| Time | Speaker | Text |
|---|---|---|
| 00:00:01.03 | Unknown | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 00:00:08.92 | Ian Sobieski | Yes, I can. Thank you. |
| 00:00:10.29 | Jill Hoffman | Yes. |
| 00:00:10.56 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 00:00:10.58 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:00:13.28 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. I can really hear Jill. |
| 00:00:19.25 | Jill Hoffman | Excellent. |
| 00:00:22.96 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:00:23.91 | Ian Sobieski | OK, well, hi there, everybody. Here, I'll even turn on my video. Good morning. So I didn't know that there were people in person. I'll bounce over after the break and join everybody in person. For some reason, I just presumed this was going to be on Zoom. so we could drink our coffee. |
| 00:00:42.54 | Jill Hoffman | It was put out that it was going to be on Zoom. On the agenda, it says it's going to be on Zoom. in person like we've been doing for the past month. So Yes. |
| 00:00:52.92 | Ian Sobieski | So. I'm really just trying to think of something to say. We had a great, Someone asked me to keep talking, right? This is the volume, so tell me to stop talking if you're done doing that. But The Chamber of Commerce, little State of the City thing was great, Chris did a great job. It's well received. The mayor did a great job. Uh, Lots of positive vibes in the room. Lots of shout outs to staff, lots of appreciation for the city. Okay, thanks, I'll stop talking. |
| 00:01:26.30 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:01:26.62 | Janelle Kellman | Ian, tell us more. |
| 00:01:28.07 | Unknown | Yeah. Thank you. |
| 00:01:28.96 | Janelle Kellman | Thank you. |
| 00:01:30.50 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:01:42.51 | Jill Hoffman | I'm sorry, what? |
| 00:01:43.63 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:01:46.61 | Jill Hoffman | Sure. When we get started, I'll turn my camera on. |
| 00:01:49.19 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:01:52.60 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:01:52.62 | Jacqueline McCray | Recording in progress. |
| 00:01:55.44 | Unknown | Good morning. Welcome to the City Council Priority Setting Retreat and the special meeting of the City Council on February 10th. Now call me the order at the 36th alarm. For the folks, would you please call the law? |
| 00:02:09.28 | Walfred Solorzano | Councilmember Cox. |
| 00:02:10.68 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 00:02:11.60 | Walfred Solorzano | Councilmember Hoffman. |
| 00:02:12.99 | Unknown | Sure. |
| 00:02:13.33 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:02:13.93 | Walfred Solorzano | Councilmember Kelman. |
| 00:02:15.15 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:02:15.20 | Janelle Kellman | Sure. |
| 00:02:15.42 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:02:15.45 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. Vice Mayor Sobieski. Here. And Mayor Blasdy. Also, in addition, pursuant to government code section 54953E, and in light of the declared state of emergency, this special meeting for February 10th will be conducted telephonically through Zoom, and it's being broadcast live on the city's website and in addition to channel 27. And also council chamber is open, and we do have people present. |
| 00:02:42.38 | Unknown | So today's evening is a special agenda for the City Council for 2023. We are really lucky to have a secret hospital facilitator with us, who will be hearing from, and of course our city staff who are here are ready to work with us. But obviously, I'm welcome everyone. There are people here in the public who are here, and welcome to staff and city council. Of course, one of the best parts about the community of San Sanito is how we're here to work with our residents are. We'd say we would absolutely love to get through before we get done with our time. Thank you. |
| 00:03:21.32 | Walfred Solorzano | For those that are in person and want to submit public comment, we have some speaker request forms. They're over on the table by the television. You can fill that out and give it over to myself or Maria. If you are on Zoom, you can use the raise hand function, and we will call you in the order that we see you. And if you're on the telephone through Zoom, you just press star 9, and we will call you, and you have three minutes to speak. So we'll start with the first speaker. We have Kieran Culligan. |
| 00:04:01.33 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:04:07.10 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. The people on Zoom cannot hear Mr. Culligan. |
| 00:04:15.52 | Kieran Culligan | Can you hear me now? Yes, we can. All right, I was just welcoming Bowie was all you missed. So I was just really excited to see infrastructure as part of the agenda today. Why? Well, we have the best views in the city and we have the worst roads. And we have the best commute to work along the ferry and we have a dilapidated waterfront. We have the most bikes in Marin, but we have the worst infrastructure roads designed in the 1960s before the concept of a bike lane even existed. We have a book about stairs and pathways just for our town. Many of them now closed or neglected for lack of maintenance and repair. These things are just breaking down over time. City manager has been ahead of this, like city manager, thank you. Like they measure L. funding is gonna help, right? You know, three to $4 million a year for infrastructure, With $100 million plus need, you can do the inflation math very quickly and see we're never gonna make it there. So this approach for grant funding is our biggest way by far to make a dent in this. We're super well positioned, especially for green transportation and coastal resiliency to seek those funds, just given the nature of where we are and what we do. If we can combine those two things, even better. So keep at it, please keep the focus on grant funding, thank you. And a brief reminder that there is no such thing as pressing pause at how Sausalito is or how Sausalito was or how some individual imagines Sausalito to be. And so, you know, for sure there's change involved. For sure the No to Everything crew is going to fill your inboxes with, you know, some hyperbole. Bless their hearts. They have a role to play. But we've got stuff to do. We're building Sausalito together. I'm excited. Thank you all for being a huge part of it. |
| 00:06:08.06 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:06:10.27 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you very much. Next person is Joe Caldwell. |
| 00:06:16.99 | Unknown | Hi, welcome. Good morning. I've been a resident of Sausalito for 21 years. And I gave you this, it should be in front of you. The city, if you look at the graph on the first page, in 2022, the city received $2.1 million by taxing businesses. Curiously, professionals and service providers provided 59% of that tax revenue, or about $1.2 million to the city. This is curious because the category on page two in the graph shows that the category that's called general businesses enjoyed 52% of the sales dollars, while professionals enjoyed 36%. In other words, we had 36% of the sales, but we paid 1.2 million in taxes, whereas the general had 52% of the sales. and paid about 28% of the taxes. The only plausible explanation of this is just that The city is biased against professionals. There is no other explanation. I make a proposal at the bottom of page two. My proposal is that we eliminate the three classes. Okay. Three classes are professional and rental and general. that we eliminate those classes and charge every business the same amount of money, same percentage of revenues, which would be $1.84 per thousand. The city will raise exactly the same amount of money. Thank you. No cost to the city, but the city would be able to honestly say that it treats all businesses equitably. |
| 00:08:36.76 | Mayor (Unknown) | Thank you. |
| 00:08:36.79 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:08:36.96 | Mayor (Unknown) | Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. |
| 00:08:41.01 | Walfred Solorzano | And do we have any more speakers here in attendance that would like to come up? Okay, seeing none, we're gonna go over to Zoom speakers. And once again, remember when we asked to put your hand down, you can go ahead and unmute yourself. |
| 00:08:58.45 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:09:01.04 | Walfred Solorzano | and we're not seeing any. |
| 00:09:02.23 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:09:02.50 | Mayor (Unknown) | Thank you. |
| 00:09:02.51 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:09:02.60 | Mayor (Unknown) | Councilmember Hoffman has her hand raised, so let's just let her weigh in. |
| 00:09:05.36 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:09:05.45 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:09:06.04 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:09:06.29 | Mayor (Unknown) | You're muted, I think. We can't hear you. |
| 00:09:07.46 | Unknown | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 00:09:13.70 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:09:13.88 | Mayor (Unknown) | The volume's too low, sorry. |
| 00:09:13.90 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. I'm sorry, I just, in accordance with the text I got from the staff, I adjusted my volume, so now it's back. Can you hear me now? |
| 00:09:22.41 | Mayor (Unknown) | Yes, thank you. |
| 00:09:23.57 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 00:09:24.43 | Unknown | So I just got a text from somebody out. You know, they can't hear people at the podium. |
| 00:09:30.03 | Mayor (Unknown) | We just changed our microphones and we turned on the, can they hear public comment or? |
| 00:09:34.64 | Unknown | If someone's viewing live streams, if someone's not on Zoom, it's someone that's viewing live streams. |
| 00:09:43.74 | Mayor (Unknown) | Thanks, Councilman Ruffin. |
| 00:09:44.90 | Unknown | Thank you. Is someone from Moraine? Is someone from Moraine? Tell me what you mean. |
| 00:09:53.64 | Unknown | Thank you. Thank you for allowing me to do that. |
| 00:09:59.03 | Walfred Solorzano | Okay, so first speaker we have is John. |
| 00:10:08.15 | Mayor (Unknown) | Hi, John. Thank you. |
| 00:10:09.98 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:10:15.65 | John DeRay | Hi, can you hear me? Yes, we can. |
| 00:10:17.84 | Mayor (Unknown) | We can hear you, John. Hey, this is John. |
| 00:10:18.62 | John DeRay | This is John DeRay. Sorry, I'm having bandwidth problems for video. Um... I wanted to make a comment about the committees. I think this is going to be part of the agenda sometime today and I hope this is the right place to make that comment. So when it comes to the non required committees, this is what I want to talk about a little bit. As a member of EDAC, I would urge you to focus on the best utilization of city staff. I know we continue to be understaffed with high turnover. So if that means to close or to reformat some of these committees to non-Brown Act committees. or to turn them into nonprofits like Saucelito Beautiful being a model. I think that would be a good direction. I'll say as a volunteer, And as a member of EDAC, Amen. I, as well as I think many others, would continue. to do the work. whether or not the committee is a brown act committee or not because i feel the work is important and i would imagine that committee members and the other committees also think that their work is important. So thank you very much. |
| 00:11:45.27 | Mayor (Unknown) | Thanks, John. |
| 00:11:50.32 | Walfred Solorzano | And at this moment, we do not see anybody else with their hand up. |
| 00:11:55.53 | Mayor (Unknown) | Okay, do we have any further public comment in the council chambers before we close public comment at this time? Okay? Seeing none, I will go ahead and close public comment. Thank you to the members of the public who are with us today. I'm going to go ahead and turn it over to our city manager, Chris Zapata, who's going to introduce our facilitators and NHA advisors as well. |
| 00:12:15.56 | Chris Zapata | Thank you, Mayor, members, to council members of the public. Everybody hear me well? |
| 00:12:21.03 | Mayor (Unknown) | Council Member Hoffman, do you know if the folks listening on live stream can now hear us? |
| 00:12:25.84 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:12:29.15 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:12:45.94 | Mayor (Unknown) | Also, Council Member Hoffman, your mic is a little too low. It's a little bit soft. It's an art form. |
| 00:12:53.45 | Unknown | Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. |
| 00:12:59.84 | Mayor (Unknown) | It's a little bit quiet. |
| 00:13:01.43 | Unknown | Okay, hold on. |
| 00:13:04.14 | Mayor (Unknown) | Thank you members of the public for hearing this. |
| 00:13:05.58 | Unknown | Here we go. |
| 00:13:09.33 | Mayor (Unknown) | There we go. |
| 00:13:14.13 | Mayor (Unknown) | That's perfect. That's like Goldilocks. There you go. |
| 00:13:16.55 | Unknown | you |
| 00:13:16.57 | Mayor (Unknown) | Thank you. |
| 00:13:16.60 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:13:16.70 | Mayor (Unknown) | Thank you. |
| 00:13:16.72 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:13:16.73 | Mayor (Unknown) | Thank you. |
| 00:13:16.77 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:13:16.88 | Mayor (Unknown) | Thank you. We're good. |
| 00:13:19.57 | Chris Zapata | Thank you and apologize for the technical difficulties. We'll work on them and get them resolved. Today's important meeting, as you know, is... One thing the cities must do, and our facilitators will get into that. And speaking of our facilitators, we're fortunate to have the services of the collaboration between management partners who has done city retreats in the past And. Baker Tilly, so the Baker Tilly Management Partners The partnership is now the facilitator for our city, management partners, as you may know. |
| 00:13:59.11 | Chris Zapata | I'm not sure what that mode is. Is that it? Sounds like someone's playing dodgeball out there. |
| 00:14:12.83 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:14:13.18 | Unknown | Thank you. Sorry, you also have some people in the waiting room. |
| 00:14:13.59 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:14:15.91 | Chris Zapata | Better. |
| 00:14:16.47 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:14:17.90 | Chris Zapata | Thank you. |
| 00:14:17.92 | Unknown | That's good. |
| 00:14:18.21 | Chris Zapata | Thank you. |
| 00:14:18.45 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:14:18.46 | Chris Zapata | Thank you. Okay. Can the public hear me that's on Zoom or live streaming? That's the other question. If so, let us know. If not, we'll continue to work on it. So going back to our facilitators who we're fortunate to have today, which is a combination of Baker Tilly Management Partners. I'd like to thank... and Jerry Newfarmer for helping us organize this. And I certainly wanna fill, gratitude for the work that Jacqueline McCray and Maggit, that Gonzalez have done to prepare us for this day and working with staff in the city council. And let me say a little bit about Jacqueline McCray. She has a PhD in leadership. and change. It's important. is 25 years of local government experience. including nine years on the city of Cincinnati Planning Commission. So she's well versed and will serve us well today. Her partner, Magda Gonzalez, is a former city manager of East Palo Alto and Half Moon Bay, former president of the International Hispanic Network CalICMA Cities has received numerous awards, including one for ethics, and does these workshops in English and Espanol. She does them in English and Spanish. And so they're going to help us today set the table, work with the council, and then ultimately prepare a summary document for us to take this day's work. and turn it into some implementation and work plan. With that, I'd like to introduce Jacqueline and Magda. |
| 00:15:54.94 | Jacqueline McCray | Good morning, it's a pleasure to be here with you. As I said to some of the council members as I was speaking with you, we have a lot of work to do in a very little bit of time. I will keep my opening. comments on which is the agenda review. If we could go to the next slide. Very brief. Thank you. We have really three primary objectives here that Magda and I will help you with today. And that is establishing your priorities for the next year. really reaffirming practices and and how you all interact with each other, your excellence in good governance. And then reviewing and identifying revenue opportunities. At the end of the day, we will have helped you accomplish. those three objectives, we have an agenda slide as well. We could go to the next slide. Very quickly, we're going to have a review from... the city manager and NHE advisors on the financial state of the city, revenue opportunities and CalPERS. It will be Martha and I for the rest of the morning into the early afternoon. really discussing good governance. our individual conversations with you. And then really the meat of this, the heart of the session is identifying priorities. And there may be some additional for discussion. So we've held some time for that. Then a quick wrap up and we'll be on our way for this Friday. We do have just a few ground rules, as we all know, when we come together and dialogue with each other And we have a slide for that as well. If you could switch the slide to the ground rule. |
| 00:17:53.26 | Ian Sobieski | While you're looking at that agenda, could I just ask you a question? Where is the financial discussion of the revenues and the governance in that agenda? that you just outlined. |
| 00:18:03.27 | Jacqueline McCray | Oh, where is it? |
| 00:18:04.32 | Ian Sobieski | Yeah. |
| 00:18:04.67 | Jacqueline McCray | um, |
| 00:18:05.70 | Ian Sobieski | If you go back to the previous slide, I just didn't see where in your flow of the morning |
| 00:18:10.41 | Jacqueline McCray | Oh, sure. |
| 00:18:10.78 | Ian Sobieski | the discussion of |
| 00:18:12.84 | Jacqueline McCray | Next slide, please. |
| 00:18:17.01 | Jacqueline McCray | Okay, so it's that top slide. |
| 00:18:19.29 | Ian Sobieski | The second one. |
| 00:18:19.98 | Jacqueline McCray | It's the top bullet point there on that slide. |
| 00:18:24.25 | Ian Sobieski | So we'll be talking about the revenues first, then not third, it's just Going back to your objectives, so the revenue issues will be discussed first. |
| 00:18:31.91 | Jacqueline McCray | They will be asked first to set the context. |
| 00:18:32.01 | Ian Sobieski | We'll be fine. then, And there'll be city council discussion at that point. And then we'll talk about governance and then we'll talk about priorities. |
| 00:18:42.30 | Jacqueline McCray | That's correct. Yes. That's correct. |
| 00:18:44.45 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 00:18:48.12 | Jacqueline McCray | Okay, back to the ground rules very quickly. And we know that you all have. We've done many sessions like this before. These are not new ground rules for you, You all will, you know, listen to each other carefully, identify your areas of consensus, participate fully. assume good intent. And speak up. you know, and tell us if we need to course correct, stay focused, and then focus on interest in that positions. We have one additional slide. We will hold a little bike rack for ideas that come about. If you could switch the slide, please. Okay. And we call it a bike rack. And so it's our little time management tool if... If there's an item that comes up that really Um, needs further discussion, we'll put it on the bi-graph for you so you can reference it later. Um, That's it. That's all I have in terms of by way of introduction to the agenda. I'm going to turn it back over now to your city manager. |
| 00:19:53.04 | Chris Zapata | Can you get this slide up please? |
| 00:19:56.20 | Jill Hoffman | Sorry, I had a question. just a Agenda question. Is there going to be public comment again at the end of the agenda? |
| 00:20:01.62 | Chris Zapata | Like, |
| 00:20:06.63 | Mayor (Unknown) | There will only be one opportunity for public comment at the opening of the meeting, which we've already seen. |
| 00:20:10.42 | Jill Hoffman | So we're done with public comment for this meeting? Yes. Okay, thanks. Thank you so much. Sorry. |
| 00:20:13.22 | Mayor (Unknown) | Yeah. |
| 00:20:16.30 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:20:16.99 | Mayor (Unknown) | Thank you. |
| 00:20:17.01 | Chris Zapata | Thank you. |
| 00:20:17.02 | Mayor (Unknown) | problem. |
| 00:20:17.43 | Chris Zapata | Thank you. |
| 00:20:17.44 | Mayor (Unknown) | Thank you. |
| 00:20:21.24 | Chris Zapata | Okay, are we ready for the city manager presentation? Okay, great. It'll be a two part presentation. I will start it and then I will have NHA advisors or city financial advisors put some context into our potential revenue options, as well as speak about the current pension environment. And that would be done by Craig Hill. Leslie Bloom and Roy Kim from NHA Advisors. So let's get the first slide up, which is mine. About a week ago, I sent a packet of information to the city council It was a summary of different documents that I believe help inform the conversation today. provide context for the community and speak specifically to our positioning and why we are where we are and why we need to do what we need to do today in terms of having a revenue conversation. So can you next slide. So yeah, that put that back. That's the slide I want the first one. The one that says strategic plan. Go back. Right there. There we go. Thank you very much. So everything that you do is important in terms of what you do, but if you don't have a plan, the saying of fail to plan, plan to fail. So Sausalito put together a very good strategic plan, and it was intended to be a fluid plan with the help of management partners in 2019-2020. That plan is still valid today. the five key goals in that plan, which we have tried to work for work toward over the last two years I've been here, are constant in our city council pack. the five key goals in that plan, which we have tried to work for, work toward over the last two years I've been here, our constant in our city council packets, we try to reference what we do as it aligns with the plan in 2026. And so I think that's a good context so that we can start from a nice foundation. The first six months I was here, the assessment of the city and what needed to happen resulted in a PowerPoint that I did, which is also part of this packet and it's a public record and public document as well. And the highlights of that were essentially, you know, we need to focus on the basics in Sausalito and the Sausalito basics included finances, infrastructure and personnel. Going forward, another presentation, which is in the packet, which I think is important today, is to understand how we got here, what has happened over the last 20 years, because as we find ourselves looking at our budgets and our work programs, our goals and ideas and vision, it's constrained by what we call a structural deficit. and the structural deficit is no more than More money is going out than is coming in. And that's something that you want to rectify so that you can, in fact, achieve your vision, provide your services, maintain your staff, keep your infrastructure where it needs to be. So I did this analysis and I talked about a series of decisions in 2001, two, when many California cities went to an enhanced pension formula. which has created some strain on our budget At the time that was done in 2002, when the city was told that they were superfunded, meaning interest revenue, exceeded cost. felt like there was some blue sky there to make some very, very aggressive decisions about how to enhance pensions for, people that work for the state. the county and the city, And in that process at the time, the obligation of the city was about 3% of our budget, a little under 3% of our budget. Today, it's 17% of our budget, the cost of those pensions. And the end result or the net result in numbers was in 2001, too, you were paying $300,000, $400,000 a year. Flash forward 20 years later, you're paying $3.3 million a year, so a tenfold increase. So that's why we're going to have NHA advisors talk about the lay of the land as it exists today. But that was part of that analysis. So that decision in 2001, too. to maintain a workforce and to invest in their future through the retirement program was made In the 2009, 10, 11 timeframe, the city of Sausalito did some real hard review of their public safety facilities. You know, you had very poor facilities for your police and fire departments. And so consequently, the city went out and issued bonds to borrow for the Brand new construction of and financing of a police and a fire station. They're absolutely beautiful. And you did about $15 million of construction, but you have a $38 million obligation and a payback over time. So that's a payment that the city has to make. In 2011, 12, the idea of annexing the fire district into the Southern Marine Fire District became a community question, the community voted. I believe it was a 60% margin to approve that. In approving that you took a percentage of your sale or your property tax And you said we need to, in fact, use that to fund the fire service. So the fire service, as I said to the Chamber of Commerce yesterday, is premier. It's a primo fire system. You have one of the best fire systems in the country it's an ISO rating or insurance service organization rating of one response times are wonderful equipment is wonderful and so you're paying for that, but that is. Partially paid for by our property tax and so when the property tax equation is made it equates to about 44% which leaves the city about. 55% of stable revenue. And so that creates a scenario that stresses the budget as well, because now you have an over-reliance on sales tax, tourism, occupancy tax, and our district tax, which we now call Measure L. And then I think the other thing that I think is part of the issue that's created a structural issue is obviously we had COVID and the COVID environment impacted our tourism industry significantly and the money that we did not get during those two three years and still are recovering from we will never get we did get some replenishment of that in a partial way from the federal government but the city government's coffers lost significant money so going forward if you look 20 years back you can see a series of decisions made. And let me talk about the good ones. The city council obviously restructured with the new laws of what pensions could be and should be. So they're not as generous as they once were. The city council was one of the first cities in the country to enter into a 115 trust and save $4 million. The city council also did something that I think is really important is they built up a reserve that when I got here was about 11 million dollars. The other factor on the the debt side is the city went out and borrowed about 10 million dollars to improve four major parts in our city. So all of those come at a cost and some of those decisions made which benefited the community in terms of better facilities, personnel as well as pensions. There is a calculation that we now have to make as to what that does to us 20 years ahead of time. And so we know that the next five to six to seven years are going to see increases in healthcare costs, increases in insurance costs. We need to factor in some type of personnel costs, but we also know that our debt service costs for the fire and police facilities, our debt service costs for the parks facilities are not gonna, and until 2030. And then our pension costs are going to continue to be at a place of extreme stress on the budget. And until 2038 or so when You know, the folks that are my age or so start to leave this planet and not anytime soon, I hope. Then our pension costs start to decline. But from now until then, it's a very, very stressful environment financially. That's what that plan told you. or that analysis told you. When that analysis was done, I was charged by the city council to not only talk about the lay of the land and the problems and the outlook, but to figure out some way to attack that. And so in the packet as well is a three-year plan that goes back to 2022, 2023, and 2024 with areas where we think we can do some work on it. And because the pensions are highly complex in some ways and misunderstood in other ways. But real, we had... I think we can do some work on it. And because the pensions are highly complex in some ways and misunderstood in other ways, but real, we had the council direct a pension analysis by Bartell and Associates, who's the gold standard for doing these kinds of things. And that's in the packet. And then as part of the need to look at revenues, we have hired obviously NHA advisors to help us look at our finances and so on and so forth. They put together a revenue report that is in the packet and they'll go through that today as well. But that's all part of what's in the agenda packet that was provided to the community, this agenda packet and provided to the council a week ago so as not to overwhelm you with information. Next slide, please. |
