| Time | Speaker | Text |
|---|---|---|
| 00:00:02.83 | Council Member Kelman | Apologies for the slew of emails about the Bank of America. |
| 00:00:05.50 | Walfred Solorzano | Every time I see Sergio, I think about the song Jane says. I'm sorry. |
| 00:00:10.00 | Council Member Kelman | I'm sure he loves that. |
| 00:00:12.16 | Sergio Rudin | Yeah. |
| 00:00:12.43 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. you |
| 00:00:12.62 | Sergio Rudin | It's it's not the worst thing. I'm sure there's worse things you can think of. So Thank you. |
| 00:00:17.93 | Jill Hoffman | That's right. |
| 00:00:19.32 | Chris Zapata | Thank you. Council member Hoffman's not gonna make the closed session. |
| 00:00:22.12 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, no problem. Good evening, I am calling to order this regular city council meeting. on February 7th at 5 30 PM. City Clerk, would you please call the roll? |
| 00:00:32.47 | Walfred Solorzano | Councilmember Cox. |
| 00:00:33.98 | Jill Hoffman | present. |
| 00:00:35.23 | Walfred Solorzano | Councilmember Hoffman. She is not present yet. Council member are coming. |
| 00:00:41.66 | Council Member Cox | Thank you. |
| 00:00:41.68 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:00:42.69 | Walfred Solorzano | Vice Mayor Sobieski. |
| 00:00:44.40 | Unknown | Sure. |
| 00:00:45.32 | Walfred Solorzano | And Mayor Blastien. |
| 00:00:46.88 | Jill Hoffman | present. Okay. We will now... Pardon me, I'm trying to find my script for the meeting. Um, Okay, so we will now begin the first item on the agenda, which is closed session this evening closed session discussions include item B one conference with legal counsel existing litigation. at the city of Sausalito. And item B2, Conference of Legal Counsel, Anticipated litigation, government code 54959. point six nine. And do we have any, I will now open up public comment on the closed session agenda items. |
| 00:01:19.87 | Walfred Solorzano | Okay, and video or audio public comment participation is limited to three minutes. If you'd like to make a comment, please use the raise hand function in your Zoom application, or if you're on the phone, press star nine. We do not have any people in attendance in City Hall right now, and City Hall is open to the public, and I see no comments. Yeah, nobody's making any public comments. |
| 00:01:42.46 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, I will now close public comment and we will adjourn to closed session. We will return to open session at 7 p.m. |
| 00:01:50.12 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:01:54.29 | Unknown | of children. |
| 00:01:55.19 | Unknown | Yes. |
| 00:01:57.68 | Unknown | Bye. |
| 00:01:58.09 | Unknown | Recording in progress. Do we have Councilmember Huffman? |
| 00:02:05.09 | Unknown | Let's wait, man. Yes. |
| 00:02:11.44 | Unknown | Recording stopped. |
| 00:02:12.97 | Unknown | Thank you. No problem, no. in the classroom. I'm going to get across the end of it. to really find that this one. of the organization. It is a big relief, is our name. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. . Right. Thank you. |
| 00:02:50.25 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:02:52.80 | Unknown | And we had very much. |
| 00:03:02.96 | Walfred Solorzano | I'm not sure, yeah. UC Hoffman? |
| 00:03:05.81 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:03:06.77 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 00:03:08.66 | Unknown | if you want to sense. Thank you. |
| 00:03:15.68 | Unknown | says. Thank you. |
| 00:03:18.36 | Unknown | Recording in progress. |
| 00:03:18.43 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:03:23.75 | Unknown | I said that Thanks, John. levels. Well, I'm just... |
| 00:03:35.61 | Unknown | you |
| 00:03:35.66 | Unknown | Thank you. We'll start. yeah of the most of the state of the center of the unit. of segments. . . |
| 00:04:04.69 | Walfred Solorzano | Good evening, council. |
| 00:04:04.72 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:04:06.39 | Walfred Solorzano | Um, This me this meeting has been held pursuant to government code section 54953 E and in light of the declared state of emergency the regular. meeting of the city council for February 7 will be held and will be held telephonically through zoom and broadcast live on the city's website and on channel TV channel 27. And in addition, council chambers is open to the public and we do have people present. For those that want to make comments over Zoom, you can use the raise hand function. And if you are on the telephone, you can press the star nine. If you are in attendance, there are speaker sheets over by the table, by the TV. You can fill out those speaker sheets, hand them over to the clerk, and we will take them and then call you on the order in which we receive them. Thank you. |
| 00:05:04.17 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you very much, city clerk. I am now going to return us to open session. We have no announcements from the closed session meeting. So at this time, I'm going to open the regular city council meeting at 7.04 p.m. And I would like a motion to approve the agenda. |
| 00:05:23.17 | Council Member Cox | So moved. |
| 00:05:24.72 | Jill Hoffman | Is there- saying it City Clerk, could you please call the roll? |
| 00:05:30.65 | Walfred Solorzano | Councilmember Cox. Yes. Councilmember Hoffman. Thank you. Theo hasn't arrived. Council member coming. |
| 00:05:38.14 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 00:05:39.19 | Walfred Solorzano | Yes. |
| 00:05:39.20 | Jill Hoffman | Yes. |
| 00:05:40.47 | Walfred Solorzano | Yes. And Mayor Blasden. |
| 00:05:42.69 | Jill Hoffman | Yes. Okay, with that, we'll move on to the next agenda item. We have two special presentations this evening and two groups of guests here in the council chambers. So our first presentation this evening, we're gonna be hearing from the communications consultants from PG&E, so please go ahead. |
| 00:06:01.22 | John Leyba | Hi there. Can you hear me? |
| 00:06:03.50 | Jill Hoffman | Yes, we can hear you. |
| 00:06:03.96 | John Leyba | Okay. My name is John Leyba. I'm the Acting Regional Senior Manager for Pacific Gas and Electric Company for North Bay and Sonoma Divisions. With me today is Tracy Craig, our communications consultant with Craig Communications. And we're here to talk a little bit today about our 4KV to 12KV upgrade. We want to thank the city clerk and staff and the city manager and council and mayor for having us here today. All right. |
| 00:06:31.35 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, Maria, next slide. |
| 00:06:34.70 | John Leyba | Thank you. So just quick overview of our team. I'm John Leyba. Online, I believe we have Mark Van Gorder. Steve Jackson's unable to join us this evening, but he is our project manager. And then on Tracy's team, we have Tracy and Sarah Craig and Greg Townsend. We also have additional staff that are supporting supporting this implementation in our local customer experience team, as well as our division operations specialists. So let's go ahead to the next slide, please. |
| 00:07:07.29 | John Leyba | All right. Just as an overview of the project, we're doing this project in five phases. Our original start date was February 21st. 2022, but it was delayed until this year to accommodate some of the conversations that we had previously. The current system is near the end of its life. This implementation will take your about a third of the city that's not yet in that state from a four kilovolt to a 12 kilovolt system. We believe this will improve reliability during storms. This actually avoids failure of the current system and it will increase capacity of the system were implemented through the city. We're working in phases to limit impacts. There will be replacements or upgrades to approximately 200 poles. There'll be safety work throughout the city. There will be some will be taking away some temporary poles that are by the substation as well. Let's go ahead and move to the next slide, please. |
| 00:08:01.64 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:08:02.03 | John Leyba | Yeah, you could go ahead. And Tracy now is going to go over our outreach plans. |
| 00:08:02.06 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 00:08:06.77 | Tracy | So first of all, I do want to say that Walford and Maria were very, very helpful. And I always like to acknowledge staff when they do a great job and they did a really great job for us today. So thank you so much, Sausalito. And thank you both of you for doing that. Um, As John was saying, a lot of this work is going to be conducted in five areas. And so we're going to be doing work in neighborhoods. And in recognition of that, we have a very robust outreach plan. We plan to start that outreach in about a month and a half, probably in mid-March. We'll have a website up. The work itself won't be starting till late this year, early next year. And that will give us lots of time to make people... knowledgeable about this work, how it might impact them. And then, of course, work with individual homeowners. to the extent we can. within the parameters of the project. So first of all, we'll have a website up by March. I will send that to the city manager with a to put in the city manager's newsletter. or the Sausalito newsletter. And we'll have a QR code in there and that will provide basic information. And one of the things that will be in there is that people can type in their address and they can find out if they're in an impacted area and then they'll be able to call us and work directly. And then we'll follow that up with webinars to let people know what's going on and how we'll be rolling out this project. That will be followed up with 30 and 90 day letters. So we'll send a letter to people. And remember, this is in phases, so it's manageable. So we'll be sending letters out to folks. And then they can call us and we'll work individually with people. And then when the work is actually going on, which is probably when people really start noticing things, right, because then the street might be closed. or something like that. We will have a person on site that can troubleshoot in real time to make sure that people have access to their homes. can get in and out, can get their packages and can respond in case of an emergency. And then we will also have somebody available 24-7. And then we'll be putting together a report for the city of Sausalito also to look at the documents, all the outreach that we've done. That's our plan right now. As I said, we will, I think if you can move to the next slide, we have a schedule, Maria. Oh, we're done. That was so fast. That's good. There you go. So we'll be getting the website up in March. And then we have this, we're doing our work in Marin City first. So we'll be having our first webinar in Marin City, but we'll let you folks know. And then we'll also let key stakeholders that have contacted us know. about that because it will be similar to what we'll be doing in Sausalito. And then we'll have actual webinars specific to the city of Sausalito. in about July and probably early fall. and then be sending those letters out. We'll be getting, beginning construction probably late December, depending on weather or early January. Questions on that? Please. By all means. I love a question. Great. Council Member Cox. |
| 00:10:59.98 | Council Member Cox | Thank you. Thank you. The last poll that I'm aware of went up right in front of a former mayor's house to the chagrin of his sister who had the house up for sale at the time. Will residents have any feedback as to poll placement? you |
| 00:11:20.41 | Tracy | So first of all, I'd like to apologize for that. It wasn't me, but I would like to say I'm sorry because I recognize that the information is the best way to be armed, right? Which is why we're giving ourselves plenty of time And as far as moving polls, my understanding, and John can correct me if I'm wrong, there's limited movement, right? Because it's all connected. And so you can't, we won't be able to move a poll Um, all the way down the street, but maybe a foot or two, depending on view impact. So we will work with people. And that's why we want to get out in front of that early, because we feel like there'll be a lot of hands-on with individual residents working on what can we do to preserve some of those view lines if they're impacted or improve ones for people above. |
| 00:12:03.31 | Council Member Cox | Thank you. So is it fair to say it's an organizing principle to avoid adverse view impacts where possible and also adverse safety impacts where possible, where, for example, a residence has you know, healthy and full foliage surrounding it. I would imagine you don't want to put a pole in between two huge branching trees. |
| 00:12:30.02 | Tracy | I'm gonna let you, I'm gonna say safety is gonna be first. |
| 00:12:30.95 | Council Member Cox | Thank you. |
| 00:12:30.97 | John Leyba | So- So I- Yeah, so safety is always first. My understanding of the project is that for the most part, most locations will be reused. That's pretty common and pole replacements. We're looking to do do the system basically in its existing footprint. There may be slight adjustments given spans of the lines, the weight of the conductor. There's actually like slack and what they call sag requirements that'll be part of that. I know I'll head off a question because I know this is always on everyone's mind. We know that some poles will be slightly taller, possibly five feet. That is not all 200 poles. I want to be very clear about that. We anticipate it to be a fraction of the poles where that will be. There'll be an instance we always take into account, you know, vegetation and so forth. And we would we would, of course, work with a property owner so that they know you know, anything that needs to be done, there'll be opportunity to give feedback so we can adjust as well. |
| 00:13:34.57 | Unknown | Thank you. Thank you. For example,. Thank you. |
| 00:13:46.96 | Tracy | Yes. Yes, I'm on record saying that and it's my name. So yes, they will be because I know that that's going to be the biggest, probably the biggest area. |
| 00:13:56.79 | Jill Hoffman | So, Thank you. Thank you, Councilman Cox. Vice Mayor Sobieski has his hand raised as well. |
| 00:14:02.68 | Vice Mayor Sobieski | And just in case I'll ask my question, but we didn't hear actually what Councilmember Cox said there because in her second question. So if I'm repeating it, I apologize. But my notes say that there are 19 new polls. and 49 poles will be have new equipment placed on them that's different from the current pole. And that some polls will go from king polls to, TRIPOL is not sure exactly what that means. I guess the summary of my question is just when can residents actually get the specific information about whether the poles near their homes are going to be new or different in their appearance. Where in your timeline will that information be available to specific homeowners? My understanding is the design's already completed. when can they actually see it? |
| 00:14:52.75 | Tracy | Council members, I'll be asking you just phased out a little bit on that last statement before when will they actually see it, I just want to make sure I have the entire comment. |
| 00:15:02.00 | Vice Mayor Sobieski | My notes suggested a number of new polls and that many polls 49 would change in their appearance The transformers might be hung from them. That pole on 4th Street isn't just a pole. It's an entire recloser assembly that's new on the top. So it looks very different than a typical... support poll. The bottom line question is when will residents be able to get information about the specific changes if any to the look and feel of electrical utilities near their homes. |
| 00:15:36.17 | Tracy | You want to take this or you want me to? |
| 00:15:37.25 | John Leyba | Thank you. |
| 00:15:37.27 | Vice Mayor Sobieski | You know? |
| 00:15:37.54 | John Leyba | I'm not sure. |
| 00:15:37.62 | Vice Mayor Sobieski | I'm going to be |
| 00:15:37.79 | John Leyba | Thank you. |
| 00:15:37.93 | Vice Mayor Sobieski | you |
| 00:15:37.96 | John Leyba | Go ahead, if you know what. |
| 00:15:39.26 | Tracy | Well, I this is this is going to be my best answer. And part of this is I think this is going to be an iterative process coming back to address the council. This is being done in phases. As soon as the first phase is figured out which one. and how that's going to be sequenced, then that information will go up on the web and we'll be able to work with homeowners individually. It is my... Fervent desire, and I... my plan with the outreach to make sure that people aren't, to your point, getting notified when the crew is out in front of them. I'd like to give them plenty of time to make sure that they understand this, that we have time to talk with them. We're willing to meet with people individually. We're willing to go to their homes, So as soon as the first phase is decided on, and there's five, remember, and we'll be doing it in phases. We'll get that information up. And I will make a commitment to you, Council Member Sobieski, that I will let you know when that information is up, as well as the larger council. |
| 00:16:35.81 | Vice Mayor Sobieski | Well, thanks for that. The follow-up question, though, is that I understand the design is already finished for all the phases. So I certainly appreciate... that the construction will be done in phases. But since the design is completed, is there any reason why Just for more transparency, the details of my question, which is the the effect on Mayor Mrakas, Mrakas, Mrakas, The details of the design couldn't be made available to everyone who's in the affected district. |
| 00:17:01.46 | Tracy | So I can check on that, although I do know that we're applying for permits and I'm no engineer, but I think some things might change. And so I'd like to make sure that that information that goes up is accurate. But I will take a note and check on where we are with the design phase and get it sounds like you really want to get that exact date and sooner is better than later, of course. So I will check on that and I'll close the loop. And I think I'll do that through the city manager to share with The mayor, the vice mayor and council. Okay, I will get that done this week. |
| 00:17:33.00 | Vice Mayor Sobieski | Yeah, my notes here on the subject are that the design is finished. Remember we were asking about whether exactly what was asked by Council Member Cox, whether the design could be changed in response to feedback from individual homeowners and we're told by PG&E that the, the design is more or less fixed, which implies that it's finished. And so if we're wrong about that, that's great information to have out there. But if that is the case, then I don't see why we couldn't release the design as soon as possible so that everyone sees the impacts on their homes from new poles and changes to the height. and equipment that's going to be hung from those poles. |
| 00:18:13.45 | Tracy | And I think the one thing I'd like to say is, whereas I absolutely agree that early outreach is better, I want to make sure that, everything we have is accurate. Um, And so I just want enough time to make sure to double check. One is the design done. Two, will it change with permitting requirements? And three, when can we get it up and have it as accurate as possible so we're not making changes and confusing people? |
| 00:18:40.55 | Tracy | Other questions? I think we have another slide actually. Oh, great. |
| 00:18:43.94 | Debra (Human Resources Consultant) | Oh. |
| 00:18:44.83 | Tracy | But please, Mayor. No, no, go ahead. No, I just think we had, we had this project was a bit, we, there was some time here where the city was really trying to pursue undergrounding because they felt that, and council member, so we escape is on the undergrounding team. and may well still be. And so I just wanted to say that we met and discussed this And the city of Sausalito had put together a survey for residents to decide if they were interested in undergrounding. And that survey results, I believe that Kevin McGowan, your director of public works, will be tallying those. And then the city will be introducing like-minded constituents that might want to do undergrounding in the same area together. But any kind of undergrounding effort, would be, community initiative. I think that's where we landed and just wanted to make sure that any residents that are watching. And at the same time that that's going forward, PG&E will be going forward, of course, with this critical infrastructure upgrade. |
| 00:19:44.84 | Jill Hoffman | So to clarify what that means from a fiscal standpoint, PG&E will not be funding any of our undergrounding efforts in Sausalito. |
| 00:19:53.14 | Tracy | That is right. They're funding the above ground and Correct. Thank you. |
| 00:19:58.76 | John Leyba | I kind of want to clarify one thing. So there are some portions of this where there will be parts of the project that are utilizing trenches and existing conduits on the circuit. So it's not 100% overhead, but we would not be pursuing an underground option for this. |
| 00:20:14.80 | Jill Hoffman | So PG&E is not... not. at this stage willing to fund the undergrounding effort in Sausalito. |
| 00:20:21.48 | John Leyba | Thank you. |
| 00:20:21.49 | Unknown | Right. |
| 00:20:21.63 | Jill Hoffman | Just to clarify. Okay. And so that's why it would be a resident-led initiative should residents want to take on the undergrounding. I just wanted to clarify that because there was a lot questions about. And so, and again, just to clarify for residents, that means that The construction that will begin, because there will be a substantial amount of PG&E construction going forward, is not for undergrounding, but it is for upgrading the electrical facilities here. And I'm sure. |
| 00:20:44.56 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:20:44.75 | Jill Hoffman | Okay. |
| 00:20:45.47 | Tracy | Thank you for the clarification. |
| 00:20:46.55 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah, thank you for making that point. |
| 00:20:46.64 | Tracy | Thank you. Okay. I think I actually, I would like to go to the next slide and then we'll take any other questions. But I think I always end all my presentations like this. There's my name. There's my cell phone number. I answer my cell phone as people in Sausalito can attest to. If I don't, I'll get back to you right away. And you are welcome to call me if you have any questions about any of this, your property, timing, anything. Please use me as a resource. I'm happy to. I wouldn't put my name and number out there if I didn't mean it. So please feel free to call me. I extend that to the council, to city staff, and also, of course, to any Sausalito resident. |
| 00:21:23.04 | Jill Hoffman | Great, thank you so much. And I can see that Councilmember Kelman has her hand raised with a question. Thank you. |
| 00:21:27.34 | Council Member Kelman | Sure, thank you, Mayor. Hi, Tracy, nice to see you. I wanted to follow up with the Vice Mayor's line of questioning around preparation of the plans. You had mentioned earlier that some of the Polls may end up being higher than others. So when we get the plans, and I do want to press you on the time frame for that a little bit, would it be possible that they include kind of an indication of where a poll is being replaced, where one is being added to, and maybe where one is, if it is being replaced, if it is higher or how it impacts sort of the existing status. What can we expect in terms of the level of granularity in terms of each individual poll, both for placement and height and any differentials from the status quo. |
| 00:22:15.33 | John Leyba | can Take a stab at that. Yeah. So I guess the only concern, you know, we'll look into timing and when it can be released and so forth. When the design is done, that's a design from like an actual engineering drawing for the crews. That's not something that necessarily a layperson would have. So we'll look into whether usually the design. Demolition can be on there. So if there's something being replaced or removed, there might be a layer there, but we would need to interpret that and then make sure we come up with a visual that shows people what's going where, what's coming out, and that that's something that's easy to read and digest. But we can certainly prepare a document of that sort or do that in phases as the project rolls on. |
| 00:22:55.83 | Tracy | I just I want to say that I actually think that's a great idea and would like to try to make that happen. I understand the wanting to see in your area, the snapshot of everything that's going to happen to digest it and then be able to kind of drill down to your own, |
| 00:23:09.10 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:23:09.16 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 00:23:09.18 | Unknown | Bye. |
| 00:23:12.51 | Tracy | So we will see if I can do that and working with PGNE's and I will report back to city manager on that one too. So I have two action items. |
| 00:23:22.97 | Council Member Kelman | Well, sorry, Tracy, I'm gonna give you a third, but it may be related, which is how, |
| 00:23:23.34 | Tracy | I'm gonna give you a hug. |
| 00:23:27.41 | Council Member Kelman | What is the game plan in terms of outreach? Is it going to be by neighborhood? Is it going to be by number of polls? What can our residents expect? And is it possible in your outreach to be specific? You know, hey, this is being sent out to 30 homes. We're putting, you know, 50 new polls in your area. What kind of communication versus there's a PG&E project in your neighborhood, here's the timing. |
| 00:23:56.89 | Tracy | Yeah, so we're going to do the 30 and 60 day letters. And I think we can exactly put that kind of granular information in there that says, and we will be doing it by phases, right? Because we won't, we'll do one phase and then move to the next phase so we can. break it down by phases. say this is the number of polls, These are the ones that will be replaced. These are the ones that will be upgraded and be this much higher and give people a snapshot And then from there, they can look at the map online. and go into their specific property. So I don't think that's a problem at all and it makes perfect sense. |
| 00:24:28.90 | Council Member Kelman | Okay, so one more related question, so sorry. I love my PGNV vegetation management group. I'm assuming some trees are going to get cut or cut down. What is PGNV's process for that? I'm sure you know we have protected trees in Sausalito, as many communities do. Can you give us some insight about what type of outreach you will extend to the city and to the neighbors before you do tree trimming and or removal, as well as takeaway of any debris? |
| 00:24:31.60 | Tracy | I love it. |
| 00:24:58.31 | Tracy | Thank you. |
| 00:24:58.33 | Council Member Kelman | Thank you. |
