| Time | Speaker | Text |
|---|---|---|
| 00:00:00.37 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:00:13.75 | Walfred Solorzano | Good afternoon, Mayor Kelman and council members. The city is in health pursuant to government code section 54953E. And in light of the declared state of emergency, regular meeting of the city council for June 28, 2022, will be conducted telephonically through Zoom and broadcast live on the city's website and cable TV channel 27. Welcome. |
| 00:00:37.36 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you, Serge, welcome everybody. It is Tuesday, June 28th, 2022. Sir, should we please call the roll? |
| 00:00:43.99 | Walfred Solorzano | Councilmember Sobieski. Here. Council member, please let know. |
| 00:00:48.02 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. |
| 00:00:48.04 | Vicki Nichols | Yeah. |
| 00:00:48.85 | Walfred Solorzano | something on the top line. |
| 00:00:48.87 | Vicki Nichols | Thank you. here. |
| 00:00:51.30 | Walfred Solorzano | Vice Mayor Blasdien? |
| 00:00:52.83 | Vicki Nichols | here. |
| 00:00:53.15 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. |
| 00:00:53.68 | Walfred Solorzano | Mary Kelman. |
| 00:00:54.71 | Vicki Nichols | Thank you. |
| 00:00:54.72 | Mayor Kelman | Here. |
| 00:00:55.57 | Walfred Solorzano | All members are present and there's a forum. |
| 00:00:57.98 | Mayor Kelman | Okay, thank you. We have four items today in closed session. Item D1, confidence with labor negotiators. pursuant to section 54957.6, agency designated representatives Charles Sakai, Sons-Pikai, Witten, and SEIU Local 1021 Sussabets Association Management and, oh, Management and Confidential, thank you. I need to do a conference of legal counsel This is the Bank of America building. Item D3, Conference of Legal Counsel. initiation of litigation pursuant to California government code section 54956.9C. one unnamed potential case. And then item D4, public employment. And this is regarding the city attorney. So we'll take some public comment on closed session items, and I'll ask Serge that you explain how to give public comment. |
| 00:01:45.01 | Walfred Solorzano | Video or audio public comment participation is limited to two 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 time to speak. To raise your hand from a phone, press start nine, and each speaker will be notified when the time has elapsed. |
| 00:01:57.33 | Paul Austin | RAGE. |
| 00:02:04.03 | Walfred Solorzano | Madam Mayor, it looks like we do have one public comment. |
| 00:02:08.08 | Mayor Kelman | Okay, great. We're gonna go ahead and welcome Brian. |
| 00:02:13.26 | Walfred Solorzano | Brian, you've been unmuted and asked to share your video. |
| 00:02:17.11 | Brian Vitale | Hello, everyone. I'm Brian Vitale, Parks and Recreation Supervisor, and I'm down here at our wonderful, Dunphy Park. And I wanted to speak briefly tonight on the upcoming SEIU discussions and negotiations regarding our pay at being furloughed 10%. Um, I was in the last round of furloughs and it hit my family pretty hard and is a challenge. Now I have a nine-month-old baby at home. Marin is expensive enough to live in and to work in with gas prices and everything else skyrocketing. And I can't afford childcare and these difficulties are making it, or this is making it difficult on a regular basis for me. You know, on Monday, I'm gonna be working an 18 hour day for the city. I'm gonna be putting in a lot of time and effort in to provide for this community, for the things that they love on a regular basis. And being able to take money out of my pocket on a weekly basis, doesn't really seem fair to me or to any member of our staff. I don't think there's any other cities in the county that are furloughing their staff. I've seen a lot of people getting bonuses and more money as a result of things coming back. I'm not sure. You know, when we took out and eliminated the director position, that put a lot of things onto my shoulders and a lot of things onto my staff shoulders. And we're a department of two full-time staff right now, and it is really hurting us. It's hurting the parks maintenance crew. But a couple solutions that I have for this are to give people the options to be able to reduce their time. Instead of making it mandatory, I think you'll be surprised to find how many people are interested in taking that reduction in time and in pay in order to help their quality of life. But I don't think it's right for you to tell me what my quality of life will be. If I am happy with working my 40 hours, even though I'm currently working well over 40 hours, then that's something that I should be able to do. But I think that it's a discussion that we need to have. because of 10% reduction. |
| 00:04:24.21 | Nick Moscolino | Thank you. |
| 00:04:24.28 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you, Brian. |
| 00:04:25.90 | Brian Vitale | Thank you. |
| 00:04:25.91 | Walfred Solorzano | Let's appreciate it. Thank you, Brian. Madam Mayor, we do have another speaker in that. sewer coordinator you have been unmuted and as you share your video. |
| 00:04:47.53 | Pat Guasco | This is |
| 00:04:47.68 | Mayor Kelman | I'm going to go ahead and Thank you. |
| 00:04:49.72 | Pat Guasco | Pardon me. |
| 00:04:51.07 | Mayor Kelman | Welcome. |
| 00:04:52.02 | Pat Guasco | Oh, thank you. My name is Pat Guasco and I'm the sewer systems coordinator for the city of Sausalito. I've been with the city for 15.25 years. And I've been a SEIU member for the same amount of time. Regarding the most recent offer by this venerable body, and the issue surrounding our most recent contract negotiations, the 10% reduction in pay to me, will put me underwater pretty much. you know, property taxes, I'm a Marin resident, And other things, just being able to pay you know, keep up with the rate of inflation, which is in excess of 8% currently. |
| 00:05:42.59 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 00:05:42.64 | Pat Guasco | Thank you. So to me, it's kind of like a one-two punch to the gut. for you all. back in 2020 to 21, and now we're being asked to do it again. I was being a nice guy the last time. Sorry, I should stand back a little bit. But I'm gonna dig in, and I'm not necessarily agreeing to any of this, and I'm encouraging others not to. I think there's a better way to go about this. I wanna kind of expand on this discussion later perhaps, but the Sewer Enterprise Fund pays for two employees and that sewer fund is fully um, funded. It doesn't have a deficit. When you folks close your deficit at the end of FY21-22, you're still going to have in excess of $5.1 million. And that's plenty of money to be able to help us be able to support our families. And I really wish you would... reconsider your decisions right now. I know you've been through 10 rounds already. but, The decision right now, the way it reads to me is it's unconscionable, irresponsible, and blatantly cruel during these inflationary times. Thank you for your time. |
| 00:06:53.40 | Mayor Kelman | I thank you for your time. Thank you, Pat. |
| 00:06:58.99 | Mayor Kelman | All right, Serge, any other hands raised? |
| 00:07:01.01 | Walfred Solorzano | Madam Mayor, has he no other hands? |
| 00:07:02.45 | Mayor Kelman | . Okay, thank you, everybody. We will go ahead and close public comment and adjourn. Excuse me, it's a closed session. |
| 00:08:06.12 | Walfred Solorzano | Okay, so we're restarting our audio sequence. Thank you. Thank you. and at meeting all public. |
| 00:08:24.09 | Walfred Solorzano | Welcome, Madam Mayor. All public has been admitted and we are recording. |
| 00:08:28.73 | Mayor Kelman | Great, thank you. Welcome everybody to the June 20th South City Council meeting. We're returning from Closed session, we do not have any closed session items so I will ask if we have a motion. to go ahead and approve the agenda. So moved. in a second. |
| 00:08:48.66 | Jill Hoffman | I can. |
| 00:08:48.98 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. |
| 00:08:49.00 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:08:51.24 | Mayor Kelman | Another roll. |
| 00:08:52.71 | Walfred Solorzano | Councilmember Sobieski? Council member Hoffman. |
| 00:08:57.87 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. |
| 00:08:57.89 | Bridget Bart | Yes. |
| 00:09:00.47 | Walfred Solorzano | Mayor Blasdeney. |
| 00:09:02.09 | Bridget Bart | Thank you. |
| 00:09:02.11 | Mayor Kelman | Yes. |
| 00:09:02.97 | Walfred Solorzano | America. |
| 00:09:04.23 | Mayor Kelman | Yes. |
| 00:09:05.14 | Walfred Solorzano | Moshan passage. |
| 00:09:06.41 | Mayor Kelman | Great, thank you. Special presentations, mayor's announcements. I do have one. Let me think. the head of the chamber, Julie Vieira, for letting us know that the chamber has selected Abbott Chambers as the Bank of Marin, Spirit of Marin Honoree for 2022. So we will go ahead and take public comment on the mayor's special announcements, and I see that Julie has her hand up. |
| 00:09:37.09 | Unknown | Welcome, Julie. |
| 00:09:37.22 | Julie | Good evening everyone, hi. I just wanted to say that the board of directors for the chamber voted this morning. on our spirit of Marin honoree and it is Abbott Chambers. |
| 00:09:48.45 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 00:09:51.45 | Julie | And this is an honor that Bank of Marin has been doing for 29 years. So this is the 29th year. And the luncheon will be held in September. in San Rafael. And I will put out a press release, and I'm sure that Abbott will make sure that it gets in the currents for everyone. Everyone is welcome. Sausalito always has the biggest contingency. at this luncheon. And we are very honored. to have Abbott as our representative this year from Sausalito. We just want to thank him. The last two and a half years, it has been tough keeping... communications up. And if anybody knows, I do. In the morning, we would wake up. And the mandates and everything would be one thing and by five o'clock in the afternoon, it would change. And so we really appreciate everything that Abbott has done for our businesses and our community. So he is our honoree, and we will give more information out to everyone. |
| 00:10:53.67 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you, Julie. And thank you, Abbott. Um, huge job and we really, really appreciate all that you do for our city. Okay, well, thank you. I thought it was a good special presentation or announcement. So move ahead to the action minutes of the previous meeting. It looks like we have one set, May 24, 2022. Are there any public comments on those draft minutes? |
| 00:11:18.05 | Walfred Solorzano | the mayor has no hands rates for that item. |
| 00:11:20.57 | Mayor Kelman | Okay then, do we have a motion to approve? Well moved. in a second. |
| 00:11:27.49 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 00:11:29.44 | Mayor Kelman | Okay, we'll take Ian's second. |
| 00:11:31.96 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. Council Member Sobieski? Council member Hoffman. Yes. Vice Mayor Blavstein. |
| 00:11:38.69 | Mayor Kelman | Yes. |
| 00:11:39.48 | Walfred Solorzano | Mayor Kilman. Yes. motion passes. |
| 00:11:42.77 | Mayor Kelman | Great. Moving on to the consent calendar, we have six items. I'll just remind everybody that matters listed under the consent calendar are considered routine and non-controversial, require no discussion, are expected to have unanimous council support, and may be enacted by the council in one motion. There'll be no separate discussion of individual consent calendar items. However, before the council votes on a motion to adopt the consent calendar items, any member of the public and council members may request that specific items be removed from the consent calendar, for separate action. And if that happens, we will take separate public comment So we have six items, item 3A. is to adopt a resolution electing to be exempt from the County of Marine Congestion Management Program. Item 3B adopt resolution to continue to conduct the city's council and all other city Board commission and committee meetings remotely due to health and safety concerns for the public Form three C. Resolution calling for an election to fill two seats on the City of South Lado City Council to be held and consolidated with the general municipal election scheduled for November 8th, 2022. and requesting that the Marin County Register of Voters conduct the election. Item 3D, community-wide survey requested by the city council and city manager performance and measure O memorandum update. M3E, consideration to review and approve the investment policy updates. And item 3F, ordinance adding a new chapter 9.70 to Title IX. specific use requirements of the Sauciuto Municipal Code to address Senate Bill 9, compliance. Okay, we're now to public comment. We'll have two minutes on the clock and Serge, will you please let people know how to make public comments. |
| 00:13:12.48 | Walfred Solorzano | Video or audio public comment participation is limited to three minutes. pardon me, to two minutes per speaker. If you would like to make a comment, please raise your hand in the Zoom application and you will be called upon when it's your time to speak. To raise your hand from a phone, press start nine, and each speaker will be notified when the time has left. Mayor, I see no hands raised for this particular item. |
| 00:13:37.98 | Mayor Kelman | Okay, this is public comment on the consent calendar, going once, going twice. closing public comment on the consent calendar, bring it to council. Any concerns or questions on the consent calendar or do we have a motion? |
| 00:13:54.28 | Vice Mayor | I make a motion to approve the consent calendar. Thank you. |
| 00:13:58.92 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 00:13:58.94 | Vice Mayor | Thank you. Okay, please call the room. |
| 00:14:00.91 | Judy Gwetterer | Thank you. |
| 00:14:01.71 | Walfred Solorzano | Council Member Sobieski? Council Member Hoffman. Yes. Vice Mayor Blavstein. |
| 00:14:07.60 | Vice Mayor | Thank you. |
| 00:14:07.61 | Mayor Kelman | Yes. |
| 00:14:08.32 | Walfred Solorzano | Mayor Cummings. |
| 00:14:09.49 | Vice Mayor | Thank you. |
| 00:14:09.50 | Mayor Kelman | Yes. |
| 00:14:11.91 | Walfred Solorzano | Motion passes. |
| 00:14:12.03 | Mayor Kelman | happens. All right, thank you everybody. Okay, on to public hearing items, item 4A. You've seen it before, I see it, I think our last time here, the adoption of the fiscal 2022-23 budget. We will hear from our city manager, Chris Zapata, and our finance director, Vivian Chiu. So over to you all. |
| 00:14:32.89 | Chris Zapata | Thank you, Mayor, members of the Council, my honor. You are. and hear me on. I have some brief introductory comments and then I will turn it over to the finance director for her to go through Thank you. the general fund and talk about the various departments and then Kevin McGowan will have a slide on the Calp Improvement Program. And then we'll be available to answer questions Let me begin by saying that this budget as proposed. has been worked on diligently by by our finance team and our departments. And what it does is it contemplates a status quo budget. We do services and keep services. It does that by asking you to take one-time money again this year in the amount of about $2.6 million to fund a status quo budget. And what that means is that this year, the city departments, the city staff, the city services that you have been accustomed to seeing will be in place. I wanna say that, you know, in our conversations with all of you, there has been some heightened concern about the use of one-time monies to continue to balance Sassido's budget. We did it last year with one time money. We're doing it again this year. I think that it's important to note that in this year's budget, we have... delved into ways to eliminate or decrease our structural deficit. We haven't been successful. That's why we need $2.6 million again. Last year, the magnitude was about $4.5 million. So we have made some progress. And the way we've made that progress is by Reconfiguring staff. Thank you. by looking at different ways to contract. by also looking at ways that we can, in fact, become more efficient. And, you know, there's much more work to do in that regard. I also want to say this about budgets. Budgets are our best estimates on projections for a year that we haven't gone through yet. And anytime there's a budget, there's always an opportunity to look at where you are mid-year. And let me be very clear. Mid-year is not January 1st. It's not February 1st. It's typically in March. And the reason the mid-year numbers are important is because we have six months of the three We can see trends. but the bottom line is, when the businesses complete their transactions in December. The state gets them in January, they tabulate them getting the city in February. And that's why in March, we usually come back to you and say, we're tracking or we're not tracking. But again, I state that The budget is essentially a projection of revenues and estimates that are fluid and change over the years. Matter of fact, the budget that we presented to you last Friday changed and I want to point that out. In that particular budget, we were talking about a $3.2 million ask in terms of a reserve fund allocation from the city council. We were under the hope that we would in fact see some help from Marin County to help us with our homeless costs. And so that budget was adopted by the county and that amount was $500,000. So that's reflected and that's why you see the number going from 2 million and change, 3.2 million and change to 2.6 million and change. There's some other budget line items that we took a sharper pencil too. especially in the library department, and found that we had overcharged ourselves, essentially, that we didn't need to spend that much money on employees, but we did need to offset some costs that we missed. So the net effect there was about $150,000. So that's all to the good. That takes the deficit down from $3.2 million to about $2.6 million. But it's still a deficit-funded budget that maintains our services to the community, to the businesses, to visitors, in a way that you want to see done The alternative to that would be to try to live within your means, and that would require a like amount of cuts, which I haven't heard direction on that. So we proceeded with the idea that this year, and I've been told this is the last year that we will... want to do this and that we need to become more efficient, find new revenue streams and come up with a plan So in last budget packet, you received a proposed three-year plan to attack the general fund deficit. and to also look at ways we can replenish our reserves, which we've been taking for the past couple of years. And again, the reason you can take those reserves is because |
| 00:19:10.96 | Sean Cleary | Thank you. |
| 00:19:14.48 | Chris Zapata | You have to give credit to past councils, past administrations who have saved that money And so today we're mindful of that. We're making this request. We'll go through the budgets and we'll answer your questions. And we'll focus on the general fund and the capital improvement program. But don't miss the fact that the overall city budget is in a magnitude of about $35 million. It's down from $40 million last year, the overall city budget. And that includes various funds, including our enterprise funds like the sewer fund, our capital improvement programs, our general fund, and other funds. We focused on the general fund because that's where the citizens see services. That's where the business community sees services. And that's where the costs are. And again, a status quo budget is what we're recommending. And I'll let Vivian walk through each of the departments to kind of give you some sense of how we look pre-COVID and how we're looking now. what the employee counts are, as well as what the allocation that is being requested is And again, we'll answer questions. |
| 00:20:15.79 | Unknown | you |
| 00:20:16.01 | Vivian | and the |
| 00:20:17.55 | Chris Zapata | Vivian? |
| 00:20:18.73 | Vivian | Yes. Let me show my screen. |
| 00:20:51.36 | Unknown | Oh, where's my screen? Hold on one second here. |
| 00:21:04.04 | Unknown | Call me some shamash green. |
| 00:21:06.03 | Vivian | Thank you. |
| 00:21:06.13 | Unknown | you |
| 00:21:06.40 | Vivian | So I'm here. |
| 00:21:08.04 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:21:08.39 | Vivian | No, I want this one. |
| 00:21:11.39 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:21:11.87 | Vivian | I just click here. No. No, not on screen one. But then how can I start my slideshow from here? Slideshow. Move where? No, I'm gonna move you over. No, how can I get rid of it? There you go, thank you. You see, Meshquit, now. Oh, no. Thank you. |
| 00:21:42.48 | Mayor Kelman | No, we cannot. |
| 00:21:47.02 | Vivian | No, they say they cannot see my screen. What's going on here? Hold on. Bye. |
| 00:21:54.64 | Unknown | Amen. |
| 00:21:55.61 | Vivian | Oh, I hear. Sure. Can you see my screen now? |
| 00:22:02.90 | Tom Willis | Yes, we can. |
| 00:22:03.91 | Vivian | Okay, thank you very much. Sorry about this issue. Okay. Let me start here. Good evening, Madam Mayor and Council Members. We're presenting to you tonight is the proposed budget for fiscal year 2022 and 23. Okay, here's the agenda for tonight. We're gonna go over the citywide budget overviews, citywide staffing level. the department budget review, gain limit calculation, capital improvement programs. After that, we are ready for any question and then public hearing, city council discussion, and the adoption of the three resolution listed here. Next slide. What's the next slide? |
| 00:22:56.83 | Vivian | 3-Day Budget Overview. |
| 00:23:02.35 | Vivian | I can't see my... That's it. Okay, so in fiscal year 21-22, CDY adopted budget with a revenue of $36 million and expenditure of $40 million. The fiscal year 22-23, citywide proposed budget with a revenue of $32 million. And expenditure $35 million. |
| 00:23:37.65 | Vivian | The proposed citywide staffing allocation includes 73 full time position. With the breakdown here, you can see for each department's employees numbers. |
| 00:23:55.28 | Vivian | And also this chart here is showing the position calved by labor unit. |