| 00:29:21.98 | Chris Zapata | So when you see a budget difficulties, you know, the time for action is now. And so the city council recognized that When we saw the $5 million deficit, we started working on that immediately. One of the things that we did was we tried to right size reorganize our city department. One of the things that happened in that budget was elimination of the assistant city manager position and the reorganization of the parks and recreation department. And those two positions combined saved the city about $500,000 in total compensation. We had a contract for our finance department and audit services, which was a little bit AND SO CITY COUNCIL approved it but also provided the ability for us to cut that off sooner than later and we terminated that contract after five months because it was too costly for the city we were in the middle of expiring labor contracts and so one of the things that was difficult is that we had labor negotiations that involved an understanding of where we were financially and trying to figure out how we value our workforce, but how we maintain some fiscal prudency. And so the way that occurred was no ongoing pay increases. There were no percentage increases in the labor contracts as those turn into compounding obligations of the city on pensions. If there's longevity pay involved or specialty pay involved, that becomes pretty difficult for the city to manage on a go-forward basis. So one time non-prisonable bonuses were given to the staff. we had a one-year contract to see if we were going to do better the following year. So that expires June 30th of this year. Part of the agreement with the SEIU local was that, you know, we would reduce the work week to, you know, cut out what we call five days of commute to Sausalito, create work-life balance, and provide potential 10% savings to the city because a 36-hour work week is, you know, a reduction from a 40-hour work week, which equates to a 10% savings to the city because a 36 hour work week is a reduction from a 40 hour work week, which equates to a 10% cut in time. So there was obviously some opportunity for us to look at this model to see if it worked for the people that are involved in the schedule and see if we can create work-life balance in this city so we can retain employees and keep our budget and keep our staff. There were executive pay cuts in this budget, starting with the city manager and the department heads. And I think that's important to model leadership. But the key thing for the community is this has essentially been seamless because the council through its commitment of its reserves in 2021-22, 2022-23 has maintained our staffing. And that means we can maintain our service levels. How long that can continue? That's the question. And that's why we're here today. Next slide, please. I did talk about the 115 trusts and pensions and post-employment benefit obligations. I want to say that the city has done a great job in setting one up, being a leader in that regard. There's approximately $4 million in it. The reason 115 Trust makes sense is because legally they can only be used for specific things. And even better, the typical rate of return on our 115 Trust is better than the money we hold in the local agency investment fund, which we call LEIF. So a good move on to part of Sausalito. And as you'll see in future information that we present, there'll be what I call some information. information and analysis done by NHA advisors on what you could and could do with that as Bartels did in their pension report back last year. Next slide please. Measure O, really proud of the community for putting measure O on the ballot when it did. As you know, it was a limited duration measure, was set to expire in 2024, 2025. It's a half percent sales tax add-on to the city sales tax rate. And let me just be clear again, I've said this and I'll say it again for the record. The city does not get all the sales tax money that comes into or that the person that buys pays. It's predominantly the state. The county and special districts to city got one and 1 1 0% of what was an 8 1 0% rate. Now we get 2%. The state gets in the neighborhood of five to 6% and the county and special districts get in the neighborhood of 2% as well. So that keeps local money local. So Measure O was about to expire. The city council and some budget problems. There was a recommendation to not use Measure O for infrastructure and use it to backfill the debt. Of course, corrected that five months later, the city council took out of its reserves 1.2 million to make measure all whole. a year ago so that we would in fact be able to continue to fund a bigger portion of our capital improvement program. So I want to thank again the community for the support and approximately 70% of the voters in Sausalito voted to expand and extend. Measure O and turned it into Measure L. So now we are at 2%. And as was mentioned earlier, that was generating about 1.2 to 1.5 million a year and a half percent. So we've doubled that to say the range is about 2.4 to $3 million going forward. The good news is people here have been working hard, including our new city clerk, to make sure that we could collect this beginning April 1st this year. So that is found money in my mind. We'll have one quarter of measure L revenue that we did not budget for in this year's budget. And again, that's a tribute to the voters who recognize the needs in Sausalito in terms of infrastructure, stormwater, facilities, sidewalks, and as an earlier speaker mentioned, you know, it's a good step, but it's not nearly enough. Next slide, please. |
| 00:35:20.93 | Chris Zapata | So yeah, the planning session earlier was mentioned that there was a $99 million number. That includes road sidewalk, Philly stairs, as well as what we believed is underground infrastructure costs. That number was added, a little more finality was added to it when our consultant three months ago told us that we had $18 million in our sewer system that we needed to think about as well. So all of those things that we talked about in terms of infrastructure, it's hard to figure out what it is to do until you see the scale and magnitude of the problem. So when you saw that, our city engineer, public works director, Kevin Dowd, did an estimate of what we thought we needed. It was a huge number because we talked about undergrounding. We talked about other things that were important, like sea level rise, climate resiliency, and what that could take. But the basic infrastructure needs of roads, sidewalks, facilities, stairs, as well as what we believe was underground in terms of our sewer collection system were estimated at $99 million. That was a big problem. We wanted the public to hear that. We wanted the council to hear that because obviously the longer you wait on these types of improvements, the more they cost. Next slide, please. |
| 00:36:39.97 | Chris Zapata | So I talked a little bit about my fiscal analysis, the 20 year back to 20 year forward. And one thing I wanna stress, Sausalito's revenue stream is not diverse. It's heavily reliant on sales, TOT and measure L. And these are volatile revenue streams. And so when you have the ability of a good year and your revenue looks great and then all of a sudden you know something happens like COVID and your revenue looks horrible and you're reliant on these volatile revenue streams you get into challenges and part of that challenge was exacerbated by the fact that 55 percent of our property tax comes to Sausalito and 44 percent goes to the fire district so that's good for the fire district they get a stable revenue stream and we get to mix that stable 55% when it used to be 100% to into our revenue mix, which has made it volatile. And, you know, it's been pointed out to me that along with the vote was the shedding of the obligation to provide that service because now the fire district provides it through those property taxes. But one thing that was not shed and has not been shed is the obligation of the people in the retirement system that are legacy firefighters before that particular decision was made. So we're still paying for retirement for fire services, as well as retiree health care for fire persons, even though it's not in our budget as a fire department. Next slide, please. |
| 00:38:08.72 | Chris Zapata | So five key areas in the approach to attack our structural deficit. One is how do we reduce our costs? One of the things that we talked about was being more efficient. The other one is how do we build a budget that is new or more diverse with new revenue? And we're going to talk about that today. And then the real question is, as we've gone through the savings that prior council and administrations had made, it was in about $11 million amount when I got here, You know, we got to figure out how to replenish that because you want to have savings in Sausalito because you're prone to things like landslides. fire danger. accidents, You know, things that we don't foresee that are naturally and occur naturally. Litigation, all kinds of things that really state the need to have a general fund that is healthy. And right now, what I've heard from the city council the last two years to maintain service levels, we will dip into that reserve last year and this year. But now we're at a situation where we're at about 20% of our general fund reserve, which is about $4.5 million. That's a little precarious. And so I don't believe I've heard that there's an appetite to dip into reserves this coming year. That was said to me in public and in private. So I understand that. So I think we have to work on what can we do to replenish our general fund reserves. And so there's some ideas in there And then how can we build our new our 115 trust through new investment in it, and that takes money as well, so that's in the plan there are five components to it, if you have any questions about it i'm happy to go through them next slide please. One of the things that is important in Sausalito is who spends money in Sausalito. And obviously our residents do. But one of the things we did is we commissioned a visitor spend study by HDL. They had done one for Malibu a few months earlier. I was interested in seeing it in advance of Measure L, Measure O conversation. And their analysis showed that about 60% of sales tax, that 2% of sales tax is paid for by visitors. So that again tells you that, you know, our residents pay some, but the visitors pay more of sales tax and TOT obviously and our district tax. And again, that is volatile revenue. I always say that whenever you have a tourist friendly city as Sassilo is whether it's Sassilo or Anaheim. These folks that come into your community that benefit your community through dropping dollars in hotel rooms and purchasing and dining it's wonderful, but they also use your facilities. You know, whether it's your streets, your sidewalks, your restrooms, your parks, sometimes your police, sometimes your fire. And I always believe they should pay their fair share. So that case was made in that study. Next slide, please. |
| 00:41:14.31 | Chris Zapata | measure L I went through that. Thank you again, Sausalito voters and the people that worked on getting that through 70% approval is high confidence that there's a need there. And that confidence needs to translate into using that money appropriately. And I think the council recognized that by putting the $1.2 million back last year. So there is a real need in terms of infrastructure and this money is intended to address infrastructure and maintenance needs. And so again, the effective date is April 1st of 2023. Next slide, please. So close to where I began again, what I covered was a strategic plan, which is a good document. The analysis we did for last priority setting session, my fiscal health analysis that I gave it to council, the plan to approach it and Bartell and associates report is important for people to understand. And then in that packet was NHA advisors report on revenue. So with that, I'd like to turn it over to our, As you know, we're small but mighty staff. And so there are complicated financial dealings at times that we need help on. And so we contracted with NHA advisors with the approval of the city council to look at things that could be financially important to the city. So with us today, we have Craig Hill We have Leslie Bloom and we have Roy Kim, who are going to walk through some revenue, potentially generating ideas as well as cover the pensions. And then we'll take questions. Thank you. |
| 00:42:50.30 | Craig Hill | Great, thank you. Good to see some of you again, as city managers mentioned, NHA advisors were based at San Rafael. been doing work with the city, I think back since probably early 2010 or so, and both on a consulting capacity and as well as with some of your capital financings that you've done over the years. We were brought in most recently for this project last year, and we'll go through a little bit of what we've come up with just to set the table for this particular piece of your workshop today. um, As Chris mentioned, we've got Leslie Bloom, a vice president with our company and Roy Kim, an associate who rents in our pension group, to really kind of break those two things apart. They're not, they're two distinct components to what we looked at as part of the analysis. And we're really focused on the revenue side. So none of our conversation is about how to save dollars really from a, expenditure side, but looking at your expenses as a, sorry, your revenues as a whole. Next slide. So I'm going to start it off kind of at a high level and then I'm going to pass it over to Leslie to do a little bit of the deeper. and summary of what our memo described. I believe that was in your package, so everybody had a chance to take a look at it. Really, what I'd like to have you all think about as we get into this is There's the way we look at it, there's two different types of revenues. There's those that you can charge or generate internally, meaning through The fees cost reimbursement and things that don't require necessarily going out to the community asking for support right there is a public hearing process there's absolutely a way that there is there's transparency. but there is an entire set of revenue sources that can be looked at that are specific to operating the city as a company. The second set is where you really go out and ask your community to support you, right? You've had the success of that already. with the geo bond for the public facilities at the public safety facilities, And we have a lot of cities up and down the state now that are really looking to say, Well, if we've got enhancement needs, if we've got infrastructure that needs to get done, As the city manager mentioned, you know, relying on a sales tax measure, which has a lot of volatility. can really make it very difficult to try to program a multi-year CIP program. You can't half get done with a project and then have a bad year of revenues and not be able to fund the balance of the project. |
| 00:45:20.67 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:45:27.22 | Craig Hill | A lot of what we're looking at is trying to identify a financing strategy or a funding strategy for a CIP project that might be three or four years long. So next slide. |
| 00:45:40.60 | Craig Hill | So what we're going to really try to do is like I said, what we've done in the past is worked on your capital, your CIP programs. Thank you. And then We have looked at most recently in 2022, the pension side. So Royal will kind of follow up at the end of this presentation and talk more about some of your pension. What we see now with the latest and greatest, right, the CalPERS, as you probably have all heard, Did not. is not anticipated to have a really good year for 22, 23, which is gonna have a negative impact on what your future payments may look like. Next slide. |
| 00:46:22.28 | Craig Hill | So I've already kind of talked about this. We can go on. Next slide. So, The revenue measures that you have that I won't recap what what Chris already just mentioned, the sales tax that you have in place. has been identified from a policy perspective, right, to be going for CIP. And what we're trying to really focus on is what, may be missing. in some of your abilities that your other peer cities, either in the county, northern California or statewide, have that you could look at as part of Um, on the budget operational side, something that that would really be more consistent. So next slide. |
| 00:47:11.91 | Craig Hill | You had the success of the measure. And the other potential, I should say, I won't call it a failure, but what did not pass, right, was the cannabis related stuff. That's no surprise for those of us who live in the county, seeing what's kind of gone on as a countywide measure. But it is something that ironically what we've seen from a statewide perspective has been a really tough, you think about sales tax having volatility. We've had a really tough time with a lot of other cities on what you can project from a cannabis perspective as well. So, It's been one of these shiny objects that I think a lot of cities have looked at as a potential revenue source. Oakland's obviously very active in that space. but it's been really unpredictable in terms of what kind of revenue could be generated off of it. for another day for the city to maybe consider in the future. Next slide. So I think with that, I'm going to turn it over to Leslie Bloom to drop down a little bit more into the weeds on what the available... revenue sources are. Again, this is intended to really be at a very high level, educational. We could certainly talk about it with questions afterwards, any specifics. but for the council's consideration is really what, Do you believe our... viable ones that should have further consideration and which ones do you say absolutely it's voodoo we don't want to go anywhere near that and there's no right or wrong answer as we go through this list it's just for you all to kind of absorb and then figure out which ones you would want to pursue or do more investigation on later. So with that, Leslie, I'll let you. tee it up. And if you can make Make sure your microphone's working. |
| 00:48:56.55 | Leslie Bloom | Thank you. Can everybody hear me okay? We can hear you. Thank you. Okay, great. Well, good morning. My name is Leslie Bloom and I work with Craig Hill at NHA. If we can please go to the next slide. These slides discuss some of the basics of California municipal tax and revenue sources. And as Craig mentioned, we kind of have them separated into two buckets, if you will, the taxes and the fees. In California, taxes can be implemented as a general tax or a special tax. General taxes can be used for any purpose and require a simple majority vote by the voters. Whereas a special tax must be used for a specific purpose and requires a two-thirds vote. Fees are distinguishable from taxes and that they cannot exceed the reasonable costs of the service for which they are imposed. And authority to impose fees in the state exist under certain powers granted by the state constitution. And as you all know, there are certain fees such as utility rates or other property related services that are subject to the requirements of Prop 218, which we will go into more detail on a few slides. Next slide. |
| 00:50:24.10 | Leslie Bloom | So diving first into tax revenues, there's several available California taxes that local agencies can impose. Of those, the city currently imposes several, including property taxes, sales tax, along with transaction use tax. transient occupancy tax, business taxes, and some miscellaneous taxes, such as a documentary transfer tax and a Prop 172 sales tax for police. The city is familiar with these taxes and the procedures to implement, so I think we can go to the next slide. |
| 00:51:09.27 | Leslie Bloom | There are several other taxes, as Craig mentioned, that are tax revenue raising opportunities currently not imposed by the city. I can briefly touch on each of these. The first is a communities facilities district special tax. It's the tax imposed on identified properties within a CFD boundary. and can finance improvements or services that provide a general benefit to the area. Generally, this tax is used as a source for bond debt service. Um, A parcel tax is a special tax similar to a CFD, but imposed on a parcel imposed on a parcel or unit of real property. It's generally based on either a flat per parcel rate or a rate that varies based on the size of the parcel and can be used for purposes such as improvements to infrastructure or streets and parks or protection of open space. Um, a development tax is imposed on new construction and can be used, um, It can be imposed based on the size of new construction, such as square footage or the number of dwelling units. And I just wanna note that this tax differs from development fees as the tax is used for revenue raising purposes. Go to next slide. Here we list a few more tax revenues that are currently not imposed by the city. The first we list here is utility users tax. This is a tax imposed by the city for utility services. The implementation typically requires a study to determine potential revenue generation capacity based on the community's underlying use of the identified utilities. And then from this study, a utility users tax rate can be calculated and submitted for approval by the community. Cannabis tax is a tax imposed on the sale, cultivation, distribution, or manufacturing of cannabis. There is currently a state tax on all cannabis retail sales and Proposition 64 allows local government to establish their own cannabis taxes. And then finally here we have included an admissions tax, which is a tax levied on the amount paid for admission to places of amusement or athletic events. It's generally imposed on the issuance, purchase, sale, or use of tickets for the event. |
| 00:54:05.41 | Leslie Bloom | Turning to this slide, we've included more points on the voter approval process, which I touched on a few slides ago to impose a new tax Increase of tax or extended tax voter approval is required. If this is a general tax, it requires two-thirds approval by the governing body and majority approval by the voters. It also needs to be on the ballot during a general council member election. If it is a special tax, it requires majority approval by the governing body and two-thirds approval by the voters and can be voted on during a general or special election. |
| 00:54:51.43 | Leslie Bloom | And then if we go to slide 34, here we move from taxes to fees and charges imposed by cities. There are several types of fees that can be implemented by local agency, and most of these fees can be grouped into the following buckets. First, we have user fees, which are paid to the local agency for a public service or participation in an activity. This would include such fees for rec programs or document fees. And such fees can cannot exceed the cost of providing the public service, which can include overhead. A regulatory fee is imposed on an activity for the cost of the program needed to regulate the activity. For example, permit fees or inspections. And these fees are also limited to the reasonable costs and administration of the regulatory action. Development fees, excuse me, development impact fees are a type of regulatory fee, but they're slightly different from other regulatory fees in that they are charged to mitigate the impact of development on public facilities. The fee must be in proportion to the impact of the project And generally a fee study is used to quantify the impact. |
| 00:56:28.21 | Leslie Bloom | Facility and rental fees are fees imposed for the use of a facility. Examples would include golf fees, off-street parking or marina fees. And then although these are referred to as fees, charges are paid for, The use of public property and are more similar to rent. So they are generally set at the discretion of the public agency and not subject to the same requirement as other fees where the. there has to be the nexus between the cost and the fee. And then turning to slide 35. Thank you. um, Here we lay out the procedural requirements for new fees. There are specific procedural requirements guided by state law. such procedures vary based on the type of fee For both the user and a regulatory fee, there needs to be a nexus between the fee and the reasonable costs of providing the service or program. The authority to impose user and regulatory fees falls under police power and require public notice and hearing. For mitigation fees, which fall under regulatory fees, there's typically a fee study, as I just mentioned, prepared tying the fee to the proportional impact of the project. And then finally on slide 36, we briefly discussed prop 218. It sets forth the requirements for assessments and property related fees and services. to implement an assessment such as a standby charge. or a property related service such as water and sewer. Several procedures need to be completed, which differ somewhat between an assessment or a service. However, on a very high level, they both include 45 days written notice of public hearing to parcel owners and hold a notice public hearing where majority protest hearing or vote needs to be completed. And I think right there I'll just pause and we can take any questions before we get into the pension related topic. |
| 00:59:01.99 | Mayor (Unknown) | Thank you. |
| 00:59:02.03 | Leslie Bloom | Thank you. |
| 00:59:02.80 | Mayor (Unknown) | Great, council member Kelman has her hand raised |
| 00:59:04.59 | Janelle Kellman | Thank you. |
| 00:59:04.64 | Mayor (Unknown) | Thank you. |
| 00:59:04.95 | Janelle Kellman | Great. Good to see you guys. Thank you very much. Hi, Leslie. Hi, Craig. Hi. Couple questions for y'all. So you're probably aware of the initiative that got enough votes on the ballot from the California Business Roundtable, which will have significant impact to how we tax, particularly around how we |
| 00:59:05.23 | Mayor (Unknown) | Thank you. Yeah. |
| 00:59:20.96 | Janelle Kellman | no longer a majority vote for special taxes. What is your assessment of a reliance of a revenue strategy entirely on fees, given that this initiative is going to be on the ballot? |
| 00:59:31.95 | Craig Hill | Yeah, that's actually a really good question. I just actually came from the Cal City's formerly of California cities conversation, city manager conversation or meeting yesterday. And it is a concern, right? The league as a whole is going to be Um, advocating and educating as much as possible over the next year to try to make sure that that something like that they've actually reclassified it or tried to to rename it so that The community as a whole can understand it. based on all of the conversations we're having from a legal perspective, it will be a real challenge. And I think the biggest, For us, the biggest issue will be There will be metrics that will still allow you to establish these revenues. One of the parameters is going to be that there cannot be there has to be a sunset. So no longer will you be able to put in place a measure, a revenue measure and have it be in perpetuity. That significantly impacts the ability to leverage against that revenue from a from an operational perspective, that might be OK. But if you were to need to finance infrastructure, for instance, and you thought that you could not get that date long enough, it will impact how we think about building that into a financing plan. |
