| Time | Speaker | Text |
|---|---|---|
| 00:00:00.54 | Heidi Scoble | and we'll go over to our streaming and then I will provide the announcement. |
| 00:00:05.28 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, sounds good. |
| 00:00:06.78 | Heidi Scoble | Audio is up. The video is up. Good evening, Mayor Hoffman and council members. This meeting is being held pursuant to section three of executive order N-29-20, issued by Governor Newsom on March 17th, 2020, And all members are joining this meeting telephonically through Zoom and is being broadcast live on the city's website and on cable TV channel 27. |
| 00:00:31.05 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you, Madam Clerk. Good evening and welcome to the Tuesday, March 23rd, 2020 closed session portion of our city, regular city council meeting. Um, Madam clerk, could you please call the roll? |
| 00:00:45.41 | Heidi Scoble | Councilmember Sobieski? Thank you. |
| 00:00:46.93 | Ian Sobieski | here. |
| 00:00:47.87 | Heidi Scoble | Council member Blasdene. here. Council member Cleveland Knowles. Eric. |
| 00:00:52.75 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:00:53.54 | Heidi Scoble | Vice mayor Kelman. |
| 00:00:55.01 | Jill Hoffman | I'm sorry. |
| 00:00:55.77 | Heidi Scoble | Mayor Hoffman? |
| 00:00:56.43 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. Here, all members are present and there is a quorum. Um, items D one through D four will be discussed in closed session. The one is public employment. Pursuant to CGC section 54957 title city manager D2 is conference with legal counsel existing litigation pursuant to California government code section 54956.9 D2. Um, 31. name of the case is Sausalito Moraine County chapter of the California that it was La Salino. Number D three is conference with legal counsel, existing litigation, section. 54956.9 D one. Spencer v. City of Sausalito. And D4 is conference with real property negotiator pursuant to CGC section 54956.8. The property is 100 Spinnaker Drive, San Salido, California. and Our next on our agenda is public comment on closed session items. Do we have any comment on our closed session items? I don't see any hands raised. people. |
| 00:02:17.04 | Heidi Scoble | is confirmed yet? |
| 00:02:17.83 | Jill Hoffman | you |
| 00:02:18.41 | Heidi Scoble | Thank you. |
| 00:02:18.42 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:02:18.44 | Heidi Scoble | Madam clerk. Madam Mayor, there are no hands raised at this time. Thanks very much. So I will now close. |
| 00:02:25.97 | Jill Hoffman | public comment on this. And we will move on to closed session. So we will now adjourn to closed session. Thanks very much. We will be back at 7 o'clock. Thank you. |
| 00:02:44.48 | Ian Sobieski | Bye. . |
| 00:02:50.92 | Heidi Scoble | . on we're gonna stream. |
| 00:02:59.41 | Heidi Scoble | Streaming is live, we're going to admit our. |
| 00:03:10.43 | Heidi Scoble | Madam Mayor, all of the participants have joined the meeting and you may commence. Thank you very much. |
| 00:03:16.30 | Jill Hoffman | much. Welcome to the March 23rd 2021 regular city council meeting of the city of Sausalito. Madam Clerk, would you like to read the initial agreement about being held pursuant to Section 3 or do we need to redo that? Thank you. |
| 00:03:39.96 | Heidi Scoble | So, |
| 00:03:40.35 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:03:40.47 | Heidi Scoble | Madam Mayor, we don't typically do that, but for the purposes of this meeting, more participants joining us. I'll just read this. This meeting is being held pursuant to section of Order N-29-20 issued by Governor Newsom on March 17th, 2020 and all members are joining this meeting telephonically through Zoom is being broadcast live on the city's website and on cable tv channel 27. |
| 00:04:04.26 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you very much. |
| 00:04:05.33 | Heidi Scoble | Thank you. |
| 00:04:05.73 | Jill Hoffman | Um, |
| 00:04:06.31 | Heidi Scoble | Thank you. |
| 00:04:07.00 | Jill Hoffman | Do we need to retake? |
| 00:04:08.03 | Heidi Scoble | the role. |
| 00:04:11.38 | Jill Hoffman | Madam Mayor, it's up to you. |
| 00:04:13.02 | Heidi Scoble | if you would like to. Thank you. |
| 00:04:14.39 | Jill Hoffman | take the roll. That's okay. We don't need to. That's fine. We did it at the beginning of the closed session. Okay. So I will reopen the meeting. I will also note that for clarity, the city clerk will call on individuals who have raised their hands in the order they were raised. After you are called on, you will be unmuted to allow you to share your comments. Please remember public comments are each allowed a total of three minutes to speak Please keep your comments respectful and focused. We want to listen to any individual who requests to speak and each speaker has a responsibility to act and make their comments in a civil, compassionate, and inclusive manner in keeping with how we do things in Sausalito. We will not tolerate hate speech, direct or indirect threats, or abusive language. the meeting host will mute anyone who fails to follow these guidelines. So thank you for joining us this evening. We have no closed session announcements. Moving on to item 2B, approval of the agenda. before I move I ask for a motion for approval of the with regard to item 7A, which is the business license tax item, we do still have some outstanding inquiry and further inquiry that we wanted to do on that item. So I will entertain a motion to remove that from the agenda if that's requested. |
| 00:05:36.45 | Ian Sobieski | So, move. |
| 00:05:38.05 | Jill Hoffman | Okay. Thank you. So do I have a motion to approve the agenda with regard to the remaining items? |
| 00:05:45.31 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 00:05:46.04 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:05:46.05 | Melissa Blaustein | I make a motion to approve the agenda with regards to remaining items. Mayor Hoffman. Thank you. |
| 00:05:50.29 | Ian Sobieski | Thanks. |
| 00:05:51.55 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. We have second. |
| 00:05:53.04 | Jill Hoffman | Um, Um, Thank you. |
| 00:05:58.78 | Heidi Scoble | Madam Clerk, can you please call the roll? Councilmember Sobieski? |
| 00:06:02.64 | Ian Sobieski | Yes. |
| 00:06:03.52 | Heidi Scoble | Council member Blaustein. Yes. Council member Cleveland Knowles. Yes. Vice Mayor Kellman. |
| 00:06:15.82 | Heidi Scoble | Thank you. Yes. Thank you. |
| 00:06:18.10 | Jill Hoffman | And Mayor Hoffman. Yes, the motion passes unanimously. Our next item, on our agenda is special presentations and I am pleased to welcome our school board, sorry, our school district superintendent, Dr. Itoko Garcia, and he's going to give us an announcement, sorry, a presentation on the school board. |
| 00:06:56.56 | Unknown | Hi, good evening everyone. Thanks for inviting me here tonight. It's an honor to be able to present our work on unification and to give you all a general update. So I know time is limited and I don't wanna take up too much time. So I will... jump right into it oh excuse me let me just get to the beginning of my presentation um i will jump right into it um so again thanks it's an honor to address the city council and i'm glad to be here tonight and please do feel free to call on me for anything that you need in terms of information or updates moving forward we worked really hard over 11 joint study sessions with some more to come. I believe we just got confirmation on a 12th joint study session between the Willow Creek Board and our elected Board of Trustees for the 30th to come up with these core values. These were developed as a part of that process. We are inclusive, we are curious, open-minded, generous, humble and empathetic. We are very active and we are very active and we are very Optimistic, we are hopeful, proactive, resilient, and creative. Collaborative, we are flexible and committed to teamwork. We are making a difference. We are dedicated to achieving transformative outcomes and we are accountable, ethical, dependable, and trustworthy. We exist to instill a love of learning in our children and support them to be curious and flexible thinkers, confident in their individuality, their community, and their ability to create a safer and more just world. We are excited that last Thursday, the Board of Trustees passed the joint resolution that commemorates many of the things outlined here in this presentation and that the Tuesday before that the Willow Creek Board did so as well. And so we will be unifying into one untraditional PK through eight public school. Why do we say untraditional? Because it will be a school like no other. It will combine the best of Willow Creek and Bayside MLK. And that goal is to really create a world-class school that is the top choice of all the families in the 94965. And that is ready to open, will be merged by July of 2021 and will be ready to open in August or September. Our goal is to always put our kids and families first. And it really an unprecedented development every single family enrolled at both Willow Creek and Bayside MLK responded to a very simple survey about their intent to return in the upcoming school year. And I'm ecstatic to report that from the Willow Creek side of the House, these are the numbers. 100% of Bayside MLK families said they were sure they will return to the unified school. You can see here on the right-hand column the number of families that stated they were unsure. And on the left-hand column, the number of families that have stated they will return. The first number indicates the grade level, and the second number after the dash indicates the number of families that will return. So doing a quick bit of math, we have about 60 families left in the not sure column. And over 80% of Willow Creek families have already committed to returning to the unified school. And so we wanna encourage everyone here on the call tonight, talk to your friends and neighbors. We want you to join this movement and be part of unification. Just so people understand the magnitude of what we're doing. There are in the upcoming school year, 34 middle schoolers from Bayside MLK, kids that are currently fifth, sixth, and seventh graders. But next year will be sixth, seventh, and eighth graders. And we will be unifying those 34 students with approximately 150 middle school kids from Willow Creek, At the K-5 level, we have 83 kids that we will be unifying with about 204 students K-5 from Willow Creek. We are confident. that improved outcomes from the unified school including global citizenship, connecting across race, class, culture and language and improved electives, sports and social opportunities will be available for all of the students in our community. If you're wondering why this is such a dated picture, You're right. It's from the late 80s and early 90s. One of the last times that our entire district was fully integrated. And this is a really special group of people that I had the privilege to go to high school with. And many of these friendships and relationships last from then until the present day. As I said, we passed the joint resolution last week or the week before last. The west of the work will be done by our school design team. 24 current staff members of Willow Creek and Bayside MLK, along with administrators, are making up that design team and working to answer any of the detailed questions that I don't have an answer for you here this evening. That goal is to really integrate and diversify our school. It'll meet the settlement agreement with the attorney general. And we aim to successfully integrate staff and families into our unified school with empathy and compassion. The organizations will be unified by July 1st. And again, I am in negotiations with our collective bargaining partners, but we do believe we'll have a start date here to publicize. will be unified by July 1st and again I am in negotiations with our collective bargaining partners but we do believe we'll have a start date here to publicize in the next six weeks that most likely will be in mid to late August. We have a lot of work to do to ensure the facilities are ready. We have to move classrooms. We have to clean but we will be ready for a full in-person reopening of school this fall. Some really exciting details, the K-5 students will be on the Nevada Street campus in Sausalito and the TK and sixth through eighth graders will be on the Phillips Drive campus in Marin City. We will have a 17 to one student to teacher ratio for K through three and a 20 to one student to teacher ratio four through eight. Some of the lowest class sizes if not the lowest class sizes in the county for any public school. The larger classrooms designed for middle school instruction on the Phillips Drive campus and the K5 at Nevada Street will allow for a more efficient and safe use of campus resources. We're anticipating still a need to socially distance in the fall due to COVID. We'll have a focus on project-based learning, weekly outdoor learning led by GGNRA naturalists, a collaboration with the Point Bonita YMCA and the Audubon Society that will support our teachers in developing these project-based learning units. And we will retain the current single subject teachers from Willow Creek plus Mr. Holcomb, our amazing ELA and drama teacher at Bayside MLK. We will be using the current Willow Creek scope and secrets of standards and skills and adding a focus on social and environmental justice. We will also feature an algebra and math intervention and continue with our first of its kind organic farm to fork school meal program. Some things that we have yet to decide whether or not sixth grade will be c chord or all single subjects. We need to hire a single subject science teacher. Whether we're going to offer algebra for all or a different math approach. We did a survey of folks that want to return. And the two languages they chose overwhelmingly to be featured in our world language program are Spanish and French. We will offer both art and music, K6, as well as 7-8 as elective classes. We don't quite have a daily schedule yet. The design team's working on that. About 55% of the respondents to the survey we sent home said they don't want uniforms, and so we're likely not to have uniforms. We have a bunch of submissions for the school name and the district name. We'll be sending out a survey to narrow those down from five to a more manageable number for each and hope to have that nailed down in the next six to eight weeks. I already talked about the composition of the design team and the small class size ratio. We're really committed to teacher collaboration and teachers developing units and lessons of study. So we're working to ensure that there's daily collaboration time, that teachers can work in PLCs or professional learning communities under a cycle of inquiry model and again really have a focus on diversity equity and inclusion and racial and social justice. We will be having brand new facilities. Thank you so much to the overwhelming support from this community for prop 39. So we will still offer one world class school on two campuses. We're continuing to examine a long-term option of a single campus, but in the short term, we know that we need to operate two campuses. Capital repairs and infrastructure upgrades are coming soon. One way that we would love some community participation from folks at this meeting as part of our bond oversight committee. We are also going to go through about an eight week process to tighten up our guiding principles and select a list of projects that we'd be built under Prop 39. We will have a strong focus on school culture and climate, restorative justice, positive behavior interventions. We will keep tightly coupled with our community school model, have a full-time social worker, mental health and counseling services, student and family services, offer a top-tier curriculum based on these six pillars that will cut across ELA, math, science, and social studies. And I've covered most of these things here in prior slides. A couple more things to note because I know I'm out of time. We will have a combined multi-tiered systems of support, or MTSS, and coaching, subject area coaches in ELA and math, and an instructional coach just focused on PK through three. Those coaches will coach teachers on developing systems to support kids who are falling behind, as well as do push and support or pull out small groups. We will also offer accelerated learning in AP honors prep or gate kind of a program along with some other computer-based interventions that you see here. We will be offering an after-school program that features arts integration, theater, and homework help and athletics. Here's a sample schedule. Lastly, we're really focused on metrics and accountability. All of this will be reflected in our three-year LCAP goals and budget that we will adopt come May and June. We will be following these state metrics, CAASPP, which is our state test, ELPAC, which is our state English language learner test, along with attendance, behavior, and the California Healthy Kids survey. And we will also be taking regular internal surveys of students, families, staff, and the community, as well as having academic benchmarks. We are also very committed to fiscal integrity and sustainability and maintaining adequate reserves, prioritizing spending in the classroom. And we will have an advisory board that sits on the dais with the elected officials, one to two members on the dais. They will not be allowed to have a vote, but if anyone here is interested on being on that advisory board, we would love to have you. Along with what I've already mentioned, the bond oversight committee and the advisory board, there's some other opportunities to engage in the community on our facilities committee, helping us flesh out those guiding principles and pick the projects for prop 39 you can serve on our local control accountability plan or lcap committee we need your help on the transportation committee i'm working out transportation to and from both schools and one last thing that i'd like to plant the seed for is I would like the City Council to consider a joint meeting with the Marin City Community Services District Board in a similar fashion as the boards of the Willow Creek Academy and the district have met to really support the City Council's work on diversity, equity and inclusion and community healing. And I'll leave you with the last word here from the venerable Nelson Mandela. And that will conclude my presentation. |
| 00:20:31.43 | Jill Hoffman | Thanks very much, Dr. Garcia. That was an awesome and very fast presentation with a whole lot of information. And so let me just say these slides are attached to our agenda, if anybody wants to go back. I'm assuming that if you want to get in contact with Dr. Garcia and volunteer in any of these ways, you can probably Google Southlake emergency school district. information will come up. But it's also in some of the |
| 00:20:56.51 | Unknown | Absolutely. The best and fastest way is to just send an email to our district admin assist. It's Steve Ayala, S-A-Y-A-L-A at SMCSD.org. |
| 00:21:11.12 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you so much for that presentation and the tremendous work that you and your team from both schools have done to combine. We have a resolution that we'll talk about a little bit later. after we take public comment, but Do any of the city council members have any questions for Dr. Garcia understanding that we'll do comments later. Go ahead. Councilmember Blaustein and then Vice Mayor. |
| 00:21:34.49 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you, Mayor Hoffman, and thank you, Dr. Garcia, for that presentation and your hard work with our community on unification. We're really excited about what's coming next. I did want to ask you about since this has been a a really difficult year for teachers, given all of the Zoom online learning And what what is the process or what is your path for the teachers at both of the schools and whether or not they're applying or what that looks like. |
| 00:22:00.13 | Unknown | Great question. Thank you for asking. Our teachers are absolute heroes in getting kids back on campus for in-person instruction at both sites. This has been a big topic of discussion at the joint study sessions and I'm really pleased to announce that because of the small class size ratios, Almost every teacher that wants to be employed at the new school has a place. It may not be in their exact role that they currently have now, but they have a teaching position and we've got everyone slotted in right now. And so we're also going through a search to pick a principal for each campus that will function as co-principals. That's another place people can get involved. But I'm sorry my toddler is having a little breakdown in the background. But we are really committed to placing as many current staff as we can. And of course, the more people that decide to stay, the more we can guarantee positions. But even at our current projected enrollment, we are projecting to be able to bring back every current Willow Creek teacher as well as the permanent teaching staff from Bayside MLK. |
| 00:23:20.83 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you, Dr. Garcia, Vice Mayor, Vice Mayor and then Councilmember Sobieski. |
| 00:23:26.07 | Janelle Kellman | you know thank you dr garcia and it's so nice to see you and to see this presentation i can feel the energy you always have such great positive energy and i can feel it in this presentation um you know my comment or really was a question for you was and you've outlined so many ways that we can help um but do you have suggestions or requests from the council as to how to keep that line of communication open so that we know what you guys need and how we can be of service. We've talked offline about art classes for the students, partnering with some of the artists at the ICB. You know, I'm open to those suggestions and I just want you to feel free to share those with us and just really want to congratulate you on a really phenomenal job. |
| 00:24:10.03 | Unknown | Thank you, Vice Mayor Kellman. Yeah, we really want to look at expanding our partnership with the City Council, with the Chamber of Commerce, with a lot of the amazing artisans and different businesses that exist in Sausalito to provide either enrichment or internship opportunities for our youth. I had an amazing conversation very randomly in front of Bridgeway Bagel about starting a sailing team for the district. I think we have a world-class community and we have the opportunity to build a world-class school together. And so I think any business or organization in the city of Sausalito that sees an opportunity for youth development or enrichment or internships. I'm all ears. We want to collaborate with you and get this done. And I would like to, time permitting, participate in the DEI task force that the city council has created. And I really look at together creating a series of healing engagements for our community in the upcoming year that can be focused on, you know, different pieces of multimedia input then followed by a moderated community discussion. But I, you know, the unification of schools is happening and I think where we are is going to be very successful. I think when we all look back 10 years from now, the measure of how successful this school unification is will also be predicated on how successful we are in unifying our communities together. And so I think that's the best way to help. And that's what I'm really committed to working through and working through the school. working on with everybody here. |
| 00:25:59.89 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah, thank you for that question. So just to add to that, we had, Dr. Garcia and I had a good conversation, a great conversation actually yesterday and talked about all of these things. He and I are reinstituting the monthly meeting between the school district and the school liaison, right now it's the mayor and I think it was in the past it's been the mayor as well so at certain times. And so yeah, I'm excited to move forward on these things. And so look to the future, right? And how we're going to institute. And then Council Member Sobieski, I think you had a |
| 00:26:33.88 | Ian Sobieski | Yes, thank you, Mayor. I just want to say thank you also, Dr. Garcia. Your presentation was full of energy, like the Vice Mayor said, and optimism. And I look forward to seeing your leadership and focusing on the number one priority, just the great education of our kids. I guess I just had a question that was spurred by your presentation. You talked about it, the vision. district school is being And untraditional, which I love, that word. And, and you cited combining the best of Willow Creek and the best of MLK. I guess I have two questions. One is one of the, unique attributes of the charter schools, it's unusual, somewhat atypical relationship between the teaching staff and administration and parents. thought of creative arrangements to bring that spirit to the unified school. And then sort of the second question is just freeform. What do you think is some of the best attributes of the two schools that are going to be brought together. How do you think about that? |
| 00:27:37.58 | Unknown | Yeah, thank you, Councilmember Sobieski. I appreciate the question. One of the things that I'm a huge believer in is shared governance. And so we actually already have a structure inside of the district, which is a shared governance team, where teachers and administrators and myself and our community school manager all meet together monthly to talk about any and all issues that may affect the school-wide community. And that's a structure that I definitely imagined carrying forward into the unified school. I think it's really important that all staff, classified and certificated, have input. And so all of those folks are represented with a seat at that table. And I think the work that we're doing with our parent school alliance and the Willow Creek Parent Council right now to merge those two organizations. We're hard at work to create a unified foundation for the for the unified school in the district from the Willow Creek Foundation and Arts Plus. And so I think those are all ways that we're going to continue to work together for the betterment of the school district moving forward. I think really notably I think two things that we've fought really hard to conserve in this process that are that our standouts at Willow Creek are the project-based learning focus of the school and the curricular flexibility of the school and those are things that we're're absolutely committed to carrying forward and resourcing and providing scaffolds for, and hopefully even deepening and improving on the work, the great work that's already been happening there. I think there's also a pretty robust restorative justice program there and the coaches, the instructional coaches, all of those things we're looking to really carry forward and think that those are great strengths of Willow Creek currently and historically and things that will be important to emphasize in the new school. Similarly from Bayside MLK, we've done some tremendous transformative work on school culture and climate in terms of using what's called positive behavior intervention systems as a structure to nestle those amazing restorative justice practices in. We're really looking forward to carrying that forward as well as our focus on culturally and linguistically sustaining pedagogies. I think the opportunities that both schools have had in the past, but that we can really cement for a stable future for arts enrichment and really becoming kind of a science, technology, engineering, art, math, STEAM, if you will, focused school. Arts integrated project-based learning school are things that I'm incredibly excited about. And, you know, we we have incredibly small class sizes this year at Bayside MLK that's the only way we could we could operate under COVID-19 but but to see that commitment to small class size carried forward at the unified school is really unprecedented and if you take a close look at academic research probably one of the biggest drivers of both acceleration and remediation for students that are behind and you know in this world of learning loss mitigation that we're sitting in I think we really need to focus on that I'm ecstatic to be talking about a public school that has these class sizes you really cannot find it anywhere else Thank you very much. |
| 00:31:11.89 | Jill Hoffman | Okay. Yes, Councilmember Cleveland Allston. |
| 00:31:15.57 | Cleveland Knowles | Thank you, Mayor. Welcome, Dr. Garcia. Thank you so much for being here tonight. It's been a a long road and it's so exciting to see the progress that you and others have made The vice mayor already touched on my main question, which is what can we do to help? I really loved your idea of the healing engagement and kind of the long-term bringing of the two communities together. That's just really spot on and anything we can do to further that. And If there's other more short-term retention, family retention, things that we can help with, I hope that you will. will reach out and let us know or mention them here. And then I think my second question is just about, you know, thank you for your work good work on the Safe Routes to Schools. and all of the great things there. And again, just you know, what can we do to kind of improve the ability of kids to walk and bike between our two communities, make that safer. and more sustainable as well as you mentioned in your presentation. Got thoughts on that issue, love to hear. |
| 00:32:27.19 | Unknown | Thank you. Yeah, and nice to connect with you again. You know, we've been having some really robust transportation committee meetings, and I think work that's already underway in the PBAC committee here on the Sausalito City Council is really important to making those routes to schools safe. You know, would love to see the improvements on Coloma Street with the crossing and the flashers. You know, basically if you walk down Donahue and down Bridgeway and make a right on Nevada, it's about a mile and a half walk. But if you cut through MLK Park and cut across Coloma and cut across that little back easement there, it's more like 0.7 miles or maybe a little closer to a mile. But it actually cuts about a half mile off the route and gets kids off of the main road, right, on pedestrian paths that are protected where we'll have crossing guards. And so I think, you know, just a continued focus on pushing that work forward would be really helpful. The other thing that we have been taking a very close look at is working with Safe Roots to Schools to do a bunch of different walking and rolling routes where, you know, for folks that are unfamiliar, what that means is a parent or a community member can volunteer to be what we would call a walking or rolling school bus conductor and you would be responsible for picking up between about five and seven kids on the way to school and just making sure they get to school safely that there's a a caring compassionate adult community member that's that's there to make sure that going to and from school is safe and orderly and timely the only requirement there would be a you know a doj fbi background fingerprint check and a tv test and in our last meeting um wendy from safees to School actually brought up the idea of community volunteers playing a role and not just being parents and I thought that was a really wonderful idea. I know that in the past sometimes there's been concerns about kids walking to and fro and I think this is a really wonderful opportunity to positively engage our community, maybe some of our seniors that want to give back to the community and get out and get some fresh air after being locked in our homes for a year. Um... And, you know, really help our kids safely come to school. And so those are some things that I think near term would be really, really helpful. |
| 00:35:10.82 | Jill Hoffman | Okay. Thank you. Who wouldn't want to walk to school? That sounds awesome. So, okay, let's move on to public comment. Um, And I will rely on our clerk. to call the first. Thank you. |
| 00:35:25.12 | Heidi Scoble | person. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Before I start, I'll just provide the introduction comment regarding how public comment can be taken. Video or audio public comment participation is limited to three minutes per speaker. If you would like to make a comment, please raise your hand in the Zoom application, and you'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. And we have a wide variety of hands that are raised. And our first hand that we are going to have is Kurt Weisheimer, then we'll have Charlene Eldon and then Gabriel Barkin. So we'll start. I think Kurt had to go. Oh, okay. Sorry. So we will have Charlene Eldon, Gabriel Barkin and Anita Casalina. Thank you. And Charlene, you've been unmuted. |
