| Time | Speaker | Text |
|---|---|---|
| 00:00:02.66 | Heidi Scoble | Video streaming. The video is good. We're admitting all eight participants. Good evening, Mayor Hoffman and Councilmembers. This meeting is being held pursuant to section three of Executive Order N-29-20 issued by Governor Newsom on March 17th, 2020. And all members are joining this meeting telephonically through Zoom and is being broadcast live on the city's website and on cable tv channel 27. |
| 00:00:31.94 | Jill Hoffman | Good evening and welcome to the December 15th special city council meeting of the city council of Sausalito. Heidi, would you please call the roll? |
| 00:00:42.49 | Heidi Scoble | Councilmember Sobieski. here. |
| 00:00:44.40 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 00:00:45.17 | Heidi Scoble | Councilmember Blaustein. Yes. Councilmember Cleveland Knowles. |
| 00:00:50.40 | Raymond Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. |
| 00:00:51.63 | Heidi Scoble | Vice Mayor Kilman. |
| 00:00:53.05 | Raymond Cleveland Knowles | Sure. |
| 00:00:53.29 | Heidi Scoble | Thank you. and Mayor Hoffman. Here. All council members are present and we have a quorum. |
| 00:01:00.21 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. May we please have a motion for approval of the agenda for this evening? I make a motion to approve the agenda for this evening. I'll second. |
| 00:01:09.98 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 00:01:11.63 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:01:11.68 | Heidi Scoble | Bye. |
| 00:01:11.72 | Jill Hoffman | I'm not hiding. |
| 00:01:11.99 | Heidi Scoble | Could you take the role, please? Councilmember Sobieski? |
| 00:01:16.27 | Ian Sobieski | Yes. |
| 00:01:17.22 | Heidi Scoble | Council member Blaustein? Yes. Council member Cleveland Knowles? Vice Mayor Kelman? Yes. Mayor Hoffman. |
| 00:01:26.26 | Jill Hoffman | Yes. Thank you. motion passes And for this evening, for our special city council meeting, we have two, sorry, we have three items on the agenda. The first item up one a is COVID-19 a presentation from Max Corden, director of Marin recovers. Item one B. Sorry, as part of that, we will also discuss a potential relief for our business community. And that presentation will, I believe, be made by Julia Carter. And item 1B on our agenda is, will be a, the council will discuss a town hall, a potential town hall forum for January of 2021. So with that, Um, |
| 00:02:19.91 | Jill Hoffman | is that. |
| 00:02:19.97 | Heidi Scoble | Thank you. |
| 00:02:19.99 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:02:20.03 | Heidi Scoble | Yeah. |
| 00:02:20.09 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah. |
| 00:02:20.97 | Heidi Scoble | We have Max Corton available and he has been given the controls. |
| 00:02:21.09 | Jill Hoffman | We have |
| 00:02:25.07 | Jill Hoffman | Oh, very good. Welcome, Max. And you'll be doing our first presentation of this evening on our agenda. So welcome to Sausalito. Thank you for coming. |
| 00:02:32.82 | Max Corton | Thank you, Mayor Hoffman, and thank you so much, Councilmembers. My name is Max Corton, and my usual role is I'm the Director of Marin County Parks and Open Space, but since April of this year, I've been supporting our public health officer, Dr. Willis, additionally, to coordinate the Marin Recovers effort, which has been the effort to update our public health order and communicate with our business community and really appreciate your staff and then also the Chamber of Commerce and others who've been really helpful getting the word out and giving us really valuable input about the public health order and i will Share my screen. this presentation. Hopefully you all can see that. And so this is, similar to the presentation that Dr. Willis gave to the Board of Supervisors this morning. But just wanted to start with a brief update about our current data and then a little bit of an overview of the current public health order and a little bit about vaccinations and then also some support for businesses. So you can see here, this is our count of daily cases since March. And there was a surge in July. And really, thanks to the efforts of our entire community and our business partners, we were able to reduce cases significantly and move through the state's tiered system to what was the orange tier, which allowed many businesses to reopen. And then starting in November, cases started to go up again, and we've seen a really significant rise over the last few weeks. That's put us into the state's purple tier currently, and then into the current stay at home order, and I'll provide more information about that. The state's stay-at-home order really changes from the initial, just the tiered system, which looked at each county individually and looks more at the region and is based on the ICU capacity for the region. I'll get into that more, but wanted to give you a snapshot of our current hospitalizations and ICU capacity in Marin County. And so currently we have 26 in the hospital and 11 in ICU. And I think we're below that 15% capacity remaining in our ICUs here in Marin County. I think we're below 11% currently. And then this just shows sort of a graph of both the active cases, COVID positive hospitalized patients, and then ICU patients here on the same graph. And then this is looking at our, this is sort of one of the key indicators that the state uses for determining the tiers. And it's the number of cases per 100,000 residents. And there's an adjustment for testing, but this is the unadjusted numbers. And you can see how we dropped down into that red tier in September. And, or you can see, actually it's got both the adjusted, it is the light purple and then |
| 00:06:16.23 | Raymond Cleveland Knowles | Um, |
| 00:06:17.76 | Max Corton | the unadjusted is the darker purple. And And then we had a significant rise starting in November, and then it's really accelerated in December. And I think you can kind of see how Thanksgiving had a significant impact, it looks like, on the increase in cases. And one thing that I don't have a slide for, but that's significant to call out is that The initial surge of cases we saw over the summer really impacted our Latinx community, especially workers who are working in the service industry or in other essential services, and that this current surge is really more widespread, and the majority of the COVID-19 infections are people who identify as white or non-Latinx. And then this is just to look at, this is from the state's website. You can see that, I think it's over 99% of the state is in the purple tier. And you can see the metrics for Marin County there, but then the statewide metrics, the current ICU capacity remaining in the state is 6.5%. So it's obviously a pretty, you know, not a pretty serious time. And it's very challenging. And so the state issued the stay at home order, I think, I think, |
| 00:07:47.28 | Raymond Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. |
| 00:08:00.36 | Max Corton | a little over a week ago. and really was putting the counties into regions and then looking at the ICU capacity of each region. And when the ICU capacity dropped below 15%, then the county would go under the restrictions of the stay-at-home order. and this is just a look at where the capacity is for the different regions in the state. Those very low ones, Southern California, San Joaquin Valley, obviously in a super critical place. Sacramento is just under that 15% is under the state home order. And the Bay Area is at 15.8%. So just barely doesn't qualify under that stay at home order. But the Bay Area Public Health Officers from Bay Area counties got together, I guess a week ago last Friday, or a week earlier than last Friday, and chose to join the stay at home order early. And I think that's a really good question. And, um, I think what we were seeing was that transmission was accelerating really fast, that case rates had jumped much higher than they were not that long ago, and that what we'd seen in the past was that when we took aggressive action early, that we were able to significantly shorten the duration of the surge and also flatten that curve quite a bit. And that had been true earlier in the pandemic. And so I think the reason that the region made the decision to move into the stay at home order early was to try to get cases to improve more quickly and decrease the impact of the surge in the time. And so the state, what does that mean? You know, it means that gatherings outside of your household are prohibited. So the social bubbles that we were all beginning to enjoy are no longer allowed. And that really individuals are encouraged to stay home except as necessary for um you know critical tasks or critical important work or sorry essential critical uh work the um Critical infrastructure sectors are allowed to operate. Schools that had reopened are allowed to remain open. Um, uh, Faith-based gatherings are allowed outdoors with guidance. Retail is allowed indoors at 20% capacity, except for grocery, which is 35%. Thank you. Dining is takeout only, so no indoor or outdoor dining with seating. And then personal services are closed, so hair and nail salons, massage, others. But one of the things that Governor Newsom called out in his press conference week before last is how important outdoor recreation has been for our community to stay healthy and both mentally and physically. And so outdoor recreation is allowed and encouraged and is sort of, you know, one of the safer places for people to be. So more information is available on our website. I think, yeah, I've got another slide here. And I just, you know, want to provide a little more information about some of the support for small businesses. I'll come back to that contact information. There's sales tax support from the state and extension for deferring payment for small businesses. And then additionally, there's community development block grants. I think the county... had secured a little under $500,000 in grants for impacted very small businesses. And then also there's low interest loans for impacted small businesses. And of course the SBDC has been an important partner and resource for our local businesses. Thank you. Thank you. And I think this is some of the exciting positive news is that we have our first shipment of vaccines arriving or that have arrived and that our hospitals and skilled nursing facilities are getting the first doses. You know, there's some of the, those skilled nursing facilities have been the places where we've had the most deaths and have those infections have been brought by the workers. And so getting those workers vaccines will really help. hopefully help um alleviate that. And we're looking forward to getting more doses Thank you. and then anticipating that the general public can begin to see vaccines available potentially in March of 2021. And then let's see, just to go back to that, the website, the california.covid19.ca.gov has a ton of really great information. You can look up Marin County there and get a lot of information about both the data for Marin and then also what's open or not open. And then our Marin Recovers site has guidance for businesses, links to the state site in many cases. The coronavirus.mrinhhs.org has the public health order. And then, of course, there's a lot of data on that, our local data there on the HHS site. And with that, I will stop sharing, and I'm happy to answer any questions. |
