| Time | Speaker | Text |
|---|---|---|
| 00:00:04.33 | Walfred Solorzano | The regular meeting of the city council for January 10, 2023 will be conducted telephonically through Zoom and broadcast live on the city's website and on cable TV channel 27. |
| 00:00:16.15 | Mayor Blaustein | Thank you very much. And I hereby call this regular meeting of the Sausalito City Council to order on Tuesday, January 10th. City Clerk, would you please call the roll? |
| 00:00:25.28 | Walfred Solorzano | Council member Cox. |
| 00:00:27.81 | Mayor Blaustein | HERE. |
| 00:00:28.09 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. Council member Huffman. Councilmember Cummins. |
| 00:00:33.49 | Vice Mayor Sobieski | You're fine. |
| 00:00:33.73 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. Vice Mayor Sobieski. |
| 00:00:36.06 | Vice Mayor Sobieski | here. |
| 00:00:36.30 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. And Mayor Blosting? |
| 00:00:38.61 | Vice Mayor Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 00:00:38.64 | Mayor Blaustein | here. |
| 00:00:39.57 | Walfred Solorzano | and we have all members present and we have a quorum. |
| 00:00:42.61 | Mayor Blaustein | Great. So the first item on this evening's agenda is the closed session, and we have Three items on the closed session agenda this evening. Item C1, conference with legal counsel, existing litigation pursuant to California government code section 54956. Conference with legal counsel item C2 real property negotiations pursuant to California government code section 54956 and item C3 public employee appointment. Do we have any public comment on the closed session agenda items this evening. |
| 00:01:12.41 | Sergio Rudin | Madam Mayor, we do have one item that's before. the closed session items the the AB 361 resolution |
| 00:01:19.24 | Mayor Blaustein | Yeah. |
| 00:01:20.71 | Sergio Rudin | Thank you. |
| 00:01:21.15 | Mayor Blaustein | Okay, so item 1B continue to conduct the city council and all other city board commission and committee meeting remotely due to health and safety concerns for the public. So this item is a continuation of the state of emergency and the ability to continue to conduct our work here in public. So it is fairly routine. You'll see the staff report and resolution attached. Can I have a motion of approval of the item 1B? Second. Okay, may you please call rural city clerk. |
| 00:01:47.95 | Walfred Solorzano | Council member Cox? Yes. Council member Kelman? Council member Hoffman. Vice Mayor Sobieski? And Mayor Blossene. |
| 00:02:00.62 | Mayor Blaustein | Yes. Now we'll return to the closed session items. Do we have any public comment on the closed session items C1 through C3 on the agenda? |
| 00:02:10.85 | Walfred Solorzano | Video or audio public comment participation is limited to three minutes per speaker. If you'd like to make a comment, please raise your hand in the Zoom application and you will be called upon when it is your time to speak. To raise your hand from a phone, press 9. Star nine, each speaker will be notified when the time has elapsed. And do we have any public comment? It does not look like we have any public comment at the moment. |
| 00:02:35.06 | Mayor Blaustein | Okay, so thank you very much. We'll now adjourn to closed session. |
| 00:02:41.53 | Mayor Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 00:02:41.54 | Unknown | recording stopped. |
| 00:02:42.66 | Janelle Kellman | Thank you. |
| 00:02:43.55 | Mayor Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 00:02:43.57 | Janelle Kellman | Thank you. |
| 00:02:47.11 | Janelle Kellman | So Greg, I'm going to assume I'm going to go into a breakout room. There you go. Okay. Thank you. |
| 00:02:50.27 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 00:02:50.49 | Mayor Blaustein | Bye. |
| 00:02:50.54 | Melissa Blaustein | for the back room. |
| 00:02:51.14 | Janelle Kellman | Thank you. |
| 00:02:51.26 | Melissa Blaustein | Yeah, we go to the conference room because this is open to the public and that's not |
| 00:02:58.23 | Melissa Blaustein | I brought my dinner. I hope that's okay with everybody. |
| 00:03:08.20 | Walfred Solorzano | Yeah, President, that was... |
| 00:03:08.98 | Unknown | Oh, that was That was smart. |
| 00:03:12.57 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:03:16.22 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:03:21.55 | Unknown | Thank you. This is a particular question. or anything. |
| 00:03:33.33 | Unknown | Lieutenant. Lieutenant. Okay. |
| 00:03:41.09 | Sergio Rudin | Thank you. |
| 00:03:41.38 | Jill Hoffman | I don't know. |
| 00:03:45.08 | Sergio Rudin | for my offices that I've never been in before. |
| 00:03:52.23 | Sergio Rudin | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 00:03:52.65 | Unknown | Pause. |
| 00:03:55.15 | Unknown | We can make sure we have. |
| 00:03:56.60 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:03:56.94 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:04:13.04 | Jill Hoffman | It feels amazing. I don't know, but that's not |
| 00:04:16.97 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:07:05.86 | Unknown | you |
| 00:33:21.14 | Unknown | Recording in progress. |
| 00:34:53.68 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:34:55.20 | Mayor Blaustein | Councilman McCown, can you hear us now? Fantastic. Okay, great. Thank you very much. Welcome back from closed session to this regular meeting of the Sausalito City Council, we have no closed session announcements, I do want to make an announcement that we are going to be proceeding with our agenda as posted and we just lost Vice Mayor Sobieski. |
| 00:35:20.29 | Mayor Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 00:35:21.37 | Unknown | Well, maybe we can't answer that. Thank you. |
| 00:35:26.25 | Mayor Blaustein | This is our first hybrid meeting and our first in-person meeting in quite some time. So there may be a little bit of technical difficulty. So thank you everyone for coming out in a storm and bearing with us to be here. And we really appreciate it. So back to the agenda, as mentioned, our special presentation from Sebastian Kahn at MCE is going to be postponed to a later date. So I wanted to take a moment now to offer a thank you plaque. Can everyone see this beautiful gavel here to our outgoing mayor? Mayor Kettleman, thank you very much for your service. |
| 00:35:26.28 | Unknown | THIS IS A GOOD |
| 00:36:02.11 | Mayor Blaustein | Thank you everybody. That was very cool. We really appreciate your leadership and this gavel will be delivered to your home |
| 00:36:03.09 | Janelle Kellman | I really appreciate it. |
| 00:36:10.95 | Mayor Blaustein | I don't know. |
| 00:36:11.24 | Janelle Kellman | Thank you. |
| 00:36:11.83 | Mayor Blaustein | Great. |
| 00:36:12.20 | Janelle Kellman | Thank you. |
| 00:36:12.38 | Mayor Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 00:36:12.52 | Janelle Kellman | Did you want to say anything outgoing there? I just want to thank everybody. That is absolutely fantastic. I was honored to serve this community as your mayor, and I look forward to continuing to serve as a member of the city council. So thanks, everybody, and Happy New Year. |
| 00:36:15.34 | Mayor Blaustein | is what it is. |
| 00:36:26.96 | Janelle Kellman | Thank you so much. |
| 00:36:27.98 | Mayor Blaustein | And as such, I am now the presiding mayor of the Sausalito City Council. And I just want to say how thankful and honored I am to be serving our magnificent, beautiful little village that we all have the opportunity to live in. And I have just a few thoughts that I wanted to share before we jump into the meeting. So just as we survived some of the storms of the last couple of weeks, I'm really proud of how we have traveled through some serious challenges over the last couple of years together. And obviously this year, there are more to come. I think we all know that we have to pass a housing element and we have to do it quickly. I know this is a contentious issue, but I really want to say for the record that I'm here to listen to all voices and build consensus. and I will be making my way around Sausalito in the coming weeks and making myself available for coffee and conversation. that I'm here to listen to all voices and build consensus. And I will be making my way around Sausalito in the coming weeks and making myself available for coffee and conversations so that we can pass a housing element that we as a community can be proud of. I'm also gonna make it a priority to continue to improve Sausalito with a back to basics smart city approach. A smart city uses technology to improve government services, infrastructure and communications, among others, for example, smart city technology can monitor the usage of roadways to better predict when they need to be prepared. If we use technology to keep better track of how many tourists are visiting Sausalito, we can make sure our infrastructure truly keeps up. As a coastal community, sea level rise is a real issue for us. With the right technology, we could detect flooding using special monitors. Consider the huge volume of bicyclists that we all see riding through town. If we were able to count them all and understand their needs, we could design better bike routes and we could better manage congestion. Being a smart city will take some serious elbow grease, but it should also save a lot of taxpayer dollars when we're able to collect data that demonstrates our needs were much more likely to win state and federal grants to deal with some of these problems. Finally, I really want to work hard to continue to explore our relationship with Marin City and improve our commitment to equity as a community. In connection to our work on smart cities, I'd really like us to find a private sector partner to install high speed fiber providing Internet to both Marin City and Sausalito. This is not just a gesture, it's a real way for us to have a physical connection between both of the communities. So those are just some of my thoughts in starting this new year. I'm very excited to be here and be your mayor. Happy New Year to everybody. And let's start to roll up our sleeves and get things done, beginning with our next agenda item here, which is the consent calendar. So matters listed under the consent calendar are considered routine and non controversial require no discussion are expected to have unanimous Council support and may be enacted by the Council in one motion. No separate discussion of consent calendar items. However, before the Council votes on a motion to adopt the consent calendar items Council members city staff or members of the public may request that specific items be removed from the consent calendar for separate action. Items removed from the consent calendar will be discussed later on the agenda and public comment will be heard on any item that was removed from the consent calendar. So this evening on the consent calendar, we have item 2A, adopted resolution authorizing the city manager to execute the second amendment to professional services agreement with Marin IT. Item 2B, adopted resolution of the city council to waive design review requirements for the wall extension onto 22 Atwood Avenue. Item 2C, adopt a resolution approving an encroachment agreement for various encroachments in the public right of way at 212 Woodard. Item 2D, approve city's publicly available pay schedule, effective 1-1-2023. Item 2E, authorize city manager to execute first amendment to professional services agreement with Molly Perry. Item 2F, fiscal year 2023-24 budget calendar. Item 2G, authorize the release of a request for proposals for an independent audit and professional auditing services of the city's financial systems in compliance. Item 2H authorization for release of request for qualifications to full service law firms for legal services. And item 2I adopt a resolution renaming the Community Safety Disaster Preparedness Committee to the Disaster Preparedness Committee and reestablishing membership terms of office and purpose of the Disaster Preparedness Committee. And before I proceed, does anyone need to recuse themselves from any items within the consent calendar this evening? |
| 00:40:43.73 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 00:40:43.94 | Mayor Blaustein | And, |
| 00:40:44.00 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you, Mayor. I'm sitting here next to you and I keep trying to raise my hand, but we're not on Zoom. Yes, I would like to recuse myself from item 2H, authorization for release of request for accommodations to full service law firms for legal services. Thank you. |
| 00:41:00.89 | Sergio Rudin | And Madam Mayor, I too am for the record recusing myself from item 2H. |
| 00:41:06.84 | Mayor Blaustein | As a point of order, when we take a vote on the consent calendar, where we take two votes, one with said item and one without. Yes. Okay. Fantastic. Okay, so at this time, we'll open up the consent calendar to public comment. And city clerk for the public's reference, can you explain how to provide public comment at this meeting, both online and in person? |
| 00:41:26.34 | Walfred Solorzano | So if you would like to provide a public comment and you are in attendance, you can approach over to the city clerk desk and let us know for the item that you would like to speak on. And if you are on Zoom, then remember your time is limited to three minutes and you need to use the raise hand function on the Zoom application and you'll be called upon when it is your time to speak or if you're by phone, you can press star nine. |
| 00:41:56.65 | Mayor Blaustein | Thank you. Do we have any public comment on the consent calendar this evening? |
| 00:42:02.47 | Walfred Solorzano | We do not have any public comment. |
| 00:42:06.79 | Mayor Blaustein | Okay, so I will be closing public comment at this time. In order for us to continue the conversation with Council Member Cox President, let's consider the consent calendar with all items except for item 2H. And at this time I will ask the council if you have anything you would like to remove from the consent calendar or any comments on the consent calendar. Councilmember Hoffman. |
| 00:42:26.32 | Jill Hoffman | I would suggest that we move on. which is adoption of the resolution of community safety disaster preparedness. committee in establishing membership in terms of office and purpose of disaster preparedness committee. I think that's going to be the discussion on the floor. which is what we're talking about. was in the committees and how we might approach that in the coming year. It doesn't make sense to approve this resolution on 2i. We're going to be addressing all of those issues under for me. So I need to make a motion. that we approve the consent calendar, items 2A through 2H. And we invite them to you, I, to you. for a bill. Understanding that Councilman Bacocks will accuse herself from 2H. So we need to make an alternate motion. Friendly amendment. Thank you. |
| 00:43:21.97 | Melissa Blaustein | Bye. |
| 00:43:22.04 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:43:22.31 | Melissa Blaustein | items 2A through 2G. |
| 00:43:24.28 | Jill Hoffman | Is your speaker? |
| 00:43:25.97 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 00:43:26.04 | Jill Hoffman | Hi speakers. What? What's on today? What's on? |
| 00:43:31.22 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 00:43:31.62 | Jill Hoffman | Okay. |
| 00:43:32.45 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 00:43:32.80 | Jill Hoffman | . |
| 00:43:32.97 | Melissa Blaustein | items 2a through 2g and handle 2h separately gotcha |
| 00:43:39.96 | Jill Hoffman | rather than to our students. 2G and moving 2I to... For a moment. Yeah. OK. Okay, so that's the motion. I'm going to have motion. Thanks. |
| 00:43:54.61 | Mayor Blaustein | As a point of order, do we need to take a vote to continue it as a business item to item 2B. I don't think we do in this instance. |
| 00:44:00.92 | Janelle Kellman | THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 00:44:01.09 | Mayor Blaustein | We would just make agree. Okay. Fantastic. |
| 00:44:02.77 | Janelle Kellman | Thank you. |
| 00:44:03.82 | Mayor Blaustein | Okay, anyone else have comments on items on the consent counter excluding 2-H? Okay, so I will now ask for a motion to approve the consent calendar items. She just made the motion, I just seconded it. |
| 00:44:17.37 | Melissa Blaustein | I'm sorry. Okay. |
| 00:44:18.91 | Kevin McGowan | Thank you. |
| 00:44:18.92 | Mayor Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 00:44:19.19 | Unknown | Bye. Thank you. |
| 00:44:19.80 | Kevin McGowan | THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 00:44:19.85 | Unknown | Bye. |
| 00:44:19.97 | Kevin McGowan | All right. |
| 00:44:20.04 | Walfred Solorzano | you Councilmember Cox? Yes. Councilmember Hoffman? Yes. Councilmember Cummins? |
| 00:44:26.86 | Mayor Blaustein | Yes. |
| 00:44:27.19 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. Vice Mayor Sobieski? Yes. And Mayor Blastham? |
| 00:44:31.31 | Mayor Blaustein | Yes. Okay, motion passes 5-0. So we now need to take a vote on item 2-H on the consent calendar with knowing that Council Member Cox will be recusing herself. Can I have a motion for the approval of item 2-H on the consent calendar? So I mean, Any seconds? |
| 00:44:49.32 | Unknown | Second. |
| 00:44:51.00 | Mayor Blaustein | Your mic is on. Yes. |
| 00:44:52.27 | Unknown | I can. |
| 00:44:52.45 | Mayor Blaustein | There you go. Okay, city clerk, will you please call the roll? |
| 00:44:56.44 | Walfred Solorzano | Councilmember Cox. |
| 00:44:58.97 | Mayor Blaustein | at streams. |
