| Time | Speaker | Text |
|---|---|---|
| 00:00:02.98 | Serge Avila | Thank you. initiate our audio sequence. |
| 00:00:16.11 | Unknown | Recording in progress. |
| 00:00:18.29 | Serge Avila | So we have started our Granica sequence. I'm recording through Zoom and we're recording and broadcasting live. Good afternoon, Mayor Kelman and council members. This meeting has been held pursuant to government code section 54953E. And in light of the declared state of emergency, the regular meeting of the city council for September 13, 2022 will be conducted telephonically through Zoom and broadcast live from the city's website and cable TV channel 27. Welcome. |
| 00:00:51.85 | Mayor Kelman | Right. Thank you very much, Serge. Please go ahead and call the roll. |
| 00:00:56.38 | Serge Avila | Council member Sobieski. |
| 00:01:00.63 | Serge Avila | Thank you. Councilmember Cleveland also. |
| 00:01:03.90 | Janelle Kellman | Yeah. |
| 00:01:05.07 | Serge Avila | Councilmember Huffman. |
| 00:01:08.22 | Janelle Kellman | Here. Thank you. |
| 00:01:10.57 | Serge Avila | Council Member, Vice Mayor Blaustein. |
| 00:01:13.23 | Janelle Kellman | Thank you. |
| 00:01:13.25 | Mayor Kelman | here. |
| 00:01:13.96 | Serge Avila | And Mayor Kellman. Thank you. All members are present and there's a quorum. |
| 00:01:18.75 | Mayor Kelman | Great, we'll move on now to item 1B. We have four items to be discussed in closed session. Item D1 is conference for legal counsel Anticipated litigation, initiation of litigation pursuant to California Government Code Section 54956.9C, one potential case. Item D2 is conference with legal counsel, existing litigation, pursuant to California government code section 54956.91. Name of case, City of South Dakota versus California-affiliated risk management authorities. MP3, Conference of Legal Counsel, Existing litigation pursuant to California Government Code Section 54956.9A, the name of the case is Winston Ashmead and David Johnson v. Caltrans in the city of Sausalito. and item D4 conference with legal counsel Is this the litigation pursuant to California government code section 54956.9 D1? The name of the case is the city of Saucyedo. versus the California-affiliated risk management authorities. Do we have any public comment on closed session items? Serge. |
| 00:02:16.19 | Serge Avila | Madam Mayor, there are no members of the public in the meeting right now. |
| 00:02:20.26 | Mayor Kelman | Okay. then we will go ahead and close with a comment and adjourn to closed session. which is a breakout room, so don't go anywhere. Okay. |
| 00:02:29.83 | Serge Avila | and I'll be assigning council members and members of the closed session right now. |
| 00:02:50.10 | Unknown | Thank you. Thank you. to |
| 00:03:08.07 | Serge Avila | Council members of the SKA, I think you need to join or accept the invite. |
| 00:03:13.28 | Ian Sobieski | What about Susan? |
| 00:03:15.73 | Serge Avila | and Susan as well. |
| 00:03:16.79 | Ian Sobieski | Yeah. |
| 00:03:17.20 | Janelle Kellman | Thank you. I haven't gotten any invites. |
| 00:03:19.14 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. Thank you. I think you have to click on breakout rooms, Susan, is what I'm looking at. And now, and then when you click on that little breakout rooms tab, it's click on join. Do you see it? |
| 00:03:31.25 | Janelle Kellman | No, I don't have a breakout room tab. |
| 00:03:33.55 | Ian Sobieski | So if you move your cursor around at the bottom, the little, all the little menus that say mute, stop video, Pause recording live transcript. Right next to the live transcript is breakout rooms. |
| 00:03:46.68 | Janelle Kellman | Okay. I mean, last time I got an actual invite, but I'll, I guess I'll try this. |
| 00:03:53.01 | Ian Sobieski | Just, yeah, you see that when you click on breakout rooms? Yep. See you later, sir. Thank you, Ian. |
| 00:04:37.51 | Unknown | Recording stopped. |
| 00:23:44.57 | Serge Avila | Penny, our room is live. Um, and you have been admitted, I'm going to co-host you. Um, But just know that even though we're not recording, whatever we say would be broadcast live. |
| 00:31:43.04 | Unknown | you |
| 00:42:51.38 | Mayor Kelman | Okay, sir, sounds like we're ready. |
| 00:42:53.97 | Serge Avila | Great. So Madam Mayor, we are restarting our audio sequence. |
| 00:42:58.61 | Unknown | Recording in progress. |
| 00:43:01.03 | Serge Avila | I am at meeting all public. |
| 00:43:09.48 | Serge Avila | Madam Mayor, welcome back. All members of the public are now in the meeting. |
| 00:43:13.26 | Mayor Kelman | Great. Thank you so much. Welcome everybody to the city council meeting for the city of Sausalito. Today is September 13, 2022. We're returning from closed session. We do not have any announcements at this time. So go ahead, seek a motion to approve the agenda. |
| 00:43:28.70 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:43:28.72 | Mayor Kelman | So, what's the question? |
| 00:43:28.91 | Jill Hoffman | Bye. |
| 00:43:29.66 | Mayor Kelman | Second. Bye. I think the second was from Councilman of Cleveland-Knorz. |
| 00:43:35.50 | Serge Avila | Council member Sobieski? Council member Kluvenals. |
| 00:43:39.23 | Mayor Kelman | Yes. |
| 00:43:40.21 | Serge Avila | Council Member Hoffman. |
| 00:43:41.68 | Sandra Bushmaker | Thank you. |
| 00:43:41.70 | Mayor Kelman | Yes. |
| 00:43:42.19 | Sandra Bushmaker | you |
| 00:43:42.51 | Serge Avila | Vice Mayor Blaustein. |
| 00:43:44.18 | Mayor Kelman | Yes. |
| 00:43:45.02 | Serge Avila | Mayor coming. |
| 00:43:46.03 | Mayor Kelman | Yes. |
| 00:43:46.98 | Serge Avila | Motion passes. |
| 00:43:48.11 | Mayor Kelman | Great, thank you. We'll move on to Mayor special announcements. I do have one. I want to thank community member Sybil Boutillier. for notifying us of the age-friendly booster clinic in Sausalito this Thursday, 915. So that is a COVID-19 booster clinic. It will be at Sausalito City Hall at the lower level, which is 420 Litho Street. this Thursday, again, September 15th, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. No reservations, but if you need a ride, please contact CARS by Wednesday at 5 p.m. And the number for that is 415-944-5474. So thank you very much, Sybil, for facilitating that on behalf of the community. OK, well then go ahead and. move on to our next item here. Pardon me. And it looks like that is actually minutes of previous meeting, which we do not have any. So we'll move over to the consent calendar. So matters listed under the consent calendar are considered routine and non-controversial. Require no discussion. We're expected to have unanimous council support and may be enacted by the council in one motion. There'll be no separate discussion of consent calendar items. However, before the council votes on a motion to adopt the consent calendar items, council members, city staff, or members of the public may request that specific items be removed from the Consaying Calendar for Separate Action. Items removed from the consent counter will be discussed later on the agenda. and public comment will be heard on any item that was removed from the consent counter. So tonight we have four items on consent. Item 3A is agreement with the County of Marin for distribution of County Measure A parks proceeds. Item 3B is to adopt a resolution authorizing the city manager to execute an agreement with Pacific Gas and Electric authorizing the use of a portion of the City Hall parking lot for Public Safety Power Shutoff Community Resource Center Item 3C is a report on development impact fees for fiscal year 2021-2022. And item 3D is the authorize the city manager to execute the agreement for the real property management services not to exceed $66,560 from July 1st, 2022. through December 31st, 2022. We'll go ahead and open up public comment. And Serge, will you please let people know how to make public comment? |
| 00:45:59.38 | Serge Avila | Sure. Video or audio public comment participation is limited to three minutes per speaker. If you would like to make a comment, please raise your hand in the Zoom application, and you will be called upon when is your time to speak. To raise your hand from a phone, press start 9, and each speaker will be notified when the time has elapsed. Madam Mayor, it does not appear as we have any hands raised at the moment. |
| 00:46:22.65 | Mayor Kelman | OK, and I'll make turn to Mike. Council members, any comments? Yes, Councilor Sivyoski. |
| 00:46:28.36 | Ian Sobieski | I just had a question on the, PG&E's authorization to use the city parking lot for their PSPS Community Resource Center that was originally designated in MLK Park and it looks like And at the time I recall that there were questions about whether ordinance 1128 prohibited that utility and we had asked our legal team to weigh in on that. It's rendered moot by putting it at City Hall, but it's still I think it'd be good to get an opinion from our legal team about the use of any of our parks for emergency things such as this. So I don't need to necessarily take this off the calendar, but I thought our direction to staff was that, weigh in with that opinion and the staff report doesn't have an opinion on it. |
| 00:47:19.99 | Mayor Kelman | Okay. I don't actually have a specific recollection. Does anybody else want to weigh in on that? |
| 00:47:28.09 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. |
| 00:47:28.11 | Janelle Kellman | I remember some conversation, but not as much detail as Councilmember Sobieski. But I'm happy to move forward with the item in front of us tonight. |
| 00:47:37.74 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. Okay. How's it going? So then thank you for that, Councilman Siewski. Any motion to approve the consent calendar? |
| 00:47:46.87 | Ian Sobieski | I'll move it, move to approve the consent calendar. |
| 00:47:49.78 | Mayor Kelman | Okay. Great, please call the role surgeon. |
| 00:47:55.48 | Serge Avila | Council member Sobieski. |
| 00:47:57.27 | Mayor Kelman | you |
| 00:47:57.57 | Serge Avila | Council member. |
| 00:47:59.07 | Unknown | Yes. |
| 00:48:00.07 | Serge Avila | Council member Hoffman. |
| 00:48:01.42 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 00:48:02.30 | Serge Avila | Vice Mayor Blousteen. |
| 00:48:03.87 | Mayor Kelman | Yes. |
| 00:48:04.90 | Serge Avila | Mayor Kilman. |
| 00:48:06.03 | Mayor Kelman | Yes. |
| 00:48:06.72 | Serge Avila | Motion passes. |
| 00:48:08.05 | Mayor Kelman | Great. Thanks, everybody. And Councilor Sobieski's comment is noted. Okay, item four, public hearing items. There are no public hearing items, so we're moving on to the business items. We have two tonight. Item 5A is the update and direction of the 2021-2022 Marine County Civil Grand Jury electrifying Marin's buildings, eliminating natural gas as a fuel source in residential and commercial buildings. And it looks like Kenneth Henry, welcome. Our building inspector will be giving presentations. |
| 00:48:39.86 | Kenneth Henry | Thank you, Mayor Kellman. Uh, Mr. Clerk, could I share a screen, please? |
| 00:49:13.53 | Kenneth Henry | All right, I'm trying to get to just the presentation. |
| 00:49:25.53 | Unknown | Sure. |
| 00:49:25.78 | Mayor Kelman | Oh. |
| 00:49:26.42 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:49:31.16 | Mayor Kelman | Right, we do see your screen. Here you go. |
| 00:49:35.68 | Kenneth Henry | Hey. Perfect. All right, uh, Thank you, Mr. Clark. Good evening, Mayor Kellerman, Vice Mayor, council members and city manager. I want to extend a special thank you to the Sausalito Sustainability Commission, Chair Lauren Wiley, Vice Chair Greg Thompson and Mark Palmer. We've had a chance to go over Um, the, grand jury's report, and tonight I'm here to present that My name is Kenneth Henry and I'm employed with the city of Sausalito as a building inspector and a member of the MCCAB Marine County Code Advisory Board. Over the past four months, I've been in collaboration with the Sausalito Sustainability Commission in the cab attending the five county wide working group meetings to discuss the strategies on how to reduce the consumption of fossil fuels in Marin. |
| 00:50:28.59 | Unknown | you |
| 00:50:29.20 | Kenneth Henry | The city's been asked to respond to the grand jury's report on electrifying Marin's building, a countywide approach. Before I get started, I want to get into a little bit about the understanding and makeup of the macabre. Marine County Code Advisory Board MCAB is made up of building department representatives from the county and all 11 municipalities that host monthly meetings with stakeholders from the public, design professionals, contractors, manufacturers, suppliers, insurers, electric official, laboratory testing agencies, other state and local agencies. So we have a pretty broad reach. The mission of the MCAB group is to help These various stakeholders find answers and solutions to the construction related issues with input from multiple marine jurisdictions. |
| 00:51:22.59 | Unknown | you |
| 00:51:23.01 | Kenneth Henry | In doing this, the hope is to reinforce similarities, highlight differences, so that anyone working in Marine can effectively and seamlessly navigate the regulatory process. It's because of these decades long partnerships and roles that the stakeholders play in the building sector, that the McCab group has the best insight and understanding to address the grand jury findings and recommendations. the City staff has agreed to Um, four of the five findings. And in general, we support F1, F2, F4, and F5. I think I'll move through those and kind of get into the point where there is a partially disagreed. on. So, The finding three gets into the health risks and safety factors of using the natural gas in the built environment and also the transmission. While natural gas can be hazarded if improperly installed, the same is true with all power sources. Then we are Looking at the risk caused by poorly maintained or not maintained electrical infrastructure. It's believed that PG&E electrical infrastructure has had a hand in over 1,000 California fires in just the last eight years. We know some of PG&E's concerns that they shared with us recently about the outdated infrastructure from 4KV to 12KV serving Sausalito. And overall, as buildings have become more efficient, they've lost communication with the exterior environment. This has led to the respiratory and other health issues. Fossil fuel burning gas stove, particularly unvented. can be a primary source of indoor pollution. And this is for this reason, the current code now requires whole house fans and mandatory venting requirements for all fossil fuel burning appliance. It's considered indoor air quality. Um, |
| 00:53:47.75 | Kenneth Henry | The other disagreement was with F6, where they asked about subsidies and You know, I'm not really developing an opinion, but the financial subsidies may not be seen as mitigation, as often these programs do not uniformly incentivize the public and can be exhausted of funds. So, The big part of the grand jury report was the three recommendations. And they start out with recommendation number one, which is the intent to remove natural gas from new construction. While this would be an easy implementation for new homes. The biggest problem we're going to have in Sausalito is there's no more room for new homes. six developer lots, something to that nature. And what we're going to be relying on are the ADUs. And the concern overall is going to be that this may discourage the ADUs when they're required to electrify. I think this may impact the housing element. Recommendation number two, this one falls under substantial remodels. And as you know, we typically need to go to the Planning Commission for substantial remodels. And over the last, four months, I've had the opportunity to talk in these different countywide groups, meetings about uniformity and one of the biggest the biggest ranges is the what is a trigger for this regarding the size? And when we get to those triggers, the reach codes and the consistency of these energy efficient measures, which are called target scores, those need to be taken into account for the applicant. And when we start looking at the electrical services, we're gonna have a difficult problem. 