| Time | Speaker | Text |
|---|---|---|
| 00:00:02.98 | Unknown | . |
| 00:00:15.72 | Heidi Scoble | Good morning, Madam Mayor. I will admit. all participants at this point |
| 00:00:20.65 | Sandra Bushmaker | Thanks. |
| 00:00:33.34 | Heidi Scoble | Good morning, Madam Mayor and council members. This meeting has been held pursuant to government code section 54953E. And in light of the declared state of emergency, the regular meeting of the Special City Council for October, 30th, 2021 will be conducted telephonically through Zoom and broadcast live on the city's website and on cable TV Channel 7. |
| 00:01:04.39 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Clerk. And Um, I welcome everybody to our special city council meeting for |
| 00:01:10.48 | Unknown | Everybody. |
| 00:01:14.23 | Jill Hoffman | November, or sorry, |
| 00:01:16.95 | Unknown | and |
| 00:01:17.17 | Jill Hoffman | October 30th, 2021. This is a special Saturday session. and we are ready to get started, I think. We're scheduled to go from 9 to 1 o'clock, and we'll see how we progress today. So, Mr. Clerk, if you could please call the roll. I appreciate that. |
| 00:01:42.63 | Heidi Scoble | Councilmember Sobieski. Good morning. Councilmember Blaustein. |
| 00:01:47.86 | Janelle Kellman | I hear. |
| 00:01:51.05 | Heidi Scoble | I'm the Vice Mayor Kellman. |
| 00:01:52.72 | Janelle Kellman | Thank you. |
| 00:01:52.74 | Jill Hoffman | Here, good morning. |
| 00:01:53.97 | Heidi Scoble | And Mayor Hoffman. |
| 00:01:55.89 | Jill Hoffman | Good morning, but Councilmember Cleveland Knowles is here. |
| 00:01:58.66 | Heidi Scoble | Pardon me? |
| 00:01:59.56 | Jill Hoffman | is |
| 00:02:00.52 | Heidi Scoble | Councilmember Cleveland Knowles. And she's muted, I'll unmute her right now. |
| 00:02:07.86 | Melissa Blaustein | Here, thank you. Good morning. We're in. |
| 00:02:10.32 | Heidi Scoble | All members are present in various aquariums. |
| 00:02:12.92 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, very good, Mr. Clerk. Okay, so just so people listening, this is kind of how it's gonna roll. Our city manager is going to do a presentation and that's going to include a financial review, infrastructure review, and a look at boards, commissions, committees, task forces, subcommittees, ad hoc working groups. So the idea for today is that we're gonna get an overview all of our activities and responsibilities sort of of the city council in the context of |
| 00:02:41.12 | Unknown | If you want to call on the next slide. |
| 00:02:43.08 | Jill Hoffman | Oh, hold on, someone is not, someone's not muted. Anyway. And so we welcome also Dr. Richard Garcia with us today. He's been helping us and facilitating this, not to be confused with Dr. Otoko Garcia, who is the superintendent of our school. So they are not one in the same person. They are actually different people. Then we'll have council discussion. |
| 00:02:53.84 | Unknown | I'm not going to be a |
| 00:03:04.04 | Jill Hoffman | Public comment will follow our council discussion. and then we'll adjourn after uh, our RAPA, our facilitator RAPA. And so thanks to everybody for participating. At this point, I will turn this over to our city manager, Chris Zapata, who will kick us off with his overview. |
| 00:03:11.78 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 00:03:29.26 | Chris Zapata | Thank you, Mayor. Can you hear me now? Yes. So I really want to stress our gratitude to the community for tuning in. and understand that this is really one of those really, really important city council gatherings. to get together and figure out where you are and where you're going. and building your service approach is so important. And to do that on this Saturday morning in front of the community and with you all is again, as I stress, ultra important. today to help us in that in a COVID environment and we are in fact remote. So Dr. Garcia, Richard Garcia, WHO I'VE WORKED WITH FOR OVER 25 years. is going to be our facilitator. in terms of how the meeting is conducted because you know it would be quite a chore to have him try to manage and listen and we're going to ask mayor hoffman to look at the hands raised And then if Dr. Garcia or I feel like we need to you know, emphasize something or get on track, we will raise our hands as well. |
| 00:04:35.84 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 00:04:35.97 | Unknown | the |
| 00:04:39.75 | Chris Zapata | So I want to say again, thank you. Our staff is in place as well. All of our executive team is on this. call this morning to respond. But the presentation which Abbott Chambers Kevin McGowan and Charlie Francis and I put together is what we're going to cover for the next hours. And so if there are specific questions when I'm done if you could hold them until that time. And then we will try to respond to those as we can. So with that, I'd like to ask Dr. Garcia to say a few words for you all so that the public and the council can meet him. Dr. Garcia. |
| 00:05:19.95 | Jill Hoffman | Um, just a moment, sir. Mr. Clerk, I think we need to unmute Dr. Garcia. |
| 00:05:27.93 | Dr. Garcia | Okay, good morning. I too would like to commend all of you for the efforts you've expended thus far in trying to set the stage for the city. The staff, the city council and city staff, the effort they expended in developing a 2020 strategic plan were outstanding. Unfortunately, COVID got in the way of doing more that needed to be done, but this is in my opinion, the first step to develop the next steps in your strategic plan. The plan outlined the what the city council wants the organization, the city staff to do. They assigned the who, who they thought would be responsible for it. And even said when things would get done in that 2020 plan. If you put aside COVID just in terms of a plan, it went pretty far and you can tell a lot of effort was put into it. The thing that's missing is the how. |
| 00:05:29.57 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 00:06:42.53 | Dr. Garcia | How are you going to accomplish all of these things? And that's what today is to talk about. How are we going to do the things that we had hoped we could have done in 2020, but because of extengencies have not been able to carry through on that? The one thing that I will say to you based on my own personal experience in developing strategic plans, assessing the effectiveness of the plans, et cetera, is that implementation of a plan truly requires organizational leadership and the cooperation between staff and the city council in actually allocating and managing the resources to do whatever you say you wanna do. It's okay to talk about it, but until you allocate the resources to get things done and know where you want to allocate those resources, anything you do is okay or not okay, depending on the focus and the direction that you're giving to staff. The other thing that is important, and I think you acknowledge that in strategic planning, is the have to be in law. Not just the council, not just staff, but those people who are the beneficiaries of the services that you provide. And I think what you're doing today is also a very good effort in including them in the discussion as you move forward. But having said all of that, you know, my goal is to help you start a discussion, start a conversation, and move forward with whatever direction you want to go, recognizing that the plan is just something there to guide you. It's the process that really holds the meaning. You working together, you communicating, you listening to each other, you asking questions and then making decisions on the direction you want to go. So with that, I'm turning it back to the city manager. |
| 00:08:54.50 | Chris Zapata | Thank you, Dr. Garcia. So I want to put my first slide up. And as I said, we're doing this remotely. So Abbott's going to put that up. So going back to number slide number two Abbott. What Dr. Garcia pointed to was a strategic plan that was started in 2020 and is part of the work program that we have and are doing right now. The review of that plan continues and implementation of that plan continues and the updating of that plan continues. But today to go into that plan, which was good work was done, I think we need to take elements of it and focus on them. And so the assessment of the strategic plan was sent to the council. Work that was done by the staff to this point was sent to the council and it will be part of documents that are public going forward. But what we want to focus on today, what I would recommend that the city council focus on today is three areas. And they're part of that strategic plan, but there are three areas. The finances of the city are super important to understand. in a macro sense. The infrastructure needs of the community are very, very important to understand. as well. And then I want to talk a little bit about boards and commissions and the structure of governance that is in Sausalio has in place and how that impacts you know what we do and what we don't do so next slide Abbott |
| 00:10:30.63 | Chris Zapata | So again, you know, that work done in 2020 was a six-year plan. |
| 00:10:30.94 | Unknown | Again, Thank you. |
| 00:10:31.71 | Unknown | Uh, |
| 00:10:31.97 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 00:10:35.70 | Chris Zapata | You had five goals. There were 30 corresponding strategies to the goals, and there were 166 tasks. And what I want you to take away from this slide is the preponderance of those tasks are assigned in public works. And that means a lot of things that relate to infrastructure. Obviously, community development was important and is important. in that approach. And that speaks to some of the things you've been working on with EDEC and other groups in terms of streamlining and understanding how we can, in fact, do things more efficiently to issue permits and things that we do with our commissions, like the Planning Commission, et cetera. Administration, that's mostly finance, HR, organizational development. And then in terms of what the police department needed to do and the library department needed to do, you can see that they have some assignments in that plan as well. So those are for the council to have and know that they're being worked on. and for the community to know that as well. But again, that's not what... I want to focus on today. What I want to focus on is what was in that plan that I think is important to know today. So in that plan, You talked about your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. And I don't think there's a need to revisit those because those are still and I think that's a very important One of those threats was infrastructure. Another conversation in the strategic plan was the need to maintain and continue to measure O and make it work There was talk about homelessness and that concern in 2020. There was talk about streamlining. There was talk about fiscal resiliency. And there was talk about organizational efficiencies. all of that. is really, really important to know that the council in 2020, of which Three of you were not involved in, and I believe Mayor Hoffman was on active duty leave at that time. you know, we're |
| 00:12:19.87 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 00:12:20.03 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:12:20.07 | Unknown | I don't know. |
| 00:12:21.30 | Chris Zapata | We're fortunate to get that working and now we continue to implement it. updated. But the bottom line is those are the key things in that strategic plan that caught my eyes as well as the assignments to different departments and where the what I see is the need lie lay with our our future going forward in that regard. That's why you see the focus on infrastructure, You see the focus on our finances and you see the focus on our Board and Commission responsibilities. Next slide, Adam. |
| 00:12:54.10 | Chris Zapata | So where we are now, and I think I alluded to that, you're coming out of a global pandemic. There have certainly been impacts. You have three new council members. You just adopted a budget three months ago. You have a new city manager. The organization is in transition. We have a new community development director. We have to hire a new. HR manager we have to hire. We have other staff positions that we're hiring Thank you. And we just rebuilt our finance department. We have labor contracts that are expiring this coming year, three-year contracts that will expire in June 2022. And in the financial vein, we have an audit in process. that we need to make sure that it's done. and done in a way and we respond to the findings in it and correct them so All those things are happening as we speak with this current council, along with many other things. Next slide, Andrew. |
| 00:13:38.32 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:13:38.33 | Kevin McGowan | many of them. |
| 00:13:38.69 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:13:42.32 | Chris Zapata | So, Our council, and they know this, this is for the benefit of the community. has worked really, really hard since elected in December last year, you know, 44 regular and special meetings. 202 items considered 17. Community members appointed aborning commissions And guess what? We have 48 task forces and committees with council member participation. 48. So that's why I go back to the beginning, which is there are a lot of things going on and we're not gonna solve all of them today. So again, I recommend that we focus on next two hours when I'm done, our finances, our infrastructure, our boards and commissions in the path forward. So let's talk about our finances, our revenues, because a plan is a plan and you need a plan or you fail. You also need resources and directions. So Sausalito's resources are predominantly in its general form. And you can see all the different colors represent general fund revenue streams. And the two largest are your property tax and your sales tax. And so your total budget in Sausalito is about 20 million dollars. |
| 00:14:56.25 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:14:59.59 | Chris Zapata | And your property tax, which is your largest and most stable form of revenue. is about 400 or four point, let me close this down. It's about $5 million a year in property tax that you're seeing every, at least that's, that's what you're seeing this year. And it's risen almost 3% in the past year. So, so $5 million of stable revenue coming into the city from property tax assessments. And so I want to talk about the property tax bill that people in Saus Lido have. Next slide, Adam. Many people, when they pay property taxes, they pay to what they believe is government and in government there is a lot of question about, you know, who government is in the case of your property tax dollar, in Sausalito, the city of Sausalito gets 11.5% of that dollar and a little bit more from the special district assessed to your sanitary sewer service and that enterprise. So we're seeing around 12, 13 cents on the dollar from the property tax that you pay and you pay it to the schools, you pay it to the county, you pay it to the fire district, you pay it to various special districts throughout Moran. Next slide. |
| 00:16:16.98 | Chris Zapata | So I want to talk a little bit about sales tax. That's the other large bucket of revenue. This year it's projected $3.6 million a year. A lot of people presume that when they pay their sales tax on a purchase and they spend a dollar that the 8.75% spent that's taxed goes to uh the city of Sausalito actually six cents on that dollar goes to the state of California 1.25 cents on that dollar go to the county Marin. The cities across the state get what's called the Bradley Burns, which is a 1%. And then in Sausalito's case in the mid 2014-15, you enacted Measure O which is an add-on to the sales tax, which is another 5%. So again, the total to the city of Sausalito is 1.5% of that 8.75%. So again, I go back to this understanding of people, understanding in the community, our employees, everybody on the council, that we see about $3.6 million a year, but that's not the total 8.75 cents on a dollar. And this does not include a gas tax or the hotel tax that we have in Saucena. Next slide, please. So when you look at your revenue streams and you see that you've got a $20 million budget and you start looking at what you have in terms of long-term obligations, whether it's your pensions, which we'll talk about more, or a group of people. paying off construction that you borrowed money for. And in the case of Sausalito, our long-term debt today is almost $61 million. So, you know, that is all scheduled and that's all obligated and that's what we've committed to paying. And the good news is that $60 million has been paid off next year or five years from now. It's a number that's paid off over time and there are various schedules for that payoff. Next slide, Evan. The biggest piece of that debt is the pensions. And our current liability in pensions is $29 million. $781,000 in change. And I point this out because There are many, many factors that go into building a budget. But the one thing that has really been impacting city budgets for the last 20 has been our pension costs. And if you look at the situation in Sausalito, in 2001, 2003, we were paying approximately $300,000 a year in pension costs. When the benefits were enhanced in 2002, That started climbing. You've taken some steps, but the net effect is as changes have occurred with the CalPERS system. As they change their discount rate from eight to seven to lower, as they change their mortality rates, as they change their amortization schedule from 30 years to 20 years, it means that cities have to pay more. So go back to 2002-03, it's about 300,000. go forward to 2022, and it's about $3 million and change. So that increase continues for the next 10 years at roughly that same rate. no matter what you do, that's what's happening right now. |
| 00:19:28.25 | David Sudo | no matter what |
| 00:19:31.41 | Chris Zapata | And you can see it drop off in the latter part of 20, closer to 2040. And the reason for that is, all the people that got the enhanced benefits in 2002, now are you know you know they're not on the system anymore we passed away Thank you. we're no longer there. And the newer lower class of retirees kicks in and so those costs go down and I want to talk about that. Next slide, Abbott. So, When the enhanced benefit decision was made, that was 2002. And essentially that was made on some knowledge at the time that was the California retirement system was what they termed super funded. that the 8% return on investment that they projected and had received over 30 years was going to be valid and ever seeing more than that. cities and states and county and state of California led it. could in fact enhance the benefit package and you see what that's done The returns on those investments haven't met those numbers, so therefore a lot of correcting has been done, and that's meant real cost to city budgets and minimization of the flexibility you have with your general fund dollars. But you've done some things in Sausalito, and you should be proud of them. You created a 115 trust early on, which is a very smart thing to do. So you set aside money for that. You retired some side funds that were obligations, and that's been helpful. We prepay our PERS costs every year and that results in a a deduction, but the biggest thing that happened was the state of California under Governor Brown enacted what was called the Public Employee Pension Form Act. And when that took effect, what that did, is that took away some of the ability, it took away all of the ability for cities to to create benefit packages that were beyond the prescribed limits in that act. So I'll give you an example, next slide. In 2002, a city I worked for in Southern California called National City adopted an enhanced plan. And what used to be the old California model, which was Employees retire with 2% net 60 that are general employees. Public safety, fire and police, retired with 2% at 50. And that was enhanced in National City to 3% 60 and 3% at 50 for public safety. So what does that mean to a layman to a resident? So I'll do it with this information because I think it's easy to follow. So if an employee say a city employee was making a hundred thousand dollars a year and had 20 years of service. The retirement benefit at 2%, which is 2% times 20 years, which is 40%, which is 40% of their high salary, meant that they got a retirement benefit of $40,000 a year for life. When the 3% kicked in overnight, overnight. that benefit went to $60,000 a year. And it was not prospective, it was retroactive. So all of that creates what we are into now. So the question a resident or a policymaker or somebody that stood us might ask Why did this happen? And I go back to again, The data from CalPERS in early 2000, 2001 was We are in a great market. Our investment returns are exceeding our forecast, which is 8%. And so in a sense, the interest earnings will pay for any enhanced benefits. So we are super funded. Now, they told that and in cities acted on that information. But as CalPERS will tell everybody, we didn't force the cities to act on that information. We just gave it to you. So in my mind, there's culpabilities on both sides. Thank you. But, Thank you. The bottom line is most cities in California did this. So I go back again to the steps you took, the steps the state is taking, and obviously you've taken some action in response to seeing that and that's wise. And obviously the state saw this as being untenable, unsustainable. So PEPPER was enacted in 2013. So in terms of what you've done specifically, the 115 Trust, which is really, really a smart move and a good move, you've set aside $4.8 million through August of 2021, almost $5 million. And that's specifically by law. for pension and pension-related debt. And so what that means is that $29 million unfunded accrued liability that you saw on the earlier slide is actually closer to $25 million. So that's a good thing in Sausalito's case. Next slide. So again, that $29 million number, when you do the arithmetic with the pension trust, It's $25 million that you actually owe at this point is as my city manager with the ticket. Next slide. So not to overstate what the pensions are in California, I think it's important that the public hear this because this is part of the whole story and it's a fact. When you see that $100,000 pension and you see the newspaper accounts of city managers and police chiefs and fire chiefs getting six-figure pensions, yeah, that's accurate. But the average pension for all retirees in the system is about $38,000, $40,000. So that is the reality of of our pension system is not everybody is seeing $100,000 pension Most are seen and the average for a mall is 38,000. And then the question becomes, you know, well, I'm paying for this. And the answer is yes and no. 55 cents of that dollar that's paid into the retirees comes from the investment earnings that system has built up and has. 32% comes from the employers, which is you, the city council. And 13 cents on that dollar comes from employees. Employees pay into it as well. So the public is on the hook for 32 cents through the employee employer budget. The employee is on the hook for 13 cents. And those investment earnings have earn 55 cents on the dollars to defray those costs so so that's the true story there next next slide So what happens to pension costs is they're impacted by decisions made to provide benefits or compensation increases to the organization and staff. So I want to look at a couple of scenarios with you in Sausalito's case, because I want you to understand our obligations long term. or PERS obligation and I want to show you what some projected assumptions will do to our budget in the future because that's what we're talking about today. Next next slide. So the deck of slides that the city council received early Thank you. needed to be tweaked and I think we've tweaked them now so that we can show the information that needs to be shown. But essentially, if we do nothing, next year. in terms of an increase to employees. we will be in a deficit. line that you see going up. That's the expense line. or the revenue line the blue bars that you see that's the expense line so you see the delta between the line and the bar and you can see that the bar doesn't isn't under the line until THE END OF And that's a project in with no increases And so when you see that difference between each of those years, The idea is in order to keep your budget balanced, you'd have to dig into your reserve. And so what you see is a corresponding decrease in your reserve funds. And that's if you do nothing. And that's what the assumptions provided by our finance department. Next slide. If you do... 1% increase. You can see the dynamic there. you deplete your reserve much quicker. So 2%, 3%. If you do a 3% increase, you can see that you're in the red for the total time in a projected sense. And you start to dig into your revenues until you're down to under $2 million in the out year. So that to me is a succinct way to show the community, the public, our organization that If we do status quo, we have problems. If we do something else, we have problems. And if we do this, we have more problems in terms of the depletion of our general fund reserve. Next slide. So the assumptions made in those projections were provided by our finance department. And you can see, they assume inflation They gave you the baselines of the three scenarios. And then they also assume revenue inflating as well, which I would like to revisit because I think that there is a need to be conservative at this point in our budget in terms of our projections And then this also creates a narrative or this projection These were done with the idea that All measure O monies in the future. would go to the capital improvement program, would not be used to pay for employees or employee expenses or backfill the budget deficit as we did this past year. Next slide. So that's the revenue side of things. I want to talk a little bit about infrastructure, MR KIRBY. And again, I go back to your strategic plan. Infrastructure was pointed out as a real need across a lot of |
