| Time | Speaker | Text |
|---|---|---|
| 00:00:14.66 | Heidi Scoble | Stream is live. |
| 00:00:19.98 | Heidi Scoble | Good evening Mayor Cleveland Knowles and council members this meeting is being held pursuant to section 3 of executive order n-29-20 issued by Governor Newsom on March 17, 2020. And all members are joining this meeting telephonically through zoom and is broadcast live on the city's website and on cable TV channel 27. |
| 00:00:20.16 | Unknown | We'll see you next week. |
| 00:00:20.30 | Jean Gatza | Thank you. |
| 00:00:20.33 | Unknown | I'm sorry. |
| 00:00:41.36 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Great, thank you. Welcome everyone to the regular meeting of the Sausalito City Council. It is Tuesday, November 17th. Could our clerk please call the roll? |
| 00:00:51.97 | Heidi Scoble | Thank you. Councilmember Hoffman. Thank you. |
| 00:00:54.40 | Jean Gatza | I'm sorry. |
| 00:00:54.42 | Heidi Scoble | you Councilmember Burns? |
| 00:00:56.68 | Jean Gatza | THE FAMILY IS GOING TO BE |
| 00:00:56.88 | Heidi Scoble | Thank you. |
| 00:00:56.90 | Jean Gatza | Thank you. |
| 00:00:57.32 | Heidi Scoble | Councilmember Cox. Yeah. Vice Mayor Withey. |
| 00:01:00.97 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:01:01.00 | Heidi Scoble | THEIR OWNERS. |
| 00:01:01.34 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:01:01.44 | Heidi Scoble | Thank you. Mayor Cleveland Knowles. Thank you. |
| 00:01:03.65 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. |
| 00:01:03.70 | Heidi Scoble | Thank you. |
| 00:01:03.82 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. |
| 00:01:04.34 | Heidi Scoble | All members are present and there is a quorum. |
| 00:01:07.48 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Great, thank you. We have come back from interviews and we are moving on to the first section of our agenda, which is Closed session, we have items D1 through D3 that we are going to discuss in closed session. Do we have any members of the public? who wish to give public comment. I am seeing no hands raised. I could our clerk confirm, please. |
| 00:01:36.96 | Heidi Scoble | Mayor Cleveland Knowles, you are correct. There are no hands raised. |
| 00:01:40.13 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Great, thank you. We'll close public comment and we will go into closed session to discuss these items. We will come back to our open session at seven o'clock and we will see everyone there. Thank you. |
| 00:02:12.69 | Casey Peterson | Judge has stepped in. |
| 00:02:16.09 | Heidi Scoble | Audio is resumed. We're streaming. We're going to admit all of our participants. |
| 00:02:27.62 | Heidi Scoble | All participants are in the meeting. |
| 00:02:30.93 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Great. Welcome everyone. We are coming back to our regular meeting of the Sausalito City Council on Tuesday, November 17th. come back out of closed session and we have nothing to report. So we will move on to approval of our agenda. Do I have a motion? Thank you. Do I have a second? |
| 00:02:57.35 | Joe Burns | Second. |
| 00:02:58.81 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Great. Heidi, will you please call the roll? |
| 00:03:02.26 | Heidi Scoble | Councilmember Hoffman. |
| 00:03:03.19 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. |
| 00:03:07.11 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | No, she can't speak it looks like. Hailey, can you give her- Yes. Co- There we go. |
| 00:03:14.11 | Jill Hoffman | I heard. Okay, there we go. |
| 00:03:17.40 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Yeah. |
| 00:03:17.54 | Heidi Scoble | us. Council member Burns? Yes. Council member Cox? |
| 00:03:20.51 | Jean Gatza | Thank you. Yeah. |
| 00:03:22.75 | Heidi Scoble | Thank you. |
| 00:03:22.77 | Jean Gatza | Yeah. |
| 00:03:23.02 | Heidi Scoble | Thank you. Vice Mayor Withey. Vice Mayor Withee is just joining us or rejoining us now. |
| 00:03:31.68 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Okay. Just pause for a minute. |
| 00:03:32.49 | Heidi Scoble | Um, |
| 00:03:34.31 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Very much. |
| 00:03:36.55 | Heidi Scoble | Councilmember Withey. |
| 00:03:37.85 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | This is on the approval of the agenda. |
| 00:03:42.26 | Heidi Scoble | Okay. |
| 00:03:42.32 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Okay. |
| 00:03:44.49 | Heidi Scoble | And Mayor Cleveland Knowles. |
| 00:03:46.48 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Yes, that motion passes five zero. Our agenda is approved. So move on. Our agenda is a special presentation to Mayor and we have one presentation tonight. Welcome back, Abbott. It's been quite a while since we've been able to have a COVID update, and this is certainly timely given what's currently happening. So welcome. And we really appreciate your being here tonight for this presentation. |
| 00:04:16.68 | Abbott Chambers | Great, thank you Madam Mayor and good evening members of the Council. As the Mayor said, I'm Abbott Chambers, your Director of Communications. And I'm here to give you a short COVID-19 update. As far as what I'll be covering, I'll present a timeline of the ups and downs of public health orders here in Marin. I'll talk about the COVID-19 surge that's currently underway and the new restrictions that have been put in place in response to that surge. And I'll conclude with a few remarks about holiday safety and some hopeful signs for the future. So looking at the evolution of public health orders for Marin, on March 17, shelter-in-place restrictions were first put in place for Marin County by Marin Public Health. And that was essentially just allowing potential businesses and services to operate otherwise shutting down the economy for Marin A month later with the shutdown still in progress, the face covering, public health order went into effect requiring masks outside the home in most situations. With the situation improving though and COVID numbers coming down, on May 4th, Marin began a gradual reopening of our local economy under the framework of Marin Recovers. And for the next couple of months, we saw a gradual sector by sector reopening of the marine economy. However, I... |
| 00:05:52.48 | Jean Gatza | So, |
| 00:05:53.29 | Abbott Chambers | Again, in early July with COVID numbers going up again, we as a county were added to a state watch list for COVID activity. uh cases were increasing across the state and this was the moment that the state of California stepped in and took more control over reopenings across the state. Previously they'd set the baseline pretty low and let counties make decisions for themselves. Um, Wren basically was in a frozen state as far as business reopenings for July and August. And then on August 28th. The state of California introduced its blueprint for a safer economy, and that was a four-tier framework allowing counties that had decreasing COVID numbers to move into states of being greater reopening, more sectors open, greater capacity numbers at restaurants and businesses. and Marin started out in the lowest tier, the purple tier, moved into the red tier on September 15th and then October 27th moved into tier 3 of the state blueprint. However, things are trending in the wrong direction again. And effective today, Marin has been downgraded by the state to tier two, the red tier. So as you know, there is a surge going on right now across the country, not just in California, not just in Marin. As you'll see from the chart on the right, showing new cases by day since April. Our new cases in California are spiking. We don't know what that uppermost point is going to be, but it's a scary-looking curve. And as our governor said in a press conference yesterday, California is experiencing the fastest increase in cases we have seen yet, faster than what we experienced at the outset of the pandemic or even this summer. I think it's important to note that the RIN is in the red tier. Our case rates are not out of control, so to speak. But because the rate of increase is so, you know, things are increasing so quickly, there's a real concern that we could see an exponential increase if we don't take action now. And that's what the state is doing. And Governor Newsom has said that he's essentially pulling the emergency brake and introducing these new restrictions at this point as of yesterday 40 counties were downgraded in their tier assignments 41 counties across the state are now in the purple tier one the most restrictive tier um in being downgraded to tier two in marin we have now been restricted to maximum of 50 capacity at retail establishments and slash numbers at places of worship gyms and fitness centers and other types of businesses in addition uh office workers at non-essential office buildings who were allowed to return to work under tier 3 have now been told that they need to return to working remotely. Also important to mention that though not part of tier two, the public health officers of the Bay Area have together made the decision to suspend, to ban indoor dining at restaurants also effective today. |
| 00:09:31.99 | Abbott Chambers | The surge in numbers is particularly concerning with the holidays coming up and with holiday travel and holiday gatherings and the likelihood that that activity will increase the spread of COVID-19. Last week, the public health officers of the Bay Area released some guidelines for holiday gatherings and holiday travel. Among the guidelines among the guidelines recommending that we stay home, that we avoid travel, but if we must travel, that we take basic safety precautions. Holiday gatherings should be held outdoors as much as possible. We know that being together in enclosed spaces with others is the most likely vector for COVID-19 spread. We should keep gathering safe Small, short, and stable. Safe, just in terms of taking those basic precautions like hand washing, social distance, mask wearing. Small, no more than three households. Short, no more than two hours. Stable, don't participate in multiple gatherings with different households. And very important, do not travel or attend a gathering if you feel sick. There are some hopeful signs. One is that we know a lot more about treatment than we did eight months ago. So even though cases are surging, even though today hospitalizations across the country hit a record high number, the number of the fatality rate is likely to be much lower this time around than what we were seeing earlier in the year. And then as no doubt you have also heard, we've had some favorable news on the vaccine development front. with recent announcements from Pfizer and Modena. of early results from clinical trials that are quite favorable. And there are other vaccines in development, so we may be getting good news soon on that front as well. As far as a timeframe though, it's still going to be many months before a vaccine would make any major impact on our lives. Dr. Anthony Fauci said on Sunday that the U.S. could be back to quote relative normal by the second or third quarter of next year if most people are willing to receive coronavirus vaccines. That concludes my presentation, and I would be happy to take any questions. |
| 00:11:53.81 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Great, thank you so much for that presentation Abbott. Very timely and very important to send this message. here and statewide about the importance of following the holiday guidelines. Are there any questions for Abbott from Councilmembers? |
| 00:12:17.91 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | All right, let's open it up to public comment. on the COVID presentation. there any members of the public who would like to speak? Heidi, do you want to? tell folks how they can raise their hand in the Zoom application or call in. |
| 00:12:35.05 | Heidi Scoble | Yes. So at this time, members of the public may address the City Council regarding this special presentation item. Public comment will be accepted by video or audio audience participation via Zoom. Video or audio public comment participation is limited to three minutes per speaker. If you'd like to make a comment, please raise your hand in the Zoom application and you'll be called upon when it's your time to speak. To raise your hand from a phone, press star nine. Each speaker will be notified when the time has elapsed. |
| 00:13:05.80 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Great, thank you. I am not seeing any raised hands. Heidi, will you confirm? |
| 00:13:11.67 | Heidi Scoble | Mayor Cleveland Knowles, there are no hands raised at this time. |
| 00:13:16.21 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Great. Are there any Councilmember comments Councilmember Cox? |
| 00:13:21.15 | Joan Cox | I actually had a question. So I believe it was yesterday that Governor Newsom made reference to a possible curfew. and then in California and then Dr. Fauci was asked about that and said that he thought he said he would back it. So I wanted to know if local officials are aware or any way to that question. |
| 00:13:49.15 | Abbott Chambers | I've only heard it mentioned as a possibility and I think I first heard it when it was raised as a possibility by Governor Newsom. Thank you. My first question was, what exactly does that mean, a curfew? And as I understand it, at some states around the country, they are essentially not allowing people to or they're not allowing people to go out, you know, to restaurants or to leave their homes in the evening, for example. I'm really not sure what that's likely to mean for California. And I haven't yet seen anything from Marin Public Health |
| 00:14:29.97 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | THANK YOU. Great, are there any other, yes, Joe. |
| 00:14:34.61 | Joe Burns | One thing that we learned at a recent meeting of Marin County mayors and council members, a small task group that heard from Max Corton, who's a part of the county, that works on the health side here. The reason restaurants are singled out again, and I think it's pretty obvious, but it's because the mask, Thank you. it's a use where the mask comes down so it's still all about the mask so if people are kind of confused like why are they taking restaurants out we were doing good you know all these things and maybe we were uh with 50 and who knows if it's between 50 25 or or whatever but the bottom line is it's because the mask was coming off during eating or ordering and all those things so that's as we go back in the next time that might be something that we also think about is how does that mask stay on as long as possible when we're in those types of |
| 00:15:28.48 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Great, thank you for that. Any additional comments or questions? |
| 00:15:33.84 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah, I'd just like to reinfo- First of all, thank you, Abbott. You've done a great job over all this time of keeping a surprise, and it was very timely, thank you, Madam Mayor, that we did this today because of the changes. You know, remember, Governor Newsom back in I don't know. this whole year feels like a blur. So I'm not quite sure when it was, but Governor Newsom actually introduced the concept of a dimmer switch. And for each of our jurisdictions, we need to be flexible and we need to have you know, recognize that we could turn up the intensity of interaction and we may have to turn it back down. Marin's going through one of those cases where we now got to turn it back down. I think, Abbott, you would agree with that, right? Yeah. And so I think, you know, I'm actually pretty optimistic because I'm optimistic, absolutely sort of intimately locally The residents of Sausalito were pretty careful I think in general, our compliance with all the various restrictions, though some don't like restrictions, our compliance with them were very high. And as long as we as a region, and I think this is where there's a maturity in the Bay Area that will allow us to understand that if we have to lower the dimmer switch a bit, Thank you. Nonetheless, the, this community of the overall region will actually respond, act responsibly, and our numbers will drop. The key challenge is we don't know how to scale that so that the numbers drop across the whole country. That's our big challenge. But we're doing our bit. And once again, the nine counties, the local counties, are again taking the lead. Remember, it was our local counties that actually were the very first in this whole country. the lockdown. Don't forget that. We took the lead here. And we're taking the lead now in how to figure out that dimmer switch, how it's going to work. And it's going to take a bit of time to work because Tony Fauci is absolutely correct. You know, it's going to be until probably I'd be a bit more pessimistic. The end of next year before a vaccine is the solution for the average person. Otherwise, just wear a mask. |
| 00:18:10.46 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Yes, well that's a good note to end on everyone. Wear your masks. They're good. All right, thank you. Anything else before we move on? Great. Thank you again, Abbott. Great to see you. COB, Jean Gatza, Okay we'll move on to the next item on our agenda, which is communications, this is a time for members of the public to address the city council on items that are within our jurisdiction, but are not on our. agenda tonight. Are there any members of the public who would like to comment? We have a pretty full agenda tonight with a lot of things. Yes, Marianne Craigala. |
| 00:18:51.40 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Welcome. |
| 00:18:53.17 | Unknown | Thank you. Just a moment, let me... Okay, thank you. |
| 00:18:59.97 | Jean Gatza | Thank you. |
| 00:19:00.33 | Unknown | Yeah, I'm here. Good evening, Council members, because I want to complete a little bit more based on my sharing with you regarding the cannabis retail business in the county. And first of all, I support absolutely the legitimate medicinal use of cannabis. And I'm vigorously supporting research. I think great thing can happen from that. but I'm in absolute opposition. We have a loneliness epidemic. We have a serious mental health crisis in our nation and in Marin. Currently 34% increase anxiety prescription medication alone. And that was in March. So the number is higher now. And the prognosis is very grim. Harvard talks about an unleashing of suicides facing us as the epidemic and the related problems get worse. My 25 year old son Alex had anxieties. He got addicted to Xanax and cannabis worsened the problems for him. Those that he hoped to escape from. He needed more Xanax, more THC, the concentrations became higher, leading to his untimely death in April. He believed cannabis was safe and even healthy. but it led to cannabis use disorder in his sad case. And Alex was not a loser, no, a moral failure. He was a sensitive, incredible, beautiful being. The world needs more of those, but he suffered from anxieties. And I ask you, please take a moment. How many of you in this room have or take prescription drugs for anxiety, for depression, for insomnia or ADHD and so on. The estimates for anxiety prescription drugs alone are one in four Americans, and that's a huge number. And that was in summer, we can only estimate the number is higher now. And I work as a physical therapist in a multidisciplinary team with doctors, psychologists, social worker, acupuncturists, nurses. We are very comprehensive, multi-connected, and our patients' anxieties are skyrocketing up, their depression, their PTSD flares. They are more than ever in need for a real therapeutic team approach care what they really want is to be seen to be heard to be felt to share their stories with among themselves as peer which we provide in groups or with the stuff they need to be seen So Marin is anxious, Marin is depressed, sleeps poorly, is chronically stressed, like the nation is, and Marin stands out in many ways. No wonder binge drinking is highest in Marin among California, chronic and cannabis use is over the top. Particular youth that is so vulnerable with very vulnerable brains by design show serious mental signs. So the cannabis industry takes advantage of those vulnerable young ones and we have to protect The world is in a crisis. We need to invent and invest in healthy programs. Thank you so much for listening. |
| 00:22:05.02 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. . Welcome. |
| 00:22:14.12 | Unknown | Hi, can you hear me? |
| 00:22:17.53 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Yes, we can. |
| 00:22:19.79 | Unknown | Hi. I just wanted to make a follow-up comment on the item last week about the South Salido policymaking on cannabis. particularly clarification on the discussion surrounding the role of public health. I understand it's difficult to sort through conflicting data and that the city may not be equipped to analyze all that's being shared by various stakeholders. There are some important facts, however, that are widely accepted by the public health community around cannabis. in the same way that there's a broad consensus that smoking cigarettes causes cancer. You can refer to the letter sent by Dr. Matt Willis, Marin's public health officer that cites an expert meta-analysis of approximately 10,000 articles showing conclusive findings about the risks of cannabis use particularly among youth. one of these being psychosis. In addition, based on well-established research on analogous industries like alcohol and tobacco, We know that there is a strong association between the presence of alcohol and tobacco retailers and youth consumptions. the more retailers the higher youth consumption. we can infer that the outcome will likely be the same for cannabis retailers. There's a fundamental principle of environmental science and it's the precautionary principle. which states that when an activity raises threats of harm to human health or the environment, precautionary measures should be taken even if some cause and effect relationships are not fully established. This suggests that we adults have a responsibility to undertake primary prevention efforts. aimed at protecting youth to stop something before it happens. not to wait to see what happens when we have evidence that predicts the likely effects. We are already in the position of trying to provide treatment to deal with the current epidemic of teen vaping. as the Marin civil grand jury reported on last year. and the TAM Union High School District is currently in a joint lawsuit against JEWEL. As you heard in many of the tragic personal stories, this is not something we can treat our way out of. we really need to get in front of it. Finally, I want to reiterate that I don't hold a prohibition prohibitionist view. Public health experts simply advise a cautious approach that steers away from the corporate cannabis model which is now following the predictable path of big tobacco. Thank you all for your service and for your attention to this issue. |
| 00:24:57.54 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. others I found |
| 00:25:05.75 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. |
| 00:25:05.77 | Unknown | Hi there. Can you hear me? Hello? Thanks so much. Last September, I wrote to both Mill Valley City Council and to Sausalito City Council. I received an email from Heidi Scoble |
| 00:25:08.57 | Unknown | I don't know. |
| 00:25:09.37 | Unknown | Thanks. |
| 00:25:21.30 | Unknown | telling me that she would make the Form 700s, which are your financial disclosures, which indicate how invested you are in everything from pharmaceutical shares to Exxon, Chevron, Schlumberger, Royal Dutch Shell, et cetera, those sorts of companies, which we do need to know. how they may affect your decisions. I was told that those would be made more available. immediately made those available at the direction of the city council This is the second time in a row that I've had to call into Sausalito City Council to follow up on something that was supposed to happen in September. Each one of those Form 700s should be available without a link to the California FPPC page. The sort of transparency is critical, especially as you're frequently in the position of discussing issues. like global warming, which are you know, is an issue that's being greatly exacerbated by companies like Chevron and Exxon and other quote unquote energy companies. The other thing I would just point out. It was nice to hear the moms call in on on the issue of the cannabis. I would like to point out that the culture of substance abuse in Marin County is a very strong one. And when the kids are being put onto ADHD medication very early in order to just make them conform to whatever is easiest for the parents and when the parents themselves are participating in all sorts of abuse of both prescription and non-prescription drugs, as well as an enormous amount of alcohol, much of which is served in the bars and restaurants in Sausalito. that really creates a culture that is unique in some ways to wealthy white enclaves like Marin County. I haven't experienced that. I haven't witnessed such exorbitant tastes for such things in, say, Queens, other other working class neighborhoods. So I think Marin County needs to take a real hard look at how its own culture is killing its children. And I wish that instead of just you know, creating this boogeyman of whatever It is. It's going to be cannabis. There's going to be this. There's going to be that. We really need to look at how we conduct our own businesses, whether it's a wine shop on every block in Sausalito. And that is the biggest gateway drug. Great three minute time has a lot. |
| 00:28:09.98 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Your three minute time has lost. Thank you, Rachel Kay. Welcome. |
| 00:28:17.32 | Lori Dubin | actually Lori Dubin, my Zoom has the wrong name, but I'm also following up on last week's discussion on cannabis and when it expressed my concerns that the council is moving way too fast on allowing storefront retail in Sausalito There has been zero transparency on this issue from October of 2019 when the council voted to ban cannabis businesses other than deliveries up until September of this year. when it reversed course without any public process so I urge this council to please slow down. Um, take a long, hard look at what kinds of revenues will really be generated after the costs. And please do not use a three year old survey that was posted on your website and next door to which only a couple hundred residents responded as evidence of widespread support of cannabis shops. Please don't point to the vote for Prop 64. That was largely a vote to decriminalize possession Or to Prop 215, I voted for both, and that was a vote for compassionate use of medical marijuana. The point is we aren't talking about medical marijuana to help cancer or Parkinson's or CBD cream to help arthritis. We're talking about high potency flavored products and concentrates that are sold at stores by businesses such as Otter Brands. They're marketed and eaten, baked, or dabbed by youth. Please do not believe what the cannabis industry tells you that their stores will do for the And don't trust Otter brands when they claim that cannabis retail actually reduces teen access and use of cannabis. As one of their letters to Sausalito officials, merchants, and residents stated, this is far from the truth. It's not going to matter that their cannabis shot is set back from Bridgeway with no signage Every teen in Marin County will know it's there and they will flock to Sausalito because it will be the only recreational shop in Marin. They'll light up their dab pens and bape pens in their cars. And they'll zoom back up to 101. This is a huge public health issue. So I urge you first to conduct public workshops to educate residents, send a proper survey to each household by mail, to determine what the community wants. That's what the council originally discussed and what I hope that you will do determine whether the revenues are worth the public health risks. This is a personal issue to me. My nephew, a graduate of Tam High School, has developed a cannabis use disorder that turned into psychotic episodes. His life is forever change please help families like his thank you |
| 00:31:17.85 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. Bridget Clark, welcome. |
| 00:31:22.51 | Unknown | Hi, am I unmuted? Yeah, thank you. I am also wanting to |
| 00:31:24.80 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Yeah. |
| 00:31:30.99 | Unknown | comment on last week's issue with cannabis as a person who's involved with a lot of community based organizations. I wanted to share with you, um, in a meeting on Friday with District Attorney Lori Fregoli It was a session. and held by Marin First Five. it was on juvenile justice and within the topics of this, she, Lori Fregoli did say, we need to acknowledge the connection of abuse of cannabis with mental health. It is a county issue that even she brought up in this meeting on Friday. Um, It's also been brought to the attention through the Marin County civil grand jury. They released a report last month highlighting that Marin schools lack resources needed to support students suffering from mental health issues and the coronavirus pandemic could be making matters worse. in my opinion. As mental health issues rise, I suggest this is not the right time to be pushing a storefront. I am not a prohibitionist. I'm a youth advocate. And we do have a mental health crisis going on right now, whether or not you're aware of it. As a board member of NAMI of Marin, the National Alliance of Mental Illness said, in a speech last month. 40% of people with mental illness have no insight into their illness and therefore refuse to take their medication. I, I, I don't really understand why Sausalito is looking to deem it as a priority right now. I do appreciate anything you can do to bring more public education and awareness and talk to. others who are dealing with issues around cannabis and mental health. So, cannabis businesses and alcohol Um, businesses for that matter. Market their products for stress relief and anxiety. But the reality is these products often mask underlying health issues that need to be addressed. and I'm... The pandemic threatens our mental health, immunity, substance use vulnerabilities, And it's important that all jurisdictions come together to support the health of Marine County residents and not push for the commercialization of yet another addictive substance during a crisis. I really implore you to, consider public health and safety right now. And I appreciate your time and service for what you're doing. Thank you. |
| 00:34:04.89 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Thank you, Tori Kropp, welcome. Thank you. |
| 00:34:10.01 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:34:10.02 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:34:10.04 | Unknown | Sorry. |
