| Time | Speaker | Text |
|---|---|---|
| 00:00:03.58 | Serge Avila | audio sequence. has begun and good afternoon mayor kelman and council members This meeting has been held pursuant to Government Code Section 5, or 953 subsection E and in light of the declared state of emergency, the regular meeting of the city council for March 8th, 2022 will be conducted telephonically through Zoom and broadcast live |
| 00:00:24.82 | Warren Wells | Yeah. |
| 00:00:26.63 | Serge Avila | on the city's website and cable tv channel 27. |
| 00:00:32.87 | Mayor Kelman | Right. Thank you very much. Welcome everybody to the regular city council meeting for Tuesday, March 8th, 2022. Go ahead and the meeting to order and please call the bill for us I don't feel like I just pause one second. I see Vice Mayor, there we go. |
| 00:00:49.68 | Serge Avila | Yes, and I will co-host Vice Mayor Blausin. |
| 00:00:58.54 | Vicki Nichols | Thank you. |
| 00:00:58.55 | Councilmember Sobieski | Okay. |
| 00:00:59.36 | Serge Avila | Right. Council member Sobieski. |
| 00:01:02.44 | Councilmember Sobieski | Eric? |
| 00:01:03.28 | Serge Avila | Council member Cleveland Nance. |
| 00:01:05.05 | Councilmember Sobieski | here. |
| 00:01:05.34 | Sandra Bushmaker | Thank you. |
| 00:01:05.89 | Serge Avila | Council member Hoffman. here. Vice Mayor Blasdain. |
| 00:01:09.91 | Sandra Bushmaker | here. |
| 00:01:10.81 | Serge Avila | Mayor, tell me. CARE. members are present and there is a quorum. |
| 00:01:16.69 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you very much. All right, so we have a handful of items to be discussed in closed session, items D1 through D5. Item D1 is conference with labor negotiators pursuant to section 54957.6. D2 is Conference of Legal Counsel. the existing litigation under government code 54956.9 D1 which is a South Submarine County chapter of the California Homo Sinia, MD3, again, Conference of Legal Counsel, The name of the case is Sausalito Yacht Harbor versus city of Sausalito. 54, Conference for Legal Counsel, same government code provision. City of Saucena versus California affiliated risk management authorities and item D5, public employee performance evaluation, pursuant to California Government Code Section 54957. for the city attorney. Serge, do we have any members of the public who would like to comment on closed session items? |
| 00:02:06.17 | Serge Avila | Madam Mayor, there are no members of the public at this time. |
| 00:02:10.27 | Mayor Kelman | Okay, we'll go ahead and close public comment and adjourn to closed session. Thanks everybody. |
| 00:02:16.38 | Unknown | you |
| 00:02:18.09 | Mayor Kelman | Bye. |
| 00:02:18.98 | Serge Avila | Thank you. |
| 00:02:20.57 | Unknown | So |
| 00:02:25.97 | Serge Avila | So audio is thinking and running now. are broadcasting now. and I'm at meeting all public. |
| 00:02:38.12 | Unknown | Great. |
| 00:02:45.49 | Serge Avila | Madam Mayor, all participants are in the room now. |
| 00:02:48.49 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you so much, Serge. Welcome everybody to the March 8th, 2022 Sassano City Council meeting. We are returning from closed session. We did not have any closed session announcements. So I will ask my colleagues, I'm gonna make a motion to approve agenda. Thank you. Thank you. In a second. Great. Please call the roll. |
| 00:03:12.66 | Serge Avila | Council Member Sobieski? That's a member who's in the north. |
| 00:03:16.61 | Councilmember Hoffman | Yes. |
| 00:03:17.59 | Serge Avila | Councilmember Hoffman? |
| 00:03:19.02 | Councilmember Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:03:19.04 | Serge Avila | Bye. |
| 00:03:19.16 | Councilmember Hoffman | Yeah. |
| 00:03:19.24 | Serge Avila | Thank you. Vice Mayor Blavstein. |
| 00:03:21.59 | Councilmember Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:03:21.60 | Mayor Kelman | Yes. |
| 00:03:22.51 | Serge Avila | Mayor Kellman. |
| 00:03:23.58 | Mayor Kelman | Yes. classes 5-0. The next item is special presentations or mayor's announcement. The only announcement I have is to wish everybody on the council and in the community, a happy international women's day. Thank you for all that you do. And I'm so pleased to have so many of you sitting up here with me, even virtually. Okay, onto the action minutes of the previous meeting. Looks like we have several, we have four. Does anybody have comments or would someone like to make a motion to approve? I'll move approval. Thank you. |
| 00:03:58.27 | Serge Avila | Thank you. |
| 00:03:58.93 | Mayor Kelman | He's called a rock. |
| 00:04:00.48 | Serge Avila | Thank you. |
| 00:04:01.34 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. Oh, actually, please pause. I forgot to open up for Paul. |
| 00:04:05.85 | Serge Avila | Madam Mayor, would you like me to explain the public how to provide public comment? |
| 00:04:10.52 | Mayor Kelman | Yeah, so let's make clear that we're only taking public comment on this particular item, which is the action minutes of the previous meeting. And we're looking at the approval of the draft minutes. So if your comment. is as to something in the minutes. Now would be your time. and if not then we welcome your comments at a later date or later time |
| 00:04:27.75 | Serge Avila | or audio? |
| 00:04:27.77 | Mayor Kelman | Right. |
| 00:04:28.87 | Serge Avila | 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 it's your time to speak. To raise your hand from a phone, press Start 9, and each speaker will be notified when the time has elapsed. |
| 00:04:48.31 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:04:48.32 | Pat | Bye. Okay. |
| 00:04:51.50 | Serge Avila | Madam Mayor, it does not appear as we have any hands raised for this item. |
| 00:04:55.28 | Mayor Kelman | Okay, thank you very much. Now, do we have a motion to approve in a second? Thank you. Thank you. |
| 00:05:03.85 | Serge Avila | I'm not sure. |
| 00:05:03.92 | Mayor Kelman | Yeah. |
| 00:05:03.93 | Serge Avila | Thank you. |
| 00:05:03.97 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. Right. Can you please call the roll? |
| 00:05:07.48 | Serge Avila | Councilmember Sobieski. Yes. and some of them are coming in once. Yes. Council member Hoffman. |
| 00:05:17.82 | Serge Avila | Yes. Vice Mayor Blaustein. |
| 00:05:21.28 | Councilmember Hoffman | Yes. |
| 00:05:21.79 | Vice Mayor Blonstein | Thank you. |
| 00:05:21.80 | Serge Avila | Thank you. And Mayor Kelman. |
| 00:05:24.01 | Councilmember Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:05:24.03 | Mayor Kelman | Yes. Sorry about that, very active cat this evening. Five-O approval here. Okay, onto the consent calendar. We have five items on the consent calendar. I'm very excited actually about the consent counter item 3A. is to adopt a resolution authorizing the city manager to sign the permit application associated with the installation of oyster reef elements near Dunphy Park to promote a living shoreline project. Item 3B is to adopt a resolution to continue conducting the city's council and all other city board commission and committee meetings remotely due to help and safety concerns for the public. M3C is a video introduction of the neighborhood response, the NRG program. Item 3D is adoption of ordinance amending chapter 11.12 of the Saucedot Municipal Code to create a tree replacement fee And item 3E, adopt a resolution to extend the audit services with Mays and Associates for fiscal year 2021-22 for one year at a cost of $58,286. Any comments on this from council members? |
| 00:06:26.17 | Mayor Kelman | Okay, we're gonna open this up for public comment. Again, this is just public comment for items on consent. |
| 00:06:35.18 | Mayor Kelman | Serge, can you please explain everybody again how to? Is she public comment? |
| 00:06:39.67 | Serge Avila | Yeah. A 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 it's your time to speak. To raise your hand from a phone, press start nine, and each speaker will be notified when the time has elapsed. Madam Mayor, it does not appear that we have any hands raised for this item. |
| 00:07:04.15 | Mayor Kelman | OK. I do have one comment on one of the items and I don't know that requires pulling it off consent, but it is for item 3E, which is the resolution to extend audit services with Mays and Associates. I just want to advise that this included per our finance committee meeting, the opportunity to have quarterly check-ins and control measures in place with quarterly sort of mini audits, if you will, to make sure that we're proceeding on a good path and continue to be so. So just want to add that color to that conversation since I don't think it was in this effort. |
| 00:07:36.69 | Unknown | Right. |
| 00:07:37.02 | Mayor Kelman | So does anybody have any other comments or is there a motion to approve the consent calendar? I'll move to approve consent. |
| 00:07:46.08 | Mayor Kelman | Wonderful. Thank you. Please call the roll, sir. |
| 00:07:49.71 | Serge Avila | Council Member Sowiecki. Yes. Councilmember Kluveno. |
| 00:07:54.08 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. |
| 00:07:54.10 | Councilmember Hoffman | YES. |
| 00:07:54.45 | Vicki Nichols | Thank you. |
| 00:07:55.06 | Serge Avila | Council member Hoffman. Yes. Vice Mayor Blaustein. |
| 00:07:59.06 | Mayor Kelman | Yes. |
| 00:07:59.37 | Serge Avila | Thank you. Mayor, tell me. |
| 00:08:01.10 | Mayor Kelman | Yes. Pass this 5-0. Great, well, thank you everybody. Onto the public hearing items and I have to admit, I'm also very excited about these. So item number one here or item 4A is an ordinance amending chapter 12.24 for garbage collection disposal of the Asosida Municipal Code to address Senate Bill 1383 compliance. And our presentation will be given by the director of public works, Kevin McGowan. |
| 00:08:26.60 | Kevin McGowan | Good evening, Mayor, members of the City Council. Thank you so much for taking this item tonight, 4A. It's an important item and I wish I could take all the credit, but I cannot. At this point, We've had a lot of help from community development department, specifically Elena Lipp, who has moved on from the city. as well as Rosalyn Thompson and of course, Jim Moore, our community development director. So in addition, There are some other people that I'm hoping will get up and speak about this particular ordinance, including Greg Christie from base six. But in this case, we have a consultant that's been helping us out from R3 Consulting Group. Her name is Rose Radford, and I'm going to turn this presentation over to Rose to lead us through some of the details associated with THE PROGRAM IS a new ordinance at the city of Sausalito in compliance with Senate Bill 1383. So hopefully our city clerk has made Rose a co-host and she can share her screen at this point. |
| 00:09:35.22 | Councilmember Hoffman | Yes, it looks like I have access to that. Thank you so much. And good evening, Madam Mayor and City Council members. |
| 00:09:41.04 | Rose Radford | to get the information. great to be before you. I apologize. My presentation might be information you've already heard. um but i will move through the information quickly and it's intended to give you all a lot of context about not only what the ordinance before you tonight states but also what the law does broadly for you and all other municipalities throughout the state so With that, I will share my screen. Is that showing for you over here? Perfect. Thank you. I also just want to quickly introduce myself. So Rose Radford, R3 Consulting. R3 is engaged by most of the communities in Moran and many throughout the Bay Area on just this, legislative compliance and SB 1383 planning. So we're well positioned to give you a lot of good information about, um, the law and assure you that you your ordinance is sort of modeled on what we're doing with all of the our communities. So Senate bill 1383 is otherwise known as the short lived climate pollutants reduction act. And I also wanna just keep in mind as I move through this presentation, that this is really a climate change related bill and it's intended to target specifically methane emissions. So first I'll be going through a little bit more background about the law. And I'll give you some information about how that relates to the municipal code updates that are before you tonight. Um, and also discuss how that's going to be implemented by both your city staff and your Hall or Bay Cities Refuse. So what does this law focus on? It's organic waste, that's yard, clippings, vegetative matter, food scraps and food soil paper. which all is collected in your green cart. This is just the same as the residential program. It's also accessible to your businesses through a dedicated CART system. you already have this, this collection system in place. Organic waste is important partially because it's the vast majority of what's being disposed currently at landfills. Two-thirds of the material that's being landfilled now is organic waste. That's a lot. Also some of that material could be potentially edible food that could be used to feed people who are hungry. So the law does focus on these two primary aspects, of organic waste specifically. |
| 00:12:20.96 | Sybil Boutillier | Yeah. |
