| Time | Speaker | Text |
|---|---|---|
| 00:00:10.16 | Walfred Solorzano | We're still waiting, Mayor, just a couple more minutes. |
| 00:00:13.26 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 00:00:13.28 | Walfred Solorzano | How are you, Molly? I'm doing great. Thank you. |
| 00:00:21.56 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 00:00:28.38 | Walfred Solorzano | We're just waiting for Council Member Sobieski and then we'll be ready. |
| 00:00:32.82 | Melissa Blaustein | We all set from the audio streaming. perspective. |
| 00:00:38.54 | Walfred Solorzano | It should all be working. |
| 00:00:47.75 | Walfred Solorzano | Here's. |
| 00:00:54.44 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. I'm letting the public in now. Thank you. Good evening, Mayor Kelman and Council members. This meeting is being held pursuant to Government Code Section 54953E. And in light of the declared state of emergency, the regular meeting of the City Council for October 25th, 2022, will be conducted telephonically through Zoom and broadcast live on the City's website in cable TV channel 27. |
| 00:01:21.94 | Melissa Blaustein | Well, welcome everybody. This is the City Council meeting for Tuesday, October 25th. We'll go ahead and ask the city clerk, please call the roll. Council member Sobey, |
| 00:01:33.03 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 00:01:33.75 | Jill Hoffman | here. |
| 00:01:34.70 | Walfred Solorzano | Councilmember Cleveland Knowles. Thank you. Councilmember Hoffman. Here. Vice Mayor Belostean. here. and Mayor Kalman. Recording in progress. All present. |
| 00:01:46.97 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. Great. Thank you very much. We have a handful of items to be discussed in closed session today. So the first item I know D1 is existing litigation, government code section 54956.9 D1. Ismail versus the city of Sausalito, Marine County Superior Court case number. 1-803-986. Second one, I'm D to conference of legal counsel, Whiskey Springs Villas versus the South City of Marin Superior. Pardon me, it was Sausalito, Does this? City of South Slito, I'm assuming, Superior Court case number CIV1903419. And the last one, item D three, Conference of Labor negotiators. own. pursuant to government code 54957.6. Go ahead and see if there's any public comment on the closed session items. Not at this time there. Okay, so we're going to close public comment. We'll go ahead and adjourn to closed session. Are we staying on this? Is this a breakout room situation? |
| 00:02:46.71 | Walfred Solorzano | We will be putting you all into a breakout room. We just need a few minutes. Thank you. |
| 00:02:54.11 | Walfred Solorzano | you |
| 00:02:54.26 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 00:02:54.37 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 00:02:54.47 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 00:02:59.11 | Melissa Blaustein | Well, I do happen to see Councilman Sebecki in the waiting room. No, I do not. |
| 00:03:04.27 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 00:03:24.17 | Janelle Kellman | Thank you. you |
| 00:03:35.24 | Melissa Blaustein | There we go. Great. Okay, well, thank you everybody for joining. Recording in progress. |
| 00:03:41.33 | Jill Hoffman | recording |
| 00:03:43.41 | Melissa Blaustein | We are back in open session for the Saucedo City Council meeting. The date is October 25th, 2022. We had three items in closed session, nothing to report. So go ahead and see if any comments on the agenda for tonight. And I believe we do have, Councilman Cleveland-Norals has a comment, please. |
| 00:04:05.75 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Yeah, Mary, thank you. I think Council member Sobieski and I as the kind of standing committee on that PG&E undergrounding issue. had initially recommended in a one way communication to the full Council that this might be better heard after we had we have an outstanding RFP with bids to be open early next week and we might be better informed to have their expertise. and input and advice before we gave input on the questions asked by Director McGowan. But I did note, both Ian and I noted that we have had a lot of public comments. that we've had. So if the full council wants to, you know, just at least have a public hearing and get input tonight. you know, that would also be fine with us. So I think initially that would be a lot more efficient with the benefit of our consultants in two weeks. But we're certainly amenable to continuing to have the hearings tonight if others would like to do something. |
| 00:05:13.37 | Melissa Blaustein | Let me ask the subcommittee this. Do we feel like we have scoped out the conversation well enough such that we could help direct public comment. Because my understanding was that we were at a point in time where we just wanted to understand the process for undergrounding and develop a policy. And that was it, not a undergrounding plan, nothing to be presented for approval. But an update to the 94 policy as to how one might form an undergrounding district and what that looks like. Is that the scope of the question such that that is what we could take of a comment on or do you need more assistance from the consultant to frame that question? |
| 00:05:51.71 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | I think we were thinking that the consultant would really be a benefit in that, in framing that discussion on our options and whether the information that we've received from PG&E is the full story. other funding mechanisms, other avenues for public input. et cetera. I think that's why we were recommending that we continue the discussion to a later point. Again, there's no harm in taking public input tonight and having a more fulsome discussion later, but I don't think at this point. we felt like we were fully informed enough to actually make a decision on the questions posed by the Director of Public Works. And I don't know if the director or city manager want to weigh in either, I mean, we can also just take public comment during general public comment. and use that feedback. when we have a full hand. |
| 00:06:50.84 | Chris Zapata | If I can, mayor and council members of the public, Yeah, I would recommend it, you know, given, some of the conversation about what the city is contemplating, which is a little too forward for me. There is really a need for us to take a step back and understand that this is not a citywide program underground that has been FLESHED OUT IS BEING PUT TOGETHER. and is going to be brought forward so that folks can see if that in fact impacts them. So given what we heard from the subcommittee members, I think it would be better and much more productive if we explained a little better at a future meeting what it is we're trying to do here as opposed to what people think we're trying to do. We were asked by the city council to look at undergrounding. We've been doing that. We will continue to do that but as it relates to some of the communications we've been getting that say you know undergrounding is not what people want or what they want. I think that's very premature so I'd recommend |
| 00:07:43.70 | Vice Mayor Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 00:07:43.74 | David Mahler | And... |
| 00:07:54.74 | Chris Zapata | You leave it off the agenda tonight. Let us bring in a consultant. Let us flesh out what we know and bring it forward in a way that, you know, is done in a manner where. we are better prepared to address what I think the questions might be tonight. |
| 00:08:08.26 | Melissa Blaustein | Okay, thank you. Council Member Sobieski, do you want to add anything to that as the other member of the |
| 00:08:14.01 | Unknown | Well, I'm torn because, you know, you know, Mary, you were working with me on this earlier in the year. Um, and then, uh, Susan took over, um, And the genesis of this was that PG&E is going to replace all the power lines and all the poles and add a few new ones to the entire north side of town. At the same time, we learned that the sewer district might be digging and trenching and doing things with the sewer pipes in town. And the question is, well, And all that, is there an opportunity, perhaps, to leverage that work that's being done to underground some utilities, right? So that would be inquiry, the good government proactive engagement And all of us are ignorant because we don't know squat about this and are trying to learn, so we had think this has been discussed five times in public at city council meetings without any direction about what to do except to learn more so. We're certainly still learning more. Uh, I think a But I'm torn because the public letters that we've gotten that have been kicked off clearly show a. partial information and a lack of understanding of that narrative. I for one am willing to talk to anyone to one on one or otherwise to help explain this. So I reached out to several of the people that wrote letters saying as much. So I will reiterate that invitation. to walk people through the narrative if they're so interested. uh, and to listen to their feedback. But I think the bottom line and the thing that I saw |
| 00:09:59.47 | Unknown | with some idea that this was a city council committed commitment to doing a project when in fact however this is done however anything that would be done would be would ultimately have to involve a vote of people, not us. So I think that's a key thing to underline. And there's a lot of things we have to learn between here and there. So I'm torn, I'm a little neutral on it because I feel like we're not, we need, we don't have answers to all the material questions. We don't know how much it would cost. We don't know, uh, where what areas would be appropriate. This is all the additional work we're asking. that staff to do. or get help with. So. |
| 00:10:39.09 | Melissa Blaustein | Okay, let me hear from Councilman Hoffman and the Vice Mayor. Do you either of you wanna weigh in |
| 00:10:43.17 | Jill Hoffman | you |
| 00:10:43.22 | Melissa Blaustein | you Thank you. |
| 00:10:43.71 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:10:43.73 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 00:10:43.75 | Jill Hoffman | THE FAMILY. |
| 00:10:43.91 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 00:10:43.96 | Jill Hoffman | I think so. I mean, I think I'm in favor. Eileen, you know, I lean toward Let's hear it on the November 15th. If we have a consultant that we're working with, let's give that consultant the substantial public comment that we've gotten and have them address some of those issues in there. I think I agree with that. Councilmember Sobieski, I think there's a concern in the community about you know, where we're going in the, we're at the point, we're still info gathering, right? We're still info gathering. We're still trying to chart the path forward. And that's what we've been doing, I mean, so this past year. So I appreciate the work of the undergrounding group. I know it's been a tremendous lift for the various members that have served on it, you and Councilor Sobieski and Councilor McLeod and also. I would be in favor of that. I think that will be more succinct. I agree with the city manager. I think it'll be more succinct and focused discussion and and less and provide some certainty to people about where we're going and what we're trying to do. I've tried to message that back to in the in the response I've given to people about this this effort. So. I would be in favor of that, of moving it to November 15th. |
| 00:12:00.59 | Vice Mayor Blaustein | And, |
| 00:12:00.66 | Jill Hoffman | And vice mayor, |
| 00:12:01.12 | Vice Mayor Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 00:12:01.17 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:12:02.03 | Vice Mayor Blaustein | Yeah, I agree with council member Hoffman and I agree with the, need for more public understanding of the issue. And I appreciated that we received so much comment on the topic. And I think that demonstrates that we need more time reviewing public outreach and providing more answers and if the consultants are going then we should absolutely continue it to the 15th. And I also really appreciate the undergrounding committee's time and commitment to this and the recommendation that we move it forward. So I would also be in favor of continuing it. |
| 00:12:31.64 | Melissa Blaustein | Okay, I think that sounds right. of communication and outreach to do with the residents. And I think it's really important that we know what we're communicating and what we're what we're trying to do. And so my understanding is we do not know that yet. There's no proposal on the table. There's nothing to approve. We're not giving direction to anybody. We're basically trying to educate ourselves. And then, and bring the community and the residents to get their input in. So let's do this. Let's move this to the 15th. And Vice Mayor, when we set that agenda for the 15th, let's try to err on the side of a lighter meeting so that we can devote a significant amount of time to this. And so we'll hear from the consultant about what some options are for undergrounding and then spend a significant amount of time getting input in consultation from the residents and property owners throughout town as to what direction they might want to move in. Does that sound reasonable? And we'll make sure we'll we'll have a lot of time for that. Okay, Casar of Cleveland North. |
| 00:13:33.54 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Yeah, thank you, Mayor. That sounds great. The only thing I would add is that Director McGowan was not 100% sure that we would have consultant on board. in that timeframe, he thinks we will, but not, Not sure, so that might cause it to move out a little bit longer. |