| 01:00:53.89 | Janelle Kellman | Thank you. So I don't think we can undervalue or understate the importance of this. So I appreciate that. |
| 01:01:01.28 | Craig Hill | So. |
| 01:01:01.75 | Walfred Solorzano | Bye. |
| 01:01:01.79 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:01:03.80 | Janelle Kellman | It eliminates the ability of special tax measures proposed by initiative to be enacted by majority voter approval, requires the tax measures include a specific duration of time the tax will be imposed. I think that raises significant questions over this type of strategy. And so I'd like to understand how what you're presenting to us today will take this into account. But we can get further on to that. I do have a specific question for Leslie about utility taxes. So oftentimes municipalities fail to collect utility taxes on cell phones. And I saw on your list a lot of different utilities, but I didn't see cell phones. So it's well-established case law. I think it's City of University, City versus Sprint that says we can collect that tax. Do you know if we are? And is that part of your assessment as well? |
| 01:01:51.49 | Leslie Bloom | I am not aware that the city is collecting a utility user tax. My understanding is that the user tax can be collected for electricity, gas, water, sewer, telephone, sanitation, and cable television. And The specifics related to cell phones, I am not aware of, but I can research that and |
| 01:02:21.42 | Janelle Kellman | Yeah, if you want the case law, I can send that to you. And then you said earlier that you had worked with us on some of our bond measures. And I'm wondering, I've asked the city manager this, are our general obligation bonds callable? |
| 01:02:35.34 | Craig Hill | The current outstanding ones? Yep. Roy, do you have that in front of you? more or less. |
| 01:02:42.21 | Leslie Bloom | I'll take a look. |
| 01:02:44.64 | Chris Zapata | Yeah, Council Member Kelman, I think I can give you some insight into that. came to work here, I sent our debt out to a couple of different companies and asked them if there was opportunities for refinancing. And my recollection was the certificates of participation are at a good rate, so you wouldn't want to call them. But the fire and police bonds were not callable, is my recollection, but we can validate that. |
| 01:03:09.28 | Janelle Kellman | Okay, so just so the public knows, We're making payments on the first tranche of bonds, which are the series A. But for series B, the city deferred the payments for 20 years to 2026. And then it's on a 15 year amortization schedule. So in fiscal year 19, we paid $566,000 on series A. We put the remaining 207,000 into the general fund. And then the original Series B of 7.3 million. has grown to 13 million and will go to 17 million before we start to pay it down. So I just want us to all have on the table what the big issue is. Now, of course, this is just a pass-through because it's a property tax measure. and the city isn't paying it, but I think it's important that our public Be aware of that. And so I think something that's been missing for us, and I don't see it yet in your presentation, how these tax measures not just impact us today, but how they impact the community for the long haul. And making that decision, I think, has really been somewhat disastrous for us, considering it's very expensive money. |
| 01:04:04.48 | Unknown | disaster. |
| 01:04:07.38 | Janelle Kellman | and we're not really getting market rate on the building. So I'm going to be looking for that in this assessment as opposed to just a list of taxes that we can do. I want to know how this impacts this community today, five years from now, 20 years from now. |
| 01:04:21.96 | Chris Zapata | Let me take that, Craig. Yeah, I appreciate that conversation and that comment and that information, Council Member Kelman. I think the one thing that we did not ask NHA to delve into that, Because I think it's pretty clear that, you know, the financial obligations of the city, whether it's fire, police, pensions, parks, are overwhelming our ability to operate general services. And so part of the narrative is do something in the next year or not, but the next five, seven years are going to be challenging for the city of Sausalito. And part of it is when we look at ways to kind of be more efficient, looking at our debt certainly was important. And that's why, and I won't swear to it, but my recollection is I got advice from a couple of firms that refinanced debt and they said, don't want to refinance the COPs, can't refinance the fire and police debt. |
| 01:05:25.34 | Mayor (Unknown) | Council member, so we ask you, you have your hand raised. |
| 01:05:27.25 | Ian Sobieski | Yeah, thanks. And I appreciate this primer. I think that's the stage rat is just getting educated, and there was a lot there that was new to me. So thank you very much, Leslie and team, for... the primer, it's drinking from a fire hose from Shure, and It feels overwhelming to hear all the taxes, the devil's different schemes, but the devil might be a bit in the details. And I had a question technical question. You focus on cannabis as this Category all into itself, a special tax on cannabis stood oddly specific versus other taxes that were sort of generalized. Is there something about cannabis that allows a special tax or could you have an equivalent tax, let's say on t-shirts. |
| 01:06:15.09 | Leslie Bloom | well, you have on your t-shirts, you would have a sales tax or a transaction and use tax. Cannabis tax is, new given the that cannabis became legal in the state. So there are specific laws relating to cannabis tax. Right. |
| 01:06:36.10 | Ian Sobieski | All right. So you, I'm sorry. That is, that is, I think my question, but I just want to make sure I'm hearing it right. I know of course that t-shirts are taxed on a sales tax, but are you saying that cannabis has been designated by the state legislature as a very special category of product that can be specifically taxed? Whereas other products that city of Sausalito does not have the authority to pick and choose a couple of products, bubble gum, t-shirts, and bobble toys and tax them at a higher rate than other things. |
| 01:07:06.64 | Leslie Bloom | So that is correct. So cannabis, currently has a tax imposed by the state Um, that is a 15% tax. And then there was a prop 64, which allows government to establish their own taxes consistent with state law on cannabis. |
| 01:07:26.15 | Ian Sobieski | Okay. |
| 01:07:26.55 | Leslie Bloom | Oh, yeah. |
| 01:07:27.70 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you for that. And then this goes a little bit to Councilmember Kelman's question. I appreciate the primer, just the primer exercise of all these different taxes, but in your engagement with the city, Did you look at Sassouli in particular? And, uh, look at other communities like ours, to see if there are any taxes that other communities like ours impose, take advantage of because of their unique business model capability. I mean, we are after all a tourist town. Res communities lack hours, have any kind of special taxes that fall primarily on visitors. rather than residents. that that you can discuss. |
| 01:08:18.28 | Leslie Bloom | Well, other several other California cities impose a transient occupancy tax, which the city imposes. And that's a tax that's imposed on visitors for stays less than 30 days. Other cities that we looked at similar to Sausalito would be a waterfront communities. Um, and, and, What we were looking at specifically was how, um, fees were collected for marina or birth slips, so boat fees. But our understanding is that the city currently has, you know, eight, I believe eight harbor districts or harbors and marinas that currently impose fees on voters. um, And so I don't think that there was anything that the city wasn't specifically collecting the other I'M SORRY, IT'S NOT THE CITY COLLECTING IT, IT'S THE MARINAS. there wasn't anything that was specific that we identified that this, you know, the city doesn't already impose on. |
| 01:09:29.81 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:09:31.02 | Ian Sobieski | Okay, that does sound new to me, but just to be clear, on visitors, as far as the categories of ways that Thank you. that the city can collect revenue from people that don't live here in town, either as tenants or property owners. Thank you. |
| 01:09:44.44 | Unknown | I know. |
| 01:09:44.83 | Ian Sobieski | It's pretty much in your taxonomy restricted to TOT taxes, that's on hotels. and sales taxes. Is that correct? Is there anything else? |
| 01:09:54.67 | Leslie Bloom | That is correct. |
| 01:09:55.51 | Craig Hill | Well, I think we have that we acknowledge that there's the recreation or like admissions tax. And if you could come up with a creative way to capture, as was stated earlier, something related to bicycles, right? The traffic that's impacted by tourists that are coming in. |
| 01:09:56.03 | Ian Sobieski | We have. |
| 01:10:14.73 | Craig Hill | to a gate fee effectively, right? Whether it's for the ferry or for, it would be hard obviously on cars. but somebody perhaps who was had a rental business and was bringing through with bicycles. So that that would all fall under that admissions tax that Leslie mentioned on one of the slides. |
| 01:10:36.23 | Ian Sobieski | Is that, does that word admissions, is that with an E or an A? Admission or emissions? |
| 01:10:42.24 | Leslie Bloom | N-A. |
| 01:10:43.01 | Ian Sobieski | So an admission tax. |
| 01:10:43.45 | Leslie Bloom | Yeah. |
| 01:10:46.83 | Ian Sobieski | Well, that's interesting. I didn't see that on your slide. That's a whole category. As you know, Salcido is impacted mightily by bicycles and day visitors. So there's a category of admission tax that we might explore that would fall primarily on visitors. |
| 01:11:01.36 | Craig Hill | Thank you. It was under the amusement park. you may have, |
| 01:11:06.65 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. I totally missed that. So I don't know if anyone, everyone else is clued in, but that seems like an interesting thing to explore some. So I'd like to just put a pin in that. and, But maybe I would ask you. Why don't you go ahead? Just tell me again. What's this admissions tax now? Would it work? |
| 01:11:23.45 | Craig Hill | We want to pull up slide 32. |
| 01:11:24.91 | Mayor (Unknown) | It's also on page four of the memo. There's a pretty comprehensive just on the admissions tax. |
| 01:11:33.44 | Leslie Bloom | So I can read from the memo if that's helpful, because that memo includes additional detail. An admission tax refers to a tax levied on an amount paid for an admission. |
| 01:11:46.70 | Leslie Bloom | to places of amusement or athletic events. on the issuance, purchase, sale or use of tickets. um, And it can be imposed as a general or a special tax. That's just for the use of proceeds is what the limitations of use would be. It's imposed by a limited number of California cities. And if the city were to levy the admissions tax, the amount that the city could raise would depend on several factors, including the amount of the tax or what you're taxing and what the sales of what you're taxing is expected. |
| 01:12:29.29 | Ian Sobieski | So I'll explore this and then I have one more question. How do you, how would that, We have, obviously in the summer we get a large number of bicycles. Currently the only way we directly have a fee is that we |
| 01:12:38.44 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:12:42.74 | Ian Sobieski | for being parking downtown outside of the local parking lot. And we charge $3 to park the bike. But is there some other admission tax that we could somehow charge? These are companies that are based in San Francisco. They're based in Sausalito. How would any kind of gating fee, how could that possibly be collected or imposed? |
| 01:13:02.70 | Leslie Bloom | Yeah, Craig, can you take that? |
| 01:13:03.75 | Craig Hill | really good question that would probably need a little bit more vetting. Thank you. |
| 01:13:08.80 | Ian Sobieski | Okay. Then my other question is around this other category, which you mentioned, And it seems interesting, but I didn't see much discussion of. You say that Other places have a marina or birth slip fee. And you say the city collects them. That's news for me. I know we get property tax from boats that are in our 2000 slips. But I didn't know that we have an additional fee on those boats. What is that fee? How much do we collect? |
| 01:13:37.18 | Leslie Bloom | I'm sorry, let me clarify. I'm not I'm not certain how the fees that are collected at your Marina actually make their way to the city, whether they do or not. I believe that most of your marinas and harbors are |
| 01:13:37.57 | Ian Sobieski | I'm sorry. |
| 01:13:49.45 | Leslie Bloom | private. But Chris, correct me if I'm wrong. But generally, there's fees and each of your marinas have different fees. But generally, there's fees for |
| 01:13:52.76 | Unknown | Right. No, they are. |
| 01:14:01.02 | Leslie Bloom | dockage fees, mortgage fees, There can be anchorage fees. If it's somebody that isn't a permanent boat user, there could be day use fees So there's various fees and I think each of the marinas collect a different fee. |
| 01:14:22.27 | Ian Sobieski | Well, I ask a little bit about that only because I know personally, people that own homes, but the primary home is in Sacramento or in Monterey. and they keep a boat here and they come here. This is their weekend retreat. This is their second home. And all they pay is their slip fee and their property tax. They pay the same property tax as if they had their boat in their driveway back at their prior residence. THE CITY OF SALES LITO GETS, YOU KNOW, 11 CENTS OF THEIR PROPERTY TAX BILL. BUT AS FAR AS I KNOW, THERE'S NO ADDITIONAL FEE ON THOSE, UH, for those transient occupants. If they weren't on their boat, they'd be in our hotels. So what would be a model to It sounds like you just outlined a couple of them, but is this a, I guess you're saying that this is something other communities do, which is look at fees on certain kinds of slip usage. |
| 01:15:20.07 | Leslie Bloom | Correct. And some of the other cities that we looked at this, there's the city, uh, The marinas or the harbors are not private, like I believe most of Sausalito's are, Um, you know, run by the city or the, you know, JPA Harbor District. |
| 01:15:43.30 | Ian Sobieski | I guess maybe we're speaking past each other. I want to make sure I'm clear. Can you impose fees upon the private marinas in this way? Or are you only talking about public ones? |
| 01:15:52.92 | Leslie Bloom | Well, your marina has already imposed such fees on the voters. Um, And so how the relationship between the I'm a private marinas and the city. I'm not aware how they're connected or if any of those fees roll up into the city or But generally those are fees that are collected already by your marinas. |
| 01:16:20.33 | Ian Sobieski | But I mean, can you have a, could you charge non-resident. I'll have. occupants, non-residents who own boats in private marinas in Sausalito. $1 per foot a month as a fee. as a city. Can you do something? Is that something that would be... |
| 01:16:37.83 | Leslie Bloom | I'm sorry, can you repeat that? |
| 01:16:39.09 | Ian Sobieski | Can the city of Sausalito, |
| 01:16:41.10 | Leslie Bloom | Thank you. |
| 01:16:41.40 | Ian Sobieski | require of non-residents who own boats in private marinas in the city of Sausalito. We have 2,000 of them. Um, a monthly charge based on the length of the boat or the, uh, something like that. Uh, |
| 01:16:57.60 | Leslie Bloom | Thank you. |
| 01:16:57.62 | Ian Sobieski | I don't know. |
| 01:16:57.64 | Leslie Bloom | I I don't know, but we can research that for you. I do know that there are um, sales and use taxes. And I know this is away from the fees for a minute, that. Thank you. the, In The use tax applies to the purchase of vessels, And that is going to be the rate where you principally more or birth your vessel. um, So that would be, you know, where you're talking about a resident living somewhere and having their vessel in Sausalito, I believe that's just in, you know, a new purchase of a vessel, but when the vessel is purchased and stored in Sausalito, then they would need to pay the use fee to the city of Sausalito. Um, |
| 01:17:52.72 | Ian Sobieski | Okay, with the use fee imposed by the city or is that a voter initiative? |
| 01:17:56.01 | Leslie Bloom | That would be the that would be like a sales tax. So that's different than a fee. |
| 01:18:02.68 | Ian Sobieski | So would it be imposed by the city council or by a vote of the people? |
| 01:18:07.13 | Leslie Bloom | That would be imposed with your regular sales and use taxes. |
| 01:18:14.15 | Ian Sobieski | which is a great idea. |
| 01:18:14.34 | Leslie Bloom | TO HAVE A CITY. |
| 01:18:15.21 | Ian Sobieski | which can only be changed by a vote of the people or by- The city council. Okay, thank you very much. |
| 01:18:20.95 | Mayor (Unknown) | Mm-hmm. Thanks Councilmember, sorry, thank you Vice Mayor Sobieski. Let's go to Councilmember Hoffman who's had her hand raised. |
| 01:18:27.68 | Jill Hoffman | So I had a couple things. |
| 01:18:31.11 | Mayor (Unknown) | Councilmember Huffman, you're still a little bit quiet. I'm sorry. I don't know why we're having these audio issues today. |
| 01:18:36.69 | Unknown | Okay. Turn up. |
| 01:18:39.78 | Mayor (Unknown) | I think that's better. Okay. |
| 01:18:41.91 | Jill Hoffman | Yes, much better. Thank you. I want to follow up a little bit on |
| 01:18:42.79 | Mayor (Unknown) | Yes, much better. Thank you. |
| 01:18:46.77 | Jill Hoffman | Council member Sobieski's line of questioning. So we did do quite an extensive review of what options we had back in 2000, 15, 16 when the bike and ped committee was originally stood up to address the rental bike stress that was on our town. And so we were trying to figure out different ways, you know, to address that and pay for the stress on Sausalito and the increased police hours that we had to have and all that kind of stuff. So we did go down that road. Um, and then we came up with the paid, the first ever paid bike parking. Anywhere. very successful model of the revenue model for paid bike parking. Um, But what I would, what I am interested in is for you to follow up or someone to follow up on, you know, has any other community, any other, you know, community that's has a large tourist population or a large seasonal increase of visitors. How have they what what's the revenue structure for that right like the the gate, you know. The admissions tax was really about, you know, you own something or you have a large event space in your town. Like, I don't know. call it Disney World or call it 49er Stadium or something. But we don't have gates to get into Sausalito. Um, But so, You know, like, what does that look like? And has any other talent done that? And how did they do it? Right. So any other high visitor town in If you want to call it California, that's fine. So I would be really interested in that if there is any and how they do it. And also interested in, you know, the slip fee aspect. Can we assess an additional something? I mean, the Marines already have a license tax, right? A business license fee that they have to pay. But then I, I seem to recall, Chris, I don't know, a few years ago that we We looked into that. I don't know what was done with that. So with regard to the city assessing an additional use fee on slips. So that's, I mean, I think those are two interesting revenue sources that we would like to consider, not that we're gonna do it, but we'd like to consider that. So I think those are my two questions. So thanks. |
| 01:21:20.23 | Mayor (Unknown) | Anita, did you want to respond to that? |
| 01:21:22.54 | Craig Hill | No, this is the actual, the kind of direction, you know, we were, I've been talking through the city manager originally on this. We wanted to throw everything on the table, we did not. do a dissertation on every line item here with the idea that Really, this is a policy conversation to have. And so the feedback is as great as we kind of hone in on what may be alternatives that then we can do a deeper dive or staff can do a deeper dive on. |
| 01:21:51.25 | Mayor (Unknown) | Great. I'm going to give Councilmember Cox a chance to weigh in on questions before I go ahead. |
| 01:21:56.34 | Janelle Kellman | Thank you. and I think that's a good thing. And an idea that we had discussed a couple of years ago is possibly... imposing a Prop 218 fee to repair our storm drains. So, several years ago, the state of California expanded the ambit of Prop 218 to include storm drains in addition to |
| 01:22:10.35 | Unknown | Mm-hmm. |
| 01:22:20.71 | Janelle Kellman | sewers and water and other forms of infrastructure. I don't know whether other another municipality has yet undertaken that the reason Sausalito deferred that several years ago as we did not want to be the test case for the legality of that. So I'd be interested in knowing whether other municipalities have imposed such a fee because one of the major infrastructure issues we face are our crumbling storm drains in addition to our |
| 01:22:52.27 | Craig Hill | That's a great point, Ab. We have been involved with the city of Berkeley over the last 10 years, dancing around that issue with storm drains. They actually did take a first stab at funding some of that infrastructure need through a general obligation bond that they did, but you're absolutely right. It's been one of those, topics where can you get there? I think there's been a couple of cities who have we can do some research and bring back some information, but it's certainly, front and center. |
| 01:23:23.92 | Janelle Kellman | I think it bears noting that some of the burdens we bear today are really externally cost. So the decision to allocate 44% of our property tax towards the Southern Marine fire was a voter decision. The decision to spend $10 million on our parks was a voter decision. And the pension obligation is something that is outside of our control. That is a CalPERS investment. So we are sitting here saddled with debt that city management did not necessarily recommend. or voluntarily undertake. And so I think that We have to bear that in the back of our mind as we decide what's the best approach to addressing hour. um, our financial obligations in light of all of this debt. The other thing I wanted to raise is the Zali case with respect to franchise fees. This is another challenge for California in terms of ensuring that the nexus between a fee and the service is legitimate. waste haulers up and down California. are facing a challenge My firm is actually litigating. the Zolli case. which is a Supreme Court case that invalidated the city of Oakland's franchise fee for waste hauling. So I would like to know whether Bay Cities faces a challenge and whether Sausalito is gonna face a challenge when it comes to that. um, in its future. |
| 01:25:07.05 | Mayor (Unknown) | Mm-hmm. Just for the public who's not familiar, could you just give a quick two lines about the Zolli case? |
| 01:25:13.17 | Janelle Kellman | Yeah. |
| 01:25:17.22 | Janelle Kellman | So the Zali is a Supreme Court case that concluded that the city of Oakland did not have enough evidence to rule as a matter of law that the fees it was charging to its voters for waste hauling are exempt from voter approval requirements and so. It doesn't mean that you can't get the fees approved. It just means you have to go to the voters for it, which is not how most municipalities undertake their waste hauling fees. |
| 01:25:52.96 | Janelle Kellman | Thank you. |
| 01:25:52.98 | Mayor (Unknown) | Thank you for summarizing that. or. for everyone. I appreciate it. So I had a couple of questions. and many of them were covered, but on the cannabis tax, You know, we obviously measure K failed. We don't have a storefront cannabis, but we do have delivery into Sausalito. And from what I understand, we're not yet collecting revenue or tax on the delivery model. Do you have other municipalities you've worked with that are collecting tax on direct delivery from services like ease that might give bring cannabis into Sausalito and can you suggest a way that we might get revenue from those delivery services. |
| 01:26:26.95 | Craig Hill | That's actually a great question. I think we would have to get back to you with some I'd like to talk about that internally see what we can provide. |
| 01:26:36.53 | Mayor (Unknown) | Yeah, I'd like to understand that as we think about our bigger picture and I appreciate the looking at the vessel fees is something where we can or can't or what is available to us and then i'm excited to see the opportunity for admission stacks Yeah. I'm someone who's really passionate about smart cities and technology. And obviously you can use that to track each bike that comes into town. So if we wanted to, we could have sensors that would tell us when a bike comes and what bike it is, et cetera. So we could potentially use that to levy the admission stacks, which would be great in terms of potential for revenue. But I also wanted to, following on Councilmember Kelman's request to you, and you don't have to have a direct answer, but these are all great potential places where we could charge taxes and fees, but there seems to be missing that piece of where does that fit into long-term impacts on our city and how sustainable are those fees in light of the cases that were brought up by Council Member Cox and Council Member Kelman. And when we think about I really appreciated this memo. I thought it was really helpful in terms of what you laid out and appreciated specific to Sausalito on page seven. That was fantastic. I didn't see and I and perhaps you were waiting for direction from us today, and we're happy to provide that and I hope we have more I see that Council Member. Councilmember Hoffman and Vice Marsobieski have their hands raised, so I'll go back to them. But clear recommendations of in looking at your city, this is what we think might work for you. And here's why. That's what we would really like to dig in to see from you, or at least I think that would be really helpful to us as we start to really consider what revenue streams are the most realistic for our structural deficit going forward. |
| 01:28:12.25 | Chris Zapata | Let me take that. So thank you for that information before the conversation goes further on what, was asked of the consultant. So, you know, we wanted to see what revenues were potential out there in the state of California. We want to look a little bit at waterside communities and went look at pensions. That was the scope of the engagement. In that engagement, I sent you all a memo and I suggested to you all that there are two areas that I would recommend based on my analysis of these things that you look at. And obviously predictable revenue is one. And the idea that, you know, we have a police force that is small but mighty. And so I suggested that there were two areas THAT YOU SHOULD CONSIDER. And to not to get in front of you today was to just give you the the information, but I also did recommend directly that you look at a parcel tax to potentially fund Public safety. And you look at a utility users tax to create predictability in your revenue stream. That's not my decision to make. That's not the consultant's decision to make. It's your decision to make. And so by putting this all out there after today, if you say these are the areas that we're interested in, it really doesn't matter what I say. It's your call in terms of what we should study and what might make sense. And then the consultant and I will do the work to figure out what it is that we bring back to you based on your direction. But to presuppose that you would want to look at any of these or all of these was not what I intended today. So I apologize if this feels incomplete to you, but I didn't wanna have the whole question the horse before the cart or the cart before the horse. So, but I did give you some specific ideas about why those two made sense to me. Had conversations with a couple of you about them. I got a little bit of pushback and I understand. And that's not what a city manager decides. It's what a city manager brings forward. And then we carry out what you want to do as a policy, which may be or may not be. you know, new approaches to revenue. It may be as simple as Thank you. It's complicated and we want to live within our means. And so do your job in that regard. So today I'm hopeful that we'll get some type of direction that, you know, you have an appetite for revenue or not, because that will inform a lot of our budget discussions and a lot of our labor negotiations, as well as what we would bring forth in front of the community. |