17 years trying to deal with undergrounding of electrical services that were considered dangerous. And it wasn't until we finally got to a point where we started dealing with antiquated or renewable energy like electrical vehicle charging photovoltaic, or an antiquated, In the industry, there's a number of panels that are considered unsafe because through the years they've demonstrated that. And those fall into the antiquated category. So right now, As we have for many years, we've been requiring undergrounding, and that has historically been problematic throughout Sausalito. So when somebody goes to upgrade an electrical service, typically a 100 amp, they have to move into the 200 amp service. And these are typically projects that take one to three months to go through PG&E, or let's expand it to the or extend it to the new or expanded electrical services. Thank you. that take one to three months to go through PG&E, or let's expand it to the, or extend it to the new or expanded electrical services, where say we're gonna add an ADU, this could take anywhere from 12 months to 15 months. So we started looking at the longevity of these approvals through the utility agency that I think we really have to look a little deeper and try to find how the overnight response, though, one week response. And that's kind of typical with Sausalito. We've had these unique factors about undergrounding and our electrical services. We're going to have some difficulty there. I need to bring that to your attention because it has been a struggle since I've been employed with Sausalito. And I think that's going to be our Achilles heel with going from 100 amps to 200 amps because most electrical services, when we go to add 40 amps or upgrade electrical service, it becomes difficult. Our hillside community often leads us to extreme difficulties with undergrounding. we start looking at the view impairments when we do deal with an improvement to a residential structure, or let's take the PG&E 4KV to 12KV. That in itself is also gonna have throughout town, I think there were 99 cases of view impacts. Well, let's start looking at when we have to do this on a replacement basis. And we're gonna get into that with recommendation number three. It's gonna go more into mandatory measures or involuntary measures going in. PLACEMENT BASIS. WE WILL GET INTO THAT WITH RECOMMENDATION NUMBER THREE. IT WILL GO MORE INTO MANDATORY MEASURES OR VOLUNTARY MEASURES GOING INTO MANDATORY, WHICH IS GOING TO TAKE THE SIMPLE WATER HEATER OR space heater and maybe trigger an electrical upgrade. We'll get that in just recommendation number three. I'll finish with two to talk about the view impairments with PG&E infrastructure will be problematic. Overall, I think we should look for electrification incentives and how they may impact the homeowners preferences, satisfaction, resale value, other attributes to the façaloupe housing market. um, Some of these gas fireplaces, you'll see a lot of the improvements, the remodel, the focus point of a system somebody who's going to invest hundreds if not millions of dollars into the property. I see a lot of these are centered around decorative vented fuel burning appliances, capturing the view. I don't think I've ever had anybody come in and say, I want to go all electric, but they're out there and it's a great conversation. I just am not sure how it's really going to benefit. Overall, Sausalito is pretty much built out. And we start with these substantial remodels and start restricting or removing the the benefit of a dual power supply, I think we should really study that impact. And then equality. Having to upgrade an electrical service will create an imbalance in findings of equitable solutions A LOT OF OUR RESIDENTS HAVE BEEN HERE FOR MANY YEARS. AND IF WE GO, AND ESPECIALLY IN RECOMMENDATION NUMBER THREE, AND WE GO WHEN THEY HAVE A VOLUNTARY MEASURE AND MAKE THEM HAVE TO PUT IN But another 40 amps to their electrical service, we're gonna kick in another requirement that they're gonna have to upgrade their electrical service because they just won't have the capacity. So let's move into recommendation number three. Here's the... Here's where the rubber hits the ground THE COUNTY BUSINESSES, We're going to have to get a consensus, hopefully throughout all jurisdictions. And when I'm talking with the McCab people and myself as staff, I wouldn't suggest considering recommendations one and two until we commit to recommendation number three. The reach codes, like I said, go from voluntary to mandatory. We're going to be adding a 240 volt circuit. In most cases, we'll require the main electrical service to be upgraded. And one of the things we might ask ourselves in our own residence is what's going to happen if we need to add 40 amps to your electrical service? Most residents are served by 100 amp service. So that's, you know, our focus. And then PG&E response times, one to three months or the newly expanded or new construction would be 12 to 15 months. That's a long time in the planning phase with PG&E. Again, we have the equity now. Here's the homeowner has been here for 40 years and they have a gas water heater. These reach codes have the potential to make them have to upgrade their electrical service, which if You follow what I'm saying, this is going to be not only the appliance, but the electrical capacity to distribute what they currently have. And most electrical services don't have any room for expansion. So what I'm suggesting is a further research and collaboration is needed to ensure a comprehensive plan is generated to address the needs of all Marin County jurisdictions. In closing on the topic of technical support, Currently, the building industry is facing work shortages, lack of qualified individuals to keep up with the demand. And this is true for contractors, manufacturers, utilities, and even your own building department. Building departments typically have a finite number of resources and will need additional funding to absorb the additional costs to implement these initiatives. I wanna thank you for the opportunity to present and I'm available to answer any questions that the council may have. |
| 01:03:30.19 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you, Mr. Henry. Much appreciated, excellent presentation. So let's bring it up to the council, see if there's any questions for Mr. Henry on presentation Thank you. |
| 01:03:40.18 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:03:40.33 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. Go ahead. Thank you. I, Yeah. Well, now you're second. So we're going to voice me right first. |
| 01:03:49.32 | Unknown | Right. Bye. |
| 01:03:50.81 | Mayor Kelman | Bye. |
| 01:03:50.86 | Unknown | No, it's okay. Let Councilmember Hoffman go. She's ready. |
| 01:03:53.02 | Mayor Kelman | She was ready. |
| 01:03:54.67 | Jill Hoffman | Everybody. Go ahead, Council Member Hoffman. Thank you very much. Oh, thank you very much. No, great job, Kenneth, for giving your presentation. It's been a long time since you've given us a presentation, so excellent work with... |
| 01:03:56.83 | Unknown | Thank you very much. |
| 01:04:07.21 | Jill Hoffman | managing all this technology tonight. So my question is, what do we, What are we asking to be done tonight? We have, I see that we had a, we have a draft response, right? And we have. And then I saw we got some late mail this afternoon, were there any Were there any differences? I didn't see that it was a red line version and I wasn't really sure what the new late male. Um, from the sustainability Commission. included. So that was, I guess this is just a clarifying question. I'm assuming that were being asked to approve the draft response to the grand jury. And that that's, |
| 01:04:44.37 | Kenneth Henry | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 01:04:45.43 | Jill Hoffman | Is that what we're doing? |
| 01:04:46.16 | Kenneth Henry | Thank you. Well, you know, thank you, Council Member Hoffman. I'd have to say overall, the Sustainabilities Commission's report and response to the grand jury is a better report than mine. I kind of got into the nuts and bolts of what the discussion and analysis would be about. While the Sustainabilities Commission's report parallels, a lot of mine is saying, except for ANALYSIS WOULD BE ABOUT. WHILE THE SUSTAINABILITY COMMISSIONS REPORT PARALLELS A LOT OF MIND IS SAME EXCEPT FOR FINDING FOUR. THEY DISAGREE OR PARTIALLY DISAGREE. AND I HAVE A FEW DIFFERENT, LIKE F, WAS IT F? three and F6, I found that we had a partial disagreement on. So there is the response to the grand jury, which is, I would probably encourage, well, I would, I would encourage a sustainability report because in a couple months, we're going to get into reviewing the nuts and bolts about how this is going to deploy throughout Sausalito, what kind of impacts it might have. And I think when we come back to you later on, before the end of the year, we're going to find that we're going to have a difference of opinion. But right now, with the response to the grand jury, all three recommendations have a request to further analyze the recommendations and respond. And then we could go with the grand jury finding, or excuse me, the Sausalito Sustainability Commission findings for the for the response to the grand jury. |
| 01:06:36.79 | Mayor Kelman | Okay, thank you very much. |
| 01:06:39.32 | Kenneth Henry | Thank you. |
| 01:06:39.34 | Mayor Kelman | Yeah, great question. Vice Mayor, you probably I hope, can speak to the sustainability commission. |
| 01:06:44.13 | Unknown | Bye. Absolutely. And also just want to say, Kenneth, thank you so much. I know you have a lot going on. You're the sole building inspector. You have a very busy schedule and I really appreciate you spending time on this and pulling this together in the presentation. So it's nice to have you and I really appreciate it. And I also really appreciate that you just said you would like us to adopt the Sustainability Commission's recommendations. I was gonna ask you about whether or not you had a strong opposition to any of their recommendations. One of the things that I was most impressed by in their work was that And I mean, I think some members are on the call so they can make public comment. about this later, but they use the general plan to support their decision making for the response. So it's really guided by our general document that says what we should and shouldn't do as a city. And so I'm inclined to really support the Sustainability Commission, but I wanted to hear from you, Kenneth, just to see if there was anything in their suggestion that you are deeply opposed to or would like to voice, though it sounds like that's not the case at this point. |
| 01:07:46.94 | Kenneth Henry | No, vice mayor, you are correct. I do find that The substantial remodel definition is going to create some problem and what the county has come out with, which is indifference to the majority of jurisdictions, they talk about a 50% is a trigger for a substantial remodel. And now since the county has come out with their ordinance, their draft ordinance, they're talking about 75%. where we start getting into trouble is the target scores and how to achieve those. And then kind of we're looking at the takeaway from the substantial remodel and dual feed, dual power sources are an important component to the built environment. So looking forward after we present the council with, you know, different opinions and findings, we'll kind of, like today, we'll leave it up to the council to make those policies and the best move forward, as you have always done for the city. So I look forward to presenting that. I don't know if I strongly support the substantial remodel. And then when we get into the recommendation number three for reach codes, this can get very onerous for a simple water heater or a room heater, you know, space heating to now required to be electrical. I just have that difficulty overall in boots on the ground when somebody has to add another branch circuit, one 20 amp branch circuit because of their kitchen remodel, they are required to have two 20-amp branch circuits minimum. In just a kitchen remodel of a 20-amp branch circuit, they don't have, often there is not enough power to distribute from a typical electrical 100-amp panel. So to provide an additional electrical circuit as required for a kitchen remodel, I do this over the counter. And then we find out that there's a problem with distribution. Then we are now into the electrical ordinance. We're in 18.08 and we start looking for exceptions. Well, there aren't any exceptions there yet. And maybe that's the focus we'll have with the recommendation number three. Thanks for asking, Vice Mayor. |
| 01:10:16.28 | Unknown | Yeah, and then the one thing I also wanted to clarify that you seem to be agreeing with as well, but just so the community understands, the grand jury responses are suggestions in response to what the county is but we still have to go through a process ourselves of Agreeing to move forward with the reach code, establishing tier one or tier two, establishing remodel. So that's all additional conversation we'll have. These are the recommendations, but nothing is officially being decided this evening, correct? |
| 01:10:43.87 | Kenneth Henry | Yes, ma'am. |
| 01:10:46.61 | Unknown | Bye. |
| 01:10:46.62 | Mayor Kelman | Okay, great. That's all I had. Thank you, Kenneth. I appreciate it. Thank you, Vice Mayor. And just so all council members are on the same page, we did get late mail from Surge, and I think it's just entitled Late Mail, and it has a sustainability commissions, there's a spreadsheet, and then there's a memo. And then in the memo, they recommend that R1 and R2 have not been implemented, may be implemented in the future, and they'll go before the City Council for consideration in October or November. of this year and that recommendation number R3 would be required further analysis. So we did receive that. Uh, comes back to the mills. Thank you. |
| 01:11:22.81 | Janelle Kellman | Thank you, Mayor. And thank you for summarizing. I actually we have about four different documents from the Sustainability Commission attached to the agenda. And I was having a hard time without with no red line understanding exactly what the difference between. the staff recommendation and the sustainability commission's recommendations. Are. And I have to agree with Mr. Henry that I think I'm personally not ready this evening to commit to Adopting a policy for substantial remodels. And I think the approach of going countywide first you know, having countywide agreements. first is going to create the most concerted and organized approach for both consumers, you know, for people who are going through the building or the remodeling process and for our staff processing. permit. So without kind of a countywide which is recommendation number three, which I think If I understand correctly, McCab was recommending that we do Recommendation number three first. and then go on to consider how to implement One and two. Is that correct, Mr. Henry? |
| 01:12:46.32 | Kenneth Henry | Yes, council member, that is correct. Recommendation number three was the priority before implementing further discussion or consideration for recommendations one and two. |
| 01:13:00.75 | Janelle Kellman | So, I mean, I really liked reading the sustainability commission's work and you know, agree that this is something that we need to address, but I feel like at this point in time, it's not completely aligned either with the lead the low emission action plan recommendations that we had finalized a couple of years ago or the general plan. recommendations because we had not had a mandatory application to rehabilitation, in that, in those policies. I guess where I am, right now is that I I guess I have one more question and then maybe we can talk. I won't give my thoughts until we have discussion. Thank you. So Mr. Henry, is this is your staff report based on is that a consistent response from all of the Marin County building officials Or is this something that you came up with after meeting with them. |
| 01:14:13.01 | Kenneth Henry | I would say primarily it is consistent with the McCab and the local building officials. McCab had put out their report. There, there are a few jurisdictions who have been different. Take Fairfax for, for consideration. They've already adopted and I don't recall seeing Fairfax much in the discussion of the working groups. But I would say primarily 80%, 70% of the building officials did agree with the McCabre report that was number three recommendation first and then falling into further collaboration on recommendations one and two. |
| 01:15:03.75 | Janelle Kellman | Okay, I'll leave it there for more, but for now, but I'm a little, unclear what we would be adopting if we start to mix and match here. |
| 01:15:17.08 | Mayor Kelman | And I'll just for the sake of the council and the community, you may all know that Marin's proposed 2022 green building code and ordinance is also now available for review. They have a survey. The survey is going to be open until September 25th. And they have a website. If you Google 2022 Green building model reach code and ordinance development. you can see where the county is on some of this. And if council members want me to send that to you, I can get that out. Okay, Councillor Sobieski. |
| 01:15:48.16 | Ian Sobieski | Yeah. I just had a question for you, Mr. Henry. First off, thanks for all your good work here in town. My question for you is just, I wasn't aware until I read the staff report on Saturday about all the extensive work being done on this topic. I was wondering if you could just help me understand how much, how much, how would you characterize how much city resources have been expended in this engagement and As we move forward, what more will be required. in terms of staff time |
| 01:16:17.36 | Kenneth Henry | Thank you. |
