| Time | Speaker | Text |
|---|---|---|
| 00:00:08.65 | Mike Noble | Yeah. |
| 00:00:09.03 | Steven Woodside | Welcome back to this regular city council meeting on May 23rd, 2023. We have no announcements from our closed session discussion. So I will. There's a quite a weird echo. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. I will now ask for a motion to approve the agenda for this evening's meeting. So moved. Second. Thank you. Okay, city clerk, will you please call the roll? |
| 00:00:36.85 | Walfred Solorzano | Councilmember Cox. Yes. Councilmember Hoffman. |
| 00:00:38.10 | Steven Woodside | Yes. Yes. |
| 00:00:41.58 | Walfred Solorzano | Councilman of Common. Yes. Vice Mayor Sobieski. Yes. And Mayor Blostein. |
| 00:00:42.37 | Steven Woodside | Yes. Yeah. Yes, motion carries unanimously. So we'll move forward with special presentations and mayor's announcements. Excited to introduce our new human resources manager, Kathy Nikitas, who is here with us. And our city manager is going to share a little bit about her and formally welcome her to Sausalito. We're so happy to have you here. |
| 00:01:03.56 | Chris Zapata | Thank you, mayor and council members of the public. It goes without saying that human resources are probably the most important part of our organization. And we've been through some changes and some real work in human resources. And I really wanna take this moment to thank our human resources consultant and her team, Deborah, much more. She got us through a year and a half and helped us recruit Kathy Nikitas all the way from the East Coast. So Kathy is from New Hampshire. Lifelong resident. uh, Her public service background includes police dispatcher, She was a legal assistant in the county attorney's office and an office manager. She was the county deputy finance director. And her HR background also includes public relations coordination. Her finance and HR experience melded together really fits Soslilo's needs. So we're very happy to help her. And the one thing that I thought was really important as we were talking to her in an interview, She's a musician and her knowledge of music and heritage that Sausalito has with the record plant is a perfect match. So we're very happy to have her. She can tell you a little more about herself, but I'd like you to have you help me welcome Kathy Nikitas to the city of Sausalito. |
| 00:02:23.27 | Mike Noble | Hey. Mike Noble, MNC, And you're done. turn it on. |
| 00:02:32.43 | Mike Noble | Oh, yeah. There we go. Thank you. Thank you. |
| 00:02:34.76 | Chris Zapata | Good evening. Thank you so much. City Manager Zapata. I am very pleased to be here. And I have to say that Chris mentioned Deborah much more, and I would call her the closer because when I spoke with her, when we were in the interview process, Having a conversation with her felt like I already worked here and I was part of this team. And that was really something that drew me in. I am very excited to be here. I know that there have been challenges that the city is working through, and I want to be part of that process and part of bringing Sausalito residents the service that they need, but really also bringing bringing the team that works here to their best, help them all achieve their best, because that's what really brings better services to the residents. I'm looking forward to taking your direction on where you're going with the, with budget ideas and, and helping, helping get everyone to where they want to be. I'm just, I'm pleased to be here. |
| 00:03:48.03 | Steven Woodside | Thank you so much. |
| 00:03:48.32 | Chris Zapata | Thank you. Thank you. Have any questions or? |
| 00:03:48.87 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:03:48.89 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 00:03:52.00 | Jill Hoffman | Not at this time. No, no. |
| 00:03:53.40 | Chris Zapata | Thank you. |
| 00:03:53.48 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, I have one question. Sure. Had you been to Sausalito prior to accepting the job? |
| 00:03:58.41 | Chris Zapata | Yes, I have, I have family in San Francisco that I'm staying with. And that was the reason that I moved out here from, you know, lifelong residency in New Hampshire. Yeah. Um, I have family and my brother and his husband just had a baby. 11 weeks ago. And I wanted to be around for to watch her grow up. So right now I'm staying with them while I look for a new new home, either in Sausalito or San Francisco. I'm going between the two right now, but that I've visited him many, many times, loved Sausalito. So. I loved visiting the headlands and going downtown. I've been here many times over the last 20 years. |
| 00:04:36.14 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:04:39.26 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:04:39.38 | Mike Noble | Thank you. |
| 00:04:39.40 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. Yes. Thank you. |
| 00:04:41.05 | Steven Woodside | Welcome. |
| 00:04:41.34 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:04:41.54 | Mike Noble | Okay, thank you very much. |
| 00:04:46.60 | Steven Woodside | Okay, so the next item on the agenda is the approval of the action minutes of the previous meeting, but I'll just note, as you all probably saw in your agenda for this evening that the minutes noted here were a revised version of the minutes from the February 28 2023 meeting. The action minutes from the previous meeting are still being edited by our city clerk, so those will appear on the June 13th agenda. So this is a motion to approve. Well, first, let's take public comment on the minutes from the February 28th, 2023 meeting. |
| 00:05:15.76 | Walfred Solorzano | I'm seeing none. |
| 00:05:17.89 | Steven Woodside | Okay. I will ask for a motion to approve the minutes from the February 28th, 2023 meeting. |
| 00:05:24.89 | Jill Hoffman | Second. I'll move. Great. Okay. Roll call vote, please. |
| 00:05:28.91 | Steven Woodside | Okay. Thank you. |
| 00:05:30.38 | Mike Noble | Councilman Cox. Oh, let me unmute her. And I muted her when I... Sorry. Yes. Thank you. |
| 00:05:43.71 | Walfred Solorzano | All right, Councilmember Hoffman. |
| 00:05:46.44 | Steven Woodside | Yes. |
| 00:05:46.96 | Walfred Solorzano | Councilmember Common? Yes. Vice Mayor Sobieski? Yes. And Mayor Blossy? |
| 00:05:48.01 | Steven Woodside | Yes. |
| 00:05:51.61 | Steven Woodside | Yes. Okay. Motion passes unanimously and we will move on to our consent calendar. Matters listed under the consent calendar are considered routine and non-controversial, require no discussion. are expected to have unanimous council support and may be enacted by the council in one motion in the form listed below. There will be no separate discussion of consent calendar items However, before the council votes on a motion to adopt the consent calendar items, Council members may request that specific items be removed from the calendar for separate action. Items removed from this consent calendar will be discussed later on the agenda when public comment will be heard on any item that was removed from the consent calendar. I just wanted to say I won't pull it from the agenda, but I want to make sure that folks acknowledge our city of Sausalito grants report because we recently won a COPS grant for just about half a million dollars and an additional um, solar grant for $40,000. So we are doing well, thanks to our hardworking grant writing team. and the efforts of the city. So I did want to acknowledge that. And I also wanted to ask our council member, Kelman, if she would be willing to read for us the proclamation for the June LGBTQ plus pride month and our approval to fly the pride flag during that month. |
| 00:06:59.14 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you, Mayor. I'd be delighted to. Many of you may know we have never had a Pride in Sausalito, Pride celebration. We've always been very proud. This is the very first year. So June 29th, June 30th, and July 1st. June 29th, we'll be opening at the SCA, the Sausalito Center for the Arts, with an LGBTQ-created art show. June 30th, we'll be in coordination with Parks and Recreation, with La Banda de la Nombre. So it'll be also known as Gay by the Bay. And then July 1st will be a drag show at Gene Hiller. And huge thank you to Gene Hiller for hosting that. So with that said, I will read the resolution. This is a resolution, I don't have a number quite yet, of the City Council of the City of Saucido, proclaiming June 2023 as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Plus Pride Month in the City of Saucido, and authorizing the Progress Pride flag to be flown at City Hall during the month of June 2023. Whereas the city of South Salado has a diverse LGBTQ plus community and is committed to supporting visibility, dignity, and equity for all people in the community. And whereas in honor of the 1969 Stonewall Uprising in Manhattan, June has become a symbolic month in which the LGBTQ plus community and their supporters come together. and various celebrations of pride with cities across the country recognizing and celebrating as LGBTQ plus Pride Month. And whereas LGBTQ plus people make vital contributions to and enhance the social and economic fabric of the city of Sausaludu, Whereas the city of Saucyutu has adopted a policy regarding the display of commemorative flags at city facilities that allows for the display of commemorative or ceremonial flags as a means of reflecting the city's viewpoint. And whereas members of the city council of the city of Saucyutu have requested that the city council approve the flying of the rainbow flag for the first week of the month of June. Although I believe that should be the full month of June. |
| 00:08:50.70 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. Yeah, it's a full, that's a typo. And it's also the progress flag. It's an intersex progress pride flag. That's the updated version that we're putting up. |
| 00:08:53.23 | Jill Hoffman | Oh. respect. |
| 00:09:01.53 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, wonderful. To further symbolize the city's viewpoint in celebrating the diversity of and support for the LGBTQ plus community. Now, therefore, be it resolved that the City Council of the City of Sausalito hereby proclaims June 2023 as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer Plus Diversity Month and establishes safe environments in our schools and community. Be it further resolved that the City Council of the City of Sausalito approves flying the progress prior to flag at City Hall during the month of June 2023. And while I have the mic, I do very much want to thank my colleagues for supporting this, for making this an open, trusting and equitable environment. And also thank our city manager for doing the same and all of our staff and our police chief who's here with us right now as well. So thank you, everybody. |
| 00:09:45.71 | Steven Woodside | Thank you very much, Councilmember Kelman. I am looking forward to the drag show at Gene Hiller, among many other events this coming month. So thank you for reading that aloud and sharing that with us. Does anyone have anything they'd like to pull from the consent calendar or request with regards to the consent calendar this evening? Okay, seeing none, I will open the consent calendar up for public comment. |
| 00:10:10.74 | Walfred Solorzano | See you, man. |
| 00:10:12.42 | Steven Woodside | Okay, I'll close public comment at this time and ask for a motion. |
| 00:10:15.51 | Walfred Solorzano | And can we make an amendment so we can say intersex progress pride flag? |
| 00:10:20.47 | Steven Woodside | Yes. |
| 00:10:20.96 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:10:21.12 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 00:10:23.00 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:10:23.04 | Steven Woodside | Oh. |
| 00:10:23.38 | Jill Hoffman | I'll move that. |
| 00:10:24.03 | Steven Woodside | we adopt the consent calendar. Thank you. City Clerk, may we have a roll call vote, please? |
| 00:10:30.26 | Walfred Solorzano | Councilmember Cox. Thank you. |
| 00:10:31.61 | Steven Woodside | Yes. |
| 00:10:31.68 | Walfred Solorzano | Yes. Councilmember Hoffman? |
| 00:10:33.35 | Steven Woodside | Yes. |
| 00:10:33.40 | Walfred Solorzano | Yes. Councilmember Cummins. Yes. Vice Mayor Sobieski. Yes. And Mayor Blossing. |
| 00:10:35.36 | Steven Woodside | Yes. Yes. Great. That motion passes unanimously and we will move forward. Item four is public hearing items and we have none this evening. So we'll move on to item five, which is. business items and the first item on the agenda. is our proposed discussion on the fiscal year 2023-24 budget. And we will be hearing from our city manager as well as our finance director, Chad Hess. |
| 00:11:02.76 | Chris Zapata | Thank you again, Mayor, Councilmembers of the public and my colleagues in the room. I want to thank you for letting me give you a brief introductory to this budget item. I want to say that the city staff very much appreciates the time you spent yesterday and the time you're spending this evening on the budget. Your focus on finance, infrastructure, people or city staff is, I think, truly, truly important. I know there are many other needs in the city, but those are the basics that we talked about over a year and a half ago. And for you to stay focused on them is really important, especially as we work on our budget. And speaking of the budget, the city manager is charged. It's in our municipal code to present a budget to the city council, a balanced budget to the city council. So we're trying to do that, but the clock is ticking. I want to tell you all that, you know, we have a June 30th deadline that's state law. So we need to make sure that we understand that and do the work necessary to adopt that so we can put our budget out for the public and the community and our team to see. The budget is one thing in terms of like a Rubik's Cube last meeting and the meeting before you talked about the Measure L resources that the citizens generously approved and where you wanted to put that. So that meant that we had to move our budget numbers around. We talked yesterday about certain positions that we recommended be filled to help with infrastructure to manage our real estate portfolio. You give a specific direction on that. So we had to move the Rubik's Cube around and we have. And essentially what you see in the budget by department is a reflection of your values, where you put your money. You put it in public safety, you put it in parks, you put it in libraries, you put it in internal services like finance and legal and clerking. But all of that to say is we always have budgets that are our best estimates at this moment in time. In December, January, we'll be able to talk about mid-year adjustments because, again, we're projecting, we're estimating. Also, I'm happy to present that two years ago, we projected a $4.9 million deficit in our budget. Last year, we projected a $3.2 million budget deficit. This year, we're still projecting less money coming in than cash going out. So we still have a deficit. But the budget picture has been brightening significantly through some hard work and decision making that you all have sparked. And because expenses still exceed revenue, you know, we really want to make sure that people are mindful that everything that may be asked for, desired, is not possible in a way that people would like. So we'll do our best with, you know, trying to make sure that we sharpen our pencils on what our revenues look like and what our expenses look like. And that's what we've been doing. I also want to point back to the audit. Again, the adopted audit or the approved audit that was done this past year by independent consultant, Maison Associates, had a specific line item in it that I want to, again, note. The city of Sausalito has a policy of 5% and 10% set-asides in the budget for emergencies and economic downturn. The audited numbers that were presented by the auditor showed that the money aside from that in the general fund that was unassigned was another $7 million. So by city manager viewpoint, I always tell people, Saucelilo has about $10 million right now to deal with any contingency, any expense that may be coming. And so because we have a need to balance our budget by law, we will be asking you for some of that, and Chad will present that. And I also want to speak to some of the things I heard yesterday about, you know, what we aren't doing that's important. And I agree it's important. But first and foremost is we have to finish our budget by June 30th. And then I believe later this year we can have a conversation about our reserve level and we should. We can have a conversation about our long term and midterm budget planning. We can talk about service levels. Those things are important and should happen, but I think tonight I would ask you to focus on our budget and our capital improvement program so that we can bring you something to adopt by June 30th. With that, I'd like to turn it over to our interim finance director, Chad Hess, who's going to make a presentation for you all. |
| 00:15:38.59 | Chad Hess | Thank you, City Manager Zabada. Let me go ahead and share my screen with Council and the public. |
| 00:15:43.55 | Mike Noble | Thank you. |
| 00:15:44.56 | Chad Hess | Thank you. |
| 00:15:44.59 | Mike Noble | Let me know when you guys are able to see that. |
| 00:15:50.33 | Mike Noble | We can see it in our perspective. |
| 00:15:52.03 | Chad Hess | Awesome. Thank you, Chad. Thank you. All right, so tonight we're going to present to you, again, a preliminary budget. These slides have been updated from what is posted online. I want to disclose that. Today, the director of HR or HR consultant and our new HR manager |
| 00:16:05.87 | Unknown | So, |
| 00:16:11.90 | Chad Hess | and myself work diligently on refining and updating our wage and benefit calculations. We made progress on that and we brought that number back down to a more more reasonable expectations. So I went ahead and updated the numbers within our slides tonight to reflect that. So I just wanted to bring that forward as we move through these slides and discuss our budget tonight. So, The process that we have at hand is on May 9th, We discussed kind of a preliminary budget, and that was very rough numbers based on available data at the time. Today, May 23rd, we're bringing what we call a proposed budget, and this is what is recommended by staff. that we move forward with. This is our most refined version of this budget. It includes our most accurate and updated numbers for wage. And it also includes the CIP, that was presented on April 11th. Two weeks from now, we're going to bring that budget back. based on any minor comments or changes that we discussed tonight, And we'll have our first reading on June 13th. and the second reading on June 27th, where we formally adopt the budget. Again, this is required by state law that we get this done before June 30th. So in order to stay on track, these are the key dates at hand. Tonight we're gonna go ahead and start with our citywide funds concept. And again, this is very highly aggregated information. It includes all city funds with the exception of sewer. Sewer is carved out and it's its own entity within the city due to the restrictions on that revenue. So, We aggregate everything here, all our property taxes, sales taxes, rentals, parkings, et cetera. Now what I have on the screen here is the changes. I really want to focus on the changes from the last time we met on May 9th. when we discussed our preliminary budget. So here you can see on the slide, we have increased our revenue by about 870. $1,000. And that is broken up in between a couple of different things. We got some additional information from our consultants for transient occupancy tax, our hotel tax. So we went ahead and increased that line item by 110,000. We have additional intergovernmental revenue. This is related to a CIP project. As those CIP figures were brought into the budget, I included those external revenue sources that were supported by grants, and that is rolling up in that intergovernmental line. I've also included $225,000, and this was omitted from last presentation, And what this represents is the transfer of the sewer funds resources over the general fund. to carry, to compensate the general fund for the administration of operating that fund. Now that has been a transfer that we've done consistently in the past. So that's not a new transfer coming over to the general fund. It was just one of those things that needed to be included in this based on the citywide revenue concept. We also looked at our revenues and here you can see again the changes between the preliminary and the proposed. Now, I have some fairly large numbers on the screen that I want to make sure that we fully understand. So we have. salaries and benefits. and retiree benefits. Now, there are a couple things at play between those two groups. The first one here, when we look at salaries and benefits, is due to primarily a reclassification between where the pension UAL payment was rolling up I found inconsistencies between various departments and functions, so I wanted to go ahead and make those consistent and put the UAL payment within that retiree's benefit line item. So that is a driver of that change between salaries and benefits and retirees benefits. I also have some additional information on the CalPERS UAL payment for fiscal year 24. In our preliminary budget, unfortunately using the prior year's UAL payment. Going from fiscal year 23 to fiscal year 24, the UAL payment will decrease by about $700,000. because of HELPER's fiscal year 2020, Result. where they had a very large gain on investment return. Now, I do want to caution council and the public that that is projected to be a temporary change. Looking at CalPERS plan performance of fiscal year 2022, The market was down as of June 30th, and CalPERS had one of its worst years in the last decade where it posted a negative 6.1% return. The point I want you to want to make and have everyone understand that that decrease in the UAL payment is temporary this year. I fully expect it to increase back to previous levels if not exceed previous levels. So that's a temporary savings. The other change that was made here is I've included the capital outlay from the CIP plan that was presented on April 11th. So Director McGowan proposed all of those projects, the current and the new projects that he would like to bring forward for fiscal year 24. Those have been incorporated into this. Next slide. Now, looking at our citywide revenues, less expenses, we're projected to have a $429,000 deficit for that fiscal year. This is an improvement. Well, I guess if we look at compared to the preliminary, it is worse off. But again, this did not include the CIP. Um, in the initial preliminary budget. But again, this decrease proposed deficit of $429,000 is greatly reduced from prior years, as city manager Zabata has mentioned. Next, I want to look at the general fund. So again, as we talked about two weeks ago, the general fund represents about 70% of the revenues and expenses of the citywide fund. Here we've got a couple of changes. The first thing that I want to note is the sales and use task. You can see here that that whose budget has been decreased by about 2.9 million dollars. And what this represents is the Measure L funding. In the past, when we had Measure O, all of those dollars were originally receipted within the general fund, and then they would be transferred over to the capital projects fund. This, I believe, muddied the waters a little bit because it overinflated the sales and use tax within that fund But the transfer was counted down below where it was counted as a transfer out. And it gave kind of a misleading perspective. I am proposing that we put those Measure L dollars within a special revenue fund outside of the general fund which will allow us to better track those sales tax dollars and ensure that they are used exclusively on capital projects related to infrastructure and maintenance of that, those infrastructure assets. So that is the noticeable change here, and it does reduce our revenue from proposed $22.3 million down to $20.3 million. But I also am bringing in the transfers from MLK fund. The $825,000 represents a transfer from MLK of $700,000. as well as a transfer from Old City Hall of $125,000. Um, Those transfers have been done in the past and those were brought into general fund to help compensate for some additional Um, to make up for additional revenue and subsidize the operations of the general fund. And again, here you can see that transient occupancy tax increase. All of those sales tax dollars are recorded directly into the general fund. Next, we're going to look at the expenses. We're going to look at them by the object, salaries and benefits, retirees, professional services, et cetera. Again, I want to note the change between salaries and benefits. The general fund carries the largest portion of the UAL payment. Here you can see that there's a large reduction between salaries and benefits and retirees benefits by over a million dollars. What makes up that million dollars is about 600,000 of UAL reduction. within the general fund. We also froze the two Um, Previously frozen, the police department's officer positions, there were always two frozen When we presented the preliminary budget, we showed you the maximum salaries and benefits with all positions unfrozen. Based on that discussion, we went ahead and refroze those two positions. And then based on the information that we gained last or yesterday during our special session, We went ahead and removed the real estate manager from the salaries and benefits line item. So those are the primary drivers for the reduction between the salaries and benefits and retirees benefits. Professional services has a slight increase as well as supplies and Capital outlay had a reduction of $150,000. And what this is, is this represents a reclassification or being more intentional with using our general fund resources. We transferred the $150,000 of planned police expenditures or capital items over to the police grant fund just to utilize those restricted dollars before we leveraged our unrestricted dollars. Also, you can see on the screen the reduction of transfers out. This was the originally presented $1.2 million transfer from the general fund. over to the capital project fund. Since we removed the revenue of Measure L, I removed the transfer out. of Measure L as well. just to ensure that, again, all dollars for that sales tax are accounted for correctly and ensure that all of those go to infrastructure improvements within the city. After all of those adjustments, I'm pleased to show you that we do have a slight surplus or a small surplus in the general fund. of about $8,572. So to me, that is basically a balanced budget within the general fund. Looking at citywide funds, we still have that deficit. We're still spending more than we bring in for that fiscal year. But from an operation standpoint, we do have a balanced budget within the general fund. I do want to know we have reduced our service levels in the past and we have that deferred infrastructure So we can't get too excited over this. this balanced budget this year. And also that UAL payment will be back in full force next year. when CalPERS actuarial valuation is released. So, We do have some good news this year, but I want to be cautiously optimistic. as we move forward into future fiscal years. Here I want to present the general fund expenses by department. One of the biggest changes that you'll notice is we've broken out general government. |
