| Time | Speaker | Text |
|---|---|---|
| 00:00:03.49 | Heidi Scoble | Everybody is up. Now we'll start our streaming. Streaming is live. |
| 00:00:04.40 | Janelle Kellman | that are streaming streaming |
| 00:00:06.28 | Heidi Scoble | 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 executive order N-08-21 issued by Governor Newsom on June 11th, 2021. All members are joining this meeting through Zoom and is being broadcast live on the city's website and can be viewed on cable TV channel 27. |
| 00:00:34.03 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you, Madam Clerk. Could you please call the roll? |
| 00:00:37.29 | Heidi Scoble | Council member Sobieski. here. Councilmember Blaustein. |
| 00:00:41.65 | Jill Hoffman | Here. |
| 00:00:42.57 | Heidi Scoble | Councilmember Cleveland Knowles. |
| 00:00:44.31 | Jill Hoffman | Here. |
| 00:00:45.10 | Heidi Scoble | Vice Mayor Kellman. |
| 00:00:46.40 | Jill Hoffman | THE FAMILY. |
| 00:00:47.16 | Heidi Scoble | Mayor Hoffman? |
| 00:00:48.45 | Jill Hoffman | here. |
| 00:00:49.71 | Heidi Scoble | All members are present and we have a quorum. |
| 00:00:51.95 | Jill Hoffman | Very well, I'll call the meeting to order. I will note that we are going to move into closed session for four items. One is a conference with legal counsel on existing litigation. Um, sauce leader, Marin. County chapter of California homeless union versus the city of Sausalito. The second one is a conference with real property negotiator. and that pertains to property The MLK school side at 100 Ebtide and 610 Coloma street. The next item is a conference with legal counsel. existing litigation. The name of the case is Detmar versus Sausalito. The fourth item is liability claims. and the name of the claimant is Christopher Thomas. And those are the four items that we're going to discuss in closed session. I'll now open public comment for these closed session items. |
| 00:01:45.91 | Heidi Scoble | Mayor Hoffman, there are no participants in this meeting at this moment, and therefore no hands raised. Thank you. |
| 00:01:51.69 | Jill Hoffman | Very well, and I will close public comment, and we will now proceed to closed sessions. Thank you. |
| 00:02:01.03 | Janelle Kellman | you |
| 00:02:06.07 | Unknown | Best I would be. Which helps us share music with more people here in Marin County. Floating Records is online at floatingrecords.com. |
| 00:02:18.64 | Unknown | Adios. |
| 00:02:18.96 | Heidi Scoble | up. |
| 00:02:19.25 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:02:20.36 | Janelle Kellman | Amen. |
| 00:02:22.24 | Heidi Scoble | Streaming is... |
| 00:02:22.71 | Janelle Kellman | is |
| 00:02:23.57 | Heidi Scoble | Thank you. |
| 00:02:23.67 | Janelle Kellman | Bye. |
| 00:02:23.69 | Heidi Scoble | Thank you. |
| 00:02:23.91 | Wendy Richards | I'll be |
| 00:02:25.04 | Heidi Scoble | And Madam Mayor, you may begin the meeting. Oh, and we're admitting all the participants at this moment. |
| 00:02:31.10 | Jill Hoffman | Okay. |
| 00:02:32.66 | Heidi Scoble | Actually, if you could just give us 10 seconds for everyone to join. |
| 00:02:36.61 | Jill Hoffman | Sure. |
| 00:02:38.96 | Heidi Scoble | Madam Mayor, all participants are in the meeting at this moment. Okay, thank you. |
| 00:02:43.97 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:02:44.00 | Heidi Scoble | Thank you. |
| 00:02:44.02 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 00:02:44.34 | Heidi Scoble | Thank you. |
| 00:02:44.36 | Jill Hoffman | Welcome to the regular City Council meeting of June 22, 2021. Um, We took the role at our closed session. Madam Clerk, do we need to take the role again? |
| 00:02:56.44 | Heidi Scoble | Madam Mayor, we do not need to take the roll. However, the next item on our agenda is the approval of the agenda. |
| 00:03:02.30 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, I'll entertain motions to approve the agenda. Although I would suggest that we, as we did the last city council meeting, we move public comment for matters not on the agenda and our committee reports to the, end of the agenda to, I think last time we moved it to item seven, Oh, sorry, eight. Item eight. or we moved it to like item 7B or something. I think we did. So anybody wanna make a motion? |
| 00:03:33.57 | Ian Sobieski | MR. Yeah, I support that, and we'd love to just make that standard practice doing four. I'm sorry. Thank you so much. without changing rules. Thank you. |
| 00:03:42.19 | Jill Hoffman | I'll second both of those things. |
| 00:03:44.37 | Heidi Scoble | Thank you. |
| 00:03:44.40 | Jill Hoffman | Okay. Thanks. Okay, Madam Clerk, could you please take |
| 00:03:47.10 | Heidi Scoble | THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 00:03:47.29 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:03:47.32 | Heidi Scoble | Thank you. Member Sobieski. |
| 00:03:50.76 | Ian Sobieski | Yes. |
| 00:03:51.86 | Heidi Scoble | Council member Blasting. Yes. Councilmember Cleveland Knowles. |
| 00:04:00.15 | Heidi Scoble | Council Member Cleveland, no, sorry, I did not hear |
| 00:04:02.57 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | I like her, yeah. |
| 00:04:03.74 | David Crescenti | Thank you. |
| 00:04:04.30 | Heidi Scoble | Okay, thank you. Vice Mayor Kellman? |
| 00:04:06.59 | David Crescenti | Yes. |
| 00:04:07.96 | Heidi Scoble | Mayor Hoffman. Yes. |
| 00:04:10.88 | Jill Hoffman | Very good, and so motion passes. And moving on then to our next item on the agenda. Okay. And so. |
| 00:04:27.58 | Jill Hoffman | We do not have any special presentations tonight. or mayor announcements. We've moved item two to the end of the agenda. And so moving on to item three. action minutes of the previous meeting. um, Would anybody like to make a motion? or amend the action minutes of the previous meeting. |
| 00:04:51.56 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | If there's no comments, I'll make a motion to approve. |
| 00:04:55.99 | Jill Hoffman | Very well. Do I have a second? |
| 00:05:00.85 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:05:00.96 | Janelle Kellman | Yes. |
| 00:05:01.77 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 00:05:03.22 | Heidi Scoble | Very good. Madam Mayor, before we... |
| 00:05:03.85 | Janelle Kellman | I'm not a fan. |
| 00:05:04.13 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:05:06.21 | Heidi Scoble | Before we take the roll on that, did you open up the item for public comment? |
| 00:05:13.26 | Jill Hoffman | I'm sorry. |
| 00:05:13.30 | Heidi Scoble | I said, yeah. |
| 00:05:13.72 | Jill Hoffman | the approval Sorry, I did not. All right, so let's do that right now. So motion's on the floor, but I'll open up for a public comment for action minutes of previous meetings. So do we have any public comment on that item? Thank you. |
| 00:05:33.18 | Heidi Scoble | I'm not seeing any hands. |
| 00:05:33.85 | Jill Hoffman | Not amazing. |
| 00:05:35.39 | Heidi Scoble | No hands raised at this time. |
| 00:05:37.43 | Jill Hoffman | Very good. I will close. We have a motion on the floor. Let's take the roll. |
| 00:05:40.87 | Heidi Scoble | Thank you. Councilmember Sobieski? Thank you. |
| 00:05:44.90 | Janelle Kellman | Yes. |
| 00:05:45.12 | Heidi Scoble | Thank you. Councilmember Blaustein? Yes. Councilmember Cleve Lennon. |
| 00:05:50.49 | Janelle Kellman | Yeah. |
| 00:05:51.65 | Heidi Scoble | Vice Mayor Kelman? Yes. Mayor Hoffman? |
| 00:05:54.64 | Janelle Kellman | Thank you. |
| 00:05:54.66 | Jill Hoffman | Yes. Motion passes 5-0. Moving on to our next item. Our next item was council member committee reports, but we've moved those to later. on the agenda. And so we're moving now on to the consent calendar. Um, matters listed on the consent calendar are considered routine and non-controversial. require no discussion are expected to have unanimous council support and may be enacted by the council in one motion will be no separate discussion of consent calendar items however before council votes on a motion to adopt the consent calendar items, city staff, Council members or members of the public may request that specific items to be removed from the consent calendar for separate action. Items removed from the consent calendar will be discussed later on the agenda. and public comment will be heard on any item that was removed from the consent calendar. um, There are six items on the consent calendar tonight. 5A is authorizing extension of construction hours for dumpy park soil stockpile removal. 5B is a doctrine resolution authorizing the city manager to execute professional service. amendments for the gate six intersection improvement project and providing supplemental professional services for the engineering division, 5C is accept staff report and adopt a resolution of the enlisted project. for fiscal year 21. 2021, excuse me, funded by SB1. for the Road Repair and Accountability Act of 2017, 5D is resolution adopting the brigantine Matthew Turner as the official tall ship of Sausalito. in the incorporated waters and in the incorporated waters Bye. The first amendment 5E is first amendment to professional services agreement with our public safety dispatch services agreement with Marin County. and 5F is approving the final condominium parcel map or 37 and 39 Crescent Avenue. Thank you. At this time, I will open up public comment on matters on the consent |
| 00:07:54.27 | Jill Hoffman | . |
| 00:07:54.76 | Heidi Scoble | RECORDING TO THE FEDERAL |
| 00:07:54.81 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah. |
| 00:07:55.03 | Heidi Scoble | I don't know. Go ahead. |
| 00:07:56.72 | Janelle Kellman | Sorry. |
| 00:07:57.22 | Heidi Scoble | Thank you. Excuse me, Madam Mayor. I was just going to state that we have three hands that are raised at this time. And we have Chris Gallagher, David Sudo, and Steven Woodside. We'll start with Chris Gallagher. Christmas. you've been asked to share your video and you just need to press the microphone to unmute yourself. |
| 00:08:17.83 | Chris Gallagher | Okay. So I was gonna hope that Steven would go first, but that's okay. I just wanna add My congratulations to the Brigantine Matthew Turner for being designated the official tall ship for Sausalito. And we at the US Army Corps of Engineers are very happy to be its home port and have it there with us. And we enjoy that partnership. So with that, I just wanted to add my congratulations. |
| 00:08:46.60 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:08:56.07 | Heidi Scoble | We'll actually shake this up. Steven Woodside, you've been asked to share your video and you can unmute yourself. And since you're on a phone, you can press star nine to unmute yourself. |
| 00:09:09.14 | Steven Woodside | Can you hear me now? |
| 00:09:10.26 | Jill Hoffman | Yes, we can. |
| 00:09:11.76 | Steven Woodside | Okay, great. Thank you very much. I just want to add my gratefulness and thanks to members of the council and also to the staff for the long... years of support. during the process of building Brigantine Matthew Turner here in Sausalito. It's been a great community building event. And I know each and every member of the current city council and many of your predecessors have been instrumental in helping us achieve this really momentous task. |
| 00:09:36.68 | Unknown | you |
| 00:09:43.13 | Steven Woodside | We're all about education of young people in our community. And we're also about educating older people about the great maritime heritage that we enjoy here in Sausalito. So thank you very much for taking this up. And I wanna also add a special thanks to the staff who throughout have been very supportive of this complicated project. and also to Chris Gallagher and the Army Corps for hosting us. I think it's a good question. of late and hoping to host us for many years into the future. Thank you very much. |
| 00:10:17.49 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:10:24.07 | Heidi Scoble | David Sudo, you're next. I've been asked to share your video and you can unmute yourself. |
| 00:10:30.97 | David Sudo | Good evening, City Council. I just thought I'd put in my yearly pitch that You know, once again, we're underfunding our streets projects. This year it's probably close to a million dollars for underfunding our streets, And it's not a bankable thing. When we underfund our streets by a million dollars, that cost accumulates because the longer the street to be repaired, the more expensive that repair becomes. It's not a linear function. So I just wanna put it out there again this year that we need to fix our funding for our streets. our payment index decreases every year. And it's just something that we need to fix in our budget somehow. to find funding to fully fund our yearly street improvements. Thank you. |
| 00:11:29.63 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:11:34.42 | Heidi Scoble | David Crescenti, you're our last speaker so far. You've been unmuted. I hope. |
| 00:11:41.03 | David Crescenti | Thanks, can you hear me okay? Yes, we can, thank you. Go ahead. Thanks, Mayor Hoffman. I was actually trying to get onto just the general public comment, not on consent, but I'm not sure, like, it seemed like it went really fast. |
| 00:11:48.14 | Unknown | THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 00:11:48.41 | Jill Hoffman | THE FAMILY. |
| 00:11:48.48 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:11:55.35 | David Crescenti | Is it okay to make a general public? |
| 00:11:56.97 | Jill Hoffman | COMMENT? We moved general public comment to the later in the agenda. |
| 00:12:00.75 | David Crescenti | Great, I'll call later. OK, I'm sorry. Sure, no worries. |
| 00:12:02.97 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah. |
| 00:12:03.78 | David Crescenti | THANK YOU. |
| 00:12:07.82 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, any other? for items on the consent calendar. |
| 00:12:13.55 | Heidi Scoble | Madam Mayor, we do not have any additional hands |
| 00:12:15.97 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:12:16.07 | Heidi Scoble | I'm surprised. |
| 00:12:17.23 | Jill Hoffman | Very good, then do I have any council discussion or do I have a motion to... I think that's a good question. accept the consent calendar. I have two hands up. I have a, I think council member Blousting got her hand up first and then council member Cleveland, |
| 00:12:34.02 | Melissa Blaustein | So go ahead. |
| 00:12:34.76 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:12:34.78 | Melissa Blaustein | Councilman Blanche. |
| 00:12:35.10 | Unknown | Bye. |
| 00:12:35.68 | Melissa Blaustein | Wondering, Mayor Hoffman, if you might be willing to read the resolution for the Matthew Turner, since we did have the CEO called the C on here and Chris Gallagher. It's quite a big deal for the folks that have been involved in the project. |
| 00:12:45.95 | Jill Hoffman | Yes, agree, it is quite a big deal. And yes, after we approve the consent calendar and we approve the resolution, we have a special surprise for the reading. Thank you. Maybe, but we'll see if our technology works. So we'll see. So council member Cleveland Knowles. |
| 00:13:05.51 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Great. Well, that sounds wonderful. It's good to see representatives from Matthew Turner here. I did want to just talk briefly. I don't want to pull it off consent, but echo what David Sudo said about item 5C. That report was very concerning that shows that we are underfunding our roadway construction by a significant amount of money. We are not putting any measure O dollars as we always do, except for last year, into our roadways. our pavement condition index or PCI. is far below that of other Marin jurisdictions. It's been that way since I've been on the council to get it to improve would be $9.5 million of investment. I thought the staff report was really interesting. I think it highlights that we do need to make this a focus of measure O. moving forward and hopefully they measure a renewal. And I would just say that, you know, talking about our capital budget, you know, which I understand we're not going to do tonight, but in the near future, I would really like to, focus on this question. It just continues to be a very downward trend. disappointing I think to a lot of our residents it also makes it much harder to bike and use micro mobility. and is unsafe for seniors. So thank you. |
| 00:14:29.77 | Jill Hoffman | Great, thank you. Thank you for those comments. Yeah, I look forward to that conversation too. Hopefully it will come sooner rather than later. All right, so do we have a motion on to accept the, approve the consent calendar? I recommend. |
| 00:14:43.13 | Janelle Kellman | Thank you. So. |
| 00:14:46.54 | Jill Hoffman | Someone, okay, it was either Council Member Cleveland-Knowles or Council Member Blaustein. I'm just gonna toss it up. I'm gonna give it to Cleveland. Cleveland-Knowles made the motion and I'm thinking Council Member Blaustein did the second. So Madam Clerk, can you please call the roll? |
| 00:15:01.44 | Heidi Scoble | Councilmember Sobieski? Thank you. |
| 00:15:02.89 | Melissa Blaustein | Yes. |
| 00:15:03.94 | Heidi Scoble | Council member Blaustein. |
| 00:15:05.49 | Melissa Blaustein | Yes. |
| 00:15:06.35 | Heidi Scoble | Council member Cleveland Knowles. |
| 00:15:08.02 | Melissa Blaustein | Yes. |
| 00:15:09.24 | Heidi Scoble | Vice Mayor Kelman. Yes. Mayor, how? Yes. |
| 00:15:27.51 | Jill Hoffman | I hereby issue this resolution of the Sausalito City Council adopting the brigantine Matthew Turner as the official tall ship of Sausalito in the incorporated waters of Richardson's Bay. Where at? Since founded in 1839 by William Richardson and incorporation of the city of Sausalito on September 4, 1893, residents and visitors have enjoyed Sausalito's rich maritime heritage and whereas maritime-oriented businesses, including large and small shipbuilding facilities, have been continuously present along Sausalito's working waterfront and whereas the Sausalito shoreline and Richardson's Bay waters have provided safe harbor for ships of all types, including the square-rigged ship Balkalutha, formerly Star of Alaska and Pacific Queen, that was languishing along the Sausoleo shore until it was rescued and restored as a national landmark, open to visitors at the Maritime National High Park Street Pier in San Francisco. And whereas in 2013, Call of the Sea, a charitable nonprofit organization based in Sausalito set out to construct an historic, sustainable wooden tall ship, Brigantine Matthew Turner on a site near Sausalito's Marin Ship Park. |
| 00:16:20.74 | Janelle Kellman | Thank you. |
| 00:16:36.37 | Jill Hoffman | to provide on-the-water and shore-based experiential education for students of all ages, focusing on marine ecology, sustainability, teamwork, leadership, and the rich maritime history of the Bay Area. And, whereas, with support from the City of Sausalito and from hundreds of Sausalito and nearby residents, the Hall of the Brigantine Matthew Turner was launched in 2017, And whereas the Army Corps of Engineers permitted the brigantine Matthew Turner to be tied to its pier, at the San Francisco Bay Model Visitor Center in Sausalito, where the tall ship was outfitted, and whereas the construction of the Brigantine Matthew Turner was completed in 2020 and the vessel certified by the United States Coast Guard for passenger operations, and whereas the Brigantine Matthew Turner set sail on Earth Day, April 22, 2021 and will continue to carry out its educational an environmental mission from its base of operations in Sausalito for years to come. Now, therefore, the city council hereby resolve that the city of Sausalito adopts brigantine Matthew Turner and declares it to be the official tall ship of Sausalito in incorporated waters at Richardson Bay. Congratulations, Alan Olson. Thank you very much for bringing us to the town of Sausage. |
| 00:17:52.25 | Alan Olson | Thank you. |
| 00:17:52.83 | Charlie Francis | Thank you. |
| 00:17:53.57 | Jill Hoffman | And I give you the Matthew Turner. |
| 00:17:56.13 | Charlie Francis | Hippip-hip-poree! Hippip-hip-poree! |
| 00:18:00.92 | Jill Hoffman | Well, maybe. Well, that was exciting. This is the Matthew Turner fully sailed. Under full sales. You have no idea how exciting it was with the technology issues that we had today. So, Anyway, hip hip huzzah and that's done. Congratulations to us and to the Matthew Turner. By the way, that was Alan Olson. He was a founder for Call of the Sea. Call of the Sea was a nonprofit that actually built from the bottom up, the Matthew Turner. All right, moving on. that bit of excitement is over. Okay, moving on to our next item on our agenda. is our first item six. Item six is our budget review. So this is... what may be the last in a long line of budget items we've had on our calendar this spring. And so our interim finance director, Charlie Francis, will be doing the presentation, welcome. Mr. Francis and you have the floor. |
