| Time | Speaker | Text |
|---|---|---|
| 00:00:00.89 | Walfred Solorzano | Okay. |
| 00:00:01.03 | Serge Avila | Okay. |
| 00:00:01.69 | William Ehrensberg | Thank you. |
| 00:00:03.74 | Walfred Solorzano | Audio is |
| 00:00:04.00 | Serge Avila | Audio is running now and good morning, mayor Kelman and council members. This meeting is in health pursuant to government code section 5-4 |
| 00:00:09.55 | Mary Wagner | Thank you. |
| 00:00:12.86 | Serge Avila | 953E and in light of the declared state emergency, the special meeting of the City Council for April 30th, 2022 will be conducted telephonically through Zoom and broadcast live on the city's website. Welcome. |
| 00:00:29.23 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you so much and good morning, everybody. Welcome to a special city council meeting. for Saturday, April 30th, 2022. Certainly please call the roll. |
| 00:00:39.37 | Walfred Solorzano | Council Member. |
| 00:00:39.64 | Serge Avila | Thank you. |
| 00:00:39.69 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. |
| 00:00:39.77 | Serge Avila | on the |
| 00:00:39.97 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. |
| 00:00:40.02 | Serge Avila | Yeah. |
| 00:00:40.04 | Mayor Kelman | MEMBERS ALBIESKI? |
| 00:00:41.00 | Serge Avila | Thank you. |
| 00:00:41.12 | Walfred Solorzano | Council Member. |
| 00:00:42.07 | Serge Avila | Y'all some men. |
| 00:00:42.64 | Mayor Kelman | or, |
| 00:00:42.73 | Walfred Solorzano | or, |
| 00:00:42.98 | Serge Avila | Thank you. |
| 00:00:43.10 | Walfred Solorzano | Cleveland. |
| 00:00:43.13 | Serge Avila | Cleveland Knowles? Here. Councilmember Hoffman? Here. Vice Mayor Blasby? |
| 00:00:43.87 | Walfred Solorzano | Bye. |
| 00:00:44.68 | Mayor Kelman | Bye. |
| 00:00:44.92 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. Okay. |
| 00:00:46.76 | Mayor Kelman | THE END OF |
| 00:00:47.37 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:00:47.40 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. |
| 00:00:47.47 | Walfred Solorzano | Vice Mayor Blowsett. |
| 00:00:48.75 | Mayor Kelman | here. |
| 00:00:49.32 | Serge Avila | Mayor Kelman. Thank you. |
| 00:00:50.66 | Mayor Kelman | here. |
| 00:00:52.51 | Serge Avila | All members are present and there's a forum. |
| 00:00:52.78 | Mayor Kelman | MEMBERS. Thank you. Before we approve the agenda, I want to make a suggestion. Council Member Sobieski had requested that we have some time at the beginning of the meeting to talk about a closed session item on the city manager review. I will fully own, I got a little confused about the timing of that. So we did not start early, but we did tell members of the public who were interviewing for boards and commissions to join us to start at 10.05. So let me offer this. We can either keep the agenda as is and go to closed session at the end, or council member Sobieski, if you would like, I am more than happy to support an amendment where we do the interviews for the boards and commissions, and then we take a brief foray into closed session to discuss as you suggested, and then come back to open. Thank you. |
| 00:01:43.29 | Councilmember Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 00:01:43.34 | Mayor Kelman | THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 00:01:43.53 | Councilmember Sobieski | My point was to have that closed session before we had a discussion about the Board and Commission memo, which is on the agenda here somewhere. Yeah, it is on the agenda. The closed session should be prior to that, but we don't need to keep people waiting for the interviews. |
| 00:01:57.08 | Mayor Kelman | Well, Councillor Sobieski, I let me assuage your concerns here in that city attorney informed us this morning that because we did not notice any type of vote on the appointment, we're not making any appointments. And also, we're not accepting any resignations. All we're doing is interviewing today. And so I think that the conversation you want to have hopefully is still quite relevant after. |
| 00:02:23.16 | Councilmember Sobieski | Yeah, it doesn't matter. This is about the whole structure of city government and how it works with Chris Zapata and his performance, you know, and we need to have that in closed session since it's a personnel matter. It has nothing to do with the individual candidates. here, but we need to talk about it before we talk about his memo. Otherwise, you'll be in the wrong order. |
| 00:02:44.95 | Mayor Kelman | Okay, so Councillor Cleveland Knowles, you had your hand up for, A minute there. Thank you. |
| 00:02:50.03 | Councilmember Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. |
| 00:02:50.05 | Mayor Kelman | Yeah. |
| 00:02:50.18 | Councilmember Cleveland Knowles | Thank you, Mayor. I would support moving item four ahead of item three. today. which item four is the closed session and moving it ahead of our business items. |
| 00:03:02.20 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. |
| 00:03:02.87 | Councilmember Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. |
| 00:03:02.97 | Mayor Kelman | Okay. I have no problem with that. Do you want to do all the closed session items? Councilman Recriminales? Thank you. |
| 00:03:10.30 | Councilmember Cleveland Knowles | Oh, I'm sorry, no, just the public employee performance evaluation. Thank you for that clarification. And I also do think if we are going to do that, we should time limit ourselves to give the public an expectation of when we will return so that people who are interested can join back in at the appropriate time. |
| 00:03:28.40 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. OK. Does 15 minutes sound like enough time? |
| 00:03:33.58 | Councilmember Sobieski | I really think a half hour, honestly, and maybe we would even use it as a break if we run out of things to say. |
| 00:03:40.06 | Mayor Kelman | Okay, so someone help me with the math. We're supposed to go to business items at 1130. Instead, it sounds like we're going to go to closed session at 1130. We're gonna spend 30 minutes. So here's the new order of operations and correct me if my math is wrong. only mayor math as Chris would say. From now until 1130, we're gonna do interviews, no votes, no resignations. At 1130, we're gonna go into closed session. We're gonna take that one first item. We'll come back to public session at noon. Does that sound correct? Okay, would someone like to make that motion then to amend the agenda? move. Oh, sorry. |
| 00:04:15.10 | Mary Wagner | Thank you. |
| 00:04:16.21 | Mayor Kelman | Mary, do you need to interrupt us before we? Clarifying that we will return to closed session at the end of the meeting. |
| 00:04:20.83 | Mary Wagner | Thank you. |
| 00:04:20.85 | Mayor Kelman | Correct. For the other items. Correct, sorry to interrupt. So we do have a motion on the table. Do we have a second? Second. Great, Sergeant, can you please call the roll? |
| 00:04:29.56 | Serge Avila | Council Member Sobieski? Councilmember Cleveland-Hills. |
| 00:04:33.89 | Mayor Kelman | Yes. |
| 00:04:34.67 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 00:04:34.70 | Serge Avila | Council member Hoffman. |
| 00:04:36.16 | Mayor Kelman | Yes. |
| 00:04:36.60 | Vice Mayor Blasby | you Thank you. |
| 00:04:36.88 | Serge Avila | Vice Mayor Blavstein. |
| 00:04:38.40 | Vice Mayor Blasby | Thank you. |
| 00:04:38.45 | Mayor Kelman | . |
| 00:04:38.60 | Vice Mayor Blasby | Thank you. |
| 00:04:38.94 | Serge Avila | and Mayor Kelman. |
| 00:04:40.00 | Mayor Kelman | Yes. Okay, great. Well, then thank you. We're gonna go right on now to item 2A, interviews for the Historic Preservation Commission, the Library Board of Trustees, Parks and Rec, and the Economic Development Advisory Committee. So group one are applicants for the Historic Preservation Commission. |
| 00:04:57.18 | Serge Avila | And Madam Mayor, if I may just want to make the council aware that Nicholas had, as we drew his application. So we only have three members or applicants that are in the room. |
| 00:05:10.13 | Mayor Kelman | City Clerk, let me clarify. Shouldn't we have a fourth David Duncan |
| 00:05:18.73 | Mayor Kelman | I, I thought I read a resume from David Duncan. |
| 00:05:27.64 | Councilmember Cleveland Knowles | I also looked at his resume, Mayor Kelman. It appeared that he lives outside the jurisdiction and on gate six or in... So I didn't know if that was why his name wasn't on the interview list, but. I could be wrong about that. |
| 00:05:44.18 | Jill Hoffman | So I'm really wise. |
| 00:05:45.09 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:05:46.83 | Councilmember Cleveland Knowles | And this is for historic preservation where I think we have a residency requirement, but again, I'm Maybe I'm... |
| 00:05:53.27 | Mayor Kelman | Oh. |
| 00:05:53.53 | Councilmember Cleveland Knowles | Yeah. |
| 00:05:53.93 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. Interesting. So I don't know if the city attorney can weigh in on that. I don't know if we have a residency requirement for historic preservation. |
| 00:06:03.26 | Mary Wagner | Thank you. |
| 00:06:04.83 | Mayor Kelman | I'm not. |
| 00:06:05.04 | Mary Wagner | I believe you do. Perhaps the city clerk can assist me while I verify. |
| 00:06:10.45 | Serge Avila | Um, |
| 00:06:12.99 | Jill Hoffman | I think, sorry. |
| 00:06:13.04 | Mary Wagner | Bye. |
| 00:06:13.19 | Serge Avila | I think, sorry. |
| 00:06:14.66 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 00:06:14.98 | Jill Hoffman | Madam Mayor. |
| 00:06:14.99 | Serge Avila | madam mayor |
| 00:06:15.97 | Walfred Solorzano | REFORDS. |
| 00:06:16.93 | Jill Hoffman | I'm looking at a staff report on page two. resolution 5705 No. Uh, with the exception of That's 94965 liaisons with the exception of City Council Planning Commission and Historic Preservation. So it looks like the resolution says liaisons except for those three statutory boards. |
| 00:06:42.23 | Mary Wagner | So that means that they all need to be residents. |
| 00:06:42.82 | Jill Hoffman | I don't think it all made it. |
| 00:06:43.73 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. |
| 00:06:45.64 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:06:45.65 | Mayor Kelman | Yeah. |
| 00:06:46.11 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:06:46.13 | Mary Wagner | Thank you. Yes. |
| 00:06:47.19 | Mayor Kelman | That's a shame. This gentleman had a PhD in history. That looked like a very good candidate. Um, so I don't mean would wanna |
| 00:06:55.75 | Jill Hoffman | want to. Thank you. |
| 00:06:58.06 | Walfred Solorzano | Anyway. |
| 00:06:58.33 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:06:58.88 | Mayor Kelman | Okay, so then we do in fact have three, William Ehrensberg, Sherrod Barnett and Tracy Kessler. Welcome. Good morning. |
| 00:07:09.03 | Vice Mayor Blasby | Good morning. |
| 00:07:09.40 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. And may we put some videos? |
| 00:07:11.46 | Vice Mayor Blasby | Morning. |
| 00:07:11.83 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 00:07:11.93 | Vice Mayor Blasby | Thank you. |
| 00:07:13.42 | Mayor Kelman | And city attorney, what is the order of operations for taking public comment? on interviews. |
| 00:07:19.27 | Mary Wagner | Thank you. I'm, frankly, Madam Mayor, we haven't had public comment that I'm aware of on interviews, but you could certainly take it before you conduct your interviews, if you would like. And you could do it all in one fell swoop. you know, public comment on every board commission that you're interviewing for tonight. |
| 00:07:35.56 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 00:07:35.57 | Mayor Kelman | . |
| 00:07:35.74 | Mary Wagner | Yeah. |
| 00:07:35.86 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. |
| 00:07:35.88 | Mary Wagner | Thank you. |
| 00:07:36.20 | Mayor Kelman | Great, then we will do one fell swoop. I do see a hand up. And so if nobody else opposes, and if I can just ask the interviewees their indulgence, I would like to take that public comment since we now have two hands up. So Serge, can you just explain also the public comment? Thank you. |
| 00:07:53.34 | 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 it's your time to speak. |
| 00:07:53.36 | Mayor Kelman | Sure. |
| 00:08:06.65 | Serge Avila | to raise your hand from a phone, press start nine, and each speaker will be notified when the time has elapsed. Madam Mayor, it looks like we have one hand raised. And that's Vicki, Vicki Nichols. You've been unmuted and has to share your video. |
| 00:08:21.84 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. Great. Good morning, Vicki. |
| 00:08:28.69 | Mayor Kelman | You are so on mute. |
| 00:08:34.40 | Vicki Nichols | I wanted to comment that in past days when the meetings were conducted PERSON. interviews were open to the public since the council was all meeting together so we have been able to at least observe these interviews it would be helpful under this process I was not able but then I was told quickly before the meeting that the applications were available those used to also be available because so we could see the qualifications the public of the people that were applying for certain positions so In light of that, my concern here is the HPC, obviously. This has certain requirements by the state to maintain our certified local government. THEIR OWNERS. I would hope that any interviews in the future would be mindful of that requirement. |
| 00:09:27.03 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. Thank you. let everybody know we are in public session and we will be conducting all these interviews in public sessions. So that continues here. I see another hand up, Serge. Thank you. |
| 00:09:39.64 | Serge Avila | Yes, Madam Mayor, our next speaker, it's Eva's iPhone and you've been unmuted. and ask to share your video. |
| 00:09:46.13 | Unknown | Welcome, Emma. |
| 00:09:57.76 | Unknown | You are still there. Can you hear me now? Yes. Thank you so much. I just wanted to point out that I believe David Duncan, who submitted the non-resident application for historic preservation. has a problematic history with a documentary project he's working on. I archived his correspondence regarding his refusal to even consider looking at violence in schoolyards in the county from the period he was studying in Marin City. his response to me consistently was that because he was a quote historian, he did not actually have his PhD at that time, that he was somehow magically exempt from looking at the larger context of the black violence that he was particularly fixated on in the in the school district, Saucy-Dumarant City School District. And when I asked, are you looking at violence in other areas at that time, he said he didn't think that was relevant. And I asked him if his experience as the child of a white parent who went through the desegregation. process many decades ago might be affecting his judgment in this regard. he said something to the effect that, no, he was a historian and he knew what he was doing. I find that sort of assertion really problematic and you already have a, pretty unbalanced historic preservation. group that has done an excellent job of covering up a lot of issues in Sausalito. and really pretty much critifying it. I mean, it might as well be an extension of the Chamber of Commerce. And I think you'll see a lot of overlap between historic preservation and Chamber of Commerce. A PhD in history does not, does not magically a race bias and that historic preservation The appointment should be extremely carefully considered. And I think it says a lot about the candidate that he would try to get on it. when he's not actually entitled to that spot by residency. So I'll be watching the appointment process very carefully. I think historic preservation has a lot to answer for. Thanks. |
| 00:12:28.61 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you, Eva. And let me just clarify again for the public, President Duncan is not being considered as an applicant for the Historic Preservation Commission. He lives outside of the city and our code requires they must live within the city for appointment to the HPC. So thank you for those comments. Okay, not seeing any of their hands raised, we'll now turn over to our applicants. Thank you again for your patience. William, Shira and Tracy, welcome. So what I'd like to do, and if anyone else has ideas, welcome them, is to have each of you go ahead and introduce yourselves. We have your resume, we have your application, but tell us why you would like to participate on the HPC I THINK UNIQUE or attribute you bring to the table. knowing that this is a historic preservation effort. So why don't we go Shira Tracy and then William. And why don't we give everybody two minutes on the clock, the city clerk. Okay. |
| 00:13:26.61 | Shira Barnett | Thank you. |
| 00:13:27.84 | Mayor Kelman | I think. |
| 00:13:28.02 | Shira Barnett | I've never done two minutes. You can do less, you can certainly do less. I appreciate that too. Um, I just by hearing Eva's comment, I'm aware of how little I know about historic preservation and what you do. What I do know is I read all the stories that are written. I find them wonderful. I remember Phil Frank coming to my home 40 years ago and we donated something from the something for the historic preservation society and then something else all about ships and boats. I'm interested in stories and but I've, never been on a historic preservation group before. but I'm interested. but I don't really know what qualifications you're wanting. And I would be interested in that. |
| 00:14:26.09 | Mayor Kelman | Okay, well, that's quite fair. Well, let me, let's go to Tracy and then over to William. And then I think members of the council will probably have questions for you. So thank you for that, sir. And thank you for taking the time. I know this is a new process for you. Tracy, welcome. Good to see you. |
| 00:14:41.97 | Tracy Kessler | Hi. Hi. Thanks for having me this morning. I'm Tracy Kessler. I live on Varda Landing, Cape 5 Road, and I've been in Sausalito for about seven and a half years. And my interest, I am an interior designer and an artist, but my career started out working for architecture firms. in New York City and part of my degree was in conservation and restoration while doing interior design. So I've always had a fascination just with historic preservation, especially coming out of New York. where a lot of landmarks were destroyed until I think it was 1960, not exact date, but when the National Historic Preservation started. So being in Sausalito and just along the waterfront, I just have a passion for you know, keeping this neighborhood and Sausalito having its charm and paying attention to all of the codes and so forth. that will be affected by new properties coming in. I think it's more just like I have a passion I have a passion for it and I've worked on projects in New York, but nothing in California as far as historic preservation. |
| 00:16:02.19 | Unknown | Thank you, appreciate the background. William, welcome. |
| 00:16:05.37 | William Ehrensberg | Hi, thanks. I was nodding my head when when she was talking, because I also don't know exactly what a historic commission member, so job requirements are, similar to the other applicants very interested in this topic. By way of background, my parents, Both were very active in historic preservation back home in Louisville, Kentucky, where I was born. So my father was chairman of the Kentucky National Land Trust. And there's a whole bunch of different history going back to my grandfather being involved in historical preservation. Honestly, sort of my core interest was a little bit of family background and wanting to be involved. I've had a chance to live in five different countries across my career. Have been abroad a lot and so have never felt like I had the roots to properly get involved in historic preservation if it's not a community that I'm a part of. But, you know, four months ago, I actually bought my first house here in Sausalito with my wife and want to get involved in the community and find ways that I can contribute. And I came across this opening and thought, well, I'll throw my hat into the ring. Even if I'm not super qualified in my day job, I'm a technology venture capitalist in San Francisco. So not really working in real estate or architecture, but little things that might kind of convey some of my interest. when it comes to the city guides in San Francisco. So if you all know the volunteer, walking tours. So I've taken over 30 of those in the city. I have a lot of local context when I'm walking around the streets with friends and can point out interesting buildings and stories behind them and, um, I'm trying to get up to speed here in Sausalito. So I bought myself a stack of Sausalito historical books get up to speed, but Yeah, really, really don't have any direct experience that could point to understanding building codes or anything like that. Just trying to find a way to contribute to the local community. And yeah, thank you very much for the opportunity to apply. |
| 00:18:04.52 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you, William. I love that how eager people are to participate. So thank you. It sounds like you all have sort of similar questions. So let me just refer you, each of the nine standing boards of commissions does have their own webpage on sausalito.gov website. The remit of the historic preservation commission is as follows. Review applications for exterior renovation of historic or noteworthy structures, historic sites and landmarks located throughout Sausalito. promote preservation of historic sites, landmarks, documents, paintings and objects associated with the history of Sausalito Recommend to the planning commission that certain historic sites, landmarks, and districts be designated and or required by the city. advise the city council on the acceptance of donations and or acquisitions of items with historic value to the city. and advises city council on matters relating to the historic and cultural preservation of the city And the phrase escapes me right now, but we are a local designating agency for local historic. We've qualified for that. Heidi's told me this before. Maybe Susan, you remember what that's called. But we're able to create designations on our own here in Sausalito. This is not historical society. This is actually very much a working towards historic preservation and identifying those opportunities in Sassana. So with that said, let me see if council members have questions for any of our lovely applicants. |
| 00:19:22.43 | Councilmember Cleveland Knowles | Yes. Thank you, Mayor and thank you for the explanation of the historic preservation Commission. I think that's helpful. I would also just encourage the applicants today and others that we're going to interview, even if you're not chosen, I think one of the best ways to get involved and understand what these committees do is to attend. a few of the meetings of the committee and you kind of get a flavor for whether that's something that you'd be interested in doing and all of the meetings of the historic preservation commission are open to the public and are on our website. I think they meet at least monthly. I guess my question, I thought we had a really interesting discussion at the council level earlier this year when we were looking at the proposed historic context statement about the intersection OF HISTORY. and diversity equity and inclusion in Marin and in Sausalito. and how those two things can be sometimes aligned and sometimes in tension. And I was wondering if any of the candidates had thoughts on, on those issues. |
| 00:20:33.20 | Mayor Kelman | Why don't we go with anybody, Shira, any comments on that? Um, |
| 00:20:39.03 | Tracy Kessler | I'm just, if you could, if you could ask the question again, You're saying history between Marin I didn't quite understand the question. |
| 00:20:49.17 | Councilmember Cleveland Knowles | Oh, sorry, I guess so, you know, his historic preservation is often about preserving um, things that represent trends from the past. Sometimes it's architecture, but sometimes it's representing social or economic or other |
| 00:20:59.58 | Tracy Kessler | Right. |
| 00:21:07.01 | Councilmember Cleveland Knowles | um I Right. AND I THINK THAT'S A things of note. And so |