| 00:34:10.29 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:34:15.42 | Unknown | Thank you. I would like to say I appreciate The council's hearing me. last week as well as the rest of us, I also appreciate the article that came out in the Marin IJ today, addressing the issue. And I think it's become very clear that the community Um, feeling about this is changing. And it's changing because it has been identified not just as a nation, white issue with teens, but certainly as a local And yes, Marin County has an exceptionally high drug culture. difficult, I will say, to parents. here if we're not of that drug culture because kids are stressed and they are around all of that. We, are a family who did have dinner together every single night. and the difference for my son in his death. was very easy access. I want to. to help Council know as well as the community that there is a a different voice. coming now because there's such research and such data that shows how recreational cannabis for adults Great. but the access and the same techniques that were used by the tobacco industry are being used with vaping as well as affecting mostly our teens and Thank you. Unless you have a teenager, you may have no idea how easy it is to access not only cannabis, but any number of drugs that kids have no idea how dangerous are. as us as the parents who've had this first experience. These are Good kids. They're not troubled kids. their kids who live in a community in which the easier it is or any community. that. matter that's possibly fluent that has access are at incredibly high risk. So again, I appreciate the council knowing that there will be loud voices. to help bring awareness to the fact that This isn't a small issue. primary responsibility of any community leader is the people within the community. And, if anybody, especially, is our children. Thank you. |
| 00:36:31.99 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Great, thank you. Sonia Hansen, welcome. |
| 00:36:39.18 | Jean Gatza | Thank you. Good evening. |
| 00:36:41.39 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:36:41.51 | Unknown | Good evening. Thank you. |
| 00:36:43.33 | Jean Gatza | Thank you. |
| 00:36:45.34 | Unknown | Can you turn your door? Can you hear me? Here we go. |
| 00:36:52.19 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | We can hear you, but we're getting a lot of feedback. So if you have two questions. |
| 00:36:54.96 | Unknown | We are. We won't in one second. |
| 00:36:56.19 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | We voted. |
| 00:36:57.96 | Unknown | There we go. While I and empathetic. Sympathetic. to the speakers that are concerned about how a marijuana store in Sausalito is Some are other going to significantly increased the use of marijuana by youngsters in Marin County lead to all sorts of things. I have to say, Once again, Marin County, liberal progressive Marin, We have no marijuana outlets. I believe in Fairfax there's something kind of like that, but that's it. if you look at every county around us, There are numerous. marijuana outlets. San Francisco is filled with them. Anyone who wants to go and find marijuana can find marijuana. it's not a difficult drug to find. And for the kids that are going to school, they find it right outside their campus. So, this plea for Sausalito to please save the youth by not putting a marijuana store in this town. uh, I find a hard time with that argument. And, Besides from marijuana, there is alcohol everywhere. which is much more damaging than marijuana would ever be. So, I think that's a good thing. Yeah, I'm not I'm not accepting this argument. It's like it's I know. I think that's a good question. It's like a reality from when I was a kid and I, we were all made to watch Reefer Madness. That's the kind of feeling I'm getting from these presentations. If we're so afraid of marijuana, why did we all vote Why has it just been made legal in three more states this last election? A very large percentage of this country now has legalized marijuana. In some ways, If you legalize it, at least you can control it. out. uh, I'm very much in favor of a marijuana store in Sausalito. the city could use the revenue. I personally think it should be in the Bank of America. It should be right where everybody can see it. No hiding it. Put it out in the open. And believe me, we want people from Southern Marin coming to town, and I'm not talking about children, talking about adults from Southern Marin rather than going to San Francisco or to the East Bay or to Sonoma or Napa, They'd come here. And that's been a big apparently a big draw for I know the council's been talking about this for the last few years So put the marijuana store In the Bank of America building, we can all see what's going on. and don't hide anything about it. Thank you. |
| 00:39:45.68 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Great, thank you. Connor J and then Jasmine Garrity. And those are all the speakers that I have. |
| 00:39:55.20 | Connor Johnston | Good evening, Counselors. Connor Johnston, again. I heard my name was mentioned. So like Beetlejuice, of course, I showed up. Uh, It seems you have aroused the attention of countywide anti-cannabis activists, and that's understandable. And it's a discussion worth having and one that I've been engaged in for several years. I do just want to frame the conversation a little bit When I was in eighth grade at Mill Valley Middle School, there was a class of kids touring from Park Elementary. And one of the fifth graders asked one of my friends, where can you smoke weed on campus? This was a kid in fifth grade. This was before California prop 215 before the medical legalization measure which I guess is since old I am Wow. Which is to say that cannabis is in the community. It's been in the community. Kids have access to it. kids have had access to it since long before either medical or adult use legalization The debate is not whether or not there will be cannabis in the community. The debate is whether or not the city should regulate it and implement safety controls And time and time again in Colorado, in Washington, in Oregon, The data have shown that a regulated legal cannabis market leads to either decreased or the same amount of teen access. They can't even enter the stores. You have to be 21 years old to enter the stores. And no one is going to buy a product at retail prices and then turn around and try to sell it at Mill Valley Middle School. But drug dealers will sell it at Mill Valley Middle School, and they did when I was there. And they don't care how old their customers are. regulated businesses do care. regulation is a step in the direction of safety, in the direction of better health. And that's not me saying that. That's all of the studies that have looked at this and all of the states that have experienced regulations that say that. Um... And I do just want to say that the anti-cannabis activists I absolutely share their goal of reducing teen access and improving health. I think we differ on the how. Prohibition has not worked. It's failing now. It has failed for the last 50 years. Regulation works. And Sausaledians agree with me on this because They overwhelmingly supported Prop 64 four years ago by a margin higher than any county in the state, including San Francisco, And because my partner Chris Monroe and I walked all of the commercial corridors in Sausalito and talked to hundreds and hundreds of people and held public meetings with residents and faith leaders And almost unanimously the people of Sausalito have told us they support this idea And they've asked us, How soon can you open? That's the question that we've gotten most often. Thank you for hearing me out again. It's good to see you again. |
| 00:42:55.16 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Great, thank you. Okay, Jasmine Garrity. Welcome. |
| 00:43:02.80 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. |
| 00:43:02.82 | Unknown | Hi. Hello, council members. Thank you so much. Um, I'm here also to talk about the cannabis policy. I know I sent in a letter last week and I spoke last week as well. I mean, I wanted to start off I am a Sausalito resident. Um, I live on, um, Buchanan Avenue near Willow Creek and, um, I just wanted to show up today to ask a couple of questions, but then also voice my opinion. I wanted to know kind of a little bit more about this working group that's going on that was presented. I rewatched the presentation from last week. I wanted to know a little bit more about who is a part of that working group and if community members to get public input as well as public health officials from the health department in Marin County. just because I want to know who's really behind all of it. if possible to have community members, I would love to sit on that if it's possible. please let me know. I also, I mean, I was just listening to what Connor was saying and I live here and I don't want to pot shop here. I think there are a lot of people that have the same thought process. I would rather see a pharmacy come into Sausalito than a pot shop because we don't even have a pharmacy right now. We have to drive to the middle valley to go pick up medications. that area could be something that is a lot more useful to the community members versus a marijuana shop. And I do have to say, like, As far as regulated businesses go, like businesses can be regulated as much as you want, but What is really harmful is the products that are inside the shops. So you can have a mom and pop that opens up. But really inside those stores is high potency marijuana products. And so And it's not the regulated The potency levels for those can be like it's 35% for just marijuana flower nowadays. And they only research up to 12% THC as far as the health implications. So it's not necessarily the business owners. It's what's being sold in the businesses. It's not the convenience store that sells the tobacco products. It's the tobacco products themselves and these big corporations that are infiltrating our communities. And we don't really want to have those big corporations coming in here. and, wreaking havoc on our local community here. So, I think that's kind of all I have to say on that. I do want to say that I think that we could better use that area and space for something that our community needs more importantly. And I do think that there needs to be more community input on this issue. As far as the survey, I think the survey was done two years ago and it was a self-selected group of people. They didn't get to. It wasn't randomized sampling. And so three minute time has elapsed. |
| 00:46:07.89 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Great, thank you. |
| 00:46:08.38 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:46:08.95 | Heidi Scoble | you |
| 00:46:10.74 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Thank you for everyone who came tonight to speak. For those of you interested in this item or who want to know what follow-up we'll have, including additional public comment Lili Wailen, opportunity to be heard or a working group, you can contact our Community development director, Lily whalen. And if you If you cannot find her name on the website, you can contact our clerk Heidi Scobal Thank you. on our website. Okay, so we will move on from general public comment to action minutes of the previous meeting. Do we have any corrections or a motion? |
| 00:46:57.45 | Unknown | I'll move approval. |
| 00:47:00.42 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | have a second. |
| 00:47:02.12 | Jill Hoffman | Second. |
| 00:47:03.86 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Great. Could we please call the roll? |
| 00:47:06.22 | Heidi Scoble | Thank you. |
| 00:47:07.72 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. |
| 00:47:07.74 | Heidi Scoble | Councilmember Hoffman. Yes. Council member Burns. |
| 00:47:11.39 | Chandra Alexandre | Thank you. |
| 00:47:11.40 | Heidi Scoble | Yes. |
| 00:47:11.69 | Chandra Alexandre | Thank you. |
| 00:47:11.74 | Heidi Scoble | Thank you. Council member Cox? Yes. Vice Mayor Withey? |
| 00:47:13.51 | Chandra Alexandre | Yeah. |
| 00:47:13.66 | Jean Gatza | Yes. |
| 00:47:15.59 | Chandra Alexandre | Thank you. |
| 00:47:15.62 | Heidi Scoble | Yeah. |
| 00:47:15.89 | Chandra Alexandre | Thank you. |
| 00:47:16.03 | Heidi Scoble | Thank you. Mayor Cleveland Knowles. |
| 00:47:18.09 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Yes, that motion carries five zero. We'll move on to council member committee reports. I would just ask, I think that tonight we try to keep these brief. We've got a lot of items on our regular agenda. So anybody want to Start. John? |
| 00:47:39.16 | Joan Cox | Thank you, Mayor. Council member Hoffman and I participated in a couple of meetings in preparation and with conservation development corporation to negotiate deal points that appear on our agenda this evening and we'll discuss those in more detail when we get to that agenda item. Thank you. |
| 00:48:06.38 | Joan Cox | it. |
| 00:48:06.47 | Joe Burns | Thank you. |
| 00:48:06.52 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 00:48:06.65 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Anyone else? |
| 00:48:07.36 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 00:48:09.47 | Joe Burns | I'll just briefly say, not in the last week, but coming up tomorrow and kind of an ongoing email conversation as well. We have a Land side. Small informal group. It's not even a appointed task force by the Council. It's just as you know, we've we've been out to bid for the land side improvements that we want to make and that we have now $1.9 million to make. And then there's a community discussion on how do we design basically the downtown or at least that area in a round this potential $1.9 million project So as we've discussed on this council and a few items, there's kind of two things going on at the same time. How do we do the project that we have and how do we plan for a bigger project so that we don't have barriers to those bigger projects created when we do the smaller project. I just want to add up so you guys know that that conversation is going on, but very early in this next council like in January we need to hone in on that plan for the 1.9 million dollar let's say alternate a project that is how to use that grant money and make sure that we don't lose that by over planning something big so that that's going on and there's uh six architects who we meet often on Zoom and go over these ideas. And they're fabulous. And they're great ideas. And it really, you know, a larger master plan really is a neat thing to look at. And it's definitely serving that purpose. But we're going to try to hone that into what we really need to do, which is plan for that 1.9 million. I just wanted to bring that up. |
| 00:49:57.57 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Great, thank you. I appreciate that update. Bye. Right. |
| 00:50:02.47 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah, I have really nothing other than we did have a sustainability commission meeting. I'm gonna reserve my comments for later on when we have a lot of sustainability commit items to this job. |
| 00:50:17.75 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Great, thank you, Jill. |
| 00:50:19.39 | Jill Hoffman | Just briefly, I met with the Bridgeway Marina group to further define our deal points for the LOI, the letter of intent for the marina. So we are moving forward and pleased with that. |
| 00:50:33.40 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Great, thank you. And I will just add that I attended the pedestrian bicycle committee along with, we had a special guest last night, Councilmember Hoffman joined as well, which was wonderful. We had a really interesting discussion about safety on Bridgeway in Caledonia in light of two incidents where cars have hit two children in the last couple of months. And so talked about infrastructure, enforcement, and education. to improve the safety in town, very interesting discussion I thought was some good comment as well. I also want to thank Chief Forbacher and Kevin McGowan for their input on that and to Aaron Roller and Regan Fulton for their leadership on bringing that item to the committee. Secondly, uh, Kevin McGowan, our director of public works, gave a really great presentation on the and how that is developed in a six-year work. plan, but then kind of revised over time. And he started a very interesting discussion with the PBAC about how they can how they can participate in that process at the right time and in the right way. And they formed a subcommittee to talk about infrastructure projects. So looking forward to hearing what comes out of that. So I think that is all. It was a short, I realized we just met last week, which is why we're, I had fewer items. |
| 00:52:22.09 | Jill Hoffman | Madam Mayor, could I just pipe in here and say that I was remiss to say, and it won't be discussed later on, that Kevin, our Public Works Director, gave it the similar, exactly the same presentation to the Sustainability Commission. |
| 00:52:22.12 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Okay. |
| 00:52:37.80 | Jill Hoffman | And I just wanted to make a shout out to Kevin and Finance for working together at really involving our boards and commissions at such an early stage in this complicated process. It's a really good job well done, and I think it deserves a shout out. |
| 00:52:57.74 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Yeah, great. The presentation was really interesting. I'd highly recommend it for anyone who's interested kind of our infrastructure in town. I guess we can either watch the sustainability commission feedback meeting from last night. Okay, we will move on to our consent calendar. We have 12 items on the consent calendar tonight. Are there any items that any commissioners would like to Commissioners Council members would like to make comment on or discuss before we open it up to public comment. |
| 00:53:40.68 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Okay, I am seeing none. Everybody had a chance to look at the list. All right, great. So we'll open it up to public comment on the consent calendar. |
| 00:53:55.96 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Now I'm looking at participants that I do not see any hands raised. Heidi, can you just confirm that? |
| 00:54:04.91 | Heidi Scoble | Mayor Cleveland Knowles, there are no hands raised at this time. |
| 00:54:08.32 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Great, okay, so I'll bring it back to the council for discussion or a motion. |
| 00:54:13.60 | Jill Hoffman | So, Madam Mayor, I move adoption of consent calendar items 5A through 5L. |
| 00:54:21.41 | Craig Merrilees | and then we're going to have a |
| 00:54:22.93 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Great, Heidi. |
| 00:54:23.98 | Heidi Scoble | the wall. Council member Hoffman? Yes. Council member Burns? |
| 00:54:28.47 | Jean Gatza | I'm sorry. Yes. |
| 00:54:31.10 | Heidi Scoble | Thank you. Councilmember Cox? |
| 00:54:33.02 | Jean Gatza | Thank you. |
| 00:54:33.04 | Heidi Scoble | Yes. Vice Mayor Withey. Yes. Mayor Cleveland Knowles. |
| 00:54:37.85 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Yes, that motion carries five zero and we have approved our consent calendar. So now we move on to our public hearing items and our first public hearing item is one I'm very excited about. It is AB 1236 electric vehicle Charger permit streamlining ordinance. And this issue came up, I want to say a year and a half ago or two at the sustainability commission. when a member of the public showed up to note that she was having great difficulty in getting her, home charger installed and brought this state law to our attention. So thank you. To our Community Development Department and Legislative Committee for moving this forward, I'll welcome Lily Whalen, our Community Development Director for presentation. |
| 00:55:30.80 | Lily Whalen | Thank you, Madam Mayor and council members and members of the public. I am pleased to introduce Alena Lipp, our assistant planner this evening, who will be giving the presentation. She's been with the city since mid-April of this year, hired during COVID and working ever since. Elena comes to us with a master's from UC Berkeley in landscape architecture and environmental planning. and is also our staff liaison to the Sustainability Commission. Elena grew up with a father in construction like myself. And so she has a unique perspective from the other side of the counter that is helpful in our jobs. Elena is also expecting her second daughter any day now. And so we will shortly be saying congratulations and looking forward to seeing her in 2021 when she returns from her leave. So with that, Elena will be giving your staff presentation this evening. |
| 00:56:22.15 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. |
| 00:56:22.98 | Lily Whalen | Great, welcome Elena. |
| 00:56:23.97 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | It's nice to see you. |
| 00:56:26.03 | Alena Lipp | Thank you for that. I'm happy to be here and talking about the electric charger. |
| 00:56:30.29 | Jean Gatza | Thank you. |
| 00:56:31.80 | Alena Lipp | Um, program, excuse me. |
| 00:56:32.82 | Sybil Boutilier | program. |
| 00:56:35.75 | Alena Lipp | Thank you. |
| 00:56:35.77 | Lisa Davidson | He he. |
| 00:56:36.58 | Sybil Boutilier | Thank you. |
| 00:56:36.68 | Lisa Davidson | Good night. |
| 00:56:41.54 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | This is our new reality with COVID and being a parent. So we will pause for one minute. Good nights are important. |
| 00:56:49.29 | Alena Lipp | Yeah, I'm sorry. My apologies. I just chose a really bad moment. |
| 00:56:50.82 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | I just chose |
| 00:56:51.77 | Marcia Raines | THE FAMILY. |
| 00:56:53.44 | Alena Lipp | Um, |
| 00:56:54.60 | Marcia Raines | Oh, and um, All parents raise their hands. So you're in good company just Do your usual. All right. |
| 00:57:02.25 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | many people up here on the council don't worry |
| 00:57:05.71 | Alena Lipp | Okay, well, I am going to share my screen with my presentation here, just a moment. |
| 00:57:26.16 | Alena Lipp | Alright, can you see my presentation? Yes. |
| 00:57:30.63 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Yes. Yeah. |
| 00:57:31.46 | Alena Lipp | Thank you. All right okay so tonight we're talking about the electric vehicle charging streamlining ordinance and this is our first introduction to the City Council. of a new draft ordinance. All right, so first I would like to talk a little bit about electric vehicles in California. Just a couple of quick facts to orient ourselves. California has both the largest stock of plug-in electric vehicles, or PEV, in the United States, and represents the largest U.S. car market in the United States accounting for 10% of all car sales. um, Currently China is the only country in cumulative PEV sales. meaning that most of The country's plug-in electric vehicles are here in California. And over time, market share of Plugin Electric vehicles has increased in California compared with the rest of the United States. That's the second graph at the bottom. So it is reasonable to expect that over time, currently and in the future, demand will increase if trends continue the way they do. |
| 00:58:43.82 | Alena Lipp | With more electric vehicle in vehicles in use we will reduce our reliance on polluting fuels. Gas and diesel. And this will help Sausalito specifically to achieve the state greenhouse gas emissions reductions targets. set by the state of California. This is also in line with the general plan programs designed to increase the availability of electric vehicle charging stations, encourage a carbon free transit by 2040. and also to encourage private electric vehicle ownership. |
| 00:59:21.21 | Alena Lipp | In 2015, the state of California passed Assembly Bill 1236. This bill requires that cities require create a streamline process for permitting electric vehicle charging stations to reduce burdens and obstacles to their installations. The bill requires that these ordinances, that these processes be non-discretionary, administrative permitting. that they that cities publish a checklist of requirements and make an application publicly available specifically for EV charging, or at least make the requirements for that application for EV chargers clear. It requires expedited review. So, It allows for It makes it requires that cities create an electronic application submittal system and that the ordinance may not condition permit issuance on approval by an association. Further, permit applications may not be denied without making findings of substantial adverse impact. on public health and safety. that cannot be mitigated. uh, in the design of the project. Projects must comply with health and safety requirements of local, state, and federal law and the local utility authorities. AB 1236 deadline for municipalities under 200,000 was September 30, 2017, meaning that Sausalito is three years overdue to pass this ordinance. or pass their own ordinance in compliance with AB 1236. |
| 01:01:07.05 | Alena Lipp | So for tonight's ordinance that we've drafted for your review, we propose to include It in Chapter eight of the Sausalito Municipal Code. building and construction. This will not be, to clarify, this is not to be included in Chapter 10 zoning. Um, It will still be under the authority of the chief building official and decisions would be appealed to the Planning Commission but may only be overturned based on substantial findings of health and safety hazards that could not be mitigated. And to clarify, to go back to the earlier statement, this is an administrative process, not a um, a subjective process. |
| 01:01:51.64 | Alena Lipp | Our current permitting processes require for EV chargers EV traders may require building and planning review. The applicants must pay building and zoning permit fees. This requires staff time of both building permit technician and a city planner. depending on the location, of the EV charger. We do not have an established process just for EV chargers or a submittal checklist just for EV chargers. Um, although we do currently as, um, um, operate entirely in electronic submittal. So even without the passage of a streamlining ordinance and applications, will continue to be processed as they are currently processed now. to install EV chargers. |
| 01:02:45.01 | Alena Lipp | Furthermore, on September 23rd, 2020 Governor Gavin Newsom Signed Executive Order N7920. making it a goal of the state that 100% of sales of passenger cars and trucks be zero emission by 2035. And. It established a 2045 goal for sales of medium and heavy duty vehicles. It also creates calls for the creation of regulations to increase volumes of zero emission vehicles sold to meet these goals. So with the passage of this executive order and current trends, it is reasonable to assume that increase of demand for EV charging infrastructure will continue and increase the demand for permits and demands on the planning and building staff of the city. So a streamlined process would be mutually beneficial. And with that, I wanted to open it up for questions and, um, I do believe that members of the sustainability commission are here to answer questions from the city council. |
| 01:03:58.93 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Great, thank you very much for that presentation. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Are there questions for Ms. Slip or for any of our sustainability commissioners who are |
| 01:04:01.76 | Alena Lipp | Thank you. |
| 01:04:14.87 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Okay, I'm not seeing any questions, so I will open it up for public comment. And I don't know, I do see Cheng Li, the head of our Sustainability Commission here. Would you like to make any comments before I open it up to general public comment? |
| 01:04:32.22 | Ting | This is Ting. Thank you, Madam Mayor. I would love to, first of all, thank Elena for this wonderful presentation. and for giving an overview of AB 1236. And I also want to thank city council for getting this on the agenda, and I think this is a great first step to increasing EV charging, in this case for homeowners. And the next step is to have more accessible. So for the public EV charging, which the commission is also working on. And that would be something to add to a future agenda. Thank you. |
| 01:05:06.80 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. Karen Hollweg, Great Thank you and thanks for the Commission's hard work on this over the years. Are there any other members of the public who would like to comment? |
| 01:05:22.20 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | I am not seeing any hands raised. Oh, I do see feedback. And if there's anyone else, please raise your hand. Welcome back. |
| 01:05:34.44 | Unknown | Thanks, any discussion about the sustainability I think would be best served if we had full disclosure. on the form 700. So just a reminder that this is yet another time when that stuff should have been made available already. We have a large number of people in government who own considerable shares in quote unquote energy companies, in pharmaceutical companies, in all sorts of financial entities that have been bad actors, to put it mildly. Um, And so when you're making decisions on the local level, if we don't know who your who you're invested in, who you're getting dividends from. It makes it difficult for us to know what motives you may have, why you're not Going further on certain issues, especially on issues relating to sustainability, the environment, and global warming. So just a reminder that that sort of thing really is important and it's going to be more important going forward so i'd like to urge the city council to urge its city manager to make the form 700s available directly on the website not a link and in fact right now there's as far as i can tell there's not even a link to the fppc page in sacramento so um hopefully you can get that done thank you |
| 01:07:02.71 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Great, thank you. Thank you. I do not see any other members of the public with their hands raised so i'll bring it back up to the Commission Council. Any comments? I would just like to say this is long overdue and I'm really excited that we are adopting this tonight. Transportation Authority of Marin in a recent presentation that household charging will the really one of the primary means of charging, so it's really important that we make it very easy for homeowners to charge. I think having public charging stations is incredibly important to you. This is a great first step. and looking forward to hoping that the governor's executive order to get to the 100% compliance in the near future comes to be. So it's really, we have 50% of our greenhouse gas and emission in Sausalito. Anna Moran comes from transportation from mostly from single occupancy vehicles that are So this is a really great way to make some progress. |
| 01:08:29.01 | Joe Burns | You know that? |
| 01:08:29.11 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | I'm not. |
| 01:08:29.53 | Jean Gatza | And... |
| 01:08:29.75 | Joe Burns | Thank you. |
| 01:08:29.80 | Jean Gatza | Thank you. |
| 01:08:30.61 | Joe Burns | I'm really amped that we're doing this. I think there's a lot of positives and negatives, but in talking that we haven't done this before, But this is the grounded, grounded ordinance as my full support. Thank you. |
| 01:08:45.14 | Unknown | How do you follow that? |
| 01:08:45.16 | Joe Burns | Oh |
| 01:08:48.08 | Unknown | How did you follow that? of. |
| 01:08:50.86 | Joe Burns | Thank you. |
| 01:08:51.67 | Unknown | Uh, |
| 01:08:51.98 | Jill Hoffman | . Yeah. Well done, Joe. Um, You know, it was interesting. This was long overdue. I ended up getting Totally embarrassed. |
