to each other. That's your responsibility. Stop beating around the bush and using, oh, they're unincorporated, so that you can let them not have dumpsters and live completely different than the way that you live. That needs to be on your conscience. I hope that you think about that tonight. |
| 02:59:32.54 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Great, thank you very much. We've got Sybil Boutoyer. Welcome, Sybil. |
| 02:59:39.14 | Councilmember Burns | Thank you. |
| 02:59:39.17 | Sybil Boutoyer | Yeah. |
| 02:59:41.32 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. |
| 02:59:41.33 | Sybil Boutoyer | Thank you. Mm-hmm. uh, Thank you, Mayor. So, I just wanted to comment that I know there's some legislation at the state level of Mark Levine, Assemblymember Mark Levine, to require I WANT TO TALK ABOUT THIS. PG&E. to provide cities and other jurisdictions with the information about who is on their special programs for health related needs for power. And That's a current bill, but I think it's really important And it isn't just people who are ventilators or oxygen, but also the hundreds of people who use CPAP machines. which actually are life preserving. in that they keep people's oxygen levels up while they're asleep. So I think it's important to You know, not just to look at the waiver, I mean, but to make sure that that waiver doesn't have to be a if there's a way to make it So that people don't have to actively contact you and ask for the waiver. But if there's a way to make the waiver automatic. for people who have these needs. Um, That might be something to look into, especially since you're looking at separating it out from the I think that's a good question. as I understand it, of the agreement you're making now. Thank you. |
| 03:01:33.96 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | All right, great, thank you. Okay, I see Alice Merrill also here. Alice, welcome. |
| 03:01:47.22 | Alice Merrill | Hi. Can't see me. It's dark here. I'm asking about businesses. I've only heard about I'm wondering if the same rules apply. I'm just curious, I'm just wondering, informational. Is it the same for businesses for the sound and the time of use and But you have it different for businesses. It's a different. |
| 03:02:14.54 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. Great. It is different, hold on, let's just finish with public comment and then we will address Alice's question. Um, I think that was the last hand. Just confirming with our clerk. |
| 03:02:32.82 | Heidi Scoble | Mayor Cleveland Knowles, there are no other hands raised at this moment. |
| 03:02:36.97 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Okay, great. Yes. So to answer Alice's question and Lily can come back, but there are commercial standards and they are 24 hours a day, I believe. Is that correct? |
| 03:02:51.67 | Lily Whelan | That is correct. Operational 24 hours a day, but limited to 75 decibels at the property line. And then there's a provision that's recommending maybe shut off when not critically needed to minimize the disturbance of neighbors, but it's not a requirement. |
| 03:03:08.24 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Great, thank you. And I would note that we did receive correspondence from drivers, market, and some other local businesses specifically asking for some rules around these issues. So this is partially in response to that. Okay, are there any additional comments? I think my only additional comment is that I would love to see the staff, if it's not too much additional work, have the rebate information available so that if people are coming in looking at options, um, and there are rebates for the, um, backup batteries that if we have information about that from Marine Clean Energy or wherever that we try to make those available. And that's not part of the ordinance. That's just a request. I see council member Burns. |
| 03:04:08.95 | Councilmember Burns | Thanks, Mayor. I think we almost have two things occurring here. We have the The prolonged power shutoffs due to PSPS But separately, if someone requires... power for a health reason We should have a streamline, totally separate, that should be inclusive and going on and separate from all this and have different rules because they've always been required to have power. You know, we've had a lot of power outage before these. We should be finding if there's anybody out there that has that, we have to get them in immediately and get So it's almost two separate things. That's a need on its own. And then the rest of this ordinance is really about the power shutoffs that the rest of people who have not had to approach that before. So as your comment earlier, Mayor, about you know, that there would be no time restriction as the, when they can start that. Yeah, absolutely. They should have their own ordinance saying if you have a medical need, You're not included in this. You have a different path. |
| 03:05:20.81 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Okay, great. So maybe that's something that staff could come back to us with. Is that the proposal? |
| 03:05:31.57 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | that we could, Council Member Burns, I think that we'd have to have staff come back with language around that. |
| 03:05:39.61 | Lily Whelan | If I understood that correctly, it was a, it's, Thank you. |
| 03:05:43.84 | Councilmember Burns | you |
| 03:05:43.86 | Lily Whelan | Thank you. |
| 03:05:43.98 | Councilmember Burns | Thank you. |
| 03:05:44.03 | Lily Whelan | for any power outage, right? For those with medical needs to be able to use their- |
| 03:05:44.13 | Councilmember Burns | Thank you. |
| 03:05:51.50 | Councilmember Burns | Sure. |
| 03:05:51.72 | Lily Whelan | I'm going to be a little bit |
| 03:05:52.01 | Councilmember Burns | Thank you. |
