| Time | Speaker | Text |
|---|---|---|
| 00:00:03.56 | Heidi Scoble | Our sound is up and working. Now we're going to work on our stream. Okay, so our stream is live, so we can begin. Would you like me to restart with the introductions to this meeting? |
| 00:00:15.51 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | I don't think unless it's legally required, I don't think we need to |
| 00:00:20.42 | Heidi Scoble | It's not. So we've already said it. |
| 00:00:21.43 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | So we've already said it. Yep. Yep. |
| 00:00:23.98 | Heidi Scoble | weird. |
| 00:00:24.41 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | That's fine. |
| 00:00:24.97 | Heidi Scoble | Thank you. So let me actually admit our member from the public, Annabelle Joy. Okay, we're ready to go. |
| 00:00:35.40 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Great, good evening everyone and welcome to the regular meeting of the Sausalito City Council. today on Tuesday, September 22nd. Could our clerk please call the roll? |
| 00:00:47.87 | Heidi Scoble | Councilmember Riley? |
| 00:00:50.00 | Tom Riley | here. |
| 00:00:51.06 | Heidi Scoble | Council member Burns. |
| 00:00:52.33 | Tom Riley | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 00:00:54.12 | Heidi Scoble | Council member Cox? Yeah. Thank you. Vice mayor with the here mayor Cleveland Knowles. |
| 00:00:59.43 | Unknown | here. and Nelson. |
| 00:01:02.00 | Heidi Scoble | Yeah. All members are present and there's a quorum. |
| 00:01:06.45 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Great, thank you. So we are starting this evening off at 615 after our interviews with our closed session, D1. We have three items. conference with real property negotiator for the foot of locust. We have liability claims and we have negotiations over the MLK property. Councilmember Cox, do you have an announcement? |
| 00:01:32.54 | Joan Cox | Yes, thank you, Mayor. I will be recusing myself from item D3 due to the proximity of my residence to the property subject to the negotiation. Thank you. |
| 00:01:44.33 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Great, thank you. And we will open it up for public comment on closed session items. Is there any member of the public who would like to comment? I do not see any hands raised. Heidi, could you please confirm? |
| 00:02:03.34 | Heidi Scoble | Mayor Cleveland Knowles, there are no hands raised at this time. |
| 00:02:07.00 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Great. Okay. Well, we will go into closed session. We will come back at seven o'clock for our regular open session items and we will see everybody then. Thank you. |
| 00:02:26.12 | Heidi Scoble | Okay, the audio is streaming. and our video is streaming. So I will admit everybody into the meeting. |
| 00:02:37.63 | Heidi Scoble | And we are ready to go. |
| 00:02:40.28 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Great. Welcome everyone back to our regular meeting of September 22nd. We have had interviews tonight. We have had a closed session and we are coming back from closed session and we have no closed session announcements. The next item on our agenda is the approval of our agenda. Do I have a motion? So moved. |
| 00:03:04.21 | Heidi Scoble | Thank you. |
| 00:03:04.22 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | you |
| 00:03:04.46 | Heidi Scoble | Thank you. |
| 00:03:04.46 | Ray | second. |
| 00:03:04.47 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. |
| 00:03:04.51 | Heidi Scoble | second. |
| 00:03:05.30 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:03:05.32 | Ray | Thank you. |
| 00:03:06.04 | Heidi Scoble | Heidi, could you please follow along? |
| 00:03:06.18 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Yeah. |
| 00:03:06.25 | Tom Riley | I, |
| 00:03:06.53 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. |
| 00:03:09.32 | Heidi Scoble | Councilmember Riley? |
| 00:03:10.84 | Tom Riley | Yes. |
| 00:03:12.15 | Heidi Scoble | Councilmember Burns? |
| 00:03:13.49 | Tom Riley | Yes. |
| 00:03:14.35 | Heidi Scoble | Councilmember Cox. |
| 00:03:16.17 | Tom Riley | Yes. |
| 00:03:16.44 | Ray | Thank you. |
| 00:03:16.47 | Heidi Scoble | Thank you. Vice Mayor Withee. |
| 00:03:18.28 | Ray | Thank you. |
| 00:03:18.29 | Heidi Scoble | Yes. Mayor Cleveland Knowles. |
| 00:03:20.98 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Yes. Thank you. That motion passes 5-0. The first item on our agenda tonight is very exciting. It's a special presentations and their announcements, and we're very I'm excited and pleased to have the Sausalito Historical Society here tonight with Jerry Taylor. to present. on a recent report that they put together on the marine ship, which of course is an item of great importance and great current interest. Welcome, Jerry. We're thrilled to have you here tonight. And thank you for the work you've done. And you can start your presentation. |
| 00:04:01.29 | Jerry Taylor | Thank you, Mayor Cleveland. Appreciate it. Good evening. My name is Jerry Taylor. I'm president of Saussurel Historical Society. Many of you are used to seeing me in costume or at some event, but I don't want to distract from my message tonight. I'm going to address the cultural history of marineship. And my lifelong friend Tammy Bell will speak a little later. about the topic of race relations during marinship. and the Wiggle case of James versus Marin Schiff. Our message tonight is History is important in Sausalito. Clearly, the city of Sausalito officially places a high value on its history. The historic context statement of Marincia prepared by Knappen Verplank in 2011 includes this statement on the evolution of Saucyutu's awareness of its history. Growing concerned over the loss of historic buildings in 1976, the city of Sausalito adopted regulations to designate architecturally and culturally significant local landmarks and historic districts. A respect for the thousands of workers who served their country. A few photographs and brief comments about 1942. to 1945 are also important. |
| 00:05:27.83 | Jerry Taylor | Of note particularly, the miraculous almost overnight creation of the shipyard starting in March 1942 to the completion of its first vessel, the William A. Richardson, that September. you see in front of you pictures of Pine Hill being blown up. and the Marin ship. before. in March of 1942 when there was nothing there, The road. building ships and adapting to changing conditions as construction facilities were being built through the yard. utilizing assembly line method of production to launch 93 freighters and tankers. in three years. growing to a peak daily employment of 20,000 workers in three shifts meaning almost 7,000 employees were coming in at the same time as 7,000 were leaving three times a day. We're reading 700 apartments and 800 detached or semi-detached homes in Marin City. and dormitories for a thousand behind Sausage Distillery. recruitment and mass migrations particularly of African-Americans from Louisiana and Mississippi to the Bay Area. to find employment in the shipyard. and Joseph James. versus a steel workers union. World War II in the Pacific ended surprisingly. grammatically suddenly. The ship was abruptly shut down as more cargo ships, tankers, and invasion barges were no longer needed. The historical society spent 2017 commemorating the 75th anniversary of the 1942 creationism register But tonight, we're looking at what actually happened after the war. |
| 00:07:13.13 | Jerry Taylor | Since 1946, There's been an almost unending series of official studies, reports, inventories of buildings, and business directories of the Marin ship. that we have to do with the are the many, many fascinating stories right up to today. after World War II. I'm proud to say that the Historical Society has contributed to this documentation. directly through our weekly newspaper columns, and keeping them available to the public through our website. coordinating the 2017 civic commemoration. by building and managing the marineship exhibit in the Bay model. and by supporting authors who continue to use our archives. Perhaps the earliest and most visible aspect of has been the wide variety of dwellings on the shore, along the docks, And out on Richardson's Bay. The Bechtel Corporation, which had been running the shipyard, turned it over to the Maritime Commission. Army Corps of Engineers received what became the Bay Model and adjacent buildings. A former shipyard worker, Don Arquez, acquired much of the land and excess marineship materials and begin offering them to returning soldiers, and free-spirited artists who are looking for cheap housing. Marquez allowed them to grab a leftover lifeboat build a little superstructure on it and live aboard it for free. that became the genesis of this community. Over the next several decades, the community would flourish growing into an anarchistic. and passionate collective. and helped shape Sosu's image as an artist's paradise. The waterfront was filled with eclectic vessels ranging from the barely boyish two floating works of art. as early as 1950s, Officials tried to curtail and clean up the water dwellers. focusing on the houseboat's lack of sewage hookups to try to get rid of the boats. Decades of legal battles and the And physical skirmishes like the one shown on this picture here. between police and voters followed. This era has come to be known as the Houseboat Wars. Attracted by Saussure's striking beauty and chief rents, artists, musicians, writers, actors and hippies took refuge here. bringing their culture and free thinking to Sausalito. some of the most remarkable Sterling Hayden. Alan Watts. Phil Silverstein. Otis Redding. And of course, Gene Vardis. Those who came, created a bohemian aura that persists to this day. giving the town its reputation as an art colony and a literary enclave. |
| 00:10:10.45 | Jerry Taylor | The former yard office and mold loft building is now called the ICB, Industrial Center the tour program for the 2016 open studio tour state of the Marinship area. is now a vigorous community of artists, marinas, houseboat neighborhoods. marine industry and restaurants featuring local cuisine. The repurposing of the ICB is an artist called collective the beginning of the 1950s, is now a vital part of waterfront history. The creative energy in the ICB has evolved over the years. bringing the contemporary art scene to the historic waterfront with 100 artists under one curved roof. |
| 00:10:56.11 | Jerry Taylor | Every Labor Day weekend since 1956, we've gathered together at the Saw Suez Art Festival except this year, 2020. from their 2019 website. celebrated for its entertainment lineup special exhibitions and cornucopia of food, beer, and wine The festival transforms the charming seaside village of Saucer, California, into a three-day Camelot of art And community. Also, it was Kay Carlson. spoke movingly about Marinship's incredible community of artists. when she addressed the council on September 1st. She reminded us how Annette Rose's language is all over the marineship plan. Kay cited the creativity in and ingenuity making this place unusual artistic and unique a mecca for Northern California. We'll just touch on a couple of examples of current maritime uses. and current innovative activities in red Tony Badger. A WAM and Marineship Steering Committee member wrote to GPAC in These marine railways are a major part of what is remaining of our maritime heritage. and working waterfront. a great responsibility rests with you. to secure their future. The source of current email news order has informed us how are doing their part in the COVID-19 crisis in creating plastic face shields. Face coverings. meal delivery service. hand sanitizing fluid. We all know there is much to be said about the current maritime activity and the remarkable innovative designers and light manufacturing in the marine ship. We trust that some of those hands-on knowledgeable individuals and groups to share their thoughts with council too. My words tonight and the information presented in the written report cite examples of the spirit of marinship. but, The word spirit isn't broad enough. and the words creative. Innovating. freedom. uninhibited, and I think that's a good thing. joyful, artistic musical. and the Share him. historical. Those terms are the qualities that we honor. about friendship. I submit that these qualities have persisted in abundance since 1946, right up to today. These terms defy quantification monetizing and surveying. I return to the opening proposition of this report. history is important in Sausalito. I'll quote again, Napping for playing. Growing concerned over the loss of historic buildings in 1976, The city of Sausalito adopted regulations to designate historically, architecturally, and culturally significant local landmarks and historic districts. As you make decisions about the future of Please consider the historic facts and the cultural significance of this hallowed ground. Thank you. And now, as I indicated earlier, Here's Mr. Tammy Bell to continue our presentation. |
| 00:14:30.48 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Welcome, Mr. Bell. |
| 00:14:51.57 | Tammy Bell | Thank you. It's good to be with you tonight. THE FEDERAL. quickly connect myself to the Sausalu Historical Society, as Jerry mentioned, We go way back. probably to about 54, 55. but certainly at Richardson Bay School in 1956, Jerry and I were in the same class, seventh grade, eighth grade. We shared a locker throughout high school. Um, and I was part of many important occasions for Jerry. And similarly with me, He was. So I just want to connect and say that we were coming out of a Cal football game about four years ago. And he said they were putting on this production about And he wanted me to look into one of the workers there by the name of Joseph James. He explained to me that He was involved in a historic landmark case James versus Marantia. And There might be some other things we need to know about him. So tonight what I'm going to do is give you a little bit of background about Joseph James. What- James versus Marin ship was all about. and I'm gonna talk about Executive Order 8802. When James decided to stand up, not sit at the back of the bus, And I want to talk about what his contribution was. Oh. A little bit of background about Joseph James. Joseph James grew up on the East Coast in the town of Camden, New Jersey. That's right across from Philadelphia. And He was a member of a musically talented family. his sister was a singer just like Joseph James was, She associated with Marian Anderson, who went on to fame and actually did She was part of a number of inauguration of ships throughout the country. Um, James used his musical talents to go to college And eventually he went to Boston University where he was encouraged, really recruited, to be in a number of black plays during the Harlem Renaissance time. I'm not sure. As the depression continued, James joined the WPA. And he moves to San Francisco. Prior to his move here, James was aware that the, NAACP And the sleeping car porters represented by A. Philip Randolph had advocated for laws to protect and quantify black employment in industries and particularly national defense industries. and They had challenged The Roosevelt administration to that if they didn't come up with any sort of law that they would march on Washington. They had planned a march on Washington. For July the 4th, 1941. . did not want to see any sort of marching in Washington And He asked Eleanor Roosevelt, to talk with I'm not sure. A. Philip Randolph, and with Walter White of the NAACP. to encourage them not to march. Maybe we can work out some other deal. So finally, on. THE FAMILY IS June the 25th, 1941. President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 8802. 8802 said, that. There will be equal employment opportunities in the national defense industries. Um, So James was aware of that law. that executive order. He was also aware that through the black press There was a concern that Blacks are being asked to fight in a war overseas when they had problems here in this country. particularly employment, housing, and others. So, I'm not sure. in, January 31, 1942. The Pittsburgh Courier developed an emblem that was dedicated to this democracy at home and abroad. It was called the double V. There was a reaction to any sort of national campaign, even in the black press, for equal treatment. J. Edgar Hoover took the position that this double V and the campaign was seditious and treasonous. So Joseph James grew up understanding that there was work to be done, particularly in employment. When Pearl Harbor happened, James was, trying out for a play in Los Angeles. And as they are practicing, I'm not sure. He's. the producer comes in and says, listen, everything's off. We've been attacked at Pearl Harbor. No play. Go home. So James comes back to San Francisco And, He decides he needs to pull up a trade because He can work in the national defense industry. and they're going to be shipbuilding in the Bay Area. So he goes to the Samuel Gompers Trade School in San Francisco and learns how to become a welder. So, Welding was just a few months into World War II. and but he's also gifted as a singer. So when he's employed as a welder, He actually is at the inauguration of ships and he sings the national anthem. But he's also so talented as a welder that he's with the flying squad. They go around and take care of any problems, complications in wells throughout the ships. And he is part of an elite group. He soon finds out that while they are paying dues to a union, it's not the union that controls everything, the Boilermakers Union. They are paying dues, the same dues amount, to an auxiliary of the Boilermakers Union the Boilermakers. And that their location is in Richmond. across the bay. So anytime they have a grievance, They can't talk to anyone there in Sausalito or at Marentia. have to communicate across the Bay. Um, Joseph James asked, why do we accept paying dues to an auxiliary, but we can't be part of the regular union. Isn't that unfair? Most of his colleagues really say, Joseph, listen, settle down. It's okay that we're not sitting in first class. but we're getting equal pay. But he says, listen, if you're gonna get on the bus, you can sit anywhere if you've got the credentials. And the credentials are, we should be members of the union. So it's a challenge. He decides to seek the support of his fellow workers, but also of other workers there as well, including whites. And he gets that type of support. The picture you're seeing now is James at the Boilermakers Union in San Francisco. He's left work. He's dressed in his welding outfit. He's wearing his welder's glasses and he tries to talk, but he can't get in. There are other pictures of him at the Boilermakers Union in San Francisco, dressed in his Sunday best. Joseph James Then connects with the NAACP and Thurgood Marshall. Thurgood Marshall, as you might know, eventually, of course, becomes a dissociate justice on the Supreme Court. That's back in, I think it's 64 or 65. Lyndon Johnson appoints him. But prior to that, Before, he was even a judge, lower court judge, but he was really the spearhead between a lot of moves against employment, THE FAMILY IS GOING TO BE and work discrimination. and he worked that through the NAACP the, leader who really started the movement with NAACP was the Dean of Howard University Law School, Charles Hamilton Houston. Thurgood Marshall was his prize. Uh, protege. So, THE END OF THE END OF THE Joseph James, with the support of Thurgood Marshall and the NAACP, eventually sued in. Wren County Superior Court for an injunction against them being refused employment when they refuse to pay the union dues to the auxiliary. There were hundreds laid off. And eventually, the Maine County Superior Court gave them a judgment that said, you can go back to work. They have to accept you. the Boilermakers Union and the decided to appeal to the California Supreme Court and In a seven to zero decision, the California Supreme Court upheld the decision of the Marin County Superior Court. So Joseph James grew up in an environment where he knew that If you didn't press for full employment, if you didn't press for all of your rights, you would be sitting at the back of the bus. The last picture here is of a, uh, article in the New York Times about Executive Order 8802. It's head. Top line says, President orders an even break for minorities and defense jobs. Um, There is a song that Gil Scott Heron came out with called The Train from Washington. is 100 years overdue. It came out, I think it was in 1961. So when James is fighting this battle, The train from Washington is about 90 years overdue. Federal agencies would not help They said, you're right, but we don't want to get involved in that. So that's why. His suit is called James versus Marintia. And really it's James versus the Boilermakers. So Joseph James was very unique, probably the most unique individual at Marencia. One, he was a superior worker, two, he could, helped inaugurate And. send ships out, the 93. He was there for many of those launchings. And he took a principled stand that proved that he was correct. And he was a unique individual. So I think if you look at all that marinship stood for 1942 to 1945. He is probably the unique individual. He worked. He contributed his his talents, um, And He took a principled stand that was justified. So, I just commend all of you for listening. And accepting or listening to all that I've had to present about Joseph James, and It's great to be with. socio-historical society. and my friend Jerry Taylor in doing this. |
| 00:27:01.31 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Sarah Silver, Thank you so much, thank you, Mr bell and thank you, Mr Taylor. Sarah Silver, For your really excellent and thorough presentations we really appreciate that. Sarah Silver, Great thanks Jerry thanks Mr bell. excellent highlights of some really important themes throughout history. So I have two other quick mayor announcements tonight. The first is that we are very excited that we hope to be welcoming Council Member Hoffman back at our next meeting on October 13th, but also I'm sad that that means that Councilmember Riley be stepping down from his interim position. So we will hope that that happens on the 13th. And then I also wanted to, um, open the floor to our city manager Adam Pulitzer. um, because he has some important news that he wants to share with us and with the community. |
| 00:28:13.76 | Adam Politzer | Thank you, Mayor. Dear City Council, and city staff and community members after a 33 year career in local government I'm announcing tonight my plans to retire Yeah, Sausalito city manager. at the end of December of 2020. I sit here before you reflecting on a lifetime of Sausalito memories. from attending preschool in Marin City, to gaining lifelong friends at Bayside and MLK and later Tam High School. So now, at this very moment, 55 years later, stepping down as a hometown kid that's done good for its community. My 20 years with the city of Sausalito has been extraordinary. especially the 13 years as city manager. I am very proud of the role I played on Team Sausalito. I've been actively involved in so many infrastructure projects, including the public safety building, paving streets, maintaining our sewer system, replacing the spinnaker point bulkhead improving accessibility, and rebuilding our city parks including Mary Ann Sears, Robin Sweeney, MLK, and Southview Parks. during my tenure. the city has reinvested over $50 million into our infrastructure. I'm also very proud of my role in managing and facilitating a successful consolidation of our fire department. with the Southern Marin Fire District. and their subsequent efforts to reduce our wildfire risks with an aggressive vegetation management program that is well-funded and part of a county-wide strategic plan. I am very proud of the Southern Marine Management Academy that we established seven years ago. then 140 graduates later. I am most proud of the city's effort to help those in need. including those that live on Richardson Bay with our mobile shower and safe harbor programs. With that said, What I will miss the most. for all the incredible people I've had the opportunity to work with. After all, It's the people that make Sausalito so special. I've had the privilege to work for 14 city council members during my tenure as city manager. a total of 20 over my career here in Sausalito. every one of them, passionate, hardworking. and committed to serving our community. at the highest level. I've been very fortunate to lead a group of 22 talented and exceptional senior managers. too many to name them all tonight. but I would like to call out our city attorney Mary Wagner. our assistant city manager, Julia Carter, Thank you. and our police chief, John Robacher. as they each play a critical role on this team. I am very grateful to the community for their support from the talent-rich boards and commissions and the generosity of our nonprofits. I am confident. that the city is well positioned to take on any challenge that comes its way as we head into 2021. during the next three months. I will work closely with the city council to ensure a smooth transition Thank you. prior to my departure at the end of December. I look forward. to spending quality time with my family. traveling with my wife. volunteering at the high school where my youngest daughter is a sophomore. visiting my 19 year old daughter who is in her second year at the University of Colorado. and providing advice and perhaps some coaching where my oldest daughter, who has recently started her career, in local government. After taking some time off, I look forward to my next adventure while reserving some time to continue to support local communities, serving those most in need. seniors, families, teens, and the homeless. With that said, I thank you from the bottom of my heart for trusting me. in leading our team for the past 13 years as your city manager Thank you, Madam Mayor. Thank you, council members. And thank you, community. |
| 00:32:38.15 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Got a standing ovation from Joe, which is hard to do on the Zoom, but we're all. for all clapping. So Adam, it's just such a a critical time. There will be a lot of time for us all to give you the accolades that you deserve, so we're not going to start down that path tonight, but I do just want to say that Ray and I especially appreciate you coming to us proactively. and with enough time ahead of your retirement to give the city time to adjust to this really difficult news and time to plan. So we are really thankful and grateful to you for that. And while we know that this is hard news for Sausalito, we know that this is also a decision that's good for you and that you well deserve after all the years of public service. that you've given not only Sausalito, but other communities as well. So you brought so much to this community and we will find the appropriate time to all thank you. But we are looking forward to planning with you and others on a on a good transition to keep Sassolita moving forward. Is there anything any other council members would like to add? |
| 00:34:08.94 | Ray | Madam Mayor, if I may. Um, So I'd just like to add some important um, uh, Reinforcement for what you've said. There's a time when we will in the not too distant future, where we're going to be able to celebrate all of Adam's accomplishments. Tonight's not that time. Um, All we can do is to begin by saying thank you. The mayor and I are particularly grateful that I'm not sure. As I've learned in all of local government, the professionalism by which um, even departures are Um, announced and made is again the mayor and I are very grateful that you gave us the time to be able to Um, work this through and figure out, what our next steps are going to be. So thank you for that. I know all of your colleagues, all of your peers in the county recognize the leader that you are and what you've given. and This exemplifies that leadership. Um, For the community, You've got to recognize that this is coming at a time when there's going to be a change of council Couple of us are stepping down. there's an election in place. And by the time Adam leaves, there will be a new council. So, you know, before people start fretting and worrying, that this current council's going to pull a Mitch McConnell on you and try and slam through a bit of city cat, a new city manager before the new council seated. Rest assured, that's not the case. It's going to take many months for us to find a new city manager. And we've got to go through a process of hiring a recruiter and so on. So what the current council can do is help make sure we lay the groundwork, perhaps get an accrued or put a process in place. but rest assured it's the new incoming council. with the help of all the community with all the community. to be able to choose our next city manager. So that's all I'm going to say to reassure the community that We'll all be working hard. to achieve an efficient and effective trend um, transition and once again to thank Adam for his professionalism. There will be, as I said, another time and another moment to laud his achievements and all that he has done. But that's not for tonight. Thank you, Adam. |
| 00:37:38.16 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Thank you, Ray. Thank you. Any other words or should we move on? |
| 00:37:45.58 | Councilmember Joe | Ray said it all, you and Ray said it all, just say tonight, I'm just happy for my friend. Thank you. |
| 00:37:51.69 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 00:37:53.94 | Tom Riley | And I'd just like to share, thank you Ray for those great comments from the mayor. Adam, a year ago, I didn't know you from Adam. And I have have spent a lot of time with you in the past year. And I can share that you really care about this community. You're passionate about, You have tremendous history. about this community, whether it's properties, people, people that have come and gone. And it's truly, truly amazing. We've spent a lot of time together. I thank you for helping me. rookie make it through this year. And I also not only trust your guidance, but I Really appreciate your friendship. Thank you, Adam. |
| 00:38:38.98 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Thank you, everyone. Okay, so we thank you, Adam, much more to come on this and we really appreciate that. Okay, so we will take... public comment on mayor's announcements and then just for the public right after this is also public comment on items not on the agenda so I'm not seeing any hands raised. So, We will move on to general public comment. And again, just before we do move on to the next item, thank you so much to the Sausalito Historical Society Jerry Taylor and Tammy Bell, so they're really thorough. inspiring presentation. It was really well done and well thought through. Thank you. Okay, open it up to general public comment. This is a time for members of the public to comment on items that are not on our agenda. night. I see Steven Allison. You have three minutes. |
| 00:39:54.88 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Welcome. |
| 00:39:58.47 | Steven Allison | Thank you. I just wanted to give a thank you to the members of the council that have, spoken up in the press about affordable housing. I know this is a third rail issue and local politics. I'm sure there's a rocky road ahead. There's a lot of factors to consider. And so you, Mayor, Joe Burns and other members who've spoken to it. I know it will be a bit of a process to figure out how to how to and look out for diversity in our community, including that in our decisions. I know it's important to be able to do that. I know that we do not wait for a state mandate It's an interesting year and There's going to be a lot of considerations about our local history, and the current local considerations, but I'm grateful for you all for taking it on. Thank you. |
| 00:40:53.23 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. Are there any other members of the public here tonight who would like to comment, general public comment? Heidi, I see no additional hands. Oh, I do, I see Kylo Burt. Welcome, Carlo. |