| 00:12:21.03 | Rose Radford | When organic material is landfilled, uh, produces methane gas, which is a super pollutant. Um, if it is composted, it produces almost no methane gas and is a significantly less, um, impactful in terms of climate change. Um, The bill specifically, so it is an unfunded state mandate, which imposes a lot of requirements on you as a local government agency. And again, all cities throughout the state It sets statewide targets and builds on existing laws. Specifically it requires all generators so Prior laws have said only the highest volume businesses where they're throwing away a lot need to divert organic waste. Now it's everyone. As a city, you're required to provide the service that you do. uh, work with regional agencies, um, to establish, establish a more robust edible food recovery program. Make sure that your community knows about it through robust education and outreach. Do some procurement of recyclable and recovered organic products. And other pieces like enforcement, which I'll get into in the next few slides. So if I'm a business or a multifamily complex, how do I comply with the law and the ordinance that's before you tonight? Um, The easiest way is just sign up for organic service. So if you don't have organic service currently, just call up Bay Cities Refuse and get signed up for that service. You can also comply by backhauling or self-hauling organics. You do need to separate that out. from the garbage and uh haul it specifically to uh to be composted essentially If you generate essentially no organics, you could also qualify for a waiver. um, and and you could apply for that waiver as long as you meet certain criteria that are set by the state. Some businesses are also required to engage in edible food recovery. According to our initial look at this, you don't have many businesses that are large enough to qualify under this. Uh, and the. It's basically large restaurants. full-sell food vendors and supermarkets. of sufficient size. If you are covered, You're required to recover edible food as long as it is edible. and send it to for example the food bank or extra food which are very active in the county You need to maintain a contract, which is common practice, and also keep records of what you are donating. The ordinance and in fact Cal Recycle itself has required compliance monitor. Uh, so that's looking at the businesses to make sure that they are in fact uh, signed up for service and, um, also working in the containers to make sure that a material is being separated properly. This could mean somebody is looking in individual containers to check for if there's garbage in the organics as an example. Um, and beginning in 2024, the state is expecting a notice of violation process to begin if a noncompliance is observed. The city is required to procure recycled paper. and also procure potentially additional amounts of compost and mulch. The state is looking at that as a way to bolster the end markets for compost because they're expecting a lot more compost to be produced now under this new law. So why are we suggesting you update your municipal code? Well SB 1383 requires all cities to have an enforceable mechanism for the law. the municipal code essentially um places the requirements that I just stated on businesses and residents. Although for residents, not much changes, you already have access to the service and describes things like the waiver criteria who qualifies as an edible food. uh tier one or tier two business and required to therefore donate And also contamination monitoring and things of that nature. So this next piece is how, how is the law going to be implemented? Of course, your hauler is a key partner in doing so. They're already providing a collection service. Um, and they can do a few additional things, which they are doing currently, such as outreach and education for your generators. Um, and they can help provide some recommendations to you in terms of waiver uh, eligibility and things of that nature. A lot of the requirements of the law will still be on you as a city. record-keeping reporting requirements are pretty extensive in coordination on outreach engagement and education. And we've also got, of course, the enforcement of the law. And just to walk through each of the pieces that we've just discussed in a little bit more detail, you'll see this table in your staff report as well. of course collections based cities refuse and education which they're already doing We need to discuss with them the contamination monitoring and waivers. Enforcement, as I mentioned, would stay with you. Procurement also, they may be able to help with some aspects of this, Ultimately the obligations lie on you to purchase recycled content paper as an example. For edible food recovery, the city's working with the regional agencies. And the intention is to keep that within the public sector. And then of course reporting, which would, uh, be a requirement that both UN basicities refuse would need to coordinate on. So I know that Bay Cities Refuse is here with us tonight and myself, Kevin and Bem are, I'm sure happy to take any questions that you have. I know that I went through a lot of information here. So I'm happy to get into any details that you're interested in. |
| 00:19:01.84 | Kevin McGowan | So a couple other comments. Thank you so much, Rose. Appreciate the help on this. Again, this is an unfunded mandate. And there are certain key pieces that the city will need to take up. And that chart that Rose had on the screen just a little while ago, as well as within your, in the staff report itself, indicates that there are some other efforts that the city has to implement. And While we might not know every single detail, we're going to work towards that and work with Rose and her consulting firm. as well as other jurisdictions within the Marin County, so that we have more of a uniform approach to how we address this. And I believe Greg Christie is on the call. I hate to put him on the spot because I only asked him to join us for the meeting. But if it's all right with the council, I wouldn't mind if he was allowed to make a few comments at this point in time. Greg, are you listening? |
| 00:19:56.38 | Mayor Kelman | I tell you. And Director McGowan, I just want to add, the Vice Mayor and I did see this in legislative committee. Rose gave us her excellent presentation and you were there as well answering our questions. And one of the questions that we had asked, and I'm glad Greg is here, is what does base cities cover since this is an unfunded mandatory duty so greg welcome and Great to see you. |
| 00:20:19.59 | Greg Christie | I say thanks for allowing me to speak It's a pleasure. You know, Kevin asked me to, so I'm more than happy to. I'm going to apologize up front all of a sudden our internet connection is unstable. So I hope we don't break up here, but We're willing to help in any way we can. Of course, we're always here for Sausalito and do whatever, but we already have quite a bit of the program on our side already in place, like the three color-coded, um, cart system. That's done. Then we've had a program in 2012 where people are already doing it. We put out public outreach. And, We, uh, you know, just are working with the customers and then working with the commercial And so we plan with what we've done now, we've already have those costs are already built into our operation. So there's gonna be no big burden on us to pass on to the rate payers. It's already part of our system, especially the public outreach part. We've got new signage and are complying with that. So in a lot of respects, we already have complied with SB 1383 as far as the hauler part of it. I fully expect to be involved in the route reviews and compliance monitoring and then working with the commercial customers as much as needed And also like in the areas of, uh, procurement. As Rose said, we're kind of limited on what we can do, but one of the big things we can do is work with the compost facility to bring back compost, which is a, which is a key component of, um, a procurement part of the, the regulations. So from us, I don't see any big impact that we haven't already already. planned on. And anything that's asked of us, we'll be more than willing to do. |
| 00:22:08.90 | Kevin McGowan | Thank you. |
| 00:22:09.04 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. |
| 00:22:09.44 | Kevin McGowan | Thank you. Thank you. Welcome. One last comment. And that is that this particular program, I'm noticing that Cal Recycling has given most of the cities some time in order to make this happen. And that's a good thing. It allows us to get into some of the detail and see what works and see what doesn't work. That way we can modify our program with other jurisdictions and make sure to move forward in a uniform manner. So thank you again, and I appreciate Rose and Greg for stepping in. and helping out some of the presentation. There may be plenty of questions, so I'm hoping Rose can Stay on the call here as well. Thank you. |
| 00:22:48.74 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you, Director McGowan and Greg and Rose. Okay, let's open it up for council member questions. Anybody haven't? |
| 00:22:57.37 | Councilmember Cleveland Knowles | you |
| 00:22:57.45 | Mayor Kelman | Graves Councilman Cleveland knows. |
| 00:22:59.02 | Councilmember Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. |
| 00:22:59.88 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. |
| 00:22:59.93 | Councilmember Cleveland Knowles | Thank you, Mayor. And thank you everyone for all your hard work on this and the Sustainability Commission and Legislative Committee as well. AND I THINK THAT'S A And my question isn't directly, exactly related to this, but I would, I think a lot of people in town have one of the The hard things about composting is it's easy to do food scraps and all of that, but there's a lot of containers that are marked compostable. um, that, Greg, I think before the pandemic, we had kind of a presentation, as we were trying to get to our ordinance, you know, getting compliance with our ordinance plastic containers, And there were limitations on the place where you were, bringing the compost materials about what kinds of you know those cups and various things that say they're green and they're compostable. Have we made any progress in that on that in the last two years to kind of increase the number of kind of containers and sort of semi-plastic, like a lot of the, So, you know, the silverware, type things where they say they're compostable, but they're not. Have we made any progress on that? |
| 00:24:21.25 | Greg Christie | from an industry standpoint especially in Marin County most of the time they they've compostable plastics is because that's what they consider plastic so i mean i believe that we're one of the only programs and the place, the location we take it to has to certify that they can take you know, plastics, but they'll take the compostable plastic bags and they allow the bio bags and that helps with, you know, the ick factor, so to speak for the composting. But as far as like the plastic cups and everything, a lot of those are still not really compostable they don't break down fast enough in a program and I think the state of California is looking in maybe rows knows more about this than I do about kind of putting some kind of control on what actually is compostable and not compostable and what they can say. I believe there's some sort of legislation that's kind of in the loop there. |
| 00:25:19.13 | Rose Radford | I can just jump in and say this is not a unique problem and definitely a statewide solution is best. Although I know that Marin County is looking at you know, sort of a single use plastics. ban. The reality is that the material just doesn't break down in really any composting facilities. So it's just false marketing. And the question is really how to get the word out so that people don't purchase these products that just cannot be composted. A good rule of thumb just for anybody listening as well on the public is, you know, if it looks like plastic, if it feels like plastic, probably is going to behave like plastic in a composting facility. If it feels like paper, And you know, you scrape it and you feel, you know, you feel it give. that's going to have a lot better results in a composting facility because paper does break down. |
| 00:26:18.81 | Councilmember Cleveland Knowles | Great, thank you both and great work on this. And hopefully we can move more to more things that can go in the compost bin over time, but thanks. Council Member Hoffman. |
| 00:26:33.18 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. Yeah. Great, great job. You guys putting this together and getting it, you know, getting it to the city council and especially the work. |
| 00:26:33.23 | Unknown | THANK YOU. |
| 00:26:41.06 | Jill Hoffman | getting the $11,000 grant, the sustainability commission and the hard work on this. Rose and everybody in the sustainability, I know it's just super, difficult and challenging times we live in. AND I THINK THAT'S A I was wondering if Kevin, if we have. you know have we looked at Yeah. a proposed budget about how much this might cost us you know, all in to bring us into you know, um, Yeah. administering this program. I mean, it's great that we're getting grants and we're lining up, getting lined up for additional grants but do we have any projection going forward and have we accounted for that And. in the departmental budgets. Thank you. |
| 00:27:31.50 | Kevin McGowan | So great question. I actually had to rely on Rose to get her input for this direct question a little while ago. And, um, I think that what we're coming up with is a person one day a week. could probably be sufficient to at least collect the data and do the internal paperwork type of process associated with this ordinance. That has not been included in my budget at this point in time. I can't speak for community development or anybody else. But we're still thinking of about.2 FTE for administering this program at this point in time. Does that sound about right with your other jurisdictions as well? |
| 00:28:15.39 | Rose Radford | Yes, that's right. And as I mentioned, there's a lot of complex pieces of this. A big part, as Kevin mentioned, this is keeping track of everything when the board was in the office |
| 00:28:26.90 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:28:26.95 | Rose Radford | Thank you. |
| 00:28:26.97 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:28:26.99 | Rose Radford | The state asks. So that's... for that information and then ultimately potentially enforcement, although we would hope that everybody's in compliance before we would ever need to get to that. |
| 00:28:37.37 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. Madam Mayor, can I ask a follow up question on that too? Sorry. Thanks. Greg, do you have, um, I know that we recently had a rate hike, um, I think to help offset some of these implementations, but do you have any, I think from the provider side about increases, further increases in rates to respond to this. |
| 00:29:00.25 | Greg Christie | No, I don't anticipate anything going forward on us that we see right now. I mean, unless there's some big change unforeseen, but I mean, the plan goes going forward just to have our regular normal CPI. It wouldn't affect anything that we're doing. I think I looked at this and built in enough stuff when we were doing the rate review. or, um, for these kind of costs. I do know the county has provided us access through Sausalito for what they call recycler software for reporting. And we looked into that before this started and it was gonna be like a $20,000 a year cost, but the county was able to zero waste, you know, Marin. provide to all the cities. And so, and then they grant us access to report on South Dakota's behalf. So that's a big savings and that helps. |
| 00:29:54.47 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:29:54.48 | Mayor Kelman | Okay, great. Thanks very much for that report. Thank you. |
| 00:29:57.88 | Councilmember Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 00:29:58.01 | Mayor Kelman | Great questions. Council Member Sobieski. |
| 00:30:00.73 | Councilmember Sobieski | Yeah, thanks. Hi, Greg. Can you elaborate a little bit on that issue with the bags? That was something that I think the community would like to know. There's the biodegradable bags and there's compostable bags. know they're different are can they both be used in this combustible situation or not |
| 00:30:18.62 | Greg Christie | To be specific, it's the brand name Bio Bag. I'm not advertising anybody's product, but that is the bag that breaks down and has been tested. And it actually... it will says on their their box that it'll compost in a home composting operation too and that's one of the ways it was tested by the compost facility we take to so going to Rose's point that if it feels like paper and it's lightweight, that's what a bio bag is. It's really lightweight. Um, it has a shelf life. If it sits on a shelf too long or you store it, it'll break down actually, or it'll just, you open it up and it just falls apart. There are some bags that are, you know, compostable. And then, like, lots of times if you go to a grocery store and you get the vegetable bag and it says compostable, they, you know, truly aren't. They just don't break down fast enough. |