| 00:36:24.38 | Unknown | Thank you. Hi everyone. Thank you all. That was really great to see and I'm glad that this has been signed, that the agreement is done, the school is coming together. Of course, I've said this before, the curriculum looks really, really good and I'm pretty jealous of the kids. The concern is now countywide and with the housing issue in Marin City, but Despite this being signed, unfortunately the last school board meeting still led me to feel and other black parents who attended the call to feel that not enough had been done to reach out to them. They had not been surveyed. and that Trustee McGrain was fighting for their school versus our school. I'm hoping that's resolved. Um, to say this once again, I find it inappropriate that anyone who took part, especially such a direct part in segregation as Susan Cleveland Knowles, is still in a leadership position completely inappropriate. I'll keep coming back to say this week after week, but I hope that it gets addressed either in a healing session or somewhere. but to still have someone in a position of power who directly stole from children and then fought against the desegregation order, fought against the state, you've, |
| 00:38:06.04 | Unknown | Like I said, I can keep coming back. And until this is addressed, I will. Thank you. Thank you. |
| 00:38:23.16 | Heidi Scoble | Gabrielle, you've been unmuted. |
| 00:38:25.54 | Unknown | Yes. Hi, everybody. Good evening. My name is Gabriel Barkin and I'm speaking on behalf of my wife Jana Barkin as well. As a matter of fact, I'm speaking her word. She wasn't able to attend tonight. But... As a citizen of Sausalito, we are asking the board to consider the resolution recognizing March 31st annually as Transgender Day of Visibility. transgender and non-binary people have a long history of being marginalized and discriminated against in Marin County. Research has shown that visibility leads to acceptance and this resolution would affirm that Sausalito is a welcoming inclusive community for all. I know we all like to think of ourselves as that way. So I ask you to please take action along with other Marin cities, including Fairfax and San Rafael, passed this resolution recognizing march 31st annually as transgender day of visibility Thank you for the time tonight. |
| 00:39:22.06 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you, sir. That's actually an item that's later on our agenda. But we'll take your public comment on that item at this time because you've already made it. So thank you very much. Thank you. And I'll ask the clerk to call our next speaker, please. |
| 00:39:39.93 | Heidi Scoble | Thank you. |
| 00:39:41.40 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:39:41.41 | Heidi Scoble | Anita has been unmuted. |
| 00:39:45.08 | Unknown | Hello, hi, thank you so much for including us and giving us some time. My name is Anita Casalina. This is my husband, Tony Eldon. And we are citizens here. Happy to be part of Sausalito, one of the most beautiful places on earth. And, I really want to commend Dr. Garcia. Everything he said was very, very inspirational, both of us. that we're moving in the right direction now for the school district, looking back as people who live here, we were embarrassed and humiliated to find that for the first time in 50 years there was a desegregation order that had to be given. and it wasn't It was in the 1950s, it was here in Sausalito. We want to help move forward. I think that we need... as much new leadership in Sausalito as possible. Um, As you saw, Charlene Eldon was speaking about people who were involved in the segregation should not be part of leadership today. I have to concur that that is true, that we need new leaders. I personally am going to do everything I can to support Dr. Garcia. I own a broadcast television company in San Francisco. Tony is a building inspector who has already inspected. Go ahead and you talk. |
| 00:41:11.32 | Unknown | Yeah. I'd just like to offer full support to Dr. Garcia's It looks brilliant. It looks very well thought out. It looks like the integration of the two schools has been thought over very carefully I would like to support that. inspection work at Golden Gate Village and interested in helping that facility Ugh. become better as well. So that's all I'm here to say is I really support these efforts integrating and getting the schools to work together. |
| 00:41:50.95 | Unknown | Thank you. Thanks so much for your time. |
| 00:41:51.88 | Unknown | Thanks very much. |
| 00:41:53.65 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:42:05.09 | Heidi Scoble | No, you've been unmuted. |
| 00:42:11.82 | Unknown | and you know, |
| 00:42:12.11 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 00:42:12.31 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:42:13.80 | Jill Hoffman | Yes, yes, sir. |
| 00:42:15.38 | Unknown | All right. So I just wanted to take a second to thank Etoko for all the hard work that he's done. I mean, I think we all can agree that the presentation he gave and the spirit that he gave it to him is so critical to this whole community. And, you know, Toko said it best that success will be about unifying our communities. |
| 00:42:37.03 | Unknown | And, |
| 00:42:43.18 | Unknown | Now I want to contrast that a little bit to the two comments I just heard after it. which involved kind of going after people and bringing up uh grievances etc and how destructive that is to the goal that a token laid out The spirit of unity that Tohko talked about takes a tremendous amount of work and a spirit of forgiveness, a spirit of coming together, and a spirit of also recognizing. The educators, the volunteers, the parents, that have put in a tremendous amount of effort into the school industry. And it's on such a great path. And, you know, I've been involved in school. Both my kids have gone to Willow Creek Academy and The amount of love that's been put into really helping kids here achieve what that really is necessary now to help every kid achieve in this district is so critical. And. Doing that really involves the parents. more so than And that's the Willow Creek parents, the Bayside parents coming together into this new school. And Togo is just an amazing person that's bringing that together. And I think we all owe it to him. to be on that spirit of unification. The best solution in this district is to build a school It is so good. that every single person in this district wants to And it is critical to understand in this district, it's a very unique district, There are people with choice. whether that's through financial means or scholarship. And there are people without choice. and to desegregate this district to achieve that goal involves having everybody Buy-in. And the people that choose to attack Willow Creek parents are so destructive. to the long-term desegregation and unification that so much has gone into and so much work has been done. And it's so important that you as the council recognize that. that you as the council as well as the school boards. work together to take this spirit that Togo is leading the charge on. Thank God for that. But we take that and we resist The heat talk, heat, heat talk comes in a lot of different forms. It comes in a lot of different forms. And the spirit of unity means resisting You're three minutes. |
| 00:45:26.86 | Unknown | Your three minutes has elapsed. |
| 00:45:29.58 | Unknown | So on the spirit, I just like to end on unification of what this is all about. So let's unify. Thank you. |
| 00:45:36.04 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you, sir. |
| 00:45:44.99 | Heidi Scoble | Alice Merrill has been unmuted. |
| 00:45:51.95 | Alice Merrill | Why? Well, I just want to say that I am thrilled that this vote has gone through and that unification is on the way and Dr. Garcia is just a wonderful guy and has brought so many people together and everybody's smiling and taking deep breaths. So, and what was it Phil just said, I agree with him and you know me, I can be testy about things, Just hooray. Thanks, everybody. Goodbye. |
| 00:46:24.93 | Chris Zapata | Thank you. |
| 00:46:37.21 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:46:37.33 | Unknown | Bye. |
| 00:46:37.37 | Unknown | Can you hear me? |
| 00:46:39.19 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:46:39.20 | Unknown | Yes. Thanks so much. This is Eva Crisanti. I'd like to address some of the comments that were made previously by Mr. Phil Kerr. It's important to recognize what happened. And I had many conversations with Charlene over a period of months. about um about her concerns about Susan Cleveland Knowles. And my feeling at the time was really this matter has been litigated. and the people of Sausalito being what they are have elected this segregator, and that is that. And And I think I have come to change my mind. It is, I think Charlene is right. And I think the voices of ethics and morality must be heard. And it is not an effective or an ethical thing to do to say that people who have concerns should not voice them in the spirit of, quote, unity. My mother was lucky to escape China before the communists came over. And I can tell you that that's very much an argument that that that the wrong type of people use to shut down the sort of dissent that's very, very important in this country. We have we have free speech in this country. to protect people whose voices need to be heard. And it's very obvious. from reading the attorney general's investigation. what happened. in Sausalito and why that shouldn't be I'm actually surprised to learn that Susan Cleveland Knowles is still retained as a deputy city attorney in San Francisco. I, I, I am about to write to Dennis Herrera regarding that. what, Ms. Cleveland Knowles did. was wrong and not only that but, the actions of Willow Creek following THE FAMILY. the order given by the first Attorney General in the state of California, if you can imagine that. how long we've been a state. We used to be Mexico and this is our first Latino attorney general. And Susan Cleveland Knowles and the White Parents of Willow Creek decided to fight that, and it was deeply and profoundly disturbing watching that. Um, So this issue is not going away. I do think Charlene Eldon's concerns are valid. And, and, I am proud and happy. And I feel this is a patriotic thing to do to support her concerns. Thank you for your time. Thank you. |
| 00:49:40.95 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:49:41.10 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:49:47.36 | Heidi Scoble | Sarah, you've been unmuted. |
| 00:49:56.91 | Unknown | Hello, can you hear me? Yes, welcome. Hi, thank you so much, Dr. Garcia and also members of the council. I just wanted to say that I've had the opportunity to participate in the in the foundation, the launch of the foundation that Dr. Garcia had mentioned. And it's allowed me to just really interact on the parent level. We have, two Bayside parents, we have two Willow Creek parents, We have a member of the WCA BMLK I'm sorry, the BMLK Arts Foundation. We have black, white, Asian, Hispanic male and female voices on this uh, launch board. And it's going to be open to more parents and guardians of the school and it has been It's just a little glimpse into what a lot of the tables of this new school are going to look like, how unique that is to find in Marin City. We all are aware of the healing that needs to take place. We are looking at what the foundation will do is fundraise as a means to provide world-class education for the kids in this district, but also as a way to build community. So I will ask everyone on this call to to listen for events that are gonna be coming up. You've all seemed to ask how you can get involved. We're gonna have community events that you can attend. such fun runs, community barbecues, different things like that that will really bring the community together. But the table of parents and guardians of different races and different social, economic, backgrounds coming together is Of course, we know we have work to do and there's healing, but it's also we're united through being parents and guardians and loving children and A lot of this back and forth when you're sitting at that table as someone that's truly invested in these children, Um, Honestly, I've known a lot of what has been going on. I haven't been as involved for as long as some people, but It is truly It's kind of magic. And honestly, Dr. Garcia is, is also magical. So I'm just so excited to be on this journey. I'm so excited to have linked arms with parents in Marin City at Sausalito. And I'm just, I'm looking towards the future. And I hope you all can find some excitement in what's ahead as well. Because on the parent level, it's really, we've been waiting for this. And it's everything we've been waiting for and more. So thank you very much. |
| 00:52:46.46 | Janelle Kellman | Thank you. |
| 00:52:52.68 | Heidi Scoble | Tom Riley, you've been unmuted. |
| 00:52:59.21 | Heidi Scoble | Welcome. |
| 00:52:59.64 | Unknown | Thank you. Good evening. Hello, everyone. My name is Tom Riley. I am a 15-year resident of Sausalito and 94965, along with my wife and our wonderful son. Thank you, Dr. Garcia, for your work to develop a world-class school. We are so excited, bringing these two great schools in together as one. First, I want to personally thank you, Dr. Garcia, getting involved with my family and personally helping us navigate our school choices I'm truly impressed with your commitment to engage at an individual student level, in addition to all the work you're doing. So thank you for that. We are truly excited about our new school. We hope it is our family school in the future. And after your presentation tonight, we're even more excited. There's three things that we are focused on that we think makes an important, makes a very successful unified school for us. First. We believe our children will benefit from a highly diverse and integrated school body. that prepares them to be compassionate, effective leaders in the future. leaders that understand the strength of diversity. And I know that the plan you are on will help us get there. Second, We hope for a well-rounded curriculum that goes beyond just reading math and sciences, but also exposes our children to the arts, languages, music, in a variety of cultures. With this, our children will find their natural strengths and appreciate the uniqueness of others. I believe bringing the best of our two schools together will help us achieve this and I hope we find the best of both campuses. And third, A world-class school is so dependent on the support and involvement of its the leadership from both schools, the teachers from both schools, the parents, to communities and neighboring organizations. I believe we're on a path, an exciting path, to achieve the first and second with our unification efforts. However, I fear Based on comments from tonight, that we're lacking on the third. I'm disappointed there's still divisive language in our community. as evidence in prior public meetings and in the comments tonight, I agree with the comments of the gentleman earlier. that this is not helpful. This does nothing to bring us together. Rather, it pulls us apart. In the long run, it's going to hurt our children. Our children will learn best from how we unite. Let's not have them learn from how we attempt to divide. These are exciting times as we build our new world-class school. We're on the right path. If we come together as a community, we'll succeed in building one of the best untraditional schools in the One that we'll be proud of and one that I certainly hope we're part of. And finally, Dr. Garcia. I want to thank you for your support of the Horizon Community School and Angie Knopf. Your comparison to a rocket ship that is a few degrees off target at launch time being much more damaging to its trajectory as compared to one that gets a few degrees off later in flight is spot on. This investment in our youngest of children is the most important thing we can do to make them get on the right trajectory for early age. So I want to thank you for your support. Good night. |
| 00:56:22.19 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. Thank you. I have one. The Willow Creek Academy Board President Kurt Weinheimer was on the call, but he had to drop off. And so he emailed me a brief statement that I'm going to read now and we will attach it as public comment to our agenda after the meeting. So this is from, again, this is from Board President Kurt Weinheimer. Thanks to Dr. Otoko. Dr. Garcia. the District Board and Willow Creek Academy Board for their work. the signing of our joint resolution for school unification by both the Willow Creek Academy and school district board is a major milestone for bringing our schools together. This resolution highlights the goals and approach for creating a top tier school for all our community's kids that emphasizes personal growth, diversity, equity, inclusion, and a sense of belonging for each student. Willow Creek has grown and thrived by focusing on a school community that is inclusive regardless of religious, cultural, racial, or socioeconomic status. It has also leveraged project-based learning and a passionate staff to support student needs. We believe the unified school environments The unified school's environment will build on both schools' strengths, allowing students to thrive academically, grow individually and develop a more connected, compassionate world view together. There is still a lot of work to do to ensure that resources focus on diverse learning needs that staff from both schools are set up for success and financial plans provide for sustainable student support for years to come, but I am confident that our school staff, families, and community supporters will help make the vision a reality for the Fall. the fall 2021 opening. Thanks to everyone who has helped us get to this point And thanks in advance for your help. getting us to launch, and that's from Kurt Weinsheimer, the Willow Creek Academy Board President, and I understand that there's a student tonight who has a birthday and her name is Esme and we're happy birthday to Esme. Okay, so that closes our public comment. And so I'm going to... Um, bring it back to the city council for comments. And then we have a proposed resolution that I will ask for a motion and we'll take a vote on the motion and then I will read the I will read the resolution. Thank you. |
| 00:58:45.61 | Janelle Kellman | Mayor Hoffman, do we have one more person who wanted to speak on that? I don't, Thank you. |
| 00:58:50.25 | Heidi Scoble | to be able to get the |
| 00:58:50.30 | Janelle Kellman | Thank you. |
| 00:58:51.50 | Heidi Scoble | Madam Mayor, there was a hand that was raised within 20 seconds ago. |
| 00:58:56.56 | Jill Hoffman | my apologies okay let's okay we're gonna take this last comment That's it though. So... |
| 00:59:03.32 | Heidi Scoble | Melanie you've been unmuted. |
| 00:59:04.93 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah, thank you. Thank you. |
| 00:59:08.30 | Unknown | Thank you so much. I just think, oh, Here we go. Okay. |
| 00:59:11.22 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 00:59:12.12 | Unknown | Thank you so much. |
| 00:59:12.15 | Ian Sobieski | I'm not. |
| 00:59:13.86 | Unknown | So, Sorry, I was a little bit late with my trigger finger there. Madam Mayor, council members, staff and neighbors in Sausalito and Marin City, I'm a mom here in Sausalito. My daughter was a student at Willow Creek for four years. She's now moved on to TAM. but we live very close to Willow Creek and I can't tell you how great it is to hear the school bell ringing and the sounds of little voices in the neighborhood again. I want to thank Superintendent Garcia for your really thorough and positive update. We're so encouraged with how far everything's come. And it's great to hear that Willow Creek teachers will be welcomed very actively in the unified we always felt a very high quality of teaching from them. And I think it's really important to have a definitive retention strategy for those teachers. Because if we see teacher attrition, I'm really worried it could be a harbinger of family and student attrition. which nobody wants to see down the road. We don't want any backsliding there. that. I wanna thank our, City Council for staying so close to this. over the many years that we have been here and actively involved in this district. I have been at many meetings and been very involved, and it's always been so great for me to see our city council members there. especially council members Cleveland Knowles and Mayor Hoffman You have both been great, great leaders in helping to keep our community close. to our school district. looking after the best interests of kids here. in both communities, not just Sausalito, but also the children. of Marin City You've both gone above and beyond. And I'm just so surprised that the voices who are casting this segregationist architecture So, um, backwards because honestly for as a mom who was here, who was on the front lines, who went to district meetings, who was very involved in the school, um, That just is not the reality on the ground that I experienced. So I just want to thank you both. I want to thank all of our city council members for seeing so close to this. I think everybody in Sausalito and Marin City, we feel like we have a fiduciary responsibility for the school and for our kids. I think there's so much that we can accomplish together And, um, and you know, this is a time for us to really just bond together and be like not tear each other down. So I think we can do great things together. Thank you. |
| 01:01:57.16 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, now public comment closed. And so I'll bring it back up here to the city council for our comments and then Um, and then our resolution so yes I see a hand up with Councilmember Sobieski |
| 01:02:14.06 | Ian Sobieski | Just feeding off of that last comment from Melanie and our community and Tom Riley's comment and also just the whole arc of this community effort to serve our children in the way we best Okay. which I know is the motivation of All of us. I think it's... I would like to actually just propose that we modify your results section in this draft resolution to acknowledge what Melanie just mentioned, which is I'd like to acknowledge past city council members in addition to all these other categories of people that have contributed so much work. And by doing so I would love to acknowledge you Mayor Hoffman for your work and use Susan Cleveland roles for yours in the service of our kids. And I feel that strikes the right that phrase into the results section of this resolution. Um, I'm looking forward and thanking everyone in our community. for everything they're doing. to educate our kids. |
| 01:03:17.06 | Jill Hoffman | Okay. Thank you. Thank you for your comments. Any other comments? I can go. Go ahead, Council Member Blasdine and then Vice Mayor and Thank you. Anyway. Go ahead. Thank you. Thank you. |
| 01:03:30.36 | Melissa Blaustein | I'm really excited about this unification effort and the reason, well, there are so many reasons, but one of the things that really sticks out to me that Dr. Garcia mentioned is how much this can be really a cornerstone of our community. This is a real opportunity for us to use the unification process as a healing process to start to have some real conversations about how can we create a more inclusive and collaborative community and how can we be better neighbors to Marin City and how can we be working together and having joint meetings with the Marin City Community Services District all of these things, volunteering, community work is so exciting. And I also just wanted to really tip my hat to the innovative structure of these schools. I've been thinking a lot about you know, the hard skills and curriculum and how people learn writing math and arithmetic, but what's really critical and we've seen more and more with the future generation is getting people past this to new hard skills around character. And there's so much that I saw in Yitoko's presentation that focuses on really looking at more than just what are you learning in the classroom, but who are you becoming as someone who will be a real leader for our future. And I'm really excited about all of these great students that are, and I'm also a little bit envious of all of the great students who are going to be able to be a part of this new future that we're all building together in our community. And I'm really excited and just want to say I'm very committed to any sort of conversations that we can have to help work and support the school district, anything the city council can do to continue that great work. And I would be happy to sign up to be a driver for all of the kids to school. I just can't wait. And I think this is gonna be a really great opportunity for continued conversation across our community. So I really appreciate it. And I think we have a chance to be one of the best schools, not just in the county, but in the state and perhaps even in the country as a leader when we look at this curriculum. Thank you so much. |
| 01:05:27.50 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. Um, by some of the |
| 01:05:28.97 | Janelle Kellman | Ernesto? |
| 01:05:29.51 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 01:05:29.53 | Janelle Kellman | Thank you. Thank you. I'll keep my comments brief. I want to acknowledge Dr. Garcia again. You know, they say that true leadership takes courage. And I think this is a great situation where we could not be more fortunate to have a truly courageous individual at the helm helping to achieve a long way to unification. You know, the last speaker mentioned that we have a fiduciary duty to our schools and I would add on or maybe even supplant that by saying we have a moral duty. to educate our children. And I see this resolution and I want to thank Mayor Hoffman for bringing it to us tonight. I see this as a moral compass for us, a fresh start with a new council and a way forward for us as a community and as leaders to show what we are really about, what we believe in. And I think starting off with something like this shows that we're not just going to engage in wordplay and task forces, but we are going to start engaging in a real meaningful way in a way that shows that we are partners with our neighbors in Marin City, with the school district and of course with our children. So I see this as a moral compass. I couldn't be happier to be signing this tonight and agreeing to this. So thanks, everybody. And thank you all for your comments as well. And thank you again, Mayor Hoffman, for bringing this to us. Thank you. Councilmember Cleveland Olas, did you want to |
| 01:06:48.59 | Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. |
| 01:06:49.73 | Janelle Kellman | Thank you. |
| 01:06:49.75 | Cleveland Knowles | Yeah, sure. I'll also keep my comments brief and echo all the thanks and great words from everyone else. |
| 01:06:49.84 | Janelle Kellman | Thank you. |
| 01:06:56.59 | Cleveland Knowles | And thank you to a lot of our speakers tonight for their for their wisdom. Um, there were so many people, um, who have worked on this effort over so many years. Superintendent Garcia, it's so great that he is here leading the charge at this point, but I just want to also recognize you know, all of the past and present board members from the Sausalito Marin City School District, from the Willow Creek, board of directors, all of the parents, all of the passionate community members from the 94965 who have been coming together on this path of unification for many years. And I have been so supportive of unification from the beginning and just so excited to be here. um, tonight to hear that both schools are joining together. And I think this is just an excellent opportunity to work with the district, to be on the path and the journey of healing and coming together. and being that model for our kids who have you know, so much potential in both of our communities and in the whole 94965. So I think, you know, as Councilmember Blaustein said, We really had the opportunity to be a model in Marin And and to be a model in California and to be a model nationwide. And I'm really glad that Dr. Garcia is here too to take this challenge on and that we can be here and help in any way we can and to start those great conversations and be the leaders. be our best selves in this moment. So thank you so much. |
| 01:08:49.31 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. For a long time, I've been passionate about education and passionate about early education. And my grandfather never went to high school. He had to quit school at the eighth grade. and worked the family farm and put his two older sisters through college and through teacher school. So in my family, teaching is a big deal and schooling is a big deal and I am, absolutely convinced and All in for The best way to address past and systemic racism and discrimination is solid education, and especially a solid K through 8 education. And so I M. delighted that our schools are unifying. I'm delighted that we're on this positive path. and that we have a proposed resolution for our city council to support this effort. And so we had a I think Uh, a suggestion for an amendment. I'm going to go ahead and get a little bit. Councilmember Sobieski and I think you're talking about the |
| 01:09:52.35 | Ian Sobieski | after the Willow Creek Academy comma, I would just say, and past members of the Sus Leader City Council. comma and then it goes on and community members throughout the district |
| 01:10:02.61 | Jill Hoffman | Okay. So you're talking about the be it resolved? |
| 01:10:05.92 | Ian Sobieski | Yes. |
| 01:10:07.14 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, so you see I see Willow Creek Academy board members comma past city council members past and present. Maybe, but. |
| 01:10:15.31 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 01:10:16.00 | Jill Hoffman | I'm cool. |
| 01:10:16.62 | Ian Sobieski | The past includes you and Jill and all the other former, you and Susan and all the former city council members who have done so much work on this. Thank you. |
| 01:10:27.79 | Cleveland Knowles | I'm that's very kind um I'd also if we're going to do that I would love as um you know, we've mentioned earlier tonight, there's also our sister, elected entity, the Marin City Community Services District. So if we're going to add elected officials from our community, I would love to add all of the past and present elected officials from from that entity as well, because they have done an enormous amount. over the years as well. |
| 01:10:59.28 | Ian Sobieski | So I guess... Let's add that phrase too, please. |
| 01:11:02.76 | Jill Hoffman | Okay. |
| 01:11:03.25 | Ian Sobieski | That's my proposal, at least for the consideration of my colleagues. |
| 01:11:06.47 | Jill Hoffman | Okay. So I have passed. Past and present, Sausalito City Council members, past and present, |
| 01:11:16.22 | Cleveland Knowles | Community service district members. |
| 01:11:22.42 | Cleveland Knowles | I mean, or we can just leave it to the folks that did the heavy lifting. |
| 01:11:30.79 | Jill Hoffman | I'm good either way, which anybody want to Second. Thank you. Or any thoughts on just leave it as is? |
| 01:11:41.70 | Ian Sobieski | My proposal was past and present members of the Sassana City Council and past and present members of the It's a friend of Marin City. Thank you. |
| 01:11:52.56 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, Dr. Garcia, do you have any problem with that? Thank you. |
| 01:11:57.69 | Unknown | No, no, I was just trying to help Ian there. The Marin City Community Services District. Thank you, sir. |
| 01:12:04.28 | Jill Hoffman | There's a lot of words in there. Okay. Got it. Okay, so I'm gonna amend our last, And I'm reading this off of a PDF, so I think I can remember when I get down there. I'll try to remember that. I'm gonna add those two after Willow Creek Academy board members. Okay, so I'm gonna read this. This is a res, first of all, we need to take a vote. Madam Clerk, could you please call the roll? We have to make a motion too. Oh, motion, yeah, sorry. Thank you. |
| 01:12:33.16 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 01:12:33.22 | Jill Hoffman | I'm like, |
| 01:12:33.97 | Melissa Blaustein | And something like a big emotion. |
| 01:12:35.79 | Ian Sobieski | I mean, |
| 01:12:36.04 | Melissa Blaustein | I make a motion to approve the resolution and the unification of the schools, Mayor Hoffman. Bye. |
| 01:12:41.04 | Jill Hoffman | Thanks very much. Do I have a second? I'll second the motion. Very good, thank you. Okay, now Madam Clerk, if you could call the roll. Councilmember Sobieski. |
| 01:12:49.24 | Chris Zapata | Thank you. |
| 01:12:49.48 | Unknown | Yes. |
| 01:12:50.00 | Chris Zapata | Excuse me, Madam Mayor. |
| 01:12:50.99 | Unknown | in the car. |
| 01:12:51.53 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 01:12:51.92 | Chris Zapata | Excuse me, Madam Mayor. So I believe we've lost Council member Cleveland Knowles, she's having internet problems. I think, um, It would be good to Sure. |
| 01:13:04.38 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah, yeah. Let's take a break. |
| 01:13:05.42 | Janelle Kellman | Thank you. |
| 01:13:11.11 | Janelle Kellman | Wanna take two minutes or just. |
| 01:13:15.06 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 01:13:15.12 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. Um, yeah, let's take, we'll take five. |