| 00:41:13.75 | Carlito Berg | Hi there, everybody. Before I speak, just wondering, would this be the appropriate time to comment on the historical society presentation a little bit? |
| 00:41:22.87 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | I'm sure I did ask for public comment on that, but if you missed that you can speak now. |
| 00:41:27.78 | Carlito Berg | I missed that my apologies. So I just wanted to say thank you. Um, to both the presenters. you know, before I think the history of our town, our family having been here 20 plus years has, I've always been really interested in history and I'm always really sad whenever I turn on the history channel and it's ice road truckers and everything else now instead of anything good. But, you know, jokes aside, I really love the part about the spirit of the Marin ship and about how, you know, Don Arquez offered his land to returning servicemen, artists, sailors, beatniks and created this cool, local, funky community that I see every day down here when I'm riding my bike around, which I, you know, I got an electric bike because I, |
| 00:42:01.07 | Mary Wagner | how |
| 00:42:17.76 | Carlito Berg | You know, that's all the rage now. And the real interesting thing to me Um, about the spirit of innovation in the marineship and how we go forward is Guys like Don, they did what they did because they wanted to serve the community and meet a need that's existing. Um, And that's what I think. spirit of the marineship is above all else is to meet the needs of the people that have made history in Sausalito and continue to make history. And so Again, it's just one of those things where If we have quantifiable needs, whatever they may be, whether it's affordable housing, live work housing, senior housing, in any general area, to me, the spirit of the Marin ship supports that. over time. And I think we can see from the history of what's happened that if something like that was to happen in the future and to be considered to allow folks like myself, to go through transparency processes instead of not having pathways to propose things. then I think that would be beneficial for everyone in the city. and be true to the spirit of the partnership. and, you know, hopefully we can see more statues. made of bronze. of, um, Mr. James. Anyway. That's all I have to say. Thanks very much. |
| 00:43:43.28 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Okay, great. Thank you. Alice Merrill and then John DeRay. Welcome. Alice, I owe you an email. |
| 00:43:52.89 | Alice Merrill | But that's okay, thank you, yes. I, I thought my, oh, there I am. Oh, great. I just want to say again, big, huge housing in the Marinship. Monarchez wouldn't have gone for that. Please don't. be putting that there. Just please don't be putting it there. It's It's just not the right place. Thank you. |
| 00:44:22.67 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. |
| 00:44:23.53 | Alice Merrill | I'm done. |
| 00:44:23.97 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. Great. Thank you, Alice. Good to see you. John DeRay. Welcome. |
| 00:44:36.10 | John DeRay | Hello, can you hear me, Mayor? |
| 00:44:37.59 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Yes, we can. Welcome. |
| 00:44:39.29 | John DeRay | Thank you very much. First of all, I'm sorry I missed the comment on the historical society. First I wanted to shout out for I don't really know Adam but I know the work that he's done over 13 years. So a big shout out to Adam for all his fine work over those years. I did want to comment and thank Jerry Taylor and the historical society on the work that they did. |
| 00:44:48.51 | Mary Wagner | Thank you. I don't know. |
| 00:44:52.37 | Mary Wagner | they just don't |
| 00:45:05.43 | John DeRay | Um, I read the letter that he sent in that included Tony Badger's letter from July of 2018. It was submitted to the general plan advisory committee. It was that letter that I read that really It's one of the things that motivated me to get down there to the Marineship and find out what was going on. And, um, He focuses on those shipways and the three businesses there. aqua masan uh bayside boatworks and richardson bay boatworks all three of those businesses are as busy as they've ever been IAN MOODY IS is constructed. There's two houseboats. He launched one recently. There's two in his yard and there's two on the books ready to go after that. So he's as busy as ever. So there's a lot of economic activity there in the marine ship. As we all know, it is the engine. Um, So it's unfortunate that we are moving in the wrong direction. As you know, we are losing engineered fluids. I believe he signed his lease away today. It was the fastest growing company in Sausalito. There was no place for him for that light industrial business in the Marin ship. We're losing our Schoonermacher boat yard. the dry storage there. Um, Our shipways are in complete disrepair. By the way, shipway number three, Mike Linders, Bayside Boat Works, main shipway is a place where Joseph James did a lot of welding. I just want to highlight the great work that Jerry did in bringing to light the history of the Marin ship. but we're kind of at a tipping point and at risk of losing losing much of it. Thank you, Mayor. |
| 00:46:57.23 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Thank you, Mr. Dre. Okay, we will move on to our action minutes. of our meeting of September 8th. Do we have any corrections or a motion? I'll move approval. |
| 00:47:20.36 | Tom Riley | I'll second that. |
| 00:47:22.44 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Great. |
| 00:47:22.96 | Heidi Scoble | Heidi, could you please call the roll? Councilmember Riley. |
| 00:47:27.33 | Tom Riley | Yes. |
| 00:47:28.67 | Heidi Scoble | Councilmember Burns? |
| 00:47:30.25 | Tom Riley | Yes. |
| 00:47:30.96 | Heidi Scoble | Council member Cox. Yes. Vice Mayor Withey. |
| 00:47:34.57 | Ray | Yes. |
| 00:47:35.55 | Heidi Scoble | Mayor Cleveland Knowles. |
| 00:47:37.61 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Yes. Okay, the next item on our agenda is item number four, which is council member committee reports. We have a long agenda in front of us tonight, so I guess I would just |
| 00:47:40.31 | Heidi Scoble | And I'm... |
| 00:47:51.09 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | ask for folks to be brief. But does anyone want to start? |
| 00:48:03.66 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Tom, I'm sorry. |
| 00:48:05.66 | Tom Riley | Thank you. I'll just very brief relative to the Economic Development Advisory Committee that Councilmember Burns and I are liaisons to. They received the information we're receiving tonight, which is the report on the impact of COVID. They also reviewed revenue information in the land economic study. At their next meeting, they're going to prioritize the 29 recommendations in the land economic study. plus COVID reaction. proposals. And I would like them to then come back to city council after that meeting and hopefully we can agendize it for the EDAC to make recommendations to city council on our COVID response and things we can do to help our economic development. Thank you. |
| 00:48:52.01 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Great, thank you. Uh, Joan, do you have anything to report? |
| 00:48:56.94 | Joan Cox | Sure. |
| 00:48:57.80 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | And, |
| 00:48:58.04 | Joan Cox | I WANT TO TALK ABOUT THE |
| 00:48:59.39 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. |
| 00:48:59.40 | Joan Cox | I participated in various meetings with Council Member Riley for the Bridgeway Marina negotiations, which we will consider later on our agenda this evening. as well as various meetings for the waterfront committee, including meetings with RBRA, Richardson's Bay Regional Agency, California's Department of Housing and Community Development, Senator McGuire and the Bay Conservation District concerning our management of our waterfront, including the identification of affordable housing in advance of the deadlines mandated by the state so that we can start now in the effort to provide housing for those for our homeless and disadvantaged. I Karen Hollweg, The Oh, and then Council vice mayor with the and I participated in a meeting with the Sausalito Marin city sewer. where we are considering to pursue council direction with respect to consideration of. Um, combining the services of the collection and treatment systems. Thank you. |
| 00:50:22.75 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Great, thank you. Councilman for Roons. |
| 00:50:26.60 | Councilmember Joe | Tonight, as we speak, there's a board meeting at Willow Creek Academy to discuss the unification for under governance and oversight. That communication between the district and the school continues for unification as well as the discussion to bring forth the $42 million bond for facilities. Tomorrow night is another kind of key meeting in that discussion where the joint task force or joint meeting of the school and the district to discuss the unification. Last meeting, this council appointed a sub, special task force of council member Cox and I to meet with our community development director and city attorney to talk about a path for the process of discussion for cannabis retail storefront we had one quick zoom last week or I'm sorry the Friday following that meeting and it was just a brief kind of get together on putting that into staff's calendar to research other communities, what's worked, what hasn't worked, what are some of the issues they've had so that Lily, Wayland, our community development director can report back to us. And we're trying to get a second meeting on the schedule. I bring that up at this meeting because a lot of people have contacted us through email and so forth to the entire council about, you know, what is the process for an ordinance and what is the process for a development agreement and so forth, that is what we're gonna be discussing, but that subgroup has not come to any conclusions yet. We're just still doing the fact-bite. |
| 00:52:06.29 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Great, thank you. Vice Mayor? |
| 00:52:10.34 | Ray | Yeah, thank you, Madam Mayor. Um, Council member Cox is already talked about the sewer committee move on from that. I had the honor, together with the mayor of Novato, Denise, my good friend Denise Anthas, of hosting Senator McGuire and several members of the finance departments of the state of California to discuss the recovery and the status of the current situation because of COVID. I'll make a couple of those comments later on in connection with our finance presentation tonight. So let me just, I'll move on from that. But just to say that the information we learned there is entirely consistent with the information we're going to get tonight from the UNI. Um, Thank you. I also, even though this is not a formal I attended last month's Bay Wave the sea level rise County initiative in which the city of Corbin era presented a interesting research sea level rise adaptation strategic plan. This is where we need to get to. All I can say is they are light years ahead of us. And then finally, I attended a MC Clean Energy Strategic Planning Session I got to say six hours zoom meeting. Wow. It gets it's pretty arduous, but I'm not really going to report out on that because there's too much. So I decided I would write a memo for us that actually is annotated with all the topics that were discussed and the... links to the various stages of the presentation. I didn't get it ready in time for tonight. So I'll work on that and push that through. The important thing that I've been focusing on for MCE, together with the finance group there, is that We are preparing to Um, probably in the first quarter of next year. Obviously, I won't be around to see it, but we are preparing to float a very significant municipal debt issuance in order to give MCE the power the financial power to be able to acquire renewable assets. You know, we set the goal of trying to achieve 90%, approximately 90% renewable by 2030, it's incredibly challenging. incredibly challenging goal. And we're the first CCA to have been able to achieve almost $200 million reserve We're the first one to have achieved a debt rating. We now have two credit rating, credit rating rather. We have new two credit rating agencies now supporting us. We've just had a credit upgrade And the goal is to be able to float municipal debt in the first quarter of next year so that we can acquire significant assets because we realize that's the only way we're gonna achieve the goal. So that's good news. I will write all that up to get to the agenda, plus all the various. There were a lot more topics discussed, a lot more topics discussed. And for anybody who wants to do a deep dive into renewable energy, there were some fantastic presentations and I'll give you the links so that if members of our community want to really dive in, they will. But I'm sorry I didn't have that ready for tonight. And that's all I've got out of there. |
| 00:56:17.58 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Great, thank you. And I'm sure the sustainability commission would be interested in those materials. |
| 00:56:23.11 | Ray | Oh, may I add, I attended the Sustainability Commission. I got another meeting later this week. But I attended a sustainability commission meeting last night. Sorry, sustainability commission, I missed you. Um, And importantly, they worked on the element of the general plan, racial justice language. And all I can say is that I first started off almost eight years ago. My first liaison appointment was with the sustainability commission. I think the mayor asked me to rejoin that for a few months and my time remaining. All I can say is. Wow, what a powerful group. they are going to put forward a revision of this racial justice statement that's going to just blow you away. So. Sorry, Madam Mayor. |
| 00:57:27.14 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Okay, great. No worries. Thank you. Okay, the committee that I wanted to report on was the bike ped. Committee which met last night with a very full agenda. The main item on the agenda was using a grant from Tam to make improvements. related to bike safety and school safe routes to school safety from up north of Tamales up towards the Willow Creek Academy campus. So there were several options put forward. committee had done a lot of work as had Mr. Friese the committee put forward and there was great community engagement and a lot of speakers for and against. The main downside of the proposed project is some parking removal. and there was concern around that, but that resulted in the safest bike lane configuration. So that will be coming to us at an upcoming meeting. So looking forward to that. Two other projects that were noted that might have impacts to our community are a resurfacing of the Mill Valley Sausalito bike path, the connector there. So at some point there will be some hopefully very short term closures related to that resurfacing, but the resurfacing is much needed. So We will let the community know when that is going to happen. The other one is the gate six improvements will be, bike improvements will be happening. will be forthcoming. So those were the main issues from that. And then I just wanted to say it was really a pleasure to join A few other council members, our city manager, our public works staff at Dunphy Park to have a socially distanced ribbon cutting and to recognize all the great work that has gone on there and to welcome the community to the park. So that was very exciting and very happy to have great weather and good air quality too. Enjoy that event on Saturday. And then I also just wanted to remind people to respond to the census if you have not. We really need our community, our 94965- community every single person counts. And this will be data that will be relied upon for many years to come in terms of funding allocations and other important. programs. So if you have not, please. Please respond. And that is all. We will do not see any hands raised for public comment. Are there any members of the public who would like to comment on council member committee reports? And seeing that. So we will move on to our consent agenda item five. these items on our consent. calendar are considered generally to be routine and non-controversial. And is there any member of the council who would like to comment or remove an item from consent? Yes, Councilmember Cudd. |
| 01:00:58.33 | Joan Cox | Thank you, Mayor. I'd actually like to comment on several items. I'll be brief if you'll permit me. The first is the COVID-19 I appreciate the importance of reopening our businesses, but we are anticipating a potential second surge. So I just wanna continue to caution us to be careful in the way that we expand our use of businesses and to maintain social distances. It was odd to see the NIH parameters published on Friday to include spreading through aerosol as opposed to droplets and then see that removed on Monday. But I think it's just something we all have to be aware of. even as we encourage our businesses to resume and try to resumed normal operations for ourselves and our workers. um, With respect to item 5C, I recommend we expand the geographical areas described in Appendix B for those committees that have 94965 residents added to them who live outside Sausalito. Right now the geographical boundaries for the conflict of interest declaration are Sausalito, but we now may have committee members who live outside of Sausalito. And so I recommend that we expand the geographical boundaries described in Appendix B. And I've conferred with the city attorney about this and she is aligned with that recommendation. |
| 01:02:30.52 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Great, thank you. |
| 01:02:31.75 | Joan Cox | For item 5D, this was a 169 page report from Southern Marin Fire about issues that are extraordinarily important to Sausalito. And it included discussion of priority risk parcels, page 88, priority fuel treatment parcels, page 104, designated community refuge areas, page 114. These diagrams were impossible for me to discern about what those parcels were and where those community refuge areas were together with the evacuation maps in Appendix B. So I would like to ask that we put this on a future agenda item. This is something that's of extraordinary importance to our community as the fire season is upon us. And so I believe it merits, this detailed information merits more attention by us and more transparency for our residents. And finally, for 5E, I commend us for purchasing tables and benches. One thing I see missing in Dunphy Park is shade structures. We have two willow trees and all the other trees are so youthful that we lack shade structures for our seniors and our kids. So I'd like to again for a future agenda item to consider um, how to, provide some of the shade people used to enjoy in Dunphy Park. Those are my comments. Thank you so much. |
| 01:03:59.30 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Okay. So just to be clear, you are asking to take item 5D off of our consent calendar and have it be considered or just the general topic of the WUI and fire preparedness, et cetera. |
| 01:04:14.64 | Joan Cox | I'm asking that we add it to a future agenda item and that we not limit our review of this report to the consent agenda this evening. |
| 01:04:23.33 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Okay. So the file and receive action, you're fine taking, but to... |
| 01:04:27.34 | Joan Cox | I just believe it merits more attention in addition to that. Thank you. |
| 01:04:31.64 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Okay. |
| 01:04:31.85 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 01:04:31.97 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Any other comments from Council members? |
| 01:04:35.29 | Ray | Madam Mayor, I would agree with Councilmember Cox on five demerits future discussion. I mean, you know, some of the we get the presentation, the great presentations of Southern Marine Fire, but you know, the detailed maps and so on. Residents want to know what's going on, so... We need a discussion of that. I totally agree with that. With no further ado, I'm willing to make a motion to approve items 5A through 5F of the consent count. |
| 01:05:11.76 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | And I would just ask before we do that, that we accept public comment. |
| 01:05:16.21 | Joan Cox | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 01:05:16.52 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. |
| 01:05:16.53 | Joan Cox | And may or may I ask that we include in that approval the amendment to item 5C that I enunciated. |
| 01:05:19.70 | Vicki Nichols | including |
| 01:05:25.73 | Joan Cox | Yeah. |
| 01:05:26.02 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Okay, so we have a motion. We're going to hold off on a second. Or did you just second it, Joan? |
| 01:05:33.93 | Joan Cox | If the vice mayor will accept my friendly amendment, then I- |
| 01:05:38.05 | Unknown | I do. I do. |
| 01:05:38.99 | Joan Cox | Then I second the motion and I'm ready for public comment. Thank you. |
| 01:05:43.33 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Great we will take public comment on items 5a through 5f um And I did just want to note that it was, we have not normally put our COVID update on our consent agenda. And if we didn't have such other .... That was not to minimize the impacts of COVID. Okay, I have Kevin Carroll, welcome. Two nights in a row. |
| 01:06:19.53 | Kevin Carroll | I'm afraid so. I just thought under the COVID Um, report that it should be noted that blue and Goldfleet started up service this last weekend. and they'll be operating Friday Saturdays and Sundays three boats a day. I did some research and the, out of the four major tour companies, that include Sausalito as a stop. One, Tower Tours is not going to be starting up until after January 1st. but the other three, Grayline, Dillon and Big Bus will all be starting operations starting this weekend. Most are Friday, Saturday, Sunday. One is going to add Monday, two. But I just thought the council and the public should be aware of that. |
| 01:07:10.36 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. I'm so glad you brought that up. You did announce that at the bike pad committee meeting last night and I made a note. to put that on my report and I forgot. So thank you so much. |
| 01:07:20.04 | Unknown | All right. |
| 01:07:20.06 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. That is important. Okay, hey Mark welcome. |
| 01:07:39.58 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | We can't hear you yet, Faye. Hold on just a minute, we can't hear you. Let's see if you can unmute yourself. |
| 01:07:46.75 | Faye | How about now? |
| 01:07:47.73 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Yes, we can. |
| 01:07:48.63 | Faye | All right. Yay. So good evening, Mayor Cleveland Knowles, Vice Mayor Withy, Council members and staff. And first, congratulations, Adam, and best wishes to you in your retirement. It's a great thing. I would also like you to consider that I would like the council to consider removing item 5D As council member Cox said, this is a very extensive and thorough 169 page report. In the report, there are vegetation management requirements that our residents should be aware of as well as the proposed home resale inspections to enforce defensible space and vegetation management. I sit on the boards of UC Marin Master Gardeners, Fire Safe Marin, and I'm a member of the Marine Conservation League Environmentally Sound Practices Committee on Defensible Space. Fire smart landscaping research is evolving and studies are underway to better understand vegetation management for residential landscapes. The ESP committee is actively engaged in preparing vegetation management principles for the MWPA, which is the Marin Wildfire Protection Agency. Today I spoke with both Fire Chief Tom Welch and Fire Marshal Fred Hilliard and they also supported taking this report off the consent calendar to give interested Sausalito residents and the city council an opportunity to review the documents with them. Members of Sausalito Beautiful are also interested in meeting with Southern Marin Fire District as well as the board. We need time to allow the ESP and the MWPA to provide our community with more guidance on defensible space principles. Removal of vegetation may create defensible space, but it also impacts our environment in many ways, including passive solar cooling through shading and It impacts habitats for a range of animal species. Thank you for considering removing this report from the consent calendar and for future consideration by yourselves and the residents for a future agenda. Thank you. |
| 01:10:03.53 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. Are there any other members of the public? Okay, Carlisle Berg. If anyone else would like to sit down the consent calendar, please raise your hand. Thank you. |
| 01:10:18.11 | Carlito Berg | Hey, everybody. Carlo here again. Sorry, my... I'm going home, so I pulled over to make a comment. I like to listen. and just to, just for Joan's comment, um, I'd be happy when I was about 22. I planted about 60 oak trees and olive trees in Sonoma County. And now because of the hemp ordinance, we're gonna be removing them and selling them So, to plant hemp and We, I'd be happy to donate a bunch of them for Dunphy Park. I can go get my excavator and go pull him out. So if that's something that anyone wants to do, I'd be happy to donate those for free and bring them over on a flatbed. That's all I want to say. |
| 01:11:03.60 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Great, thank you very much for that offer. Okay, anyone else? I'm not seeing any other hands raised. So yes, Vice Mayor. |
| 01:11:15.48 | Ray | Well, Madam Mayor, I mean, we've... We appreciate Fay's remarks. So the question is, is it necessary to pull this? or should we just receive it and file it, which is what we're doing, but really ask that we have a future presentation that delve into it. That's still my, I think, the right thing to do, but... Council Member Cox, who seconded the motion, what do you think? |
| 01:11:45.40 | Joan Cox | I agree. I think it's important that we receive and accept this report. It has lots of valuable information. and we don't have it on our regular agenda this evening. I think we need to put it on our regular agenda, invite um, the Chiefs and Hilliard to come back to the city walk. us through it so that members of the public can inquire and be informed. |
| 01:12:13.45 | Councilmember Joe | Yeah, I agree. This is an agency that answers to us. They have their own board and their own meetings that they can go through. Most of the document we've heard in previous presentations in the last year or so, but I think it's something that you can still file and receive. There's no action on it now or later. |
| 01:12:31.74 | Ray | If is anybody in disagreement with that? If not, my motion still stands. |
| 01:12:37.68 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Okay, no, I think we'll just make sure we get it on an upcoming agenda. |
| 01:12:41.04 | Ray | Thank you, Jessica. Well, we'll bring that up again in future agenda. |
| 01:12:44.82 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. |
| 01:12:44.83 | Ray | Thank you. |
| 01:12:44.94 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. Okay. PB, Sarah Silver PB Sarah PB Sarah Silver PB Sarah PB Sarah Silver PB Sarah PB Sarah Silver PB |
| 01:12:52.83 | Heidi Scoble | Council member Riley. |
| 01:12:54.49 | Tom Riley | Yes. |
| 01:12:55.25 | Heidi Scoble | Councilmember Burns. Thank you. |
| 01:12:56.71 | Tom Riley | Thank you. |
| 01:12:56.75 | Heidi Scoble | Thank you. |
| 01:12:56.77 | Tom Riley | Yes. |
| 01:12:57.07 | Heidi Scoble | Thank you. Councilmember Cox. |
| 01:12:58.64 | Tom Riley | Yes. |
| 01:12:59.43 | Heidi Scoble | Vice mayor Withey. |
| 01:13:00.58 | Tom Riley | Thank you. |
| 01:13:00.60 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Yeah. |
| 01:13:00.83 | Tom Riley | Yes. |
| 01:13:00.90 | Heidi Scoble | Thank you. Mayor Cleveland Knowles. |
| 01:13:02.28 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. Yes. That motion carries five zero. And thank you for everyone who commented. All right, we're gonna move on to our business items and start with business item 6A. which is our fiscal year 2021, 2020-2021 budget update. We have our Assistant City Manager and Administrative Services Director, Julia Carter here. She'll be joined by Lloyd De Amas from HDL Companies. And this is not an action item tonight, information item. So we have a brief presentation. But this is part of our effort to keep a close eye on our and we will be able to improve our finances as we evolve during COVID. |
| 01:13:54.41 | Yulia Corda | Thank you. |
| 01:13:57.62 | Yulia Corda | Good evening. Madam Mayor and City Council, I'm Yulia Corda, Assistant City Manager and Administrative Services Director. And the item before you tonight is the budget update. as we continue our discussion on the fiscal impact of COVID-19 on the serious budget and specifically general fund. Next slide. Tonight we have four major objectives for presentation. So the first one is, We want to review assumptions that we made back in April during the fiscal year 19-20 mid-year budget review. And compare those assumptions with the preliminary actual results for quarter four that we are happy to report today. The second objective would be to revisit the three financial scenario assumptions that we during the preparation for the 2021 budget. again, look at the scenarios in light of any known economic conditions now as we are two months into the fiscal year. we will also discuss what's on horizon in terms of financial calendar and future? that have you. the city's financial position in response to COVID. And finally, we'll dive into the recent performance and outlook of the sales tax. and the, As the Mayor mentioned, today we invited our consultant from HTL cover that part of the presentation later tonight. Next slide. Before we go into details, here's a quick summary on the financials. Finance staff has been working really hard in the last two months. to close the last quarter of the fiscal year 1920, And you may have noticed the quarter four treasurer's reports on your consent calendar tonight as well. that shows the city's cash position at the end of the fiscal year. So we are really pleased to report that our mid-year projections were rather conservative. as the preliminary results show a little bit better picture and we'll go into this in details on the next slide. But. Before we go there, I just want to mention that the kind of key takeaways of this presentation that we are projecting the and designate the general fund balance of 4.4 million, which is 25% of the period in expenditures And it's about 600,000 or 4% higher than the 3.8 million that we reported at the mid-year. the revenues performed a little bit better, projected a little bit of about 4% increase, and the expenditures. I also expect this to be a little bit under the budget. mainly due to the salary savings. related to vacancies. And partially to Shared services agreements that went into effect in June. some of them did. For the purpose of this presentation, we restored the one-time reduction of the shortfall contingency designations. of 820,000 that the council authorized at mid-year. and we reverted it back to the original 10% policy level. And I also want to mention that it's very important to note the numbers presented tonight, are unaudited. So what it means that we are still working on the year end and some adjusting entries will likely take place in the next few weeks to modify these numbers. |