| 00:29:08.99 | Unknown | AND, YOU KNOW, AGAIN, I |
| 00:29:13.98 | Chris Zapata | different tasks. Again, I go back to 49 or so of the objectives are tasked to be completed were in public works and a lot of them are infrastructure related. So what is infrastructure in Sausalito? It's your streets, it's your sidewalks, it's your buildings, it's your facilities and parks, it's your stairs and lanes, it's your drainage, it's your trees, it's your signals, it's your parking areas. So that is your infrastructure. |
| 00:29:41.27 | Chris Zapata | And so one of the things I'm really pleased with Director McGowan on, I asked him two months ago to create his best case estimate of what our overall infrastructure needs are and give me his basic numbers and I could aggregate all that and then talk to the community about what I really see going on in Sausalito. When I got here, I spoke about your streets and roads and I saw the pavement management index was in the 60s, I characterize as a D, means we're in bad shape with our roads. You know, we didn't talk about our sidewalks. We haven't talked about our soil stabilization. We really need to look at our stairs and drainage and what those numbers are. and our buildings. There's obviously parking lots and traffic signals And then there are the big, big ones of, you know, undergrounding. and sea level rise. So when you add all those up with unknown and sewer consolidation, you're close to $600 million in needs over the next 10 years. If you had that much money, you could invest it into your streets and roads, into your soil building, your traffic, your And you can really look at working on your undergrounding and sea level ice. So $600 million is a lot of money, especially for a small community. So next slide. And so the question is, well, let's break that down into some components. So we have 32 miles of roads in Sausalito that need to be maintained. And again, your payment index, your payment management grade is 64. And something greater than 70 is what's on the slide. But I would propose that you need something better than 80. You need better streets in your community because everybody uses your roads. It's the cars, it's the pedestrians, it's the bicyclists. Everybody uses your roads. and and frankly they're not in good shape and we need to really really pay attention to them next stage. You have soil stabilization that, you know, we have the topography that we have, which is quite beautiful, but very challenging in terms of the incline. And then we have a lot of sidewalks with our streets. And there's a real need to work on the sidewalks in Sausalito because they're used by everybody. a person pushing someone on a stroller, someone walking with their pet. These are all things that are really part and parcel to the city's infrastructure. And in my mind, I need some attention. |
| 00:32:06.30 | Chris Zapata | You have buildings that need some love and care. You know, we have one of the oldest corporation yards that I've seen. It's not in great condition. We have some things that are going on with respect to drainage that people may not see or may not understand. But we certainly need that. Our facilities need some money and our filtration needs so that whatever goes into the system is managed properly so that it doesn't create a problem when it comes out of the system. Next slide. And then, you know, there's that obvious that, you know, you see the traffic signals, you know, there's always a need for investment and improvement. If we were going to solve some problems related to parking, especially in our downtown, potentially a parking structure, be an answer and it would cost you about $5 million, approximately 30,000 per space. So if we do the math, you know, that'll tell you what a parking If you also look at our parking lots, we have a significant system of parking that needs to be maintained and upgraded. And so that's part of this equation. And then there are the big ones that are, front and center with the community and the council now. Undergrounding is a big one. And, You know, that's a big, big, big, number there as is trying to figure out sea level rise. So those are our numbers. They total almost $600 million again. Thank you. And, you know, I just want to say that is why Today, I believe you should talk about your finances. You should talk about your infrastructure. And everything else that we're doing right now, I will touch on in a minute. |
| 00:33:57.45 | Chris Zapata | So, you know, like your pensions, people here have worked hard on infrastructure. And the bottom line is, is you made some real improvements. |
| 00:34:03.88 | Unknown | And that's what we're talking about. |
| 00:34:06.70 | Chris Zapata | So you do have better parks now because of your Measure O you do have better public safety facilities because of measure S And then you do invest in an infrastructure structure. when you talk about your measure O fund with the exception of this year and we'll talk about that as well And you do have a capital improvement program that's rolling. It's a significant investment as well. |
| 00:34:33.29 | Chris Zapata | So Measure O was a very good idea, a very needed idea. and it was placed on the ballot in 2014. And it was placed on the ballot for 14 years or 10 years. and it expires in 2024. It generates about one million in change every year. and it has been applied to our budget and capital and infrastructure needs every year since it was implemented except this past year. So if you look at the measure of history, that's to reassure the community that measure O money was spent on infrastructure as was promised in 16, 17, 18, 19... 20. and some in 2021 and 2022, you see that zero. And that's a concern. That's something that talk to the finance committee, which is the mayor and VICE MAYOR. I've talked to the council members about that we need to address And I believe there's an opportunity to correct that mid year. because of the infrastructure needs and because of the commitment that was made, maybe not the legal commitment, but the spiritual commitment that we would, in fact, invest this money in infrastructure. So I want to talk to the council about the reserve fund and how we, in fact, Thank you. transfer money mid-year into measure O. to do more infrastructure stuff. Next slide. So, So in talking about that, recommendation to transfer money out of reserve into the infrastructure needs of the community to actually redo the budget from this past year and incorporate money that we know we got from Measure O and put it in infrastructure. My thoughts are, yeah, there's a definite need, but We should, in fact, look at a million dollars from our reserve And, you know, three quarters of that allocated to actual projects. a couple hundred thousand dollars allocated to project management because you need that. and another 100,000 or so allocated to grants writing because we're in the midst of were on the cusp of having an opportunity to really look at federal monies. and state monies that, you know, are infrastructure related. Next slide. Talk a little bit about the specifics of participation. You know, you invested about $7.5 million in facilities. That's your infrastructure. So, you know, in total, you spent about $8.9 million to improve Robins-Swooney Park, Dunphy Park, MLK Park, and Southview Park. And we're not quite done yet, but we are finishing and wrapping that up. And, you know, one of the great things about Sausalito that was supplemented by community giving people in the community cared enough to raise money to supplement to help plan where it was that things could be improved in our park system. And that's reflected in what you see today. |
| 00:37:34.99 | Chris Zapata | Again, if you want some specifics on measure, Yeah. You can see what it costs us to issue it. You can see what our interest expense was and you see the grand total. So I'm going to leave that slide next week. You know, one of the other things that you did was I understood that you had your police department and trailers. not too long ago. So you put together a program and issued some long-term debt to build what you see on Caledonia Street with the police station and the fire station, which was money well spent and invested in infrastructure as well. |
| 00:38:14.91 | Chris Zapata | that. Every year there's a capital improvement program, and it's a rolling plan, and it's typically a six-year plan. And this year's plans showed about $25 million that we would want to invest in the current plan. But I pair that with the fact that you have infrastructure needs of 600 million. And if you focus on the basics and you take out sea level rise and you take out undergrounding which are big, big numbers, you still have $200 million worth of infrastructure needs. Thank you. So the question is, is when you have infrastructure needs and the community pays out of its pocket, and the council makes decisions to send money into infrastructure What other money is being brought in? And the city staff there has done a good job trying to find other money, $2.4 million for the ferry project. Safe Routes to School is a constant request in funding source. You know, we get money from the transportation management group in Marin County, We have obviously other funding that comes in from the state. SB1 and so we bring other people's money in as well, but we have greater need than the money we bring in. |
| 00:39:32.54 | Chris Zapata | I think you know that some of the things that we're doing right now are You know, we are trying to work with our partners at other levels of government to bring resources in for our capital and infrastructure needs Those include grants. They also include trying to create an environment where regionally we can in fact apply for money with other cities that are adjacent or near us so that we can have a strength in numbers kind of scenario where I think many voices and joint need. could translate into funding that maybe Sausalito could not get on its Next slide. While that is going on, I always like to talk about state mandates. Sometimes we get mandates from the feds or the states, and it feels good to say the city is going to do this, that or the other, There's no money attached to it. It's you got to do this and that in turn creates another expense that the local folks have to deal with. be on the lookout for state mandates and make sure that when you see your representatives and you talk to them about these programs, If there's revenue attached to a mandate, that's a good thing. It does not. You probably should have a discussion with them. I want to talk now about the city council. And some of the the work that they've done again, you know, Yeah. There were 44 regular special meetings for this council since December. That's a lot of work. 202 items were considered And each one took its own time and its own thought inspiration and its own participation by council people and the public and staff In addition, you have a 48. different groups. that are represented by one or more council members. So that means that Mayor Hoffman as involved in most of them as mayor, Vice Mayor Kelman, but the workload is spread out across the entire council where you see that the council people don't just have city council meetings they actually have other meetings and committees that they're responsible for in carrying out their charge and their duties. that are significant beyond the city council meeting. Thank you. |
| 00:41:52.08 | Chris Zapata | So, What you see there is a big wave. And the reason you see that big wave is because those assignments and those result in the need for staff work. And in Sausalito's case, you have what I call um a practice of referring things to committees because you have many interested in carrying residents you have residents that live in this city that have done things at a world-class level and to get their expertise has been what you've tried to do here. And you've done that and you've done that successfully. The issue is going to be Can the staff keep up? And that's one of the things that I think we can discuss going further next month. |
| 00:42:39.21 | Chris Zapata | So going back to the community care, not only did you appoint 61 uh, residents to serve on these board and commissions. And that's wonderful. But you also have community organizations whether it's your service organizations like the Rotaries the Lions Club and Chambers of Commerce. You also have the Historical Society, South Dakota Beautiful, and other groups that collaborate with us and we pay attention to them. And so again, that points to 48 boards and commissions and other community organizations that take up their space in this city and require that we pay attention to them. And again, going back to capacity, it's concerning to me that we have that many. But I also appreciate the good things and expertise that they bring. But there has to be a balanced trust. |
| 00:43:31.59 | Chris Zapata | So, cause you can see the 48, you know, I would hope that the council would look at those and tell me as a new person here. which ones are no longer active, which ones, um, have done their work. because some of them have. But you know, that's a significant number of council commitments outside of their council responsibilities. There are things that they do at a regional level. at a statewide level as the staff, you know, staff has its own working groups of public works directors and finance directors and HR professionals and city managers. So everybody has other responsibilities outside of the local responsibilities, including the city council. |
| 00:44:14.99 | Chris Zapata | So going back to the capacity question, The question is, who's supporting these Uh, groups. And admin, you got 11 community development, you have nine. In public works, you have time. Parks and Rec, you have a policing library. five and four. So those are the requirements of the city staff. |
| 00:44:40.19 | Chris Zapata | So today, what I would hope that we would again go back and focus on is our finances, our infrastructure, |
| 00:44:47.46 | Jeffrey Chase | Thank you. |
| 00:44:48.64 | Chris Zapata | and that board and commission. And let me say this, we're not gonna fix our finances today or infrastructure today or our boards and commissions today. but if we come out of this with some kind of plan that says In January, we will look at our finances Instead, we will look at our infrastructure In March, we will look at our board and commission structure as a council. and take, you know, the time needed to do those things, I think that would be extremely helpful. So I wanna give you some closing thoughts. Certainly wanna thank everybody And I want to talk about ongoing work. In your agenda packet, there are some benchmarks that I submitted to the city council that focused on two areas. general administration and infrastructure. And in general administration, you know, I talk about finance and the actual structural deficit that we are looking at. talking about Measure O, our labor agreements, funding and grants, fixing our audits, and looking at all the property and leases that we manage and doing those efficiently. And that's just some of the work that we're going to do no matter what happens today. On the personnel side, I talked about a finance rebuild. We've done that. We now need to work on our community development staff because we're in a, a temporary situation. Heidi Scoville is the acting interim director And we'll do so until we can bring someone in. And then, you know, our organizational development and our evaluation of our work. |
| 00:46:15.72 | Chris Zapata | how we do things to train our people and support our people. And that means we should evaluate our people. So outside of the police department, My understanding of SARS-CoV-2 is You know, we need, we have it, and we should evaluate staff. You're going to evaluate the city manager every six months. You should evaluate your, all of your staff, at least annually. So we're going to put that in place and then we're going to work on |
| 00:46:36.37 | Unknown | at least annually. |
| 00:46:41.53 | Chris Zapata | Obviously, the execution of policy by the council you know, the agendas as they come and try to work with them so that there is rhythm and reason to them. Obviously we have a homelessness crises that you've been dealing with and will continue to deal with for the next near future. We have certainly a general plan to implement a housing element to advance And then the idea of 1128 and what that is and isn't. That was promised to be brought back to the community and the council in the form of a project and a process that would address, you know, the vision as well as concerns around parking. And we're going to do that. And then, you know, we're obviously going to look at the organization and try to figure out how we can become more efficient. and other things that a city does routinely. And then the things that you don't do routinely, there are always plan to activity that we're talking about right now. But There are always unplanned events that overtake us that we have to respond to. And so again, going back to what I said earlier, if we do not focus on, you know, what I call the basics in Sausalito, Thank you. then we're going to try to do everything. And that's going to be a really difficult chore to do. My advice is let's get to the finances, let's get to the infrastructure, and let's talk about how we're resourcing ourselves and working with the boards and commissions that you have in place. So with that, I will Conclude. And Dr. Garcia, any thoughts you want to add to that? community. |
| 00:48:29.38 | Dr. Garcia | Okay, I think it was very comprehensive. I don't know what the council's reaction, and I could see parallels between the presentation and what the council said to me in our interviews. As I said, I think The council understands the challenges. It's how do we address them? That's so important. My reaction to it is that I think it's really up to the council to discuss what they heard and to see if they have any questions, if they need clarification on any of the items that you put up there. But I do think a plan. I am amazed that you were able to get through this in less than 50 minutes. There's a lot of really, really good, helpful information that I hope the council is listening to and wanting to talk about. But that's my reaction to what you shared. |
| 00:49:38.76 | Chris Zapata | Thank you. Thank you. So Mayor and Council, so that concludes |
| 00:49:38.87 | Dr. Garcia | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 00:49:44.14 | Chris Zapata | our time And so now it's your time So as we move into the next two hours, Mayor, if you can manage the hands and As we said earlier, if Dr. Garcia or I need to raise our hand, we will do so. but if you can just start the conversation you know, having the council, you know, delve into this. And let's see where we get for the next two hours. And then obviously we want to wrap up. in the fourth hour and hear public comment. |
| 00:50:16.52 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, thanks. And Dr. Garcia, as our facilitator don't hesitate ever to jump in. But the way I would propose that the way we do it, we just break it out as Chris presented it into three sort of groups and we'll sort of go 45 minutes or at least target 45 for each section. So finance, infrastructure, and then the third one would be boards and commissions. at public comment, you know, we'll try to shoot for that at noon, if not sooner, whenever we get through, um, And with the idea that now Chris has given this really great scope and source sort of documents and source summary for us to sort of move forward on what we think. the prioritization is going forward, given this foundational aspect. I'll just let whoever wants to kick off. So we're going to start right now, 45 minutes, and we're going to go into the finance part of it. |
| 00:51:11.18 | Chris Zapata | Mayor, if I can jump in real quick. |
| 00:51:13.42 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah, of course. |
| 00:51:14.40 | Chris Zapata | I, I, Can you hear me? |
| 00:51:16.93 | Jill Hoffman | Again, enough. |
| 00:51:18.34 | Chris Zapata | Yeah. You can tell me to go jump in a lake that, you know, none of this matters to you and you can do it your way. But then again, I go back. This is a recommendation. And I appreciate that, you know, you would focus on these three things. today but again I go back it's your council meeting It's our community, but it's your policy prerogative to say, We don't want to talk about this. We want to talk about other things. I would hope that wouldn't happen, but I understand that. |
| 00:51:46.65 | Jill Hoffman | Okay. That was just my suggestion. Anybody wants to go a different way. That's fine. I see actually Dr. Garcia has his hand up and a rice mayor and Council member Sobieski, that's the order I saw come up in if you guys want to Yeah. OK, Dr. Garcia, go ahead. |
| 00:52:01.75 | Dr. Garcia | As I was thinking about the presentation and really my purpose for being here, it really has to do with planning and some of the things and also the interviews. I just want to give you just a little bit of feedback that I think will help you work together in the future. In my experience in working with organizations on strategic planning, I have found that there are certain things that have to happen. In order to be successful in implementing a strategic plan and even in working together, and by the way, I'm really sharing with you what I have learned after 35 years of working with organizations. So it's not just something that I'm suggesting for the city of Sausalito, but. Absent good communication, and by that I'm not just talking about speaking, I'm talking about listening. Absent respect for what other people have in terms of knowledge and to say, and absent trust in each other in what you're planning to do, it'll be a struggle. and oftentimes ends up being very, very dysfunctional. And I'm sharing this with you because not too long ago, I was working with an elected body and One of the elected officials said, you know what? We don't trust staff and they don't trust us and we're not getting anything done. And I found that to be something that has stayed with me in terms of how important it is. But the other side of that is none of those three variables are given. you You have to work at communicating. you know just because you're articulate and have something to say doesn't mean you're a good communicator. And they say if If somebody doesn't understand what you're saying, it's the communicator's fault. Not the listeners, folks. And we don't think that way. We sometimes will say, Gee, I was very clear on what I was saying. But I think it's something you work at. Respect, again, it's not given. You respect and you hope that people respect you and you're treated professionally and respectfully. And then the trust thing. For me, that's the toughest part. Because you have to earn the trust. People don't just give it to you. And if there are missteps or if you do something to question their ability to trust you, Getting that trust back takes a lot of effort, but it's doable. Okay, so that's, I think, very, very important as you work on whatever agenda you're going to come up with, on whatever project is happening. The other thing that I will say to you, because I was thinking of the 166 and all the boards and commissions, and I know Chris on a couple of occasions said we really have a lot of work to do and I'm concerned about capacity. What I've learned about organizations is that Thank you. If the expectations you have of the organization to do something are unrealistic, They create frustration. Frustration creates anger. Anger amongst staff results in burnout and burnout results in turnover. And I don't care what organization it is, I don't care, small, large, it's everywhere. but if the expectations you have of staff to do things really aren't supported by the resources you're willing to give them. or if they're not, if they're really not, if you as a council and you as a city manager aren't willing to nurture your employees, develop your employees, and listen to your employees, you're always going to have turnover, which is going to result in inefficiencies, ineffectiveness, lack of productivity, and cost. And in terms of cost, I say, and this is not Sausalito, but I am saying, especially in large organizations, you get into workers' comp claims, da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. And that is a sign that the organization itself is not functioning at its maximum. So all I'm trying to say to you is that you've got a lot of work ahead of you. If you could just keep some of those things in mind as you move forward, I think you'll get a lot further than if you keep going down a path that leads you to roadblocks, not alternatives. So that I just wanted to throw that out in the beginning as you go down this journey. That's it. I'm Doug. |