| 00:44:59.14 | Walfred Solorzano | That's what I'm saying. Oh, sorry. Council Member Hoffman. Yes. Council member Cumming. Yes. Vice Mayor Sobieski? Yes. And Mayor Blostey? |
| 00:45:14.63 | Mayor Blaustein | Yes. Motion carries 4040 with one abstention from Council Member Cox and with that we will move forward with the next item on our agenda. Which is public hearing items and there are none this evening so moving on to item four, which is our business items, so we will start with item for a. Which is the declaration of emergency ratification and extension storm report, and I believe that that will be our city manager and our director of public works. |
| 00:45:42.91 | Chris Zapata | Thank you very much, Mayor Blaustein, members of the council, members of the public, and wanted to say two things. Number one, we all have been through a series of storms for the past week or so and continue to be challenged by it. It's affected, person's property. power. And so what we are trying to do with this declaration of an emergency is twofold. One is to make sure that the city is able to seek outside assistance from partners, government partners, and reimbursement when possible. Thank you. Thank you. And secondly, in the event of emergencies that require some compliance with you basic proof of it. that we don't believe we have the time for. We wanna be able to cut to that red tape and respond to emergencies as we see fit. in this particular declaration. I'd like to talk a little bit about why these aren't made lightly. As you all know, storms tend to come and go, but this one is much needed in terms of the water, but it has created havoc in our community, in our streets, in the properties, in stairs, and drainage. And we're not out of the woods yet with the idea that the soil saturation is such that, you know, we have to be prepared for other things that are more serious as well. So I want to talk about who's responding and how we're responding. There's been a series of meetings every... day for the last week, including the weekend that include first responders that include elected officials and that include us working with our community to provide information on what is going on and where resources are and what we are doing to help. That help is taking the forms of wellness checks by our police department going to individuals houses. It's taken the form of I trying to help the sea lion at the, At Bridgeway, it's taken the form of serious matters where some of our elderly residents have had concerns about being shut out of power when their life depends on breathing devices that are electrical or run by electricity. So I know that our police chief and our public works director and our fire chief have all been working with our emergency operation protocols within the county. We have been communicating through currents as we see fit. And again, to say that we are out of the woods yet is premature. So I really like for our public works director to talk a little bit about what we're seeing out there. and how we're dealing with it because it's been quite the the wet time in Sausalito and it's created problems for us that we've been working with. And as you all know, we we don't just work on them when they get here. There's a lot of preparation that goes into how we plan for these events and then how we manage through these events and then how we continue to monitor. So I think we're toward the monitoring phase in some respects, but we're still getting water and we hear a series of storms coming through in the coming week. And with the soil saturation, it's occurred. You know, we're cognizant that there's still some peligro, some danger out there. |
| 00:48:56.42 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:48:58.12 | Chris Zapata | So, With that, I will ask Kevin McGowan to come in and provide a little update. Kevin? |
| 00:49:06.37 | Kevin McGowan | Good evening, Mayor and members of the City Council and City Manager. I apologize for not being there this evening. I would like to be there if I knew we were having an in-person meeting. So I have a few pictures and a few slides for you. And I'll take my time just so that I make sure you can hear me remotely. So I'll share my screen. Hold on a second. There we go. Can everyone see my screen, which should be blue? |
| 00:49:34.22 | Mayor Blaustein | We can. |
| 00:49:35.90 | Kevin McGowan | Great. Thank you very much. So we have had a whole bunch of storms, as everybody kind of knows, and I'm going to run through a couple things very quickly here. Over the last two weeks, which is actually 13 days, we've had a total of 7.4 inches of rain. That's quite a lot when you consider that February is our usual wettest month and the average for February is only 4.2 inches. So 7.4 is quite a bit more. In addition, we've had a lot of wind and coupled with some fairly high tides, not really king tides, but this has really kind of impacted the city. So there are three main stages of addressing storms and emergency. And city manager Zapata covered a lot of those already, but I'll kind of go over them again. Pre-storm preparation is super important. And in our case, we want to gather all of our emergency services. and discuss this. I'm hearing a lot of feedback in my presentation, so I'm wondering if there might be some reason that I should slow down, but let me know. Okay, so pre-storm preparation is very important. Actions during the storm is super important. And actions following the event itself. Prior to the storms, Southern Marin Fire, along with the mayor and vice mayor, hosted a pre-storm emergency meeting to coordinate responses. This meeting went well. and single stage for great communication efforts for all of us involved. Additional preparations were initiated by property owners as well as DPW for preparing sand and sandbags out at MLK. It's a couple of pictures here for that. The storm that led to the New Year's Eve event was substantial with little breaks in the rain events. This led to some vegetation clogging many storm drain systems. These blocks were addressed by public works staff from all divisions, including sanitary and parks and rec to utilize equipment and unplug the systems. Thank you. This system shown here in this slide is 67 Woodward. A vector truck, a large one, had used in order to clear the entire line and make sure that they water. stayed in the system. This took a couple days in order to clear. For the first event, well, for the first rain event, which was around New Year's Eve, We also had other impacts associated with North Street Steps. Soil from above the North Street steps has sloughed onto the stairs and created a hazard. This area was eventually covered with covered by a contractor in plastic And the steps have now been closed just to make sure that we want everybody to stay away from that specific area. Future action, future action on this area will be needed. This is one reason to declare an emergency so we can get assistance for repairing this particular area. So the volume of rainwater during the last several weeks has been significant. In some cases, the lower storm drain systems have not been able to accommodate the flows with water bubbling out of the storm drain systems due to the volume and the velocities of the water down our hillsides. Some of our facilities are working well. It's the system that comes off of Hecht Avenue. So that's one of these pictures here, but it was quite a waterfall on New Year's Eve and just before the first of the year. The other picture shows that some of the water can't get into the existing plate because there's much coming down the hill. Our staff also reviewed some of the more pertinent areas, such as Hecht Avenue. We've been very attentive to all possible issues that could affect the properties in town. We observed some dirt and water from Hecht Avenue and obviously investigated. The dirty water from this dirt road was accumulated just because of the intensity of the water itself. the rainwater. We didn't see any cracks or any issues in this specific area. However, the main entrance, which is this picture on the right hand side, does show some slopping off of the initial road off of Hecht. So we'll keep track of that and eventually we'll need to do some work up here in order to make this a little more passable. Excuse me, jumped a little too far there. Staff has also coordinated during this event with all of us. Caltrans was contacted regarding a failed drainage system at the intersection of Glen and Santa Rosa. Caltrans acted immediately to this request and hired a local contractor to remove the exit application and install a new drainage system. The existing system was damaged when a tree fell over and the tree itself had wrapped its roots around this 30 inch diameter corrugated metal pipe. And so it ripped the whole thing out. Lucky for us, we've had Caltrans jump into this right away and take care of it. The city staff has also been actively monitoring areas that have been problematic in the past public works forwarded a notification to the National Park Service regarding the potential. For soil movement at the site of the 2019 mudslide National Park Service is investigating whether action is needed in this specific area. |
| 00:55:51.62 | Kevin McGowan | The recent storm this week has had significantly high winds. TPW as well as fire service staff have reacted to the request by keeping roadways open and assisting residents with possible impacts. PG&E has also been very attentive to the community by addressing issues to their electrical systems. In addition, DPW secured the services with several contractors to assist with the storms. This has expedited the removal of vegetation and augmented our workforce. Just pulling in several contractors has really helped us out in the last week or so. Just to augment our staff, help us with vegetation management, and allows us to spread ourselves a little bit more throughout the city. All right. As you may have heard, the beloved bronze sea lion located off Bridgeway was also impacted by the latest storm. The statue's base appears to have cracked, leaving the statue to be secured, unsecured during the heavy storm. DPW staff has secured a crane company to remove the sea lion While the support platform can be repaired in the next few months. I just got some pictures from our staff that they have removed the sea lion as of six o'clock this evening. And we are storing it in the corporation yard so that no damage can continue to occur to the sea lion. So I think that's good news for all of us. DPW has been concentrating on impacts to the roadway systems and public property. However, there are some impacts to private property as well. Some residents have done a stellar job by covering soil slides But there may be more impacts on private property that we may not see at this point in time. So future repairs to private property may also come through our building inspection. |
| 00:58:04.47 | Unknown | Perfect. |
| 00:58:07.16 | Kevin McGowan | Couple more pictures for you. Repair improvements for current infrastructure should be anticipated. Repairs to the North Street's depths and other areas will be needed. Seeking state assistance for these repairs may be possible and staff will be documenting the effects. Other improvements to the system that have not performed well, will need to be incorporated into the capital improvement program. These can include more trash racks. They can include updating some of our storm drain systems as well. So I look forward to actually working on a new capital improvement program to include some of these issues. |
| 00:58:55.46 | Kevin McGowan | All right, last slide folks. Prior to concluded, I'd just like to thank all the members of DPW staff. They really have stepped into this and made such a good job of Um, of taking care of everything for the city. Same with the fire department. The police department... the sanitary department and administration personnel. have really stepped in to work collectively as a really great team. And I'm actually really proud of this particular event because it worked well. They are truly an asset to the city and have shown how much they are dedicated to the wellbeing of our residents. So that concludes my short little presentation. We'll have more pictures as things develop here in Sausalito. But thanks again to all the staff and all your support here at the City Council as well. And if you couldn't hear me all the way through, my apologies. I'll try to be there next time. |
| 00:59:57.24 | Mayor Blaustein | Thank you so much, Director McGowan, and a huge thank you to all of your staff who, it wasn't even noted in your presentation, but anytime you were walking the streets during the storm, you saw a DPW truck out there, and you also saw Sausalito PD or SMFD. So this was a really impressive effort from city staff, and the city manager was working double time. And so I just, again, before we even dive into questions, really want to thank the staff for all of the effort that they put in and everything that they did to, keep us from any. catastrophes and to keep our community safe during the storm. With that, I will open it up to the council for questions for Director McGowan. Anyone have any questions? |
| 01:00:32.21 | Chris Zapata | Questions? Madam Mayor, if I may. |
| 01:00:33.89 | Mayor Blaustein | Yes, please, by all means. |
| 01:00:35.33 | Chris Zapata | I want to just kind of conclude the staff side of it so we can answer all the questions. As it relates to this, you may know that the governor declared a storm emergency. The county of Marin declared a storm emergency. As the emergency services manager of the city working with our people, I declare an emergency as well, which the city attorney can speak to as next steps regarding what you'd be asked to do tonight. Yes, I've done it. |
| 01:01:02.28 | Sergio Rudin | Thank you, Chris, so under the Emergency Services Act, government code section 8630, the designated director of emergency services, who is your city manager, can proclaim an emergency That only lasts for seven days. So that was declared on Friday. So in order to ratify the actions that he's taken and to extend, we need to do that at tonight's meeting. And so the recommended action is to ratify all the actions that the city manager undertook and his proclamation and then extend for 60 days. Um, between the end of before the end of the 60 days, we have to look at the circumstances on the ground and determine if another extension is indicated. |
| 01:01:52.46 | Mayor Blaustein | Thank you for verifying what the action that needs to be taken is and the next steps for staff as well as for the request for council direction. With that, does anyone on the council have questions for city staff? None. Okay. I will now open it up to public comment. |
| 01:02:14.55 | Walfred Solorzano | We have a Steven Woodside. |
| 01:02:16.71 | Unknown | Great. |
| 01:02:26.94 | Steven Woodside | Bye. First of all, congratulations, Mayor Blaustein to your appointment and reelections to the other two Council members and to those of you who are New to the council after 2019, the reason for my wanting to speak now is to first compliment DPW As the mayor just mentioned, Today I saw DPW people out and about and in particular, in the, anticipation of this storm. They did considerable amount of debris removal culvert clearing, et cetera, that I think was very helpful to all of us in Sausalito. Now the reason I also wanna speak is to say that these events um, do. result in a very quick emergency response. but sometimes the longer term issues are neglected And sadly, In 2019, in the wake of the big slide on Sausalito Boulevard, which incidentally is around the corner from where I live. Um, A task force was formed um, Um, Council member Hoffman was a member of that task force as was I, as were several members of the community. within three months of its formation, we uh, presented a very detailed report to the council. It was adopted and accepted unanimously And, I'm not sure that very many of the recommendations that report have been followed. And I think These events get an immediate response, but sometimes the long-term preventative event measures. are simply put on a shelf and ignored. and I urge all of you. whether you're newly elected or a veteran of the council to take another look at that report. because it contained a number of very sensible down to earth suggestions. and also provided some suggestions on mechanisms for funding the kind of uh, remedies that are really long, long overdue. So. Thanks for your attention to this. I know the burdens of being on the council must be difficult, particularly during these times. And I want to thank you for your service. Thanks. |
| 01:05:04.57 | Mayor Blaustein | Thank you very much, Stephen. Do we have any further public comments, city clerk? |
| 01:05:08.65 | Walfred Solorzano | Next speaker is... Sandra Bushmaker? |
| 01:05:14.95 | Sandra Bushmaker | Good evening, council, mayor, vice mayor, and city council members. I want to... reinforce what Steven Woodside had to say. I was also on the, we called it the mudslide task force at the time, and we worked very hard and very quickly to get a report before the council, which was submitted at the last council meeting in September 2019. And so that is coming on three and a half years where we have 18 recommendations that were presented to the council for action. And as Steven brought up, You know, some of them are short term, but many of them are long term, including a funding mechanism for dealing with such things as mapping the geologic and hydrologic vulnerabilities throughout Sausalito. So I would like that to get dusted off again and brought back before the council for discussion, because I do believe that we haven't seen the end of these kind of. potential disasters related to weather and other circumstances in Sausalito. And I think that utilizing the efforts of the task force in putting together These recommendations would be a very prudent move on the council's part. and on the city's part as a whole. We don't need to preventive measures will really help us in the long term by reducing damage and not having us in a complete reactionary every time there is a storm or an earthquake or tornado for crying out loud who knows uh but anyway i wanted to thank you all for your efforts on this and uh I'd like to see this on the agenda again very soon. Thank you. Thank you. |