| 00:13:50.90 | Melissa Blaustein | Well, I would just say this, regardless of the consultant, I think given the number of people written in and the number of people who are on tonight, I'm committed to discussing this on the 15th. So. |
| 00:13:59.95 | Vice Mayor Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 00:13:59.98 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | So- |
| 00:14:00.74 | Melissa Blaustein | If that's okay with everybody, I'd like to make that commitment publicly to everybody so that people can arrange their schedules and they know we'll have that discussion. All right. |
| 00:14:08.35 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Sure. Yeah, then I'll make a motion to approve the agenda with item 5B removed with the expectation that it will be heard on November 15. |
| 00:14:16.40 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 00:14:16.42 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | And |
| 00:14:16.81 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 00:14:17.75 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:14:17.79 | Walfred Solorzano | All right, Molly, please call the roll call. Councilmember Sobieski. Yes. Council member Cleveland Knowles. Councilmember Hoffman. Yes. |
| 00:14:26.54 | Vice Mayor Blaustein | Yes. |
| 00:14:27.12 | Walfred Solorzano | Vice Mayor Belousteen. |
| 00:14:28.76 | Vice Mayor Blaustein | Yes. |
| 00:14:29.16 | Walfred Solorzano | and Mayor Kemen. |
| 00:14:30.46 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 00:14:30.49 | Walfred Solorzano | Yeah. |
| 00:14:30.54 | Melissa Blaustein | Yes. |
| 00:14:30.75 | Walfred Solorzano | Yes. Thank you. |
| 00:14:31.20 | Melissa Blaustein | Passes 5-0. Great, thank you so much. We'll move over to Mayor's announcements. I have three. So the first thing I'd like to do is introduce and welcome Mr. Brandon Phipps as the new Community and Economic Development Director. So Mr. Phipps, there you are, welcome. Good to see your face. |
| 00:14:47.88 | Brandon Phipps | Thank you. Thank you very much. Mayor Kelming, Vice Mayor Blaustein, Councilmembers. City staff and members of the community. I am delighted to be addressing you all this evening as the City's recently appointed Director of Community and Economic Development. And yeah, I just want to thank you City Manager Zapata for also the kind introduction and first week. I really appreciate you and the rest of Sausalito staff and making me feel welcome. So thank you. I'm very pleased to be joining the city of Sausalito team. Look forward to working with you all, that's city council members, commissioners, community members, local businesses, and planning and building applicants in addressing your needs and administering and implementing policy direction for each group. So just a little bit about me. I'm originally from Berkeley and have enjoyed Sausalito's waterfront and sense of unique place since I was a kid. I have degrees at the undergraduate and graduate level in public policy, philosophy, and local economic development. And I have worked in the nonprofit, private, and public sectors, all of which I believe will assist me in carrying out my role in the Department of Community Development. |
| 00:15:52.74 | Vice Mayor Blaustein | and, |
| 00:16:04.50 | Brandon Phipps | And I communicated this to commissioners at the most recent planning commission. I'll say it again here. I believe in collaboration. And to that end, city council members, you should all have received an email from me last week regarding a request for a one-on-one meeting. And during that meeting, I'd like to take the opportunity to introduce myself, learn a little bit about each of your roles as council members, including a discussion of the challenges and opportunities you all see as most significant in the city. Your feedback will truly be invaluable to me as I get settled into this department and will give you a much-needed informed perspective on where we stand. So as a quick update, in my first week with the city, we're already making strides to improve our departmental capacities, including an active solicitation of current planning staff for the roles of principal planner and planner. And Deborah, much more, we'll discuss that later on in this evening's agenda. Once we fill those positions, we'll be in a much better place to address some of the challenges the Community Development Department is facing, in addition to growing some of the new elements of the department, including building a foundation for economic development and partnerships with economic development related groups, EDAC, the Chamber, and others. So once again, thank you all for the warm welcome, and I very much look forward to working with you as the city's new community and economic development director. Thank you so much. |
| 00:17:12.29 | Vice Mayor Blaustein | Bye. |
| 00:17:35.90 | Melissa Blaustein | Welcome, Brandon. And I'm also delighted to share with the council and the city manager that I will be subjecting you to my walk about town. as an introduction to Sausalito. So, Maybe the city manager can brief you on how much fun that was for him when I showed him all the secret staircases on his first week. So welcome. We're very excited. |
| 00:17:57.63 | Brandon Phipps | I look forward to it and thank you. |
| 00:18:00.05 | Melissa Blaustein | Okay. Okay, the next announcement, you may have already heard, as we just mentioned, the meeting on the 15th, due to the general municipal election on November 8th, the next regular city council meeting will be held on November 15th. So we will not be having a meeting on election day. And then the last announcement is Halloween. We will be having our annual Halloween celebration. We'll start with the parade on Caledonia 545. I'll move over to some candy being given out by the basketball courts. We'll have our annual dog costume contest. And then apparently City Hall is going to be a ghost house. So bring your kids, bring your loved ones, and come enjoy Halloween. We know how to do a parade. So we welcome you. Okay, well that's it for mayor's announcements. Move over to action minutes of previous meeting. We have no minutes to approve at this time. So over to the consent calendar, as you know, matters listed under consent calendar are considered routine non-controversial, require no discussion, are expected to have unanimous council support, and may be enacted by the council in one motion in the form listed below. And there will 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 when public comment will be heard on any item that was removed from the consent calendar. So we have six today on the consent calendar in 3A. is the Library Q1 report for fiscal year 2022-23. Item 3B is authorizing amendments to the city's classification plan and approved position allocation table. related to reclassification of the young adult and children's librarian from Librarian 1 to Librarian 2. approve the addition of one full-time equivalent position administrative aid, and authorize the city manager to make future non-subsidative corrections. M3C Surrendered and Abandoned Vessel Exchange Grant Program. Item 3D, adopt a resolution amending the contract with California Consulting, Inc. in an amount not to exceed $45,000 to assist with our grant applications. Item 3E, adopt a resolution to submit a grant application to CalRecycle. Item 3F, The 2022 local agency biannual notice for the city of Sausalito. So we'll go ahead and open public comment on any item on the consent calendar. And I'll ask the city clerk to maybe give the explanation to how one might raise their hand. |
| 00:20:29.61 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you, Mayor. If you want to comment during the public comment portion of the agenda, you can raise your hand function and Zoom under reactions. Make sure your Zoom is updated at 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. Okay, city clerk, do you have any city hands up? I do not see any hands up, Mayor. |
| 00:20:54.40 | Melissa Blaustein | Okay, we will close public comment on the consent calendar, bring it to council. What would council members like to remove anything from consent? |
| 00:21:04.24 | Melissa Blaustein | I don't see any comments. I'll just applaud the action. to enhance our library services and also our grant writing services. Those departments have been very hard at work. So huge thanks to the city manager for that. Can we get a motion to approve the consent counter? of the Second. |
| 00:21:23.00 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you, Council members. Please call the roll, Molly. Council member Sobieski. Yes. Council member Cleveland Knowles. Yes. Council member Hoffman. Yes. Vice Mayor Blaustein. |
| 00:21:32.71 | Jill Hoffman | Yes. |
| 00:21:34.88 | Walfred Solorzano | Yes. And Mayor Kellman. Yes. Passes five to zero. Wonderful, thank you. |
| 00:21:39.96 | Melissa Blaustein | We're going to go ahead and open the public hearing portion of the meeting. I'm going to introduce Rayleigh Glasser, the interim building officer, to present tonight. And item four, an ordinance amending chapters 8.06 through 8.28 and chapter 8.40 of Title VIII, which are buildings and construction. of the Sassanian Municipal Code and adopting the 2022 edition of the Title 24 Code of Regulations and the 2021 International Property Maintenance Code with local amendments and CalGreen. So it looks like both Ms. Glasser and Mr. Kortert will be providing our presentation. |
| 00:22:16.41 | Melissa Blaustein | So I don't know who's going to lead on that, And you may need to let somebody in. There we go. Welcome, Mr. Archer. |
| 00:22:28.21 | Dan Kortert | and you're on mute. Yeah, Madam Mayor, members of the council, Right now, Rayleigh Glasser is having problems, technical issues right now, she just told me Um, She's trying to get on. |
| 00:22:52.83 | Melissa Blaustein | You're muted again. |
| 00:22:56.78 | Dan Kortert | Yeah, and that's because I'm trying to talk her through on how to get on. Fair enough. |
| 00:23:05.40 | Melissa Blaustein | You'll just take a pause then while we wait. |
| 00:23:30.92 | Melissa Blaustein | Ms. Archer, are you able to share your screen for the presentation. |
| 00:23:42.29 | Dan Kortert | I can't, I don't have that presentation cued up. |
| 00:23:47.62 | Melissa Blaustein | I do know we have it here on the Agenda. Thank you. |
| 00:23:53.60 | Jill Hoffman | Do we need a presentation? It's on the agenda. We have written materials. It's a fairly simple thing. We talked about it at the last, Um, City Council meeting, I think we all understand. I think I think are probably somebody either Dan or Chris could probably give us a summary of what it is. I mean, it's a fairly simple adoption, right? Pursuant to state mandate to adopt a building codes, right? |
| 00:24:19.80 | Melissa Blaustein | Yeah, thank you that comes from helping yeah let me just read this from the stock report so by state law local jurisdictions are required to adopt the most recent addition of the California building standards code. And adoption of this ordinance allows the city to include amendments to the building codes that are specific and important to the Community. Prior to adoption of the ordinance, amending the code, the city council is required to hold a public hearing. So the attached ordinance, which is available as an attachment to this staff report on the agenda, adopts the 2022 editions of the California Building Standards Codes and the 2021 International property maintenance code with some local amendments. So the codes to be adopted prescribed regulations governing site preparation, construction, alteration, moving, demolition, repair, maintenance, use and occupancy of all buildings and structures within the city of Sausalito and are designed to protect the health, safety and welfare of individuals in the community. So I tend to agree with Councilman Hoffman. I don't think I need a presentation on this, but certainly if folks would like to have one from staff, we certainly can. And I'll hand over to the vice mayor with her hand up. |
| 00:25:16.12 | Vice Mayor Blaustein | I don't think we need a presentation either. I just would invite Dan to speak a little bit to because there was a lot of work done by Dan and Rayleigh that I want to acknowledge after the request at the last meeting to continue this around adopting as well green building codes and a consideration of reach codes. So if you just want to say a couple of things about that as well, so that we can acknowledge your hard work. |
| 00:25:30.02 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah. |
| 00:25:34.47 | Dan Kortert | Thank you. |
| 00:25:39.22 | Dan Kortert | Yeah, hold on. Ray... Go ahead, Rayleigh. |
| 00:25:44.77 | Rayleigh Glasser | Hi there, I'm sorry that I'm having difficulty logging on. I'm trying none of the links are working for me, unfortunately. This is Rayleigh Glasser, the interim building official. We did run into a few things last week. I know that last time we all talked, we wanted to adopt the Marin County reach codes along with this code adoption. And after reading through all of that with Vice Mayor Blasdine and our partners at the commission the, um, Help me, Dan, I'm sorry. |
| 00:26:20.07 | Dan Kortert | Sustainability Commission. |
| 00:26:21.76 | Rayleigh Glasser | Thank you, the sustainability commission. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Sorry, I'm trying to get through my email here to see if I can get all this for you guys. |
| 00:26:23.01 | Dan Kortert | Thank you, Bert. |
| 00:26:30.20 | Rayleigh Glasser | And |
| 00:26:39.55 | Unknown | Mayor, should we move on to the next item and just come back? |
| 00:26:42.68 | Melissa Blaustein | We should, although let me do this. Let's open up to public comment. We're on this item. There is a staff report. We do have folks who I think want to speak to this who are quite knowledgeable. So I'm going to go ahead and open public comment. I see two hands raised. City Clerk, if you can facilitate Mr. Mueller and then Mr. Plummer, that would be helpful. And then we'll come back. Um, to staff. |