| 00:19:11.26 | Charlie Francis | Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Council. Yes, this is the the night where we hold our second public hearing and the adoption of the fiscal year 21-22 budget It followed a series of meetings that started back in April. where the city council revised the budget calendar, had a number of budget reviews. And now and tonight we're at the end of that calendar where we have the budget public hearing and the formally adopt the budget. the The agenda for the staff presentation tonight is to review the proposed budget with the City Council and with the citizens and attendees of the meeting today. We'll have an overview, a department review, CIP as it stands now. then recommend that we hold the public hearing, city council discussion, and then consider adaption of the first budget. So let's begin with the overview of the budget. the council direction at the special Finance Committee meeting that was held last Friday. uh, June 18th, uh, you know, made a number of adjustments. And the summary of those adjustments is, it's particularly in the general fund of appropriating $20.694 million in revenues, and then having 21.624 million $1 million in expenses. having a change in fund balance of 930,000. Of course, we're starting We anticipate that we'll start the fiscal year 21-22 with $7,460,409 in beginning fund balance. So that will still leave us $6.5 million in ending fund balance or approximately 35% of budget expenses, which is a very strong number in terms of industry standards done percentage of expenditures to fund balance. of the Staffing in the report includes 72 full-time employees. And this is a summary of how they're broken up by labor unit and by department. And then we also have to consider in our budget adoption, conforming with the GAN limit calculation, where the Department of Finance gives us tells us what our population changes and what our price factor is. Those two numbers multiplied together, give the adjustment factor to last year's again, limit or appropriation limit. So those springs to the new limit to 16.5 million. And then in accordance with the calculations coming from Prop 13 and the subsequent legislation we apply, we calculate the proceeds of taxes and the proceeds of taxes are calculated over here and the difference between The proceeds of taxes and appropriation of limits is the amount we're under the appropriation limit of $4.763 million. And that's a good thing. That's where we want to be is under the appropriation limit. What's in the budget in terms of revenues? Well, the revenues are budgeted assuming that the economy is recovering and we're gradually returning to pre-COVID levels of city tax and other revenue generation. Specifically in the budget, we're appropriating the America Rescue Plan money in the amount of $1.69 million. And then in accordance with policy and practice, the city council annually evaluates the strategic use of measure O money for either operating or capital projects. Because of the gradual return in revenue generation, the $1.1 million anticipated measure O money in the budget are being budgeted as an offset to general fund expenses. You know, property taxes are rather inelastic and they're budgeted according to the projections that are given to us by the Marin County Department of Finance and confirmed by our consulting firm HDL. Sales taxes are the most sensitive to an improvement economy, and they're actually coming in. you know, a little bit stronger. than a gradual return. And so we're anticipating our sales tax coming in close to full recovery, but not all the way there. Now, transient occupancy taxes and parking revenues There we're anticipating a little slower recovery as the hospitality industry not only took the biggest economic hit, but it is also Uh, is proving to be the slowest to recover. However, I have entered into some conversations with that some of the hoteliers in town that are anticipating a stronger return and as we mentioned earlier in other council meetings on the budget process We'll be very closely monitoring the economy and reporting back to the Council where our transient occupancy tax and parking revenues are. so that we can make future adjustments to the budget if we need be. up. I'm wondering, |
| 00:24:25.54 | Jill Hoffman | Excuse me, Mr. Francis. I want to, we have a, we have hands raised from council member Cleveland Knowles and our vice mayor, Kelman. I'm wondering if you want to take questions as we go or do you want to get through the full |
| 00:24:32.54 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | I'm wondering, |
| 00:24:37.17 | Jill Hoffman | So mayor, mine wasn't |
| 00:24:37.30 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | I don't know if I'm the only one, but this is showing up really small on my screen. And for the public, I was wondering if we would be able to do a full screen of Charlie's presentation. |
| 00:24:39.46 | Jill Hoffman | is that |
| 00:24:50.23 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | because these are pretty dense slides. So that's all I was going to say, but great information. And I have a whole question still to be answered. |
| 00:24:56.29 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:24:56.32 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 00:24:56.83 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, thank you. I think we just had it. Hold on a second. We just, Charlie, you just had a full screen and that looked good. |
| 00:25:02.97 | Charlie Francis | Yeah, I'm gonna... |
| 00:25:04.98 | Janelle Kellman | Mayor Hoffman, I'm happy to wait and hold my questions till the end as well, just so Charlie can get through. |
| 00:25:10.73 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, well, I think that's, yeah, I think that's, Council Member Cleveland-Knowles, does that look good for you? I mean, from your perspective? That's much better. Okay, that's good. Thank you. Thanks Mr. Francis for doing that. |
| 00:25:23.05 | Charlie Francis | Okay, so just a couple of other items of note. that we've budgeted planning cost revenue and expenses within the budget and the Bank of America debt services, we anticipate that we'll receive revenues from the reuse and reactivation of the Bank of America building to cover those debt service payments. And finally, the Interfund transfers into the general fund We're budgeting about a little bit less than the amount of revenues we anticipate collecting in the parking fund, $1 million. And if there's any excess revenues in the parking fund, the budget anticipates replenishing the parking fund reserves. the MLK has 750,000 in reserves that can be transferred back to the general fund and thereby reduce the general fund advance. Tide lands and sewer fund. are transferring 200 and 225,000 respectively to the general fund. And those are to cover the operating expenses, sort of like administration, city manager, finance, legal, HR, risk management, those kind of costs that are absorbed within those funds and those funds that's then reimbursed us, the general fund. So that's, kind of a summary of the revenues. So I'm not clear if the city council would like to ask questions on each slide or wait until I go through the whole overview. |
| 00:26:54.80 | Jill Hoffman | You know, my... My thought is that we go through but I'm happy to do what you know, what the consensus is. To me, it's just, Let's just speed through it. Yeah. OK, let's just keep going. |
| 00:27:05.30 | Charlie Francis | Okay. All right. |
| 00:27:06.60 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:27:07.88 | Charlie Francis | at the special city council meeting There was a request that We present the Measure O revenue and the Measure O transfers out and every year. And so I prepared a graph that shows the amount of revenues that came in and the amount that was transferred out to the capital project funds for each year. But in the current year budget, The transfers to the capital improvement fund are about half of what they were revenues we anticipated And that's what we've experienced so far. but this year we're not budgeting any transfers from the general fund to the capital project fund. And. real briefly. Hmm. on the section pension trust $400,000 savings where we reduce it. I've prepared a calculation to show Uh, up. the amount of money in the trust fund and the withdrawal to realize this $400,000 savings. And then if the city council continues on its policy contributing $250,000 every year into the trust fund but withdrawing from it, $450,000 to smooth out the KALPERS payments and thereby keep our general fund happen at approximately the same level until we reached this, RAMP DOWN PERIOD IN 2035. That's the exact timeframe that we need to keep our general fund whole down to this $206,000. So going to the department review, we'll start with the administration department and the administration department is anticipating that Um, finance department will have an outsourced financial management contract. There'll be some slight restructuring of the city clerk's office. We have in the non-departmental fund Department on $95,000 for economic development activities, And that's the remaining amount after putting the $180,000 in the building that, Department for permit review And, um, |
| 00:29:24.46 | Janelle Kellman | Thank you. |
| 00:29:25.49 | Charlie Francis | in the... It's up. |
| 00:29:27.33 | Janelle Kellman | Thank you. |
| 00:29:27.65 | Charlie Francis | $1,000. into the recreation department for expenses by $400,000. up. And at the city council, January 1st deadline, it's really a July 31st deadline that we need to make that decision. And how that works is, We can realize almost a 3.5% savings by prepaying our options. for the UAL payment and that prepayment must be done by July 31st. So we do have some time to study this issue a little bit more to realize this of $400,000 savings. |
| 00:30:14.01 | Jill Hoffman | Hold on a second, Mr. President. |
| 00:30:15.38 | Charlie Francis | Mr. President. And then for the outsource, |
| 00:30:18.08 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. Thank you. Sorry, you're having a little bit of a delay. And so I'm wondering, If you just want to take your video off while you're giving your presentation, that might help your bandwidth. I don't know. Let's try that. Yeah, let's try that. Okay. |
| 00:30:31.20 | Janelle Kellman | Okay. |
| 00:30:32.03 | Charlie Francis | Yeah. |
| 00:30:34.78 | Janelle Kellman | Thank you. |
| 00:30:34.82 | Charlie Francis | Thank you. |
| 00:30:39.09 | Charlie Francis | All right, so the outsource financial management services is to, number one, restore the fiscal integrity and trust of the finance department. We've talked in previous council meetings on what the current status and situation is on bringing the finance department back in order to produce timely and accurate financial reports, to have reporting compliance with state and federal and as well as our own local regulations done and reporting financial condition. And then, THE END OF ERP cloud migration, where we take our accounting system and put it into the cloud. We're still running on the last update which was done back in 2000, 10 or 11, I believe we did it when I was the former finance director for the city. And then will be implementing starting in July strategic long-term financial planning And really briefly, I want to just mention that, Every year there's, I mean, there's community needs and expectations and those community needs and expectations kind of are manifested in our strategic plan where we have vision, mission, goals, and objectives, and a representation of the strategic plan since sooner or later it always comes down to money. is our five to 10 year financial plan. that five year to 10 year financial plan gives us the roadmap, in other words, the rudder on our tall ship that keeps us on course along with our compass. The first year of that financial plan comes our annual budget. What's missing in our press, and then we link, the strategic plan goals and objectives through the allocation of resource in our annual budget. What we need to do is to restore this strategic long-term financial planning where as the year goes on, as policy decisions are made, are being made that may have been slightly different with than the strategic plan as we realize them as the economy comes in and tells us that our financial plan is off by our revenues, our expenses are exceeding, that goes into our actual results. And then what we need to do is forecast what the actual results are going to be till the end of the fiscal year and make that the new base for a new five-year financial plan. In other words, recalibrate this five-year financial plan with what's happening during the current year to see if we're still in alignment with the strategic plan so that we're making informed decisions on the impact of our financial decisions on our long-term goals and objectives, and if we're meeting the community needs and expectations. So we're providing this continual feedback loop. and to kind of demonstrate How I've already done that is today, I started building the long-term financial model. where I took the current year budget I adjusted it for all the one-time revenues and one-time expenses and started to plot out based on a certain set of assumptions what our revenues and expenses might look like. Now this is just a forecast. The forecast is not a financial plan. the financial plan manifests itself in a revised forecast, a revised financial model of which we then go on to build scenarios. So I just wanted to throw those slides in there as a demonstration |
| 00:34:11.64 | Unknown | I just... |
| 00:34:16.37 | Charlie Francis | of what outsourced financial management will get you. And then at the end of the fiscal year, you'll be ready then this process will be institutionalized. It'll be part of your ongoing financial management. Moving on to technology, the technology is kind of being proposed that the level of service where we're contracting out the IT department we're receiving about 12 to 24 hours of on-site presence. We have contracts with Midas and with CMCM. These are the kinds of subscriptions that we're paying for to run the software in the city. And the budget anticipates, you know, new computers for 40 workstations, replace five servers that are 8 to 10 years old, and some of them are failing and need to be replaced as soon as possible. And then additional storage in the cloud for $30,000. So this is the, what you're getting for the $824,000 in technology. The police department is being budgeted at its current level of service, except for realizing that there's two vacancies that will be unfilled during the fiscal year. And those two vacancies being unfilled result in a $250,000 savings. You can see the total cost of the workforce the vacancies were filled would be 5.8 But the budget is $250,000 less at $5,583,000. So we baked that $250,000 into the savings. The building department will be expanding its staff a permit services coordinator. and it generates revenues in excess of its expenses. Uh... Planning and zoning will be adding a position of a planning manager And again, it generates revenues to his expenses as well. Uh, But included within the planning department is across all three scenarios was $900,000 for the housing element, $75,000 for general plan and the smaller contributions. We put in $20,000 for the Sonoma State intern and here's where we moved the $180,000 to streamline the permitting process. Within our non-department, this is where we budget for the UAL payments for the fire For Section 115 OPEB, our $250,000 to $300,000 and our retiree health care. which comes up here to the personnel costs. Recreation department will be adding back the second recreation Supervisor. has some temporary workers. And, kind of delivers two yards, here's the events. We restored all the events that generate revenues as was directed at the council meeting and having another supervisor, we have the EDAC sponsored events for $50,000 in here as well. Same thing with landscape maintenance. We increased the landscape maintenance budget to have all of the tree cleanup that was talked about at our on June 18th meeting. And then we have the Sausalito Beautiful Contract at $50,000 and the Sausalito Beautiful Trees at $40,000. less the $10,000 donation, which is in the revenue account for a net of $30,000. library gradual return to full service and full operation hours and and the children's librarian is included in here and Abbott did a wonderful job of showing what the level of service would be to bring the child's librarian on board when the library how many open hours they're going to be as we ramp up the staff in the hours. Engineering and public works are are budgeted at the current level of service that they're at right now. no substantial changes from the way they're operating in their existing conditions. And finally, the CIP program up. It anticipates $4.9 million in revenues and $5.7 million in expenses. These are the projects that are listed and In your staff report on the consent item, one of those streets was a, A project that's not on this list, it needs to be included so the And that was for, I think it was Nevada. street so this will be reduced by 360,000 and if we want we can hold off adopting the capital projects budget to July or we can adopt it at this level today and come back in July with a revised capital project budget So with that, I'm ready to answer any questions that the council may ask. before we go into public hearings. |
| 00:39:39.49 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, thanks. Thanks very much. I think the vice mayor had a question and then Whoever else. I'd like to chime in. |
| 00:39:47.54 | Janelle Kellman | Yeah, and in the interest of, I guess, organization, I'm gonna try to refer to slides and I'm happy to pause. And if anybody else has questions on that slide, maybe that's helpful, if not, feel free, but if you do have a comment on the slide, I mentioned put your hand up and you could go. Okay, so I guess, Charlie, maybe we can start with slide five. If you could go back there. |
| 00:40:16.23 | Janelle Kellman | There we go. Okay. So yeah, so when I looked at slide five, then I looked at slide eight, I think I got a little confused. So can you just clarify, are the MLK, old city hall and parking fund incomes restricted in any way? |
| 00:40:32.07 | Charlie Francis | The no MLK parking and old city hall are enterprise funds. that the revenues can be used for whatever purpose. The City Council could transfer amount of those funds. |
| 00:40:44.97 | Janelle Kellman | Okay, so why wouldn't those funds be transferred in full to the general fund? Aren't they just non-tax city revenues? any expense related to the specific enterprise activity? |
| 00:40:56.78 | Charlie Francis | Yeah, one reason why we've historically kept reserves in those funds is for repairs on the infrastructure in each fund. In other words, if there was some emergency repair at MLK that needed to be done, or if there's a parking machines we had a need to be replaced because of some exigency, or if there was a major disruption, like in the plumbing at old city hall, we had extra money in there to address those issues. |
| 00:41:24.89 | Janelle Kellman | Okay, so I see that we have a deficit right in line one, 930 K. but we have, I think, and I don't have all the drill down so far, if I have this wrong, please let me know. But I guess I'm wondering, it looks like we have $3 million of revenue in those funds, and how much of that expense is actually operational, and how much more could we transfer to the general fund? |
| 00:41:47.07 | Charlie Francis | Okay, so the amount So remember, MLK is transferring a million. The $751,000 is operational. How much more could you transfer to the general fund? Just 213,000. Um, In Old City Hall, we're not transferring any to General Fund. The most you could transfer is $114,000. In the parking fund, we have a reserve of 578. So you're already transferring a million. 211 is operations. 578 is left to transfer. So in other words, If you, these are the amounts that you could transfer to the general fund and zero up. |
| 00:42:30.86 | Janelle Kellman | And so quick math, we would maybe be |
| 00:42:30.99 | Charlie Francis | So, |
| 00:42:35.09 | Janelle Kellman | that we're saying |
| 00:42:42.55 | Charlie Francis | Yeah, basically it looks like it's about 900,000. |
| 00:42:47.53 | Janelle Kellman | Okay, so I just raised that because the council could decide to transfer it. It's a policy decision as to whether or not we want to keep it in reserves. I understand the reasoning. I guess part of it that's confusing is that |
| 00:42:56.12 | Unknown | THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 00:42:56.17 | Joan Cox | . |
| 00:42:56.34 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:42:59.43 | Janelle Kellman | it looks like we're mixing and again, correct me if I'm wrong, but it looks like we're mixing capital improvement expenditures like the CIP and the sewer with actual current period revenues and expenses. |
| 00:43:13.23 | Charlie Francis | So, in the sewer. In the sewer fund, we have the, as part of this balance is the sewer revenue bond proceeds. So we're transferring out of here and up into here in order to do sewer capital projects. The rest is operational. |
| 00:43:32.11 | Janelle Kellman | Okay. and that probably may have been deserves a deeper dive for the full council at some point, cause it's not sort of readily apparent to us and probably not the general public. Okay, so let me ask you another way. Are we mixing restricted dedicated purpose funds Some of it's... |
| 00:43:52.72 | Janelle Kellman | No. |
| 00:43:54.10 | Janelle Kellman | Okay, with the current period revenue expenses, you say we're not. |
| 00:43:57.56 | Janelle Kellman | No. |
| 00:43:58.27 | Janelle Kellman | Okay. Yeah, this just doesn't look super clear from this. But thank you for that explanation. And so I guess that may be the main takeaway the ending fund balances and the fact that we're operating a deficit. Maybe we don't need to be, but we would not have reserves in those funds. Okay, I'll pause there. My other questions are related to some of the pension stuff, Thank you. |
| 00:44:22.10 | Jill Hoffman | So I have a follow up on this slide. And Councilmember Cleveland, you also have your hand up. Do you have a question on this slide? I do, but go ahead. |
| 00:44:29.67 | Vicki Nichols | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 00:44:30.79 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. I have a really quick question. So Charlie then, from this slide, is it, the deficit spend that we're talking about, is it 900,000 or is it another number? |
| 00:44:43.59 | Charlie Francis | It's this number, 930,000. |
| 00:44:46.75 | Jill Hoffman | Okay. And so. At our last city council meeting, discussing a different number for our deficit. Can you just give me a quick summary of how we changed it. I mean, we got it down to 930. but can you just give me a brief summary of how we can ask |
| 00:45:02.16 | Charlie Francis | We have. Yes, the $250,000 police savings. |
| 00:45:03.52 | Jill Hoffman | The 250,000. Thank you. |
| 00:45:06.93 | Unknown | Okay. |
| 00:45:07.54 | Charlie Francis | The $400,000 savings by paying off the police side fund in the CalPERS. Those were the two major components that reduced it. by moving revenue generating events and they're offsetting expenses that increased a little bit, but then we increased expenses with the The trees are just little beautiful. I think that was it, yeah. Those are the main |
| 00:45:42.37 | Jill Hoffman | Okay. The big ones were the police and then assuming that we pay off the police side funds. |
| 00:45:46.99 | Steven Woodside | Correct. |
| 00:45:47.62 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, gotcha. But to be clear, we'd be taking from another asset to pay off the police side funds. It's not like, all this anyway we'll talk about that when we get to the pinch of the slide Okay, council member Cleveland Knowles, you have your hand up and then I see council member Sobieski has his hand up. |
| 00:46:04.90 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Yeah, thank you, Mayor Hoffman. And actually you asked my main question. So thank you for that. And thank you, Charlie, for your answer on that. My second question was about the American Um, rescue fund and using all of that in this year. And I guess it's a little bit of a follow-up on the vice mayor's question, Are we, a little bit. Is there any advantage to using less of the American Rescue Fund this year in relying more heavily on our reserves. and postponing that until later in the year, next fiscal year, I guess that's my question. I wasn't entirely sure about where |
| 00:46:45.60 | Unknown | Now, |
| 00:46:48.66 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | going forward and spending the full amount except for the amount that we're reserving for our county homelessness contribution. this year. |