| 03:05:52.03 | Lily Whelan | Thank you. I think what I'm planning on doing to address that is kind of morph that into that C provision for the public safety facilities, which would be allowed to be operational 24 hour a day during any power outage or emergency. And so it's not specific to the prolonged power outage. |
| 03:05:52.40 | Councilmember Burns | again. |
| 03:06:11.91 | Councilmember Burns | All right. Thank you. |
| 03:06:12.36 | Lily Whelan | Karen Hollweg, that's acceptable to counsel. |
| 03:06:13.91 | Councilmember Burns | Yeah. Thank you. |
| 03:06:19.60 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Yeah, the vice mayor with me. |
| 03:06:24.16 | Vice Mayor Withey | Yeah, I sort of, The only part I'm somewhat uneasy about here, although I'm We should see how it goes. I don't think we should change anything right now is the language around food waste or food spoilage. So... I mean, let's be honest, I don't know quite how we're going to enforce this because I mean, if you have this language, And basically, you have a refrigerator. You can run your generator all night. Right. I mean, you said that food could begin spoiling in a refrigerator in four hours. So if you can't use your generator overnight between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m., by your own definition, there's going to be some food spoil. And you've created an exemption and thing to say, you can run it overnight. to avoid food spoilage so I'm not quite sure how staff's going to enforce this even when there's a complaint so that's just one point you know Lily, I mean, I didn't want to put you on the spot there, but what do you think? How the hell do you enforce that? |
| 03:07:39.82 | Lily Whelan | Yeah, Thomas Ahrens and I had a spirited discussion this afternoon about this point. And you're going back and forth between regulating that all gender generators be turned off at night, but then we're concerned that it's a prolonged period of time and some folks . He indicated that on a personal note He does a lot of RVing and he turns his generator at night for a long period of time, you know, 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. or so. And his food is fine. And he actually prefers to turn it off because he doesn't want to hear the generator noise while he's sleeping. Right. |
| 03:08:19.73 | Councilmember Burns | So. |
| 03:08:20.46 | Lily Whelan | I think they're there. |
| 03:08:20.76 | Councilmember Burns | Right. |
| 03:08:21.76 | Lily Whelan | There will be situations where folks are not open their refrigerator and their food will be fine. but we wanted to. the council and option there with this often language if there was that concern |
| 03:08:36.61 | Vice Mayor Withey | So anyway, that's just a comment. We can, you know, recognize it for what it is. The second comment is... I want to remind you of something that I mentioned when we discussed the waiver of the underground requirement to install solar and to install battery backup. And I made the point I wanted to make sure in that case the battery backup wasn't only associated with solar because battery backup in of itself is an environmentally friendly green move Because as I explained in the time, if you can power, irrespective of whether you power your battery with solar or off the grid, if you use your battery during the peak hours, during the duck curve where You have power usage, enhanced power usage in the evenings when, there's no solar on the grid, it means that there's gonna need to be put less greenhouse gas emitting. production on the grid because you are individually using your battery rather than drawing it off the grid. So battery in of itself is a very environmentally friendly move, irrespective of whether you've got solar or not. Likewise, if you were in a position, battery and |
| 03:09:56.29 | Carolyn Revell | Right. |
| 03:10:00.44 | Vice Mayor Withey | and compressors or whatever you call the things, generators, you know, are not incompatible either. Because if part of what you do is run just your house for like four hours or six hours during the day off the generator in a PPE, if it's also charging the battery, when you turn it off, the generator off, you've then got a full battery to be able to power the house during the time when the generator isn't going. So Don't forget that as well. So it's mutually beneficial all round is what I'm trying to say, and so I'm very supportive. |
| 03:10:43.05 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Great. Any additional comments or emotions? |
| 03:10:49.97 | Councilmember Cox | I'm supportive of this ordinance also. I think we can make the revision. Um, to move the last sentence Um, B to C and make medical |
| 03:11:00.96 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | See. |
| 03:11:05.02 | Councilmember Cox | reasonable medical accommodations available 24 hours. In that way we can do first reading this evening, second reading July 7 since we don't meet again until August 17. Um, And then Lily can coordinate separately, perhaps with Sybil to accommodate the provisions of Senator Levine's pending bill to ensure that those types of needs are met. without need for information. And complicated application process. |
| 03:11:44.87 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Okay, great. Was that a motion? |
| 03:11:47.09 | Alice Merrill | Sure. |
| 03:11:47.95 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. |
| 03:11:48.14 | Alice Merrill | Merci. |
| 03:11:51.04 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | All right, second. |
| 03:11:55.36 | Vice Mayor Withey | I'll second. |
| 03:11:58.05 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. |
| 03:11:58.11 | Heidi Scoble | Okay, could the clerk please call the roll? Karen Hollweg, Councilmember Reilly. |
| 03:12:02.67 | Councilmember Riley | Yes. |
| 03:12:03.60 | Heidi Scoble | Councilmember Burns. |
| 03:12:05.10 | Councilmember Riley | that story. |
| 03:12:05.98 | Heidi Scoble | Council member Cox. |