| 00:24:03.64 | Vivian | I have a problem with my slide, okay. Can you see my slide? So, um... This is the citywide summary of revenues and expenditure for fiscal year 22-23. As you see here, General Fran, we have 20.7 million of revenue budgeted and 23.3 million of expenditure, giving us about 2.6 million deficit debt. Chris just mentioned that we need to use one-time. Transfer from the reserve fund to cover the gap here. |
| 00:24:45.52 | Vivian | So the next section we are going through the proposed general fund budget. We are talking about personnel costs, operating costs, and the trending compared to the mid-year budget and other previous years. Okay, here's information for admin and finance. salary and benefits increase the bite. $240,000. That's because of two vacant positions that we are going to fill in the next fiscal year. which not included in the mid-year budget, the HR manager and also one position for admin analyst. management analyst in Edmond. |
| 00:25:39.98 | Vivian | Technology increased about $132,000 in professional service because of the consultant related IT management from the consultant fees. Also, increase in supply due to the current computer maintenance increase. |
| 00:25:40.08 | Mary Wagner | Technology. |
| 00:26:02.71 | Vivian | For the planning, we have about 600 $567,000 increase in salary. |
| 00:26:12.12 | Unknown | Um, |
| 00:26:14.03 | Vivian | Thank you. |
| 00:26:21.51 | Vivian | That's because a lot of vacant position were not included in the mid-year budget. Now we are planning to hire all this position as you can see here instead of using outside consultant. This increase is for the new position that we are planning to fill in the next fiscal year. Also a decrease on... professional service this 210 here was budgeted for technical service in mid year but in the next fiscal year, We did not budget this technical service in So you see a decrease from 210 here. |
| 00:27:13.21 | Vivian | for building Salary and benefit decrease about $35,000. Is it because we have some |
| 00:27:22.00 | Sean Cleary | Thank you. |
| 00:27:24.77 | Vivian | vacant positions, not filling. And also, oops, sorry, where's that? Not to go back once a lot. Um, The 345,000 increase in professional services, that's because this for the consulting fee for building inspectors. co-enforcement office and building officers that we currently don't have in-house. And we are planning to hire building inspector and building officials. |
| 00:27:50.67 | Sean Cleary | Thank you. |
| 00:27:58.03 | Vivian | in the coming fiscal year. So hopefully when we get someone in house, this amount will decrease. So I just take the money from this bucket going into this. |
| 00:28:14.53 | Vivian | Non-departmental, you see a salary decrease of, not a salary actually, we say salary and benefits because it's actually for retiree benefits. So the reason why you see a decrease here is because of two factors. The retiree health in mid-year is overestimated, and also the per UAAL for fire is much lower in the next fiscal year. So in the mid year budget, we paying $657,000. But next fiscal year, we only need to pay 453. So the difference is there's 248. And professional service increase 367 is based on the increase on general rate increase for city attorneys and outside legal fees. related to city cases. supply and material a little bit increase here based on the insurance rate increase out of miscellaneous expense increase. In the last meeting, I said that the increase is about 21%. So this increase here is a portion of those. And for this fiscal year, we don't plan to make any change from general fund to cover Thank you. for the pension and OPEP fund here. So you see a decrease here. Also, we gonna change for 1.2 million from the measure O fund to the capital project fund. So you see the increase here, 78,000 to cover the traffic safety. for street light maintenance. Thank you. |
| 00:30:06.97 | Vivian | For police, the 632 decrease in salary and benefits here, that's because we did not budget overtime in the coming year's budget. So there's a big difference here, I believe, during the- Mid-year and pandemic period, a lot of overtime shots too. this. professional service decrease due to the parking system was already paid off in previous year, but it was budgeted in mid-year budget. So basic decrease actually in the mid-year, we budgeted the item, but we already pay off. Capital outlay, it's really related to police officers' tasers, body-worn cameras, and some other equipment that for new |
| 00:30:55.52 | Sean Cleary | out of your way. |
| 00:30:59.05 | Vivian | officers that they are planning to hide. Where is my next screen? Not here, I'm sorry. Hi. Supplier material increase is similar to... |
| 00:31:09.29 | Sean Cleary | I am a. |
| 00:31:12.58 | Vivian | Capital outlay, they need all the supply for the new police officers too. And also of this professional, I mean of this, Add a increased rate to you know, out of expenses that I don't have a detailed list here, but it's all other building maintenance increase and other expand increase. |
| 00:31:40.98 | Vivian | engineering here. |
| 00:31:41.08 | Sean Cleary | Thank you. |
| 00:31:41.22 | Vicki Nichols | you |
| 00:31:41.37 | Sean Cleary | Yeah. |
| 00:31:43.95 | Vivian | The increase of 195,000 here because of I believe we're feeling two position. Deborah might need to step in and explain this a little bit, Deborah. |
| 00:32:05.59 | Mayor Kelman | Why don't you keep going? |
| 00:32:07.22 | Vivian | Oh, hey. I think that is due to the permit technician and assistant engineer was included in DPW maintenance in the mid-year. |
| 00:32:08.18 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. I'm not sure. |
| 00:32:17.65 | Vivian | But now it got... So that's why you see that the increase here. |
| 00:32:27.86 | Vivian | So DPW, $387,000 increase in salaries and benefits, that's because in next fiscal year, 23, we budget 100% of the salary allocation is in general fund. But actually in mid-year, we only do 60% of all this position in general fund, 35 in sure fund. the difference will be payback from those two funds. Same for engineering. |
| 00:33:05.53 | Vivian | Landscaping. |
| 00:33:11.35 | Vivian | So the salaries of increase of 138,000 due to the media budget was based on the extra cost for the underfield position for landscape worker two. the Active employee for this position actually is Landscape Worker 1, but We are planning to feel the landscape worker too. That's why it has a little bit increase there. Capital hourly increased $110,000 because of two new vehicle requests for maintenance. |
| 00:33:55.22 | Vivian | you |
| 00:33:55.48 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:33:59.63 | Vivian | How can REC 12% thousand dollar increase due to the mid-year budget not include some temporary position that were recently So, um, the planning to hide a more temporary position in recreation. That's because |
| 00:34:19.20 | Deborah | We. We actually hire temporary positions in recreation during seasonal increases in events and programs, and that occurs mostly for us in the summer. |
| 00:34:36.62 | Vivian | Other expense increase for 39 to 50, that's because increase in some special events, like volunteer days, juneteenth, community days, and other related general supply increase related for all those activities. |
| 00:34:59.09 | Carol | Do you need your help? |
| 00:35:09.36 | Vivian | Library, so the library 159,000 increases due to the filling of library assistance to this position may remain unfeel next fiscal year. If that's the case, we will have see a saving of $159,000 here. Oh, where's my... Let me go back one slide. So $18,000 increase in supply materials and other miscellaneous expand. That's because the increase in other materials to bring the library service back to the pre-COVID level. |
| 00:35:57.58 | Vivian | In this slide here, we are talking about general fund balance analysis. So in the mid-year revised budget, we projected general fund ending fund balance at $11.7 million right here. We are going to start with this ending balance as beginning balance in fiscal year 2020. 22, 23. At $20.7 million as revenue and subtract 23.3 million expenditures, we are expecting $9.2 million in fund balance. As of this amount here, we reserve 468,000 for MLK advance, and also 158 for B of a Bengal Mekka advance. and also 2.8 million in pension fund plus operating in contingency of 5% budget stabilization policy, 10% shortfall policy of 1.1 million here and 2.2 million here, giving us undesignated fund balance of 2.5 million. This amount, a couple of 5%, budget stabilization here for 1.1 million, 10% emergency stock for here 2.2 million, giving us about 5.6 million in on designate fund balance, which is about 26% general fund expenditure. that is better than the two months of general fund expenditure that recommended by. |
| 00:37:44.77 | Vivian | So in this slide here, I'm going to show you the fiscal year 2022-23 gain limit calculation. |
| 00:37:55.93 | Vivian | We need to recalculate the population factor that we used in the prior years. In fiscal year 2021, because we used the wrong calculation in fiscal year 2021, determine the appropriation limit for the fiscal year. So in fiscal year 2021, the correct population factor is 0.9933. But. the population factor for fiscal year 20 of 0.9993. what's used instead. Because of that, |
| 00:38:35.09 | Vivian | Because of that, the city approved the wrong gain limit in fiscal year 2021. Fiscal year 2021, the appropriate limits to be 15600419, but the city approved, let me see what amount, hold on one second. The city of 15, 6, 95, 95, a little bit higher. So because of the wrong calculation, wrong factor used in fiscal year 21, fiscal year 2022, this is the current fiscal year starting with the wrong Um, appropriation from the previous year. |
| 00:39:18.16 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:39:19.81 | Vivian | So fiscal year 22 to correct the appropriations to be 1642099. The city council approved 16720000, which is a little bit higher. So for fiscal year 2022-23, we recalculated with the correct amount. So we use the correct amount, revised amount for fiscal year 21-22 of 16-4-20-099. And the changing population for fiscal year 2022-23 is.9878. Chain per capita income is 1.0755. This information provided by Department of Finance. On the stage. So A times C. equal 1.0624 here, the chain is 0.0624. 0624 times the prior year, which you couldn't see this year, we get the chain of 1.0242 here, and this should be fiscal year 2022, 23 appropriation limit. Here is a list of the from Texas that we budgeted for fiscal year 22, 23. We have 20. We have 12,600,000. 605,262. This amount is about 4.8 million lower than the appropriation limit, which is good for us. |
| 00:40:59.44 | Vivian | Thank you. So next, if we talk about capital improvement programs right here, here's a summary of all the capital projects fund. We have capital project fund, library CIP fund here. Here's the revenue and expenses. Director McGowan may want to talk about his Capital Projects, CIP programs. Thank you. |
| 00:41:28.33 | Kevin McGowan | Kevin, you want to start? Thank you, Vivian, and good evening, Mayor and members of City Council. Kevin McGowan from Public Works. I don't have anything special to really add to this slide other than we, between Vivian and myself, we have kind of stared at some of the numbers over the last week or so. and taking a look at some of the projects that we don't have grant funding for yet, but we are pursuing them. And so that's an important aspect for some of the projects, especially things like the Coloma Street Project, where we know we need more funding and we have applied for more funding through different grant sources. And so we're trying to take that into account. in order to develop this CIP budget. And I think we're fairly close on most of these numbers at this point in time. So, again, don't have much to add with that. If you have specific questions later, I'm here to assist. Back to you, Vivian. |
| 00:42:31.33 | Mayor Kelman | I'm going to unmute. |
| 00:42:31.97 | Vivian | Thank you. |
| 00:42:35.60 | Vivian | With that, I'm going to stop here and... Ready to answer any question you might have. |
| 00:42:43.83 | Carol | Thank you. |
| 00:42:47.29 | Mayor Kelman | Any questions for... for Vivian. I want to start with the vice mayor, then I have a question about pensions. |
| 00:42:53.84 | Vice Mayor | Thank you. Great, thank you very much to the finance department and Director McGowan and City Manager Zapata for your hard work on this. I think we've gotten to a really good place and I just very much appreciate the time that was put in and the responses to all of our questions that we provided you with. I do have a few... questions about now that we have, one of the requests we had from our continuation meeting was that we have a more clear understanding of the spending for each of the departments. And as a result of that, I had a few follow-up questions. So the first one I was trying to understand, and I wrote an email to you about this, and I'm still wondering if we have a resolution for it, is if you go back to the slide on building costs, for this year, the costs, It's way back at the beginning. There we go, you just missed it. It's after planning. Yeah, so on this slide, if you look at the fiscal year 2022 professional services fee, the estimated cost is 819,616, whereas last year or this year 2021, it was 474,280, and that's a big discrepancy in difference. Could you explain what that increase is due to? Thank you. |
| 00:44:01.71 | Vivian | Yes, give me one second here. Okay. |
| 00:44:10.84 | Vivian | Okay, the professional increase, like I mentioned, is due to the fees for outside consultant, including building officer inspector. building official and building inspector and co-enforcement. I'm not sure if CDD Director may have more information on this. |
| 00:44:32.71 | Chris Zapata | Let me add to that, Vice Mayor, members of the Council, members of the public. You see two positions there, a building inspector and a permit technician which creates a low number, artificially low number, when in fact there's a backlog of over 100 different applications and permits that need to be processed. |
| 00:44:43.44 | Unknown | All right. |
| 00:44:51.56 | Chris Zapata | And so in order to do that, you either need consultant help or you need permanent bodies. At this stage, we don't have the permanent bodies, but we do have consultants. So my approach would be to take the number and convert that consulting cost into real bodies that we have in our house that do the work, because there certainly is a need. I cannot stress how much of a backlog there is in community development in the building department. and to either do it with consultants, which is what's been done, or to do it with real people that work as part of a city organization, which is where I believe we need to go, is the approach that we want to take. But we have to budget the funding so that we can, in fact, work on that backlog. |
| 00:45:37.81 | Vice Mayor | Yeah, if you look at the professional services costs in most of the departments, it's unfortunately gone up in 2022, 2023. And so I just think that's something we can think about as we reassess the budget going forward. How are we doing with that? And what can we do to use more in-house employees as opposed to bringing on consultants at that higher cost? Because that's something that you can flag from looking at departmental budgets. The other thing from looking at the budgets that I just wanted to flag, because I didn't know what this was as a member of the council and I had to ask the city manager today and I just wanted to clear it. When you put cafeteria as a cost, This is a program of benefits. |
| 00:46:14.03 | Vivian | if that's correct. Exactly, so I don't know why you call cafeteria plan either, but that is actually the health insurance for city employees. |
| 00:46:26.06 | Vice Mayor | Okay, that makes much more sense. And then On the total revenue, okay, so if you go to slide 18, which is essentially how we're doing the fund balance that you talked us through, The revenue difference for the projections of, maybe it's just before the GAN limit, here we go. So if you do the calculations on the revenue difference between this last fiscal year, 2021, 2022, into 2023, there's almost an $800,000 difference in terms of a deficit for expected revenue. Is that due to that we're not gonna be receiving the one-time money for the... Build Back Better from the federal government. Yes. And then it's including the 500,000 that we will be allocated from the county. |
| 00:47:06.31 | Vivian | Yeah, so... |
| 00:47:06.32 | Vice Mayor | Yes. |
| 00:47:07.81 | Vivian | I'm sorry, go ahead. |
| 00:47:09.18 | Vice Mayor | No, just if you could talk through that discrepancy in revenues so that I'm counting for it properly. |
| 00:47:14.36 | Vivian | Yeah, so that 1.7 million from the APRA funds is not going to receive it anymore. And yes, the 500,000 from the county already included in here. |
| 00:47:28.28 | Vice Mayor | Okay, great, thanks for clarifying that. And maybe that's something we can also watch in terms of as we're thinking about what grants for our CIP, for example, to increase our revenue balance and make a smaller, make that a smaller dent. And then speaking of the CIP, I just had one question for Director McGowan. And that was on the, I noticed that the library capital improvements cost is the first one and it's rather, not necessarily rather high, I was trying to understand if it was prioritized. So the library project fund and the CIP is separate from the funds on the right? Is that because it's funded through the library board of trustees? Is that because there is, it indicated that there's an immediate need because of the roof issue at the library? |
| 00:48:13.77 | Kevin McGowan | I believe that it's a separate fund at this point. I don't have a specific capital project for the library at this point in time. Vivian, is that correct that it's a separate fund? |
| 00:48:22.85 | Vivian | Yes, it's a separate fund. This fund only for the library improvement, cannot be used for anything else. Thank you. |
| 00:48:28.52 | Vice Mayor | Okay. |
| 00:48:28.72 | Vivian | Thank you. |
| 00:48:28.74 | Vice Mayor | Good to know. It's under the capital projects. It's a little confusing there. Okay. All right. Well, thank you again. And that's it for my questions. I really appreciate the effort here. Thank you. |
| 00:48:38.31 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you, Vice Mayor. |
| 00:48:39.30 | Vice Mayor | Thank you. |
| 00:48:39.34 | Mayor Kelman | Yeah, huge effort here, and I know this is, what, the fourth time perhaps we've seen this, so thank you. immensely towards city manager and to Director Chu. Did have a question about pensions. So there's a pension reference on slide 11 and again on slide 18. And I think it, and if I read this correctly, this is really my question. Am I reading slide 11 correctly? that the transfers to pension and OPEB of $550,000 are no longer being made. |
| 00:49:09.24 | Vivian | No, just for this year because we don't believe general fund have enough money to transfer. If we transfer 250 and 300,000 to these two funds here, you're gonna increase the gap between revenue and expenditure in general fund. It's no longer 2.6 million, you're gonna add another $550,000. on top of it, so that means back to 3.2 million. |
| 00:49:37.03 | Mayor Kelman | again. Okay, so let me pause you in and direct that question to the city manager. How does that fit into our overall strategy as we've been talking about pensions? |
| 00:49:48.71 | Mayor Kelman | because just I'll point out, I believe, The council passed a resolution requiring annual transfers. and maybe a former council member Susan or Jill. |
| 00:49:58.97 | Susan | Yeah. Just before Chris answers the question, I think there's two different things. There's paying our outstanding liabilities and then there's giving in to our... Trust fund. And we agreed to only give into the trust fund in years where we had we had a good year, that we had a surplus. So that was our prior resolution. I see council member Hoffman is raising her hand as well. That's my recommendation. But I think maybe Chris can. clarify if these two things transfers to OPEB and transfers to CIT are into the 115 trust or if there's something else. And that's what we passed the resolution about. |
| 00:50:35.89 | Chris Zapata | Yeah, no, no. Yeah, no, thank you for the question and the comment. Mayor and Councilmember Cleveland knows. The idea of investing in your trust funds is something that Sassaboa has done. And that's why you have money in those funds. The Pension 115 Trust, and the OPEB 115 trust, all good savings in prior years and kudos to folks for doing that. If you did that this year, you put money in this year, which as you know, is a year where we are at a deficit. As Director Chu mentioned, it would expand that deficit. So we are not asking you to do that because we think that 3.2 million, which has been taken down to 2.6 million, is a big enough grab right now of the general fund that's undesignated. You could choose to put money into it. I wouldn't recommend that. I would want to wait until we hear from our 115 trust administrators about what that fund is doing, how it's doing. And certainly that's something that we plan to do in the coming meetings where then you can suggest, yeah, you know, we leave it alone or mid-year we make an adjustment. Just as you did with Measure O. Last year, you used Measure O for operating expenses. In mid-year, you made a correction and you said, we need to put some Measure O money back. So you took $1.2 million from your savings account and applied it to streets. Well, you could do the same thing in the coming year if you choose to. I would not recommend doing that in this budget because that would widen that gap, but let's just see how we are doing with our finances after a good six month period. And if you choose to do that, then again, you have some funding in which you can, in fact, invest in that account, again, if you choose to do so. |