| 00:57:23.68 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, thank you. Thank you very much for that insight. I know we all appreciate it very much, Dr. Garcia. And your time that you spent with all of us too, I think was very helpful. and for all of us. Thank you. Go ahead, Vice Mayor, you're on mute, and then we'll go to Very good. Go ahead. |
| 00:57:40.10 | Janelle Kellman | Yeah, thank you. A huge thank you to the city manager. That was a lot of information synthesized very well, very accurately, very succinctly. So thank you, it was a huge lift. And Dr. Garcia, thank you for all your prep time. Mayor, I just have a sort of a process question, which is, you know, as we start with this, how should we be organizing our thoughts or our dialogue? You know, are we looking to see if we're in alignment on what the city manager has presented? Are we looking to see where we have gaps in our knowledge? I'm just wondering if Dr. Garcia or the city manager have recommendations for how to organize our conversation in a constructive manner. |
| 00:58:21.29 | Dr. Garcia | My suggestion would be to start by asking questions that you might have about what you just so that you're clear on the information they have. Once again, it's communication. You did a great job of sharing it with you, but how much did you hear and does it raise any questions before you start focusing on decisions? And then I would say to you, once you get your questions asked, I would recommend that you then begin to focus on what you want to do. And that's where you get into, okay, infrastructure, what do we want to focus? Do we want to focus on rising sea level? Where do we want to put our resources to move us forward? That's my suggestion. Chris, I don't know if you have. any ideas. Thank you. |
| 00:59:14.75 | Chris Zapata | Thank you. |
| 00:59:14.77 | Dr. Garcia | I concur, Dr. Garcia. |
| 00:59:16.98 | Jill Hoffman | Okay. So I'll go to Councilmember Sobieski then. |
| 00:59:21.92 | Ian Sobieski | Thanks a lot. I'm there. I would like to echo what the Vice Mayor said. Tremendous presentation. AND KUDOS. the TU City Manager Zapata and the whole staff that supported this. It's a real tour de force. and I'm gonna watch that presentation again time from having looked at the slides. THE FAMILY. One comment I'll make is I know we have four hours here today, but it would be this is the kind of thing that I think certainly iteration is a call for. And so, Even if we think we have consensus after today, I would put forth the notion that we should meet again to make sure the consensus survives. on top of sleeping on it. and talking to our residents and, constituents about it. There's a lot of fascinating information here. But I had some questions, actually, that I did want to drill down on. I'm not sure. Chris, on slide seven, the revenue, break pie chart uh did the property tax of five million dollars is that though is that the 11 that the city actually receives Yes. Okay. In the sales tax of $3.6 million, that includes the measure O funds? |
| 01:00:36.49 | Chris Zapata | Thank you. and I think that's a good thing. |
| 01:00:37.91 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 01:00:37.98 | Chris Zapata | All right. Let me check that. I'm not sure, but I will check that. Let me ask Charlie to look at that because it may be broken out separately. as at half a percent that may just be the one percent and let us check that |
| 01:00:50.74 | Jeffrey Chase | That's correct. It includes the measure of. |
| 01:00:53.47 | Ian Sobieski | Okay, thank you. Of the $3.6 million, I forgot what it's called. It's the, I think it's the use fee. It's the sales tax charged on the internet for internet sales. How much of that sales tax is the, is that use fee as opposed to the point of sale sales tax. that you get by buying a pack a gun at the corner store. |
| 01:01:18.95 | Jeffrey Chase | Thank you. |
| 01:01:19.03 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 01:01:19.05 | Jeffrey Chase | I will have to get back to the Council on that. |
| 01:01:21.03 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. Okay. Thanks. And then on the slide, was it the, you had the three scenarios, city manager of the 0% labor costs increase 1% and 3%. And then I can't find what slide it is. Drilling down here. Well, Well, I can't find which slide it is. you know, I'm gonna find the slide before I ask my questions. So I'll let other people ask questions while I move on. But I would just make one comment, just to frame something. You know, it is clear in the face of the substantial Uh, infrastructure expenses that our city needs, or maybe I'll even back up a little more just to say, The other kudo I want to make is this idea of back to basics. There's a sort of fundamental function of city government uh, that we provide and the And part of that is providing basic infrastructure. And I think you touched on the idea of expectations of our town and anger that can lose, Dr. Barasio did, anger or frustration that can result from things and I believe that a source of community dissatisfaction the city government is evident places where the city's fallen short on its infrastructure obligations. The pavement management quality, things such as reopening the North Street steps, after the mudslide these are examples of cracked sidewalks. These are examples of things that are frustrating. And that's just basic maintenance. And then on top of that, we have the whole capital improvement expectation. We see the large bill that's due there. and we are talking about being wise in managing our tax collection spend But a big opportunity here is that we are not taking advantage of is the opportunity to get money, not from our residents, but from others to pay for infrastructure expenses. There was a benchmarking study that the Finance Committee organized that was run by two accomplished members of our community, and it noted that Larkspur and Shannon Shalmoe for Largsburg 10 and some other parks and recreation departments are cashflow positive to the city budget. Not negative, there is no expense because of grants. They're so successful in getting public infrastructure grants. that they're actually able to have a negative item meaning that those departments actually accrued money to the budget. So the city manager mentioned one of his recommendations was around spending resources on grant writing. And I think he mentioned something like 100K. And, uh, and you know it's a detail we can it's an important detail we can talk about but i would advocate even doubling that number in the scale of what we're talking about spending, a specific recommendation that I would like drill down on with the city manager and my colleagues is I thought it really making an investment. in not only winning grants, but then managing them. And you need to allocate appropriate resources to do that. And I think that's given the scale of the money that we need to spend on infrastructure. That is an area that I think we should really consider |
| 01:04:42.97 | Unknown | So, I had my question and my comment, and I'm going to look up the slide that I need to ask when I have a question about revenue increases. |
| 01:04:54.66 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, thanks. Anybody, any other questions at this point with regard to our finance section? Yes, Council Member Blasting, go ahead. |
| 01:05:04.94 | Janelle Kellman | I also thank you to the city manager and staff and Dr. Garcia for the huge lift of today's meeting. I really appreciate it. Really thorough presentation and very concise. And I will also rewatch it. Maybe Ian and I will have a watch party together. I, um, wanted to ask specifically about the projections for the 10-year numbers. You know, $600 million is a really daunting figure to consider. Did you work closely with DBW to come up with that projection? Where did those numbers come from in terms of the 10 year span? And are we sure it's going to be that high? |
| 01:05:37.85 | Chris Zapata | Well, first of all, it is an estimate, but it certainly did come from the Department of Public Works. That was one of Kevin's charges for me, is that you put together a gap analysis for infrastructure needs. And as you can see, he did the work, and so that's his work with his team. And so that $599 million comes from his estimates. And again, I want to stress there, estimates, there are some things that we know that are certain, but that number is an estimate, and it may be higher. |
| 01:06:07.73 | Janelle Kellman | Okay, and then I also wanted to ask about from the request to move, measure some general fund reserve dollars from the general fund back into allow for infrastructure for measure O. I know you don't have a prepared necessarily amount at this stage, but can you give us an idea of what a realistic percentage pull from our reserves would look like to be able to meet the needs of the Metro expectations of our community? |
| 01:06:35.19 | Chris Zapata | Absolutely. And so typically the number you saw from Measure O, it's in one of the slides, is about 1.2 million. |
| 01:06:42.58 | Unknown | There. |
| 01:06:42.98 | Chris Zapata | And so in my mind, you have a general fund reserve of about six to seven million dollars. It's at 29% of the budget. Your policy calls for 15% to keep in the case of emergency. amount there that I would look at And doing the math, not to go below 50%, Anything in and around that, I would want to recommend it to transfer. And I'm thinking at least a million dollars back into the capital improvement program. And that's when I spoke about the idea you know, 750,000 going to actual projects and 200,000 going into project management $100,000 going into a grant writer. at least $1 million from your reserves. That would take your reserve down from that 29% down to If it's below the 15%, I wouldn't advocate that, but I can't do the rifty tick in my head. but maybe Charlie can and tell me you know, in a few minutes, what, you know, $1 million from your reserve, etc. you down to in terms of your your savings account, your your piggy bank, as I call it, in applying it to projects today and I say this again it's nice to have a reserve But if your house has fallen down, it doesn't do good to have money in the bank. You should invest that money. because those costs will only grow the longer you delay. So yeah, I have a number and how that will impact the reserves I'll ask Charlie to do that arithmetic for us and get back to us during the meeting. |
| 01:08:13.48 | Janelle Kellman | And you anticipate that if we make the decision to make that investment, it will potentially decrease the expected $600 million in cost over time because it will be a proactive investment. |
| 01:08:24.18 | Chris Zapata | Yeah, it would definitely take something off the top, you know, maybe But also if there's a realization of grant funds that you know would help you know dig into that member, it certainly would be helpful. But that would be determined later. You could say, you know, right off the top, we're going to take that knee down and put $700,000 into our roads So our roads are going to go down from 9 million to 8 million. So it would make an immediate impact in that regard. Or if you applied it to your sidewalks or whatever other infrastructure needs you have. But I think your question is really important and I appreciate it because It really is an opportunity to restore that measure of money that, you know, was not put in this year's budget. And, you know, let the community know that for the last five years, that money has gone in there. and it will continue to go when they're And there just has been this slight interruption, which we've corrected. |
| 01:09:18.86 | Janelle Kellman | And then the last question that I had, because I know we all have a lot to get through and I don't want to take up too much time. But, you know, obviously, as the Sustainability Commission lays on and thinking about productive costs from climate lens and what some of the impacts might be, |
| 01:09:24.24 | Unknown | you know, |
| 01:09:31.73 | Janelle Kellman | from a climate change mitigation standpoint, especially with things like sea level rise, and it perhaps could be more than $600 million. And so I'm wondering if we could consider And I just want to put this idea out there, a specific grant focus on climate change mitigation or sustainability, or if you thought about that, or the grant writer position would be more general. For both. Or maybe that's something we all decide together. I just wanted to put that on. |
| 01:09:56.59 | Chris Zapata | Yeah, I think that's right. You all decide together. But we have done some back of napkin numbers that are in that 599 million. It's significant. We are having conversations with other cities about joint applications for federal money that would in fact, you know, deal with infrastructure and sea level rise. And so identifying that number I think was the start. And again, it's an estimate, but then also trying to figure out the approach that the council wants to go after whatever aspect of infrastructure it is would be a decision or discussion that you'd have in my mind this coming year. |
| 01:10:36.33 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 01:10:36.43 | Janelle Kellman | Thank you. |
| 01:10:37.97 | Jill Hoffman | I see Vice Mayor Kelman and then Councilmember Sobel. |
| 01:10:40.97 | Janelle Kellman | be nice. Thank you, Mayor Huffman. I have a couple of questions. First, I'm so happy already we're only an hour and 15 in and we already have alignment over a grant writer. So fully in support of that. And I'll just plant a seed as well. Almost everything in Chris's slide deck around infrastructure, I believe, can be packaged as a climate change, coastal resiliency update, even the state mandated things around groundwater, stormwater. That all relates to sea level rise, climate change. So we just need to be. just really diligent around that, but also creative. So a huge opportunity. And I'm delighted to see the alignment already. I have three questions about reserves and one about sales tax. So thank you, Council Member Blaustein, for starting us off on the reserve conversation. I just have sort of just a level setting. What is a non-spendable reserve? I've seen that in finance committee documentation. And I'm trying to understand what that might refer to. And I don't know, city manager, if you have a definition for that. |
| 01:11:40.29 | Chris Zapata | I'm going to have the finance director speak to that because his interpretation might be different than mine. Okay. |
| 01:11:45.87 | Jeffrey Chase | The major component of the non spendable reserve as the the amount that's set aside for the OPEB trust fund, the pension trust fund. |
| 01:11:56.91 | Janelle Kellman | Okay, that's very helpful. And then just to clarify, Charlie, the city. |
| 01:12:02.02 | Jeffrey Chase | There's the second component, I'm sorry, Vice Mayor. The second component of the non spendable reserve is the amount that's owed to the general fund by the MLK fund. |
| 01:12:14.61 | Janelle Kellman | Oh, interesting. Okay. Come back to that. Okay. So then on the, on the reserves, um, I saw and looked at our numbers and, and thought that the city came out of the pandemic with more unassigned reserves than when it started. Is that accurate? |
| 01:12:32.62 | Jeffrey Chase | THAT'S THE Did we come up with more than when we started? Correct. We ended up fiscal year the last fiscal year ending 2021 with a surplus, yes. So we did increase our reserves. |
| 01:12:47.10 | Janelle Kellman | Okay. And then do you happen to know offhand or can you figure out for us how much spending was caught during the pandemic. And did we ever look at what would have happened to the reserves had spending not been cut? |
| 01:13:02.76 | Jeffrey Chase | You know, I wasn't here when the cuts occurred, so I don't know the extent of them. |
| 01:13:08.88 | Janelle Kellman | Okay, yeah, I'm trying to figure out you know to chris's point you know what what flexibility do we have the reserves um did we need to tap into them or not and what does that mean for us moving forward so that's that's the intention Thank you. |
| 01:13:21.84 | Jeffrey Chase | I have the answer to Chris's question too. If we spend an additional million dollars now, our reserves would be |
| 01:13:21.91 | Janelle Kellman | I am. |
| 01:13:30.60 | Jeffrey Chase | Higher than 25% and less than 30%. |
| 01:13:34.46 | Janelle Kellman | Okay. Thank you. so those are my reserve questions and my sales tax questions this is more of an observation but also a question so when i came into the council there was a lot of conversation around tourism and sales tax from a downtown area but when i look at our q2 sales tax report from htl it looks like restaurants are less than 25 of sales tax but the cars and bucket, which includes yacht sales, basically suggest that that boat sales generate almost as much sales tax as restaurants. And I want to know if I'm reading that correctly. And if so, how can we as a council better understand that articulation? Because I had never really heard that narrative before. And I had to dig in and look at the HGL reports to see that. And I think there's a way to daylight that distribution in a way that I don't know, is a storytelling, I think it'd be helpful. |
| 01:14:33.10 | Jeffrey Chase | You're correct, for Q2, the boats and motorcycle sales are about the same as our casual dining sales. I'm not sure. BUT IF WE LOOK AT OUR what that looks like over time. I think that might have been an unusual quarter for both sales. |
| 01:14:51.70 | Janelle Kellman | Yeah, I'm just wondering, as the seeds of plant, I don't know the answer. I'm wondering if as we look to the future, if boat sales is something we might want to focus on, we are a waterfront community, we have 2000 slips, Is that an opportunity for us to add to our coffers if we haven't yet focused on that in the past? So that's my thinking, my my question. |
| 01:15:11.58 | Jeffrey Chase | Yeah, it looks like I'm looking at a graph now that AUTO'S AND TRANSPORTATION SALES ARE |
| 01:15:19.22 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:15:19.24 | Jeffrey Chase | Mm-hmm. about one they're pretty low compared to the usual casual dining sales. |
| 01:15:27.53 | Janelle Kellman | Okay. Thanks, Charlie. That's historically, but maybe an opportunity for us to find new monies to bring into the community. |
| 01:15:33.13 | Jeffrey Chase | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 01:15:33.95 | Janelle Kellman | Thank you so much. |
| 01:15:35.81 | Jeffrey Chase | And one last comment. THE END OF to Councilmember Sobieski's question. |
| 01:15:39.83 | Janelle Kellman | Yeah. |
| 01:15:40.05 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:15:42.56 | Jeffrey Chase | About 20% of our total sales tax comes from county pools. |
| 01:15:50.00 | Jill Hoffman | Can you explain that just a little bit, Charlie? What do you mean by that? |
| 01:15:53.72 | Jeffrey Chase | So there's the point of sale where, you know, Um, So if somebody buys something at at Molly Stones and it's taxable, then that 1% comes direct to the city in that category. If we're buying internet sales or we have use tax sales, those go to county pools and the county pools then allocate it back. So about 20% of our sales tax comes from county pools and 80% comes from point of sale within Sausalito. |
| 01:16:23.96 | Jill Hoffman | Um, Do you mind if I ask a follow-up question on that? How did they figure out the percentages on that? Do you know? |
| 01:16:32.01 | Jeffrey Chase | It's probably a little complex and I don't know at the top of my head, but we can certainly get that. |
| 01:16:34.25 | Jill Hoffman | And I don't know. Yeah. Is that another one of the county mysteries? Okay. We'll delve into that. Okay. Council Member Sobieski, you're next. I'm sorry, but... Charlie? |
| 01:16:44.39 | Ian Sobieski | Well, Charlie, just on that then. Uh, it's a good thing. So 20%. of our sales tax comes from Cali pools. kind of talking into the vice mayor's question then. |
| 01:16:51.44 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:16:51.50 | Unknown | it. |
| 01:16:51.68 | Unknown | I love you. |
| 01:16:54.15 | Ian Sobieski | taking out. the point of sale, sales tax from things like yachts. manufactured goods but. How is that 20% compared to what we all think of as the sales tax paid by retailers and other vendors in the city at port of sale terminals. Is it, it sounds like it's going to be, well, That's my question. do we know? |
| 01:17:20.28 | Jeffrey Chase | Well, generally it's, We don't know. And I'd have to. get back to the whole council on that, not during this meeting, but at a subsequent time. |
| 01:17:29.84 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. Well then maybe just that since this is a strategic planning session, among other things, this question comes up over and over again. the Vice Mayor and I are liaisons to EDAC and EDAC has been trying to, in their role, Economic Development Advisory Committee, have advice on how to develop the economy of Sausalito. a challenge is that committee of volunteers, experts, keeps you running into the privacy requirements around some of this data. And the consequent complication is we have a lot of data but not a lot of meaning. different kinds of businesses are categorized differently. when we want to drill down, say, into revenue in the marinship categories can be conflated such that a architecture firm can be mixed in with other kinds of businesses. And it's data without a lot of meaning. Somehow, I would like to set the the goal. for us all to be able to make wise decisions about the policy implications around what kinds of business policy we have to support or otherwise to really be able to drill down into the sales tax number to understand these kinds of questions, the kinds of the Vice Mayor asked and that I'm asking. It is still, unclear what kinds of businesses specifically are the ones that are contributing to, or what different kinds of businesses, businesses contribute to. to our sales tax numbers. So that seems like a task that I would |
| 01:19:01.99 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 01:19:02.40 | Ian Sobieski | i know that the vice mayor and i vice mayor has articulated several times in the past it's always down on the list of priorities that we're going to have. we it's it's a solvable problem i don't know what we could do about the privacy rules uh but But we need to solve that problem. |
| 01:19:18.97 | Jeffrey Chase | like why. If I if I may share my screen, you're you're absolutely. that the My, oh, sharing the wrong screen, hold on. |
| 01:19:34.07 | Jeffrey Chase | There we go. |
| 01:19:38.00 | Jeffrey Chase | So again, the major category in time has been restaurants and hotels. And what we're seeing is like general consumer goods is creeping up. And in terms of consumption for the general public, this is probably the lowest level we can go. But certainly staff can drill down even more and provide summary data to the Economic Development Advisory Committee. |