| 03:12:07.44 | Charlene Eldon | Yes. |
| 03:12:08.51 | Heidi Scoble | Vice mayor with he. |
| 03:12:09.91 | Councilmember Riley | Thank you. |
| 03:12:09.92 | Unknown | Yes. |
| 03:12:10.95 | Heidi Scoble | Mayor Cleveland Knowles. |
| 03:12:13.15 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. |
| 03:12:14.01 | Heidi Scoble | Thank you. |
| 03:12:14.03 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | That motion passes five zero. And thank you to our Community Development Director and to the members of the public that spoke. All right, that is all of our public hearing items. We have one business item under number six, which is our COVID-19. COB, Jean Gatza, update and the fact that we moved it to the end of the agenda does not mean that it is any less important. And thank you, Abbott Chambers, for being here. |
| 03:12:48.22 | Abbott Chambers | You're welcome. Good evening, Madam Mayor and members of the Council. Start this slideshow for you. |
| 03:13:01.07 | Abbott Chambers | Well, as the mayor said, I'm Abbott Chambers. In addition to being your city librarian, I am your director of communications. And I'm back this evening for another COVID-19 update. |
| 03:13:15.01 | Abbott Chambers | As far as what I'll be covering, I'll give a brief recap of where we are at with the shelter in place order. I'm going to talk about new and upcoming guidelines for allowed activities in Marin County. I'll talk about the city's efforts, managing visitors to our downtown area. I'll talk a little bit about outdoor vending and dining here in Sausalito. And at the end city staff will be available to answer any questions. So the current shelter in place order became active on May 18th, unlike previous shelter in place orders in Marin, it's in effect until it's rescinded, superseded or amended. And the phase we're in right now is that amendments are being added to allow additional activities. The framework that's being followed by the county and we're in public health, to allow additional activities is called Marin Recovers. And you can learn more about that process at the MarinRecovers website, which is marinrecovers.com. So there have been new guidelines issued since the last council meeting on June 12th, two new guidelines went into effect. governing indoor retail. The second indoor cleaning services for indoor retail, The guidelines stipulate that store owners are to allow uh, fewer people into their space at any time. Also to take extra precautions around social distancing and hygiene within their stores. For indoor cleaning services, that pertains both to commercial and residential cleaning. And for people who have residential cleaners, the primary uh, David L. elements or change about the regulation is that you need to be outside of the of your apartment or your house at the time the cleanings taken place. I just thought I'd pause for a minute and with this reminder, from REN Health and Human Services. And I think it's important to emphasize that COVID-19 has not gone away Council member Riley mentioned we are seeing increases in the number of cases around the country. And it is upon us all to continue to practice good hygiene to wear our face coverings, which are now required throughout the state of California, not just in Marin. and to Maine are six feet of physical distance. |
| 03:16:02.65 | Abbott Chambers | On June 18th, the county public health officer and the Marin County Office of Education released guidance for TK to 12 schools covering the fall 2020 or the school year beginning in fall 2020. The document that they released has 30 different safety guidelines and pertains to all public, private and parochial schools. A few notes about these guidelines. They do allow in classroom instruction five days a week. with a stable cohort of students. So with students who are within the same group for an extended period of time. And they're not mentioned in the document as reported in the IJ local school districts do have the option of being more restrictive. So if school districts choose not to be, not to offer in classroom instruction five days a week, For example, they could instead offer in-classroom instruction three days a week and continue with virtual instruction for two days. And the Marin County Office of Education will be holding a number of webinars that are open to the public to work to explain these guidelines to people and answer questions. As of June 22nd, social bubbles are allowed in Marin County. a new concept introduced to us. And it just basically means that we're now allowed to expand our social circles beyond just the people that we are sharing a household with, but instead can add additional households or different people to those groups. The restrictions being that Adults can only be part of one social bubble. Um, children on the other hand can be part of two social bubbles. The, um, bubble with their family and then also with a camp or school cohorts. The other elements of this guidance is that socializing should be outdoors only and that guidelines for face coverings and physical distancing should still be followed. Also in the circle there noted that after three weeks, you are allowed to switch up your social bubble. The public health officer has referred to this as sort of guardrails for people to think of as they're socializing with other people. His concern has been that without some rules of thumb, people have been socializing anyway and engaging in behavior that was likely to be risky and possibly propagate COVID-19. We're expecting, actually, we've already received a number of new guidelines that will go into effect on June 29th. And I'll just list them here, guidelines for indoor seating at restaurants, for hair salons and barber shops, nail salons, gyms and fitness studios, hotels, motels, and short-term rentals. and for camping. In each case, there are very detailed restrictions around cleaning and spacing for social