| 01:17:36.72 | Yulia Corda | Next slide. This is a quick comparison slide of the city's general fund revenues projected at mid-year back in April. And you can see these numbers are presented in yellow column in front of you. and the preliminary actuals are presented in green column. So you can see that overall we are showing about 600,000 increase But again, these numbers are preliminary and may actually slightly go up as we finish the accruals for the year. Next slide. So now just a little bit more details on the revenue categories, the property tax revenues for, Conservatively projected the to increase by 3.5% and the actual receives from the Marine Council showing increase on 6%. the sales tax revenues were projected declined by 678 000 but the actual receipts actually slightly improved this projection so by 210,000. which was recorded through May, so we haven't booked the June entry yet. And again, additional information on the last quarter sales tax is timing a little bit later at the end of the presentation. the TOT taxes, for check that to decrease by 400,000, But. Here we have bad news. The actual results showed much worse declines of additional 195 close to 200,000 Um, The business license tax was projected to stay at the original budget level. This is mostly due to the timing of the renewal that was for the most part completed in January. So we are showing the actual receipts we're showing an actual increase of 120,000, which is pretty much reflection of the serious pre-COVID business conditions. were projected to decrease by 35% due to expected drop in building and planning activities Yet in this category we are showing 95,000 increase above the original projections And, as we learned that the activity level did not slow down as projected. and plus complements to the CDD staff that was able to efficiently transition the permit center operations into virtual format. To the same respect, parks and recreation fees and rental were to decrease by 124,000. anticipated closure, cancellations of classes, programs and facility rentals. And again, these projections were improved by about 41,000. due to the efforts of our Parks and Recreation staff, that started the very successful summer camp program at MLK site. in June 2020. Next slide. revenues for fines and We were projected to drop by 220,000. The actual decline in this category was only 46. So the other thing is, increase in miscellaneous categories related to various miscellaneous reimbursements, including zero waste grant and monetary donations from Dorothy Gibson estate. that were received. Earlier in the year. Yet the investment earnings are showing some substantial drop that corresponds to the market crash that began in February 2020. But I also want to mention that it will probably Accurate additional interest allocation, so this number will improve slightly as we go through the year-end processes. |
| 01:21:43.72 | Yulia Corda | On the expense side, we projected all our expenditures in four different categories salaries and benefits, contract services, materials and supply. Here you can see that we are anticipating quite a significant savings and salaries and benefits. And, um, even, uh, With a certain increase in contract services, we are still the general fund expenses are still under the budget, but again, I just want to mention that once we go and finish all the accruals, this number will very likely go up and it'll have to show a little bit higher expenses. |
| 01:22:25.11 | Yulia Corda | next slide. You can go to next slide. |
| 01:22:32.59 | Yulia Corda | Thank you. I don't want to spend too much time on this slide, as the numbers we are presenting are not final yet, but we included the slide just to demonstrate the projected increase in the undesignated fund balance. from 21% projected mid-year to 25% of the rates in expenditures. The next slide. |
| 01:22:56.94 | Yulia Corda | Now, as we discussed the impact of COVID-19 on the last fiscal year, 19-20, Let's switch gears to the current fiscal year 2021. on. You may recall that at the budget study session on April 28th, We presented three economic scenarios. for the general fund revenue sources. We call them bad, worse and ugly. or maybe better terms would be more optimistic. that assumed that shelter in place was going to be lifted before June and the economy was going to be back to normal. by August, so as of today, almost three months into the fiscal year, we can safely confirm that this most optimistic scenario did not materialize the Most probable scenario assumed that shelter in place partially lifted before June. to Thank you. ongoing restrictions that continue to have negative impact on businesses for the rest of the Yolanda Red 2020. And the most fearful scenario projected the second wave of the pandemic in the fall. and reinstatement, full reinstatement of shelter in place for the remainder of 2020. At the same study session, City Council provided direction to pursue most probable scenario. and we build the 2021 budget on those assumptions. As of today, almost three months into the fiscal year. we are still in the most probable scenario for the most part. But, Unfortunately, some elements of the most fearful scenario are also becoming reality. AND THANK YOU. In the next three slides, Thank you. additional information on each scenario, I don't want to spend too much time on this. go to the Next slide. So the worst, again, the worst or most probable scenario is the one we build the budget on We will continue monitoring our financial performance as the year progresses. and we will bring some necessary adjustments as needed to the budget before you. one thing that really jumps in here, again, the bullet, the last, the second bullet from the I WANT TO TALK ABOUT THIS. from the bottom. as you can see the tot revenues that we projected for the scenario about 50 of the historic level. And as you will hear from the COVID economic and economic study update in the next item, the actual decline in the TOT revenues were about 92% for the quarter four. So the results were much, much worse than anticipated here. But still, it's way too premature to be making any adjustments at this point. So we will continue monitoring our budget. Next slide. And let's go to the next slide. |
| 01:26:07.02 | Yulia Corda | We ran this budget scenarios at the base budget, LEVEL. or before we went into the budget program options. So at the base budget, you can see that each one of the scenarios projected significant general fund deficit. The budget was based on the most probable scenario that was further refined. of the. subsequent study sessions. And, uh, at the later date, translated into adopted fiscal year 2021 general fund budget. Next slide. |
| 01:26:47.86 | Yulia Corda | So you can see as we further refined our revenue base, we managed to reduce the base budget, projected base budget deficit from Almost. 5 million down to 4.3 million. And in June, City Council adopted a structurally balanced budget if you manage to balance the 4.3 million deficit and the general fund revenue so 18.4 million included one-time transfers from other funds and the total expenditures of 18.2 million. included all proposed budget reductions as they were approved by City Council in June. Next slide. At the budget adoption, City Council also created COVID-19 resurgence contingency. within the general fund reserve. and set aside 1.2. five million. which is an equivalent of additional tumor general fund. revenue losses. to account for full reinstatement of shelter in place as we discussed earlier in the most fearful scenario. And as you can see, the channel fund undesignated reserves for at the dangerous mark 1.8 million on 10% of the general fund expenditures at adoption. as we're now expecting to close the fiscal year. 19, 20, on the slightly better note that originally projected this will increase the reserves. yet again it's too soon to make any solid projections for the remainder of the fiscal year 2021. And as I mentioned again, We will continue monitoring the financial performance report back to Council as we close the first quarter of the fiscal year 2021. Next slide. This brings us to the next steps. as we outline the future. |
| 01:28:48.58 | Unknown | And that's it. |
| 01:28:48.78 | Yulia Corda | Timelines. for the serious revenue and review of financial response to COVID. And here's the list of items that we are currently working on in finance. We are hoping to finalize the fiscal year 19-20 year end process. the timeline for this is end of September, very beginning of October. In parallel to this, we will plan to complete the PBC list. That's the auditor's checklist. of about 80 various to prepare for the annual audit field work. uh, This work has to be done by mid-October to get ready for the annual audit which we plan to complete uh, and it's scheduled already for two weeks starting October 26. Again, in parallel, we will be working on completing the closure of the first quarter of 2021. that. ends this month and we will need about 30 days to fully complete this work. And once it's done, we will report to Council and to the Finance Committee. on the results of the first quarter. We expect to go to council early November with this number. And finally, the. We'll be scheduling the ongoing monthly finance committee meetings to share any new internal and external information. any updates on sharing services or any other operational matters that will have impact on the fiscal year 2021 budget. With that, I would like to turn this to Lloyd DeLamas, our sales tax consultant from HTL. to provide additional information on the recent sales tax performance Few showable. All right. |
| 01:30:44.38 | Lloyd DeLamas | Thank you. Or do I have to share this one? Greg there. Our second slide there. I THOUGHT THAT MIGHT BE, BECAUSE THIS IS A PUBLIC MEETING, IT WOULD BE USEFUL TO GIVE YOU A QUICK OVERVIEW OF WHAT THE SALES TAX IS COMPOSED OF. before we get into the projections. Um, California's I'm sorry. |
| 01:31:13.88 | Peter | Thank you. |
| 01:31:24.20 | Lloyd DeLamas | California's sales and use tax is This is an extremely narrow tax, it's only It's only imposed on tangible personal property. It's not imposed on real property or most services. When we first started out in the 30s, it was a two and a half cent tax with just three exemptions. Nowadays, the exemptions fill a book of 70 some odd pages. The result is we now tax fewer items than any state in the union, but we have the highest tax rate. simply because Every time we introduce a new exemption, we have to raise the rate to cover the loss on the remaining materials. Sausalito taxpayers pay 0.75% sales tax. Of that, the city of Sausalito receives 1.5 cents. The basket of goods are the same, but there's basically two kinds of sales tax in California. The first on the left is the Bradley Burns sales and use tax. And then there is what they call the transactions and use tax. The primary difference is, Sales tax follows the seller. Um, All the merchandise sold by a retailer in the city of Sausalito comes back to the city of Sausalito. There's a lot of purchases that don't have a point of sale, purchases from out of state I'm not sure. used car registrations at GMV, contract installation sales, and lease payments. And that money is put into a countywide use tax allocation pool and shared by every agency in the county pool. Um, by the ratio of sales. So this quarter Sausalito generated 4.8% of all the taxable sales in the county and they got 4.8% of the pool money and you can see in the that gray bar over in the left hand side. The pool is a accounts for a considerable portion of the sales tax revenue, primarily because of the growth and online sales. On the right side, you've got the Measure O, The difference in measure O now is that the sales tax comes back to the buyer rather than to the seller's district. Walk-in retail restaurants, gas stations look the same as sales tax but if you buy a car down in San Diego The dealer will collect a sales tax any, uh, uh, merchandise ordered and delivered from outside the city limits. The retailer will collect the Sausalito's transactions tax. If you go to the next slide, you'll see the difference. We look at the top 25. So that first item on the left, when it's that sales tax, architectural materials lab, they sell exactly what they're describing all over the region. Everything they sell to anybody in the state, it's also to get the sales tax. But you go over in the right hand side because on transactions tax, if architectural materials sells something to a resident in San Rafael, they collect San Rafael's transactions tax, San Francisco's, San Francisco's sales tax, etc. So they shrink on the major O side because they don't have that many customers inside Sausalito. On the other hand, if you look at the top 25 under Meijerot, one of the things we've noticed that one thing that Sausalena's like to do more than just eating outdoors is they love Amazon. And so Amazon is one of your major sales tax contributors. It counts for a significant part of your major owe money because the huge amount of online sales or purchases that Sausaliza residents make on Amazon. If you go to the next one, talk a little bit about what's going on. You can see the trend lines. THE FAMILY IS A LITTLE BIT OF |
| 01:36:21.49 | Lloyd DeLamas | Sausalito has some strengths and weaknesses. Sausalito's strengths are they have a number of e-commerce retailers, family home furnishings, tile and home improvement operations inside the city limits. who sell all over the state and they generate sizable sales tax. Um, your The downside is that much of your tax base is built around hospitality and leisure. hospitality and leisure will go up and down depending with weather, natural disasters, with economic recession, and as you know, pandemics. And you can see particularly beginning in the, first quarter, significant drops in just about everything. Um, So I take in general consumer goods because, Yeah. what's happened once people I had to start staying home I started shopping online. And, um, it. most of your general consumer goods, that uptick is basically online shopping. from your e-commerce stores in Sausalito. Um, The other big jump, of course, is in the state and county pools, which is that blue and green line. Um, there's been a huge, particularly during the pandemic, a huge, huge increase in online shopping. Brick and mortar stores drop like a stone. like folks shop more and more online. Um, had they were also having to start set up for uh homeschooling instead of buying Jessacan computers. Because they were staying home, they started spending money on home improvements. Um, And because a lot of that merchandise gets shipped from outside the city, once again, Amazon shoppers, the pool started to rise. And then of course groceries remain strong through that because people weren't eating out as much restaurants as much. They're going to the grocery store. And although food filled for home consumption, It's not taxable. They were buying a lot of wine, liquor, pet food, and particularly toilet paper. I'll go to the next one and look at Measure O. And similar. You can see the huge drop in restaurants. general consumer goods, Um, started to go back up because of online shopping and purchases. So overall it was not a particularly Wonderful. last two quarters. We are seeing an uptick now. the first quarter, turned it out to be the peak of the decline If you've been reading the news last two or three weeks, California is doing very well. Um, on the pandemic. Although you're going to have to be careful because watching the news this evening, I think there's 30 six of our states that are having an uptick and most of Europe is now having an uptick. So we're gonna have to watch ourselves. If you go to the next one, |
| 01:39:48.21 | Lloyd DeLamas | This is how we project The one cent sales tax We don't claim to have a crystal ball. What we do is we start by going through the city's tax base and limiting any one-time aberrations, any previous accounting adjustments that are not going to recur. In fact, any new businesses that we know of, any closing businesses that we are aware of. And then we break the sales tax into seven major economic groups and project each segment separately. to project the segments we depend largely on the private sector data. We tracked about 78 different analysts in the restaurant industry, in the retail industries, in agriculture, in autos. Um, biotech. and trying to keep up with the trends and seeing what they're talking about, where they're going, what they're thinking doing, because we only see the sales tax once a quarter, which we're constantly tracking the monthly data that's coming in from the private sectors to give us a better idea what the true trend is. We are more interested in what the president of the Home Depot says about what is going on with building than what an economist talks about overall. Economist general, from the down and up, we have to work from the bottom up. So you can kind of see where we think that The projection we provide, as I said, we don't have a crystal ball. Our process over the past few years is we come with it, 1% to 60% of the time, 2% to 60% 80% of the time. smaller city like Sausalito, one time events can really skew the data or the projection. You might have some zillionaire come in and buy a $10 million yacht that we haven't thought of and you suddenly have this big jump in sales tax. Or you might have a company that looks very good on paper when you look at the sales tax, but that they may be heavily in debt and overleverage and go out of business, and we have no way of really knowing. um, Our biggest problem this last two quarters is we never projected a pandemic. And the pandemic has, actually generated some surprises. We actually had thought there was going to be a larger drop And, um, 19-20 than we had thought. Sausalito is a little bit different because you had, you were inflated by some one-time back payments. And so you're actually, you actually had a very good quarter or very good year before the pandemic hit in. But we were so focused on the 15% unemployment rate We had taken into account that it's the unemployment is primarily in, um, lower wage jobs and they don't count for the same amount of sales, a large amount of the sales tax. The knowledge workers working over the interstate at home are actually spending a lot more money than we occurred. |
| 01:43:06.44 | Mary Wagner | working on. |
| 01:43:15.05 | Lloyd DeLamas | This projection on sales tax by category is based on, as of two weeks ago, believing that the COVID-19 is not going to get any worse. It's going to gradually move up. One of the things, particularly in restaurants, you have to keep in mind, it's not when the restaurants reopen, it's when the, customers are willing to come back. We've seen a number of surveys where even though a restaurant reopened, And you see on the news all the time, all the people hanging out in the bars and everything. About 60% of the population that was taking a wait and see attitude, you'll probably, after restaurants, open two or three quarters before they start coming back overall. |
| 01:44:04.69 | Unknown | Oh. |
| 01:44:04.81 | Lloyd DeLamas | Nothing else in there. Why don't we go look at the next one. |
| 01:44:11.65 | Lloyd DeLamas | I'm sorry, that just made sure Um, Did we skip the sales tax? So anyway, that's pretty much where we're at. There's some projections for the two the transactions tax and the sales tax. So if you can answer any questions about them, |
| 01:44:32.15 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Great, thank you so much. Thank you. All right, let's get the council back. Are there any questions either for Ms. Carter or for Mr. Thomas, Tom and then Joan? |
| 01:44:50.41 | Tom Riley | Thank you. Julia, thank you for a very good presentation. And Mr. Domas, thank you. Julia, can you... I believe we had put a $1.5 million COVID reserve into the budget for our second half in case things get worse. We have a favorable $600,000 from Q4 We also have that $1.5 million. Does that give us a $2.1 million cushion that we can apply if things do get worse in the latter half of this year? |
| 01:45:22.55 | Yulia Corda | That is correct. So as one of my slides showed, the council did the designate additional 1.5 million as part of general fund reserves. for the second wave of COVID. And now as we are projecting additional, better performance for the quarter four, it will contribute to the |
| 01:45:40.98 | Unknown | you |
| 01:45:41.45 | Yulia Corda | reserves as well. |
| 01:45:46.48 | Joan Cox | Great, Joan. Yes. The vice mayor mentioned earlier tonight a presentation that he hosted and we attended with Senator Mike McGuire. In that presentation, the senator Um, advised us that because, and I'm going to paraphrase, and Vice Mayor, please correct me if I get this wrong, but Thank you. because of the stimulus monies. that the federal government has been providing, those stimulus monies have shored up our living, our ability to meet our living expenses, our ability to continue purchasing our ability to not be as adversely impacted by the shelter in place order as they otherwise would have been. which is all great, but the bad news is that the prognosticators predict that once the stimulus monies cease, then we will see the bottom fall out more than it has now. And so. I want to inquire whether A, our consultants agree with that perspective and be whether we are Um, investing our efforts to be able to address that. eventuality. |
| 01:47:26.48 | Lloyd DeLamas | Michael Bush- We look at the stimulus funding. |
| 01:47:26.59 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 01:47:29.34 | Lloyd DeLamas | And at the lower end where the unemployment was occurring, Primarily, I'm saying rent, utilities, and debt. Um, there were, you know, that's not going to be the money was handed out and wasn't based on Um, income loss There were some recipients that had discretionary income. But we don't think the, we don't believe the stimulus had that much of an impact overall on the sales tax. because at the lower end, you're buying necessity, you're buying food that's not taxable. You're trying to keep your rent child care is suddenly become critical if you are a $12, $13 an hour worker doing processing, and school is closed, you have no one to take care of your kids. So for the most part, most of it was useful, it should be extended, but I'm not sure that really impacted sales tax that much. |
| 01:48:35.47 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 01:48:35.92 | Lloyd DeLamas | Thank you. |
| 01:48:38.15 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Great, any other questions? Yes, Ray? |
| 01:48:40.63 | Ray | Um, Lloyd, thanks so much for showing up. It's a pleasure. A lot of what you've described in terms of your projections are exact sort of what we heard from the state. And let's face it, you help provide the projections for the state. Um, To what extent, I mean, and let me just make, I know it's not comment time, it's question time, but I need to sort of preface my question with a comment. And that is, uh, I'm actually... both pleased Of course, because of some of our numbers that occurred in the end of the year as we've seen them. I'm pleased with, yeah, they occurred, but I'm more pleased. that even though there was volatility, the projections were not were actually, pretty close, even though it was a large volatility. And part of it, I think is the fact that we're just starting to get used to the effect of Wayfair, the Wayfair, um, you know, decision on recovery of online sales. That presumably, and this is my question, presumably is a little bit of a bolster for us, isn't it? in that there's a lot of online uh, transactions that social leaders are taking. We got a lot of the doorstep stuff we're gonna hear later on from Cosmod on this. To what extent is that a buffer for us, the dynamics of how you look at our sales tax profile And perhaps you might want to just explain what Wayfair is. I don't want to. You're the expert. You're the expert. |
| 01:50:40.02 | Lloyd DeLamas | Well, we did. Thank you. |
| 01:50:42.76 | Ray | it's a good thing. |
| 01:50:42.82 | Lloyd DeLamas | Thank you. Really quick on a waste bear. Uh, past case law was that the taxpayer did not have an out-of-state taxpayer did not have to collecting state sales tax that they had no physical nexus inside the state and so we've had all kinds as over the years as online shopping is going much of that merchandise comes from out of state for missing a lot of sales tax the wayfair decision was when south dakota decided to sue Wayfair and retest the Supreme Court. Justice Kennedy before he died he almost signaled that it was time for the Supreme Court and begged somebody to come out and challenge it because he really felt that things have changed where the previous case law didn't work. Wayfair was a boon. Had Wayfair not occurred, your revenues would probably be about 10, 15% lower than they are statewide. The reason is that everybody's going to online shopping. This has been going on for a while. but the pandemic accelerated to the point that over 50% of all the general consumer good taxes on general consumer good sales in the state, 52% of it was online. And we're gonna expect to see that grow in the future. Industry is becoming the new retail because these online retailers are selling directly to the customer by passing the stores. And it's gonna change the way we all look at economic development and I'm sure .. The jump in online shopping also helps Sausalito because you've got companies like you know Lily and some of your title shops that are really online retailers. And without that, you wouldn't be having real problems. |
| 01:52:50.97 | Ray | Thank you very much. |
| 01:52:55.23 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Great. Okay, Joe? |
| 01:52:57.20 | Councilmember Joe | Thank you, thank you, Lloyd. And Yulia, looking at how we ended Q4, And unfortunately the openings and our economy isn't moving in quarters. So we have, you know, we're looking at what's going to happen in the future, but we're still finishing up Q1, which June, July, August, as you looked at how you budgeted for Q1 in the 2021 budget, And, and applying the middle scenario of worse. However, a slight uptick from to four. How do you see Q1? I mean, it seems like if the budgeting was similar to four, and we came out halfway through Q1 of a lot of the businesses starting to open. Should we see maybe another 200 to 300 style delta upwards given what happened with that? Q4. |
| 01:53:55.93 | Lloyd DeLamas | Let me take a crack at that. See you later. Generally, we expect the first quarter to show an uptick. |
| 01:53:59.89 | Councilmember Joe | Yeah. |
| 01:54:04.51 | Lloyd DeLamas | Your biggest problem is Sausalito because of your unique tax base. the industry analysts in the restaurant industry are telling us that anywhere from 25 to 50% of all sit down dining restaurants will be out of business by being the year. Um, What are |
| 01:54:27.26 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | What? What are Was that, did you say? |
| 01:54:30.08 | Lloyd DeLamas | Thank you. |
| 01:54:30.13 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Sorry. |
| 01:54:30.67 | Lloyd DeLamas | Thank you. the facility permanently closed. and then they'll take three or four years for the restroom to start up again and replace it as vacancy. |
| 01:54:32.83 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | So how do we take it? |
| 01:54:39.24 | Ray | About 25%, Susan. |
| 01:54:41.93 | Lloyd DeLamas | Yeah, 25% is the lowest we've seen estimate, but probably it's 50%. Generally the cities with drive-thru restaurants, these greasy chicken, Popeyes, all that stuff are just doing extremely well. The drive-thrus sit-downs having a problem. The, some of your restaurants, your fine dining restaurants surviving with, by having takeout, outdoor dining, a lot of them are auctioning off their wine cellars, making money off of their wine cellars. But it's really going to, once again, it depends not so much on when they're willing to reopen and when the governor lets them fully reopen, but it's when the customers are willing to come back and do it. Thank you. Just saw a study yesterday where Every time there is a change in the COVID-19 trend lines, it suddenly starts to go down customers start getting very, very conservative. when the when it goes down, they start getting a little bit more comfortable going out. But as soon as there's news on TV, that there's a, if there's a nut kick why the Thank you. and the So you're going to have this problem for the next three or four quarters until we understand what COVID-19 is going to do to us And without renewing the vaccine. |
| 01:56:20.14 | Councilmember Joe | Can I, can I then, cause I was more related to going from Q1, Q4 to Q1. And if we have some savings in Q1 again, That pads what Councilman Riley brought up with, you know, we're already up almost up to given our one and a half plus this last quarter for the one and a half million that we set aside. reason I bring this up is we're one quarter away from almost matching that Sure. was the ugliest scenario, you know, and that's a $3 million Delta, $3 million annual Delta to our current budget. So if we were to go into the worst scenario, this fall. We're going into that with a possibly about 2.4 million more than we had expected. I mean, not expected because one and a half was expected, but we've almost padded most of that $3 million Delta with the 1.5, the gain of Q4, and what I suspect will be a gain in Q1 before we start to mellow out the Q2, three and four. So that's kind of, Well, So I'm really looking at Q1 right now, because that's going to help us in that Delta going forward for the end of the year. |
| 01:57:35.74 | Yulia Corda | Right. And I think it's a little bit too early to... to guess the numbers right now. So again, my staff is working really hard to be up to speed on the way we are financially. But, As you know, sales tax, we don't even see this result until two months later. So Lloyd knows how much we push them to kind of rush this report right now for the council. |
| 01:58:00.32 | Councilmember Joe | But my question is Q1 budgeted similar to Q4? |
| 01:58:00.36 | Yulia Corda | but it might... |
| 01:58:05.00 | Yulia Corda | Well, we don't budget by the course. We project the revenues for the entire year. And the basis for this is individual based on the individual revenue source. So for sales stats, yes, we looked at quarterly basis because, well, quarter one comparing to quarter one, quarter two comparing to quarter two. things like property tax that's the annual allocation right so and and the as we already see the property tax is showing quite the solid based because it was based on the assessment value a year. So they're pretty secure on the property tax revenue. even though we did budget some cushion in case of reassessed value is going to change throughout the year for I think that feels. |
| 01:58:50.78 | Unknown | Bye. |
| 01:58:50.83 | Lloyd DeLamas | Thank you. Maury, I'll answer your question. Because of your unique leisure hospitality tax base your peak sales tax quarter is always the third quarter your lowest A quarter is always first quarter. So you peak in the third quarter because that's when the weather's best, that the rest of the bars, coming around the bar shopping and the little tour shops. January, February, and March, the weather's lousy, they stay home, so. your first quarter is always your lowest quarter, your third quarter is always your highest. |
| 01:59:25.63 | Ray | Right. I think Joe was sort of trying to get at fiscal year, I think. Not Joe, if you were. And so I think what he's trying to say is, let's talk about calendar year. Is our second quarter calendar year reflective, which is the last quarter of our fiscal year, going to be like the first quarter of the new fiscal year, which is the third quarter of the calendar year. In other words, |
| 01:59:58.82 | Amy Wisehart | All right. |
| 02:00:01.25 | Ray | is July to September going to be reflective of this year, going to be reflective of what April to June is going to be like. I mean, at the state level, we still haven't got the projections, but because the first fiscal quarter of this year, which we don't have data from, is going to be the critical one that we need to try and make projections on. I think Yulia would agree with that. I think Loju would agree with that, right? |
| 02:00:32.50 | Mary Wagner | Thank you. |
| 02:00:33.03 | Carlito Berg | I would agree with you. |
| 02:00:35.05 | Ray | So, |