| 00:52:26.59 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah, let me, if I could, the contributions to the 115 trust fund were to help us smooth our payments in the years when our annual payments for pension are going to balloon. And that's going to happen, I think, in the next three to five years. And so that was a really important part of our strategy was so that we could grow those pension trust funds to the point where they would actually be helpful. So it is a concern. Last year, I think, we had to fight to get those funded and not to deplete them actually. And so I agree with Chris that this year, because of our deficit and the size of our deficit, that that we would suspend it. that it would be you know, priority when we talk about a mid-year budget and any time we have, are we getting close to a surplus that that's our number one priority is to go back to funding either past funding mechanisms or past funding levels or certainly whatever the current projection was to fund because we had a very specific In 2018, we had a very specific that the city council adopted for the pension trust fund and funding that trust fund. So it doesn't work if we don't fund the trust fund. So that's what I would like to see. when we come back for a mid-year. is. the analysis of what our pension fund payments, unfunded liability payments and total liability payments are gonna be for the next five to six years where our pension trust fund is at. And, money that we might have available to fund it. even though we're not funding it right now. |
| 00:54:16.01 | Chris Zapata | Thank you. So let me amplify that, Council Member Hoffman. Yeah, you know, very good of past administrations to save that money, put it into that account, which can only be used for pension-related expenses. We had that discussion last budget year in the, I believe, around December. |
| 00:54:19.74 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah. |
| 00:54:31.16 | Sean Cleary | Thank you. |
| 00:54:34.00 | Chris Zapata | January about whether or not to use it to kind of offset some of the expenses that we were seeing with or retirement cost increases. So you have the same amount that you had when you started last year after you put that money into it, but it won't grow unless the interest rates add some money to it, but that's a little sketchy right now. So we really think that if you want to do this, there is a three-year plan that I proposed in the last packet, which says, If you are in a good year, you take up to 50% of that money, you apply it to pension-related expenses, or you apply it to replenishing your general fund reserves. So that ought to be policy at some point that you adopt or you consider for adoption so that you can, in fact, have it in a place where, you know, you can rebuild and build the trust fund. You recall the Bartels report, which was given in March, they suggested that we look at the years of 26, 27, and 28. Let that fund mature some more and potentially use the fund then, not now. They didn't recommend using it now. So we're not taking from it, we're just not adding to it. to add to it at this stage in the budget would again increase our deficit from 2.6 million to the number you choose. |
| 00:56:02.02 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you for the clarification. I see the vice mayor has her hand up. I don't know if that was from before. That's from before. |
| 00:56:07.05 | Carol | That's right. |
| 00:56:09.48 | Mayor Kelman | Any other questions for staff before we go ahead and open up a comment? Yeah, Susan, welcome back. |
| 00:56:15.67 | Susan | Thank you. I just had a quick question and a thank you. So first of all, thank you for providing the departmental level detail for this meeting. I think this is very helpful. Um, In your presentation, you mentioned that you are not including in the budget for this year any overtime for the police. And that just kind of with our history doesn't seem... to, I mean, I think we usually do have significant overtime costs. So could you talk about that and why we're not budgeting for that this year. |
| 00:56:51.77 | Vivian | Thank you. |
| 00:56:51.78 | Susan | Thank you. |
| 00:56:51.80 | Vivian | Thank you. |
| 00:56:51.87 | Susan | . |
| 00:56:51.94 | Vivian | Thank you. |
| 00:56:51.95 | Susan | Thank you. |
| 00:56:51.97 | Vivian | Thank you. |
| 00:56:51.99 | Susan | Thank you. |
| 00:56:52.00 | Vivian | I'm gonna let Deborah answer this question. Deborah, please. |
| 00:56:59.66 | Vivian | Thank you. |
| 00:57:00.04 | Deborah | Thank you. |
| 00:57:00.07 | Vivian | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 00:57:01.18 | Carol | Deborah's. |
| 00:57:01.57 | Deborah | I'm just gonna speak, oh there, I couldn't get my video to work. Thank you. |
| 00:57:04.88 | Carol | Thank you. |
| 00:57:05.69 | Deborah | We just, we haven't, We have to assess the overtime based on, there was a tremendous amount of overtime from, the homeless encampment and the experiences that the city has been going through this year in police. It's really difficult to put a number on that at that time while we're looking for what our ongoing costs will be. That's a number that we'll bring back to you at mid-year, but we wanted to give you a core base budget so that we could be looking at what that base budget is right now. |
| 00:57:37.11 | Susan | Thank you. |
| 00:57:39.84 | Unknown | If I can have |
| 00:57:40.60 | Susan | Maybe the city manager or something to add to that. I mean, normally we try to include in our budget costs that we know that we are going to be experiencing. So, you know, I just don't, I'm not really comfortable with having a zero. |
| 00:57:54.36 | Chris Zapata | Yeah, that's a fair statement. The one thing that I think could offset that is, we are currently budgeting two positions in police that we will not fill. And those positions provide savings that would offset overtime costs in my estimation. But yeah, I know that we should have some number in there for overtime. And maybe we can make that correction mid-year so that we in fact, don't have a zero going forward. |
| 00:58:21.36 | Susan | Okay, thank you. I mean, just in general, it's really better at mid-year if we're exceeding our... you know, if we're reporting more revenue and less expenditures and not the opposite way around. Having those kinds of surprises at mid-year can be very unhelpful, but I think with the answer that we have two vacant positions that we aren't feeling uncomfortable with it just for tonight, but I would flag that as an issue that we do need to watch. And then the second question I had is I heard at a different time Public meeting that the HDL projections or reports on sales effects had gone up significantly in Marin. this quarter. Could you talk about that and whether that affected your revenue, sales tax revenue projections for the budget. |
| 00:59:16.40 | Vivian | I don't have any new reports from HDL. The reports, the number I... put in this budget here is based on the report that they sent to us, I believe it was a couple months ago. So Chris, do you get any new reports from HDL? |
| 00:59:29.65 | Vicki Nichols | I'm not sure. |
| 00:59:34.58 | Chris Zapata | No, I have not. And as we know, the reports that HDL does, they're pretty accurate, but they lag. And in that lag, you know, maybe conditions change and they adjust the numbers. But I don't recall working with organizations where we didn't use their number if we contracted them to give a sales tax and TOT projections. So if they give us a new number and we adjust with more revenue, then that would be a good thing to do. And, again, that's why these budgets are estimates and projections, and that's why you have mid-year so you can adjust them. But what's key to all this is you have to finish an audit of the fiscal year, which won't be done until, you know, the fall later. And that will then give you the baseline starting, the baseline, the actual numbers that you need to see if in fact there was an improvement or a decrease based on the estimates or projections we got from our consultants. So thank you for noting that. I wouldn't... be unhappy if The numbers came in higher. at a future date, but right now, this is the information that we got from them and I think we have to uh, you know, ride that, those estimates that we receive from them. That's what we pay them to do. |
| 01:00:52.62 | Susan | Okay, thanks. I may have, it was a Transportation Authority of Marin budget hearing. I may have misunderstood the timing of that information. So thank you. |
| 01:00:57.84 | Chris Zapata | Thank you. |
| 01:01:06.75 | Mayor Kelman | Thanks everybody. Any other questions before we open a public comment? We'll have another. Okay. So why don't we go ahead and open public comment. And I do see one hand raised, so Serge, I'll leave it to you. |
| 01:01:20.84 | Walfred Solorzano | Madam Mayor, we're gonna allow David Sudo to unmute and ask the video. |
| 01:01:26.34 | Susan | Thank you. |
| 01:01:26.38 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 01:01:26.73 | Susan | Thank you. |
| 01:01:27.49 | Walfred Solorzano | Great. |
| 01:01:27.89 | Susan | Thank you. |
| 01:01:28.25 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 01:01:29.73 | David Sudo | Good evening, City Council. I just wanted to note that, you know, besides having a pension deficit, we have a CIP deficit too, that's probably maybe even more severe than our pension deficit. I highly recommend not cutting CIP money. And I would point out that two of the projects that we're talking about may be are on our out for active transportation grants and then The state just added a billion dollars to that pool for those grant funds this week. And if we didn't have those applications out there, we'd be unable to we'd be ineligible for that grant money. which just shows you why we can't. delay planning for projects and putting out for grants. it's counterproductive. We won't be able to capture funds. They're still talking about whether that grant, they're gonna reopen the application process for that extra billion dollars or whether they're just going to use the existing projects but it really shows you how we need to be on top of our projects and be out there looking for money proactively. Thank you. |
| 01:02:39.24 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you, David. Serge, can you also show the the timer. |
| 01:02:44.59 | Walfred Solorzano | Chair, we're working on that, Madam Mayor. Our next speaker is Sandra Bushmaker. Sandra, you're being unmuted. |
| 01:02:50.75 | Sandra Bushmaker | Good evening, everybody. Just one thought occurred to me. Actually, I have several points, but one thought that occurred to me is with the, uh, elimination of urban alchemy, providing services, aren't we going to have, and not filling the two police positions, aren't we going to have over time? And shouldn't we be anticipating that so we don't come in with the shortfall. mid-year. Also, I just wanted to comment on the 500,000 coming from the county. I really hope, as Chris Zapata has said, that we don't rely on these one-time monies, that they not be something that we rely on as a repeat and start spending up to the point where we find ourselves short. And then lastly, the ferry landing is at 2.4 million. Where is the difference between the grant money and the 2.4 anticipated expenditures? going to come from. And- On that project, I hope we are not going to exceed what is projected to be the costs. I hope we can design a project that stays within our finances. In other words, let's just spend what we have, not what we want. All right, thank you. Thank you, Sandra. |
| 01:04:13.82 | Walfred Solorzano | Our next speaker is Ray Woodley. Ray, you've been unmuted and I'll see you in the video. |
| 01:04:20.20 | Ray Withey | Good evening. So assuming you can hear me, You have directed the city manager quite correctly to provide the status quo budget. And you have to approve that budget tonight. unless you want to immediately reduce services, which means immediately reduce staff. So I'm supportive of that. You need to do it. But I do want to express to you, as I've tried to several times, a sense of urgency that you need to work on pursuant to the city managers, plans To. increase our revenues, find ways to increase new revenue streams, and also restructure our expenses so that you can achieve a structural balance sooner rather than later. Now, There's a danger. You're going to say, whoopee, we passed a budget. Everything's great. We'll wait until March for the major budget. You can't. You need to begin tomorrow. Tomorrow. to actually start finding those revenues and decreasing those expenses. For example, parking revenues. Why aren't you right now figuring out how to get more revenue from parking, right? You are drawing on reserves at a rate of about $40,000 to $50,000 a week. from your reserve. So you need to act urgently. Set expectations about what you expect from your mid-year budget and what you expect in next year's budget. Thank you. |
| 01:06:20.52 | Carol | You ready? |
| 01:06:23.36 | Walfred Solorzano | Our next speaker is Joan Cox. Joan, you've been unmuted. |
| 01:06:31.58 | Joan Cox | Thank you. Good evening, City Council. And thank you for a robust discussion regarding the budget. And thank you to staff for all the work that you've done to make it so clear for members of the public. I really appreciated the pension discussion and to dovetail on what former Mayor Withey said I believe you have to include you know, pension... expenditure predictions in that structuring of making sure that your revenues match your expenditures because as Jill pointed out In 2018, we predicted that our pension expenditures to maintain our funds would reach their zenith. And so our contributions each year were smooth in order to ensure that we didn't suffer a huge cash deficit in those years at which pension contribution requirements were at their highest. So I appreciate the fact that you're going to continue to carefully monitor that. But I think you have to be very careful to ensure that we look for all opportunities to increase revenues. That's why I was gratified to hear your public works director talk about continuing to seek out grant funding. That's something your former parks and rec director did. And I know that you've hired a consultant to help with that. And I think that's just absolutely critical in helping to meet the gap between current and proposed expenditures in current and expected. revenues. |
| 01:08:06.97 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. |
| 01:08:07.27 | Joan Cox | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 01:08:08.08 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you, Joan. Any other public comment on this? |
| 01:08:12.45 | Walfred Solorzano | Madam Mayor, I can't believe. |
| 01:08:14.77 | Mayor Kelman | All right, we'll close public comment. And I'm gonna give the city manager a quick opportunity to respond to any of those items he'd like. I'll just remind everybody that on June 3rd, We had a special city council meeting where we reviewed the budget again. and a very lengthy list of potential revenue sources that included parking revenues. We also are, of course, planning for future pension expenditures, and the city manager can speak to that. And we have, at Finance and at Full Council, been urging for a higher cadence of review. So Chris, I don't know if you want to chime in on any of those. |
| 01:08:50.61 | Chris Zapata | Yeah, if I can, Mayor, and I appreciate the comments from members of the public because they point to one thing and that's urgency. And in that urgency, I want to make sure that folks that are listening or will see this in the future understand that adopting this budget tonight does one thing. It provides a little bit of time to deal with the structural deficit that has existed. And in that existence of that structural deficit, in June of last year, you started working on how to cut costs. And you downsized the city manager's office, you froze two police positions, you directed us to hire grants persons, you directed us to hire the property manager, because not only do you need to cut costs, look for ways to collect the revenue that's out there that's due to the city. We need to do more of that. In that three-year plan, there's some proposals, but about beginning tomorrow, as former Mayor Withey mentioned, it begins tonight and it's begun. And tonight you'll see further discussion about Measure O, which in my analysis is the first and most important part of getting to some type of a structural balance. And so when you talk about Measure O, In my mind, that is the work that needs to be done to not only maintain revenue that you need, to expand that revenue. And there are other things that need to be looked at. but this all has to be done in concert with the organization It has to be done in concert with the council and ultimately the community has to buy off on it. So what I wanna do is in my closing comment is I wanna thank the community for their comments and listening in. in particular, yeah, public infrastructure is equally important as public pensions. So I think that's singing to the choir here. But the bottom line for me is if we adopt this budget, you provide us a little bit of time to work urgently on cutting costs, finding new revenue, and doing some things that maintain Sausalito's municipal corporation in a way that doesn't rely on us coming back every year looking for one-time money. As mentioned, if you don't adopt this budget, then we fall into scenarios of cut. And I think the direction has been clear to me that this is not the year or the time to do that. So on behalf of the organization, I know it's not easy to press the button and say, we're willing to lower that undesignated reserve from 4.7 million by 2.6 million because we want to maintain service levels for our residents, for our businesses, and for our visitors. But that's what we're asking you to do tonight. But we get the urgency of it. And, you know, appreciate the public comments about starting sooner than later. I want to just make it clear we have started. It's been started and it will continue. Thank you. Thank you. |
| 01:11:38.97 | Mayor Kelman | Well said, thank you, Chris. So we, of course, I've seen this many times. fully in support of living forward with this budget and to make the recommendation that we adopt. Anybody else wish to make comments or other questions? Yes, please, Council Member Sobieski. I saw your hand and then I saw the official hand of the Vice Mayor. Let's go to the Vice Mayor and then we'll go over to you. |
| 01:12:01.36 | Vice Mayor | Okay, great. Thanks, Mayor Kellman. And thanks, City Manager, for those remarks. I just wanted to acknowledge that this is urgent and we are already starting. In fact, we started yesterday, as the Mayor really pointed out so critically, on June 3rd, we had requested from our City Manager that we have a three to five year plan for reducing our structural deficit. And that plan's impressive. And there are some hard choices we have to make in there, a variety of really strong decisions for how we might better generate revenue. I heard a lot from the public about grants and how critical that is, and we've hired not one, but actually three consultants to help us identify money. And we've also been really hard at work lobbying, not just the county, but the state to get any and all available funds, because we are in a unique position with this level of the structural deficit. And we also need to start considering and saving and contributing for our pension costs. So I just wanted to say we are thinking about all of these things. We're taking the steps. The structural deficit is a serious problem that we're considering with essentially every decision we've made. And I really appreciate the efforts of staff for bringing this forward. And I hope that we can continue to think about what are the best steps for us to get us in the strongest position possible because we can't continue to use one-time monies. So with that, I would absolutely be in support of dropping the budget tonight and continuing to take whatever steps we can to increase our revenues and decrease our deficits. |
| 01:13:18.99 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Let's go to Council Member Sobieski and then Council Member. |
| 01:13:23.39 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you, Mayor. I wanted to just underlined the two, the comments that came from members of the public I'm wondering if in addition to focus, I know we're gonna approve the budget here tonight, but as part of these updates on the financing, since we, I'm wondering if you could remind everyone that we have hired a professional service firm to Ace Parking to look at our parking revenue and the whole way we manage our parking systems. Um, It's easy to note that The private lots downtown charge paid dollars an hour and are public lot charges, our charge is $1.50. So there are changes that can be made there. And I would love, I think everyone would love to just understand where we are in that process and when we can expect some kind of result from that investment. in that firm. given the urgency of it, if there's anything they need, to move things right along, it might be worth prioritizing that engagement. to get recommendations ASAP. We're still in the middle of our high capacity parking situation in the tourist season of Sausalito if the weather has been... people are here. If we implement a change, the sooner we implement a change, the more revenue we will have. and we may even consider a temporary increase administratively or if we need city council action, perhaps we could do something at our next meeting to start to move the needle on parking area. Even me. short of a formal report from Ace Park. So I'd like to put that in. I'd like to see if any of my colleagues have any objection to that. just it's a substantial amount of revenue we get from parking and it seems like we ought to prioritize that. uh, And second, We have three grant writers, various degrees of commitment to the city. It'd be good to get a general report from them about what the expectation is, the sales, forecast for their efforts. that could move the needle on our CIP projects or on other revenue sources. I know we have them. I don't know what the status is of their applications. What's the total available market, the TAM, of all the applications they're submitting? where are we in those submissions and what are the odds we expect of getting any of those grants. multiply those numbers together. and you get a number. I'm curious what that number is. Is it $500,000, a million, 5 million? I have no idea. and I'd like to know so we can both integrate it into our forecasting, but also make sure we are thinking smartly about how we're pursuing those grants and letting everyone else take a look. to see how we're going to do better. Thanks. |