distancing, mask wearing, et cetera. You can find the details about all these different guidelines by going to the Brain Recoverers website and there's a section of guidelines for businesses. I think it's also worth mentioning that Marin Public Health is closely watching what's happening with number of cases and particularly with hospitalizations in the county. And it's always possible that some of these guidelines would either be delayed or even rolled back at a future date. I'll turn now to the city's efforts to manage visitors to our downtown. Our parking lots are now open seven days a week Our police department is monitoring the number of people and behavior in our downtown area and to date have not noted any problems with social distancing or mask wearing or at least not any of significance. But those are Uh, things that they'll be paying close attention to with the assistance of our ambassadors. We have ambassador stations at two locations downtown, encouraging people to wear masks and to continue to socially distance. A couple of other notes here. Ferry service continues to be just Monday through Friday. That's true for the Golden Gate Ferry service. Blue and Gold Ferry is not operating service to Sausalito at all. The weekday ferry service is just a couple of runs from Sausalito and back to Sausalito each weekday. And there is currently no weekend service. And according to their communications folks, none planned in the immediate future. uh, Bike rental companies are still operating, but having been downtown myself and heard from other observers, very few rental bikes turning up in town. There just aren't the tourists to rent the bicycles. And then, of course, without ferry service, limited ways for them to get back to San Francisco. I'll now move on to outdoor vending and dining and vending in Sausalito. The city, thanks to our city manager and to the council and our community development department. are making strong efforts to encourage and facilitate outdoor dining and vending in our community to help our local businesses and to help Our residents have a safe and comfortable place to eat. And the photo here is the Poggio. in early June, outdoor. Dining was allowed in Marin and restaurants that were already providing outdoor dining, or at least before shelter in place restrictions were allowed to resume outdoor dining. But the city's efforts have been also to and I think that's a good thing. make it possible for restaurants that are offering outdoor dining to expand those offerings and for those that aren't already to find new spaces to offer outdoor dining. To date, so as of today, there are 15 restaurants and food service providers that have received approval from the city to expand their outdoor offerings or their outdoor dining spaces. Thank you. And then there are additional five food providers and restaurants that have pending approvals for outdoor vending. We have approved seven of these temporary outdoor vending permits with a couple pending there as well. Last but not least, we are getting close to having on-street dining on Caledonia Street between the blocks of Pine and Johnson Streets. and, or excuse me, between Pine and Johnson streets. That will be the space in front of restaurant row, which is where we have a row of five restaurants. The original plan had been for that to start on June 18th, as was mentioned earlier in tonight's meeting. That was delayed due to some issues around needing to get a variance from the state. But we are now hoping, and that was at the county level, not the city level, but that is now in place. The city is working with the restaurants to make sure that we have their insurance information so that we can move forward. |
| 03:23:52.43 | Councilmember Burns | I'm not sure. |
| 03:23:52.50 | Carolyn Revell | level. |
| 03:24:02.44 | Abbott Chambers | Mike Langford has been taking the lead for the city there. The plan is going to be to offer outdoor dining on Caledonia Street on a temporary basis Thursday through Sunday. lunchtime, excuse me, dinner on Thursday and then lunch and dinner Friday, Saturday and Sunday. And this is a schematic that Mike has put together showing the configuration. You will note that Arawan Tai has elected not to participate. So the spacing that's been created allows for five tables for the four other restaurants, Sandrino, Sartage, F3, and Divino. And you'll note also that there is a fire lane that will be in place to allow emergency vehicles access if necessary. |
| 03:24:55.85 | Abbott Chambers | And I'll just close with noting that for the last two weeks, so it was last Thursday and Friday, and then again, this Thursday and Friday, we've had a mobile COVID-19 testing van in the city of Sausalito parking lot. the We had a bit of a snafu last week with the announcement where the county announced it before we were able to announce it in Sausalito. And by the time we were able to put the word out, it was already mostly 100% booked up. So fortunately, we were able to bring them back this week. And this time the tables were turned and we got the word out before the county did And as of Monday, I'm not sure. all the appointments were booked up. and we will hope to bring them back again at some point. That concludes my presentation and I would be happy to entertain any questions. |
| 03:25:55.40 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Great, thank you. Great presentation as always. And as with every couple of weeks, just so much continuing to evolve and go on. with the COVID pandemic. So I really appreciate that update. And I have to say I was able to sneak on for the testing for this Friday. So somehow Jeff actually got on there last week. So I don't know how he did that. |
| 03:26:14.89 | Carolyn Revell | Right. |
| 03:26:22.05 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Anyway, thank you for that. And I'm really glad that we are having testing here in Sausalito That's a great, uh, great benefit. So are there questions for Abbott? |