| 00:21:12.49 | Tracy Kessler | Thank you. |
| 00:21:13.65 | Councilmember Cleveland Knowles | We've been having a lot of conversations at the Council and just societally about diversity, equity, and inclusion. And so when we were talking recently about our historic contact statements, um the tension between historic preservation and moving forward to a more equitable um, community was discussed. And anyway, I was just wondering if you had thoughts on those two important Ryan Bolton. |
| 00:21:49.16 | Tracy Kessler | Yeah, I mean, I definitely have thoughts on reparations for As a country, what we've done and why Marin City is across the freeway and segregated And I know there's been a lot of talk as to how we can have more diversity in Sol Solito. So yeah, I'm a big I have a lot of thoughts on how can we bridge our, how can we, Um, start bridging that and healing that as a society in this small town. and making it very aware. I think a lot of us who live here We all know the history as to why there's Marin City. But maybe that needs to be designated even more when we have a lot of tourists here Maybe it needs to be, you know, explained better, whether it's, you know, when we go through towns, there's, you know, historic bronze plaques, maybe. Through the town, there has to be more story told. |
| 00:22:47.66 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. |
| 00:22:51.70 | Tracy Kessler | Thank you. |
| 00:22:51.93 | Mayor Kelman | Maybe another council member would like to ask a question. |
| 00:22:56.69 | Unknown | any of the other I would be interested to hear if the other candidates had a response for that question before we move on to the next ones |
| 00:23:03.73 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 00:23:03.75 | Shira Barnett | THE END OF I'm not sure it's a question actually. I can just say my experience because I'm a dosage at the de Young. So we've been like, Maybe for six months we went through you know, every museum in the country |
| 00:23:21.55 | Walfred Solorzano | Bye. |
| 00:23:21.63 | Councilmember Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. |
| 00:23:21.65 | Shira Barnett | And I'm hearing now from you. the, the importance of paying attention to diversity, inclusion, and Um, we were just relieved those of us who were white and docents, we were relieved that we weren't let go. Because in some museums in the country, They will let go. Right. There is such Thank you. and anxiety about being more inclusive. I'm sorry. Here in San Francisco, we seem to be doing both. We're inviting, we're... And I actually like what Tracy said, plaques would be a very helpful beginning. It's a way to educate. and honor. the people who are here and who have been here. I think that would be a really good thing for a small town. to start here. |
| 00:24:18.99 | William Ehrensberg | Um, maybe I'll just add a couple of points. I think, um, The Stonewall Inn in New York City is designated National Historic Preservation Site. There's a lot of examples of... trouble, how do I say it? difficult times in history that are marked through historic preservation, right? multivariate story about the history. There's no need to only highlight things that follow a certain narrative. And so you could talk about the ups and downs of any community and that brings richness to the story of that community. whether it's good or bad. So I think that's, there's some interesting, elements there. There's also, me when I was reading about the history of Sal Salido over the past couple months, the Yitok Chi Park is a really good example of sort of highlighting some of the diversity in Sal Salido as well. So I'd love to see more of those stories, maybe that don't necessarily fit you know, the majority's narrative within Sausalito in terms of this residence. And then finally, I've worked on nonprofit board that did an entire DEI rehaul policies CREATED A subcommittees to try and address these types of issues. So mechanically I have some background a little bit in some of this work. But yeah, I appreciate hearing the other folks' comments as well. |
| 00:25:37.28 | Mayor Kelman | Yeah, me too. Thank you, everybody. Very thoughtful replies. a good diversity of perspectives. Any other council members wish to ask a question? We'll do one more. Councilmember question and then we'll go to the next committee. |
| 00:25:53.98 | Mayor Kelman | Okay. I don't see any other hands. So with that, I'll just thank our three applicants. Appreciate you making the time today and your interest in learning more about Sausalito. And I hope you have a wonderful Saturday. We're gonna move on to the Library Board of Trustees. Shira, I see your name on this one as well. So I look forward to hearing your perspective on this. William, Tracy, have a wonderful afternoon. Let me just start, I guess, by reading the role of the library board of trustees from our website, review the administration of social library operations, make recommendations to the city librarian, establish library policies and serve as a liaison between the library and the community and between the library and the city council. So we have three folks today, John Walsham, Shera Barnett and Rebecca Singer. And I think I see Becky. and John and Sher. John, would you be able to turn your video on for us? |
| 00:26:53.35 | Mayor Kelman | Great. Okay. Well, welcome. So you got to see the drill. We'll go, we'll go reverse your order now. We'll go John, Becky, Shira. You have up to two minutes to tell us your interest, your background, what you think might be relevant, and then we'll open it up. We'll take two council member questions and look forward to your replies. So John, you have the floor. |
| 00:27:12.89 | John Walsham | All right. Well, I've been involved with the library in various volunteer roles over the last 20 years, I guess. And just recently retired as treasurer of the Friends of the Library. And so that the city was looking for people to come onto the library board, which has long been an interest of mine. In fact, I've been on the library board previously for two and a half terms back around Thank you. 2012. And so I'm interested to see that the library maintains the status that it's had we were a library was voted the most well-liked department of all the city departments by the population |
| 00:27:53.80 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 00:27:58.13 | John Walsham | . Thank you. |
| 00:27:59.18 | Walfred Solorzano | No. |
| 00:27:59.41 | John Walsham | A COUPLE OF YEARS AGO. I'D LIKE TO SEE US MAINTAIN THAT. I think we have an excellent staff. We have a wonderful facility. So we have everything. Positive, your information. |
| 00:28:14.13 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you, John. Appreciate your knowing your background. Welcome. Becky? |
| 00:28:18.01 | Becky Singer | Thank you. Hi, I'm Becky Singer. Oh, gosh, I've had lots of jobs and roles. I'm a retired attorney and a current writer and a longtime lover of books. I'm well known in my family for bringing home a suitcase full of books whenever I go to London or New York or anywhere with a great bookshop. Um, I am. I have volunteered at the Friends of the Library Bookstore a little bit and just have been trying to find some ways to contribute to the city that we moved to during the lockdown and have not been able to meet people as much as we'd like. Since I'm so passionate about reading and access to libraries, I thought this would be a good place for me to pitch in. |
| 00:29:05.46 | Mayor Kelman | Okay, thank you. I identify with your suitcases full of books. Thank you for that. |
| 00:29:11.05 | Shira Barnett | I appreciate that. |
| 00:29:11.76 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. |
| 00:29:11.91 | Shira Barnett | Uh, Shira. Well, I think the library for me is, is the most important asset of Sausalito. and I would say of every town. And I think as a little kid, I think library, wherever I was saved my life. So I have great reverence for the people who work in the library. and they are really important. They may not know it, but they're much more than librarians. They so are the saving soul Right. of a child as they enter this place. So I would like to support the library in a more active way. And appreciative in terms of talking of diversity, what's wonderful about Sausalito, and I think probably challenging that we have such diversity of patrons And often, you know, you can see in the cold weather, some of the people, I never know if they're |
| 00:30:11.17 | William Ehrensberg | Thank you. |
| 00:30:16.73 | Shira Barnett | their boat is capsized or they're just homeless, but they're sort of living in in the halls, there are always a few people. over time who I've noticed. So it's all very interesting to me, this important representation of our community. Thank you, Shira. |
| 00:30:35.96 | Mayor Kelman | Appreciate that. |
| 00:30:37.28 | Shira Barnett | Thank you. |
| 00:30:37.31 | Walfred Solorzano | Yeah. |
| 00:30:38.82 | Mayor Kelman | All right, council members, I actually have a question, but I want to give someone else an opportunity. If somebody has a question for our applicants. Yes, Vice Mayor, please. |
| 00:30:49.99 | Unknown | One of the great things about the community library system in Marin County and in particular in Sausalito is that it provides access to internet for folks who might otherwise not have that. And we obviously live very close to San Francisco, which is a innovation hub and our communications director is also our library director and manages our website. And this is something we've been talking about a lot. And I was wondering if you. had thoughts about how the library might play a role in bridging the digital divide for our community, or if there are ways you think that the library board could contribute to updating some of the use of technology or access to internet in our community. |
| 00:31:31.31 | Mayor Kelman | We'd like to go first, great question. Why don't we go in the same order? Why don't we go John, Becky, Shira? |
| 00:31:37.83 | John Walsham | Okay. Well, the library offers so much more than books. We have a tremendous collection of resources online. |
| 00:31:54.23 | John Walsham | Canopy program, which brings in movies and, the hoopla program which extends the selection and overdrive which is selection of books from other resources. So people tend to think of libraries as a source of books but we're so much more. And even an emergency resource for the people on the waterfront during the partial shutdown of the city a couple of years ago where we were a place to charge phones the library responded in an unexpected way but i think that's an indication of both the versatility that we have and also the excellent management of the library at the time so i'd like to see that continue |
| 00:32:09.57 | William Ehrensberg | Thank you. |
| 00:32:49.44 | Unknown | Thank you, John. |
| 00:32:50.46 | Becky Singer | Becky. Oh gosh, I just, I mean, libraries are magic for so many reasons. And I think, I think access to computers is just one of them. One thing that I can imagine being incredibly helpful to people that need that access would be perhaps starting to consider some volunteers that are tech savvy. that could maybe we could have set hours that somebody was available to help with maybe a resume or a job search or something that they might be trying to do or even just really simple Internet tasks for a senior who's not as tech savvy as some. I think if people knew that there were office hours for somebody that could help them with those basic things. That could be incredibly helpful for somebody looking for a job. that doesn't quite know how to get their feet under them and get started. THE FAMILY IS A So that's one way that I think it would be amazing. I had a nice chat with Abbott when I was considering applying for this and he mentioned that, um, some renovations are in store long-term for the library for some accessibility. And if we were to maybe somehow reconfigure how the computers are so that there was more of a dedicated space that felt a little more |
| 00:33:57.89 | William Ehrensberg | There were a lot of people that were |
| 00:34:01.70 | Becky Singer | conducive to that kind of work. That could also be a lovely thing to consider. |
| 00:34:08.12 | Unknown | Yeah, thank you. Appreciate that insight. |
| 00:34:10.56 | Shira Barnett | Thank you. |
| 00:34:10.60 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:34:10.63 | Shira Barnett | Sure. Yeah, I like those suggestions. And I'm thinking years ago in the Belvedere Library had that where you could set up an appointment and someone would work usually with a child. I think that's terrific. And Melissa, in terms of your... You're thinking, I don't have suggestions right now But I think it's a wonderful thing to brainstorm about. It seems really, really. IMPORTANT. really crucial. Thank you. |
| 00:34:41.48 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. |
| 00:34:41.49 | Shira Barnett | Yeah. |
| 00:34:41.68 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. |
| 00:34:41.71 | Shira Barnett | Thank you. |
| 00:34:41.73 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. That's a great question. Okay, anybody else have a question or if you'll indulge me, I can ask mine. Okay, so demographics of Sausalito are shifting. We are getting more young families. And either been more and more requests for more programs for students and for young children and some of those programs, of course, in coordination with Marin City, what are some ideas that you could bring to the table for some new programming around our younger population. and John, Becky, and Shira. |
| 00:35:20.76 | John Walsham | Well, perhaps you won't get to go first, I'm not sure. We do have a very active children's program. In fact, the Friends of the Library underwrites a lot of the children's programming, and that's an emphasis for the Friends of the Library. |
| 00:35:39.29 | John Walsham | I don't see... what else we can do for the children in Sausalito and what we're doing now. But I do think that it's important that we sustain that and fund it for Trumpling. And funding is an area that the city has not always been faithful to the library. So I'd like to be sure that that is faithful going forward. The city doesn't look so much to the friends and the foundation to support them with money for auxiliary programs that the city should be paying for. |
| 00:36:03.09 | William Ehrensberg | you |
| 00:36:22.37 | Unknown | Thank you, John, appreciate that. Thank you. |
| 00:36:24.68 | Becky Singer | Becky, your thoughts? |
| 00:36:25.70 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:36:26.37 | Becky Singer | Sure, well, I know that we have a new children's librarian and I'm hearing wonderful things about them. So I'm excited to see what ideas they have for the future of the children's section of the library. But I think in particular, Reminding kids that the library is there and it's a fun place to be. And this is just, I mean, I think the story times and I know that, I know they've been thinking about doing those in a park, which would be amazing. I think more interaction with kids that are there, trying to encourage them to try a new book based on an interest, just sort helping them find their path to having fun with reading. I think kids get a little detached from reading these days because they're a little focused on screens. But I mean, I think everybody would say that the books that they read as a kid are the books that shaped them. And so I think if we could get into, you know, particularly the elementary school in Marin City and maybe let them have a field trip over here. just to explore the library and see what their possibilities are, things like that. Just to remind them that the library exists and is a fun resource. And it's a place where you can have any book you want for free. That's amazing. |
| 00:37:41.74 | Unknown | True story. Thank you for that. Shira, your thoughts? |
| 00:37:49.35 | Shira Barnett | I, Thank you. I think we could probably, I don't know if any theater has been created for these little kids, do they ever get to act out these stories? And of course, You know, we have a wonderful outside lawn. We see a lot of children there. I'm probably A young people's theater group would be very good. Um, helpful and I don't know. I think everything that I've heard sounds good. Um, I think it would be good to also have, and I don't think we have it here. but like a, sort of a big brother, big sister. Do you have that now? Big brother, big sister? little kids are read to. And I'm curious, do we have children in our library reading to animals? because that's a wonderful experience. Do we have that here in Sausalito? |
| 00:38:59.36 | Mayor Kelman | Not that I know of, but love the idea. |
| 00:39:02.70 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:39:03.53 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. |
| 00:39:03.55 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:39:03.90 | Mayor Kelman | Yeah. |
| 00:39:03.97 | Unknown | Sure. |
| 00:39:04.31 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. |
| 00:39:04.32 | Unknown | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 00:39:04.86 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. |
| 00:39:04.90 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:39:05.82 | Mayor Kelman | Well, thank you everybody. Really thoughtful, creative answers. Appreciate that. We are out of time. So I will thank you for your that. for your time today. I'll just remind everybody, we are gonna vote May 10th. at the next meeting when it's on the agenda. So thank you and we'll see you hopefully on May 10th. Bye. Thank you. Right, we're gonna move over to the Parks and Recreation Commission. So the Parks and Immigration Commission We have two applicants today. I don't know if I need to read the purpose of the Parks and Recreation Commission, but I'll just read the first section. Purpose of the Parks and Recreation Commission is to advise the city council on matters pertaining to the activities of the Parks and Recreation Department. Any Commission recommendations involving alterations or improvements of parks, playgrounds, recreation areas, shall be submitted to the city council and community development department Um, and then there are four subheadings advising on planning and policy matters advising Parks and Recreation Department and Public Works Department on planning and policy matters relating to the creation, operation, maintenance, management and control of the parks, playgrounds, community recreation programs, advising on the management, execution, installation, or placement of the public art in public places within the city, and receiving community input concerning parks and recreation activities, as well as public art. |
| 00:40:24.78 | Jill Hoffman | Madam Mayor our city clerk has her hand up. |
| 00:40:27.40 | Serge Avila | Yes. Thank you. |
| 00:40:28.09 | Jill Hoffman | Yes. |
| 00:40:28.39 | Serge Avila | Yes. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Just wanted to let the council know that Paige Selinsky withdrew her application yesterday. So we'll only be interviewing one person for this committee, which is Evelyn Johnson. |
| 00:40:48.12 | Mayor Kelman | Okay, thank you, city clerk. Then Avalon, welcome. that I saw you. If you could put on a video, is that possible? |
| 00:41:02.36 | Mayor Kelman | There we go. Welcome and Serge, Here we go. We are unmuted. No, we are back to meeting. Can you assist with the unmuting? |
| 00:41:14.50 | Serge Avila | Thank you. We're making you co-host now, so you should be able to unmute yourself. Thank you. |
| 00:41:20.47 | Mayor Kelman | Okay, great. Welcome. Well, we are very interested to hear about you and your interest in serving on the Parks and Recreation Commission. So you have the floor. |
| 00:41:32.06 | Unknown | Hi, I'm sorry, I had a, bad internet connection and so my Zoom dropped so I missed the entire intro. My name is Avalon Johnson and I'm a new resident of Sausalito and I, as a new resident, I've never really lived anywhere where I've wanted to take part in the community, but as a new resident of Sasa Vida, I've really failed I wanted to contribute and so I that's why I have applied for this end position and because I've had a lot of interaction in the past with as a user of the Parks and Rec system for my daughter when I was a working mom, I really think it's super important. And so that's why I wanted to apply for this position. THE FAMILY IS |
| 00:42:31.03 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. Yes, Vice Mayor. |
| 00:42:32.59 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:42:33.51 | Unknown | So Evelyn, in looking at your resume, thank you for submitting those materials with us. It looks like you are very into water-based recreation, which is definitely a hobby that I share. And it seems like you were really involved in that in Southern California. And we have a really beautiful waterfront here in Sausalito, which I'm sure you've noticed. Do you have ideas for community waterfront recreation, given that we are on the water here in town? |
| 00:42:59.80 | Unknown | you I paddle outrigger canoe and uh outrigger i don't know if you know a lot about over a good canoeing but it's uh um it's a uh six person canoe and in socal we had a huge um Kiki they call it program where the kids would come out and they would paddle outrigger canoes. So offering something like that. And being a new resident, I really don't know a lot about what's offered. I know that the sailing clubs offer sailing programs, but I'm not sure what we, and I'm sure we've done it, what we've done as far as sailing is concerned, |
| 00:43:26.07 | William Ehrensberg | Oh, my God. |
| 00:43:33.06 | William Ehrensberg | I knew anything. |
| 00:43:46.10 | Unknown | Uh. So rig a canoeing or canoeing, which is actually very easy and very team oriented. Something like that would be like a great addition. So, As far as other ideas, I really don't have a lot of ideas right now, but I think that's something. Thank you, thank you, Evelyn. I thought they should have a nice way. |
| 00:44:12.41 | Vice Mayor Blasby | I thought they should have been |
| 00:44:14.97 | Mayor Kelman | person to apply in and This is what's happened. I thought she was gonna ask you about your swimming background, but so she kind of almost hit it, yeah. |
| 00:44:22.11 | Vivian | Oh, wow. |
| 00:44:23.90 | Mayor Kelman | Other questions for the applicant? I do have one as well, but I'm So, so I'm gonna ask you, you have a quite a robust engineering background. and many of our parks are in a waterfront location that could and may in fact already have some sort of engineering and maintenance concerns so for example Dunphy Park does flood during big storm events and we have some other maintenance that we are sort of pursuing at our other parks and we just invested a lot of money what what are some |
| 00:44:36.10 | William Ehrensberg | Yeah. |
| 00:45:01.53 | Mayor Kelman | What are some aspects of your engineering background that you think you might wanna bring to bear that kind of provide a unique attribute to this commission? |
| 00:45:12.26 | Unknown | I'm not sure. |
| 00:45:16.05 | Unknown | That's interesting. As far as like, because my engineering background right now is in systems and computers, I don't have a big civil engineering background, which is, it would be beneficial as far as the really detailed planning are concerned, but the ability to understand where I did two years of common engineering. So the ability to, understand technical drawings, the ability to understand what we call engineering ease, I guess, if we're born with a better word. And I've been, I've actually spent a lot of time doing architectural drawings and So in that aspect, uh, Besides that, I'm not sure. Um, |
| 00:46:11.16 | Unknown | I think it comes like it's difficult for me to say because it's actually second, maybe second nature, but we'll see. Amen. you |
| 00:46:24.41 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. Thank you for that. |