| 01:13:22.18 | Unknown | Here's a public service announcement from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Bye. Sausalito's Bay model has reopened to the public for the first time in almost a year. Located in the Marineship, the facility is a one-and-a-half-acre working hydraulic model of the San Francisco Bay and Sacramento-San Joaquin River Deltas. It provides a unique opportunity to view and understand the Bay and Delta water system on an impressive scale. For safety, masks must be worn at all times inside the facility. Also, no more than six people to a group may visit together. The bay model has reopened. Hours are Tuesday through Saturday from 9 to 4. For more information, call 415-289-3007. |
| 01:15:39.90 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 01:15:51.71 | Jill Hoffman | In a second, we're ready for our Madam Clerk to call Thank you. |
| 01:15:57.21 | Heidi Scoble | Thank you. |
| 01:15:57.33 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 01:15:57.48 | Heidi Scoble | Thank you. Councilmember Sobieski. |
| 01:15:59.94 | Ian Sobieski | Yes. |
| 01:16:00.94 | Heidi Scoble | Councilmember Blaustein. Yes. Councilmember Cleveland Knowles. Yes. Vice Mayor Kelman. |
| 01:16:06.93 | Jill Hoffman | and they are kids. Thank you. Yeah. |
| 01:16:08.30 | Heidi Scoble | Thank you. |
| 01:16:08.38 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 01:16:08.52 | Heidi Scoble | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 01:16:08.94 | Jill Hoffman | Mayor Hoffman. |
| 01:16:09.26 | Heidi Scoble | I'm going to go. |
| 01:16:10.14 | Jill Hoffman | Yes. OK, so here's our I'm going to read the resolution, a resolution of the city of Sausalito in support of school unification, Willow Creek Academy and Bayside MLK. Whereas the city of Sausalito recognizes the importance of our sub public schools, as a resource and benefit to our children, vital to the health of our community, and recognize the words of Nelson Mandela that education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world. And the city of Sausalio recognizes the tremendous effort and achievement of the parents, educators, and community at Bayside, Martin Luther King Jr. Academy, as a community school to safeguard and continue educational opportunities for students over many years to fulfill its mission of supporting students and their families in a safe, healthy, and culturally relevant environment. And whereas the city of Sausalito recognizes the tremendous effort and achievement of willow creek academy leaders, educators, community and parents to create the kindergarten to public charter school. in 2001 and helped bring hundreds of families into the local public school system growing it to a diverse student population of more than 400 students by 2018. equally attended by families from Sausalito and Marin City and to safeguard and continue educational opportunities for its students. And whereas in July. 2019. The Sausalito Marin City School District and Willow Creek Academy each established a committee to explore possible options for unification of the two schools. And whereas this month, March 2021, Both the district and Willow Creek Academy signed a joint resolution for unification of the two schools expressing a desire to facilitate the best possible education for all students in the and a belief that serving The best interest of all students in the district should be the guiding principle in any assessment of structural change in the district and whereas the district and Willow Creek Academy have negotiated the material terms for unification at Bayside Martin Luther King Jr. Academy and Willow Creek Academy So as to create a single school on terms of beneficial to all parties and are committed to the successful integration of staff and families into a unified school with empathy and compassion. Whereas Willow Creek Academy intends to unify with Bayside Martin Luther King Junior Academy to form a single school system on July 1, 2021 that will be open to all public school students in the district by fall. 2021. Whereas the city of Sausalio supports the school unification, particularly as it harmonizes with and furthers the city's continued efforts to support transformative and permanent change including as expressed in resolution. in proactively identifying and addressing biases, practices, policies, and institutional barriers that perpetuate injustice and inequality in our schools and our communities. be resolved that the city of Sausalito applauds the efforts of the Sausalito Marin City School Board members Willow Creek Academy Board members past and present members of the Sausalito City Council, past and present members of the Moran City Community Services District |
| 01:19:24.89 | Jill Hoffman | and community members from throughout the school district for their hard work toward unification and in pledging to provide quality education to all public school students in the district at one unified school going forward. And be it further resolved, that the city of Sausalito supports unification for our two schools into one world-class public school. passed and adopted at a regular meeting with city council on 23rd day of March, 2021. If we were in city council meeting, we would all be clapping. |
| 01:20:00.38 | Janelle Kellman | I'm clapping, actually. |
| 01:20:01.24 | Jill Hoffman | THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 01:20:01.41 | Janelle Kellman | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 01:20:02.40 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 01:20:02.47 | Janelle Kellman | in public. |
| 01:20:03.03 | Jill Hoffman | I think. |
| 01:20:03.69 | Janelle Kellman | Thank you. |
| 01:20:03.79 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 01:20:03.82 | Janelle Kellman | Thank you. |
| 01:20:03.85 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 01:20:03.89 | Janelle Kellman | Right. |
| 01:20:04.63 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 01:20:05.09 | Janelle Kellman | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 01:20:06.35 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah, thank you. Excellent. Thank you, Dr. Garcia. Thank you so much for all your effort and for coming tonight. Thank you. |
| 01:20:11.11 | Unknown | THE FAMILY. |
| 01:20:11.18 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 01:20:11.28 | Unknown | Thanks for having me and thanks for passing the resolution. We really appreciate it. |
| 01:20:11.67 | Jill Hoffman | I'm very excited. |
| 01:20:15.73 | Jill Hoffman | our honor. Our honor. I'm delighted. Thank you. Thank you. OK. Moving on. to our next item on the agenda, on our very full agenda. |
| 01:20:25.28 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 01:20:27.80 | Jill Hoffman | Um, Okay, so we're not to item two on our agenda. Um, which is communications. So this is the time of the agenda for members of the public. Oh, whoops, sorry. Hold on. I had two more. Sorry, I got to go back to Mayor's announcements. We are doing interviews for openings on our boards, committees, and commissions next Tuesday on March 30th from 6 to 8 p.m. We're interviewing for EDAC, Sustainability, Planning Commission, PBAC, Parks and Recreation, Historic Preservation Commission, and community safety and preparedness. Applications will be accepted until the end of the day this Thursday. So. on March 25th. So if you're interested, you can go on the city website and look under any of the boards and commissions to see what openings there are and how to apply. And for more information, You can go to the city's website at www.sasli.gov or contact the city clerk, Heidi Scoble. at hscoble at sasso.gov if you are interested in applying. And my next announcement is related to efforts of Councilmember Blaustein and I on our working group for the homeless and tent encampment. and that we have collaborated with Marin Housing Authority on a program to bring additional housing units into use specifically for use in housing those without shelter. And to that end, Sausalito is hosting a workshop with Marin Housing Authority and area nonprofits. Tomorrow evening, from 5.30 to 6.30. and more information in a Zoom link. is included in the currents that was published this last week and also on our website. So if you're interested in that, I think it's, we'll probably talk more about that in our, I'm going to get the committee updates later, but I want to get that out in our announcements. We are moving on to Ohio too. on our agenda, which is communications. Um, This is the time on the agenda for members of the public to provide any public comment for items not on the agenda. except in limited situations, state law precludes the council from taking action on or engaging in discussions concerning on items on the agenda. Uh... or However, the council may briefly respond to statements made or questions posed by a member of the public, ask clarifying questions, make a brief announcement, or refer to matters not on the agenda. With that, I will open for public comment. matters not on the agenda. |
| 01:23:08.69 | Heidi Scoble | Madam Mayor, we have one hand raised at this time. I will unmute Alice Merrill. Alice, you've been unmuted. |
| 01:23:18.69 | Alice Merrill | Okay, thank you. I'm going to stay out of the picture. But, I just want to say that on Thursday, I believe it's on Thursday there, and I hope you've all heard about this. an event that is going to be online that explains the gentrification of a working waterfront, how this happens, how it starts, how it grows, how you go from what we have right now, which has been there a really long time, and it's really cool. to something that is just more homes, more well, you guys know what I'm talking about. And this is coming on. It's happened in these different communities. They're going to be talking about how it happens. They're going to be talking about what is the process? This is what I think they're going to be talking about. And I really hope people watch it. It is, It's called the gentrification of a working waterfront how it can happen and what it means to the community. Communities across the country are losing working waterfronts at an alarming rate. It's on March 26, 2021. from 6 to 730. And I do believe that The city has been told about this. So if people listening want to find out about it, they can go there or they can go to the Marin Post Oh gosh, which one is? three weeks ago, or I can't remember where it is, I'm not sure. You can ask me. So I'm really hoping people watch this because we've We've already, put all the laws in place so that we can gentrify our working waterfront. That's what this board did a few weeks ago. really sad. Thank you. Goodbye. |
| 01:25:12.62 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 01:25:13.00 | Heidi Scoble | Thank you. |
| 01:25:17.38 | Heidi Scoble | Our next speaker is Eva's iPhone. Ivor Crisante, you've been unmuted. |
| 01:25:23.77 | Unknown | Thank you, Eva Crisanti. Yeah, it is remarkable to me how passionate I WANT TO TALK ABOUT THIS. people are about the working waterfront. And I think it's terrific that they are. People like Alice Merrill have a long history in Sausalito and have seen a lot, and it's wonderful having their input. I am disappointed that the same people are so utterly disinterested in examining the local law enforcement. THE FAMILY. I did a series of public records act requests and I found some pretty disturbing data. regarding our Marin County Sheriff's Office and the rate at which it was arresting black individuals in the county. Over a 31-year period, the Marin County Sheriff Office has been arresting Black individuals and I'm not going to be able to over eight times your demographics. representation in the county. that's, obscene. And it's absurd. And so we've heard a lot from white homeowners like this Merrill about, oh, my God, we have to save, you know, the working waterfront. And I agree. I fully agree. I would feel more comfortable with. Thank you. if people like Ms. Merrill who represent a good portion of Sausalito and the city council were as concerned about saving actual people. You cannot be arresting people at over eight times your demographic without creating serious life consequences for them. They are not being able to have their presence from anxiety to depression to to all sorts of things. And the fact that this can't even be discussed by the city of Sausalito is pretty disturbing. The arrest rates for the police department are not much better. It was interesting listening to the resolution Thank you. because, you know, I've been delving in with my cousins, my Chinese cousins on a lot of American and Chinese history. And it does seem like there is a very pronounced interest by white residents of Marin County to erase their own, their own past. because it's unpleasant for them or because it makes them look bad. you know, everybody's ancestors made horrible mistakes. It's okay to say that you have, and it's even okay to say that you've made mistakes in your own life. |
| 01:27:51.85 | Unknown | . |
| 01:27:57.38 | Unknown | like Susan Cleveland Knowles did with the segregation. And the problem is not confronting it head on. Um, So you know, I urge I urge the council to take a closer look and also to stop censoring. and Abbott Chambers are in charge of the library You know, they have a good role in it. Um, The data should be presented at the Sausage O'Donnell Public Library. |
| 01:28:28.87 | Heidi Scoble | Thank you. Our next speaker is Charlene Eldon. Charlene, you've been unmuted. |
| 01:28:35.52 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:28:37.98 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 01:28:38.07 | Unknown | And me, I'm back to ruin unification by holding people accountable. |
| 01:28:38.19 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. Yeah. |
| 01:28:43.22 | Unknown | I think the arrest data puts it into perfect clarity that they can't are under attack. in Marin City and that's why they're not here tonight. And that's why white allies and advocates have to stand up for them is because they are over policed, criminalized starting as children, and watched constantly. The sheriff is a training. The sheriff uses Marin City as a training ground. Now we find from someone who has just been a working class concerned citizen slash writer that black people are arrested over eight times their demographic presence. The sheriff sits outside of that elementary school all day every day watching them and pulling up on them in groups of children this happened to a friend of mine recently who was just out there with high school students unification does not begin and end with silencing this and pushing this under the rug and that's exactly what abbott chambers has done. And that's exactly what the library is doing. And that's what this resolution is doing. You are whitewashing your own history. You're denying culpability. And that is one of the first things that you learn when you have been convicted of a crime. This was a crime. This was white collar crime by rich people, so you're still free, but this was criminal and evil and wrong. |
| 01:30:08.08 | Ian Sobieski | Oh. |
| 01:30:09.58 | Unknown | This was disgusting and disturbing. And I worked at that school. I volunteered with those children who the whole county paints as villains and criminals. This issue is not about me or Susan or cancel culture. This is about generations of children who have been stolen from who are still not safe at this table. They are still not safe in this community because of the police, because of the lack of funding, because of the lack of safety nets, because of the education. And you sit here and you rewrite your own history to say city council has always helped with this. You haven't. You haven't. You have directly participated in segregation and this was found since 2012 in the financial reports. And I had to dig through all of this to figure out what was actually going on because you sit here and smile and rewrite history and talk about how great you are with an absence of black residents, by the way, And you have to dig and dig to find out what it is that you people have been doing knowingly and willingly, even after the desegregation order. Only once the George Floyd protests started, only once there was a community outrage about desegregation did they drop those lawsuits. Thank you. |
| 01:31:45.85 | Heidi Scoble | Richard is our next speaker. Wendy, you've been unmuted. |
| 01:31:50.53 | Ian Sobieski | you very much um there was an item on the agenda 7a which i understand has been removed from the agenda would this be the appropriate time to speak to that point Yes. Thank you. So Mayor Hoffman, I I don't see other rest of the... Ah, there you are. Okay, got my screen back. Sorry, thank you. Um, So item 7A included an extension of a due date of a tax on home-based earners. which tax was passed without transparency of the nature of the tax. I can understand that you may want to do further work on this matter, but in the meanwhile, the clock is ticking. and this unfair discriminatory tax on home-based earners is due on March 31st. Now you're putting your residents in even more difficult situation. |
| 01:33:00.15 | Ian Sobieski | because this deadline is looming. We live here. We pay our property taxes. We happen to work as independent earners and we get to pay twice. I have 140, one minute and 40 seconds left. I don't even get six minutes to talk, but you taxed me twice. Now, I don't think that's why any of you came on council. Measure M was done. erroneously and without transparency. It was the wrong thing. done the wrong way. Now you have an opportunity to make it be the right thing and do it in the right way. And moreover, You have the opportunity with all this discussion about equity, You have an opportunity to stand up and take action for equity, not whitewashing. No, this is not equity at the schools. But it is, excuse me. equity for how our residents and our businesses pay for the services. The residents shouldn't be paying twice for the same services, and particularly those residents who work as independent earners. |
| 01:34:12.70 | Unknown | And I think that's what I'm saying. |
| 01:34:17.91 | Ian Sobieski | And that can be an accountant or it can be a dog walker. So I don't know what you plan to do. And I appreciate that you want to solve this I urge you to stand for the values that you say you stand for. Stand for that. Melissa, you're a big equity person. This is an equity issue. This is an issue of Responsible management, stand for it. Please. Make the changes. and bring us equity. Thank you. Thank you. |
| 01:35:04.90 | Heidi Scoble | Madam Mayor, we have Sandra Bushmaker who has a raised hand. Sandra, you've been unmuted. |
| 01:35:10.45 | Sandra Bushmaker | Thank you, everybody. I'm speaking on the Measure M issue and the business tax. |
| 01:35:10.50 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 01:35:10.72 | Heidi Scoble | Thank you. |
| 01:35:15.85 | Sandra Bushmaker | I do support a complete redo of the structure. It unfolds. fairly as written and voted on. with some discrepancy as to what was really put in the voter materials. creates a hardship and an unfair Inequitable. burden on those working from their homes and also the professional services, uh, aspect of our business providers. I would just request that the City Council look at this very seriously and equalize the playing field. Because right now, people who are working from their homes, professionals and service businesses are being unfairly taxed. Thank you. Thank you. |
| 01:36:11.30 | Heidi Scoble | I mean, we have one more hand raised. Damian Morgan. Damian, you've been unmuted. Thank you. |
| 01:36:20.49 | Damian Morgan | Can you hear me? |
| 01:36:21.57 | Jill Hoffman | Yes, go ahead. Welcome. |
| 01:36:23.82 | Damian Morgan | Thank you. Thanks for having me. I'll keep my video off for now. I'm just relaxing. Thank you. My name is Damian Morgan. I'm born and raised in the town of Marin City. I have a great town in my city. Um, I should say I'm a board member, board chair for the Marin City Community Services District. But more importantly, I am a person. I'm a community community member first. and a black man first before being a board member. I've been listening to the many comments tonight and I always listen, you know, on these meetings and this is getting more and more interesting. And what I will say is, you know, the term healing, the word healing, um, you know, to city council, community members, you know, be careful. Think about how you use the term healing. Think about how you want to progress and move forward with healing. It's been has been thrown out many a times over the years and especially lately regarding healing. Think about it. That's a time when you in these deep and connected, tough conversations. Just consider how you use the word healing. That's the advice. You don't have to take it, but that's advice that I'm giving. Um... You know, Healing is important. I think we all want to move forward in that aspect of healing. Um, there will be things that will be said that people don't like. Um, A lot of it is based on history. So we need to get to that and people have to open themselves up and be comfortable with hearing things that they may not like to hear, may not want to hear. but it is a part of healing. So, you know, consider that. Um, censorship for anyone is not good. Um, You know, I have many examples. I won't get into it now. I have many examples of being attacked, attacking Marin City, you know, next door. You can only imagine the things I read on Next Door from the last five, six years. I've read a lot of ugly, ugly comments. So if you're Caucasian and you live in Sausalito and you hear something that you don't like, Put yourself in my shoes. Think about what I've been through. And the comments I've read on the hundreds of comments of Next Door. Some of you, did I see your names on here? I'm looking at your names and seeing some of the things that you wrote regarding Marin City and the kids of Marin City about me. So think about that before you get offended. Put yourself in my shoes. No, my life is not horrible. I'm not saying I'm living some horrible, pathetic life. I'm not saying that. It's tough. It can be tough. Consider that. Thank you. |
| 01:39:23.44 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Closing public comment. I don't see any other hands up. And so moving on. We will now move on to Our next item on the agenda, which is action minutes of the previous meeting. May I have a motion to approve as submitted or move to approve is changed or corrected. Does anybody have corrections for the action minutes of the previous meeting? I'm seeing nothing, therefore, may I please have a moment? |
| 01:40:00.34 | Melissa Blaustein | I think a motion to approve the action minutes from the previous meeting, Mayor Hoffman. |
| 01:40:05.07 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. Do I have a second? |
| 01:40:06.91 | Melissa Blaustein | I can't. |
| 01:40:08.14 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you very much. Can, Madam Clerk, can you please take the role? |
| 01:40:12.12 | Heidi Scoble | Council member Sobieski? Councilmember Blaustein. Yes. Council member Cleveland Knowles. Vice mayor Kelman? Yes. Mayor Hoffman? |
| 01:40:22.80 | Jill Hoffman | Yes, and the motion passes. unanimously. I see here though that I probably, maybe I should have taken I THINK I'M GOING TO BE minutes. The minutes, yeah, sorry about that. Okay, so I'm gonna open it up for public comment. for the minutes from the previous meeting. Not seeing any hands. Therefore, I'm going to close public comment We've made our motion, we voted, Moving on. Um, Okay, Councilmember Committee reports some good news. So, Okay, who wants to start? I'll let whoever else wants to start, can start. that's not going to be Janelle Kelman. Vice Mayor, do you want to talk about our |
| 01:41:12.16 | Janelle Kellman | Yes. Thank you. I would be happy to because March 21st was World Water Day. So happy World Water Day. But I do want to acknowledge that we are very fortunate to have safe, clean, available drinking water when so many people in this world do not. So I do feel very fortunate for that. And so I do want to celebrate World Water Day. So the theme, I guess, for my report and council members will be asking, I'll let you handle the city manager update. I'll stick with some of the environmental stuff. So I'll start with the Sea Level Rise Task Force. At the last city council meeting, the mayor appointed myself and the chair of the Planning Commission, Christina Feller, and I to the task force. So since that time, I have met with Congressman Huffman's office, scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NOAA, Marin County's watershed planners, Marin County, Tam Valley, Mill Valley, Belvedere, as well as a number of local Sausalito stakeholders, including Sausalito Beautiful, Rotary, and the Wookiee Waterfront Coalition to talk about options and opportunities for us. So it looks like we'll be scoping it out this task force more next week and appointing a handful of other folks to the task force. But right now we're looking at things like risk modeling, sea level rise mapping, infrastructure improvements, mitigation, nature-based adaptation, and of course opportunities to apply for grants. There's a massive opportunity for the Sausalito community to come together and also to learn from our neighbors in Marin City who have already successfully applied for and embarked upon several sea level rise projects. So some good opportunities there as well. My second environmental report out last night was the MCCMC Climate Action Committee. We heard from Gretchen Schubeck, who is Nevada's sustainability officer. And I also learned that Nevada and San Rafael are the only two cities that have sustainability officers. So I got very excited about that because it's a great model for us as well. Gretchen is also chair of MCEP in Green Cities, California. So she mentioned a few really interesting programs for those of you looking around electrification, EV charging. Electrify Marin is one. It's a county of Marin offers rebates to single family property owners for the replacement of natural gas appliances. something called Bay Ren, which is implements energy savings programs throughout the nine Bay Area counties, is working on pace financing. There is something that works around green electric training programs. Some of you may know that Spalding Boat Works Apprenticeship Program was approved by the California Division of Apprenticeship Standards. I'm gonna reach out to them and see if we can implement and integrate some green standards in their training as well. We also talked about Clean Cars for All, which is an equity and diversity initiative. for electric vehicles. And then there was talk of an environmental film festival led by MCEP. They'll be looking for some volunteer host cities. And I may have already pinged Council Member Blaustein on that, and we were both very excited. I'll skip over the city manager update. I'll leave Councilor Sobieski. We did also have a finance committee meeting. Oh, wait, hold on. MCE, I forgot. We had an MCE meeting on Thursday. That was a very business-oriented meeting in that we reviewed a lot of the budget projections, the EV charging program moving forward, as well as joint procurement, customer engagement, some of the more technical aspects of a community choice aggregator. And that was a fascinating meeting, particularly when we got to the topic of targeted customer cost relief, which is at the top of everybody's minds right now for electric and utility bills. Okay, and then the last thing is Finance Committee. We had a finance committee meeting on Monday. WE REVIEWED THREE THINGS, THE BUDGET, are deal with Southern Marine Fire and pensions. Budget, we're gonna review that tonight, so I won't go into depth. We focused really on fund management and cash reserves and cash management policies. Southern Marine Fire, we wanted to understand the rate we pay, which is 44% of our property tax, but it doesn't hit our books. It goes from the county directly to Southern Marine Fire, so we were doing an accounting of that. And then we spent a lot more time with Charlie's help. We're very fortunate to have him working with us right now on pensions. And I think we all agree that the council really needs to educate ourselves about the pension situation, engage with the public, We looked at retroactive pension increases, Sausalito's pension surplus over the last 20 years, as well as CalPERS historic investment returns. The net net is that the expenses and costs associated with the pensions have been much greater than planned. We have a very large pension debt. The former council did define a very strong contribution plan back in June 2018, but unfortunately we are behind in those payments. And Charlie also explained that some of these assumptions changed based on CalPERS rate of return. and liability went up. And when the actual experience falls short of the actuarial assumptions, the liabilities also increase. So if that sounds a little bit into some of us, that's okay, because Charlie will come to the council directly and dig into all of these things. But he's extremely helpful and I urge you to go ahead and look at the staff report he prepared for us on yesterday's finance committee meeting. So I think that was probably enough. I hope that was detailed enough for folks. Thank you. |
| 01:46:58.39 | Melissa Blaustein | Can I tailor that because I have some climate and environmental updates as well and they are directly in line with Vice Mayor Kalman's efforts. So I serve as Sustainability Commission Liaison and We are so proud of what the sustainability commission has been up to, including already engaging on many of the programs, which vice mayor Kalman mentioned specifically. MCE has a resiliency program, which offers essentially free payment for batteries. So one of the biggest problems with solar powers we saw through the PSPS was that there wasn't necessarily backup battery storage for the solar power that we had on the, on city hall and on the, |
| 01:47:15.38 | Unknown | TO BE ABLE TO |
| 01:47:15.53 | Jill Hoffman | in the area. |
| 01:47:15.62 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:47:37.30 | Melissa Blaustein | fire station. So MCE was hoping to remedy that with their resiliency program, which provides and pays for batteries. So the sustainability commission is already in talks with program managers at MCE and has suggested locations for resiliency hubs, which is really exciting because not only can these resiliency hubs provide for renewable energy sources, but in the event of an emergency, there's somewhere that the community can go if they need to engage. And the sustainability commission is proposing adding up to 10 EV chargers at each of these sites. So as many of you know, the sustainability commission has been working for quite a while on identifying potential sites for EV chargers in Sausalito. We still do not have any public EV charging stations. And we would like to see more rather than less. So at one point, a proposal from DPW suggested one, one voltage EV charger. And while we're excited about any EV chargers, obviously, the sustainability commission would like to see more. So I just wanted to get the council's attention on the excellent letter and presentation that the vice chair of the Sustainability Commission, Greg Thompson, submitted to the city council under communications, where there is an excellent presentation on their proposal for resiliency measures and EV chargers. And I know that they have been in touch with Councilmember Cleveland Knowles about the legislative committee and getting this added. So I know we're on top of it, but I just want to make sure that this is top of mind because they're doing a lot of really important work there. Also, the single use plastic span, which was put on hiatus as a result of COVID, is now back in action. And the Sustainability Commission's consultant is planning to present at the Chamber of Commerce next month. to talk with businesses about how to start moving forward with really enacting the single-use plastic span. And they've offered to come to the council with an update on that if it was something that we were interested in. They've also offered to come to the council with the EV charging presentation and are eager to talk with us. So the Sustainability Commission has been very busy, and it's really exciting that their work is so in line with all of Vice Mayor Kellman's great work at the county level. moving things forward and would perhaps love to see a shared services sustainability manager, perhaps regionally for Southern Marin across municipalities, if we can't afford one for the Novato and CNRFL level. And I know that Vice Mayor Kalman has already talked to some council members in Mill Valley and otherwise about that. So it's very exciting. And disaster preparedness and community safety. This was the first meeting of the year for this commission. So it was really a lot of catching up and it was an exciting conversation. There was a presentation from the fire chief of the WUI assessment. And there was a conversation around areas within the fire district with specific hazards, and how we'd be using the Measure U dollars to address that. An overarching conversation about the Marin County CWPP, the protection plan, |