| 01:09:02.79 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:09:04.19 | Jill Hoffman | When I was going to some of these regional meetings, and we were being profiled as one of the jurisdictions, not having adopted this damn thing, whereas everybody else. And whoever were the proponents in the state that actually got this law passed, AB 1236, They actually set up a heat map on a, Um, website where you could actually be shamed just showing that you hadn't passed the damn ordinance. So It's a good job we have now passed it. So I'd really like to thank our Sustainability Commission. During the regional meetings and the various things I was in where we were being shamed, I suddenly went back and thought, well, what the hell's going on here? Why haven't we passed this? But I realized our sustainability commission had already been on top of it and already recommended it. So well done. |
| 01:10:02.31 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 01:10:02.33 | Jean Gatza | Thank you. |
| 01:10:02.35 | Joan Cox | Yeah. Sorry, go ahead, John. |
| 01:10:03.97 | Jill Hoffman | Oh, sorry, go ahead, Joan. |
| 01:10:05.53 | Joan Cox | Council member Hoffman and I said on the legislative committee this was a no-brainer for us. This came to the legislative committee. It's completely consistent with some of the plans and policies that we're proud to be adopting as part of our general plan. So I wholeheartedly endorse and approve this. I'm looking forward to |
| 01:10:24.97 | Jill Hoffman | saying yes. Yeah, me too. And as someone that has an electric car and that loves it dearly, I'm fully in favor of this and I'm glad that we're moving in this direction. And I declare with the city attorney that I could vote on this. |
| 01:10:26.58 | Jean Gatza | Yeah. |
| 01:10:41.56 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Great. All right, let's call it all. Oh, no, we need a motion on the second. of emotion. |
| 01:10:51.99 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Anyone? |
| 01:10:52.82 | Joe Burns | I move that we introduce and read by title only an amendment to the Saucyedal Municipal Code section for expedient the streamlining permitted process for electric vehicle charging stations. And that we direct staff to return on December 8th for a second reading. And we authorize a summary of the ordinance to be published five days in advance of the second reading and 15 days after this is stopped. its adoption. |
| 01:11:17.25 | Heidi Scoble | Second. |
| 01:11:18.84 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. |
| 01:11:18.87 | Heidi Scoble | Okay, Heidi, could you please call the roll? to member Hoffman. Yes. Council member Burns? you |
| 01:11:25.47 | Jean Gatza | Yes. |
| 01:11:25.86 | Heidi Scoble | Thank you. Thank you. Council member Cox? Yes. Vice mayor Withy? |
| 01:11:29.34 | Jean Gatza | Thank you. |
| 01:11:29.35 | Heidi Scoble | Yes. Mayor Cleveland Knowles. |
| 01:11:29.44 | Jean Gatza | Yeah. Yes. |
| 01:11:31.82 | Heidi Scoble | Thank you. |
| 01:11:31.83 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Yes, that motion passes five zero and thank you to staff as well for a great staff report and nice presentation. Sarah Silver, Alright, moving on to our second third public hearing items, we have two items on our general plan first. on the general plan itself and then we will take public comment on the EIR. So item 6B is review and provide comments on the final draft general plan. and adopt revised general plan update schedule. We have our community development director, Lily Whelan back again. Welcome. |
| 01:12:10.76 | Lily Whalen | My role tonight is going to be introducing other folks to give you presentation. to bring up and introduce Tom Ford with the M group, who will be giving the presentation on the general plan this evening. Thank you. |
| 01:12:25.29 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Right. Thank you. Welcome, Tom. |
| 01:12:36.65 | Tom Ford | Okay, great, thank you. Hi, thanks. Nice to be here. the general plan. I don't want to say I got goosebumps, but it was interesting listening to the previous item in hearing that some of where that ordinance came from was policies and programs in the general plan, so that's kind of neat to hear already. as you get closer to |
| 01:12:56.80 | Connor Johnston | closer. |
| 01:12:58.86 | Tom Ford | seeing this come to adoption hearings. So tonight, we want to talk a little, I'm going to share my screen here. |
| 01:13:08.68 | Jean Gatza | Thank you. |
| 01:13:19.39 | Tom Ford | Tonight we're going to review the final, The final draft of the general plan was published on October 20th. Um, It's already been reviewed about 10 days ago. 13 days ago. by the Planning Commission. And it incorporates updates and input from the public review draft that we published back in April and then a series of meetings that happened after that. But as I think you'll recall, we also took into account some of the information that we heard on the first draft EIR that had received some public comment. So a number of things happened since the April 6th publication. There was a series of roll up your sleeve and work General Plan Working Group getting into the details of all of the elements. A couple of GPAC review meetings. There was the community workshop held on Zoom that had almost 100 people, 100 participants on Saturday, June 20th. And then we kind of summarized it at a planning commission meeting on July 1st. And then if you'll recall, we also brought some information to you on July 7th, but first before we talked about the general plan, you had the community forum on racial justice. So all of those events, continued to massage the public review draft that had been published on April 6th. And then if you'll recall in September, and early October. the Planning Commission and the City Council looked at a series of policies and programs that had been developed, newly developed for the general plan. And that all led to the October 20th final draft. Um, A week later. the the revised draft EIR, was published with the state clearinghouse And I'm going to talk a little bit more about that at the end of my presentation and how it affects the schedule. or the proposed schedule amendment that's in front of you tonight. So as I said, about 10 or 12 days ago, we were with the Planning Commission, They have a series of 33 recommendations that were summarized in a memo that we've provided to you. And here we are in orange font tonight on November 17th for a review with you. We'll take comments and direction from you and create a... an addendum or a memorandum that can then carry us through the adoption hearings in early January, February 2021. So tonight I wanna bring forward four proposed edits that we summarized in the memo to you. These are four proposed edits by M group that we noticed as we were putting together the final draft for the October 20th publication. We noticed a couple of things that just we didn't think were working as well as they could. So we wanted to flag them as issues that you might want to consider amending when we get to an adopted general plan. And then the fifth item, are the Planning Commission recommendations. 33 of them, as I said, that were in the memo attached to the staff report. So let me go through the four M group recommendations. A community member within 12 hours of the October 20th publication, she contacted us and asked us about the the photograph on the cover. Um, and of the land use element and at her recommendation, we decided to get a more appropriate So it's here in front of you. And in each of these four issues on these slides, all I have at the bottom, where the planning commission landed on this specific Proposed edit, so the Planning Commission agreed that this is a good thing to do. Next. The M group, we recommend presently the general plan, each element has a summary of policies and objectives at the beginning of the, of each element. As we were working with previous drafts and working with this one, we realized it was kind of confusing because If you do a search on an electronic document and you search for a certain policy, it's going to take you to two different places. It's sometimes confusing for someone who's scrolling through the document. They think they've landed on the policies and programs, but they haven't. They've just landed on the overviews. And then We also realized that it could potentially have a problem in the future when the staff goes to amend a policy or program, they have to remember to do it in two different places. |
| 01:18:10.05 | Unknown | call. |
| 01:18:14.52 | Tom Ford | with all of those for all of those reasons we recommended doing away with those little preamble sections of each element and the Planning Commission agreed. with that recommendation. This one, this, this recommendation receive some mail as you probably saw today. And There's a... on both sides of this issue. What had happened as we had inadvertently thinking that we were doing the right thing back in the summer, through that course of meetings that I described earlier, we had added, we had, added the word non to nonconforming for this use in the And, um, It was brought to our attention at a planning commission meeting about six or eight weeks ago. by one of your local architects that that had happened. So we went back and looked at it and discussed it with staff And we're going to recommend that we actually get rid of that. and the word non and we go back to legal conforming uses and the Largely, this is doing two things. It's aligning with the 1995 general plan, but it's also aligning with a policy in the Marineship-specific plan that calls out office buildings built prior to the adoption of the Marineship-specific plan, which was April 1988. and identifies those as conforming. Now the Planning Commission did not agree with us. One of the reasons is they felt like that by introducing this language, it actually helped to conform to the Marineship vision statement that's in this general plan update. And that's one of the primary reasons they gave. Lastly, of the four issues that we're recommending, We just needed to update table six dash six dash two in the environmental quality element to match the draft EIR. As I said earlier, the general plan was published, or the final draft of the general plan was published about seven days before the EIR. So the EIR was still in flux when we went to publication. And we didn't really get this table up to date with what our environmental consultant was hearing from their biologist in the latest and greatest So by updating the table, and I don't have it here to this presentation, but it's in your memo. It really you provides a greater detail of information, which the Planning Commission recommended that we do. And it also brings the Table 6-2 in the General Plan completely into alignment with table that's being used in the EIR section. |
| 01:20:57.55 | Tom Ford | Lastly, After we published our memo with the Planning Commission recommendations and included it in your staff report last week, Um, a member of Sausalia Beautiful reached out to us noted that we had made a typo. So our recommendation number 24 is slightly off. Sausalito Beautiful had recommended that the words naturally beautiful be deleted from this objective. and the Planning Commission agreed with that. However, when we were typing up the memo, we only deleted one of these words. We didn't delete both of them. And I can go into a little bit. I had a conversation yesterday with a number I can go into some of the more detail about why this is so. if you have time. So lastly, Do you have a proposed general plan schedule amendment? to consider tonight. And the reason that's coming forward is As I said, we had originally planned for the the EIR, the recirculated revised draft EIR to be published on October 23rd, When it got down to it, it just wasn't ready, so it delayed by four days, and it published on October 27th. That pushed the 45 day review period out to um, December 11th. It had been December 7th. So what we're proposing because of the holidays, the holiday period and all of the things that will be going on between the comment period closing on December 11th and having a final EIR ready for publication. We want to publish on Friday, I believe it's Friday, January 8th. And that will cause the Planning Commission and City Council hearings to bump out a little bit from there. we want to leave at least 10 days between when it publishes and any kind of human So that's my presentation. Um, I have like we've done in previous meetings and we did this with the timing commission. My colleague Asher Cohn on his laptop, on his desktop, he has the entire general final draft general plan that he can pull up and go to any part you want. We also have the full memo with all of the 33 items and these four items, and we can go to any document and view it on the screen character. And that's my presentation. Thank you. |
| 01:23:31.60 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Great, thank you, Tom. Are there questions for Tom? |
| 01:23:37.85 | Joan Cox | I had a couple of questions. |
| 01:23:39.62 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Mm-hmm. Thank you. |
| 01:23:41.00 | Joan Cox | Um, Thank you, Tom, for that presentation and for your explanation of the M group's recommendations. Um, The planning commission made recommendations for 33 Edits, including yours. Um, And you didn't comment one way or the other about whether M group agrees with those recommendations. Many of which were to correct typos. you know, to reflect the historical, you know, the correct names of commissions rather than committees. . comment on the plan recommendation. I found them, I thought they were all well thought out. So did M group object to any of these planning commission recommendations. |
| 01:24:31.56 | Tom Ford | Thank you. Thank you, Councilmember Cox. Um, It's not so much objecting, but we stand by our original recommendation for the nonconforming, conforming language. And so we're in direct opposition to the Planning Commission on that one. The rest of it. |
| 01:24:48.92 | Joan Cox | When you looked at that, did you review the May 18 memo and meeting of the general plan working group regarding that very issue? |
| 01:24:58.24 | Tom Ford | Yes. |
| 01:25:01.92 | Joan Cox | Okay, well you and I have a different recollection of direction to the M group at that meeting. but I will address that in comments later. But aside from that, Karen Hollweg, The planning Commission recommendations. |
| 01:25:14.45 | Tom Ford | Yes. |
| 01:25:16.31 | Joan Cox | what other recommendations of the planning |
| 01:25:17.78 | Tom Ford | David Ensign PB, David Ensign PB |
| 01:25:24.68 | Joan Cox | Okay. |
| 01:25:25.68 | Tom Ford | Very helpful. |
| 01:25:25.80 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. |
| 01:25:25.90 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 01:25:27.11 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Can I just follow up on that question? So as I read this planning commission set of recommendations, they were all except for the four items that you already went over. The only potential item of substance was maybe number 29, which is a new objective a new policy for water-based transportation. Is that correct? Yes. |
| 01:25:53.81 | Tom Ford | Yes, I believe. I believe that's the only text that we wrote from scratch in advance of this meeting. |
| 01:26:03.17 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Okay. Thank you. So that's a completely new. policy and program. is number 29. |
| 01:26:12.66 | Tom Ford | It's new proposed by them. if now it's coming before you, but yes, it would be new if you accept it. |
| 01:26:20.18 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Okay. But is that, and that's the only new language and the only substantive proposal other than the four things you've already mentioned. Is that correct? |
| 01:26:31.51 | Tom Ford | Right, well, there is other new languages just in the way of wordsmithing. creating a word here or a word there. But yes, that's the only completely new program or policy. |
| 01:26:42.27 | Joan Cox | You know, they they added, for example, historically under recognized members of the community and things of that nature. But that was wordsmithing, not really a new policy or program. |
| 01:26:52.38 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Okay. other questions? Yes. Thanks, ma'am. |
| 01:27:01.02 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah, thank you, Tom, for that. Can you hear me okay? Yes. Suddenly I had some weird. Yeah, okay, sorry. Thank you, Tom. Um, and is partly maybe also to the mayor. I don't know how you want to handle this, but I have some specific questions to understand this conforming, non-conforming issue. Is now the time to drill down on those questions? |
| 01:27:32.41 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Yeah, I think it would be good to ask those questions now prior to policy. |
| 01:27:35.75 | Jill Hoffman | Okay. Okay. Okay. All right. So Tom, Um, From your professional planning perspective, Help me understand what this issue is all about. I got a feeling I think I understand it. Okay? But you guys, and I think I... agree with you if I do understand it the way I think I do. You guys do not agree with the Planning Commission's view on this. So walk me through the actual practical on the ground operational considerations that go through because I think it seems to me that what the Planning Commission is trying to do is to take us to an even more restrictive place. than we currently are under staff's interpretation of the marineship specific plan. So that was my reading into this, but I may be overreacting. So Tom, walk me through what the practical consequences, or Jeff, walk me through the practical consequences of this conforming versus non-conforming issue, which is apparently Thank you. arisen at the Planning Commission's behest. |
| 01:29:03.13 | Jeff Bradley | Thank you, Vice Mayor Willie. This is Jeff Bradley with M Group. I'd like to jump in here because I feel responsible for this becoming an issue at this point in the process. As the council recalls, the high level direction and effort in regards to the Marineship specific plan was to take the high level policy items from the specific plan and carry those forward into the updated general plan. everything else below that high level policy, high level goals and objectives would be incorporated into a future update to the city's zoning code. And so when we went through the specific plan, very carefully picking out high level policies to embed in the general plan. we thought it was very important to deal with this issue of existing office buildings existing prior to 1988. and make that clear from a policy perspective whether those uses were considered conforming or non-conforming, which is, it's just a, a very important distinction for all existing land uses. It's something you have to know about any property that you're looking at, whether you're a property owner or a business owner or a planner or a citizen trying to figure out what the plan is and what matches the plan and what doesn't. And so when we originally wrote the policy that we brought before the working group, I was primarily focused on looking at the city zoning code and looking at the membership specific plan. And it was very confusing because there was lots of different sections that talked about existing office uses, but they didn't use conforming and non-conforming language. They used words like, permitted. existing offices prior to 1988 are permitted. It's like, okay, well, what does that mean exactly? And so we put it, my best interpretation at the time, looking at the specific plan and looking at the zoning code, which is three different sections, right? It's the industrial zone, it's the waterfront zone, and then there's the marineship overlay zone. And they all have something to say about this issue, but they say it in slightly different ways. Stepping back and looking at all of it, to me, it looked like they were trying to say it was nonconforming, but it was permitted to remain. And so that's what we recommended to the working group. However, once this issue was raised again, it's something we need to take another look at. I focused in on the 1995 general plan, which has a very clean, clear policy that says existing office uses in existing office buildings built before April of 1988 are considered conforming uses. And so reading that language and then rereading the the policy language in the Marinship Pacific plan, it became very clear to me that when the specific plan was written, And then several years later, the general plan was prepared and adopted in 95. The plan, as it were, was that existing office buildings were considered conforming from a zoning perspective, which means if they were totally destroyed by fire or earthquake or anything, because they're conforming use, they could be rebuilt. So that's the practical implication. If it's decided that they're non-conforming, under certain conditions, they could possibly be rebuilt under the rules're non-conforming, under certain conditions, they could possibly be rebuilt under the rules for non-conforming uses. But in theory, all non-conforming uses eventually are supposed to go away and be replaced with conforming uses. So it's a very important topic, and it's definitely worthy of the Council's consideration and decision on those three little letters, non-conforming versus conforming. |
| 01:32:59.65 | Jean Gatza | Thank you. |
| 01:32:59.89 | Jeff Bradley | I think. |
| 01:32:59.89 | Jill Hoffman | Yes, Madam Mayor, it's just a follow-up question. Geoff, thank you. That was great. I fully got that, how you describe that. Here's what I want you to If you can make a judgement and if you can't just analyse the variables of The planning commission's desire to in introduce the non non-conforming into this. Would you, what is your professional judgment about What is the current status quo And would this be actually a change? OF. I'm not sure. of policy from how the current mishmash of Zoning ordinance, partnership-specific plan, which is a mishmash mess. You happen to actually as an aside, of highlighted very fact that people seem to forget the zoning ordinance, was put in place after the marineship specific plan. as part of the adoption of the zoning ordinance The city council had to vote that it was in conformance with the marineship specific plan. People seem to forget that. Anyway, Jeff. Um, I think I got the question. Do you see where I'm getting? I want to understand, is the Planning Commission trying to take us out of the way we've been operating back to a different interpretation? |
| 01:34:36.49 | Jeff Bradley | I know. Do you see where I'm getting? |
| 01:34:47.85 | Jill Hoffman | Or are they trying simply to, I mean, what's going on? You guys were pretty opposed to this. Thank you. |
| 01:34:54.97 | Jeff Bradley | So, Essentially, we put the Planning Commission in a bad spot because what they were seeing was the original recommendation went from within the general plan was the non-conforming language. And so when we came along and said, oh, no, no, that's not what we meant. It should be conforming. Their desire to, their recommendation to go with non-conforming, I think represented sort of keep it the way it was. But from a planning perspective, I feel like to go with the conforming language is to keep it the way it is in terms of the existing general plan, the existing marine ship, the existing zoning code parameters. |
| 01:35:35.02 | Unknown | Thank you very much. |
| 01:35:36.69 | Joan Cox | Can I ask a following question, Mayor? Yeah. I THINK I'M GOING TO BE Thank you, Jeff. And thank you for pointing out that really what came to the general plan working group was the recommendation of the M group it be non-conforming. And now the M group is coming back and wanting to remove the word non. So it is confusing. I'd like to draw a distinction between Um, office buildings and office uses. Because that's what we focused on at the general plan working group was uses versus buildings. So I think we're all in agreement that where office buildings were built and existing at the time of the 1995 general plan that was not only a permitted use under the Marineship specific plan since it was already existing but was intended to be a Um, conforming. a legal conforming use. That was an office building designed permitted built as an office building such as Marina Plaza. So that would not be affected. But where you have an industrial building that was built with an industrial use that also has an office use, that office use is legal non-conforming if it is not in compliance with the marineship specific plan, such that if that office use ceases, it reverts back to the industrial use for which that building was initially designed. Although office use continues to be permitted as an ancillary use to that industrial use. So do you understand the distinction I'm making between a building that was initially built and intended to be an office building versus a building that was built as a light industrial industrial building that had transmogrified into an office use. |
| 01:37:46.69 | Jeff Bradley | Yes, and as a practical matter in discussing this with the Community Development Director, Lily Whalen, those distinctions are made at a permit basis between legally established offices in office buildings that have that sort of legal conforming status versus office space in industrial buildings that occur within the Marinship-specific plan. And those do have the risk of sort of losing their approved status under the normal rules for non-conforming uses if it's vacant for a certain amount of time, that sort of thing. So there is definitely at least two different categories of office when we just talked generically about office uses. |
| 01:38:37.60 | Joan Cox | so i think where you know i listened to the planning commission meeting i think where what they were focusing on is that if there was an intended industrial use that had been that had over time that we're going to have prior to the enactment of the 1995 general plan had become an office use. That that was a legal non-conforming use such that, just like the veterinarian down behind Maro Dos Alini's restaurant. That was a legal non-conforming use. If that use ceases for six months and is not intended to continue, then it reverts back to the use intended by the specific plan. I think that was the distinction that the planning commission was focusing on was not office buildings that were built as office buildings with intended office uses. but rather industrial buildings built as industrial buildings that had adopted an office use. When the marineship specific plan was adopted, when the follow-up zoning ordinance was adopted, it was not intended to cease those uses, but they were legal non-conforming uses, not yet still permitted. So that's the distinction between permitted versus conforming. |
| 01:40:00.83 | Jeff Bradley | Thank you. |
| 01:40:00.85 | Joan Cox | Right. |
| 01:40:01.05 | Jeff Bradley | Thank you. |
| 01:40:03.63 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Great, thank you. |
| 01:40:05.10 | Jill Hoffman | You know, I got to tell you something. That the Marineship is actually, in the grand scheme of things, a pretty small place. And What buildings are we talking about? I've been in probably every single building in the Marin Thank you. I probably know every single building. What buildings are we talking about that fall into one category or the other? This is very personal. This is very real. for people. We don't have, it's not that big a space, for God's sake. Let's get away from the abstract and start talking about the space that's there. I mean, I understand, Council Member Cox, your point. I mean, technically at an abstract level, you're right. but, Why is everybody all upset about this? What's the actual buildings they're worried about? |
| 01:41:07.45 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | I think it is a really important distinction to make that the only buildings impacted by this policy that we are discussing tonight Our buildings built and intended to be entirely Office building. So maybe while we're continuing our discussion, either our community development director and group can identify those there are not that many of them as the vice mayor indicated. Okay, are there other questions? Are there other questions on this topic of this particular issue. Okay. Joe, you have a different topic. |
| 01:41:45.19 | Joe Burns | I do have a different question and this is solely a question as then I'll have more comment style questions maybe when we get into comment but as a straight question looking at LU 17 which is our job I'm sorry page LU 17 where we talk about the job housing balance we've had narrative on the dais in the past about this topic, obviously, and I just want to confirm that this is correct. We've always kind of said, you know, San Francisco is running at 0.4 houses created for every job and we were above one well this says that we're at 0.87 or a.83 houses per job so that we're still under one. Should this be reversed that it's a housing job balance of 0.17 or are we technically, are we truly creating more jobs than houses as this states? |
| 01:42:42.78 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Is this in the introduction, Joe, or is it a policy? |
| 01:42:46.00 | Joe Burns | Thank you. Not a policy. It's in an introduction. It's on page LU 17. |
| 01:42:49.77 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Okay, thank you. Can M group answer that now or do you want to wait a minute? |
| 01:42:56.96 | Joe Burns | And another time is fine. I know that we've always kind of said, hey, we create more more jobs than we do. I mean, we create more housing than we do jobs and this says the opposite. |
| 01:43:06.74 | Tom Ford | Right, Madam Mayor. Let me have an offline conversation while you guys continue. I know that we just looked at this table and updated our numbers and made sure that it was right. Let me have a conversation while you guys can continue. |
| 01:43:20.33 | Joan Cox | Thank you, council member Burns. Yeah, I can't touch. Any other questions? |
| 01:43:26.98 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Peace. |
| 01:43:27.60 | Joe Burns | Now the rest will be comments. |
| 01:43:29.51 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Okay. |
| 01:43:30.62 | Joe Burns | Or they're like errors that I found, but I don't know if you want those type of things. |
| 01:43:35.11 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | No, just questions right now for staff. Joe. |
| 01:43:40.93 | Jill Hoffman | I had a... I think it's a question. I had a question and I think this is appropriate time to bring it up. I had a question come to me after our last city council meeting about after Barbara Katz's presentation about the primacy of general plan versus zoning. that raised some questions with some people because all along we've been saying, Zoning, we were talking about uses and what you're talking about. you know, how your land use and what you're going to do, you can always fix that by zoning. But Barbara said in her presentation on slide 11, that general plan trumps zoning. And so there was some concern about that language. And so what I asked staff to do was to go back to Barbara to clarify that. And Barbara sent us a memo today on that and Mary Mary, do you want to summarize that? Or it was attached to... attached to our agenda tonight as late mail on this item. But anyway, Mary, if you want to summarize it real quick, I think that'd be helpful. |