| 01:07:05.04 | Mayor Blaustein | Sandra. City Clerk, do we have further public comment? |
| 01:07:10.57 | Walfred Solorzano | does not appear we have any more speakers. |
| 01:07:13.39 | Mayor Blaustein | Okay, I will now close public comment and open it up to the council for additional comment or direction. Who would like to start? Yes, Council Member Huffman. So, |
| 01:07:23.97 | Jill Hoffman | Sure. |
| 01:07:24.29 | Mayor Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 01:07:24.46 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 01:07:24.51 | Mayor Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 01:07:24.53 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 01:07:24.68 | Mayor Blaustein | Bye. |
| 01:07:24.82 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 01:07:24.95 | Mayor Blaustein | I'm sorry. |
| 01:07:24.97 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 01:07:25.29 | Mayor Blaustein | Bye. |
| 01:07:25.31 | Jill Hoffman | Bye. This is really loud in this room. Anybody else think that this is like super loud? I'm gonna back up a little bit. So thanks to Sandra and Steven who called in, they were on the landslide task force. We had kind of an all-star rockstar group on that, experts in all kinds of areas. And we did move super fast. And so I would request that that we revisit, I mean, it's a short report. It's very focused. When we talk about capital improvement projects, coming up in the spring when we engage in our budget discussions. Then we also attach that report to the staff report. for when we do the CIP list, because it did have very specific And good recommendations. And so thanks to the Thanks to the task force back in 2019, but also, I know we're all going to say it right, Thanks to the entire staff who worked through the weekend to respond to emergencies and not the weekend, it's the last like 13 days. over holidays and over weekends and all kinds of stuff. saying when I was out walking around, I would see public works people working on the, working around town and getting things in order on Saturdays, on Sundays, late at night, on holidays throughout the time. So thanks very much to our staff, and I appreciate it. Okay, that's it. |
| 01:08:48.72 | Mayor Blaustein | Thank you. Who would like to go next? Thank you. |
| 01:08:53.11 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. Council member Cox. Thank you. I will echo the sentiments of Council member Hoffman. I do want to also acknowledge public works, the city manager and also call out to the police department operations center, which was activated on January three and has remained activated and is one mechanism by which we will be able to seek reimbursement. in connection with the emergency proclamation of the governor of the county and the city manager. So thank you to the police department and their efforts. as well in all of the staff. I think we, as Kevin said, we really planned in advance which mitigated some of the damage that we could have suffered had we not undertaken those efforts. So thank you so much. |
| 01:09:40.14 | Mayor Blaustein | Thank you, Councilmember Cox. And I see that Councilmember Kelman has her hand raised. |
| 01:09:43.02 | Janelle Kellman | Thank you both to Dr. McGowan and Mr. Woodside for his comments. It was really a team effort and tremendous one at that. TPW and SPD and other members of staff were out through all hours in really terrible weather. So thank you. Thank you all. I'm sure it'll come up when we talk about future agenda items, but I'm going to Uh, throwing my support for revisiting the landslide task force recommendations, particularly the offering of a jihad, which is a geologic hazard abatement district. There's some really interesting strategies to prevent financial impacts as well as impacts of property and and health and safety. So I hope we have an opportunity to look at that again. I also think it's a great opportunity to standardize and create a standard operating procedure that we can then convey to the whole community. And I think we had a lot of good practices that we have. made into a template and can utilize as we see more of these weather patterns. And then I'm looking forward to a future conversation later today, tonight about disaster preparedness. So thank you, everybody, and good work, team. Thank you. |
| 01:10:49.14 | Mayor Blaustein | Bye. |
| 01:10:49.21 | Janelle Kellman | you Vice mayor? |
| 01:10:50.27 | Mayor Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 01:10:53.43 | Vice Mayor Sobieski | I would just echo my thanks as well to the staff and my endorsement of having the Med Slide Task Force recommendations brought back to City Council as a standalone presentation if not as part of the barter CIP discussion. As part of that discussion and tied to this, I also I think we really ought to think about whether we need to budget the additional resources that might be necessary to level up. our infrastructure maintenance and emergency response and not simply treated as uh, dividing up a fixed pie, but actually decide if we need to make that pie bigger. to attend to these rig Uh, critical items. So when that comes to pass, I hope we'll do it in that context. And I also just mentioned that the storm's not over, unfortunately. It's going to be raining for another. Seven days at least. So the cumulative burden on that only increases. So we're not out of the woods yet. |
| 01:11:52.56 | Mayor Blaustein | Thank you, Vice Mayor. And I don't think that we can possibly thank our staff enough. So I'm glad that we all took the time to truly appreciate the extra hours. their effort to keep us safe because this could have been a much more. difficult situation for our city and because of all of their time and effort and thoughtfulness and preparedness and our emergency meeting that we had in advance of the storm on and the DOC operation center being open, we have been able to do a really great job of response. That being said, I really appreciate Stephen Woodside's comments and the rest of the council's comments around the landslide. task force and I think that we can all say with consensus that that's something that we will be putting on the agenda. going forward and, appreciate the... importance of a discussion, a more robust discussion around infrastructure and disaster preparedness and luckily some of that will come up on our next agenda item. In the meantime, for immediate action, I would like to ask for a motion for the resolution for the state of emergency. |
| 01:12:51.08 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 01:12:51.69 | Mayor Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 01:12:51.97 | Melissa Blaustein | Mayor, I move we adopt a resolution of the City Council of the City of Sausalito ratifying and extending the Director of Emergency Services proclamation of the existence of a local emergency. related to the impact on the city of the atmospheric storms. Do I have a second? |
| 01:13:07.33 | Vice Mayor Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 01:13:07.35 | Walfred Solorzano | Second. |
| 01:13:08.22 | Mayor Blaustein | City Clerk, would you please call the roll? |
| 01:13:12.20 | Walfred Solorzano | Councilmember Cox. |
| 01:13:14.13 | Mayor Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 01:13:14.15 | Walfred Solorzano | you. |
| 01:13:14.20 | Mayor Blaustein | Yes. |
| 01:13:14.55 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. Councilmember Hoffman. |
| 01:13:18.10 | Jill Hoffman | Yes. |
| 01:13:19.51 | Walfred Solorzano | Councilmember Cummins. |
| 01:13:20.83 | Jill Hoffman | Yes. |
| 01:13:21.15 | Mayor Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 01:13:22.23 | Walfred Solorzano | Vice Mayor Sobieski. Yes. And Mayor Blostey. |
| 01:13:26.01 | Mayor Blaustein | Yes. Motion passes 5-0. Great. So we will now move on to our second and final business item for the evening. Keeping in mind that the consent item is, 2G has been rolled into this consent item, so we will also be considering the renaming of the disaster preparedness in an overarching conversation about direction on city staff resource allocation for boards, commissions, and committees. And with that, I will hand it over to our city manager, Chris Zapata. |
| 01:13:55.10 | Chris Zapata | Thank you, Mayor Kellman and members of the council, members of the public. Let me begin by simply saying thank you to all of our citizen volunteers that have worked and are working in Sausalito at this time. citizen committees, city committees, are positive and necessary. What this particular item seeks to address is efficiency. If you look at the strategic plan that the city adopted in 2019-2020 in that time frame, it spoke to the idea of meeting efficiency with our boards, committees, and commissions. In October of 2021, when I first got here, one of the things that I noted about the city of Sausalito is that We have an awful lot of citizen involvement, an awful lot of committees and very few staff persons. And so there is a little bit of a situation there that needs to be addressed. And so I pointed that seat as a follow-up to the strategic plan recommendation again, and I believe it was June of this past year as well. So this report is a summary of that. And what it seeks to do is to meld the strategic direction of the city council, the work of the city commissions and boards, and it excludes the boards that are recorded by the municipal code, or legally required such as a planning commission and So what I'm talking about is what we know exists in Saucyutu, which is a great deal of citizen involvement and very few staff people to do the work required by these boards, committees, and commissions. So over the last six months, various conversations have been held, and there have been some good ideas that have come up. that I want to lay out to the council, It's our city, it's your city, and it's your direction. And we take, and if you want to have the roster of boards, committees, commissions, and task force that you have, we'll do our best to accommodate the work required to work with them effectively. So some of the things that were thought about were you know, reducing overall numbers. We have quite a few. Thank you. Maybe. It's just building the activities of some bodies. We have some that are listed I think aren't in active at this time, such as the machine shop. working group. the idea of reducing meeting frequency, have the committees, but maybe you don't meet every month, you meet quarterly and some of that Maybe not nine people on a board, maybe five. You know, if there's a merger that's appropriate, maybe you merge into, and I think that model has been followed in the past and that's how EDAC arose. There is also the opportunity to convert some of these to nonprofit models, such as Susler Beautiful. or maybe some get absorbed into other entities like the Chamber of Commerce. But the bottom line is we have reduced our staffing here. And we have kept the same number of requirements and these are just not city committees commissions and boards the city council two years ago met 44 times last year it met 20 and 38 times there are regional bodies there are statewide bodies there are many bodies that elected officials in sasulu get asked to work and serve with and typically there is some responsibility of staff to provide some work to help the elected official do the things they need to do. Not always, but there is time. So what I'm really looking for the council's direction on. is some specific information ideas that, you know, we, I just laid out, whether you like them or not. And, you know, some kind of relief in the form of the staff demand on all the citizen and council and regional boards, commissions, committees that are in place, you know, a couple of ways to get stuff done is to suspend them. One of the things that has happened is there's been a you know basically the city manager de facto push to do things all at the council level instead of at a board level a committee level or commission level when appropriate and possible and that includes some particular budget items where the full council needed to be involved and so we didn't send those to the finance committee. I get how important finance is and, you know, the idea that that committee should do some pre-work for the full council. And so, you know, not, you know, TO THEIR OWNERS. working with that as a committee. You know, disaster preparedness, we're living that right now. So some of them, you know, whether you may think they're not important, you wanna continue to do them. And obviously the legally required and municipal code required bodies, you know, I'm not talking about, but there was some opportunity to do some group think. I've done plenty of it with members of the committees, commissions and boards. |
| 01:20:06.50 | Unknown | Mm-hmm. |
| 01:20:15.16 | Vice Mayor Sobieski | City Council, how would you like to see us work with staff and with you? in terms of our city council members and working groups. |
| 01:20:23.06 | Mayor Blaustein | And before you proceed, I'm hearing that perhaps the Zoom participants are unable to hear us. Has that issue been resolved? Yes, it's been resolved. Thank you. Thank you for making me aware of that, Council Member Kelman. Go ahead, by all means city manager, please. |
| 01:20:38.21 | Sergio Rudin | you. it. Yeah, so the, so the Brown Act applies to standing committees and our commissions. Um, and I, I'm, Looking at the list here, it appears that most of them are standing committees, the ad hoc committees that are temporary in nature. do not need to have a, do not necessarily need to be a Brown Act body. and neither do uh subcommittees of the council or subcommittees of the individual commissions they're not brown act bodies so These are all standing committees, it seems to me. So they are all Brown Act bodies, unless some of them are, have a very limited scope in their, their temporary. |
| 01:21:19.74 | Chris Zapata | So the intent on my part is to bring forward the things that I see that help the city become more efficient. And I think that one of the things that I will point out is give an example. During the storm, during the council agenda packet preparation, Economic Development Advisory Committee meeting. And that meeting is important. And so we do the work to get that done. that work involved. Council member Hoffman. Vice Mayor Sobieski. myself Community Development Director Brandon Phipps, Walford Sorosano, our new city clerk, and Deanne Clifford, Administrative Assistant. All of that to say that there was work before the meeting, there was work during the meeting, and there's work after the meeting. That's one body. And as that body is important to the council, I'm just suggesting that in working with them and other groups, we need to figure out a way to lessen the load on staff. because the staff you have here now is less than the staff you had two years ago. And when there was less staff and the same demand, Something's bound to break. And when there is in term time demands, resource demands, follow-up demands, and, you know, work that has to be done that's just part of the business model of the city. It makes it increasingly difficult to not burn staff out. So what I'm suggesting to you is if you look at some of these bodies and you want to keep them all, that's your prerogative. But if you look at them and have ideas about what you believe is the right approach to make sure that staff efficiency and staff resources are well spent so So a lot of things could get done that need to get done because everybody's committee commission is important. You talk to each committee commissioner and they will tell you they're extremely important to the city. And I would not argue that. I would just argue that, you know, we do not have the personnel in the city of Sausalito to staff what we are currently trying to staff. And that leads to again, burnout. That again leads to mistakes. That leads to frustration on the part of the volunteers, as well as the residents that are monitoring these. So I just want everyone to be cognizant that, you know, this is a very, very, different time in Sausalito for me. as far as you know, the conversation being had. over the last year about the need to in fact look at these. And again, I would say this, we can keep the menu and roster and responsibilities, but then I'm going to talk to you at your retreat and talking about planning priorities and so forth about what you're not going to do. because staffing is a big chunk of time or committees are a big chunk of time for staff, but other things that you think you wanna do that may not get done as quickly as you want or as many things as you want, we'll have to have that conversation then. Otherwise we'll have a strained environment in our government. |
| 01:24:12.15 | Vice Mayor Sobieski | I'm going to ask you a follow-up Mr. Zapata about, for example, the finance committee. a subcommittee of the city council, I KNOW THAT IT'S A that that requires preparation on your part and the part of the finance staff. How do you view that? and he's like, In the workflow. of preparing our budget and managing our finances versus the alternative, I presume, where you would come directly to the full city council to do that work. |