| 00:27:41.24 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:27:41.42 | Chad Hess | In the past, we've lumped city council, administration, legal, finance, technology, and non-departmental into one category, And we wanted to bring some additional visibility to those functions. So I've broken out those. within this screen here and you can see that I don't have prior to your data simply because a lot of that stuff was commingled within the same account. So we're going to go ahead and track that in more detail going forward, just to have a better understanding of what various things cost within the general government domain. . The large chain in total, we have about $1.4 million decrease in general government. A large portion of that is the transfer out of the measure L dollars. $1.2 million was removed from that general government because that was grouped within that non-departmental Grouping. There is also some UAL savings within that, as well as the removal of the real estate manager position within the administration grouping. Library had a slight decrease simply due to the refinement of our wage and benefit calculations. Police, you can see a large reduction of about 1.1 million, and we are not cutting any positions within the police department. We simply are removing those two previously frozen positions. And then there was a $520,000 UAL savings within that police department. Again, simply because of the better performance of CalPERS in 2020. I fully expect that UAL payment to be back in full force. next year. Moving forward, um, Community development and recreation, there was some refinement on where individuals were rolling up. We had noticed that there was one individual who was, was, coded incorrectly in the system. So we went ahead and rectified that. as well as some UAL savings within those departments and refinement of our wage and benefit calculations. |
| 00:29:40.97 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:29:42.37 | Chad Hess | Again, you can see that $8,572 surplus for this fiscal year. So again, we have a balanced budget from a general fund operating standpoint. |
| 00:29:58.15 | Chad Hess | I do want to provide a little update on the general fund performance for our current fiscal year, fiscal year 23. On this slide here, you can see that our mid-year projection, that first column, we had an anticipated deficit of 511,000. Based on additional information, I have a projection, a fiscal year 23 projection, which will be that far right column. I believe we will end the year up just over a million dollars. in the blast. The primary portion of the savings We have about $800,000 worth of salary savings within the general fund due to vacant positions that had a longer than expected vacancy. And then professional services had a decrease of about $500,000 due to bringing more positions back in-house. in planning and building services. We also saved some finance or consulting fees within the finance department. Supplies and materials were trending under budget in fiscal year 23 by about 240,000. And this is really due to the department heads being very diligent at controlling their costs. Now, it is the city manager's recommendation that this savings, if truly realized and we're in the black by slightly over a million dollars, that we would take this surplus and invest it within our Section 115 trust for pensions. The goal here is to set aside those dollars to enable the city to better plan for those larger UEL payments that are coming down the road when they peak in fiscal years 28 through 31. You can see here down on the lower section, I have our fund balance restrictions. And you can see here on the projected column, I have increased that restricted contribution. by the fiscal year 23's projected surplus. When we start looking at our unassigned fund balance, Here is that $7,000 or $7 million that city manager Zapata keeps talking about, that unassigned fund balance. That's the available resources that we can use. to meet the city's needs. You can see here we have a slight increase based on our projection. Um, above and beyond the plan deficit that we had over here. So, At the end of the day, we're looking at between 50% of fiscal year 24's projected expenses or up to 53% based upon the actual results of fiscal year 23, and the fiscal year 24 performance. So again, we have some good news, but I want to be very cautious, very optimistic about this. that we do have large UAL payments coming in the future, and we have deferred maintenance that we need to make sure that we're attending to. Next, I'd like to talk about the MLP fund and show some of the highlighted changes here. The significant change within the MLK fund is the increase of that transfer out to the general fund. That was not part of the proposed. That is now on the table for fiscal year 24. We would like to transfer 700,000 out of the MLK fund, over to the general fund. All other budget items are very consistent to what we presented at the last meeting on May 9th. The parking fund is one of the primary business units of the city of Sausalito. Um, Here, we're looking at the revenues of about $2.3 million. That is basically unchanged from our prior meeting on May 9th. And the only change here is really within the salaries and benefits. line item where we've refined that calculation slightly to give a more accurate reflection of that true cost of labor. I do want to remind everyone that the increase from fiscal year 23 to 24 in wages and benefits. is due to the fact that we are now going to code those parking enforcement officers to the parking fund as well as record the the transaction processing fees for the credit card transactions within the parking fund. As stated before, those have been recorded within the general fund in the past. And the objective here is to really ensure that we're showing what is the true net income of this parking endeavor? We are projecting to transfer 1.5 million out of the parking fund this year. And that would leave us with a slight deficit this year of $23,000. The Tidelands Fund remains basically unseen from the last time that we presented. So that we have a surplus of 395,000. We have been having discussions with State Lands Commission on ways to utilize those dollars. As noted in the staff report, one of the parks um, is within that title as granted land. So I think with a little bit of effort, we could expense some of those maintenance costs for the maintaining those side parks that are available to the community. So there are some ways that we can start to use these dollars, but we do have a surplus of revenue within that Tidelands fund. that we need to just be more intentional on using. Next, we'll talk about the sewer fund. The sewer fund, I have included the projected capital outlay above and beyond what we've seen last time. Here we're projecting to have a deficit in the sewer fund of about $727,000. But I do want to draw your attention down to our cash balances. We have a $6.2 million worth of cash within the sewer fund. |
| 00:35:42.06 | Unknown | But I do. |
| 00:35:51.19 | Chad Hess | And the restricted tax is is going to be used for those capital expenditures. This is leftover bond dollars back from 2015 that is still unused. |
| 00:36:04.54 | Chad Hess | Now I want to give just a line by line or a fund by fund recap of our citywide fund. All of these will add up to our citywide revenues and expenses that we've talked about on the first couple of slides. Here you can see that the general fund has that 800 or 8,000 $8,572 change in fund balance. Old City Hall is projected to have a surplus of about 45,000. MLK a slight deficit of $74,000, mainly due to that transfer out. The parking fund has a deficit of $23,000, again, due to that $1.5 million transfer. And then the Bank of America building, this is one of the first years of that lease for the Staseluto Art. and the first Several lease payments for that lease were at a reduced amount. So this year we have a deficit of 54,000. In future years, that lease payment will cover the debt service And that building has a triple net lease, so we should have very, very little maintenance cost moving forward. Here we're going to look at our special revenue funds. Um, These are a variety of revenue sources that are available to the city. Most of these you can see denoted with that little letter C over here to the far right. Those are where a lot of our capital projects are financed. You can see gas tax, construction impact fees, county measure A, Um, And then also down here, I want to draw your attention to this measure L sales tax. This is where those measure L dollars are now going to be reseeded. You can see that 2.1 $9 million here, that's our projection for measure L. And based on the CIP plan that Director McGowan presented, we have $1.9 million of projected transfers based on the CIP plan. One of the requests that I have for council tonight is to help us determine what should we do with the additional $1 million that's available this year based on our projections. The city council or the city manager would like us to invest or recommend that we invest half of that within roads. road infrastructure within the city. He recommends that we invest 20% of that or $200,000 for storm drain improvement. 20% of that within landslide mitigation. and then 10% or 100,000 be invested in improving city facilities to become more energy efficient. The other thing that I want to draw your attention to is the Sea Level Rise grant. We received a million dollars within fiscal year 23. So that is included in this opening balance, our updated opening balance. There's the million dollars. We're projected to spend about $600,000 of that doing research and looking at Um, sea level rise. Now- That's included in our expenditures and our change in fund balance. But I want to note that there's very, very little revenue associated with that grant this year. So that is part of our projected deficit. for fiscal year 24. Moving forward, we have a few more restricted funds. These are our debt service funds. our Tidelands Loan Fund, which we pay $72,000 the next couple of years. And then that debt will fall off the book. and as well as our GeoBonds 2006 A and B series. This fund has a separate levy tax levy. that is collected to pay those debt service payments relating to our police and fire stations. We also have our OPEB trust here, which has a balance of about 1.8 million. Overall, you can see here, here's our $429,000 deficit for citywide funds that will reconcile back to those first few slides. So these last three slides will give you the detail of what makes up that deficit. On this slide here, I have our scheduled fund transfers. You can see here that we're bringing in 2.9 million within or to our capital projects fund. from various sources, measure L being the largest of them. And then here you can see our general fund is being supported by the, the transfer from sewer. Again, that is for the administrative costs of, of, that are involved in the sewer fund. The Tidelands Fund has always transferred $200,000 to the general. Again, that is to offset the administrative costs that are incurred for managing that fund and the rental property. MLK is bringing $700,000 to the general fund. Old City Hall, 125,000. and then the parking fund $1.5 million for a total subsidy to the general fund of $2,750,000. And then we have our last transfer, which is from the Tidelands Fund over to the Debt Service Fund to make that debt service payment. to the state. Our next steps that we have in front of council Staff recommends that we move forward with the operating budget as presented. We need to adopt the CIP plan that was presented on April 11th. And then also discuss how we want to dedicate those available Measure L funds to additional CIP projects. Again, it's city manager's recommendation that we invest 50% in the street. 20% into storm drains. 20% of that into landslide mitigation. and the remaining 10% into improving city buildings for energy efficiency and looking for grant resources to assist that. And also in June, we need city council to approve the GAN limit calculation. And that is a technicality that we will or a formality that we'll bring forward. at the June meeting. I next want to give a quick update on the budget calendar. Here you can see we have June 13th, which will be our first budget hearing. June 27th is when we will formally adopt that budget. And then I want to start a mid-year review. November 1st. And then November 15th, My goal is to complete our fiscal year 23 audit so we have good updated ending balances as we start our fiscal year 25 budget. My goal is to start fiscal year 25 budget January 16th or sooner, if at all possible. So with that, I'd like to open it up for questions and comments. |
| 00:42:47.11 | Steven Woodside | Thank you so much, Director Hess and City Manager. And also, thank you, Kathy, for already hitting the ground running here and helping with some of these assessments for staff. And I really... Appreciate the effort. And we've had a number of meetings on this and staff has done a great job of responding to our concerns and putting together a budget for us to consider. So really appreciate all of your time and effort. And I'm very pleased with what we're looking at this evening. So with that, I'll just open it up to questions on the dais before we take public comment. Councilmember Cox. |
| 00:43:20.81 | Joan Cox | you |
| 00:43:20.82 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 00:43:21.46 | Joan Cox | Thank you. um, Thank you for that very clear presentation. Chad and for incorporating some of our prior direction in such a rapid manner. I suppose this is probably a silly question, I, did not follow your Discussion regarding the $1 million sea level rise grant. creating somehow a 400 and some thousand dollar deficit this year. |
| 00:43:46.59 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 00:43:52.14 | Joan Cox | I just does not logically compute to me how grant funding |
| 00:43:55.45 | Chad Hess | Thank you. |
| 00:43:56.16 | Joan Cox | turns into a deficit calculation. |
| 00:43:58.13 | Chad Hess | Thank you. Yeah, yeah, I understand. Let me see if I can erase my... Mark, sure. One second. discard my annotations. Sorry about that. Let me bring that back up on the screen. and we can have that discussion. So the million dollar sea level rise grant is within our city funds at the beginning of the fiscal year. So when we talk about that change in balance, whether we have a surplus or a deficit, It's looking at current year revenues and expenses. So looking at this change in balance, which will total up when we add all of those to the 429,000. There's a $570,000 in change and fund balance. on that fund simply because we had the revenue At the beginning of the year in fiscal year 23, And it's not part of current year revenues. When we talk kind of a current year surplus or deficit, we're looking at just the current year. |
| 00:45:11.07 | Joan Cox | But why do we call an expense against grant funding a deficit? |
| 00:45:11.08 | Chad Hess | So- |
| 00:45:17.51 | Joan Cox | If we're just spending the grant funding |
| 00:45:17.66 | Mike Noble | We've just spent... |
| 00:45:18.56 | Chad Hess | and it's, |
| 00:45:18.61 | Mike Noble | Thank you. |
| 00:45:18.63 | Chad Hess | Thank you. |
| 00:45:20.32 | Joan Cox | for its intended purpose. |
| 00:45:21.75 | Chad Hess | Thank you. We are, and it's a current year deficit. If we look at it over a two year period, it's not a deficit. But I'm just, I see where you're coming from. It is spending those grant resources in a subsequent fiscal year. |
| 00:45:39.38 | Joan Cox | Yeah. But we booked, but we carried over the revenue into why are we not carrying over the, fund balance into this year and simply showing that we're spending |
| 00:45:50.01 | Chad Hess | Right. Right here, $430,000 is what would be left of that grant. So we started with a million. |
| 00:45:55.94 | Joan Cox | Right. |
| 00:45:57.83 | Chad Hess | We're gonna earn about... |
| 00:45:58.35 | Joan Cox | Perhaps it's just the nomenclature. When you, you say you frame it as a change in balance, When you say deficit, it makes my skin crawl. When you say we spent part of our million dollar grant in the manner we were intended to, I have no problem with that. But when you say we're deficit spending, that tells me we're spending more money than we have. That's my definition of deficit. So it just, and I think that's shared by some members of the public. And there's this whole reputation |
| 00:46:19.76 | Unknown | MAKING A LITTLE BIT OF |
| 00:46:23.09 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 00:46:28.88 | Joan Cox | that the city council has for deficit spending, spending money it doesn't have. Here, we're not spending money we don't have. We're spending money we do have we're allocating it towards certain expenses in different years. So I just wanted to clarify that nomenclature. |
| 00:46:42.23 | Chad Hess | to clarify. Certainly. Thank you. |
| 00:46:46.09 | Ian Sobieski | So- |
| 00:46:46.21 | Chad Hess | Yeah, we're not overspending. |
| 00:46:48.35 | Ian Sobieski | So I agree with that. Exactly the same question in a different category. I think Councilmember Cox summarized it well, and this is something which, first off, just congratulations on a great presentation. Truly. On clarity of communication. But the same issue, doesn't the same thing that Councilmember Cox just identified in regards to sea level rise apply to the capital spending that you identified? Yes. |
| 00:46:48.45 | Chad Hess | which I agree with that. |
| 00:46:58.41 | Joan Cox | Truly. |
| 00:47:11.40 | Ian Sobieski | the so-called deficit that you outlined is a consequence of a decision to spend money that was raised in previous years of taxes and not spent on capital spending this year on capital spending. So it's a discretionary payment to invest in our infrastructure that if we chose not to, if we decided to spend less on CIP this year, then we looked at from director McGowan, then that one slide where you identified a so-called deficit would not be a deficit. It would be |
| 00:47:27.25 | Unknown | to. |
| 00:47:43.80 | Ian Sobieski | Right. That's correct. So are we combining two things in one slide? That's a little confusing. We have an operating, we have the operations of the city, which are in surplus. And then we decide whether to spend 100% of that surplus on CIP or 150% of that surplus. And if you spend more, then of course... |
| 00:47:43.84 | Chad Hess | Right. |
| 00:47:44.80 | Bob Silvestri | That's right. |
| 00:47:44.87 | Chad Hess | Correct. |
| 00:48:03.85 | Ian Sobieski | you're spending more, but that money it's not money we were borrowing or didn't have it's money that came from revenue in previous years. And it's been sitting in a fund. It's been sitting in a pocket. Thank you. |
| 00:48:14.35 | Chad Hess | We can call it. |
| 00:48:15.28 | Ian Sobieski | and your other genes. |
| 00:48:17.84 | Chad Hess | Yes, you have a very valid point. And I think maybe one way to relate that would be if we look at the federal government, there is, the annual deficit. And then there is the national debt. whereas the national debt is accumulation of all prior years deficits. When I talk deficit, we're looking at just one fiscal year. |
| 00:48:40.10 | Ian Sobieski | Could you go back to that slide? It's a slide where you showed that we had an operating surplus, but through. |
| 00:48:46.88 | Chad Hess | this one right. |
| 00:48:48.97 | Ian Sobieski | Let me go. |
| 00:48:49.38 | Chad Hess | up. |
| 00:48:49.65 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. general fund it was the overall Right here. CIP in there. |
| 00:48:54.27 | Chad Hess | Yeah, when I added in this 4.6 million of CIP. |
| 00:48:57.23 | Ian Sobieski | Right. I mean, you have a $1.4 million you know, |
| 00:49:00.21 | Chad Hess | you. |
| 00:49:00.23 | Ian Sobieski | surplus that half million dollar deficit because you go from spending 1.5 million 1.15 million in |
| 00:49:00.25 | Chad Hess | Certainly. that term. |
| 00:49:07.81 | Ian Sobieski | capital improvements to 4.6 million. And you didn't take that money from debts, you didn't take debt dollars and you didn't take money from our reserves. It's rather just money that's accumulated in the capital funds or in unassigned funds that we've decided to spend this year. So we could make that deficit a lot worse if we decided to spend two more million on roads, right? Then we'd have two and a half million instead of half a million. And I'm just wondering if for the sake of clarity for us in the next presentation or to the public, we could somehow capture that idea because it helps to understand what's an operating deficit and |
| 00:49:30.64 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 00:49:30.66 | Chad Hess | You were correct. |
| 00:49:47.78 | Ian Sobieski | and what It costs to keep the lights on versus what it costs to make capital outlays. And we have an infrastructure deficit for sure. Anyone who drives on our streets knows that. So that's not to say. that we're flush with cash because we have liabilities that haven't been ascertained. But to exactly Council Member Cox's point, the way it's described, is that we get a grant one year and it put a million dollars on the books. And then when we have expenses against that grant, it looks like we are creating a deficit when we actually aren't. Yeah. |
| 00:50:18.65 | Joan Cox | Yeah. Is there a reason we have to characterize it as a deficit? Can't we just say it's an expense against an existing um, a fund balance for its intended purpose. |
| 00:50:30.95 | Chad Hess | Thank you. |
| 00:50:32.37 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 00:50:32.38 | Chad Hess | Yes, if you'd like me to use a different word for that, I certainly can. When I'm talking about it as one accounting period. |
| 00:50:36.32 | Joan Cox | when I |
| 00:50:40.94 | Chad Hess | we're not overdrawing our checkbook. in that, in that regard. We're drawing down some savings. that we've earned or we're spending income that we earned last year. in the fiscal year 2020. |
| 00:50:54.03 | Joan Cox | Deposit spending to me indicates we're spending more than we have. Here, we're spending money we have. We are appropriately allocating money. expenses using our fund balances for their intended purpose. That seems like sound decision-making to me as opposed to |
| 00:51:04.63 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:51:04.67 | Chris Zapata | Yeah. |
| 00:51:04.70 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 00:51:04.72 | Chris Zapata | Thank you. |
| 00:51:04.75 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:51:15.01 | Joan Cox | unsound decision making, which is what to me, deficit spending implies. |
| 00:51:22.43 | Melissa Blaustein | Yeah. |
| 00:51:22.55 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 00:51:22.66 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 00:51:22.82 | Joan Cox | follow up on that. |
| 00:51:23.97 | Chad Hess | Point taken. You're exactly right. We're intentionally drawing down our savings. |
| 00:51:24.63 | Joan Cox | Ken. |
| 00:51:29.12 | Chad Hess | Maybe. |
| 00:51:30.86 | Melissa Blaustein | So I have a follow up on that. And city manager, I might invite you to jump in as well as our fiscal. as our fiscal administrator for the city of Sausalito. So this discussion about how you characterize spending and what accounting principles you use, we've been talking about that, the difference between operating expenses and revenues. and how we describe that or how we, in accordance with accounting principles, how we book that. When you start going into your savings, which is what a reserve fund is, right? That's accumulated there for, you know, for whatever prior decisions were made, but we have, you know, a certain amount of reserve and how much we should be using that reserve. Um, the way I think. we address it right now is that it's not, it has to be characterized as something other than Other than revenues, other than current year revenues. And so city manager, we discussed that today a little bit, if you'd like to weigh in on that, at least for this year's procedures in accordance with how we've addressed this in the past and general accounting practices, I think that would be helpful for us. |
| 00:52:48.70 | Chris Zapata | Yeah, let's let Chad take the first stab at it, council member. I don't wanna over- |
| 00:52:52.89 | Melissa Blaustein | I think Chad has taken a stab at it. And I think we need to have |
| 00:52:56.90 | Mike Noble | Yeah, I welcome your input, city manager. |
| 00:53:03.62 | Chris Zapata | You're asking me if we are spending more than we're taking in. |
| 00:53:07.18 | Melissa Blaustein | No, the issue that we're talking about right now is a policy decision about how we how we characterize spending on whatever expenses we decided to do for the year. how we characterize that. I think what I'm hearing from both the council member Cox and council member Sobieski, is, whether or not how we characterize that when we pull money from our reserves. to make capital improvements or whatever improvement we make. So. You know, it's a policy question. I think. you know, transparency and how we're using our money and how we're booking it now. as an accounting practice. And I think what we're trying to discuss is, whether or not we want to continue to address reserve spend in a different way than we're addressing it. And so. I think Chad is giving us an operating budget and a budget for next year accounting for that. AND, I think we discussed this earlier today about how to at least for this year, how to adhere to that. and whether or not we want to make adjustments after a policy discussion going forward. But do you recall that discussion that we had or no? |