| 02:00:35.10 | Mary Wagner | I'm not. |
| 02:00:36.11 | Ray | Do we have any feel considering the structure of our sales and TOT tax base, is, July to September, going to be like. April. a June. |
| 02:00:55.22 | Yulia Corda | Yeah, no, I appreciate it. And I understood the question. I'm just trying to be careful, not... |
| 02:01:00.84 | Ray | No, I understand. |
| 02:01:01.33 | Yulia Corda | I understand. We're projecting these specific numbers, but as you see, based on what we reported right now, we tend to be a little bit more conservative than we actually. the actual results. And I'm really hoping that the first quarter will show as well this healthy conservatism as far as projections. But we. |
| 02:01:22.82 | Ray | But we can guarantee that TOT's in the... in the hole no matter what right. |
| 02:01:28.23 | Yulia Corda | Right. The TOT is going to be probably suffering the most. And this is one of the top revenue sources. So we will show some additional losses there. but they will compensate for by additional uptake and property taxes. You saw this in the report that you just presented. And the sales tax came up a little better than we expected as well. |
| 02:01:51.23 | Ray | But I would argue that's because of the online. |
| 02:01:54.26 | Yulia Corda | because of the online and right exactly. |
| 02:01:57.60 | Ray | So. |
| 02:01:57.67 | Yulia Corda | you're going to be |
| 02:01:57.99 | Ray | Thank you. |
| 02:01:58.01 | Yulia Corda | But again, we were more conservative on those projections. That's the bottom line. |
| 02:01:58.06 | Ray | It's a weird. |
| 02:02:02.55 | Ray | That's right, because we have not got a history of online yet. So I think, yeah. |
| 02:02:08.45 | Lloyd DeLamas | But your next quarter, your third quarter is not going to be as good as the third quarter last year. Right, and because, and we don't, and we always compare quarter to quarter because everybody has this different season. If you had shopping centers, fourth quarter would be your peak. |
| 02:02:23.76 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:02:27.69 | Lloyd DeLamas | Mammoth Lakes, all the skiing is in the first quarter. So, but your third quarter is not going to be as good as it was year ago. |
| 02:02:39.39 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Okay, are there additional questions? We are quite far behind in our evening. We have our two major items for the evening are still in front of us. So do we have any more council member questions? |
| 02:02:43.61 | Mary Wagner | Thank you. |
| 02:02:43.62 | Steven Allison | Okay. |
| 02:02:43.86 | Mary Wagner | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 02:02:52.09 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Okay, I'm going to open it up for public comment. So if you would like to speak, please raise your hand. Okay, we have Sandra Bushmaker, welcome. |
| 02:03:08.53 | Sandra Bushmaker | All right. I have this question that I have not heard an answer for. We have approximately 2,600 vessels in Sausalito that pay unsecured property taxes. which contribute to school bonds sewers and all of these things. Where does that show in our revenues and how much of that property tax, which was due on August 31st of each year, where does that come into our budget. I assume that would come in like, at the end of the first quarter of our fiscal year. that we're in. Uh, But what is the amount that Marin receives, I mean, that Sausalito receives for those unsecured property taxes paid to the county of Marin. Okay, thank you. |
| 02:04:02.97 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | um I'm getting a really bad echo, Heidi, can you see it? |
| 02:04:15.68 | Heidi Scoble | Yes, I unmuted Sandra Bushmaker. That seemed to have created the feedback. |
| 02:04:22.66 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Okay, great. I'm not seeing any additional public comment. Heidi, do you see anyone? |
| 02:04:30.20 | Heidi Scoble | Mayor Cleveland Knowles, I do not. Oh, John DeRay actually just raised his hand. Okay? |
| 02:04:35.91 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Dr. John DeRay. I'm not. |
| 02:04:37.02 | John DeRay | Welcome. Hi, can you hear me? Yeah. Okay. Just a quick question. And obviously I know he can't answer this question, but from the, um, gentleman from Yale. Business and industry is projected to be down $60,000 plus in fiscal year 2020-21. And I'm just curious, business and industry, I think that means office and industry, but I'm a little unclear what that means. So maybe if one of the other council members has that clarification you can ask but otherwise I understand it can't be answered. here. Thank you. |
| 02:05:18.18 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Okay, great, thank you. All right, is there any additional members of the public who would like to That's a good question. Anyone? Okay, we'll close public comment and bring it back to the council. This is not an action item. Are there additional questions or comments? |
| 02:05:47.22 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Vice Mayor. |
| 02:05:50.14 | Ray | Um, so, Uh, first of all, I'd really like to thank, uh, Thank you Mr. DeLongis for being here. He is... Not many people realize he is one of the most senior Um, accountants, projection economists in state of California. Thank you for being here. The thing that we have to understand is that we're going to have to be making decisions really judiciously, and we don't have quite the data to make the decisions. And that's the situation we're in. So we're going to have to be playing this week by week, month by month. And so I'm very encouraged that the Finance Committee is gonna be getting together to do this. earlier, The first quarter, our first fiscal quarter, our third annual quarter, is going to be determinative in my view. because that's going to give a very clear picture of, as to what any decisions that we need to make by the end of the year. So, Even though I'm rolling off counts, so what I commit to is from a finance committee perspective is trying to help Thank you. make those decisions, at least setting up So the next council in the first part of the year can make the appropriate decisions for what we need to do. The second thing is to Yulia, I think it's really important. We focused a lot, of course, on the general fund and we need to. Um, But a lot of our other funds, in particular our enterprise funds, both feed into. our general fund or could be a drain on our general fund. So from this Finance Committee members perspective, I would like to make sure that over the next months or two, we get a very clear understanding of the cash flow of the enterprise funds. any drain down fund balance caused by their deficit, if there is any, to understand so that when the next council has to make these decisions they're aware of it in an overall context and with the overall dynamics or hydraulics, if you like, how all our different friends work together. That's not for now, that's for the work that needs to get done in the next month or two. And again, Lloyd, thanks for showing up. |
| 02:08:38.67 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | I asked Councilmember Riley. |
| 02:08:42.15 | Tom Riley | Yes, just one comment. Looking back at our Q4 results, it feels good that we were conservative. And had we not been, we'd be really just feeling really bad right now. |
| 02:08:54.32 | Unknown | I feel bad right now. Thank you. |
| 02:08:55.51 | Tom Riley | I look at this COVID crisis, the economic crisis, all the uncertainty ahead of us, both on a local and macro level, And I think we're in the bottom of the first inning, top of the second inning. We do not know what's coming ahead. We need to continue being conservative and being pleasantly surprised. and we need to be prepared for things getting worse. I do concur with the vice mayor that we need to be in monthly financial committee meetings, continually adjusting so that we don't get ourselves into a hole. Um, There's many scenarios where things can get worse going forward and we just don't know. I commend the staff for doing hard work in Q4, putting forward conservative numbers because it's hard to do that. You forced us to make some very difficult decisions, but we did the right thing. So thank you for that. |
| 02:09:51.76 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Great, thank you. Um, Any council member Cox or Burns, do you want to add anything to that? |
| 02:09:59.50 | Joan Cox | I will just endorse the gratitude to staff for You know, I always, wrongly call it the good, the bad and the ugly, but it was along those lines that Yulia provided her report to us in March and really provided us with the tools we needed in order to adopt a conservative approach moving forward, which obviously has thus far paid off. And so I very much appreciate the hard work. went into the recommendations that were made back then and that continue to keep us apprised of the information we need to make smart decisions for the city. So thank you. |
| 02:10:44.59 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Great, thank you. And yes, I definitely echo the thanks to staff. And then I would also just echo the continued I think the comments made that I think the of our fiscal year, are not necessarily comparable to quarter one of our new fiscal year. are true and that we really do need to see the data from this first fiscal year starting in July 1st through the end of August, which will be a much more I think predictor of It won't be reliable, but it will be another predictor that I think we can use and will give me at least a lot more comfort. on kind of a little bit longer term decision making. I'm looking forward to getting that data as soon as we can. Obviously, I know it takes a while and taking a look at that. and I are committed to resuming our finance committee meetings every other week. And I think that's a really good and we'll be doing that as soon as maybe next week or the week after. So we'll look forward to setting that up. Okay, thank you all. Thank you, Mr. D'Amas, thank you, Yulia. And we will move on. to our next We have the last item which is 6B related but different. The Sausalito Land Economic Study and COVID Market Update. I think we have Brian Mora, Economic Development Advisor under contract to kick us off. Ken Hira, the president from Cosmonct Companies, joining us. um, And I would just note for the public that there was a very good presentation on the same subject to the Economic Development Advisory Committee several weeks ago. that I think is worth. a watch and I want to thank the Economic Development Advisory Committee for their good questions. And thank you, so Mr. Mora. Welcome. |
| 02:12:52.42 | Adrian Brinton | Thank you, Mayor Cleveland Knowles and council members. Just a quick update before I turn this over to the Cosmont team. The land economics study was completed in March and it was originally scheduled to be presented to the city council on March 24th. However, with the onset of the COVID pandemic, the project was frozen until June. In June, the project was resumed when the council appointed the new economic development advisory committee, also known as EDAC, And at that time, the city asked Cosmonct companies to provide a post-COVID update to their report to basically look at the 30 opportunities they had defined in Sausalito to see how these might be affected by the COVID pandemic. That report was completed in early September. On September 14th, both the original study, the 30 opportunities and the COVID update were presented to EDAC as the mayor noted and that video is available online for those who want to review that meeting. EDAC's next action will be to discuss the report in detail on October 5th. But tonight, this is the opportunity for the City Council to hear both the original report from the three people from Cosmo companies that prepared it, and also the post-COVID report, and then finally any questions or discussion that you have, plus any directions you have for EDAC. So with that introduction, let me turn the proceedings over to Ken Hira, who's the president of Cosmo companies and led the three-member team that did the Sausalito Land Economic Study. |
| 02:14:18.81 | Ken Hira | Thank you so much, Madam Mayor and members of the council. I know it's been a while since we've embarked upon the land economic study which I think dated back to November of 2019, obviously the COVID circumstance has created this sort of timeout. I guess what we had an opportunity is the land economic study And I think we presented that to the last committees but we've now had a chance to do some updating to that. So we've got a September update And I'm going to take you through as quickly as possible, but as efficiently as possible, two different reports. And I'll start with the original land economic study and talk about some components there And then I want to shift to really the market update, which of COVID. and bringing a COVID context to Sausalito. And I appreciated the previous discussion because I think is a good backdrop for what we're going to cover at this point. Bobby, my two colleagues, Tom Jarofsky and Bobby Valenti are on the line. And I'd like to just go quickly to some of the Um, challenges. strengths and challenges. We can start here just in that. We were tasked originally our assignment. take a look at the three different commercial areas. Thanks, also, you know. the downtown district, which is a popular destination, Caledonia, which is a I'm well appreciated and loved local community destination, The MarinShip, which is a unique waterfront, to a diversified set of businesses. we will talk a lot more about all three. So in our original study, we took a look at sort of strengths and challenges, and I want to go through these relatively quickly. Thank you. Again, downtown being an iconic destination within the Bay Area and boutiques. storefronts. Lots of parking. Lots of access, if you will. The downtown boat did get congested with some peak tourist inundation and some of those some of the retailers there weren't staying Open too late. And we found that there were fewer retail customers And this is kind of a pre-COVID circumstance, fewer retail customers that were necessarily coming, but many of the visitors that were coming to Sausalito were day trippers and THERE WERE 128 HOTEL ROOMS. THERE ARE 128 HOTEL ROOMS IN THE CITY. which with the notion that you've got shorter term visitors, idea of less hotel rooms. There could be an argument there that you have less overnight stays and less longer stays within the city with only Next slide, please. So the downtown So we're going to have clearly was facing challenges again on a pre-COVID basis. |
| 02:17:10.80 | Kevin Carroll | Thank you. |
| 02:17:10.86 | Mary Wagner | Thank you. |
| 02:17:14.46 | Ken Hira | based on shifting economic trends. You hear a lot about the online and e-commerce and e-tail that was going on. There was a preexisting condition, if you will, to traditional retail. that was sort of accelerated and exacerbated by COVID. And, You know, some of the things we pointed out and found was that we wanted to see more entertainment uses. more destination uses, more experiential uses, And even more outdoor dining. And again, this is pre-COVID. And we will talk a lot more about how important the outdoor is to Sausalito. both in the natural and the more defined environment. And one of our thought processes was, Should you look at? Can you look at? a limited formula retail. establishment in a potential change, and I'll come back to that as well as a potential option. Next slide, please. |
| 02:18:12.79 | Ken Hira | So let's talk about Caledonia. just in terms of some strengths. Again, well appreciated and well attended. independent restaurant-related retailers, that really served a lot of the local community. well positioned. amongst some community institutions the civic uses within the city, high rents and high vacancies. is unfortunately what Caledonia had been suffering from and parking and wayfinding and some connectivity or some of its other challenges as well. Next slide, please. So for Caledonia, You know, with 145,000 square feet of independent retail and restaurant uses, One of the issues was, was that sustainable or supportable by the local citizenry. And we found that to be a number that was probably And so the vacancies reflected that. and the higher rents reflected that. Thank you. We thought there could be a blend or a mix of more uses. that could be introduced to Caledonia. Next slide, please. |
| 02:19:22.24 | Ken Hira | So for marineships, you know, economic clusters, but a pretty significant diversity of uses. recreation, maintenance, education, shipbuilding, of course, very traditional maritime uses art clusters. ranging from artists applied arts professionals. service providers industrial uses office uses, so a really eclectic and unique zone or district. within the city. And frankly, I think a big a pretty significant attraction. Challenges, of course, include sea level rise. subsidence. circulation, connectivity, and really the introduction of major infrastructure was going to be was going to really be the solution for marineship. And we will address that in the next couple of slides. We were also tasked and charged with reviewing one of the studies on the next slide, which was done by EPS. And We evaluated that report. And, The findings in there tend to have generalized infrastructure. in order to solve for THE FAMILY. you know, the potential feasibility of land use. So we actually went through a pretty significant analysis, kind of a high-level pro forma analysis, in order to Try to identify other land uses that could make sense. within Wernship in terms of development feasibility just in juxtaposition to the findings of EPS, which basically said Class A office. was one of the solutions because of the cost. There's a lot of analysis here and I don't want to confuse anybody with a lot of numbers. the end of the day, we found that there's residual land value that can be can be in place. and effective for industrial, retail, and office uses. So one of our recommendations from the report was frankly to kind of look a little closer from an engineering perspective, on. how the infrastructure costs could truly be spread. amongst the Marineship. not every Um, particular area within the may need the same infrastructure costs or infrastructure solutions if closer to the water needed less or away from the water needed less or more or vice versa think that there's an opportunity to kind of evaluate than just Class A office. So that was one of our. recommendations is to further evaluate THAT. area. from an engineering perspective. Having said all that, next slide, just quickly. and then I want to jump to the COVID response We also tried to use some case studies lessons learned from a variety of locations, Not all of them apply 100%. and the other side of the road. our work in Santa Barbara. and I work in St. Helena. We just tried to bring as some case studies of examples. And each of those have different dynamics that may or may not be applicable, per se, to Sausalito, but at the end of the day, there are some merits to those examples. I'd like to shift, if you will. And again, our report was 128 pages and it was pretty in-depth. pretty data rich, which is what we were charged and hired TO DO, IF YOU WILL, I'm not sure. I'd like to go to now the Sausalito Land Economics |
| 02:22:57.56 | Ken Hira | Keep going. So the. the background. I'm not sure. here is that I'm not sure. our land economic study from March. I mentioned before is updated. and we'll go through the very specific metrics I'm not sure. those change. to changes in data. really the impacts of COVID-19 and its economic slowdown since March have been significant in many cities. So I think the point here is, Clearly the city of Sausalito is not alone. I'm not sure. The long-term impacts are unclear. We heard a little bit of that in the cities as you have done, interestingly enough, because we hadn't really heard the budget update, but in reality, adjust economic development expectations, strategies, use of tools on a go-forward basis account for many of these impacts because the precise outcome very difficult. So we were asked as part of this update to take a look at THE END OF THE END OF THE the new metrics and also the new trends. COVID-19. COVID-19. So I'm gonna shift now to a little bigger picture discussion COVID-19. 19 and It's something that we call sort of the land use revolution. And what's meant by that is that We are finding that every asset class, every land use, if you will, hospitality, retail, office, residential, industrial. are facing pretty significant change. you can clearly look circumstances where retail was going through a major change and a shifting away from necessarily traditional brick and mortar to a more e-commerce or omni-channeling platform So there was a pre-existing condition there and a trend. The trend was also to say, that retail was trying to deliver more experience to the customer. and even essentials and outdoor space. had become a really part of the retail reimagination, which is what The hotel industry, of course, has really been hit the hardest. And it was at a peak level, if you will, in terms of its a robust and the industry was and returns that were being achieved, And so there's really going to be a reset in our minds to the hotel industry. The office market is going to go through a lot of reconfiguration, a lot of redesign, as we're in sort of a telecommuting circumstance, And there's going to be sort of the jury out on the office industry. Residential's in demand, clearly, We find that we're finding frankly the single-family is stronger than multifamily, The question on multifamily is what's the density and is there a little bit of a flight to more of a suburban environment? From an industrial perspective, It had been very strong leading into COVID. And it's really going to be very, very strong coming out. I appreciated Lloyd's comments about how industrial, maybe some version of a new retail, And you'll hear me use a term called blended use. that blend has a lot to do with how industrials morphing or retails morphing into industrial. and how there's an integration, if you will, between retail. industrial. and even hospitality. Um, as sort of customer service has come to the fruition of the consumer's preferences. Next slide, please. This is an indication of how long things might take. to recover. It's not in months or quarters or years. but it does give you a relative feel for how resilient on the vertical axis certain asset classes were. can see that the industrial Product type or asset class was clearly at the height. of resiliency. and you can take some of the like the mall. THE END OF THE END OF THE products. and realized that it was not resilient, So therefore, it's recovery time on the horizontal axis. or the x-axis is going to be protracted. And the grocery industry is a basic necessity. you know, doesn't need recovery time because it's done very, very well. hotel. industry we've kind of split up. Local leisure seems to be stronger. today. It's coming back to a degree. Business travel is very much in a question mark. and clearly international tourism is not something the consumer is ready to encounter sort of whatsoever. Next slide, please. Now this can be a confusing chart, but I can try to simplify it. everything in blues We're the Wall Street publicly traded returns. from 2019. for every asset class. everything in blue. is 2019. You can see every asset class. was positive. Single-family residential was at a 44% return in 2019. Industrial at a 48% return. hospitality at a 15% everything in red. 2020 year-to-date. So at a negative 50% for the hotel industry, We know that that spread between the positive 15 and the negative 53 is the largest spread. of how things were going well, And then for this year to date, things that have really, really been challenged for the hospitality Retail is in a similar situation. And yet, when you look to the industrial product type, if you will, I'm not sure. you see positive returns. industrials, infrastructure, data centers. are all at a positive year-to-date return for $20. Next slide, please. |
| 02:28:51.95 | Ken Hira | So there's a few indexes that we've done. We like some visuals, so we wanted to share this with you. local leisure travel rebounding, although we think 2023 as some of the prognostications we've come to understand 2023 is going to be a point at which maybe we see some of this lag in the hotel market. So that's a couple of years down the road. And I will say, though, that as a caveat to that, with lower hotel rooms or a lower supply or put differently without an oversupply of hotel rooms, the city of Sausalito may be on that map to have a more robust, recovery. in the hospitality. because of the lower number of rooms. So it may be the first in line to kind of strengthen that. You'll see within the hotel market, and even our decisions as consumers today, that cleanliness is going to be mission critical. and that's going to be a function of how confident we get in our comeback to leisure hotels or business travels. even some older hotels with outdoor corridors are actually benefiting. I think that the hotel industry What you're going to see, what you're going to read about, what you're going to hear is some conversions. Unfortunately, some hotels are just simply not going to survive. And the question is, are they conversion Thank you. and maybe office opportunities? Can they be temporary office opportunities? So, Can there be potential residential. solutions. as we're clearly in a lack of supply of residential in our in our state. not in our country. Next slide, please. So from a retail perspective, there's two key things that we've been talking to our clients about. One is the need, in our opinion, for flexibility. What I mean by that is cities, really want to be in a position where discretionary permitting, and openness to creative solutions for businesses, small businesses, is the mindset. So, Many of our city clients we advise It's a time to be flexible with zoning and permitting. because Most of the businesses right now are in survival. On the flip side, I'd like to tell landlords and tenants that it's a great time time to be collaborative. So the collaboration that's needed between landlords and tenants on rent. collaboration, frankly, between the private sector and the public sector I believe is mission critical today. So that's kind of the discussions we've been having with both sides of that aisle. You can see that the retail has been uneven, if you will. Grocery's done great. The restaurants have really been challenged. And this is the concept of reimagining retail. And what it really needs today is a blend of uses. So in our work in Santa Barbara, really recommended to them that try to create an integration of uses on State Street. homogenous traditional storefront retail has really been challenged. It has a lot to do with online, it has a lot to do with consumer preferences, but if you can integrate land uses, I'm That's a way for to create more sustainable. projects. Outdoor is kind of our new anchor tenant. if you will. Open Space is our new anchor tenant. This includes. the appreciation and the leveraging of the activities water for that matter. the activities that take place in your waterfront, This is much part of the outdoors. that I'm referencing in terms of being attraction for consumers and customers, and folks to come and maybe spend dollars with the city. And then the blending of retail and industrial, which we like to make up. you, names and we call that redistrial, but industrial and retail. are starting to almost sort of either integrate or swap places. Next slide, please. office as we've said there's demand because you need more space for social distancing there's less demand. because we're in a telecommuting circumstance. And I think there's a permanent aspect to the telecommuting circumstance, the hybrid, work circumstance, you know, my son's going back to school at 16 years old. |
| 02:33:02.56 | Mary Wagner | you know, |
| 02:33:05.36 | Ken Hira | He's going two days a week. He's on line three. If our office opens up, will we go back two days a week work from home three days a week or vice versa. So there's gonna be, I think, I'm going to go. bag, if you will. and there's gonna be, I think, a hybrid circumstance to the office industry. Thank you. you know, I think that the co-working environment is going to have to, I'm not sure. reconfigure itself in order for it to be a successful options. for the workforce. Next slide, please. Industrial, again, the booming e-commerce and omni-channel, sort of revolution where there's the fulfillment, the last mile delivery, logistics, even the creative solutions, sort of. innovation taking place within the four walls of industrial, industrials evolving, as an asset class and a product type And there's some very creative solutions we think that are coming out of that. think you know how does maybe not the traditional big That's cruel. apply to the marineship, but how does the more creative Thank you. industrial, even e-commerce references that was made before, for some of the businesses who are omni-channeling, selling their products to consumers, and how can they take advantage of that And you'll notice there are sales tax generation coming from green chips which kind of speaks to this, that there's a creative and an innovative solution to industrial and how that applies to the marineship we find very interesting, very applicable. Next slide, please. So specifically to Sausalito, This is the second half of this discussion. I've got about seven or eight more slides. Here are the metrics so you know What changed? basically from to September, if you will. Retail vacancy went up from 7.4% to 9.4%. office vacancy went up from 13.2 to 15.3. |
| 02:35:01.02 | Unknown | on the show. |
| 02:35:01.80 | Ken Hira | multifamily. 4.3 to 5.1. in the industrial market, which has been strong, Yeah, it remained at zero. There's no vacancy virtually in your quote unquote industrial asset class. by districts, if you will, Caledonia retail vacancy increased 12.2 to 5.7. 15.7%. Downtown retail vacancy went up. a little bit by 1.7%. in the Marinship office vacancies decline slightly. Next slide, please. So we've talked a lot about the impact on real estate. I'd like to talk about the impact on revenues. And you can see that on the green box, there's significant impacts from COVID to hotel, TOT, tourism, retail sales, more moderate on business license tax. and a little bit lighter in property tax. Of course, property tax has been one of our more stable Revenue sources. Next slide, please. historically in our state. and it's really inured to the benefit of the city of Sausalén. pie chart on the right. is really an aggregation of the cities in California. So it tells you that that the California cities for their general fund revenues, 43% on property tax. 22% on sales tax. about 8.1% on TOT. if you compare that to the budgeting for 21, which is where we worked with you, Leah, If you compare that to the budgeting for the city of Sausalito, your property taxes a little bit higher in terms of your reliance for your general fund Thank you. which really puts you in a more stable position |
| 02:36:36.10 | Unknown | So. |
| 02:36:36.84 | Ken Hira | sales tax being 27%. So, I think that's a good question. rest of the city's. sales tax at 27% compared to 22 for the rest of the cities in and I think that's a downward budgeted number but a more conservative number at 5.6%. of TOT versus the 8.1 for most of the California cities. Next slide. |
| 02:37:03.88 | Ken Hira | So this is actually a scattered ram of all cities in California. And so we want to just plot the city of Sausalito. And you can see on the right, On the x-axis, you'll see such huge reliance for many cities on sales tax. to the tune of 50, 60, 70, 80, 90 percent. and on TOT, some cities who are relying on TOT at a 50, 60, 70 percent. Quinn. I mean, you can see that Sal Saludo ends up in a slightly more balanced location amongst California cities. Next slide, please. |