| 00:31:05.38 | Councilmember Sobieski | Is this something we put in a current already or should |
| 00:31:09.02 | Greg Christie | We advertise it on our stickers and everything. The only brand name is BioBag. So all our literature we put out there, We pushed the bio bag and at one point, sustainability commission was able to procure some and we had given them all away a couple of years ago, but we can look in and get some more. and doing that again as a promotion and public outreach. Thank you. |
| 00:31:30.44 | Chris Bourbon | Thank you. |
| 00:31:31.46 | Mayor Kelman | Councilman Hoffman, your hand appears to be back up. You're done. OK. Vice Mayor, I know we already saw this in legislative committee, but do you have any additional comments or questions? Thank you. |
| 00:31:42.05 | Vice Mayor Blonstein | I think it looks really great and rose. This is the third time and I learned something new every time I get to watch your presentation. So I really appreciate all of the time and effort and sustainability commission as well. I, I, the only thing that I would ask this question in ledge, but I think it's important just for folks in the community to maybe understand the three options that you can take to comply. The third one is a waiver. And in the presentation you had recommended that we not allow for waivers. Could you just maybe you or Greg kind of speak to why that makes the most sense in our path forward and complying with this? Because some people might say, it would help them from a business standpoint to have one. |
| 00:32:19.85 | Rose Radford | Yeah, I'd be happy to kind of take a take a first look at that question. I think when we talked about waivers, it may have been focused on waivers from the requirement to subscribe to garbage broadly. And we're not suggesting having a waiver from that requirement. The waiver that is being suggested and is included in the ordinance that's before you today is specifically for a waiver from the requirement to subscribe to organic service And you only qualify for the waiver if you lack sufficient space to store the containers, of course, or if you generate a very, very small amount of organic waste that counts things like paper. So you need to be doing a good job of recycling already before you possibly qualify. And we also encourage, um, people to consider participating in the program regardless of whether you may or may not qualify for the waiver. The first step, I mean, really ultimately what we're trying to do is combat climate change. So to the extent that people can participate and find a place for the container, find a way to make it work. that's the preferred approach. It's only, If there's no possible other you know, solution. And that's why we're we are encouraging you to keep the waiver language in there just as a final pass. It is what all of the other cities in Marin are including as well. So it will be a waiver that matches the state's descriptions and also what is in place in the rest of the community. Right. |
| 00:34:01.03 | Mayor Kelman | Thanks, Rose. |
| 00:34:01.86 | Rose Radford | Thank you. |
| 00:34:01.89 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. THANK YOU, ROSE. Okay, any other questions before we open for public comment? Okay, seeing no hands, surgery, please let the public know again how to... Give public comment and then let us know if you have any hands raised. |
| 00:34:18.01 | Serge Avila | Sure, 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, and each speaker will be notified when the time has allowed. |
| 00:34:37.48 | Mayor Kelman | Okay. Great, I think I see the Chair of our Sustainability Commission, Lauren Wiley. |
| 00:34:38.80 | Unknown | Bye. |
| 00:34:38.81 | Serge Avila | I think I'm going to be a little bit. |
| 00:34:39.10 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:34:47.35 | Mayor Kelman | Welcome, Ron. |
| 00:34:49.04 | Serge Avila | Lauren, you've been unmuted. |
| 00:34:51.43 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:34:51.64 | Lauren Wiley | Thank you. Hi. Bye, everyone. I'm I wanted to address Council Member Cleveland Knowles question about the progress we've made on the outreach and the addressing the challenge of What really is plastic? What's the best fork to use if you're transitioning? So I really just wanted to direct THE PUBLIC. and the city council of course to the resources that we have We have available through the sustainability commission website. If you go click through the links and you find our, uh, categories, there's a waste category. You can go in there and get some information and you can be directed there to an even better resource, which is courtesy of. base of these refuse and they have, if you go on their website, In the corner it says Sausalito Sustainability Commission. facility of sustainability. And on there you see, and directions about what constitutes the right thing for your business And if your business is going through a challenge, figuring out how to transition, and those resources don't help you, you can feel free to email the sustainability commission and we can direct you to the team that we're work we have on hand to help you. Thank you. |
| 00:36:15.79 | Mayor Kelman | AND I'M GOING TO BE ABLE TO Thank you so much for that, Lauren. I really appreciate it. Okay, Serge, any other hands raised? |
| 00:36:25.55 | Serge Avila | I see no other hands raised. |
| 00:36:27.72 | Mayor Kelman | Okay, so we'll go ahead and close public comment and bring it back up to the council. Any other comments or a motion? |
| 00:36:33.93 | Councilmember Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. I'll make a motion to approve. Is this one of the ones that we need to read? read the whole title, Marie. Yes, please. okay sorry so i make a motion that we approve an ordinance ending chapter 12.24 garbage collection and disposal of the saslato municipal code to address senate bill 1383 compliance I don't know. I'm sorry, the recommended motion was introduced for your first reading and read by title only an ordinance of the city council of the city of Sausalito amending chapter 12.24 garbage collection and disposal of the Sausalito Municipal. Cut. Apologies to my colleagues. Thank you. |
| 00:37:18.30 | Mayor Kelman | It was great. |
| 00:37:18.85 | Councilmember Cleveland Knowles | you |
| 00:37:19.02 | Mayor Kelman | Ms. Burr. |
| 00:37:19.51 | Councilmember Cleveland Knowles | you |
| 00:37:19.60 | Mayor Kelman | Any second? Thank you. Wonderful. Thank you both. Please call the roll. |
| 00:37:26.09 | Serge Avila | the council member Sobieski. Yes. Council member Kluwlin. |
| 00:37:29.91 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. |
| 00:37:30.03 | Serge Avila | Yeah. |
| 00:37:30.04 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. |
| 00:37:30.80 | Serge Avila | Council member Hoffman. |
| 00:37:32.15 | Mayor Kelman | Yes. |
| 00:37:32.98 | Serge Avila | Vice Mayor Blonstein. |
| 00:37:34.73 | Mayor Kelman | Yes. |
| 00:37:35.81 | Serge Avila | Mayor Kelman. Yes. |
| 00:37:37.03 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. |
| 00:37:37.15 | Serge Avila | Thank you. |
| 00:37:38.31 | Mayor Kelman | This is five zero. Thank you everybody. And again, thank you, Director McGowan. Greg Rose great work on this learn something every time as the vice mayor said Okay, well, thank you everybody. Onto the business items for tonight. We have two of them. Item 5A is to provide direction to staff. on whether to pursue an ordinance to impose a ban on gas-powered landscaping equipment. And our director of public works is once again, our presenter. |
| 00:38:06.49 | Kevin McGowan | Good evening again, council members. I do have a presentation for you, so I'm going to share my screen. And we have a few slides, so it's only just a few pictures here. Give me a quick second. |
| 00:38:20.50 | Kevin McGowan | There we go. Can you see my screen? It should be in blue. Yes, okay, thank you so much. Item 5A before you this evening is a request by staff to provide direction on whether to proceed with modifications to the Sausalito Municipal Code to ban gas-powered landscaping equipment. On January 19th, 2020, the Sausalito Sustainability Commission formally made a recommendation to the City Council, which included nine statements or recommendations. to ban gas powered landscaping equipment. The list of these statements or recommendations is included with your staff report just for reference. A ban on gasoline powered landscaping equipment has been discussed in Sausalito since 2013. So I think we've been talking about this for some time. Currently gasoline powered landscaping equipment, such as leak blowers, trimmers and other equipment produce hydrocarbons into the atmosphere which is a significant greenhouse gas emission. The landscaping equipment These landscaping pieces of equipment are loud, and a standard two-stroke leaf blower emits more than 300 times the pollutants of a standard pickup truck. Many systems throughout, many cities throughout the state, including those in Marin, are enacting restrictions on leaf blowers, which are expected to be banned in the state of California in the near future. California anticipates that the sale of gasoline powered lawnmowers and leaf blowers and other landscaping equipment will be outlawed in 2024. Over the last several years, innovations in battery powered landscaping equipment has progressed to a point where most landscaping maintenance can be achieved utilizing non-gasoline powered equipment and electric and battery powered equipment generally. The city of Sausalito's general plan also states a goal of reducing our emissions by 40% from the 1990 levels by 2030. The city and its maintenance divisions are also moving in that direction of utilizing electric equipment. A recent purchase of a large size electric mower to manage our parks and grass areas is working well. And that is our equipment right there in our, lower right hand corner all clean and nice at this point but i'm sure it will get get used rather well Public works and park maintenance staff were contacted with regard to the sustainability commission's recommendations to ban gas powered landscaping equipment. While the elimination of gas powered leaf blowers and trimmers does not appear to be problematic, staff noted some reservations regarding limiting the use of chainsaws. On many occasions, tree companies need to climb a tree in order to prune and remove limbs and sometimes the entire tree. Generally, battery powered chainsaws may not have sufficient power to address this type of work, such that gasoline powered chainsaws are preferred. In addition, some larger trees that need a longer chainsaw, a longer, just a longer chainsaw. may not be available with an electric motor. Staff recommends having some exemptions in place to allow for tree contractors to utilize gasoline powered equipment in remote locations, such as locations higher than 10 feet off the ground. Staff is seeking council's direction on whether to proceed with modifying the municipal code to ban gasoline powered landscaping equipment. and includes some exemptions for the use of gas-powered other landscaping equipment such as chainsaws for specialty work. Just to add a few comments, the other jurisdictions in Marin County have moved forward with outlawing, or excuse me, banning gasoline powered leaf blowers. They're a little bit more specific and weren't as general as we are in Sausalito. So at this point, that concludes my presentation. And I welcome your comments and your direction at this point. Thank you. |
| 00:43:01.75 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you, Kevin. Kevin, could you just for the public who may not have chances to see the materials, can you explain why since other communities maybe already only focused on certain types of products, what we're talking about tonight is a more comprehensive ban? |
| 00:43:20.38 | Kevin McGowan | Yes, that's correct. the resolution or the material provided in your packet, from the The Sustainability Commission Hello. quite a few different points and these were not necessarily complete recommendations but they were comments and recommendations AND THEY INCLUDED outlawing, or excuse me, banning all landscaping equipment In general, that produces loud noises, ambient noises greater than 45 to 50 decimals in residential areas. I think that the other jurisdictions have noted, and I'm just speaking from my perspective, they have noted that The leaf blowers themselves have been generally the things that have irritated residents and since the development of new technologies with battery powered leaf blowers, there really is no need for work. having that type of equipment at this point in time um our our staff is just bringing up some other issues with let's say lawnmowers and tight spaces for for utilizing landscaping equipment that we might want to have some x some exemptions in our code in order to address that |
| 00:44:38.75 | Mayor Kelman | I think, |
| 00:44:38.97 | Vice Mayor Blonstein | Thank you. |
| 00:44:39.04 | Mayor Kelman | Kevin. Thank you. |
| 00:44:39.78 | Vice Mayor Blonstein | I see the vice-baron has her hand up. Yeah, thank you very much, Kevin, for that presentation. And a huge thanks to the sustainability commission for their hard work on this and for the packet that they put together as well. I know some of them are present and will probably have some public comment, but we had some emails back and forth this afternoon and I wanted to ask a few questions. In the staff report, It says that it's not quote practical to outlaw gas powered lawn mowers at this point given the use of the city of these but that we do have one that we're experimenting with and seeing how it's going I wonder, given that we are required to move to all, no gas powered appliances by 2035, we might write into the ordinance a phased plan that's very specific about when we so that we can have it already be done, right? Like implementing them in a time sensitive fashion, because when you say it's not practical at this time, I mean, a lot of changes we make aren't necessarily practical at the time that we're attempting to make them. So if there's a way we might set in, and maybe you have ideas about that, Kevin, because I understand, the challenges of your department, but also I think we're all aware of the severe crisis of climate change, we did just declare a climate emergency as a council. And so I just wanted to see what your thoughts were on how we might move that forward and integrate that recommendation from sustainability. |
| 00:46:00.29 | Kevin McGowan | that's a great suggestion. And I think we have a sustainability meeting this week. So I would be excited to, bring these ideas to them and seek their guidance as well. But I like the idea of putting a phased approach inside the ordinance in some way, shape or form and be happy to work with the sustainability committee and see what their thoughts are as well. |