| 01:20:07.53 | Ian Sobieski | OK, well, somehow we need to Okay. I'm just putting it out there. We don't need to get into the weeds necessarily here, result the consequences i still think we're flying blind we we look at these numbers and because of the way they're amalgamated there's not a way to make real policy um choices around some of these issues and to understand what the contributions of different businesses are. So I just put it out there. The question I wanted to ask is on the one from before with the 0% increase in labor costs and 1%, Chris. So do you have, What are the implications of these three things? Clearly, you talked about not having a deficit spending structure inside of our labor organizations. you're showing that we're going to have a deficit spending on an operational basis for three years with zero percent increase in labor costs so you know, this seems like a an important observation that has pretty profound implications how we think about our upcoming labor discussions and what that implies about revenue needs that we have. and what it might also apply in the kind of fundamental way we structure. the organization. So I'm wondering if you have some observations about the implications of these, particularly scenario one versus even scenario two. THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 01:21:38.69 | Chris Zapata | Thank you. |
| 01:21:38.73 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 01:21:38.88 | Chris Zapata | Yeah, just the point to be made was exactly what you said. If you're looking at deficit spending, which I think is a big concern going forward, You have upcoming labor negotiations and we cannot talk about what it is exactly that we think is going to be an outcome because that's not part of the bargaining process. but there should be consistent information shared with the council, the organization, as well as community that this is what we're projecting and the impact to doing or keeping status quo is, if you do nothing for employees, with the assumptions that were provided by Mr. Francis, you know, you'd start dipping down into your reserve anyway. and it accelerates as you look at increases in compensation. And that's for you to understand as a council as well as the community and the labor groups and the employees. that, you know, we're not out of the woods. And this idea of a structural deficit to me is really important to understand. That's what that shows, the structural deficit. You don't have enough revenue to support your increasing costs with the assumptions that we have. And some of those costs that are increasing include your PERS costs. Some of the things that are increasing may be your medical and health care costs. but the bottom line is this you know if we look at Thank you. this this information. and do not understand it or do not do something about it, next year when the budget is adopted, It looks like, you know, we're going to come to you and say we need some more reserve money. And that's not a good thing. So that's important for you all to know. And this does not even think about, you know, infrastructure investments. Did this not show the, if you took a million million and two out of that reserve, what the reserve would look like. because that decision hasn't been made. So it's really a wake up call and a dire one if that. that is it needs to be understood and that was the whole point of those slides So, |
| 01:23:45.03 | Ian Sobieski | you looking today for, I guess my question is, are you looking today for some engagement around ideas on this? Or is this a, you know, big enough topic tied into the labor negotiation process that's really just informational for us and the community and that our engagement with this issue is for another day? |
| 01:24:03.07 | Chris Zapata | Yes, exactly that. So what I would propose is if you stay focused on finance, infrastructure and boards and commissions today, just in general, but that we come back to you in January with steps to take related to finances and pensions and those things, because we do have request to Thank you. through the finance committee to have a pension discussions with Mr. Bartels. So that's being scheduled in January because in November is when the pension board meets and things may change. And so his advice is I'll come see you guys after that's done. So more than likely January. So in January, you talk about finance and and pensions and those things in february you can get into infrastructure as a result of understanding your finance and then in march you can start talking as a council about the Board and Commission structure and what you want to do or not want to do. And so in my mind, just stay at a high level today. on those three topics, ask the questions you want to ask, and then be prepared to come back in a single shot that says, you know, this is what we didn't talk about enough and finance and do that in january and et cetera in february march with infrastructure and boards and commissions so yeah no we're not trying to solve this today you can't |
| 01:25:16.65 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you, Chris. Councilman Cleveland Knowles. |
| 01:25:21.71 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you, Mayor. So I'm glad Ian asked that question and thank you for the response. I think my main focus from the finance conversation was also the structural deficit And the slide 19 of the revised PowerPoint. I'm interested that we focused on labor with the slide because I think the structural deficit exists for could exist for many different reasons. Labor is obviously one of our primary expenses and primary costs, but I think there's other components that could play into this, so I just want to make sure that we're looking at the complete picture, keeping labor as one of the highest contributors. And so I guess I'm having a little bit of trouble balancing what we see as an existing structural deficit We also, one thing that we didn't talk about was other outstanding liability that we have with our outstanding landslide. risk potential, from number of cases filed against us. We have a very high risk outstanding because of our insurance pool. |
| 01:26:37.84 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:26:40.65 | Melissa Blaustein | that. issues so that I don't know if that's factored into these. but it could augment this issue. And I guess my question for the city manager and maybe the finance director around this is I am all in favor of spending down our reserves to invest in our infrastructure. Definitely. Is this a good time to spend down our reserves when we haven't solved our structural deficit issue. because we may need to be relying in the short term on reserves to eat, until we've managed our structural deficit. So could you talk a little bit |
| 01:27:22.01 | Unknown | and |
| 01:27:31.90 | Melissa Blaustein | to that question, Chris? |
| 01:27:32.00 | Chris Zapata | Thank you for your comments, Councilmember Kalivinos. Because you just pointed out three problems that relate to your budget. Number one, our revenue expenses, as we project them under certain assumptions, are upside down. Number two, we haven't factored in real infrastructure costs into those numbers. And you pointed out the potential for legal exposure in those costs. So there's one, two, three things that would affect this and make this a little more challenging than it already appears to be. So as you talk about you know, should we spend money or not spend money? And that's a that's policy decision. But here's my recommendation. If you spend one-time money on one-time expenses, then I think you're in a better position than if you apply part of your reserve to ongoing expense, which is what employee costs are. what program costs are. So what I'm advocating is taking a one-time use of those monies applying them to a one-time infrastructure need And then do that because the infrastructure costs only grow. The longer you delay a road, a sidewalk, or a pipe, the more expensive it becomes. So if you do what you can to kind of mitigate that, I think that's highly important and I think it's equally important to demonstrate to the community that you're honoring that commitment that measure o was in the sense of a focus on infrastructure even though legally you could spend it because it's 50% plus one on other general fund items which you did this past year which I think we need to undo |
| 01:29:01.51 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. And I, yeah, I think that's right. I just would note that we would then be spending down our reserve this year, both I am all in favor of the measure O. going to infrastructure, but then you're also asking for another million out of reserves for infrastructure. And then we would also potentially be spending down our reserves just to meet our regular operating budget. So, you know, that's a policy discussion I would love to have maybe when we get to that point. I think it's, I generally agree with the direction, I just want to be prudent and recognizing how that will very quickly lead to a significant decrease in our reserves. The second thing I just wanted to pick up on is the grant discussion. and I think, what wasn't focused on so much, but I didn't, I think I heard you say, Chris, is that Thank you. For me, it's not that we need just a grant writer and I am in favor of a physician or consultant in that respect, but I think we also need |
| 01:30:01.70 | Unknown | I think it's a great thing. Thank you. |
| 01:30:08.33 | Melissa Blaustein | more dedicated staff. to working up the project management side of our projects so that we have projects that are ready to be to have grants written for them. I mean, we can get grants for planning |
| 01:30:24.13 | Unknown | I'm not going to be a |
| 01:30:25.24 | Melissa Blaustein | But really what we, we have so many plans on the shelves in Sausalito. What I think we really need is to move the plans for the implementation. And that's what we seem to have our hardest, that seems to be the So if we're going to spend money on grants, I would like to spend an equal amount or a corresponding amount. on. the capital planning project management side of that. And I think I heard you said that that was your proposal, but could you just Thank you. |
| 01:30:54.50 | Chris Zapata | Thank you. |
| 01:30:54.88 | Melissa Blaustein | Yeah. |
| 01:30:54.98 | Chris Zapata | Yes, but I did it. Yeah, in my conversation and recommendation, today and before. If you transfer money from your reserve into infrastructure, that a portion of that has to be for project management And a portion of that should be to obtain some grant writing services. So that's the thinking. But also as you get into this conversation in another area which is boards, commissions, and committees if we weren't staffing all these board commissions and committees there could be more attention focused on managing projects and so in my mind that's part of the answer I'm not trying to tell you to get there, but that's where I would go. because that is certainly a need. We need people to manage projects, implement projects. And right now they're in committee meetings. |
| 01:31:46.83 | Melissa Blaustein | Great. Okay. I guess for my fellow council members, I would just hold those to the grant writing and the project management concepts equally. as needs. And then Mayor, I just had two more quick things. |
| 01:32:01.38 | Unknown | Sure, go ahead. |
| 01:32:02.27 | Melissa Blaustein | So the next slide. was the conversation around back to basics. I think I think there's a lot of strong consensus, at least what I'm hearing on the council for the infrastructure and the basics, maybe with a modern twist of long term Um, sea level rise and greenhouse gas emissions and that complete street kind of, we're not just gonna increase our pavement index, but we wanna do that in a way that's pedestrian friendly with bike lanes, et cetera. So I'm definitely in favor of that, I would love to have a conversation if it's today or whenever about what we all feel like the basics are because I think there's a lot that's basic in government and what government does. So that's hard to me. That's hardly prior. It's a prioritization, but it would be fun to see what people think about prioritizing within that conversation. So that's more of a question to the Council. And then my last thing, I would just like to acknowledge Just... what Dr. Garcia said at the outset after Chris's presentation that I think is just, I don't wanna lose that today, emphasis on communication, especially listening. respect. and trust. And if we have time You know, today, I think just in and of itself, spending the day in the morning, together and carving out this time, I think, is a huge step in that direction. um, I think that point is so valuable and just hope that we can all commit to that and carry that forward, carry that thought forward. I thought it was very eloquent. articulation and carry that feeling, not just among ourselves, which I think is really important, but communicate that out to staff. and the community as well. So I just want to thank him for that. |
| 01:34:04.97 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you, Dr. Garcia. And then I have a couple comments and then we'll go to Council Member Sobieski and Vice Mayor Kalman. |
| 01:34:06.59 | Melissa Blaustein | And then, |
| 01:34:12.53 | Jill Hoffman | If we're gonna stay on track, we have about nine minutes. So go ahead, Dr. Garcia. |
| 01:34:16.11 | Dr. Garcia | It was there just want to suggest that at some point I'd recommend taking a break because it's a short time. |
| 01:34:22.56 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 01:34:22.91 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:34:23.52 | Dr. Garcia | because we're going to lose focus very, very quickly. Thank you. |
| 01:34:27.10 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah. |
| 01:34:27.18 | Dr. Garcia | And I think we'll be less, we'll be more productive if we get a quick break. |
| 01:34:31.94 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah, I was planning to do that at 1045. |
| 01:34:34.08 | Dr. Garcia | Thank you. |
| 01:34:34.22 | Jill Hoffman | I was planning to take a 10 minute break at 10.45. |
| 01:34:34.27 | Dr. Garcia | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 01:34:36.26 | Unknown | So. |
| 01:34:37.27 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, so my question is, for Chris are, you know, do we have any indication that our mid-year budget that we're gonna have a projection of positive adjustment. In other words, if we're going to One of the reasons we unfortunately did not use, well, measure O money, right? Measure O is not a super special fund, but we track it and we understand that the voters, that was presented to the voters, was it where you're going to use money from that measure for infrastructure. That was what was presented to the voters in 2014. So we didn't do that this year in order to save ourselves from further deficit spending. but I'm all for adjusting that at midyear, which is, I think, what we were thinking when we did our budget back in July. Do we have Chris, you know, It's... any good news or look like maybe a projection at this point. I mean, I know it's the guest, but that we're going to have a positive adjustment for a mid year budget. |
| 01:35:42.66 | Chris Zapata | Yeah. So, so mayor, I think that the best thing to tell you is when we finish our fiscal year, on June 30th, and we start a new one. excuse me, on July. And we get July. August, September, usually those come to our consultants. in a lagging fashion. So we actually get them in October, November. And then when we get the next three months, it's usually, you know, February, March. And so I think the best indicator would be to wait a couple of quarters and then tell you, you know, this is where we think we're headed you know, do some look-see at the first quarter, but But again, I want people to understand that, you know, there The reporting is done quarterly and there's a lag in that reporting. And so we're in October right now, so we could provide And I think we do have, and Charlie can correct me, We do have the first quarter status of where we are trending but again that's just one quarter |
| 01:36:35.99 | Jill Hoffman | Mm-hmm. What is that a positive or a negative? training. |
| 01:36:42.62 | Jeffrey Chase | Charlie. I think we were on track with revenue collection and spending. Yes. |
| 01:36:48.88 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, and I think there were some areas, Chris, that we thought we were we had budgeted for, but we know we're under spending, right? So certain things. So, so it, I mean, Anyway. To me, I'm hopeful that at midyear, we're going to be able to show some positive some positive movement that would account for the 1.2 million. So we wouldn't have to go quite so far into our reserves. And we're not as far deficit spending as we thought we were. Anyway, keep your fingers crossed for that. Okay, my second one was with regard to the undergrounding, which was a huge, you know, 285 million in the, 10-year infrastructure costs There are alternate ways to pay for that, right? So there are lots of alternate ways to pay for that, which would be issuance of bonds and things like that. So I'm assuming that everybody on the council would be in favor of looking at that as well as obviously infrastructure grants that hopefully will be coming out with this new budget that the president is hoping to pass. Or the new budget, the new spending infrastructure bill. So which leads back to grant writer, right? So I think we're all agreed on a grant writer. We've all been agreed on a grant writer for a number of months, and I know that the staff We've tried to, we've looked for grant writers. I know Holly, I'm sorry, Heidi has looked for grant writers. I know we discussed it with. Lily before she left. What I would ask that perhaps we, to ask Debra much more with just going out and doing a more, focused search for one because i know that we need one like right now um and so for other efforts that we're looking at so that that would be maybe maybe our one sort of discussion point at the end Um, on that issue and Chris, I know I just threw that at you. And you have your hand up, how nice, thank you. Okay, so those are, I think those are my main comments. Um, uh, |
| 01:38:55.19 | Chris Zapata | Okay, Mayor, so I wanna respond to the undergrounding because that is a big number and, So my preliminary thoughts on that are, yeah, there are many ways to finance something big over a long term. But the real question I have, and we need to explore this further, What's the obligation of the utility? you know, what's the obligation of PG&E? What's the obligation of the community? You know, what resources are out there? But I want to be really clear. I don't believe that that's solely the city problem to solve. I think it's a bigger problem than we can solve, but we need to look at other people that have know that service responsibility and see what it is that they are doing It might move the needle in a meaningful way. So I plant that out there for you and I appreciate everybody's conversation about a grant writer and I like your suggestion about formalizing that, if that's what we come to and just bringing that in a position in house. So thank you. |
| 01:39:52.06 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. So I see Councilmember Sobieski, the Vice Mayor, and then Councilmember Blaustein's lineup. |
| 01:39:59.03 | Ian Sobieski | Yeah, I'll just mention to dovetail with what city manager Sapata said about undergrounding and the obligation of utility, just at a macro level in terms of use of resources across the society. We have a kind of paradoxical situation where PG&E is going to be spending substantial millions of dollars to upgrade their electrical infrastructure. They're going to do that above ground. And but they're gonna be tearing down an existing system and putting a new one in above ground Then if we want to spend money to underground it, we have to tear down that and put it underground. And there's a little bit of the left hand not talking to the right hand jurisdictional problem of, taking advantage of infrastructure money PG&E is going to spend anyway and just paying the delta, putting that new infrastructure on the ground. that. To manage that is a legal slash bureaucratic challenge that needs staff time, so time to Manager Zabada's comments about where we devote staff time. This is an example of where if staff's not working on something else, they could work. on the the interpersonal challenge Thank you. trying to spend that money better in our society to do that we're going to spend anyway in a wiser way. What I wanted to comment on the grant thing is just, we have clearly a consensus on grant writer. Apparently it's been an emerging consensus. But I really think now is not the time to do that task on the chief. So, It's great that we're even talking now or that we've moved to actually having a full-time position. That's great. Those grant writers, some can be, I know from looking at it on EDAC, some like to be compensated on the win, like a salesperson with a percentage of commission. Others might be interested in salary and benefits. I really think we should limit ourselves necessarily to even just one position, having two people would be substantial if they're tied to council member Blalstein's comments about thinking about allocations towards sea level rise is being an area of expertise for such a grant writer versus a general grant writer for other kinds of applications? given the literally more than trillions of dollars that the federal government may be allocating to this category and the |
| 01:42:07.60 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:42:07.68 | Kevin McGowan | to the |
| 01:42:07.98 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:42:09.65 | Ian Sobieski | CHALLENGE HERE. My proposal for my colleagues is to really stretch on this allocation and just err on the side of spending a little bit too much. It's not that much money if we spend $200,000 on this category instead of $100,000. And given this particular point in time, I think that's an experiment worth investing in. and seeing how the outcome of that grant procedure works, we can always turn it off in two years if it came out of a dry hole, but if it succeeds the way it has LARKSBURG? or that would be tremendous. And wouldn't it be great if Sausalito set the high water mark for obtaining infrastructure money, I think given our unique geographic position. There's every reason that we could be set the high watermark in Marin County for obtaining infrastructure grant money. And we should give it a real college trial. |
| 01:42:59.76 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, thank you. Vice Mayor Kellan and then Council Member Blasting and then we'll take our break. |
| 01:43:03.96 | Janelle Kellman | Thank you. |
| 01:43:04.43 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 01:43:04.45 | Janelle Kellman | I just want to acknowledge Council Member Sobieski's high watermark pun. Thank you for that, I appreciate that. |
| 01:43:09.44 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:43:10.22 | Janelle Kellman | So yes, I wholly agree with everything you've just said. I wanna just add another nuance to the communication that we're all hoping to continue to improve and work on, which is that it occurs to me that, and I've talked to the city manager about this, that we don't always all have the same information. And it's not because anyone is hiding or keeping information, but we're all on different committees and we all have different perspectives or receiving or doing different types of research. And so to the extent we do more of this in the future, I think, level setting with the are we all on the same page about the information in front of us? I find is always really helpful. so that we all know what's going on with finance. We all know what's happening, you know, legislative or whatever the issue might be. I think that also help a lot of the trust building. So just want to put two cents in for for more communication and make sure we're all on the same page about details and facts. |
| 01:44:02.90 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 01:44:02.92 | Janelle Kellman | Thank you. |
| 01:44:02.99 | Jill Hoffman | Okay. |
| 01:44:03.55 | Janelle Kellman | Thank you. |
| 01:44:04.03 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 01:44:04.10 | Janelle Kellman | Councilman? |
| 01:44:04.56 | Jill Hoffman | and blouse together. |
| 01:44:05.03 | Janelle Kellman | Thank you. |