| 02:37:40.54 | Ken Hira | I don't want to go through every one of these metrics. data came from HDL. And it's sort of annual, so the chart looks a little bit different. than Lloyd's quarterly. but suffice it to say that big changes are clearly in restaurants being down 64%. um, yacht and boat sails being up. 120%. And we may have even alluded to that before where that kind of activity is a sales tax revenue generator because those are large ticket items. state and county pool allocation for internet sales, Absolutely. 40%. geographically. Downtown sales were down 72%, Caledonia down 48%. And Marinship came through to help stabilize your city. up 23%. So that also shows you the importance of Thank you. Marineship. marine activities, et cetera. From a hotel perspective, as Yulia to The last discussion. unfortunately down at 92 percent. The budgeting for it is in a more conservative level. and the fiscal year. Next slide, please. property tax being more stable, Any impacts you're going to find are going to be in 2021. 21 to 22. And while a lot of your property tax does come from non-commercial properties, There is a material portion that comes from commercial, $744,000. business license tax is interesting that in 2021, you'll end up calculating the gross receipts from 2020, 59 percent of the business license tax are from rent So a very important revenue generator there. as BLT goes. the majority of that 59 percent of the partnership with the U.S. 10% BLT from downtown, 7% from Cala Della. Next slide. On a relative scale, unemployment is is strong. when it compares to the rest of the, counties. Sonoma, Napa. et cetera in California. Next slide. |
| 02:39:53.70 | Ken Hira | And again, we'll not go through all of this, but this is the on. 30 opportunities that were identified can see that . the first 14. they kind of had, there were opportunities that were the entire area or the entire city. And then some of the other opportunities that were identified were in downtown specifically . and Marintia. What we tried to do is highlight the ones that we thought maybe have the most impact or will be the most impacted COVID. just the ones in blue that are or 11 And then on the next slide, we walk through, based on everything we've just shared with you, Yeah. why and how those might be. So again, hospitality, going to be impacted by the hotel demand. We think there's a couple two to three year tourism will affect number three and 12. those opportunities clearly as a function of some declining international tourism and leisure travel, and general tourist activities the Office of Impact be altered based on that office demand that I've referenced to you before in coworking You know, there's a lot of impact at different retail opportunities. a function of vacancy and lowering rents. And the entertainment and restaurant uses, which were the darling sort of a pre-COVID environment have really been hit very hard. as a function of this pandemic. And here's another interesting point. is unfortunately some of the independents and the smaller businesses have been hit the hardest. So the national brands are seeing a little bit more resiliency. based on some financial wherewithal as compared to independent retailers. And consumers, generally speaking, are seeking outdoor as I mentioned industrial. I'm not sure. to sort of bolster the marineship It will take time and some investment key components to that is going to be infrastructure. And I made reference to that before, where there can be further evaluations from an engineering perspective. to really understand how there's opportunities. continued opportunities for industrial on. and of various uses in Thank you. slide. So I want to wrap this up in closing. I'm not sure. The land economic study opportunities, those 30, and I think there was a reference that the EDAC is going to take a look at those. They should still be pursued. just realizing and tempering that the implementation, will be delayed. to a degree. And clearly that's just a function of what's going on, the tourism and the hospitality industry, cities dependent on international and national tourism, And business conventions have clearly been impacted. You can see some of the cities we've claim for example, touted as examples. Smaller communities, and I think this, you might have heard some of this before, may really see a benefit based on the county pool, and the allocation that's going to spread across some of the communities It didn't have the direct. sales or the 1% because of a mass amount of retail. regional amount of retail. Sausalito has definitely seen some resilience. based on property tax receipts, But clearly, needs to really be very conscious of the sales tax in Hotel TLT on a go-forward basis. and then. you know, many of the communities We have or that we're hearing about in the marketplace, We're trying to take advantage of low interest rates. and really take a look at their balance sheets, if you will. understand whether they can take public finance. THE END OF THE END OF THE tool. whether that's through bonding or solving pension obligation debt, et cetera. So, This wraps it up, but our next steps that we see for you all is really with our presentation to the EDAC last week, is to consider those opportunities that we've talked about and the trends make recommendations to the city council with your feedback. and really to sort of inform what we're calling a COVID recovery plan. I'll conclude there and we're available for questions and dialogue. Thank you. |
| 02:44:14.44 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Great, thank you so much, Ken, and the rest of the Cosmont team. And thank you so much to Brian for... overseeing this process. Are there questions for Cosmot from city council members? or for Brian. |
| 02:44:34.81 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Yes, Vice Mayor. |
| 02:44:38.71 | Ray | Oh. Okay, it's good to see you. Um, We haven't talked for nine months or more. So I'm coming into this fairly fresh. I did sit through the EBITDA meeting online and listen to it. Thanks for your work. So, you know, It's 9.45. I literally could have a dialogue with you for about two hours, and we're not going to do that tonight. So I want to hit a couple of highlights because I've not really had a dialogue with you since you presented to our old BAC hospitality combination with God knows when that was. February, March, so many times. Everywhere. Yeah, February. Um, Celeste? hit a couple of the areas and a couple of themes and I've got a few questions. Um, The downtown Um, I'm. So, Standing back and hearing your presentation, reading your report obviously, and then now hearing the updates. Um, The downtown, what struck me was a sort of balancing act in the downtown. On the one hand, pre-COVID, We had the actual opportunities if we added more hotel rooms that would be good because we had little capacity. And yet now in a COVID sense, We have almost a competitive advantage of having a, less capacity because we might recover faster. Did I get that bit right in terms of what you were trying to say? Um, So, Um, Right now, therefore, what do we do THE FEDERAL On the other hand, you also originally proposed And this is not criticism, I'm just looking at the dynamics, the way in which COVID has changed the dynamics a lot. Thank you. |
| 02:46:41.41 | Mary Wagner | Thank you. |
| 02:46:41.96 | Ray | And you suggest that perhaps we should have more focused whatever, um, and restaurants eating experiences and outside dining experiences And yet on the other hand, we're probably going to see 25% of our restaurants permanently closed. help me sort of in a very short period of time. I'm then going to move on to Caledonia, I'm then going to move on to Sorry, Madam Mayor. help me, do you see the conflict I'm having here and trying to resolve |
| 02:47:14.80 | Ken Hira | THE BEST. all. |
| 02:47:15.63 | Ray | job |
| 02:47:16.20 | Ken Hira | Yeah. |
| 02:47:16.42 | Ray | comments |
| 02:47:17.03 | Ken Hira | on that. Right. It's an excellent observation and I sort of alluded to it as well, where service industry, the entertainment industry, fitness, theaters. restaurants. had really surpassed the traditional storefront retail sales of of stuff, I'll call it, or commodities. And yet today, And I don't have the clearest of answers yet today. Those have been hit. by the in-person opportunity. You know, we knew that the commodities were going to go to an online platform or trend that way. but, when the customers that I want experience, I want service. those are the things they were looking for. So, Perhaps some of that solution though, is Again, shifting some of the out shifting some to the out to the outdoors or shifting some of this activity that was taking place inside for those concepts. to the outside. And I'm just going to give you examples that may be so far fetched, OK, not far fetched but that, may not be as applicable. you hear a lot of regional retail centers say, We're going to do an outdoor drive up movies theater. circumstance. And I'm not suggesting even that you even have that as an opportunity. All I'm saying is that If going inside a theater is a risk for the consumer, businesses in some cities and markets And some. property owners have said, Well, then you can come outside, stay in your car, if you will, and get back to the old drive-in theater concept CREATIVELY. if State Street in Santa Barbara, was reluctant to close a portion of their Street. Ironically, when we said maybe that's not a bad idea to them, year ago. Today they've done it. is my understanding, because they've got to get those restaurants from the inside to the outside. You have an incredible bay. front. You have incredible weather. you have an outdoor environment in the city of Sausalito. All I'm saying is it's time to leverage that in a way that we hadn't quite fathomed It's like your new anchor tent. |
| 02:49:43.01 | Ray | I'm not sure. Indulge me, Madam Mayor. uh, So, OK. Let's move on to Caledonia Street, which is where I actually have short term the most concern long term my concerns the marine ship the short term My is Caledonia Street. THE Um, thing that really popped out to me is we probably have What's the number? make it up. 84. 75% over capacity of of retail compared to what the if we were just relying on the resident population to to be serviced by There's just too much retail. I mean, I think I can't remember what the numbers were. You went through them in detail, the EDAG. um, And so that's going to need therefore an influx of local you know, The residents can't support the businesses. Therefore, if we want to keep the capacity, we got to bring in local Marin and just Bay Area visitors in order if we're going to keep that capacity. We're seeing fronts not boarded up yet, but a lot of for lease signs and I'm sure they're going to be boarded up soon. because there's just way too much retail there. Uh, You also brought in the idea of formula retail, and that we need to make very targeted changes perhaps to formula retail, not mass change to our formula retail, but very targeted. For example, Help me understand about say a pharmacy. I've heard so many residents tell me that we need a pharmacy in town. And yet I've been trying to tell them because of my previous pharmaceutical knowledge and so on, That's impossible. to bring in a local pharmacy that isn't affiliated with a big bot, you know, with large retail because of the way those delivery of pharmaceuticals are given. You need a care mark or whatever, and they're affiliated with the CVS or whatever. So, How do we to, to help understand how to tailor any change to formula retail and not make it such a big change Again, do you understand the sort of question where I'm going here? |
| 02:52:20.63 | Ken Hira | Yeah, and really our original report and Again, to a degree sort of emphasized. by this new circumstance, and as I mentioned to you, the more smaller businesses that have been struggling. The idea was, yes, to think about consider a targeted or alleviated Formula Retail. base. And it could be based on more than x locations it could be based on no more than x square feet it could be based on One, not two, two, not three, three, not four. within the city. |
| 02:53:00.67 | Ray | Thank you. |
| 02:53:00.69 | Ken Hira | It's going to be hard. |
| 02:53:00.70 | Ray | Can it be targeted to specific |
| 02:53:04.03 | Ken Hira | Hey. |
| 02:53:04.32 | Ray | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 02:53:05.48 | Ken Hira | industries or I think it can and you you you brought up a pretty good example |
| 02:53:06.48 | Ray | THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 02:53:11.47 | Ken Hira | If you think about what grocery and pharmacy represent in the world of consumption. They are. in the necessity category. Now, are folks getting more pharmaceuticals? online. |
| 02:53:25.80 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 02:53:26.02 | Ken Hira | Are they able to go to... Other places that have now introduced it, if you look at the Walmarts of the world, they've kind of gotten into the pharmacy business in a big way. What does that do for the traditional pharmacies? I don't have all those. clear answers. But yes, I think you could think about amongst yourselves, amongst your committee, amongst your community, to consider targeted. um, formula retail solution. to that end. |
| 02:53:54.35 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Can I just jump in with the question here, Ray? That's associated with this. So I was interested in your observation that we have an over |
| 02:53:57.12 | Ken Hira | Mm, please. |
| 02:53:57.98 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:54:03.87 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | saturation of retail space for our residential size. And If we were to approach that from, as Ray was alluding to, a more regional perspective so southern Moran focused? Is that, do you think the southern Marin population in general is over, do you have an idea if we have over retail space in Southern Marin in general? Or is this a Sausalito problem? Because just personally, I know for myself that I enjoy retail opportunities |
| 02:54:32.23 | Unknown | because just- |
| 02:54:37.65 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | in multiple towns, you know, not just here in Sausalito. Yeah. approach it the same way. But if it's a regional problem, then that doesn't help us out so much to have. |
| 02:54:51.81 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 02:54:51.88 | Ken Hira | Yeah. |
| 02:54:52.05 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | in fact, our original. Mill Valley, et cetera. |
| 02:54:55.64 | Ken Hira | Right, no, I appreciate that. It's a little bit of both in the event, in the case that Caledonia specifically, I think we came up with 145,000 square feet of retail. we're suggesting for that local population It's too much, given everything that's been going on. pre-COVID for that matter. It's just that storefront, It was in the storefront in general has been shrinking. I'm not sure. I think generally we haven't studied the region per se, but I'd say, there's clearly a regional issue as well. because you've got some regional retail. destinations in other cities. And, you know, I think any city that has a mall Um, shouldn't be sleeping at night. the way they used to. you every mall in our country, I'll say. a space that's too large. every mall in our country. It's too big. 100% too big. but, It could be 10% too big. It could be 50% too big. A lot of the things that we're doing these days is looking at those malls and thinking about What are the better integrated set of uses? that can, allow for all the product types that can work together be successful. So it's kind of like my analogy is, The mall is like an ocean liner sitting in you know, a body of water. and it doesn't move very easily. But if you have, few boats they can work together. And there can they can be more them both. I'm not sure. and work off of each other. benefit from each other and have a more sustainable platform. So I'd say regionally there's a challenge as well. |
| 02:56:49.31 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Okay, thanks. |
| 02:56:50.41 | Ken Hira | I'm sorry. |
| 02:56:50.42 | Ray | All right. I have what sort of one more question or one more theme of questions. I'll try and craft this one question. And then I'll shut up. Uh, And let's move to the Marine ship. So I've been moving from south to north. Um. I think the... Your observations on the marine ship, I think, are very interesting. And I totally agree with you about the need for engineering study on the, you know, Um, And to also remember that we keep talking about a marineship is one sort of body of land and yet It's very clear from anybody that the North is going to be inundated and has far more infrastructure problems in the South. And in the middle, we got the boatyards. So you got three distinct areas. even though a lot of people don't seem to want to view it that way. We have three distinct things. |
| 02:57:42.60 | Amy Wisehart | Yeah. |
| 02:57:45.17 | Ray | Um. One of the things that you, indicated was the trend towards retail industrial. What did you call it? Retail. We make up funny words. Yeah, that's okay. |
| 02:57:55.73 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:57:55.97 | Ken Hira | I don't know. Yeah. |
| 02:57:58.02 | Unknown | I hope no. Thank you. |
| 02:57:58.97 | Ken Hira | Yeah. |
| 02:57:59.04 | Unknown | Redustrial. |
| 02:57:59.90 | Ken Hira | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 02:58:00.07 | Ray | But it's. There's no better example than He's surrounded. |
| 02:58:05.74 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:58:06.12 | Ray | They have a retail outlet there in the marineship, and that's where their industrial... manufacturing facility is. by the way. I'm not sure. And that's the area of town that's the most vulnerable to flooding. and sea level right. I'm not sure. But the thing I want to get at is the infrastructure piece, because that's been worrying me for eight years. That's what I have been almost like, Seriously, folks, waking up at night worrying about it. Um, The You alluded to And I think I agree with you. The EDS study, which, you know, we don't want to trash them. They did the best they could. Um, I'm not sure. Because they took a generalized, and you're saying, no, we need to get specific. We can't use generalized numbers, right, which I agree with. And partly what I want to get to is the question about the difference economically, how we analyze the difference between building types. and uses. And part of the problem that we've been has been like, the political nightmare for 30 years, quite frankly, in the Marin shed. is office. Right. Everybody's been talking about office is we don't they don't want office buildings, but that's a building. All right. You then get on the ground in the marine ship, and you realize, if you look at the north end of town, All of those. structures, those buildings, that are going to be underwater Um, They need to be either rebuilt or abandoned. EDS tried to use Office R&D not as some as some people have suggested a means to you know, put the weight on the scales and try and get a result. but they were just trying to get to what is the building, new building type that can be bill considering the residual land value. Right. And it seemed to me that Did you, in analyzing and looking at what could possibly be the residual land values in the marinship, Take into account. that the way in which our ordinance and our so-called fair traffic initiative is structured such that No one in the Marin ship can build beyond their current footprint. because they're not allowed to by order. And therefore, doesn't that distort the numbers of the value that can be achieved? because there isn't even, no matter whatever uses you take, There's just not the ability to actually incentivize a property owner to actually invest in the infrastructure that they need. So, I appreciate the fact that I and I think what you're saying and I'd like you to clarify is that we need to almost get down to a parcel by parcel or area by area analysis to ask the question, what is the infrastructure investment needed here? to create the the properties that are going to allow the manufacturing uses, the light industrial uses. Because at the moment, Half the buildings are trash. to be honest. So I'm sorry for that long. That was a way of sort of asking the question, how do we refine how to create the economic incentive without just putting Disneyland there. to create. To be able to allow industrial to thrive with the fact that we've got this, apparent residual land value analysis on a generic level says nobody's gonna invest. SO, CLICK. Do you see where I'm going with that question? I do. |
| 03:02:07.54 | Ken Hira | I do. Thank you. Yeah, I do, and I appreciate the analysis on your part. I'll give you the short answer and a little longer answer. I think this is THE END OF THE END OF THE the The answer is going to be it's going to depend on the dynamic between infrastructure and zoning. And what I mean by that is that if, The infrastructure evaluation, if you go down that path. results in in April. a more technical or scientific understanding of what infrastructure is needed and where. you have a better feel for that, whether it's a map cost estimating, whatever. You can then look at that. I think. and apply a zoning strategy to it. to say, okay, existing zoning might allow or disallow. one of those solutions to move forward. And maybe from there, you would then say, well, gosh, I want adjust my zoning strategy, my land use strategy, to, Sync up. with, and infrastructure evaluation. so that if this area needs $3 million an acre and not $2 million an acre of infrastructure you realize, the zoning or land use strategy for that. is something that you may not want or may not be feasible. and vice versa. you may realize that infrastructure costs, are so much lower in one section or certain sections, if you will. And therefore, maybe it's a lower density solution, maybe it's an existing solution, maybe it's to your point about, well, something doesn't need to be It's not broken. It doesn't need to be fixed. So maybe that, can be more sustainable, but at least you know. And then I think those things sync together or coalesce together. |
| 03:03:57.65 | Ray | Thank you. |
| 03:03:57.67 | Ken Hira | Thank you. |
| 03:03:59.94 | Ray | Ken, thank you very much. I would have a thousand more questions, but I'm done. Thank you. |
| 03:04:03.62 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Yeah. Thank you, John. Thank you. We've gotta give our other council members a chance to chime in here and ask questions and then we've got public comments. |
| 03:04:13.90 | Unknown | Sorry. |
| 03:04:15.20 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | So Okay, are there other council member questions? Joan. Yeah. |
| 03:04:22.93 | Joan Cox | Thank you. I have to say I found the Vice Mayor's questions and the answers very interesting and informative. So thank you, Vice Mayor. And I too believe |
| 03:04:32.95 | Mary Wagner | Thank you. |
| 03:04:33.07 | Katie Amatruda | Thank you. |
| 03:04:33.10 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:04:33.14 | Mary Wagner | Thank you. |
| 03:04:35.04 | Joan Cox | This is such a meaty analysis and report that we could spend a lot more time analyzing it. In the spirit of full disclosure, I want to disclose that some of my partners have hired the Cosmont firm for other projects for other clients of my law firm, but I've not had prior experience with Mr. Hira and his firm. And I do thank you for interviewing me amongst others as you put together your report. Um, Thank you also for updating your report in light of COVID-19. I regret I was not able to attend or listen to the EDAC meeting, although the city manager told me it was very useful and illuminating so I'm sorry I was not able to do that in advance of this meeting. I had most of my questions focus on the marineship. I have about five questions. Um, THE DISCUSSION OF HOW TO SPREAD INFRASTRUCTURE COSTS AMONGST THE MARINESHIP. Um, and the comment that not every area requires the same solutions. Did you consider adaptation? As opposed to. mitigation. |
| 03:05:49.50 | Ken Hira | We didn't get into that level of detail. I think it's an excellent potential solution. I think that kind of goes back to what I just said earlier. Maybe that's a zoning or a land use. um, I'm going to go. the two or three legs of that stool. So I think if infrastructure. Perhaps it's at some capacity or level And adaptive reuse is a better solution than rebuild. restructure or tear down, if you will, and we're not suggesting any of the above. I'm not sure. but I think that adaptive reuse should be part of that. strategy. |
| 03:06:26.89 | Joan Cox | I'm glad to hear you say that that's something that the general plan advisory committee and the general plan working group have focused on in some of our. general plan. work. because frankly, the sea level rise issue is something we as a city are not going to be able to mitigate. And we have landowners who have spent millions upon millions of dollars attempting to mitigate in the short term. But as you point out, It's a very serious long-term challenge. You made reference to an innovation district in your report, but when you referred to the innovation district, you made reference to amenities, outdoor space, et cetera. The city council has, and again, the vice mayor and also the chair of our planning commission have had much dialogue regarding an innovation zone, but it was a different type of innovation zone. So I just want to clarify your innovation zone is comprised of amenities and outdoor space. It is not what we've been discussing internally, which is Um, you know, uh, a district within which we identify solutions for climate change or you know study sea level rise subsidence etc so i just want to clarify that distinction. so that people are not confused by your reference to an innovation zone. |
| 03:07:48.04 | Ken Hira | So that's... |
| 03:07:52.02 | Ken Hira | I think that's right. I mean, and, and, um, What's interesting about it and us doing a little bit of research on that is some of its roots come from research institutions, et cetera, that's where a lot of these, the word or the concept of an innovation district comes from, right? It's it's collegiate, it's universities, it's research, it's think tanks, etc. and And pardon me, because I kind of am just working off of a concept that I use these days that may not have great perfect definition because I just see the Marin ship as having that potential partly because Of some of those types of uses, I mean, it's not a university research park, but it has some really creative businesses there. And the way we introduced this idea of outdoors and amenities is we read an article that interestingly enough, the shopping center industry And he said, that, this is our version of an innovation district. We thought, well, that's interesting. So we kind of introduced it. because we think that the marineship is God Such a blend. of unique you know, artists, maritime services, You know, restaurants, retail even. in an outdoor environment. |
| 03:09:14.85 | Joan Cox | That's your white paper, you're referring to the white paper |
| 03:09:15.05 | Ken Hira | your white Yeah. |
| 03:09:18.02 | Joan Cox | entitled Retail Breves Life into Innovation District. |
| 03:09:21.41 | Ken Hira | Correct. So that was kind of the basis for it. I'm not suggesting to take away from any of what you all have thought through about the research, the climate change, et cetera. Uh, I think to me, today. I think if you ask 10 people, I think they'd have a different description necessarily. of what is an innovation district. And so I think it's an evolving concept. but it's something to strive for. |
| 03:09:52.34 | Joan Cox | So I wanted to ask you a couple of questions about this concept of retail in the marine ship, which you mentioned on several occasions. So you, your study notes that retail uses in Sausalito have seen dramatic swings over the past five years, and you also make reference to the fact that retail is oversaturated. in the Caledonia district. So I'm curious about advocating for retail in the Marineship. Would that not draw down or compete? with our other districts where retail normally is located and where we already have an oversaturation of retail. And is that not also somewhat antithetical to the analysis we heard earlier tonight about retail shifting from storefront to online? Thank you. |
| 03:10:42.58 | Ken Hira | You know, it's a point well taken. as we have been talking pre-COVID about strive for experience in restaurants, et cetera, COVID? Could it be? but a big change. in that plan per se. I don't think in the long term It's a bad Goal objective approach. I think it's you know. THE END OF not a short term. turn around today. Let's go get more restaurants because as we've already heard, many of them are unfortunately going to have to get recycled from a financial engineering perspective, I think, though, if you're going to make a comparison, so I agree with that. That's an opposing dynamic. Think if you're going to make a comparison between Caledonia the marineship necessarily, I think to suggest that a consumer might find the waterfront. And. or in shit. at a different type of destination. I think a destination again with that kind of outdoor environment that we've been referring to some of the restaurants that are there and those that are going to survive i think when you're very well in the long term. So I think that's the component of retail. that type of food and restaurant. and experiential use. can still remain. within Marinship as a component |
| 03:12:01.27 | Joan Cox | Well, and I know you also advocated bed and breakfast and hospitality options on, barges and houseboats. which I believe is more in line with adaptive reuse and with my vision for water-based housing. |
| 03:12:18.46 | Ken Hira | true. |
| 03:12:19.00 | Joan Cox | All right, I'm gonna challenge you on one other topic and then I'll let other council members speak. So, or question. I want to, I want to explore this funk zone. So I totally understand the analogy between the Marine ship and Port Townsend. That I think is totally, merited given the current status of each area. But the funk zone, You know, you mentioned the funk zone in Santa Barbara as a potential strategy to consider. The funk zone is a 30 acre blend of wine tasting brewery, distillery, cafes, art galleries and kayak rental through adaptive reuse of old buildings within Santa Barbara's industrial zone. I, as I understand it, there's not a single manufacturing company in the funk zone. So I'm curious, what is your, what How do you see a funk zone dovetailing with our very active and very revenue positive industrial zone? And what is the example upon which you rely for that? juxtaposition or the dovetailing of those activities. |
| 03:13:32.73 | Ken Hira | Yeah, so that's an excellent question. I will say pretty clearly in our minds, we are not. suggesting that the Maroon should turn into the funk zone. First of all, If you, No, and I'm not saying that just to answer a question, frankly. that sounds like that's what I should say. I'm saying that because The way we describe funk zone. in our examples. which, as I mentioned earlier, we had several case studies. that have different components that can apply Just all sweet. it's the idea that, How does industrial and consumer related activities work together. And I think it's really even more interesting today in a COVID because of this of industrial and retail and adaptive reuse innovation districts. I think our point on the funk zone was that how retail and industrial consumer activities and industries. managed its way. together. frankly, without taking away from the industrial uses. I understand they weren't manufactured. but, in a past life What I've been saying a lot of is, industrial business park, and this. residential subdivision. and the mall, and the office part, and Hotel Circle with 10 hotels in it I think that is going to evolve to where uses are going to continue to sort of integrate. So we think we just looked at the function and said, How did industrial and consumer activities manage to figure out how to coexist. And so it did it. in an organic fashion, Over time. And I really think that was the main point bringing that in as a case study. Now, our discussion of State Street Center work. is different. I think that was more geared toward you have 10 blocks of traditional retail storefront You have zoning and permitting that was very challenging to those businesses. and You had a business unfriendly environment. that made it really hard for small businesses. to get going. And so we use that case study in my mind, in our minds, to say, there's some applicability to Sausalito in that case, right? Try to relax some of those zoning and permitting Try to make it less expensive, try to make it less time-consuming. And then realize for your marineship, There can be a very interesting blend of industrial, manufacturing or otherwise, uses with some consumer related uses. You have it today as a condition. You've got office use, you've got Retail uses with restaurants. Yeah. artists' uses. manufacturing uses, And you probably even have some folks living down there. So you have a very eclectic circumstance as it is. I think that was our main purpose for using the function. We did not suggest that you should turn it into that. and get rid of your manufacturing. And if we implied that, we apologize. So we did not have that. |