| 00:14:39.00 | Raymond Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 00:14:39.15 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:14:43.61 | Jill Hoffman | Hi Max, thanks for coming. This is Jill. Thank you. I had a question on just a couple of the graphs. It's what you can tell, you know, from statistical analysis, you know, as best you can, right? But it looks, it looks like, is there some positive, you know, reaction to or positive effects from. the closure as of December 4th from the graphs on number two and number three, it looks like, there might be a trend sort of down. Is that, am I being overly optimistic or? |
| 00:15:18.82 | Max Corton | Yeah, I'm not totally sure, but Usually there's some of the testing data doesn't come in for sometimes for a few days and so sometimes it can look like we have the more recent days on the graph of cases can look. like there's a trend downward, but it can just be that there's a time lapse in terms of getting the data back about the testing that took place those days. So. It would be great if there was like a downward trend, but it could just be an artifact of that lapse in the time for the testing to come back to us. |
| 00:15:56.12 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. Is there any possibility that if there is a downward trend that we might be able to reopen before January 4th, or is that just too optimistic? Yeah, three weeks out and, you know, I understand the statistical model, the way it works is I think three weeks out. Right. So any people have asked me about this, so I, |
| 00:16:17.33 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:16:17.36 | Max Corton | Right. |
| 00:16:20.23 | Jill Hoffman | you know, any insight you can give us on that, I think it'd be good and helpful. |
| 00:16:23.91 | Max Corton | I mean, you know, I am sure that if there was a dramatic turnaround in the cases, that that would be something that Dr. Willis would consider of changing course. But, you know, I was on a call a few days ago and somebody was pointing out, you know, I mean, I think with Christmas holidays and other sort of holidays on the horizon and knowing that in the past holidays and holiday-based gathering has led to more infections. I think um it's it's unlikely that we're going to see a big drop in cases. I think we're hoping that it sort of flattens off and that we don't um our ICUs don't get more impacted than they already are but um And of course, you know, it's up to all of us to resist the urge to gather over the holidays and, you know, embrace some of these. obviously less ideal forms of connecting, like we're doing right now, but I, And, you know, hopefully we can get the number of cases to go down. |
| 00:17:32.20 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, thanks for coming tonight. Do any other city council members have any questions for Max at this point. Thank you. |
| 00:17:41.28 | Raymond Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. |
| 00:17:41.60 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:17:41.62 | Unknown | Yes. Thank you, Mayor Hoffman. Max, thank you so much for joining and for the county's you know, really hard work and good work on this. Does that does the county have a position on mask wearing? And what are you seeing? in Marin County in terms of individual towns taking action around masks. |
| 00:18:03.93 | Max Corton | Yeah, so the health order does require masks to be worn, you know, anytime that people are indoors. And then additionally, anytime that people are going to be within six feet of another person outdoors. And then of course for employees who are interacting with the public or each other, indoors or outdoors, are required to wear masks. And of course masks are encouraged even beyond that anytime people are out of the home and potentially coming into contact, carrying a mask and wearing them you know, besides even the, you know, the health impacts, I think one of the things that I've heard Dr. Willis say a number of times is that, you know, we're, I'm wearing my mask for you and you're wearing your mask for me. We're, it's something that we're doing for each other and for our community. And, you know, I feel like it's sort of become a sign of, you know, respect and part of our, you know, new adopted culture to wear a mask to keep each other safe. And so it's, I definitely recommended whenever folks are out of the house. only required in those situations. |
| 00:19:15.19 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, yes, Melissa, or Council Member Glaustein and then Council Member Sobieski, go ahead. |
| 00:19:22.03 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you, Mayor Hoffman, and thank you, Max, for taking the time to be with us and for the work that the county is doing. I'm gonna ask something that I had asked you at the MCC MC meeting, I'm wondering again if you have any news or feedback about state funding for our county specifically the block grants are a good start, but a lot of people are struggling and so are a lot of businesses and I know. the state actually has a surplus this year. I'm wondering if you had heard anything else or if there was any news on that front. |
| 00:19:51.46 | Max Corton | Yeah, and you know the only and certainly it's against I think I mentioned this before it's not sort of my area of expertise, but I sort of checked with our Community Development Agency managers is the ones who are managing the Community Development block grants and then with our County Administrator's Office following a previous conversation and really you know the three things they asked me to highlight were the ones that I brought to you in terms of being able for businesses to be able to defer sales tax payment, and then some of the loans, small business loans, and then the CDBG block grants. But yeah, other than that, I don't have anything else. |
| 00:20:32.82 | Unknown | Okay, thanks. Councilmember Sobieski? |
| 00:20:36.77 | Ian Sobieski | Council member Blaustein asked my question, but I'll ask another one that was on my mind. Max? The Sonoma West Times had an article on December 4th that talked about this ICU bed capacity issue. And they noted that it's kind of complicated to measure ICU bed capacity. That there's a distinction between fully staffed ICU beds and simply licensed ICU beds. So Sonoma County for instance has 77 licensed beds, but at any point in time, my staff, a smaller number. Do you know when you cited those remaining capacity statistics percentages, were those the licensed beds or the staffed licensed beds? |
| 00:21:16.54 | Max Corton | That's a great question. So, and the way I understand it is that the data that we report, we ask the hospitals, what's your remaining capacity? And that, you know, typically that's less related to the architectural space of the of the hospital itself, but more to the staff. And I think this is a unique health crisis in that it's affecting literally the entire world. And so we are not able to borrow staffing from elsewhere to support our hospitals. And so really that staffing has been, I think the limiting factor But I think the way that we get those statistics is asking the actual hospitals themselves what their capacity is. Thank you. |
| 00:22:06.44 | Jill Hoffman | So I had one final question for you, Max. What the decision-making Thank you. person or board is for Marin County. How does that work? for Marin County, it's Dr. Willis, and then for the state, or can you tell us just briefly that how that process works. |
| 00:22:27.25 | Max Corton | Yeah, for the county of Marin, our public health officer, Dr. Matt Willis, makes the decisions on our local public health order. But we're required, whatever is in the state's public health order that's, you know, developed by the California Department of Public Health, whatever those requirements are, we cannot be more lenient than those requirements. So Dr. Willis' purview really is anything that would go beyond what's required by the state. And, you know, initially the state didn't have any guidance or very little guidance. Nearly all of the public health order was what we had developed and a huge thanks to all of the businesses and local cities and towns who helped to create the early health order. Since then, we've pretty much deferred to the state except for this stay-at-home order that |
| 00:23:10.82 | Raymond Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. |
| 00:23:24.76 | Max Corton | the Bay Area Public Health officers joined slightly earlier than was required. |
| 00:23:30.95 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. Thank you. Do any other council members have any questions? Okay, seeing none, we'll move on then to public comment on this item on the agenda. Do we have any public comment? |
| 00:23:46.90 | Heidi Scoble | Mayor Hoffman, before we start accepting public comment, would it be possible if I provided a brief introduction on how public comment is received? |
| 00:23:53.78 | Jill Hoffman | Yes, thank you. |
| 00:23:55.06 | Heidi Scoble | Thank you. At this time, members of the public may address the city council regarding this presentation by Max Corden. 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 the phone, press star nine. Each speaker will be notified when the time has elapsed. |
| 00:24:22.81 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. And to be clear, we're taking public comment on the county's presentation that Max just gave. When we do the business license update, we'll do more public comment on that item as well. So I see two people. I see one person with her hand raised, Sandra Bushmaker. |
| 00:24:46.31 | Sandra Bushmaker | I'm getting there. Good evening, everybody. I just wanted to ask Max if he had any comments that would be specific to Sausalito with regard to tourists. The fact that we get so many people coming into town from out of town and what his recommendations would be for a town like us dealing with the influx of out of towners. |
| 00:25:17.06 | Max Corton | Okay. So would you like me to respond to it? I think, yeah, I mean, you know, one of the, you know, important things I think for this crisis specifically, and especially in where we have a lot of visitors, is having clear messaging region-wide, you know, whether it's from the state or from the Bay Area counties working together so that As people come into our county potentially from out of the area, Um, There's consistent practices and messaging around safety, wearing masks, expectations about physical distancing and other things like that. But additionally, currently under the stay at home order, there should not be non-essential travel happening. Hotels and short-term rentals are only allowed currently for either essential work or for housing people who would otherwise be homeless or people who need to quarantine for COVID-19. According to the order, there shouldn't be out of the area travel. |
| 00:26:33.54 | Jill Hoffman | Okay. Thank you, Max. Okay. See, no further public comment. I'm going to close public comment, and I'm going to ask if any council members want to provide any comments at this point. Yes, Susan, or Councilmember Cleveland Knowles. |