| 00:27:07.37 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you, Mayor. Please unmute Mr. Mueller. |
| 00:27:15.34 | David Mahler | All right. Um, Hang on just one second here. Um, Good evening, Mayor Kilman and Council members. I'm David Mahler. I'm with the Marin Sonoma Building Electrification Squad, many of whose members live in Sausalito. I was very glad to read in the staff report that Sausalito intends to adopt in the first quarter 2023, the three reach codes developed by Marin County over the past year in collaboration with all Marin towns and cities. These are the three reach codes that were just referred to, and they cover all electric for new buildings, energy target for renovations of existing buildings that favor electrification, and more ambitious requirements for EV charging, especially with regard to multi-unit development. We strongly agree with staff. that Marin County has done a significant public outreach outreach to vet these three reach codes and requests that Sausalito conduct any additional outreach that it feels it needs to do as soon as possible in support of adopting the three reach codes in the first quarter of 2023 as proposed in the staff report. These three reach codes are consistent with the recommendations of the Marin Civil Grand Jury Report on building electrification, which was discussed a month or two ago. And I want to let you know that just last week, the Marin Board of Supervisors unanimously approved the first reading of all three REACH codes. And I also want to let you know that several other jurisdictions are poised to adopt These codes adoption of these codes will help Sausalito meet its greenhouse gas reduction goals and I really on behalf of the building electrification squad want to thank the Sausalito City Council and staff for moving ahead. to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Thank you very much. |
| 00:29:13.49 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you, Mr. Miller. Before we move on to Mr. Palmer, can I ask the city clerk to make sure we do have the timer ready to go? |
| 00:29:27.64 | Melissa Blaustein | Welcome, Marcus. |
| 00:29:29.56 | Walfred Solorzano | Mr. Palmer. |
| 00:29:33.24 | Mark Balmer | Thank you. Good evening, Madam Mayor and council members. I'm Mark Balmer, a member of the Sausalito Sustainability Commission. the commission is- |
| 00:29:42.27 | Melissa Blaustein | Can I just pause you for a second? I'm sorry. City Click, would you mind just making sure that timer is going to go? That's so interesting. |
| 00:29:47.46 | Walfred Solorzano | Showing yourself. We are timing on our desk. Unfortunately, the timer that you see is not working correctly. So I will notify the... speaker when their time is up. I apologize. Not a problem, thank you for that. |
| 00:30:02.20 | Melissa Blaustein | I'm talking about it. |
| 00:30:02.52 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 00:30:02.53 | Melissa Blaustein | I'm sorry. |
| 00:30:02.79 | Walfred Solorzano | Don't interrupt you. |
| 00:30:03.23 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 00:30:04.02 | Mark Balmer | No problem. Good evening again, Madam Mayor and council members. I'm Mark Balmer here, a member of the Sausalito Sustainability Commission. The commission is very supportive of the direction outlined in the staff report particularly regarding the climate friendly reach codes being considered. Over the last eight months, as you just recently heard, participated with Marin County planners, and the 11 other local municipalities to develop the Marin County 2022 model reach code. The commission supports staff's recommendations for further community engagement. and adoption of these codes in the first quarter of 2023. I thank you very much for your work on this, both council and staff. |
| 00:30:48.15 | Melissa Blaustein | Yeah, I want to thank you, Mr. Palmer. I know you attended the board supervisor meeting and you sent over notes and allured us to the approval of the first reading of the three reach code. So thank you for tracking that. Okay, do we have any other members of the public with a raised hands? Not that I see, Mare. Okay, I'm gonna go ahead and close with a comment. bring it back up to staff. Dan, are we ready with Rayleigh? |
| 00:31:12.50 | Janelle Kellman | Yeah. |
| 00:31:16.09 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 00:31:16.11 | Dan Kortert | I mean, something Yeah, she's still, you're still on the phone, Rayleigh? Yeah. |
| 00:31:26.00 | Melissa Blaustein | That's quite right. Would you like to comment on any of the the additional issues that the vice mayor had, Spoken to. |
| 00:31:35.97 | Rayleigh Glasser | Thank you. |
| 00:31:37.37 | Dan Kortert | either one of us. And I, I, I don't, I don't have any questions. Do you? |
| 00:31:41.59 | Rayleigh Glasser | I think. |
| 00:31:45.42 | Melissa Blaustein | I think the vice mayor had some questions because she had worked with you on some updates. So May, vice mayor, do you want to just tell us about that conversation? Thank you. |
| 00:31:51.63 | Vice Mayor Blaustein | Yeah, I'm happy to do that if it's if it's difficult for Rayleigh to hop on and give a summary. I just wanted to acknowledge the work that staff put into this and also that Mark Palmer from the Sustainability Commission and other members gave. After the last meeting where we asked for a continuance on this issue so that we could include both green building codes and the potential adoption of the reach code staff really spent the time to go back and look through the code to see where we might add an already immediately introduced the green. The green planning building codes which that you'll see now in the staff report that wasn't included previously, which is great, but additionally what was decided by the sustainability Commission and staff. is that yes, the staff recommends that we move forward with the adoption of the reach codes, but we do need more public outreach because the county before moving forward with their adoption of the reach codes had about a year public outreach on this topic. And of course, there are a lot of questions about what requirements might be for electrification and for permitting and for staff as well. So Mark Palmer from the Sustainability Commission has generously offered to have the Sustainability Commission work on that outreach and lead on getting public support for the REACH adoption. And this will be a priority going forward in Q1 of 2023. So I just wanted to say thanks to staff and the Sustainability Commission, and this allows us to move forward now with adopting the construction codes that we need to update prior to January 1st, 2023, and also puts us on the right path to adopting the Tier 1 reach codes in the first quarter of next year. |
| 00:33:18.67 | Melissa Blaustein | Vice Mayor, can I ask you two questions on that? Do you have a sense of how that public outreach take place is my first question. I'll address that and then I have |
| 00:33:28.90 | Vice Mayor Blaustein | Yeah, so I think that we'll talk about this at the next Sustainability Commission meeting, but I'd like to have a town hall that would be led by the Sustainability Commission on a number of these topics, as well as work closely Communications Director Chambers on some current outreach and questions from the city to to residents to see what might be of concern. open public meetings as well as perhaps a survey. I think we need to have a robust discussion with the sustainability commission and with staff to see what questions should be answered. I'll also be reaching out to the county and to see what their direction was for that public outreach. And hopefully we can expedite it to complete it by Q1. |
| 00:34:03.17 | Melissa Blaustein | Great, thank you. And then my second question was something that we talked about last time, and I think Mark mentioned again, or maybe Mr. Mahler, is that the reach codes are designed to help communities in Marin County meet their greenhouse gas reduction goals. How might we as a community be tracking that? I know you and I have been looking at some online platforms for that, but what's the intention to be able to track that that's actually been effective? |
| 00:34:25.84 | Vice Mayor Blaustein | Well, I think you and I have been working really closely on adopting a version of what Santa Monica has around their tracking for their climate mitigation and seeing what their emissions are. Obviously, the county has a report, but we can do more as a community, and that's something you and I have been hard at work on. in terms of finding grant funding to be able to have a great tracking tool so we know how well we're doing Obviously, there's general data from Green Building that demonstrates the difference in electrification versus using natural gas, but I think we can do more. And hopefully that will be part of the public outreach and also our ambitious climate goals moving forward in the next quarter of the new year. |
| 00:35:01.83 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you for that. And then one question for Dan. I think by statute, the Planning Commission, is the first official review body before it comes to us. So I don't know if you have any thoughts about how That information will be brought up to the Planning Commission for review, and then when we might see it again. |
| 00:35:19.90 | Dan Kortert | I think it opened up to the planning commission as a study session maybe, or just to get their input on the... electrification, electrification. coach. Um, So, You know, we need to do that within the next month or so. or by the first month of the year, and get that rolling that way. |
| 00:35:47.17 | Melissa Blaustein | Great. OK. Just wanted to flag that. Thank you, thank you, Vice Mayor. Any council members have questions? So, |
| 00:35:54.02 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | I don't have no I don't have questions I just wanted to thank Vice Mayor Blasdine for her work in the interim on this and um I think the plan sounds great. I think some vigorous public outreach between now and when it comes back to the city council is is really important. I think it's important to understand what this does do and what it doesn't, what the reach codes would do and what they wouldn't. and how I think most people in the South Florida will be interested in the remodel provisions. because that's the most likely to affect the most number of people. So whether those, know what aspects are voluntary, what might be mandatory, et cetera. So hopefully some good. public outreach and hopefully our new community Um, development director can be engaged fully on this item as well moving forward. So thanks. Thank you. |
| 00:36:50.59 | Melissa Blaustein | Great. Okay, any other questions or discussion from council members? And yes, a huge thank you to the vice mayor. This is in line with a lot of the initiatives we've been discussing. So thank you for being on point on this. Okay. |
| 00:37:05.14 | Vice Mayor Blaustein | Can I make a motion to adopt the resolution? I don't remember the resolution. |
| 00:37:05.15 | Melissa Blaustein | I'm not. |
| 00:37:05.47 | Jill Hoffman | Bye. |
| 00:37:10.35 | Vice Mayor Blaustein | have to look at it. the draft ordinance. What's the number on it? Do I need the number? Hold on. It doesn't have a number yet. Okay yeah I make a motion to approve the draft ordinance for adopting our construction goods. Thank you. |
| 00:37:26.26 | Melissa Blaustein | I've been. All right, Molly, can you go ahead and please although I don't think we're approving this We're reading it and we need a second reading. |
| 00:37:40.13 | Unknown | I think you're introducing it, aren't you? Is that where we are? |
| 00:37:42.14 | Melissa Blaustein | you |
| 00:37:43.68 | Unknown | That's right. |
| 00:37:44.82 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 00:37:44.86 | Walfred Solorzano | Okay. |
| 00:37:45.18 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 00:37:46.22 | Walfred Solorzano | So we- |
| 00:37:46.33 | Melissa Blaustein | Absolutely. |
| 00:37:47.51 | Walfred Solorzano | Councilmember Sobieski. |
| 00:37:48.81 | Melissa Blaustein | you |
| 00:37:49.62 | Unknown | Is there a vote on something or is it just a vote? |
| 00:37:51.78 | Melissa Blaustein | Yeah, I was going to say, Greg, so if we're not approving it, we just voicing our acquiescence on the first reading. |
| 00:37:58.02 | Unknown | It's the first reading. So you're you're you're introducing The ordinance as proposed for the first reading, it'll come back probably on the 15th for a second reading. |
| 00:38:09.07 | Melissa Blaustein | but there's no vote. |
| 00:38:10.80 | Unknown | No, you would vote. You vote to introduce an ordinance. Yes. |
| 00:38:14.00 | Melissa Blaustein | Great. then |
| 00:38:15.05 | Unknown | Yes. |
| 00:38:16.38 | Walfred Solorzano | I think that's the motion. Thank you. That's a yes from Councilmember Sobieski. Councilmember Cleveland Knowles? Yes. Councilmember Hoffman? Yes. Vice Mayor Blaustian. Thank you. |
| 00:38:28.26 | Melissa Blaustein | Yes. |
| 00:38:28.82 | Walfred Solorzano | Amir Kalman. |
| 00:38:30.22 | Melissa Blaustein | Yes. Pass this unanimously. Okay, thank you, everybody. Thanks for that hard work and look forward to the second reading. Okay, we'll move on now to our business items. So item 5A is a memorandum to the city council. of Sausalito around property tax and report from HDL. We'll hear from Chris Zapata, our city manager, and Paula Cohn, who is the president of HDL. So Mr. City Manager, I will hand it over to you and to Ms. Cohn. |