| 03:16:39.81 | Joan Cox | I will definitely have some comments when it's time. Thank you so much for answering my questions. Thank you for your work on this report. Thank you very much. |
| 03:16:49.66 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Okay. Jo and Tom recognizing that Joan and Ray have covered a lot of territory and it's 1020. Do you have questions for Cosmond? |
| 03:17:03.06 | Tom Riley | No, this is my second presentation of this material, and plenty of my questions have been answered. |
| 03:17:08.66 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Great, thank you. Not to dissuade you, but Joe. |
| 03:17:15.26 | Councilmember Joe | Not after that dissuasion, no. |
| 03:17:17.47 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | No, seriously, do you have questions? |
| 03:17:20.02 | Councilmember Joe | I don't. |
| 03:17:20.76 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | They're. All right, I think my only question is, I was very intrigued and Ray touched on this by the engineering study. And I was just wondering if you could talk a little bit more about what level of detail you were considering when you made that recommendation and a kind of ballpark cost. I mean, to me, for years, we've really been talking about the infrastructure needs in the Marin ship and how if we don't address those, soon that we are going to threaten all of the amazing things that are happening there the livelihoods the jobs |
| 03:17:58.41 | Unknown | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 03:18:03.68 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | business both from a circulation standpoint, from a storm drainage standpoint, from a sea level rise standpoint. So, When I read about your recommendation about the engineering study, I'm intrigued by that, but I'm also, as you heard from our earlier presentation, we're facing fiscal constraints. So if you could just touch on what we would learn from that study and how much it might cost. I would appreciate it. |
| 03:18:32.63 | Ken Hira | Yeah. going to invite you know, my colleague Tom, if he wants to chime in. I mean, I really don't, we really don't have, I don't have a feel for what, a study like it would cost because The scoping exercise itself, I think is going to be kind of extensive. In other words, you know, what's the objective? Is it to understand sea level subsidence, Is it to understand solutions? Is it to understand different types of solutions, and what the costs are for those infrastructures. and the research and the testing, if you will, because I mean, there's going to be a lot of assumptions I can imagine that goes into that. testing. could be pretty extensive. I don't really have a good feel for a cost because I don't have a good feel for although I think that scope would likely be a pretty extensive scope if you really wanted to have answers to all these very critical questions because You know, you can only go so far and then there may need to be further investigation. as you can imagine, because you can only do so much at some point. And then the other question is, is how do you get How do you create maybe a partnership between public and private sectors to invest. something like this. And that's just another idea, another concept. related to how do you pay for it, so to speak? |
| 03:20:00.05 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Yeah, well that, I mean, that was gonna be my next question was, did you have an example of a good public private partnership or other community benefit district or infrastructure financing district or So, |
| 03:20:15.30 | Unknown | So, |
| 03:20:16.15 | Ken Hira | Thank you. |
| 03:20:16.47 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Yeah. |
| 03:20:16.94 | Ken Hira | Yeah. |
| 03:20:17.26 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:20:17.58 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | be a good example for us here. |
| 03:20:21.43 | Ken Hira | Well, one thing we have worked on there's likely not a single tool And what I mean by that is if you were to suggest or consider and in fact, Enhanced Infrastructure Financing District, THE END OF THE END OF THE that's something that can pay for infrastructure. That's also down the road as tax increments I'm not sure. grows. really the front end of that is more grant dollars. these private investment, that you would put together that want to put together part of sort of almost building a bridge. And so the latter part of that is probably an EIFD, even if that made any sense. front part of that. bridge building exercise, which is what we're referring to. may come. may have a lot to do with maybe getting some grant dollars and or. maybe creating Um, private investments. you know, platforms. where the folks that invest in it, in a way. they're gonna all ultimately benefit from it. The trick is, is now you've gotta get a lot of parties in a room to make those types of commitments. And that's a little bit of that challenge. |
| 03:21:38.93 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Right? All right. Thank you for that. Okay, if there aren't further questions, I'm gonna open it up to public comment. and thank the council for A lot of great probing questions and thank you to Cosmop for a Very thorough report. Kevin Carroll, welcome back. |
| 03:22:01.87 | Kevin Carroll | Good evening again. Just a question. that occurs to me even before COVID-19. I was seeing a lot of empty second floor office space. Um, around town generally. downtown and in the Caledonia Street area. Um, And oddly enough, I have customers who used to live in Sausalito that have been calling me wanting to move back. And I'm having a tough time finding |
| 03:22:25.91 | Mary Wagner | THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 03:22:28.76 | Kevin Carroll | apartments or flats for them to rent. because we have such a low Occupancy rate. and I'm wondering if the city what the economic of it would work. if the city tried to discourage second floor office in the downtown and Caledonia Street area. Most of those buildings, those second floor areas were originally residential. I would assume they're easy to convert back to either residential or even hotel, which would generate more revenue for the city if they were a hotel or bed and breakfast. And so have you, have you, studied areas where they've attempted to do that, since we're probably looking at a long-term glut in office space, that may be restricting those two areas and enacting zoning or other you know, city powers. Thank you. to encourage those conversions back to residential or hotel usage. of Would that wouldn't that be? a plus. And then the same thing I would think might apply to marinship in that there's an excess It appears to me office space. I didn't look that closely down there. But I noticed, I've read articles recently that some of the major developers downtown San Francisco are converting some of their from office to residential. the high rises in South of Marques. because they see that there's going to be a glut of office space. That's my question. |
| 03:24:04.02 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Great, thank you, Mr. Carroll. So I'm gonna take all the public comment and then we'll circle back to some of the questions. Peter, welcome. |
| 03:24:14.27 | Peter | Good evening. I really appreciate the conversation that Ray and Ken had on Thank you. sort of the economics of preserving the marine ship tax base for sausalito It looks to me like the big issue is going to be a decision about do we want to maintain the marinship over the next hundred years as an economic base for Sausalito because as we know currently it produces more than half of the non-residential revenues into the city. And if you're kind of making the decision are we going to let it sort of wash away or are we gonna like, to preserve our working waterfront. and other industrial businesses down in the neighborhood in order to continue the revenue support of the city of Sausalito the services that the city demands. If you decide you're gonna preserve it, And that's, just say we can't mitigate sea level rise. but you're gonna actually work to save it. And there's a lot of potential engineering solutions, I think, Then you have to look at the infrastructure costs involved and then decide what economic Land use. Can you? Thank you. have in the area that will support the generation of revenues that help pay for that infrastructure improvements. This is a theme that we've been talking about for years. I know I certainly was a loud voice promoting this for three years on the G-PAC. And, you know, really didn't get anywhere with the argument, but I think the city is gonna have to face that decision. Do we in fact want to save our Marin ships? bite the bullet on finding the money somehow, to preserve it. and have land uses that can support the economics to make that happen. So I appreciate your conversation. I think this is an excellent conversation to get started again. And I thank you, Ray and Ken, for digging deep in that dialogue. |
| 03:26:21.67 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Great. Thank you, Peter. Alice, welcome back. |
| 03:26:33.30 | Alice Merrill | Okay. I think this has been a very interesting conversation. It's been fun to listen to and full of some great ideas and some scary ideas. from my point of view. And I would like this to not end tonight. I would like to have this not be some kind of a decision that's made tonight. I don't know if that's the plan or not the plan, We need more people to hear this conversation or try to get people to listen to this conversation just to get people thinking, rationally about what we can do about about our whole town, but of course, you know me, I only care about the marineship as far as it's not turning into. A gentrification period in any way. I would like to suggest that of what I know in the marine ship and even where I live on my little harbor of Pelican, We have 30 day leases and so do most of the people in the Marineship that I know about that I, that are the ones that are the Marine operator people. They don't fix up their places. It's amazing that they can even hold heavy machinery because their landlords are just waiting them out. And if you only have a 30 day lease, Ray said it looks awful down there. It's ugly. Well, people don't fix up their property when they only have a 30 day lease for the last, how many years? So, I don't know if you guys can convince the landlords that that's an important thought, but. that's something that might make a difference for how And here they are from thriving anyway. You know, they're wonderful. Thank you. Goodbye. I'm done. |
| 03:28:33.05 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | All right, thank you, Alice. Good to hear your voice. Jeff Shiroz, welcome. |
| 03:28:42.51 | Unknown | Uh-huh. |
| 03:28:44.91 | Jeffrey Chase | Good evening, everybody. I can't appreciate your thorough presentation definitely was great to see We met many months ago pre-COVID and as we all know things have changed in the business community, especially with the downtown. You know, we're definitely seeing... you know, a different, see there's not a vibrancy as we had previously, especially last summer. And, of course, you expressed, of course, many concerns, of course, with the hospitality, retail, and downtown businesses. And I'm seeing that as well. I mean, definitely we're seeing some businesses having to close for many different reasons. Obviously, there's a big struggle right now as far as capacities in restaurants at 25%. Retail, of course, less in capacities as well. You know, we've lost many different businesses right now, you know, in downtown. We've lost Drury by the Bay. We've lost Bridgeway Cafe. We've lost the old Burlwood is still vacant. We've lost Petri's. Of course, Starbucks. Those are just within a block and a half of each other. So there's definitely a problem we've got downtown. And I've said this in hospitality and BAC through the years. I said in five years, Bridgeway, which is our main street, is not going to be there. It's going to be empty. We have the Amazon effect. That Amazon effect now is taking effect now with because of COVID, which we never expected. We never expected this to come about, but now it is. So economic development in Sausalito, which is a bad word, is necessary now and has to move forward. Otherwise, we are going to have a ghost town. We don't want to be the Emeryville of the North Bay. We want to be eclectic, independent retailers, restaurateurs. When you walk in a store or a business, you talk to the owner, and that's what we're used to. It has a small-town charm. We can't lose that. We got to act now and be diligent about what we do. Otherwise, it's going to be a different town five, ten years from now. |
| 03:30:42.85 | Mary Wagner | We can't. |
| 03:30:50.17 | Jeffrey Chase | Thank you. |
| 03:30:52.65 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Great. Thank you, Jeff. John Dure, welcome back. And if there's any other members of the public who would like to speak, please raise your hand now. |
| 03:31:03.55 | John DeRay | Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. um, Just one comment on the retail Amazon concept that was articulated for the Marinship. I think perhaps that concept, as Mr. Sharosh just mentioned, with the potential problems on Caledonia, that concept should probably be considered on Caledonia. |
| 03:31:26.13 | John DeRay | where it may really help to save the businesses there. The other thing that I wanted to mention is regarding this engineering study report. There is a report that was done in 2011 Um, I'm sorry, this is regarding infrastructure. Jonathan Goldman's name is on this. It was done by West Yost is the company and it's entitled conceptual drainage study, gate five road. It's really an interesting report. And I don't know if everybody has seen this or read this. Obviously it's dated, but it goes through eight A project scenarios something as as low as 320,000 for duckbill flat gate at coloma street. Thank you. and as high as a levee and flood wall. So the duck bill flap gate at Coloma street was $319,000. The levy and flood wall is about $28 million. So it's an interesting report done by this consultant and, um, I think we wouldn't be starting from ground zero if somebody took a look at this report. Adam's on here as well, so he probably remembers this. Thank you. |
| 03:32:43.24 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Great, thank you, John. Okay, I'm not seeing any other hands raised. Oh yes, hi, it's Lauren de Rimmer. Hey, Lauren, welcome. |
| 03:32:56.67 | Lauren de Rimmer | Hi, thank you. Can you hear me okay? |
| 03:32:58.83 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Yes, we can. |
| 03:33:00.57 | Lauren de Rimmer | I just wanted to thank Ken for putting this together. I think there was a lot of really interesting stuff in there. I wanted to second that I agree the dovetailing, as Joan put it, of these businesses. I think that's extremely important. I think that it could be great if these local businesses were incentivized to do those types of things. In regards to the office space we currently have, I really like Studio 333. I was sad to see the stationery store go out of business recently. We used to have Pine Street Paper here when I grew up, which was amazing. had lots of character. And I think that's kind of a lost art. I would love to see things like that survive. There are certain even current projects that I've been I think it would have been great to keep the all of the wooden structures there, actual playgrounds with and things that I grew up with instead of just metal bars that don't do anything except echo your voice. I think that when we think about upgrading especially our parks, we have a lot of if we could get a bit more creative on the, on the vision of what they're going to look like instead of just cookie cutter buildings. I went down to the new park, I think I'm a big fan of the larger walkway down by the cruising club. the bathrooms there, like for example, we have two loops of bike racks. Like what are that, is it gonna fit four bikes? Like I think there's things that it's like, It would have been cool if the whole bathroom facilities were had some sort of character, something like a floating home or something that really reflects our town. I think that we do have a lot of opportunity to keep the character of our town, to cater more towards local tourism. Um, And I think, yeah, I think the issues with marineship run deeper than that. I have seen instances of property owners like discouraging cleaning up of a lot of the property down there and telling tenants not to do things, not to do improvements. I would be really interested to see if all the people working down there are actually Um, I've heard of stories of them being encouraged to not register their businesses in Sausalito. And these are things that are happening behind the scenes that I'm really concerned about. And I just think that we need to be thinking about how to solve this problem when we talk about I'm not sure. future visions are either upgrading infrastructure, which is obviously going to be a huge task. Thank you. |
| 03:35:41.67 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Great, thank you Lauren. Okay, not seeing any additional hands raised. So we will close public comment and bring it back up to the council. Does anyone, so I think we... The only action for tonight is to just receive this report. And I think we were also asked if we had any direction for the EDAC, which is Brian, if I'm correct, EDAC has met to receive this report as well. They had some good comments and questions and then they were going to start to prioritize some of the recommendations in the report and or some of the recommendations that have come from the public or members. Is that correct? Yeah, that |
| 03:36:32.65 | Adrian Brinton | Yeah, that's correct. And the other thing that you have in your packet is you do have the analysis of the February edition of this report from the Business Advisory Committee and the Hospitality Committee. So they did in fact rank |
| 03:36:43.11 | Kevin Carroll | So they did. |
| 03:36:44.75 | Adrian Brinton | I priority recommended not recommended. I'm assuming that when the business advisory committee takes this up on October 5 that I don't know whether it'll take them one meeting or more meetings, but eventually they'll come up with a similar set of recommendations for the Council to ultimately consider. |
| 03:37:00.92 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Okay, great. So I think if there are either ideas from the study that the Council would like to recommend that EDAC take a closer look at or anything else along those lines that would be well received tonight or we can just I have had a few comments but. Does anybody else? Have anything to add? Tom and then Jenna. |
| 03:37:25.99 | Tom Riley | I just have a brief comment. I love all this data. I just reflect, you know, we are, we've been working three, four years on a general plan. We've now, nine, 10 months into the land economic study. We got a COVID update on that. We got our financial projections. I'm just like, We've got enough studies and got enough data. We just got to start getting stuff done. and Time is running out. Our tourists have left and our water is coming in. And so we just got to, you know, this is where I think the EDAC can really help us. prioritize, assign things to staff, take on some projects themselves, get some things in front of city council so we can start making the much needed improvements to improve our economics. which is a benefit to the whole community. So I look forward to working with you back. |
| 03:38:17.43 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. Rally and cry. Joan? |
| 03:38:24.35 | Joan Cox | Thank you. I would like to recommend that EDAC listen to the council member questions and answers from this evening, because I too thought that Ray's dialogue with Ken was very helpful. I had some questions that I would love to further probe, particularly this idea of Um, dovetailing industrial with amenities and other uses. You know, in my experience, when you have those other uses available, it supersedes industrial. And so how do you preserve the city council's vision for the marineship that was adopted in October of last year And yet, energize. Um, complimentary. businesses that can thrive. in the Marin ship and that can sustained. the financial burden of the infrastructure improvements and or adaptive reuse that will be required for that area so I do believe you know the city council several months ago agreed that further economic study of the marine ship may be needed I'm very interested to look at the West Yost report that John Dure mentioned regarding the engineering study that's already been done to see if we still need to do more, if we can dovetail off of that. I do think Thank you. uh, I appreciate all the data that we've gathered. This is our most active revenue, generator and so I think we just have to tread carefully as we consider how best to move forward with the marine ships. But thank you for the reports. I agree with Lauren. I would love to continue to engage in this very challenging. and Um, important dialogue. Thank you. Thanks. |
| 03:40:35.35 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Great, thank you. Sarah Silver PB, Sarah Silver PB Sarah PB Sarah Silver PB Sarah PB Sarah Silver PB Sarah PB Sarah Silver PB Sarah PB |
| 03:40:42.62 | Ray | Thank you, Madam Mayor. I will be brief. |
| 03:40:44.51 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | I'm going to give you a 20 minute limit. |
| 03:40:48.53 | Ray | So I'll be brief. |
| 03:40:49.76 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. |
| 03:40:50.15 | Ray | First of all, Ken and colleagues, thank you very much. I've had the good fortune of listening to Ken a number of times through the League of California Cities. The Cosmo is an extremely well-respected person. um, firm in basic economic land use economics and we're lucky to have had their insight here. Now, I think the You know, I'm a scientist, I rely on data. Um, some people in our community think that you do studies to be at a rigor result. That's not the way things work, at least not in my world. Thank you. to the next episode. In my world, you actually listen to the data and you digest it, you figure out what's suitable for us. and without any preconceived notion. Thank you. um, I'm going to... Skip downtown. We got some specific issues there. I'm gonna skip, although it's gonna be quickly, I'm gonna dwell a little bit on Caledonia because there is where I have a real concern. Um, we really do have to figure out the fact if we have so much over capacity of retail then office spaces and the answer there. Sorry. We need retail, we need housing there. You know, if we need the housing retail mix for Caledonia, and that can solve quite a few issues, I think, for us. If you want Caledonia to be... Um, serving our community will put some of the communities With the Marine ship, And so I think the next council's gonna have some real issues to deal with and Caledonia and some of the other commercial districts, such as the north end of town and so on we're going to have some real issues, especially as we're dealing with the housing element. to ask the question where do we need to put more housing? It's very clear the office is not the answer there. in my mind. I made you wrong. |
| 03:43:18.51 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:43:19.91 | Ray | the Marin ship. which has been something I've spent a lot of time worrying about over the years. Um, There is no one solution. You got to divide the problem up into chunks. The problem in the north is totally different than the problem in the south of the Murrenship. You know? The sea level rise studies, whatever it says, means that the north is going to be inundated. Whatever assumptions you want to have about sea level rise and its rate, you guarantee the North is going to be inundated before the South. I mean, whatever, whenever it I'm not sure if I'm not sure if We have a lot of light industrial there. If we want to protect it, then there's going to be, have to be some real serious answers. Um, the, So divide it up in the chunks. Where do you start? We need the, I totally agree, and I've been saying for about a year now, that we need to have an engineering analysis in particular, let's start small. Let's start by figuring out what at least our land level is. The inundation models that are saying that the North is gonna be inundated is correct. The problem is, They're way too optimistic. We already know the subsidence is sort of much accelerated in the north. So... You know, when we look at the car repair shops and the various small industries that we all want to keep, how are we going to do that? Well, let's divide it up in small chunks and start our engineering studies there. the middle of the marinship where we have our boat building that we desperately want to preserve. You know? Maybe not that profitable industry, but let me tell you, there's nowhere else in the whole Bay Area that's repairing. some of the houseboats and the various things. It's the only place. Therefore, there's a competitive advantage. But to save that, you can't just throw a bit of gravel up and hope the sea level rise is good when the sea comes up. because the environmental cleanup that's gonna be needed in this area, again, engineering studies there, but as the mayor quite rightly said, We can't do everything, so start where the problem is first. And the problem is in the north end of the marine ship. I am very encouraged by tonight, and I'm very encouraged by some of the comments we've received. from our residents. Um, for the dialogue to continue. And I really hope that that does continue. Um, Most importantly, we need to bring, and probably one of both in all parts of town, We need to figure out a way to build enough trust so that the property owners, the landlords, can actually engage in the discussions. I was very privileged to be part of the Marineship Specific Plan Advisory Committee. I think that's what we called it. It was chaired by Robin Petrodovich, the owner of Heath Ceramics. Back in, I don't know when it was, 2014 maybe, And... What are the outcomes from that? And in fact, Leon Hunting, former council member who was on that committee said, You're not going to get anywhere unless we can get the property owners at the table to start discussing the problem. The property owners need to understand No. The city council isn't going to blink first. This isn't a head-on crash. We need to actually get them engaged in a real conversation about how we can work together to make this work. We had a very productive discussion a while ago with say, Ken Peterson, a clipper. And he was trying to present us with a real problem he has. His economic analysis said he can invest in his structure. Because, you know, Um, And what did we do? We had a bunch of people Just dump on it. and say what a lousy person he was. Well, that's not going to help. We need to bring the parties together. And I think Ken and his group indicated with say retail, Caledonia, whatever, unless we have a dialogue between the property owners, the landlords and the businesses, we're not gonna get anywhere. My view is Break the problem up into chunks. separate the variables, get us dealing with smaller problems. not trying to deal with one great big solution, because there isn't one big solution. is going to be a problem that needs to be done and sorted out in particular points. I'm familiar with the study the infrastructure study that got done on Gate 5 Road. John? All right? That's just the scraping. That's just this tiny part. layer, upper layer of the iceberg. The amount of infrastructure analysis that's going to be done is this deep. Sorry, on the screen. This team. not this deep. And so we need to build on that. It's a good idea. We need to build on that. and gains. Let's figure out where to first focus our problem and then move on. And with that, Madam Mayor, I will be quiet. |
| 03:49:16.06 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Thank you very much, Ray, for your comment. And I would definitely, um, agree with the need to bring in the property owners several of these conversations. I was really interested in the last EDAC meeting because I think in terms of downtown, That's exactly where the EDAC was going. They were looking at several key properties in the downtown that were significantly at risk And they were looking for concrete solutions. So kind of a mix of what Tom was saying, like we've got the information, let's just go do this. And Ray, what you were talking about is getting the property owners and the business owners into the conversation. So I think that kind of collaborative, it's gonna be hard because a lot of, these interests are not or they don't I think they are aligned, but they don't perceive that they're aligned and breaking down that barrier and building trust will be really important. I want to thank, oh, Joe, sorry. Okay, so I'll just go since I've already started and then I'll let Joe chime in. So one of the things that I really like about the COSMOT report and recommendations is something we've been talking about for quite a while is kind of the experiential the outdoor aspect of Sausalito, the outdoor aspect of Sausalito. I really think that especially with COVID that's kind of enhanced idea, but even before COVID, I've thought that, you know, the reason that I'll, and Joe has said this many times is the reason that we've all moved here. is also the reason or that we live here is the reason many people want to visit is just experiencing Marin, experiencing the water, it's experiencing this kind of the views. So to the extent that the EDAC can And several of the EDAC members mentioned this at the last meeting as well, as focusing on the experiential businesses and the outdoor oriented things. I also liked a couple of the comments from member of the public, Paul Dines, and one of the committee members, Testa, You know, Paul said boat owners are good visitors. Like we have this natural group of people coming here. And I think Tom spoke to this as well. But the natural group of people who are coming to town to visit their boats, stay on their boats, and kind of servicing them both from a kind of mechanical perspective, but also making sure they stay here to eat, to shop, and to do other things would be a really, great focus. And I think what I liked about that idea is that that kind of goes all along the spine of We have marinas all the way from the marineship all the way up to downtown so that kind of focus on boat owners would be beneficial to kind of all three of our business districts. I also wanted to one of the recommendations from Cosmont that was picked up by the EDAC that I also think is very much worth studying and Joan and I have talked a lot about this and I think it's a lot of the recommendations from Cosmont that was picked up by the EDAC that I also think is very much worth is kind of permit processing reform. And especially during COVID, I would really like to see some enhanced expedited permit processing to make it much easier on our local businesses, especially any new business that wants to start up. We don't have a great reputation on that front and I know that Lily Whalen and her team have been working really hard to adapt to COVID and come up with some great solutions and I think the next step we need to take is to get some um, COVID era expedited permitting in place. And then also talk about whether those are things that we wanna consider for the long term. And then lastly, I just wanted to pick up on and Another public comment that Ray also discussed, which is Caledonia and second floor. residential. I think that's an excellent way to replace some of our excess retail space with a very much needed housing opportunity. It's already happening on a lot of Caledonia. I think whatever we can do to encourage that there and in other commercial structures. downtown and the north end of town would be great and will help us with our housing element. So I think those were my main themes that I would want to pass on that already really came a lot from the EDAC and passed back to them, and I think they're going in the right direction. And Joe, I'm sorry I skipped over you. So jump on in and wrap it up and bring us home. |