| 00:46:21.93 | Mayor Kelman | Thanks, Kevin. THANK YOU, KIM. Any other questions for Direct me on. Okay, well, why don't we, oh yeah, go ahead, Susan. |
| 00:46:30.60 | Councilmember Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. Sorry, I was just taking a bite. I was wondering if, um, the sustainability question. I like the phased approach, especially for things other than leaf blowers, I'm wondering if anyone kind of looked at sort of the equity issues here. I mean, most, Landscapers are tend to be lower income. And, you know, I with. be great if Marin had a program for helping to phase in this kind of equipment. or discounts or anything like that. Did that discussion come up with the sustainability commission or does anybody know how that's worked in other jurisdictions? |
| 00:47:18.22 | Mayor Kelman | Looks like the vice mayor can address that. Thank you. |
| 00:47:20.01 | Vice Mayor Blonstein | We have talked about, and I think we mentioned this at the sustainability commission, but as well, I don't know is on the call. We'd also talked about having a a rental service of the library, similar to the rental programs that Berkeley has, where you can check out a electric powered as opposed to a gas powered one. So that's something that we had considered. That's a really good point, council member Cleveland Knowles. And that's just one. one step that we were considering taking that is not yet formalized but we should look into other jurisdictions too |
| 00:47:53.05 | Councilmember Cleveland Knowles | Great, thank you. That was my only concern otherwise. Looks great. Bye. |
| 00:47:58.89 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. |
| 00:47:58.91 | Councilmember Cleveland Knowles | Great, great point. |
| 00:47:59.97 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you, Vice Mayor. Any other questions? Great, Serge, can you please let us know if members of the public would like to make public comments? |
| 00:48:09.54 | Serge Avila | Madam Mayor, it appears as we have two members of the public, first Public commentary would be Joan Sexton. Joan, you've been unmuted. and as to share your video. |
| 00:48:33.52 | Serge Avila | Joan, you'll need to unmute on your end. |
| 00:48:36.72 | Unknown | Okay. |
| 00:48:39.71 | Serge Avila | Thank you. |
| 00:48:39.74 | Joan Sexton | can hear you. You can hear me. Good. Thank you so much. So, The last comment was very similar to mine, I feel strongly. that this will be an impact on my gardener, of course, And I'm wondering if anyone has done a and estimate of the cost difference I THINK THAT'S A GOOD IDEA. that he will have, the burden to bear. And, uh, On the other hand, the noise pollution is is really bad down here in the in the Hurricane Gulch area. I would like this to go forward. as has been stated. with more consideration to the gardeners and their costs. Thank you. |
| 00:49:27.36 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you, John. |
| 00:49:32.06 | Serge Avila | And our next speaker is JACOB? Jacob, you're being unmuted. and ask to share your video. |
| 00:49:42.77 | Jacob | Hello? Welcome. Thanks Serge. And hello, Madam Mayor and City Council. And members of our South Florida's public, I'm talking from a as yet unseized boat here. on Rainbow Bay. And as a minimalist, I'm all in favor of phasing out Gasoline. And... all fossil fuel uses. that are luxuries. to begin with. but, when it comes to doing things like banning plastic straws, not banning plastic. Packaging. that we have. for so many items. in this country. and also not recycling. that we do not recycle plastic. Then what it seems is something that this is something called greenwashing. that this is a way to satisfy people that there is something being done. So specifically on A gasoline-powered lawnmower. Sausalito has de facto banned community gardens and also growing food on lawns for many years now. I have grown four community gardens. The last one was sunflower community garden number four in South Dunphy Park. It was bulldozed. Sausalito has continued... to deny people the right to grow their own food here. instead of laws. Why not zucchini? Why not broccoli? Why not strawberries and why not sunflowers? Right next to Marin Ships. The camp. or jail. that has been set up behind Big. chain link fences. Next to that is a very much unused portion of lawn. That needs to become a garden. not a place where right now It is underutilized and not used. The idea that Sausalito continues to fence off vacant land. instead of using it for growing food, is proof that there needs to be a change. And that means also that there must be a way for people to run for election. There must be an opening up of the political system. There needs to be public comment at the beginning of the meetings, and these meetings need to become open. Thank you very much. |
| 00:52:39.52 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you very much. Serge, please call the next speaker. |
| 00:52:43.93 | Serge Avila | The next speaker is Peter Van Meter. Peter, you've been unmuted. Share your video. |
| 00:52:51.35 | Peter Van Meter | Thank you. No video tonight. But just a comment on a detail of, I think I heard in the ordinance regarding decibel levels. I've had all electric garden equipment for many, many years. And before we let our lawns die away, I do have an electric mower. And I have the smallest, least powerful |
| 00:53:08.98 | Warren Wells | I have. |
| 00:53:11.89 | Peter Van Meter | electric mower than you can get. In fact, I can pick it up in one hand and move it from one level of the garden to the other. So it's very small and lightweight. And that mower is rated at 88 or less decibels. So it's the least powerful, quietest one that I think you can get. And so if I hear something about 45 dB limit, THAT WOULD BE A REAL PROBLEM WITH this kind of gardening equipment so just think about what the db limits might be thank you |
| 00:53:39.28 | Mayor Kelman | THANK YOU, PETER. |
| 00:53:41.40 | Peter Van Meter | Thank you. |
| 00:53:41.42 | Serge Avila | Our next speaker is Clint Baldur. Clint, you're being unmuted and as to share your video. |
| 00:53:49.10 | Mayor Kelman | I WANT TO MAKE SURE THAT WE HAVE |
| 00:53:57.38 | Mayor Kelman | You're on mute. Clinton, you're on mute. |
| 00:54:02.58 | Clint Baldur | Got it, okay. I wanna thank the council and public works department and the sustainability commission for all the great research and background on this. And I think, you know, given the, availability and cost effectiveness of the electric alternatives and specifically leaf blowers is what what I've focused on. I liked what Kevin said, I'd like to echo that there's really no need to have gas powered leaf blowers Anymore? Um, And to the point of... gardening companies making the transition I just want to emphasize that Sausalito is the only city of all the cities in Southern Marin that allows gas powered leak blowers. So, I would think these gardening companies, if they're doing work in those other cities, they would have that equipment already. And, The research I have done indicates that The electric alternatives are not generally more expensive than the gas powered. Wow. the gas powered ones. and just, you know, kind of bringing this to March 8th, 2022. And today President Biden announced that he's banning imports of Russian oil and we have gas prices at $5.50 a gallon and climbing. you know, all these indicate that we really need to move away from fossil fuels and we have a climate emergency and we have very aggressive sustainability goals, which I applaud. So I just think that banning gas powered leaf blowers and other equipment is merely in line with all the other activities that Sausalito is trying to lead on. So I strongly urge that we join our fellow Southern Marin communities and enact a ban. Thank you. |
| 00:56:18.24 | Mayor Kelman | THANK YOU. |
| 00:56:18.74 | Serge Avila | Thank you. Our next speaker is Sonia Hanson. Sonia, you've been asked to share your video and you're already unmuted. |
| 00:56:30.24 | Sonia Hanson | Okay. Thank you, first of all, to the Sustainability Commission for taking this further than we originally asked. And I think they were entirely correct in doing so. Thank you. We've just seen at the end of February, the most recent report on the climate crisis is that it's far worse than anybody has ever imagined. And it is growing at a very rapid rate. And we have a very brief period of time to maybe close the window. and I've been. read the staff report. And I guess I find it very disturbing that the reason we wouldn't pursue getting rid of all gas equipment is because it's not practical. I don't really know what that means. I think what it means is it would cost money to replace the equipment. There are chainsaws that are electric that are very efficient. There are every kind of gas. They're being developed right and left. practical we're dying this earth is dying and if we don't all make a contribution to cut out all the stuff that we need to cut out. And yes, I hate the sound of a... gas blower. But that's not the big issue. The big issue is it's poisoning the air around us, and we're all doing it every day, all day, around the world. And we're about to be toast. so practical. I have a hard time with that as a reason for not doing this practical. I was just looking the word up. If we're using common sense, we would get rid of all these things immediately. And we live in a community where we have the money to do that. And the landscapers are the ones that suffer the most because they're the ones that have these things up close to them and are breathing this stuff all the time. So if we want to help the landscapers out, we would ban these all of this stuff immediately. they might have longer lives. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. I can the gas Leaf Glower, I certainly hope you approve that ban immediately tonight. All of our neighbors already have it. and anybody who's working outside of this town as a landscaper is already under those constraints. There's absolutely no reason not to do that ma'am. but I will also offer If we're concerned about our future existence and the existence of any other species on Earth, i.e. all species, we need to ban all of this. it. it's not a question of being practical or being financially astute or it's it's about being alive. So, Thank you. I wish you well on your... deliberations and Yeah. It was a very, very hard time. So, those wishes. Thank you. |
| 00:59:21.06 | Serge Avila | Thank you, Sonia. The next speaker is Pat. Zoom. Pat, you've been unmuted. and ask to share your video. |
| 00:59:35.08 | Pat | I don't know. Thank you. I would like to double down on Mr. Wilder's statements. Um, we've just spent a little bit of time looking at a very complicated uh ordinance dealing with um for waste. This would be a very simple, straightforward ordinance, which we have unfortunately delayed considering or demurred now since 2013. And, uh, The notion that we wouldn't do it because there may be a few gardeners that only work in Sausalito and therefore can't have or don't have yet. electric powered leaf blowers and other equipment is equity washing rather than green washing. And I don't see the need to endorse that kind of approach. Uh, We can do a loan program, we can do a GoFundMe, Any gardener that works in counties or towns other than Sausalito probably has this equipment and we should be the last to go along with this kind of an ordinance. And we should not. have it delayed until 2035 or 2026. We can do this now. It's low-hanging fruit. And I hope you go in that direction. Thank you. Thank you, Pat. |
| 01:01:02.97 | Serge Avila | The next speaker is Greg. Christie, Greg, you've been unmuted, asked to share your video. |
| 01:01:10.07 | Greg Christie | I just thought I thought I'd just chime in because we helped Sausalito out with the downtown maintenance and have so for a little while and we use exclusively use, uh, electric blowers, battery powered blowers and have done successfully. And it's kind of at the comments of some of the people when we work in. and they're affordable. A good quality blower with a low decibel levels was about 350 to $400 for a really, for a good one. so you don't make as much noise and you can get A good I'm not sure. a battery powered blower for about two to 50 with it and it comes with a battery so that and over the time that we've used them they they're a lot more efficient a lot better in the pot and they're very strong. So I, I've had no problem with blowers just in a commercial application. I just want to pass that on. |
| 01:02:01.47 | Pat | Yeah, thank you very much. |
| 01:02:05.03 | Serge Avila | Our next speaker is Chris Bourbon. Chris, you're being unmuted. Let's share your video. |
| 01:02:11.38 | Chris Bourbon | Good evening. Thank you. Um, I too am really happy that you're considering this and strongly urge you to |
| 01:02:16.71 | Warren Wells | Thank you. |
| 01:02:20.78 | Chris Bourbon | put this ban into effect. I I also really encourage us to be creative about we go about this i like the idea a lot of um possibly making, you know, the city buys some you know, electric. leaf blowers and people can rent them or. check them out. Uh, I'm all for that. In my building where I live, Our group has decided we want to chip in and buy our, the guy who does landscaping here. an electric bull lower it's 200 250 as the last speaker just said is not that much money and And then we'd trade out. That's another thing too. I'd hate for, I would love to see us trade these things out rather than send them down the road to pollute someone else's air. Um, And then, you know, I don't know. I just would love to see us get creative. You know, we maybe we can contribute to a fund to help folks do this. Um, I too don't, you know, I, my heart goes out to some of these landscapers, um, but I think we can help them and without much difficulty to us individually and hopefully through the city as well. So, I think that's all I had to say on that. Thank you. |
| 01:03:43.35 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you, Chris. |
| 01:03:46.62 | Serge Avila | Our next speaker is Lauren Wiley. Lauren, you've been unmuted and has to share your video. |
| 01:03:57.91 | Lauren Wiley | Hi. Um, So I just wanted to chime in quickly. to comment that in my almost three years on the sustainability commission, this by far, the the item, the public was the most engaged Uh... just by a mile over any other of the many topics that we cover I was incredibly impressed by the outpouring of comments, the people attending our commission meeting, people here tonight. It's clear that this is an issue that our city cares about. And so I applaud the city council for listening to us bring this argument to you. I can say that in doing the research and hearing the council meetings from almost a decade ago on record Uh, And we are in a different situation now. And the technology is a little different now. And we're in a climate emergency now, as we declared last month. And the state is mandating the ban of sale of new gas powered equipment soon. So I think we're just at a different point in time. I think now is our time to take action. I think we're all positioned to do that. I think it's the... cover the enforcement aspect when we do move hopefully to an That's something that was not, I don't think covered in the report, but it is really important. And I do hear from members of the public that that is a concern of theirs as well. So making sure that if we do this, we can actually plan to enforce it. and how we do that. ALL. just wanted to um thank the public once again for the outpouring That's why we're able to bring this forward confidently to you tonight. |