| 00:25:00.45 | Tracy | I can tell you, so I, um, Can tell you what I've done on other projects when we have tree removals and it's kind of a best management practice and I'm assuming we're going to be doing that here. So if we identify a tree, we work with the city, first of all, to figure if it's a heritage tree or what, because there's different requirements, right? But trees are very important to people. And so if there's a tree that has to go down, we'll notify the city. We'll notify the neighborhood that it's in and let them know why. will be on site when it is actually happening. And to the extent we can, given safety and the lines themselves. we'll salvage what trees we can, but if we have to take them down, We'll make sure that people know beforehand, we'll be on site. And then I don't know what PG&E's policy is for restoration. That's the one thing I've worked on other projects where We've planted other things, but I don't know if that's in this budget, so I can't make that promise. |
| 00:25:52.04 | John Leyba | In general, we don't do restoration, meaning planting replacement trees like you might if you were putting an addition on a house, you might be required to plant replacements in another part of your parcel or on another. |
| 00:25:59.01 | Council Member Kelman | to do. |
| 00:26:03.58 | Council Member Kelman | Yeah, you are under our building code and zoning code. You are required if it's, I believe, a heritage tree. |
| 00:26:10.67 | Tracy | Well, absolutely, I think it is. So point taken, though, that with vegetation, it's very important. Trees are hugely important to people, not just for climate change and PG&E. |
| 00:26:19.75 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 00:26:19.97 | Unknown | climate change. |
| 00:26:21.94 | Tracy | Point taken that we'll have to be very careful and cautious with those and let people know beforehand. And so all of this really makes me feel much better that we have a little bit of time to get this right. |
| 00:26:26.97 | Unknown | and, you know, |
| 00:26:27.02 | Unknown | Thank you, Tracy. |
| 00:26:27.66 | Unknown | I'm sorry. |
| 00:26:32.53 | Tracy | I appreciate any help and direction I can get from residents and from city council to improve what we're doing. which is why you have my number up there. |
| 00:26:43.63 | Jill Hoffman | I just want to acknowledge that Councilmember Hoffman has joined, so I wanted to give you an opportunity to weigh in. We just had a special presentation from PG&E, and I know you've been following that. the conversations with PG&E closely in case you had any specific questions you wanted to ask before we move on. |
| 00:26:55.93 | Council Member Hoffman | No, thanks. I heard most of it. And thank you for coming and appreciate the phone number, especially. |
| 00:27:01.92 | Tracy | Well, I hope you use it and give me some good tips here. |
| 00:27:05.41 | Council Member Hoffman | you |
| 00:27:05.46 | Jill Hoffman | These meetings are recorded, so at any time we could all look up your cell phone number, just letting you know. We intend to use it. Luckily, we have a very engaged community, so I'm glad to know you. |
| 00:27:09.75 | Tracy | or- |
| 00:27:14.81 | Jill Hoffman | answer your cell phone. And I very much appreciate you being here tonight. And the steps you've outlined here, we're hoping to work with you in the ongoing communications efforts as we move forward in this work. So thank you very much for joining us this evening. Are there any other questions from council members before we Thank our first special presentation for the evening. Okay, seeing none, thank you so much for being here. |
| 00:27:35.21 | Tracy | I would like to just say I really appreciate the thoughtful questions and direction, and we'll act on that. |
| 00:27:41.95 | Jill Hoffman | Great. Thank you so much. Thank you for being here. Really appreciate it. And then we are very lucky to have two special presentations this evening. So we are now going to hear from our Sausalito Marin City School District, from our superintendent, Dr. Itoko Garcia, who is with us this evening. Thank you for being here, Itoko. Nice to see you. |
| 00:27:58.13 | Dr. Itoko Garcia | Good evening. Thank you for giving up some space, Mayor Blaustein and members of the council. I am going to talk fast as I've got a couple of things that I hope you find exciting. I'm going to give you an update on our facilities and capital projects, Measure P, and then some of the work that we're doing around climate justice. And so certainly pause me at any time if you need to. But we're really excited about the progress we've been making with Measure P. We just recently got an upgraded rating from Standard & Poor's. So we're AA plus with a stable outlook. So we had our negative outlook removed. We are looking to go into the bond market actually in the next week or two. And so a lot of the figures that you see before you in this presentation are related to first the measure A issuance and, or sorry, series A issuance, as well as the series B issuance that's coming up. If you could advance the slide, please. And so there's a couple animations there. Hopefully they'll work as you click. This is the proposed design for the new Sausalito campus on Nevada Street you'll see it's a modern campus it's a secure campus we're very excited about where we are the schematic design has been approved by the board and we're just going through some preliminary meetings with the Department of State Architecture and the California Department of Education to make sure that they are in line with our plans. But the final product should look very close to what you see here. And let's see if the animations on this slide work. There's a couple different views that I'd like to show the city council and the community. If they are working, you'll see exactly what I'm talking about. And if not, I'll just talk through it. But essentially, we have a four-tiered campus. Everything will go, the first tier is that parking lot. Everything that you see there with stairs and ramps denotes an elevation change. You have a building here that is going to have a very secure perimeter. During school hours, you'll need to access the campus through the front of the school building. And after school hours, there'll be ample entrances and ways that the community can use the campus as an asset. The big, largest building that you see there at the front will be a community space. There will also be a community gathering space at the building up on the back of the, yeah, right there. And if not, can you play the animations on this slide deck that I sent per chance? Or is it just fixed the way that you have it? Maybe give it one. Yeah, okay. All right. So next slide, please. So we are right in line. If you'd advance the slide, just one, two slides. There you go. We're right in line with the costs on this project and the timelines. This campus should be open for the 24-25 school year. And the field in Marin City should be open next fall, provided that we remain on our timelines. Essentially, we had a $41 million bond issuance, or all told, $40.6 million in bonds. And we've got several other revenue sources And a few other projects we're hoping to push forward. But right now, everything you see down here are TBD for funds that we have yet to secure or development partner. You could advance the slide. Thank you. And so you can see there of the remaining bonds, we have about $37.3 million in available funds. And we're in line for a minimum of 4.5 and a maximum of $7.4 million in state hardship grants. And that's how we're going to make up the funding gap in this project. Along with a few other things that we're going to apply for, we should know for sure the final dollar amount of the hardship grant by April. So we're going to apply for. We should know for sure the final dollar amount of the hardship grant by April. So we're very excited by that. And we're confident that actually if you advance the slide, we're going to end up actually with a variance of about almost a million dollars extra. So we'll be looking if that all goes according to plan to perhaps invest in some other infrastructure or some upgrades, particularly around solar, solar charging. And so we do think the hardship grant will cover that shortfall variance and along with some of the other funds there, as well as the well over a million dollars we have in our fund 40, our fire insurance fund, that we're gonna have some extra money in this bond when it's all said and done. And again, we just want to make sure everybody in the community knows when we delay projects, we've seen some serious materials escalation over the past two years. It's about 7%. And one of the reasons that we have been on such a tight timeline is to try to avoid that materials escalation. So essentially, for the New Sausalito campus, a one-year delay will cost about $2.3 million, two-year delay about $4.8 million. And you can see there that that could jeopardize the variance. And so one of the reasons we're really trying to do this is that we're going to be able to do this. A one-year delay will cost about $2.3 million, two-year delay about $4.8 million. And you can see there that that could jeopardize the variance. And so one of the reasons we're really trying to stay on track with these projects, and I'm proud to say currently we are. |
| 00:33:31.46 | Dr. Itoko Garcia | And so just kind of a quick update. The board did approve the schematic design in December. They're about 50% complete with design development. The project will be submitted to DSA in three increments. And we have a lease lease back is how the building mechanism will be. Those RFPs are going out next week. And then we should award that lease lease back and select a general contractor in April. |
| 00:34:00.72 | Dr. Itoko Garcia | Again, Phillips Field Reservation, that schematic design was approved, no, sorry, September the 15th. It is in DSA review. We do expect an approval here soon. And that same lease back will cover both the construction of the field and the school We expect that award in April. anticipated construction in June. We should have a playable ball field Uh. in the fall, November or December. And obviously we hope that's a big community asset for everybody. Way back when, when I became the superintendent and Joe Burns was the mayor, we talked about an unbroken chain of recreation from Dunphy Park through the old MLK site to the field. And we're really excited that we're getting close to manifesting that vision. We think the health and wellbeing of the community will be positively impacted Next slide, please. All right, so the next exciting thing I have to tell you about is some climate justice work that I'm doing here with my colleague, Wilford Welch. Many of you may know him from the Sea Level Rise Commission. I'm sure he probably doesn't need much of an introduction, but not only is he a longtime Sausalito resident, but he is a veteran in the United States diplomatic arena. And he has written a book called In Our Hands about climate justice. And the reason that Wilford and I are a partner together, and I want to be very clear, this is unpaid, but we believe really strongly that we have to educate the next generation of kids around climate justice. We won't share all the climate science that we usually go into with this conversation because I think the city council is is well versed in what's coming in the next 50 years. But we believe one of the most important things we can do is arm our teachers and our students with the skills, the tools and the knowledge to help combat Matt Bolian, M.D.: Climate change and so Wilford's developed an amazing course we have actually stipended our teachers to take it we've trained half of them already. Matt Bolian, M.D.: we're working to get the other half trained this year, as well as our after school program teachers and i'll let will tell you a little bit about the course. |
| 00:36:08.87 | Wilford Welch | Thanks, Dr. Goff. So about three years ago, I approached the Presidio Graduate School. And I said, you're doing a great job on sustainability and you're doing a poor job on climate change. You really, since this is coming at us like a freight train, And it is important that our students, Have. the knowledge of what is happening and the science and the accurate science and a world filled with inaccurate information. that they have the tools to be part of the solution. and the agency that that gives them And thirdly, that they be given hope. because many of you who have children know that they are fearful for the future and they have reason to be fearful. But we want to make sure that they have the skills to do that. Next, please. So over these years, we've created three courses The first is a six week climate essentials course. The second, as you could see, is extreme weather. And the third is the one that Datoka was talking about, about climate justice. Next slide, please. So very briefly on this one, the first one is the climate essentials. As I said, it was six weeks. And we go into a little more detail. We'll have a little more time there to go into issues such as when a student, a teacher comes into you as a teacher and says, I don't believe in this stuff, why are you teaching it? that they have the skills they have been been given the skills to deal with that kind of a situation. Okay. A lot of the teachers today are fearful of teaching climate change because they don't feel that they have the knowledge to do so. Okay, they're fearful of that. that that parent that comes in. Okay, and so what is necessary is that we give them all the skills that they need to have the confidence and the tools Um, to do that. As you know, my book is the lead text, but we have a huge amount of resources that are available. I was teaching at four o'clock this afternoon from four to five and I just love it. I feel real honor that I have the opportunity to do it. Flip over to the next course. I'm not really going into the details because you could see what's up there. Uh, So the climate justice, which is the one When I approached Tokyo, and we got together two years ago And I said, how about you all taking the climate essentials course? And he said no. He said, what I want is I want to teach them climate justice. And I said, okay, we'll create a climate justice course for you. And we spent about $17,500 and created a new course on climate justice. And then we've rolled it around across the country. Okay. and So that, as you could see, it's going into those important issues, which are touched on in the first course, but go into more detail in the climate justice course. And then the third one, please, just very quickly. Okay, extreme weather. That is much more science-based, it's much more regionally based, it's saying, What are the forces at work that are going to the climate in your particular part of the country. When I was speaking or when I was teaching today, there was, There were 28 people on the clock in the on the the zoom call they were from montana to florida to california to Believe it or not, Somalia. I don't know how he got in that course, and I was delighted. Okay, by the way, the course is for free. We've worked really hard, raised $750,000 for this second year to make sure that not only the administrative costs are picked up, but that the course is totally free. We've also made sure that it's on up and up. to science standards. Okay, stamina, all the rest. um, I guess those are the key and we give professional credits. Okay, CEUs and professional credits. What we found, which was quite surprising, it's not easy to market this course. these courses. And the reason it's not is because these teachers have this fear, plus they're overloaded. And they're underpaid. And they say, I don't need to take something else on. I remember when it took, I won't go into detail here, but I remember when I met with the president of the Presidio Graduate School, myself met with Toko and his two principals. And their initial reaction was, we can't take this on. This is more than we can take on. To which Etoko said, we're doing it. And then we talked about how to do it that made it. work for the teachers, the principals, and everybody, and the rest is history, and it's taken off like a rabbit. Okay. Uh, So those are, let's see if there's anything else that I really wanna stress on that. Next slide, please. These are just some quick ones, and I won't go into them in any detail during these 10 minutes that we have here, five minutes we have. But you could see that this teacher is basically saying, I really loved hearing lesson plans and ideas from other teachers in the Facilitate Forum, of course. even though we were coming from climate change from different subject areas, we were sharing information with each other and we're creating a body of knowledge so that we can talk a bit with one voice to our teachers and our students and all the rest. And Kathy says, I described the impact as having taken a group of disengaged, interested students and turning them into individuals who want to learn about what is going on right now? as the pressure is rising. and the third one flip to the next one please oh no back up one slide please You jumped the gun on me, my friend. Back up one slide. Just leave it there because of our time. And let Itoko, do you want to kick that off or do you want me to? |
| 00:42:20.83 | Dr. Itoko Garcia | Yeah, so you know, here's the ask. We're asking for the support of the city council |
| 00:42:25.52 | Wilford Welch | in the future. |
| 00:42:25.57 | Council Member Cox | Toto, can you speak into the mic so people... |
| 00:42:27.09 | Dr. Itoko Garcia | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 00:42:27.87 | Council Member Cox | Thank you. |
| 00:42:27.92 | Dr. Itoko Garcia | No. |
| 00:42:27.94 | Council Member Cox | on the T.M.O.B. link. |
| 00:42:28.98 | Dr. Itoko Garcia | We're asking for the support of the city council to help other city councils, the county board of supervisors, I'll play my part with Mike. superintendent colleagues, but we really want to make Marin the leading county in the United States in K-12 climate education. And we think that we have a golden opportunity to do so here. We think we have the right citizens. We think we have the right program. And again, it's at no cost. It's really tailored to the districts. And we just really ask everybody, all the citizens here for your help in advocating for climate education. We really think it's a critical core subject of school and particularly here in a county that has so much coastline. Wilford, is there anything you want to add? |
| 00:43:12.54 | Wilford Welch | Uh... Yeah, I'm just very excited that we can do this. |
| 00:43:15.19 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 00:43:16.62 | Wilford Welch | And so we met with Stephanie, Walt Pierce, who's quite excited about this. And she would say that, not the record, but she would definitely say that she is, and you know enough about her to know that we're meeting hopefully with all the other supervisors, We're speaking at the Environmental Forum of Oren. in a couple of weeks and giving a full blown presentation about what's going on, why we need to deal with this and ask them for their help. So in every way, What we're going to see over the next, I think, five years is a fundamental shift in momentum in this United States. as the media focuses more on it, as climate change comes down harder on us. and people start talking about it and clamoring that they need more education. So this is an easy ask as far as I'm concerned. What we're really asking is it's necessary. Um. Itoko came up with the money from his board to provide I guess 8,000. to each student as a stipend our teacher. as a stipend. if that took the course. We think the way we can get this going is to get one point. over close to $1.5 million for every single teacher in Marin County who takes the course to get a stipend. There's no reason. why that shouldn't happen. That is nothing to bring about a fundamental change of making Marin County the leading county in the United States in K through 12 education. Thanks. |
| 00:44:55.19 | Dr. Itoko Garcia | Thank you. And the other thing I want to ask, and with the council's permission, work with the city manager and staff, is we'd love to get some of the graphics of the new school up. onto some billboards and posted around town. And so... If you're amenable to that, then we can talk about maybe where they can go. |
| 00:45:15.83 | Jill Hoffman | Great. Thank you so much for joining us this evening. And thanks for a wonderful presentation and lots of great exciting ideas. I have a bunch of questions and I can see that we already have some of the council members online with questions. And I'm really excited about this climate initiative and the new campus But I will. Let the other members of the Council get started and then I'll weigh in with some of my questions, so I saw that Vice Mayor sobieski had his hand raised first. |
| 00:45:39.69 | Vice Mayor Sobieski | Thanks Mayor. Dr. Garcia, and thank you so much for being here and giving us this update. I voted for the bond measure and and appreciate your being here to give us the, uh, the visualization of what the current plans of the school are. I was also moved by the intention of your colleague there to make Marin County leading county and environmental climate education. But I'm always struck by... You know, kids especially really discern the difference between what we say and what we do. And I'm just wondering what happened to the once in a, generation opportunity to daylight the only riparian waterway that can possibly exist inside Sausalito. We used to have seven that flowed freely to the bay. And this was at the outset of the design. It was considered to daylight Willow Creek, which runs right underneath the property. And my understanding is that This daylighting can be done for AS MUCH IF NOT LESS THAN THE CURRENT DESIGN THAT WAS that was selected. This strikes me as an incredible opportunity to put the walk into the talk. of an environmental sensitivity and provide a model for generations of children literally generations by this once in a lifetime opportunity to reverse the damage of rapid development that covered up all six other, all seven, watersheds inside of Sausalito. Can you please speak to what happened to the vision of having this conversation daylighting of this creek as part of the new construction at that site. |
| 00:47:29.76 | Dr. Itoko Garcia | Yes, I can. And good question, sir. Thanks for asking that. Unfortunately, one of the slides, I had a couple animations on the slide where I showed the graphics and it actually would have showed a creek path. if I had been able to show all of the animations. We have been working very closely with the Friends of the Creek and feel very optimistic that actually a much longer section of Creek can be daylit than what was just shown in the prior graphic. We have a grant submission into the EPA that actually doubles the linear feet of daylit Creek than what you just showed on the prior graphic. We will be able to make a very exciting announcement, I think, in a couple months in that regard. But the plan is still to daylight the creek. It won't be in the exact path that you saw there just because it would bisect the current campus design. But the current plan essentially grades the site with the elevation from a south to north pitch and should actually lead to double the amount of daylighted creek. And so happy to bring a focused presentation on that back when we're able to do a little bit more work with the Friends of the Creek and that creek design architecture. |
| 00:48:54.31 | Vice Mayor Sobieski | So I would like to follow up on that if I might, because I think it's important um, You know, many times opportunities are lost despite the best of intentions. And my understanding is that the way that the design is, is that the creek has been, the plans for the creek are, from an operational point of view? intended to be daylighted after construction of the main campus is done. And so it's more retrofit than it is. integrated into the design and Inevitably what that means is, because of budget overruns or different choices at different times, the thing that gets cut is the thing at the end. And, It seems that integrating the creek in its most logical location gives it the best chance of actually being done. And rather than it being the least important aspect of the design, it seems like potentially an equally important aspect of the design. Something that runs through A design can become So famous, I think probably many people recognize this as falling water. a single family house that turned into a national architectural architectural treasure. And that's the potential that exists by actually incorporating the creek into the design and viewing it as a primary asset of the educational opportunity here. instead of an add-on or check the box. Running the creek around the perimeter, which potentially could even require the creek to potentially go uphill for some portion of the design, doesn't seem to me to be giving it its due opportunity. Again, as someone who voted for the bond measure, I saw in there an opportunity to walk the walk of all the environmental talk and I'm concerned But at the end of the day, we're not going to get it. And we're going to. I'm wondering what might still be done to make sure that we get it by incorporating the creek design in the first phase of the architectural and construction plans, rather than making an afterthought. Penusky and Chatman is a firm that we've used in the city to do this kind of work. They did the restoration of Green Gulch at the Zen Center, a beautiful restoration of a riparian water. environment and I'm wondering if the school district would consider engaging with them. Thank you. to find out whether this design could actually be cheaper than the one you currently are pursuing. |
| 00:51:18.91 | Dr. Itoko Garcia | We've studied a lot of different aspects. We all know that water doesn't run uphill, so definitely the current plan is not for any water to run uphill. And actually, the design that we currently are presenting would allow the creek to be a community asset 24 hours a day and seven days a week. If we ran it through the middle of the campus, a large portion of the Daylit Creek would not be accessible to the public while school is in session. And so, again, we are, I'm happy to bring some plans back. I don't think it's too far. And we are working in very close cooperation with Friends of the Creek. I know that there is a vision to bisect the campus with the creek, and we understand that vision as that is the course of the current culvert, which perhaps was laid in the natural course of the creek. I think the idea is that we get to definitely pick the path, and we want to make sure that our projects come in in budget and in time. As I mentioned, when we delay, we run some serious materials escalation risks. I'm very committed to getting this Creek day lit and getting it done and making sure that it's an educational asset for the students and an asset for the community seven days a week, 24 hours a day. So again, I'm happy to bring a presentation back that focuses just on that. and pick up the conversation. And we're happy to partner and work with, you know, the best folks in the field that have done this work. |
| 00:52:59.47 | Jill Hoffman | you Do you have additional questions, Vice Mayor? |