| 00:54:19.82 | Chris Zapata | I do. I'm a little confused about my understanding of it. So let me see if I can just take a stab at it. What Sausalito does is what most cities do. They have a general fund and they have other special funds, enterprise funds, etc. And what we're doing today is telling you about all of these funds and all the expenses. I understand the questions about whether or not we're spending in a deficit scenario with our grants. I think we can make that clearer, and we will. I understand the questions about whether or not we're spending in a deficit scenario with our grants. I think we can make that clearer, and we will. When it comes to are we actually spending in more than we're taking in, I think the answer is yes. And the reason we spend more than we take in is for fixed expenses. But the reason I believe that we don't show a true budget is because we have never really gotten into what our obligations are on the infrastructure side. And as we tried to do that a year ago, a year and a half ago, we said we had big obligations with our streets, big obligations with our buildings, big obligations with our sidewalks and stairs. And so we also said that, you know, if we have money in the bank, how much should we have? But the real question is, where as a policy making body, do you sit on how you spend what you've saved? Are you actually saving money when you should be spending it? Because the bottom line is your infrastructure costs more when you let it linger? Are you spending enough money to retain, recruit people? That's another question. All of that to say, maybe not, but you've set money aside and you've protected that money through these 115 trusts, through these 5% and 10% policies. And so I think what I'm thinking this council really should focus on is what's adequate. He showed you that chart that showed 50% of our general fund is in the bank. Is that an adequate number? And what we talked about this morning is I don't believe we should work on percentages. 50% is $10 million. You know, could seem like a lot of money. I'd rather focus on, does the city council believe $10 million is enough in reserve? Don't pay attention to the governmental accounting standards at say two months, which is 16.67%, because that might work for LA, that might work for bigger cities. But in Sausalito's case, one expense could be $10 million. So the real question as a policy, I think it's what you're asking me, Council Member Hoffman, is what should you have in the bank as cash for emergencies or one-time expenses? And right now you have about $10 million that I believe is unrestricted what Chad has done. He's added some other funds into that to say you actually have a little bit more. But that would mean you wouldn't do anything with the stairs, anything with the old city hall building, anything with MLK. So you could take some of that and put it into that pot. But it's easier for me to say, you know, the auditor said there was $7.1 million of unassigned reserve after the audit was completed. And there's a 5% and 10% amount, which is approximately $3 million. So that's why I keep falling back on your reserve right now is at $10 million in total. But when you look at what's not even been assigned anywhere, it's $7 million, but that's all general fund money. I tend to shy away from the idea that we have $20 million or $15 million, because I think that there is really some need to attach projections and contingencies and operating costs to those funds that we've outlined today, whether it's MLK, the stair fund, old city hall fund, we know we're going to have expenses in those, we have current expenses in those, and to suggest that that all money is free and clear. Yeah, you could use it that way doesn't mean it'd be wise to do that. So that's my recollection of the conversation this morning Council Member Hoffman is that what you're asking me. |
| 00:58:18.84 | Melissa Blaustein | I think so. That was a longer explanation of the specific question. I think that I was getting at, but the concept of the concept of how you address and how you, how you, uh, appropriately address a spend that you're using from a reserve fund, whether it's general reserve fund or some other fund, Um, you know, and how you, how you, characterize that as an expense or you know, Right now, I think when we're reaching into our reserve fund, we're Closer to using it or booking it more as as an expense that's not funded. Right. And so that's that's the problem that I think I think that Councilmember Cox and the vice mayor has talked about. We talked a little bit about that yesterday at the end of our conversation of our special meeting and about addressing how we. address the reserve funds as they're currently set up. But really, that goes back to what you just said, Chris, about, you know, when you have a reserve fund, there's a reason why there's a It's capital improvement. estimate that's tied to revenue generating asset for Sausalito and what the capital improvement you know, costs are to maintain that revenue generating. We haven't done an assessment of that in a long time. about what we think, These capital... expenditures are going to be for our revenue, our specific revenue generating assets, I think that might be a good exercise for us to do. next fall, it'd be really good exercise for our real estate consultant to do as the expert in this and provide us a scope of you know, what the ongoing maintenance are for these large, you know, sort of revenue generating So that's MLK, the MLK facility, all of it. the parking lot, the Bank of America, the old city hall, right? So those four Those are big. facilities and they need ongoing capital improvements. I'm not aware of any schedule that we have right now. We kind of piecemeal it. And by the way, I want to add in one more, and that's our four or three major parks that we just redid. We really need some sort of fund, dedicated fund to maintain those as we move forward. I just got a message that the grass is brown at Dumpy Park. and a concern about that, right? Um, So anyway, but I think that's a larger discussion, a really good larger discussion for next, for some time when we're, we have time for it. Anyway, those are my thoughts. |
| 01:01:04.12 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. I just want to make sure Councilmember Cox was finished with her questions because she's not in the room. So I wanted to give her a chance. |
| 01:01:10.66 | Mike Noble | Thank you. |
| 01:01:13.85 | Mike Noble | You're on mute. |
| 01:01:20.60 | Mike Noble | I see myself in the room. |
| 01:01:22.04 | Joan Cox | So I think I'm in the room, but thank you so much, Mayor. And yes, I don't know that my question was fully answered. Um, You know, when we allocate measure L monies when we allocate sales tax revenues to spend in the way our sales tax revenues were intended to be spent I don't feel like that is deficit spending that's irresponsible. I feel as though that's under that's carrying out our obligation to generate revenues and then spend those revenues appropriately. And so my questions were geared towards ensuring that we communicate accurately about how we are managing the public fisc. And I, completely endorse Councilmember Hoffman's comments as well as those previously made by the city manager about the importance of accurately booking our obligations, our on a present value basis, just as we do for the sewer fund. Um, I think those are two separate things that we have to accurately track one, We've generated revenues and we're spending them as they are generated in order to defray long deferred maintenance, that infrastructure maintenance. I think that's a really key message that should not be characterized as deficit spending. And so I just wanted to ask questions to ensure that the manner in which we're communicating about the decisions we're making are accurately conveying the manner in which we're undertaking our responsibility to protect the public fisc. |
| 01:03:17.31 | Steven Woodside | Thanks, Councilmember Cox. Director Huss, do you want to respond to that? |
| 01:03:20.87 | Joan Cox | you |
| 01:03:20.89 | Chad Hess | Yes. I see your point and it is an intentional It's an intentional spending of previously accumulated resources to invest in infrastructure. We are not. We're not incurring debt to improve these resources. We are simply spending previously held dollars on that improvement. |
| 01:03:47.25 | Joan Cox | For their intended purpose. And we would, in fact... I hazard to say the irresponsible as The vice mayor mentioned, to not spend them and to just let them continue to accumulate as our infrastructure continues to deteriorate. |
| 01:04:02.18 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 01:04:02.28 | Sergio Rudin | Thank you. |
| 01:04:02.69 | Ian Sobieski | I agree. So, you know, I just want to echo that, Chad, you know, you and I have talked about this some, And it's worth just pointing out, you know, pick your number, between 10 and $15 million of unrestricted cash in the city's coffers. If we decided to go on an infrastructure binge of up-leveling the quality of Sausalito's infrastructure by taking $3 million over each year for the next three years and investing $9 million into infrastructure, under GAP, under GASB, That would be deficit spending. I mean, that's just a fact that's get what GASB is. It is, you have revenue in a current year. You can't look at previous years. You have to look at the current year and you have expenses. So if you're taking money out of savings to improve the infrastructure, that's gonna in one sense be deficit spending. And I think what you're hearing and from the city council members is we, you know, we're of course going to always have GASB. We're required to our audits are going to have that, but we need to translate these numbers. into things that are accurate for the public and for the city council, both to know and use as a basis to make decisions between investing in our people, in our infrastructure and for a rainy day. Those are our three choices. |
| 01:05:16.84 | Jill Hoffman | May I chime in, Mayor? Yes, please. Dr. I'm curious, you may be aware that we had analysis of our sewer sanitation district system or conveyance and our storm drains, then was found that we have $18 million worth of deferred maintenance, how are you factoring that in to. both a kind of a forward thinking. And then when you make decisions or recommendations that we do things like move $700,000 from the MLK fund into the general fund. when there's other deferred maintenance. How should we be thinking about that, right? To have $18 million in deferred maintenance in a system and also not have had a deficit in the past. Seems quite confusing to me. Can you help us understand that? |
| 01:06:06.35 | Chad Hess | Yeah. |
| 01:06:06.95 | Jill Hoffman | So, Hey, hey. |
| 01:06:08.95 | Chad Hess | The sewer funds deferred maintenance is, It is there. It's a fact that there is deferred maintenance within the sewer fund. Those revenues within the sewer need to keep pace with the cost of maintaining that service. As far as MLK goes, I think a facility of assessment would be appropriate to get a professional's view on what would it take to to maintain that facility or that, that, that, that structure in a manner that deep slip, ready for rental and makes it an appealing place for people to rent. I'm not qualified to do a facilities assessment to determine what type of repairs and needs that facility needs. But that type of plan would enable us to do a longer term forecast of revenues, expenditures, and what we need to set aside or allocate to improve that facility over time. |
| 01:07:13.80 | John Flavid | Yeah. |
| 01:07:13.81 | Mike Noble | Bye. |
| 01:07:14.83 | Chad Hess | I think that would be dollars well spent to have a professional look at those facilities. and give their recommendation on what type of resources we need to invest over what period of time. |
| 01:07:27.65 | Sandra Bushmaker | Thank you. |
| 01:07:27.68 | Jill Hoffman | Okay. |
| 01:07:27.82 | Chad Hess | Once we have that, we can map this out in a long-term plan. |
| 01:07:32.65 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. wholeheartedly agree and then I'm gonna follow up with Councilman Cox's question. Generally speaking, how does one record grant monies within our budget? Does it immediately go into the general fund if it's unrestricted? |
| 01:07:47.61 | Chad Hess | So most times grant dollars will be put into a special revenue fund to allow us to efficiently track the expenditures on that revenue source. If If the grant dollar comes in January 1st, and we spend all of it throughout, I'm sorry, let me back up. The grant dollars comes in, July 1st. And we spend all of those dollars before June 30th, every single one of them, we would have a balanced budget. in, in, in, This case, because of GASB or GAP, our generally accepted accounting principles, we look at things within an accounting period, one year, one calendar year. because those dollars came in at the end of, you know, one fiscal year and we plan to spend them on the other fiscal year. it's termed a deficit. Um, If we had a two-year fiscal period or accounting period, we could receive and spend those dollars in the same period and it would be a balanced budget. So it's, it's really just an accounting, concept. that we're debating on that specific |
| 01:08:59.33 | Mike Noble | Thank you. |
| 01:09:00.14 | Chad Hess | Grant Dollar. |
| 01:09:00.90 | Mike Noble | Thank you. |
| 01:09:02.66 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. Vice Mayor, do you have anything you wanted to? Okay. I just wanted to clarify because I don't know that it was clearly specified in your presentation. Given the projections this year that put us potentially in the black, although we're still operating, it's important to note, we're still operating at a deficit of around $400,000. I don't think that you specifically mentioned, but I wanted to... check in with the city manager. The recommendation from the city manager is that that surplus go into the 115 trust to pay down our UAL, which is anticipated to be higher, correct? |
| 01:09:33.57 | Chris Zapata | That's correct, Mayor. |
| 01:09:35.36 | Steven Woodside | Okay, and that's something you're looking for direction on this evening as well. |
| 01:09:38.33 | Unknown | uh, |
| 01:09:38.92 | Chris Zapata | That's correct, as well as the capital improvement program in terms of, you know, the measure L allocation that you directed this past meeting that we spend it in a certain way, because obviously, you know, that is not part of our thinking about two months ago. It was going to just be booked the way it was last year. You gave specific direction to incorporate that into the capital improvement program. So that means that fund that is the additional half a percent on the half percent that existed is there to allocate. And the allocation of that fund, I think, or that money in keeping with the promise of the voters on maintenance and infrastructure to allocate it to our CIP this coming year and do it in a way that makes it easy to implement. We know that we have bad streets. So that's one recommendation. We know that we have landslide issues that we need to work on. We know that we have storm drains that we need to work through. And we also have buildings that need to be retrofitted. So that would be another outcome of today is that you give us direction on how to spend that. And that recommendation, I think, is broken out by Chad, you know, in terms of half of it going to streets and the rest being divided up between the other three areas. If we can get that from you tonight, that would be helpful as well. |
| 01:11:04.53 | Steven Woodside | Great. Thank you very much, city manager. Do we have any other questions from the dais? Okay, I'm going to go ahead and open it up for public comment and city court, could you remind members of the public how they can make public comment at this time? |
| 01:11:15.56 | Walfred Solorzano | So in Council Chambers, we don't have anybody inside, but if you are on Zoom, you can press the raise hand function and we will call you by order. And if you're on phone by Zoom, you can just press star nine. First person we have is Sandra Bushmaker. |
| 01:11:31.48 | Mike Noble | Thank you. |
| 01:11:32.07 | Steven Woodside | Hi, Sandra. Welcome. |
| 01:11:32.96 | Mike Noble | you |
| 01:11:39.68 | Mike Noble | Hang on, I'm getting there. |
| 01:11:40.90 | Sandra Bushmaker | Thank you. |
| 01:11:41.28 | Mike Noble | Thank you. |
| 01:11:41.48 | Sandra Bushmaker | Evening, counsel. I think we're making progress on this budget issue. However, let me tell you what really bothers me. is we don't have a number for our deferred maintenance We don't have a number for our ongoing maintenance. So no matter how much transfer of funds, we go back and forth. We still... I believe we are still in a deficit. from uh, from implementing and paying for our needs. I would really love to see our deferred maintenance get up to speed. so that we are only operating, having to operate on a ongoing maintenance basis. I am concerned about the transfer of money out of these specific funds into the general fund. which may be rating those funds for the deferred maintenance on that particular asset, like MLK, for example. So I do have concerns about that, but it seems to me we should be putting a big effort into looking at these deferred maintenance expenditures and getting a handle on those And and also our ongoing maintenance. I can't tell you the number of times I've seen projects redone in Sausalito in my tenure here in this town. that failed because of lack of ongoing maintenance. So let's not get into the habit of continuing that practice because I think it costs us too much long haul. Thank you. |
| 01:13:14.89 | Steven Woodside | Thank you, Sandra. |
| 01:13:16.58 | Walfred Solorzano | Okay, next person is Vicki Nichols. |
| 01:13:24.44 | Vicki Nichols | Hello, I think I'm un-muted now. Good evening, Council. Thank you for the presentation. I have a couple of questions, one of which is the one near the first of the presentation, there were some slides that showed, I think he was, the director was calling it city funds or whatever. One of those categories is non-departmental. And it's at least $2 million. We used to be able to see sort of what was rolled up into that account. Is there a way to see what you're including in that account? That's number one. Number two is in referring to the CIP portion of this, and referencing Director McGowan's presentation in April. There were a number of projects there that were included in that, one of which was the grant and clarifying the city's obligations to take the grant under the plan that was proposed for the Sausalito. median project. I haven't heard any resolution as to If that design stands or not, that's a huge project. arguably the city community has not had any input on that. So is there any specifics about what specific projects you're considering tonight in the CIP budget? And what is, What are the categories that comprise non departmental expenses? Thank you. |
| 01:14:57.29 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. Do we have any further public comment at this time, Walford? |
| 01:15:00.10 | Alice Merrill | at this time. |
| 01:15:01.57 | Mike Noble | Thank you. |
| 01:15:01.96 | Walfred Solorzano | an opener pop. Thank you. you |
| 01:15:15.98 | Steven Woodside | Somebody is speaking on mute. |
| 01:15:16.88 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 01:15:16.91 | Chad Hess | Bye. |
| 01:15:17.30 | Alice Merrill | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 01:15:17.81 | Chad Hess | I can't hear you. |
| 01:15:19.73 | Steven Woodside | I guess my microphone wasn't on. I was just informing the public that our screen isn't working. So if it appears that we are looking down or not looking up, it's because we are using our respective devices to watch the presentations and watch each of you. So I appreciate your patience and understanding with our technical difficulties from within council chambers. So with that, I will bring the discussion back up to the dais with a reminder that there are three pieces that we're looking for, sorry, four pieces for direction on this evening. the discussion around what to do with the additional million of potential surplus from this year. the recommendations of the ongoing operating budget as planned. adoption of the CIP, and how we're going to spend those Measure L funds per the recommendations from city staff. So who would like to get us started? |
| 01:16:05.17 | Mike Noble | Thank you. |
| 01:16:05.71 | Steven Woodside | Yes, please, Councilmember Cox. Thank you. |
| 01:16:09.58 | Joan Cox | Thank you, Mayor. Um, I just want to address a couple of the things that Chad said that he was seeking direction on. So, Um, I endorse moving the one million dollars into the 115 trust. Um, Bye. endorse adopting our CIP fund and spending the Measure L funds as recommended 50% on roads, 20% on storm drains, 20% on landslide mitigations, 10% on improving city facilities to make them more energy. Efficient. Um, I endorse tracking the sales tax dollars outside of the general fund to comport with our promise to voters. that, of how we would spend those monies. I think it's really important that we maintain that practice of transferring into the CIP fund to ensure that we are not spending measure L dollars on purposes other than infrastructure and capital improvements. And I really fully endorse the concept of facilities assessments to ensure that we are properly allocating revenues and expenditures Uh, and properly setting aside monies for deferred maintenance and ongoing maintenance. um, just as I don't think that we should Um, accumulate. and not spend where Um, Infrastructure is crumbling. So too, I think we have to properly tracked the preservation of existing resources, Um, so that we show that as an expense that has not yet been booked and properly tracked. Yeah. just as we have done for our sewer fund, we adopted A 20-year plan. to address deferred maintenance. I'd like to see us do that with our other capital facilities. And those are my initial thoughts. Thank you. Thank you, Councilmember Cox. Thank you. |
| 01:18:35.85 | Mike Noble | Rosamond Rothman, yes, please. Go ahead. |
| 01:18:37.81 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 01:18:40.78 | Mike Noble | you |
| 01:18:40.80 | Melissa Blaustein | So good discussion up here at the council. Council level, I think I'm ready. agree that to support the recommended steps from the staff and the city manager of all four that we move forward with the operating budget as presented. And I'm looking at, yeah, I'm looking right at slide 23. Um, we adopt all of those in addition that we also, um, you know, the 2023 surplus into the pension trust fund to help account for what we know is going to be a boomerang sort of you know, uh, escalator of our pension number going forward based on the performance of the market or the non-performance of the market. both 2022 and what looks like to be also rather dismal returns in 2023. So those two years in a row are going to be have a quite a significant effect on our unfunded pension liability and the interest they're from. So in the compounding interest effect. So I am a little bit, you know, I would encourage us to do the facilities assessment and you know, directly allocating that to the current funds that we have. And I'm a little bit uneasy transferring funds out of those segregated funds without having that assessment. It looks to me like my basic math is about 2.3 million that we're removing from or transferring from the parking fund, the old city hall fund and the MLK fund over to the general fund. And so, but I understand why we're doing that this year and why, you know, what we're using those for. And I support that, but I'm very uneasy about it and hope that next year, What I suspect is once we have a facilities assessment of these assets, as well as a citywide capital review, that is going to far outstrip what we have in our reserves currently. And so to the vice mayor's point, then once we know that, we can more accurately start looking at how we're spending those reserve funds for capital improvements. So that's my thought process. |
| 01:20:58.49 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 01:20:58.51 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you, Councilmember Hoffman. Councilmember Kelman? Great. Thank you, Mayor. Excellent comments from Councilmember Cox and Councilmember Hoffman. Thank you for that, both of you. I'm just going to present my dissatisfaction with the use of the word surplus. And my reasoning for that is because I think what we're essentially doing— actually, let me pause and just thank Chad, because that was the clearest presentation I've seen on the budget since I've been on council. It was very easy to follow, and I hope the public feels that way. And if the public feels a different way, I'd like to hear that feedback because this was a vast improvement. But the reason I'm uncomfortable with the word surplus is because... Basically, what we're doing is making a decision to move money from let's say MLK from parking from city hall fund to put the money in the 115 trust. I think funding our 115 trust is a great idea. I think we should do that. I think we should have a thorough conversation about how much we want to fund the 115 trust. But on some level, I would like to call it that, that we've made that policy decision to fund our long-term debt obligation from a retirement perspective. And so that, of course, leads into the facilities assessment, which we don't have. But I think if we've gone through our parks, if you've gone to our facilities, you have some sense of some of the concerns that we have. And it's hard to do that, make that balancing act without just calling it what it is, which is we're making that policy decision around our long-term debt obligation. I think when we look at the facilities assessment, I would urge the Department of Public Works to work hand in hand with our new sustainability and resilience manager, because sea level rise monies, while not a restricted fund statutorily, were directed for particular use by the earmark by which they were granted by the state of California. But part of that is to enhance long-term resilience around infrastructure. So how does that play into some of the monies that we're looking at? And then also, I'm very interested in 50% of the CIP money is going to roads. And my interest is what would it cost to fix all our roads? What would it cost to fix 75%, 50%? And I asked this at the three meetings ago about what does that then do for our paving rating? What does that then do for our insurance? What are the other long-term benefits that we might see? So I think the sewer report, knowing that we have $18 million of deferred maintenance is probably the clearest example of how we may have balanced the budget in name, but $18 million worth of deferred maintenance suggests that perhaps we... you We didn't balance it in a manner that served our long-term resiliency. And so I think and I hope that's something that this council is interested in learning more about. And I would endorse the four recommendations as presented by staff. Thank you. Vice Mayor? |