| 00:46:56.30 | Charlie Francis | Yeah, earlier in the year we explored some of the strategic uses of America Rescue Plan money. And those, you know, those included things like creating jobs, restoring stability in our level of service, investing in infrastructure, and then Thank you. Um, So, I can't remember what the fourth one was. You know, and the principles of using it is what's the immediate use? Is there inclusive? Oh, yeah, be social justice goals that we could be pursuing. So those were the four main strategies that governments are being encouraged to use their America Rescue Plan Act monies for. And then implying it, you say, what's the immediate need is there some inclusivity that that could be enhanced by by using this are there programs that can be accelerated by using the America Rescue Plan money so yes I mean if you want to put hold those monies aside and use more of reserves, then you have the ability to target that money for future prosperity projects. |
| 00:48:13.16 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Okay, I just, maybe we can talk about it at the end, but I would just, especially now that we are down to 900, |
| 00:48:13.23 | Unknown | Okay. |
| 00:48:20.66 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | change on the reserves i'm just wondering if we might want to switch out 500. 400 or 500 K of the American rescue plan, just to make sure that we are using that money in compliance with the federal requirements. |
| 00:48:34.12 | Janelle Kellman | and they're not. |
| 00:48:35.63 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Anyway, I think we're probably fine, but I just wasn't exactly sure why we |
| 00:48:41.62 | Charlie Francis | Yeah. In terms of compliance, we're in compliance because of the provision of lost revenue of using the money can be used to replace lost revenue. So, and we have more lost revenue than the $1.69 million. but the other, there are other activities that are are also within the america rescue plan money that we can target the money for |
| 00:49:08.26 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. Councilmember Sobieski I see you have your hand up. |
| 00:49:13.05 | Ian Sobieski | Thanks a lot. Charlie, just a question about the following up on the mayor's question, you accounted for $250k savings. Yes. Not filling the two police officers, but on Friday we heard from the chief that he expects that a consequence of not having that position filled will be to, uh, require more overtime. And the number didn't change from the 250K on Friday to today. Did we just neglect to account for the additional overtime, or is that already budgeted in his overtime budget? |
| 00:49:46.26 | Charlie Francis | Yeah, we continued the overtime budget from what it was last year. And I, I, So it was just a flat number that was put in. I don't know if we're going to be using all of the overtime budget that was budgeted for last year. Just like I don't know if we're going to be using it all in the next year, but typically that amount is enough to cover those Thank you. |
| 00:50:10.82 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, thanks. questions on this slide. If not, then we'll move on to. Vice mayor's next question. Okay, I don't see anything. So, okay, go ahead. Hold on, Council Member Bloustain has a question. |
| 00:50:29.18 | Melissa Blaustein | I'm not sure that this is the right slide for it, but I'm assuming that it applies since this is a general overview of the adopted budget and costs. I'm just wondering if we, within the confines of this budget here, we've met the requirements or suggestions from our employees at SEIU and whether we met their requests through this, through this proposed budget. This is not immediately clear and whether we met the request from the police union as well. And which COLAs, whether or not COLAs were adopted, for instance, it's just not immediately clear. |
| 00:50:57.76 | Charlie Francis | this. |
| 00:51:02.99 | Charlie Francis | So we do have negotiated agreements with SEIU and the SPA and this budget includes the amounts that were in those agreements, yes. |
| 00:51:14.91 | Melissa Blaustein | Okay, so both parties are happy with the budget as written here. |
| 00:51:18.59 | Charlie Francis | Yeah, well, I think, you know, the level of service for staffing, SEIU would want to see restore the mechanic position in this budget does not restore the mechanic position. |
| 00:51:33.39 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | But I mean, just for clarity from last year for council member Blasdine last year, two years ago, we negotiated |
| 00:51:37.94 | Unknown | It was a good thing. |
| 00:51:40.31 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | increase in COLA cost of living adjustments for SEIU and the police Those were suspended. and there were different things that were suspended last year, but we're returning to our signed agreements as was requested by, or clarified by an SEIU representative at one of our last meetings. those increases for both police and seiu are returning in this budget and furloughs are ending |
| 00:51:58.58 | Alan Olson | Thank you. |
| 00:51:58.68 | Charlie Francis | And. |
| 00:51:58.85 | Alan Olson | Thank you. |
| 00:52:05.59 | Charlie Francis | The furloughs are ending, the pay is being restored to the level. the budget does not anticipate restoring the fleet mechanic or the equipment. So, I think that's a good question. the fleet supervisor position. |
| 00:52:22.95 | Melissa Blaustein | Okay, I just think it's important to note that so the community knows that we're working with staff to meet their concerns and needs. And we really appreciate them and the hard work that they're doing. Yeah. Thanks, Charlie. |
| 00:52:33.29 | Janelle Kellman | Can we stay on this slide? I wanna go back to this question about the ending fund balances. I just again want to make sure we're on the same page that this is within the Council's purview to decide to authorize or not authorize that they stay as reserves. I'm wondering what your proposed policy direction is around parking fund having almost $600,000 in reserves, what would be the situation where we would need that amount of money. |
| 00:53:02.27 | Charlie Francis | Major pavement failure, major parking equipment failure, things that weren't, you know, Thank you. That's about it. Parking fund has always been a reserve for the general fund too. So, I mean... |
| 00:53:19.97 | Janelle Kellman | I mean, |
| 00:53:20.66 | Charlie Francis | The parking fund has always been considered. I mean, we were transferring two to $3 million a year in recent years out of the parking fund and revenues up to the general fund and depleting these reserves. you know, at some point those parking lots do need to be replaced and the equipment needs to be replaced. So reserves should be start to be built up in there in order to do that. And so that we won't be facing a situation like we're facing with the streets where they're underfunded. |
| 00:53:56.28 | Jill Hoffman | but I think I get the vice mayor's sort of question about this which is do we want to call it a deficit spend Budget. I mean, it is deficit spend because we're exceeding our revenues, right? but we do have other fund balances available. And when we're talking about you know, and in, you know, in fund balance, I suppose for the general fund, we could add those other. you know, enterprise funds to that number. you know, to give us a, I guess, an accurate picture about what our flexibility is. I think, I see what she's getting at. Maybe we want to put this on our discussion for our next strategic plan. I think, you know, why do we have these fund balances? You know, obviously they're there to protect resiliency and for specific purposes. So, you know, I'm not sure that's a discussion for tonight. That's a good point, though, and something that we want to address |
| 00:54:58.97 | Janelle Kellman | Thank you. |
| 00:54:59.68 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:54:59.75 | Janelle Kellman | going forward. Yeah, and Mayor, I'll just point out, it's just a policy decision and we have the flexibility. So I just wanted to alert the other council members that if they hadn't seen that bit of it, that we can decide to move monies over and the general fund can be used for some of the uses Director, Mr. Francis was alluding to. The other interesting thing about section five is that these are all enterprise funds, but MLK, Old City Hall and Parking Fund are unrestricted, whereas sewer is a restricted fund. So although they're all enterprise funds, we should be thinking about them differently. And that I think helps move us in a good policy direction. |
| 00:55:29.28 | Jill Hoffman | they're all |
| 00:55:36.96 | Janelle Kellman | Yeah. |
| 00:55:37.15 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:55:37.23 | Janelle Kellman | Thank you. |
| 00:55:37.67 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, any other questions on this slide before we move forward? Okay, so vice mayor, go ahead to your next. Your next slide. |
| 00:55:48.42 | Janelle Kellman | Thank you. or your next question and then we'll And I did see council member Blaustein's hand up. I don't know if she had a follow up on the side. |
| 00:55:53.80 | Melissa Blaustein | I was just going to reiterate that we have the discretion. It's a policy decision on the enterprise funds. So it's definitely a conversation that I'd like to see us have, whether or not we want to move those to the general fund and for how much and what we leave in reserves. That's exactly the point you made. So I, |
| 00:56:06.93 | Janelle Kellman | Thank you. |
| 00:56:07.05 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 00:56:07.24 | Janelle Kellman | Thank you. |
| 00:56:07.28 | Janelle Kellman | Thank you. So it made sense at least, okay, good, thank you. Okay, I think I want to start at slide 10. |
| 00:56:18.86 | Janelle Kellman | Okay, so just out of curiosity, I see that the beginning balance here is 2.75 in 2023. Where are we today? What about 2021? |
| 00:56:28.95 | Charlie Francis | Oh. So, That's my error. This is going to be, yeah, this is my, this should be. Thank you. at the beginning of 20, this should be the 21, 22 year. Yeah. |
| 00:56:44.71 | Janelle Kellman | Okay, because I only was curious because in September of 2020, I believe we're at 2.4 million. So I was just trying to track and of course you have the expertise in the, all the data in front of you. So I just want to know where we were starting. |
| 00:57:02.52 | Unknown | that he comes back, that what this fall, I didn't have your number. |
| 00:57:09.67 | Janelle Kellman | I think someone's Okay. I think it was solved. While you're looking that up, So I want to get over to the side of fund information, but there is some concern that the contributions that we needed to make to ensure that we didn't go broke basically during the height of our pension obligations were already challenging. And then when we consider adopting a budget that is the third deficit budget in a row that depletes our pension fund. where's our was our buffer and that prompted for me a macro and a micro question so the the micro is how would the side fund impact contributions to our pension trust fund would that mean that we're at zero for the next couple years um You know, do we have for in a deficit? Are we replenishing? that trust fund, what does that look like for us? |
| 00:58:02.44 | Charlie Francis | So the side fund is It's just a way of saying Um, It's part of the CalPERS UAAA. The CalPERS UAL is not just you know, an amount, it's a series of layers. Each year, the surplus or deficit from that year is amortized over 20 years. And so some years you have gains and some years you have pluses. And when you add them all up, but, up. you know, that totals your total UAL payment, or your total UAL liability. And, And the, One of those layers is a layer that's called the police side fund. And that police site fund has three years left of payments on it. approximately $400,000 a year. So, What we can do is we can, if we're going to make an additional discretionary payment to we would take it out of our local control pension trust fund and put it into CalPERS and say, eliminate this one layer. And when you do that, then that would reduce say the next three years, we don't have that 400,000. You can actually see in the current amortization schedule that 400,000 goes away when it goes away we we get this drop between this year between this year and this year, we get that drop of $450,000. Um, And what that happens then when it comes out of our side fund, our side fund goes from $2.7 million. We put in some contributions, we earn interest, and it goes down to $1.87 million. Does that make sense? This is a special fund that's set up to help reduce the CalPERS liability. Our current policy now is to transfer $250,000 annually into our site, our Section 115 trust fund. And then If we wanted to say after 2023, when these rates start going up again, We contribute, take out of it 450,000 and give it to CalPERS to pay off other layers then it will take us approximately 12 years to deplenish that fund. |
| 01:00:26.86 | Janelle Kellman | which I totally get and I understand it has a good ROI, it avoids 7% annual interest charges. There's some good things around that side fund. My question is more about where we are right now. And so what is our beginning balance in 2021? And have we been able, I know the plan was to put 250K in a year. Have we been able to, to do that. And now as we look at a deficit, you know, spend and budget are we, What does that mean for the future contributions? |
| 01:00:54.70 | Charlie Francis | Right, so I mean, here's where we anticipate being at July 1st of 2021. And then we, anticipate putting in $250,000 earning some interest on it. taking out the 1.1 million, which should bring us down to the 1.6 million. |
| 01:01:12.76 | Janelle Kellman | Okay, got it. That tracks more with what I thought we had. And there's a quick question on the side front. I think it was on slide. So this ADP is a very good question. Can the city make an ADP targeted specifically at the side fund or does the ADP have to be applied to all of the UAL. |
| 01:01:33.55 | Charlie Francis | Okay. What's the ADP, Additional Discretionary Payment? |
| 01:01:37.61 | Janelle Kellman | Yes. |
| 01:01:38.47 | Charlie Francis | Okay. Right here. This is the annual required payment. And if we want to pay, an additional Uh, AND I THINK THAT'S A discretionary payment, that would be above this. What we're going to, say to KELPERS is before we make this payment, We're going to Make an additional discretionary payment of $400,000 to the police side fund and that would thereby reduce this a annually required payment, by $400,000. |
| 01:02:13.34 | Janelle Kellman | Okay, so we can target it and say we want it to go, like you said, to this layer more or less, as you were saying. |
| 01:02:18.33 | Charlie Francis | Right. So this layer and then this amount is the discounted rate. |
| 01:02:19.30 | Janelle Kellman | It's very, |
| 01:02:24.27 | Charlie Francis | Yeah. |
| 01:02:25.82 | Janelle Kellman | What happens if we wait until after July 1? You said we, I think it was like a 3% savings. What's the next tranche if we were to delay it until after July 1? What would be the savings? |
| 01:02:35.70 | Charlie Francis | We have until July 31st. |
| 01:02:38.08 | Janelle Kellman | excuse me, July 31st, what would be, what's the implication if we do not |
| 01:02:42.23 | Charlie Francis | Then we have to pay this times 12. |
| 01:02:42.26 | Janelle Kellman | Do it now. |
| 01:02:45.89 | Charlie Francis | or the whole full 100%. This is already discounted to 96.5%. |
| 01:02:52.78 | Janelle Kellman | So this is a one-time opportunity |
| 01:02:55.14 | Charlie Francis | Right. |
| 01:02:55.14 | Janelle Kellman | to paint something lower. Yeah, I'm just spelling it out for everybody at home. |
| 01:03:00.84 | Charlie Francis | No, and it's just when you look at And, you know, this is just the annual payment for the public safety when you add up all three of them. It's about $3 million and the 3% on $3 million is you know, $90,000 is just a full-time position. It's built in savings. |
| 01:03:23.17 | Jill Hoffman | Right. |
| 01:03:23.88 | Janelle Kellman | Thank you. |
| 01:03:23.89 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you for that. |
| 01:03:23.96 | Charlie Francis | Thank you. |
| 01:03:25.48 | Jill Hoffman | So council member Cleveland has her hand up. And then I have a followup question on this mainly pertaining to where, what fund we actually pay this side fund payment out of. So. |
| 01:03:25.65 | Charlie Francis | Thank you. |
| 01:03:36.70 | Jill Hoffman | Go ahead, Councilor Includential. |
| 01:03:38.44 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | So I just had a clarifying question. I don't know if it's for Charlie or for the vice mayor, but you've said, on Friday and then again tonight, this is our third year. of dipping into our reserves. And I do not recall that our budget two years ago did that. Yes, of course, we did that during COVID and we are planning to do that in COVID recovery. but, I don't, can you just clarify |
| 01:04:01.96 | Janelle Kellman | that you're talking about? Sure, and I am happy to be wrong on that, but that Mr. Francis did convey that in a meeting I had with him. regarding the budget that we have been in deficit spending two years prior. |
| 01:04:15.87 | Jill Hoffman | And that was my recollection of a slide that Mr. Francis did as well on Friday. |
| 01:04:24.54 | Charlie Francis | So, um, |
| 01:04:24.62 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 01:04:25.96 | Charlie Francis | 1819 was the last year where our revenues exceeded our expenses. In 1920 actual, our expenses exceeded our revenues. Let's make sure, yep, general fund. our budget is for the current fiscal year has expenses exceeding revenues. And the budget we're about to adapt has expenses exceeding revenues. |
| 01:04:50.70 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Okay, but 1920 was because we lost $4 million of revenue March tick. |
| 01:04:57.78 | Unknown | Great. |
| 01:04:58.12 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Jane of |
| 01:04:58.21 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 01:05:01.28 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | that year. that was our first mid-year that was a budget adjustment that we made due to cover it |
| 01:05:06.70 | Charlie Francis | I just called. Not in your budget, it was your actual experience. That's correct. |
| 01:05:11.86 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Our budget was not. Thank you. |
| 01:05:13.56 | Charlie Francis | Your budget was not deficit, no. |
| 01:05:13.58 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. Okay, thank you. |
| 01:05:19.10 | Charlie Francis | But we did have a million dollar, $900,000 loss. |
| 01:05:23.05 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 01:05:23.06 | Jill Hoffman | Yes, exactly. |
| 01:05:24.35 | Charlie Francis | to do. |
| 01:05:27.82 | Jill Hoffman | Okay. Thank you. Did you have another follow-up? On this slide, I have a follow up on the pension. So, So my question is specifically not whether or not we pay off the police siphon because I'm in favor of that, but the question is, Charlie, back on that, if you go back to the pension slide that you just had up, I think that was. 10? Nope. |
| 01:05:50.77 | Charlie Francis | If your question was what fund it comes out of, it comes out of the pension trust fund. |
| 01:05:54.91 | Jill Hoffman | Well, these are choices that we can make, right? So it doesn't have to come out of the pension trust fund, right? It can come out of just a general fund. |
| 01:06:01.86 | Charlie Francis | Well, we could, yes. |
| 01:06:03.41 | Jill Hoffman | So this is, and this is why I sent you some things from, Um, Yeah, from 2018 when we were talking, when we created the Pension Trust Fund, And then we decided to fund it. as a method to smooth later payments because it's really important for the council to understand like the total pension you know, unfunded liability. payments that we have to make on top of our pension payments that we have to make. This is not a full discussion of that. This is just a picture or a snapshot of Um, you know, the you know, just the police side funds. you know, back in 2018, we had a lot of scenarios given and shown of what the different payments would mean and what we expected with regard to growth on the pension trust fund as a way to smooth out the quite large payments. that are going to come due in later years, in 2030, 2028, 2030. This is why I'm Hesitant to do anything with the pension trust fund until the and full explanation of where that pension trust fund is supposed to be used. In other words, the growth of the pension trust fund You know, obviously. You know, depends on the amount that's in the fund, and the interest that we earn on the fund. And so the interest that we earn on the pension trust fund is greater than return that we get on general fund balances that we keep in various funds, isn't that correct? |
| 01:07:47.18 | Charlie Francis | Yes, it is. |
| 01:07:48.37 | Jill Hoffman | So, If you're talking about using a method or defunding a method that we've put into place in order to smooth later pension payments. I would like to have a discussion around, do we wanna do that out of the pension trust fund Or do we want to do that just out of the general fund? I mean, to me, it makes more sense just to take the money out of the general fund. and pay the pension trust fund, but I wouldn't want to do it make that decision tonight. because the council needs to have a full understanding and we have not had a full understanding or explanation of what was done back in 2018 compared against you know, the effects of pulling money out of the pension trust fund. Now at the end of the day, it may be that we decide you know, to go forward with that, but we need to have a full discussion on that. I'm glad that originally we were thinking that it was gonna be, we had to take action by July 1st. I'm happy that, it's July 31st. We have a little bit of time. So I would say that I would like to table this part of the, the, discussion it won't affect our overall budget if we just which way we decide to go with to pay the pension, the side fund, But it will have great consequences later on in our ability to manage those pension debt payments. because we have to account for that somehow. So if we're defunding the, the pension trust fund, we have to figure out. how we're going to recover from that. And so I would suggest that we add a pension discussion onto our July 13th city council meeting. And at that time we decide, okay, we're going to pay off the side fund, which, which accounts for how we budgeted for it in our budget, but we decide how we're gonna do that and what fund is gonna come out of it. I don't see any downside to that, Charlie. Are there any negative consequences from that? |
| 01:09:42.60 | Charlie Francis | No, not because we have until July 31st to make that decision. When you adopt a budget, you adopt an operation plan and direct staff to effectuate that plan. And what I'm hearing is, is that along with the budget adoption, you're asking for staff to delay holding off implementing that part of the budget until after the July 13th meeting. |