| 01:30:30.56 | Mayor (Unknown) | Thank you very much. Okay, I'm going to go to the vice mayor, who said his hand raised for quite some time. |
| 01:30:34.84 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you, Mayor. Well, city manager, then I just wanna ask you, I had two other questions, but I'll ask you. |
| 01:30:39.23 | Mayor (Unknown) | That's a lot. |
| 01:30:40.56 | Ian Sobieski | Oh, can you hear me? |
| 01:30:41.66 | Mayor (Unknown) | Yes, is it fair? |
| 01:30:42.20 | Ian Sobieski | Okay. I had two questions, but what you just said, city manager, makes me want to ask, Uh, are you? Basically, your recommendation is to consider a parcel tax and a UUT, both of which would require ballot measures, if I understand that correctly. that your recommendations for us to contain it can create a container to consider. those two specific recommendations. and make a A yay or nay. or something else decision. Is that, do I understand that correctly? I just want to really underline what I think I just heard. |
| 01:31:16.56 | Chris Zapata | Let me restate what I said. So, yeah, predictable revenue is something this community needs in light of the decision to take 44% of your property tax, which is stable, and put it into the fire district to create that premier service. So predictability is one. And given the amount of debt and increasing costs and what that looks like, you know, as a professional, I have to recommend to you that unless you want to make severe cuts, you're going to have to look at revenue. And so that was the whole point of laying out whatever is out there, including the kitchen sink. But ultimately, it's a community conversation. And essentially, if you do want to create a new Sausalito that can maintain its infrastructure facilities and continue to provide services and meet its debt obligations, you're going to need new revenue. You can't do it with new cuts. If you don't have an appetite for that or the community doesn't support that, then that's a conversation that we'll have and we'll figure out how we can, in fact, live within our means. And as I said yesterday, the hardest thing for a community to do is raise revenues. The easiest thing for a community to do is to cut. A city manager can cut all day and what that means is ultimately the community has to bear the impacts of those cuts or that deferred maintenance or those things, but the bottom line is we're at a crossroads. And somebody said it in a council meeting a couple of weeks ago, do you wanna survive or do you wanna thrive? The city will always survive and we'll have a tough time surviving over the next window between five, seven, nine years because of the obligations to invest in our community And our pension costs. So it's really important to have this conversation in a frank way about revenue. And so, again, I think predictable revenue is, is the the direction I would give some type of revenue that would help maintain your public safety because that seems to be the priority in Sausalito. Those are the two things that I recommend and I hope I don't overstate it, but I don't want it misunderstood. But we're here to do your bidding after you analyze the information we provide you. And so when we follow up with the pension information, that will probably alarm you a little more. because that's not a good picture as we see it today. |
| 01:33:27.43 | Ian Sobieski | Well, so it makes me ask a follow-up question, if I could, Chris, before the question on tax I had, which is, Uh, hear it loud and clear. What in your experience, since you're the consummate veteran from many municipalities, have you seen? in terms of marrying requests for additional taxes from residents. with controls, checks or balances, or other mechanisms. to instill public confidence that the money won't just go out the door, that it will actually raise levels of maintain or raise levels of service and not be Uh, spent while creating the by decisions similar to the ones that created the debt hole that we're in right now? But what, if anything, besides just having good people like you and the rest of our city staff is there in terms of a mechanism, if any? |
| 01:34:23.75 | Chris Zapata | Yeah, and for those of you that don't know my background, I've been a city manager since 1992. So thank you for that question. The ways that these things happen and happen right is there's transparent conversation like today where people say what they need to say, ask the questions they need to ask and get informed. And then at that point, decisions need to be made about whether or not you want to look at revenue. And if you do, there are many things you do as a city to create what you call accountability and confidence in the fact that what will happen. Obviously, your budgets get audited every year by independent auditors. And various types of measures to raise revenue can have oversight by citizen oversight committees that can provide annual reports on the use of those funds. And then obviously a city council is accountable to the community and how we put information out to show that the money that has been generated by a certain measure or revenue stream is used in the way that it was discussed, you know, that's a constant conversation that you have in the community. at council meetings, community forums, and however you want to do TO MAKE THAT CLEAR THAT THE dollars that the community and the businesses are generating for your budget are being managed properly, you know, that's something that is part of the job. And whether it's finance reports, whether it's council meetings, whether it's oversight committees, whether it's community conversations like this one, those all lead to hopefully community confidence. But the proof is always in the pudding. If you ask for money for storm drains, are your storm drains being maintained? How are you measuring that? What is happening to the system that you can document that shows those dollars going to that expense? You surely can show it with the parks. You borrowed almost $10 million and your parks are beautiful. Look at Southview, look at Dunphy, you know, look at MLK, you spent money. You can certainly show that with your public safety facilities, which are important. You see them in operation today, but you also have to look at the debt schedules, which are part of these packages to show people transparently what they mean and it's been clear and has been stated at this meeting that you know those debt schedules create strain on the budget but that's part of knowing and when you know, then you can act accordingly so there's no perfect answer and that's a long answer and I apologize for that, but there are a lot of ways to instill community confidence, but the real. approach is to do things. In a very transparent way. with many minds speaking with the community and the council ultimately deciding and then the staff implementing that revenue stream or those dollars in a way that the community sees as being valid. |
| 01:37:10.55 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you very much, City Manager. Two short questions for Leslie. I saw a category I didn't see in terms of tax. I don't know how much revenue it would make, but it serves community goals and would generate non-zero revenue it would be a vacancy tax on landlords that are holding out for unreasonable or non-market rental rates. It's been imposed in San Francisco, I understand. We have a lot of empty buildings, both in our commercial district and in our industrial zone. where landlords are holding out for higher rates than apparently the market will bear. And the social consequence are vacant spaces that don't generate tax revenue to the city. And so the model would be to tax uh vacant industrial or retail established landlords in the hopes of having them instill economically and socially valuable enterprises in those facilities. That's not a tax I saw you mention, but I assume it's legal. I don't know where it would fit. |
| 01:38:13.83 | Leslie Bloom | Ah. Craig, do you have any experience with vacancy tax that you can touch on? |
| 01:38:18.82 | Craig Hill | I think that's actually an excellent point and something worthy of some additional research, right? Finding out what What were the parameters that San Francisco put in place as part of that? certainly a a a unique idea that has its merits in a place where there is commercial and residential properties. |
| 01:38:39.04 | Ian Sobieski | Okay, well. I should quit while I'm ahead, but I have another idea. So. It seems to me that just like the federal government makes money out of thin air by printing dollar bills. One of the ways that the city government actually makes value out of thin air is by changing the zoning of private property. And we are in our housing element, for instance, giving away value to property owners that are lucky enough to be in the zones where we've decided for. state mandated reasons that we're going to have to up zone their property to something that literally makes their property more valuable. Have you ever seen a model applied where cities tried to carve back some of the value of changing the zoning of properties in a systemic way? That's of course not a recurring revenue stream, but it's potentially Huge. uh, dollar value when we're thinking about the 99 million dollar infrastructure liability that the city has. |
| 01:39:35.18 | Leslie Bloom | I have not. Craig, have you seen any zoning changes? |
| 01:39:41.21 | Craig Hill | No, that's an interesting conversation. I'm not sure. I have any idea what that might look like. |
| 01:39:50.57 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 01:39:51.16 | Craig Hill | Thank you. |
| 01:39:53.91 | Mayor (Unknown) | Thank you. |
| 01:39:53.98 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 01:39:54.03 | Unknown | to Member Huffman? |
| 01:39:56.23 | Jill Hoffman | Thanks. So let me just first address the direct-to-consumer issue. So the direct-to-consumer sales, which was one, you touched on it briefly with regard to the marijuana delivery sales. So the direct-to-consumer model, the sales tax is based on where the delivery is. And so if I buy something on Amazon or whatever, you know, I pay tax based on where it's going to be delivered. The municipality should receive that tax. So the tax goes to wherever it is you are, you know, wherever it is, the delivery is going to happen. So my question is, I don't know, we probably need to do an audit of that and make sure that we're receiving those funds back from the state. properly and see where those tax dollars are going. Because we should be receiving money on those direct to consumer sales, on all direct to consumer sales that are delivered into Sausalito. So that would be one ask is how do we request an audit from the state on those direct consumer tax sales? And there may be unfound money out there. Let me just say with regard to the pension debt, Um, you know, the decisions that were made in the past nine years not to aggressively pay down our pension debt earlier has led to this, the compound interest has led to the current 30-something million. So it wasn't, you know, it's not a function of just the state. The poor performance of the pension, you know, funds, the way they're invested has added to that, but also the compound interest on that unfunded liability. And we talked about that a lot in 2014, 2015, 2016. And that were decisions by the council not to pay down an unfunded pension liability with the so-called surplus. There was also a problem with the in the finance of not reporting that pension debt as a liability on our audits until it was required by law, I think in 2016, is when that debt popped into our budget. Before that, it wasn't transparent. that that was a quite large liability that was aggressively growing. And at the time, measure C was on the ballot, that was not accounted for. So measure C was the park measure. You know, it's not completely accurate to say that there was nothing that we could have done. There were a lot of things we could have done and the council chose not to. And now we're paying the price. And so one thing, Chris, since I'm mentioning pension, in the next phase, you know, last year when there was, you know, quite a good return on the stock market, our pension debt went down dramatically. And we were talking about refinancing our pension net like right in that moment. had we been able to act fast enough you know, it would have been, we would have been brilliant, right? You know, understanding there's risk, right? You don't know what's going to happen, but I would like to make sure that we're positioned the next time there's that kind of rebound in the stock market, which, because we've seen such a loss this year, there may be quite a dramatic rebound again. And if that happens, I think we need to be positioned and maybe even you know, preload a decision tree that if we reach a certain you know rebound in the stock market in our pension debt hits a certain you know, low that we're ready to go to refinance it and a decision by the council to take that risk and and for the financial security of us. So I'd like to, you know, if we need to talk about that more during the pension, that's fine. But I think that's a strategy that we might want to adopt for our pension debt. |
| 01:43:51.88 | Mayor (Unknown) | So before we move, because we haven't yet actually heard from FHA on the pension debt piece. So just before we move to that piece, I want to reiterate some of the points that were made to make sure you have clear direction, FHA. And also council members, please, if I'm missing something, I'll give you an opportunity to weigh in, but I just want to make sure we're. hearing correctly. So some of the feedback that we heard from the Council and direction to UFHA is to think about the impact of the changing potential laws around fees, whether that's what the Zolli decision or the business roundtable decision. And to think more long term about 5, 10 and 20 years, what are the impact of these taxes or fees we might choose on our community? And what do they look like? to our community specifically. And with regards to that, What creative revenue models can we pursue from your recommendations? There seems to be clear interest from members of the council and consensus on understanding what types of vessel tax that we're not yet collecting that we might be able to collect from private marina owners or otherwise. Are we receiving effectively our direct-to-consumer taxes on all direct-to-consumer purchases? And specifically, can we levy an additional tax on the cannabis that's delivered here, similar to the 14% cannabis tax model? at the state level, Can we look at a 218 potential measure on storm drains and then considerations from the city manager, which I believe I heard some. response from the Council, but I want to just reiterate with all of you. consideration and a deeper look at a potential postural tax for public safety and then nephesis on predictable revenue. Is there, and then there's two more and also count Councilmember Kelman. Okay, so Councilmember Kelman first because she had her hand raised and then I tried to move us forward, so go ahead. And then I'll go to Council Member Cox, make sure we get everything. |
| 01:45:28.02 | Janelle Kellman | Yeah, no, thank you for that, Mayor. Vacancy tax is an important one. That was, yep, March 2020, voter San Francisco approved Proposition D applies to commercial properties. But I just want to sort of just put on the record here. This is all very interesting information, you're making recommendations. I'm uncomfortable, though, with the context, because we have not talked about how we become more efficient as an organization and maximize existing revenue sources. And so it feels a little bit disconnected for me to have a conversation about taxing our constituents without looking for missing revenue and existing revenue streams, without looking at inefficiencies and waste, without discussing how we can better utilize existing assets or dispose of them. And so I need that context to better understand where we sit holistically. And my perspective is if something goes on the ballot, that sits on the council because we vetted it, we made the decisions around it, we bring it to the ballot. So even if the vote... And my perspective is if something goes on the ballot, that sits on the council because we vetted it, we made the decisions around it, we bring it to the ballot. So even if the voters vote on it, it comes from us, and we own that decision. So I'm not going to move anything towards a ballot until we have that thorough analysis. And so I just want to make sure we are able, and I'm sure our facilitators will, um, facilitate that, that we can have a contextualized conversation around this. The other thing that also makes me nervous is when I see, and this is no, I understand the mandate to you, so please take this with a grain of salt. When I see a litany of things that you can just do versus here's what Sausalito should do. And so we have some significant opportunities around things like massive tour buses coming in. We're talking about an admission tax. We're not Disney World, right? But we do have massive tour buses that are impacting our infrastructure and our greenhouse gas emissions. we should be talking about things like that are specific to us. 2,000 slips, 400 houseboats, specific to us, right? If someone takes delivery of a boat or buys it here, but takes a delivery in Baja, how do we take some of that tax? And so I don't know how we get there with you guys, but I think if we can help you understand our particular context, I think we can better leverage your insight and interest. So I hope that it can be a back and forth. So thank you and appreciate that. Thanks, Councilman. |
| 01:47:39.97 | Mayor (Unknown) | Bye. |
| 01:47:40.02 | Janelle Kellman | Thank you. |
| 01:47:40.27 | Mayor (Unknown) | Thank you. |
| 01:47:40.47 | Janelle Kellman | And |
| 01:47:40.96 | Mayor (Unknown) | Councilmember Cox, did you just want to add? |
| 01:47:42.92 | Janelle Kellman | Right. When Vice Mayor Sobieski was talking about upzoning. I'm wondering if there's a way to pigeonhole that into some sort of development tax. So that was one of the that you had mentioned. And so I'm wondering if there's a way to develop a development tax for those areas that are up zoned for our housing elements. I'm not sure. And one of another tax was the admission tax. Okay. And I would, |
| 01:48:13.31 | Craig Hill | Thank you. |
| 01:48:16.38 | Janelle Kellman | favor doing that for automobiles and bicycles. We could have a sensor on resident automobiles that would exempt them so that only visitor automobiles would be subject to that, you know, as they come and go. So thanks. |
| 01:48:33.61 | Mayor (Unknown) | Okay, I see your hand vice mayor, but I just we have to also get to pensions. So is this something that we missed with regards to specific direction for NHA here? on the potential for revenues before we move to pensions, because we're already |
| 01:48:44.29 | Unknown | Right. |
| 01:48:45.22 | Mayor (Unknown) | a little bit behind schedule and we have quite a bit to cover. So I just want to make sure |
| 01:48:49.15 | Ian Sobieski | Yes, it is. |
| 01:48:50.27 | Mayor (Unknown) | Okay. |
| 01:48:51.53 | Ian Sobieski | So, Do you mind just turning the screen off because I can't see anybody when you've got the this slide up. Well, I'll just go ahead. So yes, just to add to your list, Mayor. or make sure it's underlined. Councilmember Kelman endorsed and I underlined the vacancy tax investigation. So you said you would do that in H.A.? The slip fee, just make sure that's on the list. I think that was endorsed. The gate fee that again, council member Kalman underlined And they actually expanded it rightfully to tour buses. So that's an area of explanation. the tax on upzoning or development fee as Councilmember Cox described. So let's make sure each of those four bullet points are, IN DIRECTION TO THE STAFF. AND THEN I JUST WOULD UNDERLINE, I COMPLETELY AGREE WITH COUNCIL MAYOR CALMAN'S CONTEXT, BUT I DID, AND I DO NOTE THAT CITY MAYOR ZAPATA HAD A SLIDE on all the things that he has done and the staff has done to cut expenses eliminating positions combining roles like between Parks and Rec and and DPW. uh, SO MAYBE WE SHOULD DURING THIS SESSION LATER ASK COUNCILMEMBER TO AGAIN SHOW THAT SLIDE AND REALLY EXPOUND UPON THE EFFORTS. I THINK THAT WOULD HELP US FOR OUR CONTEXT TO KNOW THAT A REAL CLOSE LOOK OF CITY EXPENSES HAS BEEN has been undertaken. Maybe we want to direct more. But I just want to remind everyone of that context that I heard. Thank you. |
| 01:50:25.00 | Mayor (Unknown) | Okay, thank you, Vice Mayor. And I think perhaps when we dig in further to our priorities, you can review the very fantastic memo, city manager that you put together with clear ideas for, how to increase revenue and decrease spending. And we can do an assessment of how far we've come, what we have done from that list. I'm sorry. |
| 01:50:40.53 | Ian Sobieski | I'm sorry, just a little bit. Sorry to interrupt. Just an addendum to the vacancy tax. We talked about it for businesses. I am also curious whether non-resident second homes are able to be taxed as vacant. It could potentially encourage more housing as rental units if they're, I don't know if they can, but that's a category that could potentially unlock societal value and financial value. |
| 01:51:04.58 | Mayor (Unknown) | Yeah, I think the direction is to do a deeper investigation into each of these types of taxes, whether they're admissions tax vacancy tax vessel tax all of those that we've mentioned. To see what is applicable within the context as Councilmember Kilman so aptly pointed out of Sausalito. So just to move us forward. Is that direction clear and do you have a clear list of what you are going to go forward and pursue or would you like me to. |
| 01:51:25.77 | Craig Hill | No, I think we can through the city manager, coordinate the next phase. |
| 01:51:26.12 | Mayor (Unknown) | Okay. Thank you. Fantastic. Thank you very much. So let's move forward to your presentation on pensions. before we go for our first break. |
| 01:51:35.00 | Craig Hill | All right, so real quickly, we'll have Roy Kim of our office just give an update to the information that was already provided to council last year. There has been some unfortunate news that will this a little worse than what you saw last year, but that's probably no surprise to any of you. |
| 01:51:49.68 | Mayor (Unknown) | Great. |
| 01:51:50.61 | Craig Hill | Yeah. All right, Roy, do you want to... |
| 01:51:52.28 | Mayor (Unknown) | So keep in mind, just in context of this, that Council Member Hoffman gave some excellent comments to sort of light the way for this discussion. So I wanted to make sure we're thinking about those Roy as you're presenting this information. Thank you. |
| 01:52:03.54 | Roy Kim | Definitely. Just before I get started, can I confirm that my mic levels are okay? You're good. |
| 01:52:09.55 | Mayor (Unknown) | We can hear you. |
| 01:52:10.52 | Roy Kim | Right. Can we move to slide 38, please? |
| 01:52:18.23 | Roy Kim | Thank you. So good morning. Just want to give a brief overview on the |
| 01:52:22.15 | Unknown | Mm-hmm. |
| 01:52:22.42 | Roy Kim | excuse me, the city's CalPERS situation as it stands currently. recent trends with CalPERS that you all may be aware of, what are those cost impacts and how the city can address this moving forward. |
| 01:52:34.87 | Unknown | Mm-hmm. |
| 01:52:36.06 | Roy Kim | Army. So, Really the big change that a city might have seen in the past year is that it's unfunded liability as recognized by CalPERS has reduced to 22.2 million from 33 million based on the most recent CalPERS reports. And so these are a function of the you know, |
| 01:52:55.11 | John DeRay | Thank you. |
| 01:52:55.14 | Roy Kim | Thank you. |
| 01:52:55.18 | John DeRay | Thank you. |
| 01:52:55.95 | Roy Kim | 21.3% returns that coppers saw in 2021. And so really this will. This will project to lower the city's UL and its payments in the upcoming fiscal year 2024. However, as we've heard, CalPERS did not perform as well in 2022, a returning return of negative 7.5%. And this will, for many public agencies, increase the UAL back to or above 2020 levels. And so we can see that for Sausalito, we see that the UAL will Bye. |
| 01:53:26.87 | Unknown | you |