| 00:46:25.49 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:46:26.45 | Mayor Kelman | Okay, well, we just asked everybody else only two questions, so I will pause there. Thank you for your time. And I don't know if you heard us before, but we are going to be doing the appointments on May 10th. We're not doing that today. So we'll just see you at this council meeting on May 10th. And thank you for your time. All right. Thank you very much. Thanks. Bye. Thank you. |
| 00:46:38.97 | Unknown | Okay. |
| 00:46:40.84 | William Ehrensberg | So, |
| 00:46:40.89 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 00:46:41.28 | William Ehrensberg | to see. |
| 00:46:48.35 | Mayor Kelman | Okay, our last committee today is the Economic Development Advisory Committee, otherwise known as EDAC. And let's see, we have how many, number of folks. Is everybody on city clerk? |
| 00:47:02.14 | Serge Avila | Madam Mayor, it looks like we're still waiting for... Oh Pedro, just our people just coming in, so give me a minute and I'll co-host them. |
| 00:47:14.73 | Mayor Kelman | Okay, and then I'm also gonna ask you to reconfirmed because we had some late male Um, And I'm not sure if the interview schedule list that we have in our packet is the most up to date. So if you could just reconfirm everybody who is an applicant for this committee that would be very helpful. |
| 00:47:34.76 | Serge Avila | Sure. So, um, The applicants that we have for the Economic Development Advisory Committee, would be Jay Joy, Alex, Jarrett, |
| 00:47:45.12 | Walfred Solorzano | Robin. |
| 00:47:45.27 | Serge Avila | Robin Willender, Alison Healy, Fred Moore, Amir Kayani, Fareed Ndjibi, and Peter Van Meter. Thank you. |
| 00:47:57.39 | Mayor Kelman | Okay. And then Serge Farid and PETER. are not in our packet, but information to go out by email, correct? |
| 00:48:08.83 | Serge Avila | That is correct, Madam Mayor, and we did send out, and we confirmed verbally over the phone yesterday, and they were supposed to be here. |
| 00:48:17.01 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:48:17.03 | Mayor Kelman | Okay, great. |
| 00:48:17.72 | Serge Avila | Great, so- I'll report that I read this here, except for Cedar Van Meter. |
| 00:48:21.79 | Mayor Kelman | So, okay, everybody's here except for Peter. Well, I don't know if you want to and, um, I will start because we have quite a few people here and everyone has two minutes. So we'll go in this order. I don't know if you saw the prior communications, but basically we'd like to know a little bit about you, why you decided to, Oh, here's Peter. a little bit about yourself, why you decided to apply for the economic development advisory committee and what sort of unique or special approach or talent you might bring to the committee that we should consider. So we'll go in this order. We'll go a Joy, Alex, Robin, Alison, Fred, Amir, Fareed, and Peter. |
| 00:49:00.25 | Serge Avila | And Madam Mayor sorry to interrupt I am looking for Alex Jared if you are in the room if you can quickly raise your hands, I can co host you. Otherwise, Madam Mayor, it doesn't seem that I'm getting a response. |
| 00:49:15.62 | Mayor Kelman | Okay, well, we'll still start with a joy and then we'll see if Alex is here. And if not, we'll go right to Robin. Okay. And if I mispronounce your name, please correct me immediately. So don't do it again. Thank you. |
| 00:49:29.66 | Ajoy Kanderia | All right, enjoy you are up. and regional I'm Ajoy Kanderia and we moved back to the Bay Area, Marin Chambni actually four years ago from India. And first round in the Bay Area was 1991 onwards. We've always been in Marin. I've had a very wide experience in all kinds of startup businesses, large companies, Fortune 500 companies, etc. And for the last 20 years, I've been an entrepreneur and have built companies in tech and medical space, healthcare space. Today, we run healthcare companies in California and Texas and live in Cota Madero. My daughter is opening a restaurant in Sausalito and has met many of you. It's on the first floor of the Trident building and she suggested that rather than spending my time contributing as a volunteer in other organizations, I should take part in Sausalito, which is going to be our home, her home, our home, if you may. I do believe that my experience in building companies in all kinds of spaces can help, although I'm not sure what Sausalito needs. It's a city that is incredibly well-run, incredibly rewarding to all the residents, both economically and otherwise. So I'm not so sure what any one of us could add to that, but if at all there isn't anything we can bring of value, A privilege? I have also a really good connect in the global space because I've been a member of YPO, a young president's organization for the last 20 years. And YPO has a presence globally, including in the San Francisco area. So I will let that go for now and be open to any questions that I'm going to have. |
| 00:51:34.16 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you very much, and welcome to town, and eager to see a new restaurant at the Dry-Op. Okay, Alex. Do we have Alex yet? |
| 00:51:44.96 | Serge Avila | All right, not seeing Alex? No, Alex, Madam Mayor. |
| 00:51:45.49 | Mayor Kelman | Senors? Okay, moving right on to Robin. Welcome Robin. |
| 00:51:49.97 | Robin Wolaner | See you. Hi, thanks. I'm Robin Wolaner. I'm talking to you from Maine right now because I am supporting the town of Sausalito with all my building permits I'm renovating. renovating my home on Marie Street. I moved to Sausalito two years ago during lockdown. and um have known it as a San Francisco residence for 40 years. My background in business, like the background I just heard about also a YPO member of longstanding, but I'm the founder of Parenting Magazine, a former Time Warner, Sunset, seeing that executive I now sit on boards and help startups. So while my experience in business is not particularly the retail kinds of businesses that I see in Sausalito, eager to give back to the community. And that's why I sent you my resume. Thank you. |
| 00:52:43.62 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you, appreciate that very much. Our next applicant, Alison Healy. Oh, Allison, you are muted. |
| 00:53:01.02 | Alison Healy | Hi everyone. I'm Alison Healy. I moved to Sausalito in 1999. I had a nonprofit at the time that was working with the international naval tall ships And so a lot of my time was spent traveling internationally in order to recruit and host them. and handle their diplomatic work and plan the tall ship events, which you might've seen in the Bay from Alaska down to San Diego. Um, So that's one of the many ways I feel like I could fit in I have a strong maritime background. My husband and I started a business two years ago, which is Marine Engineering and Boat Repair. He's a Naval engineer from Mexico. So we are a female and minority owned business. and we both love everything maritime. I would love to see some kind of a festival, if you will. a maritime and arts festival here, which would demonstrate in person various trades and tools of the art and the maritime industry. So you could see knot tying or you could see how to mix paints, whatever one specialty was from the innovation zone. kinds of concepts. There's so many cool things going on there like sonar and |
| 00:54:27.82 | William Ehrensberg | like, |
| 00:54:29.63 | Alison Healy | and so forth and pieces of that can be demonstrated as just one thought. I also was the director of a renewable energy for the city of San Francisco and have a a graduate education in climate and would be happy to jump in there. I worked a lot in hospitality and tourism before that and have a longstanding relationship with San Francisco city hall and related folks. I wasn't in Sausalito that often until- |
| 00:55:05.12 | Mayor Kelman | I'm sorry to interrupt you, Allison. I just want to stay consistent on two minutes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But thank you. That was... Thank you so much. Thank you. |
| 00:55:09.83 | Alison Healy | Yeah, yeah, yeah. Thank you so much. |
| 00:55:14.06 | Mayor Kelman | Uh, Fred Moore. |
| 00:55:16.17 | Fred Moore | Morning, hi, I'm Fred Moore. My wife and I are fairly new to Sausalito, about a year and a half. |
| 00:55:18.16 | Mayor Kelman | My wife and I. |
| 00:55:22.43 | Fred Moore | We're looking for opportunities to get involved with the city and help contribute. I'm a lawyer specializing in commercial and real estate development. I've been doing that for 38 years. With respect to things that we hope we can bring to the committee and to the city is an openness to the various ideas and the direction where the city council wants to see the city. Obviously Sausalito is a very unique in that it's very tourist oriented. Yeah, you'd also, you're balancing that with serving the local population and having resident shop local versus tourism and how you balance those two, especially with the city has various economic issues that is dealing with right now and how to balance those and be a sustainable city. So I hope that I could bring to the group an openness to ideas, a willingness to share and vet various ideas to come up with the direction that best suits where the city council wants to see the city end up. SO I APPRECIATE YOU CONSIDERING ME. |
| 00:56:24.90 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you, friend. Amir Kayani. |
| 00:56:29.71 | Amir Kayani | Hi, good morning. Moved to Marin about 40-plus years ago and subsequently joined the U.S. State Department. So I was a senior U.S. diplomat looking after commercial and economic portfolio all over the world. and then retired from the State Department took over as a CEO and chairman of board of a subsidiary of defense contractor in the Middle East, ran that for 70 years. and moved back about three years ago to Sausalito where we live. And since then, I've been working for an M&A firm, focused mostly on startup businesses and scaling up I also volunteer with the county, Marin County. I'm on their personnel commission, as well as volunteering with small business administration, mentoring small businesses. So very much looking forward to contributing in terms of the economic development of our city. I really believe in sustainable economic development and hopefully the experience that I have internationally I'll be able to contribute to make this city more desirable place. Thanks. |
| 00:57:35.09 | Unknown | Thank you. Looks like Fareed, you are up next. |
| 00:57:41.09 | Fareed Najibi | Hello, all. My name is Fareed Najibi. I've been in Sausalito for over 40 years. And my family are the owner of Barola Gallery downtown for over 40 years. I joined the business a little over 20 years ago. I also have an educational background in economics and real estate. So I have a very unique understanding of downtown Sausalito and the economy of Sausalito as well. So I think I can add significant value that way with a very, very unique perspective. And I just want to add value to the town that I've been in for so long and that has given so much to me and my family. And I want to make sure that we're headed on the right track and keep Sausalito the way it was over the last 45 years. So anything I can do to add value in that situation is what I'm here for. |
| 00:58:36.82 | Mayor Kelman | Okay, thank you very much. And Peter, welcome. |
| 00:58:41.10 | Vice Mayor Blasby | You just lost a balloon. I agree. |
| 00:58:42.79 | Peter Van Meter | Good morning, Gus. What a great group of... All right. |
| 00:58:48.10 | Mayor Kelman | Yeah, you're back, you're back. That was a little interlude. |
| 00:58:52.51 | Peter Van Meter | Oh, okay. I just gonna say what they're a great group of candidates for this assignment today. |
| 00:58:57.52 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 00:58:57.62 | Peter Van Meter | What I think I bring to this is a very diverse business career, including all aspects of finance, technical, engineering. In my real estate career, I was very much an expert, I would like to say, in commercial properties and the retail and industrial sectors. I both apply to Sausalito. |
| 00:58:57.66 | Walfred Solorzano | Yeah. |
| 00:59:17.42 | Peter Van Meter | I also have had a very lengthy opportunity to serve the city of South Salido in a number of capacities over an extended period of time. And I'd like to continue that service to the city on the EDAC. And I think that my diverse qualifications of business career and city service help in making me be productive in that job. Thank you. |
| 00:59:41.48 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you, Peter. Well, thank you everybody. Very much appreciate that. So now we're gonna open up. We're gonna take two questions from council members. So I will ask council members who has a question. |
| 00:59:57.39 | Mayor Kelman | Some of us are already |
| 00:59:58.03 | Councilmember Cleveland Knowles | questions. |
| 00:59:58.68 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. |
| 01:00:01.02 | Councilmember Cleveland Knowles | Well, I'd love to hear maybe our EDAC council liaisons. I don't know kind of what you guys are prioritizing right now with EDAC, but if you don't have questions, I guess I, Thank you. either Ian or Janelle don't have questions. |
| 01:00:16.16 | Mayor Kelman | No, it's actually... Thank you. |
| 01:00:17.09 | Councilmember Cleveland Knowles | Jill had a, oh, sorry, right. |
| 01:00:18.08 | Jill Hoffman | Oh, sorry. |
| 01:00:19.68 | Unknown | Bye. |
| 01:00:19.72 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, go ahead and I've got a question after. |
| 01:00:19.79 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:00:19.80 | Councilmember Cleveland Knowles | Okay. |
| 01:00:22.67 | Jill Hoffman | Okay. As one of the EDAC liaisons along with Councilmember Sobieski, I want to welcome and thank everybody for your applications. As always, I'm blown away by the level of expertise that our residents bring to the table and your willingness to devote time and effort to our town. One of the things you know we're looking at at EDAC is you know, how we're perceived outside of Sausalito and what we think our brand would be. you know, I'm a sailor kind of person. So I like Allison's thoughts on, you know, the maritime history of Sausalito. And, and of course we have our, are the tall ship of Sausalito, the Matthew Turner. Also, you know, I would like to hear maybe if understanding that I'm just sort of throwing this on you guys at the last second, what you would think about, or what you would think would be the way forward for Sausalito to, establish what our brand would be and how we would establish that in the context of our economic diversity and sustainability. |
| 01:01:33.48 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. |
| 01:01:33.50 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah. |
| 01:01:33.78 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. |
| 01:01:33.80 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 01:01:33.87 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. Great, great question, Councilman Hoffman. Thank you. We're gonna hear from everybody. So we're gonna go in the order that we did before. So Ajoy, Robin, Alison, Fred, Amer, Farid, and Peter. So Ajoy, you are up first. Don't worry, the next question will reverse it. So Peter, you'll go first on the next question. |
| 01:01:52.97 | Ajoy Kanderia | Thank you so much. Thank you. It's really hard to answer that question because Sausalito has a brand |
| 01:01:59.30 | Walfred Solorzano | Right. |
| 01:02:00.23 | Ajoy Kanderia | Very, very well recognized, and I'll... over the last several years have worked in 72 countries. Anybody that comes to the Bay Area comes to South Africa. |
| 01:02:06.91 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. |
| 01:02:09.96 | Ajoy Kanderia | I think what we need to do is continue to preserve the entertainment, the food, and the views. I think what you're planning on doing is opening up the dock next to 558 Bridgeway for for boats to come in will probably make it even more interesting because different people from different parts of the Bay Area can come in here. If I had to say something, I would say that if we are able to improve the parking situation in Sazamito, we will be able to attract more people. Brand wise, I think you are where you are. I mean, I don't know what more you can do to improve it. It's the best brand possible. |
| 01:02:42.90 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 01:02:53.16 | Robin Wolaner | Thank you, LaJoy. Robin, your thoughts? I'm a branding person. I began my career at Penthouse Magazine. I helped on that brand and I've had all sorts of different brands. I'm in Kennebunkport right now, which is the Sausalito of the East Coast with the bushes. So I like our Sausalito brand a bit better than that. |
| 01:03:00.88 | William Ehrensberg | And, |
| 01:03:12.37 | Robin Wolaner | I don't know enough about what your business goals are in terms of this brand. I think the brand is really strong. as demonstrated by the number of visitors. So I would really want to talk to you guys a lot more before coming up with something, but it would be my honor. Thank you. |
| 01:03:30.05 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you, Robin. Alison, your thoughts? Thank you. |
| 01:03:33.49 | Alison Healy | Thank you. I agree with Robin. I would want to have a lot more information to even have an overview to correctly answer the question. I think as strong as the branding is, what to me doesn't appear to be clear enough is the maritime aspect. You don't really see it. And so I think it needs to be promoted more and encouraged more. Tours would be one way of doing that. because a lot of the businesses are hidden in the friendship. I mean, You can't even get to them unless someone's leading you. And similarly for the art, the ICB. events are great, but there's a lot more going on. And so I'd like to see some of those creative aspects highlighted along with the business to help the brand bring in a more diverse group of people who know that those things are offered here. |
| 01:04:33.18 | Unknown | Thank you. Appreciate that perspective, Alison. Fred, your thoughts? |
| 01:04:37.32 | Fred Moore | Thank you very much. And I hate to punt the question as well, but I think part of the issue is really where the city council wants to see the city based on the current economics. I think the city has a brand right now as clearly it's a local beach type, not beach, but a waterfront property city that people are going to come to no matter what the brand is. So I think the issue is now with the economics where the city wants to take it, how well do you continue to focus at whether, what kind of brand you put on or not, people are going to come to Sausalito. So I think the issue becomes how well do you serve those people and intermix those with the residents and how the church. Thank you. resident. Yeah. Co-exist or don't coexist with the businesses downtown known for are hidden off of the main part of the town. And if that's an issue that you want to continue to focus on, maybe there's a way to bring the arts closer to the center where people come in and where their tourists are there as well as the residents. But I think again, it would be one that really understanding what the city council wants to do with the finances. |
| 01:05:47.85 | Mayor Kelman | Appreciate that. Thanks for that perspective. PREVENT. Amir Kayani. |
| 01:05:53.74 | Amir Kayani | Yeah, I mean, as far as the brand is concerned, as everyone said that very well known brand all over the world, you know, anyone I talk to and tell them where I live, they say, oh, what beautiful Sausalito. So I think the most important thing for us as a city is going to be, depending upon the council's, of course, priorities, how can we attract more sustainable businesses, economically sustainable businesses, and that would help us generate more revenue for the city because the fiscal situation of the city is fairly dire right now. So whatever we do, we'll need to bring in more sustainability so that we can have revenues flowing into the city so that we can maintain the roads that we need to attract more tourists. |
| 01:06:35.84 | Unknown | Thank you, Mayor. Fareed, you're up next. |
| 01:06:40.15 | Fareed Najibi | So as everybody has mentioned, our global brand is extremely strong. And I see that every day as visitors come from all over the country, all over the world, and all over the Bay Area. So the global brand is very strong. It's been very strong for the last 40 years. Right now we're at a crossroads, and we're trying to determine where that global brand is going. Are we going to be a Fisherman's Wharf style brand, or are we going to be the quaint little European town that we've been so famous for over the last 45 years plus? I think we want to be that quaint little European town and not become a mini version of Fisherman's Wharf. So with the council's guidance and various colleagues in town, we should, you know, try and head down that road. So that's kind of where I see the global brand now and where it has been and where it should go. |
| 01:07:38.47 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you, Farid. Appreciate that. Peter, you have the... Last comment on this question. |
| 01:07:43.75 | Peter Van Meter | Yeah, branding is essentially marketing. And I think as in marketing anything, it's really listing the features and the benefits to the experience. And in my observation, Sausseo has so many diverse opportunities. You've got the maritime, you've got the retail, you've got the hillside community, You've got the bay. You've got so many different attributes that I would see the branding being multifaceted basically try to hit every one of those positive aspects so that a visitor that isn't interested in one section and go to that particular destination, someone who's interested in something else, say, you know, high-class dining can go somewhere else. So in my view, the marketing uh, image should be multifaceted. |
| 01:08:32.44 | Mayor Kelman | THANK YOU, PETER. Okay, we're gonna take one more question. Council Member of Cleveland Knowles, do you so much to ask your question? |
| 01:08:41.18 | Councilmember Cleveland Knowles | Oh, yeah. Thank you, Mayor. Council member Hoffman's question got to some of the points I think that I was going to ask about. My question was sort of about economic resiliency and sort of a vision for the next 10 years post COVID that would help kind of protect our local economy from other I hopefully we won't have another global pandemic, but from other kind of ups and downs of the market. And I think some of the folks who spoke already spoke to economic resiliency, and economic vision for Sassolito. But I guess if people have things to add, I'd be really interested, especially as we We come out of the COVID environment, have seen not as much an emphasis on office space. more work from home, You know, our marineship industry has done very well during the pandemic. |
| 01:09:37.96 | Walfred Solorzano | you |
| 01:09:38.59 | Councilmember Cleveland Knowles | So any thoughts people have on that? Thank you. |
| 01:09:41.05 | Mayor Kelman | you. Great question, I'll echo that. And we're open to new ideas and suggestions. So we're gonna go Peter, Fareed, Amir, Fred, Alison, Robin, and Ajoy. So Peter, you have the floor. |
| 01:09:54.21 | Peter Van Meter | All right, well, the main economic driver of Sausalito is our industrial area. So to me, important thing, pardon me, is to expand. and to enforce and enhance, pardon me, the opportunities in our working water fence pardon me, industrial area, because that's really the biggest tax base and revenue producer for South Pasadena. And also on the retail segment, which is extremely important to encourage a merchants association type organization within our Chamber of Commerce that, where the merchants themselves go out and promote Verse. new businesses to come into town. Because the greater mix of retail businesses that you have, the better base you're gonna have to produce revenue and in fact, have all merchants perform well. So I think really emphasizing not only retail, but mainly our industrial component for long-term is the best approach in my opinion. |
| 01:10:54.76 | Unknown | Thank you, Peter. I'm for reading. |