| 01:24:40.93 | Chris Zapata | So my approach to matters of finances, If we had more people, the finance committee is wonderful. but when you have less people, new people. and a strange fiscal environment, you probably want the full council involved. |
| 01:24:59.42 | Kevin McGowan | Thank you. |
| 01:24:59.54 | Chris Zapata | And when you have the full council involved, that makes it much easier for staff. You had 44 meetings last year, 38 this year. There's no reason to full council can't have a workshop. |
| 01:24:59.57 | Kevin McGowan | Thank you. |
| 01:25:09.58 | Chris Zapata | in lieu of a finance committee meeting, but that's your call. We'll run the way you want us to, but the finance committee, obviously your people, your money, Your properties, your projects are extremely important and following the law is extremely important. But again, and I think I on my list, you see upwards of 35 near 40 committees, commissions and responsibilities that are regional and statewide that are part of the city of Sausalito's environment of work that we have to do. So I'm not saying don't have a finance committee, don't have a disaster preparedness committee. I'm just asking you to think about the frequency of meetings. |
| 01:25:42.16 | Sergio Rudin | Yeah. |
| 01:25:49.67 | Chris Zapata | And if there's something that's important to the city council, maybe it's not the finance committee. And even if it's finance related, it come to the city council, full council, and that could be a workshop or that could be at an agenda item on a regular scheduled meeting. |
| 01:26:03.26 | Vice Mayor Sobieski | And just one last question. Thank you for your indulgence. You've been the veteran city manager of many postings. How have you seen other municipalities successfully tap into the volunteer energy expertise and willingness to help in other places. |
| 01:26:20.59 | Chris Zapata | Sassaluna has done that extremely well. You know, you were an example yourself. And just because there are volunteers that are citizens out there does not mean they have to be city affiliated. And a good example is Sassana Beautiful. That's its own animal. It does its own thing. It has sway in this community and certainly with the council. They're a great example. Other cities don't have staff limitations and so they can provide staffing for you know multitude of things that a city council wants to see. I think where you run into situation in Sausalito is You have limited staff, you have newer staff, and you have financial constraints, but you have lots of needs here as any city has. And so you're trying to tackle them all. So that's why I believe, you know, if we look at advice that we've heard from certain people about less meetings, less members on these boards, limited duration kind of appointments, task forces are great, non-Brown Act type of committees, you know, you know, nonprofit type of models, merging ofELS, MERGING OF VARIOUS COMMITTEES, COMMISSIONS AND BOARDS, IF IT MAKES SENSE. AND I THINK THERE WOULD BE A COMPETITION a sigh of relief on the part of your city manager and your staff because it's hard to do everything at once. We can do a lot of things, but we just can't all do them at once with the small but mighty group that we have. Thank you. |
| 01:27:46.47 | Mayor Blaustein | And I see that Councilmember Kelman has her hand raised. Do you have a question? |
| 01:27:50.55 | Janelle Kellman | Yeah, thank you, Mayor. Sorry, the sound went out. So I just wanted to clarify with our city manager. pardon me, with the city attorney. In the city manager's memo attached to the agenda, He says that there are four boards or commissions in the Municipal Code, the Planning Commission, the Historic Preservation Commission, the Board of Library Trustees, and then a generic Citizen Advisory Review Board. Um, Are you able to break down or at least Yeah. sort of clarify, we're talking about very different types of entities, right? We've got the municipal code required. WE HAVE STANDING BOARDS AND COMMISSIONS, WHICH ARE NOT REQUIRED, BUT WE HAVE DEEMED THEM BROWN ACT AND WE CAN UN-BROWN ACT THEM. WE HAVE MCC MC-TYPE COMMITTEES, WE HAVE SUBCOMMITIES OF THE COUNCIL AND THEN WE HAVE THESE AD HOC TASK FORCE. I'M WONDERING, CAN YOU JUST CLARIFY, DID I GET THAT RIGHT IN TERMS OF THE DIFFERENT TYPES OF COMMITTEES THAT WE HAVE? AND I JUST WANT TO BE CLEAR, My point of that is that there are three or four that are absolutely required But those may be the only that are required. And so we have some leeway to figure out the best you know, machinations of the remainder. Is that accurate? City Attorney. |
| 01:29:01.83 | Sergio Rudin | Yeah, that's accurate. I think there's There's the planning commission is always required by state law. the disaster council, which is part of your disaster response, So that's required. And, Looking at the list here, I suppose the regional involvement committees where you're just involved are that are not really city committees, but most of those are probably required or advisable, but I'm looking at the list here. I don't, see any |
| 01:29:35.07 | Janelle Kellman | Well, planning historic preservation, Board of Library of Trustees and disaster preparedness, |
| 01:29:36.20 | Sergio Rudin | start |
| 01:29:40.14 | Sergio Rudin | Right. |
| 01:29:40.90 | Janelle Kellman | All right. Okay. Thank you for that. |
| 01:29:42.26 | Sergio Rudin | like not the preparedness, the disaster council that's in your disaster ordinance. |
| 01:29:48.08 | Janelle Kellman | I see. |
| 01:29:48.62 | Sergio Rudin | that disaster preparedness is a different, Different committee. |
| 01:29:54.92 | Janelle Kellman | Thank you. |
| 01:29:54.97 | Mayor Blaustein | to know. Thank you. |
| 01:29:56.37 | Janelle Kellman | Thank you. |
| 01:29:56.39 | Mayor Blaustein | Thank you, Mayor. Other members of the council have questions for the city manager or the city attorney? I have, uh, I have a question for the city manager. I know that several months ago when we first brought up this item, we requested our boards and commissions to provide us with feedback with regards to what they would like to see as the future for their jobs in Sausalito. Could you tell me of all of the boards and commissions, how many and which ones responded? |
| 01:30:23.86 | Chris Zapata | I'd rather not, ma'am, but... Ouch, okay. But I will, because I think it's important. |
| 01:30:27.32 | Mayor Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 01:30:31.76 | Chris Zapata | The request maybe through fault of my own was sent out to every that we thought was the universe of boards, committees, commissions, that wasn't the planning commission, wasn't the historic preservation commission, wasn't the library, wasn't the parks and recreation commission. And I believe one other, but we sent it to everyone else. The responses we got were few. but I will highlight two of them. One of them was from the president of the pedestrian bicycle advisory committee. And his case was that they need to be recognized as a full blown board commission or committee, and they needed a budget, which is pretty much Be prepared for what you ask for. You might not get what you think you're going to get. So he asked for a full-on status and funding. The Economic Development Advisory Committee went through a great deal of exercise, including this past Monday, to talk about how they could help city staff by doing things that would continue their mission but also create efficiency. And they came up with ideas of less meeting frequency. less agenda this year they did not ask for funding they asked for rollover of the fundings that the council granted two years ago so those were two responses that i got and i think where i made a mistake and i'm happy to acknowledge it that I won't do it again is, I didn't send it to the council people in charge of the finance committee. the people that are in charge of the OMID committee, the legislative committee to get their input. And I thought I didn't make that clear enough. So if I were to send out another memo to get more responses from all the different bodies that helped the city and again, helped the city, I would have sent it to the Pacific council people in charge of those areas. So, but yeah, I got limited responses, but I got good responses. |
| 01:32:28.78 | Mayor Blaustein | Well, that's why we're all here now. So you can get our feedback on the committee. So, and did you hear anything specifically about frequency of meetings? I heard you mention that as an approach that you might like to see. |
| 01:32:39.43 | Chris Zapata | Yeah, so I got great feedback from you individually when we had one-on-one conversations about what made sense to create efficiency and less of a demand where staff would, you know, fail or burn out. So some of those recommendations are in that opening presentation spiel that I gave, including, you know, meeting frequency and, you know, non-Brown Act designations. And, you know, I've heard as recently that, you know, alignment with city council priorities and so forth, because sometimes you appoint people that are interested in certain areas and they take it upon themselves to do their work. And sometimes that work isn't in alignment with the city council's strategies or priorities, but, you know, that's the risk you run if you don't give them clear direction. So one of the things that I think has been missing from a lot of the committees, commissions, and goals is you form them. You staff them. but you don't give them clear parameters on what they should do and how that lines up with your city strategic planning initiatives or whatever you have in place that you want to do that year. |
| 01:33:46.70 | Mayor Blaustein | Thank you, City Manager Zapata. So if there's no further questions from the council, Yes, please, vice mayor. |
| 01:33:55.44 | Vice Mayor Sobieski | so just a clarifying question if the imagine you had the uh, Emergency Disaster Preparedness Task Force set up as a commission, then it's a Brown Act It has Brown Act support. and your volunteers wanting to help do the work. on a standing basis. That's a Brown Act entity. rather than being appointed by city council. and existing independent from City staff. was instead appointed, say, by you, Mr. City Manager, AS AN ADVISORY BODY TO KEVIN MCGOWAN, DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC WORKS. then that organization would work at, At your pleasure. And it would not be Brown Act. It would be a way of these volunteers... providing volunteer service at the Thank you. tightly coupled with and at the direction of City Council of... the city staff. Is that correct, Greg, or city manager? |
| 01:34:57.65 | Sergio Rudin | Yeah, if they're not under the direction or, or, uh, created by the by the city council, then they're not they don't They could be Brown Act bodies, but they're not required to be. |
| 01:35:10.72 | Vice Mayor Sobieski | Got it. Okay. And then... The alternative, the other thing I wasn't clear about is the Marlner traditionally has been able to appoint blue ribbon panels on things. Is that really just these temporary ad hoc working groups that you've spoken of before or are they something different? |
| 01:35:30.38 | Sergio Rudin | They sound like they would be ad hoc if they have a limited, purpose in a limited time frame. |
| 01:35:35.54 | Vice Mayor Sobieski | Right. with a fancy name. |
| 01:35:36.79 | Sergio Rudin | Yeah. |
| 01:35:37.21 | Vice Mayor Sobieski | Okay. Thank you. |
| 01:35:39.59 | Chris Zapata | Can I add a little color to some of the thoughts I have as a result of that question? Some cities that I've worked in and some cities that I have created city manager advisory boards. And for instance, in San Leandro, it was a technology advisory board helped me get together some thoughts and strategies to bring forward to the council and they were made up of all the tech folks that knew stuff in San Leandro, police chiefs have... you know, chief advisory boards as well that aren't, you know, bound by, you know, some of the protocols that a council appointed committee is. But let me just say this. I. When I got to Sausalito, there were a lot of things I didn't know about Sausalito. So as you learn these things like you know, |
| 01:36:28.00 | Kevin McGowan | Bye. |
| 01:36:28.09 | Chris Zapata | landslides, hill slides, mud slides, disaster preparedness is truly important, you know, the setting and the circumstances you find yourself in can wake you up pretty quickly. So when I started this thought process, I didn't have that as a foundation. but I think I am better understanding now. So last year when the chief of police brought to me the idea of, you know, getting ready with the disaster preparedness group and starting that, you know, there's no way I would push back on that because I know how important it is. Some other things I felt were less important. So, you know, again, de facto city manager decision to take things just to the council and the agenda setting committee and those typically involve real estate. because the O-Net committee was a foreign kind of I didn't understand its composition, what it was for. even the acronym at one time, but I've learned a lot in a year and a half. And so I'm giving you my best thinking on how we can succeed. And I'm not saying citizen volunteers and boards and commissions should be Thank you. banned or suspended. I just think some real thought needs to be given into how much you really want out of them and kind of lining them up with your priorities and goals and figuring out what that does to your overall work program as you try to do other things that are normal to a city and a local government. |
| 01:37:54.84 | Mayor Blaustein | Do you have further questions, Vice Mayor? |
| 01:37:56.14 | Vice Mayor Sobieski | I did have one more, which is, Is there a permission for if you had a mayor appointed group of volunteers who say support the police department in public safety like vips let's say. But rather than being an independent 501c3, it was appointed by by the city manager to help augment. and set up cones and that kind of thing, volunteers helping with public safety. Could that entity in some since they're volunteer citizens. they independently could petition city council as individuals, right? There'd be nothing that precludes them from saying we, the 10 members of this public safety, volunteer group. think that we should put a Stoplight. on such and such a street. I mean, they can still provide that kind of feedback. on the basis of their volunteer work. |
| 01:38:50.70 | Sergio Rudin | I just understand your, your. question that this would be like an all-volunteer group Not appointed by the mayor or the council. Appointed by the mayor. Thank you. |
| 01:38:59.20 | Vice Mayor Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 01:38:59.22 | Sergio Rudin | Thank you. |
| 01:38:59.24 | Vice Mayor Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 01:38:59.26 | Sergio Rudin | Okay. |
| 01:38:59.95 | Vice Mayor Sobieski | But from their work, they came to understand, in their opinion, that there should be a stop sign at such and such as well. |
| 01:39:04.67 | Sergio Rudin | I think if they're I mean, for the mayor to appoint a commission, it probably needs the council approval in the first place. that would mean that is a city uh, sponsored advisory committee. So that would have to be a Brown Act body. Thank you. But if it was through the city manager or just an organic group of residents who wanted to to, um, be active and report to you, that wouldn't require any, that'd be a Brown Act body. Thank you. |
| 01:39:35.69 | Jill Hoffman | I do have a question, I'm sorry. Yes, please, Councilmember Hoffen. So we do have all, you know, it's still really loud, disaster preparedness. I didn't see that in the, maybe I didn't read the staff report closely enough, but is that committee statutorily required in keeping with our emergency response systems and our coordination with the state and county. also emergency. Because I had about in a different category. disaster preparedness in our just our general, you know, boards and commissions. But if it's in the category of you know, before, which was, I think, planning, planning, commission, historic preservation, library foundation, And you know, in that, So is it in the required? category or the not required category? |
| 01:40:27.12 | Sergio Rudin | um, I've drafted the similar commission in another entity that I represent, and I do not believe it's legally required. But there, as I recall, there were reasons why a city might want to have a preparedness committee that were related to insurance and risk management. So I'd want to look at that issue before, you know, I think you should look at that issue, I should say, before talking about... not having such a commission. And it's not on your agenda tonight, so I think we can, you can talk about it generally, but that's not an action you can take tonight. |
| 01:41:04.35 | Jill Hoffman | Well, the, It is our agenda to talk about what the Community Safety and Disaster Preparedness Committee does and what they do and who's on it. |
| 01:41:12.97 | Sergio Rudin | I mean, it was formed by a resolution by the council previously and amended, so |
| 01:41:20.13 | Jill Hoffman | Since our emergency response guys are here, can I ask them, if you know, to me it's in a different category. If it's required under some sort of statute that you guys work with, you can do a head shape. Okay, well, I'm not saying confirmation nor... So they're giving me that maybe. |
| 01:41:38.23 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:41:38.28 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah. |