| 00:38:58.01 | Chris Zapata | Yeah, thank you mayor and council members of the public. I appreciate the opportunity to put financial items on the agenda. given that we've had very few a finance committee meetings in the last couple of months. It's always important to understand your financial landscape. and as it relates to Sausalito as we start to lean into our budget season which will begin in December getting you information on property tax on sales tax on parking revenue on our fees and so forth is really really critical so we can build a 23-24 budget And I always try to make sure that I get the titles right, but you said it, Mayor. We're privileged to have President Paula Cohn from HDL, as you know, they are a contract consultant that looks at our property tax revenues, our sales tax revenues, our TOT revenues, as well as our sales tax revenues. So Paula's responsibility for HDL in Sausalito is property tax. So tonight she will bring forward information on property tax in Sausalito, Marin County. the state. And then at a future date, I'd like to reserve some time to come back with another member of HDL and talk about sales tax, TOT tax, as well as the district tax that is in play right now. So with that, turn it over to Paula. I see you here. Welcome. |
| 00:40:25.41 | Paula Cohn | Thank you, Ms. Zepeda. And I'd like to thank the council members for inviting me. I'm going to share my screen. |
| 00:40:37.49 | Paula Cohn | Yay. I'm always... So happy when it goes as planned. And I'm going to spend a little time sort of bringing you into my property tax world. I do do property tax. My company is HDL Corn and Cone. And we have 265 cities in the state of California. So more than half of the cities are involved. And my service level. To begin with, I'm going to talk about the timing. And I know that you see your property tax receipts or you budget your property tax, but it's really important to understand the timing behind the values that are driving your revenue. And this is looking at your 22-23 fiscal year, the fiscal year you started just this past July 1st. In order for something to appear on this role, It happened in calendar year 2021. The role starts being prepared on January 1st, 2021, And the data is with the assessor between January and June, 2022. The assessor applies changes, prop eight, role changes, new purchases, all of the events that happened in 2021. So a property that was built, a property that was sold, a property that heaven forbid burns down All of those events are enrolled as of January 1 and are finished as of June 30th, 2022. when they are then handed over to the auditor. And I say handed over because these different departments do not have interlinking databases. When the assessor is done, he, she wraps it up drops it off at the auditor's office and then they extend the role by applying the taxing percentages, the direct assessments, the debt overrides, and they have the role for two months. And then at the end of July, It is transferred to the treasurer, tax collector, who prints and mails the bills, to the property owners and the taxpayers. Now the property taxes on the secured roll are paid twice a year. They're due in November, 2022 for this fiscal year. in February, 2023. They become delinquent December 10th of 2022 and April 10th of 2023. The tax bills are paid to the tax collector And once the revenue is received, The tax collector lets the auditor know, and then the auditor apportions the revenue. The apportionment typically happens between November 2022 and August 2023. And I point this out because by the time you receive your last allocations, For the current fiscal year in either July or August 2023, you are 19 or 20 months down the road. from the year that's driving this data. That means that if you see something that's being built this year in 2022, and it's not completed by December, 2022, you will not see the full value enrolled until the 24-25 fiscal year. So that's the delay we've seen. on property taxes. The good thing about that is what I'm doing, budget forecasts, and helping the city plot the budget's future I already know the properties that have sold and I know what the CPI is going to be. So there are some. absolute numbers that I have already Receive. This schedule shows you a 20-year history, and I'm going to make it big, and hopefully I can get back at how I have to doing this. This shows you a 20 year history of the values and role for the city of Sausalito on the secured role, the unsecured role, and you don't have any SBE role. And you will note that you had some nice growth before the recession started seeing lower growth in 2009-10 Two years of negative change as we were going through the recession. One year of slightly positive change, another year of a little more than 2%, and then you took off, and showed some similarity to what we saw before the Great Recession. Remember that 21-22 In order to make that roll, we're looking at the events that happened in calendar year 2020, the year of the pandemic. That's why this value last year grew less than we have seen in prior years. The CPI per Prop 13 was less last year. and your overall increase for the 21-22 fiscal year was only 2.85%. This year is up. 7.33%. And when I'm talking with your staff, as I have already done, I'm telling them, Do not expect 7% every year. You've had 7%. in three of the past 20 years. That is not normal. The average that you'll see in those 20 years is 5.16%. You have years of 5%, 6% more frequently than you've got years of 7%. And Paula, this is the money is actually coming to Sausalito. This is the value that's driving the money that's coming to Sausalito. Correct. |
| 00:46:06.87 | Melissa Blaustein | So this is not the money that lands. This is the value. |
| 00:46:08.53 | Paula Cohn | This is the valve. Yes. |
| 00:46:10.10 | Melissa Blaustein | That's right. Bye. |
| 00:46:10.55 | Paula Cohn | Thank you. |
| 00:46:10.60 | Melissa Blaustein | Yeah. |
| 00:46:10.64 | Paula Cohn | Thank you. |
| 00:46:10.69 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 00:46:10.79 | Paula Cohn | Thank you. |
| 00:46:10.89 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 00:46:10.99 | Paula Cohn | Thank you. Right. |
| 00:46:11.29 | Melissa Blaustein | Right. Thank you. |
| 00:46:11.80 | Paula Cohn | to make that very clear on these charts. This is the value. 1% of this value is taxed per Prop 13. And the city of Sausalito gets a whopping 11.2 four, seven percent set of every tax dollar collected. Not a lot. To show the growth of Sausalito in comparison to the other 10 cities in Marin County, You will note that the high and the low are highlighted in gray here with the Ross having the highest percent change. Tiburon having the lowest percent change There are 11 cities in Marin County, five had greater percent and dollar change, Yeah, five had larger. and five had less of a value change. Then Sausalito. So you're right in the middle. The city average countywide was 7.1% and the city median was 6.9%. and you outpace both of those with your seven point 3, 3, rounded 7.25 total. |
| 00:47:22.66 | Paula Cohn | I'm often asked why did we see this growth? This year's growth was 309 million. 500 and I should get my mouse to go down here, but it won't do it. 546,770, that's on the total change line, above the long line towards the bottom of the page. The items that drove that growth, the first of those that I've highlighted is the CPI. After Prop 13 was adopted, Values that don't change ownership or add new construction have a maximum of a 2% change or the CPI, whichever is less. In the 40 some odd years since Prop 13 was adopted, there have been 11 years where it has not been 2% It was 2% this year. It was not 2% last year. |
| 00:48:09.25 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 00:48:09.27 | Paula Cohn | So that growth, to the total roll was 24% of your total increase came from those properties and it was a $74 million. The unsecured value change is kind of interesting. It added a 26% of your growth or 1.91 of your 7.3%. In 21-2, the assessor did not get all the votes on the roll. 70. Six million of that 80 million is due to boats that were added this year that were not completely added last year. I will comment that in 2021, you had six boats and floating homes. that were valued at more than a million dollars. And in the current, you have 20. that are valued at more than a million dollars. the missing. You know, 40 votes or 14 votes is pretty significant. In addition to the boat change, Facebook has unsecured assets that grew 1.8 million this year. And Serena and Lily added personal property, business property valued at 1.7 million for the total 80.6 that we are seeing. And then the big dog here, our third of the growth came from properties that sold for more than their value on the roll. And when properties sell, the assessor typically is going to put the sale price as the market value. In a year that wasn't 2021, and 2021 had more sales than any other year in 15 years that we're going to look at, Generally, the city of Sausalito sees a growth of about one and three quarters to two and a quarter percent. year over year. due to property selling for more than the value before those sales. This year, it was a more remarkable increase due to what happened on sales in 2021. You had some new residential and non-residential growth. Uh, The Prop 8s that were reduced during the Great Recession have almost made their way through. And the other changes tend to be items appeals that have been restored, exemptions that had not been applied, just sort of the wrap up. The growth of the city of Sausalito, as I just mentioned, the 309.5, 7.33%. The County of Marin, which also includes the city of Sausalito grew $5.9 billion, growth of 6.54%. So your percent increase was also greater than the counting. |
| 00:50:43.24 | Melissa Blaustein | Paula, before you move this, you have a new construction, non-residential and new construction, residential. So you break out the ownership transfer by residential and commercial as well? |
| 00:50:52.35 | Paula Cohn | Thank you. |
| 00:50:53.55 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 00:50:53.56 | Paula Cohn | We do break down the prior transfer of ownership on this report is all. We do have a report that breaks it down. Yes. It is not broken down here. |
| 00:51:04.78 | Melissa Blaustein | Because many of our large property owners on the commercial space have very low tax space because the properties have been in for families for a very long period of time. And I'm just wondering if that had been part of your inquiry in your analysis. |
| 00:51:04.80 | Paula Cohn | Yeah. |
| 00:51:17.12 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 00:51:17.14 | Paula Cohn | We do a couple of things. We can tell you how many properties have not sold since 1978. Mm-hmm. We can tell you those that do sell every year on how much of a bump they bring. We look at the properties that sell on a sale basis. and can provide that information upon request. We do not include it in our book, it's just a lot of data. And we have it. We've got over 400 different reports that we can print out and We used to do it by hand. We don't do it by hand anymore. We've got reports that do that. You know, you don't have cities don't have as many properties as they think they have in the Prop 8 pool. You do have commercial that have been held for a long period of time. But when those sell, they tend to bring a bigger bang for the buck. And in fact, one of your largest owners this year, had a partial sale and added $16 million because of a partial sale. not a full sale. So I will mention that in just a second when I get to the top owners. The revenue for your general fund based on the value that we are showing in the city, the $4.5 billion is $5,113,200. On top of that, You receive revenue that used to be population-based, but in 2004-05 as a part of that budget act, became a vehicle license fee in lieu of the population-based And that has grown to 957,000. $685 for the current year. And back in the early 1990s, the reversal of the bailout after Prop 13 directed money to education. in the Educational Revenue Augmentation Fund, That is still in play, it's been in play for over 30 years. and the county sucks off $890,898 for schools in revenue that before 1992 you were receiving and it has grown. based on the city growth over the past 30 plus years. |
| 00:53:25.64 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:53:25.98 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. Janelle, could I just ask a question? Please do, yes. Thank you, Mayor. I was just wondering, those projections that you just mentioned about our projected revenue. Are those consistent city managers, Zapata, with what we... anticipated in our budget? Are they higher or lower? is this new information or is this the information we had when we were preparing our budget? I guess question and if it's new, What's the difference between the numbers from our projections. |
| 00:54:02.68 | Chris Zapata | I would answer Councilmember Cleveland knows it's slightly new. There are some adjustments that Paula can speak to, but typically we use the numbers they give us with their projections and they're incorporated into our budget documents. And that's what you've been seeing. There may be slight adjustments that factors that we aren't aware of at the time create variations in that number, but it's not significant. Paula, do you have any more to add to that? |
| 00:54:24.75 | Paula Cohn | I think our budget forecast was about 5.6%. We budget unsecured flat because unsecured assets tend to depreciate, year over year. In this case, the county added boats that they hadn't added last year which ended up with a 1.9% increase. If I add that 1.9% to my 5.9% 6, I'm very close to your 7.3. Did you follow that? |
| 00:54:53.05 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 00:54:53.07 | Paula Cohn | Thank you. |