| 03:26:38.62 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | No, Council Member Burns, you were? Swatting a fly or raising your hand? |
| 03:26:46.14 | Councilmember Burns | there seems like there's a chance for some confusion on the bubble that the bubble requires you to wear a mask and stay physically distance. that's what you do outside of a bubble as well. What happens within the bubble that doesn't happen without the outside of the bubble? |
| 03:27:07.07 | Abbott Chambers | Well, the county has been discouraging people from socializing in in the manner you're describing, you know, before, you know, before they introduce these guidelines for social bubbles. So, you know, in fact, They, they would have, you know, had you asked public health, they would have said, don't, you know, don't hang out with other people, that aren't in your household even if you're six feet apart and wearing a mask. So I think that's what's different this time. |
| 03:27:39.50 | Abbott Chambers | But I think it's a recognition that everyone's making their own decisions about what behavior is safe and not safe. And what they're hoping to do is interject a clear guardrail, as I said, to help people. people make those decisions. |
| 03:27:57.69 | Councilmember Burns | Yeah, it's a little confusing now with restaurants. Who's my bubble when the restaurant, but then they're not my bubble. leave the restaurant, or I don't know. I don't have any friends, so I'm OK for now. |
| 03:28:12.34 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | I would just agree. It's very challenging to communicate on that issue. So thanks. It's going to be an evolving challenge for the county to come up with guidelines on socializing that are easy to understand. Any other questions? |
| 03:28:36.18 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | by Snare. |
| 03:28:38.75 | Vice Mayor Withey | Um, Sort of a question, bit of a comment. Um, It's a question that really is not expecting an answer tonight, but to provoke some thinking. We don't know yet when the density of visitors downtown, what the rate of growth of density is downtown. |
| 03:28:56.91 | Carolyn Revell | I'll have a good one. |
| 03:29:01.18 | Vice Mayor Withey | as things potentially recover. And it seems to me, at some point, if indeed the number of visitors start coming back and we get some spells of weekends, summer weekends, which are nice weather, we're likely to get more and more visitors. At what point downtown do you decide? that there are sufficiently large number of visitors that it is absolutely impossible to maintain six feet distance. And therefore everybody downtown should be wearing a mask, therefore, by the order. And is there any plans to even consider enforcing that, should those set of circumstances arise? |
| 03:29:45.66 | Abbott Chambers | work himself. |
| 03:29:50.43 | Abbott Chambers | I will defer to our city manager or chief of police around what discussions they have had about that contingency? |
| 03:30:03.75 | Adam Politzer | Yeah, it's a good question, and I appreciate the Vice Mayor saying we don't have to answer it tonight. because we don't have an answer. I know that the mayor and I participated on a call with the chamber with Councilmember Riley and the discussion about the regulations in the city requiring masks basically at all times. That's my interpretation. Um, Yeah, so it is something that we brought forward with the county health official. specifically for the town of Pivoran in the city of Sausalito. We both have that attraction where our sidewalks, the density of the sidewalks will not allow for these six feet of social distancing. So that's something that we're continuing to discuss. with the county health official but I don't have an answer on what the question is. I kind of defer to the mayor. kind of our expert here based on the activity in the city. Obviously a good model for us to consider based on the mayor's experience working in the city. I defer to you, Madam Mayor. |
| 03:31:15.59 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Yeah, I mean, I don't think there's a good answer here. I mean, I think generally the message now from the state And I think is everyone out in public that may be come within six feet of someone else should be wearing a face covering. And I think that is really where we need to be as a society as we open up. And the question of enforcement, I've raised numerous times on our weekly calls with other mayors and council members and with the health officers, because the burden is being Shifted. to local governments and we don't have you know, we have our police and, you know, as we've been discussing over the last many weeks, and as the nation is discussing and, you know, what is really the role of our police? And is that really the appropriate function for them. Um, but that's really, um, So they've been playing a very, you know, kind of an educational role And with the public, but um I guess we'll just have to keep monitoring things and see how the situation looks in Marin. I have noted I was going to ask Abbott and maybe this is a question for our next meeting as well. some increases in case reporting in Marin. And I did also notice the county website has a really great new interactive tool where you can zoom in on your locality. And you can see not only the number of cases reported in your local jurisdiction, but also the cases per um, I think it's 100,000 or something like that. And Sausalito is on the high end of other jurisdictions in Marin, we're over 200 where some of our neighboring jurisdictions are. are more in the hundred category per hundred thousand. And I think that's a question that it would be good to talk to our health officer about. Are these numbers in Marin so low that they're not really statistically significant at this point or should we be worried about that over 200 number and the fact that it is higher than some of the other jurisdictions. So I don't know if you have any insight on that tonight Abbott, maybe as we, um, talk about this again on the 7th, we could see if any of these indicators are cause for more stringent. action here. Is that- |