| 00:53:03.80 | Vice Mayor Sobieski | Well, thank you for the opportunity. Can't help but just show this one slide, which is the price of lumber per month. And as you see, there has been a spike in prices since approximately January of 03 to today. Construction prices vary dramatically and they can go down and as well as go up, especially in volatile materials. And so it's not a, truism that haste HASTE IS THE RIGHT STRATEGY FOR MINIMIZING CONSTRUCTION COSTS. I STILL THINK A GOOD DESIGN IS PROBABLY THE KEY THING, AND AGAIN, I WOULD JUST ask everyone involved to think about daylighting the creek and its most logical path. as an important goal and mission and a once in a lifetime opportunity to walk the walk that we're trying to teach our children. |
| 00:53:53.94 | Dr. Itoko Garcia | Thank you, sir. |
| 00:53:55.61 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:53:55.63 | Council Member Kelman | Councilmember Kelman. Thank you. Yeah, great to see you, Dr. Garcia and Wilford. Wonderful presentation. Let me start with Dr. Garcia. As a quick follow-up, Would you be willing to come back to the table on the Cree conversation with the Army Corps of Engineers? I had the opportunity to speak with them about Willow Creek and Creek restoration as part of overall climate resiliency, and I believe they're very interested in partnering on this. So would you be willing to have a conversation with them with EPA and the city? |
| 00:54:27.50 | Dr. Itoko Garcia | Absolutely. |
| 00:54:28.84 | Council Member Kelman | okay, yeah, this is a great opportunity for them to flex their know-how and construction expertise. I think they're the partner that you guys need at the table. The second question, as a fan of the bond measure, when it was on the ballot, part of the reason was because of the housing. that was anticipated. I didn't see the housing on the site map, Perhaps it was in the slides that were animated, What is the status of the proposed housing? |
| 00:54:53.81 | Dr. Itoko Garcia | Yeah, great question. So, you know, when we passed the bond, the original plan was to modernize the Nevada Street campus. Essentially, there is some ed and school building code that requires anything that is a modernization that is going to be more than 50 percent cost of replacement. You actually have to tear down the building and do new construction. So it changed the scope of what we were able to do when we discovered that indeed, modernization would cost more than 50% of the cost of replacement, which is why you're looking at a completely new school. as opposed to a modernized campus. And so the district is keenly pursuing some other funding opportunities and development partnerships to get the workforce housing done. And again, I'm happy to, it's unfortunate the animations didn't work. I can send it to the city council with the other renderings that we have available. But in the overall site map from a bird's eye view, you can see the area that we have targeted for workforce housing. And we are hopeful to get a proposal or two on that in the next couple weeks. So maybe look at the school board agenda in March or April and I'll certainly let city staff know when we receive that proposal and when the school board may be reviewing those proposals and perhaps we can make a joint presentation to the city council as well. Silver lining to that is we may be able to deliver a significant number of units above and beyond what's currently in the housing element plan for the city for that parcel. |
| 00:56:42.89 | Council Member Kelman | Okay, yeah, let's so what's the best way for us to be a stakeholder in that conversation prior to representations either to the public or to the board because I think the housing piece was, I know the housing piece was a very big DRAW AS PART OF THE ANALYSIS OF THE BALLOT MEASURE. And I know that I can bring the Army Corps to the table and that they will engage with you in a manner that will save you money. How can we be a partner with you on this in our city boundaries in its development and not the receipt of plans and sort of wasted effort if we haven't looked at them yet. |
| 00:57:22.82 | Dr. Itoko Garcia | Yeah, I like I said, you know, I'm happy to to we could have a joint study session of the boards. I mean, obviously, as I think all of you know, the Brown Act does provide some limitations on the discussions that we can have. But I'd also be happy to set up one on one meetings with the city council and and take a look at. where we are currently with that process. That might be a way to provide information that isn't a Brown Act violation. And I'd be happy to commit to doing so. |
| 00:57:50.07 | Council Member Kelman | OK, and then thank you, Dr. Garcia. And then it's for Wilford. Great to see you. Question for you is, can you tell us a little bit more about what schools in Marin County have already rolled out this curriculum and what other what other cities have been active. I think what you're saying is call your fellow city council members and other communities and let them know what's happening and get them on board. So can you use more specifics so we don't double dip? |
| 00:58:17.24 | Wilford Welch | Yeah, Marin City, Sausalito is the only one so far. So Itoko and I are really getting going now and we're reaching out and he is our strategy. is a two prong. One is to reach out to every superintendent that he knows, and he knows them all. in Marin County and have us have one-on-one meetings with them. Okay, but we met the other day with John, what's his? |
| 00:58:43.14 | Dr. Itoko Garcia | I'm not sure. |
| 00:58:43.40 | Wilford Welch | Thank you. Carol. We met with John Carroll, which is really helpful. He's quite excited about this. And he's putting us in touch with the Bolinas School and, You know, all of those. So we've got a number of links. And so we'll probably have those meetings with them within the next month. And I've made a commitment, I hope I keep it, and a commitment to our friends at Presidio Graduate School that we'll have at least 40 students signed up by the end of March. And that's coming pretty damn fast. Okay, so we're on the case. on this and that's why we had this initiative going. because we found that stipends are gonna be critical. on. but we also wanna sign up everybody without stipends because we're all already giving an awful lot to these students and these teacher students. as well right now. Hope that answers it. |
| 00:59:37.41 | Council Member Kelman | Sure does. Thank you. |
| 00:59:37.57 | Wilford Welch | does. |
| 00:59:38.27 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:59:38.49 | Council Member Kelman | Thank you, Mayor. |
| 00:59:38.97 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. Thank you. Council member Hoffman, do you have any questions? Okay, I know you had a few council member before. |
| 00:59:48.55 | Council Member Cox | I was also very interested to hear about the housing since Sausalito just adopted its housing element last Monday. So, but thank you to Council Member. Calmen, you asked and had answered the questions. |
| 01:00:05.83 | Jill Hoffman | So I have a couple of questions for both of you and I'll follow up on the housing piece. We are also in conversation with Senator McGuire's office about funding for affordable housing. And I was wondering if you had yet had the opportunity to work with or collaborate with the state on some of the opportunities for funding at MLK Field as well. |
| 01:00:23.72 | Dr. Itoko Garcia | So, you know, uh, we've, we've had some, some conversations. I'd certainly be interested in exploring more. There's a recently passed assembly bill that, that actually makes workforce housing on school district property, uh, um, a much more realistic proposition. And so we certainly are taking a look at the provisions of that assembly bill. When we RFP, RFQ, the project, it was before the assembly bill was passed. Now that it's passed, we've certainly gotten a lot more interest in potentially how to get it done. The only, I think, major difference is we were hoping to do a little bit of a shorter potential ground lease as a mechanism. And the new assembly bill does require a 50-year ground lease. So those are some things that we would have to work out. But, you know, very interested to join a conversation with the city and the assemblyman and the senator about potential housing available development dollars. I think it definitely would make the project go much faster |
| 01:01:32.94 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah, and I think we're all, as obviously we voted in part of our housing element, I think we're all very committed to working towards providing that opportunity for your teachers. It's really critical the folks that are serving our community can live in our community. Any conversation we can have or forum, let's keep that going per Vice Mayor Kelman's line of questioning. And then I have to say, I am quite excited about the opportunity for a new recreation center. As a swimmer, we don't have any pools anywhere in Marin, in Sausalito or Marin City. And I would really like to see an opportunity for young children to have the chance to learn to swim. And I had heard that that was something you are considering? Is there are there plans or talks for a swimming pool at the recreation center? |
| 01:02:13.78 | Dr. Itoko Garcia | So I think the Marin City Community Services District does have a plan to put a pool in. Right now, as you can see with the scope of our bond, we can put in a new school and a new track and a new field. But that's about the extent of where we are. But I have seen some pretty exciting plans for a pool at the CSD. |
| 01:02:13.79 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 01:02:36.37 | Dr. Itoko Garcia | I agree the community needs a pool and kids need to learn how to swim. |
| 01:02:36.62 | Unknown | Exactly. |
| 01:02:40.46 | Dr. Itoko Garcia | And currently that's pretty tough in our community. |
| 01:02:44.44 | Jill Hoffman | And with the, you know, the, rotation of recreation, as you mentioned, from Dunphy Park through to the community would be a nice Link Point, I hope that all of the fields and all the recreation area can be shared amongst all of our community members going forward. So then, Wilfred, I'm so happy to hear from you about this course, and I would like to say I'd like to see us go further and just be the leader in climate education period in Marin. for uh you know also for college of marin also for civic engagement i would love to take your climate justice course um i was gonna say is it available for city council members to take the climate justice course Great. I'm glad to hear it. And then I also wanted to invite you. I'm the vice chair of the Marin County Council members and mayors committee and would be great to have you come speak to all of us at some point. So let's be in touch that you can present to all of us there. |
| 01:03:32.57 | Unknown | didn't you? |
| 01:03:34.81 | Jill Hoffman | Speak into the mic so we can all hear about your momentum because it's great. |
| 01:03:37.76 | Wilford Welch | There's a sea change that's going on and we're all part of the sea change and we're trying to get that thing going. |
| 01:03:43.94 | Jill Hoffman | That's great. So if community members want to take the course and maybe they're not an educator, what would they do? |
| 01:03:48.77 | Wilford Welch | Well, that's interesting because someone asked about the question of home teachers, you know, homeschool teachers. And we said, absolutely, you are teachers as well. I have a son-in-law. who is just a substitute teacher up in Portland, Oregon. And I saw him on the webinar. I didn't even know he was going to be on it. And he took it. And then he's now is going to take the other two. He's really excited. I want everybody, we want anybody who wants to take this course to take this course. We've got to change the conversation. |
| 01:04:21.17 | Jill Hoffman | Great. Well, thank you so much, Dr. Garcia and Wilford. And the city manager wants to say something. Yes, please. |
| 01:04:29.79 | Chris Zapata | Are we done? Can I ask for some clarification? |
| 01:04:32.62 | Jill Hoffman | certainly can. |
| 01:04:33.33 | Chris Zapata | Thank you. Obviously we're partners. Appreciate that very much. And strong cities, strong schools. Our kids are your kids and your kids are our kids. But when it comes to the idea of you know, design permitting construction activity, you are essentially apart from a city. So can you speak to the sovereignty of how a school district does things outside of the city process? Because I think a lot of people understand that, but other people may not. |
| 01:05:00.15 | Dr. Itoko Garcia | Yeah, thank you for asking that question. And I would like to add, again, a little unfortunate we can't see the bird's eye view, but I did want to thank the PBAC and the city for all the work that they've done. to make safe pedestrian and bicycle access to the campus. And what you will see is the current plan really maps on, I think, well, to the work that's already been done by the city. We want to make it walkable. We want to make it bikeable. You know, essentially, you're right. The way that the government code works in between school districts and cities is as long as we're developing inside of our parcel, essentially, we don't go through the same permitting process that another local resident would go through, which is maybe why there's a little bit of a variance and a difference. We did have a bunch of town hall meetings. And, you know, again, I'm committed. I'll come back here and present to you all as much as you will have me now that we're kind of in the design development phase. And, you know, I think that there is a lot of collaboration still to be had in terms of, you know, looking at traffic flows, looking at sewer and electrical. we would really, we don't currently have in the plans, but if there is enough of a variance in construction costs, we'd love to get a big, you know, a solar part of this school, along with some EV charging that could be available to the community as well after hours. And so I think that there are several points for us to continue to collaborate on outside of, you know, maybe the less exciting things like water and sewer and electrical, but those are certainly things that we're gonna need to work together on. |
| 01:06:57.14 | Vice Mayor Sobieski | City Manager, I at least can't hear you. I don't know if other people can. I think you need to turn on your microphone. It's a smooth talker. |
| 01:07:06.19 | Chris Zapata | Yeah. Let me go back to the beginning. When it comes to the folks that maintain your physical facilities and where they're housed and so forth, where is that currently? And is there an opportunity to explore something with the city where we might Potentially a facility. |
| 01:07:21.68 | Dr. Itoko Garcia | Yeah, I think that would be a tremendous partnership opportunity. We had actually hoped to... build a separate MNO. building as a part of the bond. It's actually, it was on the project list that was approved by trustees. And it does look like given where we are with design development, there may be an opportunity to get that M&O space into the Nevada campus up towards the back parking lot. Thank you. Um, but I would love to explore with the city, uh, you know, maybe, uh, some shared services in terms of maintenance and operations. You know, we have a small but mighty MNO staff. We've got, you know, four custodians, one maintenance tech and a director. And I do think that we've been making some improvements, you know, in the way that the campus is maintained. But obviously, once we have a new building, that's something that we want to be a community asset for 50 or 100 years. And that's a really interesting proposition I'd love to explore. |
| 01:08:33.60 | Wilford Welch | Well, I make one last comment. Sure. Council member Kellman asked a good question, which I gave a clear answer to. but it was a narrow answer. The fact is that we have been reaching out for the first two years just to teachers throughout the United States. direct to teachers. and never to superintendents. So when I got together with Etoko and Etoko said, this is a really powerful program. I want to be part of this initiative, and work with you. It is only then over the last six or seven months that we've started saying, okay, how are we gonna reach out to superintendents as well, and principals. And that's, so we already have probably 10 or so teachers, 10 or 15 or so, teachers from Marin who have taken the course. but they didn't do it. I'm not sure. We went directly to them, not to the supervisors. No, we didn't go to get a district to sign up. And that's the difference. And that's what we're also doing now. Thank you very much. |
| 01:09:40.66 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you very much. Thanks for being here this evening. Okay. Before we move on, I am going to take public comment on special presentations, which is agenda item one. If we, city clerk, could you remind members of the public how they can make public comment at this time? And this will be on the PG&E presentation as well as the school district presentation. |
| 01:09:58.28 | Vice Mayor Sobieski | If you have the mayor, could I just, I just had, I had raised my hand just to. |
| 01:09:58.43 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah. |
| 01:10:02.89 | Vice Mayor Sobieski | Just a second, the request of Council Member Kellman |
| 01:10:03.02 | Jill Hoffman | I only can- |
| 01:10:05.87 | Vice Mayor Sobieski | that Dr. Garcia come in as soon as he possibly can to give a more detailed description of the Creek work. I'm still left with the nagging feeling that we're going to hear, sorry, we ran out of money and the creek's not going to be daylighted. And even if it is, I feel like a generational opportunity is being lost in the current design And it may be too late to save the day. because mines are made up and plans are already being drawn, but I'm worried that our haste Thank you. we've made waste and we've lost a generational opportunity to do something as special as falling water. And that would have that kind of impact on the imaginations and hearts of kids and non-residents alike. I would love to hear more about the details which weren't presented today. |
| 01:10:54.12 | Jill Hoffman | It looks like Dr. Garcia is back at the mic. |
| 01:10:56.73 | Vice Mayor Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 01:10:56.75 | Dr. Itoko Garcia | I'm just happy to come back at the next council meeting or, you know, if you want to call special, however you all would like to proceed. But I'm happy to provide a more detailed update. Thank you. |
| 01:10:56.78 | Jill Hoffman | Go ahead. |
| 01:11:05.78 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. Thank you. Councilmember Kelman has her hand raised as well. |
| 01:11:08.31 | Council Member Kelman | Yeah, thank you, Mayor. I just on the heels of the Vice Mayor's comments, just like to volunteer as a council member to meet with Dr. Garcia on this. As I mentioned, I have met with the Army Corps. I have spoken to them about this. I do believe there's interest in funding daylighting of the creek. I can't tell you how that fits into the current scope or plan or funding, but I do believe that with some diligence rolling up our sleeves, we can help offset the costs, get that partner involved and achieve a win on the climate side. I just want to offer up my time and expertise to help move that along. |
| 01:11:43.39 | Dr. Itoko Garcia | Thank you so much. We'll reach out and schedule some time ASAP. |
| 01:11:47.12 | Jill Hoffman | right. Thank you so much for being here and I look forward to taking your climate course Wilfred and and and hopefully we'll be hearing from you again soon. Okay, so we're now going to take public comment on this, which is agenda item one, and it will be on both presentations. |
| 01:12:00.84 | Walfred Solorzano | We'll start. |
| 01:12:00.91 | Jill Hoffman | We have. |
| 01:12:01.97 | Walfred Solorzano | So we'll start with members of the public, Jeff Jacobs. |
| 01:12:12.89 | Jeff Jacobs | Thank you, Mayor Blaustein, city council and city manager. I'd like to... I congratulate you for becoming mayor. I know on your first council run, you were not successful like myself. But what is important is that the community gets involved and we're talking, hear about PG&E, which is, A big company and the only folks who are not, On it in Sausalito. Would be. The people who are houseless, And the anchor outs. that The average consumption. of fossil fuels. in the United States and Marin County is pretty high among counties in the United States is, over three and a half gallons. A day. Gasoline. Or call. Not as much wind power and solar. The people on the Anchorage use at the most A quarter gallon. A day, if they have an inflatable or a motorboat that they use, and if they have propane or butane to cook with. So the solution as a solution to many things is megawatts, and that's the amount that people don't use. So just to compare and contrast, PG&E wanting to build 200 more polls without any alternative for solar or wind or wave power, only PG&E. That is one of the factors that drives housing costs. into the stratosphere where they are now, and it drives the homeless population up. Homeless population went up in Sausalito. from Five people counted. 271. People count it. And that was when we had the camps. Camp Cormorant, one through three. Willow Creek itself was called a refuge. and it was being run by the people at the school They had built a structure. and the creek runs through there, so now it's running. Um... I suggested to folks that didn't have a place that they could stay there and they did and it was usually okay unless they somehow came into view of the neighbors that were living next to the creek. So the creek is running now. People can enjoy it and people can go back there. And I suggest That they do. Thank you. |
| 01:15:15.16 | Debra (Human Resources Consultant) | Thank you. |
| 01:15:16.07 | Jeff Jacobs | Thank you. |
| 01:15:16.09 | Walfred Solorzano | Nick. |
| 01:15:16.44 | Jeff Jacobs | Peace. |
| 01:15:16.68 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. Next person via Zoom, Vicki Nichols. |
| 01:15:22.84 | Jill Hoffman | Hi, Vicki. |
| 01:15:31.59 | Vicki Nichols | Sorry, I had a little difficulty there. Good evening, Mayor and City Council members. And also good evening to our supervisor, our great supervisor, very happy to see you here. interacting with the council. We had opportunity to do this more in the past and I hope it continues. I wasn't aware about the training program because I called in tonight to talk about the creek, but I'm very excited to hear about that proposal. and hope that the students in the district can benefit from that. That's a very, very exciting proposal. In connection with the creek, I have walked the site several times. I think the last time with you and president of the Friends of the Creek, which I've been a member of for years, cleaning out debris, et cetera. I would also second... Council member Sobieski's suggestion to bring in another consultant. Puski's Chatham, I'm saying their name wrong, but they are excellent consultants. And while I appreciate the, uh, work of the Army Corps. They're not, you know, they have different goals, but I do realize that they have jurisdiction next to the start of the creek up near the highway. So I think there's an opportunity to do this. If the creek is diverted, then you really have changed the path of the riparian natural cycle of the creek. I can tell you as a former board of the Marine Conservation League, to the district. and the council, I believe, supporting the daylighting of the creek but it isn't necessarily that it's just a 24 seven, Uh, unique What should I say? site. uh, thing to be looked at it is a functional role that the natural tributary the the creek and its flow to the bay is very important so I hope that'd be considered and I hope that you come back not with just discussion with the limited group of council people. but that as this can be further explored, you can involve more people. I'd be happy to do it. to be participating. And I'm really looking forward to starting our bond overview. I want to thank you for all your work. You've been so innovative and so collaborative and you're such a good person to go out and look for funding and you're quite successful. So keep up the good work. Thank you very much. |
| 01:18:09.95 | Walfred Solorzano | Next speaker is Peter. Romanowski. |
| 01:18:18.77 | Jill Hoffman | Welcome, Peter. |
| 01:18:22.37 | Unknown | You know, I'm not the interstitial here. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. |
| 01:18:28.16 | Jill Hoffman | He's actually on Zoom, but if you'd like to make a comment. |
| 01:18:29.88 | Peter Romanowski | Okay, hello, can you hear me now? Okay, I'm on. Okay. Uh, How about the... But the gentleman and his climate change leave and his climate change |
| 01:18:42.01 | Unknown | about the gentleman and his |
| 01:18:46.53 | Peter Romanowski | propaganda. Climate change has been used against us Anchor out. Um, of which I am probably the longest surviving anchor out on San Francisco Bay behind Greg Baker. and climate change has been used. to say that we are destroying the eelgrass. that, and causing global warming. Now, obviously any kindergarten student would know that what's causing the global warming is all your houses and mansions that are surrounding this traditional, you know, anchorage that has been The unofficial anchorage for San Francisco, since the gold miners filled in the bay with their ships, And, um, So, Whatever happens in Marin County goes around the world. And this general, He's already got it mapped out. This is gonna go around the world. if this happens. And because everything starts in Marin County, you know, United Nations, blah, blah, blah, the first mountain bike. The list goes on and on. We're in counties first for everything. We don't follow trends, we start trends. And I'm just concerned that that. propaganda may be mixed with this curriculum. because none of us know what this curriculum is. is that available online. you know, to check out. And certainly it shouldn't be encouraged |
| 01:20:16.24 | Unknown | Hmm. |
| 01:20:17.20 | Peter Romanowski | being investigated for possible political I'm not. you know, you know, propaganda. Uh, like the greatest threat to. China and India, not America and Europe, of which America is constantly being bashed. and the petroleum industry constantly being bashed. You know, it's like, smokestacks win wars. China is building smokestacks. and, World War II wouldn't have been won without smokestacks. And keep that in mind. And, This climate agenda is a way of disarming America and the West. and getting their guard down. and also as an anchor out, I'm solar powered. I couldn't afford gas after Obama got elected. gas went up so high. So I've been sold with power every since. I even have a solar power outboard. And we have virtually no carbon footprint. on the anchorage. We don't run motors. rarely run generators, and I'm just saying Um, pray for us, you know, that We do not get eliminated. in lieu of eelgrass. and people |