| 01:50:13.98 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 01:50:21.76 | Melissa Blaustein | And a great report from SMFD about some of their measures around that. as well about the chipper program and what the flame length map is for eligibility. So just talking a lot about the steps we need to be taking as a community right now around fire preparedness, and there's some exciting news on that. The first point is that the CERT program is going to be reinvigorated. CERT was paused for a while. This is a certification program you can take for fire safety as a citizen, as a council member, just to get up to speed on what you would do. It's usually about a day long training and it was put on pause during COVID due to health and safety measures, but they are going to reinvigorate that and courses should be up again soon. So I'm really excited. I'm hoping that I get to take a cert. The second big piece is that there are planning a fall evacuation drill. They hadn't had a full city evacuation drill in quite some time. So there's some questions about, how do we do that safely given COVID restrictions and how do we get people engaged? But that's something that we, are really enthusiastic about. So it's nice to see the commission up and running again, and there's a lot on the agenda there. So stay tuned for news about a fire drill. I attended the historic preservation committee meeting as well or commission last week. And there was a general hearing item on Locust Street. But that actually prompted a deeper discussion about how do we preserve the character of the homes within Locust Street and what types of overlays or historic preservation measures can we take in a bigger picture. And there was a conversation about perhaps having a joint conversation. HAB-Charlotte Pitts, Between HPC and planning Commission about each of these measures and what steps might be taken so that's something. that will be agendas later on. Mayor Hoffman, do you want to give the update on our racial justice, social justice working group? Or do you want me to? Give it up. |
| 01:52:06.64 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 01:52:06.66 | Vicki Nichols | Bye. |
| 01:52:07.33 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. Sure, I'll give it. Okay. And if, and you do the homelessness one too, if you, okay, great. So then that's it for me. |
| 01:52:14.03 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, thank you. Thank you. Council member Blaustein or sorry Council member Sobieski or Council member Cleo Knowles do you have? |
| 01:52:22.03 | Ian Sobieski | go quick, just the... As the community knows, we are looking for a new city manager. And to update the community on where we stand, we received more than 50 applications for the city manager role in our town. A lot of people want to work here. It was a great crop of potential candidates. The city council has selected the top 11 candidates to interview in person. And I'm proud to point out to my neighbors that half of those candidates came as a result of the direct outreach to our community. through the currents and other marketing needs, through the postings that you put on your Facebook pages and LinkedIn, And the other half of the candidates came from the traditional recruiting method of the recruiter that our city hired. So we have a nice mix of candidates that are all seemingly exemplary on the basis of their backgrounds and we're going to be interviewing them at the end of this week. selecting a final top group of finalists and moving on with more interviews from there. That's it for my report. |
| 01:53:32.03 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. Okay, thank you. Council member Klippen-Knolls. |
| 01:53:37.43 | Cleveland Knowles | Yeah, thank you, Mayor. We had a PBAC meeting a week ago on Monday and we officially welcome, there's a new planning and policy director for the Marin Bike Coalition, Warren Wells. So that was really nice to get to know him. had a very good discussion about the Bridgeway which is the section from Princess back southward. And I think as we may have spoke about in our last meeting, we were not successful in getting a grant from the Transportation Authority of Marin at this point, but we may still be able to get a San Francisco Bay Trail grant to at least start the planning. And the reason that we missed out on the grant for the Bridgeway bike improvements is that our project was not so-called shovel ready. And so the grant money, we had a really nice presentation from the executive director, Maureen Gaffney, Bay Trails, and she was optimistic that we could use some of their funding for that project. So that is hopeful. And we also had a presentation on Caledonia Street Options, sort of more of the long-term to follow up on our conversation that we started at our last meeting about some of the COVID related improvements just on the portion between Johnson and Pine. And Councilmember Blaustein and I also met with staff and there's a report on our consent about following up on the Dorothy Gibson house. And then over the weekend, I was able to participate in the third racial justice workshop. led by Surge, which is Stand Up for Racial Justice. And that's a program that is organized countywide by the Marine Coalition of council members and mayors and has been going on all year. led by Kate Collin of San Rafael. And so A number of council members across the county are in cohorts and are participating. in those trainings. And we have talked about whether we can make some of them available to newer council members as we're kind of already through several cycles with this. But I want to thank Surge. They're volunteering their time. And it's an extensive amount of time and effort and a really interesting ongoing journey and conversation. And they've outlined kind of a vote framework for values, observation, trust, and empathetic engagement. Thank you. And it's been a really valuable experience. So thanks to that. |
| 01:56:32.03 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. Okay, thank you. So that leaves me. So our update from the homeless and the tenant encampment working group, Councilmember Blaustein and I, is that we continue to if not daily, then every other day talk to somebody about a new idea, a new method. where can we get resources? And so to that end, We had a very good meeting last week on Friday with Senator Mike McGuire that he put together AND some of the staffers at the state level from HCD on how Homekey works and how we might be able to do our own likely we will do our own application for Home Key, which is a program that provides funding for long-term housing, supportive housing for homeless people. Um, And so that was very good. We've I've talked continually with our Supervisor Stephanie Moulton-Peters and other Southern Marin leadership Mayors and and council members about a regional approach to homelessness and we're actively looking for some location in Southern Marin for a home key project. as a Southern Marin regional effort that's ongoing. The other thing is the workshop that I mentioned earlier in the meeting under announcements is part of that effort. And so the idea is that if you have a junior ADU or an ADU, how you can get that and you're not, maybe you're not using it right now and you want to help and focus that asset on helping someone transition out of homelessness. That's what our workshop is about tomorrow night with Marin housing authority and how you can get your your JADU or your ADU certified as certified as a unit. for Section 8 housing. So you would get market rate rent. You would get to evaluate the person that you're going to rent to. You would have landlord coordinator from the program and you would have The person who rents that unit would have wrap around services from social services. Anyway, it's a different kind of idea, and it's part of our effort, Councilman Blaisdnig and I's efforts. |
| 01:58:56.01 | Unknown | I was thinking, |
| 01:58:57.95 | Jill Hoffman | to Think of new and innovative ways that we can quickly get people housed and provide shelter. It's going to be interesting and I invite anybody who's interested in this to attend. Again, it's tomorrow at 530 and there's a Zoom link online under the currents. And so the next thing that I want to talk about was our social justice, diversity, equity and inclusion working group. leading toward a recommendation of how we want to address that on a broader sense as a city and a city council. what Councilmember Blousey and I have been doing is evaluating other efforts in other local and further regions, how they have approached it and how thoughtfully we can go forward given our unique circumstance especially with Marin City and our relationship that we have with them and how to further efforts based on that in our unique situation, I think. And so when I mentioned earlier, one of the most best conversations I had this week was with Dr. Garcia and his enthusiasm and excitement and also trying to find a time and talking about a joint meeting with the Marin City Community Services District and us and further joint efforts. and that connection between Marin City and us and beyond, but principally them, because we share so much already, especially now with our unified school, which is exciting. Um, and Let's see. The other committee I need to report on is the MCCMC Legislative Committee. I attended that meeting this week. the Main thing from MCCMC is that there are, because of the scheduling, unique scheduling this year. there are a bunch of housing bills that are coming coming down through the system, but not very many of them are, I think, are going to move to open session. But because of the strange bottleneck that's going on, there's going to be a lot of movement in the 1st of April. And then we'll see how, you know, moving forward, what we need to keep an eye on from the legislative part. But that's probably the biggest issue to watch out for in the coming weeks. So at our next city council meeting, we may have some recommendations about action that we want to take on certain bills that are coming down through the pipeline. So, I think that's it for my report. And so moving on to |
| 02:01:35.19 | Unknown | Moving on. |
| 02:01:37.27 | Jill Hoffman | We're a little bit behind today. of And maybe because we had such a great presentation earlier and everybody was very engaged. So, okay. So councilman reports. So I'm going to open it up for public comment on the very thorough committee reports we just did. I'm not seeing any hands. and, unless I'm told otherwise I'm going to close public comment because I'm not seeing any hands. Okay, public comment is closed. We're rocketing right on our agenda to the consent calendar. um, This consent calendar, items on the consent calendar are and I would ask now if we have any questions that we have Any requests from council members to pull or remove or discuss any of the consent calendar items? And then we will move on to public comment. |
| 02:02:41.33 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 02:02:41.45 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 02:02:41.53 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 02:02:42.19 | Jill Hoffman | Yes. |
| 02:02:42.63 | Ian Sobieski | I hate the link in the meeting, but I do feel like Item 5B, the resolution. ought to at least be maybe the last whereas on the actual resolution would be nice to read into the record just in honor of this. have relatives or themselves are not seen or perceiving themselves as unacknowledged, it's worth making that extra gesture too. |
| 02:03:11.55 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. Okay, that's a very nice idea. I don't have any idea about that. think there's any issue with that. So what we'll do is Let me ask you this. Are there any other items that anybody would like to talk to, pull, or discuss on the consent calendar? Okay, seeing nothing. So what I propose we do is that, I'll take public comment and then we'll close public comment. Um, And then when we open up for council comment after public comment, then I'll read the last paragraph the last whereas on the transgender resolution and then we'll vote. How about that? Is that good? |
| 02:03:55.98 | Unknown | Okay. |
| 02:03:57.08 | Jill Hoffman | Okay. Okay, very good. Thank you so much for that recommendation or that, suggestion and With that, I will open up. public comment on this item, which is consent calendar. |
| 02:04:10.48 | Heidi Scoble | Madam Mayor, we have two hands raised at this time. We have Sandra Bushmaker. Sandra, you've been unmuted. And then we'll have Kiran Culligan. |
| 02:04:10.51 | Jill Hoffman | I'm not a man. |
| 02:04:17.65 | Sandra Bushmaker | Thank you. Good evening, everybody. It's been a long, wonderful meeting tonight. with lots of issues to think about, that's for sure. There were two matters on the consent calendar that I wanted to speak to. One was the police report. I'm not suggesting it be pulled. I was very disturbed to see the incredible increase in domestic violence cases in 2020 and the last quarter of 2020. Here are our little Sausalito. I would like to see the council take some action on this issue. and figure out why we're having this increase, what is going on, what type of cases this domestic violence entails and how we're going to address it. I was very, very concerned about that. So on the mudslide repair issue, I'm going to say that I want to discuss that. I'm not going to suggest we pull it because I realize the scope of the contract that is being approved tonight. as complete. But I wanted to report a an issue that occurred in this very vulnerable area of Sausalito Boulevard. There was a boulder that came down this weekend, excuse me, about three or four days ago, uh, on to behind 359, 357 Sausalito Boulevard. It took, and it ended up crashing into a car parked in the parking area. between the two duplexes. That boulder was stopped by a car. Had it not been stopped, it would have continued to come down Sausalito Boulevard. And God knows the havoc it would wreak. It, took four because I understand it and I wasn't there But I have seen the boulder. It took four. firemen to move the boulder away from the car and put it into a safe location. So clearly we have some issues up there. I would like to recommend to the city council that we reactivate the Mudslide Task Force or the Landslide Task Force to look into researching options to engage our neighbors, Caltrans, the county, the National Park Service, and any other agencies or groups in order to see what we can do to get some action in this area. The city was made aware of this issue. The police were called out. I hope there was a police report filed on this issue. And, We need to get our areas are vulnerable areas stabilized. You probably know I was a member of the Mayor Hoffman's landslide task force along with her and in Christina Feller who's chair of the time. Planning Commission and we both i've talked with her today and we both expressed concern about these vulnerable areas in Sausalito. You're three. |
| 02:07:23.21 | Heidi Scoble | Thank you. |
| 02:07:23.23 | Sandra Bushmaker | Thank you. |
| 02:07:23.33 | Sandra Bushmaker | Thank you. |
| 02:07:23.36 | Heidi Scoble | Thank you. |
| 02:07:23.39 | Sandra Bushmaker | I'm sorry. |
| 02:07:23.46 | Heidi Scoble | elapsed. |
| 02:07:25.86 | Sandra Bushmaker | Thank you. |
| 02:07:25.87 | Heidi Scoble | Thank you. |
| 02:07:32.61 | Heidi Scoble | Karen, you've been unmuted. |
| 02:07:35.26 | Kiran Culligan | Hi there, good evening city council. See you've got another marathon session. So I appreciate your service to the city. Just wanna flag something quickly on 5J. mud flow recovery, again, not asking that it be pulled from consent, But for this one, before we put up the mission accomplished banner on the aircraft carrier, I just want to flag that we haven't fully recovered from the 2019 rainy season. The North Street stairs are still closed. These originally were closed just a few weeks after the larger mudslide, but really the same series of storms. We've lost public access for over two years now. These are loved by pedestrians and visitors alike. It's a useful shortcut. It's an evacuation route. And it's really a great example of our town's unique character. The general plan, it's quite clear that stairs and pathways are an important part of our community. I won't read the general plan on it, but just these words are not being matched by action. If you look this up, the city actually has a webpage on this topic. Last updated on April 19th, 2019, saying that it would be four to six weeks at most until these stairs are repaired. Clearly, there's an update there. And there's a bigger picture point here. Our infrastructure is aging. We're especially susceptible to climate change. And the cost to improve infrastructure, fixed infrastructure, is only going up, and nothing is going to change there. Our city's resourcing and budget should match these needs. So I hope the city council can take this into consideration and act accordingly. |
| 02:09:16.71 | Janelle Kellman | Thank you. |
| 02:09:16.91 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:09:16.94 | Kiran Culligan | Thank you. |
| 02:09:25.70 | Heidi Scoble | it. |
| 02:09:26.02 | Priscilla Dye | Brazil. |
| 02:09:26.45 | Heidi Scoble | Thank you. |
| 02:09:26.50 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 02:09:27.34 | Priscilla Dye | Resendine, you've been unmuted. I OK, it's prison dying. That's that's great. Thank you, Mayor Hoffman, for calling on me. I was also just speaking in support of 5J that North Steps are right next to Mayor 425 Bridgeway, right behind your head in that photo, Mayor Hoffman. It is the North Steps. We're just asking for an update. It's been a long, long time. It's quite a mess there. Anybody's walked by there recently. It's just, it's now in overgrowth. There are acacia trees growing on this. It's getting worse and worse. So I'm just thinking, It's going to cost the poor city extra money when it comes to doing whatever they're going to do there. Of course, it is an evacuation. for a lot of people up on that part of the hill. Those of us who live down here are really missing it. hoping that the city hasn't forgotten us down here. So I'm just a member of the public. I know that Karen spoke eloquently about this a few minutes ago, but I just wanted to be in here putting my hand up as this end of town feeling like we would like to put our vote in for getting it done as soon as the city can get to it. I know it's a big mess at the moment and it's not gonna be easy and it's probably gonna be really expensive, but we love Sausalito. We're here, we've been here for 20, 31 years. We're willing to do whatever it takes to help the city out to get this done. So thank you all very much for everything you do. I really appreciate it. I'm glad you're all staying safe and taking care of things in the city. Thank you. |
| 02:11:02.85 | Heidi Scoble | Thank you. |
| 02:11:06.97 | Heidi Scoble | Our next speaker is going to be Joan Cox. Joan, you've been unmuted. |
| 02:11:18.01 | Heidi Scoble | Thank you. |
| 02:11:18.02 | Joan Cox | Thank you, good evening city council. It's good to see all of you. I wanted to speak to you this evening about a consent item I always want to thank the community development director for all of her hard work. I want to thank the community But I believe it's important to that this report be accompanied with an update to the city council about one of the most important pages in the report in my opinion, which is page 20, which is our annual element progress report, which identifies how many units we have built compared to how many we must build within our eight year cycle. And because if we fail to meet our quota, we lose important rights to control our own to maintain autonomy in design review. And so I know that the community development director sometimes addresses this issue in the quarterly reports but I think it's also important and I actually think it merits more than just consent to apprise the City Council of the fact that we're behind on meeting our quota in several areas and I have some suggestions about how we can improve our performance for example in the very low income level If we continue to work with BCDC to permit liveaboards in additional marinas in Sausalito, that could help very easily fulfill our very low income level quota for housing. So I just wanna keep this in front of the city council's attention because it can have long term. impacts on our zoning process. Thank you for all of your hard work this evening and every meeting. Thank you. |
| 02:13:17.36 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 02:13:17.38 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 02:13:17.68 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. Okay, I don't see any other hands raised. And so I'm gonna close with a comment. I'm going to open this up for council comment on consent items. I think we've already had that though. Actually, so. functionally. So I'm going to go ahead and, um, You know, there's only five paragraphs for the transgender. I think I'm just going to read the whole thing, if that's okay. Yes, please. And I'm a fast reader, so it's okay. Okay. |
| 02:13:51.86 | Ian Sobieski | Yeah. I'll see you next time. |
| 02:13:55.20 | Jill Hoffman | Whereas SOSLIO is home to many, sorry, this is a resolution of the city council recognizing and declaring March 31st as transgender day of visibility. Whereas Sauslio is home to many trans and non-binary people who make important contributions to our economic, cultural and civic vitality. whereas transgender, or trans and non-binary people face stigma, lack of understanding and discrimination based on gender identity and expression often on a daily basis. This stigma erects barriers in nearly every facet of life, denying trans and non-binary people the opportunity to succeed and be accepted as their true selves. And whereas, bringing visibility to the positive impact trans and non-binary people bring to our community locally, nationally and internationally will increase understanding and respect. And whereas on March 31st, 2009, in response to the lack of positive recognition of trans people by the cisgender lesbian gay and bisexual community, trans activist Rachel Crandall started the International Transgender Day of Visibility to bring trans and non-binary people together and celebrate their contributions to society. as well as raise awareness of discrimination-based Ramps. and gender non-conforming people. And whereas the International Transgender Day of Visibility It was very meaningful to the trans and non-binary community acknowledges the courage it takes to live openly and authentically and validates the lived experiences of trans and non-binary people and Whereas transgender individuals contributions and achievements deserve to be visible and enjoy our respect and appreciation. Now, therefore, the city council hereby resolves that the city Council recognizes International Transgender Day of Visibility and declares March 31st annually as Transgender Day of Visibility in the city of Sausalito. So there you have it. And with that, I will ask if there's a motion to approve the consent calendar. |
| 02:15:57.14 | Melissa Blaustein | I will make that motion, but I just want to acknowledge Felicia Agrelia is from the Marin Board of Education who |
| 02:15:57.19 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah. |
| 02:16:03.33 | Melissa Blaustein | advocated for an inclusion of this resolution and helped draft the resolution and is sending it to other towns throughout Marin so thank you so much board member agrellius and now I will make a motion to approve the consent calendar. |
| 02:16:16.52 | Jill Hoffman | Second. Thank you very much. Madam Clerk, could you please? |
| 02:16:20.96 | Heidi Scoble | please call the room. Council member Sobieski? |
| 02:16:24.19 | Deborah Muchmore | guys. |
| 02:16:25.03 | Heidi Scoble | Councilmember Blaustein. |
| 02:16:26.50 | Deborah Muchmore | Yes. |
| 02:16:27.46 | Heidi Scoble | Councilmember Cleveland Knowles. Yeah. Vice Mayor Kelman? Yes. Mayor Hoffman. Thank you. |
| 02:16:33.37 | Jill Hoffman | Yes. The consent calendar is approved and passes by a unanimous vote. Now, moving right along. in our agenda. I've done in six. We're only an hour and 20 minutes behind schedule. of I will introduce item 6A, public hearing item. introduction of zoning ordinance amendment to add a new chapter 10.8 to title 10 of the socio municipal code to establish procedures and requirements for the consideration of development agreements The presentation will be given by Lily Whalen, our Community Development Director. So thank you, Lily. |
| 02:17:18.02 | Lily Whalen | Good evening Mayor Hoffman, Council Members. the presentation this evening that I will pull up. to the screen here. |
| 02:17:29.39 | Lily Whalen | You should be able to see that now. Thank you. |
| 02:17:38.64 | Deborah Muchmore | One second here. |
| 02:17:50.64 | Steve Allison | Something like that. |
| 02:17:51.60 | Ian Sobieski | sorry |
| 02:18:01.27 | Lily Whalen | Sorry about that. |
| 02:18:08.00 | Ian Sobieski | Don't worry, just take your time. |
| 02:18:59.23 | Lily Whalen | I'm sorry, Mary Hoppin. I have too many screens open. I'm wondering if If our city clerk, I emailed her a copy of presentation, if she could run my presentation. for me. There we go. Thank you. |
| 02:19:11.32 | Unknown | it. |
| 02:19:11.50 | Lily Whalen | Thank you. Sorry about that. |
| 02:19:31.74 | Lily Whalen | Okay, great. Thanks so much. Sorry for the delay here. So the proposed amendment to the zoning ordinance this evening is to establish procedures and requirements for the consideration of development agreements. And we can go to the next slide. A development agreement is a legally binding agreement between a local government and a developer. Development agreements are a means whereby a city can receive community benefits that cannot be obtained |
| 02:19:50.85 | Mary Wagner | THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 02:19:57.10 | Lily Whalen | through the normal conditions applicable to a project in exchange for allowing implementation in phases over a period of time and freezing the development regulations at the time of approval. Development agreements vary widely and cities often establish their own policies and procedures for considering development agreements. Planning Commission reviewed this proposed ordinance amendment on December 2nd and January 23rd. 20th of this year and is recommending the city council consider the draft ordinance as recommended by the planning commission Council reviewed the draft ordinance at your February 23rd meeting and continued the hearing for more information from staff. In January, the Planning Commission recommended to the Council adoption of the development agreement ordinance with the requirement. for the planning commission to provide a determination on consistency with the general plan and the zoning ordinance and the city council to make a similar finding. |
| 02:20:55.57 | Deborah Muchmore | Next slide, please. |
| 02:20:58.10 | Lily Whalen | The council considered the ordinance amendment to allow for a development agreement process on February 23rd and held a robust discussion about whether or not the process should allow for changes in land use regulations to the developer in exchange for community benefits. And specifically the council asked for more information related to the planning commission's recommendation that in order to approve a development agreement that the Planning Commission and the Council would both have to find that the proposed development agreement is consistent with the zoning ordinance. The Council directed staff to return with more information about conformance with land use regulations and the finding about consistency with the zoning ordinance in the context of development agreements. Next slide, please. There's no statutory requirement that a development agreement be consistent with zoning regulations. There is, however, case law that provides that a development agreement cannot be inconsistent with the applicable zoning regulations. in the staff report. for you this evening our city attorney has provided information regarding this case law and she's available this evening for any questions the council may have Next slide, please. Staff reached out through the League of California Cities listserv to other jurisdictions in California regarding their development agreement processes and also to other Marin County jurisdictions. represent representatives from San Jacinto and Laguna Hills indicated that deviations from zoning would not be allowed through their development agreement processes, whereas Santa Cruz indicated that they would be. And then looking towards Marin County jurisdictions, there are no adopted procedures for approving development agreements in Fairfax, Larkspur, Ross, San Asselmo, and Tiburon. Puerto Madera and Belvedere have adopted procedures and require their councils to make the consistency finding regarding zoning. Marin County, Novato and San Rafael's codes do not require the council to make a consistency finding in the adoption of their development agreements. |
| 02:23:06.15 | Lily Whalen | We also detailed in the staff report through a table a number of existing tools the city has to promote or create flexibility and sometimes rigid development regulations. And these, I'm just gonna go through real quick the different types of tools. So those include variances. Next slide. conditional use permits and we also have a special section that allows for exceptions to the marineship specific plan. Next slide. There's also density bonuses that are outlined in our municipal code. Next slide. We have a plan development overlay that could be applied to parcels that allows for flexibility. Next slide. And then we also have the zoning ordinance amendment and a general plan amendment and that's on the next slide. |
| 02:23:57.94 | Lily Whalen | Yes, great. So this is almost the end of my presentation here. This is, we made some suggested language changes for the council's consideration in the staff report in response to some council questions. And then we also identified some typographical errors in advance of the council's meeting. in February on this topic. And if the council would like to include modifications to the ordinance regarding the items identified in the staff report, or on the screen here, direction is requested from the council. Next slide, please. That concludes our staff report. And we're recommending that the council provide any direction as appropriate. introduce and read by title only, the Zoning Ordinance Amendment for Development Agreements, direct us to return on April 13th, which is your next meeting for a second reading. and authorize a summary of the ordinance to be published five days in advance of the second reading of 15 days after the adoption. That concludes my presentation. Sorry for the technical difficulties, and I'm available for questions you might have. |
| 02:24:58.50 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, thanks very much. Um, Does anybody want to kick us off with questions? I have a couple, but if someone wants to go first, I'll be done. Yield. Yes, Councilmember Sobieski. |
| 02:25:12.64 | Ian Sobieski | I just wanted to know, since it wasn't here, how did the development agreement process get started and end up on our agenda? I know it went through planning, but what instigated the outset, Lily? I understand that it's, California code that we have a development agreement if asked. or we asked, or was it the City Council? How did it? get on our agenda. |
| 02:25:36.62 | Lily Whalen | Thank you, Councilmember Sobieski. It's my understanding that there was a need for a discussion of this topic due to the Bergeroy Marina project and the need for that project. for a development agreement. Thank you. |
| 02:25:54.06 | Vicki Nichols | Thank you. |
| 02:25:54.07 | Jill Hoffman | Um, |
| 02:25:58.53 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, any other questions at this point? I have a question. I'll ask my question. So, I'm a little bit confused by Well, okay, I'm not confused, The. Um. The ruling by the court pretty clearly says that the city council can't approve a development agreement that conflicts with zoning. I- I'm... Pretty sure that's the holding, right? That was in our staff report. |
| 02:26:32.11 | Mary Wagner | I can jump in there, Madam Mayor, if I may. Yeah, so the very specific determination in the case that was discussed in your staff report, this Tuolumne case that involved a really large parcel of property that someone wanted that's in an agricultural zone. |
| 02:26:35.87 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 02:26:35.99 | Alice Merrill | Thank you. |
| 02:26:36.02 | Jill Hoffman | to the next one. |
| 02:26:47.77 | Mary Wagner | property owner wanted to have a commercial use on it. Commercial uses weren't allowed in that zoning district. And the court specifically held that that Council couldn't allow a use through the adoption of a development agreement. for use that wasn't allowed in that zone. It was inconsistent with a government code provision that requires uniformity throughout the zoning district. So the court said you couldn't do it that way. What you would have to have done is concurrently change the underlying zoning to allow that use. |