| 01:10:07.83 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah, yeah. And then we'll make a decision to give direction at the July 13th meeting. after a full discussion and picture about about how the pension Uh, the full picture of all the different pension payments that we have to make. Okay, so that's my question. |
| 01:10:23.35 | Ian Sobieski | Mayor, I'll speak to you. |
| 01:10:26.04 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Sorry, just for clarification, what you're asking for is we are all in agreement that we will pay off the side fund. You were just raising the question of where the dollars come from for that. approve the budget with the $400,000 savings tonight. |
| 01:10:40.70 | Janelle Kellman | Thank you. |
| 01:10:40.77 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | you |
| 01:10:40.80 | Janelle Kellman | Thank you. |
| 01:10:40.82 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. And then we'll have a further discussion about how we do that. Is that correct? |
| 01:10:45.88 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah, that's what I'm proposing. |
| 01:10:47.38 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 01:10:48.21 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, Council Member Sobieski, did you have a question? |
| 01:10:50.44 | Ian Sobieski | more or less what Susan just said, but just to clarify, you're also asking Charlie to present the but basically amounts to a future forecast |
| 01:10:58.61 | Janelle Kellman | Thank you. |
| 01:10:59.01 | Ian Sobieski | those two scenarios, opinion out of the |
| 01:10:59.03 | Janelle Kellman | Thank you. |
| 01:11:01.76 | Ian Sobieski | trust versus out of the general fund, which will show the point you're making about the interest that we put in the sci-fi. |
| 01:11:07.77 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. Yeah, I mean, the, the, The way the current trust fund is funded is just a math calculation, right? You expect to make X dollars on what's in there now. the defunding it and you're going to lose that that interest that you would have at that amount also is a math calculation. and then whether or not we resume payments into the pension trust fund. at either the current amount or the defunded amount, and then we look and see what the consequences are. to me, it seems to me that the better solution is to pay it just out of general fund instead instead of defunding the pension trust fund. So, Anyway, okay, so I think That issue's on the table. I think we're all in agreement on how to move forward on that issue about how to pay off the side funds that we're going to agree I WANT TO TALK ABOUT you pay it off it's just How are we going to pay it off? And so council member Blousey has her hand up. Thank you. |
| 01:12:03.93 | Melissa Blaustein | a clarifying question on the trust fund and payments into CalPERS. Since we've been making payments into our OPEB fund, when's the last time we made a payment directly to CalPERS? Are we doing that annually, or has that not happened in a while? |
| 01:12:13.55 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. I'm not sure. Thank you. No, annually. And I believe those payments have all been made, but Charlie, you can weigh in on that. |
| 01:12:20.55 | Charlie Francis | Oh, yeah, Kelper's... You have to make those payments. And so the normal cost is paid at each payroll. And I'm not sure how we made the UAL payment last year, either as a lump sum or if we're doing it monthly. But we would be in serious trouble if we weren't making those payments. And you would know about it. |
| 01:12:43.74 | Jill Hoffman | Okay. Okay, thanks. All right, so. Um... Vice Mayor Kelman, do you have some additional questions or shall I move on to other council members? Oh, please move on. Thank you very much. All right, so do we have other questions for Charlie from the other council members? Yes, council member Gloucester. |
| 01:13:03.97 | Melissa Blaustein | Yeah, I had some questions you talked about during your presentation, the importance of a five to 10 year plan for our budget and a strategic plan immediately being necessary. And also about, tracking very closely our economic return and how we're doing in terms of what comes into the parking fund and what comes into TOT. And I'm just curious what sort of projections you've made for different levels of economic return considering that inflation at the national level right now is at 5%, so there's potential for unpredictability for the future of what the general economic trends look like. So do we have forecasting capabilities to consider that? And do we have different scenarios for instance, if something happened and for some reason our gradual return went back to a post COVID scenario? |
| 01:13:49.75 | Charlie Francis | So the short answer is I've started building the model today. And I popular and I used the current year budget as the base year budget. I thrown in some assumptions just to show you that I have begun a model, but I have not started Uh, deep diving on the assumptions that's called financial planning. And that's something that's done collaboratively with the internal management with the city council and with the economic community. And as we go through, we've come soon come to all agree on assumptions. And once we, agree on assumptions in a financial plan, then we're able to, prepare a model that will look like this. After a model is prepared, Then we start saying, what scenarios are, what are the drivers towards uncertainties? And what? scenarios would derive from some of those drivers of uncertainties. And when we then say, Here are three or four scenarios then number one, we can forecast the impact of those scenarios, but more importantly, WE DEVELOP of a trigger or monitor what What's going to trigger that scenario might happen. And what plans are we going to have if that trigger occurs? so that we're ahead of a scenario rather than reacting to a scenario So it's a long and it's an iterative process But the short answer to your question is I've begun to develop the model And now we need to populate it by you know, fleshing out the assumptions. |
| 01:15:31.20 | Melissa Blaustein | Yeah, I mean, I would hope that financial planning was part of our budgeting process. So I'm glad that the model has started, but I'm assuming that this is something that we'll continue to work on. because last year when we were faced with the crisis scenario, we had three potential plans or courses of action, and then we had the opportunity to adjust accordingly based on what happened in our economic trends. So I just, I want us to plan for whatever might happen. And so I appreciate that response and I'm aware that |
| 01:15:49.67 | Unknown | I'm not sure. |
| 01:15:49.73 | Janelle Kellman | Thank you. |
| 01:15:49.84 | Unknown | TO BE ABLE |
| 01:15:59.25 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. the importance of financial planning, to put it that way. Okay, well, I think that was my main The only other thing specifically is that we had listed Bank of America as a revenue source. And I'm just not certain, assuming for instance, we don't select a tenant in the next three to six months. a backup plan or do we know that we can cover what the payments would have been for the Bank of America building? |
| 01:16:25.37 | Charlie Francis | Well, I, I, Here's the reason I put it in there. Number one, it's an asset that's sitting there unused. And there's demand to use the asset right now. There are people who would start to like using it for pop-up events or special events. And so we could start realizing revenue on it. next week. Our RFI process that the council authorized closes in August. Now, depending on the request for ideas and what's out there, There could be a tenant that would say, I'm ready to move in there and start paying you rent. There may be other ideas that are generated that say, You know, we want the city to front load the cost and, you know, you won't receive any rent for a couple of years. And this, and the, so, I just put in the budget that the city council would take the course of action to recognize enough revenue from the asset to cover the debt service until it makes a final and best use decision. |
| 01:17:33.24 | Lily | Okay. |
| 01:17:34.00 | Charlie Francis | That was my thinking. It's a proposal, of course the city council could could say, you know, we don't think we're going to get any revenues. We're not going to make any decisions on it, take the revenues out and the deficit would be bigger. |
| 01:17:46.95 | Melissa Blaustein | Yeah, I just think we need to, and again, these will be continued conversations, obviously with the finance committee, but we need to know what the potentials for revenues are and if it makes sense for what we're allocating within the funds. I appreciate that response. Um, And I think that that was The only other question, I mean, on Friday, many of the council members had mentioned wanting to hear from department heads about the allocations of their respective budgets. So I'm assuming that if we do pass this budget tonight, that's something that we'll still see because some departments had been asked all departments actually have been asked to prepare a 5%, 10%, 15%, and 20% cuts to their budget scenarios. And we didn't necessarily, see any of those options here. And given that we don't know what the economic situation would be, I think it's important to be aware of all of the options in our long-term financial planning. |
| 01:18:35.94 | Charlie Francis | So in the... in the preparation of this budget for 21-22, the departments were not asked to prepare 5, 10, 15, 20%. That was last year. This year they were Yes. continue the same level of service. that you're that you're delivering right now. In other words, the the level of service that was imposed by the budget because of COVID. then prepare a scenario. gradually returning to the level of service that you had before COVID And finally prepare a budget that that resembled the budget that you had before COVID. Those were the three scenarios for the current budget that department heads were asked to prepare. |
| 01:19:26.66 | Jill Hoffman | That's right. And then we added things back in at during our process, we meaning the city council, during our discussions and process. That's why we kind of ended up with a hybrid of those three scenarios, which are reflected on the earlier table that Charlie gave us. |
| 01:19:47.50 | Janelle Kellman | Right. |
| 01:19:48.68 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, council member, Cleveland also Council Member Blassing. Okay, go ahead. Councilor Cleve and I'll |
| 01:19:55.16 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Yeah, just on this slide, thank you for this. And thank you for Councilmember Boston's earlier question. So, you know, it does one thing in the budget that's obviously concerning is that we are relying heavily on the use of one time funds and kind of borrowing ahead from our Measure O. |
| 01:20:08.27 | Unknown | Amen. |
| 01:20:13.10 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Is this kind of financial model that you're starting to develop, Charlie, something that can help you and the city manager kind of plan us out of our structural deficit going forward? |
| 01:20:25.52 | Unknown | you |
| 01:20:28.00 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | is that kind of something that we can get started on now that we're finishing our budget. |
| 01:20:34.85 | Charlie Francis | Oh, absolutely. That's the whole purpose of building the model is that starting in July, as we're starting to realize, you know, our actual results, we'll be able to be able to present to the city council, not only the current year budget to actual, but what the current year budget to actual means for the long-term financial plan. So you'll be able to see a picture of where you stand today and based on the results of today, where you'll |
| 01:21:05.47 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Great. I think this is really our most important next steps, and I am really looking forward to seeing this model progress. |
| 01:21:14.83 | Charlie Francis | And then the model will always be updated in the OpenGov site. So, you know, it'll be transparent to the community as well. |
| 01:21:25.80 | Jill Hoffman | So, okay, any other questions? I have a question about the capital improvements. aspect because we talked about that on Friday. about whether or not we want to approve the capital improvement as part of this budget or if we want to if we want to approve the funds, address. you know, actual what the actual projects will be sometime in July. And so, or, even August. We discussed a little bit about that. Charlie, can you explain the options on that? |
| 01:22:03.21 | Charlie Francis | Uh, Oh, absolutely. Thank you. One option is just to the way the budget ordinance or the budget resolution is written right now is you would be appropriating $5.7 million in the capital improvement plan. And then we could come back in July and allocate those according to which projects and according matching the appropriate revenues to each project. For example, this 2.5 federal grant is matched to ferry terminal. It's like restricted money to a restricted project. Whereas the SB state gas tax funds can be used on that street list that was in your consent calendar and construction impact fee can be used as just about on any road so some of these road projects can be used if we're going to be transferring any money in from the storm drain fund it can be used for storm drain repairs so there's a mixing and matching that has to occur but you could adopt this budget and then we could allocate the revenues to the projects at a later meeting And I'm recommending we do that. |
| 01:23:14.71 | Jill Hoffman | Okay. AND Okay, we have any follow-up questions on that aspect? |
| 01:23:21.75 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | No, I just, Mayor, I would just say I thought we came to sort of a consensus on Friday that we do delays. delay our discussion on the allocation to a future meeting and I would be very supportive of that. It's still, I'm still supportive of that option. |
| 01:23:37.05 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, thank you. |
| 01:23:37.26 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | I think. |
| 01:23:38.82 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, good. Thank you. Okay, moving along then, if there's no further council member questions then, Um, Charlie, this is... This is your presentation and we're ready to move on to public comment. |
| 01:23:52.98 | Charlie Francis | That's quick. |
| 01:23:53.94 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, very good. open this up to public comment. And so I see Uh, Madam Clerk, I'll let you I'll let you call. Um, You know, at this point, I'm feeling like I want to move public. Yeah, okay. We're going to move public comment to two minutes instead of three. because we got a lot of letters and I'm I wanna give us plenty of time to hear everybody. And so, okay, go ahead. Thank you. Madam Clerk, I'll let you call the name. |
| 01:24:31.46 | Heidi Scoble | Thank you, Madam Mayor. We have two hands raised. We have Joan Cox, who will be our first public commenter, then Vicki Nichols. Joan, you've been asked to |
| 01:24:41.26 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 01:24:41.57 | Heidi Scoble | I'm speaking. |
| 01:24:44.38 | Joan Cox | Thank you, Heidi. Good evening again, mayor and council members and Charlie. I cannot tell you how pleased I am that the prior council hired you back to assist us. And you are now assisting the city in this challenging process. I hope you got my voicemail message yesterday. I was attempting to find some time with you after Friday's meeting to better understand some of what you presented. as a path forward then, but you've answered some of those questions this evening. I called you |
| 01:25:14.02 | Charlie Francis | Thank you. |
| 01:25:14.05 | Joan Cox | It's a good day. |
| 01:25:14.14 | Charlie Francis | Joan. |
| 01:25:14.24 | Joan Cox | THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 01:25:15.30 | Charlie Francis | What? They called you back and left a voice message. |
| 01:25:17.91 | Joan Cox | Oh, I didn't get it. Oh, I'm sorry. All right. At any rate, it concerns me that the council is considering a third year in a row of deficit spending. It was, you know, our really, aggressive reserve policy that enabled us to traverse the landslides and then COVID-19 without um in, you know, enduring total disaster. So, and now, you know, we face the threat of a surge in coronavirus cases due to the Delta variant. |
| 01:25:49.39 | Janelle Kellman | you know, |
| 01:25:54.97 | Joan Cox | I agree with council member Cleveland Knowles and former council member with me regarding the importance of planning out planning our way out of a structural deficit. I was also really inspired last year by one of the parks and recreation department employees who described how he could make his position self-sustaining. And I believe the council needs to be creative in identifying other revenue and grant funding resources that will help reduce the outlay necessary to maintain the level of service to which we are accustomed prior to the pandemic. But the thing I most wanted to address was the pensions moving. We adopted a resolution to invest a certain amount each year. And I agree with the mayor that it's really important to confirm. that the levels of savings that we anticipated in 2018 are maintained even as we even if we decide to use the pension fund to pay off the police side fund this year. So I was very happy. Your two minutes has elapsed. All right. Thanks all. Two minutes is not very much. |
| 01:27:11.40 | Heidi Scoble | Vicki Nichols, you've been asked to speak. |
| 01:27:14.64 | Vicki Nichols | Yes, thank you, Council. And thank you, Charlie. I have just a couple of quick points and one question. I would just strongly urge that for the reasons that the mayor has outlined on that pension fund that was thoughtfully set up that that not be used, that that pension funds stay in there, there's revenue benefit for that or savings on interest. I wonder about the slides on the planning department. I didn't see if there's an increase of a new planner. I, that slide went by so quickly. and that would be my question that that department needs to be uh, restored as quickly as possible with employees. I know we're looking to streamline everything but that We don't have that yet and we need real employees to get the work done there. So were there any additions to that? I didn't see the level of planners at a sustainable, staffing level, but I could have looked at it incorrectly. I guess I'm asking for the net change or projections for the CDD department. |
| 01:28:25.82 | Charlie Francis | Madam Mayor, do you want me to quickly answer that? |
| 01:28:28.31 | Vicki Nichols | I'm not sure. |
| 01:28:29.31 | Charlie Francis | Sure. It's going from Five to six, Vicki. And how that's happening is by Uh, eliminating the senior plan there creating a planning manager and then having three assistant planners. So it is five now and it's being proposed to go to six. |
| 01:28:53.59 | Jill Hoffman | Okay. Thanks. All right. Next speaker. |
| 01:29:03.57 | Heidi Scoble | Our next speaker is Wendy Richards. |
| 01:29:07.23 | Wendy Richards | Thank you very much. Good evening, council members. I submitted my comments by letter earlier today, and I would like to reiterate the points I made in the letter It is not... necessary to have a deficit budget. There's a lot of fluff in the budget that can be postponed. and or removed. I identified a few items already that were easily pulled out. And I urge you, to reduce the budget, don't go into deficit, And stop spending money that isn't even going to our streets. I mean, $50,000 for an event? budget for edac edac wouldn't even listen to the business owners who have testified time and time again about the owner of business license tax. that EDAC is supposed to help the businesses and you want to allocate a total of over $300,000 for that. And planning had over a million dollars in consultants I mean, yeah, housing element is a requirement, but it's not a requirement to spend $900,000 on a study. Where, I mean, where are the contract bids? And Charlie, I appreciate your hard work, but I mean, a million three for accounting services? Come on. Why aren't we seeing alternative choices? Why are we not getting second bids? It's not right. Meanwhile, you're still making small business owners in this town Hey! for all these services before they are allowed to pay themselves. More than half of the business license tax filings are from people who have gross receipts of under $200,000. That means they're not even making some of them, maybe 50,000 net or 20 or 80. It's wrong and I urge you to send the budget back Let the city manager reduce the budget Call another meeting next week and approve a balanced budget. Thank you very much. |
| 01:31:17.86 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. Any other speakers, Madam Clerk? |
| 01:31:22.06 | Heidi Scoble | Madam Mayor, we do not have any additional hands that are raised at this time. |
| 01:31:26.21 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, thanks very much. Okay, so it's time for our council discussion. Who wants to go first? Mayor Hoffman, I thought I saw the city manager's hand up. Oh, thank you. Thanks. I don't see it on my screen. City Manager, did you have your hand up? |
| 01:31:44.28 | Chris Zapata | Yeah, when you get done, I just have some closing thoughts that I want to convey to the council, to the public, and to the staff there. |
| 01:31:51.47 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, I think now would be the time. |
| 01:31:53.41 | Chris Zapata | Okay. Okay great. In terms of the budget presentation you know obviously a lot of work has been gone before I got here and thank all the people that got involved in that regard and you know I was glad to see that Charlie included this slide that spoke to Measure O because there were questions about that. THE END OF It hadn't been used for its intended purpose, but you saw the slides that I saw, which said that started occurring this year. I think that needs to change, but we can talk about that at a later date. And we certainly need to account to the public the information that we have with respect to Measure O. regarding the earlier item that was discussed by a resident and you know I'm not happy to learn that our streets here are Payment management index is in the 60s, which is not an A grade, a B grade, or a C grade. It's probably a D grade. and we'll get worse. So I think we need to really talk about that in the near term to make sure that we don't keep losing money and losing our streets. And I really, really want to have a great conversation with you all. about the reserve policies that you have so that we can in fact get on the same page in that regard because it's great that people save a lot of money here. It's been used to get us through these tough times, but at the same time, there are a lot of unmet needs in this city that are growing and becoming more expensive day by day. So those are my thoughts. And again, you know, I thought the vice mayor did a great job in catching the idea that the enterprise funds that are unrestricted may not belong in enterprise funds. So certainly, sewer does, water does, things of that nature, but potentially City Hall replacement fund or a parking fund may not be in that category and we can look at that too. |