| 01:10:57.66 | Fareed Najibi | I think that the last few years have given us an idea of what would happen if there was another downturn, as did 9-11 and other downturns that we've had in the past. Sauce Lido always seems to bounce back. I don't know if it's because of our location or our global brand or whatever it may be. But I think it's really about reiterating that global brand that has made us so famous. I think that that is the economic resiliency and that's what will keep people coming to Salsi. really about reiterating that global brand that has made us so famous. I think that that is the economic resiliency and that's what will keep people coming to Salcido as visitors and as to open businesses and in the industrial section and all over town. So I think it's just reiterating where we've been and moving forward with that same top of mind idea. |
| 01:11:44.56 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. I'm here. |
| 01:11:48.57 | Amir Kayani | I would echo what Farron and other like said, but also I would add to is that given our location at the heart of Silicon Valley, really what we'd be looking at is also attracting new economy businesses, digital economy businesses, where we can perhaps have a innovation zone within the industrial area, where we can start up either an accelerator or startup kind of situation so that we can attract more, new economy types of businesses, because if we continue to rely on tourism, and if we, God forbid, have another situation, such as the COVID, you know, the town becomes a ghost town. No one is coming in, which really hurts our economy overall, but also the revenue stream for the city. So really, we should be looking at outside the box sort of solutions for it. |
| 01:12:41.86 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you, Mayor. Fred. |
| 01:12:44.46 | Fred Moore | I think in connection with the city's eventual idea where you talked earlier about the branding of the city, where you want to go, I think can be mixed with looking at types of businesses that help promote that brand. And then in connection with that, because of the- Hi, sorry. |
| 01:12:59.89 | Vice Mayor Blasby | Hi, sorry. We did an event here last night and this video, yesterday we leave it in our office. We have a hot water cooler. Left a bottle of champagne in there. |
| 01:13:05.62 | Unknown | Yeah, no. |
| 01:13:06.33 | William Ehrensberg | Thank you. I'm sorry. |
| 01:13:06.96 | Unknown | THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 01:13:07.13 | William Ehrensberg | THE END OF |
| 01:13:08.14 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:13:08.24 | Walfred Solorzano | Yeah. |
| 01:13:08.41 | Unknown | Bye. |
| 01:13:08.46 | Walfred Solorzano | I'm not going to. |
| 01:13:09.83 | Councilmember Sobieski | I'm hearing. |
| 01:13:12.76 | Vice Mayor Blasby | She said, okay, my name is Vicki Nichols. |
| 01:13:15.88 | Councilmember Sobieski | Madam Mayor, I'm not sure what that is. |
| 01:13:17.17 | Vice Mayor Blasby | I can show you the message. |
| 01:13:19.01 | Councilmember Sobieski | YEAH. |
| 01:13:19.43 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. |
| 01:13:19.53 | Vice Mayor Blasby | Thank you. |
| 01:13:19.55 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 01:13:19.75 | Vice Mayor Blasby | Thank you. |
| 01:13:19.77 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. Thank you. Let me, let me, uh, Can you text her or somebody? Sorry to interrupt, Fred. |
| 01:13:26.73 | Fred Moore | Oh, no problem at all. I was saying with the city branding and so forth, having to work with the private and the public property owners is the issue of how you get businesses in there. I think that's always a challenge. So I think there needs to be some inner workings with the city helping to promote private businesses through encouraging them to get the types of businesses and uses in the community that are going to help assist the brand and help with the economics. And I think that's an interesting interplay, whether you, what type of solutions the city can have to encourage those business owners to switch from the maybe the unsustainable type of businesses or the businesses that serve a very small group that aren't really contributing to the economics. And I think part of that goes back to, again, the branding and coming up with ideas of what types of businesses would revitalize the downtown and what would be ones that are interested to both tourists as well as the residents. I think you have to balance that and not overdo the tourism, I't think and push the residents to outside. So I think that's a balancing act that you could do with I've suggested one of the things I submitted on my application was having a contest also with various planning institutions and colleges that they're city planners and if you put a contest up for a middle amount of money, they can come with some great ideas that might be new and different from what you're normally thinking because they're in the industry right now. |
| 01:14:45.29 | William Ehrensberg | Thank you. |
| 01:14:45.31 | Vice Mayor Blasby | Yeah. |
| 01:14:50.50 | Vice Mayor Blasby | I had it to share with our staff at the end of the thing is a little toast, but we didn't get to it. So it's not personal. |
| 01:14:56.49 | Walfred Solorzano | That's not personal, Fred. |
| 01:14:57.51 | Fred Moore | Oh, |
| 01:14:57.94 | Serge Avila | Okay. |
| 01:14:58.30 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. |
| 01:14:58.55 | Walfred Solorzano | Okay. Thank you. |
| 01:14:59.36 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. |
| 01:14:59.40 | Vice Mayor Blasby | Yeah. |
| 01:14:59.50 | Serge Avila | Uh, you know... |
| 01:14:59.97 | Mayor Kelman | No. |
| 01:15:01.34 | Serge Avila | I'm going to ask everyone to mute, and then as you speak, the co-host should be able to unmute themselves. Sorry about that. |
| 01:15:10.01 | Mayor Kelman | Okay. Sorry, Fred, I want to make sure. It's okay. Okay. Sorry about that. |
| 01:15:12.57 | Fred Moore | It's okay. Sorry about that. |
| 01:15:16.15 | Mayor Kelman | Very odd moment there. Okay, well, Alison, |
| 01:15:23.04 | Alison Healy | Hi, I think it's a multifaceted challenge and everyone who's come before me has addressed some of it. |
| 01:15:23.09 | Mayor Kelman | Bye. |
| 01:15:32.03 | Alison Healy | it would, it would, the task would begin with deciding what the priorities are and laying them out. What are the categories that need to be addressed? And one of the overarching themes I think needs to be environment. That's part of resiliency. And that's a way that we could be a cutting edge city. I could add to our reputation. and also celebrating the things that are not retail stores that are happening here through signage, through presentations, the various ways that could be done. so that it's not only maritime, but everything else that's happening here. Even as a resident, when I go downtown, I'm generalizing, but it's for tourists it's not for residents it's a lot of T-shirt shops. So I'd like to see some more interesting things. Of course, the economy has to support that, I think it could be a mixture. and that would help to define us. in a way that could make us more competitive One other thing that hasn't been mentioned is partnering with other cities has the potential to give us a lot more visibility and bang for our buck. And maybe there is a community of cities that could work together or a partnership with the city of San Francisco, I don't know, but I think we could do something as a group. Thank you, Elsa. Thank you so much. I appreciate that. |
| 01:17:05.42 | Robin Wolaner | Thank you. |
| 01:17:06.31 | Alison Healy | Thank you. |
| 01:17:06.35 | Robin Wolaner | Robin and then enjoy. Okay, we're just about out of time, so I want to speak fast, which is what I usually do anyhow. I'm part of the Marin-Sonoma Impact Ventures, which is the first regional startup fund for startups in the North Bay. And I think that looking at how we attract in this world where the downtown San Francisco is not going to be attracting a lot of startups to it, Sausalito is a perfect place for the kind of hybrid workspace that we're seeing grow. So I'm very interested in that. And there's a wealth of startups in Marin and Sonoma that could have their workspaces in Sausalito. So I'm pretty interested in that. |
| 01:17:46.54 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. |
| 01:17:46.56 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 01:17:46.73 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. |
| 01:17:46.80 | Robin Wolaner | Thank you. Interesting. |
| 01:17:47.98 | Mayor Kelman | Thanks, Robin. |
| 01:17:48.82 | Robin Wolaner | Thank you. |
| 01:17:49.14 | Mayor Kelman | And enjoy, why don't you finish this off. |
| 01:17:51.44 | Ajoy Kanderia | I echo what Amir and Robin just said. I believe that Sausalito's revenues will always be tourists and restaurants and retail outlets. The objective of the economic committee should be to try and make sure these guys stay successful. to keep these guys successful we need to have more tourists in place and we need to have more people in place and having a startup ecosystem having incubators will get us people who generate extremely high revenue per employee rather than industrial employees you know the new edge technology people who are very very highPUs, those people will bring in revenues to our existing tourist schools. I believe that's what we need to focus on. We need to focus on our strength and do what we can to augment it. I also agree with Robin that Sausalito being Sausalito and the flag bearer for the Bay Area should be focused on sustainability for the planet and good for the Earth. I'm not sure. We have a committee at YPO globally that focuses on planet. I am the founding member there. |
| 01:19:08.50 | William Ehrensberg | The focus is on the |
| 01:19:11.42 | Ajoy Kanderia | And I can help bring that here if and when required. |
| 01:19:11.85 | William Ehrensberg | and help. |
| 01:19:15.20 | Ajoy Kanderia | Lastly, for the last, you know, maybe Sausalito has a new basketball team and we promote Warrior swimming to Sausalito. Thank you. |
| 01:19:23.51 | Mayor Kelman | I appreciate that new idea. Well, thank you everybody. This has been so interesting and once again blown away by the intellectual capital we have here in Sausalito. This is going to conclude our interview process. We are not voting or making appointments today. We will, however, be handling that at the May 10th City Council meeting. So I hope you will all return on May 10th. And I appreciate your time and your energy this morning. So have a wonderful weekend. Enjoy your Saturday. Thanks, everybody. Thank you so much. |
| 01:19:50.52 | Fareed Najibi | THANK YOU SO MUCH. THANK YOU, GENELL. THANK YOU VERY MUCH. |
| 01:19:52.87 | Mayor Kelman | Thanks, everybody. Okay, fellow council members, is everybody ready to go into closed session? Should we take a three minute break and Meet up in closed session at 1125. on her service. |
| 01:20:04.09 | Vicki Nichols | Sorry. |
| 01:20:04.44 | Mary Wagner | Thank you. |
| 01:20:04.73 | Vicki Nichols | Marcia D'amore |
| 01:20:05.03 | Mary Wagner | THEIR. If you could just announce the closed session item that you're adjourning to and take any public comment. Yes, thank you for that. I shall do that. |
| 01:20:12.92 | Mayor Kelman | you in a moment. So it looks like we are going into a closed session for at the end, doesn't it? |
| 01:20:24.41 | Mary Wagner | The first item. |
| 01:20:24.69 | Mayor Kelman | The first item. Yeah. Yes. Thank you. It is a public employee performance evaluation pursuant to California government code section 54957. for the city manager. And do we have any public comment on that? |
| 01:20:38.80 | Serge Avila | Madam Mayor, I see no hands raised for public comment. |
| 01:20:42.04 | Mayor Kelman | Okay. Great. Thank you for that. Close public comment. Uh, Five minutes, guys, and then we'll go to closed session. Okay. Great. Thanks, everybody. |
| 01:20:57.62 | Mayor Kelman | Yeah. And I think we should all aim to have an end at two. How about that? Okay, great. Well, okay. Well, welcome everybody. We are back from closed session. We don't have anything to report, but we're going to move right into our business items. Item 3A, Q1 Council Priorities, Budget and Strategic Planning with our city manager, Chris Zapata. And I'll just note that we will have one hour for this item. |
| 01:21:28.57 | Mayor Kelman | And a city clerk, if you would allow Councilman Hoffman at some point to unmute herself. I'm sure we would. Value her insight. Thank you. |
| 01:21:43.11 | Mayor Kelman | Student membership. |
| 01:21:43.47 | Chris Zapata | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 01:21:43.65 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. |
| 01:21:43.67 | Chris Zapata | Thank you. |
| 01:21:43.69 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. |
| 01:21:44.12 | Chris Zapata | Thank you. |
| 01:21:44.18 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. |
| 01:21:44.33 | Chris Zapata | okay thank you thank you mayor and council members of the public that's listening and staff that is participating as well. Just wanted to begin by saying, These meetings are super important for us to not only understand where you want to take this organization and also really important as we try to build budgets that we can sustainably put in front of you that provide services to our community. you know, as far as strategic planning, Sosanudo has a very good team plan and it's not dated. It has some things that are really relevant AND I WANT TO HIGHLIGHT THOSE One of them is enhance our fiscal resiliency. Another is to continually improve and maintain infrastructure. And the third is to maintain strong organization. And so when I talk to you and I October. this past 2021. about what I hope the city would work with on. And it was those things, it's our finances, It's our infrastructure and it's our staff team. in terms of how we are resourcing staff to different tasks or duties. and how they actually enter and serve the boards, commissions, committees, and task force as well. So I know that's the second part of the next agenda item, but that's what we talked about on the 30th and it's really important. So why is it important to talk about our finances we've done that at a high level for about nine months now. And now we're trying to build a budget that we need to get done by the end of June. And so as you look at your structure of your budget here, I think it's pretty clear and it's been said by people earlier in this meeting you know, we have some challenges. And in those challenges, you know, there becomes a real responsibility to pay attention to your finances. So if you want to ask me what your three priorities are, It's finishing what you need to do. It's working so that you know and understand and make decisions relative to your finances. And you work on your infrastructure. We'll talk about boards, commissions, and that stuff the next item. So, When you talk about our revenue, I got here in June. And there was a report that came from an esteemed citizen group, and they said in their first page, Sausalito does not have revenue problem. It has a spending problem. |
| 01:24:12.10 | Walfred Solorzano | It has. |
| 01:24:13.93 | Chris Zapata | And my take after 10, 11 months now is South Dakota has both. We've committed funds to a number of things that, you know, have really limited this council ability to do certain things. When we talked about the health of finance to the financial of the city last Tuesday you know it was pointed out that you know we are committed in debt service, we're committed in pensions and we're getting ready to start a new budget year. And in that budget year with those commitments, you can look at them in a one year cycle, but the reality is, is those are 10, 15 year commitments. And there are some variation in those costs, which we need to be talking about in plan. So we have a revenue problem. There are gonna be years, two, three, four, five years out. where you are not going to be able to take the hits that you have if things continue on the revenue side because those expenses are climbing. Our debt service construction with the fire and police stations is going to ratchet up. Our pensions, as we know, are going to ratchet up. And obviously, you know, we have limited flexibility given, you know, the fact that 65% of our property taxes are not 100%. So your finances and your funding are problems. What also is, you know, obvious, and we've talked about this, is the deferred maintenance, whether it's streets, sidewalks, or buildings. And those things create costs. So money, money, money is something that we really need to be paying attention to. Uh, The imminent threat, and this was the final piece of that conversation, If anything comes out of today, I would hope that a program would be as a renewed and a targeted approach to do something about measure O. Measure O is going to expire in two years. |
| 01:26:01.86 | William Ehrensberg | Yeah. |
| 01:26:06.36 | Chris Zapata | And with that, you've accrued about $15 million over the 10 years it's been here. And in my city manager, Rizka Tick, that means you're gonna lose $10 million, $15 million over the next 10 years. If you don't renew it, you're going to lose that money. And that would be a terrible thing as you look at your long-term costs rising in terms of your pensions and your debt service. So measure O, measure O, measure O. Please please pay attention to that. I think what we really want to do too, that we look at is You know, real policy, real priorities. you know, our personnel, you know, we have 64 and a half or 65 employees of the full time. and they essentially are all in labor negotiations right now And it's been a very, very changing time in Sausalito with all of the churning that's gone on and the reconfiguration Thank you. And let me be very blunt. The changes that have happened in the organizations that I've gotten here, Weren't things that, you know, |
| 01:27:15.03 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 01:27:15.28 | Chris Zapata | in a good fiscal environment, I may have done. But when you have tight finances, then you have to do certain things to try to rate in costs, whether it's, you know, consulting costs, whether it's administrative costs, those things have to be done. And so we have what I call a very, very slim and slender staff, and they're being asked to do quite a bit. And they've been doing quite a bit in the year I've been here. And as I noticed and noted, they're being asked to do more. I think the council's philosophy of, you know, let's do more with less, is, um, been happening. We are doing that. It started in the city manager's office and that was by design, intentional. You know, you made sure that when you hired a city manager that you wanted a certain type of city manager and you're going to compensate a certain way and and I understand all that and that's great and as I've always said money does not motivate me. And so it may not be public but you know I would tell people this the council and I have had the conversation about my performance. We've also talked about my compensation and my compensation. has been deducted. As of last month, I'm taking a 10% pay cut and Before that, the 5% bonus was part of my contract. It was a potential agreement is also gone. None of these things are done unless there's fiscal challenges in the city. And so with these fiscal challenges, you know, I think measure O is so critical to that. that if you lose that, some of the things that you wanted to do, can do, are gonna be problematic given your debt obligations. and your revenue streams. I wanna also talk about some things that are nuts and bolts that you as a council can consider and look at. But obviously we have some things that we have to do with homelessness. That has been something that has taken up a lot of your folks, our folks and everyone's energy in trying to figure out how we can do something that makes sense to everybody. So the homelessness is one of those things that continues to create a situation where we have people in the encampment that are unhappy. We have people around the encampment that are unhappy. We have residents that wonder what we're doing when there's actually a whole lot being done. And in an environment of a federal court case, it's not as simple as just making decisions as a counsel because you're not the final say. I'd like to talk a little bit about some of the things that, um, really, really are important in the sense of priorities for you that, you know, we have a great deal of exposure with some things that relate to, you know, past lawsuits. We have some outstanding fees that we need to collect that we're trying to collect from people like FEMA. All of these things all relate to things that we should be focused on. And instead of creating new things, we should be finishing what it is that we're doing AND WORKING ON. and focusing on the basics as opposed to creating more responsibilities and more projects and more of a draw on a staff that, you know, frankly, you only have 40 staff people. Once you subtract the police department, you have 40 staff people. And you probably have that many boards, commissions, and committees. So I want to not, you know, beat that drum too hard. privately and I've done it with people in the community and I've done it with you and I've done it publicly, but it's something that I think is a real priority as well. that you make sure that you know what it is we do today is something that kind of streamlines so that you have the bandwidth, staff has the bandwidth, and the expectations in the community are in such that they're gonna be unmet. So I want to close by saying, that there is a very, very important thing that we're doing right now, and that's finishing up our budget from last year. and starting a budget for next year. So a month ago, the request was made to get a major budget report in. We got that in. That kind of gave you a sense of our finances as well. And to reiterate, what we found is we spent about $23 million. We have about $21 million in revenues. that we are off kilter are twofold. One, prepaying some pension costs. two restoring measure O back in to the tune of 1.2 million dollars so that big big paper transaction, but it created a two plus million dollar gap. And so if you didn't have that, the question was, will it be balanced? And the answer is probably not because we always People are aware of this. We absolutely took $1.67 million of federal funds that are one time incorporated into the budget. We won't see them this year. And we also looked at a parking fee transfer or parking transfer that involved you know, more money than we normally allocate. And instead of $2 million, we allocated $3 million. So that extra million helped prop up the budget. So all those things are important today, along with priorities, but it all goes back to, if you don't have the funds and you don't have the people and the vision can be great, but it can't be executed unless we start doing things in a more streamlined type of way, finishing what we got and focusing on the basics. So with that, I will... Turn it over to. You mayor and council and see if you have any questions. |
| 01:32:57.02 | Mayor Kelman | Thanks very much, Senator Sapata. I do actually have two questions. The first is just to be very clear what direction you are looking for from us today |
| 01:33:07.68 | Chris Zapata | It'd be helpful for me to hear from you that some of the things that we need to do as FINISH OUR BUDGET. Streamliner priorities. not reinvent the wheel with the new strategic plan, you have one, And then what I'd like to really hear is we're going to approve major budget adjustments so we can start to complete our budget this year and go into next year. And that's a secondary item. I think the October 30th workshop where we had, the review of the strategic plan that was um, Very, very important. The strategic plan again is in this packet, is still relevant. So I don't think we need to spend a lot of time on planning and strategies. We need to spend some time on winnowing down our priorities so we can build a budget. And so if you say to us, sustainability is important And you know, resiliency is important and climate change is important today. And it's not part of some of the things that we've talked about funding. Today is a good day to say that. If you say that, you know, streets and roads and sidewalks are important today and keep doing what you're doing. That's great. But we really need to get you to finish and adopt the major budget adjustments. And then we need to really delve into our labor contracts so we can get those costs known so we can build a budget. |