| 00:54:53.14 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 00:54:53.73 | Paula Cohn | Thank you. |
| 00:54:53.76 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Councilman Clevenor's, Well, I just don't know what the number was we had. So when we do our budget, we have a projected amount of tax. And I understand the percent that you're talking about, but what I'm not exactly sure of is I don't have it in front of me when we adopted our budget. |
| 00:54:59.87 | Paula Cohn | All right. |
| 00:55:11.26 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | is as this number gone up or down or stayed the same since our budget productions. So we're looking at about 5.1, to the general fund. plus the 957, so almost 6 million. to the general fund. So I'm just wondering if that's consistent with what we saw. And if we don't know right now, maybe the city manager could just, spot check that. while we're |
| 00:55:34.65 | Paula Cohn | you I'm assuming you budgeted less than that because cities typically are more conservative. |
| 00:55:35.98 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | I'm a, |
| 00:55:40.91 | Paula Cohn | And my number is a base number coming in. I don't have new construction. You had a little bit of new construction, but it wouldn't have been significant. So it's the unsecured that was the, the turner here that is not consistent with our forecasting. |
| 00:55:54.70 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Great. Okay. Well, that's a better. |
| 00:55:56.40 | Paula Cohn | Thank you. |
| 00:55:56.67 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 00:55:56.74 | Paula Cohn | Yes, you got more money than I'm sure you budgeted. |
| 00:55:56.77 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | I'm sorry. Yeah. Because I'm |
| 00:55:59.99 | Paula Cohn | Okay. I do. Thank you. Just looking at your data and your values a little bit differently, as well as the revenue. Your residential component and that's both single family homes and multifamily sites. 2,846 parcels. Roughly 77.8% of the value of the city is in that pot. And it generates $3,975,200 in change. for revenue. Lumping your commercial and your industrial uses together. It's about 14.7% of all the value in the city are assigned to those two uses. And the revenue that is generated from commercial and industrial 749,232.95. And then finally, the other large item here are your unsecured assets, unsecured makeup 6.6. Those are in large measure boats. There are 2,342 boats. And those plus the business assets, personal property, office equipment, leased equipment that businesses use. make up the balance of the $299 million generating 337,290.76. So that's how your values break down. Uh, properties are churches and nonprofits. Miscellaneous tend to be water company properties in this county. You have 155 vacant properties throughout the city. The exempt, the 148 exempt or city owned schools, county, state, post office properties and that rounds out the uses on the use category. |
| 00:57:48.69 | Unknown | Paula, can you just, sorry, can you just sit back for a second? So the boats are, how much did... property tax does the boat, do the boats themselves pay? |
| 00:57:56.77 | Paula Cohn | I have to print that out and I know that you use Brian Mora, and he contacts me every year, and I do that for him. It's not something I have off the top of my head. I'd be glad to provide it for you. It's the majority of this revenue. I'm guessing if you get 337 $300,000 is going to be closer to that $300,000 is going to be vote related. |
| 00:58:18.62 | Unknown | So it's roughly $100 a boat. Exactly. |
| 00:58:25.98 | Jill Hoffman | Uh-huh. |
| 00:58:26.00 | Paula Cohn | Uh-huh. Thank you. |
| 00:58:26.76 | Jill Hoffman | Bye. Thank you. |
| 00:58:27.65 | Paula Cohn | Right. That's the city's take. That's not the tax bill. Remember you only get a portion of the taxes. You do not get the entire tax. |
| 00:58:33.07 | Jill Hoffman | Remember? Thank you. |
| 00:58:37.95 | Jill Hoffman | Mm-hmm. |
| 00:58:40.27 | Paula Cohn | To now look at what's happened with the median sale price, City of Sausalito in 2008, under the median price, which is the second column from the right, Your median price before the real estate bubble crashed was $1,000,000. |
| 00:58:57.93 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:58:57.96 | Jill Hoffman | there. |
| 00:58:59.14 | Paula Cohn | The average price was $1,419,000. at the bottom of the trough and the great recession in 2010, your median price had dropped to 769,250. That means that Half of those 72 homes that sold that year sold for more than that and half sold for less. This is the middle home. You did not cross the The threshold of that price that you saw in 2008 until 2015 when the median price was finally $1,245,000. So it took you about seven years to reclaim the ground you lost through the Great Recession. You've had positive changes. I will comment that a median sale price is a better indicator of the kinds of property that are coming to market. in any given year than anything else. If last year you had a lot of high dollar homes come to market and they sold for a lot of money, And this year there are mid range or lower value homes coming to market, not selling for as much that median price is going to come down. It doesn't mean homes aren't selling. It just means that the kind of homes that are selling are not the same that may have sold last year or the year before. That said, We've got nine months of sales right now. in calendar year 2022 at the top underneath In the parentheses, you can see September date here. the median sale price through the first nine months, is $2,120,000. The current median price is 34.18% higher than it was last year. It is the highest median year-over-year increase you've seen. since we Well, since ever, looking at going in and out of the Great Recession. I do expect that this is going to fall a little bit because October, November, December, not bonus months for sales activities or sale prices. So if you've got fewer homes selling, selling for less, that's going to erode that number. It's not going to be the 3.61% you had last year. but I doubt that she will end the year at 34.18%. to look at the other cities in Marin County, And again, you are second highest increase this year after Ross, which is 3.52. 34.52. Belvedere, again, they had higher valued homes sell last year than this year. That's why they've got a decline. And the number of sales in 2022 for single family homes are off by 16.8% in comparison to the number of sales that we had last year. Last year for the full year, 132 homes sold. This year through nine months, you've got 93 homes that have sold. |
| 01:02:01.56 | Paula Cohn | And because I've been asked, I'm showing you two things here. One is the tax dollar breakdown that the city of Sausalito had before the detachment from the fire district. In 2012-13, the city of Sausalito was receiving 21.04 cents of every tax dollar collected. Before 1992, you had another 3.5 cents, which is the ERAF share. that has been taken away and given to schools to reverse the bailout that happened after Prop 13. If we look at this same tax dollar today, Sausalito gets 11.47 cents. the Southern Marin Fire Protection gets the other 9.9 cents that you used to receive for your total. |
| 01:02:57.25 | Paula Cohn | So that was the bet there. the downside, I guess, in your share in detaching from the fire district To look at this another way, Well, what other way? Uh, First, I want to show you your share in comparison to all of the other cities in Marin County. The cities that are getting a higher share at a higher mill rate prior to the adoption of Prop 13. What Prop 13 did was it memorialized that high rate, and awarded that to the, uh, taxers on a permanent basis. What Prop 13 did was it really rewarded the guilty and punished the innocent? but you were getting 21 cents back there. So, just, you know, if you didn't, had you not detached, you would have been a number three or four at the top of the list. And now to show this another way, and this does have the weighted share of estimated revenue. Please know that I am... I am not sitting in the auditor's office where the allocations are allocated. I just know that based on value times the 1% share times your share, This is a close amount of revenue that you should receive this year. uh, and the amount that the fire protection district. So this year we're showing you at 5.202 And that's a little higher than the five, Um, a little lower, I guess, in the 5.311 that we showed a minute ago. And that probably has the ERAF share is compensated here. You'll notice that there are a couple of flood control zones at the bottom of this list that do not service the entire city of Sausalito. That's why their net value in agency is only 55.6 million, not 4.5 billion as the other agencies that serve throughout the community receive. |
| 01:05:03.20 | Melissa Blaustein | Paula, can you explain? I thought URAF was a way to shift local property tax revenues to educational aspects of the community. How come, just out of curiosity, how come there's multiple ERAFs and already a commitment to Marine Community College, County School Service Fund? How come they're not duplicative? Thank you. |
| 01:05:24.03 | Paula Cohn | THANK YOU FOR ASKING THAT So when Prop 13 was adopted, most agencies lost about 60% of their revenue. The state had a surplus that year. And they said, we're going to bail out cities, counties, and special districts. And we're going to backfill that money to schools. |
| 01:05:43.04 | Jill Hoffman | Mm-hmm. |
| 01:05:43.68 | Paula Cohn | Okay. So they took the money from the school and they backfilled the money with ADA. Everything goes along. great for 14 years until 1992 when the state can't balance their budget. And the legislature said, hey, remember that bailout we gave you? It was never supposed to be permanent. We're going to shift that now back to the schools. In year one, they shifted 9% of the prior year's revenue to schools. So the state could, the state doesn't levy a property tax. So the state can now retain the ADA, the money it gets from gas tax and other things. and the cities were going to shift revenue back to the schools. Then 1993-4 came along and the state couldn't balance their budget a second year. So they dug deeper. Cities lost 25%. Special districts lost 35%. And the county lost between 45 and 50% to ERAF. So I'm only sure. you'll see the county at the top of the list, the County General Taxing District, And the ERAF for County. someone will see it is the first ERAF that says ERAF, as you go down the list, So the count is getting 18.9 cents and they're shifting 10.1 cents to ERAF. And that's the fifth item just below your first green bar. That's the county share. So the county shares, The city shares, special districts share, the school doesn't share because the school is getting the money. All of these ERAF hits come away and they're, They're put in a pot and they're given to the school. The school has this money and the state has less of an obligation to local education than it would have had otherwise. |
| 01:07:39.97 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 01:07:40.64 | Paula Cohn | Any more questions on that? I'm not thinking about it. |
| 01:07:42.82 | Melissa Blaustein | Bye. |
| 01:07:46.72 | Paula Cohn | To show this to you, you can see that when the detachment happened, You went from $5.6 million in 2012-13 to 3.3 million in your general fund in 2013-14. This year, you're back at 5.1, and you pick up about $250,000 to $300,000 a year based on your value change. So you're finally going to get back probably two years from now. You will exceed the amount you had. By then it'll be 12, 13 years ago when you detached. You can see you lost 41%. of your prior year allocation that first year after you made that shift. |
| 01:08:34.19 | Paula Cohn | And now to help you out here, these are the top 10 taxpayers, In the city of Sausalito, They own If you look at the top 10 total line and go over to the right, they own 5.57 percent of all the city by value. And you ask, who are these people? |
| 01:08:53.87 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 01:08:53.97 | Paula Cohn | Number one. MNCVAD2 Seagate Harbors. That is a commercial office building at One Harbor and it's at Bridgeway and Harbor. light goes on. Facebook technologies do not own the building they are in, but they own the stuff inside the building that they use for their business. So all of their value is unsecured. And they are at 2658. Bridgeway. The next Casa Madrona Hotel and Spa. They own three parcels. They are a hotel and spa, obviously. And they're on bulkly as well as at 777 Bridgeway. They own a whole block in the middle there. Altamira Estate. They own vacant and commercial property. They are a recovery facility. at 125 and 145 bulkly. Michael Waldman Trust. This is the owner that purchased or sold a partial interest in their secured property. Last year's value was about $8 million. This year it is $24.5 million. after the revaluation of that partial sale, And this is a local, it's at 10 Liberty Shipway. And it is the Serena and Lilly corporate headquarters. The next MCSSM. LLC. That's the Marina Plaza Harbor office building at 2320 Marinship Way. Craig and Gillian Dorsey Revocable Trust. That is the location of the Schoonmaker Point Marina. has a number of industrial, commercial, and vacant uses. Toten Investments, that's the Portofino Riviera Apartments. Mariner Landing Industrial and Commercial at 2656 Bridgeway. And a peer at Sausalito are multifamily residential apartments at 120 Buckley Avenue. So those are your top 10 owners in the city. They tend to be stable. They are always here. If you don't know them, you need to make sure you know them and thank them for providing a fair amount of the revenue that you receive, keep them happy. |