| 01:16:16.56 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. Those are excellent comments on counselors to be as gain as a other. Half of the finance committee, we can either review the parking there or maybe the city manager in his report out to us at the end of this meeting can give us at least an update so we know where we are in that contract. And then I'll also mention, I believe at the last city council meeting, there was an item on consent that was a report out on the grants, but I don't think it had that layers that you articulated. So perhaps future report maybe at the July 12th meeting, another item on consent with your direction I think would be quite helpful. If that works for you. Okay. Councilor Hoffman. |
| 01:16:53.88 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. Thanks to our finance staff and our city manager for this huge lift of getting our budget together. and Vivian for her presentation, all of her hard work, and also all of our departments who really took a hard look at how to reduce costs within their department. We certainly appreciate that to try to get our deficit spend down this year. Um, We've talked about this in the past. We all acknowledge and agree that we can't continue down this road of having deficit spend budgets and we've gotta get our budget in line. I'm glad that I believe that the city council's aligned on that. when we come back at our mid-year budget, as a policy matter, I'd like for us to look at where we're at with the plan that we adopted in 2018 for our pension trust fund. and our other employee benefit trust fund because there were specific projections about how much money we would have and be able to contribute. to those ballooning payments that from 2025 to 2030, I believe, were gonna be the highest payments that were gonna take a larger, chunks out of our budget to the tune of three to $4 million and maybe even higher depending upon what our pension debt was at those times. that's a real vulnerability that we have to look at and keep track of and keep including in our assessment as we move forward. With that being said, I agree I'm ready to make a motion to adopt the three budget resolutions, the GAN, the GAN limit resolution, the authorized staffing allocations and pay schedule resolution and the 2022-23 budget adoption resolution. |
| 01:18:43.28 | Susan | that Okay, great, thank you. I just had a couple brief comments. |
| 01:18:46.04 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah. |
| 01:18:49.01 | Susan | I'm pretty sure. Um, Yeah, so I mean, I think as the city manager has articulated and we've been discussing at several other of our meetings, this budget is a very good compromise. between addressing our structural, starting to address our structural deficit and retaining services at the sort of somewhat reduced level that we've been able to achieve. this year and giving us time, short time and recognizing that urgency to evaluate our revenue and expenditures. I agree with the urgency. I think we've got a really good start. I think we do need to have regular check-ins on the calendar, and we need to have a calendar that we follow. I, I would like to just echo David Sudo's comment about our infrastructure and to make sure that every time we evaluate Um. you know, for example, pensions, we are also looking at where are we finding dollars to invest in our long-term infrastructure costs. Um, I think we've done in the past, we started with Measure O and with our park projects, we really started to make good progress. on that and with COVID and kind of the landslide issues, we have to sort of had a couple of emergencies that took our took our focus off a little bit from from investing in our infrastructure. So I'd love to see us get back on that page as we look at the structural deficit. Um, I'm really happy with the list that Chris has started in terms of additional revenue, additional cost-cutting measures. I definitely endorse Councilmember Sobieski's idea to look at whether there is a short-term fix to increase our parking revenue now through the fall when we can expect some kind of report from ACE. I have been many council members, including myself, who have been pushing for parking reform. parking demand management in town for years and years and years. And I think if we can't get it perfectly right this summer, we are definitely undercharging. we have resident passes so that this would not affect our resident community. I think the only other point I would like to make is just I really see that as a small town, we have a big problem with economies of scale. And as part of our solutions, and I think the city manager has these on our list, we need to look at, shared services and consolidation, our neighbors to the north in Puerto Madero Larkspur and San Anselmo have done a fantastic job at saving costs by merging their police departments. We ourselves made great progress in going down the road on sewer consolidation. And I think we've really got to take a good look at those. So I seconded Council Member Hoffman's motion and I'm happy to move the budget forward and just thank staff for all their hard work. |
| 01:22:06.08 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you, so we have a motion pending. I suspect that Councilman Sobieski wants to ask if there's support for pushing forward on a parking And I think there is in fact support for that. So city manager, if you can give us some direction as to how we might receive that information that would be helpful. We do have a motion pending. Kelsmar Sobieski, if you wanna add to that, please do. |
| 01:22:29.69 | Ian Sobieski | Yeah, just because I don't know how to do this properly to keep things on agenda, I guess it's a question I don't know for a fact if City Council action is needed to change parking rates or is this a ministerial right of the city manager to do so at his or her discretion so if it requires city council action then i think we need a motion to ask you to bring something back to us on shuly 12th so that we capture the rest of the tour season before the city council takes a little break in the month of August. If it's ministerial, then we can leave it to you. |
| 01:22:59.12 | Mayor Kelman | So that, I think just by matter of operations here, it's not part of this motion, nor is it an agendized item. So I want to be cognizant of that. But I think we have full support for your suggestion. And I'll leave it to the city manager to bring us back that information as quickly as possible. And again, he may have it for us. And so yes to full support, unless I'm not hearing anybody say no. We've talked about this many times. So let's make this a priority. I don't think we need a motion on it. |
| 01:23:21.12 | Sean Cleary | HE'S NOT ABLE TO DO. |
| 01:23:27.22 | Mayor Kelman | and we do have a motion pending. So is that okay with you, Councilor Saviasky? |
| 01:23:31.64 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. for the guidance. |
| 01:23:34.23 | Mayor Kelman | Okay. Okay. So, Can you please call the roll? |
| 01:23:42.28 | Walfred Solorzano | Councilmember Sobieski? Council member. |
| 01:23:45.98 | Jill Hoffman | Yes. |
| 01:23:46.91 | Walfred Solorzano | Councilmember Kaufman. |
| 01:23:48.36 | Jill Hoffman | Yes. |
| 01:23:49.32 | Walfred Solorzano | Vice Mayor Blomstein. |
| 01:23:50.74 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 01:23:50.76 | Mayor Kelman | Yes. |
| 01:23:51.56 | Walfred Solorzano | America. |
| 01:23:52.70 | Mayor Kelman | Yes. |
| 01:23:53.59 | Walfred Solorzano | Motion passes. |
| 01:23:54.87 | Mayor Kelman | Excellent, thanks everybody. Great conversation, Chris and Vivian. Excellent, excellent job. shepherding this process for us over many meetings. Okay, let's go ahead and turn to the next agenda item, the first business item, item 5A, which is consideration of a resolution to place initiative on the November 8th, 2022 ballot, to amend our, let's see, existing transaction use sales tax until April 1st, 2033. and adjust the rate. from 1.5% to 1%. So I believe this is the city attorney giving us this presentation. |
| 01:24:29.79 | Mary Wagner | Yeah, thank you, Mayor Kellman, members of the City Council. I'm actually going to introduce my partner, Nick Moscolino, ask him to turn on his video. He is going to give the presentation tonight. And then I believe the city manager is also going to provide some information as well. So with that, I'll turn it over to Nick. |
| 01:24:49.82 | Nick Moscolino | Thank you very much. Nice to be with you. tonight. I'll just throw up a quick PowerPoint presentation and hopefully be able to share it with you. without too much delay. |
| 01:25:15.33 | Ian Sobieski | Sorry. |
| 01:25:22.00 | Nick Moscolino | This is always more difficult than you want it to be. |
| 01:25:31.04 | Nick Moscolino | . |
| 01:25:34.94 | Nick Moscolino | All right, if you don't mind, I'll just... |
| 01:25:37.30 | Mayor Kelman | I do see it, Nick. |
| 01:25:38.44 | Nick Moscolino | I'll just use this one. There we go. Thank you. So as you just said, tonight I'll be presenting the citizen-sponsored initiative. I'm sorry, now I have the wrong slideshow up. This is embarrassing. |
| 01:25:58.70 | Nick Moscolino | Okay, we'll just do it from this one. So this is the citizen sponsored initiative measure to extend and increase the existing transactions and use tax. A little bit of background at the beginning. Um, There we go. Back in November of 2014, the voters approved Measure O, which we referenced earlier, which imposed a one-half percent transaction and use tax on goods sold and used in the city. It was a general tax that could be used for any purposes, not restricted, and it is currently set to expire on April 1st of 2025. During the last presentation, the city manager described for you that the structural deficits that the city is facing, such that it has insufficient funds to maintain essential infrastructure and services. So we bring to you today a proposal to extend and adjust that sales tax. Specifically, we're proposing submitting an ordinance to voters that would extend that existing sales and use transactions and use tax that was adopted in 2014 through 2033 that will also increase the tax rate from a half cent, half percent to one percent, commencing on April 1st of 2023, assuming it is adopted by the voters at the upcoming election on November 8th. As I just mentioned, the tax will be imposed on personal properties sold at retail outlets in the city or purchased outside the city for use within the city. For example, cars purchased outside of the city, but used in the city would be taxed. This kind of tax is collected from visitors and the tourists that enter Sausalito and buy goods and services here. The finance department is estimating that the proposed tax will raise approximately $2.8 million per year, although that will of course depend on economic activity. And it will, as with the prior tax measure O, be subject to independent audits by a certified public accountant with mandatory public expenditure reports. Once again, this is a general tax that is administered and collected by the state board of equalization and then remitted to the city. So if the city council decides to recommend submitting this to the voters, it will be submitted to the voters at the upcoming election to be held on November 8th of this year. The city will plan on consolidating this election on this extension with the statewide election, which is administered by the county of Marin, results in the cost savings, et cetera. It must be approved by a majority of the voters that vote at the November 8, 2022 election. And here I've shown the election that will appear on the ballot and will be opposed to the voters. And in case you can't see that, I'll just read it for you. This is the City of Sausalito Essential Services Measure. To maintain the city's long-term financial viability and improve local quality of life and essential services, including storm drain repairs to protect the bay, street and sidewalk maintenance, hall pool repair, parks maintenance, youth and senior programs, disabled access, public safety, and other services, shall the city of Sausalito extend and raise the sales tax rate to 1% starting April 1, 2023 for 10 years, providing $2.8 million annually and requiring independent financial audits. And here we have the recommendation for your consideration. to approve a resolution to call the election for November 8th, and to submit the ordinance extending, increasing the transaction tax. Notably this to submit this to the voters will require four affirmative votes. And I believe the city manager has a presentation momentarily to explain the kind of factual basis for the need for this ordinance. |
| 01:30:13.38 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you, Nick. City manager? |
| 01:30:19.28 | Chris Zapata | Serge, can you place that, of the sales tax rates in Marinus and Sonoma County while I'm speaking. I don't need it. You can put it up when you put it up, but I need that to be seen. And that was a good request from the vice mayor that we show that to the council and the public. So let me start by this. Sales tax is obviously one of the key legs in our revenue store along with property tax and TOT. So in this case of Sausalito, as with many things, sales tax is often misunderstood. The idea that when I go and I pay for something that costs $10 and there's an 8.5% tax on top of it. The question might be, where does that go? Well, it needs to be clear that, you know, one... percent. which is called the Bradley Burns Tax, goes to the city. and half a percent. which is the measure O portion, but the remainder goes to different places. the state, the county and special districts. And so if you look at that, that means the city of Sausage was getting effectively 1.5% of the sales tax on any purchase that's appropriate in Sausalito. And so the second question you ask yourself is, Who pays that sales tax? And is it all residents or is it others? And the answer is, it's a mix. It's residents and it's visitors. And so to get a firmer number on what that breakdown is, I've asked HDL to give me a report, which they've done for many cities in California, that shows what visitors spend and what residents spend on their sales tax purchases. So the example I was given was Malibu. In Malibu's case, 70% of the sales tax revenue is paid for by non-Malibu residents. So we're going to get that data, and we'll be able to show that. uh, And again, I also want to say that And looking at sales tax, if you see the number of Porta Madera at 8.75%, Fairfax at 8.75%, and Luxburg at 8.75%, and San Anselmo at 8.5%, and San Rafael at 9%, and Saucyut at 8.5%, the question would be asked, you know, if Measure O goes way in, 2025, then what does the sales tax rate effectively become? It becomes a percent. Unless unless somebody, an entity in Moran County comes in and takes up that portion that the city could take up. So to date, there is a measure O that takes up our half a percent, but there's also the Moran County Transportation authority that takes up half the percent. There's a Marin County measure A, which takes up.25%. Mrs. Sonoma, Miranda. area rail transit district that takes up 2.5%. So the maximum left is 0.5%. So that's a number that we're recommending that you look at as a potential ballot measure. And if you put a 1% measure on, that would be added to the existing 1% by state law called the Bradley Burge. So that 8.5% would go up to 9%. That would mean that the city of Sausalito received 2% of that 9%, not all 9%. And again, I go back to the premise that, you know, when people come into your community, they should pay their fair share. And the sales tax and the TOT tax obviously can do that for you. So again, I want to make sure that I repeat what I said earlier. There's an urgency to this. It expires in a couple of years. You need revenue now. And so as constructed, the way it would go on the ballot, if approved by four-fifths of the council, it would go into effect on April 1st of 2023. which means this budget year. And so let's say in a perfect world, you put it on the ballot, The public supports it. and you will see revenue in the last quarter of this year's budget, which is April, May, and June. And that would be between three and $400,000 as an estimate. So why wouldn't you do it is the question. And so that's a valid question. Nobody likes taxes. People often say that government taxes too much and we're wasteful. I would suggest to you that there's ways to figure out if in fact there is an appetite for a sales tax measure. So last fall, you asked us to do a survey. We tweaked that survey at your direction. |
| 01:34:39.92 | Kevin McGowan | Okay. |
| 01:34:46.55 | Sean Cleary | Thank you. |
| 01:34:46.59 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:34:46.64 | Sean Cleary | Yeah. |
| 01:35:03.90 | Chris Zapata | to include a question on sales tax support. If an extension and expansion was asked for, In your packet, it's in the consent packet. There's a report from FM3, which went to about 400 likely voters in Sausalito. Okay. and gives you some metrics. And the first metric is, yeah, 64% would support a one-cent sales tax. as proposed, and 31% would say no, 5% undecided. That's the beginning number. If you drill down a little bit deeper, it's closer to 50%. which is not, Um, Not a great number, but it's not 40% which supported. It's 50%, 51% after hearing about all of the city's financial loans, which still support it. So what that means, if you put it on the ballot, there's work to do to inform the community, to inform the electorate about what this is and what it's not. And at the point you put it on the ballot, it becomes very very much of a legal matter in that city staff can't go out there and impose and spend public dollars proposing support for it. We can only provide education and information that's factual. So at this point, you know, we can say all we want. We would love to see this on the ballot, and we think that it would be a good thing for the city. But once it's decided by the city council that you, in fact, want to place it on the ballot, then it becomes a neutral position that we have to take. And then it becomes really important for folks in the community to have information so they can make a decision based on being informed. So that survey was completed. I'm glad it was completed and the timeframe was completed because it provides, in my mind, a momentum to a recommendation to place this on the ballot for the additional half a percent which would take it to measure or would take to a full 1% in April of 2023 and allow us to collect revenue over the next eight years past 2025, which to me is not a significant number when you aggregate it. The measure O, that was approved in 2014 has really been necessary to this community. You know, when you talk about 1.2 to 1.5 million a year over 10 years, that means that that vote produced 12 to $15 million for the city to invest in its infrastructure and its services. So we would recommend that you push forward with this, that it'd be a general tax measure, which means 50% plus one, that it'd be increased by half a percent to a full and it'd be on the ballot this November. That concludes my information. Again, I can't stress how important and urgent this is to take action. because if not, we are at risk in future years of losing that revenue stream, which is really important to, again, our services and our infrastructure. Thank you. |
| 01:38:04.97 | Mayor Kelman | Thanks, Chris. And this is of course not the first time we've seen this and discussed this and at your wise direction, we did do the survey, which if you didn't see it as on the consent calendar in terms of the summary. So let's do just quick questions from council if there are any for Chris, and if not, we'll move over to Papa Conner. Any questions? Okay, let's go with Councillor Sopietsky, please. |
| 01:38:30.06 | Ian Sobieski | Just a quick one, Chris, the choice of doing a time limited measure again mirrors the original Measure O. Was that a choice that had any other motivation besides So it's just arbitrary choice, as opposed to making it permanent. I guess would be the other option. or some other length of time. |
| 01:38:51.81 | Chris Zapata | As a recommendation on my part, Councilman said yes to members of the council is you have a successful model, which is a 10-year model, and to replicate that takes a lot of the questions out of it. If you in fact say you want to extend it with no sunset, that's a different question. If you put a sunset on it, which you're doing in this particular recommendation, that mirrors what you did in 2014. And that was supported by the community. And what you really want is less pushback on it. You want more support for it. And so I think as you start to extend it further out or increase the amount, you increase the uncertainty of it passing. And so for me, it was a very pragmatic and conservative approach to say, let's mirror what you did in Saustuido in 2014 and add a half a percent and not go into a longer period because that in effect probably creates more questions about what you did in Saustuido in 2014 what support you might get. |
| 01:39:52.06 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you, Chris. Thank you for the question. Councilman Hoffman. |
| 01:39:56.09 | Jill Hoffman | Chris, apologies if you went over this, but there's also the issue that I believe 9% is the max you can do on a sales tax. So in effect, we're hitting the limit. It also limits other entities from taxing us above 9% on sales tax. and we keep that for Sausalito. In other words, we wouldn't come back next year and do another sales tax on top of the 9%, or we're sort of capping us out and taking advantage of that cap. Have I got that right? |
| 01:40:29.81 | Chris Zapata | That's correct, Councilmember Hoffman. There are some counties that have gone and gotten special legislation to increase the cap. And that's why you see in the report that I provided for you all, when we started this conversation a few months ago, that some places are over 10%. A lot of them in L.A. County, the sales tax rate is over 10%. Contra Costa County, a lot of them are 9.5, 9.75. But right now, in our case, 2% is the limit. And if you don't get it, somebody else may get it. And so I think it would be prudent on the part of this community to keep that money local and max that out. And that's the maximum at this point, unless you go and get some special legislation to increase that cap. |