| 01:44:05.10 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 01:44:05.64 | Janelle Kellman | I definitely echo Vice Mayor Kelman's comments there. I think it's really critical that we have ongoing communication around the same page. I just wanted to, since we're wrapping up the finance piece and moving on, it seems like we have a clear structural deficit that we need to consider our pensions and our reserves and new opportunities for funding. I appreciated Vice Mayor Kelman bringing up, or even looking into something like boat sales, or considering new innovative approaches. So I think that's something we should Definitely consider and I would like us to figure out how much reserves were comfortable with as a group with dipping into and think about maybe a variety of assessments like. If we take a million, this is our percentage if we take 2 million, this is our percentage if we do it, this is how much we can make back so we have a clear understanding of that. And I think all of these relate to infrastructure, which is luckily our next point, which is exciting that that's what we're going to next. But in thinking about that in the grant writer, I would like us to think about and consider shovel ready projects, because those are the easiest to plug and play for us to get some grant funding the $600 million, which is a very daunting number that we need. Anyway, thanks. |
| 01:45:09.78 | Jill Hoffman | Okay. Thank you. Okay, Councilmember Sobieski, but then that's- |
| 01:45:13.42 | Ian Sobieski | Just a question for you, Mayor and my colleagues. Sure. Just so that staff isn't reading between the lines or trying to discern the two things. I propose that we err on the side of more money on the grant writer. because the pot has said 100k I said 200. Is that the consensus of my colleagues or Do people think of more than a hundred? I know it's gonna be his decision, but I just want to be sure staff has some at least inclination about people's disposition about how much to invest in this effort at this time. |
| 01:45:42.70 | Jill Hoffman | This is what I would suggest, that we give it to Deborah and that she bring us back sort of a proposal of this is what you get for this much, like different levels of whatever the pay is, right? and then different maybe perhaps combined with incentives for that for reaching certain watermarks, right? So, and whatever the standard is within the grant writing world, right? world, I think. So that's just my input. I completely agree with you, actually, Grants are a tremendous source potentially right now and if that person performs, then let's get them and keep them and move forward. But I would like to rely on somebody like Deborah, human resources person that's gonna hire that person. Anyway, we've made efforts over the past four or five months and haven't really been successful in identifying anybody that would meet our needs. Okay, so I had in the lineup, council member, I think and then councilmore in Cleveland Knowles. And then, uh, and then, then we're 10 51. So we're six minutes behind schedule. Then we're going to take a 10 minute break. So go ahead. |
| 01:46:49.91 | Melissa Blaustein | I just wanted to say I'm completely in favor Councilmember Sobieski's proposal and Mayor your endorsement to spend more on grant writing. I guess I would just say though that I think what we're here for today is the first thing a grant writer is going to ask us when he or she comes on board is what do you want me to focus on? |
| 01:47:08.44 | Unknown | Mm-hmm. |
| 01:47:08.71 | Melissa Blaustein | And do you have staff to implement the project if we get a grant? And I think that's kind of where we're really struggling. So I definitely feel like we need to keep our pipeline going with the grants, yes. But I also think like what I'm hoping today and over time in this conversation of kind of prioritization and pulling in the same direction is that we know what we want. Like we can't just spend out a zillion proposals that we don't have staff. or capacity. to implement. And then this has already happened with some of our TAM Transportation Authority of Marin funding. We've gotten the money, but we haven't been able to move the projects forward. And that's on a small level. So I would just throw that out there that we still need to be doing the hard work that we're doing today and going forward and giving clear direction to our city manager and staff about what our priorities are. |
| 01:47:59.29 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah, that's a great point because the grant writer is not in a vacuum, right? So the grant writer can only write grants. with staff support, right? Because they're very, sometimes they're very specific. You need a lot of metrics and information about the city that grant writer's not gonna have, the staff is gonna have. So whatever grant you're writing, if it's a parks and rec grant, you gotta have the parks and rec people. If it's a infrastructure grant, you gotta have the public works. If it's something else, you've got to have that person, that staff from that community. that department. When we go back to boards and commissions and staff bandwidth I think that's the conversation we're going to have in that section, which is going to be after our infrastructure review. We're going to take a 10 minute break right now. So we're going to come back. Um, at 11. So we're a little bit behind schedule, but that's okay. I think the other sections may go a little bit faster. |
| 01:48:52.04 | Unknown | 11 is just seven minutes from now. |
| 01:48:53.96 | Jill Hoffman | What's up? |
| 01:48:54.62 | Unknown | So, the number is just seven minutes. |
| 01:48:56.33 | Jill Hoffman | Uh, hey. |
| 01:48:56.87 | Unknown | Hey. |
| 01:48:57.73 | Jill Hoffman | Hey, if Sir is on, can you put the timer up? We're going to have a 10 minute break. |
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| 01:50:42.98 | Unknown | I'm going to be a year and a half That our home has fallen Thank you. My sabiá My violin And a cruel disillusion was everything that was left. It was to hurt my heart |
| 01:51:18.97 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:51:19.80 | Unknown | you |
| 01:51:27.49 | Unknown | What are you doing? Do one and a half you Que o nosso lar desmoronou you you My Sabiá, my violin And a cruel disillusion was everything that was left. Pico To hurt my heart |
| 01:52:12.24 | Unknown | Who knows it's not so good |
| 01:52:19.60 | Unknown | better for you and better for me Life is a school that we need to learn The science of living to not suffer |
| 01:52:43.97 | Unknown | ¶¶ . Thank you. . . . . . . So . . ¶¶ ¶¶ Thank you. ¶¶ . you . . . . . . . . . . Oh, that's beautiful. . . . . |
| 01:55:53.97 | Unknown | Bye. |
| 01:56:45.48 | Unknown | . Hi. Bye. |
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| 01:59:03.05 | Unknown | you |
| 01:59:41.71 | Jill Hoffman | If he just wants to give me a hug. A wave. We'll start. Otherwise, maybe. There we go. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's fine. I knew you were there. I'm 100% part of your When you were darkened. So I'll have tea, I'll have Earl Gray, Ian, if you can start brewing that for me. I've got lots of caffeine. Okay, thanks for answering. Okay, so let's start in on our, infrastructure review. Bye. Chris, what, What slide did that start off with? I think it's my slide, oh, slide 23, sorry guys. on mine is slide 23. So if anybody wants to go back and review their infrastructure slides, But if anybody wants to start us off. I think we talked a little bit about that during our finance, I mean we talked a lot about that actually during our finance. section. Anybody wants to weigh in or Dr. Garcia, if you want to, or Chris, either one. |
| 02:00:46.71 | Chris Zapata | They're obviously related, infrastructure and finance. So, yeah, no, I think Kevin McGowan, who did the work, Um, is on the line. So if there's specific questions related to specific slides. I'm going to rely on Kevin to interpret them if I can't |
| 02:01:02.00 | Jill Hoffman | Yep. |
| 02:01:05.63 | Jill Hoffman | Okay. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks Kevin for being with us. Thanks to Kevin and all the rest of the staff that's here on the Saturday morning to be with us. Okay, so I saw I think Ian's hand went up first and then the vice mayor and then Councilman Blasting. So go ahead, Ian. Thank you. |
| 02:01:18.67 | Ian Sobieski | So there are of course various things to talk about. I had one kind of smallish thing tied to Kevin McGowan's report at the last city council meeting, which was outstanding. He pointed out that that there's just mismatch really resource allocation almost like Dr. Garcia was speaking of the long list of what we're asking DPW to do is not matched by the resources that we're giving them. I hate that all. There's a question. OF US BEING more specific about what we want PPW to do and when we want them to do it. We've talked about having smart goals, a specific measure role, achievable and we should use that as a guide of what we ask the W to do and then hold them accountable and hold ourselves accountable that it be done. Dr. Garcia distributed a list of tasks that were supposed to be done in our implementation plan in the 2021 fiscal year He didn't do a report card and what has been done and what hasn't. yet been done, but we know that there are many things that are on that list that haven't been done. So I think we really should spend some time if possible, at least outlining a few specific things that we want DPW to do and then be sure that we're allocating the resources and money and staff. to make those things happen. uh, My second point, and it's really a question really for Chris Zipata and Kevin McGowan, there are a variety of small things. He mentioned it to us publicly. um, that the way we do business slows things down. So for instance, uh, |
| 02:02:59.47 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:02:59.59 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:02:59.64 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:03:02.71 | Ian Sobieski | there were actually city recruitment, city rules that prevented us from using a local fabricator in the Marin ship. to provide the railing for the north street steps we had a local fabricator that was willing to do it and but we couldn't do it because of the rules We require three bidders on every project, which is sensible, of course, for good government, when the project's very big, that makes a lot of sense to me. When it's small, if it's say within Chris Zapata's authority, isn't there an argument you made in terms of responsiveness that we Uh, that we change the way we do things and allow perhaps one bitter, um, contracts for small things at his discretion. And then to Susan's point, she asked, what do we consider to be basics in infrastructure, to me, the starting point of that is maintenance. It's just being able to take care of things in a quick and responsive way. In San Francisco, there's a 311 system. Chris Zapata implemented a similar system in a previous city that he was in when and tying Tying our quality of service to where the responsiveness of our DPW to citizen complaints is one thing that's easy to measure. And I think would have a profound effect on people's sense that the city is responding to the needs of residents if we had such a system. |
| 02:04:26.61 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, great, thank you. Um, I think the vice mayor next and then councilman blasting. Thank you. |
| 02:04:32.03 | Janelle Kellman | Great. So thank you, Ian. You're reading my mind today. So yes to some type of online system. I mean, let's lead the way. Let's be smart cities. Here's an app, download the app. receive updates on road closures. And if you see something, say something, upload a photo. So we we know where it is, a real in time and with an image. You also brought up this distinction if there is one between maintenance and new projects. And so I heard that I think from one or two other council members. So I want to kind of dig into that and understand that a little bit better. And then the last thing is, is from a framework perspective, I feel like we as a community plan in silos, we look at individual projects. We look at here's an undergrounding. We don't always have take the time or have the staff to really master plan. And I think master planning in these perspectives, |
| 02:05:15.65 | Unknown | THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 02:05:24.29 | Janelle Kellman | is not just about a location but it could also be about a need it could be about an impact so we do that pretty well when we dig a trench we think what else could we put in this trench but i'd like to see us do that when we look at infrastructure as well because we might find some synergies we might find some interactions with grant funding that makes it more useful so i just want to urge us to think about more of a master plan approach and getting rid of the silos and i think that that's a staffing issue as well. I know that that's a staffing issue as well. I know that staff tries very hard to coordinate within city hall, and maybe we need to think about how we facilitate that. But... DPW and CDD have to work very closely together. How can we as a council help facilitate that so that when we have a project, around whether it be postal resiliency or undergrounding or fixing basic stairs, we're always looking to leverage synergies across our departments. So that's just my two cents on that. Thanks, man. |
| 02:06:21.19 | Janelle Kellman | Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Blasting. Thanks. I think there's a, I mean, if you look at slide 23, where it goes through what the $600 million in items are, streets and roads, soil stabilization, et cetera, We have to figure out how, I couldn't agree more with Vice Mayor Kellman around thinking about this from a higher level strategic standpoint of Do we have these in silos or is there specific needs that can be met and perhaps the, way that that the city manager laid out benchmarking, we can find the same categories within infrastructure for each of those benchmarks in some way. Um, But I would also really I love the idea of having some sort of app or using our technology resources. I mean, we're right next to San Francisco to make sure citizens can engage, but I also want to make sure that we have a strong sense of community engagement around what decisions we're making for infrastructure and where we're spending our money on infrastructure so that we're not just saying, okay, it seems like this one road really needs help. I wanna be sure that the community has buy-in, that the community is aware of which projects we're moving forward with. For instance, we've all heard quite a bit about the North Street steps and how that's a priority for a number of neighbors. |
| 02:07:14.26 | Unknown | spending our money |
| 02:07:30.41 | Janelle Kellman | So if we could work together to find the best way to measure community, interest and involvement on which projects we move forward, that would be helpful as well. |
| 02:07:40.93 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, thanks. Um, I, I, Kevin, Director McGowan, I'm gonna preface my question with a little bit of background so hang with me because I'm not entirely sure where I'm going on this but Um, So the purpose, you know, today is so that we could look at the big picture, right? And we could prioritize, as the Vice Mayor just said, and Council Member Blaustein, and I think Council Member Sobieski, we're trying to get the full picture, right? Of all the different projects that we have and how do we as a council prioritize that in keeping with As the city manager has pointed out the staff bandwidth. Right. and how we as a council member ask for priorities that go back to the staff that eating into our budget, but may or may not be, on the larger bigger prioritization scale, right? And it takes time and money and effort away from those bigger higher priorities. I think this is the first step of we as a council being mindful of have all those things sort of fit in together. And so... Kevin, you're just one of our departments, right? But we're talking about infrastructure right now. and prioritization of that. if you care to give us some sort of insight on that about what would be helpful to you Um, coming back from us from the city council about how to stay on track. with those bigger, higher priority So I think that's a really good question. infrastructure issues that we know are going to affect the very safety of our town. So hold on. Now, Mr. City Manager, did you wanna jump in first before Okay, so Kevin, do you have any comments on that? I mean, I know that's a huge question. But if you care from your experience with Sausalito and your prior experience with the other city you work for in the Department of Public Works I think that'd be really helpful because I mean, you've been at this for about 20 years, right? |
| 02:09:39.85 | Kevin McGowan | I've been at this for 32 years. |
| 02:09:41.57 | Jill Hoffman | Oh, sorry. You look so young. |
| 02:09:44.55 | Kevin McGowan | I owe you lunch, don't I? So thank you for the question. |
| 02:09:46.34 | Jill Hoffman | It does. I don't know. Thank you. I'll have to check my ethics down list. |
| 02:09:52.35 | Kevin McGowan | Go ahead. |
| 02:09:52.40 | Jill Hoffman | it. |
| 02:09:53.70 | Kevin McGowan | Thank you for the question. What I think is going to help us is how do we look at these really big projects in the next 10 years? |
| 02:09:54.80 | Jill Hoffman | Good question. |
| 02:10:05.17 | Kevin McGowan | And how do we combine them together so that they work for multiple multiple goals. Now here's a for instance. We're talking about sea level rise, and yes, it's a great idea to work together with the county and their Bay Wave project But I think that Sea level rise has a high priority council and the residents in Sausalito. Now we also have other projects such as the North-South Greenway. And I've talked about this last Tuesday at the council meeting. Should we? In our eyes, from public works, What is the main priority? Um, Do you weigh sea level rise projects higher on the list compared to resurfacing our road? How do I move forward with that? put our energy and our staff's energy into one or the other. Right now, I only have Two engineers. And that includes me. Thank you. My approach is that from a department perspective, I should be managing the department and not designing projects. So really that gets down to about one maybe one and a half people helping out with capital projects. So. In our goals from our department, how do we address this? Now, You had mentioned a couple different things and I do want to bring up the fact that When you look at capital projects, it may be better to have us act as project managers and not designers, and also go out to a consultant to help us with these. That's costly, and so that impacts the budget as well. You have to keep that in mind. But to get some priority from you today or in the next six months, on where you would like us to go from a big picture perspective. Do we need to concentrate our time on sea level rise and looking at that and working closer with Bay Wave in the county? or maybe we should concentrate our time looking at moving our folks out of the corporation yard, which is an old building, and looking at the machine shop. Those were all brought up in the CIP and they are ever so changing as we go through the year. That type of thing is what we need help with. So hopefully that answers your question. |
| 02:12:33.44 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah, I think it does. It does for me. I think, you know, today is a foundational session, right? This is what we're looking at. This is the scope. And we've had our staff and department presentations throughout the year. And then we need, I agree with Ian. I think we need to meet again, either at a regular city council meeting or another special session. and give some clear, very clear direction on prioritization. overall so that it's an easier decision-making process and When the council articulates and ask the response back is. how does that fit within the prioritization plan and the staff, the finite staff bandwidth that we have. Okay, so I'm gonna go, we're gonna go back to questions. We're obviously we're off track just a little bit. So my plan is maybe at 1130 to move on to our last, um, our last block here, which is boards and commissions for 30 minutes and then go into public comment. and then final comments from the city council roughly i mean just as a rough sort of thing so okay uh yes city manager and then council member uh sobieski and councilman cleveland that's the order i saw you guys pop up and stuff |
| 02:13:43.91 | Chris Zapata | Yeah, real quick, Mayor. So Kevin mentioned some examples that you could prioritize and you should prioritize. And the thought of doing that in a special session You know, I thought that we could look at things that are finance related in January. and do something in February with infrastructure and then Boards and commissions in March. And these to me are workshops with the entire council You know, they can take two hours, they can take three hours, but they're workshops. And I would also make sure that as we talk about priorities, don't forget your roads. don't forget your sidewalks and we can look long term and midterm at sea level rise but today those are your big problems and so the timing of of your priorities would be important. And then to council member Blaston's point about technology being our friend, a C-click-fix axe application. when it was implemented in the first city that I worked with that did that in 2012. I can only tell you that instead of getting calls from people were irritated about a pothole or graffiti or a sign down or some other condition. They came from not only residents, but visitors, and they were also seen as ways to make you aware. So they were like, we're helping you instead of complaining. And that's a whole different dynamic for city staff. We're pointing out to you where we're concerned, where you should be concerned. It's not I'm calling you to tell you fixed pothole. I'm showing you exactly where the pothole is. And the beauty of it is the metrics that come from it. You can see the kinds of calls you get, the service needs required. And then you can see your rate of... of response. And I think that's helpful in determining if in fact you're doing the things you need to do in that department. So that's on my to-do list. We budgeted $950,000 this year. |
| 02:15:21.73 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 02:15:21.97 | Unknown | And I, |
| 02:15:32.50 | Chris Zapata | in technology. And Heidi Scoble, who is half of our our community development team now, but also in response to technology, in the short term. That's your chore. We got to get a C-click fix app in Sausalito. And that can happen within this year's budget. So there's not going to be a need for the city council to approve it or anything. It's there. We just need to go out and RFP and get the right application that makes sense to Sausalito and name it something that makes sense to our residents. In Anaheim, it was Anaheim Anytime, |
| 02:16:00.58 | Unknown | And I think that's a good thing. |
| 02:16:03.21 | Chris Zapata | San Leandro, it was San Leandro, my San Leandro, my SL. So we need to think of a catchy thing and implement it and be done with it and use it because it will be helpful. |
| 02:16:14.20 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, thank you. Councilmember Sobieski. |