| 01:16:18.17 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 01:16:18.19 | Kenneth Henry | starting with staff time. Thank you, Councilman. Um, staff time. we just jump in and we're forced to work with the resources we have. I've attended the working groups offered by the county. I attended four of the five early on There was deeper involvement in the 2021 timeframe with our contract building official. And then that kind of got separated in June. And as the grand jury report and the working groups came out, that's when I was, I implemented being the liaison for the building department on that. So there's always staff time involved with the meetings and conversation and the follow-up. I had to put some overtime in just to try to get familiar with all of the other jurisdictions. And like, you know, I was late to getting things summarized. And then we, you know, we're looking for an extension to that with the grand jury. So resources and time, I think it's going to get more involved because here's the biggest dilemma we're going to have is explaining it to the public. I've got to explain it to the homeowner. And the question is going to be is, who's going to be at the counter to do that? Because I'm your full-time inspector. I'm currently your over-the-counter plan checker. I'm the one who fields the calls for what's this going to require or that going to require. So you've got one person trying to do it all. What is that resource? You've got it with me here. Now I think I kind of fall below the threshold of consistency. And this is one of the bars that has been set by the city manager to staff. He wants to see consistency. And, you know, those four Cs are worth living by. You know, they're really kind of the full package. So when I start talking about consistency with explaining it to the community, how are we going to get the outreach out there? Who's going to explain to a building owner once they start getting into construction and then they get to a substantial remodel, which is not uncommon. You know, I would say a few out of 10 turn into substantial remodels because somebody has an idea to start and then it blows out of proportion and it kind of gets out of hand with the remodel that they originally proposed and then you start getting into the uh, you know, the additional work. So staff has got to be the front person on that. And what you need to do, especially when, or excuse me, what I need to do when we're gonna take something away or make somebody do something like sprinklers, or now give us your gas, go all electrification. That's gonna take boots on the ground. And that's really where the important message is delivered with the public. As the building front, that is your communication with the community. How are they going to take this information, receive it, and then implement it. The only way you're going to do that is through staff comprehension, which right now, I don't understand the target scores. You know, you can have things from roof |
| 01:19:49.97 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. |
| 01:19:50.00 | Kenneth Henry | Thank you. Yeah. |
| 01:19:50.62 | Unknown | Oh. |
| 01:19:50.83 | Kenneth Henry | Bye. |
| 01:19:50.86 | Mayor Kelman | So, Mr. Henry, if I can just ask for, so if you could guide us. So would the summary be that you don't feel like we're ready to fully undertake the implementation and you have some recommendations about how we might? |
| 01:19:50.91 | Kenneth Henry | I'm not. |
| 01:19:50.93 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 01:19:51.35 | Kenneth Henry | So, |
| 01:20:05.81 | Mayor Kelman | move forward to make sure we are staffed appropriately. |
| 01:20:10.00 | Kenneth Henry | Mayor Kailman, thank you. We DEFINITELY ARE UNDERSTAFFED TO BE ABLE TO COMMUNICATE THAT TO THE PUBLIC. Thank you. It's going to take additional resources. It could be a climate change coordinator. It could be the building official. Right now it's Kenneth Henry at the counter. And then we also have our consultant who is bringing in a wide range of support. We're kind of starting over again, but change is good. So that type of thing, I think we we have to focus on additional resources to implement these changes. |
| 01:20:47.00 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you, Mr. Henry. Do you have a follow-up, sir? I see that Senator also has his hand up. |
| 01:20:52.03 | Ian Sobieski | I think, Do you have a follow up? And if Chris needed to interject, I, of course, will see the floor ahead. Thank you. |
| 01:20:59.03 | Chris Zapata | Chris, did you? Yes, I do. Thank you, Mayor and Council. Kenneth, speaking the truth. Sausalito has a small but mighty army. One thing that I wanted to make clear to the public and folks to maybe listening later. City Council authorized significant resources to the Community Development Department this year in its budget. included in that is you know funding for consultants contracts at a amount that is almost double last year so we can catch up with backlogs. And the second thing is there also was some positions allocated And so later in the evening, I intend to provide you a recruitment update on what we're doing about the building official vacancy as well as code enforcement and the Community Development Director Community and Economic Development Director. Thank you. So at this time, yes, we've been in transition and a churn and And we have really created a scenario where Kenneth is the senior person in that department. And his years of experience are very valuable. Thank you. So we're trying to rebuild and retool that whole department and hopefully we'll have some patients from the community. But but he speaks the truth. There are very few resources in that department at this time that are ongoing. They're contractual or consultant based and we're trying to rebuild that department. so that we have full time staff that can create that institutional knowledge. and base of stability that can allow us to get to the things that I value, like consistency and production. So I wanted to add that because I didn't want that to be unsaid while, you know, this moment of transition is in place. Thank you. |
| 01:22:36.74 | Mayor Kelman | Thanks, Chris. |
| 01:22:38.01 | Chris Zapata | Thank you. |
| 01:22:38.02 | Ian Sobieski | Yeah, I have a follow up if I could for another question. Thank you. since I have to copy it, learning curve on this. Just the whole premise of the conversion natural gas to electricity. I just looked up the power generation for the state of California and roughly 40% of The electricity generation currently comes from burning natural gas and coal. So, Just can someone help educate me about the benefit of transitioning to electricity, from gas if we're generating a substantial portion of our electricity from gas. burning fossil fuels. |
| 01:23:20.55 | Ian Sobieski | it. |
| 01:23:20.70 | Mayor Kelman | Maybe somebody from the State of the Commission who could speak to that. |
| 01:23:20.72 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:23:21.04 | Ian Sobieski | some members. |
| 01:23:21.61 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:23:26.29 | Mayor Kelman | It looks like we do have Mark Palmer, who knows this area quite well. |
| 01:23:30.02 | Ian Sobieski | Great, thank you. |
| 01:23:31.01 | Mayor Kelman | Yeah, with the council's permission, well, that's okay to ask Mr. Palmer his insight. Yeah, Mark. |
| 01:23:40.18 | Mark Palmer | Hi, yes, thank you. Good evening, council members. The electrical grid is getting cleaner all the time. with more solar and wind coming online almost daily. And with the... Inflation Reduction Act will see a huge impact increase in renewable resources coming onto the grid Marine Marin Clean Energy, where we get most of our power from, is almost 100% Andrew Smith, Williamsburg Regional Library, Ph.D.: Renewable energy, so our local supplier here is not reliant on fossil fuels, except for maybe one or 2% and they plan on being 100% renewable by the end of this year, so we have a little head start on that locally, but. Overall, The grid is getting cleaner and cleaner whereas natural gas will always have a considerable carbon footprint that will never go away. And the only way that Soledad can meet its 2030 climate goals of reducing our greenhouse gas consumption 40% lower than 1990 levels is to attack the building sector and make sure that work new construction, not adding to the problem by requiring electric appliances, and in renovations, were suggesting that a target energy score be met by achieving certain energy efficiency standards. some of which may include electric appliances, A lot of the points you'll get in the renovation score would be to insulate attics insulate walls, do lighting upgrades, replace windows, all things that are normally typically done in a substantial remodel. And speaking of substantial remodel, It's up to the jurisdiction to set that threshold. We're not suggesting- |
| 01:25:42.30 | Mayor Kelman | I'm not just positive here because we're going to see a public comment from you and I just want to make sure the council member got his question answered so so thank you for that so we'll come back to you in public comment. Don't because we're so busy more to cover here. |
| 01:25:50.59 | Ian Sobieski | Good. Thank you. I just one more question since I'm new to the council. I know we went through a strategic planning exercise. The previous council did where we laid out the, uh, priorities of the city and Just hearing Mr. Henry's assessment of the impact on staff from this task. Just wanted to understand where this fits in relative to other priorities in the building and planning department. for staff time. |
| 01:26:25.16 | Mayor Kelman | Chris, is that a question that you might want to address from the higher? level planning, uh, I'll put Kenneth on the spot there. |
| 01:26:36.33 | Chris Zapata | Yeah. Again, going back to the question of resources and bandwidth, Anytime we get a request from a grand jury, we tend to take it pretty seriously. In this particular case, it's in the queue with a number of other things, but to say it's not important would be wrong. And, but to say we have the staff to carry all this out would be, false as well. So I would just say that we are, you know, doing what we can to be responsive to the grand jury at the same time, trying to rebuild the whole department so that we can have, you know, more resources to deal with some of the priorities that are upon us, and this is in terms of trying to figure out how to lessen our carbon footprint. one of those areas that I believe this council feels very strongly about. And that's why you authorize hiring a sustainability person last meeting. But we aren't there yet. And we have to staff up. And again, we'll have an opportunity to look at the properties of the department in the near future as we bring on the new community and economic development director and hopefully sometime in the fall, have a strategic planning session again to kind of revisit what are your priorities But as it stands now, this one is a priority But, you know, again, as Kenneth mentioned, we are a little short staffed. |
| 01:27:58.40 | Mayor Kelman | Thanks, Chris. Anything else from council members? Before we open up to public comment. |
| 01:28:06.65 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:28:06.68 | Mayor Kelman | Bye. |
| 01:28:06.72 | Unknown | Bye. |
| 01:28:06.75 | Mayor Kelman | Bye. I just, I... |
| 01:28:07.96 | Janelle Kellman | I'm sorry, Mayor, I just had one question about what the new building, the proposed building code includes for substantial remodels. Do you know? Um, I mean, part of the problem is we're agreeing under those, you know, I really like the work that Sustainability Commission did, but we would be agreeing to adopt the model code that's coming up. Um, before January. And I'm just because I haven't seen that yet. I'm just not sure what we'd be committing to. And I appreciate getting |
| 01:28:47.03 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 01:28:47.08 | Unknown | Bye. |
| 01:28:47.22 | Unknown | Bye. |
| 01:28:49.53 | Janelle Kellman | the link from the Sustainability Commission Tonight. um, But it looks like it's all electric for newly constructed buildings at a minimum. And I'm just wondering what it requires in the reach code for substantial remodels. |
| 01:29:17.30 | Mayor Kelman | Yeah, I just thought Substantial Models was slightly less than that, but it's a great question. If you want to take a moment to look that up, we'll hear from the vice mayor. |
| 01:29:28.78 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:29:28.80 | Kenneth Henry | Thank you. |
| 01:29:28.90 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:29:29.27 | Kenneth Henry | Well, I think I can kind of answer the question. Question about substantial remodel. Sure. There is no |
| 01:29:34.36 | Unknown | Sure. |
| 01:29:36.35 | Kenneth Henry | definition in the building code. It would be by our local ordinance defining what that substantial remodel is. Currently, the subjectiveness of that definition identifies that rooms that may be affected. So that kind of leaves it up to interpretation. And what I think what we really need is to have when we get hopefully a building official or a climate change coordinator, we can have that ability to look into the, on a case by case, when there might be a need for an exception, when there might be an equity issue, infeasibility issue. These are important reasons. might be a need for an exception, when there might be an equity issue, infeasibility issue. These are important resources. We're going to need to be able to provide that balance to it. So no definition yet. We would have to come up with what that definition is within what type of time period, because right now we talk about 50% substantial remodel within a three year period, 36 months. So I think it's by jurisdiction. Thank you. |
| 01:30:48.73 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you for that. I see the vice mayor has her hand back up. Please. |
| 01:30:52.80 | Unknown | Thank you. Yeah, I just wanted to circle back on the implications of the grand jury report versus our decisions around the reach code. So the recommendations in the grand jury report from the sustainability commission suggest that we would adopt the tier one reach code, but we still have to have a substantial business item discussion about what that looks like as a council. So at this point, I think But the ask is to submit and respond to the grand jury report with these recommendations and then further review together to make sure we get to a point that makes sense for staff. going forward. And I do understand that we have limited staff capacity, but we also have approved sustainability coordinator who could really help us get to the right, place on. on some of these decisions around what the reach codes look like. And I would also add that we won't have much of a choice in terms of adopting the reach codes because there's going to be requirements and mandatory requirements that we have to hit around electrification. So it's really critical. And that at this stage, prior to January 1, we have discussions amongst the council to decide how it looks. So I wanted to add that point. I mean, I know we have to take public comment and we're not on discussion, but I just think we're getting a little bit away from what our reach will look like as we adopt it versus our response |
| 01:32:03.03 | Mayor Kelman | the grand jury report. |
| 01:32:04.82 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:32:04.84 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you, Vice Mayor. I think that's helpful to understand what we're trying to do here today. So we're not passing anything, we're not approving anything. We're signaling to the county that we are interested in having the county establish some clear benchmarks and requirements around certain issues related to electrification, keeping in mind potential equity costs, implementation issues, all of which we would need to you know, nail down and you know, figure out how to operationalize before we would be able to actually even adopt something. So we're not looking at a draft ordinance, we don't have anything in front of us. This is a sort of exploration from a policy perspective of something that will need to be operationalized probably over the next year. |
| 01:32:45.74 | Janelle Kellman | Great. I appreciate that a lot, but I also, it's just the new language says Sausalito intends to align with the Marin County's 2022 proposed model reach code recommendations for all electric new construction. I mean, that's the language that we would be committing to tonight to tell the county that we intend to do that. So, that's fine. I'm just, maybe I'm a little bit behind on understanding exactly what's in that new code. Um, and I apologize for that, but, um, you know, what we convey to the county that we intend to do tonight. is I know we'll have further public meetings, but I don't also want to commit. I don't, maybe we should have the hearings. |
| 01:33:29.62 | Mayor Kelman | Yeah, well, let me ask this question to the vice mayor. Is the intent in the response to the grand jury report, is the intent to convey to the county what we will do or is the intent to convey support for what the county is exploring? |
| 01:33:43.14 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:33:43.19 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. |
| 01:33:43.22 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:33:43.24 | Mayor Kelman | So, |
| 01:33:43.47 | Unknown | Thank you. Right now, if you look at the recommendations, there's strongly, there's agree, partially agree, disagree. And so the county's already planning to do these things. And in my perspective, what we're saying is we agree with this approach, go forward, or we disagree with this approach, don't go forward. And so I think it is essentially saying, yes, County, we're on board with you in terms of your goals to electrify construction. From my perspective and the perspective of the Sustainability Commission, this is in line with the general plan and our commitment to a sustainability plan. structure within the general plan that says that we're really committed to decreasing our carbon footprint to decreasing emissions. This is one path forward. So I'm in favor of supporting the grand jury's recommendations. And that's what the differences are between essentially the Staff Recommendations and Sustainability Commission. on R1, R2, and R3. |