| 00:26:52.98 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | yeah thanks uh max for being here tonight and um I know the stay at home order was extremely hard, but I feel like we're back in March. And I really want to say thank the Bay Area counties for, again, coming together. and acting in unison and with a mostly single voice on this issue. given that our ICU capacity in Marin County is below the threshold I think While it was very difficult for our businesses that your quick action is helpful and your clear communication on mask wearing and on the order has been very impactful. So, um, I know there was just a lot of concern about this around the holidays and the impact on our local businesses, but given The fact that Thanksgiving, people just did not refrain from gathering. I think we're now unfortunately paying that price. I also just wanted to note for the public that Senator McGuire is holding a town hall on Thursday with himself, Dr. Willis and some leading experts from the state and academia and that's at 6.30 on the 17th over Zoom. So I think that'll also be a really informative and then just to the comments on tourism, I think we were all very worried about And Max, you were very helpful with our strategy around tourism in Sausalito. But kind of over time, we really have not seen the per 100,000 the case rate in Sausalito really be much higher than elsewhere. in Marin and I think overall, our efforts and the county's efforts at really looking at mask wearing compliance downtown especially. has really paid off. I've been down there a lot. before that order, especially doing my holiday shopping and, um, note mostly. very high compliance. And especially now that there's not as much outdoor dining, you know, it's pretty good. And I think our... our case rates are or manageable, or at least the last time I looked, I didn't look today. But anyway, just some comments, and thank you for being here. Thank you. |
| 00:29:25.78 | Jill Hoffman | Any other council member have any comments on this item? Thank you very much, Max. Thank you, Councilmember Cleveland Knowles, for those excellent comments. And we'll close this item. Really, thank you very much, Max, for coming. Appreciate it. Close this item and move on to our next item. |
| 00:29:36.56 | Raymond Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. |
| 00:29:46.65 | Jill Hoffman | So thank you. Okay, we're moving on to our next item on our agenda, which is item B, 1B, business license. update. And I think that presentation looks like it's going to be with Yulia Carter. Thank you, Julio. |
| 00:30:06.89 | Jill Hoffman | and you can start your presentation whenever you're ready. Absolutely. |
| 00:30:11.53 | Yulia Carter | Thank you. Pull it up. |
| 00:30:20.94 | Yulia Carter | Do you see my screen? |
| 00:30:22.82 | Jill Hoffman | Yes. Okay. |
| 00:30:24.15 | Yulia Carter | Thank you. |
| 00:30:25.18 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:30:25.20 | Yulia Carter | Madam Mayor and the City Council, I'm Yulia Cardo, your Assistant City Manager and Administrative Services Director. in light of the previous presentation, And as this difficult year is coming to an end, Happy to share a piece of good news with our business community today. The item before you tonight is a proposal for business license relief program. |
| 00:30:50.61 | Yulia Carter | The recommendation that is before you tonight is to adopt a motion to provide business license tax relief program as an economic package. to the city. of socially the business community severely affected by the pandemic. With the input from HDL, our business license provider, staff recommends basing the eligibility criteria on the gross receipts. And we apply the threshold of 200,000 in gross revenues, and this is about would cover about 50% of small businesses. Oh, actually all businesses, I'm sorry, in the small business category. So all business All active businesses are operating with the city limits with the gross receipts under 200,000, would be eligible to participate in the program. the 60 days grace period of filing And the, they will be able to file without penalties. The City Council may also choose to will consider offering a one-time waiver. of minimum tax registration of $125. to allow businesses pay just on the gross receipts. In other words, if the business reported 100,000 in gross revenues, they will have to pay $100 in business license tax, not $125. |
| 00:32:15.36 | Yulia Carter | We already discussed the staff recommendation that is before you today. So on this slide, you can see the fiscal impact. Again, the policy or the program recommendation is also before you here. And you can see that if you choose to, adopt this program as presented to you in the staff report, the fiscal impact, um, will be. uh, A hundred and $2,000 of deferral of the business license tax and about 33,000 decrease in the business license tax revenues. As a side note, we just wanted to point out that based on the most recent projections from HDL. the estimated decrease in business license tax will vary between 20 and 40%. And that's what I'm saying. just again as a note here, you can see it on the slide, for the budget, we included 26% reduction of this revenue. So that translates in about 400,000 less revenues compared to the year before. so regardless of uh action council is going to uh to peak assuming that the council will adopt the the program. We do believe that it will provide the much needed relief to facilitate the business community and will help stimulate the local And we also put together other policy options for you, for your considerations. So as alternative, the council may choose to offer 60 or 90 days file an extension to all social media businesses, not limited and just to business, small business category. And the other option would be, not to offer the one-time waiver of registration tax of 125 dollars And again, we believe that the adoption of the program in any variation, provide very needed impact or relief on the business community. and wheel. help facilitate recovery of local economy. But we also want to point out that there are some hidden impacts on the city operations, and we want to be mindful to some of the financial best practices for municipal financial management and we want to ensure that we minimize the cash flow impact on the city operations. So, on the next three slides, we prepared the cash flow analysis for the remainder of the fiscal year. and we wanted to share it with you. here. So this analysis right here shows our projected cash flow under the staff recommendation option. Please keep in mind that we only included operating revenues and expenditures that affect cash and cash balances. So this analysis does not include transfers in and out between funds. So, This is just the projected. estimate based on our budget assumptions and the numbers obviously can go up or down slightly based on the new information that may become available. Now, I want to bring your attention to the second line. It says property tax revenues. And you can see that property taxes are largest revenue source and revenue category. and it comes to us in two installments. one in December and another one in April. And you can see. how this incoming cash fluctuates because of that. So on the other hand, the expenditures are fairly stable. And you can see it here for the purpose of this analysis, we projected our payroll and accounts payable on a monthly basis. it averages about 1.5 million You can see it in the middle of your slide. And this brings us to the net. revenue over expenditures. And that's the... middle line in the middle of the of your table right here. And you can see that's In the month of February and March, we started getting problems with the cash flow. And those months become problematic to us until we get the second installment of the property tax. And the... In light of this analysis, I also want to highlight that the Government Finance Officers Association of United States and Canada. also known as JFOA. provides best practice recommendation to government entities to have no less than 90 days of operating cash reserves. And again, for the purpose of this analysis, we calculated what this figure would be for the state of Susceladine. You can see it here. a little bit on this for, um, four and a half million dollars. It's on your slide. And Again, the highlighted area, you can see circle right here in March. V-R- showing that our cash is going negative in the month. So what it means, we will most likely have to move cash from our investment portfolio. |
| 00:37:36.98 | Yulia Carter | And the next slide just shows what is going to happen if we were to offer 60-day relief programs. an extension for all businesses, not just limited to the small businesses. And you can see again at the bottom of the slide, highlighted the whole circle, the numbers. demonstrate that We will. again, have some of the challenges in the month of February and March and our problem. cash flow issue will amplify under this category and becomes even worth and last case scenario that we presented for you, if we were to offer 90 days, file an extension. You can see the cash flow is going up to 1.5 million under this scenario. So again, this is just a consideration for you. We do believe that the program. will provide much need of relief to all city businesses and I'm happy to answer any questions. |
| 00:38:45.66 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Jill, I have a question. |
| 00:38:46.97 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, great. Go ahead, council member Blastham. |
| 00:38:47.57 | Raymond Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. |
| 00:38:56.98 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:38:57.03 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 00:38:57.07 | Jill Hoffman | It was actually |
| 00:38:57.71 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 00:38:57.72 | Jill Hoffman | Cezanne. Oh, I'm sorry, Susan. I saw Melissa's hand up and I heard a voice. Sorry. My apologies. Go ahead. No, go ahead, Melissa. It's fine. |
| 00:39:03.06 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 00:39:03.09 | Melissa Blaustein | My apologies. |
| 00:39:03.56 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 00:39:03.68 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 00:39:06.95 | Melissa Blaustein | I have several questions so I can dive in. The first one that I really want to understand is where you came up with the $200,000 threshold for demonstrating small business. My big concern here is mainly that the businesses we've seen that have been most impacted by the COVID-19 has obviously been restaurants and most of the local restaurants in town make more than that on average and you would have just for gross revenue. I'm wondering where that number came from. And then the second question is in the staff report we had seen a potential for a payment plan and I didn't see that in the staff options here. whether you had removed that for some reason or if that was still an option on the table because one of the business owners I spoke with today was interested in that. |
| 00:39:51.62 | Unknown | as well. |
| 00:39:51.98 | Yulia Carter | Thank you. |
| 00:39:51.99 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:39:52.01 | Yulia Carter | Thank you. So let me try to answer the first question first. We worked with HDL, our service provider, to identify what would be the sweet spot number that would cover most of the businesses. And that number came from the recommendation. So if you. remember on one of the slides, Um, under the staff recommendation, showed your fiscal impact and the number of businesses Potentially. that's what we're going to do. those businesses who could take advantage of this program be close to 574. businesses. So that's about half of our businesses located in the city. So that's where it came from. And the second question was, Remind me. |
| 00:40:42.97 | Melissa Blaustein | water course. It was about the payment plan, because the payment plan was suggested in the staff report and it wasn't on the slides, |
| 00:40:45.67 | Yulia Carter | the payment plan was suggested. Yeah. The reason why we didn't include the staff recommendation, and I believe in the staff report, we also included the staff not recommended option, because it will be very costly and administratively difficult to to process, so that's something that HDL would have to additional costs to the city. |
| 00:41:11.68 | Melissa Blaustein | And what technology, remind me, do we use to process or to collect business licenses? And would there be a way to fast track that or to implement it in an easier fashion using just the technology we have now? |