| 03:33:53.98 | Saucy | Is that my... |
| 03:33:54.23 | Councilmember Burns | Bye. |
| 03:33:54.78 | Saucy | Mayor. |
| 03:33:56.07 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Excuse me? |
| 03:33:56.86 | Saucy | Is that by zip code? |
| 03:33:58.87 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | No, it's actually it's the map is kind of odd. It's by town. And then in the unincorporated areas, it's divided up sort of in I would call I would say neighborhoods like strawberry Uh, you know, kind of like that, but some of them are not kind of what you would normally consider. So the county unincorporated areas are divided up I don't know how. It's not basic code. |
| 03:34:28.21 | Councilmember Burns | Yeah. More like a next door map where you have a lot of Kind of. |
| 03:34:31.77 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Yeah. |
| 03:34:31.83 | Councilmember Riley | Yeah. |
| 03:34:31.89 | Councilmember Burns | Yeah. |
| 03:34:32.67 | Councilmember Riley | Yeah, I'm actually looking at the map right now. I was going to ask the question, you brought it up. Avid, you reported 18 cases, I think, in South Salido, which was what was on Nextdoor as well. that led to the mayor's comments about the case per 100,000. It's now up to 20. um, And I think that makes us have to think hard about |
| 03:34:53.14 | Councilmember Burns | I don't have to think Bye. |
| 03:34:56.08 | Councilmember Riley | That's my job, I'm sorry. |
| 03:34:57.44 | Councilmember Burns | Thank you. |
| 03:34:57.64 | Councilmember Riley | It's hard about why. |
| 03:34:57.69 | Councilmember Burns | I'm sorry. |
| 03:34:58.03 | Unknown | And I think that's the only part about why. |
| 03:35:00.04 | Councilmember Burns | Thank you. |
| 03:35:00.11 | Councilmember Riley | Thank you. |
| 03:35:00.41 | Councilmember Burns | Thank you. |
| 03:35:00.48 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:35:00.55 | Councilmember Burns | Thank you. |
| 03:35:00.65 | Unknown | you |
| 03:35:00.92 | Councilmember Riley | Thank you. |
| 03:35:00.95 | Unknown | I'm glad |
| 03:35:06.11 | Abbott Chambers | Bye, Chase. |
| 03:35:09.84 | Abbott Chambers | I missed the end of that. The The page that Councilmember Riley is referring to and the mayor as well is the surveillance reports and you can find that on that coronavirus page for Marin County. I have a lot of having as your communications director studiously watched the guidance from our public health officers for the last three months, I have a tremendous amount of respect for their abilities and their judgments. And I'm very confident that they will let us know if we need to make our restrictions more tight and change tack. And I take them, you know, I have complete faith when they say that at this point, we don't need to worry that they're watching out for us and will let us know. |
| 03:36:11.25 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Great, all right. Well, we should probably, if there are no more questions, we should probably take public comment on this. item. I am not seeing any raised hands. |
| 03:36:32.28 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | So I'll bring it back to the council. Heidi, do you see any raised hands? |
| 03:36:37.53 | Heidi Scoble | Mayor Cleveland Knowles, I do not see any raised hands. |
| 03:36:41.38 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Okay, well with that, this is an informational presentation. this is obviously an issue we're just going to have to continue to monitor with the as the county opens and you know it feels like it's opening pretty quickly at this point and One of the things I would like to just thank the county health officer And staff is the increased warning. And it seems like things are now in a much more organized. And, you know, it's not like you get 24 hours notice as much now that things are on a more um, kind of on a nicely organized track so that businesses have a little more time to prepare and to understand when they are gonna be able to open. So I think that's been a nice. and I think I realize that's not. the case with every change that we see, but it seems more and more that they're planning ahead, that's been great. Any other comments or questions? PB, Sarah Silver, Okay we'll close this item, thank you, as always for thorough information and we will move on to item seven. PB, Sarah Silver, Which includes a number of things. City Council Chambers, City Manager, City David Sudo, welcome. |
| 03:38:18.47 | Unknown | Good evening. I just wanted to comment because I saw that hopefully we're going to get one or two feedbacks appointments tonight. I'm not sure. And I just want, I've had the opportunity to meet both of the candidates that are on tonight's report. And, Either one would be a great addition to PBAC. Thank you. But... Marjorie Thomas is just an outstanding candidate. Um, I think that I first met her with green thumbs, with Sausalito beautiful pulling weeds. She's just a really enthusiastic person who seems to be get things done. So I'm not sure. That would be my first choice for that appointment. That's all I wanted to say. |
| 03:39:06.94 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Great, thank you very much for that feedback. Are there any other members of the public? I'm not seeing any. The clerk could just confirm that and then we can close public comment. |
| 03:39:21.18 | Heidi Scoble | Mayor Cleveland Knowles, there are no additional hands that are raised at this moment. Great. |
| 03:39:27.76 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | And I am trying to get to my notes on my iPad. I'm sorry. |