| 01:34:26.69 | Mayor Kelman | Okay, and then my second question for you is, you said streamline priorities, finish what we started, finish the budget, approve the major budget adjustments, Um, how should we be thinking about revenue? Meaning, should we be thinking about new sources of revenue? Is that a good use of our time? or is that for you a distraction? |
| 01:34:46.91 | Chris Zapata | Yeah, no, no, it's not a distraction. It's, it would be welcomed. And I'll tell you, so when you come into city government and people say, you know, where are my taxes coming from? Where are they going? What's the premium provided? We tried to clarify that on |
| 01:34:47.07 | Mayor Kelman | No, no. |
| 01:35:01.49 | Chris Zapata | April the 12th, you know, this is where your money comes from and this is where it goes. And one of the things that's really clear to me, it was brought up earlier, I believe, by Councilmember Cleveland Knowles, is Measure O. So if you said, you know, let's just jump right to measure. Oh, and I was a resident, I would say, what about running the city in a more efficient fashion? What about, you know, doing things that, you know, save you money on the city level? What about collecting the money that you should be collecting so that you can, you know, not reach your hand out there into the taxpayer's pocket? We're doing those things and I think in trying to speak to some of those earlier how we downsize the organization, how we've done away with certain contracts, how we've kept administrative overhead down. All of those things are part and parcel to being efficient and saving money. But that will only take you so far. The second piece of that's going to be, you know, what are you going to do with some of the savings that prior councils and administrations had and in fact left you, which was wise and very good on their part. There's going to have to be some of that, but ultimately you're going to have to have a combination of all three. And the third one is you're going to have to look at Measure O. And in looking at Measure O, you know, I don't know what the appetite is for that, but I've tried to make the case that the city gets 1.5% out of 8.5%. And some of the folks that come in and use your city should pay their fair share. And it's not something that I believe is totally a burden on the businesses or the residents. You know, the folks who come in on buses, bikes, boats, And cars, they absolutely use your infrastructure, your parks, your restrooms, sometimes your fire or police. All those things happen. So I believe that there's a real opportunity to look at Measure O, not just to extend it, but to expand it. BECAUSE IF YOU Don't expand it. I'm sure someone around you, whether it's the county or a special district or the state will, |
| 01:36:51.83 | William Ehrensberg | I don't know. Yeah. I'm not sure. |
| 01:36:56.61 | Chris Zapata | And then that money is lost. That opportunity is lost because there's a constitutional cap on how high you can take your sales tax. And if you look at the sales tax rates around you, Sassanudo is not the highest and they're not the lowest, but I guarantee you we're the most tourist dependent. of the cities. And so in my you know, anybody that comes in and says I'm paying a dollar on a city level is probably paying half that, if not more or less, because the visitors come in and they pay that sales tax on Measure O. And you use that locally, you control that locally, and you've made all those arguments. So I think it's really important to really look at not just the extension of Measure O, but the expansion of Measure O. |
| 01:37:38.66 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you very much. Okay, well, let's go to council member Cleveland Knowles and the vice mayor and then council member. |
| 01:37:46.14 | Councilmember Cleveland Knowles | Thank you, Mayor, and thank you to our city manager for that. uh, really efficient and uh Packed. presentation. I would be ready to commit today to the three priorities that the city manager has laid out for us. The two, they're very broad buckets. So I don't think it, takes us all the way where we need to go but the fiscal resiliency the infrastructure and the focus on our organization and staff. as kind of our immediate priorities at least for the next six months. And then to have further discussions with the council about within those buckets, what are our priorities. So I think our city manager is asking for that focus interested to hear what other people think, but I think that's a great Back to basics. post COVID reshaping of our commitment from this council. within the Other issues as the city manager was just talking about Measure O in response to mayor's question. I have brought this up a couple of times. I think we need to move forward on the renewal of Measure O I was really hoping we would be ready to do that for November 2022. I would. love to ask our city attorney and staff to have a presentation at our next council meeting if it's possible. on what that timeline looks like. and whether we can achieve that. I mean, otherwise the next general election is 2024. which is when measure O expires. So it's very, to me, it's very risky to leave it. to that. for the first, you know, going to the voters for the first time in 2024 feels especially if you're not this Council is willing to agree with the recommendation to expand the sales tax. So right now we have a 0.5 a half cent sales tax. If I heard the city manager correctly, I think he was suggesting that we augment that to maybe 0.75 I don't know exactly what our legal limit is at this point. I am generally supportive of looking into that I'd also be supportive of having a conversation with the council about whether we keep a 0.5 cent sales tax that's a general non-special tax. that we can use that's very flexible, we can use for anything and then perhaps |
| 01:40:28.61 | Walfred Solorzano | Bye. |
| 01:40:33.91 | Councilmember Cleveland Knowles | quarter cent or another half cent on top of that, that is specifically for infrastructure for something else that we want to prioritize. The downside of that, a special tax, of course, is that you need two-thirds of voter approval. So I think that's a conversation we need to have. And if we are thinking of something before 2024, I think we urgently need to have that conversation. I also just want to say I appreciate the focus given by the city manager and the mayor. the Vice Mayor on looking at grants and as another source of outside revenue. We also haven't really fully realized another revenue measure that we adopted a couple of years ago which was measure M and measure L I, I can't remember which was which. I think was the increase in our TOT. So while that our tourist economy and our hotel economy has not fully recovered, I'm really hoping that the hotel tax which was the subject I think of measure M will also start to to bear some increased revenue as we go forward. I know we did in a prior council, couple of council meetings, have a list of other revenue, potential revenue sources. Maybe council member Hoffman remembers those discussions led by. than Mayor Burns that resulted in M&L, but you know, We can go back to that. at some point, I don't have any other obvious ideas right at the moment, but... Those are my comments, but I do, I really appreciate the way that the city manager has put our priorities in three really important. and I'd love to focus on those. |
| 01:42:29.33 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:42:30.80 | Councilmember Cleveland Knowles | And then I guess the only other comment I had was, I think we did a good job with the strategic plan. and the implementation plan, but it was very large and it was at a time Oh. no, you know, less fiscal constraints. And it wasn't, we didn't finally adopt it and prioritize it. So. at some point we need to... constrained that list because it was a pretty broad and ambitious strategic plan. And then the only thing I think, the two things that have happened since that strategic plan that are very important that weren't fully encompassed there are homeless issue. And, uh, I think our focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion has sharpened since the pandemic. that time in 2018. that we were. looking at it. So we might want to update that. But I agree with the city manager. We don't need to Start from square one. Those are my comments. Thanks. |
| 01:43:33.90 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you, council member Cleveland. Those are excellent, excellent helpful comments. I'll just confirm I've asked the city attorney to put a measure O timeframe on the next city council agenda on consent. So she has affirmed that she can provide that. So thank you for that suggestion and that will happen on May 10th. Vice Mayor. |
| 01:43:56.09 | Unknown | Okay, and I'm not sure if we're going to, I can give full comments, but I had a couple of questions first. And I just, first, I also really wanted to acknowledge and thank our city manager for putting together this really concise overview of what our priorities can be. And I would absolutely agree with council member Cleveland Knowles that the three buckets that are laid out are something that we can, build on and focus on and city managers of pot i really appreciate how much of your focus is really on a back to basics, nut and bolts of we need to get our finances in order, we need to maintain the organization, and we need to be a resilient organization. And you touched a lot on how much that has to do with the strong organization and staff. And I wanted to ask you, what your thoughts were for ideas or ways that council might better support city staff going forward as we're thinking about our priorities and what you feel like the needs of staff are because they're really one of our most valuable assets as a community and you are included among that group and our team worked really hard. |
| 01:44:50.46 | Chris Zapata | Yeah, I think it's really important. The workload in the departments is one factor that's created some stress. in terms of resources. The churn in the departments is another contributor to stress organizational And that's, some of that is controllable by either department is city manager, city council. Some of it is not. So I think where the council can help the workforce. is You've done many things that are quite kind in the last three months and really appreciated by our team, including scheduling Cinco de Mayo lunch for all employees on behalf of the City Council and other things that you all have done to show staff you care. And certainly, you know, I feel like you have been very, very appreciative of the things that we're doing here. But the really important way you can help staff. is by minimizing asks. by minimizing some of the assignments You know, it's great to look at doing many, many wonderful things, and we probably can do all of them. We just probably can't do them in when Mach 1. week, one year. So if you winnow down your asks, that's one way. And, you know, I had a resident come in and complain about my lack of response to emails and my lack of response to phone messages. And I pointed out that I only have 12,000 plus emails. that I have on my computer screen. So emails are certainly a burden and we'll get to them as best we can. If it's happening to me, it's happening to our team. But I think as a city council, the next topic, which we are have agenda eyes for you and I appreciate you continuing to to think about this and work on this is all of the committees task force commissions and and so forth. And there's a memo that's part of that report that basically lays out what I've said. I've never seen anything like this. I've been in nine different cities. Um, some as big as a million plus some as small as 3000. And what I've seen in Sausalito is not sustainable. So if you really want to know how you can help staff, vice mayor and council, it's let's shrink down some of these requirements we have people working around the clock completing meetings setting up meetings working during meetings. And then as I tell people in the city manager world, there's four areas. You've got to pay attention to the public. You got to pay attention to the council. You got to pay attention to the organization. And then there's the work. And there is lots of. what I call demand on staff that that if the council turns the spigot off to a degree, it would allow staff the breathing room to finish some things that we started and then to do things better because it's obvious to me that the destruction we have we will make mistakes and we've been making mistakes and they're not mistakes because we don't know what we're doing. It's just, it's a time constraint that's creating that issue, uh, vice mayor. You know, we don't have the real time to sit down read through a report so an eye won't get tossed or crossed or dotted or a team won't get crossed. And that's the symptom of a deeper problem which is just you know an overload of responsibility. So I'm asking you as the council to kind of winnow that down in a way that helps staff finish and catch up you know, get some rhythm, get some momentum. |
| 01:48:37.70 | Unknown | Just so that we have a better understanding of the status of the number of staff right now and what departments might still be hiring or missing people We have an interim community development director at this point. Are we hiring community development? What is our, I know you mentioned we have about 65 full-time employees. |
| 01:48:54.94 | Chris Zapata | Thank you. Yes, so we have Interim Community Development Director through a contract that's set to expire And when my spending authority runs out and then what will happen is we're doing some evaluation right now with our We don't have an HR person. We have an HR consultant, which is important right now because we have a lot of HR needs. Once she and I sit down, we'll come and talk to you as a counsel about what may make sense. And it may make sense to keep. a contract planning director or community development director It may not. It may mean going back to trying to hire and recruit. |
| 01:49:23.02 | William Ehrensberg | may not have. |
| 01:49:26.24 | Chris Zapata | a full-time person. more old school. I like staff. But if there's a more efficient way to do it, this opportunity is out there. That's one thing. And the other thing is obviously Sometimes recruitments are or a challenge, whether it's how to work here and live here and get here. It's quite expensive, Marin County is, and Sausalito as well, and government employees. That's always a factor. So maybe a contract is the answer, but I don't know yet. But it's one of the things that's on my radar screen |
| 01:50:03.45 | Walfred Solorzano | President. |
| 01:50:03.71 | Chris Zapata | And so. One more. Yeah, one more thing is so you mentioned So we have just finished rebuilding our finance department. You know, that was quite the trick. We've done that. You know, our city clerk has been, you know, the city clerk, assistant city clerk and everything else. Our police department has been down. Our community development department, obviously our public works department has a great deal of needs. Our library director wears two hats in Parks and Recreation. You know, we have two people there now, we used to have three. All of those things and led by this office where you as a council shrunk the city manager's office. And, you know, I think that's good. Uh, But at the same time, you can't keep asking the same responsiveness in production from two people when you used to have four. Same thing with all your other departments. |
| 01:50:56.26 | Unknown | Yeah, and I was just asking because as we're thinking about one of your asks, which is balance the budget, essentially, we have to consider what our bandwidth is for staff and how many people we still need. And then my last question is about, you mentioned exposure and some of the exposures we might be facing right now with regards to our budget. And you specifically talked about the FEMA lawsuit. Are there other... ones that might immediately impact our our strategic planning right now for the next six months. |
| 01:51:19.54 | Chris Zapata | Yeah, I prefer to talk to them with the city attorney and then sit down with you all and talk about what I think what I call alligators in the swamp are that may bite you as a city or in a budget sense. But yeah, I'd like to talk to you and the city attorney about that and make sure I'm not violating any confidentiality. |
| 01:51:40.89 | Unknown | Great, well, I really appreciate the presentation and I would agree with Council Member Cleveland Knowles comments on moving forward on Measure O sooner rather than later and exploring that. So Mayor Kalman, I appreciate that you've already activated the city attorney on that. |
| 01:51:54.86 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Councilmember Hoffman. |
| 01:52:00.43 | Jill Hoffman | Thanks, Chris. Thank you for your hard work this past year and just this Herculean effort you've taken to look at our finances and bring us a budget that really and honestly reflects our position and how we got here. interested, you gave two really great presentations on March 22nd and April 12th, the sort of background for this conversation. Those were enormously helpful. I also want to applaud your leadership with regard to our staff costs and your willingness to forego the 5% pay raise and in fact voluntarily suggested taking a 10% cut. I think that you know shows enormous leadership and sets a great example and tenor for the seriousness of our situation and how to move forward. I agree that you know I support let's revisit Measure O. Measure O was originally presented to the public and we've tried to adhere to it when you know I think in the past um that it is an infrastructure it would be used for infrastructure purposes even though it was a general tax and so and that was done primarily as council member plebele-knole said because of the lower threshold for a vote when you have a general tax increase instead of a specific tax increase which would have put it into a fund specifically for for infrastructure or for a specific purpose. And so I think if we talk about this again, I'm in favor of Ashley, increasing it in some way. to the threat to the legal threshold because I as as Chris points out I think somebody's going to do it and we might as well do it for the city of Sausalito so that those funds come directly to Sausalito whether that's by a special, an election for a special, specific type of fund, which would require a higher vote count, or measure or you know the same type of structure as measure oh I think that's a discussion that we need to have a city council because it does become vulnerable um to use this for other than what's represented to the public at the time of the election and that's why we had some opposition to it um when it was originally uh voted for. back in 10 years ago, or eight years ago now. So I would support that. I agree that for the next near term, I think we should have the focus on the three issues. I think we do need to focus in and get over this current hurdle that we're, these hurdles that we're facing. There are some big efforts that we need to fix. And and they need all of our attention, I think for the next, for the near term. So I would support that focus. And I also do agree with the boards and commissions, you know, the stress and the tax, not tax, but the effort that it takes from the staff to staff those as Brown Act configured boards and commissions. And I think we'll talk about that more when we talk about you know how to configure those or how they're supported when we get to it but um you know i would support |
| 01:54:55.14 | William Ehrensberg | Thank you. |
| 01:55:01.31 | Jill Hoffman | at least transitioning them to non-Brown Act type committees so that they're not required to do all of the types of things that you have to do for Brown Out Communities which is very taxed which is very cause a lot of work on the staff right you have to post you know you have to post the agenda you have to adhere to that agenda strictly you have to |
| 01:55:12.44 | William Ehrensberg | Thank you. |
| 01:55:12.47 | Alison Healy | Thank you. |
| 01:55:12.59 | William Ehrensberg | Yeah. |
| 01:55:21.28 | Jill Hoffman | Do you know, live meetings. All of that can be done in a different way. by the particular Board and Commission as some of the other groups in Sausalito do. Anybody can set up a Zoom meeting. Anybody can throw up a website and say, this is what we're going to talk about and this and when, and then talk about your priorities on your own website. I look forward to that conversation in a few minutes. Thank you, Chris. I appreciate all of your hard work and the staff too. We realize it's a time of transition for everybody. And I appreciate all hands to the wheel that we've been having. |
| 01:55:53.66 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. Thank you, council member Hoffman. Quick time check, 20 minutes left on this item. We'll go to council member Sobieski and then my comments, and then we'll have a brief discussion and provide direction. So council member Sobieski. |
| 01:56:05.88 | Councilmember Sobieski | I won't reiterate too much of what's been said in agreement with the idea of Back to Basics. It's been on theme. I appreciate Chris's leadership on this point and my colleagues' enthusiasm for it. Uh, On measure O, I think the Joe's spot on. and we should consider going to the legal limit The theme to our community ought to really be what Chris talked about is you know, just, you know, It's not that we have all the money we need and we have a spending problem. We want to be more efficient and do less with more. want to be creative about how we reward our staff and make a great work environment that's attractive. recognizing the constraints that are imposed on us by being a small town that has to compete in the labor force in large towns. In large cities, we may have to be imaginative in not trying to compete apples to apples, but compete apples to oranges. And Mayor, some of your ideas on novel benefits that we can provide to our staff. are compelling and could make us unique and attractive relative in the marketplace at a lower cost point for our budget. But at the same time, you know, I'm a business guy. Um, We'd like not to leave any money on the table. And I gotta say, when I look at Sausalito, I see all these places where we're needing easy money on the table. because there's an old thing and saw in town that there's something fundamentally wrong with our city government. that we can't be trusted with money. Um, It's... uh, that's biting our nose to spite our face. There's easy money in town. that we're not taking advantage of our unique strategic positioning, our geographic location and the kinds of people that come and spend money in Sausalito. And we're not accounting for the unique burdens that are placed on our community by some of that very same behavior. So, you know, I note that we're on the waterfront. I know that, for example, our meters are $1.50. hour, but you pay $8.50 at the parking lot next to Angelino's. Similar amount across the street at the Trident. So there's an arbitrage opportunity where clearly uh, we are being leaving money on the table and how we charge for parking. and, Interestingly, a clever parking reform could actually make it more advantageous to residents where you could make cheaper parking or free parking for residents. Maybe free parking for people that spend money in town over a certain limit. A voucher program for people that spend $100 in town that has free parking. but then charge more for people that don't. And you could actually end up, I think, rough numbers are we're leaving something like a million dollars on the table just from basic parking rate reform I'm not sure. Business license tax enforcement. I know there are plenty of businesses that simply don't actually have a business license, even though they should. John Barry's talked about many in the Marineship that are that way, but they're all across town. I know many professional service organizations that don't pay their BLT and we're looking at money that's available there. I think you and I, Mayor, have talked about having it in front of the Finance Committee, a theme of are there fees or taxes, whatever you want to call them, that, disproportionate fall on non-residents, that would be something we should consider. disproportionate fall in non-residents. This is our strategic business advantage of what the structure of our town that we should consider taking advantage of. And there may be ideas such as charging a slip fee on sailboats that are non-residents and people that live in Sacramento but keep their sailboat here. Maybe they should pay something for that. that's a good question. And currently, as far as I know, they're not That with 2000 slips, that could be a big chunk of money that the city could use for the benefit of the residents. 2000 slips. $200 a month, that's $2 million a year. And even if you did forgive people that are residents or that live on their boats. So there are lots of ideas that we should explore just as a business case. And I don't know, you've already directed or asked Mary to look into the Measure O timeline. I similarly would like to see if there's if any other mechanisms actually need a vote, but people are how we could look at some other mechanisms for revenue. At the same time, I'm fully enthusiastic about the idea of doing less with more inside of our staff and being more efficient. I think, um, It really falls on us to to maybe change the way we do things at city council provide that kind of focus. The bi-weekly or bi-monthly meetings, actually they turned into more like weekly meetings, I think can give staff the sense that they're always either preparing for a meeting or recovering from the meeting they just held. And we may want to consider doing quarterly meetings that are devoted to setting the goals, the deliverable goals for the next six months, for the next three months. And all the city council meetings between those quarterly meetings are really devoted uh, all the administrivia that's necessary to support those goals and doing any tweaks that are required along the way or attending special circumstances. Um, So. I would love to put that idea in out for our consideration. It would be a fundamental reform about the way we meet. those quarterly meetings would presumably be longer or at least focused on those roles. And then we'd have to have some discipline about Establishing metrics to measure progress against them Thank you. |
