| Time | Speaker | Text |
|---|---|---|
| 00:02:40.21 | Councilmember Sobieski | and see, Vegas. |
| 00:02:42.03 | Walfred Solorzano | meeting of the city council for October 11th, 2022 will be conducted telephonically through zoom and broadcast live on the city's website and cable TV channel 27. Thank you and |
| 00:03:01.44 | Councilmember Sobieski | We seem to have lost audio from you. |
| 00:03:08.76 | Councilmember Sobieski | but I think perhaps- |
| 00:03:09.17 | Walfred Solorzano | I'm not going to be here right now. |
| 00:03:10.13 | Councilmember Sobieski | Yes, there you are. Okay. |
| 00:03:14.25 | Mayor Kelman | Okay, so it sounds like we are recording, we are live streaming, and we're ready to start the meeting, correct? |
| 00:03:19.21 | Walfred Solorzano | Yes, ma'am. |
| 00:03:20.27 | Mayor Kelman | Okay, wonderful. Well, welcome everybody to Tuesday, October 11th, 2022, Sausalito City Council meeting. We'll go ahead and call the meeting to order. City Clerk, will you please call the roll? |
| 00:03:31.41 | Walfred Solorzano | Councilmember Sobieski. |
| 00:03:33.21 | Councilmember Sobieski | here. |
| 00:03:34.09 | Walfred Solorzano | Councilmember Cleveland Knowles. Yeah. Councilmember Hoffman. |
| 00:03:38.38 | Sandra Bushmaker | Here. |
| 00:03:39.09 | Walfred Solorzano | Vice Mayor Blostein. |
| 00:03:40.81 | Sandra Bushmaker | Thank you. |
| 00:03:40.82 | Mayor Kelman | here. |
| 00:03:41.55 | Walfred Solorzano | and Mayor Kalman. |
| 00:03:42.95 | Sandra Bushmaker | Here's the question. |
| 00:03:43.03 | Walfred Solorzano | you |
| 00:03:43.19 | Sandra Bushmaker | Thank you. |
| 00:03:43.79 | Walfred Solorzano | We have a quorum, all members present. Thank you. |
| 00:03:46.38 | Mayor Kelman | Great, thank you. And some of you may be wondering who that new voice is behind the camera. I'd like to introduce the community to Molly Perry. Molly is our new city clerk, so welcome Molly. Molly has many, many years of experience as a city clerk with the city of Irvine in Santa Margarita in Orange County. In 2013, she was the City Clerk of the Year for the Southern California City Clerk Association. |
| 00:04:08.48 | Molly Perry | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 00:04:08.68 | Mayor Kelman | So she's here for the next few months to cover the gap between permanent clerks as we find somebody long term. And she currently mentors city clerks around the state. And so she was a really wonderful add to our roster for now. She is a CalPERS retiree and we get to have the benefit of her knowledge. So, Molly, welcome. We are very, very happy to have you. Thank you, Mayor. Okay, we'll move on then to approval of the agenda. Do we have any changes to the agenda? Yes, Vice Mayor. Thank you. |
| 00:04:40.04 | Vice Mayor Blostein | Yeah, I would like to remove the public hearing item on the construction changes, simply because for the last two meetings, we had two reviews of the grand jury report on electrification. And if you review both the presentation and the documents, there's nothing about the reach code or electrification, and I would like an opportunity to circle back with staff. to work on that, to make sure it's included. We received some late mail and correspondence from the Sustainability Commission specifically and Sustainable Mill Valley. And I know it's critically important, but I also feel that part of our overarching discussion about the future of construction code. should include our agreements to reach and green building, which we had all spent a good deal of time discussing previously. So I just wanted to suggest that and see if others felt the same way. I don't want to waste staff's time essentially going through all of this Thank you. two to three to four times. And just, I would rather do all of our construction updates in one swoop. |
| 00:05:34.51 | Mayor Kelman | Okay, thank you, Vice Mayor. The City Councilor of Cleveland Knowles has a comment. Um, |
| 00:05:39.03 | Councilmember Cleveland Knowles | Karen Hollweg, yeah Thank you, I had the same issue when I reviewed that staff item and reached out to our. Interim Community Development Director and staff with a similar question and I'd be supportive of hearing all of our building code issues in one go, as opposed to to twice, especially they need two readings, but I'm happy to hear what staff has, but I did also have the same expectation that we'd be hearing those together. |
| 00:06:06.98 | Mayor Kelman | Thanks. Bye. Thank you for raising that. Dan? or city manager, any comments on that request? |
| 00:06:14.71 | Dan | I can understand that they need to move forward. Basically, city community development was going to work with the, building officials in Marin County to come up with the reach code. in the next couple months But this has to be done by the beginning of the year. That's why we push it now. to get out with our amendments that we've carried over year to year or every three years. Um, So it's very important that we get this, I understand working on the reach codes at the same time as this, I think we might be able to pull that off. |
| 00:06:50.28 | Vice Mayor Blostein | I understand the deadline for the reach codes is also January 1st, 2023, in terms of what the county's expectations are for adopting them. So I think the timeline should make sense. |
| 00:07:00.83 | Sergio Rudin | Yeah. |
| 00:07:02.45 | Vice Mayor Blostein | Thank you. |
| 00:07:02.46 | Jill Hoffman | Okay. Any other accounts members? Council Member Hoffman, any comments? Yeah, just a follow up. So Dan, keeping in mind what we have, you know, three meetings after this meeting before the end of the year. Do you think that's enough time to look at this with regard to the reach codes and get it back to us? Or is it better since we're on a timeline Did you say these were due by the end of, |
| 00:07:27.22 | Dan | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 00:07:27.50 | Jill Hoffman | December 31st. |
| 00:07:29.02 | Dan | Just... |
| 00:07:30.12 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:07:30.14 | Dan | Well, they all go into effect. January 1st. The state mandates the building code. If we adopt it every three years with our amendments, then we kind of bisect the state requirement that we adopt their codes and hold. Okay. |
| 00:07:48.97 | Jill Hoffman | So, |
| 00:07:50.35 | Dan | Thank you. |
| 00:07:50.37 | Jill Hoffman | My question then is, if we had, if we have the first reading tonight and adopt it, and then come back later with amendments by the end of January, is that a safer route or is it, I mean, is it just, Anyway. I don't want to overtax staff if, we have a little bit more time in January, we can just bring something back later. So that's the only that's my only concern. |
| 00:08:15.38 | Dan | Bye. I might defer to Rayleigh Glasser as well on that. to find out her experience in the past. with adopting building codes past the due date. Okay, thanks. |
| 00:08:30.89 | Reilly Glasser | Ms. Glasser, thank you. Hi, yes, Mayor, Vice Mayor, and Council Members. I'm Reilly Glasser. I am the Interim Building Official for the City of Sausalito. It's nice to meet you all. So my concern with this is that these codes are updated every three years and adopted. They If we take no action on these codes, they will go into effect regardless on January 1st of 2023 without the local amendments. So you really need to make sure that if we're gonna go the other route that you are ready to incorporate those reach codes by January 1st and that we can adopt. So it's my opinion, you might want to move forward tonight with this. And, the amendments later at a later date. |
| 00:09:16.50 | Sergio Rudin | Okay, thank you for that. Madam Mayor, I think that that in order to have these ordinance with our local amendments in effect by January 1st, you would only really have that one more meeting in October. to introduce and then you'd have to adopt the second reading at your first meeting in November, so it can be effective before the end of the year. |
| 00:09:41.76 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you, Greg. Okay, so let's circle back to the vice mayor. You've heard a couple of comments and suggestions. Would you like to continue with the suggestion? And I guess it would be on the next agenda on the 25th. What do you want to move forward? |
| 00:09:56.04 | Vice Mayor Blostein | tonight. Can staff work on the reach codes in time for it to be on the next agenda on the 25th? My concern is that the sustainability commission and myself and Councilman McLevin Knolls spent a significant amount of time. looking at the grand jury report and following trying to create a pathway to making sure we do adopt breach codes and that we are ahead of the curve on all things. climate mitigation and we're being leaders in the space. And so I worry that just by adopting these codes piecemeal, it will delay us, it won't push us to work on the reach codes. So that's, but I, and that's, but if staff can't prepare the reach codes and we don't have significant time, but we can be sure that we'll do it in January, I suppose that's okay from a staff perspective. I don't know, Councilman of Cleveland knows those are Henry's still so. |
| 00:10:44.88 | Mayor Kelman | Yeah, and let me make a suggestion then so and then we'll go to Council Member Cleveland Knowles. Perhaps it makes sense for yourself, Vice Mayor and Council Member Cleveland Knowles, who did dig into the grand jury report to craft sort of a memo to staff to help with some of your expectations about how this might roll out. And then let's take these two weeks. And if staff comes back and is able to at least in some manner and put something on the record that acknowledges these additional requirements, maybe we can start that process and jumpstart that even. And if we're in the same place as we are today, then so be it, but I like to think maybe in the next two weeks we can get a little further. So that's one option and I see that Ms. Glasser is nodding, so I appreciate that, but let's hear from the Councilman Cleveland also. |
| 00:11:29.64 | Councilmember Cleveland Knowles | Yeah, thank you, Mayor Kelman. I had a similar suggestion, probably without having to prepare a memo. I mean, we can just see, I think, |
| 00:11:37.71 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:11:40.97 | Councilmember Cleveland Knowles | It would probably be sensible if staff cannot prepare a staff report with the addition of the reach codes, that at least there would be enough information given the continuing discussion at the county and elsewhere, that we could at least have a substantive discussion about those at the same time as the proposed amendments and that we can at least give staff direction at that meeting and so at least have a staff report that has some of the information. And of course, it, stuff. wants us to, I'd be happy to work with Vice Mayor Blasdain and And to add to that, but I would think given the amount of information generated by the grand jury report that hopefully we can at least set the stage if we can't get to an ordinance. if that's amenable to everybody. I just, it does seem like these two conversations should happen. |
| 00:12:29.45 | Councilmember Sobieski | Yeah. |
| 00:12:35.66 | Councilmember Cleveland Knowles | I... at least. we should start the conversation together. And then if we need to, continue the reach codes for a longer discussion later, then we can do that. |
| 00:12:47.64 | Mayor Kelman | Yeah, that's fine with me. And if it helps, I believe that San Rafael and their sustainability director, Corey Bidoff, have made some headway on this, and Mill Valley has as well. So I'm sure if we just did a quick call around, we would have some great examples that we could jumpstart this and maybe Dan you have that. Councilmember Sobieski, do you want to chime in at all? |
| 00:13:08.60 | Mayor Kelman | All right, so it sounds like we're gonna then take off this particular item and we'll move it to the 25th. And so the vice mayor will make sure that happens. So would someone like to make a motion then with that amendment? |
| 00:13:23.86 | Vice Mayor Blostein | I move to amend the agenda and remove the public hearing item on the construction codes and postpone that until the 25th and then approve the agenda, the rest of the agenda as stated. |
| 00:13:34.54 | Molly Perry | Thank you. |
| 00:13:34.64 | Vice Mayor Blostein | Right. |
| 00:13:34.69 | Molly Perry | I'm sorry. |
| 00:13:35.51 | Vice Mayor Blostein | Okay. So please call the roll. |
| 00:13:37.02 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. Councilmember Sobieski. |
| 00:13:39.94 | Mayor Kelman | Yeah. |
| 00:13:40.11 | Councilmember Sobieski | Thanks. |
| 00:13:40.24 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. |
| 00:13:40.27 | Councilmember Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 00:13:40.64 | Walfred Solorzano | Councilmember Cleveland Knowles. |
| 00:13:45.35 | Walfred Solorzano | Councilmember Cleveland-Dales. |
| 00:13:46.69 | Mayor Kelman | Oh, she perhaps can't unmute herself. |
| 00:13:47.93 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. I mean, I think it's a good thing. Councilmember Hoffman. Yes. Vice Mayor Blavstein. |
| 00:13:50.59 | Mayor Kelman | Yes. Yes. |
| 00:13:53.42 | Walfred Solorzano | And Mayor Kelman. Yes. Thank you. And yes. |
| 00:13:56.69 | Mayor Kelman | And yes. Thanks, everybody. Okay, good conversation. Very helpful. |
| 00:13:57.69 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 00:14:00.44 | Mayor Kelman | All right, we'll move on now to special presentations or mayor's announcements. I do have one announcement. I think many of you know that there has really been a concerted effort by this community, as many others in Marin and around the country, to elevate topics of equity and racial justice. And we have a really interesting opportunity here in Sausalito through our racial justice task force, and more specifically through a project called the Tunnel Project that many of you may have heard about. that had leaders from Marin City, such as Cleetha Gaston, leaders from our community, such as Sonya Hanson, Carolyn Revell, Raylene Gorham. working to beautify that tunnel. to really connect our community in Sausalito to Marin City. And so in the interest of moving that forward, we did receive a request to help financially with that project. That project has received $8,500 from the county. They have received $50,000 from the Wren community foundation. And they have asked that the city of Sausalito also contribute $10,000. And so the Racial Justice Task Force met. And we have two things that we wanted to share with the community and with you all. One is a recommendation that we direct the city manager to, in fact, issue that financial support to the tunnel project and show our support. for connecting our communities. And the other is that the Racial Justice Task Force is going to be modified really into more of a listening committee. And so what we're anticipating is a development of three or four town hall sessions with a facilitator. So that we, instead of rolling out the ideas that have come through a lot of hard work from council members and staff, that we share those with the community and get their feedback and hold it as a more of a listening across both communities. And so that's the next iteration really of our efforts on the Racial Justice Task Force to develop these town halls. facilitator who is trained in this area. And to signal our intent and our commitment to this, I ask you all to support the recommendation from our group. to in fact direct the city manager to issue that check for $10,000. So, If anybody would like to say anything, I welcome those comments, but that's why I wanted to share that with you all tonight. because they're ready, they're ready to turn it on and move their project forward. |
| 00:16:19.03 | Councilmember Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 00:16:19.19 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 00:16:20.03 | Councilmember Cleveland Knowles | I'm sorry. |
| 00:16:20.05 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. |
| 00:16:20.33 | Mayor Kelman | Who knows, yes. |
| 00:16:21.90 | Councilmember Cleveland Knowles | Yeah, just a point of clarification. This isn't an action item tonight. I guess it's a question for the city attorney. So if no one objects, can we just move forward with your direction? Is that how this is working or? |
| 00:16:34.46 | Mayor Kelman | Yeah, so great, great point. So yeah, because it's under the city manager's authority of $30,000, he could actually go and do that without our direction and our approval, but I wanted this to be something that we publicly shared with the community and really made a statement online for everybody to hear. So that's why it's brought up like this, but we don't have to really take any action. in forms of resolution or motion or anything like that. |
| 00:17:01.24 | Sergio Rudin | Yeah, through the chair, Madam Mayor. It is not agendized to direct the city manager to do anything. So I think it's more in the form of a report Um, you're correct, the city manager does have $30,000 in authority and if he decided on his own to support that group, he would have to come back to you in some way to have you ratify that decision Um, My preferred advice would be to have it put on a future agenda for action. It could be on the consent calendar. I don't know the timing if it's important between now and then and the city manager could consider that in making his decision, but For the council action, I think we need to have an agenda item to describe that. |
| 00:17:50.93 | Mayor Kelman | Yeah. Thank you, city attorney. So let me modify my statement. I don't believe we need any council action here. This was more of a, We're all in it together. I hope everybody feels that this is a group decision. We can delay and bring it back, but there's no vote needed. I'm seeing lots of thumbs up on it. And so I'm not directing you city manager, but man, sure it would be nice if that happened. as soon as possible. How's that? Okay, Caspar Hoffman, finger up, okay. All right. Well, thank you. Thank you, everybody. Sorry, didn't mean to make that awkward. All right, we'll move it on then. Thank you, everybody. We'll move on to our meeting minutes. We have none for today for approval. So now we'll move on to the consent items. So we do have five items on consent. Matters listed on the consent calendar are considered routine and uncontroversial, require no discussion, are expected to have unanimous council support and may be enacted by the council in one motion. There'll be no separate discussion of 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 consent calendar for separate action. Items removed from the consent calendar will be discussed later on the agenda and public comment will be heard on any item that was removed from the consent calendar. So we have five today on item three a adopt resolution authoring the city manager to execute the third amendment to agreement to purchase a parking equipment and related services with IPS group LLC for annual amount of $12,750. 3B, accept the resignation of Kylie Flanagan, Heidi Kirsch, and Amanda Grindel. Moussa City Community Safety and Disaster Preparedness Committee. Item 3C received and filed a report related to the installation of electric vehicle charging stations. M3D, adopt a resolution of the City Council of the City of South Dakota authorizing the city manager to execute the professional services agreement with park engineering for construction management and inspection services of the 2022 street resurfacing project in an amount not to exceed $77,561.25 and item three E designated authority to determine disability for local safety employees. We'll go ahead and open up public comment on the consent calendar, and I'll ask Molly, the city clerk, do we have any members of the public? And actually, now would be a good time to announce how a member of the public could provide comment. |
| 00:20:15.03 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you, Mayor. If you want to comment during the public portion of the agenda, you can raise your hand function in zoom under reactions. Make sure your zoom is updated to the latest version, or you can press nine if you are calling in the city clerk will select you from the meeting queue. Please be patient while waiting in the queue. Let me check, Mayor, on if we have any public comment. Seeing none, there is none, Mayor. Thank you. Right. |
| 00:20:40.97 | Mayor Kelman | Okay, thank you so much. We'll go ahead and close the public comment. I'll ask my colleagues if they have any comments on the consent calendar. I see no hands raised, so I'll ask for a motion to approve the consent calendar. So move. |
| 00:20:56.93 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:20:56.96 | Mayor Kelman | I'm not going to. |
| 00:20:56.98 | Unknown | Second. |
| 00:20:58.99 | Mayor Kelman | We'll take Council Member Sobieski second. Please call the roll. Councilmember Sobieski? |
| 00:21:03.93 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 00:21:04.17 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:21:04.19 | Walfred Solorzano | Yes. |
| 00:21:04.91 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. |
| 00:21:04.93 | Walfred Solorzano | Councilmember Cleveland Knowles. |
| 00:21:06.30 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. |
| 00:21:06.48 | Walfred Solorzano | Yes. Yes. Vice Mayor Blasthien. Yeah. |
| 00:21:10.65 | Mayor Kelman | Yes. |
| 00:21:11.02 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 00:21:11.07 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. |
| 00:21:11.11 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. And may or comment. |
| 00:21:12.34 | Mayor Kelman | Yes. |
| 00:21:13.00 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 00:21:14.50 | Mayor Kelman | We'll move on to item four, which is the public hearing item, which as we discussed has now been moved to October 25th. So we'll introduce the first business item, item 5A. This is consolidation of the city sewer collection system with the South State of Marin City Sanitary District. Presentation will be from Kevin McGowan, our Public Works Director. and Vivian Hussen from Hussen Associates, who is a consultant on the item. So we'll hand it over to you. Director McGowan. And welcome, Ms. Hoseman. |
| 00:21:40.67 | Kevin McGowan | Good evening, Mayor, members of the City Council. Great to be here this evening, thank you. I'm Kevin McGowan, the Public Works Director for Sausalito. Hopefully you can all hear me. Item 5A before you this evening is an update of efforts made to consolidate the city sewer collection system into the Saucyoto Marin City Sanitary District system. So I do have a presentation for you. Give me one sec to bring it up here. |
| 00:22:09.88 | Mayor Kelman | And I'll just ask, Director McGowan, you're in your office, right? So we have a little bit of feedback. I wanna make sure everybody can still hear, Director McGowan. |
| 00:22:19.54 | Kevin McGowan | I'm not too sure why, that's interesting. |
| 00:22:23.35 | Mayor Kelman | Okay. Well, once you... Proceed. |
| 00:22:25.86 | Councilmember Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 00:22:26.77 | Kevin McGowan | Thank you. |
| 00:22:30.61 | Councilmember Sobieski | All right, hopefully you can see my screen. Yes. on screen. Thank you. Thank you. No, it's having issues. Hold on one sec. |
| 00:22:54.90 | Councilmember Sobieski | you There should be a white background that says sewer consolidation. |
| 00:22:58.03 | Kevin McGowan | Thank you. |
| 00:22:59.83 | Mayor Kelman | There was, Director Mariana. We were seeing that. You're up. |
| 00:23:04.67 | Kevin McGowan | Okay, as long as you can see that, that's great. helping me this evening with the presentation is Vivian Housen. She's our consultant. And I'm hoping that Jeffrey Kingston can join us this evening from the Sausalito Marin City Sanitary District. He's the district manager. Tonight, we would like to review three main topics with the council. An analysis and review efforts will be covered by Vivian Housen and consolidation impacts and the next steps will be covered by myself and hopefully Mr. Kingston will join us as well. He may have had a conflict this evening, so I'm hoping he can still join us. And with that, I'm going to turn it over to Vivian. And I will go ahead and operate the PowerPoint presentation while she leads us through the presentation. |