| 01:11:08.58 | Vice Mayor Blaustein | them. |
| 01:11:10.05 | Paula Cohn | don't have them leave the city. or vacate their facility. |
| 01:11:14.28 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 01:11:14.57 | Paula Cohn | Hey Paul, just a quick question for you. |
| 01:11:15.97 | Melissa Blaustein | I'm going to say, |
| 01:11:16.85 | Paula Cohn | Thank you. |
| 01:11:16.86 | Melissa Blaustein | Can you go back to that slide? We've asked HDL in the past for this type of granularity around sales tax. And he says, how come this is available to us |
| 01:11:24.39 | Vice Mayor Blaustein | Um, |
| 01:11:28.07 | Melissa Blaustein | at this level of granularity, you're telling me the name, the number, the use, but I can't get that for sales tax. |
| 01:11:35.04 | Paula Cohn | tax is confidential and property tax is not. |
| 01:11:37.25 | Jill Hoffman | and then, . |
| 01:11:39.29 | Paula Cohn | I can, you can go to the county assessor and get this information. Mm-hmm. |
| 01:11:44.25 | Unknown | It just, Yeah, I had the same question, but on what basis- |
| 01:11:47.21 | Paula Cohn | There are Yeah. Oh, well. I don't do sales tax and I don't even have it on my computer because I don't have the clearance to do. look at it either. Uh, To be honest, I know that there are state laws that prohibit Please. and, uh, information about what a particular sales tax earner generates. And I'll give you an example of something in Orange County, which is not sales tax. But years ago, I used to get addresses on unsecured assets, properties that Xerox owned, that they had leased out and IBM owned. in Orange County. And what happened was when Xerox was the only game in town and IBM was coming up, with their own photocopier. They went to the county and they got a list. of all of those leased equipment locations throughout the county and then went out and said, we've got a better deal. And after that happened, Orange County stopped putting The address is on the unsecured roll. So I kind of see how it could happen differently. but all the other 58 counties and I buy data from 47 of them, I do not have that same issue. |
| 01:13:03.70 | Unknown | since we have you here, And you're answering some other requests for us. Do you think someone from HDL could help us understand the answer to the next question. specifically like what what laws and what are the rules around granular data on sales tax. |
| 01:13:20.49 | Paula Cohn | I can't help you, but your sales tax reps should be able to. I'm guessing it's in the revenue and taxation code or the government code. Uh, Because I have my plates full enough learning property tax. I don't need to learn sales tax too. I'm sorry. |
| 01:13:39.81 | Unknown | I'll see if I can take a look at that. I think it has to do with the sales tax reporting, and directly released to income taxes. And there's some proprietary issues with sales tax revenue. I think that's the answer, but I'll confirm that for you. |
| 01:13:56.06 | Melissa Blaustein | So Paula, while that legal question is pending, I appreciate that it takes a lot to go a mile deep on one type of tax. So to take us through a little bit beyond the data to a little bit of an analysis, when we look at residential, commercial, and boats. The unique attribute of Sausalito is obviously that last one, right? I, Help us understand the potential for additional property tax through our marina. |
| 01:14:26.03 | Paula Cohn | you |
| 01:14:29.88 | Paula Cohn | Well, I'm assuming that you charge a slip fee So I suppose you could increase your slip fees Property taxes, the only way you're going to increase property taxes is to go to the voters. Thank you. |
| 01:14:42.13 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 01:14:42.15 | Paula Cohn | I don't know if they still have any questions. |
| 01:14:42.23 | Melissa Blaustein | Yeah, I'm not asking for that type of it. Sorry, that's a great answer for different type of question. I'm asking if you go, you know this data better than anybody and we can riff on it. But I'm asking for a little bit of an analysis here. So you see a community that has a lot of constraints around property tax. We have three sources. That last one is a really unique attribute as the Sausalito. |
| 01:14:48.12 | Paula Cohn | Thank you so much. |
| 01:15:05.94 | Melissa Blaustein | What do you advise a community like ours in terms of how we might spend our resources to maximize this unique attribute? |
| 01:15:13.32 | Paula Cohn | Well, counties responsible for valuing those votes every year. There is boats depreciate. They do not get new value, greater value year over year. They're going to depreciate. The older they are, the less they're worth. Thank you. So you probably have a harbor master. That Harbor master I'm assuming is in contact with the county assessor letting them know the boats that are there on January 1st of every year. If all of your boats left the harbor on January 1st, you have a big problem. |
| 01:15:48.25 | Jill Hoffman | you |
| 01:15:48.45 | Paula Cohn | Because it's where are they on January 1st? If they're all in Hawaii somewhere, they're not going to get taxed. So, you know, it's important that they be in your harbor at their slips. Yeah. generating property tax for you. And your harbor master should probably have a list of, the hall numbers, The owners know where they are. the I guess the lease from two for every vote. So that they're not leaving on December 31st and coming back on February 1st. to avoid it. Same thing as with planes. are taxed one day a year also. So if they're up in the air and not on the ground, that's a problem for the airport where they're... tethered. |
| 01:16:40.95 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you for that. That was the spirit with which I was hoping you would approach some of this. I mean, I'm sure we could all ask a bunch of questions. Is there anything else that you'd like to offer up based on your analysis and work here and the trends that you've been seeing? |
| 01:16:56.54 | Paula Cohn | I'm seeing what I'm seeing throughout the region right now are properties selling for more. I hear all of the economists saying it's coming. It's coming. We're going to have this this huge problem. Uh, I'm not seeing it yet. I'm seeing fewer properties sell. People who are buying homes seem to have the money to buy the homes and they're willing to to buy something at a greater interest on the chance four or five years from now, they're going to refinance and everything's going to be fine. So as long as we don't have an unemployment problem, I don't think we're going to see a crash like we saw in 2009, 10, 11. I think we may see a stabilizing of the property sale prices. We might find that 5% a year rather than 34%. is more realistic going forward. And so what that's going to mean for everyone is the bump you're getting right now. from that element is not going to be sustainable. you're going to start seeing one and a half to 2%. rather than. two and a half to 3% growth. And I've got some cities that have 5% growth from that factor this year. And I'm shaking my head and I'm saying, Please don't expect that next year. It is not in the cards every year. So I know we will probably be looking at something more in line of 3.5% to 4.5% growth for 23.4%. And then beyond that, if the mild recession that everybody's talking about happens, We'll know it's coming because we're you We're a backward looking, Revenue source, we know it's coming before we have to forecast it. because we're looking at last year, we did not have a recession. In 2022. 2022 is what's going to be driving 23.4. values. No recession in 2022. property values are gonna be just fine next year. If we start seeing a recession and we start seeing sale prices fall in 2023, we're going to know how to budget for that in 24-5. That's the good thing about what I do. I'm not only three months into it like sales tax having to gauge property values are only released one time a year. And that's what the tax bills are based on. And we know that number when it happens. OKAY. |
| 01:19:28.97 | Melissa Blaustein | for Cleveland Mills has some questions here. |
| 01:19:30.34 | Paula Cohn | Thank you. |
| 01:19:30.78 | Jill Hoffman | Mm-hmm. |
| 01:19:31.18 | Melissa Blaustein | Can you stop sharing your screen for us for now, Paul? |
| 01:19:32.94 | Paula Cohn | Thank you. |
| 01:19:33.34 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 01:19:33.36 | Paula Cohn | Oh. |
| 01:19:33.53 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 01:19:33.68 | Paula Cohn | Love to. I think. I got to put you guys away for a second. |
| 01:19:38.63 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Yeah, just going back to my earlier question about our projected property tax. It looks like I looked at looked at our budget and our report that we got in June said 21, 22. was 6.7 million. And then for 22, 23, 5.9. Okay. |
| 01:20:02.57 | Jill Hoffman | Okay. |
| 01:20:03.03 | Paula Cohn | Here's the thing. |
| 01:20:04.38 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 01:20:04.39 | Paula Cohn | My bet, my. projection is secured, unsecured, homeowner exemption. And If she added in the VLF, You've got that number. She probably added in supplemental, not my numbers. Supplementals are things that happen mid-year. A property sells mid-year and ends up generating additional property tax bills. |
| 01:20:24.97 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 01:20:30.45 | Paula Cohn | All those property tax additional revenue countywide are put in a pool. And the city of Sausalito gets its share of that pool based on their share of the revenue you charge or you receive in the entire county. So until a property sells and it sells for something, we cannot forecast it. |
| 01:20:50.02 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | So I don't actually ask my question yet, but okay, so I just I'm just curious the 21 22. |
| 01:20:50.04 | Paula Cohn | So I don't know. |
| 01:20:58.70 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | is. was last year and it was 6.7. And then what we were looking at for 22, 23 is 5.9. But from what you were saying, given the increased percent, it should be higher than the 6.7 that we had in 21, 22. that's just what I want to make sure I'm understanding. |
| 01:21:23.86 | Paula Cohn | I am saying that your general fund is 5.1. Your VLF is another 900,000, we're at 6 million. I don't know where the other $700,000 came from. No, did that person that put the, and I didn't put your budget together. |
| 01:21:40.51 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | No, I understand that. I'm just saying from your numbers that you were showing from 21, 22, |
| 01:21:41.04 | Paula Cohn | I understand that. I'm just saying. Bye. |
| 01:21:46.07 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | low year percent wise, right? Last year was. Right, 21, 22. |
| 01:21:52.24 | Jill Hoffman | Right. |
| 01:21:52.68 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | And that was, we had a verified property tax of 6.7 collected. Okay. This year, 22, 23, you have a higher percentage that you're showing. right higher percentage of property tax. So it should, I mean, again, I understand you didn't prepare these numbers can't dodge for them, but it should be significantly higher than the 21st. |
| 01:22:15.97 | Paula Cohn | 122. I would say in general, yes, but without knowing what's in that number, I'm not going to say yes definitively. So Chris, I think I would- I think it's for your staff to come up with, not for me. |
| 01:22:26.36 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | I think it is. Yeah, no, I understand. I'm just trying to understand that 21-22 was a lower property tax year. than 22, 23. showing what you showed us tonight. And if that's true, I'm asking our city manager to please ask our director or finance director. to take a look at this presentation and make sure that you know, we'll be hopefully getting the mid-year budget soon. |
| 01:22:52.81 | Sandra Bushmaker | Thank you. |
| 01:22:54.17 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | that number looks like it might be significantly different. So. if I'm understanding everything. And I think that would be good news for us, if that's true. But if Vivian could take a look at it, I think it'd be very helpful. |
| 01:23:10.41 | Chris Zapata | We'll do. Yeah, and that you spoke to a process that, you know, is coming upon us pretty quickly and that's budget season and part of that budget season is looking at major numbers to make sure that our estimates are you know, correct or there needs to be some adjustments made. So happy to do the comparison council member. |
| 01:23:29.63 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thanks. And then just, Ms. Cohn, it sounds like you don't have anything to do with sales tax, but do you have any kind of general trends that you can share with us on sales tax and TOT tonight? |
| 01:23:39.38 | Paula Cohn | I do not. I do not do either of those revenue sources. |
| 01:23:43.73 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, council member. Other questions for Paula before we open up the public comment, and then we can have more of a discussion. Okay, why don't we just take a pause here. Thank you. Let's see if there's any members of the public who'd like to comment and pose maybe some thoughts here. |
| 01:24:02.57 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 01:24:03.51 | Melissa Blaustein | City Clerk, do we have any hands |
| 01:24:05.03 | Walfred Solorzano | interest. Yes, we have one. Ms. Bushmaker? Okay, welcome. Sandra? |
| 01:24:11.34 | Sandra Bushmaker | Thank you. |
| 01:24:12.78 | Walfred Solorzano | or. |