| 01:41:38.42 | Unknown | Bye. |
| 01:41:38.44 | Jill Hoffman | you |
| 01:41:38.50 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:41:38.60 | Jill Hoffman | We are international sign for maybe. So, okay, well, thanks. Thanks very much. |
| 01:41:45.46 | Mayor Blaustein | Councilmember Cox, did you have a question as well? Okay, well, since this conversation is very much about our community volunteers and our members of the public, I would love to open it up to public comment. City Clerk, do we have any public comment? |
| 01:41:59.82 | Walfred Solorzano | We do have a comment from Steven Woodside. |
| 01:42:08.49 | Mayor Blaustein | Hello, Stephen. |
| 01:42:09.76 | Steven Woodside | Hi there. To me, the issue is And the disaster kind of underscores this and the questions that Mr. Council member Sobieski asked, I think, a really Right on point. Because I think the real issue is How do you get the job done? efficiently and yet ensure that the public will find out what's going on. That's the tension. So if you form a, full blown committee, the Brown Act requires you to have all these meetings in public and there's a big burden on staff. to support that committee. If you have a task force or you have a structure organized under your city manager who's very experienced with issues like this Uh, I think the job is done better in the latter way. And the reason is simple. I Today's a good example. You've got emergency issues coming up all over the place. And if you have members of the community involved in helping to support some effort organized by the city staff um, I mean, anything that's important, that requires council approval or change in the law or expenditure of significant funds, it's gonna come to the public attention anyway. So, I'm on the side of fewer formal committees created by the council, are actually better. in the long run. much better in the long run. That's not to say you shouldn't encourage your staff to create appropriate advisory groups along the way. where it's really necessary to have a full blown brown acrobat that meets with Prior notice, how do you do prior notice about a storm? I don't think you can. I think you can do your best to be prepared, but you can't really react in the appropriate way very well if you are a brown neck body. Um, That's why you have a city manager. That's why you have, a really good city staff. Those are my comments. |
| 01:44:28.13 | Mayor Blaustein | Thank you, Stephen. |
| 01:44:30.85 | Walfred Solorzano | Next speaker, Sandra Bushmaker. |
| 01:44:33.62 | Mayor Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 01:44:33.63 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 01:44:33.65 | Sandra Bushmaker | Hi, Sandra. |
| 01:44:34.21 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 01:44:37.99 | Sandra Bushmaker | I am here. I think I'm here. Let's see, there we go. Yeah, I kind of once again concur with what Steve was saying. It seems to me the city council is at a point with its fiscal issues the last several years that and with city hall issues that we need to focus on rebuilding rebuilding the core And I think that we have gotten very dilute and spread out with all these boards and commissions. If I were to make a recommendation, I would say, of course, we must continue the mandated boards and commissions. And maybe we should put the others on hold for a while while the city council figures out what it wants its boards and commissions to do. With regard to the Disaster Preparedness Committee on which I served a couple of years ago, Um, It became, apparent to me that there seemed to be some enmeshment or overlap between City staff, Police and fire. responsibilities and that which the Disaster Preparedness Committee could do. My understanding at the time was the Disaster Preparedness Committee was focused on what helping the citizens to develop a plan to help themselves during disasters. That's a very different thing than getting involved in the day-to-day activity of disaster management. So, With regards to, you know, something that happens quickly, we need a quick response. We don't need a committee to make that decision. That is a staff decision. So I would be in favor of taking a step back and relooking at all the boards and commissions that are not mandated. to give yourself some time to figure out what you want these boards and commissions to do I don't think we can get to that tonight at this council meeting. Maybe you can. But I think it's really important to separate, particularly in the disaster preparedness area, the responsibilities of the professional staff from that of the volunteer committee. Thank you. Thank you, Sandra. |
| 01:46:53.51 | Mayor Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 01:46:55.85 | Walfred Solorzano | Next speaker is Vicki Nichols. Bye Vicki. |
| 01:47:00.14 | Vicki Nichols | Hi there. Thank you. Um, I, I think this is an interesting discussion. I guess I would just say that rather than being able to just say, okay, this isn't a Brown Act committee anymore. All of these committees are going to have to be looked at to see how they were created. specifically in their mission. So I agree with Sondra that I don't think this can happen tonight. My thought is that over the years, I think some of the wonderful volunteers have not really Um, been apprised of what their role might be. And maybe I'm not sure what a volunteer committee is supposed to do anymore. But my understanding was always that you maybe gathered information, you augmented or supplemented staff work With the knowledge that this was a recommendation, it wasn't that you were achieving a plan So my hesitation about all these task forces that some of these Plans get formulated without any other public input that are required by some of these other commissions or the Brown Act so that at least you have some touch points to kind of see what's happening. Some things get so far down the road that it is difficult to unstick them. So if there's a way to... touch base and do that. I also agree that there are many, many more committees than we ever used to have. And the task force, as we know, or the ad hocs, they can be disbanded. I can look through this list now and see that some of these aren't, So I think that There's some work to be done and I'm glad you're looking at this. And I would also say as a committee, I'm gonna advocate for the, |
| 01:48:38.73 | Unknown | What? |
| 01:48:38.78 | Sergio Rudin | But it's... |
| 01:48:38.83 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 01:48:38.84 | Sergio Rudin | I'm not sure. |
| 01:48:42.35 | Vicki Nichols | Preservation Commission. that before any of these standing committees get any funding or budget that you fund these committees that are mandated and we had funding as I will as I often repeat, years ago that has subsequently being lost and we do need funding to do our work to do historical preservation for Sausalito. Thank you very much. Bye. |
| 01:49:06.43 | Mayor Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 01:49:06.47 | Vicki Nichols | Thank you, Vicki. |
| 01:49:06.97 | Mayor Blaustein | Bye. |
| 01:49:07.02 | Vicki Nichols | Thank you. |
| 01:49:09.57 | Walfred Solorzano | We have no further speakers. |
| 01:49:11.97 | Mayor Blaustein | Okay, if there are no further speakers, then I will close public comment at this time and open it up to council comment. And I would love to start with Council Member Hoffman, because I know she has some great ideas on this that she shared with me in the context of these discussions earlier. |
| 01:49:26.11 | Unknown | out. |
| 01:49:26.62 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 01:49:27.95 | Mayor Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 01:49:27.98 | Jill Hoffman | Yes, as you know, I always have great ideas and are happy to share them. in varying degrees of forcefulness. Um. I don't. So I think as we look at this, you know, we discussed this a lot last April in that city council meeting that we had on a Saturday, we looked at how we wanted to move forward in this. And really it's as we look at our staff or we look at the bandwidth of our staff and the effectiveness of our staff, we really can't burden them with this anymore. Like they, it's just, it's just not sustainable. It really wasn't in the past either, we can't do it going forward. When you look at, you know, I think, you know, we take the ones that are statutory off the, you know, off the discussion, right? Like they're going to continue. They're going to be staffed by staff and they're subject to Brown Act and we know that. Those are the four that are you know, the code. We need to find out about whether or not the disaster preparedness needs to be around that committee or not. And I, you know, I'm supportive of that if that's required. And, uh, And if not, then we can talk about the other management way to deal with all the other boards and commissions. A lot of the boards and commissions naturally fall under different departments, and they're currently staffed. right now by those different departments. Um, You know, when you look out Thank you. realistically whether or not a board commission needs to be a Brown Act. You know, does it need to have an agenda? Does it need to be published? published on our website, all of these requirements. For almost all of the non statutory boards and commissions, the answer that's no. there's no reason why you need that level of staff support for almost all the boards and missions. I can't think of any one of them that But. requires all of that effort to run through the city. So in the Builder Commission, put up a zoom call. Any commission can have a page on the website and update what's your schedule, you know, um, and who wants to, um, in that commission, you know, just. opens a Zoom meeting, lots of people in and talks about it. Um, And that's at their discretion how they get public input on whatever their effort is. So, That's my just general thought on, and we talked about this at EDAC too, And my reflection was that Joe Riley said he didn't see any reason why EDAC, even EDAC had to be a Brown Act committee. And so I think just that basic concept, I think we can agree on that. If we can get agreement on just that one issue tonight with regard to those commissions and And, You know, sort of moving them along, transitioning them away from the Brown Act requirements. and reconfiguring them as And we don't know how. I'm also thinking about all the boards and commissions. They all now, I think, have a remit that they're working on. Right. I know EDACT, as I know I know I'm pretty sure by competitive sustainability, those commissions know what they're working on. And so, To me, it's Okay, for the next 12 months, That's what you're looking on. And at the end of the 12 months, then you can decide as a Royal Commission, do you want to continue or not? And then they give the feedback back to us. You know, you look at all these other independent groups in Saucyut that are incredibly effective. They have great great relationships with the staff, incredibly efficient. We do fund efforts that aren't bad at committees. They come to us with, with an ask and we look at it in the context of our overall budget and our capital improvement project. We really want that and we discuss it usually as a council. So I think That is kind of a really watching go. And I think that we perhaps, you know, we can just say, okay, within the next 30 days, you're going to be ruined off. staff support and you're going to transition from of government. the City Council committee to something out to either a task force And we probably need to get precise in our language as well. And we can talk to our city attorney about that. you know, there's task forces, there's working groups, there's, you know, sponsored committees. So they wouldn't be sponsored committees anymore. I don't think, I think they would be something in a task force. an ad hoc group. And so that's kind of how I see the transition. But most of them would then, I think, fall under whatever... direction and the recommendations would come up to us through this regular natural within our staff or within our department. That's, is that all that we have discussed or is everyone on? Um, So let's kind of balance it. And then maybe we can also enter a resolution and direction and say, okay, you know, starting in 30 days, you know, you're going to transition from the Browning Committee to, you can continue your work. There's nothing that stops anybody from continuing their work. There's nothing that stops city council members as long as it's not three. from participating with a volunteer group and giving them feedback as they're moving along and we put it back to the city council. I was at this meeting and this is what they said. I think it's a great idea. What are the feedback we wanna give? So there's nothing that stops innovation doing that. So these great efforts can continue. It's just the burden on staff doesn't continue. |
| 01:54:55.83 | Sergio Rudin | Thank you. |
| 01:54:55.85 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:54:55.86 | Sergio Rudin | Thank you. |
| 01:54:58.16 | Jill Hoffman | So that's, You know, I think that's kind of, oh, And then we, I mean, one option is, let them continue to work. and then we can look at it a couple of different ways we could say, you know, one thing maybe that was, unless they're continued by for another, you know, another different task next year by the city council being dissolved. at the end of the calendar year. So every January we look at whatever task forces we have. We look at Dresh and we've given them, and if they're not renewed in December of that year, they're dissolved. by operation of the resolution. So those are just some thoughts. |
| 01:55:42.93 | Mayor Blaustein | Thank you. Okay, who would like to weigh in next? Councilmember Cox. |
| 01:55:48.09 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 01:55:48.60 | Mayor Blaustein | unless Councilmember McCommon, was your hand raised? I'm happy to hear from Councillor Cox and I'll go after her. Thank you. |
| 01:55:54.03 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 01:55:54.37 | Mayor Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 01:55:55.43 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 01:55:56.40 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:55:56.80 | Melissa Blaustein | um, I have a little experience on this. I served on 14 committees myself when I was the mayor. So, um, Was it 17? Oh, you were 17. Yeah, so I have a couple of thoughts about this. First of all, I think that this conversation should not... apply to the regional committees to which city council members serve as liaisons So, Yeah, those are not staffed by our staff. Those do not take staff time. I continue to believe that those liaisons should be appointed by the mayor. as they are now. And so that's take 17 committees off the list straight away. I agree with some of the comments of the city manager and others that many of our Committees are indeed ad hoc committees. They are special purpose committees with a limited purpose and limited duration. And so those do not need to be staffed by Staff. Um, There are some committees that are helpful to different departments park and rec committee was intended to serve the park and rec department. I continue to believe that those committees should be appointed by. the city council and should be Brown Act committees, but I think it should be up to the department, whether they are served by such a committee so that if park and rec thinks that it's too much effort. to engage with a committee designed to help them then they shouldn't have, shouldn't be required to have such a committee. If the police department is not required to have a disaster preparedness committee and don't care to have one, then they shouldn't be forced to have one. In all of this, I don't want to forget to acknowledge our dozens, if not hundreds of community volunteers. One of the remarkable things about Sausalito is how blessed we are with the wealth of talent that our residents provide and with their willingness to volunteer their time so generously. Sausalito Beautiful is a perfect example. That is a committee that runs itself is a 501 C three. and comes to the city council, with recommendations and does not ask the city council for much funding, sometimes special project funding. That is an ideal form of committee. Okay, what else? I think Brown Act committees should be appointed by the city council, not necessarily by the city manager. um, you know, we have a great example of a city manager who came to us brand new, who would be in no position to appoint citizens to a committee straight out of the box. Once you have a city manager on board for some period of time, that, concept might be revisited, but I really like the process by which the city council interviews candidates and appoints candidates to Brown Act committees. Something I think needs to happen for transparency purposes is that The reporting by city council members needs to be ramped up. So we used to have a practice where we turned in written reports for the committees to which we were a liaison that kept the work that we did. and saw transparency. I met with outgoing Councilmember Susan Cleveland Knowles, who was informing me of lots of the work that she'd been doing with regional um, local committees none of which I was aware of because it wasn't part of the reporting. to the city council and to the public. I think it's important that we remember to Report out. what has been accomplished by the committees to which we liaise. And I think that I agree with Vicki Nichols that volunteers need to be apprised of their role. and of their reporting relationships. So I, Don't think that chairs and others members of our boards and commissions should be going directly to the city manager. with all of their complaints, concerns, or orders. Our boards and commissions do not give direction to our city manager, that's up to us. And so I think that needs to be made clear to our boards and commissions, what their role is and what their reporting relationship is. Those are my initial thoughts. Thank you. |