| 00:23:54.41 | Molly Perry | All right, great. Thank you, Kevin. So this presentation will be, will summarize the, work that was recently completed to complete closed circuit television inspection of the city's pipelines and to review that data and to develop associated project recommendations. |
| 00:24:21.05 | Molly Perry | So as an overview, the city completed a CCTV inspection program in 2021. The contractor was ProPipe. And I just want to Also, provide some history. The city has completed a number of closed circuit television inspection programs. As you can see on the very left part of the slide, the name that's shown there, Mergain Coastline, Veolia, those are the contractors that were hired And the year is when the inspection was completed. And when we looked at the inspections as a whole, we took the most recent inspection of every pipe that had an inspection from all of this information. So we use mostly the 2021 results because most of the city was reinspected in 2021, but also some of the older results. The next step after the raw data was received was to clean up the data, to get rid of duplicate inspections, to if there was one forward and then reverse on a pipe to not count twice, make sure the inspection defects were recorded correctly, et cetera. In total, 89.5% of the pipe inventory received inspection The other, 10 or 11.5%. was pipe that either couldn't be accessed for one reason or another. or had other issues that prevention inspection. Of these pipes that were inspected, 26% had what we call a NASCO PACP grade five defect. NASCO PACP is a long acronym for an industry standard closed circuit television inspection program. It's used throughout the state, actually throughout the country, to provide a standard method of inspecting pipe and grading pipe. And the scoring system ranges from one to five, with five being the worst. After the data cleanup was completed, we looked at projects and tried to define them. We took a neighborhood approach, which I'll discuss in a few slides. We developed a program that would address all of the grade five defects. In grade five, An example of a grade five would be a hole or where the soil is seen behind the pipe or where the pipe looks like it's cracked and could collapse. So there are defects that require action within the near term. We also included pipes that had evidence of infiltration and focused on areas where there was high risk, such as business areas and the city's main roadways. We also included the replacement of small pipes, four inch pipes, because those cannot be inspected and they're difficult to maintain. |
| 00:27:23.47 | Unknown | We all know. |
| 00:27:32.97 | Molly Perry | After the projects were defined, we developed a cost and schedule based on recent costs that have been incurred by the city and also incurred in neighboring jurisdictions. And the result, was a, um, an $18.2 million program And using the city's current budget, and we'll talk about this later, it would take 14 years to complete this program. And there are additional needs |
| 00:27:58.97 | Councilmember Sobieski | that we'll also discuss. |
| 00:28:05.17 | Councilmember Sobieski | Okay, Vivian, |
| 00:28:06.03 | Kevin McGowan | we move on I just want to remind our council members in the public that what we're talking about is the city's collection system and what Vivian is talking about is we did an analysis of that collection system and she is specifically talking about that analysis and its relationship to consolidation with the Sausalito Marin City Sanitary District |
| 00:28:24.68 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. |
| 00:28:24.81 | Unknown | relationship you |
| 00:28:31.17 | Mayor Kelman | Kevin, can I ask one question to Vivian? the way you approach the pipes, did you also break them down? You said by neighborhood, by location, low-lying areas, high areas, gravity, non-gravity. those that are proximate to the waterfront that may have some type of saltwater intrusion that is leading to deterioration versus those higher up? Do we have some type of breakdowns? by by mapping. |
| 00:28:56.79 | Molly Perry | . We will show a map showing how we categorize the pipes. That is one way to prioritize repairs is to look at repairs that are close to water. look at repairs that have certain defects such as roots through joints, look at pipes that have a high consequence of failure or a higher likelihood of failure. because of the size of the city system and because the grade five defects were spread throughout the system and it would not be cost effective to repair pipes all over the city, chasing grade fives that have had a certain characteristic or chasing pipes that might have saltwater infiltration and you would be jumping all over the city and creating quite of a disruption. So instead we organize these types by neighborhoods so that neighborhoods could be approach section by section and to limit the impact Thank you. to specific areas of the city because in the end, We felt that all of the grade five pipes needed to be repaired in a reasonably short amount of time. So instead of fine tuning the order in which pipes are repaired, we thought it would be best to group them by neighborhood. And we have some maps that |
| 00:30:18.57 | Councilmember Sobieski | But we're- demonstrate that. Great, thank you. |
| 00:30:26.72 | Councilmember Sobieski | So just to give a break, |
| 00:30:28.03 | Molly Perry | of all the different years where inspections were completed, and the number of pipes that were included in this analysis. You can see here, what we really wanna emphasize is that even though there are some very, very old inspections from 2010, In 2015, there as a percentage of the pipe data that was used, those old inspections form a very small percent. Most of the data that we use is |
| 00:30:54.96 | Councilmember Sobieski | is very recent in 2021. |
| 00:31:02.74 | Councilmember Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 00:31:02.76 | Molly Perry | And this map shows the pipes that had inspection data. So you can see there are some lines that are in very light thin gray. And those are pipes that we did not have data for. There have been single pipe inspections that have been completed over the years. We did not include those single inspections in this group. So some of the light gray actually receive single inspections, but it gives you an idea The coverage of the city, the coverage was very broad. and representatives |
| 00:31:34.97 | Councilmember Sobieski | of the commission city. |
| 00:31:42.45 | Councilmember Sobieski | So, |
| 00:31:43.03 | Molly Perry | Thank you. |
| 00:31:43.13 | Councilmember Sobieski | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 00:31:43.62 | Molly Perry | This map shows where the worst defects are located. Those are the red types, what we're calling the structural grade five defects. And then the red pipes have the most defects on each pipe. Blue pipes also had structural grade fives, but you were on each pipe. Yellow pipes had grade fives, but just one on each pipe. Um, one structural grade five on a pipe indicates that the pipe is not failing, that something happened. So when the pipe was installed, it was broken. Maybe a utility came through and filled through the pipe. maybe other construction and hit the pipe inadvertently So even though we're saying that 26% of the system has at least one grade defect, we're not saying that the pipes are falling apart that 26% of the system is falling apart. As you can see, The yellow and the blue are grade fives, but they're not pervasive. defects across the pipe, which is a single or double defect. So it's really the red pipes that you're seeing there that are the, what we would call the worst pipes. And actually this is old data because it doesn't take into consideration recent projects such as B Street, which if you can pull out B Street on the map, we'll see it's still red here, but we need to see the B Street was repaired. So there's a little bit of overlap between projects that have been completed and the |
| 00:33:15.68 | Councilmember Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 00:33:15.95 | Molly Perry | Thank you. |
| 00:33:15.97 | Councilmember Sobieski | David to my friend. |
| 00:33:23.13 | Councilmember Sobieski | So this slide shows you |
| 00:33:24.04 | Molly Perry | what we have proposed as a neighborhood approach to rehabilitation. We've broken the system into seven, what we're calling neighborhoods, and they're only named for just, oh, you know, what are the streets in each neighborhood as you can see in the key. And the neighborhoods are generally drainage basins. So that's how we arrange the different neighborhoods. They're not actually neighborhoods, they're called neighborhoods in the same. Thank you. |
| 00:33:52.84 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:33:53.05 | Molly Perry | Thank you. And the approach is to repair or replace all of the grade five defects and also grade four defects. So a grade four defect is a defect that has a very high likelihood over the next five to 10 years of becoming grade five. And so if you're spending money repairing a pipe, digging up the street, you know, impacting traffic, impacting neighbors, and you get all the grade fives. If you don't get the grade fours at the same time, then in five to 10 years or five years, sometimes shorter, those grade fours could become fives and you'll be back there doing it all over again. And at that time, that grade five will be a lot more expensive to fix than grade four today. So for that reason, we are recommending fixing all grade five defects and also any grade four defects on the same type. In addition, as I mentioned before, if there was evidence of infiltration, and then there are a few four inch pipes. We also recommend that those pipes are addressed. |
| 00:34:53.75 | Councilmember Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 00:34:55.01 | Molly Perry | Thank you. |
| 00:34:55.03 | Councilmember Sobieski | along with the types that have built files. |
| 00:35:02.98 | Councilmember Sobieski | We, |
| 00:35:04.02 | Molly Perry | I applied a rehabilitation approach to determine whether a pipe should be replaced or receive a point repair. So a replacement is taking the pipe out, bursting it, or lighting it or doing something to it from manhole to manhole. hole, whereas a point repair is digging up the road in one place and taking out one portion of the pipe, a small segment, and replacing it. So the point repairs also include addressing failing clean outs and also replacing clean outs with manholes. So the clean outs are are smaller four inch diameter structures or six inch diameter structures where you can get you know, a light in, or you can maybe get a push camera in, but you really can't get a sewer maintenance cleaning equipment in. So those are clean outs we're recommending. If you're going to be in fixing pipe anyway, they should be replacing manholes. So the approach was that if there is a grade five or four defect on average, every 50 feet along the pipe, then it doesn't make sense to put in a put a hole in the ground every 50 feet we're reckoned If there is a grade five or four defect on average, every 50 feet along the pipe, then it doesn't make sense to put a hole in the ground every 50 feet. We're recommending you replace the pipe. But if the defects are spaced further than every 50 feet, on average, then you may wanna consider point repairs |
| 00:36:25.19 | Unknown | and, |
| 00:36:28.82 | Molly Perry | And then of course, if the pipe is four inches, as I mentioned before, we're recommending replacing that entire pipe. And then anytime a pipe is replaced to review the manhole condition or the peanut condition to replace peanuts with manholes. And I'm just kind of laying this out so you can understand the basis for the |
| 00:36:46.98 | Councilmember Sobieski | cost estimate. |
| 00:36:52.24 | Councilmember Sobieski | So there were. |
| 00:36:53.03 | Molly Perry | three neighborhoods that have the highest priority based on risk and risk really is the number measured by the number of grave life defects and the severity of grave life defects in the inventory of pipe in that neighborhood. The first was what we're calling Golden Gate Ferry, which is shown in purple, which is the third block of color from the bottom of the or from the southern part of the city. The second is downtown, which is shown in orange, which is in the middle of this group of neighborhoods And the third is Old Town, which is shown in yellow, which is the second from the southernmost part of the city. So what we're calling, will be very downtown as priorities. And then that, and so the priorities would determine the order in which |
| 00:37:43.27 | Unknown | you |
| 00:37:49.97 | Councilmember Sobieski | and fix. |
| 00:37:55.07 | Councilmember Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 00:37:55.09 | Molly Perry | So applying the rehabilitation process that I mentioned a couple of slides ago, the baseline projects would cost in today's dollars $18.2 million. The city does have a $1.7 million annual budget right now. Using that budget, it would take 14 years to complete all of these repairs. And, that those 14 years would still not address manholes that need to be rehabilitated. You add another six months and 744,000 to address the manholes that that failure was based on inspections. And there are also it's in progress that are that are not included in this assessment. And just as a comment, 14 years to replace all of your grade five types is a very lengthy period. NACCO, National Association of Sewer System Companies used to, sewer service companies used to give guidelines and they used to recommend that your grade fives, you try to address your grade fives in five years and your grade fourths in 10 years. And so what we're essentially saying here is that your budget will address your grades 5s and 4s in 14 years. So the length of time that it would take to address these projects using the current budget and current dollars is longer than the NASDAQ. |
| 00:39:28.98 | Councilmember Sobieski | recommendations. |
| 00:39:35.30 | Councilmember Sobieski | Okay. |
| 00:39:36.03 | Kevin McGowan | ingredient. |
| 00:39:36.66 | Councilmember Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 00:39:36.71 | Kevin McGowan | Thank you. |
| 00:39:36.81 | Councilmember Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 00:39:36.84 | Kevin McGowan | Thank you. |
| 00:39:37.14 | Councilmember Sobieski | Sure, thank you. |
| 00:39:38.14 | Kevin McGowan | Thank you. COB, Dan Burke, Norcal PTACCIA, Hopefully there's not too much reverberation in the microphone i'm using the day to day maintenance of the sanitary enterprise system is addressed by three fts or full time equivalencies within public works. COB, Dan Burke, Norcal PTACCIA, it's anticipated that these three positions will be transferred to the district upon consolidation. However, additional city employees are utilized to manage the system from day to day as well. Road maintenance personnel are utilized to assist sanitary staff in the field with traffic control and complex cleaning operations. While engineering staff is utilized to manage the capital projects and our finance department and administration staff are utilized to support the sanitary collection system functions. In previous years, such as in fiscal year 2021, approximately 2.75 full-time equivalencies were charged directly to the sewer enterprise fund. If the consolidation were to occur with this same fiscal model, there could be an impact of the general fund of approximately $600,000. However, staff recently discussed this issue with our finance director, who noted that the current fiscal year City staff, other than operations, that's that three FTE, and maintenance staff are not charged to the enterprise fund directly, such that there should be no structural impact with the consolidation effort. Our next steps in consolidation include three main tasks, which are outlined in the briefing document, which is attached as attachment one to your packet. Operational issues, including staffing needs for the district, transfer of documents, and how to address future interactions between the district and the city should be covered in the future. We are lucky to have a strong working relationship with the district, such that many of these issues can be addressed by staff of both agencies. additional work related to capital projects and how the district would like to address the current status of the city system, which was defined by Vivian earlier in the presentation is needed. It is our understanding that the district would be interested in implementing improvements over a nine to 10 year period, such that an additional funding mechanism may be needed to be implemented. Sorry, that wasn't a great sentence, but the details for this aspect have yet to be determined or discussed. Legal assistance will also be needed to address the required steps to consolidate. This includes interaction with the local agency formation commission, otherwise known as LAFCO. Mr. Kingston, hopefully, is on this call. He may have some more to add to what I have stated herein. Jeff, are you with us this evening? |
| 00:42:49.40 | Kevin McGowan | Apparently not. So he may have had a conflict. After preparing the original presentation for this evening, we received some additional questions from the mayor. And I'd like to cover some of those because they have quite a few relevant topics that I'd like to go over. And I'm not going to get into every single question, but we have at least 12 of them here to kind of run through. So while the city utilizes an enterprise fund to manage revenue and expenses, it is our understanding that the district will use a similar system to manage the funds from Sausalito without intermingling these funds with other agencies. In other words, the district also has TAM CSD and the National Park Service that they serve as far as collection systems. But it's my understanding that they will set up a system similar to what we have, such that the funds are not commingled. When the rate study was completed in 2019, there remained debt to the city's state revolving fund, which is a 20-year commitment. It's staff understanding that this will be transferred with the consolidation effort. So I'm just running down some of the questions here. So indirect charges, I think we've covered that before in noting that some of city staff is used to help with the sanitary work for the city itself, such as traffic control, capital work, all that other stuff. So I think we've covered that one. We cannot fully predict the future costs for construction and repairs to the current system. Expediting repairs now may be the most prudent to address the work. Identifying existing challenges such as utilities and other issues early in the design phase will also help to reduce the chart that the possible cost implications. So Vivian noticed notified us of that as well. So attachment two to your packet provides, excuse me, that would be attachment one, provides a detailed list of next steps. Having legal counsel for each agency meet and determine how consolidation will occur is vital. Other issues noted in the attachment tend to be more administrative. And we hope they can be addressed at a staff level and memorialized either in an MOU or a consolidation document. Our legal folks will help us with that as far as how do we actually document that. Staff in the district are aware of the city's strategic plan as well. This includes coordinating efforts to make sewer improvements with possible undergrounding work, as well as other capital projects for both agencies. This is important so that we can minimize the cost to our residents. And throughout this process, we've had a lot of help along the way, and I do want to acknowledge that. So many thanks to the subcommittee members. That would be Dan Reiner, the district president, and Arnett, or Arnaud, the district director. Susan Cleveland-Nose, our city council member, and Ian Sobieski, also our city council member. And Jeff Kingston has helped from the district end to help guide this process along. One of the questions that came up had to do with economics of the sewer management. And I was hoping Jeff would be here this evening. So my preference- |
| 00:46:32.89 | Vice Mayor Blostein | He is. He joined. I can see him. |
| 00:46:35.71 | Jeffrey Kingston | Yeah, I'm here. Kevin. |
| 00:46:37.96 | Kevin McGowan | Hey, Jeff, thank you so much for joining us. Of course. |
| 00:46:41.13 | Unknown | I'm sorry. |
| 00:46:41.21 | Jeffrey Kingston | No. |
| 00:46:41.35 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:46:41.97 | Kevin McGowan | One of the things to discuss this evening has to do with the economics of the sewer management district, and I might need your help with this one. Keep in mind that the question came up of how do you manage the sanitary district specifically in the economics associated with it. I'm hoping maybe you could have kind of a short answer for our counsel. |
| 00:47:04.48 | Mayor Kelman | And Director McGowan, before, and welcome Mr. Kingston, before he goes, this is my question. So let me clarify. The question is, we have a fire consolidation deal that tied property value to the cost of delivering the fire protection services when there's no real relationship between the two. So I'm wondering, how do you align the need with an actual cost basis? And what type of sensitivity analysis on potential changes in the components of the operating costs do you perform properly? |
| 00:47:08.32 | Kevin McGowan | There's a |
| 00:47:32.85 | Jeffrey Kingston | So, We have a very structured process, actually. It's Prop 219, which is a law that requires us to set rates. And part of that law is that periodically, if we need to raise rates, we have to go through this process. And we actually use a third party independent consultant who calculates the rate And I would share with you that We have multiple rates. One is for that the city of Sausalito already pays for transport and treatment of the wastewater once it hits our force main that runs along Bridgeway and brings the wastewater to the plant. The other is And the Park Service, they subscribe to that. and TCSD subscribes to that, the city subscribes to that. Now Marin City is a good model for how we would handle the city of Sausalito because they actually get a what's called a supplemental rate, which is that second charge for sewer collection. they, the county of Marin, because Marin City and the unincorporated areas of Marin actually includes more than Marin City They get charged a supplemental rate on top of the treatment and transport for us to manage, operate and maintain and do capital work on their sewer collection system. And so that is calculated separately. We account for it separately. And the rate is set based on the actual costs over those years. So we usually do a five year rate going forward. And then the consultant will go back and look at what the costs were in the backside to project the next rate going forward. So it's, um, That's how we're required to do it. And that's how an enterprise fund works. So hopefully I answered the question with that response. |
| 00:49:50.77 | Mayor Kelman | And I think you meant Prop 218, right? So Prop 218. |
| 00:49:53.28 | Jeffrey Kingston | I mean, too. |
| 00:49:53.98 | Councilmember Sobieski | Yeah, sorry. |
| 00:49:54.53 | Mayor Kelman | Yeah. And that's a public transparent process, right? the right setting? What kind of What type of transparency in that process can our constituents expect? |
| 00:50:08.64 | Sergio Rudin | Well, I think I might be able to answer that for the council, but 218 process requires a minimum 45 day notice before hearing so it is a transparent process it has to happen at a public meeting to set the rates |
| 00:50:25.35 | Kevin McGowan | Okay. |
| 00:50:25.57 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. |
| 00:50:26.43 | Kevin McGowan | COB, Dan Burke, Norcal PTACCIA, Thank you, Mr Kingston, I have only a couple more slides and i'll move this along quickly. COB, Dan Burke, Norcal PTACCIA, So a few other questions the mayor brought up prior to the meeting and i'm trying to cover some of these the oversight will be managed and provided by the district after consolidation. COB, Dan Burke, Norcal PTACCIA, We don't believe that there is a need to to have a management system between the two agencies, specifically since salsa leader residents will be represented on the district board and there already are, I believe. |