| 00:41:24.45 | Yulia Carter | Well, the HDL is collecting all the payments for us. So they're using their own portal and their own administrative, whatever software they're using to process it. |
| 00:41:37.70 | Yulia Carter | Again, all of this option set possible is just not recommended by staff because it will create a little bit more administrative Um, Burn. |
| 00:41:50.12 | Raymond Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. |
| 00:41:50.14 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:41:50.17 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 00:41:50.20 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. Any, unless any follow-up? Thank you. |
| 00:41:53.83 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 00:41:53.93 | Jill Hoffman | was. |
| 00:41:54.15 | Melissa Blaustein | She's not going to get up again. |
| 00:41:54.19 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | She's not around. |
| 00:41:55.55 | Melissa Blaustein | Yeah, go ahead, go to Councilmember Cleveland. |
| 00:41:57.63 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. I had a similar question. I mean, in the staff report, Yulia, I was very sensitive to the cost to staff time and to HDL. But if we just had some simple options, Like, you know, just like you can donate to organizations by paying a monthly credit card bill that you could pay your business license tax in 12 installments. you know, can just choose that option and you just pay every month i'm not sure I don't know enough about exactly how it works, as Melissa was just saying, but... not necessarily a payment plan that varies from business to business, but an option. It would be a cookie cutter option that would spread the pain out over A series of months, maybe with an initial deferral, such as you have a 60 day deferral and then you pay the remaining 10 months you pay. an installment that gets you to the final figure by the end. The other option I wanted to ask you about is, you know, it seems like we really haven't done enough outreach. to our business community to see I mean, we can guess at the types of businesses that have been heavily impacted, but for others, we don't really know. So one other idea I wanted to explore with you is whether we could allow, you know, have an incentive. program so that people who are able to pay fully in January, get some discount off their business license tax, which would really help front load probably some of our biggest businesses to help with our cash flow situation and then allow the other businesses that might be having resource issues select into something like the payment plan. So we could kind of work in two ways to help businesses self-select. It seems like we don't have time to kind of figure out exactly where the cutoff is, as Council Member Bostein noted earlier. I guess a third option that I just wanted to throw out there is some kind of a 30-day or 60-day deferral. followed by a hearing at the EDAC to collect more information. from our local businesses and to kind of fine tune this a little bit more. So I don't know if you have reactions to any of those ideas or if they're unworkable from a practical standpoint. |
| 00:44:42.06 | Yulia Carter | Well, there were quite a few new options here, and we can definitely brainstorm it with the HDL and explore some ideas of the payment plan. also estimate what the administrative burden would be and how we can minimize it. the 60-day deferral is your option number two right now. So that's something that we already just presented to you as an option. what One thing that HTL shared with us that they recommend to apply whatever terms we decide to apply apply it based on either gross receipts or extend it to all businesses and not going to the the destruction, potential destruction of the business base. the tax base for the business license tax. So that's... But again, back to the payment plan, we can definitely go back to HDL and explore further. |
| 00:45:42.96 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | And what about the idea of marrying the 60-day extension with an incentive for paying? in January. |
| 00:45:51.79 | Yulia Carter | I would have to check with legal and HDL again on the implications here. |
| 00:46:05.59 | Jill Hoffman | Any other questions? Go ahead, Councilor, Vice Mayor. |
| 00:46:10.01 | Unknown | I'll go. |
| 00:46:13.89 | Unknown | Yulia, can you just for members of the public, just clarify the staff's recommendation includes both the deferral under 60 days and the one-time waiver of the registration tax of 125. Is that accurate? |
| 00:46:30.60 | Yulia Carter | Yes, plus the deferral will only apply to small businesses. |
| 00:46:35.49 | Unknown | Okay. |
| 00:46:35.86 | Yulia Carter | And did you run? |
| 00:46:36.99 | Unknown | I'm sorry, sorry, go ahead. |
| 00:46:38.70 | Yulia Carter | And the second option or other policy option would include offering this program to all businesses. But again, the second option would create some cash flow challenges for the city. |
| 00:46:45.16 | Unknown | again. |
| 00:46:49.87 | Unknown | Right. And did you, I guess it's You called it out here for us. OK, you also mentioned that there would be the need looks like under all scenarios to move cash from our investment portfolio Can you speak to that a bit more? Where would you pull from? What would be the terms? Is there a penalty involved with that? Any other details? |
| 00:47:11.22 | Yulia Carter | Thank you. |
| 00:47:12.03 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:47:12.06 | Yulia Carter | Sure. So the, The city's biggest portfolio is set with LEAF, that's a state Thank you. that we participate in, there is no penalties to pool money. out of this account, the challenges will be I'm not going to get earnings, obviously, if you pull the cash. out, but that's something as an option that's available to us. And to be honest, we, we, you're counting on doing it anyway at some point this fiscal year so you may remember the did project 4.3 million deficit in our uh, structural deficit as our base budget. So... the cash would have to come from somewhere. So if we're short on the revenues, we have to supplement it with Some. I guess investment, that's the way to handle it. Thank you. |
| 00:48:06.94 | Ian Sobieski | Julia, just following up on Vice Mayor's question. uh, We're talking about a cash flow issue, but just to confirm in the tables that you showed. the staff's recommendation. shows that the minimum cash on hand, the current assets not tapping our investment portfolio, would be in March and it would be $4.03 million. So it's not that we don't have cash on hand, rather it's we're below the $4.48 million thresholds which have known the days of reserves that we generally maintain in normal times. to stay compliant with the G F-O-A. standard for good government. and just emphasize and tell me if I'm wrong, The staff's recommendation is that we still have $4.03 million on hand if we implemented staff recommendation. Instead we did the 60 day deferral only comes off. we would have more cash on hand, minimum cash on hand, minimum cash on hand, that we'd ever have is $4.13 million. And, uh, in the 90-day deferment scenario, we would drop down still to 3.2. $6 million on hand. we would not necessarily have to tap any of our investment reserves if instead, investment accounts, if instead we I simply chose for one or two months. to dip below minimum that we've been maintaining as a standard practice of good government in normal times. Is this all correct? |
| 00:49:48.66 | Yulia Carter | Well, yes, it is correct that the assessment of the table that was presented before you, I just want to point out as the I can know that recommend to go against the GFOA recommendation for the cash flow reserves. but it becomes a policy and value question for you to decide. Yes, your assessment was absolutely right. have two or a couple of problematic months potentially with the city, and then it will Eventually we'll get this additional cache distribution from the property tax, so the cache will go up and then we will it will go down again. So. In short, your assessment is correct. and the cache fluctuates from time to time. And as you can see already, revenues are cyclical in nature, so we can project it in an easy way. when we receive the So... installments like property types of biggest revenues for example |
| 00:50:50.74 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. One follow-up question. All these projections are the worst case scenario from the terms of the impact on the city's cash flow. It assumes that 100% of the businesses that have the chance to defer their payments will do so. even though we know that some will just pay their bills on time. They've received their bills already. For instance, I've already paid $125. others will as well, correct? So it will be not for sure. |
| 00:51:20.04 | Yulia Carter | you |
| 00:51:20.31 | Ian Sobieski | This is the 100% case. win. |
| 00:51:24.53 | Yulia Carter | Right, that's your worst case scenario. That's assuming that every single business will take advantage of this program in this terms. |
| 00:51:37.52 | Jill Hoffman | So, and to be clear, we're not saying that we're we're forgiving or we're not going to collect. It's just a deferment of the payment that's due on January 31st. That's correct. |
| 00:51:53.91 | Raymond Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. |
| 00:51:54.03 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 00:51:54.09 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:51:54.24 | Raymond Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. |
| 00:51:54.63 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:51:54.70 | Melissa Blaustein | So, oh, sorry, cancel me. |
| 00:51:54.80 | Jill Hoffman | I don't know. Sorry. |
| 00:51:56.98 | Unknown | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 00:51:57.53 | Melissa Blaustein | I just don't see any assessment in this staff report on the risk of revenue if businesses fail. So in the long-term projections, what if a business can't make a payment and that's their bottom line, and then we lose the businesses? Do we have any sort of analysis of what long-term loss of businesses overall will look like? relative to the deferment or could we possibly get that from HDL? |
| 00:52:24.77 | Yulia Carter | I want to remind that our business license tax is based on the gross receipts, gross revenues. So if the city, if the business is not doing that well and, uh, collected much less revenues, so the tax that is due will be much less. So the whole system is like COVID provides a relief naturally on its own. And the V you will see that that's why we included this reduction in the budget revenues for for business license tax. HDL, most recent numbers I've seen, and again, this is kind of general statement for most California cities. between 20 and 40 percent reduction. I'm not sure. for the budget, we included 26% reduction. So that's about 400,000. That's what we put as assumption. And back to your question. |
| 00:53:19.65 | Raymond Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. |
| 00:53:19.77 | Yulia Carter | well, the tax will reflect all the changes in revenues and earnings. |
| 00:53:19.82 | Raymond Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. |
| 00:53:33.05 | Jill Hoffman | Okay. Any other questions of Yulia at this point? From the council. Okay. Then I'm going to open this up to public comment at this time. I see two people with their virtual hands raised. The first one up is Julie Vieira from the Sausalito Chamber of Commerce, and the second one is Joan Cox. |
| 00:54:00.35 | Jill Hoffman | More okay, I see more hands being raised to you, but the first step then is going to be Julie Vieira and Joan Cox |