| 01:53:27.46 | Roy Kim | go back up to near $36 million with the first impacts of those in fiscal year 2025. And just tracking how they've been doing so far this year as of mid January, we've estimated that they've been returning around 0%, which is near their 6.8% discount rate target. And so should CalPERS continue to not meet their target at the end of the year, the UAL could potentially see a larger increase down the road. And so from a cash flow perspective, the point we wanna highlight for the city is that the next year we'll see a benefit and that the payments will be reduced in 2024, but for the next decade after we do see payments currently per increasing through the end of the decade to levels that are approximately 25% above the square of 23 levels. And so During this presentation, we're going to just touch on a few options the city has that can leverage, especially considering that has a sectional interest and ways that we can look at those. And so this slide here in 39 just gives a visual representation of what we just talked about here. And so really breaking up these different layers of payments, the city is looking at this oil into different colors here. Just highlighting that in the past in the orange, we can see that. Since 2018, the city's UAL payments have essentially doubled from $1.5 million up to $3.1 million. And in fiscal year 2024, we can see that going back down to... $2.6 million based on the strong returns in 2021. But moving forward, seeing in those light blue bars, those are the projected impacts from negative 7.5% returns. And so we can see that moving forward, the UAL payment sheet will continue to rise. And as a hypothetical example, you know, should this city, sorry, should CalPERS underperform in 2023 at a 0% level? It's shown in green are the hypothetical impacts at that scale. Next slide, please. And so just want to touch on a few cost management strategies that are commonly seen for most public agencies here in California. The city does... do some of these and has been very proactive in the past, including prepaying its annual UAL payment for cost savings. That saves the city about 3.3% on its annual UAL payment bill every single year. And additionally, funding Section 115 Trusts allows the city to build a resource that can leverage in future years to manage costs. One additional option that has been popular in the past in 2020 and 2021 that was touched on is the UAL restructuring concept through economy of pension obligation bond. In the current markets, there's a lot of interest in the UAL. We do not see this as a feasible option because this is really more sensitive to where interest rates are and given the rise in treasuries over the past year, we've seen taxable interest rates climb to above 5%. And so we think that risk reward is not Uh, as per rate in the current market, but definitely this is an option that can be considered and looked at in the future should market conditions recover. And so, Uh, For the next few slides, we just wanted to focus on one tool the city has that is a really key resource that we believe, and that's a section 115 trust. And so as the city manager mentioned, the current balance is about $4 million and about $2.6 million that is for pensions. And so this is a trust that can be leveraged for Um, addressing future pension costs or to pay down CalPERS UAL directly. And so we want to note that leveraging all these different strategies that are shown above are not mutually exclusive. These are all things that can be done simultaneously, you know, but obviously every every situation is unique. So in the next few slides, we just want to give a few ideas and of how a 115 trust can be leveraged and just to give an idea the possibilities that can happen. And so here on this slide, we just want to show you What would happen if you were to take some of those proceeds with in your Section 115 trust and deposited with CalPERS directly, essentially paying down And so the way this works mechanically is that you could elect to pay down certain layers of these payments. So these are called amortization bases. And so in this example, we show, you know, applying $2.6 million towards certain bases. And essentially what that will do is, as shown in the chart back in, lower your overall payment levels for the next 23 years in this example. And really, it'll mimic the existing shape, but at lower levels. And so this is one of the impacts that if you were to provide a deposit cowper's, in terms of budgetary impact, we project that in this example, you know, annual payments would be reduced between $1,000 and a little over $300,000 a year through the next 23 years. Next slide, please. So we want to show kind of different bookend of ranges for, you know, if you were to apply proceeds immediately versus, you know, investing in the section team during it over time. And this is just an example where, you know, should the city decide to grow its balances. for the long term, you know, over the next 20 years or so, then they could reach a point where the balance in section 115 could be high enough to directly pay down the city's UAL balance. And so here in this example, We project based off of the recent CalPERS reports that, you know, growing at four and a four percent, the city could project a payoff at COL in 2042. And this is assuming, of course, that CalPERS meets its discount rate target. One thing we do want to clarify that is that doing this does not get you out of your CalPERS obligation. It would simply reduce your liability down to zero at a point in time. So we want to make that distinction clear. Next slide, please. Thank you. And so one alternative we've considered in the past and we are presenting again is this concept of section 115 smoothing and this is essentially the idea of leveraging proceeds in your section one and 15, drawing them and drawing them down in years of higher peak payments. And so The idea is that based off of the city's current UAL shape, You can invest current proceeds, have them grow to a certain level, and then during these projected years of peak payments, draw down on them to keep the pension payments at a more level and sustainable figure. In this example, We project that. Doing so could reduce budgetary impact by about $3.9 million from the peak period between 2028 and 2037. So what's unique about this is that this option gives the city, the prerogative to make adjustments to its payments as needed on And so basically manufacturing its own payment stream. So of course, depending on the balances, This line could be higher or lower, but just as a conceptual example, we want to provide this here. And if you turn to the next slide, once a little more holistically at the city's entire general fund debt portfolio. So this includes the city's 2016 certificates of participation, which have about $4.3 million outstanding. And so just to give some context and see, What could be done to smooth up overall general fund payments, we ran this model to also account for the 2016 COPs, and then we can also see that this concept also works in this scenario. And so I think these are all the slides we have for this presentation. I'm happy to take any questions on anything pension related. |
| 02:01:28.66 | Mayor (Unknown) | Thank you very much, Roy. I have a couple of questions and then I'll go to the vice mayor. So it seems like we all know that CalPERS had a less than a year optimal year in terms of returns and expectations. And we're going to be have to have to be paying out for that. Given that. It seems like you would recommend the smoothing approach. Do you think it's a better decision to keep as much in the 115 and out of CalPERS as possible because we have more control over that? And also, before you answer that, I just want to acknowledge that Sausalito was one of the first cities in the entire country to take on a Section 115 trust model, which has proven to be one of our best decisions that we've made with regards to our budget and having some control over what we do to pay down our pensions. So I want to just acknowledge the folks that were serving on the council when that decision was made and our finance department when that decision was made. But if you could just weigh in on given the volatility of CalPERS. is that Is your feeling that keeping as much in the one... Because I understand in 2018, we went with the soft approach, which you suggested in slide three. It seems like that's your recommendation again, or... Are you leaning more towards the second option? |
| 02:02:37.46 | Roy Kim | Yeah, thank you for your question. And first of all, just want to preface by saying that we would probably prefer to have a deeper conversation with staff first before we decide on any specific recommendations. But to kind of touch on the different considerations, I think really with the ADP, the CalPERS, what you're doing is directly paying down your debt directly. So that's a debt at a rate of 6.8%, which is very, very high. with the section 115 trust, understanding that the city may be undertaking a more conservative and moderate approach with its investments, you may earn at a rate that is less than 6.8%. And so the flip side is that you have more flexibility with how you leverage those proceeds. And so really, I would say those are probably the trade-offs that we consider. directly pinged on UAL versus Um, building a balance, it's really that flexibility and it's up to this city to decide how it best feels it's able to do so. |
| 02:03:36.85 | Craig Hill | I think if I can also the way we talk about it at a really high level you're solving for two things. If you're solving for cash flow, this is a budgetary issue. This is absolutely something we need for a five-year budget. We've got to, you know, carve a way out if we're not going to, you know, cut any more positions. then you're really keeping the money in the 115 and you're selectively taking chunks of it out. As Roy just demonstrated with that example, You know, there was a systematic deferment, right? We're going to wait till 2029 and then we're going to grab it, just a portion of the 115th pay off the peak, right, to shave it so that it would have a smooth payment. That's pure cash flow, right? You're doing that solely for budgetary and cash flow reasons. Roy's comment about making an ADP, financially. when you think about it on a pure internal rate of return, makes more sense, right? Because you are paying off a 6.8% obligation with money that's not earning more than 6.8%. You absolutely want to do that, but it has a totally different ramification on your cash flow. So you're just, you're solving for two different, And there's not a right answer, right? You can either solve for cash flow or you can solve for optimal financial benefit. |
| 02:04:57.27 | Mayor (Unknown) | Thanks. And then one more question on slide 41. If you could go back to slide 41. If you look at the the projected UAL payments and the UAL payments after ADP. What happens in 2044 that causes that peak? |
| 02:05:13.39 | Roy Kim | Yeah, so this is, so we sourced this. chart from the CalPERS Outlook tool. So this is a great resource that's provided for free by CalPERS. And so we often reference these for projections. That's just a modeling output on on their end. And so we're not sure that that's exactly what would happen that there would be a peak there based on our understanding of how these payments are supposed to be structured. But I think for the most part, this The shape is correct. |
| 02:05:42.40 | Mayor (Unknown) | Okay. So we don't know why in 2044 we may suddenly have a peak after making our payments. It's just potential economic trends, according to CalPERS. |
| 02:05:52.20 | Roy Kim | Yeah, that's more a function of how CalPERS may decide to amortize these bases. Again, these are all just a function of layers of payments being stocked on top of each other. And so that may be what CalPERS is projecting. Additionally, there's potential for these payments to be restructured in the future as, um, New UAL gets added or lost. |
| 02:06:13.01 | Mayor (Unknown) | And then one last question. |
| 02:06:13.18 | Roy Kim | This is a really snap time and time. |
| 02:06:15.52 | Mayor (Unknown) | And one last question, I'll go to the vice mayor. But I think you probably are aware, having done a comprehensive assessment of our pensions, the shift to the PEPRA for new employees. Does that have any impact on what our outlook looks like in terms of these charts with regards to CalPERS? and our overall payments. |
| 02:06:32.16 | Roy Kim | Yeah, that's a great question. And so I think moving forward, you know, the concept of PEPRA will likely be a benefit for fiscal sustainability, but the The interesting thing about this UAL is that about 99% of it is attributable to classic pension plans. moving forward, this type of Challenge will hopefully not be as big of an issue, but the current challenge still stands. |
| 02:06:56.81 | Mayor (Unknown) | So consistent with the city manager's projections that by 2030, we'll be having a great year. But until then, we're going to be in a tough spot. Okay, Vice Mayor, go ahead. |
| 02:07:05.20 | Ian Sobieski | Well, I would quote, the comment that there isn't the right answer. There is a right answer. but we won't know what it is until after the fact. And so that's the challenge is that whatever we decide to do will either be heroes or schmucks. And we'll know about that in about five years. But that does then underline something that I think you could do to help us and help the community. These graphs are helpful, but they're not as helpful as I think they could be. I think it would be helpful to have few scenarios first off i think in all the graphs would be helpful to have an error range You have one line. And that one line is based on a set of assumptions. It would be, there is, however, a range of assumptions, let's say one standard deviation of variance, right? you could do two if you want to be really aggressive in terms of volatility and expectations, but at least one so that we can see the range of possible outcomes. in our scenarios. And the second would be to present actually the scenarios that we have to decide on, early payment versus smoothing out, versus no payment at all, truly having it as a rainy day. as three different graphs. so that we can actually understand the trade-offs that we're talking about. In one case, you pay off the pension payments are reduced, but the the safety net, the rainy day fund is much more impacted versus an alternative. So There are kind of macro choices to be made. It's basically whether we how soon do we draw out the money versus not? That's what you're saying. But I think for everyone's benefit, because it's easy to lose track of it's what are the two, let's say three scenarios that we have really have to pick from at a 30,000 foot level. And then the only other thing I'd say is, The liability number is always scary. And I think it's confused with other kinds of debt. You know, we have bonds that have debt. Those have coupons, schedules, interest rates. uh, I think the more helpful slide for all of us is the actual, what you would call annual cash flow obligation. You have that in the last slide you just had up, which is what's the impact on the annual budget of the city of Sausalito by the existence of our pension program. And that as in your graph peaks at around three and a half, maybe as much as $4 million, that's the graph. Rather than talking about the overall UAL we're gonna go on forever and, you know, predicting what's gonna happen in 2046 is, widely No one has any clue, all right? But we do have a pretty good clue for better, the closer it is, the better clue we have. about what the UAL payments will be. And that's what we have to budget towards. It affects all our thinking. And so in general, I would suggest that we focus, not talk about the total overall obligation, but because it's never going to go away in one sense, we're always going to be paying pensions. It's rather that we should look at our annual cash flow number. So I'd say the scenario should be based on this kind of graph. not the overall number. |
| 02:10:16.30 | Mayor (Unknown) | Thank you, Vice Mayor. We'll go to Council Member Huffman. |
| 02:10:19.77 | Jill Hoffman | So I think, you know, to be clear, this graph is not our ongoing pension payments. This is the unfunded liability. And this is unfunded liability that resulted from underperformance from the pension funds over whatever the projection was by CalPERS. So CalPERS bases its assumptions on whatever number they want to come up with, and it's changing. Luckily, it's coming down because it was underperforming for so many years. So, This is not our ongoing payment. This is an unfunded liability. that began back in about 2009. And it has grown due to compound interest. And every year that the that the funds underperform, that's added into our unfunded liability. So this is this is a debt, basically, a pension, the city's pension debt due to underperformance by the funds that CalPERS relies upon. And so every year it grows due to compounder interest. And so the idea is that, you know, it's going to continue to grow, you know, as long as you know, as long as you have this debt. And so. The pension 115 trust was instead of paying down that debt, aggressively paying down the debt. The idea was back in 2015, we would go with a different, you know, model, which was the Section 115 trust. I was, you know, I was in favor of aggressively paying down the debt because of the compound interest. And so were some other council members along the way, but the council decided not to, and they decided to go with this, you know, Section 115 trust, which is better than nothing. But the idea was you segregated funds to help you make these larger payments when you get out in these later years, right? In 2027, 28, 29, all the way to 2036. Unfortunately, we didn't fund the 115 Trust as we had agreed by the council. So in 2017, 2018 and 2020. there were no, there were no contributions into the trust. that would have grown you know, the corpus of the trust, to the extent that we would have been able to smooth out our payments better. So. That strategy is somewhat failing because we didn't fund the trust the way that we wanted to and the way that we had set it up in 2015. That was a mystery somewhat when we found out, when I found out that we weren't paying into the trust. And so... Now we're left with an underfunded trust and a continually growing. pension debt due to the compound interest. And so I think it would be helpful when we sort of look at if we're gonna come back and look at this problem for strategy, We also need the graph. I mean, they also put out WE'VE SEEN IT FROM our auditors in the past, the graph of the actual performance of the CalPERS funds. And that sort of informs you, well, CalPERS It's at the rate that they expect. They don't always make it. And that adds to our unfunded liability. So I think that would be helpful for a future discussion. And then also, you know, how, how, what are our options now at this point, right? Because we have this, you know, 41 million. It's just, I mean, that's going to drive us, that's going to, that's going to be very harmful to our town to have that large of a pension debt. And how can we address that? So, and that's why, you know, that's why I do want to have as part of our conversation. if we have another rebound year and if it does you know. If we, I mean, you know, It was 10 million less last year. than it had been the year before, and now it's bounced up to 12, we've now added 12 million back into our overall debt because of the underperformance. That debt is also going to compound, right? Due to compound interest. So it's not just 41 million. It's the compound interest on the 41 million that will continue to multiply. So... That would be my ask is that You know, we have a graph that actually shows the underperformance and that we we have to come up with a strategy to more aggressively pay it down. It's going to eclipse our budget. So. as I've been saying for many years. |
| 02:14:57.90 | Mayor (Unknown) | Thank you Councilman Rothman, Councilmember Hellman. |
| 02:15:00.81 | Janelle Kellman | Thank you. Cognizant, we're probably behind schedule, so I'll just make a future request. So you guys are great because you've worked across the state. I was reading up on your work in Oxnard and Chico, some of the work you did around pension obligation bonds, decisions made, how you dealt with the |
| 02:15:03.47 | Mayor (Unknown) | Yeah. |
| 02:15:17.60 | Janelle Kellman | question that they might earn less than the borrowing costs, etc. Maybe taking into account the prior council members comments, if you could provide us with, you know, some examples of like similarly situated communities and the what they did and how it actually turned out, based on your recommendations, all of which obviously are public publicly available. I think that would be very interesting and illustrative for us. |
| 02:15:38.20 | Craig Hill | Okay. |
| 02:15:38.79 | Janelle Kellman | Thank you. |
| 02:15:38.84 | Craig Hill | Thank you. |
| 02:15:38.86 | Janelle Kellman | for the panel. |
| 02:15:39.64 | Craig Hill | Happy to add that to the list. |
| 02:15:40.97 | Janelle Kellman | Councilman McCrox, do you want to |
| 02:15:41.97 | Mayor (Unknown) | any additional direction before we take a break? |
| 02:15:44.83 | Janelle Kellman | Thank you. |
| 02:15:44.85 | Janelle Kellman | I just, I endorse the vice mayor's comments about that. We have to focus on cashflow as opposed to getting unduly exercised about the overall debt, which we can do nothing about since we have to manage our ability to remain viable as we make the required payments. So I think that has to be our focus. |
| 02:16:12.83 | Mayor (Unknown) | Thank you very much. So just to reiterate some of the points that were made, there's a focus on cash flow that we'd like to look at. There's a request for some of the examples of other communities you've helped. And then a critical point also about once we're in a better economic situation. in general, whether that's like with overall economic themes have a plan for what that looks like for opportunities to refinance going forward and perhaps have a checklist for when we're ready to make that kind of decision so that we don't miss undo another opportunity to pay down some of our trust. Okay, so we are... |
| 02:16:45.25 | Ian Sobieski | Mayor, I have a relevant question I need to ask. It adds to the direction. And it goes to my colleague, Councilmember Hoffman's question. Can we ask the consultants to present to all of us an analysis of the performance of $1 that's contributed to the trust versus $1 that's given to CalPERS. my understanding is that I don't know. That's it. $1 given to CalPERS versus $1 given to the trust and used later. And we could do that analysis with going forward assumptions and, We could also do that analysis with expo facto market performance data. So maybe go back to different points in time over the last five years and just show some scenarios. of what we have done if we had taken, let's say all of the 115 trust. and paid off or given it to CalPERS. versus keeping it in the trust, just to help us get a look and feel about the varying performances. My understanding is what a wise decision is has to do with the particular outcome. of CalPERS performance versus the performance of the how the 115 trust is made. and that there are scenarios in which you're much better off. versus some scenarios where you're not. And it all depends on market performance, but I actually don't know if I'm right. So I'd love to, see that kind of analysis so that we can understand. |
| 02:18:10.70 | Mayor (Unknown) | Okay, thank you, Vice Mayor. We're really behind schedule, so I'm gonna go ahead and move us to our... |
| 02:18:16.61 | Chris Zapata | If I can, Mayor, one left's gone. |
| 02:18:18.38 | Mayor (Unknown) | Okay. What's your last comment? |
| 02:18:22.14 | Chris Zapata | Amen. |
| 02:18:23.04 | Mayor (Unknown) | Thank you. |
| 02:18:23.09 | Chris Zapata | just for you. |
| 02:18:23.48 | Mayor (Unknown) | But... Councilmember, oh, sorry, Councilmember Hoffman as well. |
| 02:18:28.01 | Jill Hoffman | This is, I would, before we go into break, I would just like to request that we add public comment back into the end of the end of our meeting after we have our presentations finished. And I wanted to do that before the break because I know some people may be leaving because they believe we're not going to do public comment at the end. |
| 02:18:46.49 | Mayor (Unknown) | I'm happy to do that if the council is willing to add an additional we're behind. So the reason for the limited public comment is that we were trying to focus on getting as much done within the short period of time and the council had a limited number of hours. So we gave open public comment at the beginning of the session. If the council is willing to stay until we probably need until 1 30 at this point, I'd be more than happy to add a public comment session. And if Councilman Rokokos can weigh in. |
| 02:19:10.54 | Janelle Kellman | Yeah, I have a hard stop at 1230. This is a work day, a Friday. So I literally have a hard stop at 1230. |
| 02:19:21.51 | Mayor (Unknown) | So, Perhaps going forward, we can have a Obviously, we welcome public comment in form of letters. We would love to hear from you in communication and can have continued conversation. And perhaps as we have a continuance of this discussion on our future agenda items, we can provide for more public comment on the discussion today. But given our limited time, that's why there was only one opportunity for public comment because we're trying to fit as much in as we possibly can in this short period of time. And with that in mind, city manager, if you want to make your last comment briefly so that we can move to break and get things going because we have until 1230. |
| 02:19:50.69 | Chris Zapata | Just for the edification information of the public, the council and community, in the packet under the October 30th, 2021 Prioritization session, I think that points to the question and concern iron what's our annual payment that we make let's not get concerned about the unfunded accrued liability which we have no control. There is a slide on page 12 and 16 which shows you the annual amounts that we expect that we would be charged and then on slide 52 of that same document there's a 20 year history of how that's grown Thank you. |
| 02:20:24.10 | Mayor (Unknown) | Thank you very much. And thank you, NHA, for your time and hard work with us. So it's 1055 and we're going to take a 15 minute, Okay, a five minute, well, I'd like to have council members, so be asking time to get down here if we can. |
| 02:20:36.64 | Ian Sobieski | No, I'm just going to stay here given that. |
| 02:20:38.46 | Mayor (Unknown) | All right, a five minute break. So we'll come back at 11. We'll be back shortly. |
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| 02:26:44.21 | Unknown | No, no. |
| 02:26:46.67 | Unknown | Thank you. And I'm the only one that I know. |
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| 02:26:54.00 | Unknown | That will all. Thank you. Thank you. All right. |
| 02:27:07.46 | Mayor (Unknown) | All right, guys, we're gonna get started again. Please do. Thank you. |
| 02:27:12.66 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:27:12.68 | Mayor (Unknown) | Thank you. |
| 02:27:12.69 | Unknown | Thank you. Holders. Are we ready to get started? |
| 02:27:20.71 | Mayor (Unknown) | Are we ready to get started? Yeah, we're ready to get started. We're going to... Okay, it's 1101 and we're a minute behind our break time. So let's get started right away as soon as possible. Thank you. So if we could, I'm really happy to welcome back our incredible facilitators from Baker Tilly to lead us in, no, to lead us in in our priority discussion. So please take it away. |
| 02:27:43.51 | Magda Gonzalez | Great. Thank you so much. And we will Um, The next two things that we wanted to cover was achieving excellence in governance and then the priorities. We're going to zip through the first part of that. You have it in your packet. It's good information. I will encourage you to read it. I encourage you to read the article that is on your document. table there. It's from the Institute of Local Governments, which is part of the League of California Cities. It's a very easy read. and something that you might want to take a look at. Like any good team, the council is a team. And like any good team, it's something that you should consider and be intentional about in terms of understanding how you work together as a team. And so we'll just move through these super quickly. Really, the governance piece is about relationships. It's about the foundation as a relationship for the counselor. Any team is how that team can then be productive as a team and working forward. Next slide, we'll skip, is just saying the same thing. Essentially, it is a team sport. One thing to One thing to understand, apologies, I wasn't getting close enough. One thing to make sure that you all understand, and next slide, I'm on slide, uh... One more and one more. |
| 02:29:05.84 | Magda Gonzalez | There we go. Yeah, it's about collaboration, understanding everybody's role in terms of a team. So with the next slide, we talk about making sure that there's clarity in terms of everybody's rule. The mayor, of course, presides over the meetings. Council members set goals and priorities, which you will be doing very shortly. And the city manager then makes sure that implements that direction. And, of course, the city attorney provides the legal advice. for the city, not for individuals, not for individual residents, not for individual council members, which we often hear people believe. um, And so making those connections and finding intersections in terms of your priorities, the priorities of the council and the priorities of your colleagues. how to work well as a team. I'm going on to the next slide. I'm going through these very quickly because you can just read them and I don't think that this group needs them. So I appreciate that. Just working well, no surprises is important. Making sure that you come prepared. This group is very much obviously prepared, which is great and don't see in all places. and making sure that the city manager in terms of what the city manager does for each of you is making sure that he or she is providing all information to everybody equally. Understanding again that no one can do this alone. It's all very much a team sport. looking for compromise, keeping ethics in mind in everything that you do and putting the community first in all matters. Thank you. And finally, all of this matters because with the foundation, again, in terms of the relationships, the reason you are all here. And it was very clear with today's discussion, it's about the community and making sure that the community wins. So that is the the fastest and briefest presentation about good governance and excellence governance. And I appreciate your advice. |
| 02:30:55.90 | Mayor (Unknown) | Could you just add one thing a little bit about, just because normally in previous councils, and I'm hoping we'll be able to do this going forward, we usually have a... a setting of our how we're going to do business in a civil way. And you had a lot in your slide about civility. And if you could just touch on that briefly. |