| 01:05:49.62 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. |
| 01:05:50.89 | Lauren Wiley | THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 01:05:51.03 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you, Lauren, and thank you again for all your hard work. Thank you. with the Sustainability Committee. |
| 01:05:55.03 | Serge Avila | Next speaker is, Mark Palmer, Mark, you've been unmuted. |
| 01:05:59.28 | Mark Palmer | Thank you. |
| 01:06:01.72 | Serge Avila | Thank you. |
| 01:06:01.76 | Mark Palmer | Thank you. Thank you. Good evening, council members. Thank you. I certainly support this effort to curb the use of the noisy polluting and outdated gas powered landscape equipment in favor of modern, readily available, electric-powered landscape equipment, which is quiet, powerful, zero emission, reliable and cost less to purchase and operate. Um, I, Do understand the issue of the city equipment being phased in over time. However, the state of California, as Lauren suggested, has indicated its intent to outlaw the sale of new gas powered lawnmowers leaf blowers, weed trimmers and chainsaws by 2024. which is right around the corner. So we don't have much time to phase things in, in terms of new equipment purchases. Thank you. I think there are a couple of issues with the, the, proposal from city staff that is continuing to need work on. with Kevin and our public works partners specifically the... issue of remote operations. and the so-called small lawn areas. I'm not sure where that is coming from, but look forward to working with Kevin and the staff to make that ordinance a little bit more clear and equitable. And again, as we are in a climate emergency, Gas powered landscape equipment emits greenhouse gases and other pollutants, including carbon monoxide, nitrous oxides, and hydrocarbons that are harmful to human health. Beyond the well-known acute effects of carbon monoxide, nitrous oxides and hydrocarbons contribute to smart formation, Hydrocarbons can be carcinogenic, and nitrous oxides can cause acid rain. I appreciate the work of the sustainability commission and city council on this. and look forward to a successful resolution of a the new ordinance for Sausalito. Thank you. |
| 01:08:07.98 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you, Mark. Sirs, are they neither hands raised? |
| 01:08:12.98 | Serge Avila | Madam Mayor, there are no further hands raised. |
| 01:08:15.49 | Mayor Kelman | Okay, we will then go ahead and close public comment. Thank you, everybody. bring it back up to the council. I thought that was a really helpful and interesting conversation, particularly, on our opportunity to maybe ban out ban the gas blowers and then create some waivers or exemptions as needed. with a phase out period and no new equipment purchases. And I appreciate also the comments around equity and being cognizant of that as we phase out. So with that said, I'll turn it over to the vice mayor and then council member Sobieski. |
| 01:08:44.38 | Vice Mayor Blonstein | Thank you. |
| 01:08:45.12 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. |
| 01:08:45.14 | Vice Mayor Blonstein | Great. Thanks a lot, Mayor Kellman. And thank you for the presentation, Director McGowan. And thank you again to the sustainability commission. Boy, do we have an incredible sustainability commission here in Sausalito. We are so lucky to have so much talent. and so many committed individuals working on the challenge that we're all faced with, right, which is mitigating the impacts of climate change. We all voted for a climate emergency declaration last month. And this is a very, in my mind, easy step we can take. to start doing our part. I would agree. with some of the public comment that I think The reasoning that it is not necessarily practical to move forward without lying all gas appliances while more simple is not necessarily the right path forward. I think it's often hard to do what's right rather than what's easy. And in this instance, I think again, our sustainability commission, very capable of creative innovative solutions. So I would recommend moving forward with an ordinance, but working with the sustainability commission closely to determine a plan for how we might move forward without lying. in a timed phase-in manner or in new purchases, as you said, Mayor Kellman, for the for all gas powered appliances, including lawn mowers. And I think it's really critical that we consider an equity component. So whether that is a checkout program of available gas, pardon me, electric powered appliances, that would be a great starting point. So my thought is have the sustainability commission who are Again, very talented individuals put their heads together, work closely with Director McGowan on a solution that makes sense, that does outlaw all of the gas-powered appliances in a way that will be a clear path forward. And it's a big win for us from our standpoint of taking steps to mitigate the effects of climate change. Thank you. |
| 01:10:27.44 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. |
| 01:10:27.69 | Vice Mayor Blonstein | must. |
| 01:10:28.03 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you, Vice Mayor. |
| 01:10:29.87 | Vice Mayor Blonstein | Thank you. |
| 01:10:29.89 | Mayor Kelman | I'm going to ask you a question. |
| 01:10:31.88 | Councilmember Sobieski | Thanks Mayor, I agree with Vice Mayor Borough's team. Uh, First time I ever imagined running for city council was in a cloud of smoke next to a Gas powered leaf blower. And so it would delight me to know Andy. actually be able to vote. to prohibit them in Sausalito. I hope we can do that immediately, as Sonia Hansen said. |
| 01:10:50.81 | Warren Wells | I can do that. |
| 01:10:53.51 | Councilmember Sobieski | um, I certainly agree with the idea of phasing in prohibitions over time. as makes sense but let's not study this so long or maybe if necessary if we can just do the one immediately and take our time with the other if need be, but let's do something quick. It would be great to prohibit those leaf blowers immediately and have a schedule like we've talked about here for other items. Thanks. Thank you. |
| 01:11:21.51 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 01:11:22.38 | Councilmember Sobieski | COUNCILLE MOORE. |
| 01:11:25.84 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. Yeah, I support, the the process of the gas leak blowers at the beginning and then phase in the rest. And I will say I supported this in 2018 when than council member, sorry, Sorry, Mayor Cox and I were on the legislative committee And we brought forward an ordinance at the April 3rd, 2018 City Council meeting to outlaw gas leaf blower. So I support this. There is probably still a draft ordinance. I mean, I know for a fact. there's still a draft ordinance. from us on that and so the legislative committee might want to pull that out and take a look at I'm sure it needs to be updated but that might be a good starting point for you guys so Yeah, I support. Thank you. |
| 01:12:13.46 | Mayor Kelman | THANK YOU, COUNSELOR HOPMAN. |
| 01:12:14.36 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 01:12:14.39 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. |
| 01:12:14.76 | Jill Hoffman | TODAY. |
| 01:12:14.97 | Councilmember Cleveland Knowles | equivalence. Thanks, yes, support the approach that's been outlined by my colleagues. I would also just like to, Yeah. point people back to the really good work the sustainability commission did with the low emission action plan. And just note that You know, transportation is over about 60% of our GHG in Sausalito as the most, you know, altruary Marin so that that's a good idea. you know i just don't want to lose sight of kind of the big elephant in the room as to where we can um you know, work on future efforts as well. So great work here, happy to support banning leaf blowers immediately and then phasing in the rest as has been outlined by others. I mean, we need an ordinance in front of us, obviously, we don't have tonight. as soon as that can get done. And, |
| 01:13:12.95 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. Thank you. Well, so it sounds like we have a unanimous direction to staff to in fact, pursue ordinance to impose a ban on the gas powered landscape equipment. And I think I heard specific direction around the immediate band of the leaf blowers. And then I will just put a plugin for an aggressive phase out period, we really have no time to waste. when it comes to emissions and particularly in light of the climate emergency and our climate action plan and our general plan and all the other indicators uh from a policy perspective we said we want to do this now we can do this so um i really appreciate the efforts of the public that really pushed this forward and then also provided a lot of those sample ordinances and a huge thank you to sustainability committee for being so responsive uh to our residents and following through so So with that, there's no action to be taken, but I think everybody and I think my colleagues, and we look forward to seeing this again very soon. Okay, great. Thank you, everybody. All right, our last business item is item 5B. It's adopt a resolution authorizing the allocation of $1.2 million in reserve funds to augment measure O funds for capital projects. And once again, Director McGowan. |
| 01:14:29.31 | Kevin McGowan | Thank you, council members. You're probably getting tired of me by now. But I do have one more presentation here and it's only a few slides. So hopefully this will go fairly quickly. There we go. Can you see my screen at this point? It should be reading Measure O allocation. Yes. Thank you so much. So item 5B before you this evening relates to the allocation of reserve funds to augment Measure O funding this year. Measure O, which is a half cent sales tax was passed in 2014. While this measure is set to expire in 2024, It generally accrues about $1.2 million annually. Funding from this tax measure has been utilized for capital projects, including roadway, parks projects, and several other projects. for the past several years. A couple of the pictures on this screen are Southview Park as well as Dumfey Park. And Measure O funds were utilized for both of those projects. Let's see, let's keep going. In years past, the city has matched the measure of funding for projects with other funds. Projects such as resurfacing have secondary funding sources such as construction impact fees, SB1 funding and gas tax. However, these fund sources are small. Well, generally small and do not support the full construction cost. SB1 funding. This year is approximately $140,000. And the construction impact fee balance is about $110,000. In some of our previous projects for Bee and Bonita, which I'll show you an additional slide on, We utilized gas tax for several years in order to fund that project as well. At this point, our gas tax is rather small. The money in the gas tax account is rather small and can't necessarily support a resurfacing project right now. As I mentioned, the last resurfacing project performed by this city was to reconstruct be in Bonita Street. which was, completed in December. 2020 for about $1.22 million. This project utilized funding sources from SB1, gas tax, and the construction impact fees. The city staff are pursuing the design phase of Edwards Avenue and Gerard, I think it's Gerard Street, but I may have that wrong. We're pursuing that in the design phase right now. It is anticipated that SB1 funding will be utilized primarily for the design of these roadways. Staff anticipates bringing the authorization to award the design services to the council at our next meeting. Staff roughly estimates the construction costs for the Gerard and Edwards projects to be about 1.7 million. which does not include a retaining wall which might be needed at the end of the roadway Adding projects such as Platt has an additional estimate to be about $500,000. I'm also hoping that our finance director and our city manager can add some information that may be helpful that I may have overlooked at this point in time. So let me continue with my slides and then maybe we can get back to our city manager as well. Managing city infrastructures is vital to provide safe facilities for residents of Sausalito. In the past, Measure O funds have been utilized for capital projects such as parks, However, utilizing Measure O funds and augmenting these funds with reserve funds will allow the city to continue to repair our roadways. Capital projects such as building projects tend to be more complex than street repair projects. which takes several years to design and construct. Roadway projects, while they are additionally complex, especially with our older utility systems here in Sausalito, they tend to be easier to deliver as far as an expedited project. Based on this, staff is recommending utilizing reserve funds to augment measure O funds and allocate funding to our current roadway projects. There are several options noted in the staff report, including adding Platte Road, and as the next road on the list to repair after Edwards and Gerard. Council may also choose to add any other projects such as bridge with the bridgeway bike lanes, Thank you. as a priority project. However, keep in mind that grant funding for the Bridgeway Bike Lane Project maybe more readily secured compared to performing work on a local roadway, which might be up in the hills such as Platt. So, With that, that concludes my short presentation. And I'm hoping that if I did miss something, I'm hoping our city manager can step up and maybe our finance director if I missed anything. Thank you. |
| 01:20:07.67 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you, Director McGowan. I see the city manager has his camera on. Chris, do you have more to add? |