| 03:54:31.30 | Councilmember Joe | Thank you. I really appreciate and thank you Ken and staff and this report and what you've done for us last year. And, you know, for what we've paid you, we weren't expecting a plug and play plan that says, okay, here's Sausalito to do all these things. This is going to require a lot of work on our part from EDAC to council and a lot of hard decisions. But these reports, I think this report is very key in providing us the tools, the ideas, the examples, and the things to utilize in that decision making process. And I look at the port towns, and we've talked about this many times, and I've said this a hundred times, I think now. The key to the Port Townsend item for me is that it was a trade organization, a trade association that studied that. The Marine ship needs to have a trade association. They need to get together. The owners and the businesses need to be simbatico on a membership based group, an association with a political voice, a business voice, a financial voice, And most of all, A protect our environment voice. um So, just again tonight, we hear that there's still not even, You know? coming together in that area of those people, of that, that neighborhood. that the business owners and the business ease aren't on the same page. So I really encourage the marine ship to come together with an association. And then that's where we start looking at the infrastructure process with their involvement as a unified group. Um, Because I don't want to protect the marine ship. I want to enhance the marine ship. And I think we've been very clear as a council and I expect the next body to be exactly similar clear. We are protecting our waterfront, we're protecting our industrial, and we're protecting our artists. That's not on the table. Automatics. Therefore, we have to plan a new area. with those three things in mind. And you know, mayor island didn't just plug and play somebody else's idea um as they redeveloped their industrial areas nor did everything that's happened at um our place across the water here at the studio It takes the community to figure out their ideals and then build their plan around that. And that's what we need to do with the Marinership and stop messing around and playing with these two archaic Planning. obstacles called the Fair Traffic Initiative and the Marin Specific Plan that were built solely around the car, where to drive the car and where to park the car. That was their complete goal of those two documents. It was the automobile. And those are still dictating what people want those to still dictate how we plan for sea level rise, sustainability, integration, purpose, for the Marin ship. Now we gotta think so much bigger than that. And we need to start doing it today and get rid of this rhetoric of, well, you're gonna impact them. No, those are our, that's three tenants are our goals. Protect the art, protect the waterfront, protect the industrial. and move on from that and let's get going on a plan with the owners and the businesses involved to say stop focusing on the automobile and start focusing on how do we get people who work in the marine ship living in the marine ship above the marine ship buildings that is Planning 101 and we should have been thinking about that 30 years ago and we definitely need to be thinking about it for the next 20. So how do we get some live work down there? How do we use this? old vacant and going bacon office into a better use that doesn't impact those three tenants of art and industrial and waterfront and make a commitment to do those things. And as it's housing, let's pick some and put that into play. So, What we need to do now is make action and we need to challenge the EDAC, which I really appreciate each one of you have given something for the EDAC to work on. And I think that is exactly what we wanted out of this meeting. To give us some options to make real clear cut choices. And I think some of those, a lot of those obviously exist in the Marineship. But I think in the downtown area, we do. And I think Ken's point of luckily we had low Hospitality has helped us. I still think we need about 25 to 50 more rooms. And I think I know where we can put them. I think they can fit into our downtown. I think we run pretty good about 200 rooms will be insulated, yet still have the opportunity to make some money given our location of the city. Caledonia needs to do some rezoning the Caledonia needs a purpose. And I think we're starting to identify that purpose as we open up the street and allow people to come down there for recreation, for for sitting around for a leisure event. Caledonia has never really been known for kind of, you know, hanging back for leisure. That's how we have to create Caledonia as more of a purpose location, a destination for our residents and our regional residents. to go for something that they're not getting right now by getting their haircut and buying some groceries and, and a bite to eat. We have to make it more of a purpose for them to be there. Experiential. Absolutely. Outdoor. Absolutely. But let's design that around purpose. A few more residents went hurt as well. So I think, you know, we have to be prepared. We've spent the money on the report. We've got a great report. We have a great EDAC now who's working on very important things and I'm glad the mayor brought up permitting. I think that's one of their best things to work on right now as well. Oh, yeah. They have to give us something and we have to make a decision. And we have to do something when we have this general plan finalized. And more importantly, when we do the zoning changes. We have to be ready to act. We can't just sit back and go with, The no change, don't move anything around on the chessboard. We like the game the way it is. That's not going to work. And I think we've identified many reasons why, both pre and post COVID. So I'm excited about EDAC. I hope looking at this and the objectives that we'll be looking at and ranking those and bringing them back to us for action. Thank you. |
| 04:01:04.98 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Great, thank you. Thank you all. Thank you again to, Ken and his team and to Brian. And just a special thanks to Joe and Tom for working so closely with EDAC. That's really been a great group and a great sounding board for these these ideas, I was really impressed listening to the last meeting. So thank you everyone. Brian, I guess I'll just ask you, do you have enough feedback from us to go back to EDAC and keep this process moving? We'll look forward to them coming forward with additional recommendations. |
| 04:01:45.22 | Adrian Brinton | I think we're good to go. |
| 04:01:46.74 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | All right, great. Well, thank you all. And thank you for hanging in here with us late tonight. And thanks to the members of the public that did so as well. Great. |
| 04:01:57.02 | Ken Hira | Good night, everybody. Good night. Thank you very much. |
| 04:02:00.29 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Okay, and now to the actual, Great item on our agenda tonight. We've got item 6C and I will just announce, I think if our city manager will confirm, I think I should announce that due to the lateness of the hour we have decided to forgo item 7A which is the ordinance related to our residential parking program and we've let staff head out for this evening. It's already 11 o'clock and we have another significant item still to discuss. So for anyone in the public that was here for the residential parking program item, We will hopefully schedule that for one of our two meetings in October. Karen Hollweg, Okay, so item succeed is a letter of intent with bridgeway Marina corporation, we have Mary Wagner or city attorney and Council members Joan Cox. and Tom Riley, who has been working hard on this matter. So first of all, huge thanks to to them, all three of them, and to our city manager for their work on this. And with that, I'll let Mary kick it off or... let me know that somebody else will be doing that. |
| 04:03:14.93 | Mary Wagner | I think Councilmember Riley is actually going to take the first part of this presentation, Madam Mayor. |
| 04:03:20.47 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Okay, great, thank you. |
| 04:03:21.97 | Mary Wagner | All right. |
| 04:03:22.04 | Tom Riley | All right. |
| 04:03:22.54 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. |
| 04:03:22.59 | Tom Riley | Thank you. Thank you, Heidi, for the slides. I will say this has been a project with Councilmember Cox, who is my partner. uh the city attorney mary wagner our city manager and we've also been in collaboration with camera rozavi the property owner So I thank them. If we advance the slide, please. Our goals, we have two goals tonight. We wanna bring this project to the public for transparency so you understand what we are working on. Secondly, we'd like the city council's approval to execute a letter of intent that we'll be presenting tonight. So those are our objectives, please advance. To orient, I went to this aerial diagram. Bridgeway Marina is centrally located in our city. It's at the foot of Locust Street. It's just south of Dunphy Park and just north of the joinery to give you a sense of where it's at. It's comprised of eight lots. six of which are completely water-based. in two of which are partial land lots and partial water lots those two lots are in the lower left corner here one label city and the other labeled marina The one thing. that's labeled marina is the current existing marina structure And the rest of the lots, the other seven lots are all, for the most part, undeveloped. We have three goals with this project. The first goal is to help the land owner accomplish a long desired uh, goal to improve his marina and expand it. However, he has been constrained by parking requirements and unable to park his project. So this is a win for the landowner, the property owner. The second winner are the current tenants of his marina at Bridgeway Marina. Um, This project will bring that marina into compliance It will improve the safety of the Marina. It'll also improve the aesthetics and so that those tenants will get those benefits. I know there's concerns about those tenants. It's a very vibrant community. Our agreement is that we are going to have protections in place so those tenants cannot be evicted, nor can their rents be risen. Um, And so that, those protections will be in our letter of intent as well. And then finally, this is a win for the city and our community. We are going to extend Dumpy Park to the south and have that southern peninsula become part of the park. |
| 04:05:50.49 | Mary Wagner | No. |
| 04:05:50.54 | Tammy Bell | And finally, |
| 04:05:50.98 | Mary Wagner | I need to. |
| 04:06:01.07 | Tom Riley | We're going to protect our water corridor views. We will improve shoreline access for our community and we'll be protecting eelgrass. So if we step forward, Oh, let me pause. Stay right here, Heidi. So here's the high level of of our transaction. The property owner currently owns these eight lots. He wants to improve the marina lot in the lower left center And he wants to extend that marina one parcel out where it says Marina. In exchange for that, he needs to park it. And so what the city is going to do is going to acquire the two lots labeled city, and require the property owner to retire the other four lots from development. So that's, and I'll explain to you in a moment how we're going to do that, but that's what's gonna happen. The city will own two lots, that are basically to the north. and four lots will be retired. Call that the horseshoe. If you advance the slide, Heidi. So, I mentioned some of this, I'll be very quick, you know, so we'll acquire two properties, retire four, Duffy Park will now be extended to the south and wrap around that estuary area. We'll protect our views from ever being developed out those northern lots We are working with Audubon to restore eelgrass, the waters off of Duffy Park, which we own. we will have a shoreline pathway for pedestrians that go from basically, the Turning Street boat ramp, all the way through Bridgeway Marina to Dunvee Park, And then finally, Right off the joinery is what's called Edgewater Marina. And that marina is dilapidated and the bulkhead is failing. And we will get those improved as part of this project. They're city owned. but we will pay for those capital improvements not up front but over the term of the project please advance the slide |
| 04:08:12.39 | Tom Riley | So the city will be paying Bridgeway Marina Corporation $1.67 million for two parcels and for them to retire the four parcels from development. We will. be paying that $1.67 million not via cash upfront Rather, We're going to provide parking for the marina, which will require 74 lots, and we'll be leasing some streets that the marina will be built over or boats will be parked over that we will charge church. rent for. and pay over time with credits. And our purchase price will have a 3% interest rate as well as The parking spaces and the berths that are over city streets will also, their rental rates will increase at roughly 3% or CPI. So please advance the slide. So BMC does want to improve their existing marina and expand it. And I will show you a visual on this next slide, please. So to orient you on this slide, it is from north to south, north of the top of the page. The two large hashed squares are the two properties that the city will be acquiring. So you see the one in the upper left is that peninsula at Dunphy Park. So that'll be beautiful when we have that property and that shoreline access. The lower two, are the new marina development. And you'll see the current marinas in the lower left, But Bridgeway Marina Corporation wants to extend that all the way out to the right. And that's what they'll be building. If you notice in the lower left corner, there's a gray building that would be Salido's restaurant. The one above it is the joinery restaurant. You can see there is a pathway that goes from there It's not highlighted here but it cuts across through the and connects over to Bridgeway. So this gives you a visual of the project. If you please advance. So on the water, there will be 32 new births. I think addition to the existing 60 births. So it'll be a 92 birth. Um, the existing births will be upgraded and Those are the births where many residents are currently living. So they'll stay in roughly the same area, but they're going to be upgraded. And as I said earlier, we have protections in place for those residents in that vibrant community. I'm really excited about bullet number three. Along this arena, there will be side-tie berths for transient visitors. I am a boater myself and I take my boat off to other cities where they have public piers and we go ashore for restaurants. And so this will give us a chance to bring boaters into our city who want to go dine on Caledonia Street or go down to our downtown. So we'll have transient birth spots. And then finally, we'll be upgrading utilities and lighting. Please advance. on the land. |
| 04:11:29.52 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 04:11:29.66 | Jeffrey Chase | Thank you. |
| 04:11:30.21 | Tom Riley | part of the project. the The buildings are going to be pretty much what they are today. The main building, which is the large one we all see, is gonna be proposed to be a marine commercial on the floor. recreational, possibly kayak rentals, but marine oriented. as well as supporting offices. Uh, the landowner would like to have applied in fine arts upstairs to be determined if it requires a zoning amendment, |
| 04:11:59.20 | Jeffrey Chase | Thank you. |
| 04:12:01.15 | Tom Riley | and whether it requires an elevator or not. There's a small building that will probably retain the existing yacht broker's office. Um, Finally, they would like to propose a small kiosk on the expanded desk. which could be a place for coffee or juice as the public passes by and of course the residents of the marina. Um, I talked about the shoreline access and the improvement of the bulkhead. It's a true advantage to the city that we don't today have the capital to take on these projects, but we can get it accomplished through this development agreement. Um, please advance. And at the term development agreement, I have determined that it's probably wise for me to turn this over to our city attorney to explain the benefits and how a development agreement works. So to Mary. |
| 04:12:55.57 | Mary Wagner | Thanks, Councilmember Riley. And I think you've hit on a lot of these points, but so we can get through this part of the presentation pretty quickly. But the concept is that the project will advance through a development agreement So the next step would be for the city and Bridgeway Marina to enter into the negotiations on that development agreement. It's a tool authorized by the government code to allow for this processing of this application. It'll further define the scope of the project and the existing rules and regulations that will be applied to the project. during the term of the development agreement, We'll also include the milestones that Councilmember Riley mentioned, including the protections for the existing tenants. and the other public benefits that will be negotiated through the process. Can you advance the slide please, Heidi? Thank you. Council member Riley also mentioned the leases that will be the vehicle by which the city's purchase price is paid through the credits of these leases both for parking spaces that are needed to park the project. Um, The letter of intent outlines that Bridgemember Marina would pay the city $150 per space per quarter. for a period of 50 years for each of those spaces. And as Councilmember Riley indicated, that rate would be adjusted every five years based on CPI, but not less than 3%. The city also has agreed to upgrade the existing parking area to current municipal standards that would occur at the end of the completion of the project. so that there wouldn't be any construction impacts to that area. I did provide you with an updated LOI as late mail today that showed that change along with a couple of typos, and I apologize for that. in redline format so you have that in your packet. There would also be a lease of the submerged tidelands. That's the area between the The parcels that council member Riley described. Literally the streets that separate those that would be included into the expanded marina. as well as the inclusion of what is the former Edgewater yacht sales area and the improvement of those docks. The rates for both of those would be $200 per month per birth. with the same escalation as would apply to the parking spaces. Next slide, please. You already heard also about the repair of the existing bulkhead. This is just a little bit more detail about that. Everybody knows where it is at the end of Humboldt Avenue there. BEFORE. the bridge wave of rain, but undertake those improvements. The city would provide whatever plans that we have had prepared for that work. we've kind of established a process of how we would select a price that the city would agree to reimburse for that would be added to the city's purchase price. with the same interest rate applicable to that amount. But that rate wouldn't apply until that work had been completed. Next slide, please, Heidi. The project also proposes to include some side ties, approximately eight of them, on the underwater portions of tourney and locust. They would be providing public use and transient guest moorings. and then consistent with what you've done in other similar situations, they'd be allowed to charge a fee. that's similar to what's being applied in other marinas in the Bay Area. Next slide, please. We have included a right of notification so that in the event that Bridgeway Marina was going to transfer ownership to another party, we would be notified of that transaction and any offers to purchase the marina. Next slide, please. So again, our recommendation is that you adopt a resolution approving the letter of intent, the revised letter of intent that was provided to you and authorizing the city manager to execute that letter of intent on behalf of the city. And if I could just briefly express my thanks also to Councilmember Riley and Councilmember Cox for the incredible amount of work that they've put into this. along with the team for Bridgeway Marina, which consists of Michael Rex, who represents Cameron Rosavi and Bridgeway Marina. I know Mr. Rex is attending this evening. and is available for questions. But I think if you would indulge him, he wanted to speak briefly, Madam Mayor and members of the council, not so much on the detail, but just a quick word or two, if that's okay with you. |
| 04:17:24.69 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Yes, thank you. Thank you both for that presentation. Yes, of course, it would be great if Michael would like to speak. Mary, could you let me know would that be just three minutes or can he speak since he's part of this project or All right. |
| 04:17:40.82 | Mary Wagner | me. My understanding is it'll be less than three minutes. |
| 04:17:44.57 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Okay. Great, welcome Michael. Great to have you here. Sorry for the lateness of the hour. |
| 04:17:57.09 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Maybe we could stop sharing the slide. |
| 04:18:02.18 | Tom Riley | Michael bills by the hour, so he doesn't accept three minutes. |
| 04:18:05.80 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Uh-huh. Great. Can we unmute Michael? Thank you. |
| 04:18:11.82 | Heidi Scoble | Michael Rex is unmuted. |
| 04:18:13.68 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Great, welcome Michael. |
| 04:18:15.50 | Michael Rex | I'm not here yet. |
| 04:18:17.07 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Yes, you are. Well, we can hear you. |
| 04:18:19.94 | Michael Rex | Uh, Share video. There we go. Hi. Yeah. Given the light hour, I will certainly keep it short. I know the city's been hoping to see some benefit in the central waterfront at this property for over 20 years, maybe 30 years. I have been working with Cameron for four years. Tonight is a milestone. We're turning a page to a new chapter. I want to start with offering my sincere thanks to our negotiating committee This has been going on just the negotiations alone for almost six months. particularly to you, Tom Riley, for the leadership you've provided Joan Cox and Mary Wagner and Adam Pollitz Also Cameron Razavi, the property owner. has played a crucial role as you can imagine. And I think we're here tonight at this milestone due to a shared vision. and a determination to enhance the central waterfront, the heart of our town, frankly. And I'm not sure what's happening. I've always felt is necessary Um, for and I think that complex improvements like this is a private and public partnership. And that's really what we're looking at tonight with this development agreement. I think the development agreement may well in fact be a model for some of the other key parcels in town. Because it takes this type of partnership so both parties have assurances that they need. that the community needs are met, the property owner's needs are met, And there's that confidence and support and in the approval process, that if the time and money is invested, there's confidence that those improvements can actually happen. I, you know. I sat through tonight, we all did three and a half hours or more. listening to the need for the town to move forward. and the need for property owners to have confidence in the city and vice versa. the confidence that the city would have in the property owners of doing what's right. And here we have a model. that we're going to build on. And I think great things will come of it. It's a thanks to the courage of those that are willing to not just talk, not just write reports, put them on a shelf, but roll up their sleeves, partner with the property owners, and find a way where everyone's needs are met. So I'm really pleased to see this happen. I think we all should be and definitely encourage you to adopt the resolution as presented tonight. Thank you. |
| 04:21:30.29 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Great, thank you, Michael. |
| 04:21:31.76 | Michael Rex | Yeah. |
| 04:21:32.18 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | I just had one question for either Michael and or the negotiating team on our side. Um, The letter of intent in paragraph eight talks about various issues with the development agreement. I am cognizant of the existing residents who are tenants of the marina So it just talks about restrictions on rent levels, but Tom And Mary, I think you both mentioned that there would also be protections that the tenants who are there now would not be evicted negotiation during the LOI where the negotiation of the development agreement and then that would be a key term. in the development agreement as well. Is that... Can we get clarity on that for both any of the tenants that might be here? And then also, Michael, can you talk to your commitment on that front. |
| 04:22:38.21 | Michael Rex | wants to start. |
| 04:22:42.07 | Joan Cox | Susan, I don't know if you can. |
| 04:22:42.93 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. |
| 04:22:42.97 | Michael Rex | Yeah, Joe. |
| 04:22:44.22 | Joan Cox | Oh, okay. Great. Um, Susan, Sorry, Mayor, the city attorney and the working group did discuss this after receiving some public comment and the city attorney has recommended adding to section eight of the LOI that deals with the development agreement. Thank you. a phrase at the end of the sentence that deals with not raising rent levels for existing tenants at the marina. So at the end of that sentence, we could also add prohibitions against evictions due to the project And instead, with the concurrence of BCDC provide for the reduction in the number of liveaboards through attrition. And I wanted to let you know that I have personally spoken with BCDC also about this marina and two other marinas that are seeking. permits for liveaboards and BCDC is aligned with the approach that as they permit liveaboards status in various marinas that they would continue their past practice of allowing for the reduction in the number of liveaboards to acceptable levels to BCDC through attrition. And as you may have heard me report at prior meetings, we are actively working to increase that liveaboard allotment from 10% to 15%. of our slips in our marinas. |
| 04:24:15.58 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Great, thank you. And Joan, just to be, Council Member Cox, just to be clear, when you say that BCDC would allow the numbers to be reduced through attrition, you mean that they would not require any existing tenants to be removed as a condition of the permit. |
| 04:24:29.48 | Joan Cox | Thank you. Exactly correct. And we have seen them adopt that approach with other marinas in which they have approved live aboard permit. And so that has been their past practice and they have assured us that will be their practice moving forward. |
| 04:24:47.89 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Great. And then could I just ask Michael Rex on behalf of your client, is that your understanding of the agreement and would you be okay with that addition to the letter of intent? |
| 04:24:58.66 | Michael Rex | Yes, in fact, this afternoon I was the one who pointed out that we had discussed this, but it for some reason didn't make it into this draft LOI, this letter of intent that you see tonight. So I think it's appropriate that it be added. One thing I'll mention is first of all, Cameron Razavi clearly has committed to avoid . all the way through construction and thereafter. It would only be through attrition that those numbers would be drawn down. to be more consistent with not only BCDC's policy, but the city's standards for land use. With the exception that tenants would be evicted if they're not paying the rent or they're causing trouble. The typical landlord-tenant relationships that have to be maintained, that's to be expected. But, Other than that, absolutely, we share that goal and intention and are glad to see it included in the not only in this letter of intent, but it also gets memorialized in even more detail in the development agreement that is yet to be drafted. |
| 04:26:20.27 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Great. Thank you so much for that. Okay, so before we go to any public comment, are there other council member questions for Thank you. Mary Michael Rex Tom or Councilmember Cox. |
| 04:26:38.44 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | So I will open it up to public comments. I see Vicki Nichols and then Katie Amatruda. So Vicki, welcome. I'm not sure. |
| 04:26:52.03 | Vicki Nichols | I'M MUTED. |
| 04:26:52.77 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. Yes, you are. |
| 04:26:54.39 | Vicki Nichols | Okay, great. Thanks for the opportunity. This, I'm glad to see there's some resolution here. This project has been going on for years. Council members Leon and Kelly started negotiating on this. And I'm particularly glad that you've talked about section eight, which was gonna be my bullet eight. I'm a little disappointed that there's not more clarity in the language tonight. I don't understand what this letter of intent does, if this is a binding agreement. But those tenets have been under. THEIR OWNERS. duress about their tenancy for a long time. And I'm not hearing anything that's doubly comforting me tonight, because what I'm hearing is that during construction, And afterwards, I'm not hearing anything about in the perpetuity till they leave the phrases, because there's nothing there. There's nothing there for us to see. So I'm also concerned about I believe I heard that the new sprucing up would be in the areas of their docks. And it's been a past practice where you start making the docks enlarged. This is going to price the people's, um, ability to pay for this. space out so they will be a I'm not bringing up something to be overly negative. This has been an ongoing concern for years. into the council meetings for years. The other thing is, are we then in this negotiation giving away, because this project as Tom stated, cannot happen because it doesn't have contiguous parking. This was Eben Gossage's problem. and it's an existing geographic problem. So are we then, uh, We're then giving them the streets so they can park, but we're making it conditional of Locust Street. Locust Street is also a relax of parking requirements for Caledonia Street. So now I'm understanding that this is going to be dedicated to the marina. That's supposed to be. public parking unless I'm forgetting something here. I'm not sure. And let's see what else. Oh, and then he will have, he, Cameron, will have the ability to use those underwater lots as mitigation. So I'm assuming those are like mitigation banks for eelgrass planting which is something I work on another organization with Barbara at Autobahn. Why would he get the benefit of that and not the city? I think that's giving with the bank. Because he basically can't get this unless the city helps him. And the idea of introducing uses that are not water related that central waterfront That building that we're talking about was financed by a loan from the Boating and Waterways Agency of California. that was expressly given to Eben Gossage for the condition, the uses, that were mentioned like a marine related, like sails or boating or something. So, applied arts or whatever should not be introduced there. That I don't think that's even legal compared to what the, the conditions of the lease the loan was for. I can't think of anything else here, but this is not a new project. There's a lot of details here that look like they've been skipped over. Thank you. |