| 02:31:10.36 | Magda Gonzalez | Yeah, absolutely. So I believe you have a set of council protocols is what I think you call them. We might encourage you to take a look at council norms, which are similar, but they're a little different. And they talk a little bit about how you interact with one another. They're often five to 10 statements. They're very brief. It's also something that the community is well aware of so that they understand sort of you're setting the stage. You're being leaders. Leaders, again, remember is an action. It's not a position. So the way you demonstrate how you interact with one another is what? the community will take in terms of the lead and how they interact with you, how they interact with your boards and commissions that you're looking at. and how you're going to look at those in the future and how they will work together with or without staff support with the whole change in the Brown Act. So that is very important. And while I went through this very quickly, It really is super foundational in terms of having a good team work and making sure that a governing body is working well. And again, it's something that I think is important to just make sure you're revisiting in an intentional manner on an annual basis or every couple of years. And we can provide samples for you if you'd like. And perhaps at another meeting, you can take a look at those and decide which of those you'd like to adopt if you'd like to adopt those. Great. That would be great. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. |
| 02:32:24.48 | Mayor (Unknown) | I agree. |
| 02:32:31.90 | Mayor (Unknown) | Thank you. |
| 02:32:32.03 | Unknown | Okay. |
| 02:32:32.22 | Mayor (Unknown) | Thank you. |
| 02:32:36.56 | Jacqueline McCray | So, |
| 02:32:41.96 | Jacqueline McCray | Okay, so real quickly, before we get to priority setting, we just want to review with you, what we heard from you, okay, in our individual time that we had to speak with you, myself and Magda. um, You know, we asked you about a lot, we talked about a lot, I just want to summarize for you what we heard in terms of your key themes. um, the key opportunities, and we heard some redundancy in these opportunities, and that's why they're key. Um, And we're going to use these as the launching point for your priority setting, which is, which is next. So we're going to just take five minutes to go through key opportunities, equity initiatives. You know, you, you had some really good, I mean, valuable conversation this morning about pension obligations, new revenues, the best use of measure L funds, um infrastructure improvements. We heard a lot about that in our conversations with you sewer consolidation and undergrounding utilities. increasing grant funding. um, to enhance your working waterfront, applying smart initiatives through technology to your operations, enhancing economic development through the blue economy. Next slide. We talked all this morning about, you know, revenue implications and reducing expenditures. We also heard about, you know, becoming a national and regional leader because climate resiliency is so important to this community. Ways to enhance service delivery, staffing up, and also retaining the qualified staff that you currently have. Setting standards to achieve, you know, really first class levels of service delivery and maintaining those at that level. So those were the key. opportunities. We asked you next as a part of our individual discussions with you, we have a partial list here of those things that really are most important to you to address in the next year. Of course, increasing revenue is at the top, implementing smart initiatives for the city, . improving infrastructure that has to do with, you know, revenues, equity initiatives, also infrastructure related sewer consolidation, implementing that the most recently adopted housing element and also another infrastructure item, undergrounding utilities. That's a partial list. We want to begin to add to that as we look at Um, as we begin to look at those priorities. And, you know, just 30 seconds. You have a strategic plan. that you adopted. You have a mission and I'm sure you all know it very well. You have a vision as well and you have values. So those are the basis of, you know, your priority setting for this beautiful city that you have. In that strategic plan, next slide, is most importantly, you know, your overarching goals. Um, And it comes from that 2020 strategic plan. which is a living document. The emphasis is on living because everything that's in there is not set in stone. um, the conditions change and will continue to change. And so that's why it's important to really address priorities on a regular basis. And so... I'm going to turn it back over to Magda. And what we've done is as we've organized your opportunities and priorities that we heard from your interviews. under each of the overarching goals. And we wanna begin that as a point of discussion for your priority setting between now and 1230. |
| 02:37:24.87 | Magda Gonzalez | So we normally walk around when we do these. So forgive us for standing behind the podium. It feels unconnected to me. And yeah, so we will carry out. All right, if we can go to the next slide. we are not taking a break. So we really want to spend the time. So we zoom through the governance piece, excellence governance piece, because we really want to get to the priorities, which is what you're here for today. So again, focus on priorities, what Sausalito will do to accomplish the overarching goals that you have identified in your strategic plan. We can move on to the next slide. And what will you do? This is the same thing, essentially. We got it twice in here, at least in my slide. So Jacqueline identified some of the priorities that you mentioned through our interviews. And so what we've done here is we've listed them, and you have them in your presentation as well. We've listed them under each of the different goal areas from your overarching goal areas from your strategic plan. And so what we'd like to do is just go through each one of these, make sure that everybody is on the same page, we all understand what they mean, and see if there's anything that's missing. And then what we'll do is we'll have you the famous dots, and we have stars too. for you to vote in terms of where you'd like to focus for the next year in terms of your priorities. Okay. So the first one on goal A, is implementing the housing element. And I think we probably heard about that from each one of you. So I think that's pretty clear. Any questions on that? Anything missing? Yes, ma'am. |
| 02:38:57.73 | Janelle Kellman | The housing element is actually one element of our general plan. We adopted a general plan in 2020 or 2021. So we actually, 2020, we actually need to implement the general plan, including the housing element. |
| 02:39:11.69 | Magda Gonzalez | So implementation of the general plan and the housing element. Okay, great. Thank you for that clarification. Council member Sobieski has his hand raised. |
| 02:39:19.70 | Ian Sobieski | Well, yeah. So to me, Uh, this is something that is very important. I just wanna, I feel incumbent upon my, I feel incumbent upon me just to I like this. The housing element, it was a legal requirement that the state of California imposed on us, the RHNA number. and we have fulfilled it to avoid the worst consequence of failing to meet our deadline, which was the builder's remedy. allowing builders to build willy-nilly outside of our zoning or local control. But in some respects, we've kicked the can down the road because we've established housing sites for affordable And, uh, most affordable levels. that are divorced from economics. We've created a legal document to meet our obligation, but If we don't actually meet the RHNA number of metrics in three or four years, we're going to be penalized. with a whole set of things similar to the builder's remedy. So we talked about this last autumn. And we agreed that we were going to put an RFQ out to the market and get submissions for doing a master planning exercise. The housing element was designed, there were no urban planners involved in in the housing element. It is not an urban plan. And as such, it doesn't attend to economics. It doesn't have a mechanism for coming up with subsidies from The giveaway to property owners who get to up-sown their property, we don't carve any to get subsidy to help build low income properties. Instead, we rely on grants that may or may not show up. So this is its own kind of liability. As much as we've talked about pension liability or other kinds of debt liabilities, we have a housing element liability, which is that in three or four years, we may have a penalty. This is all leading to this issue of implanting the housing element, which is we agreed that we were going to have an engagement around an urban plan for Sausalito. |
| 02:41:21.12 | Magda Gonzalez | So you're advocating for adding to the list an urban plan. |
| 02:41:27.09 | Ian Sobieski | as part of this implementing the housing. |
| 02:41:28.27 | Magda Gonzalez | It's a potential priority. Am I correct? Am I understanding? |
| 02:41:32.37 | Ian Sobieski | Yes. |
| 02:41:33.54 | Magda Gonzalez | Okay, so we'll add that. urban plan. Yes. |
| 02:41:39.68 | Ian Sobieski | Amen. Thank you. |
| 02:41:40.07 | Magda Gonzalez | Thank you. |
| 02:41:40.08 | Unknown | So, I think she'll have a... |
| 02:41:40.93 | Janelle Kellman | Thank you. We have a fiscal plan, right? So comprehensive planning can mean a lot of things. So there should be a fiscal plan. There should be a climate plan. |
| 02:41:41.91 | Magda Gonzalez | Thank you. |
| 02:41:41.96 | Unknown | Bye. |
| 02:41:49.13 | Ian Sobieski | Well, I'm sorry. If we're talking about what my comments are, is that this is a huge deal. This is, we can't do too much, right? So we're going to be talking about what to prioritize. And this is a huge missed opportunity, a huge giveaway to private property owners and a missed opportunity to carve money at a time when we don't have money from other sources to actually meet the... A liability coming down from the state that's going to kick us in the butt and undermine our community by allowing property owners to build willy-nilly when we fail to meet our- |
| 02:42:17.06 | Magda Gonzalez | So we have a little bit of an odd setup with the Zoom and cameras. I'm not sure, this is a question, I'm not sure if you're able to see the Oh, yes, you are. Okay, there you are. Okay, we can see Jacqueline there. Okay, so we've added it to the list and will be considered in terms of voting on moving forward. for the council in a few minutes. Does that sound okay with you? |
| 02:42:44.09 | Ian Sobieski | when are we going to actually discuss these as opposed to just Are we coming in with our previous... |
| 02:42:48.72 | Magda Gonzalez | I think today the intent, because of the time restraints that we have, is to discuss it to the point that everyone understands what the item is so that people feel well-informed enough to be able to vote on it. |
| 02:43:02.13 | Ian Sobieski | Okay, well then I object to the process because these are, we can't, this is like one of the most important meetings we can possibly have and we're gonna cram in our our strategic choices by a quick delineation of issues and then a poll of our shooting from the hip consideration on them without learning from one another. I mean, I don't know for sure that I'm right. I would like to hear what other people have to say. So I'm not sure we're going to get to the value of this is going to probably be proportional to how much time we spend on it. And if we only spend 45 minutes on this, all I questioned the, uh, the credibility of the outcome of the process. |
| 02:43:36.05 | Magda Gonzalez | Well, let me try this. Do council members have questions about what the vice mayor is proposing to better understand his concerns? Yeah. |
| 02:43:43.98 | Janelle Kellman | Yeah, if I may chime in. So this... This is a great part of the process because you're going to see we all have different priorities and ways that we want to obviously articulate them. I think, Vice Mayor, you are speaking to a master planning process that you have brought up at other meetings that you think is, I think that's what you're getting at here. And so you feel like a master plan is the critical element here that you'd like to talk about around this goal. I, you know, if I give a contrast, I would probably say, I think a community resilience plan around both climate and infrastructure would be my priority that I'd want to spend 45 minutes talking about. And so I don't know if we all want to take our 45 minute item and just say, this is my 45 minute item, or if we want to try to do this process. But I think, Ian, did I get that right? Are you referring to the master plan that you've, |
| 02:44:35.77 | Ian Sobieski | The master plan that we, with a 5-0 vote, said we were going to consider at City Council, but never have, yes. |
| 02:44:40.76 | Janelle Kellman | issue an RFP, which has been the other night, is just to get out more information. It is never anybody agreeing to do anything. It is us agreeing to have a conversation. |
| 02:44:50.03 | Ian Sobieski | We actually agreed that we would have it come present to city council. |
| 02:44:54.50 | Janelle Kellman | Thank you. |
| 02:44:54.52 | Janelle Kellman | So can you, may I ask that the facilitator explain the nuclear dot so that folks are aware that they will be able to identify one huge priority? Well, you're giving away my thunder. Well, this process is getting. |
| 02:45:10.03 | Magda Gonzalez | dogs down because people are concerned about their ability. I am teasing. I'm totally teasing you. So we've decided not to call it a nuclear dog. |
| 02:45:11.12 | Janelle Kellman | I am teasing. People are concerned. really teasing. |
| 02:45:16.35 | Magda Gonzalez | We are decided to call it a A golden, a golden star. So I alluded to, we had dots and stars. And so we will have you vote with dots. And those that are you that are joining us remotely, we will vote for you physically so we can all look at the chart together. And each of you will also get a golden dot or a golden star. I actually, I don't think it's golden, but we'll get a star that you can vote. And that vote, generally speaking with the dots, you can't put more than one dot on the same item. However, with this one, you can put it on something else, on one that you've already voted on. And also it's for not wanting to get into the weighting and all that kind of stuff. We're calling it the thing you really, really want. |
| 02:46:02.61 | Mayor (Unknown) | Council Member Hoffman has her hand raised. |
| 02:46:02.69 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah. |
| 02:46:04.75 | Mayor (Unknown) | Yes. |
| 02:46:05.75 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah, actually I'm rolling through my head right now about Council Member Sobieski's comments and I Um, You know, I think the context here is a little bit off. And you know, we look at advocating for different we have to do that in the context of, these are how we allocate in the context of our current deficit spend budget, . we need to scope it back out rather than all of us digressing into, you know, what we think are priorities on top of reducing our deficit spend so that we have a balanced budget this year. Like the top priority and the overarching priority should be, balanced budget. And then now we're going to start talking about, okay, how do we, how do we address all these other things that the council wants to prioritize? within the context of balanced budget in the context of what are the core responsibilities of our city that we have to get done, right? Finance, number one, we got to get our, bring our, our expenses in line. Number two, we got to address infrastructure issues, just basic infrastructure. And number three services to the city. services to our residents, right? So, We need to look at that context first, every decision we make. And then we start talking about, what are the priorities underneath that umbrella in order of urgency. So implement general plan with housing. Yeah, we have to do that this year. Like we know we have to do that. master plan or urban plan, whatever you want to call it for the city. Yes. Climate and resilience plan. Yes. But how do we prioritize that and how do we do that in the context of 2023 is I hope what we're going to talk about. Well, you raised a question. |
| 02:47:58.76 | Magda Gonzalez | Well, you raise a good point because these priorities that we heard from our interviews with each of you and that you are articulating in terms of adding to the list are in addition to those that are already on your strategic plan. So they're not. |
| 02:48:13.34 | Jill Hoffman | So the strategic plan is strategic plan is just is goals like policy goals. So we don't have right now, and I think February 28th, Chris, correct me if I'm wrong, is when we're going to start our budget discussions. And so, when we talk about how we prioritize the problem that we sort of digress into as a council, which we saw last Tuesday night, is that when we get a specific ask in front of us, You know, we all want to support it. because most of the time they're good ideas, But do we have the ability and should we be giving direction to support whatever that ask is? without knowing the context of our budget, without knowing the staff time that's gonna go into that, staff time equals money, right? Staff time means staff is not doing those core functions of finance, infrastructure, services to our community. So, Thank you. |
| 02:49:06.26 | Magda Gonzalez | That's right. |
| 02:49:06.41 | Jill Hoffman | That's to me where the discussion starts. And then you start prioritizing under that. We may be in the wrong exercise today and I don't want to waste any more time. Right? I want to just, given that, |
| 02:49:15.71 | Mayor (Unknown) | I want to just, given that, I think we expected to have more time, and I think we needed the full four hours for the priority setting, and the context setting should have been one meeting with priorities as another meeting. This is too important to cram into an hour, and there is, you know, the interest in public comment, and that Councilmember Cox has a hard stop. So being aware of that, and that we have your presence here as great facilitators, I think if we could start the discussion, because I don't want us to just hastily set priorities. This is just far too important, as everyone has suggested. So I think the council member Hoffman brings up some great points, which is looking at it from the lens of balancing the budget first, and then we can do the additional priority setting. So perhaps let me take temperature of members of the council. How would we feel about one thing that we discussed, which was really critical at our meeting on last Tuesday is what's our process for making decisions about how we're going to allocate budget and looking at that from a back to basics, if we could spend the time looking at that and then But we definitely need to continue. the discussion, or we could additionally spend that we could spend a little bit of time on that and then have our discussion around boards and commissions, because that's a critical conversation we'd have as well. But I am aware that we have an hour and I want us to do this correctly. So Councilmember Kellman has a weigh in and then Councilmember Hoffman, we'll go back to you. |
| 02:50:36.81 | Janelle Kellman | I wholly agree with Jill on that approach. I think our rigorous fiscal scrutiny needs to be the ground truthing for everything that we do. And. That's we need that guide. I talked to you, Jacqueline, in our interview about how do we create a matrix of decision making when we have lots of great ideas, right? Whether it's a master plan or a climate plan or another plan for something else. But if it doesn't. you know, either create more revenue, reduce waste, you know, reduce staff obligations, right? We need whatever those criteria are. And so I'd like to hear from council members what those criteria should be so that each time we have a decision in a council, we can say, does it further those goals? And that I think will get us to all of these other really wonderful. nuclear stars. |
| 02:51:22.54 | Mayor (Unknown) | So just so I think that's a great use of the next hour, which is hearing what those things are and establishing those benchmarks together. But go ahead, Councilman Hoffman. |
| 02:51:33.02 | Jill Hoffman | I think perhaps, maybe I don't, I mean, February 28th is our next meeting, right? And that's supposed to be the kickoff of our budget season. If I read the budget calendar correctly. And so I think perhaps the best use of our time today would be, you know, I think February 28th will give us a very good idea about what our budget is. And we can, I assume that Chris is going to also, our city manager is going to also you know, talk to us because that was, you know, this was in his presentation as well, the core functions of our city, right? And he said finance, infrastructure and personnel, but I see it as finance, infrastructure and services, which goes back to personnel, which is staff doing their job, right? Services. And so I think that will be really instructive on February 28th, right? I assume that will be the first part of his presentation. And then at the end of that, And then we can think about, okay, and maybe have some input from Chris during that meeting. And we can all think about it. Okay, what's our objective criteria? knowing our budget knowing what we all think, you know, what we all think are, are high priorities for 2023. I'm just talking 2023, right? And so that's maybe where we sort of said, okay, here's our objective criteria that we're going to look at for asks for the city. One is, you know, statutory requirements, right? And risk and what's our risk in 2023 and how we fund things. And then, um, So, I mean, I think we can talk about if we go very quickly through kind of what we think are priorities for individual council members, but the more instructive, I don't really see it as a good use of our time today because we just you know, aspirational. you know, is one thing, but what's within the context of 2023 is something quite different. But I'm happy, you know, to go back to whatever the council wants to do today, but that's the way I see it rolling out. And then we can have a discussion on you know, boards and commissions, I expect that to take 20 or 30 minutes. So I don't want to shortchange that either, because I hope that we're going to get to decision. in clear direction. On that. knowing that we had clear direction back in April of 2022 on the path forward for boards and commissions. That would be- |
| 02:53:52.44 | Mayor (Unknown) | I'm not clear on what you want to spend the rest of the hour on. Do you want to have the boards and commissions discussion? And I got the direction on the February 28th. |
| 02:54:00.51 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah, if we want to do, if people want to talk about what their priorities are now, but I don't see that as as instructive because we don't have a context right now. So you know, I, limited value, right? Because we need the context of where we're going. We can, you know, people can say, this is what I think is a priority from my perspective as a council member right now, understanding that that's going to be adjusted when we look at, you know, when we look at what are what we decide is objective criteria for budgeting on February 28th. |
| 02:54:29.57 | Magda Gonzalez | So I'm hearing that the council may not be interested in prioritizing today. want some more context in terms of the budget. more context in terms of core basic services, if you will. and potentially even criteria, objective criteria for adding any additional projects or priorities. |
| 02:54:48.11 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:54:53.65 | Janelle Kellman | And I think we need more than an hour to set our priorities for a year. I agree. |
| 02:54:57.55 | Chris Zapata | I |
| 02:54:58.07 | Magda Gonzalez | Thank you. |
| 02:55:00.31 | Chris Zapata | So can a city manager pull his nuclear dot? My nuclear thought would be to let go through the initiatives that you outline so the public can hear them. And if there's a conversation for a later day that's based on budget and all those things, which I appreciate, you should have that. But I'd really like to have the facilitators go through what you told them. |
| 02:55:20.18 | Mayor (Unknown) | Okay, and that seems like a great approach if it's useful for the public to hear what we outlined and so that we're effectively using our facilitators' time. being aware that that's just for us to understand, okay, this is what's a priority to this certain members of this group. And we are not using it as a time to discuss each of those priorities because we don't have the bandwidth to do that at this time. think we need another special meeting. specifically outside of the February 28th meeting, because we do have general business to conduct as well. So we have to take that into consideration. |
| 02:55:51.82 | Janelle Kellman | Can I just follow up on Council Member Hoffman's request, which is, Do we have agreement that we should come up today as an end result with a set of objective criteria that we utilize at each council meeting to weigh all the initiatives, new and existing, including my own, right? Like, you know, does it meet these three, five, whatever they might be? Is that, Council Member Hoffman, what you're getting at? |
| 02:56:19.81 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah, and we don't have to come up with them today. I mean, on the fly, right? Like everybody think about it. I would like something in a staff report from the staff and from Chris about how we focus in, because he's already given those to us, right? in other presentations that are, you know, the priorities that he's given to us are our finance infrastructure and personnel. As I said, I would change that to services to residents, right? Personnel means services to residents or services. that I actually support finance and infrastructure, right? Like how do you get to So, Yeah, I mean, I think so. And I think it should be as a council, because we're in a fiscal crisis, right? We are in our fifth year of what might be another deficit spend budget. Like, and Chris has just told us, we can't go any more into our reserves. We're down to 20%. We spent... the surplus that we had in our reserves had saved up over how many years? this is it. We can't do it anymore. So in this year of fiscal crisis, what are the bare bones, you know, what is the absolute criteria that we're going to use to spend money and for this budget that Chris is going to start getting together and present to us for adoption on June 30th, that will bring us back into a balanced budget for the first time in five years. So I think, you know, you know, for me, it's, it's we're going to every filter is going to be, does it serve one of those core, you know, one of those core responsibilities, or is it statutorily required? |
| 02:57:44.69 | Unknown | one of those. |
| 02:57:50.01 | Jill Hoffman | So. That to me is like the two criteria that we would look at with every budget ask and that we direct staff to bring me a budget that's balanced, And is every one of those spins in there. And then as we move forward for the rest of fiscal year 2024, If you have an ask for the city council, it has to go through this filter. And if it doesn't, meet these criteria in this time of fiscal crisis, then even though you've got a great idea and it has merit, |
| 02:58:17.04 | Unknown | you know, |
| 02:58:20.28 | Jill Hoffman | that may have to wait or we may have to look for another funding source in order to carry that thing out. as a matter of |
| 02:58:26.53 | Magda Gonzalez | As a matter of following. I'm hearing that the budget discussion, introduction of the budget discussion might need to happen first. with. some establishment of the guidance in terms of guidance bumps or some bumpers in terms of what can be brought forward. And I can't remember what the word you called it. I just lost it. |
| 02:58:45.41 | Jill Hoffman | To me, that's the logical rollout, right? We see what our budget is. At the end of that presentation, hopefully that night, we as a council agree you know, we are in a time of fiscal, you know, crisis or fiscal, you know, whatever you want to call it. So, and because of that, for this next year. These are the objective criteria that we're going to use to fund anything. And we will have a balanced budget. |