| 01:20:12.02 | Chris Zapata | Yes, Mayor and Council and Public, thank you for hearing about the infrastructure conundrum we're in way back in October. I thank the Finance Committee for hearing this. Item last month. And thank the council for hearing it again tonight. One of the things that I wanted to talk about was you know obviously there are some uncertainties related to our budgets other things going on in the world But one thing that's really certain is the condition of our basic infrastructure the things that are important to people that walk, people that bike, people that drive, is basic asphalt. And we've been very clear that uh Sausalito's road infrastructure is you know, It's not a C average. It's actually closer to a D. in terms of its pavement management rating. So all that to say that, you know, We committed to bringing this forward in October. We are here tonight to suggest that you give us direction in this regard in terms of taking from your general fund savings account and applying it to projects in the budget this year which will carry over to next year as well and also to be you know cognizant Kevin touched on it but we also know that there are significant grant dollars lining up, you've authorized the hiring grant writing resources, And many of these grants require leverage or matching funds. So I also want to point out that any money that you spend the day is or commit today to solve an infrastructure problem today saves you money in the long run because as we know the cost of projects and materials Labor all goes up. the longer you wait and the condition of your infrastructure gets worse and costlier the longer you wait. So we think this is a welcome opportunity to to request that you take some of your savings account and apply it to your infrastructure needs. and continued that history of using your money. and every year since you passed the measure. to provide assistance to what is based on our community. That concludes my comments. |
| 01:22:34.95 | Mayor Kelman | Excellent, Chris, thank you. And thank you for your leadership here and bringing it to finance so that we can bring it to council. Okay, I see a two raised hands. Council Member Cleveland-Nolls and then the vice mayor, please. |
| 01:22:46.44 | Councilmember Cleveland Knowles | Thank you Mayor. Thank you Director McGowan and City Manager Zapata. So I'm generally in favor of the staff. but I did believe that we were When we talked about this in October, we discussed coming back at our mid-year budget, taking a look at our finances as a whole in that context. and then making a decision on whether or not it was prudent to allocate Measure O funding to capital projects. So I was wondering if our city manager could just update us on where we are in our mid-year budget and when we will be seeing that. |
| 01:23:27.89 | Chris Zapata | Yeah. Thank you for the question. Councilmember Cleveland Knowles, You know, typically your budget is done right after the December 31st timeframe. And so what we have in front of you is, a rough summation of where we are and where we're trending. And when I said there are a lot of things uncertain with respect to the world and our finances. That's clear in this report that we provided. It shows us spending about 2.7 more THAN WE'VE TAKEN IN. And I think the important thing to note is That is a raw, rough number. We all know that We prepaid our pensions, We prepaid some side fund expense. We took apart one of our trust fund contributions and And that was about a million dollars in change. And that's not gonna reoccur. next fiscal year. We also know that, you know, we've had some unanticipated expenses related to our charges with respect to homelessness. Some of our revenues have not been fully. So in order to get a good handle on your question, council member knows we need a couple of weeks. to join it all together and then give you a sense of where we are. in that report. I think the one thing that we try to do today is suggest to you that The city council policy of 15% in reserve for emergencies and things of that nature. is exceeded right now because of some past good work. done by councils and staffs to save money. what we're suggesting today now is that you spend some of that savings but if you are reticent to do that because you think you need more of a financial picture that's more comprehensive. We're happy to do that. Move this to another day if you'd like. |
| 01:25:17.22 | Councilmember Cleveland Knowles | Great, thank you for that. I have a mayor, if I may, I have a second series of questions, probably more for Director McGowan. I just, you know, everyone probably remembers in June, we had a staff report from Director McGowan on the status of our road repair and our SB1 the gas tax, et cetera, funding. And Kevin, I just was having trouble matching up. We adopted a resolution at that meeting that had Gerard, Edwards, Nevada, and Richardson Street Bye. as our top priorities. for 21, 22. And then in the staff report, it seems like other areas have risen. And I'm just wondering, can you explain what we have been able to accomplish since June if anything, and why some of the streets may have kind of shifted around on our index or our priority list. |
| 01:26:29.43 | Kevin McGowan | Thank you for the question. I think the little piece of Richardson is a very small section. It's still on our list. I didn't necessarily include it in my staff report so my apologies. But as I recall that's a small section of roadway and we are working with the Sausalito Yacht Harbor to to resurface that roadway as well. So that's in our design phase. As far as Nevada Street, I may have missed that, but it's my anticipation that the funding for that project may be coming from a different source. I didn't include it because it's its own project by itself. So let me look into that council member and I can get back to you separately on that specific issue. |
| 01:27:18.67 | Councilmember Cleveland Knowles | Okay, and then thank you for that. I just wanna kind of understand how we prioritize which roads we do next for just for this. micro sealing and resurfacing um and then we've got quite a bit of public comment um about the Bridgeway bike project, which I appreciate. Um, Is it possible to do some, It seems like we are also sort of in the design phase of that project, not in the construction phase. And if I understand things correctly, this is an allocation that we would make for capital funds for this fiscal year, which ends June 30th. So we're probably, realistically wouldn't be able to spend construction dollars on that bridgeway project before June 30th. but we might be able to apply some of the money to planning. So I guess my question is, would it be possible to spend some of this money on actual construction and resurfacing somewhere like Edwards and then also allocate a decent chunk to make sure the bridgeway planning effort advances. |
| 01:28:32.40 | Kevin McGowan | But very good question. Thank you so much for that question. I've been notified by a bag, excuse me, uh, I think it's Bay Trails. that we have been awarded a grant to move forward with the design aspect of that specific project. However, they have not sent me the paperwork yet. So they notified me that, yeah, you're approved, but they haven't been able to get us the actual paperwork in the agreement that will cover the design costs for that project. So you're correct. We could use some of this funding for the design aspect of that section going from Princess over to, boy I always get this wrong. Richard from Ica. Thank you. |
| 01:29:18.08 | Jacob | Richard. |
| 01:29:21.00 | Kevin McGowan | Um, So we could use some of that, but at this point, I've been pestering our folks at Bay Trails to move forward with a grant. I usually call them once a week. So I will continue that, and with some luck, we should be able to utilize their funding. to develop the design for the project. |
| 01:29:41.57 | Councilmember Cleveland Knowles | So you think the 50K that we have from them would be sufficient. |
| 01:29:46.97 | Mark Palmer | Yeah, I do. |
| 01:29:48.69 | Councilmember Cleveland Knowles | Okay, and then my last, I'm sorry, apologies to my colleagues. My last question is if we move forward tonight Director McGowan, do you think it's realistic that we would have a resurfacing project from a construction standpoint ready to fund in this fiscal year? I'm ready to uh, Move forward, shovel ready. |
| 01:30:12.32 | Kevin McGowan | We could have a design, we could finish the design and possibly have ready for the award by the end of this fiscal year? |
| 01:30:23.79 | Councilmember Cleveland Knowles | Great. Thank you to my colleagues and the mayor Thank you. extensive question. Thank you. |
| 01:30:28.63 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you for the very helpful, excellent questions. That was really insightful. We'll move on to the vice chair. Thank you. |
| 01:30:35.98 | Vice Mayor Blonstein | kellman and thank you again director mcgowan for another great presentation this evening and always nice to hear from you This question actually might be more for the city manager. I'm just trying to better understand the fiscal impact on our reserves, given what we talked about in terms of the, |
| 01:30:42.56 | Councilmember Cleveland Knowles | Bye. |
| 01:30:42.89 | Warren Wells | Thank you. |
| 01:30:52.78 | Vice Mayor Blonstein | The payments we've made, many of them were one-time payments, so our situation may be different going into the next year, but we do try to keep a 15% reserves percentage. What will the change be in terms of what our reserves look like? It looks like in this. in the presentation it's a little over 7 million remaining in our reserves so how much of a percentage Roughly, I mean, I certainly can't do the math on the spot, but I'm wondering how far away from our 15% or more goal will be if we do approve this money. |
| 01:31:23.75 | Chris Zapata | your policy is 15%. What we're showing in this slide is that you would be at 33%. So, you know, you could theoretically put more into it and you know you would take that number down But again, we're in a financial situation uncertainty so And we're not recommending more. We're just recommending that you consider that you have your 15% requirement by policy and anything that you have for that. that can be used to meet a need today that's one time in nature. you ought to think about it. And so this would take you to from a fund balance of 8.4 million to about 7.2 million And that is on a $20 million budget. So if you do the reverse math, it takes you to, you have approximately 30% of your your reserve met. And again, you know, there are a lot of unknowns going forward. sugarcoat that. You know, we may have some costs we haven't anticipated, We certainly are going through some things right now. So if you think it's wise to keep your powder dry and not do this, We're okay with that. We just know that the roads will get worse. The sidewalks will get worse. The buildings will get worse and they'll cost more tomorrow. So that hopefully answers your question, Vice Mayor. |
| 01:32:45.83 | Vice Mayor Blonstein | Yeah, that's great. Thank you. I just wanted to get a mostly demonstration that we would still be well ahead of our 15% policy, even if we didn't go forward with this. And then the other series of questions is more for Director McGowan. So the grant funding that we received, which is great from Bay Trails for the Richardson Bridgeway Project, And also thanks to everyone who wrote in with public comment about that specific idea. I think many of us have seen it presented by the PBAC and also heard about it. |
| 01:33:03.07 | Unknown | Absolutely. |
| 01:33:03.26 | Warren Wells | Thank you. |
| 01:33:13.42 | Vice Mayor Blonstein | would be a very, positive, I think impact for the flow of bike traffic in downtown, but I'm wondering Assuming we can't finish that project within this fiscal year beyond the design, which we already have funded. And, Are there additional monies that would be available to help us process that you in those staff report it says that there's grant funding is that just the bay trails grant funding or is there more do you think |
| 01:33:39.12 | Kevin McGowan | No, I think there's much more grant funding for that specific project. Thank you. |
| 01:33:43.14 | Vice Mayor Blonstein | Okay. |
| 01:33:43.34 | Kevin McGowan | Thank you. |
| 01:33:43.37 | Sandra Bushmaker | Thank you. |
| 01:33:43.40 | Kevin McGowan | Our city manager sent through a listing of over, I think it's 15 different type of grant sources. |
| 01:33:43.46 | Sandra Bushmaker | Thank you. |
| 01:33:50.54 | Kevin McGowan | And this project, since it does impact so many different people, I think it would be well-funded. And we just have to find the right grants in order to make sure that we apply for them. So it's more feasible to get money for this project than it would be for let's say resurfacing a roadway up on the hill. |
| 01:34:11.45 | Vice Mayor Blonstein | Okay. Great. That was the extent of my questions. I appreciate it. Director McGowan and city manager Zapata. Thank you, Vice Senator. |
| 01:34:19.30 | Mayor Kelman | Any other questions for staff before we take public comment? I don't see any hands, so surgery, please let us know if there's members of the public here that would like to speak on this. |
| 01:34:30.28 | Serge Avila | Madam Mayor, we do have a few members of the public that would like to speak. speaker is uh karen karen you've been unmuted Nice to share your video. |
| 01:34:42.72 | Karen | Hi there, good evening. Nice to see you ahead of schedule. I can. |
| 01:34:47.16 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. Can you turn your volume up a little bit or mic? |
| 01:34:50.36 | Karen | THE COURSE IS GOING TO BE |
| 01:34:51.97 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. |
| 01:34:52.05 | Karen | . |
| 01:34:52.14 | Mayor Kelman | you |
| 01:34:53.03 | Karen | Great, nice to see you all ahead of scheduled tonight. Wonderful news. I'm a big fan of this one. I think, you know, biggest takeaway for me is just, not option A. Our infrastructure is definitely hurting. I have interesting conflicts of interest tonight, or conflicting interest tonight. I live on Platt, which is one of the streets listed. It's a pretty rough one, but I'm also a huge advocate of Bicycle pedestrian improved infrastructure for residents for people coming to visit people just getting through we desperately need it so not option a and idly more towards option C just to give you City Council. discretion on what is going to have the most impact, what is unlikely to get grant funding elsewhere, to weigh those considerations versus just strictly going off of pavement quality and what's next in the queue. So leaning towards option C, but definitely want to see more funds for infrastructure and really happy to see city staff, Kevin, Chris, others bringing this up tonight. So thank you. |
| 01:35:57.90 | Mayor Kelman | Thanks Karen, good to see you. |
| 01:36:00.72 | Serge Avila | Next speaker is David Sudo. David, you've been unmuted and ask to share your video. |
| 01:36:09.61 | David Sudo | Good evening City Council. Thanks for putting this on the agenda again. um You know, I think my position is pretty clear every time we talk about this. I'm not sure. I have to point out like, Our city manager has pointed out that we're desperately underfunded in our street maintenance. We've been consistently underfunding our street maintenance last five years and it didn't you know the bill just gets bigger it's uh you know, our capital... improvement bill just is ongoing I'm also concerned I read through that presentation and The list of improvements we need to do for our Opscripts are ability to pay for it with Measure O. Even if we take out sea level adaptation and the other high dollar items, we still have items that are far exceed measure O funding and we need to really look at additional funding. I think this 1.7 million, you know, it's an opportunity time to look at using a seed money for grants and really magnify our ability to to pay for capital improvements that have been on list for years. I went back and looked and Our bike lanes on the north part of town have were put in in 2003, right about the same time I started living in Sausalito. And so, you know, an improvement to from on bridgeway from Richardson to Princess would literally be a generational event if we can get it done in the next couple of years. You know, we'd be 20 years in between major pedestrian bicycle improvements. So, you know, I know our budget's tight, but it's tight every year. We need to find space to do things that people elect our officials to do and expect our government to do, and one of those is paving roads. Thank you. |