| 01:24:13.03 | Sandra Bushmaker | know. Lost her. There she is. Good evening, everybody. I just wanted to say that I do believe the county of Moran has with regard to boats, and this is from my own experience and talking with other individuals, has treated vessels like appreciating assets rather than a depreciating asset. So I do know that my personal unsecured tax bill went up significantly this last year, probably about 12% over the year before. in the valuation of the vessel. So that's just a fact I'd like to pass on to you. and I don't know if it has any impact on what we do, but I do know the county has gotten very aggressive and it's not just Marin County, it's Many of the counties in the San Francisco Bay Area I said on a lot of groups of sailors, I hear that complaint frequently. Thank you. THANK YOU, CINDRA. |
| 01:25:12.36 | Melissa Blaustein | Any other hands raised? No other mayor? Okay, so we'll go ahead and close public comment, bring it back up. any other questions for And let me actually ask the city manager a question, which is, Is there anything you would like us to either take away from this presentation or focus on That might help. for some additional inquiries. |
| 01:25:36.76 | Chris Zapata | Thank you for that, Mayor. Yeah, one of the things that I think is really important for all of us to work towards and understanding that our budget has two basic sides to it. expenses and revenues and Expenses and revenues are always projections and estimates. And so the more information you can get about them. that shows you trends and actuals as you start to look at what you want to put into the budget in the coming year. It's important and as I mentioned earlier, We started talking about things that we could do to strengthen our financial environment and one of them was certainly to look at our parking. Uh, and that's a, what I call a very, um, good point and so we've done that. Understanding our property tax is really important. So tonight we've done that and in the future I would recommend that we come back and we talk about sales tax and include in sales tax hotel revenue as well as the district tax that is currently measure O. and all that to inform us as to where we are so that we can build a budget and hopefully create a scenario next year that is more balanced as well as more sustainable. So tonight is just to give you insight into the property tax. You saw all the data, it's a complex thing. Sales tax is equally complex. So, you know, spending the time in this type of a setting, I think, is very valuable for us as we bring things forward to you. You make decisions on what you value and what services and projects and programs are going to be implemented in the coming fiscal year. |
| 01:27:21.02 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you for that. Councillor Hoffman, your thoughts? |
| 01:27:26.60 | Jill Hoffman | Thanks. Thank you very much. I just wanted to, I read the materials obviously before the meeting and was very impressed with the quality of the material. So I want to thank the city manager for bringing this to us. I appreciate your summary, Chris, as well, that you included in the, with the, with this item. And Paula, thank you. That was an excellent Excellent presentation and I personally enjoyed the granularity, as the mayor said, of the presentation and the spectrum of the information that you were providing in the historical context. Thank you very much. I think this has been a great exercise for us and for our community to understand. the history of the property tax and the effects of certain decisions as we move forward. And to inform us going forward on decisions that we would make. So and how that affects our revenue going forward. So thank you very much. I appreciate it. |
| 01:28:21.16 | Melissa Blaustein | Well said. Thank you, Councilmember. Councilor Cleveland Knowles, more thoughts or questions on this? |
| 01:28:27.12 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | No, I don't have any. Yes, totally agreed with Councilmember Hoffman. Excellent presentation. Really appreciate the granularity of the data. Just to the point about understanding different decisions, I did look back at the ballot measure of Prop D when I saw the report about fire district and it does look like we were paying actually 55% of our property tax. on fire services prior to the annexation. So I think I went down to 45. um. with that deal. So I think that's the only other point I would just add to the materials provided. But I'm really looking forward to the presentation, hopefully soon on sales tax and TOT. I think. We had a presentation on that at the Transportation Authority of Moran, And trends were looking very good. I think it was mostly about class. last half of last year. But anyway, I think that's another important piece. you know, So thanks for the presentation and good discussion. Thank you. |
| 01:29:36.51 | Melissa Blaustein | you from Siewiewski. Thank you. |
| 01:29:39.53 | Vice Mayor Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 01:29:39.65 | Melissa Blaustein | you |
| 01:29:39.71 | Vice Mayor Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 01:29:39.81 | Unknown | you Thank you. |
| 01:29:41.67 | Vice Mayor Blaustein | Thank you. Vice Mayor? Just echoing the comments that this was a really great presentation. I appreciated the level of detail in the memo from the city manager. as well and I think this will be really helpful to us as we start to think about the budgeting period going forward that will be coming up and would like to ask as well that we get another presentation on our sales tax. So we have all the information we need And we're projecting and I appreciate that, Paula, you were conservative in making sure that we're aware that we can't expect 6.7% every year. or 7% in our property tax revenues. This is a unique economic situation as many economists are predicting. a mild recession in the next six months or so. And so we'll change the outcome. But it's optimistic to know that 2022, 2023 because of the sales in 2021. will be positive for us. So I think that's good for forecasting, but I think we do still have a lot of work to do on thinking about our structural deficit. And this was a step towards getting a sense of where we stand. So thanks for that. |
| 01:30:42.96 | Melissa Blaustein | Thanks, Vice Mayor. Yeah, I agree with all these comments. I won't repeat them. I'll just urge our own staff with the leadership of the city manager to now take this data and make it into a workable strategic. consideration. So I think to myself about Paula, you said you could provide us with a breakdown of the property ownership transfers of commercial versus residential. But I would like to weigh that against the vacancy rate. I can't remember the number that you gave us, but when something says vacant, we don't make anything from a sales tax or property tax. It really just sits there. Oh yes, we do make money. you |
| 01:31:15.95 | Jill Hoffman | The land is born. |
| 01:31:16.58 | Melissa Blaustein | The land is worth something, just not as much as it will be with something on it. Exactly right. And so I would like to understand that so that we can drive. our decision making process. I'd also like to understand a little bit more about our marinas and our boats and our, way that we structure some of these opportunities, the way we have our revenue shares that design around this. how you take this information and make it more than just a series of data points and actually run some data science on it for some usable recommendations, but I would like to suggest that there be a path forward on that. |
| 01:31:50.85 | Chris Zapata | Yeah, I think we learn in real time. And you know, this data helps us build a better budget. helps us understand better why things are where they are. And so, you know, I appreciate your attention to it as well as the public You know, I heard that we need to bring back something similar on sales tax. And that would be my hope, that we do exactly that. because you got the three big revenue buckets, property tax, your parking revenues, and your sales, TOT and district tax that you need to be mindful of so you can figure out what the future looks like and you balance that against expenditures so you can figure out how to get to a sustainable day. So with that, I thank you and thank Paula for her work as well. |
| 01:32:34.40 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you, Paula. I'm sure you'll be seeing us again and appreciate your knowledge and attention to detail here. Thank you. |
| 01:32:39.99 | Paula Cohn | Thank you. |
| 01:32:40.09 | Melissa Blaustein | I think we'd probably all like to get a copy of that if it's not already on the agenda. I didn't see that. |
| 01:32:40.12 | Paula Cohn | a lot. |
| 01:32:44.09 | Paula Cohn | And I will send you, Chris, the five-year single family versus non-single families. You see the multifamily and the commercial industrial sales. I mean, that's just a report we print out and I'll provide that to you. |
| 01:32:59.09 | Melissa Blaustein | Well, I'm so glad you mentioned that because my last request then would be if we are right behind Ross in the property tax revenue, but we, so I'd love to see a giant chart that showed kind of the varying valuations of different homes such that as you project that against the macroeconomic climate and the a slight recession we may enter, how that is going to impact the rate in which we might flip a home to appreciate the actual property tax, but then also how many homes are in certain revenue buckets so that you might exhaust that tranche and then have to go into another. So this is more granular breakdown of what the homes in Sausalito might actually be valued at in the rate. versus other communities of transactions. Thank you. |
| 01:33:46.32 | Paula Cohn | But one thing to comment that A city like Ross, which has half the value that you have, It doesn't take as much to move them up one percentage point. as it does Sausalito. So a larger a city becomes, the greater the lift to get that 1%, 2%, 3% growth between taxpayers because you've got to have multiples of that value to do that. So. looking at Ross's percent change versus yours is not always a good indicator because unless you both got identical values, it's not as relevant. Looking at medium, Ross is a client. So looking at, The homes at certain values is something that we can do. But again, nothing I do is confidential. provide that to you. Play with it to your heart's content. |
| 01:34:40.39 | Melissa Blaustein | Well, thank you even for that explanation because I've had invalid assumptions and that helps me understand the data set better. So anything you can do to help us with that is extremely helpful. Okay. Thank you. |
| 01:34:51.53 | Paula Cohn | Thank you. |
| 01:34:51.56 | Melissa Blaustein | Yeah. |
| 01:34:51.83 | Paula Cohn | Yeah. |
| 01:34:51.97 | Melissa Blaustein | of your meeting I'm taking off. Okay, you know what I say? Okay, thank you Paula, much appreciated. |
| 01:34:53.76 | Paula Cohn | Thank you. |
| 01:34:53.77 | Janelle Kellman | Bye. |
| 01:34:57.52 | Melissa Blaustein | Okay, well, thank you everybody. It was a great conversation. And again, thank you, City Manager, for facilitating that. We're going to move on to the new item 5B, which was 5C, which is to adopt a resolution appointing Kristen Teich, retired annuitant, as an interim principal planner effective October 22, 22. and certify the appointment as necessary to fill a critically needed position prior to 180 days from Kristen's retirement date, October 3, 2022, and to prevent stoppage of work. So I hand that over to the city manager. |
| 01:35:32.79 | Chris Zapata | I'm not sure if Debra Muchmore is on the phone. There she is. Debra, you wanna walk through this? |
| 01:35:38.29 | Debra Muchmore | Yes, I am actually. And we do have a little presentation. I may take my picture off because I've been having some bandwidth issues tonight. Let me know if you have trouble hearing me. But the community development department has had some some staffing turnover that's been dramatic. And this picture of an org chart kind of shows us that. The blue color here represents the most veteran position, the only role veteran position in the department. The green are filled positions that we have in the department. These are new. We've we've just developed them. And then our planning positions, are actually vacant. And so Um, In order to continue the planning work and to keep it moving forward, we That's what this item is for, but I thought it was the city manager and I thought it was valuable to kind of go through a little bit about what's going on with the team, so we have. Dan Hartford from four leaf, who is exiting on his way still there helping to support buddies transitioning out because we have Brandon Phipps, who was introduced tonight as the Community and Economic Development Director hired. Um, 4Leaf is providing us a temporary chief building official. And we have an open recruitment. And we're looking to bring that work in house as well. We have temporary code enforcement from for leave and we will in the near future where there's a possibility we'll be able to be making an offer of employment soon. If not, we'll be running the recruitment a little bit longer. And then planning and housing The planning and housing element work has been done by Fourleaf and have an assistant planner working. Um, the idea is to have, uh, Kristen Taiki, who's a retired annuitant. who's recently retired and we'll go through that from Larkspur, has the skill set, has worked in Sausalito before to help us temporarily While our associate owner recruitment is open and collecting applications over the last week and a half, the your new Community and Economic Development Director and I went through the eligible list for. assistant, associate, and principal planner, contacted folks that were eligible and on it, they've either moved on since that time or we were unable to reach them or they didn't make a fit for his organization. At this point, we need to open the recruitment again. So we did that tonight. It opened at about 530 tonight. So it already changed from the way it is written in the agenda. And so that's this page and then What we're looking at is, is Kristen Tyke, who's, as I said before, recently retired from the city of Larkspur. She's a senior planner. She, supervised and led the planning division in Larkesburg. She's actually worked here in Sausalito in the early part of her career, spent six years on and off in Sausalito. Her references are excellent. She's agreed to commit 24 hours a week to our cause. And she is, as a retired annuitant, allowed 960 hours a year for if she's got special skills and a need that we have, she can work longer than a year. We're not employing her under, the government code that requires her only to be there during an open recruitment. We're using the government code that allows her special skill set to help us. There's no other additional salary or benefit costs. The issue for us and the reason we're asking you to make the determination is that she retired on October 3rd. And typically a retired annuitant must have a break in service of 180 days before you even discuss bringing them back to work. On last The governing body in an open session on regular calendar makes a finding that this is critical work that needs to be taken care of to prevent a stoppage of work. within the organization. |