| 01:33:27.88 | Janelle Kellman | THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 01:33:34.21 | Chris Zapata | But thank everybody for their hard work. |
| 01:33:36.77 | Jill Hoffman | Okay. Okay, thank you. All right. So who on the council would like to start us off? |
| 01:33:44.28 | Jill Hoffman | Breitmaier. |
| 01:33:45.16 | Janelle Kellman | I'm happy to jump in. I thank you for indulging. I just had two questions for Charlie. One was at the last meeting we talked about the list of consultants. And if you had a summary of consultant spend, that we could compare to last year. I didn't know if you had an opportunity to pull that together. |
| 01:34:00.87 | Charlie Francis | Oh, Vice Mayor, I had presented a list of all of the professional services contracts in an earlier City Council budget review meeting. I THINK IT'S A LOT OF |
| 01:34:12.36 | Janelle Kellman | I'm sorry. |
| 01:34:13.95 | Charlie Francis | Yeah. |
| 01:34:13.97 | Janelle Kellman | Yeah. |
| 01:34:14.94 | Charlie Francis | And- |
| 01:34:15.32 | Janelle Kellman | Great, and sort of whomever recalls that, if you could tell me the amount, that would be super helpful. |
| 01:34:21.80 | Charlie Francis | I'll forward it to you. |
| 01:34:23.38 | Janelle Kellman | Wonderful, thank you. And then the second thing I would love the council to have conversation around, to Wendy Richards point around some of the studies that are allocated in the planning department, I wish that Lily were here for us to maybe ask her about those, certainly some things that are required and we do want more staff and we do need to you know, comply with the housing element mandate, but I didn't quite follow some of the substantive around some of the studies, a study to implement the general plan Oh, it looks like maybe Lily is here. So if you can, In foremost, I would very much appreciate it. |
| 01:35:02.47 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Also while we're waiting for that person Vice Mayor Kielman, that was in our implementation plan at the end of the general plan, you might remember that index. We suggested several studies that would, and dollar amounts that would need to move that forward. |
| 01:35:17.65 | Janelle Kellman | Yes, and thank you for reminding me of that. I guess I'm wondering whether we, We want to include that in this budget and you're absolutely right, Council Member Cleveland Knowles. And then similarly, I think Mayor Hoffman, maybe I asked you or you asked me about the spend on the housing element contract, whether that could be trunched or whether we had to do the 900K upfront Um, so maybe uh lily if you wouldn't mind just some more color um per council member cleveland knows comment about the studies for general planning implementation what would happen if we do not include those in the budget this year. And then the housing element and the tranches for payment. |
| 01:35:56.40 | Lily | Good evening, council members and Madam Mayor, public. I'm happy to be here tonight. Thank you for the question. So if I understand correctly, the first question is regarding the general plan implementation line item. of the $75,000. if that is necessary for this upcoming fiscal year or not. So I think that we, Um, We could potentially get by with a little bit less allocation, but we do, we should earmark some money to start for general plan implementation. The work that needs to start is migrating the um the marine ship specific plan over into the zoning ordinance and that work that needs to be done. And so that should get started pretty soon. The $75,000 was a guess right now as far as what we would need to do that work. something less to get that started, I think would get us by. We could reevaluate mid year and let the council know. what additional monies would be needed to continue the work for the fiscal year. |
| 01:37:03.17 | Janelle Kellman | I guess, sorry, if I could just clarify, I mean, so, your department is extremely busy and I'm very happy to see that we're adding another staff member for you. I guess what I'm wondering is if we make the allocation, do you really have the bandwidth to either manage it or carry out And so I'm not at all disputing the necessity of these long term. I'm just trying to figure out, do they have to be included in this budget or can we punt it? |
| 01:37:27.61 | Lily | Yeah, thank you for clarifying. So with that clarification, yes, I would have the capacity to get started on that work with the request that we've made for the planning manager position. And that would take some load off of me so I could focus on these more long range priorities that we need to accomplish in the upcoming fiscal years. |
| 01:37:52.26 | Janelle Kellman | Great. I think this will help all of that. |
| 01:37:53.21 | Lily | And then they're the question also sorry vice mayor about the um the spend for the housing element allocation i might transfer that question actually off to charlie because i think he has a better understanding of how that needs or can be allocated over the next couple of years |
| 01:37:55.11 | Janelle Kellman | THE QUESTION. |
| 01:38:11.57 | Janelle Kellman | Thank you, and thank you for making the time. |
| 01:38:12.97 | Jill Hoffman | you Thank you. |
| 01:38:13.47 | Janelle Kellman | Appreciate it. |
| 01:38:13.86 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. Yeah, I did ask the question about the contract to Mr. Francis earlier today. He was kind enough to give me a response. So go, Charlie. I did not have time there. but we didn't have time to get it out to the rest of the council. |
| 01:38:28.39 | Charlie Francis | Yeah, technically you can't, issue a contract without a concomitant budget appropriation. Right. So, you know, you can say, okay, contracts for this, but you don't have a budget appropriation unless you have something in the contract that says if the second year, the budget appropriation isn't given the contract is canceled. I was... |
| 01:38:54.36 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah. But to follow up, it's not like we're paying in advance. We'll make the payments. you know, as required when we move through, correct. And then the budget, as we go, move through the budget and reconciliation, it will show up. |
| 01:39:10.29 | Ian Sobieski | correct. |
| 01:39:10.97 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah, okay. |
| 01:39:11.66 | Ian Sobieski | But just to drill down on that, Charlie, just to take a fanciful though perhaps hope for possibility imagine we appeal arena number and it five units instead of 742 units. then the scope of the housing element effort will be substantially changed presumably then the billings to our consultant would be curtailed substantially. Is that correct? |
| 01:39:40.31 | Charlie Francis | That's correct. And then we were doing an amendment to the contract and and we could reduce the appropriation |
| 01:39:46.77 | Ian Sobieski | And we can do that as, we're not obliged In other words, the vendor doesn't have the ability to veto that change. |
| 01:39:54.64 | Charlie Francis | Right. |
| 01:39:56.95 | Jill Hoffman | Okay. Okay. Thanks. Any other, any other? Questions for the staff before we move on to our comments and then a motion. Maybe. perhaps. Okay. All right. So who wants to start us off with comments? |
| 01:40:11.77 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | I can start. Sure. So I just want to appreciate all the work that went into this and especially our meeting on Friday. I think that really helped clarify and get us to a point where we can move forward with the budget adoption tonight. And I'm in favor of the budget as proposed by the city manager and our finance director. I am definitely in favor as we talked about earlier, paying off the police side fund, realizing that we are gonna have a different |
| 01:40:32.74 | Unknown | And definitely, |
| 01:40:39.98 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | discussion about where that money will come from. And I'm really pleased to see that because of that and some savings in the police department that we've reduced the amount fund balance that we are spending down to just about 900 $6,000. That's still a significant amount. And I think we still do need to get to work immediately as the Mr. Francis talked about with reducing or addressing our structural deficit, but I am comfortable with that level of spending, given that we are still kind of in our third year that COVID has affected our budget. I'm very pleased, as we talked about earlier, that our employees are both out of furlough, that we are honoring our cost of living adjustments for both of our unions, our major unions, I'm very pleased that we are bringing back key staff in key departments, including our recreation and park department, our planning department, and our library. I really want to thank the employees and the residents that made extensive comments in these areas. Um, and really. grateful to see that the services that matter to our residents in those areas are going to be returned specifically our children's librarian, a lot of our important recreation and park department programming that our residents rely on and that are actually revenue generating. I am also glad that we were able to incorporate into our budget the maintenance of our newly renovated parks and some key tree planting and want to thank our partner at Sausalito Beautiful for also contributing to that. cost. I think I'm very optimistic, cautiously optimistic about the return of our revenue and our projections. I hope that as we continue to evaluate our spending that we'll see those numbers realized and exceeded. I know one member of the public commented on the variance. So I don't think we're completely out of the woods, but I am. optimistic on our economic recovery and I think our projections in the budget our sound. As we also talked about tonight, I'm excited to start kind of our long-term planning process Mr. Francis talked about with the five to 10 year financial plan, getting back finally to our strategic plan, our two-year budgeting system and really drilling down on our capital improvement. process. So I think the most important next steps are to talk about long-term structural reform. And then lastly, I would just say, you know, I think our city manager also highlighted this, that we, that we need to make sure that next year we are investing back into our local infrastructure and assume that we can start doing now i'd like to talk about measure o reauthorization i think that's um |
| 01:43:50.87 | Unknown | home. |
| 01:43:54.58 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | something we've need to put on our, I think it's in our strategic plan, but needs to be on our to-do list. So anyway, thank you to everyone I WANT TO TALK ABOUT |
| 01:44:03.17 | Janelle Kellman | Thank you. |
| 01:44:04.44 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | possible and I'm definitely ready to move it forward tonight. |
| 01:44:08.00 | Janelle Kellman | Thank you. |
| 01:44:08.03 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | and then others are. Thank you. |
| 01:44:12.94 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. Who would like to go next? gonna call on somebody unless I hear it, see it. Okay. Councilor Blaustein, you're smiling. I knew you were going to call on me because I was smiling, so that's okay. |
| 01:44:25.99 | Melissa Blaustein | So that's okay. I'm here next, then the vice mayor, then me. OK, great. Well, this has certainly been a challenging 18 months for our community. And I think that the challenges in our budget reflect that. We have all suffered from level of service changes and from what we have available in our community. And I just really want to thank the community for your engagement and your input around this budgeting process. We received a lot of letters of concern for a number of topics, everything from the children's librarian to you know, infrastructure to streets. And that's just a testament to what an engaged community we have. And there were a lot of really great ideas from members of the public that I really want to see us pursue. There are even members of the public who commissioned their own benchmarking study to help us with our processes. So people really stepped up and I really appreciate that. And that extends as well to the staff and the hundreds of hours that Charlie put into that Interim Finance Director Francis put into this budget for us. So I really appreciate that. And I appreciate the new city manager's work on getting us to where we need to be. I echo council member Cleveland Knowles' comments that I'm really happy to see us respond to the community's concerns and do things like return the events because we receive an outpouring of concern from the public. And these are all revenue generating events that are really positive for us and for our bottom line. And they're also part of what makes our community so special and so great. And I for one cannot wait to go back to jazz and blues by the Bay. And I and Councilmember Sobieski was so enthusiastic about it on Friday that he even offered to help fund it himself. So it seems like everyone in the community is really on board. and excited about all of that. We're also gonna see a children's librarian back at the library and the library's really a cornerstone of our community. And we were able to grant Saucelito Beautiful's request. That's really the positive. The negative here is that in order to do that, we are in a situation where we are passing a budget with a deficit. And thanks to interim finance director, Francis, it's a less of a deficit than we had anticipated. We're at a $900,000. Number. And unfortunately, I'm less enthusiastic about an immediate economic return, and I want to be looking at our trends and setting up, uh, basically a more sound financial planning scenario for a variety of different possibilities because I want us to be Prepared. And the reason that I asked so much about what our planning and preparation is, is because I'm aware and looking at this deficit budget and in looking at where we are spending and what we can consistently do going forward, that we are going to have to make hard structural cuts and we are going to have to get started right now on having some of those conversations So I was, you know, somewhat disappointed to see to not see a presentation of five, 10 or 15% potentials for cuts as we think about how we might consolidate some departments. The benchmarking study did demonstrate that there are areas where we're spending more than in other communities, but part of that is because those communities have consolidated police, for instance. And so that's something that I think we might have to consider going forward, where we can save money and where we can do less to have less of a deficit going forward. But I think we absolutely immediately need to get to work on this five and 10 year strategic plan. I'm really excited about what that looks like. I think we've got a good team in place to make that happen. And I also am concerned about the measure O dollars and I wanna make sure we're doing the work to get our CIP where it needs to be as well. So I think This is actually, I'm ready to approve the budget as it's been proposed, but I think this is the beginning of a lot of hard work and a lot of ongoing conversations about how we can create structural changes within our budget and have more efficiency and higher efficiency. Um, higher efficiency in our level of service as a community. And that's going to be a lot of tough conversations, but I'm really appreciative. to everyone who attended these meetings, who provided community input, who worked on the budget, and who worked together on this. like I said, hundreds of hours of work. So thank you very much. |
| 01:48:28.30 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, thanks. |
| 01:48:28.80 | Melissa Blaustein | you |
| 01:48:28.97 | Jill Hoffman | Council Member Sobieski. |
| 01:48:31.22 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you Mayor. I'll be brief since that, I echo what my colleagues have said and I'm sure what they will say, Vice Mayor will say. I'd just like to highlight for people that did not |
| 01:48:50.64 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 01:48:51.57 | Jill Hoffman | Councilmember Sobieski, you were putting out there for a second. |
| 01:48:55.92 | Ian Sobieski | Okay. Well, then I'll just say, I'll be brief, but I was just saying that the, uh, For those who did not attend the Friday meeting, the Friday special meeting that the city staff and city manager have responded to the call that Councilmember Blasstein described And we will be going each month, one department a month, doing a review of their operations and their ambitions. about how to do more with less. And there is a need to attend to our structural imbalance and to . But also, I think we can be ambitious in actually increasing our level of service uh, while also doing that. I do want to emphasize something I may not accept clearly on Friday, which is I know that our employees have worked very hard under a very stressful circumstance over these over this past year and in general serve our community. And so what I'm saying, do more with less I'm really talking about helping empower our employees to make their work more manageable and make their employment more delightful. on the, I think our ambition shouldn't be just to have, be a model. of municipal excellence in terms of governance, but also it'd be awesome if we could set the ambition for South Salido to be a place that everybody wants to go to work in Marin County. So I would love for our review of The department's not to be just about bean counting, but really about organizational ideas of empowering our employees and thinking about scopes of |
| 01:50:34.49 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:50:39.45 | Ian Sobieski | responsibilities for the departments so that we can improve productivity. Practic productivity goes up, morale goes up and more when morale goes up, productivity will go up and that's how we're going to get to do more with less. So – With that little rah-rah, I just had one question for the city manager since Melissa teed it up for me so well. Since we approved the budget can Can we start with just the simple music in the park A week from Friday, by simply putting some risers in the park and hiring a band, not setting up tables and inviting everyone to come out with a blanket to kick off the Fourth of July weekend with a concert in the park, even if it's Not exactly the way we've done it in the past, maybe as a model. We're doing things differently. |
| 01:51:23.78 | Chris Zapata | Thank you. Yep. what's the date council member sobieski |
| 01:51:27.98 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. I believe that's Friday the 2nd. And so I think that's a good ask from Council Member Sobieski. I don't know if our city manager respond to that on the fly. But what he can do is, is talk to the parks and rec and see if we can get that together and then put that out to the city through the, via Is that good enough? |
| 01:51:51.67 | Ian Sobieski | Certainly for me, that's correct. I actually wanted to say anything. |
| 01:51:54.83 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, is that good for you, Mr. Zapata? |
| 01:51:58.95 | Chris Zapata | Yes, it's good enough for me. We'll work on it. |
| 01:52:01.07 | Jill Hoffman | Okay. Okay, good, thanks. Okay, moving on to Vice Mary Kelman and I like your tenacity Councilmember Sobieski. |
| 01:52:11.60 | Janelle Kellman | Well said, I actually just really want to commend my fellow council members. We spent a lot of time reading of different versions and looking at different scenarios. At one point there were 27 different and thanks to the board and the board. Mr. Francis, we got them down to three to really evaluate. And I echo whomever said that that three and a half hour meeting on Friday was incredibly helpful. But that was in addition to finance meetings and one-on-ones with both Charlie and Mr. Zapata. Great, great work to my colleagues. I think we really did a nice job of weighing everything. I also I found this process, my first council budget to be really interesting from a community building perspective, because I think it was an amazing opportunity to hear what the community is passionate about and what makes Sausalito so special for members of our community. And I think that was clearly articulated to us during this budget process. I hope and I think we really tried to listen and do what we could. I'm also really happy to see some of the staffing improvements that we were able to work with SEIU, certainly to make sure the Community Development Department has the staff and an extra person is really just, I think, a move in the right direction. I'll just finish by saying, I think there's a couple of things calendar moving forward that we should start thinking about. We I am optimistic about revenue because I think our revenues are strong. I think our expenses require further delineation. And although Central Marin does cover one or two of the cities on the benchmarking, that's the only shared police. So we really do need to spend some time understanding where those expenses come from. I think we probably deserve an audit of Measure F. so we can understand kind of how some of the deficit was created and where those monies went so we can have some lessons learned. I also would like to see us focus on infrastructure. over the next fiscal year to the extent we can, and we're going to in the capital improvement program. um and i know that mr zapata's passion about paving our streets. So I'm happy to have him at the helm on that as well. And then I also want to look at our long-term debt obligations, not just the pensions, but the various, the COPs, the general obligation bonds. I want to have a really good sense of the debt obligations for our community so we can have that future planning, that five, 10 year horizon we've been talking about. So I'll just say great job, everybody. Thank you for all the dialogue. And I am also prepared to move forward. on approval with the asterisks that I would prefer to see that five, $600,000 in the parking fund, actually in the general fund. I haven't heard anybody say why we need that much money to pay parking lots? but I I'm not going to battle that right now so I could, I can go ahead and do that. |