| 02:01:51.87 | Mayor Kelman | Thanks, Ian. Great, greatly comforted that all of our comments are in such alignment. So I don't have too much else to add other than to really applaud the city manager, one of the things you do so well is to take a big bundle of work and angst and simplify it. And so you do that in such an erudite and articulate manner for us today. And I think it's really, really helpful. And so playing off of that and something that councilman Sobiasi just said, I think this really helps the community understand clear priorities. And so even though it's not going to stall and stop folks from articulating and sharing their thoughts and ideas. Hopefully it'll help them understand where and how we're spending our energy and how we're prioritizing. So thank you tremendously for that. um, So a couple of things I'll just try to summarize, I guess. It sounds like we're all in agreement on the three main priorities of fiscal infrastructure and organization. So Chris, we're aligned with you on that. Those are great buckets. As several of my colleagues have said, they require some drilling down for some implementation, but that's a wonderful starting point. I thought that Jill and Susan really outlined some of those great opportunities measure O Measure M, Measure L. I would extend that and say, that we probably need some type of working document for new revenue opportunities that include those. And Ian, you beat me to it. Parking reform. I think parking is a very low hanging fruit for our community to bring in some additional revenue. And I'm pleased that South City residents already get three hours of free parking with a parking pass. And so I'm cognizant of that, but I certainly think there can be in our public lots, some significant parking reform and I'd like to see And I know actually someone on, who was here, yes, someone on this call, one of our community members already modeled out the parking, called out Kiran Kooligan. I know he already developed a model on this. So it's no new work for folks, but we should have a clear list of revenues and I'll add to that maximizing some of our assets. We have some opportunities to maybe do some additional rev shares, maybe open up some water access for yachts that want to drop people off and pick people up. The slip fees is an interesting one as well. So I think this running list of new revenue opportunities is a really great exercise. And then the last thing I'll say, so we simplified it three buckets, running lists of new revenues. We have clear priorities now for the community. I will also suggest, and we could talk about this in our next item, but if we do move to quarterly meetings that are similar to this, which I think could be quite useful. I think we should also talk a little bit about how we might condense some of the working groups that council members are on. I know for example, legislative committee, we had a meeting not too long ago, where it was at city council was the third time I had seen the same thing because I sat through it twice at legislative committee. And that probably isn't a good use of staff's time. And so there might be certain committees that we all agree, okay, we can cover these on a quarterly basis. I don't know if that's the one, but I choose as an example to avoid duplication and to ease that workload as well. So as we look at the boards and commissions, let's think about that and how the quarterly meeting structure can serve that. So with that said, Chris, do you feel like you have adequate direction based on what you're looking for? And then we'll get another comment from Councilman Cleveland also. |
| 02:05:26.10 | Chris Zapata | Thank you. I'll go after the council member. |
| 02:05:28.93 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. |
| 02:05:28.95 | Councilmember Cleveland Knowles | Okay, go ahead, Council Member. Oh, sorry, just a small point following up on your point, Mayor, about the quarterly meetings. I'm very supportive of that idea, but I would kind of to the point of helping staff by reducing workload, I would think if in the months that we have, those quarterly meetings, we only have one regular Council meeting so. that there would be, we would spend the time on the weekend as opposed to taking up two full council meetings and then a quarterly meeting. And I really like your idea that you just noted about trying to take some of our you know, our finance committee or legislative committee or whatever, I don't really have, I haven't thought about it, but combine those into those quarterly meetings. I think that's a great suggestion. And then I did wanna just jump on the bandwagon that you and Ian mentioned. I had forgotten about parking reform, which I can't believe I forgot. It's been on my top list for years, but more of a demand management parking. model here in Sassolito that captures outside visitors. maximizes our revenue. and also helps overcrowding. So thanks to you both for catching that and great ideas. |
| 02:06:44.97 | Mayor Kelman | And I also think it can support some of our climate concerns, right? We have large buses idling over behind Bank of America building. Those folks, they're staying for an hour, they're not spending a lot of money. I think that would include that in part of the parking form as well. What types of buses are we allowing? What are the requirements? How much are they paying? I don't know, do they pay us 10 bucks to sit there and spew into our atmosphere? I mean, I would like to modify that. And so I think there's multiple goals that can be achieved here. So great, I'm glad to hear their support. |
| 02:07:16.04 | Unknown | Vice-Mair. Just one more to add to the revenue generating list. And I think we've all talked about this and we did hire Mike Wagner for it, but the assessment of all of our city properties and our leases and looking at where we might be able to do a better job of revenue generating there. Just wanted to put that to include that as we're talking about parking reform as well. Yep. |
| 02:07:35.04 | Mayor Kelman | Absolutely. THANK YOU FOR THAT. Okay, Chris with eight minutes left on this, |
| 02:07:41.18 | Chris Zapata | Yeah, no, just let me, if I can just. thank the council members who have been part of the strategic plan development, because that's important. And the new council members who have not try to reinvent the wheel. And the full council as you know, getting really to the point of, yeah, let's focus on the basics. You know, we've had these conversations and, and the bottom line is, is, you know, there are other things that we do just because we're city government, we're a municipal corporation, but if we start adding other things to our, are things that we know we have to do outside of what we wanna do, then I think there becomes problems. You're your total approach to Yeah, let's focus on the basics, which are revenues, your people. And your infrastructure, I mean, I think that's what Sassilo needs. Anytime I drive into another community and I see nice asphalt, I become envious. because Sausalito has so many beautiful attributes. And if you married that to some nice sidewalks, asphalt, some things that enhance mobility and transportation, great. And the parking as low-hanging fruit is something that in retrospect, we could have started with because it's become such a hot button in the community. But yeah, it's an outdated model. We need to work on that. |
| 02:09:05.76 | Mayor Kelman | Thanks Chris. And my apologies to the public. We rolled right from questions into opining. So public comment is now open. Karen, I think you had your hand up first and then David. |
| 02:09:19.54 | Serge Avila | And you've been unmuted and asked to share your video. |
| 02:09:19.60 | Mayor Kelman | and you're under. |
| 02:09:23.48 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:09:25.21 | Unknown | All right, hi there, I'm in Marin City. It's loud and active, so I'm gonna try off my video. But hi, everyone. Thanks. This was a great conversation. Super excited to just kind of hear you all so functionally talking about what we can do with a challenging environment. And I liked almost everything I heard. I just want to make sure we do reserve some time, resources, thinking on the visionary side of things, of actually making progress towards the visionary side of things. And a lot of it is around infrastructure. But it's literally the underpinnings of our city. And there's just so much that's changing and it's changing rapidly. And I already know how much you all are thinking about that and doing things. Janelle with sea level rise, coastal resiliency, Jill shepherding whole new ideas for combining community and tourist elements with the vision for Bank of America. Ian, the vision you created for Ferry Landside, Melissa, everything on sustainability, Susan, everything you do in San Francisco and we're in on transportation. And I don't want to lose that, right? Like, you know, we got to get to the back of the basics, but I do want to be intentional and focused on some big things because every day that we're not working on that, we're not working towards something that is going to be super exciting for tourists to come to Sausalito, for the people who want to come and live in Sausalito, for the extra housing and dwelling units and people that are going to come. Are they going to come in a car-centric way or in a greener way? So I hope that we can observe a certain amount and tokens it, but to actually do some things that are exciting that are going to dig us out of the revenue issues that we have in the short term. So thank you. Thank you. |
| 02:11:04.96 | Mayor Kelman | But I didn't. |
| 02:11:04.98 | Unknown | But I didn't mention bikes or pedestrians, so that was pretty amazing. |
| 02:11:08.03 | Mayor Kelman | No, but we'll call you about parking. Thank you. David, welcome. |
| 02:11:19.52 | Unknown | Hi. I agree with everything I've heard today, One thing I wanted to add, I didn't hear it mentioned this, We have a problem with creating consensus and and funding our priorities And it adds it as significantly or exponentially to our to our staff load. one small and one big. example are the fishing pier. and the fairyland. Both of those have been on city council agendas multiple times a year, for eight or 10 years. And if we, the fishing pier, if we had just gotten that done, we wouldn't be still talking about it and still taking staff time. So we need to actually, you know, like our city manager said, we need to prioritize on things and get things done AND WE NEED TO you know, concentrate on items that we can check off a list. So our list doesn't keep growing and we keep talking about all the things that are on our ever growing list. and and As a city, both the city council and the community needs to have a better job of forming consensus IN AN EXPEDITIOUS MANNER. and figuring out what our priorities are so that we can get them done and move on to the next priority. Thank you. |
| 02:12:40.02 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you, David. Sir, is there any other member of public |
| 02:12:42.58 | Unknown | That's right. |
| 02:12:44.98 | Serge Avila | Madam Mayor, I see no other hands raised. |
| 02:12:47.51 | Mayor Kelman | Okay. Great, thank you. Well, thank you everybody. That was a really excellent, helpful conversation. I appreciate everybody's comments. And we are moving right on time. So we are gonna now head into item 3B, which is review and purpose of the boards and commission structures. And I'll hand it back over to the city manager. |
| 02:13:08.79 | Chris Zapata | Thank you, Mayor, members of the council and public and our team. Let me just begin by saying, Every volunteer in this city add something to the city. And our boards, commissions, task forces, committees, they're filled with accomplished and talented and caring people that have done wonderful things for Sausalito. And so in the vein of Let me make sure that's said first because that matters. I want to say all of that. Some of the things that have happened have been really beneficial have saved staff money. have done things that, you know, maybe staff couldn't do. and it's all greatly appreciated. So that spigot should stay on. And no one should take this conversation from me as, you know, boards, commission committees and task forces of problems. They're not. What I see as the real challenge is when we have so many of them. and we have limited staff and we're in a financial predicament. Something's got to give. And what's that going to be? It will keep things, uh, on the list as David mentioned earlier. We won't get things, we'll have a mishap with an agenda. You know, we'll have staff persons here on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Saturday working beyond their normal eight hours. All of that will happen and that creates some opportunity for issues. If we had the staffing and I've been in cities where the staffing has been there There hadn't been anything but good that comes out of boards, commissions, and committees. But they are all a form of demand on staff. So what I believe in Sausalito is you started this conversation in the last topic, the last agenda item about what makes sense. I wrote a memo. It's part of the public packet. And essentially, you know, I want to stand by that memo. to say that some uh, reasonableness to the THE COMMITTEE AND COMMISSION task force structure is necessary. And so I start out with the basics. what is in your municipal code, what is required by law, And then, you know, what is it that you really want to do? And some of these that, you know, Mayor Killman, applaud you for mentioning the legislative committee. Okay. I got here, I didn't know what OMIT stands for. OMIT Committee. |
| 02:15:44.55 | William Ehrensberg | I got here. |
| 02:15:48.28 | Chris Zapata | You know, we obviously have other committees that the council is involved in And the idea that there's structured in such a way that There's requirements that they be followed by by the law is really a an opportunity for staff demand and it's happened What I've seen in this city, again, you know, If people like Saucena beautiful, they have no problem getting the attention of staff, the city manager or the city council. They run their meetings, they conduct their meetings. and they're impactful. Historical Society. Friends of the Library, there are models out there of groups that, you know, are the same talented people caring for this community that aren't supported by city staff. And so in my mind, that's what something, or that's an avenue and approach that I think makes some sense. I heard some good conversations or some good ideas from some of the council people about maybe frequency of meetings needs to not be as frequent. Um, That's a good one. Maybe limiting the number of people on certain committees. Certain committees have more than five people. Um, Yeah, that gets a little unruly, especially if you're trying to figure out how to do all the things you do at a normal council meeting for certain committees. So the idea of losing that input, that creativity, that talent is not what I'm suggesting. I'm just suggesting that there's probably a better way to get all of that without such a strain on staff. |
| 02:17:30.25 | Mayor Kelman | Okay. Thank you, Chris. I appreciate you putting your your thoughts together and also the insight on staff time and prioritization, I think was really eyeopening and helpful for all of us. So let's go Councilman Cleveland Knowles. I think I saw Council Member Hoffman and then Council Member Sadiq-Escar. |
| 02:17:49.83 | Councilmember Cleveland Knowles | Thank you, Mayor. If it's okay with you, I think I'll just go straight to comments. I think the city manager in our kind of weekly conversations and overtime has... discuss this. issue with us. I think he's right. I agree that we've somehow over time over committed ourselves and our staff. And there's a lot of good work and talent that comes out of our boards and commissions, but they've become you know, it's getting in the way of our staff doing their main job in the city. So. I would be. I would recommend and or open to discussion on immediately changing the frequency of our Brown Act Boards and commissions that are staffed by city to. quarterly or some other frequency that other council members or the city manager think is appropriate And in between those times, if the boards and commissions wanna form subcommittees and do work in between, they could certainly could certainly do that, but they would only be staffed and noticed for Brown Act meetings, at least in the short term. on a quarterly basis. Number two, that all the committees reflect on the presentation by the city manager and their role. and that they, with working with their liaisons on the council, come up with recommendations as to what works should be kind of city If any, work should be city sponsored versus whether they could work just as effectively as a kind of nonprofit Um, or you know, just volunteer basis, like Sausalito Beautiful, like the Historical Committee, et cetera. And then third, that at the staffed Brown Act meetings that they would come up similar to EDACT did with priorities for their work for the year. and that they would bring those priorities to the city council. for us to review so that we're all aligned as to what work the boards and commissions are doing and that that's an effective use of our staff time and resources to move those issues forward. I definitely, I, I think it's really interesting. The comment that Council member Hoffman made earlier about round act committee meetings being very burdensome. I definitely agree with that. But I also think we do get transparency. public participation and clarity, you know, Brown Act meetings are able to be watched and people can see what what folks are doing. So I think there's just a trade off there. I don't know exactly where I end up on that trade off, but we're definitely wanting to make sure that we, continue some form of transparency in anything that's city sponsored. but I do recognize what the city manager said about the burden. So maybe that's just something to continue discussing. Thank you. Chancellor Hoffman. |
| 02:21:20.00 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. Well, I think, you know, I think I'm going to adhere a little bit more closely to the city manager, what I think I was hearing from him and what I've heard about the burden on the staff. and the justification for Brown Act committees, right? So there's no requirement that these committees be Brown Act committees. they can configure themselves such as other non-Brown Act committees in town who have been very effective. As Chris mentioned, you know, it's also a beautiful Friends of the Library and Historical Society You can do it in a way that's transparent. if they have something that they want to bring or they want city council input, those committees have no problem reaching out to city council members and gaining insight. I'm going to suggest something a little bit differently. And I'm not wedded to it. I'm just trying to give you know, move us in the direction that I think the city manager is advising us, which is, in an official, you know, in a more official way, decreasing the burden on the staff from you know, these different boards and commissions that have evolved over time. And I don't think I'm not commenting at all on the good work that these boards and you know, that they do, I think they do a tremendous amount work. Interestingly, some of them were probably formed when they should have been an ad hoc committee or task force, and they were formed as a border commission, a Brown Act border commission. they were formed because there were some perceived need in the city for some perceived you know, where we could have as a city council, I just put, you know, formed an ad hoc work committee or a task force, giving them a certain task, had them come back within a certain period of time, what's your deliverable and then disband or dissolve it. And by the way, those ad hoc committees and task forces don't, they're not Brown Act committees. So they don't require Um, staff support, even though we certainly in some of those efforts involve the staff and get information from that. So what I would suggest is, a little bit different. which is that we suspend suspend the staff supports the Brown Act boards and committees for a certain period of time to let the staff get to work on the hard work that they need to do in the next three or four months, instead of these other efforts that are, you know, that bring value, but do they fit in our three priorities that we just set forth? And I think Chris has pretty much told us that they don't necessarily do, that the more important priority for him is that staff time is loosened up and directed back to the business of the city. So I would say, you know, suspend staff support, for a period of whatever we wanna say, four months, three months, something, Something like that. those boards and commissions think about how they can transition to non-Brown Act committees. And then I think it would have to come back to the city council and we would have to vote to transition various boards and commissions to non-Brown Act efforts and and that would be on the recommendation of that border commission about what that might look like it might look like a certain task force or an ad hoc committee it might be you know, that they're going independent and that they're going to put up their own website and run their own meetings, which is pretty simple, frankly, to do. And then liaise with the city council as they feel necessary. and that city council members can certainly still be involved in those efforts. So I think that's, what I would recommend at this time. And if we, as a city council, you know, they come back and our recommendation is no, this we want to keep them as a Brown Act. And that's, you know, then that's, something that we would look at too. I think we need to move away from that model. And I think we need to think seriously about our path forward for the future. And I think now's the time to do it. I mean, we're in it. Chris has pretty much told us he would like for that energy of the staff to be directed back toward you know, their current official duties under his direction. So. |