| 01:38:04.97 | Mayor Kelman | Thanks, Stephen. |
| 01:38:07.57 | Serge Avila | THE NEXT SPEAKER IS Warren Wells and Warren. Warned you've been unmuted as to share your video. Thank you. tried that again. |
| 01:38:22.06 | Warren Wells | Great, thanks a bunch. Yeah, I'm Eric Hellman, members of the council. I'm Warren Wells, policy planning director for the Moran County Bicycle Coalition. I'm calling to... to join Karen and David and many of the people that I know emailed and asked me to vote for alternative C. Um, You know, as I mentioned in my letter to council, you know, I want to call attention to the Bridgeway bikeways as this key project, as you know, as we talked about, the city won a grant for design of the segment with assistance from the PIVAC. from Golden Gate Market to Princess. and construction remains unfunded and you know as anyone who's driven or walked or bike in sauce leader knows that it's a it's often the site of conflict with drivers having to enter the two-way turn lane to pass riders and bikes as happening each day um And there's this long need by claim. with dedicated space for bicycle riders, improving safety and allowing drivers to pass uninhibited. |
| 01:39:12.82 | Unknown | All right. |
| 01:39:13.14 | Warren Wells | As Director McGowan mentioned, the segment would likely be competitive for outside grants. So matching funds, the city would be very helpful. You know, it's a gap in the Bay trail. And it's no doubt one of the busiest bike streets, um, in the entire Bay area. And I actually, I do want to bring back this conversation to our last conversation about gas powered landscape, landscaping equipment. I love the passion members of the public to reduce our city's climate, carbon footprint and reliance and fossil fuels. I do want to highlight council member Cleveland Knowles comments about the fact that transportation that counts for fully 60% of the city's greenhouse gas emissions. So allowing people to produce their reliance with automobiles will require making them feel safe, both walking and riding bikes. And another key way to electrify our city is e-bikes, I think last year, two and a half times as many e-bikes were sold in the country as electric cars. So we're really electrifying there very quickly. um, I think that alternative C committed to Bridgeway would be huge return investment, you know, as David Sudo mentioned. Regarding the Bay Trail grant, I'm personally committing in my role at MCBC to calling the Bay Trail every day to get that grant, that grant signed. I already have sent an email to them. fucking them. Thanks so much for your time and consideration. Really appreciate your work tonight. |
| 01:40:33.27 | Mayor Kelman | Thanks, Juan. |
| 01:40:36.20 | Serge Avila | Thank you. |
| 01:40:36.27 | Mayor Kelman | Thanks. |
| 01:40:36.29 | Warren Wells | Exactly. |
| 01:40:36.73 | Serge Avila | and the authorities. ever, ever If a side phone, been unmuted. |
| 01:40:42.28 | Councilmember Hoffman | to unlock your iPhone first. |
| 01:40:43.64 | Serge Avila | Thank you. |
| 01:40:43.73 | Eva Crisanti | you Thanks. Can you hear me? Hello, can you hear me? Thanks. Eva Crisanti here. It's interesting to follow Warren Wells from Land Bike Coalition. I am a lifetime cyclist. I've never driven a car. I ride hundreds of miles a week. |
| 01:40:46.02 | Councilmember Hoffman | Bye. Thank you. |
| 01:40:58.65 | Eva Crisanti | on my commute and my shopping, my laundry, my grocery shopping. I'm And I'm a second generation bicycle commuter. commuted from the valley to San Francisco every day for work and back. And when I was living in Sausalito, I commuted to the city on a daily basis or to my job in Sausalito before I took the job in the city. Thank you. I definitely think the roads need a lot of help. Unfortunately, I think it probably is worth noting a couple things. First of all, Marin Bike Coalition is not largely concerned with working class cyclist needs. There's a large file on this. It's also a really troubled organization. It has a 30 out of 100 rating on Charity Navigator. And so I think when you see Warren Wells, who is imported from Baltimore, to be a, quote, advocate for cycling in the Bay Area, you should ask yourself some questions. There are certainly many more qualified people from the East Bay or the North Bay who are not white and who would have been much more adamant about safety on routes from the san rafael bridge to southern marin i speak specifically about the flyover and anderson drive where i routinely risk death trying to cross it um that's a very blatant decision on the part of marin Bike to fail to address the needs of working class cyclists from the East Bay, and you know what color people from the East Bay are compared to the color. that people from Marin County are. Now, you also know that if Marin Bike HAD a staff that reflected, you know, a little bit of that, you know that someone who was hired with the same degree from the East Bay, whether it was Richmond or Oakland or Berkeley, that flyover would have been fixed, or in the very least, there would have been a lot more education for cyclists, how to either best maneuver that flyover or what the best workaround for that flyover is. It's a deadly flyover. I have DMs from Warren acknowledging this, and this and many other places in Marin have not been addressed by Marin Bike, because that's not what foreign bike does. It's a, you know, It's a vanity organization. Thank you for your time. Thank you very much. |
| 01:43:48.64 | Serge Avila | And our last speaker, it's Cebole Boutillier. Cebole, you're being unmuted. Minister, share your video. |
| 01:43:57.45 | Mayor Kelman | you |
| 01:44:01.44 | Mayor Kelman | Come on. |
| 01:44:02.03 | Sybil Boutillier | Thank you. |
| 01:44:02.06 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. |
| 01:44:03.32 | Sybil Boutillier | Okay, thank you. Yes, I just want to speak up in favor of a bike lane on Bridgeway. I think it's a big safety issue, very important. I'm sorry I don't have this. I was just looking for the staff I had, but in the, safety traffic safety report done by Berkeley the most recent one I saw the majority of people who were injured in by pedestrian collisions are seniors and that being a large proportion of our population and of our visitors. I think that it's really important that we look at how we can separate, you know, bicycle riders who may be commuting at a, you know, through town as well as the visitors on bikes and make that a more, a safer area. And there were two corridors on bridgeway that were tagged as being the biggest issue in terms of safety in injury accidents and one of them was that a downtown area and the other one was that section of a bridgeway that goes up a little further north but um sorry I can't tell you exactly right now because I couldn't write it in time but I do think it's an important issue that I hope that we will be doing more for around bike safety in the city over these next months especially as our tourist traffic is going to start picking up again and I expect that as usual we're going to have a lot of bicyclists and other vehicles and pedestrians on the streets so thank you very much for considering this proposal. |
| 01:46:04.56 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you very much. |
| 01:46:08.03 | Serge Avila | Next speaker is Vicki Nichols. Vicki, if they're muted. I'll appreciate it. |
| 01:46:13.82 | Vicki Nichols | Hi, good evening Mayor Kalman and council members. I wanted to follow up a little bit on Sybil's last comment. And that is that in any of this planning, we're talking about bicycles and pedestrians. I had occasion the other evening to walk from my home on Caledonia and I needed to go down to the Marin ship and pick up my car actually. And, um, I, I don't regularly walk that way, but I was really shocked by the condition of the sidewalks. Normally people won't be walking at night, but when we do all these bike lanes, I wanna make sure that the infrastructure improvements consider and include improvements for walking as well as biking. My other comment was, I wonder if the city still maintains the list of streets and their schedules for improvements under the capital budget program that used to be able to look up when your street was in line for So I don't know if that still happens. And in terms of the bike lane, the bridgeway bike lane project, It may have been in the staff report and I admit I skimmed it. So I missed it if it's in there. But are we talking about the project that I heard several times mentioned in the bike and pedestrian committee where they were eliminating the median lane |
| 01:47:50.87 | Warren Wells | THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 01:47:51.04 | Unknown | . |
| 01:47:51.12 | Warren Wells | you |
| 01:47:52.51 | Vicki Nichols | And there was discussion that there would be some um, consequences for merchants with deliveries and et cetera. So before this gets too far down the line designed and we get the money for it, what is the plan for outreach to the areas that this change may happen if that is the plan? If not, where can we find the plan? Thank you. THANK YOU VERY MUCH. |
| 01:48:20.62 | Mayor Kelman | So should we have any other members of the public? |
| 01:48:23.69 | Serge Avila | Madam Mayor, I see no further hands raised. |
| 01:48:26.64 | Mayor Kelman | Okay, great. Let's close public comment. I see Councilor McLevin's hands up, but I just want to follow up real quick with Director McGowan. Can you just comment on whether they're still maintaining the street schedule? where someone could find their street? And then also can you clarify on the bridgeway plan? |
| 01:48:43.50 | Kevin McGowan | So the only listing that I'm aware of is a PCI, which a pavement condition index. I haven't seen a list of specific streets in their timing at which they will get resurfaced. So that's a little bit new to me. And then the second question, had to do with outreach and the project that goes from Princess over to I WANT TO MAKE SURE THAT I WANT And I don't believe that we've even talked about I don't believe we've even talked about that at this point in time. THE END OF |
| 01:49:15.80 | Mayor Kelman | I'm sorry. Sorry to interrupt, is there anything online Maybe from a PBAC meeting that a member of the public could review to understand the nature of the project. |
| 01:49:26.43 | Kevin McGowan | Absolutely. We can take a look at old PBAC meetings, and they're welcome to reach out to me specifically, and I can provide them that detail. |
| 01:49:34.65 | Mayor Kelman | Okay, thank you. Great. Okay. So tonight we're being asked to provide a direction Um, in terms of drafting or adopting this resolution. And maybe for purpose of this conversation, I'd like to recommend, that we try to focus our comments on ultimately on one of the alternatives. So there are three alternatives. And if you could give your thoughts on which of those. you're headed in that would be very helpful. So Councillor McLeod, |
| 01:50:01.01 | Councilmember Cleveland Knowles | Thank you Mayor. Before I start on that task I did just want to add a little bit of clarity to what Director McGowan said about the Bridgeway I'm sorry, the Princess Richardson project that one of the public commenters asked about. There are certainly presentations from the PBAC but when we did talk about the grant from that we received. We specifically talked about vigorous and robust public outreach. around that corridor to address everyone's concerns and get get public comment. So that was definitely one of our conversations that we had at the feedback. And then I would just also refer people to the June 22nd, 2021 staff report that we got which does have the pavement index on it and lists all the streets and their PCI is also kind of an order, a general order of priority. Doesn't, as the director said, it doesn't exactly tell you when your street is going to be repaid, but it gives the sense of where you are in the pecking order. So then, um, Mayor, you asked us to refer specifically to the, um, alternatives listed in the staff report. So I did just want to say, well, I would have preferred this presentation in the context of a mid-year budget review. I trust that our city manager and finance director are working hard on that report and that their preliminary recommendation that this is something that we can accomplish within our budget and our reserves policy is true so I will Um, recommend that we move forward. I would recommend a combination of option B and C from the staff report. I would like to reserve you know, book to Director McGowan, but $150,000 or $200,000 for matching for the Bridgeway to Richardson project so that we can be competitive in attracting regional funds and state funds for that project, which I agree. that we would probably be and lying for her. If there was a different amount that staff would recommend, I'm open to hearing that. And then the difference about a million more would go to directly being able to get into a shovel ready project on a resurfacing and I would defer to staff on which project is the one they are most able to get up. um and running it sounded like that was edwards but i wasn't entirely sure things like That would be my preference is to split the baby a little bit between option B and C. |
| 01:52:56.26 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you, councilman Cleveland. I will just say I would fully endorse that. And if others do, and at any point I would like to make the motion on that, I would vote for that. But I do see some other hands up. So council member Sobieski. |
| 01:53:10.85 | Councilmember Sobieski | THE FAMILY. |
| 01:53:14.63 | Jill Hoffman | That's what will happen. Yeah, actually I do agree, but I do have some additional comments. I think we might want to look at based on our recent economic stresses on our budget about our reserve policy at 15%. And I think, you know, luckily, like very luckily we had a healthy reserve, going into this year and then through the pandemic as well and so that that has served us very well so I I get nervous when we talk about spending our reserve down further, knowing that we have big expenses coming up or likely risk of big expenses coming up. and sort of relying on that 15% you know, policy, which I think is probably too low for a town of our size that is very vulnerable to swings in economic conditions. So I was just like, I think maybe we might need to readdress or address that reserve policy. fund. in general. And then I agree with the splitting and looking at the, Alexander to Princess, I mean, sorry, Princess to Richardson. But as a frequent bike rider, Um, For those of you who've seen me riding around town, I ride around a lot, almost, you know, Um, you know not daily but |