| 02:16:17.50 | Ian Sobieski | Chris, I'm excited to hear that. It sounds like there's consensus on the council for that. It sounds like you've already laid PLAN TO DO IT, I THINK THAT'S GOING TO BE TREMENDOUS. in all the ways you just described. My comment, which I'd love to hear reaction from my colleagues or from Director McGowan the categories of sea level rise, undergrounding, uh, See, and others, even the pavement, are huge numbers. They're well outside of anything that we have allocated. from our general fund. So in terms of guidance from the city council director McGowan, and from what I discerned from your presentation before, What I hear is that we have two segments of DPW. There's what you would call the design side, and then there's the project management side. And what we want to, what I think we should prioritize is to ensure that you have the resources I think that's the to effectively implement the low-hanging fruit, but first things first. When the North Street steps are closed or when there's a pothole, those need to be, the steps need to be expeditiously reopened and the pothole needs to be quickly filled. to me that's when Councilmember Cleveland Knowles asked what we think about as as Back to basics, that's what I would define it as, is having a department that's responsive to the electronic system that Zapata is going to design. and that and that quickly attends to the infrastructure needs of the city. That's different than investing in infrastructure projects. And for that, we're talking about a big number here. It almost seems to me separate things obviously related. And I think we as a council and a town should make a commitment to figuring out how to raise the funds pay for them. But I think I want to underline and allow someone to disagree with me if you do. The only answer is a lot of money. To solve these big infrastructure problems, the only answer is a lot of money. It's not about increasing operational efficiency. Increasing operational efficiency improves our community sense of how good our government is in responding, and it will take away annoyances like the North Street steps being closed for a long time with that crack in the sidewalk being there for six months. Director McGowan's department needs the resources to solve those things. But if we want to tackle the big problems, the answer is, William Boschelli, CA OSMP, CA OSMP as a project with finance should think about other ways to raise money for our account. I'm wondering if we've done a comprehensive review of ways we can raise more money for Sausalito. Obviously we can always tax but I'm particularly interested in sources of money that don't involve taking more money from that as well. are there some, can we look at them? Because to pick a trivial example, Increasing the parking fee of a tour bus is taxing a non-resident that benefits the community. Are there other things in that category that we should look at comprehensively to try to up-level the revenue of the town? Thanks. |
| 02:19:42.67 | Jill Hoffman | So council member Cleveland knows, I think maybe the director account has a response to what council members so be asking, would you mind if I ask him and then we'll come back to you? Okay. |
| 02:19:55.11 | Kevin McGowan | So thank you for the question, Councilman Sobieski. I think the main question from our mayor was, how can you folks help me today? And I'm looking at mostly boots on the ground. So I need to know what's a priority. We're here for you. We can jump into anything you'd like us to jump into. If sea level rise is important and we need to start that ball rolling from a staffing perspective, That's what we will do if you ask us to do that. If you ask us to move forward with street resurfacing and some of the other things on your list, great. We're here for you. You tell us what you would like. Just keep in mind that yes, it is going to cost money, Those numbers are very rough. and they're meant to be very conservative. So keep that in mind. And in order to get a better idea of that, we need to assign staffing time to work with the county, work with a consultant in order to narrow those down so we know what we're approaching and what we can look at for a next 10-year period. So hopefully that helps a little bit. |
| 02:20:56.67 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. Okay, Councilmember Clevenals, go ahead. Hi. |
| 02:21:00.02 | Melissa Blaustein | Yeah, thanks. I guess, I'm speaking a little bit on the fly here, but I feel like there's thematically two different types of infrastructure things that we've got. We've got these really super high dollar, very long term things on the list, sea level rise. |
| 02:21:19.42 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:21:20.33 | Melissa Blaustein | undergrounding, those are both hundreds of millions of dollars and very challenging. I mean, dealing with PG&E and dealing with other jurisdictions, They both involve multi-jurisdictional super long-term planning, et cetera, and are high, high dollar amounts. And then we have sort of our more localized streets, sidewalks, stairs, drainage, stormwater, et cetera, which are more manageable numbers compared to our general fund budget. Thank you. |
| 02:21:47.98 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:21:48.03 | Melissa Blaustein | and are achievable primarily within our own decision-making structure. So, I sort of see like, I thought it was very helpful in Sausalito that we had kind of a big emphasis on public safety buildings, you know, like that was a public infrastructure issue. And then we had a focus on parks and that was a, you know, we were able to achieve a lot there. I would love to see us come around a consensus that are these two bigger, the undergrounding and sea level rise are things we need to start the planning for, but that we're not going to make meaningful construction you know, projects, capital projects in the next probably five years, but we need to start the planning now and get in line for federal funding, et cetera. And then start to focus on these kind of more localized things within our local control. like streets as something that we would focus on in the more near term. and really just start to make progress on. I mean, so just if we picked a theme and maybe this is something we can talk about more when staff, Chris said maybe January, February, if we pick the theme of roadways, Obviously to Janelle's point earlier, there's gonna be synergies with, if you're gonna improve the roadway, obviously we could make sure with the sea level rise improvements or we could make drainage improvements, et cetera. doesn't mean that that's all we're focusing on. But I feel like if we picked a theme, to concentrate on that would help guide Um, staff and us in the next five years and in the meantime setting up these longer term much bigger projects for funding, planning and resourcing. um, So I don't know, it's just kind of how I see this and I'm interested to see if other people I think that's helpful. I guess the other last point I would make on infrastructure is I think we've got two I mean, there's so much to say about infrastructure, but I think we've got two different challenges with our main city jurisdiction and the Morton shift. And the difference is that most of our infrastructure Amen. It's a sweet-o. outside the membership is all publicly owned, public right of way. In the Marin ship, we have a much more challenging patchwork of public and private and federal ownership. And so it just creates, you know, creates different opportunities and different challenges. And so I think when we, um, talk about infrastructure, we should make sure that the financing operational and other things are gonna be different in those two categories. and just kind of recognize that. as a, maybe an opportunity, right? Like we could do a community financing district and the friendship, which might not work as well in other parts of town or something like that. So I would just offer those. and just really welcome this discussion and others. brainstorming about how to thematically address it. I do feel like if we could get public buy-in on a short-term infrastructure theme like streets. that that would go a long way to help with our funding and staffing needs. And I'm not saying that's the only thing I think is, I'm just kind of citing that as an example and something I know our city manager has talked a lot about. |
| 02:25:14.70 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. Um, I see our city manager has his hand up. Chris, did you want to respond to that, or do you want me to go ahead and take Vice Mayor and Council Member Sobieski's? |
| 02:25:23.68 | Chris Zapata | No, I want to respond at the end there. I have a comment. |
| 02:25:26.03 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, thank you. Okay, I see Vice Mayor Kelman and then Council Member Sobieski, and then we'll go to Mr. our city manager and we'll wrap up this section. |
| 02:25:36.29 | Janelle Kellman | Okay. |
| 02:25:36.30 | Jill Hoffman | Okay. |
| 02:25:37.67 | Janelle Kellman | Thank you, Mayor Hoffman. So this is great. I could build on what Susan just offered. I think she's right that we do need to be thematic around this. A lot of this feels like a really heavy lift. And I came into this session wanting to always look for ways to collaborate and find consensus amongst us. And I think. I'm really struck by Director McGowan's request of do you want us to focus on sea level rise? Right. And I guess what I want to suggest is a framework where maybe what we do is we find our theme, maybe it's streets as an example, But we also identify the lens with which we want to approach those themes. And so I don't necessarily see us going and doing a bunch of sea level rise projects. What I see us doing is moving forward with an infrastructure project, maybe streets that takes into account certain lenses. We talk about D.I. as a lens for our decision making sustainability and sea level rise should definitely be a lens. And so it should be. And I think the county has tried to do this. They've tried to create criteria for Department of Public Works to be able to weigh their capital improvement program based on some of the climate related criteria. And in Santa Cruz, they put together a really robust climate action plan and they put it together with money from FEMA. And one of the things that they wanted to do was to evaluate measures like vegetation management, but also a comprehensive water management plan, because they saw those as being critical steps in building resiliency. And so the resiliency of their infrastructure, Yes, it's a climate effort. Yes, it's a sea level rise effort. But that's just a lens with which I think we approach this. So I guess what I'm getting at is maybe the conversation is find our themes, that's one track. and then find the lenses we want to evaluate those things with. And I think that's consistent with the general plan update as well. |
| 02:27:31.09 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, thank you. Councilmember Sobieski, go ahead. |
| 02:27:33.91 | Ian Sobieski | I was just going to react to some of what I heard and, and. Again, we proffer the thought that Director McGowan asked for some direction on what to prioritize. That's a zero sum game question. It's saying this is the size of my pie. How should I cut it up? I think we owe him a response to that at some point. But, the theme I'd love to underlined, and I think we have some consensus around, is DPW as a category. and perhaps even as literally a department has a justification for more resources as part of a broad city Bye. uh, So we asked each of our departments to talk about what they would do with 10% more the same budget or 10% less. I would love to hear at some point from Director McGowan that maybe we need to all collectively engage with this subject about how much money we should spend, how much more money we should spend on ETHW. The question is, not if we spend more, but it's how much more, and on what resources. And I think that there is, an investment we're going to make with this grant writer, which is a leveraged investment, but that writer presumably more than paper herself or himself, and could unlock substantial money for the department. I THINK WE SHOULD BE ABLE TO and then we can't infuriate the idea that we are asking DPW to do a better job on just implementing the plans we have with the zero sum but that we really should decide to I think we should increase the DPW budget to attack some of these problems. |
| 02:29:08.00 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:29:09.40 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, thank you. Before the, if you don't mind, before the city manager speaks, I'd like to make a couple of comments. Um. You know, I like this big picture. I think as Council Member Lila Knowles, and I think we've all sort of touched on it, but she did it very succinctly, is that we have these kind of two buckets, right? We have these big thematic, we have this big theme of huge, huge costs, big projects, right? And then we have our operation or what we're doing day to day and sort of what's achievable, what we've looked at really in our past budgets and past efforts, right? But not looking in the scope of these huge things that we know are looming and that we can't really ignore anymore. Right. So. That's how are we going to address that? One thing that I would ask when we come back with regard to finance and infrastructure is that we have a number on that sewer consolidation. because that's a huge Thank you. huge issue and huge vulnerability that we have as we just saw in our last storm, where we had sewer main breaks, I don't know how many across town because trees went down and took some, took some of our hundred year old pipes out with them. So And also power lines that went down, right? That's something that we need to account for, right? We have to look at that and account for it as we're moving forward. and figure out or the price is going to come to pay and we really will be significantly at risk as a town if our entire structure collapses. because of one catastrophic event. So Anyway, that's my thought on that. And city manager, go ahead. |
| 02:30:46.03 | Chris Zapata | yeah two two two items a segue from your conversation mayor and thank you for saying we have a hundred-year-old... lines. You have 130 year old city. And when things are old, they tend to break. But that's for the community. I understand and know that these things do need replacement and repair. and cost money. But the other thing that you mentioned was the sanitary sewer district. And that's what I want to point out. You are not a full service city in Sausalito. You have infrastructure requirements that we've talked about, but you have other entities that are responsible for your water. your water lines, your sewer and sewer collection and treatment. And then obviously you have PG&E. with respect to the electric utility. Some cities have all those under one umbrella. So that means we have to make sure that whatever we do, in terms of our approaches, that there's gotta be some coordination sanitary districts that the water company with PG&E and with whatever other entities that are ingrained in our infrastructure need and opportunity. So again, I point that out, you're not a full service city, The fact that you aren't means you need to communicate more with the entities that are part and parcel to delivering in providing services for our residents. and businesses |
| 02:32:08.68 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, thank you. All right, then I'm gonna close this section. Does anybody need a short break before we move into our last, which is the board? Okay, so we're gonna keep going. I saw a no. Okay. uh and no urgent yeses so uh okay so we're moving into our last section which is um you know boards and commissions Um, Sorry. boards and commissions, committees, task forces, everything really that takes that takes city council. time, bandwidth, and outside of meetings. and staff bandwidth outside of meetings. Go ahead, Councilmember Clevels. |
| 02:32:52.00 | Melissa Blaustein | I, were you finished mayor? I didn't mean to. |
| 02:32:53.87 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 02:32:56.39 | Melissa Blaustein | Yeah, and I just want to appreciate the city manager bringing this to our attention and kind of looking at it from a new perspective and then kind of looking at the metrics and how it, um, |
| 02:33:05.97 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:33:09.99 | Melissa Blaustein | sort of a totality of it, it sort of makes me feel exhausted just looking at the list, but... So I think it's really important. I think there's I, again, maybe short and long term ways to kind of address this problem. that I would just, throw out and one of them would be that for our kind of boards and commissions it may be worth as a pilot. moving to quarterly meeting. So for example, for sustainability, for feedback, library trustees, et cetera. It would relieve the burden somewhat on staff. It would give those boards and commissions the chance to see they could work in some committees in the interim without staff. |
| 02:33:50.81 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:33:52.44 | Melissa Blaustein | we wouldn't be disabending anybody immediately. but it might give us a little pause and give staff a little more breathing room or you know, trimester system or something just to relieve the burden immediately. give us all a chance to reflect on it. a bit and then I also I was thinking about maybe some of our boards and commissions |
| 02:34:17.20 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:34:18.38 | Melissa Blaustein | whether they have recommendations for how they could be organized more effectively. So for example, in some communities, the kind of EDAC function is just more of a private chamber you know, it's not associated with the government and then they come and they make recommendations to the city. The city doesn't staff them. I would just be interested in hearing from EDAC, do they think that model might work for them? What about being city sponsored sort of helps them or hinders them. Um, And then You know, whether any boards and you know I don't have any immediate I think this board and Commission should go or be combined or or whatever, but perhaps the folks serving on these might have some recommendations. um, for how they could more effectively help Thank you. to help the city, but I do recognize the burden on staff. If other people on the council are amenable, I would like to find an immediate way to reduce the burden on our staff because I do feel like it's pretty excessive at this point. And we've all recognized how stretched our staff is. So those are my initial thoughts. |
| 02:35:34.76 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, thank you. I'm gonna throw one thing out, because opportunistically, because I'm the mayor, and everybody can consider it. I see everybody else's hands are up. So what do you guys think about, and this is just, what about a pause on, staff support to all the non-regulatory boards and commissions. In other words, other than planning commission and historic preservation, a pause on staff support to all the other boards and commissions. The other thing is, I'll work and scrub the list that, thank you so much, slide 46 is a list of all the boards and commissions. I'll look at that and scrub it. I see a couple that are probably, should probably be deleted, so that would be helpful. Okay, so I threw that out. Council Member Blaustein, Vice Mayor, and then Council Member Sobieski. Great. |
| 02:36:18.02 | Janelle Kellman | Thank you, Mayor Hoffman. And I also just want to acknowledge that it's pretty astounding and amazing that we have a community where we have this many volunteers willing to step up to serve on all of these boards and commissions. It's a great problem to have that we have such an engaged and active group of residents who Many of you are here on a Saturday morning, so we definitely appreciate you. And that's a lot of time that's just being given in addition to staff time, that's volunteer time that folks are giving for us to be able to make changes to our city so I think yes something we can do to relieve burden on staff but I would like to give the boards and commissions an opportunity to weigh in So I think some sort of questionnaire we can develop together of, How frequently do you feel you need to meet? What do you think the impacts would be of meeting quarterly? how often do you feel you need staff support is it at every meeting is it know once every trimester you have staff support at your meeting because some of these boards and commissions, as you mentioned, Mayor, are, you know, we can't not have staff support for them. Things like Planning Commission and of course the housing element advisory committee we can't slow the meeting sessions for something that has a clear deadline. but there is an opportunity to do a better job of reducing that burden on staff while giving the people who are engaged and very excited about these boards and commissions an opportunity to say, I do want to meet every month, but maybe we are okay with just having staff quarterly because the sustainability commissions meetings, for instance, efficient and there's always quite a bit on the agenda and I worry that if they move to quarterly it would be hard to get to everything. So I really appreciate this issue being brought up. And I appreciate your suggestion, Mayor, of putting, going through the list of 48 and scrubbing some because some of them are inactive and maybe looking for places where we we can consolidate, but really want to just thank everyone who does serve on a border commission and make sure we have. a chance to put or maybe ask to put together some sort of questionnaire to see how they would feel about producing meetings and how we might best find a solution. |
| 02:38:14.89 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. Okay, good. I have a couple thoughts on that, but I'll let the vice mayor, instead of jumping ahead of people again, I'll let the vice mayor |
| 02:38:20.67 | Melissa Blaustein | I'll let the vice mayor come. Can I ask a question, Mayor? Sorry, just so I can think about this while everybody's speaking about your suggestion. When you said no staff support for boards and commissions. Were you suggesting that they wouldn't also wouldn't be televised, not televised, whatever, publicly available. Or are we just talking about the staff, like the substantive staff? |
| 02:38:40.40 | Jill Hoffman | So, |
| 02:38:46.78 | Jill Hoffman | I'm mainly talking about, and I'm just talking about a pause, right? So in this time where we're sort of evaluating you know, perhaps this time period where we send out a questionnaire out, as Councilmember Blaustein suggested to the boards and commissions and those that care to weigh in can. But we at least, when we know right now that our staff is stretched pretty thin and we're trying to go after grants, we're trying to go after all these different things, than maybe for the next, We're starting November, December, January, right? November, December, January. Let's not task our staff with any taskers from boards and commissions, other than our two regulatory commissions, right? Um, And I'm just throwing this out here, right? It's pretty easy to have a Zoom meeting, right? And so if the chair of a committee, and I kind of like that quarterly, but as council member Blassey and some, We're not some boards and commissions are very, very active. I know on our sea level rise task force and also on our, you know, on our landslide task force, we met, you know, we didn't have staff support for every meeting. We moved very quickly and did a lot of work, you know, Offline and not offline, but you know, through our own efforts and so. You know, anybody can host a Zoom and you can post a Zoom You know, we're going to do a Zoom. This is when we're going to do it. and it's not one of our official quarterly meetings, but we're gonna go ahead and do whatever. So that's what I would maybe suggest. I'm just throwing it out here. um, Uh, go ahead. Bye, Schmeier. And then cast one for Sobieski. |
| 02:40:17.14 | Janelle Kellman | I'm always just blown away by the intellectual capital in Sausalito and the expertise we have. I just literally, every, every reporting commissioning committee has people who've been doing this for years. But what I, what I, and I'm really grateful, but what I think I'm hearing from this group and from our city manager and from our staff, is that it's really difficult to keep track of all the different priorities. Yeah, it's about to keep track of the council's priorities. Oftentimes the council hasn't given clear direction to a board or commission. And so the board of commission is coming up with their own priorities. And then the staff members left wondering which direction they're supposed to go in while staffing us and and the boarding or commission and so um you know mayor hoffman you mentioned the the landslide task force and i think also about uh when susan was mayor i it was the blue ribbon committee on um I can't remember unusual funding or different funding sources. And it seems like that model where we have a deliverable that we know we want and a limited time frame of a body with experts is a really useful format. It seemed to really create actionable items. And so I'm wondering if that is a direction we might want to consider moving in. And that way we could use our boards and commissions more strategically. So we could say we actually want the following outcome. Please meet for five months and get us to that outcome. And that might help I think that the staff is experiencing. And I think that the staff is experiencing. because the alternative is I think this council then needs to spend a lot more time giving very clear direction as a body to each and every board and commission so that the boards and commissions are doing what we've asked them to do, as opposed to then coming to us with things that might not align with our priorities. And when we have to say no, when we do say no, it feels like we've wasted their time and I don't want to do that. And so I think there's a way to be much more strategic and more respectful about people's times. if we are able to do that. And then the question of whether we have a staff to staff that limited duration effort, I think becomes a lot more manageable because we know what we're trying to get out of it. If we had a ad hoc task force on grant writing and we knew that's exactly what we wanted, we might have something in five months because we know strategically we've talked about that as a number one issue today. And so I just want to offer that as another alternative to moving forward. |