| 00:50:26.51 | Unknown | and kind of just... |
| 00:50:54.96 | Kevin McGowan | The district also received- |
| 00:50:56.11 | Councilmember Sobieski | That's correct. |
| 00:50:57.71 | Kevin McGowan | Thank you. The district also receives flow from other areas such as Marin City, TAM CSD, and the National Park Service. However, consolidation effort is between the district and the city and not these other agencies specifically. A question came up of whether a negotiating team is needed who fully understands the sanitation business. Our legal advisors should be able to tell us if a negotiating team is needed. However, the council's subcommittee members are well versed in this subject and should be able to represent the council's interests in this process. And then moving forward, we do not expect to be severing our communication with districts. In fact, our communication with district will probably be improved since the issuance of encroachment permits in the roadway will continue to be the city's responsibility. Issues such as sea level rise will need to be addressed by both agencies in the future. And we look forward to that type of collaborative approach to address this large scale issue. Consolidation can be a difficult process. Ultimately, we are looking to provide benefits to our residents by consolidating the systems to one agency that concentrates specifically on sewer issues and can address the capital needs required to manage and maintain these systems. We are lucky to have a strong working relationship with Jeff and his team, and we hope to continue that partnership in the future. Before I turn it back over to the City Council for questions and comments, I'm wondering if Mr. Kingston or Ms. Vivian Housen would like to add additional comments or provide any additional information that I may have forgotten on this issue. |
| 00:52:49.66 | Jeffrey Kingston | Thank you. |
| 00:52:51.49 | Kevin McGowan | Yeah. |
| 00:52:51.53 | Jeffrey Kingston | Sure, Kevin, I would like to add that |
| 00:52:52.28 | Kevin McGowan | Thank you. |
| 00:52:54.94 | Jeffrey Kingston | The district since its inception has been working with the city and specifically, I believe our service agreement, which is dated in the 1950s, has been tested many times. The district currently operates and maintains four of the city's pump stations and under this service agreement. And it has been a successful relationship that the district values and the city values and we have that, that, working with the city has not only been for the water wastewater treatment, uh, conveyance and the treatment, but for the collection, specifically the pump stations. And that relationship has worked well. And we also just finished the Coloma Street pump station in partnership with the city. If you know that the Coloma Street pump station was a dry weather pump station for the city, City and a wet weather pump station across the street for the district and we combine those to build a state of the art pump station that will handle both in the same location, both the dry weather flow and the wet weather flow. So I would just like to share that and be available for any other specific questions. |
| 00:54:25.16 | Kevin McGowan | Right. Thank you, council members. That concludes our presentation right now. |
| 00:54:30.19 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you, everybody. I thought I saw Councilman Clevenals, your hand was up first. Why don't you kick us off since you're a member of the working group and huge thank you to the working group, Councilman Clevenals and Councilman Sobieski. I know this is not an easy project, so thank you for diving in. |
| 00:54:46.01 | Councilmember Cleveland Knowles | Yeah, thanks. And I just wanted to add to Kevin's kind thanks. Also the council members that have come before. I know that Joan Cox and Ray Withey worked very hard on this project in the past, as did pretty much all the members of the city council over the last |
| 00:55:02.92 | Jill Hoffman | you |
| 00:55:03.67 | Councilmember Cleveland Knowles | for six years. So I just, I don't really have any questions, but I did just wanna add a little bit of context, which I think, You know, we've gone through both of we've kind of approved and gone through a phase one and a phase two kind of study all the issues related to consolidation and kind of sort of, you know, the council has bought into that at the phase one, we bought into it phase two. And then Now kind of the next step was to really do an assessment of the whole which Vivian walked through very, in a really understandable way. to understand the huge liability and costs of kind of addressing our systems. And I think one of the issues that we've been talking about with consolidation is kind of how's the best way to organize the system to be the best for the rate payers and to get the best sewer system for our residents. out of this. And right now we've got this, you know, bifurcated process where we do the collection and the district does the conveyance and treatment. And there's two different rates that our rate payers pay. and the Prop 218 process that Mary, you were asking about, you know, we have to do that kind of twice And it's not kind of in a very elegant, system. And I think both the committee before us and don't want to speak for council members OBSP, but our subcommittee I think see a lot of advantages in having one I, entity that is kind of solely in the business of managing a sewer system in charge of this issue. You know, this is a giant $18.2 million project would, be a massive project for our Department of Public Works to take on over a short, relatively short period of time. So having Having this kind of outsource to the district, I think would free up our public works department to do what they're you know, what we really want them to be able to do, which is to manage our local projects, our streets, our parks, and kind of all the other important capital improvement projects that we have. So that's the real advantage that I see of consolidation is bringing up Kevin and his team, to focus on the priorities in our strategic plan and letting Mr. Kingston and his team kind of do what they're best at doing and, you know, Mayor, as you were, We're great to point out at no extra cost to our rate pairs because we go through the same process and maybe actually in the long term some savings to the repairs. So I just kind of wanted to like, but those sort of why are we doing this? in perspective. And You know, I just see this. you know, as a pretty big liability for Sausalito. and a very big project. end. Um, you know, the partnership with the district has been great and kind of figuring out the best way Sarah Silver PB, SISC- Best way forward, you know I think the path lies to consolidation, but obviously that's a question for the whole Council and not just. not just me, but anyway, I just wanted to add that. them. |
| 00:58:34.03 | Mayor Kelman | Yeah, very helpful. Thank you. And Councillor Sobieski is the other Committee member, do you want to add any contextual comments as well. |
| 00:58:43.48 | Councilmember Sobieski | Well, I think, of course, not the devil, but the details will matter of anything we move forward with. |
| 00:58:48.80 | Unknown | Mm-hmm. |
| 00:58:49.28 | Councilmember Sobieski | Thank you. As you know, there's a lot of money in the enterprise fund currently. And so there's a question of the disposition of that. And I think the questions that you asked, Mayor, around Rate paying is something that at least deserves explanation the community understands it as well as us. But on the face of it, there seems to be a lot of merit. I would love to explore |
| 00:59:07.88 | Unknown | Ahem. |
| 00:59:08.24 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:59:12.78 | Councilmember Sobieski | I think a set of questions that you had asked were around continuing obligations that we may have as a city. Are our FTEs truly reduced to zero? under this consolidation and if not, truly to zero, then what are those obligations? At the very least, we'll have encouragement permits to issue. So that seems somewhat trivial, but is there more than that that we possibly could be on the hook for? So I think there's some important issues still too. iron out. uh, And then they're in that negotiation or in the discussion, as you as I think we all care about, sensible government policy would be not to have two different entities working at cross purposes. And currently on our agenda later tonight, we're gonna be talking about the PG&E transfer of upgrading one system to another. And I can't help but note that many of the grade four and five defect areas also align with areas that PG&E is going to be replacing overhead wires. I can't help but think that there's just a real opportunity for killing three birds with one stone in these capital projects, but they have to be coordinated. My only concern is that the more separate the different entities are, as we already are experiencing with PG&E, the harder it is to coordinate them. uh, When we are talking to the district about consolidation, if we indeed agree to move forward, that's something that I'll be very focused on trying to figure out, which is how to culturally and even structurally ensure that there's, real integration with the broader city of Sausalito by the sewer district for any other community issues we may have. |
| 01:01:00.88 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. Appreciate that. Thank you. Vice Mayor, thank you for your patience. Sorry, I just wanted to see if the... Subcommittee had a insight for us. So what, You're at the floor. |
| 01:01:10.07 | Vice Mayor Blostein | Thank you, and I really appreciate the work that the subcommittee put into this and also staff. The report that was provided for the subcommittee was really helpful in terms of next steps and details and fiscal assessment. I just wanted to make a couple of things clear, maybe just follow up on a few questions. So assuming that consolidation does go forward. then the sanitary district takes full responsibility for the infrastructure improvements. the 18.2 million, but also, for instance, in the event of a sea level rise incident, or if there's a natural disaster where one of the pipes breaks, is the city of Sausalito responsible or assuming we go forward is the sanitary district responsible? |
| 01:01:49.58 | Jeffrey Kingston | I can field that question if, That's okay. |
| 01:01:51.79 | Vice Mayor Blostein | Okay? Yeah. |
| 01:01:52.55 | Jeffrey Kingston | Thank you. Thank you. Bye, Melissa. |
| 01:01:54.00 | Unknown | Bye, Melissa. |
| 01:01:54.98 | Jeffrey Kingston | Great question. So the district would, right now the city, you hold the permits from the state board for the sewer collection system. The district would take over those permits and those permits are where the liability is. And so we would take responsibility for liabilities for any sanitary sewer overflows. Um, you know, consent decrees, we've all been under a consent decree. And that was the main reason why our five member elected board requested an assessment of the city's sewer collection system. And thank you for doing that because it really makes it clear for everyone or what the challenges are. our approach would be to try to move quickly to begin updating the collection system to mitigate any of those liabilities. |
| 01:03:00.76 | Vice Mayor Blostein | Great. And just so that maybe the public has an understanding of if there is a natural disaster or some sort of incident where a pipe breaks, what's usually the ballpark cost for repair, say there was an incident of ferry landing? |
| 01:03:14.43 | Jeffrey Kingston | Well, it would depend. I mean, you have several costs. One is if there's a spill, there's a cost, there's a penalty and then there's the repair and then there may be a long-term effect, but we would have a, |
| 01:03:21.43 | Vice Mayor Blostein | Thank you. |
| 01:03:21.45 | Councilmember Sobieski | Yeah. |
| 01:03:21.88 | Unknown | But... |
| 01:03:34.29 | Jeffrey Kingston | uh, reserve strategy that and we currently have that for our district we don't have it for your collection system but we have it for our for the rest of our collection system which uh provides um funding, in this case, it's about $8 million in reserve that could be used for natural disaster. We would also apply... go after state and federal funds to either support normal needs or disaster situations. So we Yeah, we would do the best we can and, you know, we will put our crews to work and we'd also use, we also are connected private sector resources that would augment us, so we would handle it that way. |
| 01:04:24.36 | Vice Mayor Blostein | And then maybe this is more a question for Kevin, but with regards to the FTEs and the 644,000 that the general fund would probably have to absorb, that's essentially a decision we're making where we're absorbing that cost, but we're giving up the liability, all of the liability for the infrastructure improvements. |
| 01:04:43.95 | Kevin McGowan | Yes, that's the intent. I mean, we're not making that decision right now, but yes, that's the intent is everything associated with the collection system goes to the district. |
| 01:04:53.92 | Vice Mayor Blostein | and the procurement process, or sorry, The payment process, if there's one district that's collecting, as the mayor pointed out, would be transparent and through Section 218. Okay. Great, those were all my questions. I just wanted to get some clarification on the positives of the consolidation. |
| 01:05:09.39 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you, Vice Mayor. Kessler Hoffman, any questions? We'll, of course, come back up after public comment and give direction, but do you have questions? |
| 01:05:17.88 | Jill Hoffman | No, presentation was great and pretty clear. So thank you. Thank you. |
| 01:05:21.97 | Mayor Kelman | Yeah, thank you so much. This was a very clear presentation. Dr. McGowan, thank you for so quickly turning around a lot of the questions I had sent you. So I guess I just, I have to ask just so I understand sort of the genesis of this problem. When I saw Vivian's slide, that we had only done five or six inspections. or five or 6%. And then in 2021, we suddenly did 62%. I have to sort of understand how did that happen? And the reason I ask that is not to place blame, but I imagine, Jeff, that, given the deteriorated status of so many of our lines that the work that you all were doing would have been reflected. You would have probably called us and said, we can tell you I have a problem. We can tell it's not running pressure. We can tell that there's some leakage. How does that work? And how do we get to a place of such deferred maintenance? And, you know, Zillow tells me we had 602 home sales in Sausalito last year. Each and every one of those has to do with sewer inspection. We have that information on hand. How does it not get integrated into our knowledge bank? So if someone can just kind of educate me on how we got here, I think would really help me determine, you know, how we move forward. |
| 01:06:37.55 | Kevin McGowan | So I'm not sure if Vivian wants to step into this a little bit. I'll kind of address a little bit of the city's issues. And I'm pretty sure that you folks know this already. It has to do with staffing and it has to do with the amount of work that we already have and which priorities to deal with at what point in time. So to be honest, Jeff and his team have called us quite a few times on a few different things. One of them that's hot on our list these days is a block 303, which is a system that's out on the beach itself. So we are trying desperately to move that project forward because the connection to the district's main, it's going to be cut off. So we're going to have to try to figure those things out. To answer your question specifically, I think my answer would relate to, like I mentioned, our priorities and how do we set those in terms of the capital projects and how do we base that off of how much staff we have? Vivian and Jeff, do you want to add anything to that? |
| 01:07:43.55 | Molly Perry | Go ahead, Vivian |
| 01:07:43.72 | Jeffrey Kingston | Thank you. Go ahead, Vivian. Vivian, you have more history than I have. Yeah. |
| 01:07:48.34 | Molly Perry | Oh, well, I could answer the portion of Mayor Kellerman's question about the closed circuit television. The slide that showed the percentage of pipe that was televised through each of the programs is a little bit misleading because in 2021, a lot of the pipes that had been previously inspected under the other programs were re-inspected. Those pipes are not getting credit in the percentages shown for the older inspections. And so I would say about half of the system had been inspected before the 2021 inspection program. And then related to the question about the laterals, the inspections that were conducted and that are reported here are for the mainline pipes only and the lateral inspections, since the city does not own the private laterals, those records are maintained as separate. bucket, and so we did not include the results from the ongoing lateral inspections in this presentation. Thank you. |
| 01:08:54.47 | Mayor Kelman | And I also understand that the Council in 2020 approved a remediation program, Vivian, that you had recommended. So that was also in the. So this is very helpful. Thank you. Okay, so I won't belabor that point. I just want to follow up on a couple of things. So when I had asked about this district separately dedicated enterprise fund, I understood it to be separate from the city's funds. But I'm wondering, Jeff, if you can give some examples in other consolidations you've been involved with, what type of oversight and transparency that community like ours might have on your fund |
| 01:09:01.86 | Unknown | This is really, |
| 01:09:25.22 | Mayor Kelman | Do we get regular reports? Do we, you know, get to understand how you're budgeting. What does that look like from a transparency perspective? |
| 01:09:34.69 | Jeffrey Kingston | So to start, being a public entity, we operate under the same rules as the city operates as far as transparency, especially public transparency. There is, we have five member elected board that are citizens of Sausalito and are elected by the rate payers and citizens of Sausalito. And they provide oversight on behalf of the rate payers and represent the citizens of Sausalito in our operations. And it includes every aspect that a normal city would have, you know, finance and procurement, and we have policies and procedures. |
| 01:10:13.94 | Unknown | and the rest. and we're going to be Thank you. Thank you. |
| 01:10:16.98 | Jeffrey Kingston | So the other part of that is that we have the rate study, which does the calculation, requires us to do accounting in a certain way. And we're also audited annually on that accounting that makes sure that we have, the costs allocated to the right buckets, or accounts, sorry. We call them buckets inside, but on the outside, they're accounts. And then that data is transferred during the rate study to the rate consultant who actually has been setting our rates for over 30 years. So they They know our, they know our system, and they know our costs, and they're very familiar with our district. And then they will set those rates and they'll set, we have accounts, separate accounts that are audited for the operations and maintenance, and the collection and conveyance. And also Marin City has their supplemental rate. And what we would have is a supplemental rate for the city of Sausalito. So what you would see in the rate study is the base rate Um, and then a supplemental rate for the city of Sausalito for collections and a supplemental separate supplemental rate for the Marin City and the unincorporated areas of Marin that then would be put on the tax roll as the rate. So hopefully that answered that question. |
| 01:11:57.92 | Mayor Kelman | I think Prop 218 is a big help here. Here's something else I've been confused about. |
| 01:12:04.57 | Joan Cox | I'm not sure. |
| 01:12:04.70 | Mayor Kelman | The Park Service is sending its ways from your woods essentially through TAM and then eventually through Sausalito to your district. So there are other entities that are utilizing this infrastructure. Why is there not a shared services agreement around it or a cost sharing? Why is Sausalito set to handle the entire burden when other entities are using that? |
| 01:12:29.56 | Jeffrey Kingston | So they are not actually, Tehamilpias Community Service District pays approximately one third of the cost, but it's purely based on EDUs, which are equivalent dwelling units. So just like the city of Sausalito, they have 7,000 EDUs and TCSD has 3,000 EDUs for a total of 10,000. They would pay that proportional share for that of the cost. Thank you. and TCSD has 3,000 EDUs for a total of 10,000, they would pay that proportional share for that of the cost. And an example, Mirror Woods, that is calculated into a certain number of EDUs. So one equivalent dwelling unit is like one house, but a restaurant may be three or four EDUs, and Mirror Woods may be four or five EDUs. So everyone is paying their fair share and we work really, really hard. And the rate consultant is very sensitive and they actually calculate and check and confirm all those numbers annually for us before they go on the tax roll. So that's how the proportion is equally shared. |
| 01:13:39.04 | Mayor Kelman | You're saying it's baked in to the, baked into it already by how you said that, right? Can attorney's fees be rolled into consolidation? |
| 01:13:41.79 | Jeffrey Kingston | Yeah. Yep. |
| 01:13:49.30 | Jeffrey Kingston | I don't quite understand the question. |
| 01:13:52.28 | Mayor Kelman | So if we have an upfront attorney cost, legal costs and developing this, can that then be rolled into the overall price of the consolidation or do we have to have an upfront fee? |
| 01:14:02.36 | Jeffrey Kingston | So far, through all this, between the city and the district, throughout the studies. And we haven't had a lot of attorney's fees, but any kind of fees we just shared equally. for the consolidation work. |
| 01:14:18.20 | Mayor Kelman | Okay. And then the last question sort of came up for some residents about local control. So if you have consolidation, what type of control would Sausalito have on construction selection, location, and impacts to residents. |
| 01:14:32.35 | Jeffrey Kingston | So you have You theoretically have total local control because you have an elected board and any resident can call the board or call me directly and express their concern. And a good example of that is just our past project we did with Whiskey Springs and working with the residents there. |
| 01:14:50.60 | Unknown | Amen. |
| 01:14:55.04 | Jeffrey Kingston | As far as construction goes, we always pull an accroachment permit with the city and the city is monitoring the project and they also get if they get a call from a resident, they respond and we respond also so we're. Um, You know, we're both government agencies and we just act responsibly when that occurs. |
| 01:15:17.50 | Mayor Kelman | Can someone from city hall beyond the district could Could we have an on voting member, a council member or city manager? |
| 01:15:25.40 | Jeffrey Kingston | On the board. |
| 01:15:26.85 | Mayor Kelman | Yeah. |
| 01:15:27.51 | Jeffrey Kingston | by law they would have to be elected but there's no reason why the city manager couldn't attend the board meetings. And because I'll give you an example, Tampa Pahias Community Service District, one of their board members attends the board meeting. And participates. So there's no reason why a council member or any member of the public, for that matter, or the city manager could not or would not attend our board meetings. And they are on every item being allowed to address that item. and weigh in on that item. |
| 01:16:07.16 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. That's all the other questions I think I have for now. |