| 01:54:36.97 | Rose Radford | Thank you. |
| 01:54:37.23 | Jill Hoffman | definitely three to four or five times a week in and around. up to the headlands and back. I would request a couple of things. One is that when we're looking at that, that connector from know princess on south that one of the most dangerous areas is actually right around the corner So when you stop at Richardson, you know, trying to get up Richardson, sorry, trying to get up to South Street. where Bridgeway turns into Richardson, turns into South Street, going out there and then going up the rest of the way to Alexander and certainly coming down that area when you're looking at people that are inexperienced on rental bikes coming down the hill. around that corner on Alexander down to South Street is quite challenging. if we're looking at repairs anyway. And I mean, and I just, you know, But if we're looking at it anyway, and then extending, if we can extend another, whatever, quarter of a mile to address that issue, I think that might be something you know, that would be well worth it. I know that there's a whole plan in place and I don't want to slow anything down, but to me that seems to be a good, maybe a good tie in. you know i am concerned about a plan that would do away with that middle median i know that we've discussed that now off the top of my head i can't remember But since it was brought up by somebody in public comment, it reminded me. that that median is used a lot by our emergency responders and Also people turning all the people that have homes along there. they turn into their driveway. They're making a left-hand turn into their driveway. They use that median to wait so the traffic can pass. So if you don't have the median for people trying to get into their garages or park along there, then you're going to have even more of a traffic buildup. if we have a plan that comes back to us on that South Street corridor, I would like to, have that addressed and that's going to be a concern that I want to look at but Yeah, I mean, I, uh, I am cognizant of the other stresses on our budget right now and that we are spending a lot of our reserve this year. Um, but, um, I do agree with Chris or our city manager Zapata that, deferring maintenance costs only makes them higher and increases the risk of greater spend so I would support I would support the hybrid that council member Cleveland Knowles suggested so thank you. Thank you. |
| 01:57:05.97 | Mayor Kelman | COUNSELOR MOORE HOPPIN. |
| 01:57:07.20 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 01:57:07.24 | Mayor Kelman | uh, |
| 01:57:07.56 | Vice Mayor Blonstein | Thank you. |
| 01:57:08.11 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. |
| 01:57:08.13 | Vice Mayor Blonstein | helpful additional information. I appreciate all of the comments of other council members and I would be happy to go ahead and make a motion in support of the resolution for the 1.2 million for measure, measure O dollars with the hybrid version suggested by council member Cleveland Knowles. |
| 01:57:29.38 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. |
| 01:57:29.39 | Vice Mayor Blonstein | Thank you. |
| 01:57:29.41 | Mayor Kelman | We have a second. Okay. |
| 01:57:32.70 | Vice Mayor Blonstein | Thank you. |
| 01:57:32.72 | Mayor Kelman | Can you please call the roll? |
| 01:57:37.02 | Serge Avila | and members of Yes King? Yes. and some members who say no. |
| 01:57:40.82 | Councilmember Hoffman | Yes. |
| 01:57:41.80 | Serge Avila | Council Member Hoffman. |
| 01:57:43.11 | Councilmember Hoffman | Yes. |
| 01:57:44.04 | Serge Avila | Vice Mayor Blaustein. |
| 01:57:45.78 | Councilmember Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 01:57:45.81 | Mayor Kelman | Yeah. |
| 01:57:46.74 | Serge Avila | Mayor Kelman. Thank you. |
| 01:57:47.65 | Mayor Kelman | Yes. Motion passes 5-0. Thank you everybody. And thank you everybody for speaking on this really interesting conversation. I appreciate the perspective. on how we spend money that are in our coffers today. Okay, so I believe we're moving on to, Item number six is bear with me here. |
| 01:58:11.77 | Mayor Kelman | Great, this is communications. So this is the time on the agenda for members of the public to provide any public comment for items that are not on the agenda, except in limited situations, state law precludes the council from taking action on or engaging in discussions concerning items of businesses that are not on the agenda. However, the council may briefly respond to statements made or questions posed by a member of the public. ask clarifying questions, make a brief announcement, order from meetings not on the agenda to city staff. or direct at the subject the agenda is for a future meeting. Please keep your comments respectful and focused. We want to listen to any individual who requests to speak and each speaker has a responsibility to act in a civil and courteous manner as defined by this council. We will not tolerate hate speech, direct or indirect threats, or abuse of language. The meeting host will meet anyone who fails to follow these guidelines. So with that, we'll go ahead and open this up for public comment. |
| 01:59:01.84 | Serge Avila | Madam Mayor, it looks like we have two hands raised at the moment. Our first speaker is Sandra Bushmaker. Sandra, you've been unmuted. |
| 01:59:11.86 | Sandra Bushmaker | Good evening Mayor Kelman and Council. Good to see you. I want to speak to the issue of the forensic audit that is requested in some of your correspondence on this item. As you will read that correspondence, you will see that this is not a routine audit, which by the way, I recognize that Sausalito got a clean, uh, routine audit this last session. So I'm very happy to hear that. However, we have some other issues in Sausalito that need to be looked at. And the correspondence refers to Edie Bailey's Yes. rationale for requesting a forensic audit. And the writers of that correspondence believe that four out of the five categories justifying a forensic audit are happening here in Sausalito or have happened here in Sausalito. We need to get to the bottom of this. Now I recognize that financial uh, matters are really front burner for Sausalito right now, but we need to look to see what has happened. in our history that led us to this point of financial crisis. And there are some. bothering episodes that occurred this last SEVERAL YEARS. prior to the recent dive into the city finances that I think deserve attention. So I would like to request that the issue of a forensic audit into the city finances be agendized for further discussion. Thank you. Thank you very much, Sandra. |
| 02:00:58.61 | Serge Avila | Next speaker is Olivia. Olivia, you've been unmuted and asked to share your video. |
| 02:01:03.96 | Olivia Garrity | Good evening city council members and staff. My name is Olivia Garrity and I'm a Sausalito resident. Four years ago, while I was attending Tam High, I was a member of the Marin County Youth Coalition called the Youth Advisory Council. And I have recently become aware of the fact that Sausalito is the only city or jurisdiction in Marin that allows smoking in multi-unit residences. This is extremely concerning to me as I live in a multi-unit dwelling. And after working with the Youth Advisory Council, I know how dangerous secondhand smoke can be. Luckily, the other people in my building do not smoke, but if they did, I would be exposed to many harsh chemicals. I know that the Youth Advisory Council is very concerned and passionate about educating the community on this issue and that they will continue to fight for this policy to be changed. A letter was sent by Kylie, a current high school student on this topic on January 31st, and it's now March and nothing has been done to move this item forward and put it on the agenda. |
| 02:02:02.24 | Warren Wells | Thank you. |
| 02:02:02.33 | Unknown | . |
| 02:02:02.41 | Warren Wells | Thank you. |
| 02:02:03.60 | Olivia Garrity | Thank you so much for listening to my concern and I hope we can move this forward just to protect those who are at risk for secondhand smoke exposure every day. Thank you so much for your time and your work to help the Sausalito community. |
| 02:02:17.80 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you, Olivia. Appreciate your comments. So just anybody else here for public comment? |
| 02:02:23.63 | Serge Avila | Madam Mayor, there are no other hands raised. |
| 02:02:25.89 | Mayor Kelman | Okay, thank you. We will go ahead and close public comment. We'll move over to item number seven, which is council member committee reports. Does anybody have anything they would like to add? |
| 02:02:38.22 | Mayor Kelman | Okay, not seeing any, we'll go ahead and open the item up for public comment. See if anybody wants to make a comment. I don't know. |
| 02:02:47.22 | Sybil Boutillier | I'm not sure. Thank you. |
| 02:02:49.39 | Mayor Kelman | Confirming. I don't see any hands. Confirmed? |
| 02:02:51.74 | Sybil Boutillier | Thank you. |
| 02:02:52.15 | Serge Avila | Thank you. |
| 02:02:52.47 | Mayor Kelman | OK, thank you, sir. Great, moving on to item eight. This is the city manager reports city council appointments, other council business. So we're going to have public comment right now on items 8B through 8E. So that's the city manager information for the council. The appointments to boards, commissions, and committees, features and items, and other reports of significance. |
| 02:03:18.35 | Mayor Kelman | Serge, I do not see any hands. |
| 02:03:18.74 | Serge Avila | and I'm not sure. That is correct, Madam Mayor. There are no hands raised. |
| 02:03:23.04 | Mayor Kelman | Okay, we will close public comment and I'll hand it over to the city manager for his report. |
| 02:03:28.78 | Chris Zapata | and members of the council member of the public. There's no report this evening from the city manager, unless you have questions on things not on the agenda. right? |
| 02:03:38.20 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you, Chris. I do not. Any members of council have questions? Okay. Item 8C, we have no appointments to make. I'll just remind everybody that at our Saturday meeting, currently scheduled for March 26th, we will be conducting interviews. So if you really want to serve your community, please put an application in. We'll put something in currents to make sure you know how we have nine standing boards and commissions and we would love to have your engagement. Okay, item 8D is future agenda items. I actually have a few, so I'm going to start off and I, meant to send staff a question today. I'd like to see EV charging and a status update. Given today's conversation, I'd like to see that come back to council. I'd like an update from the city manager on grants. And I know we all sent in our, or we provided in real time, our prioritization. I'd like to see how that sorted out and get a SAS update on our three program grant writers. I heard some interest tonight in maybe having the South Street corridor project come to council even if it's just a consent item or something that, enables us to really understand what that project looked like. It sounded like council member Hoffman had some, um, ideas and some questions about that. So it'd be good to get that. out of the way sooner rather than have it go down the road of a grand and matching without answering that. And then the last item I had, which has already been said by many, is that we look forward to the mid-year budget And I just want to make a suggestion that at that time, we also discuss the reserve policy. and just check in with ourselves and make sure we're on the same page. So those are the four that I had. Anybody else have others? Yes, Vice Mayor and Council Member of Cleveland also. |
| 02:05:24.20 | Vice Mayor Blonstein | Yeah, I, unfortunately there were a number of antisemitic flyers that were distributed across Marin County in the past few weeks. And I would like to see a resolution added to the future agenda items just to focus on and bring light to the issue and that similar communities have done the same. So I just wanted to get that on. on the agenda, hopefully. Thank you. |
| 02:05:47.04 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you for that. And then Council Member Cleveland also. |
| 02:05:52.77 | Councilmember Cleveland Knowles | Yeah, thank you. Per our earlier discussion on Measure O, I know we had talked about a conversation around reauthorization of Measure O, It's set to expire in 2024, but many jurisdictions decide to take things to the ballot ahead of the actual expiration date. So I think we should give some consideration to that. even possibly for November 2022. I don't know if those ballot deadlines are feasible at this point, but if they are, it might be something we'd want to consider. I'm not sure. I am. We've had on our future agendas for actually on specific meetings several times now. It was originally called an infrastructure workshop, and now it's listed on March 22nd as CIP presentations. And I just would really love to have that conversation as we move into budget season. you know, make sure that we have time and have a good place on our agenda for that. So it slipped a couple of times. I'm sure I know. Public Works is busy. that I would. would like to just urge agenda setting to talk to the city manager about that. I also, I see that on our next meeting we have on March 22nd. Um, meeting with the planning commission. And I just, there was some confusion around, the invitation with that. And I know we've had on our agenda, the agenda topic of a housing element update. And I think that is something that we should definitely do staff had told me though that there was about the whole other conversation around housing and I think we should hold off on that until we have more time and we've gotten through budget. but the housing element itself seems like a good discussion. And then, The Transportation Authority of Moran is planning, I think, to go back to in-person in April. And I just at some point would love to hear how staff and agenda setting are thinking about our transition. Thank you. once you have had a chance to discuss it, if you haven't already, just so planning, you know, so that we can all understand the timetable and plan for that. |
| 02:08:25.58 | Unknown | I'm not sure. |
| 02:08:26.24 | Mayor Kelman | Great, thank you very much. Any other suggestions for future agenda items? We have a good list going here. Okay, I don't see any other suggestions. So thank you. And we actually have agenda setting on Thursday. So we will run through these as well. Okay, other reports of significance. There are no other reports of significance. I am going to go ahead and make a motion that we adjourn. Thanks everybody. Thank you. |
| 02:08:53.03 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. Thank you. Thanks, staff. |
| 02:08:55.61 | Mayor Kelman | Yeah. |
| 02:08:55.63 | Councilmember Hoffman | Thank you. |