| 00:54:08.87 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Good evening, everybody. |
| 00:54:10.24 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:54:10.27 | Unknown | Can you hear me? |
| 00:54:10.75 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:54:10.81 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:54:11.59 | Jill Hoffman | Yes. |
| 00:54:12.38 | Unknown | Okay. I just want to, on behalf of the Chamber of Commerce, we did send in a letter late mail this evening. asking that the city council take into consideration that just because your gross receipts are under 200,000 does not mean that your business has been non affected by COVID. I think every business in Sausalito no matter what their gross receipts. has been infected in one way or another. And we don't know what other constraints they may have on them. So, if you could just give businesses a 60 day extension now. so that that takes the weight off of them. and then give Yulia time to find out if we can do a payment plan, if we can, you know, give them a percentage off if they make their payment right away. and do some more research. But at least now through the holidays, give them the 60 day extension with no penalties and then come back in January with some other recommendations that we might be able to do. every business that I have talked to. They have been affected in one way or another. Many business owners are not taking a salary. They stopped taking salaries in order to pay their staff. So. Just because they may have made $100,000 means that they might not be taking a salary out of that 100,000 this time just to pay their staff and to keep things afloat. So I think we need to consider all businesses and not make it paper. overload for them to apply just to get the extension. So I would recommend and hope that the city council will consider all businesses within Sausalito. Thank you. Next up is Joan. Joan Cox. |
| 00:56:15.17 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:56:17.78 | Unknown | No. |
| 00:56:18.03 | Joan Cox | Hello. us. This is so odd. I have to learn how to raise my hand. Welcome. I just thank you so much. I, you know, I served on the finance committee and helped to draft the business license tax program. So I just wanted to make a couple of notes. One is. For a business earning $200,000, if it's general retail, wholesale, restaurants, hotels, tour operators, we're talking about a $200 business license tax bill. So that's not, I mean, I know everybody's hurting. That's not a huge bill. So the cost to the city of administering a payment plan for $200 might be putting form over substance. So just something to consider. Um, and then the other thing is. our reserves are critical for many reasons. Two years ago we had four landslides. And had we not had the significant reserves that we do, we would not have been as easily able to traverse the emergency measures that we needed to undertake to address those landslides. Last year, We had a pandemic or this year. We're suffering a pandemic. Again, we would not have had the financial wherewithal to address the issues arising from the pandemic had we not had such healthy reserves. So I just think it's important to balance the needs of our business community with the needs of the city's ability to continue to remain viable to maintain essential services and to address unknown issues that could arise and that have arisen significantly in the last two years. But thanks, I think it's an amazing concept. I think it's a great way to offer some relief to the businesses most impacted. But I just think we have to be careful to administer it appropriately. Thank you. |
| 00:58:25.27 | Jill Hoffman | you Next up on my list, I have Chris Gallagher and Joe Caldwell. And then after that, Wendy Richards. |
| 00:58:38.94 | Chris Gallagher | Okay. Can you hear me? Yes. Oh, you can see me too. Okay. So I'm wearing my Chamber of Commerce hat tonight as the Chair of the Board. and I wanna endorse everything that Julie just said, I just can't say enough about the need for the council to be as flexible as possible. This shutdown coming at Christmas time can't be the worst time possible. And I think about these businesses, especially our restaurants that have all these service workers that are working for them that are not, you know, they don't have reserves at their own. ready. And so The businesses are really trying to help them and stay afloat and keep their business their families going. And I just think, you know, the council member, Blaustein's point. You know, you know, allowing somebody a little leeway for a few, you know, a couple months. I think that's much better than losing the business totally. I can endorse And more to be as flexible as possible to give these people a break. it's it just breaks my heart to see all these places shut down and not being able to do their regular work. These people aren't trying to get out of anything. You'll get your money eventually. We at the Chamber have worked with everybody on a payment plan. So it's possible. And I think it just would be a huge gesture of goodwill. if the city council would do this. That's it. |
| 01:00:23.43 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. Next up I have Joe Caldwell and then Wendy Richards, and that's the last hand I see up. So, Mr. Caldwell. |
| 01:00:33.39 | Joe Caldwell | Thank you very much. My heart really goes out to all the businesses. that have suffered under COVID-19 Um, The current business license tax is based on Measure M. which was a voter initiative in 2018. Um, I was very surprised when, My business license tax increased 500%. as a result of Measure M. So, I did a little research. And I agree. I copied the the data. or the VOTER INFORMATION PACKET that was distributed distributed to the public. to RATIONALIZE MEASURE M. and As I said, I'm a professional financial analyst So. I did an analysis of the data that was presented to the public And so I was surprised to find out that the data does not support the, um, punishment of professional services. So I'd like to ask that the council find some way where there's more than three minutes to actually look THE END OF measure the data that was presented and discover whether or not is really valid to the to punish the professionals under measure m |
| 01:02:16.73 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you, Mr. Cobble. Are you finished? |
| 01:02:22.32 | Raymond Cleveland Knowles | Yes. |
| 01:02:22.97 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, thank you. Thank you very much. Very good. I have Wendy Richards and then Lorna Newlin. Welcome. |
| 01:02:37.35 | Jill Hoffman | Go ahead, Wendy. |
| 01:02:39.88 | Wendy Richards | Thank you very much. Very pleased to hear the previous speaker, Mr. Caldwell. Thank you. I have been an opponent of Measure M from the very beginning. The materials that were distributed to the homes were what we would now call fake news. And I strongly urge you to follow up on the suggestion of Mr. Caldwell. And I strongly urge that we use these 60, 90 days, whatever days that we can take and give to our businesses to revamp the business license tax. It is punishing professional services It is a 3% tax on Turnover. not 1%, and it trebled with measure M. That's our dentist, that's our financial people, that is all sorts of people. So number one, Bring it in line so our professional services are not carrying all the weight. Number two, home-based businesses were caught up in the net. That was nowhere presented to any of the voters. home-based businesses. In the staff report today, it says that this licensed tech recognizes, and I quote, the link between city services and infrastructure and the use of these by local businesses. As home-based businesses, we get no additional anything for our taxes. And yes, $200 matters. $300 matters. That's the difference between a Zoom professional account or not. $500, that's the difference between getting a professional account on LinkedIn for people to go find new business. The money does matter. And we're talking in the last time this came up, one of your reports showed that of the 708 businesses in zone 99, which is the all other zone, The total tax collected barely pays the city manager's salary. Now why should businesses not be able to pay themselves? Bosses, as was said earlier, cannot pay their salaries to pay their wages. so that they can be paying the city first before they get paid, before they pay themselves And. Another point. No, we don't need to check whether people should or shouldn't apply and get approved. No, we don't need staff time. Either make it a blanket deferral. whatever category and don't waste time having to prove one thing or another. It's a waste of energy by the city and These are important dollars to very small businesses and they don't add up to a lot for the city. Um, |
| 01:05:25.39 | Wendy Richards | One other thing that many of you may not understand is that in the business license tax in the earlier changes that were made, the businesses pay for HDL. There was a move to quote outsource services, but the quote outsourcing basically made this business pay. So it's the only tax I know where the business- |
| 01:05:43.03 | Heidi Scoble | Time has elapsed. |
| 01:05:43.97 | Wendy Richards | Pays for the collection. Thank you very much. |
| 01:05:47.08 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. Thank you. Ms. Newland, you're next. Thank you. |
| 01:05:55.09 | Jill Hoffman | Welcome. You're mute still on. |
| 01:06:07.95 | Lorna Newland | Thank you, Claire. |
| 01:06:13.20 | Jill Hoffman | Nope. Can staff, there you go. |
| 01:06:19.97 | Lorna Newland | I'll move the cursor. Um, Lorna Newland, my business is Sauce League of Pottery. Uh, thank you, Yulia, for your, um, It's very interesting to see all those numbers because I do have a financial background, I've been a treasurer CFO of nonprofits. Anyway, I have paid property tax for 27 years in Sausalito. I've had a business for 18 years and for about 15 years, I have been a tenant at MLK. And I do appreciate and I thank the city of Sausalito of giving us rent relief for right now. But, Everybody needs to understand it's a relief. It's not. um forgivable, as far as I know, I will, we will all have to pay this in installments going forward. And I, so I'm sorry, I'm getting a little over-cut over this, but It's hard. Many of us who are self-employed, I've just been financing myself. I've had no grants. I've had no loans. Nothing has been offered. but I still pay my own way. And I do understand the business license is not huge. The chamber of commerce, um, Membership is not huge, but it all adds up. And I think the message I want to send to the city and, anybody listening is most of us artists, restaurants have donated to every nonprofit. I've donated to every nonprofit in town, church, schools, and, We would like you to shop locally. You know, you've got the richest person in the world is Amazon. And I see those Amazon trucks going all the time. I went downtown today with my husband and, It's a ghost town. And whether people like tourism or not, We depend on it. I do most of my business actually out of area, out of state, but my my chief manufacturing is here at my studio. Um, I love Sausalito. I will continue with this. But- We need to get the word out. First of all, you can socially distance. I would be happy to FaceTime anybody if they want to come to the studio. You can make appointments to any of these businesses in town that you might want to support. And just to please think about that. I think the restaurants, when I was out of town, I was buying gift certificates for the person watching my home. You know, there are, I think the restaurants, yes, they're impacted and they're our biggest, some of our biggest revenues, but there are a lot, a lot of small businesses now And, you know, you see everything shut down. And anyway, I could go on for this, but for my last 10 seconds, I would like to thank Adam Pollitzer. for his services city manager and And he came in after I started at MLK. So I've been here 15 years and he came in after that. But anyway, thank you all for listening. |