| 01:41:17.56 | Mayor Kelman | Great, thank you for the question. Let's go ahead and open to public comment. |
| 01:41:23.89 | Walfred Solorzano | our first speaker, it's Kevin Carroll. Kevin, you've been unmuted and asked to share your video. |
| 01:41:32.36 | Kevin Carroll | Good evening, council. Just a real quick comment. I think there's a couple of concerns that really should be conducted. included in the proposed ballot question that the funds might be used. And they're the ones that I'm hearing from a lot of local residents that they have a lot of concerns about One is sea level rise. I assume some of these funds would be used in some of the planning for that. but also, sadly... climate change and by November, I'm sure fire safety. is gonna be a major issue. It's already starting to be, if you've seen some of the fires around the bay the other day. We had fires in four counties. surrounding the bay. and I suspect it's going to be a bigger issue as we get towards November, it might be worthy to include Thank you. |
| 01:42:23.63 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 01:42:23.66 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. |
| 01:42:23.68 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 01:42:23.76 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. |
| 01:42:23.78 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 01:42:23.83 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. |
| 01:42:23.85 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 01:42:24.10 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. |
| 01:42:26.48 | Walfred Solorzano | Our next speaker is Julie Vieira. Julie, you're being unmuted and asked to share your video. |
| 01:42:33.41 | Julie | Hi everyone. I just, I thought it was not interesting, but just a point that I wanted to make. that both of the presentations by the city manager and I believe it was Nick said visitors Yes, visitors do pay sales tax when they come in, but we need to encourage our locals to shop local. None of our businesses, whether they're on Bridgeway or Caledonia or Pine Street or Princess Street, can survive on just the visitors that come. you know, April through the end of September. So, is there some plan |
| 01:43:13.12 | Sean Cleary | Thank you. |
| 01:43:15.87 | Julie | within EDAC or the city to try to encourage people to shop local. because there are a lot of people, we get at the visitor's center, we've been open since the 19th of April, they say, oh, I didn't know you were here and I live in Sausalito. And they say that to other businesses as well. we really need to have our businesses supported by the local residents. Thank you. |
| 01:43:44.63 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you, Julie. The next speaker is David Sudo. David, you've been unmuted and as you share your video. |
| 01:43:54.21 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. Hi, David. |
| 01:43:57.60 | David Sudo | Oh, okay. at a zoom this year. So once again, I'm gonna say we have a CIP deficit. I think it's I think you know, It this messaging comes down to me and simpler. answer is that We have a tremendous backlog of, of. projects that we need to do. And I'm scared about what I'm reading about. what we might have to do with stormwater too. and it's gonna be another big project we're gonna have to do. And so our solutions for funding these projects are either this measure of sales tax or bonds. that we're gonna have to pay interest on and comes solely from property taxes of our residents. our choices are to either have our visitors helped defray the costs of them visiting our our community or to pay for all these projects on our own. Um, and to pay more for those projects. So I think it becomes really simple to ask the community to increase our sales tax with Measure O. Thank you. |
| 01:45:06.71 | Vicki Nichols | Thank you. |
| 01:45:06.74 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 01:45:06.86 | Vicki Nichols | Thank you. |
| 01:45:06.91 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 01:45:06.94 | Vicki Nichols | Thank you. |
| 01:45:08.50 | Walfred Solorzano | Our next speaker is Vicki Nichols. Vicki, you're being unmuted. |
| 01:45:12.61 | Vicki Nichols | Thank you. I'd first like to start by saying that I totally agree with the position that the council's taken and our city manager's position that. renewing Measure O is essential to our budget. My question is on the language that's provided in the staff report. This has been written in the staff report and the ballot language, etc., etc. that this is really for infrastructure, and I'm not sure what quality of life means. I think that's a little subjective, but this is silent on pensions. To me, pensions are not services, so I'd like some clarity on this, and I think this is going to be really important. when the city does their FAQs to inform the public about this. Either there's a phrase in there that it says it won't be used for pensions, that it truly will be used to improve our city infrastructure. or if it is, and it certainly can be as a general tax, it needs to be, the council needs to state their willingness to do that. So to me, that's very important. I am not against the tax. I think all the reasoning about the amounts that have been discussed by our city manager make total sense about keeping it local. but it just feels a little too, the language to me is too loose and it needs to be narrowed, I feel, to gain more popularity. Thank you. Thanks, Vicki. |
| 01:46:48.28 | Walfred Solorzano | Our next speaker is Joan Cox. Joan, you've been unmuted. |
| 01:46:52.51 | Joan Cox | Thank you. Good evening again, Council. I just wanted to endorse what the city manager said about the importance of a public outreach campaign and to remind you that you have amazing resources available in your community to help you with getting that messaging out. So when we passed Measures L&M a couple of years ago, we relied heavily on our business community and our residents to help get the messaging out about what the taxes were, what they weren't, and to make sure that there was adequate information available to everyone. |
| 01:47:06.01 | Sean Cleary | Thank you. |
| 01:47:27.01 | Joan Cox | that the mayor and the vice mayor took on at that time without participation of city staff because As pointed out by the city manager, that's not something the city staff can do is to advocate in favor of a measure. Certainly members of the community can do so. I know I would be very interested in assisting with such a campaign. I think it's really important to find other community leaders to assist with it as well and really get the word out. and really be clear about what it is and isn't. I do endorse what Vicki Nichols said about the importance of identifying what the intended purpose is, but again, as the city manager pointed out, as a general tact, it has, it can't be, it's not a specific tax for a specific purpose, although the city council can make that commitment. It's important to frame it as a general tax so that you only need 50% plus one vote. as opposed to a two-thirds vote for a more specific tax. But, again, that's something you can include in the messaging. So I just wanted to volunteer. I know others would volunteer to work with city council members in getting the word out about what this is and what it isn't. And I cannot agree more heartily. This is step one to start addressing this urgent need to bolster revenues. Thanks. Thank you, John. |
| 01:48:50.12 | Walfred Solorzano | The next speaker is Ray Withey. All right, you've been unmuted. I have to share your video. |
| 01:48:56.87 | Ray Withey | Thank you. Good evening again, City Council staff. Um, I was the mayor in 2014. when measure O was conceived. and first pass. And together with Joe Burns, former Mayor Joe Burns, who actually was on Parks and Rec at the time, and Tom Theodores, who was on the City Council, former Mayor Tom Theodores, who was on the City Council. We formed a citizens committee to actually work on this. This, as to echo Jones' comments, this needs to be done and people need to step forward. Um, to reiterate what David's pseudo said. I'm gonna put it in a different way. the expected value, that is... The risk-adjusted net present value of our liabilities on infrastructure is probably tenfold higher than our pension liabilities. I don't need to repeat that. Remember, tenfold. I made that number up. It could be fivefold. Could be 24. This is critically important. that this measure passes And the only reservation I've had Amen. is that if you look at what was on consent and the presentation that was given on consent about the survey, I'm very worried about slide 20. and perhaps would like a little bit of explanation from the city manager on slide 20. because it's really important this measure passes. And if going from 0.5 to 1 means the measure fails... Thank you. That's a problem. |
| 01:50:53.14 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. |
| 01:50:53.15 | Carol | Thank you. |
| 01:50:53.52 | Walfred Solorzano | THANK YOU. |
| 01:50:53.83 | Ray Withey | Thank you. |
| 01:50:53.84 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. |
| 01:50:54.57 | Walfred Solorzano | Our next speaker is Sandra Bushmaker. Sandra, you've been unmuted. |
| 01:51:01.77 | Sandra Bushmaker | I just, I'm a little uncomfortable. I'm not going to speak for or against the measure, but I'm a little uncomfortable with the language that the attorney brought up with regard to the ballot language. It appears to be designated for, it could be interpreted, let's put it that way, that these funds are for designated purposes. And I think that's misleading. As Joan Cox brought up, this is a general tax, requires 50% and not a specific tax. We went through this issue several years ago when questioning when questioning whether the money was allocated for infrastructure or not and And as it turns out, I think the public needs to know that this money will go directly into the general fund, which of course can be used for any purpose that the council deems fit. So I think that that language on the ballot initiative needs to be clarified to show that it's a general tax that will go into the general fund and not a specific tax for a specific purpose. Thank you. Thank you, Senator. |
| 01:52:09.19 | Mayor Kelman | Any other public comment? |
| 01:52:11.08 | Walfred Solorzano | Madam Mayor, I see no other hands raised. |
| 01:52:13.26 | Mayor Kelman | Okay, so go ahead and close. Um, So we of course have heard about this Measure O, we've been hearing tonight about urgency. This is urgent. So I am prepared to support this measure as recommended by the city manager. And I also, as we take comments from my colleagues, I am also keen to put together a citizens advisory group. as was recommended, and see if I have two volunteers from the council who would like to serve as liaisons. So I'll start there, but I'll go to Councilmember Hoffman. |
| 01:52:49.72 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. I support this as well. as a revenue generating, I think it's, The structure is the same that we passed last time. It gives us a little bit of flexibility on what we spend the money on because it is going into the general fund. But principally, I agree that it's used for improvements, capital improvements. I think that makes a lot of sense and it's worked that way in the past four years. So I think that we should continue that. and I support the increase from not only extending measure O, but also the increase from a half cent to a full cent. And I'm ready to make the motion. to approve the resolution to call an election to be held on November 8th submitting to the voters an ordinance that would be aimed in Restate Chapter 3, to Title III of the Sausalito Municipal Code to extend the existing transaction and use sales tax until April 1, 2033. and to adjust the rate to 1% commission on April 1st, 2023. for general purposes to be administered by the California State Board of Equalization And second, to introduce and read by title only an ordinance of the city of Sausalito amending restating chapter 3.06 to title three of the Sassolom Municipal Code imposing a transaction and use tax to be administered by the State Board of Equalization on November 8, 2022. So that's my motion, but understanding that I do agree with the, the principal description that it's to be used for capital improvements. And to adjourn that. |
| 01:54:30.57 | Mayor Kelman | and to hear that. Right. |
| 01:54:33.54 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 01:54:34.43 | Mayor Kelman | We have a second. Do we have additional comments or another motion? Vice Mayor? |
| 01:54:40.24 | Vice Mayor | I was just going to say I absolutely support this. It's critical for infrastructure, but I also support the public outreach and the Citizens Advisory Committee and would be really happy to help as a liaison on that and would be really happy to have Joan Cox help as well. I appreciated her stepping up and suggesting that, so I wanted to let that be known as well. Oh, great. Thank you for that. |
| 01:55:01.53 | Susan | Thank you. |
| 01:55:02.38 | Vice Mayor | Thank you. |
| 01:55:02.40 | Susan | Councilmember Coutheron? Yeah, just similar comments to everyone else. Appreciate the offers of assistance. I'd be happy to help. I'm sure we have to have a limit on the number of counsel. members that can actively participate, at least on a committee that hopefully will all step up, um, you know, at some level. I'm happy to volunteer. I just wanted to say in response to some of the public comments, the council has has acted very responsibly and wisely over the years for the allocation of Measure O funds to infrastructure and has met overall its commitment to the voters. And the one time that we really deviated from that was an emergency and it was COVID. which significantly reduced our revenues. And I think, you know, but that's the nature of a general tax, that it is available for general purposes. when there is an extreme need. I like the current messaging. I think it strikes a good balance. We need to provide some specificity to voters on kind of where we intend to go. with the money while not tying our hands. So I think that the description does those things. But with a general tax, legally, I think, it does go into the general funding can be spent. on anything. So I don't think we can be overly prescriptive. So I think it does a good job and I'm supportive of the way that it's written tonight. So thank you, the city manager, for pursuing this so quickly and for getting this in front of us. And I'm really just happy to be able to vote in favor of this tonight. Thank you. Thank you for that. Thank you. |
| 01:56:50.97 | Mayor Kelman | manager. |
| 01:56:55.42 | Mayor Kelman | You're on mute, maybe? There you go. |
| 01:56:59.12 | Chris Zapata | I just wanted to add some flavor to Council Member Cleveland's comment about last year when you took and used Measure O for operating costs. You also corrected that in February by taking from your reserves the $1.2 million and replenishing our program and directed that to street and street improvements. So I think your record is still intact of using it for its intended purpose. And I wanted to make sure that was known. |
| 01:57:26.15 | Mayor Kelman | Yeah, great, good point. Thank you for that. Okay, we have a motion and a second. Councilor Soviski, anything to add? |
| 01:57:33.31 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 01:57:34.49 | Mayor Kelman | So go ahead and call the roll then. |
| 01:57:37.54 | Walfred Solorzano | Council Member Sobieski? Yes. Councilmember Fluegelenau. |
| 01:57:41.02 | Mayor Kelman | Yes. |
| 01:57:41.88 | Walfred Solorzano | Councilmember Hoffman. |
| 01:57:43.21 | Julie | Thank you. |
| 01:57:43.25 | Mayor Kelman | Yeah. |
| 01:57:43.45 | Julie | Thank you. |
| 01:57:43.97 | Walfred Solorzano | Vice Mayor Blavstein. |
| 01:57:45.41 | Mayor Kelman | Yes. |
| 01:57:46.17 | Walfred Solorzano | Mayor Kellen. Yes. |
| 01:57:47.28 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. |
| 01:57:47.31 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 01:57:47.33 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. |
| 01:57:47.36 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. Motion passes. |
| 01:57:49.34 | Mayor Kelman | Great, I'll follow up Susan and Melissa with you on the council advisory committee. I was also willing to serve of course. So let's discuss how to best roll that out. But thank you so much everybody. Okay, on to our next item here. We have item 5B, which is the citizens' initiative petition to repeal the existing regulations and authorize storefront and non-storefront commercial cannabis business in Sausalito. We'll be hearing from Nick Muscolino, our city attorney on this. I know we have a number of people who do want to comment. I'm just gonna give you a heads up. Given the number of people, we're going to limit public comment to one minute each. So if you have thoughts you want to condense, now would be the time. So Nick, over to you. |
| 01:58:32.20 | Nick Moscolino | Thank you. Pleasure to be with you again. I'm here presenting on the second cannabis measure that has been proposed in this kind of last two years. This one's called a citizen-sponsored initiative measure to authorize storefront and non-storefront commercial cannabis businesses in Sausalito. Start with a little background. This petition was filed just recently on March 4th of 2022. The city attorney prepared a ballot title and summary and 581 signatures were collected. Again, as I mentioned a moment ago, this is the second citizen-sponsored initiative regarding cannabis since 2021. The last one was considered by this council back in August, I believe, last year. The current law regarding cannabis and Sausalito is in chapter 10.47 of the municipal code Generally, it provides that all medical, recreational, commercial, and delivery businesses are prohibited from operating from locations in the city. Cultivation is prohibited except for limited indoor cultivation by state law. Power code does authorize the delivery of medical cannabis from businesses located outside of the city. The proposed initiative that we're considering tonight does a couple things that I'll describe kind of a high level now. First, it eliminates the city's existing cannabis regulations, the ones that I just described, and it'll authorize two cannabis retailers, at least for the first couple years. The first is a storefront retail commercial cannabis business. That's essentially just a storefront retail. They can also do delivery. and it would also authorize the second delivery only business, which is defined as a non-storefront retail or retail commercial cannabis business. Notably, after two years, new applications for additional retail and delivery-only businesses can be processed at a ratio of one new storefront and one new delivery business for every 4,000 residents. So given current population levels, the population of the city would have to increase by I think about 1,000 residents for any new addition, new businesses to be permitted above the two that I just described. The cultivation for personal use would be authorized and regulated. And then as described here, commercial cultivation, manufacturing, distribution, micro businesses, and laboratories would be prohibited unless this council or subsequent initiative were adopted amending that provision. So this provides various regulations of retailers. Again, I'm aiming only to provide a high-level description. The applicants for these permits must obtain what's called a commercial cannabis business clearance. This is essentially eligibility restrictions on who can apply for and be granted one of these clearances. They must also obtain a conditional use permit, a business license, a license issued by the California Department of Cannabis Control, as well as any other licenses, permits, et cetera required by law. This regulation also has some location restrictions For example, it will require 1,000 feet between cannabis businesses so that they're not all clustered in one particular location. 