| 01:23:41.86 | Ian Sobieski | Yeah, I would just love to echo that, what Councilmember Kellman just said. And it's why I'm advocating for of continuing the incredible progress of the finance department under city managers upon his leadership. And Chad has his hard work of clarifying. the kind of financial reporting we're getting. because the complexity of it has created Uh, GASB reported deficits that took on a life of their own in terms of narrative. And I think caused everyone to be gun shy on properly balancing spending. on maintenance. that we could have afforded in previous years. We erred on the side of putting money in the bank. The cash on hand in the city of Sausalito has increased over the last 10 years by $10 million. It's just a fact that's money in the bank. That's actually very useful right now because we're earning almost half a million dollars in interest for doing nothing on that cash. So it's actually a really happy situation. But we have been putting off this kind of maintenance. So the city manager told us that that's a subject for a slightly later day to talk about levels of service of which how to spend our CIP money is part of it. But I wholeheartedly endorse the idea of really looking holistically at where our strategic priorities are not just in random percentages, but do we want to prioritize bringing our pavement quality index up into the 90s out of the 60s? Or is there something around sea level rise or taking care of some of our buildings like City Hall here or something else that is higher up? It sounds like a pretty complicated exercise. I'm not sure we're staffed at DPW for this. my request or my comment is, that we might need to staff that in this budget. So I don't know if that's something the city manager wants to at least consider or if there's anyone else who thinks that we need to actually invest in our people and see DPW to do this kind of work. We might need to spend a little money to answer this kind of question. |
| 01:25:43.46 | Jill Hoffman | May I offer a a suggestion, which is that as Cushman Wakefield does work for us, that part of the contracts we have with them is to deliver that assessment. |
| 01:25:53.18 | Ian Sobieski | I love it. I love this idea of actually having some sort of complimentary effort to assess our I mean, it's but in terms of the four points, I won't quibble with them because we need to move on and we have a tight timeline. I hope we'll get to the level of service this year. I think we're well set up for it with the foundation that Chad and the team and finance are laying. I would just add, since I mentioned the cash management, and under their leadership they've moved money into from zero percent interest rate accounts into some various accounts that are earning better interest. And so we're making money on our idle cash. I would love to have a report on our cash management though, because I still feel like there's potential legacy habits that are depriving the city of money. potentially six figures in cash management. It's a policy decision though from city council. about whether we continue with leaf or various bank accounts or by U S treasuries. And I would just love to have a report on where is our cash and what's the interest that it's earning. |
| 01:26:55.13 | Steven Woodside | Thank you very much, Vice Mayor. I really appreciate everyone's commitment to balancing our budget, getting us into a strong fiscal position, and really paying attention to where and how we're spending our money. I think it's clear that our infrastructure is in dire need of improvements and 18 million unfortunately is just our sewer. It's not even a full assessment of all of our deferred maintenance in the city. So I think that we are making significant progress. I think our numbers this year are a result of a lot of, you know, we started the year with the expectation that we would have a $3 million structural deficit and because of some difficult and smart decisions that the city manager and city staff made. we're in a much better position, but things are going to continue to get difficult with regards to our unfunded liabilities and projections for the next year. So this is a really great start. I really appreciate everyone's time and the thoughtfulness as we go forward. So I think it's really clear the direction from all of us on the dais, which is that we agree with the next steps here from city staff. We like the operating budget as presented now. We agree that we move the million dollars as spending into the 115 trust without using the word surplus as an investment. We agree with the suggestions for the measure L million dollar spending, which is the 50% into roads, 20% into landslides, 20% into sewers, and 10% into facility management, energy efficiency, and looking for hopefully grant funding for some of that as well. Additionally, I heard from the dais that we certainly need to do a facilities assessment, and perhaps we consider Cushman Wakefield as part of their contract with us to do a more comprehensive facilities assessment. And we would like to see a better understanding of our cash management going forward. And I think we've all said and mentioned, and I think this is right, that this is just one piece of balancing the budget, but we need to have a more comprehensive discussion together. Perhaps when we come back in the fall of where, what do we know about our facilities assessment? What is our five, 10 and 30 year CIP? look like to put us in a strong fiscal position to improve our level of service for our residents. Thank you very much to all of you for your hard work and effort on this. Do I need to make a motion on the approval of the CIP? |
| 01:29:14.18 | Chris Zapata | No, I think we have direction, Mayor. Okay. I would like to close with a couple of thoughts. |
| 01:29:18.01 | Steven Woodside | Yes, absolutely. City manager, please. |
| 01:29:18.82 | Chris Zapata | Thank you. Yeah, thank Chad and all the departments that did the work. I also want to not forget that, you know, infrastructure maintenance isn't new in Sausalito. Otherwise, you wouldn't have had Measure O. So you have to give people credit for, you know, that implementation and recognition that that was a need. I also like to point out in October of 2021, when we talked about why we needed to go back to the basics, Kevin McGowan put together a back of the NAPA department estimate of what our infrastructure needs were. And it was significant, as been mentioned from the diocese by Council Member Kelman. We heard from our consultants about, you know, what we needed to do in our sewer system, which was 18 million. So all of this to say, the direction that I heard tonight that really resonated with me is get someone to do a facility and infrastructure, a cost of facility assessment. Kevin McGowan has been working on that. We did not put it in this year's CIP, but we can, unless you want to go through a different model. But he's estimating that that would be about $65,000 to bring someone in to do what you think, what we believe needs to be a more refinement of what our costs are and our conditions are. So we'll have a recommendation for you about how to use and how to implement that. And I don't believe we should wait. I don't think the number is that large. I think it's important to do that. So I'll talk with Chad about how we, figure that into the current projector, the current preliminary budget that we've given you. It's almost final now. And then you'll see that in this coming year, I would hope. Thank you. |
| 01:31:01.78 | Steven Woodside | Thank you very much, city manager. And again, thank you everyone for a great discussion and direction and hard work on the budget. So we will now move on to Item 5B, which is a request for interest, a response to an RFI. presentation by community venture partners and our city council discussion and direction on a master plan. |
| 01:31:20.15 | Jill Hoffman | Mayor, can we confirm that live streaming is working for folks? |
| 01:31:23.31 | Mike Noble | Thank you. |
| 01:31:26.77 | Mike Noble | a way to confirm that in here. Let me look real fast. |
| 01:31:34.99 | Mike Noble | Oh. |
| 01:31:35.24 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 01:31:35.68 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:31:36.88 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 01:31:37.16 | Mike Noble | Thank you. |
| 01:31:37.21 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. I guess we're taking a break. I did get a request for a break, so that makes sense. |
| 01:31:51.00 | Mike Noble | THE END OF |
| 01:31:51.03 | Steven Woodside | I think we're ready to get back and resume the meeting and our presenter has arrived. Welcome back, everyone. Thank you for bearing with us through that break. And we will now begin. with business item 5B, which is our request for interest, response, presentation, community venture partners and a city council discussion and direction on a city of Sausalito master plant. So with that, I'll welcome Community Venture Partners and Bob Silvestri and his business partner to the podium. |
| 01:32:16.92 | Brandon Phipps | And if I may, Mayor. |
| 01:32:18.35 | Steven Woodside | Hi, Brandon. Wow. Nice to see you, Community Development Director, Phipps. |
| 01:32:22.20 | Brandon Phipps | Likewise, Mayor. |
| 01:32:22.74 | Steven Woodside | What are you here? |
| 01:32:23.87 | Brandon Phipps | And good evening to you, members of the city council, members of the public and staff. Very happy to be here this evening to introduce item 5B as you described. This item is brought to you this evening as a follow-up to previous direction provided by city council to staff that a request for information be released as a step in developing a city of Sausalito master plan. The RFI process was intended to engage a qualified firm to assist in potential master planning efforts. So, as mentioned, Bob Silvestri, president of Community Venture Partners, submitted a response to the city's request for information. I believe they were the only submittal that the city received. He has joined us this evening to make a presentation regarding their submittal and plan. Following Mr. Silvestri's presentation, the recommendation from staff is that council hold discussion, ask questions of the applicant, hear public comment, and provide staff direction as appropriate. If this is an effort that council would like to explore further, its development will occur in tandem and in complement to a number of existing initiatives that are currently in progress in CDD. For example, general plan implementation, in particular as related to the housing element, development and adoption of objective development and design standards, the evaluation of a business improvement district in the city's downtown, revisions to the city's downtown, revisions to the city's ADU ordinance, creation and implementation of a park, and outdoor dining program, among others. So with that, I'll give the floor to Mr. Silvestri. Bob, thank you very much for joining us this evening. |
| 01:34:02.86 | Bob Silvestri | Thank you. I'm having a little problem. It says the host is disabled participant screen sharing. So, how do you? |
| 01:34:11.98 | Bob Silvestri | we remedy that. Okay, so now I should be able to share. Screen. And then I should be able to... Forgive me for taking time to figure this out. Sure. |
| 01:34:35.38 | Mike Noble | Thank you. |
| 01:34:35.40 | Bob Silvestri | Thank you. |
| 01:34:39.68 | Bob Silvestri | Am I shared now? |
| 01:34:45.07 | Bob Silvestri | I did that, but... Yeah, maybe you could... helped me being technically challenged here. |
| 01:34:57.57 | Bob Silvestri | this is that. |
| 01:34:58.21 | Mike Noble | Thank you. |
| 01:34:58.26 | Bob Silvestri | Okay. |
| 01:34:58.97 | Mike Noble | I see what you're doing. Shireen screen. |
| 01:35:06.97 | Mike Noble | Bye-bye. |
| 01:35:08.42 | Bob Silvestri | I'm trying to bring up my presentation. Where's your presentation at? Well, it's on my desktop. I'll drag this down a little. Trigna. |
| 01:35:18.02 | Mike Noble | All right. thing down. see. right there. Okay, that's yeah, you need to open it first. Great. You guys see the presentation? Okay. |
| 01:35:33.45 | Bob Silvestri | Thank you. |
| 01:35:36.45 | Bob Silvestri | and they're not. |
| 01:35:36.53 | Mike Noble | MEETING. |
| 01:35:36.70 | Bob Silvestri | Yeah. That's a problem I had. |
| 01:35:40.13 | Unknown | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 01:35:45.09 | Bob Silvestri | Sorry about this. technical difficulties. |
| 01:35:48.30 | Unknown | Right. |
| 01:35:48.36 | Bob Silvestri | Thank you. Thank you. I should have one of those that comes across the screen. |
| 01:35:52.04 | Unknown | with the |
| 01:35:53.71 | Bob Silvestri | Sorry. |
| 01:35:54.14 | Unknown | Bye. |
| 01:35:54.54 | Bob Silvestri | Thank you. |
| 01:35:54.56 | Mike Noble | Thank you. |
| 01:35:55.96 | Bob Silvestri | Yeah, you can close that out if you want. |
| 01:35:58.39 | Mike Noble | Thank you. |
| 01:36:01.88 | Mike Noble | Let me see, where are you on Zoom? Sorry. |
| 01:36:04.78 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 01:36:07.84 | Bob Silvestri | I mean, if I go up to Zoom here, it says share screen, and I click share screen, and... um, Thank you. doesn't seem to show screen. |
| 01:36:18.57 | Mike Noble | Thank you. |
| 01:36:18.69 | Bob Silvestri | and the I'm looking for where you're at in a meeting right now. |
| 01:36:24.66 | Joan Cox | Can you email the file to the city clerk to share? |
| 01:36:31.21 | Walfred Solorzano | Yeah, we have the file. Mr. Silvestri wants to |
| 01:36:33.86 | Bob Silvestri | Thank you. |
| 01:36:34.15 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 01:36:34.31 | Bob Silvestri | presented it himself and |
| 01:36:36.34 | Peter Van Meter | as a tips |
| 01:36:37.89 | Bob Silvestri | It's just a lot easier than saying change, because I can go back and forth to slides. I'm sure there'll be questions. |
| 01:36:44.96 | Mike Noble | Thanks. |
| 01:36:51.11 | Mike Noble | It usually works. |
| 01:36:53.03 | Bob Silvestri | Thank you. |
| 01:36:53.11 | Mike Noble | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 01:36:55.00 | Bob Silvestri | surprise. Okay, sorry, hold on, share. basic commands, basic. desktop. Yeah, that's what we want to say. Nicholas Matsakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakisakis |
| 01:37:10.48 | Mike Noble | My screen. |
| 01:37:16.86 | Mike Noble | Full screen. Does that work? No, we see it. Okay. |
| 01:37:22.36 | Bob Silvestri | How do we get everything else out of there? It doesn't matter? That's all? |
| 01:37:27.13 | Mike Noble | Yes. |
| 01:37:29.53 | Bob Silvestri | You can only see the presentation, so you're good. Okay. |
| 01:37:29.63 | Walfred Solorzano | Yeah. |
| 01:37:29.85 | Chad Hess | you |
| 01:37:32.65 | Bob Silvestri | All right. We're good. Thank you. And thank you for having me here. I do need to say something that just came up beforehand. I'd like to just ask you and ask the help of the city. There are two comments that were submitted ostensibly by someone named James Hubble and one by someone named Gabriel Martin. Those are fictitious names. These people, whoever they are, I'm working with detectives in the valley of They've threatened my life, my family, my home. And so if there's any information that anyone has about who these people really are, because we've done a thorough search None of those two people don't exist. Please let us know. Okay? Thank you. Um, Okay, on to something more fun. |
| 01:38:23.75 | Mike Noble | Yeah. |
| 01:38:24.04 | Bob Silvestri | Thank you. I have 30 minutes, so I'm going to go really fast. Um, The presentation that you have that I sent you that was in the staff report I'm going to present to you is exactly the same, but I have reduced some of the slides for the sake of speeding it up. First, I want to thank you guys for this opportunity. Um, I want to thank all the people in the community that helped this. It's been four years that we've worked on this. Um, and in particular, I want to thank the Working Waterfront Coalition, because they're the guys that formed the group that came and asked me to come hear what was going on. And, uh, Without them, this wouldn't have happened. I want to also acknowledge that what we're doing is disruptive. in that it's a grand experiment. We are trying to show that Planning can start at the bottom and work up, and communities can present plans to cities rather than the normal process, which is everything else. We're doing this here. We're also doing it in the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles, working with a group and trying to say, well, let's start and see what the public wants to do and try and synthesize things out of that. So as you know, the city issued an RFI We actually responded with an RFP because we had a proposal sitting there. that had gestated over time. So, um, So we'll, We'll go through that and I'll show you how we got here and what we did. The RFI was for a master plan for the city. It was our recommendation in responding that the city doesn't need a master plan. But there are aspects of the city that should be master planned. you know, kind of term of art difference there. And so I'll talk about that and what they are. and What is clear is that looking at the whole city, Technically, the marinship is underdeveloped. Anyone would say that. Any real estate person would say that. And so that is why I think it's very important that there is planning for that area because it's about 150 acres and it's a big it's a big part of the city. So, The last thing I want to say before I start is that if you have questions while I'm talking, please interrupt me and ask. So it's more of a quick conversation. You don't have to hold everything to the end. I think that makes sense. Moving right along. Let's see if I can get this to work. Now I can't get this to work, okay? this is our... kind of what I'm calling this generally, and I assume you've all read this, so I don't have to read every page, We're trying to develop a framework for innovation and growth and economic vitality going into this century. is going to be a challenging century, I'm guessing. I want to tell you about who we are. Community Venture Partners is a 501c3 charitable organization. We're only supported by donations from individuals and foundations, not from corporations, not from any special interests. not from any other individuals. And if you read those two fake comment letters, the character assassination, it's all nonsense. That's all I'm going to say about it. CBP, we provide free services. We've been doing it for 10 years to community groups to help them. And our mission, which is in our federally approved purposes, is to bring the community's voice together. to government decision-making about planning and affordable housing. um The challenges we're facing talking about the Marineship, you all know, um, There's significant socioeconomic, environmental, existential challenges hydrological, geological, The character of the Marin ship is very complex. There's a lot of interesting and unique interrelationships between businesses and uses down there. there are different challenges in different parts of the Marin ship that we have to look at. So There's a question, why would we do a master plan of the marineship and its connectivity to the city? One, again, you know, it's the last large-scale working waterfront in California. Marin County, if not in the Northwest, It's a very important site. It has a very unique blend of maritime, industrial arts, manufacturing, artisans, uses. It provides well-paid jobs in maritime services and innovation, employment for people in Southern Marin. And if it's reinvigorated, it could provide a lot more employment for people in Southern Marin and places adjacent like Marin City. And it produces significant tax revenue for the city. So it's, as outlined in the Cosmod report, which was done a couple of years ago. The other thing is, in my opinion, in our opinion, by the way, this is Burton Miller, who's at Hornberger and Wurstell, who is partnering with us in this. And Hornberger and Wurstell is an international... planning and design firm that's done everything from planning projects for the Chinese Winter Olympics to renovating the Awani Hotel. They're soup to nuts, and Burton's a longtime Marin resident. Um, If we don't do some planning, particularly in the Marineship, we're gonna fail to preserve and enhance the environmental sustainability and the socioeconomic sustainability because of what i'll talk about geological hydrological challenges and others we're going to fail to support and reinvigorate maritime industrial uses because at present market forces are threatening to really destroy legacy businesses down there because Hedge funds can pay a lot more for space than anybody else. Let's put it that way. And that's not something we can control locally, but we can, if we plan, we can, we can limit that and make it to the benefit. And, uh, The third thing is that the market itself is not going to adequately address Sausalito's workforce itself. housing needs and specific housing needs, which the Marinship has real opportunity to address more than maybe any other place in the city. And the types that we're gonna need I think are unique and should be planned for Sausalito. So again, what I said before, we're proposing a bottom-up process. It's grounded in the history and conditions and challenges and everything else about the city, and we intend to do it and hope to do it as an open source project, meaning that this is something we wanna share with planning departments around the country. this method, and hopefully successful method, that is both addresses housing and addresses community needs and also is very net positive to the economics of the city. which is important. The chronology here is in the spring of 2019, the Working Waterfront did invite me to a meeting to listen about what was going on. That resulted in about a two to three year process of meeting with them, but meeting with other groups and my contacting landowners and business owners and talking with them and showing them ideas. And then this we came up with something called the Marinship Fair Share Plan concept. back in 21. And then when the RFI came out, we submitted that as part of the proposal. So a little history on the Marin ship. I deleted one of the slides that was in there because the Historical Society called me up and said, that's wrong. So I took it out. and I'm not going to argue with them. And, uh, And this is interesting because this is... looking from the north-south, and you see Thank you. That the trees in the upper right, that's what was called Pine Point and was a rock outcropping. And today that's basically the bird property. And, um, Then they in 42, Bechtel blew up Pine Point. And amazingly, two years later, this is what it looked like, that same area, which is to me somewhat mind-blowing. Um, And you can actually see that Bridgeway actually was held up by a trussle in some area. So I'm assuming historical society, correct me, that's why it's called Bridgeway. Anyway, we hired a geologist to do studies of the geology there to look at the fill and look at how this, because subsidence is a very big problem for the Marinship. And what these roughly show is what it looked like in 1885, where you see kind of like that photo where there's ponds on, you know, on both sides of that railroad area. Berm, trestle. which is a wall, basically, there was water. And by 1915, there was increasing fill, on both sides, but water is still infiltrated. By 1952, you see a lot of fill going on, and Pine Point had been taken down, and Part of the debris from Pine Point went to fill on the west side of that railroad track. And when they widened, 101. in the 50s, a lot of that fill went there also. One of the things I just want you to look at on here, this slide, is The fill on the western side of that orange line, which is the railroad track, railroad berm, is a lot more stable than the fill on the water side. Because you're filling between a dam and land on the west side. And on the other side, you're basically just pouring fill onto the beach. And there's nothing to keep it from keep eroding. And that's kind of where we are today in some areas. So then you see, and by 2020, Clipper has... started to build their barrier out there. And this all becomes really informative for the plan. This is the fair share plan we came up with after the couple of years with the working waterfront. And you'll notice here, this is a painting from 1885, but you can see that railroad. And there used to be a bridge that went from the the Berg property over to Strawberry. And that was, at the time, the longest wooden bridge in the world or something, I mean, or causeway. So this is the... the general idea of the Marinship Fairship Plan, which is to say, looking at these areas talking to the community, talking to business owners, As I say, what does it want to be? end If we're going to put housing in the marineship, a great concern for the working waterfront, coalition. is that it's not going to start to replace legacy businesses on the waterfront, boat builders, all of the machining and