| 02:27:19.53 | Jill Hoffman | Okay. And so When we're talking about Sony, you know, these types of development agreements and also I thought the chart by the way that the community development director put in the staff report of the different alternatives for how you might want to handle different requests and different types of different types of proposals from a developer or really that was really helpful and useful. So, um, It seems to me that we can't allow we can't authorize a use not allowed in the zoning ordinance but the staff report has provided us with a pretty clear Um, process for how we might be able to address whatever proposals in front of us, right? I mean, have I got that right, Lily? I mean, I think that was a good, |
| 02:28:11.94 | Unknown | I mean, |
| 02:28:18.67 | Jill Hoffman | summary. |
| 02:28:20.80 | Lily Whalen | Thank you, Mayor. So those are the tools that you have in your zoning ordinance right now that would allow for flexibility to a variety of degrees and impact Um, you know, the property in particular that you would be looking at. in addition to other properties, potentially, depending on what Um, what tool is being used. |
| 02:28:43.34 | Jill Hoffman | Okay. Okay, thank you. um, Okay, do we have any other questions for staff before we go on to? |
| 02:28:50.08 | Melissa Blaustein | go on to. |
| 02:28:50.92 | Jill Hoffman | I have a couple questions. |
| 02:28:51.97 | Melissa Blaustein | Yes. |
| 02:28:52.39 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 02:28:52.44 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 02:28:52.46 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. Last thing. |
| 02:28:53.40 | Melissa Blaustein | Yeah, so I really appreciated the charts that you put together as well, Development Director Whalen, because it just demonstrated our toolkit in terms of what we might need. One of the questions I had in looking at this was, If, for instance, there was a development agreement that was being considered, would you be able to consider both a variance in a development agreement or both an exception and development agreement concurrently just for ease of the movement of a project or would that not be allowed within this agreement? |
| 02:29:22.55 | Lily Whalen | My understanding is that they could be considered at the same time. |
| 02:29:27.47 | Melissa Blaustein | And then the other question I had since the reason that this came up was around the Bridgeway Marina agreement. I know that that was quite a bit of work and and that was sort of the conversation for the development agreement, would we be able to go back and utilize this ordinance for the Bridgeway Marina agreement and conversations considering that they've already been quite, we know there was a council vote, et cetera. I mean, to what extent we will be able to use that for the Bridgeway Marina agreement? if at all. |
| 02:29:57.98 | Mary Wagner | I'm happy to jump in on that one. If you'd like, um, council member Blaustein. So what the council approved was a letter of intent with Bridgeway Marina that outlines a proposed project and some structure around processing that. PROJECT WHICH INCLUDED. the potential for a development agreement. So knowing that that will then be coming forward for discussion, As you guys indicated previously, we brought forward this development agreement process for your consideration. And you would be able to utilize it. You're not foreclosed. You haven't yet approved the actual project. |
| 02:30:35.99 | Melissa Blaustein | Thanks, Mary. |
| 02:30:36.97 | Jill Hoffman | Uh-huh. Okay, any other questions before we move on to? public comment. Okay. Um, In that case, I will open up public comment for this item. |
| 02:30:55.41 | Heidi Scoble | Madam Mayor, we have one hand that's raised. I will unmute Vicki Nichols. Vicki, you are unmuted. |
| 02:31:04.00 | Vicki Nichols | Thank you. Good evening, Mayor and Council members. I want to just maybe get some clarification here. When this was heard by the Planning Commission, I believe and I you can stand corrected. that was on the commission at the time, I believe that the reason one of the key reasons that the council supported this was the fact that once this is in our ordinances that we allow developmental these development agreements, It somewhat allows us to dictate the percentage of density bonuses we need to have which at least in my mind that was a you know, a good A GOOD, UM, ENTICEMENT. So. Now I'm hearing more that this is really, um, you know, that it will have to be reviewed by planning and council, but we really know that planning has their review and the council always trumps the planning by their authority as elected officials. So that it's really... the function of the council to be able to change or permit something that does not apply to zoning. I'm not trying to be cynical or, THE FAMILY. whatever here, but I'm just trying to be clear on what this really does. And I would It would be helpful, I think, to be able to understand that. I'm not sure. we're all understanding what was just said. Thank you. |
| 02:32:39.86 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 02:32:43.83 | Jill Hoffman | I don't see any other hands and so Oh yeah. Okay. Sorry. Now I do. Madam Clerk, go ahead and |
| 02:32:50.77 | Heidi Scoble | Madam Clerk, go ahead. |
| 02:32:52.40 | Jill Hoffman | And call your next speaker. |
| 02:32:55.31 | Heidi Scoble | We have two speakers. We have Craig Merrilles, who's first, and Sandra Bushmaker, who will call next. So Craig, you've been unmuted. |
| 02:33:13.18 | Craig Merrilles | Okay. Hi, everyone. Um, I just wanted to add a couple observations about how these planning agreements often work in the real world. And they can be highly problematic and lead to a couple serious problems. One of them is that it, it conceals the democratic open process that we aspire and need in our public planning. decisions. Um, It encourages individual council members to cut deals with developers to do that in a concealed and obfuscated manner. and then bring those deals to the city council for approval and discussion but the, the initial negotiations and the horse trading that goes on here is frequently concealed and that's that's not healthy for democracy it's not healthy for the city And it would be something that would likely result when this kind of this kind of policy is, is approved and part of what we've heard is the toolkit. The second thing it does is that it opens the door to expensive and problematic litigation. When developers see one guy getting a deal, they will ask and if they don't get they will sue to get the same deal so the the The problem here is that this becomes a wedge, and it becomes a wedge for the lowest common denominator, and it will be used by developers to pile on and ultimately leverage deals from the city that were unimaginable. So the need to keep these out in the open and as public as possible from inception, from the beginning, You know, I'm not sure how many people could recite the key elements of the, Marina deal that you just cited, but I'll give you an example. My understanding is that that deal phases out the existence of low income floating homes that are at that marina right now. Now, if I'm wrong, someone can correct me, but I think those people are grandfathered in, but they're going to be replaced by expensive, full price marina holders over time. And the city will have, if that's true, a net loss of low income housing. that's the kind of thing that can happen in these development agreements, whether it's legally through that process or looks, smells, and sounds like a development agreement, which is how that has taken place. I would urge the council to be very cautious. The amount of taxpayer dollars that can be tied up in litigation through wealthy landowners and developers who will feel no hesitancy to sue the city to get- |
| 02:36:15.80 | Heidi Scoble | Your three minutes has elapsed. |
| 02:36:17.55 | Craig Merrilles | serious. Thank you very much. |
| 02:36:19.63 | Heidi Scoble | Thank you. |
| 02:36:25.81 | Heidi Scoble | Sandra, you've been unmuted. |
| 02:36:27.48 | Sandra Bushmaker | Thank you. Good evening again. I want to concur with the comments made by the previous speaker, Craig Merrilis, on the issue of these development agreements. My understanding of development agreements is that they are binding and enforceable when they're entered into. and the zoning and general plan and specific plan requirements at the time they are entered into if the council were to adopt it. are in effect at that time should the council make Changes to the zoning. or changes to the general plan or to the specific plan. Those would not apply to the particular pending project. And I am very concerned about the transparency of the entire process. I don't. I would encourage the city council, if they're going to move forward with this, to realize they are opening up can of worms and that if they do anything they need to make sure that development agreements are consistent with the zoning ordinance and to use the language as our planning commission recommended to the council. Let's see, there was another item and I can't remember what it is right at the moment, so I will stop there. But I do have concerns about this and I see it as a... opening the door to litigation, I see it as spot zoning. I see it as a series of legal problems for the city of Sausalito. So I would encourage you. to think about this very seriously before moving forward. Thank you. |
| 02:38:12.64 | Heidi Scoble | Thank you. John DeRay is our next speaker. |
| 02:38:19.27 | Heidi Scoble | You've been unmuted. |
| 02:38:21.40 | John DeRay | Hello, can you hear me? |
| 02:38:22.76 | Heidi Scoble | Yes, welcome. |
| 02:38:24.15 | John DeRay | Thank you so much for all your hard work and thank you for allowing me to make a comment. Um, A few days ago I read through the staff report and I found it really interesting when you folks looked at some of these different communities and I believe What the report said was San Jacinto and Laguna Hills said that deviations from zoning would not be allowed. through the development agreement process, whereas Santa Cruz said that they would. So I went ahead and looked up the Santa Cruz Zoning code and I found the section on development agreements. And I'm going to read it to you because it'll take me less than three minutes. In recommending approval or adopting a development agreement, the acting body shall make findings that the proposed development agreement one is consistent with objective policies. general land use and programs specified in the general plan, the local coastal program, if applicable, and any applicable specific plan. Number two is compatible with uses authorized in And the regulations prescribed prescribed for the land use district in which the real property is located three is in conformity with public convene convenience general welfare. and good land use practice so it doesn't say anything um about uh being able to sort of override the zoning and um i guess in that regard i kind of consider this a little bit erroneous information and i don't know how it was obtained i don't know if uh someone just called the uh you know, some clerk in the office there. And, you know, obviously this is a bit of an arcane part of the code. unless it's researched, it may kind of be an oversight. So I just wanted to point that out. Thank you so much. |
| 02:40:19.20 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. Okay, I don't see any other hands raised. Thank you. And so I'm going to close public comment and let's throw it. I do see one hand raised. |
| 02:40:35.62 | Heidi Scoble | mayor we have a last minute hand that was raised by stephen allison stephen you've been unmuted |
| 02:40:55.28 | Jill Hoffman | Mr. Allison, we were not able to hear you. You may need to unmute yourself on your end. |
| 02:40:59.70 | Steve Allison | There you go. There you got it. Sorry about that. Hi, this is Steve Allison. I live just outside the city limits in unincorporated 94965. I wanted to speak in support of the Bridgeway Marina THE FAMILY IS project I think affordable housing is an important thing to focus on I do hear concerns about transparency obviously things like that need to be addressed but I want to make sure that NIMBYism doesn't prevent focus on providing for those who are in need of affordable housing in our community. Thank you. |
| 02:41:37.92 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. Thank you very much. |
| 02:41:42.58 | Jill Hoffman | OK, now I don't see any Additional hands. And so I'll close public comment. and bring it back to the city council for our discussion. And so who would like to start us off? |
| 02:41:59.07 | Melissa Blaustein | Okay, guys. |
| 02:42:00.72 | Jill Hoffman | Go ahead. |
| 02:42:01.79 | Melissa Blaustein | Okay, well, I think it's really clear and I appreciate Mayor Hoffman and Vice Mayor Kelman that you were so diligent in suggesting a continuance because I think the case law demonstrates clearly that that any of these requirements or development agreements would have to be consistent with zoning but i am still a big fan of the idea of a development agreement for Sausalito for a variety of reasons. Most of you know that I am absolutely in favor of finding more affordable housing opportunities in our community, and I'd like to see the folks who work in our community be able to live in our community and I'd like to see us be more inclusive across the board. But whether or not you want to see affordable housing in our community, the reality is that our RHNA numbers coming down the pike are likely to be upwards of 10 times what they were in our last housing element, so probably around 700. And The state Senate right now has already started as of December, a building opportunities for all package, which includes SB9, which is focused on single family zoning, SB six, which is focused on commercial zoning for residential. SB 10, which is focused on streamlining all types of zoning changes, and SB 7, which is focused on streamlining CEQA. We don't know if all of these will pass, but even if one of them does, it will be beneficial to us as a community to have a development agreement in place so that we can get something out of these statewide changes and make bargains that work for and do good for our community. So I would support the development agreement, and I would also support the inclusion that the language be consistent with zoning given what staff has demonstrated as opportunities for flexibility in whatever changes we make. And I would also say, It's really critical that we're thinking about how we can get more affordable housing opportunities in our community going forward and thinking about the building opportunities for all packages and what they're going to mean for Sausalito. |
| 02:43:52.18 | Ian Sobieski | Yeah, I would like to chime in there just to say |
| 02:43:52.30 | Melissa Blaustein | you |
| 02:43:57.40 | Ian Sobieski | Well, first I'd like to do a shout out to Joan Fox and to Mary Wagner. Joan found several of the court cases that were dispositive to this issue and Mary and her staff worked up. a really great write-up on the legal landscape. That's dispositive on what was that question at our last meeting where we were We thought it was a material question whether to include this sprays, certify consistent with zoning. I'm glad that we continued the matter. And it actually shows, I hope both us and to the public Because of the Brown Act, we're doing our thinking in public. And that means that our thinking can evolve in the face of facts. And that sometimes takes time. Um, and, uh, and we can get it wrong and then get it right. So it seems to me that it's pretty dispositive what the right answer is. And that's the way the Planning Commission recommendation was regarding the thing that was at issue last time we met together. Just for the public, I came up the learning curve and the development agreements myself, and it was a nice experience in that I thought I would just point out the salient fact is that the development agreement law of the state of California requires the municipalities. have a development agreement if they're requested to have one. And we have one as a result of apparently this Bridgeway Marina. So this is being done because this is being codified in our ordinances because it's a requirement of the state of California that we do so. And there's no power given to the city council to that it doesn't already have in terms of being able to change the learning or change Um, the permitted use. It is the only thing it does, and this is important to me to learn, that absent a development agreement, the concessions that the city is allowed to ask of a developer or a property owner are limited. Let me just say that again. My understanding is absent that under the law, in exchange for a variance or conditional use permit, we are allowed to ask for certain things, but the universe of what those things are is limited with different standards relating to the reasonableness standard according to the project. The development agreement law just lets the city ask for more. So it's 100% toward the benefit. of the community and that's all it is. uh, Those are my observations and it seems It seems like there was some mudding of issues and lack of knowledge not least promulgated by by me, that confuses the matter. So I'm glad to have more clarity on that. So thank you. |
| 02:46:46.47 | Unknown | and I'm not sure. |
| 02:46:52.04 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. Councilmember Cleveland Knowles. |
| 02:46:55.63 | Cleveland Knowles | Great, thank you and thank you for those great comments by both Councilmember Blavstein and Sobieski. I think that was a really Great articulation of both the rationale and the reason for wanting to have a development agreement statute and some of the things that we've learned. You know, I spoke a lot about this last time and I did go back and read a really interesting article by the League of California Cities about development agreements that, really goes through all the |
| 02:47:22.04 | Unknown | you know, |
| 02:47:23.44 | Cleveland Knowles | both the attributes and pitfalls of why development agreements are very helpful in some circumstances and not helpful. and others. And, you know, just going back to the theme of last time, we need all of the tools in our toolkit, because we have a lot of really important challenges that are facing us. As Councilmember Blaustein spoke about, we have really important challenges about how to be more equitable and inclusive through the development of more types of housing choices in our community, not to mention the state law requirements. that we are going to be facing to do so. Development agreements are a tool. They are certainly not the tool for every situation. that they should not be the norm. Therefore, creative and innovative, extraordinary situations. I just also wanted to follow on with what Council Member Sobieski said, is that they have the same transparency and process as any other ordinance and it's required by state law to be adopted by ordinance specifically. to allow that input, notice, and opportunity to be heard. for all residents. So I think the safeguards that we were talking about last time are in place. I do also want to chime in and thank Councilmember Cox for alerting us to the case law. I mean, it was very extreme case. I think it was a circumstance of a really radical change being proposed, sort of a bad facts make bad law. kind of situation and I did just note as our city attorney informed us that there's been a lot of case law subsequent to that that sort of had a little bit of a different take. I would be more in favor with having the finding that we're required to make be consistent with all applicable law. so that we can take into account both the zoning and any case law interpreting that. coming down the pike, but I've been. if other council members are not. interested in that solution, I will support the current. proposal on the table. |
| 02:49:46.30 | Jill Hoffman | Okay. Vice Mayor Hillman? |
| 02:49:48.51 | Janelle Kellman | Thank you. And thank you to staff. And I can't resist also thanking former council member Cox for her effort and weighing in here And I appreciate that the council was willing to have us continue this so we can continue this dialogue I think the dialogue is really important for us and for the community. So as I articulated at the prior meeting, my concerns were really about making it very clear to the community where they stand and, giving them certainty as well as providing certainty to developers, not just developers, but so the residents know kind of what's coming down the pipe. And I think I went into that in detail last time. I'm happy to see the case law. aligned with my argument for consistency I also want to make the point that and Councilmember Sobieski mentioned this, that we have to have development agreement ordinance on the books because it has been requested. does not mean we have to use it. So I will just remind everybody who is listening that we don't necessarily have to deploy this tool. We may find some of the other flexibility tools are available. But in any event, I think making it consistent with zoning, per the recommendations of the Planning Commission is appropriate in alignment with the case law and is a responsible thing to do. So, um, I'm ready to make a motion, Mayor Hoffman, Don't want to steal your thunder. |
| 02:51:16.79 | Jill Hoffman | Um, No, thanks. I just want to, you know, just thank everybody, our staff and our community. Obviously, what a great community we have. We have so many people chime in and are including our, we have many former council members that are still very much involved in our community and this is an example of one of those benefits that we have with Councilmember Cox weighing in with some relevant information. And thanks to the rest of City Council for your hard work on this issue and your thoughtfulness. Um, in our collaborative approach and collegiality and reaching, um, what I think is. there's, the correct path. And so Council Member Kelman, if you'd like to make a motion. Now would be the time. And then... Thank you. |
| 02:51:59.62 | Janelle Kellman | Sure. |
| 02:51:59.77 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah. |
| 02:51:59.89 | Janelle Kellman | I'll make a motion that we And actually, are we adopting this motion now or are we directing staff to return for a second reading? Um... Thank you. |
| 02:52:11.21 | Jill Hoffman | I'm looking at my staff report right now. |
| 02:52:13.12 | Cleveland Knowles | This is the first reading, I think. |
| 02:52:14.85 | Janelle Kellman | Thank you. |
| 02:52:15.19 | Jill Hoffman | So the direction would be to- |
| 02:52:16.81 | Cleveland Knowles | There's Mary. Mary's here. I'm not. |
| 02:52:20.41 | Mary Wagner | Yeah, so the requested motion and Lily could put it back or Heidi perhaps back on the screen for you if you if you would like is to introduce and read by title only. the ordinance, then we would return to you in two weeks for a second reading. |
| 02:52:34.57 | Janelle Kellman | Okay. So then I will make the motion to introduce and read by title only Attachment 8, the draft ordinance as recommended by the Planning Commission. |
| 02:52:43.93 | Ian Sobieski | And then it's just one question. Maybe it has a Is that okay? |
| 02:52:49.99 | Jill Hoffman | Um, Is it a question that has It's a question that has to do with the motion that's on the table. |
| 02:52:56.55 | Ian Sobieski | It's okay. No, it's all right. Let's just go ahead. Thanks. |
| 02:52:59.74 | Jill Hoffman | Well, I had it. I'm sorry, I did have a question. Did you, do you also need us, there was also some draft language that in, Sorry, now I'm going to ask a question. you |
| 02:53:09.85 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 02:53:09.92 | Jill Hoffman | . |
| 02:53:09.97 | Ian Sobieski | Yeah. |
| 02:53:10.05 | Jill Hoffman | I think draft language that, um, that this was also in the staff report for just another portion of the ordinance, I think, or Lily, can you? I think, Mayor Hoffman, you're talking about the typographic error on point 80 point zero six zero. |
| 02:53:26.35 | Ian Sobieski | Uh-huh. |
| 02:53:27.55 | Jill Hoffman | So, Is that part of our, do we need to make a motion for that as well? Or is that part of the motion that we're making? I'm asking either community. |
| 02:53:36.01 | Lily Whalen | me |
| 02:53:37.07 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah. |
| 02:53:37.73 | Lily Whalen | Sorry to interrupt you there. Heidi, do you mind going to the slide that is before this one? Yeah. So the typo error we will correct in the ordinance to read in that first bullet there, we'll correct it to read the way that it's, reading in that bullet. There was just a typo on how it was reading. the um A question from council member Cleveland Knowles prior to the last meeting. led us to develop some alternative language here that the council could consider with regard to the, um, part of the ordinance that has the um, a second study session or workshop being required subject to the community development directors. discretion. So there's already one study session that's required. This is the second one. that could be required. And then there's some language in there that's added. that defines when that might occur. That was of interest to the council during your last discussion. And then the second bullet there, second big bullet, was about establishing a different, date. that the development agreement operates under. And we gave you some suggested language if you would like to consider that. |
| 02:55:01.97 | Ian Sobieski | Okay. |
| 02:55:02.39 | Lily Whalen | other than we will take care of the typo issues in that first bullet but the rest of these I'm not. policy decisions haven't been incorporated into the draft ordinance. It's what the Planning Commission's recommending. |
| 02:55:16.38 | Jill Hoffman | Okay. I think I understand. Okay. We'll go back to there's a motion on the table. by the vice mayor. |
| 02:55:24.23 | Janelle Kellman | Thank you. |
| 02:55:25.31 | Jill Hoffman | And, |
| 02:55:25.75 | Janelle Kellman | Thank you. Yeah, I can amend the motion to include that first bullet point regarding the additional review. Okay. No, thank you. |
| 02:55:39.35 | Jill Hoffman | Okay. Is there a second for the motion that's on the table? |
| 02:55:43.45 | Cleveland Knowles | I'd like to make a motion to approve the changes as specified by staff. |
| 02:55:49.56 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, and so then do we have a second on the amended motion. |
| 02:55:57.10 | Melissa Blaustein | I second Councilmember Cleve-Hudnulls' motion. |
| 02:56:00.25 | Jill Hoffman | Okay. So then we will have a vote on the second the amended motion. Councilman. |
| 02:56:11.27 | Heidi Scoble | I'm sorry. |
| 02:56:12.39 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 02:56:12.50 | Heidi Scoble | No, sorry. |
| 02:56:12.54 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 02:56:12.57 | Mary Wagner | No, sorry. |
| 02:56:13.21 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 02:56:13.92 | Heidi Scoble | Go ahead. |
| 02:56:14.56 | Jill Hoffman | All right. |
| 02:56:15.16 | Mary Wagner | process it is I didn't hear the second on the vice mayor's motion so I apologize if I missed that If there was a second. |
| 02:56:22.28 | Jill Hoffman | if there was a second. |
| 02:56:24.00 | Mary Wagner | There was a motion on the floor. I didn't hear a second. Then there was a substitute motion and a second. I don't know if there was a. |
| 02:56:24.03 | Jill Hoffman | There was a |
| 02:56:28.89 | Jill Hoffman | I don't think I called for a second. I think the substitute motion came in on the second. So I'll second the vice mayor's motion. |
| 02:56:37.28 | Mary Wagner | Then you're correct, you would go to the substitute motion first. |
| 02:56:40.50 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, so we're gonna go to the substitute motion first. I'm sorry, I lost track of our motions. Thank you. |
| 02:56:45.80 | Mary Wagner | That would be the motion made by. |
| 02:56:45.90 | Ian Sobieski | THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 02:56:45.95 | Jill Hoffman | So, |
| 02:56:47.69 | Mary Wagner | Councilmember Cleveland also. |
| 02:56:49.16 | Ian Sobieski | I'm sorry I didn't follow it. I didn't follow. Thank you. |
| 02:56:52.36 | Melissa Blaustein | Yeah. |
| 02:56:52.45 | Mary Wagner | of us. |
| 02:56:53.09 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 02:56:53.33 | Mary Wagner | Okay. |
| 02:56:53.51 | Melissa Blaustein | it. Can you show the slide again with the staff recommendation for the, and then just clarify what the points are? |
| 02:57:04.63 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 02:57:04.65 | Lily Whalen | Sure. Oh, um, Karen Hollweg, This do we want the slide about before the slide correct. |
| 02:57:10.93 | Ian Sobieski | Yeah. |
| 02:57:11.05 | Lily Whalen | The one with the language changes. that are, Great. So the first there's two changes here. One is the Um, indented bullet here, and it's dependent upon policy implications. That's additional language that could put some parameters upon when that second study session would be required. And then the other language changes in The second to the last bullet starts with in advance of the 2-23 meeting. And that is just adding some language at the end of that sentence. that provides flexibility where the development agreement could take effect I, upon the effective date of the ordinance that establishes the development agreement or as specified by the council on the adoption of the ordinance. |
| 02:58:02.99 | Cleveland Knowles | I had just brought that up last time because it just seems like there may be times when we would want a development agreement to go into effect later than the actual ordinance, which goes into effect automatically 30 days after adoption, so that that would give us the flexibility to you know, there was a reason that we wanted to delay the effective date. Thank you. Thank you. |
| 02:58:26.69 | Ian Sobieski | Right, right. |
| 02:58:27.13 | Cleveland Knowles | Very small point. |
| 02:58:28.08 | Janelle Kellman | No. And I rejected the language because my interest in the motion that I made is to have as much clarity and consistency in guardrails up front at the time that we entered into the development agreement And, not use a flexibility argument as a potential workaround later. So I stand by my motion. |
| 02:58:49.06 | Ian Sobieski | I'm sorry, Vice Mayor, your motion is what language and and how does it differ from what Thank you. |
| 02:58:56.65 | Janelle Kellman | Yeah. |
| 02:58:57.31 | Ian Sobieski | on some of the things that we're going to do |
| 02:58:57.76 | Janelle Kellman | Staff, would you mind putting the slide back on? Thank you. So my motion is to adopt detachment eight, the ordinance that's drafted by the Planning Commission. with the additional language of that indented paragraph regarding additional public review if warranted. Councilmember Cleveland Knowles is asking to include second large bullet. We're going to have a around dates of effectiveness. |
| 02:59:25.61 | Ian Sobieski | instead or in addition to? |
| 02:59:27.78 | Janelle Kellman | I'm sorry. |
| 02:59:27.97 | Cleveland Knowles | in addition to. No, so Janelle, your motion only includes the typographical. corrections. And it was- |
| 02:59:36.39 | Janelle Kellman | And it was additional language that staff had provided to provide |
| 02:59:37.27 | Cleveland Knowles | It was a |
| 02:59:40.73 | Janelle Kellman | So council could consider language like, would modify the first part of the sentence to add some parameters. And so I think we should include this. |
| 02:59:47.34 | Cleveland Knowles | No, that's a substantive amendment. So there's one typographical One typographical correction and two substantive amendments. Correct. And both words. And my motion includes the typographical and both. the substance and the amendments. And you said you only wanted the typographical amendment. |
| 03:00:04.92 | Janelle Kellman | Pardon me, then I misspoke because I meant to say the typographical and indented language. |
| 03:00:17.21 | Melissa Blaustein | I'm just trying to understand because I'd really like us to get to a 5-0 vote because I feel like we're so close to consensus on this issue. Is it is that is the Is the problem with the second bullet, Thank you. just that you would like it to be, it starts and that's it, and it's effective and it's at that time, or I'm just trying to understand |
| 03:00:35.18 | Janelle Kellman | Thank you. Well, let me ask you this. You were willing to vote for it. So why did you feel it was appropriate? |
| 03:00:41.86 | Melissa Blaustein | Well, I mean, I like the idea of if something comes up and we have to change the date or you know, maybe there's maybe there's a an issue with something that needs to be removed nearby the area and we have to have some like additional time or flexibility. Also, I know staff spent a long time working on this and considering and reviewing other development agreements and thinking about what would be necessary, so I I. |