| 01:34:32.66 | Mayor Kelman | So thank you for that. So Vice Mayor, could we say, just to address Council Member Cleveland Knowles' point, could we say, We are supportive of these directions and not use the word we intend to do X, Y, Z. Sure, that wouldn't. |
| 01:34:45.98 | Unknown | That wouldn't bother me if there's need for further discussion. I just wanna be sure that we're supportive of electrification going forward. |
| 01:34:52.86 | Mayor Kelman | Right. Thank you. Let's hear from Gusman Hoffman. But we'll come back. Thanks. |
| 01:34:56.96 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah, there's nothing from what my read and from what I recall from prior responses that we've done to the grand jury. inquiries and reports asking for our responses that we can you know, note in there that we support you know, whatever it is that they're advocating for, but we can say we need further information or we need to do further study in Sausalito. That doesn't prevent us from later adopting something that the county is recommending. And at least it gives us that option. It's easier to adopt something later and say we're considering it as opposed to rolling something back. Right. So if we if we run into some sort of a roadblock with, you know, the representation that we've made, it's more credible for Sausalito. If we give ourselves some room to grow into a position instead of committing to something if we're not quite ready to do that. So that's my input right now. But I know we have to take public comment as well. And I look forward to seeing what the public has to say. |
| 01:36:02.35 | Mayor Kelman | Great. So let's take a pause if everyone is okay to sort of think about it and open up to public comment. Um, Serge, I do see one hand raised, two hands raised. Please set the clock for three minutes before we start. |
| 01:36:16.63 | Serge Avila | Sure, Madam Mayor, we are going to open for public comment. And our first speaker, it's Peter Van Meter. Peter, you've been unmuted and asked to share your video. I mean, |
| 01:36:30.40 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. |
| 01:36:31.73 | Peter Van Meter | Good evening. Yes, I was very pleased with the cautious approach of the staff report. And I think that Mr. Henry's presentation has highlighted what a disaster is going to be when the public finds out the impact on their life and habitat in Sausalito. So the cautious approach without saying you're going to be committing to anything without a future study is really essential at this point. And I think most of you probably saw the headline just a couple of days ago in the Independent Journal where MCE was telling their customers, do not plug in your car. Our grid cannot support charging an electric automobile, which, of course, is the direction everybody wants to go. You hear That is coming down with just, you know, what do we have five or six or eight percent of electrical vehicles in California now? And these mandates are going to get more. So you need to have mixed energy sources. That's electricity. developed from natural gas, nuclear power, and also residential energy sources of a mix of electricity and gas. It has to happen until your grid has electrical capacity. to handle all of this. So that's the big picture. You know, we're years early on this. let alone the financial impact to people that you've talked a lot about major remodeling. That's gonna be huge. Like Kenneth just said, somebody's been doing a project, all of a sudden they go over whatever your boundary is, 50% or whatever it is, and they said, whoops, you've got to put in a whole new electoral service. |
| 01:38:07.47 | Unknown | you |
| 01:38:08.80 | Peter Van Meter | The S will hit the F if you know what I mean, when that happens. So you've got to be cautious on this, say only further study. We're not gonna commit to adoption of this. I understand there's a big steamroller coming down from the county. but, You know, we've got to face reality on these kind of topics. So please, you know, be more cautious, go with the original staff report and recognize you can't really do this conversion until the grid can support it. Thank you. |
| 01:38:37.87 | Mayor Kelman | Thanks, Peter. Let's hear from Mr. Palmer. |
| 01:38:49.64 | Serge Avila | Mark, you've been unmuted. Share your video. |
| 01:39:00.47 | Serge Avila | Mark, you need to unmute on your end. |
| 01:39:05.41 | Mark Palmer | Thank you very much. Good evening, council members. My name is Mark Palmer. with the Sausalito Sustainability Commission. I want to thank... Kenneth Henry for his presentation. We have touch bases and collaborated over the last few months. And I wanted to especially thank him for his participation in the, County Technical Working Group, which has successfully put together the model reach codes for the county. including electrification and The model reach codes that the county has come up with are very much in line with the three recommendations have before you in the grand jury report. The Sausalito Sustainability Commission's response is actually quite different from what Kenneth has come up with and I respectfully, respect his judgment on this. And I really appreciate the fact that resources are very, very slim and He has a big job on his shoulders As you know, the sustainability commission is charged with advising the city council on critical priorities that advance our community's sustainability, equity and resilience. including our urgent need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions that are driving climate change, Building natural, burning natural gas in buildings, mostly for space and water heating is responsible for 28% Sausalito's greenhouse gas emissions. the sauce leader. the Sustainability Commission has been studying this issue over three years and has gone on record in supporting building electrification since May of 2021. Building electrification, as I said earlier, is a necessary step in meeting Sausalito's 2030 greenhouse gas reduction target. The June 6th Marin civil grand jury report makes six findings about the climate impacts of natural gas use in buildings and the need to take immediate action to reduce these impacts. It also makes three recommendations. One, avoiding making emissions worse by requiring new buildings use electric rather than gas powered equipment. Two, develop a point system for major remodels that allows homeowners to choose among energy efficiency measures and electric appliances And number three, develop a Moran. Countywide building electrification plans for how to start ramping down use of gas in existing buildings, particularly by replacing gas space and water heaters with high efficiency Thank you. electric heat pump models as the gas equipment reaches end of life and needs replacement. The new construction goals, that's recommendation number one, are especially important given the regional housing needs assessment quote of more than of more than 700 new residential units to be built in Sausalito in coming years. most importantly, the Sustainability Commission, finds that its draft response the grand jury is consistent with the actions and goals laid out in the sustainability element of Sausalito's 2020 general plan. Likewise, the draft response is consistent with and supported by the |
| 01:42:10.11 | Mayor Kelman | Mr. Palmer. |
| 01:42:10.13 | Mark Palmer | Mr. Palmer, I'm sorry. |
| 01:42:11.34 | Mayor Kelman | I'm sorry to interrupt you. Your three minutes are up and I want to be fair to other members of the public. And we did hear from you earlier, so thank you. And we may have some additional questions. So thank you for all your hard work with sustainability and providing those comments. |
| 01:42:25.35 | Serge Avila | Our next speaker is Sandra Bushmaker. Sandra, you've been. Unmuted. Bye. I'm so sorry. muted you Sandra you need to unmute sorry. |
| 01:42:36.44 | Sandra Bushmaker | Good evening council and staff and public. Um, Without getting into the nitty gritty details, I think that we're having a lot of aspirational talk here, but we're also having to balance that against the reality of what we can actually do. Well, I think it's important to adopt aspirational goals And I recognize that there are demands on us. I think this city, given the circumstances we are dealing with in-house, we need to be realistic. And I agree with the comments that have been said tonight, realistic on what we can actually accomplish. And I think that making a commitment to something that is iffy in the sense of being able to reach that particular goal is foolhardy. And I would really encourage us at this point to be as conservative as possible in making whatever, uh, Um, commitments we are making in this regard. We can always grow it. I would like to see us not be in a situation where we make a really lofty commitment and then are unable to keep it. So basically, just from a practical point of view, I would really like to see us stay within our means, if you know what I mean. Okay, thank you so much. Thank you, Sandra. |
| 01:43:57.00 | Mayor Kelman | So should we have any other public comment? |
| 01:43:59.29 | Serge Avila | Meta mayor, it appears as we don't have any other hands |
| 01:44:03.06 | Mayor Kelman | Okay. So we'll go ahead and close public comment, bring it back up. Yes, thank you, Vice Mayor. I was going to ask if you wanted to maybe try to synthesize and make a recommendation for the council to consider based on feedback and questions. |
| 01:44:13.94 | Unknown | Sure. So I understand the issues regarding staff availability and being realistic about our expectations. But at the same time, this council came together and voted and declared a climate emergency. And we are in a time and place where we have to be, we have to make bold steps to address climate change and mitigate climate change to the best of our ability at every turn whenever we can. If we're not doing that, we're not being true to the commitment that we made in declaring a climate emergency. And I would ask if in another emergency we would tread so lightly. you The impacts of this are gonna be felt by generations to come and every opportunity that we have to address climate, we should and we should take those steps. And so in that sense, I would say, given especially having Kenneth say he thinks that the Sustainability Commission's recommendations are stronger than the recommendations that he had prepared, I would recommend that we adopt the sustainability suggestions. However, given the discussion here and wanting to come to consensus, I think if we reword it from intent to, to whatever the suggested language you might have in mind, Mayor Kelman, I would be supportive of that if it would help bring more members on board with our next steps. I would also supportive of that if it would help bring more members on board with our next steps. I would also just want to remind the council that the suggestions from the Sustainability Commission are consistent with the sustainability element of the general plan. Thus, they are consistent with our plan for governance. Whether or not we're taking direct actions, we're being told that this is how we are going to guide our city going forward. And we all agreed that we're in a climate emergency. So I just wanna remind everyone of the urgency of that and that this is an opportunity to decrease emissions and that we can do it in a responsible way forward Also wanted to say that we did agree on a climate coordinator position. So I would recommend that that person be responsible for assisting Kenneth directly in everything related to electrification so he does not have to take it on himself given his existing plate that is quite full. So that would be my suggestion. |
| 01:46:05.03 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. |
| 01:46:05.28 | Unknown | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 01:46:05.94 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you, Vice Mayor. Anybody want to respond to that? Councilmember Cleveland, I'll just tell you had your hand up. that suggestion makes sense to you? Or do you want to modify? |
| 01:46:15.27 | Janelle Kellman | So, I mean, I just want to make it clear that I'm 100% committed to reducing RGHD emissions. I'm 100% committed to following our general plan. I do the general plan, though we've carefully moderated our goals and the sustainability |
| 01:46:29.75 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 01:46:29.82 | Unknown | Bye. |
| 01:46:29.89 | Unknown | Bye. |
| 01:46:29.95 | Unknown | Bye. |
| 01:46:30.02 | Unknown | you Oh. |
| 01:46:37.01 | Janelle Kellman | section and the ones, I mean, I don't think we committed to full, so this, complete full electrification in the general plan. I remember we had extensive conversations about it. is also not the recommendation of the low emission action plan necessarily. Um, that we adopted as a council. So, and I think, you know, we are at a unique point in time where we have, significant issues with our electrical service through PG&E. balanced with the need to act now. on our climate. goals. So we are, we are, I think, You know, and I think also our building inspector brought up a lot of really valid points about just kind of the practical aspects. So I would like to find a good way. I'm still also kind of struggling through the sustainability commission's responses as they relate to Kenneth's responses and what is actually materially different. Um, and whether we're using the right term. So for example, like I know we always want to say partially agree, but that's not a response to the grand jury, you can only say, partially disagree. And I see, for whatever reason, it's very frustrating. But anyway, I'm wondering, so we have a couple documents in front of us, right? The late mail has three recommendations. And maybe, I mean, it might be helpful to just walk through them and see, what we can do with them. I mean, whether we can adopt all the sustainability commission ones or whether we need to moderate them. I just want to be consistent with our existing adopted goals. in our general plan and with the low emission action plan that we adopted, or maybe that needs to be updated. It sounds like maybe the sustainability commission has changed their position on that. Um, I'm sorry not to be more helpful, but, um, I'm generally in favor of being, supportive of the grand jury's recommendations, but with the practical reality Um, in mind as well and consistency with our adopted documents. |
| 01:49:00.39 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 01:49:00.86 | Janelle Kellman | Thank you. |
| 01:49:00.88 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. |
| 01:49:00.93 | Janelle Kellman | Thank you. |
| 01:49:00.95 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. |
| 01:49:01.02 | Janelle Kellman | Thank you. |
| 01:49:01.03 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you for that. |
| 01:49:01.57 | Janelle Kellman | Yeah. |
| 01:49:01.59 | Unknown | Can I just- On the LEAP piece, I mean, on page... I just looked it up and I'm just on page 11 of the leap. There's a lot of language that's strongly supporting building electrification. There's six paragraphs about it. So I'm not sure. |
| 01:49:14.70 | Janelle Kellman | So I'm not sure. But it was mostly the implementation, I think, was mostly through incentives and options and um, I don't have the document pulled up right now, but I did look at it earlier. Um, |
| 01:49:31.00 | Mayor Kelman | So can we just do this? I want to make a suggestion, but I want to be mindful that Councilman Hoffman Kesburn, why don't you go? And then I'd like to weigh in and then we'll come back around on the leap piece. Okay. |
| 01:49:41.42 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 01:49:41.89 | Mayor Kelman | I know. |
| 01:49:41.97 | Jill Hoffman | I think perhaps I wouldn't want to have to go through seven different documents and try to draft something tonight. So what I would suggest is maybe perhaps the vice mayor and council member Cleveland Knowles might want to work together and come up with something of a middle road. you know, responds to the grand jury that recognizes some of the direction that we want to go into, but doesn't commit to it. I think, you know, we don't want to have, you know, unintended consequences of discouraging building because, you know, we don't have the electrical grid, but yet we required it. And that's just one unintended consequence that, that I could perhaps see if we commit to, something tonight and especially I wouldn't want to do it in a response to a grand jury report. You know, that would have to... come through some other sort of process. So what I would suggest is, Maybe. a subcommittee working group, whatever you want to call it, can work together to come up with a draft plan and it could be on the consent calendar next week And if someone wants to pull it off consent, we can look at it, but again, but to have, you know, the kind of wordsmithing that we might, you know, you would want to go through, I don't think is the best use of our time at a city council meeting. So that would be my suggestion. |
| 01:50:56.09 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:51:03.18 | Jill Hoffman | And I do take I do take both sides, the the concerns from both sides, from the staff concerns on the issues that Kenneth brought up, in our more larger aspirational goals. But, you know, we just don't want to, I don't think we want to commit to something. When it's not, you know, it's a response to a grand jury report, right? It's not a plan that we've been working on for the last, Anyway, these specific things that the grand jury is talking about. So that would be my suggested approach. |