manufacturing and light manufacturing started to happen. So it seemed natural that the most stable part of the marine ship, which is shown in orange, Our proposal is that that become a village, meaning a mixed use village, that the zoning is changed, and the rights are changed and it encourages mixed-use development and really becomes both a place for housing, but a place with energy and and business that is revenue producing. And one of the things I found in talking to business owners down here is they said, what's the biggest obstacle to hiring young people? Thank you. And they said, no one wants to live here. for two reasons. It costs too much. There's not enough you know, really inexpensive smaller units. But two, there's nothing to do here. I mean, this is a complaint of anybody under 30. It's like, why live here? There's nothing to do. And so... You know, there's no reason that the village can't be a place where there's something to do. In some ways, I look at it like Fourth Street and Berkeley, which 30 years ago was nowhere. It was just warehouses and lots and all that kind of thing. But now Fourth Street and Berkeley is one of the coolest places to go. So that's kind of the way of saying, OK, this place does that. and its challenges, and I'll go through those in a minute. And then the working waterfront is in this kind of khaki color, which is the rest of that industrial maritime uses The Maritime Services Center is a proposal by Joe Lemon. I met with Joe Lemon for three hours. They have this idea. It's not totally formed, but it's a reasonable idea that I'll explain. And the idea of a blue economy innovation center, Janelle, I believe, right, is leading that initiative, although the location is not defined and I just put it where it might be able to go, which is the post office building if it was vacated because it would be an ideal structure to renovate for that. Plus, you could put 120 car parking garage behind it and you wouldn't even know it's there. So looking at each one of these, The Marinship Village, you know, its tag is a vibrant, walkable, transit-oriented, mixed-use affordable housing neighborhood in North Bridgeway. And it is the area that is closest to transit, closest to the highway, has bus service on Bridgeway. It logically is transit-oriented development. Its challenges will remain parking and mobility. Parking meaning if you increase a lot of density, there's not a lot of parking there. that's available to other than the office uses. which is a problem, but I think solvable. And mobility, meaning that you know, what about pedestrian experience mobility? What about bicycle experience mobility? What about separating them from cars? What about all those kinds of ideas that I think need to be addressed for it to be successful? So, We're capitalizing on the geology and the transportation access. We're talking about devising zoning incentives for redevelopment of neighborhoods serving commercial, retail, hospitality, entertainment, There's no reason there can't be a Sweetwater Sausalito there. I mean, these kinds of things can happen. that can revitalize a town, an area, food services, whatever. And we need to find methods to offer developers certain development rights to be able to build the kind of affordable housing that's needed, which I would encourage includes things like microlofts, live work, studios, more unusual housing for younger people, working people, creative people. rather than the standard 1975 floor plan I see built everywhere. in Marin and everywhere else. The working waterfront is really a completely different problem. because here we're trying to revitalize and maintain maritime industrial arts artisan But the challenges here, the main challenges are infrastructure, It's failing. the costs of that. Having affordable workspace for people and how we engineer that. and subsidence, because the northern part, that is north of Clipper, let's say, Gate 5 Road north of Clipper, is our geologist tells us is sinking at a half to three-quarters of an inch a year. which is combined with sea level rise, is not very good prognosis without some solution. So that definitely has to be addressed. And I don't believe that you will get substantial private investment there until there's some stabilization or plan in place to start to address that. Because why make a big investment if it's going to be underwater in 15 years when you have a 27-year mortgage? Again, we have to establish incentives to make these things happen and think it through. The Blue Economy Innovation Center, I essentially have copied here what Janelle's piece says. The the the the But I do think it's extremely important. I, I've been raising money This is my third non-profit. I was for-profit before that. I've been raising money for 50 years at least. No one wants to fund an idea. They want to fund an action or a thing. and And better if it's a crisis. And so you really need a thing. You need to put a stake in the ground. But I believe if the city puts a stake in the ground, I fully endorse this idea of a blue economy innovation center. Because you put that stake in the ground, it attracts attention from around the world. And it's important. You never know what's going to happen from that. The Maritime Services Center, the last piece, as I said, is owned by the Lemons. I've talked with them. They have ideas. They're private landowners. You know, there's only so much that you can do, but it's a place where we'd be talking about a development contract and agreement on that kind of property. I wrote a piece in the Marin Post about what is spot zoning. I encourage anyone to read it because it talks about legally zoning. that spot zoning is totally legal. It's not a verb, a verboten phrase. But it does affect how you structure private contracts with developers. And so I think there's a solution there. But again, it's Mr. Lennon's property. So, The master parent proposal includes all that and builds on all that. And, At the moment, the scope, which will be done publicly in phase one, when we start in phase two, talking about scoping. But in general, the legal description of the marineship is pretty much from Gate 6 Road South to Napa Street. That's how it lays out in the zoning maps. Um, There are impacted direct areas like Coloma Street, and MLK and to the north and south. And those should be considered because any connectivity to other parts of the city is should be considered... And anything, as I said in the beginning, of citywide concern, meaning mobility, transportation, business types and developments, should be addressed on a citywide basis. They should be assessed and analyzed because... There's no point. I mean, the way the bike paths are now, they sometimes just stop and, you know, you kind of get down near Napa and you've got to go on a private driveway to get around. I mean, they don't make a lot of sense. So. those kinds of things and bigger things should be fixed. So the master plan proposal is in four phases as, as proposed. And what I want to say is, They're successive because each one will inform the next, and it gives the city the option and the public the option to pivot and change at each phase. As we learn more, things will change. They always do. We'll get new information, something will happen, Maybe there's a new funding bill all of a sudden, who knows? But so it's broken into four phases. The first phase, I call community and stakeholder listening sessions. And what I mean by that is we did CBP did its best to talk to everybody we could for a couple of years. But we weren't doing it as an official project. We were just talking to people. I think it makes a huge difference if it's now being considered, phase one, that we go back and talk to these people, everyone, and I'll explain each phase. So this is what I just said, that incremental approaches, it gives us planning flexibility. It gives us the most cost effective way to proceed, because at each stage we'll have better estimates of cost and the city can decide, let's do this instead of that, or let's keep this and let's go there. anyone who says they can right now say what all this should be and how it, what it should cost and everything is just making it up. Um, It also maximizes the opportunities for public engagement and public process. So phase one that I call listening sessions would be that we Take these concepts that I've shown you and we start. talking to every person stakeholder, which includes city agencies, which includes utilities even it includes community organizations. It includes the Sausalito Planning Commission. E-day? Working Waterfront again, Sausalito Sustainability Task Force, Chamber of Commerce, ICB Artists, you know, it's a whole list. that should have the opportunity It's kind of like the old saying of, you know, the godfather wants the bad news right away. I mean, we want to start knowing... what people want and what the support is. There's no point wasting a lot of time and money going in the wrong direction if there's a lot of opposition to a piece of this. So, So that's phase one. Phase two is a much more in-depth phase which is where we'd go into due diligence and assets assessment. And What I've observed in my 30 years living in Marin is that, you know, in my town, Mill Valley, every six years we do the same study. And we pay another consultant to do the exact same study. And no one can go, there seems to be, a real lack of, you know, kind of the history There's a lot of value in the studies that have been done, and I've looked at a lot of them, There's things we don't need to redo. We can literally go, okay, that's still valid. And we don't need to start everything over, but help us identify what we actually do need to do and where the gaps are. So, That review is a planning review, it's a regulatory review to say, Let's really understand what the current regulations are so we can understand how to change them to incentivize the project we want. We need to assess physical assets, which means, and you may have a lot of this, the city, what is the total built out square footage of the Marin chip right now? And what percentage of FAR is used up and what percentage and what's the average height? And these, when you're doing planning and you're going to model impacts of planning decisions, What we want to build is a model where if you say, if we increase FAR by 5% and do that only if they're building affordable housing with that 5%, what does that do? physically to the modeling of, you know, which we can we can visualize in 3D. and say, look, this is what it means. And finally, know what statistics relate to. And it's almost like a video game where you play with that. And that technology exists. And so that can be done. We're also going to look at economic assets, which you have, but compile it in a way that relates to planning. You know, the business typologies, the history, the tax revenues being generated and how they how much they would be increased by certain changes, the infrastructure. a very big problem. I mean, what is the current state of the sewer system, the water drainage system, the road systems? What do the agencies right now think it would cost just to bring them up to par? versus even making them better. And there's legal due diligence that always has to be done. We've discovered in starting to do this that there are easements There were so many easements in the marineship, many of them going back to the 1800s, owned by a wide variety of people and things, and some of which would be in the public domain. And they're very important to try and identify where there could be pedestrian ways and streets. through the marineship that don't exist today. And so... There's a need for that. There's a need to look at the parking ordinance and get a decision of whether this goes to public vote or not, because that does exist. And I do feel that the city needs to put into its, in order for this kind of vision to actually happen, They need to put a plan development ordinance in their code which allows them of developers to come with new ideas and be able to propose them in a formal way and get responses. to see if that's what the city wants. So we'll talk about all that. another time. But phase three is when we actually start doing conceptual planning and design saying, you know, here are designs, here are ideas, here's that, all of which comes from the due diligence. And those are presented in public You will decide how many workshops, how many sessions, to who, with 3D visualizations, and be able to show and model mixed-use typologies of buildings that, for instance, in the Marin ship, that make some sense, that would, you know, kind of makes sense in every aspect of what the community wants, what the city wants, what the economics say, what the environmental impacts say, and everything else. So that's the conceptual phase. The conceptual phase also includes consulting with, on a planning level basis, a variety of potential consultants, depending on what due diligence proposed, which includes business development, environmental assessment, geology, as I say, we already have a robust geology report, but there's more to do, landscape design, real estate finance and marketing, how do some of the big real estate firms feel about the ideas we're doing? Will they be Will they, you know, what will the rents be? How much revenue will it drive? Will it attract the kind of uses? Will it support the kinds of housing we want to see? for workforce. The roads, the sewers, things I've talked about, utilities and waterfront excuse me, waterfront engineering, which we need opinions on because they're |
| 02:05:50.43 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 02:05:51.09 | Bob Silvestri | You know, what... What Peterson's done at Clipper He's built an island, and he's reinforced his waterfront. The only problem is on both sides of his reinforced waterfront, there's no reinforced waterfront. And that's a problem. because he's You know, the water will simply go around him. And we need to assess get a ballpark. This is not This is not design engineering to build from. This is planning engineering. So the final phase is just the final documents. We'll be assisting in drafting general plan code amendments as requested to see something that we're very familiar with and we work with all the time is that kind of thing. And how regulations impact development or interest. And then we have public hearings, and then it's adopted. |
| 02:06:29.49 | Unknown | I see something. Thank you. Period. |
| 02:06:42.94 | Mike Noble | and then it's adopted. That's kind of the |
| 02:06:55.18 | Mike Noble | side it goes. |
| 02:06:56.27 | Bob Silvestri | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 02:06:56.83 | Mike Noble | Thank you. |
| 02:06:56.97 | Bob Silvestri | And based on your reading of, is it achieving what you want? Is it you and the public achieving what you want? The first phase is very simple. We're just asking for... a commitment to go forward And I don't know anybody else, any other person except my company that goes to cities and says, we'll help you raise money. But we will help you raise money for each phase, And for this phase, to go to foundations... Thank you. and try and raise money for the phase one. And in each case, fundraising efforts for all of these four All these four districts will obviously be simultaneous and parallel, but will take different time and paths, which is very hard to predict, depends on. the investment, the funding, the grants, there are government, federal grants, state grants, private grants, The funding categories, I think the good news is, are incredibly broad. And fundraising is... is a business of finding buckets that the funders fund and qualifying for that. Um, So these are some of the funding categories that foundations fund. Corporate foundations, private foundations, grants funding, and donor funding. These are the kind of titles, and it's a lot. And each district you know, relates to one or more of them in different amounts. So when you talk about sea level rise and mitigation, obviously that's very important for the working waterfront district. and for all of Sausalito, but certainly for the working waterfront which is the least protected of anything on the Sausalito waterfront from downtown all the way in the south, all the way to the north. Senior housing obviously fits more in the village. And on and on. I just wanted to bring that up. So the initial funding is phase one, where we will go out with the city as partners to attempt to raise $50,000 for phase one, which is to pay for the time and effort of everything that's included in phase one, the so-called listening sessions, and anything that's not we've agreed, Burton and I, to work for discounted rates from what we charge privately, which is different for us because even though federally we're, we take care of communities and charge them nothing. We've never charged the community anything for any of our work in 10 years. But it's all by donors. And we just have general fund donors that show up. every year and give us enough money to do that. And then local donors will support if they feel like what we're doing. Um, So the amount for phase one is $50,000. We would like the council to at least commit to being able to match 25,000 in that 50 Because even though I think we should go out and ask for 50, I know from experience that if there's matching, if you're asking for matching money, it's very different than asking for all the money for all funders. That's a commitment we're looking for. The city in every phase will not be obligated to any financial exposure until the third party match is found. So whether it's this phase or a future phase, it means that That's the first thing we do is get through grants and other methods, try and find funding for each phase. And then if it's secured, then if the city in that phase, this phase or future phase has a matching commitment, then their commitment comes in. So it protects you in the process. And the third thing is that the entire marine ship Fair share plan, which we developed, cost us quite a bit of money, and it's our intellectual property. And that's fair, and that's how it goes. And what we are proposing is that for some agreed upon some, we will be compensated for that, for contributing all of that data, all of the IP, all the licensing data, everything assigned to the project, to the city at the beginning of phase two. So we get through phase one, just deciding, you're coming out of phase one and going, are we going to do this? Is the city going to do it? Well, who's going to do it? What's going to happen? And then we do that. And I'm talking about somewhere between 10 and 20% on cents on the dollar of what it cost us in actual costs. I'm willing to contribute that so the community gets their voice heard. And, you know, I'm I'll stand by that. So our team is me, and you've seen our CVs. and Burton. and his firm and our context, and then That's it. |
| 02:12:03.42 | Bob Silvestri | Thank you. |
| 02:12:06.98 | Steven Woodside | Thank you very much, Bob. And thank you for doing, that was a lot of content that you covered effectively in 30 minutes. |
| 02:12:13.98 | Mike Noble | you. |
| 02:12:14.27 | Steven Woodside | I really appreciate that. |
| 02:12:15.80 | Mike Noble | I timed it. |
| 02:12:16.75 | Steven Woodside | I figured as such, you seem like a pretty efficient guy. Okay. So I will bring it back up to the council for questions before we open it up for public comment. |
| 02:12:26.38 | Jill Hoffman | I see Councilman Cox has her hand up, but- I can't see it, but yes, Councilman Cox, please. |
| 02:12:28.58 | Mike Noble | see it but yes councilman Cox please yes |
| 02:12:36.53 | Mike Noble | You're muted, Councilmember Cox. We can't hear you. Thank you. |
| 02:12:39.34 | Joan Cox | All right, is that better? Thank you. |
| 02:12:39.95 | Mike Noble | I bet I'm not. |
| 02:12:42.35 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 02:12:42.36 | Joan Cox | I had a couple of questions. So. |
| 02:12:42.50 | Steven Woodside | That's correct. |
| 02:12:45.84 | Joan Cox | I actually wanted to find out from the city attorney The city went out for an RFI for a master plan for the entire city. This is an RFP. for the Marin ship. So is this responsive to the RFI process? put forward by the city, |
| 02:13:08.34 | Sergio Rudin | Likely not, but that I don't think necessarily prevents the council from considering this proposal or further discussing what direction I would like to go with it. |
| 02:13:16.49 | Joan Cox | My concern is that had we framed our request as a request for proposals, Perhaps we would have received additional proposals beyond this one. um, rather than an RFP in response to an RFI. |
| 02:13:31.89 | Mike Noble | Bye. |
| 02:13:39.23 | Steven Woodside | Are you hoping the city attorney will weigh in on that, Councilman? |
| 02:13:41.24 | Mike Noble | Thank you. |
| 02:13:41.27 | Joan Cox | Well, yeah, I mean, this is. |
| 02:13:41.70 | Mike Noble | Thank you. |
| 02:13:43.87 | Joan Cox | um, perhaps it's not important that he does that tonight, but hear what Mr. Silvestri said at the outset of his project. I have to say, I have to confess, I read his column every single week. I'm a devotee of his publication. But I just had some questions about this particular project. Um, Another question I had is how How does this proposal address CEQA? I did not see any Reference to CEQA, Obviously for our community, for the efforts we've already undertaken for the general plan and for the housing element, many of which appear to be duplicative of the efforts offered by, um, Mr. Silvestri, we had to undertake a CEQA effort. Is that something? |
| 02:14:40.98 | Steven Woodside | That's right. |
| 02:14:41.45 | Bob Silvestri | worth it. |
| 02:14:41.82 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, the questions are for you. |
| 02:14:44.29 | Bob Silvestri | No. Yeah. Well, I, the first one I couldn't answer because it's, it is what it is. You know, I responded and it's up to the city attorney, but, um, As far as CEQA goes, when you did the general plan, you did a full CEQA review. You're about to revise your zoning ordinance to be in conformance. You have a couple of years to do that with your new general plan. That is another CEQA project which will require a CEQA review. And what we're talking about would be in this planning in each phase, from a CEQA standpoint would be require an amendment to the general plan and zoning ordinances at whatever state they are. So when you do an amendment, the question is, to what extent can you tier off of the existing EIRR? and your existing EIR is, for the general plan, is quite robust. and I don't believe I should put it positively, I believe that the vast majority of what we're proposing is terrible off of the general plan because in its intention, its goals, and its programs, it's aligned. |
| 02:16:05.64 | Joan Cox | I mean, that does not surprise me because when I look at what you're proposing, it really matches our housing element. So exactly what you're proposing. is what we already set forth in our housing element in terms of the area north of Harbor Drive, We proposed that be mixed use development with housing. We've met with developers to already put forward there. So when you say, that you're willing to sell to us your IP for the MarinShip Fair Share Plan, I would like to know what the cost of that is. Is it 10% of $500,000? Because we've already undertaken a lot. of your phase one and two. programs. through our general plan and housing element. stakeholder meetings. We reviewed all of the studies and planning for the marineship done over the last 30 years, we performed modeling. of the Marin ship and MLK and various other parts of town. So I'm trying to understand what the value added is from your RFP. to what, the efforts that I and various other volunteers for the city have undertaken over the last eight years. |
| 02:17:24.90 | Bob Silvestri | I think it's a great question, but I think it's a... It's a pretty lengthy answer and discussion, so I'm not sure If it's okay that we can discuss that separately or at another time, I mean, if we're going If we're going to get into negotiation now, specifically on something like that. And to like, you know, I can ballpark it if you want, but I can't say that, I know that's why it's later. That's why that commitment comes later after phase one. I'd like to know. how durable all these decisions are. And yes, it does track your It existed before you started on the housing element, I'll put it that way. But it does track your housing element. I mean, it aligns on purpose. I don't want to be, you know, I didn't want to present something that's, contradictory to the flow of this. And so it's been... You know, there's been certain adjustments, but, you know, this these ideas like the village and naming these different districts and dealing with them in a different zoning way with these specific goals on programs and everything was something we had originated back in 2020 and before in 2021, long before the housing element process began. So, you know, I'm not trying to negotiate now, but I'm just saying there's, there's more to talk about and, I was hoping we wouldn't get into If that negotiation is important, we should, I think it'd be more proper to do that. in a closed session where we can really talk about all these things or we can do in a public session when I'm really prepared to talk about it. |
| 02:19:02.73 | Jill Hoffman | to talk about. Sorry, I didn't interrupt you. I think the question really that Councilman Cox is asking is, General plan update. housing element, eight years collective worth of work. Yeah. We have on its surface, we have this already. So what are you bringing to us tonight that isn't already thought through in those two very lengthy documents? And that's where we could really use your help and articulation. |
| 02:19:32.88 | Bob Silvestri | Well, I don't think anything that I just articulated, the drawings and the plans I showed you in the descriptions of the district exists in any of those documents. |
| 02:19:41.37 | Joan Cox | It absolutely does. |
| 02:19:42.25 | Bob Silvestri | It's planning. You know, the general plan is, is an overview and we can agree to disagree on this, but I think that, What we've done is actual planning. And what you have in the general plan are goals and programs, but if they're not specifically articulated in a plan, And have you... |
| 02:20:04.19 | Joan Cox | And have you reviewed our housing elements? |