| 01:21:34.64 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 01:21:35.40 | Peter Romanowski | Thank you very much. |
| 01:21:35.98 | Walfred Solorzano | I'll see you next time. And we have a speaker present. You can come up to the podium now. Sir? No, the other one right next to you. You can come down to the podium. |
| 01:21:58.30 | Robert Bright | My name's Robert Bright, JR. Found my parents, and long story short, John Robert. Anyway. Um, Down the street, speaking about Army Corps, you brought up, down the street from the fires the police station and fire department here in Sausalito. is a missile highway from where we've been hit by a nuclear bomb from Japan. uh, the red hole sun marking. down by the plains where it launches out. Hence, they took their flag down off of our, I guess you could say, This is a revolutionary monument outside. And that being said, that flag post out there is actually a disgrace to our revolutionary monument here at the library and treason against the tree outside. Also down the street from, fire department. in the water, at the nuclear missile highway. There is a biological rock that has been completely disarmed that needs to be airlifted and placed next to the anchor, next to those other two rocks. for It said that Jesus Christ is our rock and our anchor. Well, they're separated right now and we need to bring them together and as a grounding. And it is a very important matter. And there is a square black box blocking two boats from getting off dock along with two other triangle pieces that need to be cleaned out of the bay. So the Army Corps of Engineers has a job to do. And I'm... I'm requesting them to get it done. |
| 01:23:50.32 | Robert Bright | Thank you. |
| 01:23:53.07 | Jill Hoffman | I believe, oh, pardon me, Wilfred. I just, I think there's one more hand raised on Zoom. |
| 01:23:53.14 | Walfred Solorzano | Absolutely. |
| 01:23:57.13 | Walfred Solorzano | TT. |
| 01:24:04.44 | Walfred Solorzano | PT. |
| 01:24:13.13 | Walfred Solorzano | And Titi, we can unmute you. |
| 01:24:16.30 | Unknown | Um, |
| 01:24:20.30 | Unknown | So you're trying, y'all trying to get me to follow that. Okay, great. So, I'm just gonna say I can't follow who I believe to be Rob, um, I would just say at this point, What has transpired on the water is unacceptable. For sure. and there are several entities and individuals to be blamed. in that respect. But at this point, I just want to see an amicable resolution to the situation. I wish to see Brian Hagen, Joseph Burst, Joseph Bernstein. Holly Wilde. Lisa McCracken. and a list of other individuals. I think it's been transferred to permanent. supportive housing. So at that point, I'm going to leave this situation at that because I don't want. I don't understand what happened in all of this communication. So. I'll leave it at that. Thank you. |
| 01:25:40.78 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. City Clerk, do we have any further public comment at this time? |
| 01:25:44.59 | Walfred Solorzano | No, we do not. |
| 01:25:45.52 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, thank you. So I will now move on to item two. A which is the adoption of the minutes from action item minutes of the previous meetings we're adopting the minutes from January 12 and January 24 so before I ask for a motion i'm going to take public comment on the minutes. |
| 01:26:04.66 | Walfred Solorzano | We have done. I don't see any public comment. |
| 01:26:07.90 | Jill Hoffman | There's no public comment at this time. Okay, I noticed Council Member Cox raised her hand to comment on the minutes. I will move approval of both sets of minutes. Do I have a second? I will say again. City Clerk, would you please call the roll? |
| 01:26:22.44 | Walfred Solorzano | Councilmember Cox. |
| 01:26:23.64 | Jill Hoffman | Yes. |
| 01:26:24.49 | Walfred Solorzano | Councilmember Hoffman. |
| 01:26:26.53 | Jill Hoffman | Yes. |
| 01:26:26.90 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. Council member coming. Thank you. |
| 01:26:28.45 | Jill Hoffman | Yes. |
| 01:26:29.26 | Walfred Solorzano | Vice Mayor Sobieski? Yes. And Mayor Blasley. |
| 01:26:33.02 | Jill Hoffman | Yes. Okay. Motion passes 5-0. At this time, we'll now move on to item three, which is our consent calendar. Matters listed under the consent calendar are considered routine and non-controversial. require no discussion. are expected to have unanimous council support and may be enacted by the council in one motion. There will be no separate discussion of consent calendar items. However, before the Council votes on a motion to adopt the consent calendar items, Council members, city staff, or members of the public. may request that specific items be removed from the consent calendar for separate action. Items removed from the consent calendar will be discussed later on the agenda. and public comment will be heard on any item that was moved from the consent calendar. Before I go forward with listing the items on the consent calendar, I wanted to note that I'm going to pull Item 3C because there's need for further staff discussion and questions. Authorize amendments to the city's position, allocation table, and classification plan related to captain and senior planner for placement on a later agenda. And I'm also going to Poll Item 3H, which is authorization for release of requests for proposals for smart cities to later agenda. So that. I can work more closely with Councilmember Kellman to include Um, to include blue economy, as well as have further discussion about that, hopefully. at our meeting on Friday. So at this time, We will now, discuss item 3a, which is continue to conduct the city council, and all other city board commission and committee meetings remotely due to health and safety Item 3B. which is approved first amendment to the city manager agreement. Item 3D. Library Q2 report for fiscal year 2022-23. Item 3E. is to adopt a resolution approving an encroachment agreement for encroachments in the public of right of way a three Curry. Item 3F adopt a resolution authorizing the city manager to execute a professional services agreement with the Miller Pacific engineering group to study and develop a geologic hazard report for the city of the Sausalito. Item 3G, receive and file report related to the 2023 storm. And item 3I, authorization to release a request for proposals for consultant services related to the potential formation of a Sausalito. Property Business Improvement District, And before I take comment from the council, I'm gonna go ahead and take public comment. Yes, go ahead. |
| 01:28:43.62 | Council Member Cox | Thank you. I would actually like to ask that we also remove item 3i. We've received and that's the authorization to the release to release a request for proposals for consultant services related to the potential formation of a Sausalito property business improvement district. We've actually received some late mail with public comment and I see members of the public in the audience who I presume would like to address that item so I'd also like to pull that item from the consent calendar. |
| 01:28:59.99 | Unknown | business. |
| 01:29:12.48 | Jill Hoffman | Okay. Great. Council member Hoffman, is that why your hand was raised as well? Okay, fantastic. Okay, so then could I have, we will go ahead and poll item three. 3i from the consent calendar. So then at this point, I would ask for a motion to approve items 3a, 3B, 3D, 3E, 3S. and 3G. |
| 01:29:33.23 | Council Member Cox | So moved. |
| 01:29:34.57 | Jill Hoffman | Do you want to take public comment, Mayor? Pardon me. I'll take public comment on those items. |
| 01:29:39.90 | Walfred Solorzano | We do have public comment. First comment, Susan Shea. Thank you. Oh, actually, no, sorry, I was three-eye. Is this right? I'm three-eye? Yeah, sorry. Jeff Jacob? |
| 01:29:45.40 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. Is this right? |
| 01:29:51.00 | Jill Hoffman | No, not yet. We've pulled by item 3i, so you'll have an opportunity to weigh in when we have a discussion as a business item. I saw it. That was great. You were ready. You were absolutely ready. Great, thank you. |
| 01:30:04.28 | Unknown | And neither one. |
| 01:30:04.33 | Jill Hoffman | Neither are we. Welcome back. Welcome back, everybody. Neither are we. If you haven't noticed with some of the technicalities. Okay. Yes, please, sir. Yeah, this is great. |
| 01:30:11.34 | Jeff Jacobs | Yeah, this is great that You've come here live, most of you. Um, or, Almost two-fifths, 40%. That's a good start. The consent calendar, I wanna congratulate the city manager From what I read, it looks like He doesn't want severance pay. So I'm going to say thank you. And I'm gonna also give a thank you out to all of the activists at Camp Cormorant 1 through 3 Um, There's been a change of administration in The police department, that means the police chief and the captain. are on indefinite sick leave. That's John Rohrabacher and William Farras. I assume... They're still getting paid and we have an acting achieve. or we've called her a sheaf, of police, Stacy Gregory. I'm congratulating you on taking that off of the calendar. The idea that consultants are hired for tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars. to give information that is either publicly available that is available from city workers or county workers or state workers. Thank you. especially when it comes to business owners, which was three I. But there's still $53,000 for a geologic report. And we know that San Francisco Bay is an earthquake zone. There are all sorts of codes that go into building houses and structures, and the geologic report is that the big one is coming. We don't know if it's gonna be tomorrow or next year, in five years or 10 years. Not everything will stand if it's big enough. We know how to build it and sometimes smiling right is beautiful. That to overbuild can be as dangerous as to underbuild, especially for the environment, especially with the size of our houses and the amount of energy that it takes PG&E. That's 200 more polls that they proposed earlier. to fuel Sausalito. So I'm going to ask that all the consultancies are taken away, that citizens work on passing an initiative to do that in the next election cycle. that the council and concerned people investigate themselves and work themselves to deal with the problems that we have. So thank you for taking 3R off. And it's good to see y'all. |
| 01:33:11.95 | Jill Hoffman | Thanks. |
| 01:33:14.92 | Walfred Solorzano | Next speaker, Peter Romanowski. |
| 01:33:18.72 | Jill Hoffman | Welcome back, Peter. |
| 01:33:23.78 | Peter Romanowski | All right. Anyways, did I hear on the agenda that something about the zoo meetings, continuing live meetings or not, is that part of the agenda? Are you going to, continue the Zoom meetings or go live and do both. is the question. Did I? Or was that not on the agenda? |
| 01:33:43.79 | Jill Hoffman | Item 3A. Thank you. |
| 01:33:47.17 | Peter Romanowski | Oh, I can't hear you. |
| 01:33:49.51 | Jill Hoffman | Yes, that was item 3A. |
| 01:33:52.60 | Peter Romanowski | Oh yes, are you on that item now? Is that part of the discussion right now? |
| 01:33:57.87 | Jill Hoffman | I'm going to comment on that item right now. |
| 01:34:00.79 | Peter Romanowski | Okay, the question is, are you going to continue live meetings or just Zoom meetings or both? |
| 01:34:08.80 | Jeff Jacobs | Both Peter. |
| 01:34:10.74 | Jill Hoffman | both. Thank you. Thanks, Peter. We typically don't respond to questions asked during public comment, but we are hosting hybrid and in-person meetings. |
| 01:34:14.02 | Jeff Jacobs | Thank you. |
| 01:34:14.03 | Peter Romanowski | I don't know. |
| 01:34:18.67 | Peter Romanowski | hope. Okay, okay. Well, thank you. God bless. Thank you. |
| 01:34:22.86 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. And we have no further speakers for consent calendar. |
| 01:34:29.69 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, so now I will again entertain the motion from Councilmember Cox. seconded by Councilmember Kelman. So can we take a roll call to approve the consent calendar, please? |
| 01:34:41.56 | Walfred Solorzano | Councilmember Cox. Yes. Councilmember Hoffman. |
| 01:34:44.61 | Jill Hoffman | Yes. |
| 01:34:45.42 | Walfred Solorzano | Council member Kelman. |
| 01:34:46.52 | Jill Hoffman | Yes. |
| 01:34:47.46 | Walfred Solorzano | Vice Mayor Sobieski? Yes. and Mayor Blasdine. |
| 01:34:51.14 | Jill Hoffman | Yes. Okay, so at this time we will now hear item 3i, which was the authorization to release. Yes, I'll hand it over to our city manager to address item 3i. |
| 01:35:02.62 | Chris Zapata | We're gonna talk about the police |
| 01:35:05.10 | Jill Hoffman | If you'd like to address item 3A, 3C, which you would ask to remove, that'd be great. Go ahead, please. |
| 01:35:08.27 | Chris Zapata | Great, go ahead, please. Thank you. |
| 01:35:10.21 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 01:35:10.23 | Chris Zapata | I will ask our |
| 01:35:10.40 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. that, |
| 01:35:14.40 | Chris Zapata | Human resources consultant, Debra, much more to address 3C, which is the captain position. Thank you. |
| 01:35:21.97 | Debra (Human Resources Consultant) | Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, Councilmembers. So we, 3C, I wanted to pull, we wanted to pull because we wanted to add a little bit of clarity. One of the main, first and foremost, on two different things, and they both relate to the captain allocation that's being added there. First and foremost, we, it is not clear in the item how this addition of a captain allocation is affecting the total FTEs in the department or the command staff in the department. And so we wanted to clarify that the intent is not to add any command staff to that department or any FTEs to the total FTEs of the department. Right now we have three command staff allocations, a chief, a captain, and a lieutenant. The intent is when this ends is to have a captain, I mean, have a chief and two captains. So there would still be three command staff. And so that hopefully will clear that up. The other is an embarrassing typo within the document that's in the first sentence of the discussion and analysis. And it says that we are... promoting a lieutenant to a lieutenant. It's actually a lieutenant to a captain. |
| 01:36:41.76 | Sergio Rudin | And there's also a small typo in the resolution of approving the action. The exhibit listed as the city manager agreement, so that should refer to the actual updated classification at the bottom of the resolution. |
| 01:36:57.64 | Debra (Human Resources Consultant) | Thank you, Sergio. Appreciate that. Thank you, Deborah. |
| 01:37:02.41 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 01:37:06.48 | Unknown | Thank you, General. |
| 01:37:06.97 | Chris Zapata | I understand. |
| 01:37:07.31 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, thank you, city manager. So that concludes the staff report on item 3C. |
| 01:37:07.36 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:37:10.92 | Jill Hoffman | So. |
| 01:37:11.09 | Chris Zapata | Thank you. Thank you. MY UNDERSTANDING IS WE'LL BRING THIS BACK AT A FUTURE AGENDA ITEM. If you take action tonight, that would be appreciated. |
| 01:37:17.94 | Council Member Cox | I will move approval of, well, we have to take public comment before we move approval because we don't. |
| 01:37:23.98 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 01:37:24.15 | Council Member Cox | Thank you. |
| 01:37:24.18 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 01:37:24.22 | Council Member Cox | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 01:37:24.57 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, let's take a public comment on item 3C. |
| 01:37:31.52 | Walfred Solorzano | Sorry, I'm not seeing any public comment for 3C. |
| 01:37:34.83 | Council Member Cox | Okay. Thank you, then I will move approval of consent agenda item 3C. |
| 01:37:40.16 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 01:37:40.18 | Vice Mayor Sobieski | Second. It was amended. |
| 01:37:42.22 | Council Member Cox | As amended. Thank you, Sergio. |
| 01:37:44.45 | Vice Mayor Sobieski | Second. |
| 01:37:44.92 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. Okay. |
| 01:37:47.27 | Council Member Cox | Bye. |
| 01:37:47.30 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah. |
| 01:37:47.32 | Council Member Cox | Thank you. |
| 01:37:47.57 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. Thank you. Can I have a roll call vote? |
| 01:37:49.14 | Walfred Solorzano | Councilmember Cox. |
| 01:37:50.03 | Jill Hoffman | Yes. |
| 01:37:50.78 | Walfred Solorzano | Councilmember Huffman? |
| 01:37:52.24 | Jill Hoffman | Yes. |
| 01:37:52.97 | Walfred Solorzano | Council Member Kellman. |
| 01:37:54.13 | Jill Hoffman | Yes. |
| 01:37:54.84 | Walfred Solorzano | Vice Mayor Sobieski? Yes. And Mayor Blaustein. |
| 01:37:57.80 | Jill Hoffman | Yes. Okay. This motion passes unanimously 5-0. Thank you very much. And thank you for the clarification from staff. Appreciate it. So now we'll move on to the next item that was pulled, which is agenda item. 3 I and I will turn it over to our city manager to present on this item before we open it up for public comment and discussion. |
| 01:38:13.39 | Chris Zapata | Thank you, Mayor, members of the council, members of the public. Let's start with why would we consider a business improvement district? And the fundamental answer is lack of resources. And what is a business improvement district? It's a potential tool look to further improve our business environment that's paid for by the folks within the defined area managed by those with the property interest specifically for that defined area and typically involves maintenance, security, eventing and marketing. This is an additive body that is outside of the city's control. it would be essentially a mellow ruse for A business area where people assess themselves for enhanced services. because the fundamental fact is the city has very limited resources and some of the needs that are occurring in our business area, such as downtown in Caledonia have been left unfunded, whether it's maintenance, whether it's events or things of that nature. So this is a tool that it could potentially help to address some of those concerns by providing funding that's paid for by the people within the district. And that would include everybody within the district. And if the city is a part of that district, they would pay the thing that would be, need to be understood is that the formation of a district does not mean the city controls it. The district is controlled by a board of directors that govern that district that take the budget and allocate it the way they need to, as defined by California law. Business improvement districts are common tools in many cities across California where the government doesn't do enough. And so when the government can't do enough, sometimes the property owners take it upon themselves to do more. Thank you. What a consultant would do would be complete a needs assessment, think about proposed district boundaries, figure out what the community and property owner engagement would be, how an assessment would be managed what the projected costs might be, and how the governance and accounting is done. So one of the things that I think sounds counterintuitive is the city would spend money on this when, in fact, the city is trying to bring other people's money into defined areas to enhance the business environment that would, in fact, benefit, if done successfully, that business and ultimately the city through things like TOT sales tax and additional events that create quality of life for the city. Some of the things that have happened in our downtown include, you know, we've had situations where we have complaints about lack of security. WE'VE HAD COMPLAINTS ABOUT You know, what we do with volunteers and is that sustainable? You know, we've had complaints about the infrastructure that is donated to the city or put in by the city, whether it's green infrastructure, sidewalks, other things that haven't been maintained because the funding isn't there. So this is intended to begin that conversation to see if, in fact, there is an appetite by the people that would benefit from this outside or inside of that defined area and manage that in a way that they think enhances the environment that makes it more vibrant, more active. And again, you know, a consultant would help you explore all that. And then ultimately a vote would have to happen where the city council would say we put it in some type of ballot form that the people that would be assessed would then vote on before it would become something final. Happy to answer any questions and see what the council wants to do with this. |
| 01:41:33.63 | Jill Hoffman | Council member Cox has a question. |
| 01:41:36.02 | Council Member Cox | And. Thank you, city manager. Have you tested the pulse of the business community and other stakeholders who would be affected by the creation of this Business Improvement District and has EDAC been involved and weighed in at all on this? |
| 01:41:52.86 | Chris Zapata | And thank you for that question councilmember Cox EDAC this past year took a hard look at a business improvement district, but before that to test the pulse of the Community I spoke to the folks at saucer beautiful. about their desire to help understand and advocate for the formation of a business improvement district, because they were seriously concerned about the lack of maintenance on trees and infrastructure on Caledonia. So one way to add resources is a business improvement district. So they definitely heard about it and they seem supportive. I would let them weigh in the folks on the economic development advisory committee undertook this analyzed it. And when they presented to the city council, I believe it was sometime in the fall, they listed what they thought their priorities were. And their first priority was the formation of a business improvement district. |
| 01:42:44.32 | Jill Hoffman | We have questions from other members of the council. |
| 01:42:49.24 | Jill Hoffman | Yes, Council Member Rothman. |
| 01:42:51.94 | Council Member Hoffman | get my hand up fast enough, |
| 01:42:51.98 | Jill Hoffman | give my head up. Thank you. Thank you. |
| 01:42:53.65 | Council Member Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 01:42:53.68 | Jill Hoffman | Bye. |
| 01:42:54.04 | Council Member Hoffman | real hand raise and the anyway, go ahead. Of course, I know. I know that. Did we talk with EDAC, can you remind me, did we talk with EDAC about EDAC, we have some funds still allocated to EDAC, but did we discuss having some of those funds pay for the consultant for the business district. |
| 01:43:15.22 | Chris Zapata | Thank you for that. The answer is yes, but there are multiple ways to pay for a consultant. Obviously, one of the things that's been suggested by the Economic Development Advisory Committee is that they have some unspent funds from the allocation the council provided a few years back that could be applied to this consulting cost. Another approach would be at some point, if a district is formed, that the city get paid back |
| 01:43:16.06 | Council Member Hoffman | I just can't recall. |
| 01:43:42.97 | Chris Zapata | by the district for the money spent in hiring the consultant to form the district. I'm not sure I would advocate that. I think the city should really look to see this themselves. I think that the benefit to the city would be, you know, as long as the district is formed and revenues come in the additive marketing, the additive maintenance, the additive security And the actual eventing in those areas would benefit the city in ways would essentially create cost recovery. for the city for the money spent for the consultant. |
| 01:44:14.82 | Council Member Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 01:44:14.83 | Jill Hoffman | I'm sorry. |
| 01:44:14.89 | Council Member Hoffman | Yeah. |
| 01:44:14.90 | Jill Hoffman | Bye. |
| 01:44:14.94 | Council Member Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 01:44:15.04 | Jill Hoffman | Thanks. I had a question, city manager, again. I just want to clarify, this is specifically in RFP, so we don't have an idea yet of cost. This is to find out what a potential cost and budget would be for a project like this. |
| 01:44:28.77 | Chris Zapata | I'M NOT CORRECT, MAYOR. THE IDEA THAT WE PUT A RANGE IN THE ESTIMATED COST OF $50,000 TO $100,000 DEPENDS ON TWO FACTORS, One is, you know, the size of the area that you need to consider as a potential business improvement district, because more property means more pounding the pavement to engage and then the actual community engagement required that would involve consultant time and obviously is the cost to that so we put a range of $50,000 to $100,000 as a potential cost so that you would have some sense of the fiscal impact. |
| 01:45:03.06 | Jill Hoffman | Thanks and have you had the opportunity to engage as well with the Chamber of Commerce on this on the idea of the business improvement district? |
| 01:45:09.14 | Chris Zapata | The Chamber of Commerce CEO is a member of EDAC. So has heard presentations by the working group that was led by Cass Green to formulate, you know, what the BID is that they explored it on their own, did their homework. And then as a result, they brought that forward to the city council as their top priority for implementation this past fall. And certainly the chamber is aware of it. I sent a note to, the EDAC chair as well as the the CEO of the Chamber of Commerce, who I believe is out of town right now, but is well aware of what is on the agenda and what this is. |
| 01:45:46.89 | Jill Hoffman | Great. Thank you, city manager. Do we have any further questions from council before I open this up to public comment? Okay. Wilfred, will you remind members of the public how they can make comment at this time? |
| 01:45:56.99 | Walfred Solorzano | If you're in person and you want to make a public comment, you can give us a speaker's request form. You can find those over there at the table by the TV. If you are on Zoom, you can use the raise hand function. Or if you're on telephone on Zoom, you can press star nine. So right now we'll start with people in person. We'll start with Susan Shea. |
| 01:46:18.43 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. and disease. |
| 01:46:21.31 | Susan Shea | Thank you. |
| 01:46:21.90 | Jen Johnson | Hello. |