| 02:00:22.61 | Mayor Blaustein | Thank you. Thanks, Councilmember Cox. I'll now go to Councilmember Kelman. |
| 02:00:25.97 | Janelle Kellman | Great. Thanks, everybody. This is great. It's a great conversation because I think we're hitting on a lot of the same topics, although I don't know we've settled on a way to resolve some of this. So in thinking about this, I tried to craft kind of a mission statement about what we wanted to achieve. which is that for me, We want to harness the intellectual capital in a manner that's supportive of the city council's strategic goals and then enhance staff efforts not require or create more work. Thank you. And I think what I'm hearing from these comments is that there is a disalignment sometimes between expectations around either priorities or mandate or remit. and what the city council and or staff have committed to. And so I want to tease that out as an overarching philosophy here, because I think that these remits sometimes need to be updated. The communication needs to be reviewed and the purpose around a border committee probably needs to be revisited. Um, I think for the purpose of this conversation, uh, more of my fellow council members already suggested it. I think we should very clearly remove certain buckets. So we're not feeling like we're trying to resolve 40 different, um, Yeah. beasts of their own making. So let's remove the liaisons to the county or the region, as Councilmember Cox suggested. Let's remove any competition about the special purpose task force, as another colleague suggested. And let's not, we can't undermine the statutory required boards and commissions like Planning Commission and HPC disaster. Although we have to talk about disaster because it's called something different than what is required. So I think with that in mind, I think we probably need to then look at these nine standing boards and commissions as well as council subcommittees. And so let me take this council subcommittee as an area of opportunity. I think having served on a variety of subject matter and then sort of special project type committees. Initially, as I was sort of coming up to speed, I found things like finance my first year to be a great committee to have as a subcommittee. It gave me another opportunity to dig in. In my second year, though, I felt that we were better served as a council, having the information come to us collectively. And I think that was because that department was in a better position than it was when we first started. And so I would just ask or recommend that we look at each of those subject matter. Legislative is another one that comes to mind and say. Is it better served to have somebody, two people look at it initially, or should we just bring it to council and save council time and staff time? Um, On the other side of things, we do have a handful of sort of more special project type subcommittees. Bank of America was one. Virginia Marina is one. Ferry Landside Improvements is another. I think that we should reevaluate time spent on those. And the reason for that is because they are so important to the full council and so important to the community that nothing pains me more than to have good people work on really good ideas, but then bring it to council and maybe have to reevaluate some of those ideas because they worked so hard in a subcommittee and not in the full council. And so I think we should maybe evaluate whether those are goodies of our time or just creating more work. for us long term. And then I think on the standing boards and committees, I really think we need to make sure that they are acting at the behest and in alignment with the strategic priorities of the Council. And so we should be providing direction to each as to how they should be and what they should be serving, because our staff is getting pulled in multiple directions, our priorities and their priorities. And we wanna make sure there's alignment so that everybody's efforts are heading in the same direction. And then I'll just conclude by, kind of musing over the fact that we've all spoken very highly tonight of the landslide task force. And I will just say that that is a committee limited in duration, very clear mandate, very clear, useful work product that I think is going to be fundamental to our emergency planning in 2023. And if I had to vote on how to spend our time and how to harness the intellectual capital of our community, I would say more of that type of effort that results in a clear work product that can or can't be used, meaning that staff is provided with it, and if they find it useful, then they can leverage it. And if it for some reason doesn't fit into the priorities or it doesn't make sense for us as a community, they don't have to leverage it. There's no expectation that they will, but it is useful for the community. So, Those are my comments, and I look forward to hearing the others from the mayor and the vice mayor. |
| 02:04:55.64 | Mayor Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 02:04:55.65 | Janelle Kellman | Thank you. |
| 02:04:55.97 | Mayor Blaustein | for becoming vice mayor. |
| 02:04:59.31 | Vice Mayor Sobieski | I'm still sort of putting my thoughts together, I, uh, listening to the comments of my colleagues, I guess I would focus then perhaps to try to elevate a different aspect of the concern here, which is we're hearing from our city manager that our city staff is not, uh, Deep enough. to be able to attend to all the various things that we have set up structurally. We have we built a matrix of activity that's simply saturating our staff. And so part of the solution is, I think, for us to be clear about what our top priorities are. and to focus not just the boards and commissions, ourselves on what those top priorities are. top priorities are. and be and be disciplined in not pursuing. other things that aren't our top priorities. uh, Allah. In parallel with that, however, we have a situation where we have a bunch of folks in town who want to contribute their time to the, to the, to the tasks of the city. They want to be volunteers. Let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater. How do we, the challenge for me, but I still don't have a clear answer to is how do we harness that without, without undermining the very goal we're trying to achieve. perhaps taxonomy we could apply. And I haven't, fully thought it out yet, but hearing it, it dawned on me that we really have two buckets. We have people that want to contribute to the work. and people that want to contribute to Apollo's assessment of Thank you. policy goals. I would ask why the city council is setting up an entity, a sort of shadow staff, that is going to be doing work. managing the city or doing city tasks. The city council might need help in deciding on policy questions. What should or should we do tapping expertise? Uh, But then there's a separate group of volunteers that want to actually help to do things. I'm a liaison to Parks and Rec. Um, commission. EDAC and the trustee, the library boards. I think of those meetings and I think they're actually currently an amalgam of occasionally opining on policy. But by and large, blocking and tackling projects. actually contributing, right? Getting things done. And to my mind, those are Those are two things that blocking and tackling projects could really report to a department head. they could work for Brian Vitale at Parks and Rec. help get something done. And it would be a two-way street. Brian can ask them for their opinion. basically it augments his staff. We only have a few. employees in Parks and Rec. So the Parks and Rec Commission... or volunteer task force, whatever we would call it, would actually be resources for that organization. People that want to make our parks and recreation activities better. I can't think of a recent time that the Parks and Rec Commission has been asked to opine on a policy question. It could, for instance, should there be I don't know, a playground in Dunphy Park. That's a policy question. that maybe we want some experts or some community members to give us an answer to. But right now we're amalgamating those two things together. I don't know if these comments help stir any imaginations in my colleagues or anyone else, but my thought would be that there might be a way of simplifying our process by being clear about when say what we're actually trying to get the work product back from these entities. And I think the goal here has to be to be responsive to the message we're getting from our city manager that we need to actually be a little bold in our action and not just trim around the edges. |
| 02:08:44.36 | Mayor Blaustein | Thank you, Vice Mayor, for your comments. Thanks, everybody. on the council. And I think this is a really great problem to have because we have one of the most engaged communities, definitely in the county and state. And we have, as Councilman Cox pointed out, hundreds of dedicated volunteers who are eager to serve and would love an opportunity. And it's actually a great way to start to get more involved by volunteering for a border commission. So it's difficult to grapple with how do we keep our community engaged and feeling like they're a part of the decisions that we're making without overburdening our staff. So I think I heard a lot of of. consensus on that we need to do something to make our staff less burdened with some of these commissions. We're definitely gonna not consider the regional appointments. So that's not part of this discussion. It seems like we would like to think about how subcommittees interact and whether or not they require staff time. I think the same probably goes for Blue Ribbon committees and task forces. When I served on then Mayor Cox's Blue Ribbon Committee on Housing, we actually never had staff in any of our meetings. We met every other weekend with no staff and put together the report with no staff. just with volunteers and then brought it to the Council. So and I and I think Given the situation, there were some great ideas around reporting out every 12 months to make sure that these committees are still relevant. Landslide Task Force had a very specific mandate. I think some of the public comment made a lot of sense in that there are so many to look at that we don't necessarily need to have. the decision tonight, but I think this brings up two really important things that we can do immediately one is calendar or retreat day and strategic planning session where we go through all of these boards and commissions together and make a decision for the path forward apart from the four. that we have. And the other might be just for some immediate relief to staff while we determine the legal policies, I would suggest or ask that potentially those boards and commissions that are not required meet only quarterly in the interim, just as sort of an in-between while we make these decisions and while we get together on staff, as a council to decide what the best way forward is. And but I'm, open to whatever immediate action items you would might suggest that we would take tonight. Um, And I also would really like to get to the bottom of the function of disaster preparedness and whether or not it's required sooner rather than later. |
| 02:11:00.15 | Unknown | So Mary, just, oh, sorry, go ahead. Thank you. |
| 02:11:03.29 | Vice Mayor Sobieski | sure. |
| 02:11:03.90 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 02:11:03.98 | Vice Mayor Sobieski | Bye. |
| 02:11:04.12 | Unknown | that's not going to be a |
| 02:11:04.40 | Vice Mayor Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 02:11:04.59 | Unknown | So, |
| 02:11:04.83 | Vice Mayor Sobieski | Riffing off that idea, One other idea I just wanted to put into the mix for digestion or action would be that, I've seen on EDAC for instance, which is a relatively large committee, they have a very effective and active subcommittee structure. they could meet or any committee like them could be large as say 12 people, for instance, as long as a majority of the committee doesn't meet, then it's not a full committee meeting. You can have subcommittees if you have 12 members of five people. And those subcommittees can actually do work. with being nimble. They're not meeting as a group. They're not making policy judgments. There isn't an EDAC action. but the subcommittees can actually get stuff done. They actually block and tackle work. So one additional model is that these commissions meet infrequently as a whole to decide on policy matters. but in terms of blocking and tackling actual work. Thank you. they can organize themselves into smaller subcommittees that meet without the need for staff support. So I wanted to offer that. That's another idea. Um. And then just in terms of maybe doing something here tonight, we could agree, given CHRIS SEPATA'S COMMENTS ON THE FINANCE AND OMIT THAT MAYBE WE HOLD OFF ON staffing those in the near term, since we're going to be working on our budget. and that we just bring OMIT and Finance Committee matters directly to City Council. until we decide otherwise. |
| 02:12:35.01 | Melissa Blaustein | Council Member Cox's I just wanted to make sure in follow up to your comments, Mayor, that we address what was item 2I, the adopting a resolution renaming the Community Safety Disaster Preparedness Committee. We have a staff report already on that, but none of us have addressed that in our comments. So I just wanted to make sure that we all had an opportunity to weigh in on that since we did include that into this item. |
| 02:13:00.81 | Mayor Blaustein | Thank you for bringing that up. And that goes, and actually we have Chief Gregory here who helped bring that forward and worked on that staff report. And that was with regards to the changing of the name and the mission of the Disaster Preparedness Committee. I will come back to that because I want to take Councilmember Kelman's comment, but I do think we should resolve that as well in the context of this discussion. Councilmember Kelman. |
| 02:13:24.42 | Janelle Kellman | Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. Yes, so I want to just put on the record It's very I think it's a very slippery slope to outsource policy decisions. I think that is the role of the city council. And I think we should be looking to our very talented volunteers to help support those policy decisions and policy direction. And so that's just my point of view on this. And I wanted to make sure that I had the opportunity to voice that. I also want to throw out a straw man in the interest of having some improvement here and some relief. for staff. So it could be something along these lines where if a board of commission is not statutory, that it begins to meet one time a quarter. And that one time of order is the staff meeting. And then they're welcome to meet. as subcommittees as suggested, other times in between, so that doesn't create a Brown Act, but also would not be staffed. I wanted to also flag, Mary, you made the point and I endorse this. that we then revisit the council strategic priorities in our planning session. and identify two to three priorities per committee. SO WE SET THE POLICY, BUT THEN WE ISSUED THAT OUT TO THE COMMITTEES TO WORK ON THOSE. I STILL THINK WE SHOULD HAVE A CONVERSATION ON DISBANDING THESE SPECIAL PROJECT COMMITTEES. and how we want to move forward with those. And I would be fully supportive of, for now, suspending OMIT and finance, particularly since we're about to be in budget planning. And then I know we're about to get into the disaster preparedness conversation. I just want to flag that at the outset, the city attorney said that Under the municipal code, it was called the Disaster Advisory Council. And I don't think that's what the staff report is calling the renaming. And so I could use some clarity around whether or not we want to be aligned with what the municipal code is requiring and how that helps us where that goes. So thank you. City Attorney. |
| 02:15:19.98 | Mayor Blaustein | Can you respond to that? |
| 02:15:22.42 | Sergio Rudin | The Disaster Preparedness Committee and the Emergency Disaster Council are two different two different bodies. |
| 02:15:31.89 | Mayor Blaustein | At this point, who serves on the emergency disaster council? The city manager? |
| 02:15:36.13 | Sergio Rudin | City manager and usually one of the council members, usually the mayor sits on that. And it's activated during an emergency usually. But a lot of times it's, Council that that the city manager can seek guidance from during the emergency. It's not always, implemented or seeded in my experience. |
| 02:16:02.50 | Mayor Blaustein | So for instance, in this case of the storm event last week, it would have been the mayor and vice mayor with the city manager. |
| 02:16:09.61 | Sergio Rudin | Right. Yeah. And it would have been perhaps at the EEOC and it was there was some something that was pretty extreme that that happened. you would all be there probably. And then you would be consulting with the city manager to help give guidance on what, is an appropriate response to whatever activity is. I mean, I've seen that when I was in San Bruno 12 years ago, that's what happened. I mean, when the explosion happened, the elected officials, all the disaster council were there at in the EOC and they and the city manager made decisions. So it works that way usually. |