| 02:20:06.97 | Bob Silvestri | I have reviewed your housing agreement, but as I said, I'm not sure. We did this before the housing element started. as a process. So what, You could say to me that it no longer has value to you and you don't need our services, and that's okay. Thank you. I mean, that you've already done this. I would just say, yeah, but OK, but there is We do have this concept of districts, of naming them, of giving them character, which I don't see in your housing element. I see just incentive programs. you're basically saying we should negotiate the price of that, what that is. And if you want to do that now, we can. But I think it gets us off track, because what's more important is Are you guys interested in any of it? So, |
| 02:20:53.27 | Joan Cox | So I my quest, the reason for my question is that the city we just you I saw that you were attending our prior. agenda item, which was our budget, and we're in a structural deficit. |
| 02:21:04.40 | Alice Merrill | And so |
| 02:21:04.50 | Joan Cox | And so, I really wanted to know, you said that you would be willing to sell your work product, the IP of the MarinShip Fair Share Plan at the beginning of phase two, for 10%. or 10 cents on the dollar of what you spent. And so I wanted to know, what that is, what kind of financial obligation |
| 02:21:24.95 | Bob Silvestri | Thank you. We should. Are we undertaking? |
| 02:21:26.86 | Joan Cox | are we undertaking? Okay. |
| 02:21:28.22 | Bob Silvestri | Okay, to frame the question, there's fair market value of work, okay? Which is not what we spent because we beg, borrow, and steal, and beg for cheap services and do everything else as a nonprofit. I believe that the fair market value of the fair share plan is a half a million dollars. When I say we would be willing to contribute RIP, which I do think has value, for 10 or 15%. We're talking $50,000 or something like that. Plus, I'm coming to you, please keep in mind, and saying, I will help you raise that money. I mean, I don't know if you're offered that that often by planning consultants that say, not only will I discount my fees extraordinarily, but I will do it and help you raise the money so it doesn't cost you anything. And so I guess that's my- |
| 02:22:16.91 | Joan Cox | No, but you said we have to match. You said we have to match, that you can only raise money if we match. |
| 02:22:18.04 | Bob Silvestri | We have to match. |
| 02:22:22.81 | Joan Cox | So it's- |
| 02:22:22.83 | Bob Silvestri | Well, no, I didn't say that. I said that we would try to raise money. For instance, if you go for federal grants for the waterfront, for, you know, really sea level rise mitigation, infrastructure rebuilding. There's no need to match those kind of grants. They don't involve matching. that's a different kind of grant. But when you're talking about small grants, like phase one, then you're talking about going to local foundations and those local foundations It's much more important to them that everybody has skin in the game. Whereas the bigger the grant, ironically, the less that matters. is my experience. So that's what I'm saying. And it's hard unless we go through each category and funding category to me. to say something general about it I don't want to say something that's stupid and not well thought out. And there's a lot of thought to that in each phase. So I, you know, as a, 10 to 15% would be between $50,000 and $75,000. contributing the IP and helping raise the money to pay for it. And so to give you a ballpark, that's a ballpark that I think is extraordinarily fair considering the value of it. But if you feel that it has no value, that's your decision. You know, I mean, like, I'm not arguing it. You can decide whatever you want. Thank you. |
| 02:23:44.79 | Unknown | All right. Thank you so much. |
| 02:23:45.26 | Bob Silvestri | Thank you so much. I'm a community representative. And that's what we do. We are not, we have never sold our consulting time to anyone. And believe me. I've been offered. We don't sell it. We have to have a vested interest on behalf of the community to even get involved. So- |
| 02:24:03.41 | Joan Cox | Bob, the articles you published in the Marin Post were absolutely invaluable regarding the marinship, its history. |
| 02:24:04.82 | Bob Silvestri | The articles And then. |
| 02:24:11.81 | Joan Cox | All of that has been absolutely invaluable to me and to the city. So, I thank you for that. And thank you for clarifying and indulging me in some of these questions so that I can better understand what it is you're offering and at what price. |
| 02:24:15.89 | Unknown | I mean, |
| 02:24:28.13 | Bob Silvestri | Yeah, sorry, I didn't understand it in the beginning. Now I understand it. So. |
| 02:24:33.04 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 02:24:33.06 | Steven Woodside | Thanks. |
| 02:24:33.97 | Bob Silvestri | You're welcome. |
| 02:24:34.73 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 02:24:34.74 | Bob Silvestri | thing. |
| 02:24:34.96 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 02:24:35.10 | Bob Silvestri | Thank you. |
| 02:24:35.28 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 02:24:35.69 | Steven Woodside | Bye, Samir. |
| 02:24:36.48 | Ian Sobieski | Yeah. I just wanted to follow up on that question. Mr. Silvestri, the, my understanding of a distinction between what you're proposing and what has already been done is that you're, talking about taking the abstract vision of what's already been done and actually trying to block and tackle getting actual buildings built, actual buildings. construction done and that that involves an engagement with the economics of Very much. Tax credit law, everything else. |
| 02:25:03.02 | Bob Silvestri | Thank you very much. |
| 02:25:06.33 | Ian Sobieski | And currently, as far as I know, the city of South Florida, we don't have that as a staff function. So the idea is that this would be complimentary to the groundwork that's been laid by my colleagues and many volunteers here in town over many years. Absolutely. That's the whole point. Can you elaborate on something else that's puzzled me? We have a requirement to build a certain amount of portable housing in Sausalito. And my understanding of our current path is that we are trying to hire consultants or engage with our grant writers to try to find federal subsidy or other subsidies to build that kind of housing. um, I think in your slide 17, you talk about providing incentives to property owners to get development, right? Zoning incentives and whatnot. Could those be used as a source of funding to build affordable housing? or subsidize affordable housing? |
| 02:25:56.74 | Bob Silvestri | Well, they are a form of subsidy. So, you know, I'm a... I was a real estate affordable housing developer for quite a while. For 15 years, I was managing partner of partnerships, and we did 2,000 units. around the country in six states. And, you know, I was a managing partner, so I chose projects and I hired everybody and I worked with the PHAs and figured out the tax credits. You know, land zoning relates to value. Say to somebody, you can build another story. if that is housing, you've just increased the value of their land. Whether they want to do it or not is not what's important from a planning standpoint. because what's important is the value's increased and they may get an offer from somebody who does wanna do it. And so, It's just that it helps. to do that right, to be able to model what it means beforehand so you don't get you limit the unintended consequences as much as possible. And you also want to make incentives that will pencil for developers, because some incentives won't pencil for developers. Thank you. that are using tax credits or that are using private financing. And, you know, to put this in perspective right now, Very little is getting done on the boards now. because of the interest rate. This is the fastest interest rate hike in history, And most deals don't pencil anymore. So you have to say when you're doing it. And the last thing I just want to say is all real estate development is project specific. |
| 02:27:24.05 | Unknown | So go ahead. |
| 02:27:32.74 | Bob Silvestri | It is not a general idea. And so it has to be proformin as project-specific work. which means that the best you could do as a planner is understand What the FAR relates to the lot sizes that exist now, the height limits, the setbacks, what it means to change those. if those give people rights to build, Housing. in the Marineship, in the village, not just housing, but expand their uses because the old specific plant from Renship is a disaster. I mean, it has just caused It's frozen the economics away. to the point that somebody can't open a cafe because there was no cafe there in 1989, which is ridiculous. You know, that doesn't help anybody. So, Once you free it from that, what will the Wild West look like and how can you incentivize? So I don't know if I directly answered your question, but you do have to factor in all the economics of what makes something pencil and what doesn't. |
| 02:28:32.97 | Ian Sobieski | And so, I mean, to me, that was the answer to my colleague's question, which is what's different between what you're offering and what's been done is you're adding layers on top of what's been done. What's been done is a foundational work. beginning is about |
| 02:28:46.87 | Bob Silvestri | Yeah, the programs, the goals are, of course, aligned. But yeah, we're talking about real development planning, which says, how does that translate to action in a essentially market economy. |
| 02:28:58.97 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 02:28:59.56 | Bob Silvestri | So you're... |
| 02:28:59.97 | Ian Sobieski | you're supplementing as i asked there's no one in the city assigned to doing that to implementing the actual actually getting affordable housing or any of these structures built that are anticipated which is the goal so you would be doing that |
| 02:29:09.06 | Bob Silvestri | Right, which is the goal. |
| 02:29:12.27 | Ian Sobieski | in cooperation with the city and staff and the people, you'd be liaising with who? Who would be the ideal kind of connection? |
| 02:29:20.52 | Bob Silvestri | Well, traditionally, in this kind of situation, the liaison with the city, and this means for day to day, you know, there's an event going on, how is the city going to publicize, you know, what's going to happen for this session with the planning commission is always in my experience, the director of planning and community development. |
| 02:29:20.56 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 02:29:40.89 | Bob Silvestri | is the appropriate person. Certainly the city manager will weigh in on that because that's his, but, That doesn't mean that there can't be a you know, a committee that that person reports to also, you know, a subcommittee, but which might typically include a city council member or two, you know, but day to day, you don't want to be bothering the city council to ask them, you know, who ordered the video equipment for this meeting. So it's always that. And it's the proper place, Brandon's position, because – That's really his purview is to have that oversight of community development. |
| 02:30:21.96 | Ian Sobieski | And what are the consequences to Sausalito if we fail to meet our arena number for affordable and below market rent units? Bye. |
| 02:30:30.97 | Bob Silvestri | Well, um, Bye. You could kind of put any city's name in there because in my opinion, the, The latest round of RHNA numbers are designed to make sure everyone fails. They're not actually designed to work. And the point is that if they fail, Uh, Mr. Wiener's latest law, which makes SB 35 permanent, in all areas basically is to simply get rid of all your control of all zoning. and of everything. And if you look at the project that's being proposed in the sunset, a 275-unit, 70-story tower on a single-family lot. This is going to be the litmus test. And I think the consequences are dire. |
| 02:31:16.30 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:31:16.33 | Bob Silvestri | If you don't plan in a reasonable way, in I'm not saying HCD's opinion, but what is substantially compliant with state housing law, which is the legal argument. If you're not substantially compliant, It could be pretty drastic. |
| 02:31:32.97 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. Do you think, I know you talked about if you have a successful experience here in Sausalito of sharing the learnings here with other development departments and other cities, do you feel like as if the sort of status quo approach to designating where housing goes is actually going to allow these municipalities, including Sausalito to meet its RENA numbers, or do we need an approach like yours? |
| 02:31:55.89 | Bob Silvestri | Thank you. I can put it this way. If you don't have a planning approach, your chances of meeting it are slimmer and slimmer. I mean, I do think proper planning is a valid argument. to saying, look, we're providing real opportunity and experimental new incentives. Without it, I mean, you're simply left with the builder's remedy. And |
| 02:32:16.97 | Ian Sobieski | By planning, you mean this aspect that we were just talking about, the engagement with the economics? |
| 02:32:19.70 | Bob Silvestri | Yes, of course. The economics. Because all the aspects of it and the fact that, From any real estate development standpoint, the Miran ship is underdeveloped. So it is a target. And it just You know, it's you could argue that downtown by the ferry terminal is fully developed. You could say, yeah, there might be the Spinnaker property That's something. But, you know, it's very developed. And the residential is very developed even. I mean, we did a study of every vacant piece of land. It's pretty developed here. Now you can always go higher. know and and have those arguments and do the view ordinances hold up or do they violate state housing That's a good question. I don't know. My feeling is that if someone wants to build a really tall building under the builder's remedy, your view ordinances are gone. And so... I think planning is becoming more important to do whatever you can to incentivize what you want, and I do think we need I think in all of Marin, but certainly in Marinship, you do need workforce housing. And I emphasize those words, not just affordable, but workforce housing. And for younger people. Younger people have nowhere to live. in Moran. that they even want to live. So yeah, I think it's important to do whether it's Thank you. our version of planning or somebody else's version of planning. I think it's, it's important, But I think it's also in concert with, you know, being brave enough, which I think Solis Alito kind of has been here to say, no, we think our housing element works. You know, and HCD is losing those arguments on a number of cities. They just lost it in Belvedere. And so... |
| 02:34:03.97 | Ian Sobieski | chances of meeting our affordable housing RENA numbers improve with a process like yours? |
| 02:34:10.94 | Bob Silvestri | Well, they improve because I think even with limited planning and incentives, which will be hotly debated, a couple hundred units could be added in the marine ship, without a lot of, super impact. The question is, of course, I say this all the time, do you want it to be New York City, Manhattan, or do you want it to be? From a developer standpoint, there is no limit. I mean, I can design a building on sand and go down 300 feet to... you know, to with piles to resistance, and I can build an 80 story building. I mean, there's no obstacle physically to building on projects. But I think it gets you closer. Your RENA number happens to be just like the county's RENA number. my humble opinion, kind of absurd, but, um, It's true for a lot of cities. So whether you'll achieve it or not, it will be about how many things, like how many stories you want buildings to be, for instance. That's a question that's got to be answered. How tall do you want them to be? |
| 02:35:18.64 | Steven Woodside | I'll just remember Cox has her hand raised again. Go ahead, Councilman Kellman, you first, and then we'll circle back to Councilman. |
| 02:35:21.55 | Bob Silvestri | Sorry. |
| 02:35:24.09 | Jill Hoffman | Thanks. Actually, a couple questions for the Community Development Economic Director. Director Phipps, are you still there? |
| 02:35:32.80 | Mike Noble | Yeah. |
| 02:35:33.04 | Brandon Phipps | I'm here councilmember |
| 02:35:33.97 | Mike Noble | Thank you. |
| 02:35:33.98 | Brandon Phipps | Thank you. |
| 02:35:34.61 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, great. A couple of questions for you. Who is doing the zoning portion of the housing element? And what is the timing on that? |
| 02:35:44.11 | Brandon Phipps | Well, that will be the Community Development Department in tandem, I imagine, with Beth Thompson of DeNovo, as well as additional city staff, such as city attorney. And that will commence. I mean, it's something that we've already ideated in connection with strategy, |
| 02:36:04.20 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:36:04.63 | Brandon Phipps | actual implementation will likely commence following Any SQL, any IR adoption? |
| 02:36:11.97 | Jill Hoffman | Okay. And then, so we're talking a lot about planning tonight. Why didn't this go in front of the planning commission first for an assessment and evaluation? Thank you. |
| 02:36:22.92 | Brandon Phipps | It's something that could go before the planning commission. I think that that will be dependent on the direction that we received from council this evening. |
| 02:36:34.02 | Mike Noble | Okay, I'm sure I have more questions, thanks. Thank you. just as a follow-on account, |
| 02:36:42.04 | Steven Woodside | member come in. on that point. Isn't the answer to that because the city requested an RFI? I mean, the city council, we unanimously requested an RFI for a master plan. So since it was the city council that approved and made that request, I don't know. That was my understanding of why it's coming before us. |
| 02:36:59.37 | Jill Hoffman | Maybe. We got an RFP for something completely different than the RFI went out for, so I guess it could have gone either way. |
| 02:36:59.40 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. It may be. |
| 02:37:00.64 | Bob Silvestri | We got an RFP. |
| 02:37:01.55 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 02:37:06.00 | Bob Silvestri | Could I make a comment? |
| 02:37:07.45 | Jill Hoffman | Bye. I mean, I just had a question for the director, I think. |
| 02:37:11.64 | Bob Silvestri | No, but I have a comment apropos what you're asking, because at the same meeting that you unanimously voted, for an RFI to be published, you unanimously voted for us to be able to present before the city council. I think that may be the reason. They both happened simultaneously. Before the RFI was issued, you had voted to see this. So I'm just saying it. I'm not asking for special treatment. I'll go before any group you want. I'm just saying... you know, there was that kind of, That happened. It's like, |
| 02:37:45.29 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. Councilmember Cox, do your hand. |
| 02:37:47.77 | Joan Cox | Yeah, so I've not seen the fair share plan. Um, And I'm wondering if it is different from the housing element. You just mentioned several hundred units in the Marineship. So is your proposal to cite more housing in the Marinship than that allocated in the housing element? |
| 02:38:08.47 | Bob Silvestri | Thank you. Thank you. Well, |
| 02:38:11.05 | Bob Silvestri | you |
| 02:38:11.07 | Bob Silvestri | Thank you. |
| 02:38:11.10 | Bob Silvestri | the fair share plan Thank you. what I've shown you in terms of the districts needs greater analysis, but yes, the approach would be very different. than what you've done. It would not be a specific way of approaching |
| 02:38:23.83 | Bob Silvestri | And so- |
| 02:38:27.61 | Bob Silvestri | housing, it would be a regulatory specific way to free up every property in the village to add housing. You know, value to every property, whether Dan Morgan wants to build housing or not. |
| 02:38:38.80 | Bob Silvestri | and rich. |
| 02:38:45.07 | Bob Silvestri | his property is enabled from regular stories regulatory and a rights perspective. just as the next property is. And it's done in a way that it produces a... basically a cityscape that is... coordinated and compatible with the kinds of other uses, like mobility, like walkable areas, bike lanes, other, the uses of the mixed use, the commercial, the retail, the restaurant or whatever. So it's a it's a it's planning. I mean, I guess that I'm not explaining this well, but planning is completely different than, writing a housing element the the housing element is looking for opportunity sites that's a mandate that's a thing you have to do you have to come over the list of opportunity sites but planning is a is a way of looking at districts and talking about incentives, regulations, how things are financed, how things or developed, And providing an environment for that to take hold. without specifically picking out a property. We pick out a zone. |
| 02:39:58.30 | Joan Cox | So, You know that Sausalito has the only approved housing element in Marin County. |
| 02:40:03.46 | Bob Silvestri | Which is great. |
| 02:40:04.89 | Joan Cox | But what you're proposing is to change the um, the housing element plan. which has just been approved by HCD. |
| 02:40:15.27 | Bob Silvestri | Nothing in the marine ship, I can say. because I have not done the whole city, but nothing in the Marin ship, would change in any way what you've done housing which I believe is Dan Morgan's and possibly one or two other sites. There's not a lot of sites that ended up in the housing element, but none of those would be negatively affected at all. All of that would stay in place as it is. |
| 02:40:38.31 | Joan Cox | No, not negatively affected, but you would put more housing in the marineship than what is contemplated by the housing element. |
| 02:40:45.38 | Bob Silvestri | If the community and the city wants it, yes, it can be done. Yes, if it's community supported, absolutely. And there has been a lot of discussion in the last few years that I've had where Certain interest groups are saying, yeah, If that's what it's going to take to protect the working waterfront and to subsidize the working waterfront and to help the city be solvent in solving all these problems. that there is... I've seen significant support for that idea, which is why it's divided into districts from a planning standpoint. um, |
| 02:41:21.03 | Joan Cox | And you mentioned the builder's remedy. Right now, Sausalito is not subject to the builder's remedy because we timely adopted a housing element |
| 02:41:21.59 | Bob Silvestri | I don't know. |
| 02:41:28.86 | Joan Cox | in advance of the deadline. So the builder's remedy would come into play if we failed. to carry out uh, and produced to implement the zoning and produce the housing required by, as what you phrased, an absurd RENA number. Are you saying that hiring you would prevent us from ever being subject to the builder's remedy? That your plans would eliminate that risk? |
| 02:41:55.66 | Bob Silvestri | Yes, I'm saying that. No, I can't say that, obviously, Joan. I mean, I would love to say that, but nobody can say that. |
| 02:42:01.82 | Joan Cox | It sounded as though that- They're writing a new housing law. |
| 02:42:03.12 | Bob Silvestri | They're writing a housing law every 30 days. No one knows. I do believe... that it will be very hard for any city in Marin to meet Let me put it this way. You have no control of what the private market's going to build or not build. And the idea that it becomes your responsibility for that, I find, makes no sense. But it is what it is. And the reality is that no city owns enough land, or has a building capacity, whether it's San Rafael, the county, or any of them, to actually build all the housing they are hoping will get built. So you may be subject to the builder's remedy sooner than we think. Um, |
| 02:42:46.71 | Joan Cox | whether we use a planning approach or a zoning and incentive approach and identify grant funding as we're already undertaking. |
| 02:42:55.60 | Bob Silvestri | Yes, of course. I mean, the more you can show you're making a good faith effort, the truth is, you know, HCD aside and all the stuff they, forgive me, make up in their letters, that is not the law. They, you know, if you're making a good faith effort to to meet your housing number, that matters. because really all you can do is make a good faith effort. Unless you create a construction company and start building housing and buying land and you know, which I guess You could do, but who has the money for that? Not a single Marin City has the money for that. LA, San Francisco, San Jose, San Diego, Sacramento. Oakland. That's it. |
| 02:43:33.60 | Joan Cox | Okay, and then I also had a question for the Community Development Director. And I'm sorry if I'm getting your title wrong. Brandon. As I understand it, you have on your plate right now the housing element, the Parklet Outdoor Dining Program, the ODDS, the ADU, the notice of preparation Um, and rewriting the zoning ordinance. Um, Do you have the bandwidth in your department to serve as the point person for this proposed project. |
| 02:44:10.15 | Brandon Phipps | Thank you very much, Council Member, for the question. Yeah, very much appreciated. And I'd just like to add to that list that we're also tasked with updating the health and safety element of the general plan. Uh, as a compliment. |
| 02:44:24.21 | Bob Silvestri | Yeah. |
| 02:44:24.23 | Unknown | Really? |
| 02:44:25.07 | Brandon Phipps | update to the housing element. So that's just one more thing that is on the CDD's plate. I think it is no mystery that our plate is full. Our intent and duty, in my opinion, is to fulfill, you know, each of these obligations and are in the most efficient manner possible. And we are doing our very best to do that. But this is going to be a challenge, I think. This poses a question to counsel as far as priorities are concerned, if it is a priority of counsel for CD to address this, we are able to do that, but that will mean that other items will need to take a backseat. |
| 02:44:51.28 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:45:01.88 | Brandon Phipps | Thank you. |
| 02:45:03.11 | Joan Cox | And thank you. |