| 01:46:23.88 | Susan Shea | Thank you. Well, it's great to be here and it's wonderful to see you all. So Yahoo! The pandemic is over. And democracy is restored. The second thing I wanna say is thank you so much I'm pulling this off the consent calendar. One of the things that I think is important to talk about is we understand during the pandemic that it was difficult for all of us to participate. And so many things that we should have had face to face were put on a consent calendar after you guys did a bunch of work. on things. And we appreciated that. But now that we're back in open session, We hope that most of the things on the consent calendar will in fact be business items with a thorough discussion before they're put on the consent calendar. So the reasons for our concern about the BID. is first is a process issue, which is, This seems like the cart before the horse once again. Um, The first needs assessment I think should be done is whether the residents, not just the businesses, not just downtown, but the residents wanna turn over the responsibility of our downtown. Two. the businesses. I don't think that's right. I think as a public, we need to say this amount of money is going to be for maintenance of downtown. I won't get into all the reasons why we think we have the money. I think we have the money. We just need to prioritize these kinds of issues and to, to put it in to well. So anyway, that's the process. So I think the needs assessment should be whether the residents want it and then, And then if we want it, then we get a consultant. to talk about how much it might cost and how we might implement that. Then there's a content issue. as well. And I'll defer to my spouse. Sonia Hansen, and she will speak to content. Thank you. I'm so glad to see you. |
| 01:48:50.52 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you, Susan. We're glad to see you too. |
| 01:48:55.13 | Susan Shea | Thank you. |
| 01:48:55.15 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:48:59.18 | Sonia Hansen | Okay, well, first of all, good to see you all. It's good to see you on Zoom up there. I'm sorry that you're not here joining us in public, but I certainly hope you will be doing that very soon. I think March 1st is the deadline. Anyway, she's always a hard act to follow. So I guess what I'd really like to say is, When we read this, what was on the consent calendar when we were going through the agenda, It was not at all clear who was going to be responsible for the financials ongoing for the BID. Thank you, Chris, for your... explanation of that. You made it very clear that it is not the city. i.e. the residence that will be responsible for paying for this process entity that we will have nothing to say about once it's formed. Um, |
| 01:49:56.60 | Sonia Hansen | That was my biggest concern, is we're giving this away, and then we probably would be funding it, and we would have no say. You've clarified that we will not be funding it. The only thing that we would be spending money on is on... hiring a consultant to set it up. And I can understand that if there might be reasons for doing that, I'm not questioning that. So I think the clarification was very helpful. I do understand what my spouse is saying about Maybe this is a good way to handle how we do maintenance in our business communities. Maybe it's not. I'm not sure about that. I think that's a discussion that maybe should be pursued further. Maybe some of the ways we spend money in this town In fact, I'm certain some of the ways we spend money in this town could maybe be spent in better ways. I have lost my steam on objecting to this because as long as we don't have to finance it forever, |
| 01:51:03.56 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:51:03.95 | Sonia Hansen | Oh. Thank you. The tiger is coming again. Thank you very much. Glad to see you in person. |
| 01:51:06.80 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you very much. Thank you. |
| 01:51:10.18 | Susan Shea | Thank you. |
| 01:51:11.27 | Sonia Hansen | Thank you. |
| 01:51:11.29 | Susan Shea | So just one more point. If the businesses are responsible for all of the things that you say, then The residents no longer have any input to how the downtown looks, where the lights go, what happens, who does what to who, how we refurbish this. Who does that? I mean... That basically what we're saying, the property owners will pay for it. Ergo, they get to say what our downtown looks like. Not a good idea. |
| 01:51:46.16 | Jill Hoffman | you |
| 01:51:46.54 | Susan Shea | No? |
| 01:51:46.97 | Chris Zapata | Thank you. |
| 01:51:47.03 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 01:51:47.07 | Susan Shea | Thank you. |
| 01:51:47.10 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 01:51:47.12 | Susan Shea | Thank you. |
| 01:51:47.54 | Chris Zapata | Okay. |
| 01:51:47.79 | Jill Hoffman | I think the city manager wants to just. |
| 01:51:49.78 | Chris Zapata | Can I provide some clarity to the comments that was made by Ms. Hanson? I appreciate the input. Let me just say this. whoever is in a defined business improvement district, whether it's a church, a school or a city they pay, and so. The city would have a role if the business district is defined in an area that includes city property, then the city would be obligated, just like the fellow folks around there to in fact make payments, I want to make sure that's crystal clear. |
| 01:52:21.71 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. I believe we had another public comment. |
| 01:52:26.54 | Walfred Solorzano | Jeff Jacob. |
| 01:52:29.51 | Jeff Jacobs | is well kept. Yeah. Thank you, Shay, and I'm just a little disappointed now. at retreating before just putting that line in and saying, No. Consultants. 50 to $150,000 is what this will cost. Now in the minutes, There was another consultant that was hired named BFK. And if you look at what they've done in every other town that they were hired for. It was actual projects in Sausalito easy touch that we are. It was to plan bike paths and walking routes to school that was $150,000 I haven't noticed that many more students walking or bicycling to school, but there's $150,000 less. BFK also is doing the planning for Sausalito. For 2040. I don't know how many tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars that one cost. There is no reason to take business and government and to wear them at the hip. There's a classic name for that political philosophy. It's not one that has a really great history in America. It's called fascism. When the business and the government are the ones to decide when the government has quite a bit of money willing to spend $600,000 to fight houseless people. with the cooperation of some people that are on this board. whether they were in that law firm or, I'm in that law firm. So, We cannot trust every consultant and every lawyer that is hired. So the best thing to say is, Number one. If there's a business, And it's a business improvement district. As you were saying, they can gather together. I can go there for free and collect signatures for people that want to do this. There is zero reason to hire any more consultants for anything going on in this town. With that simple message, I will say goodnight for now. |
| 01:55:04.69 | Walfred Solorzano | then I'll We have Peter Romanowski. |
| 01:55:11.81 | Walfred Solorzano | WELCOME BACK, PETER. |
| 01:55:12.65 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 01:55:16.44 | Peter Romanowski | Unmute. Okay. Can you hear me now? Okay. Anyways, concerning the business, It sounds good to me, I don't see any problem a business improvement district, And I just wanna add that Sausalito has been out of compliance with, I believe it's the Berry versus Berry federal court. decision in New York where a veteran was selling pottery on a sidewalk and and won a lawsuit in federal court saying that veterans, for instance, have first right to sell pottery on sidewalks and stuff. And Saucyotl has no street vins. and it's totally out of compliance. Also, it's out of compliance with, you know, affordable housing, obviously. And Sausalito, I've been around here for some 50 years. I got here at 64. Sausalito has changed. I don't even know who you people are. For all I know, you're all out of carpetbaggers. Most of, I'm not putting you down, I don't know who you are. I don't know when you got here. know, I, I first set foot in this town in 64 and it's changed. It's turned into Disneyland, sterile. And now, you know, it's just sterilized. a movie set. crop, you know, but we need I hope the business history TO BE ABLE has plans for street vendors, artists, jewelers, A hot dog cart. hot dog ice cream cart. Uh, make the streets come alive like they used to do. you know? I mean, this used to be a lively town. People used to drive for miles around The line to see this town stretched from one end of Sausalito to the other in the 60s. Man, it was incredible. And all they wanted to do was see a hippie you They all came down to see the hippies back in the 60s and said, hippies can't afford to live anymore. So the terrorists are all gone. And, uh, excuse me for being a preacher, it's just my calling. And it's hard for me to talk without being preachy And I know you guys got a hard job I ran it for city council. I lost. but I loved it. It's the best race I ever run. best race I ever lost, you know. because I think I hold a record for losing racists, as you know. I think olding Abraham Lincoln lost more races than I did. Um, We need a stand-up comic. venue here in this town. in this business space. So I just wanna close by saying, I'm a street artist. would be given permits. to. then. on the streets and God bless you in Jesus name. |
| 01:57:55.03 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you, Peter. |
| 01:57:56.63 | Walfred Solorzano | Next speaker, Sandra Bushmaker. |
| 01:57:58.55 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 01:57:58.57 | Sandra Bushmaker | Hi Sandra. Good evening, Council, City Manager. Good to see everybody there. I'm glad you're having the in-person hybrid meetings. It works out well. I sat through the EDAC meetings when the business improvement district was discussed and I had some reservations while I understand that there's a need to have a mechanism to maintain our downtowns. I am concerned about the abrogation of responsibility from the city. which means without the responsibility, we have no say. except as a member. as Chris Zapata just pointed out, a member of the Business Improvement District. So what I would like to suggest that there be some exploration of how the city can retain local control within our boundaries, because after going through this housing element and the housing legislation, we see what can happen with a lack of local control. And I, for one, want to see the residents and our city hall have some control over them. and involvement in the business assessment district. And as a matter of fact, I would like to recommend exploring having some, maybe the city manager on the board of directors and some members of the public on the board of directors of the business improvement district. That way there would be local control, And there would also be resident and local input into the functioning of the business assessment district. excuse me, business improvement district. Thank you. Thank you, Sandra. |
| 01:59:38.28 | Vicki Nichols | Thank you. |
| 01:59:38.71 | Walfred Solorzano | Vicki Nichols. |
| 01:59:40.18 | Sandra Bushmaker | Thank you. |
| 01:59:40.21 | Vicki Nichols | Welcome back, Vicki. Hi, good evening. I am this is interesting and I this is not the first time I've heard of this being suggested and I think it's always worth exploring. We know that we need some boost. to our economics, but I think most of you know me and my My radar is triggered here and that is by already the lack of understanding or the confusion, myself included, about what it means that the city no longer has any control. So I would suggest that get cleared up quickly. And I'm wondering, does that mean that a district when I hear the events mentioned, then has no obligation to abide under our local zoning for noise or the amount of events that happen or how long they happen. things like that. As you know, I live in the Caledonia area, which is not just businesses. It is the only commercial residential district. So that would have an impact on traffic, et cetera, et cetera. And I think it will on downtown as well. because of the, there are residents down there. So I think we need to answer these questions so we don't all leave the meeting freaked out, but have a clear understanding of us giving up control. What does that actually mean? Thank you. |
| 02:01:07.59 | Walfred Solorzano | Next speaker, Jen Johnson. |
| 02:01:14.32 | Jen Johnson | unmute. Hi. Can you hear me? |
| 02:01:20.97 | Jill Hoffman | Sure. |
| 02:01:20.99 | Jen Johnson | me. |
| 02:01:21.15 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 02:01:21.29 | Jen Johnson | Thank you. |
| 02:01:21.34 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. Yes, we can hear you, Jen. Hi, welcome. |
| 02:01:24.26 | Jen Johnson | Thank you and thank you for being there in person. I can't get past Sausalito's $64.2 million long-term debt. I wonder how much of the $300,000 Sausalito gave to EDACT is left. I think whatever is left should be returned to the city general fund. And I wonder, can it be returned? If the Chamber of Commerce and the local businesses want a BID, then I think they should get together and fund the consultant. The next 20 years for Sausalito is going to be crisis financial deficits. and almost inability to pay its pension obligation. So I object to any consultation fees that aren't absolutely fundamentally necessary for survival. That's it. Thank you. Thank you very much. |
| 02:02:33.67 | Walfred Solorzano | Arthur Bruce. |
| 02:02:35.29 | Jill Hoffman | I'm |
| 02:02:41.95 | Arthur Bruce | It's just 20 now. Hey, it's nice to see you, everybody. the I'm uh, Oh yeah, in regards to money being God and consultants and everything. I'm actually a consultant for hire, you guys. I probably didn't know about me. I am a consultant for hiring. I consult on identifying lizard people within government organizations. I'm pretty sure that the... |
| 02:03:02.35 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 02:03:05.04 | Unknown | I can't. |
| 02:03:10.71 | Arthur Bruce | The city manager is actually a lizard person. I'll just start with that for my credentials. So I'll give you all a free one there that's on the house. |
| 02:03:24.83 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. Next speaker is Christopher Dardar. Sorry if I got the last name. |
| 02:03:33.19 | Christopher Dardar | Yes, sir. Um, May I see. |
| 02:03:42.43 | Christopher Dardar | Can you hear me? |
| 02:03:44.46 | Jill Hoffman | Yes, we can hear you. |
| 02:03:46.08 | Christopher Dardar | Yes, ma'am, yes. Sir and ladies of the city council, Um, I'm a fellow anchor out with Arthur and Peter and Jeffrey Chase. They are passionate political people. The only reason I'm chiming in on this is it seems there's serious revenue issues for now and in the future of Sausalito. I think it's a wonderful idea. I understand the homeowners skepticism of a consultant, but I think it's a wonderful idea of really starting to think of the future of this town and what it holds not only demographically, but as far as revenues. I've been a part of a lot in Miami Wynwood was an area that was completely very, very bad. There's been so much investment And I feel like there's so much investment, keep Sausalito salty. There's so much investment potential for this town, especially, |
| 02:04:41.53 | Unknown | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 02:04:49.61 | Christopher Dardar | with the tourists and foreigners, which the tourists and foreigners are, well, I shouldn't say foreigners, but the tourists are very important, even if they're just coming over from the city. They're very important lifebloods for pumping money economically into this town. And I think there's a huge opportunity to turn this town, the district you're proposing into a Wynwood like Miami or like we're doing in Jacksonville, Springfield. We're turning that into a Wynwood style. I think, The town needs more revenue, period. It's inevitable. It's got to happen. There probably needs to be more bar options for the kids. You know, we were all young kids drinking once too. And a lot of the tourists, especially on the weekends that come, They want to spend more money. They want to stay later. But if everything closes down like a Boca Raton retirement community at 7 p.m., 9 p.m., It makes it more difficult. to bring in more artists, to make it more conducive to business, to artists, to free spirits, to the Sally Sanford legacy of, more women business owners, more minorities in here from Marin City. from the city, we could easily have a few little streets that are like, the Marina District or in the Mission. Easily. And I think that would add a lot of revenue and also give, some different walks of life. and some different demographics, I'd say in 20, 30 years, we will have an extremely aged out population in Sausalito. Where's the future gonna be? What if the families and everything that have kids in school decide to move to Mill Valley or up to San Rafael or to the city or up north? Where's the future going to be? That's my only question. I think it's a great idea. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. |
| 02:06:41.00 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you very much. Do we have any further public comment at this time, City Clerk? |
| 02:06:44.12 | Walfred Solorzano | No further public comment. |
| 02:06:45.31 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, I'm gonna give the mic to the city manager who wanted to respond to some of those questions. And then I know council member Cox had a few comments. |
| 02:06:53.46 | Chris Zapata | Thank you. Thank you, Mayor and Council of Public for your interest. If a consultant RFP is released tonight, if the consultant is hired, if a business district is formed, that does not mean that the city abdicates its responsibilities and certain things that have to happen that we normally do as a matter of course, like will there be a police officer in that area? Sure. Will there be, you know, the street swept? Sure. Will garbage be little bit of a little bit of a business officer in that area. Sure. Will there be, you know, the street swept? Sure. Will garbage be picked up in that area? Sure. At the level that you see today, what a business improvement district would do is make sure that if those people Events. or marketing. or maintenance or security, they pay for them, but they don't have carte blanche to run downtown in that district, however they want it. They still have to go through all the city process and all the city regulations still apply. And so I think I wanna make sure that that narrative of we abdicate a certain area to the folks that create the district is not true. It's actually the idea is to enhance the area and the level of services that are currently there. And given the financial challenges that are well known, I think adding more resources is a potential answer, but that depends on the council that depends on the folks that would be paying for this. And ultimately that. You know, just really depends on what program they want to see with the funding they get, but they do not get carte blanche to run through and not have regulations of the city imposed on them. The earlier item with the school district is a similar example. The school district has some sovereignty where they can, in fact, do things outside of the city's control. The business improvement district would not have that where the city would not have control is how the funds are spent. Thank you. |
| 02:08:38.30 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you, Senator. And then I'll go to council member Cox and then vice mayor Sobieski. |
| 02:08:42.59 | Council Member Cox | I had just a couple of additional questions. So, you know, one mechanism for business improvement districts to not marginalize smaller businesses is to utilize a threshold so that if your business is smaller than a certain level, you don't have to pay into the business improvement district. The flip side challenge of that is that smaller businesses get marginalized because sometimes when they don't contribute, they then don't get a voice. And so is this something we can charge our consultant with to structuring any proposed business improvement district to ensure that they are democratic and that small businesses are not marginalized in decision making by the larger businesses that contribute to the business improvement district. |
| 02:09:39.85 | Chris Zapata | And thank you for that question, Council Member Cox in the staff report. There's an item that speaks to assessment methodology. and how that's prepared and what that ultimately ends up to be is something that a consultant would have to listen to the folks that might be in that defined area and what it is they think is fair to them, what's acceptable to them. And they'd have to come back, uh, not only to the city, but to that group in an election format with that proposed assessment format. And if it means, you know, smaller businesses, excuse me, pay less or smaller parcels pay less, uh, that, that depends on what you all agree on and what the consulting could bring forward for your consideration. |
| 02:10:18.79 | Jill Hoffman | It looks like the city attorney turned his camera on, so I just want to make sure there isn't anything you'd like to add, Sergio. |
| 02:10:23.85 | Sergio Rudin | Yeah, you know, in terms of assessment methodology, you know, these kinds of districts are still subject to Prop 218 restrictions. So there is going to be that consideration for whatever consultant you folks hire in terms of developing the assessment methodology and making sure that the you know, there's proportionality in terms of how each business contributes and what benefits they receive. That'll also drive the democratic decision making process. |
| 02:10:51.90 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. Do you have further questions? Okay, vice mayor. |
| 02:10:55.38 | Vice Mayor Sobieski | Yes, so city manager, I was wondering if you could just respond to the theme of Senator Bushmaker's comments concerning governance if the city's part of this business improvement district because the city has property and is paying into the district, then is it the case that the city will have a vote and a voice? will it generally be in proportion to what the city contributes or is it possible to structure the district with some extra city input through the board mechanism. Thank you. |
| 02:11:26.81 | Chris Zapata | I appreciate former Mayor Bushmaker's comment and your question, council member. The answer is it depends. When you set up the methodology, sometimes when the city is a part of a formation of a district, some cities and the city of San Leandro is one elected to participate in the election. They were a large property owner. And so consequently, they in fact helped push the vote to a positive. When that happens, then the question is the formation of the board. And at that time, the city wanted to show some independence from them. So they did not demand that there be a person from the city placed on the board. But I don't think that's an unreasonable ask. If in fact, the city is the largest payer, that there'd be some kind of city involvement, just like you did with the SCA building. You put together a clause in that agreement that said we would have representation on that board. And I think you could fairly lobby a potential business improvement district that, YOU KNOW, WE WOULD LOVE TO BE A PART OF THE GOVERNANCE OF IT. BUT, AGAIN, I WANT TO MAKE CLEAR THE CITY COUNCIL WOULD NOT BE THE, THE, THE, THE, would be not be leading that as they do city staff. But yeah, I think that's possible. It just depends on how you ultimately end up forming it Thank you. |
| 02:12:40.81 | Council Member Kelman | Councilmember Kelman. Thank you, Mayor. Council members have taken a lot of my accountability questions off the table, but I am curious for the city manager, has a range and it's pretty big range and seems to suggest that it just would be sort of a spillover of funds How did you come to that range and that cost? And what kind of cost-benefit analysis was EDAC able to do in making the recommendation to move forward with an RFP. |
| 02:13:11.20 | Chris Zapata | Yeah, that's what you call city manager arithmetic. You know, the idea of the EDAC conversation was two separate districts that would be formed or one big district that would be formed, which would be downtown along with Caledonia. If you do that, and I don't recommend that, and I told the EDAC board through Councilmember Hoffman and Vice Mayor Sobieski that they should start with one district and not such an expanded district. But if you choose to do that, then obviously the costs go up in terms of the formation costs. So, you know, my experience has been about 50K is a number that sets up a small district. If you go larger, then you're looking at more costs. So that's why I put that in there as a range, not as an exact number. And you won't have an exact number until you hire a consultant. And the way we set up the RFP is the consultant would work on an hourly schedule. And so it's essentially a proposed budget that might be spent by the consultant. Doesn't mean the consultant would spend it all. It depends on the amount of work required and the rates that the consultant would charge for that work. |
| 02:14:14.82 | Council Member Kelman | Okay, and can I follow up question for you city manager? So we've actually talked about a number of different districts in the last couple of weeks. The topic of a GAD or Geologic Hazard Abatement District has come up, which is an assessment district. the BID, we've talked peripherally around some type of infrastructure in assessment district, perhaps towards the waterfront with aging infrastructure. Is there an economy of scale to be had in hitting pause on this one specific effort and taking a look at assessment districts as an overall strategy in our community. and weighing that cost of hiring a consultant against the possible cost benefit of having assessment districts and maybe moving forward with with others instead of this particular one, or at least having them side by side? |
| 02:15:03.15 | Chris Zapata | Yeah, thank you for that question. Honest face, it sounds logical. You know, certain districts require different expertises. So if you wanted to suggest that you have one overarching one over |
| 02:15:06.21 | Council Member Kelman | Thank you. I do. |
| 02:15:07.24 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:15:15.54 | Chris Zapata | Um, general consultant that will look at all improvement districts that you could use. I'm sure there are very limited opportunities for someone that would know about a geologic hazard district or a business improvement district or a infrastructure financing district or any other kind of districts in their one shop. It's pretty much of a specialty. So I think it's a well-intended approach where you could economize, but I think the practicality of it is it would not work. |
| 02:15:44.60 | Council Member Kelman | Thank you. |
| 02:15:44.61 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 02:15:45.29 | Council Member Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 02:15:47.18 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 02:15:47.20 | Council Member Hoffman | Councilmember Huffman. Thanks. So would it be possible as part of this Chris, to have the city properties not be contributors. In other words, if we're already paying for streets for like whatever maintenance. And the point is with the BID. to increase funding for those districts, you know, for the benefit of benefit of the businesses to be sure, but also for the community, can we do that and not have the, you know, specifically say, well, city properties are not subject to part of the, um, you know, appropriation. |