| 02:16:48.22 | Mayor Blaustein | So just so that we are in compliance with state requirements, maybe for this instance, we can agree as a council that the mayor and vice mayor sit on that by default. Is that something that we need to appoint? Because I don't wanna be in breach of any |
| 02:17:02.42 | Sergio Rudin | I think it's in the ordinance already, so I can look at that for you. |
| 02:17:07.27 | Chris Zapata | Okay, that would be great. Mayor, if I can add to that, there's specific training that's required that if you're gonna be a part of this process and Mike can probably speak to that. I use the acronyms of NIMS and SIMS, but Mike, do you wanna come up and talk about the required training for managing major incidents and how that all works so the council is familiar with it? |
| 02:17:38.45 | Mike McKinley | I'm a CIMS purist, the Australian Nursing Management System, which is based on NIMS, which is a national nursing management system. These systems are all about to create CIMG and NIMS. COB, Dan Burke, COB OSMP 3D.: Coop. COB, Dan Burke, COB OSMP 3D.: Coop. We follow the state guidelines at the operational level, which is where I can, I'm the one that sets up your emergency operations center, or, |
| 02:18:17.27 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:18:43.94 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 02:18:43.96 | Mike McKinley | Thank you. |
| 02:18:43.98 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 02:18:44.01 | Mike McKinley | utilize |
| 02:18:45.31 | Jill Hoffman | So Mr. McKinley, can you hold on for a second? We're gonna make sure if your microphone's on. which means we can hear you, but... |
| 02:18:50.21 | Mike McKinley | Thank you. |
| 02:18:52.43 | Jill Hoffman | The video is not going to be able to hear you. I don't think that, yeah, Councilor Kim can hear you. |
| 02:19:02.15 | Unknown | Test, test, test, test. |
| 02:19:05.55 | Jill Hoffman | That's better. |
| 02:19:07.94 | Mike McKinley | There we go. Dr. Good speaking. But we do follow all the systems requirements. And I want to ensure everybody here that when we're prepared, for the emergency. I don't know. A scenario that I think can prove that point was our slide 219 That was a serious event that was really taxed our organic resources. We stood up mutual aid. We had task force is coming in. Just by virtue of using the same system and calling in, the county is saying we have a new mutual aid. The system goes into gear. And it happens. I don't want to get too much off the track, but Talking about your committees and your standing committees in the Disaster Emergency Council, The reason that we wanted to change the mission statement, the authorities, Um, in repeating MDs was the fact that but certainly the entire district has created a response group in this position. that is working with all the fire chiefs within the county. So each jurisdiction within the county, It's absolutely a single phone. Everybody in the county was representative through a assessment of remote response group coordination, So a strategic plan that was developed for 2324. That is the basis for the chief's staff report that wouldn't show you so all the information that's the basis for changing |
| 02:20:47.33 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:20:49.46 | Mike McKinley | the community who was based on the strategic plan from Southern and Fire District. And I don't know if that information is going to be a little bit ahead of what we're talking about here. Um, So, And all the responsible coordinator would do for us is take a huge amount of the staff. let volunteers be involved in that process. And there's only more to follow, I don't know where to understand that we are in a very good position to protect ourselves, you know, within the system. Um, I think the mission of Well, citizens is to Um, essentially part of the government to feel like they have an impact. The new one part of the Michelin is the operational side. And it's a totally different kind of a thing. So I hope I answered your questions and, I'm going to use Here I am. Thank you, Chris, for... Thank you. |
| 02:21:54.02 | Mayor Blaustein | Thank you. I just want to thank you for running the DOC so effectively during the storm events that we've had and we're really lucky to have Mike McKinley with us he has. Several decades actually a couple decades of experience from San Francisco fire before he came to us so to hear you say that we are very well positioned for disaster makes me feel much more confident so I truly appreciate that and your time so does anyone have other questions for Mr McKinley. I do. Thank you. |
| 02:22:20.03 | Jill Hoffman | that way. |
| 02:22:20.65 | Mayor Blaustein | Yeah. |
| 02:22:21.02 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 02:22:21.31 | Mayor Blaustein | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 02:22:21.43 | Jill Hoffman | I'm sorry. So this is just going to be your assessment, Emily. |
| 02:22:21.94 | Mayor Blaustein | All right. |
| 02:22:22.17 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:22:22.19 | Mike McKinley | Thank you. |
| 02:22:27.76 | Jill Hoffman | And there's a about the fact that we need some sort of support for |
| 02:22:31.64 | Mike McKinley | Thank you. |
| 02:22:35.62 | Jill Hoffman | disaster preparedness, right? Because I think we all agree that we're happy to support that. whether or not it needs to be a city council. Brown Committee. And from what I'm hearing from you and from what I know about how you guys manage disaster preparedness, that I don't think that it does. I don't think that that's warranted. some reason why you guys think that you know, that you need that to be The community has run through city staff with a, you know, with Zoom meetings managed by the city with agendas, with minutes, with all that. I don't see that that's a structure that you need for disaster preparedness. I think that we can, you know, let's say that we're supporting and we were family. for 2023 as a task force. to define what the scope of that committee is or what the scope of that entity is with your input, with the chief's input, |
| 02:23:34.09 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:23:34.11 | Mayor Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 02:23:34.13 | Unknown | that |
| 02:23:34.60 | Sergio Rudin | Bye. |
| 02:23:38.21 | Jill Hoffman | I don't know. some very specific criteria about what you're looking for that maybe you come back to us You say this is going to be a committee that's mainly managed by police and disaster preparedness. I mean, I don't know who you're with. |
| 02:23:55.56 | Mike McKinley | I don't use the council for anything that I do. I agree. We're in the complete one of the presentation Council Member, as you know from the military background. Thank you. I don't give those The citizens groups. the new response group for public repair. And I believe that's initially was our mission for our council was preparing Thank you. So is coming from the communications, notification system. So many things. From my perspective, what do you think? So, and the department was moving And our favorite part of it was when it comes to feeling a little co-star That's who I coordinate with. So I really don't coordinate with all of the five groups. I was a subject matter expert to help the group understand incident command, SEMS, incident action planning, those kind of things. So we understood that |
| 02:24:57.62 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:25:03.80 | Mike McKinley | you know, they can feel comfortable with information to the citizens to be prepared. Well, let me start to wrap on. Compromotionally. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. |
| 02:25:18.40 | Mayor Blaustein | So just so that we can conclude on the aspect of how we, thank you very much. I really appreciate it. Just so that we can conclude on the aspect of what we're going to do with our boards and commissions for the time being. I really appreciated it. the way that Councilmember Kalman laid out some of the things that we might do. And I'm in agreement with pretty much all of those and I wanted to see if maybe we could get consensus on that and then move forward to the disaster preparedness item. I think it's clear that we need a continuation of discussion about how these committees are designated and whether or not they're brown acts, but perhaps right now for the time being, we might agree to Council members so we ask a suggestion to temporarily at least disband omit and finance. And maintain all of the committees that are statutory, but if they're not for the time being have them meet once a quarter. And in the in-between, they can meet a subcommittees or as much as they would like. And then we can have our planning meeting. And during that meeting, we can revisit the role of all of these boards and commissions and create two to three priorities for those and perhaps also disband some of these special project committees. |
| 02:26:25.56 | Unknown | the operators. |
| 02:26:27.74 | Mayor Blaustein | I think it's like a |
| 02:26:28.97 | Jill Hoffman | Absolutely. I didn't have my hand up, but... I was like, Okay, but just remember, you know, a year ago, in April of 2022, we had a vote day-long retreat or half-day retreat. And at that time, we were leaning toward transitioning most of these things, most of the Bolton commissions, either disbanding them or making them not a Brown Act. And the idea at that time was, you know, process, right? Give us your feedback from the boards and commissions. I mean, only quarterly. I think that was our compromise even back then. So. I like the movement that we're making a little bit, but I don't want us to keep kicking this burdensome can down the road for our staff, right? Like we have to say, at some point, really, if you need to be a brand there has to be a really good reason why this is a Browning Committee. Not that the communities can't go forward and do their good work. right? Like that's two different things. I totally support the committees going forward. I totally support committee council Lee Johnson. So, I support that, but with the caveat that we are going to actually do hard work at our retreat and we are going to transition most if not all of these burgeoning commissions to non-Brown Act committees. So unless you have a really, really good reason why this needs to be grown we're going to transition to some other sort of structure. |
| 02:27:55.22 | Mayor Blaustein | So then maybe perhaps also at the strategic planning meeting, we would ask that the city attorney come with a very clear option for the different names and types of the committees as allowed if they are still appointed by counsel and not within the Brown Act. And that way we can determine which committee goes into which bucket at that time and and go from there. Is everyone okay with that direction? Anyone else want to weigh in on this before we move to disaster preparedness? Can I just follow up with staff? |
| 02:28:20.92 | Jill Hoffman | Can I just follow? Was that from staff? |
| 02:28:24.02 | Mayor Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 02:28:24.09 | Jill Hoffman | Bye. |
| 02:28:24.11 | Mayor Blaustein | that the direction is to council or do we need to do a motion? I think council member Kelman still wants to say something before we make a motion. |
| 02:28:29.83 | Janelle Kellman | Oh, no, I just want to just say I commend that additional and endorse that additional point of view from Councilmember Hoffman that. It was my idea to move this in this direction. And I do want to make sure that we have that conversation and streamline that Brown Act aspect of it. So I think that's a good idea as well. |
| 02:28:48.54 | Jill Hoffman | Okay. |
| 02:28:50.03 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 02:28:50.05 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 02:28:50.28 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 02:28:50.35 | Jill Hoffman | I'm right. |
| 02:28:50.55 | Melissa Blaustein | but he's going to answer her question. |
| 02:28:53.45 | Chris Zapata | Mayor Kelly, I don't believe we need a motion. I don't know that you can provide a motion, but the direction is pretty clear on what we need to do. And I think the scheduling of a strategic planning session will help solve a lot of these questions and also along the list of time with to speak to the Boise Commission so they're not caught off guard with, you know, We're shutting down tomorrow, or we're going to talk about how that works in a communication approach. I think we've got great input and feedback and a vigorous discussion from ourselves and some community members. So thank you very much. |
| 02:29:28.18 | Unknown | So... |
| 02:29:29.70 | Vice Mayor Sobieski | I was just going to. I know that we have talked sometimes about the confusion that we even sometimes have about what we've agreed to here on the dais and we thought we might try to turn a new leaf in the year to summarize and be very clear about what our direction is either in really being clear. So maybe you could tell us back what you heard us say, or we could try to summarize it. I'm going to. |
| 02:29:53.82 | Mayor Blaustein | did a great job of summarizing it. I can summarize it again. I don't think it's... Happy to say it one more time. So I think it's necessary. Okay. |
| 02:29:54.64 | Vice Mayor Sobieski | on the job of summarizing it. |
| 02:29:57.22 | Unknown | It's happy to see So I think. Well, I would just... Okay. |
| 02:30:01.24 | Mayor Blaustein | Okay, so Vice Mayor Sobieski, I'll do it again. So I think we decided we would temporarily disband OMID and finance. If the committees aren't statutory, they will transition for the time being to quarterly meetings, though they are welcome to meet as subcommittees in the in between. We will be sending out a doodle to set a time. really quickly for a strategic planning session where the city attorney will come with are options for committees should they not become brown acts and what they might transition into going forward. |
| 02:30:32.44 | Jill Hoffman | Could I add? to add friendly addition to that. which is the purpose is going to be transitioning most of, if not all of the non-statutory committees to non-Brown Act committees and the justification will be remaining in the Brown Act committee. And if you could, my other question would be, in the minutes, if that could be called out specifically in the minutes of this meeting, this was the direction given by the city council, and that might help us. going forward about what the direction was. Is that doable, City Manager? |
| 02:31:05.65 | Mayor Blaustein | Council Member Cox said something she wanted to add. I wanted to... |
| 02:31:09.97 | Melissa Blaustein | I'll just reiterate the purpose, plan at the strategic planning session to assign two to three priorities per committee so that, the committees are clear about their charge. |
| 02:31:26.61 | Sergio Rudin | Madam Mayor, I just wanted to clarify something for the record, just so I understand what you described as the direction. because it is agendized as a direction item tonight. It's not an action item. Right. So if I thought I heard you say that a couple of the committees might be disbanded and that's going to require further action. I don't. I suspect that it's by, there's an ordinance or something that that's already in place. So we will need to, give us direction, and then we can bring that back to you on. |
| 02:31:55.05 | Mayor Blaustein | I think it's a consideration for disbanding the special committees and we can go into further discussion of which we would disband at the retreat. |
| 02:32:02.30 | Sergio Rudin | you |
| 02:32:03.47 | Mayor Blaustein | Okay. So I think that that's it for that specific topic. But as we forwarded the item from the consent calendar with regards to disaster preparedness, which was 2i. So essentially this was a change in the purpose statement and the name of the committee Given that we've now decided that these committees will continue to go forward quarterly, I would be okay with adopting the resolution, knowing that this will still be considered going forward. Uh, if that's all right with me. |
| 02:32:30.03 | Janelle Kellman | Thank you. |
| 02:32:30.50 | Mayor Blaustein | the rest of the week. |
| 02:32:31.02 | Janelle Kellman | Council. Mayor, can I make one comment? Yes, please. Yeah, I think what I heard from Mr. McKinley is that we have a clear division of labor so that the emergency Disaster Council is the actual body that is tasked with responding to the nuts and bolts of an emergency. And if that is the case, then the disaster preparedness committee, whatever the new name would be, should probably be around citizen education to help oneself. Because we have just established that we have experts on another council with input from the mayor and the vice mayor who are doing the nuts and bolts. Did I hear that correctly? There seem to be two very different mandates. And if so, I think that the Disaster Repairness Committee, again under the new name, needs to have that cleaned up. |
| 02:33:20.60 | Mayor Blaustein | So They are two separate committees. There is the state required committee, as mentioned, that operates during the EOC. And then there is the disaster preparedness committee and their purpose statement in the staff report speaks to their specific goals and what their how their governing body is. Is there something specifically within the purpose statement that you felt like was missing? Because it speaks to sharing comments, fostering stronger community, encouraging public participation, reviewing changes to the city disaster plan, providing recommendations on preparedness programs, but doesn't seem there's anything about direct engagement specifically in response to a disaster as the EOC organization would be as |