| 01:51:35.14 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you, Councillor Hoffman. Yeah, let me just turn away in here. So I think we're the intent behind this, and the reason it came back around is to signal to the community, to our community, the larger community that we are passionate about this, we do believe in this. And I think that's an alignment we all have on the council. You know, SB 1020, which is the Clean Energy Jobs and Affordability Act 2022 actually requires that California gets 90%, I think, of its power from renewable sources by 2035. And so I mentioned that only to say that Showing an intent or showing a prioritization of this, I think, is in line, although probably 10 plus years off in terms of what will happen within the state and our ability to pull from the grid. But I do want to offer this as a potential compromise or solution that policy S dash 1.4 on natural gas replacement from the sustainability element of the general plan. actually states that we will evaluate electrification or evaluate alternative renewable energy sources. And maybe on the step forward here, is it, and I don't take this lightly, is to say that we will prioritize evaluation of this. And the reason I think that that's important is because when we have new resources like a climate action director or sustainability coordinator, resilience coordinator, you know, there'll be several priorities or several other projects for this individual to work on. And I think if we signal now that we do want to prioritize that, that might be a way to advance this beyond what we have in the general plan, which doesn't commit us, doesn't tell us how to operationalize this, without also obligating us with an intent or to say we will take specific actions. So that would be my suggestion. And I like yours, Councilman Hoffman, of. about asking two council members to wordsmith this and bring it on consent, which is just a week from now. So that's an added bonus. But my suggestion would be to do something like prioritize evaluation. And that way, I think that moves us in advance is what we have on the general plan. So let's see if Councilor Sobieski has anything to chime in here. on either the process or the language. |
| 01:53:39.76 | Ian Sobieski | Bye. Yeah, unfortunately I was only able to, I only discerned that there was late mail at the beginning of this meeting. So I've been reading the comments here during the meeting. So, I mean, it sounds like a good suggestion to work on it. I am concerned about our multiple priorities and, And just more generally, you know, we want to make a meaningful impact to climate change. There are a variety of There are a whole smorgasbord, I'm sure, of ways to do that. So I admit to being uneducated on the subject. the way that I would the persuaded is to see where this set of regulations fits in with the menu of potential regulations on housing and buildings and where we get the most bang for our buck. uh, there are I'm sure a wide variety of things that can be done in our building code to, and, uh, and our town regulations to impact climate change and what's left at least unanswered for me from the stock report. is an analysis about whether these proposed changes would have the greatest effect on on climate change. uh, You know, I know that you know, You can make more efficient jet airplane, but if you take a lot more jet trips, then you're actually harming the environment in the end because you're creating more greenhouse gas. So. I'm actually pretty lost on this subject in terms of its municipality. I'm happy. I'm proud. I'm not proud, but I'm willing to admit it. I think it's a very complicated subject. And, And I'm just worried about symbolism versus materiality. So I am completely aligned with making material contributions to the subject at hand. There's not an interest, well, an interest space between me and the vice mayor on that. But I'm completely flummoxed about whether this potentially very highly impactful side of regulations on homeowners is actually the best place to make the biggest difference at the smallest cost. And I would love to see a prioritization from the sustainability commission of the whole smorgasbord. so we know where to expend not only the regular the time and effort of our staff on investigating and implementing something that where to minimize the impact on our residents with the greatest potential benefits. |
| 01:56:08.58 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you, Ian. Let's turn over to the vice mayor, I think may have some insight and feedback on that. And then I'm gonna try to encourage us to get to a fine point on this and move on. So vice mayor, please. Yeah. |
| 01:56:19.97 | Unknown | I just want to make the point that actually these in-home gas emissions are responsible for 36% of all emissions in Sausalito. So it's not a small number. significant impact. And it is something that is a key priority of the sustainability commission that they've been talking about for over two years. So it's definitely top of mind and they have conveyed that to me. Additionally, EV charging facilities is another really critical piece. That's something that they really want to work on. and thinking in addition to these construction codes and how we're going to move forward. I would also add that if we don't do it, it's going to be mandated by the state anyway. So it's kind of like, do we want to be on the right side of history and taking the right steps to address climate or not? I understand that there's a balance here, but I just want to make the point that this is something, this is 36% of our emissions. And also existing homeowners are not gonna be penalized. So if you don't have electrification now, it's for new builds and substantial remodels. So people who are already using it in their homes will not be impacted at this stage. I agree, Mayor Kellman, if you want to recommend a way forward, but I'm going to continue to be on the side of really trying to pursue the goals of the Sustainability Commission. And I will also add that the MCCMC Climate Committee has spoken to electrification as a priority goal. And several other council members and communities around Marin have talked about building electrification as a priority goal. So I would like to see us as leaders on this topic, as opposed to being the last of the table as we were around the leaf blower ban. |
| 01:57:43.69 | Mayor Kelman | Yeah, Vice Mayor, let me lend my support to your statement there. and acknowledge Councilmember Sobieski's inquiry, which is that this is a highly complicated it. and material issue to implement on the ground. I do, however, think it is a signal, right? This is one of those issues where you could definitely have paralysis by analysis. But the data is out there as to the impact of electrification for rebuilds, for substantial remodels. And so it sounds like you'd be interested in seeing some of that data. And I'm confident that we have folks on this call who are members of the Sustainability Commission who could provide us with that. And I think that would be good to have in the record as well. And I do also endorse the vice mayor's approach of being a leader on this. And that said, I do think it's going to be very complicated in terms of how we implement it, even operationalize it, just in terms of staffing. And so we do want to make sure that we have that in place. And that's why I'm suggesting that we prioritize it in terms of how we're going to evaluate and what we're going to look at to achieve some of the requirements in our leave and some of our climate action plan. And that way we're signaling to future councils that this is a priority. And as more of the opportunities come online, we'll be able to look back on that and see where we are. And so if, You know, with the unknown, hopefully coming a little bit into finer focus, I'm going to suggest that we adopt Councilman Hoffman's suggestion that the vice mayor and Councilmember of Cleveland Knowles return to us with something for consent for next Tuesday. that takes into account some of the the data that supports this, where we as a council may want to be in terms of leading, and also taking into account not wanting to obligate us to the unknowns at this time. |
| 01:59:26.47 | Unknown | What's our deadline? Because we received an extension on the response. So I just wanna make sure that that's actually a viable option for us this evening. |
| 01:59:35.16 | Unknown | Through the mayor, I asked for an extension through the end of the month. So if you've approved the letter next week, you'll be fine. |
| 01:59:46.47 | Mayor Kelman | Okay. So is anybody not OK? And let me ask Councilmember Clivene Knowles, do you accept this task? |
| 01:59:53.51 | Janelle Kellman | Yeah, I mean, I'd be happy to work on it. I, you know, I think, I'm not sure if I heard the vice mayor correctly or not. I mean, it's a question of just this recommendation without any modifications. And I think it's going to be hard to entertain some of the comments and from other council members that we've heard tonight. So that's one issue. I also I mean, I do think our response to the grand jury should not be setting new policy. So I think if our policy documents are not up to date or they like, for example, our general plan or the low emission action plan, which I would heavily recommend to council members or BSB as a Excellent guide of how The sustainability commission at least three or so years ago recommended that we move forward and balance competing interests Um, as that document. then we need to update those documents if they're not reflecting our current policies. So I'd like to... you know, maybe we can, have a longer discussion later. I think we need to |
| 02:01:04.04 | Mayor Kelman | Yeah, I agree with you that the grand jury report shouldn't be where we're setting our policy, right? Like we've replied to other grand jury reports, And I also appreciate your comment from earlier that the leap. doesn't necessarily have the methodology for operationalizing some of these. That is, I think. probably a good place to look and think about how do we enact some of these goals and priorities that we have. So vice mayor and council member Cleveland Knowles, if you could bring us something back, That takes into account at least the majority of the comments. added to consent for next week. |
| 02:01:45.40 | Mayor Kelman | Anybody? Anything else to add, Vice Mayor? |
| 02:01:50.31 | Unknown | No, I just really hope we can get to a place where we're supporting the sustainability commission's recommendations and goals. Because I think we can be a leader as a community in electrification rather than being the last to the table. Like we have been on a number of other climate initiatives. So I would like to see us be. more proactive. |
| 02:02:09.03 | Mayor Kelman | Okay, well, I think that'll be a good task for us to evaluate how we do that. and what other items need to be updated as well. And it's good that we were talking about the leave, talking about the Climate Action Plan. and prioritizing that. So my suggestion is still to add language around prioritize the evaluation. I think that advances the general plan, but I leave it to you to further these goals for us. So thank you both. Okay, Mr. Henry, thank you and good to see you. Appreciate you going through this with us. A lot to learn. Okay, well, we're gonna move over then to 5B, which is to receive and file a report regarding securing grant funding for the city of Saucyde's projects and programs. And that is our director of public works. |
| 02:02:51.05 | Kevin McGowan | Kevin McGowan, Good evening mayor kelvin and members of the city council it's a little hard to follow Mr Kenneth Henry Kenneth did a good job, you can tell why he is good with the public so. Kevin McGowan, Thanks Kenneth so again i'm Kevin mcgowan with the Sausalito public works department, I do have a presentation to share it's only a few slides and so let me share my screen at this point. All right. |
| 02:03:19.89 | Kevin McGowan | There we go. Can you see my screen? That's slightly green and says supplemental funding sources. |
| 02:03:26.03 | Mayor Kelman | I don't know how you didn't make your first screen, show me the money. So thank you, but I'm excited to hear from this. |
| 02:03:33.19 | Kevin McGowan | Okay, sounds great. All right, this evening, as I mentioned, I have a short presentation regarding The pursuit of supplemental funding sources or grants for the City of Sausalito. City of Sausalito has been aggressive in the past in acquiring grant funding. Many of our more complex projects and large projects require multiple funding sources in order to design and construct Our parks projects and some roadway projects require funding from not just state, but federal sources and local sources as well in order to implement. |
| 02:04:13.52 | Kevin McGowan | Many of our large capital projects here in Sausalito need exterior funding. External funding, same thing, sorry. External funding can come from a myriad of sources but are usually acquired through grants. Projects such as the Gate 6 intersection improvement project had more than nine separate funding sources from the state, the county and federal. federal agencies. Thank you. Grant funding can be applied to planning projects, design projects, as well as construction. At this time, we have two capital projects that have grant funding for the design development portion of their work, which are shown here as Coloma Street and the Bridgeway bike lanes. While projects such as Coloma Street Sidewalk project have some funds for both construction and design, other projects such as the Bridgeway Bike Lane project only have funds allocated to develop the design portion of the project. Construction funds will need to be acquired if we want to pursue that project specifically. |
| 02:05:24.90 | Kevin McGowan | Over the last several months, city staff have been pursuing additional funding for our capital projects. These funding sources include applying for active trans active transportation program funding or ATP funding. One Bay Area grant funding, and that's on the third cycle, and highway safety improvement program funding called H-SIP. Most grant funding has a project selection process, such as not... Let me start again. I'm so sorry. Most grant funding has a project selection process, such that not all applications are approved for funding. For example, OBAG III funding is a federal program in which projects are evaluated At the local level through TAM, which is the Transportation Authority of Marin, and then further evaluated at the regional level through MTC. this competitive process tends to limit our success in securing all grant funds for our projects. So we have to be competitive. That means with not just our sister cities here in Marin County, but sometimes throughout the entire state and throughout the entire U.S. Regardless of the evaluation criteria, Sausalito staff has had submitted applications for these funds and will continue to search out funds to support our projects. Most of our current applications have related to transportation projects. However, other funding sources have also been pursued. City staff will be presenting an item to the council in a future meeting requesting direction on whether to proceed with the installation of EV stations or electrification stations for vehicles in three parking facilities here in town. This project is partially funded by grants from the RIN Clean Energy, as well as the Transportation Authority of Marin, otherwise known as TAM. In addition, other groups such as the sea level rise task force have been pursuing additional funding to address sea level rise mitigation here in Sausalito. It's my understanding that Mayor Kalman was recently informed by Assemblyman Levine's office that recent litigation may provide the city with a grant in the amount of $1 million. Hopefully I've got that right. Maybe. |
| 02:08:06.93 | Mayor Kelman | No litigation at all. |
| 02:08:10.31 | Kevin McGowan | Measure is changed. |
| 02:08:10.34 | Mayor Kelman | Legends of the World. |
| 02:08:12.90 | Kevin McGowan | It was legislation. Sorry, I misread my notes. |