| 02:16:28.25 | Chris Zapata | And thank you for that question, Council Member Hoffman. I like that thought, but the answer is no. A city would be obligated just like everyone else. |
| 02:16:36.34 | Jill Hoffman | Okay. The attorney's going to weigh in on that as well. Go ahead. |
| 02:16:40.42 | Sergio Rudin | Yeah, there are some very narrow exceptions when we can demonstrate that we receive absolutely no benefit from other similarly assessed parcels within the boundary, but it's a very hard burden. Generally, the city manager is correct. |
| 02:16:57.50 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. Vice Mayor, you have your hand raised. |
| 02:16:59.84 | Vice Mayor Sobieski | Well, I have a follow-up question to Councilmember Hoffman's question in that regard. Whereas that might be true within the boundaries of the district. one can draw the boundaries of the district, right? So you can, draw the boundaries that either include certain properties or or not. And so to the extent you draw those boundaries, not to capture either private or public property, you adjust the mixture of entities that participate in that district. Is that the case, Sergio? for. or city manager. Or did I get that wrong? |
| 02:17:34.10 | Chris Zapata | that's correct If you're not in the district, you don't get assessed. |
| 02:17:38.66 | Vice Mayor Sobieski | Okay, so if we draw the district, we can draw the district more or less aggressively in that regard, I believe, is the Is the answer. |
| 02:17:45.61 | Sergio Rudin | Yes, but we also have to make sure we're not receiving any of the benefits of the district. And that is, I think, the key. So. |
| 02:17:55.04 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, are there any further questions from Councilor? Can we open it up to a discussion here? Okay, looks like we're ready to open up to discussion. Who would like to start us off? |
| 02:18:06.23 | Council Member Cox | I will. Councilmember Cox. Um, since we are, since the monies proposed to be spent are monies that have already been allocated out of the city coffers to EDAC. And since this is essentially a feasibility study, uh, that would provide us additional information that would empower us to make correct and prudent decisions, I'm in favor of moving forward with the RFP. Thank you. |
| 02:18:35.24 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 02:18:35.25 | Council Member Kelman | Thank you. |
| 02:18:35.78 | Jill Hoffman | Councilmember Kelman. |
| 02:18:36.47 | Council Member Kelman | Bye. Thank you. This is a really interesting conversation. I did some research on business permanent districts across the country. They're primarily in larger cities like New York City, primarily in larger areas with large office spaces who have budget And I started to sort of wonder, so what are the criticism, what are the benefits? And this idea of accountability and private control, public space, sort of repeatedly does come up. and weighed against increased property values. I think it's an interesting idea. I think there's a number of assessment districts that we do need to consider more thoroughly. Um, My hesitation is right now we have a strategic planning session scheduled for We made a really big allocation to EDAC at a time when we probably should have been tightening. our belts and didn't realize it. And so at this point, knowing that there might be money left in the coffers, I'd like to just slow this roll and bring it to the strategic prioritization session on Friday. and evaluate it within the context of the overall budget. I'm not saying it's a bad idea. There may be the case that the businesses on Caledonia don't actually have enough budget to make a useful assessment district. And therefore, if we were to go ahead and actually spend 50 to 100 K on trying to evaluate the feasibility, it wouldn't pencil out. And I'm not sure that we're in a position to spend the money on that at this time. I think there's more diligence that we can do. to prove this out in the interim, but I also want to evaluate within the context of what I think when the mayor Hoffman and I were on the fiscal finance committee, we talked about as a more rigorous financial scrutiny. And I think now's the time and we have the opportunity on Friday to do it. And so I just want to sort of hit a pause on it. So I don't dislike the idea. I think it needs a little bit more due diligence for our particular area. I'd like to see the chamber involved. I'd like to see members of the business community at this meeting. IN THIS CONVERSATION. AND I THINK WE'LL HAVE MORE INFORMATION ON FRIDAY AS TO HOW WE CAN ALLOCATE EXCESS RESOURCES THAT MAY COME BACK TO OUR GENERAL FUND. |
| 02:20:44.85 | Jill Hoffman | out. Point of clarification from Councilman Cox before we go to Councilman Roffman. |
| 02:20:47.32 | Council Member Cox | So I also initially thought this was concerning Caledonia because that was the area of complaint as to Sausalito Beautiful. But as I understand it from a conversation with the city manager, this actually involves downtown as a potential business improvement district. and that you've already had dialogue with the Chamber of Commerce. I'm not saying don't hit pause, but I just wanna make sure that we're dealing with facts |
| 02:21:15.33 | Chris Zapata | I would recommend you don't hit pause. This has been discussed for over a year. at various forums and the bottom line is The recommendation for me was not to do Caledonia to the EDAC group is to work on the downtown area, which is a little more substantial and just had a public-private partnership to do lighting that they're, learning who and what who those folks are downtown and what their appetite is for improving that environment is and so when EDAC made this their number one priority this past fall. My sense was this was pretty much vetted by different people in the community, and I thought that the EDAC recommendation, which was both was an overreach and so the last meeting, which I believe was a month ago. I recommend it through Councilmember Hoffman and-Members Sobieski that they confine it, not Caledonia, but to downtown. But ultimately, it depends on, you know, what's viable. And so I think to study it more would be a mistake. I think it's been studied plenty. There are plenty of models of it succeeding. There are also models of it failing. And so, you know, business improvement districts are forever. When they don't succeed, then they get dissolved. I've seen that happen too. Bottom line is, if you don't have money, you're looking for ways to bring money into certain areas. so that you can say yes to things so things can happen. Otherwise, the financial challenges that we'll face for the next three, five, seven years, you'll lose the opportunity to create a bigger revenue pie. And even though our downtown isn't small, it is pretty mighty, it is pretty attractive. It does need some love though. And this would provide an opportunity to consider that. So I would strongly recommend that you not put pause on this, that you approve it tonight. because I think the work's been done. |
| 02:22:59.43 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you city manager council member Hoffman you've got your hand raised. Thank you. |
| 02:23:02.33 | Council Member Hoffman | Um, thank you. So, um, crisp. Uh, Apologies, but I think, you know, I think this, I do agree that it should be moved. And I would ask that it be added to the agenda on Friday. I think as part of an overall. Um, you know, strategy that we're, I think we're going to discuss about our fiscal situation and about a standard way to look at asks that come to us as a city council. And I think we have to be more disciplined about this and look at all these asks in the context of what is our, what is our standard review for things that come before us. And so I think, you know, I do agree that anything that comes before us in 2023 because it's pretty clear that you know, that our structural deficit It's here and we need to start looking at things through that funnel. And every ask that comes to us for funding has to have a standard process for review. I think we're going to talk about that on Friday and I hope that we come up with a three, three standard things that as a city council, We agree that if it's it may be a great idea, but if it doesn't make it through these three wickets and it doesn't move us closer to a balanced budget and out of our structural deficit, then it may go on the shelf of good things to have. but it's not gonna happen. you know, this year and a quick ROI is one of the first thing, return on investment, If we invest in a business investment district, How soon are we going to see a return on that investment of whatever it is whatever assets, whatever funding, what are staff time, which is an asset, we're putting toward this effort. I am in favor right now of, I think the ROI on the BID, for downtown pencil out and it will bring more ability to manage our infrastructure, which is part of our you know, part of the things we're trying to pay, even though we're in deficit. I think it will. I think that's a good investment. I think that trying to get people that are, you know, invested in those areas and want to help and have a funding source for them to help. I think that's a good idea, but I want to look at this in a broader context. And I want the city council on Friday to come up with this plan for every athlete so that we're consistent in our responses to everybody who comes to the city council and want something funded. I mean, we heard things tonight from, the school district, we heard some things, you know, from some other people almost every meeting about these great ideas that we want to fund. But what is that in the context of our structural deficit and what is our standard process of review for reviewing these asks and everything. should get rigorous fiscal scrutiny if it comes before us. And so, and that's why I'm a favorite Moving it to Friday, I think I like I said, I think the case is going to be made and I think Chris has made a lot of it tonight, but I want to look at it in the in the context of everything else and how we're going to review these things going forward this year. |
| 02:26:19.99 | Jill Hoffman | Vice Mayor. |
| 02:26:22.42 | Vice Mayor Sobieski | Um, Well, certainly I'm digesting the comments I just heard real time. when I look at the agenda for Friday, it seems like we're talking about many things and won't, I mean, if we spoke about the business improvement district, in particular, the RFI, that would I feel I don't feel like it should. as Councilmember Cox said, just issuing this RFI to begin the process of getting some replies doesn't obligate us to spend any money on any of the applicants, it just responds to the work that's been done for the past year by staff and volunteers and the business community. requesting this as a priority action item. So we have in town examples of things that are just what Councilmember Hoffman outlined that I think we're a little bit. So the lights that we love downtown. Who has been in the city? takes care of those lights. When they go out, currently someone calls Kevin McGowan or the Department of Public Works, and they have to come over and turn the lights on. And they've got a lot of stuff to do. So business improvement district would be a natural place where the city could say, the lights are yours. bailiwick to maintain. We still keep our complete local control about whether the lights are there at all or not. But once they're there with the community's approval and city council's approval, they're maintained by the businesses themselves. This is a formula for doing with less exactly trying to improve our level of service to the community while We, are in a period of budget. structural budget deficit. So, There's also just something to be said about responsive government. And this has been looked at for discussed at many layers for months and months. they got a pretty persuasive case from our city staff to just release the RFI. I don't see how releasing the RFI negatively impacts the discussion we'll have on Friday. And so I would support just moving along and making some progress. instead of letting instead of always deferring. action to a future day. So I'm in favor of just releasing this RFI and and continuing the discussion on Friday. about the very important subjects that Councilmember Hoffman described. |
| 02:28:55.07 | Jill Hoffman | So I'm gonna weigh in right before, just before you do Council Member Kelman, I heard a lot of really great ideas and comments that are all in my mind justified. So what I'm hearing is there's a real need to create a very clear and consistent process for the way that we respond to and assess fiscal requests as a city, which is absolutely true, especially as we look at our structural deficit. And that is absolutely something that I believe and I think we will be discussing at length on Friday. at our meeting. And we will be thinking about and I've heard from Council member the need for assessment districts, not just business assessment districts, but geological assessment districts or infrastructure assessment districts. Again, these are big parts of the discussion we're going to be having on Friday. However, I would like us to meet in the middle here and agree that we will have that conversation on Friday as a, about how we make these financial decisions together and really dig deep, but also support the initiative and the hard work that staff has put into this and the request that staff has made on this specific initiative to put the RFI out there This time, Knowing that we will create a more specific process going forward and also keeping in mind it doesn't mean we're going to yet spend any money, but we are going to put it out there to see what sort of responses we might receive from the community. But then thinking about and committing to that the funding would come from EDAC if we were to use it and that we will look at what is the. remaining budget that we have from EDAC at this point and can we justify it with this and if not, maybe we won't spend any of the money at all because again, we are in a structural deficit but I think that we've heard from EDAC's hard work that this is their top priority, their number one priority for us. And that's why it was brought forward by the city manager and who has, a lot of experience with these types of districts and that's why he's brought it before us and In fact, that's why you put it on. consent and now I'm glad we're having an open discussion about it but I would really like to see us support it. So I'm wondering if we'd be comfortable with committing to talking about assessment districts in general on Friday and also about having a conversation about how we assess what money we are going to spend together, but move forward with RFI tonight. Go ahead, Council Member Kellman. |
| 02:31:04.79 | Council Member Kelman | Thank you. Yeah, actually, I want to just clarify. So the stuff report is, and this is maybe a little nitpicky, but I think meaningful. It talks about an RFP. And I think an RFI is a little bit of a different stance on something that maybe is the middle ground that you're looking for. And so just my unease is this sort of allocation of funds that maybe need to go into the general fund from EDAC. That's part of it. But the other is I think RFP signals to a vendor that you're ready to make the purchase. And so I'm just wondering maybe from the city attorney or from the city manager, do you feel there's a substantive distinction between RFI versus an RFP? |
| 02:31:48.67 | Chris Zapata | A request for interest is what I understand the RFI to be. |
| 02:31:51.94 | Council Member Kelman | Request for information, but yeah. |
| 02:31:54.44 | Chris Zapata | from whom |
| 02:31:56.82 | Council Member Kelman | Well, you put it out to the same vendors that you put out in RFP, right? We did an RFI for a handful of other items in the last couple of years. I think we even did an RFI for the Bank of America. was it originally an RFI? So let me throw that out there as a middle ground. I think it's, It gives us the same ability to look at options, but I think it's less of a signal to the community and to perhaps vendors that this is exactly what we're doing. |
| 02:32:23.19 | Chris Zapata | Yeah, I appreciate all those thoughts. If I'd have known it was gonna be this hard, maybe I wouldn't have put it on consent. So I apologize for that. The second thing is, if I'd known it would be this complicated in terms of getting a yes to go out for an RFP, I probably would have rethought it as, |
| 02:32:27.55 | Council Member Kelman | So I'd like to thank you. |
| 02:32:39.43 | Chris Zapata | A RECOMMENDATION. Anytime city council agrees or disagrees on something, whatever you agree on up here, as long as it's not illegal or more unethical, I will carry out to my fullest ability. But before that, I'll give you my best recommendation. And if you choose to take it, great. If you don't, I understand. And I do my professional duty to follow through in whatever way the council directs. My recommendation here is to put out a request for proposal. I think a request for information would just string this along. You know, there are some specific timelines that have to be met when you set up a business improvement district that involved the tax rolls. And the longer you delay, the longer you push that into another cycle, which I think is unfortunate because downtown needs some help coming out of COVID. And with our restrictions with funding, you know, to bring other funding by seeding this, I think would be a long term benefit for the city. And when I mean long term, I mean over the duration of a district, if it's formed, we obviously would have some costs up front. But that would be something that I think would come back in the way of TOT sales tax and a quality of life that, you know, we see being supported right now by volunteers. And I don't know how long you can sustain that. I think you need a BID downtown to start to do the things that people have been doing out of the goodness of their heart and to supplement the work that the city staff is doing there with minimal resources and minimal staff. So I recommend that you go forward with the request for proposals. And if you choose not to, then we can bring it back another way if you'd like. |
| 02:34:13.01 | Council Member Cox | Council member Cox? Thank you. Thank you. I just wanted to address this concept of somehow clawing back money that's been allocated to the Economic Development Advisory Committee. The Sausalito business community came to the city council year after year asking for monies, the investment of monies to establish Sausalito as a regional visitor hub, as opposed to simply focusing on long distance tourism and in 2018 the Sausalito business community assisted Sausalito with the passage of measure M the city of Sausalito business tax equity measure as well as measure L the hotel tax increase measure both of which financially impacted the Sausalito business community and in exchange for that support, the city promised to allocate. the funds to the business community via the economic advisory committee. And then similarly, this past year, the Saucyote business community again was instrumental In the passage of Measure O, which increased the existing local sales tax from 0.5% for a period of 10 years, generating an estimated additional $375,000 per year into the city's coffers. And for these reasons, strenuously object to any, and I'm not sure that anyone is suggesting this, but I wanted to make the point that I object to clawing back monies that have previously been allocated by the city to our business community. Thanks. Vice Mayor, you have your hand raised. |
| 02:36:01.76 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 02:36:03.06 | Vice Mayor Sobieski | The TOT tax paid by just one hotel in our community? increased $142,000 in 2022 versus 2021. So that's just one hotel. the tags. to the city. increased 142,000. $340. last year. So it's worth bearing in mind that this whole discussion is about from my point of view as a resident, is about reminding us that when our businesses do well, it not only improves the life of our of our community. because we do more than just live in our homes here. but it actually is a, Great way. to provide more money to the city of Sausalito to provide services to residents. without taxing. uh, the residents. uh, So... I think part of the reason that no one from the Chamber of Commerce is here tonight or speaking on this subject is that, well, I'm pretty sure I can speak with, confidence that they thought as the same answer did, that this would be a straightforward ask. to simply release an RFP. to respond to what's being discussed for more than a year. So I hope that we can move forward. and take one small step forward instead of continuing to consider and Thanks. |
| 02:37:24.44 | Jill Hoffman | Thanks, Vice Mayor Sergio. You turned on your camera. Do you want to add something from a city attorney perspective before I hear from Councilmember Hoffman? |
| 02:37:30.22 | Sergio Rudin | Yes, in terms of this particular RFP, and I think this may address some of the concerns and questions raised by council members. It is not atypical for RFPs to include language that specifically says that there is no guarantee that a contract will be awarded and that a city reserves the right to reject all proposals and, you know, rebid or repost the RFP. So that may be something that addresses some of the council members concerns about you know, moving forward this item this evening. |
| 02:38:02.14 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you for that clarification. Okay, Councilmember Hoffman. |
| 02:38:08.64 | Jill Hoffman | You're on mute, council member. Thanks. |
| 02:38:13.92 | Council Member Hoffman | So this conversation for a consent item that's lasted almost 45 minutes is about an RFP for an economic effort is an excellent example. of why we need more discipline and how we decide to fund things. And the digression that we just had for the last 15 minutes is an excellent example. of when you don't have standards you know, standard criteria for looking at a fiscal ask before the city council, how you digress into you know, minutia of, you know, while I talk to this person or back in, you know, whatever, I mean, that's interesting information. But we have to look at things in the broader context of our structural deficit and have the discipline to apply standard ways that we look at things and put them in the proper perspective. We can't have these individual asks elevating up to the City Council if we don't have the context of a standard review in the context of our budget. And so That being said. I hope we discuss this on Friday. I do agree though, I'm sorry, That RFP, we issue an RFP, doesn't mean we're going to fund it. It doesn't mean we're going to do it. It means that it's going to come back to us, and I would expect it to come back to us if we have a response to that RFP about whether or not we're going to move forward with it and how we're going to fund it. And hopefully... By the time that happens, by the end of Friday, we're gonna have an agreement amongst the council members. Every time we have an ask, a fiscal ask to the city council, This is our response. If it doesn't meet these four criteria in the next four years, while we were in structural deficit, Then. This is the response. And I hope that response is gonna be standard amongst all of us instead of advocating for different projects that we feel passionate about, not saying that they don't have merit, But I'm saying that we have to have this discipline going forward because we haven't particularly shown it well in the past. And that's how we got here. So anyway, I'll make the motion. Okay. |
| 02:40:26.59 | Jill Hoffman | I'm sorry to my comments. Consent count agenda item three. |
| 02:40:26.65 | Council Member Hoffman | contrary to my comments 20 minutes ago. |
| 02:40:31.91 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 02:40:32.01 | Council Member Hoffman | Yeah. |
| 02:40:33.38 | Jill Hoffman | I have a second. |
| 02:40:34.91 | Council Member Hoffman | What was the motion? The motion is to issue the RFP. |
| 02:40:38.41 | Wilford Welch | Second. |
| 02:40:40.36 | Council Member Hoffman | Yeah. |
| 02:40:40.43 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 02:40:40.47 | Council Member Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 02:40:40.57 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 02:40:40.77 | Council Member Hoffman | Do you know? |
| 02:40:40.97 | Jill Hoffman | Please call the roll. |
| 02:40:42.02 | Council Member Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 02:40:42.03 | Council Member Kelman | Can I make it off an amendment to the motion? Can we include the language that Sergio suggested in terms of the non-binding nature? Yeah, I think it's standard, isn't it? But anyway, yes. So, |
| 02:40:56.97 | Council Member Hoffman | or accept. |
| 02:40:57.75 | Council Member Kelman | Thank you. |
| 02:40:58.20 | Council Member Hoffman | I accept your amendment. |
| 02:41:01.34 | Vice Mayor Sobieski | second the new amended motion. |
| 02:41:03.92 | Jill Hoffman | Okay. City clerk, will you please call the roll? Thank you. |
| 02:41:05.74 | Walfred Solorzano | Councilmember Cox? Yes. Councilmember Hoffman? Thank you. |
| 02:41:09.88 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah. |
| 02:41:09.96 | Walfred Solorzano | Yes. Council member coming. |
| 02:41:11.97 | Jill Hoffman | Yes. |
| 02:41:13.03 | Walfred Solorzano | Vice Mayor Sobieski? Yes. And Mayor Blasdy? |
| 02:41:16.78 | Debra (Human Resources Consultant) | Yes. |
| 02:41:17.76 | Jill Hoffman | Motion passes 5-0. Thank you very much, everyone. Okay, we will now move on to our business item. We only have one business item this evening, which is the waiver of the second reading and adoption of ordinance number 022023, an ordinance repealing South City Municipal Code Section 204010. So I think that this is a presentation from the city attorney and the city manager. |
| 02:41:40.98 | Jill Hoffman | City Attorney Sergio. |
| 02:41:44.14 | Sergio Rudin | Hi, folks. Yes. So as you are already aware, the SOSCLE-DU municipal code sets your regular meeting time. for the first and third Tuesdays. And there is no requirement that the city have that baked into its municipal code. It's generally pretty standard practice in most agencies that they just pass their regular meeting time by resolution. Um, I also have a conflict with the city council's regularly adopted meeting schedule that set forth in its municipal code. So I am asking the City Council to change its regular meeting time as I serve as City Attorney for Montes Reynia, which has meetings at the exact same time. Um, and Yeah, I'm hoping you'll consider that. |
| 02:42:36.14 | Jill Hoffman | Are you saying you like working for us, Sergio? |
| 02:42:38.59 | Sergio Rudin | Yes. I'm hoping you'll have me for long enough that it makes sense to change your meeting time. you |