| 03:39:36.81 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | So |
| 03:39:41.09 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Do we have any information from the city manager? |
| 03:39:45.33 | Adam Politzer | Thank you, Madam Mayor. I will be very brief. earlier this evening during the budget presentation. But I would like to again thank and recognize the council for your leadership in this effort. People don't recognize the amount of effort and meetings and the hard work that you all are involved in, not just at the council meetings, but at the committee meetings, both here locally and regionally. And the community hears that when you give your committee reports at the beginning of the meeting. But we had 10 weeks to get through this budget process and it was not an easy lift. So again, I want to make sure that You also are recognized for the amount of effort that was put into this. You lead this team. |
| 03:40:32.82 | Carolyn Revell | Thank you. |
| 03:40:34.72 | Adam Politzer | And you guide this team. And I really want to appreciate the leadership under these unyielding circumstances that we're working through. Um, And then again, as we've heard Our work has just started. Unfortunately, as we go into this next quarter. And as the vice mayor discussed, and I know agreed by all of you, We need to pull up that strategic plan. as we go into the early fall. these will be items that will be placed on our future agenda and we'll have these discussions. Again, thank you again for your leadership. your support of our city staff and being available to our community to hear these important items as we work through this. Thank you. |
| 03:41:26.58 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Great, thank you. And of course, we thank you too, Adam, for your leadership and all of the time and effort you've put into this process. We really appreciate it. Thank you. Um, All right, well, thank you so we'll move on to item seven C and this is appointments to boards, commissions and committees. And first I had a couple of changes in council liaisons that I wanted to announce tonight. Um, first, while I have really, really enjoyed my, um, I think we have a time with the The vice mayor is now working on several countywide efforts that relate to sustainability, including more work on um, Oh my gosh, I've forgotten the name of it. But anyway, Bay Wave is one of them. And then the, what's the, um, |
| 03:42:19.25 | Vice Mayor Withey | draw down Marin |
| 03:42:20.44 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Drawdown, sorry. All I could think of is Marin Recovers, Drawdown Marin. and as always is still on them, we're in clean energy. Commission. So I think it makes a lot of sense for him to do that. So he has graciously agreed to be the liaison to the sustainability commission. And then with my, role on the transportation authority of Marin um, and on the executive committee of that organization, the council member Burns and I have agreed that I will be the liaison to the PBAC instead of him. I want to thank Joe for all his hard work on that committee. and for the just the great work and the amount of time he spent on that. And then I also wanna thank Council Member Burns because I have asked him, he is already the liaison to our community safety and disaster preparedness committee. But I've also asked him to take a closer look at that committee to help us recruit and kind of refocus those efforts. We have so many disaster issues facing us, and it's really an important committee and... he has offered to take on that to kind of re-energize that committee. So I want to thank him in advance for his work on that. Um, Second, moving on to item on our agenda, formation and appointments to the mayor's blue ribbon committee to develop creative funding sources. to offset the impacts of COVID-19. This flows naturally from our earlier discussion tonight. And I am very excited about this effort and I hope that it's fruitful. I'm sure there are a lot of other jurisdictions that will be chasing scarce funding resources, but we will do our best. So I've identified some outstanding residents and members of local organizations with expertise in some of our funding gap areas like library, recreation, parks, and landscapes. sustainability, equity, and social justice. And I'm pleased to I would like to note that Council Member Riley has agreed to join me in heading up this committee both now as a Council Member and beyond his term. The other members are Ken Schwarz, Brandy Vouse, Sam Rubin, Bill Hines with Carolyn Revell as a backup representing Sausalito Beautiful and Greg Thompson. So I think that's a great group to start out with. And I'm looking forward to working with everyone. So I'll work with the clerk and get a meeting of that Blue Ribbon Committee up as soon as we can. And with that, I will move on to appointments to the pedestrian and bicycle advisory committee. And we have, luckily we have two openings on that committee with the resignation of Nathan's script and I'd like to thank him for his service. We have a regular position and an alternative position. And I would like to nominate Marjorie Thomas to the full position and Jessica Penrod to the alternate position. Are there other nominations? I think they will both be really great representatives. So I think we Need a motion for that, or I'll consider that a motion. Is there a second? |
| 03:46:11.36 | Councilmember Burns | Second. |
| 03:46:12.75 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Okay. Can we take these? I don't know if Mary is still on. Can we just take these together or do we need to take them individually? |
| 03:46:22.35 | Alice Merrill | I'm here. You can do them together. |
| 03:46:24.03 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Great. Good, thank you. Heidi, could you please call the roll? |
| 03:46:29.37 | Heidi Scoble | Yes, Councilmember O'Reilly. Yes. |