| 02:08:19.49 | Kevin McGowan | Yeah, I am so sorry. No problem. The city utilizes a process to identify capital projects to be initiated. The capital improvement program, which is included in the annual budget, is updated annually. in compliance with the strategic plan goals for the of the council and is in compliance with the overall general plan for the city. Staff's recent efforts to acquire grant funding for projects has been centered around current projects listed on the capital improvement program, which lack construction funding, or that may have scope changes as the designs are developed. City staff, with the help of our consultant, have concentrated on seeking funding to replace the signal system at Easterby, which was damaged in a wind event. acquiring additional funding for the Coloma Street Project. And the Bridgeway Bike Lane project. All these projects have been initiated in the design portion of the work. The city is one of these, the Bike Lane project, the city is still waiting for ABAG to approve the design grant at their level. We've signed off on it at our level and it's still within their process. Changes to projects, including the scope of work, do happen as they are developed. An example is the Coloma Street sidewalk project, which which we received requests from several community members to change the scope slightly and extend the sidewalk all the way up to a Lima Street. Staff has submitted multiple applications to address this request and other improvements that could be accomplished with additional funding. There are many, there may also be other opportunities to seek out grant funding for projects currently in the CIP. The Bridgeway Improvement Projects between Napa and San Carlos is currently being studied by our consultant. We anticipate that improvements within this section of Bridgeway will be needed. However, staff did not know of the precise improvements needed in this corridor because the study hasn't been completed. In order to submit for a grant application, we have to know kind of what we want to build. And so we didn't get a chance to submit for additional funding for that specific project. Other active projects on the CIP may be viable projects to receive outside funding sources, and staff will continue to make efforts to identify, apply, and possibly receive funds to support these type of projects. |
| 02:11:16.08 | Kevin McGowan | While staff has concentrated on current CIP project deficiencies, meaning we just don't have money to construct certain projects. There may be other opportunities to secure outside funding, depending upon aligning projects with available or new grants becoming available. Some of these projects have been raised multiple times through subcommittees such as PBAC and others. I wanted to kind of run through a few of these on the screen. And for instance, the Gate 5 flood control project. Now, we have flooding down on Gate 5 Road, especially when we have higher tides. This is a type of project that I believe would be a viable project to seek out some type of funding to study it, design it, and then implement some construction for this specific roadway in order to address sea level rise, as well as any other flooding that may be in the area. The Ferry Landing or Ferry Landside Project Phase 2 might be a viable project for receiving grant funding as well. We have to know what we want to build specifically if there are improvements that are needed. So at this point, we don't know exactly what the phase two work is to be performed, but it may be a viable project to seek out grant funds. We've also recently Thank you. moved forward with the Marinship Park and closing that off and moving the encampment. The Marinship Park may be a viable park to receive some type of grant fundings in order to address maybe improvements there. And I think that the Parks Commission may be kind of looking at that and finding out what they might want to do with this specific park. local water storage so as everybody knows over the last several years we've been having a drought And I'm not too sure that everybody knows that Sausalito in many years past was known for having springs. Well, we do have a spring street. there might be a good opportunity to put in some type of storage facility so that we could utilize some of that spring water that tends to go into the bay and kind of water our medians and water our grasses. and not really rely on MMWD. in some cases. So this may be another opportunity to seek out some grant funding to implement these type of projects that will help the city of Sausalito. Our Pedestrian Bicycle Advisory Committee has also brought up many other projects having to do with the Gateway Project, which is the connection for a bike path from Gate 6 all the way to downtown to Anchor Street. So there are different segments of that project, which would probably be very viable for grant funding. One of those, as I just mentioned before, is the Bridgeway bike lane extension from Napa to PROJECT, WHICH WOULD PROBABLY BE VERY VIABLE FOR GRANT FUNDING. ONE OF THOSE, AS I JUST MENTIONED BEFORE, IS THE BRIDGEWAY BIKE LANE EXTENSION FROM NAPA TO SAN CARLOS. AND ONCE WE KNOW MORE ABOUT THAT PROJECT, WE CAN IDENTIFY WHAT TYPE OF FUNDING WE COULD PROBABLY GO AFTER. Pursuing grant funding is exceptionally labor intensive. Grants from the federal government require each receiving agency to comply with rigid paperwork requirements. For multiple applications, staff has utilized the services of California Consulting to assist with preparing and submitting applications. If we do end up receiving funding for any of our projects staff also recommends utilizing a consultant. who can specifically address the many forms, details, and requirements required for each grant. This can include external audits and reviews of our actions or decisions for a specific project many years after it was completed. Requirements change between all state and federal agencies and having a consultant who is familiar with these requirements is really essential. In addition, most grants require a local agency to fiscally participate in a project or program. The level of participation is dictated by each grant. For instance, most of our transportation grants are around 12% of a local match. However, some other grants that we may acquire may require 50% of local funds to be matched to it. Okay, a few more comments. In order to receive grant funding, we need to, on occasion, modify our project to fit the grant. Grant funding from state and federal sources are geared towards alternative modes of travel or may be geared towards addressing hazard mitigations Identifying projects that fit into these categories is part of the process And it is important to identify construction that can encompass improvements that benefit multiple users and address multiple issues. Applying for grants, receiving grant funding, and complying with requirements for those grants is very staff intensive. Utilizing consultants to support staff with processing the necessary paperwork is a cost effective effort. Grant funds do require local funds, as I mentioned before, most transportation requires 12% match, while others can have much higher. This local commitment should be considered when prioritizing which projects are most important to the city to pursue. City staff will continue to pursue additional grant funding for our capital projects as directed by your council. And this concludes my short presentation, and I welcome all of your comments as always, and thank you for your time this evening. |
| 02:17:35.13 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you, Director McGowan. My apologies, I should have also shared with you, I think you know this, The California Coastal Conservancy in coordination with the San Francisco Eshray Institute. applied to the San Francisco Bay Restoration Authority for funds for pilot projects in Sausalito. And in fact, off the coast of Dunphy Park, we have wave attenuation mechanisms called artificial oyster reefs. And they are there now. They were actually designed and built in Sausalito in Marinship. and deployed off our coast with monies, uh, from the state and the corporate agencies. And Kevin, you and your department were very helpful in making that happen, so thank you. |
| 02:18:13.66 | Kevin McGowan | Thank you. Let's not go eat those oysters though. They're not the right eating oysters. |
| 02:18:17.28 | Mayor Kelman | Yeah, they're artificial. Yeah, I wouldn't do that. |
| 02:18:23.53 | Mayor Kelman | Yes, please, city manager. |
| 02:18:26.48 | Chris Zapata | Thank you, Mayor, before the council dives in, add a little more information to Kevin's presentation. And I appreciated the focus on infrastructure, infrastructure, infrastructure. But I also wanted to speak to some of the obvious attempts to bring other resources in the Sausalito, including those by this council. Tonight, you accepted a grant from the county at measure A which is about $67,000, which doesn't sound like much, but it helps our cause. And the intent to use that for Restoration Marinship Park is right. I also wanted to acknowledge that the city council had asked the county of Marin for help with respect to the homelessness challenge and was successful last cycle in getting 167,000. dollars and then requested one and a half million dollars. The county has made a commitment in their budget 500,000 of that. So that's 667,000 total that Marin County will be providing to Sausalito that isn't paid for by the city taxpayers. The other part is there is an ask that the council has made through the county with respect to homelessness that involves the state and we're waiting word on that. And that's a significant amount of funding to kind of create some backfill to the money that has been committed to address the homelessness challenge in our city. So those are a couple of areas that I believe are important for the public to, to have information on. Thank Kevin for his work and the council for giving the direction to hire us in grant writing resources. |
| 02:20:06.38 | Unknown | So, |
| 02:20:06.46 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 02:20:06.48 | Unknown | So, |
| 02:20:06.55 | Ian Sobieski | you |
| 02:20:06.63 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:20:08.47 | Chris Zapata | And, you know, we continue to learn a little more about what their capabilities are and what ours are, but we find that the resources sorely needed in this community because we have a lot of needs and certainly we have applications in We'll see what fruit they bear. So thank you. |
| 02:20:27.42 | Mayor Kelman | Thanks, Chris. Chris, my understanding from Senator McGuire's office that the number that could come to us from the combined state and county could be as high as 1.2. It was $2 million divided by three communities from the state. And that's 667,000 for each community. And then the county committed to Senator McGuire that they would do a match. So it could actually be a closer 1.2. But thank you for that. |
| 02:20:52.33 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:20:52.47 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. |
| 02:20:52.67 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:20:52.77 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. |
| 02:20:52.82 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:20:52.89 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 02:20:53.70 | Unknown | Yeah, I also wanted to acknowledge and thank you, Director McGowan for that presentation. It was great and for your work on our grants and also thank you City Manager Zapata. I wanted to make sure we acknowledge the work that Age Friendly Sausalito and Civil Batelier has done on getting us a number of really fantastic grants for our community. She has a grant for Tai Chi for arthritis, a grant for breath respiro excursions, an Age Friendly Walking College grant. |
| 02:21:00.85 | Unknown | city managers and |
| 02:21:19.79 | Unknown | an evaluation planning and conference grants, And she's gotten over almost $90,000 in grant funding between some of it to be shared between Sausalito and Marin City, but that's just for this year's budget. So I wanted to acknowledge the hard work of our age-friendly rep, Sybil, as well in being a part of bringing the grants forward. Thank you. |
| 02:21:40.73 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. That's awesome. Yeah. Thank you, Sybil. Councillor McLean-Clevin-Norso. |
| 02:21:46.74 | Janelle Kellman | Thank you, Mayor. Well, while we're thanking people, I also just wanted to thank our voters and our constituents in Sausalito for having contributed through Measure O for so many years. to our infrastructure improvements throughout town. that money has gone to a lot of really important projects, including helping renovate some of our parks and stormwater and other important places. If we're thanking people, I'd like to thank the people who pay taxes in Sausalito. Second, I also wanted to, I was going to do this during committee reports, but I'll do The project that Sausalito was applying for, the Bridgeway Bike Project Princess Richardson advanced, made an important advancement on yesterday at a committee meeting. I was in the Funding Programs and Legislation Committee. It was one of the top seven projects. that will move forward to the full tambour to be considered And for our for funding and The final call will be with MTC, but that's north of $500,000 for the actual construction of that project. And And then I just had a quick QUESTION, I'LL KEEP YOU ALL UPDATED IF THAT IS RECOMMENDED BY THE FULL TAM BOARD AS WELL. I had a question, I think for our city manager, which is, I was wondering if we could just get a practical update on sort of how much of our budget that we have spent so far on our consultants. and kind of where we are in their contract. Um, I think it was a fixed contract and not as needed, but maybe you could just remind us where we are. |
| 02:23:41.25 | Mayor Kelman | You want to speak to that now, city manager? |
| 02:23:43.04 | Chris Zapata | I want to say I'll get with Vivian when she gets back in the office next week. and provide an update to the Council on where we are with that contract. |
| 02:23:52.44 | Janelle Kellman | Okay, great. Thank you. And then just in terms of one thing, I think a lot of the projects that are moving forward and Director McGowan mentioned are fantastic and all deserve attention. I do wonder if it would be helpful to have some kind of to go back over a strategic plan or other priority setting process to really highlight a few of these that we as a council want to try to focus on and move forward, I just seem. Like, a huge variety of things and too much to get to the kind of shovel ready stage, which is what a lot of funding So it seems like we're very far along. For example, we've had several meetings about the Ferry Plaza, improvement project phase two, you know, that's one that's already fairly far along. Any case, I don't, we don't need to have that discussion tonight, but that might be, Right. a helpful discussion to figure out from staff which projects they think are most promising for staff time and resources and funding opportunities and then to have kind level setting. I know we can't move all these fantastic ideas that Kevin mentioned tonight forward simultaneously. So I think we could benefit from some priority setting. And then lastly, I just wanted to add to Kevin's list. I guess I'm contradicting myself, but if we're looking at water storage, I would love to look at gray water. And I think there's a lot of funding and resources available for that for watering our parks and mediums and things as well. So not to subtract from from your idea, but to just add another possibility onto that. |
| 02:25:56.38 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. |
| 02:25:56.40 | Janelle Kellman | Bye. |
| 02:25:57.23 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you for that, Councillor Clifford Knowles. I'm excited to hear about the money also coming out of TAM for EV chargers and even working really hard on that. It's been a priority for this council, so thank you for your efforts there. I also want to thank the council just in general, because I think we've really elevated infrastructure as a group since this time that we've been together. And so I'm gonna make a plug. There's so much money out there under the climate bills for projects that are infrastructure. And I think if you have a project, Director McGowan, and we're not quite sure how to fund it, I'm betting you that at the state or the federal level, there is money, right? I think you guys all know lawmakers approved a budget in California that had $54 billion over five years on climate programs. And that's $6.1 billion for electric vehicles. That's $14.5 billion for transit and port projects, cleanup and stabilizing the grid. reducing wildfire risk. I think there was something like almost 3 billion water programs to deal with drought. And that's just state monies. And at the federal level, the Inflation Reduction Act has just a crazy amount of money. That's almost... $369 billion. And that's for clean energy manufacturing, creating factories for the manufacturing, energy retrofits, home appliances, new zoning ordinances, all that stuff is here. And we just have to, if we have this framework of infrastructure, I think you'll see that the climate funds actually offer a lot of opportunities. I'm excited to see how we make those work. And then on the sea level rise monies, which came out of the budget, that's a million dollars for sea level rise mitigation, and it will enable us to get two or three projects to what Susan was referring to as shovel ready. |
| 02:27:34.09 | Unknown | it. |
| 02:27:34.33 | Mayor Kelman | The big problem with funding and grants is that in order to apply for a grant, you have to have something that should have already. And so historically, the state hasn't funded planning. But now these new climate monies actually allow you to plan so you can get to shovel ready. So that's really exciting. And that should come in at the end of the year, if not beginning in January. Anyone else want to highlight a priority or something that they're excited about in a funding realm? You don't have to, yeah. |
| 02:28:01.83 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah, I think you guys covered it. It's, yeah, very exciting right now. There's a lot of money for infrastructure, especially electric vehicles, electric marine vehicles, Enterprises is super exciting for what's going on down in our working waterfront and how we can support that and maybe new areas to expand into. So those are things that we're looking at and that, you know, we're pursuing with, especially with regard to the inflation reduction act and some of those subsidies and support. So it's a good time. It's exciting time, I think. |