| 04:30:14.36 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | but this is |
| 04:30:20.77 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Okay, great, thank you. All right, we've got quite a number of public speakers. Next is Katie Amatruda, then Melissa Blaustein and Alice Merrill. |
| 04:30:32.75 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Welcome, Caitlin. |
| 04:30:34.12 | Katie Amatruda | Yeah. Can you see me? Yes, we can. First of all, Thank you, City Council, Madam Mayor. John Cox, we spoke at length today. Thank you, Cameron Rosavi. I've been a tenant here for 10 years. This is an incredibly vibrant community. Sausalito needs we are low income, we're mixed. elderly, we've got little kids. multi-ethnic, multicultural, We are ill, disabled, we help each other out. drive each other to the doctors. We are what Sausalito needs. You need us and we need you. As a tenant there, It's been hard. Because for 10 years, month to month, everybody's here. Somebody else mentioned this, a 30-day lease. My rent goes up. Pretty constantly. In the 10 years, I started out at 840 a month. Now we're close to 1800. I'm So I would like the LOI to investigate if the tenants can have a lease. and that there is some rent protection And that we don't have to pay for parking. or we probably will have to pay for parking, but if that's part of the offset, How does that work out? Um, We're a community worthy. keeping were the community that couldn't meet Sausalito's need for low income mixed use housing. Please help us. Please. commit to us being here and Oh, so. would like you all to look at the future of Sausalito and the housing AND THE IDEA OF Right now there's The LOI said about 34 liveaboards. I think it's in the 70s. and to get the attrition down to nine It's going to take a long time. So maybe there's a way we... do something that Galilee does, where there's some element of FHA or low income housing that's built in that We work with BCDC and the medicalities are 100% occupied is not the 10%. Basically, I don't want us to have yet another big fancy marina for rich people's boats. in Sausalito. So if you go from downtown all the way down the only places that aren't that way are Galilee and us right now and We're always living in fear that it's going to go away. So I think it's a great project. I support it. wholeheartedly I'm not sure. I'm very grateful to Cameron for the community that he is allowed to be here. But I want to make sure that we are protected. |
| 04:33:49.78 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | it's a good thing. |
| 04:33:49.85 | Katie Amatruda | I'm going to say, |
| 04:33:49.92 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Thank you very much, Ms. Amitruda. We appreciate your hanging in here so late tonight. Melissa Blomstein, welcome. then Alice Merrill and Austin Rice. |
| 04:34:00.50 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you very much, Madam Mayor and council members. And thank you, a huge thank you to council members Cox and Riley for your commitment to creating this collaboration with Michael Rex and Cameron. I think many of you know that I had the opportunity to be a resident of Bridgeway Marina for over a year. It is a spectacular community. It's one of our most vibrant and diverse and important in Sausalito. and while I think that there are a lot of wonderful and necessary parts of this agreement, in particular improvements to the marina, which are much overdue, I would stress and I appreciate what Council Member Riley said about this being a win for the tenants. And I believe that it will be a huge win for the tenants as improvements are made. But I would further reinforce Council Member Cox's suggestion and Mayor Cleveland Knowles' request of stronger language to protect our tenants from eviction. something that is very clear in the LOI before we even reach the development agreement that makes it clear that these tenants will not be asked to leave because of construction and that they will have the opportunity to stay in their homes because the last thing we want is more folks being priced out of Sausalito. We already acknowledged that we have a huge affordability issue. So as someone who was lucky enough to live in and enjoy that marina and know how special it is and how important the community is please do more in the loi language i spoke with michael rex this afternoon about about that in particular to just include specifics of eviction protections. That's all, thank you so much. |
| 04:35:31.39 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Great, thank you, Melissa. Alice, Meryl, welcome back. |
| 04:35:37.60 | Alice Merrill | Thank you. |
| 04:35:38.42 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Mm-hmm. |
| 04:35:39.96 | Alice Merrill | I just wanna say that, I hope that it is protected, that those guys are protected. That's a really higher end already. And. had you have in the plan to put in, pump out stations all along the docks. That's something that really helps with the LibAboard situation because if there's pump out stations as there is in Pelican Harbor. I'm not sure. It's a good thing to have. Thank you. |
| 04:36:12.61 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Great, thank you. Austin Rice, welcome. |
| 04:36:21.69 | John DeRay | I don't know. |
| 04:36:22.00 | Amy Wisehart | Thank you. |
| 04:36:24.83 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. |
| 04:36:24.85 | Amy Wisehart | Amy. |
| 04:36:24.87 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Amy Wisehart- I mean, are you yes. |
| 04:36:27.11 | Amy Wisehart | So I just wanted to add that As a resident here, the rent is already probably double what most liveaboard marina rents are in this area. And it does come with some of the amenities. you know, utilities, electricity, water, And so guaranteeing a rent Stay. 1650. and then renovating this place and metering the slips It could easily balloon to place where attrition would happen within a few months. Yeah. I just hope that that isn't the intention, that really, like, the intention is to to put the word again so that residents like me and like Katie are able to you know. maintain what we have here. So. Thank you. |
| 04:37:25.19 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. Annette Russell, welcome. |
| 04:37:33.61 | Annette Russell | Hi. Um, I'll say it's past my bedtime and I have to throw out all of my notes because you answered most of my questions, so thank you very much. I did want to just amplify the fact that the rents there are exceptionally high. I also had the pleasure of living there for several months last year. And In addition to pointing out the rents, I also wanted to ask about Some technicalities that I could see happening. For example, there's some boats there currently that are pretty large and that don't look like they have a spot in the new construction. So thinking about the technicalities about what could potentially happen, any things that could be written in about needing the boats to be operable, needing the boats to be aesthetically to some standard. things in other marinas. Again, just thinking about what the realistic protections are that are needed is really important to me. And the other thing I wanted to just point out, I know we like to talk about eelgrass and it's very important. I just wanted to mention that That area currently, it really has almost no traffic. I mean, those boats don't move, right? So there's not, any marine traffic between the cruising club and the marina. And the proposal is definitely going to have a lot more traffic of just recreational boats going in and out, a lot higher turbidity in the area. So I just want to make sure that it's not just a a happy little bullet point about saving the eelgrass. But thank you for what you're doing. And I look forward to seeing the rest of this unfold. |
| 04:39:30.15 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Great, thank you. Carolyn Gallagher, Steven Allison and you are the last speaker that I have with a hand raised so if there's anyone else here tonight that would like to speak, please raise your hand and Stephen welcome welcome back. |
| 04:39:45.15 | Steven Allison | Thank you so much. I'm a resident of 94965 outside the city limits. And I just want to thank... you all on the council for the uh, thought that's gone into the future of our area. and both in the last section of the meeting with the report and your questions. And with this project, I've never been a resident of Bridgeway Marina and as somebody who doesn't live there, I do care about affordable housing and I appreciate the effort to protect the residents of the marina. One thing that Supervisor Cox mentioned that caught my attention was the role of the BCBC. |
| 04:40:26.58 | Mary Wagner | Thank you. |
| 04:40:26.68 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 04:40:28.44 | Steven Allison | And since the some of the regulations that affect these issues are outside of the city council's jurisdiction. in terms of the rules, I'm curious to learn more. So in the comment section, I mean, the Zoom and the COVID era has made it a little bit easier to show up at these meetings. and it's part of the education and learning about the work that you're doing. So if there's other ways to learn and influence policy in other areas that you're working on, I'd be interested to learn more about that. So again, thank you for your work. |
| 04:41:09.75 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Great, thank you. Lauren de Remmer. And then Michael, I do see your hand raised. We'll come back to you when we're finished with public comment. Hi Lauren, welcome back. |
| 04:41:24.75 | Lauren de Rimmer | Hi, thanks again. I just had a couple quick things. One, thank you so much Council Member Cox and Council Member Riley for putting this together. um I had a couple of thoughts. One more technical as well for Marina. And one would be, what size births you guys are considering for this marina. that's a big part of like what type of either that 15, you know, pending 15% liveaboards are going to look like or potentially just, the types of boaters that are going to be attracted to that marina I think is a is a really important piece. I like the idea of potential. I have noticed that the low income housing element just given Galilee as an example and exploring that a bit to what would make sense. obviously there are structural issues with that property that need to be addressed because there are parts of it that need to be upgraded. I would also be interested to see exactly where the, the proposal for extension I can't quite tell with that map if it's the same length of of Schoonmacher Marina on the other side of the cruising club. how far out it goes. Just I know as a kayaker as well, I work part-time at C-Track. It's really nice to have some reprieve from the channel there to come in. between Schoonmacher and Galilee over to Pelican. There's a few anchor out there, there's not many. Um, but I would be curious to know more details of what that looks like. |
| 04:43:03.06 | Mary Wagner | I also, |
| 04:43:04.06 | Lauren de Rimmer | would be interested in the discussion going forward in our marinas about a pickup dock. I don't think this has been addressed in a while and I don't know that this marina is the right place. I think something like Clipper or over in Travis Marina which is another issue. But in Horseshoe Cove might be really good locations for a pickup dock for charter boats or non-profit vessels. I know that's a big issue working in maritime because the only place in this part of the Bay Area is Pier 40 in San Francisco. I think that's another revenue generating option for the city. So that's all I want to say. |
| 04:43:47.02 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Great, thank you for those comments. Okay, I don't see any additional hands raised except for Michael, and I am gonna come to you in just a sec. So I don't see any additional public comments. So I'm going to close public comment. And then Michael, did you want to add something after the discussion? |
| 04:44:11.42 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | I, you need to be, yeah, there you go. you know. I can't hear you. |
| 04:44:22.51 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Heidi, can you help Michael get unmuted? |
| 04:44:25.38 | Michael Rex | Here we go. Can you hear me now? |
| 04:44:26.75 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Yeah. |
| 04:44:27.49 | Michael Rex | Yeah, sorry. It is a public hearing because some questions are raised by the public. I want to very briefly address a few of those. without getting into too much detail, but also clarify a few things. I'll make it really quick. When we're talking about no evictions, we're talking about in perpetuity, okay? people would only leave voluntarily. Uh, And there is limits on the rent that could be charged. So they won't be leaving. voluntarily because they're forced out by rising rants. So we are talking about perpetuity. uh, It'll be their choice to leave. No one else is. on the docks, you're absolutely, there's concern that tenants could be pushed out because of the cost of the improvements. That could happen. We specifically addressed that in the plan because where most of the liveaboards now are birthed, we're not rebuilding those stocks. were keeping those stocks because it would cost a lot more to replace them and we would have to be able to afford that improvement. So that's one of the ways we're going to keep the rents down by keeping the existing docks. When we talk about upgrading the docks, we're basically talking about further maintenance and repairs. We're not talking about rebuilding and replacing them. Um, The parking, the comment that there's public parking on Lotus is absolutely true for the theater and some Caledonia Street uses. None of those spaces are being proposed for parking the marina. There'll be no parking on Locust for the marina west of Humboldt Street, okay? The graphics tonight kind of indicated that a little bit. Not my graphics, but staff's graphics and that's just simply not the case. The marina parking will not be displacing that dedicated public park. And the Galley Harbor is a whole different ball game. Galley Harbor predated decades before BCDC. And that is one of the primary reasons that they can continue They're 100% liveaboard. Although I have to say it took 10 years of battling with BC, DC and other state agencies to get that point across and it was only through a lawsuit and a settlement that they came to terms with it. This is completely different. So it's not a good analogy. Many of the liveaboards at And the number of liveaboards at the Bridgeway Marina has come after BCDC and their 10% standard. So we're held to a very different standard here, okay? And I need that to be clear. When it comes to eelgrass, before we even explored expanding the marina, we looked at and had a study of where the eelgrass is. And where we're expanding outward of the existing marina, where there's already boat traffic, not a lot, but enough, there's very little eelgrass. And we designed the harbor so that the transportation in and out of boats are central to the marina and not peripheral where there is eelgrass. Okay. And there'll be further studies on that, I assure you, to ensure that. And then the last thing, the mix of births came up. We have a wide range of mix, 30, 40, 50, and 60-foot births. we have quite a few number of 60-foot births out on the end because those are the births that will subsidize the affordability of the other smaller births and particularly those occupied by liveaboard. So we need an economic model. This is a very small marina. The costs are going to be really high. We're not adding that many births. And to justify it, we need some big boats. But that also provides a diversity in the visitors and tenants, which we think socially is a good thing. It's also essential economically As far as how far it will extend, it will extend out to the channel exactly like the other marinas, exactly the same distance as Pelican Harbor. So if you need to understand how far the marina will go out, just look at, Um, But the good news is that it won't extend out far enough that it forecloses on those open water views from Dunphy Park that's part of our general plan policy to preserve. this plan actually implements that policy. And a pickup doc, that's the last point I wanna make. We think that's a good idea. Our side ties provide that opportunity particularly out at the end where there'll be deeper water. So I just wanted to add those comments. So there's no misunderstanding of what's proposed. Thank you. |
| 04:49:33.06 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Great, thank you for those clarifications. So I'll bring it back to Mary Wagner and Councilmember Riley and Councilmember Cox. Was there anything you wanted to add in response to public comment. |
| 04:49:48.01 | Tom Riley | Yes. |
| 04:49:48.06 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Bye. |
| 04:49:49.70 | Tom Riley | May or may I? I just want to reaffirm what Michael Rex just said and also our discussions with Cameron Razavi. He has been tremendous about his tenants. He likes his tenants as much as his tenants like his marina. And our discussions are that this project will not evict them. that they will be protected. It's unfortunate our current draft didn't have that language as strong as it needs to be, but we'll make sure that it is in there. I think we do want this to be a win for the current tenants and for the community and, of course, for Cameron. Thank you. |
| 04:50:30.29 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Council Member K. |
| 04:50:31.03 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 04:50:31.04 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. |
| 04:50:31.06 | Joan Cox | Thanks. |
| 04:50:31.13 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. |
| 04:50:31.18 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 04:50:31.21 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. |
| 04:50:31.69 | Joan Cox | Yes. piggybacking on what Council Member Riley just said. I think that the city attorney is aligned with an approach where we would add uh, clarifying language to the LOI. as well as making it clear that the DA will also contain the language regarding the uh, no eviction clause in perpetuity so that the LOI will be our governing document until the DA is in place so with our direction the city attorney will bolster those requirements in both the LOI and in the provision of the LOI dealing with the DA. |
| 04:51:11.80 | Tom Riley | May I just one comment? |
| 04:51:11.88 | Joan Cox | Great. |
| 04:51:15.21 | Tom Riley | I apologize. Um, I also want to point out that the idea for a development agreement did come from the mayor as a result of concerns for the tenants. It's through a development agreement where we are a partner in this project helping to design what the project is and allows us to put these controls in place. So I also want to acknowledge the mayor for her of using a development agreement to put those protections. |
| 04:51:43.81 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Great, thank you. Councilmember Raley. Yeah. |
| 04:51:47.61 | Joan Cox | Sorry, and then I wanted to add one more clarification. So beyond the protection against rent increases and evictions, something that we are undertaking with all of the marinas in town. is arises out of conversations we've been having with the department of housing and community development and the Marin housing authority, which is to, um, invite each Marina owner to become a Section 8 landlord, which will enable their tenants to obtain housing vouchers from HUD, which is a federal agency, but also from Marin County's corresponding program, which fills in the gaps left by HUD. So our goal is to facilitate AFFORDABLE HOUSING AT THESE MARINAS, NOT ONLY by permitting liveaboards with the consent of BCDC, but also by enrolling the marina owners into the landlord program of the County of Marin so that the tenants are eligible for Section 8 vouchers. |
| 04:53:01.06 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Great, thank you. Thank you for that. That's great. Thank you. Before I go to other council members, as Council member Riley said, this issue about the tenants and protections is very important to me. Do we need to amend the LOI tonight before we vote on it, Mary? Can we give direction? |
| 04:53:24.89 | Mary Wagner | No, I think we have your direction, Madam Mayor, if that's what the council's conclusion is, and if that's the direction that's made when you adopt the motion, that we would include a new section, probably a new section nine. that will say protections for existing or existing tenants. And we'll lay out just those things that have been discussed and that Michael Rex reiterated that You know, the BMC will not evict the existing level boards. and will ensure that their rental rates remain in place. And we can just add that if that's the council's direction. Thank you. |
| 04:53:57.71 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Okay. |
| 04:53:58.07 | Mary Wagner | Great. |
| 04:53:59.91 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Okay, are there comments by Councilmember Burns or Vice Mayor Whitley on this? |
| 04:54:11.15 | Councilmember Joe | I'll just say, again, thank you to the group, Tom, and I'm sorry, Council Member Riley and Council Member Cox and our city attorney and city manager for working with Michael Rex and Cameron on this project. it's obviously long overdue or long, long, to get to this point, but you got together then so quickly and in such a great fashion. And I appreciate that you put it out as a win-win-win because that's that's what happens. So that, that's just, that's just great. Great government right there. Um, And it's gonna make it such a big difference when we are in that area to see the bulkhead and the new marina and the old edge water reconditioned um cleaned up parking lots the access to our new area for city use and dump the area um so just you know win-win-win thank you all i'm looking forward to this uh getting these changes made and moving forward great job |
| 04:55:17.53 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 04:55:17.84 | Ray | Thank you. |
| 04:55:17.87 | Councilmember Joe | Thank you. |
| 04:55:17.89 | Ray | Uh, |
| 04:55:17.90 | Councilmember Joe | Bye. |
| 04:55:19.39 | Ray | I will just add to that, you know, We've been talking about this for years and years and years. Um, when I first, before I even got on the council, one of the, uh, things that Adam sat me down and said, Now, then there's the central waterfront. and started discussing this. It's unbelievable that it's reached this, achieved this fruition, at this moment in time. And so again, congratulations to the working group, council members Cox and Riley and staff. Mary and Adam to do this. Let's not forget that this is next to a few parts. And that part of what we've achieved here is to be able to sort out that edge of the park There's a couple more things there to just finish, but that's another different transaction. Um, and so congratulations to everybody. I'm fully supportive and I'm, um, very concerned as the mayor was to ensure that You know, the residents that are there are, um, protected, and I think we've done a good job of doing that. So well done, everybody. |
| 04:56:41.11 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Great. Well, I will just add my thanks as I've said earlier to everyone and also to the property owner and Michael Rex for their over the last couple of weeks to bring this all together. When I first heard about this particular proposal, I really had to struggle with the fact that one of the key components is to restrict another really large block of parking along our waterfront. um, I am loathe to kind of add more parking to the waterfront, adding to what already exists, but I have been, I think I'm convinced in looking at this deal that it really is a huge win for the city, both from a recreational standpoint and just the upgrades that will come to the marina and to the bulkhead from this. As Council member Riley talked about, I'm also excited about the side tie births and just more public access. to the shoreline. So I think, There's just a number of great things that are coming. out of this and I am very I'm relieved to hear that the tenant protections that we are interested in as a common goal. And I would suggest there are a number of tenants here tonight live aboard residents that We try to work with the property owner to have some good outreach, maybe a public meeting just so that questions can get answered. in the short term. And the way that they can participate as this process moves forward is made clear. So with that, thank you. Thank you, everyone. Thank you. to all the people that stood by until midnight tonight to public comment. We apologize that it got so late and thank you for your patience. |
| 04:58:44.42 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 04:58:46.68 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | I do see one member of the public that wanted to comment again and I just wanted to say that it's our policy not to reopen public comment. once we have closed it to be fair to everyone. So thank you for being here. And if you would like to contact staff after this, you are welcome to do so. Okay, thank you everyone, I guess we need to take a motion could Mary could you. go back to the screen and |
| 04:59:16.06 | Joan Cox | Well, I can make the motion, Mayor. Okay, great. I move we adopt a resolution of the city council of the city of Sausalito approving a letter of intent with Bridgeway Marina Corporation and authorizing the city manager to execute the letter of intent on behalf of the city with the revisions that we've discussed this evening. The first revision will be discussed what the update to the LOI that was sent out today in red line format concerning um the uh upgrading of the parking lot by the city of sausalito following the construction efforts by bridgeway marina and then uh the other addition was the um tenant protections that will be embodied both in the loi and in that portion of the loi dealing with the development agreement that will be negotiated |
| 05:00:14.90 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Do I have a second? |
| 05:00:17.11 | Tom Riley | Tommy, you want to do it? I will second that. |
| 05:00:20.51 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Great, Heidi, could you please call |
| 05:00:21.97 | Heidi Scoble | all. |
| 05:00:22.43 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 05:00:23.04 | Heidi Scoble | Councilmember Riley? |
| 05:00:24.76 | Tom Riley | Yes. |
| 05:00:25.26 | Ray | Thank you. |
| 05:00:25.64 | Heidi Scoble | Councilmember Burns? |
| 05:00:26.97 | Ray | Yes. |
| 05:00:27.66 | Heidi Scoble | Councilmember Cox. Yeah. |
| 05:00:29.26 | Ray | Thank you. |
| 05:00:29.90 | Heidi Scoble | Vice Mayor Withey. |
| 05:00:31.29 | Ray | Yes. |
| 05:00:31.96 | Heidi Scoble | Thank you. Mayor Cleveland Knowles. |
| 05:00:34.29 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Yes, and that motion to approve the LOI is adopted 5-0. So moving on, as I announced earlier, we are going to skip our public hearing item 7A and consider that At another hearing I would just give any member of the public who wants to talk about the residential parking permit sticker issuance if you had stay if you have stayed until midnight to talk on this item I will give you a chance. to public comment. But we will hear this item in one of our meetings in October. |
| 05:01:15.69 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Okay, I'm seeing no public comment, so we'll move on. Karen Hollweg, And I don't think we have actually anything under city manager reports city council appointments or other Council business does the city manager have a report tonight if so i'll accept public comment, but if not, maybe we can just. |
| 05:01:35.35 | Councilmember Joe | I think he went home at 710. |
| 05:01:41.37 | Councilmember Joe | Oh, there he is. |
| 05:01:43.43 | Adam Politzer | Yeah, no report. I think on my news at the beginning, was fine in all of the great work that we did tonight. spoke on all the actions that I wrote. also involved in. So congratulations to all of you. A big night tonight. Obviously with that Ridway Marina A lot of work still to be done, but just such a major milestone. So congratulations. Oh. |
| 05:02:08.00 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Great, thank you. So I guess I should, even though we are not really gonna discuss anything under item eight, I will still accept public comment on this item since it is on our agenda. |
| 05:02:23.49 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | I'm seeing no hands raised, so we will... at 12.03. Adjourn. Thank you, everyone. Oh, I'm sorry. |
| 05:02:33.16 | Joan Cox | I just want to remind us for future agenda items that we want to add item, |
| 05:02:36.03 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | woman. |
| 05:02:38.95 | Joan Cox | 5D. Uh, the. Southern Marine Fire Department update. to our as soon as possible to our regular agenda for discussion. |
| 05:02:52.21 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Great. And then I also wanted to make sure that we considered Council Member Riley after Council member Hoffman's return his appointment to the EDAC if he is still willing to serve. I don't know. |
| 05:03:10.22 | Tom Riley | And I would also like to add to a soon agenda for the Economic Development Advisory Committee to present to the city council their recommendations. |
| 05:03:20.71 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Great. Thank you. I'll put that probably, what do you think? Early November or late October? |
| 05:03:26.74 | Tom Riley | I think we'll be ready late October time is of the essence. |
| 05:03:30.57 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Okay. Great, well, consider that for our second meeting in October. Anyone else? Sorry, I didn't mean to rush us out of here at the end. Okay, 12.04. We are adjourned. Thank you, everyone, and thank you to all the members of the public who are still with us tonight. Thank you so much for... attending our meeting. |
| 05:03:52.52 | Ray | Thank you. |
| 05:03:52.59 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Thank you very much. |
| 05:03:54.40 | Ray | Good morning. |
| 05:03:55.65 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | I think that's true. Good morning. |
Carlito Berg — Neutral: Commented on the historical society presentation, emphasizing the 'spirit of the Marinship' as meeting community needs, including affordable housing, and advocating for transparent processes to propose such projects. ▶ 📄
Alice Merrill — Against: Opposed placing housing in the Marinship, stating it is not the right location and referencing that Monarchez (likely Don Arquez) would not have supported it. ▶ 📄
John DeRay — Neutral: Thanked the historical society and highlighted economic activity in the Marinship, but expressed concern about losing industrial businesses like Engineered Fluids and Schoonermaker Boat Yard, noting the shipways are in disrepair. ▶ 📄