1,000 feet from schools minimum setback, a 50-foot setback for residences, And then a restriction on what zoning districts cannabis businesses can be located in. And I've listed those for you at the bottom of the screen. Um, In order to get a license and become a retailer, the applicants must first submit a detailed community outreach plan. They must agree to donate 1% of their yearly profits, a minimum of $300,000 over five years, to Marin County programs supporting individuals that are negatively impacted by the war of drugs. And they also must have one owner who owns at least 10% of the business that was arrested for a cannabis crime before 2016, that had an income of less than 60% of the area medium income for the jurisdictions where they live, and that they have, or finally they can satisfy this requirement by having lived for five years in an area disproportionately impacted by cannabis criminalization. And there's some provisions for measuring that Thank you. by having lived for five years in an area disproportionately impacted by cannabis criminalization. And there's some provisions for measuring that in the code. As I mentioned before, there was a previous cannabis initiative submitted in 2021. We did, the city attorney's office did prepare a valid title summary for you back then. 653 valid signatures were collected and then at your meeting on July 27 to 21, this council voted to submit that initiative to voters without ordering any kind of report. Um, So I wanted to provide kind of a brief comparison. This is not comprehensive. Again, comparing that 21-21 petition to this current petition before you here today. I'll refer to this one that we're considering at the 2022 petition. First again, the two, unlike this petition, which would authorize one or more of each kind of delivery and retailers if there were more than, I'm sorry, let me start that one over again. The 2021 initiative really capped retailers at one storefront and one delivery only. This initiative says you can have one retailer at one storefront and one delivery for the first two years. And then after two years have elapsed, you can have an additional one for each type of cannabis business per 4,000 residents. So if the city had 8,000 residents or more, you could have up to two storefronts and two delivery-only businesses. The community benefits proposed by both petitions are also different. The 2021 petition proposed a payment to the city of the greater of 7.5% of profits per year or $50,000. Whereas the 2022 petition proposes a donation of 1% of the yearly profits with a minimum of $300,000 over five years to the Marine County programs benefiting those who have been adversely impacted by kind of war on drugs. They also have similar but slightly different location requirements. I've focused on schools here. The 2021 petition is 1,000 feet from schools, and this one is also 1,000 feet from schools, but they're measured slightly differently. The 2021 petition is more as the crow flies, whereas the 2022 petition is more line of travel from the front door to the property line of the candidates business to schools. So that would presumably be less than as the crow flies. They have slightly different zoning districts. The 21 petition and the 2022 petition zoning districts are identified here at the bottom. Finally, the eligibility is really where these two initiatives really differ. As council might recall, the 2021 petition had some pretty significant restrictions on who might be eligible to obtain the cannabis. And some of those were somewhat unusual. For example, under the 2021 petition, the applicant would have had to express an interest in operating cannabis business during one council meeting and individual meetings with three council members between 2018 and 2021. So if somebody came after 2021 and had a meeting with the council, they might not be eligible at that time. unless there was nobody else who was eligible. Another kind of unusual restriction was a requirement that between, before April 2021, that the applicant would have co-hosted outreach meetings, met with one faith leader, and attended community organization meetings. So there are some significant restrictions under the 2021 initiative that really aren't in place in the 2022 initiative. Then again, I'm just listing some of the high level ones to differentiate the two. If this council decides to submit this 2022 initiative to the voters, then they would be competing measures. And under provisions in both initiatives, if both initiatives receive a majority vote of the people voting at the 2022 election, the initiative that receives the highest number of votes would prevail and become the law, even if both received above 50% of the vote. The options before you here are provided by the elections code 9215. There are three options that you can take. You can adopt the proposed ordinance without change. You can submit the proposed ordinance to voters at the next regular, at the regular election on November 8th. or you can order a report to be presented within 30 days. And once that report is provided to you, you will then have options one, adopt the ordinance, or option two, submit the ordinance to voters to decide on at that time. And before I conclude, I want to just mention that in the last couple of days, the city has received letters from several law firms, both challenging and defending the validity of this 2022 cannabis petition. And the dispute really comes down to this. The proponents of this initiative do not live in Sausalito, according to their materials. California constitution provides that the initiative and referendum power may be exercised by the electors of each city or county under procedures that the legislature shall provide. And then the elections code defines elector as a person who is a citizen, resident, and is a resident of the election precinct in this state. on or before the day of the election. And so, The attorneys who represent unidentified people who are interested in this are claiming that the petition is not valid and should not be submitted to voters or otherwise acted on because its proponents do not live in Sausalito, whereas the proponents, their law firm is arguing that they do satisfy these requirements and thus the petition is valid and should be submitted to the voters. And that concludes this portion of the presentation. |
| 02:09:47.74 | Mayor Kelman | Okay, thank you very much, Nick. Can you, yeah, there you go. Any questions for City Attorney, that was a really excellent presentation. almost every question that I had had and posed to the city attorney over the last couple of weeks and some that just came in this morning as well. So thank you for that. Councilman Hoffman, I see your hand up. |
| 02:10:10.66 | Mayor Kelman | You're on mute. Yeah, sorry. |
| 02:10:14.08 | Jill Hoffman | Hi, Nick. Thank you. Welcome, Nick. Thank you. So I'm interested in that last issue that's been raised about the validity of the initiative based on the resonance of the proponents. And I'm wondering, you did a nice job, thank you, of summarizing the different, you know, |
| 02:10:16.90 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. |
| 02:10:37.30 | Jill Hoffman | the different positions of the two obviously of the two initiatives, the people that are that are supporting the two initiatives Um, But I'm wondering, have we had a chance, has Sausalito had a chance to do an analysis of where we believe the law falls on? |
| 02:10:56.64 | Nick Moscolino | We have the city attorney office has provided a memo, a confidential memo to the council earlier today that kind of describes the issues. I won't go into that here. I will say that I have looked at the case law and there isn't a clear answer that I've been pointed to yet. There are definitely arguments on both sides of this issue. I don't know if you had the opportunity to review the letters submitted both by the Olsen-Remcho firm for the unidentified projectors and also the... we had the opportunity to review the letters submitted both by the Olson Remschow firm for the unidentified kind of projectors and also the Nassman firm who represent the proponents. I will say that in these circumstances, the strong preference of the courts is typically to, to recommend that the city councils submit the initiative to the voters and then give the proponents or the objectors the opportunity to file basically a writ petition challenging it. And that's the preferred way that the courts typically provide guidance on what you do when there's kind of dueling arguments on a petition without a clear answer. |
| 02:12:02.24 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you for that. I did see the letter that we got I think today from one of the law firms. So I just saw that. So thank you. |
| 02:12:15.89 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 02:12:15.90 | Mayor Kelman | Is that it, Councillor Rothfuss? |
| 02:12:17.03 | Susan | Thank you. |
| 02:12:18.15 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. |
| 02:12:18.27 | Susan | Thank you. |
| 02:12:18.32 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. |
| 02:12:18.37 | Susan | Thank you. |
| 02:12:18.44 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. |
| 02:12:18.47 | Susan | I can't remember the long. Yeah, thank you. I agree on the presentation. Very clear and very concise. And I really appreciated the feedback comparison of the two measures and I would really was you know, I think that is really helpful to have now. So I had two factual questions or two questions about the current initiative in front of us tonight. One is I'm wondering if you could, I wasn't sure about the number of sites allowed under the initiative and whether. It's... It is, you said during your presentation that it was additive, so one in two years and then another one. I actually thought that the language was either ambiguous or, or went more in the direction of only allowing one. unless there's 8,000 or more people in Sausalito. So I'm wondering if Maybe during public comment, you could take a look at that, or maybe if not, at some other point, we could get clarity on that. That's really important to me. how many storefronts might be permitted. And then the second question I had is, Is it correct in terms of community benefits that in the 2021 measure the money goes directly to the city and the city decides where those community benefits go. or how we spend that money. And in the second measure, the one that's in front of us tonight, THE owners decide where the money goes? |
| 02:14:04.78 | Nick Moscolino | That's my read of it. As I mentioned earlier, the 2021 ordinance is pretty clear that the licensees shall pay 7.5% of their net profits for $50,000 a year to the city, and it doesn't provide any kind of restrictions on the use of the funds. whereas the ordinance before you tonight basically requires them to make a donation of the funds in a certain amount of money. to you know, unspecified as far as I could tell, organizations that support those who have been adversely impacted by, you know, the war on drugs functionally. So that did seem to me a big difference between the two measures. |
| 02:15:00.18 | Susan | Okay, and the city has no, under the current one that we're looking at tonight, the city has no say as to what organizations benefit. Just as long as they, as long as the owners donate to organizations that qualify under that definition, they've satisfied their. community benefit obligation. |
| 02:15:22.76 | Nick Moscolino | That's my understanding. |
| 02:15:25.51 | Susan | So other than if we approved a tax measure to tax sales, there would not necessarily be any direct financial benefit to the city of San Francisco. |
| 02:15:39.65 | Nick Moscolino | Yes, that's my understanding. |
| 02:15:41.38 | Susan | and we would need to adopt a special tax for cannabis. |
| 02:15:41.43 | Nick Moscolino | Thank you. |
| 02:15:47.50 | Susan | in order to tax. uh, any sales, our general sales tax would not apply to this sale of cannabis products. Is that correct? |
| 02:16:00.71 | Nick Moscolino | I haven't looked into that question specifically, but I off the top of my head, I would be inclined to think the sales tax would apply to as a good sold in the city, but I haven't specifically looked into that question. |
| 02:16:16.49 | Susan | Okay. Um, and then, um, so I just one. One last question. Did you have an opinion about, I know your presentation said you thought and this current measure in front of us tonight, the 2022 measure would allow, and after the second year would allow two storefront and two, Full sale, is that correct? |
| 02:16:38.18 | Nick Moscolino | My understanding is that for the first two years, there would be one storefront, one delivery for every 6,000 residents. And then after that, you could have additional retail and storefront depending on the population. So if the current, I think the city currently has something like 7,000 residents. So assuming that held after 2000, after two years, I think you'd still be limited to one storefront and one delivery. But if the city's population subsequently increased to more than, 8,000, then you could look, my rate of it is that you could have up to two, you know, between 8,000 and 12,000, you could have. two storefronts, and two deliveries. Thank you. |
| 02:17:28.78 | Susan | Okay, so you think until we reach 8,000 people, |
| 02:17:28.82 | Nick Moscolino | Okay, all right, so that's. |
| 02:17:34.74 | Susan | your read is where limited it's limited to one of one of each type of Establishment? Not. |
| 02:17:41.34 | Nick Moscolino | Thank you. |
| 02:17:41.36 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:17:41.37 | Nick Moscolino | That's correct. |
| 02:17:42.54 | Susan | That goes up after two years. |
| 02:17:44.63 | Nick Moscolino | Yeah, I think that it would have, the population would have to increase to 8,000 before you can have any additional. |
| 02:17:51.77 | Susan | Thank you. |
| 02:17:51.80 | Mayor Kelman | Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. Yeah, great question. Thank you for that. Any other questions for for Nick before we take from comment. Okay, well, why don't we go ahead and take public comment Again, we've gotten a number of communications on this, so we are gonna limit public comment on this topic to one minute. and you will see the timer from the, Post it on the Zoom screen. |
| 02:18:16.30 | Walfred Solorzano | Madam Mayor, our first speaker is Yolanda Felissimo. Yolanda, you've been unmuted. Nice to share your video. |
| 02:18:33.75 | Mayor Kelman | Yolanda, you are still muted. |
| 02:18:44.23 | Mayor Kelman | Okay, looks like she's off of mute. |
| 02:18:50.53 | Walfred Solorzano | Linda, we still cannot hear you. |
| 02:18:56.30 | Mayor Kelman | Okay, let's take a pause on Yolanda and go to the next speaker and hopefully Yolanda can remedy her. audiovisual issue. |
| 02:19:03.55 | Walfred Solorzano | Sure, our next speaker is Alicia. Alicia, you've been unmuted unless you share your video. |
| 02:19:10.73 | Alicia Leach | Greetings, I'm starting my video. My name's Alicia Leach, and I'd like to request that the City Council move to order a report on the Spark Pearson Austin measure. Thank you. There seems to be a lot of open questions still And specifically the question that I would have is for both ballot measures, there are no protections whatsoever for 18 to 20 year olds. to go into a storefront in Sausalito and buy as much marijuana product as they possibly can. And here's the reason why I did it myself. I went seven years ago and got a medical marijuana card. I was able to do it in 20 minutes flat online. Any 18 year old can do that today. And that would allow for like 480 students at Tam High today to go in and Legally. by marijuana in Sausalito. So that's the reason why I'd like you guys to look into that. Thank you very much. Thank you, Alicia. |
| 02:20:09.62 | Walfred Solorzano | The next speaker is Nathan. Nathan, you've been unmuted unless you share your video. |
| 02:20:18.01 | Nathan Williams | Good evening, everyone. Unfortunately, I did an update in my video. It's just not working today. Can you all hear me? |
| 02:20:23.51 | Mayor Kelman | We can. |
| 02:20:24.45 | Nathan Williams | Perfect. My name is Nathan Williams and I'm a member of UFC Local 5. I'm actually here today to encourage the council to conduct a neutral study of item 5B on the agenda. I believe Q members need to understand how the initiatives differ and the impact they could have on the city in terms of financial impact, social equity, location and zoning, the application process, and the legality of each initiative. As a worker in the campus industry, I strongly urge the council to consider the impact a cannabis business could have on the people they employ and research what measures a city can take to protect their working class. Thank you. |
| 02:21:01.38 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you, Nathan. |
| 02:21:04.82 | Walfred Solorzano | next speaker or we're going to try back Yolanda Bellissimo. Yolanda you've been unmuted. Nice to share your video. |
| 02:21:18.40 | Walfred Solorzano | Yolanda, we're not hearing you or |
| 02:21:22.64 | Yolanda Felissimo | Now, and now you should be able to hear me. Yes, we can. Okay, thank you. Um, Yeah, I teach political science at the College of Warren. So I'm interested in this from the point of view what it says about the initiative process in California and The fact that in the early 20th century, they put this into place because They were trying to circumvent the fact that big businesses in this in the state controlled politicians. And so they wanted the people to have an opportunity to to voice their opinion about laws aside from whatever corporations wanted in connection with the politicians that they that they controlled. And in this particular case, you have a large corporation that's from outside the area that's proposing this initiative and it doesn't even have a local sponsor of it. from the Sausalito area. So I'm not a lawyer. I don't know whether or not that's even legal to put that on a ballot, but it certainly violates the spirit of the democratic reforms that were put into place in the early of the 20th century. And just based on that alone, I would would reject this measure. Thank you, Yolanda. |
| 02:22:37.07 | Walfred Solorzano | Next speaker is Joseph. Joseph, you've been muted unless you share your video. |
| 02:22:41.82 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:22:48.85 | Carol | Well done. |
| 02:22:49.76 | Eric Pearson | Good evening, council. Can you hear me? |
| 02:22:51.59 | Carol | Thank you. |
| 02:22:52.77 | Eric Pearson | Okay, thank you for the opportunity to speak this evening. My name's Eric Pearson. I'm extremely proud to be one of the proponents of the initiative before the council tonight. Thank you. I'm the founder of Spark, one of the state's oldest medical cannabis groups and the owner of award-winning dispensaries in Sonoma County. I want to begin by saying that we believe these legal claims made about our initiative to be completely false. I want to assure the community and the council that my partner Paul Austin and I have correctly followed the initiative process as outlined in the elections code. Hopefully this last ditch attempt by anonymous detractors to derail the initiative process I won't distract from the merits of this initiative. . and the response to the Amen. . fair and equitable play. We believe this initiative does just that. |
| 02:23:51.95 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you, Eric. Thank you so much for your time is up here. |
| 02:23:52.74 | Eric Pearson | We encourage you to do a neutral study tonight. |
| 02:23:55.83 | Walfred Solorzano | for you. |
| 02:24:00.37 | Walfred Solorzano | The next speaker is Judy. Judy, you're... and ask to share your video. |
| 02:24:07.62 | Judy Gwetterer | Hello, I'm Judy Gwetterer. I'm a 27-year resident in Sausalito. The comparisons that were made tonight to me do not go far enough. I'm very concerned still what appears to be a lack of recognition of the seriousness of high potency THC cannabis on teens especially but also on pregnant women and seniors. I have I would like to know What? Thank you. health professionals have had an opportunity to review both of these proposals And what did they say? I'm also worried about vehicular traffic and the safety of pedestrians and bicycles writing to and from school and to and from work. I've heard that 200 people plus daily will be coming to town to buy cannabis. as the bike and pet committee reviewed the proposals and given their feedback and concerns. of the proposals provided professional traffic studies, and have these studies been peer reviewed by traffic consultants hired by the city? Thank you for consideration. of a few of my many concerns. Thank you. |
| 02:25:15.04 | Walfred Solorzano | Next speaker is Joan Cox. Joan, you've been admitted. |
| 02:25:19.26 | Joan Cox | Thank you. Good evening again, counsel. I just wanted to endorse correspondence that you received from Tom Theodorus urging you to undertake the report that you have the opportunity to get, especially now that you have two measures potentially going on to the ballot I also appreciated the analysis of the city attorney of the comparison of the two measures and urge that you delve further into an understanding of the difference between the two measures including things beyond just the location of the stores, but also the types of products carried, Um, hours of operation, security, mostly the city's ability to govern the stores once erected and under operation. Thank you. Thank you, Jen. |
| 02:26:08.21 | Walfred Solorzano | Our next speaker is Sandra. Sandra, you're being unmuted. Nice to share your video. |
| 02:26:19.45 | Sandra Lowe | Good evening, City Council. My name is Sandra Lowe, and I'm a council member myself in the city of Sonoma. having gone through very similar process wish you well in your endeavors. to come up with a good policy for your city as we have come up with a good policy for our city It was a rather complicated experience And in fact, the initiative was that someone put forth was voted down and the council came up with that. a better policy. I urge you, as many have said, to take a deep look at the comparison of the two measures because it's all about the details. And it's important that the residents understand where the cannabis businesses can be located, et cetera. So I wish you well, and I look forward to any questions you might have. along your way, I'm happy to be a resource to you. Thank you so much for the time. Thank you, Councilmember Love. |
| 02:27:19.27 | Walfred Solorzano | Our next speaker is Tom Willis. Tom, you've been unmuted and I have to share your video. |
| 02:27:26.02 | Tom Willis | Good evening, can you hear me? |
| 02:27:27.61 | Mayor Kelman | I tell. |
| 02:27:28.62 | Tom Willis | All right. Good evening, I'm Tom Willis from the law firm of Olson Rencho and I submitted two letters on this matter one on June 22nd and then one. earlier this evening, right before the meeting, I'd like to respectfully but strongly disagree with the city attorney's statement that the law is somehow unclear in this area. It is in fact crystal clear and that number one proponents of a city measure must be registered voters. That's crystal clear by the plain text of the Constitution. And then if that weren't enough in 2015, 11 federal judges in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals came to that exact same conclusion. And then the law is also crystal clear that once a measure is procedurally invalid, the city must has an affirmative duty to keep it off the ballot. Now in comparison to that, what do the proponents use as their authority for the opposite position? They rely on one elections code provision that was rejected by that same 11. One minute has to make it. |
| 02:28:31.85 | Mayor Kelman | Thanks very much, Tom. We did receive your letter. Appreciate it. |
| 02:28:31.87 | Tom Willis | Thank you. |
| 02:28:31.99 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 02:28:32.04 | Tom Willis | Thank you. |
| 02:28:35.84 | Walfred Solorzano | Our next speaker, Maddie. Maddie, if you're unmuted, I can share your video. |
| 02:28:43.94 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:28:50.28 | Walfred Solorzano | Eddie, you've been unmuted and asked to share your video. |
| 02:28:53.88 | Maddie Hirschfield | Yeah, I'm here. Can you hear me? Yes, we can. Thank you. |
| 02:28:57.44 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. |