| 02:45:03.97 | Steven Woodside | you |
| 02:45:04.04 | Joan Cox | of my questions. |
| 02:45:04.96 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 02:45:04.98 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 02:45:05.96 | Steven Woodside | Thank you, Councilmember Cox. Other questions from the diocese? Okay, we can open it up to public comment. Thank you. |
| 02:45:12.52 | Mike Noble | Mm-hmm. Thank you. We have John Flavid. |
| 02:45:24.84 | Mike Noble | John. you know, |
| 02:45:26.02 | John Flavid | I'm working on it, sorry. |
| 02:45:27.91 | Mike Noble | Thank you. |
| 02:45:27.97 | John Flavid | I just want to say that this last discussion between Joan and Bob Silvestri about the housing element versus his plan. My view, my personal view, not the one of, I mean, a city council, just my personal view is that you greatly enhance the ability to achieve your goals by having a plan that, as Bob is suggesting, I think he's got, you take his village and you're combining uses in making it vital not just someplace you stay, but someplace where it's enjoyable to live and work. And I think his combinations really do improve the viability and feasibility of these projects. So I personally, I am very excited about this initiative. and I hope you'll endorse it. Obviously, we're going to watch it closely because it is an important aspect of the city. But right now, I'd say phase one, let's listen to what the people want, what everybody wants for this area. So we get into a supply demand issue. versus simply down from the top planning, which never in my experience works. Thank you. |
| 02:46:59.53 | Walfred Solorzano | Thanks, John. Next speaker, Peter Van Meter. Thank you. |
| 02:47:04.96 | Peter Van Meter | Thank you. Can you hear me now? |
| 02:47:07.49 | Steven Woodside | Yes. |
| 02:47:08.67 | Peter Van Meter | All right. Yeah, a couple of things. I think this is really a very interesting plan. And obviously a lot of thought has gone into it. But the representation that it's kind of bottom up planning is only partially true. It's obviously been a lot of input from the people in the Marin ship. But I'm one who consider myself reasonably informed on things in the city. I've never heard of it before. So I don't think there's really been too much of a broad outlook in terms of getting some input to this idea for the marinship. And one of the ideas I think that we need a specific, rather a master plan for the entire city, looking at it at a total basis, is this Marinership village. would be in competition with Caledonia Street downtown. In other words, how much mixed use square footage, if you will, do we need in the entire town? Need to look at the impact upon a new commercial area against those other commercial districts in town that be part of a citywide master planning process. So I think there needs to be a lot more consideration of the entire town before you get into details of this, and I think it's premature. in my opinion, to endorse a specific concept here. which has not had broad public input which does not consider impacts on other parts of town. Thank you. |
| 02:48:32.78 | Mike Noble | Thank you. |
| 02:48:32.80 | Steven Woodside | Thanks, Peter. |
| 02:48:33.39 | Mike Noble | Thank you. Carolyn and Ravel. Oh, Yes. Thank you. |
| 02:48:42.60 | Unknown | I was very interested to hear Peter's comments. I don't dispute that. Peter, that it would be a good idea to have a comprehensive view the whole town. On the other hand, I think this is quite an intriguing possibility that we've heard I'm not sure. that. was presented tonight for the marineship, which has been the area of the greatest controversy in the 16 years I've lived here. And I thought this was a very interesting, way to go from the general plan and the housing element to the next phase regarding getting housing. where in order to meet our mandate for housing and very interesting way to incorporate it into the Marinia, and also to honor the maritime history and the working waterfront and the blue economy. So there are many ingredients I think of this plan that I find quite intriguing And I would love to see the council. support at least going forward with it in some way. I'm not quite sure tonight what your action would be, but I think it's very much worth considering the thought that's gone into this plan. Thank you very much. Thank you. |
| 02:49:50.25 | Steven Woodside | Thank you, Carolyn. |
| 02:49:51.32 | Walfred Solorzano | Senator Bushmaker? |
| 02:49:54.44 | Steven Woodside | have to |
| 02:49:54.98 | Sandra Bushmaker | I would like to echo the communications from, in questions from commissioner, I'm planning, excuse me, city council member, Kelman and Cox raising that they have raised. I'm concerned about the demand on staff. Our community development person has just said their plate is already full. I do have some questions about the process of an RFI being responded to by an RFP. And I also, feel that the We haven't even got the dust settled yet. Karen Hollweg, From the housing element, and we have a lot of work to do on the zoning ordinance and I don't see how this process at this time is going to integrate those efforts that are currently on the staff's plate. Um, I also am concerned that we have a planning commission working group on a master plan. So I think that needs to be addressed. And I think this needs to. If we're going to move forward, It needs to go before the Planning Commission. It seems like it is. Yeah. premature given the Council's priorities. for infrastructure, priorities for finance, and priorities for people and staff issues. So it just, it feels like that it could be, a mission creep issue, and I am concerned about that. So those are my points that I wanted to make. I think this is worth further discussion. It's certainly, in my opinion, not ready for approval tonight. |
| 02:51:36.41 | Sandra Bushmaker | Thank you, Sandra. |
| 02:51:37.04 | Vicki Nichols | I'm not sure. |
| 02:51:37.10 | Sandra Bushmaker | Thank you. |
| 02:51:37.75 | Walfred Solorzano | Vicki Nichols. |
| 02:51:39.40 | Vicki Nichols | Hi, I agree with mostly everything that was said. So I'll just reiterate, I think our priority now is to get our zoning done, particularly our objective standards done. I'm concerned too, this was an RFI that went out We may have had more people that wanted to respond if they thought it was an RFP. So for me, with all due respect, I think it was speculative that the work was done. It was appreciated. But I don't think there's been broad input about this at all. And I think pretty much everything else has been said. So I think this was a nice listening session, but I would urge us to hold off making any commitments at this point. |
| 02:52:28.05 | Mike Noble | Thank you, Vicki. Alice Merrill. |
| 02:52:37.92 | Mike Noble | Hi. Uh, uh, |
| 02:52:39.64 | Alice Merrill | Thank you. |
| 02:52:39.69 | Mike Noble | Thank you. This sounds like |
| 02:52:40.98 | Alice Merrill | like gentrification, if there ever was one, this name. So that just starts me out wrong, feeling like it's Um, So, It's just... The Marineship isn't, it just, it isn't a place that needs to have have sort of cuteness is all I can think of. It just is a working place, period. And that's what it needs to be. Um, don't. leap into this. Please don't leap into this. Um, I agree with Peter. and Sandra and Vicki and oh my gosh, you guys. We do pay attention. And if we don't know about this, if this is new, if this is, some wild idea that's once again out there that somebody has picked up on Oh, boy. That's all I can say. I'm just discouraged to hear that. Bye. I really am. This sort of gentrification of the marineship The working, though it's a working, it's a working place. It's not cute. Thank you. Sorry. But I just, goodbye. Thank you. |
| 02:53:59.45 | Walfred Solorzano | And then there's somebody on the iPad. |
| 02:54:04.83 | Mike Noble | Okay. |
| 02:54:06.97 | Unknown | Okay. That's me. Thank you. Hi, I am rare to show up and support a development effort. And I don't think this is quite yet a development effort, but it's an approach. You know, the I cannot understand why one would not pursue more information from this outfit. Perhaps not. embracing it totally tonight. but certainly exploring you know, the intent and the parameters that Mr. Silvestri has in mind. I have spent a lot of time on some commissions and heard nothing but stories about how the Marineship is dead and it will never be, we can't, maritime industry is useless and we can't support the artists And workforce housing is not economical. And here may be an approach or a process to get us some of what we want. I don't advocate you authorizing 25 grand tonight. I would urge you to sit down with Ms. Joe Silvestri and his partner. and see if there's a way forward that makes sense. And I think no way forward does not make sense. you will end up with Zoning laws, zoning changes, And various people who do various things and I don't think Um, I just... I think that a planning effort or an approach that involves the community and as Ian said, I mean, he made some really nice comments that are interesting comments. about modeling and layering |
| 02:56:07.04 | Mike Noble | Thank you. |
| 02:56:07.76 | Bob Silvestri | Thank you. |
| 02:56:07.78 | Mike Noble | Thank you so much. |
| 02:56:07.93 | Bob Silvestri | Bye. |
| 02:56:14.26 | Mike Noble | We have been an evening. |
| 02:56:14.31 | Steven Woodside | We have And you know, Further public comment at this time? No further public comment. |
| 02:56:17.18 | Mike Noble | No problem. |
| 02:56:18.58 | Steven Woodside | Okay. All right, I'll bring it back up to the dais for discussion. Who wants to start? |
| 02:56:28.20 | Ian Sobieski | I guess I will. I, of course, advocated for this a year ago in the midst of our housing element that we budgeted a million dollars for, which fortunately seems like it may come in less, but the promise is that we're going to be doing this housing element process every half dozen years at a million dollars a pop with a lot of teeth gnashing. and consternation. The threat is that even though we have an approved housing element, that we don't build the housing we need. because it is a document of aspiration. not rooted in economics. And I have no doubt that the affordable, the luxury units can get built economically. But if we don't have a plan B for building our affordable housing units, then we might find ourselves three years hence without our RENA number met and with state sanctions breathing down our necks. That's the negative motivation to sort of stick. And if that's not enough to pursue this, the carrot, is that we can actually have a glorious revitalized working waterfront that provides jobs for maritime workers, maybe even housing for some maritime workers, provides subsidized housing and subsidized studios for artists. And that becomes the kind of jewel that Port Townsend is, or becomes its own unique Sausalito version of those things. And for what do we need to enter into this journey is something well within the city manager's authority. He has authority to have on his own just authorized 30K of matching to a grant effort. So we're here tonight. really talking about a very paltry sum. to turn over the first card in this Texas Hold'em. competition and see whether we've got a pair and have a winning hand. it's a cheap way of learning a lot. We, of course, could back up and keep talking. It was, it took almost a year to get this on the agenda. I expect that if we take that path of keep talking, we won't see it again for another year. Frankly, that's been my experience in how busy we are and in how many other priorities we have. So I'm going to eventually make a motion that we approve 25 K and we assigned Brandon to, up to 25K to match funds and look for Brandon as a point of contact. But I hope that we won't look a gift horse too hard in the mouth. when Christopher Columbus wandered around Europe, finding someone to subsidize his boats, he was turned down in many a capital and only the vision of Isabella turned Spain into the unique kingdom that it was. And we can be ahead of the curve not just part of the pack. And this is the kind of crossroads we rarely face. here at this dais. And I think, uh, I want to frame that appropriately. This is a real crossroads moment, and it'll be interesting to see where it would decide. |
| 02:59:30.28 | Jill Hoffman | Councilmember Kellman. Thank you, Vice Mayor. And thank you, Bob, and to your colleague. Uh, I mean, I love this conversation. I spent 10 years on the planning commission, four years on the general plan update, and almost three years working on the housing element. So I've been in the weeds on all of these things. I think I speak from that place. My suggestion is to actually go back to the prior conversation we had earlier tonight about a facilities assessment. And I think my suggestion for my colleagues is to think about what Mr. Silvestri is offering that we haven't already done. and think about the things that we have done and try to avoid duplication and find the most value. And so there's a lot of talk about planning and we spent a lot of time with public comment during the housing element. I can't, how many meetings we had around that. talking about planning for this area. And I think, Bob, your premise, if I heard you kind of further down in the comments, was around the economics of actual construction. I don't see zoning incentives as a form of subsidy in the same way, because SB 35 is already going to give so many density bonuses that, I don't know if you're suggesting that we provide something on top of SB 35, but SB 35 already exists. So that's not really a lever I think we're going to pull. I think where the council may want to spend its time is on phase two. which is a due diligence and assets assessment, which is directly complementary with the facilities assessment we talked about earlier today. Now, I don't know that this is what your group wants to do, but I think that this is the basis for an understanding of the economic push and pull of this area. We worked very hard on the housing element to be able to come up with something that, tracks almost entirely except for the FedEx section where the housing element does not include a FedEx building as housing, but you have it here, and I don't know if that's an oversight or what, but we worked very hard to articulate areas where that made sense. Where I think we could have some real benefit is to understand the economics of construction, to understand what the infrastructure, the master infrastructure plan. I think that's something you said earlier tonight, Bob, and I thought, yes, that would be extremely interesting to know what is deteriorating, what are the costs of fixing that. Once we know that, then we can go about figuring out how do we pay for that. We already know we have $18 million in deferred sewer maintenance. What else do we have that's a problem? And that's work that we don't have. And that's work that my colleagues and I earlier tonight said we wanted. We wanted a facilities assessment. I think that's where this gets interesting. And so that's not what you responded to. You responded to an RFP. And so I think we probably need to sort out, you know, do we want, |
| 03:02:21.85 | Bob Silvestri | Can I respond to it? |
| 03:02:22.57 | Jill Hoffman | Well, no, I'm not done yet, if you don't mind. So I think what we want to do is think about whether or not we want an RFP for master plan for the entire city. |
| 03:02:24.82 | Bob Silvestri | Um, |
| 03:02:32.51 | Jill Hoffman | whether we think that a master plan for this particular area is useful based on all the other work that's already come through the pipeline. And just so we're level setting I'm talking about general plan update housing element sea level rise of vulnerability assessment grant work geologic hazards assessment and report. We hired an engineering firm to do a hazards assessment and report. We already made that spend. So I'm just trying to be efficient with the things that we've done. What we haven't done is connect the dots to figure out, how that hits the economics and what that cost is. And that's why I go back to the facilities assessment. So that's where I might go with this. So it's not work wasted. I think it's just more fine-tuned. So I'd love to hear people's thoughts on utilizing this information in that fashion. |
| 03:03:22.97 | Steven Woodside | That's what happened. |
| 03:03:25.89 | Melissa Blaustein | Well, I'll respond to that, I think, in my overall responses. So the first sort of take I have on this, which was a question that I had when I saw the staff report such as it was for this, you know, this item, I wasn't really sure why, like everybody else, I wasn't really sure. And I whenever it was we gave direction to see this specific plan back before us. a year ago, I think, I guess it was because the, the RFP was probably RFI was probably issued in late July. It had a deadline of sometime in August. And so Um, So. This is just a process question, right? We issued an RFI. We have something different than a response to that. And so. You know, I'm reluctant to take any action based on something that hasn't been publicly noticed other than an update tonight. of a response to an RFI that, we acknowledge is not really a response to an RFI is something else. And I'm not even sure it's a... There's a response. to an RFP. It's a plan that's been worked on throughout town which is very interesting and I'll have comments about you know, direction going forward. It's just a process issue right now. I think kind of where I fall out right now is there is a value to a citywide master plan. And I agree with comments that have been made in public comment that if you squeeze, you know, one side or, you know, the analogy is squeeze a balloon on one portion, you know, the balloon is going to move in different ways. And so, That's why I think it's really important. If we're going to have a master plan, let's call it a master plan. And it's a master plan. holistically for Sausalito. Now saying that, based on the tremendous efforts we've done in the past on planning in the past five or six years, with regard to first our general plan update and then our housing element update, we have a tremendous amount of responses public. you know, meetings and public input about what our town looks like and where housing should go, where different things should go. with regard to the general plan update, And then. our housing element update. my, and this is just, feedback right now, but my comment on what an RFP for a citywide master plan would look like is something that builds on those two efforts. We don't start over from zero. We don't review old reports that have already been reviewed twice. You know, we actually look to and use PRIOR PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT to guide us because it's fairly recent. And it actually guided our public policy decisions that we as a councilmate With regard to our general plan update, in our housing elements. So that's the first comment that I would have. We currently have a planning commission working group The planning commission appeared before us a year ago in the spring. and presented the purpose for a master plan why we do need a citywide master plan and why that's a planning tool that's helpful for our community development department and planning in general. and why it helps us in significant ways. the proposition for whether or not we actually need a citywide master plan. I think has been accepted by the city council. We issued an RFI. I think, at this point. Um, I would be in favor of issuing an RFP for a master plan, citywide master plan. So that's just my specific direction on that issue. With regard to this plan, I think it has some really intriguing elements. I don't see it as master plan work, though. I don't see that it fits in that category. It's something There's something, a multiplier of that, right? And I see the incredible work that this group has done in connection with people in our community. I think that it's really valuable work in moving forward with how we address the marinship and the economic opportunities that we've talked a lot about in the last two years when we had a task force, the Blue Water Economy Task Force that just did, you know, an effort this past six months. And so I think we've acknowledged at the city council level we support and appreciate those efforts and the economic benefits and opportunities there are in the marineship. And so I don't want to lose that effort. I don't want to lose that or in any way indicate that I don't support that sort of focus for us. my thing that I, the thing that I do question at this point. is, I think that our staff is is fully employed. And they're fully employed with priorities that the city council has set. And so I think for the next few months, while we're still trying to finish our Current. Budget, which is my priority for the next six weeks. And we move on to staffing and addressing staffing levels. and property assessments going forward that I want to make sure that I don't add anything more theoretical to to the staff and what the staff to do, the priorities that we've currently set. So that brings me back to, then how do we move forward with this? Well, I think the blue water economy has now transitioned to forming a 501 C three. And so To me, Um, these sorts of efforts at this point in the momentum, right? Assessment of what's gone on, what we've already done. with regard to General plan update with regard to housing element update. you know, coalescing those groups efforts. And moving forward with how do we fully utilize and fully realize the potential of the Marin ship I think that's not a staff job at this point. I see that as either an independent effort by an independent group, which might be the 501c3, or it might be another task force or a working group. But I don't see that as something that I would put understaffed. At this point. that's not going to be I don't think it's responsive to the RFI that we issued. And secondly, I think we need a citywide plan. Those are my, that's my assessment today. But I thank community venture partners for doing all the hard work and presenting this plan to us. I think there's a lot that we can use and learn from it. Thank you. Thank you. |
| 03:09:58.96 | Steven Woodside | Can I ask a clarifying question Councilmember Hoffman? You said you were interested in an RFP for a master plan, but you've said previously that any RFP before our budget is complete is not fiscally responsible at this point. So are you in favor of waiting for until after the budget process? |
| 03:10:11.38 | Melissa Blaustein | There's no way we would get an RFP out before the end, or it would get back to us in the next six weeks. So yeah, I'm anticipating that an RFP, what I think the process would probably be, It would go back to the Planning Commission working group What does an RFP look like for citywide? Um, citywide master plan. And then it would come back to us at some point as a consent item. Well, no, not a consent, sorry. maybe in July, maybe in the fall, right? There's no, to me, it's good to have a citywide master plan. The urgency against the other priorities that we have now in the short term Um, don't, don't bump it up. I don't think to it's, it's important, but it's, it's not a priority in the next six weeks. in my opinion. Yep. |
| 03:10:57.63 | Steven Woodside | Councilmember Cox, did you want to weigh in? |
| 03:10:59.71 | Joan Cox | Sure. Thank you so much, Mayor. And I'll echo the comments of some of my fellow council members. I, too, share the concern regarding process You know, I'm a public contracting lawyer, and when we put out and RFI, If we get something that's not, a request for an RFI, if we get something that's not an RFI, we just consider that non-responsive. and we don't consider it. So I am concerned about the process and about the fact that there may have been other competition for this work. had, Uh, It been an RFP for a master plan for the entire city. This was an art. for a master plan for the entire city responded to with an RFP, for a master plan for the Marin ship, only one area of the city. I share the concerns expressed by members of the public about the overlap between the marineship and mixed use elsewhere. in town, I'm wondering why um, I know that Bob worked with the Working Waterfront for a time during the housing element process And I'm wondering why that work was suspended and why Some of these ideas were not shared as part of the housing element process. It would have been so apropos to include some of this master planning effort as part of the housing element process because one of the things we really struggled with was how best to utilize the Marineship and we wouldn't have been able to meet our quota Rena without relying in part on the Marin ship. I share the concern that staff is fully employed with priorities that the city council and the city manager have already established and so I'm not sure the time For this is now. I really like the idea of coalescing with the Blue Water economy work, and I know that You know, Bob spoke highly of, Councilmember Kelman's work on the Blue Water Economy Plan. I'm wondering if there's not a nice, coordination available there. I'm not ready tonight to commit more of the city's financial resources or staff resources to this effort as it's currently framed. But I agree with everybody that it bears that it's worth further exploring and further understanding. And I also would like the opportunity to, to meet with some of the residents who've spoken this evening now that I better understand what it is that community venture partners are is offering and has in mind. Thank you. |
| 03:14:02.53 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 03:14:02.62 | Joan Cox | Thank you, Councilor. |
| 03:14:02.97 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 03:14:03.00 | Joan Cox | Rock Oxy. |