| 01:54:57.23 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, thank you. Okay, obviously, Thank you to the tremendous lift that we've had with our staff and with Mr. Francis and our interim interim city manager, Marsha Raines during this time period. So, the where we were when we took over in January and looked at our finance department and looked at the state that our budget was in to being able to get here today has been a tremendous lift. And we're gonna talk a little bit more about that about the challenges that we've had and why we have the necessity of hiring an outside finance director at the tune of about 1.3 million in our next item. So I'm going to call on Mr. Francis to explain and provide a basis for the public about why we're taking that extraordinary step. And so I think to me, and what we've achieved in the last six months is truly incredible. And I think part of this relates back to the decision in 2018 to eliminate the finance director. position in our city staff. that this is the result of that. The challenges that we have right now is direct result of that decision. I was the only no vote at that time for the elimination of the finance director position in 2018. I'm very pleased with where we're at. I'm very pleased that we have Mr. Francis with us with his institutional knowledge in a way that only he can provide because of the position that he was here prior to PRIOR TO YOU. 2017. And so he's gotten us, I think, back on track. He's repopulated some of our outward facing programs and transparency programs that had not been populated in several years. And then, as we've been discussing getting us moving forward on a more comprehensive financial plan. I am in favor of the budget as proposed. generally you know obviously none of us are happy I think that we're in a deficit spend budget This to me, this should be the last year that we ever consider a deficit spend budget. Again, we had some extraordinary circumstances. that we're recovering from. We're back on the right path. I feel. And so we need to keep moving forward. Um, I am in favor of paying off the side fund as we discussed, but we have to have a full picture of our pension debt and our, our prior efforts with regard to the pension trust fund and moving forward on how we pay off that side fund. I was in favor of paying off the side fund in 2015. The CIP, I agree we should take a look at that in a more holistic manner after we pass this budget. So I'm glad that we are all in agreement. totally agree that we need to look at measure O. and and honor the commitment that we made when that was passed that that's going to be capital improvements and i also want to remind you know, all of us that Um, when we talk about our pension, you know, the pension, response measures that we took back in 2018, part of that was when we adjusted the business license tax and the TOT tax was that those extra revenues were going to be used to pay into the pension trust fund. And so that was one of the, um, One of the justifications that we made for these adjustments to the business license tax and the TOT. And so I don't believe that we've been doing that as we indicated that we would. And in context of the justification for those increases. So I think we need to take a look at that as well. So we need to look at the measure O and we also need to look at the revenues, increased revenues from the business tax and the TOT. Um, I think we need to take very strong look, as we've all actually said, that take a strong look at how we do business, where can we become more efficient and what savings and efficiencies that we can build in in the context of a better run, better managed and better, um, a better city overall, both for the workers who work for us and for the residents. And so that to me is the prime Um, the prime impetus for our efforts in the next six months. Certainly as we look at our, revisit a strategic plan and with our CIP so I'm very pleased with where we are right now. I think we're changing direction in a very positive way and we need to keep moving forward on this course of action. So thank you, Mr. Francis. I appreciate all of your hard work and your contribution that you've made in the past months and then I hope to see in the next, um, six months to a year. Thank you. So if anybody has a motion they would like to make, I think we would entertain it. |
| 01:59:52.10 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 01:59:52.17 | Jill Hoffman | Bye. |
| 01:59:52.29 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | I can Could our city attorney, can we make all three motions that we have on the floor in our staff report together? so that we could take one boat. |
| 02:00:03.95 | Mary Wagner | Yes, if your motion clearly includes all three that are listed in your staff report, I think that's fine. |
| 02:00:09.67 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Great. so i will make a motion to approve the appropriation limit for FY 2021-22 pursuant to Article 13B of the California Constitution, the GAN limit Resolution two, to establish the authorized staffing levels and salary ranges for all permanent and temporary positions for fiscal year 2018. 21, 22. and approving the budget for the 2021-22 fiscal year. Thank you. |
| 02:00:39.88 | Jill Hoffman | Right. |
| 02:00:39.95 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Yeah. |
| 02:00:39.96 | Jill Hoffman | THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 02:00:40.16 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Yeah. |
| 02:00:40.37 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 02:00:40.45 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 02:00:40.47 | Jill Hoffman | you Second. Anybody? |
| 02:00:44.16 | Wendy Richards | Thank you. |
| 02:00:44.18 | Jill Hoffman | Again. Bye. Thank you. Madam Clerk, could you please take the roll? I'm sorry. |
| 02:00:50.04 | Heidi Scoble | Council member Sobieski. |
| 02:00:51.54 | Janelle Kellman | Thank you. |
| 02:00:51.56 | Joan Cox | Yes. |
| 02:00:51.94 | Janelle Kellman | Thank you. |
| 02:00:52.53 | Heidi Scoble | Council Member Blas-Steam. |
| 02:00:54.14 | Joan Cox | Yes. |
| 02:00:55.23 | Heidi Scoble | Council member Cleveland Knowles. |
| 02:00:56.97 | Joan Cox | Yeah. |
| 02:00:57.29 | Heidi Scoble | you Vice Mayor Kelman. Thank you. Yes. Mayor Hoffman. Yes. |
| 02:01:08.73 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, and so the motion passes 5-0. Very good, excellent work everybody. Okay, moving on to our next item on the agenda. which is item seven, oops, sorry. |
| 02:01:30.30 | Jill Hoffman | Hold on a second. Sorry, apologies. |
| 02:01:47.14 | Jill Hoffman | which is item 7A, sorry, our, outsource financial management contract and Mr. Francis will also be giving that report |
| 02:01:57.67 | Charlie Francis | Thank you mayor, thank you city council. Oops. |
| 02:02:07.38 | Charlie Francis | And stop video, there we go. So this is the agenda item is to consider the virtual gov CFO Company as your outsource financial management for the city of Sausalito. the services that are being proposed. are the complete strategic financial management of the city. And what you will get from those services are restoring the fiscal integrity and trust of the finance department. that will ensure timely and accurate financial reports, all the reporting compliance from the federal state and our local regulations that we have, including it also include managing the process of migrating Springbrook to the cloud. And then finally implementing and introducing long-term financial planning. Now to do this I need a team. So for the past few months the VirtualGov CFO has been providing services of just kind of managing the day-to-day activities of the finance department, introducing some new business processes to, you know, to keep the backlog of reconciliations from increasing. And as well as we've been using the services of a retired CalPERS annuitant to help with getting our cash reconciliations up to date. We've also been using the services of Ide Bailey to provide additional support services. And, And what we're proposing in this contract is to bring many resources together, three firms, and about six or seven people. I'm not going to be able to do that. providing 500 hours of work from July through December and an optional 500 hours of work from January of June of next year, if the city chooses to exercise the option. Stone Municipal Group, gentleman by the name of Adam Stone to be the finance director person, the person who oversees the day-to-day operations as well as overseeing the activities of Ide Bailey where we have Kristen West, Chad Hess, and a team of their people from junior people to more senior people. helping with the reconciliations with the audits, they would be providing levels of work in phases from July, through December, in-depth discovery and documentation of the goals, goal setting and planning with myself and the finance director detail the projects that need to be implemented in order to get, you know, that lean mean accounting machine back in place where we can count on timely and accurate financial reports. They will actually oversee the day-to-day financial operations and assistant staff training and supervision. They'll be preparing the year-end accruals and the audit preparation, proposing more business process improvements and contributing to continuing the development of our financial policy manual. If the city elects to... continue our services from January to June. They'll not only do that, but they'll complete audits, assistance, state controllers reporting, the system budget, and more importantly, system all the strategic planning. The ERP cloud implementation, is a process where you know we're going to receive discount pricing if we execute the contract prior to june 30th and that discount pricing you know will allow us to stay within the current budget that we have for Springbrook software as a service fees we need to develop a project plan and design a new chart of accounts a chart of accounts that that helps us to better account for all of the activities. We'll have trainings, importing data, going through development, doing some testing and then finally deploy the new software. And of course, a long term financial planning to restore structural balance is a process to where we mobilize resources, we do analysis, start making decisions and then adopt next year's budget that implements the long term financial planning. of projects. So, and as I mentioned earlier, I've started on that already by by developing the long-term financial model prototype, Um, productize and deploy through, you know, not only our open gov site, but through some of our power BI opportunities we have now. So why do you need all this? That's the question. And I just want to go through a little bit of history, not to cast aspersions, but to show that we've gone through some rough periods where when I left in 2015, we had an interim finance director for four months There are Amen. just the interruption and the, and the non-communication that was offered to the interim finance director and subsequently to the new one If you have any questions of how we did it last year, Call me, implement me, talk to me. Instantly, the institutional knowledge was lost and the opportunity to tap into it was not exercised by the subsequent Oh. people that occupied the position. And as a result, some of the strategical and tactical plans and actions that were put in place were dropped. I mean, one example of that was, is just the, this, you know, referring back to the policy that was developed back in 2018 about pension trust fund payments was dropped in between when the policy was developed and when it was implemented and there was a missed pension trust fund payment. It was actually mid late. So that's what happens during transitions. And so, part of restoring that is I'm coming back in here and we want to institutionalize these processes back again. but also to prepare a succession plan. So that succession plan could be, you might want to continue outsource financial management into the future. It's the new wave of providing contemporary long-term financial management strategies. Or you may want to transition to the more traditional having an in-house financial management team. Whichever direction you take, we will prepare that transition policy for you. And what I'm trying to say is that all of the services I'm proposing here is more or less a one-time effort. When we're through, you would be able to to return to a financial management structure, whether outsourced or in-house, that is in line with what you're typically and I think that's a good question. the current condition of the, the finance department, I would call it rather fragile for being able to continue to produce debits and credits and timing and accurate financial reports. Because with the budget that was just passed, full-time accounting technician, who's formerly a recreation supervisor, and by the way i just give lots of credit to she did that job amazingly well I would give anything for her to stay in finance and not go back to be a recreation supervisor. But that's where her heart is, that's where her passion is, that's where the community needs her. So, you know, we all wish her well. She just did a wonderful job as this full-time, but she's leaving. Right now, working with her is a part-time contract technician. He's only got three months tenure in there. But I have to say he's done a wonderful job of learning things quick. Julie did a great job of training him as well as our retired annuitant helping And he is one of the candidates for the two senior accounting technicians that you just approved in your budget. So, you know, we're actively recruiting and hopefully we'll have in place two accounting technicians ready to be trained by the first week in July. As I mentioned, we have a retired annuitant, but CalPERS is going to be, adjusting its rules on how long a retired annuitant can work. And so she would be leaving. And we have a recent new hire of a senior accountant. I'm very excited about her working with us because she has lots of experience in helping, you know, to transform our finance department into, you know, |
| 02:11:04.66 | Chris Zapata | long ago. |
| 02:11:21.25 | Charlie Francis | what a lean mean accounting machine if you will and then we have Heather who I can't say enough about our tenured management analyst analyst and you know she was instrumental in preparing this budget document and putting everything together so we have strength we have weaknesses we have opportunities we have threats uh, We're restoring the institutional knowledge. going to be correcting this broken system of record by implementing new business processes. We'll have timely and accurate financial reports and our strategic planning will bring us back to a structural balance, or at least a plan to get us back to structural balance. So I'm excited about this opportunity. I'm excited and very happy I'm grateful that the city manager and the city council is really is considering the services that I'm proposing over the next year. And, um, and that's what I'm bringing is this team. So the item before you today is to you know, approve a six-month contract, with a virtual gov CFO. to provide these services, a six-month contract with an option to renew for another six months. |
| 02:12:35.31 | Jill Hoffman | So Charlie, I have a follow-up question on this slide alone. So just for clarification, some of the things that you found when you came to us in January, that were that, There was a failure to produce. basic reconciliation since 2019? Is that what you've told us that in the past at Finance Committee meetings and on Friday? Is that correct? |
| 02:12:59.76 | Charlie Francis | Yeah, that the last, what I call a clean bank reconciliation, where there wasn't an item on the bank reconciliation that said unreconciled items, was November of 2019. So we went back to November of 2019 and have brought those reconciliations up to date through May. |
| 02:13:18.85 | Jill Hoffman | And about how long did it take you guys to do that? |
| 02:13:21.70 | Charlie Francis | So from January through now, but that was a dedicated retired annuitant who I pulled and said, This is what I want you to work on, and here's how I want you to do it. Yeah. |
| 02:13:34.44 | Jill Hoffman | And another failure was that at one point we had missed payroll in January. Is that correct? |
| 02:13:39.64 | Charlie Francis | of, You know, I don't think we missed payroll, but what happened was payroll entries into the general ledger were being batched. So the fact that we were not After December 31st, the next Entry into the accounting system was three months worth of payroll. You know, we pay bi-weekly so that that was you know, how do you can't reconcile a bank statement if you're not posting it into your system of record |
| 02:14:10.10 | Jill Hoffman | I recall that we were told at one point that we had missed payroll, even though the money was there, that it hadn't been done. |
| 02:14:17.49 | Charlie Francis | Yeah, it could very well be. When I started in January, I was assigned to special projects, not to operating the finance department. |
| 02:14:27.61 | Jill Hoffman | Okay. There were other failures as well with regard to the finance department, I don't see the point at this point into going into all of those, we could. But I think that it's clear that why we need a contract of this magnitude at this point in time and the benefit to the people of South Slado for going forward for this. But you have to understand sort of where we're at and how we got here. and how we don't ever want to go back down that path again. So, Um, I suppose. Is this your last slide? It looks like you have two more slides. |
| 02:15:06.34 | Charlie Francis | Oh, it's the last side I was really going to talk to again. I just... |
| 02:15:10.26 | Jill Hoffman | Okay. |
| 02:15:10.93 | Charlie Francis | If you wanted to review history, I had history slide, but |
| 02:15:14.22 | Jill Hoffman | Well, go ahead and let's see the history slide. |
| 02:15:16.79 | Charlie Francis | Oh, well this one is just kind of, it shows better here. So, It's just a wonderful story of what strategic long-term financial planning will do for you. In 2009, when the recession hit, City Manager asked me to prepare a plan to close City Hall one day a week to stop all capital spending, to open up the labor agreements and abrogate them because we were scheduled to give everyone a pay increase on July 1st of 2009. How can we do that when everyone else is laying off people? And I said, let me do a forecast and let's do some strategic planning. So actually, my forecast actually looked like this. And I said, Adam, we have to give those pay increases that we promised everyone to give because we're going to be asking for concessions as we go through this recession. And by the way, we have money in the special revenue funds that we can unleash and have the Sausalito Economic Development Program since we knew we weren't going to get any President Obama's economic development program money. And then I said, but we're reaching an inflection point. I call these inflection points when you can forecast that your expenses are driving up more rapidly than your revenues. And the primary driver at that time was our labor costs were out of control and our fire department overtime was out of control. And so, THE FAMILY. implementing a labor cost reform program and by out getting the neighboring district to annex the fire district where we gave away more expenses than we gave away property tax over two years manifested and giving us a million dollars surplus. That strategic financial long-term financial planning had the stages I just put in that previous slide. where we mobilized and analyzed, we made decisions, we executed on our long-term financial plan, and we had a period of financial resiliency as well as prosperity in the community. But here, is where we started seeing our expenses exceeding our revenue growth. That was when leading to an inflection point. That's where the long-term financial planning, if it had been continued, would have identified a future inflection point. And then the longterm financial planning would result in you know, let's anticipate this and get ahead of it. |
| 02:17:47.18 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:17:47.28 | Janelle Kellman | Thank you. |
| 02:17:47.33 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:17:49.00 | Charlie Francis | rather than you know, reacting to it. So that was, just some of the history of, How? impactful. what I call strategic financial management and planning is for an organization. |
| 02:18:06.84 | Jill Hoffman | Thanks. Uh, okay. |
| 02:18:09.03 | Janelle Kellman | that. |
| 02:18:10.42 | Charlie Francis | Does that... |
| 02:18:10.43 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 02:18:10.45 | Janelle Kellman | Exactly. |
| 02:18:10.89 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 02:18:10.97 | Janelle Kellman | Thank you. |
| 02:18:11.41 | Janelle Kellman | Second future. Mayor Hoffman, you see Mr. Zabata's hand up? Yes. |
| 02:18:17.96 | Chris Zapata | Yeah, Mayor, Councilor, if I may, and Charlie, you can indulge me on this one. What did Measure O come into effect? Because that's about 1.2 million new dollars coming to the city. |
| 02:18:21.60 | Charlie Francis | What did Major O'Connor do? |
| 02:18:26.45 | Chris Zapata | What year did that come into play in that chart? |
| 02:18:28.07 | Charlie Francis | 15, 16, you can start to see the, I think it was the first year that measure O came in. And you can see the growth from here to here. Thank you. you |
| 02:18:38.85 | Chris Zapata | Thank you. |
| 02:18:39.15 | Charlie Francis | Thank you. |
| 02:18:42.16 | Jill Hoffman | Okay. So any questions from council members on this presentation? Not seeing any, okay. Then moving on to public comment. Oh, what's the, hold on, council member Black, |
| 02:18:58.04 | Melissa Blaustein | I'll see now, go ahead. |
| 02:18:59.52 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 02:18:59.54 | Melissa Blaustein | Just had a quick question, just kind of more to clarify for the public, because I know that 1.3 is certainly a daunting number and i know that our city manager worked hard to work with interim finance director francis on a six-month review so what are the requirements for notification of of the review at the six-month mark would you need to know by month five for instance whether or not we intend to review what is what are the considerations for or benchmarks for deciding if we're going to review just so that we have all that information now as we make this decision. |
| 02:19:33.35 | Chris Zapata | extend it to that. Am I on? |
| 02:19:36.61 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah, Mr. Zapata, your honor, or Mr. Francis. |