| 02:59:10.86 | Mayor (Unknown) | I think that's an important conversation that we should absolutely have, but we also still need to have the discussions about our vision and goals as a community because we can't just think about 2023. We have to think about the next five and 10 and 20 years together as well, which is why it's so important that we have some of these. bigger picture visions and ideas and is part of what makes us an exciting great council that people have these perspectives or new thoughts or things that they can maybe have their own funding source for somehow to bring forward and those those while our fiscal everything deserves in merits and needs a fiscal lens. I and I would like us to put together a schedule where we can have that discussion. as well as a discussion about How are we sticking to our strategic planning and our long-term vision and goal as a community as well? because Our budget is critical, but we're more than our budget as well. |
| 02:59:59.90 | Magda Gonzalez | And that's what I was hearing. It sounds like a kind of a calendar of path forward in terms of what comes first and when that happens. Yeah, because we really need more time. |
| 03:00:08.60 | Jill Hoffman | because we clearly need more time. Right, we have a strategic plan for 2020 to 2026. So if people want to amend that, I mean, |
| 03:00:11.03 | Magda Gonzalez | Yeah. |
| 03:00:16.05 | Jill Hoffman | or don't agree with that, but that's a pretty good comprehensive and I think still relevant plan. So I mean, perhaps a review of that. And if people want to supplement or amend that, that's fine. |
| 03:00:25.24 | Mayor (Unknown) | Okay, the vice mayor has his hand raised, so I'm |
| 03:00:28.67 | Ian Sobieski | It's okay, I didn't want to step on Jill. Jill, are you done? Okay. So thank you, Mayor. So I just do want to underline what our CEO of our city asked us for. He basically has a scenario where we survive. and a scenario where we thrive. Uh, And the scenario where we thrive, he, in the next five years, he's calling on us to consider alternate revenue. So I agree with Jill's baseline. thinking, you know, one simple metric is zero cost basis budgeting, where if you add something to the budget, you got, if you add a dollar to do one thing, you have to take a dollar away from something else. That's a way of prioritizing. It's one size of the pie. you know, a compliment or an alternative is to have a larger budget pie. And that's what the city manager is pointing out to us is that if we do want to engage in a variety of, additional initiatives or even having a better level of service to our residents. then there may be, there is a requirement for more revenue. And that either comes from stable sources like he outlined or some of the brainstorming we did earlier this morning. So I don't know that one meeting is enough to fully digest these alternatives. fundamental to what the next five years in Sausalito looks like. It's basically a question of how much do we live within the current budget structure and how much do we expand the pie? And if we expand the pie, what do we spend the pie on. connecting it to improved levels of service to our residents. They say decreasing permitting time, or paving more streets, increasing our pavement quality index, or on new initiatives of one kind or another. um, So. I think it's kind of a big enchilada and an important one to get interactive leadership with our staff on and us. So I want to just be sure that we really consider what the city manager is asking us to consider that fundamental difference between surviving and thriving. |
| 03:02:42.54 | Magda Gonzalez | City Manager, do you want to comment? Or I can maybe try to, what I, |
| 03:02:46.91 | Chris Zapata | No, no. |
| 03:02:47.47 | Magda Gonzalez | I think I'm hearing. |
| 03:02:49.02 | Chris Zapata | I'd like you to continue with what the council told you so the public is aware of what the thoughts were. Okay, so let's do that. |
| 03:02:53.56 | Magda Gonzalez | Okay, so let's do that. So if it's okay with the council, what I'd like to do, what I propose is, |
| 03:02:55.04 | Chris Zapata | Thank you. |
| 03:02:58.92 | Magda Gonzalez | We won't do priority setting today. I'm hearing it requires more time so that everyone has a good understanding of what things might be added or not added or even what the definition of these are. you'd like to have your February 28th meeting get some more context. And then also, perhaps come up with some criteria in terms of what our priorities or projects to be added down the road and that priority setting can happen later. I also hear a in potentially looking at vision and mission to make sure that that is also explained because as you're as you've said, Mayor, it's more than just budget, although budget does sort of explain vision and mission and support that, but I hear what you're saying to make sure that that's articulated and the community can well hear that. And what we can do now is just make sure that the community knows what has been identified in terms of the interviews, those who are tuning in for that purpose, they can get that information today, knowing that this process is not going to be completed today. It's an introduction to the priority setting. |
| 03:04:03.98 | Mayor (Unknown) | That's not okay? Yes, but we have to finish by 12 p.m. if we want. |
| 03:04:07.67 | Magda Gonzalez | That's correct. |
| 03:04:07.69 | Mayor (Unknown) | That's correct. Okay. |
| 03:04:08.38 | Magda Gonzalez | emissions come. |
| 03:04:08.97 | Mayor (Unknown) | I'm sorry. |
| 03:04:09.04 | Magda Gonzalez | Right. Right. And so let me, so I think we can do that. Cause we'll just, we just want to share then what was identified. So if we can go to slide 67, there we go. Okay, so goal A we already had up there. And remember, just look online. You've got a beautiful strategic plan. You've identified other strategies under each of the overarching goals. Those are there unless down the road you elect to remove them. Some of them have been identified in terms of being completed. So, Under strategy B, Again, this is just an odd. set up for me. You've identified equity initiatives in terms of identifying equity initiatives under your overarching goal B, which is strengthen our community identity. enhance economic development through blue economy initiatives and review the structure of boards, commissions and committees. which there may be, I hear there's great interest about doing that. Okay? And then moving on to overarching goal C. which is enhance our fiscal resiliency, which I think is sort of the backbone of the other ones, because there's been a great deal of discussion about that today. is address pension obligations, which you learned a lot about today. Determine the best use of Measure L funds, generate additional revenue using special measures that you again learned about today and provide some direction to bring more information back. increase in revenues and reduce expenditures. Okay. And then moving on to goal D, which is continually improve and maintain infrastructure while addressing climate change and ensuring resiliency. So some of the potential strategies that were identified through our interviews was to increase grant funding to enhance the working waterfront, plant infrastructure improvements, sewer, underground utilities, and become a regional and national leader in climate resiliency. |
| 03:06:15.28 | Unknown | Okay. |
| 03:06:16.17 | Magda Gonzalez | Moving on then to overarching goal E. which is maintain a strong organization to deliver effective, efficient, and sustainable municipal services, which again, we heard some about earlier. And some of the ideas, strategies that were identified was develop smart initiatives through technology, set standards to achieve first class service levels, enhanced city service delivery by staffing up and making sure the retention of qualified staff, which we know basically all cities are struggling with right now in terms of recruiting and retaining staff. So that's what was identified through the interviews. Those will be information that we will bring back at the appropriate time that's going to feel right for the council. We want to make sure that this is a, process that will work for the council. This was going to be our priority setting, which we won't do that today. And we can talk about that a little bit later. Um, So I'm looking now for direction in terms of how you'd like to use the rest of this time. It sounds like the criteria, identifying the criteria is one, but I also, I'm kind of hearing That maybe should happen after the February 28th meeting, as it provides a little bit more context. And then I also heard an interest in talking about the boards, committees, and commissions. And Chris, before moving forward, I'll look to you for some help with how you'd like to do that. |
| 03:07:45.85 | Janelle Kellman | Go ahead. I'll just weigh in. Please. I think that a workshop is really important for setting priorities. I just think four hours that we set today wasn't enough time to do everything that we had on our ambitious agenda for today. Understandably, we heard a lot of new financial information this morning that we had to explore. So. I'm, I hesitate about waiting until after February 28. I think it's critical that we get our priorities set ASAP so we can start carrying them out. So I know that we have to look at things through a financial lens. That's why I agree with Council Member Hoffman about setting... guideposts for how we decide what our priorities are moving forward. maybe that's something we could do in advance of February 28. maybe we can certainly do this process in advance of February 28, knowing that the final decision will be framed knowing what our budget is. But that's correct. And I would love to. |
| 03:08:46.04 | Magda Gonzalez | That's correct. And these are priorities. This process is identifying priorities. It all still has to come back. |
| 03:08:52.49 | Janelle Kellman | Yeah. |
| 03:08:52.52 | Magda Gonzalez | Okay. |
| 03:08:52.54 | Janelle Kellman | Thank you. |
| 03:08:52.64 | Magda Gonzalez | with the budget. |
| 03:08:54.02 | Janelle Kellman | That's right. I would appreciate setting our special meeting before February 28. um, in order to accomplish those two things. |
| 03:09:03.41 | Mayor (Unknown) | Okay. |
| 03:09:03.66 | Janelle Kellman | Thank you. |
| 03:09:03.81 | Mayor (Unknown) | Yeah, I would be in support of that Council member |
| 03:09:06.24 | Janelle Kellman | Thank you. Maybe this is a little too off the agenda, but since we only have 15 minutes or 20 minutes and we're not going to do this exercise, I'm wondering what my colleagues think about giving everybody two minutes to literally just share what it is they want to prioritize, what they're thinking, what they're concerned about. it's a little free form if we're not going to have a structure i still would like to hear from colleagues uh as to where they think the city needs to focus if they have something special they want to focus on, or use the time as just suggested potentially to come up with the criteria. I'm open to either, but I am interested in hearing what's on everybody's minds. |
| 03:09:50.03 | Mayor (Unknown) | Does the vice mayor have any thoughts on that? |
| 03:09:54.50 | Ian Sobieski | I mean, it sounds good to me. If Janelle wants to hear that, I'd want to hear what she has to say. want to hear what everyone has to say. So we can do a quick round robin just stare at the one minute. |
| 03:10:08.46 | Mayor (Unknown) | Why don't you start to know? Yeah, we may actually need to |
| 03:10:13.42 | Janelle Kellman | setting a timer. Yeah. How much time? A minute? I think you got a few minutes. |
| 03:10:17.66 | Mayor (Unknown) | Yeah. |
| 03:10:20.66 | Janelle Kellman | Okay, I'm putting a timer on time myself. Okay, here's what I would say. I think on the financial portion of this, I absolutely think we need to look for missing revenue in existing revenue streams. So I think that is a lens that we can apply across all decisions. So I think Councilman Hoffman earlier mentioned bike parking. We've talked some about waterfront access. We have some things like the Community Boating Center, which is an amazing, amazing effort that maybe we can reevaluate and find ways to partner with and create more revenue themes. Somebody gave me an idea about a themed license plate. Apparently, the Yosemite Conservancy makes a million dollars a year from a themed license plate. These are ways to bring new revenue in that aren't taxing our constituents. I like the vacancy tax. Early on when Chris first arrived, we talked about Parks and Rec as a really amazing opportunity because everything that Parks and Rec does pays for itself. And so what are some other ways to create some of those revenue streams that has a high ROI in Chris's terms, return on involvement? And so just some of those things, I'd like to look for efficiencies and waste, how we can utilize existing assets, and or maybe even dispose of them. We've talked a lot about the city's land holdings, how we manage them. I know we're working hard to manage them more efficiently, more effectively. Does the city need to own all that property, the pluses or minuses? I'm interested in having that conversation with folks. I think infrastructure is my number one priority. I can talk about it through a climate lens. I can talk about it through a streets and sewer lens, but I do want to figure out how we as a council have more conversations around things like infrastructure and how do we pay for it? I think we all hands on deck. If you're going to bring something that's sort of outside the box, how do we pay for it? At least show the business case Thank you. around things like infrastructure and how do we pay for it? I think we all hands on deck. If you're gonna bring something that's sort of outside the box, how do we pay for it? At least show the business case for that particular initiative. I think that's important as well. So that's my two minutes. Well, that was very well modeled. |
| 03:10:23.24 | Mayor (Unknown) | Thank you. |
| 03:10:23.26 | Unknown | Thank you. Oh, yeah. |
| 03:12:18.02 | Magda Gonzalez | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 03:12:18.94 | Janelle Kellman | Thank you. |
| 03:12:19.04 | Magda Gonzalez | Stay in the timer. Who's next? You did a great job. Who'd like to go next? |
| 03:12:24.00 | Ian Sobieski | I'll go next. I agree with everything Janelle said. These are all great initiatives. I think in my two years in city council, my observation is that We're probably the smart one of the smartest communities around. I think probably it seems like everybody in town has a Ph.D. or a professional degree. And I don't understand why the city isn't doesn't have class a levels of service given uh, given who we are as a community. So I think part of the problem is we're too smart for our own good. We have, I agree with all those ideas, but they have to be implemented by someone. And our volunteer model of having five smart city council members charging off on all the good things they want to do and leaning on a very thin staff to accomplish them is just not working. I think our city manager has told us all that directly. He's told us that in public. He obviously works at our pleasure, and so he's only going to do that by leaving breadcrumbs to the conclusion. uh, If we wanna achieve things we need to staff according to those goals. And we have to make a decision about whether we're going to staff our city council, city staff, to give us class A. service or not. And that's the whether it's, The master planning exercise I think is essential to avoid the bomb that's going to explode in Sausalito in three years when we don't meet our housing quotas. or the Blue Economy Initiative or supporting businesses downtown or paving our streets, all those things ultimately have to be implemented by staff and our ideation and It's all well and good, but we need to staff according to our goals. So our city manager has said that. He's led breadcrumbs to it, I'm seeing it explicitly. We need to make that fundamental choice. and figuring out ways of getting more revenue to make the pie bigger, is a way of a path towards increasing our level of service. But that's the first question. and the one we really have to answer. by budget constraint is Do that first, come up with a credible plan for increasing revenue and then allocate it to any of our objectives. not the other way around. |
| 03:14:37.77 | Magda Gonzalez | Thank you for that. And as we know, uh, RESOURCES PEOPLE. facilities, finances, resources. Okay, who would like to go next? |
| 03:14:56.40 | Magda Gonzalez | right. |
| 03:14:57.86 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:14:57.90 | Jill Hoffman | you |
| 03:14:58.94 | Magda Gonzalez | Thank you. |
| 03:14:58.96 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah, so, sorry, anyway. |
| 03:15:02.08 | Magda Gonzalez | Please go ahead. |
| 03:15:04.94 | Jill Hoffman | So mine ties back into, you know, I keep beating the drum, right? Finance. And so, but also within that is efficiencies, right? So- And that it all kind of dovetails together, right? So streamlining, we've got to streamline and use our assets efficiently, right? Meaning staff time is a financial asset. City Council time is also an incredible asset that we cannot waste. And so when we're looking at our agendas for City Council meetings, our regular meetings, We've got to be very, very vigilant about whether or not that that agenda is has decision points in it, whether those items are focused and whether or not they're ready to come to council. And so, you know, we talk about more extra meetings or, you know, then I think back on, okay, did we use our regular meetings efficiently to the best ability that we could? So that's city council asset. Staff asset is exactly what Ian's talking about. is that we've got to let the staff focus back in on the staff jobs and not task them with tangents. And that goes back to efficiency and streamlining. And this is in the context, I'm just talking about the fiscal crisis that we're currently in. So it's now February, and we're talking about 2023, which is different from our budget calendar, right? Which is going to, we're in our 2022-23 budget right now. Our budget ends on June 30th. So it's a little bit, it's a little bit of a different conversation. We're talking about those two things. But we can definitely instill discipline in how we approach these things that come before us. And I think we're talking about it right now when we talk about objective criteria for what we fund and what we don't fund and kind of the funnel... of what makes it up to the city council, right? The decision funnel about does this warrant time, the asset of time in front of a city council meeting during a regular city council meeting. So I think those are the, Those are the real crisis level goals for me this year. not saying the other goals that haven't been set up, not saying they don't dovetail, right? Blue economy is about raising REVENUE. And, you know, the other, of course, we have to comply with statutory requirements, right? That's kind of the base. So that's part of the decision funnel of what comes up to us at a city council level. |
| 03:17:33.74 | Magda Gonzalez | Okay, great. So that's adding a lens, a funnel to any of the things that might come forward to make them more efficient, make sure that they're the right things where you are all spending your time. Okay. |
| 03:17:45.67 | Janelle Kellman | Take the screenshot down so we can all see each other better. See each other. There's a social, yeah. Oh, the PowerPoint down. |
| 03:17:51.20 | Magda Gonzalez | Okay, who is next? |
| 03:17:56.77 | Janelle Kellman | So I don't have much new to add. I agree with a lot of the comments of my fellow council members. So I think one category is obviously creating revenues, both stable and what I will call ad hoc. So stable, we talked about concepts like the vacancy tax, utility tax, storm drains, gate fee, development fee, cannabis delivery tax. I think those are all good ideas that should be explored. ad hoc. By that, I mean grant funding. There's the Inflation Reduction Act, the bipartisan infrastructure law, both of which are geared towards just the types of needs that we have for our streets, storm drains, sewers, and sidewalks. Aside from creating revenues, we have to cut expenses. One priority for me would be sewer consolidation. Get us out of the sewer business, which is not our area of expertise, and allow the experts to do that and save us that time and expense. Focus on basic services, back to basics. Adopt the right pension strategy moving forward to ensure we have the cash flow to meet our needs. pension obligations. I completely agree with Council Member Hoffman complying with regulatory requirements, you know, not dumping sanitary, you know, sewage into the bay. Accomplishing the rezoning that we're required to for our housing. So there are various other regulations that we've not yet implemented. So we must comply with regulatory requirements. Staff retention. So we have to pay our staff an appropriate salary in order to retain them one of our biggest challenges is staff turnover. The other thing we have to do is maintain the morale of our staff, we have to treat our staff respectfully. and understand their constraints. And that's why it's so important for us to establish our priorities so that we are not overburdening staff with our wish list rather than focusing on what our annual priorities are. And then I also agree with Councilmember Hoffman on increasing We have this wonderful measure L. Let's figure out the best way to maximize our use of the funds that we do generate. |
| 03:20:19.17 | Magda Gonzalez | Great, thank you. And healthy financially, cities that are healthy, financially. often. 12 or so percent are sort of priorities. And outside of the must do's, I used to often say must do should do nice to do. And the must-dos take up. 85% of the budget. at least most places. Thank you. |
| 03:20:42.91 | Mayor (Unknown) | Thank you. |
| 03:20:43.87 | Magda Gonzalez | Thank you. |
| 03:20:43.97 | Mayor (Unknown) | Thank you for giving us this opportunity to share some of our priorities. I really appreciate hearing from my fellow council members, and I appreciate the acknowledgement of that all of us have. we are an asset to the community in terms of the time that we spend together working on these critical issues that we're all passionate about. So I would really like to see us have the opportunity to leverage all of our and talents together to really cohesively support each other in this year as we approach this fiscal emergency that we are in. thinking about all of the great points that were made with regards to fiscal resiliency. How do we generate revenue, whether it's ad hoc or from fees and taxes, which I completely agree with. But we're also... in a climate emergency in addition to a fiscal emergency. So if we don't also have vision and think about innovative ways to approach the next 5, 10 and 20 years, in addition to our immediate emergency, we're going to end up in an even more dire situation. So I would like us to Take a back to basics approach, but think about it with regards to smart infrastructure. How can we do a better job of monitoring the data, of knowing what we're doing now to make predictions going forward, using technology to improve the services and the information that we have? so that we can be making our best possible decisions and get the best possible returns on investment by improving our services. And of course, absolutely supporting our staff, because we have such a strong, incredible staff here. I'm so proud of the city of Sausalito and the work that they're doing under the leadership of city manager Zapata. What can we do to do that? And also, what can we do to really effectively best serve residents and engage residents in our community. We have so much talent here. So many incredible people who are willing to volunteer their time, Brown Act or not, to support us, which is truly fantastic. So I'd like to do more to engage our residents as well. And I would really like to see us efficiently use our time this year, address our fiscal emergency, but be aware that we're also in a climate emergency and think bigger about the next five, ten and 20 years going forward so that we continue to be a sustainable, resilient community, |
| 03:22:17.51 | Unknown | Right. |
| 03:22:35.99 | Mayor (Unknown) | And also that we really support each other in moving forward in these goals and take a really civil and smart approach to moving things forward. And also whether that's through finding the best possible fiscal solution or otherwise. So I appreciate everybody's time today. I appreciate you all making the effort and being here and sharing some of your thoughts. I really wish we had had. more time to priority set, but we will make that happen. And I just wanted to say, I appreciate everybody making their effort. |
| 03:23:02.92 | Magda Gonzalez | Thank you. Okay, thank you. That was very helpful. Thank you. And somehow that timer worked, right? got folks to be a little more focused on what they'd like to say. And I think the thoughts are there. So I'm glad that was a good technique. Thank you. Okay, so. I think... we've got our marshaled orders and we'll work with the city manager in terms of how we work this and bring this back. Um, We've taken notes on each of these items. We'll make sure that we will provide them to the staff and to the council so that you have those moving forward. um, And I'm just looking at the time in terms of whether you'd like to use the last half hour if there was enough time to do with the boards and commissions. There may not be, or there may be, I'm not sure. I don't know the item, I don't know the issue |
| 03:23:52.97 | Mayor (Unknown) | We have 30 minutes, so we're going to make a good effort. We've talked about it two other times. Okay. So this is our... So we'll... |
| 03:23:53.11 | Magda Gonzalez | We have. |
| 03:23:57.19 | Magda Gonzalez | Okay. Okay, all right, so we will help with the scribing of that. |
| 03:24:02.56 | Mayor (Unknown) | Thank you. |
| 03:24:03.74 | Magda Gonzalez | Would you like to introduce the topic? |
| 03:24:05.56 | Chris Zapata | Thank you. Yep. |
| 03:24:06.56 | Magda Gonzalez | For our benefit. |
| 03:24:07.89 | Chris Zapata | Yeah. |
| 03:24:08.34 | Magda Gonzalez | you |
| 03:24:08.40 | Chris Zapata | Thank you. |
| 03:24:08.43 | Magda Gonzalez | Bye. |
| 03:24:08.50 | Chris Zapata | Yeah, so over the last year and a half, one of the observations has been, this is a city that has a great amount of citizen interest and a great amount of citizen talent. So as a result, you know, the city has used a model of engagement with the council, engagement with the community, And the city staff has been lessened or not kept up. And so consequently, there's a lot of demand on city time, city staff time, and that results in, you know, a lot of things getting dropped to the crack, little problems that we never would have had occur occur. Frustration on the part of the community on stuff that doesn't get implemented and lack of real analysis on what it means to do it, what it costs, etc. So the Council received a memo from me last year. I sent it out to all of the boards, commissions and committees, asked them for their ideas about restructuring, merging, disbanding, et cetera, et cetera. I put that on pause because of some things happening in the community and now it's back. And to me, it's unclear. I've heard from different council people we decided to do this on this date. And the options that you are going to do is everything gets disbanded effective June 30th or December 1st, or they're all going to be non-Brown Act. And I think there's some lack of understanding and therefore I'm a little confused about it. So I think the conversation from each council person as to what they expect that the committee commission and board approach in the future looks like be more clear for me because OMIT committee, finance committee, those aren't meeting, haven't met. There are some other committees that have been formed. The mayor has a list of committees that she's appointed people to. You know, what's the expectation there? And I'll say this, even if the council does the work, even if the community does the work at some point in time, it comes back to staff to do work with whatever comes out of that work. So it's never that, you know, something's done totally by the community or the council. There always is some role that staff plays in the implementation of it or the execution of it. So clarity on this is what I'm looking for. And I know that there are a lot of folks in the community that have volunteered their time to great benefit to the community. The question is, what do you want to see going forward? And I think there's been progress made There has been real progress made with some committees taking this seriously and winnowing down their meeting dates, their staff requests, and understanding that there is, you know, something that becomes a little difficult for staff to do as, you know, we have other basic day-to-day stuff to do and strategic things we want to do and regulatory things that we must do. Thank you. |