| 01:44:45.31 | Mary Wagner | I'm sure thank you Councilmember Hoffman, Madam Mayor, members of the Council. as Councilmember Hoffman indicated Barb Kautz gave you a housing presentation back in October, October 13th. She was part of an overall team on general housing issues. And she did include a slide, it was slide 11. that summarily indicated the effect of the general plan and the housing laws. But I think it's really important to understand this distinction that the clarity is if the general plan designates a specific site for residential use or states specifically that residential uses are permitted, on a specific site. then under state law an applicant is allowed to build housing on that site at the density permitted by the But general plan policies that suggest a study to determine if housing should be allowed on sites, such as the ones you have in LU 1.19, . to consider the possibility of housing are not the types of policies or programs that would trigger this automatic ability to develop housing. And I believe Lily had some additional information that she added at the planning commission meeting. when this question came up that may be helpful as well. |
| 01:46:03.85 | Lily Whalen | Sure, thanks Mary, members of the council. So the information I shared with the planning commission was in the context of density as it is listed in general plans and then also in zoning ordinances. There's other communities that have a range of density listed. in their general plans that would be acceptable in different areas of the city. and then implemented through zoning. is a specific density that's selected in that range. So for example, possibly in the middle of that range And so the, concern with the information that Barb shared would be for those communities that density on the higher end of the range listed in the general plan. would be the default density as opposed to the density that's listed in the zoning ordinance. For Sausalito, that doesn't apply because our general plan density matches our zoning density. There's no difference between the two. So that item is not a concern in our case as we are currently doing. planned and zoned. |
| 01:47:10.79 | Jill Hoffman | Thanks, you guys for that. And I'll have some further comments on this when we get to our comment section, but I wanted to raise that at this point. I thought that was appropriate. |
| 01:47:18.08 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. |
| 01:47:18.35 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 01:47:20.21 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Great, thank you. The question I had could be for our city attorney or community development director is when we left off at our last meeting we were discussing a proposal by Clipper Yacht Harbor. to allow on the upper floor in the W zone applied art use in some context. And we I think asked at the end of our last meeting for staff to take a look at whether Um, that type of change would require either would require any change in the general plan and whether there would need to be additional environmental review. So I was wondering if we could get an answer to that question. |
| 01:48:12.37 | Jeff Bradley | I could address that. Mayor Cleveland-Knowles, thank you. Jeff Valley with M Group again. The request for applied arcs on the second floor in the waterfront zone is inconsistent with the existing parameters of the waterfront zone in terms of the general plan. The general plan parallels the construction from the marineship-specific plan that specifies that all land uses in the waterfront zone, because they're servicing the water, have to be marine related. And so the uses that are allowed there that are closest to that, obviously, are marine applied arts. And so while there's some overlap between applied arts and marine applied arts, the distinction is the important thing. And any Any zoning effort to create that use would trigger the need to revise the general plan in that regard. |
| 01:49:21.82 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | So we would need to revise the general plan along the lines proposed |
| 01:49:29.91 | Jeff Bradley | If you have the, if the council's direction was to open up the waterfront zone for non marine related land uses such as applied arts with or without a use permit. It would, you, we would have to rewrite the, basically the definition of what it, of what the. of what the waterfront land use designation allows. |
| 01:49:53.52 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | And would that require would that be covered by our current environmental impact report? |
| 01:50:01.23 | Jeff Bradley | No, the EIR did not evaluate that. It would be considered a minor land use change. So the SQL implications in and of it In and of the language change itself would not be great, but I think the EIR would need to disclose that and evaluate it and chase down any possible analysis or impacts or mitigations that would require or explain that there's no impact. But our recommendation due to the timing issues around any changes to the general plan now that trigger changes in the EIR be deferred till after adoption, so that any standalone changes can be evaluated and not disturb the overall schedule between the general plan and the EIR. |
| 01:50:56.93 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Okay. Go ahead, Joan. I just want to confirm. So if we did make this change, it would affect the schedule, it would affect the EIR, And you don't recommend that we do that at this point, but if we wanted to consider it as a standalone issue at a later time when we're looking at our zoning requirements, we could do that at that point. |
| 01:51:17.42 | Jean Gatza | All right. |
| 01:51:17.79 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 01:51:17.81 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Yeah. |
| 01:51:18.02 | Joan Cox | Correct. Okay. |
| 01:51:19.34 | Jean Gatza | Thank you. |
| 01:51:19.46 | Joan Cox | Karen, did you want to follow up? Just a quick follow up on that and if we did want if if they were to, for example, seek a conditional use permit for that. Could they then undertake any required environmental review attendant to that application at that time. since they would not be able to say it's exempt from CEQA since it wasn't contemplated by the DEIR. |
| 01:51:45.01 | Jean Gatza | Yes. |
| 01:51:49.48 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Okay, I also wanted to ask, we had a couple of recommendations in our packet from Mr. fan meter, which I think some of which we had discussed. I don't know if M group had a chance to look at these. They were not late mail. They were part of our packet. PB Sarah Silver, One is about personal service on Caledonia. Bye. being a conditional use in LU 2.10.3. Wow. And then he made a comment, which I thought we had discussed quite in a lot of depth about the parcel by parcel land use analysis in the MarinShip. um, I thought we had talked a lot about that and agreed to remove that. |
| 01:52:53.08 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | And then two other points that he made about things I thought we had agreed on at our last hearing related to open space along the water. So do you have, were you able to look at those? |
| 01:53:06.50 | Tom Ford | Yes, Madam Mayor, that's Tom McMenry. |
| 01:53:13.18 | Tom Ford | I don't have a problem with any of Peter's recommendations, Mr. Van Meter's recommendations, except his bullet point number five, where he wants, he advises us to add the little sort of kiosk area off the landing of the ferry. terminal two, the public space, the public open space, Technically, we can't really do that because it's It's zoned. open area. And it's also part of the, it's somebody else's land. It's either the cities we couldn't find it. We looked at it on our GIS, it's not private land, it's city land. And so that's the only one that we actually can't do Um, With regard to his fourth bullet point, our notes from your October 13th meeting were that you advised us not to include a new program in the waterfront element. But just to pick up his ideas about the public open space in the land use element. So that's that we did that. And then obviously we're still talking about LU 2.15. The discussion we remember for the first, I'm sorry I'm jumping around his first bullet point, There was some concern, I don't know if it was a GPAC meeting or a working group meeting, that by allowing personal service as a ground floor use on Caledonia Street, you could potentially get an over-inundation of a certain kind of use, like a nail salon or something like that. And so I believe that's why Um, We had personal service as a conditional use of it. It would have to go through some sort of review process to actually get a use permit |
| 01:55:02.55 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Okay. And what about the specific parcel by parcel marine ship analysis? |
| 01:55:10.70 | Tom Ford | Our understanding was that the way it's written in the final draft is the way we thought the working group left it. |
| 01:55:17.70 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | I thought we asked for that to be changed to a more global analysis. about uses as a- |
| 01:55:23.88 | Tom Ford | That language is still there. that it should be looked at in the zoning ordinance update. as a larger used and you decided not to or you voted as a group, it wasn't unanimous, I don't believe, to not have the concept of sub areas Thank you. but that you get above looking at things on a parcel by parcel basis. |
| 01:55:48.78 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Okay, all right, thank you. And then I have just realized that some late mail came in that I did not, I have not seen that's It's very detailed and I just have to say getting letters that are multiple pages long from attorneys at this late time of the evening is is hard, but there's something I haven't. So I have not had a chance to look at the Berg Holdings letter. And there was a letter from John DeRay. So I don't know if anyone else had a chance to look at those or wants to discuss those, but if not, I'm just gonna move on. |
| 01:56:30.01 | Joan Cox | Okay. All right. |
| 01:56:30.74 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. |
| 01:56:32.02 | Joan Cox | Madam Mayor, the John DeRay letter pertains to the uh, applied arts issue that we're already undertaking. but I'm with you, I have not had an opportunity to review and I think it was the Berg Holdings Council's letter. |
| 01:56:53.77 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Yeah. Okay. All right. Thank you. Yeah. Vice Mayor. |
| 01:56:58.63 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah. Yeah, I just wanted to say that I keep thinking every time we have these sort of discussions, There's an ongoing tension between what we need to stuff in the general plan and what needs to be addressed in the zoning. Right. There's a tension there. And you get one group thinking they're going to get some advantage if they get some language approved in the general plan, and then you get another group who's, you know. Um... The thing, as someone who looks at this financially and looks at this in terms of a risk assessment and therefore potential future liabilities, et cetera. I think it's important for us to Um, sort of, understand how the general plans is gonna work with the zoning ordinance amendments were going to make. And. are what is the environmental review burden. that we're gonna have to assume i.e. that means dollars, In order to be able to make more changes in the zoning ordinance, and we some one and a bunch of litigious residents probably would sort of say we need to have predetermined in the general plan. There's going to be that tension going on for the next two, three, four years. and we just got to put up with it. All right. And so my view thoughts right now is Let's just give. the future councils, the most flexibility as possible. |
| 01:59:01.63 | Jill Hoffman | That would be a very, very Good. set of decision parameters for us because what it does is it means that we can manage risk better and we can manage finances better because we've given the future council the most flexibility. rather than trying to stuff in right now into our approval of the general plan stop. that we feel like various residents would love. but in actual fact it belongs in a future discussion. That would be my recommendation. |
| 01:59:36.23 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Great, thank you. That's helpful. |
| 01:59:38.34 | Jill Hoffman | Sorry for going on more of that. |
| 01:59:40.58 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | No, that's okay. I do wanna open it up for public comment. Joe, did you have a- |
| 01:59:44.34 | Joe Burns | I'm gonna ask on the applied arts concept again really quickly to Jeff. So really what this whole thing is going to come down to is the difference between marine applied arts and applied arts. And I don't think I can tell you the difference unless I'm building a flyer for a marine business or I'm not building, and then, you know, for what type of draconian efforts are we gonna determine if a business is doing marine applied arts or applied arts? But now we're saying that that's a decision made in the general plan and not a zoning decision between the difference between marine arts Marine applied arts and applied arts. And that seems like a fairly technical to be discussing in a general plan that might require EIR change to determine is this a fight arts company marine or non-marine? Is that really the level we're talking about that needs to be in a general plan? |
| 02:00:33.50 | Jeff Bradley | Well, the general plan at its most basic level is a land use document. And in this case, the definition of a waterfront land use designation hinges on this idea of what's marine related and what's not marine related. |
| 02:00:49.50 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:00:50.97 | Jeff Bradley | Sometimes the distinctions can be can be fairly granular like you're describing. For example, of architect is in applied art. A naval architect or a naval designer is a marine. Applied art. commercial photographer. FINE ART. marine photographers. or is a marine applied art. So you could go down the list of similar things. But then there's some uses that are just totally unique to Marine Applied Arts and there's no There's no parallel version of it. That's just regular play. |
| 02:01:25.73 | Joe Burns | you know like I Thank you. like an architect that designs a marina once every 20 years. He's been a... |
| 02:01:31.26 | Jeff Bradley | Right. |
| 02:01:32.65 | Joe Burns | Marine. Applied art. Okay. Yeah, we're leaving the next council a big can of worms on that one. |
| 02:01:42.81 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Okay. All right, so it is nine o'clock. We have a long discussion left on this item. We also have the comment on the draft environmental impact report. So what I am going to suggest is we take two minutes of public comment per person on this item and three minutes on the draft environmental impact report. I know we have a lot of people here in the audience to speak on this item, but we'll take public comment Sarah Silver, First, just a general plan, and if I could ask the vice mayor's indulgence to run public comment if you wouldn't mind just for. eight minutes so that I can, I've been working all day without a chance to eat. So I would love to just turn off my camera. Oh, cool. |
| 02:02:30.38 | Jill Hoffman | Of course. |
| 02:02:31.40 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Would you like? |
| 02:02:31.71 | Jill Hoffman | Right. with the assistance of the city clerk. |
| 02:02:36.40 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Great. So I will start us off with Peter Van Meter and then turn it over to our vice mayor for just a minute. |
| 02:02:43.86 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you, Madam Mayor. |
| 02:02:53.63 | Unknown | Good evening. As a member of the General Plan Advisory Committee, it's really exciting to see this process coming to an end after almost four years. I'll address just some additional comments on the memo that the mayor had mentioned earlier. on the subject of LU 2.10.3 page, LU 49, I'm not sure. Street level uses on Caledonia Street. It's not up to us to decide whether another nail salon will fail or not, the person who wants to establish that business should be able to do it. And those kinds of businesses where you need to have personal attendance are the only kinds that can really survive there. So you need to take away that conditional use permit on existing office buildings being grandfathered in None of the discussion is focused on the key issues. And that's the financial impact to owners regarding Although Jeff did mention reconstruction and disaster a little bit, You also have problem with obtaining financing. So they have to remain as legal conforming uses. the removal of item G, under LU 4.1.1. The parcel by parcel zoning is really a discredited concept. The majority of discussion on all forms so far have recognized that. The city attorney pointed out how problematical this would be. So my recommendation is that as the mayor said that in fact should be removed or modified to some language I have recommended in the memo. They, Direction of the council to add the waterfront gathering spaces in the waterfront element, in fact was endorsed by the council. I went back and listened to the tape And that was clear that that should be the same language in that section as LU 4.6.8. And finally, the mention of the ferry landing open space as open space, in fact, in the discussion of the environmental quality background section. You have little things like Bolinar Plaza in there. and so you should be not omitting the area. Thank you. |
| 02:04:55.87 | Heidi Scoble | Two-minute time has elapsed. |
| 02:04:58.52 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you, Peter, very much. And thank you for your service to Sausalito and to the GPAC in particular. So thank you very much. Next, Morgan Gallagher. You have two minutes. |
| 02:05:15.85 | Morgan Gallagher | Good evening, Councilmembers Morgan Gallagher with Kathleen Nicholson on behalf of Burb Holdings. First, I'd like to apologize, our letter was so late. It was intentional and we were just, there was a lot to get through and we were working on it. So please review it when you have a chance for more detail and I'll cover the highlights now. First, I want to talk about the view corridors on Figure 4-4. There are three view corridors that are obstructed currently by trees and buildings, and so we believe they should be removed. And there's one view corridor called H that has a view of a hill on one side. And so we think that side should be removed to not show a view corridor in one direction. There's things that we're going to A few things that are still unclear about the general plan's view corridors, like whether limited to public or whether they're private as well. and whether they're recommended or required. So we think they should be recommended consistent with the marine ship specific plan. As to the previously conforming office use discussion, we fully support the M group's recommendation to call existing offices previously conforming. They've been conforming since adoption of the Ruinship specific plan. and it's consistent with the express intent of this specific plan. we fully support that, um, and believe it's appropriate, especially during this pandemic, not to eliminate the protections for existing office uses. Lastly, I want to talk about senior and affordable housing. There are several policies in the general plan that encourage and support affordable and senior housing, which we fully support. However, none of the policies can be accomplished without planning for senior and affordable housing opportunities and Burke Holdings has put forth a sensible and realistic plan for allowing limited affordable and senior housing opportunities through a discretionary permit process that we hope you'll consider that would protect existing uses and allow more affordable and senior housing in the city. Thank you very much. |
| 02:07:11.82 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you, Ms. Gallagher. Um, Casey Peterson. |
| 02:07:23.58 | Casey Peterson | Are we there? Perfect. Well, thank you for having us here tonight. That was a Tough blow for us to hear from the M groups determination. We are. understanding that the ERR would take a while and push things back, which is a big problem. And, We are sympathetic to that, but we need to make one last ditch effort trying to understand this and leave that flexibility and openness in the general plan for when the zoning ordinance comes to be redone. I think leaving that language like consider applied on the second floor, something in that way could hopefully alleviate that EIR problem. Um, Again, we are We have 60 year old buildings that are four feet under the floodplain that are diked off and, If nothing changes, they're going to be mowed down And we're just going to put boat storage there, which I don't think is the best for the maritime industry. We'll be okay because we can have an underwater parking lot like you see throughout the Marin ship. But those maritime tenants we have now will just be out of luck. And that is throughout the partnership. This is not just a Clipper Yacht Harbor. issue, which unfortunately it seems I guess turned into. This is a whole marineship issue. So we'd like to do one last effort to consider applied on the second floor. Our letter by Michael Rex is in there. I'm explaining it pretty clearly. It does not have a very big impact. environmental impact if we need to on our own. Last thing. I don't have time, but I would urge you to consider that. And thank you for your time. Thank you, Casey. |
| 02:09:20.07 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. uh, Alice Merrill. |
| 02:09:31.52 | Jill Hoffman | Alice, are you there? |
| 02:09:36.47 | Unknown | Oh, yeah. Okay. I'm here. I'm- |
| 02:09:39.54 | Jill Hoffman | Hi. Hi, Alice. |
| 02:09:40.99 | Unknown | Hi. I'm hearing, um, landowners talking about what they need in in a general plan for a whole city. And I'm the Marin ship person, but savior, I not savior, but wishing it could be saved person. And I hear, people coming in who own property in the Marinship, wanting it to be specifically built to them. Does that happen downtown on Caledonia, on Bridgeway? Does it happen in Caledonia? even up in the hills are really, It's amazing to me. that these landowners think that they can do this, that you guys are going to listen to them and they're going to be able to have you do what they need. or want. I'm, Here again. Thank you very much. Goodbye. |
| 02:10:39.60 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you, Alice. Michael Rex. |
| 02:10:46.33 | Jill Hoffman | Michael, you've got your muted. |
| 02:10:51.18 | Michael Rex | There you go. Yes, I want to first hit on behalf of Clipper that on Environmental Quality Element page EQ9. It calls for specific sites the city should consider acquiring and it lists the spit of land at the foot of Harbor Drive between their two marina basins for acquisition or donation. This was never discussed with They have no interest in seeing their land acquired or donating it, and they asked it to be removed. I want to save the rest of the time to talk about this non-confirming versus confirming offices. This was a last-minute addition by the planning commission. I don't think they are aware of the very seriousness impacts that this would have. Zoning Ordinance Chapter 1062 deals with this and It says if you have a non-confirming use, you cannot make any structural changes without a variance. If it's vacant for more than six months, the right to keep it is lost. It will reduce property values. It will make it hard to finance. It will make it more difficult and complicated to make improvements. It's pulling the rug out of these property owners. And it has nothing to do, I take issue with Councilman Cox's concept that this only relates to buildings that were designed for office buildings. No, the Marinship Plan excluded all legal office buildings at the time. And a perfect example is SWA. SWA is a building that was built for a machine shop. It's no longer a machine shop and it was converted to an office legally. and it remains legal and should not be non-conforming. That's just one example. But it's all office buildings that existed. were legal at the time the was created. Please strike the nod. It doesn't belong there. It's harmful to the community. |
| 02:12:52.91 | Ting | you're, |
| 02:12:54.90 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you, Michael. Cyril Boutilier. |
| 02:13:04.40 | Sybil Boutilier | So, Thank you. Good evening. Vice Mayor. Hi, Sybil. City Council members. |
| 02:13:09.16 | Jill Hoffman | Hi, Sybil. |
| 02:13:13.57 | Sybil Boutilier | I actually wanted to make a little correction if possible. to LU 1.20.5, which is on page LU 45. Um, This is the residential care facilities. And there's just a couple of words missing that I thought at one point had been approved. I'm not sure. it's gone through a few different changes. So, uh, specifically, um, And it should say communal living models, not communal models because communal it would, communal living models isn't restricted to who owns it, you know, like a communal ownership or something. I wouldn't want it to be misunderstood. Um, And We also had talked about Having it say, So basically it's encouraging creation of residential care facilities. We can use existing or new housing stock to support seniors aging in place in small group homes with six or fewer residents and other traditional or innovate and innovative. communal living models for seniors to age in community. That's sort of, you know, speaks to the variety of different kinds of communal living models. that may over the next 20 years be proposed that the city decides to approve. Thanks so much. I would add the word traditional and the word living if that's possible at this point. |
| 02:14:51.43 | Jill Hoffman | Thanks, sir. I would add the word. |
| 02:15:00.44 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you, Sybil. I see our mayor's back. |
| 02:15:02.49 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | and, |
| 02:15:06.31 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Thank you so much. You want to keep going, right? You're doing such a nice job. |
| 02:15:12.82 | Jean Gatza | . |
| 02:15:14.05 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | All right, I'll go. All right, Chandra, welcome. And I don't see any other hands raised. So if there's anyone else who would like to comment, please raise your hand. |
| 02:15:25.04 | Chandra Alexandre | Thank you, Madam Mayor. I wanted to comment about the applied arts change in the water zone. I want to start with sort of a general observation of what happens when we diminished the protections in the in the Marin ship. I walked by the property that Gary Testa used to be in. last week and I wanted to report what's in that property now. Remember Gary was going to hire 15 to 20 people. What's in that property now is of course the duck boat. I don't think it's a safe boat that was responsible for the deaths up in Seattle, but there is a duck boat. There's a Mercedes Sprinter van. There's a grand piano. There's a beautiful Persian carpet, and on that Persian carpet is a pool table. On the other side, there's a, U shaped sofa setup, and there's one person on his phone. So this is a problem with enforcement. I reported to staff why this isn't an enforcement issue, why it's non-compliant. Also, let's also recall that when we talk about applied arts, that comes with 50% of 50-50 split between applied arts and fine arts. So that's not mentioned, but let's keep that in mind. |
| 02:16:38.31 | Jean Gatza | So that's not much. |
| 02:16:41.20 | Chandra Alexandre | And also let's keep in mind that in June. Several property owners sent a letter to city council saying they all wanted this treatment. They all wanted in their water zone to have applied art. So it's not just this one, we're talking about decimating the The last thing I wanted to mention is there's this narrative about there's no way we can fill these spots. Last week, a new business moved into the Marinship. It's an underwater robotics and power technology company They searched the marine ship for two months. They were quoted. two and three times what should be proper industrial rates. So they were quoted office rates. They finally found- Your two minute time has elapsed. |
| 02:17:27.33 | Jean Gatza | Thank you. |
| 02:17:27.57 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Two minute time has elapsed. |
| 02:17:28.95 | Jean Gatza | Bye. |
| 02:17:32.21 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Great, thank you very much, John. Carlisle Berg and then Craig Merrillines. |
| 02:17:40.43 | Carlito Berg | Hello, everyone. Can you hear me? See me? Testing 1, 2. |
| 02:17:43.03 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 02:17:44.17 | Carlito Berg | either. First of all, thank you for taking the time I spilled water all over myself. I don't know how to drink but I do know how to talk at city council meetings sometimes. Um, I just wanted to address a couple of things. The first one is the marinas and boat yards. So. Under the general plan policy, LU 4.3 as it relates to existing recreational marinas, the statements made that There should be minor, it's limited to minor expenses of existing recreational marinas in the marineship. Um, But that doesn't seem to quite make sense when the city's thinking about counting those, excuse me, those 10% liveaboards as part of the BCDC requirements. So if you could explore an existing marina, |
| 02:18:24.88 | Jean Gatza | Thank you. |
| 02:18:32.42 | Carlito Berg | more than what's minor, which is not really well defined. It seems like that would be a good idea to be able to meet the arena requirements and to provide more business for all of the maritime industry that's in the marine ship. I wanted to talk a little bit about senior and affordable housing as well. And I guess... I want to continue to extend the olive branch to all the folks who spoke before me who don't think certain things should happen in certain areas. I'd love to talk with any of them offline. Um, At the same time, Um, when we're looking at all of the supportive language in the city of Sausalito for seniors. and The city has 50% of people who are over 50 and 38 units of senior housing and nothing existing and a large green requirement. It seems very reasonable to consider the language that we've proposed on several occasions and modified on several occasions which protects all the art, maritime and industrial uses and only allows consideration. Um, which as Mary mentioned, Thank you. |
| 02:19:40.70 | Heidi Scoble | Your two minute time has elapsed. |
| 02:19:40.90 | Carlito Berg | Thank you. |
| 02:19:40.97 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. |
| 02:19:40.98 | Carlito Berg | Thank you. |
| 02:19:41.03 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | minute time as it |
| 02:19:41.79 | Carlito Berg | that. Thank you. |
| 02:19:44.04 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Thank you, Carla. OK, Craig Merrilees. |
| 02:19:52.64 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Welcome. |
| 02:19:55.53 | Craig Merrilees | Welcome, Madam Mayor. Are you able to hear me there? |
| 02:19:58.52 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | We can. Thank you. |