| 02:42:47.01 | Jill Hoffman | Do we have questions from the council before I take public comment? Thank you. Yes. |
| 02:42:51.13 | Council Member Cox | Sergio, would the second and fourth Tuesdays work for your schedule or the second and fifth Tuesdays in the event that there's five Tuesdays in a month? |
| 02:43:02.55 | Sergio Rudin | Yes, that should work for me. |
| 02:43:04.53 | Council Member Cox | Thank you. |
| 02:43:07.61 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, we'll now open it up to public comment. Yes. Thank you. |
| 02:43:14.60 | Susan Shea | Welcome back, Susan. Thank you. I didn't expect to speak again tonight, but here I am. Sergio, I'm so sorry that you're not able to come here on Tuesdays. However, this has been a tradition in our town for I don't even know how long. And I don't know. just when we're getting back to public meetings to all of a sudden go to a different day of the week? It's still Tuesdays. It's just different Tuesdays. That's, you know, whatever. I'm just saying, everybody knows it's the second and fourth. Actually, we're... |
| 02:43:51.96 | Jill Hoffman | suggesting changing it to the second and fourth. It's the first and third right now. Okay, well, whatever. |
| 02:43:55.73 | Council Member Cox | And last year, it was the second and fourth. |
| 02:43:57.95 | Jill Hoffman | Last year was the second and fourth. Thank you. Bye. |
| 02:44:01.61 | Council Member Cox | Thank you. |
| 02:44:01.68 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 02:44:10.00 | Jeff Jacobs | Hi again. I am agreeing with you on almost everything, unless you don't want me to, but, What I'm gonna say is here we are for the first time in a very, very, very long time at a council meeting and there's only for people. citizens here outnumbered by the staff and the council and our beautiful police officers. I would suggest... after that 45 minute conversation that as on most votes, is unanimous five to zero. that there is some way to make this town more democratic. And I'm going to, Talk about what Rob said about a nuclear rock. Well, we're between a nuclear rock and a hard place right now. that like, In the book, 1984, Are We at War with East Asia? China or Eurasia, Russia. that we're minutes away, from whatever is being discussed on Tuesdays or Thursdays or Fridays and how that happens, how we come to the precipice of a world war is decisions that are made by every town and by all the people in the town. And unless those decisions are witnessed, We have no newspaper. that covers these council meetings. There's an entire building that says Morinsko. And the number of articles that they have about Sausalito. is, In this issue, Zeran. They have one about the Sausalito, about contemporary Sausalito. They have one about the Sausalito Historical Society. And they have an item in the police blotter. where a houseless person is told to move on. That's Sherm Frederick, who's the editor and publisher of the MarinScope. But we do not have a record of this. There's no IJ reporter here. And we don't have a local paper. It's not covered by Nextdoor either. So, I thought that whether my voice gets a little yelly or not, that my stance against any consultancies, period. It seems to be taken a little differently now in this council than it was in the last one. So I'm glad about that. But the idea that there are not citizens here, there's no businesses here, business owners here. that would be part of this district, that it could be discussed in one meeting and taken care of. |
| 02:47:11.46 | Walfred Solorzano | Next speaker on Zoom, we have Peter Romanowski. |
| 02:47:16.64 | Peter Romanowski | Okay. Is this the last item on the agenda? Tonight, I'm I'm 73, so I'm a senior citizen, so you've got to help me along. Are there any more discussions tonight on any items? Hello, can you hear me? |
| 02:47:36.28 | Jill Hoffman | the only business item on the agenda this evening, Mr. Romanowski. |
| 02:47:36.65 | Peter Romanowski | business idea. And there's nothing else left tonight, huh? Okay. Well, Let me just share because I've been so busy, you know, fighting off the environmentalists and the eelgrass people. I haven't had time to show up at all. THE FAMILY. Anyways. Oh. Great, I'm glad that you're Zooming. I'm glad that there's a live meeting. And we're trying to get BCDC to do live meetings and everything again. And thank you for being there. It's a hard job. I don't know how you do it. And, um, One reason I've lost so many elections is the Women's Political Caucus refuses to even let me into their campaign. Bye. |
| 02:48:24.36 | Damien | Bye. |
| 02:48:24.38 | Peter Romanowski | Bye. |
| 02:48:24.39 | Damien | Oh. |
| 02:48:24.65 | Peter Romanowski | Bye. campaign debates is because I won't sign off on abortion. Being a Christian, I just can't do it. I'll lose every election rather than, you know, sign on on abortion, you know. But the Women's Political Caucus runs this county, If you're a Republican, forget it. Unless you're a liberal Republican rhino, forget it, forget it. This is the most Democrat County in California and the most ruthless. and greedy. anything. |
| 02:48:51.86 | Walfred Solorzano | Mr. Romanowski, the item right now has to deal with council schedule for the meetings. You can have public comment in the next item. Thank you. |
| 02:49:06.34 | Jill Hoffman | Do we have any further public comment on this agenda item, Wilfred? |
| 02:49:09.13 | Walfred Solorzano | No, we do not. |
| 02:49:09.95 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, thank you. So I'll bring that up. |
| 02:49:10.83 | Walfred Solorzano | Sorry, one more. Sorry, Alice Merrill. |
| 02:49:13.25 | Jill Hoffman | Alice. Hi, Alice. |
| 02:49:16.76 | Alice Merrill | Bye. So am I to understand that tonight you are changing meetings from the first and third of the second and fourth it is that what is the what you're doing just now. And that's for How long? Yeah. because I've just joined a group that I said, I can't do it on the third, on the fourth, Tues D because I have to be at city council meetings. So they made all of their meetings and now it's changing, so for sure. It's changing. Can you just say yes or no? |
| 02:49:53.22 | Jill Hoffman | We're going to have a discussion about it. |
| 02:49:53.34 | Alice Merrill | We're going to have a discussion |
| 02:49:54.98 | Jill Hoffman | We're going to have a discussion about when we're having the meetings. |
| 02:49:57.86 | Alice Merrill | Thank you. |
| 02:49:58.37 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:49:59.20 | Jill Hoffman | Thanks, Alice. Okay. I think the proposed day was the second and fourth, rather than the first and third Tuesday. At this point, since we also have a, an RFQ out for our city attorney services, and we don't yet know what the next 90, after the next 90 days will look like, I would propose that we, set the agenda, perhaps for February, March and through April. And then reassess. pending agenda or what we decide to do as a council just so that we can have this discussion later I know we had approved the agenda through June. Um, Council member Kalman, you have your... Oh, go ahead. |
| 02:50:43.14 | Council Member Cox | Thank you. Thank you. That was a motion. I second the motion. |
| 02:50:46.82 | Council Member Kelman | I was going to make the motion. So, but I was also gonna just reiterate for everybody that and maybe sort of lost this, that we were operating under the second and fourth and we had moved it beginning of the year to the first and third. So this is just going back to what we had in 2022. for people's schedules. So if there's a motion, I'm ready to vote. If it hasn't been made, I'm ready to make it. |
| 02:51:10.17 | Sergio Rudin | So, council members, I think it sounds like the recommended motion in this instance would be to adopt the resolution with Section 1, providing that the regular meeting time for council meetings will be the second and fourth Tuesday of the month at 7 p.m. And then of course, because you're passing this by resolution, you can revisit this as often as you would like and whenever you would like. |
| 02:51:29.34 | Jill Hoffman | We just want to put that through the end of April. |
| 02:51:32.03 | Council Member Cox | or through, correct, until May. |
| 02:51:32.84 | Jill Hoffman | Correct. |
| 02:51:33.90 | Vice Mayor Sobieski | you Sounds good. |
| 02:51:34.90 | Council Member Cox | We're passing a resolution tonight for the months of February, March, and April. |
| 02:51:40.38 | Council Member Hoffman | I have my hand up. |
| 02:51:41.44 | Council Member Cox | Oh, Councilman Ruffin, go ahead. Sorry. |
| 02:51:42.74 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 02:51:43.40 | Council Member Hoffman | So I've made plans based on the, for one, and I have a conflict with one of the dates. |
| 02:51:52.50 | Jill Hoffman | Which state? Because we can all work together I have a |
| 02:51:55.11 | Council Member Hoffman | I haven't. Thank you. |
| 02:51:55.60 | Jill Hoffman | CONFERENCE. |
| 02:51:55.97 | Council Member Hoffman | CONFLICT FOR March. 14th. So if you're planning, because I've right now our meetings are March 7th and I think the 21st. So based on that, I have a conflict |
| 02:52:13.94 | Vice Mayor Sobieski | So is your conflict such that you can't do it remotely or uncomfortable doing something? |
| 02:52:17.25 | Council Member Hoffman | I absolutely 100% will not be doing anything for the city week of the 13th. March 14th, I can assure you. |
| 02:52:24.83 | Jill Hoffman | I can assure you. And can we on the seventh and then we could. the 7th and the 28th of March and perhaps. |
| 02:52:31.76 | Council Member Hoffman | Yeah, is that what we have right? Is it the 7th and the 28th, not the 21st? |
| 02:52:35.81 | Jill Hoffman | It's the 28th of March would be the fourth that month, the fourth. |
| 02:52:39.81 | Council Member Hoffman | We have a great day. |
| 02:52:39.85 | Council Member Cox | We would sit in one meeting to accommodate your schedule. |
| 02:52:39.97 | Jill Hoffman | Oh, yeah. I got one meeting |
| 02:52:43.07 | Council Member Hoffman | That should be fine. |
| 02:52:47.12 | Council Member Cox | Does that work for everyone? I think so. And Sergio, maybe we can find someone to pinch hit for you on the 7th. |
| 02:52:59.56 | Sergio Rudin | Yeah, I think you would need to. Yes. So I will I will look for somebody to cover that meeting. |
| 02:53:06.58 | Jill Hoffman | But does that mean that that in February, our next meeting would be on the 28th. |
| 02:53:13.29 | Sergio Rudin | In theory, your next meeting would potentially be |
| 02:53:13.31 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah. |
| 02:53:13.43 | Unknown | Bye. |
| 02:53:13.44 | Council Member Hoffman | Bye. Thank you. Bye. |
| 02:53:15.28 | Jill Hoffman | are you unavailable? |
| 02:53:16.03 | Council Member Hoffman | on the 21st. |
| 02:53:20.40 | Council Member Hoffman | Is 21st the day after the three day weekend? I believe it is. I think we typically do not have meetings on the day after a three day weekend. |
| 02:53:34.66 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, so it all right. So we'll just go ahead with the switch on. We'll do it on the second and the fourth, except for March, we'll switch the 14th to the 7th of March, and then we will revisit this together at the end of April or before the end of April, but as, as we move forward with our, RFQ for Legal Services. |
| 02:53:51.87 | Council Member Cox | I will say amended motion. |
| 02:53:51.92 | Jill Hoffman | Bye. |
| 02:53:52.04 | Council Member Hoffman | you |
| 02:53:52.07 | Jill Hoffman | Yes. |
| 02:53:54.10 | Council Member Hoffman | Okay, hold on. We already have a meeting scheduled on the 7th. So you wanna leave it on the 7th. And instead of the 14th you want to do or sorry, And instead of the 21st, you want to do the 28th. |
| 02:54:07.02 | Jill Hoffman | The 28th. |
| 02:54:07.85 | Council Member Hoffman | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 02:54:08.39 | Susan Shea | Yeah. |
| 02:54:08.66 | Council Member Hoffman | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 02:54:09.10 | Jill Hoffman | um, And then it would be the 11th. of April and the 25th of April. |
| 02:54:18.46 | Jill Hoffman | Okay. And then... |
| 02:54:19.19 | Vice Mayor Sobieski | I mean, I hate to throw a bunker in chat of it, since we are doing this real time. if we have the meeting on the, just looking at the calendar, if you have the meeting on the, 24th of February, I mean, 28th of February, then we're going to do, another meeting a week later on the 7th. |
| 02:54:36.49 | Jill Hoffman | Right, right, but sometimes we have to go back to back. |
| 02:54:38.34 | Vice Mayor Sobieski | And we're going to be replacing the city attorney on the 7th. Oh, I hear you. Okay, well. So be it. |
| 02:54:51.15 | Council Member Kelman | Okay, well, we have a pending motion. And a second. Okay. |
| 02:54:54.78 | Walfred Solorzano | Sorry for clarification. Who made the initial motion? |
| 02:54:57.48 | Council Member Kelman | Melissa. Here's the mayor. Mayor. |
| 02:55:00.45 | Walfred Solorzano | And second, sorry. Councilor McConaughey. |
| 02:55:02.02 | Jill Hoffman | Councilman Cox. |
| 02:55:03.20 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you very much. roll call or- |
| 02:55:06.41 | Jill Hoffman | Is your hand raised for something, Councilmember Huffman? The hand-raise emoji is still on. Okay. All right, great. I would like to have a roll call vote, please. |
| 02:55:13.86 | Walfred Solorzano | Councilmember Cox. |
| 02:55:14.93 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah. |
| 02:55:15.15 | Walfred Solorzano | you Councilmember Hoffman. |
| 02:55:17.46 | Jill Hoffman | Yes. |
| 02:55:17.76 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. Council member Cummins? Yes. Vice Mayor Sobieski? Yes. And Mayor Blas-Teens? |
| 02:55:25.80 | Jill Hoffman | Yes. Motion passes 5-0. Thank you. Okay, we'll now move on to the next item on the agenda, which is Communications, this is the time on the agenda for members of the public to provide any public comment for items that are not on the agenda. If you would like to provide a public comment, please raise your hand in the zoom application. The city clerk will call on individuals who have raised their hand in order they were raised or, if you are with us in person, please submit a slip to the city clerk. After you are called on, you will be unmuted or asked to approach the podium and speak and share your comments public comments are allowed for three minutes. And I will now open it up for public comment. |
| 02:55:59.75 | Walfred Solorzano | Brad Johnson. |
| 02:56:21.97 | Brad Johnson | Good evening. My name is Brad Johnson. This is not a pleasant thing for me in any way. Um, I'm a veteran, please don't thank me for my service because I was assaulted by their police department. I have reported this to the chief There's an email trail. chain as they say. Um, I'm going to OFFER A NOVELY. There's a separate Department of Justice entity called the service members and veterans. initiative. and this is a separate thing to worry about veterans civil rights. Now, I was out recycling one day, and Somebody called the police on me, and they came down to where the recycling place was, although this happened on the post office property, which is federal property, Um, that you're under arrest. handcuffed me, I didn't offer any resistance, as I'm walking to the car. picks me up. and slams me on the hood of the car. No. Um, And. So I'm going to try some novel strategies. I, this is, and I've been in contact with the police here today. I'm placing you under citizen's arrest. This is a symbolic thing. But. as we go further down the line, we'll see how it goes. Believe that three members of the city council and the mayor are attorneys. I believe you have a duty to the court to investigate these matters. Anyway, so because these things have happened to me. I believe it's obstruction of justice. I believe it's malfeasance. All the other boards that you are serving on, I will be alerting to them that this malfeasance is happening and you are not doing anything to Help me. So Let's see. I believe I'm going to be going through all of your finances, all of your, different things with a fine-toothed comb. This is a muckraker. I'm working on a, I'm a journalist, I'm working on a, a documentary called Killing a Veteran. You guys are part of it. Anyway. |
| 02:58:32.03 | Vice Mayor Sobieski | THE FAMILY. |
| 02:58:32.79 | Brad Johnson | So. and |
| 02:58:39.39 | Brad Johnson | One minute, bear with me. |
| 02:58:41.73 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:58:41.75 | Vicki Nichols | Mm-hmm. |
| 02:58:45.17 | Brad Johnson | So, and also I will be learning all the major recruiters, the headhunters in the country, that you guys are taking this course of action and not doing anything about it. Um, See? So I believe, and the thing is with the insurance fraud, because you guys have a member of the police force that filed a false police report. I don't believe any of your numbers can be correct because that's a liability up to and including the CalPERS Uh, retirement funds anyway. and also being Getting all the Super fun stuff that I can, but I'll tell you this, this guy's been involved with this, Officer White, I take this as a personal front for him to come here And B. see when it's done. Thank you. I place that to the city attorney. Just one minute. to the city attorney to have one of the people who's involved in the crime against me. Here, there's no other cops you could have brought Thank you very much. Find who's coming, people. |
| 02:59:50.92 | Walfred Solorzano | Jeff Jacob. |
| 02:59:58.48 | Jeff Jacobs | Well, I wanna say thank you to Brad Johnson for showing up. |
| 03:00:03.07 | Unknown | Mm-hmm. |
| 03:00:03.76 | Jeff Jacobs | at this council meeting, as a citizen besides myself. Oh, God. The background for recycling is Molly Stones, had a structure in the parking lot. two days a week that was open for people to recycle. The law keeps on changing whether Grocery stores have to provide recycling or Not. And... Here in Sausalito, They do not. That structure in the parking lot is gone. Um, that, I mean, I've talked to the manager and assistant manager there and I've gotten people's recycling inside and gotten them paid for it, but it is not. known to most people. It's not done by most people. So with all the talk about climate justice, and changing the watershed at Willow Creek that for people whether they want to subsidize their income. with plastic bottles and tin cans and be able to do it here. They no longer have that choice. So as far as what Brad told me, he was taking recycling out of wherever, I don't know exactly. what it was, which is technically illegal. |
| 03:01:43.05 | Jeff Jacobs | I think that is a crime. |
| 03:01:51.69 | Jeff Jacobs | It says in the portion for this week, I don't. haven't talked about this in a long time, but It's from the book of Jethro. And it asks, Jethro. He tells, he doesn't ask, he tells Moses, you cannot do this judging alone. You need help. You need people to come. And lend a hand. They must be people of substance. They must be people of truth. And then it says they must be people who hate money. And I was looking at that to analyze that. And it says that they shouldn't make money by litigation. So before I ran for city council, I made sure that I settled a lawsuit with the city of Sausalito and I would never file one For money, for issues of policy, it's different. so I think Brad made a good point, and I think that the police department has changed quite a bit. in the last few years and for the better. Thank you. |
| 03:03:02.60 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 03:03:03.67 | Walfred Solorzano | On Zoom, we have Alice Merrill. |
| 03:03:07.66 | Jill Hoffman | Okay. |
| 03:03:07.97 | Alice Merrill | back, Allison. |
| 03:03:08.58 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 03:03:09.86 | Alice Merrill | Hello, thank you very much. I just wanna say that A friend of mine said to me, wow, they're going to be taking that middle lane down on Bridgeway out by the, North. um, to turn it into a bike lane and taking out the middle lane and all that. And I said, really? How in the world did that get by me? Because I'm pretty sure that I hit most of the meetings And so then, and so how did this happen? So then it turns out that it was in the newspaper Why was it in the newspaper? Then it turns out that maybe you guys Never even gave that. that order. Maybe it was, and then I heard that there was a thing put out for funding for what it's an idea. And now in the paper, it says it's happening. I am 100% against that and I hope that you guys will you know, Bye. Not. do that. just because it got put in the newspaper. because it will disrupt businesses along there. I know that it's a safety issue and that we have issues with the bikes, Um, I, I do now know that you guys didn't specifically say that somewhere under some cover because Because I didn't, I just didn't. couldn't believe that it was happening anyway, Um, I'm I'm sorry that I'm a little inarticulate, but I hope that it doesn't happen and that Thank you. that there's some kind of a discussion big, huge discussion in the city because more people would come wide-eyed to that discussion than you could even imagine, I have a feeling. Thank you very much for all your hard work and late night. Good night. |
| 03:05:10.55 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 03:05:11.58 | Walfred Solorzano | Next speaker, Peter Romanowski. |
| 03:05:15.19 | Peter Romanowski | unmute. Uh, Unmute. Okay, start my video. Okay. Anyways, God bless you for being here. My main burden. The reason I I, I zoomed in as the Galilee Harbor took out our dingy dog And. We've been a historical anchor out community Sir Francis Drake first dropped anchor here. and the book. Drake at Olympeva, the Asian Pacific press and the Miwok have written this book. And this has always been a pre-anchorage and, I, uh, What Gallery Harbor did, and you agreed, was to take out the dinghy dog for two years. Well, it's been over two years. And it's not bad. Now, when I was a member of Galley Harbor, Uh, for three years. I knew it was phony. The harbor master told me that this is a scam. How come you don't go along with it? Well, I was married to Ernest Nile Kettenhoffman who owned half of Sausalito And he was supervisor. And I'm not used to like, you know, lying like that, you know, and saying we're a Marine Service harbor, you know, and getting a permit from Sausalito, BCDC, And everybody knows it's not a Marine Service Harbor. It's a residential community There's an obscene houseboat right in the channel. where people can go up to the dinghy dock These people have no connection to the water. the residents sold out their boats to carpetbaggers. and they hate us. This harbor that was supposed to be a refuge for the anchor outs hate us. That's the bottom line. My name is Peter. I should be the Harbor Master of Galilee Harbor. Come on. And anyways, that's my biggest burden, people. are going to die. if you don't somebody's gonna drown. trying to go from one end of Sausalito to the other to get to the only dingy dock in Sausalito which, The carpetbaggers have banned even kayaks from landing on any shore of Sausalito. You can get a ticket. If you're a kayaker, help. I know you're not children. I'm sorry for treating you like children. And I'm 73 years old. Average person only lives to be 75. So I don't have time to fool around. I'm just telling you. Um, Let Pete bring back the dingy dog. or get a grand jury, convict them for fraud. And. They were. They should have a grand jury investigation. for the fraud that they have perpetuated That is the furthest thing from a Marine Service Harbor you can imagine. And the puppets... on city council. in the past. Have a green. They have a great Thank you very much. |
| 03:08:17.02 | Walfred Solorzano | Sorry. |
| 03:08:22.21 | Walfred Solorzano | Next speaker is Christopher Dardar. |
| 03:08:35.11 | Jill Hoffman | Hi, Christopher, you're muted. |
| 03:08:36.90 | Christopher Dardar | Okay, sorry about that. I'll keep this short and sweet. I know it's been a long meeting night. I have a good feeling about this new mayor. I really think things are gonna change. I have a good feeling about the city council. And it's not just gonna be the status quo As far as traffic and people, I think that change is inevitable and there will probably always be people. Sometimes a lot of people in the Hills area, don't even actually live there. It's just owned by Hong Kong Bank of Saigon, and there's a lot of Residents we don't even have. that either live elsewhere or wherever they live. Anyway, the point I'm trying to make is, I do agree with Peter about the dinghy dock. That is a hazard, especially for some of our community on the water that has serious mental abuse, physical issues. real trauma they've been through in their lives and, After the camp experience, the last thing we want is more city services, especially after the disaster with Urban Alchemy, more city services and resources with money being tights per situation like that. So it's been over two years since April 2020 when they said it'd be two years to shut down the Galilee. I think we should do that. And, you know, I just think even though it's not, as important as for you guys, I know, As the fiscal issues You know, there is a history, and I've seen it for years out there, where The Harbor Master and the RBRA people, they will attack. and isolate women by themselves, which is, misogynistic, they will go against LGBTQ people, they will go against non-white people. We are all experienced Mariners out there. If there's more somewhat of a dialogue, I think things will move a little smoother as far as some people might want housing, but a lot of us are perfectly happy and content on our boats and we're not trying to get any money or anything from anybody. We're just trying to live. how the town was started just like San Francisco with Mariners. Anyway, I think it was a great idea to change the, Meeting time. We can all agree on that, even if it's a hassle for some of our schedules, it's really not big of a deal. first and third or second and fourth Tuesday. I'm glad. We got a lawyer we like who likes us. That's something. Positive, productive, And thank you for your time and have a nice week. |
| 03:11:20.97 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. It was iPhone 2. |
| 03:11:24.80 | Unknown | Welcome, Ava. Thank you, Ava. I was very sorry to hear what happened to |