| 02:25:29.75 | Councilmember Cleveland Knowles | There. Yes. Could I just interrupt? I'm interested in Council Member Hoffman's idea, but I was under the impression just from advice I've heard in the past and actually advice I've probably given is once we formed a committee by the council that it's a Brown Act committee under state law. And we've populated it with people that we ourselves have chosen. And so I just love to hear the city attorney, if we can follow this idea, the council member Hoffman is talking about of just immediately unforming them as Brown Act committees or like how that would work. And maybe take it later. |
| 02:26:15.60 | Jill Hoffman | So maybe you can take it for it later or whatever. But let me clarify, that's not what I said. |
| 02:26:18.32 | Councilmember Cleveland Knowles | I'm going to let my |
| 02:26:21.12 | Jill Hoffman | I didn't say immediately disband them as Kronach. I said suspend. |
| 02:26:25.21 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 02:26:25.51 | Jill Hoffman | suspend staff support to them for the near few months. And in that time, figure out and have them recommend to us what they see as a path forward. And then we- But if they meet, |
| 02:26:33.66 | Councilmember Cleveland Knowles | And then we were going on. Yeah. |
| 02:26:35.58 | Jill Hoffman | after being. |
| 02:26:36.09 | Councilmember Cleveland Knowles | notice. |
| 02:26:36.44 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 02:26:36.68 | Councilmember Cleveland Knowles | . |
| 02:26:36.97 | Jill Hoffman | And then, |
| 02:26:37.04 | Councilmember Cleveland Knowles | So that would require. |
| 02:26:37.96 | Jill Hoffman | stuff. Well, they would have to notice if they're going to meet as a board or commission, right? But they all have chairs. |
| 02:26:39.03 | Councilmember Cleveland Knowles | Well, |
| 02:26:45.41 | Jill Hoffman | AND THEY'RE ALL, bright thinking people. And so I wouldn't suspect that they would be able to come back. So to us with the recommendation about their own committee. So anyway, can I also add just |
| 02:26:54.72 | Mayor Kelman | So, and Mary, you already looked at this and shared it with that. To be an ad hoc committee, not subject to the Brown Act, I'm reading from the government code. The purpose of the committee has to be limited. And the duration that the committee exists also has to be limited. And so I offer that to you only to say, I think Jill and Susan at this point, what I'm hearing, of course, when I hear from others, there's a way to do this that is phased, right? And whether it's suspend staff support now, then figure out what is a specific targeted objective |
| 02:27:20.00 | William Ehrensberg | Thank you. |
| 02:27:30.44 | Mayor Kelman | for a limited duration, that would then remove some type of Brown Act requirement. But I'll let the city attorney who is giving me the eye on that. |
| 02:27:43.07 | Mary Wagner | It just a quick point of clarification, mayor members of the city council. Legislative bodies are subject to the Brown Act. Obviously the city council is a legislative body. Any board commission or committee formed by the city council by a formal action, whether it's an ordinance or a resolution or a minute order is considered to be a legislative body. The standing and ad hoc committee rules apply to subsets of legislative bodies. So for example, you know, OMID finance, those are all standing committees of the city council. Um, So if you said correctly, you can be an ad hoc committee, not subject to the Brown Act. if you have a limited purpose and a short time duration. But if the council appoints boards, commissions, committees, whatever you call them, whether they're advisory decision-making, Thank you. and they're a separate body, those are considered to be legislative bodies under the Brown Act and you have to conform to the notice requirements. So it'd be great to get clarification as you get to the point of decision making. Mayor, members of the council, what it is suspension means because if it means that staff just isn't supporting them, then we'd have to figure out a way for agendas to be posted, etc, etc. |
| 02:28:55.80 | Walfred Solorzano | Bye. |
| 02:28:58.60 | Mary Wagner | If it means you no longer want them to be appointed bodies by the city council, we'd have to bring an action back to you to say that, you know, we're no longer because you've adopted a number of resolutions forming a number of boards, commissions, and committees. The other point of clarification I would ask from this body if possible is to clarify the application to the planning commission, the HPC and the HEAC. which I think may be in a different position than some of your other boards, commissions and committees. particularly the planning commission. |
| 02:29:32.03 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you, Mary. Okay, so let's go to Councilor Sobieski and then the vice mayor. Trying to keep us for another 15 minutes on this so that we can try to adjourn close to that two o'clock. So keep an eye on the clock. and |
| 02:29:44.99 | Councilmember Sobieski | Well, I think the Planning Commission, the Library Board of Trustees are certified by law, right, Mary? And they have to exist. That's not enough. Those aren't optional entities. Am I correct? Correct, right. |
| 02:29:58.15 | Mary Wagner | you. |
| 02:29:58.27 | Councilmember Sobieski | Yes. Um, then just Mary I know you and I have talked a fair bit about this actual issue so I'll just ask you what I asked you in person just to clarify So a task force that's devoted to a specific period of time and a specific deliverable is not necessarily governed by the Brown Act. Is my understanding correct? Is that correct? |
| 02:30:18.18 | Mary Wagner | If it's appointed by the city council and is created by the city council, it is a legislative committee. |
| 02:30:25.03 | Councilmember Sobieski | Y. |
| 02:30:25.30 | Mary Wagner | Ad hoc committees are tasks. You know, if the, for example, we've had mayor blue ribbon committees that the mayor just asked people to do something. Those are not legislative bodies created by the city council. |
| 02:30:25.62 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 02:30:35.77 | Mary Wagner | Mm-hmm. |
| 02:30:35.97 | William Ehrensberg | Yeah. |
| 02:30:37.20 | Mary Wagner | But if the full city council or majority of the city council says we want to create a committee to look into sea level rise or some other that task and you vote on that, that becomes a legislative body. |
| 02:30:52.57 | Councilmember Sobieski | To me, that's key. That's a key distinction I want to underline for everybody. That's what I understood from Mark at Fox. By the way, that also works. for our ground at committee so it eat act establishes a subcommittee devoted to marketing. That's the Brown Act subcommittee itself is what you and I talked about. |
| 02:31:13.19 | Mary Wagner | If they have ongoing subject matter jurisdiction and they're not for a limited duration, I completely agree with you. |
| 02:31:19.91 | Councilmember Sobieski | So it's a Matryoshka doll of Brown Act Committees, one inside the other. And that all underlines my I agree. I run a volunteer organization. So I There's no, I mean, I think incredibly highly of volunteers. We have people in town that want to help. I actually think there are lots of cases where our current structure actually drives away volunteers. Um, One of the members of Parks and Rec quit because of Form 700 issues. actually two and then another one from library board is just about to quit because of form 700 issues uh, I think it brings everyone's morale down a lot of the hoops that have to be jumped in through the Brown Act. And that's on that side. So that's just on the volunteers. And the staff burden is... owners. I think the strategic goal. that we should think about is how do we harness volunteer energy to help the city? The VIP program for the police wasn't run by city council or Brown app. It was run by the chief of police. So my proposal is that we just establish buckets where we welcome volunteers. We'd like volunteers to help with economic development. We'd like volunteers to help with sea level rise. We'd like volunteers to help with parks and recreation. Uh, people can sign up to volunteer for the city. And let's let the city manager keep that list and draw upon that list as he or she needs over time. And when we have the desire to supplement, say Janelle's, you know, She can say, Chris, who do we have that wants to volunteer on sea level rise? Do you have anyone who's got an expert in GIS in that list and can do a map and we can do that. he can work for that listing. State is anyone who want to take on the project of improving our GIS information for the city as part of the sea level of product rise work. So I think we should rethink how we harness volunteer energy to help the city. and get away from this. So I would encourage the the message to our committees that we're deciding to go to the, we're going to transition within a few months to the minimum number of Brown Act entities that are legally required in the city of Sausalito. And, And that's the goal and move towards establishing a way of harnessing that volunteer energy um, that's managed by the city manager. |
| 02:33:46.49 | Mayor Kelman | And do you have a point of view on Um, either of the two scenarios outlined by Susan and Jill. One was to change the quarterly meetings. And I think that's still included staff or to suspend staff support immediately and then figure out how to transition to non-brown |
| 02:34:05.07 | Councilmember Sobieski | Well, I love them both, except I the devil's in the details. So I like Jill's idea in principle, but I know that actually They're not allowed to meet to work out how to stay involved if they establish more than a quorum. So it would have to be a sub-quorum like a VDAC So Tom and friends couldn't talk to more than five of the members about how to survive. outside of a publicly agendized meeting where they talk about what to do next so we'd have to do a this publicly agendized meeting which is staff support that's fine i guess we could do a meeting or two more. But it's like, what's the end goal? I think Jill's saying the same thing. The end goal after she's saying suspend for a few months. And the end goal is the same. Have these committees go away at Brown Act institutions. Um, So You know, to me, it's just setting the marker, how we get there. I almost wouldn't drive the bus that merrily, I'm curious what others think about the idea of having a structure pool of volunteers that wanna help the city. the VIPS program. And all the city council does is specify the buckets. So they sort of advertised it. instead of advertising apply for the Parks and Rec Commission, Hey, do you want to help out the parks? you know, apply to be a volunteer for the city. And that's not picking up garbage. It's, you know, at any level. and let the city manager decide whether, how to use that resource. And so he knows that there's a expert on grants who's willing to write some grants for the parks. Now he can draw on that. So the real goal is just to get rid of them, but not to close the door to volunteers, rather, anyone who, you know, if you kept this as an open ledger of volunteers, It's on our website. These are people that have volunteered to be involved and they can talk to one another. They can provide their email address. They can self-organize. In other words, we can facilitate people self-organizing in these verticals. and it has a little bit of a moniker of the city because we have a list of volunteers for the city that's on the city website, but it's not an official advisory committee that gives official advice. It's just a bucket. And I bet that you will find a lot of self organizing out of that, particularly if we then at city council meetings or otherwise, toss to those groups tasks that we want to have done, for example, parking, right? What happened? We're like, gosh, we should hire a parking consultant, but that takes forever in the city with our RFP process. So Kieran and, uh, And Aaron just went up and did something really groovy. So we can do that across town on a bunch of our projects and get a lot done, I think. in EDAC, right? There's a bunch of rigmarole to do the, THE census of businesses downtown. At the end of the day, that could have just been a test force led by John Bure and friends who worked with Chris Zavada to get a letter that let them make entree and get a list of the tenants in the merchant that's, you know, gonna be very helpful to our thinking. So everything that we've done can be done as a task. It doesn't need to be a brownie. Committee and I think we should move expeditiously in that direction |
| 02:37:10.79 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. So let's do this. Let's hear it from the vice mayor. Then I'd like to weigh in. Then let's see if the city manager has any feedback for us. And then if other council members want to, Say anything more and we'll go there. |
| 02:37:23.89 | Unknown | Thank you very much, Mark Hellman. And thanks to the manager for putting this together and thinking about ways we might better support our staff I think we're in a really difficult but great situation in that we have so many innovative and interested volunteers in Saucelito who we really would like to have involved in and working with and supporting the city, while at the same time the Brown Act makes that really cumbersome for staff. I appreciate that we mentioned Saucelito Beautiful and Historical Society, but what's important to note about those organizations before we just say we can do that for all of our boards and commissions is that they're all standing nonprofits who have a board who had to do the work of integrating who have to fundraise, who have a legal entity as well. I'm not saying that we should play that role for all of these boards and commissions, but I think what we're all saying is we need to work together to find a, a way that the city acts as a bridge, which is slightly organized at least for each of these groups. Because if we just say, my concern is that if we say, sign up here for what you're interested in and there's no continued process or conversation amongst folks, they'll lose their interest or it'll go by too long and they won't hear from the city or otherwise. So I'm really supportive of what everyone has been saying, especially that we're all thinking about this needs to change. And also we wanna honor the work that our volunteers are doing. In the same vein of that we have so many great commissions, we have really creative people who I think can figure this out. And I think if we empower the boards and commissions to do their own, inventory of what's working and what's not and come back to us with a plan, they probably will. I think we've seen them come to us with a lot of great things so i would tend to be supportive of whatever model of the take a few months for these boards and commissions to speak to each other and come back to us about how they want to operate going forward would would work um it's not to say i'm not supportive of council member hoffman or california cleveland's view it's just what works with the brown act and what we're allowed to do at this point um and what is least cumbersome on staff. I like the idea of having quarterly because these people have done a lot of hard work and allowing them to continue to have a bridge to keep doing that in some capacity. But I think maybe we do take three or four months now and let them come back to us and make that decision once we've heard. but there are meetings scheduled this month. For instance, there's a sustainability commission meeting on the 12th, which has a great calendar. And I would hate to go to them and say, your meeting's been canceled. Sorry, we didn't give you any opportunity to figure that out. So I didn't mean to figure out what, I think we're all on the same page here, which is, great in supporting a way forward, but we need to be realistic about that some order is helpful. I think a good model to look to is potentially age-friendly Sausalito uses the city as a fiscal agent and then does all of the work on their own. And that's not at all cumbersome on city staff, but they're still connected to us. And that's a really great model that we could consider for some of these boards and commissions going forward as well. So just putting that out there and I'm sure we can I'll come to consensus on this and just really want to also give these boards and commissions a chance to let us know what they feel they need from the city and then work on how we can figure that out to best support them and our city staff. |
| 02:40:24.94 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you, Vice Mayor. I'm going to note, we have not taken public comment yet because we were so excited that we launched right in. So we will be taking public comment, but let me try to stitch some of this together and pull from literally everybody's ideas. So here's a suggestion. Move to quarterly starting this quarter, which means three more meetings with staff at the end of the year. A goal to transition to non-Brown Act by the end of the year. Um, As they're transitioning to non-Brown Act, identify task forces to work within the three priorities that we just all agreed on, fiscal resiliency, infrastructure, and organization. And I'll just say, I think the Sea Level Rise Task Force, I'm obviously biased, but we had a limited duration with specific goal and everybody kind of knew where they stood. And that was a really good model. I think Susan, when you were mayor, you had, can you remember what's called this creative economic, Blue Ribbon Committee, I thought that was really effective. So I think, but they have to align with these three that we all just agreed on. And then as this is occurring, develop a bucket of experts that the city manager can then tap into through the end of the year when the phase out of the Brown Act requirement is complete. And so that would be kind of stitch. I think I got everybody's suggestions in that and try to blend them together. I am interested to see if the city manager likes that idea and also if a bucket of experts is more work for you or helpful. Same measure. |
| 02:42:03.51 | Chris Zapata | Thank you all for all of your thoughts and your recognition that something needs to be changed. And that in and of itself is a win. I think I would like some time to vet through all of the ideas. And I certainly agree that something needs to be done. That's why I kind of banged the drum in October. but you know, The fact that you actually are talking about it today I I applaud you, and I'm sure the organization will thank you as well. But I do believe that, you know, we have to have the consideration to the volunteers and people that have agendas in play and how you, you know, |
| 02:42:41.51 | William Ehrensberg | but haven't you? |
| 02:42:45.34 | Chris Zapata | uh, turn that battleship. and make it a speedboat that's going to be a challenge. |
| 02:42:50.69 | Walfred Solorzano | So, |
| 02:42:50.76 | Chris Zapata | So let me have some time to talk to our team. and we can figure out how to bring something back taking the ideas and obviously the public comments and I'm sure we'll get some more input from some commission committee and board members as this conversation is kind of fresh in its frankness. So I really look forward to that and Again, we will keep doing what we need to do to keep the ship going forward. But the fact that you are talking about how to make it a little more agile, is deeply appreciated. And I just don't want to respond off the cuff and say, turn them all off. And that's a great idea. I'd rather do some thinking on this with our team and then come back to you. |
| 02:43:33.32 | Mayor Kelman | Okay, and Chris, my one recommendation as well with that is that we all just aligned around those three areas of focus. And so as the boards and commissions are being asked to figure out how they can best contribute, I think if we can align with them within those spheres of focus, then we'll achieve more of this stitching together. Okay, so pause the council exchange, open up to public comment. Serge, can you let us know who's ready to share their thoughts? |
| 02:44:02.00 | Serge Avila | Madam Mayor, we do have a public commenter and that's Kevin Carroll. Kevin, you've been unmuted and has to share your video. |
| 02:44:12.57 | Mayor Kelman | Hi Kevin. |
| 02:44:14.59 | Kevin Carroll | Good afternoon. And I do love these Saturday meetings when everybody's sharp and wide awake. A lot more fun. Just a real quick comment that occurred to me in listening to all this. I observe meetings in other cities and at the county level. By and large, the Sausalito meeting for the best run Um, I see of the committee. But one thing that strikes me is the amount of staff time that goes into running the Zoom meetings. |
| 02:44:44.43 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 02:44:44.68 | Kevin Carroll | I don't think Kevin McGowan or Chief Robacher the city clerks were tested on their proficiency at Zoom. when they were initially hired, but they've all picked it up rather well and could have second careers doing it. But to me, it raises the issue. How are the city staff compensated for running these meetings at night And could some of them you know, if they're paid or if they get comp time off and some of the, management employees, but the other employees If it might make sense to hire an outside contractor or a part-time employee just to run the Zoom meeting. and relieve some of that. pressure from the staff. so that they can concentrate on their job. And just too, I think the other issue is when we talk about transparency and communication. Again, South Toledo Currents, Uh, It's excellent. reviews of past meetings and what's coming up on future agendas. And that's, I think, I think it's the best I've seen anywhere in Marin County on a, city or county level. Thank you. |
| 02:45:53.50 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you, Kevin. |
| 02:45:55.86 | Serge Avila | Our next speaker is Vicki Nichols. Vicki, you've been unmuted. |
| 02:46:00.33 | Vicki Nichols | Thank you. Thank you. I had trouble with my mute before, but I think I'm on target now. I got you. |
| 02:46:05.33 | Serge Avila | I got you. |
| 02:46:05.75 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:46:06.29 | Vicki Nichols | Yes, thank you. I just wanted to, I appreciate council member Blaustein's comments on the fact that the organizations you were speaking of were nonprofits. I was going to bring that up myself. They're not obviously required with Brown Act. I do think as you transition and have a consider having meetings that aren't Brown Act, that it's very clear to these recommendations, the these committees that what they're bringing back are recommendations. I've attended some and they act as if they are, you know, bringing something that's already been concluded and there hasn't been any public comment and I just know that You can... you know, bombard a a project if the public doesn't get some opportunity to comment on it. And I don't believe the committees CHARGED WITH you know, deciding things, they're making recommendations. I would support anything you can do in terms of, that Ms. Blownstein's comment about sustainability. As chair of the HPC, quasi legislative committee. We have had several meetings canceled because of not staff support. Everyone on our committee knows the crunch that the CDD department has been under. So anything that can be done to help them. And I will say the new planners that have been chosen to be our liaisons, have helped us tremendously, but they are also processing applications and things. So I support a way to do this. When these liaisons with council were created, it wasn't intended that the council attend every meeting. They were supposed to be a touch point with the committees that may have needed something. I've seen that the committee's composed of more volunteers who don't understand city processes. It has taken more time. So maybe if there's an orientation that may help as the staff support is pulled back or whatever about clearly what the task is. Okay, thank you. |