| 01:09:28.66 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. Okay, that's the last hand that I see up on for public comment. And so I'm going to close public comment and bring it back to the city council for our discussion. and possible motions. So. Would anybody like to, I actually, you know what I do? I'm sorry. I have one, Ian, I see your hand up, but let me ask one follow-up question for Yilia. I'm sorry. Julia, on the Slides that you did for cash flow projections. Are all of those slides, do they all just pertain to the staff recommendation of businesses of $200,000 or less. |
| 01:10:12.20 | Yulia Carter | No, the first slide shows the staff recommendation. And the second and third would be applicable to all businesses. |
| 01:10:16.62 | Jill Hoffman | and the |
| 01:10:20.67 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, thanks very much. |
| 01:10:21.02 | Yulia Carter | Thanks very much. Between second and third is deferral of 60 days versus 90 days. |
| 01:10:26.27 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, very good. Thank you for that clarification. I appreciate it. Council member Sobieski, I see you had your hand |
| 01:10:31.84 | Ian Sobieski | Yeah, thanks a lot, Mayor. I just wanted to... |
| 01:10:33.11 | Jill Hoffman | Sure. |
| 01:10:34.95 | Ian Sobieski | I really commend you and Vice Mayor for pulling this special meeting together. We weren't supposed to meet again until 2021. It's great to be here responding to the What none of us planned for, which is the second, third COVID spike and the resulting shutdown order that really is a sucker pledge. to many of our local businesses. It's true that some businesses are actually doing just fine. Maybe even very well. Zoom is. in this current environment. But we all know that restaurants are shut down for outdoor and indoor dining. Personal care services are altogether shut down. And everyone, many of our retail businesses are impacted and many others are. And it would be very hard to pick winners and losers among among that with anything but a substantial administrative effort. I really want to commend you for pulling this meeting together to try to respond in some way. We can't solve all the problems. The city itself. has a serious budget problem. We have to be very mindful of our own obligations. But at the same time, If we could find a way to make a gesture that's meaningful, that doesn't cost the city anything, It seems like the neighborly thing to do. And the staff report covers some of those ideas. To my mind, the criteria for the best one is one that has the following standard. has doesn't cost the city. almost anything or anything at all would be ideal. and it minimizes the amount of effort that we impose on our staff to administer. And it also minimizes the effort and perhaps has no effort for businesses to take advantage of. And to my mind, all those criteria are in the second and third cases that you'll yet propose. That's the simple case of not enforcing the penalty. on business license tax that's due in January. these businesses can decide for themselves whether they're pay their bill on time in this low interest rate environment. Any business that's cash flow rich I can the bill off their desk. and send in their payment. So I don't think all businesses will take advantage of it. But in a time when many business owners are feeling disempowered having the choice about whether to send in their tax I think will give them a little bit of sense of an in-powerment. and potentially make a big difference in their cash flow. As Yulia pointed out in her excellent summary of the cash flow impact um, We are not scraping the bottom of the barrel. We are simply in her proposal actually having $4 million cash on hand at the lowest point if every single business deferred their tax payments. in the 60 day proposal, we would still have $4.13 million. In the 90-day proposal, that would indeed drop to $3.26 million. So, It's really a question for us, I think, and that's only for one month. I think Joan Cox's comments were spot on. We have to be very careful with our reserves. |
| 01:13:40.54 | Raymond Cleveland Knowles | But. |
| 01:13:40.62 | Ian Sobieski | but allowing our reserves to $4.1 million cash on hand for one month. I think is well within the bounds of reasonable. And so I would love to make a motion on this. New enough that I don't know if I should do it now. So maybe I'll wait. But let me know. |
| 01:13:58.27 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. Let me suggest let's let's go ahead and have a comment from the rest of the city council. And I think probably the parameters of emotion will emerge. from that discussion. If you could. |
| 01:14:09.44 | Unknown | you could. |
| 01:14:11.13 | Jill Hoffman | And, uh, all right. Who would like anybody like to go next or? So I can, I can go, I'm happy to go next if anyone, okay. I'll go next. So, uh, You know, I want to thank obviously, you know, Yulia for pulling this together and these numbers together is really helpful. Um, you know, during this time, you know, you know, we've done some really hard work. mainly last summer. while I was gone, but thanks to Um, Council member Cleveland Knowles and Ray, former council members Ray Withey and Tom Riley, we did a lot of really hard work on our budget. Right? We have to be cognizant of the impact of COVID on our town and the overall revenues in our town. And I think, We have to balance those two things, which I think we're all concerned about. And the risk to our budget, and the risk to our businesses, which is why we're here tonight and why we felt that this was important enough to call a special meeting for. So I think the Chamber of Commerce, our Sausalito Chamber of Commerce and the county for coming up in a state and the federal government actually for coming up with ways to help and try to help our businesses. But I am absolutely aware of the impact of this most current COVID restrictions that have been implemented And so. The balance that we're, you know, the balance and the risk that we're looking at is, you know, how do we implement some relief? to businesses that need it, right? And, you know, to, Council member Cleveland Knowles's point, how do we incentivize businesses to pay early? I'm cautious on that because Uh, we want to keep, you know, we want to maintain whatever revenues we have coming in if there's not a really good reason not to have them coming in, right? So the incentive for businesses, I think, is already there that if you don't pay, Well, If you don't pay by a certain date, then you know, then you'll, you'll receive a penalty. But if we You know, if we extend that, then Thank you. you know, then everybody, you know, everybody can extend. Not everybody will extend, but You know, we're going to lose that revenue when we most need it in our budget. So if you look at the 90 J projections versus the 60 day projections for all businesses. Um, you know, there is a risk in February and March that we're going to go below our, our, you know, government recommended reserves by about 300,000, well, more than 300,000 in both of those months, which is, which is risky, but to council member subway, sobieski's You know, we have other reserves that we can draw on Is that an acceptable risk for us? to extend to all businesses for 60 days. Um, 90 days we're getting further out on the wrist right so if you look at the 90 day numbers it's 309 000 for february but it jumps up to 1.2 million for March, which I think is getting more toward an unacceptable risk with our budget and with our own reserves. and ability to react to whatever is going to come in the next few months. That's kind of where I'm thinking. To the comments from the two people with regard to the professional, the increase in the tax for the professional services sector, that is concerning to me. I, you know, that was, I think, I don't think that was an intended consequence for the business license tax. So I would say that that might be an issue we would refer maybe to EDAC or somebody one of our other councils or sorry board or commissions to look at and give us feedback on that and how to react to that so that's kind of where i'm leaning um but i'm happy to listen to i'm sure um the rest of you have uh thoughts that you want to weigh in on so anyway those are my comments yes um council members susan pluden also |
| 01:17:58.91 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you, Mayor. I think I tend to agree with you that the 90-day risk looks unacceptable at this point. We can also always revisit that. I think the 60-day waiver for all businesses, which I think is what's shown on page six of our slide presentation, if I understood Yulia correctly, would provide relief to all businesses at all levels for 60 days. And I am convinced that partially by Council Member Sobieski's comments that businesses that can pay or are doing well will just go ahead and pay their bills. It does sound like the administrative burden and the loss of some kind of an incentive might be not necessary. too cumbersome at this point. So I'm willing to support that concept and I just want to thank the members of the chamber and the business community for coming forward and sharing their experiences tonight. We all know that this is just a really difficult time and anything we can do to support them, including shopping locally, which I've been doing a little bit too much of lately. So I hope everyone will follow suit. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks. |
| 01:19:27.69 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, anybody else? Yes? Councilmember Blaustein or Councilmember... Vice Mayor Kellman, anything? Thank you. |
| 01:19:34.39 | Melissa Blaustein | . |
| 01:19:34.54 | Jill Hoffman | . |
| 01:19:34.68 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 01:19:34.71 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 01:19:34.96 | Melissa Blaustein | about. Okay, I don't wanna jump ahead of you, Vice Mayor Kelman, but I, I really appreciate that you and Mayor Hoffman brought this to the agenda, given the urgency of the situation. I really appreciate your fiscal diligence and caring about the GFOA standards and really paying attention to that I know you got this done in a week when normally we have two weeks or so to prepare for the meeting. I really appreciate the information and projections you were able to provide to all of us. Obviously we are all aware of what a difficult time this is for our business community. I was really moved by some of the statements and sentiments that all of you shared this evening. Thank you for joining us and talking about why this matters. I think the 60 day projection given that we will still receive the funds is the best way forward at this point. However, I would also like to ask that since we don't know what will happen with the COVID pandemic and perhaps the could proceed beyond that 60 day threshold in a very severe worst case scenario that we allow as council member Cleveland Knowles had suggested some sort of way for need based businesses to continue to apply for an extension before the EDAC if necessary. just in the event or that we provide some sort of resources or conversation again before the end of the 60-day timeline is up to reassess. |
| 01:20:46.55 | Raymond Cleveland Knowles | And |
| 01:20:57.31 | Jill Hoffman | Vice Mayor |