| 02:28:57.92 | Maddie Hirschfield | Thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight. My name is Maddie Hirschfield. I am with the North Bay Labor Council. Sonoma, Marin, Lake and Mendocino counties. and Judging from the questions you've gotten both from council members and um, Amen. people attending this meeting, it seems to me that there's definitely a need for a more in-depth study so that you can see side by side what these two measures do. I just want to say one thing about the social equity issues. The question was about whether you know, the owners just had free free will to say where that money goes. And they're actually, it's very specific state of California definition of social equity. So it wouldn't just be that they could willy-nilly decide where they think it's needed. Um, so, uh, I'd ask you to look closer at that. Thank you. Thank you, Maddie. |
| 02:30:01.21 | Walfred Solorzano | Our next speaker is Sarah. Sarah, you've been unmuted. |
| 02:30:10.94 | Mayor Kelman | Sarah's muted. |
| 02:30:17.66 | Sarah Schrader | Hello, my name is Sarah Schrader, and I appreciate you having me speak at Public Comic tonight. I'm here in support of Agenda Item 5, and a little bit more about myself. I am a native of the Bay Area, a mother of two, and use cannabis for my fibromyalgia symptoms. I formally held a board of supervisor appointed positions at the San Francisco Medical Cannabis Task Force, the State Legalization Task Force, as well as the Sonoma County Cannabis Advisory Group. The San Francisco Human Rights Commission enlightened me as to the disproportionate impact that cannabis laws have on low-income communities, and I strongly encourage Sausalito to encourage the benefits of adopting social equity policies. I recognize that an equity program in Marin may not be the same as more urban areas. However, the goal is to level the playing fields for those who have not had the opportunity to participate in the legal cannabis market. I'd like to thank the city of Causalito for considering a retail facility. Marin was the second county to recognize medical cannabis in 1992. And here we are 30 years later. |
| 02:31:19.69 | Alicia Leach | And here we are. |
| 02:31:20.15 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 02:31:20.38 | Alicia Leach | Thank you. |
| 02:31:20.47 | Sean Cleary | Thank you. |
| 02:31:21.50 | Sarah Schrader | Thank you. |
| 02:31:21.72 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you, Sarah. Your one minute has elapsed. Our next speaker is Bridget Bart. Bridget, you're gonna mute it and ask to share your video. |
| 02:31:35.72 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. |
| 02:31:35.76 | Bridget Bart | You're muted, Bridget. |
| 02:31:37.78 | Unknown | you. |
| 02:31:39.07 | Bridget Bart | Hi, I basically just wanna make it clear that I encourage you to, to go ahead with the report there are enough questions that I have along with others and in particular on the impacts of traffic and parking. As I understand with this initiative, potentially 200 to 300 customers per day. I just want to be clear on how that will impact traffic as a cyclist and today, even being next to a car that had cannabis coming out of it. it is a safety issue that I just wanna make sure that we're addressing. and how that will impact So I and and additionally on the initiative I noticed there was some wording about after a year there is a potential to do more than just a retail shop something about. |
| 02:32:30.11 | Alicia Leach | Wait. |
| 02:32:30.21 | Bridget Bart | warehouses and and And I wanna make sure that that's looked into because the smell coming from warehouses, say if it's at Marisha. Amen. should be considered, thank you. |
| 02:32:40.15 | Walfred Solorzano | should be. |
| 02:32:42.23 | Bridget Bart | Thank you very much. |
| 02:32:44.51 | Walfred Solorzano | The next speaker is Paul Austin. Paul, you've been unmuted. Nice to share your video. |
| 02:32:51.44 | Sarah Bodnar | the polls. |
| 02:32:53.62 | Paul Austin | Yes, hello, council. My name is Paul Austin. I was born and raised and currently live here in Marin City. I'd like to just thank you for having me there. having the ability to speak tonight. I am the founder of Play Moran. I'm excited to join Eric Pearson. of SPARK and bringing forward our initiative. for years. I brought programs to not only Sausalito as well as Marin City to make sure that our communities join together. and what is awesome as a community. So I've been a community member of not just Marin City, but of Sausalito all of my life. But now is a chance for a new connection between Sausalito and Marin City by using regulations for cannabis benefits that would help the entire community. I just want you guys to look at both initiatives, both the outer brands, and our initiative moving forward. Thank you, Paul. |
| 02:33:54.32 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:33:54.35 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 02:33:54.74 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:33:59.51 | Walfred Solorzano | Next speaker is Carol. Carol, you're being unmuted. and ask to share your video. |
| 02:34:10.62 | Carol | Can you hear me? SUE Okay, I'm trying to find my video. Your video is on. |
| 02:34:17.27 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:34:17.59 | Carol | Thank you. Okay, all right, good. I'm not sure. I would like to agree with everything that Joan Cox said. Basically, all of the concerns that you're hearing from those of us who want to have you do a report has to do with whether the city council would have any impact, any input over the concerns that are being raised. the Austin initiative. has at a meeting that several of us attended claims that the planning commission would be able to address the issues of parking, the location, the neighborhood driveways that are blocked. the odors, all of that. the amount of THC in products. I don't see that in the vehicles. writing of these two proposals is confusing for voters. We need. And we need the report expanded. Thank you. Thank you. |
| 02:35:18.62 | Walfred Solorzano | DECORDS. Our next speaker is Kelsey. Kelsey, you've been unmuted. necessary video. |
| 02:35:32.90 | Kelsey | Thank you for considering ordering a report on the two cannabis ballot measures. In addition to the areas outlined in the staff report, like others have mentioned, I hope the analysis will include anything that might be potentially unconstitutional. For example, residency requirements that aren't justified or whether an initiative can be written so only one entity can qualify. I also hope you will consider looking at whether the initiatives include best practices meant to protect public health, such as limiting high potency products and products that are attracted to youth. restricting marketing and also the buffer zones around schools and youth centers. and that they're measured as defined by the state, which is a direct line between two properties. Thank you for doing what you can to inform voters of the fine print in these proposed measures. The best interest of the community comes second to company profits when cannabis companies write their own policies. Thank you for your work. Thank you. |
| 02:36:31.00 | Walfred Solorzano | Our next speaker is Sarah. Sarah, you've been unmuted. Nice to share your video. |
| 02:36:37.63 | Sarah Bodnar | Good evening, Council and thank you for this conversation tonight. My name is Sarah Bodnar and I am a steering committee member for the Committee for Safe Access Marin. A minute is not enough time to clarify all of the nuances between these two initiatives, but I wanna respectfully suggest that they The side by side comparison you got tonight was not the complete picture and some of the facts that were shared were not quite accurate. One of the most important differences between the two initiative is the selection process and what it means for applicants to have to go through the entire use permit process and get approved by the Planning Commission and the city and for residents to have a say. And I think that that important distinction and so many others are really gonna be best revealed by a comparative study of the two initiatives, which is a decision and an option that's before you tonight. And we would like to urge you to take that course and look at the important legal questions that have been raised both about our initiative and the others and not just take our word for it. Thank you. |
| 02:37:42.86 | Walfred Solorzano | Michelle, Michelle, you're being unmuted. I'm going to share your video. |
| 02:37:51.73 | Michelle Leopold | Hi, my name is Michelle Leopold, and I am here to ask the council to also please order a report on the two proposed ballot initiatives. There are many items to address. As a reminder, Proposition 64 provided for local control. allowing the local community to create or to be able to do what is best for their community. Both of these initiatives remove local control. Therefore, I encourage the city to look very closely at what the items on these initiatives will do to Marin County. including the effects on our youth, which is my ongoing concern. And thank you, my name is Michelle Leopold. I'm sorry, I tried to put on my whole name onto my Zoom account, but it disappeared. Thank you very much. Thank you, Ms. Lohan. |
| 02:38:56.94 | Walfred Solorzano | The next speaker is Ellie Ali, you're being able to share your video. |
| 02:39:06.67 | Ellie Ali | Hi, can you all hear me? Yes. Oh, great, thank you. Thank you for this opportunity to comment. I'm essentially reiterating what a lot have already said tonight. I ask the council to please conduct a much more comprehensive study of both initiatives. It is not by chance that no other jurisdiction in Marin allows recreational cannabis storefronts. and Our vote has serious consequences for the city. Sausalito residents not Profit driven businesses should decide what's best for our community. And these ballot measures are written specifically for the financial benefit of the sponsors, not for our community. community and And would allow the cannabis industry to decide what, when, where, and how Sausalito sells recreational cannabis products. and it, It passed. the initiative would take effect immediately without resident input on very important issues that have been also raised tonight. And a yes vote for either initiative will essentially remove all of our local control. |
| 02:40:10.39 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. Thank you. The minute has elapsed. Thank you. Our next speaker is David Sudo. David, you've been unmuted. |
| 02:40:22.00 | David Sudo | Good evening again. I, uh... |
| 02:40:24.11 | Walfred Solorzano | Yeah. |
| 02:40:24.50 | Sean Cleary | Thank you. |
| 02:40:25.31 | David Sudo | I signed both petitions because I believe in just story democracy and I also know that most of the residents in this town would like to see a storefront? I'm not sure. But I would also encourage us to have a report because I have no idea how to grade the two proposals and which way to vote in the fall. And so, and obviously you know, It's very obvious that both that cannabis companies believe there's a tremendous amount of money here because I've never seen so many lawyers and consultants at every meeting we've discussed this. Um, but I've met both groups of people. personally and I'm sure both of them can do a great job. I work in Oakland near about four different dispensaries. I don't see a lot of problems with these hanging out at dispensaries. Huge problem. They already have access. It's not an access issue. Thank you. |
| 02:41:23.09 | Walfred Solorzano | My next speaker is Connor. Connor, you've been unmuted. I'm asked to share your video. |
| 02:41:30.85 | Connor Johnston | Good evening, Councilors, Connor Johnston. As you know, I'm one of the chief supporters of the 2021 measure, the Cleary measure. which was the result of over three years of diligent community engagement that we did meeting with every major organization, talking to every merchant. And I really don't think you need a report because the SPARC measure is essentially our measure made worse. They allow two stores. We limited it to one. They make the distance to schools shorter. Instead of 7.5% of profits back to Sausalito, they give 1% to whoever they decide in Marin County. The social equity allows their CEO, their white millionaire CEO to qualify as social equity. But most importantly, the Constitution, the California Constitution is clear as day. You can't put this on the ballot because it's not valid. |
| 02:42:27.77 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you, sir. |
| 02:42:30.62 | Walfred Solorzano | Our next speaker is Sean. Sean, you're being unmuted. shared your video. |
| 02:42:41.58 | Sean Cleary | you mean I'm Sean Cleary. I've spoken to the council a number of times in favor of the 2021 locally sponsored measure. I had a lot of questions about the 2022 measure before this meeting, but I think the discussion night answered most of them. However, I want to, or I rather want to repeat some of the takeaways I got from it. I don't care for the 2022 proposal because it doesn't favor the welfare of Sausalito. It doesn't guarantee any of the profit donation directly to Sausalito that the 2021 measure does. It doesn't even limit the number of stores in Sausalito to one. Also seems that their dispensaries would be allowed closer to schools, which I'm not in favor of. And I think I just heard someone say that that directly contradicts state law, so there's that. I think this is a one dispensary town. I don't think that the dispensary should be near our schools. I think that Sausalito should also directly benefit from that single dispensary. I was also curious about the legality of the measure as that was brought up more than once. It sure doesn't sound legal, but whether or not it is, the 2022 proposal, it clearly favors social media far less. |
| 02:43:43.96 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 02:43:44.07 | Unknown | Thank you very much. |
| 02:43:44.77 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 02:43:44.93 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:43:44.98 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. Our next speaker is Chris, Chris, you've been unmuted and I should share your video. |
| 02:44:00.86 | Walfred Solorzano | Chris, you'll need to unmute on your phone. |
| 02:44:02.59 | Chris Zapata | Can you hear me? |
| 02:44:02.63 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 02:44:04.15 | Chris Zapata | Yes. Good evening, Council members. Thank you for giving us the opportunity to speak. As you may recall, I'm one of the sponsors of the 2021 initiative. It's hard to believe that we've been meeting like this for nearly three years, you may, some of you may remember. I didn't even have a beard when this started. I feel like a very different person. It's been so long, but I'm just here in support of our bill. We still feel that it's superior in every way. And it's written by locals for locals. And we think that the SPARC measure is inadequate in every way. And it's basically illegal. So thank you very much for your time. |
| 02:44:46.03 | Carol | Thank you, Chris. |
| 02:44:53.45 | Alice Merrill | Hello. Hello. Sure. I remember hearing about this year, the one, the 2021, Um, Right at the beginning when they came around and talked to the Chamber of Commerce, and they talked to businesses, and they talked to everybody, everybody. They're local people. Um, I didn't understand the petition, I have to admit, but I don't think it's egregious what they did. And I do think that the fact that they, put theirs out there and then the other company came along and wrote something different So that people would say, oh, this is better. you those guys did a lot of research and they, and they're local and the other guy is local too, but they worked hard. They worked. I think that... I think they're... They're good. Thank you. Thank you, Alice. So. |
| 02:45:57.02 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. |
| 02:45:57.51 | Walfred Solorzano | And a mayor of the house, no other hands raised. |
| 02:46:00.70 | Mayor Kelman | Okay, so public comment, anybody else? We'll go ahead and close public comment. bring it up to the council. I mean, I think the redirection for tonight, I'll just offer my opinion. I was one of two council members who asked for a report the first time around. I remain committed to having a report. I don't know why we didn't do it the first time, but I would very much support a report with, I wrote down about 15 different topics, and I don't know. Nick, if there's any legality around this, but it'd be very interesting to see the proponents of each initiative wanted to do their own version of the comparison. I think that would be very illuminating as well to help this process. So once we hear from other council members, I will read through my list and welcome additions to that list. So I don't know who had the hands up first, but just go to Vice Mayor and then Councilman Hoffman. |
| 02:46:54.43 | Vice Mayor | Yeah, I actually, in fact, in 2021 or last July, whenever we voted on that initiative, did not call through a report because at that point, there was only one initiative and it seemed inevitable that the outcome was that it would go to the ballot. At this point now there's two initiatives. There's a need for a comparison and deeper understanding and a stronger conversation because voters now don't just have one simple choice. There's two competing initiatives and legal questions have been raised that I think we need to get a better understanding of. So I think it's clear that we absolutely need a report that would look at both of the initiatives and I, I'm happy to add suggestions for what should be included in that report, I don't know what's protocol to do that, but I just wanted to give my support. |
| 02:47:35.64 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you, Vice Mayor. |
| 02:47:39.42 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you, yeah, I was with the other council member that wanted the report last fall. I think it's very valuable for people to understand what an initiative is and for us to understand it before we take an action. to be clear. under section 9215 the report would look at eight things in general the eighth one being any other matters that the legislative body but the things that principally you look at, the first one is fiscal impact, the second is effective. internal consistency of the city's general and specific plans, including the housing element, the consistency between planning and zoning, et cetera. The third one would be effect on land use, the impact on the availability and location of housing and the ability of the city to meet its regional housing needs. Four is this impact for funding for infrastructure of all types, including but not limited to transportation, schools, parks, et cetera. The report may also discuss whether the measure would be likely to result in increased infrastructure costs or savings, including the cost of infrastructure maintenance to current residents and businesses. The fifth one would be its impact on the community's ability to attract and retain businesses and employment. The sixth is its impact on the use of vacant parcels of land The seventh is impact on agricultural lands, open space, traffic congestions, existing business districts and developed areas for designated revitalization and then the eighth one is what I referred to earlier which was any other matters the legislative body requests to be in the report so. I would request that. request a report for both measures. I like the chart, actually, that Nick did, so thanks very much. with kind of the side by side comparison and I'm ready to make that motion if a motion is necessary. I don't know if a motion is necessary or if we just give direction. after a vote, assuming we have a majority. I don't know, Nick, do we need to make a, Motion or do I take it? We just give directions. |
| 02:49:37.50 | Nick Moscolino | I think you can just give direction. |
| 02:49:39.60 | Mary Wagner | Council Member Hoffman, if I may, I think we actually do need the council to give take an action tonight because the election code requires you to take one of the three listed actions. |
| 02:49:46.56 | Sean Cleary | Thank you. |
| 02:49:50.66 | Mary Wagner | to either order the report, put the ballot, put the measure on the ballot, |
| 02:49:50.69 | Sean Cleary | I'm talking. |
| 02:49:54.81 | Mary Wagner | or just adopt it as crafted. So apologies for interrupting, but I do think it's important for the council to take an action. |
| 02:50:02.62 | Jill Hoffman | That's fine, then I'll just make a motion. We'll have it on the table. Order a report pursuant to Session 9212. for a report regarding the current initiative, Um, I don't know how that number, and also the initiative that was approved, or that was referred to the ballot in, I believe it was in August of, 2021. Is that right, Mary or Nick? |
| 02:50:31.55 | Mary Wagner | Thank you. |
| 02:50:32.71 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 02:50:32.96 | Mary Wagner | That's correct. It was referred July 27th, 2021. So that matter will be placed on the ballot for the November 8th. 2022, but if I, |
| 02:50:40.46 | Jill Hoffman | 20. |
| 02:50:40.74 | Yolanda Felissimo | Thank you. |
| 02:50:42.21 | Mary Wagner | If it's appropriate and at the right time, if we can ask a clarifying question about the information that the council wants to receive. |
| 02:50:48.40 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah, sure. |
| 02:50:49.72 | Mary Wagner | Let's say |
| 02:50:49.74 | Jill Hoffman | No. |
| 02:50:50.02 | Mayor Kelman | I'll say, let's hear from other councilmen. |
| 02:50:51.09 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 02:50:51.56 | Mayor Kelman | Yeah, exactly. Thank you. Thank you for that Jill, that's a helpful framework. Council Member of Cleveland Knowles, do you want to weigh in? |
| 02:50:58.65 | Susan | Yeah, I have a comment and a question. I'm fine with Council Member Hoffman's motion and for the reasons that Council member Blastain already stated. I don't think it does warrant a report at this point. I mean, some of my concerns for last year, Who is... So I guess, and this is my question, who is gonna prepare this report? And how much is it going to cost us? I mean, these, the fiscal impacts, the land use impacts, I mean, I don't know. I've never seen one of these, but. They could be quite detailed and, you know, I think very helpful. So I'm looking forward to seeing the impacts, but. for guests for the city manager or for, city attorney team. How do we anticipate getting, you know, we have a very paired down staff at this point. I'm just wondering how we're going to get this prepared. I think it has to be done within 30 days. And then the last thing I'd like to talk about, Mayor, if it's okay at some point, and I'll second Council Member Hoffman's motion. is the timing. We only have one meeting in July. which is coming up fairly soon. And I guess I'd like to put it on the table. keeping one meeting in July, but moving it you know, to when this report will be ready so that we don't overburden our staff with more than one meeting. Thank you. |