| 02:19:39.99 | Chris Zapata | Yeah, I can take a step at that. Yeah, I think that one of the things that is clear is that Virtual.gov can offer you a lot of services to invest in stability and transition here. it's quite expensive. So Mr. Francis and I and his partners agreed that this was the best approach was to see if we could, in fact, put together a hybrid proposal which you have in front of you But the fact of the matter is, is I intend to start recruiting as Mr. Francis alluded to. We have people we're recruiting right now. to make sure that sometime in November, We have a team in place that can transition into December working with VirtualGov so that January 1st, the keys to the finance department can be turned over. And hopefully we can continue to do the work that's been started, clean up stuff that needs cleaning up, and save some money going forward for the next six months of the year. I also intend to make sure that I talk to our auditors, Mays and Associates, because when you start hearing some things that I'm hearing now, that's disturbing, and I want to know from our auditors what, in fact, they saw and what they may see going forward in the audit that's going to be happening this year. And certainly, I want to talk to our sales tax consultant to see what their ideas are about trends in terms of revenues in the future. But, yeah, my approach would be to make sure that we have the... |
| 02:20:46.10 | Janelle Kellman | Thank you. |
| 02:20:46.25 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:21:00.40 | Chris Zapata | services and stability and certainly the institutional knowledge of Mr. Francis and his team for the next six months, but that we look at going to a more traditional less costly finance department come January 1st. |
| 02:21:18.89 | Jill Hoffman | All right, any other questions before we move on to public comment? Very well, let's move on to public comment. on the side of them. |
| 02:21:32.16 | Heidi Scoble | Madam Mayor, we have one hand that is raised. Wendy Richards. Wendy, I've asked to unmute you. |
| 02:21:39.07 | Wendy Richards | Surprise, surprise, right? |
| 02:21:39.16 | Heidi Scoble | Rides the Frog. |
| 02:21:42.50 | Wendy Richards | So first of all, thank you to the new city manager. I am pleased to hear that there is a plan to transition to a dedicated team. And I want to also ask where is that in the budget? That would mean double costs for November and December make sure that that's captured somewhere in that budget that was just approved And perhaps you can take some savings from some of those consultant projects that were uh, So we have a question about the Yep. Bye. at. but more broadly to council members, as the public, myself and many other people are extremely shocked that there has been no alternative presented to us. neither for this nor for the legal contract that you passed a couple of meetings ago. that we deserve to have competitive bids. The new members of this council promised us you'd run it like a business. You would not go to your investors or to your LPs companies without competitive bids. And I just want to reiterate that we need to start having competitive bids on large projects, period. One final point on this contract. I do not understand why the amount changed suddenly there's an extra $150,000 in the first six months that wasn't there before. Why does the same work in the first six months costing 250 an hour. And that identical work is $200 an hour. So I would ask that you go back and revise the contract so that we're not paying $50 an hour more on a blended rate. That's a blended rate. and make sure we're getting the right price. And thank you again. |
| 02:23:39.36 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you again. |
| 02:23:41.01 | Wendy Richards | City Manager for making the transition. |
| 02:23:46.75 | Jill Hoffman | THANK YOU. |
| 02:23:47.07 | Heidi Scoble | Thank you. |
| 02:23:50.56 | Jill Hoffman | Do we have any other? Thank you. |
| 02:23:52.20 | Heidi Scoble | Have any additional hands that are raised at this time? |
| 02:23:52.24 | Jill Hoffman | any additional Okay. Great. All right, so we'll bring you back for discussion and a potential Motion. Okay, anybody want to go first? Anybody want me to call on somebody? All right. Go ahead, Councilor. I'll go first. |
| 02:24:09.82 | Janelle Kellman | Bye. |
| 02:24:09.87 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 02:24:10.98 | Janelle Kellman | Thank you. |
| 02:24:13.63 | Jill Hoffman | Oh, hold on. Hold on a second. I think maybe council member Sobieski is also speaking. |
| 02:24:19.56 | Ian Sobieski | Mr. President, |
| 02:24:23.05 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, we're having trouble with your with your audio, I think, Council Member Sobieski. So anyway. I think, Who's going when you either council member Blausin or Sobieski, raise your hand and go. Okay. Yes, I see Ian San. Very good. All right, go ahead. |
| 02:24:43.92 | Ian Sobieski | Can you hear me? |
| 02:24:44.90 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah, I can hear you now. Thanks. |
| 02:24:46.39 | Ian Sobieski | Okay, just, if you attended the meeting on Friday, that we spent three and a half hours talking about the budget, then the answer to the observation about how to transition to a full-time finance department was, Delineated, which is that the savings by not really Charlie's option. will more than pay for, in fact, the headcount that we anticipate bringing on, even with some overlap. So there would be no net increase in the amount of funds that the finance department would So that's a narrow answer to the question and concern about double And yeah, I think we're trying one step at a time to run Sausalito better. And it does take a lot of work. It is not a small business, for sure. So hats off to my colleagues for all the effort and for the whole team, Charlie in particular, for the exemplary work. So I'm a big fan. We don't have anything close to any other option that is remotely close to Charlie's can do for us and has been doing for us. I think this is a great opportunity. |
| 02:26:05.87 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 02:26:05.90 | Melissa Blaustein | Okay, Council Member Blaustein. Thank you. So when I first was trying to dig into understanding the budgeting process, the advice that I received from several former and current council members was, you should really go back and watch budget presentations from when Charlie Francis was our finance director. And that was really good advice. And in the time since then, he's now been on board here at the city. And I think he does a really |
| 02:26:29.86 | Janelle Kellman | Thank you. |
| 02:26:31.47 | Melissa Blaustein | Excellent job. You do an excellent job, Charlie, and thank you for making the budget as clear and understandable to not just the council, but to the general public as possible. And I think, yes, none of us really would like to be spending quite this much money on these types of services, but I think we'll find in working with Charlie and virtual CFO that it will be worth its weight in terms of what we are able to fix with the structural challenges that we are all facing with our budget and it's going to be as i said we have a lot of work to do and there is a lot that we will really need Charlie's expertise on. So I'm definitely supportive of this. And I also will say again, that I'm really appreciative of city manager Chris Zapata's work to negotiate a six month review so that we have an option to determine what path forward makes the most sense for our community and hopefully we won't have to spend the entirety of the 1.3 for the full year of services. appreciative of Charlie very much so and of this path forward and thanks again to everyone for all of their hard work on this and I'm hopeful that we'll continue to look deeper at our budget and some structural changes we can make to stop deficit spending going forward. |
| 02:27:40.08 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, thank you. Council member Cleveland Knowles and then vice mayor. Thank you. |
| 02:27:46.21 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | I have nothing further to add than what Councilmember Sobieski and Blaustein said. I'm in favor of the contract, and when it's appropriate, I'm happy to make a motion. |
| 02:27:46.29 | Jill Hoffman | I have nothing to do. |
| 02:27:49.72 | Janelle Kellman | Thank you. |
| 02:27:51.05 | Jill Hoffman | And, Great, Anna. Thank you. |
| 02:27:55.07 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 02:27:55.08 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. Vice Mayor Kelley. |
| 02:27:58.34 | Janelle Kellman | Yeah, not much more to add, but Wendy Richard's points about competitive bidding is well taken and heard, so I just want to acknowledge that. And it's something we as a council can discuss Moving forward, I you know, as a member of the finance community, where we were when I took office to where we are now in our finances, thanks to Mr. Francis's help is tremendous. So I just look forward to getting our house in order and moving forward and establishing better metrics and benchmarks and operational efficiencies I think we're laying the groundwork for that. So I'm also ready to vote. |
| 02:28:31.84 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, thanks. Yeah. you know excited about this um we're at a crucial point right and um mr francis and his team who by the way, includes some of the team members that we've already used in the past with regards to consultants. So I appreciate that too. So we're not reinventing the wheel or just, were reimagining the wheel. and we're improving the efficiency of the wheel. So I'm excited about where we are. I think this is the right move at the right time. Otherwise I wouldn't be supporting it for this type of a spend. I am also hopeful that our new city manager Mr. Zapata will be able to get us a new finance director fairly quickly and it will have a strong turnover with Mr. Francis and, you know or you know or use Mr. Francis as we see fit through the end of the year so I'm glad that we have these options I think these are good options and I look forward to ushering in a new era in Sausalito so okay so we have a council member Cleveland Knowles is ready to make the motion So. |
| 02:29:39.54 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | I just make a motion to authorize the city manager to enter into a contract with virtual gov CFO for outsourced financial management from July 1st, 2021 through June 30th, 2020. |
| 02:29:47.64 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:29:53.48 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Can I have a second? |
| 02:29:57.19 | Unknown | I'm sorry, you know, the way |
| 02:29:57.34 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | I'm sorry, you know, the way that this is written in our staff report, I think that's with a six month I know. option to renew it's not necessarily for that whole year so the motion i'm making includes what we've been discussing. with the, There's six months without. Yes, the sixth one. absolute contract with the option. I'll second. Thank you. |
| 02:30:18.98 | Heidi Scoble | Thank you. |
| 02:30:20.02 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 02:30:20.04 | Heidi Scoble | Okay, Madam Clerk, could you please take the roll? Council member Sobieski. |
| 02:30:24.14 | Janelle Kellman | Yes. |
| 02:30:25.07 | Heidi Scoble | Council Member Blaustein. Yes. Council member Cleveland Knowles. Yes. VICE MAYOR KELMAN. Mayor Hoffman. |
| 02:30:35.19 | Jill Hoffman | Yes. Very good, motion passes, 5-0. Very good, thank you to my fellow city council members and to the staff. and to our new museum. Interim City. our new city manager, I guess you're no longer in room. Okay, so moving along in our agenda for this evening. So we moved. Um, our public comment for matters not on the agenda to this portion of our city council meeting. We will all hear that. I'll open that now. And then after that we'll have committee reports. And so, If you bear with me for just a second. So I'm going to read the notice about communications for matters, not on the agenda. This is now, this is the time for on the agenda for members of the public to provide any public comment for items not on the agenda, except in limited circumstances. State law precludes the council from taking action on or engaging in discussions concerning items of business that are not on the agenda. However, the council may briefly respond to statements made or questions posed by member of the public ask clarifying questions, make a brief announcement or refer to manners not on the agenda to city staff or direct that the subject be agendized for a future meeting. If you would like to provide a public comment, please raise your hand in the Zoom application. The city clerk will call on individuals who have raised their hands in order that they were raised after you are called on, you will be unmuted and allowed to share your comments. Public comments this evening are going to be a total of two minutes each. 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 in a civil and courteous manner as defined by the chair. We will not tolerate hate speech, direct or indirect threats, abusive language. The meeting host will mute anyone who fails to follow these guidelines. And at this time, I open item up then for public comment and I will rely on our public our clerk to call on members of the public to speak |
| 02:32:34.75 | Heidi Scoble | Madam Mayor, it looks like we have two hands that are raised, but I received an email from Chris Gibson, who is, um, with raising your hands. So our first commenter will be Chris Gibson. So Chris, I've asked to unmute you. So on your... Computer, just unmute yourself and I've asked to also share your video if you'd like. So you're ready to go. |
| 02:32:57.52 | Alan Olson | I don't know, can you, is that working? Oh, here we are. Thank you. Where are my PJs at this point? Um... So my comments are with regards to I don't know. establishing more integrity with the town that I love, Sausalito, And along those lines, I would like to just address what we're seeing in San Francisco with regards to having the inspector thrown out and lots of other individuals for malfeasance and corruptions. And we really want to make sure that that doesn't happen here. and yet, |
| 02:33:32.77 | Janelle Kellman | Yeah. THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 02:33:33.61 | Alan Olson | Through some of my experiences, I'm seeing some conditions here that would allow for that I THINK IT WOULD ALLOW FOR SOME to happen and I've run into some of that. So I'm going to ask that. We establish, you know, more ethics, an annual ethics review sign statements by folks who are meant to sign those with regards to internal |
| 02:33:54.13 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:33:54.15 | Janelle Kellman | Thank you. |
| 02:33:54.20 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 02:33:57.61 | Alan Olson | employees such as inspectors, such as directors, such that we can establish and know that that integrity is good. um, FORM 700. are required usually by council. And we haven't seen that from Mary Wagner. And I'm wondering why. We did see that from others. So that was good news. But I also believe you need Form 700 from some of the city employee further under design review, I ran into an issue on 416 Napa where the design review that I was questioning on the back of that property does not look like What was approved by the design committee was the same as the plans that were submitted and approved and planning review. And therefore you have quite a different plan And I asked Lily, if indeed there is somebody that guaranteed that those two plans were the same and there is not a party that does that. It's those kind of issues. And finally, Heidi Scoble will tell you I ordered up a, review of outsiders or vendors or made gifts to the city and was at a public record. And in fact, we don't necessarily don't have a public record So when Michael Rex says he spent 100 hours on a welcome sign to Sausalito. You can imagine that there might be some quid pro quo that would happen there. You don't really- |
| 02:35:32.72 | Heidi Scoble | Your two minutes has elapsed. |
| 02:35:33.68 | Alan Olson | Thank you. OK, thank you. |
| 02:35:35.79 | Heidi Scoble | Thank you. |
| 02:35:41.07 | Heidi Scoble | Our next public commenters will be Ava Crisante. Ava, you've been unmuted. And then we'll have Vicki Nichols. |
| 02:35:49.56 | David Crescenti | Thank you. |
| 02:35:49.59 | Wendy Richards | Thanks so much. Can you hear me? Yes, we can. Thank you. Go ahead, thanks. |
| 02:35:53.24 | David Crescenti | Yeah, I really enjoyed the budget discussion. I particularly enjoyed the comments from Wendy Richards. It's really, you talked about how many how many ordinary citizens were helping you and she seemed really to be on it. That was wonderful to see. I did want to comment on a public comment you got from Mr. Berg and I wanted to correct something Mr. Berg suggested again in a letter that UNHOUSED PEOPLE THAT substance abuse and mental illness was the reason they were unhoused and that is an indirect contradiction to the research from UCSF by Dr. Margo Kuschl She's done the longest study of unhoused populations. in the country and it's really incredible research and worth worth seeing. I do want to point out that I have been doing a lot of CPRAs And the CPRA I did, on San Rafael. Some of that has made it into an article on the Pacific Sun that was published on June 9. And I do think it's worth taking a really good look at whatever nonprofit you're working with in terms of unhoused populations because what we're seeing is not only an enormous amount of waste But we're also seeing nonprofits working in direct contradiction to their stated goals. And that's very concerning because these are some of the most vulnerable people AND I THINK THAT'S A out there and so we want to make sure that if we're spending money that it's actually going to services that are going to help these people, as opposed to some of the things that have been going on. and I continue to monitor the situation. I'll continue to bring forward my conclusions, You can read some of them in the June 9th Pacific sun. Thank you for your time. |
| 02:37:53.99 | Jill Hoffman | Okay. |
| 02:37:54.38 | David Crescenti | Thank you. |
| 02:37:54.42 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 02:37:54.55 | David Crescenti | FOR A LITTLE BIT OF |
| 02:37:54.70 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 02:37:54.74 | David Crescenti | Thank you. |
| 02:37:54.79 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 02:37:54.80 | David Crescenti | Thank you. |
| 02:37:59.43 | Heidi Scoble | Our last public commenter is Vicki Nichols. Vicki, you've been asked to be unmuted and start your video. |
| 02:38:06.16 | Vicki Nichols | Hi, good evening again. I have no complaints. I just would request that as soon as it's possible the community start seeing your faces in public again. At what point will we resume live meetings I appreciate the option that we've all had with Zoom. but there is something that is missed in a public process where the community is not in the chamber with the members. I hope you're thinking about that. And, that we can resume soon. Thank you. Thank you. |
| 02:38:41.31 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 02:38:41.33 | Vicki Nichols | Thank you. |
| 02:38:41.34 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 02:38:41.65 | Vicki Nichols | Thank you. |
| 02:38:41.75 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 02:38:41.80 | Vicki Nichols | THANK YOU. |
| 02:38:41.97 | Heidi Scoble | Thank you. |
| 02:38:47.00 | Heidi Scoble | Madam Mayor, there are no additional hands that are raised at this time. Thank you. |
| 02:38:50.37 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, very good, thank you. Then I will close public comment for items not on the agenda. Moving on to our next item that we moved, to this portion of the agenda is committee Committee reports. One of which from the Finance Committee meeting is that We had an extra finance committee meeting two last week. And so, but you've seen, there's nothing to report because you've seen all of the hard work that went into both of those meetings. Yeah, so all right, who else wants to do community reports? I can go. |
| 02:39:30.53 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 02:39:30.99 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 02:39:31.02 | Melissa Blaustein | Okay, go ahead. It's always good when you go after me, Vice Mayor Kelman, because we have the same, so I'll give you that segue again. We'll get right into it, just runway. |
| 02:39:37.15 | Joan Cox | Yeah. We'll get to it. |
| 02:39:39.90 | Melissa Blaustein | Okay, so the Sustainability Commission continues to do incredible work, no surprise there. They are working on EV charging and looking at different levels of use. So for residential, for visitors, for commercial. And this is part of a countywide EV readiness plan that they're doing in partnership with Marin Climate and Energy Partnership, as well as with TAM. So we should expect to see a plan for EV charging in Sausalito coming from them. very soon. Also, excitingly, One of the members of the commission has written a draft ordinance for electrification and eliminating natural gas on new builds and in new buildings. So we should see that soon. They're working on doing some additional public outreach around that topic. Bay City's rate review, the latest update that we've heard is essentially that potentially composting will be mandated statewide as early as next year. So that could change our rate review processes and what we do for backyard pickup. and There's also an opportunity for a free already paid for um, sort of EV electric vehicle a publication program where they would bring cars to the city for people to look at and review and it's funded by TAM as well as MCEP. So I'm happy to send the information from the sustainability commission. on to staff to look at to see if we might approve that or give that to the sustainability commission to decide run with, but it's certainly exciting. The Disaster Preparedness Committee had a meeting and excitingly, CERT programs are gonna start up again after a long hiatus because of COVID and they will be in-person CERT programs. And I intend to participate in one of those. And I hope that all of my fellow council members will join me because it should be a lot of fun to get fire ready and make sure There was also conversation around neighborhood programs. And we hosted the police and fire Southern Marin Fire hosted a June 12th on June 12th, an evacuation drill where they answered a lot of the public's questions about what to do in the event of a fire, how to evacuate, where you would go. And I just want to thank our public safety providers, both police and fire for their hard work on this event. And also Supervisor Stephanie Molten Peters attended. And so it was a really great event, big turnout at Southview Park and I'm excited to see so many enthusiastic neighbors Here comes your segue advice, Mayor Kellman. We also talked about at the Disaster Preparedness Committee adding sea level rise onto the agenda for the next meeting and potentially getting someone from sea level from preparedness to serve on the sea level rise task force. So with that, take it away, Vice Mayor Kellman. And you invited me to do that. |