| 01:20:58.92 | Unknown | Great. Thank you, everybody. And I just really want to commend our new council member Sobieski for raising this as such a timely issue for us to cover, particularly with the state. I'm sure many of you know, California sales tax, the November prepayments normally due on December 24th are now deferred to March 24th, 2021. So it's good to see us kind of keeping pace with that. So thank you, Councilmember Sobieski. And also a huge thank you to Julia for Putting this together, I know we asked you sort of last minute to make sure we understood the cash flow and I think you did a great job of presenting us with those options. I am completely on board with Councilmember Sobieski's sentiment that, you know, this is a cash flow issue. We want to minimize costs to the city. We want to minimize staff time. We don't want to ask our businesses to jump through hoops. No need to incur an additional cost and create additional work for staff. So I'm in favor, as I think my fellow council members are, with implementing the blanket deferral for 60 days. And then we can reassess if we if we need to. I also, I think maybe it was Mayor Hoffman mentioned uh, EDAC review of Measure M, I think that would be a great idea. I know there's some concern about Measure M that's not gonna be part of this motion, but it'd be nice perhaps if EDAC took a look at that. The other two things I want to mention, and I don't know if this is, staff has time to do this. we can extend this for the first quarter, but then maybe we can start looking at some of those community development block grants and see what we might be able to do in Q2. So we have some time, we're gonna provide some relief, but let's see what else we can find that's out there. And I don't wanna see us pulling from our investment portfolio at this time. I think former council member Cox made an excellent point about the need for having funds on hand when we really do need to dig into them. So I would be very hesitant for that right now, but I can join my fellow council members with supporting that second option. |
| 01:22:59.98 | Jill Hoffman | Okay. Very good. Does anybody have any further comments on this? |
| 01:23:04.96 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | The only thing I would just say is I think the Community Development Block grants are available now so great. |
| 01:23:12.33 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 01:23:12.40 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 01:23:12.48 | Ian Sobieski | Can I just make a motion that the motion is Sausalito shall not assess any late fees for business license tax due on January 30, 2020 until and unless such tax payments due are still not received by March 30, 2020. |
| 01:23:30.17 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Second. |
| 01:23:30.59 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 01:23:33.34 | Heidi Scoble | Yeah. |
| 01:23:33.81 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 01:23:34.51 | Heidi Scoble | Heidi, would you call a roll please? Councilmember Sobiaski. |
| 01:23:38.27 | Raymond Cleveland Knowles | Yes. |
| 01:23:39.08 | Heidi Scoble | Councilmember Blaustein. Yes. Councilmember Cleveland Knowles. |
| 01:23:43.43 | Raymond Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. |
| 01:23:43.57 | Jill Hoffman | you |
| 01:23:44.36 | Heidi Scoble | Vice Mayor Kelman? Yes. Mayor Hoffman? |
| 01:23:47.68 | Jill Hoffman | Yes. And. Um, do we want to No, that's good. I think that's good. OK. Thank you. Thank you, fellow council members. Thank you, chamber. Thank you, staff for putting this together. This was good action for us today. Okay, onto our next item, which is item 1B on our on our agenda, which we're gonna discuss, the concept of a town hall forum in January of 2021. So do we have a do we have a staff presentation on that or. um, Heidi or Adam or Marsha, are we just going to discuss it amongst ourselves with city council? |
| 01:24:40.62 | Unknown | No staff presentation. This item came up during our agenda setting meeting and we were talking about the need for Um, Thank you. I need as a new council comes together for team building, but during this time we thought that it was important to look at the expenses related to team building or retreat that a council would normally do during this time. So the agenda setting committee of. looked at some other opportunities and our Vice Mayor brought up the idea of potentially holding a town hall meeting and really giving our community the opportunity to weigh in. So I'm going to defer to Vice Mayor Gelman if you don't mind, Mayor. Hoffman and let her talk about the concept. It was her idea, her Concept. I'd like her to share it with the rest of the council and the action tonight if there's agreement We would look at some dates and try to get this on the schedule in early January. Obviously before the month's over, the sooner we can hear and get feedback, the better prepared will be. to serve the community. |
| 01:25:52.56 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:25:52.59 | Jill Hoffman | Okay. |
| 01:25:52.86 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:25:53.03 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. Go ahead. |
| 01:25:53.98 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:25:54.03 | Jill Hoffman | Vice Mayor. |
| 01:25:55.06 | Unknown | Thank you, Adam, for that context. You know, as you mentioned, we were talking about a team building since the conversation started off and we just didn't, the mayor and I didn't think it was appropriate to be spending funds on any type of Um, additional consultants to facilitate team building, but we thought it, even more important to engage the community and the residents. And what better time than the first of the year, after a very hard year, to create some space for the residents to bring their concerns and their issues to us and for us to sit back and really listen and hear kind of where the community's priorities are. you know, I hope you Councilmember Sobieski and Councilmember Blaustein having been on the campaign trail with me, we had the benefit of hearing so many wonderful ideas and thoughts. And I just wanted to propose that we take the opportunity to start the year off with that incoming information and hear from our residents and have that be our team building, have it be more community-wide, I guess. |
| 01:26:57.88 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, thanks. That's the idea of the concept anyway. Yes, council member Cleveland Knowles. |
| 01:27:03.99 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | So thanks, thanks for the great idea. I had also one of the things I had thrown out at the end of last year was instead of a kind of a team building exercise, I know. A lot of the current council members all over Marin County have been undergoing going to racial justice and equity training and I thought it would be really a good investment for us to participate in that kind of a training together that could kind of both serve as a training on race equity and inclusion and also be a team building exercise. So I wanted to, I think that would be a good use of a small amount of funds. And I just wanted to suggest that. I also, you know, we had a lot of public meetings this year and so did Senator McGuire. Councilmember Levine. County Board of Supervisors, And You know, we can always do more listening. I definitely think that that's a good goal. I would be really excited to use some different tools to gather community input. and to help prioritize our efforts for this year. There's some really great interactive online input tools, We tend to see a lot of the same people at our public hearings. or to have smaller group, you know, maybe smaller group hearings on focused topics. So those are just my thoughts, you know, like four different hearings. maybe with one or two council members at each one, collecting feedback on a particular thing, for example. Or, or some surveys out on Nextdoor and the currents that could really probe the people that don't kind of generally show up at our meetings to get their feedback and their input. So those are my ideas. |
| 01:29:19.67 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, thank you. Anybody else have feedback or thoughts on this topic? Yes, council member Blasting. |
| 01:29:26.79 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you, Mayor Hoffman. And thank you, Vice Mayor Kellman. I know you brought this up on the campaign trail and you and I agreed that it's really critical to hear from the public and be engaging with the community as much as possible. I love the idea of a collaborative listening Town Hall. I think one is not enough. I think we need to have a series of town halls throughout the year. And to Councilmember Cleveland's point on the importance of racial justice, I know we were scheduled to have a meeting, a council meeting where that was discussed last, late earlier this year, a second meeting. I would love to see a town hall format dedicated to the conversation around racial justice so that we can really dig into that issue and perhaps have a series of town halls on key issues that folks are really thinking about in town so that It's focused and targeted and we are hearing community engagement but we get all the information on the one particular issue. all four exploring. new methods of engagement, reaching out in any way possible to the community. And I really appreciate this idea. And I'm glad we're talking about new ways to communicate with the public and get people engaged. So thanks for bringing it to the agenda. |
| 01:30:32.99 | Jill Hoffman | Okay. Thank you, Councilmember Sobieski. |
| 01:30:35.79 | Ian Sobieski | Yeah, I would like to second what Melissa said. I think having more than one of these is a good idea. Actually, I'll second what everyone said. especially Vice Mayor Kellman's proposal of this idea in the first place. uh, But I would say that in addition to that, we are all now Brown Act members. restricted in talking to one another about matters that may come before city council, which are the matters that matter And I would love if we could to try to turn over issues at more leisure than simply at the pressure cooker when there's a motion about to be introduced on the floor on various topics. So, I think we don't need to let the perfect be the enemy of the good. We can start doing these things and refine their structure. as we experience them. and see if they're satisfying or not. But my concern is if we just have three minute comment periods, everyone's going to feel like they're talking into the void of nodding heads and affirmative smiles rather than actual engagement around issues. And we will better understand where everyone is coming from. We'll get just more generalized input. So I would love there to be a concrete movement of an exploration of areas of consensus as a measure of success from this kind of activity. And as I say, we'll have to figure it out as we get along, but I'm totally on board with the idea. |
| 01:31:59.34 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, so what I would suggest, well, hang on a second. Let's see. Okay, do we have any, okay, any other comments on this? I suppose. Okay, then I'm going to open it up to public comment. I see. Joan Cox has a comment. |