| 03:01:00.76 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:01:00.82 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 03:01:04.88 | Melissa Blaustein | tend to try to respect the time and the consideration of staff when they make recommendations like |
| 03:01:10.64 | Cleveland Knowles | I would just say the most common use of this type of changing the date is when, for example, We wanna make the development agreement can, um, contingent on the adoption of a state law or the adoption of an action by BCDC or the adoption of an action by another entity. And that's not 30, It's not 30 days. And we don't want the development agreement to go into effect. And less. And until some other thing happens, usually another law or another action by another agency. So I thought it was Sarah Silver, Odd to have an ordinance that says the development agreement has to go into effect. the same time as the ordinance, because that would mean that we might have to wait and wait and line up with other agencies. It's just not a... Anyway, so that's why I had originally proposed it, and it's a very common thing. that we do with ordinances and other things that just makes it compatible with other agency actions. |
| 03:02:11.42 | Janelle Kellman | Sure, and it's also very common to not include it and primarily to achieve the certainty both for the community and the developer at the time that an ordinance is entered into. articulation of the circumstances that you explained could be one example, but there are certainly others in the timeframe. It could be or manipulate it in a way that takes away some of the certainty that we've Discussed tonight. So with respect to staff, I'm gonna rely on my 10 years of the Planning Commission to move forward with my motion as articulated. |
| 03:02:47.80 | Ian Sobieski | since um Can I ask it, since we're taking out some scissors to make some clips, can I just ask about when we're talking about study sessions, How would we feel about, there's an extra study session process here that's currently designated to be the full planning commission. and when reading about these development agreements other examples of getting that kind of expertise involved have been working groups from the Planning Commission instead of Thank you. |
| 03:03:26.19 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 03:03:26.21 | Ian Sobieski | the entire planning commission in a formal study session. So, Is there any willingness on the part of my colleagues to modify that. uh, so that we just make that part of the process a little bit Simple. Um, still involves the Planning Commission providing input. but in a working group format rather than the public. public form, the full Planning Commission form. |
| 03:03:56.33 | Janelle Kellman | Sorry, council member Sobieski, maybe I need a clarification. Maybe you could help me understand How would a working group make it any easier than. simply adding this to the agenda of a commission that already has a calendar that meets. What's the advantage here? |
| 03:04:12.67 | Ian Sobieski | I guess maybe it would be best served by answering the question. The study session, is it a single meeting? How was the study session defined? Is it a single session? Is it a process? MS. |
| 03:04:26.60 | Janelle Kellman | It's a process. You could have multiple study sessions. |
| 03:04:30.59 | Ian Sobieski | and who decides how long the study sessions are. |
| 03:04:34.89 | Janelle Kellman | I mean, I'll let staff answer these Please. I mean, it's not through many a study session and sometimes they're long, sometimes they're short, and sometimes you have multiple on the same project. But, |
| 03:04:47.08 | Ian Sobieski | And you know, |
| 03:04:47.08 | Cleveland Knowles | And you know, |
| 03:04:47.73 | Janelle Kellman | play. |
| 03:04:47.97 | Cleveland Knowles | I'm sorry. |
| 03:04:49.54 | Janelle Kellman | Thank you. |
| 03:04:49.56 | Cleveland Knowles | Sobieski, you're saying you want this section to read discretion to require a planning commission. or subset of the Planning Commission public workshops. |
| 03:05:00.10 | Ian Sobieski | I don't know how one or three yet, Councilmember Cleveland Mills. I'm still trying to educate myself on a |
| 03:05:03.59 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 03:05:03.68 | Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. |
| 03:05:03.78 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 03:05:06.53 | Ian Sobieski | just something that I about what a study session actually means. I'm actually interested both in this particular indented paragraph, but also in the ordinance as it reads for the requiring a study session at the planning commission as part of the process ahead of consideration at the Planning Commission, there's supposed to be a study session. coming and we'd like to know what that means. |
| 03:05:32.30 | Janelle Kellman | Thank you. No, go ahead. Why don't we describe the study sessions that we've done. |
| 03:05:35.34 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 03:05:38.48 | Janelle Kellman | And they give multiple formats, right? Sometimes they take a long time, sometimes they don't. |
| 03:05:45.17 | Lily Whalen | if I can. So the way the ordinance is written right now is it requires a mandatory study session, a pre-application study session. So before the developer gets too far down the road, they would go to the Planning Commission for a study session. which would be basically an introduction to the project. Um, you know, introducing the community and the planning commissioners with what the developer would like to achieve. what they're proposing in terms of community benefits. how the project works. with the zoning ordinance, the general plan, um, you know, what it's going to look like, all those sorts of things. Usually the project is not fully formed at that time. so that it allows the developer to go back and sharpen their pencils and rework some things that might not be palatable to the community. |
| 03:06:34.69 | Ian Sobieski | What I'm asking here, is just that the development agreement idea is to negotiate the negotiates some of that. And I'm wondering, where is that negotiation? Is it prior to the study session or after? |
| 03:06:53.94 | Ian Sobieski | like with the Bridgeway Marina example, for example. |
| 03:06:59.17 | Lily Whalen | Let me pull up. Actually, maybe Heidi, can you go to the backup slides? There's the little flow chart here. that we prepared. |
| 03:07:12.47 | Lily Whalen | So the negotiation would be as we put in this flowchart after that pre pre-application study session. |
| 03:07:24.23 | Ian Sobieski | I see. So the current requirement is that there study session before the negotiations. That was the job I did. |
| 03:07:35.84 | Janelle Kellman | Correct. to give the community a chance to weigh in and review the project and take public comment, |
| 03:07:45.53 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 03:07:45.56 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 03:07:45.58 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 03:07:45.68 | Ian Sobieski | That seems to be putting the cart before the horse. It seems like you want to |
| 03:07:45.80 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 03:07:45.90 | Janelle Kellman | Thank you. |
| 03:07:45.92 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 03:07:51.13 | Ian Sobieski | not pass, of course, but the Camel is a horse designed by committee. to really exploit, if you're going to ever use this tool, You want to be able to have a nimble negotiating process and Um, And obviously it'll have to go through and should go through public scrutiny. but to be able to design something, it was helpful to actually. have the ability to. We appreciate it. So it seems like the study session should come after the negotiating session. at least one round of moving the shading. uh, so. |
| 03:08:31.63 | Cleveland Knowles | it. So given the lateness of the hour, could I just suggest, I know Councilmember Sobieski like we have a motion and a second on the floor we have talked about this twice. Bye. suggest that we move forward with a vote. And then if there are amendments to the process, I mean, we have the Bridgeway Marina situation that actually ended up, it did put the cart before the horse in terms of this particular structure that we're looking at now. Council member working group. and then public meetings advancing the letter of intent. And that's what will go to the planning commission for a study session. So that's how it happened in this particular case. And I don't know if the city attorney wants to weigh on them whether that could happen in the future, but I think the current proposal is that we wouldn't do it that way. We'd start off with the Planning Commission and a public hearing. Thank you. |
| 03:09:27.40 | Jill Hoffman | but, |
| 03:09:27.72 | Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. |
| 03:09:27.82 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. I- Do you... Are you an amenable to that, Councilmember Sobieski? |
| 03:09:33.98 | Ian Sobieski | Uh, you know, sure. I'm just on the learning curve. These are designing the sausage at 10 PM at night. So if that's clear and satisfactory to my colleagues, it is to me as well. |
| 03:09:47.97 | Cleveland Knowles | Okay, so let me weigh in. I mean, the other thing is if Council Member Sobieski wants to make a motion to continue, I guess we can consider that. |
| 03:09:47.99 | Ian Sobieski | Okay, so let me weigh in. |
| 03:09:55.31 | Ian Sobieski | I mean, I'm fine with the idea Again, I think you're right. We can amend it afterwards if we felt like there was something to fix. So that's not... My questions aren't resonating with anyone else. |
| 03:10:07.99 | Jill Hoffman | Well, let me, let me just weigh in here to say it. It seems like the community development director and the, you know, has some flexibility on how to, how to manage this as well. And what type of planning session or whatever you want to call it, workshop, whatever. So I think it might be dependent upon. the parties at the time, the plan director at the time and the project. So with regard to the effective date, So, let me just weigh in on this and then we'll call the motion. So here's my issue with it is that you know, for all parties, you know, it's good for them to have certainty and knowledge about when something's in effect, right? Like when is the operative date of this agreement? |
| 03:10:44.83 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:10:45.03 | Unknown | Perfect. |
| 03:10:47.90 | Jill Hoffman | It is the date that we vote on it. Now, You can always build in, I mean, I would assume that you would build in some sort of, um, you know, escape or some sort of way to address things that everybody thought were going to happen that they don't happen. Right. So you would have a clause in there, but for good cause or for good cause, the parties may come back and renegotiate whatever they're trying to negotiate. But if you put a contingent on something else that the city council or whoever believes is going to happen and then it doesn't happen. then it throws everything into uncertainty. And so what was the effective date of this agreement? Who knows if you say it's effective on the passage of something or some arbitrary or not so arbitrary thing that you expect to happen and it doesn't happen. what does it mean and what do the terms mean and how do you enforce that? That's why That's why I'm, you know, I'm leaning toward the, the, Hey, it's effective on the date of, um, on the date that it's approved. and then and then let the chips fall where they may if they need to make a delay or something. But the worst thing you wanna have is, people sitting around 10 years later and wondering, Hey, didn't we approve that development agreement 10 years ago? And what happened to that? I had an issue with the development that was supposed to happen in, you know, up the street and it hasn't ever happened, even though there've been agreements, but you know, what's the, You know, what's the stat? Who knows? Amy Nunez- Anyway, that's my comment on I hadn't commented on that. So that's my comment. We have a motion on the table. If you guys are ready to vote. I'm ready to vote. Anybody else? We got digressed and it was all my fault that we digressed because we had emotion on the table. So it was my fault. I take my, I take it. |
| 03:12:28.54 | Unknown | We gotta digress. |
| 03:12:35.02 | Jill Hoffman | Um, Okay, so we have a motion on the table. I believe it's council member Leland Knowles Motion. And I believe, She had a second? And so if we can have, the clerk call the roll on that motion, that would be helpful. |
| 03:12:51.81 | Heidi Scoble | Council member. Uh, no. Council member Blaustein. Yes. Council member Cleveland Knowles. Vice Mayor Kellman. Go. Mayor Hoffman. No. Can I ask a process question? |
| 03:13:14.27 | Ian Sobieski | Sure. |
| 03:13:15.13 | Melissa Blaustein | Why not? Given that that didn't carry, just in the interest of that it would be nice for us all to have a 5-0 vote in favor of vice mayor count, like now would be |
| 03:13:22.56 | Cleveland Knowles | I'm going to vote for it, Melissa. |
| 03:13:24.34 | Melissa Blaustein | No. |
| 03:13:24.83 | Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. |
| 03:13:24.87 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 03:13:24.95 | Cleveland Knowles | Good. Okay, great. Effective day is such a small point and would have been so much. |
| 03:13:25.25 | Melissa Blaustein | I'm not sure. This is. |
| 03:13:31.11 | Cleveland Knowles | So easy to help us, but no problem. No problem not to have it. Very small place. |
| 03:13:38.40 | Jill Hoffman | So, then we have our original motion on the table and we, if we can have the, Clerk. Call the roll. |
| 03:13:47.02 | Heidi Scoble | you |
| 03:13:47.93 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 03:13:47.95 | Heidi Scoble | Councilmember Sobieski? |
| 03:13:49.52 | Ian Sobieski | Yes. |
| 03:13:50.33 | Heidi Scoble | Councilmember Blaustein. Yes. Councilmember Cleveland Knowles? Yes. Vice Mayor Kelman? Mayor Hoffman. Yes. |
| 03:13:58.60 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 03:13:59.11 | Heidi Scoble | Thank you. |
| 03:13:59.12 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you very much, everybody. Thank you to my fellow council members for working with me on that. I appreciate that very much. As do I, as do Thank you all. Okay, rocketing on through our through our agenda this evening, we're moving on to Um, our next item on our agenda, which is our business item. which I will remind people we took item 7A off the calendar, so I believe our new item 7a is now what was 7B, I'm got that right Mary and we're now or madam clerk and we're now at seven days The old 7B, which is now the 7A, mid-year budget review and adoption. |
| 03:14:43.24 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 03:14:44.74 | Jill Hoffman | Just want to make sure I got that right. I think I did. You are correct. Thank you. |
| 03:14:47.40 | Ian Sobieski | Okay. |
| 03:14:50.15 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, so, um, Thank you very much. We will be having our mid-year budget review and adoption of resolution to adjust the fiscal year 2020-21 budget. And that will be given by our assistant city manager, Julia Carter. And it says in my thing it's a 10 minute presentation. |
| 03:15:09.97 | Julia Carter | Good evening, and I will try to do 10 minutes or less, so considering how late in the hour we are. So the item before you tonight is fiscal year 2021 mid-year budget review. This is, as you know, industry standard. the mid-year budget review gives us opportunity to verify all the assumptions that made before the budget is adopted and we can make any necessary adjustments as part of this process. So I'll jump right into the summary. So we have some good news and not so good news to share with you tonight. the good news are in general fund you can see the general fund is doing quite well and is in line with the adopted budget The operating expenditure revenues are going up by 600,000. It's about 4% increase versus adopted budget. operating expenditures also going up, but again at the same pace. within the 4% from the adopted budget. And this is pretty much what we want to see as part of the mid-year. I would say any adjustments on the 5% are really, really good news. And the best news of all in the general fund is the fact that undesignated fund balance is. has increased by 1.6 million. from 1.8 million or only 10% of operating expenditures at adoption. And now we are projecting 3.4 or 18% at mid-year. And again, keep in mind that this is after factoring in one-time transfers to eliminate deficit in other funds that we will discuss a little bit later. So what is not so good over news is a decline in revenues in other unrestricted funds. specifically enterprise funds. This is our MLK, Old City Hall, and the So, you know, I think that's a good question. The city traditionally use this funds to bounce the general fund budget and unfortunately today, as far as a mid year report to be. projecting that fund balances in old City Hall fund and parking funds significantly. Reduced. and will not be able to absorb large transfers to general fund in the upcoming year. and on the new budget. Again, we knew some of this because, as you may remember, as part of the budget, the Council approved one-time transfers from this one. MS. Once again, today we reported that parking fund revenues are performing under the budget. And that means that it's time to come up with new strategies for the upcoming project. So this is just really fly through the slides on the General fund revenues, you can see this is good news pretty much across the board. um, the all this increases are fully described in the staff report so you can see that our projections were rather conservative and Our reality and adjusted projections showing some increase all over the place except for are the revenues category, and this is our shared services agreement. that we put in place as part of an adopted budget. Unfortunately, it didn't quite turn out as we planned. We had to unwind those agreements and you can see the corresponding loss of those revenues. And I'm talking about shared services agreements with the city of Mill Valley and fire district. to share some of the Department of Public Works and admin staff with those agencies. Looking at expenditures, there's four categories. That's how we track expenditures in general fund. Solaris benefits, contract services, material supplies and transfers. You can see that we factored in about 200,000 in salary savings this year. Typically, we wouldn't do it as part of mid-year, but again, considering that this is not a typical year, dealing with the pandemic. felt that that would be appropriate to factor in some salary savings to offset some increases that you can see in A category. Thank you. And again, the other categories project increase mostly due to the previously approved the council's actions and all of them are listed in attachment 3 to your staff report with the corresponding console section when they took place. And the last category, you can see the increase in transfers. These are one-time transfers that we are asking you to approve to eliminate deficit in traffic safety and general liability funds. And again, to present the same data a little bit differently. So these are all the adjustments that we're asking you to make tonight related to the general point? Again, we talked about salary savings. previously approved console. adjustments that included an attachment three. And there are only two staff adjustments before you tonight. increase in legal services and utility budgets, After we published this report, we looked at legal services one more time and, We might have overestimated this increase a little bit because some of the project charges could be subject to cost recovery and the or could be absorbed by some other funds, but I want to again highlight that if this allocation is approved by console, and any unused portion of this allocation will simply fall into the fund balance. And there is no strict consequences with this action. um, As far as utility budget is concerned, this is something we We actually reduced the budget as part of the fiscal year 2021 balancing strategy. anticipated to accumulate some savings related to reduced usage in water and sewer related to city facilities, but again, the actuals show that we we were not able to to maintain the savings and had to restore this budget back. And the main reason for this is construction of the Dunphy Park and increase the usage of water and sewer. related to water and grassy area and additional hookups for wooden sewer charges. And as I mentioned before, the two transfers that they're asking you to make today pretty much this one time transfers from general fund to eliminate deficits in these two funds. Traffic safety fund. accounts for projects related to traffic safety and repairs of the traffic signals. Right now, the only source of revenues for this fund is vehicle code funds. points, sorry. And as you can imagine, this is unreliable revenue stream, so typically doesn't come even close to annual repair expenses. So we We've been actually showing some running deficit in this fund and want to So assuming all the positive news in the general fund, we just want to make this one-time transfer and make sure that moving forward, allocate ongoing transfer from general fund to support expenditures in this fund. And similar situation is in Channel Liability Fund. This is our Internal Service Fund. that accounts for all risk management, the general liability and premiums and claims. And over the last couple of years, we had a number of large claims under the city's self-insurance retain that created some deficit in the fund. So once again, we just want to make sure they cover this deficit and and the use general fund money to do this. Now to conclude the general fund analysis, let's look at the general fund budgetary reserves. you can see that The total engine channel fund balance is about 11.1 million. This leaves about 3.4 million in designated or unassigned balance. And once again, the showing the increase if you look at the fiscal year 2021 adopted budget the balance the budget at the really dangerously low mark at 10% of unsignated fund balance. And the, Right now, we are projecting about 1.6% increase, which is really good news for the general fund and clearly showing that we taking this run into the right direction. And right now, we actually meet some GFOA standards uh, for the general fund balance and basically in the fund balance of, uh, meeting at least two months of operating expenditures. I just want to also point out that we actually finished the year, the last fiscal year at a better note as well, so that increase our fund balance. and obviously we didn't have this information when we adopted the budget a year ago And the best news of all, and I want to I don't have a highlight here, if you look at the operating contingencies block, you can see that None of the contingencies that the council set aside previously, the 5% of the budget stabilization policy or shortfall policy and we also brought back additional COVID-related contingency as part of the budget just to prepare ourselves for worse news if our middle case scenario will not been out as planned, and you can see that we didn't have to tap in into any of these reserves. So that's another really positive news for the channel phone. |
| 03:26:00.70 | Julia Carter | so moving on to other funds uh that's where our challenge is right now as you can see the first the chart, the enterprise funds are showing significant decrease in revenues. This is, again, mostly our parking revenues that are performing significantly on the budget. within our middle The road scenario did not plan for pandemic to last for over a year. Unfortunately, we see the result of it. Well, again, this is this decrease. partially upset by some positive activity in other funds, but, uh, once again, the challenges that traditionally we used the old city hall of parking and MLK. as a, feeder for the general fund to balance the budget. So that's something to consider as a new strategy for the fiscal year 21-22. and going to expenditures and other other funds revenue, other funds. you can see that we tried to look under each rock to see where we can generate some savings to upset some of the decline revenues so we were able to find. some of the savings in MLK and parking fund to again, to offset the revenue losses. The increase in special revenues is looks large, but there is no concern here. It's simply a result of previously approved capital projects. that were approved in prior years but didn't carry over into the budget and did not start until this current fiscal year specifically it's a street resourcing project and again it's described and included in attachment three in your reports You can see there is no change in internal service or the service funds. Now, if all of the recommendations that are before you today are approved by Council, you can see that to see the. |
| 03:28:21.54 | Julia Carter | The city has, sorry, let's see portion on the screen. Oops, sorry. |
| 03:28:32.42 | Julia Carter | I apologize, my screen went black for a second. |
| 03:28:38.68 | Julia Carter | So if all the changes that we have discussed so far were approved by you tonight, Here's the list of our project of the citywide fund balances. The city currently has about 24 funds. And the... of them are grouped in these five categories so we also included the detailed summary of uh Fund balances, they're included in Attachment 7 to your reports. And as you can see, the total fund balances across all funds are projected to be 23.4 million. And again, back to the summary, you can see that from this report that the General Fund is on track with the budget, and we are doing quite well. definitely within the Originally Assumed Assumptions the good news again that we increased anticipated fund balance for general fund. And once again, I want to highlight the losses and revenues and other funds. specifically parking. MLK and all city hall. that brings me to the last slide. That's the recommendation that is before today before you tonight. We ask you to adopt the resolution to adjust the fiscal year 2021 operating on capital budget. And again, to reiterate the action, it's a net increase in revenues by 21,000. increase in appropriations by 2.7 million altogether across all funds, including transfers. And again, this includes the one-time transfers of 774,000 from general fund. to eliminate deficit and traffic safety and general liability funds. And to conclude my presentation, I just want to the current and past city console for your leadership and product fiscal management And I also want to... acknowledge the efforts of all city departments in the city manager for demonstrating fiscal discipline And keeping our operations within the reduced budget means, which I know it wasn't easy. It was really hard here for all of us. That concludes my presentation. and I'm happy to answer any questions. |
| 03:31:00.18 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. Thank you, Assistant City Manager. That was an excellent presentation and thank you for all of your hard work. you and the staff and actually the city council last year your tremendous hard work and lift on trying to react to a very trying and troubling year and so. Thank you for that. Do we have any questions for our Assistant City Manager on this presentation. Yes. |
| 03:31:31.52 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 03:31:31.53 | Jill Hoffman | Go ahead. Council member Cleveland Knowles. |
| 03:31:37.41 | Cleveland Knowles | Yeah, so I'm sorry I didn't provide this question, Ms. Carter ahead of time, but, Do we know if the American Recovery Act will provide any direct relief to local governments of the size of Sausalito uh, |
| 03:31:53.37 | Julia Carter | Thank you. |
| 03:31:54.55 | Cleveland Knowles | And if you have any kind of. |
| 03:31:54.58 | Julia Carter | And I've seen it. Yes, we are anticipating 1.3 million relief. There is no clear timing associated with this, so we didn't include it in this report. But that's definitely something to build into the upcoming budget. |
| 03:32:11.69 | Melissa Blaustein | We also have access to tourism specific impacted dollars as a result of the American Recovery Act. So that's something to consider as well. |
| 03:32:20.07 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah, we're already... figuring out how to go after that. So if our city manager or assistant city manager interim. city manager. wants to weigh in. on some of our efforts and outreach, that's fine. Yeah, there are additional dollars that we're going to go after and with, we believe with some success. So. |
| 03:32:41.14 | Chris Zapata | I think Madam Mayor, you've summarized it accurately. I do think City of Sausalito has been more impacted by downturn in tourism than other cities, some of our neighbors, for example. And I do think it's incumbent for us to work with the League of California Cities and the state to apply for additional dollars that may become available. We've already made contact at the direction of the mayor and We'll be updating the council As we find out about the process and the timing. But as the assistant city managers indicated we've been notified of. the dollars that will become available. not yet been notified or have any information about when we'll see those dollars. They've not been reflected in the information that you see here tonight. |
| 03:33:32.75 | Cleveland Knowles | Great, thank you. And then I just had one more question, which is, so last year, I just wanna thank all of our staff. We negotiated with SEIU for salary reduction in exchange for extra furlough days and Ms. Carter, could you just remind me when that ends, was that at the end of the calendar year or was is that at the end of this coming fiscal year? |
| 03:33:57.52 | Julia Carter | and Thank you. Sorry. |
| 03:34:00.34 | Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. |
| 03:34:00.35 | Julia Carter | Thank you. |
| 03:34:00.37 | Cleveland Knowles | Sorry, what was the answer? |
| 03:34:01.30 | Julia Carter | Thank you. it was the end of the fiscal year. |
| 03:34:03.73 | Cleveland Knowles | Yeah, we build it in for the whole. |
| 03:34:03.91 | Julia Carter | Yeah. |
| 03:34:06.80 | Cleveland Knowles | Okay, so I just wanted to acknowledge the contribution of our employees and recognize that that was, as you said, quite difficult. Um, And then I think those were the only questions I had. |
| 03:34:32.25 | Janelle Kellman | Mayor Hoffman, if I can just jump in. I really want to thank Ms. Carter and Charlie for two documents they sent out, I want to make sure the council saw them. Earlier this week, Charlie sent out a I'm not sure. Sorry, Mr. Francis, first I blanked on his last name, to be honest, but we know what we're talking about. I sent out a document on our reserve policy. So you saw several slides talking about our cash reserves. So he found that and sent that out. I thought it was really helpful and insightful for us. I just want to draw your attention to it. And then the other thing, thank you so much for the updated fund spreadsheet with the text copy and in red explaining the usage for the fund. I thought that was just so helpful. And I've been asking for that for a while. So thank you so much for that. I had a quick question. because I know we're going to be thinking about how we use some of this budget on the treasurer's report. um, I saw, I think around $623,000 in the vehicle replacement fund. Could something like that hypothetically be used to buy electric vehicles or electrifier fleet? Is that the type of is that where we would look for that type of money? |
| 03:35:49.75 | Julia Carter | Yes, so the vehicle replacement fund was actually renamed to vehicle and equipment replacement fund last fiscal year. Specifically, that's the purpose of the fund, and we have some of the available fund balances that remain in the fund available to equipment and vehicle replacement of city fleet. Thank you. |
| 03:36:13.36 | Janelle Kellman | Okay. And then sort of similar question. Fund 124 was measure A, 122, which is the traffic road fee, I'm not sure. that type of money's we would look there during our capital improvement program |
| 03:36:26.71 | Julia Carter | Thank you. That's typically the plan. So when we put together the capital improvement program, we look at the funding sources. for specific projects and the depending on what they are, what the appropriate sources are, the transfers are typically being made to general capital fund to fund the projects. |
| 03:36:46.01 | Janelle Kellman | Great, I'm just translating budget to, you know, now how we're gonna use it. And then the last thing, just for the benefit of everybody else, you walked us through this at finance, but some of the, some of the funds have a negative cash in the bank. Can you just run us through again how an account can have negative cash in the bank? |
| 03:37:04.31 | Julia Carter | Thank you. |
| 03:37:04.33 | Janelle Kellman | Thank you. |
| 03:37:04.56 | Julia Carter | Thank you. |