| 02:19:59.55 | Craig Merrilees | That's great. Thank you very much. I, I- I'm listening to this debate and it, it strikes me that this is exactly how, major zoning changes are made with what appears to be minor changes One land owner comes and asks for a favor. a landowner who claims that this is going to have a big financial impact if they don't get this zoning change that you're being lobbied to me. And yet, You'd think this guy is some kind of a widow with five starving mouths to feed or something. This is an extremely wealthy landowner. like. the other wealthy landowners that are jamming the council to ease the restrictions that will ultimately result in the destruction. of the maritime uses of the marine ships. And, The question in front of you is, are you going to eliminate the maritime use requirement for this particular landowner. And if you agree to do that, and many of you seem to be inclined to do so, There will be a long line there will be litigation, Litigation from other landowners who sue you if you don't grant them the same kind of consideration that this landowner is asking for. And you'll have the slow but sure decline of maritime uses in the waterfront area. And at some point, people will look around and say, how did this happen? And the answer is it happens incrementally. just like, is happening tonight. and If council members don't understand the implication for the entire Marineship area. of this one landowner who's pleading poverty. I think you're missing the forest for the trees here. This is a big deal. It's not a minor thing. it's gonna affect you. |
| 02:21:56.10 | Heidi Scoble | Thank you. |
| 02:21:56.14 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. |
| 02:21:56.44 | Heidi Scoble | I'm going to touch it. |
| 02:21:56.79 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | has elapsed. |
| 02:21:57.94 | Craig Merrilees | Thank you very much. |
| 02:22:01.13 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Great, thank you. COB, Jean Gatza, Okay i'm not seeing any additional hands raised lady can you just confirm that for me. |
| 02:22:09.89 | Heidi Scoble | Mayor Cleveland knows there are no additional hands raised at this time. |
| 02:22:13.48 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Great, thank you. So we will close. public comment. And then I think what I would suggest is we address just a few of the things put forward by staff First. Karen Hollweg, And then I can open it up for general comments from other Council members and if there's interest, you can discuss those items does that work for everyone. So there seemed to be three, four or five items put forward by the M group at the beginning. Four of them seemed to me very Bye. no brainers. They were a picture of Maybe Tom, you could put up your slide of the four or five things that you had. Sorry, I'm just trying to get to my... Staff reports. |
| 02:23:11.57 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Okay, you had four in your staff report and then I think you added one correction. So anyway, I think Without uh, objection we can probably agree to change the cover of the Karen Hollweg, Land use, so I need actually need every Council Member to talk for me so that we can get you on my same screen. |
| 02:23:27.43 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:23:34.85 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Good evening. It is. |
| 02:23:37.43 | Jill Hoffman | you think, |
| 02:23:37.72 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. |
| 02:23:38.53 | Jill Hoffman | Hello, I'm here. |
| 02:23:41.13 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | And where is Joe? |
| 02:23:45.03 | Unknown | So, Hello, hello. |
| 02:23:47.59 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Okay, great. Here we go. Right. So Is there any actually if you can just give me a verbal objection. Anybody have an objection to changing the cover? Everyone agrees. All right, the overviews of objectives and policies I could have sworn considered this in our last meeting, but anyway, any objection to this? |
| 02:24:12.82 | Unknown | removing it. |
| 02:24:12.96 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. We'll go down to table six dash two in the Um, and before any objection. And then In terms of the Planning Commission recommendations, not including the one on conforming, non-conforming uses or these other ones that we've just talked about. Are there any that people would like to discuss? I think they're largely wordsmithing. |
| 02:24:53.88 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Did anyone want to address the water transportation COB, Jean Gatza, Item that was new language. |
| 02:25:00.31 | Joan Cox | I would just like Madam Mayor to confirm that's not going to have an adverse impact to the timing of our process. |
| 02:25:09.30 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | to the EIR. Thank you. |
| 02:25:10.91 | Joan Cox | Correct. |
| 02:25:11.28 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. Okay. Could we have staff answer that question, please? |
| 02:25:21.05 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Is there someone from staff that can answer that question on the environmental impact? |
| 02:25:27.27 | Jeff Bradley | Madam Mayor, I could stand in for staff if that's appropriate. |
| 02:25:31.38 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | PB, Sarah Silver, Yeah sorry i'm sorry when i'm talking about the general plan when I say staff, I mean i'm grouper stuff. Sorry about that. |
| 02:25:37.28 | Jeff Bradley | Got it. No problem, thank you. Yeah, that policy it doesn't rise to the level where it would disturb the EIR. |
| 02:25:52.40 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Okay. So any other policies in this, any other changes recommended by the planning commission? |
| 02:26:03.89 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | that anyone wants to discuss. Okay. So I think we can recommend them minus the conforming, non-conforming issue to adopt all of the planning commission recommendations. Okay. So why don't we move to item three then, which is the... issue of adding back in conforming and taking out non-conforming uses. Stop, we can stop sharing the screen. I think we all know what we're looking at for. policy to make one play. Does anybody want to start on this issue? |
| 02:26:51.01 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | So I'll leave them at once. |
| 02:26:52.66 | Joe Burns | Thank you. support keeping non, keeping it, not using non to keeping it conforming because it sounds like it conforms with a general plan, with a zoning ordinance and with a specific plan. That's a lot of conformity. It also conforms to that many things. |
| 02:27:05.98 | Abbott Chambers | lot of for many of you. |
| 02:27:09.96 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. I agree with that. So just to get on the record, I Sorry, I'm getting a lot of feedback. |
| 02:27:18.92 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Yeah, you are. |
| 02:27:21.37 | Jill Hoffman | Um... Okay. So I agree with what Joe just said. I, um, I think And You know, come on. This is a last minute. change. planning commission. I know, Joan, you're on mute. But I know what you're trying to say is it's not quite like that. And you're going to get into more detail about all the various things that you think. OK, but fundamentally against the spirit and it's part of a fundamental I'm not sure. I was going to say lack of understanding, but that's not the case. It's a deliberate view to view the marineship specific plan in a particular way. that is the root cause of then the accusations, usually totally unfounded, that the city is not enforcing the Marinship Specific Plan. And this is just one of those things that gets to that point. It is totally inappropriate to add to make this non-conforming. And suddenly the impact of that just one change would have is a ripple economic effect through the marineship is just, It's just a non-starter. You should absolutely reject it. |
| 02:28:53.57 | Joan Cox | We're far more on the same page than you think. So the thing I do object to is that it did come to the general plan working group as as framed as a legal non-conforming use. So the planning commission was going along with what was recommended by the M group Now they say in error. But that was recommended by the M group to the general plan working group and the general plan working group adopted it. So that's how we got here. So I do want to be careful about saying the planning commission has, you know, has. created this issue. It's the M group. making a correction and as written where it says what recognize all office buildings |
| 02:29:39.24 | Jill Hoffman | Fair enough. Fair enough. |
| 02:29:41.51 | Joan Cox | Okay, thank you. I'm not sure. As written, it says, recognize all office buildings built prior to April 5, 1980 as office uses. I agree with that. What I'm saying is that if something was built not as an office use and became an office use, that should remain legal nonconforming. But as written, this does confine this program to office buildings built prior to April 5, 1988 as office uses. I think it's fine as written. |
| 02:30:16.78 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Great. Does anyone? |
| 02:30:18.03 | Joan Cox | have that. |
| 02:30:18.82 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. |
| 02:30:18.84 | Joan Cox | Thank you. I was just drawing the distinction between. |
| 02:30:21.44 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. |
| 02:30:21.46 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah. |
| 02:30:22.86 | Joan Cox | and other types of buildings. So. |
| 02:30:27.51 | Jill Hoffman | So yeah. So, you know, Me. coming sort of into this as a new observer and participant. um, I think there's been some confusion created by the process. And so, you know, the thing that concerns me is that there was a 5-0 vote by the planning commission who by no means vote 5-0 on everything. Jeff, was this brought up when the planning commission voted that the M group was excuse me, was, you know, made a mistake. Is that what? |
| 02:31:07.20 | Jeff Bradley | Yeah, we had a similar conversation and we were transparent about our role in creating the issue. |
| 02:31:07.31 | Jill Hoffman | So we- |
| 02:31:21.68 | Jeff Bradley | they made the recommendation based on, you know, all the information they have available to them. |
| 02:31:26.38 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, got it. So I, you know, My assessment right now is that then. you know, the planning commission did make their decision based on some mistake that's now brought to light that the planning commission fully knowing this history still recommends legal non-conforming use. And it may be too that the concern was as Councilmember Cox brought up is that there is an ambiguity in the purpose originally for a building, which makes sense, if it was permitted as an office before a certain date, and it was whatever you want to call it, grandfathered in as conforming, then that's one thing. But if you have such as the building, something that has morphed into an office building, fundamentally not conforming. and isn't grandfathered in. Perhaps we need some clarifying language. And maybe some clarification from the planning commission clarification from them. but there seems to be a conflict in the camp that the M group are bringing up war. You know, those are my comments and my insight on this today. as we're looking at this. on this section. So I'm not, you know, without further clarification on that issue, as council member Cox also brought up, and I don't think that we're ready to vote on this. |
| 02:32:56.03 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | So, Thank you. Thank you for that. I really appreciate the M group going back to this issue. It was very confusing when it was first proposed to us at the general plan working group. And I think the distinctions between office uses within existing buildings and office buildings as office buildings was not at least, and maybe it was because it was late or I was not understanding, it was not apparent to me. So I appreciate the M group going back and looking at all of the different documents. And I agree with their analysis that this is the most consistent with the spirit of all of the documents read together from the time. 1995 general plan, the marineship specific plan. um, etc so i'm ready to support the conforming use in this limited context tonight um So I think the direction, if I'm hearing correctly, is we have for council members that are willing to go forward with that this evening is that correct or does anybody want to add anything to that or Jill, do you want to add anything? |
| 02:34:13.83 | Jill Hoffman | I don't know, Joan, do you think you need to add some clarifying language in there? |
| 02:34:19.33 | Joan Cox | I mean, I would endorse the clarification. uh, As written, I do believe um, that it is accurate office buildings built Prior to 1988 as office uses are legal nonconforming uses, even though now they're not permitted use. Um, I understand it. I'm worried that without the clarifications that Councilmember Hoffman raised and that the Planning Commission discussed, future . the future application of this could be Thank you. ambiguous. |
| 02:35:04.57 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:35:06.75 | Jill Hoffman | The future application of a lot of this stuff is going to be more than ambiguous as you end up in the food fight with the actual adoption of a zoning ordinance. |
| 02:35:20.62 | Joan Cox | Yeah, I think it's important to give adequate clarity So that those who work on the zoning ordinance will understand without having to go back to the May 18 meeting then the planning commission then the City Council meeting. |
| 02:35:36.36 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | It seems like a language to me is quite clear. I mean, it says, I mean, Michael Rick seemed to imply that if it was office, it was entirely an office building prior to the adoption, then he would consider that author. But I don't really think that's what it says. I mean, I understand that's what he wants it to say, which is fine. don't have any quibble with that, but that's not really what it reads as. |
| 02:36:05.07 | Joan Cox | I agree. That's not what it says. What it does in his example, the SWA, would be a legal non-conforming use based on the way this policy is written. |
| 02:36:19.98 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 02:36:20.00 | Jean Gatza | Yeah. |
| 02:36:20.02 | Jill Hoffman | So if the language is clear, I mean, I'm willing to make a motion, but I'm not certain I know exactly what motion to make because I can't find the right part of the file. |
| 02:36:20.05 | Jean Gatza | Thank you. |
| 02:36:20.08 | Joan Cox | So, I should... |
| 02:36:20.42 | Jean Gatza | Thank you. |
| 02:36:31.36 | Jill Hoffman | I mean, this is... |
| 02:36:31.46 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | I don't think we really need to, I don't know if Mary is here. |
| 02:36:34.90 | Jill Hoffman | Do we need, if we don't need a motion, does staff have the right direction and let's just move on? |
| 02:36:42.02 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | So Jill, if you have clarifying language, I'm happy to consider it right now, but if you don't, then I think to me, it seems |
| 02:36:50.49 | Jill Hoffman | I don't have any language right now, but that's my feedback and that's what we're giving, right? We're supposed to be giving feedback and comments. And my comment is, if we can't even figure out what it means or says, then I think that We need some further clarification, but I would have to look into it and actually go back to the planning commission and say, I don't Why, you know, with this explanation for the M group, why are you still, you know, recommending NOC for me? The issue is whether or not it's considered conforming, then can you YOU KNOW, CAN YOU THEN Um, change it from something that it is now into like as an office building to, some other use. Um, you know, Because, okay, and let's go back to Barbara Cox's, her presentation, the general plan. is the guiding document. The general plan, it trumps zoning. So we have to be clear I mean, you know, |
| 02:37:51.90 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Jill, this is the time. So let's be clear. I mean, why do you want this language to say? |
| 02:37:57.23 | Jill Hoffman | Well, I think it needs to say... |
| 02:37:59.41 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 02:38:02.47 | Joan Cox | office buildings built prior to April 5, 1988. as industrial uses uh, that are now utilized as office are legal nonconforming uses. |
| 02:38:20.33 | Joan Cox | So buildings prior to April 5, 1988, as industrial uses that are presently used as office buildings are legal non-conforming uses. |
| 02:38:32.45 | Joe Burns | I think that gets us. |
| 02:38:34.34 | Jill Hoffman | I don't think that's the toll exception. |
| 02:38:36.89 | Joe Burns | to the general plan, to the specific plan I don't think they're non-conforming. |
| 02:38:46.12 | Joan Cox | That was the point the planning commission was making. If it was built as an industrial use and it has morphed into an office use like the SWA building It is a legal non-conforming use. If it was built as an office building and has an office use, that's a legal conforming use. |
| 02:39:07.42 | Jill Hoffman | So are we talking about one building here? Is this what we're talking about? |
| 02:39:10.94 | Joan Cox | I believe it's more than one, Ray. I had this conversation with our community development director, but I don't know. I didn't put together an inventory of buildings. |
| 02:39:24.34 | Jean Gatza | I don't know. |
| 02:39:25.46 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Okay, so this is what I would recommend. It sounds like Thank you. Joan, are you... Okay with that. |
| 02:39:34.03 | Joan Cox | language as it is, or do you want? I would like to add clarifying language, but this language is accurate. I would like, I see Jeff Bradley has something to say. Okay. I don't know if you can see his hand. I can see him, yes. |
| 02:39:44.59 | Jeff Bradley | Andrew. Thank you. I'm noticing that the word built in the draft general plan, I think is having an undesired interpretation, which is not an incorrect interpretation. I'm thinking it's the wrong word. Because if we look at the 1995 jail plan, it says simply, recognize all office buildings as office uses in the marineship established prior to the adoption of the specific plan as legal performing uses. There's a big difference between established and built. If we're talking about historic buildings that were built as industrial, and at some point renovated and converted to office uses. So I could respectfully recommend maybe we just revert and go back to the exact language for the 1995 general plan, because I don't think we've improved the product here. in terms of clarity. |
| 02:40:41.66 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Can you read the language from the 1995 general plan one more time? |
| 02:40:47.20 | Jeff Bradley | Sure, the short title is Existing Marineship Office Uses, Period. Recognize all office buildings as office uses in the Marinship, comma, established prior to the adoption date of the friendship specific plan, comma, as legal conforming uses. |
| 02:41:12.26 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | So I'm fine staying with that language. |
| 02:41:19.85 | Joe Burns | And, That would take over then for 2.15 is what you just read then, Jeff, basically. |
| 02:41:26.21 | Jeff Bradley | All right. |
| 02:41:27.12 | Joe Burns | Yeah. |
| 02:41:31.82 | Jill Hoffman | Brown or jail. |
| 02:41:35.75 | Jill Hoffman | You know, I'm not, I've got to look at that. I mean, I got to go back and look at the different plans, I can't, I'm not gonna be able to I think comment on it or vote on it tonight. I mean, I've got to, if we're changing if we're completely changing direction and going back to a prior thing, A PRIOR WITHOUT. you know, input from planning commission or even |
| 02:42:01.16 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Sarah Silver, Would you prefer the language that was in front of us tonight that was in our staff. I will. |
| 02:42:04.89 | Jill Hoffman | I've heard. now. No, I think that language needs further clarification, but I've got to, I mean, I just have to have time to work on it. |
| 02:42:13.77 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Okay, so this is our last hearing prior to our hearing in January on this document. Okay, we don't have a hearing scheduled in December on this. So I just want to point that out. This is kind of where |
| 02:42:28.50 | Jill Hoffman | We've had lots of hearings. I mean, we've got lots of hearings and lots of schedules. And if we still can't get it together, then We'll have another hearing. So I know there's a schedule and everybody wants to be on that schedule, but |
| 02:42:36.43 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | I know. |
| 02:42:41.14 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Right. But we don't have budget. |
| 02:42:42.61 | Jill Hoffman | So we're good. You're bringing stuff before us that hasn't really been before us and then planning commission votes five against it and then we're going back and forth with language You know, so Yeah, those are my comments on this section for tonight. |
| 02:43:02.82 | Joan Cox | I prefer the draft that's in front of us from the end to the 1995 general plan. |
| 02:43:11.19 | Joe Burns | Is there any other part of the 1995 general plan, Jeff, that you can remember? that talked about built as opposed to established? Was the word built prior come up in any other policies that you could think of? |
| 02:43:27.31 | Jeff Bradley | No, I think it's unique to this policy. |
| 02:43:33.32 | Joan Cox | I mean, you know, we all know that the emergency specific plan was drafted in response to a glut of office buildings being built. So. That's why I believe built is the appropriate moniker. Um, |
| 02:43:54.56 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Billy, did you want to add something? |
| 02:43:57.11 | Lily Whalen | don't know if this will help or not, but um, IT'S NOT A BAD. Can I ask a clarifying question of the council? Is the intention here to develop language that clearly delineates the office. buildings that were built prior to the MSP versus the office uses that may have existed prior to the MSP in other buildings. And if that's if that's the intention to make that clarification, I might suggest retaining the language that is in the draft general plan but adding a comma and saying something such as and all other office uses as non-conforming uses and all other uses that were in existence prior to April 5th, 1988 as non-conforming uses. |
| 02:44:41.61 | Unknown | THE END OF THE END OF THE Yeah. |
| 02:44:43.72 | Joan Cox | IN EXISTENCE. |
| 02:44:48.86 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 02:44:48.88 | Lily Whalen | as legal non-conforming uses. Legal non-conforming uses, yes. And that would differentiate between the office buildings that were built as office buildings, an established part of the MSP and all other office uses that may be in a variety of other buildings as legal non-conforming uses. |
| 02:45:06.28 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | And Lily, would that change, change your approach to any of the current buildings in the friendship if we. wrote it that way. |
| 02:45:14.72 | Lily Whalen | Thank you. No, that would be consistent with how we are applying the zoning ordinance and issuing permits. |
| 02:45:22.24 | Joan Cox | That accomplishes the clarification that I was seeking. Sure. |
| 02:45:27.17 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Ray or Joe, are you okay with that? |
| 02:45:30.92 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 02:45:30.93 | Jill Hoffman | I don't think. I think I am. |
| 02:45:34.01 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Okay, well, why don't we establish that as our recommendation for tonight? Thank you, Lily. And we do have... at least two hearings in January. So let's go. Okay, so we'll move on. Um, So that addresses, I think we are finished with the M groups recommendations for this evening. I have a few other things I wanted to address, but I'll open it up to others first. So let's talk about just specific changes. Oh, I did, so I missed a couple of the very specific Cybil Boutelier brought up a sort of a typo. There were a few public comments that seemed to be bringing up I don't want to say small, but sort of isolated things. Did the M group have a chance to take notes on those and have any thoughts? on the things that came up at public comment. |
| 02:46:40.58 | Tom Ford | Madam Mayor, I wrote down exactly what Sybil said. So if you want to go with that, we have the language here. |
| 02:46:47.36 | Joan Cox | I had no objection to that. Okay, anyone else? |
| 02:46:50.57 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. |
| 02:46:51.55 | Jill Hoffman | No, it was fine. |
| 02:46:52.85 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Okay. |
| 02:46:53.18 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 02:46:53.20 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | And then did any, were there other uh, suggestions that came up tonight in public comment that were specific. |
| 02:47:04.07 | Joan Cox | the Peter Van Meter comments, mayor, that the M group addressed. |
| 02:47:08.47 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Okay. Great. Should we address those or do somebody? Yeah. All right. Why don't we, so Peter's letters in here. Amen. for the personal service on Caledonia. I'm Thank you. in favor of removing the conditional use, but I'm Don't go. hugely strongly about it if there's other thoughts. I just think we need to be as flexible as possible in Caledonia to support our local serving businesses. |
| 02:47:45.31 | Joan Cox | Yeah clarifying question. If we remove that would they still be subject to our ordinance that prevents an over concentration of uses in a particular area. Thank you. |
| 02:47:57.38 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | All right. |
| 02:47:57.43 | Joan Cox | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 02:47:58.44 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | and think that. |
| 02:47:59.03 | Joan Cox | ordinance would still I just want to make sure that applies to Caledonia Street and not just to the downtown. |
| 02:48:06.24 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Does our community development director and group have any PB, Sarah Silver, That's on that this is leu 2.10.3 street level uses. |
| 02:48:17.58 | Tom Ford | I'm not able to answer Council Member Cox's question. I don't know if Jeff can, but is Lily here? |
| 02:48:27.26 | Lily Whalen | Exactly, it's here. I'm here too. I'm just looking at the policy real quick. that |
| 02:48:42.35 | Lily Whalen | Okay, well, she has no question. Sorry, sorry, Madam Mayor. |
| 02:48:42.91 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Yeah. |
| 02:48:42.97 | Unknown | I'm just going to say, Yeah. |
| 02:48:44.74 | Unknown | THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 02:48:45.82 | Lily Whalen | The question is if requiring a CUP for personal services, would we would have the the over concentration findings for a conditional use permit. Is that the question? |
| 02:48:59.10 | Joan Cox | Thank you. if we removed the requirement for conditional use permit would we still have As, as when you're considering a permit, would there still be uh an avoidance of an over concentration no |
| 02:49:13.31 | Lily Whalen | No, if it's a buy right permit, without a use permit, then there aren't, it's a black and white ministerial level approval. |
| 02:49:24.11 | Joan Cox | I mean, I think the market would still have some bearing on their not being you know, 10. nail salons in one block. I'm not sure. But, you know, Caledonia street really does have a lot of personal services. that I find helpful to our residents. I agree. |
| 02:49:44.80 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. |
| 02:49:48.06 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Any objection to that? |
| 02:49:53.00 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Okay, all right, so let's make that recommendation. I was... I think the parcel by parcel land use, I think the M groups response, I think it is adequately addressed at this point, so I'm not going to press on that recommendation. Sarah Silver PB, Sarah Silver PB Sarah Silver PB, Sarah Silver PB Sarah Silver to make that change in the waterfront, but as long as it's in one place, Okay with that, does anybody want to raise that issue? one. I think those were the main comments. Peter's that I wanted to address. Okay, other public comments or other comments by council members. |
| 02:50:43.29 | Joan Cox | Madam Mayor, the other thing we haven't addressed is, I think we've all signaled . waterfront applied arts issues. |
| 02:50:56.86 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Yeah, I did want to just ask a question of M group. So the Speaker did mention, is there a possibility of saying something like, Evaluate the potential for, or something like that, would that still have the same. environmental review consequences. Or can we not answer that tonight? |
| 02:51:23.88 | Jeff Bradley | I think in terms of environmental analysis, it would not It would not disturb the EIR. Um, For disclosure purposes, the EIR should probably mention it. but it might be even right on the bubble. If it's strictly a policy to consider changing the land use characteristics for the waterfront. It's, It might be a judgment call for the EIR consultant. if we would need to mention it in the EIR. |
| 02:52:04.78 | Joe Burns | If there is no impact on the EIR and then somebody goes to project and they add space above a building that doesn't currently have space, then they do their own EIR on that specific project, correct? |
| 02:52:19.33 | Jeff Bradley | Well, one of the advantages of doing the program level EIR on the general plan is that if a future project requests a general plan amendment, to a large extent, the environmental analysis could be based on the existing certified EIR. When we looked at this issue about the waterfront land use is allowed, we did look at it in the context of it applying to the entire waterfront district and not just an individual property. I think that's the way it was designed. proposed as a general plan level. |
| 02:53:00.25 | Joe Burns | You looked at it at ground level and second level. |
| 02:53:02.92 | Jeff Bradley | No, no, just the way that was presented by the property owner and his representatives, we accepted it as a second level proposal, but we looked at it in terms of it would apply to every parcel that has that same designation. rather than an individual request. Because under the general plan, that's the only way we can really evaluate these things. |
| 02:53:28.90 | Chandra Alexandre | Absolutely. |
| 02:53:29.44 | Jeff Bradley | Thank you. The tricky thing about the the EIR analysis, even though changes to the general plan update. at this time, may not be environmentally significant. Just the fact that we're having a change in the general plan, we have to be very cautious. Because as the council recalls, we went through the exercise of republishing and revising the draft EIR because we had allowed so many changes to evolve and and pop up throughout the process, we found that when we got to the critical point of publishing the draft TIR, that the project itself had shifted, namely the content of the general plan, So we're just being cognizant of that and being very careful about what changes go into the general plan at this point. and things that rise to a policy level even if they might not in and of themselves have environmental impact, they do change, um, the content of the general plan itself, and we have to be careful We don't keep making changes. because we do have a a public review draft EIR out in public now that is based on the final review public draft general plan as it is written. And so any changes, you know, minor changes, obviously we can uh, don't create that tension, but as we start to poke and pull and change policy slightly, it gets harder to justify that everything is holding together. Thank you. |