| 01:16:08.63 | Kevin McGowan | So, Yeah. Before you go on, I'm kind of, even though we haven't really figured out all the details associated with how this is going to work in the future. However, I can, I don't want to speak for Jeff, but if we do this consolidation effort and we have an emergency, the intent is to have Jeff and his team or whoever he hires for this out there immediately to take care of business. Not necessarily going through an encroachment permit process just for an emergency. That's not what we want. We want them to respond the same as we would to any type of overflow or emergency. When it comes to a larger project, something big that's planned, a capital project, then yes, we'll go through an encroachment permit process. |
| 01:16:23.06 | Unknown | Yeah. Thank you. |
| 01:16:55.29 | Kevin McGowan | But some of those things in between those two, we'll have to work together to figure that out. |
| 01:17:01.03 | Jeffrey Kingston | Yeah, I would like, that's a good point, Kevin. I would like to share with the council that we have a 24-7 on-call program. we have two individuals that actually monitor the system from their home and carry an iPad that can monitor the system and control the system and also alarm them from their home and they respond. And there's two individuals that are primary and secondary. And that program has been very successful so far. It's worked well. And we even, if we get a call from citizens in the city and even if we know it's the city's sewer collection system, we still respond in support. And we also have mutual aid agreements with surrounding cities and surrounding wastewater treatment staff or plants that have staff that will come and respond and support us. So we're, we're, we're, we take this very seriously. And whenever, especially whenever there's an emergency situation. |
| 01:18:10.39 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. Thank you for that. I see our city manager had his hand up and then Council Member Sobieski |
| 01:18:15.65 | Chris Zapata | And mayor, I'll wait till the council member goes. |
| 01:18:18.27 | Mayor Kelman | Kasper Svieski, please. |
| 01:18:19.85 | Councilmember Sobieski | Yeah, Jeff, just two questions. Then just, we've talked about it some in the morning could elaborate a little bit more about the rate setting and the 218 process, just so for everyone's benefit. If in their wisdom, the board of the district decided to install gold piping, How does the 218 process prevent an extravagance or spending that is outside of the norm. Can you elaborate on that? |
| 01:18:47.73 | Jeffrey Kingston | Sure. We use outside designers that design wastewater treatment and collection system designers, licensed professional engineers from California that design our projects. We don't do it in-house. We will conceptually set a 10-year program. We'll set the projects. We'll, we'll discuss those projects. The board approves that plan. And then we hire those design professionals and, um, we, we design each, each section of, of a project will be designed for a certain, uh, uh, life. And so it's not, it's, it's not that we're, um, uh, Even the material selection is based upon current industry trends and the longevity of that material type. So, uh, That's the best way I can answer that question from a, from a capital standpoint. Um, we may, you know, we, we focus, uh, we focus on the time value of money. So we may move faster or make a more costly decision in order to get something done, uh, quickly that may be critical or to the system or that, um, needs to be done sooner who may expedite it, uh, knowing that, but we always do that cost benefit analysis, but we do like to move a little quicker than the normal plan because we believe that construction inflation far outweighs the construction inflation will allow us not to complete our plan. if we don't do it on time or in a, But it may. |
| 01:20:46.02 | Councilmember Sobieski | Yeah. |
| 01:20:46.30 | Jeffrey Kingston | Thank you. |
| 01:20:46.72 | Councilmember Sobieski | All right, thanks for that. It's straightforward, technical. Rationale is the basis for designs and that's important to know. Um, related to that, uh, |
| 01:20:53.75 | Unknown | Okay. |
| 01:20:55.95 | Councilmember Sobieski | them. The one question I had is about something I alluded to in my comments earlier. If we, for instance, in the city of Sausalito wanted to have a open trenching policy where We would, whenever we need a trench, we would lay conduit to allow the future Utility, so it was not to have to dig the street up twice. We'd have open conduit through which we could pull fiber or pull underground electrical wire system. that kind of policy is something we could do if we controlled the system ourselves. but that the sewer district alone with its sole board of directors with their sole focus on providing sanitation services in the most effective way possible might not. in their wisdom, see as meeting their mission, it would be an extra cost potentially that would be beyond their narrowly defined mission. How is it possible to bake into a consolidation, some kind of set of procedures or policies that would account for the possibility of mutual goals between the two organizations, the broader city of Sausalito, and the narrow sedimentary district. |
| 01:22:07.73 | Jeffrey Kingston | We absolutely could do that. And we currently do that. We, we coordinate with your paving plan. So we're not cutting industry, but I would suggest that you already have a certain level of control and that's the encroachment permit. So you could, we would request the permit to do a particular project industry. And you may say, we want this, this, and this, and that done first. And, but We wouldn't wait that long to do that. We would coordinate the project with you first. We would keep you in the design loop. We always have done it that way. Um, So, it's not to our benefit to not capitalize on that. an opportunity of an open trench because we might need to do the same. But I would also tell you that we don't do a lot of open trench work. The way we replace the collection system is a technology called pipe bursting. And we literally, there's a machine that will burst the pipe in front, which is a break the clay pipe and then slide a new pipe in its place. So we do very little open trenching, but if we needed to, we would just work that into the plan. If there were other utilities that needed to be placed within a certain period of time. And our projects don't move that fast. that we wouldn't be able to coordinate that. |
| 01:23:46.98 | Councilmember Sobieski | Well, thank you for the answer. I still, that is something I would love. And I know this is only the first discussion and many on the subject, Thank you. That is exactly my question. Okay. I know that there are technologies that would allow a pipe tier to be replaced without trenching. But if trenching would allow us to kill two birds with one stone that is underground a section of, or three birds actually underground some overhead utilities, pulled fiber and fixed the sewer system all in one fell swoop. then I can understand why the sewer district alone might not be interested in actually trenching. They might prefer this technology you just described. but the broader mission of making a better community would call for an actual trench. And I'm wondering how we would manage that situation between our different Um, between two different organizations, the city of South Salado and the district. |
| 01:24:40.82 | Jeffrey Kingston | Yeah, and I think that that's done through relationships that we currently have that we would coordinate the design with whatever you had going in the street at that time. The other thing to remember is we have the same rate payers or citizens. And so if both agencies feel that's what's best for the rate payer or the citizen, then our goals are aligned there. |
| 01:25:15.64 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:25:17.24 | Mayor Kelman | Thanks for that. Councilor Siewewski, great questions. City manager. |
| 01:25:22.15 | Chris Zapata | Yeah. For the public record, I'd like to make sure that Some things are said by myself, mayor and council in public. you know, for future discussions, I'd like to reserve some time to talk about recycling and reuse in this time of climate change and drought. I think that has to be on the radar down the road, not for tonight, but I wanna make sure that the public hears that, that we need to consider that going forward. I'd also really like to thank our team, the district and the council and staff before that that looked at and paid attention to this because, you know, this is basic infrastructure and given the age of the size, you know, and parts of the system's condition, you know, if we don't pay attention to it because we don't see it, you know, we're susceptible to something going wrong. And so paying attention to it by understanding what the TV end of the pipe shows and analysis there and the public seeing that. I think that's really, really good information and helps people understand what the lay of the land is in Sausalito as it relates to this critical service and infrastructure. And then regarding legal costs, Mayor, you mentioned, you know, how does that work? My approach to that would be is if it's tied to the enterprise, then I think it's an appropriate bill to that enterprise, just like Kevin, His time is built to that. If our city attorney is working on things related to the enterprise consolidation, then I would build that enterprise fund accordingly. Just as it should be. And then I heard a lot of conversation about rates and I get that there's a concern about, you know, who controls that and how that happens. And there's a lot governing that that the district and cities have to comply with. But the one thing that I would really want to stress is that that's periodically done. It's not done once and then forever there. not some kind of formulaic Thank you. appropriation that goes on forever. The district or whoever is in charge has to come back and justify those rates after the rate analysis has been done by whomever is in charge of hiring that person does. So I see less of a parallel to the fire consolidation with this one. I do with that one because you do have that opportunity every so often to review the rates that the public does and make sure that all is as it should be so that they can be adopted. So again, I thank you all for focusing on this basic, basic infrastructure. Again, without water and wastewater treatment, there is no civilization. That's what a wise engineer told me one time. So thank you again for your time. |
| 01:27:54.82 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. Okay, well, we're gonna get it opened up to public comment. I do see one hand raised, I'll have three minutes. And city clerk, if you will allow Joan Cox to unmute and share her video. We'll take a public comment. |
| 01:28:15.09 | Councilmember Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 01:28:15.10 | Joan Cox | Thank you. Mayor and Council, good evening. I had a couple of thoughts. One is, you know, Council Member Sobieski was bringing up various future. you the importance of Sauclido stakeholders being involved in the future. One way to do that. even, when management And. board members change is to incorporate that meet and confer process into the MOU slash contract between Sausalito and Sausalito Marin City Sanitary District. You made mention of a meeting of legal counsel Um, I don't know how involved legal counsel of either entity has been. in the consolidation process, which has been going on for years, I would recommend you include in that meeting your task force members who have the working knowledge of deal points so that the legal counsel is not starting, from ground zero. I was gratified to hear Jeff talk about the pipe bursting, the Vivian's presentation, made. reference to point repair, but not to trenchless pipe bursting Um, And so I was grateful to hear that as a method. I wanted to point out that we did do a Prop 218 just a couple of years ago. And I think it would be really important you know, every time we do a 218, residents are concerned that we put two charges on their tax bills, one for collection, one for treatment. So I think . in, anticipation of the consolidation, it would be important to ensure that our rates will remain fixed for some period of time. to during a transition period to give our ratepayers confidence that We're not getting the short end of the stick through the consolidation. And I think that's going to be an important deal point as we go to the voters to get the consolidation approved. is that there's some certainty about rates. And so I think that the two agencies are going to need to negotiate a long range maintenance plan. I understand that. Sausalito Marin City Sanitary District likes to do their re maintenance program, in a shorter period of time, whereas Sausalito has a longer period of time. I think there needs to be a meeting of the minds that's clearly communicated and the consequential rates clearly communicated to rate payers. as we seek approval of consolidation, if that's the route. We supposed to go. And finally, one thing that we had discussed in the past was when the system would become a closed system ineligible for new members. So in addition to ensuring parity amongst the various rate payers, I think it's important also to know just how much the system will expand. |
| 01:31:23.07 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you, man. Sorry, Joan. Sorry to interrupt you about your time's up. Thank you very much. |
| 01:31:24.83 | Joan Cox | Thank you. Thank you very much. |
| 01:31:26.68 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. |
| 01:31:26.73 | Joan Cox | Thank you. Okay. |
| 01:31:40.23 | Unknown | Good evening, city council. Thanks for a very exhaustive discussion on this. I had two points. One was related to one just Joan just brought up. I think anytime you're, uh schedule you know you're budgeting maintenance over a 10-year horizon further than 10 years and you're not you're and you're just fixing the existing problems there needs to be an estimate of what you're uh how many new problems that you might have Thank you. period. I don't think 14 years sounds like an awful long time where you may end that you don't have a budget for and you're going to get to a point where we are with like our roads where you're underfunded and you never catch up. So that needs to be a, you know, a serious look at what you know, you're a reasonable time horizon is a big disconnect. Also, I would say, you know, our sanitary district has another looming issue and that is permits are due in the next year or two and there may be a substantial increase in the level of cleanliness, the removal of nitrogen and other fertilizer issues. fertilizing elements, you know, with our red we had the summer. The EPA is likely to increase the amount of filtration that sauce leave and needs to do and a substantial cost to the system. Thanks. |
| 01:33:32.62 | Mayor Kelman | Thanks. |
| 01:33:33.03 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:33:33.06 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 01:33:34.34 | Unknown | All right. |
| 01:33:34.53 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 01:33:34.77 | Unknown | Becky Nichols? Hi, good evening. Thank you for the great discussion. I was curious, but I think Mr. Kingston mentioned this. We have had in the past, some spills that got us in hot water with the EPA. I think that we've settled all that, but I'm wondering if we're still under any current fine mechanisms or whatever, does that transfer the obligation to the district And is it only the effective date of the consolidation or will we continue to be obligated for any that may remain. Thank you. |
| 01:34:10.30 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you very much. City Clerk, do you see any other members of the public? |
| 01:34:17.04 | Mayor Kelman | Okay, we'll go ahead and close public comment, bring it back up to council to give direction to staff for next steps. Who would like to start us off? |
| 01:34:30.76 | Mayor Kelman | I mean, I'm happy to dive in. Yeah, I'd like to hear from the working group first. Yeah, go for it. |
| 01:34:31.57 | Unknown | to do. Yeah. Yeah. |
| 01:34:34.70 | Councilmember Sobieski | Yeah. |
| 01:34:36.17 | Mayor Kelman | Ian, do you want to, Councillor Sobbski, do you want to start? |
| 01:34:37.90 | Councilmember Sobieski | I think, actually, I would defer to, I'm sure my agreement was Susan and I defer to her. She's been working on this for the previous city council. So I'd let her take her stab. |
| 01:34:49.57 | Mayor Kelman | Great. |
| 01:34:50.10 | Councilmember Sobieski | And I'll add anything more. |
| 01:34:55.43 | Councilmember Cleveland Knowles | Sarah Silver, yeah thanks I mean I just I think we're kind of plotting through our next steps that are outlined in the staff report and. you know, I'm hoping that the you know, endorse the idea of continuing to move forward with the slide. You know, I don't know if it's helpful to put the slide that Kevin showed in his presentation about next steps and the different buckets that we have to address. But he had three buckets And I think we just need to kind of keep working with the district. um Part of that is getting through the LAFCO process, the finances, and I've forgotten what the third one was, but in any case, I can't show both of my screens at the same time. Yeah, I'm in favor of continuing to explore our options. And I think that as many people have said tonight, the devil is in the details. And I think we need to start working on a term sheet you know, kind of what the expectations, next steps and deal points are and come back to the council with that. So, but I'm just hoping that we can get unanimous agreement to continue to work with the district and Yeah. keep moving forward. |
| 01:36:16.58 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you both again for your hard work. |
| 01:36:18.67 | Councilmember Sobieski | Thank you. All I would add is there is a coherence to an obvious coherence to having the people that process the waste also manage the collection of it across the town. That being said, however, obviously the collection across the town affects the physical environment of the town. And so there is also some legitimate interests of the city council that aren't only focused on waste collection. And so some of the questions I asked around making sure that if we proceed with the consolidation that the city five years from now and 20 years from now is able to uh, effectively cooperate on issues that are relevant to the community at that time, concerning trenching or anything else. are important to me. That's a lens through which I would look at some of the details that Council of the Cleveland Normals is talking about. |
| 01:37:23.12 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you for that. Kisselen Huffman, any additional comments? |
| 01:37:27.51 | Jill Hoffman | No, I support that. I think there's an excellent staff report and excellent work done by both the district and our own staff to get us a scope of what the situation looks like with our sewers. So thanks to everybody for that tremendous lift in the working group. And I agree, it's let's start working on the term sheet. And this seems to me to be the way to go. you know, it's all about the deal, right? And so we have to get the deal points right. So. |
| 01:37:54.77 | Vice Mayor Blostein | Thank you. Do I spare anything at? I just generally agree and really appreciate the time staff put into this, both the district and and our staff at the city and appreciate the working groups efforts And I just a couple of things as we think about the deal. And I would say we should move forward with the term sheet. I completely agree with council member Hoffman, just that thinking about how do we maintain control over the construction projects. And also the city manager made some really great comments thinking about recycling and reuse and thinking about climate mitigation impacts. And I also wanted to acknowledge Councilmember Sobieski's comments about the three birds with one stone, because I'm really excited to hear an emphasis on potential for fiber if we're undergrounding as well. So there's a lot to consider here, but there's also been a lot of great work done And I think if we, put our heads together, we can come up with a deal that will work really well for both the district and the city. So I appreciate everyone's effort. |
| 01:38:47.04 | Mayor Kelman | Thanks, everybody. I'll just add in. obviously the details on this. So just for the working groups consideration, anything we can do to retain oversight. Certainly Prop 218 gives us very different dynamic as the city manager pointed out than we have with the fire district. I also am very much concerned about who will bear the long-term risk So I think I'm, This is the Sanitation District. And the whole operation is very exposed to sea level rise. And I think 2021 or maybe 2020 was the first year that the district even included it in its strategic plan. And I think that's gonna be a really heavy lift in a number of different ways. And I'll be interested to see if a deal can be worked out that isn't just on a per pipe basis, but a surrounding area that protects those pipes as well. So that confluence of factors with subsidence as well as rising waters, how might we address that in a longer term fashion? And so I think part of the deal structure will have to take into account the duration of the deal, I thought the comments around A long range maintenance plan is actually really important. as well as sort of more immediate goals. I'm also very interested on who bears the liability for any mismanagement. The timing of ownership of liability. We're hearing we have a lot of grade five issues right now. If we sign the deal and then the next day there's some type of leak, Is that get included in the? the district's obligations. I'm glad the city manager mentioned the recycled water opportunities and efforts for sustainability. It's something that The vice mayor and I did already speak to, I think it was you Jeff or maybe it was Kevin about those opportunities for gray water, purple water. And so that should, be included in the deal term as well. And then I'd be interested to understand the opportunities for sort of joint, Joint funding. So one of the reasons I asked Vivian initially about the location of some of the pipes was because there's certain things that you can package into grants depending on where they're located. And so if it's located by an undergrounding situation, then you're looking at some type of street improvement or undergrounding. If it's located over down by the water and you're looking at a climate resilience grant. And so I would be very interested to understand the district strategy around that obligation as it pertains to some of the site control and the location and the overall enhancement of an area for long-term sustainability and resiliency. So with that, Good luck to us all as we proceed, but I am in favor and thank you again, everybody, for your hard work. Okay, thanks all. All right. we'll move on then. I think there's no, um, resolution or anything to serve a collective agreement. Move on to item 5B. which is to adopt a resolution amending the revised and restated master fee schedule that was adopted in 2008, 2009, to adjust the parking fees. And so I'll welcome Elliot Holt, our parking analyst. Nice to see you, Elliot. |
| 01:41:36.02 | Elliot Holt | Thank you, Mayor. Good evening, Mayor and Council. And I appreciate the opportunity to come with a Analysis of parking fees for the city of Sausalito. If you give me a moment, I will attempt to get my presentation on screen. And then just let me know if you can see that. |
| 01:41:59.18 | Mayor Kelman | We can, it's not in presentation mode yet, but yes. |