| 02:42:17.97 | Janelle Kellman | to join you at your next meeting, which I readily... So thank you for that. No, that's a great segue. It's a huge issue for us and sea level rise fire safety and evacuation routes, all sort of segue together. So thank you for that work and for raising it in disaster preparedness. I think it's the right, right direction for our community to be thinking. Um, Well, I guess on that topic, sort of a fires. So it was a pretty quiet couple of weeks. A lot of people are on vacation, but tomorrow, or next week, excuse me, mccmc climate action committee meeting of other council members and we're actually having a nasa langley researcher come to speak to us about smoke plumes and air quality and things that we can do both to adapt and to mitigate the impact of wildfires so we are starting to look at that issue to see what can we do from a local level and what we maybe do collaboratively from everything from, you know, monitoring our inventory of trees for carbon sequestration to how we approach our fire management across different communities. So I'm pretty excited. I learned a term called surface albedo. I know probably Ian knows what that meant. I did not. So that was exciting to talk to the researcher. And that's the thing. So also as part of that, we're starting to look at the idea of parking as climate policy. which I think probably segues very nicely with the EV charging and what do we want our community to look like, pedestrian community? Do we think we'll have the same number of cars? What does that look like from a climate perspective? So that's something that Alexis Feynman from San Anselmo is spearheading and I offer to help her. Our Bay Wave meeting was canceled. That's the county's effort on sea level rise. But I did reach out to Chris Chu, the principal watershed planner, to ask her about this criteria that she had been working on for capital improvement programs. And the idea was that the county would develop some standards and some suggestions to provide to Department of Public Works so that when councils were looking at infrastructure projects, they would have sea level rise as one of the criteria. So she has asked for some help on that. So Bay Wave is going to be looking at infrastructure projects, they would have sea level rise as one of the criteria. So she has asked for some help on that. So Bay Wave is going to be looking at that. Not surprisingly, the term shovel ready came up again, which is what we've been exploring. We need in order to get funds. So just something I want to mention as we go into looking at our capital improvement program. Our MCE meeting was also canceled last week, but I had a burning interest in storage and compressed air storage specifically. So it turns out MCE, even though we do large scale utility purchases, we don't actually focus very much on larger scale storage. There are some technologies coming to market that are much more feasible than they were 10, 15 years ago. So we're gonna look at that through MCE. And then you mentioned we've had two finance committee meetings. I won't go into it. You've heard it all tonight. So thank you. |
| 02:45:12.52 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, thanks. Council Member Sobieski or Council Member Cleland-Oles. |
| 02:45:16.61 | Ian Sobieski | because of the July 4th holiday, to. Brown Act Commission meetings are going to be rescheduled. Parks and Rec Commission meeting will be on July the 12th. rather than on the first Monday, July 5th. Uh, The EDAC will be on July the 6th. rather than the first Monday of the month. At this upcoming EDAC meeting, by the way, Parks and Rec will actually be doing a presentation with Mike Langford Commission chair Raylene Gorham will be there to present the park direct plan, but also to collaborate with EDAC on events that can be co-produced by the Parks and Rec Commission, by Parks and Rec Department, and by EDAC As you know, some events EDAC promotes, such as the or has ambitions to promote, such as events around the holidays, that have some economic component in terms of attracting visitors. Um, have the double bottom line benefit of also benefiting residents and the whole idea. is to try to tailor economically developing events that have economic development towards being resident serving as a primary criterion for their conception and execution. So if you want to participate in that discussion, EDAC meeting on July the 6th. Another charter of EDAC is diversification, and as part of that, there's an enforcement component that is being engaged with actively. That really ties to a longstanding complaint about zoning cheating in the Marinship and elsewhere. And there's an active effort to produce an index of businesses across the entire city, but in particular in internship and to relate that to the approved uses in those spaces. uh, And finally, also related to promotion of economic activity, there's a small contract with a marketing firm called CDA, whose remit has been expanded to include not just the typical businesses we think of downtown, but also businesses in the Marinship and the Marinship as a whole, as the other one of the three legs of our economic stool here in town. And so if there's marketing to be done, then their efforts should comprehend that as well. And then finally, on the machine shop that the vice mayor and I are on the working group of, The city staff has responded to our consensus request in the public meeting. to see what we can do about conducting our own environmental assessment of that facility. They are in the final stages of a small contract, less than $5,000 with an environmental firm that will review the previous investigations and provide their expert assessment on what kind of additional investigation might be needed to dispositively inform us about any liability we would take on if we considered proceeding with the acquisition. out that door. That's all. |
| 02:48:19.48 | Jill Hoffman | Okay? Great, thank you. Councilmember |
| 02:48:23.03 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | the Noles. Yeah, thank you. Just a quick update. We had the Pedestrian Bike Advisory Committee meeting last night, and they will not be meeting in July. They have increasingly been having discussions about safety in town, which is an important topic. So there was a recent pedestrian incident at Johnson and Bridgeway. So there was some discussion about that. An elderly pedestrian hit in the crosswalk. And then also by vehicle. And then also a discussion that our public works director brought to light of the failure of some bicyclists to stop four pedestrians in various crosswalks in town and some complaints. and solutions that might happen. Then the kind of controversial topic of the month was bird scooters, which I know has gotten a lot of attention on Nextdoor. um, a gentleman from BIRD presented to the Pedestrian Bike Advisory Committee and folks were able to comment on that. I have to say, having watched the scooter industry for many years now, from both my day job and here, it was just a great change of, a mentality for Bird to be coming, presenting, and kind of asking about whether our community would be open to having a stand-up electric shared scooters in town. So there was a broad ranging discussion about some of the benefits of micro mobility, including first and last mile solutions versus some of the risks and safety So there was no consensus to move forward or not move forward with that just to kind of commitment to continue to discuss it and get public comments. Um, Director McGowan gave an update on the North Street steps that I think I know a lot of residents would love to hear. So maybe that's a topic for the currents, but that construction will be getting underway soon. I think he said in the next couple of weeks or at least in the next month, and should be completed in a month after it starts. So I may have that slightly long, but if, He is on the line or if a city manager has further information or maybe just a current article, I know people would be excited and my screen with my notes just went away. But, and then there were some various other updates, including on the Nevada Street issue that we already approved on consent. |
| 02:51:00.08 | Unknown | WHAT IS THE FAMILY? |
| 02:51:00.15 | Janelle Kellman | Thank you. |
| 02:51:07.74 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | at getting that repaved. And then I just wanted to thank police and fire for the emergency preparedness event that council member blasting already mentioned. And just suggest that perhaps that's something we might as fire season approaches might wanna Um, focus on at one of our council meetings. And then just to say, that I was pleased to be able to join Councilmember Sobieski at the Juneteenth event in Marin City. Great event. Thanks to everyone that organized that. |
| 02:51:34.46 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 02:51:39.43 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, thanks. And since you mentioned Juneteenth, I failed to mention at the beginning of the meeting that I did issue a proclamation on Friday recognizing Juneteenth for Sausalito, and I did deliver that to, um, Oshala Marcus, who was the director of the Juneteenth celebration, on Saturday and I was there for the first hour and a half, but I think I missed you and I think we've passed each other on Bridgeway. So I'm sorry I didn't see you guys there. It was really a great, |
| 02:52:08.29 | Unknown | I'm so excited. |
| 02:52:11.77 | Jill Hoffman | really a great celebration and a great day. So. That was a good thing. Okay, so no other, okay, so that concludes our committee updates. Thank you very much. And moving on now to item eight on our agenda. Um, items. we take public comment for item eight all in one shot so at this point i'll open up public comment for items on uh Section 8 of our agenda and so that's city manager reports City account council appointments, which we won't be doing any appointments tonight and any other council business which I'm not aware of any so it's really just city manager reports I'll open up public comment on our city manager report. I'm not seeing any hands, Madam Clerk. |
| 02:53:01.09 | Heidi Scoble | Madam Mayor, you are correct. There are no hands at this time. |
| 02:53:04.05 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, then I will close. public comment and I will invite our City Manager Chris Zapata to make his report to the council. |
| 02:53:11.62 | Heidi Scoble | Thank you. |
| 02:53:11.64 | Jill Hoffman | And, |
| 02:53:11.66 | Chris Zapata | Thank you Mayor, Council Members of the Public. This is my 12th day, day 12. So I want to talk about a few things real rapidly. One of them is preparation for the 4th of July weekend. It was alluded to by council member that you know fire season is upon us so With respect to Fourth of July and people shooting off fireworks that create hazards, some type of communication and police and fire preparation in advance is something we're going to work on. Also, you know, the city hall itself with more people back in the building, there's been a request for a fire drill and we will do that at some unspecified time. to make sure that we're getting prepared in that regard. And then in terms of future agenda items, I want to talk to you about the template for department presentations. My thought is to begin them in July with police being first at the first meeting in July and reserving the second meeting for follow up in the event that you know it gets a little lengthy because there obviously will be other business and then continue in August with parks and recreation and so on and so forth so that the first meeting of every month you'll see a department presentation and the second meeting would be reserved if the council has some follow-up that we need to get to and if it's not needed we'll go past it I'd also like to tell you that we need to schedule our CIP and 115 trust discussions at committee and council meetings. So that's something that's on my radar and pretty bright. Abbott's going to provide a brief update on COVID situation right now. |
| 02:54:45.57 | Abbott (Unknown) | Well, thank you, Chris. And good evening, Madam Mayor, members of the council. This is gonna take about three or four minutes and to convey the information as quickly as possible and efficiently, I'm going to read a report that I composed earlier today. It's been 463 days since Marin County issued its first shelter in place order on March 17, 2020. We've all been through a lot over those 15 months, and it's a huge relief to have our lives getting back to something more like normal. Speaking on behalf of the city, we are incredibly grateful to all of our residents and businesses for their successful efforts to limit the spread of COVID-19 in our communities. With COVID on the decline, we ask for your patience as we ramp up the city's in-person services. The budget passed by the city council tonight puts us on a clear path towards pre-code COVID levels in service. The reopening of California has been made possible by the development and rapid deployment of vaccines. To date, 60% of Californians of all ages are either partially or fully vaccinated. In Marin, that number is 78%, the highest in the state. And in Sausalito, actually, the number's in excess of 80%. On June 15th, the state of California removed most COVID restrictions on individuals, although businesses and venues are permitted to maintain restrictions on their customers if they choose. As of June 15th, social distancing is no longer required in indoor or outdoor settings. mask wearing indoors is no longer required for fully vaccinated individuals, with exceptions that include public transit, schools, and healthcare settings. Those who are unvaccinated are still required to wear masks indoors. If businesses and venues choose to allow visitors to go without masks indoors, verification can either be on the honor system or by asking people to show proof of vaccination. Thanks to an executive order from Governor Gavin Newsom on June 17th, Cal OSHA workplace standards went into effect that largely conformed to state guidance for individuals. Workplaces to document the vaccination status of employees can now allow fully vaccinated workers to go without masks indoors. Unvaccinated employees must continue to wear masks. As with the California guidelines for individuals, employers are permitted to maintain more strict policies on mask wearing and social distancing if they choose. For the time being city administration in consultation with SEIU is maintaining pre-June 15th mask wearing and social distancing requirements for employees and the public when inside city facilities like city hall. That decision was made before the June 17th executive order brought guidelines for employees into alignment with the guidelines for the public. Now that the new workplace standards are in place, City Administration will be revisiting the policies for employees and the public. The new state guidelines and in anticipation of council approval of the city's 2021-22 budget, city staff has been preparing to resume or expand our in-person services. Performers are being lined up for Sausalizo's Jazz and Blues by the Bay. Classes and meetings are returning to the Edgewater Room. On July 6th, the Saucyuta Library will take the first step in its gradual return to pre-COVID hours and services by expanding its in-person schedule to Monday through Thursday and bringing back tables and chairs so people can work, study, or relax inside the library. July 6 will also be the day that we begin opening all doors to City Hall again, at first during library open hours, then expanding as other departments ramp up their in-person services. This is going to be the exciting and challenging year as we work to resume and improve upon pre-COVID levels of city services. Many thanks again to everyone in the Sausalén community for your resiliency over the past year and thank you for your patience with us. And that concludes my update. I would be happy to answer any questions. |
| 02:58:36.08 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, thanks very much for that update. Um, City Manager, do you have any further information for us or that concluded your report? |
| 02:58:46.25 | Chris Zapata | That concludes my report, Mayor. |
| 02:58:48.04 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, thanks. Does any city council members have any follow-up or questions? |
| 02:58:52.85 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | I just like to say after kind of going through a lot of the COVID issues with Abbott last year and having had the benefit of his reports. every two weeks for that entire year. It is so amazing and wonderful just to hear this very positive report and I just really want to thank him for being so vigilant for the last year, giving us all the updated news and restrictions. And I'm just almost, I'm almost cheering up Abbott that we've gotten through this and you can talk about reopening, especially the library and city hall to the public. It's just, |
| 02:59:25.13 | Unknown | Most of the time. |
| 02:59:36.19 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | you know, an amazing time. And I just want to thank you so much for everything you did and all the information that you gave to the public. over the year now to be able to deliver this information as well. So yay on that. |
| 02:59:48.81 | Abbott (Unknown) | Thank you. |
| 02:59:48.91 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 02:59:49.03 | Abbott (Unknown) | you |
| 02:59:49.30 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 02:59:49.55 | Abbott (Unknown) | Thank you. Thanks very much. |
| 02:59:51.27 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 02:59:51.29 | Jill Hoffman | Okay. Okay, so I have one thing to add. that And that is that we're having a public forum on June 30th with regard to parks and parklets. I just wanted to make sure that We acknowledge that to the extent that the public's still on the line. I'm sure that's going to go out in the currents as well, but I wanted to highlight that. on the 30th. Okay. And that's it. That's all I have. Um, okay. So I believe that we R. Ready? Oh, no, sorry, not quite yet. Future agenda items. Okay, so does anybody want to add The city manager talked about a couple of future agenda items that we'll discuss in our agenda setting. Does anybody want to add future agenda items? that are not already on our list. |
| 03:00:47.35 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Yeah, I had just a couple things. I just want to note that our agenda, our future agenda items list is getting really long and would love to see some of those items that we've suggested. be discussed at a full council meeting that scheduled at some point Um, Second, we had talked about when we approved our agenda way back in January, I had raised the fact that last year we had adjusted the summer schedule so that there was one meeting in July and one meeting in August, instead of two meetings in July and then in August, which more closely reflects the kind of reality of business in Marin now with school starting around August 15th or 16th. It seems like most people take off in July. you know, maybe too late to adjust, but I just wanted to raise that as a possibility. Also with our new city manager, I don't know how he feels about um, so many meetings in July and the summer. I would also just like to note that we have had 30 meetings this year and we aren't even Thank you. halfway done. That is about 20 more meetings than we normally would. by now. I know there have been a few extraordinary things happening, but I would love the agenda setting in the nature. See if we can get that number down. And then I just wanted to throw out there for discussion by agenda setting, A couple times we've changed public comment to the end and committee reports to the end. I think that's fine. I do know that some members of the public like to pop in at the beginning of the meeting to raise important shoes and asking them to wait until the end of the night. is you know, I think hard for a lot of people, a system that we used at one of my commissions in San Francisco was to allot either 10 or 15 minutes to general public comment at the and then to allow the first several speakers to speak and then have the rest of general public comment at the end of the meeting. So it seemed to strike a nice balance between being fair to people who do wanna raise a legitimate issue to us versus taking up a disproportionate amount of our time early in the evening. So just great, I'll just throw that out there. Um, And then on the boards and commissions, I'm happy to do the reports at the end. I did just wanna provide some history on that. |
| 03:03:20.32 | Unknown | And then, you |
| 03:03:29.43 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Then Mayor Joe Burns thought it put a highlight on the important work of our volunteer boards and commissions to have the committee reports at the beginning. But another way that he had also talked about highlighting that work is to have periodic, have the chair periodically of each commission or board come talk to us. You know, various meetings when it makes sense. So for example, one night we would hear from the sustainability Thank you. and do it that way and then continue to have our committee reports of that. So just throwing those out there. |
| 03:04:05.36 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, thank you. Any other? additions other than what we already have on our robust list. Okay, thanks. I'm not seeing or hearing anything. So this point, I believe that we are now. Ready to adjourn. Thank you so much for everybody's hard work. Very excited that we have our budget done and excited to see discuss our the additional things that we need to look at for our budget meeting, the pension aspect and, um, and our CIP, so that's going to be great. Yes, councilman Cleveland, raise your hand. |
| 03:04:39.13 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Yes, Mayor, I just wanted to confirm that we are adjourning and we are not re-entering closed session. |
| 03:04:47.41 | Jill Hoffman | We are adjourning. That is great. Thank you. Okay, thanks everybody and we'll see you soon. Bye. Thank you. Good night. Good night, everybody. |
| 03:04:59.12 | Janelle Kellman | Thank you. |
Steven Woodside — In Favor: Thanked the council and staff for years of support in building the Brigantine Matthew Turner, highlighting its role in community building and educating youth about maritime heritage. ▶ 📄
David Sudo — Against: Criticized the city for underfunding street projects by about a million dollars annually, warning that deferred repairs increase costs non-linearly and urging the council to fix street funding in the budget. ▶ 📄