| 02:48:14.03 | Serge Avila | Okay. Thank you. |
| 02:48:16.02 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. |
| 02:48:16.56 | Vicki Nichols | Thank you. |
| 02:48:17.93 | Mayor Kelman | Thanks, Vicki. Thanks, Sergeant. Okay, any other public comment? |
| 02:48:23.41 | Serge Avila | Madam Mayor, I see no further or other hands raised. |
| 02:48:26.54 | Mayor Kelman | Okay, so it sounds like the city manager is going to take these comments under advisement. I'm gonna give council member Cleveland Mills the last word on this and then move to our and third business item. |
| 02:48:38.28 | Councilmember Cleveland Knowles | Thank you, Mary. I didn't mean to take the last word, but yeah, I think it's great that the city manager can take all this input. Just to clarify my input, I think it was much closer to council member Hoffman's suggestion perhaps I misspoke, but I, The quarterly meetings I meant to be short term and to sunset. But as I understood the law, and perhaps I'm wrong, it was to develop a plan to become non Brown Act or a recommendation to continue that way. So I think we're all pretty much aligned and I just wanted to clarify that I hadn't thought of this extended long-term thing just a road or a bridge as council member Blaustein said to get to our results |
| 02:49:20.03 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. |
| 02:49:20.42 | Councilmember Cleveland Knowles | So, thanks. |
| 02:49:20.98 | Mayor Kelman | Thanks. |
| 02:49:21.30 | Councilmember Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 02:49:21.65 | Mayor Kelman | Yeah, thank you. That was another great conversation, everybody. Chris, I really appreciate the way you structured this agenda. leading off the way we did really helped this conversation become a much more helpful, So thank you for that. So we'll turn it back to you for Item 3C, the major budget. |
| 02:49:37.92 | Chris Zapata | Thank you, Mayor, members of the council, members of the public. This is third at bat. We gave you this information in a rush on a consent agenda. in March which shouldn't have happened we received about a number of questions and provided responses so that the council could fully understand what the requests were that they were then attached to my April 12th high level meeting so there would be more opportunity for the council to respond or ask questions if they had them. |
| 02:49:51.94 | William Ehrensberg | a number |
| 02:50:10.50 | Chris Zapata | We encourage council to send us in writing what they thought they needed to know. And, you know, I've had meetings, Vivian's had meetings, And so I think we're at that point where we're ready to ask you to pass these resolutions so that we can begin the work of completing and building our budget for next year. So with us today are Vivian and Chad. They graciously agreed to come in on a Saturday. So if you have specific questions related to anything in the report, they'll be happy to respond. |
| 02:50:47.04 | Mayor Kelman | Great, thank you. Chad, good to see you. And Vivian, thank you for joining. Any questions for Vivian or Chad on the staff report? Go ahead, President. |
| 02:50:58.34 | Unknown | Yeah, I just wanted to clarify and I asked you this in our meeting Vivian, but I think it's good for the public and the city manager touched on it as well. Just the two main places where the budget projections changed from what we expected. One was within CDD because we stopped using the, and this was about a million dollar change, right, because we stopped using the the cost recovery but then we ultimately saved almost 600,000 in cost recovery that's just the one thing where people might look and ask a question so I thought it'd be helpful to point that out and have you give an explanation. QUICKLY? |
| 02:51:29.44 | Vivian | Yes. Yes, that's true that we took that from budget from CDD out because of one of the cost of recovery was canceled and that's why we say some money there. And then also I believe the housing elements not happening this fiscal year, that's probably portion of that too. I believe a chair might have some detailed information on this specific one. Chair, can you add some more detail to that? |
| 02:51:57.12 | Jeffrey Chase | Yeah. I certainly can. So yes, you are correct with the planning revenues there was a change in how it was budgeted. So if we look back at prior years, Can I, am I able to share my screen? I can have a little more detail that I can share. |
| 02:52:10.42 | Walfred Solorzano | All right. |
| 02:52:10.43 | Vivian | Yeah. |
| 02:52:10.62 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 02:52:10.85 | Jeffrey Chase | Go ahead, Chal. Let me share. THANK YOU, MARIN COUNCIL. All right. elect. comes through. If we look at kind of the planning revenue is here as a total. Um, These are the two items that were reduced. So if we look in prior years, these were the planning revenues for fiscal year 19, 20 and 21. And then this is our current year to date revenues. on column G right here. So this budget was over budgeted for the expectation of the cost recovery that we were doing. So that was brought down, that was brought down substantially. We essentially eliminated those revenues. Um, On the expense side, there is an offsetting reduction in the expense if we come down to, to that line item, let me scroll down. I know I got a lot of numbers on the screen here. Um, It's an impressive spreadsheet, Chad. I've got a lot going on here. Yeah, I've got every account in many, many years. But here, if we look at the, If we look at the contract labor and professional services, We're going to consolidate those. So if we look at those as one line item, You can see we started off the budget year with 1.9 million of planned professional services or outside resources. And we've reduced that to about 630. So there was a reduction of about 1.2 million on the expenditure side. to offset that decrease in in revenues. And again, if we look back and we look at the historical, you can see in fiscal year 19, about 64,000. worth of expenditures. Fiscal year 20, about $500,000. Fiscal year 21, about 78,000. And then this year we're trending about 147. through the end of February. So those categories were way over budgeted, both on the revenue side as well as the expenditure side and they weren't really reflective of that historical context that we have here and you can see on the screen. In regards to the housing study, I do have some note Uh, maybe on a different screen. Um, with this professional services or with this housing study, the It was about 900,000 if I recall right. And I can find my notes, but it was right around 900,000. And when we started talking with the planning department, they said that, okay, part of it is gonna be fiscal year, 22 part of it will be fiscal year 23. I think about 60% was going to be spent in fiscal year 22. So we took that 40% and then we're going to move that into fiscal year 23 to be more reflective of where those expenditures will be incurred. |
| 02:55:00.55 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 02:55:00.57 | Unknown | Does that help? |
| 02:55:00.64 | Jeffrey Chase | Does that help answer and provide a little more context, clarity for what you guys are looking for? |
| 02:55:04.30 | Unknown | Yeah. Yeah, I was just trying to point out the key areas where that, because what we're trying to do today is just move forward with this one so that we can start with fiscal year 22-23 and there |
| 02:55:13.09 | Jeffrey Chase | And there |
| 02:55:13.56 | William Ehrensberg | Yeah. |
| 02:55:14.00 | Unknown | the biggest adjustments that you can clearly see are with it. I mean, that's the largest number, right? Like that one was the one that would be the most, why is it so much more money on these two sides? So it was just, and the less obvious ones, I don't want to take up too much more time in our meeting, but I think that those questions have been answered by council members in written conversation, but I wanted to call that one because it's over a million dollars just today, because I think you guys did a great job |
| 02:55:36.12 | William Ehrensberg | Thank you. |
| 02:55:36.17 | Serge Avila | Thank you. |
| 02:55:36.29 | Jeffrey Chase | Yeah. |
| 02:55:36.34 | Serge Avila | Yeah. |
| 02:55:36.39 | Jeffrey Chase | Thank you. |
| 02:55:36.48 | Serge Avila | Yeah. |
| 02:55:38.52 | Unknown | talking about why I'm resolving it and so I wanted to bring it to everyone's attention in case questions came up |
| 02:55:43.97 | Jeffrey Chase | Certainly. THANK YOU. |
| 02:55:45.88 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:55:45.98 | Mayor Kelman | Chad, Vivian, I have a quick question. One is about monies allocated to Boards and committees that have been allocated, but not spent. And I'd like to understand accounting of those. And my apologies, I should have asked you that before, but we made a substantial allocation to EDAC as an example. And I'm wondering if they've spent all that and how much is left. And then the other, and I think I just missed it, is the FEMA reimbursement. I know obviously we don't have it, I still remain optimistic. Where is that, how is that accounted for? |
| 02:56:19.49 | Jeffrey Chase | Yep. So there was a, I can address the FEMA side of things. Let me share my screen one more time. Um, The FEMA revenue was reduced based on the DPW department and their understanding that they're not going to receive substantial FEMA dollars. So that's gonna be in fund 140. Let me scroll down and I can grab an account number. That was eliminated from this year's budget because Kevin did not believe he was going to receive those FEMA dollars in this current fiscal year. So in this account right here, again, general capital project fund, federal grant, We started off with an expected budget of about 2.5 million in federal dollars That was adjusted in the August Capitol one-way communication that took place and then it was further reduced in his department request that he was not going, he was not expecting to see a federal FEMA reimbursement in this current fiscal year. As far as the EDAC dollars, I am not I am not familiar with that. I know that there is like a sub fund of the general fund Fund 101, which is like a grants fund, it could be there, I don't know. um, I can do some investigation and get back. |
| 02:57:36.56 | Mayor Kelman | I could do some of that. And sorry, and I just couldn't remember, I'm not picking on that particular committee, but my question is more about funds that we allocated that if they are unspent mid year, should we as a council review those priorities given where we are financially. I think are others where we allocated funds, but I cannot remember offhand. |
| 02:58:01.62 | Jeffrey Chase | I'm not familiar where that would be. I don't know that answer right now, but I can certainly do some investigation and discovery. and get back to the council. |
| 02:58:11.84 | Mayor Kelman | OK. Other questions for the finance team? |
| 02:58:18.70 | Mayor Kelman | Okay, not seeing any. Chad or Vivian or Chris, anything else you want to share before we take public comment? |
| 02:58:25.87 | Unknown | Mayor. |
| 02:58:26.29 | Mayor Kelman | I don't have any comments. |
| 02:58:27.73 | Unknown | Don't. Thank you. |
| 02:58:28.96 | Mayor Kelman | Okay. |
| 02:58:29.18 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:58:30.19 | Mayor Kelman | My only comment is Vivian, I don't know what your background is, but it's making me want to be there. So thank you. |
| 02:58:35.81 | Vivian | Thank you. |
| 02:58:35.94 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. Okay, let's see if there's anybody here for public comment. |
| 02:58:40.60 | Serge Avila | Thank you. Madam Mayor, I see no hands raised at the moment. like me to read how to provide public comments just to give it a minute or move forward. No. |
| 02:58:50.51 | Mayor Kelman | No, I think we're okay at this point in the meeting. So we'll go ahead and close the public comment. Bring it back up here. Yes, Kills Member Hoffman and then the vice mayor. |
| 02:59:02.07 | Jill Hoffman | I just want to thank Vivian and Chad for jumping in and Vivian, you know, coming in as our new finance manager last year, you know, you really stepped in and did this Herculean effort to get us where we are and to get our finance department reconfigured and back on track. So, I can't thank you enough for all of your hard work and Chad, thank you for your continued work with I. Bailey, great work. And, you know, just a tremendous effort this past year. So thank you. Your efforts have not gone unnoticed or unappreciated. So we appreciate everything you're doing. And great job, yeah. |
| 02:59:39.12 | Vivian | Thank you. |
| 02:59:39.61 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 02:59:39.63 | Vivian | Thank you. |
| 02:59:42.14 | Unknown | PASSED. I really appreciate how much of our feedback you took and how much of our conversations that we had really shaped what this looks like. But when this was first a consent item, the city manager responded accordingly and said, you know what, you're right, we're gonna take it off consent and give you another look at this. And then the city manager did a, Exceptional probably one of the best ever presentations on city finances and Sausalito for the public and the community. And that was with a huge help and big thanks to Chad and Vivian for your work and I think what this shows is our restructuring of the finance department really paid off and things are are gonna we're really gonna start to make some of those necessary structural smart changes so I would be in favor of making a motion now to approve the mid-year revisions to the budget report but I will just get that on the table and let my colleagues give their comments |
| 03:00:30.24 | Councilmember Cleveland Knowles | That was this motion I'm seconding it. And the second day, all the thanks as well. |
| 03:00:36.02 | Mayor Kelman | Right, can you please call the roll-in search |
| 03:00:40.01 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 03:00:40.08 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 03:00:40.13 | Serge Avila | Councilmember Sobieski? Yes. Thank you. Also member Cleveland, no. |
| 03:00:43.69 | Mayor Kelman | YES. |
| 03:00:44.43 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 03:00:44.50 | Serge Avila | Council member Hoffman. |
| 03:00:45.80 | Mayor Kelman | Yes. |
| 03:00:46.37 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 03:00:46.45 | Serge Avila | Vice Mayor Blaustein. |
| 03:00:47.92 | Mayor Kelman | Yes. |
| 03:00:48.58 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 03:00:48.82 | Serge Avila | Mayor Kelman. |
| 03:00:49.78 | Mayor Kelman | Yes. All right, thank you and wonderful work finance team. Really, really appreciate it. Okay, we're gonna move on then to our last business item, which is item 3D. Consider the request by the housing advisory committee to allow an in-person housing element town hall meeting on May 9th. |
| 03:01:08.86 | Chris Zapata | Thank you, Mayor and members of the council and the city attorney may be able to help me a little bit with this, In a nutshell, the meeting request is not consistent with what the council has adopted in terms of how meetings are conducted in a COVID environment. The second piece of that is I don't We are not ready to conduct a hybrid meeting. So it's either doing it or not doing it. policy of you know what you do with City Council meetings and having some things that you do differently with this meeting one of the things that was apparent was some of the zoom information is cumbersome bulky not clear And so we were advised and asked and we will try to provide the visual information that we need to to help the committee members understand more. Because it probably is more important to walk up and see something on a scale that's not on a computer screen. So we're prepared to do that, but we need some direction from the city council on to hold an in-person public meeting. It's not consistent with your ordinance. I think that's the fundamental question. Mary, did I miss anything? |
| 03:02:26.03 | Mary Wagner | No, I think you hit it right on the head. And I'm happy to answer any questions if you have any. |
| 03:02:31.21 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. Thank you. And Chris, you and I talked about this. And we talked about the importance of having much larger visuals on hand and so we talked about putting something in the library that could be posted which i think would serve the added bonus and benefit of having everybody in the community not just heac members see what we're talking about and so i think you had said that that was feasible and i'm doing this because i'm imagining like a giant easel kind of thing um and then also for either every committee member or those who request it having that that same size available, you know, blueprint or larger, so that they can really dig in with the information. And I think you said that that was a doable. Um, offering as well. So I just want to let everybody know we had that conversation. Susan, do you have anything to add on that? |
| 03:03:16.54 | Councilmember Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. But yeah, I think that sounds like a great idea. I just, I don't feel like the HIAC requested an in-person meeting. I think we just got some public comment and we're interested in sort of the limitations around public meeting, so I don't recall that we So this is, I think this should satisfy the public comment, which was the need for clearer information. I mean, it might be nice to have it on the same available either in the library or the Edgewater room or the City Council Chambers on the day of the town hall. you know, from, the four hours before the town hall so that people could come in and look at all those materials, drop off comment cards if they wanted. You know, just, but not all at once and not everybody in the same room. Yeah, I think it sounds like you've already had those conversations and that we've got a good way to get the as much information to the public as possible. on that important topic. So thanks. Great. Ian? |
| 03:04:19.72 | Councilmember Sobieski | Ahem. Yeah, I watched the HIAC meeting, the last one where this was discussed in part. And it seemed like that was the genesis of The interest in an in-person meeting was that the visual materials that were associated with the discussion were inadequate and difficult to discern and the anticipation was that the public would be lost. with the quality of the representations being made. It really, Your idea for putting something in the library is certainly a solution. um, but more broadly, the question is how to appropriately engage the public in, uh, in all the trade-offs that are being considered by HIAC and with the information they're trying to convey. Well, having a large poster board is certainly better and a huge improvement over what you've been working with at KEOC I can't imagine in the 21st century that we don't have the ability and our consultant for 800 or $900,000 should be required to produce. a digital version that's able to be blown up on a screen and where personal where |
| 03:05:19.22 | Walfred Solorzano | version. |
| 03:05:24.01 | Walfred Solorzano | China. |
| 03:05:24.11 | Councilmember Sobieski | A chat ledger or some sort of comment can be archived and even a discussion had. between the consultants and members of the public to the extent necessary, it just seems like the whole task and The public meeting is very narrowly construed if it's just a public meeting at Spinnaker and the boxes checked instead of there being more uh, dynamic engagement with public feedback in two directions. I know I may be pushing the edge of what's allowable to be discussed here, I guess it's leading to a point that I feel like And we watched the EAC meeting and the discussions about what should go on what lots and how much of a lot could be considered to be built upon. There is. a presumed constraint in this whole discussion about how much a lot could be filled and we need to |
| 03:06:13.59 | Walfred Solorzano | I don't know. |
| 03:06:17.34 | Councilmember Sobieski | we need to allow us all to comprehend the potential trade-offs for these lots with their specific designs and there needs to be a format for that. I don't know. with the community. So uh, you know, certainly the COVID restrictions prevent the public meeting that we're talking about, but we need to not just, mean that the fallback is just doing something online without really responding to the need that the HIEC is described for having fun with me. |
| 03:06:47.36 | Mayor Kelman | Okay. Yes, Vice Mayor. I know we're just trying to talk about There's lots we can talk about on this topic for sure. And it will be on our next city council meeting on May 10th, but on the topic of in-person or virtual. Just sticking to that, I want to support |
| 03:07:04.08 | Unknown | Just sticking to that yours and your idea and also Councilman Cleveland knows agreed with just having the images up in the library and not having an in person meeting at this point, given our existing COVID restrictions. There's a lot to talk about on HIAC that I could jump into, but keeping it to the point, I would be supportive of that as a bridge. |
| 03:07:21.65 | Mayor Kelman | Okay, great. Thank you everybody. This is super, super helpful. Public discourse on it. Let's say public comment. on this if there is any. |
| 03:07:31.44 | Serge Avila | Madam Mayor, I see no hands raised. |
| 03:07:31.47 | Mayor Kelman | Yeah. Okay. But with that said then I will suggest we, oh, I do see one. City manager. |
| 03:07:41.90 | Chris Zapata | uh, mayor and council. I just want to say that, um, you know, given that, you know, we're going to have to get set up for meetings in the future that may be hybrid. I directed, asked our new city clerk to get the equipment ready and he's working on that. Just wanted to make sure you knew that. |
| 03:07:58.91 | Mayor Kelman | Okay, thank you. I did close public comment, but I see Sybil has her hand up. So Sybil, why don't you... I'll reopen and I'll take Sybil's comment. |
| 03:08:15.55 | Mayor Kelman | Oh, you're on mute. |
| 03:08:20.85 | Mayor Kelman | Okay, you're unmuted. . |
| 03:08:24.27 | Walfred Solorzano | Yeah, yeah, yeah. |
| 03:08:25.61 | Mayor Kelman | I think. |
| 03:08:26.58 | Walfred Solorzano | All right. |
| 03:08:26.67 | Mayor Kelman | Sybil, I'm sorry, your audio is distorted. |
| 03:08:33.44 | Mayor Kelman | massively distorted. I don't know. I mean, it's interesting, but we can't understand |
| 03:08:44.57 | Councilmember Sobieski | Hey, I like the sign language. |
| 03:08:46.82 | Mayor Kelman | Yeah. I think she's gonna write to us and she's gonna share her thoughts. Okay, thank you very much. Appreciate that. |
| 03:08:51.59 | Councilmember Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 03:08:51.61 | Unknown | Thank you. very good. Also it's Sybil's birthday this weekend so just happy birthday. |
| 03:08:56.12 | Mayor Kelman | have a first time. Happy birthday. It's a fantastic birthday month coming up, so congrats. Okay. Well, with that friends, I suggest we adjourn to closed session. |
| 03:09:08.60 | Councilmember Sobieski | And it's an in-close session. |
| 03:09:10.19 | Mayor Kelman | Bye. |
| 03:09:10.22 | Mary Wagner | Madam Mayor, that's for items A2 and A3, both conferences with legal counsel. Yes, thank you very much. I see no public comment. |
| 03:09:15.77 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. |
| 03:09:15.91 | Councilmember Sobieski | Thank you very much. |
| 03:09:16.97 | Mayor Kelman | NO PUBLIC LEADERS. |
| 03:09:20.42 | Mary Wagner | Thank you. |
| 03:09:20.43 | Mayor Kelman | Okay, thank you. |
| 03:09:21.72 | Mary Wagner | Thank you. |
| 03:09:32.47 | Peter Van Meter | Thank you. |
Eva — Against: Criticized David Duncan's historical methodology and bias, and expressed broader concerns about the Historic Preservation Commission's focus, urging careful consideration of appointments. ▶ 📄