| 01:42:02.52 | Elliot Holt | Excellent, okay. All right, so tonight, as you said, prepared recommendation for a resolution to amend the master fee schedule, specifically addressing some parking fees in the city of South Seattle. Um, Really, we're going to be looking at a very select few parking fees. There's a few that were not included in this report. But this addresses the vast majority of fees that I think and staff think that we should adjust in the short term. So specifically, we're looking at downtown parking areas. So that's the on-street parking meters and the off-street parking lots. And within those, there are some employee parking programs and resident parking programs, and then some miscellaneous parking fees. And then I'll finish the presentation with some revenue estimates based on the recommended adjustments. And then we'll finish off with some opportunities to explore some new revenue generating fees or programs that we could look at in the short term and long term. in Sausalito. Ultimately, as you know, parking has been a, uh, uh, item of conversation at the June 28th meeting staff received some direction to bring to council some recommendations and that's what I'm doing tonight. But before that, we did... make a short term adjustment to the summertime fees in the downtown areas. Um, That was resolution 6176. And that was specifically to address the peak demand fees in our downtown area. Ultimately, discussions of parking came up throughout the fiscal year 23 budget discussions. um, Staff looked at a number of different fees to bring in the short term. Again, we can come back later after counseling community feedback Um, We're gonna look at the off-season fees tonight. in Part of that, we'll look at lot four, the rates and also the hours of enforcement of that lot. We're also gonna look at the commuter and parking fees for employees. within that, some parking card application fees, the permit fees for residents and employees throughout town, also look at the resident parking that we're going to zones, the eligibility criteria and the areas of influence for those parking permit areas. And then a couple other fees, contractor permits and parking signs. Ultimately, there were three approaches that staff used For the downtown areas, we looked at congestion management and used that as the primary focus. Ultimately, we want to have a higher rate during the summer months when we have an influx of visitors to town And then the off peak season, the prices would normalize and allow some of the local visitors to town. to utilize the downtown area Um, We also looked at fees adjusting for inflation. A number of parking fees have not been addressed since the early 2000s. Most of them were restated in 2008 and have not been adjusted or increased based on any factors So staff use the CPI, that Consumer Price Index, to evaluate some of these fees and adjust them for today's dollars. And then finally, staff also looked at a number of different municipalities and adjusted some fees based on Where they stand in the industry scale, And ultimately we wanted to look to make sure that we weren't undercharging for certain fees, but also look to see what other municipalities are doing creative strategies that they employ. and things like that. So pretty briefly, we'll just go into the downtown parking areas. Again, like I said, there was a resolution in July of 2018 to establish the current demand based pricing model. Essentially, again, that's a two season model where there is a higher influx of tourism to downtown. So the charge for parking becomes higher. Ultimately, that's to promote turnover in the parking spaces and in lots of the current peak demand season runs May 1 through September 30 every year. We use digital parking meters that were installed in 2015 and 2016, the data gathered by those meters to construct the peak demand season. We also updated this most recently this July, and address just the end of that peak season August to September 30 this year. Um, The parking congestion isn't limited just to vehicles parking in the downtown the tour vans, the bicycles, the other visitors to downtown Sausalito. There are congestion management strategies employed for those different programs. We have bicycle parking. was established by Resolution 5517 in 2015. essentially limiting and regulating where bicycles can and can't park. There was also a fee established by ordinance number 1333 in 2016 And then tour bands and coaches have had a long term relationship with downtown. and I'll address that a little bit more later, but, There is a number of fees that were established as far back as 2007. and most recently restated in 2012. So onto the fee adjustments that are being recommended tonight. Um, Ultimately, as I said, we did address just recently in July, some of the seasonal parking charges for the downtown street meters. And those are described here. So we go from about $3 an hour in the outside of the downtown area to about $6 per hour in the immediate downtown area. Um, The daily rate for a rental of a meter would be adjusted for this recommendation a little bit higher. It's essentially a nine hour dollar, a nine hour charge. And then the off peak season, so October 1st to April 30, we would be adjusting that rate up by a dollar. And again, adjusting the daily rental to about equivalent to a nine hour charge. moving on to lots one and two. Traditionally lots of them two have been the same rate, they've been held consistently the same Over the years, I think that staff are recommending that we change that a little bit. So that lot one, at least during the off peak season, is a little bit higher than lot two. Lot two, we would be adjusting the daily maximum rate just to essentially mirror the other parking lots where there's a 10 hour charge for that daily parking. Right. Lot three and four, we actually have some substantial changes. We've been increasing the off-peak season rate for lot three. about 50 cents an hour. But lot four, we would be extending not only hours of operation that lot, but also increasing the hourly rate. about a dollar an hour and increasing that all day fee. So again, it's similar $10 or 10 hour charge for the day. In the downtown area, again, we still see bus and coach permits being sold. That is the control mechanism. That's the congestion management for our tour and coach visitors. We get a lot more tour bands. than tour coaches nowadays, at least since the beginning of COVID. but ultimately this is the cost for a day rate. or a per visit rate, depending on how often that tour coach fan is visiting the downtown area. Ultimately, we would just be adjusting these to current rates in today's dollars. Moving on very quickly to employee parking programs in the downtown area. There are four parking programs for employees in the downtown area. Downtown adjacent would be A lot. where the L-kernit is valid. It's still within the downtown area is still considered an employee parking permit. But it does have a special case and I'll address that a little bit later in the presentation. Ultimately, there are three main programs, the D, the L, and the daily parking card. And the daily parking cart has a supplemental service where enrollees in that program can access a pay by phone. uh, app to pay for parking in the event that the parking cards are lost or run out of funds, uh, work or other situations like that. The DNL permits are issued cruelly They're good in various parking lots, the Ds, ballot in lot three and four. The L permit is ballot in lot five. These permits go back quite a ways. They hark back to a period where the lots were much different. We had gated lots one and three, lot two was metered and lock floor was also metered. And really the enrollment in the program has gone down in lieu of the pay by phone service. Ultimately, we would like to increase the fees for the enrollees in the D permit and no permits to today's dollars using CPI data. staff gathered and also increase the fees for enrollment in the daily parking card service. The per day fee would be a substantial change. We would be going up $2 per day, lots across the board, both on demand and peak demand or off peak seasons. Moving on again quickly to resident parking programs. um, most of our community would be aware that there are three parking permits. and three parking permit areas in town. areas B, C and H, they go back a long time. As you can see, it's been established over a 30 year period going back to 1978. There is a fourth type of parking permit, also pretty old, going back to the early 2000s, specifically for residents living in the downtown area. The BCH permits are issued annually. There is a $35 per permit fee for each resident vehicle and their guest permits. The resident permits in the downtown area cost $190 quarterly, and they're good in lots three and four. Again, these go back a little ways, most recently adopted and established in 2008. and not adjusted since. There is another resident parking program that we would like to discuss this evening, the resident parking pass card, It's really just a one of a kind program. It's not something that you'll find in other municipalities. There's things like it, but Sausalito is very special and unique in its benefit that it provides to residents. And of course, that's not limited to residents within the city of Saucyote in November of 2020. the, COB, Dan Burke, Norcal PTACCIA.: Eligibility criteria was expanded to any and all residents in the nine for nine six five zip code so that. includes Marin City, the headlands area and the floating homes communities COB, Dan Burke um, Ultimately, a breakdown of the permit fees proposed for the resident programs you'll see here in this table. we would be eliminating that $35 per year permit fee all together and replacing it with a tiered pricing model. So the first two permits a resident buys per year would be $50. ever at the second and fourth or the third and fourth permit would be $70. And again, those are annual permits. The guest permits, we would just establish a flat 50 dollars per year for that type of permit. There's a limit already existing for residents, for guest permits. two per residence. The D permit, we would be increasing again by CPI to today's dollars up to $270 per quarter. and then establishing a slightly higher fee application fee for the parking pass card. Um, Okay, so now just to capture some of the most lenient fees here. So, oh, that's a duplicate side, sorry about that. So one of the things that we don't currently have is a formal contractor permit. pricing for the downtown area. the staff are recommending today to establish a fee for reserving paid perpometers, so $20 per day fee and then also establishing general fees in the downtown lots as well. and also in residential zones. So that would include some of the residential permit zones as well. but also staff are recommending a slight increase to the temporary parking No parking sign, excuse me. I don't know if you can see, but my cat has decided to join the presentation. and go back there. So again, staff are recommending a slight increase to the temporary parking. no parking signs from two to $3 per day. Um, just, briefly going over some of the current successes that we've had. that we've realized since July, when we established the adjustment to the seasonal parking fees, So with the increase to the demand parking from mid August to the end of September. the city realized about $183,000 in additional revenues. Um, That coupled with Well, that includes, excuse me, some of the flat rate pricing that the city has employed over the past two holidays. That included July 4th for the fireworks show. but also the Labor Day weekend. The city of charge the flat $25 fee per parking session for anyone parking lots one through four. We did also implement that this past weekend for the League Week. We stumbled a little bit with the communication for residents during that period. There was some miscommunication. Some residents were unsure on how to approach the parking fee something that they hadn't seen before. but also we did raise approximately $33,000 in additional revenues this past weekend over year prior. Um, Staff are estimating essentially Thank you. |
| 01:56:42.84 | Councilmember Sobieski | Yeah. |
| 01:56:43.04 | Elliot Holt | Thank you. |
| 01:56:43.09 | Councilmember Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 01:56:43.10 | Elliot Holt | Thank you. 386,000 in additional annual revenue based on the recommendations provided tonight. That includes full year estimates based on prior year, As we come out of COVID and the pandemic precautions are relaxed, we would stand to generate more revenue, And in fact, staff are estimating another a substantial increase to revenue based on the adjustments we made back in July. to the peak demand rates. A number of different opportunities present themselves to us, one of which would be that flat rate pricing I just discussed. Currently it's limited to just lots one through four. The city manager has an authority to set a temporary flat rate in certain situations essentially where the demand for parking would be in excess of the supply. |
| 01:57:33.65 | Unknown | Right in. |
| 01:57:37.73 | Elliot Holt | You can see that happening in most holiday weekends, especially if we have good weather, so it's essentially over the summer. But we could also apply that in certain circumstances when we have events in the downtown area. If we extend that flat rate pricing to the downtown meters, we can better control where people are parking and how long they're parking for. right now. The Flat rate pricing extended to the parking lots solely creates an uneven distribution where people can park at a meter, especially when it becomes free after 6 p.m. and pay a much reduced rate than people parking in the downtown mosques. Another opportunity to explore would be extending the meter hours enforcement, just a blanket extension. Some cities start enforcing as early as 7am, other cities enforce as late as 8pm, some until 10, depending on the situation and the location. So we could certainly explore that. Um, Staff are also interested in looking at flexible hours for the downtime rates. So large cities in the Bay, San Francisco, Oakland, Berkeley, they address ingestion management for especially on-street meters by adjusting the rate throughout the day. So in periods of peak demand, the charge can be as high as $8. and periods where there is very little demand, the charge can be 50 cents. So staff are interested, we have the data, we have digital parking meters, we've had them for six years. We can certainly identify those periods of time and capitalize and provide that congestion management for the downtown area. We have our seasonal influences of tourists. Um, Another item that we can explore would be to extend the current area parking permits for residents, but also provide a mechanism so that people can request new ones, formalize that process and make it a little bit easier on staff, less burden of time. make it more convenient for residents. ultimately expanding a parking permit area. or even possibly adjusting some of the time limiting parking restrictions within those areas can have very beneficial impacts for residents can also establish a little bit more revenue in some of these areas, but ultimately provide congestion management for us. heavily congested areas for residents. Also staff are interested in looking at additional lots, establishing a metered parking program there. We can activate some of our digital parking partnerships to take credit card payments either by phone or by app, In fact, one of the examples would be block five, It's currently a three hour parking lot. with restrictions overnight. And there are some private lots adjacent to lot five that charge an hourly rate and you say, pay by phone vendor to do that. Other lots that staff could examine would be perhaps city park lots, Tumkey Park is an option to look at and explore, but also City Hall are all options. Another opportunity that we could explore would, and something very easily achievable, would be charging a fee for removing the temporary parking signs that are put up generally for construction projects. but also by residents. The impact that a temporary no parking sign has on parking and He's pleading. But it's also something that we would like to control better. And by charging a fee for removing those signs that are left after a project's completed or just ignored and forgotten, we could certainly discourage any bad behavior there. So that's essentially the end of my presentation for this evening. I did want to call out just a few items that were brought up. during recently. So there were some Excuse me. Stop sharing life. screen. systems. Stop sharing. There we go. Okay. So there was some public comment, related to this item about taxi parking, but also tour coach parking that I'd like to address. So ultimately, staff would be interested to explore an opportunity to examine fees for taxis and other types of vehicles that are parked in the downtown area. But the tour coach and vans specifically, they do pay a fee. It's either whatever the prevailing rate is in the space that they're taking and occupying in a lot, or they're paying that daily fee. And ultimately, The coaches are the target for that feed. They're the big impact. They take up a lot of space, and they tend to stay there for a long period of time. Um, another question that was raised was about, uh, the resident parking permit areas. Again, just to address some of the concerns in that comment. There are limitations to the number of permits. We'd be happy to explore changing the prices based on that comment, but also to address the 72-hour parking and the violation of that. That area, especially area C surrounding Caledonia street is monitored Often, as you know, we do have some staff concerns. We're at about half the capacity with our parking enforcement staff right now. So it does behoove a resident to report a vehicle that they're seen parking in excess of 72 hours so that we can start that enforcement process and evade or notify the resident as necessary. But ultimately there's a couple other questions I wanted to address from council members. So there were questions about the citation revenues for the past few years. It wasn't addressed in this presentation, but I'd be happy to come back later. ballpark figures though. The city has lost about $150,000 in revenue over the past three years each year, In 2019, fiscal year 2019, generated about $670,000 in citation revenues. in this past fiscal year, it was about $215,000. Some of that's due to staff concerns. We lost a few staff during the last three years. Thank you. So that's worth another look later. And then there were some questions about hotel parking and we'd be happy to look into that a little bit more in greater detail. So with that, I'll give it back and include my presentation |
| 02:04:28.92 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you so much, Elliot. Very thorough. Appreciate all your hard work there. I think I saw Councilor Sobieski's hand up first and then we'll go to the Vice Mayor. |
| 02:04:37.48 | Councilmember Sobieski | Thank you, Mayor. Elliot, thanks for your work and your long service to Sausalito. Just have a... a list of quick questions. At the highest level, do you happen to know whether other municipalities set all the details of their parking rates for all their different kinds of parking at the city council level or do they uh, or do you? do some municipalities turn that authority over to city staff to experiment with and play with it? |
| 02:05:09.41 | Elliot Holt | That's an excellent question. And I don't know the full answer to that. I could give you an example. A situation like San Francisco, they have a separate entity that manages the parking and transportation. uh, SFMTA. They have full authority, they have a board of directors and they set fees without city involvement. Um, That's a special case. I'm not sure about smaller municipalities that would be a building disaster whether they have a staff Matt Lundin, authority to set fees traditionally saucers had to go to Council to get authority. And that's, pretty consistent from what I can tell. |
| 02:05:49.89 | Councilmember Sobieski | Okay, well, that'd be my, I'd love that question. Looking at that and get back to me offline, I'd love to know the answer to that question. For the development of these recommendations, I saw there are a lot of things that had no change and you also alluded to the fact that many rates hadn't changed since 2008. and that you would change things, at least for inflation. When you listed things as no change, Meaning no change nominally, or were you talking about no change relative to a, to an inflation adjusted new rate or what was that exactly? |
| 02:06:21.66 | Elliot Holt | Sure, thank you. Ultimately, and I'd have to look over the entire recommendation again to be sure. But, where there's no change It typically will respond to something that we've adjusted recently. So, for example, the rates for the downtown areas, there's no change because we wouldn't be looking at the peak demand rates at this time. We were addressing just specifically off-peak rates for the downtown area. Let me see if I can pull that information up and see if there's any other examples that I can give you. |
| 02:06:53.57 | Councilmember Sobieski | Well, there are several pages of rate changes and the vast majority had no change. And so I was wondering if all of these were recently adjusted to account for at least inflation. |
| 02:07:04.71 | Elliot Holt | Correct, yeah. So the first page of the exhibit that's attached to the resolution is essentially reiterating the recent change that we made in July when we addressed the parking rates for the peak demand season. So May 1 through September 30 for each of the lots, there's relatively no change to those rates. And then the same thing would be for the parking meters during that time. |
| 02:07:34.04 | Councilmember Sobieski | Okay, so those are rates that had recently been changed Correct. So just a question on enforcement. I understand that our parking enforcement people work primarily. Do they work on weekends or is that There is an open question about how the enforcement is done. Is it, where's the proponent of the enforcement? Is it on weekends or weekdays? Or is it even throughout the week? |
| 02:07:58.76 | Elliot Holt | Pretty even throughout the week right now, due to staff concerns, we do have additional days where we have overlap on the weekends. |
| 02:08:05.38 | Councilmember Sobieski | Okay, were these recommended, I know that we had engaged with Pace Parking and professional parking services outfit to give us some input on our parking management Are there recommendations incorporated in this report? |
| 02:08:18.71 | Councilmember Sobieski | No, not at this time. |
| 02:08:21.22 | Councilmember Sobieski | Why is that for... Do we think that, well, just why is that? |
| 02:08:25.60 | Elliot Holt | I'd be happy to engage with them. I have not had communication with them since the initial planning stages when they were abroad. |
| 02:08:34.62 | Mayor Kelman | Sounds like a city manager question that we can shift over to the city manager to answer that when it's appropriate. |
| 02:08:40.80 | Councilmember Sobieski | Okay, Chris, maybe you can answer that at some point in my and maybe a related question, Elliot, just the last one, I suppose, at the highest level. What were the themes that guided these recommendations. Like how do you pick? raising something 50 cents versus a dollar. versus $2. What was the guiding motivation. behind your thinking. |
| 02:09:08.85 | Elliot Holt | Sure, sure, thank you. Ultimately, the parking rates for the downtown area, I think is kind of more specific to your question. The idea and the industry standard would be to approach this with a congestion management So, oversight. Essentially what you need is you need enough of a rate to promote that turnover to allow for parking and to allow for visitors, residents, whoever it is, to access those parking areas. Um, Another way to look at this is this is an approachable increase something that the city can come back to It's an evolving process and it's something that we can address and react to as we make recommendations year to year. |
| 02:09:58.51 | Councilmember Sobieski | Thank you. Thank you, I'll let other people ask questions. Thanks, Elliot, again, |
| 02:10:04.03 | Councilmember Sobieski | work. |
| 02:10:04.67 | Councilmember Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 02:10:04.70 | Councilmember Sobieski | of course. |
| 02:10:06.41 | Vice Mayor Blostein | Thank you. |
| 02:10:06.44 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. |