| 02:42:48.09 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, thank you. Well, that's, yeah, and that plays right back into the theme of prioritization, right, and looking at the big scope of the picture. So, anyway, Council Member Sobieski, go ahead. |
| 02:42:57.24 | Ian Sobieski | So I would like to offer another alternative. And I'll predicate that by first saying, I run a volunteer organization that has numerous sub-communities. things like our boards and commissions, the equivalent in my company, to be an incredible way of unlocking volunteer energy to create work products. I'm not sure. But, I have been talking with the seating managers have talked about this for several months and getting his feedback, that his perspective inside our organization is that it's overdone. and that it is a burden on the structure. And I have to remind myself that Chris Apata is a person that shows up every day and turns the crane to get the work product of the city done. and So I would like to really defer to him. working with senior staff to decide how best to use the volunteer energy of our residents. so I don't want to put him too much on the spot right here in public, but I want to ask him what he would recommend and maybe give him cover by saying, He said that they're way too many. Not that they're a little bit too many, or that we can clip at the edges. but they're just way too many. And one easy thing to do. as the city council is always to form another working group or another commission uh, and a more disciplined approach. would be for us to limit the number and just set that we're not gonna have more than Certainly. More than 10. And if there is a task that we feel so compelled that requires an independent entity that we would either shut one of the current ones down or pick up how to hold the two together. and that then it would work in its own subgroup structure, or subcommittee structure, that it could attend to the task we want to have within the structure of an existing for the commission. So that's my proffer is a set number of these. but above that level, I would like to offer to the city manager of Spada and my colleagues the thought that look for him to lead the organizational structure of the city that includes volunteer efforts and look for him as the designer of that effort to suggest to us what that structure should |
| 02:45:21.22 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, great comment. Great, great comment, council members. So go ahead. uh mr city manager would you like to respond to that or would you want to think about that |
| 02:45:30.83 | Chris Zapata | Let me just say this. What Councilmember Blaustein and what Councilmember Sobieski said about the talent that is in Sausalito you have world-class people here that know what they're doing and you should use them And that's understood. And with respect to too many committees, I've absolutely said that and absolutely believe that because uh the committees all want stuff done on their time schedules. And let me tell you the difference between Council Member Sobieski and myself. He doesn't have 7,000 residents. that call or text or schedule meetings every day. The work of a city manager is fourfold. You have the community. You have the organization. You have the electives. And then you have work. Writing a report, reading a report, approving a payment. So, and if that's multiplied across four departments or five departments with one or two people that have the, the job description that allows them to staff and man all these committees Excuse me. You can see how things slow down, bog down. And if there's not clear direction, you can see how A committee may move in a direction that the council may not approve of. A staff has got in the middle. But I really like the idea that I can work with decide this approach to talk to the committees themselves. What do you really need? And, you know, then come together and bring something forward to the city council and say, in discussing with the committees what they think they need and understanding what we have from an organizational standpoint, this is how I think we can approach because you definitely need their buy-in. You definitely need to honor their ideas. And, you know, but you definitely need to change the landscape here with respect to the responsibilities that are in people's minds. If I'm on a committee, I'm appointed by the council. In some cases I get funding from the council. There are more than five of them. And so you have surge, you have, myself, And whatever staff person is involved other committees are working with them. the director of the department and one of their staff persons and somebody's managing and then there's always the recording of the meetings there's always the minute taking of the meetings there's agenda posting of the meetings and when you multiply that across what we have it's not tenable so when I say there's too many there is too there are too many no city I've ever been with and I've been the city manager since 1992 has had this number of committees or commissions and task force But I don't believe that any, you know, pound for pound, any communities had this much talent. So I appreciate that, but I do believe it's not workable for staff unless we start to figure this out. And I think you do that with the... the input from the boards and commissions themselves, and then meld that to what staff thinks, and then get that in front of you sometime in March and say this is what we think we can do to right-size this. |
| 02:48:29.91 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, all right, I see hands up from Council member Sobieski and the vice mayor, and then I'm gonna, we're at 1152, so I'll close this section and then we'll move on to public comment. I think. Anyway, go ahead. |
| 02:48:42.82 | Ian Sobieski | So, Andrew Zapata, what about the idea of having a budget for the number of such committees? to use. a budget, meaning 10 committees or five or I don't know. and working within that structure. Can you talk to Matt? |
| 02:48:59.48 | Chris Zapata | Thank you. |
| 02:48:59.53 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 02:48:59.54 | Chris Zapata | Thank you. |
| 02:48:59.56 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 02:48:59.65 | Chris Zapata | Thank you. |
| 02:48:59.66 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 02:48:59.68 | Chris Zapata | Thank you. So I yeah. If you put a budget together, then you're going to have to pick who you're going to give that budget to. And so that that to me might be another step down the road council member, but Today, I like the idea of kind of understanding what we have in front of us, the talent that we have to work with, the need for input, and then have a reset in the coming future and discuss all of these particular ideas you |
| 02:49:26.16 | Ian Sobieski | with that input. I'm sorry, I didn't mean budget for dollars. limiting the number of established committees to some number, like seven or 10. |
| 02:49:35.50 | Chris Zapata | Oh, yeah. Yeah, well, you know, I think you start with what's required by your code and by the law. And then you think about what is important to you. And if they're all that important, then we're where we are. Some of them can be collapsed. Some of them can be terminated. As the mayor pointed out, some of them left on the list that needed to be scrubbed. And so all of that will result in I think awareness and then the actual steps needed to come to what you need in terms of committees. And different things come up at different times and different talents exist in the community. So I would say that to come up with a finite number Uh, would not be a good idea but to not come up with less committees than you have now, is an equally bad idea. So I think the answer is somewhere in between. |
| 02:50:26.67 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, thank you. Vice Mayor and then Councilmember Cleveland Knowles. Thank you. |
| 02:50:30.99 | Janelle Kellman | Thank you, Mayor. And Chris, thank you for your insight and thoughts on that. I love the idea of going back to the committees and asking them You've been doing this work, where do you think you could be most helpful? I'm wondering what my fellow council members and the city manager think also about us as a body with Chris's help reviewing the remit for each and every one of these boards and commissions. I guess I have a concern about making sure that they are consistent with prioritization that the council is setting as well. again, so that we can be most strategic and make the most of our volunteer time. so that there is a synergy at the outset. Um, So I haven't heard anybody else mention the need to maybe review some of those and I think maybe Councilmember Cleveland Knowles' comment whether something should be maybe in the hands of a private entity was interesting. I'd like to hear more thoughts on on that. so I just want to re-raise that as well and I don't know Susan if you have more thoughts on that but I'm curious about that |
| 02:51:32.41 | Melissa Blaustein | Yeah, I mean, in terms of EDAC just seemed like the most natural one that other cities might do. privately, I in terms of the remit, I think under When Joe Burns was mayor, he asked every board and commission to submit a white paper on their kind of work and priorities. Do you remember that, Jill? Um, |
| 02:51:53.34 | Unknown | Thank you, Lillian. |
| 02:51:54.59 | Melissa Blaustein | Yeah, so that might be a good place to start. I mean, that just has not seemed to be when I was on the sustainability Commission, I think they're very focused on the low-waring mission action plan and waste reduction, it seemed like they had pretty clear They did a strategic planning session, they were focused and PBAC seems pretty focused too, I think. Most of the time, So, I think it's the staff resources really And then council alignment, like just, you know, and I think that could be solved by having them report manually or something along those lines. I was just gonna make a really small point. that the list that we have on slide 45, isn't a uniform list that has different issues. So I think the things that cause Staff resource issues are the traditional boards and commissions that are staffed and then the council members subcommittees often. |
| 02:52:49.13 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:52:49.23 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:52:54.26 | Melissa Blaustein | So I think that would be helpful to get the city managers input on. And then there's a whole lot of committees on here that are MCC you know, Marin, uh, council and mayors. I always get that acronym messed up. But, you know, there's a lot of committees that are those. And then there's a lot of regional bodies that we all serve as representatives. So I don't know. Mayor, if when you scrub the list, it might be helpful to just kind of organize them or anybody could help you if you put too much on your plate or the clerk because some of them don't take any staff time at all, but do take an enormous amount of council member time. um, So anyway, I would just, I don't think all these are exactly, they don't all have the same problem. . for the same issues. |
| 02:53:44.11 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah, I agree, I agree. So Chris, Do you wanna... I like Councilmember Sobieski's idea of giving it back to the mayor. or I mean city manager to decide how he, you know, his recommendation is to go forward and give him the latitude. I think give him a latitude, if he needs to pause staff support the whatever border commission that we give him that authority in the near term and then knowing that we're gonna come back in March. and look at this in total. which I think will be a very good exercise. when we come back in March to sort of look at what we have And then that would be the time with regard to all the work we're doing right now on prioritization. We're gonna talk about that as well when we talk about boards and commissions. And then each of the city council members who's a liaison is also there to give feedback to that board and commission of, hey, you're getting kind of far field of what our prioritization is. And it's fine, you can work on that, Right now, the prioritization for City Council for 2021-2022 is this, and you need to stay within these guardrails if you want to be successful at an ask for the City Council. Okay. just to keep that in mind. So that'll be good. I like that I got thumbs up. I didn't get any boos or thumbs down, so. Okay, thanks you guys. Okay, so we're going to move straight into... May I ask one question? |
| 02:55:11.01 | Janelle Kellman | Thank you. |
| 02:55:11.06 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 02:55:11.11 | Janelle Kellman | Yeah, go ahead. I also asked as part of that, that there'd be like a three question questionnaire the boards of commission said to say, how would you feel about meeting less or whatever? So we have some data to support the decisions. |
| 02:55:21.00 | Jill Hoffman | No. Well, it's up to the city manager. I mean, we just came to the city manager authority, right? But I think that's probably what he's going to do. something like that. Okay. I'm getting a nod. Okay, anybody need a break? No, okay, so we're gonna move into public comment now, and then, And then on our agenda is So we've just finished our discussion. We're gonna move into public comment and facilitate a wrap up and then adjournment. Um, okay. But I'm now opening public comment for |
| 02:55:53.44 | Heidi Scoble | Madam Mayor, would you like me to read the statement as far as how people can provide public comment? |
| 02:55:59.14 | Jill Hoffman | Yes, I would. And do you want me to call off the names or do you want to call off the names? I'm not. |
| 02:56:03.36 | Heidi Scoble | I can't tell if the names |
| 02:56:04.88 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, that's fine. Thank you. |
| 02:56:06.30 | Heidi Scoble | Great. |
| 02:56:07.04 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 02:56:07.14 | Heidi Scoble | Video or audio public comment participation is limited to three minutes per speaker. If you would like to make a comment. Please raise your hand in the Zoom application and you will be called upon when is your time to speak. To raise your hand from a phone, press start nine. Each speaker will be notified when the time has elapsed. And Madam Mayor, our first speaker, it's David Sudo. David, you've been unmuted and asked to share your video. |
| 02:56:39.13 | David Sudo | Good morning, City Council. Thanks for this meeting. I think it's, you know, really important to I can't agree enough with the staff time issue. As an engineer, I can totally appreciate the public works problems they have right now with lack of engineering time and the multiple effects that that has, whether that's staff burnout, staff retention, THE FAMILY. the ability to get work done. I'm not sure. when engineers don't have enough time to do the work they need to do, they they prioritize on their own and that may or may not be what the city's priorities are the work doesn't get done as well engineers don't have time to think about you know second and third order issues with with projects such as if you don't have enough time, all you're doing is patching holes instead of looking at what existing design issues might be having. |
| 02:57:34.47 | Unknown | I don't have enough time to |
| 02:57:42.26 | David Sudo | You know, based on PBAC's discussions in Nevada Street and some next door issues, Nevada Street is a street that doesn't work for anybody right now. the people that go to school on it and the people that live on it, and without staff time there's no time to look at what are the systemic issues with that street and we end up just patching holes or putting new paint down instead of fixing the issues for a street that's existed in its same form for probably 50 years or 60 years and and I know our engineers have ideas about how to fix them but without this staff time to do it or the public works budget to fix them the problem just continues and we have you know resident complaints about a street that doesn't work for people THE FAMILY IS So, and I would just say we, I heard today about wanting to put more money towards public works. but, you look at our six-year budget and only one of this last six years we've actually fully funded our public works streets budget. and without substantial change in how we fund the streets projects that isn't gonna change because when we get to the to the budget decisions you know, the prices are going to get cut. like they have in the past. Thanks. |
| 02:59:09.24 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:59:13.93 | Heidi Scoble | Our next question. Speaker, it's Carolyn Revelle. Carolyn, you've been asked to be unmuted and to share your video. |
| 02:59:22.45 | Carolyn Revell | Thank you. |
| 02:59:23.02 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:59:23.06 | Carolyn Revell | Thank you. |
| 02:59:23.18 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:59:25.34 | Carolyn Revell | Good morning. As the retired urban planner, I want to commend the city manager and the council for setting aside time to talk about these major priority issues. As president of Sassalita Beautiful, I want to stress that infrastructure includes our parks and green spaces. And as we're discovering sea level rise affects parks the recent flooding examples and salt water intrusion in some of our trees. We endorse the council consensus on seeking a grant writer and note that it appears that funding is available for nature based adaptations to sea level rise, which fits right in with our effort to support our parks and green spaces I don't have any other thoughts on the whole issue of the boards and commissions other than to say, clearly I understand the problem with staff time But also in case of Sassalda Beautiful, which is not an officially appointed group, we have tried to fill the void sometimes with things like lack of a plan a landscape plan at Southview Park and MLK Park. And so that's the other thing. aspect of it, trying to fill a void I'm not sure. in the city's capabilities, but on the other hand, of course, there's the issue of the staff time. So it's a very difficult balancing act on that issue of boards and commissions and informal groups like ours. Thanks so much. Thank you. |
| 03:00:47.55 | Heidi Scoble | Our next speaker, it's Alice Merrill. Alice, you've been unmuted and has to share your video. |
| 03:00:53.49 | Alice Merrill | Hi. I am so impressed by this this morning. I love that you guys are doing this. I think, It's just so informative. I can't even, I can't begin to say, You're to be commended, all of you, all of you for doing this. I'm just thrilled. and impressed by what how you're going about it, what, what you're tackling. I'm, I'm thrilled. Okay, so here's the deal. There are 12 people from the community on this thing. So the next time, if you have another one, I will personally put door cards on people's doors and walk the streets because something has to get people to know that this is happening. because the city council meetings have more people than this and this is exceptional. So thank you for doing it. And I hope that if you do it again, that it's much, much, much more and maybe currents can make a huge deal about it so people can watch the recording, I don't know. |
| 03:01:57.58 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:01:57.94 | Alice Merrill | Okay, so now, There's my thing, you know, my thing, the Marin ship. Okay, so I'm very happy to have heard that there was a mention that the Marin ship, this is how I heard it, that the marine ship is special, different, unique, different, not part of the general workings of the city. This is the way I've always looked at it. The city will take care of itself. You guys do a great job, but the specific plan, always protected the marineship. And I know that there's workings, things in the work too. change that concept so that it's not so specific or so regulated, but I hope, that you guys will really keep thinking about that part of it because It is unique, it is different, it is special, and it does need a different kind of attention that the rest of the town needs. So you guys are doing a great job. I mean, this is just great what you're doing and how you're cooperating and talking to each other. I'm just so impressed today with all of you, including Chris. You know, I know. that he, thought this up and it's Perfect. So, That's all I want to say is thank you very much. And let's get more people here if you have another one. and onward, thank you. Thank you. |
| 03:03:26.41 | Heidi Scoble | Our next speaker, it's Kevin Carroll. Kevin, you've been asked to be unmuted and to share your video. |
| 03:03:35.07 | Kevin Carroll | Thank you. Unfortunately, my video is not working right now. This has been really a tremendous meeting. And the thing that has struck me listening to it I have a lot of comments on things that you said, but I'm going to keep my mouth shut. I think. you're getting it on the right path. And the thing that, really impressed me. is saying, how to put this nicely, everybody bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. and very focused on the subject. the night meetings moving the public comment to later in the meeting so you're tackling things earlier in the meeting, big issues. I think is a good change. I was kind of against it at first as a public speaker But, I know you all have full-time jobs and lives It's difficult, those night meetings sometimes when they drag on. I know it's tough on the staff to have these Saturday things, But this was really tremendous to see you also focus and just concentrated on a big subject that needed this kind of a meeting. And I encourage you to hold them in the future if you can. It was just really tremendous. Thank you. |
| 03:04:39.38 | Unknown | and |
| 03:04:51.23 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. I saw Sandra Bushmaker's hand up, but now I don't see it up anymore. So I see one last speaker's hand. And so Mr. Clerk, if you could call on our last speaker and then we'll move back up for any further discussion and wrap up. |
| 03:05:10.02 | Heidi Scoble | Madam Mayor, we do have Robbie Powelson and then we have Linda Herschild. So Robbie, you've been unmuted and asked to share your video. |
| 03:05:14.58 | Jill Hoffman | Okay. |
| 03:05:24.76 | Robbie Powelson | Thank you. Yeah, I would just note that the idea that the idea that, that Sausalito not being a full service city. being a reason not to apply for it. getting funds or working towards procuring permanent housing. for unhoused people is the reason itself why cities all across Marin County including Sausalito are not full service. small cities, uh, bedroom communities for, um, highly segregated affluent, bedroom communities, which Marin County is known for, to basically narrow the focus of a city's mandate to ignore the needs of residents with disabilities, ignore the needs of residents who are experiencing poverty and homelessness experiencing. |
| 03:06:15.95 | Unknown | man. |
| 03:06:27.89 | Robbie Powelson | Thank you. many different challenges is discriminatory and intentional. It's an intentional way in which cities are uh, narrowing their focus to ignore portions of the population that the city does not want to exist. in Sausalito, which is why I saw that it was on housing mandates. It talked about creating housing for people, experiencing homelessness outside the city limits. The intention is to get rid of people to Thank you. project. there. you and validity as residents in the community. And that's wrong. is wrong, is not a valid excuse to ignore the needs of so many, as has been the case in the just that, in the state of the United devastating storm that happened. the absence of response from the city People could have died in that storm out there, you know, if we hadn't been able to patch together a little private donations to get hotel rooms. People could have died. You know, we had a, we had Thank you. That was a very serious situation. I mean, you even declared the state of emergency and yet you weren't there. You weren't there until five o'clock the next day. after we had already evacuated so with that i just say that again the, uh, the claiming that the city is not full service city to exclude serving people with disabilities, people experiencing poverty. is not valid and is a discriminatory stance by the city. |