| 02:52:27.51 | Mayor Kelman | Okay. Thank you. Yeah, so my suggestion would be to use the eight points as a structure. but to hit on the I don't know, 10 or 12. that we just heard in the public comments that we received, you know, the 30 letters on. I'll just list them for you, Nick. I'm sure you have them, but it's um, and some of them may not fit in under here so we can also bump them, but worker protections, age limits, Traffic and parking. uses after one year, somebody mentioned a warehouse in addition. validity around the law, the residency requirement, the exclusivity requirement or proposal. potency. Thank you. types of marketing, buffer zones. Security. Hours of operation. and the role of the Planning Commission. I would not. THE FAMILY. do a full scale analysis of the general plan update and show me every program policy and objective that is impacted or potentially I don't think that will have the right that won't be utilized by our community in the same fashion as these straightforward questions. |
| 02:53:39.97 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:53:40.02 | Mayor Kelman | Okay, Council Member Sobieski, and then we'll circle back around if others have. additions to that list. |
| 02:53:45.39 | Ian Sobieski | Thanks. I'm in agreement with everything that my colleagues have So I think we should do the report just as you've outlined there. I might throw a little monkey wrench in here just for something else to consider. Right. Given the Brown Act and the inability to talk to anyone about this ahead of time, this is a little bit of a new idea. So the real question is whether we'd want to... include in the report consideration of the idea of having a third initiative related to cannabis, not an initiative that we put on the ballot that authorizes cannabis. but rather an initiative that if, Any candidates initiative is passed by the voters or by a future city council. It includes a few provisions. Just for example, Pecked out a few. This is for your consideration. It would be something that just says, if there's retail cannabis approved or voter initiative or city council action, that no retail cannabis establishment will operate unless it I do. They needed three things. that struck me as being very community serving. 1,000 feet as the bird flies from the front door of the establishment. that it includes a licensed pharmacy either as an intrinsic or as an adjacent business with a pharmacist who'd work during those hours. and that it paid. a special gross sales tax. So the idea here is that this third initiative would not actually authorize cannabis. It would give people in the South State of the chance a set of community benefiting covenants that would apply to any cannabis retail operation that ever existed through voter initiative or through future City Council action. And my three points there are three I thought were compelling as a baseline. Um, And that might help cut through some of the concerns on some of these initiatives. and it would only be able to be turned on the ballot by us as the City Council as a third choice. I'm not pressing very hard for it, but I felt it my duty to share this idea with you. If there's interest enough to pursue it, we could ask that the report consider this too. If there's no interest, then I would drop the mic. |
| 02:56:05.92 | Mayor Kelman | I think it's very creative and interesting, Ian. would be happy to hear from the city attorney on validity of something like that and whether that could be included in the report |
| 02:56:16.28 | Nick Moscolino | Yeah, I have some preliminary thoughts on that. Both of the initiatives contain sections addressing consistency with other ballot measures and initiatives. In the one before you tonight, it's in the section seven. And they both seem to contain language, essentially prohibiting us from layering, conflicting provisions on top of each other. So, This one, for example, says in no event show this initiative be interpreted in a manner that would permit its operation in conjunction with any non conflicting provisions of any conflicting initiative. So I think it's possible, although I haven't considered it fully, that you know, essentially we would be precluded from layering initiatives to kind of amend them, you know, in a single election, as I think is what Council Member Sobieski is proposing. |
| 02:57:11.33 | Ian Sobieski | I ran this by Mary and so sorry I left that out of my little comment. So sorry to blindside you with that. Sure. She did, and I'll let her speak for herself since she's here, but if we wanted to get a more definitive legal answer, we'd have to direct her to do so. And that's why I was putting this on as a topic to whether or not there was any interest in directing legal staff to look at it more. The thought might be that whenever it gets the most votes, is preeminent. That's of course not clear as you just pointed out, per se, but it could be. |
| 02:57:45.74 | Mayor Kelman | Okay. Do you want Mary to weigh in, or? |
| 02:57:47.63 | Ian Sobieski | I mean, if she wanted to tell me I mischaracterized what she said, that's useful. If I got close to what she said, then that's useful to me. |
| 02:57:56.51 | Mary Wagner | Yeah, I would echo what Mr. Moscolino said and indicate that we would have to look into the ability to do that. I think it's some of the provisions were described are problematic. And I shared that information as well. But you know if the Council had proposed a completely competing measure versus a layer on top of measure, that would be a different analysis. Because then you would have three competing measures and the one that got the most votes would take precedence. As I understand, Council Member Sobieski proposal. it would essentially be additional regulations that would go in to effect in the event that one of the two measures if both are placed on the ballot was successful and received the majority vote. So that's just something we would have to look into. But I do, we do have some concerns about that approach. |
| 02:58:46.74 | Mayor Kelman | Mary, couldn't we just amend our municipal code? Why do we have to do an initiative? to add. I can't. |
| 02:58:51.81 | Mary Wagner | You can't modify the regulations that were approved by the voters without putting it back to the voters. |
| 02:58:58.84 | Mayor Kelman | Fair enough, okay. Councilmember, for the most part. Yeah. |
| 02:59:03.68 | Susan | I'm not sure if this was on your list, Mayor, of things to analyze, but somebody did bring up the kind of extent of local control. remaining if one or the other of the initiatives passed. And I think you did mention the planning commission But I think there's other aspects, you know, sort of, so I just have maybe frame that a little bit more broadly as to what we can still control and not control under both. uh, measures as something to analyze. Um, And then just to Ian's point. All right. And I don't know if our city attorney team can answer this tonight, but I guess the main question is whether there is still time for a third, initiative and Amen. Right. I'm not sure I would want us to draft something, but if we had an independent initiative that just said, the city council may draft an ordinance that contains these you know. Can monitoring. sort of along the lines that Ian was going in and then that would, if that won, That would be. leave discretion to this council or a future council. to adopt an ordinance with citizen input. but constrained. by factors that we believe or have heard from the public are important. to them. And I guess if we're even going to discuss this or talk about it, I'd just be curious as to what time. what the time limits are for the November election. I was under the impression we were getting fairly close to that, to those deadlines. |
| 03:00:57.52 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. |
| 03:00:59.48 | Susan | Thank you. |
| 03:00:59.50 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. Thank you for that and perhaps Nick can include that in his. Analysis for us, Councilmember Hoffman. |
| 03:01:08.42 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah, thank you. I have no objection to any of the further direction that was given and delineation of things to look into. One thing I'm wondering, if in pursuant to the discussion we just had, if a reference to the development agreement process that I believe the council approved, I think it was fall of 2019, for approval of a cannabis business in Sausalito. So we as a council approved a development agreement process by which we would negotiate with different organizations whatever proposals, I think you'd probably just issue an RFP and then go through the process of, selection and then amending the code. So I don't know, Mary or Nick, if that has based on this current, if that has a place in the report that you might, like a reference or something, the city council did approve that. I don't even, I think it was fall of 2019. I can't really, I can't remember, but there was a process and then the initiative was filed. |
| 03:02:18.71 | Mary Wagner | Thank you. |
| 03:02:18.73 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:02:18.83 | Mary Wagner | I'm wondering. |
| 03:02:18.84 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:02:18.93 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 03:02:18.96 | Unknown | I'm not. |
| 03:02:19.35 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 03:02:19.37 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:02:19.39 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 03:02:19.84 | Mary Wagner | So go ahead. Sorry, Madam Mayor. No, no, no, if you have a response, please. We'd be happy to go back and look at what the council direction was related to that when you have the council working group. working with your former community development director, Lily Whalen. But I mean, I don't believe that that process takes precedence over a voter initiative. But if I understand you correctly, you're saying, hey, look at that. if it works within the parameters, what Council Cleveland Knowles was proposing that's another alternative. You did approve a development agreement process, but that's general for all development agreements. |
| 03:02:55.60 | Jill Hoffman | So I think that's worth a merit reference if we're doing a report anyway about whatever so anyway. I think there's a motion on the table Thank you. |
| 03:03:07.99 | Mayor Kelman | Do you want to amend that motion to include Councilmember Sobieski's |
| 03:03:08.00 | Jill Hoffman | I think I have any objection. |
| 03:03:12.20 | Mayor Kelman | Third initiative, just analysis. So it's a report, but then I, at least a cursory. Uh, Review. Should we be minimal to that change? Ian, did you want to add to that? |
| 03:03:24.17 | Ian Sobieski | Only that I thought Susan improved my idea immensely by, by if it's legal, I'll just share the rewritten little the star man here. which is just that rather than delineate Of course, I haven't filled out my list here, but it says... if the cannabis is approved by voter initiative or action, the city council shall have the ability through ordinance to prohibit any cannabis establishment operation unless it, we can delineate what those areas of potential constraint are, and then the legal question for the report is, does that layering ability, if it got the most votes in the fall, Trump. the I don't know. specified operating characteristics that might be contradicted by it in another initiative that passed with federal votes. So that would be the legal question that we don't know the answer to. But if the answer was yes and we chose to do that, that would mean that we give the City Council some flexibility to improve these initiatives after the fact. if the voters so decided to give city council that power. |
| 03:04:35.31 | Susan | Okay, so I guess as a seconder of the motion, I just asked Council Member Hoffman if she'd be willing to include a high-level analysis of the city council having its own |
| 03:04:35.58 | Unknown | Sorry. |
| 03:04:35.95 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 03:04:35.97 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:04:45.91 | Susan | initiative. or corresponding or corresponding initiative and the timing of doing so. |
| 03:04:55.73 | Jill Hoffman | Yes, I accept those amendments. |
| 03:04:57.35 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. There's a motion on the table. We have a second from Council Member Cleveland Knowles. Can you please call the roll? |
| 03:05:06.55 | Walfred Solorzano | Councilmember Sobieski. Yes. Council Member, no? Yes. Councilmember Huffman. Yes. Vice Mayor Blomstein. |
| 03:05:14.89 | Mayor Kelman | Yes. |
| 03:05:15.86 | Walfred Solorzano | American. |
| 03:05:16.89 | Mayor Kelman | Yes. |
| 03:05:18.06 | Walfred Solorzano | Motion passes. |
| 03:05:19.14 | Mayor Kelman | Right, excellent work everybody. We're gonna move right into item number six. Communication is the time on the agenda for members of the public to provide any public comment for items. that are not on the agenda. So please raise your hand in the Zoom application if you have an item you'd like to speak to that has not been on the agenda today. |
| 03:05:38.68 | Walfred Solorzano | Madam Mayor, I see no hands free. |
| 03:05:41.04 | Mayor Kelman | Okay, then we will. Close that public comment. And we'll move now to Council Member Committee Reports. Are there any members of council who have anything like to report? |
| 03:05:54.44 | Vice Mayor | I joined the Gun Safety Collaborative Working Group for the, that the county of the Marin has that District Attorney for Goalie runs. And so this is the first time we've had Southern Marin representation. It's a really great meeting that shared and thanks Vasilito for their participation in the gun buyback, which was held a couple of weeks ago and was very successful. |
| 03:06:18.55 | Mayor Kelman | That's great. Thank you for doing that, actually. Anybody else? Any public comment on... This committee report. |
| 03:06:31.31 | Mayor Kelman | that I'm here. |
| 03:06:31.51 | Walfred Solorzano | I don't any. |
| 03:06:33.52 | Mayor Kelman | Okay, we'll go ahead and close that. We will move on then to city manager reports City Council appointments, other council business, and we'll take public comment those items as items B through A to E. Any public comment for that? |
| 03:06:50.62 | Walfred Solorzano | or their... |
| 03:06:50.87 | Mayor Kelman | Okay. |
| 03:06:51.04 | Chris Zapata | Thank you. |
| 03:06:51.34 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 03:06:52.66 | Mayor Kelman | Public comment closed. So city manager. Your comments? |
| 03:06:56.39 | Chris Zapata | and yes, Mayor and members of the council members of the public This will be the last opportunity before the 4th of July. I want to make sure that it's known that we'll be putting some more information out through our currents other ways, but the fourth July is back in Rosalito. So hope to see the community there. Have a great, great day. that our recreation team has worked really hard on to make sure that we bring it back as it was for. Just want to make sure you go on a bit. Excellent. |
| 03:07:28.72 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. We have anything else city manager? |
| 03:07:32.80 | Walfred Solorzano | America. |
| 03:07:33.80 | Mayor Kelman | Okay. So we have no appointments, supports commissions and committees, We'll ask the city manager in our next city council meeting to give us an update on what we're doing with that process. So we can tell our community. and then as to future agenda items, I don't know if this is an agenda item or a follow-up on a request, Councilman Cleveland-Knowles had suggested we push or be open to pushing our city council meeting that is currently July 12th to a later date. I could only do July 19th. I could not do the date after that. Are folks open to that if the attorneys need more time? Anybody not open the door? I can't do it on the 19th. |
| 03:08:11.68 | Vice Mayor | Thank you. |
| 03:08:11.75 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. Okay. |
| 03:08:12.44 | Susan | Thank you. |
| 03:08:12.48 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. |
| 03:08:12.55 | Vice Mayor | Thank you. |
| 03:08:13.03 | Sarah Bodnar | Thank you. |
| 03:08:13.22 | Vice Mayor | Thank you. |
| 03:08:13.24 | Sarah Bodnar | either. |
| 03:08:13.52 | Vice Mayor | Thank you. |
| 03:08:14.91 | Susan | So can I just ask, are we going to be able to get this report in two weeks? Nick, Mary? Can we just ask for it? I mean, that's, it seems like a pretty big left. |
| 03:08:26.11 | Mary Wagner | Yeah, and if I may, Mayor Kellman, members of the council, and Mr. Masculino can weigh in here too. Some or a lot of these questions aren't legal questions, and they're going to need some land use planning analysis. So I think it's important that we coordinate with the city manager. on how those pieces are going to be I mean, certainly our office can handle the issues related to the analysis of the two measures. and likely some other components of that, but you know, it's a large list of items that the council requested feedback on. |
| 03:09:00.79 | Ian Sobieski | Could I ask you a question around that? If I'm triaging the issues that are timely, It seems like there are two. One is the legal issue about whether the second initiative will legally be put on the ballot, given the questions raised about the... status of the proponents as electors. And the second is, to Susan's point, since there is a clock that we have to submit initiatives by, if there's any interest in actually doing that. a third initiative that retains, that constrains the candidates some more, as I discussed, that has to be sorted out for, I think, August the 4th at the latest. So aren't those the two most timely issues and the larger report, speaking of the comparison between the two? Wouldn't those be something that could roll into August and just be ready for the consideration of the public during during the election process in the fall. |
| 03:09:59.57 | Mary Wagner | So not to go too far backwards into your previous agenda item, but because you're discussing future agenda items and this kind of relates to those, The election code requires that the report that's ordered by the council be delivered within 30 days of tonight's date. So that would be, you know, the end of July, basically. The council then has 10 days from that date to act on the three, either placing it on the ballot or adopting it as drafted. But we're also bumping up against the agenda deadlines for the county elections officials, which I believe the agenda deadline for them to get an item on the ballot is the early August, maybe the first week of August. We can pull up. |
| 03:10:35.24 | Sean Cleary | THE END OF |
| 03:10:39.54 | Mary Wagner | that election schedule that we provided previously. I, I, I think I'm just gonna pull it up. I haven't pulled it up yet on my screen, So we are constrained. So we need to return to the council by July 28th, let's say. and the council's gonna need to take an action as required under the elections code to either place it on the ballot or to adopted as drafted. I concur with you that the legal analysis of the question that's been submitted about the validity of the ballot itself. can be handled separately and first. but we are gonna, depending upon the outcome of that, analysis in the council's direction. we would need to come back to the council to put it on the ballot. by the end of July. And this information would need to be provided to the council that you requested tonight. |
| 03:11:28.40 | Mayor Kelman | Let's do this then just for the sake of, I guess, brevity here. It sounds like it's not going to be ready on the 12th. It sounds like we can't move it to the 19th. We can't move it to the meeting after. So we'll just have to remain open to a special meeting sometime in July within the 30-day timeframe to review the report. So I think the action here is for council to get back to us, and I mean legal council, as soon as possible with a predicted timeline so we can then get the schedule out and give people some of the cases. Okay. |
| 03:11:58.21 | Ian Sobieski | It may be, I might just add America. it might be possible to get those two narrower questions answered by the July 12th meeting. The question of whether an overlay initiative, a third initiative is legal and could Trump, the other two that got the most votes. and the question of whether the Second. initiative. It is. knowledge that's being put on. Like, that could get on. potentially by the 12th is my reading. Mary. colleague is saying. Right. So that maybe you could actually get a letter 12th agenda in terms of a future agenda item Thank you. |
| 03:12:32.81 | Mary Wagner | Madam Mayor, may I suggest that we work with the agenda setting committee to juggle those all those pieces. and can provide a one way communication to the Council with the timeline. |
| 03:12:43.41 | Mayor Kelman | It works by me, thank you for that. Okay, vice mayor, do you want to turn it? |
| 03:12:49.19 | Vice Mayor | I just want for future agenda items, in light of the unfortunate and very devastating for women everywhere, and I think people everywhere in America, Supreme Court ruling last week on Roe v Wade, I believe that local municipalities have a role to play in making a stand about the women's right to choice and access to abortion. So I just wanted to add to the future agenda items, potentially a proclamation or taking steps to consider what municipalities can do to promote and continue to offer the safe practice. Thank you. |
| 03:13:19.72 | Mayor Kelman | And I know you're already doing some diligence on that. So thank you. Okay. Any other future agenda items? Well then, no reports of significance, so I will suggest we return. See you on the 12th. Thanks, everybody. |
| 03:13:38.72 | Unknown | you |
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