| 02:10:06.52 | Vice Mayor Blostein | THANK YOU. Thanks a lot, Elliot. Great work. Lots of time and effort went into this. And I know you've been thinking about it for a while wanna commend the changes that we made in July that are obviously already having and impact. So that's great. I was looking at the attachment on comparison of other communities and their parking schedules and parking fees. And while some of our rates are comparable, I noticed that none of them have a holiday or high season rate. Is there a reason why we can't why you chose to do it that way. Obviously congestion management is something That makes sense. But if folks are willing, especially tourists to pay that amount What would be the justification for not continuing that given our $3 million structural deficit and the opportunity for increased revenue. |
| 02:10:58.06 | Elliot Holt | Thank you. That's a great question. Ultimately, congestion management is the guiding line. But no, we would be happy to explore a number of different opportunities to either establish a flat rate across all the lots for consistency's sake. That was a question I received earlier today. Uh, Ultimately, there is a seasonal change between the off-peak season that we've defined where the visitors to the city of Sausalito are no longer these out of state, out of town visitors that are here for whatever reason you have, right? Whether they're part of the tour cruise or other draw. The visitors to the city of Saucedo in the off peak season are generally local visitors. So that's within the Bay Area. And so traditionally, the city has charged less during the offbeat season. because it's a way to maintain that relationship and keep people coming back to the city of Sausseo. We would be happy to explore other options and if council provides that tonight, we'd come back with another recommendation. |
| 02:12:11.87 | Vice Mayor Blostein | I'm just wondering whether it might make sense to just maintain a higher rate if folks are still coming and using the parking given our structural deficit and opportunity for revenue. But my concern would be if we did do that, Elliot, would you be able to come up with a plan that would be less impactful for residents? So, I mean, I personally have, a $35 residential placard park on the street and I'm happy to pay $50 and I think it's been too little for too long, but the concern about how residents might use the downtown or you know, We have our 94965 parking program, which you outlined in your staff report, would they be able to continue to pay the lower rate? And then perhaps visitors would pay the higher rate. |
| 02:12:54.16 | Elliot Holt | Absolutely. Yeah, the benefit of the current digital system is that it has that flexibility. We can adjust rates, we can identify certain lots, spaces, or others for certain purposes. So residents with the current system can continue to access the three hour benefit that they get. and free parking after 6 p.m., regardless of the prevailing range. There are some caveats to that that we would have to detail and account for, but ultimately the parking card would work, whatever the rate is. |
| 02:13:24.15 | Vice Mayor Blostein | And I don't know if you're familiar with Mill Valley has this RSVP Mill Valley program for parking and you don't necessarily have to be a Mill Valley resident to get one of them, but it encourages I think I would have to double check on that, but I think it encourages folks to visit and have free, well, not free parking, but parking also have advantages that like residents would have for parking. So that's something that we might potentially consider as well. Just thinking about ways to keep revenue up, but then still maintain the interests of local visitors, as you mentioned, is really critical. And as I imagine our Chamber of Commerce would suggest is quite important as well. Okay, well, I appreciate those considerations. And I really appreciate what you put together. That's it for my questions. Thanks, Elliot. |
| 02:14:07.99 | Councilmember Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. |
| 02:14:08.04 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. |
| 02:14:09.25 | Councilmember Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. Yeah, thank you, Mayor, and thank you, Elliot, for this really thorough staff report. I thought it was It was really well done. Um, I guess I wanted to just focus for a minute on the enforcement side of things. I know that wasn't the focus in your staff report or your presentation, but it is the, as I think you said, the other side of the coin. here and at BOSCAN. increase revenue. Um, And it is revenue. in and of itself. And obviously if we don't have enforcement, Amen. The parking program doesn't. work as intended. So can you just repeat the information that you said before about how far our enforcement our citation revenue has fallen in the last year or two. |
| 02:15:00.35 | Elliot Holt | Certainly. So just two data points that I'll give you. So fiscal year 2019, the total citation revenue for municipal code pines, was 670,000 approximately. This last year, fiscal year 22, the city took in about $215,000 in municipal code citation related fines. um, The difference would be essentially $150,000 each year that we lost in that revenue source. Um, It's, somewhat due to staffing levels, but also During COVID, we certainly saw a reduction in citation related fines because we didn't have parkers in the downtown area. So there's a number of factors that resulted in that depreciation and the lack of enforcement revenue. And for that reason and to address your question earlier today, I would be happy to come back with a separate recommendation looking at parking citation, and enforcement specifically because of the complexity issue. |
| 02:16:17.88 | Councilmember Cleveland Knowles | Great, thank you. And I just, I think I would, you know, encourage us to look at that because I think in some cases, We haven't been able to hire staff as much you know, as we would like in some areas, but there are key positions and this might be one of those areas where those staff not only pay for themselves, but more than pay for themselves in the revenue that they generate. for the city and similarly advancing our congestion management. policies at the same time. So I would love to suggest that we hear more about that. Um, And then... I just, I'm I really liked your five or six recommendations for next steps and other areas to consider. but I just wanted to make sure I understood um, you were talking about adjusting weights throughout the day, kind of in real, kind of in real time. And did I understand you correctly that Well, we don't. So some cities have kind of real-time data that they use to increase or decrease parking rates throughout the day. But in Sausalito, we don't have that data capability right now. But because you have been able to collect the data, over six years, we could kind of approximate or kind of we could get to the same. end result, maybe not as precise, but pretty much Um, we could achieve a similar result even without spending more on better data. |
| 02:17:57.56 | Councilmember Sobieski | and, Exactly right. |
| 02:18:00.64 | Councilmember Cleveland Knowles | Okay. All right, I think that's really an important point that Elliot's been able to parse the data Um, well enough to kind of approximate these very expensive kind of real-time data systems and that I think that would be a shame to let that. So we can talk about that more when we get to comments, but That's excellent. So thank you for that. There would be no added cost. |
| 02:18:30.50 | Councilmember Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 02:18:30.51 | Councilmember Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. |
| 02:18:30.97 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. Kessler Hoffman, any comments or questions? Oh yeah, go ahead. |
| 02:18:35.49 | Councilmember Cleveland Knowles | Sorry, I just wanted to just add a little bit to what Elliot had answered in Councilman Brzovieski's question about how rates are set in other jurisdictions. And I just wanted to add that, in San Francisco, while they do set the rates at kind of a board level, Um, It's a range. It's a demand management range. So like from 50 cents to $8 and then staff or the director is able to to move the weights within the range. So that would be another model. |
| 02:19:11.05 | Unknown | Right. |
| 02:19:12.83 | Councilmember Cleveland Knowles | um, that we can approved rates up to X amount and then leave it to the city manager and our parking analysts too. adjust the rates down. when there's less demand. |
| 02:19:32.31 | Mayor Kelman | Bye. Thank you for that. Thank you. Okay, I had already sent my comments over to Elliot and he addressed them in his, presentation, so thank you for that. So, and then I'll have some sort of direction and discussion when we come back, but let's open up the public comment. |
| 02:19:47.68 | Councilmember Sobieski | Mayor, can I just get an answer from our city manager about these parking? |
| 02:19:52.22 | Councilmember Sobieski | Yes. |
| 02:19:57.40 | Councilmember Sobieski | regarding |
| 02:19:58.03 | Chris Zapata | Parking Council member Sobieski, mayor and council of public We have what I call a baby audit that we started with age parking. approximately three months ago. There have been some staff requirements that have kind of slowed down Elliot's involvement. Number one, he is now our IT point person. I think he recently had a child. So I didn't want to burden him with another responsibility And so all of that to say he will be involved in the future. And the second point I think really needs saying is, as it relates to not having enough parking enforcement officers, we tried to hire one. We have one in play right now. When you adopted the resolution to set up the new work hours with the city staff that is in public safety, we included... that the parking enforcement function would continue to work a 40-hour work week because we get that you know we need more people not less people and we're trying to hire them so more to follow on that but as it relates to Asia Elliot will be involved and It just takes a little time to ramp back up into what he needs to do. |
| 02:21:08.38 | Mayor Kelman | Okay, that answer your question, council member? Okay, all right, so City Clerk, we're going to go ahead and bring this over to public comment. I do see three hands raised, so I'll let you call on each. allow them to unmute themselves and share the video. |
| 02:21:33.20 | Mayor Kelman | So Molly, if you wouldn't mind, yes, just prior to doing that, if you would just call on them, that they would know it's them as well. Thank you. Welcome, Mr. Bruce. |
| 02:21:43.78 | Arthur Bruce | Hello, can you hear me? |
| 02:21:45.35 | Mayor Kelman | We can, yes, you have three minutes to, pine on parking. |
| 02:21:49.64 | Arthur Bruce | All right. Well, before I became a pro se I'm going to get in the city of Sausalito. I actually had a career in parking for about 20 years. I started in Dallas, Texas. I worked for Marketing Company of America. and was one of the original developers of, uh, a company that was known as PMS, Parking Management Solutions. It's now known as parkhub.com. I don't know if you've heard of it. But, um, Yeah. big, big, big, big money, man. I mean, we need to talk more about this. We should have gone into greater detail. I really got to commend Elliot. Elliot Holt, you've outdone yourself. I mean, this guy's on top of it. Y'all need to give him a raise. Uh. He's a nice guy too. Um, Yeah. So, uh, If y'all are interested, I'll be happy to put in a good word for the city. I could say some nice things about the city to the, uh, the, the owner, the CEO of the company, his name is George Baker. Uh, But yeah, I mean, they could just take over the whole gig for you. it'd just be easy, you'd probably make a lot more money Uh, Also, I Wondered if I could get a slight refund for my M permit that I purchased because at the, uh, the three months obligation that the city guaranteed when I purchased the permit, uh, wasn't fulfilled and now there's K bars all around that parking lot so nobody can park And it'd be, Really nice, I think, just on a side note, to open that parking lot back up so people could Play tennis again. That's all I have. It's good to see you guys' faces. |
| 02:23:42.89 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you, Mr. Bruce. |
| 02:23:57.38 | Councilmember Sobieski | Welcome, Alex. |
| 02:23:58.04 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. |
| 02:23:58.58 | Councilmember Sobieski | a |
| 02:23:58.85 | Alexander Woie | Thank you. |
| 02:23:58.87 | Councilmember Sobieski | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 02:23:59.74 | Alexander Woie | I didn't know which direction my camera was. Yeah, so again, thanks for all the work on this. It's super interesting to see. I guess one thought was just to encourage us to look more frequently at parking. It seems like we've left a bit of money on the table by not looking at this stuff on a more frequent basis. Um, And then just, you know, looking at the other municipalities that we've benchmarked on parking, I guess the thought was that are we really sort of challenging ourselves to do enough to lead on parking here? You know, tourists who are driving over a broadly not super price elastic and locals and residents, you know, I myself should probably be using, we should be using these kind of tools to encourage all of us to sort of take fewer car trips. and, you know, I, myself should probably be using, we should be using these kinds of tools to encourage all of us to sort of take fewer, um, car trips and, um, you know, really pay for the infrastructure that we're all using. Um, And then, you know, a thought here on, on, um, Bridgeway in general, but I don't I'm not sure that Bridgeway should really have street parking. We've got a lot of ample off street parking that we could be using as a resource. Bridgeway is sort of our thoroughfare and it shouldn't certainly be lower cost than some of those other lots. We shouldn't be encouraging folks to use Bridgeway if they can be on a lot that seems to be off and away from the rest of traffic and off of the busiest thoroughfare in town. And then I know it's separate, but at the top of the presentation that Elliot shared, there's a bit of a mention on bike parking. And I was just thinking that this could be looked at more holistically. and sort of thinking more about transit and sort of journeys through the town and sort of encouraging folks to use more bike infrastructure instead of car infrastructure in general. Those are my thoughts. |
| 02:25:48.64 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:25:49.65 | Mayor Kelman | Thanks, Alexa. I see Julie Vera has |
| 02:25:52.98 | Councilmember Sobieski | hand raised. |
| 02:26:07.32 | Councilmember Sobieski | Welcome, Julie. |
| 02:26:07.66 | Unknown | Okay. It's me. Um, Good evening. Hi, Elliot. Thank you for all of your work. Um, the chamber, um, government action committee met this morning, and we discussed this that was going to be on the agenda tonight. And so I'd just like to kind of the points that we came up with when we were reading this. One... I wholly approve and would love to have another parking officer downtown Uh, The Chamber and Visitor Center has become the quasi Lot one. parking czars, I guess, because everybody that has complaints comes to see us. And we were inundated this weekend. with the flat fee parking that we had no idea. was happening. our staff got lambasted by a lot of people. So it would have been nice to know that was gonna happen. just because we're easy access. Other point is the tour buses, are they kind of self-guided? to whether they are paying that fee Or is somebody watching that they pay the fee when they come in? because we do have one tour company that I noticed they moved their vans like every 15 to 20 minutes. And I don't think. And I'm not gonna call them out by name on here, But I don't think that they are paying their permits when they're bringing people from San Francisco over. So is there a way that we are checking that? Um, The second thing is, There are many businesses in town. I know we're talking about raising employee costs. for them to park, the commuter costs, There are so many businesses still looking for employees and maybe 30 to $40 a month more in parking. might not mean a lot to us, but it may mean a lot to an employee that is coming in starting at $15 to $18 an hour for a job. So just kind of wanted you to think about that, put that on the back burner. And then, Are there any numbers that show that if people pay more for parking, are they going to spend less at our restaurants, less at our retail businesses? You know, if they're going to pay you know, say 20, dollars more for their visit here. Is that gonna keep them from spending $20 at a local business? So, Those are just our thoughts from our meeting this morning. Thank you. |
| 02:28:43.83 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you, Julie. Okay, are there any other members of the public that wanna speak on this item? I'm not seeing any hands raised, so I'll go ahead and close with a comment, bring it up Who would like to start off with some comments or direction There is a resolution. in front of us. Yes, please. Council Member Cleveland-Knowles and then Council Member Sobieski. |
| 02:29:04.76 | Councilmember Cleveland Knowles | Um, yeah, I guess I just wanted to start off by saying I thought the staff report, not only having a lot of great data, we just had some really good history and, um, It was great to be reminded about how much we've already done. the resolution about congestion management in 2018 and just all the other stuff. I really appreciate kind of that look back. And, but to the point of the public comment or the fact that, you know, we just need to be, Um, That's why we hired Elliot, but we need to be more on top of this and kind of iterating constantly. So I'm really, really happy to see this in front of us. And, you know, the second thing about reading the staff, staff reporters like EAS from just the last couple of months. |
| 02:29:43.17 | Unknown | and then. |
| 02:29:50.96 | Councilmember Cleveland Knowles | Thank you to the city manager and Elliott, but $183,000 you know, in just that short period of time, even with a few hiccups. that you experienced is just really, Amazing. and then to come up with a proposal to get almost 400. and additional funds from very modest changes, I think. is very noteworthy. So thank you for that. So I'm in favor of all of the, Um, I think I would like to push a little on the tour bus charges. to Julie's point, I wouldn't want to do that without kind of a little bit more analysis. But I just doing a cost a living increase on that. if we really Thank you. those are just set too low to begin with. And of course, if we don't have enforcement right now with the tour buses, then that's you know. They would have to go hand in hand. But I would be, want to push on that moving forward. Otherwise, I think that the changes are good. To council member Sobieski's point, I would also be willing to authorize up to those amounts, with the ability for the city manager in consultation with our parking analysts to lower them. If we start to see adverse consequences, some of the concerns raised by the gender. But You know, maybe we can talk about that. Um, I really liked the five or six suggestions at the end of the staff report and would really like to see some additional analysis on that. you know, I think they're all worth looking into. I think for me, it would be a question of sort of like, If we're going to expand parking meter times, for example, how what would be the cost benefit of that? I mean, I think it would be sort of a minor aggravation to folks to start earlier and stay later, but if we had significant revenue, Um, and improved congestion management, I think that would be great. So I'd love to see the kind of the next step on all of those. Um, |
| 02:32:12.83 | Unknown | Um, |
| 02:32:13.83 | Councilmember Cleveland Knowles | And then I think I would added to that list, really like to pick up on the comments from one of the public speakers. that you know, an additional goal to all of this is kind of using parking, as a tool to decrease our greenhouse gas emissions to get us out of our single occupancy vehicles. get us on our bikes, get us on our feet. for those of us who are able and, you know, just achieve less parking overall. Thank you. but in a really thoughtful, thoughtful way. So I would like to add that on to a good work. and good suggestions that you've already brought forward to us. I think those are my comments. |
| 02:32:58.50 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. Great, thank you. Councillor Sebesky? |
| 02:33:02.02 | Councilmember Sobieski | So just at a technical level, I would love if Elliott or staff could consider this with the The email from Kevin Carroll about the taxicab enforcement downtown. The question that my colleague, Cleaver Mullen brought up about the tour bus enforcement and the rates. It's not just what the rates are, it's also the enforcement of the rates. what we can actually do about that. I would love that to be a follow-up from staff to the city council if we could. Uh, Thank you. There's a technical detail about the meters near lot one and lot one, they have different hours currently. It sort of cannibalizes itself, right? I mean, we're charging for parking lot one, but it's free if you park at a meter. So it actually competes against itself and moves cars out of the lot and onto the street. So it seems like meter parking should have the same hours as lot parking if the meters are adjacent to the lots. uh, Thematically, I would love to know what my colleagues think about just giving staff a lot more authority to experiment and play with this. rather than have the city council have to set detailed rates I think we should certainly get involved if we hear complaints from our neighbors and we feel like we need to, uh, put different kinds of boundaries on what staff charges, but I would be in favor of being quite liberal with allowing staff to experiment with rates and instead focus on what the policy should be. |
| 02:34:35.17 | Unknown | I prefer. |
| 02:34:35.42 | Councilmember Sobieski | If our goal is congestion management, that could be one goal. I guess you can have more than one, I feel as though we should have clear themes. My theme is that, is that at least downtown, the parking rates are part of our business model. It's a way that we are able to compensate for the costs that our tourist economy imposes upon our residents. by by charging for visitors here. But that's not the only consideration. We also want to make sure there's a balance we had, for example, you know, what if we had a parking rate and actually could provide a credit people that spend a certain amount of money at our local businesses. So, you know, your parking rate is |
| 02:35:22.02 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:35:23.52 | Councilmember Sobieski | $30 a day, but if you spend $100, you get a voucher, it's a half off or something like that. Uh, then that would be a potential win-win. That would of course require a different kind of structure for paying for parking. And that's why I was hoping that we get a parking involved here. This is not, we don't need to reinvent the wheel. It's not actually rocket science. I'm sure this has been done elsewhere. |
| 02:35:41.44 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:35:45.37 | Councilmember Sobieski | And I would love to, though I'm in favor of these particular changes, I think going forward, we really should professionalize how we manage our parking and really take a hard look at it for people that do this. professionals, I hope our staff can work with ace parking to really Take them. a holistic view of this with the theme of what we're trying to accomplish. and what our opportunities are as a town. to take advantage of our unique situation while considering our constraints for employee parking You know, should we provide dedicated employee parking someplace that's cheaper and different, um, or, uh, or not, or should we provide a shuttle bus? Or should we provide some areas of ballet parking and some areas of metered parking that are self-parked. I think there are incredible opportunities here. this is really just beginning to scratch the circus. We have a budget deficit, as we know, and it really is quite possible that we're leaving seven figures on the table. Amen. |