| 03:08:16.07 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. I see now two, oh, I see three. I see Linda Fairchild, Sandra Bushmaker, and Sybil Boutier. |
| 03:08:24.14 | Heidi Scoble | Linda, you've been unmuted and asked to share your video. |
| 03:08:28.95 | Linda Herschild | my video. |
| 03:08:33.62 | Linda Herschild | Thank you very much. I've been watching since nine o'clock this morning It's really extraordinary to see the number of hours and the number of committees and the commitment of you to the city of Sausalito. So I'm very grateful to be here and I would like more residents to be able to attend these kinds of meetings in the future. I'd like to speak to the grant writing, maybe just a question. I'm not sure. would it be possible to not just look at it as a position, a paid position, an employee of the city but is there a way that we could do like an outreach kind of campaign I'm not sure. where people can be incentivized to like on a commission basis. I know Mr. Sobieski talked about that earlier, I don't know anything about the legality of that. But, The next thing I wanna talk about speaks to what I've done, I'm very passionate about the the unique character of Sausalito particularly as we not only have Harbour side, but we also have the side that borders the GGNRA. And as many of you know, I've been very involved in keeping an eye on this, what I consider overdevelopment. on Wolfback Ridge, which is right above the Golden Gate Bridge. And I've been a very outspoken person about the rolling over of environmental impact reports. giving waivers, ignoring setbacks. So, I feel that there's a bit of a disconnect between the citizens and the leadership of Sausalito. We had hundreds and hundreds of people respond when we asked, what they thought about building a huge house above the Golden Gate Bridge that was completely out of the guidelines Vice Mayor Kelvin had been involved in similar issues. so I just want to go in the public record that it seems given the, the money and the way the whole thing is being handled. Um, I kind of question And I know investigative journalists are looking into this, but I feel really sad because I think there's, uh almost looks like some impropriety or corruption or bribery that's very common planning commission processes all over the world, but I, I just would like to see us have better dialogue. And I really appreciated what Dr. Garcia said about respect and listening. And I think, you know, 600 people out of a small town of 7,000 people to feel unheard is it makes really makes me feel sad. And I think we can do better as a community. But again, I thank you for your incredible hard work and dedication to the city. |
| 03:11:11.28 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 03:11:22.02 | Heidi Scoble | Sandra Bushmaker, you're our next speaker. |
| 03:11:26.35 | Sandra Bushmaker | Good morning, everybody. Thank you so much for having this meeting and I'm very impressed and I'm very hopeful about the issues that have been raised this morning. I would like to focus on Two things. One is the size of the committees and commissions and the scope of their work. I feel like we have broadened our scope and we've lost our focus. and prioritizing what you need to get out of each board and commission, other than obviously the state mandated ones, is really a critical issue. and For example, the Disaster Preparedness Committee which is now the Community Safety Disaster Preparedness Committee on which I served, has such a broad scope as to be unattainable. And it involved community policing as well as disaster preparedness. And that's just too much for a group of volunteers that meets once a month. So I'm all in favor of consolidating the scope and focusing the scope on what absolutely has to be done. And secondly, I am very pleased to see the work on the infrastructure. Um, it just so happens that when I ran for council, uh, Listening, infrastructure and back to basics were the theme of my of my campaign. And we've kind of come full circle again. We went through a period of expansion and now we're in a period of contraction and focus. And I would like to commend the council on keeping that focus and doing what you need to do and doing it well. Thanks so much. Thank you. |
| 03:13:08.26 | Heidi Scoble | Our next speaker is Seville Boutillier. Seville, you've been unmuted and has to share your video. |
| 03:13:17.31 | Unknown | Good morning. Good morning. Council, staff and fellow residents of our beloved community. I wanna thank you for this really wonderful meeting today. I'm very impressed by the order of the material that was, that was presented. It's you know, probably the best presentation of a overall financial picture that I've seen and I think the discussion around it has been not only illuminating but inspirational. Um, And I want to thank you all for this very civil and open-minded review of how the government functions in our city and our finances and so forth. Just a couple of quick comments. regarding the committees Um, So there's many different kinds of committees as you pointed out, some of which just council members or participate in others that staff, others of Brown Act committees that, you know, staff does have to participate in, but then there's a lot of other task boards and committees like H Fenley and others, that actually do almost full time, or in some cases way more than full time work on behalf of the city, um, I'm paid by the city. AND And I think that it would be helpful to sort of as you separate the different categories to look at you know, look at them differently in terms of how they function and what they do and what kind of interaction Um, improvements could be made, you know, whether less or more interaction would be helpful to accomplish the things that that entity exists for, Um, And so I just wanted to offer that because we're talking about elephants, dogs and giraffes, you know, there's lots of different things here. They're not the same. And, um, Then one other comment? When we're looking at infrastructure, I want to just remind everybody about Coloma Street between Bridgeway and Olima. I know it's one of the heavy lift items with a large price tag But it's a very important one because it is very busy all day long. And it is the street that requires seniors, dog walkers, kids walking back and forth to school and many others to walk in the middle of the street. with parking on both sides and no stop sign at the blind corner feeding into it so it's very concerning that it's a safety issue there that we really would be great to prioritize. And I know that it's a big dollar amount and maybe that's one of the places that a grant writer could I'm not sure. |
| 03:16:46.29 | Heidi Scoble | Your three minutes have a left. |
| 03:16:49.61 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, thank you, thank you, Sybil, Ms. Boutier. Okay, I don't see any other hands, so I'm going to close public comment and invite our facilitator to give us some closing thoughts and then any closing thoughts from our council members or our city manager, and then we'll adjourn. |
| 03:17:14.57 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 03:17:14.59 | Dr. Garcia | OK. I'm eye on. |
| 03:17:16.24 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah, I can hear you now. |
| 03:17:19.23 | Dr. Garcia | I, uh... that. Quite frankly, I think this has been very, very productive. And, uh, and my reason for feeling very comfortable was the communication that went on. I saw you all communicating, sharing your ideas, nobody was interrupted, there was a lot of respect. I don't know what we did about trust, but at least it was good to see the council brainstorming on issues, and I'm not quite sure what the city manager's intentions are from this point on, Thank you. brainstorming on issues and I'm not quite sure what the city manager's intentions are from this point on, but I do see it as the beginning. I mean, I'd like to encourage the council to have these kinds of dialogues around issues. and and try to work toward consensus. of. focus, priorities, are critical to you being effective as a body and you effectuating change, positive change for the community itself. And as I said, if you really don't focus and you don't set your priorities, then I guess anything you do is okay, but not necessarily going to get you where you want to go. So having said that, I, I think I turn it over really to you and the city manager on what your next steps are with respect to the direction you want the city to go. |
| 03:18:51.48 | Jill Hoffman | Okay. Thank you. Okay, so let's just go around. Any council members that have final comments other than to thank the staff and obviously the staff are the heavy left and getting this together, our city manager for putting this together and doing that tremendous synthesis of what we're talking about today. Councilmember Cleveland Knowles, City Manager, do you mind? After the end. |
| 03:19:15.43 | Unknown | At the end. |
| 03:19:16.17 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah, OK, very good. Just put in there, if it wants to go first. Yeah. Go ahead, Council Member. Who knows? I don't see any other hands up. |
| 03:19:24.03 | Melissa Blaustein | Do you want to speak first? |
| 03:19:24.74 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 03:19:25.03 | Unknown | He's going to go laugh. Thank you. |
| 03:19:26.04 | Melissa Blaustein | Okay, great. Perfect. |
| 03:19:26.14 | Unknown | Okay. |
| 03:19:27.97 | Melissa Blaustein | Yeah, so huge thanks. I'm sure. Chris, I thought your PowerPoint presentation was just a phenomenal organizing principle for this meeting. So thank you for the time and effort that went into it. I guess I just wanted to also acknowledge another document that we didn't talk about, and I think it was a good thing that we didn't focus or talk about it, but was the, staff work that went into the update of the 2020 strategic plan. was just a big lift. And so I just want to thank all the department heads that took the time to go through that back tonight. I also just for context wanted to say that that document was in front of the city council, literally, I think it was March 5th, 2020. and with all these kind of, um, implementation measures and goals And we hadn't, you know, obviously right before we shut down for COVID, And we hadn't really taken that next step to weed it out. And we just had, I think, too many I think it was a really good effort and I'm really proud of that document. But it still needs to be winnowed. And you could tell from some of the comments that staff put, you know, haven't, hasn't started yet. Haven't thought about this. Don't have resources. I think it would be a good task over time to continue to refine that document to weed it out, to take out the things that are just not achievable. in the short term. And so, you know, I, I just want to thank staff for updating it and then suggest to the city manager affairs council agreement that staff come back to us at some point with a further update to that document. that potentially move some of the things off. the short term list as in order to get to this more focused path that we were that we've been talking about today. So I just add that and thank staff for doing that. and Just want to thank my fellow council members in the public. for the time and attention this morning. I thought this was a really great conversation. just thank everyone for their Great ideas and good thoughts. Thank you. |
| 03:21:52.10 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 03:21:52.11 | Janelle Kellman | Thank you. Council member. Yeah, I obviously want to thank the city manager and staff and Dr. Garcia for your hard work. But I really want to thank my fellow council members because I feel like we did a really excellent job working together on these really critical big picture strategic planning ideas. And what it really showed for me in a really impactful way is that actually though it might always not seem like it, we're really on the same page in terms of what we want to achieve, whether it's around grant writing or infrastructure or structural, physical stability so i just really appreciate that everyone brought forth ideas and that it was able to show really how much we're all committed to moving the city forward in a positive way. I also think that this was just so productive and critical. And we heard from our community members that these types of meetings are really great. And I know we've had 44 meetings this year which is quite an achievement but i would also like to push for some form of quarterly strategic planning or at least a touch base on the strategic planning as a group because this has been really productive for us and i really appreciated everyone's time and so just wanted to say thanks to all the council members for your effort and for all of us being able to consensus built together. |
| 03:23:07.75 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, thank you. Any final, yes, Council Member Sobieski, go ahead. |
| 03:23:12.30 | Ian Sobieski | I'll echo what council member Blossie just said. and maybe even pose it as a question for our reflection offline. Why does this meeting today have a different character, quality? than some of the needs we have. like Tuesday night. I'm going to be thinking about that in my last class. I'd love to at some point, dialogue about that. And so, Is it because it's in the morning? Is it because the agenda is broad based and allows there to be the integration of many issues? Is there something about structure of a very narrow agenda that is on tuesday night that is necessarily frustrating. I'm not sure, but those are some ideas I have. Thank you. Certainly, some of the public comment we received tonight suggests that it was noticed by the people that are not. So I think we'd like more of this. and less of that, or at least more of this. And so we've talked in the past, about having meetings that are more broad based with more ideation and integration and discussion deliberation. collaboration. And I think sometimes function follows forms and we should think about trying to have more meetings like this. That's one comment. And then the second is, I just want to emphasize there's one clear outtake of this in the near term their consensus on giving Mayor Zavada broad authority. to err on the side of overspending on the grant writer function. could have an outsized impact. on the amount of money we have. to spend on a bunch of these priorities. to the next episode. That's all. Thanks a lot. |
| 03:24:57.67 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, thank you, Vice Mayor Campbell. |
| 03:25:00.29 | Janelle Kellman | Yeah, thank you, Mayor Hoffman. Huge thank you to my fellow council members. THIS IS A really wonderful opportunity to, it's a level set from an information sharing perspective just kind of brainstorm, which I think to Ian's point, not having the rigorous structure very focused agenda items is, I think helpful for both us and the community. to gain insight into our priorities. I think that's what the community, it seems like, would like further insight on. And I know we've all applauded city manager's efforts, but I just really want to emphasize, I think, Chris, the time and effort you put into that PowerPoint was not only helpful for us, but I think that's one of the main reasons why the folks who really felt like this was useful because you helped us align around key themes and key issues and Uh, you really do a great job of pulling out the, where we have alignment, um, as, as councilman bossing said. So to support what Council Member Blasseyin said, I do think something like that on a quarterly basis would be absolutely fantastic for us and for the community. And if we can find time in our 44 meeting schedule to need to talk about it even better. But I think having that type of report out would be fantastic. I also had the crazy idea of, do we need to have one meeting a month in the daylight? understanding. is, It is a different tone. We all, you know, we haven't worked a full day. offering up anybody's weekend, but I acknowledge it for myself and I think the conversation as well. I appreciate that. And I do want to thank members of the public. THE FAMILY. do better with getting the word out. I know it was in currents, but we should give some thought to how we engage more members of the community to attend this. So thanks, everybody, for spending your Saturday with me. |
| 03:26:51.26 | Jill Hoffman | So yeah, thank you. Agree. Agree on all the comments actually. And that, um, Yeah. We are a little bit more bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. this morning, a little more caffeinated as well. So huge thank you to our city manager as Chris and I, and through also the agenda setting committee with the vice mayor, trying to figure out when we could fit in, whatever it was we wanted to call this effort, right? Whether it was a strategic planning session, But pretty early on in the year, we figured out that The strategic plan that was already done was a great plan and we didn't do that again. And at the prioritization setting was also a good effort and we didn't really need to revisit that, but we did need, we did need consensus on how to move forward and how to articulate that. And so that was a great exercise between the city manager, the vice mayor and I about what what the scope would be. And then sort of the prior, the, the, emphasis on prioritization and starting that process. really, but then the city managers ran with it and thank you to Chris for really putting it together and giving us a clear a clear framework for today and the three easily, not easily, but the three digestible buckets that he put it in, which I thought made it very clear. of, you know, the financial review, which, you know, what's within the realm of possible within our finances. And that took a while to get together, but, um, We have a clear picture now, I think, about what that is. and the infrastructure review, which I think is obviously important and then the boards and commissions that take away from all those other efforts. And so this, you know, tremendous effort, and thank you to Chris for that. And I look forward to, you know, revisiting these things as he's laid out in January, February, March. I absolutely agree with Council Members. Cleveland Knowles has suggested to update the implementation plan and I did review it and I did very much appreciate the hard work the staff did to update all of those boxes in the implementation plan. So that was really helpful in giving us a framework as well and to follow up on that when we look at our infrastructure with the City Council. Thanks to the feedback from all the council members and direction to our city manager on all the other issues that we talked about today. Alright, I'll let Chris wrap us up and then we will adjourn. Thank you. |
| 03:29:22.51 | Chris Zapata | Okay. CHRISTIE WOODWARD, Thank you, Mayor. So again, next steps and thank yous. But Abbott's been copiling this with me Obviously, Charlie Francis and Kevin McGowan provided slides for us to winnow through and It's been a team effort on many levels in terms of the departments working on the updated implementation plan. And I just want to say that, you know, my review of that was illuminating the first time and very illuminating the second time. and to see the work that's been done the third time. So, and I want to tell you what the six highlights that I pointed out are. You did a SWOT analysis and really nothing's changed. What you were talking about then is still relevant today. Those things you were talking about included infrastructure, included Measure O, included homelessness, included streamlining, included fiscal resiliency and organizational efficiency. We will continue to do those things. That's part of a government operation. uh... the other pieces i gave you a benchmarking focus on administration and infrastructure. There's about 40 steps in there. And when you look at that again, and it's posted as part of the report, You will see that we've made progress in a quarter of them. We need to make more in others, and we will. But we will continue to update you on both. What we're doing with strategic plan implementation and what we do with the other things that are just general work that the city has to do through its service and programs and projects. And so as it relates to today, Yeah, I think we're going to clean up what information we have And because it's a Saturday, people will be able to go online and visit it and see what was said and how it was said and see the source documents. And we'll make sure that's all part of some easy to get through package for our residents and other interested parties. And then Dr. Garcia and I will work on a summary report. that will kind of go to the council and say, you know, this is what we heard and saw, and this is what we think the approach for the steps to be are going to be. And then, you know, you will have that in your your document list is something that you can look back on and say, you know what, we decided on October 30th, 2021, to focus on finance infrastructure and, you know, how we're going to work with our volunteers that bring so much and add so much to our boards and commissions. So we'll do that. That's the next step. We'll get it out to the public as far as |
| 03:31:46.20 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 03:31:50.21 | Chris Zapata | the information today. We'll get a summary report from Dr. Garcia and myself. And we'll actually share all of that with the community. And I thank all of you for your time and your attention to this because Yeah, you've done a lot of hard work. And so as a staff and so as a community, and you have what I call a magic place. Sausalito is one of the most 99% of the people in the world would want to live here if they could. So that's not hyperbole, that's fact. So thank you. But we do have challenges. And I was at Marin Ship Park this morning. It's a little sprinkly out there. We'll continue to work on that. But obviously we need to not lose focus on some of the major things that a city is purposeful, which are your infrastructure and your services. Thank you again, I'm done. |
| 03:32:41.26 | Jill Hoffman | Thanks everybody. We're adjourned. Enjoy your Saturday. Thank you. |
| 03:32:51.17 | SPEAKER_21 | cars4 at gmail.com. |
| 03:32:55.98 | Unknown | you |
| 03:32:58.12 | SPEAKER_21 | That's cars. Call for a ride for Sausalito Seniors, available Monday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. To sign up for the program, |
Carolyn Revell — In Favor: Commended the council for prioritizing infrastructure, including parks and green spaces, and highlighted the role of groups like Sausalito Beautiful in filling voids where city capabilities are limited. ▶ 📄
Alice Merrill — In Favor: Praised the meeting format and suggested better community outreach for future sessions. Emphasized the uniqueness of the Marinship area and urged continued special attention to it. ▶ 📄
Kevin Carroll — In Favor: Appreciated the focused, daytime meeting format and supported moving public comment later in evening meetings to tackle major issues earlier, acknowledging the challenges of night meetings. ▶ 📄
Robbie Powelson — Against: Criticized the city for using 'not a full-service city' as an excuse to ignore homelessness and poverty, calling it discriminatory and highlighting inadequate storm response for unhoused residents. ▶ 📄
Linda Herschild — Neutral: Thanked the council for their dedication, suggested exploring commission-based grant writing, and expressed concern over development approvals on Wolfback Ridge and a disconnect between citizens and leadership. ▶ 📄
Sandra Bushmaker — In Favor: Advocated for narrowing the scope of boards and commissions to improve focus and effectiveness, using the Disaster Preparedness Committee as an example, and supported infrastructure prioritization. ▶ 📄
Sybil Boutillier — In Favor: Praised the meeting's financial presentation and suggested differentiating among committee types. Highlighted safety concerns on Coloma Street as an infrastructure priority potentially suitable for grant funding. ▶ 📄