| 03:37:04.59 | Janelle Kellman | Thank you. |
| 03:37:04.70 | Julia Carter | It is, I sent out the, the, responses to some of the questions that were raised at the Finance Committee meeting. And I guess the point I was trying to make that the, in order to calculate fund balances which you see as part of this report, we So you can take into account all assets that are available for the city. So if the cash is held with the city's accounts or parse trust or section 115 trust or uh bond proceeds. all of them accounted to the specific funds. So when we report the Treasury reports to you, we specifically translate the cash into the general ledger fund allocation. So even though we still have a pending project right now for a reconciliation of some of the bond proceeds, including CERA and COP, it does not affect calculation of the fund balances. So the report that you have in front of you right now, this project that fund balances, it still accurately reflect what the, projected fund balances as of today. based on our projections that we just presented to you. |
| 03:38:21.31 | Janelle Kellman | Thank you. |
| 03:38:22.14 | Julia Carter | THE RECONCILIATION. |
| 03:38:22.96 | Janelle Kellman | project that you mentioned in your staff report. Okay, thank you very much. Unrelated to finance, Heidi, I noticed the Zoom meeting is locked, which would mean that nobody could join. So you may want to unlock our Zoom meeting. |
| 03:38:39.16 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, thank you. letting us know. Okay, any other questions before we move on to public comment for our Assistant City Manager on the presentation of the budget? |
| 03:38:54.03 | Ian Sobieski | I know that the parking fund has always been this funny enterprise fund. used plentifully for our budget. And I just wanted to know whether there are capital reserve requirements inside that fund for anticipated expenses or Are we happy to have it down near zero? Yeah, yeah. No. |
| 03:39:14.26 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 03:39:14.30 | Julia Carter | Good night. Yeah, there are some expenditures in this fund associated with some of the parking equipment and things like that, but it's not the capital fund. So traditionally the city used reserves in this fund. to help. balance the general fund budget. And in one of my slides on the presentation, you probably I captured that this year's transfers in general fund were quite significant. amount it's close to 4.7 million which was unusual, like a normal year, it would be half of this. but still. So that's one of the concerns, unfortunately, as part of this. presentation. Okay? |
| 03:39:59.07 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 03:39:59.50 | Julia Carter | And you're |
| 03:39:59.96 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 03:40:00.43 | Julia Carter | Thank you. |
| 03:40:00.64 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 03:40:00.67 | Julia Carter | Thank you. |
| 03:40:00.85 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 03:40:01.39 | Melissa Blaustein | Yeah, I had two questions. So, and thank you for everyone on staff for their hard work on this report and especially assistant manager Carter, really appreciate it. And I'm so impressed by all of the hard work from the previous council and staff to keep us on. |
| 03:40:09.00 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 03:40:18.39 | Melissa Blaustein | on budget and and still functioning throughout all of these challenges it's really impressive to see it all laid out and to see that we actually have more than we anticipated. And on that note i'm just wondering if you, you know again i'm going to go back to the three budgeting scenarios that were suggested in June and i'm wondering if we're still in the. and not the bad. And if you anticipate as you project what might happen at the end of the fiscal year, if there's a chance that we would move into the bad, scenario as opposed to the worst. |
| 03:40:47.53 | Julia Carter | Well, at this point, I think we pretty safely can assume that we the budget is on track for the general fund and again the good news we did anticipate the worst case scenario we set aside some additional 1.5 million as designation of the general fund and again the good news we didn't have to touch it So that's definitely positive. But on the other hand, when we look at the other funds, the parking is clearly performing under the budget, so it's more in the, ugly case scenario or even beyond that. So that's That's a combination of things. But again, the positive news of today's report that the general fund is definitely on track. |
| 03:41:34.78 | Melissa Blaustein | And then the other question, just because it's one of the largest line items in our budget since the beginning of this fiscal year, and I still don't have a clear understanding of our financing for it, and perhaps maybe that needs to be agendized later on, the acquisition of the B of A building was a really significant purchase. And looking at the fiscal year mid-year budget projections, I can see that there is a lease revenue and I can see what we |
| 03:41:50.83 | Unknown | And, |
| 03:41:58.78 | Melissa Blaustein | paid for it, but I'm just wondering about financing options and whether there's an opportunity for it to be revenue. generating just based on the real estate itself, whether that was pursued. And if that's something, maybe the finance committee can get back to us on I don't want to believe your things at 1040pm but I, if you have a top line that you can say about that helpful. |
| 03:42:18.77 | Julia Carter | Yes, we included some of the explanation in attachment three. If you look at the previously approved, you can see that the general fund actually paid for the purchase of Bank of America. Um, building and you will see the corresponding revenues from the revenue, well, from the financing of this purchase. So what will happen at the end of the fiscal year, as the city goes into the year-end process, we will probably have to create a new fund to account for the debt service for the fund and move this, well, there will be accounts and transactions related to this And the second part of your question as far as upsetting some of this purchase by generating revenues and rents, so that's definitely a policy decision that will have to be looked at. and decided by council Thank you. |
| 03:43:11.88 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, any other questions before we move to public comment? Nope. Okay. Then we will move on to public comment. We'll open public comment for this item mid-year budget review. |
| 03:43:27.17 | Heidi Scoble | Thank you. |
| 03:43:32.21 | Heidi Scoble | Madam Mayor, does not appear as though there are any hands raised at this time. Okay, thank you. |
| 03:43:37.97 | Jill Hoffman | then I will close public comment. Thank you. And let's have a discussion or a possible motion. So do we have any discussion? Do we have a motion to adopt the let's see, hold on, bring up stuff. |
| 03:43:57.91 | Cleveland Knowles | I'll make a motion to adopt a resolution to adjust the fiscal year 2020 2020-21 budget. Okay. |
| 03:44:07.25 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 03:44:07.48 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 03:44:07.53 | Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. |
| 03:44:07.55 | Jill Hoffman | you Thank you. |
| 03:44:07.63 | Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. Wait a second. |
| 03:44:09.84 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 03:44:11.13 | Ian Sobieski | second. |
| 03:44:13.19 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 03:44:13.20 | Heidi Scoble | Okay. |
| 03:44:13.51 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 03:44:14.06 | Heidi Scoble | Um, Madam Clerk, could you please call the roll? Councilmember Sobieski? Councilmember Blaustein. Yes. Councilmember Cleveland Knowles. Absolutely. Vice Mayor Kellerman. Yes. and Mayor Hoffman. |
| 03:44:30.97 | Jill Hoffman | Yes, the motion passes by unanimous vote. Okay, our next item on the agenda, moving right along, we're at item eight. These are city manager reports, council appointments, and other council business. Public comments on, we will now take public comment on items 8A through 8D at this time. |
| 03:45:03.47 | Jill Hoffman | And I'm not seeing any hands raised. Oh, no, I do see his hand. Go ahead and call your first. Thank you. |
| 03:45:11.25 | Vicki Nichols | We, we, we, we, |
| 03:45:11.34 | Jill Hoffman | you |
| 03:45:11.41 | Vicki Nichols | the video. |
| 03:45:11.47 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 03:45:11.67 | Unknown | you. |
| 03:45:11.91 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 03:45:11.93 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:45:11.94 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 03:45:12.03 | Vicki Nichols | Bye. Thank you. |
| 03:45:13.01 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 03:45:13.06 | Vicki Nichols | Thank you. |
| 03:45:13.43 | Mary Wagner | Thank you. |
| 03:45:14.36 | Vicki Nichols | Hi, Mayor and Council members. |
| 03:45:14.65 | Jill Hoffman | Mary. |
| 03:45:14.97 | Mary Wagner | Thank you. |
| 03:45:15.05 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 03:45:15.08 | Mary Wagner | Thank you. |
| 03:45:15.10 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 03:45:17.89 | Vicki Nichols | Now's the time to speak to future agenda items. |
| 03:45:22.41 | Ian Sobieski | Yes. |
| 03:45:22.48 | Vicki Nichols | Is that 8D? Okay. I would just like to, I know this isn't, I don't know when this happens anymore because I've kind of gotten out of the loop about how the budget's, |
| 03:45:22.49 | Ian Sobieski | Yes. |
| 03:45:33.98 | Vicki Nichols | being done. But I'm happy to hear that Charlie Francis is advising everyone because he's terrific. And so is Yulia. So you're in good shape. What I'd like to start advocating for, though, is I heard a lot of different ideas tonight of let's do this, let's do that. And it's very clear and sobering that we don't have a lot of wiggle room to do extra things. So if we have any money that's... I want to get back on the back of the of the council's attention The inventory, the historical inventory that was promised years ago, that was funded years ago, that kept having the money being drained, drained, drained. I've gone back in old records and I think I can get back to 2014 when the money was approved. But the reason this is important is we now have historical regulations set Mayor Hoffman helped us complete. She was our liaison at the end. Thank you. taught us about how important where a comma is. A great lesson. Um, And I think she understands the importance of getting this inventory to complement those regulations to really make sure that they're working for the purpose that we want. them to do, which is protecting legitimate historic structures. So please put that back on your agenda at some point. We need to talk about it. If it's not a concern of yours, You know, that's one thing, but I haven't heard a deep discussion about this lately. And I'd also like to hear more about the machine shop. That's very sad. Thanks very much. Thank you. |
| 03:47:19.20 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 03:47:20.85 | Vicki Nichols | Thank you. |
| 03:47:20.89 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 03:47:20.90 | Vicki Nichols | I'm not. |
| 03:47:20.97 | Jill Hoffman | Um, Okay, any other public comment on this? on items 8B through 8D. |
| 03:47:34.74 | Jill Hoffman | I don't see anything. Okay. I'm going to close public comment then and. bring it back to us to go down through our agenda on items eight. So item 8B is city manager report and city manager recruitment update. So... that we're going to be Thank you. |
| 03:47:56.17 | Chris Zapata | interim city manager if you'd like to give your report. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Deborah Muchmore is available this evening and we'll be giving an update. Deborah? Thank you. Thank you, Deborah. Go ahead. |
| 03:48:08.59 | Deborah Muchmore | Hello, thank you. Good evening, Madam Mayor and council members. Tonight we bring you report on the, an update on the city manager recruitment, basically about public participation. in the process and a recommendation from the working group. about future participation by stakeholders in the public. So I have, I do have a little bit of a presentation because there's a little bit of material. This may make it a little bit easier. I'm going to share my screen. um Just a moment here. And Here we go. So, and let's get this into a slideshow for you. there so um the working group is i'm going to move to the next screen The working group is providing a recommendation tonight to the Council on public participation. We're first presenting an overview of the public participation in the process thus far, and then a recommendation for the selection process. And then working group members are Vice Mayor, and Councilmember Sobieski. I don't know. And then so just to kind of review what's gone on, the former city manager Adam Pulitzer gave notice of retirement at the end of September last year. Interim city manager, Marsha Raines, was appointed on October 21st of that year. Our executive recruiting firm, Avery & Associates, represented by Paul Kimura, was engaged on October 29th. on December 3. our former city manager retired, and the council working group before you today was established on January 12th of this year. Since during that time, the public has had participation opportunities throughout the process on October 21st, the Council requested public input. on qualities and attributes of a city manager and I think that's a good question. of an interim city manager at that time. And then on November 12th, between the 12th and the 15th, our executive recruitment firm Avery and Associates had meetings with staff and council members to discern qualities and attributes of a city manager. On January 12th, there was public input on a proposed community survey And the council also received draft email invitation to apply, so an email language that the public or council members or people could use to apply. for the position or to send to their email lists for the position on January 29. Um, an opportunity for community comments and feedback went out on several occasions, three Fridays, I believe, in the Currents newsletter. requesting Feedback on the attributes and the characteristics of a city manager with a description of the city manager that council was looking for. The working group had put together also a nomination form that went out into the community, allowing the community to nominate candidates. And a dedicated city website to the city manager recruitment was launched. on January 28th through February 2nd, the working group developed compelling marketing materials and social media marketing materials. And they... They worked with a Sausalito resident who volunteered her time, Catherine Soder, who provided a design and graphics artistry skills to the working group and created these incredible materials that went out. J. Karger on February 27 volunteered and facilitated a workshop with Council on Interviewing Skills and the Development of Questions. Um, The process thus far has produced some successful results. Nine additional candidates were Okay, so this slide is wrong. So I'm gonna not go with this slide and I'm just gonna let you know that nine candidates, 11 candidates were were nominated out of the nominations that came in from the community. So nine folks were nominated that would make great city managers from the nominations from the community. Some of them got several nominations. Nine additional candidates came in. It's just missing one bullet. from the social media marketing materials that were used by our consultant and also some of the social media that went out from the working group and from other folks working with the working group. Three of the 11 candidates nominated by the community applied. and they're in the 54 total candidates The nine additional candidates plus those three represented about 22% of the total pool that we received of candidates. Through preliminary reference and review efforts of Avery and Associates, and in conversations with council, 11 top candidates have been identified. Council, we'll be interviewing, these are next steps now that we're going to move into, Council will interview the top 11 candidates. on the 25th and 26th of March. and two to four of those will participate in additional selection process So those processes may include stakeholder advisory process and they will include council second interviews. What we're gonna do now is present a plan and a recommendation that the working group has come up with regarding those meetings regarding the stakeholder advisory process and that participation. So there are, It's a two-fold plan, and that two-fold plan basically has chairs and vice chairs from the eight city standing boards, committees and commissions or their designees Um, to participate in a proctored question and answer session with the final candidates. It also includes city executive staff participating in informal discussions with the final candidates. the information that's derived from those sessions will be summarized by the recruitment consultants. and provided to the city council as a piece of information to help inform the decision process towards the new city manager. The working group is recommending that the sessions with candidates are recorded and that participants in both sessions be required to sign a confidentiality and non-disclosure agreement. So I'm going to click off the PowerPoint now and stop sharing my screen and move back to the report. so that I can give you a little bit more additional information. So, so the, um, The reason that the eight standing boards and committees were selected was to seek feedback from a broad spectrum of the community. Thank you. Thank you. and And so that opportunity would allow us to use folks that are already involved in the community, in the city, and quickly get them into one process. We also think the working group feels it's important to hear from the staff. The new city manager will lead And so that is part of the impetus behind bringing the executive leaders together to hear these final candidates. Um, We're anticipating that the dates and length of the participation sessions will range from one and a half to three and a half hours. And that kind of depends, that's allotting about 30 minutes of final candidate and that'll depend on whether there are two, three, or four top candidates. um, The initial interviews, as I said before, are scheduled on March 25th and 26th. And Because of that, in our recruitment schedule, Ideally, the decision would happen in mid-April so that we can get someone on board in early to mid-April and so we can get someone on board in a reasonable timeframe. To make that happen, the public participation would have to occur somewhere between the last week of March and the first week of April. In looking at the meetings that are scheduled with the boards and commissions, it sets those dates between March 30th and April 2nd in reality. So there are some dates that have been provided in the staff report by the consultants as to their availability, and they include March 30th, April 6th. Wednesday, March 31st, Thursday, April 1st, and Friday, April 2nd. So what we are asking, what the working group is asking today is first we thank you for listening to this update. And then I'm gonna kind of put this back up. Now and share again so that you can see the recommendation. Um, The working group is asking you to to consider approving their recommendation of chairs and vice chairs from the eight standing boards and committees, meeting with the final candidates, city executive staff meeting with the final candidates, recruitment consultants, providing the summary from those sessions, and the recording and the signing of a confidentiality statement and also to have an We also would like you to have a discussion around the dates that those might occur so that we can keep the process on track. and Vice Mayor Kellman and Council Member Sobieski, please jump in if I've missed something. I'm gonna unshare. |
| 03:59:22.60 | Jill Hoffman | I don't see either the vice mayor or council member jumping in. |
| 03:59:24.84 | Janelle Kellman | Thank you. Thank you. Really excellent job. Okay. |
| 03:59:30.90 | Jill Hoffman | Oh, yeah. Okay. So thank you to, thanks to Deborah and Paul Kumara, who is our other consultant. And our working group, Vice Mayor Kelman and Councilmember Sobieski, you guys have done a tremendous job. and really fantastic results, I think, within a robust array of candidates. So I don't have any questions. Did anybody else have questions? Yes. Go ahead, Councilmember Cleveland Nelson. |
| 03:59:58.49 | Cleveland Knowles | Yeah. Thanks. Thank you, Deborah, or Ms. Muchmore, and to the working group. Great presentation and great results so far. I just had one. I really like the recommendation to have the public input into the process and the department head input. So I'm 100% on board with that. Um, But I definitely want to make sure that we keep all of the good candidates that we can and I'm just a little bit curious about the timing and method of doing those sessions and keeping that as close Thank you. Ms. Much Moore, do those usually happen if something like this happens or they usually happen the same day? that the council or within a day that the council interviews the candidates. |
| 04:00:46.70 | Deborah Muchmore | Thank you. Most often, I have seen it happen on the day of the council interviews. for in many cities this is the working group's recommendation is to go above and beyond that. if possible, and to provide time for their idea was to provide time for the council to actually be able to watch those interviews. should they desire to. |
| 04:01:13.82 | Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. So, and is there any concern with, I mean, I know these candidates that are applying have very good jobs of their own. I mean, it seems like the recording of the interviews and that amount of time just gives more. I mean, everyone will sign the confidentiality agreement, but do you have any concerns that this might deter some candidates. |
| 04:01:35.56 | Deborah Muchmore | Thank you. |
| 04:01:36.45 | Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. |
| 04:01:36.48 | Deborah Muchmore | There's always that risk, definitely. And the more time in between creates more opportunity, obviously. for where I'm going to let Ian, I'm sorry, Councilmember Sobieski or Vice Mayor Kalman respond if they have additional spot. |
| 04:01:59.01 | Ian Sobieski | I think we're talking about two to four candidates, not the full 11. |
| 04:02:03.65 | Deborah Muchmore | Thank you. |
| 04:02:03.67 | Janelle Kellman | I understand. |
| 04:02:04.51 | Deborah Muchmore | Thank you. |
| 04:02:04.61 | Janelle Kellman | Thank you. So maybe the question, Councilmember Sobieski and I discussed it was around giving council members the opportunity to view the the video, the tape videos of these other exchanges. Um, but perhaps if council members don't think that they will want to do that or have the time to do that, that's fine too. That was the idea, I think, behind building in the extra time. So if that doesn't sound useful, I think we're we're open to, you know, that's fine, too. We just wanted to present that as an option. |
| 04:02:41.69 | Cleveland Knowles | Great. I definitely appreciate the option. I think at this point I'm leaning towards just getting the summary from the proctor. but. opened a discussion on it, but thank you. Thanks for that. Thanks for the explanation. I just hadn't heard about that kind of process before. Thank you. |
| 04:02:59.90 | Janelle Kellman | Councilmember Sobieski, would you be Thank you. No, no, I was gonna ask if you'd be amenable to truncating the timeframe and not providing that viewing corridor, if you will. |
| 04:03:12.35 | Ian Sobieski | that's me. |
| 04:03:14.05 | Janelle Kellman | Thank you. |
| 04:03:14.07 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 04:03:14.10 | Janelle Kellman | Thank you. |
| 04:03:14.12 | Ian Sobieski | Mm-hmm. Sorry. Yeah, it was strictly an option. And in the era of Zoom, people are often comfortable, or used to being recorded, maybe not comfortable. And, I mean, truly, we could literally just courteously check, perhaps, or suss out the candidate. If candidates, it's just too or not, if people aren't going to watch it. We're certainly not attached to watching a video, and I'm okay. I'm personally just fine getting the... the report Again, just the idea was this is an opportunity to watch sort of the, what do they call it, fly on the wall. watching your candidates interact with a different peer set, not formally interviewing Thank you. So it's really just our choice. |
| 04:04:08.58 | Cleveland Knowles | Okay. Sorry, I guess just |
| 04:04:12.19 | Melissa Blaustein | Oh, go ahead. |
| 04:04:14.13 | Cleveland Knowles | No, I just, also it sounded like there's some impact on the schedule. That's the other. issue and I do obviously we wanna move along, keep our schedule going. So that's just another consideration. Sorry, go ahead. |
| 04:04:31.10 | Jill Hoffman | Go ahead, Councilmember Basington. |
| 04:04:32.64 | Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. |
| 04:04:32.66 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 04:04:32.69 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 04:04:32.73 | Jill Hoffman | Happy, Anika. |
| 04:04:33.28 | Melissa Blaustein | any time for this at all. But I just know that there are a lot of folks who have been very actively engaged in the city manager search who maybe previously served on a border commission and don't now and would be excellent interviewers. And in light of that next Monday, We are interviewing everyone who's applied for every board or Commission might we just invite via the currents people who would be interested in interviewing city manager candidates and then talk to them that Monday and invite for other people to attend. For instance, just in case there are members of the public who would like that opportunity. I don't know if it's feasible with our agenda, but if it is, it's something I would |
| 04:05:09.78 | Janelle Kellman | Thank you. |
| 04:05:09.88 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 04:05:10.15 | Janelle Kellman | We did suggest, we went in circles with some opportunities. I think the confidentiality was the big, big driver On things I again, I'll let. Deborah articulate that, Rest assured, we played around with all of those ideas. It's a great idea. Makes a lot of sense for a lot of reasons. Um, I'll just pause there. |
| 04:05:36.97 | Melissa Blaustein | staff. Former council members who are so involved that many of whom made public comment this evening. You know, there are folks. Anyway, I just wanted to throw that out there in case there was an opportunity to engage those people. |
| 04:05:50.20 | Ian Sobieski | Yeah, just so you know, that was an idea. thoroughly vetted with Paul and Deborah. and the recommendations are outcome of a balanced attention to the meet the goals for public input. with. Thank you. concerns for confidentiality and practicality. |
| 04:06:17.57 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, so All right. Um, I do see, uh, do we have any other comments or questions on this? directions. |
| 04:06:26.65 | Janelle Kellman | Can we just get clarity? Oh, sorry, go ahead. Councilmember Flavie. |
| 04:06:30.77 | Cleveland Knowles | No, I just, if we're, whenever we're going to kind of discuss, I've Got it. ideas, but I, I don't know if we're gonna |
| 04:06:39.51 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 04:06:39.52 | Cleveland Knowles | if we're at the same time. |
| 04:06:40.03 | Jill Hoffman | area. I don't think we're quite there yet. Do we have any other? Council or Vice Mayor Killman went No, no, no. |
| 04:06:46.33 | Janelle Kellman | No, no, no, it should wait. |
| 04:06:48.70 | Jill Hoffman | Okay. So, I'm, I'm gonna ask the city attorney to weigh in because I see some hands are up and we've already taken public comment on this, but on this item. But since Mary, go ahead. |
| 04:07:06.42 | Mary Wagner | You did take public comment on all the items under this section, but it's up to the discretion of the council if you'd like to take additional public input. |
| 04:07:17.88 | Jill Hoffman | I'm kind of leaning towards taken Additional since this is an important thing and people are interested in it and it's a little bit awkward the way we have it on the counter I understand that so Okay, so we're gonna take I see two hands up. We're going to take public comments from those two hands and then we'll move on to our discussion. |
| 04:07:37.10 | Heidi Scoble | And a mayor, we have Vicki Nichols who will speak first and then Pat Zook. Thank you. Thank you. |
| 04:07:44.04 | Vicki Nichols | the key. Thank you. |
| 04:07:44.14 | Heidi Scoble | Thank you. |
| 04:07:44.73 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 04:07:44.85 | Heidi Scoble | Thank you. |
| 04:07:44.86 | Vicki Nichols | Thank you, Mayor. I appreciate your opening this up, and I do think |
| 04:07:44.88 | Heidi Scoble | Good. |
| 04:07:50.53 | Vicki Nichols | that it was not obvious what this process was going to be necessarily without this little discussion. I'm a little bit concerned. It sounds like this schedule is driving this process. And this is for a city manager. I'm also hearing maybe that the whole council won't even want to take time to listen to the interviews. That's shocking to me. Um, I don't see any option here for any input from peers of the city manager, which is, you know, not to get too, THE FAMILY IS you know, God. relying on past evaluations but usually we there's been a opportunity for other people in the same position throughout the county to come and advise and i agree with melissa there are many people that are that have done that are, you know, knowledgeable about what a city manager should be who have lived through many of them that are not currently on committees So I think that we've got some committees where the individuals on them are really just strictly focused on the issue of that committee and not very familiar with total city government. So I'm just concerned that this vetting is, um, is reliant on public input through social media. I don't think it's the best way personally. I think it's limited and it's, um, to not be a little bit more expansive and take the time if we need it. Thank you. Thank you. |
| 04:09:37.98 | Heidi Scoble | Chancellor, keep it unmuted. |
| 04:09:39.78 | Pat Zook | Thank you very much. And I am sorry to join in on this. Topics somewhat late, apparently, but I was unable to join earlier. Um, I have to echo somewhat of the sentiments that Vicki voiced I'm also, I was also taken aback and I would like to comment on the notion. I know there is a confidentiality, there are confidentiality issues in hiring. It is somewhat dismaying that as a member of the public and as someone who has been involved in committees and such in the past with regard to city government That's... that the interviews might not be available to those of us who might want to watch them, both in terms of hearing what the applicants have to say, but also in terms of hearing what the questioners, whether they're city council members or members of various committees, Um, voice concerns about. So I'm looking for a little bit more transparency here. and perhaps a broader representation than than as Vicki pointed out, standing committee members who have maybe a narrower portfolio. than many in the public. Thanks. Thank you. |
| 04:11:05.91 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. Okay, so I'm going to close public comment and bring it back up to us for discussion and direction to our... human resources team that's driving us. driving this incredible effort for our town. |
| 04:11:27.65 | Ian Sobieski | I would love just for the public, for Deborah to say out loud what she's told about the confidentiality expectations and requirements of this process. and how that constrains us to some degree and how the end result of what we're doing is on the more transparent, more public engagement end of what's typical. |
| 04:11:53.91 | Deborah Muchmore | Yes, so any recruitment process in the public sector, unless a candidate provides their consent, is a confidential process up until the point when a viable or a bona fide offer is made. Um, And especially in a process like this, many of our candidates have work. They work in other places and they have prominent positions. And they may or may not yet have. told there council or their board or their commission. that they're applying for this position. And they won't until they know for sure they're one of the top one or two. So, We've had candidates that were significantly wonderful actually Withdraw. because either their name was leaked or there was a fear that their name was going to be leaked. So we don't want that to happen to this process. If at all possible, we want it. maintain the discretion. and the privacy of the candidates until such time as we are ready to make an offer. |