| 02:36:46.90 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 02:36:47.02 | Councilmember Sobieski | that could be captured. by a different approach to parking that not only would improve our budget, but would actually enhance potentially with ideas like the credit for people who spend a certain amount at our local businesses would actually be a win-win for a variety of constituents. So I hope we'll... will not stop here. we'll move forward to to keep working on this. Thanks. |
| 02:37:11.25 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. Councillor Hoffman. |
| 02:37:14.73 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. Yeah, Elliot, excellent work on this report. I know you are. Working hard on it and the incredibly comprehensive. So good work on that. I support the recommendations in the report. I would be in favor of going forward with the resolution tonight. If we want to. Amanda Solliday, she's going to amend it later that's fine, but I think we should do the resolution and get them started on it, and then, if we want to adjust it as we go forward. I think that's something to look at agree about the bus parking. I'm also wondering if we want to move the bus parking to a different area so that we can use that for maybe a bus drop-off zone. And then we can use those two lanes, I mean, that we use full for bus parking that turn those into parking spots, angled parking spots. So it's still a one way street, but it's just angled parking spots on both side. And then, the buses come and go, you know, a different drop off spot. So that's something I'd like to talk about. Um, and then maybe have them park at one of the other lots or further down somewhere else. So anyway. Um, So good work, guys. Excellent. |
| 02:38:22.28 | Vice Mayor Blostein | Thank you. |
| 02:38:23.58 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 02:38:23.61 | Vice Mayor Blostein | Thank you. |
| 02:38:23.95 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 02:38:23.96 | Vice Mayor Blostein | you |
| 02:38:24.01 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 02:38:24.40 | Vice Mayor Blostein | Councilmember, Vice Mayor. Great. Thank you, Elliot. I'm really blown away by your staff report. It was really fantastic. And I so appreciate the amount of time and thought you put into it. and the recommendations I absolutely approve of moving forward with the resolution. And I also really wanna encourage us to look at your five or six additional suggestions as council member Clevea Nulls suggested. because there's a lot there that we can consider that would be impactful to us from a revenue standpoint and also potentially from a congestion standpoint, because The way that I'm looking at this is from two lenses. The first is the one that... that just considers our revenue and the potential increase in our overall budget and how much we can gain seeing as just since July we've had a six figure increase in revenue because of a minor adjustment for parking which is fantastic to see. And we could obviously do more for enforcement and tour bus parking and parking in general. But I also think it's important to consider longer term goals as they relate to parking congestion and also just the flow of traffic. in downtown. I really appreciated the public comment suggesting that we might do more to encourage bikes downtown. And I would love to see PBAC have an opportunity to talk with you, Elliot, and maybe have you do a presentation to think about how we might do more |
| 02:39:25.64 | Unknown | We might. |
| 02:39:36.36 | Vice Mayor Blostein | to encourage less cars and more bikes. And then additionally, from the standpoint of, from a climate perspective and generally emissions and getting less cars on the road, I'm wondering if we might offer a sliding scale for parking or different amount for parking for EV chargers, because we are considering putting EV chargers in a number of the city lots where there is a daily use fee, so what does that look like, is it the same. If you have to park there for four hours because we have a level two charger and not a fast charger, Is the fee the same and does that discourage people from using their electric vehicles. I also think it's really important to think about the cost of living for our employees and the serious transit that they already have to commute to get here. So I would like to make sure we put a special emphasis on maybe perhaps pulling some of the city workers and also the workers in our shops downtown just to get a sense of what their views are on this before we just increase the rates. Again, as I said, I'd rather see us increase the rates on our high dollar visitors who are coming from out of town than I would on our residents and also our city employees or our employees working in town. But in general, I really appreciate all of the hard work that went into this. Definitely in favor of the resolution and also keeping this as an ongoing conversation and staying on top of it. We're very lucky to have you, Elliot. We're lucky to be able to see this expertise and let's continue and think and iterate about how we might go forward and do even more. So I really appreciate your time and everything you put into this. |
| 02:41:00.53 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you Vice Mayor. Yeah, Elliot, thank you. It's very helpful when you see so many different options and so much detail embedded in presentation. So it really gives us something to draw on. you know, it occurs to me that We only gave you one half of the story. And so I'm going to I'm going to ask staff, maybe you and the city manager can collaborate on this. to From what you heard tonight, we had asked you to find more revenue. And now I think what we're also asking you is to help develop some of these new strategies around policy themes. so that we understand how each of them play into a certain dynamic. And I think some of those themes, obviously, that we heard that everybody has been talking about. producing greenhouse gas emissions, offsetting impacts on infrastructure, being able to have reciprocity and continuing to build bridges with other communities. How do each of these fit into that? to drive some of these decisions and policy goals. And so while I am in favor of your recommendations, I do proceed with some caution on a few of them. I said to you earlier today, I didn't see any mention of the agreements we have with the hotels downtown. You know, the hotel parking is all captured in a conditional use permit. There are no separate fees. And so we don't know how that's carried out in terms of what they charge there. you know, guests to stay there versus what they're paying us. That didn't sort of come up in the staff report. I think is important to understand the overall congestion and use case in the downtown area. I also am a little reticent to charge residents to park in front of their own homes. I have a little bit of a problem increasing that any more beyond what you've recommended. And it's tough because for those folks who live up on Johnson or on Bonita, You know, they're impacted by the, the businesses. And when they're doing well, people are looking for parking. And so I think there needs to be some thought about what that means for residents who may not have A carporter may not have a garage. And so I'd like us to revisit that. And then I also, we talked about this earlier today, I don't quite understand why the city's not making each of the parking lots the same amount. Lots three and four are lower when they could be priced the same across the board, particularly since lots three and four account for 290 spaces. And so I think your initial response to me was that customers might respond to prices by staying in shorter periods. I need to see that data to know that that is the case so that we can execute on that across those lots. Part of that is a consistency for people who use the lots. This was three bucks. This one's five bucks. It's very confusing. And so if there isn't any data to back that up, we don't know that people are actually leaving more quickly than then we can have this consistent. And if there is data, that's really helpful for us. Then we understand how that's driving consumer behavior downtown and we can work with the chamber on that as well. So I think we do need more evidence on that. So I don't know. I think that's a missed opportunity. I think they could all go up to five. then I'm sure we can revisit that. We talked a lot about the buses. I'm sure all of you have heard me talk about the buses. The buses, not just the downtown congestion, but they come rolling down Alexander, hit our streets. That's a massive load on our infrastructure. And they're paying 10 bucks to sit there for all day. I think that's an opportunity that should be massively increased. And if it's a case where these buses are finding that they don't want to pay what the increase is, then maybe we need a different type of bus coming to town that has a higher net worth, not higher net worth, but a higher paying consumer, higher price per consumer. And that's data we don't have yet, but it's something to consider. But Yeah, I think those buses need to be changed. I like Councilmember Hoffman's idea actually of moving it and creating more parking spaces. That's more revenue right there. I also think there needs to be a big campaign occurrence about how to sign up for a resident pass and a commuter card. Same for the employees and I echo the vice mayor's concern about increasing the employee rates too much downtown I think it's important that we. continue to support jobs in that ecosystem in our downtown. I think another missed opportunity is contractors. Quality of life in Sausalito is most heavily impacted when you have construction on your street. And you've got five, six trucks sitting there taking up all your parking spots and making it hard for you to get around. And we're barely charging them to do that. That's a massive inconvenience and an impact on our streets and on our residents. So I think that's really another opportunity. Um, to look at more closely. I also thought that at some point we had talked about some reciprocity with Mill Valley, And Puerto Madera, if you had, I can't remember what the middle valley RSVP is called, but if you had the RSVP sticker, you could come and park here. If that's not part of the program, I think it really could and should be. That'd be very interesting. for the just the sake of bringing more people into our downtown, into our, into our shops. E-bike parking, that's a habit forming situation, more bike parking, again, that's a policy goal. And then finally to answer a counselor Sobieski's comment, I do believe we can delegate this to staff and I would be happy to delegate it to staff So long as we are able to give some clear policy direction and staff comes back to us to explain how each of the actions and decisions fits into that policy. So that's my comment. So thanks, everybody. I see, Kanspar Sobieski, you have more to add. |
| 02:46:20.36 | Councilmember Sobieski | But yeah, I want to just say, I agree with, I think everything you said, Mayor. And so this is where I'm a little bit stuck is because I know that we can't give direction outside of an agendized item. And this is on the agenda right now. So for instance, Council Member Hoffman suggested maybe moving the buses and having more parking there. That's an idea that I like. also, but I don't know if we have to, how to move forward on ideas like that. Or any of the ones you said, having lots three and four be the same rates, having a consistent rate across the lots, Are we really on the point at this moment to now that direction, I'm willing to say so, but I also feel like I'm shooting a little bit from the hip and getting into the weeds on this. I kind of am looking for some help from my colleagues about how we should manage this. I feel like this is, something that at the detail level, staff should really have a lot of freedom to experiment with. report back on and then get input from us and continue to iterate with the the goal of, I would say, maximizing revenue and minimizing the negative impact or let's say also maximizing the experience of our residents. Let's say those two goals. Maybe we could add some others, but having some clear policy goals and then turning it over to staff with some clear boundaries on, rates, and I would say the rates shouldn't I would be liberal. I would say the rates should not exceed those of any private lot in the nearby area. for example. and have a pretty wide range of of latitude for staff to experiment with what the rates should be. And we'll of course not get it exactly right, but be able to iterate with it. So, but I'm open for what other people suggest. I'm only a little bit concerned that we approve the rates in the staff report And now we think we've done this and we don't see this topic again for nine months and staff is feels constrained by the rate schedule from experimenting rigorously. and we have a sparking involved. I think there could be a lot of experiments. I know Council Member Hoffman has talked about doing experiments during high season. with a little valet parking trial. That could be a huge revenue producer for the city and an experience enhancement for people that choose that path. But we currently can't do that, or at least the staff doesn't have latitude for that. So I guess I'm asking how can we proceed in a way that is just good government. That's the good government way of going forward. |
| 02:48:57.05 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you, Ian. I see our city attorney has his hand up, but let's hear from Councilman Cleveland Knowles first. And I'll also just say to one of your points, Ian, I'd be happy to amend the provide a consent item, at least once a month that, gives us an update based on the policy direction we've we've given and also report out, are we hitting the numbers we said we're gonna hit? and have regular cadence around that so we can actually see these milestones are being hit. and view today as a starting point but that gets revisited on consent. But Councillor Cleveland knows, I'm sure you have more add. |
| 02:49:31.94 | Councilmember Cleveland Knowles | Yeah, no, or just sort of to a similar vein. I mean, I saw that staff report and Elliot can correct me if I'm wrong, is phase one and phase two. too and kind of you know, he was able to get to an immediate set of recommendations and then we had a whole group of additional areas for further study that need additional staff time, probably with this consultant And then, you know, I think we have, added to that list. Um, Sarah Silver, In today, and so we'll have to evaluate you know I see the recommendation of staff report today specifically saying this is step one, and now we've got a whole lot of other great ideas. to bring back. So I'm not worried at all that this is the end of the discussion. I felt like that was exactly the way the staff report was teed up. We've added to that. I'm excited by the conversation tonight. And then, you know, on things like bus parking, I mean, I think we've given, sort of, general direction, but I, It's like, I don't feel like you know, I mean, staff can change the bus parking anytime they want, I don't think we need to Agreed. And I think we've, I appreciate council member Hoffman's suggestion. I think it's a great idea, but I don't think we should be the people planning where the bus is. I'm sorry. you know, yes, they should be moved. We could use the space better. but I'm sure our city staff can Go for it. |
| 02:50:57.31 | Mayor Kelman | I think we're wanting to delegate this, aren't we? |
| 02:50:59.64 | Councilmember Cleveland Knowles | I'm sorry. |
| 02:50:59.66 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. |
| 02:50:59.93 | Councilmember Cleveland Knowles | I am very big on delegation. And so anyway, I think, you know, if we want to add, |
| 02:51:02.27 | Mayor Kelman | So I, |
| 02:51:05.87 | Councilmember Cleveland Knowles | As you said, come back, you know, monthly is pretty intense staff time. I leave that to the city manager and our parking analyst, but a regular cadence, I love that suggestion. um, And I think this has been a great discussion. Bye. Keep moving forward. |
| 02:51:26.76 | Mayor Kelman | Let's see if the city attorney can assuage our concerns. Talk about delegating. |
| 02:51:34.73 | Sergio Rudin | Yeah, I'd like to study the delegation issue for you because there's an interplay with enforcement that I kind of want to wrap my arms around. This fee schedule sets the rates for the parking and It's under the rubric of the parking regulation authority that you have to step by resolution. And if there's a change in the rates, there might be an enforcement issue there. And I really, I was looking at the code and it's not entirely specific about delegating authority because it does require council action, but we may be able to craft a future resolution for you that David Miller, Carves out some authority to adjust rates so i'd like to look at that before the maybe the next time this comes back to you, we could we could report on that. David Miller, Just bring it bringing you back to me, the discussion is very was very interesting, but the only item on your agenda for approval tonight is that is a fee schedule for setting the rates so. We really can't go into anything other than setting the rates tonight. But some of the policy issues, I think we could, with the city manager and staff we can come back to if that's the direction you wanna give us. |
| 02:52:53.90 | Councilmember Sobieski | Well, Greg, is it not the case that the agenda topics barred enough to do some of the things that the mayor has suggested? or that we've suggested just in terms of some policy setting ideas or do we have to bring this back to the board? |
| 02:53:07.72 | Sergio Rudin | either keep the policy like where to park the buses and things of that nature or where you're going to have new regulation about parking for contractors and things like that. You could set the rates for it, but if you wanna change a policy or a regulation, you can't go there. on this agenda. |
| 02:53:31.43 | Mayor Kelman | Okay, thank you. Let me ask the city manager, But, Senior Manager, do you feel like you have enough feedback from us from a policy perspective to work with Elliot to kind of put these into tranches to help us understand how we're moving some of our goals forward and then what is your opinion on an acceptable cadence on both the policy and the actual revenue, is the program working? |
| 02:53:55.70 | Chris Zapata | Yeah, it's working on revenue. You've gotten a report on that. In terms of how soon it should come back, monthly is a little aggressive. I would recommend quarterly give us a chance to really do that. We've already run up against this requirement that we bring back undergrounding on a continuous basis, and now we're running out of time tonight. So I would suggest quarterly is about right. I work with Elliot on that. I have enough direction to work with Elliot and the chief and the city attorney and the higher parking enforcement officers and to consider all the things discussed and I don't need any more. |
| 02:54:28.07 | Vice Mayor Blostein | Okay, great, thank you. Bye-bye, Spirits. Yeah, just my only concern, and I'm obviously generally in favor of the resolution, but in looking at the employee parking rate increase for lots three and four. It's a $130 increase without having any conversation with downtown employees about that. I'm just wondering what the rest of the council feels about that level of increase, given the difficulty of already a commute for many of our employees downtown and that we haven't spoken to them. |
| 02:54:57.70 | Mayor Kelman | I'm waiting on that, but I'm not as comfortable with that. And I think there's other I've outlined some other places where I think we can make up that difference. |
| 02:55:05.48 | Vice Mayor Blostein | Yeah, I would prefer to remove that from the resolution if we can. |
| 02:55:05.83 | Mayor Kelman | Oh, yeah. |
| 02:55:10.84 | Mayor Kelman | Chancellor Hoffman, your hand went up |
| 02:55:11.98 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah, it did. I think we should... I would be more in favor of implementing it and then adjusting as we get feedback. because I don't want to create a problem where there isn't one and where there isn't one stated. You know, I think we should go forward with it as is and then wait to see. if we need to adjust down. or how we can react and what the feedback is from the businesses on that. |
| 02:55:38.87 | Councilmember Sobieski | Is this an opportunity for doing vice mayor what we were talking with Susan was mentioning, have that much charge, but it's leave it up to staff to do so in, in consultation with the Chamber of Commerce. and employers. Is this an opportunity for that? Can we do that in scheduling? |
| 02:56:00.24 | Vice Mayor Blostein | If we could do it that way, I'd be much more comfortable because I'd like to see what the employee feedback is on a rate increase that's that high. But I totally hear you, Council Member Hoffman, that if it's not a problem, then it's not a problem. So I kind of like the middle ground. of, authorizing it, but not necessarily doing it, and then getting feedback. but I don't know what's allowed. City Attorney Rubin's regards to |
| 02:56:22.88 | Sergio Rudin | Yeah. I have a suggestion for that particular item. I would say that on that item, we could specify that the change in rate will not take effect until a future date that you specify. And then if you decide after the feedback you get that you do not want to increase the rate, that we could have a very simple item that |
| 02:56:23.59 | Vice Mayor Blostein | But I don't know. that. |
| 02:56:46.27 | Sergio Rudin | puts it back to whatever rate you feel is appropriate. But that way you'd have time for the public to react and And it's, |
| 02:56:54.34 | Unknown | in. |
| 02:56:55.43 | Sergio Rudin | And it would be it's something within your discretion to defer the increase on that particular one to a future date. |
| 02:57:03.01 | Vice Mayor Blostein | Okay, I did get a text from the CEO of the Chamber of Commerce saying they're fully against raising employee rates. So I, uh, with that. |
| 02:57:11.67 | Jill Hoffman | Oh, |
| 02:57:12.28 | Vice Mayor Blostein | Thank you. |
| 02:57:12.38 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 02:57:12.40 | Vice Mayor Blostein | I mean, |
| 02:57:12.41 | Jill Hoffman | I'm sorry, but I don't think we need, I don't think we can take, text or in a meeting. and use that as a reason to vote. |
| 02:57:19.74 | Vice Mayor Blostein | No, okay. Well, anyway, I like City Attorney Rubens' suggestion. |
| 02:57:20.76 | Jill Hoffman | Anyway. |
| 02:57:24.63 | Jill Hoffman | So, yeah. |
| 02:57:24.82 | Councilmember Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 02:57:24.83 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 02:57:24.86 | Councilmember Sobieski | Okay. |
| 02:57:27.23 | Vice Mayor Blostein | customer. |
| 02:57:27.67 | Mayor Kelman | I'm sorry. |
| 02:57:27.68 | Councilmember Sobieski | I just had the technical question. |
| 02:57:28.36 | Mayor Kelman | Yeah. |
| 02:57:31.41 | Councilmember Sobieski | make these rate changes as authority to the city manager to implement, but it's up to city staff to do, or are we constrained for the reasons you explained earlier? You just cut the rate schedule specifically. |
| 02:57:41.03 | Sergio Rudin | Yeah. I'd like to I would like to study that. I'm not saying that you can't do it, but I think I'd like to study that to make sure that you can do a delegation of rates. Just the vehicle code says it has to be done by, the rates have to be set by resolution that you regulate parking resolution or ordinance. And the delegation may be prohibited. |
| 02:58:09.28 | Mayor Kelman | Greg, let's not make it a delegation question. Why don't we just amend the resolution to say in a number not to exceed. And so they have the authority, it can't go above that and they can choose to have it be less and there's no delegation. |