| 02:34:00.49 | Janelle Kellman | Yeah, I think probably my only area of potential concern was the depth to which the review of the disaster preparedness plan took place. It was full cognition that the experts have have created that are working on that with the emergency disaster Council, and I don't want to. challenge that work that takes place in the Emergency Disaster Council. Bye. |
| 02:34:24.86 | Melissa Blaustein | I would just say in reviewing the proposed revised purpose of the committee on page three of our staff report. it appears that the purpose has been edited. and reduced. along the lines that Council member Kalman is recommending. Yeah, they're distinguished from the purpose of the disaster. Um, Council, the Disaster Council. |
| 02:34:58.51 | Melissa Blaustein | It's been significant. |
| 02:34:59.03 | Mayor Blaustein | So there's one, two, three, four, five, six, yeah, key items on page three. |
| 02:35:08.70 | Mayor Blaustein | I have. I remember Hoffman went away and Yes. |
| 02:35:11.98 | Jill Hoffman | And I think it goes to when we have a retreat and we |
| 02:35:12.21 | Mayor Blaustein | Um, |
| 02:35:17.66 | Jill Hoffman | you know, decide how we're going to move forward with these birds and commissions. And kind of the input we just had from Mr. McKinley, Very. with this disaster preparedness committee, but I think we need to have a recommendation from The department that this committee supports on what they see, not just our recommendation, right? But as part of our preparation and the staff report for that, is for those nine version commissions, you know, what the department had once out of that committee. And so disaster preparedness says we have a mission statement now, but certainly if the emergency support guys, Bye guys. to edit that then then please let us know that before we have a retreat so we can edit that as we go forward. |
| 02:36:03.67 | Melissa Blaustein | I actually met with them today. And my understanding is that this was a joint effort between the acting chief and Mr. McKinley and that they endorse this proposal. Thank you. |
| 02:36:16.90 | Mayor Blaustein | That's what I understood as well. But Mr. McKinley, Chief, do you care to weigh in? |
| 02:36:24.03 | Unknown | Okay. |
| 02:36:25.79 | Mayor Blaustein | day. |
| 02:36:26.02 | Mike McKinley | you |
| 02:36:26.08 | Mayor Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 02:36:27.78 | Mike McKinley | Thank you. It's on this time, I think. The language, the language, the mission statement of the governance has come from the Southern fire departments and a neighborhood response group coordinating strategic plan. So it's the idea was that you could have a synergy in the county, so we all have the same mission. We all have the same goals. the system is Um, how can I put this? It's not in the name of the Southern Fire District. the green program was home too. I don't know if you have the opportunity to. And the colonel, We'll start on our coordinator. We're going to take on the nature essentially a disaster council deal based on a strategic plan that's been written for the whole county. So it changes sort of that of what all of that means. It creates a centralized A little bit of response group. resource. um, If I'm moving, I don't know, |
| 02:37:50.38 | Mike McKinley | was about to talk about response about the incident coming in and training and The council... He was part of a losing K-N system. We're called the Policy Group. That's your counsel as a policy group. We'll sign up on the phones and we will see If there's an issue that becomes a policy issue or a way to, that the resource has to be utilized. The recent commander is going to go to the policy and give them some major guidance. So... there was some confusion when you called a council and committee, As far as Nunes-Sins terms go, it's the policy group. And maybe you could consider maybe changing that. you know, now you're in compliance with really what the terminology really means. |
| 02:38:42.05 | Mayor Blaustein | Okay, thank you for the notification. So for the purpose of tonight's motion, I think this is something that again, will need to be addressed at our retreat. but are we okay with accepting the report and the suggestions? And if so, could I have a motion from a member of the council? |
| 02:38:56.68 | Melissa Blaustein | I move we adopt a resolution renaming the Community Safety Slash Disaster Preparedness Committee to the Disaster Preparedness Committee and reestablishing membership terms of office and purpose of the Disaster Preparedness Committee. Do I have a second? City Clerk. |
| 02:39:12.02 | Mayor Blaustein | Please call the roll. |
| 02:39:14.35 | Walfred Solorzano | Councilmember Cox. |
| 02:39:16.26 | Mayor Blaustein | Yes. |
| 02:39:17.61 | Walfred Solorzano | Councilmember Hoffman? Yes. Council member, you're coming. Yes. Vice Mayor Sobieski? Yes. And Mayor Blaustein. |
| 02:39:26.03 | Mayor Blaustein | Yes, motion passes five zero. So now we will move on to item five on our agenda, which is communications. This is the time on the agenda for members of the public to provide any public comment on items that are not on the agenda. If you would like to provide a public comment, please raise your hand in the Zoom application or submit a slip here in the council chambers. The city clerk will call on individuals who have raised their hand in the order they were raised. After you are called on, you will be unmuted. or ask to speak to share your comments. Remember, public comments are each allowed a total of three minutes to speak. And with that, I will now open it up for public comments. |
| 02:40:04.32 | Walfred Solorzano | At this time, oh, we have one person. We have Sandra Bushmaker. |
| 02:40:09.16 | Mayor Blaustein | Hi, Sandra. Hi. |
| 02:40:10.41 | Sandra Bushmaker | Hi. Hi there, everybody. Um, Whoops, just a minute. |
| 02:40:19.39 | Sandra Bushmaker | Hang on. All right. And there we go. I just wanted to make a comment about this undergrounding thing. It's definitely not on the agenda tonight, but it seems to me That neighborhood that is under, the ages of the area that needs to go from 4kV to 12kV. that update should be done. Now, I know there's been discussion about the... Uh-huh. You know, why dig up the road twice? And while that is a, eight years. Interesting discussion point. I think the service level is also very important. And these neighbors deserve that increased performance by PG&E. Let's face it, the whole undergrounding issue is going to take a lot of time and a lot of community involvement. And this could take years and years. And so I'd like to see that service improvement and the council moved forward with allowing that to happen. so that our citizens have that better improved service. Thank you. Thank you. |
| 02:41:29.69 | Mayor Blaustein | Thank you, Sandra. City Clerk, do we have any further public comments? |
| 02:41:35.56 | Walfred Solorzano | We do not have any further public comment. Mayor? |
| 02:41:38.77 | Vice Mayor Sobieski | I just wanted to respond to Sandra. |
| 02:41:38.87 | Walfred Solorzano | Just do it. |
| 02:41:42.13 | Vice Mayor Sobieski | Well, it's a clarifying comment to Tell me what the rules are. I thought clarifying public comment |
| 02:41:49.47 | Sergio Rudin | you |
| 02:41:49.48 | Vice Mayor Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 02:41:49.57 | Sergio Rudin | You can have a briefly respond to a comment from the public, but it can't devolve into a discussion of the policy decision. Right. |
| 02:41:58.09 | Vice Mayor Sobieski | Yeah. uh, Bye. My colleagues can correct me if I'm wrong, but I wanted to make sure since there's a public comment in the letter as well in this subject that it's understood that. PG&E, the city has a franchise agreement with PG&E and cannot stop or slow PG&E down from implementing their 4kV to 12kV upgrade. The city has to issue permits ministerially when PG&E applies for those permits. And they've told us that they operate on their own schedule and will implement that upgrade as to their own schedule. uh, Council Member Kellman can tell me if I got any of that wrong, but that was our understanding from our communications with PG&E, and I wanted to make sure that that was, just, uh, reiterated on the public record. |
| 02:42:46.03 | Mayor Blaustein | Thank you, Vice Mayor. |
| 02:42:47.42 | Walfred Solorzano | Mayor Blalstein, we do have one more comment. |
| 02:42:49.49 | Mayor Blaustein | Okay. |
| 02:42:50.03 | Walfred Solorzano | Hadzat. |
| 02:42:51.30 | Mayor Blaustein | Okay. Hi, Pat. |
| 02:42:52.11 | Unknown | Thank you. I am unmuted. Okay. This is a sort of a nitty silly comment, and it's a comment on the attachments to the agenda that we are now looking at. I have never ever in 30 years of looking at city council meetings, seeing public comment letters referred to as public comment one, public comment to or public comment three. um, I think I'm sure our city clerk will be doing a good job in the future and does a good job now. but I would like to suggest that we go back to the protocol of listing the, um, the writers of the letters when they are attached. to the agenda. Thank you. It's silly, Thank you. |
| 02:43:43.25 | Mayor Blaustein | Thank you. Thanks, Pat. No comment is silly, so we appreciate it. Is there any further public comments, City Clerk? |
| 02:43:50.24 | Walfred Solorzano | Bye. |
| 02:43:50.29 | Mayor Blaustein | Bye. |
| 02:43:50.36 | Walfred Solorzano | There is not. |
| 02:43:50.98 | Mayor Blaustein | Thank you. Okay, and then I will close public comment at this time, and I will move on to item six, which is council member committee reports. Do we have any committee reports from council members? It's the beginning of the year, so there have not yet been many Committee meetings. Okay. Seeing none, I will just give a quick committee report out. It's not so much a committee as an ad hoc, but I wanted to thank everyone who participated with myself and council member Kelman in the meeting that we had in preparation for the storm where we had chief tabs, Mr. McKinley, we had Chief Gregory and DPW, and I think everyone did a really fantastic job of getting us up to speed and making sure we were prepared for the storm. So, Before we move forward, do we have any public comment on council member committee reports? |
| 02:44:36.01 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 02:44:36.02 | Mayor Blaustein | do not. Okay i'll close proper comment at this time and move on to item seven, which is city manager reports city council appointments and other Council business, and I will start with taking public comment on item seven be through seven E so do we have any public comment on these items. |
| 02:44:55.60 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 02:44:55.61 | Mayor Blaustein | We do not. Okay, so I'll close public comment and I will move forward to item 7B, which is our city manager announcements. And we have an exciting announcement. |
| 02:45:06.11 | Chris Zapata | Thank you, members of the council, members of the public. I'm glad to introduce and welcome. A new public servant to Sausalito, our city clerk, Wilfred Solorzano. And when we Thank you. I want to detail a little bit of his work experience, which includes serving the cities of Half Moon Bay, East Palo Alto in the city of Dublin. He's also worked for the counties of Los Angeles and San Mateo. HE HAS A DIVERSE SKILL SET WHICH INCLUDES HELPING COMMUNITIES WITH public Wi-Fi. and wellness programs. In 2021, he was honored as the recipient of the City Clerks of California's President's Special Award of Distinction for his work in the community. I'd like Walford to say a few words if he wants to. |
| 02:45:57.40 | Walfred Solorzano | Well, I'm very happy to be here in the city of Sausalito. It's a very unique place and it's It's probably a, it's a very beautiful area. And I'm very fortunate to work for somebody like Mr. Zapata and I'm very fortunate to be working for this council. |
| 02:46:13.65 | Mayor Blaustein | Thank you so much, Welford. We are very lucky to have you and really thrilled to welcome you. So welcome to Sausalito and look forward to many years, hopefully, of working together. And are there no further announcements, city manager? No. |
| 02:46:26.72 | Chris Zapata | If I may, Mayor Blaustein, I'd like to conclude my report. With the fact that we are trying to post an agenda for special meeting on Thursday with the planning commission and city council. So that should be going out shortly if it hadn't already gone out. |
| 02:46:44.46 | Mayor Blaustein | Okay, and now item 7C, which is appointments to boards, commissions and committees. appointments, except that I've emailed the list of mayoral appointments to the city clerk and city manager. So that should be going out shortly. Um, item 70 future agenda items. I know we heard quite a bit this evening. Does anyone want to add to that list? Yes. |
| 02:47:09.35 | Jill Hoffman | I'd like to add to closed session at January 12th, city attorney review. And at some point we visit the landslide task force. I don't know if that's, That's something that we talked about, a presentation and perhaps in conjunction with something else, as I suggested, um, Maybe when we do have a capital improvement project list or something. Um, And I know people are interested in what's going on with undergrounding and what the status is on that. And so I would just request that we put that some, you know, an upcoming, And I mean, in the future, I know We didn't receive public comment about the question. I think Council Member Sobieski gave a clarification, perhaps I don't know if we need an additional special report or something at the beginning of our next meeting to that specific question. So that, you know, without diagnosis into the entire underground, but we did have a question on that. And I think it'd be nice if we could, um, respond to that in a substantive way. Yeah. And those are on my list. |
| 02:48:19.90 | Melissa Blaustein | Councilmember Cox. I would like to, uh, recommend that we have a report from the Sausalito Marin City School Board. So that they usually come report to us at least once a year, and it's been a minute and there's a lot going on. So I'd like to recommend that we add that as an agenda item. I would also like to add as a possible future agenda item, |
| 02:48:39.43 | Sergio Rudin | As an agenda. |
| 02:48:46.48 | Melissa Blaustein | the potential collaboration between Sausalito and Mill Valley on creation of a joint emergency operations center, which is a proposal that's been put together by our police department And I believe it's making its way through staff, but I would just like to. identify that as a possible future agenda item. |
| 02:49:06.29 | Mayor Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 02:49:06.33 | Janelle Kellman | Great and Councilmember Kellen, your hand is raised. Yes, thank you, Mayor. I'd like to just add a little more flavor to the Landslide Task Force request. I think it would be really helpful the Emergency Disaster Council and Department of Public Works were able to take both the Landslide Task Force report and the Sea Level Rise Task Force report and view them in the context of capital improvement projects along with emergency preparedness so that we're not looking at things in silos, but we're considering them in terms of how do we prioritize our major infrastructure needs. I've talked to Director McGowan about this. As you know, there's numerous hotspots that he's keeping an eye on. Those are flooding. Those are subject to inundation from high tide, sea level rise related incidents, as well as those that are getting inundated with mud and other debris. And so I think it'd be really helpful for us to see the holistic panel of how we. SEA LEVEL RISE RELATED INCIDENTS AS WELL AS THOSE THAT ARE GETTING INNOVATED WITH MUD AND OTHER DEBRIS. AND SO I THINK IT WOULD BE REALLY HELPFUL FOR US TO SEE THE HOLISTIC PANEL OF HOW WE MIGHT APPROACH THIS. SO I WANT TO ADD THAT THE MAYBE THE SEA LEVEL RISE TASK FORCE COMES, THE REPORT COMES BACK AND IS PACKAGE WITH THE LANDSIDE TASK FORCE SO THAT WE CAN ADDRESS THEM TOGETHER IN TERMS OF HAZARDS. |
| 02:50:10.84 | Jill Hoffman | I agree. Yeah. I read an amendment to my request. to add because they are complimentary. I absolutely do that. They do actually both have to do water. Thank you. |
| 02:50:24.07 | Mayor Blaustein | Thanks, ma'am. Nothing to add. Okay. I would really like to hear from age-friendly Sausalito. We have not heard from them in quite some time, and I'd like to get that on the agenda. And as I mentioned, an interest in smart cities, I'd really like to consider an RFP to look at that. And then I second or third the idea, obviously, of course, of including the landslide and the Sea Level Rise Task Force going forward. So, And then let's see. Other reports with that, I'll move on to item 7E, which is other reports of significance. Do we have anything to share? Seeing none. All right. So I'm going to mention, and before we adjourn, our next regularly scheduled meeting is on January 24th, 2023. And at this time, I would like to adjourn the meeting commemorating Martin Luther King Jr. Day, which will be observed this Monday, January 16th, 2023. Dr. King dedicated his life so that African-Americans, people of color, and other minorities might secure civil liberties, human rights, and realize that that dream has yet to be fulfilled. And I generally spend my MLK day reading a letter from Birmingham jail, which I would recommend to all of you as a way to potentially reflect next week. So with that, it is now 9 18 p.m. and we are adjourned. Thank you, everyone. |