| 02:55:02.73 | Joe Burns | Well, the current plan currently iris is testing for the opportunity to use marine applied arts, so the only thing a new ir would change is the difference. environmental impact of a marine applied arts versus a non-marine applied arts. That would be the difference. |
| 02:55:17.48 | Jean Gatza | Right. |
| 02:55:17.90 | Jeff Bradley | Thank you. |
| 02:55:21.42 | Joe Burns | Again, good luck with finding the variation there. |
| 02:55:27.97 | Joan Cox | I mean, we've, we've, we've, we've heard, we already know that. We've already received legal challenges. And so I, and we've taken steps to address those challenges. but I'm not sure we're through the hurdles. So I just want to be very careful about keeping our general plan and our DEIR internally consistent. |
| 02:55:53.83 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Yeah, I agree with that. And I appreciate the reminder from Jeff and our the issues that we that we are facing. I think, you know, I would just like to indicate that I am supportive in the sense of of assisting in allowing some of these buildings in the waterfront zone to be rebuilt in a way that they can withstand sea level rise. I think the objective here is something that I'm very strongly supportive of. I feel like it came up a little bit too late in our conversation. to be appropriately vetted both environmentally and in public comment, but I I think the original recommendation from the M group that we look at that. And as we consider the zoning is probably our most frequent force recognizing the efforts that the property owner has made. |
| 02:57:02.05 | Joan Cox | I also am supportive of our property owners throughout the marine ship. And so I do want to be in the manner in which we address their concerns But I do think there's a vehicle to do that in zoning and through an application. process. Okay. |
| 02:57:20.17 | Joe Burns | Thank you. |
| 02:57:20.21 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 02:57:20.23 | Joe Burns | Wealth or non wealth that should not be part of the process. |
| 02:57:20.34 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 02:57:27.62 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | COB, Elaine McLaughlin, Any further discussion on this item. |
| 02:57:35.24 | Jill Hoffman | Just a couple of comments, Madam Mayor. you know, we're, We're sort of, I don't know what's going to happen to this general plan. New council's gonna come in. Uh... decide they don't like any of it and change everything. Good luck. I don't know where you're getting the money to do that. because it isn't there. Um, So I wisely choose to embrace the money you've spent and get on with it. the action is going to turn to the zoning ordinance. and its implementation. And the major thing is Is the general plan going if we got it wrong so that we're continually tripping over ourselves in terms of environmental hurdles. because we got the general plan wrong as we work through the details of the zoning ordinance. That's what the next City Council is going to face. |
| 02:58:40.01 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:58:40.06 | Jean Gatza | the next season. |
| 02:58:40.65 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:58:43.77 | Jill Hoffman | while it's trying to deal with the housing element. That is going to start, God knows how many hundreds of housing units a week. don't have the space for. And You know, this is going to be a huge challenge. THIS IS A A huge challenge. for the future council. So, You know, I think the, The thing that might be worth us looking at is going back and looking at the specific plan steering committee meetings, that we had, that was chaired by Robin uh, Providevich out of ETH ceramics. Mike Kelly. And It's out of that meeting out of that series that we actually propose working on the general plan. to solve some of the marineship issues. Some of the issues that came up out of that have been forgotten. Um, One of the most important things was There has to be a dialogue between the property owners. And a lot of the public comment that we end up getting were almost like throwing rocks at the property owners But it's only the property owners in the sense that can really help to solve this problem. and the lack of a dialogue with the property owners is setting us backwards, and we've got to get over that. We really do. There needs to be an honest dialogue with the property owners because is. They don't have in any way any financial incentive to improve their buildings. How the hell are the buildings gonna get improved? |
| 03:00:42.39 | Unknown | It's so simple. |
| 03:00:50.81 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Thank you, Ray. I think that's a very valid point. I mean, I think this discussion has ended up for However, that happened to be an either or, as opposed to a collective discussion of how we make the mirinja the best that it can be and survive with the vision with both property owners. |
| 03:01:14.91 | Unknown | I'm, |
| 03:01:17.05 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | tenants, artists, workers, the whole thing has to, we all need to work together. Every single affected party needs to be pulling in the same direction. given the extraordinary external forces that are going to be putting that are putting pressure already on the marine ship. And I really regret that's the one thing that I had truly hoped would happen as we started discussions to finalize this, that the discussion would be much more cooperative, recognizing what's at stake. And that by fighting each other, we are going to end up with nothing or with a lot less than we have now. |
| 03:02:00.42 | Jean Gatza | Yeah. |
| 03:02:01.11 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | only by working together. with all the affected parties, are we going to have economic and Bye. success that retains the jobs, the arts, the industrial and the maritime. that really is the the central issue here and it is only by recognizing each other's interests, but we'll get to success. So that clearly has not happened. in this process and I'm really hoping that we can have a better facilitator or you know, some kind of process that, that really helps to make that more clear for people. |
| 03:02:43.19 | Joe Burns | We had a request today and a letter to map all the toxicity I mean, talk about a way to close all the Marin ship businesses let that cat out of the bag of all the spots where there's toxicity in the marineship and that the owners then are on notice that they have, tenants working on top of toxic level. That'll close an art studio pretty quickly or anything else that we want to keep open down there is to map every spot of toxicity on private property in the marineship. So I think people get really excited about doing some of these things without realizing that the liability and what you're actually asking for. You're asking workers to say, well, now we know your land's toxic. What do you want to do? So we got to put some of that in perspective as we go through these kind of basically, let's face it, they're NIMBY. It's NIMBY wording throughout. And I want to talk about some of it here too. on my next point. Can I go? |
| 03:03:43.35 | Joan Cox | Well, mayor, there was one other thing that council member Burns had brought up that we had asked the M group to look at, which was the housing to jobs ratio. Can we address that and then can we make our comments on the remaining revisions we'd like to see today. |
| 03:03:58.68 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Yeah, thank you for remembering that question. |
| 03:04:02.49 | Tom Ford | Thank you, Madam Mayor. Yeah, we went back and looked at this. I think you were. Council member Burns, you threw a inverse number at me and I didn't see it and so I was sort of confused, but that's what you were doing, right? The 0.85 was the inverse of 1.17. |
| 03:04:20.51 | Tom Ford | Thank you. |
| 03:04:20.53 | Joe Burns | Thank you. |
| 03:04:20.55 | Tom Ford | Thank you. |
| 03:04:20.56 | Joe Burns | Yeah, so I mentioned them both, but yeah. |
| 03:04:22.24 | Tom Ford | Thank you. |
| 03:04:22.25 | Joe Burns | Thank you. |
| 03:04:22.28 | Tom Ford | Okay, so what we did is, and I'm not sure exactly what your question is, but we did in the process of updating the public review draft and went back and checked all these sources. You have a lot more jobs in your community. than you have residential units. We think that the U.S. census, when they give you that job number, they're counting everything. part-time jobs, service jobs, ice cream sales, you know, manufacturing jobs, everything. So, I think. Well, that's my information. The 1.35 for the projection That was us doing a projection using some of the jobs per square foot numbers that EPS had used in some of their studies. And we were looking at the build out table and how much additional Um, industrial and commercial space could potentially be built over the course of the plan and then assigning job numbers to those square footage numbers. Thank you. |
| 03:05:25.23 | Joe Burns | I'm not sure. |
| 03:05:25.30 | Tom Ford | I'm not sure if that answers your question, |
| 03:05:25.33 | Joe Burns | I'm not sure. |
| 03:05:29.19 | Joe Burns | It does. It says that your numbers are correct, which I figured they were correct. And I appreciate that, Tom. It just, it kind of changes our narrative, you know, about we are looking to create a lot more jobs than we are. I mean, we're not looking that we are going to create more jobs than housing. and we might have a tremendous amount of housing to build. Maybe that number will change it. |
| 03:05:52.84 | Joan Cox | May I ask, Senator McGuire has put together a bunch of numbers regarding jobs to housing ratio for all cities in Marin and also Sonoma County. And there are some other resources. May I just ask that between now and the next time this draft is reviewed, that we share that resource with the M group to ensure that they can vet their numbers and we put the accurate numbers in there. Because this will have a huge impact as we undertake our housing elements. Right. |
| 03:06:26.30 | Tom Ford | We can do that. |
| 03:06:27.45 | Joan Cox | Thank you and thank you Councilmember Burns for raising this. Thank you mayor I didn't have any other open items besides whatever they come from from public comment other than what the Council may bring up. |
| 03:06:41.00 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Okay, so does anyone else have any issues from public comment? If not, why don't we go around and give any um overall um concluding comments Who wants to start? |
| 03:06:59.42 | Joe Burns | PB, David Ensign PB, David Ensign PB, Okay, well, so you take my finger off the place i've been holding it in the general plan here. |
| 03:06:59.48 | Jean Gatza | Okay. |
| 03:07:04.05 | Joe Burns | Um, |
| 03:07:04.17 | Jean Gatza | I'm not. |
| 03:07:04.18 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Oh, |
| 03:07:04.62 | Jean Gatza | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 03:07:04.76 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Go Joe and then Joe. |
| 03:07:04.91 | Joe Burns | Thank you, Jody. Oh, sorry, Jill, did I cut in front of you? |
| 03:07:08.60 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | It's okay. |
| 03:07:09.45 | Joe Burns | I can't see you. Um. on. on W8, the waterfront and marineship in the, in the narrative on the Marin ship waterfront We have a statement, noisy and industrial uses are common in the marine ship waterfront. And I know why somebody wanted to have that in there. So we have noisy. uses in the marine ship Yet. On the noise element on HS28. Um, where we actually talk about noise, it says that the marine ship isn't noisy. that in fact the road is noisier than the Marin ship, and in our noise ordinance in the municipal code Industrial use, waterfront use is only five DBAs louder than R3 zone. So there really hasn't been anything to state that our marineship is commonly noisy. |
| 03:08:11.26 | Adam Politzer | Thank you. |
| 03:08:11.60 | Joe Burns | that kind of says the opposite. So I think that's a relevant thing to say that maybe that shouldn't be in there. Um, And then on LU, on page 58. |
| 03:08:28.37 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | So can I just, just a point of process. So for tonight, I think what I'm just going to ask is if anyone on the council has an objection to anything, a strong objection to comments or changes that council members are asking for. that you speak up. because we're trying to provide direction at this point. So... Thank you. to sound the noise thing. |
| 03:08:50.70 | Joan Cox | Thank you. Well, I think it would be easier to speak up if we know what a council member is proposing. |
| 03:08:58.34 | Joe Burns | I'm proposing we don't have noisy and industrial uses are common in the marine ship waterfront. |
| 03:09:04.11 | Joan Cox | And what programs What is that, Joe? What? |
| 03:09:07.35 | Joe Burns | That's on W eight. Okay, thank you. that, Makes it sound like we have heavy industrial machinery when we have light industrial and waterfront uses that have not proven to be noisy. This gives them a bad name, which they don't really deserve. |
| 03:09:34.30 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Okay, go ahead. |
| 03:09:35.00 | Jean Gatza | Thank you. |
| 03:09:35.50 | Joe Burns | Okay. |
| 03:09:35.54 | Jean Gatza | Sorry. |
| 03:09:36.36 | Joe Burns | No. page 58. LU411. Um, Prior to that point, we had used accessory in all the words describing office uses and then we throw in ancillary again only one time and I really liked that we had taken kind of There was a lot of confusion with that and we were consistent using accessory but in that one policy we go back to ancillary and I don't know if that is the answer to that question. I don't know if that is the answer to that question. gets confusing because we just had two pages of really good diagrams explaining accessory office use in the marineship. So I think we should turn that word from ancillary into accessory. Thank you. if anybody has comments. |
| 03:10:27.41 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | What policy is that? |
| 03:10:28.93 | Joe Burns | Yep, that's LU4123. 4.1.1. on page 58. I'm page 58. So it's a small thing, but we went through a lot of effort to kind of clear up that whole accessory office conversation. And we got very consistent with just using the word accessory. |
| 03:11:02.10 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Okay. |
| 03:11:02.71 | Joe Burns | This one I totally miss how I kind of remember getting there and how I miss this originally. And this is just kind of opinion to ask what you guys think. But in the social equity diversity clause, on page COB, Dan Burke, COB OSMP the introduction, page three, I three. Um, that it led to the current, in paragraph two, it led the current segregation we see in Marin City. We see inequities in Marin City. but we don't necessarily see segregation It's actually. 38% African-American, 38% white. But there is inequities based on what those things had stated. And then there's geographical segregation because of the freeway. But I think that should just change to led to the current inequities we see in Marin City. And I just take that one as an opinion because I don't think we want to say that Marin City is not. that it's a segregated community racially. |
| 03:12:02.45 | Sybil Boutilier | Yeah, I agree. |
| 03:12:05.49 | Joe Burns | I had a bunch of little things that I'll pass up on now because I think they'll just irritate everybody if I bring them up. |
| 03:12:11.21 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. |
| 03:12:16.30 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Okay, great. Thank you. Jill? |
| 03:12:25.69 | Jill Hoffman | I'm good, thanks. |
| 03:12:30.97 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Okay, do you want to write? |
| 03:12:32.30 | Joan Cox | Thank you. I can go. I don't have much. I. Uh, uh, I do know where the whole noisy thing in w8 came from obviously since i was on the gpac and the g General Plan Working Group. So I'll just give a couple of examples reason Bradley made public comment that he gets complaints from adjacent businesses. because of the noisiness of his business. Gary Testa also made public comment that he got so many complaints from adjacent businesses, especially the massage parley over the fence that he had to buy a sound blanket and put it over his equipment. And then, you know, I personally have been down at Bayside Boatworks and you cannot stand there. without earplugs while they're doing their work. So there certainly are. aspects of our waterfront that are noisy industrial uses. |
| 03:13:31.38 | Joe Burns | Then we have a conflict with the municipal code because they're not spelled out as a loud DBAs, but it does say that you can't have non-invasive sounds. So. |
| 03:13:31.79 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 03:13:40.75 | Joe Burns | I don't know if we want to go that route or if we want to take those examples of something that's actually violating the municipal code because it sounds like they might have had a different drive for those. in those comments. |
| 03:13:52.83 | Joan Cox | That may be true. I'm not particularly attached to what the narrative says you know, regarding our various areas. I think it's more important that our policies and programs |
| 03:14:03.41 | Heidi Scoble | me. |
| 03:14:03.76 | Joan Cox | accurate. and descriptive, but I just wanted to provide That background. Um, As to LU 4.1.1, I would love to hear from our community development director. Because I thought we did carefully craft the distinction between accessory and ancillary. Um, |
| 03:14:31.74 | Joan Cox | And Joe, I'm not sure where the five decibels come from. Are you saying that the noise level is 75 decibels? I mean, I think 75 decibels is quite loud. That's the noise. |
| 03:14:42.51 | Joe Burns | Yeah, that's what's created from Bridgeway. 70 is created on Bridgeway just as traffic. |
| 03:14:42.58 | Joan Cox | Yeah. |
| 03:14:47.22 | Joe Burns | but the municipal code does give noise allowances. It doesn't for industrial only for waterfront. And that one is only five decibels different than what's allowed in a residential R3 zone. though that would say that it's it's not throwing blankets over your equipment loud, given the, I mean, that's what it is. |
| 03:15:09.88 | Joan Cox | I'm pretty sure that in the Marinship it's 75. So anyway, I don't want to really argue the point because it is. |
| 03:15:15.40 | Joe Burns | Thank you. |
| 03:15:15.42 | Jean Gatza | I don't think. |
| 03:15:16.55 | Joan Cox | It is a It is just a narrative, but I do believe the marine ship noise ordinances at 75 decibels which I I believe is fairly valid. Thank you. I have already shared my challenges which are the you know, the zone, the, um, Council member Hoffman mentioned it tonight. I'm satisfied with Barbara couches. Um, that considering certain things in the future does not especially with the uh with the consistency and density does not subject us to unintended consequences so i'm not going to push more on the whole over lay you know consideration of zoning overlays and such that we discussed. ad nauseum Um, I do. You know, several meetings ago, we talked about doing an economic analysis of the marineship. I believe that's not part of the general plan, it's part of our you know, the feedback that we gave back to the economic development advisory committee but I continue to believe That's crucial and I think that will address some of the other issues that we've been discussing tonight about how do we provide incentive for our landowners to improve their property. How do we as a city help them with the infrastructure improvements that we know are required down there. but that you know it's private property so we have to come up with a public private partnership to address those types of issues and We have already drafted some policies and programs in the marine ship to address that but I do think the economic and analysis that we all agreed to when we were just talking to the economic development advisory commission continues to be a top priority as we consider our best path forward for implementing The plans. programs and policies in the general |
| 03:17:24.29 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Great, thank you. Right. |
| 03:17:30.74 | Jill Hoffman | I sort of what I said, what I had to say. I thought that we were in sort of general comment earlier, so sorry about that. So let me therefore reinforce. Uh, No, we got to deal with the property owners. We got to talk to them. We got to figure it out. And the thing is that um, Just because a property owner indicates a specific It gives their property is an example. They're not coming asking for a favor. They're actually pointing out the economic reality that some of our previous economic analysis has confirmed. that unless you get the right uses that are going to pay the right rents, building isn't only his Ken said, or Casey said. They're just going to plow the building over and turn it into boat stories. The rent, the The cell maker or whatever, I can't remember the maritime uses on the ground floor, that building would go away. One less building. to house a maritime business. because the only thing the property owner can do is just get rid of the whole thing and just put boats in. So that's reality. That's the specific reality of a specific building. But those realities are there all over the marineship of specific buildings. that, I mean, The building that Gary Tester was in, I mean, I got to know their company a little bit. Okay. I mean, What's that? That's one of Morgan's buildings, right? Um, They're not going to be able to attract manufacturing because they don't have the utilities and the infrastructure there to do it. And it's going to take a massive investment of money to do it. That's reality. And until people start waking up to this economic reality, and then you think, okay, the ideologues are going to say, let the sea level rise come in and we'll just wash it all away and we'll retreat. Do you know how much money that's going to cost? city taxpayers. how much money that's going to cost. So we better get our act together, folks, on this. We really got to get our act together. |
| 03:20:15.84 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Thank you, Ray. |
| 03:20:17.24 | Jill Hoffman | I'm finished, sorry. |
| 03:20:19.25 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Yeah. That's fine. Yeah, I think I made my main point earlier as well, that I was very, very proud of our earlier discussions as a council around the vision for the Marin ship. And I feel like we did some We listened to the GPAC, who also did the hard work around the vision, We listened to property owners, we listened to other constituents. And that we really formed a vision that I still believe in that I think is achievable and, uh, that I think is a great framework. But that our discussion after that kind of devolved besides and where I don't think it's a helpful vision I don't think it's a helpful process to get to our vision, to be encamped. in this way and that it will not benefit Bye. the mariners, the maritime industry, or the artists, or the tenants. And so I'm really hoping as we continue on this path I think at this point, the general plan I'm very proud of the strides that we made on the sustainability element. I'm very happy that we included a waterfront element. I think it ties the city together in a great way. Um, but I don't think we really made much fundamental change in the general plan. and for better or worse. Um, That's after all these years and quite a lot of money for our small budget, That is hard. But I think it's, you know, I think this document for what we're able to accomplish and some of the forward looking issues with climate change. I'm proud of and I'm happy about. So I think we have done some good work here. And but I am kind of disappointed at the stalemate that we arrived at with the Munchip. And I think, you know, frankly, that the advocates who have gotten probably 95% 99%. Bye. of what they were looking for. And So I think it's been you know, an interesting process in that regard. PB, Sarah Silver, Anyway, um, so if we have no further comments on the general plan tonight, we will ask them group to go forth with the input that they received tonight and come back take that to the planning Commission for final hearing. and for the city council I think we also were asked to approve the revised schedule Um, So I don't see any issues with that. We got the drafts out a little bit late. We're pushed out another couple couple weeks or 10 days or something like that. That'll give people more time around the holidays. So that's probably a good thing. Any objection to the schedule? Okay. So I don't think we need a motion on this. Mary, do we need to approve the revised schedule by motion? We've got unanimous consent here. |
| 03:23:56.63 | Mary Wagner | I think we've got your direction. Thank you, Madam Mayor. |
| 03:24:00.87 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Hey. Great. All right, we will move on to our next item on this, which is mainly to receive public comment on the draft environmental impact report. And... who, really. coming back to your role of introducing people. |
| 03:24:19.09 | Lily Whalen | Exactly. I am here to introduce Lisa Davidson, who should be. I'm not immediately seeing her. There she is. Okay, excellent. And she is here to give you a very brief presentation on this item, which the purpose of the item is to solicit public comment on the draft recirculated and revised environmental impact report. Thank you. |
| 03:24:45.50 | Lisa Davidson | THANK YOU. |
| 03:24:45.89 | Lily Whalen | Thank you. |
| 03:24:45.91 | Lisa Davidson | Thank you. |
| 03:24:57.00 | Lisa Davidson | Thank you. Can you hear me? |
| 03:24:58.89 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | I can hear you now, yes. |
| 03:25:00.32 | Lisa Davidson | Okay, sorry, I was trying to find my mute button. all right um so i will be brief um today we are receiving comments on the Re-circulated revised draft EIR. I'm going to talk about the purpose and need for the recirculated revised draft EIR, which I will referred to as the revised draft EIR. I'll talk about the environmental review timeline and also the purpose of the meeting. |
| 03:25:36.94 | Lisa Davidson | So, A draft EIR was published on June 4, 2020. call that the original draft EIR. It was prepared for the general plan and circulated for public review from June 4 |
| 03:25:50.35 | Carlito Berg | on |
| 03:25:54.29 | Lisa Davidson | until August 5th. The city held several public meetings during the review period. received. 16 comment letters on the original draft EIR and draft general plan. And in response to the public review process the city developed new general plan policies and programs and refined or modified policies and programs where needed. The city determined that revisions to the environmental analysis were warranted. And so a revised draft EIR was prepared. It incorporates all the new and revised policies and programs, and it also includes a revised environmental analysis. with the implementation of mitigation The revised draft EIR does not identify any significant environmental impacts beyond those identified in the that was circulated to the public on June 4th. |
| 03:27:00.79 | Lisa Davidson | So I wanted to now go over the environmental review timeline. The notice of preparation was circulated from October 17 to December 9. of last year. SCOPING MEETING WAS HELD ON NOVEMBER 4 OF LAST YEAR. |
| 03:27:20.69 | Lisa Davidson | the Revised draft EIR is the next step. in the process, it was released on October 28th. we will receive comments through December 11th. on the revised draft EIR. And I wanted to highlight here that in accordance with CEQA guidelines, the revised draft EIR is being recirculated in its entirety. and reviewers must submit new comments. to be able to do that. |
| 03:27:55.63 | Lisa Davidson | I wanted to also, drop the SQL guidelines section. that. that has more language about recirculating in EIR and how the lead agency is THE CURRENT IS ONLY OBLIGATED TO RESPOND TO THE COMMENTS in response to the recirculated revised draft EIR. Step three, we will prepare a final EIR. AND, YOU KNOW, We will include public comments and the recommendations received on the revised draft EIR And then we'll have the city's responses to those comments and recommendations. There will also be public hearings to certify the final EIR and approve |
| 03:28:42.56 | Unknown | Finally, I |
| 03:28:44.74 | Lisa Davidson | the Sausalito general play. The purpose of this meeting is to allow the public to provide comments on the revised draft EIR. Speakers are encouraged to provide written comments I have the email address listed here, you can mail in your comments as well to City Hall. and I wanted to emphasize that no decisions are being made about the general plan at this meeting or about the EIR. So with that, I, and update this slide. I recommend that the city council open the public hearings to receive public comment on the revised draft EIR. and we're looking for comments on the adequacy of the revised draft EAR. And, um, that we will continue to accept comments on the revised draft EIR Thank you. through December 11. at 5 p.m. |
| 03:29:47.33 | Lisa Davidson | That concludes my presentation. |
| 03:29:50.49 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Great, thank you very much, Lisa. Are there any questions for Lisa on the I'm going to take a look at EIR before we take public comment Council comments. after that. Okay, seeing no questions, I'll open it up for public comment. i see michael rex and we already did take public comment at the planning commission and as lisa said public comment will continue to be accepted in writing. Welcome, Michael. |
| 03:30:26.40 | Michael Rex | Hi. Yes, I am still hung up on this office use. I went to the marineship specific plant since I spoke last. I want to bring to your attention on page 9. It says existing, approved, existing and approved office buildings and uses may remain as permitted use as Okay. We're not just talking about buildings, we're talking about uses that were legal, in office use regardless of what the building was originally built for. And this is a fundamental change. And I don't understand I think we have a question about planning that we've been applying Zoning. with the understanding that if your building wasn't built, for an office building. but was approved legally to be an office building, that it's now nonconforming. I used. I've never heard of such a thing. I don't think the planning commission fully aware of the seriousness of making existing legal uses non-conforming. It's a fundamental change in the And frankly, I bring it up under the CIR. because this was never studied or considered what these impacts will be. When you make more than one building, we're not just talking about SFVA. We're talking about Schoonmaker. I could give you a half a dozen buildings. This is going to happen. It's a major change. And it's not, there's no impact studied on it. And if you want to recirculate the IR to have that study, fine. But I think you've made a fundamental shift that's problematic and inconsistent with the intent of this general to not make a holistic change without studying the environmental Thank you. |