| 01:32:19.22 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 01:32:22.81 | Joan Cox | Hello again. I promise not to be such a pest all the time but I did want to speak to a couple of the things that were raised. Council member Burns and I did have the opportunity to participate in the stand up for racial justice programs. We just completed our third meeting. We just completed our third meeting. one last weekend and on diversity, equity and inclusion and I find them extraordinarily So I really do want to endorse the concept of having the council participate in those programs. It's a great team building measure as well as a great awareness measure. In terms of council member Sobieski's discussion of being able to discuss issues without the pressure of the three-minute public comment and a pending motion. I found our work last year at the beginning of the year on our strategic plan to be invaluable for that purpose. So, and I believe it's going to be really important for the new council and the new city manager to undertake that work anew. And that's really like a weekend session. It doesn't have to be facilitated, although ours was. And it's a really useful opportunity for all council members to share ideas in a more relaxed format. It's still open to the public, although we had very little public participation. But it's a really great opportunity for team building, sharing of ideas, blue skying. and figuring out the best path forward. And then I do want to wholeheartedly endorse the comments of council members Blaustein and Kelman. This was something that we discussed a lot on the campaign trail. This town. call for him. If you recall, our general plan forums were super well attended, even the one that was via Zoom. So, and particularly during this campaign season, we did not have the opportunity to go knock on doors and to engage with people as we otherwise ordinarily would. And so I think the town hall forum is super useful as a mechanism to seek that public input that we would have perhaps gotten more of during the campaign trail were it not for pandemic. So I think all of those ideas are super great and I applaud the vice mayor and the mayor for putting this on the agenda to move it forward. Thanks very much. |
| 01:34:57.98 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, thank you. Okay, I see no other hands up for public comment, so I'm going to close public comment. Um, I we don't really need a motion on this. We just wanted to talk to the entire city council about it. The vice mayor and I kind of get. a pulse and direction going forward. So Um, what I think I'm hearing is, and what I'd like to do is, uh, go forward with, um, our first sort of general town hall, right? And probably in January, we'll find a time Do we have a preference among the council? Well, I guess we'll just send a doodle out with the C when every the council's available and then we'll put that out. The general format, I think will be, will be not. for the very first one will not be subject based. I think a listening and just kind of see where the conversation leads us. with the idea that we won't be bound by a three minute clock or we, you know, and we can have a more, back and forth exchange perhaps with people that come and want to speak at the town hall. and have questions for the town hall. And then I think that will inform us going forward. Um, and you know, sort of how the feedback that we get on that, um, then we'll react to that and sort of. think about, how we want to move forward with that format. and that subject, like an unscripted, you know, what that would be and whether or not we want to break it down to subjects going forward. One of the things that we want to do to council members, Susan Cleveland Knowles, comment was we want to find new and innovative ways to reach out to people that live here in town. and people that we haven't necessarily heard from, but who do have things to contribute and ideas to contribute and also have concerns that may not have been voiced. I'm all about, and the vice mayor of course and I are all about How can we reach people? how can we do new survey methods that might reach them? So I think we're, considering all of these kinds of things. We want to get something a focused on the calendar, but we want to do it in a way I think that's That's. that may be a little bit more innovative than, some sort of, anyway, a strict format, right? we're trying to think that through and what that means, what that looks like and especially tailored for our community, right? And sort of the concerns in our community. and the gains that we've already made. on that forefront or that front. So I think that's kind of what I'm hearing from the city council. Anybody have an objection to that? going forward. |
| 01:37:48.35 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Jill, this would be instead of one of our January meetings. Is that correct? Thank you. |
| 01:37:52.75 | Jill Hoffman | You know, I don't know. Well, okay, that's a good, we don't have, I don't think we have the bandwidth not to have a meeting, a regular meeting in, um, January because we have so many high priority things that are coming up, right? So Our priorities for this first quarter really are selection of new city manager finance, budget, and finishing up the general plan. Right. |
| 01:38:12.78 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | So thinking we're going to be having interviews for the new city manager that will take time additional. meetings we're gonna be getting ready for the budget so there's Is it having finance committee? I mean, I don't, well, that's a problem, right? Like that's what, um, and then we do have our all day strategic planning session in February. |
| 01:38:35.44 | Jill Hoffman | Yes. Yeah. So, well, what I was thinking was it wouldn't be, you know, the town hall would be something. Yeah. Not on a city council night. Right. Cause we have work to do on city council nights and that, that work is already |
| 01:38:35.97 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Yes. |
| 01:38:48.40 | Jill Hoffman | Full up. So this would be the good thing about a town hall is that It wouldn't require any reports or staff work, right? Because the first one is just going to be a listening. So the thought is that it's maybe an hour, maybe two hours to the, to extend up to two hours if we need to. But I think vice mayor, you and I were talking about either doing it on an off night or a Saturday afternoon. I don't know. What do you guys think about that? That's the only thing I can figure. Because otherwise our agendas just get way too long. way too cumbersome, you know, we have to, we have to respect what we're putting in our, what we're putting in our, you know, on our agendas. So, if we cancel a meeting, then the rest of the agenda could just get way too long. Sorry, Vice Mayor, I called on you, but then I kept talking, so go ahead. |
| 01:39:41.54 | Unknown | Oh, no, I didn't really add. I think you're leading us in the right direction. Maybe we just need to if we have some consensus here, just put out the doodle poll as Heidi does and find that date. But I agree with you, not on a council night. We have a lot of work to do. So Um, Yeah, find the day that works for everybody. |
| 01:40:01.25 | Jill Hoffman | We'll see how it goes. It may be that it's, you know, anyway, we'll see how it goes. This is kind of our test one. |
| 01:40:06.81 | Raymond Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. |
| 01:40:07.07 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. Okay, so this, I don't see that we have any more, we don't need to motion on this. This was just for council feedback. So we're gonna, I'm gonna close this item and move on to mayor appointments. Our next question. on item 2a on our agenda. The only thing, the only appointments I'm going to make tonight is Finance Committee because we have finance stuff coming up. The rest of the appointments, which are many, of our and we have been able to to do council to numerous boards and commissions and countywide things that we participate in and some actually even broader things, I'm going to make those conversations with the council members to see, you know, sort of a pulse on what people are interested in, what they want to do, what they're willing to do between now and January 12th. So The only thing I'm going to do tonight is as proposed make my proposed appointments, which is myself and vice mayor Kelman, which. is the norm. has been my experience of who's on the finance committee. Um, That's my proposal and I am the next thing on the agenda is I'm going to open up for public comments. So does anybody have public comment on those two? I'm not seeing any. Yes, I do. Sandra Bushmaker. And that's the only hand I see up. |
| 01:41:39.94 | Jill Hoffman | Go ahead, Sandra. |
| 01:41:41.12 | Sandra Bushmaker | I am trying. Bye. . All right. Ah, let's see here. Just a second. There we go. My hand actually was up for the public forum. And somehow it got taken down and I put it back up. And so can I speak to that for a few minutes? |
| 01:42:01.76 | Jill Hoffman | Do you have, is it anything other than what we, our conversation and what our conclusion? |
| 01:42:06.43 | Sandra Bushmaker | No. I just want to say that I really welcome, I really welcome the opportunity for an open forum. |
| 01:42:07.56 | Jill Hoffman | I just wanna say that |
| 01:42:14.38 | Sandra Bushmaker | and for the public to be able to have more than three minutes and to have some give and take back and forth between the council and the public. The restrictions of the three minute warnings are very difficult to have a discussion on items that are facing the city residents. So I really encourage multiple a public forum on that kind of format. Thank you. |
| 01:42:38.97 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 01:42:39.14 | Sandra Bushmaker | Thank you. |
| 01:42:39.22 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, thank you. Okay. I guess I don't see any public comment |
| 01:42:44.28 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | any public comment. |
| 01:42:45.87 | Jill Hoffman | Oh, really? |
| 01:42:47.00 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Oh, so I just wanted to weigh in. I mean, I'd also, I know often it's the mayor and the vice mayor, but I think we've got a very talented member of the council with Ian Sobieski with his financial background and I, you know, So just note that that might be really helpful on the Finance Committee. Um, this year. |
| 01:43:08.26 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah, noted. I agree. But, You know, council members can also watch the Finance Committee meetings. And I think if you're not on the finance committee meetings, it's really helpful to watch the meetings and so I did give it a lot of thought and but I Anyway, any other comments? from our city council. Okay. I don't see any other, doesn't look like it. So, um, Does, could I have a second on my appointments? Madam Mayor, if I may. Those appointments are at your discretion. Okay. then. Then respectfully to council members, Susan Cleveland-Knowles' comments and council member Sobieski, who I am very happy to have on the council and do expect that we're gonna draw on his financial acumen. And thankfully that he's with us. And so, okay, so then I'm going to do those appointments as myself and, Vice Mayor Kellman on the Finance Committee. Um, And, uh, and with that, I'm going to adjourn our meeting. at 8.45. Even though I recognize it's a special meeting, but I am going to adjourn the meeting at 845. Thank you so much, everybody, and thank you so much for your hard work tonight. I appreciate it. |
| 01:44:39.19 | Raymond Cleveland Knowles | Thanks very much. |
| 01:44:39.20 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 01:44:40.28 | Melissa Blaustein | you |
| 01:44:41.83 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 01:44:57.14 | Chris Gallagher | I'll help if you cry. |
| 01:44:59.08 | Sandra Bushmaker | That's how I live and I'll do it. |
| 01:45:01.27 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:45:01.27 | Chris Gallagher | Thank you. |
| 01:45:01.41 | Sandra Bushmaker | Devil May. |