| 02:28:34.76 | Mayor Kelman | So they have |
| 02:28:34.81 | Jill Hoffman | So never. Thank you. |
| 02:28:35.26 | Mayor Kelman | So, |
| 02:28:35.35 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 02:28:35.43 | Mayor Kelman | All right. |
| 02:28:35.58 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah. |
| 02:28:35.60 | Mayor Kelman | Yeah. Let's take a pause from council comments. And I do see someone from the public has his hand up. Hello, Kieran. And, Serge, will you please enable? Curanza, Mike. |
| 02:28:47.45 | Serge Avila | Sure, Madam Mayor, he's been unmuted and has to share his video. |
| 02:28:50.03 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:28:51.14 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. |
| 02:28:51.16 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:28:51.19 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. |
| 02:28:51.23 | Unknown | Greetings, sir. Thank you. Good evening. Yeah, I just want to be an add-on to kind of all of the praise here. and encourage continued energy for this one. Just city managers action to get this going has been awesome. Watching Public Works, Director McGowan, identifying opportunities, getting the ball rolling. It just feels like there's a lot coming together here in terms of City Council momentum. staff. energy. having the right consultants on board. There's money out there and we need it. I don't know if you all saw it, but in the Marin IJ, A couple of weeks ago, there was a highlight on a recent study calling out a number of the most dangerous intersections in all of Marin. And four bridgeway intersections were on that list, like pretty high in the top 25. That was at Napa, at Litho, Caledonia, and Princess. So we have a lot of safety hotspots. We need your support for these programs. We need to go seek those monies. There's a lot of good energy. underway. you know, thanks to city manager, thanks to director McGowan, But we need to go get those funds. I just really want to see the energy continue on this. I am really happy where we are, but you know, realistically, it's probably years of continued momentum to really see all of the concrete being poured and changes that we need to do to make it a safer environment. and This applies to all sorts of categories like sea level rise. I know transport bass. especially bicycles and pedestrians, But we have so many things that position us really well to go after these funds. We're a transit thoroughfare, the only non-motorized link between San Francisco and Moran. We have an opportunity to benefit our neighbors in a priority development area that is Marin City. which can be a big boost in qualifying criteria. That's especially applies to stuff in the northern part of our town. So tons of goodness there. the the topic that Susan mentioned. that is getting approved by TAM to be on the short list to receive funds. Like that was our first attempt to seek funding on that. And I believe we were like the fourth highest ranked in the entire county. and the top ranked of something that wasn't in a priority development area. So it's like, wow, right? Like we have a lot of things that can rank highly that can get these funds. And that was just on our first shot. So imagine everything else we can accomplish Thank you. Let's keep going. And that's all I've got. |
| 02:31:18.86 | Mayor Kelman | Thanks, Karen. Thank you, Rasta, for your endless hours of volunteering and getting pulled in, too. Many different projects. Appreciate it. |
| 02:31:25.61 | Serge Avila | Yeah. |
| 02:31:27.10 | Mayor Kelman | Okay, Serge, anybody else with their hand up from the public? |
| 02:31:30.37 | Serge Avila | Madam Mayor, we have Pat. Zouk and Patrick. |
| 02:31:34.42 | Mayor Kelman | No? I'm not. |
| 02:31:39.69 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:31:40.74 | Unknown | Hi, I do want to Congratulations. |
| 02:31:45.76 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:31:48.25 | Unknown | So she could pause the Yeah, so I'm sorry. There's a bit of feedback going on. Anyway, I think it's all very exciting about the potential for grant money and the opportunity of the city to fund needed projects with the |
| 02:31:49.80 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. |
| 02:31:49.83 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 02:31:50.15 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. |
| 02:32:03.16 | Unknown | Other people's money, so to speak. But I would like to raise a slight concern, or maybe even more than a slight concern. I hope that the projects you do. embark upon are projects that the community as a whole can get behind. I will point out, I know Susan Cleveland Knowles mentioned the elimination, although she didn't mention it. in these words, the elimination of the center median between Princess and Richardson Street. as one item that she was supportive of. I think that may be a project that should have reached out to see whether or not the community actually supports it. um, There are many projects that the community will overwhelmingly support. I am not sure that a couple of those mentioned in the report by Mr. McGowan. are necessarily those that would garner that level of acclaim. I hope you focus on the ones that do. Thanks. |
| 02:33:05.35 | Mayor Kelman | Right. |
| 02:33:06.26 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:33:06.27 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you, Pat. I see Director McGowan's hand is back up. |
| 02:33:13.82 | Kevin McGowan | Thank you. I wouldn't mind responding to that last comment. Next Monday, we are having a PBAC meeting. And as a discussion item, we are discussing that specific project and some of the merits associated with it. The idea is to try to involve some of our business owners as well and have them participate in the meeting so that we can really talk about some of the details of whether this project will really work. So to answer the last commenter's comment is we are trying to reach out to the general public in this specific area and to get some feedback on how we can make this project work. Thank you. |
| 02:33:58.08 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you, Director McGowan. Councilman of Cleveland, Osborne. |
| 02:34:01.69 | Janelle Kellman | Yeah, just to add on to that, I think what's exciting is that Director McGowan and partners various bike and active transportation organizations, we're able to secure a grant to do public outreach and design and planning work. So that's the phase that we're in right now. and no particular design has been agreed on, but I don't think there's any disagreement that that corridor needs significant improvement from a safety perspective for everyone who uses it. So that's the phase it's in right now. um So hopefully, Any members of the public who want to weigh in on that project can do so. |
| 02:34:49.70 | Mayor Kelman | Bye. Thank you for that explanation and clarification. Okay, well, I'm going to go ahead and close public comment. Any last insight or comments from council before we move on? Just say again, thank you to the city manager and Director McGowan for pursuing this. And we talked about it and then you did it, which is exemplary. So thank you for making that happen. Okay, great. Well then move on then to item six now. This is the time of the agenda for members of the public to provide any public comment for items that are not on the agenda. Except in limited situations, state law precludes the council from taking action on or engaging in discussions concerning items of business that are not in the agenda. However, the Council may briefly respond to statements made or questions posed by a member of the public. ask clarifying questions, make a brief announcement, or refer matters not on the agenda to city staff or direct that the subject be agendas for a future meeting. Please keep your comments respectful and focused, and we want to listen to any individual who would like to chime in and contribute tonight. So we'll go ahead and open this back up for public comment for items not on the agenda. And I do see one hand. |
| 02:35:49.47 | Serge Avila | Madam Mayor, we have unmuted Daria Seed and- Please go ahead with your comments. |
| 02:35:58.99 | Durya Syed | I'm sorry I'm unable to get my camera on, but, you know, My name is Durya Syed and I am a an outreach analyst for the Department of Insurance. I'm calling in today to present to you an update on the work we have been doing on your behalf. it's a wildfire season. So I want to touch bases on from wildfire framework and interagency partnership between insurance commissioners Ricardo Lara. and the emergency response and readiness agencies in Governor Newsom's administration. Its purpose is to protect lives, homes, and businesses by reducing wildfire risk. We are working with CAL FIRE, CAL OES, the Governor's Office of Planning and Research, and the California Public Utilities Commission. with California experiencing devastating wildfires intensified by climate change. Homes and businesses need insurance they can rely on. So basically, this is a ground-up approach. from wildfire resilience, which has three layers. Number one, protect the structure, just as making sure your roof vents are up to good. Number two, the immediate surroundings, such as the brush too close to your home, or any flammable items stored under your deck. And number three, the community. to involve your entire community. to prevent wildfires from catching and spreading. |
| 02:37:27.75 | Unknown | you |
| 02:37:28.01 | Durya Syed | This includes enhancing infrastructure and programs like FireWise. |
| 02:37:28.04 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:37:33.46 | Durya Syed | So I just wanted to know that, give you a good news that The commissioner submitted their plans and we are hoping that this will be in work by January 2023. But in general, I just want to come and remind you that I'm your outreach analyst for years. and any need that you have from the Department of Insurance We are here, go on our website. Call us on our hotline 800-927-4357 And our dedicated staff of experts will help you Step by step. how to complain, how to do everything, So I just want to also note that if we are unable to answer your call right away, I'll call back. Time is two minutes. So we just want you and your constituents to take into regards that we are here to help. |
| 02:38:25.18 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you very much. |
| 02:38:27.95 | Serge Avila | Our next speaker is Kevin Carroll. Kevin, you've been unmuted and asked to share your video. |
| 02:38:36.42 | Kevin Carroll | I'll pass on the video. I sent a letter in under public comment, which Serge has just republished. And I hope you had a chance to read it. It's about the fact that we're in transit having a very severe driving shortage and Muirwood shuttle is the last on their list. for assignments. In June, July, and August, over 125 trips a month were missed. because they just didn't have the drivers for it. And this month, even with the reduced weekend only schedule, 33% of the trips have been canceled. because most of those drivers had to go back to school buses, and I guess they won't work weekends. This has a real dramatic effect on Um, Sausalito because they're running two routes, one out of Larkspur Ferry Terminal for people who bring their cars and the ones for downtown Sausalito. Just to remind you that when they cut restarted service after COVID, They only went with the parking lot and not with the Larchsburg Ferry. which obviously benefits the city of Sausalito much more so than either the Pahono lot or the Larkspur fairy lot. So it's just something I thought you should be aware of. And if you have any questions, chance to influence the transit board. And if they are going to cut it back to just one service, either parking lots, or ferry service that we do be given a priority since it is an important part of our business. Thank you. |
| 02:40:18.56 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you, Kevin. Appreciate that. Any other members of the public wish to speak to an item that was not on the agenda? |
| 02:40:25.23 | Serge Avila | And Madam Mayor, I see no other hands raised. |
| 02:40:28.15 | Mayor Kelman | OK, we'll go ahead and close public comment for item six and moving on to Council Member Committee reports. Anybody wish to share anything from a committee? Yes, Vice Mayor. |
| 02:40:38.93 | Unknown | It's not from a committee, but I wanted to share out that Councilmember Hoffman and City Manager Zapata and I attended the League of Cities Conference in Long Beach, California, this past week Wednesday through Friday. It was a really interesting and informative event with council members and city managers from all across the state. Councilmember Hoffman and I attended sessions on things like homelessness, EV infrastructure, failing infrastructure, how to receive grant funding, and then of course also walk the expo where there were a lot of really great new products and ideas that we might adopt in our town. So I just wanted to report out that that was a great success. We were also able to liaise with some other really interesting and motivated North Bay council members. So there were representatives from a number of the towns throughout Marin and Sonoma. And so it was a great chance for us to all be together. So thanks to Council Member Hoffman for joining on that trip and to City Manager Zapata and you were Ms. Merkelman. |
| 02:41:34.94 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. And thank you for going in my seat. I'm sorry to miss it. I missed my swearing in as the new VP for. Southern Marin. I'm excited to hear more. Yeah, council member Sobieski. |
| 02:41:47.21 | Ian Sobieski | and last night's Parks and Recreation Commission meeting. it was announced that the celebrate the opening of Southview Park will occur on this coming next Sunday, the 25th, or this coming Sunday. Is it this or next? I guess it's. next Sunday, the 25th. of September. So keep an eye out for that. It's been a long going project and I know it's near and dear to many people's hearts, especially my colleague Susan Cleveland-Knowles. So maybe she wants to say something about it. before she does, I would just add on that, uh, At that commission meeting, the city manager put to the commission the thought of playing around with the, reopening of Marin Ship Park. So as we know, the encampment at Marin Ship Park has been closed. That park is fenced off and not available to the public currently. There is a great deal of desire to get it reopened and an intention to do so with the tennis courts, though we've received a lot of inbound email about pickleball courts there. So that subject about tennis and pickleball is one that the commission is going to wrestle with. And then more broadly, since the surface of the park needs to be resurfaced, City manager invited the Commission, it up of residents to brainstorm and think, solicit feedback from their friends and neighbors about any other ideas on how the new Marinship Park should look. So if you wish to have input in that discussion, find a commission member and convey your opinion. or get the ball. |
| 02:43:23.38 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you for that. Thank you for that update. that's what happened. |
| 02:43:27.33 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah, this is just a little addendum to the what council member or sorry, the vice mayor was saying about the League of Cities. There were two particularly good presentations that that that I went to, one of which the vice mayor was at also. and they were on cannabis and the other one was on homelessness. And I was wondering, you know, Maybe she and I can get together and do a summary of the presentations, the most impactful presentations we went to, and then we can get the the slides for those. So and get those to the rest of the council, because there was some really good information and discussions that were put out. And I think it's too bad the rest of the council couldn't have been there. I know it's hard to get there and it's always a busy time, but the presentations are usually really, really good. And so I was just going to throw that out and offer up to do that. |
| 02:44:16.25 | Mayor Kelman | I think, |
| 02:44:20.45 | Mayor Kelman | that. Oh, that'd be great. Thank you for that offer. I have a community report for a committee that I'm not on, but it's a gift to, Councilmember Cleveland Halls and Councilmember Szymanski, I met a woman in Ross who is leading their Rule 20B charge for undergrounding. apparently already sorted out, how do you apply for it? How do you create an undergrounding district? How do you engage PG&E on it? And since we haven't quite seen PG&E give us the guidebook we asked for, I'm going to meet with her and facilitate a conversation with you guys as the committee. And hopefully we can leverage her knowledge and her learning already. So I just want to let you know that hopefully that will be useful, and I will then send it on to you guys. Great. Okay, any other community reports? All right, well then we will move on to item 8A, which is public comments on items 8A through 8E. Do we have, pardon me, and those are the city manager reports, the city council appointments, and other council business. Any public comment on the items under eight? |