| 03:32:27.96 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Great, thank you, Michael. COB, Jean Gatza, Okay i'm not seeing any additional hands raised comments on the draft environmental report. |
| 03:32:37.23 | Jean Gatza | Thank you. |
| 03:32:42.20 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Okay, I will bring it up to the council for Or Heidi, can you, I don't see any hands raised, but can you just confirm? |
| 03:32:51.96 | Heidi Scoble | Mayor Cleveland-Nulza, I'm confirming that there are no additional hands raised. |
| 03:32:56.25 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Thanks. Thank you. |
| 03:32:56.97 | Heidi Scoble | Thank you. |
| 03:32:57.04 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. |
| 03:32:57.07 | Heidi Scoble | I'm sorry. |
| 03:32:57.09 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. Um, are there comments from the council on the EIR? |
| 03:33:07.72 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Okay, I'm seeing none. So we will... this item and thank the consultant for being here so late. Thank you, Lisa. And that all happened so quickly. I don't have my agenda back out. So I think we can move. Yes, Jennifer. |
| 03:33:28.95 | Joan Cox | I do just want to acknowledge staff, consultants, and our legal team who really did invest an extraordinary amount of effort to update the DEIR to ensure that . you know, thoroughly addresses the Um, impacts, whether they be mitigation measures or adaptation of the general plan. There was a lot of work that went into this revised document prior to it's recirculation. So I just wanted to acknowledge all of the players who assisted in that effort. |
| 03:34:07.54 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | I appreciate that. Thank you, Joan. I would add my thanks to yours. Thank you for that. Okay, so we'll move on to our business items. 7A is adoption of a low emission action plan. Ms. Slick, welcome back. Good evening, Council. Hang in here. Yeah. |
| 03:34:31.71 | Joe Burns | We need to keep our voices down. |
| 03:34:33.63 | Alena Lipp | Nope, they're all dead to the world. Thank you. We're going to have a |
| 03:34:45.17 | Alena Lipp | All right, can you see my screen? |
| 03:34:45.39 | Ting | All right. |
| 03:34:47.03 | Alena Lipp | This will be shortly. So tonight I'm going to be talking to you about the low emissions action plan. resolution to adopt. way. So the Low Emissions Action Plan or LEAP was prepared by the South Belize Sustainability Commission and brought for a first reading to the City Council in February. of 2020, so that's nine months ago. And tonight we request that the draft resolution to adopt the leap be approved. The objectives of the Little Mission Action Plan is to stimulate rapid reduction of carbon emissions within the city of Sausalito. These would help to meet or possibly even exceed the next California statewide goal of reducing emissions from 40% from the 2005 baseline by 2030 in 10 years. The plan is aligned with other similar plans of Marin County. and based on model plans from San Leandro and than Rafael. |
| 03:35:57.67 | Alena Lipp | the LEAP builds on other planning initiatives within the city. notably the Sausalito Climate Action Plan, and it is important to note that 13 of the 18 programs proposed in the LEAP have already been incorporated into the circulation and sustainability elements of the new general plan. And that is, All I have to say tonight. if there are any questions, um, |
| 03:36:28.09 | Unknown | THE FAMILY IS |
| 03:36:30.41 | Alena Lipp | Greg Thompson and Ting Lee of the Sustainability Commission helped to draft the plan are available to answer questions as of mind. |
| 03:36:40.34 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Great, thank you very much. for that presentation. Council members, are there questions for Elena? Okay, great. I will open it up to public comment. And if either Greg and or Ting would like to start us off, be happy to hear from you as well. Thank you so much for all of your hard work on this. And continued efforts. |
| 03:37:10.92 | Ting | Thank you, Madam Mayor. I want to especially thank Greg. He has been a key driver to the low emissions action plan and without him, we wouldn't have this document ready for you today. So a big thanks to Greg. |
| 03:37:29.69 | Ting | Thank you. |
| 03:37:29.70 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Great. Bye. Greg, would you want to say anything or? I know you've worked hard on this. Maybe he's gone off to enjoy his evening. Okay, well, I, um, we'll just lead off the discussion. I was really excited when I first saw the draft LEAP when I was the liaison to the sustainability committee because what it did for me was it really took some very large concepts and brought them down to the local level in a way that felt very meaningful to me and very implementable. and gave us some real action items that we could hang our hats on and have a hope of reaching some of our very lofty greenhouse gas emission reduction goals. So I think it's a great blueprint. I'm very excited that we've incorporated a lot of it into our general plan. that we are already seeing and efforts coming forward in our strategic plan and capital improvement plan through low emission through charging stations. So we're actually seeing some real progress. So I'm excited to have this in front of us tonight. Are there other? |
| 03:38:56.39 | Greg Thompson | Thank you. |
| 03:38:57.50 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Oh, great, great. You are here. Good. Sorry, I was vamping. I was hoping you would show up. |
| 03:39:04.07 | Greg Thompson | I finally got this to unmute... I was clicking and But I wanted to thank Ting for your comments. And I want to thank the Sustainability Commission in general for all of the hard work we've been doing to try advance you know our solutions to the climate issues and especially here with the the leap which is intended to, as we know, reduce our emissions and stop contributing to the issues that are causing, you know, lots of lots of problems with the climate stuff. So I just want to thank the Commission and the City Council for addressing this. It's so important. And from this, we can move forward. with real implementation of the things that are going to help us not only in sustainability, but also economically as this moves forward. Um, And with that I will just say you know again thanks to everyone for this and it is a plan that does integrate very many points from across the county and other cities in the county. So it does align with the entire county's goals for reducing emissions. Thank you. |
| 03:40:21.46 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Great, thank you, Greg, and thank you, Ting, both of you for your work. Great. Are there other commissioners who have thoughts on this or additions, changes? |
| 03:40:34.08 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah, Madam Mayor, if you may. Um, So, This is really... I think of, really quite an important achievement. of our Sustainability Commission. And I would like to spend a little bit of time acknowledging them and thanking them. You know, I've had the privilege of working at the county level in several capacities with drawdown marine and But I've also been for the last eight years on the board of directors of MCE Clean Energy. I have a perspective. on this stuff, which is certainly not unique, but it's rare. What is, I think, we are, and our community needs to understand, we have one of the most well-regarded sustainability commissions in Moraine County. We are already forging alliances with sustainability commissions and other jurisdictions, Our Sustainability Commission has helped lead. Um, recommendations from our sustainability commission are now critical in our general plan. And we actually have an element that's focused solely on sustainability. So, It is a I think we all need to make sure our residents understand the enormous leadership that's emanated from that group. and that this council has embraced. which is great, you know? Um, So I'm really supportive of this. And the one thing, and the mayor knows that she and I have had a number of conversations about this. Um, And- I can't. pointing out somewhat of a reservation I had about this. And the reservation I had is that we had not clearly articulated how this document was going to be used. You know, we have a general plan. We have a strategic plan. We have a climate action plan, which is a document that's prescribed by a particular legislative act in Sacramento. Right? Often some of these just sit on the shelves. And I know our sustainability commission has been a little frustrated that there wasn't an implementing document. So they created this as in part an implementing document. lesson learned. Let's make sure next time we do this climate action plan, we have implementation measures in them that work with our strategic plan and that work with our general plan. But the nice thing that happened is that the staff through the resolution that we're going to hopefully approve tonight, built in by resolution how this document will be used. in that it will be incorporated into the general plan. It will be revised and prioritized and used in the strategic plan. This is very important. This is a leadership role that actually our sustainability commission has made, but also our mayors made, because she until COVID decided to sort of rear its ugly head. She wanted this year to be about leading as a sustainability leadership role and I think she's done that. So we need to congratulate her as well for this achievement and what we're doing tonight. So, That's This is an important achievement. |
| 03:44:40.46 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Thank you, Ray. And I realized I did open it up for public comment. Greg and Ting both spoke. I didn't see any other members of the public. who had their hands raised, but I just wanted to confirm there's no one else that wanted to speak before we wrap this up. Okay, I'm seeing no hands raised. So we'll close public comment and Jill, Joan or Joe, do you have anything to add? |
| 03:45:06.36 | Joe Burns | I'll piggyback somewhat on what the vice mayor said. And first congratulate you mayor and obviously Greg and Ting, all the hard work that's gone into this. And it's kind of like the last item, It's like, yeah, I'm glad we're, we're here now. Right. I mean, welcome to 2020. Um, And it's a reminder that our previous two documents planning documents guiding documents that talked about transportation are Uh, 1022 and 1128, you know, where to park the big old gas scheduling car. And now we have a document that talks about things like biking and walking and electric vehicles and how planning really should look. as opposed to where do I park the Ford? So I, I feel like we've got a document now that brings us into the, 20th century, but we're getting there. But it's a great document and it's going to have a big impact on how we should be stewards of greenhouse gas emissions because we are stewards of the sea level rise impact. And so we have to, we should be leading that charge and we definitely have the horsepower in the sustainability commission to lead that charge. So very nice document. Nice work, everybody. |
| 03:46:29.10 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. |
| 03:46:31.19 | Jill Hoffman | I'll just briefly, thanks to the Greg and Ting and the sustainability commission on this. It's great, great work. I'm always impressed by. |
| 03:46:31.34 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Bye. |
| 03:46:39.90 | Jill Hoffman | level of talent in our commissions and boards and thanks thanks to you guys for all of your hard work this year it's done a substantial amount So thank you. |
| 03:46:50.73 | Joan Cox | And Mayor, I agree. I'll echo the comments of the Vice Mayor and Council Member Hoffman. We may not remember back that far, but when I joined the Council, I was the . And funny story, I sat next to Kristen Walschlager and was telling her how great our librarian, Abbott Chambers, is. No idea. |
| 03:47:16.30 | Joe Burns | Right. You didn't get them together. They were already together, though, right? |
| 03:47:20.48 | Joan Cox | I have no idea. that they were partners. Anyway, I was so impressed at that time with the level of commitment and competence of our commission and we've just continued along in that same vein. And I'm so proud of everything they've done. And this is just the latest in a long line of accomplishments. So kudos to them, my thanks to them. And We are so privileged to have such talented volunteers to make our jobs so much easier. |
| 03:47:53.29 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Great, thank you everyone. Do I have a motion? I think just on Willie's point, this will really give us a good start for the strategic um, discussions coming up early next year. Yeah. |
| 03:48:10.06 | Joan Cox | Thank you. that we adopt a resolution adopting the recommendations in the low emissions action plan, and directing the implementation of the lease. |
| 03:48:21.37 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | There is second. |
| 03:48:22.95 | Jill Hoffman | Second. |
| 03:48:24.40 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Heidi, will you please call the roll? |
| 03:48:27.34 | Heidi Scoble | Council Member Hoffman. Councilmember Burns? |
| 03:48:32.32 | Jean Gatza | Yes. |
| 03:48:33.20 | Heidi Scoble | Councilmember Cox. Yeah. Vice Mayor Withey. |
| 03:48:36.52 | Jean Gatza | Thank you. |
| 03:48:36.54 | Heidi Scoble | Yeah. |
| 03:48:36.62 | Jean Gatza | Yeah. |
| 03:48:36.79 | Heidi Scoble | Thank you. |
| 03:48:36.84 | Jean Gatza | Yes. |
| 03:48:36.91 | Heidi Scoble | Mayor Cleveland Knowles. |
| 03:48:38.97 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Yes, that motion passes five zero. All right, moving on. 7B, agreement with the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission, or BCDC, regarding waterfront management. We have Joan Cox and Jill Hoffman. Thank you, our Waterfront Committee for all your hard work. I understand you will be leading our presentation. |
| 03:49:03.98 | Joan Cox | Great. I think Lily's going to Not Lily, Heidi. is going to run the slides. Great. As I reported during committee reports at our last meeting, we have been and as you know from our various committee reports and our various updates to you, we have been the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission or years and sharing with them the outcome of our waterfront management plan. We have been, we've received great praise from them for . The multifaceted program which has really been a holistic and compassionate approach to waterfront management including our mobile shower program, our annual debris box collections, our safe harbor program. and the identification of upland housing resources for those most in need. um, uh, And we continue to collaborate with the Richardson's Bay Regional Agency, even after our resident our departure from that body. Um, Throughout the course of our reports to the enforcement committee of the Bay conservation and development commission, they have identified some ongoing goals that they would like us to continue to pursue and they have asked that we memorialize those goals in an agreement between us and them. And the agreement essentially has a five-year duration. um they are similarly seeking um an agreement with the Richardson's Bay Regional Agency. So what they've provided to us are some proposed deal points and We We are going to provide to you our feedback on those deal points. We also have transmitted We have a redlined, revised deal point memo that contains the revisions that we've transmitted to them as our initial take on their deal points. And most of our revisions are to clarify that we are one of many agencies responsible for waterfront management and to ensure that we are communicating our commitment to continue along our path forward. But that like every public agency throughout the country, we are now constrained financially due to the impacts of the pandemic. And we just have to be respectful. to any financial constraints that we may have in pursuing our path forward. So the settlement agreement proposed by BCDC has set up The first is vessel impact management. The next is removal of vessels within five years. The next is commitment to cooperate in a regional solution. The next is eelgrass subtitle habitat restoration and monitoring. The next is eelgrass subtitle habitat restoration and monitoring. The next is community engagement and enrichment measures. And the final is reporting requirements. I will say you'll see in the redlined memo that we shared with you and it's on the that's online available to the public. We recommended adding to the deal points, some overview comments for context. So we really think it's important to tell the story and recognize the great work that's been done by the city in its waterfront management program that recognizes we're dealing with people and their lives. Um, So with that I'm going to turn first to the vessel influx management. These are the four bullet points that we received from BCDC together with our redlined revisions. And you can see underlined. . what our revisions are. So for example, They said any new vessels arriving in Sausalito waters will be advised of the 72-hour enforcement immediately. we don't always immediately observe them. So we've simply updated that to say that we will We will advise them of our 72-hour ordinance. . come into contact with them. BCDC as it starts to nail down enforcement efforts in Richardson's Bay suggested that we consider updating our ordinance to prevent people who have visited Sausalito and then left our waters after 72 hours to require that they wait at least a week before returning to our waters. So that's just something for us to consider. And then they had asked us to commit to prevent habitat damage. Well, We can't prevent habitat damage, but especially since we don't have control over boats that are not exhaustive as water. So we've changed that wording to say that we will seek funding and commit to migrate people from city waters to upland housing. continue our safe harbor program and continue ecological restoration to the extent possible. So that's category one. Category two is a room full of vessels within five years. As you all know, At one time, we had roughly 90 boats in Sausalito waters. We're down to nine. six legacy anchor outs and three others. BCDC has asked that we commit to removal of all of those vessels . believe that most of the remaining legacy anchor-offs will depart of their own accord. within the next five years. We are also continuing to provide to them and inviting them to participate in safe harbor. So we are not uncomfortable with the five-year time limit, especially because the ages of our legacy anchor outs range between 65 to over 80 years old. Many of them are will likely . be more amenable to upland or other housing opportunities as years progress. |
| 03:55:42.04 | Jean Gatza | Thank you. |
| 03:55:44.07 | Joan Cox | In addition, we removed the other three vessels We already have plans to do that. They asked us to do that within one year. We're proposing to do that within five years because at least one of the remaining three vessels Um, contains some legal hurdles. between us and its removal. So we've asked, we've amended their language to extend the five-year time for any period of time during which there's a pandemic, as well as opportunities for extension of time for good cause show. I'm going to move on to item three, which is cooperation. to address broader issues in Richardson's Bay. We thought that was important for us to continue. It's something we embarked upon immediately upon. resigning from the Richardson's Bay Regional Agency. But we again had some wordsmithing to the proposed language of the deal points from are from BCDC. So we commit to participating in the regional solutions so long as adequate resources within the city's control are available to assist. Obviously, it's important to us that The other member agencies of RBRA also participate in any regional solution. And then we offered to continue our participation in a dialogue with Senator McGuire and the RBRA in the development of a plan to work toward alternative housing for anchor outs throughout which it seems very I WANT TO TALK ABOUT THE they wanted us to present a plan to them. In June of next year, we uh, We would prefer to present our plan to them in conjunction with our development of housing elements. 2023. All right, we're up to four. This is eelgrass subtitle habitat restoration and monitoring. uh, .............. including the |
| 03:58:08.16 | Joan Cox | . We are confident in our ability to undertake a pilot program that we are optimistic will start to mitigate eelgrass impacts and to start to restore eelgrass and Sausalito waters. But we wordsmith this to the account for the uncertainties in such a program since it's never been undertaken before. And then of course once we undertake a program we do commit to maintain a plan once restoration has been All right, five out of six. Community engagement and enrichment measures. Again, there was a request that we address all of the remaining anchorouts and address water quality and other ongoing concerns. That is not Sausalito's job alone. That's something that we need to do in conjunction with Richardson's Bay Regional Agency as well as its member agencies. And so we've again wordsmithed this these deal points to focus on the fact that Sausalito wants to do its fair share, wants to continue its existing programs and wants to continue to collaborate with the RBRA. So, We, We are committed to continue our mobile shower program, our annual debris box collections, our pursuit of the safe harbor program and to assist in scaling that program to other marinas within our jurisdiction and to continue to work to identify upland housing. And finally, the last Um, deal point with monthly reports actually reporting requirements so monthly reports to BCBC staff quarterly and annual reports to the BCDC enforcement committee. So that's our overview. There are some more details in the staff report and in the um annotated deal point memo that's attached to the staff report But that's the overview and I am Mary and you are available to answer any questions you may have. |
| 04:00:30.99 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Great, thank you so much. Thank you, Joan, for all your hard work over many, many months on this. I really appreciate it. jumping right back in when you got back. Are there council member questions for, yes, Ray. |
| 04:00:53.28 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah, so help me understand what the end game is here. Um, in the sense that these are deal points. We're moving towards what? An agreement. And what would be the status of that agreement? |
| 04:01:12.11 | Joan Cox | So initially, BCBC had been talking about a consent decree, which obviously could involve, you know, attorney general enforcement. And we pushed back on that. We're now to a settlement of units. The BCC Enforcement Committee is very impressed and laudatory regarding our efforts. And so I think they just want a mechanism in place to ensure that those efforts will continue without this constant reporting that we've been undergoing thus far. And so it will take the form of a settlement of UNED Um, and it is susceptible to amendment if needed down the road. |
| 04:01:52.65 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. I don't know. |
| 04:01:54.12 | Jean Gatza | I'm going to tell them. |
| 04:01:55.30 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Sorry, can I just jump in? Is it a settlement of an enforcement action? Is that where we are at this point? |
| 04:02:01.17 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 04:02:02.25 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. |
| 04:02:02.28 | Joan Cox | So yes, as you know, the Macctier Petrus Act requires that Richardson's Bay's waters, including Sausalito waters, be utilized solely for recreational purposes. allowing anchor outs to congregate over time and live on the bay that's a violation of the maceteer pepters act And as you may have read, The state of California audited BCDC's enforcement of its obligations under that act. and found the enforcement to be lacking. in the middle of 2019. And that resulted in BCDC Um, becoming more regarding its enforcement efforts with Sausalito and Um, ............. 2017 and 2018 that we are committed to um, allowing our legacy anchor outs to remain. They actually perform a public service. They help other less experienced mariners. They never are the source of calls for enforcement from our police. They have referred other mariners to us for our safe harbor program. They are our eyes and ears and liaisons out on the bay. We are not interested in the. constantly told BCDC we're not interested in enforcement efforts. against our legacy anchor us. We are, however, committed to continuing our holistic program to assist those most in need. |
| 04:03:58.45 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | I'm sorry, Ray, I interrupted you, so go ahead. But thank you, John. |
| 04:04:02.30 | Jill Hoffman | No, I think I've sort of had my question answered. Sort of. I'm going to have more to say about this when we comment at the end, but I'm wondering if you could give your perspective on where you think the count is at. Because even though we talk about RBRA, I mean, and with all due respect to the other jurisdictions, much of our issues in the past. have been actually issues between the city of Sausalito and the county of Marin, let's |
| 04:04:42.77 | Joan Cox | I know Ray in the wake of the auditors report to BCDC in the middle of last year, BCDC enforcement letters to Sausalito, RBRA, but also to the RBRA member agencies, including the county. And around that same time last year, the RBRA. hired their harbor master, Curtis, whom you've all met, he's come to our meetings. We have seen a sea change in the county's attitude since the transmittal by BCBC. of that enforcement letter. It was after receipt of that enforcement letter that County Supervisor Kate Sears got Senator Mike McGuire involved in working with all three of our agencies to Um, negotiate a, you know, a three legged stool of Land housing, um, waterfront management and habitat restoration. And, you know, Curtis has made great efforts out on the waterfront. He still is not seeing the kinds of success that Sausalito has. I think that's why BCDC is undertaking different enforcement mechanisms, RBRA, than Sausalito. But we have seen a commitment to start moving in the direction of identifying housing alternatives for the boats out on Richardson's Bay. They've hired Andrew Henning. who we know from San Rafael's homeless efforts. He's done great work with them. They've hired an ecological expert, Rebecca Schwartz-Lessberg, to help them with eelgrass restoration. She used to work with Audubon Society, We have seen a commitment and I do I do have more optimism about our ability to, collaborate with RBRA moving forward. |
| 04:06:42.95 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 04:06:46.98 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Great, thank you. Joe, any questions while we open it up to public comment? |
| 04:06:52.38 | Joe Burns | No questions, looking forward to comments. |
| 04:06:54.56 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Okay. Ciao. Thank you. |
| 04:06:57.60 | Joe Burns | Nope. |
| 04:06:57.92 | Lisa Davidson | Thank you. Don't cover it all. Great job. |
| 04:07:00.21 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Okay, I'm going to open it up for public comments. on this item. Not seeing any hands raised. Heidi, could you confirm? |
| 04:07:16.61 | Heidi Scoble | Mayor Cleveland Knowles, I'm confirming that there are no additional hands raised. |
| 04:07:21.76 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Great. Okay. We'll bring it back up for, Council member comments and discussion. |
| 04:07:29.86 | Joe Burns | Thank you. I don't, Jill, am I cutting you off? Are you getting ready to go? |
| 04:07:33.79 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. |
| 04:07:33.83 | Sybil Boutilier | Yeah, go ahead. |
| 04:07:34.84 | Joe Burns | I don't mind starting first. I've probably had the least amount to do with this item over the last four years, but I think it's kind of ironic as, as I sit here and listen to this, this is the last business item of any importance that I listened to as a council member. And this has been something that's been consistently an issue for Sausalito long before I even moved to town. when i decided to run for council and i trotted down there with my little signatures and the first council meeting i went into Council member Hoffman comes out of the back room saying we're gonna drop out of our RBRA. So, This item has been consistent throughout. And now we're at this point where Sausalito has absolutely shined because of council member Cox, because of council member Hoffman, because of vice mayor, because of the mayor, you guys have put so much emphasis and. our city manager, our chief of police, This has been all around the entire city has had involvement in this. And I know people are going to be watching and say, we exceeded RBRA. We exceeded the county. We surprised BCDC. And I'm saying you guys did this. This is really a wonderful spot that this has gotten to when four years ago, getting ready to crawl onto this dais, this was going to be the number one issue, right? What are you going to do about the boats, the boats, the anchor houses? And you've mitigated that concern. Now we have a lot of other concerns, but you've mitigated that one. You've made it a successful program. It built off each other. You know, one thing that led to another, dropping out of RBI, getting that ruling. You know, every step that we took along the way has brought it to a a point now where you have made Sausalito uh shine in this regard so uh still have some challenges ahead and there's uh some things to be done but I really wanted to say that I appreciate what you guys have done on uh on getting this for Sausalito because it's no longer something that sits right in the front of our mind is an issue that we have to deal with so good work and uh |
| 04:09:02.79 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 04:09:49.27 | Joe Burns | I probably should have comments about the program itself, but I think you put a lot of work and words into it that I agree with. |
| 04:10:02.38 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Joe. Thank you. um, Thank you. Ray, do you have comments? |
| 04:10:10.43 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah, I would echo what Joe said there. Definitely agree with all that. you know, We've been talking about this since the eight years I've been on the council. Let's face it. Um, and I think social leaders led the way not only in enforcement, It's also led the way. in trying to help people understand that this is a bigger problem that needs to be networked into services you know, You guys got that. Part right. and you know, the program of trying to move people off the water into the slaves. has been a small but successful effort, but it shows goodwill, it shows understanding You got to put all the pieces of a puzzle together. not just try and right rules and enforce. So we've done a great job there. Um, Thank you. THE END OF THE END OF THE Why I asked about the county is that Um, I'm glad to hear that the county has eventually sort of really recognize that. It has the major, it's the major player. And it really, and if And I'm glad because of our great collaboration County. I'm glad things have turned there. Um, So The only thing that still worries me is that no matter, that's gonna still take a long time. and no matter what. Solskjaer Waterfront is going to be impacted by the boats in County Waters, And at some point, We need to be knocking on the county's door asking for how they're going to compensate this. |