| 03:11:37.59 | Unknown | Bruce Johnson. And... It, uh, It's disturbing that this keeps happening. And I believe he named the officer. And I'm not sure I heard it right. But if if I did hear it right, this is an officer who's been a persistent problem. within the police department and has not been removed. If it really is an issue of a few rotten apples rather than a systemic problem, then those rotten apples should have been removed promptly. before they turned the rest of the apples in the barrel rotten. But that appears not to have occurred. I'll wait to hear more about to confirm if that is the officer Um, I also want to point out that recently I was in the archives And I learned that one of the, one of the internees at the, SSA in San Rafael. Um, many decades ago, had been shot by Sausalito police in the leg. And this occurred in 1989 when he was only 19 years old and he had been accused of stealing a Nestle Crunch bar from the 7-Eleven. This was, you know, a pretty common thing that teenagers did. If you went to Tam High, which he did go to Tam High, I went to Tam High two years ahead of him. It was so common that even our student body president was actually apprehended for stealing candy bars from Safeway. the surprising thing was that she was caught and disciplined for it because white kids did that all the time without any, punishment, but this individual in 1989, who was 19, was black. They called the police. They called Sausalito police. The Sausalito police let loose a police dog on him And this young man, in terror for his life, decided to flee and was shot in the leg, fleeing And the Sausalito police officers were deemed not to have erred since they claimed that this very thin 19-year-old man was who most people would say wouldn't hurt a fly, was running away from them and thereby he must have had a gun. and that their lives were at risk. This is an ongoing, and of course, there's the abuse of Jeremy Portia that happened, I think, within, I think, a 12-month period, maybe 18 months. |
| 03:14:33.94 | Walfred Solorzano | We have no further speakers. |
| 03:14:36.53 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you very much. Now move on to agenda item number seven, which is council member committee reports. Do we have any committee reports from council members this evening? Councilmember Hoffman. |
| 03:14:49.12 | Council Member Hoffman | Thank you. It's just easier to use my own hand. |
| 03:14:51.86 | Jill Hoffman | issues. |
| 03:14:53.53 | Council Member Hoffman | Um, yes, I do have a couple of, um, committee reports. Um, mainly it's, um, One is the meeting that we had at MCCMC, and I wanted to give a summary. Our state Senator Mike McGuire, who also happens to be the Senate Majority Leader, which is exciting. for him. gave a report to us at the Marin County Council of Mayors and Council Members. Interesting for us, he reported this year the state is going to pay out $3.4 billion in homeless housing to create more homeless housing across the state. 50 million loan to Marin County for housing the homeless. $4 million to Homeward Bound, who broke ground for a veteran's homeless housing. new buildings there. He reported there's going to be two new crews on the ground for Marin, the county of Marin for wildfire protection. and $10 million to Marin City for flooding along Donahue, and $3 million for emergency rehabilitation. That was exciting news from our state senator, Mike McGuire, at our last MCCMC meeting. I also had a meeting along the theme of schools with Lisa Roffel and it was a small community group. Um, about the Bridge the Gap program. So a lot of us know and remember the Bridge the Gap, and a lot of our citizens have supported that throughout the years and volunteered with them. So they They have been in the past a tutoring and mentoring, you know, group for nonprofit, mostly volunteer group. for you know, for focused in Marin City, They have recently been hired by the school district to run all of the afterschool programs. So Bridge the Gap is now the provider for all of the afterschool programs, in addition to the mentoring and tutoring and volunteer programs that they run, and they did bring one of their reading specialists with them. We met on Sunday afternoon at the Episcopal Church. It was a very interesting afternoon. They do need volunteers and they are looking for, it's a nonprofit, so they're looking for funding to further be able to hire more reading specialists. And so more on that to come. But I thought that was a good and productive meeting and again along the theme of our our school report today so Those are the two reports that I have. |
| 03:17:27.23 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. We'll go to Vice Mayor. He has hand raised. |
| 03:17:30.60 | Vice Mayor Sobieski | Thanks, yeah, so two of the reports The chair of the economic development advisory committee sent a letter to all the city council members and staff Summarizing the organization's accomplishments and the response to city manager Zapata's request for reconsideration of the way that boards and commissions across the city operate. So I would hope that we could release that letter to the public. The list of accomplishments of this volunteer organization are really far ranging and impressive. um, you know, a couple of highlights that stuck out to me were the, Marinship Business Inventory that was done by volunteers, I think led by John DeRay, A lot of people lament vacancies in the town and there were several specific businesses that were brought to town by THE VOLUNTEERS ON THE COMMITTEE, INCLUDING CULTIVAR, which is going to be in downtown, a new boba tea cafe. under construction at 650 Bridgeway, a new, Fashion Boutique at 666 Bridgeway, a new art gallery at 690 Bridgeway, Those are some examples. And then there's an outline of some of the projects that this volunteer group is going to be engaged in going forward. But responding to city manager Zapata's request, upon consideration, they've decided to try to decrease the amount of imposition on staff time by changing their meeting schedule to be quarterly rather than every other month, which itself was a reduction from every month. So now the whole EDAC will meet just quarterly and subcommittees of EDAC will meet in between those periods of time. but will not require staff time. So I recommend that. letter to anyone who's interested. Then from Parks and Rec, Starting with that similar response at the last park and rec commission meeting the issue of how to respond to city managers upon his charge. reducing the burden on staff by by our boards and commissions is that the Parks and Recreation Commission will also meet quarterly, rather than their current schedule. And also we'll try to do more work at the subcommittee level, which does not require staff attendance, meaning that there'll be volunteers helping the community. To make this more efficient, it'd be helpful if the city council could fully staff the Parks and Rec Commission with volunteers. There are. several vacancies and the commission even recommended expanding the number of permanent seats so that the subcommittee committees can be made up of a critical mass of at least three people if not four without violating the Brown Act. So that's something for us to consider. when we consider all the vacancies that we have across our commissions. Uh, perhaps, uh, I also just want to highlight just the really amazing work of the park and rec department. There's been a tremendous amount of activities not least is that they most recently had the Super Bowl, which generated more than $9,000 in income to net income to the city. So congratulations to Brian and Matt and the whole department for their work. Um, I'm pleased to let you know who won. The winner of the, of the Superbowl is the barrel house. with over 50% of the vote. Second place is the Sausalito Cruising Club, full disclosure, I'm a member. And third place is Sartaj. So those are the three winners of the Super Bowl. the Parks and Rec Department is going to buy uh, $100 gift certificates for the restaurants that participated as a way of saying Thank you. And then there's a bunch of new programming coming from Parks and Rec, an all-age self-defense class, Taekwondo for youth, Sewing for all idols. Friday night to pick a pickleball drop in All of which is in the works. Zumba is actually a four day a week class that has average attendance of 15 to 20 people. And there's Playland, Sausalito, which operates four days a week. hosts up to 60 children a day. So, and that's just the beginning of it. I hope we can get a full written report from Brian. The amount of work being done by the Parks and Rec Department is tremendous and is a real add to the quality of life here in town. |
| 03:22:07.45 | Jill Hoffman | Thanks, Vice Mayor, Councilmember Kellman. |
| 03:22:10.10 | Council Member Kelman | Yeah, I'll just say that the outdoor Zumba in the MLK is one of the single best things that happens in this community. If you have not seen it on Saturdays and Wednesdays, Absolutely missing out. It's amazing. So thank you for that, Vice Mayor. I'll just go quickly, given the time. The Vice Mayor and I were tasked with talking to the Elysee about their lease. And we've had now two meetings with them and we are attempting to vet |
| 03:22:23.25 | Unknown | Bye. |
| 03:22:23.30 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:22:23.40 | Unknown | to see. |
| 03:22:23.48 | Unknown | See you. |
| 03:22:23.50 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:22:35.16 | Council Member Kelman | a property manager who can come to counsel and provide oversight of all of our portfolio, as well as help with those negotiations. So I know OMIT has been suspended, but because of the LISSE, Coming up, I think August is the termination or not the expiration date. We have been having those meetings. Additionally, Blue Economy Task Force has met now twice. We're sort of organizing ourselves into subcommittees. So this is an independent group. We've asked Brandon if he wants to join. He was able to sit in, but we do not need staff time on this at all. But the idea is, can we develop a public-private partnership 501c3 that would be independently managed along the lines of South City of Beautiful to help implement a strategy around economic development. and create a pipeline of companies that want to come and devote their energies towards developing new ocean health related climate technologies. So along those same lines, I sit on Bay Wave, which is the Marine County's steering committee around sea level rise. And we've been meeting to share ideas and grant opportunities. Nothing really new to report there other than we had a meeting and just sort of brought each other up to speed on some of the grant monies that are out there. I also sit on BCDC's regional task force around coastal adaptation. The big topic there is how do you merge regional planning with local planning? And then where does that fit in when you have a local sea level rise task force and when you have a county wide as well? So we only met once, just to get to know each other, I'll keep you posted. Council Member Hoffman and I are the Bridgeway Marina Subcommittee. We have a meeting coming up. at Cameron's request next week. So nothing to report on that other than that meeting is happening. I, of course, Councilman Cox and I have been still working on the housing element. It was adopted, but it's not done yet. So we have been fine tuning and double checking everything this week and the consultant and staff are doing an amazing job of moving that forward. And then I've had a group of residents who are interested in putting on a pride celebration in June in Sausalito. And so they have offered to volunteer their time and energies to come up with a program for that. Fortunately, Brian Vitale has actually secured a very interesting band for June 29th that we are sort of centering some of these strategies around and Monica Finnegan. From EDAC and also the South Dakota Center for the Arts has been very helpful in helping us plan an opportunity around an art show, as well as potentially the Gay Man's Chorus coming into town. So that will dovetail nicely on the heels of, or right before July 4th, and bring more visitors, more tax dollars, hopefully, to the city. So that's it. Thank you, council. |
| 03:25:17.60 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 03:25:18.43 | Council Member Kelman | to report. |
| 03:25:18.97 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 03:25:19.51 | Council Member Cox | No, my fellow council members have covered anything I might have reported. Thank you. |
| 03:25:24.18 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, I have a few things to share. The Transportation Authority of Marin met on January 26th And we updated the Measure B vehicle registration fee plan. So this essentially means that the way that we're going to spend the Marin County $10 fee that you see. every year when you go to register your car. It's about $2.3 million in funding that goes to maintaining local streets, improving transit for seniors. and reducing congestion and pollution. Additionally, at TAM, we adopted the 2023 legislative platform. So this year we agreed as a board to support legislation to encourage the state to provide resources to transit agencies dealing with the pandemic. to support legislation that mitigates climate change and promotes resilience. support legislation that optim emphasizes zero emission support legislation that provides resources for evs and infrastructure, which was very exciting for us, particularly since tam gave us an ev grant for our chargers. um, support legislation that allows transit buses to use highway shoulders where feasible and support legislation that allows more opportunities and simplifies the existing rules for virtual public meetings after the end of the state of emergency so that was what we. adopted at TAM. Additionally, I met with the chair and vice chair of the sustainability commission to discuss their priorities for 2023 and their plans going forward in light City Manager and staff to minimize staff time they're also very open to meeting quarterly or perhaps reconsidering the way that they meet as a body so as to not take up as much staff time they're also really focused on helping to. adopt tier one reach program at the level that the county did for new building electrification. That's a real priority. as is creating more EV charging and resiliency centers. I'm, I also had the opportunity to meet with Sybil Batelier about some of the Commission on Aging priorities for the year. Again, we touched on ADA accessibility and with regards to our odds, which was discussed at our prior meeting, especially considering a lift for any sort of senior housing that might be built and also really innovative programs around how can we create senior housing that matches around childcare. So there are grants available for places where there can be childcare facilities near senior housing. So that's something interesting to consider. On that note, Sybil and I, and also Councilmember Cox, also met with Rotary Housing to discuss Senator McGuire's proposed senior housing funding for the city of Sausalito at the corporate yard. Rotary is very interested in partnering on that project I met with Senator McGuire to discuss specifically the corporate yard project and senior housing and affordable housing at that site in Sausalito. There is a process with regards to a lease or bequeathing the property to the state. So look forward to seeing that on a future agenda because that's something that we'll have to talk about as a council. But the corporate yard is included in our housing element and there is incentive from a variety of different partners to move forward to make that 100% affordable, which will be really exciting for for our community. And so that's that's it for me for committee reports at this time. And the next item on the agenda is the city manager reports city council appointments and other business items. So the first year is a human resource recruit, but 8A is public comment on items 8A through 8E. Do we have any public comment on the city manager report, city council appointments, or other council business? |
| 03:28:44.00 | Walfred Solorzano | Damien. |
| 03:28:53.47 | Damien | Hi, can you hear me? |
| 03:28:54.71 | Jill Hoffman | Yes, we can hear you. |
| 03:28:55.39 | Damien | Bye. Yeah, my comments were on the committee reports. I think I'm in the right area, correct? Right timing? |
| 03:29:05.21 | Jill Hoffman | No, we didn't. That's correct, Damian. Correct. |
| 03:29:07.62 | Damien | Okay, thanks. Yeah. my Uh, ask is, uh, regarding the city of Sausalito's Uh, 2020. promises to deliver on RACIAL EQUITY. And to the mayor Blaustein and Councilwoman Hoffman. You guys created a committee. And that community was based on delivering some racial equity, And my focus obviously has been, Thank you. on the area of economic opportunities, economic development, So my, and also on the same lines of my question to the committee, MEMBERS BLOUSTEIN AND HOFFMAN. ALSO TO CONSULT PERSON SOBIESKI, regarding EDAC. So I guess someone and well, hopefully has some feedback regarding the improvements, the ongoing inner workings to work with Marin City for economic opportunities, economic development. We know what redlining has done. I'm not going to go there right now. Uh, So... Um, Well, My ask is also excluding any art days, any movie days, ANY TUNNEL PROJECT DAYS. SO MY ASK TO YOU IS REGARDING economic opportunities. And I will add respectfully that I think one of you or maybe city manager will will respond in that you have contacted one person from Minnesota for economic opportunities. That's great. Uh, having gone beyond reaching one person. for ANY OPPORTUNITIES. |
| 03:31:12.30 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you, Damien. |
| 03:31:15.64 | Walfred Solorzano | Any more speakers? We have Peter Romanowski. |
| 03:31:19.48 | Peter Romanowski | Oh. You know, I learned to preach in Marin City at the Church of God in Marin City and I know what that man's saying. And we're not blaming you. I'm not talking at you. I'm talking over your shoulders. to others out there. that's saucy dough. are racist. Hawaii. Supreme. Democrat. city. I mean, You talk about Senator Byrd being a former member of the KKK and the head of the Democrat party. here, I'll see you next week. There are no black people in Sausalito. Darnell. Latin people in Sausalito. You know, I've been here full time since 1984. And I'm not blaming you. I mean, you're not, the problem. The problem is bigger. out there. And, um, There's no more racist county in all the eight Barry Cameron County. Everybody knows that. San Salmo, I raised my kids in San Salmo. The whitest town in the world, man. uh, Hey, the White Sam Preachy, I'm sorry. But anyways, So I feel. They not only hate blacks, they hate hippies. They hate hippies. just as much as blacks, man. Bye. I hate to tell the truth, but the truth's gotta be told. You know, a bunch of black and hippie Papers. Papers. Sorry. |
| 03:32:56.28 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you very much. We're speaking on items 8 through 8E. Thank you. |
| 03:33:04.55 | Walfred Solorzano | Any more speakers? |
| 03:33:11.35 | Jeff Jacobs | I'll speak on that item about the $50 million for Marin for and people that are considered homeless. So I remember at the last city council meeting, the city manager said Sausalito had been awarded a million dollars. for the homeless. Number one, I want to make sure that that money is not spent. on lawyers. and or consultants. but goes as directly to houseless people and their needs. for a place to stay and other related services as possible. There's a million dollars and I'm tuned in to the houseless people in Sausalito on the Anchorage. And as far as I know, none of it. has been spent. on houseless people and I don't know any plans to spend any of it either. I want full transparency on that. That's very important that we don't use the most vulnerable people as a way To make money. for others who are not quite as vulnerable, and that includes for environmental causes. I'm gonna second what Peter said about environmentalism, not that it's a bad cause, but when it's used, to promote eelgrass and the amount of view grass scarification has doubled As the number of boats has gone down by two thirds. That was the RBRA and good thing that you're not in the RBRA anymore. because this eelgrass is there Achilles heel. that they were laughing and talking about whether it was because of a rise in temperatures that was killing the ear grass. So this includes in Sausalito with now their oyster Ed. structures on what used to be the landing area for Camp Cormorant number one. |
| 03:35:41.37 | Jeff Jacobs | They will tear the bottoms of boats right out. As far as I know, last time I looked at low tide, there are no oysters there, but there are potential to kill boats on where we landed boats when we had that camp is very high. So when environmentalism is used against the poorest people, that is a serious shame. So I hope, and the million dollars for the houseless as well. Thank you very much. Thank you. |
| 03:36:16.08 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, so we'll now go to city manager city council appointments and other business and so eight one the human resources recruitment update did you want to start with that city manager. |
| 03:36:16.16 | Jeff Jacobs | Don't forget. |
| 03:36:27.03 | Chris Zapata | I'll be very brief, mayor and council in public, the hour's late. You have a report in your packet from our HR consultant regarding where we stand. There are a few typos in it. We'll clean those up. But the important thing to note is we have a parking program manager, a real estate portfolio manager, a senior planner, a maintenance worker, a chief building official, a police academy recruit, a police officer lateral, two parking enforcement officers, and a wastewater collection system worker underway. We've already filled a couple of positions that are important. The deputy city clerk admin aide, our public works division manager, we have offers pending, waiting for response for a permit technician and community development, and another accountant and finance, the code enforcement official and community development, our human Human Resources Manager position has been vacant for a while. And then the soon to be named Community Resiliency and Sustainability Program Manager, whatever we call that. That's the position authorized by the council this past year that we just filled as well. So those are in process in terms of being negotiated for a final offer. But the others that are vacant are significant, we continue to see A little bit of a struggle trying to fill positions. So I wanted to give you this update. I'll let you know we've done some work, but we have more to do. Thank you. |
| 03:37:45.28 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you very much, city manager. Do you have any other... reports for the council or is that this evening? Okay, thank you very much. So we will now go to appointments to boards, commissions and committees to which there are none except to say that an item of discussion on Friday at our I see. an item of discussion on Friday at our committee, our council member retreat. Okay. And is this for future agenda items or to the city manager's report? |
| 03:38:12.03 | Council Member Hoffman | City Manager report and I was going to request that I don't know if Chris wants or feels like he's prepared to maybe give a brief summary of the bridgeway median. I did get some. emails on that. Um, And I know that Kevin McGowan sent us an email kind of on the status. Are you... Do you feel like you can give us a two or three sentence summary on that? Or I'm happy to punt that to another one. I'm sorry. I just... |
| 03:38:37.90 | Chris Zapata | Yeah. |
| 03:38:38.12 | Council Member Hoffman | up. Thank you. |
| 03:38:38.62 | Chris Zapata | Thank you. |
| 03:38:38.64 | Council Member Hoffman | Not a lot of that. |
| 03:38:38.67 | Chris Zapata | That's a good question, I think, tonight. And I prefer to have a little more time to discuss it. have an earlier hour so that it can be talked about thoroughly. Thank you. |
| 03:38:47.85 | Jill Hoffman | That's a great segue into future agenda items, Councilmember Offman. |
| 03:38:48.71 | Chris Zapata | Yeah. |
| 03:38:53.03 | Jill Hoffman | Did you want to get us started with future agenda items? Maybe starting with the median and the |
| 03:38:57.05 | Council Member Hoffman | Well, I don't think it doesn't really need to be an agenda item. I think it needs to be just a city manager summary report on maybe next time. Because I know Kevin did, or Director McCowan did send us a good email on the summary. And there were some misconceptions that were out there, including one that was reported in the IJ. I think it's something of interest, so thanks. That's it. |
| 03:39:23.14 | Jill Hoffman | Councilman Kellman, did you have a future agenda item? |
| 03:39:25.03 | Council Member Kelman | Yeah, I have two. Thank you, Mayor. The first is what we were talking about with resilience and Um, So we have a million dollars coming in from the state for seat level rise mitigation and planning. And so since we have that money coming in and it's earmarked for that specific use, like to request that we do an RFP. for consulting to conduct a vulnerability assessment. and finish that out. There's some other examples that are out there. Chris Chu is the principal watershed planner and the sea level rise planner for the county of Marin. For her examples, the Transportation Authority just put out an RFP, I have that example. So I'm happy to help staff with that. and provide that information. So if that could get on the agenda so that we're ready when the money comes in the door, that'd be great. And then the other is just a flag Um, because somehow we miss it. June is Pride Month. If we could get on the agenda that the, A pride flag will be raised at City Hall for the month of June. That would be great. requires a resolution of the city council. And I just don't want to forget that. |
| 03:40:31.48 | Jill Hoffman | you anyone else future agenda items. |
| 03:40:38.11 | Jill Hoffman | Okay. Other reports of significance? Okay, seeing none. All right. It is now 1040 p.m. And I'm prepared to adjourn, but a reminder, the city council has a strategic planning meeting on February 10th at 8 30 a.m. At this time at 1040, I would like to adjourn the meeting in honor of Black History Month. as we celebrate the legacy of Black Americans whose power to lead and overcome and expand the meaning and practice of American democracy It has really helped our nation become a more fair and just society, and it's the entire month of February, so I would just like to... make sure we all recognize that. So with that, we are adjourned at 1040 p.m. Thank you. Thank you. |
Vicki Nichols — Neutral: Expressed excitement about the climate education program. Urged serious consideration for daylighting Willow Creek in its natural path for ecological function, suggested involving expert consultants, and praised Dr. Garcia's collaborative work. ▶ 📄
Peter Romanowski — Against: Expressed concern that climate change education could be propaganda used to disarm the West. Stated anchor-outs have a minimal carbon footprint (solar-powered) and should not be blamed for environmental issues. Questioned the curriculum's content and availability. ▶ 📄
Robert Bright — Neutral: Made cryptic comments about a 'nuclear missile highway,' a biological rock in the water needing relocation by the Army Corps of Engineers, and obstructions in the bay that need cleaning. ▶ 📄
Titi — Neutral: Stated the situation on the water is unacceptable and hopes for an amicable resolution. Mentioned several individuals who should be in supportive housing. ▶ 📄