| 02:45:32.54 | Serge Avila | Madam Mayor, there are no hands raised. |
| 02:45:34.46 | Mayor Kelman | Okay, public comment is closed and we'll turn over to the city manager. |
| 02:45:43.98 | Chris Zapata | city manager update to the council. Is that where we are, Mayor? |
| 02:45:47.15 | Mayor Kelman | Yes, sir. |
| 02:45:48.03 | Chris Zapata | Wonderful. I have two that I'd like to cover with the council and the community. The first one being the status of our workforce. There's a lot going on with respect to positions filled. We've recently filled eight positions, but I want to give you a list of what we're recruiting for right now. Starting last week, chief building official, code enforcement official and Sustainability Programs Coordinator. I was with your approval. Before that we've had open recruitments that involve public works division manager, a senior accountant, some recreation staff, I wanna report that we made an offer today to the Community Development Director There's got to be community and economic development director. Let me rephrase that. There's gotta be some background and some reference checks going on, but we're hopeful that the, The position will be filled by a director in that role. by mid October. So that's important. Human Resources Manager. As you know, we've had a contract person on with Deborah Muchmore who's responsible for all of this work and doing a great job. And we're recruiting police recruits We are looking at parking enforcement officers recreation leaders in multiple sports, and then some wastewater collection systems worker as well. So there's a lot going on in terms of, you know, rebuilding your organization. I think we're optimistic about getting them filled. We feel very positive that, you know, with the work that has been done and trying to get to a good faith agreement with our bargaining units, that there will be some fruit born from that, that, you know, we'll be able to stabilize the organization in a way that, hasn't been as of the last couple of years. That's one report on the personnel side. And then I want to end with some good news. Our own Abbott Chambers is being recognized on the 23rd of September by the Spirit of his impact and his exemplary public service. So, you know, I'm sure all of you would love to be there. We've sent out, request that you fill our table We obviously would love to see council people there. We will invite folks like the Library Commission and see if we can get people there to celebrate Abbott, our Abbott, because he's pretty phenomenal. as I said, an exemplary public servant and you should be proud to have him in this community as a resident. as well as in our organization as a leader. That concludes my report on mayor and council. |
| 02:48:26.84 | Mayor Kelman | Great. Thank you for that, Chris. Great news all around. Eight positions is a lot of hard work. So thank you for that. Excited to hear about the new community development and economic development position. And of course, congratulations to Abbott. Look forward to cheering him on and celebrating him, I think it's next Friday, the 29th, I think is the date. So I hope others can join as well. Any questions for the city manager on his report? Okay, so then we'll move on to our next- |
| 02:48:57.45 | Ian Sobieski | I might just ask, if you don't mind, |
| 02:48:59.88 | Mayor Kelman | Hello? |
| 02:49:02.12 | Ian Sobieski | emphasized it there, city manager. I'm wondering if you could elaborate a little on the job description for the the new hire in the Community Development Department and Economic Development Officer, just so the community gets that headline. |
| 02:49:14.75 | Chris Zapata | Thank you. Yes, Councilman, thank you. One of the things that has really been apparent to me as I walked into this job was there was a real need for some revamping of the community development department and stabilizing of it. Unfortunately, we haven't had that be the case. We've gone through not one, not two, but three different leaderships. and on our fourth right now. So the current contract we have with Four Leaf, which has an opportunity for us to... to go on further, but you know, I think that we need an in-house person that's, Thank you. part of the team that is in a contract person. Although Dan has done a good job, we need to move into a position that is full time in Sausalito and is permanent and not contractual. So that's been part of the thought. In that process, and I said this to the economic development advisory committee yesterday, you know, hiring a an economic development person is a necessity in this city, given the need to recruit, retain and grow the business space that we have here. And in Sausalito's case, you know, I'm a little flummoxed by, you know, the idea that there hasn't really been a whole lot of emphasis on that. It's more planning, building code enforcement, building type services and economic development has kind of been kind of I think absent. So, so this position, the person that we looked at in recruiting and building the job description, we made sure that there was an economic development component in that. And so as we went through the process, we think we had, you know, really two really strong candidates and the candidate that we are made the offer to. And once it passes all of the background checks and the life scan and those things will bring some really strong economic development experience to the city. And, you know, he'll need to be supplemented with some help on the on the planning side. But but as I've said to a few of you, we have good planners. We have not one, not two, but three. in house and we don't have anybody that's really working on the business side or the economic development side. And so this person will bring those skill sets to that. And we're excited, you know, I think it's long overdue. I was kind of a head scratcher when I got here. but I see it as a real deficiency and a gap and we're about to fill that so Thank you for the opportunity to express that council member. |
| 02:51:51.70 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you, Chris. It's really hard work and very forward thinking. So I know I appreciate that and other council members Let me also correct myself. The spirit of Marin, if you want to go. is on the 23rd of September, not the 29th. Okay, so we normally would move on to boards and commission update. Pardon me, Appointment Supports Commission's Committee. So we have none at this time, and we're going to talk about that on a future agenda item. We'll just ease ourselves then into 8D, which is future agenda items. Does anybody have a topic they want covered and added to the list? |
| 02:52:25.17 | Ian Sobieski | I'd mentioned before, uh, in that session last time about this issue of undergrounding, uh, And I'm not sure how to handle it and really put it to my colleagues to ask. We normally do these with these working groups, but This is particularly Time sensitive, again, the 4K to 12K conversion, they had you know, an advertised target date in January. uh, I think it's beyond just the city council members and I'm wondering if we can we should consider trying to staff this effort in some way or Make sure that it's the focus, a high priority of the organization for the next three months. I'm not sure what that means. We can't talk about it now. You don't need to. but I am wondering about that issue. |
| 02:53:13.31 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. Councilman Hoffman. |
| 02:53:17.24 | Jill Hoffman | Um, Yeah, well, I would I agree with that, actually, that we need to sort of figure out what a strategy is and how we move forward, given the the deadline that we've been given from PG&E, unless they want to move that back or unless they want to adjust that deadline. And I think that's a letter from the city manager saying, you know, you came to our meeting, we didn't really have any substantive responses from you that were satisfactory. are you still planning to move forward or, you know, sort of to get the status, I think might be the first step. So, but that's just my input based on what Ian just said. My other thing was we're, we're getting, I'm seeing a lot of emails from people asking questions or concern about different parcels that are on the, housing element update. And so I think part of it is driven by a lack of understanding about what this means, if it's a considered site. And so it might be a good idea to have the consultant do a quick presentation, not to digress into everything and all the hard work that the HIAC committee is doing because they're doing a ton of work. But, and I get that, I don't want to interfere with it. I think just more of an information, a quick informational thing. This is where we're at, this is what it means. This is what it means when you're seeing these maps and parcel sites, or some way to convey that to the public so that we can refer people to that when we get emails about certain parcels that people are concerned about, because I understand, |
| 02:54:45.77 | Unknown | about it. |
| 02:54:47.22 | Jill Hoffman | And I fully, you know, I fully empathize with the concern that people have when they see large, you know, large businesses what they perceive to be large building sites next to them, not understanding how the whole process works and the timeline, the long timeline for it. I'm not sure how to do that. maybe for the HIAC working group to figure out like what does that update look like and how can we do it? It may even be a video from the consultant saying this is what this means when we post it on consent. And then we can send that link to people when they send us an email about their concern about a certain parcel that's on the I don't know, I'm just trying to know how we can react to people who are concerned about these things and get the word out. |
| 02:55:34.72 | Janelle Kellman | Thank you, Councilmember. Councillor Cleland also? Yeah, thank you, Mayor and thank you, Councilmember Hoffman. That was one of the items I was going to raise as well. I saw that on our possible agenda. for September 20th. I have already... conveyed sort of my thoughts to Mayor Kallman on this, but I would like to stick to our published schedule for the HIAC, I mean, that whole housing element, which had very targeted times for city council meetings. But I do strongly agree that there is a lot of there are a lot of questions. and that we should either do an FAQ. I love the idea of a video, if it's easy and self-explanatory, or perhaps an FAQ with video. for people who input information differently. But I do worry that having a hearing at this particular point in time will be more confusing then it will be helpful because we are in the 90-day comment period on our draft Bye. housing element and we have a particular point in time to take information on the sites and this meeting that we would have would not be it. And I think it would be long and arduous and we would not be in the decision making. capacity and I think it would actually be very frustrating to people. So I love the idea of the video. Maybe the mayor and I can to staff offline if that's the best way. I don't think interrupting our schedule to have a new city council meeting added is is really the best forum at this point. And then I wanted to just say in terms of the PG&E issue, I would be very amenable to having Um, item on the. agenda to hire, you know, as Councilmember Sobieski said to staff with an appropriate perhaps someone recommended by the person that you are going to talk to mayor or someone else, or maybe we'd have to do a quick RFQ for that. that So if we could get that on our next agenda, that would be fantastic so that we can move with this very deadline. Um, The only last thing I would mention is I think our populated meetings for the 20th and 11th look like they're... up to date, but the longer list of stuff. is very out of date. A lot of things we've already talked about. And I was just wondering, I know our city clerk is sadly moving along, but if he has time before he leaves to... |
| 02:58:15.41 | Unknown | So, |
| 02:58:18.58 | Janelle Kellman | work with the agenda setting committee to update that list. and pare it down. I think that would be helpful for us so that We're not just adding things to it. a list that's not up to date. friends. And that's it. Thank you. |
| 02:58:35.13 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you for that. |
| 02:58:36.68 | Unknown | by Spare. Thank you, Mayor Kellen. I would tend to agree with Councilmember Cleveland rules with regards to being on track with the housing element and how we address it. I love the idea of a video and a fake you as well, but I worry about the public hearing item on the housing element at this stage. So I would be supportive of a video and and an FAQ rather than moving outside of the scheduled process as we have it written. I also, based on the conversations that we had today around the grand jury report, I think we should consider looking further at our reach code and electrification as a future agenda item that's more specific for all of the elements that were discussed. We also, got a great, Well, I don't know. It depends on how you look at it. But we got an email from PG&E about potential grants that are available. And I'd like to look at, as we consider undergrounding, all of the funding that's available to us from PG&E. I don't know if the business item is necessarily the best way to do that, but it's something we should certainly consider. And then this is already on there, but just bringing it up again, that we really need to be thinking about our EV charging plan, especially with the TAM grant potentially coming through. It's something that I would like to see. We had had a lot of conversation about the pier next to the Trident and what we're going to do with that, and I don't know when we're going to be ready to have a presentation about it, but I would like to see that come up on the agenda. at some point soon as well. |
| 02:59:52.74 | Mayor Kelman | Okay. Great, thank you, everybody. We can talk offline about the pier, since it's not agendized, but I know Rotary wants to be engaged on that. And I agree with all these things. I just do want to put my two cents I'm fine with the HIAC video, but I don't think we're on schedule. And I'll tell you why. Uh, The next HIAC meeting is scheduled for Rosh Hashanah. which is the Jewish New Year, I asked the consultant to move that meeting. I haven't heard back. The meeting after that is scheduled for Indigenous Peoples Day. the 10th of October, I emailed her day and asked her to make sure that gets moved. So I just don't know how information is proceeding and in a reasonable fashion. But the thing that concerns me more is that how many, how many people are sending us these emails completely confused about the process and completely not understanding kind of what's been approved, what hasn't been approved. And that's for me, that's my failure as part of the HEAC, right? That's our failure as part of the housing element process that the community doesn't fully understand. And despite, you know, having town halls or whatnot, I still really want to make sure everybody fully understands the way the process works. And so that was the genesis of my initial request. Councilman Cleveland Knowles and I did go back and forth. I do have a series of. of FAQs, everything from what is RENA to why are we being forced to build so many units. I'm happy to have the city attorney send those as one-way communication. But I If we go to a video, which is deeply unsatisfying, but I'm willing to go with. I hope that you will allow Council Member Fluminol and I to develop a lot of those more in-depth questions so that we can make sure our community is really involved and engaged and informed, because I'm very concerned that people are still asking these questions at this stage of the game. So that's everything else fine. And I fully support that. |
| 03:01:38.65 | Ian Sobieski | I like that idea, Janelle. you and who do you say working on a video with, you know, really expletive, |
| 03:01:45.62 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. |
| 03:01:48.42 | Ian Sobieski | a real FAQ for people. You know, when I'm looking at our housing element site here, That's a lot of words. And there's just a lot of questions and the questions can then have answers in a video format and it can be a real resource for people to be directed to. We all are used to watching videos these days on YouTube to explain everything to us. So I think that's a missing element from this. in this outreach. |
| 03:02:13.09 | Mayor Kelman | and it can be circulated. So that might end up being very helpful as well. Okay, well, this is a good list. I know we have our marching orders here. Thank you everybody for the contribution. Uh, Any other special announcements, reports of significance? if not, we'll adjourn. Thanks, everybody. Have a good night. Thank you. Good night. |
| 03:02:35.77 | Unknown | Good night. |
Mark Palmer — In Favor: Represented Sustainability Commission; thanked Kenneth Henry; noted grid is getting cleaner with renewables; building electrification is necessary to meet 2030 GHG targets (28% of Sausalito emissions); urged adoption of commission's recommendations aligned with general plan. ▶ 📄
Sandra Bushmaker — Against: Advocated balancing aspirational goals with reality; cautioned against committing to lofty goals city cannot achieve due to current in-house circumstances; recommended being conservative and staying within means. ▶ 📄