| 04:12:26.59 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Thank you, Larry. So I also want to echo the thanks to, well, everyone on the council. issue was far along by the time I joined the city council. So a lot of work came before me. And I really, really would like to just say a special thank you to Council Member Cox for her Harbor program, because I think that As the vice mayor just mentioned, that compassionate element and the problem solving of it really I think transformed kind of an enforcement effort into that are kind of the whole package what we need to be considering. So I really, I think we've come a long way. in the evolution of how we see this issue and how we've chosen to deal with it. I am really grateful for this agreement and I'm happy to agree to 99.9% of the year. percent of it. probably won't come as a surprise to and I think it's a great question. that I have a very hard time with the hard stop on removal in section two, removal of all existing vessels by five years from the date. So I would be, very happy to approve this agreement if the condition was remove all existing vessels through attrition, which is what we agreed to as a council. I think it was the five of us actually a year and a half or two ago. And I understand that you both, Jill and Joan, worked hard to get VCDC to agree to extra time for the pandemic and extra time for good cause shown, et cetera, et cetera. And I really appreciate those efforts. Um, But I You know, I really take what Council Member Cox said that we, you know, you just said, and I agree, we are not interested in taking enforcement action against our legacy anchor outs. And I really just have no stomach. for that. I know we have a very few left, but I just cannot agree to an agreement to remove them within a certain time period. I think we need to continue our efforts, our compassionate efforts to find alternative housing, including in the marinas and that we have shown BCDC that we are exceedingly serious in those efforts. We've put our own money into that program and we have really um, we are serious about it. So if it said, by attrition, I would be happy to sign on. So if I, feel like you have pushed as hard as you can, I would If the CDC would agree to that, I would um, I would be happy to vote for that. sort of with a bit of a heavy heart. will not vote for section to just the introductory language. But with everything else, I do want to acknowledge and thank you for your hard work and for |
| 04:15:59.99 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 04:16:00.01 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 04:16:00.47 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | all of the other thought that you put into the edits and the, um, of this agreement. |
| 04:16:08.40 | Jill Hoffman | So I'll go next. That's okay. Oh. So let me just, Let me just say, you know, when I got on the council, I think the first Herb at that time was our liaison with the waterfront committee and then I was the alternate and then I became the |
| 04:16:20.19 | Unknown | So how much |
| 04:16:25.27 | Jill Hoffman | I think I became the designee and he became an alternate, but, um, You know, to put it in context, when we started working on this six years ago, this was about a 30 or 40 year fail, right? On behalf of municipalities that have a finger in Richardson Bay and RBRA as it was configured at the time. you know, we really had a tough decision about how we were going to actually, if we were going to move forward in a decision of, do we want to make our water safer for not only the people, people that live on the water but people that live around the water. responsibility as a members and as leaders in Sausalito. And so thank goodness we had team that came together and it was a team effort. Make no mistake about it. our city manager was in support of our efforts and did a wonderful job sort of guiding us through how to access and maximize our county partners. on the water, not only on the water, but with regard to homeless, and how to reconfigure kind of how those homeless agencies thought about people on the water and how we could Um, you know, transition people off the water through those agencies. So this is all this had never been done before, never attempted before. And we were the one, Sausalito, when I say we, I mean collectively we, are the ones that presented this path forward. And we worked really hard on it and we Like I said, we advocated for different agencies, state, local, whatever we could pull out of our hat. You know, the police chief did a tremendous, Chief Rohrbacher and the Marine Patrol team in Sausalito did a tremendous effort as well, helping us access funds ourselves that we could use, and then ultimately decision that we would be more effective and we could move better and faster and be more nimble if we withdrew from RVRA, which I think was the right decision. But that was a gutsy move at the time. And thank goodness the city council supported us on that. And I think the success of our efforts have shown the wise decisions the wise decision that that was. And so just, you know, I'm happy where we are. I think we've done a tremendous job placing, we meaning again, the collective we, placing Sausalito in a great place with BCDC and limiting our risk of further sanctions and fines. And also, every step of the way, we've been committed to the safety of people that were on the water and transitioning people off the water that should not be living on the water in precarious situations. and our partners with the marinas in participating in the safe harbor program. I can't thank them enough either. You know, it was a collective community effort to solve a tremendous problem in our community for our community people. And I'm proud of this effort and I'm, I'm proud of where we are. I think, The deal points that we've got, you know, they're not perfect, but, um, serve all of the, all of the goals that we came up with. And, you know, It wasn't collective effort, but there was someone that worked a whole lot on this and that was Council Member Cox. And tremendous, tremendous lift from her on this thing. So thanks to her and everybody else who worked on this. |
| 04:19:59.53 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. |
| 04:20:01.61 | Joan Cox | This has been a long road. I first became aware of this issue in 2010 when I was running for office and I met supervisor then Charles McLashen who said could I please talk to Jonathan Leon and get him to show up to these RBRA meetings more frequently to address these issues. And That's how I first became aware of it. And then when I was elected at the end of 2016 I actually helped write the letter resigning from RBRA. I revised and edited that resignation letter. And my attitude towards this whole issue has really evolved over time. And it evolved through sitting down and meeting with the anchor outs. Adam, our city manager and I sat down and met with anchor outs at breakfast. I ran into anchor outs in town who recognized me from our reports. I have really come to have a much greater appreciation for as I keep saying the holistic nature of this challenge. When I was first on the council I was appointed to a committee that with Kate Collin at the helm that recommended we undertake mobile showers here in So we did, and that was one way to reach out. And then I was talking to anchor outs who absolutely were miserable during the winter storms on the bay. And I said to Adam Pollitzer, Hey, can we find some money? to put them in slips. And he suggested tidelands, Then we got the marina operators on board. went around with me to every single marina and brought them Sausalito Art Festival posters. to say thank you for considering participating in the safe harbor program. So and then Chief Rohrabacher has just been a constant resource. He hired Sage Cezack, who is this magical GIS operative who does surveys every month. So we know exactly who's out there, where they are, what their name is, how many are there, what their needs are, have they moved. Then we got the Ritter Center involved who provides whole care person support for our safe harbor program. We have always worked in collaboration with the Audubon Society, with RBRA, Marty Winter, who was the chair of the RBRA, when we used to sit down and meet almost monthly, said, Sausalito is the hare and RBRA is the tortoise. And I've always held that in mind, that we're breaking ground and laying the path forward So, And they are bringing up the rear. Jill, Council member Hoffman helped us find a law firm that wrote a white paper about our rights to enforce within our own waters. The county of Marin provided us cash funding, cash grant funding, for us to be able to continue this program. And now we've applied for project home key through HCD and Senator McGuire, to hopefully identify more funding, so this has really been an evolutionary process and it we have demonstrated that it takes a village and we have a village to make this happen so. My gratitude to all of the players along the way and I'm I echoed Council member Hoffman's comments i'm proud of where we are. and where we're going. and the fact that this agreement puts in place, keeps in place the mechanisms we've already established, but also takes the onus of enforcement off of us and just has a on. with the great trajectory we're off. |
| 04:24:04.19 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Great, thank you. Joan, I think you froze there just in your last sentence, I think. But you said the great trajectory we're on was. Okay, good. Great. Okay, so I would be... if the council is amenable to take the agreement overall minus section two, I would be willing to vote yes on that, or we can just take the agreement overall. But I would like to show my general agreement and thanks for your hard work. |
| 04:24:39.76 | Joan Cox | I will move that we authorize our city manager to finalize negotiations and execute a settlement agreement with BCDC uh in substantially along the deal points that we've presented to the council tonight uh, And for the purposes of this motion, I will exclude that provision within the deal points that the existing vessels be removed within five years of the date of our agreement. |
| 04:25:15.97 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | I'll second that. Heidi, could you call her all? |
| 04:25:20.97 | Heidi Scoble | Bye. |
| 04:25:21.09 | Jill Hoffman | TO THE CITY. |
| 04:25:21.49 | Heidi Scoble | Thank you. |
| 04:25:21.51 | Jill Hoffman | THE FAMILY. |
| 04:25:21.56 | Heidi Scoble | THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 04:25:21.59 | Jill Hoffman | Bye. |
| 04:25:21.61 | Heidi Scoble | Thank you. |
| 04:25:21.68 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 04:25:21.71 | Heidi Scoble | THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 04:25:22.71 | Jill Hoffman | Uh, could I ask a clarification out there? on that. So if BCDC |
| 04:25:27.67 | Joan Cox | Thank you. With that. motion with respect to that other provision. Sorry, John. I'm going to make a follow up motion with that other provision that if we're not able to simply eliminate through attrition that we give the city manager authority to agree to the five year time limit imposed by BCBC with extensions for good cause. |
| 04:25:49.66 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, so you're gonna make, okay, got it. You're gonna make a follow-up motion. Okay. |
| 04:25:52.66 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 04:25:52.69 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Yeah, so yeah, there'll be two just so that I can I just didn't want to vote no on the whole thing. Thank you. |
| 04:26:01.22 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. So I think I'm voting no. No. |
| 04:26:05.32 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | No. |
| 04:26:06.19 | Jill Hoffman | I'm going to vote yes and then yes on the next one. Okay. |
| 04:26:09.94 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. Well, I think we're all going to vote yes on this one, and then I will not vote yes on that. |
| 04:26:16.13 | Jill Hoffman | Got it. Thank you. |
| 04:26:16.91 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. I'm not trying to confuse it. I know it's late. All right, Heidi, could you call the roll on this motion? |
| 04:26:23.59 | Heidi Scoble | Yes. So just to confirm Councilmember Hoffman, Yes. Council member Burns. Yes. Council member Cox. |
| 04:26:29.23 | Jill Hoffman | Yes. |
| 04:26:31.27 | Heidi Scoble | Thank you. |
| 04:26:31.30 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | and, you know, |
| 04:26:31.32 | Heidi Scoble | Thank you. Vice Mayor Withee. |
| 04:26:33.35 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 04:26:33.36 | Heidi Scoble | Yes. Mayor Cleveland Knowles. |
| 04:26:35.64 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Yes. That motion carries five zero and then a second motion. |
| 04:26:41.82 | Joan Cox | I will move that we authorize the city manager to finalize and negotiate and execute an agreement between the city of Sausalito and BCDC that includes a term to agree to the removal of all existing vessels six legacy and three others by five years from the date of the agreement. extended for any period of time during which there's a pandemic with opportunities for extension of time for good costs shown in the event we are unable to persuade BCDC to simply allow us to have those boats depart through a kitchen. |
| 04:27:30.62 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Fair second. Second. |
| 04:27:38.18 | Heidi Scoble | Council member Hoffman. Yes. Council member Burns. |
| 04:27:42.42 | Jean Gatza | Yes. |
| 04:27:42.99 | Heidi Scoble | Councilmember Cox. Yeah. Vice mayor with you. |
| 04:27:46.65 | Jean Gatza | Thank you. |
| 04:27:46.67 | Heidi Scoble | Yes. Mayor Cleveland Knowles. |
| 04:27:49.30 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | No, for the reasons I've stated. And thank you for your indulgence. That motion carries for one. And thank you again, everybody. Okay. Great work. On to item eight, which is city manager report, city council appointments and other council business. This item has three different sections, but one opportunity for public comment. So I'll open it up to public comment on any of these items. Is there anyone left to comment this 1130 I am not seeing any hands raised and Do we have a city manager report from either our city manager, Adam Pulitzer, or interim Marcia Waynes? Good evening. |
| 04:28:41.70 | Marcia Raines | Thank you, Madam Mayor and Council. I would like to take a minute to give you an update on the recruitment of your city manager as you'll recall. You as a council voted to select Avery Associates out of Los Gatos one of the top firms in recruiting executives for local and state level government in the state of California over the last 20, 25 years. They have assigned Paul Kimura, who is their principal, Number two, as I see it in the firm. He has been working with staff. We have done information transfer regarding the city, all the details necessary to prepare brochures and begin communicating with members of the profession so as to attract top candidates. You will also recall that the council requested the consultant work with the employees inside the building and with the community online that You'll be happy to hear that this week, The consultant will be on site through Zoom meeting with members of your employee groups specifically the department had teams as early as tomorrow. to try and identify the competency, skills, and characteristics that these employees would like to see and feel are necessary for success in the future. At the same time, your emails and phone message machines have request for meetings with the consulting between now and Thanksgiving. So we are on a tight timeline. We are looking for some of your time to meet individually with the consultant. And at the same time, we're already in receipt of a draft form of a survey that'll be sent to members of the community, members of the employee community. Um, So we have completed major sections that were indicated to get us to the point of a four month recruitment. Four to six months is what they were indicating and we are still on track. the state. I think we can take questions, but pretty much I wanted to give you the general update. assure you that we're in the midst of recruiting your next It's hard to say with Adam's picture right here, but your next city manager. Thank you. Adam, anything you'd like to add? |
| 04:31:14.20 | Adam Politzer | Thank you, Marsha. I just on the rest of the city manager's report, I'll keep it brief, and then we can go back if you have questions on the recruitment here. And I just wanted to add that We've had a lot of late meetings the last four or five meetings in a row. And it's because you guys are doing a lot of great work. And I think tonight it's another example of that. So, you know, we have a tremendous amount of public participation. That's really positive. That's really good. And I think we have a lot of staff We are providing a lot of important updates to the information as we saw with Abbott Chambers, COVID, report at the beginning of this meeting at 7 o'clock earlier this evening. But all this information is important and I just want to celebrate. really this last meeting of real substance of Susan . I think we've accomplished quite a bit in really difficult times with COVID. in the economic environment. And I think when we look back at this year, have a lot to be proud of so just wanted to make that comment as we came to the end of another late council meeting |
| 04:32:26.61 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Great, thank you, Adam. I had high hopes of keeping our meetings much griefer, but |
| 04:32:35.97 | Joe Burns | I'm not going to say it's late. There it goes. I'm having this mustache when we started. |
| 04:32:36.34 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | There it goes. |
| 04:32:43.60 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | All right, are there questions for Marcia on the recruitment or of Adam on other issues? I just have a comment on the recruitment. Marcia, thank you for the update. And I know you mentioned the consultant would be meeting with the department heads, which is fantastic or is already. But I do hope that there will also be some outreach. to the rest of the staff in some form so that they'll have the chance to weigh in as well. Understood. I agree. Great, thank you. Okay. There are no questions of the city. Manager and Interim City Manager. We will go on to appointments to boards, commissions, and committees. We have one. |
| 04:33:37.13 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Oh, we've got three, wow. Okay, so I am really sorry I did not see the work group appointments for the objective design and development standards item, but for sustainability commission appointments. We did have interviews today. And, um, I would like to suggest that we nominate Mark Palmer to fill the Regulancy on the Sustainability Commission Thank you. And then I am open on whether we continue recruitment for the alternate. I know we weren't able to interview one of the candidates today, so we may want to finish interviews for the alternate session. |
| 04:34:19.52 | Chandra Alexandre | Thank you. |
| 04:34:24.92 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. |
| 04:34:26.17 | Joan Cox | Yeah. |
| 04:34:26.28 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. |
| 04:34:26.69 | Joan Cox | with David Cooper. |
| 04:34:30.86 | Joan Cox | I don't know how other council members felt, but I've I, was torn between him and Mr. I loved it. grab him as an alternate if If the other council members felt the same. |
| 04:34:45.81 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah, I agree. When I was looking at the lineup for... sustainability, people that are, their terms are ending coming up soon. I think it looked like almost all of them were going to in 2021 at some point. their terms were going to come up. You never know if someone is going to I thought David was great, so I would say yes. the point he was alternate with the thought that he would take the next open seat that comes out. |
| 04:35:15.61 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Okay, great. So it sounds like we have a nomination for Mark Palmer for the regular seat and David Cooper for the alternate. |
| 04:35:26.71 | Joe Burns | I'll support if not second. I don't think we don't second those. |
| 04:35:30.48 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Yeah, I don't think we need to second it. Heidi, will you call |
| 04:35:32.97 | Heidi Scoble | all. |
| 04:35:33.38 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 04:35:34.26 | Heidi Scoble | Council member Hoffman. Councilmember Burns. |
| 04:35:38.07 | Joe Burns | Thank you. |
| 04:35:38.09 | Jean Gatza | Yes. |
| 04:35:38.69 | Heidi Scoble | Council member Cox. |
| 04:35:40.33 | Tom Ford | Thank you. |
| 04:35:40.37 | Jean Gatza | Yeah. |
| 04:35:40.53 | Tom Ford | Thank you. |
| 04:35:40.99 | Heidi Scoble | Vice mayor Withey. |
| 04:35:42.26 | Chandra Alexandre | Thank you. |
| 04:35:42.27 | Jill Hoffman | Yes. |
| 04:35:42.97 | Heidi Scoble | Mayor Cleveland Knowles. Thank you. |
| 04:35:45.33 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Yes. those appointments are confirmed. And then I have to say in my printed version, which is what I relied on, I did not see an report on the working group appointments for the objective design and development standards so Other council members have reviewed that. I will let you leave that discussion |
| 04:36:06.24 | Jean Gatza | for sending the mic. |
| 04:36:08.43 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | I do. |
| 04:36:09.39 | Jean Gatza | Thank you. |
| 04:36:10.74 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Okay. So I think we might just have been missing it on here. Let me, I'm just going on to Granicus to see if it was on here. |
| 04:36:19.19 | Joe Burns | Nothing on there. |
| 04:36:20.34 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | now. Great. All right. I was feeling like I missed something completely. So we will. not take that action and then do we need to take action on a resignation. Yes. Need to accept the resignation. |
| 04:36:38.74 | Joan Cox | Thank you. Good. I would appoint alternate member ward to assume the remainder of Commissioner Gutenberg's terms. |
| 04:36:46.96 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Yes, that sounds great. Okay, so on that exception of the resignation and appointment of the alternate, Mr. Ward, Heidi, could you call the roll? |
| 04:36:56.64 | Heidi Scoble | Thank you. Council member Hoffman? Yes. Council member Burns? Yes. Council member Cox? |
| 04:37:01.15 | Jean Gatza | Yeah. |
| 04:37:01.38 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 04:37:03.15 | Heidi Scoble | Thank you. Vice Mayor Withey. Yes. Mayor Cleveland Knowles. Bye. |
| 04:37:08.03 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Yes. So that resignation is accepted and that appointment is confirmed. |
| 04:37:12.96 | Joan Cox | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 04:37:13.40 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. |
| 04:37:13.43 | Joan Cox | And then there, the Correspondence from Rhonda Gutenberg. I do know that our park and rec director was ill. for some period of time. And But I would just like to have staff follow up on how that kind of missed communication occurred for that. You know, it's so important that we Um, support and encourage volunteers because they provide so much for our community. So I just want to make sure something of that nature doesn't rock through the cracks and that we circle with Ms. Schuttenberg. |
| 04:37:54.76 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Yes, I would support that. thought that staff follow up with her. um, So could I just ask our... Community Development Director, what happened with this working group? We don't have anything in our packet. |
| 04:38:20.81 | Lily Whalen | Thank you, Madam Mayor. So this item is just a request to appoint a council working group, an ad hoc, working group regarding the objectives design and development standards. And that's what the... |
| 04:38:33.88 | Unknown | that. |
| 04:38:34.15 | Jean Gatza | That's what the. |
| 04:38:34.89 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 04:38:35.19 | Lily Whalen | staff is working with the county on right now and we We do request a council working group so that we can work out a public engagement plan |
| 04:38:44.10 | Lily Whalen | Thank you. |
| 04:38:44.17 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | right now. |
| 04:38:44.49 | Lily Whalen | Thank you. |
| 04:38:46.03 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Thank you for jogging my memory. I remember we had talked about that. I know that both Councilmember Cox and I had worked on these objective design review Uh, issues and, uh, when we were on the Joan Cox's mayor's, blue ribbon committee. So I would just suggest, I think you need a meeting next this week or next week, is that correct? |
| 04:39:11.19 | Lily Whalen | That would be great if possible. |
| 04:39:11.54 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Oh, okay. So I would suggest that Joan and I form that committee just in the short term, take that one meeting, We can rejigger as needed. Is that okay with everyone? Anyone else wanna go to a meeting? Okay, great. Joan, you and I have that task. Thank you, Lily. Thank you very much. Thank you. |
| 04:39:33.34 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 04:39:33.38 | Heidi Scoble | Thank you, Lily. Thank you. |
| 04:39:36.48 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | said, Yeah, I know. know what that meant but I threw me for a loop because there wasn't anything in our packet all right Great, thank you all. Okay, so next on our agenda and last is future agenda items. So does anyone have future agenda items? Yes, Jen. |
| 04:39:59.75 | Joan Cox | Mayor, I see on our list council chamber media policy and it reminds me that Governor Newsom signed into law this year. an update to the Brown Act which actually governs how council members and other public officials communicate on social media. So I prepared an overview summary of that that I'm happy to share with our city attorney, but I recommend we add as a future agenda item, the update because we're not even allowed. Like if I see a comment that council member Burns makes, I cannot even do a thumbs up to his comment if it concerns a matter that we might undertake. at a future council meeting without that possibly violating the brown act if you know if we have one other council member involved so the rules have significantly changed and it is a trap for the unwary in these days of our newsletters and other social media. So I would like to kind of perhaps have that piggyback on this other Um, Yeah. I'm not sure what that's all about, but it's a I do think it's really important that we all understand our new obligations under this Brown Act revisions. |
| 04:41:19.54 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Great, thank you for bringing that up. The last training that I went to, there was no such policy and it was a source of confusion. So I'm glad there is at least some clear guidance on that at this point. but I can still like Joe's. guitar solos, right? |
| 04:41:36.99 | Joe Burns | hopefully those won't be on an agenda. I do have 38 items here. I'd like to add to future agenda items for next year. I'm not. |
| 04:41:46.32 | Jill Hoffman | If I just may, just as a point of clarification, I think where that agenda item came from, Joan, was if you remember, some, a meeting or two before we eventually didn't have in-person meetings. A gentleman decided to video very aggressively within the council chambers. And we were worried that we did not have a set of policies for having to deal with someone who wanted to videotape a council meeting and they were intruding in a threatening way on the space of the council plus speakers. That was the genesis of that agenda topic. |
| 04:42:32.67 | Lisa Davidson | Thank you. I remember that. |
| 04:42:33.97 | Joan Cox | now. |
| 04:42:34.26 | Lisa Davidson | Yeah. |
| 04:42:35.02 | Jill Hoffman | Right, which almost seems a moot point considering we're all Zooming, right? |
| 04:42:42.26 | Joan Cox | All right, so this would not piggyback on that, but I do recommend it as a separate I think it would be informative to the public to understand our new constraints in that regard as well. |
| 04:42:55.78 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Yeah. I think they're too. two separate issues, but yeah. Right. Thank you for adding that. |
| 04:42:58.96 | Joan Cox | Right. |
| 04:43:01.61 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Okay, just a reminder to anyone who might still be listening, our December meeting is usually not very substantive, but we will have the chance to that. Ready and show. So that would be nice. And with that, I think the meeting, the issues in front of us tonight are complete and we can adjourn. At least we made it before midnight. I'll take that small I know. I'll take that small consolation and wish everyone a good night. |
| 04:43:38.65 | Joe Burns | You even got a dinner in there for yourself. |
| 04:43:42.10 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Thank you, Ray. I appreciate that. I was on the run today. So much appreciated. |
| 04:43:46.43 | Jill Hoffman | No worries. All right. See you folks. Bye now. |
| 04:43:49.86 | Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Bye. |
Unknown — Against: Cited public health consensus on cannabis risks, especially for youth; referenced precautionary principle and opposed corporate cannabis model. ▶ 📄
Rachel Kay — Neutral: Criticized lack of transparency in council financial disclosures; highlighted Marin's substance abuse culture and alcohol as a gateway drug. ▶ 📄
Lori Dubin — Against: Urged council to slow down, conduct proper surveys and workshops; opposed retail due to public health risks and high-potency products targeting youth. ▶ 📄
Bridget Clark — Against: As a youth advocate, emphasized current mental health crisis; opposed storefront cannabis during pandemic, urged focus on public health. ▶ 📄
Tori Kropp — Against: Stressed easy access for teens; argued community leaders have responsibility to protect youth from cannabis risks. ▶ 📄
Sonia Hansen — In Favor: Argued cannabis is already accessible; regulation is safer, supports retail for revenue and visibility, dismissing opposition as outdated. ▶ 📄
Connor Johnston — In Favor: Cannabis business proponent argued regulation reduces teen access, prohibition has failed, and community supports retail for safety and control. ▶ 📄
Jasmine Garrity — Against: Resident opposed pot shop, requested inclusion in working group, suggested pharmacy instead, and criticized lack of community input. ▶ 📄