| 01:40:12.66 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah. |
| 01:40:14.01 | Debra Muchmore | So we're asking you to make that finding. She'll be an in-house employee. um, We don't see any other options to keep the work going. So we're asking you to adopt a resolution appointing Kristin Taiki I retired annuitant as an interim principal planner, effective October 26th. And to certify the appointment is necessary to fill a critically needed position prior to 180 days from her retirement date. to prevent stoppage of work. Thank you. |
| 01:40:44.74 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you, Stephanie. |
| 01:40:45.94 | Debra Muchmore | You're welcome. |
| 01:40:46.92 | Melissa Blaustein | you |
| 01:40:47.37 | Debra Muchmore | Thank you. |
| 01:40:47.41 | Melissa Blaustein | I'm gonna stop sharing. Are there any questions for Deborah on this appointment? as vice mayor. |
| 01:40:55.14 | Vice Mayor Blaustein | I just want to clarify, it looks like it's clear in your slide, but just checking on the fiscal impact of this consideration. |
| 01:41:02.24 | Debra Muchmore | So the fiscal impact is gonna be just the salary of a principal planner. We have to hire her within that salary range. We're hiring her because of her experience at the top of the salary range. But there's no benefits. There's there's no additional. The only thing we can do is reimburse her for reasonable expense expenditures. Okay, great. Thanks for clarifying. |
| 01:41:24.68 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 01:41:24.89 | Debra Muchmore | Thank you. |
| 01:41:24.97 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 01:41:25.04 | Debra Muchmore | Just to follow up on that question, that was part of our budget, correct? because we have vacancy, we all have salary savings from the vacancies that we have. Bye. |
| 01:41:35.60 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. go ahead and open public comments if there's any. Questions? City clerk, anybody have their hand out? No, Mayor. Okay, we'll go ahead and close public comment on this item, bring it back. City manager, anything you'd like to add? |
| 01:41:52.24 | Chris Zapata | only that it's necessary for us to start to rebuild our staff and with Deborah's assistance and Miranda's input, we are going to be able to do that. It's going to take a little bit and you know, you're as the city council's approval of the budget last year provided flexibility for us in terms of working with either consultants or in-house staff. We pushed, I've elected to push the organization more towards in-house staff. That's why you see some of the contracts that we have, which, you know, have been temporarily filled by different consulting agencies and recently four leave, will start to winnow down. It's going to take us a little bit of time to bring on a building official. It's going to take a little bit of time to bring on the code enforcement person. But in the past iterations of Sausalito service in that department, it's been done by consultants. I think that it's a better approach to hire people that are of the organization, that are directed by the director and have in fact an ability to acquire institutional knowledge and keep it and use it as they mature in their career in Sausalito. I'm looking forward to trying to stabilize with Deborah and Brandon. some of the missing positions that we just recently experienced. This is a temporary hire that will help us do that. So I'd urge that you approve it. |
| 01:43:16.70 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you for that. And also just I think I can speak on behalf of the whole council who I've heard everybody at some point say, we want more in-house expertise. We don't want more consultants. So I appreciate that explanation. Susan was on the planning commission with me, so I'm sure she remembers, Over 10 years, I think we saw five or six different planning directors even. So this is a historic problem and I'm very, very pleased to see that we are addressing this and doing everything we can to hire and not lose the institutional knowledge. So I just for members of the community, I want to acknowledge that we understand this as a consultant. and we are moving away from this format and we are rebuilding the department. So we appreciate your patience as we We do correct, of course, correct some of the things that we inherited. So thank you for that. OK, so I need a motion. |
| 01:44:00.39 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Okay. |
| 01:44:02.41 | Melissa Blaustein | Do you have something to add? |
| 01:44:02.95 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you, Brad. Thank you. No, I agree. And I'm really glad that we're bringing somebody on staff and that the city manager and Deborah and much more have come up with this really great. a solution to use a retired emeritant to bring onto our staff. So that's great. So, and I think the finding that this is necessary is easy to make, so I would make the motion to agree with the finding and to Appoint Kristen Teich, retired and emergent, as the interim senior principal planner. |
| 01:44:35.98 | Janelle Kellman | Thank you. |
| 01:44:36.18 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 01:44:36.94 | Walfred Solorzano | Please call the roll. Councilmember Sobieski. |
| 01:44:40.87 | Jill Hoffman | Yes. |
| 01:44:41.58 | Walfred Solorzano | Council member Cleveland Knowles. House member Hoffman. Yes. Vice Mayor Blaustein? Yes. And Mayor Kalman. Yes. |
| 01:44:50.26 | Melissa Blaustein | . |
| 01:44:50.34 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 01:44:50.96 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 01:44:51.35 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 01:44:51.64 | Melissa Blaustein | Great, thank you. We'll move on to item six, communications. This is the time of the agenda for members of the public to provide any public comment for items that are not on the agenda. Except in limited situations, state law precludes the council from taking action on or engaging discussions concerning items of business that are not on the agenda. However, the Council may briefly respond to statements made or questions posed by a member of the public. ask clarifying questions, make a brief announcement, or refer matters not in the agenda to city staff or direct that the subject be agendas for future meetings. If you like to provide public comment, please raise your hand in the Zoom application. The city clerk will call on you. Okay, so let's go ahead and open this up to public comment on items not on the agenda. |
| 01:45:30.94 | Walfred Solorzano | Mayor, we have no hands raised. |
| 01:45:33.73 | Melissa Blaustein | Okay, so this is again, public comment items not on the agenda. I'm going to go ahead and close public comment. for that item. and move us on then to items. Seven. which is the council member committee reports. And I think that's a good thing. It's a little bit different tonight, but we'll go with it. Okay, item seven council member committee reports. Do we have any committee reports I would like to share? |
| 01:45:57.99 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Mayor, I think I would only report or actually had to one was the one the housing element advice committee meeting that both you and I attended. And I think it's just want to inform the community and the Council that the draft Housing element is being submitted to HCD. I'm not sure if it actually has gone, but should have been some uh comments from our last meeting should have been incorporated by staff. And a consultant should be submitted. that will lead to a 90 day review period at HCD and then that will come back to the Planning Commission and City Council early next year. Um, And we did ask the consultant, um, to clarify the schedule. and the next kind of side. input point for the community. We have a lot of comments from the public. And I think we were all interested in making sure that the consultant and the city make it very clear as to one additional community input. on sites in the housing element would best be considered. But as I understood it, it would be early next year. I don't know if you also have that same understanding. Right. And then the second committee was meeting the feedback of pedestrian bike advisory council. And I would say for anybody who, walks, bikes, or drives on the portion of Bridgeway from San Carlos to where Caledonia comes out. There was a really excellent presentation by traffic engineer, David Brucy. on an input from the pedestrian bike advisory committee about different segments of that corridor. and how various improvements could solve some of the um, issues that people confront. That is an area of town where we have a high incidence of injury. collisions. And Mr. Prezi walked. through that and showed where there had been collisions. It's just a really great presentation for anybody who's who's interested. So hopefully that worked will eventually come back up to the council. Thank you. Bye. there's going to be some more public outreach as well. |
| 01:48:37.66 | Melissa Blaustein | I'll dovetail on that. It's not a community report formally, but I've been engaging with grant consultants around a lot of climate resilience and just offering up some ideas and they've been very responsive. And one of the things we talked about actually the city manager today is the availability of smart on permanent transportation grants. over $300 million to be able to install sensors with an eye towards climate and sustainability, but also public safety, disaster preparedness. I'd be good to loop in the PBAC folks and make sure that or sharing that type of data and opportunity. Any other comments from anybody? Okay, well then go ahead and move on. Thank you. This is the City Manager Reports, the City Council appointments, and other Council business. So, uh, We will take public comment on all three of these right now. So I'll ask the city clerk if there are any hands raised. |
| 01:49:33.38 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 01:49:33.40 | Melissa Blaustein | Not at this time, Mayor. Okay, so that was public comment on item eight. Go ahead and close public comment, and I'll hand it over to the city manager for the city manager report. |
| 01:49:45.33 | Chris Zapata | I don't have a report this evening, mayor and council. |
| 01:49:48.54 | Melissa Blaustein | Okay. We have no appointments, so the next item then on the Agenda, other matters of significance. I do not have any other matters of significance to report, oh, pardon me, I skipped over future agenda items, so I wanna make sure. If anybody has a future agenda item, I did hear obviously today that we want to bring back HD on the sales tax. So that certainly sounds like a future agenda item and more budget information. Council Member Cleveland, also? |
| 01:50:16.55 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Yeah, just for scheduling purposes and public awareness, we have our council meetings on the calendar on November 22nd. That's one week after. the meeting on the 15th and it's also Thanksgiving. week. I think historically, or at least in my experience, we have not. held meetings that week. And I just wanted to, I think either way, we should get some clarity on what we're going to do with that data. |
| 01:50:46.98 | Melissa Blaustein | Yeah, thank you for watching the calendar. The Vice Mayor and I did talk about this agenda setting And I believe, and correct me if I'm wrong, Vice Mayor, I believe we conveyed to city manager that We felt like it made sense just to have the one meeting on the 15th in November. |
| 01:51:02.67 | Vice Mayor Blaustein | Yeah. |
| 01:51:02.97 | Melissa Blaustein | That was what we decided. Okay. Does anybody feel differently? Everybody okay with that? Great, thank you. Okay, so if we can get that just clear it up on the calendar, that'd be helpful. Any other future agenda items? You're not hearing any items of significance. The one I have is that we adjourn. Thank you, everybody. And we'll see you next on the 15th. Okay, good night. |
| 01:51:31.48 | Unknown | Right. |
Mark Balmer — In Favor: As a Sustainability Commission member, supports staff recommendations for community engagement and adoption of climate-friendly reach codes in Q1 2023, noting collaboration with Marin County and other municipalities. ▶ 📄