| 03:14:03.53 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. Well, I really appreciated the presentation and the amount of effort put into the thinking about what our next steps can look like. For me, having also been involved in the general plan advisory group, And also obviously entrenched in the housing element. And it's no secret to anyone that I'm very interested in creating more opportunities for housing in our community, for our workforce, for our teachers, for making us a more inclusive community where more folks can afford to live in general. So I was very excited about a plan that incentivized creating these sorts of opportunities for housing and came forth saying this is a path forward and something that we can do and, and, and it's, you know, I feel like we consistently have these great ideas and things we want to move forward on and we get a little bit stuck up in the details of, how we're going to Um, Act on them. But I, but I really appreciate the planning document and the time that you put into this. And I do think we need planning to move forward in our friendship. And I. do appreciate and think there's a lot of great ideas here that I would not like to see go to waste. It seems really clear that there isn't consensus necessarily at this time for the $25,000 from the city. I'm not sure, given that what I've heard about staff time is a huge issue, I'm not sure I'm in favor of issuing an RFP for a citywide master plan until we've completed all of our other planning efforts, if that's going to be an issue. But I am not in favor of casting this aside either. So maybe I would like to propose, perhaps myself and Councilmember Sobieski can be a working group, since we're the most enthusiastic about this plan to continue conversations with community venture partners in conversation with the blue economy working group and see futures. |
| 03:15:28.61 | Unknown | Exactly. |
| 03:15:54.53 | Steven Woodside | And after we finish the budgeting process, we can see what next steps look like, since that wouldn't cost anything to the city, although that would continue to cost time from community venture partners, which we do appreciate. And I would understand your frustration if you decide not to continue in that way, but I would hope we can continue conversations. But that's what I would like to propose as a sort of consensus compromise. |
| 03:16:19.39 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah, Mayor, I think that's an excellent concept. May I respectfully offer Councilmember Cox as one of the two members of that working group so that we have a balance of opinions, knowing that there may be some other kind of expertise to bring forward and sorry, Council Member Cox, I didn't have a way of asking you that. Normally it's sitting next to me. So, but just based on your comments and your work on the housing element, I think maybe having her as one of the two members, if you might entertain that, I wanted to offer that. |
| 03:16:49.22 | Steven Woodside | Okay. How does the vice mayor feel about that? |
| 03:16:53.90 | Ian Sobieski | I think it's Council Member Cox's. |
| 03:16:56.41 | Steven Woodside | That's a good point. |
| 03:16:57.90 | Joan Cox | It's a good thing. |
| 03:16:57.97 | Mike Noble | See you next time. |
| 03:16:58.03 | Joan Cox | That's a good point. That's a good point. I'm happy. I'm happy. |
| 03:16:58.98 | Jill Hoffman | Bye. |
| 03:16:59.01 | Steven Woodside | Bye. |
| 03:17:00.09 | Jill Hoffman | Wait. I, Thank you. |
| 03:17:03.74 | Joan Cox | to engage with this. I'm not able to kick Janelle Kelman at the moment. because I'm not sitting next to her. Um, Of course, I'm happy to engage in anything that advances our goal. of planning. to meet our RENA quota. |
| 03:17:26.53 | Steven Woodside | Okay, so a more formal question. Could I ask community venture partners if you would be willing to continue to engage with the city or if at this point, given the direction and conversation? you would prefer to say thank you very much, We don't feel like we can continue without the matching funds from the city, which we may get later on as this conversation evolves. And I understand that you've put in quite a bit of time and effort over the last four years on this. And I appreciate very much your thoughts on, on this area and thinking about how we can really actually start to build some of this housing that we need to meet our arena members and to be, you know, a more inclusive community. Thank you. |
| 03:18:04.03 | Bob Silvestri | Can I wait until you're done with all your comments or are we done with all your comments just so I can inclusively respond to this? Thank you. |
| 03:18:12.15 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:18:12.38 | Bob Silvestri | there are pieces that have been brought up. So, so I think we've closed |
| 03:18:17.21 | Joan Cox | I think we've closed. |
| 03:18:18.04 | Steven Woodside | I was thinking, |
| 03:18:18.27 | Joan Cox | public comment. |
| 03:18:18.97 | Steven Woodside | Mayor. |
| 03:18:20.21 | Bob Silvestri | is it? |
| 03:18:21.28 | Steven Woodside | It's just that typically we don't have a I'm not sure that |
| 03:18:25.53 | Bob Silvestri | I can't answer that question. Yes or no. Okay. It's not a yes or no question. I want to just point out a couple of things and I'm not really defending it. I'm perfectly fine if you don't want to do anything. It's your city. I don't live here. You know, you get to decide. And I bring enthusiasm to what I do because it's what I like to do. I mean, I do this for nothing, basically. So I've been doing it for a long time. So you're not going to affect my trajectory of my company. But the point, I just want to point out a couple of things. is one-tenth of the heavy lifting anyone to respond to than an RFP. So if you put on an RFI and you got no responses, you will typically, the odds are, get fewer responses with an RFP. just for you to consider. That's just kind of how it works. A lot of work for a firm to respond to an RFP with actual planning ideas. So, yes, take the time you need. I respect all your priorities. I respect what you're saying. If I was running a city and I'd say, hey, our planning director's got 85 things on his top priority list. Well, no. You know, it's not a time to add one to the priority list. Um, There have been comments made that puzzle me because When someone says, how come a number of public commenters say, well, I didn't know about this. Well, that's why there's phase one, which is to let them know about this. That's the whole point. I knew they were going to say that, and I don't want them to feel that way. Um, I do, I'm not sure we agree on the difference between a general plan and the housing element and actual planning. So I would need to understand a little bit better, not right now, but inclusion, you know, in that conversation interfacing with Jonah. What you mean, because I see a stark difference between planning and a general plan and housing element planning, as has been said, it's actualizing those things. It's making them happen. For example, a blue economy center is planning. But it's not a housing element. It's not the general plan. But the goals of the general plan are to do the same. Um, As far as the notice, I say this only tongue in cheek, but we did respond to the RFI for a master plan by saying, we don't think a master plan is required. And that's a response. From a technical legal standpoint, we responded, you don't need it. And you can reject that idea, but we did respond. But I'm not trying to talk you into it. So I don't know, I will say this, it might be more correct to call what we've proposed a specific plan. or a community plan, which, I would be happy to work if someone comes forward to do a general master plan of the entire city. and responds to I wouldn't respond to that because I don't think you need it. And I don't I don't work to do things I don't think are in the public's interest, in my opinion, which is my opinion. So, but... If we become a specific plan under that master plan that somebody responds to a future RFP and says they want to do, then essentially we've got a lot of the work done for a certain section of the town, which becomes a specific plan under that, and I'm very open to talking about. Thank you. |
| 03:22:01.85 | Bob Silvestri | Thank you. |
| 03:22:02.66 | Bob Silvestri | So I hope that kind of answers, your questions. And as far as why this didn't come forward, during the housing element or not. Number one, I don't live here. It's not my... I don't go into cities without being invited. The only thing I was invited to do by members of the public was to talk about the Marin show. I wasn't invited to talk about the housing element, And believe me, my book is full being invited places to talk about what community members want. So I don't stick my nose in other cities' business if I'm not asked to by some constituency. And I wasn't asked on the housing element. So, No, this is, you know, it's all fine. You guys get to decide. What's a priority if you have other priorities, when and how? But that's kind of my position. So I think I've answered your question. Yep. in a vague way, but we don't, you know, to be honest, it can't go on forever because |
| 03:22:57.92 | Unknown | Yeah. Thank you. |
| 03:23:01.13 | Bob Silvestri | As I said, our federally approved purpose is to help communities not to give free consulting to cities. |
| 03:23:07.65 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:23:08.02 | Bob Silvestri | So there's a point where, you know, it's just fair, like on what basis, but I'm not handling, I'm not bargaining, I'm just saying, hey, Within reason, absolutely. I would love to talk with you and Joan and anybody else. |
| 03:23:19.76 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. Thanks, Bob. The vice mayor wanted to chime in. |
| 03:23:22.73 | Ian Sobieski | Well, just my comments. I mean, I would love for you and Councilmember Cox to stay engaged if the relationship can be maintained and there can be learnings. You know, I've been at this job for two and a half years, so I know what no looks like. It often isn't no. It's it's something else. And that's this is something else, but it's no. We had a fork in the road. |
| 03:23:36.77 | Unknown | It's... |
| 03:23:43.93 | Ian Sobieski | And we often and we're not choosing the path that's innovative We're promising to do stuff different. We're promising to do stuff the same old way. relying on non-experts, and volunteers to do heavy lifts. in volunteer times and layering on bureaucracy and aimlessness to try to get somewhere complicated. So I'm disappointed. but I mean, I wouldn't, but it seems like there isn't a desire just to get going with an expert. someone who has developed housing. someone who is a planner. Instead, we're going to go with volunteers. So I still would like to make my motion just so they can lose or not even be seconded and that's to authorize 25 K up to 25 K for the, uh, for this effort to move forward is just phase one. with subsequent action after phase one is done. |
| 03:24:43.29 | Steven Woodside | I'm happy to second that and stand with you, Vice Mayor. |
| 03:24:46.03 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. I'll have another motion after this. Yeah. |
| 03:24:48.95 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 03:24:49.11 | Melissa Blaustein | Okay, great. |
| 03:24:51.33 | Walfred Solorzano | Councilmember Cox. Thank you. |
| 03:24:53.33 | Melissa Blaustein | No. |
| 03:24:53.77 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. Council Member Hoffman. |
| 03:24:56.34 | Melissa Blaustein | Respectfully, no. |
| 03:24:57.89 | Walfred Solorzano | I don't remember coming. |
| 03:24:58.89 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 03:24:59.04 | Jill Hoffman | so respectfully enough. |
| 03:25:00.44 | Walfred Solorzano | Vice Mayor Sobieski? Yes. And Mayor Blasdine. |
| 03:25:04.37 | Jill Hoffman | We'll be right back. |
| 03:25:04.42 | Steven Woodside | Yes. |
| 03:25:05.26 | Ian Sobieski | And then my second motion is to direct the head of community development to issue an RFP for a citywide master plan within the next, let's say, |
| 03:25:14.04 | Mike Noble | months. |
| 03:25:21.36 | Mike Noble | I would like to second that. |
| 03:25:22.93 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 03:25:23.57 | Mike Noble | Thank you. |
| 03:25:23.61 | Melissa Blaustein | Yeah. I'll second it. The one thing I'm cognizant of is I would like to ask the community development director what that effort entails. My understanding is it's fairly simple. That's what I was going to say. Community Development Director, are you still awake? Bye. Thank you. I'm assuming you're still on, but... you |
| 03:25:45.85 | Mike Noble | Yes, I'm still here. |
| 03:25:45.86 | Melissa Blaustein | Yeah. I'm sorry. |
| 03:25:49.04 | Brandon Phipps | Thank you. |
| 03:25:50.05 | Melissa Blaustein | Yeah. Is that a fairly simple exercise or what do you think? |
| 03:25:50.08 | Brandon Phipps | Yeah. |
| 03:25:53.90 | Brandon Phipps | Well, you know, it is a demand on staff. What we would probably look to is... case studies and then tailor it to City of Sausalito. It is not a huge effort, but it is an effort. |
| 03:26:09.59 | Sergio Rudin | I'd |
| 03:26:10.32 | Melissa Blaustein | I see our city attorneys back on. |
| 03:26:12.46 | Sergio Rudin | Yeah, I'd like to have the opportunity to write separately to the council before the council provides that direction about the concept of a citywide master plan and what that would entail. In order to get a successful RFP, The RFP is going to need to be significantly revised to present what exactly is the city's expectations with the master plan documents, since that's not exactly a document that exists in the state planning and zoning law. So I don't expect a lot of consultants are going to be familiar with what that means or what is required from them, which is why you have not been likely not been receiving solicitations in response to your prior RFP. |
| 03:26:56.00 | Melissa Blaustein | Okay. Thank you for that input, city attorney. |
| 03:27:06.27 | Melissa Blaustein | Based on that, I still, I'll still second the most things. I still think it, I still think that at least getting it started and at least Getting an RFP issued is important. What we do from there and that point, depending upon what responses we get, is really the question and really is gonna entail the work Um, And staff time. And so, but I am cognizant of the time that it would take to actually just get an RFP together. the direction would be make it, You know? as simple as possible, but anyway. I think, yeah. |
| 03:27:38.25 | Steven Woodside | I don't know. |
| 03:27:38.67 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:27:38.73 | Steven Woodside | THE END OF THE END OF THE Thank you. |
| 03:27:39.89 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 03:27:40.16 | Steven Woodside | I mean, just to weigh in on that before we take a vote, I mean, all I've been hearing is that we don't have the time or the staff time or the funding for this kind of thing. And so, as I said, I just and I don't necessarily think we need a citywide master plan at this point, given the situation. So, I mean, and especially I'd like to see what Sergio's outline of a citywide master plan document would be before we work on or agree to an RFP. But that's just my perspective. |
| 03:28:06.25 | Jill Hoffman | Can I also make a motion? |
| 03:28:08.48 | Steven Woodside | Anyone can make a motion, Councilmember Kelman. |
| 03:28:08.58 | Jill Hoffman | Anyone. |
| 03:28:08.97 | Melissa Blaustein | Can anyone know? |
| 03:28:09.59 | Jill Hoffman | you |
| 03:28:09.61 | Melissa Blaustein | you |
| 03:28:09.64 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah. |
| 03:28:09.66 | Melissa Blaustein | Bye. |
| 03:28:09.71 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 03:28:10.94 | Melissa Blaustein | Councilmember Kelman. Are you making a friendly amendment or are you making |
| 03:28:13.91 | Steven Woodside | Are you making a friendly amendment to the motion? Alternative. |
| 03:28:15.41 | Melissa Blaustein | Altered emotions. |
| 03:28:16.49 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 03:28:16.52 | Melissa Blaustein | I have. |
| 03:28:16.96 | Jill Hoffman | an idea or a facilities assessment that I thought was the fundamental basis for a better planning process that |
| 03:28:22.94 | Ian Sobieski | That would be a separate motion. Let's dispense with this one. I would second your motion. |
| 03:28:26.33 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 03:28:26.36 | Joan Cox | No, if there's an alternate motion, her motion, if it's seconded, gets voted on first. |
| 03:28:32.52 | Jill Hoffman | I don't know that they are contradictory. I think they could be Um, |
| 03:28:37.67 | Ian Sobieski | Just in terms of your comment, Mayor, it's like the notion of the master plan is there were some process questions about people, about whether this was responsive or not. If we want to leave the door open to some possibility of actually avoiding some of the negative consequences we've talked about, this is a small step, almost a consolation prize, very unlikely to result in anything. If this is the, you know, given that it took a year just to get to where we are here today, I don't have high hopes, but Peter Van Meter pointed out that |
| 03:28:39.17 | Jill Hoffman | Mary. |
| 03:29:05.87 | Ian Sobieski | Some of these issues are across town. So a master plan for the town doesn't have to be a big hoo-ha. Yeah. but it can at least comprehend a little bit of the trade-offs between different parts of town. |
| 03:29:15.92 | Steven Woodside | Could I just suggest a friendly amendment that we wait until after the budgeting process is complete before staff starts on this? |
| 03:29:22.66 | Ian Sobieski | That's why I said four months. So it's four months, so they don't have to do anything for... |
| 03:29:24.09 | Steven Woodside | Okay. |
| 03:29:27.65 | Steven Woodside | Okay. |
| 03:29:27.96 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 03:29:27.97 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 03:29:28.33 | Ian Sobieski | And they can always come back and say, we're not ready. There's no penalty if they fail to meet the deadline, except to say I'm sorry. |
| 03:29:33.32 | Steven Woodside | At the same time. |
| 03:29:33.98 | Melissa Blaustein | All right. Thank you. |
| 03:29:34.61 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 03:29:34.62 | Melissa Blaustein | Yes, we accept. |
| 03:29:35.64 | Steven Woodside | you |
| 03:29:35.69 | Melissa Blaustein | What? |
| 03:29:35.97 | Steven Woodside | Bye. |
| 03:29:36.28 | Melissa Blaustein | that friendly amendment. |
| 03:29:36.97 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 03:29:37.68 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 03:29:38.42 | Steven Woodside | Okay. |
| 03:29:40.01 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 03:29:40.04 | Melissa Blaustein | different. |
| 03:29:40.31 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 03:29:40.56 | Steven Woodside | All right, there's a motion on the table and there's a second, so... Thank you. |
| 03:29:43.52 | Walfred Solorzano | on some of our cocktails? |
| 03:29:44.24 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 03:29:44.36 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 03:29:44.38 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 03:29:45.39 | Joan Cox | Because I don't believe that the state planning and zoning laws support a master plan. I'm going to respectfully vote no until I hear more from the city attorney. Thank you. |
| 03:29:57.73 | Walfred Solorzano | Okay, Councilmember Hoffman. |
| 03:30:00.32 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 03:30:00.42 | Joan Cox | Yeah. |
| 03:30:00.44 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 03:30:00.53 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 03:30:01.37 | Walfred Solorzano | Councilmember Kelman? |
| 03:30:03.02 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 03:30:03.04 | Walfred Solorzano | Yeah. |
| 03:30:03.16 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 03:30:03.21 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. Vice Mayor Sobieski? Yes. And Mayor Balstein. |
| 03:30:07.39 | Steven Woodside | I agree with Councilmember Cox, so I'm going to go ahead and say no. Okay. So that motion carries three, two, and let's entertain council member Kelman's motion on a facilities assessment. |
| 03:30:16.96 | Jill Hoffman | I'm going to draw the motion because I don't want to ask my colleagues to approve an RFP at this time, given the conversation. But I will just confirm that there will be a two-person working group that if CVP is willing to engage, will engage with that working group. And I would just ask that the working group include a conversation around facilities assessment and how that. |
| 03:30:27.66 | Unknown | to the next one. |
| 03:30:37.08 | Jill Hoffman | is a part of that conversation, and I'll make the same request for a future agenda item. |
| 03:30:40.84 | Steven Woodside | Okay. I think that's, that's clear. Okay. Well, thank you so much, Mr. Silvestri and Community Venture Partners for |
| 03:30:47.42 | Chris Zapata | You're very well. |
| 03:30:48.79 | Steven Woodside | For your time and for being here this evening and for bearing with us through this, this fun. Yes. It's not even. |
| 03:30:50.44 | Chris Zapata | even if you're not. |
| 03:30:55.10 | Melissa Blaustein | Please. |
| 03:30:55.67 | Bob Silvestri | Yeah. didn't I? |
| 03:30:56.62 | Steven Woodside | It's not. |
| 03:30:56.67 | Melissa Blaustein | It's not in midnight yet. Before we move on from this, I would just request that the direction that was given by Councilman Kellman be added verbatim as direction to the minutes. |
| 03:30:56.97 | Bob Silvestri | How did you start it? |
| 03:30:58.12 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 03:31:06.83 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 03:31:06.84 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 03:31:06.88 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 03:31:06.96 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 03:31:10.12 | Melissa Blaustein | I'm sorry. |
| 03:31:10.17 | Steven Woodside | Okay. Okay, thank you very much. We'll go ahead and close that business item and we'll move on to item six, which is communications. This is the time on the agenda for members of the public who are still with us at almost 11 p.m. to provide any public comment for items that are not on the agenda. If you would like to provide a public comment, fill out a speaker slip or raise your hand in the Zoom application. The city clerk will call on individuals who have raised their hands in the order they were raised. After you are called on, you will be unmuted to allow you to share your comments. Remember, public comments are each allowed two minutes to speak. And I am now opening it up for public comments. |
| 03:31:45.89 | Walfred Solorzano | See you then. or, |
| 03:31:47.24 | Steven Woodside | Okay. Great. Well, I'll close a couple of comments and I'll move on to item seven, which is councilmember committee reports. Do we have any reports? The coffee is now kicking in, councilmember Kellerman. |
| 03:32:00.03 | Jill Hoffman | I do not have any committee reports. Okay. |
| 03:32:04.19 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. Okay, next item on the agenda is eight city manager reports, city council appointments, and other council business. So first we will open this up for public comment. Is there any public comment on items 8B through 8E? |
| 03:32:18.85 | Walfred Solorzano | Seeing none. |
| 03:32:20.62 | Steven Woodside | Okay, hey city manager, do you have any information for us this evening? |
| 03:32:24.47 | Chris Zapata | No, Madam Mayor. |
| 03:32:26.16 | Steven Woodside | Okay. appointments to boards, commissions and committees. I don't know if any of you saw the note about the sustainability commission vacancy and the the applicant who we had heard from, I would just ask since the sustainability commission is still meeting quarterly at this point that maybe we interviewed that applicant in, um, going forward because there is one open seat and they have all sent letters of interest, sorry, letters of support for said candidate specifically. |
| 03:32:52.48 | Jill Hoffman | And they need that to have a quorum, is that right? Right, I think so. |
| 03:32:56.25 | Steven Woodside | Okay. Thank you. All right. Future agenda items, 8D. |
| 03:33:00.09 | Jill Hoffman | Yes. Picking up one from yesterday, community-based cash traffic insurance. Um, the one I just said facilities assessment. |
| 03:33:06.67 | Steven Woodside | is. |
| 03:33:06.91 | Unknown | Bye. |
| 03:33:07.65 | Jill Hoffman | And I don't think it's an agenda item, but I'm open to having midday council meetings should my colleagues be interested as well. |
| 03:33:14.81 | Steven Woodside | Yeah. How do we discuss that? Can we talk about if we do that at the June 13th meeting? I didn't. So that is. |
| 03:33:19.45 | Jill Hoffman | or something. |
| 03:33:19.53 | Joan Cox | So that is a, it is a huge sacrifice for me to have a midday council meeting unless I'm, uh, |
| 03:33:20.17 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 03:33:26.23 | Joan Cox | unless it's on a weekend. Billing. 300 hours a month at the moment. So to have to take time out of the middle of a business day is very challenging for me. And it also, I think, reduces... resident participation to a certain extent. |
| 03:33:47.95 | Steven Woodside | Okay, well, maybe we'll agenda as a discussion about that in the future. But that's good to know Councilmember Cox, I would add to the future agenda item. I would like the council to consider use of our park and rec facilities for nonprofits in the nine four nine six five in general at free of charge. We had a request from Plameron that took quite a long time to agree to, and I think it's There's a lot of shared use of facilities in Marin City and Sausalito, and I'd just like to have a discussion about how we engage with that and how we might do more. |
| 03:34:19.94 | Melissa Blaustein | Councilman Robin. I'm requesting that the item to follow up on your sustainability. that we add to the add back into the future agenda items. final action regarding transition of our non-statutory boards and commissions to independent bodies. Um, and we were close, I think, to coming to a decision on that at the May 9th meeting, but we ran out of time. And so I would, we gave specific direction about what the next meeting would look like and the parameters of that. And I would ask that, um, we re-agendize that, um, in short order so that we can All of our remaining boards and commissions understand and know going forward what their status is. |
| 03:35:11.47 | Steven Woodside | Okay, any other future agenda items? Vice mayor? No. Okay. Any reports of significance? Okay. Well, I, with that in mind, we're going to adjourn at 10 58 PM. |