| 03:46:31.90 | Councilmember Riley | Thank you. |
| 03:46:31.92 | Heidi Scoble | Thank you. Council Member Burns. Thank you. |
| 03:46:33.64 | Councilmember Riley | Yeah. |
| 03:46:33.69 | Heidi Scoble | Yeah. |
| 03:46:33.70 | Councilmember Riley | Thank you. |
| 03:46:33.81 | Heidi Scoble | Thank you. |
| 03:46:33.82 | Councilmember Riley | Thank you. |
| 03:46:33.84 | Heidi Scoble | Thank you. Councilmember Cox. Thank you. |
| 03:46:36.00 | Councilmember Burns | Yeah. |
| 03:46:36.07 | Heidi Scoble | Yes. Vice Mayor Withey? Yes. Mayor Cleveland Knowles. |
| 03:46:40.93 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Yes, those appointments carry unanimously and congratulations to both of them and thank you for agreeing. to be on. that committee. Next we have appointment to the Marin County Commission on Aging. And we have Sybil Boutoyer, who is breed to continue to serve on that committee and I would enthusiastically support her continued efforts on that commission. Are there any other comments on that? |
| 03:47:18.86 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Seeing none, I will make that emotion |
| 03:47:21.98 | Heidi Scoble | Second. |
| 03:47:23.50 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Okay, could you please call the roll? |
| 03:47:25.09 | Heidi Scoble | Thank you. Councilmember Riley. Yes. Councilmember Burns. Councilmember Cox. Yes. Vice Mayor Withey. |
| 03:47:35.77 | Vice Mayor Withey | Thank you. |
| 03:47:35.82 | Heidi Scoble | Yes. Mayor Cleveland Knowles. Thank you. |
| 03:47:38.37 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Yes. |
| 03:47:38.56 | Heidi Scoble | Thank you. |
| 03:47:38.57 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. That motion carries 5-0, and thank you very much. to Sybil for continuing her valuable service on that commission. Moving on to accept the resignation of Joe Paulino from the community safety and disaster committee. and I think we also had Nathan Scripps from PBAC. Do we need to take a motion on that or do we just accept those resignations and thank the participants very much for their service? That sufficient? All right, seeing lots of heads. Thank you. nodding. All right. I think that It takes us to our last item, which is future agenda items. Are there Any new future agenda items? Um, I, I would just like to note that at our last meeting, I did say that I would like to have an item on one of our next agendas about racism and Black Lives Matters and how that impacts us here in Sausalito. So we are looking at that issue for our next meeting on July 7th. if that's acceptable. And I think staff is looking at potentially in addition to other things, having a joint statement by the full council that would follow up on my statement that came out and There's no objection. We'll just continue to ask staff. to prepare that. If there are council members who have particular issues that they would like to see addressed in that statement. If you could please forward those to Heidi. to our clerk and she will make sure that those are incorporated into into a statement. And then, of course, we'll have time to discuss that at our next meeting. Okay, I don't think I have any additional. Yes, council member Burns. |
| 03:49:50.36 | Councilmember Burns | I have, I wanted to add on kind of an update on our slide, mudslide reimbursement where we are with, I don't think we received any FEMA reimbursement whatsoever. Part of it's in appeal, but I don't know where the rest of it is and it doesn't look like we budgeted for it to come in in the next year either. So an update on where any of those returning things might be. |
| 03:50:19.96 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Great. Could I ask if we can defer to staff, but if they think that that could be adequately explained in written correspondence, would that be satisfactory or would you like more of a agenda item. |
| 03:50:33.53 | Councilmember Burns | That'd be great. |
| 03:50:35.62 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Okay, well, let's see how complicated it is and Thank you. will defer to staff on the agenda setting committee can determine. how that information is best shared. |
| 03:50:45.26 | Councilmember Burns | I appreciate your first item. I really liked that. And, even it being more than a statement, if we can somehow Thank you. receive information from the community, which we obviously we do in a very broad manner, but really some specifics on you, our individual roles, our role as a city to take the statement further and you know what areas are we not maybe seeing that that lie out there that we can have an impact with in the social justice arena. So I don't know if that's all in the same item. It sounds like it might be. |
| 03:51:15.43 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | That's all in the game. Yeah, I think that was statement I just wanted to make sure that Council members were comfortable with a kind of a joint statement, but yes, thank you for those ideas and I think that is the discussion. that we'll be starting or continuing at that meeting and then continuing throughout the rest of the year and beyond. So welcome any and all ideas, both from council members community members kind of others. Okay, well, thank you all for your hard work tonight. And it is just before it is 1048. And with that, if there's no other comments, we will adjourn and good night and thank you. Thank you to staff. |
| 03:52:04.08 | Vice Mayor Withey | Thank you. |
Sonya Hammonds — Neutral: Raised concerns about the General Plan public engagement process, emphasizing accessibility and equity issues with online-only format and requesting information on impacts before the July 7th meeting. ▶ 📄
Charlene Eldon — Against: Criticized the council for inaction on racism, called for defunding police, removing sheriff from Marin City, desegregating schools immediately, and threatened resignations if changes are not made. ▶ 📄