| 03:26:50.99 | Magda Gonzalez | With the interest being keeping the... community engaged. making sure it's a good use of their time. making sure that all of the regulatory issues are being met. making sure that you have quorum, right? Because otherwise the work can't be done. and then keeping in mind the impact to staff. So it sounds like, and you know, you're not the first city to confront this issue, Um, maybe some clarity and it sounds like there's also some willingness to merge some of these committees |
| 03:27:19.32 | Mayor (Unknown) | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 03:27:19.98 | Magda Gonzalez | Thank you. |
| 03:27:19.99 | Mayor (Unknown) | So there were two unresolved questions from our last meeting that we had directed the city attorney to provide us a response on that I just would like to hear from, but he had to Oh. He had to jump to another meeting at noon. But maybe you have the response, which was, What are our options outside of Brown Act Committee as we transform them? Like if we were going to change them to something where they still met, what would the legal... explanations for how they met or be titled. And then the other question was there was an unresolved regarding disaster preparedness and whether that was a legally required committee because there had been a disaster meeting group. So those two items, we need clarification on before we do. |
| 03:27:54.23 | Chris Zapata | In real time, in real time, you're seeing the problem. Thank you. We have a mediation right now going on that our city attorney has to go to. that I should be at and it's constant. So I will leave that response to him about what's Brown Act or maybe one of our council persons who's versed in what can and should be done with respect to that question can be called upon to deal with that and then on the disaster and preparedness and that committee and its obligation. I think what I said back then was because of SOSO's unique geography location, there are some committees that must be considered, whether staff is stretched or not, you know, there is a real community need for us to, to, you know, do the work, even if it means stretching ourselves somewhat. And I believe that disaster preparedness, emergency preparedness, that's one of them. |
| 03:28:51.58 | Mayor (Unknown) | Thank you. |
| 03:28:51.59 | Janelle Kellman | Thank you. Did you want to speak to the options outside of? Sure. So a Brown Act committee is a committee that is a standing committee that meets regularly appointed by the city council. and therefore, is open to the public If it's five, you have to have a... If a majority of the members of the committee are going to meet, It has to be publicly noticed. Separately, an ad hoc committee is a special purpose committee. with a specific purpose and a specific timeline So that, for example, our housing element committee, Now we treated that as a Brown Act committee. It meant, in accordance with the Brown Act. That committee was assigned for a special purpose with a specific deadline. upon which it sunlights. And so. That's the difference. And so we have some flexibility in terms of how we appoint residents to committees. We in the past have had what we called blue ribbon committees that were appointed by the mayor. They were not Brown Act committees. They met with the mayor and perhaps one other council member for a specific purpose, for a specific time, And, provided a specific outcome slash recommendations, to the city council. example. of a committee structure that we could adopt. |
| 03:30:13.62 | Magda Gonzalez | And the Brown Act Committee, this is a question that I think I know the answer to. The Brown Act Committee's or the non-Brown Act committees will still require staff resources, correct? |
| 03:30:24.98 | Janelle Kellman | Not necessarily. So, for example, the city manager has pointed out Sausalito Beautiful. That's not a city managed committee. That's a committee of residents. Thank you. that, It's a 501c3. It has its own budget, has its own meeting. And they simply come and report to staff with recommendations. Okay, so 501c3. |
| 03:30:46.29 | Magda Gonzalez | It's a 501c3. Thank you. |
| 03:30:47.45 | Janelle Kellman | Okay. |
| 03:30:47.78 | Magda Gonzalez | Yeah. But it's still appointed by council members. No. So that's a separate, that's completely separate. Completely separate. |
| 03:30:53.04 | Janelle Kellman | Exactly. Thank you. |
| 03:30:53.60 | Magda Gonzalez | Okay. |
| 03:30:53.97 | Janelle Kellman | Thank you. They're volunteers in the community who convene. THE COUNCIL um, We could appoint ad hoc committees, we could appoint Brown act committees. WE COULD that an ad hoc committee does not get Staff time. that they are given a mission and then asked to report back. or we could assign a city council liaison. So, we include in our research Every meeting, a report on boards and committees to which we are liaising. And in that way, we keep the committee work transparent. And we're going to be to our fellow council members and to the public, but it's not requiring staff time. It requires city council member time. And I'm not advocating for any approach, just giving an example. |
| 03:31:43.73 | Magda Gonzalez | Yes, sir. |
| 03:31:44.04 | Mayor (Unknown) | Yeah. helping, helping make sure everybody is hand raised. |
| 03:31:46.47 | Janelle Kellman | the vice president. |
| 03:31:48.17 | Mayor (Unknown) | Go ahead, Vice Mayor. If you could raise your hand if you... |
| 03:31:51.21 | Ian Sobieski | I will advocate or just propose one. structure that the two committees that I'm a liaison for have now adopted in response to the city manager's request for change. So EDAC and the Parks and Recreation Commission have both now decided in response to that memo. to meet formally just once a quarter. So that's four times a year. We could make it city policy that all our boards and commissions follow suit with that schedule. The idea being that these boards and commissions have a dual role that has gotten confused and that is a burden on staff. The whole idea, starting from a blank sheet of paper, is that we want to take advantage of volunteer resources and expertise in the community to help the city of Sausalito. But I know in my own band of angels organization that I run, and I notice that in the city of Saucena, lots of people like to be boss and tell the workers how they should do their job. And the boards and commissions invariably, just because of their structure, have a relationship with staff that feels in some respects like another city council. And that's at odds with what they even want to be, which is people that contribute to the city. Again, the structure is that the boards and commissions would meet just once a quarter for the purposes of, giving advice to the city council or setting agenda priorities. where the work would be done. where the volunteer work would be done. is at the subcommittee level. Any minority of the standing board and commission can meet as it chooses. outside of a regular schedule. It's not a Brown Act meeting. It's an opportunity to do work. So at EDAC, for instance, there's three or four different subcommittees made up of a minority. There's a group focused on the marineship. There's a group focused on marketing. the two other groups that don't pop to mind at the moment. And they do work. EDAC has filled a half dozen vacancies in in Sausalito. This is real contribution to the town. Businesses that are here, like Cultivar, that were found by volunteers on EDAC, but that wasn't done at the Brown Act meeting, That was done at the subcommittee level. So, to do that. to pick on Parks and Rec for a second, Parks and Rec needs to be bigger as a commission. We need to put out a request for more people to join. We should increase its size to something like 11. Right now it's seven. so that there can be a meaningful subcommittee of members that won't violate the Brown Act. And so paradoxically, it would be to increase the sizes of some of these commissions, but impose upon them to meet less frequently, and encourage them to have their subcommittees work at the, either independently or in cooperation with at the direction of staff rather than having a role of being some kind of supervisory role on staff. |
| 03:34:48.67 | Magda Gonzalez | So we're noting going to quarterly for those where it's feasible, possible planning commission, of course, probably. Obviously not planning commission. |
| 03:34:56.33 | Ian Sobieski | Yeah, absolutely. |
| 03:34:58.56 | Magda Gonzalez | have the use of subcommittees as much as possible that likely would not have staff support. There are models where People can join subcommittees and not be part of the board commission committee itself, therefore not having to expand that and not having to deal with those other issues. So I think that can all come back. There was one more point that I wanted to. Oh, and then the other thing I think that maybe we can jot down is make sure that there's clear understanding about the purpose of each of these groups and understanding that there are not many city councils. correct? Okay. Councilmember Huffman? |
| 03:35:37.76 | Mayor (Unknown) | you |
| 03:35:41.67 | Jill Hoffman | So going back to efficient use of council member time, right? And not replowing old ground. So we had a pretty robust discussion about this in April of 2022. And. we came to the conclusion that we should disband non-statutory boards and commissions. So now we're regressing Absolutely. |
| 03:36:04.64 | Mayor (Unknown) | We can't hear you, Councilmember Huffman. |
| 03:36:12.32 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, I'm resetting my audio again. We're good now. Yeah. |
| 03:36:14.46 | Magda Gonzalez | It's good now. Yeah, it's good now. |
| 03:36:16.97 | Jill Hoffman | Okay. So back to the original point of effective use of a council time, right? And re plowing old ground. So we had a pretty robust discussion about this back in April of 2022. And the general direction was we're going to move boards and commissions because Chris's recommendation to us was we have way too many boards and commissions that take up way too much staff time and city council time. And now, you know, we're. we're veering off into and understood nothing I say means that I don't appreciate all the work that the boards and commissions do, or that that work is not valuable. But my point is, It doesn't warrant staff time. if council members want to participate at the request of or at the invitation of whatever independent body it is, right? Look at Sauselio Beautiful, if they want to have a, or Sister Cities, or Rotary, or Lions, or Historical Society, right? We have lots of people in town that do good work, that don't take up STAFF TIME, DON'T TAKE UP COUNCIL TIME. So if we want to talk about, let's use the example of EDAC that I sit on. Lots of great work from EDAC. So we now have We now have a a director that we've just hired, Brandon Phipps, part of his thing is economic development. So we didn't have that before. Now that function is properly should be under his staff time, right? Like that's his responsibility. Now, if you wanna continue to have a community group that wants to continue to give feedback or give work on different things independently, then great, do it. I think as being part of EDAD, most of those functions fall under the Chamber of Commerce. So most of those efforts are properly under either chamber or some other independent group. Same thing for sustainability, right? We now have a sustainability manager. And so those functions more properly are within the staff at the staff's Direction. not direction from EDAC to the staff, but something that's managed by the staff. So the staff also doesn't have to waste time and effort responding to, you know, directives from these independent bodies. So that's part of streamlining and efficiency, right? We chose as a council to hire an economic development director. And in addition to planning, let him do his thing. and let this new sustainability manager do their thing based on whatever input you know, if we want to move sustainability to a non-Brown Act, non-city sponsored you know, entity, which I think is what the direction we gave them last April. And some of them have done that. and charted their own path. But that's, I think we need to stay on that path. I mean, it's just not sustainable, especially now when we're talking about streamlining inefficiencies. I would hope that we would go in the direction of You know, we gave direction for, you know, figure out how you're going to become an independent body, non-Brown Act, independent operator, if that's what you want to do. um and let us know how you're going to do that it's up to you how it is you want to transition out and let functions properly, the ones that should properly fall underneath the staff so that the staff can manage their own time and manage their own assets. So that's what I would advocate for. I mean, you know, I mean, that's why we gave we decided would give people till the end of 2022 to figure out how to do that. Now we're in February of 2023. Now we're talking about, well, let's not do that. I think that's the wrong direction. I think we're regressing. And I think those bodies can be much more effective and move much faster without having to deal with the constraints of the staff and whatever constraints the city council might put on it. So anyway, that's my input. |
| 03:40:34.62 | Mayor (Unknown) | Mayor, did you have a comment? I was just going to say some of the, some of the boards and commissions did respond to our request, which council or vice Mersobieski noted in saying that they are now meeting quarterly and the sustainability commission has also switched to meeting every other meeting, but our, open to meeting quarterly or otherwise. So I think we should respect that they some of them have suggested opportunities for ways that they can continue to coordinate and function with less staff time, but still as part of the city going forward. They did respond. Those that haven't perhaps are those that should be more left to their own devices with regards to whether or not they require staff time, but the folks who are putting in the time to suggest recommendations We as the council should probably hear those. |
| 03:41:17.62 | Magda Gonzalez | And it also sounds like you might be talking about some bodies that are not city bodies that are chamber bodies that the staff or the council. So we're only referring to, we have the 501 C3 |
| 03:41:25.62 | Mayor (Unknown) | No, we're not. Bye. you |
| 03:41:29.03 | Magda Gonzalez | separate though. |
| 03:41:29.94 | Mayor (Unknown) | 501 is an example that's being used because they were founded completely independent from the city boards and commissions. That's a model that could be pursued. But I would add it is extremely cumbersome and a lot harder than it sounds to start a 501. |
| 03:41:42.44 | Unknown | are. |
| 03:41:42.66 | Mayor (Unknown) | And to raise money for a 501c3. So it's nice to say, let's go ahead and have them all do that. But the amount of work it takes as someone who runs a nonprofit, it's harder than clarity. Yeah, you have to have a board and all that good stuff. Yes. Yes, Councilman Cox. |
| 03:41:56.26 | Unknown | THE END OF THE END OF THE you |
| 03:41:57.85 | Janelle Kellman | Yeah. I I don't have an issue with most of what Councilmember Hoffman said in terms of process. I want would like to address the record the statutory required committees like the planning Commission. So, I think it's important that reporting. mechanisms be clarified. So the City Council appoints the Planning Commission. The City Council gives direction to the City Manager. The City Manager carries out that direction via staff with assistance from committees. The Planning Commission has a statutory role. They make decisions based on zoning. et cetera. They are not policymakers. And they carry out. the city council policy they carry out their role of applying the zoning and design review ordinance to proposed projects. And I think that some of the tension that has occurred in recent years with. lots of demands being made upon staff. has arisen from a misunderstanding of these various roles. And so I think it's really important that we clarify. those roles. and that we empower staff to redirect um, communications that are outside of those roles. |
| 03:43:31.00 | Magda Gonzalez | Great. Thank you. That's well said. |
| 03:43:34.73 | Janelle Kellman | I wholeheartedly agree with that. It's a great segue. So my concern has been, I believe it's the council's job, obligation, responsibility to Set policy. And then if we have volunteers who can help us form that, fashion that, implement that, wonderful. I mean, we have such smart people in this community. I think where things have gotten very difficult for staff, many of whom would like to just... clear out the backlog that they have in their departments right now and are being pulled in many directions is when they are hearing, I think, as the vice mayor mentioned, they're hearing from a committee as to other priorities that maybe the council hasn't set. And it becomes very difficult for staff to allocate resources. And we've said all day today, we care about staff, we care about staff. I think one of the ways we can show that is by streamlining what our expectations are of them and stopping a lot of the additional direction. So I think that of the ways we can show that is by streamlining what our expectations are of them and stopping a lot of the additional direction. So I think it would be a really good exercise for this council after we meet with you again to have the rigor to be able to say, regardless of the structure of these committees, and I'll get to that in a second, these are the three things we want you to work on. And if you would like to be affiliated with the city, then you will work on these. And if you'd like to be an independent body, you may come to us with any, you can make suggestions at any time, but please only work on the things because what happens is people get disappointed really great effort into it and doesn't align with our priorities. |
| 03:44:59.42 | Janelle Kellman | sure. |
| 03:44:59.76 | Magda Gonzalez | with what the council is doing. |
| 03:45:00.98 | Janelle Kellman | policy and direction and priorities are? The committees should not be establishing priorities. They can certainly make suggestions, but I think that's where it gets a little confusing. The council needs to do a better job of being clear about our priorities to the committees. The question of staff resources, however, whether they go quarterly or they get disbanded is actually one for our CEO because it takes a lot of work to bring these together and how do we best align that with staff's time? How do we make sure that we're supporting Director McGowan or Director Phipps in their work? And is that having something that's more official? Or is that saying, this is not officially affiliated with the city, but we welcome your input. I'm interested to hear how we might align that with staff's needs. |
| 03:45:51.94 | Mayor (Unknown) | I think I've been pretty clear and we don't have that much time. I would just say I'm supportive of the vice mayor's suggestion and I'm also understanding of the need to eliminate some of the boards and commissions so I'm hoping we can. work together to find a path that makes sense. And keeping in mind the state mandated boards and commissions, which will continue to need to operate under a Brown Act, which is the Planning Commission, the Historic Preservation Commission, the Library Board of Trustees, and then additionally, the Disaster Council, which is potentially disaster preparedness, which you have asked to continue. |
| 03:46:23.00 | Chris Zapata | Yeah. because time is short, I want to say two things. One, thank you for the deep dive into finances because without that, nothing else really can get done And thank you for the continuous review of boards commissioning committees and how we can effectively engage our community use their expertise, but not burnout staff and overburden staff. Thank you. multiple responsibilities. So what I like to do is I like to summarize what I heard, which is, We're not killing all boards, committees, and commissions effective at date certain. We're going to take, and from me, I would give you another bite at the apple of what I think the staff should be doing with respect to the committees and commissions that exist. The statutory ones notwithstanding. Some of the questions that came up regarding expansion of so that they can be non-Brown Act. I'll summarize these with what we've heard today with our team here, and then I will come back to you with a full-on report on what I see as a clear path forward, and how you continue to engage volunteers, but how you do it in a way that's effective and not in a way that stretches staff in a way that we can't get basic work done. But so I would like to talk about that again as well. So you have seven minutes and I really, before anyone else, I wanted to really thank our facilitators. I want to thank the public that's listening. I wanted to thank you all. And I wanted to thank Walfred and Maria and the team that did work with us, including Abbott, to kind of have a good conversation. So I am very pleased that today you took on two things that really mattered last October 21st, which is our finances and our bandwidth in terms of staff. You've taken those on and you put aside what you believe are really important. to another meeting. Very happy with the outcome. Thank you all for speaking about things that are difficult. But we're not done and that's what I hear, but I think we make significant progress and understanding what our fiscal position is and what's in front of us. And certainly to continue this conversation about boards committees and commissions it's clear to me i'm not going to kill them all July 1. Okay. Okay, Sassy's a man's nodding. |
| 03:48:41.11 | Unknown | I'm not sure. |
| 03:48:41.90 | Chris Zapata | Okay, and it's clear to me that I need to come to you with some structure that takes the onus off of staff and creates some consensus around the council in terms of the direction they believe that the committee's commissioners or task force should do. And obviously encourage those 501c3s that are out there to keep doing what they're doing because they're additive in many, many, many positive ways and have been for some time in Sausalito. So we'll come back with something is my point. |
| 03:49:11.13 | Janelle Kellman | Chris, can I add one thing to that? If you have thoughts on how the Council can better, this is all about our strategic priorities, right? We need to be very, very clear about where we think we might know whether it's an ad hoc committee or even a statutory committee like disaster preparedness, like Board of Trustees or Planning Commission. We need to be clear about what we think those entities should be working on and that's work for us to do. And so that might mean if we can't get that work done, then we can't give clear direction, It's part of the... Thank you. |
| 03:49:41.81 | Chris Zapata | I mean, this is great progress from two years ago. two years ago, you walk into a city and you see what I call a city run by committee. And it was really difficult for me to kind of see how we could staff and meet the demands given the short Um, resources we had. So this is a positive. So I wanna thank you for that for real. And I really wanna say that, you know, I owe you something now, not just gratitude, but a report. And so I will work with us here to summarize what I think I heard, but I think it's clear to me now. And it wasn't clear to me last week. I thought I heard, keep them going. And I thought I heard, kill them. Now I heard it's something else. |
| 03:50:22.36 | Mayor (Unknown) | So I think you have direction and also I think the city, the city council has given you direction. to determine what makes the most sense in terms of staff time. So we have agreed together that there is not a requirement to keep and maintain all of the boards and commissions in the mode that they function now, and you're gonna work with staff to decide what the best path forward is and come back to us with a report on that. and then, and I... |
| 03:50:44.47 | Magda Gonzalez | make some sense. |
| 03:50:45.88 | Mayor (Unknown) | And I also would like to ask that staff send a doodle for a special meeting for continuation of a priority setting conversation. with more ample time. or just with one distinct agenda item, given how much we all have to say. Council Member Hoffman, I see your hands. |
| 03:51:02.42 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah, I just wanted to comment real quickly. The choice wasn't to kill them. So it's not to kill them. It's to move them to a non-Brown Act. you know, status. So like I, you know, it's not, I don't want to kill a committee. I don't want to kill a community group that has an effort. It's, I want them to be able to function independently of staff. So just to be clear, I think that was an unfair characterization. |
| 03:51:29.15 | Magda Gonzalez | Can I ask a question as someone who's listening for clarity for help for the city manager is an option to merge? I'm not suggesting I don't know anybody. Is that an option that can come forward? |
| 03:51:43.75 | Mayor (Unknown) | whatever direction the city manager wants to give. I think we're giving prerogative to the city managers to make the decision that works best with staff time. That's most efficient. It's the best use of council time and the city manager's time going forward. |
| 03:51:54.53 | Chris Zapata | Yeah, yeah, and let me apologize for my poor choice of words. you know, That was the wrong word to use for all of our great volunteers. Be more efficient, I think, is a better term. Thank you. And then, yeah, we have looked at merging, and we'll continue to look at merging if that makes sense. |
| 03:52:11.10 | Mayor (Unknown) | Okay, so we'll wait for that report from you, and then also we'll send a doodle for another continued special priority setting meeting. And I think that that wraps it up. So I really want to thank our facilitators, our city staff for being here on a Friday, because due to efficiency measures that our city manager took on, actually our city hall is closed on Friday. So this is very thoughtful for everyone to give the additional time for us to put this in. And I really... appreciate it and look out for a doodle. Thank you very much and I'm going to adjourn the meeting at 1227. |
| 03:52:38.96 | Janelle Kellman | All right. |
| 03:52:39.33 | Mayor (Unknown) | Thank you. |
| 03:52:39.44 | Janelle Kellman | Thank you. |
| 03:52:39.55 | Mayor (Unknown) | Thank you. |
| 03:52:39.66 | Janelle Kellman | AND I THINK IT'S A |
| 03:52:39.72 | Mayor (Unknown) | everybody. |
| 03:52:46.73 | Unknown | you |
Joe Caldwell — Against: Argued that the city's business tax structure is biased against professionals, proposing to eliminate tax classes and charge all businesses the same percentage of revenues to ensure equity. ▶ 📄
John DeRay — Neutral: Suggested reforming non-required committees to non-Brown Act or nonprofit models to better utilize city staff, citing understaffing and high turnover. Expressed willingness to continue volunteer work regardless of structure. ▶ 📄