| 04:13:10.43 | Janelle Kellman | deborah um can you also clarify i know you talked about this with councilmember sobieski and i but um So for those candidates that are not coming from the public sector, they could sign an NDA. However, we are bound, and if I'm misphrasing this, please correct me, we are bound by the fair employment practices to engage each candidate in the same fashion. So Even if candidate A who works in private sector sign an NDA if can it be did not. there would be something unfair in if we exposed one to individuals, the other one to not me, is that right? |
| 04:13:47.84 | Deborah Muchmore | It's from the it's a guidance from the EEOC equal employment opportunity and it's called the Uniform Guidelines for Employee Selection. And any merit organization, any public organization is required to hire on merit. is bound by those guidelines. And you are accurate in stating that we have to provide the same opportunity and entry and experience at every exam point during the process. |
| 04:14:19.82 | Janelle Kellman | Okay, and then just one last comment. So in the interest of transparency, as the last speaker requested, and of course this process deserves Um, we had talked about the ideal number of people who were able to meet, given all the confidentiality, WE HAD A CONVERSATION AROUND IS 8 TOO MANY, 16 TOO MANY. WE TALKED AROUND THE CONCEPT THAT KELSEMEN BLAUSTEIN MENTIONED OF WHAT ABOUT ADDING FOLKS IN THE COMMUNITY, LONG STANDING PARTICIPANTS, RIGHT? So maybe you could just articulate for everybody the guidance that you provide us around the number that made sense based on the confidentiality. |
| 04:15:01.84 | Deborah Muchmore | Yeah, so any number passed zero is going to have a possibility for Confidential issues. Sorry. We have said that before, yes. However, yes, like it depends, right? And it's, however, the, Groups that are seven, eight or less tend to be the more you know, more regularly used size group. What the working group has done by what we looked at with the 16 was rather than allowing an Interview type process where individuals could ask questions because of the time involved. It would require a more proctored session where a moderator was asking those questions and then information was being, just to control the logistics of it. But it does, the greater the numbers, the more risk that we do have. 16 is probably the most we'd ever wanna go with. So, and unless would be safer. |
| 04:16:15.75 | Ian Sobieski | Just to ask a question, is it possible, at least after the fact, to release the questions that were asked, since they're the standard questions that are asked of all the candidates? |
| 04:16:26.23 | Deborah Muchmore | I would have to ask our consultant who is not here tonight, but we can get that answer for you. |
| 04:16:34.13 | Janelle Kellman | And if hypothetically our final candidates, hypothetically, were both private sector, we could hypothetically obtain NDAs. And then somehow engage on the last two, if that was the scenario. |
| 04:16:48.04 | Deborah Muchmore | Yes, I mean, you could do that from, you could ask the final candidates at any time that yes. |
| 04:16:56.29 | Cleveland Knowles | So, |
| 04:16:56.58 | Deborah Muchmore | Thank you. |
| 04:16:57.05 | Cleveland Knowles | and |
| 04:16:57.22 | Deborah Muchmore | and understand |
| 04:16:57.98 | Cleveland Knowles | the use of an NDA in this context. |
| 04:17:07.26 | Deborah Muchmore | Did Janelle phrase? Oh, Council Member, Vice Mayor Kelman, did you wanna share? |
| 04:17:15.73 | Janelle Kellman | Sorry, I thought I was only rephrasing what you had advised Councilmember Sobieski and I. |
| 04:17:15.83 | Deborah Muchmore | So, |
| 04:17:20.96 | Janelle Kellman | around, maybe not NDA, pardon me, maybe a confidentiality agreement, sorry. |
| 04:17:26.00 | Deborah Muchmore | So, okay, I can do that. |
| 04:17:26.04 | Janelle Kellman | So, Like, And, |
| 04:17:28.60 | Deborah Muchmore | Thank you. |
| 04:17:29.09 | Janelle Kellman | So, |
| 04:17:29.95 | Deborah Muchmore | you |
| 04:17:29.97 | Janelle Kellman | Thank you. |
| 04:17:31.02 | Deborah Muchmore | Yeah. |
| 04:17:31.35 | Janelle Kellman | Sorry, I just misspoke. Did that solve it? It happens after 11. Confused. |
| 04:17:36.97 | Cleveland Knowles | I can see. And it's just the reason that you said that, there's nothing to keep a public employee from agreeing to have their name disclosed. It's just that most public employees who go through these types of processes and are currently employed would not do that. And I think a lot of private sector employees would be in the same have the same electives. |
| 04:17:57.33 | Deborah Muchmore | Yeah, I have had at least one private sector employee tell me that they would withdraw if their name got out, that they would not, until they had that offer in hand, they were not gonna say anything to their organization. |
| 04:18:14.27 | Janelle Kellman | Okay. So that's what we were faced with. the confidentiality, not wanting to risk people's current jobs, wanting to involve more people in the process, wanting to have as many people, We talked about other scenarios. I don't mean to speak for Councilmember Sobieski, but we're certainly open to ideas of how to reconcile the direction that we have been given and work within that framework. hopefully for discussion. Thank you. |
| 04:18:40.25 | Jill Hoffman | I, um. you know, No process is going to be perfect. and you know, as we sort of try to chart that. chart our path through how we expand our vetting beyond just us, but, and also include, you know, community involvement in it. We do have to put some you know, limits on it and do the best that we can. So, My experience in just trying to staff big efforts like when we did the general plan update committee and when we did you know I know that you guys did a tremendous effort last year with the initial EDAC or the you know the that effort. Um, that process in and of itself is very time consuming and, you know, it takes a lot of, It takes a lot of time. You know, at this point, I think, We've got You know, a great array of candidates, 11 candidates. It's going to take us a long time as city council just to do our initial interviews of those and pare it down. and then have our board you know as i think the i think the suggestion for the chairs and vice chairs of the boards and commissions is a really good one it means that these people are i mean taking into account the comments that were made by our public just now with that's, Miss Nichols and Mr. which I don't disagree with. On the other hand, we have to move forward in an expeditious way. These are really great candidates. They're not going to wait around for two or three months while we're trying to figure out you know, a way to engage extra members of the public. And then, You know, how do we decide the members of the public? We have some really, really, really great members of our public, a lot of them. But we just can't have all of them interview the candidates. We have to at some point put some limits on it. And so anyway, I'm. at this point I'm comfortable with at this stage that we have it set up, you know, not precluding If we get down to two, well, when we get down to two, If we want to figure out some extra vetting, I'm open to that. I don't want to combine it with our effort next. By the way, our boards and commissions is next Tuesday night. So I don't want to combine it with that because that's going to be a lift just to get that done. And so, you know, the bandwidth of our city council is pretty, you know, we're... We've got lots of balls in the air. So anyway, that's just my input. At 1120. |
| 04:21:29.56 | Melissa Blaustein | I just wanted to propose if the number is 16, because I am really in favor of, and I understand that it's a little bit more of a lift, but there are a lot of voices that I think would be valuable to hear from in the process. Each commission selects their representatives. So if they want it to be the chair, it's the chair, or if they wanted to be the vice chair, or whomever might have the most city interest in the city manager search and the most experience in that space each would have one representative and then for the additional eight or however many slots are reviewed remain we would appoint members of the public and folks could just express interest and we would you know assume that they had already participated. Maybe the prerequisite would be previous participation in a board or commission or previous service on the city council. So that would allow those who are involved whom we know because I think I mean, I might be way off base here, but I would imagine the folks that we've all been hearing from we kind of are aware of who would be interested. and maybe we could make that selection and then it would be a little bit of a compromise where we wouldn't have to add to our agenda but we'd get some extra people and we get the board and commission representatives and it would be with the requirement that they had previous city engagement so we would know have some level of trust in the interview process and not increase the number of people. That's just what I would recommend. |
| 04:22:51.86 | Janelle Kellman | So, Councilmember Blossene, Excellent idea. We looked at a variation of this. So maybe this addresses some of the concerns. The variation we looked at is that each council member would propose a member of the public So then we would have five plus eight, Now it's no longer 16, so it's and it's zero plus 13. So that's better so that we could combine those two ideas. Because otherwise, unless folks have ideas I want to share around how we would select a group of 10, you know, in very quickly that everybody felt equitable. We had played around this idea of everybody Pick somebody. in that direction. All right. Sorry, Councilmember Cleveland knows you were going to. |
| 04:23:37.52 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. |
| 04:23:41.71 | Janelle Kellman | Go ahead, Anne. |
| 04:23:42.71 | Ian Sobieski | I was just gonna say the reason we rejected that idea is to avoid the interjection of proxies into the process. |
| 04:23:42.84 | Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. |
| 04:23:49.30 | Ian Sobieski | having council members, me, you, select someone well, means that that person's kind of at least has a perception of being selected by us rather than being in the community and helping it be someone who's on the current boards and commissions, just not You know, we didn't select all those people. Some of us had a hand in sucking some of them perhaps, but who was selected as a little bit of a random draw. but it's grown and it's easy to execute and it can be executed quickly. and we don't have a lot of time. |
| 04:24:26.23 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, Councilmember Cleveland, let's go ahead. |
| 04:24:28.50 | Cleveland Knowles | Yeah, so I think, Mayor, I just, I definitely agree with pretty much everything that you said on this process. There isn't a perfect process given our constraints of public employment and employment All together. And I think we have had a lot of public engagement. I really wanna commend the working group for the outreach forums and surveys. We've had this on our agenda at every meeting since City Manager Pulitzer announced his retirement. Um, And that for the actual interviews there isn't. a perfect solution. I thought that solution that they working group came up with is elegant in the sense that it is representative of all the types of people who have chosen over the years, many, many years, to sit on Sassolito's boards and commissions. And it's slightly random in the sense of just who happens to be there now. I think we all know 20, 30, 50 people who would be great. in these roles. and who would be valuable. And I would love to seek all of their input in this important decision, but we're constrained on that. So I, I think the other just wrinkle in having the boards and commissions select someone is that they, we have to have them have a public meeting to do so. They can't, do that. uh, you know, without a public meeting. And then that adds another burden on staff to organize all of those. that So anyway I I like the other idea that Councilmember Sowiecki just threw out but also or I can't remember who said it, but I also recognize the downside of that, the favoritism and the the proxy and the inevitable criticism of all of our choices. So anyway, I would just go, I would echo what the mayor said in the working group. very clearly here, Councilmember Blaustein and you know. Right. |
| 04:26:45.78 | Cleveland Knowles | we're very, you know, we're nearing the end of a very long process and, um, One of the public speakers said that we should take the time and we should take the time and we should do this right. But I don't think more time is going to necessarily get us a better outcome. |
| 04:27:07.13 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, thank you. What I'm hearing is a consensus to go with the original recommendation of the working group. And so. Yes, Deborah. |
| 04:27:23.87 | Deborah Muchmore | Paul might be in the waiting room. |
| 04:27:26.87 | Jill Hoffman | Okay. Thank you. because someone let Paul in. |
| 04:27:30.84 | Deborah Muchmore | Is that true? |
| 04:27:31.55 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 04:27:32.07 | Deborah Muchmore | Thank you. |
| 04:27:32.19 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. We're not starting again. Thank you. |
| 04:27:37.88 | Alice Merrill | You miss it all. |
| 04:27:38.91 | Jill Hoffman | here. |
| 04:27:39.07 | Alice Merrill | We've got extra time. |
| 04:27:42.03 | Heidi Scoble | I just thought, Madam Mayor, we are not seeing anybody in the waiting room. |
| 04:27:45.17 | Deborah Muchmore | I'm not a man. |
| 04:27:48.62 | Deborah Muchmore | Okay, interesting. All right, sorry. |
| 04:27:51.04 | Heidi Scoble | It might be in the |
| 04:27:51.58 | Deborah Muchmore | closed session waiting room. Yeah, is he in the closed session waiting room? |
| 04:27:55.04 | Janelle Kellman | Oh, shoot. |
| 04:27:55.95 | Ian Sobieski | You don't have it. |
| 04:27:56.56 | Janelle Kellman | I hope not. I think the purpose today was to talk about this public process part. you know, I think we've, We've turned it over. So I don't know that we need to wait for him as much as we appreciate his input. |
| 04:28:11.59 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah, I don't think so. So, okay, I think we've got consensus to move forward. Keep it in mind that... that, you know, some of the suggestions that were made, but I think at this point we're gonna stay the course and follow the recommendation that was made by the working group with regard to public input. And so, Um Do we need, we don't, we're just, Deborah, you're good. direction on that. |
| 04:28:37.55 | Deborah Muchmore | Marcia. Go ahead, Deborah. |
| 04:28:40.30 | Jill Hoffman | Go ahead. |
| 04:28:40.82 | Chris Zapata | Thank you. |
| 04:28:41.43 | Deborah Muchmore | One more piece of clarity. And that is you had, there was some discussion about whether the recording was important or not important to council members. If it's not important to have the recording and hear it, we can actually... |
| 04:28:43.11 | Jill Hoffman | them. |
| 04:28:43.33 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 04:28:59.47 | Deborah Muchmore | have interviews follow very closely after the participation sessions. are closer than they do now. And if that's something the council is open to. |
| 04:29:11.08 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, so let's take a quick poll. Who would really like to have the recordings or, Anybody? Anybody? |
| 04:29:21.29 | Janelle Kellman | Thank you. |
| 04:29:21.30 | Jill Hoffman | I mean, I think that's a good thing. |
| 04:29:21.61 | Janelle Kellman | Thank you. |
| 04:29:22.11 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 04:29:22.13 | Janelle Kellman | The more I'm further... Thank you. |
| 04:29:23.28 | Ian Sobieski | Right. |
| 04:29:23.41 | Janelle Kellman | but it was our idea. So I guess we kind of like it. |
| 04:29:23.55 | Ian Sobieski | We have. Really like is a high standard. I'm not sure what I really like, but I would like to. |
| 04:29:30.95 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 04:29:30.97 | Janelle Kellman | Thank you. |
| 04:29:31.34 | Jill Hoffman | Okay. We liked it. Okay, got it. So, any, so. OK, anybody feels strongly That we shouldn't have a recording, let me put it that way. |
| 04:29:43.54 | Janelle Kellman | Mayor Hoffman, can I just clarify for the speakers, someone said earlier, so just to clarify, every council member will meet with every candidate of the 11. The recording that we're talking about is for the boards and commissions. And so we have been discussing the opportunity for council members to also watch those proctored engagements. That's the part that |
| 04:29:52.66 | Unknown | Yes. |
| 04:30:05.03 | Janelle Kellman | we're talking about now. Sorry to interrupt. |
| 04:30:07.08 | Ian Sobieski | If I might propose just how about we record them, but if any of the candidates... of the final group. that's going to cause a problem, I'm happy to abandon it. We don't want to lose a candidate because of the recording request. |
| 04:30:18.78 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. . |
| 04:30:19.03 | Jill Hoffman | I agree. |
| 04:30:19.30 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 04:30:19.40 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 04:30:20.01 | Ian Sobieski | Agreed. That would be the sense that we record it if nobody has a problem. |
| 04:30:24.30 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, Deborah, is that good enough for you? Is that good enough direction for you? |
| 04:30:29.02 | Deborah Muchmore | Yeah, that's good. Yes, that's good enough direction for me. Thank you. |
| 04:30:33.56 | Jill Hoffman | Okay. All right. |
| 04:30:35.03 | Chris Zapata | So we're good. We're good with this. We're good with enough information. Thank you so much for your time and your discussion. We have clarity and then we'll go forward. |
| 04:30:37.38 | Deborah Muchmore | Yeah. |
| 04:30:43.47 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. Thanks to the council. Thank you. Okay, so we're moving on to future agenda items. Does anybody have any futures in our? |
| 04:30:54.84 | Ian Sobieski | I do. |
| 04:30:56.26 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 04:30:56.63 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. uh, One is I've been getting more and more requests about the status of the North Street steps. |
| 04:31:02.35 | Ian Sobieski | Yeah. |
| 04:31:03.25 | Ian Sobieski | gotten some memos on the subject, but I'm wondering if we might ask for a report along with a date searching, or at least a target date searching, when the steps will be reopened. Thank you. |
| 04:31:15.87 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah, do you, we want to do, I just saw an email from Kevin about that. And can we just publish that in occurrence? |
| 04:31:26.09 | Ian Sobieski | Perhaps. If it's definitive information, then perhaps. But my understanding from my interactions were that there was still some open It seemed like there was some back and forth. |
| 04:31:40.32 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, gotcha. Okay, so that's fine. We'll add that to the future DIN items and figure out how to address that. |
| 04:31:45.67 | Ian Sobieski | The important thing is a date searching. I mean, obviously dates, the updates here to four have been Here are the reasons why it's been taking so long as opposed to here's when the community can expect the steps to be reopened. Okay. people would like. Have that day. |
| 04:32:00.42 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, got it. |
| 04:32:01.78 | Ian Sobieski | Then related to our discussion previously concerning Caledonia Street and also just the idea that some solutions are iterative in nature. Um, The outcome of our decision to close Caledonia Street along with the requirement of the fire department for the fire lane has created kind of strange situation where the whole street is closed but only half the street is used So literally they're bollards across a lane of traffic that's not being used by the restaurants. And they're have expressed their bewilderment about this But they're okay with it, but then they're wondering why not just open the lane of traffic and be less disruptive to the neighborhood. I think we should put back on the agenda the investigation into that. with the possibility of examining a quid pro quo where the one lane of traffic is left open but the other lane of traffic is closed. seven days a week. so that it is up to the orange pencil. I'm not sure. I think that that should be Look at my staff. at least right now it's a very strange situation but is befuddling |
| 04:33:12.59 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 04:33:13.62 | Janelle Kellman | Okay. Mayor Hoffman, I thank you for bringing that up, Councillor Mursabieski. I was going to... pull out a little bit and just say a status update. would be great. to understand kind of where we are, what's happening with the fire lane. I mean, Councilmember Sobieski articulated it. slightly differently, but there was a related concern I know from residents around parking signs and parking enforcement. And so there's sort of a bigger package I think we could use some input on. |
| 04:33:43.07 | Jill Hoffman | So isn't this, though, it's headed back This is going back to the Planning Commission, right? Then it comes back to us. That's what |
| 04:33:51.84 | Ian Sobieski | That's what |
| 04:33:52.72 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 04:33:52.74 | Ian Sobieski | That's permanent situation. This is our temporary closure |
| 04:33:52.81 | Jill Hoffman | Yes. |
| 04:33:56.77 | Ian Sobieski | that we authorized, which was Thursday, Friday, Saturday. We've authorized the closing of the entire street If you just go there, you'll see that The whole street is closed, but only half the street is used. |
| 04:34:10.00 | Cleveland Knowles | Okay. |
| 04:34:10.15 | Ian Sobieski | Yeah. |
| 04:34:11.35 | Cleveland Knowles | I mean, There's a substantive reason for that and that we talked about at the very beginning and due to safety and other lane with issues. I mean, I think staff could probably explain that. I know this isn't on our agenda, so we can't really talk about it, but it's supposed to be pedestrian and bike through way. And then |
| 04:34:37.08 | Ian Sobieski | The opportunity for consideration, no need to put on the agenda if we don't want, but the thought is only that there could be a quick brook where the restaurants get part of what they had asked for, which was a seven-day-a-week closure. and the community would be less impacted if the additional lane was open with traffic. |
| 04:34:52.86 | Chris Zapata | me. Okay. Let me say this, if I might. I think part of the confusion is there are different There's a temporary closure and then there's the longer term version, none of which is on your agenda this evening. We hear you and we will have the public works department respond I'm not sure. to the inquiry. either on the agenda or to a council memo quickly. privilege to information today about the confusion And we will address it quickly. |
| 04:35:31.42 | Ian Sobieski | And then the last thing is just the, uh, Parklet issue about having a standardized design. um, and that should you want to elaborate a little bit more at West Mary. |
| 04:35:45.48 | Jill Hoffman | I think that, okay, so now I think we're definitely veering into planning commission stuff and stuff that's definitely not on our agenda. I agree. |
| 04:35:53.12 | Ian Sobieski | I agree. |
| 04:35:54.14 | Jill Hoffman | What I'm wondering is, do we want to appoint a working group? to, talked and and If there is one already, I'm assuming there's going to be a merchant's group for the Caledonia Street that should be reaching out and speaking to everybody. everybody involved, right? And so Um, Do you... Vice Mayor Kelman and Council members, do you guys want to be the working group? Since you seem to be talking. |
| 04:36:24.97 | Janelle Kellman | and discussed this with EDAC, and having them take it on, but there was some concern around Timing. To give it. |
| 04:36:33.13 | Ian Sobieski | Yeah. |
| 04:36:35.24 | Janelle Kellman | Just one of the time to look at it. I don't know that it warrants a working group per se, I think what it what it warrants is an update from from staff. So we can start there, but I'm open to suggestions. Councilmember Sobieski, |
| 04:36:45.01 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 04:36:45.03 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 04:36:49.35 | Ian Sobieski | Yeah, I'm sorry I'm not actually telling myself well. I think vice mayor is on point. There are just a lot of |
| 04:36:49.50 | Janelle Kellman | I'm going to go. |
| 04:36:56.98 | Ian Sobieski | So, to feedback from the various restaurants that have tried to go through the permitting process, and there seems to be a need for some guidance on whether we wanted to have a |
| 04:37:11.12 | Janelle Kellman | Yeah, I think they're short of it. They don't wanna talk to us really. They actually wanna talk to staff, but they have reached out to us. So if we could facilitate some engagement with our very hardworking and very busy staff, if there's a way to facilitate that interaction. I know they would answer questions way better than I could. |
| 04:37:30.14 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, so that's what we're gonna do. You've put it on for future dinner items, but what we're gonna do first is have staff reach out and see if we can resolve it. Thank you. |
| 04:37:41.06 | Chris Zapata | that way. Just briefly, it's my understanding that we've got two of the department heads talking with them and meeting with them, either this afternoon or in the next day. So the conversation at least as I'm being reported, is occurring, we will report back with additional details. |
| 04:38:01.29 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, thank you. Okay, any other future gen items? Yes, Councilmember Blaustein. |
| 04:38:07.30 | Melissa Blaustein | So I had a couple, I know it's already in everyone's radar, but the EV charging and maybe a presentation from the sustainability commission on their PDF that they had submitted. around resiliency and EV charging and batteries and the MCE program. I would love to have them back at the council talking about that would be fantastic. Um, And then we received, I don't know if it was the whole council or just the sustainability commission, a letter about concerns for carbon emissions associated with heat lamps. And I was hoping that we might pursue carbon offsets as a city. And maybe we can put that on the future agenda of consideration of if there's funding for carbon offsets, because there is a good deal of emissions, even though the parklets are wonderful, we should be considering our climate impact. there. as well and then I also had the North Street steps so I would just echo the need for an update there. Thank you. Thank you. |
| 04:38:58.80 | Jill Hoffman | Yep, thank you. Okay. Any other future den items? Yes, Councilmember Foo. |
| 04:39:03.02 | Cleveland Knowles | Yeah. So just Sorry, one of the items that I wanted to get either on the Planning Commission's agenda or our agenda It's related to the parklets, but it's the long-term plan for applying for longer-term parklets. So we have our emergency parklet program, Most cities are considering more expedited and easier to get outdoor dining and other permits to kind of take some of the positive things that have come from this, so I'd like maybe the planning commission could hear it first or we could hear it and then send it to the planning commission. So I'd like to put that on future agenda items. |
| 04:39:44.50 | Alice Merrill | Amen. |
| 04:39:45.97 | Cleveland Knowles | And then a number of things have come up. You know, I think Mary, you just alluded to it, how many different balls are in the air at the moment and the North Street steps the EV charging, the sea level rise task force, the landslide improvement task force. I mean, part of what's happening is our capital improvement plan and our, capital improvement fund are very strapped. And so we need to really start to engage in that prioritization process. And it really worries me that our landslide task force did a lot of great work, but the $900,000 study, that was the first step in implementing that, you know, has not, we haven't even been able to get there. And so I know that sea level rise is really important, but I see that committee just launching know, and we'll have a lot of different great things, but we need to go back and look at implement our implementation program. to see where that lies. Right now our general plan implementation is on that I'm not sure. and there's a lot of sea level rises on there. in the general plan along with a lot of other stuff. So I think we just need to make sure as a council, the things that we're working on are, we've agreed on the prioritization and the focus of these various efforts so that we don't get stuck with a lot of great ideas that we then can't implement. due to lack of resources. So I'm already worried that we're falling down on our commitment to the landslide task force and so many other things piling up like the North Street steps, et cetera. So I'd love to really have a prioritization discussion in advance of when we actually are looking at our budget. |
| 04:41:29.93 | Jill Hoffman | Um, I think that is the plan. So the plan is that. And again, we're Yeah, this falls on our future gen items. Um, And again, I'm not gonna be very articulate right now because it's late, but... But the plan is that As part of the budget process preceding that is going to be a review of the implementation plan that was prepared last year. The first step is staff is going to take a look at it and see you know if it's, you know, what's with the even relevant anymore or what's within the possible range and then that will come back to us at a city council meeting a long substantive city council meeting about our next budget cycle. And so obviously that will be part of the evaluation as well as the capital improvement project list and how we want to do that. Now, these things change over time and how you, how you functionally do these things change and evolve. And so. We'll see what it looks like when we get down to it. understand what you're saying completely. And we want to make sure that we're still aligned with our priorities for sure. um okay so anything else for future dend items Not seeing a hand, okay? So that's it. We're adjourned. Good job, you guys. Excellent work tonight. Thank you to the staff, as always, for your hard work. |
| 04:43:04.01 | Cleveland Knowles | Thanks for staying up with us. |
| 04:43:05.07 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 04:43:05.17 | Cleveland Knowles | Bye. |
| 04:43:05.19 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 04:43:05.21 | Cleveland Knowles | Thanks, guys. |
| 04:43:05.97 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 04:43:06.02 | Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. |
| 04:43:06.64 | Melissa Blaustein | Thanks, everyone. Good night. All right. |
Gabriel Barkin — In Favor: Requested the council to recognize March 31st annually as Transgender Day of Visibility, following other Marin cities, to affirm Sausalito as a welcoming community. ▶ 📄
Anita Casalina — In Favor: Commended Dr. Garcia's presentation and expressed embarrassment over the desegregation order. Called for new leadership, stating those involved in segregation should not be in power. Offered support for school unification. ▶ 📄
Phil Kerr — In Favor: Thanked Dr. Garcia and emphasized the need for unity and forgiveness. Criticized divisive comments as destructive to unification and stressed the importance of parent buy-in for desegregation success. ▶ 📄
Alice Merrill — In Favor: Expressed excitement about unification and Dr. Garcia's leadership, agreeing with Phil Kerr's call for unity. ▶ 📄
Eva Crisanti — Against: Supported Charlene Eldon's concerns, arguing that voices of ethics and morality must be heard. Criticized Susan Cleveland Knowles' past actions and the fight against the desegregation order, calling it disturbing. ▶ 📄
Sarah — In Favor: Shared positive experiences from participating in the foundation launch, highlighting diverse parent collaboration. Emphasized unity through loving children and excitement for the future. ▶ 📄
Tom Riley — In Favor: Thanked Dr. Garcia for personal engagement and expressed excitement about the unified school. Emphasized the need for a diverse, well-rounded curriculum and community support, criticizing divisive language as harmful to unification. ▶ 📄
Kurt Weinheimer — In Favor: Statement read by Mayor Hoffman: Thanked Dr. Garcia and boards for their work, highlighted the joint resolution as a milestone, and expressed confidence in creating a top-tier school focused on inclusion, diversity, and student growth. ▶ 📄
Melanie — In Favor: Thanked Dr. Garcia and council members Hoffman and Cleveland Knowles for their leadership. Emphasized the importance of teacher retention and community bonding, rejecting segregationist accusations as not reflective of her experience. ▶ 📄