| 02:58:26.32 | Sergio Rudin | Right, you could, you know, I think that you may be That's not how you've done it in the past, but that may be possible to to provide a... I'm not sure. A maximum rate. How would we change your resolution here to say that? Let me just pull up the resolution here. |
| 02:58:49.04 | Councilmember Cleveland Knowles | I would just say in an amount not to exceed That's right. |
| 02:58:52.75 | Elliot Holt | If I could add a little bit of context to this, employee parking conversation. So the permit price that Vice Mayor mentioned That particular type of permit, as compared to the daily parking card program, they offer different value to the customers. The parking permit allows unlimited access to two different parking lots. The parking car allows a per session or a per day cost at a flat rate. There's kind of a tiered approach. The parking permit would be cheaper for someone working a five day work week throughout the year than the parking card. But given that there is some flexibility in how employees get parking downtown. the recommendation that we've provided seems pretty quick. |
| 02:59:41.81 | Mayor Kelman | Okay, so thank you for that, Elliot. That's a helpful context for this. You know, we often amend resolutions before voting on them. It provides authority. It provides a range. If there's no dispute or consternation, I suggest someone make a motion that includes the language that says in an amount not to exceed as to this particular rate increase. |
| 03:00:04.98 | Councilmember Sobieski | it. So I would make that motion, but Mayor, let me just ask you, because you had mentioned something else about the lots three and four being at the same rate as one and two. I don't know if that's something we want to do here as well. And then I pointed out that the meters on the streets that are adjacent to those lots should have the same hours as the lots themselves so that we're not cannibalizing our own So, |
| 03:00:25.76 | Councilmember Cleveland Knowles | I thought those were kind of the further study and Elliott is planning on coming back. Those are the suggestions in the second, they're not in the resolution and they're |
| 03:00:29.71 | Councilmember Sobieski | Yes. |
| 03:00:34.39 | Councilmember Sobieski | They're not. |
| 03:00:34.81 | Councilmember Cleveland Knowles | I'm wondering if you could. |
| 03:00:36.87 | Councilmember Sobieski | Well, I mean, it seems like the meters having the same hours as the lots is, I don't understand why we would do that. |
| 03:00:44.70 | Mayor Kelman | We probably don't even need to make that decision that that's not a rate. That's a logistical operational issue. I would think it doesn't even need to be contained in a resolution. |
| 03:00:54.30 | Unknown | OK. |
| 03:00:57.07 | Mayor Kelman | So I would approach that. And then as to the additional, I mean, you heard my perspective. I think they should all be the same, but I'm happy to have Elliot come back with a recommendation. |
| 03:01:07.78 | Councilmember Cleveland Knowles | Yeah, I mean, not to belabor this, but in terms of the lots having the same rates, I think that might work against us. For example, I mean, I pay the commuter rate only in lot three. So you could do that in lot one. Lot one would fill up And seven, eight in the morning with ferry and bus commuters and then visitors wouldn't. have that easier access to downtown. So, I mean, I think just saying the same isn't actually going to achieve. And I think what you're talking about is the hourly rate. That's right. Yeah. Right. Anyway, I think there's permutations here that maybe we might want to get a better handle on. |
| 03:01:44.94 | Mayor Kelman | you |
| 03:01:48.23 | Mayor Kelman | Okay. Well, I think we have a motion on the table. I see the city attorney has a comment. |
| 03:01:56.22 | Sergio Rudin | I think my concern about making it not to exceed is I think it sounds very similar to a delegation and the proposed resolution does not have a mechanism for making those, for staff to make those assessments for you. I understand you want to provide flexibility for the staff to adjust the rates, but I think, you know, I just want to, David Larson, M.D.: Give you some advice tonight that I haven't studied this issue and I. I'm concerned that it would be an impermissible delegation. It may not be, I just haven't had a chance to study it. Um, Remember, this is a resolution. So if you want to change the rates at any time, you can change them at any time. It's not the same as an ordinance where it's going to take more time to do it. And it could be done in conjunction with some of the policy discussions you've had You'll probably have an opportunity to do it again If you want to approve it tonight, I can't recommend that you do it in a not-to-exceed way because I haven't researched that or studied it before tonight's meeting. if you want to, David Miller, defer it until another meeting to for me to give you a memo on that i'm glad to do that, it may be that your hunch is correct mayor that you can do that I just don't know the answer to it and I and. And I'd like to have a mechanism built into whatever you do that, um, here's what, here's how the, Here's who it's delegated to. Here's how a change is made. Here's the notice to the community when a change is made. There's probably some practical considerations about how these meters work and how you have to change the rates that we haven't really considered. And so that's my advice. I guess the, Okay. So I hope that made sense. That's kind of my best advice for you tonight. |
| 03:03:55.30 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you very much. |
| 03:03:55.98 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 03:03:56.03 | Mayor Kelman | Okay. |
| 03:03:56.97 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 03:03:57.02 | Mayor Kelman | because we're not there. |
| 03:03:58.41 | Jill Hoffman | So in light of that, you know, I think since there's a motion on the table, I might make an alternate motion that we just approve the resolution as is. If we get feedback from the chamber, then we can come back and adjust it. I would say come back on a consent with staff report. discussion and adjust. |
| 03:04:18.37 | Mayor Kelman | Okay. I know the motion pending now, but Councilman put her hand up, so let's hear from her. |
| 03:04:19.16 | Jill Hoffman | I know. |
| 03:04:23.97 | Councilmember Cleveland Knowles | Yeah, I was gonna, make a similar alternate motion, but along the lines that the city attorney had first recommended, which is that we make a motion to approve the entire resolution except for the, the one employee parking rate that, uh, vice mayor mentioned, not the daily rate. which is going from four to $6. a day, which seems I think that's fine. It's still a very good deal. |
| 03:04:51.38 | Councilmember Sobieski | It's still a very big |
| 03:04:54.40 | Councilmember Cleveland Knowles | but then the monthly or the quarterly rate, whatever it is, would not go into effect until 60 days. from today. |
| 03:05:05.94 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:05:06.45 | Councilmember Cleveland Knowles | And then if staff wants to bring back feedback. that they have a different proposal after doing the appropriate outreach with the chamber and others, then they can bring that back and put it on a consent item. |
| 03:05:19.42 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:05:19.46 | Councilmember Cleveland Knowles | Or 30 days or whatever. I think 60 days give them plenty of time. |
| 03:05:19.56 | Unknown | or. |
| 03:05:24.30 | Jill Hoffman | I'd second that 60 days. |
| 03:05:26.70 | Councilmember Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. |
| 03:05:26.71 | Jill Hoffman | Okay. |
| 03:05:27.51 | Mayor Kelman | My hand is up, but are you okay with that, Moshe? |
| 03:05:30.00 | Jill Hoffman | you |
| 03:05:30.27 | Mayor Kelman | Seconded to that's great. Okay. All right. So we have a motion from Councilman Cleveland-Knowles, a second from Councilman Hoffman. City Quirk, can you please call the roll? |
| 03:05:45.83 | Councilmember Sobieski | And we cannot hear you yet. |
| 03:05:49.46 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:06:01.43 | Councilmember Sobieski | It's. |
| 03:06:01.68 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:06:01.88 | Councilmember Sobieski | Thank you. Yeah, so you click, we still cannot hear you. |
| 03:06:04.40 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. |
| 03:06:09.59 | Councilmember Cleveland Knowles | We can't get audio on the city clerk. Should we... Mayor, do you want to call the roll? Thank you. |
| 03:06:14.59 | Councilmember Sobieski | I don't know. |
| 03:06:16.24 | Unknown | Sure. |
| 03:06:16.80 | Unknown | Thank you. . |
| 03:06:17.51 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:06:17.52 | Unknown | We just need our own calls out. How about I just volunteer that I'm really good? |
| 03:06:17.68 | Councilmember Cleveland Knowles | I don't know. Yes. How about I just balled here that I'm really yes. I know. I've never done that. |
| 03:06:21.42 | Mayor Kelman | Yeah. |
| 03:06:21.46 | Councilmember Sobieski | I'm going to be like, I want you. |
| 03:06:22.98 | Mayor Kelman | is put on the spot right now. I'm doing it. It's a first for me. Yes. Councilor on Cleveland. |
| 03:06:24.88 | Councilmember Cleveland Knowles | Oh, right. |
| 03:06:24.97 | Unknown | Let's do it. |
| 03:06:25.96 | Councilmember Sobieski | That's great. |
| 03:06:26.27 | Councilmember Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. |
| 03:06:28.54 | Mayor Kelman | Yes. Councilman Hoffman. Yes. Councillor Sobieski. |
| 03:06:33.71 | Councilmember Sobieski | Yes. |
| 03:06:34.53 | Mayor Kelman | Vice Mayor. Yes. And myself as a yes. All right. All in favor. 5-0 passes. Thank you. |
| 03:06:38.72 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:06:38.75 | Councilmember Sobieski | Oh, yeah. |
| 03:06:39.01 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:06:39.04 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:06:41.76 | Mayor Kelman | Okay, so it's getting onto a late hour and we do have item 5C, which is the undergrounding update I know that we have a committee that's wanting to keep this on here, which I think is great. But would you like to push this to the 25th or do you want to go through it today? |
| 03:07:00.77 | Councilmember Cleveland Knowles | Yes, I would be interested in whether the city manager needs direction tonight and perhaps we could abbreviate the staff report and then we would not have a staff report and just skip right to the. Thank you. |
| 03:07:11.19 | Unknown | We did the reaction tonight. |
| 03:07:11.54 | Councilmember Cleveland Knowles | to the reaction tonight. Well, if we do need direction tonight, what that is, I'm just going to the last slide. I think we've. had extensive discussions and not a whole lot has I mean, I think it's the RFP is what we've got on the, table tonight. on that. |
| 03:07:29.48 | Mayor Kelman | So, Samantha, do you want to? Yeah, go ahead. |
| 03:07:29.56 | Chris Zapata | Thank you. If I can, Mayor and Council, it's not time sensitive. That RFP has been released. report an update on where we are with certain things that the council direct us to do at speed. If you recall last meeting we had last month, there's direction from the council to bring this forward, give progress reports on a regular basis. But given the importance of it in the late hour, I would recommend that we do this on the 25th and director McGowan is in concurrence with that as well. |
| 03:08:00.51 | Mayor Kelman | Okay. Anybody not okay with that? |
| 03:08:06.42 | Mayor Kelman | All right, well, then we will. Move this then to October 25th. This is item five. C, electrical undergrounding efforts of PG&E within the city of South Salud. Okay. And we'll move that to an earlier hour on the 25th. Thank you. move on to communications. This is the time for the city council here from citizens regarding matters not on the agenda. Except in very limited situations, state law precludes the council from taking action on or engaging in discussions concerning items of business that are not on the agenda. However, the council may respond briefly to statements made or questions posed by a member of the public Ask clarifying questions, make a brief announcement, or make a brief report. on his or her own activities. So I will ask the city clerk, are there any hands raised? I see two. |
| 03:08:48.05 | Walfred Solorzano | No, Mayor. Oh, I'm sorry. Yes, there are two. Excuse me. Can you hear me now? Yes, we can. Thank you. Thank you. Sandra Bushmaker. Thank you. Welcome to the Rol. |
| 03:09:00.82 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 03:09:00.84 | Sandra Bushmaker | Please proceed. Okay, good evening everybody. Just wanted to remind you I'm running for Southern Marin Fire District Board. This item is not on the agenda and I would appreciate your support and hopefully we can win this election. Thank you. Thank you, Sandra. |
| 03:09:19.20 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:09:24.64 | Mayor Kelman | I see we have another hand raised, David Sudo. |
| 03:09:34.81 | Councilmember Sobieski | Molly, if you want. Yeah, thanks for that. |
| 03:09:34.88 | Unknown | And Molly, if you would- |
| 03:09:36.75 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:09:37.46 | Unknown | I just want to thank the city council for our leaf blower ban. that went in effect. I know it's only been like a week, but I woke up this weekend and I realized that I didn't hear the sound of flowers and I didn't realize how much of it impact that would have on our soundscape. I would also take that as a as a reminder that we have issues that seem to perennially be on our, uh, Agenda and if we can just get things, find when things are going to be politically able to get them done, to take, tackle them in one fell swoop and not have, items that seem to take an enormous amount of staff time and city council time. on an annual basis. We can just get stuff done and then we don't have to think about it anymore. Thank you. |
| 03:10:30.60 | Mayor Kelman | Thanks, Evan. See, one more hand raised. |
| 03:10:36.44 | Walfred Solorzano | them here. I'm sorry. Arthur Bruce. It's not on my screen. Oh, here we go. Arthur Bruce, excuse me. Go ahead, please. |
| 03:10:54.76 | Walfred Solorzano | Proceed, please. you are an Italian. |
| 03:10:57.97 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. |
| 03:10:58.16 | Walfred Solorzano | Unmute, please. |
| 03:11:02.31 | Arthur Bruce | Okay, there we are. There we are. Oh my goodness. It's just... Missed you guys. It really did. Oh. |
| 03:11:13.11 | Councilmember Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. |
| 03:11:14.73 | Arthur Bruce | It's been hard. It's been hard, but... As far as employees, parking. being charged more money. I'm sure we can figure out a way to work that out. because, like the, like Madam Mayor commented to the, to the news. Um, After the recent Marinship Park settlement, It was the right thing to do. And it warms my heart to know that, that Madam Mayor and the council is so focused on doing the right thing. and It just makes these meetings seem more like more human-esque rather than, you know, business meetings. City Council meeting or is it a business meeting? Oh, it's. It's the humanity. the humanity that's, that's warming my heart tonight. And, uh, I just wanted to say I love each and every one of you and I appreciate you and Look forward to working together long into the future. |
| 03:12:26.12 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you, Mr. Bruce. City Clerk, anybody else with their hand raised? No, Mayor, not at this time. Okay, we'll move on to item seven. This is council member committee reports. Do we have any councilwoman committee reports? OK. Yes, please. |
| 03:12:45.40 | Councilmember Cleveland Knowles | Oh, sorry, I was just wanting to let everyone know that we have a, meeting of the Housing Element Advisory Committee after a long pause this Thursday at 530, Mayor, is that correct? |
| 03:12:56.74 | Mayor Kelman | There's a question. Correct. |
| 03:12:59.05 | Councilmember Cleveland Knowles | So that's on the draft. public comments received on the draft. |
| 03:13:06.41 | Mayor Kelman | Yeah, thank you for that reminder. |
| 03:13:07.82 | Councilmember Cleveland Knowles | Vice Mayor, did you have? |
| 03:13:08.97 | Mayor Kelman | report. |
| 03:13:09.70 | Vice Mayor Blostein | Yeah, two notes. The first one is that I think we all saw in the consent calendar that we've lost two members of our disaster preparedness committee. So this is another call to members of the public to consider applying for our community safety and disaster preparedness committee. And also a reminder to us that we do need to review those applications and appoint someone so that they can continually have a quorum because they're doing some really great work in partnership with Southern Marin Fire. Also, I attended a Infrastructure Roundtable with Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa in the city of San Francisco, representing Northern California, and it was myself, supervisor, Eric Lupin, Lucan, or a supervisor like Eric Lupin, supervisor Katie Rice. and the mayor of Sonoma. So it was a small group, but really impactful discussions about funding for infrastructure projects. And we spoke a lot about sea level rise and what that looks like and the implications of that and funding for climate resiliency projects. in addition to roads and general improvements. And it was great to make a connection both with mayor, and then some of the points of contact from California Forward and the governor's office to help us procure more funding going forward for our aging infrastructure. A lot of the emphasis was on transportation, But we did push for the importance of some of the other infrastructure related improvements that aren't necessarily simply roads, although roads are, of course, important as well. So that was a great, meeting. And I appreciated having the opportunity to attend. |
| 03:14:34.85 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you for going. And I'll dovetail that and just say the vice mayor and I have been working with one of our grant writers on identifying a number of different climate resiliency and sustainability grants to support community flood resilience, partnerships with Marin City, Water Task Force, recycled water opportunities, and a Climate Smart Cities app to help us track our greenhouse gas emissions inventory and other sort of impacts from a climate perspective. And so our grant writers are hard at work. We are looking for infrastructure monies along those lines. And so that's what we have been trying to talk to them about is find us more infrastructure money that fits into any of these categories. Okay, we'll be able to public comment on the committee member reports. Do we have any public comment |
| 03:15:24.51 | Unknown | No, Mayor. |
| 03:15:26.03 | Mayor Kelman | Okay. Public comment is closed. We'll move over to item eight, which is the city manager report, city council appointments and other council business. Any public comment on items eight B through eight E. |
| 03:15:40.61 | Unknown | No, Mayor. |
| 03:15:41.76 | Mayor Kelman | Okay, public comment is closed and I will hand it over to the city manager. |
| 03:15:47.98 | Chris Zapata | Thank you, Mayor and Council. I wanna provide an update on the grants that you've been talking about that relate to infrastructure, bike lanes and safe routes to school. in the attachment in the council packet is an update from California consulting the grant consultant that we hired. |
| 03:16:02.77 | Unknown | And I... |
| 03:16:07.14 | Chris Zapata | at your direction. There's about $3.6 million in grant requests. So we'll see what comes of those, along with some of the other things mentioned by yourself, Mayor and the Vice Mayor. So grants are a big thing. Want to make sure we keep the public informed into what the efforts are and have been. Really want to thank our team and our council people who've been involved in putting those together because as we all know, They're competitive. But at the same time, once we submit once, if we don't get the funding, then we are better prepared next time. And so we keep learning every time we apply for one that we may not get, but we'll pop some sooner than later. So that's an update on grants. I want to let you know that. This coming Monday, the 17th of October, Brandon Phipps, our new Community and Economic Development Director, We'll start his public service in Sausalito, you know, work with Abbott and Brandon to get notice out to the community about Brandon and his abilities and his experience and qualifications. So we're excited about that. And then if the city attorney can or if she's able to, I don't know if she gave me her statement to read about voter information. I want to know if Molly can read that or if you want me to read what she gave me, Molly. |
| 03:17:22.35 | Walfred Solorzano | Go ahead, city manager, Mike. Excuse me, my sound seems to be going in and out, so please proceed. |
| 03:17:23.90 | Chris Zapata | because please proceed this this is from the city clerk molly perry she wants to remind The community that Marin County registered voters begin to mail out a vote by mail ballots yesterday. If you requested a vote by mail ballot, you should receive your ballot soon. You have several options to return your ballot. The US Postal Service, no stamp required. The ballot drop box, which is available 24 seven located here at City Hall. or any vote center in the county. South City City Hall will serve as a voting center beginning November 5th through November 7th from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. On November 8th, Election Day, the voting center will be open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. p.m. If you need additional information, you can contact the Marin County Registrar's Office at 415- 473-6456. or the city clerk's office at 415-6504. 473-4165. And that concludes my reports, Mary. Thank you. |
| 03:18:24.58 | Mayor Kelman | Thank you. Any questions for the city manager? Okay. Next item is appointment supports commissions and committees. We've noted the Vice Mayor's comments about disaster preparedness, but we have no appointments today. item. eight. Sorry. I guess we're missing 8E here, future agenda items. We still have a long list. Anybody have anything new they'd like to add? Yes. |
| 03:18:53.90 | Councilmember Cleveland Knowles | COB, Jean Gatza, It's not a new agenda item, but I did just check our calendar today and noted that our November 8 meeting is still on our public website and I remember answering a drupal but I. don't remember if we ever received confirmation about a date for our November meeting. And I know Council Member Hoffman had noted that November 8th is election day, |
| 03:19:17.84 | Mayor Kelman | November 15th is the New Day. |
| 03:19:19.82 | Councilmember Cleveland Knowles | Okay, so that should be, the website should be updated. And what time on the 15th is it? |
| 03:19:25.74 | Mayor Kelman | I don't recall. |
| 03:19:27.97 | Councilmember Sobieski | summer. Oh, you're on mute. |
| 03:19:35.21 | Councilmember Sobieski | you |
| 03:19:35.22 | Chris Zapata | That was intentional. I don't know. I will get you that time. |
| 03:19:37.06 | Councilmember Sobieski | I would. |
| 03:19:37.43 | Mayor Kelman | Good job. |
| 03:19:37.52 | Councilmember Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 03:19:39.04 | Chris Zapata | We'll get to that time in the community as well. |
| 03:19:42.40 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:19:42.41 | Mayor Kelman | Okay, yeah, thank you. and, Great, thank you for that. Okay, if there are no other gen items, I have no reports of significance, I suggest we adjourn. Thank you, everybody. Thank you. |
| 03:19:56.32 | Councilmember Sobieski | Thank you. Mike. |
| 03:20:06.80 | Councilmember Sobieski | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 03:20:18.73 | Councilmember Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 03:20:59.12 | Councilmember Sobieski | Thank you. |
Unknown (Speaker 2) — Neutral: Expressed concern about the 14-year repair timeline being too long and highlighted potential future costs from stricter EPA permits for nitrogen removal. ▶ 📄
Becky Nichols — Neutral: Asked about liability for existing EPA fines or spills, and whether obligations transfer to the district upon consolidation. ▶ 📄